The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guest: Andrew Klavan | 10/31/23

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Glenn outlines why witchcraft has seen a sudden surge in popularity and exposes those who are engaging in it for the "edgelord" mindset they have. Are people starting to turn their backs on the Left's abhorrent support for Hamas? Author and host of "The Andrew Klavan Show" Andrew Klavan joins to discuss the release of his newest book, "The House of Love and Death," and the struggle to be good in an evil world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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on on Hacacacacan. Hey, by the way, it's Halloween. Halloween. It is time for a scary, scary, scary.

You think Glenn Beck is scary on not Halloween. You should hear him boom on Halloween. You're listening to The best of the Glenn Beck program. Hello, Stu.

Glenn, how are you? Oh, happy Halloween. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, happy Halloween to you. And I've got some scary stuff for you today. Scary. Now, this may come as a surprise to you, but I learned this from NPR.

Witches are real and witches are liberal, politically, politically, okay? Now, it's no surprise, really, if you want to think, about it. Really no surprise at all that, you know, witches are liberal and NPR would run a fluff piece about witches. The segment featured a writer who devoted an entire year of her life to witchcraft. Now, does that work out? Well, here's NPR. Have a listen. Witches have long cast a spell on American entertainment. But They aren't just a figment of our imagination. Witchcraft is a real practice, and people who practice witchcraft are all around you.

But what does it even mean to be a witch? I mean, how does one begin a spiritual journey into the occult? Well, one writer decided to figure that out for herself by spending an entire year as a practicing witch. Okay, so let me just say, what does it mean to, you know, how do you even decide to, look into a religion of the occult. I don't know. I generally don't. You know, I want to try on some of this occultish stuff.

No, no, really? No, not at all. So they're plugging a lady's book about how witchcraft is a religion and fun. You know, and witchcraft belongs to a religion, but it's not really the one I think they think. Maybe they're not aware of its outcome. but they've chosen that side and that side cannot actually win. But how are they so oblivious? Listen to this.

Month seven, before I tried to make a connection with the goddess, who is a central figure in almost every form of witchcraft, whether or not she's a real deity up in the sky or she's a metaphor for the interconnectedness of everything on earth. There's this idea of the goddess. And I was hesitant around it because I didn't want to feel like I was playing make-believe. Again, this goes back to just being so afraid of feeling stupid. So I go and I set up this ritual to try and talk to a particular goddess.

And I'm by myself in my office in Oakland. I'm sitting in front of an altar that I made out of a cardboard box. I have a stranger's playlist going on Spotify. My cat is on the other side of the door staring at me. And after about an hour, something happened. What happened? I just suddenly felt flooded with bliss. She was flooded with bliss.

She was flooded with bliss. So something happened. Flooded with bliss. Okay. Maybe. I don't know. You know, maybe possessed by a demon. I don't know.

Is that the bliss that she? I don't. Praying to a goddess. Hmm. Now, my initial reaction to this NPR story was a little. Eye rolling. Of course, NPR is on the side with witches. Then with a little annoyance, a tinge of, oh, wow, we're going to get what we deserve really soon. But there are supposedly, according to NPR, more witches than Presbyterians. Okay. U.S.A. Today claims we're in the middle of a witch moment and that hip witchcraft is on the rise in the U.S. Now, I don't know the difference between witchcraft and hip rich.

You know what? You wear hats like this. Now I'm a hip. That's a hip. That's a hip witchcraft goes with that hat. Well, maybe in Brooklyn. Okay. Maybe.

In what year? Okay. So anyway, hip witchcraft is on the rise. And you'll find articles on witchcraft all throughout the liberal media. May I just say, we used to know. words like the occult. We used to know. Don't go there.

I mean, even Michael Jackson addressed it in the, you remember he had to add that little thriller thing? I have no belief in the occult. I swear. You don't remember this? That's not helping the case. No, I mean, but like it was such an issue that, you know, he made a movie about zombies dancing and he had to have that disclaimer because people didn't like the occult.

Correct. Correct. Right. So here is, here's where I ended up on this story. actually a little bit of hope for the future because we're just burning ourselves down to the ground. And I think people are waking up. I love all of the stories of Jewish progressives

that were on the front lines of everything. And they're now going, wait a minute, I think I'm surrounded by anti-Semites. And you're like, yeah, yeah, been trying to tell you that, but you've been calling me an anti-Semite for saying that your friends are anti-Semites. So anyway, what does it mean? To be a witch in 2023.

What are the demographics? Well, obviously the NPR crowd is into it, or else NPR wouldn't be promoting books about witchcraft. And the way they do it, the way witchcraft is as trendy and as helpful as veganism or yoga. Intersexuality is the buzzword here. The idea that the pests of society are stronger if they come together, combining their mental illnesses and criminal instincts, like those Power Ranger rings. I keep wondering, what is it that unites all of these bizarre and obnoxious people, quite honestly? Well, they claim to be united by all ideas, like witchcraft.

Christianity? No, no. All ideas. Like the occult. Christianity? No. No, like anti-racism. Oh, like, okay, everybody can, well, not everybody can reach the goals.

I mean, you're white. You shouldn't be allowed to. Oh, okay, I got it. It's all this social justice nonsense. They want to world to believe all of this, but they never stand up for their own belief. Everything they claim to care about actually means nothing to them in reality. You can see this now on our college. campuses that wanted diversity.

Who's the most downtrodden in the world, in world history? Probably I'd have to say the Jews. Nope, not anymore. Their most consistent characteristic is hypocrisy. Generally, they're unreliable people. I don't know. I try not to hire them. It seems like they're evolving to, too quick,

to understand all of this, that the goalpost shifting so fast they just can't keep track. But in reality, they never deviate from the mission. Well, not mission because it's really about what motivates them. Why do they act the way they act? Why do they love to throw more tantrums than a teething toddler? Why are they constantly in your face? Why is it they just love to annoy? Well, this is where we get back to witchcraft.

Have you ever heard the term? Edge Lord. Hang on. Edge Lord. Edge Lord is a good word to know. Edge Lord is a newfangled way to describe a certain personality type. They're an edge lord. It's like the person who's annoying and confrontational for no apparent reason.

Although nothing happens for no reason, this is one of the few truths the left still acknowledges. The literal translation of edge lord would be the sarcastic title, Lord of Being Edgy. Miriam Webster has a definition of edge lord. The word is taken hold to refer to one who makes wildly dark and exaggerated statements, usually on an internet forum with the intent of shocking others. There is usually a tone of nihilism to such remarks, the kind that might be flagged by a counselor as antisocial behavior.

So the Palestinian protests could be deemed full of edge lords. Witchcraft is an edge lord practice, because what do edge lords want more than anything? They want to seem special. They want to seem very, very special. I'm a witch, you know. Oh. Huh. Well, that is special, I guess.

Which is why the most devastating thing you can do to edge lords is to laugh them off. You know why? Stalin was an edge lord. Yeah. Hitler was an edge lord. Mussolini was an edge lord. They don't like it when people laugh at them. Mm-mm.

Now, most witches, I hear, are liberal. And it should be no surprise that witchcraft is especially a popular among, believe it or not, transgender activists, which are some of the biggest edge lords on the planet right now. One academic article says, contemporary paganism, another word we used to say, bad. Contemporary paganism portrays gender in array of different ways, and as such is very inclusive of sexual diversity. No, paganism is? What does the occult have to say? Much of this phenomena happens through what pagans call witchcraft. But how does witchcraft help queer and transgender pagans take part in the pagan community?

Well, we looked it up. One website describes witchcraft as an inclusive movement, which tends to appeal to a certain type of demographic. I know that demographic. Vice wrote about how witchcraft is empowering queer and trans young people. So now they're soliciting, they are promoting witchcraft to trans young people. and queer people. The article charts the spread of witchcraft through the history of feminism

pointing out that witchcraft is seeing a resurgence among queer-identified young people seeking a powerful identity that celebrates the freedom to choose who you are. Yes, I promise you freedom. Here's the secret. Here's what unites all of them, witches, leftist, transgender activist,

NPR, the liberal media, all of them. These edge lords are fighting, for relevance because that's what edge lords do they pester they annoy they shock or try to shock in a bid to get attention they're fighting for relevance what they really need is a hug that's what they need they need a big old hug they need love they need boundaries limitations they need to be told because it's like their children they don't believe that there's any rules at all. Yeah. I know. I remember when my children used to think that too. Why do we have to go to school? Well, because Daddy said so. But remember, love is the fulfillment of law. Yes, your prayers can overtake a million witch curses. In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of here. Oh, I love that. is already won.

The best thing we can do is try to be aware that and teach our kids, hey, witchcraft, paganism, the occult, not something we should experiment. You know who did? Hitler. Oh, my gosh. And Hitler loved the Palestinian movement. They have so much in common. Is it all starting to come clear now?

the best thing we can do with any and every edge sword is to pray for their eternal soul. Other than that, edge lords lose their power when people stop watching them or stop caring. But I'm never going to stop caring. I'm going to love you and love you and love you. I'm going to show you the love of a real God. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. So I want to read a story here, the Great Betrayal. Now in the news today from the free press,

after Donald Trump was elected, Emily Rose, 51, flew to New York with her daughter to walk in the Women's March. She demonstrated on the streets of Minneapolis where she lives in the days after George Floyd's murder. She donated money to small black-led movements and social justice organizations she believed in. She unlearned and then re-educated herself as a white American as she was. instructed to read the teachings of anti-racist scholars. But then, after the massacre in Israel on October 7th, when some 1,400 Jews were brutally murdered, not to mention the rapes, beheadings, and in instances of torture, Rose began to notice something odd from the cohort of fellow progressive she admired.

They were cheering for the other side. She said, quote, I started to see these intelligent, educated people whose missions is to make our system better for people of color suddenly posting all this anti-Israel pro-Palestinian stuff. I'm not changing my values, but screw the allyship. I'm not going to stop fighting because I believe in the causes themselves, but as for going out of my way to support to post to give money, I'm done. While professional politics or politicos like DSA founder Maurice Iserman are publicly stepping down from their parties and denouncing the organizations that justify or even

cheer the events of October 7th, and wealthy Jewish donors claw back their millions from elite universities that they say helped foment anti-Semitism on their campuses. There's a quieter, more personal reckoning happening among progressive Jews. Like Rose, they feel betrayed by a left that they thought would have their backs. Dove, a 30-year-old Canadian musician who didn't want to share her last name for privacy reasons, is transgender. and self-proclaimed political progressive. But since October 7th, she says, every time I open Instagram,

I'm just like blocking or deleting people that I thought I knew. It's cloaked anti-Semitism. Josh Gilman 37 lives in Arizona, prides himself on having friends across the political spectrum, says he's been muting even close friends who espouse anti-Zionist views. I don't need the emotional distress. If there's someone who is truly my friend,

it makes me feel that they very much don't understand who I am as a person. He cut people out who he had invited to dinner at his home, and he had trusted around his family and children. There is a line in the sand, he said. Nate Clark, 34, lives in Virginia. He's marched for gay rights in 2020 for the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers in his home state. He said his choice to stand up for others is rooted in his Jewish identity.

As a Jew, I felt it would be weird if I went to Germany. Germany and took a right turn down Hitler Avenue or saw a statue of Eichmann and then heard people say, oh, it's our history. We're just proud of our history. Since October 7th, he's found himself politically homeless. The Jewish progressives, the free press, spoke to, said they no longer believe in a left that sees their own people's plight. They feel torn. They don't want to give up on their progressive causes, but they've marched for and believe in them. And they don't feel kinship with Israel's allies on the right, like evangelical Christians and social conservatives. When you look at the political right, you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel

and very uncomfortable with Jews at home. When you look at the political left, you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews at home and very uncomfortable with Jews in Israel. Amelia Adams, a writer in comedian, New York, said she first noticed Jewish suffering being downplayed in May 2021, during the last bout of violence between Hamas and Israel, she called it the start of gaslighting. She said, now it's at another level. So the one thing I'm sad about, and I think it's true, is they don't feel kinship with Israel's allies on the right, like evangelical Christians and social conservatives. This isn't just an American thing. The many of the Jews, Jerusalem are uncomfortable with American liberal Jews.

Many of the Jews in Tel Aviv are very not accepting of the Jews who are practicing their faith in traditional ways. That is the divide here. It's whether you are applying the laws of the Torah or of the Bible in Christian case and you're actually living them or if you dismiss that and just put religion in with culture it's it's it is culture but it is more than culture it is a way that directs your life it's a way that helps you make decisions every day and for those of us who actually believe in those things it is hard to understand people who make decisions who

might have the same background, but they've lost why they are different. They've lost the understanding of what sets them apart, the miracle of the establishment or reestablishment of Israel. But I would love to have these conversations with people. I would love to. You know, I have many Jewish friends who are not conservative like I am, but we respect each other. And I don't think that they're off into the never, never world of craziness. But they don't agree with me necessarily politically. And we have talked about this for a long time, and they have disagreed with me on people like George Soros.

And I'm sorry, but you're being naive. You're being naive. So what brings us together as people? See, we have constantly thought that our diversity is our strength, but it's not. Our diversity is dividing us, and it's divided us so far. It's like, you know, our diversity is the spice of life. It really is what makes all of us different, and it's great. but if you're making a meal and you put too much spice into it, the entire meal becomes

inedible. It has to be balanced. What brings the spice is supposed to bring out certain flavors in the food. It's not a rejection of the food. And our spice, our differences, has gotten so powerful and so strong. a rejection of the main meal. It thinks that it is more important than the meat. It's not. People came here for an idea, in fact, several ideas, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

So for anybody who feels politically homeless, I understand. I feel politically homeless. Many, on my side, feel politically homeless because we don't think that the Republicans represent us at all because they're playing games. Some of us, we really believe in things. And if you're like that and you really truly believe in things and you marched because you believe in, I get it. Just like we said during the George Floyd thing, there is a reason we all actually agree,

but then political entities like BLM Inc. That's a global corporation. They were using the people. They believe in the destruction of the family. You don't believe in the destruction of the family. That's one of their goals. The destruction of the nuclear family. What happened is you were had.

and I don't know why, but it's happened to me. It's happened to a lot of us. You just get had. So how can we come back together? We all believe in equality. Now, I know there's Nazis on all sides, apparently, but those who actually understand America and our Bill of Rights, which used to be very important to the,

liberal Jewish community. Our Bill of Rights guarantees these things. Equality. We believe that all individuals, regardless of their background, deserve equal rights and opportunities. Where we might differ a bit is if it is to the detriment of another group. And it has to be based on merit. How does graduating an entire class?

of students that cannot pass basic reading and math tests serve equality that only paralyzes those people. I don't care what color they are. We need to understand people's backgrounds and challenges, but we do not need pilots that can't pass basic math tests. There are standards for bridge builders. We hurt people when we don't. hold them accountable. We believe in freedom. That's a core value. And it's not just

political freedom, but also freedom of speech, religion, and expression. You may not have been for the Second Amendment, but the right to defend yourself, I think you might have gotten after October 7th. You have a natural right to be able to defend yourself and your family. If someone comes in with a gun, you need to be able to protect yourself and your family. It's your responsibility. And it's the responsibility of the society we all are in to enforce the laws when they are broken and not excuse them. We're not excusing.

I, you know, the Palestinian people I think have been used by everybody, everybody. And nobody seems to care about them in the Middle East. No one. They don't want them. Nobody wants them. But they'll use them. but we don't take that plight and excuse kidnapping, rape, beheading, killing of innocence. We don't.

There's no excuse for that. Nobody marched into Germany and went, well, you know, it was the Versailles Treaty. I mean, and then France insisted that they take some of their land and then they were taking the crops because they couldn't. I mean, we really created Hitler. I think in a way Woodrow Wilson did set the conditions for Hitler. But that doesn't excuse a single German for participating in or remaining silent on the Holocaust. We don't say, well, we have to understand them. No, we don't. No, we don't.

There are lines we do not cross. We believe in democracy, in our republic, the principle that the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. We agree. We agree on ensuring the right for representation in our constitutional republic. We actually also really agree on protecting the vote. We're being lied to by both parties. Neither of them really want to fix it. We believe in opportunity. The so-called American dream, the belief that with hard work, anyone can improve their circumstance and achieve success. I've seen it done over and over and over again.

And do some people need a helping hand? Yes. Can we be better? Yes. Unity. We agree on this. Despite diversity in thought, background, and beliefs, the idea of being united, one nation remains powerful for most people.

We don't want to break up. We need to learn how to live with one another. Resilience. The ability to overcome challenges and adversity. That's the pioneer. That's the immigrant. That's the movements that have shaped the nation. Resilience.

We believe in that. Now, I don't know if we do. The left doesn't. Civic responsibility. The belief in participating in civic duties, voting, volunteering, being informed about national and local issues. And like I said, yes, respect for diversity. But as a melting pot, we melt into each other.

We don't reject the meat of our Bill of Rights, of what built us. This adds our spice. Our strength does not come from diversity and multiculturalism. The spice comes from that. Our strength comes from the Bill of Rights. I invite you to join us back in common sense. We may disagree on a lot of things, but we believe that people shouldn't be killed, innocent people.

The best of the Glenn Beck program. Mr. Andrew Claven, welcome to the program, sir. Thank you very much. You have the most entertaining commercials on the air. How are you? It's so good to talk to you. Very good. Very good.

I guess you're here because you want to talk about this book called The House of Love and Death, which is fantastic, Andrew. I'm not going to say that on the air. Oops, we're on the air. Can stations edit this out? It's fantastic, Andrew. Really fantastic. Now, let me just ask you a couple of questions. A couple of questions on it.

The lead character. Cameron Winter. Tough guy. Old soul. Love's classic literature. Love seeing bad guys get punished. Really, really smart. He sounds a little like you. Well, he's much better looking. That's the first thing. Well, that's, that's, that's not hard. That elevates him. But he is the development of the things I've been working on all my life about, you know, question of how you can be a good man and a bad society, how you can hold an ideal inside of

yourself without becoming a fool, you know, and without expecting the world to live up to your ideals while you expect yourself to do it. These are things that came to me as a kid from all the tough guy literature I read and it just seemed, you know, I was basically in the year 2000, I was watching TV and I saw all these, all these anti-heroes come in, you know, the Sopranos and the shield and all, one after, and I've been writing those in the 1990s. I've been writing them for 10 years before that. And I started to think, you know, it's time to see how the bad guy becomes a good guy, how the anti-hero becomes a hero again.

Yes. Because I thought those guys were basically an expression of outlawed masculinity. I thought the idea was, you're not allowed to be a man, so only an outlaw can be a man, so we're going to tell stories about outlaws because we want to hear stories about men. And I think, like, my problem with that, obviously, is you wind up, you don't want to wind up admiring the Sopranos or admiring a meth dealer. And that's, I think, the position we put men in is why they follow a guy like Andrew Tate, who's a pimp and a woman abuser, because at least he speaks bluntly, at least he speaks something that resembles the truth as opposed to all the polite, politically correct lies we're supposed to. I find myself strangely attracted to Yellowstone. for the same reason.

I love the family values except their family kills people. You know what I mean? It's like, we want the old America back, the one that makes sense. Hang him. You know, you're like, no, wait, hold it. Something just happened. Yes, you know, that's it. So I made this character who has done all that.

He's done all the killing. He's done the stuff that made him a bad guy. And now he started to think, wait a minute, this is not who I started out to be. How do I make my way back? How do I make my way back? And those are the questions that the novels are sort of asking one at a time as he tries to find out the person that he was supposed to be. You know, it's not that simple. You know, it's not a simple thing to say in a society like ours where people are just lying constantly telling you things about sex that aren't true,

telling you things about money that aren't true, telling you all these things that aren't true. It's not easy to speak the truth and take the hits that you. have to take, they have thrown off your social media to be hounded out of school, to be hounded out of jobs. How does he do that? How does he make that happen, especially as he's working at a university with all these stuff, this stuff fester's. So it is, it is kind of a reflection of things I've been thinking about, though, as I say, he's a much, much better looking guy than I. And he's also a, um, uh, uh, the book also takes on a lot of stuff, but, but it's all kind of undercurrent, never really takes it on in someone.

ways. Just it's, it's a reflection of today. Let me give you a few lines. He had a white, brilliant smile. I can't. I can't stop looking at you. I'm not beautiful. I'm not even sure I want to be a girl yet. Oh, he said, oh, be a girl. And on the instant she utterly was. Another one. And you what, don't think Mateo's the murdering kind? More or less, could he wipe out an entire family like that? Almost certainly not. Were you aware he was addicted to violence? pornography? I wasn't. Here's another one. Mateo and Lillia playing a VR game together in which he's bullied by anonymous player. Multiple players get tied up with a mob of illegal drug runners. The inspector who's in cahoots with the Mexican drug runners tries to deflect any criticism

by decrying racism. Feds have been dumping illegals up here for years. Mexicans mostly and some of them further south. Buss them in or fly them right up to the border. They break the law. They sneak into the country. Next thing you know, they're here in Maidenville, or Maidenvale. Feds just drop them off and we're supposed to deal with it. Changes the whole demographics of the place. And what are we supposed to do? Pull jobs for them out of the air? This is a nice town, nice people here. They work hard to get where they are. It's not that they're being mean or anything. It's just too much, too fast, if you know what I'm saying. I mean, mental health, all of it. You hit all of it. But it's not...

What? It's where we live. You know, I'm just setting a story in the place that we live in and not trying to lie about it. That's all I'm doing. I'm not, I'm all about the story. That's all I care about. But I'm not going to set it in Fairyland. I'm tired of turning on Netflix and watching a world that doesn't exist and being told that my moral structure can only adhere in this fantasy world. I want to know what it means to be a good man in this one. world. And believe me, I'm getting, I get a lot of crap for this, you know, especially even from my own people, my own editors and things, you know, take that out. People, it's going to alienate people and all this. But it's, but it's, but it's the world. It's just what, what is my job? My job is to tell

stories about the world, you know, and that's, and that's what I do. So, yeah. So what does it mean, Andrew, to be a good man in today's world? Well, I think it does begin with the truth. I mean, I think this is, the thing that made me a mystery writer, the line that made me a mystery writer was the first page of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, his tough guy, Detective Philip Marlowe, comes to a mansion and he sees a stained glass window with a picture of a knight trying to rescue a lady. And Philip Marlowe says to himself, if I lived in this house, I would have to climb up there and help him because he's just not getting the job done. And I remember when I was 15 years old, I read that and I thought, yes, that's who I want to be. Because he's like this small, seedy private detective in a small, c. He doesn't make any money. He lives in modern Los Angeles, which is a terrible place.

It's corrupt. Everybody, you know, everything is swept under the carpet. But he's got this knight inside him that he carries around. And he understands it's going to get beaten up. It's going to get a shot at. It's going to get him arrested. But he's just going to carry it around. And Chandler had this great line, which is where we get the phrase mean streets.

He said, down these mean streets, a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnish nor afraid. And I remember at 15 just thinking, that's what I want. That's what I want of myself. That's the way I want the world to be for me. And that's the way the kind of people I want to write about. But I got kind of sidetracked into anti-heroes because I was feeling the same way as everybody else. There was no place for men to be men. So I might as well make them bad guys.

And that we spent that way they could act freely. And now I just feel like, all right, that idea has played itself out. We've looked at that. We've seen the Breaking Bad. We've seen the sopranos. What does it mean to not be like that? What does it mean to do what Chandler said, to go down the mean streets and not be mean? And for me, it's with speaking the truth, seeing the truth, not avoiding the truth. And then acting in a way that you know might get you canceled, might get you hurt, might get you killed, but you're going to do it anyway because that's what you are carrying inside you, you know? And to me, if that's not a basic Christian idea of like take up your cross, I don't know what it is. It's basically putting that in the

modern world and taking the sandals off it and saying, no, this is what you have to do just to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and not feel like you're looking at a jerk and not feel like you've lost something that was given to you at the beginning. This is what you have to do. And so that's, it's a hard thing. And it's a hard thing, especially because all of us have a past and all of us have made terrible mistakes. And all of us have to deal with those things first before moving forward. And that's why Cameron Winter's stories always go back and forth.

He always tells about the past and the things he's done and a story that he's in at the moment because he has to deal with the things, the bad things, before he can get on to something better. Publishers Weekly says it's gripping the best yet. Cameron Winter Mystery Series book, it's the House. of love and death. Andrew Claven. So, Andrew, can I, can I take you for a couple of minutes and, and ask you about, about the world we're living in?

Absolutely. I'm, I'm, I am shocked at how many times I hear people say, I don't know, I think Jesus might be coming. And I know everybody's been saying that forever, but it's kind of looking like, you know, Jesus might be coming. You know, I'm shocked by this too, and I'm shocked by, I'm hearing it, I'm hearing people who don't have any faith. Yes. Speaking in the language of faith, speaking about demons, speaking about how things are demonic and all this.

And, you know, I have to say that I've been looking at this for a long time. I mean, you're always a lot more pessimistic than I am. I'm more pessimistic than anyone, Andrew. Exactly. But I have to say that almost a year ago, I turned to my wife and we were talking about gender affirming care, which means butchering the bodies of little children to the make-believe opposite sex costumes. And I said, you know, pretty soon they're going to start killing Jews because that's when

evil rises. That's always the devil's flagpole. That's always what you see. You know, it's not that it's not that anti-Semitism is the worst thing. It's that it occurs where. evil is. That's where it rises up. And so these things are all connected. There's no question about it. There's no question that this kind of materialist attitude that thinks that someone that thinks your body doesn't matter, that thinks that your body is no reference to something

higher than itself, all of these ideas that come out of this and are central to the leftist vision, which is what all this is about, they're all connected. And it always ends with the killing of Jews because Jews are the theater in which God plays out his relationship with man. and the Jewish people are aware God kind of tells us what's going on in our lives. I don't even think you have to believe in God to know this is true. You just have to accept the fact that God is a permanent part of human psychology to understand what I'm talking about. The Bible tells us we do not know when the end of the days is coming, and I just take that absolutely on faith for the absolute truth. But we know when hints of it are treading on is that path, and I think that this is that moment.

It's a really dark moment. And, you know, I've always told you that pessimists, pessimists are always right in the end. But it's just how long the horizon is. Jesus is coming. It could be 5,000 years from now, but he is coming. You want to have some good times. Yeah, and it's really strange, though, that I feel like that actually makes me more optimistic. because it's it's kind of at times I get very, very, you know, dark at times and I'm like, that's the only way.

I mean, I don't know how this is going to write itself. It always does, but I can't see that path. Can you? No, I'm having the same problem. And you really do. I mean, it sounds like the worst kind of cliche, but you have to have some trust in God and that he has a plan because when you try to game out the specific. specific place we are right at this moment. It looks like, you know, fire and blood. It looks like war is coming. It looks like, you know, the destruction of an idea, which is clearly a destructive idea. Our elites, there's one thing that the COVID experience taught us is our elites are idiots, you know, they're not really doing a very good job. And the people who have the capacity to lead don't want to lead because who would want to under these situations. And it's, yeah, it's very difficult to think, well, if this happens in that happens and that happens, everything will be okay because it's hard to see that path.

However, however, I have lived long enough to see it happen before. This is very much like the 1970s. It's darker, I got to admit. But in the 1970s, the economy was bad, the culture was bad, the things people were saying were bad, the crime was miserable. And yet, you know, Reagan and Giuliani in New York turned things around simply by turning them around. You know, it was amazing how fast things changed.

better and they got better for a quarter of a century before we started going down this path again. So things do happen and they're surprising and, you know, you can always be surprised by the joyful things just like you're surprised by the disasters. So I'm not trusting in my own sense of what's going to happen. I'm waiting to see. But, you know, I have to, you know, usually I'm the one who's the mask of comedy and you're the one who's the mask of tragedy. But I've got to agree with you now that this is a dark moment. Yeah. You know, you look at, because you said our leaders are you know morons

but the war in Ukraine the gas prices the war in Israel pretty much everything that is going on that's not a mistake it can't be a mistake can all of these be a mistake that

this administration gets in and I mean everything they're doing seems to me to only fall in one direction and that's the destruction of the country. And to have that batting average where it's always a bad ball, I mean, what are the odds? Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure. I mean, sometimes I can picture like Barack Obama and George Soros

sitting up in the attic, you know, with a crystal ball, manipulating everything. But other times I just think, no, it's like a gigantic blob. They have these ideas. They're stuck in them. They can't get out of them. And they just all do the same thing. even though they don't particularly agree even with one another. I think that we are at the nature of the idea of materialism, which actually has been with us for now five, six hundred years. The idea that we are made of stuff, that we are nothing but stuff, that everything can be fixed by fixing the stuff.

And I think that that idea has been unfolding very slowly. People saw it coming, Nietzsche saw it coming. You know, he said we've killed God, we're going to have to become gods ourselves and make our own morality. Dostoevsky saw it coming. And all these writers saw it coming, now it's here. Now we're at the moment when, you know, in the brothers Karamazov, one of the brothers says, when you give up God, when you give up the idea of immortality, not only do you have to get rid of morality, you have to turn morality on its head and evil has to become good and the ego has to become everything. And I think that that's where we're at.

And what you hope is that you hit the ground and you bounce back. You know, you get the dead cat bounce. We start to say, okay, that didn't. Maybe we try another idea. But it is amazing how long people can hold on to a self-destructive idea. Andrew Claven, I'd love to have you on a podcast and love to have you more frequent guest if you would ever make the time for it. I just love you so much. I think you're an amazing man.

You are a good man and a great father. So thank you. Well, back at you, Glenn. I'll come on anytime. Okay. Andrew Clavin, the name of the book, it's out now. It's really exceptional. Very, very good.

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