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Aug. 1, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:15:04
Grand Old Flag
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Dennis Prager here.
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Hello everybody, I hope you had a good weekend.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Here's a fascinating...
I don't know if the word vignette captures it.
It's not a story that's been widely covered.
I believe it happened last week, however.
Meaning that it was recent.
The...
Republicans in Congress, in both houses, I believe, passed legislation, or wanted to pass legislation, they did in the House, that would bar any other flag being flown on federal property like the White House.
Only the United States flag and a flag of one of the military services, perhaps.
That's it.
Nothing else.
And all the Democrats, except for Joe Manchin, voted against it.
And yet, liberals who love this country will continue to vote Democrat because, and I believe this literally and exactly as I am expressing it, I do not believe that there is anything the Democrats could do to hurt this country that would compel more than 5% of liberals to vote Republican.
They have it in their minds from childhood and have never changed, never thought, never challenged, never rethought the premise that the threat to the society comes from the right.
I give an analogy to that belief when I think of somebody crossing the street, a two-way street, and only looking to the right.
And I would say, how come you only looked at the right?
You could be hit by a car coming from the left.
And they said, well, my grandfather was hit by a car coming from the right.
It's a perfect analogy for liberals.
They believe their grandfather was hit by the right.
I don't know exactly why.
In one case I do, Jewish liberals believe that Hitler was a rightist, and therefore all threats come from the right.
At the very least, and I say this as a Jew who has written a book on anti-Semitism, that that is such facile thinking that it is actually embarrassing.
Whether Hitler was even on the right is a philosophical question.
Nazis stood for National Socialist, and Hitler hated, hated capitalism.
He saw the Jews as the mothers or fathers, if you will, of capitalism, among other things.
But that was a big one.
He hated capitalism.
You can't hate capitalism and be a rightist.
I'm not saying he was a leftist, but it's dishonest to say he was a rightist.
He was a racist.
And racism is not a political doctrine.
So it is silly to assign it as either intrinsically left or intrinsically right.
But when you're guided by your emotions, that is the way life works.
Would not vote that only the flag of the United States of America be on the White House.
Or state flags.
I think it was state flags and military flags were the two exceptions.
What if somebody wanted to put out a right-wing flag, a conservative flag?
By the way, did President Trump, did he ever, as president, put out a MAGA flag on the White House?
I don't know, but I bet not.
But for Joe Biden to put out a...
A LGBTQIA pride flag, that, of course, that's the issue.
The favorite cause of the left must be honored.
And this is the president that claims he wants to unite the country.
But he knows half the country is not interested in that pride flag.
It is interested in civil rights for LGBT people.
But it is not interested in the ideology that...
It represents, such as gender is a spectrum, and therefore if a guy says he's a girl, he could compete against girls in sports.
Most of this country, not half, well more than half, believe that that is wrong.
It is staggering to me that about a third of the country thinks it is right.
I would say that if I had to choose the most depressing statistics representing the United States, one would be that 45% of young people do not believe in free speech for hate speech, which means 45%, if it's true, 45% of young people in America do not believe in free speech.
That's the definition.
The moment you say, except for...
Then you don't believe in free speech.
It's like the people who say they are a pacifist, except for just wars and self-defense.
So they're not a pacifist.
It's amazing.
The lack of clear thinking, that's the pandemic that is crushing humanity.
Anyway, that's one statistic.
That is depressing on the free speech issue.
And the other one is how many Americans believe that biological males can compete in women's sports.
A conclusion should be drawn from that.
You can convince people to believe anything.
Anything.
If people believe that, then they can believe anything.
That is frightening.
That is indeed the belief.
Talking about that, because the most famous case was this trans named Leah Thomas.
There's a piece here, Daily Caller.
Former athlete denounces gaslighting and fear-mongering campaign.
University of Pennsylvania waged against female swimmers.
Remember how often I asked, why are the females even competing?
Why don't they all just refuse to swim?
And I knew at the time, even though I had no evidence, but I knew at the time, the pressure on them from a...
This Ivy League University, University of Pennsylvania, that's the place where they took down Shakespeare's mural at the Department of English.
That's the place where hundreds of law professors said that a fellow law professor who said that bourgeois middle class values were terrific values was censored by hundreds.
And they demanded that she not be allowed to teach a first-year course of law.
University of Pennsylvania is another wasteland, morally and intellectually, in our country.
Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlon explained how her school blamed and sought to re-educate.
Ah, re-educate.
Does that frighten you?
That should.
Re-educate female athletes who felt uncomfortable with biological male Leah Thomas' participation in the women's swim team.
My teammates and I were forced to undress in the presence of Leah, a 6'4 tall biological male, fully intact with male genitalia, 18 times per week.
So this is what I have said.
If a man If a man exposes himself to women who do not want to be exposed to, he is arrested.
If a man says he is a woman and exposes himself to women who do not wish to be exposed to, he is protected by law.
The women are arrested if they object.
You have to have gone to college to have that position.
Only an intellectual can believe them.
Intellectuals have a great advantage, especially college academics.
They do not have to live with the results, the consequences of their theories.
The rest of us do.
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school curricula.
This has driven the left crazy.
The latest is the Miami Herald, the big paper, the biggest paper in Florida.
Indoctrination in Florida Schools?
PragerU's conservative content aims to change minds.
By Anna Ceballos.
Tallahassee Bureau of the Miami.
Harold.
So listen to the way in which we are described and the lack of self-awareness, complete lack of self-awareness on the part of the left.
It's mind-boggling.
Governor Ron DeSantis repeatedly says he opposes indoctrination in schools.
Yet his administration in early July approved materials from a conservative group that says it's all about indoctrination and changing minds.
It doesn't put indoctrination in quotes.
It puts changing minds in quotes.
They do that to us and to me constantly.
They make up things and they don't put it in quotes because there is no quote to offer.
The Florida Department of Education determined that educational materials geared toward young children and high school students created by PragerU, a nonprofit co-founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager.
Just for the record, it's so interesting to me personally.
That is how the left always describes me as a conservative talk show host, which indeed I am.
They never mention...
Author of ten books, most of them bestsellers.
That he's written perhaps the most widely selling Bible commentary in America today.
And any of the other intellectual achievements of my life.
It's always, that's it.
That's the extent.
And for the left-wing reader, conservative talk show host means simpleton.
A non-profit co-founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager was in alignment with the state standards on how to teach civics and government to K-12 students.
The content, some of which is narrated by conservative personalities such as Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson presented a video.
I don't remember the Candace one.
I'll find it for you.
I made a video about the borders and the need to control illegal immigration.
Is the Miami Herald for illegal immigration?
Does it matter what they said?
No.
For the Miami Herald, just having Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson is enough to invalidate us.
When I said not self-aware, that is because When left-wing teachers teach, which is almost redundant, left-wing teacher, when a teacher tells kids that gender is non-binary, that there are any number of gender identities, you're not just a man or a woman, that's fine.
Because it's not Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson.
It features cartoons, five-minute video history lessons, and storytime shows for young children, and is part of a brand called PragerU Kids.
The lessons share a common message.
Being pro-America means aligning oneself to mainstream conservative talking points.
But isn't the message in most schools that being pro-American, they wouldn't use that term, Is to align yourself with progressive talking points?
What is a conservative talking point anyway?
That we believe that the United States formed the freest society in history?
That we are afraid of censorship?
You know, we have 600 five-minute videos.
It includes how to forgive people who have hurt you, getting along with your parents, the case for getting married.
They never cite those.
Never.
The teacher, after all, will choose.
I don't think most teachers will choose a Tucker Carlson video just because it could be perceived as political.
But what if they show the video on Why men should get married?
Will the Miami Herald object to that?
We are in the mind-changing business, and few groups can say that, Prager says in a prominent video for PragerU as a whole.
He reiterated this sentiment this summer at a conference for the conservative group Moms for Liberty in Philadelphia.
Saying it is fair, quote-unquote fair, to say PragerU indoctrinates children.
No.
Again, there's no quote.
They put a quote around fair, but not around indoctrinates children.
This is the quote they cite from me.
It's true we bring doctrines to children, Prager told the group.
But what is the bad about our indoctrination?
Oh, I guess I did use the word.
I take that back.
We bring doctrines to children.
What is bad about it?
That's what I would like to know.
Is moral responsibility for your behavior?
not thinking of yourself as a victim, isn't all moral education a doctrine or indoctrination?
Thank you.
There is good indoctrination and there's bad indoctrination.
They're not indoctrinated to respect diversity.
Isn't that an indoctrination?
Has the Miami Herald ever objected to that?
We continue.
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a big article in the Miami Herald against the Decision of the governor of and the state of Florida to allow teachers, it's not telling teachers to use it, to allow teachers to use our materials.
Because, and the Miami Herald says, look, they indoctrinate.
So they should not, PragerU should not be allowed.
PragerU is not an accredited university.
They always add that.
We add that on the front page, on the opening.
We're not an accredited university.
I think that's to our credit, not to our demerit, given the sick things that your kids are taught at accredited universities.
But nevertheless, we know we're not.
And it publicly says the group is a force of good, quote-unquote, against the left.
Against the left is not in quotes.
Maybe we do say that.
I don't know everything that PragerU puts out.
I can't.
But yes, we are a force of good.
That's correct.
And then it gives terrible things that we say.
We're against Black Lives Matter, for example.
Or we think that there is a real flaw in the Canadian government's run health care system.
Isn't that interesting?
The Miami Herald uses as an example of bad things we preach that we have videos, I think by a Canadian, yes, it is a Canadian, why the Canadian healthcare system is inferior to that of the United States.
Now, you can agree, you can disagree, but it shouldn't be allowed to be said.
Do you think if a teacher showed a video about how inequitable the American healthcare system was, the Miami Herald would object?
The Miami Herald is another left-wing, Pravda-like source.
That's it.
If you're not left, you should be shut down.
That's it.
It's very simple.
It's so fascinating what they find as examples.
Of how terrible PragerU is.
Broad support for law enforcement.
Oh, that's another sin of PragerU.
Broad support of law enforcement.
Isn't this a giveaway that the Miami Herald does not offer broad support for law enforcement?
This is the giveaway.
They believe that if you...
If you do advocate that, and kids at school hear that, this is right-wing indoctrination.
This is all a giveaway about what the left believes.
Broad support for law enforcement and rejection of Black Lives Matter.
What?
The Miami Herald still admires the group called Black Lives Matter?
That corrupt, racist group?
Have they not read how much money has been dishonestly disposed of?
It's mind-boggling, is it not?
That's what I mean, they're not self-aware.
They're proud to tell you at the Miami Herald, we support Black Lives Matter.
We do not offer broad support for law enforcement.
We do not think the American healthcare system is superior to the Canadian.
Yeah.
Another one.
Touch on a range of themes, including climate policies.
Specifically, how energy poverty, not climate change, is the real crisis.
That's correct.
That is our belief.
That energy poverty will hurt more people than climate change.
That's right.
So far, we're right.
Let's put it that way.
In some cases, the video tells kids that their teachers are misinformed or lying.
I don't know which ones that is.
I'd love to know where we say that.
Because I'd like you to have...
They never give context.
They're afraid to because even Miami Herald readers, many of them will go, PragerU is right.
Sounds legit to me.
We'll be back.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Panic across the country induced by the state of Florida using PragerU materials.
Allowing teachers to use PragerU materials is really something.
So I want to read to you more from the Miami Herald.
I mean, this is a big attack on PragerU, the dishonesty of it, the lack of awareness of what is going on in schools today.
You have to hear what they object to.
As I told you, the fact that we have a critical video on Black Lives Matter, they object to the fact that we have, quote, broad support for law enforcement.
So here, let's see.
In another video titled, A Short History of Slavery, narrated by Candace Owens, she says that the first thing kids need to know is that slavery was not invented by white people, quote-unquote.
Why is that a bad thing to teach?
Is it not true?
Is it not important?
Now, let's put two and two together.
If you object to something being taught, clearly you do not think it should be taught, and presumably you think it's a lie.
You wouldn't want lies taught.
So does the Miami Herald believe it is not true what Candace Owens says?
Slavery was not invented by white people?
Is that a bad thing to teach?
Is hatred of whites a beautiful thing to teach, which is what is taught universally, virtually, in American schools through university?
This is the Miami Herald.
She also teaches that slavery took place in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
Why is this remarkable?
meaning worthy of remarking about.
It's a giveaway.
It's a giveaway.
The Miami Herald does not want American young people to know that slavery was not invented by whites and that it took place all over the world, including Africa.
The Middle East and Asia.
She also says, quote, white people were the first to put an end to slavery, unquote, when it was abolished by Britain in 1834. Is that true?
Or is that not true?
Did non-whites abolish slavery before whites did?
Is it not obvious how deep the sickness of the left is?
That this would be written as a news piece in the Miami Herald, the largest paper in Florida?
Do you not want your kids taught this?
They should be taught that it was invented by whites?
They don't say that.
They just imply that.
It was a white moral issue.
Really?
After centuries of human slavery, white men led the world in putting an end to the abhorrent practice.
They're quoting Candace Owens in our video.
That includes the 300,000 Union soldiers, overwhelmingly white, who died during the Civil War.
Owens says, while adding that, quote, no one, regardless of skin color, stands guiltless.
Wow.
You're not allowed to say that.
There's nothing you learn about PragerU in these attacks on us.
You learn about the left.
Then it goes on, and I think I'll mention that the next hour.
They quote a professor.
A Kansas State University researcher who, quote, co-authored a case study on PragerU.
I looked up the case study.
This is a sick woman.
A liar.
I'll give you some of the stuff that she says.
It is quite remarkable.
Let's see here.
Yeah, what was it printed?
May 2022. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture.
How sick.
Where she says, it's a case study about PragerU.
And she says that we promote...
Let's see, let me find it.
Like this is really something.
Okay, one moment my friends, because this is the stuff that they quote.
Okay.
There we go.
Ready?
Here it is.
This is a professor cited in a paper in the journal, in this academic journal.
These groups, including PragerU, Generally adhere to varying degrees of some, if not all, of the following ideologies.
White supremacism, patriarchy, anti-Semitism, nationalism, xenophobia, and quote, traditional Christian, unquote, values.
Wow.
By the way, it's another giveaway, isn't it?
The left's hatred of traditional Christian values.
What exactly do you hate about traditional Christian values?
This Jew wants to know.
I'd like to know specifically.
What do you hate about it?
What is a traditional Christian value that is equated here with hatred, with far-right extremism?
Really?
Are we guilty of anti-Semitism?
White supremacy?
This is what the professors at Arizona State said.
Watch my speech, please.
It's up at DennisPrager.com under video, the speech I gave two weeks ago at the Arizona State Legislature.
We fight back.
I'm Dennis Prager.
Glad to be with you.
I hope you had a good weekend.
This is the last day of July.
Every year goes by fast, but I do feel that this year has gone by faster.
Hmm.
That is not an objective statement.
That is my subjective take on the year 2023. Tomorrow is August 1st.
Next day is my birthday.
Seems like a few months ago was my birthday.
Well, given the speed of life, it is important that young people know the speed of life.
But they don't.
That's why you have to teach it to them.
And you have to ask them.
How will you want to look back at your life when you are an old person?
How many young people think of that?
Believe it or not, I did.
And I thank God that I did.
Because I am happy with what I can say.
When I look back on my life and where I am today, And it was largely because I thought, how will I want to look back on my life when I'm old?
Whether you agree with me or not, that is a subject under the heading wisdom.
But we do not impart wisdom.
Who is going to impart wisdom to young people?
The adults who lack it?
There's a piece in MSNBC, This really encapsulates what is going on in the West.
This is a piece, it's an opinion piece, by a writer named Zishan Alim, MSNBC opinion writer and editor.
So I take it from his name that he is either not born in the U.S. or his parents were not born in the U.S. and did not come from a Western culture.
It's relevant here.
He is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily.
We should invite him on the show.
I wonder if he would come on.
That would be fascinating.
So, the title of the opinion piece is, No!
Judeo-Christian Values Aren't Going to Keep Military AI, Artificial Intelligence, in Check.
A three-star Air Force general's shocking remarks about how America's religious values will sort out AI ethics reeks of hubris.
So before anything else, let's understand the lack of self-awareness that permeates the left.
If we believe Judeo-Christian values are superior, that's hubris.
But if you believe progressive values are superior, that's not hubris.
Right?
Wouldn't that be great?
I would even tell Mr. Alim what I would ask him if he came on.
So he would have a week to prepare an answer to my question.
Why is saying Judeo-Christian values are better?
Why is that hubris?
But it is not hubris to say progressive values are better.
Or how about this?
Why is it not hubris to say no values are better than any other values?
Why isn't that hubris?
Let alone moral chaos.
The question of how countries around the world will incorporate artificial intelligence into their military technology and strategy is an ethical minefield.
But a three-star Air Force general recently declared that the U.S. had a special advantage over its adversaries in navigating those dilemmas.
It's guided by the right holy books.
That's his terminology.
And now he writes, As the Washington Post reported, Lieutenant General Richard G. Moore Jr. made troubling remarks at the Hudson Institute last week while discussing the Defense Department's views on autonomous warfare.
Quote, Regardless of what your beliefs are, our society is a Judeo-Christian society and we have a moral compass.
Not everybody does.
More said per the Washington Post.
What's wrong with that?
Our society is a Judeo-Christian society and we have a moral compass.
Not everybody does.
This drove him crazy, as you will see.
Our MSNBC writer.
He continues to quote the general, and there are those that are willing to go for the ends regardless of what means have to be employed.
Talking about using artificial intelligence for evil.
He added that the future of AI in warfare will be determined by, quote, Who plays by the rules of warfare and who doesn't?
There are societies that have a very different foundation than ours." This drove our MSNBC writer to distraction.
His next line, Moore might feel comforted by this claim, I certainly don't.
The U.S. is supposed to be a secular state, and one would hope that an officer representing the state would view the country's ideological outlook in non-religious terms, such as adhering to international law.
Get it?
But what values does international law adhere to, Mr. Aleem?
Have you thought about that?
The United States is supposed to be a secular state.
Well, the United States, when we speak about the state, we're either talking about one of the 50 states, or the state means the government.
The government is secular.
It is not Christian.
It is not Jewish.
It is not Hindu.
It is not Muslim.
We agree with that.
But he said the United States.
He didn't say the United States government.
Either it was deliberate or probably just non-thinking.
That he conflated the United States and the state.
The United States was not founded to be a secular nation.
Or secular society.
Or secular country.
That is not true.
That was not what it was founded to be.
In God we trust is one of the three statements, values, on every American coin.
Has been for a very long time.
E pluribus unum and liberty are the other two.
The Declaration of Independence says we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Whom does Mr. Aleem think endows us with inalienable rights?
International law?
Really?
And what if the international court decides to change those laws?
What if the international legal system comes to be dominated?
By the Communist Party of China.
What then?
Do you still believe international law is the source of our values?
This is precious, this piece, because it's so clarifying.
And then my favorite sentence of all from Mr. Aleem.
His assertion that the United States opponents may lack moral compasses due to a rejection of Judeo-Christian values is a remarkable claim.
Hmm, really?
Let's review that.
His assertion that the United States opponents may lack moral compasses due to a rejection of Judeo-Christian values.
Okay.
If you...
I would...
You don't even need foreign opponents of the United States.
If you're an American and you reject Judeo-Christian values, how is your moral compass configured?
Just a question.
How does it know where north is?
Reading to you a piece, MSNBC, about a general who said that countries that are about a general who said that countries that are civilizations, countries that are guided by Judeo-Christian values,
will use AI morally, and those who are not will probably not.
So he's very annoyed, the writer at MSNBC, that he believes, the general does, the Air Force general, that Judeo-Christian values are the best value system.
His assertion, writes the author, Alim, that the United States opponents may lack moral compasses due to a rejection of Judeo-Christian values is a remarkable claim.
Okay, if they don't have that, what is their moral compass?
That's all.
So a Muslim would say, the Quran is my moral compass.
Okay, fine.
If the general thought that that was a superior moral compass, he'd become a Muslim.
If a Muslim believes that Judeo-Christian values is a better moral compass, they'd become a Jew or a Christian.
Or neither, just adopt those values.
and stay whatever they are.
Moore might have been thinking primarily about China, the only country in the world that's likely to rival the U.S. military power in the coming years, and eschews religion under the Chinese Communist Party.
But I would rate China's competing geopolitical interests and its increasingly apparent appetite for projecting its power globally as far greater reasons for concern about the way it may approach warfare than its lack of religiosity.
God, what a revealing sentence about the author.
color.
So, let's understand something.
The author at MSNBC agrees that China is a threat.
Its increasingly apparent appetite for projecting its power globally is a far greater concern about how it will approach warfare than its lack of religiosity.
But isn't the whole reason to fear China?
Its value system?
Forget religiosity for a moment.
Isn't values what determine how people and countries act?
What is more important than the fact that they're communists and therefore evil?
So their value system is communism, which means power and crush those who differ.
That's all it means.
We want more.
And more and more power.
Does the author agree that the United States is governed or has been governed by a different value system than China?
I wonder.
I do wonder.
And he ends his piece with this.
What we need now from American military leadership is not self-assuredness about civilizational superiority.
I don't agree.
You know what Franklin Roosevelt said to Americans and to the troops fighting World War II? We have to protect Christian civilization.
He said that over and over.
I wish he'd have said Judeo-Christian, but he was right.
That's exactly what the military should be projecting instead of its woke idiocies of having men who say they are women in the women's barracks.
Okay.
That's the battle.
I'm not saying this guy's a bad guy.
But he has no answers to the questions that he raised.
Here's news about our university system for you.
Universities around the country will host critical whiteness studies courses.
This is from the Daily Wire this weekend.
Courses involving critical whiteness studies.
See, this is the amazing thing.
If in Florida, I spoke about this the first hour, if in Florida they now allow PragerU Videos to be shown in classrooms.
They don't instruct it.
They don't demand it.
They allow it.
That's indoctrination.
But critical whiteness studies, that's not indoctrination.
Will be available to students at several colleges across the country during the upcoming school year.
The University of New Mexico's Department of English Language and Literature.
I'm telling you, I don't know why.
Somebody should do some research.
I don't know if it's even knowable.
Why?
Departments of English are among the most woke.
What does critical whiteness studies, anyway, have to do with English?
English language and literature.
Poor kid.
A kid wants to study Shakespeare.
And the other great writers of the English language, and they end up with all this crap.
It's sad.
It's just sad.
Yeah, so they'll host a critical whiteness studies course where students will, quote, learn about whiteness as an ideology of supremacy and domination.
Really?
Whiteness.
Other than Sean, I don't know any white supremacists.
And I'm up there in age.
He's the only one.
In fact, just now, I was talking to him about the Dodgers' loss to the Cincinnati Reds, and he spoke about the whiteness of the pitcher who gave up so many home runs.
And he was shocked because he's white.
How could a white give up that many home run?
What happened to white superiority?
These are such empty people teaching at colleges.
They are so vapid.
Shakespeare is so beyond the depth of these teachers, they probably couldn't teach Macbeth.
So they teach whiteness studies.
More to come on The Dennis Prager Show.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here with one of my favorite people today.
Now I'm debating, do I say on Earth or in America?
But probably both are true.
Kimberly Strassel, columnist at the Wall Street Journal, member of their editorial board.
I tell people that if they can read one thing every day, it would be those pages of the Wall Street Journal.
That is how important I think they are.
Anyway, Kimberly, great to have you back on my show.
Dennis, it is so great to be here.
It's been too long.
It is true, actually.
Are you in Alaska?
I am currently at my house in Alaska, yes.
What is the temperature?
I'm just curious.
We're like in the high 60s today.
It's been a gloomy summer up here.
Not a lot of sunshine.
Yeah, well, I actually find that appealing, just to show you how the human being wants variety.
I'm not joking.
It's a cloudy day in L.A. I am in a good mood.
I'm like Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street.
Anyway, this profound woman and fighter.
That's why I love her, because she's a fighter.
And she's just written this book, The Biden Malaise.
And for those of you who don't know the reference, it's Jimmy Carter who spoke about a national malaise, which he helped induce, but that's a separate issue.
How America Bounces Back from Joe Biden's Dismal Repeat of the Jimmy Carter Years.
Wow.
What prompted you to write this?
Well, Dennis, it's interesting.
I wrote it because people were making the comparison, and some of the outward comparisons are obviously just very striking.
Both men and inflation, both men and energy debacles, both men and their foreign policy fiascos, often with the same countries, high crime levels, etc.
When I started digging in, I thought it became important to write a book that explained to people why the comparison was in fact unfair to Jimmy Carter.
That's a good one.
And that is what the book is about it.
It's pointing out that, first of all, Jimmy Carter was dealt a much harder hand than Joe Biden ever was.
He inherited a lot of the problems that he got.
Now, he made him worse.
But he inherited some really tough problems to begin with.
But secondly, and I think this is really important, is the intent.
I know Jimmy Carter, he was a mess of an executive.
He didn't really know what he was doing.
But he was trying to solve some legitimate problems that existed in the country that I mentioned that he inherited.
Joe Biden inherited an awesome situation, an economy that was just about to roar back from COVID, an amazing domestic energy situation.
You know, a decently stable globe, certainly not like the Cold War.
And he purposely enacted legislation designed to change the structure of the United States and caused the problems that we have now, like inflation and energy prices.
That's right.
Everything you said is accurate.
But no reader of the Wall Street Journal's chief rival...
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, because they've actually aided Biden in his deceptions.
You know, when he walks around and claims that high gas prices are due to Putin's price hikes, you know, they don't set the record straight and note that, in fact, energy prices were on the rise well before Putin ever made it to Ukraine.
Same thing, inflation.
You know, they would like to suggest, oh, COVID supply chain problems.
Baloney!
We all know it's because of massive overspending and a supply-demand imbalance.
That's right.
You know, on a big macro issue, what I just raised with you, I'd just like you to comment on.
What I have come to realize is, and I say this frequently on my show, We know what they know, but they don't know what we know.
Is what I said clear to you?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's absolutely correct.
And I put enormous fault on the media, the profession that I technically belong to.
Because starting back about seven years ago, essentially the moment Donald Trump walked onto the stage, The media cast off any last semblance of impartiality, and it took a side, a political side, and it has acted as an arm of a political branch ever since then, and it's really depressing, and it's doing great damage, I think, to the country.
No kidding.
So now let me understand.
The subtitle of your book is How America Bounces Back.
From Joe Biden's dismal repeat of the Jimmy Carter years.
So is this a prescription or is this a description or both?
It's a description and a prescription because the description that I think is most important in the book is reminding both Republicans and Democrats, because as you said, they don't know what we know, reminding them what came after Jimmy Carter.
And that, of course, was an enormous backlash across the country.
To liberal governance and mismanagement of government.
And then a very charismatic Republican named Ronald Reagan, who didn't just win two elections, but who changed electoral politics in the country for a generation.
And I think that there's a similar possibility of a moment now, but Republicans are going to have to think very hard about who they choose as their messenger, somebody who can...
Broadcast a message and also bring disaffected independents and Democrats into a new movement for free markets and free people.
That's right.
I agree with you again, as usual.
If you had to make a list of the most egregious acts of Biden, what would be the top five?
Top five.
Well, one obviously would be the outrageous amount of spending, none of which was necessary.
You and I both know they used COVID as an excuse to try to gen up all these new entitlement programs.
Spending, that was a direct cause of inflation.
That would be number one.
Number two, his crippling of the domestic energy markets, the crackdown on pipelines, putting energy, offshore energy.
I mean, energy is the lifeblood of an economy.
If you make it more expensive, you are strangling the economy.
And we are blessed here to have an abundance of energy.
And we are still the cleanest country in the world.
And so that would be another one.
Foreign policy, his withdrawal from Afghanistan was absolutely disastrous.
You can draw a straight line from when he took that action to Vladimir Putin beginning to array his troops along Ukraine.
Believing that he could go in there and that no one would stop him.
And it turns out that he was right.
I think crime, crime in the United States.
Biden giving wink, nod, comfort to progressive prosecutors and to the defund of the police movement.
He never outwardly embraced it.
But his Department of Justice has certainly has certainly taken actions that make it sound as though we have corrupt police departments across the country.
With our pattern and practice investigations.
And finally, I would just point out a sort of moral distinction, too, between Biden and Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter, whatever you might think about, he was an honest and good man who wanted the country to be stronger.
And he did not demonize.
I think Biden's rhetoric, you know, Jim Crow 2.0, his accusations, his claims that the court is not acting normally.
He has done a great deal to divide this nation unnecessarily and entirely for partisan political motives.
So here comes my $64,000 question.
For me, I don't know if this represents my listeners, if they could ask you one question.
I wrestled with this issue because he's the only president that I have ever said was a bad man.
I never said that.
I've been broadcasting 40 years.
I believe he is a bad human being.
But putting that aside, although it's relevant to my question, obviously, does he believe in his policies, or does he do it because the Democratic Party necessitates him?
The latter.
Absolutely.
I don't think that Joe Biden believes in anything, which touches on your point about he is a human being.
Joe Biden, if you look over his entire career, He has always just served as a vessel for wherever the power of his party was at that particular moment.
Right now, the power base within the Democratic Party that is ascendant are progressives.
So he is simply doing what he is told, doing what he has to do to try to keep that crowd of people satisfied and off his back because he's also ambitious.
I mean, people forget this.
He comes across as, you know, a doddering old man.
This is an incredibly ambitious, arrogant human being who, you know, really does believe he can get re-elected in four more years, which is crazy for most of the country.
But he really believes it, and he doesn't want to risk a primary challenge.
All right, we're going to talk about that.
I want everybody to get the book, The Biden Malaise, How America Bounces Back.
Joe Biden's dismal repeat of the Jimmy Carter years.
The Biden malaise is up at DennisPrager.com.
We return.
I am on with one of the great fighters in this country, Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, where she has a column and she is on the editorial board.
Her book, if you want to understand Biden, as you hear the clarity of her speaking.
So it is true about her writing.
The Biden malaise, how America bounces back from Joe Biden's dismal repeat of the Jimmy Carter years, though, as she points out, and I would agree with her, and I don't like Jimmy Carter, but I never put him in the moral category of Joe Biden.
He makes the Carter years look honorable.
I agree with you that Jimmy Carter...
Deep down, loved America.
I think deep down, Joe Biden loves Joe Biden.
Yep, I really believe that too, Dennis.
And that was one thing.
It was really interesting to do the research for this book.
There are so many reasons why Jimmy Carter's presidency went off the rails.
But I think that distinction about what he was trying to do, what he wanted to make the country, he wanted to improve the country.
And I do not believe that that is what motivates Joe Biden whatsoever.
Is there certitude on your part that he won't be the nominee?
I think it's a 50-50 shot right now.
Yeah, I'm not certain at all he won't be.
Nope.
I think that, A, I still think it's possible that Hunter Biden's travails continue to stack up and really provide a stench.
You know, or there's an age issue there.
He could still just decline to run.
There'll be a little bit of an interesting pickle in what happens in terms of Kamala Harris.
But I also still think it's highly possible that he faces a true primary challenger.
And like whom?
Well, I'm still amazed.
I mean, look, Gavin Newsom is all but running a presidential campaign, okay?
I mean, he's standing there salivating, rubbing his hands together.
And, you know, I think if the amount of Democratic worries and fears about Joe Biden's prospects for re-election continue to mount, I still think that he or J.B. Pritzker, maybe, at Illinois, you know, Gretchen Whitmer, somebody may step up.
Oh, God, one is more depressing than the next.
No, I'm not being cute.
You say these names.
Of these foolish, foolish, damaging people.
And you realize where the Democratic Party is right now.
Gavin Newsom.
Everybody in America should hear Adam Carolla's hour with Gavin Newsom when he was the lieutenant governor of California.
Have you ever heard it, by the way, Kimberly?
Yes.
Yeah.
No, I mean, very, very revealing.
Revealing is an understatement.
The man is empty.
He is just an empty shell.
But he's very ambitious.
He's picking this fight with Ron DeSantis on purpose.
He's trying to use this moment to give himself a national profile so that he'll be positioned to make a presidential run.
What do you foresee?
And I very rarely ask what people predict, because I never answer prediction questions, so you don't have to.
Why are you doing it to me?
That's right, because I so respect you, and I'm so curious.
Any thoughts on the Republican?
I mean, I know that this bothers many of my listeners, but I... And I defended enthusiastically the great four years, and I believe they were great four years, of the Trump presidency.
But it is hard for me to see how he would win if he's the nominee.
Oh, I completely agree with you.
And by the way, look, I always feel the need to...
Say the same caveat because it so riles people.
I tend to look at politics from a very pragmatic perspective, okay?
I'm not someone that gets all loyal one way or another to someone.
I just analyze things.
And it was a very good four years, mostly because of the Reagan-type policies that Trump implemented or his people implemented in terms of tax policy and deregulation, etc.
Excellent four years.
But here's a couple of problems, I think, with a repeat.
One, I'm not sure he can win a general election because he, for better or worse, he just so alienates a certain portion of the electorate.
Two, I think this is something that a lot of Republicans fail to take on board.
Trump, because of our Constitution, can only serve four more years if he's elected.
I think that that's a potential waste of an opportunity to get a younger Republican elected, one that can be reelected in four years time, because you're going to need that long to unwind the damage from the Biden presidency.
But three, again, like the book pointed out, this is a moment.
If you get somebody who's charismatic, who has a message, and who can connect to people in the middle, and those Democrats that don't like where their party is headed at the moment, and there are a lot of them.
You can forge a new coalition.
Don't forget the Reagan Democrats.
Those were people who felt the party had left them behind.
There are a lot of them out there, again, right now.
We now call those people the Republican base.
But you have to have a leader that can draw them in.
And Trump is just very polarizing.
I don't think he's that person.
Only because I so respect you, I am curious.
It puts you on the spot to a certain degree, I acknowledge.
Do you worry that the next election might not be fully honestly counted?
I think, look, I think we're going to have a better shot than it is this time.
You know, in 2020, the problem was that Democrats were ready with this project to change the election rules on the fly.
And Republicans were caught flat-footed and did not know what was going on with the ballot harvesting and everything.
The fact that the Republicans now are, you know, onto this, they're trying to get their own people to vote as well in as many different ways.
One of the problems is if you've got a party that's voting for an entire month or six weeks versus a party that's voting for approximately 12 hours, there's just a built-in advantage there.
And so the fact that Republicans are now...
Trying to make sure that mail balancing is safe and secure, at least we're looking at it this time.
Gotcha.
My friends, the book is The Biden Malaise, and it is written by a very important American, Kimberly Strassel.
Kimberly, let's speak more often, and congratulations on your book.
Thank you.
And by the way, my children and I still get to see you all the time.
We watch PragerU religiously.
Thank you.
You made my day.
Be well, Kimberly.
Thank you.
Take care.
So I debated whether to talk about this podcast.
By the way, Julie Hartman is in here with me.
We do a podcast together called Dennis and Julie.
It airs today.
I might add.
At 1 p.m.
Pacific, 4 p.m.
Eastern on the Julie Hartman YouTube channel.
So an hour after my show.
Yes.
I am just saying this to the listeners.
I'm not only proud of Dennis and Julie.
I think it's important.
Really important.
The stuff that we bring out of each other is, I think, unique in media.
So you should all watch or listen to it, and it would be a great thing to introduce, certainly me, through Julie to young people in your life.
Julie is all of 23. I remember 23 vividly.
I'm not joking.
24 was my happiest birthday.
Speaking of which, you have one coming up in two days.
A big one.
So anyway, I was debating whether to raise this because I know what the left will say.
It's a cuckoo thing and it's not...
How dare you mention this?
And we all know, Prager, what your agenda is in raising it.
And it's true.
I have an agenda in raising it.
But I think it is legit because I would like to know what people would say to this guy in Japan.
Here's the article.
It's all over the place.
Japanese man who bought 12,000 pound dog costume finally goes outside and immediately makes some canine friends as he settles into his new life as a collie.
So my question is, if you're a man and you can say you're a woman, why?
If you're a human, can you not say you are a dog if you genuinely feel you are?
There was an article in either the New Yorker or the New York Times, I cannot remember which right now, but it talked about how there is this trend among high schoolers where they are identifying as animals.
They call themselves furries or cats or frogs or birds, and their teachers in these American public schools have to go along with it.
Because you're precisely right.
If you are in a classroom environment where you can identify as a gender that is not your own, you can take that further and identify as non-human.
And I'll tell you another thing that is increasingly coming on the map, which for the life of me, I don't understand why the left doesn't see this.
People are identifying as transracial.
I just looked this up.
A transracial person is one who identifies as a different race than the one associated with their biological ancestry.
What is stopping white people who are applying to college from identifying as black?
I asked this when this, so what was her name?
Dole's, Rachel Dolezal.
Are you familiar with that?
I'm not.
There was a woman who said she was black and for years people believed it and then she was outed as it were.
She was really white and she apologized profusely and so on.
I never understood why that's not legitimate.
There are built-in differences between men and women.
There are chromosomal differences.
Many others.
Brains.
The male brain is different.
Black brain is not different from a non-black brain.
There are no differences inherent to race.
None.
Okay.
So I would like to know why you can't identify with another race.
You mean given the left's standards today that you can...
Well, it's a really good question.
So what were you reading?
I'm curious.
I just looked up transracial, and it has its own Wikipedia page, and it has several, I mean...
Dozens, if not hundreds, of articles.
And you know what's funny?
I mean, it's not funny.
It's sick.
The first article...
That was a big switch.
From funny to sick.
Well, sometimes we laugh at things and we choose to laugh so that we don't cry.
This is one of those instances.
So the news site is called The Conversation.
And it says, no, you can't identify as transracial, but you can identify as transgender.
Right, but why can't you?
Do they give a reason?
Well, I'm going to read it in the commercial break.
Yeah, I would like to know, what is your reasoning?
It's not politically popular, Dennis, to identify as transracial, but it's politically popular.
No, no, it's not left-wing popular.
Right.
That's exactly right.
That's fascinating.
Who are you to tell somebody that they are not what they feel?
That's the whole point of the transgender issue.
But a race that's fixed.
It's fascinating.
Anyway, the guy in Japan treated like a dog.
Dog came over to him.
Do they bark at him?
Does he lick the floor?
It says, immediately makes canine friends.
Back in a moment.
Dennis Prager here.
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