0:00

I

0:00

think this is kind of a news-breaking show today, podcast.

0:02

Yeah, there's a guy on that announced

0:05

he's running for president. Yeah, just last night. And

0:08

he is, this must-listen-to

0:12

podcast and interview on the podcast.

0:14

Get some interesting hints as

0:16

to what his strategy and approach is going

0:18

to be in this primary. Rhonda Sanders, of course,

0:20

joins us today. Really good. And we also tie

0:23

some things together that just

0:25

don't make sense and try

0:27

to use the scientific method

0:29

to take you through. We have the

0:32

son of Andrew Clavin on, who's written a new

0:34

book about how to save the West. It's

0:36

really good. And Ali

0:38

Stuckey on Target. So don't miss

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Feel the difference. You're

1:26

listening to the best

1:28

of the Glenn Beck Program. Welcome

1:33

to the Glenn Beck Program. Governor

1:35

Ron DeSantis from Florida announced

1:38

yesterday, he is formally

1:40

announced that he is running for president of

1:42

the United States. And so it begins

1:46

and it's going to be an interesting 18 months.

1:49

Welcome to the program. Governor DeSantis, how

1:52

are you, sir? I'm doing great,

1:54

Glenn. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm good.

1:56

I'm good. Enjoyed it. Not

1:59

the first 20 minutes, that must be.

1:59

been incredibly frustrating

2:01

for you with the technical

2:03

problems, but it was the largest

2:06

audience gathered on Twitter.

2:10

Yeah, I mean, I was just kind of sitting in Tallahassee,

2:13

like I didn't really know what was going on because they

2:15

Twitter handled all of that. And they were

2:17

just getting so many people above

2:19

and beyond what they've ever gotten that I think it

2:21

kind of melted, melted the servers, but they

2:24

were able to correct it. And

2:26

we were able to do an announcement

2:28

that I think, you know, obviously

2:30

I laid out the case at the beginning for

2:32

five or six minutes, but then we were able to talk

2:35

about actual issues that people

2:38

should care about. And I think it's

2:40

now

2:40

up to eight or nine million people

2:42

have viewed it across some of the platforms

2:44

that have featured it. And obviously,

2:47

when Elon's involved, you get a lot of buzz out of

2:49

it. So we're getting huge feedback and

2:51

raising money and doing all that, which

2:53

is great. We were talking earlier today,

2:56

Stu and I, about this choice

2:58

that you have always had this

3:00

approach where you don't care what the New York Times says.

3:03

You're not sitting down trying to get, you know, a puff

3:05

piece out of the New York Times. You know you're not going to get one,

3:08

so you just ignore them. And I think

3:10

that's really really smart,

3:12

but very different. This too,

3:14

I think is going to be remembered as the Clinton

3:17

MTV or

3:19

Arsenio Hall program. This is really

3:22

smart to do. Does this, is

3:25

this a sign the end of the mainstream

3:28

media going right straight to people?

3:32

Well, I think what Elon's done is

3:34

he's opened up Twitter. I mean, the social

3:36

networks when they first came on the scene had a lot of

3:38

potential because we could

3:40

go around legacy media and

3:42

we could converse with ourselves. And that was a

3:44

big threat to them. And so they really

3:47

helped lobby companies

3:49

like Facebook to start censoring. And

3:51

then it got to the point where not only were they trying to enforce

3:54

a narrative, the tech companies were colluding

3:56

with federal agencies like the FBI

3:59

and the CDC. to censor

4:01

and stifle dissent. And so

4:03

Elon, I think, has put his money where his mouth

4:05

is, gotten one of those platforms, and

4:08

opened it up. So I think open

4:10

platforms are good for conservatives

4:12

because it allows us to go around the filter.

4:15

But I do think we have a huge battle

4:17

on our hands about tech censorship writ

4:20

large. What Elon's done is great, but how many

4:22

people are worth $250 billion

4:24

or they could afford to just put $54

4:27

billion down to buy a social platform?

4:30

And so tech censorship, I

4:32

think, is gonna continue to be an issue. I

4:34

think we've not dealt with it in Florida. We're gonna do

4:37

more as president, of course, to

4:39

make sure that the First Amendment actually

4:41

means something because you can't let

4:43

the government subcontract out censorship

4:46

to Silicon Valley and say you still

4:48

have a First Amendment. Okay, so let me

4:50

talk to you about the government,

4:53

FBI, DOJ, IRS, NSA,

4:55

CIA, ATF, everything,

4:57

even the Capitol Police

4:59

now are an intelligence gathering

5:02

agency. How do

5:04

you even run a campaign

5:07

when you know the

5:10

all of government approach to

5:12

the last election? How

5:15

do you, if you

5:17

win, how do you dismantle

5:19

this? Because it's almost like

5:21

a unplug it and plug it back

5:24

in and reset it to factory settings.

5:26

I mean, it's cleaning house.

5:29

And I think that this is a fundamental

5:32

problem. So we will look at like an example

5:34

of weaponization, which is obviously many

5:36

examples, but that's kind of the end point.

5:39

Like why are we here? And the reason that we're

5:41

here is because we have

5:43

these agencies that have been detached

5:45

from constitutional accountability. There

5:48

was never supposed to be a fourth

5:50

branch of government, but Congress has not

5:52

held them accountable with the power of the purse

5:55

or with legislating more precisely. And

5:57

presidents have not been willing

5:59

to.

5:59

wield article two power to

6:02

discipline the bureaucracy. So I think I'll

6:04

come in and on day one we'll be

6:06

spitting nails. I understand

6:08

and all your listeners should understand that

6:11

if we do everything right, if we're disciplined,

6:13

if we're strong as anyone could be, it still

6:16

takes a two term project. I think it

6:18

takes eight years to be able to reconstitutionalize

6:21

this government. But the question it raises

6:24

is do we govern ourselves or do

6:26

we not? Because right now the

6:28

most significant issues tend

6:30

not to be resolved by our elected representatives.

6:33

They're done by these bureaucrats and

6:35

through these agencies. And so it's really,

6:37

I think, a crisis of self government. Now

6:41

what you have with lack of accountability,

6:43

you just have a consolidated consolidation

6:46

of power amongst people that all have the same worldview.

6:49

And so their worldview is different than our worldview.

6:52

And they view people like us as factions

6:54

that they want to exert power over. And

6:57

so the weaponization I think flows from

6:59

from human nature. So what would I do, you know, day one,

7:02

first of all, I already already said

7:04

new FBI director day one, that is

7:06

a no brainer, you've got to do that. I'll

7:08

have an attorney general that has a backbone,

7:11

an attorney general that recognizes if

7:14

you are doing your job properly,

7:16

you are going to be pilloried by the Washington

7:18

Post and the New York Times and CNN.

7:21

And so if that's not something that you're

7:23

comfortable with, then don't even apply for this

7:25

job. Understand you're going into

7:27

the lions den, these people do not

7:30

want to give up this power willingly.

7:32

And so they're going to smear you, they're going to attack you. So

7:34

I think getting the personnel right,

7:37

if you can't do that, then it's

7:39

just not going to work at all. Second

7:41

thing I think is you got to be willing to use

7:43

Article two authority to its fullest

7:46

extent, the idea that some

7:48

FBI agent can collude with a tech

7:50

company to censor like Hunter Biden,

7:53

you should be firing these people, you

7:56

have the authority to do it. Yes, it'll be

7:58

contested. They'll sue you. But

8:00

who gets the Article II power,

8:03

the person that wins the Electoral College

8:05

or some middle managing bureaucrat in

8:08

the IRS or the FBI? So

8:11

asserting that authority, making

8:13

sure that you have political control over

8:15

those agencies, that is a huge battle. It's

8:18

something you got to be disciplined about. It's something you

8:20

got to be strategic about. And

8:22

it's not something that anyone's really tried

8:25

to do because, you know, these are tough fights.

8:27

It's like trench warfare and you got to

8:29

be ready on day one. And we will. And

8:32

incidentally, who's the Attorney General? Very

8:34

important. But it's also important who's

8:36

in, you know, a step or two below that

8:38

across all these agencies. And I think

8:40

you need to have thousands of people

8:43

ready to go. So are you – John –

8:46

You know, one of the things that really bothers

8:48

me about the Republicans is

8:50

the Democrats were

8:53

gaming and putting

8:55

everything into,

8:58

you know, the Obama

9:01

bill when he walked in. That thing

9:03

was 2,000 pages long. They

9:06

had worked on that for years. Are

9:08

you assembling teams and talking

9:10

about what to do so you could

9:13

just launch if you would win?

9:15

Absolutely. And so, first of

9:17

all, we're working with allied conservative

9:20

organizations who are already collecting resumes

9:22

from people around the country. And I

9:24

will have a message if I'm in, you know, if I'm

9:27

in Nevada, I'm going to say, look, some of you

9:29

who are in this audience, you may need to pick

9:31

up your family and move to Washington, D.C.,

9:33

for two, four, six years because you can't

9:36

just recycle everybody from D.C.

9:38

It's not going to change if that's the case. And so

9:40

you really need to have most of these people descending

9:43

on D.C. from outside the country.

9:46

And what they're also going to do is I'll

9:48

issue a directive to all these agencies

9:51

that they need to reduce the footprint

9:53

of their agencies in D.C. by at least 50

9:55

percent. Oh, my gosh. Because

9:58

I think what's happened is, you know, The

10:00

growth, the government, the size of it is

10:02

one thing, of course, but the consolidation

10:05

of it in Washington, I think has been totally

10:08

toxic. You have a place in Washington,

10:10

D.C. It votes 95% Democrat. I

10:15

think Trump got 4% or 5% of the vote in 2020. And

10:18

so this is totally not represented,

10:21

representative of the public as a whole. And

10:23

I think the founders would look at that. And I think they

10:26

would say, like, that is a huge, huge problem.

10:29

So

10:29

dispersing power out

10:32

of D.C. Yes, reducing the government

10:34

overall, but whatever government you have, we

10:36

want less consolidation in D.C. And

10:39

I think that that will make a difference. So, Governor,

10:41

the one thing that Donald Trump will have

10:43

going for him in spades is the economy.

10:46

People will trust him on the economy. He's already

10:48

done it once.

10:49

He's known as a businessman.

10:51

What are you

10:53

bringing to the table to

10:56

this all-out war on the American

10:58

dream? Corporations have

11:00

been weaponized, red tape,

11:03

all of the stuff that's going on. You'll

11:05

have the Fed against you, the big

11:08

banks.

11:09

How do you change the economy?

11:12

Well, look, I would just say

11:14

push back a little bit. I mean, I think he did great

11:16

for three years. But when he turned the country

11:18

over to Fauci in March of 2020, that

11:21

destroyed millions of people's lives.

11:24

In Florida, we were one of the few that

11:26

stood up, cut against the grain,

11:28

took incoming fire from media,

11:31

bureaucracy, the left, even a lot of Republicans,

11:34

had schools open, preserved businesses.

11:37

And so Florida, since COVID, has

11:39

outperformed virtually any state in the country

11:42

when you look at all these significant metrics.

11:44

I mean, we're booming. We've got people

11:46

moving in here. Wealth is coming

11:48

in here. And so I think when people look

11:50

back, that 2020 year was not a good year for the country

11:55

as a whole. It was

11:57

a situation where Florida stood up. started

12:00

to stand alone. So I think that that's important

12:02

contrast. Now, going forward, yes,

12:04

you rip up what Biden has done on

12:06

day one with things like energy. They

12:08

are trying to price middle-class

12:11

people out of having a middle-class

12:13

standard of living. We're not going to force

12:16

people to buy electric vehicles. We're

12:18

going to make sure that people have a choice to

12:20

have affordable transportation. We

12:23

absolutely reduce federal

12:26

spending. We're going to fight with the Congress on

12:28

that. I think the debt has gone up under

12:31

both Republican and Democrat. We act

12:33

like it's just Biden went up $8 trillion,

12:36

the debt under Trump as well. So we've

12:38

got to stop doing that. That has

12:40

absolutely driven the inflation since

12:42

March of 2020 with all the borrowing and

12:44

spending. I also think we need to have

12:47

the Federal Reserve focus

12:49

on stable money and

12:51

stop trying to be the economic central planner.

12:53

You look at how much money they've printed since

12:56

COVID. Of course, you're going to get inflation

12:58

when that happens. So you need a major overhaul

13:01

with the Federal Reserve. And then, yes,

13:04

fighting woke capital. Woke

13:06

capital is absolutely bad for

13:08

the average American because they're pursuing an

13:11

ideological agenda to achieve

13:13

ideological left-wing goals that

13:16

are going to make it harder for the average American

13:18

family to make ends meet.

13:20

May I ask you a

13:22

question? First of all, we are doing sit-downs

13:26

with each candidate. You've already done one, but

13:28

as governor, not as a candidate.

13:30

Will you sit down and just

13:32

talk about your policies with me?

13:36

Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Would

13:39

you before

13:40

a

13:42

debate

13:44

or a roundtable

13:46

hosted by, for instance,

13:49

us that would not necessarily

13:51

get the backing of the Republicans? I

13:53

think

13:54

the Republican Party controls these

13:59

debates. much and we keep going

14:01

back to the mainstream media

14:03

and I don't understand why. You guys should

14:05

absolutely do a debate and the

14:07

RNC should sanction it. I mean here's

14:09

the thing Glenn with

14:12

corporate media. Some will

14:14

say, because I say they shouldn't be involved

14:16

in our process because they're hostile

14:19

to us as Republicans. They have

14:21

a partisan agenda which is fine. It's a free country

14:24

and people say, oh well you just don't want to ask

14:26

Republican stuff questions. No, their gotcha

14:28

questions are not tough questions. Their

14:31

questions are designed to further a narrative.

14:33

The questions though are not

14:36

illuminating to Republican primary

14:38

voters because they're not one of us. And

14:40

so when you have people who live in kind

14:43

of our world, you are going to

14:45

be asking the tougher questions. They're not going

14:47

to be gotcha questions, but they're going to be substantive

14:50

and they're going to require candidates to

14:52

actually go beneath a talking point

14:55

to talk about their vision for the country

14:57

on these various issues. And so I think

15:00

you guys should do it. I'd love to be a part of

15:02

it, but I absolutely think the RNC

15:04

should sanction it because

15:07

you've seen what happened in 2015 or 2016

15:09

with some of those debates. It was a mockery

15:12

what these legacy media outs are

15:14

doing. And their whole goal is

15:17

to try to make the Republican candidates

15:20

look as ridiculous

15:22

as possible. They do not want us

15:24

to be to look like we're serious

15:27

people. They want to be able to

15:29

plow the field to get Biden reelected.

15:31

So we know that that's their agenda. So why

15:33

would you want to give them a platform

15:36

to be able to be involved in our process? I

15:38

can tell you in Florida, we had four congressional

15:41

seats that were open seats. Republicans ended

15:43

up winning and there were primaries in all of them. We

15:45

sanctioned debates with the state party and

15:48

we had conservative journalists and moderators

15:51

doing debates. And guess what? They were great substantive

15:53

debates and the issues that people actually

15:56

care about in our party were discussed. Well,

15:58

I will tell you that

15:59

as we took a stand for Harmeet Dhillon,

16:02

we didn't make any friends at the

16:04

GOP national level. But thank

16:06

you so much for coming on. Congratulations

16:10

on the rollout yesterday. We

16:12

look forward to hearing

16:15

more from you and all the

16:17

best. Yeah, we'll definitely sit

16:19

down with you and I'd love for all your folks

16:21

out there, invest with us at rondesanis.com.

16:24

We'd love to have your support. I pledge,

16:27

you nominate me, we will win. We'll

16:29

go

16:29

in on day one and we'll get all this done.

16:33

Very good, thank you very much, Governor. God

16:35

bless. Thanks, God bless. This

16:37

is the best of the Glenn Beck program. And don't forget,

16:40

rate us on iTunes. Spencer,

16:43

how are you, sir? Glenn, I'm

16:45

doing so well. It's great to be

16:47

here. I was listening to you talk about me before

16:50

the break. I was thinking, who's this guy he's talking about?

16:52

This is such a terrifying, I

16:55

promise I'm not that scary. I know we've

16:57

met before, haven't we? We met at your dad's

16:59

house,

16:59

dad and mom's house. That's

17:02

right, that's right. Years ago,

17:04

and I remember thinking, boy,

17:07

these parents of this man,

17:10

they are amazing.

17:12

And now reading your book, I have to tell you,

17:15

I love your father, I love

17:18

him to death. He has got

17:20

to be just beaming with what

17:23

you have written. This

17:25

is brilliant, Spencer, really is. I'm

17:29

very touched by that, thank you. I was extremely lucky

17:31

in both of my parents, my mom

17:34

and my dad. My father, of course, disavows

17:36

all ownership over me. And we

17:38

like to joke that we're not related to one another. But no,

17:40

he's done, no, I learned a great deal of

17:44

what I know from him. And in part, I

17:46

wrote this book out of

17:48

the love that he instilled in me of great

17:50

literature and of Westminster. So

17:53

let's talk about it. You

17:56

break up the saving of the West into.

17:59

five different categories. The

18:02

crisis of reality, the crisis of body,

18:04

the crisis of meaning, the crisis

18:06

of religion and the crisis of regime.

18:09

You start with reality

18:12

and it's

18:13

just it's so

18:15

spot on. Can you take us there first?

18:19

Absolutely. Yeah. Let me say a little bit

18:21

for a second about what I mean by the word crisis,

18:23

because I think that's one of the most overused

18:26

words in the world. You know, you wake up every morning

18:28

and there's a supply chain crisis and a COVID

18:31

crisis and any number of other things.

18:33

And, you know, of course, many of those things

18:35

are quite serious and troublesome. But

18:37

when I use the word crisis, I'm drawing

18:40

on this Greek idea, which is where the

18:42

word comes from. The Greek verb krino

18:44

means to judge or to make a decision.

18:47

And so a crisis, a crisis

18:50

is a time for choosing. It's a moment

18:52

of being presented with two

18:54

fundamentally unreconcilable ways of looking

18:57

at the world. And so when I let me hang out just

19:00

a second, let me just say the audience,

19:01

the whole book is like that. And it's

19:04

fantastic. Anyway, go ahead. That's

19:08

here I am. This is my Jan. No, I absolutely

19:12

I mean, you know, this once you

19:15

start to see this, the reason that the book is

19:17

is written this way, once you start to see this, you understand

19:20

that underneath the kind of daily

19:22

news cycle stories that were constantly

19:25

invaded with, they all feel kind of confusing

19:27

and disorienting. But that's because

19:29

we haven't really connected ourselves to the

19:31

deeper questions that are at stake behind

19:34

some of these things, you know, you hear about things like

19:36

the metaverse and virtual reality, which

19:38

is how the book starts. So you hear

19:40

about, you know, all this new kind of tech and

19:43

strange things that are happening. And what this

19:45

stuff is really doing is forcing us

19:47

to grapple with some of the most fundamental

19:50

questions that humankind has ever rested

19:52

with. And weirdly, that's kind

19:54

of good news, because it means we're not

19:56

alone. It means that, you know,

19:58

the greatest minds that have ever lived have wrestled in thought

20:00

with this stuff, we don't have to face it just

20:03

based on what the CDC or the WAF

20:05

says tomorrow or Dr. Fauci comes

20:07

up with five minutes ago. We actually have resources

20:10

for dealing with this. And the very first

20:12

question that we are up against, whenever we

20:14

start to think about these profound questions, is

20:17

the crisis of reality? And that's, is there

20:19

anything that is absolutely true and

20:21

absolutely false, no matter who says

20:23

otherwise? Or is it all just kind

20:25

of my truth, your truth? And that's sort

20:28

of how we feel about it. And this

20:29

is one of the most ancient questions in philosophy. It's how

20:32

the book begins, because I think it's the first question you

20:34

have to answer before you can proceed in any

20:36

sort of meaningful direction. So can you,

20:38

I mean, you lay out the case so well, can you

20:40

give a two minute version

20:45

of

20:46

reality and the collapse

20:48

of reality and what we're really,

20:50

we should be asking ourselves?

20:53

Yeah, absolutely. So from

20:56

the very beginning of Western

20:58

thought, there has been this temptation

21:00

to say, well, how can we really

21:02

know anything that's true or false? And the

21:05

temptation is always that if you don't,

21:07

you know, have to acknowledge reality,

21:09

if you don't have to say that a man is a man, as a woman,

21:12

as a woman, that, you know, good is good, and wrong

21:14

is wrong, then you can do all sorts

21:16

of things, you can gain all sorts of power

21:18

over the world by twisting and distorting

21:21

reality. But the thing that I argue in

21:23

the book is there is no halfway

21:25

house on this stuff. People think that they can

21:27

say, Oh, well, it's just my truth and your

21:29

truth when it comes to, you know, morality,

21:32

but I want to fight for social

21:34

justice. And I want to believe in the good and the

21:37

virtuous. Well, the thing about it is if you're

21:39

talking about if you want to do anything good

21:41

or virtuous, you have to believe there's such a thing

21:43

as goodness and virtue. And that means

21:45

that there actually is truth, we can

21:47

know it. And unless we believe

21:50

that, all we are is grappling

21:52

for power with one another. And

21:53

that's what we're seeing right now. So the

21:55

crisis of meaning, we have lost

21:58

meaning of

21:59

words and of life.

22:02

Talk about that. Yes, that's

22:04

right. Well, when you talk about meaning, you're

22:07

saying that the words we use aren't

22:09

just word games. They're not just

22:11

for fun. They're actually referring to something outside

22:14

of our self, outside of the

22:16

human body, outside of just our little

22:19

minds and the way we happen to want to live our

22:22

lives. And the reason that this is

22:24

so difficult for people is that if you're talking about things

22:26

that are outside of yourself, you're ultimately

22:28

going to get to the thing that is highest above you,

22:30

that is most outside of you. That's the supernatural

22:33

and that's the divine. And

22:35

we've been sold this bill of goods that

22:38

God and theology, this is a kind of backwards

22:40

outdated superstition. Nobody believes

22:43

in that anymore. And the more

22:45

we do that, the blinder we become

22:47

to this whole universe

22:50

that is still exists. It doesn't stop existing

22:52

just because we say it's not

22:54

there. We just don't realize what we're

22:56

doing. And so we become these kind of blind worshipers

22:59

of the science or BLM or

23:02

whatever we want to bend the knee to. And

23:04

we don't realize that we've just become pagan

23:06

worshipers by another name. And

23:08

so to really recover a sense of meaning

23:11

that won't enslave us, but will set us free,

23:13

we've got to let the divine back into our

23:15

lives. So we

23:18

have just,

23:19

we see half the country and

23:22

there's a lot of people, like for instance, I

23:24

think Elon Musk is one of these. You

23:27

have a lot of really great people

23:29

who are probably more classical

23:31

liberals

23:32

that have

23:36

looked at things and went, okay, wait, there's no

23:39

evidence. In fact, all the evidence goes

23:41

in the opposite direction. We got to stop this.

23:44

And they're not changing, they're not suddenly becoming

23:46

conservatives. But half of

23:49

the country is just locked

23:51

in on things that do

23:53

not make sense.

23:55

They didn't make sense in theory. And

23:57

now we're seeing the fruits

23:59

of it. it

24:00

all across the country.

24:02

What is happening to them

24:04

and how do we reconnect?

24:08

Well, I think that those people

24:10

that you're describing who are, you know, I

24:12

would say enthrall to a kind of woke

24:15

dogma, those people are being

24:17

offered an alternative religion. And

24:20

it doesn't call itself a religion,

24:22

but it has all the characteristics of a religion. It

24:24

involves begging for forgiveness. It

24:26

involves this ultimate kind of quest for

24:29

apocalyptic utopia where everything

24:31

is going to come out okay and the world

24:33

is going to be cleansed in a divine fire. It

24:36

has all the hallmarks of religion because

24:38

people are craving, craving something

24:40

that gives meaning and direction to their

24:43

lives. And I think that

24:45

as conservatives, as people that think this stuff doesn't

24:47

make any sense, we have to recognize

24:50

that we're not just going to argue

24:52

people out of this by, you know, presenting

24:54

them a budget sheet by saying, oh,

24:56

the economy is going to go better if you do it

24:59

this way rather than that way. What we actually

25:01

have to say is the thing that you're yearning for,

25:04

the meaning, the significance,

25:06

the passion that you are yearning for in this

25:09

woke madness, the reality

25:11

of it, the truth of it is in the great

25:14

tradition, is in the divine

25:16

truths of Scripture, is in the

25:19

great adventure of philosophy. We've

25:21

got to present this stuff as the joy

25:24

that it is. And that's cultural, that's

25:26

spiritual, that's not just political.

25:28

So I think that, you know, the right and even

25:30

just normal people that can see this stuff

25:33

is going terribly wrong. We're going

25:35

to have to offer a countervailing vision,

25:37

a vision of the great tradition and the great adventure that

25:39

we're all on of carrying that flame forward

25:42

because that's the only thing that can answer the real needs

25:44

of the human heart.

25:45

Spencer Clavin, the name of the book is

25:47

How to Save the West. Spencer, if you

25:49

don't mind, hang on for 60 seconds, we'll

25:51

come back with more with

25:54

How to Save the West. It's available

25:56

wherever you buy your books.

25:58

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27:59

Spencer

27:59

You're my favorite kind of intellectual.

28:02

You don't lord it over anybody's head. And

28:04

even though there is

28:07

one sentence in your book that I think has three

28:09

words that I've never heard of

28:11

before, I still, I get it.

28:16

You're not talking over people's heads.

28:19

You get it. And I just, I think-

28:21

You know- Go

28:23

ahead. I actually did not go to grad school for the purposes

28:25

of feeling better than everybody else. I

28:27

think that puts me in a vanishingly small minority. Yeah, it does.

28:30

Yeah, it does. It does. You're

28:33

not- It's a rush, right?

28:34

I mean- Yeah. You're

28:36

not spouting knowledge to show everybody how smart you are. You are

28:39

connecting the dots and telling

28:41

stories that, you know, most

28:43

of us haven't learned or we learned a little bit

28:45

and forgot, and you've thought deeply

28:48

about them. And we are at a time, I've been saying

28:50

this forever, we have

28:53

to define what life

28:55

is.

28:56

AI is coming and

28:58

people will say that's alive. So

29:02

what do you do? But if it's

29:04

alive, are you a slave owner

29:07

by keeping it and having it work

29:09

for you for free? Should

29:11

it vote? If it's alive? I mean,

29:14

we are going to have to re-answer all

29:17

of the most basic questions.

29:20

And I think that's what your book gets to.

29:22

That's absolutely right. Thank you. And

29:25

that speaks actually to what you were saying about

29:28

not lording the great

29:30

books or the canon over people. That's

29:34

incredibly important to me. That's

29:36

really personal from my perspective because

29:38

these things, these books that sit up on the shelf

29:40

and we kind of think of them as big

29:42

scary words, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's

29:45

and the Kintin ethics, we

29:47

treat them as if they're beyond us or

29:49

even maybe they're kind of outdated

29:52

or they're not worth reading. We've been told

29:54

this by our kind of cultural legislators,

29:57

by the people that said, hey, hey, ho, ho, Lester.

30:00

has got to go. For me,

30:02

growing up in a house filled with these books,

30:04

one thing I really quickly realized is that these

30:07

great minds are not there

30:09

to intimidate us. They're actually our greatest

30:12

friends in the world. They're there to

30:14

teach us about what it means to be

30:16

human and how to be good at being human. That's

30:19

not something for eggheads like me

30:21

to specialize in. That's something for everybody

30:23

to care deeply about. We all

30:25

do. When you crack open a book like

30:27

that, you'll find so much more sanity and common

30:29

sense than you will from

30:32

our modern gurus on a lot of

30:34

this. What's amazing is you

30:37

find that you are not alone.

30:40

I remember when I first ... I had to be 30 when

30:43

I first started reading Plato. I

30:45

mean, really reading it to learn

30:47

something.

30:48

I was shocked at

30:50

how relevant it

30:53

was. It was like, oh my gosh, I'm struggling

30:55

with that now. Oh my gosh, I understand

30:57

that problem.

31:00

We lose that because our history has

31:02

been so poorly taught that

31:05

we think these things are

31:07

just incredibly boring, but

31:09

the answers are all there because these

31:12

are eternal truths or at least

31:14

the search for an eternal truth. You

31:19

say save the West

31:21

and we are

31:24

looking at a time where it looks like

31:26

America could,

31:28

I mean just go down at any time. Is

31:33

there anything about this

31:35

time that gives

31:37

you hope that you're seeing that

31:39

we are different than the past

31:43

or is it kind of inevitable?

31:46

You know, this is one

31:48

of those questions that I

31:50

have wrestled with myself and I know probably

31:53

everybody listening to us right now is

31:55

worried about this very thing. What's going

31:57

to happen to us? And a lot of the times

31:59

this gets hard. framed in terms of like, are you an optimist

32:02

or are you a pessimist? Right? Do you think everything is

32:04

going to go great? Everything is going to go poorly.

32:06

And one thing I've realized is that both optimism

32:09

and pessimism are kind of mistakes

32:12

because they're predictions about the future. If

32:14

you're an optimist, you think everything's going to go well, maybe you don't

32:17

work hard to preserve the great tradition. If

32:19

you're a pessimist, you think it's going to go badly, why would you

32:21

do anything? And so my question

32:24

always is where do you put your hope?

32:26

Where does your hope lie? Because hope is

32:28

a virtue. It's actually one of the central

32:31

Christian virtues. And my

32:33

hope is in this tradition that I am

32:35

delivering, which has endured both

32:37

the rising and the falling of

32:40

great nations. Doesn't matter. It's a matter of indifference.

32:42

What, what doesn't mean it's a matter of indifference, what happens

32:44

in our politics. It just means

32:47

that the things of the world, which

32:49

are beyond our control are

32:52

going to transpire, you know,

32:54

whether we choose them or not. That's how it works.

32:56

What's in our control is the

32:58

preservation of the Western tradition

33:01

of virtue of the small human

33:03

sized face to face practice

33:05

of courage, integrity, reason,

33:09

prudence, these sorts of things, which people like

33:11

Plato talk about, they take place at the dinner

33:13

table. They take place in neighborhoods. They

33:15

take place in schools. And that's why we're seeing

33:18

so much energy in these local communities,

33:21

even as everything seems to be going terribly wrong

33:23

on the world stage. The more people

33:26

invest in their states, in their towns,

33:28

in their families, in their churches,

33:29

the more we start to see that

33:32

actually, you know, the West is not

33:34

some grand narrative that's

33:36

outside of our understanding or control.

33:39

That's us. I

33:41

have to thank you. Please tell your father he

33:44

should have laid claim to you. And then

33:46

tell your mother she did a great job of raising

33:48

you. It's fantastic.

33:51

Fantastic. How to save

33:54

the West.

33:55

You want real answers, really

33:57

well thought out answers. How to save

33:59

the West. the West available everywhere. You're

34:02

listening to the Best of the Glenn Beck

34:04

program. I want

34:06

you to hear from

34:09

CNN the corporate

34:11

cost of culture wars. They're asking

34:14

should businesses back away from

34:16

this because what happened to Bud Light and what's currently

34:18

going on with Target. Listen

34:20

to the analysis. What advice could

34:23

you give companies that sort of

34:24

get swept up in this? Well,

34:30

the issue is who are you beholden to? Are

34:33

you beholden to

34:35

many different stakeholders,

34:37

but in particular you're beholden to your investors

34:40

and investors are not pulled

34:44

back from looking at how

34:46

companies are assigned.

34:47

There's a lot more on this, but

34:49

let me stop it there.

34:51

You're beholden to many stakeholders. Okay.

34:54

That's ESG talk and

34:57

you're really, you have to answer to the

34:59

shareholders. So who are the shareholders

35:01

of Target?

35:03

You ready?

35:04

Vanguard

35:07

with 9%, BlackRock 9%, State

35:11

Street 8%, then

35:14

another Vanguard fund with 3%,

35:16

then Wells Fargo,

35:19

then Bank of America, then another

35:21

Vanguard 500 Index fund.

35:24

They're only talking about 12 people. You've

35:27

got maybe 12 people that are really

35:30

diehard into ESG at the top

35:32

of these companies and they're the

35:34

ones telling these companies you

35:37

do this.

35:39

Good luck with that Target. Ali

35:41

Stuckey is with me now from Blaze

35:44

TV. Hi, Ali. How

35:46

are you? I

35:48

know you've been all over this and

35:52

it has been shocking. I walked

35:54

into Target last Friday

35:56

and I didn't know if

35:58

it had been going on. Apparently it had just gone on. up. And

36:00

I looked at my wife and I said, we are not

36:03

shopping here. This is

36:06

way over the line. Right.

36:09

And apparently I wasn't alone with that.

36:10

Yeah. You know, some people started boycotting a long

36:12

time ago. I started boycotting a

36:14

year ago. So I was even kind of late

36:17

to the game. In some ways, some people were boycotting

36:19

when they were allowing men into women's restrooms,

36:21

which they were ahead of the game on that. But

36:24

I started boycotting last year when I saw that they

36:26

were selling in the name of pride month, these

36:28

compression tops, which they're selling again this

36:30

year for young girls who

36:32

want to pretend to be boys, to look like

36:34

boys. And I just thought there's really no

36:36

more wicked message than that, that your body

36:38

is bad, that God made a mistake with you.

36:41

And we will help you cover up the

36:43

body that God gave you so that you can pretend

36:45

to be something else. Like how self-loathing

36:48

is that? And then now, as you've already talked about,

36:50

they have the same thing for boys with the tucking

36:52

swimsuits and all that. And I just said, you know

36:54

what? I don't boycott everything. I don't divest

36:56

from every corporation that doesn't agree with all

36:59

my values, but I'm already spending too much

37:01

money at Target. Those Target runs end up, you

37:03

know, racking the bill with things that you

37:05

don't really need. And I can't spend

37:07

that much money on a company that is

37:09

directly opposing

37:10

everything that I am fighting for.

37:13

So I know it sounds difficult, but

37:15

I stopped shopping there a year ago and I haven't looked

37:17

back.

37:17

I have to tell you, I

37:20

think if this becomes a Bud

37:23

Light thing,

37:25

the entire thing begins to fall

37:27

apart

37:28

because Bud Light expected

37:30

a hit

37:31

and then turn it around.

37:33

But if people start to look at Target,

37:35

like I now look at Target and go, you

37:38

are an enemy to my family,

37:42

then things begin to change. When somebody

37:44

walks into the kitchen with a Target

37:46

bag and somebody else says, you

37:48

shopped at Target, that's

37:51

when it's over.

37:51

Yep, absolutely. And they just took

37:54

it a step too far, even

37:56

for the people who are like, okay, I can tolerate the rainbows.

37:58

That's fine.

37:59

segment, whatever. But when you're talking

38:02

about bathing suits meant

38:05

to cover up male genitalia

38:07

for pretty young boys, it looks

38:09

like depending on the product that you're

38:11

looking at. I mean, really, if you're associating

38:14

with that. And I just want to say, because it's really

38:16

suburban women, suburban moms that are propping

38:19

up target. And I would say a lot of Christian women,

38:21

a lot of women go there specifically for

38:23

Chip and Joanna's Magnolia line.

38:26

But another one, people

38:27

should be writing to Chip and

38:29

Joanna and saying, are you seeing

38:32

what's going on? How can you remain

38:35

silent with a partner

38:37

that is doing this? I mean, I know they have contracts

38:40

and it's something you walk away from,

38:43

but you should at least speak out.

38:45

Right. And you know, they're it's

38:47

not like they don't speak out about other things because

38:50

a few years ago after the whole George Floyd

38:52

debacle, they did make statements

38:54

about, you know, the dangers of racism and white supremacy

38:57

and doing better and doing the work. So they're

38:59

okay with speaking out about some social justice

39:02

issues. But guys, you have represented

39:04

yourself as strong Christians, as defenders

39:06

of the Christian faith and family and

39:09

family. And so at this

39:11

point, I do think that their silence is strange.

39:13

Yeah. So do you

39:15

think this is something that we've

39:18

seen the

39:19

biggest part of or do you think this becomes

39:21

a Bud Light thing?

39:22

I think that as long as those of

39:24

us who have a microphone or anyone who has influence,

39:27

whether it's small or large, continues this,

39:29

continues to double down. Don't take their little

39:32

statements. They're moving the segments

39:34

to other parts of the store as, oh, we

39:36

won. No, you double down. I'm asking

39:38

people at least for the month of June. And

39:41

I know some people think that they are totally dependent on

39:43

Target. And that's another conversation for another

39:45

day, at least for the month of June, women,

39:48

Christian women, suburban moms do

39:50

not shop at Target at least for the month

39:52

of June. I think that can make a difference.

39:55

I will tell you, they will

39:58

wait it out. But

40:00

Bud Light is now six weeks into it. Is

40:03

that right? Six, seven weeks? Six weeks? And

40:06

they're down 30% or 29% now. And

40:09

they're freaking out now. They expect

40:11

us,

40:12

because we don't do this, they

40:14

expect us just to go

40:16

along. And I think

40:19

we've hit a turning point in all

40:21

of this. To where people

40:25

with Bud Light, it

40:27

doesn't make sense that we didn't do

40:29

anything about Nike. And

40:32

yet, here comes Bud Light and all

40:34

of a sudden, there's something that has happened

40:37

in the minds of Americans. And

40:39

I'm hoping that this is the next shoot-a-fall,

40:42

because

40:43

if it happens to Target and

40:46

Bud Light, the number one beer in

40:48

America, it happens to those

40:50

two, it will put all

40:53

corporations on notice, something's

40:56

changed, they're not gonna take it.

40:59

Look, the idea of boys being able to

41:01

become girls and vice versa in all of the bodily

41:04

mutilation that we've seen come from

41:06

that. Whether you consider yourself an independent

41:09

or whether you're a Christian or not, that's just too

41:11

far for people. I mean, obviously as a Christian,

41:13

I'm for traditional marriage and all of that. But

41:15

even just for the non-religious, non-conservative

41:18

person, the idea of a little boy

41:20

being told to talk is just

41:23

too far. It's insanity, and I

41:25

think that's why. I think that's why it's changed

41:27

to this year. I think that's why there's more

41:29

vitriol

41:29

and because there's a lot of

41:31

disgust and a lot of depravity that people

41:33

don't wanna be a part of. It's evil.

41:36

It's evil. And it is a slap against the face

41:39

of every woman, every

41:44

girl to bind, would

41:47

anyone go to a place that was like, hey,

41:50

women, you should bind your feet like

41:52

they used to in China. No,

41:56

we know that's horrible.

41:58

You now want to... bind

42:00

women's breasts. This

42:03

is so far over the line.

42:06

And then on top of it,

42:08

the fact that they are doing business

42:10

with a designer who is

42:13

a Satanist and has no

42:15

problem saying it and some of

42:17

his designs are like, what

42:20

was it, Satan...

42:21

Satan respects pronouns. Also,

42:24

murderous things of like times

42:26

up for homophobes or a homophobe headrest,

42:29

which was actually a picture of a guillotine.

42:30

So, I mean, this is a murderous

42:32

person that the people at Target were like,

42:34

yes, we want to partner with

42:36

you.

42:37

I can't believe how deeply it goes.

42:39

Because that's not just

42:41

a corporate decision to say,

42:43

hey, let's get into the

42:45

LGBTQ because of the S

42:48

in ESG. No, no, no.

42:51

This is a fundamental problem

42:53

in Target.

42:55

If your company has now

42:57

started to bring Satanists

43:00

in, known Satanists,

43:03

and you're selling their product

43:06

that talks about Satan, you've

43:09

got a deep, deep problem at the

43:11

core of you. And

43:13

by ignoring it,

43:15

it doesn't get better. It

43:17

will only get worse. Don't.

43:21

Do not shop at Target.

43:23

Don't.

43:25

Tell everybody you know. Don't.

43:27

I'm telling you, this is a big moment.

43:30

If we actually

43:31

take this moment seriously

43:35

and start drawing lines in the sand,