Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 281 | Why We're Still In this COVID Mess

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

At one point we were all in this pandemic together, but as COVID-19 began to be politicized, we've seen the hypocrisy of the government and America's citizens come into full effect. We can protest and riot, but we can't go to church? In other news, which TV show comedy is better: "The Office" or "Parks and Recreation"? Tune in to find out on Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey! Today's Link: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Today we're going to talk about something that we have not talked about in a while and that is the coronavirus and everything that is going on in some of the media malfeasance surrounding that and why we are still in this predicament several months later after having been told that it would be 15 days to flatten the curve and then 30 days to slow the spread. Why are we still talking about this? why are we still having so many cases? So we're going to get it all into that. But first, I want to bring this to you guys. We were just having a debate or a conversation before we started rolling between the office and parks and rec and which one is better. Now, here's my take on this. I just,

I just thought that I would start this podcast with a little bit of a lighthearted debate before we get into the more serious stuff. Just change it up just a little bit. Here's how I feel about Parks and Rec versus the office. Because we were talking about how we just kind of have episodes on repeat going on in the background of our homes because it just helps alleviate some of the pressure and the heaviness of everything that's going on right now. And I've basically been watching the office on repeat for the past, I don't know, seven years or something like that.

And so as my husband, here's the difference to me between Parks and Rec and the office. So Parks and Rec to me is a masterpiece. It's a work of art. never been, in my opinion, a better comedy series overall than The Office. Now, Parks and Rec, though, it has that lightheartedness to it that makes you want to watch it when you're sad or is a good pick me up. And it kind of endears you to some of the characters more. And there are a few characters like John Ralphio, for example, or Tom on Parks and Rec that just consistently make me laugh out loud. However, on that, on that, you know,

The office, I think that the funny parts, what we were saying before this, the funny parts on the office are just way funnier than on Parks and Rec. So Parks and Rec is just like consistently like, oh, yeah, that just makes me feel good. The office isn't always makes me feel good. Sometimes it makes me feel very sad. It makes me feel very uncomfortable. I think the most uncomfortable episode is the dinner party episode with Jan and Michael inviting everyone over the Scott's Tots episode. I just can't even, I just almost can't even watch it. But it's still so funny.

Like you just can't look away. And I think that is what sets it apart from Parks and Rec. That's also what sets it apart from other comedies like New Girl, which I really like. That's another one that makes you kind of just feel happy all the time when you watch it. It's better than Arrested Development. I'm sorry, but I just cannot get into Arrested Development. This really hurts my husband's feelings. We've had to work through this.

I've tried to get into Arrested Development. and I just can't do it. But that was the debate in the conversation that we were having before this. So I would love to hear your thoughts. If you're on YouTube, leave me a little comment. If you are listening to this, you can message me on Instagram and tell me your very important thoughts. I just think that the office also is so important to the national conscience right now. I'm going to be sad when it's taken off Netflix. I think that everyone needs to be forced to watch the office and just allow themselves to be offended. That's what that's what I think that we need right now. I think everyone, especially the wokenistas on the left, they just need to allow themselves to be offended

and just sit in their offense for a little bit. I think that it would toughen us all up if we allowed the groups that we are a part of and associated with to be made fun of just a little bit, to be poked around just a little bit. I think that would be really good for us. I think that if we could all be a little bit more lighthearted about the groups that we're a part of or even the the organizations that we're associated with, the party that we are associated with, I think that we could maybe all get along a little bit better. And I think the office has a unifying feature to it because it makes fun of everyone. So those are my thoughts. I'm very curious to hear what you think. I think comedy and even offensive comedy, even comedy that offends me is important right now

because everything is just so dang serious and everyone is so perpetually offended all the I think it would be good for us. I think it would be good for us to just take a step back and laugh. Okay, now we're switching gears. We're getting into something a lot more serious. We're going to talk about the coronavirus. Yes, I can't believe that we are still talking about this after so many months. I thought I was one of those people who thought in January, February, you know, this is never

going to become serious in the United States. This is something that China is handling. And we might have a few cases here. Oh, yeah, there's a case in Washington, but Washington has always been weird. and it's not going to spread to the rest of the country. And if it does spread to the rest of the country, we're going to be able to handle it really well. That was my mentality.

I said that publicly. And I mean, I had reasons to believe that would be the case. I felt like, okay, you know, we've got a good health care system. We know how to tamp down on this kind of thing. We're just not going to let it spread.

That was mid-February that I think I was making an Instagram story saying that. And then every week, it seemed that the news intensified. But I even thought, you know, by mid-March, we're not going to be talking about this anymore. At the beginning of March, I spoke at an event in L.A., and at that, I think it was March 6th. And I remember at that point thinking, okay, I'm a little bit worried about this because now we've got several cases in the United States and people are saying that they're canceling their travel plans.

And so maybe I shouldn't go, but I went. and I think I wore a face mask on the airplane and I obsessively sanitized my hands and wiped down everything. And I do that anyway. I've told you guys I'm a germaphobe. So definitely during flu season, that's what I'm doing to like my airplane seat belt and the armrest and the tray table and all of that. So I'm already a germophobe, but I had a heightened sensitivity to the potential of germs because of the coronavirus at the beginning of March. I didn't really want to hug people and shake people's hands at this event. But I still thought it's all going to go away. Like we're not going to be able to sustain this kind of stress and this kind of pandemonium

that already seemed to be spreading at the beginning of March. While it was after that, that basically the world ended and that everything was shut down. People started working from home. And all my speaking engagements got canceled. I had to shift the publication date of my book, which was supposed to be at the beginning of May. Now it's August 11th that the book is coming. And everything just kind of stopped and shifted forward to this indefinite date in the future when things would open back up and things would be back to normal.

And we thought then that it was going to be, like I said, 15 days to flatten the curve, 15 days to slow the spread or at most 30 days to slow the spread. In March, we even heard from President Trump that it was going to be, maybe it was going to be Easter that things were going to open back up. And we thought, you know what? we're all going to buckle down and do that because we want to get over this and people are dying from this people are getting really sick this is apparently you know we were thinking then not good for the elderly even though we didn't have all the data we knew that that was the case we had some sketchy information coming from the w ho sketchy information coming from china as is typical and so we just thought you know what most people thought we are going to do this together we're all in this

together was what we said and we are going to stay home. We're going to work from home 15 days, 30 days. We can definitely do that. And the idea was when we heard flatten the curve was not that we were going to prevent people from getting it in the long run, but that we were going to alleviate the pressure that would be put on our hospital systems. That was the idea. That was why we heard that we needed to flatten the curve. That, okay, we need to spread the spread. The spread out basically so that we don't have this big spike so that hundreds of thousands of people are getting it at once. Our hospital systems and our ICUs are overwhelmed and people run out of their PPE, people run out of, or hospitals run out of their ventilators. That would be really bad because then

people are going to needlessly die. And so that is why everyone stayed inside. That is why everyone stayed isolated for those first 15 to 30 days. Well, as it turns out, hospitals, most hospitals, The vast majority, I would say 99.9% of hospitals in the United States during that time did not only, did not only not become overwhelmed. They didn't even reach capacity. Most hospitals were under capacity during that time. A lot of hospitals are still under capacity because they thought, okay, we're going to have this massive spike of hospitalizations due to the coronavirus. This was back in March and April. And we don't want to get overwhelmed. So we're going to cancel. elective surgeries, elective procedures, and we are going to make sure that we have all of the staff on deck and all of the supplies and all of the beds and ventilators that we need. And so people who had to even get cancer treatment, people who had to get, you know, knee replacement, hip replacement,

all of these kinds of surgeries that maybe they weren't life-saving, but they were very important for people's health. Well, those were stalled in order to make room for coronavirus patients. Well, that spike, that immediate spike that was supposed to overwhelm our hospitals or at least put them at capacity never came. And so what happened, hospital workers got furloughed. Some people got laid off. Hospitals were having a hard time making insmeat because they just didn't have enough business. And so that didn't work. The 15 days to slow the spread, apparently, apparently it wasn't as necessary as we thought that it was going to be now. You could argue because everyone, one stayed inside. That's why things were under capacity and the lockdown worked how it was supposed to

work. But even states that didn't lock down, they never saw the spike that we were told that we were going to see. And we were also told there were going to be millions of people who were going to die. The most liberal estimates were two million people. And so, of course, we all thought together that we are going to come together, be unified, and we are going to stay inside to try to alleviate the pressure from our hospital systems, that pressure never came. As it turns out, the death rate was a lot lower than we originally thought. We were thinking it was like 1% and 2%, which would be a lot higher than the flu. But as it turns out, for people under the age of 80, the death rate is about 0.1%. So we're talking about a 99.9% in most cases, survival rate for people under 80 years old. And then we were told,

after we slowed the spreader, after we stayed inside for 15 days, after we stayed inside for 30 days, that we still needed to stay inside, that people couldn't send their kids to school in the spring, that people couldn't go back to work, that restaurants still couldn't open. Now, there were some states that said, okay, we'll open at, you know, halfway capacity, or we will allow churches to meet together as long as they are distancing, as long as they're wearing masks, whatever. but we still need to be careful about all this. And then you have a lot of states that have continued to stay locked down.

And we were never told that the goal changed from slowing the spread or flattening the curve to staying inside indefinitely until we get a vaccine. But now you have states like Illinois, for example, that is saying, basically, we're going to stay locked down in a lot of places until there is a vaccine or until there's a cure. Well, we were never told that. Like when did that change? We never had a press conference where someone said where Dr. Fauci or Dr. Burke said, hey, actually we don't just want to slow the spread. It's not just about alleviating pressure from the hospitals. This is actually about waiting around until we have a vaccine or until we have a cure. Well, that obviously made a lot of people restless and that made a lot of people concerned.

How are they going to provide for their families? Not everyone has a job where they can work remotely. Not everyone works for a company that will allow you to work remotely indefinitely because productivity goes down. So the people who have to provide for their families, the people who really want to send their kids to school. So their kids have the socialization that they need so that they have the proper education that they need. They were all told, well, if you're concerned about that at all, if you're concerned about the economy, if you're concerned about your job, if you're concerned about your kids going to school, then you just want to kill your grandma. Like you just don't care about the elderly people. You just don't care about the vulnerable. You don't care about all the people that are going to get sick and die.

You don't care about the frontline workers. You just care about yourself. You're selfish. But that's not true. It is not selfish to think about the people that are made more vulnerable that are put at a high risk from social isolation indefinitely. Again, I think everyone was on the same page when we were given a goal, when we were given a feasible goal, when we were given a timeline that said, okay, this is the goal. This is why we're doing it. This is what we're going to try to do.

And this is how many days we are going to try to do it. Now, I understand things change. I understand new data comes in. You get new information. But that should have been communicated to us better. That, hey, this is the data that we have. This is the new information that we have. And this is why we're telling you to stay inside indefinitely.

But you also, even if you did that, you can't be surprised by the fact that some people are going to not just get restless, but they're going to get desperate. They're going to say, okay, I'm sorry, a virus with a 99.9% survival rate for most people is not enough to keep me. Some people are saying from providing for my family, opening my hair salon, making sure that my employees are able to work and to provide for their families. There are people who struggle with depression, who struggle with anxiety, who struggle with other mental health disorders that depend on the daily or the weekly interaction with their counselors, with their psychologists in order to survive. Certainly in order to thrive, there are people who are dying by suicide because they don't have the weekly interaction with people with their mental health professionals that they were used to. There are people that aren't getting the life-saving procedures that they would have gotten. There are people who aren't getting diagnosed with things like cancer because it's so hard to get an appointment in some places right now.

So there are risks. There are the risk of death for a lot of people, non-COVID-related death for a lot of people because of these lockdowns. But we heard by the powers that be, by the pundits on the internet, by left-wing journalists, that you are selfish if you even talk about the economy. You're selfish if you even talk about jobs. You're selfish if you even talk about the downside of keeping people locked down. We don't actually know if lockdowns are what's helping slow the spread.

And also, it's a lot of. It's not selfish to talk about it when you don't know what the goal is or when the end date is. And so you've got a lot of people restless, a lot of people desperate, a lot of people questioning things because it all seems so political. So there may be a few people out there who think coronavirus is some big conspiracy theory, that it is all a myth that it's not really happening. I certainly am not one of those people. I don't know very many people who actually believe that the coronavirus is.

isn't real. I'm sure there are people out there. I know there are. I've seen them on the internet. I'm sure there are people who think that it's all made up. I am certainly not one of those people. I know people who have had coronavirus who have suffered through coronavirus. I know people who have friends and loved ones who have had to go to the hospital who have been in the ICU, who have been on ventilators. So it's not a fake virus. It is certainly a real virus. The reason, though, why there is so much mistrust, why people are so restless, why they are so desperate, why there are even conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus and why people are so eager to find answers and to find some kind of solid solution to it is because everything is so political, especially

in America. And I think that's why we're in the predicament that we are now, that there are still cases that in some states are rising, that there are still lockdowns happening, there are still headlines every day about the coronavirus several months later. I think one of the reasons is because things are so political. And that's just true about American life in general. We make things more political, I think, than other countries do. Things are very partisan. It was, let's see if I can find it. I read this quote the other day by Alexis de Tocqueville. Basically, it said, like, the whole of American life is, the whole of American life is a fight. The whole of American life is a fight. The whole of American life is either a revolution, you're either living by chance, or you're fighting for

something. And that is so true. Every American generation feels like this is the fight of American history that we are, that we are waging, we are fighting for liberty, we are fighting for our rights, we are fighting for the future. I don't think any generation has felt completely apathetic toward America's future. We always feel like we are on the precipice of losing everything. And I think that's part of what people are feeling right now with these draconian restrictions and the economy tanking and the politicization of a virus and of statistics and of science due to the fact that Trump is president and we're in an election year. And so that creates a lot of mistrust, I think, in the public when you have all of those factors coming together and people are seeing a lot of inconsistency. People are seeing a lot of hypocrisy, not just from people like Dr. Fauci and even the surgeon general. They said a few months ago ardently, passionately, that we should not be buying masks.

Passionately, they said, do not wear a mask. Dr. Fauci was in an interview and he said, oh, you know, a mask might protect you from a large droplet, like launching into your mouth or something like that. But it's really not going to protect you. So don't wear masks. Don't buy masks. The search in general said, stop buying masks. We were told then that it was almost selfish to buy a mask, that if you bought the PPE that the hospitals who we were told were going to get overwhelmed, desperately needed,

then you were selfish. And so I think some people were embarrassed to wear a mask in public just a few months ago. Then we were not told we absolutely had to wear a mask in March. We were not told we absolutely had to wear a mask in April when the cases were highest. We weren't told that in May. but all of a sudden, just over the past few weeks, we have the same passion that came with telling us not to wear masks that is now with telling us to wear masks. And so it's like the thing of bullies right now to say that you are a murderer and you are a terrible person if you do not wear a mask. And I am pro wearing a mask.

I'm fine with that. I have never not complied with the request of businesses. or any location or people for me to wear a mask. It's fine. I was pro-mask when they were telling us not to wear masks. But I do understand that the science is mixed on that. And I do understand that there's a lot of distrust because the experts that we are being told to listen to said just a few months ago, please do not buy masks. Now they're telling us that we have to wear masks, that that's the only thing that's going to slow the spread. You see people outside by themselves, like running in masks. And so I think it's okay for people to be a little bit skeptical about that

and say, hang on, where did this come from and why? Now, I don't understand the passion behind people refusing to wear masks when a private business just request you to. I also don't understand people who get angry at other people who are wearing masks. That's weird. But there are also people who are wearing masks who are getting really angry at other people who are not wearing masks, even when they're by themselves. There was this story in the New York Post about a couple. who was in San Diego, they were having a picnic by themselves, just them and their dog, just by themselves outside. And this old lady comes up with her mask on, and she starts yelling to them about not wearing a mask and sprays pepper spray in their eyes because they're not

wearing a mask. It's crazy. So people have just lost their ever-loving minds and seem to have forgotten that only a couple months ago we were told that masks didn't work. And we were never, again, there wasn't a press conference that told us, hey, I know we said this, now we're saying this, and here is why. I think that that kind of communication would really help all of the chaos that's going on and all of the pushback that's going on. But it's not only that. It's not only moving goalposts. It's not only changing mandates. It's not only the indefinite timelines. it's also the arbitrary nature of some of the policies that some politicians, that some governors are putting forth in their state. And so there was a Supreme Court case that unfortunately went in

the way of the liberal justices. And it was the state of Nevada versus I think it was Calvary Chapel, a church in Nevada. So it was about the arbitrary and discriminatory lockdown policies that the governor had put in place that said, hey, casinos can be open, bowling alleys can be open. Basically, if you are in entertainment in Nevada, you can do whatever you want to. Yes, there are some restrictions, like you have to kind of limit your capacity, but the restrictions for churches were far greater to the point to where churches couldn't even meet with their full congregations, no matter if they were wearing masks, no matter if they were distance or not, but you can go to a casino in Nevada and you can basically do whatever you want. You can be surrounded, you know,

you can surround an entire craps table with a bunch of your friends without wearing masks. And it's no problem in Nevada. But if you go to church and you're six feet apart from everyone except for your family and you're all wearing masks, that's a problem. Well, unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Nevada. Nevada, I'm sorry. I think it's Nevada. Some of you from Nevada always tell me that I say it wrong. The governor of Nevada, they ruled in favor of him, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment. You are not supposed to be discriminating against churches in that way. So I think that that's another reason why there's so much unrest, why there's so much distrust. It's not because of the restrictiveness primarily of the

policies. It's because of the arbitrary nature of the policies, the discrimination against places of worship, for example, just this weekend, Grace Community Church in L.A., that's John McArthur's church, they decided, you know what, we are going to buck up against Gavin Newsom's policy that said that we can't meet together after looking at how arbitrary his policies are. John McArthur actually said this in his sermon. Liquor stores have been able to stay open. Planned parenthood and all abortion clinics have been able to stay open with very few restrictions, but churches have been forced closed for a virus that has a 99.9% survival rate for people under the age of 80. And so, So he said, you know what, we answer to Christ.

We don't answer to Caesar. We don't answer to Gavin Newsom. And so we are going to forge ahead with the body of Christ and we are going to meet together. And more power to them. There were Christians who disagreed with that. But I honestly think it was very important for John McArthur and his church to do that, to stand up and to show the rest of the country, especially Christian America, what it looks like to obey Christ boldly in the face of discriminatory and unjust policies. And I think that's a huge

reason why people are unwilling to submit to a lot of the policies and the restrictions, or they're at least angry about submitting to the policies and restrictions that their governors, that their city officials have put in place because it's so clearly political, it's so clearly discriminatory. It's so clearly partisan. It's so clearly arbitrary. That's what's frustrating people. That plus the gaslighting, and that's the overused word of the century, but it just happened so often. The gaslighting that's happening in the media that is praising Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, and is eviscerating Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, simply because DeSantis is a Republican and Cuomo is a Democrat. Quomo did it.

terrible job. By every measure, he did a terrible job. And yet you have Dr. Fauci coming out and saying, oh, everyone needs to be like New York. Tens of thousands of people died in New York, hundreds of thousands of people got the coronavirus in New York, despite those very strict restrictions and lockdowns. By the way, that was the epicenter. If we didn't have New York in all of their cases, America would be almost nowhere in the running for most coronavirus cases or most coronavirus deaths in the world. I mean, New York really brought us up to the top because they handled it so terribly. And there were also a lot of very disturbing stories from nurses in the hospitals about the mistreatment of patients and just the apathy towards patients and just so quickly putting them on ventilators, which we've actually found out putting people on ventilators, especially too early actually.

kills people with coronavirus, it doesn't help them. But Andrew Cuomo did an absolutely terrible job for the first time in 100 years. Not until May. Not until May did they sanitize the subway system. They didn't stop running the subway system at night until May. He sent positive coronavirus patients back into nursing homes before they were actually healed. Ron DeSantis didn't do those things. Now, you can criticize Ronda Santis. I think it's fine for journalists to do that. But to criticize Ron DeSantis and then praise Andrew Cuomo, that is the kind of hypocrisy. That's the kind of duplicitousness and obvious partisanship that makes people not trust the media. And plus, the media have been fearmongers about this all along.

They highlight the very rare cases of a young, healthy person dying in order to propagate panic porn. And people see that. And then they weigh it against the data. And they say, okay, well, this isn't a real representation of what's going on. I don't think I can trust the media at all. I don't think I can trust the experts at all because of these shifting goalpost. And so you have a lot of people pushing back.

On top of all of that, I think this was the real thing that did it were the protests. And so we were told, you have to stay inside. You can't bury your dead mom. You can't bury your dead child. You can't have the funeral that you want. You can't have the wedding that you want. You can't have the honeymoon that you want. you can't have the celebrations, the graduations that you want, all of these major milestones,

some really good, some really tragic. You can't celebrate those. If you are someone who struggles with manic depression, you can't go in and see your counselor, you can't go in and see your psychologist. If you have a certain procedure in order to help whatever aspect of your health, this procedure would help, you can't go do that. You have to put all of that off. Everyone had to make these huge major sacrifices, life-altering sacrifices in their lives. Kids had to be plucked out of school without any consent, without any explanation whatsoever. Kids who at home suffer from abuse, they suffer from neglect, they suffer sometimes from sexual abuse. They were now forced into isolation in their homes without any respite. A lot of kids, their only place of refuge

is the school. That's the only where they only place they get their welfare checks. Well, they were forced into dangerous situations by staying at home people lost their jobs. And so we all made these huge sacrifices despite the politicization of the virus, despite the shifting goalposts, despite the discriminatory policies of a lot of these politicians and governors. And then all of a sudden, at the end of May, beginning of June, there are hundreds of thousands of people out in the street protesting, some of them with masks, some of them not with masks. And not only that, but then you have rioters, you had looters, you had people burning down buildings and still to this day, 60 plus days later, you have people who are rioting and looting and burning in the streets of

Portland and Seattle, in Denver, and Chicago, and New York, many of them without masks. I'll just show you this one video that is just a perfect depiction of what's going on in a lot of places. And so, yeah, people are going to look at that and they're going to to say, wait, hang on, I couldn't bury my mom who died of cancer a couple months ago, but these people can twerk without masks on, like literally thousands of people slammed together body to body. And you won't see one headline about it. In fact, we were told back in the beginning of June when people were saying, hang on. So, so what? Coronavirus is over, is over now? you had people, you had people in the media saying, putting out headlines saying the protests aren't

going to cause a spike in coronavirus. No, the protests are not to blame. No, this has nothing to do with the protests whatsoever. The spike that we're seeing two weeks after the George Floyd protest, nothing to do with coronavirus whatsoever. We were told that if we tried to go back to work or if we wanted to provide for our families or if we wanted to do the things that we have to do to survive and to provide for ourselves, then we were murders, that we were ruthless, that we were heartless, that we lacked compassion, that we didn't care about old people. And then you had people body to body thousands of people in the street, not just peacefully protesting, although I believe that those people do have the First Amendment right to peacefully protest. I don't believe in restricting their

ability to peacefully protest, even in a pandemic. I don't think the First Amendment is dependent on whether or not we are in a pandemic or not. My point is that it's clearly political, that it's clearly arbitrary, that the media has a narrative that they want to push, that they want to push the panic porn when it's convenient for them. But when they want to support the protest, they're going to support the protest. I'll put up on the screen, there are two tweets by, there are two tweets by CNN on the same day, and I'll read them to you.

Here's the first tweet, CNN, nearly two months after George Floyd's death. set off massive national and international protests. Black Lives Matter demonstrations are still happening at places around the U.S. And so it shows a whole big picture of the protesters all slammed together. Some of them wearing masks, some of them not. Same day. Video from a Northern California outdoor religious concert shows hundreds of people crowding together and most of them not wearing masks,

drawing criticism from a local health department that says the gathering violated state coronavirus rules. So CNN and the rest of the liberal media are concerned with the coronavirus when it comes to religious people meeting together, but not when it comes to protesters, protesting, rioters, rioting, looters, looting, and arsonists, arsoning, burning buildings on, putting buildings on fire. So that is the duplicinists that a lot of people are seeing, that a lot of people are disturbed by. So if you want to know why we're still in this predicament, why there's a debate, over masks, why there's a debate over distancing, why there is a pushback to a lot of these policies, it is not because people don't care. You have to understand that the reason is because

people have made this political. Politicians have made this political. Politicians have tried to use the coronavirus as a bludgeon against Trump, even when he's done the right things. I'm not saying he's done the right things all along, but when he has done the right things, they have still try to manipulate it to blame the entire thing on Trump. The politicians that have failed, like Andrew Cuomo, still trying to blame it on Trump. You've got people like Lori Lightfoot, the failed mayor of Chicago trying to blame it on Trump. And then you have the media praising the protests, saying nothing about the coronavirus, finding so-called experts to come out and say, oh, no, the protests have nothing to do with coronavirus spikes whatsoever. But these religious

gatherings do. Even churches that have families that are distanced. wearing masks inside their buildings. They're the reason for the spike. The people who just want to provide for their families, they're the reason for the spike. When you see the teachers union in L.A. saying that the only way that we are going to open back up is if you ban charter schools,

if you defund the police, if you provide Medicare for all, and you do all of these things that are on our far-left agenda, you see that this is not about health for a lot of people. It's obviously not about the health of the kids. I mean, teachers unions, I will keep saying this. I might say this every episode until it happens. Abolish freaking teachers unions.

They're evil. They're evil. I've talked to so many of you public school teachers over the past few days and a couple weeks who have realized that being a part of the union is probably not in your best interest. It's certainly not in the best interest of the country. But you were told when you became a teacher, you were a young teacher, and you were told you have to join the teacher's union or else if you get sued, you're not going to have anyone to represent you or pay your legal fees. And so you're bullied

into it because they want more people so they have more voting power, so they have more sway over the politicians. They just want more power. It's like any bloated bureaucracy. That's what a teacher's union is. It exists for itself. It doesn't exist for the teachers. It doesn't exist for the students. If you're curious about this, you can go back and listen to last Friday's episode with Corey DeAngelis. We talk about this a lot more teachers unions are evil. And by the way, we shouldn't have public unions in the first place. Public unions are immoral, even police unions. I don't believe that we should have police unions. Our tax dollars are going to these public unions, and then they are using our tax dollars to fund politicians that most of us Republicans are not voting for.

And so it's immoral. It's unethical. It's wrong. We shouldn't have public unions. We especially shouldn't have teachers unions that are constantly fighting against school choice for students, which it's, disproportionately affects minority and poor students. They don't want charter schools, which have a much better performance and success rates than these public schools do. And so people see things like this, the politicization of all of this. And they realize that for a lot of people, for a lot of people in the media, unfortunately, for a lot of people in teachers unions, for a lot of politicians, who are arbitrarily covering these stories, who are arbitrarily slapping on restriction, who are arbitrarily or discriminatorily deciding how, under what demands they are willing to go back to

school so kids can get an education, they're realizing that it's just not sincere, that it's not about health. And so you just can't blame people for being skeptical about it all. That is why we are in this mess. If it wasn't political, then we could all say, okay, this is really happening. This is really what the data says. Let's hold every politician to the same standard. Let's hold Donald Trump to the same standard that we held.

Obama during the swine flu. Let's hold DeSantis to the same standard that we are holding Cuomo. Let's not generate panic porn on a daily basis and pick these most extreme and rare cases of the very young and healthy person dying. Let's cover this in a way that is actually representative of what's going on. Let's be communicative about why we change to the goals, why we're waiting around until there's a vaccine, why we decided it's important to wear masks. Let's hold the protesters and the rioters and the looters, especially to the same standards that we hold the people who are worshiping together. Like, let's hold everyone to the same standards. Let's stop making this partisan. Let's stop making this political. And I guarantee you, people will take your advice and take

your guidelines and take your restrictions more seriously. If there actually is a way to crush this so that there are no more cases, then we are going to have to start by making this not political. But if we're not willing to make it not political, then I don't believe that you're, that you really desire for the coronavirus to go away. I just don't. I think that this is more about for some people making sure that Trump doesn't get reelected. And in order to do that, you've got to create as much chaos as possible. Well, the rioting and alluding contributes to the chaos that a lot of people believe will help Trump lose in November. And so they can't demonize those, but so does lingering coronavirus. And so I'm not saying that all of this is a myth. I'm not saying that all of

this is a conspiracy theory. I just think a lot of people, unfortunately, are capitalizing on these flashpoints in order to create as much chaos as possible to make sure that Trump doesn't get reelected. Absolutely. I mean, this is really a tactic of either side, but this is certainly, especially a leftist tactic to create as much chaos as possible to create problems and then to present themselves as the solution. That is what they always do. Whether there is a problem or not, they create a problem. They say that there's a problem and then they present themselves as a solution. For example, Joe Biden tweeted the other day that, you know, women, especially women of color, haven't had a fair shake in America. When I become president, I'm going to make sure that women work. Well, female unemployment is the lowest that it was the lowest that it had ever been under President Trump. This whole idea of a wage gap between men and women in America is false. There is not a wage gap between men and women when you control for all factors. So when you look at job experience, when you look at education, your education background, when you look at job title, when you look at all the factors that play into what job you have

and how much you get paid, men and women make the exact same thing. One dollar for every dollar that a man makes, a woman makes. That statistic, 79 cents to every dollar that a man makes, that they tell all the time is the discriminatory gender wage gap that has nothing to do with discrimination. There is no evidence that has anything to do with discrimination. It has everything to do with what the choices most of the time that women make. They either choose to be a caretaker. They choose to stay home more.

They choose not to work overtime as much as their male counterparts do. They have different majors. They have different kinds of jobs. They have different strengths and talents. I mean, there is nothing. There's no discrimination that is stopping women from having some of the jobs like electricians and plumbers that are these blue collar hands. hands-on jobs, but make a good amount of money. A lot of women would rather not work than do a job

like that. That's simply not true of most men. Most men are willing to do any job, no matter how dirty, no matter how grimy, no matter how hands-on in order to work, in order to provide for themselves and their families. It's not a knock on women. It's just a difference in women. So this is just one example of something that Democrats constantly do. They create a problem and then they present themselves's solution. Now, I will say, Republicans can do the same thing, not in the exact same way, but the fact of the matter is, here's the ugly truth about partisan politics, probably anywhere, but maybe especially in America, is that neither party would be able to effectively campaign. Neither party would ever win if there weren't problems that they know get their base riled up.

So, for example, if the borders were completely closed, like if, we built a wall around America and even like between California and the rest of the union. Like if we built a wall to make sure that no illegal immigrants could ever get in, if we deported all illegal immigrants in the country, well then Republicans wouldn't have something to campaign on quite as much. They wouldn't be able to talk about MS-13. They wouldn't be able to talk about this issue that a lot of Republicans care about. If they actually solved the issue, they wouldn't be able to capitalize on the fear that a lot of people have or the concern that a lot of people have of illegal immigration. So there almost isn't an incentive to actually solve the problem.

And that goes for a lot of different problems. For example, if abortion was completely abolished, that would take away a very big portion of the Republican platform, of the Republican ability to campaign on a moral concern that a lot of Republicans. Republicans have. And the same goes for Democrats. Now, I think that it's worse personally on the, on the Democratic side. And maybe that's just my bias showing. But it seems like they actually create the problems, not just allow them to linger, but create the problems or say that there's a problem when there's not a problem. And then they say that they're the solution. Something that you have to realize about the Democratic side as well is that they would not

exist if people didn't believe that they were oppressed. They have to have people. who are poor and who think that the reason that they're poor is because of mean Republicans or who think the reason that they're poor is because of rich people. They have to have people who believe that they are constantly being put down by the man who haven't had a fair shake in life because the Democratic platform is saying, yeah, you have been oppressed by systems. It has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with your choices, and the Democratic Party has to come in, the government has to come in and save you. that is basically the entirety of the Democratic platform. And so if people weren't poor, if people were not oppressed, if there was no inequality, then the Democrats wouldn't have

anything to campaign on. So you have to see that they also have an incentive to keep those problems that they're talking about solving going in order to defeat Republicans. And so that's just the ugly reality of the two-party system. That's the ugly reality of partisanship in America is that both parties in a way are incentivized to make sure that the problems that they campaign on are continuing problems, that they linger forever. And that is why we, as Christians, really anyone, but especially as Christians, we can't trust any president or any politician to save us. They're just not going to. And I'm not saying that all politicians are bad, but it is the nature of politics to overpromise to under-deliver.

to exacerbate, exaggerate, to let linger problems that maybe could easily be solved and maybe most Americans are on board with. But unfortunately, a lot of politicians, they get votes because of chaos. They get votes because of division. They get votes because of false narratives, of false narratives of oppression for women, for example. And so there is an incentive, unfortunately. in Washington, D.C. and in even local politics to make sure that people are divided, to make sure that there is chaos, to make sure that people are envious of each other, that groups hate each other, that there is a lot of resentment against each other, that people stay either actually oppressed or feel that they're oppressed. And you also have to understand, I mean, a party like the Democrats,

who prop up institutions like the Teachers Union, who prop up abortion mills like Planned Parenthood, they're talking about, you know, caring about black lives. They're talking about caring about the poor. They're talking about caring about the vulnerable. Well, you've got two very vulnerable groups right there. You've got poor children that desperately need school choice in charter schools. And you've got babies in the womb, the most defenseless class of people in this country, that the Democrats cannot bring themselves to defend.

And they also, by the way, most Democrats cannot call out China, who has over a million Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps where they're or organs are being harvested, where they are forced into slave labor, where the women in China are having forced abortions and forced sterilization procedures, where their babies are being ripped from their arms as soon as they're born because they violated the policy in China, which says that Uyghur women are only allowed to have one or two children. It's interesting that conservatives in America seem to be the ones predominantly calling that out.

And Democrats who claim that they care about oppression, who claim that they care about the least of these, they can't bring themselves to stand up. for kids going to school, they can't bring themselves to stand up for babies in the womb, they can't bring themselves to stand up for the very marginalized and oppressed in China. And don't tell me that it's just because, by the way, that they are focused on domestic problems because most of those Democrats who are not willing to call out China have no problem with calling out Israel. And so we can't pretend like they take issue with criticizing international affairs. It just depends on who it is. And by the way, not just.

the politicians, but also these woke corporations like Nike, who use slave labor from China in order to make their products. I'm not someone who rallies people to boycott. I'm not someone who is going to say like, oh, you're not a good person. If you don't boycott Nike, that is the decision that my family and I have made. And I understand that kind of makes me responsible to look at where all my clothes are made. And I'll just admit, Like, I haven't done that, but Nike being so hypocritical saying they care about so-called racial and social justice here in the United States, Kaepernick saying that he cares about those things and using slave labor to make their items. And not only that, but they are unwilling to talk about the injustices that go on in China against millions of people there.

It's not, by the way, just the Uyghur Muslims that are being discriminated against. also Christians. It's also Africans. China is colonizing Africa and South America. They're catching these poor countries and debt traps by saying, here, we'll build a railway here that's going to generate a lot of money. When it generates a lot of money, you can pay us back. They know that these poor countries, that these railways are not going to generate a lot of money. These countries won't be able to pay China back. And then they will be caught in a debt trap to China, and they will be indebted to China and China will be able to take over. That's what's happening from China in continents like South America and Africa.

And the people here who are so woke, who support Nike, who support Colin Kaepernick, who support Apple, all of these organizations and these people who talk about the importance of fighting against oppression and injustice, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them have nothing to say about China. The Democratic Party is eerily quiet. Not all of them. But compared to conservatives and Republicans, they're eerily quiet when it comes to China. I mean, they won't even call, they get so mad when it's called the China virus.

They call it the Trump virus. Well, that doesn't make any sense. It didn't originate here. It didn't come from here. It came from China. So I just be careful. Be careful who you, um, whose narratives you latch on to. And I'm not trying to convince you to be a Republican.

Believe it or not, that's never been the goal of this podcast, just realize that a lot of the people who say that they care for the poor, the marginalized, the, oppressed, they can't bring themselves. Like the Democratic Party, they just cannot bring themselves to defend some of the most marginalized and the most oppressed, not just in our country, but in the world. And so I don't understand where they get off in trying to make that kind of argument. Again, you could argue that Republicans have their own lack of compassion that you can criticize, but you can't say that the better alternative, the more compassionate alternative is

the Democratic Party. There's just absolutely no evidence of that. And there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. Abortion, their support of China, their desire to abolish charter schools. I mean, you just, you can't tell me that they care for the oppressed in any way, shape, or form. Okay. Kind of went off on a tangent there. Let's see.

There was one piece of encouragement that I just wanted to leave you with. Let's see if I wrote it down. there was, I was reading in Romans. I believe it's Romans, is it Romans 4, 5? No, Romans 3, 4 and then Romans 416 through 25. I was reading the other day and I just wanted to encourage you. So Romans 3, 4 says, let God be true, though everyone were a liar. And then Romans 416 through 25 says God can do anything and will keep his promises. We hope against hope in the same way that Abraham hoped against hope that God was going to. make from him a nation, even though he knew that he was old and age, even though he knew that his wife Sarah was barren. He hoped in God. He believed in God. And the Bible said it was counted to him as righteousness. And as Romans 3-4 says, let God be true, though everyone were a liar. So in this chaotic world where you feel like you are alone, you feel like you are completely isolated, maybe among your friends, among your community, maybe among your family or even

among your church when you are the only one who you feel has clung to the truth amidst all of this madness and hasn't bought into the social justice divisive narrative that is being propagated by so many people, both in and outside of the church. Our reliance should be on the word of God and on Jesus Christ himself, who the Bible says is the same yesterday, today, and forever. and even if everyone were a liar, even if the entire world around you is lying, is propagating myths and narratives that you know are not true, that does not change the truth of God. You can rest on the fact that God does not change. You can rely on His Word, which is our objective source of wisdom and truth and peace

and the standards of righteousness and good and evil. You don't have to be on this hamster wheel of trying to figure out what is true and what is right and what is good. God has graciously given us that standard in his word. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar. Everyone around us, it might seem like some days is a liar. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone is partisan. Everyone is picking and choosing the things that they talk about and cover. And that's just kind of human nature. And you might feel like you don't know what to believe, but we can trust in the fact that God is true, that his word is true, that it's infallible, that it's an errant.

And in this crazy, ever-changing world where truth is subjective and elusive, we can trust in that. And that gives us so much peace. And like Abraham, we can hope against hope. We can look around us and say, it doesn't seem like God is going to deliver us. It doesn't seem like we can ever reconcile. It doesn't seem like there's a way forward. It seems like the only future that we have is one of suffering and chaos. We know as Christians that that is not true, whether it's on earth or whether it is in heaven.

there will be perfect unified peace and the absolute defeat of evil. And we can hope for that. Even when in the same way that Abraham looked around and it looked like there was no way that God could answer or fulfill his promises, we can trust just like Abraham did that he will. Even if circumstances seem dire, even if things seem impossible, God will be glorified. That is always his number one goal. He will be glorified.

And that's Christians. His glory is always our good. So I encourage you to read Romans 3 and 4. I also encourage you if you didn't memorize Romans 8 with us a couple months ago to read that, especially the last few verses. There are just no more confidence-inducing verses than the last few verses of Romans 8. So I just wanted to end with some positivity after all of this craziness. Okay, I'll be back here on Friday with another awesome interview.

I'll see you then.