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Jan. 16, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
09:33
How Hollywood Changed America—with Roger Simon
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Much I respect this man, Roger Simon, known to many of you, of course.
Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist, columnist for The Epoch Times.
I subscribe to The Epoch Times.
It's one of the most important publications in the English-speaking world, by the way.
Again, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist.
And his new book is American Refugees.
For those of you watching, I'm putting it up.
The untold story of the mass exodus from blue states to red states.
Mass, sorry?
No, it says exodus.
Does Alan go to the punishment room?
Has he ever been in it?
Roger, forgive us.
This is an intra...
Anyway, it's great to see you, great to have you.
I stole the name Exodus from you.
This is the era of plagiarism.
You are truly, you are Roger Simon.
By the way, among the people giving you blurbs at the back of the book, It says, one of them is Tucker Carlson, and I love the ID. Fired Fox News host.
We asked him what he wanted.
Oh, I knew it.
I knew it came from him.
I had no doubt.
The publisher didn't want it.
The publisher didn't.
You can't say that.
Sure, it's what he wants.
Exactly.
I think it's hilarious, actually.
What prompted you to write the book?
Well, in my life.
I mean, in June 1 of 2018, after living roughly 50 years in Los Angeles, mostly in the Hollywood Hills, I gave up and left, as many have.
And you haven't, but I suspect that you live, as I recall, up in the San Gabriel region.
Which is slightly different from where I was.
I mean, I lived in the midst of the Hollywood, whatever, and it was soon becoming overwhelmed by homeless and everything else, and we couldn't walk our dog and all the rest of it.
And also, I wanted to see what life was like in the middle of our country, and I found out.
And it's a very interesting story.
It's complicated.
It's not simple, but I'm glad I did it.
That's the short form.
I have a tremendous amount to say about it, which is why I wrote the book.
But I think one of the most surprising parts was that those of us who left, those of us who made this journey that many have made...
Predominantly, we're more constitutionalist than the people who live here.
There was a great fear we were going to come and infect them with our so-called California values, but not many of us really had that.
Most of us were fleeing that.
And so it created, especially in Tennessee, but in other places too, because the book, I deal with several states in there.
There were many surprises, and people had to learn to work and live with each other.
And it's been an interesting journey, and I recommend my own book for this reason.
It describes, I'm going to read it, because...
I just love reading whatever you write, but it describes primarily your journey, or is it both macro and micro?
It's both, but I would say it leans slightly more to mine, but it is both, and I spoke with people primarily in Texas, Georgia, and Florida.
And, of course, Tennessee, where I am.
I did not deal much with Idaho and other states.
I've had immigration as well, simply geographically.
So, when did the Great Wave begin?
Didn't it begin with the lockdowns?
You preceded the lockdowns.
I talk about that there are three waves.
Essentially, there's the pre, post, during the lockdowns, and then the post.
I mean, it's still going on.
I mean, you can tell by property values.
But it's a three, you know, essentially a three.
Well, in terms of property values, you probably did great because you sold high here in L.A. and you bought...
Relatively low in Tennessee.
A little bit.
You know, because we live in a nice...
Nashville is a complicated city of its own.
One of the big...
One of the errors I made is I thought Nashville was going to be purple.
The city actually is very blue.
It's almost as blue as L.A. But you get 10 miles out of it and it's red.
It's a kind of very interesting demography.
But this has caused Nashville, in its nicer areas, and I live in a nicer area of Nashville because of years of screenwriting, I didn't want to live in the slum area, are not as expensive as L.A., but they're closer than you would think.
Oh, yeah.
No, I have no doubt about that.
Well, so you know the Daily Wire moved to Nashville.
I know very well.
Their offices are about five or eight minutes from me.
A lot of things.
The reason we chose Nashville was because it is a creative place.
As everyone knows, it's the center of the country music industry.
You can hear a band, you know, 20 times a day here if you want.
So there are also symphonies.
Just country music.
So that's part of the reason we moved here.
So let me ask you, because this is of surpassing importance in my view of life.
Was it easy, difficult, challenging to make new friends?
It was easier than I expected.
But one of the reasons is that I play tennis and I joined the club to play tennis.
And also, I had lost a lot of friends in LA, unfortunately.
Not you, you always remain one.
But I've moved, as you know, from left to right.
Really slightly before 9-11, but also finished off at 9-11.
And having been working at Hollywood, they don't like apostates any more than the Muslims do.
So I was already losing friends.
Now I have a lot of friends here.
A lot of them are evangelical Christians.
And they're in one of the major themes of the book, and people who have already read it tell me this is one of the more interesting parts of it, is that I... It became more religious moving here, as a Jew.
So there is an old saying, it was in German, and I don't know German except the rudimentary get along, so I can't repeat the saying, but basically it was, the Jews are as Jewish as the Christians are Christian.
Yes.
I never heard that, but it is right to me.
It's right.
You know what it was?
There's a chapter near the end of the book called Steeples, which is what people like a lot, this chapter.
And I just talk about how when I first arrived in this area, I said, well, what are all these steeples?
There's steeples everywhere.
You know, there was a church on every corner.
And I joined this club to play tennis, and I went to the gym.
It has a gym.
And a guy I had just met at a political gathering for a candidate came up to me, shook his hand, and said, well, welcome.
How do you like it so far?
Everybody said that.
Everybody was so nice.
I thought there was a trick.
Anyway, well, if you live in New York, I'll...
That's right.
Well, how do you have in mind?
So he...
So we said, what church are you joining?
And I said, well, I'm Jewish.
So he said, oh, he did a beat beat, you know.
And then he said, well, which synagogue?
As it turns out, there are five in the Nashville area.
I ended up doing most of mine at Chabad, because the Chabad here is quite wonderful and has a terrific rabbi.
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