Trump's China Speech Is WORTHLESS Without DOJ Action | 7/21/26

Summary

Steve Deace Show – Episode Summary

Episode: Trump's China Speech Is WORTHLESS Without DOJ Action | 7/21/26
Date: July 21, 2026
Host: Steve Deace (with Todd Erzin & Aaron McIntyre)
Theme: Principled conservative commentary with a sharp, candid, and often snarky tone on breaking news and the impotence of mere rhetoric—especially in the context of Trump’s "China speech," accountability, and the state of Evangelical discourse.

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode confronts the hollowness of high-profile political posturing—specifically, Trump’s recent speech on Chinese interference in US elections—when it isn’t paired with real, actionable accountability (such as DOJ investigations). The panel critiques performative conservatism, explores the futility many feel in today’s media cycles, and examines deeper cultural rifts among Evangelicals, including the loss of serious intellectual influence. The episode is peppered with snark, sharp observations, and a deep dive into the Western canon via an interview about Homer’s Odyssey (and a critique of a new, woke film adaptation).

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Episode Structure & Key Segments

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1. News Monologue: "What Happened While We Were Away"

Timestamps: 00:01–05:15

• Digest of Recent News:
  • Arrest of Andrew Arabaca, ex-Army, outside a federal building (calls him a “Pro Open Borders Terrorist”; affected immigrant civilian).
  • NYC: Local politician threatening to arrest Netanyahu for “war crimes” (highlighting US/Israel political intrigue).
  • Senator Rand Paul’s Release: Docs showing CBP flagged Peter Daszak (EcoHealth) for questioning due to China ties, but FBI intervened—Daszak not questioned (01:00).
  • Trump’s China Speech: Declass revelations of “crucial vulnerabilities” in US elections. DHS: 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote; number likely higher (02:03–02:43).
  • Mention of Darlene Graham taking over Lindsey Graham’s seat; transgender activism mocked.
  • Viral/offbeat political moments: Aussie MP Barnaby Joyce interrupted by his off-camera dog (“Sorry. It’s a dog.” – 05:03).

Notable Quotes:

• Todd Erzin (re: Israel/Netanyahu): “Mr. Netanyahu belongs in the Hague. He’s a war criminal.” (00:46)
• Steve Dace (re: new Senate appointee): “I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely. ... You’re in.” (02:49)

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2. Opening Discussion: The News & Chronic Lack of Accountability

Timestamps: 05:15–14:21

• Main Point: Frustration with endless cycles of “big stories” that go nowhere. Focus on the inertia following Trump’s China speech—raising alarms but taking no actionable steps.
• Steve’s Position: “I am struggling…if there's not going to be any accountability or…a realistic expectation of it…how much time to spend on it.” (13:02)
• Show’s Dilemma: Should time be spent rehashing issues that don't get addressed or lead to change? Are media/podcast cycles just burning people out?
• Tone: Sarcastic, almost nihilistic: “We've gotten pretty good as a show of gallows humor…the last five or six years. You know what I'd really wish we were good at as a people? Gallows.” – Steve (14:10)

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3. Accountability and The Futility of Rhetoric

Timestamps: 14:22–24:27

• Team Debate: Is it healthy or helpful to keep raising issues with no realistic resolution? Are they informing or just making people angry?
• Aaron: “What's the point of highlighting anything, basically? If we're not leading to action, what's the point of wasting breath over it?” (16:38)
• Todd: “I think we said…over the weekend…Remember to put the China speech in the montage…if the SAVE Act weren't on the table, what possible remedy or accountability do we think there would be for any of this?” (14:54)
• Underlying Theme: A society sprinting from distraction to distraction, never demanding real change or consequences.
• Todd: “If the only thing…worthy of existential preening and filtering is someone's views of the nation of Israel, I…suggest you may have misread this thing as much as the Joel Osteen crowd has.” (64:04)

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4. Who’s Accountable? Trump, the DOJ, and Empty Gestures

Timestamps: 24:28–29:42

• Trump’s national speech: panel agrees there is little hope unless Trump leverages DOJ/FBI to act, not just complain.
  • “Don’t give us this national speech, bitch and moan about networks that didn’t carry it, and then not have your Department of Justice do something about it? ... Then what are we going to do about it?” – Todd (22:27, 26:13)
• Systemic Issues: The disconnect between political rhetoric (even from Trump) and actionable institutional follow-through.
• South Carolina Nepotism Side Note: Team rolls eyes at Lindsey Graham’s sister inheriting his seat, mocking the state’s uncritical support of GOP “brands” over substance.

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5. Deep Dive: The Odyssey – Why it Matters (with Dr. Ben Whalen, Hillsdale)

Timestamps: 32:31–47:48

• Western Civ, Storytelling, and Why The Odyssey Endures:
  • The Odyssey as “the genesis of Western storytelling…foundational both historically and in its vision of the human person.” – Dr. Whalen (33:07)
  • Tracing Western literature’s core themes back to Homer (war, domestic life, virtue, heroism, marriage/politics).
  • Modern film adaptation controversy: attempts to “deconstruct the foundation” of the West by subverting its cultural bedrock (i.e., The Odyssey).
  • Archaic Greece and the role of family/marriage in civic life…“restoring his political order through the restoration of his marriage.” (39:50)
  • Panel trashes woke adaptation/film for missing Homer’s supernatural/mythic core and shoehorning modern tropes.
• Notable Quote:
  • Dr. Whalen: “If you wanted to undermine something foundational to the Western intellectual and…imaginative tradition, attacking Homer would be going right to the root.” (37:33)

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6. Fake News Or Not: Evangelical Meltdown & Intellectual Irrelevance

Timestamps: 52:10–77:48

• Steve’s Provocation:
  “Evangelicalism is not a serious intellectual influence in America because for a generation, it didn’t want to be. It didn’t want to build His kingdom, it wanted to build its own brands.” (56:20)
  • Evangelical leaders now “slitting each other’s throats” online over a presidential primary between two Catholics, marking an era of misplaced priorities and hollowed-out leadership.
• Aaron:
  "This is a shibboleth Steve has laid down that must be reconciled—and quickly. Our civilization will die if Christians keep racing to light each other on fire… instead of dealing with the demons before us." (55:12)
• Steve’s Analysis:
  Evangelicalism’s American, individualist streak has led to isolation, lack of tradition, and “everyone on their own island.” In contrast, Catholicism is “still doing the things they were doing 1500 years ago…still emphasizes tradition, being together, intellectual tradition.” (59:30)

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7. The Israel Litmus Test and The Folly of Fratricide

Timestamps: 60:27–81:25

• Audience Reaction Example:
  First reply to Steve’s thread: “It’s the difference between blessing and cursing Israel, God’s firstborn. If you don’t see that… you have been blinded…” (60:27)
• Steve’s Response:
  “If in a generation the only thing you have raised up in your sect worthy of existential preening and filtering is someone's views of the nation of Israel… you may have misread this thing…” (64:04)
• Key Point:
  The fact that Protestants are ready to split coalitions over “which of two Catholics” is more sufficiently pro-Israel—while ignoring core Western/civic crises—shows evangelical collapse.
• Aaron:
  “The Protestants on both sides of this…agree on almost everything else… But there’s no commonality there worth holding on to if it means this distinction is not agreed upon.” (63:54)
• Steve’s Edict:
• Two rules for Christian discourse:
  1. Don't be anti-Semitic
  2. Don't tell Jews they don't need Jesus as Messiah
• Everything else: "have any opinion you want and we can argue and debate it."
• Analogy:
  To NFL teams fighting about their post-season vacation instead of playing the games: “They have their final team meeting before their first game… and immediately the entire team almost comes to fisticuffs, arguing about where they're going to go on vacation in the off season.” (75:12)

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8. Pop Culture Tuesday: Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” – A ‘Woke’ Failure

Timestamps: 81:25–95:55

• Steve’s Review:
  He watched the new Nolan film adaptation out of concern Hollywood had finally learned to make “great woke films”—his verdict: it’s not possible.
• Core Critique:
  To “make something good and woke,” you must deconstruct heroism, inject excessive self-doubt, and ultimately sabotage the story itself. “You can’t have something great and woke at the same time. Nolan tried—and failed.” (95:21)
• Specifics:
  • The film is bogged down by modern grievance motifs (lecture from a trans "conscience" character played by Elliot Page)
  • Self-defeating plot: Instead of the Homeric restoration/heroism, Odysseus abdicates his throne, burdened by "woke" guilt
  • Miscasting, anachronisms, and a lack of epic scale further undermine the adaptation
• Memorable Quote:
  Christopher Nolan “…proved something. It is impossible to make something good and woke.” (87:45)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I think we said to each other, like over the weekend…Remember to put the China speech in the montage. We can talk about it. But if…what possible remedy or accountability do we think there would be for any of this?” – Todd (14:10)
• “We've gotten pretty good as a show of gallows humor the last, what, five or six years…now, you know what I'd really wish we were good at as a people? Gallows.” – Steve (14:22)
• “If you wanted to undermine something foundational to the Western…tradition, attacking Homer would be going right to the root.” – Dr. Ben Whalen (37:33)
• “Evangelicalism is not a serious intellectual influence in America because for a generation, it didn't want to be. It didn't want to build his kingdom, it wanted to build its own brands.” – Steve (56:20)
• “Our civilization will die if Christians keep racing to light each other on fire…instead of dealing with the demons before us.” – Aaron (55:12)
• “This cannot be the only thing worthy of, of having existential angst and schism-level divisiveness over.” – Todd (76:26)
• “It is impossible to make something good and woke. Here's why. Because to make something good and woke, you have to deconstruct the valor and heroism of the hero…Ultimately, the story will fail because it will require you to undermine what would make your story relevant…” – Steve (87:45, 95:21)

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Flow, Tone, and Utility

This episode is blunt, dense, and intellectually challenging, with plenty of sarcasm and self-aware humor. The hosts pick apart both news and big cultural trends, lamenting the lack of meaningful political action and the evaporation of robust, unifying intellectual Christianity. The show pulls no punches in reviewing popular culture nor in critiquing its own tribe, offering listeners both a cathartic airing of grievances and a call to deeper, less superficial engagement—whether politically, theologically, or culturally. The extended Odyssey interview and film critique offer insight into why foundational stories still matter, and why hollow, performative, or “woke” revisions will ultimately fail.

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For listeners and readers:
This episode is ideal for those frustrated with empty political talk, seeking principled commentary on conservative and Christian thought, and critical analysis of culture wars—wielding equal parts biting wit and serious cultural critique.

Transcript

[Steve Dace]

It's the Steve Day show and here's what happened while we were away. Brought to you by Pro Open Borders Terrorism the FBI says a former US army soldier was arrested after igniting a fire in front of a federal building in New York City. The FBI says Andrew Arabaca, 43 year old, allegedly shot a pellet gun and set off fireworks on Monday morning at 26 Federal Plaza, where the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services have offices. Federal agents tackled the suspect, who they say was armed with a machete and other weapons. Three were injured. The only civilian injured by the Pro Open Borders terrorist was an immigrant on his way to an immigration hearing. Also in New York City, Mamdani Mania is threatening to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next time he comes to town.

[Todd Erzin]

Mr. Netanyahu belongs in the Hague. He's a war criminal. What does the law allow you to do? That's an active conversation with our legal department in seeing what the prospects are we have here in our municipality.

[Steve Dace]

Senator Rand Paul released documents showing that U.S. customs and Border Protection prepared a formal targeting action to question and search Peter Daschik, president of EcoHealth alliance, upon his return to the United States from the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of COVID 19, before the FBI intervened and asked agents to stand down, the documents show. CBP's National Targeting center flagged Daszuk as an extremely high person of interest ahead of his February 5, 2021 arrival at JFK, citing his more than 15 years of collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and his role as principal investigator on NIH grants funding bat coronavirus research in China. Three days before his arrival back in the United States, CBP received a Note from the FBI's New York Field office, do not stop Peter Daschek. The inspection never took place. Also speaking of China, a topic we haven't had a chance to discuss yet is President Trump's national address late last week centered on some newly declassified documents showing crucial vulnerabilities in American elections.

[Todd Erzin]

According to the DHS review state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. Since Democrat states refuse to share their voter files, the real number is actually much higher than that. Yet even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote. Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.

[Steve Dace]

The late sister of Senator Lindsey Graham, Darlene Graham who was appointed to his seat last week, says she wants to stay.

[Todd Erzin]

I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely. So you're inclined to get in or have you even made a final decision? I've made a decision. You're in.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Amen.

[Steve Dace]

And now a crucial reminder that transgenderism is soul and mind rape. We go back to Maine where the Democrats Senate candidate named Ashley Webb, a dude says he ovulates.

[Todd Erzin]

I don't know about the ovulation. I'm.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Because I do get symptoms too.

[Todd Erzin]

That why was, until I went on

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

estrogen patch which went away completely.

[Todd Erzin]

Okay.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

I would, I would feel really good

[Aaron McIntyre]

like the 15th day of every cycle.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

And it was a 39, 29 day

[Todd Erzin]

cycle that I was experiencing.

[Aaron McIntyre]

I mean this sounds pretty, sounds pretty cycly there. So let me read.

[Todd Erzin]

I was gonna go ahead during that time like I also leak like a

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

mucus which they can't really explain.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Oh, interesting interest.

[Steve Dace]

Big trouble in little Talarico town. Democrat senate candidate for Texas James Talarico was accosted at his own event a few days ago.

[Todd Erzin]

Stay here. You answer our questions or you suffer the consequences. I'm happy to engage when you talk to your staff. We'll come here in just a second. I appreciate you being here and I appreciate you traveling in and I appreciate

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

you for my people, not for you. Wonderful.

[Todd Erzin]

And that's wonderful. I think that's wonderful. And,

[Steve Dace]

and finally we go to the land down under where Barnaby Joyce, a member of the Australian Parliament, was interviewed by Australia's ABC when this moment happened.

[Todd Erzin]

Joyce, that your decision to defect to

[Aaron McIntyre]

one nation is dragging you further into a place of intolerance and racial discrimination.

[Todd Erzin]

You're defending your leader, but are you

[Aaron McIntyre]

really comfortable with where she is taking you?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

My feet.

[Todd Erzin]

Sit down.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Sorry. It's a dog.

[Steve Dace]

And apparently his dog was just off camera causing a ruckus and the MP just lost it. Okay. And that's what happened while we were away.

[Todd Erzin]

Did you guys hear that? Would be domestic terrorist, former US Serviceman. I've got something I want to say about that. Also what Trump's China speech over the weekend might, might really be about. And then I, I, I'm not here to condemn South Carolina political nepotism, but to praise it. That and more next on the Steve Day Show. And greetings. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the Steve Day show here live and on demand. I am Steve Dacey's todders and he's Aaron McIntyre. Now coming up on the show today we are going to have a lot to say about the Odyssey. Whoa, Nelly. I got a chance to see it yesterday. And my word.

[Aaron McIntyre]

All right, that scene talking about the mucus in Aaron's montage, that's in the Odyssey.

[Todd Erzin]

Maybe that's in the special edition. Because that worldview is certainly very prevalent within the Odyssey, I can promise you that. All right, so we're going to tackle this with some bookended segments. All right, at the bottom of the hour, we're going to talk to a noted scholar over at Hillsdale College about what the Odyssey story really is, really is all about, and why it's important to our heritage here within Western civilization. Okay? We'll play fake news or not. With a theological observation that I made over the weekend that has angered and ruffled, angered many and ruffled a lot of feathers. Or as I call it, a day that ends in Y. And then we will have my personal look at the Odyssey. And it will be very spoiler laden because I don't want any of you to see it. My great fear going to see the film yesterday is that Skynet had adapted. And after five years of trying to deconstruct, agitprop, and wokeify literally everything and having every attempt that they have made to do so fail miserably, that the spirit of the age demons in charge of American pop culture these days may have cracked the code that they may have figured out with perhaps the greatest director of this era, or at least the greatest director of the post Spielberg era. Because you didn't. The only thing that was disclosed in disclosure is we're in the post Spielberg era. That's. That's. That's not Spielberg's worst film. Then it will be the next one. Okay? They may have cracked the code, and then maybe by calling Christopher Nolan fourth, they could possibly come up with compelling entertainment that is woke, deconstructive and spirit of the age in nature. I am here to tell you they. They were not able to do that before we even get into the world of view of the film. It's not a very good film. It is very, very mid. And that's because of the worldview of the film. And no, no, no, no. There is no something can be great and woke. I think we have learned from the Odyssey. It's just not possible. And I will explain coming up here at the end of the show. But first, gentlemen, let's get to what's in Aaron's montage, shall we? So, Aaron, you said that it looks like the. The early profile. This would be Domestic terrorist from yesterday, where I believe one major American news media outlet. By the way, didn't they say that it was someone was letting off fireworks or something? There wasn't the initial story that one major American news media outlet put out yesterday afternoon when this story came out. Former US Serviceman, you said. Correct.

[Steve Dace]

Mm.

[Todd Erzin]

Yeah.

[Steve Dace]

Patriot missile tech. From what I've read,

[Todd Erzin]

worldview is destiny. Right. The last. Well, the two president. The president that preceded Trump and then succeeded Trump and preceded Trump 2.0 were openly attempting to subvert the military and openly attempting to recruit a certain worldview into the ranks, right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

And then for those they weren't attempting to recruit, they were certainly attempting to indoctrinate accordingly for those who had already been in those ranks and recruited into them therein. Correct?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes. They were pro Mucus.

[Todd Erzin]

Yes, Pro mucus. And if there's anything that is a good, apt and pithy description for what we are up against, pro Mucus might be the best I have ever heard. So well done for you.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Thank you.

[Todd Erzin]

But I mean, this is. In many respects, he is a. He alleged a byproduct of what they intended the US Military to be. Correct?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

And it's also why I believe that the entire COVID vaccine mandate issue in the military during that period of time was trying to weed out whatever was left of people with our belief system and worldview. Well, Steve, I know. And ultimately, therefore, also remove those who would go to the final degree of conviction, because not the only ones, but not everyone who would refuse to. Not everyone who would. Who would refuse to shoot on their own. Countrymen said. Said. Said no to the jab. There were some people that took it for other coercive reasons and had no other way out and took it that probably would draw a line at something like that. Right. Okay. But everyone who did refuse it would say no to the jab in the other direction or would say no to shooting on us in the other direction. And that's why they were. That's why that was done. It was done to test the resolve. See how many Americans are actually still in the American military. I can't put it any more blunt than that. See how many Americans are still in the American military who would belay an order to fire on their own citizens or take some of the most extreme behavior that could be ordered by, you know, a wannabe despotic commander in chief and whoever was actually calling the shots in his place.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Like the mayor of New York, for example.

[Todd Erzin]

Correct. And I think that this was a compliance test and Again, there were people who took that jab who are fine patriots, who would also, I think, not go so far as to commit those kinds of atrocities. But everyone who did say no, we know would not commit those atrocities, and that's why they were weeded out or attempted to be. So this brings me to a, this brings me to a segue, and this is where I would like to get the position of our show ombudsman. And then, Aaron, your perspective as well. So Trump's speech on Chinese foreign interference into our elections, what you had to say, Aaron, about Rand Paul and Ralph Barak. Why don't we continue to hound Anthony Fauci here on the show? Now, in the case of the president's China speech, I do think there is an accountability mechanism here with the SAVE act still looming. I think that has at least some of what the president is doing this release at this time is to further try to pressure Congress to put the say back on his, on his desk. But I am struggling with, if, if there's not going to be any accountability or there's not a realistic expectation of it, if we, if we do go in and do our part to elevate awareness of it, I am struggling how much time to spend on it. And just to be as transparent as I can be. And as I try to be, some of that is just my own boredom and my own resentment, frankly, for anticipating a lack of accountability. So I'm like, don't waste my time. But I'm not sure I should be projecting that on our audience. Maybe you don't think it's a waste of time and it is worthy of my time to devote time to it, but I'm kind of past the age of. Just give me a talking point. You know, I'm like, in favor of, like, you know, not just gallows humor, but gallows. Like, I just. We've gotten pretty good as a show of gallows humor the last, what, five or six years, right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

We have.

[Todd Erzin]

I think so, yeah. You know what I'd really wish we were good at as a people? Gallows. Like the gallows themselves. I'd really like to bring out the gallows to bring those back. Should get a hat. Making gallows great again. What do you think? Yeah, it's got a good beat. You can dance to it, right? I mean, so I think we said to each other, like over the weekend. We said it again yesterday. Oh, yeah. Remember to put the China speech in the montage. We can talk about it. But if the SAVE act weren't on the Table. What possible remedy or accountability do we think there would be for any of this?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Like,

[Todd Erzin]

let's just start with, are we going to take another half a million Chinese foreign nationals into our universities this fall? The answer is probably yes. Can I get a ruling on this from the team here? Okay, how much should we. How much time? Because my answer just. Steve. Because you need to know. Steve gets bored easy.

[Steve Dace]

All right?

[Todd Erzin]

And I'm a guy, so I'm always in fight or flight mode. And the minute I feel like we're not going to fight, I'm just totally out, you know? And I'm just. I've moved on to the next thing. So if I don't think we're going to fight or I don't think I can help instigate a fight, I'm just. I'm dipping, man. Peace out. Pour one out. See you on the flip side. Right? But that doesn't necessarily. My personal positions and preferences are not necessarily always in line with what is best for the show and part of my job and my duty here. So can I get a ruling on this? If we don't think there's any accountability coming or a realistic opportunity that by highlighting something in great detail and exerting a lot of energy about it and righteous indignation about it, it'll elevate in any reasonable circumstance, any accountability to come, any kind of reckoning to come, I'm inclined to just, you know, and if that means eventually we're just doing nothing but Bible teaching all show for two hours a day, every day, I'm okay. But that's where I'm at on a personal level. Doesn't mean that's where the show should be on a platform level. What do you guys think? Aaron, you got a rice. A rice smile on your face.

[Steve Dace]

Wow. I'm surprised you were able to detect that because I was kind of thinking the same thing. I don't know. I'm not trying to make that personal or anything because I have the exact same feeling every day. It's like, what's the point? What's the point of highlighting anything, basically? Because what you're basically saying is if we're not leading to action, we're not leading to some sort of change. What's the point of wasting breath over it? I almost wonder, I don't know, sometimes I wonder if maybe, like, the montage should just go a completely different direction sometimes. Just doing deep dives on, like, the History of Reese's Pieces or something like that. I think that would be more profitable. Some days. But I totally feel you.

[Todd Erzin]

All right, so Aaron's feeling me. I now need you to have no feels and to just look at this as the show ombudsman. What is the proper thing to do here? Right.

[Aaron McIntyre]

The proper thing to do is to stay the course. Aaron's montages at the very belaboring the point. After that, needlessly, no. But we must constantly have hard looks in the mirror. And it's just the most honest thing we can do is to tell you this is what's happening and once again, we clearly aren't going to do anything about it. There's all kinds of people, when I posted something about this when it happened, a lot of the people who are against us, you know, Gatorland, absolute loons make no sense about all manner of things. But there is a kernel of truth within a lot of them that has caused them to totally give up hope in general to not be constructive in any way, shape or form when there's obvious opportunities to be constructive. But their reaction to this was almost uniformly we know nothing's going to happen and they're probably not wrong. And we must actually shine a light on that fact because that's the most honest interpretation of who we are. You know what I think about these things? We're men without chests. We're drunken on our modern day idols. If we will not smash them, we must look at what the consequences are. And this is what they are. One of the main reasons we won't do anything is because we are always sprinting off to the next distraction.

[Steve Dace]

Todd votes for more mucus.

[Aaron McIntyre]

It sounds like we should know.

[Todd Erzin]

I think that, you know, we're a biblical worldview show. The Bible says in your anger, so it assumes that you will get angry, do not sin. Which that statement then would assume that there's a way to express anger without sinning. Correct. Okay, so if, if I'm just getting you all angry, fired up about something, there's no reasonable opportunity to then go act and do something about it. There's a better likelihood I just ruined your day, made you irascible and testy around the people you most care about. Then we did something constructive. Now listen, during COVID could I go out and personally arrest Anthony Fauci? No, but remember, there was no military force out there knocking on doors, forcibly affixing masks on people. It was all done via psyops for compliance. We had to comply with that. Right. And so us push, me pushing back. Us pushing back on that as a show and even within the barometers of our and boundaries of our own audience could create some critical mass of resistance to what they were doing to us because it required compliance from us. You see what I'm saying? Okay, but we're at the point now, I can't go out and arrest Anthony Fauci myself. I, I mean, I can't do that. You know, when I see somebody like James Uthmeyer, I know James, and James is a great Attorney general, maybe the best in the United States of America. James has not been bashful about going after bad guys. Right. So when I see he doesn't go after Anthony Fauci on a state level, I think it's pretty clear that there is some kind of party wide we have to just all let this go because some of our guys were involved in that era too. And we can't really have any kind of reckoning. So unless it's about the origin of the virus, nothing can else can be discussed and we're all just going to move on, right? Well, if that's the case, then there's nothing I can do. And so why just come on here and rail against Anthony Fauci all day long and just make you miserable? Me miserable? To do what? Because I'm not exposing anything we did not know. Right. At least within this ecosystem anyway. Right. I suppose maybe you could argue that even if nothing happens and we end up still taking as many Chinese nationalists in to invade our universities every single year as we already have, you know, maybe there's some of you in the audience that didn't know that, you know, it was possible for foreign elements to hack, you know, Internet elections. Right. I have a hard time believing that. If anything, I got to probably believe almost everybody within the sound of my voice is more surprised when that doesn't happen.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Right.

[Todd Erzin]

You know, so at what point are we making a difference and at one point are we just making your day worse? You know, that's my question.

[Aaron McIntyre]

You don't always know, which is why you need to be steadfast. You just got done talking yesterday about in response, I think to a question on ask me anything that Trump ended up being way more malleable than you thought you need to. When he comes out and says this himself holds a pre, he wasn't just like on X, he actually held a press conference for that. He raised the bar. Hold him to the standard that he set because if you don't then now,

[Todd Erzin]

in other words, don't give us this national speech, bitch and moan about networks that didn't carry it and Then not have your Department of Justice not do something about it? Your FBI not do something about it? Is that what you're saying?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Right. Because then if we just have. No.

[Todd Erzin]

I like that.

[Aaron McIntyre]

If we have no standard at all. Look at it. It's not the. It's not the same issue. But now we have this. I can't remember his name, but a Republican, I think, maybe from Georgia, saying that he wants to have illegal amnesty for a bunch of illegal immigrants.

[Steve Dace]

Bacon.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah, so they.

[Todd Erzin]

So if we keep giving up, These are retard anyway.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah, fine. But if they have no standard, they all learn. They can push more and more and more. I.

[Todd Erzin]

So Kathy just sent me a note. Aren't you the one that says the truth is its own reward? Correct. Good. Check. But again, if. How often do we just repeat the same truths over and over again? That's my point. Right? If there was new news, all right, If. If. If we had.

[Aaron McIntyre]

If.

[Todd Erzin]

If there was news that came out that we had Anthony Fauci's fingerprints on the. On the syringes, all right, that injected the. The. The. The. The Wuhan virus into patient Zero, we would discuss that in great detail. But. But there's not any new news. Right? I suppose it's new news. If you think that. Is it maybe new news that China was the one that subverted the election when you. Maybe you would have figured it was Russia or some other kind of element? Okay, perhaps.

[Steve Dace]

I think what you're maybe talking about is a much broader conversation than a show ombudsman decision here. A much broader conversation.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Maybe.

[Todd Erzin]

Maybe.

[Steve Dace]

I think what you're talking about really here is does this model actually work? Everybody with a show, everybody with a podcast, everybody with a million followers, all of the influencers. Is this actually working to produce what. What are we trying. Everybody's just doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over

[Todd Erzin]

and over and over and over and

[Steve Dace]

over and over and over again. And we're still having. Kind of stuck in neutral. I think this is the broader conversation you're actually having here, not just a shared conversation.

[Todd Erzin]

And I'm not. Eager is not the right word. Willing. I am willing to hold myself up to. At least no human being is willing to hold themselves up to the amount of accountability they require. If that was the case, none of us would be sinners.

[Steve Dace]

Right?

[Todd Erzin]

Okay. But I am willing, to some degree, all right, to the limits of my own sinfulness, hold myself accountable. Okay? And so this is just where I'm at Just a guy named Steve who lives in Des Moines, Iowa. I'm bored. Okay. I mean, if nothing's gonna happen here, you know, to quote the great prophet Toby Keith, a little less talk and a lot more action. Right. If we're not gonna do anything, I got other things I can discuss, other things I can get fired up about. Right. But that may not be a good standard either. That's what I'm asking. That may not be the best standard.

[Aaron McIntyre]

He's the guy who held the press conference.

[Todd Erzin]

That's fair. That's a great. That's a great. See, that's a good observation. If he wants to elevate it to the level of. It's worthy of the largest bully pulpit that's ever existed on this earth, then. Okay, we see you, Mr. President. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for bringing that into the mainstream. And thank you for exposing again just how much of these network officials are corruptocrats. Right. Okay. All right. But then what are we going to do about it then? Becomes the question. By your own standards, since you wanted us to elevate it, we're going to do then what? Because we're out here in the cheap seats, the 80 million of us that voted for you to save America, we're not empowered to do anything about it. But you uniquely are. Right? You're the chief executive officer of these United States. And since the judicial. Since the Department of Justice is underneath you, you're the chief law enforcement officer of these United States, too.

[Steve Dace]

Right?

[Todd Erzin]

Okay, so we're gonna do. Then what. What's gonna happen? Right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

Wouldn't take Congress or anything else. The Attorney General reports to you, the FBI director reports to you. These things are all contained within the executive branch of these United States. Right. That's your point.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Okay. I mean, there was.

[Todd Erzin]

I like it.

[Aaron McIntyre]

There was a time when he was. Donald Trump was saying, only I can solve.

[Todd Erzin]

Okay, I like that. I like that. Quickly on South Carolina again. Again. Maybe. Maybe this is just boredom summer for me, but. But I. Or maybe I'm just getting old and soft. That happens to us all. All right. But I'd like to get really all worked up about Lindsey Graham and Drag via nepotism being given a seat. What a standard that she articulates to Sean Hannity there, by the way. I have a lot of piece of. That's a great standard. I mean. I mean, that's all you have to be to be the US Senator from South Carolina is. Have a great piece about it. So anyway. But I'd like to get all worked up. I would, but have you looked at the track record of the voting. Track record of the people of South Carolina?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

Is anybody all that confident that if Trump just completely stayed out of it and someone with Lindsey Graham's last name went up against. Fill in the blank. AB's ex. What is it? Ralph Norman, in this case, member of the Freedom Caucus. That they'd be able to win, given they gave us Trey Gowdy, they gave us Tim Scott, they gave us Lindsey Graham, they gave us an actual conservative in Jeff Duncan for years. Turns out he was actually living a double life and destroying his family. All right, they gave us Mark Sanford, who chased his mistress. Was it to Argentina or somewhere? Okay. Somewhere on the Magellan path of another hemisphere south of the equator. Okay. I mean, it's just given the track record of the alleged red state of South Carolina, is anybody all that confident that they just. They would do better? I'm not. That's why there's no point in getting all fired up about, you know, just. She has no qualifications at all other than just sharing Lindsay's DNA and probably love for men. That being said, hey, cool. Why not?

[Aaron McIntyre]

You know, I have way more confidence in my ability to hold Trump accountable vis a vis our last conversation than I do the people of South Carolina on any.

[Todd Erzin]

You know, and given that there. I hate to say this, there might be. Given the state of South Carolina's track record, there might be better odds that someone, anybody out of the phone book that Trump just. Just picked for whatever personal reasons he had, that some of them we probably hate, but we just do it literally, whatever he says. There's probably a. There's probably a better chance we get a better senator out of South Carolina than. Let's say there was no Trump endorsement and she won just because of her last name. And then she felt like she could just not owe anybody. Right. I mean, Nancy Mace is on. What iteration of her political profile is she on now? Version 6.0, 7.0, 9.0 she's been doing

[Aaron McIntyre]

ever since the Citadel.

[Todd Erzin]

Yeah. I mean, she's. She's been cosplaying her entire term there. Right. So, again, I don't really have a lot of great confidence in the voters of South Carolina, given the people they tend to send to represent the country from allegedly one of the reddest states. Aaron, your thoughts on that?

[Steve Dace]

I mean, I would like the people of South Carolina, the South Carolinian Republicans, I'd love for them to be able to vet their next candidate, but to what End again for the second time in this segment to wet end. Because their track record is not exactly glamorous.

[Todd Erzin]

All right, we'll come back. The Odyssey. Why is this story so important to our heritage here in the West? We'll get into that with a scholar over at Hillsdale College here next, The steve day show. All right, back here on the Steve Day Show. So my ninth grade English teacher, and he would teach me again as a senior, was a guy that named Mr. Zimmerman at Rogers High School, which no longer exists in suburban Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up. And he was terrifying. His first day of high school, we had him for first period. He says, you guys need to know I hate freshmen, and I hate that they're making me teach freshman this year. And he was tough. He was tough, man. He also was one of the best, if not the best teachers I ever had growing up. And one of the most daunting things that he had us do in 9th grade English is we did this. And we did this. We had to read aloud orally. We had to discuss what it was that we were talking about and give speech presentations on it. And that was Homer's the Odyssey. And I have been fascinated by this tale ever since. And so originally, when the director I'm the biggest fanboy of, and I'm raising a son in my home, he's actually launching out of my home now. But his, his goal, well, at least it was until about 60 days ago. Now he won't go see the movie. All right? His goal until about 60 days. So maybe I did something right as a dad. His goal until about 60 days ago was to be the next Christopher Nolan. Now it's just to be the first Noah days, all right? Because if there was ever a story that looks like it was made specifically for a director to adapt to film, this would seem to be the perfect marriage. Instead, it has caused all forms of controversy because of the worldview of the film. Now, I saw it yesterday, and I'm gonna have a lot to say about the worldview of this film later on in the show in podcast in Pop Culture Tuesday. But before we get to the worldview of this film, I thought we needed to discuss the Odyssey itself and why it's worthy of the controversy, why it is so prevalent in our heritage here in the West. And. And that brings us to Dr. Ben Whalen of Hillsdale College, and it's good to have him here with us on the Blaze. Ben, how are you?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

I'm doing well, thanks. Thanks for having me, Steve.

[Todd Erzin]

You bet. Thank you for being with us. So let's start with the Odyssey in and of itself. Why it is, you know, Beowulf as well. These are some of the biggest, most ancient tales in all of Western tradition. We used to make sure all of our kids, like I had to, as I just regaled you with growing up, had to read these stories, know these stories. Probably a lot of Americans after the last era of government education probably are just finding out what the Odyssey is from this film for the first time. But why is it so important and prevalent within our heritage here in the West? Why?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, well, the Odyssey, in one simple sense, historically speaking, the Odyssey is the oldest work of literature we have. It really emerges from archaic Greece, right as writing emerges from archaic Greece. And so it's got that sort of historical foundation. But it's also sort of seems miraculous to me that the very, very oldest literature we have in the west here is also so absolutely magnificent, so grand. Such a ripping read, a great story. Immediate readers of Homer in ancient Athens. In Plato's Republic, for instance, Plato says that many people think they should order their entire lives according to the teachings of Homer. And that's because Homer's not just the oldest and he's not just really engaging, but he's really, he's got a penetrating, rich vision of human beings, of human life, of virtue, of vice, of politics, of the ways in which suffering might contribute to a meaningful life. And this vision of human beings and what it means to be human is so gripping and rich that immediate thinkers like Plato and Aristotle end up responding to Homer. And then he just has this lasting grip on the American imagination, on the Western imagination ever since then. So you have the Roman poet Virgil responds to Homer's thought in his works. And then you have Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, even down to 20th century American works like Ernest Hemingway's. A Farewell to Arms is a robust novel response to two Homer's epics. So it's foundational both historically and in its vision of the human person, of the human being and what, what a human life should add up to. And it has this sort of long lasting grip on, on the Western imagination ever, ever since it was written.

[Todd Erzin]

So if the Bible is say, the prequel to everything. All right, I would say the Bible is the prequel to everything. Then what I hear you saying is that Homer essentially in, in. In Western storytelling, in the. In in in Western tradition is basically the genesis of, of Western storytelling, that it's kind of the prequel to much of the storytelling that has happened in the west over the last, you know, few thousand years are. Are some. Some variation, you know, on a. On the. On a theme of the structure, the ethics and narrative behind Homer's story.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, I think that's fair. There's even a joke that we make in literature circles that all later literature is variations on themes from Homer. Sort of like in the musical sense, that he's foundational, not just because he's oldest, but because he's so reaching in his vision. And so different writers taking up war are clearly responding or developing things that we might find in Homer's Iliad. And then writers talking about love of family, of political structures and government. Homer gives us a very rich vision of that in the Odyssey. And so it's funny how much we can trace back or at least find in a seed form in Homer's great works.

[Todd Erzin]

In other words. And I'm gonna get more into the worldview myself later, but I wanna make sure our audience understands the real thing before we talk about what I think is a counterfeit. But I do think there's some connective tissue here, Dr. Whalen. In other words, if. If you thought trying to deconstruct the Bible would be too on the nose and would be too offensive, and having Christopher Nolan try to direct the 21st century version of the Last Temptation of Christ when this has been tried before. All right, the great director. The great director of the. Of the late 80s, Martin Scorsese, was given the task of deconstructing Christianity with the Last Temptation of Christ. And essentially all of. All of Christendom rebelled against the film. It was a massive failure. It's almost like Scorsese is trying to do penance now because he's executive producing all of the Fox Nation stuff on the saints and on the apostles on that channel. Okay, so if. So if you were the spirit of the age, and you were. If just going right directly at the Bible itself would cause way too much blowback and be way too obvious if there was a secondary work that might accomplish not all, but much of the stated goal and aim, which is to deconstruct really the origin of much of Western tradition. What I hear you saying is this would probably be the work to deconstruct if you intended to do that anyway.

[Steve Dace]

Yes.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

If you wanted to undermine something foundational to the Western intellectual and especially literary and imaginative tradition, attacking Homer would be going right to the root.

[Todd Erzin]

It's the patient 0q story of the west, is what you're saying.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

How much of what we know about the ancient world comes just from Homer's work, particularly in the pre archaeological era. Right. So archeology becomes a standard science very late 19th century, well into the early 20th century. So we're still several thousands of years of Western tradition until archeology becomes a thing. Right. Where we can scientifically verify claims of the ancient that, that were traditionally or orally passed down about the ancient world. Right. Okay. So where textual criticism came about that exact same time, so how much prior to that era of our understanding of our origins here in the ancient world come specifically from Homer and his two works?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, we, we depend tremendously. Of course, it also generates so much debate among archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, et cetera, et cetera, as to how much is Homer representing to us that's sort of historically accurate and how much is inflation or even imagination of Homer's. One of the interesting things about Homer is that his work seems to emerge around, you know, 7th or 8th century BC right, right around the emergence of writing, as I mentioned. But he's clearly, Homer places his work in a much older period in this age of heroes. It's the, the, the late Bronze Age, which is maybe 1100 BC. So Homer himself has a posture of writing about these great men who are historically somewhat distant from him, but he passes this on. And so how much did Homer know and how much was his representation of late Bronze Age historically accurate? It's really debated. But for instance, there are all sorts of interesting details about what the Greeks thought was true and what they valued and thought was significant or noble or virtuous. And so one of the things that I like to harp on with students here at Hillsdale is just to notice how foundational in Homer's vision is the place of marriage in the political order. Homer, the Iliad is this great story about the destruction of Troy. And Troy's destruction is brought about because it commits itself to violating the marriage of Menelaus and Helen of Troy. And so it's this great terrible apocalyptic story about the destruction of a police of a whole political order because it violates marriage intentionally. And the Iliad, the Odyssey is actually, in my view, the counterpart to that where we see in fact, Odysseus coming back to Ithaca and restoring his political order through the restoration of his marriage. And so we have, like, if we don't know exactly how historically accurate Homer's depiction of Bronze Age weapons or the shields or war tactics are, we can, despite that, say with certitude, Homer's penetrating understanding of the way in which the domestic and the familial and the place of marriage in the larger political order. How dependent these are up upon each other and how they shape and inform each other. Things like that. Things like that are very, very rich in Homer's work and are. Are sort of undeniable and then become part of the central sort of forms of thought in the Western tradition.

[Todd Erzin]

So there's supernatural. There's. There's supernatural. The supernatural is prevalent in the Odyssey. It's not in the film version, but in Homer's work it is. So what's mythology? What's supernatural legend and what's real? Was there a real king Agamemnon, for example? Was there a real Achilles, for example? I mean, what. What has modern archaeology and. And the like been able to tell us about what was. What was myth and legend and what was history from his works?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, we. You can go to Mycenae, where Agamemnon seemingly ruled, if we have a different name for that man now. There were great kings, and that was a powerful city state. And we also have good archaeological and historical evidence now that Greece did seem to engage in catastrophic wars in the late Bronze Age. And in fact, many, many archaeologists and historians are convinced we've located Troy on the coast of what we now call modern day Turkey. And to sail all the way to Troy with great armies from Greece would have been a real feat at that time, testifying maybe to the strength of these civilizations, but also to what the cost of such a great conflict would have been. So we do have good archaeological evidence. Not on all of the details, but certainly that Homer's not just making all of this up. It's not all mythological. Was there, can we say, with certitude? There was a woman, Helen of Troy. No, we can't. Did. Did. Nevertheless, these men fight and defend and strive for these great princesses of these kingdoms. Everything from paintings to vases to the poems support that understanding.

[Todd Erzin]

You've used the term the Bronze Age. The film uses this term. In fact, one of the. One of those. I mean, you would. This is kind of almost. Again, I'm shocked at. Christopher Nolan made this film after watching it yesterday. I mean, the. Right. Having a character literally say, we're at the. We've come to the end of our Bronze Age. That's the kind of stuff that, like, a high school kid with talent puts in a screenplay but never usually gets put in a real movie because it's just so on the nose and obvious that it's. It's just, you know, cringy. Unfortunately, A lot of our audiences today don't even know what Bronze Age even means after what's happened to the last era of education. So what does it mean? What's that a reference to?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, it's really this age where for the most part iron was not available, at least in the west, in Turkey and in Greece. And so weapons and tools were primarily. Bronze was the most hard and commonly used of the natural metals. It peters out at the end of the, you know, 11th or 10th century BC. This is really what we call late Bronze Age. And we, we call it late because we don't point to maybe a specific date that changes that. I wanted to just double down. It's ridiculous that the character in the movie would, would say Bronze Age. I also found, I think at the end there the, the Odysseus character makes a reference to, well, they're going to sing our song because they're going to have forgotten how to write and which is this bizarre anachronistic reference to. As if they know how to write. But then the Bronze Age is going to collapse and then they're going to forget how to write and just have bards and then Greece is going to discover writing again later. It's this weird sort of, to me it was a mind bending reference to history in a way that really wouldn't make sense for say, a chieftain from Ithaca who's come back to his wife who's sailing west in the Mediterranean. It doesn't make sense that he would say that. There are other things. Like the figure of Agamemnon looks more like a 20th century imperialist or 19th century imperialist. And there are these references to. Actually the real cause of the Trojan War are trade routes. All of those are anachronistic and are not really at present in the Iliad or Odyssey.

[Todd Erzin]

So, I mean, the Trade Federation not only destroyed the Star wars universe, but course of. Apparently it also destroyed Homer's Odyssey.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Yeah, that's right.

[Todd Erzin]

All right, before we let you go, it's not an easy read. Okay. You know, and we are accustomed to a certain kind of nomenclature and vernacular in our era. Like, you know, we have a lot of people on our show that, you know, are like, hey, you guys got us into the Bible for the first time. What would you recommend reading? I usually say the ESV or the New King James because those are word for word translations in modern English. Right, right. Okay. So, so how. So I've got about 90 seconds here. Ben. How, how daunting is it for just an average person who wants the real thing, not the TEU version they got from Chris Nolan, but the real thing. How daunting is it to truly access it, given the style of writing within it?

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

I love the question, Steve. Thank you. Because this is my main mission, is just do it. You'll be all of your listeners will be surprised at how actually accessible it it is. Go get Robert Fagel's translation. It's elegant, beautiful, but it's a page turner. So it's a big, thick book. It's an ancient book, but you will be surprised at how easily you get into it and how the story unfolds very quickly in ways that could make it even fun for reading aloud to your family in the evening. It's, it's a great read, Ben.

[Todd Erzin]

It this was a fun conversation, brother. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate you and what you guys do there at Hillsdale. Okay.

[Dr. Ben Whalen]

Thank you. Likewise.

[Todd Erzin]

All Right. Thank you. Dr. Ben Whalen over at Hillsdale College. Gentlemen, your thoughts on that conversation. I want to discuss the real thing before we get to the counterfeit later. Yeah.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Well, that's the exact translation I've read, and I'm not a classic professor, but that's accurate there it is. Not cumbersome in any way, shape or form because of the style. It's repetitive, but that's the style.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah. And I think this is an appropriate preamble to what we're going to be discussing next hour because as we heard from Dr. Whelan there, if you wanted to actually dissemble, if you wanted to subvert, if you wanted to pick any of your words, that means to, that means to undo some foundation. What's the foundation? It's the very bottom of, of, of a structure. If you undo the foundation, the rest of the structure then can be toppled over. If you wanted to undo the foundation of Western tradition when it comes to writing and scholasticism, you would go right after Homer. And so it's a very dangerous game that we're playing I think right now.

[Todd Erzin]

We'll discuss more on this next hour, as well as a post I put up on Sunday that ruffled some feathers. We're going to discuss that for Fake News or Not next. All right, back here with hour two, live and on demand on the My show, the Steve Day show with Todd erzin and Aaron McIntyre. You can let us know what you think about what we think via the stevedays.com inbox by emailing us steve dace.com that's D E A C E like us on Facebook. Me, we and Gab. You can follow me at Steve Dacia on x Instagram and TikTok. You can also subscribe to our Rumble channel at Steve Dace on Rumble. Find me as well via podcast. And that's where most of you have. So thank you.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Thank you.

[Todd Erzin]

If you've not done this yet, please hit subscribe. Or if you're on Apple itunes, then the button these days is follow to make sure that you don't ever miss an episode because it's going to land right there for sure in your podcast feed. Each and every time we drop one, we drop one of these 240 times a year. So you don't want to miss one of those. All right? I'm here for all of them. And yes, some are better than others, but you don't miss any of them. Well, at least I don't want you to because I get paid. You can also leave us a five star review if you like the show. Of course, if you don't, then don't. But if you just kind of like it, then, you know, exaggerate. So give us a five star review for sure. Tens of thousands of you have done that, so thank you for that. We appreciate that as well. And we appreciate our friends over at Cove Pure. And Todd, I know that the Erzin family certainly does. Right, so we're in the throes of summer now. Everybody's back home or at least hovering around home. Right. It's been a pretty hot summer. We had some relief right now after some terrible storms last night. It's, it's a very nice, perfect summer day today. Low 80s, low humidity. Couldn't ask for better stuff, but it's been fairly warm and muggy much of the summer here so far in Iowa. So knowing how, knowing the heat, how active the ears and family is, how's the COVID Pure? How's it doing? Give us a status report.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Well, they're all home right now. They're all working out. It has been in the 90s and it's just a rel. I mean, give it the heat, give it the numbers. It just says, give me more. This thing is a competitor, it's a gamer. It just.

[Todd Erzin]

It's a gamer.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah, I mean, it is the essence of sport. It just, you rely on it in every way, shape and form. It's not complicated. Look at that screen right there. You know, it's got its core values, it's got its core plays, but that's all it has because it knows exactly what the essence of the sport is. And most importantly, as my wife told me, the water is just really, really good.

[Todd Erzin]

Don't bury the lead. The water's really, really good. All right, so if you want to try your Cove Pure today based on recommendation from the guy who typically doesn't give you recommendations, it sits right there on your countertop. If you're watching right now, you can see the picture just looks like a Keurig. It looks nice and sleek as well. All right? No hills to no. No holes to drill, no plumber to call. Just plug it in. All right, so take control of your water quality right now and head to covpure.com steve c o v E Pure Cove just like it sounds. Covpure.com Steve and you're gonna get $250 off for a limited time. That's covepure.com Steve for $250 off for a limited [e-mail] Steve all right, let's play some fake news or not, shall we? And we're going to do so with something that I posted over the weekend. Now, here's the thing. I am going to provide no preemptive context if you guys ask me for some after I read this statement, all right? I will happily provide it because I didn't do that for my social media audience when I posted it, right? I didn't put up any kind of disclaimer or any kind of prologue or epilogue. I just put it up there and let people interpret it as they see fit based on what I was trying to say.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

All right, so we're just going to give this to you guys boilerplate here and you guys tell me if this is fake news or not. How do you know? The last generation of megachurch seeker sensitive evangelicalism utterly failed. The most high profile evangelical culture leaders on this, on this app are on social media are currently slitting each other's metaphorical throats over a presidential primary 19 months away between two Catholics. Furthermore, plenty of evangelicals who think Catholicism is somewhere between theologically in need of correction to flat out heterodox also think Pat Buchanan, a Catholic, is the model American politician. Regardless of where you stand on any of these various discussions, the terms of them signify evangelicalism is not a serious intellectual influence in America because for a generation it didn't want to be. It didn't want to build his kingdom, it wanted to build its own brands. Therefore, the inverse of this is also true. Despite its critics and institutional rake steps like the current and previous Pope. In my opinion, the pillars of serious Catholic thinking And discipleship still prevail within its ranks through the ages. The reformers would not recognize much of what was taught or modeled in much of evangelicalism in this last era. Augustine would recognize, though much of what he and other Catholic sages have taught in Vance, Rubio, etc. I'm going to say nothing else unless asked that as a standalone statement, you may now question, comment or insult and tell me if you think it is fake news or not.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Nailed it. Listen, this is why. And oh by the way, when we were at the Family Leader summit here, because you've told me this. You and you and obviously Pastor TP USA Faith who was there, Luke, Lucas, Miles. Yes, you had told me this in the past, but you guys have been discussing this kind of stuff for a long time. But you actually told him in the past my Council of Nicaea thing and he used it in the speech this weekend. So I got to say, hey, that's me. That's your dad right there. But yes, this is why that Council of Nicaea, a Protestant Council of Nicaea is so important. Okay, we're not going to go over our tribal differences. Catholic versus Protestant in general, that's not important. But the more this fracturing goes on, and ironically, the more it happens within conservative camps that agree on 90% of everything else, the less serious conservative Protestant Christian thinking will be thought about anything. Because it looks like it just doesn't matter if you're fighting as hard or harder with each other than you are when the demons are literally transing your children. What is the point of all this? And, and, and Steve, I mean, if you watch the show or follow him regularly, he's using Catholicism on multiple fronts as a foil to make the point I just made. What are you guys doing? You don't appear. You're claiming to be so self aware that you alone have a notion of what sola scriptura means that everybody else who claims the same rubric doesn't have yet you aren't self aware enough to realize the things he's. The claims he's making about Pat Buchanan. This has to stop. Our civilization will die if Christians keep racing to light each other on fire. More readily they are than dealing with the demons before us. This is, this is a shibboleth that Steve has laid down that must be reconciled and quickly.

[Steve Dace]

I want to concentrate on one paragraph there and it's the, I believe the second full paragraph. Regardless of where you stand on any of these various discussions, the terms of them signify Evangelicalism is not a serious intellectual influence in America because for a generation, it didn't want to be. It didn't want to build his kingdom. It wanted to build its own brands. Now, at worst, that's a description of some form of small h hell, in my estimation, when you have. When you're representing. Flying the banners, if you will, of the only kingdom that will stand and has stood from time immemorial and forevermore, amen. And you're just trying to build your own brand on top of that. That's hellish. That's just hellish. I think there's an interesting prospect here. Evangelicalism is very much tightly infused with this country, America, and what's another part of America, or might I call it America, that is also very tightly wound up in that identity. It's this idea of rugged individualism. Rugged individualism. I think one of the big problems that we have faced from this standpoint, in this context that we're talking about here when it comes to the lack of intellectual, intellectual curiosity, intellectual pursuits amongst evangelicalism, is this embrace of the aesthetic of rugged individualism and the rejection of the soul of rugged individualism. And if I can just put it simply, rugged individualism is. I don't need anything. I don't need anybody. I don't need that sissy college. I don't need that sissy. This. I'm just out on my own. The soul of rugged individualism, I would argue, is personal responsibility, which is very much. I think you can bear that out of a Christian version of morality. But where this really hurts is that everybody kind of ends up on their own islands.

[Aaron McIntyre]

You are nailing it, Aaron.

[Steve Dace]

Everybody kind of ends up on their own islands. And we reject tradition. We reject being together. I've had. We're preaching through market church, and Pastor Mike has actually, both of the pastors who have preached through this have made a very big point in. In chapter one of Mark on a couple of occasions. Physical touch is actually really important to how we were designed as human beings. We can't just be out here on islands. We can't just kind of be out on our own, kind of doing our own thing. It is important to be together. But I think the fusion of evangelicalism with America and one of the big identities of America being rugged individualism and the casting off of the real heart of individualism, which is personal responsibility, I think that has everything to do with this. So again, there's a lot more to glean from there. There's a lot more I could say there, but I think I'm kind of barking up the right tree.

[Todd Erzin]

Because where you're 1000%, you are.

[Steve Dace]

Because the latter part of that message about Catholicism, for all of its faults, it still emphasizes what tradition get to mass, be together. It still emphasizes intellectual tradition, even if sometimes it might go off the rails. At various universities attached to Catholicism, they're still doing the things they were doing, you know, a thousand years ago, 1500 years ago.

[Todd Erzin]

So, yeah, you nailed it. Absolutely. I want to read to you the first. I waited. I didn't think this would be the first reply. I didn't see who. So I'm not going to name the person, okay. Because I think they met. Well, I'm not going to name the first reply or the person who did it. I didn't think it was going to be the first reply, but I knew this would be one of the first replies. When I saw it was the very first reply, I thought, wow,

[Aaron McIntyre]

like we

[Todd Erzin]

always say to you guys, it's worse than you think. I waited. And you guys know, I almost never monitor the replies on purpose. I waited. This time I wanted to see on the weightage. So I posted this right before we went to church. And then on the drive over, I waited to see who's the first reply. You've completely missed what's causing the division, Steve. This isn't the tale of two Catholics. It's the difference between blessing and cursing Israel, God's firstborn. If you don't see that, you have been blinded to him who has not even what he has will be taken from him. To which I responded, no, I do see that. Which is exactly why I posted this and you only confirmed the premise of my entire post. What you're saying is that really the only thing. That culturally engaged and aware Protestants can truly draw an existential marker worthy of breaking off fellowship, worthy of. Of saying that's anathema. Is what you think about a prophetic question that exactly none of the reformers would have wrestled with in the context that we do today. A question that was not on the table for about what, the first 180 years of this country. And is about another country. It is about another country, not your own. Your own country is in such great shapes. There are. There are no threats. Your own country, Israel was not founded as in by Christian inspiration. America was now some of the Jewish inspiration that founded Israel also founded America. Put that right there in my book, did I not? Yeah, but. But Israel has not and when will and will and was never founded with any as an inspiration for Christianity. This country was there There are. There are. There are no. No meaningful degradations, no meaningful assaults, no meaningful erosions, no meaningful threats to our own heritage and way of life as the nation that saved whatever's left of Christendom and now stands as whatever is left of Christendom. There's. There's nothing, There is nothing of any existential import that would be caused for you to go online and say, I cast you out. You are anathema. I schism from your schism. But an opinion on Israel, Nothing else. There's nothing else. Nothing else comes to mind.

[Aaron McIntyre]

It's worse than that. Steve, they would acknowledge what you're saying. This is the point I was trying to make. The Protestants on both sides of this to Jew or not to Jew war agree on almost everything else on these problems. They do acknowledge they're there. They almost have all the same solutions. But there's no commonality there worth holding on if it means this distinction is not agreed upon in the way they need it to. It's worse than what you think.

[Todd Erzin]

I have two rules. Don't be an anti Semitic butthole

[Aaron McIntyre]

and

[Todd Erzin]

don't tell Jewish people they don't need Jesus as Messiah to be saved. Those are my two rules. Why are those my two rules? Because I'm sola scriptura and those are the two things that are definitively defined within the scriptures. Everything in between. We can fellowship. Now, is it true that being an anti Semitic butthole is pretty much a window to the soul of where you're going to come down and everything else in our day and age? In our day and age. Is that not pretty much true in a post Holocaust awareness era, if you're an anti Semitic butthole, you're probably terrible. Really? On virtually everything else the Bible cares the most about.

[Aaron McIntyre]

No, you can follow a thread there. Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

And that you've probably in almost every case you have reduced your identity as a Christian into taking the Bible out of context in order to make it seem like condemning Jews is the most important thing you could do as a follower of the Jewish Messiah. Right? Okay, that's true. It's a window to a soul for sure. But there's a lot of room in between those two points. And might I also mention, I don't and neither do any of you live in Israel. We don't live in Israel. We live here. We, we, we. We. We live here. We live here. Here's where we, where we actually live. And I'm sorry, not sorry, if if in a generation the only the you have raised up in your sect worthy of existential preening and filtering is someone's views of the nation of Israel. I. I might. I suggest you may have misread this thing as much as the Joel Weapon crowd has, and you're really not as adrift from them as maybe you think. That was the first reply to this post. Except it didn't mean what he thought it meant. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. I'm in the middle of that dude who's taken on more of the anti Semites than I have. I went to Webbins conference and faced him in person. I stood up there in front of what, 8, 9, 10,000 people on the main stage at Amfest last year. Who's done more of this than all the work I've done online and everything I've done on this show? Who has done more? What Christian in America has done more than. I have to go right at the griper in. In infestation within our ranks. Who has done more than me?

[Aaron McIntyre]

You're not second to anybody.

[Todd Erzin]

I'm. I'm certainly on a short list of people who have. No one else can say have done more. But this. This cannot be the only defining issue you have. It cannot be. But he wasn't wrong. Just. He wasn't right for the reasons that he thought. This. This can't be a defining issue. It just. It just.

[Steve Dace]

It.

[Todd Erzin]

At the very least, it can't be an only defining issue. That for sure. It cannot be the only defining issue. We have collapsed as a civilization, by the way. At the same time, we're the. We've been really the only ally in the world Israel's had in the last generation. We're pretty much it. And we've collapsed here at home. And now. And now that's the defining marker. That's the thing worthy of killing each other over. And the irony of that is to decide between two Catholics who both come from the same tradition that don't believe in a prophetic Israel.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Okay, in both. And so.

[Todd Erzin]

So Rubio agrees to you, but not for the reasons you want. He just has a more militaristic view of America than JD Vance does. Has nothing to do with. He doesn't have the same level of conviction you do. Not if he's a real Catholic, anyway. I mean, if. Listen, if you're a Catholic and you don't believe you belong to the true church. Ecclesiology is your sodorology. Ecclesiology. Pardon me. You know, I don't want to referee your intern fights here, but I. I've studied a little bit of what? You guys think I know a little bit about it, do I not?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Do you have any popcorn, by the way?

[Todd Erzin]

Okay, so you have. You have my permission here. Step in and say, that's not right anytime I say something. Right. In Catholicism, ecclesiology is liturgy. It is soterology. It's theology. Is it not? Am I wrong?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Oh, yeah, to some degree. I mean, it's not.

[Todd Erzin]

And if you don't. So if you don't believe. Correct. But if you don't believe you're going to the one true Church, then why are you even Catholic at that point? If you don't believe it's the one true Church, then you ought to come to church with me.

[Aaron McIntyre]

This is why.

[Todd Erzin]

Makes no sense.

[Aaron McIntyre]

This is why it's not. I don't fight over it every way, but Catholics, when we talk about denominations, we don't think of ourselves as just one denomination. I understand what people mean, but it's making your point in the Catholics, like we started this thing. Correct.

[Todd Erzin]

If you don't believe that, and if you don't believe you're the one true Church, and if you don't believe in the apostolic succession of your church going back to Peter, then what is the point of being a Catholic? What kind of Catholic is Marco Rubio if he doesn't believe that? Right. If Marco Rubio believes that really the Church of Rome is not the fulfillment, the ultimate revelation and fulfillment of the covenant that was initiated with the Jews, then why does he go to church? Why is he even a Catholic? He should come to church with me then. Right? Right. Okay, then. But we both agree he's pretty Catholic, right? So this entire argument, then, is not even about whether Marco Rubio shares your prophetic view of Israel. And JD Vance does not if he's a staunch Catholic. I promise you, Marco Rubio does not share your prophetic view of Israel. He does not.

[Aaron McIntyre]

This is correct.

[Todd Erzin]

He cannot.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Correct.

[Todd Erzin]

In fact, it's not that he does not. He cannot do it. He can't. Otherwise there's no point to being Catholic. If the Church isn't triumphant, then what is the point of being a Catholic? Do you know what the point of being a Catholic is if the Church is not triumphant?

[Aaron McIntyre]

No. Well, I see what you're saying.

[Todd Erzin]

You see what I'm trying to say?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

Because it's the. It's. The primary vessel of. Of God's revelation on Earth is the Church. Right? That's the argument. We think it's the Scriptures alone. You guys think it's the. It's The Scriptures along with the Magisterium, which is the Church.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes, Right.

[Todd Erzin]

That's the whole argument. So if you don't believe that the Church is triumphant ultimately, then I don't know why you're Catholic. I, I really don't. So Rubio doesn't even agree with you for the reasons you agree with it. It's just a more militaristic foreign policy, that's all. He might even be right. I'm not arguing his foreign policy. I'm not. We're having strictly an intellectual theological conversation here. You're so desperate to defend a point that you're willing to elevate a guy who doesn't share the premise of your point.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Not to mention the fact that both sides also don't even think a lot of Catholics are even Christians that are making this correct. They're going to spend them on this correct.

[Todd Erzin]

In other words, there's not a lot of critical thinking here.

[Aaron McIntyre]

Right.

[Todd Erzin]

And I'm going to tell you, and this will anger even a few friends of mine. Aaron, I don't know what you think, but I'm starting to get to the point when I hear someone on their 47th post of the day about Catholic Integralism. It's a little bit like when don't sign, don't sign me bro is on his 75th post of the day about dispensationalism. At that point, I'm just mute. Tune out. I'm done. When. When these, when these boogeymen show up that nobody knew what these terms were like yesterday and suddenly they're the explanation for everything. No, they're not. That's the new big thing. Catholic Integralism. It's the opposite alter ego of the dispensationalism. Here's the thing. There's two rules. Don't be an anti Semitic butthole or you're out. Don't be a Christian and claim people don't need Jesus to be saved or you're out. Fair. Short of that, have any opinion you want and we can argue and debate it all you want. Vote accordingly. Those are your absolutes. Everything else in between is an opinion. And we are going to have an opinion about whether you're rightly dividing it or not.

[Aaron McIntyre]

But.

[Todd Erzin]

But we cannot have our view of a foreign nation be the only, the only, the only thing. One of the one of the biggest stars of Fox News just announced the the arrival of his new baby. Except he's a homosexual and there is no mom other than that. Adorable. But you're right. You're Right, man, We've got nothing else, nowhere else to draw any kind of line, no other reasons whatsoever to have any other schisms or discussions or fault lines. But other than Israel, there's nothing else happening here. We figured it all out, man. We got it going on. We're in a Pax Romana here, a Pax Americana here. It is the golden age,

[Aaron McIntyre]

and we're

[Todd Erzin]

so out of concerns. We've solved so many of our own problems. There's just nothing left to do other than die on this hill. I'm out on that. If that's the argument. I'm out. I, I, I mean, you and again, go find me the person. I've, I've done their conferences. I, I, I, I volunteered as tribute to go to the stage at Amfest to confront this scourge. But this cannot be the only serious thing that we have a thought about. Gentlemen, your thoughts?

[Steve Dace]

It's late August. NFL team. Pick your NFL team.

[Todd Erzin]

That would be more worthwhile, honestly, than this conversation, frankly.

[Steve Dace]

They're doing their final team meeting. Final team meeting. The season is about to start. It's 17 games. Grueling 18. 18 weeks. Grueling 17 games. They have their final team meeting before their first game as they set out on this once again, grand adventure together. And immediately the entire team almost comes to fisticuffs, arguing about where they're going to go on vacation in the off season, next off season, and they just can't get past it.

[Todd Erzin]

And they just ruined the whole season over that.

[Steve Dace]

Yeah, they just keep arguing about where they're going. They've got games to play, they've got things to do, they've got things to prepare for. But no, they just, they're just arguing over some superfluous. Again, it's not. I get eschatology is missiology, blah. I get that. But if your main directive is not always, always, always, regardless of where you come down on it. Maybe it's the Catholic perspective, maybe it's the disbelief perspective. If you don't come down on, I have to do something today to help build the kingdom of God. It's superfluous, whatever you're arguing about.

[Todd Erzin]

Correct. Let me say, as someone who has taken on as many of the, as much of the Graper phenomenon as literally anybody else has since Charlie was murdered, I. You're killing me, Smalls. All right, if the only thing worthy of, of, of just outright publicly driving a wedge right down the middle of our entire coalition, there's nothing else. We've got more abortions now than we did than we did before. Roll 12%. 12% of American 30 year olds are married in a home with a kid. 12, 12, 12 12. This cannot be the only thing worthy of, of having existential angst and schism level divisiveness over. Yeah, that for the most part appears to be the case.

[Aaron McIntyre]

It's obviously getting.

[Todd Erzin]

Which by the way is just. That just feeds every griper tagline I'm trying to push back on the. That just feeds every griper instinct I'm trying to oppose. You're, you're, you're undercutting your allies like me. You just need to know that you're

[Aaron McIntyre]

getting less Christlike and more and more pharisaical the more you push this to the forefront like Steve is talking about.

[Todd Erzin]

Let's get to pop culture Tuesday next, This Steve Day show. One final point on this. And again, we are the show that we have done long form discussions about in favor of dispensationalism, against it, in favor of sometimes what's referred to as replacement theology or supersessionism and against it. We've done how many of those shows and everything over the years. Okay. We just got through a series on Romans and we went through Romans 9 and 11 and discussed all the various meanings of what those things mean. I think one of the things that those who subscribe to sisypressionism or replacement theology get wrong is they think that, you know, the covenant that was fulfilled was the Abrahamic covenant, when it was the Mosaic covenant, actually. So that's a separate question on the Abrahamic covenant. Right. That what Jesus did was fulfilled the law. Okay. But we can get into all those things. We've done all those shows a million times. I'm fine doing them a million more because I'm a theo nerd and I love, I love these conversations. Okay. I'm just telling you though that if the defining issue of our age is going to determine what kind of coalition we have is someone's level of fealty to a foreign country, we're screwed. Okay? We're screwed. And I say that there's a lot of people online playing tough guy against the groipers. I have gone and faced them in person twice now, in fact. Once on the road and once at a neutral venue. There's a lot of people right now that have kind of appointed themselves online as kind of like, you know, the sheriffs, you know, of American Nottingham and, you know, William Wolf now is really a closeted Nazi, which would shock me as someone's gotten to know him very well over the last two years. Okay. I'm actually confronting these people, like, in person. I detest this anti Semitism. It is absolute brain rot, as Charlie called it, and it is a window to a soul, and it needs to be confronted, cast out, and destroyed as any infection and never allow it to be. To come back. But everybody who doesn't want to pay for indefinite war with Iran doesn't mean they hate Israel. And if an entire generation of American evangelicalism could produce no serious conviction worthy of causing a schism within our coalition right at the time that we need the most votes we can get. Now, listen, are there things more important than getting the votes we need? Yeah. What's gonna. What's gonna exist longer, Hell or America?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Hell.

[Todd Erzin]

Where are we all gonna live longer? Heaven, hell, or America?

[Aaron McIntyre]

The. The former ones.

[Todd Erzin]

Correct. So they're. So the things of eternity matter the most, right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yes.

[Todd Erzin]

Right. But you know what also are things of eternity, like killing innocence. In fact, you know, God's people, the Jews did do that. They went down to the Valley of Ben Hin and they threw their babies into Molech, and God evicted him after he subjected him to a vicious siege that killed many of them. We are. There's a menu of existential issues worthy of throat slitting that are right here within our own country. The kinds of things that we won't be here to stand for. Israel to stand. To stand for anything. To even stand up without addressing this cannot be the issue that is the ultimate litmus test. And if it is, then we're already doomed. We're already doomed. We are. We're doomed. And if we're down to. All right, which of the replacement theology guys is the most pro. Israel. I want you to stop. I just want you. Todd, close your ears and pretend you're not here. Okay, I just want you to pause. Reformers lost their lives to Rome. Several of them did. And I promise you they did not do so. I. I prom. I promise this is true. I promise you they did not do so. So that you could go online in the year of our Lord 2026 and determine how you wanted to vote based on how. How two Roman Catholics who believe in Rome, in. In replacement theology and the supremacy of the Roman Church over all nations, including Israel. Which one of those two you thought was worthy of slitting the throat of your fellow Protestant over voting for. I promise you they did not do it for that. I promise that's the case. I promise. None of the Protestants that founded any of these 13 colonies. I promise you, they didn't do it for that. I promise you that's true. But yet here we are. I just thought there might be a few people I haven't offended yet during the break. And I thought, I, I, there's a few of you out there untouched and, and I, I needed to reach out. You're welcome. Pop Culture Tuesday, brought to you by our friends over at Preborn. You guys know how this works because you guys have been so incredibly generous to them. You have, you've helped them save tens of thousands of babies. Thank you for your generosity. Every time I'm around the folks at Preborn or I hear from them, it is to rave about the generosity of this audience. All right, so maybe, you know, for as little as $28, you can find an ultrasound that could save a baby's life today. Maybe moms eternal life as well. But maybe in Honor of America, 250, there's some of you in our audience that you could give 250 bucks today and that would be darn near 10 ultrasounds. But that could also maybe be one ultrasound and then that funds some diapers, a car seat, other practical needs for the mom who chooses life now and starts a new family. That's one of the reasons I love preborn the most, is it's not just, thank you for choosing to be a mom over a murderer. Good luck to you from here. But they're there now to help that new family get off on the right foot, too. But they need your help to do it. Make a tax deductible donation [e-mail] Steve. That's preborn.com Steve again, go to preborn.com Steve. And now pop Culture Tuesday and my review of Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey. Because that's what it is. It is. It is not Homer's the Odyssey. And I will explain why in this review. But let me first say why I made the decision to see the film. And it had nothing to do with the fanboy stuff. I've loved DC in the DC Universe long before I knew what a Christopher Nolan was. I learned, I taught myself how to read from watching Spider man on the Electric Company in the morning and reading comic books, most of them dc, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Justice League. And yet I think that you and I have had the exact same seat to see Supergirl this summer, right? Neither one of us have been to that film, correct? Now, listen, that doesn't mean there are not still things that I have enough nostalgic feeling over that I will still enjoy and get into. Despite Todd's scornful looks over my shoulder. Right. But this is not one of them. If it were, I would have still done the. It's Christopher Nolan got a seat opening weekend. In fact, I had one window to see it over the next few weeks, and it was yesterday afternoon. And the reason why I chose to see it is because of how strong the reviews were. I was concerned. My concern was that they had found a way to bifurcate. And the. They being the spirit of the age, found a way with a talented enough director and to bifurcate wokeism from great cinema. Because see, what we've been seeing now for the last five years or so is anytime woke touches something, it turns to. To poo. Now the question is, is it because they are it. People just don't want the wokeism. But the movie is otherwise good. Or. Or can. Can. Can you do something that's great and woke at the same time? Right. That's the question. Right, Right. And so along comes maybe the greatest living director in the world right now, given Martin Scorsese's age, given Steven Spielberg's age. And if you saw his last movie, you know, he's on his last age. So it's very possible Christopher Nolan's the greatest living director in the world right now. Right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Yeah.

[Todd Erzin]

So if anybody you would think could pull this off, it would be him. Right.

[Aaron McIntyre]

I was very excited about it when I first heard about this.

[Todd Erzin]

Yes, I was. And I was. Then the more and more we heard, I began to get worried. Oh, no. They're going to figure out how to do something great with their worldview. I'm here to give you, first of all the good news. Christopher Nolan did prove something. It is impossible to make something good and woke. Here's why. Because to make something good and woke, you have to deconstruct the valor and heroism of the hero, particularly the male one. Or if you're doing this for a female, you then have to deconstruct the men around her to elevate her. Furthermore, if you do show the hero being heroic, then you're going to require levels of exposition where the hero self reflects, self doubts, questions why he or she did what they did and whether it was at all worth it to the point that you've now undermined the heroic act in and of itself. Right. It's no longer a point of inspiration, but of controversy in the story. Right. Christopher Nolan does this throughout his film. He deconstructs his own story, he constructs it, and then deconstructs it. He undermines his own tale. And it's unavoidable because the worldview that he posits is an undermining in and of itself. The film therefore, is bogged down by. There are some excellent set pieces the. The Trojan Horse, but a lot of you have already seen that because they put that scene out to promote the film. Much of it anyway. That scene is phenomenal. The scene with the cyclops is very well done. But in between those scenes is a lot of Matt Damon's Odysseus essentially talking to Calypso or somebody else about their laments, about their regrets. They went too far. They're kind of ashamed of what they did. And, and really the central figure of the film is Ellen Page's character. So anybody who's telling you she's only in it for a little bit and it's not a big deal either didn't see the same movie I did or they're lying to you. I don't know what to tell you, but I'm going to tell you the truth. Ellen Page's character is in the very beginning of the film. She is the conscience of the movie. She's the rosebud of the movie. And in order for Matt Damon's Odysseus to convince the Spartans to take the Trojan horse back home, she, he, he puts the great warrior Sennan out there from the. Actually the Iliad, not from the Odyssey. This is why people thought that she was playing Achilles, because they thought that's what he was going to do. But he took a hero from another story and maybe she was going to play Achilles at first and they changed it in post production with all the controversy. I don't know know. But this great hero doesn't know that her own fellow soldiers are inside the Trojan Horse so that she will sell it to the Spartans to take this back to Sparta for a reward from the gods. And then they do of course, the famous story of the Trojan Horse. They. The horse opens up, the soldiers of. Of Ithaca come out. And of course when the Spartans find out that they were betrayed by Elliot Page's character, they kill her. And then later in the film she goes back when, When Matt Damon's Odysseus goes to the land of the dead like he does in the poem. Only two voices speak from hell, but the one who speaks the most is Ellen Page's character. To lecture him. But how dare you did what you did to me. You set me up to fail. You lied to me. You betrayed me. In other words, Christopher Nolan, this is the first movie, or this is one of the few movies where he wrote the script himself. His brother didn't write it with him or for him. Him and his wife wrote it. Christopher Nolan wrote a film where the lead heroic character gets lectured to by the troon. And it. And it's. And it so undoes his conscience that it changes the entire ending of the film. So in the, in the poem, as you just heard from Dr. Ben Whalan last hour, Odysseus returns home, gets vengeance, like Maximus level revenge against all the suitors and the people who tried to take his wife and his son and, and take his home and throne. He gets Maximus level revenge and resumes the throne and they all live happily ever after. In this movie, he refuses the throne because he's so racked with guilt over everything that he did that he has to abdicate and go and find himself or something not making any of this up. He's lectured to by the trune. The trune is his conscience. It's his rosebud. The whole film referenced several times, in fact, when Odysseus takes on the disguise to scout his home to see if. How, if his wife is still loyal and everything else. Do you know what name he calls himself? The name of Elliot Page's character. That's what he does. And there's two or three different flashbacks to the origin of Elliot Page's character. No, this is not just, you know, checking boxes to put identity groups in there. This is. Nolan is sending a message. This is an intent. And this is, this is intended to subvert the subject matter, subvert the West. Anne Hathaway's queen goes off on some feminist diatribe about why she hasn't been allowed to rule for the last 20 years because the men won't let her. The casting is very jarring. I mean, John Leguamo is actually pretty good. But the Bollywood guy from that Beatles movie a few years ago. Remember that movie? I love that movie. I can't remember what it's called. He is like the, the. The lead soldier next to Odysseus, and he's just. It doesn't work. You know why it doesn't work? Because this, it's not him. It's not who he is, not who the character is. It'd be like watching some, like, redneck, you know, with some deep southern twang, cast as the tribal chieftain in Shaka Zulu. Be weird, right? Or like some Hispanic, you know, Mexican is now a shogun in the ancient Far East. That'd Be kind of weird, right? It's just jarring. The rules don't work, the cultures don't fit. The whole thing is meant to undermine Western civilization all the way through. All the way through. And it undermines the movie because you have to shoehorn in the message. Now, listen, are the set pieces in Christopher Nolan's woke film better than most woke films? Sure. I'd say the Cyclops scene, the. The. The. The. The Trojan horse scene is better than, like, the Marvels. Any scene of the marvels, for example, or the Eternals or a lot of the other woke crap they've put out for the last five or six years. Or anything you saw in the Buzz Lightyear film with the, you know, the lesbian assistant for reasons. But. But that should have been, like, the whole film. Isn't that the movie you thought you were good? You're gonna get the whole film of that, Right?

[Aaron McIntyre]

Right.

[Todd Erzin]

But you can't have a whole film of that because we now need all the exposition where Odysseus deconstructs himself and his own heroism because he regrets it now and maybe it wasn't the right thing. No moral certainty at all. So, no, it turns out you can't make a great movie and have it be woke at the same time. You can't. And anybody who's telling you this thing is great. I have no idea what it was. Laborious. I yawned several times. I've dozed off once. There'll be. There'll never be a reason to see it again. You want to see a Greco Roman film about redemptive revenge? Go watch Gladiator, one of the greatest films of all time. Here's the thing, too. It's not even at the scale of a lot of the sword and sandal epics of, like, the 50s, you know, with massive armies and doesn't even have any of that. I have no idea why it cost as much money as it did,

[Aaron McIntyre]

but

[Todd Erzin]

I was deeply disappointed by Christopher Nolan's effort. He ought to be ashamed of himself. But here is the good news. If Nolan can't do it, it can't be done. So the verdict is in. If you attempt to shoehorn a bunch of modern, spirit of the age woke tropes into your story, the story will fail because it will require you to undermine what will make your story relevant and inspirational in the first place. It can only be deconstructive and nihilistic. And that's ultimately what Nolan's movie is.

[Aaron McIntyre]

That should save all of you a bunch of money, I hope.

[Todd Erzin]

I just did go hard. Romans 8, 28.