The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 120 - Don't Apologize To The Mob

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

Astronaut Scott Kelly issued an apology for tweeting a Winston Churchill quote. Leftists berated him for quoting a "racist," and Kelly backed down almost immediately. This is yet another example of why you should never apologize to the mob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, this is pretty exciting. I just read that Bill and Hillary Clinton are launching a national stadium tour. They're going to be, I don't know if they're going to be speaking or dancing, singing. I'm not sure, but they're going to be doing a whole stadium show going around the country, packing stadiums. And I think they're stopping at a stadium near me, in fact. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to make it because I had plans to gouge out my own eyes that evening. but I'm sure it will be a lovely, lovely event. And so I think that's pretty wonderful.

All right. I want to mention two stories here. First, very briefly, I got to mention this from the headline is from CNN. Heidi Heitkamp, the senator from North Dakota, was ready to vote yes on Kavanaugh. Then she watched him with the sound off. That's the headline. Having been just one of three Democratic senators to vote to confirm President Donald Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch,

Heitkamp had already instructed her staff to begin drafting a statement, explaining why she thought Kavanaugh deserved her vote as well. Then Christine Ford came forward and accused Kavanaugh's sexually assaulting her. She watched Ford's testimony, it says, and then she watched Kavanaugh's, and then she watched Kavanaugh again,

but this time with the sound off. It's something I do, she said. We communicate not only with words, but with our body language and demeanor. I saw somebody who was very angry, who was very nervous. I saw rage. And a lot of people said, well, of course you're going to see rage. He's being falsely accused. But it is at all times that you're supposed to acquit yourself with a demeanor that's becoming of the court, Heidkamp said.

So she's literally admitting that she judged him based on how he looked when he spoke, not based on what he said, not based on the content of what he was saying, but based on the mean faces that he made as he said it. That's a saying. What she's saying is, well, well,

maybe he was telling the truth, but he made mean faces while he did so. So I voted against him. This is just, now I don't really believe that she did that. I don't think that she watched the Kavanaugh hearing and then she watched it again with the sound off because that would be a very strange thing to do.

but I think this is her way around the kind of the charge that she voted against an innocent man based on false charges. What she's saying is, well, I wasn't even listening to what I would just go on based on body language. Yeah, you can read a lot based on body language, but you have to pair that with what the person is saying. You can't just watch them devoid of context, devoid of what. they're actually saying and then make judgments based on their body language, obviously. Now, speaking of feelings over facts, maybe you heard about this. The astronaut Scott Kelly tweeted a Winston Churchill quote a couple of days ago. The tweet got him into some trouble.

This is what the tweet said. The tweet was, this is what he said. One of the greatest leaders of modern times, Sir Winston Churchill, said in victory magnanimity. I guess those days are over. And that was a very controversial. You could tell there, right, where the controversy is. You hear that tweet and you say, wow, that's controversial. That's some controversial stuff.

That's pretty edgy there, Scott Kelly. Now, this was, I'm assuming, an attack on Republicans who were celebrating the Kavanaugh confirmation because that he tweeted it when, I assume that's what he was doing there. So he was agreeing with, it should have made liberals, happy. He was agreeing with them. He was criticizing Republicans. They should have been pleased with that, but they weren't. They came after Scott Kelly, apparently, on the basis that Churchill

was a racist imperialist, et cetera. So then Kelly followed that tweet with possibly the most embarrassing tweet ever published, even amidst the daily deluge of embarrassing tweets. This is what he said. He said, did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill, my apologies. I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views, which I do not support. My point was, we need to come together as one nation. We are all Americans. That should transcend partisan politics. Now, there is so much to unpack here.

There's so much in this one little incident because it's emblematic of where we are as a society. So first, you see again, as I frequently remark, you see the way that the left is just never satisfied ever with anything. Even if you agree with them, even if you take their side, they'll still go after you if you don't agree and take their side in the right way, using the right words. avoiding all the various different landmines that are set out. If you don't do that, then they'll attack you, and they'll attack you in the same way that they would have if you were all the way on the other side, on the opposite side from them. So you're either 100% on their side. We talked about this yesterday. It's the way the left operates.

Either you're 100% on their side with everything and in everything that you say, or you're the enemy. There's no in between at all, right? This is liberal. I mean, they're basically like, they're like the kid on Halloween that goes up to the bowl of candy left out on the porch

and then cries because it doesn't have snickers. Like you're being given free candy and you still find a reason to whine about it. Actually, I think this is a better analogy. I've used this analogy before, but the modern left is very, very similar to, if you've ever read that book when you were a kid, the book, if you give a mouse a cookie. And as you may recall in that book, the child gives a cookie to a mouse. And then the mouse

wants a napkin. And then the mouse wants a glass of milk. And then he keeps demanding more and more things until finally the child is given away all of his belongings and all of his food and his family is left destitute on the street, and they all starved to death. Well, that's not exactly how the book ends. I don't know, but that's the, but that's the idea. And honestly, I'm not sure what the moral of that story could be other than as a cautionary tale about appeasing leftists. Right. I don't know what else.

I mean, maybe that, it could be practical advice, too. don't give a cookie to a mouse. It's good practical unless it's laced with rat poison or something. But aside from that, I mean, this is really exactly how the left operates. You give them a cookie, they want the next thing, they want the next thing. They're never going to be satiated, never satisfied. So that's the first thing. Second, I think for a moment, we should just kind of step back and admire the sheer cowardice on display here.

because it's almost artful. It's almost beautiful. The cowardice, just how perfect the cowardice is. Okay, this is an astronaut, okay? A guy whose job most definitely does not depend on public approval. This is basically the last guy in the world who should worry what the mob thinks. It makes no difference at all. What are people going to do?

boycott NASA. This guy, I mean, he spends his time off the earth. He's literally off the earth in space. He should be as far removed in a literal sense and as unconcerned with the opinions of the peanut gallery as you could possibly be. Yet he backed down and apologized. Why? And look at this remarkable turnaround. So he sent the original tweet at noon.

about the Churchill quote. And then he sent the next one apologizing at 7 p.m. So in seven hours, he went from believing the Churchill was one of the greatest world leaders in modern history to believing that he was a racist, guilty of various atrocities. And you have to believe that Scott Kelly, he's quoting Churchill saying he's a great world leader. So he's probably thought that Churchill was a hero for his whole life.

I'd imagine. You don't generally go around quoting people unless you have an affinity for them, unless you admire them. So Kelly abandoned a presumably long-held conviction that Churchill was a great world leader and ran all the way to the other extreme, labeling him a racist guilty of atrocities in the span of an afternoon. That's all the time that it took for him to say, you know what? Yeah, I was wrong about this my whole life. Third thing, and this gives me a chance to underline a point that I'm constantly making, but it's an important point. Never apologize to the mob. This is what happens. Never ever apologize to them. Make Mother's Day even more special at Whole Foods Market.

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The problem with apologizing to the mob is that, first of all, it's always going to be a disingenuous apology. because nobody ever has a real authentic moment of self-reflection where they realized they were wrong about something because a bunch of idiots are screaming in their face. That's not, it's possible to say something and then reflect on it and later say, you know what, I was wrong about that. Shouldn't have said it.

But in order for that to happen, it requires a little bit of reflection, a little bit of, right? But if people are, if there's a mob screaming in your face, that's not, and you apologize in response to that, most likely you're apologizing just to get them to shut up. But you won't shut them up. In fact, you're only going to make it worse on yourself. Because all the people who were mad at Kelly for quoting Churchill,

they're still mad. And they're mad because they were never really mad. to begin with. Their anger is performative. As anger is so often, you know, as so is so often the case with anger in modern society, it's performative. They're just taking advantage of an opportunity to jump on a dog pile. They're not going to stop just because you apologize. Only sincere people are satiated by apologies. If you're genuinely offended by something that somebody said or did, and then they apologize, then what you're going to say is, okay, you know, no harm, no foul. Thank you for apologizing.

And then you'll move on. But you notice that that never happens. There's a lot of performative anger. There are a lot of apologies happening every day. But it's like nobody ever says apology accepted. Have you noticed that apologies are never accepted ever anymore? Nobody ever accepts an apology. Because the people who are being apologized to, the people that are receiving the apology, they were never angry. There's actually not anything to apologize for. So this is a disingenuous apology being given to people who are disingenuously fraudulently offended. So it's all a charade. It's all pointless.

And then you just compound your. problem because what happened to Kelly is he originally tweeted the Churchill quote and he had to deal with the performative anger of the left-wing mob and then he apologizes and they're still angry quote unquote but now you also have mockery and disgust from the other side now you have people like me and many others making fun of you for it so all you've done is you've just you've just you've you've turned everybody away you've alienated everybody which is the way that this always works it I mean how many times do we have to see it this how many times do we have to see this play out before we see this is how it works when you apologize to the mob it's not going to

stop them and all you do is you disappoint and alienate um and earn the scorn of the people who would have otherwise defended you. So don't apologize to the mob, especially if you're an astronaut. And there's absolutely no, they can't do anything to you. There's no reason to worry about what they're saying about you. But even those of us who are not astronauts, I think we could take a lesson from this. This is our 50th such lesson in the last month. Never apologize to the mob. I'm not saying never apologize, period, in your life. There may be times to apologize, but don't apologize to these people. Don't apologize to angry internet trolls. Don't apologize to these rabid swarms of phony charlatans who are just really super excited for the

opportunity to be offended by something. Don't apologize to them. And I would say that even if you really are wrong, which obviously Scott Kelly was not wrong in quoting Churchill. But even if you say something and you're actually wrong about what you said, well, still don't apologize to the mob because they're not owed an apology. Why are they owed an apology? Why are a bunch of idiots on the internet? You didn't hurt them. If there really is an apology owed to a specific person, then go apologize to them, but not to the, not to the mob. Whether you're wrong or right, they don't deserve it. It only encourages them. All right. So that's our, that's our lesson that we can all learn for the day. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.