[Music]
good evening i'm trey gowdy welcome to
sunday night in america
to those of you who joined us last week
thank you
you made our first show better than we
ever could have imagined or hoped for
to those of you joining us for the first
time tonight welcome
and thank you last sunday i posed a
question to tim scott that's worth
posing to ourselves
the question was simply this what is the
state of our union
what is the state of our country what
gives you
reason for optimism and what gives you
calls for concern
and we'll get to the good news before we
say goodbye tonight
for now let's take the more difficult
question what
concerns you about the state of our
union
and the quietness of wherever you are as
you reflect on the state of our country
what gives you calls for concern about
where we are
as a people one of the things senator
scott and i discussed was the need for
proportion for balance where there is or
has been pain
progress and promise all three warrant
attention
but in what order in what proportion
and no doubt each of us has our own
personal battles to wage an
illness a sick family member financial
concerns the loss of a job
those concerns are real and they
rightfully occupy our time
and attention but i'm thinking more
generally
as a people as a country what gives
us reason for pause and what concerns me
is precisely what has concerned me for
several years now
the absence of a societal referee the
absence
of a neutral detached societal
umpire we don't have to agree with every
decision that umpire or referee makes
but there's a difference between not
liking a decision
and not trusting the decision maker
the absence of a societal referee
coupled
with the absence of fairness as a virtue
is what concerns me when the reality or
perception of
unfairness seeps in the impact is
devastating
once lost trust is very hard to build
back again
i watch a lot of college sports my wife
might tell you
that's all he does is watch college
sports and this is a busy time for those
of us who love
college sports ncaa golf for men and
women
ncaa softball and baseball track and
field
gymnastics there is something pure
about college sports i had an ncaa
baseball game on in my home office
watching my beloved south carolina
gamecocks
and of course there's an umpire in
baseball and that umpire calls balls and
strikes and we expect the strike zone to
be the same for everyone
that's what fairness is the same rules
apply equally to everyone
a south carolina batter was called out
on a check swing
and it was not a good call so i began to
feel
this sense of being treated unfairly
building within me
and then a south carolina pitcher has a
pitch called
a ball that looked like a strike to me
and everyone else on the planet
and the sense of being treated unfairly
began to build
even more apparently it built into
something vocal
because my wife came into the office and
said please tell me you're not yelling
at the television
please tell me you are not yelling about
a college baseball game
a hundred miles away the umpire
cannot hear you she had a good point
so i walked outside in the backyard and
yelled even louder thinking well maybe
he can hear that
a grown man should not be yelling at a
tv
set over a college baseball game
probably but the perception of
unfairness
impacts us it changes us it makes
us do things we would not ordinarily do
being falsely accused or convicted is
terrible
so is believing all the calls go against
you
and the deck is stacked
i'm sure the umpire was doing the best
he could i'm sure there were some calls
some close calls that went our way over
the weekend but in that moment
when i perceived unfairness the impact
was real
and it was negative that's what the
perception
of unfairness can do to us what about
when the perception
actually becomes reality what if the
societal referee
really is biased what if the national
umpire really is calling it differently
for this team than for the other team
if you were to ask half our country
what's the biggest issue we're facing
as a country they might say unfairness
and economic opportunity
or unfairness in our justice system i
mean we hear it a lot
we hear about rigged systems and
everybody doesn't play by the same rules
meanwhile the other half of the country
also believes the system is rigged
it's just a different system rigged by
different people
the other half believes it's the media
it's higher education
it's politics that is stacked or rigged
or biased against one orthodoxy or
ideology the symptoms are different but
the underlying pathology
is the same and the underlying pathology
is a belief that unfairness is pervasive
we can handle mistakes we should not
accept a lack of fairness from any
institution
the institution which is supposed to be
that neutral
detached referee is the media supposed
to be
but at least half the country believes
the referee
is really pulling for the other side the
other institution we frequently hear
cited as a societal referee is the
justice system
and that too is under assault and for
reasons that are not hard to see in some
instances
so we have a choice as a country we can
pick a sport
we can be like golf where the players
call the penalties on themselves
it's a game rooted in honor and
integrity where people
actually police themselves we can be
like baseball
where there's an umpire but we must
insist and require that that umpire be
fair
or we can keep trending toward
professional wrestling
where there are no rules there's no
fairness and the end justifies the means
the outcome is fixed and is all just for
entertainment
i choose golf calling penalties on
ourselves
i'll settle for baseball with a fair
umpire who treats both sides the same
what i will not accept and what i fear
is a political system degrading itself
into professional wrestling that's what
i fear
what about you hey sean hannity here hey
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