WEBVTT - Eric Metaxas and Batya Ungar Sargon 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:11.080 From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.840 where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.680 nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour, 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.560 bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:24.960 across the country. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.200 I don't think you can fail to be inspired. And 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:28.680 that's why I said, like, we need a book that 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.200 tells the whole story, you know, because there's all kinds 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.800 of books, but like a one book that tells everything 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.400 in it so you can get it in the 250th year. 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:38.519 You can get the story and know the story and 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:39.360 live the story. 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.760 This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:47.440 Free Hillsdale, our part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.240 That was Eric Metaxas, author of the new book Revolution 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.800 The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.360 the world. We go in depth with Eric on that 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:58.880 book in just a few moments later on, on today's 0:00:59.010 --> 0:01:02.690 program Batya Ungar Sargon. She is the host of Bochecha 0:01:02.690 --> 0:01:05.650 on News Nation, and her new book is The Jews 0:01:05.650 --> 0:01:08.490 and the left. We'll talk with her later on in 0:01:08.490 --> 0:01:12.650 today's program. First, pleased to be joined now by Eric Metaxas, 0:01:12.650 --> 0:01:15.490 the author of seven New York Times best sellers. You 0:01:15.490 --> 0:01:18.369 can find more at his website. And he's here today 0:01:18.370 --> 0:01:21.010 to talk about the brand new book, Revolution The Birth 0:01:21.010 --> 0:01:24.649 of the Greatest Nation in the History of the world. Eric, 0:01:24.650 --> 0:01:25.970 thanks so much for being with us. 0:01:26.370 --> 0:01:28.050 Good to be here. And I want to be clear 0:01:28.050 --> 0:01:32.209 from the title, I'm not talking about Belgium or Holland. 0:01:32.209 --> 0:01:33.850 I just want to be clear up front. 0:01:33.850 --> 0:01:35.610 That's good. Our listeners need to make sure they know 0:01:35.610 --> 0:01:38.130 what we're getting into here today. It's a it's a 0:01:38.130 --> 0:01:41.890 wonderful read that that tells our story, the nation story, 0:01:41.890 --> 0:01:46.410 the story of revolution. So crystal clear, I loved it. 0:01:46.410 --> 0:01:49.730 You say early on, citizens who formed this nation must 0:01:49.730 --> 0:01:52.410 be aware of the events of its conception and the 0:01:52.410 --> 0:01:55.930 birth of the United States. Why is it so important 0:01:55.930 --> 0:01:59.740 that we know this story even today, 250 years after 0:01:59.740 --> 0:02:00.420 it happened. 0:02:00.620 --> 0:02:04.820 Well, not just even now, but especially now. Now more 0:02:04.820 --> 0:02:10.380 than ever, we are. I mean, there is nothing like 0:02:10.380 --> 0:02:13.660 the United States of America. There's no hyperbole in that. Again, 0:02:13.660 --> 0:02:16.780 this doesn't mean that we're better. The people are better. 0:02:16.860 --> 0:02:22.780 There's there's simply nothing like a nation which looks to God. 0:02:23.139 --> 0:02:27.580 You know, all the founders understood this and thereby is 0:02:27.580 --> 0:02:30.740 able to govern itself. We're able to govern ourselves. We 0:02:30.780 --> 0:02:33.940 don't need a king like the other nations. I mean, 0:02:33.940 --> 0:02:36.460 you have to go back to the Sinai Covenant to 0:02:36.500 --> 0:02:41.500 to the Israelites leaving Egypt and saying, you know, we're 0:02:41.500 --> 0:02:44.340 going to look directly to God and therefore we can 0:02:44.340 --> 0:02:48.540 govern ourselves. It's a wild idea in history. It's unprecedented 0:02:48.740 --> 0:02:53.220 until you come to America. And in the 1770s, you 0:02:53.220 --> 0:02:57.380 have a group of men who sense that, um, we're, 0:02:57.419 --> 0:02:59.139 they're not going to put up with the tyranny that 0:02:59.139 --> 0:03:01.820 they feel they're trying to be civil about it, but 0:03:01.820 --> 0:03:04.620 they're not going to put up with it. They feel 0:03:04.620 --> 0:03:07.540 compelled not to put up with it, I should say. 0:03:07.580 --> 0:03:11.700 They can feel for religious reasons and reasons of deep principle. 0:03:12.540 --> 0:03:16.860 And so what happens is simply unprecedented to say that 0:03:16.860 --> 0:03:21.299 we are going to be independent of Great Britain, that 0:03:21.300 --> 0:03:27.060 we are going to be dependent on, you know, another sovereign. 0:03:27.460 --> 0:03:30.940 That story is just so wild. I mean, the fact 0:03:30.940 --> 0:03:33.660 that we we came into being in 1776 never should 0:03:33.700 --> 0:03:36.540 have happened. So the story of it, now more than ever, 0:03:36.540 --> 0:03:39.860 we need to understand how it happened and understand that 0:03:39.860 --> 0:03:42.340 there really has never been a nation like this. And 0:03:42.340 --> 0:03:44.580 I think that, you know, we would love it if 0:03:44.620 --> 0:03:46.900 others around the world would look to us and say, like, 0:03:46.900 --> 0:03:48.420 what do you have? How do you do that? Because 0:03:48.420 --> 0:03:52.580 we would like that here. But we need to appreciate that, 0:03:52.820 --> 0:03:54.750 you know, in a, in a way that we simply 0:03:54.750 --> 0:03:58.470 can't appreciate it unless you know our story. 0:03:59.230 --> 0:04:02.430 Something I've tried to do as we approach America. 250 Eric, 0:04:02.430 --> 0:04:05.670 is to do as best I can to place myself 0:04:05.670 --> 0:04:10.590 in these founders shoes, these people who worked for the revolution. 0:04:10.630 --> 0:04:12.150 And as you point out, and we'll talk about in 0:04:12.150 --> 0:04:15.190 a bit, the revolution before the revolution, things that happened 0:04:15.470 --> 0:04:19.510 in the 1760s. Something I come back to is where 0:04:19.510 --> 0:04:23.310 do these people get this big idea? How do they 0:04:23.310 --> 0:04:26.670 get the idea about a revolution that they probably don't 0:04:26.670 --> 0:04:28.310 see in their near future? But where do they get 0:04:28.310 --> 0:04:30.310 the idea about independence that this is something they want 0:04:30.350 --> 0:04:31.150 to work toward? 0:04:32.029 --> 0:04:37.150 Well, it's funny because honestly, nobody's thinking about independence. It's 0:04:37.150 --> 0:04:39.349 simply not on the table. Why would they want independence? 0:04:39.350 --> 0:04:41.670 They just want what's right. And they want their own 0:04:41.670 --> 0:04:47.469 liberties to be safeguarded. And they find that the British 0:04:47.470 --> 0:04:50.390 are not cooperating and they sort of don't get it. 0:04:50.390 --> 0:04:52.789 It's kind of like if you see corruption in your 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:54.920 in company, you go to the boss and you say, hey, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.640 you know, you have this problem, right? Like, and I'm 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.960 here to be a whistleblower to help you to, to 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.360 understand it or whatever. And the boss kind of looks 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:08.120 around shiftily and says, um, yeah, thank you very much. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.360 And then does nothing. And you'd be like, well, what? 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.200 Wait a minute. You, you know, the principles of the 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.800 company and everything like that. You clearly you care about this. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:20.120 The Americans really were trying to get the British to 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.360 see what they saw and to see that our rights 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.040 come from God. You know, John Locke and the British 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.440 Constitution and the Magna Carta. And if you look at 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.080 all this stuff, you're you're on board with us, right? Well, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.800 some of them were. William Pitt was, Edmund Burke was. 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.360 But King George the Third and most of Parliament was not. 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.840 They thought, listen, you're kind of fussy, naive. We have 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.760 the power. We're the mother country. You need to shut 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.920 up and pay the taxes and do as you're told. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.200 You're our colony. And that's where it got the backup 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.730 of all of these principled men, most of them men 0:05:54.770 --> 0:05:57.890 of tremendous faith, tremendous faith. And they would die for 0:05:57.890 --> 0:06:00.450 their faith and they'd die for their principles. And they 0:06:00.450 --> 0:06:05.370 really were absolutely baffled that they thought, well, we're not 0:06:05.370 --> 0:06:09.089 going to back down. We must keep going. And so 0:06:09.490 --> 0:06:12.850 at some point in this process, and again, if you 0:06:12.850 --> 0:06:15.849 read the book, I take you through, it's a process 0:06:16.330 --> 0:06:18.890 that more and more the British, it's almost like Pharaoh's 0:06:18.890 --> 0:06:22.130 heart gets hardened. It's like you can't understand why is 0:06:22.370 --> 0:06:25.250 is Parliament and King George refusing to see this? And 0:06:25.250 --> 0:06:27.770 they kind of doubled down and then they send troops 0:06:27.770 --> 0:06:34.690 and ultimately the Americans, really not happily. They just don't 0:06:34.690 --> 0:06:37.169 see any other way. They say, if we're going to, 0:06:37.170 --> 0:06:38.810 we're going to stand up for our principles no matter what. 0:06:38.810 --> 0:06:41.850 If this leads to independence, we don't even know what 0:06:41.850 --> 0:06:44.170 that is. But we we're not going to put up 0:06:44.170 --> 0:06:47.890 with this. And so you really don't see that. Just 0:06:47.890 --> 0:06:52.740 a few figures. Samuel Adams and his second cousin, the 0:06:52.740 --> 0:06:55.859 great John Adams. The two of them are just amazing 0:06:55.860 --> 0:07:00.059 figures in the story. Amazing, truly amazing men. They got 0:07:00.060 --> 0:07:03.900 that pretty early on. Benjamin Franklin gets it pretty early 0:07:03.900 --> 0:07:06.940 on when he's humiliated. One of my favorite chapters, one 0:07:06.940 --> 0:07:10.020 of my favorite stories in the book is about Benjamin Franklin, 0:07:10.020 --> 0:07:12.260 who is in England trying to hold things together in 0:07:12.260 --> 0:07:16.060 the 1770s. He's trying to be part of the reconciliation. 0:07:16.380 --> 0:07:22.060 He realizes the depth of corruption in Parliament and around 0:07:22.060 --> 0:07:25.060 the king is such that it's hopeless. I mean, he 0:07:25.060 --> 0:07:27.940 was hoping more than anybody, longer than anybody. But at 0:07:27.940 --> 0:07:32.340 some point, he realizes in 1774, roughly, it is over. 0:07:32.340 --> 0:07:33.980 It is over. We don't want anything to do with 0:07:33.980 --> 0:07:37.940 this corrupt country. What have they become? We don't want that. 0:07:37.940 --> 0:07:41.220 So it really is a wild idea. But nobody was 0:07:41.220 --> 0:07:46.020 thinking about independence, including into 1776. Most of the members 0:07:46.020 --> 0:07:50.100 of Parliament are not thinking about independence. It's not until 0:07:50.420 --> 0:07:52.180 another one of my favorite parts of the book, Thomas 0:07:52.180 --> 0:07:59.140 Paine writes his outrageous, amazing pamphlet, Common Sense, that in 0:07:59.140 --> 0:08:04.060 January of 1776, it's like everybody wakes up from from 0:08:04.060 --> 0:08:06.540 a trance and they think, oh my goodness, we've just 0:08:06.540 --> 0:08:09.420 been stumbling along like monarchy is normal. It's not normal. 0:08:09.420 --> 0:08:12.180 Why do we need a king? Why do we? That's 0:08:12.180 --> 0:08:16.580 what really changes everything in the right. In the first 0:08:16.580 --> 0:08:19.900 month of 1776, everybody in the country is talking about 0:08:19.900 --> 0:08:23.460 this pamphlet by, by, by Thomas Paine. So there's just 0:08:23.460 --> 0:08:27.820 a lot of amazing, happy, crazy, beautiful stories in here, 0:08:28.140 --> 0:08:32.020 which leads, of course, to May and then June, where 0:08:32.020 --> 0:08:34.540 Congress begins moving that direction. And the mastermind of it 0:08:34.540 --> 0:08:37.660 all is John Adams. He's he's the mastermind of independence. 0:08:37.780 --> 0:08:39.620 When I ask about Adams, because I think it might 0:08:39.620 --> 0:08:42.780 be the very first story, as you begin in this 0:08:42.780 --> 0:08:46.870 revolution before Revolution, about James Otis and this trial in 1761. 0:08:46.870 --> 0:08:50.230 And Adams is watching and listening. And then there's a 0:08:50.230 --> 0:08:53.790 whole chapter about John Adams being this prophetic person. So 0:08:53.830 --> 0:08:58.230 is he truly the engine of of this effort, John Adams? 0:08:58.510 --> 0:09:02.030 I think so. I think so. I think that the 0:09:02.030 --> 0:09:07.230 two indispensable figures are George Washington and John Adams. I 0:09:07.230 --> 0:09:10.830 don't think anybody can compare. There are there are many, 0:09:10.830 --> 0:09:17.630 many great, great figures Joseph Warren, John Hancock, Paul Revere. 0:09:17.910 --> 0:09:19.870 You can go down the line, Samuel Adams. There are 0:09:19.870 --> 0:09:23.550 these figures that are just extraordinary. And we need to 0:09:23.590 --> 0:09:29.150 know their names. Henry Knox, Nathan Hale. These are amazing heroes. 0:09:29.510 --> 0:09:33.170 But John Adams, I mean, John Adams should be a 0:09:33.170 --> 0:09:35.510 thousand times more famous than Thomas Jefferson. It's kind of 0:09:35.550 --> 0:09:40.030 a bizarre thing in history that we act like Jefferson was. 0:09:40.070 --> 0:09:43.469 I mean, Jefferson effectively came up with some beautiful phrases. 0:09:43.470 --> 0:09:45.320 And you don't want to you don't want to denigrate 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.240 his efforts, but my goodness, no comparison to to John 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.560 Adams and I, I tell John Adams a story in 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:52.880 the book. People can make of it what they will, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:57.480 but I think he is an unrecognized giant in this story. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:01.400 And they're finally making a, a a washing, sorry, an 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.400 Adams memorial in DC to the Adams family. It's to 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.760 him and Abigail and John Quincy and you know, but 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.760 John Adams is a giant. And I didn't know that 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.520 until I did the research. I did a lot of research. 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:14.959 And it's just when it when it hit me was 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.600 when I was reading this essay that he wrote in 1765, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.000 I thought, this guy is 30 years old and he's 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.120 writing this essay that's like ten, 11 years before the 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.800 Declaration of Independence. And he's laying out everything in a 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.240 way that I never knew that Adams was this kind 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.600 of a giant. And he's the man who, 11 years later, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:38.760 he's the mastermind making independence happen in 1776. Everybody's against it. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.840 You know, John Dickinson, uh, in in Pennsylvania, they're just 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.450 we don't need to go there. We just want this. 0:10:45.450 --> 0:10:48.610 We don't need that. John Adams seems to see this 0:10:48.809 --> 0:10:50.010 earlier than anybody. 0:10:51.170 --> 0:10:54.050 Eric Metaxas with his new book, Revolution The Birth of 0:10:54.050 --> 0:10:56.969 the Greatest Nation in the History of the world. I 0:10:56.970 --> 0:10:59.209 love this line. You say someone would. Someone would write 0:10:59.210 --> 0:11:01.570 a play. How England Lost the Colonies A tragedy in 0:11:01.570 --> 0:11:05.689 Three acts, the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act. How 0:11:05.730 --> 0:11:08.410 do we get closer to independence? Or how does that 0:11:08.410 --> 0:11:11.730 begin to push us further away from Britain? Those those 0:11:11.730 --> 0:11:13.010 three those three acts? 0:11:13.050 --> 0:11:14.970 Well, yeah, that's me kind of cracking a joke in 0:11:14.970 --> 0:11:16.690 the book. There are jokes in the book, I think, 0:11:16.730 --> 0:11:20.370 you know, there's some of it's funny, but honestly, you 0:11:20.370 --> 0:11:27.050 see England, basically, they cannot accept the idea that they 0:11:27.050 --> 0:11:29.689 need to do the right thing. And the right thing 0:11:30.090 --> 0:11:32.610 is not necessarily going to give them the income that 0:11:32.610 --> 0:11:36.530 they're hoping from the colonies, but they refuse. And so 0:11:36.530 --> 0:11:38.770 they try again and again. I mean, the Sugar Act 0:11:38.770 --> 0:11:42.410 and the Stamp Act, the Stamp Act, that's another favorite 0:11:42.410 --> 0:11:44.569 part of the book. I mean, the riots, the Stamp 0:11:44.610 --> 0:11:47.850 Act riots, where the where the members, I mean, the, 0:11:47.970 --> 0:11:50.090 the Bostonians in particular, they're like, we're not going to 0:11:50.090 --> 0:11:52.530 have this. This is where there's no way we're going 0:11:52.530 --> 0:11:54.290 to just pay this because like, you're putting a gun 0:11:54.290 --> 0:11:57.610 to our head like you're thugs. You are not in 0:11:57.610 --> 0:12:00.970 the right. And so it's a huge moment. And then 0:12:01.250 --> 0:12:03.370 suddenly England backs off because they realize, oh, well, we 0:12:03.370 --> 0:12:05.290 can't get our way, so we'll just back off. But 0:12:05.290 --> 0:12:07.610 they reserve the right to do it anyway. They do 0:12:07.610 --> 0:12:11.170 this thing, the Declaratory Act, which is just a cynical, 0:12:11.330 --> 0:12:14.770 cynical law that they pass because it's a very it's 0:12:14.770 --> 0:12:18.370 very corrupt, frankly. And so then they come back with 0:12:18.370 --> 0:12:21.610 the Townshend acts, and that eventually leads to, you know, 0:12:21.650 --> 0:12:23.690 all kinds of pushback from the colonies. And the colonies 0:12:23.690 --> 0:12:27.490 begin to unite, and then they send troops. And I mean, 0:12:27.530 --> 0:12:29.690 it's just it goes from thing to thing to thing. 0:12:29.730 --> 0:12:33.449 Like they make they made this happen. I mean, the 0:12:34.010 --> 0:12:38.449 King George's government lost the colonies. They did not need 0:12:38.450 --> 0:12:42.780 to lose the colonies. But, you know, I think it's providential. 0:12:42.780 --> 0:12:45.260 And I'm I'm glad that it worked out that way. 0:12:45.260 --> 0:12:47.060 But they didn't need to they could have had they 0:12:47.059 --> 0:12:48.500 could have kept the colonies, for sure. 0:12:48.660 --> 0:12:52.460 We're talking with Eric Metaxas. His brand new book is Revolution. 0:12:52.460 --> 0:12:56.179 It's available right now as we approach America. 250. We'll 0:12:56.179 --> 0:12:59.420 return with Eric in just a moment. First, I ask 0:12:59.420 --> 0:13:03.980 you to take one moment, maybe 10s, and subscribe to 0:13:03.980 --> 0:13:07.580 this show, the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. If you like 0:13:07.580 --> 0:13:09.780 what you hear, if you want to hear more. If 0:13:09.780 --> 0:13:11.860 you want to make sure you don't miss an episode, 0:13:11.860 --> 0:13:15.100 subscribing is the best way to make sure that happens. 0:13:15.100 --> 0:13:17.780 You can do so via Apple Podcasts. You can do 0:13:17.780 --> 0:13:21.980 so via Spotify. You can even subscribe to YouTube and 0:13:21.980 --> 0:13:26.620 the Hillsdale College Podcast Network there. Subscribe. Never miss an 0:13:26.620 --> 0:13:29.260 episode and make sure you're fully up to date on 0:13:29.260 --> 0:13:34.220 everything happening at the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. We continue 0:13:34.220 --> 0:13:37.900 now with Eric Metaxas. His brand new book is Revolution 0:13:37.940 --> 0:13:41.030 The Birth of the greatest nation in the history of 0:13:41.030 --> 0:13:45.510 the world. Eric, at some point, the first Continental Congress meets. 0:13:45.510 --> 0:13:49.310 And you describe this Christian atmosphere and one that they 0:13:49.309 --> 0:13:52.550 believe their fate is in God's hands. But but you 0:13:52.550 --> 0:13:56.230 also point that I think Adams especially kind of looks 0:13:56.230 --> 0:14:00.630 around and says, wow, we're really different. There's some tremendous 0:14:00.630 --> 0:14:05.109 cultural division that's discovered at the first Continental Continental Congress. 0:14:05.110 --> 0:14:07.510 At some point, are they actually further away when they 0:14:07.510 --> 0:14:10.270 realize that we're really different around here? 0:14:10.910 --> 0:14:15.590 I think, um, it really is. It's a remarkable moment 0:14:15.590 --> 0:14:18.270 because the colonies never needed to be united. They were 0:14:18.270 --> 0:14:20.950 always just, you know, I mean, imagine you're in Georgia 0:14:20.950 --> 0:14:24.229 or South Carolina. What do you have to do with Boston? 0:14:24.270 --> 0:14:30.830 It's that that's a Puritan northern, uh, completely different culture. Um, 0:14:30.950 --> 0:14:34.950 but because they all felt threatened, they gathered to kind 0:14:34.950 --> 0:14:38.320 of say, well, what can we do? And I think the. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.200 The difference is in the cultures of all these colonies 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.640 is astonishing. But at the heart of it, and this is, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.560 you know, the difference with, let's say, the European Union, 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.560 when the Finns get together with the Greeks and the Italians. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:55.560 And it's those are deeper cultural divides, our cultural divides. 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.360 We were able to unite around common principles that were 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.720 dearly held principles, at least by enough of the leaders. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.200 And so what happens suddenly is they begin to feel 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.680 this idea of like, there is a unity here, there's 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.480 a union here. If we band together, we can succeed 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.480 because they thought Great Britain is going to pick them 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.040 off one at a time. It's going to crush Boston, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:16.520 then it's going to move on and crush New York. 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.160 It's going to do whatever it wants. They thought, we 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.160 can't let that happen. We don't want to be slaves. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.520 We don't want to be. We don't want to lose 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.640 our liberty as as free men. They took this so seriously. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.040 It's so beautiful, their their innocence in this. And so 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.200 I really was, um, you know, you can't help but 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.050 be moved by these stories and to watch it piece 0:15:36.050 --> 0:15:38.930 by piece. You know, to see George, I mean, to 0:15:38.930 --> 0:15:42.570 see John Adams's observations looking around at these figures that 0:15:42.570 --> 0:15:45.530 he's never met before. He's going to make history with 0:15:45.530 --> 0:15:49.330 all of these men, but he's just meeting them in 1774. 0:15:49.330 --> 0:15:51.370 And he writes funny stuff in his journal, which I 0:15:51.370 --> 0:15:54.170 put in the book. Just anything funny I can't resist 0:15:54.170 --> 0:15:58.330 because it's so entertaining. But I really, uh, you know, 0:15:58.370 --> 0:16:00.370 that is a moment. And in fact, I was just 0:16:00.370 --> 0:16:03.850 in Carpenters Hall, the very site where this happened. I'm 0:16:03.850 --> 0:16:07.050 filming Socrates in the city interviews on the revolution. We're 0:16:07.050 --> 0:16:09.650 going to put out 13 interviews, sort of more in 0:16:09.690 --> 0:16:13.290 depth on the revolution. And to be in that place 0:16:13.290 --> 0:16:17.770 where this happened, it's, uh, it's powerful. It's powerful. This 0:16:17.770 --> 0:16:20.490 is this is, you know, it's all ultimately very moving. 0:16:21.410 --> 0:16:24.570 We jump around a bit in Revolution by Eric Metaxas, 0:16:24.570 --> 0:16:28.890 the new book, um, George Washington, you when he is 0:16:28.890 --> 0:16:32.170 described in your book and some other places, it almost 0:16:32.170 --> 0:16:35.930 seems like a mythical figure. He is taller than everyone else. 0:16:35.930 --> 0:16:39.170 He is stronger than everyone else. And yet when he. 0:16:39.210 --> 0:16:41.490 When he takes over, when he becomes commander in chief, 0:16:41.490 --> 0:16:45.370 he inherits, uh, problems. Many problems. What does. What does 0:16:45.370 --> 0:16:49.970 Washington see when he begins his role as commander in chief? 0:16:50.090 --> 0:16:53.530 Well, this gets to the cultural issue, right? Washington is 0:16:53.530 --> 0:16:58.650 a a wealthy Virginia planter. Uh, he has been in the, 0:16:58.930 --> 0:17:01.930 you know, British Army. I mean, he he was fighting 0:17:01.930 --> 0:17:04.770 in the French and Indian War. He now comes up 0:17:05.010 --> 0:17:09.530 to Boston and he sees a motley ragtag of New 0:17:09.530 --> 0:17:14.010 Englanders who are they have very much more egalitarian ideas 0:17:14.010 --> 0:17:17.690 than the Virginia planter stock. And he's looking around at 0:17:17.690 --> 0:17:21.690 this ragtag mess. I mean, it's a motley mess. There's 0:17:21.690 --> 0:17:25.610 no discipline. And there is a level of freedom in 0:17:25.609 --> 0:17:27.369 the negative sense. They kind of do what they want. 0:17:27.410 --> 0:17:30.729 They don't have discipline. They're not, you know. So he's thinking, 0:17:30.730 --> 0:17:34.780 how in the world am I? I've been charged with 0:17:34.780 --> 0:17:39.260 leading these men. How in the world am I going 0:17:39.260 --> 0:17:42.060 to do this? And he. You know, there's a scene 0:17:42.060 --> 0:17:45.420 in there. Um, which to me, some of this is 0:17:45.420 --> 0:17:48.900 just comedy, right? Like you have him, this giant of 0:17:48.900 --> 0:17:53.460 a man and he is dealing with this chaos. And 0:17:53.460 --> 0:17:56.179 at one point it's in Cambridge where all of the 0:17:56.180 --> 0:17:59.899 soldiers are camped out in Cambridge, and they're just, you know, 0:17:59.940 --> 0:18:02.859 hanging out while the British are trapped in Boston and 0:18:03.060 --> 0:18:07.020 they're marking time, really, it's a stalemate. But this snowball 0:18:07.020 --> 0:18:09.820 fight breaks out and it gets into it's like a 0:18:09.820 --> 0:18:13.060 brawl between the different factions. I mean, you've got guys, 0:18:13.100 --> 0:18:16.820 you know, Virginia Backwoodsmen up there, and then you've got, uh, 0:18:16.859 --> 0:18:21.300 mariners from the North Shore of Boston. And these are 0:18:21.300 --> 0:18:25.020 completely different cultures. And so of course, it's like gangs 0:18:25.020 --> 0:18:27.740 in a prison. You know, they start fighting and brawling 0:18:28.420 --> 0:18:34.870 and Washington rides in and it's like they all phrase again. 0:18:34.910 --> 0:18:36.630 This is like a comic moment in the book. It's 0:18:36.630 --> 0:18:39.710 like they all freeze like daddy's home. And he caught us, 0:18:39.750 --> 0:18:44.790 you know, playing with matches. It is an unbelievable thing 0:18:44.790 --> 0:18:47.630 that Washington rides in. He grabs two of these big 0:18:47.630 --> 0:18:51.750 guys and he's like incredibly strong. And he just grabs 0:18:51.750 --> 0:18:54.030 two of these brawlers and, like, shakes them, you know, 0:18:54.070 --> 0:18:56.790 like children. You were not making this up. This is 0:18:56.790 --> 0:18:58.869 all firsthand accounts. I've got a lot of firsthand accounts 0:18:58.869 --> 0:19:00.590 in the book because I think, again, that's funny and 0:19:00.590 --> 0:19:04.510 entertaining to hear a firsthand account of what actually happened. 0:19:04.510 --> 0:19:10.310 So it it is Washington is he really is like a, 0:19:10.350 --> 0:19:12.990 you know, like a like a living demigod in some ways. 0:19:13.030 --> 0:19:15.150 I mean, people look at him in awe. You hear 0:19:15.150 --> 0:19:17.870 this over and over again that there was something about him. 0:19:17.869 --> 0:19:19.669 It's kind of like Saul, you know, in the Old 0:19:19.710 --> 0:19:22.629 Testament that, you know, he really looks like a king. 0:19:22.670 --> 0:19:25.389 I'll tell you, he looks like a king. But Washington 0:19:25.390 --> 0:19:27.070 didn't want to be a king. That's the difference between 0:19:27.070 --> 0:19:27.790 him and Saul. 0:19:28.350 --> 0:19:30.879 Eric Metaxas with us. His book, Revolution The Birth of 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:33.280 the Greatest Nation in the History of the world. Um, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.760 not everyone, I guess, looked at Washington that way. I 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:42.880 love this story. Uh, Washington accidentally intercepts this letter between 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.240 Charles Lee, who already is undermining him any way he can, 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.320 and his his close aide, Joseph Reed, where they're just 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.640 basically talking bad about it. I was going to use 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.040 a phrase I shouldn't use on the air. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.040 This is this is what you have to understand is 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.280 that and this is again, why the whole story is 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.160 ultimately a moral story, a spiritual story. Washington was not 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:06.800 the greatest military leader. The greatest military leaders would have 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.159 been Charles Lee or Horatio Gates, at least on paper. 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:16.600 Why did Congress choose Washington? Or I would say, why 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.320 did history choose Washington? Why did God choose Washington? Washington 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:25.120 is a man of impeccable character. I mean, it is astonishing. 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:28.170 Anybody who reads the book, you realize This is an 0:20:28.170 --> 0:20:33.450 amazing human being. His character is just astonishing. And of course, 0:20:33.850 --> 0:20:37.409 the two men, Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, they're gunning 0:20:37.410 --> 0:20:39.689 for his job. They're thinking we're better than he is. 0:20:39.730 --> 0:20:41.610 And how come we didn't get the top job? We're 0:20:41.609 --> 0:20:43.970 going to get it. Eventually, of course, Congress will see 0:20:43.970 --> 0:20:46.730 the light. And so they're sniping behind his back. They're 0:20:46.730 --> 0:20:49.850 exchanging letters, kind of, you know, trash talking like Washington 0:20:49.850 --> 0:20:51.850 made a mistake. And it's only a matter of time 0:20:51.850 --> 0:20:54.930 before he's kicked out. And that, to me, is one 0:20:54.930 --> 0:20:58.530 of the grand stories within the larger story is the 0:20:58.530 --> 0:21:01.370 story of his character and their lack of character, because 0:21:01.410 --> 0:21:06.130 Horatio Gates and Charles Lee do not come out looking good. 0:21:06.770 --> 0:21:10.690 And part of my favorite part of the story toward 0:21:10.690 --> 0:21:12.970 the end, which I almost couldn't believe, is when you 0:21:12.970 --> 0:21:17.250 see that both of these guys, Horatio Gates and Charles Lee, 0:21:17.490 --> 0:21:21.130 who've been kind of double dealing behind his behind Washington's back, 0:21:21.250 --> 0:21:25.410 both of them dramatically get their comeuppance. And you'd think, like, 0:21:25.410 --> 0:21:26.810 if it was in a movie, you'd be like, it's 0:21:26.810 --> 0:21:30.290 too obvious that they get their comeuppance. They both are 0:21:30.330 --> 0:21:35.810 humiliated totally separately, you know, a part a few years apart. 0:21:35.810 --> 0:21:38.649 But both of these men who thought of themselves as 0:21:38.650 --> 0:21:40.570 I should be the top guy, I should get the 0:21:40.570 --> 0:21:45.090 top job, end up humiliating themselves on the battlefield and 0:21:45.090 --> 0:21:48.209 because of their pride, because of their lack of character, 0:21:48.450 --> 0:21:53.090 humiliating themselves further and losing their reputations further because they 0:21:53.090 --> 0:21:56.210 didn't have the dignity and the humility, frankly, that George 0:21:56.210 --> 0:21:59.450 Washington did. So it's an amazing character study. I was not, 0:21:59.730 --> 0:22:01.889 you know, planning to write about that when I was 0:22:01.890 --> 0:22:04.810 writing this book. I didn't know a lot of this stuff, honestly. Yeah. 0:22:04.850 --> 0:22:07.490 And it was just amazing to see that Charles Lee, 0:22:07.530 --> 0:22:11.410 not only, you know, is not a good actor, but 0:22:11.410 --> 0:22:14.810 he actually commits treason, which hasn't really been known until 0:22:14.810 --> 0:22:17.490 very recently. My book may be the first big book 0:22:17.530 --> 0:22:20.410 where I talk about that. The first story, The Revolution, 0:22:20.410 --> 0:22:23.730 where I actually say he committed treason and we haven't 0:22:23.730 --> 0:22:26.260 really known it. We got the first hint about 100 0:22:26.260 --> 0:22:28.260 years ago. Some documents came up, but only recently a 0:22:28.260 --> 0:22:31.220 book came out that really lays it out. So there's 0:22:31.220 --> 0:22:32.380 a lot here. Yeah. 0:22:33.180 --> 0:22:35.740 Eric Metaxas with us, his book, Revolution. If we go 0:22:35.740 --> 0:22:38.180 back a little bit, we already mentioned common sense and 0:22:38.180 --> 0:22:42.620 how it supercharged the this movement in early 1776. But 0:22:42.619 --> 0:22:45.260 you also say about Patrick Henry's speech that give me 0:22:45.260 --> 0:22:49.300 liberty speech that no speech history has recorded ever had 0:22:49.300 --> 0:22:51.980 quite such an effect. You say the room fell silent 0:22:51.980 --> 0:22:55.500 for minutes after he finished this speech, to compare and 0:22:55.500 --> 0:22:58.060 contrast a little bit the differences between those two. 0:22:58.300 --> 0:23:00.100 Well, I actually yes, I go out on a limb 0:23:00.100 --> 0:23:02.580 and I say that I don't think there's an example 0:23:02.580 --> 0:23:05.780 in the history of the world better than the publication 0:23:05.780 --> 0:23:08.180 of Common Sense. To illustrate, the pen is mightier than 0:23:08.180 --> 0:23:11.540 the sword. I don't think anything written has ever had 0:23:11.540 --> 0:23:15.500 such an effect as that 47 page pamphlet. It's just 0:23:15.540 --> 0:23:19.620 outrageous that it really changes history. And it's written by 0:23:19.619 --> 0:23:21.740 this guy who has been a failure at everything in life, 0:23:21.740 --> 0:23:24.709 but God kind of gave him the talent and the 0:23:24.710 --> 0:23:28.870 moment in history to write this extraordinary pamphlet. It's so 0:23:28.869 --> 0:23:31.190 compelling and so but I mean, it changes. It just 0:23:31.190 --> 0:23:33.790 changes history. I don't think there's anything like it in 0:23:33.990 --> 0:23:37.630 written form that had that power in the way that 0:23:37.630 --> 0:23:39.750 that did in that moment in history. And the same 0:23:39.750 --> 0:23:43.510 thing about Patrick Henry's speech. I mean, Patrick Henry was 0:23:43.510 --> 0:23:45.990 known to be an amazing orator, to move the hearts 0:23:45.990 --> 0:23:47.990 of juries. I mean, he was a, you know, a 0:23:47.990 --> 0:23:50.630 lawyer and he had the ability to do that. But 0:23:50.630 --> 0:23:52.590 when he gives his speech, give me liberty or give 0:23:52.590 --> 0:23:55.710 me death, anybody who was there basically says, there's never 0:23:55.710 --> 0:23:58.070 been anything like it. I mean, it's one thing to say, oh, 0:23:58.070 --> 0:24:00.550 that's a great speech. You know, Doctor King gave a 0:24:00.550 --> 0:24:03.350 great speech, you know, at the Lincoln Memorial. And Lincoln 0:24:03.350 --> 0:24:05.870 gave a great speech at Gettysburg. But in terms of 0:24:06.750 --> 0:24:10.830 a speech that in the moment moves people to action, 0:24:11.630 --> 0:24:15.190 there's probably never been anything like it. Uh, it just 0:24:15.190 --> 0:24:20.150 galvanizes those who heard it in a way that it 0:24:20.190 --> 0:24:22.440 changes everything. And And this is like a month, you know, 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:27.440 before Lexington and Concord. And, uh, yeah, there's, there's one 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:30.200 guy who, and of course, I write this in the book, 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.920 but there's a guy who people are crowding to hear 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:35.040 the speech in this church and people couldn't get in. 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:37.919 So people are outside the windows listening, and there's a 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:39.919 guy standing outside the window of the church listening to 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:44.320 the speech. At the end of the speech, everybody is silent. 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:49.840 They're like stunned into long silence. And this guy says 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.120 to the person next to him eventually says, I want 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:57.200 to be buried on this spot where I heard the speech, 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:01.680 I want to be buried right here. I. This is otherworldly. 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:04.280 I want this is where I want to be buried. And, 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:06.800 you know, a few decades later, he got his wish 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:10.560 and he was buried on that spot. I mean, this is, um. Yeah, 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:12.800 there's a lot of there's just a lot of amazing 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:15.600 history here. And in writing the book, my, my, my 0:25:15.640 --> 0:25:17.760 goal was just like every American needs to know this stuff. 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:19.840 Like where it's going to be on the test. We're 0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:25.359 responsible for this information. And I think that, you know, 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:28.840 we we will it will be inspiring to people. I 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:31.040 don't think you can fail to be inspired. And that's 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:32.560 why I said like, we need a book that tells 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:35.200 the whole story, you know, because there's all kinds of books, 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:38.080 but like a one book that tells everything in it 0:25:38.080 --> 0:25:40.080 so you can get it in the 250th year. You 0:25:40.080 --> 0:25:42.280 can get the story and know the story and live 0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:45.840 the story. So I am, you know, very, very excited, 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:48.399 very excited. This is this is an important moment in 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:51.120 our history. We actually need to know this. This is 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:52.639 not extra credit. 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:56.000 Eric Metaxas is the author of Revolution The Birth of 0:25:56.000 --> 0:25:58.680 the Greatest Nation in the History of the world. And yes, 0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:01.600 that is the United States. It's available now. You can 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:04.920 find more also at Eric metaxas.com. Eric, thanks so much 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:05.719 for joining us. 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:07.480 My privilege. Thank you. 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:10.680 Up next, Batya Ungar, Sargon. She is the host of 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:13.280 Bochecha on News Nation. Her brand new book is called 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:16.040 The Jews and the left. We'll talk with her about 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:20.010 that next. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the radio free 0:26:20.050 --> 0:26:38.889 Hillsdale Hour. Welcome back to the radio free Hillsdale Hour. 0:26:38.930 --> 0:26:42.250 I'm Scott Bertram. Be sure to check out more Hillsdale 0:26:42.250 --> 0:26:46.889 College audio at Hillsdale College Podcast Network. Find episodes of 0:26:46.890 --> 0:26:51.570 this program, plus Valerian show in Primus and Hillsdale College 0:26:51.570 --> 0:26:57.369 online courses, podcast, podcasts.hillsdale.edu, or wherever you get your audio. 0:26:57.530 --> 0:27:00.609 We're joined now by Bacha Ungar. Sargon. She's a weekend 0:27:00.609 --> 0:27:04.570 anchor and host of Bacha on News Nation. A frequent 0:27:04.570 --> 0:27:07.050 contributor to The New York Post, a columnist for the 0:27:07.050 --> 0:27:09.570 Free Press as well, and the author of the new book, 0:27:09.570 --> 0:27:12.729 The Jews and the Left. Bacha, thank you so much 0:27:12.730 --> 0:27:13.490 for joining us. 0:27:14.010 --> 0:27:15.530 Thank you so much for having me. 0:27:15.770 --> 0:27:18.180 It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Another interesting 0:27:18.460 --> 0:27:22.740 and informative new book, The Jews and the left. You 0:27:22.780 --> 0:27:25.420 say early in this book, the stark reality is that 0:27:25.420 --> 0:27:28.220 America in America is that most Jews are Democrats, yet 0:27:28.220 --> 0:27:31.820 the left has turned on the Jews, and the book 0:27:31.859 --> 0:27:34.780 tries to answer the why of both parts of that equation. 0:27:34.780 --> 0:27:37.300 But I want to start with something else, which is 0:27:37.300 --> 0:27:41.940 this explanation that you have early. That instead of religious fervor, 0:27:42.260 --> 0:27:45.220 that American Jews are deeply connected to the idea of 0:27:45.220 --> 0:27:50.300 Jewish peoplehood, how and should that affect the way that we. 0:27:50.340 --> 0:27:52.380 We understand this question. 0:27:53.020 --> 0:27:56.300 Um, wow. What a beautiful question. Yeah, I have that 0:27:56.300 --> 0:27:59.740 in there because, um, I think it's hard sometimes for 0:27:59.740 --> 0:28:03.420 Christians to understand this about Jews that most, most Jews 0:28:03.420 --> 0:28:06.500 when they moved here. And this continues to be the case. 0:28:06.780 --> 0:28:10.940 They saw in America this idea of freedom, which for 0:28:10.940 --> 0:28:13.660 many Jews who had been orthodox in the old country, 0:28:13.660 --> 0:28:18.430 orthodoxy is a heavy lift. It's like a religion of laws, 0:28:18.470 --> 0:28:21.030 which I could tell you as an Orthodox woman. You know, 0:28:21.070 --> 0:28:23.590 it's it's constant. And a lot of Jews saw the 0:28:23.590 --> 0:28:29.150 freedom of America as a freedom from that, those religious constrictions. 0:28:29.150 --> 0:28:32.670 But that didn't mean that they stopped identifying as Jews, 0:28:32.670 --> 0:28:36.870 even though they stopped observing the law. And that is 0:28:36.869 --> 0:28:41.310 because to them, being Jewish was something more complex than 0:28:41.310 --> 0:28:44.950 just a faith. It had to do with an ethnicity, 0:28:44.990 --> 0:28:48.790 a shared history, a shared culture. Um, the values that 0:28:48.790 --> 0:28:51.990 were in the Bible that the founding Fathers actually relied 0:28:51.990 --> 0:28:56.350 on when writing our rights and freedoms and the idea 0:28:56.350 --> 0:28:59.550 that they were imbued in us by God. Um, so, but, 0:28:59.550 --> 0:29:04.550 but it's, it's more complicated than just a religion. And 0:29:04.550 --> 0:29:08.310 this is so crucial to this conversation because you have 0:29:08.310 --> 0:29:10.470 a lot of people on the left saying, well, we're 0:29:10.470 --> 0:29:14.560 not against Jews, we're just against Israel. We're not anti-Semitic, 0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:18.560 we're just anti-Zionist. The problem is, is for the vast 0:29:18.560 --> 0:29:23.960 majority of Jews, a connection to other Jews is basically 0:29:23.960 --> 0:29:28.120 their religion. That is their faith. And that means that 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:33.360 they are very pro-jewish and pro-Israel. 85% 90% of Jews 0:29:33.360 --> 0:29:37.080 worldwide are Zionists. So when you say there's no room 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:40.360 in our movement for Zionism, but there is room for Jews, 0:29:40.360 --> 0:29:42.480 what you're saying is, you know, the 10% who are 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.520 the token anti-zionists you will accept, but those are the 0:29:45.520 --> 0:29:49.240 ones willing to turn on the 90%. Mhm. And so 0:29:49.280 --> 0:29:52.520 I think this is such an important thing to understand, 0:29:52.520 --> 0:29:57.320 especially because that conflict that the book is explaining is 0:29:57.320 --> 0:30:01.440 really important to American Jewish identity. Most American Jews who 0:30:01.440 --> 0:30:06.000 are Democrats about, you know, 66 to 70%, they feel 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:08.680 very much that they are liberals because they are Jewish. 0:30:08.680 --> 0:30:12.880 Their version of Judaism is, you know, the values that 0:30:12.880 --> 0:30:16.400 they see in their interpretation of the Bible. So their 0:30:16.400 --> 0:30:20.120 their democratic values, their liberalism is a very, um, spiritual 0:30:20.120 --> 0:30:23.080 issue for many American Jews, but so is their connection 0:30:23.080 --> 0:30:26.280 to Israel. And those two things recently have come into 0:30:26.280 --> 0:30:29.200 conflict with each other. And so there's a real choice 0:30:29.200 --> 0:30:31.480 to be made now for American Jews, I believe. 0:30:32.080 --> 0:30:33.440 All right. We're going to come back to that. I 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:36.040 want to dig through some of the past and some 0:30:36.040 --> 0:30:38.520 of the history included in the Jews and the left. 0:30:38.520 --> 0:30:42.720 In the first part of that question, why are most Jews, Democrats? 0:30:42.760 --> 0:30:46.560 It begins with the history of the labor movement, the 0:30:46.560 --> 0:30:50.520 Jewish birth of labor, and this horrific description of the 0:30:50.520 --> 0:30:54.960 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. And in the aftermath, you certainly can 0:30:54.960 --> 0:30:58.320 understand why Jews see the rise of the labor movement 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:00.960 as very much connected to them and and their sacrifice. 0:31:00.960 --> 0:31:04.200 But you say that that then gets extended and that 0:31:04.200 --> 0:31:07.959 Jews see the New Deal and FDR as a phoenix 0:31:07.960 --> 0:31:11.210 rising from the incinerated bodies of these innocent little girls. 0:31:11.210 --> 0:31:14.050 So how does this feeling of the labour movement get 0:31:14.090 --> 0:31:17.490 extended to FDR and democratic politics of the age? 0:31:18.650 --> 0:31:22.810 So Jews really birthed the labor movement at the turn 0:31:22.810 --> 0:31:26.170 of the 20th century. There were about a million Jewish 0:31:26.170 --> 0:31:31.170 immigrants from Russia fleeing pogroms and anti-Semitism, and they arrived 0:31:31.170 --> 0:31:33.489 here dirt poor, and a lot of them ended up 0:31:33.490 --> 0:31:35.730 in the needle trades because you didn't need to speak 0:31:35.730 --> 0:31:38.530 English in order to work in them, and they would 0:31:38.530 --> 0:31:42.290 work these just bruising, you know, 16 hour days hunched 0:31:42.290 --> 0:31:46.730 over in poor light, you know, working away, um, creating 0:31:46.730 --> 0:31:50.330 ready made clothing. Um, the working conditions were horrible. They 0:31:50.330 --> 0:31:53.450 were horribly exploited most of the time by other Jews 0:31:53.450 --> 0:31:57.290 who had arrived sometimes just five years earlier and managed 0:31:57.290 --> 0:32:00.410 because of the amazing capitalism of America, to amass a 0:32:00.410 --> 0:32:03.610 little bit of capital and then to open their own sweatshop. 0:32:03.810 --> 0:32:07.090 So there was this cycle, um, to where Jews would come. 0:32:07.090 --> 0:32:10.180 They would be proletariats, But they would not stay proletariat. 0:32:10.220 --> 0:32:13.260 They would sometimes within five, ten, 15 years they would 0:32:13.260 --> 0:32:16.460 already become, you know, their own factory owners and then 0:32:16.500 --> 0:32:19.300 be able to send their children to college. So what 0:32:19.300 --> 0:32:22.060 that did was it created within the Jewish community a 0:32:22.060 --> 0:32:26.140 very intense respect for labor, but also a very healthy 0:32:26.140 --> 0:32:29.900 appreciation for capitalism. So you had this funny situation in 0:32:29.900 --> 0:32:32.780 the 20s and the 30s where you would have, you know, 0:32:32.820 --> 0:32:36.219 like local branches of like the Socialist Party, and it 0:32:36.220 --> 0:32:39.860 would be all professional Jews who were like dentists and doctors, 0:32:39.900 --> 0:32:43.100 you know, um, and basically, you know, they created the 0:32:43.100 --> 0:32:45.740 socialist movement in America, and then they killed it off 0:32:45.740 --> 0:32:49.300 because it didn't reflect their values and their situation. What 0:32:49.300 --> 0:32:52.380 they saw in the New Deal and FDR was that 0:32:52.380 --> 0:32:56.260 combination of the dignity of labor and a healthy respect 0:32:56.260 --> 0:32:59.700 for capitalism, those two things going hand in hand. Um, 0:32:59.700 --> 0:33:02.580 most of the lawyers who worked on the legislation of 0:33:02.580 --> 0:33:05.940 the New Deal were Jews. Frances Perkins, who was FDR's 0:33:05.940 --> 0:33:11.550 labor secretary. She was standing outside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory 0:33:11.550 --> 0:33:15.270 when it went up in flames, and 146 young Jewish 0:33:15.270 --> 0:33:18.470 and Italian immigrant girls between the ages of 13 and 0:33:18.470 --> 0:33:22.950 19 died. And they died in a horrific, horrific way. 0:33:22.950 --> 0:33:25.310 They either burned up inside or they jumped from the 0:33:25.310 --> 0:33:29.150 10th floor to their deaths. And she said in, you know, 0:33:29.190 --> 0:33:32.630 50 years later, she was still talking about these girls 0:33:32.630 --> 0:33:36.310 on fire, flinging themselves out of the top of this building. 0:33:36.310 --> 0:33:40.190 And she said, that is where the New Deal came from, 0:33:40.190 --> 0:33:44.150 these Jewish sacrifices. And she has this beautiful you can 0:33:44.150 --> 0:33:47.310 hear the, um, recording of it. She gave this speech 0:33:47.310 --> 0:33:50.950 at a university and she says, mea culpa, mea culpa. 0:33:51.110 --> 0:33:53.390 We didn't want it, we didn't want it. And how 0:33:53.390 --> 0:33:56.910 the whole city came together. And eventually the nation, um, 0:33:56.950 --> 0:34:01.830 basically to create labor laws to protect workers. 0:34:02.430 --> 0:34:04.830 Boccia, Ungar. Sargon is with us. Her new book, The 0:34:04.920 --> 0:34:08.880 Jews and the left. We move forward to to World 0:34:08.880 --> 0:34:12.239 War Two. You point out that this war, the entry 0:34:12.239 --> 0:34:14.480 of the US into the war, led to a spiritual 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:19.320 embrace of FDR turning democratic politics into a religious imperative. 0:34:19.480 --> 0:34:24.040 Is it appropriate to compare that feeling to what we 0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:26.440 see from much of the left today, where they, too, 0:34:26.480 --> 0:34:31.080 have traded religion for politics? That same that same fervor? 0:34:32.760 --> 0:34:34.799 It's a really good question. I don't know that it's 0:34:34.800 --> 0:34:39.040 quite fair because FDR really was. He was seen as 0:34:39.040 --> 0:34:41.719 having defeated the Nazis. And of course, to Jews, this 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:46.080 was like utterly existential. Um, I will tell you an 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:49.080 interesting story. In my synagogue, I sit next to a 0:34:49.080 --> 0:34:52.759 Holocaust survivor. It's an immense privilege. Um, she's in a 0:34:53.080 --> 0:34:56.719 she's amazing. Toby Levy and she told me that when 0:34:56.760 --> 0:35:00.480 she spent the war in hiding, um, behind a false 0:35:00.520 --> 0:35:03.919 wall in a barn, uh, in the Ukraine. She was 0:35:03.920 --> 0:35:06.399 rescued by her whole family, was rescued there by their 0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:10.160 non-Jewish neighbor. And, um, they they went to a DP 0:35:10.200 --> 0:35:11.759 camp after the war. And then they came here and 0:35:11.760 --> 0:35:16.800 they moved to New Orleans. And her story about encountering, um, 0:35:17.120 --> 0:35:21.279 the South under Jim Crow, having just experienced that basically 0:35:21.280 --> 0:35:23.560 as a Jew in Europe is fascinating. And it's in 0:35:23.560 --> 0:35:26.200 the book. And another thing she told me that was 0:35:26.200 --> 0:35:28.360 in the book that I've never seen reported anywhere else 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:32.280 was when she arrived here. Um, you know, the European 0:35:32.280 --> 0:35:35.759 Jews did not think that highly of FDR. He had 0:35:35.760 --> 0:35:38.040 not done quite as much as he should have to 0:35:38.080 --> 0:35:42.520 rescue Jews. Um, he had a very anti-Semitic State Department, 0:35:43.000 --> 0:35:47.160 and they basically put the kibosh on allowing Jews in. 0:35:48.000 --> 0:35:50.239 But the Jews in America did not know that. And 0:35:50.239 --> 0:35:54.080 they just worshipped the ground. FDR walked on. And Toby 0:35:54.080 --> 0:35:57.200 told me once, um, she said, you know, we got 0:35:57.239 --> 0:35:59.359 here and we thought this was the man who let 0:35:59.400 --> 0:36:03.610 our families burn to death. And they're sitting here telling 0:36:03.610 --> 0:36:06.490 us how amazing he is. And at first we tried 0:36:06.489 --> 0:36:09.250 to say to them, you know, he's not all that great. 0:36:09.250 --> 0:36:11.850 And then she told me. But we quickly learned to 0:36:11.890 --> 0:36:13.610 keep those views to ourselves. 0:36:15.090 --> 0:36:18.729 Uh, around this time, there's a little side story in 0:36:18.730 --> 0:36:21.450 the Jews and the left about Henry Ford and Henry 0:36:21.450 --> 0:36:25.690 Ford publishing the Dearborn Independent with these anti-Semitic screeds. And 0:36:25.690 --> 0:36:27.930 he's trying to run for office. And you point out 0:36:27.930 --> 0:36:34.210 that even in 1921, going full anti-Semitic was political suicide. 0:36:34.730 --> 0:36:39.049 As we move to current days, are our Democrats today 0:36:39.050 --> 0:36:42.970 about to learn that same lesson or have circumstances changed? 0:36:44.050 --> 0:36:46.770 I think they did just learn it in Texas with this, uh, 0:36:46.810 --> 0:36:51.810 Maureen Galeano. Mhm. Um, who went full anti-Semite and said 0:36:51.810 --> 0:36:55.850 she wants to put American Zionists into internment camps. Um, 0:36:55.890 --> 0:36:59.850 she had won her primary by 29%. And the next 0:36:59.850 --> 0:37:02.980 nearest guy, Johnny Garcia, got 27%. So they went to 0:37:03.020 --> 0:37:06.580 a runoff because of the way Texas works in the primary. 0:37:06.620 --> 0:37:08.500 She had not talked about Jews, and she spent the 0:37:08.500 --> 0:37:11.660 next three months between the primary and the runoff march 0:37:11.660 --> 0:37:14.339 to May, um, talking about how much she hates Jews 0:37:14.340 --> 0:37:16.819 and Israel and Zionists and wants to castrate them and 0:37:16.820 --> 0:37:19.779 put them in internment camps. And lo and behold, uh, 0:37:19.780 --> 0:37:23.660 she just lost her runoff by 30 points. So I 0:37:23.700 --> 0:37:26.700 do think that that rule is still hard and fast 0:37:26.700 --> 0:37:29.620 and true. You cannot go full anti-Semite in America and 0:37:29.620 --> 0:37:33.180 maintain mainstream appeal. I do not think Tucker Carlson will 0:37:33.180 --> 0:37:35.819 be at the next RNC. I've been really heartened to 0:37:35.820 --> 0:37:41.700 see how the right has marginalized the just anti-Semitic voices 0:37:41.700 --> 0:37:44.859 rising on the far right. Um, people who used to 0:37:44.860 --> 0:37:47.980 be Maga and now are basically, in my view, leftists. 0:37:48.140 --> 0:37:50.380 But even on the left, I think, you know, the 0:37:50.380 --> 0:37:55.620 Democratic voters really rejected. There's something, Scott, in the soil 0:37:55.780 --> 0:38:00.510 of this great nation that rejects Jew hate and I. 0:38:00.550 --> 0:38:02.190 That is what my book is about. It is a 0:38:02.190 --> 0:38:04.270 love song to the United States of America. 0:38:04.590 --> 0:38:08.670 Speaking of rejecting Jew hate, we moved to the 1960s 0:38:08.670 --> 0:38:12.030 with Batya Ungar, Sargon, her book The Jews and the left. 0:38:12.310 --> 0:38:14.790 And you say when the Klan came for the Jews, 0:38:14.830 --> 0:38:19.350 the South turned on the Klan. These firebombing of synagogues 0:38:19.350 --> 0:38:23.150 in the South of the 1960s. How did this play out? 0:38:24.750 --> 0:38:29.750 This is one of the most beautiful and under-covered stories 0:38:29.750 --> 0:38:34.549 that I discovered while writing my book. On at least 0:38:34.550 --> 0:38:39.350 three occasions when the Klan firebombed synagogues in the South 0:38:39.350 --> 0:38:43.630 in the 50s and 60s, the white Christians were so 0:38:43.670 --> 0:38:47.870 horrified and disgusted that the Klan would come for their 0:38:47.870 --> 0:38:51.270 Jewish neighbors, who they held in such high esteem that 0:38:51.270 --> 0:38:55.229 they turned on the Klan and started to actually ease 0:38:55.230 --> 0:38:57.990 the way for civil rights for their black neighbors because 0:38:57.989 --> 0:39:01.549 they wanted to be distanced from the Klan. Their love 0:39:01.550 --> 0:39:05.830 of their Jewish neighbors opened them up to accepting civil 0:39:05.830 --> 0:39:11.509 rights for blacks. It's just the most incredible and beautiful story. 0:39:11.510 --> 0:39:16.470 And it's just amazing because, um, nobody had been, um, 0:39:16.790 --> 0:39:19.149 convicted in the South for lynching. 0:39:19.230 --> 0:39:19.670 Mhm. 0:39:19.710 --> 0:39:25.469 Until the synagogue in Atlanta was firebombed. And then the 0:39:25.469 --> 0:39:32.110 murderers of Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman and James Chaney 0:39:32.230 --> 0:39:35.669 were found guilty for the first time. I mean, it's 0:39:35.670 --> 0:39:39.750 just utterly incredible what that tells you about how your 0:39:39.750 --> 0:39:45.870 average southern white person who was a segregationist, um, felt 0:39:45.870 --> 0:39:49.549 about their Jewish neighbors so protective that it changed the 0:39:49.550 --> 0:39:53.270 way they thought about race in general, because they did 0:39:53.270 --> 0:39:56.080 not want to be on the same side as the 0:39:56.080 --> 0:39:59.680 people who would firebomb a synagogue. I think that chapter 0:39:59.680 --> 0:40:03.000 for me, um, was the one that really opened my 0:40:03.000 --> 0:40:06.360 eyes and that I really hope will will land because, 0:40:06.719 --> 0:40:10.080 you know, it's common to think that, um, in the 0:40:10.080 --> 0:40:12.439 Jewish community that it was the northern Jews who did 0:40:12.440 --> 0:40:15.120 all the activism and the southern Jews who basically agreed 0:40:15.120 --> 0:40:18.919 with the segregationists. And it's just so not true. They 0:40:18.920 --> 0:40:21.440 just in the South, the Jews had a much different 0:40:21.440 --> 0:40:26.560 view of their neighbors, and they understood what would actually 0:40:26.600 --> 0:40:29.320 help them get there, where we all wanted to get 0:40:29.320 --> 0:40:33.720 in terms of equality for all Americans. And it's just 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:36.760 so beautiful and subtle. And so much of the reporting 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:39.960 is based on these interviews with reform rabbis in the 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:43.239 South that were embargoed for 25 years so that they 0:40:43.239 --> 0:40:46.719 could speak the truth. And they are just so incredible. 0:40:46.719 --> 0:40:51.560 The the bravery of these rabbis who wanted not to 0:40:51.600 --> 0:40:55.689 create opposition in their white neighbors, but who saw them 0:40:55.690 --> 0:40:58.049 through this light of. They will get there. They want 0:40:58.090 --> 0:41:01.330 to get there. How can we work with the community 0:41:01.330 --> 0:41:04.050 to bring them where they need to be? It was really, 0:41:04.050 --> 0:41:08.009 for me, very deep and spiritual, to think about how 0:41:08.010 --> 0:41:13.410 you can influence people for the good, um, while respecting 0:41:13.410 --> 0:41:16.690 where they're at, even if where they're at is bad. 0:41:16.730 --> 0:41:19.210 I don't know, there was something about that whole part 0:41:19.210 --> 0:41:21.210 of our history that meant a lot to me. 0:41:22.570 --> 0:41:24.930 But if we, if we sort of transition to the 0:41:24.930 --> 0:41:27.890 second part of that question you're answering. So we talk 0:41:27.930 --> 0:41:30.770 a bit about why the Jews became devoted Democrats and 0:41:30.770 --> 0:41:34.050 now why the left turned on them. And this begins 0:41:34.050 --> 0:41:39.410 in chapter six with a introduction, discussion about this French historian, Foucault, 0:41:39.890 --> 0:41:44.250 and his his ideas behind power dynamics. I think it is, 0:41:44.290 --> 0:41:46.569 without perhaps getting too deep, I think it's important to 0:41:46.610 --> 0:41:49.450 to lay out these ideas and to how they've influenced 0:41:49.450 --> 0:41:51.530 so much of the left over these past few decades. 0:41:51.530 --> 0:41:54.620 So who's Foucault? What does he say about power? 0:41:55.900 --> 0:42:01.340 So Foucault was a French philosopher who had this view 0:42:01.380 --> 0:42:06.140 that there was no such thing as absolute truth. Facts. 0:42:06.140 --> 0:42:11.860 Right versus wrong. Uh, true versus false. There was only 0:42:11.860 --> 0:42:18.739 the way in which institutions, whether it's the medical institution, um, academia, 0:42:19.060 --> 0:42:24.620 whether it's, um, the judicial system, the government, um, they 0:42:24.660 --> 0:42:30.580 shape reality based on power. So these institutions have power 0:42:30.580 --> 0:42:34.180 and they create what look like categories of true versus 0:42:34.180 --> 0:42:39.100 false or right versus wrong. In order to control people. 0:42:39.700 --> 0:42:42.820 So what he basically did was he threw out this distinction, 0:42:42.820 --> 0:42:46.060 the Judeo-Christian distinction in the Bible, that this country was 0:42:46.060 --> 0:42:48.900 founded on, that, you know, there's a difference between right 0:42:48.900 --> 0:42:52.150 and wrong, good versus evil, that we should strive to 0:42:52.190 --> 0:42:55.589 be good. And he said, no, that whole rubric is 0:42:55.590 --> 0:42:58.950 just a way that institutions try to control us and 0:42:58.950 --> 0:43:03.149 exert power on us against the powerless. And it is 0:43:03.150 --> 0:43:10.469 impossible to overestimate how intense the impact of this worldview 0:43:10.510 --> 0:43:14.310 was on the American left. Now, of course, this is 0:43:14.430 --> 0:43:18.390 you could see this everywhere. It's been like utterly mainstreamed throughout, 0:43:18.430 --> 0:43:22.149 not just the left in academia and activist circles, but 0:43:22.150 --> 0:43:26.350 it's utterly mainstream. You cannot watch CNN for ten minutes 0:43:26.350 --> 0:43:29.469 without hearing somebody speaking who's been influenced in this way 0:43:29.469 --> 0:43:34.469 of thinking, because it suffused the academy. And then we 0:43:34.510 --> 0:43:37.270 created an economy in which to have any kind of 0:43:37.310 --> 0:43:39.910 influence in America or power, really, even the American dream. 0:43:39.910 --> 0:43:42.430 You have to have a college degree. And the longer 0:43:42.430 --> 0:43:45.350 you spend in academia and the more degrees you amass, 0:43:45.950 --> 0:43:47.790 the richer you get and the more influence you have 0:43:47.790 --> 0:43:49.509 in America. That was true for a very long time, 0:43:49.510 --> 0:43:52.150 I think, until Trump arrived on the scene, which is 0:43:52.150 --> 0:43:55.910 why he's so important, in my view. And so what 0:43:55.910 --> 0:43:59.589 you had was basically anyone with any relevance in America, the, 0:43:59.630 --> 0:44:02.109 you know, the longer you spent in academia, the more 0:44:02.110 --> 0:44:05.189 time you spent exposed to this foucauldian worldview, which had 0:44:05.190 --> 0:44:08.830 taken over the humanities and the social sciences. And of course, 0:44:08.830 --> 0:44:10.709 in order to get a law degree or medical degree, 0:44:10.710 --> 0:44:13.069 you have to go through all of this schooling. The 0:44:13.070 --> 0:44:15.989 longer you spent exposed to Foucault, the more successful you 0:44:16.030 --> 0:44:18.350 were likely to be. And these ideas, this idea that 0:44:18.350 --> 0:44:22.310 there's no right versus wrong, there's only powerful versus powerless 0:44:22.350 --> 0:44:26.629 oppressor versus oppressed, and the oppressor is inherently evil, and 0:44:26.630 --> 0:44:31.910 the oppressed have no moral responsibilities. And this is key. Um, 0:44:31.950 --> 0:44:36.509 that is the reigning worldview of the left today. And 0:44:36.510 --> 0:44:41.310 it influences everything. And it explains so much about, for example, 0:44:41.350 --> 0:44:44.710 October 7th, you look at October 7th and you say, 0:44:44.710 --> 0:44:48.080 how could anybody not be on the side of the Jews. 0:44:48.560 --> 0:44:51.600 And the reason is, is because in this woke worldview, 0:44:51.600 --> 0:44:56.399 this leftist foucauldian worldview, the Jews have power, and thus 0:44:56.400 --> 0:44:59.239 they are like white people. They are inherently evil and 0:44:59.239 --> 0:45:03.719 inherently oppressors. And the Palestinians have no power, and thus 0:45:03.719 --> 0:45:08.640 they are inherently virtuous and have no moral responsibilities. And 0:45:08.640 --> 0:45:15.279 that includes Hamas. This rubric, this, this dichotomy explains everything 0:45:15.280 --> 0:45:20.120 that seems utterly incomprehensible about the godlessness on the left today. 0:45:21.320 --> 0:45:25.759 So explain a bit more, perhaps because you say, you know, 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:29.640 being an underdog is, is, is the locus of all virtue. 0:45:29.640 --> 0:45:32.839 That's where it all comes from. If you're how did 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:36.919 the Jewish people not become the underdog? How did they 0:45:36.960 --> 0:45:41.280 how did they lose their place among this group of 0:45:41.280 --> 0:45:47.010 minorities or minority groups that were worthy of, the left 0:45:47.050 --> 0:45:49.370 seeing them as as oppressed. How did they get kicked out? 0:45:50.450 --> 0:45:52.810 Well, this is funny because in this way I almost 0:45:52.810 --> 0:45:55.850 agree with the left. Like I don't think we are oppressed. 0:45:56.210 --> 0:46:00.209 We were never oppressed here. This country has never oppressed us. 0:46:00.210 --> 0:46:02.649 It was easier to be a Jew in America than 0:46:02.650 --> 0:46:05.130 it was to be a Catholic or a Mormon for 0:46:05.130 --> 0:46:09.170 most of American history. The idea that we were somehow 0:46:09.170 --> 0:46:12.250 the equivalent of blacks here is just. It is. It 0:46:12.290 --> 0:46:15.529 is to spit in the face of what this incredible 0:46:15.530 --> 0:46:20.489 country did for our people after millennia of oppression. And I, I, 0:46:20.570 --> 0:46:23.450 I can't tell you, Scott, how much I cannot stand 0:46:23.730 --> 0:46:26.330 to hear that. And you have organizations like the ADL 0:46:26.370 --> 0:46:29.730 whose entire existence is predicated on the idea that the 0:46:29.730 --> 0:46:32.330 left put us on the wrong side of the equation. 0:46:32.370 --> 0:46:35.170 You know, like we're oppressed, like you just said, like, 0:46:35.210 --> 0:46:37.609 don't take away our oppressed card. You know what I mean? 0:46:37.650 --> 0:46:39.529 Like we're on the side. Put put us with the 0:46:39.530 --> 0:46:41.290 trans and the blacks. Like, how dare you treat us 0:46:41.290 --> 0:46:44.529 like whites. And I say to that, no. First of all, 0:46:44.580 --> 0:46:47.060 it's not okay to treat white people this way. And 0:46:47.060 --> 0:46:49.900 second of all, we should be proud to stand with 0:46:49.900 --> 0:46:53.859 our fellow Americans who always had our backs. You know, 0:46:53.900 --> 0:46:57.580 who never treated us as an oppressed minority. And that 0:46:57.620 --> 0:47:00.860 history has been lost. So I think for most American Jews, 0:47:01.460 --> 0:47:04.379 the reason that they're Democrats is because their vision of 0:47:04.380 --> 0:47:07.979 our history here starts in, you know, 1900. But we 0:47:08.020 --> 0:47:11.460 got here in 1654, and we were seen by the 0:47:11.460 --> 0:47:15.500 founding Fathers as founding partners in the creation of this 0:47:15.500 --> 0:47:20.740 great nation. We were seen as the physical embodiment of 0:47:20.900 --> 0:47:23.979 the values that they saw in the Bible that led 0:47:24.020 --> 0:47:26.899 them to believe that our rights are granted to us 0:47:26.900 --> 0:47:29.500 from God, and not from a government or the tolerance 0:47:29.500 --> 0:47:32.740 of our neighbors. Like they saw us as the representation 0:47:32.739 --> 0:47:36.379 of the civilization they were trying to build here. And 0:47:36.380 --> 0:47:39.100 that is just an incredible honor. And it is such 0:47:39.100 --> 0:47:43.350 a betrayal that we lost sight of that history. But 0:47:43.350 --> 0:47:46.470 the reason that we, you know, lost the the victim status, 0:47:46.469 --> 0:47:50.430 I think, is because, you know, everything became racialized. So 0:47:50.430 --> 0:47:53.750 you have this foucauldian model that says oppressor, oppressed. And 0:47:53.750 --> 0:47:58.150 then in classic American fashion, they impose this racial binary 0:47:58.150 --> 0:48:00.989 onto it. Because in America, you know, the racial binary 0:48:00.989 --> 0:48:04.870 is like the defining factor of our history of our past. 0:48:04.870 --> 0:48:07.430 So they said, all right, well, white people are the 0:48:07.430 --> 0:48:10.350 oppressors and are evil and people of color. It was 0:48:10.350 --> 0:48:13.310 originally blacks, but they've been superseded by all sorts of other, 0:48:13.350 --> 0:48:16.430 you know, minority groups. Now, um, you know, they are 0:48:16.430 --> 0:48:19.110 on the side of and because race was the defining 0:48:19.150 --> 0:48:22.589 factor and American Jews have always been considered white in 0:48:22.590 --> 0:48:26.310 America since George Washington, who insisted that they be treated 0:48:26.310 --> 0:48:29.350 as freedmen. Um, we were sort of placed on the 0:48:29.350 --> 0:48:32.750 wrong side of that binary and especially when Israel started 0:48:32.750 --> 0:48:35.830 to perform. So it was very easy to, you know, 0:48:35.870 --> 0:48:37.549 be on the side of Israel when it was the 0:48:37.550 --> 0:48:41.310 underdog in the Middle East. But that changed in 1967 0:48:41.430 --> 0:48:45.310 when five Arab armies tried to basically do another genocide 0:48:45.310 --> 0:48:48.830 in Israel and the Israelis won. And that's really where 0:48:48.830 --> 0:48:52.670 American support for Israel started. There's this myth that, you know, 0:48:52.950 --> 0:48:56.710 the Americans were there in 1948. They weren't. Israel basically 0:48:56.710 --> 0:48:59.670 exists because the Russians threw the Czechs gave them weapons. 0:48:59.670 --> 0:49:02.990 We didn't. Um, the American government started to be interested 0:49:02.989 --> 0:49:06.469 in Israel during the Cold War, when Israel started to outperform. 0:49:06.710 --> 0:49:08.629 And they saw that it could be a useful ally 0:49:08.630 --> 0:49:11.310 against the Soviets. I mean, that's the whole story there. 0:49:11.310 --> 0:49:15.629 It was Nixon, an unrepentant anti-Semite, who decided to take 0:49:15.630 --> 0:49:18.580 the amount of military aid to Israel from 350 million 0:49:18.580 --> 0:49:21.589 to 2 billion. And he pulled the number out of 0:49:21.590 --> 0:49:23.589 the air because he just wanted something that would send 0:49:23.590 --> 0:49:26.310 a message to the Soviets. Um, so, you know, I 0:49:26.310 --> 0:49:30.669 think the combination of Israel, um, being very strong militarily, 0:49:30.670 --> 0:49:35.430 thank God, and American Jews being very successful, um, there 0:49:35.430 --> 0:49:37.469 was just no way that a left that was obsessed 0:49:37.469 --> 0:49:41.280 with race and that worshipped weakness was going to allow 0:49:41.280 --> 0:49:44.359 Jews to have, you know, an oppressed card for very long. And. 0:49:44.360 --> 0:49:45.760 But I think that's good. 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:49.120 Boccia Ungar. Sargon is with us, the Jews. And the 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:53.560 left is her book. Um, in the aftermath of October 7th, 2023. 0:49:53.680 --> 0:49:57.520 You write about these protests on college campuses. We all 0:49:57.520 --> 0:50:01.560 saw and heard and, uh, the prevalence of them happening 0:50:01.560 --> 0:50:05.239 and campuses where there are very few Pell grants, uh, 0:50:05.239 --> 0:50:09.160 where the acceptance rate is very low. These elite institutions 0:50:09.320 --> 0:50:14.360 and these students are pro not just pro-Palestine, but pro-hamas 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:19.600 because they have found a cause that could erase their privilege, 0:50:19.640 --> 0:50:22.480 is the explanation of what we saw on those campuses. 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:23.640 As simple as that? 0:50:23.960 --> 0:50:26.960 I think so. I mean, there was this amazing scene 0:50:26.960 --> 0:50:31.239 in one of the libraries at Columbia where they occupied 0:50:31.239 --> 0:50:35.719 the library, and they arrested a whole bunch of kids there, students. 0:50:35.719 --> 0:50:39.010 And one of the students was the daughter of the 0:50:39.050 --> 0:50:43.290 actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, who, by the way, 0:50:43.290 --> 0:50:46.489 if I'm not mistaken, Maggie Gyllenhaal is Jewish. And like, 0:50:46.530 --> 0:50:50.610 that is just like, that is the perfect encapsulation of this. 0:50:50.610 --> 0:50:54.850 That is like the apotheosis of this phenomenon. Um, it's, it's, uh, 0:50:54.890 --> 0:50:59.410 if you have privilege because you are that rich and that, 0:50:59.770 --> 0:51:02.649 you know, set up and the, the nepo baby of 0:51:02.650 --> 0:51:07.090 famous parents and what have you because of this foucauldian binary, 0:51:07.130 --> 0:51:10.330 you have no access to virtue. You have no access 0:51:10.330 --> 0:51:16.930 to moral authority except by ceding it to some oppressed group. Um, 0:51:16.969 --> 0:51:21.010 they have oppression, envy, and this is how they slake 0:51:21.050 --> 0:51:25.290 that thirst is by masquerading as the oppressed, by literally 0:51:25.290 --> 0:51:26.410 putting on a keffiyeh. 0:51:26.690 --> 0:51:30.050 One more question for Bacha Ungar. Sargon, because you talk 0:51:30.090 --> 0:51:33.969 about class often, and I'm curious as we as we 0:51:34.650 --> 0:51:37.260 look back, half of this book is about this oppressor, 0:51:37.300 --> 0:51:42.620 oppressed dynamic. When we talk about class in America, is 0:51:42.620 --> 0:51:44.100 there a way to do it in which it does 0:51:44.100 --> 0:51:48.220 not devolve into the sort of the leftist construction of 0:51:48.260 --> 0:51:52.419 oppressor and oppressed? The rich are the oppressors. The middle class, 0:51:52.460 --> 0:51:54.740 the low class are the oppressed. Can we talk about 0:51:54.739 --> 0:51:57.060 class in a way in which our discussions don't devolve 0:51:57.060 --> 0:51:58.220 into that construction? 0:51:58.980 --> 0:52:02.540 We can, when working class Americans have access to the 0:52:02.540 --> 0:52:09.300 American Dream. We can't when they don't. You know, if 0:52:09.340 --> 0:52:13.980 things get significantly worse, you're going to hear a lot 0:52:13.980 --> 0:52:21.020 more of that class warfare stuff entering the lexicon. Um, 0:52:21.020 --> 0:52:24.259 and it's going to be bipartisan, I think. To me, 0:52:24.260 --> 0:52:28.900 what Trump represented was the rise of labor in a 0:52:28.900 --> 0:52:35.780 way that was uniquely capitalistic. So the, the idea that 0:52:36.580 --> 0:52:39.700 you could protect the interests of labor and the fortunes 0:52:39.700 --> 0:52:44.460 of the working class, uh, within the free market, the 0:52:44.460 --> 0:52:46.620 constraints of a free market, national free market. You know, 0:52:46.620 --> 0:52:48.940 he doesn't believe in free trade internationally. And I kind 0:52:48.980 --> 0:52:53.020 of agree with him. Um, you know, but but, uh, 0:52:53.340 --> 0:52:56.739 you know, if if the economy doesn't turn around soon, 0:52:56.940 --> 0:53:00.459 people will stop seeing him as representing that and things 0:53:00.460 --> 0:53:03.660 will get worse and the left will have a better 0:53:03.660 --> 0:53:06.580 language for speaking about that, even though I don't think 0:53:06.580 --> 0:53:10.779 that their model is where most working class people are at. Mhm. Um, 0:53:10.980 --> 0:53:14.300 working class people don't want handouts. They want better wages. 0:53:14.820 --> 0:53:18.660 And um, if you're offering them better wages, they will 0:53:18.660 --> 0:53:21.020 take that. But if they can't put food on the 0:53:21.020 --> 0:53:24.299 table and I know families that are currently skipping meals, 0:53:24.700 --> 0:53:28.060 um they'll take the handout. So and that is something 0:53:28.060 --> 0:53:29.819 that I want the right to understand. 0:53:29.860 --> 0:53:32.100 Yeah. You can read a bit more about that in 0:53:32.100 --> 0:53:35.350 Bhatia's previous book, Second Class, which is also available now. 0:53:35.630 --> 0:53:38.870 The new one, though, is the Jews and the left. 0:53:38.910 --> 0:53:42.230 Batya Ungar Sargon is weekend anchor and host of Batya 0:53:42.270 --> 0:53:45.430 on News Nation, a contributor to the New York Post 0:53:45.430 --> 0:53:48.509 and columnist for The Free Press as well. Thanks so 0:53:48.510 --> 0:53:51.630 much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. 0:53:52.150 --> 0:53:54.509 God bless and protect you. Thank you so much for 0:53:54.510 --> 0:53:55.150 having me. 0:53:55.790 --> 0:53:58.710 That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free 0:53:58.750 --> 0:54:04.310 Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Eric Metaxas and Bacha Ungar. Sargon. Remember, 0:54:04.310 --> 0:54:07.230 you can hear new episodes every week on this station. 0:54:07.310 --> 0:54:10.509 You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, 0:54:10.510 --> 0:54:16.350 or listen any time to the podcast. Find it@podcast.hillsdale.edu or 0:54:16.350 --> 0:54:21.190 wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram, 0:54:21.350 --> 0:54:25.150 and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.