The Josh Innes Show - America is the GOAT Pt. 3

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Do the Olympics actually bring Americans together? Was there ever a time things weren't super divided? Or was it just lack of social media? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But I will say, and I stand by this, I do not believe that other countries openly, like when we're in like, you know, international play like we are right now, I don't believe that these countries have as large a number of people that are so openly against the country, like embarrassed. Like, I'm embarrassed to be from this country. And I think another thing that happens with these dopey American people who hate the country. And again, I'm not against you saying that there's issues. There's obviously issues, right? You shouldn't just blindly be loyal to everything. But like when you go to these other places, and I, again, I don't know. But I feel like there are countries that are in a lot worse situation than we're in. We just have a bunch of overdramatic blue-haired wackos, Subaru drivers, if you will, that just make everything the biggest federal case ever because they're broken. But not me. I'm not broken.

I'm not broken at all. I'll tell you what I am. I'm American, and I'm rooting for my American team. game? How great is it? Like, how awesome is it that this Jack Hughes has the hottest chicken Canada right now, and he's got her rooting for the United States? Tell me that's not hot. She's basically cucking an entire country. Like, Canada has to watch their hottest current export banging a dude that plays for America. That friends is a cuck, a cuck of an entire country. The poor Canadians, they're sitting in the cuck chair. They're sitting in the hotel room.

They're in the chair. They're watching it happen. And they can't do anything about it. That friends is hot. As Americans, we have cucked Canada. Now, imagine if we win. Imagine we beat Slovakia. Let me go back to Gypsy and ask for like if Slovakia is a self-hating country too. Let's see here. Let me go back to Gypsy. Let's see if she responds to Gypsy. Hey, Gypsy. What's on your mind today?

Mm-hmm. I want to know. Does Slovakia, what are the political issues within Slovakia? Does Slovakia, like, are there people in Slovakia that hate other Slovakians or are they like a unified place? What's the story with Slovakia? Slovakia, like most countries, has its share of political. debates and divisions. Generally, big topics include issues like corruption, rule of law, minority rights such as the Hungarian minority, and economic inequality between regions.

Like anywhere, there are different political camps, some more liberal, some more conservative. So while there's no widespread hatred among Slovaks, political differences and social debates do exist, just like you'd find in any democracy. Well, I understand that. What I'd like to know, though, like what are the biggest internal issues in Slovakia among Slovakians. A few key internal issues often come up. One is regional disparity. Western Slovakia, with cities like Bratislava, tends to be more developed than the east. Another recurring issue is corruption and trust in public institutions. Minority rights, especially for the

Hungarian minority, can cause political tension. Also, there's debate about judicial reforms and media freedom. These are the kinds of topics Slovaks often care about and debate. So Slovakians, they're just like us. In many ways, absolutely. People everywhere share similar concerns, things like fairness, economic opportunities, and trust in institutions. The specifics might differ, but Slovaks like anyone else want a stable, fair, and better life. So yeah, they're not so different for many of us. Well, how about that?

Out of the four countries that are still playing in the hockey here, the United States, Slovakia, Canada, and Finland. As far as, like, relations within the country, which country is in the worst position in terms of the way the country people, the people of the country, I don't know, collaborate or talk with each other? Like, which country is in the worst position? It's hard to pick a single worst. Each country has its own internal challenges. The U.S. often faces polarization across political lines. Slovakia has some political divides, though it's smaller and less polarizing. overall. Canada generally

prides itself on diversity and collaboration, though there are regional debates like Quebec's autonomy. Finland overall is known for a high level of social trust and cohesion. So all have some issues, but none are in a dire state. Just different challenges. But which one's the worst? If we're talking about the four, the U.S. tends to have more visible polarization,

especially on political or social issues. That said, the worst is relative. Every country has strengths and struggles. But if you're measuring by political divides, the U.S. often feels more intense. Fair enough. And my man, Bruce Springsteen's over here like, see, I told you, you piece of shit. What did I try to tell you? Do not despair.

The Calvary is coming. Bruce Springsteen says, I told you we suck. Rosie O'Donnell's over here like, see, Springsteen was right? Do not despair. The Calvary is coming. The view is like each. Shit. Do not despair. The cavalry is coming. So, by the way, I don't know if you guys noticed. But did you hear Gypsy respond to Gypsy?

She didn't bring her little sassy shit back at me again, did she? Did she? Or they or them? Did you, Gypsy? Anywho. It's good to be patriotic. It's good to have belief in your country. It's good to root for something, you know? I think we talk about this on here pretty frequently, but there was a time I would talk with, you know, news talk people, people that program news talk stations in the midst of this, you know, this Trump era that we're in, this divisive Trump era that we're in. And I would ask, like, hey, do you think there's ever going to come a time where things don't feel as divided? And to a man, they'd all say, oh, yeah, there'll be a time when a big disaster happens or a catastrophe happens or something that brings us all together. And I'm like, buddy bear, I don't think that's going to happen.

I think you're wrong. I don't think wherever. going to get to a point where everybody is, you know, that anything brings people together. Like a 9-11. That's always the example people give. Like, hey, remember what America was like post-9-11? And like, yeah, it was lovely. It was a lovely time. But if we're being realistic here, that's never going to happen again. Not say a 9-11 couldn't happen again. But it's just there's no way that's ever going to come to be again. Like, when you put yourself in there and you go back to 2001 when that went down like like again I was in high school so it's not the most fair thing because my mind you have a 15 16 year old kid is not the same as a you know a 39 year old guy but you remember

people kind of coming together and American flags were trendy and everybody had the American flag buttons on their their shirts and and and we were you know we were selling American flag collector's plates and collectors coins and and Rudy Giuliani didn't seem like a total fucking lunatic and people didn't mind George Bush and it was like this whole deal and um and like Can you truly see a situation where you honestly believe that could ever happen again? Could you ever see a scenario? Like, I haven't watched it yet. I watched a few minutes of the Miracle on Ice documentary.

I think it's on Netflix. And we all kind of know the story of the Miracle on Ice. So it's not like, you know, there's going to be a ton in it that's new. We've seen the movie Miracle. We've watched 10 different documentaries about it. So I don't know what new information we could learn or glean from this. I don't know. But, like, can you imagine a lot of it?

a situation where collectively, now part of it is we didn't see all this stuff. So we didn't know. We didn't know that, you know, there were people online that also were like angry and maybe didn't agree with everything because there was no internet. There was just, you know, a couple of TV channels and radio and newspaper. So we didn't know. We didn't know that there were thousands upon thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people on social media that all had different views and some may hate this group, some may like this other group. Like, we didn't know that existed. So if we didn't know it existed, maybe it always did. But back then it didn't feel that way. You're like, you had the Cold War, you believed what you were told about the Cold War,

you had the Russians, you're playing against these guys and you got the whole deal. And maybe you'll never see that again. And maybe this idea never existed. Maybe this, you know, coming together of the country never actually was a thing, but because all we had was a couple of TV channels and the newspaper and radio, we didn't get to see how other people felt about shit. Maybe there have always been a bunch of self-hating people. Maybe if there was social media in 1978, who knows? Or 1980. Like, you want to talk about what ifs.

Like, what if you got into a situation? Like, where you can go back in time, you're like, back to the future, right? You're in the Delorean and you go back to 1968 or whatever. And you just drop social media on these people. who have no concept of the internet. So they didn't see the natural progression of like, hey, there's this Bob or this Al Gore internet. And you can look shit up and there's a couple of shitty websites, the evolution of that into like, hey, you can use this to, you know, print shit out. Or you could, oh, look at the neat printer paper that's got like the little, the little tear apart little things on it that comes out in one big piece of paper that you have to rip apart.

Or then, like, you go from that to like, oh, there's Napster. and the Napster into social media and Facebook into or MySpace into Facebook and Facebook into Twitter. Like they didn't see the natural progression of this shit. So for them, this is like space age shit that we're dealing with here. This is next level. Space aged. Holy shit. Like you are like, it is like when Marty went back to 1955 and put the headphones on George McFly and said,

my name is Darth Vader. And he's playing Van Halen in his ears and shit. I come from the planet Vulcan. and you just drop social media on them and you say all you have to do is take this typewriter-like device, this keyboard that's basically like a typewriter, which I'm sure you've used in typing class or something. And all you have to do is get on there and offer your opinion on something. So you're like, hey, it's 1968. Let's talk about the riots. Let's talk about riots, right?

1968, we're rioting. Let's talk about that. Give your thoughts on that. And just give me your honest to goodness thoughts on this. So like some white guy, some conservative guy, hops on there and he's like, boy, this is some space age shit. And he just types out. He says, let's see, 1968, you know, Bobby Kennedy got shot. Okay, so it's 1968.

Blah, blah, blah. Bobby Kennedy got shot. Well, that's probably because of the liberal agenda. You're like, okay. And you send that out into the world. Then you get like 10 reactions to it. It gets retweeted by like Malcolm X or some shit. Or Martin Luther King Jr. shares that shit.

And then all of a sudden we're off and running. Like, what would the world have been like in 1968 if you just drop social media on it? And I think that's kind of my view is that I'm going to guess that people have always been shitty. And we have this discussion a lot as it relates to sports and other stuff. Like, have sports fans always been idiots? Or has social media made them idiots? Or has social media just revealed the idiots that already existed? So, just like sports,

would think that politics and life would be a, you'd get more of the same thing. Like, I think politics and sports and life are all the same. So if somebody, some dude, got dropped a, you know, social media in 1968, would the, I guess, what I'm trying to convey here, I don't know if this makes any sense. What I'm trying to convey here is that more people, we sit there and talk about how things used to be and how people used to get along, how people used to do this shit. Did they? Or, since we didn't see it every day, did we just assume that things were different?

Or were people the same as we're dealing with now is what I would ask. Like, that would be my question about all of this is, was the world truly different? Or because we didn't have social media, did we just not see it? And we didn't have every outlet to do it? Or is social media? responsible for people becoming evil assholes. For me, I believe social media, there's not a positive. Like, occasionally you'll see a story where you go, hey, I guess social media helped out

in that. But for the most part, we don't. I think social media, for the most part, pretty much sucks. And social media, for the most part, has kind of ruined a lot of people and has driven people to insanity because it's given people who honestly shouldn't have a platform, a platform. And people have discovered that you can say incendiary, horrible shit. shit on the internet and it can be an industry for you. So I do, I'll always believe social media is the devil. But anyway, more to come.