Ep. 1739 - We Live Next to a Failed Narco-State. Why Are We STILL Focused on the Mid-East?

Summary

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The Matt Walsh Show

Ep. 1739 – We Live Next to a Failed Narco-State. Why Are We STILL Focused on the Mid-East?
Date: February 24, 2026

Overview

In this episode, Matt Walsh delivers a piercing critique of America's foreign policy priorities, questioning why so much U.S. attention and military might is directed toward the Middle East while chaos and violence escalate across the southern border in Mexico. He unpacks the implications of Mexico’s descent into cartel-fueled lawlessness, explores the knock-on effects for American citizens (especially tourists and border communities), and connects these developments to broader themes in American political, educational, and cultural life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Border Security vs. Foreign Engagement

[00:32 – 18:50]

• Matt argues forcefully that “securing the border is the single most important goal that the United States can pursue at the moment,” citing the escalating cartel violence in Mexico as a new, urgent reason.
• U.S. State Department has issued a Level 4 (do-not-travel) advisory for states on the Texas border, putting them on par with war zones like Afghanistan and Yemen.
• Recent events: After the killing of cartel leader El Mencho, open warfare has erupted. Cartels are now targeting tourist areas, escalating risks both for locals and visitors.

Quote:
"According to our State Department, the United States of America borders a state that is as dangerous as a war zone filled with jihadis."
— Matt Walsh [03:30]

• Cartels have historically avoided tourism centers to protect revenue, but now, even these areas are unsafe: “The cartels are killing people and torching vehicles. Tourists in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara are being forced to shelter in place, their flights canceled…" [04:53]

Tourists recount their experiences:

• Resident of Puerto Vallarta: “Ubers are not working. The buses that we normally use … you don’t see them. There’s still blockages, still burnt buses and cars—about a three-minute walk down here, cars and buses incinerated.” [05:36]

• Walsh mocks complaints of luxury travelers but notes: “Entitled morons are the backbone of any tourism industry. … The fact that the cartels no longer care about this revenue is a sign that our southern border has just become much more dangerous than it already was.” [07:42]

2. Political Response and Inaction

[11:30 – 17:50]

• Canadian tourists in Mexico find their government unresponsive during the crisis.

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo recently insisted on treating cartel violence as a law enforcement matter, not warfare, stressing due process for cartel members. Matt lambasts this as hopelessly naive:
  Quote:
  "Cartels of Mexico have better weaponry and technology than the Mexican military. … If Mexico’s government is committed to treating these narco-terrorists like common criminals, they’re not going to last very long." — Matt Walsh [13:30]

• The tide may be turning after a military assault (with U.S. intelligence help) kills El Mencho in a raid described as open combat, not policing.

3. America’s Security Focus: The Wrong Priorities?

[17:51 – 19:50]

• U.S. military presence remains concentrated in the Middle East and near Iran, with strike groups and warplanes poised for another possible intervention.
• Matt questions: “When is the Pentagon going to devote similar resources to defending the US Border with Mexico?”
  • Suggests that a military campaign to destroy cartels would “easily be a defining legacy of the second Trump administration.”

Quote:
"Rather than another war in the Middle East, a military campaign to dismantle and destroy these cartels would…save American lives, which is the whole reason we have a military."
— Matt Walsh [19:23]

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4. Gavin Newsom’s 'Cultural Normalcy' Comments

[20:21 – 23:00]

• Newsom, on CNN, claims Democrats need to be “more culturally normal,” less focused on identity politics.

• Matt scoffs, calling such moderation impossible for the left:
  Quote:
  "The Democrat Party needs to be more culturally normal, he says. … It’s actually impossible for the Democrat Party to be culturally normal. … By definition, leftism is a force of destruction, a force of perversion. It inherently opposes everything that can be considered culturally normal."
  — Matt Walsh [21:00]

• Argues progression for the left only signifies ceaseless change: “Progressing means continuously forming new normals, which is to say it means not having a normal.” [22:40]

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5. Abortion Legislation in Tennessee: Moral and Legal Logic

[27:00 – 29:30]

• Tennessee lawmakers propose a bill equating abortion with homicide, with conceivable prison or death sentences for women who obtain abortions.

• Matt supports the logic forcefully:
  Quote:
  "Either unborn babies are human beings, or they aren’t. And if they are, then killing them is murder. … If you agree with that proposition, I don’t see how you can logically end up any other place." — Matt Walsh [28:41]

• Recognizes variability in moral culpability and sentencing but insists the act itself is murder and should be treated with criminal penalties.

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6. Digital Screen Catastrophe in Education

[32:00 – 44:00]

• America spent $30 billion replacing textbooks with screens in schools; results are “catastrophic.”

• Studies showing Gen Z is “the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than previous ones.”

• Matt argues tech in schools has backfired:
  Quote:
  "Screens are making kids dumber, a lot dumber. And quickly. … This is idiocracy at warp speed." — Matt Walsh [36:05]

• Personal observations on the loss of presence, communication, and mental vibrancy among youth: “It really seems like… you can’t remember things as well as you used to, even for adults.” [39:00]

• Predicts public education is “over” — screens and AI make learning for most children impossible in mass institutions; homeschooling or tightly controlled private education are the only solutions he sees.

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7. Olympics Medal Ceremony – The “Feminization” of Society

[52:00 – 55:50]

• Matt highlights the 2026 Winter Olympics’ tradition of giving male hockey players stuffed animal mascots along with medals.
• Mocking tone, calls it emblematic of societal feminization:
  Quote:
  "If I were to try to come up with an illustration of the continued feminization of every aspect of society, I don’t think I could come up with a better illustration than that: hockey players handed little plushies… having just battled on the ice in the Olympic gold medal hockey game, being handed cute little commemorative plushies."
  — Matt Walsh [54:10]

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8. AOC’s Foreign Policy Flub and “Snoring/Fart” Clip

[58:24 – 59:51]

• Walsh discusses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (AOC) viral video after her slip-up on global affairs—most memorable for odd background noises.

• Matt jokes about the sound:
  Quote:
  "How is that not the headline? What was that? Was AOC just blowing farts the whole time? … Maybe it was somebody playing the trombone in the room."
  — Matt Walsh [58:56]

• He dismisses her attempt to blame critics: "You might think I’m really stupid because I don’t know anything. You might think that, but, hey, joke’s on you… Actually, the problem is you."

• Ends with a dire warning:
  Quote:
  "If this woman actually wins the presidency, … the whole country’s over… Not because she’ll destroy the country, although she will, but more because only a country that is already destroyed would elect someone who is this aggressively, gratuitously incompetent." — Matt Walsh [59:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Securing the border is the single most important goal that the United States can pursue at the moment." — Matt Walsh [00:41]
• "According to our State Department, the United States... borders a state that is as dangerous as a war zone filled with jihadis." — Matt Walsh [03:30]
• "The fact that the cartels no longer care about this revenue is a sign that our southern border has just become much more dangerous than it already was." — Matt Walsh [07:42]
• "Cartels of Mexico have better weaponry and technology than the Mexican military... If Mexico’s government is committed to treating these narco terrorists like common criminals, they’re not gonna last very long." — Matt Walsh [13:30]
• "A military campaign to dismantle and destroy these cartels would easily be a defining legacy of the second Trump administration." — Matt Walsh [19:23]
• "The Democrat Party needs to be more culturally normal... It’s actually impossible for the Democrat Party to be culturally normal." — Matt Walsh [21:00]
• "Screens are making kids dumber, a lot dumber. And quickly. This is idiocracy at warp speed." — Matt Walsh [36:05]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:32 – Walsh introduces the episode theme: cartel violence at the border and U.S. response.
• 04:53 – 11:30 – Descriptions of Mexico’s cartel violence and impacts on tourists.
• 13:30 – 17:50 – Critique of Mexican and U.S. government response to cartel crisis.
• 19:23 – Case for shifting military resources from Middle East to the Mexican border.
• 20:21 – 23:00 – Discussion of Gavin Newsom’s “cultural normalcy” comments and Walsh’s rebuttal.
• 27:00 – 29:30 – Tennessee abortion law debate.
• 32:00 – 44:00 – Deterioration of K-12 education thanks to digital screens and AI.
• 52:00 – 55:50 – NHL hockey medals and “feminization” of Olympic ceremony.
• 58:24 – 59:51 – AOC’s viral “snoring/fart” moment and critique of her foreign policy knowledge.

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Conclusion

Matt Walsh’s episode blends news analysis, cultural commentary, and political critique, centered around the startling instability on the U.S.-Mexico border, the distorted priorities of the U.S. government, and the broader decline (as he sees it) of American education and society. He underscores the urgent need for a recalibration of U.S. attention—arguing that the chaos next door is a much greater and immediate threat than distant Middle Eastern entanglements. The episode is characteristically acerbic, combative, sardonic, and rich with the hot-button issues that define his show.

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Transcript

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[Matt Walsh]

Today, the Matt Walsh show. Chaos erupts south of the border as Mexico descends further into anarchy and violence. What, if anything, should the United States do about all this to protect its own citizens? Also, Gavin Newsom says that Democrats need to be more culturally normal, quote, unquote. But is that even fundamentally possible for the modern Democrat party? And the education system has spent many billions of dollars replacing books with screens for students. The results are in and they are catastrophic. All that and more today on the Matt Walsh. There are a lot of different ways to make the point that securing the border is the single most important goal that the United States can pursue at the moment. You can point to the horrific crimes that are committed by illegal aliens. You can talk about the crowded job market or welfare programs that are being overloaded, or the fact that housing becomes much more expensive when tens of millions of new residents move into the country. This is all very important and very familiar territory. But in the wake of the cartel violence that's unfolding throughout Mexico, there's a new way to illustrate just how important our border is and how volatile our hemisphere has become. So take a look at this graphic. It's from a map on the official website of the U. S. State Department. So you can check me on this. If you pull up the State Department website right now, you can see it for yourself. But there's the image. And the map shows a portion of the southern United States bordering the Gulf of America, as we call it now, along with several states in Mexico. And as you can see, the Mexican states are shaded with various colors. Directly bordering Texas, the Mexican state of Tamil, Tama Lapis, probably mispronouncing, that is shaded in a very deep red. And that deep shade of red is a level four travel advisory, which is the highest Level that the state department is able to give any country. Now, just to be clear about the significance of a Level 4 designation, it means that you should not travel to this particular location under any circumstances for any reason. And if you decide to travel to a level four location anyway, the state department advises that you, quote, consider hiring a professional security organization, prepare a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries and power of attorney, and also develop a, quote, communication plan that should, quote, include a proof of life protocol with loved ones so that if you're taken hostage, detained and or tortured, your loved ones will know specific questions and answers to ask the hostage takers to confirm that you're still alive. Other level 4 countries include such wonderful locations as Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen. That's the status of a Mexican state that sits directly on the Texas border. Now, you may not have heard about this because no one in our government has really mentioned it, but it's true. According to our state department, the United States of America borders a state that is as dangerous as a war zone filled with jihadis. This level four no go zone, it's not located thousands of miles away in the middle east. There's no ocean separating us. The narco terrorists in this Mexican state are seconds away from entering the country via Brownsville or laredo. Many of them, of course, have done that. They've entered the country. And now that Mexico has descended into open warfare over the killing of El Mencho, the head of one of Mexico's most powerful cartels, the risk is greater right now than it's been at any point in recent history. Dozens of Mexican police and national guardsmen are dead. Stores are being looted and set on fire. And what's significant about the latest bloodshed in Mexico is that historically, cartels have avoided direct attacks on tourist destinations. Tourism is central to Mexico's economy. It accounts for around 10% of their GDP. It employs millions of people. Cartels would lose a lot of money and a lot of domestic popularity if they made it unsafe for foreigners to travel to Mexico on vacation. So there's been a tendency generally for cartels to stay away from the golden goose and kind of leave the foreign travelers alone for the most part. Well, that's all changing now because the cartels are, are killing people and, and torching vehicles. Taurus and Puerto Vallorata and Guadalajara are being forced to shelter in place. Their flights are being canceled. Cabs won't pick them up. Military helicopters are buzzing around their resorts. Watch.

[Puerto Vallarta Resident]

They're saying the taxis are operating at this time we did see two of them and they said no, this is our our work vehicle so we can't use them. Ubers are not working. The buses that we normally use as well, you don't see them at this point, but there's still blockages, there's still burnt buses and burnt cars in certain areas. Like in the road right down here. About three minute walk down here, there's still cars and, and, and buses incinerated and on the road.

[Matt Walsh]

I got stuck right there before they lit the truck on fire. Are the fire trucks like just a beautiful day in Puerto Vallart? What the. Now as dramatic as these stories are, they pale in comparison to the plight of Platinum Elite Marriott members with over a thousand confirmed lifetime reservations who are currently staying in Mexican resorts that are rapidly running out of food and availability. This is a post from the Marriott subreddit and here's what it says. It says quote weston Weston Puerto Vallorata won't honor late checkout with streets closed. I am Platinum Elite with over a thousand lifetime Marriott nights. City's on fire due to cartel setting cars and buses on fire all over the city. The airport is closed and Ubers and taxis are not running. I asked for 4pm checkout, which I'm entitled to based on availability. They won't extend past 2pm and said we would have to use the hospitality suite. We're supposed to be leaving this afternoon, but this isn't looking very good. Worst Bonvoy property I have ever experienced. I don't think anyone will be checking in today, so there's no reason not to at least extend us to 4pm Now I had to check to confirm that that was real and indeed it is. Most of the posts in the Marriott subreddit sound the same. One person responded with this quote, we're literally sitting on a plane in Guadalajara airport and are not moving. Been here for 20ish minutes. A large black cloud of smoke was near the airport. My advice? Stay inside and don't try to go out, another person writes. Start tracking your expenses from that point onwards so you can file a claim with your travel insurance. Now, it's easy to kind of mock these posts, but the reality is that this sentiment is extremely bad for Mexico's economy. Well off entitled morons are the backbone of any tourism industry. They're the ones who spend unreasonable amounts of money when they go on vacation. And Mexico is supposed to host the World cup in what, four months? So many, many more tourists are about to stream in. The fact that the cartels no Longer care about this revenue is a sign that our southern border has just become much more dangerous than it already was and much less stable. And it was already very unstable and very dangerous. Just a year ago, Canadian politicians and outlets were encouraging people to vacation in Mexico instead of Florida. Supposedly it was a way to, you know, get back at Trump. And, you know, you can see the headlines right there. One of them reads, why Canadians should go to Mexico instead of Florida. Another headline from the Canadian state broadcaster CBC says more Canadians head to Mexico for winter getaways. Vacation travel to US down as Canadian tourists make strategic decisions on where to spend time and money. CBC also ran this story, which is in the running for worst aged segments in all of television news history. There's a lot of competition for that title. This is from last year. Watch.

[Canadian Tourist Couple]

Charles Burt and Merrily Mollard are getting advice from their travel agents on where to travel this winter.

[News Anchor]

So have you guys decided on where you would like to go?

[Matt Walsh]

Well, on the bucket list is Puerto Vallarta.

[Canadian Tourist Couple]

The Manitoba couple usually spends weeks or even months at a trailer park in Weslaco, Texas. But not this year.

[Matt Walsh]

Since the election of Trump and the insults that he placed on our country, 50 first aid and all of that garbage, we decided that, no, we're not going to spend money down there.

[Canadian Tourist Couple]

They're not the only ones making that decision. According to the Mexican Ministry of Tourism, the number of Canadians flying to Mexico increased by 11.3% between January and September compared to the year before, an increase of almost 200,000 tourists.

[Matt Walsh]

So they didn't want to spend money in Texas or Florida because Donald Trump wrote some mean tweets and now they're hunkering down in their resorts hoping that they don't get murdered. These are the kinds of videos Canadians are currently uploading from their vacations, which really hit Donald Trump where it hurts, I guess. Watch.

[Canadian Tourist]

So I don't know if you can see that, but I can see the flames underneath that black smoke. Major flames there.

[Matt Walsh]

Huge plan.

[Canadian Tourist]

Plumes everywhere. Another big one over there. Another one directly behind this resort we're staying at. Pretty much surrounded by, by this right

[Matt Walsh]

now,

[Canadian Tourist]

really intense scene happening here in Puerto Vallarta. Hopefully we're able to get out tomorrow, but the airports are shut down as it is. Right?

[Matt Walsh]

You tell. It's probably not surprising that at the moment, no one in Canada's government actually seems to care about the Canadians who are now trapped in Mexico. They aren't getting regular updates from the Canadian government. And meanwhile, a member of Canada's Parliament named Heather McPherson, who's currently running to lead one of Canada's major parties, put out this message. Quote, many, many Canadians, especially members of the two SLGBTQIA+ community, are in Puerto Vallarta. Vallarta, Vallarta. Is that it? Where violence has quickly escalated and shelter in place, order is in effect. Please stay vigilant. So, needless to say, you know, that doesn't help the tourism industry either. Prominent politicians are publicly declaring that Puerto Vallarta is where the gay Canadians go. And at the moment, all of those gay Canadian tourists have to deal with the Mexican cartels, which, among other things, the Mexican cartels are known, I'm told, for misgendering everyone in their path. But for her part, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, does seem to be taking the cartel seriously. And that's a surprise because. And a change of pace because just a couple of months ago, she declared that it would be unlawful to wage war on the cartels because they're entitled to due process and civil liberties. Watch. Primero. So we'll cut it off there for the benefit of anybody listening to the audio podcast. But the gist was that the Mexican government is going to respect the legal process and treat the cartels like criminals rather than enemy combatants. She says returning to the war against the narco is not an option. First, because it is outside the French framework of the law. There's no need to belabor how absurd this reasoning is. I think we all kind of get it. Cartels of Mexico have better weaponry and technology than the Mexican military. As you can see here. They're equipped like the Special Forces. That's. Those are the cartels right there. They routinely murder politicians, law enforcement, civilians. If Mexico's government is committed to treating these narco terrorists like common criminals, then they're not gonna last very long. That is, the Mexican government's not gonna last very long. And millions of Americans, particularly Americans living near the border, will suffer the consequences. Frankly, the only way that the Mexican president could disagree is if she's owned by the cartels. Apparently, though, the Mexican government has changed its strategy, at least to some degree, because it had no choice. This is how the Wall Street Journal describes the Mexican government's raid on the town of Tapalpa, which took out the Mexican cartel leader on Sunday morning. This area is known as the Magic Town because of its romantic pine forests. And apparently El Mencho was spending the weekend at this place with one of his girlfriends. And here's what it says, quote, just before dawn the quiet of the Jalisco hills was jolted by the sounds of combat helicopters, military aircraft, and then gunshots ripping through the air. El Mencho's security detail fired back. Dozens of soldiers and armored military vehicles plowed into the forest. Amid the sound of heavy gunfire, the ground team chased El Mencho's men into the forest, forcing them to abandon their high powered weapons in the cabin complex. El Mencho's forces were pinned down and surrounded, but continued to fire back for about five hours. A military helicopter was hit by the gunfire and had to make an emergency landing at a military facility when shooting stopped. Five cartel members were dead on the ground. Three others, El Mencho and two bodyguards, were seriously wounded and then died in a military helicopter later. There were no military losses during the raid between beyond two injured soldiers. Afterward, Mexican forces seized heavy weapons, including high caliber Barrett, rifle munitions, mortar grenades, two rocket launchers and eight vehicles. In other words, this was not a law enforcement operation. The Mexican government, with the assistance from US Intelligence, sent in the military and killed one of the most dangerous cartel leaders in the hemisphere. And these raids need to continue. Until the rule of law is secured in Mexico, there should be no terrorist states on the U.S. border under any circumstances. Now, one of the reasons the United States hasn't collapsed in the same way that most of Europe has collapsed is that an ocean separates us from the many dysfunctional elements of the Third World. But with the latest cartel violence in Mexico, it's impossible to deny that we are now directly threatened by narco terrorists on our doorstep. They've already killed tens of thousands of Americans, primarily with fentanyl, as well as meth and cocaine. And now they're threatening to murder American tourists and everybody living near the southern border. Right now, as all this is going on near Iran, we've stationed an armada that includes multiple aircraft carrier strike groups, including the most advanced carrier in the Navy, the USS Gerald Ford, along with at least 13 destroyers, multiple warships with Tomahawk missiles, F35 fighters, F A18 attack planes, and so on. We've stocked nearby air bases with drones, reconnaissance planes, tankers, bombers, electronic warfare jets. We have a lot of hardware that's about to strike Iran, to all appearances, and even if you fully support those deployments, and even if you believe that Iran needs to be attacked, you have to wonder when the Pentagon is going to devote similar resources to defending the US Border with Mexico. The Mexican government may be outgunned by the cartels, but we aren't. And rather than another war in the Middle East, a military campaign to dismantle and destroy these cartels would easily be a defining legacy of the second Trump administration. It would save American lives, which is the whole reason we have a military. So for once, we should follow the lead of the Mexican government, which is not something I ever thought I'd say. Change our strategy and kill these narco terrorists before they know what hit them. Now let's get to our five headlines. The American Revolution was born from 150 years of colonial experience, tensions and transformation. And if you want to dive even deeper into the history of our country, our sponsor, Hillsdale College offers a free miniseries on colonial America that tells the full story. Hillsdale College has created a fascinating six part documentary series where their professors explore the religious, political, cultural and economic ideas that shaped America's unique character during the colonial period. 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Go right now to Hillsdale. Edu Walsh to enroll. There's no cost. Easy to get started. That's Hillsdale. Edu Walsh to enroll for free Hillsdale. Edu Walsh. Gavin Newsom, last seen bragging to a black audience about how he can't read and how he got a 960 on his SATs. Well, he was on CNN last night and he's now going back to his his reasonable, moderate shtick. And here that is. Listen.

[Gavin Newsom]

No doubt that the Democratic Party needs to be, dare I say, more culturally normal. I believe that less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity politics, more focused on tabletop issues, things that really matter. The stacking of stress in terms of electricity bills and child care costs and health care and obviously housing costs and how easily we get trapped in that. How I've fallen prey to that. I mean, here I was way out front on marriage equality. So I understand this from both on the receiving end of this.

[Matt Walsh]

The Democrat Party needs to be more culturally normal, he says. And he says they need to be less focused on pronouns. Very, very boldly, very bravely, very bravely coming out against the pronoun fad, like three years after it peaked, the year 2026, Gavin Newsom taking the bold stance that they shouldn't be too focused on pronouns. And of course, Newsom wants us to forget that as governor of California, he was one of the primary drivers of this stuff. He's one of the primary drivers of the trans craze. And he's, of course, retconning all of that now. But we know that. But that's. That's not what I want to focus on. Instead, I think it just. This needs to be said that it's actually impossible for the Democrat Party to be culturally normal. That's not possible to do. Now, in theory, if it were possible, that would be the politically smart thing for them to do. It would make them more politically formidable, but they actually can't do that. It's not possible. It can never happen. You know, it's not like the Republican Party. I mean, I'll be the first to say that there are some, shall we say, weird elements among conservatives. Conservatives can get drawn down some very bizarre paths. That can happen. It does happen. But even when conservatives start doing and saying weird stuff, you can always, at least in theory, draw them back into normalcy. But with the left, it's totally different. The left can never be culturally normal because by definition, leftism is a force of destruction. It's a force of perversion. Subversion. It inherently opposes everything that can be considered culturally normal. It opposes the culture. It opposes all aspects of normalcy. It seeks to dismantle. I mean, that is the banner that it marches under literally. And there's a version of what I'm saying that even leftists would agree with openly. I mean, they wouldn't necessarily describe what they do as perversion and subversion, even though that's what it is. But they would agree if I framed it this way, if I said progressivism is by definition a vehicle for perpetual social transformation. It's not a vehicle for preservation. It's a vehicle for. I mean, that's conservatism by definition. It's right there in the name conserve, conserving something. Progressivism, right there in the name progress. We're moving, we're continuing. We keep Going right? So even framing it as positively as I possibly can, there is no normalcy there. Progressing means constantly, continuously changing. It means continuously forming new normals, which is to say it means not having a normal. If there's a new normal and then tomorrow there's another new normal, then that just means that there's no normal. So that's why this moderating attempt on the left won't work. It can't work. It can't happen. It's why leftism will never, ever be a force for the preservation of or defense of normalcy. Progressivism progresses, as I always say. It progresses in the same sense that cancer progresses, eating away, destroying. So when a leftist politician says that they want to be more normal, all he really means is we want to pull back a little bit. We want to. We want to rein things in just a little bit, and we want the progress to be a little bit slower. We want to slow down the progress of the cancer. Now, Gavin Newsom, he doesn't have a problem with the trans stuff, obviously. He just believes now that the trans stuff came on too fast, the transformation was too rapid, society rejected it. So for strategic and political reasons, he wants to slow it down a little bit, make it more gradual. That's all that he's talking about. Sheets don't usually fail all at once. It's never this dramatic moment where they just fall apart. It's the small things that creep up on you. 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Plus they don't wear out instantly like, you know, the box store. Cheap sheets do sleep sound with Bol and Branch get 15% off your first order, plus free shipping at BollandBranch.com Walsh with code Walsh that's Bowl and Branch B O L L A N D Branch.com Walsh code Walsh to unlock 15% off exclusions apply. Okay, moving on to this. There is right now in Tennessee an interesting bill that's been proposed. It's an equal protection bill in Tennessee. It's a draft amendment which would extend equal legal protections to children in the womb. They'd be protected legally the same way that humans outside of the womb are protected, which would also mean that the killing of these humans in the womb would be classified under the law as murder and would be treated that way. And here's how local news in Tennessee reported on this watch. State lawmakers are backing legislation legalizing the prosecution of women who receive an abortion for the crime of homicide. Good evening and welcome to News 2 at 5. I'm Bob Mueller.

[News Anchor]

And I'm Hayley Wilkus. If passed, women convicted of receiving an abortion in Tennessee could face years in prison or even the death penalty. State Capitol reporter Tori Gessner explains when it comes to abortion laws, it doesn't get much stricter than Tennessee. The state has a near total ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. Now, a new bill would make those laws even tougher, giving fetuses the same legal protections as those living outside the womb.

[Republican Representative Jody Barrett]

That individual, in my personal opinion, has the same right to live than someone who has already been born. I don't think there's some magic threshold that you cross whenever you pass through the birth canal that suddenly bestows you as an actual human being.

[News Anchor]

Republican Representative Jody Barrett talking about what he calls his equal protection bill on his podcast the Woodshed. His proposal would make it a woman who gets an abortion would face the same punishments as a woman who kills her baby after birth. There would be limited exceptions if a life saving procedure unintentionally results in an unborn baby's death or if the woman has a, quote, spontaneous miscarriage.

[Republican Representative Jody Barrett]

All we're saying is if you kill someone that is a life and being, you can be charged with whatever crimes or criminal charges that are on the books currently. And with equal protection for unborn. That means if you kill a child in the womb, you should be subject to the same penalties or same charges.

[Matt Walsh]

Well, I couldn't agree more. I think that this is, I think it's great. The logic is unassailable here. Either unborn babies are human beings or they aren't. And if they are, then killing them is murder. And if killing them is murder, then there should be Criminal prosecutions. I mean, one thing leads to another. One logical step leads to the other step. The only way that you don't end up with the same conclusion as the people who wrote this bill is if you disagree with the first proposition, which is that unborn babies are humans. But if you agree with that proposition, I don't see how you can logically end up any other place. It's inevitable. It's logically inevitable. So is the first proposition true? Are unborn babies human? Well, yes, obviously they are. It's not even a debate. They're living beings of the human species. If they aren't human, then what species are they? They gotta be some. You can't exist in some sort of limbo state where you belong to no species. That's not a thing. It's not possible. Human unborn babies are conceived by two humans. And two humans cannot conceive anything but another human. And so unborn babies are human beings. That's it. That's all there is to it. It really is not a debate. It just is true. It's just, it's just simply true. It's a. It's a. It is a matter. It's a scientific fact. Okay, so then if that's established, then directly and intentionally killing a human, what do we call that? We call that murder. If it's a human life that's being killed and it's being done intentionally, directly, then that's murder. That's what that is. That's the definition of it. Okay, well then what do you do with murderers? Okay, so if that fall. So unborn baby is a human. Kill directly. Intentionally killing, therefore, is murder. The per. Therefore the person who's doing the killing is a, therefore a murderer. Therefore, what do we do with murderers? Well, we punish them. One follows from the other very clearly. Now, if you want to get into the question of moral culpability, obviously it's true there could be different levels of moral culpability. So we're not talking about the intrinsic morality of the act itself. The. It's murder. It's depraved, wicked, evil. Moral culpability for a person committing an act. Can't is exist. Can, can. Can have varying degrees. And we all know that that's true of every kind of murder. Right? Like, there's not anyone who would say that. Well, we should have a, a mandatory sentence where all, all homicides get the exact same sentence, no matter what, no matter the circumstances. Nobody thinks that you have first degree murder, second degree murder. I mean, you have different degrees Right. And you could murder someone and in some circumstances reasonably receive a much lighter sentence than someone else who murders someone in a different circumstance, just like you could murder someone and get a much worse sentence than someone else, depending on the circumstances. The whole point of the sentencing is to assess these things. In theory. The whole point of the sentencing process is to assess, okay, well, we've established you did this thing, you're guilty of it, it's a crime. And now for the sentencing, we're going to look at moral culpability. We're going to look at very, you know, all kinds of different factors. Remorse, how likely are you to offend again? I mean, all these things should be factored in. Now, we know that judges these days often come up with very bad assessments, but that, that is how the system is supposed to work. So you have to assess, you have to assess moral culpability. But the point is that still, no matter what an unborn child is a human killing, that human on purpose is murder and should be legally classified that way. It should be a criminal matter with criminal penalties because it is a homicide. And yes, of course, that means prison time for everybody involved. And again, if you don't agree with that, then I, I can only assume it's because you don't actually think that abortion is murder. If it is, then all we're saying, all this argument is saying all this Bill is saying is it's murder. Like, do we actually think it's murder or not? Because if it is, why aren't we treating it that way? This episode is sponsored by Equip Foods. People often pick up protein bars assuming that they're making a quick and healthy decision. But if you've ever taken the time to actually read the label, you're probably surprised to see how much sugar is in these bars. 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They're third party tested for heavy metals, microplastics and pesticides so they can actually back up their cleanest bars on the market claim. If you want to try the cleanest protein bar on the market that already sold out Once, go to equipfoods.com Matt Walsh Use code Matt Walsh at checkout to get 25% off one time purchase or 40% off your first subscription order for a limited time. That's Equip Foods.com Matt Walsh and use code Matt Walsh at checkout. This is an important headline here from Fortune. The US spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets. The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents, the article says. In 2002, Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program for some grade levels. Then governor Angus King saw the program as a way to put the Internet at the fingertips of their of more children who would be able to immerse themselves in information. By that fall, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative had distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh graders across 243 middle schools. By 2016, those numbers had multiplied to 66,000 laptops and tablets distributed to Maine students. King's initial efforts have been mirrored across the country. In 2000 2024, the US spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets in schools. But more than a quarter century and numerous evolving models of technology later, psychologists and learning experts see a different outcome than the one King intended. Rather than empowering the generation with access to more knowledge, the technology had the opposite effect. Earlier this year, in written testimony before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvith said that Gen Z is less cognitively capable than previous generations, despite its unprecedented access to technology. He said Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous ones. While skills measured by these tests, like literacy and numeracy, aren't always indicative of intelligence, they are reflections of cognitive capability, which Horvath said has been on the decline over the last decade or so. Ultimately, Horvath said, the loss of critical thinking and learning skills is less of a personal failure and more of a policy one, calling the generation of Americans educated with gadget victims of a failed pedagogical experiment. Whenever I work with teenagers, I tell them, this is not your fault. None of you asked to be Sat in front of a computer for your entire K through 12 schooling. Horvath said that means we screwed up. And I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad. The whole argument is worth reading because it goes into some of the science here and some of the data. But yes, the screens are making kids dumber, a lot dumber. And quickly. If there's anything that's surprising about this, it's not that it's making kids dumber, we all should have known that. I've been shouting that from the rooftops like a lot of people have for a long time. If there's anything that's surprising, it's how quick this is happening. I'm surprised by that. I mean the deterioration is real and it's happening very fast. This is idiocracy at warp speed. I mean I've always said that Idiocracy I think is what is in a lot of ways one of the, one of the most prophetic works of fiction of our time. But it projects this, this society full of retards like 500 years in the future. And, and I've always said, well that's, they got that, you know, Mike Judge got that wrong because it's not going to take 500 years. But I didn't think it would take five years. I mean this is way faster than I think anyone anticipated. And this is not just one person saying this or one study. The empirical evidence that screens are making kids dumber and less focused, less competent, less able to concentrate, all these things. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming. I mean there have been studies, just, you name it, studies showing that higher screen time is linked with lower academic achievements. Studies showing the exposure to screens before age 5 leads to weaker executive functions in the brain. Screens cause attention problems a lot. There's been a lot of research on that. Shortening attention spans, it destroys your memory, destroys your impulse control, lowers your language skills and comprehension. Screen use is tied to emotional problems, psychological problems, depression, so called mental health problems, so on and so on and so on. There's reams and reams of research showing all this. It's all documented, documented over and over and over again. And if you don't believe the studies, believe your own eyes, believe your common sense, look around you believe your own experience. I mean we've all experienced this. I notice it in myself. Things like memory, like you feel like you don't remember things as well now. It's true. Also I'm getting older so it's, there's some of that true, but I think if you look at your own experience, you would, you would also see this, that it really seems like. And you hear this and be talking. You know, you've probably point. Had many conversations with people where you, where you talk about this. So it's like, it seems like you can't remember things as well as you used to, even for adults having trouble focusing in ways that you didn't before. And for a long time, we'd always talked about, oh, there's a, there's an epidemic of adult adhd. What's going on here? Oh, huh. Let me think about this. Well, we've got an epidemic of kids with ADHD and an epidemic of adult adhd. And it seems like that epidemic, like there was an onset of this epidemic, of this epidemic, kind of like at the same time what happened, what is the big change is that we all just like, contracted this disease out of nowhere mysteriously. Or can we point to exactly when screens became ubiquitous and everybody started carrying them around in their pockets? Like, exactly that moment is when you see this epidemic really kick into hyperdrive. So this is something we all experience. It's. And if, if you, if you don't trust your own experience, if you think that's too anecdotal, then, okay, they just look at the research, look at the data. It's all there. It is incredibly obvious. And you know, and then you look at the younger generations, you look at kids today as a. Generally speaking, this isn't true of all the. I mean, I have kids, and I wouldn't say this about my own kids, but we also, as you know, go to great lengths to make sure their lives are not dominated by screens. But generally speaking, younger people today are. Well, the data shows are dumber. They just, they, They're. They don't. They're not as good at comprehending things. They're just kind of more numb, less vibrant, less excited about life, less. Kind of earnest and sincere, less innocent, less able to communicate their thoughts and feelings coherently. You know, every day I see these posts on X, we all see them speaking of screen addiction, but, you know, you see these things like a clip or a montage, a slice of life video from the early 2000s or from the 1990s or from the 80s. And the caption is always like, look at what we lost. Look what we lost. His. His. Look at, look at this. See what it was like before. And the skeptical response to those kinds of posts is always like, well, this is just nostalgia. Every generation feels this way. And sure, maybe they do, but it's also true. There is a real thing here. Like, we did lose something. It's not just nostalgia. It's not just that. It's more than that. I mean, I saw one today. It was a video, some random clips from a montage of some, you know, high school in like 2003 or something, I think it was, and it was different. The kids were much more vibrant, alive, joyful, energetic, happy, communicative. They were. I was there. I mean, I hated school, don't get me wrong. But it was different. School was not. It was not. You go back 20 years ago, 30 years ago, it was not a utopia. And you might have been a kid and go to school and hate it every day. I mostly did. But you also. This is, this is part of the thing. Like, you don't, you know, you don't know have what you have until it's gone. Right, the cliche. It's true. And so there are a lot of things that we just didn't appreciate because they were part of life. Like just the simple fact that everybody is present in the room at the time and you're not staring at a screen and you're like, interacting with each other, being able to go through life and go into room. Like every room you go into, every room you go into, everybody is in the room or they're just there. They're present with you and you would. And they're just. They would talk to you even if they didn't talk to you. We're all just like in this room, together, present. And that's the kind of thing that at the time, there's no way to have possibly appreciated that because how. How, what else? You couldn't imagine any other scenario. You would never walk into a room and say, well, I'm just so glad we're all present together. You would never say that because, well, what else are we going to be? Of course we're present together. The concept of a future where we're all just doing this all the time, staring at phones and no one else exists. It was like it wasn't even on the radar. So, you know, things have changed and, and there are a lot of reasons for it, but the screens are the main reason. I fully believe that. And there are a lot of reasons why the screens cause this change. Screens give a constant dopamine stimulation. Our brains, reward systems are. Are rewired. You've got kids now and adults who actually cannot sit and read. They can't sit and think, contemplate just the very concept of that. And we Know that people have stopped reading. It's like it doesn't even exist. We got. I think we have. We have a whole. We already have an entire generation of Americans who are subliterate. Even if they can read, they don't. And that's only going to get worse. We are very soon going to have whole generations of Americans who have never read a book ever. Not, not, not ever. I think we already have that. So we know that. But I. But I think even more disturbing is you think about the number of people, especially young people, again, not just them, but who have never had the experience. I mean, honestly, I've never had the experience of sitting somewhere and just thinking. Just sit down and think like you're not doing anything. You're just kind of sitting there and you're just thinking like, that concept is foreign. I think a lot of people today, it's foreign. Why would you ever do that? But you're just sitting there. You're like sitting in your living room and just sitting there. You're not talking to anybody. You're not looking at your phone. You're not watching anything. You're just sitting there. Yeah, people used to do that. You should still do it. Maybe not for 10 hours a day, but yeah, this should be like multiple times in your day when you're just kind of sitting somewhere and you're thinking. Like, thinking is an activity that you should do. You should actively do and enjoy it. So. But that doesn't happen anymore. So. And you have people that just can't do that. They're like crack addicts. They need constant stimulation. They need the. In the images, the sounds, the. The light. Right. That's part of the problem. The other part is the way that our attention is fragmented. Multiple screens going at the same time. Now, you know, notifications, the feed. Infinite scrolling. A million bits of information bombarding us at all hours of the day. We were never made. Human beings are not adapted to this. We were never made to consume this much information. I mean, you consume more information in a week than most humans did an entire lifetime. That is not. It's not making us smarter. We're not. We're not built for it. And probably most of all, the screens are a vector for passive consumption. Why is everybody so passive these days? Why are kids, young adults in particular, so passive? So nihilistic? I don't care about anything. I have no ambition, no goals. Just don't care about anything. Well, we spend all day passively consuming. Look at the phone, at the screen. Passive consumption. It's not active. You're not engaging. You aren't doing. Even reading is much more active. You're. You are doing something. You're reading. And I know you might say, well, if I'm scrolling through the phone, I'm reading things. It's not the same. No, that's just you receiving. It's like it requires no effort. There's a reason why. And again, you should try this sometime. If you've never done it or haven't done it in a long time. If you late at night, sit down on the couch or sit up in your bed and read a book, an actual real book, physical book, you'll get tired pretty quickly. You'll start to feel tired. If you sit there though, and pull out your phone. We could sit there for. Even though you're kind of tired, you could sit there for three hours staring at your phone and not fall asleep. Why is that? Well, because the reading is active. You're actually using your brain and it makes you tired. Especially if you're already tired at the end of the day. That's a good thing. But the phone is not. You're not actually using your brain, so why. It doesn't make you tired. And this is only going to get worse. And then, and then AI is the death knell. I hate to be such a bummer. I know you're used to it by now if you listen to the show, but the education system is over in its, in its current form. Hopefully there's some other form that we can develop that will rescue this thing. I think we already have it. It's called homeschooling. The education system, the mass education system. It's over. It's just done. It is done. If you're a parent today, if you're a parent about my age and you have young kids and you're trying to decide what to do for their education, you cannot put them in the public school system. You can't do it. It's over. Your kid will not learn anything. That is over. That's a thing of the past. It doesn't exist anymore. It really doesn't. Because you got all the problems we've already gone over, including all the problems that already existed with the education system. I mean, it's been a left wing indoctrination center for a long time, even when I was a kid. But you add AI into this thing now, it's like no one's going to learn anything. The kids are just not going to learn. They don't have to. They got this thing that will think for them. And so it's done, it's over. And there's, there's no way for a mass education system with millions and millions of kids in it, 50 million kids or whatever it is. There's no way for them to control for that. At a very localized level you can, at a very localized level, you can for the most part control for that. You can provide an education to your kids where that is not going to be supplanted by AI. You can prevent them from using AI to do everything right. You can take the screens away, you can control how much they use the screens. You can do that at a very localized, control, controlled level. In some circumstances. In some private schools you could do it too. But public, public kind of assembly line, factory style education, over, done, doesn't work. It's over. And if you send your kid to public school now, then you're just choosing for them not to learn anything. Because they won't. I promise you that. You may as well not send them to send them to school, honestly. You may as well just do whatever unschooling, just keep them home and they'll learn what they pick up on their own, which isn't much, but it's really the same thing, honestly. And that's not me being dramatic at all, it just is, it's just a fact. So. And if you're sitting there and you're thinking as a parent, well, I have no choice but to send my kids to public school, you know, okay, but I'm just telling you the truth of the matter. You're starting your six year old kid, five year old kid on the public school journey right now in the year 2026. They're not going to learn anything. It's a waste of time. Did you know the US government once classified encryption as a weapon? That's right. Protecting your own privacy was treated like owning a missile. But here's the thing. 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And as part of the medal ceremony where they received the medals, they also, each of them received a stuffed animal. They were handing out stuffed animals to these grown men, these hockey players, along with their Olympic medals. And I saw this clip and I thought maybe it was AI or something at first because it just made no sense. But it's not. It's real. They. This is what they've been doing at the Olympics. Apparently. Apparently they've been doing it the whole time where they've been giving stuffed animals to all of the participants. USA Today reports the medal ceremonies at the 2026 Winter Games have looked different from past Olympic ceremonies. Not only do athletes get their medals, but they earn a commemorative stuffed animal as well. The animal in question, Tina the stoat, one of the official mascots of the Milano Cortina Games. I don't know what a stoat is. There's a stoat. Let's find out. The stoat, also known as the Eurasian Ermine or ermine, is a species of mustelid native to Eurasia and the northern regions of North America. Okay, so I still don't know what it is. I just read what it is, and I still, I even. I know even less now. What a stoat is. It looks like a, it's like a ferret. Okay, It's a ferret. So they gave a, they give a stuffed ferret to all the, the athletes. And here's what that looked like. A quick clip. Let's watch it. I, It's a grown man giving stuffed animals to other grown men who are visibly confused by the whole thing. I, I've never felt bad for Canadians before, but I actually do a little bit watching that. And who thought this was a good idea? Who thought it was a good idea? I want to know what the conversation was. What was the conversation over at the Olympic Committee where they decided to do this because someone has to suggest this. Somebody had to have this idea, this bright idea and then persuade everybody else. I assume, I assume it wasn't all, all of them together spontaneously coming up with the idea to give stuffed animals to all of the grown adult athletes. Somebody at a meeting had to go, hey, you know what would be really cute? You know, it would be really fun. Let's give the athletes stuffed animals. Yeah, you know, you know, like, you know, stuffed animals, like those things you give four year olds. You know, those, the things that if you gave a four year old, the four year old will be really happy. Let, let's give those to grown adult male athletes. On camera and somehow everybody else in the room didn't respond by saying, what, what the hell are you talking about? What, should we give them coloring books next? Should we give them coloring books and lollipops? Is that maybe we, we break like at the dentist, there's like a basket of trinkets and you can get a coloring book or a lollipop or like a little bouncy ball. No, they didn't respond that way. Instead they said, you know, that's a great idea. I don't think that's weird at all. Now. That couldn't possibly be weird. You know, this idea had to come from a woman. It just did. No offense, but we all know and I looked it up and sure enough, they, the Olympic Committee is, is, is headed by a woman for the first time ever. So a woman took over the International Olympic Committee like a year or two ago for the first time ever. And it's just a coincidence that now we're giving stuffed animals to the athletes. This is, I don't know. If I were to, if I were to try to come up with an illustration of the continued feminization of every aspect of society, I don't think I could come up with a better illustration Than that hockey players handed little plushies, Male hockey players bleeding, bleeding from their faces, teeth broken, having just battled on the ice in the Olympic gold medal hockey game, being handed cute little commemorative plushies. It is pretty humiliating. Speaking of humiliating, aoc, last thing I'll mention, embarrassed herself last week on the global stage. Among other things, she didn't know where the equator is located, and she was asked a question about, I think, China and completely froze it. Just embarrassed herself in general. Well, all the criticism has really gotten to her. And so she posted this clapback, as they say. And here, here it is.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)]

If you think that I don't understand foreign policy, because out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on Earth. I'm afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather the problem is perhaps you've gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks.

[Matt Walsh]

What was the sound in the background? That's really the headline here. What was the sound in the background? How is that not the headline? What was that? I don't know if that was on our playback or that was in the video. I think that was in the video. Was AOC just blowing farts the whole time? Was she blowing a succession of farts shamelessly through the whole video? It's her husband snoring. Well, supposed. Well, how do you know that? We don't know that. It could have been farts. We don't know. What? Ben talked about it. Well, how does he know? Does he have, like, insider info into this? Did anyone ask AOC was. I. I don't know. It could be. It could be. I mean, to me, it sounds like farts. I don't know. I. I'm.

[Canadian Tourist Couple]

I'm.

[Matt Walsh]

I'm not an expert in these things. It sounded like. It sounded like she was. I was going to say I was actually gonna give a little credit for that. Honestly, it'd be the only relatable thing she's ever done. Just shamelessly. She's. She's up at night, talking into her phone, blowing farts. Shameless. Maybe it was somebody playing the trombone in the room. It could have been that, too. Okay, so it was her. She's not even married. Her boyfriend, whatever. Snoring. So, so then what is that? So her. Her boyfriend is asleep, passed out, snoring, and she decides to just get up and film a selfie video in bed next to the guy? In any case, if we can leave aside whoever was farting, snoring, snorting, there her response is pretty weak, I think we have to say. She. She didn't know. She didn't know where the equator is. She didn't know anything about geopolitics, and her response is to say, hey, you know, the problem is you. Hey, if you think I'm the dumb one, because I don't know what the equator is, well, the problem is you. You might. You might think I'm really stupid because I don't know anything. You might think that, but, hey, jokes on you. You might think that I am the dumb one because I have the IQ of a sea urchin. But. But actually. Actually, the problem is you. No, the problem is you for being dumb. All we're doing is noticing it. Congresswoman, I'll tell you one thing. If this woman actually wins the presidency, because obviously she's running, if she actually wins, it really is over. We just talked about. The education system is over. The whole country's over. It's just over. And. And not because she'll destroy the country, although she will, but more because only a country that's. That is already destroyed would elect someone who is this aggressively, gratuitously incompetent and unimpressive and unintelligent and. And frivolous. That's just waving the white flag. You elect somebody like that, that's America signaling that it's given up. That's America saying, all right, we're. We're about done here. That we're. Yep, we're. We're about finished. You elect some ditzy Instagram influencer, apparently with irritable bowel syndrome, to be your next president. That's just. That's waving the white flag. But I don't think that will happen. That's the good news. I. So I'll end on a glimmer of hope. I really don't. I can't believe that that will happen or could happen. And I will do what I can to fight to make sure it doesn't happen. As we all must. As we all must. And that will do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. Godspeed. They told you America invented slavery. They told you the Indians were peaceful. They told you colonialism was evil and that Joseph McCarthy was a bad guy. And guess what? They lied. For half a century, generations of American school children have been taught to hate our history, hate our country, and hate themselves. Time to set the record straight. And since no one else is going to do it, I will. Who sold us the slaves? What were India and Africa like before Europeans arrived? What caused white flight? Some of the most well known stories from American history are designed to demoralize you. Trail of tears, smallpox, blankets, myth, the Red Scare. It's all baseless. It's time for a lesson on what they're not teaching in public schools. On the real history of slavery, of colonialism, of the Indians, of America and the world. It's time for Real History with Matt Walsh, now streaming only on Daily Wire. Plus,