
Columnist David Brooks explores the destruction of the pseudo-meritocracy; transgender controversy breaks out in the House of Representatives; and the media continues its disconnect from reality. Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://bit.ly/3WDjgHE Ep.2089 - - - DailyWire+: Don’t just survive Thanksgiving dinner—dominate it. Join today at https://dailywire.com/subscribe. Matt Walsh’s hit documentary “Am I Racist?” is NOW AVAILABLE on DailyWire+! Head to https://amiracist.com to become a member today! Get your Ben Shapiro merch here: https://bit.ly/3TAu2cw - - - Today's Sponsors: ExpressVPN - Get 4-6 Months FREE of ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/ben Balance of Nature - Get 35% off Your Order + FREE Fiber & Spice Supplements. Use promo code SHAPIRO at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/ Blinds - Exclusive Discount for my Listeners! Tell them The Ben Shapiro Show sent you! https://www.blinds.com Bambee - Visit https://www.bambee.co...
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Ben Shapiro
Well, folks, if there is one thing common to President Trump's Cabinet picks, it is Newton's third law of motion. So Newton's third law of motion suggests that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. The same thing is true in politics. If you corrupt the doj, then President Trump is going to unleash Matt Gaetz on you. If you corrupt HHS, he's going to unleash Robert F. Kennedy Jr. On you. And all of this sort of reactivity in politics is leading to a bit of introspection on the part of people who backed Kamala Harris, people who hate Donald Trump. And what that's resulting in is a wide variety of theories as to why exactly Democrats have lost their way, why the left has lost its way in the United States. One of the biggest theories going right now is being brought out by David Brooks. David Brooks is, of course, a former pseudo conservative columnist for the New York Times. Then he turned toward the left. He famously suggested that he liked Barack Obama because he liked the crease of his pants or some such nonsense. But he's also been responsible for some sort of interesting social theories. He talked for a long time about the Bobo generation and sort of bohemian generation that formed its own morality. He's sort of an interesting writer. Well, he has a big piece on the COVID of the Atlantic this week talking about the death of the meritocracy. And his basic suggestion is that one of the reasons you're seeing outsiders like Donald Trump or R.F. kennedy Jr. Or Matt Gaetz or a wide variety of the figures that you are seeing in positions of power, as is a response to the failures of the so called meritocracy. Now, as we'll discuss, I think this is because David Brooks has a perverse view of what meritocracy actually is. David Brooks is not a meritocrat. He's not somebody who believes that people who have merit ought to rise to the top sort of naturally, that there's an evolutionary process by which people rise to the top. Instead, he is, like many members of the traditional left, a technocrat. He is somebody who's trying to construct systems in order to make the world a better place. He's not going to live with the evolved systems of, say, free markets and free government. Instead, he is a tinkerer. He is somebody who believes that as an expert, he can set up a system that is going to rule over hundreds of millions of people. And this is the actual plague of Western civilization. Over the course of the last century and a half, the movement from evolutionary structures of government and markets, and toward a technocracy, a group of people, a self appointed coterie of elites who are going to fix all of your problems. And so as we'll see, what David Brooks is doing in this essay, and I think it's really important because he does point out what he sees as some problems with the so called meritocracy. But the biggest problem is that he does not understand what a true meritocracy actually is. And very few people, it seems, actually do. In politics, the easiest thing to do is you make a mistake and then you attribute it to the philosophy of your opponent. So this happens very often. For example, with capitalism, 2007, 2008, there's a massive market crisis. That market crisis is not driven by free markets per se. It's driven by government tinkering with free markets. It's driven, for example, by the subprime mortgages pushed by the federal government under Bill Clinton, the attempt to spread home ownership throughout the society through technocratic tinkering. And then when everything falls down, the free markets and capitalism get blamed. The same thing is sort of happening here with meritocracy. So in my view, and traditionally, meritocracy simply means something that should be good for everyone, which is people of merit rise to the top of a system that is better than any of the alternatives. So, for example, aristocracy, which is you are born into rule or oligopoly, in which you essentially have a group of people who maintain their particular rule through corruption. Well, what we are watching right now, and what we've watched over the course of the last century and a half in America, is the transformation of meritocracy. The idea that anyone could get ahead if they had merit, into a technocracy ruled by an elite who are attempting to reconstruct the entire society in their image. So for David Brooks, he isn't actually solving the problems of meritocracy, he's making it worse because he is a tinkerer. He wants to better manage the so called better managed system. As I say, it turns out that systems in the United States, particularly organically, evolved to maximize actual merit. And then at the beginning of the 20th century with the progressive movement, we decided that wasn't enough. Free markets were bad, churches were a problem. All of these sort of natural institutions of life were impositions on the elites who are going to create a better managed system. So here's the thing. Free markets, which are in fact a natural outgrowth of a basic concept of private property, maximize both productivity and Innovation and free markets, they game for that. That is what they incentivize. If you innovate, you're going to get richer. If, if you are productive, you're going to get richer. This is the sort of merit that free markets actually incentivize. Communitarian church systems maximize virtue and social bondedness. So if you live within a community with a strong church or synagogue or mosque, the people who tend to do best in those systems are the people who are the most virtuous and who create the most social fabric. Government is a substitute for neither of those things. Managed systems are a substitute for neither of those things. This is one of the reasons why colleges have collapsed in the United States. So colleges originally were supposed to feature and innovate productivity and virtue. The idea was to create good citizens who are good at things. So for example, the purpose of Columbia University when it was founded in 1754, it was founded as King's College. According to its first president and William Samuel Johnson. He wrote, quote, the chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage the children to know God and Jesus Christ and to love and serve him in all sobriety, godliness and righteousness of life with a perfect heart and a willing mind and to train them up in all virtuous habits and all such useful knowledge as may render them creditable to their families and friends, ornaments to their country and useful to the public weal in their generations that they may be qualified to make orderly, intractable members of this society. So in short, these people were not being made to reshape the society. Columbia University was designed to teach eternal truths, to pursue knowledge of nature and nature's God, to create good citizens and good men, to feed into things like free markets and property rights, to feed into things like good membership in community. Well now of course, Columbia exists not to teach either productivity or godliness, but to teach an elite set of values that confers membership on a self appointed aristocracy. And that is the David Brooks problem is that the thing that he is railing against, the thing that he's recognizing, which is the failure of the so called meritocracy. He's not wrong about it. It's just that he's mislabeling is not the failure of meritocracy, it's the failure of a technocracy that's been established over the course of the last century and a half and that has failed the American people. So David Brooks's essay in the Atlantic, I'm going to quote extensively from it. I want to critique it, because I think it's very important. I think that again, a bait and switch is being attempted here. And it's a dangerous bait and switch because the solutions that David Brooks suggests basically maintain that the same elites who have screwed things up ought to maintain control of the system. And that's the problem. So he writes about his idea, which is that there was a shift in how the meritocracy worked happening around the turn of the mid century in the United states in the 20th century, 1950 to 1960. Essentially he's talking about James Conant, who was the president of Harvard. And he says, in trying to construct a society that maximized the talent, James Conant and his peers were governed by the common assumptions of the era. Intelligence, that highest human trait, can be measured by standardized tests and the ability to do well in school. From ages 15 to 18. Universities should serve as society's primary sorting system, segregating the smart from the not smart. Intelligence is randomly distributed across the population. So sorting by intelligence will yield a broad based leadership class. Eventually, Conant's vision triumphed and helped comprehensively refashion American life. If you control the choke points of social mobility, you control the nation's culture. If you change the criteria for admissions at places like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, you change the nation's social ideal. Okay, so the basic idea that he is promoting here is that a sort of test based meritocracy at the universities is the big problem. Now what that replaced, of course, was the idea that if you had a brother or a dad who went to Harvard, you went to Harvard too. And so what Conant pushed was the idea that instead if you're a poor kid who did well on your SATs, you should be able to go to Harvard. That isn't a bad thing. Okay, that isn't a bad thing. So what's the problem? Well, David Brooks is suggesting that actually we set up a sort of replacement, a replacement meritocracy that is based on intellect. And that's the problem. Quote, would we necessarily say that government, civic life, the media or high finance work better now than in the mid 20th century? We can scorn the smug wasp blue bloods from Groton and Choate, and certainly their era's retrograde views of race and gender. But their leadership helped produce the progressive movement, the New Deal victory In World War II, the Marshall planned NATO and and the post war Pax Americana. After the meritocrats took over in the 1960s, we got quagmires in Vietnam and Afghanistan, needless carnage In Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, the toxic rise of social media, and our current age of political dysfunction. Okay, so first of all, you can see the category error right away, right? He says that the break happened in the mid 20th century and that up until the mid 20th century everything was hunky dory. But half of the things that he mentions before the mid 20th century are things that are not exactly great. So for example, the progressive movement in the United States, which has generated an outsized, extraordinarily large bureaucracy in American government, has been really bad. And what you're watching right now is a reaction directly to that because it wasn't a meritocracy. The break, as it turns out, in American life was not in 1950. The break was in 1900. The break happened in American life with the substitution of an expert elite in favor of the American people in favor of those organic systems that I was talking about, a free market and church communitarianism. The substitution of this top down system, it was attempted for a century and a half and its thorough failure in 2020 basically has led to what we are currently seeing. So again, the things he lists off as sort of wonders are the progressive movement, the New Deal victory in World War II. Victory in World War II, by the way, would not have been a simple. You can't just chalk that up to the so called smug wasp of blue bloods from Groton and Choate. There's very little of that sort of elitism in the victory in World War II. The victory in World War II was the most proletariat war in American history. It was literally a draft of the entire male population of the United States. And then he attributes to them the Marshall Plan, NATO and the post war Pax Americana. It's a lot easier to attribute that to the circumstances of the post World War II era than it is to attribute that to the expertise of the people who are leading the charge. Well folks, it is terrifying that a self appointed elite, moral elite are ruling the country. But that is coming to an end. But there is something else that should terrify any conservative in America Right now. As we speak, your Internet service provider is tracking and logging every single website you visit. And thanks to our wonderful government, they can now legally sell off all of that data to advertisers or whomever else wants to buy it. If you've been listening to my show, you know I'm not somebody who accepts this particular kind of surveillance. 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Sin number one is, he says the system overrates intelligence. He says, quote, the bottom line is that if you give somebody a standardized test when they're 13 or 18, you'll learn something important about them, but not necessarily whether they will flourish in life, nor necessarily whether they will contribute usefully to society's greater good. Intelligence is not the same as effectiveness. Okay, he is right that the system does overrate one type of intelligence, technocratic bureaucratic intelligence. Okay, that is true. Any top down system is going to do that. It's going to work to feature people who wants to fit into the system. This has been true since the days of ancient Chinese bureaucracy where you'd actually have bureaucratic tests that were designed to shuffle people into the upper systems of management. Whatever the system needs is what the system gets. Okay, but we've tried to fix the overrating of technocratic and bureaucratic intelligence by saying that everyone should go to college. Right? The problem is not elitism in this sense. The problem is the attempt to extend technocratic bureaucratic intelligence across the entirety of the American body politic. So it's important that a kid who got 1100 on his sats not go into sort of manual labor of some sort. Not going to woodworking or going to plumbing or going to fracking, but that that kid instead go to a college and become qualified to be a middle manager at a government agency somewhere. That's the problem. Now markets wouldn't make that mistake. In a free market system, you would not be able to get a loan. If you were 1100 SAT student attempting to go to college to study lesbian dance theory, you would not be able to obtain a loan. We constructed entire technocratic systems that were designed to funnel more people into this broken system. Right. The free markets are an amazing way to evaluate not for intelligence, but for productivity and efficacy. Again, you don't have to be particularly smart in America to get ahead in America. As it turns out, you actually just have to be fairly good at the job that you are good at. This is the benefit of comparative advantage in free markets. Comparative advantage suggests that people with very high IQ should do things that require Very high iq. And people who have mid level IQ should do things effectively that are required of people who have a mid level iq. And then they trade with one another and both of them are richer for it. Right? This is the reason why plumbers can make a lot of money in the United States, because free markets again maximize that which you are good at, a comparative advantage. One of the great discoveries of mankind. Okay, but that is the thing that our system does not feature. Okay. He says the second problem with the so called meritocracy is that success in school is not the same as success in life. He says success in school is about jumping through the hoops adults put in front of you. Success in life can involve charting your own course. Again, that is true, but markets solve for that. And he keeps forgetting markets. He keeps forgetting that it's not something that requires David Brooks to come in and tinker. If you really want people to rise based on things like agility. As we'll see, what you need is a system that features agility. And the system for some people does feature agility, Right? So for example, if you take a look at our business here, our business was founded by a Harvard Law graduate and two guys who did not graduate college. And we are a very large business at this point with 300 employees or so. Okay? Because of the free market, not because of the system that David Brooks wants to construct. Then he says the problem with the meritocracy is that the game is rigged. He says the meritocracy was supposed to sort people by innate ability. What it really does is sort people according to how rich their parents are. As the meritocracy has matured, affluent parents have invested massively in their children so they can win in the college admissions arms race. Well, here's the problem again. Why is the college admissions arms race the thing that matters most? And the answer is, realistically speaking, in a free market system, it isn't. And one of the great lies that people tell about economics in the United States is that there's no income mobility. Everybody's sort of stuck where they started. That isn't true. It just isn't true. In a 2014 New York Times article titled From Rags to Riches, for example, Washington University professor of social welfare Mark Rank talked about income mobility in the United States. And here's what he found. After a 44 year study of longitudinal data regarding individuals aged 25 to 60 to see how Americans moved up and down the income spectrum, it turns out 12% of Americans will find themselves in the top 1% of the income distribution for at least one year. 39% of Americans of all Americans will spend a year in the top 5% of the income distribution. Over half, 56%, will find themselves in the top 10% for at least one year in income distribution. And 73% will spend a year in the top 20% of the income distribution. So again, the idea that they have, like, a stagnant 1% that is ruling the roost over everybody else, that is not true. People can rise and fall in a free market system based on their own merit. But he keeps forgetting that the free market system has to be left alone. And so he says, quote, the meritocracy has created an American caste system. And he says that that is the fourth problem. This caste system, he says, quote, after decades of cognitive segregation, a chasm divides the well educated from the less well educated. The whole meritocracy is a system of segregation. Segregate your family into a fancy school district. If you're a valedictorian in Ohio, don't go to Ohio state. Go to one of the coastal elite schools where all the smart rich kids are. But again, that's actually not the problem. That's actually not the problem. It's linked to the fifth problem that he notices. Quote, he says the meritocracy has damaged the psyches of the American elite. He says the meritocracy is a gigantic system of extrinsic rewards. Its gatekeepers, educators, corporate recruiters, workplace supervisors, impose a series of assessments and hurdles upon the young. Students are trained to be good hurdle clearers. We shower them with disapproval or approval, depending on how they measure up. On any given day, students learn to ride an emotional roller coaster, congratulating themselves for clearing a hurdle one day and demoralized by their failure the next. But again, that's actually wrong. Okay? The reality is not that our students are petrified of losing out in the sort of college admissions game. The reality is that, again, the false meritocracy, the technocracy that's been created leads people who succeed there to believe that they are members of a higher moral caste, that they are higher. They have a different set of values that if you put she her in your pronouns in your bio, this makes you part of the coterie of the elite who are to rule society. The fake meritocracy that David Brooks is talking about has created an American cay system. But not economically. Culturally, it's people who get together in cloistered areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago and they believe that they are morally superior to all the people around them. Right. So what he is talking about here is again a category error. He is making a large scale mistake. He says in the end that what we should be doing if we want to fix the problems of what he calls the meritocracy, is redefining merit to include curiosity, a sense of drive and mission, social intelligence and agility. And he says if the meritocracy had more channels, society would no longer look like a pyramid with a tiny exclusive peak at the top. It would look like a mountain range with many peaks. Status and recognition in such a society would be more broadly distributed, diminishing populist resentment, making cultural cohesion more likely. Yes, that's true. It was called the free market. It was called the free market. It was called a thing that if you left it alone, then the meritocracy would not be the problem. The problem in the United States, as always, is that we don't have a true meritocracy anymore because people who believe that they are smarter than everyone else constructed a system and then shoved people into that system. And it turns out they suck at everything. It turns out that these people created a value system all their own because in order to ignore free markets and communitarian churches, which was the balance in American life, free markets representing rights, communitarian churches representing duty, that if you ignore that balance, if you destroy that balance, if you upset the apple cart in the name of a utopian social scheme, what you end up doing is screwing everything up at the give and take of free markets makes for better products, better productivity, better innovation, smarter people, actually. And that communitarian churches mean that the wealth flows downward too. Not just because free markets mean that everybody's boat rises with the. With the rising waters, but also because in a communitarian church, we all have the same sort of orientation that local communities and social fabric actually matter. They upset all of this from top down. Now they're trying to fix it from the top down. And the problem is that once you create an elite coterie of people who believe that they are at the top of the meritocracy based on their membership in this sort of moral top tier, their policies stink because they're totally disconnected from the rest of the American people. And then the rubber hits the road. And that's what we've been seeing. What we are watching right now is the revenge of the normies. It's the revenge of things like evolutionary free markets, where people like Elon Musk, a no name from South Africa can become the richest person on planet Earth. What they're looking for is a return to a system of morality where people actually know what it's like to raise a normal child in a normal situation with a normal family, as opposed to the bizarre social values of this elite that suggest that we should be totally morally apathetic about how families are raised or how children are created. Okay, that day is over. Because the coterie of the merit, the fake meritocracy, the technocracy, failed. And that is why you're getting the revenge of the Trump administration. That's why you're getting pics from the outside to wreck administrative agencies. Because you blew it. Because you blew it. It's not that the meritocracy was improperly screwed around with in 1950, 1960, with the university system. It's that a moral case was created at the top of American society that was willing to rule everybody. And we don't like it and it's wrong. And that didn't start in 1950. That started again with the progressive movement around the turn of the 20th century. And we're seeing the effects of it right now. All of it is bearing its fruit in the smallest possible ways right in our daily lives. Well, as we say, these technocratic elites, they believe they know what's best for you. But you know, who knows what's best for you? You. Which is why you should check out blinds.com they are kicking off their savings early with Black Friday megadeals all month long. The holidays are almost here. There's still time to upgrade your home with blinds.com so swapping out old blinds for custom window coverings is a small project with big results. They make it easy and they make it affordable. Skip the hassle of in home sales, visits and long wait times for quotes. With blinds.com, shopping online doesn't mean sacrificing quality, style or service. A design expert can help you make the perfect selection on your schedule. 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Also, when we started Daily Wire, the biggest question mark was what we would do for hr. You know, when you start a business, you're focused on creating awesome product. It's difficult to find a managing professional capable of handling day to day HR tasks. Well, if that sounds like you, you need to talk to my friends over at Bambi. With Bambi, you're not just getting an HR manager, you're getting a dedicated partner who's available by phone, email and real time chat. They'll handle crucial tasks like employee onboarding, terminations and performance reviews. With Bambi's HR Autopilot feature, you can streamline essential HR practices like employee training and feedback procedures, freeing up time for what really matters to your business. All of Bambi's HR managers are based in the United States and can support the nuances across all 50 states. HR managers can easily cost 80 grand annually, but Bambi starts just $99 monthly, so no matter the size of your business, Bambi can work for you. Don't wait another minute. Schedule your free consultation by visiting bamb.com right now. Type Ben Shapiro under podcast when you sign up. Spelled B A m b e e.com that's Bam B. Type in Ben Shapiro again. Bambi.com it's very easy to forget about HR, but then that's what comes and bites you. So don't do it. Instead, head on over to Bambi.com, type in Ben Shapiro to get started. It takes a while for bad theory to hit the streets, but bad theory has hit the streets to take just the most obvious example. Over the course of the last couple of weeks in New York City, according to the New York Post, a blood covered lunatic toting two knives trekked across Manhattan, a savage broad daylight stabbing spree that left a woman and two men dead Monday, according to the cops. The sick suspected stabber, a mentally ill homeless man with eight PASS arrests in New York City alone was stopped by a hero cop thanks to the help of good Samaritans, including a cab driver and a British tourist, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny and police sources. Ramon Rivera, 51, was identified by sources as the Person of interest in custody seen with a long beard and unwieldy hair in a grizzled mug shot obtained by the Post. Police have no other suspect in the state of unprovoked random attacks, said Mayor Adams. He said today we have three innocent New Yorkers just going about their lives who are the victim of a terrible, terrible assault. It's a clear example of the criminal justice system, mental health system that continues to fail. New Yorkers who designed that system, the technocracy, not a meritocracy, a technocracy of people who believe that they have a morally superior view of the universe in which the mentally ill ought to be able to walk the streets, in which, if you defend against attackers on a subway, you are tried for manslaughter. That's happening currently, right now in New York. You want to know why this sort of stuff is happening? Because no one steps in between killers and their victims. Because if they do, they might be prosecuted by precisely these idiotic technocrats. That is why when people look at situations like this, this is so easy to stop. Like in any normal society, this would be stopped forthwith. The sort of evolutionary basis of all society and government is to stop the killer from attacking the innocent. That is why the government generally has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, because you don't want people revenge killing one another. And so the idea is, the basic bargain is you give up some of your rights so that the government will defend you against the crazy guy in the street who's going to stab you. One right you don't give up, by the way, is the right of self defense. But New York City, you can give that up, because if you're Daniel Penny, you. You go to trial on the basis of defending others. You wonder why there's a backlash against the technocrats because they designed an unworkable system. It's the technocrats who designed a system that said that we have to open our southern border wide and allow in 10 million people from who knows where with values that we don't understand or know. And those people have to be let in in the name of social justice. And the backlash is coming in the form of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. Tom Homan, who's the bulldog border czar who's going to be appointed by President Trump. He talked yesterday about how excited he was to get started on the job.
Tom Homan
Since I've been announced, Lawrence, I've gotten thousands of soldiers that just recently left the military. They want to join forces. Police officers that retired Want to join forces. But retired border choices, retired isis that want to come back, retirement from Border Patrol, those that paperwork is pulled back, there's a lot of excitement to do this job for the President, United States.
Ben Shapiro
So again, he has read about that. There's a lot of excitement about it. And he says what is commonsensical? He says, when it comes to America cracking down on illegal immigration, we're going to focus on public safety and national security threats first. Which of course, is the way I think most Americans would like to do it.
Tom Homan
The President's been clear. We're going out of the gate. We're going to focus on public safety threats and national security threats first. And fugitives, those who cross the border legally had great due process, a great taxpayer expense, were ordered removed by an immigration judge. They didn't leave. They're also a priority.
Ben Shapiro
So again, this is the way that I think most people want this done. And you know what Democrats are doing? Technocratic Democrats in blue states, you know what they're doing? They're resisting. They're resisting. J.B. pritzker and the billionaire scion governor of Illinois, a person who literally was born into gigantic levels of wealth. Right. He's a perfect example of the anti meritocracy JB Pritzker. He says that he's deeply concerned about Donald Trump's illegal immigration plan.
Gary Sinise
We, of course, are deeply concerned about, you know, the President of the United States calling out military inside the United.
Ben Shapiro
States, where people are peaceful, even if there may be people who are undocumented. But the idea of calling out, you.
Gary Sinise
Know, the army into the domestic confines of the United States is.
Ben Shapiro
Seems uncalled for and may in fact be unconstitutional and illegal. Again, the fact that he is trying to use the tools of government to stop the government from doing the thing the government was literally appointed to do is pretty incredible. The ACLU is doing the same thing. According to Axios, civil liberties advocates worried about President Trump's plan for mass deportations are suing the federal government to get information on how authorities could rapidly remove people from the United States. They are seeking records on how ICE air operations could be expanded to carry out a deportation and detention program that could ensnare millions of undocumented immigrants. The ACLU lawsuit comes after Trump confirmed Monday he's planning to declare a national emergency and use the US Military to carry out mass deportations. Civil liberties advocates are demanding that ICE immediately turn over the requested records, including all ICE contracts and records regarding air transportation, to execute removals, presumably to help people avoid these actual mass deportations that Donald Trump is planning. This is the moral system of this elite, the self appointed elite, and the revenge is here against it. Here is Tom Homan mourning blue cities. Don't cross the line. Don't disobey federal law. Don't do it.
Tom Homan
What happens to a mayor or a local police department chief that is under Democratic leadership that obstructs ICE in your federal agents that are helping get these deportations, what happens to them? Well, first of all, if they don't help us get the hell out of the way if we're going to do it, if I got sent twice the amount of resources that city, that's what we're going to do. If they would give us access to the jail, that would mean less agents in the community. For them pushing back and not letting us into jail, it just means more agents are going to be in the community. So they're hurting themselves. Finally, I'll say this, they need to educate themselves. They need to review this. Title 8, United States Code 1324 triple. I read about that. And don't cross that line because it is a felony to harbor and conceal an illegal alien from ice. Read the statute. Don't cross that line.
Ben Shapiro
Good for Tom Homan and good for the Trump administration. Again, this is the revenge of the normies. Speaking of which, over in the House, for some reason it has become an issue of hot contention whether men should be allowed to use women's restrooms. Okay, so yesterday, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms. And at the US Capitol, she told Fox News digital, quote, the sanctity of protecting women and standing up against the left. Systemic erasure of biological women starts here in the nation's capital. Now, this is being treated as Democrats as some sort of grave violation of civil rights because of course, Democrats just saw fit to elect a person named Sarah McBride, whose actual name is, I believe, Tim McBride from Delaware, who is a transgender woman, which is to see a man who dresses up as a woman and pretends to be a woman and believes he is a woman in some sort of way and now insists on being able to use the women's restroom. Now, House Republicans have previously changed rules on their side of Congress, so this would not be a giant shock. Of course Democrats are freaking out about all of this. They're suggesting it's discriminatory. It is precisely this viewpoint that led to electoral defeat for them. It turns out that when you tell the American people dumb things like a boy can be A girl. Americans don't like that particularly much. Americans rebel against that. Again, that self appointed bubble of elite who have decided their own moral system. They are totally disconnected from Americans. Speaker Mike Johnson said the obvious yesterday. The fact that this stuff even has to be said on the floor of Congress or in the Congressional House is totally insane. But that is where we are in American life. Again, thanks to not the meritocrats and not the fake meritocrats, but thanks to the technocratic elite.
Gary Sinise
I just want to make a statement for all of you here and be very clear. I was asked a question this morning at the Leadership Gaggle and I rejected the premise because the answer is so obvious. For anybody who doesn't know my well established record on this issue, let me be unequivocally clear. A man is a man and a woman is a woman and a man cannot become a woman. That said, I also believe that's what Scripture teaches, what I just said. But I also believe that we treat everybody with dignity and so we can do and believe all those things at the same time. And I wanted to make that clear for everybody because there's lots of questions, but that's where I stand. I've stood there my whole life and those are facts.
Ben Shapiro
Again, the fact that even this has to be said is amazing. The revenge of the normies is upon us and it is a rebellion against 100 years of bad administrative governance led by a coterie of people like David Brooks who think that they can tinker around with the system instead of letting the evolutionary processes of free markets and churches take care of the vast majority of the American people. Well, Democrats have filled all sorts of offices with terrible people, but you can't afford to do the same. Choosing the right candidate for any office is a huge responsibility. Well, if you're hiring and you want to find the best candidates for your office, you need a ZipRecruiter right now. You can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com DailyWire ZipRecruiter is the hiring site employers prefer the Most based on G2 ratings. The moment you post your job, their smart technology immediately starts showing it to qualified candidates. No wasteful bureaucracy, no endless waiting. Just powerful matching technology that finds you top talent fast so you don't waste time or money. You can even invite the best candidates to apply directly. Because in business, unlike in government, efficiency actually matters. Remember, if you want to find the right candidates for your office, you do need help from my friends over at ZipRecruiter. See why 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter got a quality candidate within the very first day. Just go to this exclusive web address right now and try ZipRecruiter for free. ZipRecruiter.com/Daily Wire again that ZipRecruiter.com Daily Wire we've been using ZipRecruiter for years here at Daily Wire. Every time we need a new hire. Anytime we want to upgrade our employee base, we head over to Zip Recruiter. You should do the same. Ziprecruiter.com Daily Wire ZipRecruiter is indeed the smartest way to hire. Also, believe it or not, Thanksgiving is eight days away and at the Daily Wire we're getting you ready for that conversation with those members of the family. You know them. The out with her unhinged Facebook post complaining about Trump's laureates return as the 47th President, the cousin proudly rocking his vintage White Dudes for Kamala T shirt. Get the facts that'll leave your left wing relatives nervously reaching for the gravy boat. With your new annual membership, you'll get uncensored ad free access to daily shows from the most trusted voices in conservative media. And when dinner hits meltdown levels, gather everyone around for a good time together watching Am I Racist? The number one documentary of the decade. Don't just survive Thanksgiving dinner dominated. Join today@dailywire.com subscribe Meanwhile, Democrats are completely panicked about what's to come. It truly is amazing because the truth is again that the systems of government that were set up by the founders are really robust. There are checks and balances in those systems. And it turns out that it was the progressive movement that decided to maximize power at the federal level. And now Democrats are freaked out that that federal power may be used against the things that they want. So, for example, Ezra Klein and Ann Appelbaum made fools of themselves yesterday on Ezra Klein's podcast talking about the apocalypse, essentially being here again. This is sad because Ann Appelbaum used to be a really useful author. Her book on the Gulags and the Soviet Union is really fantastic. But here they are really scaremongering over the future of the country under Donald Trump. Somebody was saying to me the other day that when I'm back on Twitter, they know things are really bad. And that's how I feel about having you on this show, that when you're back on the show, things are really quite bad. I'm sorry to have put you into a Horseman of the Apocalypse bucket, but here you are thanks for that.
Tom Homan
Is it a backhanded compliment?
Ben Shapiro
I'm not sure. It's a condemnation of the space we find ourselves in, but again, the fact that they are talking about the apocalypse is pretty much the whole thing, right? And Apple bound and Ezra Klein. They're suggesting that Donald Trump is going to make dictatorial, fascistic moves to take over the auspices of American government. Now, again, they had no problem when it was Barack Obama or Joe Biden doing it. When it's Donald Trump coming back around, they do have a problem. But here is the thing. There's open debate inside the Trump administration about pretty much everything. And there are checks and balances that remain in the system, and those checks and balances remain robust. So, for example, Democrats right now are panicking over RFK Jr possibly taking over Health and Human Services. First of all, I find that completely odd because much of RFK Jr. S agenda was actually Democratic technocratic talking points. Okay, So a lot of the Maha agenda, Make America Healthy again agenda, which is about banning particular ingredients, is the kind of stuff that Democrats used to champion when it was Michael Bloomberg in New York City attempting to stop you from getting a Big Gulp. Okay? But apparently, you know, they're. They're really worried that he's going to thwart, for example, vaccination efforts and all the rest. As the Wall Street Journal points out. No, that's not exactly how the system works. Quote, Kennedy's plans, should it be confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of Health and Human Services, are far from sure to be realized. Already, early signs of potential division within Trump's team have emerged. Kennedy is pushing for the FDA to be tougher on Big Pharma. While the vacant Ramaswamy argued last week on X the FDA is too restrictive, creating unnecessary barriers to innovation, the market is bracing for backbreaking measures targeting Big Pharma, while seemingly forgetting it was Joe Biden who signed a law empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly. Furthermore, the Trump first term suggests that investors shouldn't expect drastic changes in healthcare, largely because reforms are complex and involve trade offs. So, for example, if RFK Jr were to limit the approval of a certain drug or lobby against Medicare coverage of GLP1s for obesity, it could upset swaths of the public. Instead, President Trump might steer Kennedy toward focusing on areas like nutrition rather than drug approval. Already, by the way, RFK Jr. Has suggested he's going to issue a lot of advisory opinions rather than simple mandates from the top of the government, which, by the way, is probably the best way to do the Government at the federal level, but the media are totally disconnected from the public and Joe Scarborough is experiencing that in real time. So as we talked about yesterday on the show, Joe and Mika went on bended knee to Donald Trump to rehash their relationship and sort of hit that restart button Vladimir Putin style. And it turns out he got a lot of blowback for that. A lot of people very angry with Joe and Mika for meeting with Trump because they have betrayed the cause that they suggested that they were leading. And so here is Scarborough saying, it turns out a lot of people on the left are disconnected. Yeah, you think, you think Yesterday saw.
Gary Sinise
For the first time what a massive disconnect there was between social media and the real world, because we were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world. A very positive, very supportive going, understand what you do today, etc. Etc. But once in a while I would get a text or a call from go, oh man, I hope you're doing okay. And I call him back and I go, well, Eddie, Gladys, one of them, we go, eddie, are you on Twitter? And he goes, I am. I go, I'm not. So we've had a good day. Mika just had a wonderful event and it's fantastic. We're, we're going to do that. All of us are going to do the best we can do and we're all working towards a better America. Take it day by day by day by day.
Ben Shapiro
Oh my goodness. Well, why, why the, why the long faces, then again, the complete disconnect between the members of the media who are again their own self appointed moral elite, and the rest of the public. That disconnect is very real. Mike Barnacle was on MSNBC asking how they make themselves relevant again. The answer is it's very difficult for you to do so because you separated yourself off from the American public, not the other way around. I don't know how they make themselves, how we make ourselves relevant again, because we can't compete with 20 second snippets on an iPhone. Walking up muscles, getting, getting your entire news digest of the day in less than a minute on your phone as you're walking into the crowd with coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. I don't know how we catch up to that. Well, I mean, the way that you catch up with that is to be honest in your coverage. But again, I think that's kind of hard for you to do. Which is one of the reasons why Comcast is now greenlighting a $7 billion spinoff of their cable channels? Yes, that includes MSNBC. So these, these channels have been falling flat. MSNBC's ratings are in the toilet. I mean, our ratings on this show are way higher than pretty much anything on msnbc. MSNBC is a collapsing content distributor. Honestly, the only thing that can be done with MSNBC is to sell it to somebody who actually knows what the hell they're doing and who has not disconnected themselves from the American people. You know, good luck with that. Okay. Meanwhile, speaking of a bit of a disconnect, I'm seeing a lot of panic these days about the possibility that Russia is just going to go nuclear and start nuking everybody. I've been hearing this for nigh on two years at this point. The answer, as Russia has shown, is that they're not going to nuke anybody over territorial incursions into small areas of Russia. In an intractable war situation with Ukraine, Russia is not stupid enough. Vladimir Putin is. He understands enough to know that a full scale nuclear conflagration over a bit of territorial incursion or firing a couple of missiles at North Korean troops in Russia would not be in his interest, particularly given the fact that Donald Trump is in fact looking for an off ramp at this point. So you're seeing an enormous amount of outsized panic over this. Many people have been warning about World War Three for a while here. It turns out that you keep warning about World War 3 and it's never true. Maybe the theory is that one time you're right. Maybe. But so far it's not been close to true. Nonetheless, Putin knows with whom he is playing and so he's been publicly signaling that he's going to up the ante. According to cnn, President Putin has updated Russia's nuclear doctrine two days after his US Counterpart Joe Biden, granted Ukraine permission to strike targets deep inside Russia with American made weapons. Under the updated doctrine, Moscow will consider aggression from any non nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear country. A joint attack on Russia. The Kremlin began this fresh round of nuclear saber rattling on Tuesday, saying the revised military doctrine would in theory lower the bar to first use of military weapons. In a phone call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted the changes mean that, quote, the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression using conventional weapons against it or the Republic of Belarus. So the revised doctrine apparently is now that if you have a state like Ukraine that is backed by any NATO member that has nuclear weapons, that the Russian Federation may consider using nuclear weapons first use they're not going to do that. Okay, let's be real about this. They're not going to do that if they're publicly signaling that because they understand that by signaling that, they might be able to get the United States to back off. But these sort of outsized panic. You See World War 3 trending on Twitter. I promise you the Twitter foreign policy analysts who are determined that World War three is going to happen because suddenly Ukraine can fire a missile at North Korean troops that are entering Ukraine. Like really? That is not true. Okay. It's not real. It's not going to happen. I'm just saying if it does, then I will be very shocked. Now, does that mean that we should take the risk? Blithely? Of course not. Which is why you look for an off ramp. But the notion that we should all be quivering in our boots when Vladimir Putin's saber rattles, that's a bad way to do foreign policy. Especially given the fact that Russia has been spreading its tentacles as a nuclear backed power literally all over the world, from Africa to the Middle East. According to the Wall Street Journal, as Israel advances its invasion of southern Lebanon, troops are finding large troves of Russian weapons, confirming longstanding suspicions in Israel that Hezbollah is enhancing its fighting capacity with the help of sophisticated Russian arms. And of course, it was Russia that had shipped in a bunch of anti aircraft defenses to Iran that Israel then blew up in the last round of fighting. The Russian government and Syrian Foreign Ministry did not return requests for comment. Israel's Foreign Minister, Giron Saar highlighted Russia's leverage over the militant group when he said recently Israel hopes Russia will help enforce any agreement to disarm Hezbollah by preventing weapons smuggling from Syria to Lebanon. He said the Russians are present in Syria if they agree with the principle, they can contribute to achieving its objective effectively. So again, Vladimir Putin has a very strong interest in saber rattling over Ukraine in the hopes that this will leverage him a better deal. He is going to end up retaining large swaths of the Donbass in Crimea. This is already a foregone conclusion. The only question is what sort of security guarantees will be given to Ukraine to dissuade a further Russian invasion in the future. But people should not be, I think, unduly concerned about Russia saying they're going to nuke everybody. They've been saying this for nigh on 80 years at this point. Since they gained nuclear weapons in the early 50s, they've been doing this. So I would be shocked to take any of this particularly seriously, at least more Seriously than is necessary in order to achieve some sort of off ramp here. Joining us online is my friend Gary Sinise. Of course, you know him from Forrest Gump, among a wide variety of other works. He has a brand new album out. When I say he, I really mean. It's an album that he created on behalf of his son Mac, who's an amazing person. Mac passed away just a little bit earlier this year and this, this album is an amazing accomplishment. First of all, it's Mac's music. It's a vinyl recording called Max and Resurrection and Revival, it's a two part vinyl recording. It really is tremendous. Gary, thanks so much for joining the show.
Gary Sinise
Oh, thanks so much for having me, Ben.
Ben Shapiro
So for those who don't know Max Story, why don't you tell Max Story and how you came about doing this project?
Gary Sinise
Well, yes, thanks for giving me the time. So in 2018, my wife had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. And we were going through. She had had surgery and then she had her first chemo treatment in. I think it was probably about August of 2018. And it really rocked her. I mean, I had to take her to the emergency room. It was so bad that we had to check her into the hospital. And that first treatment really knocked her socks off. So I got her home and we were sitting in our backyard and we were discussing with another person what we were going to do with the next treatment, how we were going to get through it because the first one was so difficult. And earlier that day, our son had been having a lot of pain in his tailbone for a couple of years. And he had seen some doctors. They thought it was a bruised tailbone from a bicycle accident where he slammed on the brakes too hard and jammed his tailbone into the seat. They thought maybe that it was related to that. There was an X ray that was done, really didn't show anything, but he was having so much trouble and he was just terribly uncomfortable, couldn't even sleep. And so Moira had had. My wife had had several spine surgeries and I called her spinal doctor and said, can you see Mac and just see if you know what's going on? And so I'm sitting there with Moira in the backyard and we're discussing her next chemo treatment. And I get a call from the surgeon who sent Mac to the CT scanner. And he called me and he said, Mac has a tumor. And the tumor was wrapped around his sacrum. It was about the size of an orange. And I immediately jumped in the car and went down to meet Mac. The doctor had him in the CT scanner, and then he sent him to the MRI machine. And I went to meet Mac at the MRI and then went back to the doctor's office, and he showed us the tumor. And it was literally been. I mean, it was this big wrapped around his sacrum. And the doctor suspected it was a tumor called chordoma. It's a very, very rare cancer. Maybe 300 people in the US per year are diagnosed with quite often. 70% of the time, they can remove the tumor off the spine and cure it. It's gone. They get everything and it's out and it's gone, but 30% of the time, it comes back. And that's. That's what happened to us. In May of 2019, we found out that Mac's cancer had come back. So that began. That began a chemo and radiation fight there. As the cancer started to spread, Several surgeries to remove more tumors off the spine, several radiation treatments, several drugs to try to fight it, because there are no drugs developed for chordoma. So they just throw whatever they can find and they throw it at it. And over the course of the next four years, he would try 25 different drugs. He was a drummer, Ben, an excellent, excellent drummer. He played with my band sometimes. And he went to USC music school, Thornton School of Music, where he went from just simply drumming to composing and songwriting and conducting, and he wanted to write music for film and all of that. When the cancer really got difficult for him, he was paralyzed from the chest down. He couldn't play drums anymore. Had to really put music away because he was fighting cancer. But then last year, probably February of 2023, last year, he said to me, dad, there was this. There's a piece of music that I wrote in college that I never finished. And I think I'd. I'd like to try to finish it. And Mack hadn't been doing any music for quite a while because he'd been fighting cancer. And I got him together with some of my band members. They started helping flesh it out. It's a piece called Arctic Circles. They went into the studio summer of July of 2023, and recorded this amazing piece of music with an orchestra. I had never heard any of it, Ben. He was working on it with a buddy of his from college, Oliver Schnee. And they were kind of doing it secretly. Last year, he was in a hospital bed. We had around the clock nursing care for him. But in the meantime, he was trying to flesh out this new piece of music. And then on July 17th last year, 2023, we went in the studio and I heard this piece of music for the first time and was floored. There's a max and ease YouTube. There's a video of Arctic circles on that YouTube channel. And you can see I'm in the video, just like, weeping and sobbing because it was so amazingly beautiful. And that began a journey for Mac, where he wanted to create an entire album of music. So that's where Resurrection and Revival came from. He finished the album just weeks before he died. He died. He died January 5th of this year. And just weeks before he died, he completed the music. All the music was recorded, it went to press and the vinyl was being pressed. Unfortunately, he never got to see the vinyl completed, but he heard all the music. And then after he died, Ben, I just started going through his files and I found all this additional music that he had written that I had never heard a lot of it, I'd never heard some of it I had because he wrote. Wrote it for the Gary Sinise foundation to use in our videos. But most of it I hadn't heard before. He just wrote it and tucked it away. And so I thought, I'm not going to let this music just sit on his laptop. So I went to work on Resurrection and Revival Part two, and that was just released on the Gary Sinise foundation website last week. It's a double album. There's so much music on it. It's amazing. And we're selling it. And as Mack wanted, all the proceeds from the first record went to the Gary Sinise foundation. And with the second record, we're doing the same thing for Mac. All the proceeds will go to help the Gary Sinise Foundation. He worked for the foundation starting in 2017, but he had to step away for the cancer fight.
Ben Shapiro
Obviously, he's an amazingly talented person and the music is just wonderful. The double vinyl album is 17 original compositions, covers 19 total tracks. And it really is an amazing accomplishment, both by him and then obviously by you and the team that put this together, because what did you have to work with? You say that you found new tunes by him. In what sort of state did you find these tunes?
Gary Sinise
Well, let me start with the music that I asked him to write for the Gary Sinise Foundation. So Mack was very, very creative, very talented, but he's working for a nonprofit, so we can't hire an orchestra to go in and record all the music for these docum. So Mack would do it on his computer with all his samples and all his patches, you know, the cellos and the strings and the horns and the drums and everything like that. He created it all on his computer and wrote all this music for. There's a documentary about my sort of journey with all the military support and everything. And it kind of tracks the history of all that going back to the 80s. And the documentary is called Always Do A Little More. And so Mack wrote about 75% of the music for that on his computer. And he's got all the strings. He's got everything. It sounds like an orchestra, but it's not. It's all done on samples. So I found all that music again and some additional music that he wrote for the foundation that I'd never heard because it was never used. But beautiful, beautiful stuff. All done on the computer. The horns, everything. I mean, it sounds like an orchestra playing it, but it's Mac doing it on his computer. So we took all that music, and I called up his buddy who worked with him on the first record. His name is Oliver Schnee. He was a composer pal from USC music school. They were buddies. They teamed up on Resurrection and Revival Part one. And Oliver kind of took, you know, all that, all. All this music for part two, transposed it, got it off the computer, transposed it, you know, wrote it out so that we could have it played by a live orchestra. And last summer, in July and August, we went into the studio and recorded all this orchestral music that Mac wrote. He wanted to write for film. That's what he really wanted to do. I think he loved drumming and everything, but he wasn't satisfied to just be a drummer. He wanted to be a film composer. He loved, you know, John Williams and James Newton Howard and James Horner and, I mean, just scores of great, great film composers that he loved. Hans Zimmer and all that. And, you know, he wanted. That's what he wanted to do. So he was writing for the foundation. And I don't think he ever envision that music coming to life with a live orchestra. But we brought it to life last summer with a live orchestra. And then there were all this other music going all the way back to his USC days, Ben. I mean, there were recordings that he made at USC where he's drumming and he's. And he's drumming on songs that he was writing for class. I mean, they had to write songs. They were, you know, music theory class, composition class, all that stuff. And their assignments were to go off and make music. And they have some great studios at USC and all that. So I found all these recordings that I had never Heard before because he wrote them, you know, when he was a sophomore and a junior in college and then just tucked the music away. So I found it and I started listening to it, and I was just knocked out by what I was finding. Then I found charts that he had written for big band jazz tunes. I mean, Mac had never been like a big jazzer, but all of a sudden I find this big band jazz tune. I gave it to my piano player. I said, you know, play this for me. And so he got the band. He did a little arrangement, got the band to play it. And it's a. It's just a swing and great tune. It's called Sweep Sweeping, and it's on max and East YouTube. There's a video of that as well as videos of some of the other things. But 19 compositions later, as you said, there are two covers. One is Nature Boy. Remember that Nat King Cole classic, Nature Boy? Mac does a version of that where he does all the instruments, plays all the instruments, and sings and did his own arrangement and all of that. And then there's one other cover of the old American classic Home on the Range. So on the first record, Mac plays harmonica. His mom suggested he get a harmonica because he couldn't play drums anymore. His right hand was paralyzed. He could move his arm up and down, but the fingers he couldn't move on his right hand. On his left arm, there was a. There was a tumor up here in the shoulder, so it fractured his shoulder. So he couldn't lift his arm up, but he had the fingers on his left hand. So he had one arm over here and fingers over here. So he could. His mom suggested he get a harmonica and sit in the hospital bed and play the harmonica. So he taught himself harmonica. So on the first record, he plays Amazing Grace on harmonica. He plays Shenandoah. It's an. There's an amazing video, Ben, of Mac playing Shenandoah with this orchestra, and it's really a knockout. He plays the Star Spangled Banner on harmonica. He plays another one called Tura Lura Lura. And that was a song that his mother used to sing to him when he was little. And she said. She also sang one called Red River Valley. Remember that one? And so Mac plays harmonica on Red River Valley and Tour Allure. Allure and all these songs. Well, there was one recording for Home on the Range that was not used on the first record. And Oliver had that recording. Oliver had recorded it. So I said, well, let's. Let's complete the arrangement. Mac and Oliver had worked on an arrangement. It just didn't make the first record. So I said, well, we're going to put it on the second record. So that's the other cover, Home on the Range and Nature Boy and then all the rest. Seventeen compositions, all original, from jazz to orchestral to rock. I mean, it's all over the map. It's really a. It's a beautiful, fun record with each side having its own unique kind of characteristic.
Ben Shapiro
Folks, it's a wonderful piece of work. Obviously, it's a tremendous tribute to Mac. And all the. All the proceeds of the. Of the record sales go to the Gary Sinise foundation, which honors veterans and first responders and their families and people in need. They're doing amazing work over at the Gary Sinise foundation, have been doing for years. Gary, you know, thanks for the album and I'm excited that so many people are going to be able to hear Mac's music.
Gary Sinise
Thanks, Ben. The first record, Resurrection and Revival, that's on digital, so you can download it. You can order the vinyl@garysneesfoundation.org the digital for resurrection and revival part two will be out just after the first of the year.
Ben Shapiro
Amazing. So, folks, go check it out. Gary, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it.
Gary Sinise
I sure appreciate it, Ben. Have a safe trip.
Ben Shapiro
All right, you guys. Coming up, we'll be getting into Elon Musk, going with Donald Trump to a starship launch. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.
The Ben Shapiro Show: Episode 2089 - The COLLAPSE Of The Elitists
Release Date: November 20, 2024
Host: Ben Shapiro
Podcast: The Ben Shapiro Show, The Daily Wire
Ben Shapiro opens the episode by drawing an analogy between Newton's third law of motion and political reactions. He asserts that corrupting key government institutions like the Department of Justice (DOJ) or Health and Human Services (HHS) leads to strong oppositional actions, exemplified by figures like Matt Gaetz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Key Discussion Points:
Meritocracy vs. Technocracy: Shapiro critiques the modern interpretation of meritocracy, arguing that it has been eroded by a shift towards technocracy. He contends that true meritocracy allows individuals with genuine merit to ascend through natural, evolutionary processes such as free markets and community involvement.
David Brooks’ Critique: Shapiro analyzes an essay by David Brooks titled "The Death of Meritocracy" from The Atlantic. Brooks suggests that the perceived failures of meritocracy have led to the rise of outsiders like Trump and Gaetz in power. Shapiro vehemently disagrees, labeling Brooks as a technocrat who misunderstands the essence of meritocracy.
Notable Quotes:
Shapiro explores how American institutions have transitioned from systems that naturally promoted merit and virtue to ones dominated by technocratic elites aiming to reshape society.
Key Discussion Points:
Historical Context: Shapiro traces the shift back to the Progressive Movement in the early 20th century, highlighting how elites began to impose top-down systems over organic institutions like free markets and religious communities.
Impact on Education: Using Columbia University as an example, he illustrates how prestigious institutions have moved away from fostering genuine merit and virtue toward creating an exclusive aristocracy.
Notable Quotes:
Shapiro delves into the six "sins" of the modern meritocracy as outlined by David Brooks, providing his counterarguments to each.
Key Discussion Points:
Overrating Intelligence: Brooks argues that the system overemphasizes standardized testing and intelligence metrics. Shapiro counters that this leads to a misalignment where bureaucratic intelligence trumps practical productivity.
Success in School vs. Life: Brooks claims academic success doesn’t equate to real-world effectiveness. Shapiro believes free markets inherently value and reward practical skills and innovation.
Rigged Systems: Brooks posits that meritocracy favors the affluent by enabling "arms races" in college admissions. Shapiro rebuts by presenting data on income mobility, arguing that the free market allows individuals to rise based on their contributions.
American Caste System: Brooks suggests meritocracy creates segregation between the educated elite and others. Shapiro argues that technological and free-market systems naturally sort individuals based on productivity and community engagement rather than imposed segregation.
Damaged Psyches: Brooks claims that meritocracy fosters emotional instability through constant evaluations. Shapiro attributes this to the technocratic system imposing unrealistic standards, whereas free markets emphasize resilience and personal growth.
Redefining Merit: Brooks advocates for a broader definition of merit that includes social intelligence and agility. Shapiro maintains that true meritocracy is already embodied in free-market principles, which naturally reward diverse skills and talents.
Notable Quotes:
Shapiro examines recent political actions and how they reflect the broader struggle between technocratic elites and populist movements.
Key Discussion Points:
Immigration Policy: He discusses President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, highlighting the resistance from technocratic Democrats in blue states. Shapiro emphasizes the alignment of such policies with mainstream American desires for security and order.
Criminal Justice and Mental Health Systems: Referencing a stabbing spree in New York City, Shapiro criticizes the failure of technocratic systems to effectively manage public safety and mental health, arguing that evolved, community-based approaches would prevent such tragedies.
Transgender Restroom Debate: The introduction of a resolution by Representative Nancy Mace to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms is analyzed. Shapiro portrays this as a necessary stand against elite-driven social engineering, despite Democratic accusations of discrimination.
Notable Quotes:
Shapiro addresses global concerns about Russia's nuclear doctrine and World War III panic, offering a realist perspective on international relations.
Key Discussion Points:
Russian Nuclear Doctrine: He explains Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine, clarifying that despite aggressive rhetoric, Russia is unlikely to engage in nuclear warfare due to rational strategic considerations.
Media Panic vs. Reality: Shapiro criticizes media sensationalism around potential nuclear conflicts, asserting that such panic is unfounded and driven by technocratic fearmongering rather than substantial threats.
International Influence: He mentions Russia's involvement in global conflicts, such as supplying weapons to Hezbollah and Iran, underscoring the strategic maneuvers behind the rhetoric.
Notable Quotes:
In a poignant segment, Shapiro welcomes actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise to discuss his son Mac's battle with cancer and the creation of a tribute music album.
Key Discussion Points:
Mac’s Battle with Cancer: Sinise shares his son’s struggle with chordoma, a rare spinal cancer, detailing the emotional and physical challenges faced over several years.
Creation of the Album: Despite his illness, Mac composed original music, which Sinise helped bring to life posthumously. The album, Resurrection and Revival, features orchestral and harmonica pieces, serving as a tribute to Mac’s talent and resilience.
Supporting the Gary Sinise Foundation: Proceeds from the album sales are directed to Sinise’s foundation, which supports veterans, first responders, and their families.
Notable Quotes:
Shapiro emphasizes the growing gap between media elites and the general public, attributing it to technocratic domination and lack of genuine engagement with American values.
Key Discussion Points:
MSNBC’s Struggles: He critiques MSNBC’s declining ratings and suggests it’s a result of the network’s detachment from mainstream American values and reliance on outdated technocratic narratives.
Social Media vs. Traditional Media: Shapiro contrasts the quick, concise news delivery on platforms like Twitter with traditional media’s in-depth yet disconnected coverage, highlighting the challenges faced by established news outlets in staying relevant.
Public Backlash: He frames current political and social movements as a backlash against decades of technocratic governance, advocating for a return to free-market principles and community-based values.
Notable Quotes:
Ben Shapiro wraps up episode 2089 by reiterating his belief in the inherent strength of evolved systems like free markets and community institutions over imposed technocratic models. He underscores the ongoing “revenge of the normies” as a movement against elite-driven governance, advocating for policies that reflect genuine American values of merit, productivity, and community cohesion.
Closing Remarks:
Notable Quotes:
Income Mobility Data: Shapiro references a 2014 New York Times study by Professor Mark Rank, highlighting significant income mobility within the United States, countering the narrative of a stagnant elite.
Public Safety and Legislation: Discussion on the necessity of robust government intervention to ensure public safety, contrasting with technocratic failures in mental health and criminal justice systems.
Episode 2089 of The Ben Shapiro Show presents a comprehensive critique of the modern meritocracy, attributing its flaws to a shift towards technocratic governance. Shapiro champions free-market principles and community-based systems as the true embodiments of meritocracy, while decrying the failures of elite-driven systems to address societal needs. Through incisive analysis and poignant guest segments, the episode underscores the tension between evolved American values and imposed technocratic models, advocating for a return to authentic meritocratic principles.