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Speaker 1: What is the soul or essence of the MAGA movement?

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Speaker 1: What does it mean to make America great again? Who

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Speaker 1: represents this movement, what does it stand for? And what

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Speaker 1: version of America is MAGA trying to revive the era

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Speaker 1: of the founding America in the nineteenth century America in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. I've been thinking about these questions lately

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Speaker 1: as I ponder two lines of critique I've been seeing

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Speaker 1: a lot. I'm not talking about the critique from the left.

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Speaker 1: Strangely enough, there's virtually no critique coming from the left.

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Speaker 1: They're against everything Trump does, they're against MAGA, but they

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Speaker 1: no longer attempt to say why. The left's focus these

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Speaker 1: days is on what it must do fight redistricting, stack

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Speaker 1: the courts, mobilize its voters. Otherwise, the left is oddly silent.

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Speaker 1: It seems to have run out of things to say.

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Speaker 1: So the first line of critique I'm seeing is from

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Speaker 1: the never Trump types. These are guys like Tim Miller

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Speaker 1: at The Bulwark, Tim Alberta at The Atlantic, David French

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Speaker 1: and David Brooks at the New York Times, some of

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Speaker 1: the crew at Christianity Today. Some of these people still

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Speaker 1: claim to be Republicans Republicans against Mega. Their argument is

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Speaker 1: that anyone who backs Trump has sold out and abandoned

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Speaker 1: their conscience. The underlying logic of the never trumpers goes

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Speaker 1: like this. All smart people know that what Trump says

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Speaker 1: is lies and nonsense. All smart people know the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty election wasn't stolen. All smart people know Trump is

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Speaker 1: wrong on tariffs, wrong on Iran, wrong on everything. Yet

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Speaker 1: these smart people, whatever their qualms, in the end, side

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Speaker 1: with Trump. Why Because in this narrative, they're scared of Trump.

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Speaker 1: They're scared of his wrath. They're scared he will campaign

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Speaker 1: against them. They're scared they will lose their seat, so

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Speaker 1: they give in. Their ambition in sense, overcomes their morality.

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Speaker 1: One may say they wrestle with their consciences and prevail.

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Speaker 1: They choke their conscience to the point where their conscience

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Speaker 1: taps out. I saw a profile by Tim Alberta of

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Speaker 1: Senator Mike Lee and it took this line. Now, I

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Speaker 1: like Mike Lee. I think the critique of him is

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Speaker 1: wrong headed, but I'm going to follow its logic because

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Speaker 1: I want to use the critique to make a point. Well,

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Speaker 1: considering the example of Mike Lee here to address and

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Speaker 1: robut a very common mantra of the never trumper. So

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Speaker 1: let's see what Tim Alberta has to say about Mike Lee.

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Speaker 1: Here's Alberta's storyline. Mike Lee is a traditional Reaganite Republican.

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Speaker 1: He's not a Trump guy yet. Alberta argues that Mike

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Speaker 1: Lee has surrendered to Trump because ultimately he cares more

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Speaker 1: about his re election than he cares about personal integrity

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Speaker 1: or personal decency. He has sold his soul to Trump.

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Speaker 1: So whom do these never trumpers admire? Well, they admire

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Speaker 1: people like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Tom Tillis, Mike Penn.

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Speaker 1: Some of those people might be out office, politically irrelevant

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Speaker 1: hangers on, but at least there are men and women

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Speaker 1: of integrity. They stood up to Trump. They went with

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Speaker 1: their conscience, They paid the price. They might be inconsequential,

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Speaker 1: but they are admirable. Now there is a second group,

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Speaker 1: quite apart from the never trumpers, who are also taking

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Speaker 1: a similar line. This is the anti Trump right. I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking here of Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly,

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Speaker 1: Dave Smith. Many of the people who are mourning Thomas

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Speaker 1: Massey's electoral demise. They too think that Massy is a

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Speaker 1: hero because he didn't give in to Trump. He could

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Speaker 1: have been a political opportunist and gone with Trump. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he stood up to Trump. He stood up for his principles. Then,

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Speaker 1: in this view, the whole Trump operation, backed by the

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Speaker 1: Israeli lobby, came down on Massey and toppled him. He

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Speaker 1: went down fighting. This is how it's done. This is

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Speaker 1: political heroism. Now there is a real problem with this

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Speaker 1: understanding of Massey that reflects a broader problem with these

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Speaker 1: critiques from the anti Trump right and also than never trumpers.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with the idea that the Israel lobby opposed

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Speaker 1: Massey and that's why he lost. Well, the fault in

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Speaker 1: this reasoning is that the Israel lobby has always they

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Speaker 1: have long opposed Thomas Massey. He has long been anti

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Speaker 1: Israel and they have long been against him. So why

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Speaker 1: did Massey lose? Now? While previously he had no problem

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Speaker 1: defeating the Israel lobby, Massey won his early elections with

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Speaker 1: huge margins seventy seventy five percent. Well, this time he

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Speaker 1: lost by double digits. So what changed? You might say?

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Speaker 1: Trump came down hard against him. But Massey has been

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Speaker 1: running somewhat independently of Trump even before. Trump's opposition in

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Speaker 1: the past didn't take him down. What took Massey down

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Speaker 1: this time? There's really only one answer to this question.

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Speaker 1: His voters. His voters took him down. His voters are

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Speaker 1: the ones who get to decide every two year now.

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Speaker 1: Previously they were for him, Now they turned on him.

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Speaker 1: This is why Massey lost, because he no longer commanded

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Speaker 1: the support of his own constituency. Now. This broader point

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Speaker 1: can be applied to the never Trump analysis of just

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Speaker 1: about any Republican. One set of Republicans Mike Pence is

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Speaker 1: an obvious example, appraised for resisting Trump, while another set

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Speaker 1: Mike Lee and others are scorned for going along with

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Speaker 1: Trump out of fear. But this whole mode of analysis,

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Speaker 1: to me, misses the key point. What is it about

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Speaker 1: Trump that causes the supposed fear. The premise of the

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Speaker 1: critics like Tim Alberta is that Mike Lee doesn't want

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Speaker 1: Trump to go against him. Well, why not? Well, because

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Speaker 1: Trump has this power. But where does the power come from?

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Speaker 1: If Mike Lee is worried about losing a Senate seat,

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Speaker 1: who's the one who decides whether he keeps that seat,

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Speaker 1: not Trump. The voters decide. So if Mike Lee is

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Speaker 1: worried about anything, he's worried about the vot voters in

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Speaker 1: his own state who retired John Cornyin, who just lost

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Speaker 1: his primary to Ken Paxton. I hope I'm not belaboring

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Speaker 1: the obvious by saying once again that Cornin was retired

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Speaker 1: by his own voters. And predictably, we're now seeing post

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Speaker 1: mortems from the never trumpers that say Cordin was punished

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Speaker 1: for showing a modicum of independence from Trump. He tried

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Speaker 1: unsuccessfully to portray himself as Maga at the end. Yet

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Speaker 1: it wasn't enough for Trump. Wrong, it wasn't enough for

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Speaker 1: his voters. If Republican candidates swing in the direction of Maga,

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Speaker 1: either in reality or just during election time, if they

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Speaker 1: seek the support of Trump and fear the wrath of Trump,

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Speaker 1: it's because Trump connects with their voters better than they do.

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Speaker 1: If they don't want Trump campaigning against him, it's because

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Speaker 1: they think their voters are closer to Trump than they

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Speaker 1: are to them. The point is that Trump's power does

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Speaker 1: not come from himself so much as it comes from

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Speaker 1: the fact that he represents a wider movement. He articulates

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Speaker 1: the fears, the concerns, the aspirations of that movement. He

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Speaker 1: speaks its language and has therefore become its spokesman. He's

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Speaker 1: convinced those people that even though he doesn't need them,

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Speaker 1: he has chosen to ally with them, and they need him.

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Speaker 1: He's the one who can help them get where they

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Speaker 1: want to go. Why because all societal transformations, all political revolutions,

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Speaker 1: are the work of elites. Yes, it's true. There's not

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Speaker 1: a single example in world history where the people accomplish

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Speaker 1: these changes on their own. Usually, one elite challenges and

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Speaker 1: displaces another. Now, Trump unquestionably came out of these elite circles.

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Speaker 1: He was a credential member of America's financial and cultural elite,

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Speaker 1: and yet he opted to take up the cause of

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Speaker 1: the people. This makes him invaluable. But again, he's invaluable

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Speaker 1: to the people because he's an elite guy who speaks

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Speaker 1: the people's language and has taken up the people's cause.

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Speaker 1: Trump never lost touch with the people. I suspect that

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Speaker 1: this comes in large part from his construction background. Trump

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Speaker 1: is comfortable on the construction lot. He knows a lot

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Speaker 1: of blue collar people. He likes them, he listens to them.

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Speaker 1: Although many people see Trump as arrogant, in reality, Trump's

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Speaker 1: attentiveness to people who are in a very different station

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Speaker 1: from himself shows he is not arrogant. Now, I want

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Speaker 1: to make a similar point about the people in another way,

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Speaker 1: using the example not of Trump, but of my son

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Speaker 1: in law, Brandon Gil Brandon and his staff are often

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Speaker 1: approached by other members of Congress or their staff, and

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Speaker 1: what they hear is this, while Brandon, you're so good

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Speaker 1: at messaging, man, Brandon, you sure know how to communicate

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Speaker 1: with the base. But Brandon doesn't spend any time on

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Speaker 1: quote messaging. Why because Brandon is the base. It's not

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Speaker 1: even because he grew up on a ranch at Abilene.

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Speaker 1: It's not even because he's a down to or a

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Speaker 1: Texan with a text and drawl. It's because he fundamentally

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Speaker 1: agrees with the grassroots activists and the political base that

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Speaker 1: put him in office. The base thinks that many politicians

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Speaker 1: are full of crap, so does Brandon. The base thinks

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Speaker 1: that twenty election was stolen, So does Brandon. The base

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Speaker 1: things America is for Americans and that immigrants are only

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Speaker 1: welcome if they want to be part of America and

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Speaker 1: make life better for the Americans who are born here.

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Speaker 1: So does Brandon. Brandon also knows there are lots of

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Speaker 1: people with conservative values who have been left behind by

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Speaker 1: America in the last thirty years. They know about the

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Speaker 1: American dream, but they've never experienced the fruits of it.

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Speaker 1: They've seen their jobs outsourced or displaced by technology. They've

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Speaker 1: seen rising crime and drugs in their communities. They see

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Speaker 1: illegals getting more benefits than native born Americans. Brandon knows

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Speaker 1: these people. He grew up with them, He's still friends

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Speaker 1: with them. He knows their families. What distinguishes Brandon from

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Speaker 1: some of the other Republicans and Conservatives is he doesn't

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Speaker 1: live in a Reaganite bubble. In fact, how can he.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't even born in the Reagan era. He's too

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Speaker 1: young to be a Reaganite. His youth then becomes a

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Speaker 1: political strength. He doesn't just spout a neo conservative or

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Speaker 1: libertarian slogans peace through strength, trust the market. He speaks

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Speaker 1: within four are people who are dealing with a very

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Speaker 1: different set of problems than America faced in the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: So when Brandon speaks, he doesn't say what the base

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Speaker 1: wants him to say. He doesn't hold meetings about how

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Speaker 1: to message, he doesn't employ focus groups, he doesn't look

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Speaker 1: at what the poly market survey show who's up who's down.

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Speaker 1: He just says what he thinks, and that's what the

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Speaker 1: base thinks. Also, it's the easiest form of political communication.

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Speaker 1: We live in a constitutional democracy where elected leaders are

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Speaker 1: supposed to represent their constituents. They're supposed to reflect the

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Speaker 1: values of the majority that put them in office. Sure,

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Speaker 1: we live in a representative democracy. The people don't rule directly.

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Speaker 1: They rule through leaders whom they have chosen. Even so,

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Speaker 1: they rightly expect those leaders to reflect their values and

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Speaker 1: interests in everything that they do in office. And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: many elected leaders think they are better than their constituents.

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Speaker 1: They are up here and the people are down there.

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Speaker 1: Their job is to do what they want, or what

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Speaker 1: they call un dictate, and then they have to bring

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Speaker 1: the people around here. I'm thinking about guys like John

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Speaker 1: Thune and other members of the GOP establishment. They have

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Speaker 1: to make sure they have good messaging. They study the

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Speaker 1: polymarket odds on issues and races. They have to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to communicate to people that what they want

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Speaker 1: is also what the people ought to want if they

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Speaker 1: knew what was good for them. Now, this type of

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Speaker 1: elitism is prevalent not only on the right but also

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Speaker 1: on the left. For the left, the people are irrelevant.

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Speaker 1: Democracy has nothing to do with what the people want.

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Speaker 1: Democracy means putting in place an entitled bureaucracy that serves

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Speaker 1: its all own interests while invoking the name of the people.

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Speaker 1: That's why progressives to need effective messaging to keep their

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Speaker 1: ignorant yahoos voting democratic. All these people who call Trump

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Speaker 1: and egomaniac are themselves the egomaniacal ones. They are the

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Speaker 1: ones who are truly arrogant. They think they know better

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Speaker 1: because they're smarter and because they have government experience. Even

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Speaker 1: when their voters grow disenchanted with them, they never blame themselves.

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Speaker 1: In fact, like Thomas Massey and Mike Pence, they congratulate

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Speaker 1: themselves on how lofty their consciences are and how noble

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Speaker 1: they are to have been thrown to the curb. The

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Speaker 1: MAGA movement is a repudiation of this type of elitism,

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Speaker 1: whether it comes from the left or from the right,

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Speaker 1: and the good news I think about guys like Mike

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Speaker 1: Lee is. They've done some important rethinking of what their

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Speaker 1: constituents want. They've made the necessary transition from the priorities

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Speaker 1: of the Reagan era to the priorities of today. They

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Speaker 1: were Reagan heights as I was, and now they are

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Speaker 1: Maga as I am. Ted Cruz has gone down the spats,

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Speaker 1: so has Mark or Rubio. It's not because their sellouts.

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Speaker 1: On the contrary, it's because they've come to see to

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Speaker 1: recognize what Trump recognized early on, what Brandon couldn't help

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Speaker 1: but realize because of his youth. They have updated their

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Speaker 1: politics in line with how the voters think and feel,

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Speaker 1: and this represents growth and wisdom on their part. Others

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Speaker 1: like Mike Pence and Thomas Massey have not been able

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Speaker 1: to make this transition. They're stuck in the past, stuck

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Speaker 1: in their old slogans, and thus politically obsolete. The GOP

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Speaker 1: has very little use for them. The only people who

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Speaker 1: have use for them now are Democrats, and so the

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Speaker 1: Democrats praise these stuck in the mud Republicans and the

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Speaker 1: Mike Pence types learn to appreciate the praise and respond

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Speaker 1: to it. They become excited about going on CNN and

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Speaker 1: being quoted by the New York Times. So this is

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Speaker 1: their new reality, being asked to speak at Harvard for example.

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Speaker 1: In short, they are the opportunists and sellouts. Make America

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Speaker 1: great again isn't just about returning to some America of

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Speaker 1: the past. It does, in fact mean restoring lost virtues

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Speaker 1: from earlier times, such as the traditional family, civic virtues

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Speaker 1: of revival of Christianity. But just as much, it means

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Speaker 1: delighted to welcome to the show my good friend Eric Mataxis.

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Speaker 1: Eric is the founder of the group called Socrates in

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Speaker 1: the City, and he is the author of a slew

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Speaker 1: of best selling books, perhaps most notably Bonhoeffer, which has

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Speaker 1: become a kind of contemporary classic. He's also the author

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Speaker 1: of the End of a Atheism. But the new book

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Speaker 1: the one that we want to talk about, and is

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Speaker 1: particularly appropriate on the eve of the two hundred and

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Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. It is called simply Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and it is a It is a tome. It is

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Speaker 1: a deeply researched, brilliantly laid out story of the American

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Speaker 1: Revolution in its widest significance. Eric, great to have you,

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Speaker 1: Thanks war thanks for joining me. Let me start by

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Speaker 1: asking you, would it be right to say that the

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Speaker 1: American Revolution was a singular event in world history, and

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Speaker 1: for the reason that, prior to the American Revolution, you

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Speaker 1: never really had any example of a self governing society,

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Speaker 1: of a society in which the people, we the people,

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Speaker 1: were in fact the shapers of the destiny of the nation.

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Speaker 1: You had other revolutions, but they never produced this kind

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Speaker 1: of constitutional self government which is now endured, as we know,

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Speaker 1: for two hundred and fifty years is that the importance

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Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. It brought something new into the

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Speaker 1: world that is now a kind of example to the world.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to go with, yes, did I get it right? Honestly,

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Speaker 2: denize the trouble with talking to you. You know this

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Speaker 2: as well or better than I do, even though I

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Speaker 2: wrote the book this, Listen. The difficulty in talking about

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Speaker 2: the American Revolution is in seeming to overstate the case,

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Speaker 2: seeming to sound hyperbolic, when in fact we're only being factual.

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Speaker 2: My research on the American Revolution dramatically confirmed what I suspected,

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Speaker 2: what I think I knew. There is nothing to compare

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Speaker 2: to the American Revolution. The reason my book is not

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Speaker 2: titled the American Revolution. It's simply titled Revolution. There has

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Speaker 2: never been a revolution in the history of the world

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Speaker 2: to compare with the American Revolution. What happened two hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty years ago was, as you said, a singularity

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Speaker 2: in the history of the world. It cannot happen again.

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Speaker 2: It never happened before. It introduced a new way of

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Speaker 2: being into the world of nations. Nothing like it had

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Speaker 2: ever existed before. Nothing really has duplicated it. We have

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Speaker 2: had you know, in the West we've seen kind of copycats,

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Speaker 2: but nothing, absolutely nothing can seriously compare to the nation

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Speaker 2: created two hundred and fifty years ago. And the most

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Speaker 2: dramatic example would be you say, oh, we have the

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Speaker 2: American Revolution seventeen seventy six, then they had the French

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Speaker 2: Revolution in seventeen eighty nine. Boloney, The French Revolution is

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Speaker 2: a joke. The French Revolution is a dramatic failure. Why

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Speaker 2: and this is so simple, And again I didn't well,

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Speaker 2: I didn't mean to write my book about this. My

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Speaker 2: book is simply a gallop through the history. It's an

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Speaker 2: American history book. It's a joyful retelling of all of

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Speaker 2: the events leading up to seventeen seventy five seventeen seventy six,

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Speaker 2: and then the war and the victory. So it's just

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Speaker 2: a joyful telling. It's a history book. But in the

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Speaker 2: course of doing the research, you can't help but see,

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Speaker 2: if you're honest, especially if you're a person of faith,

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Speaker 2: it kind of it grabs you that because the men

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Speaker 2: of the revolution understood that if we get rid of

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Speaker 2: King George, we can't replace him with nothing. In France,

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Speaker 2: you know, they behead the king and Queen and then

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Speaker 2: they kind of hope for the best and they get

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Speaker 2: a blood bath, anarchy, chaos, and then finally they get

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Speaker 2: worse than a king, a dictator, emperor Napoleon. Why did

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Speaker 2: it fail dramatically there and succeed dramatically here? And the

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Speaker 2: simple answer is the men of the revolution in America

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Speaker 2: understood that if we get rid of an earthly king,

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Speaker 2: we have to look to God directly, the way they

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Speaker 2: did in Sinai in the wilderness three thousand years before

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Speaker 2: the Israelites said we were going to govern ourselves. We

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Speaker 2: don't have an earthly king. Our king is the Lord.

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Speaker 2: Now you can't do that officially. It just has to

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Speaker 2: come out of who we are. You can't legislate that

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Speaker 2: everybody's going to go to church and be a Christian.

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Speaker 2: But this is what made our revolution succeed, and as

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Speaker 2: you put it, it is it is something that is unique,

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Speaker 2: genuinely unique in the history of the world. Why hadn't

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Speaker 2: it happened before? Why hasn't it really happened after? So

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Speaker 2: the dramatic aspect of what we're talking about, I'm glad

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Speaker 2: that in the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary we have

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Speaker 2: a moment really to appreciate that what we have in

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Speaker 2: this nation, what we created twohundred fifty years ago, is

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Speaker 2: genuinely unlike anything in history. We need to understand that

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Speaker 2: so that we can appreciate it and so that we

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Speaker 2: can continue it, because, as you know, in the last

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Speaker 2: number of years, we've drifted very far from this founding

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Speaker 2: vision and we've lost our liberties. We need to understand

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Speaker 2: where those liberties come from. So I think simply understanding

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Speaker 2: the story, really understanding it is now vital for every American, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, as conservatives by and large, the term revolution is

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Speaker 1: a bad word. Edmund Burke wrote his famous denunciation of

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Speaker 1: the French Revolution, and in it, Burke attacks the idea

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Speaker 1: of revolution because what Burke says is that look, societies

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Speaker 1: develop organically and they try various institutions over long periods

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Speaker 1: of time. So a revolution is going to come in

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Speaker 1: and knock everything down, because the word revolution itself means

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Speaker 1: to turn something like upside down, and Burke goes, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be a mess. Now he was completely right

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Speaker 1: about the French Revolution. Yeah, and one could say if

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Speaker 1: you look at other famous revolutions, the most famous being

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Speaker 1: the Russian Revolution, I mean these revolutions at the best

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Speaker 1: were ambiguous, but more realistically they both ended the French

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Speaker 1: and the Russian in complete disaster. I take you to

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Speaker 1: be saying that those revolutions tried to in a way

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Speaker 1: create something that was either secular or anti God. But

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Speaker 1: in the case of the American Revolution, the king was

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Speaker 1: replaced by kind of do acknowledgment that there is only

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Speaker 1: one true king, and that is God himself. Do you

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Speaker 1: take that kind of almost theological insight to be critical

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Speaker 1: to the American Revolution?

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Speaker 2: I think it is. It's let's say, even more than critical.

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Speaker 2: It's indispensable, it's inescapable, it is not extra credit. It

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Speaker 2: is absolutely central. It is as central as anything can be.

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Speaker 2: And the funny thing is it makes sense, right, why

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Speaker 2: did people not govern themselves before? Why is it difficult

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Speaker 2: for people to govern themselves? I mean, even Thomas Paine

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Speaker 2: in you know, the very document Common Sense, where he

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Speaker 2: argues against monarchy, he's explaining that, you know, why do

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Speaker 2: we need government? We need government because man is fallen.

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Speaker 2: We need government. Okay, so we need some kind of government.

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Speaker 2: We're kind of government. And then he goes on to

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Speaker 2: say that monarchy is just this preposterous idea of heredity.

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Speaker 2: What is that that come from? So if you just

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Speaker 2: say we want to get rid of these institutions, we

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Speaker 2: don't want anybody governing over us.

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Speaker 1: Whatever.

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Speaker 2: If you don't have God, if we are not governing

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Speaker 2: ourselves genuinely, it's going to be a free for all,

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Speaker 2: lunatic madness, anarchy, chaos, blood bath, and then the strong man,

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Speaker 2: the strongest man, the strongest force will eventually take over.

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Speaker 2: This happens over and over and over in history. It's

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Speaker 2: the normal way of things. But in our revolution you

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Speaker 2: have a unique moment in world history. You have these

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Speaker 2: Thirteen colonies that are dramatically Christian, dramatically Christian. The culture

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Speaker 2: is Christian. Everyone knows the Bible. It's just who we are.

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Speaker 2: We've come across the ocean in search of religious liberty.

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Speaker 2: Almost everybody came over wanting to be left alone to

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Speaker 2: worship God along the lines of the Protestant Reformation. That

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Speaker 2: was the warp and the woof of American culture. Then

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Speaker 2: in the next century, in the eighteenth century, you have

428
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 2: the Greater Way, George Whitfield preaching up and down the

429
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 2: Thirteen Colonies, reviving this Puritan spirit. This Reformation spirit, this

430
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 2: Christian spirit, and the founders, the revolutionaries really Samuel Adams,

431
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 2: John Adams in the seventies sixties, they saw this moment.

432
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 2: They said, we have people here in these thirteen colonies,

433
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 2: unlike anybody in the world, who've been governing themselves, who

434
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 2: have been effectively looking to God directly. And the bottom

435
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 2: line is, if people are disposed to obey God, disposed

436
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 2: to behave themselves because of their fear of God, their

437
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 2: love of God, their reverence for God, then you don't

438
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 2: need a strong government to threaten them. They're already governing themselves.

439
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 2: So here you have a moment in world history where

440
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 2: a number of these figures, George Washington among them, sees

441
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 2: that this is the case and that if we throw

442
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 2: off the shackles of George the third of tyrannical government,

443
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: we won't be free to wander and flail. We will

444
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 2: continue to govern ourselves. So we are not going to

445
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 2: be enslaved by a monarch, but we will voluntarily submit

446
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 2: ourselves to obey God. And John Adams and all of

447
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 2: those figures wrote about this that listen, if the population,

448
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 2: if the citizenry are not moral and virtuous self government

449
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: goes out the window. So in France chaos, they throw

450
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 2: God out and they just think it's all going to

451
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 2: work out. It's utopianist lunacy. In the Bolshevik Revolution, they

452
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 2: they kill the priests. In the French Revolution they kill

453
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 2: the priests and nuns. They're radically anti clerical, radically against

454
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 2: the church, radically against God, which leads to chaos. The

455
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 2: Maoist Revolution in China, all of these Marxist revolutions and

456
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,360
Speaker 2: the French Revolution are at war with God, and they

457
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 2: claim we're going to put the people in charge. What

458
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:07,639
Speaker 2: happens the people are enslaved under these communist regimes. Only

459
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 2: in America did we actually accomplish what we set out

460
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 2: to do. We said, we're going to get rid of

461
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 2: King George the Third. We're gonna get rid of it.

462
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 2: We're going to be independent of them, but we are

463
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: going to be voluntarily dependent on God. That is, it's dramatic,

464
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 2: it's inescapable. It's not taught in public schools, but it's

465
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 2: the simple math. There's just there. I guess the bottom

466
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: line is, even if somebody doesn't like it, or they

467
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 2: say I don't like that idea, I don't agree with it. Well,

468
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 2: here's the problem. Every single one of the founders saw

469
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: it this way, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who

470
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:49,479
Speaker 2: are the least religious. So if we're at least honest

471
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 2: about the history, we understand that what enabled this revolution

472
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 2: to happen and then to succeed, every single person involved

473
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 2: understood that's the narrative. We're going back to the Sinai Covenant,

474
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 2: We're going to reject an earthly king, and we're going

475
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 2: to be free under heaven. That's it. Eric.

476
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: This is a key point, I think because even within

477
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: the sort of sweep of American conservatism, it is widely

478
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: taught and understood that the key idea of the American

479
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: Revolution is the idea of a freedom of liberty. And

480
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: this can give rise to a sort of libertarian understanding

481
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution in which freedom is the ultimate

482
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: well maybe not the ultimate end goal of life, but

483
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: it is the end goal of politics. It's the highest

484
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: political virtue. And of course if you affirm freedom in isolation,

485
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: then you're saying that it doesn't really matter what people

486
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: do with their freedom, because it is the freedom that

487
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: is important. Whether the American people choose to become entrepreneurs

488
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: or pornographers, whether they choose to live one kind of

489
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: life or another. The American founders are kind of indifferent

490
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: to all this, and you're saying, actually, no, the American

491
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: Revolution was created for a specific kind of people and

492
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: embedded in a specific cultural context. The cultural context supplied

493
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments, the story of the Exodus, and the

494
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: story of creation. It supplied the wisdom of the Psalms

495
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: and proverbs, and the American Revolution was created within that

496
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: and for a life that would be shaped by not

497
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: just the idea of freedom, but also by the idea

498
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: of moral obligation, and the good life was seen to

499
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: come out of that.

500
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 2: There's nothing debatable about this, Tanesh. And it's such a joy.

501
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 2: I know you understand this as a joy to hear

502
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 2: you explain it. But this is not debatable. The idea

503
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,239
Speaker 2: that we have been taught in American public schools, you know,

504
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 2: since I was a kid till now now, that you

505
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: can have liberty without all that stuff. We don't mention virtue,

506
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 2: We sneer at virtue or honor. These were foundational ideas

507
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 2: to every one of the men involved in the American Revolution,

508
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 2: and every one of them understood that we have to

509
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 2: be like ancient Israel in a covenantal relationship with God.

510
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 2: Now again, you can't legislate this. You can't put a

511
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 2: gun to people's head and say you will obey the

512
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 2: God of the Bible. It has to come voluntarily. We

513
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 2: have religious liberty. They understood it must be voluntary. But

514
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 2: if we don't have it, we cannot have liberty. And

515
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: so every one of them, John Adams and George Washington.

516
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: Some people dare to say, oh, he was a deist,

517
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 2: absolute nonsense. You can read what he wrote. He understood

518
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 2: that if we will behave in a way that honors God,

519
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 2: if we will fight the war in a way that

520
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: honors God, if our soldiers will behave in way that

521
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 2: honors God, God will honor us. God will be with us.

522
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 2: Otherwise we don't stand a chance if we stoop to

523
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: the barbarity of the British. And that's a big part

524
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: of my book is you see, the British were barbarous,

525
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 2: they were cruel, They sneered at God, they sneered at

526
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 2: the biblical faith of the colonists. They were decadent. It's

527
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 2: extraordinary contrast. The Americans said, We're not going to stoop

528
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 2: to that. We're going to be virtuous. We're going to

529
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 2: be good. Washington sternly and joins his officers to behave

530
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: in a certain way, to treat our enemies as we

531
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 2: would want to be treated when your captured. When you

532
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 2: capture them the way we treat them, we'll teach them

533
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 2: a lesson about how enemies ought to be properly treated.

534
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: Because the British treated us just sadistically. It's almost unbelievable.

535
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 2: And so this is everywhere I looked, and I thought,

536
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: why haven't I seen this before? Why have we sold

537
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 2: this narrative of lies that you can get American liberty

538
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 2: with French Enlightenment principles. That's simply not true. And again,

539
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 2: even if you want to believe it, none of the

540
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 2: founders believed it. So this lie that oh Jefferson believed

541
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 2: it or Franklin believed it, they didn't. I mean maybe

542
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: Jefferson later on did, and he got kind of swept

543
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 2: up into the French Revolution asad Thomas Paine. But when

544
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are asked in seventeen seventy

545
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: six to design a seal for the new nation. What

546
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 2: do to the two quote unquote least religious founders come

547
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: up with? Franklin comes up with the image of Moses

548
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 2: parting the Red Sea as Pharaoh's army and Pharaoh are drowned.

549
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: This is the narrative. Jefferson comes up with the image

550
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 2: of the Israelites and the Sinai wilderness following the pillar

551
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 2: of fire and the cloud. Everyone understood, this is the

552
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 2: name narrative. We have been freed by God from Egypt.

553
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 2: We've been freed by God from slavery, from bondage, from tyranny.

554
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 2: We are now free. We're walking with God. We are

555
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 2: under his authority, which we voluntarily bow to. And if

556
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 2: we do not, he will take his hand from us

557
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 2: and we'll be on our own. We don't want to

558
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,399
Speaker 2: do that. And so you have John Adams writing many

559
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 2: letters to Abigail and so many others underscoring this idea,

560
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 2: dramatically underscoring this idea. You have Washington himself underscoring this idea,

561
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 2: and so many others. So when I did the research

562
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,720
Speaker 2: for the book, everywhere I looked, I mean from the beginning,

563
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 2: you know, seventeen sixty one, seventeen sixty two, sixty three,

564
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: when the whole thing starts, all the way to seventeen

565
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 2: eighty three, when John Adams and Franklin sign the treaty

566
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 2: in Paris, and it's all over. Everywhere you look, you

567
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 2: see this narrative. And you know, my book is full

568
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 2: of stories. And there are the great stories of the

569
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 2: great heroes, and Nathan Hale and Henry Knox and the

570
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 2: Battle of Brooklyn Lexington and Conquered and Bunker Hill and

571
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 2: this it's filled with these heroes and a few horrible villains.

572
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 2: But almost every one of them was on this page.

573
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 2: And I thought, we do them an injustice. We do

574
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 2: our history and injustice, and we do these men who

575
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 2: sacrificed everything an injustice if we don't at least acknowledge

576
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 2: where they were coming from. And this is very clearly,

577
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 2: dramatically where they were coming from. And for decades we

578
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 2: have historians and others have shoved this away, and I thought, look,

579
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 2: this is not my interpretation. Let the facts speak for themselves.

580
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 2: And so I mean, that's why I wrote the book,

581
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 2: because I said, we need a simple recounting of what happened.

582
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 2: But I did not expect in writing the simple story

583
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 2: of the Revolution, all these great stories that this narrative

584
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 2: would kind of bubble up, but it is absolutely everywhere.

585
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 2: I was shocked a little bit, to be honest.

586
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. If I were to think about,

587
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: what are the forces that have tried to work to

588
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: undo the America in other words, counter revolutionary forces in

589
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,319
Speaker 1: our history, I can think of two notable ones, and

590
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: I'd like to have you comment on them. The two

591
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: notable ones are the following the progressive movement of the

592
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, which sought to undo the whole Madisonian

593
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: framework of separation of powers, checks and balances, that tried

594
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:27,720
Speaker 1: to create the sort of very powerful and continuously growing

595
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: welfare state, which was the antithesis of what the Founders

596
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: had in mind. The other was the sort of moral

597
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: or perhaps amoral, maybe immoral revolution of the nineteen sixties,

598
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 1: which tried to subvert the kind of public civic virtue

599
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: that the Founders had worked so hard to kind of

600
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: affirm and inculcate in the society. You know, many people

601
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: think that somehow the Civil War was a counter revolution,

602
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,879
Speaker 1: but I don't think so, because to my mind, when

603
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: I look at the documents of the Civil War, there

604
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:02,879
Speaker 1: was a deep reverence for the Founding and the Constitution

605
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: on both sides. Right, they both appeal. Nobody said the

606
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: Constitution is a living document that sort of evolves. They

607
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: said things like no, but the Constitution is one hundred

608
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: percent on my side and the other side goes, no.

609
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 1: The Constitution of firms what we believe. But the reverence

610
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 1: for the Founding and the Constitution was unequivocal, both among

611
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: the Union side and on the side of the Confederacy.

612
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: But this changes in the twentieth century. So do you

613
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: agree that the to some degree the unraveling of the

614
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: American Revolution really begins about a century ago with with

615
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson FDR. And then of course the sixties.

616
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 2: Well as usual, yes, I agree with everything you say,

617
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 2: and I mean, listen, there's so much to it. The

618
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: undermining of God begins in the nineteenth century. Of course,

619
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 2: you know, whether you look at Darwin in eighteen fifty nine,

620
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 2: but one on you take God away, it all unravels.

621
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 2: You cannot work it out, The math does not work.

622
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 2: If you take God out, you cannot have America, you

623
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 2: cannot have genuine self government. So we have been let's say,

624
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,919
Speaker 2: like a cut flower society where you know, you cut

625
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 2: off the roots and you say, oh, the flower is

626
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 2: still beautiful. Everything's fine, and three days later it's still fine,

627
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 2: but you know, three weeks later it's very dead. We

628
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 2: are at that point where if we do not reconnect

629
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 2: to our roots, if we do not understand that everything

630
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 2: that we want, everything that we like, cannot flourish apart

631
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 2: from these ideas. Every American used to know this, and

632
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 2: as you've been saying, it's been undermined and undermined and undermined.

633
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 2: And on the conservative side quote unquote, you know, the

634
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 2: libertarians or whatever have pushed this idea that well, we

635
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 2: can have this too. You know, it's all about the

636
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 2: free market. It's all about the way. Listen, none of

637
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 2: that works, including the free market, none of it works

638
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 2: if you wrensh it from its moorings. Nobody really understood

639
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 2: this better than Abraham Lincoln. I mean, he writes a

640
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 2: speech he's twenty nine years old and the Young Men's

641
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 2: Lyceum of Springfield. He understands that we have to be

642
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 2: connected to the revolutionary era, we have to understand where

643
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 2: these things come from. If we don't teach each other

644
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 2: these stories, if our children don't know the story of

645
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 2: Paul Revere's ride and what happened at Lexington and conquered

646
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 2: and the details of what does the declaration say and

647
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 2: why did they say this? And where do our rights

648
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 2: come from? From the government or from God? That was

649
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 2: the debate. Then every American understood this. If you stuck

650
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: a microphone in anybody's face in mainStreet, America nineteen sixty,

651
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 2: they all knew this. They all knew the names of

652
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 2: Samuel Adams and doctor Joseph Warren and the Sons of

653
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 2: Liberty and on and on. They knew. We all knew this,

654
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: But it has been pushed away and pushed away and

655
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 2: sneered at by progressives and leftists until you arrive at

656
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 2: a point where if we do not reconnect to this now,

657
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 2: if our children don't connect to this, and we don't

658
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: know this and celebrate this, it goes away. And you

659
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 2: and I have tasted some of that in the last

660
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 2: six years or so. What happens when when you really

661
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 2: turn sharply away from these things. So I feel that

662
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,279
Speaker 2: in the two hundred and fiftieth year, this is a

663
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 2: moment to say, look, this is our history. Let's examine

664
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 2: it and if you look at it again, honestly, it's inescapable.

665
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 2: So I'm fascinated by how people push a narrative, usually

666
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 2: by you know, attaching themselves to Thomas Jefferson, saying, oh,

667
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 2: he was a deist, and he and he and he,

668
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: and you think, well, Thomas Jefferson had virtually nothing to

669
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 2: do with the revolution, and he really didn't even write

670
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence. They act like he kind of

671
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 2: came up with this, you know, he was told to

672
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 2: take these ideas and to put them in some res

673
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 2: in form. And he was a great writer, and he

674
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 2: put them in beautiful form. And there's a couple of

675
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 2: notable senses. But even a sentence, we hold these twos

676
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 2: to be self evident, that's not even his. He wrote,

677
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 2: we hold these twos to be sacred and undeniable. And

678
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 2: Benjamin Franklin comes in and says, I think self evident

679
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: would do it better, you know, the Yankee. Whatever the

680
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 2: terseness of the great writer, the older writer, double the age.

681
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 2: So somehow this narrative has been pushed, you know, largely

682
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 2: through Jefferson, twisting Jefferson in a way, but using him

683
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 2: as this enlightenment stalking horse. You know it's all about

684
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 2: the French Enlightenment. The French Enlightenment gives you the blood

685
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 2: bath of the terror in the French Revolution, and it

686
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 2: gives you the dictator Napoleon. God at the center of

687
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 2: American culture gave us the freest, most prosperous nation in

688
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 2: the history of the world. These are radically different paths.

689
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 2: We need to understand why our nation has florid, and

690
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 2: we need to understand that these biblical ideas, every single

691
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 2: one of these figures. John Adams really at the head

692
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: of the pack in some ways, they not only understood this,

693
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 2: but they understood that if we don't do it this way,

694
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 2: if we don't covenant with God, if we don't submit

695
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 2: ourselves to God in the process of trying to get free,

696
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 2: it will go nowhere. And again, if you don't believe it,

697
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 2: you just have to see what happened to the French

698
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 2: just a few years later, and people like Thomas Payne

699
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 2: and Thomas Jefferson and others kind of thought, well, it's

700
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:34,799
Speaker 2: sort of the same thing. Yeah, it's sort of the

701
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 2: same thing, but it's radically different and it does not succeed.

702
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: And I think again the stories, I was very moved

703
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 2: by the stories and by these men, Henry Knox, some

704
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 2: of these figures. They're just such beautiful people, such great characters,

705
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 2: and almost all of them were men of very serious

706
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 2: biblical faith. So I think, again, this is simply our history,

707
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 2: but we must know it. And I wrote the book

708
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 2: too because I thought, there are so many books on

709
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 2: the Revolution, but we kind of need one book that

710
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 2: tells the whole story in a fun way. I always

711
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 2: want my books to be readable, because you know, people like,

712
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 2: what should I read? There's so many options, and I thought,

713
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 2: I'll just do a very readable version of the American Revolution.

714
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 2: Here it is all the stories, but this narrative bubbles up.

715
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 2: And again, my book is not about the narrative. My

716
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: book is a telling of the story, but that narrative

717
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 2: that we've been talking about, it's simply inescapable from the

718
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 2: letters and from the narrative itself.

719
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: The book is Revolution by my friend Eric Matexas. It's

720
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: just out, so get it now. Eric. As we close out,

721
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: you know, I was just reading a post by the

722
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: singer Martina McBride, and she is pulling out of these

723
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: America two fifty celebrations. She was evidently scheduled to sing,

724
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: but she makes this point. She goes, I thought it

725
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: was going to be a partisan celebration, and it's turning

726
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: out to be partisan and ideological. Now, let me tell

727
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: you what what I get from our conversation. What I

728
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 1: get from our conversation is following that the American Founding

729
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: was in fact partisan and ideological if you look at

730
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: it through a modern lens. In other words, I'm going

731
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: to go so far as to say that the founders,

732
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: all of them, were modern day Republicans. And by that

733
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,959
Speaker 1: I mean that the left today associates with the word.

734
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: They use. It's their own word. We didn't foist it

735
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: on them progressivism, right, and we all know that if

736
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:40,919
Speaker 1: they were organizing this celebration, it would be a kind

737
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:45,919
Speaker 1: of glorified apology tour for America. The reason that young

738
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: people think that the Founding was horrible and the founders

739
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: were all racists is because that's what the progressives have

740
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: taught them for fifty years, from the elementary school all

741
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:59,279
Speaker 1: the way through the college curriculum. So when they say progressivism,

742
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: what they really mean they won't put this quite this way,

743
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: is progress is defined as a movement away from the

744
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: principles of the American Founding. That's the living Constitution is

745
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: an apologia for essentially leaving the dead Constitution. I either

746
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: rail Constitution behind and creating a new document or a

747
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: new interpretation that leaves the old meanings kind of in

748
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:26,760
Speaker 1: the grave. Us.

749
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 2: You agree with us, Oh, look, as usual, I agree

750
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,239
Speaker 2: almost violently with everything you say, which is why it's

751
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 2: a joy that you're out there, Dennis, because you understand this,

752
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 2: and it's vital that everyone understand this. It's vital that

753
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:46,680
Speaker 2: everyone understand the the dramatic distance between you know, many

754
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 2: of our cultural leaders today, certainly the Democratic Party today

755
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 2: and the Founders. You you simply to be honest about it.

756
00:45:55,680 --> 00:46:01,520
Speaker 2: Unless you you love America and you love these ideas,

757
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:04,879
Speaker 2: you're moving dramatically away from them. You're moving back. I mean, look,

758
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 2: there were people in America at the time, and there

759
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 2: were people in Parliament at the time that hated everything

760
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 2: we're talking about, and they sneered at it, just as

761
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 2: secular progressives sneer at it today. You know, give your

762
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 2: faith garbage. Please, you're nothing but hypocrites. Power is what matters.

763
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 2: We have the power, and you know you're the children

764
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 2: where the mother country, shut up, pay your taxes and

765
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 2: will treat you well. And the Americans said, no, no, no,

766
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 2: we actually believe these things. We believe our rights come

767
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 2: from God. We believe that to act and to go

768
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 2: along with those lies is to be complicit with evil.

769
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 2: We won't do that. We'd rather die. These are men

770
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 2: of honor, men of principle. It's beautiful and there are

771
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: many Americans that get that today. But they need to

772
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 2: know where it comes from. And again, they need to

773
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 2: know the stories. I mean the stories in my book.

774
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 2: Every American is i think, indebted to the to the

775
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 2: men and women in these stories and has a debt

776
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 2: to pay that You need to know their names. You

777
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 2: need to know these stories. So whether you get it

778
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 2: from my book or someplace else, you need to know

779
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 2: the history of this fount, of this nation, how we

780
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 2: came into being. It is unique, it is outrageous. It

781
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 2: ought never to have happened, but God ordained that it

782
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 2: might happen, and it did happen, and there are actual

783
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,479
Speaker 2: miracles involved. I mean, nobody more than Washington acknowledged that

784
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 2: that the hand of providence over and over where we're

785
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 2: staring at defeat and something happens. So it's a beautiful story,

786
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 2: it's an uplifting story, but it's a story that most

787
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 2: in our generation and those younger don't know the details.

788
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 2: And I said, I want to write a book that

789
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 2: gives you the details because it actually matters. And we're

790
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: living at a point now where if we don't have

791
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 2: enough people who know this and can teach us to

792
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,439
Speaker 2: their kids and can celebrate this nation, it's over. We're

793
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 2: We're in kind of a moment where I think it's

794
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 2: God's will that we prevail. But we have to know

795
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 2: these things, we have to we have to pray. And

796
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 2: the bottom line is all of these figures, I mean,

797
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 2: especially Washington, they trusted God dramatically. They knew that we're

798
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 2: going to try to behave in such a way to

799
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 2: honor God, and we're going to trust him with the results.

800
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 2: That's the way people can be free, that's the way

801
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: we can flourish. And you know that story needs to

802
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 2: be told over and over and over again.

803
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: Eric Mettaxas, thank you very much.

804
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 2: Thank you, Denesh. Privileged to be with you.

805
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:37,800
Speaker 1: Well, it's finally happening. I'm turning sixty five and I

806
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: got to take a little pause and do a little

807
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: bit of a shriek. You know, ah, I'm not happy

808
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:47,520
Speaker 1: about this, and it also means I've officially become a target.

809
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 2: Now.

810
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: For months, I've been bombarded by junk mail and robo

811
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,839
Speaker 1: calls from insurance companies trying to sell me on their

812
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: Medicare plans. Like many government programs, Medicare is confusing, and

813
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: if you don't get honest and act secured advice, you

814
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: can end up on the wrong plan, overpaying for the

815
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,400
Speaker 1: same coverage that you could be receiving for a fraction

816
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: of the cost. That's why I started working with Chapter chapters.

817
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: Licensed Medicare advisors offer unbiased guidance. They can review all

818
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:17,879
Speaker 1: your options in under twenty minutes. In fact, if you're

819
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Speaker 1: already on the best plan for your needs, they'll tell you.

820
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: If you aren't, they can help you switch. There's no pressure,

821
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Speaker 1: no sales tactics, just straightforward help from people who understand

822
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Speaker 1: Medicare inside and out. And the best part is totally free.

823
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Speaker 1: I've worked with them. They help me navigate Medicare. I

824
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: know they can help you too, so give them a call.

825
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: Seven oh six two six two four seven seven four

826
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Speaker 1: against seven oh six two, six, two, four, seven, seven four.

827
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,200
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828
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: just added silver to the Critical Minerals List. What does

829
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: this mean? This is an important list of minerals that

830
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 1: are considered crucial for US security and economic viability. So

831
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: when you buy silver to help protect your savings, you're

832
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 1: also buying a critical mineral that's needed for the US

833
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Speaker 1: and it's economy to survive. That's why I want you

834
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839
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Speaker 1: your free twenty twenty six gold and silver kit from

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841
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Speaker 1: ten percent in bonus gold or silver while supplies last.

842
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Speaker 1: Go to dineshgold dot com. That's Dinesh goold dot com. Hey,

843
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,799
Speaker 1: I'm now on substack. It's kind of full circle for me.

844
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: I started out as a journalist writing articles for National Review,

845
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: the American Spectator, the Washington Post, lots of places. After

846
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:55,719
Speaker 1: my stint in the Reagan White House, I pivoted to

847
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: writing books, and that was way back in nineteen ninety one.

848
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: So I've been mainly known as an author and of

849
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: course later as a filmmaker. But my first job journalist,

850
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: and now I'm getting back to that. On Substack you'll

851
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Speaker 1: get original articles on commentary, groundbreaking investigations, exclusive access to

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Speaker 1: film clips and show clips and guess what, it's free.

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Speaker 1: So check it out. Go to Denesh Desuza dot substack

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Speaker 1: dot com. Guys, I want to announce I have a

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Speaker 1: new book coming out in the fall. I'm very excited

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Speaker 1: about it. It's called The End of Time, the subtitle Biblical Archaeology,

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Speaker 1: Prophecy and the Last Days. The book outlines the greatest

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Speaker 1: discoveries in Biblical archaeology that affirm the Bible, confirm the

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Speaker 1: presence of the Jews in the Holy Land, and also

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Speaker 1: support the twin foundations of Western civilization, which are Athens

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Speaker 1: and Jerusalem. The End of Time has rave reviews from archaeologists,

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Speaker 1: from leading pastors, and from prominent commentators of the book,

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Speaker 1: published by Charisma, book is available now for pre orders

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Speaker 1: on Amazon. So I'm calling a new early birds to

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Speaker 1: order your copies now. You'll be the first to get

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Speaker 1: it when it's out.