The Daily Signal - #419: Want to Live a Better Life? You Can Start by Loving Your Enemies

Episode Date: March 17, 2019

On today’s show we talk with Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, about his new book, “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.” At a time when politics is dividing families and everyone seems angry, Brooks provides some real-life solutions.Also on today’s show:• Mykala Steadman shares a story about how photos of dogs have kept a young girl and her family smiling through adversity.• Your letters to the editor. Next week your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Ricochet Audio Network. You also can listen on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts.If you like what you hear, please leave a review or give us feedback. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, March 18th. I'm Rob Lewy. And I'm Rachel Dald Judith. Today we're speaking with Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book, Love Your Enemies. At a time when politics is dividing families

and everyone seems angry, Arthur provides some real-life solutions. We also have your letters to the editor and a story about how photos of dogs have kept a young girl and her family smiling through adversity. But before we begin, we'd like to ask you to help us spread the word about the Daily Signal podcast. Please give us a five-star review on iTunes and share this episode with your family and friends. That will help us make sure that we're continuing to grow and reach more listeners. Stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We're joined on the Daily Signal podcast by a leader whom I have long admired and I consider a role model. Arthur Brooks, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Rob. Great to be with you. It's great to have you. You are the president of the American Enterprise Institute. Correct. Think Tank that we work closely with here at the Heritage Foundation. Host of the Arthur Brooks Show, which I encourage our listeners to subscribe to. And author of the brand new book, Love Your Enemies, How Decent People Can Save America from the

culture of contempt. So let's begin. Tell us what you mean about that culture of contempt. Well, contempt is a funny word. It sounds like anger or something, but it's different. I had this experience who was interesting to me. I mean, as a president of a think tank, I do what presidents of think tanks do, which is not very much thinking in tanks. I'm mostly on the road giving speeches and raising funds to support our operations. And I was giving a talk some years ago in New Hampshire at a conservative event. People who are listening to this might have been there, as a matter of fact. It was a slate of presidential candidates, one after the other. And somehow, this president of a think tank snuck in there on the schedule. I got there a little early

and I was listening. And they were presidential candidates doing what they always do, which is basically going out to a sympathetic crowd and saying, you're right and the other side is stupid and evil. And so in the middle of my talk, I thought, you know, I don't have to run for anything. I'm president of AI. I just have to do a good job. And I also realized. that I have a moral obligation to try to make people better. So I said to the audience, I said, look, you and I agree on foreign policy and on domestic policy and on economics. I mean, we're all conservatives here.

But I want you to remember the liberals who aren't here. And I want you to remember they're not stupid and evil. They're simply people who disagree with us. And we need to persuade them, right? Because that's really what our business is persuasion. And this lady, I didn't get an applause line for that. But this lady afterward did because she said, I think they're stupid and evil. And I thought to myself, you know, I thought to myself, you know,

Look, I grew up in Seattle in a progressive family. You know, my mother was a painter. My father was a professor. I mean, what do you think their politics were in Seattle? And that lady was insulting my family. She didn't mean to, but I thought to myself, that's different than anger. And that's a freight train coming down the tracks. That was 2014.

You know, contempt takes his anger and mixes in disgust. And what's really ripping our country apart is that we're not persuading each other. We're locking down into camps that are trying to shell each other. unsuccessfully, by the way, I mean, if we want as conservatives to really have a coalition that's going to be successful in politics in America for a long time, we need to persuade a lot of people in the middle and even on the left. And what we're doing right now, treating others with contempt, treating them as if they're utterly worthless and them treating us in the same way is fundamentally unproductive. And here's the best part, Rob. I did a lot of research on this. And this is all in love your enemies.

It shows that if you treat other people with contempt, you become unhappy as a person. So here's the offer. Because this is not just a book of problems. It's the book of solutions. The how-to book on how to live a better life. If you want to persuade more people that the conservative cause is appropriate and correct, if you want to be happier and you want to be more successful as a leader, do the stuff I say in the book.

And, you know, I pretty much guarantee it's going to work because it worked for me. Well, your other books certainly have had a big influence on my life. So I hope that this one has an influence on those who right now are struggling. with the situation where you call it the outrage industrial complex. We're more polarized today than at any time since the Civil War. You've even said that some families have stopped talking to other family members because of politics. One in six. One in six Americans have stopped talking entirely to a family member or a close friend because of political differences.

That is insane. I mean, look, I got big political differences with people. I mean, my politics are well-known. I believe in free enterprise. I believe in American leadership. But look, if somebody doesn't believe that the way I do, I don't think that that person is a contemptible person. I just think that they have incorrect ideas. And I have zero percentage chance of actually persuading that person if I stop talking to them.

And especially if I treat that person with hatred. So how does somebody love their enemies? By the way, I love the title that it comes from the Gospel of Luke, Love Your Enemies. Or the Gospel of Matthew. Because in both, you know, Jesus says to, his followers, love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you. And it's this incredibly subversive teaching. A lot of people who are listening to us have read the Gospels and they've tried to take them to heart. And yet all of us, we have trouble to live in that one. I mean,

basically the subversive truth behind that, Love Your Enemies, is actually not that you should do something that's impossible. It's by treating somebody that you thought was your enemy, not as your enemy, by loving that person, you're doing something that will destroy the illusion that that person was your enemy after all. And if you don't get satisfaction, if you don't change that person's heart, at very least you'll change your own. That's the subversive teaching of Jesus Christ in those passages. And so the reason I use that is because I actually think, you know, when I read Lincoln's first inaugural, you know, we are not enemies, but friends. What he's saying basically is I destroy the illusion of enemy status by treating people in that particular way. And again, those, a lot of

people listening to us, almost everybody listening to us, I'm going to say, are conservatives that want to persuade the rest of the country, don't ruin the opportunity to persuade other Americans by giving in to the desire, giving into the itch of treating other people with contempt. Contempt is this, it's kind of a metastatic phenomenon. It's like cancer, basically. When you treat somebody with contempt, you make a permanent enemy. You just can't go back from that. You have to be a master of yourself, you know, when you're stimulant.

And why do we do that? Because they treat us with contempt. I got it. You know, you go on Twitter, which is a contempt machine. You talk about politics maybe around the dining room table, Thanksgiving with, you know, Uncle Joe or whatever, and he disagrees with you. And the tendency is for people to not separate us from our ideas and to say, since I disagree with your ideas and your ideas are contemptible, you're a contemptible person. Well, they're being manipulated by leaders on their own side in media and politics, and we answer in kind. And in a very strong way, we're manipulated by leaders in media and politics and entertainment

and on campuses on our side too. Break the cycle. Get the power. Be happier. I would hope so. Well, as I said earlier, your books have really had a profound impact in terms of the way I think about communicating and working. I mean, the conservative heart, a book that you previously wrote, direct impact in terms

of the work that we're doing at the Daily Signal, for instance. I love the Daily Signal and I love what you've done, Rob. You're the brain behind the Daily Signal and this incredible success. A young guy. I mean, how old are you? Almost 40. You're almost 40. But with that head of hair, I can be president of the United States.

But that's not my point. But you have, you've been a leader in conservative communications. And not just because you're better at being a battering ram, you know, kicking down somebody's door and saying, behold, the gospel of conservatism. You've made it winsome. And that's what we need to do. We need to draw people to us. we will lose if we're not magnetic.

And by the way, if they're my brothers and sisters on the political left, they have the same problem. They're being brutalized, manipulated by people on their own side, just like conservative leaders are doing to the 93% of Americans who hate how divided we've become. So listen to the Daily Signal. Listen to Rob Bluey. Listen to how we can become more magnetic. And more than anything else, don't waste the opportunity to love your family members and your friends just because they disagree with you. Oh, it's so true. I do have to say, though, you pushed me to think really differently because I'm somebody

who was always preaching civility and tolerance. But yet you say in the book, those aren't adequate solutions. So explain to our listeners why we need to think bigger than that. Yeah, you know, I actually hear people are always asking for three things. Civility, tolerance, and agreement. Yes, right? And those are all terrible. Right.

And here's the reason. And it's not, you know, I saw a guy wearing a shirt on a college campus that said, you know, we don't need civility. What he meant was we need to hate each other because the other side is so deplorable and so terrible. And, you know, he was a radical. But that's not what I mean at all. If I told you, Rob, you know, because you're married, man, right? I am, yes. What's your wife's name?

Melissa. And Melissa, and if you said, if you came to me and said, you know, Melissa and I were civil to each other, I'd say, Rob, you guys need counseling. And if you ask me how things are going to the American Enterprise Institute, and I said, you know, my employees, my 280 beloved employees, they tolerate me. You'd say, you've got a big morale problem. Those are low standards, actually. And America is trying to settle for low standards. That's not right. Now, the wrong standard is agreement.

You know, this is a key thing. The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, are based on the fact that competition brings excellence. It brings excellence in democratic politics. You don't want one candidate in an election. That's competition in sports, in the economy. The free enterprise system has lifted billions out of poverty through competition. And in the competition of ideas, which is what's really propelling progress in the world today, you can't just have agreement.

You've got to have disagreement. And so the point in my book is we don't need to disagree less. We need to disagree better. And that comes on the back of remembering that we're all brothers and sisters and we need to persuade each other. And even if we have to not agree, that's okay too. That's great. Thank you for that answer. You have what you've described as one of the most unusual relationships, probably in Washington or throughout the world. And that's your friendship with the Dalai Lama, the president of the American Enterprise Institute and the Dalai Lama. How has his thinking shaped your own and influenced this book, Love Your Enemies? It's the Dalai Lama, as some people who are listening know maybe most, he's the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.

He's the world's most famous Buddhist. And actually, if you read and believe some surveys, he's the most respected religious figure in the world. The Dalai Lama was exiled when he was 24 years old. He was thrown at a Tibet. He was the leader, spiritual and political leader of Tibet. And the Chinese communists rolled through Tibet. Why? Because they did what dictators and tyrants always do is they kick out,

poor people, weak people, so they can grab their resources. And Tibet is the, and contains a vast landmass with only 6 million people that contains the headwaters of all the big Chinese rivers. So the Chinese communists roll through, kick out the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama goes into exile, poor, disappeared, forgotten, and over the next 60 years becomes the world's most respected religious figure. How did he do it? And the answer is, when he was treated with contempt, he answered with love and warm-heartedness.

And that's what he has shared with me. I've been working with the Dalai Lama for six and a half years. We've written together in the New York Times and the Washington Post. We're talking about a series of seminars for young people. I see him twice a year and I have great love and respect for him. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm a Christian. I mean, and my Christian faith is at the center of my life.

But I have to say, the world's most famous Buddhist has made me a better Christian because he reminds me to love my enemies. So I asked him this. I said, because, you know, Rob, I feel contempt sometimes. You know, I'm going, I'm on the front lines of fighting these battles to bring free enterprise to the people who need it, the people who need the dignity and you need the opportunity. I mean, poverty is the thing I care about the most. And I know that the poverty killer is capitalism. And I want to bring that.

And I hear people who disagree with me who say that capitalism is stupid, American leadership should go by the wayside. I'm thinking, no, no. If you love your brothers and sisters, we need this. And sometimes I think they're so wrongheaded that I treat them with disgust. And that makes permanent enemies. And so I ask the Dalai Lama, you know, when I am treated with contempt and I feel contempt in return, what should I do?

And he's very sage. He's an 84-year-old Buddhist. And he says, well, two things. Number one is to expand the space between stimulus and a response. So it's a fancy sort of Buddhist way of saying you feel something. Be the master of yourself. Wait to respond and choose your response as opposed to responding the way that you feel. Your mother was a Buddhist master because she said,

Rob, count to 10 before you answer when you're angry. She wasn't a Buddhist master. It's worldwide knowledge. Right. And then what do you put in the slot after you're treated with contempt on Twitter or around the Thanksgiving table or wherever? And the answer is change somebody's heart by changing your own. And even if you don't feel love, even if you don't feel warmhearted or kindness, you can choose to act that way. And in so doing, you'll set your own heart on fire. Nobody's ever said, you know, I wish I had been a big jerk in that situation. You know, people say somebody treated me with hatred and I answer with love. And that would make your mother. proud that would make your children proud because they saw you do that and it'll set your heart on fire and you have a fighting chance. And I've got I've got stories all throughout love your enemies, all throughout this book of how people have done that by accident in my own case, on purpose and they've persuaded other people for the very first time.

I love the story that you tell about when you were a professor at Syracuse and this gentleman from Texas wrote an angry, quite lengthy email to you. And I've had a lot of. I've have the same thing happened to me. And I'll tell you, in fact, we publish every Monday letters to the editor on The Daily Signal. And we publish people who think we're doing a good job, people who take strong disagreements with us. But you're absolutely correct. And when you actually take the time to respond to somebody and not in an angry or contemptuous way, but actually have a thoughtful response or just let them know that you've read their note, it does. It does foster sometimes a relationship, at least goodwill.

Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. And it just makes you feel better because you're living up to your own moral standards. I mean, we're all walking around talking about loving our enemies and treating other people with kindness and respect. And then we don't do it. You know, you get a Twitter message from somebody that says you're a moron. You said, no, you're a moron. I mean, like, come on, man. I mean, what you've done is you foreclosed any opportunity to feel better to be happier. In this book, by the way, this book is only 10% problems. This book is 90% solutions. It's a step-by-step approach to live a better, happier life and to be more persuasive and to get more converts to your cause. And here's actually the amazing thing. When somebody treats you with contempt and you write back or you answer with warm-heartedness and love, no matter how you feel, the people who are watching the interaction, they all go your way. I didn't know this until somebody taught me this and I tried it a bunch of times. And it's absolutely true.

So when in the Daily Signal, somebody says, dear moron, and you answer, thank you for reading the Daily Signal. the people who are watching that say, I like the guy who answered with love. Not the guy who started the whole conversation with an insult and with hatred. It's an interesting thing. When I look at these data that 93% of Americans hate

how divided we become as a country, that doesn't mean they don't have opinions. I mean, most of the people, virtually all the people listening to us and who are going to be reading the transcript of this conversation, they hate how divided we are as a country, but they have strong opinions.

Most of them agree with you and me about conservative ideas. Now, here's the problem. we're being kind of kicked around by the 7% who don't hate how divided we become as a country, in media, in politics, in entertainment on college campuses that are firing people up on right and left, by the way. I mean, people say because the president of the United States is the president, they can look at his example and when he fires people up and says the contemptuous things. But just because the Democrats don't have the presidency doesn't mean that their leaders are not doing the same thing.

And people in the media are there, you know, networks and hopes. and people are getting rich and famous. One of the things that I recommend in this book is a very tangible step of, I talk about how you can communicate in very, very, you know, concrete ways. Five loving messages for everyone that's critical, that sort of thing. I mean, I've got a step-by-step approach. But I also give this suggestion that when you're being manipulated by somebody on your own side, you've got to mute that person. If you stay off Twitter, for example, if you're on Twitter, you're going to think that we're, you know, one half an hour away from a civil war. If you get off Twitter for one week, or I don't know, give it up for Lent, you're going to think that America's not so bad.

Well, which is it? And the answer is the latter because you go live in the 93% land of Americans who don't hate each other. You had a fascinating conversation, which I encourage our listeners to check out with Chuck Todd of NBC News. You can find it on Arthur's Twitter feed. Just go to Ad Arthur Brooks. And you talk about this in greater detail and social media's impact and kind of the phases that we are in when it comes. to things like Twitter. So we'll let them check it out and check out the book for more.

I want to shift topics because last year I was listening to your podcast when you told the story of Hawk Newsom, the president of the leader of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York. And I was so inspired by your conversation with him and the fact that you were talking to this Black Lives Matter leader that I wrote to Hawk and Hawk invited me to a cigar bar and the South Bronx, and I went, and I interviewed Hawk for this show. And we aired the segment in early February. I have to admit, I was a little out of my comfort zone when I showed up, but it was such a rewarding experience to talk to somebody and find out how much common ground we do have.

How do we go about finding other people like Hawk and encourage more of this? Yeah. I mean, America is an entrepreneurial country. I mean, we, everybody who's listening to us, basically, we, basically, we. what we all having, we have different stories. I mean, we have, you know, some were scratching out potatoes in Ireland, four generations ago. Some were running from a scheddle in Eastern Europe.

And some were brought to this country involuntarily. I mean, we've got all different stories of people who are listening to this podcast. But what we all have in common is that we descend from ambitious riffraff and that we're entrepreneurial. But the problem that we have in America today is we've forgotten what real entrepreneurship means. Entrepreneurship is not about startup capital and getting to IPO and companies. that's fine, but that's minor.

Real entrepreneurship is taking a risk with the enterprise of your life. And the way that you do that is by putting your capital at risk. It means Rob Blewey going to a cigar bar in the South Bronx and hanging out with a guy who's six foot six who runs Black Lives Matter of Greater New York. That is heavy. That is such an entrepreneurial thing to do. And yet that's what we're not doing. So what I want to encourage everybody to do is to figure out the way that they can be personal

entrepreneurs, have a startup life starting today. And there are a bunch of different ways to do that. We have people in their 20s listening to us today. I have data that show that they're about a third less likely to be in love than people were when they were my age. And the reason is because they're fearful. The reason is that they're afraid of personal exposure to risk and to be rejected. I've got the data. I know this is true.

And so if you want to be a personal entrepreneur, you're not until you're actually exposing your heart to getting crushed because you're – and by the way, the average entrepreneur has 3.8 bankruptcies before a successful. startup, you need 3.8 ugly breakups before you have a successful relationship. But you can't get there unless you go through that. Okay, that's one example. Example number two is Rob Bluey with the guy who runs Black Lives Matter. Be the

Rob Bluey who's going to, and by the way, I've met with him too, and I reached out to that guy when I read his story and we've become friends and I'm going to have him, after I leave AEI, I'm going to go teach at Harvard, and I'm going to have a guest lecture for me at Harvard. That's great. Because it's a beautiful thing. Look at this guy, you're not going to agree

with him. He's not going to say, you know, everything I hear in the daily signal is what I agree with, but that's not the point. The point is you have, he's got children, he's got a life, he loves America and he wants to be fully American too. And he has, I got to tell you, I disagree for sure with a lot of things that he thinks politically, but he's expanded my consciousness and I've expanded his. And look, if you can't go where you're not invited and say things people don't expect and blow people's minds and come together in brotherhood, all you're doing is locking down one side of the political debate and we're never going to come together. We're going to be a country that's got 30% on

one side, 30% on the other side, and the remaining 40% just hates everything that's going on. And right now, I can tell you, we're not making progress in this country. We're not moving legislation in this country. We don't have happiness. We have rising levels of depression and anxiety and stress in this country because of our political situation because we actually can't come together. So if you want to be happier, you want to persuade, you want to be more successful, be like Rob Louis. Go across the aisle. Talk to people that you've never thought you would

and try to find the way that you're both humans. I want to ask, who are the heroes in your own life, or maybe a better way to put it, who are the enemies that you love? I have met, since I've been working on this book, since 2014, when I first had that experience in New Hampshire, I have been meeting people constantly. I've been reaching out, here's the funny thing that I do.

So when I'm in an event, for example, a small enough event that I can kind of talk to the individuals in the room. And I do 175 speeches a year. So I'm on the road all the time. When somebody has the courage to say, I'm a left winger, right? That's the person I'm going to bond with. That's the person who's going to get the bigger part of my attention because that person just did something really, really courageous. And I meet them all the time.

I mean, I'm all over the country. And so I'm meeting these people and I'm saying, and I'm asking them about, the first thing I'll do is ask them about what's written on their hearts. not about what bums them out, not what makes them irritated about politics or makes them enraged about President Trump. I want to know what's written on their hearts, but you know about the relationship with their children and what they want for their country. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to point out that we have common moral foundations. We believe in compassion toward others. We believe in a fairer, better country that has more dignity for more people. And what we disagree on is the way to get it. And once you basically say, I love your heart because I agree with you and we both want

the same fundamental moral things. Now let's talk about the stuff that we disagree on because I think that my way to get at your objectives is better and more efficient. People just will listen all day long. So I've done that. I mean, you gave the example of, you know, the guy who runs Black Lives Matter who, you know, if we just went on our political affiliations, we would be told by politicians in the media that we are enemies.

And if we just took that and we just accepted that, that would be the most conventional thing to do. But I have this. And in the book, I've got this a list of people that, you know, I've talked to. met and have greatly enriched my life. And I got to say, I think I've actually got a lot more converse to the cause this way. That's great. Now, as you've mentioned, you're going to be stepping down as the president of the American Enterprise Institute going to teach at Harvard. So I have to ask, given the polls that we've seen, what are you going to tell all of those Gen Ziers

who are coming to campus and embracing socialism as opposed to free enterprise? You know, I see those surveys all the time that show that people in IGen or Gen Z, what do we want to call it, people who are after the millennials, that they have a high level acceptance of socialist ideology as opposed to capitalism. I don't like it, but I don't worry about it nearly as much. I mean, these are labels. And what we actually need are aspirational leaders that talk about the common moral foundations of what we got. And they will shed, I mean, they'll take off the banner of socialism as fast as they change their shirts. young people are like that. I mean, that's a good thing about young people.

It's not a bad thing. You know, in the same way, by the way, when people say that they're really super entrepreneurial, you notice you go back about 10 years and they were in love with the entrepreneurs in Northern California. I mean, they were all like big libertarians. And now they don't like a lot of the leaders in Northern California because they think that that libertarianism was sort of selfish as far as they see it. And they were making products that hurt us. And they're recognizing that they're actually not happier. So what we need to do is provide a model that says you can live a startup life.

Your enterprise, the enterprise of your life can be a beacon of hope for other people. Let's work together to lift people up who have less power than we do. Let's work at the margins of society. By the way, I have basically just gone through the tenets of the mission of the Heritage Foundation, lifting people up from the margins of society, giving people opportunity, treating people with radically equal dignity, seeing the limitless potential inside every person. And there are zero scholars at the Heritage Foundation who don't believe these things. Okay.

So let's talk in these terms. Let's come together. And I think that we actually can. Now, I got to be persuadable myself. I have to listen to other people's point of view of myself. And sometimes I'm going to be grinding my teeth. But I can do that. And I'm dedicated to it.

And I got to tell you, I feel so in my prayers every day, I am so thankful that I have an opportunity to go to arguably the greatest university in America to talk about these ideas. It's a privilege. And we're grateful that you're going to be doing that. Finally, I want to ask, you know, you've said that this is about more than the book. This is about creating a social movement. Yeah. So encourage people to buy the book because, as you said, it is solutions oriented.

It's called Love Your Enemies. But I want to ask, what is your hope and your goal when somebody reads the book? I mean, obviously, change in behavior, perhaps. But what can we see tangibly in our country change? So one of the things I've studied a lot as a social scientist, I'm a behavioral social scientist, and I study social movements a lot. And as an institutionalist, I mean, I run a big think tank in D.C. I tend to look for top-down solutions based on institutions. But that's actually not how social movements start. Social movements start because there's a demand that comes up from the grassroots. And that demand comes because somebody treats another person in a different way and gets profound satisfaction from it. That's what all social movements have in common. So if you look at Marl Luther King, for example. People think that what it was was an institution where the Department of Justice started to crack down on racism and changing laws around voting. That's a secondary effect. The civil rights movement was Martin Luther King suggesting that all people could be happier

and live up to their own morals by treating another person in a different way. That's what it was really all about. So what I hope that this book will do, people will read it. I mean, I'm hoping that 100,000 people will read this book and share. share it and share the ideas and it will spread the idea that you can starting today, start a movement starting with your heart. It doesn't mean that a million people are going to do it because of you, but you can change your own heart and be happier and more successful by treating somebody else in a different way. Now, that sends a demand signal. Leaders is funny. In a Democratic capitalist country, we talk about leaders as if they were immaculately conceived, these great leaders

who pop out of an egg someplace and then change America. That's wrong. Most leaders in business and in politics and in media are actually followers. We're the leaders because we exert demand signals. I mean, we believe in capitalism. And Rob and Arthur are big fans of capitalism. And that's a good thing. You know, in democracy and capitalism, a bunch of people want something because they say,

this is crummy, what we've got. We're unhappy and we're not succeeding. And so we demand something better. And then a bunch of leaders say, oh, man, there's like a parade going down the street. I got to get in front of it because it needs a leader. They're followers. So what I'm trying to do is to shape the parade by helping people understand that each person in the parade can be happier and more successful by just going down a different street.

Well, thank you for writing it. Again, the book is called Love Your Enemies, How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt. Arthur, congrats on the book. Thank you for all the work that you do at the American Enterprise. And appreciate you being on the Daily Signal podcast. Thank you, Rob. Thanks to the Heritage Foundation, all the listeners of the Daily Signal. God bless America.

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each Monday we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Rachel, who's up first? Marsha Brunelli of Havertown, Pennsylvania writes, rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with other socialists and left-wing politicians, have been on a seek-and-destroy mission to demonize capitalists in our country. They are using their power to redistribute other people's wealth by progressively taxing the rich. According to socialists and others, wealthy capitalists are, enemies of the state. Before we trade in our American capitalist system for a socialist regime,

do we know if we'll be getting a bargain? Socialism is an economic system of collectivization and government centralization of the production and distribution of goods. Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal is a perfect example of socialism. Capitalism is an economic system that allows trade and private ownership of business and industry for profit. Our capitalist system encourages innovation and competition and creates jobs. Throughout America's history, wealthy capitalists like Ben Franklin, George Washington Carver, Jonas Sulk, and Bill Gates were the entrepreneurs, philanthropists, inventors, and scientists, who, given freedom from government interference, made our country the envy of other nations. Well, thank you for that, Marsha. I couldn't agree more.

Up next is Aaron Martin, who writes, I just found out that Prager You videos were being restricted on YouTube. I am appalled that morally bereft videos of gyrating half-clad women are not restricted, but Prager You's videos are. I have watched many of the videos, and although I am an atheist, I find nothing that offends me, but much which I am thrilled is being put out there. I am planning to use Prager You videos to help me bring some reality to my grandchildren when they are old enough to comprehend the concept. I worked in the public education system for a time, but left because I couldn't stomach what was and was not being taught to children as young as five. Thanks to Dennis Prager for all he and his team are attempting to do for children and adults who stumble upon the videos and get an alternative view.

I applaud this one giant step for free speech. Well, I do want to note that Prager You has just surpassed 2 billion total views for its videos, and we love hosting Dennis Prager as a columnist for The Daily Signal. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? Then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. For the good news portion of today's podcast, Michaela Stedman has a heartwarming story to share with us.

Ella? Thanks, Rob. Several weeks ago, seven-year-old Emma Murtens thought she was simply coming down with the flu. Instead, her family was surprised to discover that she was suffering from an inoperable DIPG tumor on her brain stem. She has had two surgeries to reduce swelling and is now attending daily radiation therapy. To keep her smiling through all of this, Emma's friends came up with a unique way to show her love, a way that has ignited the support of people all over the country. Emma loves animals and Emma loves dogs, and a couple of our close friends knew that and asked their friends to cheer her up by sending, you know, a letter or a picture from their dog. What started as a kind gesture has resulted in a Facebook page named Emma Loves Dogs 7. Thousands of people began liking the page and sharing photos of their own dogs with Emma. When the surrounding police departments and their canine officers heard Emma's story, they all decided to take their dogs to visit her Wisconsin home. In one day, Emma was visited by almost 40 canine officers and their dogs. But that's not all. Through the kind donations of others, the Murtons have surpassed their $100,000 goal on the

Team Emma GoFundMe page. Emma has also received thousands of letters and packages. She was sent so much love that the Murtons have requested that people only share their dog photos on the Facebook page. Obviously, it puts a smile on her face, and that's what matters most. We want nothing more than the world to be a kinder place. And if it takes us going through this horrible issue right now with our daughter's health, then so be it. But if everyone could just pause and be kinder to each other in all situations, this world could be a really, really incredible place to live.

That's a great story, Michaela. And how nice that today's episode focused on loving your enemies, helping those in need, and lifting up the spirits of this young girl. Appreciate you sharing that. Of course. We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rickishay Audio Network along with our other podcasts. All of our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcasts.

You can also subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review or give us feedback. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to others. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal News. The Daily Signal podcast will be back tomorrow with Kate and Daniel. Have a great week. You've been listening to The Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis.

Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.