The Eric Metaxas Show - #21 - Naomi Wolf

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Eric Metaxas sits down with Naomi Wolf to unpack the Socrates in the City gala, the crisis of Western civilization, and why the world they glimpsed that night is worth fighting for. Together they trace how cultural elites, media, and global institutions have undermined family, faith, and free speech for decades, and why ordinary people are finally waking up in America and Europe. From the sexual revolution and feminist debates to immigration, Islamism, antisemitism, and the breakdown of civil society, this is a sober but hopeful call to defend truth, beauty, and ordered liberty while there is still time. Sponsors:MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/ten Boom Coffee— Save 10% with code ERIC: https://tenboom.coffee/Christian Solidarity International: https://csi-usa.org/metaxas/Legal Help Center - Get Free Legal Help Today: https://www.legalhelpcenter.com/Help Save Lives in Israel Today: https://www.savinglifeisrael.org/Secure Your Future with a Gold IRA: https://www.metaxasgoldira.org/

Hey there, folks. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. Where do I begin? Well, let me, let me, uh, let me say this. Um, last week we had our Socrates in the city gala, a black tie gala. It was spectacular. I'm not going to lie to you. It was absolutely spectacular. I, I, it really is hard to know where to begin because there were so many special guests there, so many special friends there, so much that was communicated. Let me start by saying,

please go to Socrates in the city.com and sign up. There's so much stuff that's going on. One of the best things about what happened at the event was that Naomi Wolf and her husband, Brian O'Shea, were there. And it was a... particular joy to introduce Naomi to that part of my life. Anybody who's followed me knows Socrates and City has been a big part of my life for 25

years. And there was just so much. And it was such a joy that I thought, let's get Naomi on to talk about it, not just about that. Obviously, we have Naomi on to talk about any number of really, really important things. So we're going to talk to her about the news of the day. there's a lot to go over with her. But I think at the beginning probably

I'll talk to her about the Socrates event. It was a great joy, a great, great, great joy. So let me think if there's anything else. Yes, CSI, we are raising money. Some of you know this for Christian Solidarity International to free slaves. I want to beg you to help us to do this.

This is a big deal, folks. This is an opportunity we get once a year. It is a very big opportunity, a very big deal. You have to go to my website, Ericmetaxis.com. You'll see on the banner, you can click on, this is a big deal. This is real. And we get to do this every year. I almost can't believe it.

So I want to ask you, please, today, go to metaxis, ericmetaxis. It's just my website. There's all kinds of stuff at the website that you probably haven't seen yet, all kinds of crazy stuff. But I want to send you there for that. Ericomataxis.com. You'll see the banner. To those of you've already given, God bless you. You're literally freeing slaves. Literally freeing slaves. Almost unbelievable. All right. We'll be right back with Naomi Wolf. Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, Naomi Wolf. Naomi, welcome back. Thank you so much. Eric. Thanks for having me.

I really, the other night, the Socrates Gala, was such a dream in so many ways for me. And it's always a little odd for me because I'm in this like hyper writing mode. So to have to, you know, get out of the house, put on a tuxedo, sing, give speeches, schmooze. Like it's wonderful, but it's also kind of jarring. And I just was saying really, one of the brightest things, spots of the night was the fact that you and Brian were there. It just meant so much to me.

And it just made me generally happy. Maybe I can't articulate exactly why. But it really was wonderful that you were there. What's the last time you saw Dick Cavett? Never? I don't know, probably 40. Then I graduated graduation day, 1984. And it was a contentious experience.

It launched, paradoxically, it launched my career. The first published op-ed I ever wrote for, like a national publication, was my criticism of his comments at our graduation. Okay, so we got just put it in context. So ladies and gentlemen, I know it's hard to believe that Naomi and I could be as old as you might think we are if you're doing the math in your head, just set that to the side. But in 1984, when we were just itty-bitty children, we graduated from Yale. And the class day speaker was Dick Cavett, who I think he's the class.

of 59, Yale 59. He was the celebrity class day speaker. I was the non-celebrity class speaker to do the humorous. We always have a class history. So my friend Chris Haynes and I who edited the Yale Humor magazine, we spoke.

And, you know, it's just this big thing with 10,000 people on old campus and whatever. And shortly after graduation, I remember this, Naomi. You wrote something critical of some of what Dick had said. So this is 41 years ago. But I didn't know that this somehow you claim launched your career. I think your career was already launched, but go ahead.

Well, it was, you know, the New York Times, as I recall. So that was kind of a big deal for a 21-year-old. And this is hard for people to believe. This is back when the New York Times was still technically the paper of record. and they actually, you know, they pretty much did journalism in those days. So in 1984, you wrote something. So can you say, would you say a little bit about it? Sure, of course.

Because it's amazing to me that it's 41 years ago. Because it's really, it's an interesting anecdote in terms of mapping the trajectory of the culture. So Dick Cavett was otherwise lovely and wonderful. However, he did tell an anecdote that was very uncomfortable for a lot of women in the audience. and women weren't at Yale for that long at that time. I think Yale had just opened its doors to women in 1976, I believe. 71. Oh, gosh.

All right. Sorry. So there was still plenty of, how can I put it? Insecurity. Well, institutional discrimination against women. I'll just put it that way at that time. And it was a big deal for there to be a graduating class that was, you know, as email as we were. We weren't even 50-50 at that point.

And just to be clear to our audience, I was not at all female, but many of us were 100% female. Yeah, we didn't even have those conversations then. We all knew what gender we were at that time. Right. Much. We didn't even use the word gender. It was sex. No, it was sex. Male, female, check one. Thank you. Yeah, right. Those, yeah, things were simpler.

But he told an anecdote about how when he was at Yale, there were no women. when they saw women, it was in the form of some purloined naked posture photos from like Vassar or Smith. This was a thing for physical education, which sounds really pervy in retrospect by the institutions, but where young women were told to sort of stand naked in front of a photographer. Well, they did this to men too in those days. Really? Really? The posture photo? Oh, really? Now don't you feel bad? Well, not really.

I'm thinking it was a big sexist setup. Don't you feel a little bit bad? For the rest of the anecdote, Eric, I'm not standing on the wrong. I'm sure there's more. I'm sure there's more. And he said, you know, that's what there was to look at. And the girls from Smith weren't that attractive. So I read, yeah, some words to that effect. Oh, even I disapprove of that, but please continue.

That's it. I mean, well, there's a lot. Even if, even if he said the girls from Smith were super hot, it's still. It's still, yeah, yeah. Women that they did not consent to having passed it now. But people, we have to put this in. context. Right. Ladies and gentlemen, people were, and if there's children hide them, people were in those days smoking cigarettes in public, not making that up. Naomi and I,

we saw this happen. Those are some crazy times. It is, it is so funny to think that, I mean, there's so much even to say just about this. Like, it was such a, it's 41 years ago. In any event, You were right to say, you know, hey, hey, hey, hey, that wasn't. I don't use this, Eric, it's not this. That's not the persona. It's much deeper than that. It's not like shame on you for looking at, you know, sniggering about pictures of naked women. It's much deeper than that.

I'm going to stand my feminist ground here. It was our graduation day, right? And I feel, and I've been looking at this. And this led actually to, you know, the beauty myth, the theory in my beauty myth and the beauty myth. them even in my, you know. What year did that come out, 86? No, no, that was like 90, like 92, but it was based on my observation of the world that when women reached some sort of landmark achievement, there was some sort of backlash.

So this was a day in which, you know, someone like Dick Cavett who really represented the, you know, the establishment at that time, who, you know, which was overwhelmingly male, they were the gatekeepers. He was looking at a sea of accomplished women, Yale graduates and all the transformation that represented of our society and giving a speech that included something that would just put them in their place. That's what they would remember about graduation day rather than look at what you've done. It's extraordinary. Welcome to the world of leaders. That was the point. It was less about sniggering about pictures of ugly naked women allegedly than it was about

my first book was about like anorexia. Like why were we all, you know, suffering from eating? Well, no, when I was... People said stuff like that, right? I was doing that, when I was moving my figure, I wasn't wagging my finger, like to say, shame. I was, it was more like a, tut, tut, sir, that is not appropriate. And there's a host of levels on which it's not appropriate. And I would guess, knowing Dick Cavett, which I have for many years,

that he, he's not of the mindset to have meant to do what actually you perceived. He doesn't change the fact that that's what he did. Obviously, I was honored to sit with him. The first thing I did was apologize to him and his lovely, beautiful wife. You know, not apologizing for a difference of opinion, but, you know, in an ideal world, I don't know. It would have been a debate, right? But I was, you can't rewrite history. Point is, I don't, I think, like, you always tell me to speak my mind with all due respect.

You're being a little bit myopic the way he was. a little myopic. I want to be just myopic enough. Well, I don't want to be less myopic. Too myopic. Your daughter would tell you, not to put words in her mouth, or her generation would tell you that 90% of the sexist or I would say at that time racist or classes, things people did were unconscious.

That was the point, right? How institutions perpetuate themselves. Everyone thinks that what's the big deal? It's just a joke. they don't see the systemic nature of the fact that one of can be unconscious of the power dynamics in that joke because no one's in a position to push back institutionally. I agree that things have gone too far. I'm with you on that, you know, for sure.

I'm reluctant. I would be, you know. Well, yeah, but no, Naomi, but the point is there's many things going on in a statement like that. It's not just one thing. What I was trying to say was that to me it's inappropriate, it's generally inappropriate, but it's inappropriate on a number of levels. It does what you just said. Right.

I don't think, in other words, if you know Dick Cavett, he would be troubled by that on some level as you are and as I am. But being unconscious of it, he just is part of the system, as you say. But it's interesting to me that. I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you. and then I'll push back because I like well no what I what I was saying was that to me it's interesting because you have two things happening at once in other words on the one hand you have a sort of an establishment pushing back as you phrase it or as you put it against

women to me it's not just women it's anything like you said it there's something in institutional that's happening. At the same time, it is, I mean, it's interesting to make a comment like that at graduation. Thank you. It is, well, I mean, I've said more than once, it's inappropriate, right? But the question is why and what are the dynamics? And part of it is the, and this is a. result of the sexual revolution, which we think of in some ways as the opposite of the dynamic

that you're expressing. And it's this idea that everything is ha ha, funny, and sexual. And you think, like, no, like, that's just you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you take away from people's dignity when you make things. And so that's kind of what's, what's happening. So I see kind of two things happening at once. So I'm not disagreeing with your reading of it. Yeah. I, I, I, I hear you and I didn't. I didn't anticipate, you know, getting deeply into a debate with you about this, but it is a, you know, rich subject. And I'm sure the men and the women watching this, you know, a lot of them may be having fights about this after this segment, but because we're inclined to see something like this very differently. But if it was just about the sexualization of the culture, I think the joke could be a million jokes about, you know, how frustrated the boys at Yale were before there were women or. or how their heads turned when an attractive woman happened to walk across the campus or something like that, you know, the human condition of our sexual nature. But it was specifically in a way that didn't really make narrative sense, right, about how unattractive these naked blue stockings were.

They were, the intellectual women of Smith or Vass or one of those women's colleges, how sexually unattractive they were when they had. accomplish something academically important. And he's speaking to an audience of hundreds of young women who had accomplished something intellectually important that day. So I do think it's deeper than the sexualization of the culture generally. I do think it has to do with punishing women for achieving intellectually. And maybe it's unconscious. On the other hand, when you give a speech, and God blessed it, Kevin, he was absolutely delightful. I was honored. to be at a table with him. God bless him and his lovely wife. And he's, you know, a great talent. And he'll he'll live on, you know, forever in the annals of, you know, wonderful commentators in our culture.

But when you get a speech at graduation, you think about it, Eric, right? You don't, you wouldn't say, make a joke about black people or Jews being unappealing in some way. You just wouldn't, no matter how, what the culture was doing. Because you'd have some human decency. about who is listening to you. And their parents, it wasn't just us. It was our parents, many of whom had, you and I relate to this, we don't come from, you know, to the man are born.

I think we both come from, you know, middle-class families. Okay, but as a comedy writer, which he was. Right. And which I have been. Yeah. I think, and I really could be wrong, so I don't see this as a debate. I'm just open to whatever is true.

So it's fascinating to me to hear what you're saying. I'm not trying to debate you. But I think the joke, part of what he saw as the joke, is like we're all at Yale so we can put down the Smithies, ha, ha, ha. Like, I think that was at least 50% of that because that's the, that's kind of that, that's the joke. How does the joke work that way? I mean, he can put down the men at Harvard, but putting down the sexual unattractiveness of Smith girls. How does that? Well, I'm not saying it was a successful joke. It was obviously unsuccessful.

But I'm saying that's the idea behind the dumb joke. We're going to make fun of the Smithies, but you're all not like that. But he didn't say, look at these beautiful, accomplished Yale women. No. The joke still mean to the Smith girls, right? Right. You know, that would have set up that. I'm not really disagree.

This happens when I talk to you. I'm not really disagreeing with you. I'm just trying to think about the different sides of this. There's no doubt that it was not appropriate. And it's so funny, Naomi, because I was on the stage while he delivered this speech, right? I'm sitting there on the stage. Yeah. Did you not notice that moment?

That's what I was saying. I was thinking like, who knows? Was I listening? Did I catch every line? Was I scanning the crowd from my family? Was I worried about what I had just said? Right, right. Because I had just given a speech.

Eric, Jerry Chopp. Sorry, go ahead. I remember that. No, but I mean, that's what I mean. It's like so, who knows? Like, did I even hear him say that? Well, let's flip the genders for just to minute. Vassar has gone co-ed and it's been a woman's college forever. Imagine the first class that had men in it and a woman, a powerful, famous woman speaker giving a commencement speak, which included the young men graduating at Vassar, the first class of men at Vassar telling a joke about how, oh, the girls at Vassar never used to be able to see naked men. There was what would be in all-male school. You know, Johns Hopkins boys had, you know, posture photos.

taken. It was an all-male school at that time. And here's the thing. They were all unattractive. Ha, ha, ha. Like how everyone would know how the young men in the audience at Vassar would feel. It's, yeah, there's no doubt that it's, it's not appropriate. But I guess what I said before, what I take away more than anything is how, and I noticed this really when I went to Yale. I mean, that everything is sexualized. Everything is like, ha, ha, there's a cynicism. There's a, so that's the piece of it that I pick up on. I don't disagree with anything you've said.

You're right, you're right. But I just think like it's just kind of interesting. There's just this baked in cynicism about men and women, the dignity of men and women. And to me, that does come out of the sexual revolution, that, It's like, ha-ha, there's nothing inherently dignified about us. We're just, you know, wanting to sleep with each other. Ha, ha, ha. And that's a lie, you know, it's gross and stuff.

But I, well, anyway, I think we probably mind this. And the mother load is giving out here where there's nothing left. Let me circle back to the wonderful gala to pick up on what you just said about cultural change. What was so special among many things that was special about your gala was the sense I had of stepping back in time in a good way, right? Yes. Before everything fell apart. This is, you know, a room full of beautiful, like, I mean, it matters, right? Women in beautiful gowns, men who are dressed appropriately for a special occasion, you know, beautiful candlelight, beautiful comments, music.

Like, all of civilization was there and people who shared civilization. values. And that's the world I remember seeing on the East Coast when I first came from California, where things were already falling apart. And I was like, this is enchanting. This is worth fighting for. This is Western civilization at its purest. And thank you for putting that together. I don't really know how you did it, considering how, you know, the world has fallen apart. But I was reluctant to step back into the world because it was like stepping into the matrix or not The Matrix, the, what are those apocalyptic movies where the city's kind of crashing into ruins? I don't know. Was this starring Kurt Russell? Yes. Yeah. Escape from New York. Dysopia. I don't know.

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. No, it was, I really was my heart just saying, like, walking into that room and in all of those people were committed to, well, I mean, supporting Socrates and the city, what a venture to bring civilized conversations. and values to all the cities you can, you know, in America and probably beyond and beyond, I gather. Hey there, folks. Okay, it's time to speak plainly. If ever there was a time for plain talk in America, I would say this is it. Every day I hear from people who say, Eric, something feels off. It's like there are these giant forces, global, financial, unaccountable, kind of pushing things around while hardworking Americans foot the bill. Am I crazy? Here's the problem. No, you're not crazy. You're not imagining it. It's true. Whenever there's instability, global tension, market chaos, currency issues, the big financial players always seem to lend on their feet,

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aware of Socrates in the city. So let me just say folks to save yourself time, go to Socratesandcity.com. But I started it about 25 years ago and my daughter's running it at this point. And we have expanded dramatically. We're doing it all over the country. We're launching 50 book clubs to read some of these great books. It's about the life of the mind. It's about exploring the big questions together and so on and so forth. We gave an award the other night to Andrew Claven, whose remarks much shorter than mine were so beautiful. They were beautiful.

Oh, my gosh. And yeah, listen, there's nobody like him. He's just extraordinary. But there's so much that we're doing at Socrates City, but it really is about the life of the mind. It's about exploring the big questions, but it's about exploring the big questions. I think this is, I don't know if I mentioned it the other night,

but I mean, why did Socrates want to explore the big questions? Because somehow innately, he had a faith that there were good answers to the big questions. He didn't think, what's the use? It's all a muddle, to quote Dickens, it's all useless. It is somehow there's some reason for us to ask the big questions because it seems that there are good answers and let's let's do this together. That is, I think, a worthy project. That's what Socrates and City is all about. And what you saw the other night, it is hard, it is hard to sum up because there was just so much, so many wonderful people in the room. And it was, but it was such a joy for

me to have, to have Dick Cavett there, to have our friend, Moira Moynihan, whom I love at our table, the daughter of the great senator. And it's funny, too, because when I'm a lot of, I think of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a Democrat, in 1965, as you know, he wrote this very important paper talking about the breakdown of the black family. And he dared in 1965 as a Democrat to say what was true that this is not good on any level for anyone. And it's hard to think, Naomi, that 60 years ago, he was shut down, that the cultural forces were already... He was vilified by Democrats into the Clinton administration beyond. I witnessed this.

He was vilified by Democrats because they wanted to build the welfare state and create exactly the dependency and further fracture the black family for their own nefarious purpose. What do you make of that? Because you were a Democrat most of your life. When you say they wanted to build a welfare state, I mean, that seems has seemed clear to me for some time. Right. What is, what do you suppose is behind that? In other words, do you think my take on it is that it is, you know, the soft bigotry of low expectations?

They actually genuinely believe in a racist way that those people, you know what, the free market, free opportunity, they're not, they're going to fail. We need to help them. So it's racist and on some broken level meant to be, meant to be helpful, but demonstrably harmful. That's really interesting. I think it's more nefarious than that. And I say this with, you know, the hindsight of the present moment. So in looking back, and yes, I was a Democrat for my whole. adult life till recently, and I helped two Democratic presidents either win an election or win a popular vote. I think it's so nefarious. I think black Americans were the test field for what's being done to all Americans now, meaning communism, basically. I think communism has, you know,

had a beachhead in the Democratic Party and that the biggest enemy to the kind of communist or globalist communist, right? Because they're one thing now takeover of any country is, you know, the church and the nuclear family. And communists have known that since the time of Karl Marx. So I think that it was an experiment in retrospect. Because here's why. I remember noticing this, even when I worked around and with the Clinton administration, why are welfare payments? Welfare payments in the 60s and into the 70s and into the 80s and 90s, I believe, were structured in many ways around single parent households. So you lost your benefits if there was a father in the home. Imagine doing that to any other population.

Oh, you could, you know, we'll pay you, but only if your husband leaves the family, right? And this happened to families. The dad would have to, or the boyfriend, you know, the father of the children, would have to leave the, you know, hide their presence in order for the kids to get supplemental, you know, food stamps or, or for the household to get welfare payments. So this incentivized single parent households, female-led households. We know that that happened. The question to me always is, was it intentional or more importantly, on whose part would that have been intentional? Because I would bet, and far be it for me to be an apologist for the Democrats and the left, but I would bet that there were many well-meaning people in that mix because it's always a continuum who said,

listen, this is the reality. If there's a man in the house, he can get a job or whatever. If there's not, we need to help them, these poor single women, you know, it's a mixture. So I want to go back to what you said, that it was intentional on whose part, this is always where I want to go. On whose part was it intentional? Let me go on because a lot of these. conclusions about, you know, like my bigger conclusion, because I've talked to you about this in your audience a lot, is that we're at war right now in America and Western Europe. It's so visible in

Western Europe against a kind of, now it's a red-green, you know, alliance, communist and fundamentalist, Islamist, and globalist, like a horrible, nefarious group of people who are wanting to basically subvert and appropriate the West and its resources and destroy Western civilization like that's happening. So let's look back in history, okay? And you're so good at this because you actually know American history. Up, you know, after reconstruction and up through into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the leaders of the black community, Booker T. Washington, you know, the women's clubs, the men's clubs, they were all about education, family, church, you know, building, building wealth, right?

they were, they were firmly fixed on what we would call bourgeois values. And family was at the center of it. Family and church was at the center of it. It was at what you would call a Republican message today. They were very conservative. They were socially conservative. And it was a very strong, you know, message, right? We have to be self-reliant.

Booker T. Washington was always seeing that we need our own businesses. We need our own, you know, colleges. We need to educate everyone. and everyone needs to be, you know, literate. Everyone needs to have skills. Everyone needs to look after their family. And all the way up to Martin Luther King, that was the message. Now, you can never take over a nation in which everyone believes that, white, black, Asian, whatever.

You can never, communism has no foothold when people are, and neither does feudalism, like globalist feudalism. You can't chip away at a society built around those values. It's just too strong. So Martin Luther King was taken out, Dr. Martin Luther King. And subsequent to that, you had messaging, which, you know, we know was connected with communism, right? Of radical kind of, you know, Black Panthers, you know, like shoot the whitey, you know, insurrection, rioting. That was not organic to the lineage of African American action and activism in this. country. It was, you know, fomented, just like things you're being fomented now. I mean, definitely

tapped deep frustration and impatience with, you know, persistent racism and two-tier society. But it's not the form that, you know, the message about black advancement had taken. And shortly after that, the Democrats began to produce. The welfare state started with LBJ, right? But it was elaborated and elaborated. It wasn't until Clinton that there was even welfare reform in which people had to go to work. But by then, just as Senator Moynihan had predicted, you had a whole generation that had grown up with the incentive structure of the state intervening in the black family and saying, well, you know, we'll help your household, we'll help your kids if you don't have an intact nuclear family. And if you don't have a job. And Senator Moynihan knew exactly where this was going to go. And it's where we are now with, you know, videos of people talking about.

talk about losing their snap benefits in an economy in which joblessness and being dependent on state benefits, including housing, has gone on now for three generations. So what is that group of people a threat, you know, a threat to anyone who's trying to take over this country? No, they're completely disempowered. They can't organize. They can't resist. They have no wealth. They have, they don't have the thought, I mean, I'm not being racist. This happens to anyone who's infantilized for three decades. They don't have the habits of self-reliance, which Booker T. Washington so wanted people who had been enslaved for 400 years to develop the habits of self-reliance, right? So it's a dependency culture. And now, remember the lockdowns? Everyone was getting free money. And there was, you know, and then, No one wanted to work.

And then small businesses were closing because they couldn't find workers because people developed that dependency habit. But I still always want to know. I mean, I agree with every syllable. But I always want to know who precisely is behind this. I mean, it's kind of like when we're talking about what happened in Germany in the 30s. Yeah. I know that my family were basically victims of this.

They were not like, yeah. Right. But there were people at the very top who knew what they were doing. manipulating masses, whatever. Who were those people in America in the 60s? Hey there, folks. Quick word from today's sponsor. When you hear about rockets, drones, missiles, or a terror attack in Israel,

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And yes, sometimes medics and ambulances are intentionally targeted. But here's what's incredible. 90% of their 37,500 EMTs, paramedics, and first responders are volunteers. 90%. They keep showing up, yet they need the basics, bandages, blood reserves, medical supplies, ambulances, and training. If you have a heart for Israel, please give whatever you can. Every dollar matters to savinglifeisrael.org. Well, I can tell you this. I haven't looked deeply at the 60s, but we do know, right, the new left had strong ties to actual communism in Cuba. You know, they were all going, like, I'm friends with a lot of these people. I used to be.

They all went to Cuba. You know, they went to China. They were, you know, being shown the beauties of communism. And we know that Marxist money was being funneled to a lot of front organizations. And now, fast forwarding to today, you know, I mean, looking back, the red scare may not have been a scare. I mean, I was always taught in history, oh, these awful fascists. Isn't this the point? You and I, we were like right there.

we were being propagandized at Yale University. With our parents' money, we were being propagandized along certain lines. I bought a lot of it. Or it's, again, it's the social pressure. Whether I buy it or don't, I'll just go along with it because I don't want somebody to, you know, accuse me of being a fascist or whatever it was. But we were right in the middle of this. Remember how the Sandinistas were the heroes at Yale?

Yeah. You know, like, let's fast forward. my husband Brian O'Shea, the investigator, has found that there is a fight now in the Democratic Party because Marxists, Democratic Socialists of America, right, funded by Marxist money, want to take over the Democratic Party from within. And so there's a fight. You can see it in the New York election between the socialist candidates, Mamdani, is a socialist, which is literally like a hair's distance from actual communists and he's trying to pass laws to, you know, centralize assets and take over properties, right? This is Marxist policy. And there's a fight where they're trying to get into the Democratic Party to take over the Democratic Party. And this is standard, Brian has found the

guidebook. This is standard Marxist-Leninist strategy. You subvert from within. You subvert from within. So that's really happening. And you can see it in many, many cities. You know, these, these communist policies get rolled out in Seattle and in Chicago and blue cities and in, you know, I'm in Massachusetts. In Boston, I came out in Boston. This is not unrelated. There were no visible Christmas decorations. I read that. You wrote that someplace probably on X, but I thought, boy, that's interesting. Right. And that's happening across Western Europe and in North America. And And it's happening like gradually, gradually, gradually. But the goal of, I mean, 60 years ago, you know, communist leaders told our leaders, eventually America will be communist where you just won't notice.

You know, it'll happen so gradually you won't notice. So there is Marxist money and it's allied with, you know, biotech money and they're using fundamentalist Islam as a cat's paw to get done a lot of things that Marxists want to do. You see that in New York, certainly with the weird alliance of like jihadists and communists, right? Because they don't. Well, they're using each other. They're using each other. Obviously, you know, the Islamists think, hey, we've got all these stupid leftist woke people who are willing to let us get in there. Let's work with them.

Let's pretend that our values are aligned until they're not. Then we'll cut their throats. Right. Just saying that's, it really is a diabolical alliance. And the Marxists are thinking the same thing. we'll use these, you know, thoughtless medieval jihadists and then we'll get rid of them. The way Marxists have throughout history, right? They align with, you know, a class and then they line them up against the wall and kill them.

And so it's very much like the fable of the scorpion and the frog, right? Like, you know, they're using each other and then they sting each other to death. I get the details. Is that from Aesop's fables? Yes, but I may have the characters slightly wrong. I was going to say, I don't remember the frog stinging anybody. It's not a frog. I'm sorry. I need a second cup of coffee. But the fable where everyone kills each other right there, it's not going to end well, but this is what we're seeing in Western Europe and North America. And that's, in retrospect, you know, the total destruction of the black family, black business, black institutions, the black church, right? The black church got totally infiltrated by, you know, wokeism and pandemic money and broken. And it was like that the, the, the spine of the black community.

I go to black churches when I'm in my neighborhood Prospect Lefferts, which is a mostly Caribbean-American neighborhood. And I've seen the pandemic money. You know, they had speakers from the Department of Health giving the sermon. They, you know, it's. What? What? Yes.

Yes, I'm telling you. Okay. I mean, everybody in the conservative world and the conservative Christian world knows that there's just this vile double standard that if. if you have all of these, you know, white evangelicals afraid to say anything barely political, like total cowards, because, you know, separation of church and state, I'll lose my five, one, one, see, but meanwhile, in the black churches, they're bringing in Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson talking about Jaime Town.

We spoke in the black churches, and I'm like, how is this legal? It's not legal. And this is certainly how the Democratic Party perpetuates itself by funneling money. to black leaders to keep, you know, the voters voting black. Black people are sick of it, of course. You saw that with the election President Trump and the support increasingly among black males for conservative leaders and conservative values. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I saw the purchasing and disruption of the African-American church, a couple of churches now.

But you won't believe this. There seem to be policies, at least in churches in New York, and the synagogue dog too, where they put a screen for Zoom on the altar. They put like a computer monitor on the altar. And so instead of going to church and listening to the priest or the preacher or the rabbi, you're staring at a computer screen. I mean, it's so systemic. And the churches that are not having this done to them in my neighborhood are immigrant churches. The immigrants are being left alone to have their faith. But the people who are Americans now for many generations, black Americans, like of Caribbean descent, as it happens, they're having their church broken. And it's working.

Like in these churches, they're dying. In the synagogues, they're dying because they've taken the money to disrupt. I mean, haven't you noticed that churches and synagogues are open one hour a week these days? That's a policy. They're getting money to stay closed. My synagogue got money to stay closed. aware of this? I'm not aware of a lot of things. Folks, listen, if you've been injured in an accident or someone you love has been, this is something you really need to hear. I've been talking with the team over at Legal Help Center,

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Listen, I am nonetheless, well, I say this all the time. We are in a war. It's the third existential crisis of our history, the revolution, the civil war. We are now in the third existential crisis. I believe that God has ordained that we will prevail. as we did in the last two. Nonetheless, in the midst of the war, there are casualties. It is a war. It is a fight.

And our job is to pray and to fight and to leave the results in God's hands. But I am hopeful that there is a way through all of this. I'm even hopeful a little bit more dimly for Europe. I know you have to go, but can you say a word about what is happening in Europe? because there are, when things get so bad, it's good because finally some people who've been silent rise up. I'm not sure what's going on in Ireland, but, you know, in Hungary, in Germany,

a lot of people who have been in the shadows are gaining some power. And so I do have hope. Right. Yeah, I'll stay until you kick me out, Eric, for you and your team, because you're one of my absolute favorite podcast and you're doing such important work with a hard stop, of course, at 11. But what is, I don't know, I see what you're saying. And I do see, of course, Hungary is such a, in Poland, right, they're resisting and rejecting the globalization policies of the EU. They don't want, specifically. Okay, now, why, though? Quickly, parenthetically, why? Because they've actually experienced communism. And when you've actually experienced the hell of that, which my mother did in East Germany, which my father did as communist tried to take over Greece,

they know because they have seen it. It is evil, no matter how you slice it. So if you've lived through it, you develop the muscles to fight against it. But in all of the countries like, I don't know, Sweden or England or wherever they are really ignorant and stupid, they don't quite have that. And they don't recognize it and they're easily, it's so painful to watch, you know, our own civil society norms like, sure, you know, take over a street and pray in the middle of the street as an act of aggression. There are a million mosques. You know, our own civil society norms are being used against us. And it's very scary to me as someone who really believes in protecting civil society open pluralistic multi-denominational norms because eventually people will start saying, no, you can't,

to just one religion that is, you know, at the forefront of this disruption. And that's a slippery slope, right? Because then you lose your open pluralistic society. I mean, you only have an open pluralistic society if everyone agrees to, you know, respect that it's an open pluralistic society and not like block Jews from entering. But Naomi, let's, well, let's flip this. why are there not Christians massing in the streets to praise Jesus publicly? Why is that not happening? Well, it's happening. It's not happening in the confrontational way that...

It's not happening much. It's certainly not happening in New York. I can count on the fingers of one finger, the churches that would do that in New York. So if you've lost cultural confidence, you say, well, they have not. They are praying, you know, next to the falafel stand. I'm in a cab. And there's a guy on a prayer rug while the – That's fine.

You know, that's his – I didn't say there's anything wrong with it. No, no, no, no. There's nothing wrong with it. But it tells you something that that person doesn't care what you think he is doing his thing. Christians typically care so much what everyone thinks that they do nothing. They hide their light under a bushel, which is a sin. Yeah.

And that is why Islam appears to be taking over because Christians are hardly Christian publicly. Yeah. I mean, I'm not Christian. So even though, as you know, because I broke it on your show, I do love and celebrate Jesus. But you'll have to tell me. I think, I mean, it's the same reason Jews don't, you know, come out and do public worship. Well, we're not supposed to. I mean, Jesus said, you know, don't be like a white. sepulchre, if you if you fast and pray, do it in private, like go into a closet. Don't don't be showing off your faith. I agree with you that it's time to come out very publicly for our various faiths and certainly to like, here's an example.

And I keep saying on social media, it's a memo, it's a memo because it's so clear to me having worked in politics at the highest level that when you've got multiple scenes of, you know, Muslim immigrants brandishing swords in Britain, which they never do. in Morocco or Yemen or, you know, Saudi Arabia or other places, Afghanistan, that's a memo designed to intimidate Westerners. Well, listen, they deserve it. Kier-Starmer and King Charles, quote unquote, they're not saying anything against this. If you're not saying anything against this, who do you have to blame? I mean, the leaders are aligned with it. I mean, it's a policy at the highest levels. But where I was going to go is also a memo is to target Christmas markets and even to target nativity scenes. And this is again happening in multiple places and to burn churches.

Like you're seeing this across North America and Western Europe, ancient churches, right? So baby Jesus in the nativity scene in Brussels was beheaded. Someone absconded with baby Jesus's head. And another nativity scene in North America was a vandal. or damaged. So when things like that happen, yes, where are the Christians? You should be out, you know, praying. I guess this is the thing. During the horrors of the Holocaust, Corey Ten Boom and her Dutch family, as told in her classic book, The Hiding Place, risked everything to shelter Jewish neighbors in their home. They were betrayed and sent to

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That's 10 Boomcoffee.com. Taste the goodness that changes lives. Use the code Eric and say 10%. 10 boomcoffee.com, use the code, Eric. First, just to circle back on what you were talking about, when Jesus was talking about, you know, say your prayers in private and all that kind of thing, that was a specific criticism of phony religiosity,

of which there is plenty. That's a different kind of problem. That's what we call virtue signaling, right? And he's saying, don't do virtue signaling, have actual virtue, which is different. So he was being critical of a certain kind of thing. In other words, many of the religious Jews of his day were famously religious. And he thought, you know what? You're not fooling God.

Your lips say this. Your hearts are far from me. So it's a specific kind of criticism. Right. The idea that we ought not to be public about our faith, certainly Jesus was not criticizing that. We ought to be public about our faith. Why? Because it's not done in a chest thumping militaristic way. We praise God, who has provided us with the oxygen that we breathe and the glorious color of the blue sky. We praise him for this. And we ought not to be ashamed. And there's many examples.

I mean, think of David dancing before the ark. and his wife sort of sneering and criticized or something like that. There's a lot to be said on this issue, but I do think that Christians in America, many Christians, not all, probably not many listen to this program, but many are just, they're just ashamed of their faith.

They want to be accepted by the cultural elites. They don't want the New York Times to write something unflattering about them, that they associated with the jug handling, you know, snake handling jug heads, you know. Right. That's kind of the problem. Yeah.

And I think, I hope that these terrible things that are happening will get Christians to say, we need to be much more present in the culture. We need to be vocal in the culture. It matters. And I wrote a book called Letters of the American Church just to talk about voting, just being political, just to do that. or change everything. There are millions of evangelical Christians in California who didn't even vote.

So if we complain about what happens in California, you say, well, who's to blame? The lame church in California, those churches in California that won't even vote. They will lose their 501C3 status under other administrations. They will be investigated by the IRS. I mean, that's a real obstacle, Eric. Well, I think you have to be willing to fight. My friend Pastor Chey Ann sued Gavin Newsom. By the way, Pastor Chey Ann is running for governor in California right now.

He sued Gavin Newsom. The late great Pastor John MacArthur boldly stood against the California government. My friend Jack Hibbs, my friend Rob McCoy, they all were boldly standing against authoritarianism. So there were many who did, but then there were many, many, many others who said, oh, you know what, we just want to play nice. We don't want anybody to criticize. And again, I'm only repeating myself.

But, you know, that's the story of my Bonhofer book, that the German church said, well, well, we don't want to, you know, we don't want to push back too hard. We want to be left alone. And you're complicit with evil. And that's basically the story of the American church. It's been the story of the American church, although I'm cautiously optimistic. Yeah, well, let me say as a Jew word, we need you guys.

I mean, it is getting really scary to be Jewish in New York. People are fleeing. You know, my co-religionists are fleeing because we, just like people who've lived under communism, like your parents recognize the signs. You know, we have an ancestral memory two generations back of what it feels like when things are heading in a fascistic, anti-Semitic direction. And we recognize the signs with the Mamdani administration. He's being very direct about it. He's putting jihadists who attack. not Israel and Israeli policy, but, you know, blur Israel into Jewishness and block people

from praying, you know, and attack synagogues in England. And like, this is so clear that we are the next targets. He's been vocal about it, you know, like saying, I mean, not even saying, expressing regret for October 7th. I mean, in overt terms, I mean, it's so bad. The signs are so bad. Well, where I'm going with that is America, it's really interesting. I hate to say this because I love, you know, many Muslims. I studied Islam. I've traveled to Muslim countries. This is not true of every Muslim. There are millions of moderate Muslims who want to live in peace with Christians and Jews. But right now, America needs to dig deep and reclaim its Judeo-Christian alliances because there's something very alien to our values that is targeting our values. And would be really good if, you know, Christians would come out with their faith, making it safer for Jews to be public about their faith and vice versa. And, you know, we are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. It's very dangerous when I, when people on the right say we're a Christian nation or not a Christian nation. The founders specifically created a nation of freedom of conscience. But as a result, we're the most religious nation on earth. And we really need, you know, the Christians to, ring their bells and, you know, come out and pray and protect baby Jesus, protect the synagogues, and, you know, vice versa. Like who, I have to say as a Jew, when you see these, you know, fundamentalist Muslim kind of, I don't want to say hordes, but it really is that, attacking our

institutions, like, it should put anti-Semitic impulses into context. We are not your problem, you know, Western Europe and North America. You know, Jews are your allies. And I loved what you had to say at your gala about Christians who have their hearts in the right place, loving Jews and vice versa. I don't want to create more sectarianism or division, but right now fundamentalist Islam is targeting Judaism and Christianity. And we need to, you know. You're not making that up, Naomi. Unfortunately for them and for us, it's true. Let's be clear. There's a reason they hate Jews and they hate Christians. There's a reason for that. It is a diabolical thing.

It is nothing less. And we have to be clear about that. My people, the Greeks, were for four centuries, subjugated horribly under the Ottoman Turks. So whenever I hear anybody, even black Americans go, oh, we had years of slavery. Listen, this is not a color thing. There is evil in the world. There is evil in the world. And there are many Americans and Westerners who are so spoiled.

They really think somehow we've evolved past that and everything can work out. And so we're being shown the evilness of evil again in our time so that those who might wake up will wake up. And many of us are waking up. You and I are only two. But we are not the people that we were even a few years ago. And so I'm just so grateful for you. I just want to say again how much it meant to me. to see you the other night in that celebration.

And there was something there when you said it was like going back, I don't know, to the before times or whatever it was. Yeah. There is more of that than people realize. And I think it is really coming back. I think it's roaring back. And there's a hunger for it that we've never seen. And so I'm just, I'm really hopeful.

I'm really hopeful, as I say, we're in a war. But that's okay. God has called us to this war to fight for what is right and good and true. It's a sacred cause. It's beautiful. And so, again, just a joy to have you in it with us. There's a lot more to say. We'll let you go.

Grateful for your time, Naomi. God bless you to be continued. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much for including me and Brian in this beautiful world you've created. And I do encourage everyone to go to SocratesintheCity.com. and support everything Eric is doing because he's holding back the forces of darkness.

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He put his money where his mouth is. Some of you know this. If you've watched the program, he stood up for the country. He was unfairly canceled by the big box stores so I want us to stand with him so please go to mypillow.com use a promo code Eric to save big on pillows, sheets, slippers, everything you need for Christmas comfort. You'll sleep great, save big, celebrate freedom with my pillow. Mypillow.com use the code Eric.