Ben Shapiro argues that despite all
of our societal issues,
despite all of our societal ills.
The one thing that will destroy
America is woke ism let's watch.
>> So tonight we're going to
talk about how wokeness is
destroying America.
And here's the thing, a lot of
members of the left starting to
realize that weakness is destroying
America problem with witnesses.
That bottom line, it probably gets
lies in particularly it probably
gets four sets of lies and
probably gets lies about
the nature of the United States,
a problem against lies about
the nature of inequality.
It probably gets lies about
the nature of responsibility.
And finally it promulgates lies
about the nature of truth itself.
>> Now I debated Ben Shapiro before
the pennsylvania chamber of
Commerce and we have some
agreements in regard to so
called woke ISM we have some pretty
significant disagreements as well.
And I just wanted to respond
to like the whole theme of his woke
ISM speech by saying, look, you
could be annoyed with woke ISM you
can have your thoughts on that and
I've shared my thoughts on it.
But to say that woke ISM is what's
destroying America is just a weird
thing to say.
Because there's a lot going on in
this country right now.
A lot that's causing pain and
suffering among our fellow
Americans that has nothing to
do with the culture wars.
In fact headline from today that
was jarring.
And I wish got a lot more
attention.
100,000 Americans died of drug
overdoses in 12 months during
the pandemic.
That's a record, 100,000 Americans
dead from drug overdoses.
These are deaths of despair.
These are people who are addicted
to opioids.
Thanks to a lot of help from
pharmaceutical companies pushing
painkillers.
I mean, that's a lot of people.
You look at the body of this piece.
New York Times reporting on it.
The people who died 275 every day,
would fill
the stadium where the University
of Alabama plays football.
Together, they equal the population
of Roanoke Virginia.
But here's what's also jarring.
The new
figures which are provisional but
rarely change much in final tallies
represents a 28.5% increase from
the same period a year earlier.
Here's the relevant part.
The financial, mental health,
housing and other difficulties of
the COVID-19 pandemic are widely
blamed for much of the increase.
So on one hand, we've got woke ism,
which can be annoying.
Can have some unintended
consequences by people who I think
have good intentions,
I think want equality,
we want equality of opportunities.
But to say that is the one
thing that's destroying America.
I just like hyperbole doesn't
even cover how ridiculous that
statement is, okay?
You have people literally sleeping
and dying on the streets
60,000 of whom are living and
dying on the streets of
Los Angeles County alone, okay?
So there are real economic issues
and I just want to get to a point
in this country where we focus on
that.
But it's really hard to do it when
all you've got on the right is non
stop fearmongering about culture,
war issues.
By the way, women haven't been able
to get back to the workforce,
even when they want to go back
to work, they can't do it,
they don't have child care.
Some schools are still closed,
they can't afford childcare because
they've been paid insanely low
wages their entire working lives.
Maybe talk about those issues, but
no, it's woke ism the real problem
in this country is teaching about
racism in our public schools.
That's what's destroying America.
Anyway, let's get to the second
video because he does give specific
examples of what he means.
And I respect that.
I just, I tend to disagree with his
diagnosis here, right?
Because there was one moment where
he finally got into economic
issues, which I love awesome.
And get a load of his perspective
on meritocracy.
I think there's this myth of
meritocracy in this country, but
he's pushing it along with this
notion of personal responsibility.
So let's take a look at that.
>> Any system that rewards skills,
has excellent externalities for
third parties.
It's in any society, some people
are going to be rewarded and
some people are not going to
be rewarded as much.
The question is, what metric do
you use in order to delegate?
Who is rewarded and who is not?
Presumably as a society we like to
reward people such that
the externalities of their
activities make our lives better.
That's why we reward Bill Gates for
creating Windows.
That's why we reward the line musk
for making Tesla, right?
The system rewards that labor
specifically because it makes a lot
of people,
it makes their lives better and
it makes their lives easier.
>> So, he gives this example of
people who have been incredibly
successful in this capitalist
economy.
Elon musk was one of them.
But to leave out how much
government aid people like Elon
musk have taken advantage of,
I think is unfair and wrong.
So for instance,
here's just one headline.
This is coming from Techcrunch on
June 23rd of 2009.
The government comes through for
Tesla with a $465 million loan for
its Electric Sedan.
But by the way, that's just one
example of the government coming to
the aid of Elon musk.
I'm curious to see how Elon musk
would perform without all the help
he got from the federal government
to launch his business and
to sustain his business.
Let me give you more.
This is from the New York Republic.
A 2015 Los Angeles Times
investigation estimated that Tesla,
SolarCity and
SpaceX had together benefited from
$4.9 billion in government support.
That included for example,
a $465 million low interest loan
from the Department of Energy in
2010 that helped Tesla ride out
the effects of the great recession.
Since then, Texas's Travis County
has offered a $14.7 million
at minimum tax break for
the building of a Tesla factory.
A Nevada factory was built on
the promise of up to $1.3 billion
in tax benefits over two decades.
So listen, if you want to commend
someone like Elon musk for
being a visionary for having ideas
that were revolutionary,
you want to make that point.
That's fine.
I certainly have my disagreements
with Elon musk, but
I'm not going to minimize what he
has thought about doing and
what he has accomplished, but
you also have to acknowledge.
How much help he's
gotten from the federal government?
Because let me tell you something,
ordinary Americans, they're looking
to start a business, it's a lot
harder to get capital like that
from the federal government.
And it's incredibly hard to get
approved for a business loan.
So, it's that saying like people
who think they're who are like born
on third or second base and
they thought they hit a double.
I mean, it's just another
example of that.
Just be honest about how
the government plays a role and
not only subsidizing these private
companies, but more importantly in
providing the seed money.
When they try to get these ventures
started and that's certainly what
happened with Tesla moving on.
I also want to talk about the myth
of meritocracy in this country.
Now I'll give you a specific
example to reinforce the point I'm
trying to make here.
I believe Ben Shapiro went to
Harvard.
Okay smart guy went to an ivy
league school but I think that
there's a misconception about how
people who get accepted into these
institutions are the brightest,
the smartest, the best of the best.
I don't know if that's the case
with Ben Shapiro.
I'm not going to get into his
personal merit but
I am going to get into a study that
was done by the National Bureau of
Economic Research and
they looked at the admissions over
at Harvard specifically.
Here's what they found among white
people who have been admitted to
the university over 45% are ALDC.
Okay, you might
be wondering what is ALDC.
Well that includes people who have
been accepted for
things like legacy admissions.
People who got a scholarship
because of a sport that they
engage in.
Also people who have gotten
admitted because someone in their
family has made a massive
donations.
So that's what they're referring to
when they mentioned a LDC.
People who have
been admitted to Harvard.
Okay among admits who
are African American,
Asian American and Hispanic
the share is less than 16% each.
Our model of admission shows
that roughly three quarters of
white ALDC admits would have
been rejected if they had been
treated as white non-ALDCs.
So look there's
the racial component to it right?
But I like that they did this
control where they take out
the legacy stuff where they take
out the sports and where they take
out donations to the university.
Because all of a sudden you
see the likelihood of these people
getting admitted to the university
dropped significantly.
Let me give you more.
In addition to this
admissions preferences for
ALDC applicants are substantial.
We find that a white non- ALDC
applicant with a 10% chance of
admission would see a five-fold
increase in admissions likelihood
if they were a legacy more than
a seven-fold increase.
If they were on the Dean's interest
list and that they would be
admitted with near certainty if
they were a recruited athlete.
So again I just I really want to
emphasize the point that
meritocracy in this country is
a myth.
And I agree with Ben Shapiro
actually there was a part in his
speech where he talked about some
schools doing away with the grading
system because students
are struggling.
I don't agree with that.
I don't think they should do that.
I read a Los Angeles Times article
about how teachers are like
struggling right now because due to
virtual learning a lot of
students are failing their
classes they don't know what to do.
So they're going from a grade based
system to a pass or no pass.
I disagree with that, sorry.
So I actually happen to agree with
Ben Shapiro on it.
However, to then turn around and
say, wokeism is destroying our
system of meritocracy is just a lie
because that system does not exist.
There is a system in place that
overwhelmingly benefits
the privileged.
And when I say privilege,
I'm talking about people who come
from money, people whose mama and
papa can donate,
some money at the university that
plays a role in whether or
not this ivy league accepts you.
End of story, right?
And by the way,
I do want to also mention that
there's a specific reason why
people like Ben Shapiro kind of shy
away from economic issues and they
really hone in on the culture war.
Number one,
everyone hates the culture war.
Everyone does have an issue with,
the scolding that takes place like
let's keep it real.
All right, so the left has kind of
become the solders,
the right loves it because
that's all they want to talk about.
And then in the meantime, the left
is missing out on an opportunity to
relentlessly attack the right on
what they are the least popular on
and that's economic issues.
The John Deere workers who are on
strike, 40% of them,
I don't identify as conservatives
and I just want to remind you
all of why they're striking in
the first place.
They wanted to us to agree to do
away with pensions for
any new hires that came after us.
>> And I'm not willing to sell out
my future brothers and sisters that
might be coming in here,
could be your kid,
could be the kid down the street.
We're not interested in having our
retirement plans in a Wall Street
speculation portfolio.
We want something guaranteed.
>> Corporations don't want to pay
their employees a fair living wage
with a fair cost of living
increase.
Instead they want to shift that
over to stockholders and the
president, also vice presidents.
>> Over the last year,
our CEO pay has gone up 160%.
>> They're projected to make
between $5.7 and $5.9 billion
dollars in profits this year.
>> Whether you're a democrat,
Republican, conservative,
liberal leftist doesn't matter.
If you're a worker in this country,
you're experiencing the same
thing and
the policies that the right one,
I mean, I don't know what policies.
The right wing wants.
The only thing they have been
calling for is protecting corporate
interests and cutting taxes.
They love it.
I mean, that's all they
advocate for.
If we could focus on hitting
them where it hurts and
also mocked them for
only relying on a culture war for
their messaging and campaigning.
I think that we might have a path
to victory, but instead we keep
giving them content again and
again, giving them stuff to do
these speeches on, sure they get
paid handsomely for these speeches
focus on what they lose on.
They lose people once they talk
about their vision for the economy.
They lose when they pretend that we
live in a meritocracy.
They lose when they point to
American workers and
say that if they're struggling and
can't feed their families,
it's their fault, they're
not taking personal responsibility.
He knows how capitalism works.
I know he knows how capitalism
works because I told him during my
debate with him before
the Pennsylvania Chamber of
Commerce, let's watch.
>> As an employer, right?
It's not that you you have to be
awful to your employees, but
you have a fiduciary responsibility
to your shareholders to return,
to provide a return on their
investment.
That's literally like it's baked
into the system.
>> That's true. >> And so
as a result, I mean,
what's the most expensive cost
within a business, always labor?
It's always labor.
So when we talk about exploitation,
right, exploitation always makes it
seem like you're actively brutal
and awful to your employees, which
in some cases that does happen.
But it doesn't even have to get
that far, the whole point is to
extract as much labor for
the lowest possible price in
order to increase profits and
provide a return of investors and
shareholders.
That's just the way
the system works.
>> That is just the way the system
works and he knows it.
And he'll say no,
the system works fine because,
companies need to compete for labor
and when they compete for labor,
that's when they increase wages.
But pay close attention to how
they're talking
about the labor shortage right now,
but more importantly pay close
attention to how they're talking
about inflation right now.
All these higher wages,
it's translating to inflation,
these higher wages because they
don't want you to get paid higher
wages hit them where it hurts guys,
it's easy.
We just need to stay focused.
All right, we got to take a break,
we'll be right back.
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All right, let's go to our
super chats.
We have Lee Middleton who writes in
and says we need justice democrats
to start a movement, vote D or
vote democrat until you get
a good democrat,
get rid of all incumbents.
So Lee,
certainly over the last few months,
my views on electoral politics have
not been good, so, and I'm not
minimizing electoral politics.
I think people should
vote strategically, and
I'm not minimizing what you're
suggesting here.
I think that that's a good strategy
if you're just focused on electoral
stuff.
But no look, politicians aren't
really accountable to people at
this point, right,
because people have no power
because they're not organized.
Organize your workplace,
we need to find a strategy to
provide any support we can to
people who are employed by these
massive corporations.
The Walmarts, the Amazons, right?
Like if we could get workers
organized and if we can actually
coordinate with one another to do,
let's say general strikes that have
a plan in place,
like doing a general strike with no
protection is not smart, right?
You want to have a strike fund,
you want to have something set
up to make workers hole as you
do these strikes.
But it's really the only way,
like they're not going to listen to
us, they're going to be sucked into
that machine unless we make
them listen to us.
So how do you build power?
That's what the real question
is, right.
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cinema is like a mini van, I saw
once that switched on its left turn
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Yeah, you know what that happens
a lot actually on the road,
I don't like it.
I don't like it when you're you
want to make a left turn.
And then someone coming
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That makes me very mad.
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Bad catholic writes in and says,
bad catholic hall pass dragon says
workism is destroying America.
People are picking
their heads up out of the minds and
waking up to the fact that they
are busting their asses only
to a crew more debt and
go broke, then get called lazy.