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April 5, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:15:14
Arrested
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hi everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
Good to be with you.
Holy Weekend for Jews and Christians.
The great lack of young Americans' lives is religion.
It is the direct cause, not only cause, but direct cause of all the depression, lost sense of identity as a person.
They now have identity as a gender.
Or a race.
Do you realize how we have declined?
You're no longer a Jew or a Christian religiously.
You identify as a male.
Wow.
That's big.
That is big.
And for those of you who are celebrating Passover or Easter, you know that The importance of having something else in life than the political and the social is life-saving.
Tonight is the Seder, the oldest ongoing ritual probably, I assume, on Earth.
What could be older?
Maybe there's a Hindu ritual that's older.
I don't want to be completely precise.
But I don't know of one.
And it has been the source of the Jews' survival 2,000 years outside of their homeland.
We Americans are having a very difficult time surviving in our homeland.
I might give you an idea of how difficult it is to survive outside of your homeland.
The most important, well not the most important, there are many important aspects of this.
Of these charges against Donald Trump, this unprecedented arresting of an ex-president and the leader of the opposition in the United States.
The president of El Salvador spoke about this.
Did you hear about that?
I heard it on Tucker Carlson.
The president of El Salvador said that this was reminiscent of what happens in his part of the world with dictatorships.
I want to get the full statement of the president of El Salvador.
And he said, America can no longer preach democracy in the world.
And he's very sad about it.
It wasn't an anti-American statement.
That's why I said, all those of you who say, well, the Ukrainian government is corrupt, so we can't aid it.
Well, the American government is corrupt.
Do you think the American government, under the Democrats, under the left, is less corrupt than the Ukrainian government?
I don't.
And this is a perfect example.
34 counts with no crime.
What is the crime?
You can't identify it.
Try to say it to me.
By the way, 34 counts repeated, basically, the one count, whatever it is.
It becomes a felony, and a very low-grade felony at that, not worthy of disrupting the American political system.
And government was that there was a cover-up for an underlying crime, but Bragg, who is a combination of a fool and a bad human being, refuses to say, what is that underlying crime?
If judges in New York City were actually...
Judges who ruled according to the rule of law, this case would simply be thrown out.
But here is my take on this.
This is a great test, like the Russian collusion hoax.
This is the indictment hoax.
And it will be a great test of the commitment to truth, honor, and decency on the part of every liberal...
The left is lost, but every liberal, all right, if you will, left as well, columnist, pundit, newspaper, site on the internet site, it is the test.
Has the Washington Post come out in support of this indictment?
I know the New York Times did.
As I said yesterday, I got a kick out of this.
They say to those of us who opposed the indictment from the beginning, you haven't even seen it, and you're opposing it.
Well, they hadn't even seen it, and they supported it.
Lack of self-awareness is one of the distinguishing traits of the left.
There is a part of me that thinks that what they're really aiming to do I think some of them think that he would be easier to defeat than some of the other candidates.
I have no proof.
There is no way to prove it.
But they are ensuring, at least as it stands now, that he will be the nominee.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend would prevail here for people Not necessarily think of Donald Trump as an enemy, but simply who didn't support him, but who understands that the left is destroying this country on a daily basis, and they will thereby support Donald Trump.
It's a very sad, very sad day.
I recorded my fireside chat for PragerU yesterday.
283rd in a row, I believe.
Did them all during the lockdowns and COVID didn't miss a week.
I missed one week in 283. I would have done it, but I had COVID and we didn't think it was fair to the young people who come over to video me to have them exposed to my COVID. Although they probably would have gone, but PragerU didn't want to risk it, and I totally understood that.
But I couldn't care less for me.
And frankly, I would have said, you choose, and I don't think it posed a danger to any healthy young person, period, end of issue.
It was very difficult for me to do my fireside chat because I speak mostly to young people, hundreds of thousands of them every week.
I don't want in any way to depress them.
A big part of my message to young people is don't walk around depressed.
But what am I going to say?
We have crossed, as everybody uses the Roman Empire phrase, we have crossed the Rubicon.
And I'm sorry to say this, but I do believe that this is something that...
Republicans should engage in.
I know people say, well, we should take the honorable route.
Why is it not honorable to indict Democrats who have committed real crimes?
I would not have done that, and I never supported it until now.
But if you don't threaten people with what they have done, why will they stop?
Until it becomes a farce, until we become indistinguishable from what are called banana republics, basically the Central European dictatorships that existed for much of Central American history.
I've got to get you the line of the El Salvadorian president.
It could make you cry.
It's hard to say how can we preach any values any longer when we don't practice them.
because the left everywhere is a totalitarian force.
Let's see if the New York Times Does the New York Times have a headline today?
I mean, not headline.
Does it have an editorial?
No, they don't have an editorial.
Yeah, look, look, look at this.
We finally know the case against Trump and it is strong.
There's nothing novel or weak about Alvin Bragg's case.
That's what they have here.
Yeah, absolutely.
See, what about the editorial page?
Yeah, that's their opinion page.
Do they not have an editorial page here?
What happened to their editorial page?
Well, they had an editorial on it earlier.
Yeah, where they completely supported it.
And let's see, what about the good old USA Today?
Let's see.
Arrested.
The top half of the entire page is a picture of Donald Trump and his attorneys arrested.
Yes.
Let's see.
Trump's arraignment is an embarrassing chapter in our history.
Yes, that's one of the few.
I think he's one of the few columnists who isn't a leftist.
I think like 5% of their columnists.
Rex Hupke.
Yeah.
Well, no, I guess not.
Alright, we'll find out.
Back in a moment.
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This is a very, very sad day.
El Salvador president blasts Trump indictment.
The name of the president of El Salvador.
Naib Bukele.
I don't know how to pronounce it.
B-U-K-E-L-E. Naib Bukele.
It's pronounced Bukele?
What does he know?
He's from Colombia.
I can't believe it.
What, do you see all Latinx as the same?
I hope we're saying Latinx, by the way, at the Prager Show.
Do you know that I saw Latinx the other day?
I think it was a Harvard site.
You know, it's actually Latinx.
Latinx.
No, no.
I said Latinx for a while, and I was corrected over and over.
And then I said, originally I said Latinx because I thought it was a Latin Kleenex.
And so, Sean, put in L-A-T-I-N-X. See how the computer pronounces it.
So what is it, Bukele?
Yeah, Bukele.
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, said, Think what you want about former President Trump and the reasons he's being indicted.
This was a tweet.
But just imagine if this happened in any other country where a government arrested the main opposition candidate.
The United States' ability to use democracy.
Quote-unquote.
As foreign policy is gone.
Latinx.
That's right.
Latinx.
You hear that?
Yeah, it's Latinx, my friends.
Latinx.
Anybody who uses the term is a fool, and it's a gift to everyone in their life that in one fell swoop they have announced What a sheep-like person they are.
Do you know the overwhelming majority of Latinos object to Latinx?
Did you know that?
Yeah.
Of course they do.
It's insulting.
You're Latinx?
Latinx.
Right.
Latinx.
That's what I said.
Latin Kleenex.
The president of El Salvador hit the nail on the head, my friends.
That's correct.
If any other country had done it, it would have been condemned as a third-world corrupt regime, the arresting the head of the opposition.
But the New York Times is for it.
By the way, got to give credit where it is due.
The Washington Post editorial page is not for it.
Well, that's a very, very interesting development on the left.
The New York Times stinks.
The New York Times is a failure.
It's a moral, intellectual failure.
It's an interesting question.
There's no way to know in some cases.
But if the New York Times ceased to publish, would the world have more truth or more lies governing its life?
Would it be a net moral gain or a net moral loss?
Given how influential the New York Times is with all the other left-wing sites, that they often get their guideline on how to report the news from the New York Times.
It would appear to me that it would be a net gain for the moral state of mankind.
Which is amazing because I started out life adoring the newspaper.
When I moved in my 20s, I moved from New York to California.
I subscribed to the New York Times.
There was no internet then.
I subscribed to the physical paper.
I'll never forget how it arrived.
First of all, it arrived about four days late.
It was a physical paper.
It was wrapped in brown paper.
And very often I would get two or three at a time.
It wouldn't come on a regular basis.
It came two or three at a time.
That's how attached I was to the New York Times.
Like everything else, the left has ruined the Times.
The Times was always left of center.
And there were massive...
Periods of time where truth was not its primary value.
Like in the 1930s with regard to the Ukraine famine induced, not induced, created by Stalin.
But it was a better newspaper than it is today.
It is what it is.
And it is clear what it is.
All right, let us see here.
Yeah, here we go.
Doug in Los Angeles, hello.
Yes, sir.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi.
It is nice to talk to you.
I love the show.
Can I just please say that I discovered you and Larry Elder approximately 22 years ago, and I've been hooked ever since.
I wish that you could have been my high school teachers.
I learned a lot from you.
I love PragerU, and I agree.
Most of the time with everything you have to say.
And I know that you're using it in a funny way, but Latinx or Latinx is garbage.
As a Latino, I can tell you that none of us that are not woke want that word.
Good.
I know that.
I just announced that.
The question is, will enough Latinos...
Take that realization to the polls in the next election.
I hope so.
Yeah, well, okay.
I hope so, too.
To be so used by a group, that's all they are.
Latinos are being used.
Their very name is insulted, and many will still vote Democrat.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here.
I have said for years that if there is a renaissance in the Christian world, it may well be led, in fact I think probably would be led by Africans, by African Christians.
And in light of that, I have an African Christian on the line here.
He's actually right now speaking to us from the United States.
He's the Dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia.
I'm somewhat familiar with his country, having spent some time there.
In fact, I broadcast the show from there once.
He has a recent book.
It's called Fault Lines, The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism.
It's Looming Catastrophe.
And it comes with a separate study guide.
All of it is available.
The book is available at Amazon and the study guide at SalemNow.com.
Fault Lines, The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe.
And his name is Votie Bauckham, Jr. Bauckham is B-A-U-C-H-A-M. And he insisted I call him Vody, which is remarkable since I insisted he call me Mr. Prager.
That was a joke.
My guests are not always used to my...
Oh, we froze.
We froze there for a second.
Sorry.
Okay.
Was the froze technical or emotional?
Not sure.
Right, exactly.
Well, what is your cry from the heart?
To distill it into a minute or so, what are you telling the world?
He's frozen there, gentlemen.
I'm not sure why we're continuing to use something that doesn't work.
But I will add that to the four questions asked at the Passover Seder.
There will be a fifth.
The book is Fault Lines, The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe.
There is a seriousness of purpose among Catholics and Protestants in Africa.
They have not yet become woke.
In fact, he has a very strong critique of the critical race theory movement.
He has a line that's amazing.
It shows you.
Okay.
You have a line, sir, I was just about to say while we were trying to reconnect with you, that you have a line that it proves something I have so often said, how those of us who are biblically based, whether Christian or Jew, Protestant or Catholic, our values are virtually identical, where you say social justice is not biblical justice.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let me say first that I am actually an American.
I'm an American missionary living in...
We're losing him again, gentlemen.
Serving.
Yeah, it's breaking up, guys.
We'll give it one more try here, Voti, and we'll just get back to you later if it isn't working.
I really want people to hear you properly.
Okay.
Go ahead, yeah?
You got me?
You got me?
I don't know how long.
All right, so you're an American who you're now living in Zambia.
Yes, for the last seven and a half years.
Okay, fine.
And you're...
You're the head of this African Christian college.
You're the head of the School of Divinity.
Yes, at African Christian University.
I actually went there to help start the university.
Okay, continue, please.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, gentlemen, we'll have to try him later.
No, no, no, I'm sorry.
Vody, it's not fair to you that we keep breaking up.
We'll just have to do something.
That we're going to call you on the phone.
I don't know why you guys tried Skype again.
It clearly is not working.
Folks, my patience is tested rarely because I'm very patient.
But on technical matters, I have very little patience.
We owe it to our guests to do it right.
We owe it to you, our listeners, and I feel that very strongly.
In any event, I was saying to you, That he has hit the nail on the head.
You either believe in leftism or you believe in Judeo-Christian values.
They are antipathies.
Period.
End of issue.
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All right, everybody, Dennis Prager here, and we have Vody Bulkem back, Dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia.
There's a book, Fault Lines, The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe.
So what I like to do with people like you is bounce off my theories and have you react to them.
I tell all guests it is completely acceptable to completely differ with me, partially differ with me, or agree with me.
My take in a nutshell is that...
Leftist ideology, which is the antithesis, as I was saying, of biblical values, has everything it touches it destroys, and that includes religion, and it has deeply infected and affected Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism.
Would you react to that?
I agree completely, and I think that it's intentional.
Especially when you talk about Marxism, whether it's classical Marxism or neo-Marxism, both are vehemently, not only atheistic, but anti-religious and anti-Christian.
So it only makes sense that ideologies and worldviews that are born out of that soil would have the negative impact and the deleterious effect that they have on Jewish Christians.
Others, for that matter.
So why has African Christianity somewhat remained impervious to this destructive influence?
It really hasn't.
Marxism is prevalent in African Christianity as well, as well as in broader African culture.
In broader African culture, it's a byproduct of the influence of...
The U.N., the World Bank, and others.
And, you know, I always say, with shekels come shackles.
So you see a lot of people...
That's a good line.
Hold on, I want to memorize that.
With shekels come shackles.
That is exactly correct.
Yeah, so you see a lot of influence as a direct result of, you know, that monetary input from the West.
So, in a nutshell, tell me this.
I'd like you to explain, if it's explicable, why the vast majority of black Americans vote for what is the opposite of many of their own values and certainly the values of Christianity.
Yeah, it's a worldview and perspective issue.
And it's interesting for me to talk to...
Friends and family members and talk to them about issues on which we agree and talk to people who are relatively conservative socially but who are absolutely committed to and absolutely bought into the idea that the government's role is that of helping and aiding and rescuing and that there's a party out there that will help and will aid and will rescue.
There's also...
You know, this wholesale buying into the idea that republicanism is white and it's racist and it's greedy and, you know, so on and so forth.
So, you know, I don't get it.
And even, you know, having conversations with people, it's difficult to break through.
Yeah, that's correct.
It's difficult to break through.
It's such a fascinating thing.
Republicanism is white.
So therefore, it's wrong.
A, why is that not 100%, not 90, but 100% racist?
B, why isn't that stupid?
What if somebody said, the NBA is overwhelmingly black, I'm not going to watch games.
Why would that be any different?
Yeah.
It's not different, but it's...
Because we've been fed this idea for years that black people and minorities in general can't be racist.
And that's rooted in neo-Marxism.
It's rooted in cultural Marxism that views the world through this oppressor-oppressed paradigm.
Racism comes from the oppressor class and white people.
That's right.
You really know it.
It's a joy to talk to you.
What would you like people to get?
Your study guide and book?
What are you promoting?
Because I want people to get it.
Yeah, so the book's been out for a while now, and it's done very well.
It was an international bestseller, and a lot of people are just trying to figure out how to have conversations about it.
We put together the video series, the video curriculum, so that people could do that, so that you could get the videos, you can get the PDFs of the workbook, work through this as groups, and have the conversations that the left has been talking about but afraid to have.
And where do people get the study guide?
SalemNow.com.
Yeah, they go there and you get the video curriculum and download the free PDF of...
Excellent.
Please do that, folks, and please get his book.
It's up at Amazon, and I assume it's SalemNow.com as well.
One final question.
Are you getting invitations at all to African churches, to American black churches?
Not many.
Not many, unfortunately, but on occasion.
On occasion, I do.
Listen.
There are thousands of prophets who haven't bothered to need a bail.
We just don't happen to know their names, but they're out there.
Well, in my view, you're one of them.
Well, it's a joy.
I hope we meet in person one day.
Votie Buckham, thank you so much.
Again, folks, SalemNow.com, the study guide to his book.
And the book itself is a very important one.
And that is...
Fault Lines, the Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe.
Thank you, sir, and God bless you.
Appreciate it.
It is one of the great lessons of our time is the power of the irrational in secular life.
And for that matter, religious life.
Back in a moment.
Dr. Fussbend.
Are you listening, doctor?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, go on, go on.
Hello, everybody.
Male, female hour.
Every Wednesday, the second hour of the Dennis Prager Show.
The most honest talk I know of about men and women in the American media.
If there is more honest talk somewhere, I salute it.
Simple as that.
Because that's what we need, but people are not honest about male-female issues because people are intimidated by a whole host of groups from saying the truth and what is on their minds.
That's a big problem.
And the opposition comes from the left, comes from the right, comes from religious, comes from secular.
People don't want to talk.
Real about men and women in many, many instances.
Because it is so painful.
Today's subject, I don't believe I've ever actually addressed on a male-female hour.
I'm not sure I've addressed it on any hour.
Midlife crisis.
So you can start calling in very shortly.
Have you or your spouse experienced or are experiencing now a midlife crisis?
And what happened?
1-8 Prager 776-877-243-7776 My theory is that it is overwhelmingly a male issue.
And that may be wrong, but I... I think anybody who uses the term midlife crisis has a man in mind.
I don't mean a specific man has men in mind.
My theory on men's midlife crisis, which comes at around the age of 50, I guess, but it's a very elastic age, is man wakes up one day and says, this is it.
This is what I have achieved.
The odds are it's not going to get much more successful than it is now, my career, to a much larger extent than women.
It is innate for men to define themselves more by their vocation than it is for women, although feminism has tried to change that, and to a large extent it has been successful.
Nevertheless, I don't think the midlife crisis has quite as loomed, as damaging, and as ubiquitous among women as it is among men.
So if you or your spouse have experienced a midlife crisis, I would very much like to hear from you.
You will be doing a service to the listeners and to me.
I want to know your experience.
This is my living laboratory of humanity, my talk show, and this subject is one example of that.
Why don't we sort of cartoonishly, but not inaccurately, identify as a man having a midlife crisis?
That he gets himself a red Porsche, right?
Or what's the Chevy Corvette?
So, you know what I did once on the male-female hour?
I should do it again.
It was very interesting.
Is it tougher for men to get old or women to get old?
A case could be made in either direction.
It was interesting that...
It seemed to be, and this is by far not scientific, but there seemed to be a general consensus that it was tougher for men.
My initial instinct was that it was tougher for women.
Yeah, women outlive men.
That doesn't prove in either direction.
I don't know why that's...
No, if it was tougher for women to get older, then they would die earlier.
That's what I'm hearing in my earphones.
But I don't think one has to do anything with the other.
I think that women outlive men in large measure because they are healthier.
They're configured to live longer.
I don't know if it's a psychological issue.
Whether it is or not, Nevertheless, I did think that, and the callers seemed to be in the other camp, that it was harder for men.
I heard once a very, by the way, the phone number is 877-243-776, 1-8 Prager-776.
Did you or your spouse, or are you or your spouse experiencing a midlife crisis?
I once heard a very...
Apt take on this matter.
When a man has an affair with a much younger woman, it is not her youth, he is after it is his youth.
That was a very, very good line.
When the guy gets a Corvette, Or Porsche, which by the way doesn't mean that he's having a midlife crisis, but it is suggestive.
And the reason that we mention that is we think of the driver of a Corvette as a young man.
And so he identifies that with his youth and he wants to reassert that he's young and free.
And can attract women because men attract women not by their attractiveness as much as by the attractiveness of their car, meaning the attractiveness of their bank account and their car, but the car as revealing the bank account.
Generally speaking, male money is to women what female looks are to men.
In case you thought that men were too looks-oriented, which to a certain extent is true, the women, you could say, are too money-oriented, which is to a certain extent true.
But the point is that they are not seeking the same thing.
Women older than 20. And certainly then 25 or 30 aren't primarily looking for really good-looking men.
A, because there aren't that many, especially in the heterosexual arena.
And B, because that's not what turns women on.
Brains, humor, confidence, those are the turn-ons.
Much more than the guy is gorgeous.
Otherwise, women would all be staring at male models.
In the newspaper or on the internet, and they tend not to be.
So, did you or your spouse have a midlife crisis?
As I understand that crisis, it is, as I said earlier, and we'll develop a bit more now while the calls come in.
Wow, is this where I ended up?
I thought that at 50...
I would be in the following position in my field.
I thought at 50 I would be making the following, earning the following income.
And lo and behold, life seems to have zoomed by.
You get to 50 very quickly.
As anybody who has gotten to 50 can testify to.
Well, how did I get to 50 so early?
I remember when I was in high school, I was thinking a lot about how old will I be in the year 2000, which loomed so much in the distance.
And I said, oh my God, I'll be 51 years old.
No, no, 52. 52 years old.
And I thought, oh man, that is so, so far from now.
And it turns out to have not been that far from now.
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All right, male, female, our...
Have you or your spouse experienced or experiencing now a midlife crisis?
What is it?
Did you get through it?
Are you getting through it?
And let's go to Lisa in Pittston, Pennsylvania.
Hello, Lisa.
Hi, Dennis.
How are you?
Okay, thank you.
Yes, I myself went through...
A terrible midlife crisis.
At what age?
50. I turned 50 and I went crazy.
Wow.
I don't know what happened.
I went out.
I got two tattoos.
I bought a firearm.
I never shot a gun in my life.
I never had a tattoo in my life.
I started working out like crazy.
Lost, I don't know, 60 pounds.
I just went crazy.
Well, the loss of 60 pounds sounds like it was a good thing.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I went from like a size 8 maybe down to a 0. So I think I was too skinny.
Yeah, that sounds like almost anorexia in an adult.
So were you married at the time?
I was not.
Yeah, that's what I suspected.
I wonder if married women...
See, this is an interesting...
That's why I love doing this show because you forced me to think this through.
I think that...
Married men are more likely to have a midlife crisis, even if they're happily married.
But I wonder if a happily married woman is likely to have a midlife crisis.
So you woke up at 50, and you said in effect to yourself, you know, what's going on with my life?
I think so.
I've had friends that suggest that maybe it was...
Like menopause, like things, like a hormone problem.
So maybe that had something to do with it?
I don't know.
How old are you now?
Now I'm going to be 57 in a few weeks, and I just, in about a month, and I think I just kind of talked myself down off the ledge after a while.
I did my crazy things.
If I may ask, where are the tattoos?
How visible are they?
On my shoulders.
I didn't go that crazy.
I wanted to be able to hide them.
There's one on each shoulder.
So I'm curious.
This is not entirely the issue, but I am curious.
Right now, how do you feel about the tattoos?
I guess I don't mind them because they're not really out.
They don't really show.
Right, but if you could wave a magic wand and they disappeared, would you wave the wand or keep them?
You know what?
I think I would keep them, and I appreciate what happened to me, because it was empowering.
What I did empowered me, like shooting a gun for the first time in my life empowered me.
I ended up leaving a job that I had for 27 years that I hated.
And I'm doing something totally different, and it enabled me to, I think, grow as a person.
I think it felt like a bad time at the time, but I think ultimately, now that I'm on the other side of it, I wouldn't take it back.
That's fascinating.
Were you ever married?
Yes.
Did you have children?
Yes, I have two wonderful grown children.
How did they react to your midlife crisis?
Well, let me just say they live away.
My son lived in Tampa at the time, and my daughter lives in New York City.
So they didn't experience it directly?
No, my son is kind of my...
My son took some crazy phone calls from me, including me saying, I better put the house in your name because I'm going crazy.
I don't know what could happen.
I might get arrested.
Yeah, you were really hit.
Yeah, so my son, I was in a bad place.
All right.
Listen, I thank you.
This was a very informative call.
I mean, she really hit the nail on the head with 50. That's what I said.
It happens at 50. I mean, obviously, give or take a few years.
It's interesting.
I'd like to know how many women who are relatively happily married does it happen to, and how many men who are relatively happily married does it happen to?
I think that it would be far more relatively happily married men who would be affected by it.
Okay, let's see.
Wow, here's someone going through it.
Scott in Prescott, Arizona.
Hello.
Hello.
Hi.
I hope you can hear me all right.
I do.
Yeah, I mean, ask me a question and I don't know where to begin.
All right, I'll help you.
How old are you?
58. Are you married?
Not anymore.
I was married for 22 years, been divorced for probably 10. I didn't write that date on the calendar, so I don't know exactly.
So you got divorced in your late 40s?
Yes, and what's funny about that now is she lives in Wisconsin, and she's trying to get me to move back there to help her out.
So are you undergoing this midlife crisis at this time?
Yeah, and I don't even know if it's a midlife crisis.
It's just depression and, I mean, about, I don't know, a week ago, I was feeling like that lady who just got off the phone that I had to talk myself off the ledge, which, I mean, I don't, I won't ever step that far over.
You know, I would never...
Right, I get you, but you felt it.
Yeah, wow.
All right, folks.
It's important that you call.
I want to ask you questions, and I want people to hear what you have to say.
Midlife Crisis, 1-8-Prager-776.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show, the male-female hour, second hour every Wednesday.
Is midlife crisis.
Did you have one?
Did your spouse have one?
What is it?
What happened?
And it is clear that it exists.
It is not a popular term with no substantial meat behind it.
It really does take place.
And we've heard from people who have had it.
Let's go now to Anna in Los Angeles.
Hello, Anna.
Hi.
Hi.
Thank you.
Love talking.
Love your show.
Thank you.
Good.
Yeah, I was with my ex-husband for, we met in college.
We were together for over 20 years.
Married for 10, but right before he turned 50. And we had young kids.
Started going out until all hours of the night, multiple times a week, during the week.
Part of it, you know, got a nice car and all of that, but I think what really made me sad was how I handled it, and I didn't handle it well, and we ended up divorced.
What do you mean you didn't handle it well?
I was just angry all the time about it, and I felt like once the kids came, he started going out, and I was left with the kids.
What did he do when he went out?
Went out with friends, went to bars, went to who knows, those types of things.
At the age of 45, he did not do that?
He did, but not as bad.
Like I said, once the kids came, we would always go out with friends and everything, but once the kids came, it got worse.
So, yeah.
And when you say you didn't handle it well, what are you blaming yourself for having done or not done?
Not handling it better.
Not trying to be understanding or maybe empathetic or trying to work with him a little bit more.
Instead, I just was angry all the time about it and just became the angry wife.
How many days a week would he go out at night?
Three to four.
For the record, I'd be angry too.
Just thought I should share that with you.
Yeah.
We need to talk that.
That's a great topic for a male-female hour.
Oh, good.
I'm mentioning it to you and I'm mentioning it to my producer.
about a spouse going out at night.
Yeah.
See, I think to a large extent people react to that in the way they were raised.
My parents, I don't think there was a night in my 20 years of living in their house that either spouse went out alone at night.
So it's very, very strange to me.
And unless I have a speech, I have a...
In which case, nearly every single time my wife comes with me anyway.
So I don't relate to that, but I'm not going to judge it.
No, yeah.
But if it's three or four nights a week, I think that is an issue.
I don't blame you for being upset.
So how long are you now separated or divorced?
Divorced for seven, eight years.
I mean, no, no, no, no.
Separated.
We were separated five years and divorced now three years.
Did he want the divorce?
Not initially, I don't think.
We took a year of trying to figure it out, but we couldn't figure it out.
Did you ever say, look, you're leaving me three, four nights a week.
To have fun with others is troubling.
Did you say that, or did you just yell at him?
Both.
And what was his answer?
He just, he, God, what was his answer?
He didn't really have an answer.
He was just like, I'm going out, and sometimes he would go out.
I'd say, hey, can I go with you?
Can we get a babysitter?
And he'd be like, no, it's just the guys tonight.
And later I found out that there were some parties where we had mutual friends and they were like, why didn't you come?
And I said I didn't know about it.
Wow, that's humiliating.
Yeah.
Are you happy you divorced?
Nobody's happy about divorce, but are you happy you got divorced?
Yes and no.
I miss...
Being married, I miss having a husband and all of that.
Well, you sound like a healthy woman.
But, yeah.
But it was a good thing in the end.
Right.
Are you dating?
Trying.
It's awful.
It's terrible.
Yeah, that's another story.
Anyway, as I said, you sound pretty healthy to me.
I wish you only good luck.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to or back to the Dennis Prager Show.
Hi.
To be very candid with you, one of my favorite Americans is on the line with me.
He is also a candidate for President of the United States, Vivek Rabaswamy.
I've gotten to meet him on a number of occasions at PragerU events.
And I am very impressed with this man.
And it is good to talk to him about anything.
We'll talk about what is going on right now.
Vivek, welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show.
Dennis, it's good to be back.
How are you?
Well, my answer for about three years has been better than my country.
Yeah, I can feel you on that, Dennis, because you speak truth, and you live a life of purpose and meaning as an individual.
But as a nation, we have lost our sense of purpose.
And so that makes a lot of sense to me.
And you take a day like today, the day after a presidential candidate and former president of the United States was arrested and arraigned on the back of politicized charges.
And this is someone I'm running against, by the way.
That is a shame and a stain on our nation.
But I am sick and tired of just complaining about the problem.
I think it's time that we rise to the occasion and deliver solutions.
And that is what I'm pledging to do, and I have some ideas on how to do it.
I believe you could, to be perfectly honest.
You know, you gave the, obviously, one of the most thoughtful responses to a line I give to many guests when they ask me how I am.
It's the American way of saying, hello, how are you?
And I say, better than my country, and they laugh.
It's meant to elicit a laugh.
It's a dark laugh, but it's a laugh.
But you've thought this through.
Did you, by any chance, and I don't expect that you did, but did you happen to see or just even be aware of what the president of El Salvador said about what was done to Donald Trump?
I did not.
I saw the president of Mexico, but not El Salvador, no.
Oh, what did the president of Mexico say?
He said it was a politicized prosecution, and they're trying to get Trump not to run because they want Biden to win the election.
So that was what Obrador had to say.
Really?
That is fascinating.
The president of El Salvador said entirely accurately that if this happened in any other country, we would dismiss that country as being a free country, as a democracy, and that the United States cannot preach democracy anymore because it's not practicing its values.
That's right.
And you know what's different, though?
If that other country gets dismissed, that's fine.
The rest of the world still has a beacon of light to look to, which is the United States.
But when the United States itself behaves that way, that's not only the death of the United States, it's the death of hope in the free world as we know it.
But I am not at the place of no return, Dennis.
As bad and as dark as this is, the moment is that we live in, I still believe that with leadership, with moral conviction, and I think that's something we're missing in the conservative movement today.
But with moral authority and moral conviction.
That is why I want to take the American revival, the America First agenda, even further than Donald Trump did.
And he is himself the victim of it today.
But the point is, as badly as I do feel for him, I feel more badly for us as a nation to watch this happen in front of our eyes.
And I think that we need a leader who's able to go the distance to actually dismantle this toxic administrative state.
An administrative police state that's responsible for where we are today.
And we need the spine and moral authority and conviction to actually do it.
I'm happy to tell you about it, but I think it's going to involve shutting down agencies.
I think it's going to involve pardoning people who have been the victims of these politicized crimes.
That includes Donald Trump, by the way.
I just published in the Wall Street Journal about how I'll do this as president.
But I think it's going to require taking some controversial steps, even radical steps, they will say.
But I think we can unify the country by doing it, if we're doing it based on first principles and moral authority, rather than just grievance and vengeance and partisanship.
I tell you, when I hear you speak, you're batting almost a thousand, in my opinion.
And it is a joy to hear that.
What would you dismantle, as an example?
The Department of Education, the EPA, what would you dismantle?
So I've said we need to – there are certain agencies we have to just shut down that have to stay shut down.
The Department of Education is on that list.
It should have never existed.
We spend $83 billion a year on a federal agency that is using our money to get local schools across the country to adopt these radical race and gender ideologies.
It's not just the school boards.
It's actually the federal government creating the incentives for those school boards to adopt wokeness.
I will shut that down.
And by the way, for a quarter of that, less than 25% of that $83 billion, we could put two to three armed security guards to actually secure our kids in every public school across this country.
And for the remainder of it, you want to talk about underfunded school choice?
This is an embarrassment of riches of how much we spend through the U.S. Federal Department of Education.
So that's an example of an agency that should have never existed, that will shut down and should stay shut down.
Separately, though, there's agencies that, well, do you need a federal police enforcement power?
You do.
If you have federal laws, you need some mechanism to enforce them.
But when the agency that does it today has become so rotten and corrupt, the only answer then is to shut that agency down.
And then you need to rebuild something skeleton from scratch, bare bones from scratch to take its place.
And so that's why I've pledged openly.
And you know what?
People have told me to be very careful about this.
I'm here to speak truth regardless.
I will shut down the FBI, and we will create something new that actually respects the Constitution and the law to take its place, rather than viewing the Constitution as a petty inconvenience, which is the culture of today's FBI. It's still the J. Edgar Hoover building, literally.
That's what they walk into today.
It's still J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. And again, Dennis, this is not a partisan issue.
It shouldn't be, at least.
It is today, but it shouldn't be.
It's on first principles that we don't want to live in a country where whether it's James Comey or anybody else, Merrick Garland and the DOJ, whoever it is, should not be able to use and weaponize the police administrative state to advance one side's political agenda.
And that's something that if we're leading with moral authority rather than vengeance and grievance, it's something I want to reawaken in our conservative movement, that sense of moral purpose.
That allows us to go even further than Trump was able to.
That's really where Reagan succeeded.
That's where I'm aiming to succeed starting in 2024. Do you feel that your message is being heard?
It is in the narrow places where I'm delivering it.
In Iowa, New Hampshire, where we've traveled.
I've only been in this presidential race for five weeks.
If we're able to do what we're doing in rooms of 100 or 200 at a time in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, Then I'm convinced we can lead this national revival.
And you know what?
I will happily take President Trump, who's a friend, as an advisor along the way.
I mean, I think that he took on the administrative state or tried to.
I want to learn where he wasn't able to do it so we can actually take this agenda to the next level, further than he ever did.
But that's the question.
Can we take what we're doing in rooms of 100 or 200 at a time, showing up in person?
People come in with one set of views and then they leave.
For me, it's not even about me.
It's about the America First agenda.
It's bigger than any one of us.
It's bigger than Donald Trump.
It's bigger than me.
It's even bigger than the Republican Party.
It's about the country.
This can at once go further than he ever did and unify the country.
That's something people are hungry for.
The question is, does the system, on a national scale, allow for that message to be delivered nationally?
I'm going to do my best, and I'll tell you what I won't do.
Shape what I have to say and compromise or attenuate it.
I would rather lose the election than to do that.
I believe that about you.
Let me tell you the one area where we might differ, and that is Ukraine.
So tell me your stance on Ukraine.
So here's an in-depth view on my Ukraine position.
I think foreign policy is all about prioritization.
I think for me the top priorities are declaring independence from communist China and protecting our own border, including using our military to do it, and to address the fentanyl crisis.
And I think that we need to focus on that much more than Ukraine.
I don't think it's – here's what I've said is it's not a top five priority for me.
However, here's what I do think.
If that doesn't mean that I want Russia to win this war, here's what I actually think is the real problem.
And this gets into some details, but, Dennis, I know you like that, so I'm going to do it, which is Poland wants to send Ukraine fighter jets to allow Ukraine to defend itself.
Why?
Because that's in Poland's interest, and Poland is a U.S. ally.
You know why they can't?
Germany is stopping them.
Germany is getting in the wind.
Germany is a big part of the problem.
So this is a European issue that Europe should deal with, but the U.S. can deal with through this with diplomacy.
And so I think if we use our diplomatic leverage, we have 40,000-some-odd troops in Germany.
There's arguably no good reason for that, but we can use that to say, We're not going to station troops here if you're going to get in the way of one of our other allies, Poland, doing what it needs to do to put Poland first.
Meanwhile, we're here putting America first.
That's the way I would handle it.
As a matter of prioritization, I don't want to bleed our resources.
I think that's part of what China's doing.
By actually giving now weapons to Russia, they want us to bleed more of our capacity, both in terms of political capital and military capital, on Ukraine ahead of going for Taiwan.
I think that's the ruse that Xi Jinping won.
All right, tell me.
Do you have more time?
Yeah, I do.
Okay, great.
Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, is my guest.
Hi, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager, speaking with Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president on the Republican side.
One of the most thoughtful men in public life in the United States.
And we're talking about everything, actually.
And he has, of course, come out strongly against this truly America-changing moment.
Would you say it is an America-changing moment, the indictment of a past president and current candidate?
Absolutely.
It changes our country.
It changes our country for the worse.
I'm running with the task of unifying this country.
That task becomes monumentally difficult for whoever leads this country next.
And I'll tell you this.
Joe Biden, if he wants to unite America, he can actually do it now.
He can pardon Trump right now.
And I know there's conventional wisdom that says it's a state crime.
I argued in detail in the Wall Street Journal, actually, the state case is tied to an alleged federal crime.
So absolutely, a U.S. president can do it.
If Joe Biden pardons Donald Trump now, that is the single most uniting thing he will do for this country over the entire course of not just his presidency, but his career.
He has an opportunity to do it, yet he won't.
And so that's why I look, as the next U.S. president, I want to reverse some of this damage.
I don't wear any filters through rose-colored goggles thinking that's going to be easy.
But I think that if at once we're willing to be uncompromising and go further, and at the same time, take even many of the people who were wrongly harmed by this overreaching administrative police state, through pardons, through other behaviors, rectifying what was done wrong, including even to Donald Trump, who I would plan to pardon.
That is, I think, the first beginnings of picking up the pieces of, really, we're skating on thin ice.
We're already skating on thin ice.
What this prosecution does, you ask me if it changes the country?
That didn't create the thin ice.
That's been happening for the last decade and a half.
But what they're doing is taking a hammer and just cracking that thin ice to get us to our breaking point.
And I am very worried, Dennis, that we're in dangerous territory approaching it, but I am hopeful that with leadership we don't have to actually get there.
So whenever I hear a caller, for example, or a public figure like you say that he wants to unite the country, and oddly enough, everybody's for that.
Both sides are for that, at least according to what they say.
The reason I'm skeptical, though I think it can happen to a certain extent, and that extent would be important, Is, as I say every day, and I have to be consistent, or I would be a dishonest person, the gulf between right and left, I often say, is unbridgeable, and I'll give it one example.
If you believe men give birth, I don't understand how I can reach out to you.
I understand you, Dennis.
I understand the point you're making, and it's a good one, and it makes me want to...
Really clarify what I mean when I say unite the country.
I actually think that the way we should think of the dividing line in this country is between whether you're pro-American or whether you're fundamentally anti-American.
When you divide it up that way, it's not a 50-50 distinction at that point.
It is an 80-20 distinction in our favor.
Maybe 85-15-90-10 distinction.
You wouldn't know that by watching the media or watching Hollywood.
Because they take that 10% and magnify them.
But in the reality of the people of this country, that's actually what it looks like.
80 to 90% of the country is still on a side that shares some, if not most, of those deeply held American values.
And my path to national unity is different than a lot of these others who will show up and say, hey, here's how we do it.
We show up in the middle, and then we compromise and hold hands and sing kumbaya.
That's not how we get to national unity.
The way we get to national unity is by being uncompromising, by embracing the radicalism of the American ideals themselves from free speech and self-governance and meritocracy and truth and the pursuit of truth.
That is what it means to be American.
And so let's embrace those shared American ideals, the extremism of those ideals.
And it turns out what we'll find is that the overwhelming majority, not all of them, as you're right, But the overwhelming majority of people in this country will agree on that.
That's the formula of national unity.
And a lot of where these so-called centrists, whatever that means, get it wrong, is that you can't get to unity through compromise.
We as human beings want to live by principles that we embrace unapologetically.
And I think that the revival of those things that we can believe in give us that sense of purpose again.
Reviving faith, reviving hard work, reviving family, but also reviving conviction in country.
That's not going to unite 100% of the country, but it'll get us darn close enough that we can still go on with this American experiment for another generation and two and three and four to come.
That's the way I look at it.
Well, I believe if somebody could do it, you're one of that handful that can do it.
I'll just throw another little grenade into this discussion.
The people of Chicago just elected for mayor in a city with unprecedented...
Increases in homicide.
I mean, sheer murders, not to mention rape, burglary, and the like.
They have elected the anti-police candidate, the teachers' union's pick.
What would you say to the people of Chicago?
You have erred.
You have lost your way in the desert, okay?
And it's when you're lost in the desert that you go back to the Pharaoh and want to bend your knee.
It's the fact that you're lost, that you actually are trying to re-enslave yourself to the crime that has ridden these places under the illusion of believing that you're finding some sense of meaning in the process.
It is sad.
It is a puzzling thing to watch, but the reason is, Dennis, we're lost in the desert.
That's where we are as a people.
That's where the people are in the city of Chicago, and that's what leads to otherwise bewildering outcomes like that.
Where were your parents from?
They came from India.
Both of them were born there, and my dad came here in the late 1970s, and my mom a few years later.
How do you explain all the successful children of Indian immigrants who were on the left?
How do I explain the fact that they're on the left?
Yes.
They're duped.
I think they're lost in their own version of the desert.
I mean, my kids' generation, they respond to an incentive structure.
So the incentive structure in this country right now is you get ahead if you think of yourself as a victim.
That wasn't what my parents taught me.
I was born in 1985, but my kids' generation and my nieces and nephews and their generation, what they're taught is you get ahead if you describe yourself as a person of color, right?
That way, why not?
You get into college easier that way.
You get a job more easily that way.
Victimhood becomes a currency.
And so what do they do?
They respond to the incentives that are created for them, and then that requires them to dupe themselves into thinking they're on the left.
When, in fact, I think they could be low-hanging fruit for us to claim right back by saying, no, no, no.
The way you get ahead in this country is based on merit, based on your achievement.
And that is a message that rings true to most Asian American immigrants, most immigrants from anywhere, really, to this country.
But we need to create the incentive structure so that the kids of those immigrants don't become unwittingly members of the left because we gave them incentives to.
That's the left's trick, but we're going to end that.
Yes, the currency is victimhood.
It's a very powerful way of putting it.
Okay, Vivek, we're going to speak again when your book comes out.
Meantime, folks, his article in today's Wall Street Journal is up at DennisPrager.com.
It's a brilliant idea.
I'll tell you, Joe Biden would be doing himself and the country an extraordinary favor by pardoning the president.
It's a brilliant idea.
Okay, my friend.
Good luck.
We'll speak soon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Talk to you, Dennis.
Righto.
Be well.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Dennis Prager here.
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