Andrew Klavan’s The Crappiest Generation dissects modern apathy by contrasting D-Day’s 75th anniversary with today’s secularism, where removing "God" from oaths and booing prayers erodes sacrifice. He mocks election priorities—freebies over heroism—and warns socialism’s coercive redistribution (Soviet/Venezuela failures) fuels dependency in cities like Chicago. Jenna Ellis Reeves joins to defend the citizenship census question as a voting-rights tool, predict a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, and uphold religious symbols like the Bladensburg Cross against atheist challenges. She also forecasts a heartbeat-based abortion reversal, dismissing Kavanaugh skepticism, while Klavan laments media’s push to dismantle human ideals—from Pets 2’s heteronormativity to corporate censorship silencing dissent. The episode frames today’s battles as a clash between materialism and the transcendent ideals that once united nations in war. [Automatically generated summary]
A new 2020 election poll is out, and it shows that 87% of people polled feel that polling people this early in the election process is meaningless.
17% say if the pollster doesn't leave them alone, they're going to bounce them down the street like a basketball.
76% of people polled say that Donald Trump is a menace to everything Americans hold dear, or else he's that big guy with the orange hair who plays golf all the time and is president of the United States.
They're not sure which.
52% say whoever he is, they liked him better on The Apprentice, while 46% say they can't watch The Apprentice anymore because now they have a job because of that orange-haired guy who plays golf all the time.
When asked about Democrat candidates, 63% say they prefer Joe Biden because they heard his name somewhere before and he looks kind of familiar.
23% favor Bernie Sanders because he reminds them of their favorite Uncle Mo before he had to be put in the home and they've always felt kind of guilty about that.
And 12% say they might vote for Pete Buttigieg unless it turns out he's queer.
When it comes to the most important issues facing voters in the next election, 26% say it's better sell reception, although possibly that was just an excuse to get off the phone with the pollster.
23% say they want something for free because they never get anything for free and why aren't things ever free anymore.
And 14% say it's getting just a little damn peace and quiet without the phone ringing all the time and having some gormless dick quad ask them a lot of meaningless questions.
Pollsters say some of these numbers may be slightly distorted because the 2020 election is still more than a year away, but they say as the election comes nearer, the numbers should become completely unreliable.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky donkey, life is tickety boo.
Birds are ringing, also singing, hunky-dunkity.
Ship-shaped hipsy-topsy, the world is a bitty zing.
It's a wonderful day.
Hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing.
Oh, hurrah, hooray!
Oh, hooray, hurrah.
So as a baby boomer, I have frequently wished my generation could die without taking me with it.
We were given everything.
We were given freedom, prosperity, a world made safe for democracy, and all we did was bitch and moan and pretend we were heroes for protesting a war, the war in Vietnam, that other men went off and fought.
D-Day, it was 75 years ago today, and for all the sentimental remembrances and heartfelt tributes, it's virtually impossible to capture or convey the scale and scope of the heroism and sacrifice that was required to begin the rollback of the Nazi conquest of Europe.
Those guys weren't professional soldiers like we have today.
They were ordinary guys who got drafted or joined up and were thrown into a situation that few of us can even imagine.
You have to ask yourself, could we do it now?
Would we do it now?
Why did they fight?
Why did they win?
And have we lost what it takes to pull off that kind of monumental feat?
The answers aren't easy.
People always think free men are too fat and lazy to win a war.
Tyrants have been making that mistake since Persia invaded Greece.
In order for the greatest generation to do what they did, they must have had an idea about who they were, what they stood for, and it seems worth asking if we still have that idea today.
Lots and lots of great things have happened since World War II ended.
Technology has gotten better, medicine has gotten better, our affluence is beyond anything.
It's beyond anything anyone has imagined ever.
But I don't think I'm alone in thinking that something has also been lost or at least eroded, an idea about who we are and what we stand for.
The fight over ideas takes a lot less courage than a fight for territory.
And for that very reason, it calls up a lot less heroism.
So if we lose the war of ideas because we don't have the heroism, it's only a matter of time before we lose everything else.
So let's pause on D-Day and think it through.
Why did they win and what have we lost?
Before we get to that, let us talk about, you know, I know sometimes when I'm talking, you're just so distracted by how wonderful I look.
And if you would like to look like me, don't use this following sponsor because this is Keeps and Keeps will help you keep your hair.
For five minutes now, and just starting at 10 bucks a month, you will never have to worry about hair loss again.
It's super easy to get started.
You sign up in less than five minutes, answer a few simple questions, and snap some photos to complete your online doctor consultation.
A licensed physician will review your information online and recommend the right treatment for you.
Then it's shipped right to your door every three months.
Keeps offers generic versions of the only two FDA-approved hair loss products out there.
You may have tried them before, but never for this price.
Only 10 bucks to 35 bucks a month, plus now you can get your first month free.
That's a great deal, and you get to keep your hair, which is also kind of a good deal.
If you suffer from hair loss, the last thing you need is to wait to see a doctor with Keeps.
There's finally a way to get the help you need when you need it.
For a limited time, receive your first month of treatment for free.
Go to keeps.com/slash Clavin.
Again, for a limited time, receive your first month of treatment for free.
Go to keeps.com/slash Clavin.
You won't look like me, but you will be able to spell Clavin, which is K-L-A-V-A-N.
So I was watching the ceremonies in Normandy yesterday, and, you know, just incredibly touching.
You know, I remember, I'm old enough to have had a seventh grade teacher who was actually in D-Day.
And I remember him talking about, you know, walking over the carpet, charging over the carpet of bodies that lay on the beach.
And as he spoke, he became almost, he was almost there.
You could tell his voice sped up and his eyes kind of got that thousand-yard stare.
And then he just went back to being our social studies teacher.
But it was that close, you know.
I mean, my dad was in the war, and all the adults around us probably suffered from PTSD without us even knowing what PTSD was.
And so it really did affect us.
And I grew up, of course, playing soldier and fighting the Nazis in my backyard with my brothers.
And when people started to burn their draft card, that to me was absolutely shocking.
Faith vs. Government00:14:46
I have to say, even though I was a liberal and I was on the left and was sympathetic with the left, I never found that heroic.
I never found it heroic that people burned their draft cards and went to Canada.
Although I will have to say, I missed the draft.
The draft, I was too young to be in the draft.
But I don't know what I would have done had I been drafted at that point.
The war had been so discredited, even though today I think there's a lot of questions about whether it helped stop Chinese aggression because they just thought we were so crazy to expend that many men and that much treasure fighting them in Vietnam, who know what we would do in the rest of the world.
So anyway, it was clear that it was clear that the values had changed.
I mean, obviously, the long hair and the hippies and the tune-in and drop out and the free sex, all that made my father's generation, the greatest generation, just quail.
And they looked at us and they thought that we were absolutely crazy.
And obviously, too, I think, you know, good things have happened since then.
I think our speech is a little freer in some ways so far.
I think we're a little more tolerant than we were.
I think people were certainly more integrated than we were then.
But still, still, I think we're all haunted by the sense that something has been lost.
There's a reason that Make America Great Again slogan resonates with the people who support Trump and drives the people who don't support Trump crazy.
So I was watching Trump yesterday and the thing about this that he did yesterday that really moved me and really got to me was he read FDR's prayer, the prayer that FDR put out on the radio when the when D-Day was announced.
Here it is.
Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
They will need thy blessings, for the enemy is strong.
He may hurl back our forces, but we shall return again and again.
And we know that by thy grace and by the righteous of our cause, our sons will triumph.
Some will never return.
Embrace these, Father, and receive them, the heroic servants, into thy kingdom.
And, O Lord, give us faith.
Give us faith in thee, faith in our sons, faith in each other, and faith in our united crusade.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.
Well, the conservative commentary almost writes itself, right?
I mean, I feel almost cheap.
Like, it's like you don't need me.
I'm trying to give added value to the news, but you don't need me to write the conservative commentary on that.
There was the liberal president that the conservatives of the day hated as they hated Obama, although I think FDR was a far, far greater president in a far, far more dangerous time.
But he did a lot of the things, a lot of things he did I didn't like.
But clearly, a nation that listened to that prayer and knew that their sons were out there and were praying with him is a different nation than we have today.
And, you know, again, I don't have to say it, but it's worth saying, and I'll tell you why it's worth saying in a minute.
The Democrats have done everything they can, they could, to chase God out of the public square.
I mean, they've attacked, you know, the First Lady when she said the Lord's Prayer in a speech.
They have attacked, they've booed when they put God back into the Democratic platform.
They had to override the people booing God.
They booed him thrice.
I mean, you can't get any more biblical than that.
Now, they are surreptitiously getting rid of this so help me God in the oath that witnesses swear when they are sworn in.
And they keep saying, no, no, no, we're not doing that.
We're not doing that.
But it just keeps mysteriously disappearing.
We have this, I mean, the, it is, what's his name?
From Louisiana.
Johnson, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, keeps stopping them.
He's done this again and again.
He's done it to Jerry Navler.
He's done it a bunch of times.
He stops them and makes them put it in.
And they're always like, oh, gee, did I forget to put God in there?
But here's just an example.
Here's Steve Cohen administering the oath and Mike Johnson from Louisiana giving it to him, but good.
We're going to ask all of the witnesses to stand and be sworn as has become a custom in our committees.
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?
Let the records show the witnesses.
Point of parliamentary inquiry.
Yes, Mr. Johnson.
I think we left out the phrase, so help me God.
We did.
Could we have the witnesses do it again for the record?
Yeah, they want to do it, but some of them don't want to do it.
And I don't think it's necessary, and I don't like to assert my will over other people.
Well, it goes back to our founding history.
It's been part of our tradition for more than two centuries, and I don't know that we should abandon it now.
Could I ask the witnesses If they would choose to use the phrase?
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Nadler, if any witness objects, he should not be asked to identify himself.
We do not have religious tests for office or for anything else, and we should let it go with that.
We'll proceed and introduce the first witness.
Glad it's noted for the record.
So I have to tell you, the dishonesty on display there is insane because they don't have religious tests.
In the Constitution, you can't have religious tests for office, for office.
But of course, when a Catholic judge comes up, they feel free.
Dianne Feinstein, a bunch of senators felt free questioning her.
Remember Dianne Feinstein's line, the dogma is strong within you, like she was talking to somebody from Star Wars.
You know, they're perfectly willing to question the religious beliefs of Christians, not allowed to question the religious belief of Muslims.
Obviously, obviously, this is an attempt to undermine something that they know is important, right?
If the President of the United States in 1944 could go on the radio and make that prayer that you heard Trump repeating, that's a different world and to take God out of the public square is an attempt to change that world.
And I feel really, I frequently feel really uncomfortable talking about God in a political context because God's not a team that you're on and that makes you better because you're on that team.
You know, it's not like you get the hat that says, you know, I'm with God and suddenly you're a more holy person.
That's just not true.
And so I always hate to do this thing where like we're on God's side and they're not, because that's not true.
You know, you can have different, a range of political opinions and still be true to the ideals and ideas that are contained in our founding religion, which is Christianity.
It's not Judeo-Christianity.
We love our Jews.
We always say Judeo-Christianity, be nice to them, but it's Christianity.
Let's be honest, right?
But clearly, there is something, if it's that important to the Democrats, to the left, to get rid of that God, it must mean something.
It must do something that they don't want it to do.
And I think that that's the important thing.
The important thing is almost, it almost goes beyond faith.
It just goes into the idea, although I think faith is urgently needed when you deal with God.
I don't think acting as if there is a God is ultimately a strong enough position to survive attack.
But I think that something has happened.
And this is that argument that he made there that it's not fair to ask the, even ask them if they would swear to God, because that makes them come forward as being someone who doesn't believe.
And that is the argument they have made to chase God out.
It's not fair to say a prayer in school because then you're excluded if you don't want to say it.
It's not fair to put up a cross in a cemetery or in a national monument because then in order to take it down you have to expose yourself as being against it.
It's not fair to force me to experience that cross.
That's not at all what the founders meant when they said there should be no state, no government establishment of religion.
That's not what they meant at all.
And that is not the way it's supposed to be.
And so they've used that idea.
And you know, we talked earlier in the week on Monday, I think it was, we were talking about Sorb Amari's attack on David French and his saying, you know, we've got to use government to re-jigger the culture because the left has been so savage in destroying our culture.
And my response to that is if you use government to change the culture, you have lost the thing that you want from your culture, which is freedom.
And so you can't do it.
They, the left, can do that.
We can't.
We have to win the culture through the culture.
That's why I'm always moaning and complaining about the fact that the right doesn't use the culture at all.
But the thing is, you ask yourself, well, what is it?
What is the exactly that comes with the faith in God and with the idea that God is so pervasive in our society that the President of the United States can come on and make a prayer like FDR did?
You know, Winston Churchill during the war gave a radio speech.
I think he had been given some honorary diploma here in America.
It was 1941.
And I believe it was, yeah, it was 1941.
And he said, the destiny of mankind, this is a famous remark that he made that Reagan quoted, the destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation.
When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
So when he says that, he is putting forward a contradiction that is in the gospel.
He's putting forward the contradiction between God and mammon.
Remember, Jesus said you can't serve both God and mammon.
That's a very powerful thing to say.
You know, Jesus didn't necessarily say hate money, but he said you can't serve both God and mammon.
If you're thinking about the money, you can't be thinking about God.
And so we're talking about a world in which problems cannot be solved by material computation.
Well, who says that?
Of course, it's the socialists who sell that idea that the world can be changed just by moving your money around.
And they don't consider the cost.
You know, Bernie Sanders was on this kid, Jabuki Young White, who's on Comedy Central.
So on Comedy Central, they are selling socialism.
And they're letting Bernie Sanders go on and sell socialism on the show.
Of course, if you went on and sold conservatism, it would be hate speech and everybody would protest and they'd lose sponsors and there'd be outrage mobs.
But if you sell socialism, which has slaughtered hundreds of millions of people, at least 100 million people, if you sell socialism, everything's fine.
So listen to his argument, because he makes the Bernie Sanders argument.
This is not the bad socialism.
This is the democratic socialism.
And of course, the kid just plays right into it.
Obviously, the Soviet Union was an authoritarian society with no democratic rights.
And I think if you know history, you'll know that democratic socialists stood up and fought against that.
You can look about what existed in the Soviet Union or in Venezuela.
That is not what I'm talking about at all.
So no one's going to the gulab.
Well, except no.
Okay.
Fact check.
The examples of failed socialism that critics used are not socialist democracies, but authoritarian states led by corrupt, ruthless, and paranoid dictators.
But I do have one real problem with socialism.
I like money.
You know, TV's going kind of good for me right now, and I'm thinking of writing a successful book.
Is socialism still for me if I'm a millennial millionaire?
I mean, it depends on what's your heart.
If what you say in your life is all I want to do is make as much money as I possibly can and screw everything else.
I don't give a damn.
Yeah, no, I don't think democratic socialism is your cup of tea.
But if you have a decent heart and you say, look, I'm doing really well.
But you know what?
I also want to be a contributor to the well-being of society.
So I'm going to pay my fair share of taxes.
Wow.
I could have my CBD-infused gluten-free cake and eat it too.
I'm liking the socialism thing more and more.
I'm liking that socialism thing more and more.
So what's wrong with the argument he's making?
That's the argument that socialists make.
If you care, if you're a decent person, you don't mind paying your fair share of taxes, a phrase without any meaning whatsoever.
And what's wrong with that argument?
I mean, we do care.
I hope we care.
I hope we care about the least among us.
I hope we understand that money does have to go in that direction.
And of course, we know what he's leaving out because we've thought it through and we're not sucked in by all the media that a lot of people I think are sucked in by.
But we understand what's gone there is choice.
This is not, you know, he says it's democratic as if that means that you're going to make a choice.
But that's not true.
I mean, it's not true that if four guys surround you in an alley and vote to take your wallet, they're still doing something wrong.
And as it has been pointed out again and again, the idea that a government does something, the idea that a government does something that in an individual would be wrong, and that somehow makes it right, is just untrue.
If I steal your money, if three guys vote to steal your money, it's absolutely no different than a million guys voting to steal your money.
If Bernie Sanders had been saying to him, hey, you know, if you should make a million dollars off your book, like I, Bernie Sanders, did, then, yeah, you know, you should think about paying out some money, some of that money to charity.
You know, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
Then you ennoble yourself in charity.
You create gratitude in the person you gave the money to so that they have a sense of responsibility.
But if I simply can take vote to take that money away, that is not charity at all.
Memorials and the Greater Good00:15:58
That does not make you a better person.
It doesn't make you anything.
It doesn't make the person who receives the money more responsible.
We see it.
We see it again and again.
I mean, this is the thing that really gets me about the left now, is all we have to do is visit one of their cities.
All we have to do is visit Chicago.
All we have to do is visit LA.
All I have to do is walk out in the streets of LA and see it.
Seattle, San Francisco.
You know, while Nancy Pelosi is making comments about compassion, people are living in the streets of her city and making it awful for everybody else, spreading disease, crapping on the sidewalk, taking drugs on the sidewalk, exposing themselves to kids on the sidewalk.
That's the thing that's happening.
And I don't see the compassion of that world is created.
That world is created when people aren't responsible for themselves.
So the idea of God is the idea of an immaterial sense of ourselves, an idea of an immaterial sense of ourselves that has certain things that are worth preserving, worth dying for.
If you think about it, if you were just material, why would you die for anything?
Why would you die for anything?
Even your own kids, if you were just material, why would you die for anything?
You're here, you're gone.
What is the point of losing that one precious life that you have when you could be eating, drinking, and making merry?
Why would you get into those boats and sail up on that beach being sprayed as with a hose with machine gun fire if all you are is a hunk of dough?
Why would you do it?
You wouldn't.
You have to have a sense of yourself as something more.
You have to have a sense of the world as something more, as mankind, as something more of your country, a sense of your country as serving that greater thing that a person is.
And this keys into everything.
See, the thing about this is, because I know there's so many conservatives, I hear from you all the time, who tell me now, once you start talking about God, you lose me.
You lose me.
And the thing is, your conservatism makes no sense.
I know you throw out words like game theory and you think, oh, that explains your morality.
No, because it doesn't explain why it matters.
It doesn't explain why once you know what moral is, you would do it when you could benefit from not doing it.
It does not explain why men throw themselves into battle knowing they could be cut to pieces, that their life could be ended, that their bodies could be destroyed.
You know, they always say, well, they do it because they don't want to be ashamed by the guy next to them.
Come on, come on.
I mean, really, if nobody were going to do it, you wouldn't be ashamed.
If you didn't have a sense that you should do it, you wouldn't be ashamed.
You wouldn't be there with other guys.
It wouldn't all be together.
They always come up.
I once had a character in a novel who said there's a reasonable explanation for everything, and that's the explanation some people choose to believe.
Well, you can always come up with a material explanation for things, but that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean it holds together.
Free speech, you're right.
You know, this is a thing, you've heard me talk about this before.
This is this thing that is going around now where rights is just a story we tell.
Human rights is just a story we tell, a fiction, as Yuval Harari said.
And by the way, I pick on Huval Noah Harari, who wrote the book Sapiens, because I disagree with him, but he's a good guy.
He believes in human rights.
He just doesn't believe they're real.
He believes it's a fiction we tell as opposed to a series of deductions we make from knowing the nature of humankind.
And what's funny about Harari is like all these guys who don't consider human beings spirits.
He has this intense love of animals and thinks that animals have rights.
But when it comes to human rights, well, he thinks they have them, but he doesn't think they're actually there.
He thinks it's just a story we tell.
It's not a story we tell, it's a deduction we make from knowing ourselves as spirits, human rights, including the right to free speech.
You know, this is a thing that I have to bring up because I believe it really is important.
As the election comes up, as the 2020 election comes up, the left is going to do everything it can.
And remember, when we talk about the left now, we're talking about corporations.
We're talking about powerful corporations.
We're not talking about like the long-haired hippies of the 60s.
We are talking about Facebook.
We are talking about YouTube.
We're talking about Google.
We're talking about Twitter.
We're talking about huge, huge, mega-corporations with enormous power and enormous control over the ways we communicate.
So our pal Stephen Crowder, who is a comedian who says, does what all comedians do, he says the things you're not supposed to say.
That's what makes him funny.
And he's been under attack from this clown at Vox who feels that he has been harassed for being gay, you know, because Crowder makes politically incorrect jokes.
That's what he does.
And YouTube looked at Crowder's stuff and said, no, this is just debate.
You know, it's going fast.
And of course, the left went nuts.
And so now, suddenly, suddenly, YouTube announced that it's going to block conservative commentators, going to block Crowder's ability to make any monies off his videos.
It's going to demonetize his videos.
And now they say they're going to remove hateful extremist speech.
Well, now, if that worked, if that worked, there would be less extremism in Europe than there is in America.
But the fact is, there is more effective, powerful extremism in Europe than there is in America.
I think there are more hate crimes.
I think there are more extreme political parties with more power.
I think there are more extreme acts that take place in Europe than do here where we can all talk and where people can be ridiculed and made fun of and debated with.
I do not believe that silencing people stops them from being who they are or thinking what they think.
And I just think, you know, again, I think these are corporations now.
The left is now the man.
We, we are the revolution.
We are the upstarts.
The left has these powerful corporations with which they're going to silence as much conservative speech as they can.
And believe me, when Stephen Colbert says that Donald Trump is giving oral sex to Putin, that hate speech isn't going anywhere.
Nobody's going to demonetize him.
Nobody's going to take him off the air.
They don't have to.
Why?
They own those corporations.
The left is a corporate power base, and it needs to be attacked.
You know, they're starting to talk about the left as the social media as a monopoly.
And even people on the left are talking about this.
I don't trust them.
I don't believe that when they break up these monopolies, they will do it because they want to restore the right of conservatives to speak.
But that right, that right to speak, is what is what, your right to speak is what preserves your right as a human being, as a spirit to express who you are, what you believe, who you hate, who you don't like, what you disagree with.
Anyone with power who takes it away is simply exercising raw power.
They are not defending the nation.
They're not.
So when you get rid of this idea of God, of the spirit, of human beings as a spirit of life, as a spiritual enterprise, what are you left with?
Are you left with guys who run out onto a beach sprayed with machine guns and bullets?
Here is Chris Matthews and that science guy, Bill Mye, is that his first name, Bill Mye, talking about what they think is the great challenge of the age.
We're just one place in the universe where we can survive.
And it's got this wonderful blue-green shell around it.
It's not even a shell, just a film.
And you realize, that's us.
That's right.
If something happens to that, we're all gone.
So the big thing is the speed, everybody.
It's not that we're all going to die in 12 years.
It's just we're not going to be able to move our infrastructure, our seaports, our railroads and so on, and move our agriculture away from the equators fast enough to feed everybody as we get to be 9 and 10 billion unless we get to work.
There's enormous opportunities.
You know, I am always optimistic about this because tomorrow's the anniversary of D-Day.
And it was, of course, there was tremendous loss and tremendous sacrifice.
But it was part of this greater idea that we have a global problem and we're going to solve it.
And I always respect that.
You know, both of my parents are veterans at Arlington.
And we can do this.
It's the United States.
And so things are changing.
Keep it up.
We can do this, Chris.
You're our cigar leader, Bill.
So make-believe crises, small crises, things that really don't require any sacrifice from the elites, only that they get to take over more power, more control.
They are actually fighting against the freedom that the people on D-Day were fighting for.
You know, these crises, these make-believe wars that the left is always coming up with.
It's always the moral equivalent of war.
Everything has become too small to stand up for.
Who's going to stand up for Stephen Crowder on YouTube?
Who's going to stand up for all the people who are going to be banned on YouTube, for all the people who are going to be silenced on Twitter as 2020 comes closer and closer?
These are the things when people come and try and take your freedom away with guns, people find the courage to fight.
But when they suck slowly the ideas that make you who you are and make our country who you are, you have to remind yourself.
You have to remind yourself to fight because the things they take from you, because you're so comfortable and the things they take from you are your comfort, your friendships, your popularity.
And those are things that nobody wants to get rid of in peacetime.
People will sacrifice their life in war before they will sacrifice 10 bucks in peacetime.
So this is a dangerous time.
It really is.
I believe that we're going to win because I believe our ideas make sense and that's why they have to silence us.
But it is still a fight.
It is not the kind of heroic fight our fathers and grandfathers fought.
But for that very reason, for that very reason, we have to fight it with all the courage we have.
All right, I got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
Stay with us.
I've got Jenna Ella.
Now I have to remember her name.
It says Jenna Ellis Reeves, right?
Jenna Reeves is going to be with us to talk about the Supreme Court season that's coming to an end.
Come over to DailyWire.com.
All right, Jen Ellis Reeves is a constitutional law attorney, Daily Wire contributor.
We love having her on the show because she's always got really good insights into what's going on.
She wrote the book, The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution, A Guide for Christians to Understand America's Current Constitutional Crisis.
She's on the Trump 2020 Advisory Board.
And I wanted to ask her about the end of the Supreme Court season and what decisions they're going to come up with and what she thinks they're going to say.
Here it is.
Mrs. Reeves, it's good to see you.
How's Nashville?
It's great, Drew.
I feel like I have come to the conservative haven because everybody here is like, yay, God, guns, and Donald Trump.
And I'm like, I thought this was just movies.
It is one of my favorite cities.
It is a great, great city.
And the music is great as well.
So you get everything, you know?
So I wanted to talk to you because the Supreme Court is coming to the down the home stretch and it's about to deliver all kinds of important decisions.
And I just wanted to get your take on a couple of them.
The chief one, the one that seems to really have everybody in a lather, is this one about the census.
Can you explain what that is?
Yeah, so everyone is concerned that there is now going to be a citizenship question.
And again, it's not going to be a question that is geared toward getting people to reveal themselves as illegals, anything like that.
It's actually going back a couple of years to the long-form census.
We've never had a citizenship question on the short form, but all it's doing is making sure that when we take a census for purposes of representation in our constitutional republic, we are counting the people who are citizens who do have the right to vote because voting in this country is a constitutionally protected privilege.
So all this is doing is going back to the long form, which was used as recently as 2000.
And the Department of Justice has been very clear on this.
But what the liberal left is doing is making this a political immigration issue rather than looking at this as a very basic question of law.
So yeah, I mean, so their point, what is the opposite point that you shouldn't have to reveal whether you're a citizen on the U.S. Census?
Apparently.
Apparently, that's going to be some kind of, you know, oh, we can't ask them because we need to protect, you know, all of the people who are here illegally and we have to make sure to shield them from possible prosecution and deportation, which is not at all what the census is trying to do anyway.
But even if that were the case, that is, if they're here illegally, then they can be prosecuted for that.
That's law in this country.
Yeah, okay.
So you have any guess of where the court's going to go on that?
I would think that they're going to come down strictly on party lines because they always do.
And unfortunately, the court is still activist in at least four of the members.
But I think that at the end of the day, then the Department of Justice will win the day and will be able to put the long form question into the short form.
And I think it's as simple as that.
Yeah, it seems a hard argument to make.
Then there's this one about the Peace Cross.
Now, you wrote a piece for the Daily Wire about this.
You said this was a particularly important case.
Why do you think so?
Yeah, so this is the Bladensburg Memorial Cross.
And really, this is a World War I memorial that the Gold Star Mothers actually were part of the construction of this monument to honor veterans of World War I.
And the National Atheist or Humanist Association is trying to get this torn down in the Fourth Circuit in Virginia, saying that a cross can't be on government property because it is a symbol of religion.
And if that were the case and we were to extrapolate that out so far, interestingly, this is in the same jurisdiction as Arlington National Cemetery.
And so would they then be saying that all of the crosses marking the graves of our soldiers had to be torn down just because it resembles what is also a religious symbol.
I mean, crosses, stars, you know, a lot of symbols carry a variety of meanings.
And for the Bladensburg Memorial Cross, this is honoring our American veterans.
This is not something that is an establishment of religion.
And for the Humanist Association to go so far as to say we want to tear this down in the name of anti-religion and the First Amendment, this is going so far and would establish a precedent that would be very, very detrimental to the memorials that we have all across America.
You know, I don't even understand where the Supreme Court stands on this anymore.
They used to sort of say if it was part of your tradition, you could keep it, but that's kind of ridiculous because our tradition is almost purely a Christian tradition.
Like, where do you think they'll come down on this and why?
Yeah, I think that's a very interesting question.
And, you know, the Lemon test, which was in the 1970s, tried to kind of establish this whole test about, you know, it had to have a particularly secular purpose.
And that test has fallen out of favor because it's just such a ridiculous test.
There's no way to really take the facts of the case and not skew them in a way that's totally subjective to the outcome of each individual case.
So I think that they're going to have to deal with this in a little bit different way, like they have other tests of religion.
And I think that here it's a very, very easy case to make that this is not just an it's not an establishment of religion.
It doesn't go against the First Amendment in the sense and tradition that Supreme Court precedent has gone.
But Drew, I think that what they need to do is draw a different line here.
And I would hope that with a newly conservative majority, they would go back to the original intent of the First Amendment, which was basically saying that the government can't coerce you or me to identify with a particular religion or to worship God in a particular way.
That's all that the establishment of religion meant.
Jury Selection and Roe v. Wade00:07:16
That doesn't mean that you can't have a nativity scene on the White House lawn or that you can't have a Bladensburg Memorial Cross.
We've taken this so far to kick God out of our society in a way that the founding fathers absolutely never intended.
You know, it really is, there's this debate now.
I don't know if you've been following this debate between Sora Vamari and David French, in which one side is essentially saying, you know, this dedication to individual liberty has actually turned into the kicking of religion out of the public square, which was not what the founders intended.
So it's going to be really interesting to see where they come down.
It just seems absurd that you should have to take down a memorial with a cross on it in a Western country.
So now there are a couple of these cases that deal with kind of racial gerrymandering and racial selection on juries.
Let's talk about the jury one.
What is that?
Yeah, so you know, a lot of us don't really pay attention to cases that don't impact us directly.
And so for those of us who think, you know, we're never going to be charged with a crime or law-abiding citizens, what does it really matter what jury selection is all about?
That's just for the prosecutors and the defense attorneys.
Well, let me tell you, I was both a prosecutor and a defense attorney.
And it does matter to you and me because you never know when you or someone you love may be in front of a jury and have to go through due process.
And so jury selection is really where the case is won or lost at trial.
Because when you get 12 people who have to understand that they are the arbiter and the finder of facts, then you want to make sure that they're fair.
And so what this case is about is that prosecutors and defense attorneys have just have challenges for cause in jury selection.
But then they also have, once you get down to, okay, the panel is fine, then you have to select usually three to six, however big your jury pool is, to get it down to the 12 members of the jury.
So when you exercise what are called preemptory challenges, just saying, okay, I'm saying these six people because I have to pick six, you can't constitutionally do it on a basis of race.
And that was, that's something that, you know, if there's someone of race that you're now kicking off a member of the jury just because of race, that's unfair.
And so what this case is doing is extrapolating another case called Batson versus the United States.
It's called a Batson challenge to not allow prosecutors to make other justifications that would kind of hide their real motivation for kicking off someone of color of the jury and say, well, it was really just because I didn't like their response to this question.
It's going to clarify due process, and I think in a way that is really meaningful to justice, especially for those who may have to have public defenders for the indigent.
We in America always want to make sure that the protections of due process in the context of criminal law are preserved for every single United States citizen.
I think it's interesting, Drew, that nearly half of our Bill of Rights deals with protections of liberty in the criminal law context because our founders knew that the aspect of being able to enact justice in a civil society can be so easily abused by the state that they wanted to make sure that due process protections were in place.
So I hope the court will go.
So what do you hope the I lost you on that?
What do you hope the end result of this will be?
I hope that they clarify that racial selection or deselection of juries is unconstitutional.
And I hope that they further clarify Batson and have protections for criminal defendants in the context of jury trials.
Interesting.
Okay.
So now I know this is not going to reach the court, obviously, this term, but since it's in the since it's in the news, I want to talk to you more about abortion.
We've talked about it before.
There are a lot of people here at the Daily Wire, there's this big debate sort of backstage about whether or not this idea of these incredibly restrictive anti-abortion measures are good strategy in overturning Roe v. Wade.
We all want to see Roe v. Wade overturned, but we feel that maybe this is kind of so extreme that the Supreme Court won't want to touch it.
There's a lot of feeling that Kavanaugh was a bad pick by Donald Trump, that he is not going to stand up for this.
And I'm just wondering how you feel about that.
Yeah, you know, I think it's a very interesting question, especially in light of the recent Indiana law decision where the Supreme Court kind of refused to wade into that issue.
But I was totally Justice Thomas Gangrilling and loved his 20-page concurrence, basically saying, you know, going into the history of the eugenics of abortion and, you know, a little bit more of the philosophy behind why abortion is so horrendous.
But really, his point was the court is going to have to take this up because let's remember in 1973 when Roe versus Wade was decided, there wasn't the advanced technology to be able to scientifically prove.
I mean, we know that life begins at conception.
We know a human baby is, a human child is a human being made in the image of God.
We know that left to its natural devices, a child will grow into a fully formed human.
We know all of this.
But being able to show that through ultrasound technology to show the heartbeat, Roe versus Wade did not give the right to abortion to women.
It didn't find any such thing.
What it said is that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting life, but that has to be balanced against a woman's right to privacy in her healthcare decision making.
And so I think if Roe versus Wade in 1973 were decided today, we wouldn't draw the same line.
So I'm hopeful that the court will at least draw the line at a heartbeat of a child and will say with advanced medical technology, the state has a legitimate interest at that point in protecting the life of the child that is not an undue burden on a woman.
And so I think that the court is going to have to take this up.
I don't think they're going to completely overturn Roe.
I think that they could kick this back to the states and say, you know what, federally speaking, it's a state issue.
States deal with it, have the battle in the states.
That's probably the most likely outcome.
But I'm also hopeful that they will find that there is a legitimate state interest and federal interest in protecting life, which is the chief obligation coming from the Declaration for our So I'm running out of time, but I did want to ask you, what do you think of this opinion of Kavanaugh that he was a mistake, that there could have been a better choice?
You know, and initially, I was a little bit disappointed.
I was hoping for someone else.
He wasn't my first pick, but I was able to, through that whole process, actually get to know Justice Kavanaugh a little bit.
I mean, not super personally, but go through and wade through all of his opinions and how much he is very dedicated to the rule of law as a justice and as a judge.
So I'm very hopeful that he will be a strict originalist and he will abide by the U.S. Constitution, which would force him to protect life.
And I think that that's really what we're going to see from Kavanaugh.
But I had to make a prediction.
I think it's going to be a 5-4, at least in some way, overturning aspects of Roe, if not entirely.
The Secret Life of Pets00:03:02
Wow.
Okay.
Well, Jenna, it's always great to see you.
And I want to have you back to talk more about A.G. Barr and the Mueller Fracas, but we'll have to do it another time.
It's terrific to see you.
Have a good time.
Thanks, Derek.
A lot going on.
Good to see you.
So I love that interview, by the way.
I thought you did a great job analyzing those cases.
Final reflection before the Clavenless Weekends begins.
You have to go and look at the rap.
The rap used to be a good showbiz site.
I think it's CNN's showbiz site.
They have a review here of Pets 2, which is coming out.
It's called The Secret Life of Pets.
Sorry, The Secret Life of Pets 2.
I didn't see The Secret Life of Pets 1, but this is a cartoon for kids.
Film Review, Cartoon offers outdated messages about marriage and manliness by Carlos Aguiar.
The Secret Life of Pets 2, for which both Renault and Lynch reprise their roles, The Secret Life of Pets 2 effectively acts as an animated ode to heteronormativity, toxic masculinity, and patriarchal worldviews passed off as harmless plot points to entertain young audiences.
Pet 2's descent into the bowels of what reads as conservative messaging begins as Katie, Max's owner, randomly meets a young man, quickly marries, and has a child.
In this fictional universe, that's clearly the only natural progression of events in a woman's life.
That trope is later reinforced through the pet characters.
In case it wasn't obvious, Pets 2 makes no attempt at diversifying the notion of what a family is today.
No same-sex couples are in sight as pet owners, much less as parents.
Nothing that deviates from the default straight married couple is even hinted at.
Making matters worse, Harrison Ford is cast as Rooster, a hyper-masculine shepherd dog brazenly teaching Max how to toughen up.
Rooster is the embodiment of phrases like men don't cry and rub some dirt on it.
This alpha dog rejects vulnerability by preaching about how cisified city dogs are.
Defenders may argue it's absurd to, and I would never say this was absurd, defenders may argue it's absurd to attribute such weight to an animated feature, but on the contrary, this is the content to which we should be paying the most attention.
Family-friendly releases have the power to communicate nuggets of knowledge to young viewers, and when the information transmitted is this regressive, it's worth raising the alarm.
Well, consider the alarm raised.
Really, if you don't think the culture is important, if you don't think they mean to eat away at it, just because somebody else could make another movie saying something else, right?
They could make a movie saying all people should be gay, right?
He wouldn't complain then, but it's only this message, it's only this conservative message that's being tagged, targeted on YouTube, on Twitter, on Facebook.
It's only this.
They want a monopoly on the culture because they want to eliminate the idea of the human being.
That is what they're up to.
Survivors Gather00:01:13
Congratulations, Carlos.
You have spread the message.
And I'm sure pet owners and child owners throughout America are running for their lives.
Clavinless weekend is upon you.
Survivors will gather, not here, I'm in St. Louis at a Marriott, where I will be speaking about abortion to the Vitae Foundation tonight.
And then I will fly back.
And on Monday, I will be back in studio.
So survivors gather there on Monday.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
is the Andrew Klavan show.
The Andrew Klavan show is produced by Robert Sterling.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Adam Saovitz.
Audio is mixed by Mike Cormina.
Hair and makeup is by Jessua Alvera.
And our animations are by Cynthia Angulo.
Production assistant, Nick Sheehan.
The Andrew Clavin Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, we pay tribute to D-Day and YouTube cracks down on commentators who don't parrot the left.