Best of the Program | Guest: Stephen Moore | 4/2/25

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Some groundbreaking revelations about White House staffers preparing for the death of Joe Biden as far back as 2023. Anybody care? Anybody going to pay a price? Also, Stephen Moore on all of the things that the tariffs might mean.

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You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck Program. From the heart of the best of the glenn beck program from the heart of the home of the free dallas texas at the mercury studios welcome it's the glenn beck program uh i don't know if you saw the news yesterday this is a little frustrating predictable but frustrating um by 2023 joe biden's allies were quietly preparing for the unthinkable we find out yesterday his death in office by 2023 i mean i'm glad he made it i am too however it wasn't unthinkable no i know i know i know it's gotta say well it was because they kept saying that he was in perfect health and he was never healthier than anybody else.
There's a new book out called Fight Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House by Amy Parnas and Jonathan Allen. Hey, thanks for the update now, guys.
We had no idea. I mean, you did if you paid attention and you just you realized that you weren't being told the truth and you just watched.
But what we were never shown were the, you know, the the fluorescent tape marking his path at public events to keep him from wandering off. Did you know that the death pool roster that the White House had that Kamala Harris's team drew up listing the federal judges who might swear her in if his heart stops? Did you know this was happening? Did you know? I mean, his health and his brain activity was so bad that they had a resident makeup artist on hand all the time, not just to make him up to enhance his appearance in case he goes on television, but to mask the shell that he had become.
Stephen Miller said they were literally Michael Jackson-ing him, a reference to the late pop star-owned cosmetic cover-ups, while dismissing skeptics as conspiracy theorists. In some days, Biden would endure the makeup ritual only then to cancel all of his briefings entirely and call it a day.
What? Uh huh. So I want to know who sanctioned all of this.
Yes. Because the aides knew it.
All the leadership in the White House knew it. The people that applied the makeup knew it.
The schedulers who cleared his calendar knew it. I mean, why wouldn't they say? Were they protecting the president? Because you're supposed to protect the presidency.
The president and the presidency. And the presidency is even more important.
That's why if Barack Obama, and we talked about this years ago, Barack Obama would have invited me to the White House. I would have absolutely gone like Bill Maher did.
I would have been polite. I would have shaken his hand.
I would respect him. Respect the office.
Because I respect the office. I don't have to like the man.
I respect the the office because the office is more important than any man then came the moments we're finding out in this new book of the cognitive unraveling uh it was there in plain sight but if you said anything about it remember you were a conspiracy theory a theorist so swalwell eric swalwell the congressman he comes to the white house and he's supposed to meet with the president. They meet and Biden doesn't even know who he is, has no idea who Congressman Swalwell is.
Swalwell had to say, remember me, I'm a congressman. I worked on this with you and this.
And he was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. I remember.
Holy cow. How did we make it through that? Only God could have got us through that, I swear.
How did we not know? Why were no cameras allowed to capture it? Why didn't anyone say anything? Why were there no leaks on this? You are committing an act of treason, I believe, to the country. If you sworn an oath to the country, to the Constitution, why are you not warning on this? Who's making the decisions? Why did no one sound the alarm? Shouldn't Swalwell do it himself? Of course.
Of course. Then everything comes crashing down in 2024 biden steps down as the democratic nominee it was forced on him by barack obama and nancy pelosi uh and then what we didn't see was the backstage backstabbing that was going on harris remember when this happened biden came out and said, I'm stepping down.
No endorsement. And then like 30 minutes later, this endorsement for Kamala comes out, right? Well, now we know what happened.
Kamala calls and says, hey, you've got to endorse me or they're going to go for an open, you know, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, they want an open primary you got to endorse me and so he does he endorses just to screw nancy pelosi and barack obama nobody's talking about the screwing of the system he's painted as a hero for doing something brave when he intentionally screwed the system because he wanted to screw Nancy Pelosi and

Barack Obama.

Okay.

Nobody says anything about it.

Just the noble farewell to him.

He's just great.

Nobody heard about the power plays.

Nobody heard about the backstabbing.

Nobody heard about the subversion of the Constitution here.

Okay.

Great. And again, nobody says anything.
Okay. Great.

And again, nobody says anything.

Nobody says anything.

Huh.

Why?

Why weren't we allowed to see?

And how deep did this actually run?

Who was responsible?

Who was giving the orders?

Who was telling everybody to shut up as they Michael Jackson him?

Why did no one say, I've got a real problem.

We have to put a little fluorescent stickies on the floor so he knows where to walk.

Isn't that a problem?

Well, there was nobody that said, by the way, we're just we're just trying to line up the right justice to swear her in because we want that that photo op we want that to look really good we want the correct justice holy cow what else don't we know what about the the memos any memos buried how about the doctors remember when the doctors were going and they're no he's fine he's fine he just you know what i had a problem i had some toenail fungus and i asked him to look at my feet uh because he is so fine that he's almost a doctor right now he's so sharp what happened in those remember those meetings and the doctors came out were like, wait a minute. Aren't you a guy that specializes in dementia? No.
Why weren't we told this? These are the questions that you must ask because no one else will. Who else knew? Cabinet members, obviously the first lady.
And I'm going to stop calling them the press corps because they really are. They're dead to me.
They're the press corpse. They really are.
Let's pronounce that as it's spelled. Pronounce it incorrectly because they are the press corpse.
They're as useful as dead people. Why were they so eager to debunk anybody as cheap fakes why wouldn't they dig into any of these why weren't we trusted with the truth what medical reports were suppressed who gave the orders to keep this going and what's going to happen to the media all those that knew here's here's what's going to happen.
Nothing. Believe me, nothing.

They all knew.

At best, they all just convinced themselves that it wasn't true.

They allowed their own mob to convince them that, you know, nobody really knows what the truth is.

And it's better for America to hide it.

That's what they've convinced themselves of.

But that's not their decision.

It's not their job.

It's our decision. Their job is to tell America the truth of what's really going on and let us decide.
Because this is all of our country. This is not just the Democrats or the Republicans and certainly not the elites in Washington.
It's we the people, not we the press, not we the educated, not we the elite, but we the people, all of us. We're paying a price for all of this.
Will they pay a price? Will anyone who still watches them stand up and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I mean, I just read the New York Times and you're now covering all of the things you told us were conspiracy theories on Ukraine.
In fact, it's worse than what the conspiracy theorists were saying about what we were doing in Ukraine. You told us that we weren't funding color revolutions with USAID, but now it comes out, yes, we were.
The Great Reset, conspiracy theory, no, it's real. COVID, nope, didn't tell us the truth.
Masks, vaccines, our kids being kept out of school, Russiagate on and on and on all of the lies. Will they pay with the price of the price they should pay embarrassment and shame for what they've done just for power? No, they won't pay.
And you know why? because the tale that we are reading or expected to read in this new book out, the tell-all book about how bad it really was, and nobody knew except everybody knew, the real story there of Biden's decline is a mirror. And it's not reflecting one man's fall.
But it reflects our willingness to look away until it's too late. That has to change.
And until it does, it goes right back to the opening monologue in today's broadcast.

Donald Trump is at least telling us we have to do these things if we want to be competitive.

That's the closest we've gotten to a doctor that actually won, that will tell you the truth.

The country has cancer, and it's got to stop.

We have to cut it out.

So here's the chemotherapy. It's these trade barriers.
You may not like them, but you hired me to cure the patient. And I think chemotherapy is the only way and it's going to hurt a lot.
When's the last time you heard a president tell you the truth on anything? When's the last time you heard the press tell you the truth? And here's the truth. Everything we're facing right now is a little scary.
And you know why? Because we haven't faced it when it wasn't scary, when it was just a choice. We made all of the easy choices.
You know this with your kids. You're like, just put a little extra work into it.
And your choices, all these doors will open up. But the more you don't do, the more you avoid, the more doors that close for you.
And at the end, you're not going to like the doors that are left because they're going to be so few. And you're going to be like, okay, I guess I'm going to be that guy for the rest of my life.
Well, that's what we're doing as a nation. The same thing that we bitch about with our kids.
Just do the right thing, and all of these options are in front of you. But every day you choose not to do the right thing, those doors close more and more every single day.
Let's open those doors back up. But that requires all of us.
And I don't know if you're going to get those people. I'm going to talk about it if I have time today.
I don't know if you're going to get those people that have been sucked into this system. I mean, here's another example.
They're just showing you they lied to you. They lied to you over and over again.
Are you ever going to be able to convince those people that are still watching the people that lied to them? You ever going to get them to wake up? I don't know. I honestly think that the left is creating a new Palestinian state.

They are creating the same thing that, honestly, they created over the last 70 years. This bogus story about Palestinians, this is their land and the Jews had nothing to do with it, and whipping these people up into a frenzy to where they have no other options other than kill the other side.
They won't listen to reason anymore. They can't even see it because they've been trained almost since birth to hate the other side.
And if you think that's hyperbole, just look at who is supporting the Palestinians and all of the lies. Look who is saying on October 8th, well, that's okay.
The Israelis deserved it. What? The same people who are the author of these lies about our country.
Let's pray for our neighbors and our friends and our family that haven't woken up yet. You never know what's going to happen.
The future is completely open-ended. Every day you have to climb out of bed knowing that pretty much anything could happen.
Given that, why wouldn't you do everything you can to make sure you're least prepared for the things that you see as possible? You know things that are just highly, highly unlikely, but such a bad impact, like fire insurance. You've got to have fire insurance, right? Because it's catastrophic if it happens, but it's unlikely to happen.
Well, one thing that's not unlikely to happen is somebody in the family gets sick while you're on vacation. Now's let's increase the odds of not happening let's say you it happens in the middle of the night and you're in some place you don't have a doctor there you don't the pharmacies are closed whatever that could also happen probable jace medical is there they offer 28 additional medical add-ons, including things like ivermectin or epi pins and the five most important antibiotics in case somebody comes down with something in the middle of the night it's jace.com enter their giveaway you can purchase your own case as well just enter the promo code beck at checkout for a discount on your order at jace j-a-s-e.com promo code beck now back to the podcast you're listening to the best of the glenn beck program steven moore my good friend how are you sir good morning how are you man hi glenn great to be with you.
Thank you very much. Today is Liberation Day.
How are you feeling? Well, you know, I think it's a Liberation Day, but I'm feeling a little maybe trepidation day as well. We'll see what that announcement is.
I'll be out there at the Rose Garden at four, so I don't know exactly the details. I don't think anybody does except Donald Trump at this point.
Look, I'm a free trade guy. I understand that the benefits of countries trading with each other benefits both countries.
But I would say, on the other hand, because this really is a debate where I could go on either side of it. Trump does have a very important point, Glenn, which is that we do.
A lot of people don't understand that you've got a wise listenership, but a lot of Americans don't understand that we are the lowest tariff country in the world right now, among all the major trading partners. And what Trump is simply saying is it's not a level playing field.
It's not fair. These other countries are not playing by the rules and they need to trade with the United States.
So they better get their act together. They better start treating us fairly or he's going to hit them with these terrorists.
Now there is going to be some, I've been listening to you for the last 10, 15 minutes. You're right, Glenn, there will be some costs to Americans in terms of buying cars.
And we might see a little rise in prices of things. Trump describes this as, you know, short-term pain for long-term gain, and I think it's for every American to kind of figure out where they stand on this right now.
I'm a little bit worried about it, but I will say this. Trump is the single best negotiator I've ever met in my life, and I think in the end he will prevail.
So is he going for just a a strange level playing field. I mean, you can't say it's a free market because there are tariffs involved.
But if our tariffs are only reflecting everybody else's, then it is a free market, if you will, just trying to bring everything level up to the place where everybody else is. Is that the goal here, which would lead me to believe there might be some short term effects because we could turn the negotiating power on pretty quickly? Or is he trying to bring manufacturing back, which is I mean, I think he's calling it Liberation Day because it harkens back to World War II.
And he's liberating us from almost everything that we set up right after World War II. He's saying effectively in almost every category, all of that stuff is broken and we can't do that anymore.
So is he saying we're not going to be part of this global thing anymore? We're going to bring manufacturing back here and that's going to be tough, but it's the only way to really, truly grow our economy by building things here. Which is it or is it both, Stephen? These are complicated questions, you know, and I can't get in Donald Trump's mind.
You know, look, let's start with why he won this election. He won the election by winning blue collar, you know, middle class voters into the Republican Party, many of whom, you know, had voted Democratic, but realized that Trump was the one who really stood behind them.
I believe, Glenn, you know, the answer to your question about how do we make America number one in manufacturing and, you know, obviously technology and other industries that are so important. I believe many of the other things that Trump is doing, for example, our lead article in The Wall Street Journal this weekend didn't get a lot of attention on the front page was that, you know, that Trump is deregulating our economy.
It's going to reduce costs for American companies by as much as a trillion dollars. I just to make us very competitive i was just talking on just a second i was just talking about i'm not seeing enough about cutting the regulation right and and also cutting of tax cuts because if you don't have those to go along with the tariffs this isn't going to work it's just not going to work yeah no great minds alike.
And that's exactly what I was going to say. And it was almost like we were saying the same thing.
So, you know, you look at the tax plan that we put in, you know, Larry Kudlow and I put the very first version of that tax plan together for Trump back, what, eight or nine years ago. And it was a huge success, huge success.
Glenn, one of my frustrations right now with the Trump administration, with the president, I love this guy. I mean, I would, you know, I would go through a burning building for him and he wouldn't do the same for the country.
Have you heard him talk a lot about the tax cut in the last month? No. No.
Have you heard him talk about deregulation last month? No. It's all been about tariffs.
Right. And, you know, that's the medicine.
But people want to see the good stuff.

There are issues that unify the Republican Party, like lowering tax rates, dereguling the economy, pro-America energy policy, those kinds of things. Frankly, the tariff issue is an issue that kind of divides us.
I mean, some of my best friends are in favor of it. I'm kind of on the fence on it.
Others are strongly against it. So I want to see Trump talking a little bit more about all of the benefits of these other things that he's doing.
I mean, the fact I've waited for 40 years, Glenn, for a president to say we're going to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education because it's totally useless and probably does more damage to our schools.
Well, he did it. I know he did.
I mean, I was there when he signed that executive order. That was amazing.
He's doing incredible things for our country, but a lot of that gets overshadowed because all he's talking about right now is tariffs. Well, he's got to bring a lot of people to the table.
So what do you think is going to happen at four? I mean, he obviously picked four o'clock because the stock market is closed, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you may very well be right.
I think it's going to be, you know, nobody knows exactly what he's going to say, but I think he's going to call for 10% to 20% across-the-board tariffs on just about anything that comes in the U.S. Now, that's going to raise prices.
I mean, if you put a tax on things that come in, to some extent, you know, consumers will pay the cost of that. And then I think he's going to go after certain countries that are the worst abusers like China.
And I'm, by the way, I'm all in favor of going after China. I think China is a menace story.
You were one of the first people started talking about this 25 years ago. So, you know, China is the enemy.
One thing I don't get, and I say this with all due respect, because I do love this president, I don't understand why we've had so much discussion about Canada. Canada is one of our most important allies.
And why aren't we talking about China and some of these other countries that are, you know, dangerous to our economic and national security? Yeah, I've been questioning that. So let me ask you, best case scenario, what happens? What do we look like in a year from now? That other countries dramatically bring down their terrorists.
It's not just terrorists, by the way, Glenn. And Trump's made an important point here.
It's also what are called non-tariff barriers. The fact that many of these countries have various rules that close the markets to American products.

And I'm not just talking about manufacturing products.

You know, we're the breadbasket of the world.

We have the greatest, most productive farmers in the world.

We produce more food and agriculture products than any other country.

And yet many countries lock out our wheat and our corn and our barley and our meat, our dairy products. So I think if this works out, and I would never bet against this president, I think you're going to see other countries having to open up their markets to American manufacturers and American farmers and American technology.
By the way, our technology companies are completely discriminated against by the europeans in these other countries so there's a lot to be angry about brussels said uh i think yesterday or early this morning uh we got war plans you know economic war plans you go ahead you launch these we're we're relaunching our own attack tomorrow? Bluster or real? I'm sorry, who said that?

Brussels.

Yeah. we're we're relaunching uh our own attack you know tomorrow bluster or real i'm sorry who who said that uh brussels yeah eu oh the eu yeah right okay well let me address that because first of all i'm so sick and tired of these sanctimonious europeans we don't hang out enough Steven.
I just love you. Go ahead.
Okay. I mean, you know, oh my gosh, how dare Donald Trump do this? You know, he's starting a trade war.
And I know what Donald Trump would say if he was on your show right now. He would say, what are they talking about? Our terrorists are one third as high as theirs are.
They've got a lot of nerve to say Trump is causing a trade war. I mean, you know, it's like if I came up to you, Glenn, and punched you in the nose, and then you tried to, you know, fight back, and I said, how dare you start a fight with me? I mean, so Trump has the moral high ground here because we do open up our markets in the other country.
By the way, there was a very famous incident that happened. I wasn't there, but my buddy Larry Kudlow was there at one of the g20 meetings i think it was in ottawa and the europeans were sitting there you know uh complaining and grousing about trump was talking about terrorists and you know i don't know if you're aware of this but trump it's on the record people were there said it trump said okay you know what why don't we all go to zero on terror i know what the europeans ran for the door as quickly as they could i know i know i know so now tell me what tell me what you think um is is is a likely scenario if things don't go exactly the way you know i i just bring this up because paul krugman you know the new york times he said you know when when by don't dismiss the careful work of our statistical agencies because you're feeling angry on the checkout line.
I don't want to say that about tariffs. I don't want I mean, it's going to make things harder to buy what you need.
And we shouldn't downplay that. The president's not even downplaying that.
He says it's going to it's going to be a little painful for a while right yeah um but people are on the edge financially

and you know no amount of political theory helps people pay for the groceries or makes it feel better when you're paying for the groceries so i don't want to be in that camp what should people mentally prepare for that is a likely scenario even if it turns out that it was the right thing what's coming our way so? So I think that Trump has made a mistake here in the sense that we should have done this tax bill first. Yeah, I agree.
And that would have been a huge victory. Everybody understands.
I hope your listeners understand, if we don't get this thing done, that we're talking about a $3, per family tax increase uh on january 1st and by the way every single democrat in the

congress voted for that a three thousand dollar per family tax increase so we should um i i i hope

as he's talking about these tariffs he links that to the fact that he's talking about you know a

major uh growth enhancing tax reduction you know i like his idea for example glenn where he said

Look, if you're a major uh growth enhancing tax reduction you know i like his idea for example glenn where he said look if you're going to bring something into the country you're going to pay a 15 tariff on it but if it's made in america where you're only going to pay a 15 tax i love that idea let's do it let's implement that right now i know what you're doing is giving a little bit of a favoritism to stuff that's made in michigan and ohio and maine and vermont my guess is he would have done that if he could count on the republicans there's two groups of people i know there's two groups of people that worry me congress and quite honestly the justice department i don't know where pam bondy is but that's a different story but congress needs to do their job right and and uh you know i i think that you're right it's a what are we a day 80 90 i can't keep track but it's amazing what trump has done already i know but why is it i mean trump should have that tax bill on his desk he should popular he's got the voter mandate why why is the senate that's sitting on this for five weeks can't tell you I can't either can't tell you

so tell me Why is the Senate been sitting on this for five weeks?

Can't tell you.

I can't either. Can't tell you.

I mean, what are we waiting for?

Tell me about the regulations that you're seeing.

Is the regulation, because tariffs, tax cuts, regulations.

Tell me about the regulations that you're seeing.

Is it significant, the regulation slicing? Enormously so. So remember, do you remember, Glenn? What was the first thing that Joe Biden did when he became president? Energy.
Yeah, he killed all our energy infrastructure projects. That's something one of our enemies would have done to us.
Biden did it to us. He shut down the pipelines.
He put incredibly onerous climate change taxes on our oil and gas and coal industry. Shut down.
Remember Hillary Clinton saying, well, that's okay. The coal miners can become computer programmers or something.
That's working out. Exactly.
So, you know, Trump is opening up our energy. we have more oil gas and minerals by the way you know this new uh secretary of interior uh governor doug uh burgom burgom he's doing an amazing job you know we have 10 trillion dollars of of uh mineable uh critical minerals in this country in the mountains of utah-da-da.
We could do that. We can do, you know, he's the...
But what I want to ask you... He would allow more mergers and acquisitions so our companies can be more effective.
It's all over the board on transportation policy, and that's going to cut costs dramatically for American consumers, and that's a really positive thing. In fact, when I give talks to small businesses, you give a lot more talks than I do.
I always ask the men and women, and I said, which is worse for you, the tax burden or the regulation burden? You know what they say? Regulations. Regulations.
Yeah, regulations every time. You're streaming the best of Glenn Beck.
To hear more of this interview interview and others download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts so I remember when I first started warning about China's role in the fentanyl crisis this is years before we started talking about sanctions and sanctions today coming out you can't have sanctions on China high enough for my taste but every time I talked about China and their role in the fentanyl crisis, called an alarmist, a conspiracy theorist, you know, you're just so eager to paint villains with a broad brush. I can't get a broad enough brush for villains, quite frankly.
That was, I don't even know, eight, nine years ago. And now it's in the headlines again did you notice yesterday congress confirmed it

experts have testified to it the truth is finally a little bit mainstream the chinese communist party or at least at the very least elements within it have enabled uh subsidized and promise and profited off of the flow of synthetic opioids, fentanyl.

Okay?

And they profited off of the flow of synthetic opioids, fentanyl. And they profited off of all of it coming into the United States.
And they knew what they were doing. And I wish I felt vindicated today, but I don't.
The truth that was once dismissed is too dark to be real, is really only being proven to be darker. We have watched families bury their children.
We've watched our communities unravel. We've read the reports and seen the data, and still, the scale of it is overwhelming.
But doesn't it all feel familiar? Because we've been here before. We have.
Only the last time the roles were reversed. Back in the 1830s, the British Empire had a problem.
China had things the British wanted, tea, silk, porcelain. But the Chinese didn't want what Britain was offering.
So they had to come up with something else. And they found a solution.
It was something that was grown in India, opium. And the British started trafficking it into China.
And the result, mass addiction, social collapse, and eventually war. Isn't that great? The Chinese emperor tried to shut it down, tried to protect his people.
And for that, Britain just sent in gunboats. They were called the opium wars and they weren't just about trade.
They were all about power, about profit, about poisoning a population that had to gain the upper hand. It was evil then and it's evil now and it's happening.
This is exactly what I told you was happening and now we've just confirmed it. What Britain did to China.
china is now doing to america and we are watching the replay of one of the worst songs ever in history except it's just new instruments some of them are digital different players same melody same song and yet like the empires of old we pretend we don't even hear I don't know. What are you talking about? Fentanyl is the new opium.
And the Chinese Communist Party is the new merchant cartel. And America, we're the addict.
We're hooked. We're hollowed out.
We're held hostage. But this isn't just about fentanyl at all.
That would be bad enough, but it's not. It's worse than that.
Who's doing this to us? China, a country that is committing genocide, forced labor, slave camps is what we would have called them at one point. The full spectrum of state-engineered suffering and death.
In China, over a million Uyghur Muslims have been swept into re-education centers, prison camps. They've been beaten.
They've been brainwashed. They've been sterilized.
They've been separated from their families. Many of them are just put to work.
If they survive that, you can sew some clothes. You can assemble some electronics.
And they're making the goods that we buy every day. And here what's horrible we know it we know it it's not a secret it's not even controversial anymore the u.s government formally declared it's genocide human rights organizations all around the world have documented the abuses survivors have testified investigators have traced the products made in those camps all the way to the shelves in our stores.

And yet, we just keep shopping.

I do it too.

I'm not lecturing you.

This is monologue.

I'm far too egotistical.

This monologue really is about me.

Because we wanted our iPhones.

We wanted things to be convenient.

We want our cheap shirts.

We want our tech toys.

We want our solar panels and smart devices. And if they're made by slaves, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know if that's even true, even though we do.

But we say we're against slavery, just not that kind of slavery.

You know, not the kind that makes our stuff more affordable.

Not the kind that, you know, happens behind a closed border that we can't actually verify.

I mean, really.

Not the kind that might raise the price of our lifestyle or cost us convenience in any way. Like when Americans were against slavery before.
Unless it meant that you had to go out and work in the field and pay more for your cotton or do the things that others should do for free. Because I own them.
It's the same thing. The secret is we all like to consider ourselves moral, but we like our morality abstract, clean, neat, you know what I mean, in a little box.
I would have stood up back then. Uh-huh.
Really? I would have spoken out against slavery in the 1800s. I would have marched against fascism in the 1930s.

I would have said something.

Really?

You know, half the nation right now couldn't give you a correct definition of fascism,

and yet it is the most overused word in the English language, at least in America right now.

That and cisgender.

Fascism is everywhere.

Define it. We'll fight against it.
I mean, unless it benefits us politically. And remember, poll after poll shows growing number of us.
We don't really have an opinion. We're kind of undecided.
How are you undecided on all of this stuff? Well, it's not clear. I haven't paid enough attention to it.
I've been busy. It's complicated.
And anyway, what could I do? You know, I've said all of those things. As I was reading this story about fentanyl, I just, it was like just this giant finger pointing at me.
I've spoken out, but I've thought those things. I've said those things to myself as, as I was making notes for this monologue last night, I was typing them out on an iPad.
You know, in part built by those people who may not have had the actual option to go, I don't want to build that iPad. I've sat here in this throne calling you to action and yet kind of making peace with my own compromises.
And I don't know where to stop. I don't.
I just know this. I can't lie to myself about that anymore because the truth is collective sin, I think, may be the most common sin among us.

Among me, my circle, my friends, my family, me.

We claim to know better.

We do.

I will come on here and I will preach about the power of the individual to make a difference.

We are swimming in complicity.

Why? Here's what I tell myself. I'm tired.
I'm tired. Or I'm too entertained to get out of the water, quite honestly.
We look back at history and shake our heads. How could they let that happen? How did they not see? We're doing the same thing.
We are repeating almost everything from history at the same time right now. How could the world ignore the signs of genocide? How could Americans tolerate slavery? How could so many good people do nothing while evil marched forward? But here we are.
Millions of people are still enslaved today. In fact, more than genocide not in the past tense it's happening right now how about child sex slavery don't want to talk about that we're ignoring it because it's inconvenient it costs too much to care it's too hard i think really because history's worst songs have a beat we find easy to dance to.

You look around today and you see all the old songs playing on repeat.

Economic slavery, propaganda dressed up as patriotism, the exploitation of the vulnerable,

the weaponization of addiction, moral blindness passed off as just a nuisance,

printing of money as the clowns of the printing press, you know, giving us all kinds of cakes and circuses, all the while telling us, no, really, it's different this time. And above it all, the lie we keep telling ourselves, well, in the past, I would have done the right thing.
Would we? Would I? I can't speak for you. Would I? Am I? Fentanyl crisis is just, it's not a natural disaster.
It's not an accident. It is a deliberate poisoning of our population.
The U.S. government has now admitted that China's regime has directed, or at least enabled, the flow of these drugs for strategic gain.
Destruction is not a side effect. That's the point.
And what have we done about it? Boy, these tariffs on China can't come fast enough for me. And at worst, we enable it.
On the border, our government, in the last administration, they partnered with it. We've wagged a few fingers.
We've issued a few sanctions. We sign a bill here or there, but we haven't changed.
We haven't sacrificed anything. Who's buying the drugs? We don't even want to talk about that.
Who are the child porn marketers selling the children to? We don't want to think about that. We don't even want to think about the question because we know the answer.
It has to be us. Maybe one of our friends, family, neighbors.
We just don't want to believe that to be true. But for this problem to be this big, it has to be true.
And I've kept telling myself that my job is to make you aware of things, but is that enough?

Because we're not just ignoring, you know, the worst songs of history. We're humming along.

We're humming along.

I found myself last night thinking, I believe in the power of the individual.

More than anything else, I believe that one person can make a difference.

I say it over and over again.

I believe it is one of my core beliefs to the center of my being. And then I find myself at times going, yeah, but what does it matter? I've excused myself because I'm tired.
I've already done so much. Oh my gosh, boy, am I going to pay for that one? I'm tired.
Somebody else should carry this for a while.

And nobody else is coming.

It's just, what are we going to do?

Honey, what are we going to do?

Well, nobody else is coming.

Oh, in the end, I just want to remind myself, it's just going to be me at the judgment seat.

Me, not the whole crowd.

Me.

There is no collective salvation, no collective judgment, except from historians. But there is collective sin.
And the individual is still the only one that can break the cycle. I don't want to be another comfortable coward in a line of them stretching back through time.
I really want my grandchildren to be able to tell the story that I stood up for what was right. I wrote about it.
I talk about it. Did I care enough to actually change my buying habits? Holy cow.
How can I come to you every day and preach a message of individual salvation of Christ? When I'm living and, I don't know, in my own life, living and building a world of collective excuses. I can't say it more plainly than that.
What England did to China during the opium wars, evil.

They flooded a nation with drugs for profit, crippled its society, called it trade.

And now China's doing the same to us.

What China is doing now, enslaving people, destroying culture, erasing faith, evil.

And it rivals some of the darkest chapters of the 20th century, and we're funding it.

What we buy matters. What we funding it.
What we buy matters.

What we ignore matters.

What we excuse matters.

And we're running out of excuses.

Shame on me.

Shame on me for knowing it and then not realizing what I was saying.

I'm writing something to lecture you about it, and I look down and I'm looking at my iPad.

Shame on me.

I can preach.

As long as I continue to partake, it's okay.

I don't want to be a hypocrite.

I don't think anybody wants to be a hypocrite.

Do you?

I really want to be changed.

And if anything in this monologue has stirred you, maybe you feel like I do. And I don't know what this all means, I don't know, but let's do something.
Let's stop pretending history is behind us, because it's not. We're making history every day.
And I'd like to start making history in a different direction, you know? I'd like to stop singing the same worst songs.

Maybe we write something new.

Because the world doesn't need more outrage.

It needs more courage.

It needs more people that are willing to be torchbearers.

Let others see the light.

And they can join us or not join us.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

But here's what does matter.

What we do in our own private lives, that matters. Every minute that we have, that we live, matters.
Every day, every moment. I can't speak for you.
I'm going to double my efforts every moment.

Just do the next right thing.

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