The Daily Signal - Big Government Socialism Is Destroying America. Newt Gingrich Explains How You Can Save Us.

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Joe Biden campaigned for president in 2020 as a practical politician with a moderate record. He promised to unite America under a Biden presidency. He even said, "There will be no blue states and red states with me."  More than 18 months into the Biden administration, America is witnessing a radical departure from the candidate who made those promises in 2020.  From Day One, the Biden administration pursued policies that appealed to the far left and socialists rather than working-class Americans. As a result, Americans appear more divided than ever on key questions about our country's future and the policy decisions confronting us.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a bestselling author who is out with a new book, "Defeating Big Government Socialism: Saving America's Future," joins us on "The Daily Signal Podcast" today to tell us about his latest work and what's at stake. Listen to the interview or read a lightly edited transcript. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, August 1st. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rob Blewey. On today's show, I speak with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich about his new book, Defeating Big Government Socialism, Saving America's Future. We also read your letters to the editor and share a little bit of good news to kick off our week. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about another great Heritage Foundation podcast called Heritage Explains. Heritage Explains episodes are quick and easy to listen to because hosts Michelle Cordera,

and Tim Desher, break down complex policy issues using stories, clips, and expert analysis. Recent Heritage Explains episodes, dive into what you need to know about the crisis at the southern border, the Biden administration's failure to get inflation under control, and puberty blockers for kids. You can find all the latest episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. Joe Biden campaigned for president in 2020 as a practical politician with a moderate record. He promised to unite America under a Biden presidency.

He even said, quote, there will be no blue states and red states with me. More than 18 months into his administration, America is witnessing a radical departure from the candidate who made those promises in 2020. From day one, the Biden administration pursued policies that appealed to the far left and socialists rather than working class Americans. As a result, Americans appear more divided than ever on key questions about our country's future and the policy decisions confronting us. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a bestselling author who was out with a new book, Defeating Big Government Socialism, Saving America's Future, joins us on the Daily Signal podcast today to tell us about his latest work and what's at stake. Speaker Gingrich, we're grateful to have you with us today and thank you for your longtime support for the Heritage Foundation. Listen, I'm delighted to be with you.

And as you know, my ties to Heritage, go all the back to the mid-1970s when you were founded to the amazing work that Ed Fullner did in helping shape the Reagan administration and to Heritage's continued intellectual leadership in helping solve America's problems. So I'm thrilled to have a chance to talk with you today. Well, and we're grateful for your contributions with this latest book. I personally believe that your efforts to define big government socialism early in the Biden administration are in many ways responsible for how Americans view his policies today. How did you come up with the idea and what can readers learn from your new book?

Well, I first of all remembered that Margaret Thatcher, when she became leader of the opposition in 1975, set out to destroy the moral legitimacy of socialism. There's a brilliant small book by Claire Berlinsky called There is No Alternative, why Margaret Thatcher still matters. And Berlinski really outlines that Thatcher went on an all-out campaign to defeat socialism morally, intellectually, and as a matter of daily behavior. And so as I watch the emergence, not Biden. Biden himself is just sort of a guy in the basement who probably would have been better off

to stay in the basement. But if you look at the totality of the team that they've assembled, it's kind of an intersectional coalition, to use their language, of every anti-American and anti-normacy group in the country. And they represent a deliberate desire to use very large government bureaucracies to impose on the rest of us the world they want to live in. And I think you have to start from that understanding that these are people who really do believe that they have the moral right to dictate to you and me. They're basically a semi-religious group, and their fanaticism grows out of that kind of a religious sense of certainty. And I realized that it wasn't going to be enough just to defeat them for having performed badly.

It was pretty clear to me very early on that they were going to have terrible results because everything they was doing were based on ideas that don't work. But I also knew that there was a danger that we would end up defeating them but not learning any real lessons. and that the next wave of socialist would come along and say, well, you know, Biden wasn't very competent. Pelosi and Schumer were too old. But this time we're going to do it right. So I wrote defeating big government socialism in the tradition of Lady Thatcher, who had said, first you win the argument, then you win the vote. And I wanted to give every citizen the tools and the arguments and the facts that would enable them with their friends and their neighbors to win the argument about how dangerous and how dangerous.

destructive big government socialism is and why we need to replace it. And let's start with that term itself. Why is that so effective not only in the polling that you've done, but the way that it encapsulate all of the policies you've just talked about as one of the most effective ways to counter the left, but also describe it? Well, we were given a unique opportunity in 2018. The co-founder of Home Depot came to us. And he knew I'd worked with Reagan starting in 1974, leading to the, you know, the,

the great victory of 1980, where we regained control of the Senate for the first time since 1954 and where Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter by the largest electoral college defeat for an incumbent president in modern history. And then he knew I'd help put together the contract with America, which led to the First House Republican majority in 40 years. So he asked me to undertake a very methodical effort to identify issues that would bring Americans together. They would create a truly American majority. And as I was doing that, we began to explore how people really felt in the language they used. What we discovered was,

if you pit free enterprise capitalism against big government socialism, it's actually 59 to 16 in favor of free market capitalism, which was really surprised us how strong it was. And what we discovered was that there are a lot of young people who, if you just use the word socialism, you know, they've been through schools where they've been told over and over again that socialism's good and it's caring and all that stuff. But they instinctively know that big government is terrible. And so you suddenly bring together older people who are anti-socialism and younger people who are anti-big government. And the result is that even under a forced choice, we could not get support for big government socialism above 18%. And it's structured. And it's structured. me that this was the right big argument. What we wanted to do, as Reagan had done in 80, and as we did with the contract with America, is we wanted to create a big argument for 22 and 24, not a series of little arguments. And the big argument is whether or not you believe that a Washington-dominated, bureaucratically implemented system that is against American history, against American traditional values, against the work ethic, against traditional patriotism,

Whether that's the system you think will work, or in fact, if you want to replace it with something which will work. And I just give you one number, or two numbers rather. One, we ask, do you think it's important to restore the America that works? And we got 87% of the country said yes. That is just pragmatic, not liberal, conservative, just pragmatic. Get it to work again. And then second, we ask people, do you agree with Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.? that it is the content of your character, not the color of your skin that really matters.

That's 91 to 6. So all those people are out here trying to invent a new anti-white racism are going right in the teeth of a 91% majority. Thank you for sharing those numbers with us. Well, as you indicated, there are so many topics that we are hotly debating in America today, critical race theory, COVID, climate change, cancel culture, just to name a few. how do we counter the left's agenda? You've given us some tips already, but for the listeners who might be wondering

how they talk to their coworkers or people in their community, what tips and advice do you have for them? Well, I have really two sets of tips. One is to follow places like heritage. I mean, despite the fact that the left may have the New York Times, the truth is you reach hundreds of thousands of people.

Fox News reaches millions of people. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily Post. There are the Washington Examiner, the Washington Times, there is a conservative ecosystem that's been growing for the last 40 years, and that actually is a pretty counter-availing system now against the hard left propaganda system. I describe the New York Times as Provda and the Washington Post as Vestia

and suggest that if you start with that understanding of how biased they are, everything else kind of falls in place. So if you start from there, and work backwards. I think we do have an ability to communicate that might surprise people. But secondly, this particular year is unusual. The left is so bad this year that I tell every candidate, go and campaign in two places, campaign at gas stations and at grocery stores. Because no matter what the left says, people know in their pocketbook and they know in their own lives, that it just isn't working. And that gives you the starting point for a serious conversation

to say to people, have you had enough? And are you ready to look at what does work and what we know historically has been proven again and again to work? And I think you're going to have, we're seeing this with Latinos, with Asian Americans, African Americans. You're having more people open to this conversation than I think any time in my lifetime. And glad you brought that up because I wanted to ask about some of the changing nature of the Republican Party in terms of the constituencies that make it up. Myra Flores' election in Texas, a surprise, I think, for many Democrats, maybe a wake-up call, although it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to heed some of those warnings.

What are the things that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, should be doing right now to appeal to those individuals who are turned off by big government socialism? Well, I just wrote a newsletter which people can get for free at, Gingrich360.com. I do three free newsletters and three free podcast every week at Gingrichs360.com. And the one I just wrote was on the idea that a big campaign will lead to an American tsunami. And I would emphasize both halves of that. Republicans should not think about a Republican tsunami. People talk about a red wave. And I say, no, it's going to be a red, white, and blue wave. It's going to be Americans. There's going to be people, some Democrats, overwhelmingly.

Republicans, overwhelming independence. And so start with, and Reagan was brilliant about this. Reagan had been a FDR Democrat. He'd actually cut commercials for Harry Truman and Hubert Humphrey in 1948. So he still had a residual understanding of the Democratic Party. And Reagan would always say to my fellow Republicans and to those independents and Democrats who share our values. And he was just very consistent. And when we did the contract, notice it was not a contract with conservatism or a contract with Republicans. It was a contract with America. And so I would start from there.

And I would say that the first thing to do is to, you know, lay your campaign out for everybody in your district or everybody in your state and not assume that anybody is automatically against you. The second thing I would say is you want a big campaign, not a small campaign. Now, let me give an example. If the Democratic senator from Georgia has his way, he's going to run a very narrow, small campaign attacking Herschel Walker. But the truth is that the Democratic senator has voted consistently with Joe Biden. And Walker's job is to make clear that you're talking now about the guy who, brought you 9% inflation, the guy who brought you $5 gallon gasoline, the guy who brought you a rising murder rates. And so the more we nationally run on the big national issues, this is true

in Arizona, it's true in Pennsylvania, it's true in Ohio, everywhere in the country. If the choice is, not a personality choice between two individuals, but a choice between two philosophies, two delivery systems, two approaches. I think we will win a crushing victory this fall. Speaker Gingrich, one of the issues that the left is so passionate about, it's a religion to them, as climate change, why should we as Americans resist or at least be skeptical of the alarmist warnings that we hear almost on a constant day-to-day basis? Well, I think the first thing to recognize is if you go back to the 1970s, alarmism is a key part of the way the left operates. In the 1970s, we were supposed to worry about the population time bomb.

And Paul Ehrlich got to be a tenured faculty member at Stanford writing this book, which, if you actually read it, is totally wrong. I mean, for example, he wrote that Great Britain would starve to death by the year 2000. Totally false. But it doesn't matter because they're a religious cult. They're not an intellectual cult. Second, recognize that. that virtually everything Al Gore warned us about in his movie did not happen. And look, I do think climate's changed. I think the largest factor on climate change is the sun. I do think that you have to be constantly adapting.

People tend to forget that the Gulf Stream cut off for a while, and Northern Europe promptly went into an ice age, and then the Gulf Stream started back up, and Northern Europe began to melt, the ice began to melt. But all those things happened. and long before there were internal combustion engines. You also have to recognize the difference, even if they were sincere, their solutions are stupid.

The fact is, it turns out, and you're seeing this now, Germany just announced they're reopening 13 coal-fired electricity plants because, in fact, they can't generate enough electricity to offset Russian natural gas just using wind and solar. California just discovered that nobody apparently. had ever done this work on the left. But solar panels eventually wear out. When they wear out, they're filled with toxic chemicals. And California is suddenly discovering it has a huge problem on landfills where people are putting solar panels that have toxic chemicals leaching into the soil. And that apparently these particular solar panels are very expensive to take apart and to make

safe. So the solar power industry suddenly becomes a major source of pollution in a way that nobody had envisioned and which adds to the total cost of green power in a way that nobody had ever thought about. The other factor you've got to remember is a lot of what the climate change people do is yell climate change, but then they have a much different motive. For example, if you're going to use oil and gas, the most efficient, most environmentally safe oil and gas industry in the world by a huge margin is the United States. So if your only concern was the environment and you knew that you had to have oil and gas and diesel fuel and heating oil, the place you'd most like to have producing it is the United States. But the left hates the American oil and gas industry. So I always tell people, you know, Biden can go to Saudi Arabia, but he can't go to Texas.

He can talk to the people in Venezuela about oil, but he can't talk to the people in western Pennsylvania. They can talk to the Iranians, but he can't talk to North Dakota. I mean, you have to ask yourself, what is it about an American president who is consistently anti-American in his energy policies? They began to distribute oil out of the National Petroleum Reserve, and we just discovered that a million barrels of it went to a Chinese company with ties to Hunter Biden. Now, how can it possibly be helpful to the American people or lower the price of gasoline in the United States if you're shipping a million barrels of oil to China? And this is the kind of stuff where you really have to wonder what the basic underlying motivations and why the left dislikes its own country. much. Well, and Speaker Gingrich, all of those facts that you just gave us are why it's so critically important to do things, not only like purchase your book, Defeating Big Government Socialism,

but subscribe to your podcast and your newsletters and the Daily Signal because too often, as you write about in defeating big government socialism, Hollywood, the media, the Academy, are all wrapped up in the left's agenda as well. And so you're not likely to hear those facts about solar energy or what's going on with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That's exactly right. Again, I want to commend Heritage because you have consistently provided the kind of research and the kind of fact-based analysis that allows us to really understand what's going on and to be directly involved with what we need to do as a country.

And I think you're one of the places that I really look for to have the kind of conversation we need to be having. Well, today President Biden is suffering with the worst poll numbers of his presidency so far, even friendly media outlets are starting to question if he's up for the job. What do you expect from the rest of his first term? And is there any possibility that he runs for office again? Well, look, I think he would like to run for office again. I mean, let's be clear. He, you know, Biden is a nice, pleasant guy who would probably have been a pretty good county commissioner.

He won a U.S. Senate seat at 29 years of age, actually before he was legally old enough to serve, and he had a birthday between the election and being sworn in. He was in a very small state where an incumbent U.S. senator has huge advantages for reelection. The first couple of times he tried to run for president. he just totally flamed out. In fact, the first time he had to drop out when it was turned out that he had stolen Neil Kinnick, who was the British labor leader, who had been given a speech about growing up in a Welsh coal mining village.

Now, why Biden would have thought that it made any sense to compare Scranton to a Welsh coal mining village is beyond my comprehension? And, of course, the press figured it out. He became a laughing stock and he had to drop out. He dropped out the second time because he couldn't get any votes. Then finally he got picked by Barack Obama who thought he needed a foreign policy person since he clearly didn't have any foreign policy experience. And Biden had been chairman of foreign relations.

And then, you know, he basically got very lucky. And when the alternative for the Democrats was Bernie Sanders, who was clearly going to be defeated in the general election, or Biden, Biden got to be the nominee. They then promptly hid him. And it's important to remember this. He won this campaign because nobody knew what he was doing. Had he had to actually campaign, had we understood how cognitively challenged he was and how incapable of coherency was, I suspect he would have lost. So in that setting, what you have is a guy who I don't think has very many tools for recovery. People ask me about Bill Clinton, who after we,

won in 94, switched and collaborated with us and got a lot of stuff done, made the left very mad at him. And it was the Clinton Gingrich reforms that, you know, like welfare reform, balancing the budget for four years. These things we had to do on a bipartisan basis because you had a Democrat president and a Republican Congress. And if we didn't find a way to work together, nothing would have happened. Well, I don't think Biden has that capability. So my guess is that in the end, he will not be able to run for reelection.

I mean, I expect, first of all, he's already down. If he drops another four or five percentage points of approval, he will be at the level of Harry Truman was at when he left the presidency. And that's the lowest level achieved by any president in modern times. You mentioned earlier that in 1994, you led the Republican Revolution to take control of the House for the first time in 40 years. It certainly appears that Republicans, according to polls today, could once again be in charge next year. Given the scenario you just laid out, what should they plan to do if they

are able to regain control and take power? Well, look, my hat is off to Kevin McCarthy. I mean, McCarthy did a great deal of very creative recruiting in 2020, and when people thought we were going to lose 25 seats in the house, we gained 15. That was a remarkable achievement. That's a swing of 40 seats from where the experts were. McCarthy's been out there campaigning, recruiting. raising money. And I fully expect that the Republicans will, in fact, win. And I think they are going to have a commitment to America, which is going to be very much like the contract was. And I think that they're going to keep it. I think that they're going to have positive ideas on energy, positive ideas on inflation, positive ideas on education. And they're going to go right down

the road developing those kind of ideas and making them really work. So my expectation is you're going to see a very positive solution-oriented House Republican Party. Speaker Gingrich, I have a couple of just quick topics to cover before we wrap. This summer, the House's January 6th committee has attempted to paint a picture about President Trump and what happened on that day. I've listened to your podcast and heard interviews that you've done regarding this. I think it would be helpful for you to give your perspective to our listeners about what has just transpired and how they should think about this committee.

and the work that it's done? Well, I believe that the January 6th committee is a Stalinist show trial. They have 25,000 documents, over 1,000 videotaped interviews, and they pick and choose what they want to show us to make their case with no alternative, no cross-examination, no attorneys involved. You know, and it's a totally one-sided, in my judgment, total violation. of the Bill of Rights and total violation of the American spirit of fair play and fair inquiry. So I am very deeply opposed to the way they have run the January 6th Committee,

and I think that it is a disgrace that it has been run, really just exactly like Lenin and Stalin ran the show trials in the Soviet Union. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, the left is in many cases, in my opinion, overstepping with its attacks on the Supreme Court, not only as an institution, but some of the antics that are taking place at the justices' homes and the attacks on them personally. Will we see more of this? Is there any hope that we can get to the point where the blockade around the court is perhaps removed and the justices don't have to fear for their lives?

I think we're in a very dire situation. As you know, recently Lee Zeldon, the Republican candidate for governor, was attacked in New York by a man who wanted to attack him with a knife. We are in a period where the left has gone crazy, where violence is a reasonable behavior, where the Justice Department is so corrupt, it will not, you know, there is a federal law that says you cannot threaten federal judges.

It's a felony. It's a one-year jail term. You know, the FBI and the Justice Department refuse to enforce it. I think it's a very dangerous situation just in terms of the spirit of a free society. And I think that we have to really consider what we're going to do and how we're going to do it in order to return to a decent norm,

which we currently don't have. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, author of the new book, Defeating Big Government Socialism, Saving America's Future. Do you have any closing words about the book that you'd like to share with our listeners? Sure. I would just say if you want to know why Big Government Socialism, socialism doesn't work. And if you want to know how to win the argument with your friends and your

neighbors and help the country get rid of big government socialism, I think you'll find the book a very, very useful handbook that enables you to really have a real impact on how your friends and neighbors feel about what's going wrong. Well, I encourage our listeners to check it out. It's a fantastic piece of work. And we're so grateful for the contributions you've made and the help you've provided, Speaker Gingrich. Thank you for being with us. on the Daily Signal podcast. Thank you. Enjoyed it very much.

For over 35 years, the Heritage Foundation Job Bank has been helping conservatives at all professional levels, find employment in key positions in Washington, D.C., and across the country. We can help connect you with positions in the administration,

on Capitol Hill, and public policy organizations, and in the private sector. To learn more about the Heritage Foundation Job Bank, go to heritage.org slash job-dash-bank. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show.

Virginia, who's up first? Eugene Cupsdis had this to say about Richard Wright's podcast interview with Hadley Arcus on the future of abortion law. A lot to think about. Arcus gave me quite a grounding in constitutional law in half an hour. But the point he came back to, which pro-choicers refused to acknowledge, is that in an abortion case, we are not talking about only the mother and her needs and wants,

but about the very life of a child who would otherwise be able to live. And Marianne Niederman commented on Virginia's podcast interview about George Soros and the left's takeover of 18 Spanish language radio stations. No surprise. The left has to be able to censor and push their misinformation and disinformation. The only way they can win is by using deceptive practices. Truly sad. George Soros hates. America and will do anything to get people elected who will help him destroy this country.

Your letter can be featured on next week's show, so feel free to send us an email at Letters at DailySignal.com. The Heritage Foundation takes to field on offense with their young leaders program. I'm Evelyn Homily from Hillsdale College. I'm Harrison Stewart from the University of Virginia. I'm a journalism intern with the Daily Signal. I'm a digital productions intern and communications. For spring, summer, and fall semesters, the Heritage Foundation hosts undergraduate and post-graduates.

graduate interns right here in the nation's capital to train our country's future conservative leaders. As a daily signal intern, I've had the opportunity to cover exciting events here in D.C. And work in a fast-paced environment with some of the conservative movement's best journalists. In YLP, interns are on the cutting edge of the conservative movement, attending exclusive briefings from heritage experts, members of Congress, and movement leaders fighting for the fate of our country. It's been exciting connecting with big names in the political world and better understanding

our nation's greatest threats. If you want to go on offense with other passionate, dedicated conservatives, go to heritage.org slash intern to learn more about the young leaders program. We have Bernadette back in studio with us to kick off our Monday and share a little bit of good news. Bernadette, over to you. Thanks, Virginia. Well, I'm sure, as many us have felt this summer, especially in the last two weeks here

on the East Coast, it's been hot. So in Brooklyn, New York, a five-year-old boy was seeking a little relief from the heat. in a community pool when he actually started to drown. A woman nearby began alerting everyone around her that something was wrong. Anthony Torres, a man at the pool, understood what was happening and jumped into action. He tells ABC 7 News what happened. I was swimming with my sister in the pool, and some lady said like that, and I quickly walked over and saw the little boy slumped over and under the water.

He acted right away even before the lifeguards could. I went on to pick them up and I started yelling for somebody to come and do their job for them to help with the lifeguards. Following Anthony's rescue of the five-year-old, the lifeguards performed CPR and the little boy was transferred to a local hospital where he is expected to recover. Anthony was truly a hero and I'm sure that the little boy's family is so grateful for Anthony's courage, which saved their son's life. Bernadette, thanks so much for sharing. We appreciate it. And it's always great to hear a little. bit of positivity right at the beginning of the week. So thank you for sharing. And we are going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rikishay Audio Network. All of our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple

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