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May 30, 2018 - The Matt Walsh Show

23:24

Ep. 39 - What Conservatives Can Learn From The Roseanne Implosion

Roseanne has been a far left radical her whole career. Her show, both the newer and older version, was a vehicle for left wing propaganda. Yet conservatives embraced her as a hero, and now, to thank them for their support, she has embarrassed them. Let's talk about what conservatives can learn from this whole debacle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	So let's talk about Roseanne for some reason.
	Roseanne, as I'm sure you've heard, has been canceled because Roseanne, the person, went on a bizarre, deranged tweet storm that included a racist tweet, and it was a really racist tweet.
	I mean, actually racist.
	There's a definite boy who cried wolf thing that goes on with racist claims where everybody's accused of being racist and everything is racist and so on and so forth.
	But in this case, there's a wolf.
	There's a real wolf here because this was actually racist.
	Roseanne tweeted, this was her tweet, Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby, VJ. As in, VJ was the baby.
	And VJ refers to Valerie Jarrett, who's Obama's former White House advisor, and she's a black woman.
	Now, some conservatives on Twitter have really embarrassed themselves by trying to defend Roseanne on the basis that Valerie Jarrett is not actually black, and so it's not racist to say she's from Planet of the Apes, but she is definitely actually black.
	And, I mean, I've even seen...
	I've seen people passing around photos of Valerie Jarrett where her skin has been lightened in the photo through Photoshop in order to defend Roseanne.
	I mean, this is just...
	It's really pathetic.
	Not only is she a black woman, but she's clearly black.
	I'm not a Valerie Jarrett biographer, okay?
	I know very few things about her.
	In fact, what I just said is everything I know about her.
	I know she was a former White House advisor.
	And she's a black woman.
	And I know that she's a black woman because I've seen her.
	And if you do actually investigate her lineage, you'll find that both of her parents were black.
	And in fact, she apparently even has her maternal grandfather was a prominent black architect or something like that, I believe.
	So she's definitely black and no way around it.
	Roseanne said that, and she's obviously black, and Roseanne said she's from Planet of the Apes.
	And she was also, now to put this fully in context, Valerie Jarrett was also born in Iran.
	So you've got a black woman born in Iran, and Roseanne says that she's the love child of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.
	That is super, super hyper...
	Racism on steroids.
	If that's not a racist comment, then it is impossible to make a racist comment.
	Racist comments don't exist if that is not a racist comment.
	I don't know how else to put it.
	There's no justifying that.
	There's no claiming it's not racist.
	It is. This is one thing.
	People are not Playing a gotcha game with Roseanne, where they're jumping on some innocent comment and trying to make it.
	No, this is, she said that a black woman's from Planet of the Apes.
	And so, you know, just don't say that.
	It's a really easy thing to not say, right?
	Most of us can go through our whole lives and never say that a black person's from Planet of the Apes.
	It's a really easy thing to not say.
	And if you don't think it, if you don't think that way, then you probably would never say it.
	And especially should be easy for Roseanne as a whatever, 65-year-old, wealthy, multi-millionaire, prominent woman who's getting paid millions of dollars from ABC to do a show.
	I think ABC expects her to not go on a public forum and say racist stuff.
	And that's a pretty reasonable expectation.
	Just don't do that.
	Don't say that. Why would you say that?
	You've got hundreds of people that are reliant on you for a job.
	Think about all the people that work on Roseanne.
	And now they're out of a job.
	Not because of ABC, but because of Roseanne.
	Because she's mentally unbalanced and selfish, and so she can't control herself.
	This is her fault, 100%.
	The firing makes a lot of sense.
	I'm sorry, guys. This is not a free speech issue.
	Roseanne is not a martyr.
	She's not being persecuted.
	She brought this entirely on herself, 100%.
	Roseanne, because she's Looney put her employers in a position where they had to choose.
	This is the position that her employers were in.
	They had to choose between defending slash minimizing her statements comparing a black woman to the planet of the apes.
	On one hand, they could do that.
	And this is a major company in the year 2018 reliant on sponsors and advertisers.
	And so they're thinking they can get in that corner, okay, and try to make that argument and die on that hill.
	Or they could just fire her.
	And they chose the latter.
	And you know something? That's a perfectly sensible thing to do.
	And I'll tell you this, if it were my employee, and I'm paying them millions of dollars, and then they go on a public forum and say crap like that, I would definitely fire them.
	I wouldn't even have to think about it.
	Of course you're going to fire them.
	It's not my responsibility as an employer to defend you on that.
	It's your responsibility as someone getting paid millions of dollars by me to not embarrass me like that and to not cause a PR nightmare where I could lose millions of dollars.
	It's your responsibility to not do that.
	And you couldn't even fulfill it.
	So get out of here. You're done.
	Any sensible business person would make the same decision.
	And I know you're going to say, well, millions of people are watching her show.
	You know what?
	They're going to find another show that's going to do fine.
	And most of the people that are saying they're going to boycott ABC and Disney, they won't do it.
	They just won't. You know, if there's another show...
	Most of the people right now say, I'm done with ABC if Roseanne's not on ABC. You know what?
	If ABC has a show next week, announces a new show, and you think it's interesting, you'll watch it.
	Everybody's going to just watch. If people want to watch something, they're going to watch it.
	It doesn't matter. Now, and by the way, just to say one thing, I think this is important.
	It would be different, I think, It would be different.
	Let's say Roseanne had made a comment like this a long time ago.
	She'd made a joke like this.
	And somebody went on a dirt digging expedition and dug this up to try to destroy her.
	And they went sifting through and they went through the effort to go find this thing from a long time ago and use it against her.
	And let's say that were to happen, and then this is brought to the forefront, and Roseanne's embarrassed, and she apologizes, and she says, yeah, that was a long time ago.
	I regret it.
	You know, I made jokes like that.
	I've grown since then.
	I'm not that kind of person anymore.
	You know, I'm a 65-year-old woman now.
	That's not who I am anymore.
	If that's how it had gone...
	Then I would probably be on Roseanne's side.
	I would say, look, you know, you can't—people make mistakes.
	It was a long time ago, and she's moved on since then.
	She's grown. So, no, I don't think you should take her past sins and hang them around her neck.
	But that's not what happened.
	This is something she just said yesterday, publicly, in front of everybody.
	And she's making excuses for it now.
	Now she says that she was on Ambien, and that's why she said it.
	So she has not taken...
	She said it publicly yesterday, and she won't even take ownership of it.
	She refuses to take ownership. She's saying that she was on Ambien, and that's her excuse.
	So, you know, what can you do?
	This is... You have no choice but to just fire her.
	Now, I think this story serves...
	Or should serve, anyway, as a cautionary tale for conservatives.
	And to understand why, let's back up for a moment.
	Okay, let's back up to the...
	Let's go back to the 90s, okay, to understand, to get the full picture and the full context.
	So in the 90s, Roseanne was one of the most left-wing sitcoms in the history of American television, if not Probably the most left-wing, in fact, at the time.
	It promoted abortion. It promoted gay marriage.
	It was blatant in its agenda and ahead of its time in that regard.
	Now it's not so unusual to find shows that promote those things, of course, but back then it was unusual.
	So, Roseanne was not only a leftist sitcom, but it was a radically leftist sitcom, and it was ahead of the curve in terms of its leftism.
	So, that's the show. Then it ends.
	And Roseanne, the person, goes on to become a far-left political activist.
	She runs for president as a socialist.
	She's an avowed socialist.
	She champions left-wing causes.
	She was so mad at Chick-fil-A because its CEO supports traditional marriage that she tweeted a few years ago, and I quote, anyone who eats crap filet...
	Well, she didn't use crap. She used the S word.
	So... Anyone who eats Chick-fil-A deserves to get cancer.
	Anyone who eats Chick-fil-A deserves to get the cancer that is sure to come from eating antibiotic-filled tortured chickens for Christ.
	So she tweeted, just to recap there, okay, she tweeted that the Christian conservatives who eat Chick-fil-A deserve to get cancer.
	And then when she was criticized for this, she lashed out at the Christian liars who were attacking her.
	She never actually apologized for the tweet.
	And in fact, what she did is she backtracked and she made an excuse and she later claimed, okay, she later claimed that she wasn't saying that anyone deserves to get cancer.
	What she was trying to do was she was trying to warn us of the negative health effects of eating fast food.
	She was trying to warn us of the health impact of eating fast food.
	Yeah.
	and refusing to have the moral courage to own them and to apologize for them, and instead coming up with lame, ridiculous excuses, the kind of excuses that a 12-year-old would come up with.
	That's the pattern of behavior for Roseanne that goes back years.
	And then there's a few years of this.
	So just remember, by the way, if you're a Christian conservative and you like Chick-fil-A, you support traditional marriage, and you also love Roseanne, just remember that she wants you to get cancer.
	That's what she said. So she thinks you should get cancer.
	That's her opinion about you.
	So I don't know. I mean, that maybe is a relevant point.
	A few years of this stuff continues and then during the 2016 campaign Roseanne randomly says that she likes Trump.
	Of all the things that she's rambling about nonsensically, that's one of the things that she happens to say.
	Although her left-wing convictions still remain intact, she likes Trump.
	And suddenly This woman, who has spent a career spewing far-left lunacy all over the place and promoting and mainstreaming far-left ideas, this woman who has wished cancer on Christian conservatives now becomes a hero of conservatives simply because she likes Trump.
	And then the new show was announced.
	And in the first episode of the new show, there's a storyline involving a cross-dressing nine-year-old.
	So it's not like she's had a change of heart and she's changed and she's grown and the show is going to be different now and everything.
	And what used to be a far-left show is now going to be a conservative family value show.
	No, it's still far-left.
	It is still actually ahead of its time and its far-leftness.
	Cross-dressing nine-year-olds on a family sitcom is still unusual.
	So again, Roseanne is ahead of the curve on the leftism.
	But still, conservatives, some of them anyway, champion this show in spite of the gross, perverted sexualization of children, all because Roseanne likes Trump.
	That's it. That's all it takes.
	Nothing else matters.
	She just likes Trump. And some of the people that have this attitude, they say, well, I've forgiven Roseanne.
	It's forgiveness. No, it's not forgiveness.
	If she didn't like Trump, you wouldn't be saying any of the stuff you're saying right now.
	Be honest. Don't tell me it's because you've forgiven her.
	It's because she likes Trump. It's the only reason.
	If everything else stayed the same with Roseanne, but she didn't like Trump, you'd hate her.
	You wouldn't be watching the show.
	You wouldn't support her. It's only because of the Trump thing.
	That's the only reason.
	That's it. So then that happens, and then Roseanne proceeds to say racist stuff.
	So what did conservatives achieve by latching on to a celebrity who happened to utter one thing they agreed with?
	What did conservatives achieve?
	Nothing, I'm afraid to say.
	They embarrassed themselves.
	That's what they achieved. They embarrassed themselves.
	We are embarrassed now.
	And somehow, you've got this far-left person who says something racist, and now suddenly, we have to take ownership of that.
	That's our thing now.
	When it shouldn't be.
	This is a far-left comedian.
	Why is this our thing?
	It becomes our thing because for some ridiculous reason, we latched on to her.
	And so we're embarrassed. And that is generally what happens with conservatives and their desperate, sad, pitiful celebrity infatuation.
	This is generally what happens.
	Whenever we cling on to any famous person who says one single thing we agree with, we end up looking stupid.
	And whether it's because Roseanne says something racist or because we invite Clint Eastwood to the Republican National Convention and he yells at a chair for 45 minutes, we always end up looking ridiculous.
	And so maybe we should stop doing this.
	You know, maybe we should look at a different strategy.
	Here's the problem. I think we seem to believe, and I keep using the word we, I realize, I'm talking about conservatives generally, of which I guess I am a part, although conservatism is now such a meaningless term that I don't even know how I can associate myself with it.
	But just for the sake of argument, I'm talking about conservatism generally.
	So here's the problem. We seem to believe that the way to defeat the left is to copy it.
	That's what we're doing.
	We are like the pitiful little, sad little brother, you know, who sees his older brother and just imitates, starts dressing like him and imitates everything he does.
	And so we treat the left like our older brothers.
	And so we're just copying everything they do and then pretending that we're beating them somehow that way.
	You see, we beat the left by becoming them.
	You didn't see that coming, did you?
	So we see that they have a bunch of celebrities on their side, and we think that, well, that means we need to get us some celebrities.
	But the problem is that they have cool celebrities on their side, okay?
	They have, like, LeBron James, and we have Roseanne, who isn't even really on our side.
	And we have Roseanne and we have, I don't know, James Woods and one of the Baldwin brothers, I think, and Scott Baio.
	Okay, those are our people.
	The liberals have all the cool ones.
	And we have, this is our collection of misfits that we've brought together.
	So it doesn't work.
	We aren't going to beat the left at its own game.
	We aren't going to out-celebrity them.
	And we should stop trying.
	Now, it's one thing, don't confuse what I'm saying here, because if we do find a piece of pop culture art, like a film or a television show or music or whatever, that really does effectively convey a truthful, essential message, then we should champion it.
	We shouldn't go overboard, we shouldn't become groupies, but we should support it.
	But Roseanne is emphatically not that show.
	First of all, it's just a bad, it's a stupid show.
	Second, it's a vehicle for left-wing values.
	That's what it's always been and still is or was anyway.
	So it's not in any way the kind of thing that we should be supporting.
	This is a vehicle for left-wing values, not for conservative values, whatever those are at this point.
	On the rare occasion that we get something like a movie or a show that is really different and champions What we might call conservative values, quote unquote, then I think, yeah, we should support it.
	Just an example is my wife and I just, a couple nights ago, my wife and I went to see the movie A Quiet Place, which I think has, and it's been out for a while now, it's a very popular movie.
	And I agree with what many other people have said about the film, that even though on one level it just seems like your standard sci-fi horror film, It actually, I think, has some very profound and beautiful pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith themes.
	And on top of that, it's just a well-done, effective, skillfully crafted and executed film.
	And it's also entertaining.
	And so in that case, yeah, I think we go support a movie like that.
	A movie that shows this family bonded together by faith, the man in this protector role, the woman as a strong but feminine character.
	That's something that I think we should support.
	So I do think that pop culture and movies and film, they are a very powerful way to get across a message.
	But the problem comes When we latch on to literally any pop culture property that even vaguely sort of dimly echoes a few right-wing talking points, that's the problem.
	We just end up discrediting ourselves and we come across in the meantime also like we have horrible taste, which I don't think helps our case either.
	But the point remains, we are not going to win the culture with celebrity.
	Especially not with these celebrities, okay?
	Especially not with Roseanne.
	But we won't win with celebrity regardless.
	Even if we had some of the cool ones, we still wouldn't win that way.
	I think we win the culture.
	If it's going to be won at all, we win it by being radical and firm in our convictions.
	We win by being authentic, genuine, thoughtful, intelligent.
	We win by sticking to the truth, by being adults, okay?
	We don't win by debasing ourselves, by desperately defending whatever racist crap Roseanne says.
	That's not how we win.
	We don't win anything. We just make ourselves look ridiculous, and we convince precisely no one What exactly is being won by rallying around Roseanne?
	What does that achieve at all?
	What are we helping?
	Who are we convincing?
	Now, you might say, well, truth and dignity and moral values, they haven't won yet, Matt.
	They're losing. So what are you talking about?
	You can't win that way. Yeah, they haven't won because so few of us actually care about those things or fight for them.
	That's why they haven't won, because we've given up on them.
	We haven't even tried to fight for them.
	Most of us don't even try to fight, but we've just given up.
	Most of the When it comes to being really pro-life and pro-family and pro-marriage, most so-called conservatives have given up on that.
	They don't even try to fight for it.
	And then they rationalize and they reason and they say, oh, it's because it's a failure.
	It's not winning. Well, you haven't even tried.
	Why don't you get up and fight first?
	Why don't you give it a shot before you tell me it can't be done?
	Before you surrender, why don't you actually get up off of your butt and actually try to fight for these things?
	Don't sit there and tell me that it's not working or can't win that way.
	And let me tell you something.
	If we have actually gotten to a point in our culture where truth and morality and dignity can't win, well, then it's done.
	We're finished in that case.
	And so what's the point?
	Then at that point, you may as well retain your own dignity for yourself and your family You may as well hold on to that, and if everything's collapsing all around us, then you may as well hold on to your own dignity and your own moral sense, because it's all falling apart anyway, and there's no advantage in just abandoning that at the last moment.
	And we also have to ask ourselves, you know, what does it mean to win?
	We keep using this phrase, winning, winning.
	Well, how do we win?
	I don't think we win by—winning is not electing Republicans.
	Plenty of Republicans have been elected over the last many decades, and yet the culture is still on the trajectory that it's on.
	I think we win fundamentally by building a culture that is grounded in objective truth, moral values, and faith, and fortified by strong families.
	That's what it means to win.
	There's no other winning.
	That's winning. Whether or not that can actually be achieved at this point, I don't know.
	I'm a little bit pessimistic in that regard, but if we're going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging.
	I don't know about you. But that's what it means to win.
	That's what we should be fighting for.
	And the way this ties into Roseanne is that defending Roseanne and latching onto Roseanne and these dumb celebrities, that doesn't help advance that cause at all.
	In fact, it undermines it.
	It hugely undermines it.
	Especially when you're latching on to celebrities who for the last many, many, many years of their career have only been contributing to the cultural decay, which is what Roseanne has spent her entire career doing.
	And is still doing.
	She is a part of the problem.
	So pray for her.
	Yes. But don't stand in her corner.
	All right. And there's, you know, look, there's better shows out there anyway.
	There aren't a lot of good shows, but there are a few decent ones.
	So maybe watch one of those.
	And if there's ever a time when we turn on the TV and there are no good shows and it's just a bunch of trash, well, then we could turn the TV off and read a book.
	You know, that's also an option.
	I think a very worthwhile option as well.
	So thanks for watching.

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