Ep. 444 - Incompetence And Partisanship In The Midst Of A Pandemic
Today on the show, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic and the bad news is that our elected leaders do not seem interested in or capable of leading us through this. Also, Five Headlines, including a vile product that was being sold by Amazon. It's off the site now, but the fact that it was ever sold in the first place should tell us something. And handshakes have been canceled for the foreseeable future. But what greeting should take its place? We'll sort through that important issue today.
Check out The Cold War: What We Saw, a new podcast written and presented by Bill Whittle at https://www.dailywire.com/coldwar. In Part 1 we peel back the layers of mystery cloaking the Terror state run by the Kremlin, and watch as America takes its first small steps onto the stage of world leadership.
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, I don't know if you guys have heard of this coronavirus thing, but yeah, it turns out we're in the midst of a global pandemic.
Nobody's really talking about it, so I'm sure you're relieved that I'll be discussing it on the show today.
Now, the bad news is, on top of the fact that it's a pandemic, is that our elected leaders
do not seem interested in or capable of leading us through this.
Have we gotten to a point where our leaders in Washington simply don't have the capacity
to handle something like this?
We're going to talk about that.
Also, five headlines, including an especially vile product being sold by Amazon.
In fact, it was being sold.
It's taken down now.
But the fact that it was ever up there to be sold in the first place, I think, tells
you something.
And in your daily cancellations, something a little bit different.
Handshakes have been cancelled.
I didn't cancel them.
It's just they've been cancelled as all hand-to-hand contact or combat is now out the window because of the coronavirus.
But where do we go from here?
I've noticed there's a real problem of people not knowing how to greet each other.
So we're going to try to sort through that very important issue as well today.
All of that, including your emails, why I'm wrong, a bunch of stuff coming up.
We'll talk about all that.
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All right, coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus.
One quick coronavirus tidbit, coronabit, before we get into the meat and potatoes here.
I was at the store yesterday, and I saw, this is a common sight, I'm far from the first person to see something like this at the store, but this is actually my first time seeing this.
I hadn't been to the grocery store in a little bit, and so I went to the grocery store.
I saw a woman filling her cart with every box of size 4 diapers.
In the aisle.
And as I said, we've gotten used to this kind of scene.
People buying up all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer, soap, etc.
I just think we need to be able to work together a little bit on this thing.
And I'm going to get back to that theme later on as we discuss this.
But I think we as Americans, we need to be able to, and community members, we need to be able to help each other out a little bit.
Whether this ends up being as bad as we fear it might be or not, either way, people need things like soap and diapers and toilet paper.
And your kid is probably not gonna go through that many diapers in a few weeks.
Just like you're probably not gonna go through 19 gallons of hand sanitizer in a month.
Other people need that stuff.
Now, I know maybe leaving something on the shelf for the next guy to get, it doesn't feel like the most rewarding thing to do because you're just leaving it for some random stranger.
And so you think, hey, I might as well take it.
But I think we need more teamwork than that.
And I saw someone point out on Twitter yesterday that, you know, it also is in your best interest to allow other people in your neighborhood to wash their hands too.
So maybe that's another reason not to buy up all of the soap and hand sanitizer and everything else.
Now, I get that what I saw, maybe there's a reasonable explanation.
Maybe she has triplets.
We had twins, so even that, I understand how many diapers you go through.
Maybe she had triplets.
That would explain all the... Probably not, but maybe.
Maybe she was buying the diapers to donate to an orphanage.
Again, probably not.
But it's possible.
I don't know.
But obviously there is a problem, generally speaking, of people buying up all the necessary items for themselves, hoarding them.
And I think we need to be better than that, because...
We're not going to be able to rely on the government to get us through this, and that's becoming more and more obvious.
As I said, we'll talk more about that in a minute.
The bigger picture.
We discussed the virus on the show yesterday, just like everybody else.
And I said I think I was wrong early on when I said this is panic about nothing or nearly nothing.
The facts on the ground have changed and enough doctors, virologists, epidemiologists, and other experts have weighed in.
To this point, it's become pretty obvious, and I'm convinced that my initial approach and attitude was wrong.
Now, I've gotten a fair amount of blowback from the show I did yesterday.
Some people have really bought fully into the idea that this is nothing but hype.
It's just a media thing.
There are even some people who really do think it's a media hoax.
I think that's a minority.
People who think it's just almost invented.
What's more common is, yeah, it's real, but it's not nearly as bad as everybody's saying.
And these are, that was, again, that was my take on it a month ago, a month and a half ago.
But for me, it seems like the reality has become more clear.
The facts have surfaced, enough facts anyway, and I'm going to change my mind.
I think there are some people that they had that take early on, and they're going to ride with it.
This is their official position on the coronavirus, and I'm sticking with it no matter what happens, all the way to the end.
And I sort of understand part of that, because In some ways, it still doesn't feel real.
I think that's part of the problem.
That it's hard for us, it's hard for me, I admit, to accept that something so primitive and ancient and barbaric as a viral epidemic could intrude into our comfortable, safe, modern lives and turn everything upside down.
It's hard to accept that.
Especially when you still look around.
Aside from the grocery store shelves being cleaned out, other than that, most of us, depending on where you live, but most of us, we look around and everything seems pretty much normal.
And so you think, well, it's normal.
We take it for granted.
It's always going to be normal.
It always has been normal.
It's going to continue being normal.
This thing couldn't possibly turn our lives upside down, but it has.
Whether we choose to accept it or not.
Governments across the world have quarantined entire populations.
Some have gone so far as to track their infected citizens with GPS.
That's what South Korea did.
Italy, you know, the mortality rate is 5%.
Doctors are so overwhelmed they have to choose which patients to treat.
Yes, they have an older population.
Yes, that's true.
But part of their problem, I read something to you yesterday from a doctor in Italy saying that our problem is, yes, we have older populations, but Our biggest problem is we didn't take this seriously enough early on, and we got blindsided.
And we know that the numbers of infected are trending up drastically, and medical experts are saying that it's going to get much worse.
I don't have any information or evidence to disagree with them.
If I were to say, nah, it's not going to get worse, I would be saying that purely based on what I hope is true.
It's not like I have any scientific research that I can put up against what the medical experts are saying.
I don't.
Now here in the United States, 1,300 reported cases just two weeks after President Trump said there were 15 cases and that he expected that to be close down to zero very soon.
That obviously has not happened.
The number here is growing exponentially, even though very few Americans have been tested.
I think the latest I saw is they're doing about 100 tests.
Each state is doing maybe about 100 tests per day.
The CDC has done 100 tests total.
In the last two weeks.
That is not nearly enough.
All of these factors, I think, explain why organizations like the NCAA and Disney have chosen to forfeit billions of dollars by shutting down their basketball season and theme park, respectively.
I don't think we can chalk this up to simple panic.
Businesses don't throw billions of dollars into the fire pit for no reason.
They don't do it on an emotional whim.
Now, you could say that they're doing it because of a concern for liability, and they've talked to the insurance companies, and I'm sure that's the case.
But still, they wouldn't be forfeiting billions of dollars for fear of liability unless there was a real chance of there being some liability.
And then, of course, we know we have states and towns.
The state of Maryland shut down all the schools.
All these things are happening.
All of this to say that it's a damn shame we have a collection of partisan hacks and useless buffoons leading us through this crisis.
And that's what I want to focus on a little bit more.
But before we get to any of that, first, a word from Blinksale.
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Now, keeping in mind the severity of the situation, do we have leaders in Washington that are capable of actually taking this seriously and addressing the problem?
I'm not very optimistic.
It was reported yesterday that Nancy Pelosi tried to jam funding for abortion into the coronavirus economic stimulus package that they're working on.
I mean, think about that.
We're looking at a global pandemic.
What she's worried about is, let's get abortion funded.
Here and overseas.
That's what she wants.
Other Democrats have spent their time accusing Trump of racism for accurately reporting, accurately stating that the virus originated in China, which it did.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we talked about a few days ago, has been talking about how it's straight-up racism because people aren't patronizing Chinese restaurants.
In fact, she said patroning Chinese restaurants, which isn't a word.
The Democratic governor of Washington, the state hardest hit by the virus so far, Responded to a supportive call from Vice President Pence.
The Vice President called him, asked him if he needed anything, was checking in, doing his job.
The governor turns around and bashes Pence and Trump on Twitter.
And now Democrats are rallying together to stop us from blaming China.
That's their focus.
Even as China is blaming us.
So China is blaming us.
China is now claiming that the US military brought the virus to China.
And then China turned around and shipped it back to us.
That's the absurd conspiracy theory and the deflection of blame that they're doing.
And fortunately for them, they have half of our elected officials in Washington taking their side and saying, yeah, that's exactly what happened.
So China's blaming America and the Democrats are blaming America.
What else is new?
The fact that China started this is actually important.
This isn't semantics.
This isn't some irrelevant detail like we should just move on and not worry about it.
There are other things to worry about too, of course.
And blaming them won't in itself solve the crisis.
Nobody is saying that it will.
But this did begin with them.
They weren't honest about it.
They still aren't being honest about it.
They weren't transparent.
They still aren't being transparent.
They stifled the spread of information.
They stopped doctors and health experts from talking about it publicly.
Some people have called this essentially the Chinese Chernobyl.
And I think that's a good comparison.
And their responsibility for this is real, and it's important for us to acknowledge, I think.
But the Democrats are running interference for them.
But this isn't just about the Democrats and China.
Now those groups are certainly, they deserve some of the fingers to be pointed at them, but it's not just about them.
And and and I think this is the part up until now most of you have probably been Giving me the thumbs up and saying amen as I'm blaming talking about China talking about the Democrats But this is the part where some of you switch from amens to booze probably Because you're not gonna like the next part of what I have to say But I have to be honest about it and and call it as I see it President Trump has not performed much better than And the conservatives who are going around saying, Trump's been brilliant, he's absolutely great.
I don't believe that they really believe what they're saying.
There's no possible way they really think that.
President Trump.
After contradicting his own officials to predict that the coronavirus would virtually disappear from the United States after first 15 cases.
That's what he said.
He said he expected the case to be down close to zero.
He wasn't getting that from his medical officials.
If he had listened to them, they would have told him, don't say that.
It's not true.
But he said it anyway.
And it does matter.
He's the president of the United States.
I said I've been wrong about this too.
I'm not the president.
I'm a podcast host.
He's the president.
So what he says matters a hell of a lot more than what I say.
But after that didn't end up happening, of course, the 15 cases didn't go down to zero.
He attempted desperately for days to minimize the severity of the crisis because he was worried about the political impact of having to admit that, you know, a bunch of people are infected.
He was worried about the hit to the stock market, which of course the president is going to be worried about that.
But part of the problem is that Trump, for the last three years, has been taking a lot of credit for the For the successes on the stock market.
And the problem is when you do that, when the stock market takes a hit, now you have to take the blame for that unless you're going to say, oh, when it goes up, it's because of me.
But when it goes down, it's not because of me.
That doesn't make any sense.
Which is maybe a lesson here.
Stop trying to brag about the successes of the stock market as if it's all because of the president.
And then from there, Trump sent out a tweet implying, insinuating that we should be no more concerned about this than we are about the seasonal flu.
Yet again, contradicting the medical experts in his own administration, the doctors and medical experts that he employs, or that we employ actually, but that are in his administration, contradicting them.
When asked about the lack of testing last week, he bizarrely politicized the issue by bringing the transcript of his Ukraine call into it.
He was asked about the testing and he said, you know, the testings are perfect, just like the call, the Ukraine call and the transcript was perfect.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Why are you bringing that political issue into this?
It has nothing to do with it.
And by the way, it's not true.
The testing has not been perfect.
It's been far from perfect.
Now, it may not be entirely the administration's fault that our testing has lagged far behind most of the developed world, but the buck stops with Trump, whether he likes it or not.
Just like he said with, you know, the pandemic that the Obama administration had to deal with.
Yeah, it's true that the media let Obama off the hook.
Conservatives didn't.
We blamed him, and so did Trump.
Now Trump wants to say, it's not my fault at all.
I had nothing to do with this.
People aren't getting tested.
It's been a total disaster with testing.
Not my fault.
You cannot blame me.
Even one iota.
We know that's BS.
Come on.
And we know that if it was Obama, we would be blaming him.
We know that.
We know that's how the game is played.
Let's stop playing the game.
There are more important things to be done right now.
You know, and rambling about perfect tests doesn't instill the American people with confidence that he understands the severity of the situation.
Then he goes and tweets out a picture of himself literally fiddling in the middle of a pandemic.
Tweets a picture of himself fiddling.
And I don't want to hear, oh, there's old Trump trolling again.
I think unless you are a Trump groupie at this point, nobody else finds it very cute or fun for the President of the United States to be worried about trolling during a pandemic.
Maybe focus on other things.
His address from the Oval Office.
I know there have been conservatives saying it was great, great, good stuff, awesome.
Oh, come on.
We know that.
Let's be honest.
You watched it, right?
Adequate at best.
And that is being extremely generous.
Banning travel from Europe is an important step.
Not nearly enough was said, though, about containment within our borders.
And in terms of boosting national morale and uniting the country, the speech, in content and delivery, was a dud.
I mean, he was reading the thing like it's the first time he read it, which I believe probably is the case.
Maybe take this a little bit more seriously.
It does matter.
Other administration officials aren't doing much better in communicating.
Seema Versa, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was on Fox last night, was asked multiple times directly whether U.S.
hospitals are prepared for this, and she wasn't willing to answer the question.
Watch.
Before I let you go, I want to ask you one more time.
Are there going to be people in this country who don't get a ventilator if they need one?
Are you concerned that the actual physical equipment that is needed to serve the people who will get sick is out there?
Can you reassure everyone tonight that there is not a shortage of ventilators or ICU units?
And that's why the president has taken such a bold and decisive action, right?
We're not waiting for this to get worse.
We're not waiting for this to be a crisis in our health care systems.
And that's why the mitigation strategies that he announced last night, limiting travel from Europe, not allowing that, you know, we've given travel advisories on cruise ships.
That's why we're taking all of this action, because we don't want to put stress on the health care system.
OK, that's not a direct answer to the question.
Yeah, that's a little concerning.
You would hope to get a straight answer on a question like that.
That's the kind of question you need to be able to answer.
Now, we'll talk more about this in a second, but first, a word from our very good friends over at Rock Auto, you know, in the year 2020.
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So, what's the moral of the story here?
Conservatives are going to want to make this all a story of Democrats politicizing an epidemic.
Liberals want to make it a story about Trump fumbling and bumbling and wasting crucial days early on, downplaying the situation, whispering sweet nothings in our ears, which he did even during his speech, in fact.
He spent way too much time talking about how great the economy is doing and how great he's doing and everything's doing great, great, great, great, great.
Not really.
You're not fooling anybody.
Let's just be honest.
The story, though, is both of those things.
It's not one or the other.
It is ultimately a story of a dysfunctional government run by people who are not interested in coming together in a dire time to steer us towards calmer and safer waters.
That's what we need.
We're not getting it.
This is a moment, I think, that calls for a seriousness of purpose and a disregard for political point tallying that is apparently beyond the capacities of the people in Washington who we have elected to lead us.
And I think If you're sitting there and you're trying to exempt one side of the political aisle from this and say, oh, it's all the other guys, you're being delusional.
You're trying to delude yourself.
And I think you know it.
So, what does that mean?
I think it means basically batting down the hatches.
Because the Washington clown show isn't going to save us.
And whatever happens, we're gonna have to handle it the good old-fashioned American way, on our own.
This is not meant to be melodramatic.
I'm not saying that it's the end of all things.
Repent!
Well, you should repent, even so.
We should do that regardless.
Not saying that.
But this is a serious issue, and when I look at the government, I don't know about you, I'm not instilled with confidence.
They can't even figure out how to get testing done.
The whole rest of the world's figured it out.
The developed countries, and not just developed modern countries, other countries too, figured out how to test people.
Even in this country, you know, the NBA, they were worried about the coronavirus.
Somehow these NBA teams managed to get testing done.
Testing dozens of players.
Got the results back quickly.
So when it's rich celebrities, all of a sudden there's no problem getting the tests.
Yeah, you read all these stories.
I mean, there are so many of them.
If you read about them on social media, people who are very, very sick have all of the symptoms of coronavirus.
They're trying to get the tests and they can't get them.
This is a problem that... Someone is responsible for this.
The people we elect to head the government, that we put in charge, the buck does stop with them.
Not just Trump.
He's not a dictator.
It goes to all the rest of them, too.
But all they're going to do is deflect blame.
No one is going to stand there because there's nobody in government right now with the moral courage and honesty to stand there and say, you know what?
Yes, I'm part of the problem.
I screwed up on this.
I'm going to do better.
We're going to get down to business now.
No one's going to do that.
They're all going to sit there and say, it's them.
It's them.
Don't look at me.
No, it's all them.
They did it.
Meanwhile, you've got a pandemic spreading across the globe, and this is all we get from these clowns.
And they convinced their followers on both sides to join in.
It's all them!
It's all their fault!
Let's talk about them!
Shut up.
Alright, let's go to news headlines.
Number one, as we covered, the Democrats, you know, they want to make this about racism, and Ringo, the Ringo of the squad, Ayanna Pressley, has decided to jump on the bandwagon of accusing people of racism for not eating at Chinese restaurants.
This It's hard for me to believe that they're continuing with this, but this is what they're going with.
If you're not eating at Chinese restaurants, you're a racist.
This is what Presley had to say.
You know, since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen not only the spreading of the virus, but also a rapid spreading of racism and xenophobia.
We have witnessed at the highest levels, in fact, of the Republican Party fanning, irresponsibly, these flames.
One colleague tweeted that everything you need to know about the Chinese coronavirus, unquote.
My district is home to nearly 32% foreign-born residents, with more than a quarter immigrating from Asia.
This painful rhetoric has consequences.
Restaurants across Boston's Chinatown have seen up to an 80% drop in business.
And I believe this has everything to do with the rapid spread of misinformation and paranoia.
It is critical that we stand against these insightful messages and assuage fear in our communities.
And we do that by dispelling untruths and misinformation.
We can only do that by sharing the facts.
Now we've already covered this.
I've explained why it's fantastically stupid.
Not that you need it explained.
I'll just say one more time, one note.
Even if people became so paranoid that they believed every Chinese person had the virus, and they stayed away from Chinese people, and Chinese food, and Chinese finger traps, even in that case, and that's not what's happening, but even if it was what happened, that would be paranoid, it would be incorrect, it would be overkill, it may even be insulting, but it's not racist.
Even that would not be racist.
Racism is a particular thing, that's not racism.
Now, I think Dems like Ringo would love it if that's what started to happen.
It would be politically convenient for them.
But my point is, even in that extreme scenario, it still would not be racism because racism is the belief that somebody is inferior to you because of their race.
That's what racism is.
Being paranoid about a disease that comes from a certain country, even being overly paranoid, not racism.
Whether or not it's justified is besides the point it's not racism.
Number two, is there any news that isn't about the coronavirus?
Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of Congress and the U.S.
Supreme Court, said that he expects 70 million to 150 million people in the U.S.
to become infected with COVID-19.
Well, no, that's not it.
That's still about the coronavirus.
Let's see if we can move to number three.
Reporting from LifeSite News, it says, a Scottish mother who has a six-year-old son with Down syndrome has slammed Amazon for selling t-shirts which read, let's make Down syndrome extinct.
She said, She said, quote, to target a group who are disabled is just disgusting.
Stacey Corrigan, age 34, has a six-year-old son with Down syndrome named Daniel.
Ms.
Corrigan slammed the t-shirt slogan as hateful and disgusting, asserting that it should be treated as a crime.
She said, I can't believe they've been allowed to sell this.
Who even thinks up an idea to design this?
The t-shirts were initially spotted by two mothers from England who filed a complaint to Amazon accusing them of promoting a hate crime on their website.
I don't think it's illegal, I wouldn't call it a hate crime.
But this is troubling message and I'm glad they pulled the shirt and I'm glad someone noticed it.
To have a major corporation selling something like that is highly disturbing.
Especially when you consider making Down Syndrome extinct is a very real effort that's actually underway.
This is not just a t-shirt slogan.
This is actually what countries are doing.
Including our own.
And the effort to make Down Syndrome extinct invariably involves killing Down Syndrome children in the womb.
In some European countries, Down Syndrome is in fact nearly extinct.
But what that means is that Down Syndrome people are nearly extinct.
Because they've been killed.
Number four, reporting in Greenwich Times says, at a time of near record wealth concentration, more than twice as many young Americans say the existence of billionaires is bad for society as those who say it is good.
According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of adults younger than 30 support the view that people whose personal fortunes exceed $1 billion is a bad thing, while 16% say billionaires are good for society.
It's worth noting, however, that a plurality of young Americans, 45%, profess indifference either way.
This is one of those times where I think the indifferent answer is probably the right one.
I don't mean good or bad for society.
On one hand, who cares?
I mean, it's their money.
Whether it's good or bad for society that they have it, there's nothing we can do about it other than take it from them, and that's the point.
We have billionaires.
Even if you think that all billionaires are horrible, evil scumbags.
Well, they exist regardless.
They have the money.
The only way to get rid of the billionaires would be one, to kill them all.
Which I'm increasingly convinced there are people, plenty of people in this country who would be perfectly fine with that plan.
The other option, though, would be to take their money.
But who takes it?
Well, the government does.
And then who gets it?
Well, the government does.
Maybe they redistribute it.
I'm sure you're hoping that.
But they are taking ownership of it.
The point here is that this money and wealth and power, it exists.
It's just a question of who's going to get it.
And when it comes to money, well, either the person who earned it can have most of it, or the government can take it.
Those are the two options.
There really is not a third.
Option.
So when you say that there shouldn't be billionaires, what you're saying is it's better for the government to have all of that additional money and power.
That's what you mean.
And I think that's a very foolish, to put it mildly, perspective.
Number five, finally, things have gotten pretty bad down in Australia, it seems like.
It appears the currency system has collapsed, and this is how they're forced to buy and sell goods now.
Take a look.
Can I just get a cheeseburger meal with the water?
Hi.
Hi.
How much was it?
$7.05.
$7.05.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Thank you.
That was just $7.05.
Oh, was I short?
There's a dollar.
Keep the change.
Can I just say that I've made a deposit?
Yes, how much is it again?
I haven't counted it, but there's quite a bit here, yeah.
Just straight hundreds will do.
What's that?
Ah, just $100 notes will be fine.
Just cashing in the tour, maybe?
Do you not do that here?
Oh.
What's that?
Pretty awful.
Awful, I mean, because that wasn't even two-ply.
He's trying to pass off a small wad of one-ply sandpaper as equivalent to $7?
I don't think so.
See, we're not going to make it through the apocalypse if this is how we're bartering.
It's not going to work.
Though I guess not making it through the apocalypse is sort of the point of the apocalypse, so what am I worried about?
Now, for today's Daily Cancellation, today we're cancelling, well, it's not really me cancelling it, but society has cancelled the handshake.
Hand-to-hand combat.
I wanted to say combat.
Hand-to-hand contact, to include combat, is now verboten.
But I don't want to focus on the cancellation so much of the handshake.
I want to talk about what we do going forward.
Because I was in D.C.
yesterday.
I had to be in D.C.
for work.
And I had several occasions where I was greeting somebody, but we aren't shaking hands anymore, so in each occasion of greeting, we had to ad-lib something else on the spot.
And in one case, we did kind of a mimed handshake, where you sort of shake your hand towards the other person like this.
Another time, there was a fist bump.
Another time, a guy saluted me, which was interesting.
And then a couple others, it was more of an awkward sort of half-wave, where you stand back, you're sort of like that.
And then you make an awkward comment about the coronavirus.
I think we need to shut down all greetings.
Until we figure out what the hell is going on.
Because this cannot continue.
It's chaos out there right now.
I swear, I saw two guys a few days ago touching elbows.
They did this, and they both put their elbows out and touched elbows.
For their greeting.
That's not gonna fly.
That's not gonna work.
So, last night on Twitter, I started a poll to see if we could come to a collective understanding, an agreement, what our new greeting will be. Like I said, we can't trust,
we can't, we can't rely on the government for anything.
So this is, this is another issue we're gonna have to solve on our own.
I suggested four alternatives to the handshake.
So two, so four non-contact greetings that maybe we could agree on.
Here are four options.
Number one, a deep bow, Japanese style.
Number two, you kind of point to each other and say, heyo, like that.
And maybe you give a wink and a heyo, like that.
That's an option.
Number three is to tip your top hat and say something like, good day, gentlemen.
Or even just ladies.
And then the number four option would be a deep, sensuous, silent stare.
Right into each other's eyes.
Say nothing.
Hold it for about 15 seconds.
And maybe crack a slight knowing smile.
You know, just like that.
You hold it.
Silent.
Out of those options, and you can see the results right here, the top hat won out pretty big, so go out and buy a top hat.
We're all going to need top hats for this to work.
Second place was the silent stare.
So I'm going to allow both of these.
I think either one.
Just sort of read the room, get the feel of things, and decide which one you're going to do.
Can you combine them?
Absolutely you can.
I think, in fact, that would be best.
Top hat, good day gentlemen.
Top hat, ladies.
And then the silent stare.
And now you really have a connection.
Probably more of a connection than you want or need.
Alright, before we get to emails, by the way, time is running out to get 25% off all Daily Wire membership plans using coupon code NEVERSOCIALIST.
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Okay, a couple of emails.
This one first is from Anonymous.
This is actually a Twitter message, but not a mailbag thing, but I have to read it here just because I find it psychologically fascinating.
This is what it says.
It says, Matt, do you follow Q?
Did you see that Tom Hanks and his wife have coronavirus?
Q has always said, these people are sick.
Q also said that the first arrest would be big.
Tom Hanks was in big.
Why shut down Italy and cancel masses?
Vatican pedo ring.
NBA players get coronavirus.
Both announced right after the president's speech.
Time?
9-11.
98% sure that this message was sincere?
Really fascinating to me.
closes. Corruption. Watch, watch, watch for more. The storm is here. The virus is not
being contracted by children because we are saving the children. 98% sure that this message
was sincere. Really fascinating to me. We're all familiar with the QAnon folks, the QAnon
and conspiracy. But to see how the conspiracy theorist's mind constructs connections and
narratives is always very interesting to me.
So Q, Q is the secret government agent, I think.
If I'm familiar with that, I may be wrong with it.
I think the theory is that there's this guy named Q, he's a secret government agent.
He's on a mission to fight the evil global pedophile cabal.
And Donald Trump is also part, maybe Trump is Q, maybe?
Is that the theory?
I don't know.
But there's Q and then there's Trump and together they're fighting this global cabal of pedophiles.
and they're passing along clues and hints through message boards and like Reddit,
little breadcrumbs to let everybody know what's going on.
So we know that Q at some point on Reddit or on some message board said,
these people are sick, talking about Hollywood.
And then eventually, what do you know?
Tom Hanks gets sick.
And he said, the first arrest will be big.
Tom Hanks was in big.
Now, Tom Hanks wasn't arrested, actually.
He just got sick.
But still, who cares?
We're rolling.
Let's go with it.
Don't worry about it.
Don't worry about the details.
We're going with this thing, okay?
And then Italy.
Why was Italy locked down?
Well, I think it's because they're being ravaged by a disease.
No, that's not it.
It's the pedo ring.
What is that?
I mean, how do you explain?
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Like I said, we're rolling.
And then the NBA shuts down, and that was announced at 9.11 p.m.
What's the significance of that?
Actually, it's not true.
It was announced at like 9.30, but forget about that.
Don't worry about it.
What's the significance?
Well, because 9.11 is like September 11th.
Why would the NBA choose to suspend its season at exactly 9.11?
I mean, even if they were involved in some kind of secret pedo-ring, and this was tied to 9-11 somehow, which isn't explained how exactly, why would they leave a breadcrumb for the QAnon people to see by saying, no, let's announce this right at 9-11.
That'll be good.
Well, because the whole world is one big movie, basically, in the minds of these people.
And this is what bad guys do in movies, and so this is what they do in real life.
See, as human beings, our minds are really good at doing two things especially.
Constructing meaning and locating patterns.
The problem is that sometimes these functions go into hyperdrive and completely override the rational parts of our brain.
And you end up in that case with something like QAnon.
With people who find patterns everywhere and can invent entire film plots out of the most meaningless coincidences.
And if they can't find a coincidence, they can always just make up a coincidence and then create a story around it and believe the story.
That's the most fascinating thing.
With a lot of these conspiracy theories, the conspiracy theorists, many times they trade in just taking meaningless coincidences and building stories out of them.
But sometimes they'll just make up details that aren't even true.
And then convince themselves that it is true, and then build a story around it based on nothing, and convince themselves that the story's true too.
The human mind is quite an incredible place.
Let's go to why I'm wrong.
This is someone criticizing my porn stance, but from the right.
Doesn't happen very often.
This is from Dominic, says, Hi Matt, I love your show.
So this is coming from a fan, not a hater.
I heard your show about regulating porn.
I have to say I was disappointed.
Porn should be fully banned.
Advocating for crimes such as porn to be regulated is morally wrong.
The same holds true for abortion.
You don't regulate God's enduring commands.
Pretend to submit a scenario where rape is legal in America.
You want to follow God, so you start protesting.
No rape after 8 p.m.
You're implying that rape is okay before 8 p.m.
Likewise with porn.
If you say that people shouldn't be allowed to watch it when they're young, you're implying that they should be allowed to watch it when they're old.
When you regulate a crime, you make it seem more presentable and respectable.
That's like how abortion is in America.
We fight for regulations, then the abortion industry starts to comply with them and look more professional.
I've done sidewalk ministry outside of Planned Parenthood for my entire life, and I've seen how regulations have made abortion mills much more professional-looking.
Total backfire.
The same will happen if we regulate porn.
Implementing regulations just prunes the evil weed while strengthening its root.
Not one jot or tittle should pass from Christ's law or morality.
By regulating evil, you're compromising on his everlasting word.
Do not teach your followers that it is better for pornhub to be regulated.
I know you'd like to see porn abolished, so stand for that.
When Christ comes to rule with a rod of iron, will he regulate porn or will he abolish it?
Will he thank you for regulating this abomination, or will he be upset that you weren't firm enough to advocate solely for its immediate abolition?
Well, Dominic, as you know, I am in favor of a porn ban, and I've made that case elsewhere.
I've made it pretty clear.
I think everybody knows that about me.
You make the case on religious grounds.
Of course, I agree with your religious case, but when you're advocating for an actual law, for an actual real-life law that can really be passed in the United States of America under our system, You can't do it by saying it's in keeping with Christ's commands.
Because somebody will rightly point out that making laws that establish a religion, a state religion, and a law banning porn on the basis that it's unbiblical would certainly be that, are unconstitutional.
And so you have to work within the law.
You can't just throw the Constitution to the side.
So that's not going to happen.
You can't, if you're advocating for a law to ban porn, the argument of Jesus hates it, which he does, and you know, among Christians as a moral argument, I think it's a very good one.
But in terms of actually trying to get something done in real life, that's not going to do it.
We literally cannot pass a law on that basis.
That would be unconstitutional.
Now, So, what's the point, though?
What's the point of your argument?
What's the point of what you're saying?
And I'm not trying to be cynical or anything in interpreting what you're doing here, but it does seem a little bit like advertising your holiness rather than actually trying to accomplish something.
So that's my issue.
When I advocate for a porn ban, I don't do it on a religious basis.
I think you can make the case without making it a religious case, and that's how it must be approached if you actually want a chance of it really happening.
Now, as for the regulation part of this, this goes to the question of incremental gains.
Should we as conservatives seek incremental improvements, or should we insist on total victory, and reject smaller victories until we get the big one we're looking for?
Those are the two options.
Now, to me, this is clear.
We maintain our principled position and our opposition to the thing, but we accept incremental gains and improvements.
Of course we do.
If there was a 20-week abortion ban that was about to be passed in a state, would you oppose it?
Would you actually oppose it?
Would you say, no, I don't want that 20-week abortion ban?
I guess you would.
You would say, better to have no abortion ban than a 20-week ban.
But that's completely unreasonable and counterproductive and wrong, I think, because a 20-week abortion ban isn't nearly good enough at all.
I wouldn't be satisfied with it.
I wouldn't be complacent about it.
But that would save lives.
It would save a lot of lives.
And so if you say, I don't want that, you're throwing those lives out.
You're saying they're not worth it to save.
I'm not going to let people die on the basis of my, you know, all or nothing principle.
I'm not going to stamp my feet and say, no, I won't accept this, this measure that will save lives because it isn't everything I want.
I'm not going to do that.
On porn, I want a ban, yes.
But that's not happening right now.
Probably can't happen right now, considering Supreme Court decisions that touch on this issue.
It's very dubious whether a full-on ban, which is what I would like to see happen, could actually even pass.
So, then what do we do?
I'm a big believer in operating within reality.
Because we have no choice but to do that, right?
I still think we should insist that a full ban ultimately, in principle, is right, but why not chip away at the problem?
If we can't ban porn, which we can't right now, but we can potentially protect millions of 8-year-olds from seeing it, from being exposed to it, and traumatized by it, why wouldn't we do that?
Are you going to let those 8-year-olds get exposed to porn on principle?
Are you going to stand on principle and say, well, yeah, we could protect them, we're not going to though, because it's not everything we want.
If we can't protect the older people, we're not going to protect the kids.
All or nothing.
You say that regulations only make something seem more acceptable.
I don't think that's true.
Smoking, cigarette smoking, is much less common now than it used to be.
I'm not saying that's all because of regulations, but it was regulated heavily, and the message was sent that this is a bad, dumb, stupid thing to do, and it's going to get you killed.
And it's now much less prevalent than it used to be, especially among younger people.
Younger people, for the most part, aren't smoking cigarettes.
Now, they are still smoking other things, but as far as cigarettes go, Not nearly as common as it used to be.
So, I think your claim that regulation is going to automatically make the thing more acceptable and more appealing in some ways, I don't think that holds up to scrutiny.
I don't think it really works that way.
The abortion industry, as far as regulations go, they oppose regulation.
Now, if regulations help them in some sort of counterproductive way for us, you'd think that they would embrace regulation.
They don't.
Why don't they embrace it?
Well, because they know that regulations are going to get in the way.
It's going to prevent them from doing everything they want to do, which means, i.e., it's going to save lives.
And they also know that, I think they know, that the more this thing is regulated, and the more we treat it like something potentially dangerous and serious and harmful, the worse it's going to be for them.
They want it to be completely unregulated.
They don't want regulations anywhere near it.
Because then they can present it as, hey, it's just a medical procedure, no big deal.
Right?
It's just like getting your tooth pulled.
We don't need a ton of regulations for that.
That's the way they want to present it.
Now, you doing your great work outside of the abortion clinic, the regulations that you run up against are mostly, like, I'm sure I don't have to tell you, but the regulations that are regulations on you, telling you that you can't be within X amount of feet of the Of the abortion clinic and that sort of thing.
Now, yes, those are regulations that the abortion clinic is happy about, but those are regulations meant to make it easier for them to do their job.
So I think that's a totally different scenario.
Anyway, thanks for all your work you do, though, in the pro-life cause.
We're certainly on the same side.
And thanks for the email.
And everyone, have a great weekend.
Godspeed.
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