The Eric Metaxas Show - Thomas Klingenstein

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

Thomas Klingenstein of the Claremont Institute has the guts to call out BLM for being a "racist organization" -- and points out other critical things necessary to save our nation.

show. Hey, for you Eric Mataxis trivia buffs out there, Eric's Secret Service codename is El Jerko. Please make note of it. And now the man who'll deny it, but it's true anyway. Here's El Jerko himself, my friend Eric Mattaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. This is the Eric Mataxis show. I promise to bring you wonderful guests, and very often I succeed. For example, today I have as my guest for the hour, Thomas Klingenstein. He's a businessman, playwright, philanthropist, but for our purposes, He's the chairman of the Claremont Institute. If you're unaware of the Claremont Institute, well, consider yourself aware. They are a wonderful think tank in California.

And I just, I'm thrilled, Tom, to have you on the program. Thanks for making time. Well, I'm pleased to be here. Thank you, Eric. Well, there was a video just the other day that was making the rounds on YouTube of you giving a speech. It was really spectacular. I don't know if we want to talk about the subject of that or if we want to talk about what has become of the Democratic Party.

There's so many people that seem to think Joe Biden is a moderate choice, a wise choice. And I am so horrified by that. How I wish that were true, but it isn't true. And so let's start anywhere you'd like to start. I also know you have an article in Newsweek that people can look up. But what's on your mind today? Well, if you start with Biden, I'll start with Biden. And I agree with you. He's a puppet.

He's been radicalized. He doesn't know that. For example, he talks about transgender equality, being the civil rights issue of our time. Well, I don't doubt he knew what transgenderism is six months ago. He talks about America being systemically racist. He said at one point, racism is in everything we do, he said, in housing, and education, and so forth. And he doesn't know it, I don't think. But what follows from that is a need to overthrow the American way of life. after all, if America is systemically racist, if racism is in all our institutions and all our values,

well, then you need to overthrow the system. People throw around this term systemic racism. But we should be very clear that that's a call to overthrow the American way of life. So, you know, they try, the Democrats, try to position Biden as the great unifier and Trump as the great divider. And I think the truth is just the opposite. You know, Trump didn't divide.

He revealed the divide. And that's the great sin he committed. And Biden, as I say, because he's controlled by the radical wing of the party, which wants to destroy or cancel America, he's the divide. I just got to ask you, Tom, you know, with a name like Klingenstein, I assume you're Jewish, like I do, you live in New York City. Most people expect New York Jews and New York Gentiles, for that matter, to be pro-Democrat Party. Can you say it all how you came to be where you are today? I mean, to be heading up the Claremont Institute, which is about a distinguished, a conservative institution, as I can think,

of at present. What is your story? Were you always thinking along these lines or has there been an evolution in your life? You know, in my neighborhood, in my election district, I am told that there were four people who voted for Trump to make your point in the last election. And I think I know two of the other three. So you're absolutely right. As to how I got here, I actually, you know, I went to college in the early 70s, like most students then, not radical, but certainly left. My first vote was for George McGovern. And how exactly I evolved, I'm not sure. But one very seminal influence was actually the intellectual patriarch of the Claremont Institute,

a man by the name of Harry Jaffa, who wrote about political philosophy. and he wrote a lot about Lincoln. Lincoln was for him, you know, the ideal statesman. I loved Lincoln even at a very early age. And I, by accident, read a book by Harry Jaffa. And he explained not just, well, the thinking and the statesmanship of Lincoln. And Lincoln was conservative. in the sense that he was prudent.

He understood always where he was going, what his ultimate objective was, but yet he understood that he always had to move no more quickly, right, than the people would allow. What he did was a function of the circumstances, which if I can bring it back to Trump, people don't like Trump, many people, but he's the right guy for these circumstances

and understanding the circumstances and matching the man to the circumstances is what matters. Lincoln might not have been a great president at all times, but he had just the qualities required. So it was an appreciation of Lincoln, I think, which I, and Lincoln's thinking, his political philosophy. Lincoln was a serious thinker in addition to being a wonderful statesman. So I think that started my intellectual journey. Well, it's just interesting because it is funny. You mentioned there are four people you thought who voted for Trump. I can guess where you live. I'm guessing it's west of where I live. But let me tell you, most people don't have any idea how many folks in New York are pro-Trump, because they're quiet about it.

building, all kinds of people in my building. Jews and Gentiles love Trump, but they're very quiet about it. I think when you talk about Lincoln, you really get to the point. Lincoln was someone, we forget, who was deeply despised by many in his time, you know. And of course, now we all say, oh, Lincoln is great. Lincoln is great. But Lincoln, when you look at him, of course, he espoused the vision of the founders maybe better than any president we have ever had. He understood it and explained it and lived it out. I think better than any president we've ever had, that's sort of forgotten. It's somehow forgotten that he was all in with the founder's vision.

And we now have a Democratic Party that claims to be all in with the founder's vision is to be a racist. Right. And I think that's absolutely right. I couldn't have said it better myself, Eric. And that's why the Democrats, which are now controlled by its radical wing, that's why they have to get rid of Lincoln. Because Lincoln is the best defender of the founding. Lincoln describes the founding.

He makes us understand why, for example, they couldn't, the founders couldn't get rid of slavery at the outset. So Lincoln explains to us what we ought to be and how we ought to look at the world and look at it like the founders. So if you want to preserve the founding, and we have to preserve the founding, because the founding explains who we are,

but if you want to destroy it, you destroy Lincoln. And by the way, you also destroy Frederick Douglass, because Douglas in his way understood the founding in the same way Lincoln did. And Douglas understood Lincoln. So if you're trying to destroy America, you have to destroy America's past. You have to destroy how Americans think about themselves.

What the BLM radicals, which, again, Biden embraces, what they want is for us to see our past as just a series of oppressive acts against minorities. Well, I mean, yeah. And if that's the case, then they are certainly aiming to do what they aim to do during the French Revolution is start afresh, declare a new utopianist era. And of course, they have to crush everyone clinging to the previous era. We're going to be right back, folks. I'm talking to Thomas Klingenstein. We're going to be right back for the rest of the hour.

Stick around. Folks, for the hour, as Charlie Rose used to say when he had a career, I'm talking to Thomas Klingenstein. He's a businessman, a philanthropist, partner with the investment firm of Cohen, Klingenstein. He's also chairman of the Claremont Institute, which I have revered over the years. And Tom, it's great to have you. We're talking about a lot of things. You've written an article recently in Newsweek, and you've given a speech. Where did you give the speech that's been making the rounds on the internet? I can't remember where that was.

Well, originally I gave it to a Republican club. Well, I just want to say that it's important that we clarify some things. One of the things that you were just saying when we went to the break was that what the left today, what the Democratic Party today wants to do is very radically different than what they would have wanted to do even 30 years ago or 20 years ago. They want, by giving themselves over entirely to the radical left, wing of their party, they are all in with the so-called 1619 project and with the idea that America is fundamentally and inherently damned, that there is nothing that we can do to improve ourselves.

In the past, we would have all wanted to say, well, how can we be better? And Martin Luther King Jr. said that the founding documents are promissory notes. And it had a positive vector. It seems that they have changed dramatically, that they're where the French Revolution was. They say we've got to wipe everything out, if that means looting and burning, and we don't care. We want to start anew. Now, they're not being quite clear about that because that would scare many Americans. But it seems that that is, in fact, where they are today and why Biden chose Kamala Harris, rather than anyone else he might have chosen.

and she is genuinely the most liberal of 100 senators, hard to believe. Am I getting it roughly right that that's where they're taking us, but they're not telling us? Though yes, though in fact they are, or at least beginning to tell us. One of the blessings, I think, of these riots, if one could say there were any blessings,

is that it revealed the agenda of the left in a way that hasn't been so clear. Right. The radical wing is the agenda of Black Lives Matter. Well, now we can see what the agenda is because it's written down, right? They want to destroy the traditional family, religion, Marxism, transgender, everything.

Right? And that's what's involved in destroying the American way of life. You'll notice, to get to your point, that the stuff about destroying the traditional mother, father, family, they took out of their mission. Why? Because as you said, to the American people, that is too radical. And yet it's very important that the American people understand that that's where they're going. That's where they're going. Well, isn't that, but isn't that classic Marxism? Yes. Yes, it is. In fact, you know, this is a form of Marxism. But instead of having property classes, we have race classes instead of the oppressor group being capitalist, they're white people. But this is Marxism, which is why sometimes we call it,

cultural Marxism. If I may, Eric, I want to explain one thing, if I may, because I think it might make people understand a little bit better what's happening and might allow them to anticipate what will happen. And that is this. They want to remake, as you say, American society. They don't want to improve it, which incidentally is why we ought not to negotiate with them, because we're not going in the same direction. So what is it that they want to remake America into? Well, what they say is they want a country where all identity groups, defined by race or gender, whatever, all identity groups are equal with respect to income in power. That means same number of chief executive officers, senators, physicists, baseball players, for each of the United States,

of the identity groups. Well, that way of life cannot, and that understanding of justice, cannot possibly coexist with a society such as ours that is based on individual freedom, because in a free society, there will always be group differences, particularly between men and women, because men and women are different.

You heard that here first. And so what this BLM way of life requires is crushing all these natural differences, not just the differences between men and women, but the differences that evolve largely through culture among groups. So this can only happen with a tyranny. But the point is, if you understand where they're going, I think it's easier to make sense of their policies. and also allows you perhaps to anticipate. You know they have to destroy the mother, father family, even if they don't tell it to you right now. Well, this is what's so horrific is that I think,

I mean, I always joke around about my in-laws were FDR Democrats. And they voted, you know, all the way along for the Democratic Party. But for them, the Democratic Party was FDR, it was for the working man and so on and so forth. And I think that there's that kind of a lag that most people are not perfectly up to date. And so they think that they're voting for Hillary Clinton or they're voting for Bill Clinton or they're voting for, you name it.

Somebody in the last 30 years that seems, you know, like vaguely centrist and so on and so forth. And the fact of the matter is that the reason they're allowed to believe this lie is because the mandarin's of power in the Democratic Party haven't had the guts really to speak up. I mean, it seems obvious that folks like Nancy Pelosi have made a deal with the devil. They understand that they have nowhere to go and they've just got to, you know, clench their jaw and move forward, but that they do not have the ability to push back against the AOCs and the IOMRs and so on and so forth. somehow they're allowing themselves to be used, you know, maybe in the way that Hindenberg allowed himself to be used as cover for Hitler until he could be kicked away and Hitler could do as he

like. But I think that they are really allowing themselves, this older generation of Democrats, to be used. And for sure, Joe Biden is allowing himself to be used as cover for a darker, much more radical agenda than his would have been. You know, the Nazis are not a bad example because like in all revolutions, they are led by a small, zealous few. And the rest go along. Some of the, they go along because they're fearful, because most of us just follow a particular drift. But also, and this was the case with the Nazis, I think, that the moderates think that when they get in power, they can moderate the, radicals. That never happens. And you're absolutely right. The Democratic Party has been radicalized.

They don't know it. I think the riots ought to have revealed this, or they did reveal it, because those were not BLM riots. Those riots could have been stopped in a heartbeat if the Democrats wanted to stop them. But they didn't. They egg them on. The media. supported them and the Democrats funded them. The major corporations funded these riots, right? These were not BLM riots. These were the riots of the Democratic Party. Part of the difficulty, I think, of Americans seeing this is, you know, Joe Biden seems like a kind of reasonable man. I don't presume that he wants to overthrow the American way of life. I'm assuming that most run of the mill politicians would disavow the radical aspects of this agenda, but they're going to be carried

along. They would have disavowed gay marriage at one point, right? But at some point it becomes the zeitgeist. It's where things are flowing. So one of the things we have to make clear, which is what you tried to just make clear, which is the Democratic Party is really the AOC Party. It's really the AOC party. that's a revolutionary party. That party wants not to improve, but remake. That's why you can't negotiate. And this, by the way,

sorry, forgive me, we're going to go to a break. We're going to allow Thomas Klingstein to complete that sentence and that thought when we come back. Folks, this is too important to miss. We'll be right back. I want to make sure you're prepared to vote on November 3rd. The radical Democrats are doing everything in their power to stop Republicans from winning.

And we want to make sure patriots like you are heard. This is the election of our lifetime. Make sure your vote is counted. Text Metaxis, M-E-T-A-X-A-S to 880-2 to find your polling location. Folks, Eric Mataxis talking with Thomas Klingenstein. he is the head of the chairman of the Claremont Institute. Tommy, you were just saying something important and we had to go to a break. Please continue that thought.

What I was saying was, we're in a war, and in a war you don't negotiate, you don't compromise. Republicans are much too quick to compromise or to concede that, yes, there's racism in America. Not as much as the Democrats, but yes, there is, and yes, the police can be improved. And yes, we ought to take down some statutes. Well, all that may be true, but this is not the time to negotiate. You don't negotiate with people who want to destroy you.

You don't negotiate with people. Well, you just don't negotiate with your enemy. You negotiate with your enemy when you've beaten them. And this is the great virtue of true. Trump. Trump believes that America is incredible. That's his favorite word, right? He never apologizes for America's past. There's no guilt. He concedes nothing. He thinks that America is exceptional, and that's the way he wants to keep it, period. And those may not always be the attributes that one wants in a president, but in these times, in these revolutionary times, these

war times. That's exactly what we need. And it's why Trump is so valuable. He's the only one, one who understands the fight we're in and is willing, unequivocally, to defend the American way of life. And of course, when we're talking about the American way of life, I'm sorry? No, I was going to say, when we're talking about the American way of life, at this point, what we're talking about is the West. We're talking about the values of the West. We're talking about. We're talking about the values. We're about Athens and Jerusalem and 25 centuries of civilization culminating in the freest, most prosperous society in the history of the world. And we have forces now that are utterly against every good thing that the West has produced. And as you've said, and I've said, they want to unmake it.

They seem to have something else in mind. But I think if you, you know, if you put down a piece of paper in front of them and said, hey, listen, what do you have in mind? Can you sketch out, you know, the way Franklin might have, how are we going to do this? What's this going to look like? There is no way to get anything better than what we have. And people who claim this are like those during the French Revolution or during the Bolshevik Revolution. They're liars. They're fantasists. They're utopians. If we could get there, I would say, okay, well, show me how, and maybe we can work together. But I think we both know that it's never been done before

and what they're banking on is the ignorance and the complacence of American voters. That, to me, is their hope. And the complicit of the elite that control our cultural institutions and therefore have a great deal of influence over public sentiment, public opinion. Now, I would say this utopia that they envision, I don't want this utopia.

This isn't just a question of, I don't think you can get it. I don't want it because this utopia that they have in mind means no freedom. Freedom under their thinking, which they call anti-racism or critical race theory, or goes by all kinds of names. Freedom is racist. Now, why is freedom racist? That sounds kind of funny. because if you leave individuals free to pursue happiness, what will result is group outcome differences. As I said before, women will do different things than men.

Now, I just want to clarify, annotate. When you say freedom is racist, what you mean is they claim that our style of freedom, that American style self-government and liberty, they claim it is racist. and you're quite right about that. But continue along those lines just to make the point. No, no, I absolutely right. But my point was that I don't want to live under this utopia. It's not just a question of it's impractical and we can't get there.

It is rather it's not a place. It's not a society that you and I want to live in. So they've got a plan, right? They know where they're going, but it's just not a place that we want to go to. But I think we're both making the same point, is that they're pretending that it is a place we all want to go to. And the reality is it will result in levels of inequality that make current levels of inequality look like nothing. We know what happened in the former Soviet Union. We know about the Gulag.

We know what happened to Venezuela in five minutes. We know over and over in history what happens when people who are getting the math wrong, pretend that you can go someplace good when the fact is you can't. And if they can fool enough people, they can get enough people on board. And there will be a bloodbath and horrors to come. But they keep claiming somehow that, no, they've got something more equal, more beautiful. And we simply know that they don't, that they can't, and that what the founders gave us is so extraordinary, so unprecedented in history that really all you can do at this point is tinker with it and improve it. And we've done that over the last two and a half centuries. We're going to go to another break. Folks, I have the privilege of talking with Tom Klingenstein. He is with the Claremont Institute. I want to remind you also, folks, go to our website, Metaxistalk.com. We need your help for the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Please don't forget Metaxistock.com, Alliance Defending Freedom. We'll be right back. Hey, folks. I'm talking to Tom Cleonsstein. He's with the Claremont Institute. And Tom, I just love the fact that you're here in New York, I'm here in New York, and we're both advocating for America. It's a little bit ironic.

Most people think that everyone in New York would be pro-Governor Cuomo, pro-Mayer de Blasio. But funnily enough, we're anti-communists. So I want to ask you, you said something that really what the left is trying to do is trying to convince everyone that we're racist, that were systemically racist. That means Kamala Harris's husband, who's a white man who's been kept off the campaign trail, because that's not a good optic, that he is systemically racist. Obviously, Barack Obama's mother, who was white,

is systemically racist. They're trying to convince us of this. And many people have a nascent sense of guilt about everything. And so they're perfectly willing to go along with that. Is that really where we are? I think it is. But I also think it plays into America's profound sense of fairness, right? It resonates with America, this charge of racism, which then gives rise to guilt. But what Americans have to understand is this is the strategy of the left. If they can convince us that we're racist, then we will accede to their policy agenda. And so what that means is Republicans have to stand up. They have to speak out. And they have to say, no, America is not racist, period. As I said before, this is not to say there isn't some racism. Obviously,

there's racism always will be. Not to say there aren't some racist, but at this moment, this is the time to categorically, I think, assert that America is not racist. And at the same time, at the same time, they need to figure out a way to say that Black Lives Matter, the organization, is racist. You can't say it, but you have to say it. Because remember, what political correctness is is a prohibition on objecting to anti-racism, right? You can't object, right? You can't defend America. Well, if you can't speak up, you can't defend America.

And so you have to take on at this moment, I think, Black Lives Matter. You have to say to Black Lives Matter, something like absolutely Black Lives, matter. They just don't matter to you. You don't care about George Floyd. You don't care about the police. You don't care about the businesses that have been destroyed. The blacks that you have killed because the police have backed off. Those are those blacks are all abstractions, right? Those are a prop for their agenda. They're just here. You're just here. I think you ought to speak directly to them. You're here for destruction. You're not here for black. You're not here for lives, you're not here for any lies. You have to delegitimize, I think, Black Lives Matter.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Look, there are evangelical churches that have been duped horribly into somehow believing that Black Lives Matter is vaguely positive or very positive. I have said, just what you said, they're one of the most wicked, cynical, anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and even anti-Black organizations that has ever existed on the planet. If they could have murdered George Floyd, I'm convinced they're all about power. They couldn't care less about the life of George Floyd. And the reason for that is because they are atheists and Marxists, they don't even have the grounding to say that we're all made in God's image. All lives are sacred. It's pure power. It's postmodern. It's, you know, all the stuff that basically says there is no ground of all being.

only care about power. That's who they are. But what horrifies me is that many decent people, people of faith have been completely horn swagled by BLM. And I think that we are, as you said, compelled to denounce them as wicked, as frauds, as enemies of everything good in American culture. And I think we've been fooled in large measure because our leaders are not speaking up, right? People need to hear their beliefs, sometimes unformed, not fully articulated beliefs. They need those expressed in the public square. Otherwise, they don't think their beliefs are shared. Even President Trump is reluctant, and I understand why, to call BLM racist. But I think, and I have you know, politician friends who disagree, but I think the politicians have to take on BLM because

BLM has the moral authority at this moment, and that moral authority has to be destroyed. Well, I couldn't agree more, and I'm thrilled for you and for the Claremont Institute, because you exist and you're vocalizing the things. I know that you don't speak exactly for the Clearmind Institute, but it really, it requires courage. And I find, and I know you find that many folks in public life don't have courage. It takes genuine courage to be even willing to see these things, much less give them voice. And I'm horrified at people, particularly in corporate America, who have gone along with this. We've just got a minute or so left. Can you address that? Why would corporate America be as deeply craven as they have been?

Well, I mean, you know, it's two reasons, I think. They, you know, they need to buy off the left. But I think even more, you know, these are our cultural elites. They have embraced diversity or what we're now calling anti-racism. They believe in this stuff. The only place where we have people who don't believe in this stuff is in politics, but our politicians are not speaking up. At other times, you know, we would have had people in our cultural institutions or business that rejected, like they rejected communism. But those places

have all been taken over. The only place to fight the cultural wars is politics, and our politics are not fighting them. And you're absolutely right about Black Lives Matter being anti-Christian. At its core, remember, Christianity supports the American way of life. We got to destroy it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we are. Now, if people want to find you, what's the best place for people to find you online? Americaisgood.us.us. America is good.us. And they'll see my speeches, written work. All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Tom Klingenstein, a privilege to get this time with you. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Eric. Appreciate it.

I was up before the dawn. Enjoyed my stay, but I must be moving on. Hey, the folks. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed today's program. Oh, my gosh. Cleenstein. Come on. Tomorrow, are you ready for this? We've tried a long time. Shelby Steele. Yep. Very big deal. He has a new film out. We talked about

that yesterday. I don't remember the title of the film now. It's called. It's called What Killed Michael Brown? And we actually talked about it in the first hour today. Oh, that's today. Oh, that's today. We're going to have him tomorrow. Today we talk with Bob Woodson about what killed Michael Brown, but the film, but Shelby

Steele himself will be on this program tomorrow. You don't want to miss that, folks. And we're going to be talking to people about the election and so on and so forth. A couple other things I want to mention. This I find, Albin, I find this funny and sad at the same time. I always say that my own relatives and my best friends either don't subscribe to the weekly email where I say go to Ericmetaxis.com, subscribe to the email, or they don't listen to the program or they don't, you know, they'll go to Mypillow.com and not use my discount. Only those closest to me. Right.

My cousin Eleanor was here yesterday. I'm not going to mention names, Eleanor Capazola. I would never mention her name. She was talking about wanting to get the mattress topper and raving about Mike Lindell. And I said, well, you know how to use my code Eric, right? Not a clue. Oh, gosh. My first cousin, like a sister to me, until yesterday.

But I thought to myself, this is so funny. even my own dear dearest cousin, Eleanor Capazola. Again, I can't mention her name on the air. But folks, if you use the code Eric, when you go to mypillow.com, and new news at mypillow.com, you link to my store.com. They have all three of my Donald Bacaveman books bundled for 1099 each. Do you understand? These are $20 books.

1099 each but and this is new you have to use the code Eric last time there was no code now there's a code wow whatever you get from these places but you cannot get those books cheaper anywhere and I'm not kidding this is only while supplies last this is not like a joke they will be sold out soon because it's it's limited we're doing a reprint so it's great because you're going to have money left over to give to ADF, right? ADF is one of the greatest organizations that exists. Whoever gets elected president, they are fighting for religious liberty. We need them.

We need them now, and we will need them more in the future. And if a certain somebody's elected, we will need them desperately. Folks, I'm telling you, this is like insurance. This is like paying into the future. ADF is setting a course. legally in this country. Nobody else is doing what they're doing. If you go to our website,

metaxis talk.com, you'll see the banner, ADF. Albin and I and Chris have cooked up all kinds of things we want to do to thank you for giving. I even have my beard hair in a lunchbox now. Isn't that sweet?

That's so touching and sick. So folks, we have all kinds of ways that we want to thank you for giving, but please give, we know you don't give together. at religious liberty is really a very serious issue suddenly in America, and nobody does a better job than ADF. So you have to go to our website, Metaxistock.com. While you're there, you click on the banner.

And also now we have this thing called, what is it called Eric's store or my store on there? Yeah, I don't even know. It's on the website. All I can tell you is you've got to go to Metaxistock.com to click on the ADF banner. You'll see whatever you see there. Please do it. Tomorrow, the amazing, the important Shelby Steele. He wrote his famous book, White Guilt.

We will talk to him tomorrow. Thanks for listening.