The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1381 - Disney Churns Out Its 'Gayest' Star Wars Show Yet

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Disney has released its "gayest" Star Wars show yet. They have apparently learned nothing from their string of failures over the past several years. Also, a DEI trainer h...as declared that the American flag itself is a symbol of hate and extremism. And, a remote tribe in the Amazon finally gets an Internet connection. Now, the tribe is addicted to porn and social media. We'll talk about all of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.   Ep.1381   - - -    DailyWire+:   Get 25% off your DailyWire+ Membership here: https://bit.ly/4akO7wC   Leftist Tears Tumbler is BACK! Subscribe to get your FREE one today: https://bit.ly/4capKTB   Get your Matt Walsh flannel here: https://bit.ly/3EbNwyj   - - -    Today’s Sponsors:   Balance of Nature - Get 35% off Your Order + FREE Fiber & Spice Supplements. Use promo code WALSH at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/   Zero Debt USA - Learn how to get out of debt today! Visit http://www.zapmydebt.com   - - -   Socials:    Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF   Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA   Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA   Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:36 It sounds miserable and time-consuming. You just can't do it. Well, with Bounce of Nature, there's never been an easier way to ensure that you get your daily dose of fruits and vegetables. But at Bounceof-Nature.com, use promo code Walsh for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer. Plus, get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's Bounce ofnature.com, promo code Walsh. It's no secret that Disney isn't doing well lately. They just laid off nearly 15% of the workforce at Pixar, their movie studio that used to produce guaranteed hits, but Pixar's recent films, Elemental and Lightyear were bombs, and the division hasn't turned to profit in more than two years. People just didn't go for the strained interracial immigrant metaphor
Starting point is 00:02:13 in Elemental or the same-sex kiss and Lightyear, or the kind of rehashed, stale vibe of both projects. Additionally, Disney's much-touted fully immersive Star Wars Hotel called the Galactic Star Cruiser shut down late last year. After operating for less than two years, Disney had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the project, apparently on the theory that people cared so much about the Star Wars brand that they'd be willing to spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of staying two nights in a windowless concrete building posing as a spaceship. That didn't pan out. Apparently people aren't excited to stay in a hotel where the experience is seemingly designed to be as aggressively unpleasant as possible.
Starting point is 00:02:49 That same quarter, Disney's streaming service, Disney Plus, reported a loss of more than a million subscribers. That's not even getting into the Disney's decision to get involved in Florida politics, on the side of activist teachers who want to talk to kindergartners about gender identity and sexual orientation. Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options. One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism, which is what Disney used to do when it was a universally beloved. and much more financially successful company, they could get back to their roots, in other words.
Starting point is 00:03:21 And not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films that capture a real sense of wonder and imagination. But the other option was to keep doing exactly what they've been doing and continue to shove the same agenda, the equity, representation, LGBTQ approach that they've been pushing for years now. Well, eight months ago, Disney CEO Bob Eiger publicly pledged to pursue the first option,
Starting point is 00:03:46 He declared that Disney would refocus his efforts on entertainment, not political messaging. That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public. But that's not what has happened. Disney over the past eight months has apparently decided to double down on agenda-driven content, to the point that they're now openly attacking their own fans. It's a remarkable turn of events, and it's one that's worth discussing because this development is not unique to Disney. And it suggests that wokeness, as we call it, may not be the best way to describe what we're seeing at Disney and other major corporations like it.
Starting point is 00:04:18 And certainly, that's part of what we're seeing, but there's something else going on here as well. It looks a lot like corporate mediocrity run amok, the private sector version of what we see across the public sector bureaucracy. Unimpressive people with impressive sounding credentials who check the right demographic boxes are taking the helm of businesses and products
Starting point is 00:04:37 that they don't understand. They've insinuated themselves into these companies like a cancer that's evidently impossible to remove. and even when the company CEO publicly tells them one thing, they're free to do another. Now, to get a better idea of what I mean, take a look at this interview from the other day featuring Leslie Headland, the creator of the new Disney Star Wars show The Acolyte. Now, I don't want to prejudice you in any way, so I'll just play the clip with no further introduction. This is the showrunner talking about her new show, watch.
Starting point is 00:05:10 I want to ask you both because this is, I would say arguably the gayest, Star Wars, I think, by a considerable margin. And are you excited about that? Are you bracing your stuff? Nothing gay. It's pretty gay. Let's be honest. Leslie, are you, how do you feel?
Starting point is 00:05:28 Am I gay? No, I know you are gay, but I'm asking you are you excited about putting this, you know, this is going to be a talking point. Is it going to be a talking point? I'm sure. Because nerds are gay. Yeah. Well, some nerds are very not gay and are very threatened by gay stuff.
Starting point is 00:05:42 Well, that's true. But in my world, nerds are gay. gay. Was this the fun element of... No, I don't think so. And yet people have told me that it's the gay as Star Wars, and I frankly... You're offended? Into it.
Starting point is 00:05:56 No. I think that Star Wars is so gay already. Okay. I mean, have you seen the fits? We'd be like, look how gay this is, and then send each other a reference photo. And are you telling me with a straight face that C-3PO is straight? They're a couple. That's what I think.
Starting point is 00:06:13 But this is more outward. I think it's canon that R2D2 is a lesbian. So don't worry about the story or the plot or the characters. So it's time for that. Instead, just listen to these two women, call old Star Wars characters gay and then giggle like schoolgirls. They're excited that this new Star Wars show will be the gayest Star Wars show yet, which is in every way the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants.
Starting point is 00:06:37 Nobody has watched the recent Star Wars films and shows. and said to themselves, you know, this would be better if only it was even gayer. No one has thought that except for apparently the people behind this show. Now, the only thing you learn from that interview is that Leslie Headland is gay and has no respect whatsoever for her audience or her own show. This is how Disney is promoting the latest entry to franchise. They spent $4 billion to buy a decade ago. And that has a lot of fans wondering how exactly she was chosen for the role of showrunner. If her role is to push some subversive woke ideology, she's not being.
Starting point is 00:07:14 very subversive about it. She's just angering as many fans as she possibly can. And that's, you know, all this is. And she's not the only CEO, the only one doing this. The CEO of Lucas Film, a woman named Kathleen Kennedy, just came out in defense of her showrunner. Kennedy declared that if you're not a fan of how Leslie Headband is handling herself, then you probably hate women. Quote, I think Leslie has struggled a little bit with it. I think a lot of the women who step into Star Wars struggle with this a bit more. Because of the fan being so male-dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal. My belief is that storytelling does need to be representative of all people.
Starting point is 00:07:53 That's an easy decision for me. Yeah, she really said that. Storytelling does need to be representative of all people, says the CEO of Lucasfilm, as she mocks her own fan base. These people are so dumb. They don't even understand the words coming out of their own mouth. Representative of all people, really? Are they going to have 8 billion characters in this show, one for each person on earth? How exactly does that work?
Starting point is 00:08:20 Is storytelling supposed to be representative of all people, whatever that means? Or is it supposed to be representative of the creative, distinct, creative vision of the storyteller? I was going to show some more clips of these women, but it's honestly too painful to subject you to. These are people who can't even communicate without descending into Valley Girl nonsense. And they're putting together shows that they expect millions of people to watch. Kathleen Kennedy was lucky enough to work with Stephen Spielberg and Leslie Headland worked on rom-coms with titles like sleeping with other people. So those are their credentials. And they're considered impressive in the industry, I guess. So they get to continue butchering Star Wars. By the way, the Ackleight was released this week. I think it was released yesterday. And as has become a new tradition for Star Wars films and shows, it has a very high critic score of Rotten Tomatoes, like 88%, but a failing grade of 45% from the audience. That is the dynamic we always see now with these things. Joel Barry, who apparently subjected himself to at least some of the show,
Starting point is 00:09:18 offered this review, quote, The Acolyte is a queer Marxist vandalization of the myth of Star Wars. In the Acolyte, the Force is a metaphor for cultural hegemonic power. The Jedi are a metaphor for cisgender white oppressors who hoard the power for themselves. Yes, it really is that obnoxious and stupid. The account Wall Street Silver offered this viewer warning, quote, the Acolyte Star Wars new series streaming is very woke. Number one, main character has two mothers.
Starting point is 00:09:44 Number two, main Jedi characters are all black and Asian, no white men. And number three, only speaking role for white men in first episode is prisoners on a prison ship. So Disney has decided to right the ship by ramming it directly into another iceberg. And that's not to pick on the Ackleite too much, although it obviously deserves it. Because of the fact that Disney is now pumping out Star Wars shows on an assembly line, And there's another one that I can mock as well. It's called Tales of the Empire. This one is apparently geared towards kids.
Starting point is 00:10:13 And I guess it features a non-binary Jedi based on how all the characters use they-them pronouns to refer to this corpse. Watch this. I think we played this once before. But here it is again. If you can get through it, here it is. Watch.
Starting point is 00:10:32 They're still alive. We need to get them to the ship. We can save them. Forget it. Let them die. It's not worth the trouble. Choice Hotels get you more of what you value. Comfort in.
Starting point is 00:10:46 It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Book direct at storesotails.com. They were about to surrender. Irrelevant. The Jedi are a threat to be eradicated wherever they are found. Oh, yeah, we did play that before because I remember now.
Starting point is 00:11:13 That's the one where the bad guy, I guess it's a bad guy. It kills someone, but then still respects that person's pronouns after having murdered them. So that's nice at least. This is the result of Disney's big plan to focus on entertainment and not messaging. We have non-binary jediyes and girl bosses making sure we have the gayest Star Wars ever. And that's not all. As Bloomberg recently reported, Disney is now banking on the upcoming film Inside Out 2 as the quote,
Starting point is 00:11:45 Keats are restoring the magic. They think that this film, a sequel to a movie from 2015, is going to be a smash hit to the point that they're going to give it a 100-day run in theaters. As Bloomberg reports, quote, if families show up for Inside Out 2 and the kinds of numbers Pixar used to see, it will reaffirm the studio's standing. But if the movie fails, it will fuel concerns about the company's relevance. And by the way, the whole article is kind of funny because it's all about how Disney, they've come up with their brilliant strategy to get back on track, and their brilliant strategy
Starting point is 00:12:19 is to do more sequels and remakes. That's the strategy. And of course, anyone reads that. Isn't that what you've been doing the whole time? Isn't that the only thing you've done for 20 years now? Now, what is Inside Out 2 going to be about? It's hard to say, because it's not out yet, but after some Googling,
Starting point is 00:12:34 I came across this headline from an outlet called pride.com, and here's their assessment based on the trailer, quote, the long-awaited sequel to Disney and Pixar's Inside Out isn't hitting theaters until the summer, but the official trailer dropped this week, and it's looking a little gay. Fans think Inside Out 2 is going to be gay as F. Now, how brave is that?
Starting point is 00:12:54 They're also going to, I guess, gayify Inside Out, or maybe they will, which was kind of a middling Pixar entry in the first place. Is that the direction they're going with it? Who knows? But based on the fact that they can't make anything that isn't gay anymore, we can assume that the answer to that question is probably yes. And all of this is very woke. That's true.
Starting point is 00:13:14 It's also incredibly lame and stale and unimaginative. And that would also be an apt descriptor for what Disney is doing with its theme parks. As the writer Peachie Keenan documented on Twitter yesterday, Disney is currently re-theming their famous Splash Mountain Ride because the ride was racist for some reason. And they're creating a politically correct version of the new rides. So they're doing this even with the rides now. Keenan watched all the Disney's promotional materials,
Starting point is 00:13:40 and she put together a comparison of the old ride with the new one. Basically, the new ride won't have Princess Tiana in a nice dress with a handsome prince or even a storyline of any kind, I guess, because that's too, you know, archaic and patriarchal. She wrote, quote, instead you get a lot of dead space, repeated boring animatronic who look like zombies compared to the pirates animatronics. And Tiana, incredibly, in ugly, baggy pants, no makeup, no nonsense hair, zero glamour. It's girl boss Tiana, and she's dressed like a jungle cruise. That's the direction they're going with their theme parks. Sounds thrilling. I was trying to figure out why all this is happening at Disney,
Starting point is 00:14:16 why they're sabotaging their own brand, despite what the CEO said they do. And it's clear that whatever's going on here, it's not unique to Disney. Consider what just happened at Cracker Barrel. Their CEO is a woman named Julie Fels Messino. She took the job last year. Previously, she worked at Taco Bell, Mattel,
Starting point is 00:14:35 sprinkles, cupcakes, Starbucks, and Macy's. Of course, the clientele of every single one of those companies is different from the typical Cracker Barrel. clientele, which skews older. But in general, her old jobs were mostly in the food industry, just like the acolyte showrunners' jobs were mostly in the entertainment industry. And that's good enough. So Julie Massino got the job. Unfortunately, it's not working out too well. Messino just announced on a call with investors that the company is, quote, just not as relevant as we once were. Because, you know, when you think of Cracker Barrel, you think of something
Starting point is 00:15:04 that you want, you think of relevant. That's why Cracker Barrel's customers go there, is because it's so relevant. But now it's not. not as relevant, so they need to make it relevant again, she said. And to ignite growth, she said it's necessary to revitalize the brand. She then outlined a bunch of generic initiatives like rewards programs that every other restaurant offers. And her announcement, because people know what that really means, when you have one of these, one of these, you know, corporate, one of these mediocre corporate people saying that we're going to revitalize and the brand and make it relevant again. Everyone knows what that means. Everyone knows where that goes. And because of that,
Starting point is 00:15:45 the stock went down 11% immediately, putting it down nearly 50% in the past year. And why wouldn't the stock drop? The new CEO clearly views Cracker Barrel as completely indistinguishable from every other place that she's ever worked. If anything, she probably hates the brand. And we can assume she hates the brand's primarily blue-collar Christian clientele. We saw something similar with that Bud Light Vice President, Lisa Hiner Scheid, when she dismissed her own customers. as fratty and said Bud Light needed to rebrand, and that's when they brought on Dylan Mulvaney, and we all know how that turned out. So Alyssa Hineshide, like Julie Messino, had great credentials. She went to Harvard and Warden, had worked at big companies like Whisturine and General Mills,
Starting point is 00:16:26 but she didn't understand Bud Light or care about the customers. In fact, she hated the customers and was very open about that, and so she destroyed the brand. Now the same thing is probably unfolding at Cracker Barrel. And it's a very slow, motion preventable collapse. On social media, someone using the handle Pine Barron summed up the problem better than I've seen elsewhere. Here's what he wrote describing an alternative to Cracker Barrel's current CEO. He said, quote, imagine a CEO who actually loved Midwestern and Southern culture. What about pop-up concerts and endorsements by Zach Bryan and Morgan Wallen? Why not lean into its heritage as an after-church spot and create programs for church groups,
Starting point is 00:17:05 including discounts and shuttle bus services? Grassroots evangelical support has made huge hits of movies like The Sound of Freedom and restaurant chains like Chick-fil-A, imagine a public company with a leadership that didn't hate the blue-collar evangelical population. There are so many obvious partnership opportunities with brands like NASCAR or country music stars. I don't think this is wokeness or girl bossery per se, but rather typical corporate mediocrity. They hired a generic MBA type who built a career on the massive brand equity of young brands and Starbucks. Just a cog in the corporate machine.
Starting point is 00:17:36 I hope we'll see Titans of Industry again, but this is not how we'll get them. That does a fairly good job of putting into perspective everything we've been seeing over the past few years at Disney, Bud Light, so many other major corporations. I think it's a more apt explanation than simply chalking all this decline up to wokeness. This trend of hiring interchangeable CEOs with resumes and trendy demographics has been an unmitigated disaster because it overlooks what the leader of every company should have at a bare minimum, which is an understanding of their product and a genuine respect for their customers. Without that, you get shows like The Acolyte. You get Dillam Maldaney and angry customers, and your stock collapses along with your brand. All the combined efforts of feminism and diversity and equity and whokeness have brought us to this point, all of those things together. But it's bureaucracy and inertia that keeps it alive, long after everyone's tired of it.
Starting point is 00:18:32 And that inertia is the reason why, whether you're going to a restaurant or a movie theater, you're now getting. guaranteed a product that's as mediocre as the people who created it. Now, let's get to our five headlines. Does your debt keep you tossing and turning at night? It's like you can't get away from it. Well, the unfortunate reality is that our banking system is designed to trap you in debt. These insanely high-interest credit cards and loans make it nearly impossible to pay off your debt. Thankfully, there's a new way out of the debt trap with Zero Debt USA.
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Starting point is 00:19:35 Talk to them for free and find out how fast they can help you get out of debt. That's zapmydebt.com. So the creepiest elected official in the country, Scott Weiner in California, had some thoughts to share at San Francisco's Pride kickoff event. I don't even know why they have a Pride kickoff. Like every day is Pride Day. Every month is Pride Month in San Francisco. But they had some big event. Scott Weiner was there.
Starting point is 00:20:00 And here's what he had to say. Listen. We are always there for these kids. These are our kids. And we need to make sure that we are lifting them up and giving them a path to, to success. So we are working very hard to make that happen. And we know that we have school boards in particular in some very conservative areas that are demonizing and attacking our LGBTQ youth in ways that are so, so dangerous. And so about a week ago, our caucus, the 12 of us, we said not on
Starting point is 00:20:33 our watch. And we introduced legislation to ban these forced outing policies that some school boards are starting to adopt because we know that for all of us a lot of experience in this room in terms of coming out in terms of when if how someone comes out to their parents that is our decision and no one else's damn business and we're going to make that clear in the law of the state of California but as we fight all the nasty people out there who are trying to harm us and we're going to beat them or we're going to win let's see celebrate. Let's have just a festive and uplifting month. I am so excited about it. Happy pride, everyone. Okay, so there's Weiner. So many red flags on what he just said. You know,
Starting point is 00:21:31 the guy's a walking red flag, of course. But to begin with, he says, these are our kids. That's the way he looks at it. Of course, they aren't. You don't have any kids, Weiner. These are not your kids. These kids do not belong to you or the government. And we see again here the basic question. This is the thing that lies at the center of all these debates. It's the fundamental question, which is whose kids are they?
Starting point is 00:21:58 Who has primary authority over a child? Who is primarily responsible? Who's the first line of defense? Who does the buck stop with? And there are basically two possible answers. There are three possible answers. There's the right answer.
Starting point is 00:22:15 You could say the answer is God. and you'd be right about that. So, you know, maybe we need to be more specific. Who's the primary earthly authority over a child? Who on earth is first and most responsible for a child? And once we've narrowed it down that way, then we're left with only two possibilities, and it's either going to be the parent or the state.
Starting point is 00:22:36 And the Scott Wieners of the world say that it's the state. And that explains why later in the clip, he describes the forced outing of kids. Well, what does that mean? What do you mean by forced outing? Because if you didn't know any better and you heard something like that, you would think that, okay, well, kids who are supposedly gay or trans, allegedly, that these kids are being compelled by the state to declare themselves as such. That's what forced outing sounds like. Is there some kind of mind reading technology being used to identify kids who have these kinds of feelings and self-perceptions? supposedly. And then it's declared, like, is that, is that what that means? No, it doesn't mean any of that. It simply means what Scott Weiner refers to as forced outing. It simply means that kids who have
Starting point is 00:23:31 already declared themselves as supposedly LGBT in school, kids who have made this fact about themselves known to not only their peers, but also to teachers and school administrators, that in those cases, the parents should also know. So it's not a question of quote unquote outing. It's a question of whether or not the school should actively keep secrets from the parents. Should the parents be in the loop about their own kid or not? That's the question. Should the schools have knowledge about a child's mental state that they don't
Starting point is 00:24:15 share with the parents. Should the schools know more about a child than the parents do? That's what we're talking about. And any sane person will say no to that. And you say no, because that's, again, a complete inversion of sort of the chain of custody of a child. And the way that it's supposed to work is the parent is responsible for the child entrusts a limited, supposed to be a limited amount of authority to the schools for a limited period of time while they're in school, but the parent is still the one who's responsible. What they want to do is flip that on its head. And anytime this comes up, I do, and I've made this point, I think in fact cannot make this point enough, that when it comes to this question specifically,
Starting point is 00:25:08 should the schools tell parents, every, about a child. And specifically if the child is identifying allegedly as LGBT in some way, should the schools tell, will always remember that the same people who answer no to that question, people who say, no, the school shouldn't because that's forced outing. And it's up to the kids to decide what they share with the parents. Those people, Scott Wiener himself, they would be the first to tell us that LGBT, quote unquote, LGBT kids are at a high-risk group, that there are a much higher risk for suicide and for suicide attempts. They'll tell us that.
Starting point is 00:25:57 They will eagerly tell us that. And that's true. Right? That is absolutely true. We don't deny that. So what they're saying is, is a school knows that a child is in a high-risk group for suicide. That the school should not share that information with the parents.
Starting point is 00:26:23 The school should actively conceal from the parents that their child is a high-risk suicide group. And if the schools do hide that information and then that child goes on to tragically take his own life, are the schools held responsible for that? You knew this child was in a high-risk group. You didn't tell the parents. And then one tragic day that the child is at home and does something drastic. Whose fault is that?
Starting point is 00:26:55 Well, the schools carry a significant amount of the blame. And this is something that rational people understand, but rational people, as Weiner says, are nasty. Those are, he says at the end, those are the nasty people. We're the nasty, you know, the nasty kinds of parents who dare to insist that we are the parents of our children and we want to to know what's going on with them. And if you have information about their mental state and about what they're going through, we need to know that because there are kids and we care. We love them. We love them. You don't. You're the school. You're the state. Scott We're we care for our children. You don't. Okay. I have to say, you know, I'm used to being proven right, but it doesn't usually
Starting point is 00:27:41 happen this quickly. So last week we talked about the left's decision to declare suddenly that the appeal to heaven flag, which has existed since the nation's founding, since before the nation's founding, declared that it's controversial and right wing, and racist and everything, after Justice Alito flew that flag outside of his vacation home. And the reason why it's a controversial flag, they say now, is because supposedly there were also some people on January 6th who had that same flag.
Starting point is 00:28:12 And the San Francisco City Hall then even removed the flag from its building where it had been flying for 50 years. because all of a sudden now it's a problem. It's a controversial flag. Yet another patriotic American symbol is now verboten. And I said last week that we are rapidly approaching the point where the American flag itself will be deemed racist. And I don't just mean, of course, I don't just mean like a few left-wing wackos saying that. It'll be a mainstream thing.
Starting point is 00:28:40 Our institutions will push to change the American flag in order to rid it of its racist and controversial past. That's going to happen, where the American flag will be deemed a hate symbol, basically. Well, here's the Fox News headline dated June 4th headline. School District DEI trainer says American flag becoming hate symbol. Employees resisting CRT should be fired. Reading the article, a diversity, equity and inclusion trainer spreading critical race theory in the public education system, said that resistant employees who disagree with the concept, should be fired, according to her published work.
Starting point is 00:29:21 Epoch Education CEO, Dr. Nancy Dome, called employees who don't accept notions included in CRT, such as the existence of white privilege, a poison to culture and climate, and criticized equality in favor of equity. The DEI firm's YouTube videos, meanwhile espoused CRT's tenets and indicate that colorblindness isn't sufficient. Epoch calls itself a national leader in DEI and indicates that at least five public school districts ranging from nearly 40,000 students to over 70,000, each have hired the firm to bring in an equity agenda. In a video posted on Epox's Vimeo account, Dome said that she believed the American flag was becoming a symbol of hate and extremism. The video became publicly unavailable after Fox News sent a request for comment.
Starting point is 00:30:03 Okay, so they deleted the video after Fox asked about it. Apparently, so I guess Fox asked about this video before, they didn't save it. They did not save the video or pull it, you know, pull it and save it. before asking this organization about it. So the organization didn't respond with any comment, but they just took the video down. But we know the gist, which is that the American flag is a symbol of hate and extremism and racism,
Starting point is 00:30:31 and it was inevitable that they would come to this conclusion. And we know that this is what the left wants to do. They want to purge this country of its own history, sever any tie that we have to our own past, to our history, to our tradition. Now, why do they want to do that? Well, because history and tradition are, you know, are anchor points. These are sources of identity.
Starting point is 00:30:54 These are lessons and guidance. Our history, our tradition, it tells us who we are. But the DEI, CRT, communist types like Dome, they see all that as their own job. Like, it's her job to tell us what our identity is and who we are, to anchor us. to guide us. That's what she's supposed to. That's what DEI is supposed to do. So we have to be emptied of any previous sense of identity that we had, removed from any sources of attachment, separated from any points of orientation, so that we can be remade and reoriented. And this is how cults operate. I know the term cult is thrown around a lot and probably overused quite a bit.
Starting point is 00:31:45 lost a lot of its meaning, a lot of its sting, but in this case, DEI is a cult. Leftism in general is a giant cult. At least it operates like one. At least it has borrowed many of the methods of cults. And this is the first thing that the cult does. It severs you from your family. This is, you know, isolate, get rid of any attachment that you have and isolate you. That's the first thing that is part of the, that's cult brainwashing 101. That is step one. We just heard about that in the first headline, but we don't want to out the kids. What does that really mean? We want to, we, we want to isolate them from their parents. We know something about the child that the parent doesn't know. And so that allows us to form an attachment to the child
Starting point is 00:32:39 and isolate the child away from the parents. Okay. This is also how, this is a also grooming. I mean, it's all the same. It's all the same, it's all the same kind of process. So they do that. Strip you of your sense of identity. Render you helpless, confused, bewildered, isolated, feeling vulnerable. And then they come in and they say, well, come this way. You're scared now. I'll show you the way. And there's always the underlying threat, too, of course, which is why we hear in this case that employees who resist the DEI indoctrination have to be fired. Oh, but you should talk to them first. You should be kind and generous and try to explain everything to them.
Starting point is 00:33:22 But if they resist, then, you know, just get rid of them. That's the carrot and stick approach. The cult says, well, you're part of the family. We love you. We're your real family now. But then it's made clear that if you try to leave the family, if you don't get with the program, you'll be destroyed, which is how DEI works. And it's easy to lose sight of just how bizarre.
Starting point is 00:33:45 all of this is. And I don't just mean because DEI is crazy. I don't just mean that the ideas that they're promoting are crazy, though they are, of course. I mean, the idea that adopting a set of beliefs that have nothing to do with the work you're doing at a company or an organization should be a requirement for your continued employment at that company or with that organization. Like, it was never like this before. In the past, you were required to do your job and have a good attitude about your job and at least act as though you value the job and the company that you work for. And now the whole idea with DEI is that you need to accept an entire belief system that on top of being insane also has nothing at all to do with the job you're getting paid to do.
Starting point is 00:34:27 But this is the other facet of how cults operate. You know, in a cult, everything has to do with the cult. The idea that there could be anything in life that is not related is anathema. You can't, that doesn't exist. Everything is related to it. And that's obviously how they see it here. Wall Street Journal with a report here that's getting a lot of attention in political circles for some reason. Here's the headline. Behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of slipping. Participants in meetings said the 81-year-old president performed poorly at times.
Starting point is 00:35:08 The White House said Biden is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics. There's a lengthy article all about. about how Joe Biden, I don't know if you heard this or not, I don't know if you noticed or not, but Joe Biden supposedly is, they're claiming that Joe Biden is losing a step or two. That's what they're saying in the article. Reading a couple of examples, it begins, when President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points,
Starting point is 00:35:43 paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out or really fallen asleep is what it would have looked like. In February one-on-one chat in the Oval Office with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the president said a recent policy change by his administration that jeopardizes some big energy products was just a study, according to six people told at the time about what Johnson said it happened. Johnson worried the president's memory had slipped about the details of his own policy. Last year when Biden was negotiating with House Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, his demeanor and command of the detail seemed to shift from one day to the next,
Starting point is 00:36:20 according to then House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two others familiar with the talks. On some days, he had loose and spontaneous exchanges with Republicans, and on others he mumbled and appeared to rely on notes. McCarthy said in an interview, I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I'd go to his house. He's not the same person. White House officials, though, dismissed many of the accounts from those who have met with the president or been briefed by those meetings is motivated by partisan politics.
Starting point is 00:36:44 White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, congressional Republicans, foreign leaders, and nonpartisan national security experts have made clear in their own words. The President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment. Now in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.
Starting point is 00:37:05 I mean, in fairness to the White House spokespeople, there is no credible denial you can issue here because we can all see it, but that is the least credible denial that you could have possibly come up with. What they're saying is that, well, a lot of these Republicans, they've said in the past that Joe Biden was sharp and, you know, really with it. And look at all of his accomplishments. Well, yeah, they said that in the past. That's the point. They're not saying it now, because in the past, that might have been the case. but now it's not anymore. So that's the, if someone is saying, oh, that guy is, you know, that guy is senile,
Starting point is 00:37:47 it doesn't make any sense for you to object and say, oh, yeah, well, 15 years ago, you didn't say he was senile. Yeah, that's how senility works. You know, when you're 81, you're senile. When you were 65, you probably weren't. That is, so that is legitimately their excuse. That it's, it, you have no credibility if you called Joe Biden's, senile now if two decades ago you were praising his mental acuity. So this is the breaking news. Joe Biden is old and senile, which of course we know.
Starting point is 00:38:27 This piece actually undersells it. First of all, by claiming that Biden is only slipping behind closed doors. No, it's happening very much in front of the doors. I mean, he's, and he's literally slipping in front of all of us and then slipping every other sense of the word, too, in front of everybody's eyes, if he gets another term, he'll be a full-on vegetable or dead by the end of it, and everybody knows that.
Starting point is 00:38:48 There's no question about it. It's like 100% understood by everybody. And of course it is. He's 81 years old, and he's a human being. He is a mortal creature living on earth.
Starting point is 00:39:01 So mortality is real. It exists. It's a reality we all must contend with. And I've been saying this ever since Biden first ran for president, And at the time, it may be easy to forget this now, but you go back like five years ago. And I was making the same point about this guy's just like he's way too old. He's on top of everything.
Starting point is 00:39:23 There are many other reasons to not vote for him, obviously. And if he was 60 years old and a young whippersnapper by comparison anyway, I still wouldn't vote for him and I still wouldn't support him. But you really don't even need to get to any of that other stuff because he's just, he's senile. So none of it, the rest of it even matters. How is this not the most relevant fact about him? And I can remember five years, even though now, like everyone agrees on this point, five years ago that was not the case. And even many conservatives, I can remember having this argument with even some conservatives who were not going to vote for him, but said that, oh, I'm not going to vote for him. But age is not the reason. Age isn't a factor. Age is just a number.
Starting point is 00:40:09 Right? Well, I have a grandmother who's 92 years old and she's still sharp as attack. Why are you being ageist? I heard that a million times. We all heard that, right? But age is not just a number. It is a real physical reality. Everybody declines mentally and physically as they get older. And once you hit 80, that decline speeds up exponentially for everyone. I mean everyone. like everyone ever who's ever lived. Even if you go on to live until you're 120. The declines still, I mean, you're declining for decades even before that, physically, certainly. But then once 80 is kind of a, it's, that's when dementia, dementia rates skyrocket. And your chance of dementia goes up by, you know, multiple percentage points every year once you hit 80 and every year after that. your chance of living to 90, first of all, living to 90,
Starting point is 00:41:10 but also living to 90 and still having use of your mind is very, very, very small. Some people do it, very small. And that's just, so of course, that's one of the things that makes all this so frustrating is that it was totally, like it was always going to end this way. And it might not even end.
Starting point is 00:41:34 This guy might get another term in office when he's 81 years old. When the justice system collapses, we don't sit back. We fight back. The Daily Wire, we deliver you the truth. And if recent news tells us anything, the truth has never been more important. Join the DailyWire as we fight the left and build the future. You'll get unfiltered, uncensored access to the most trusted names in conservative media completely ad-free. Plus, you'll have unlimited access to our entire catalog of entertainment, including hit movies, series, documentaries, and you'll be first to see what's coming up next. Sign up today at DailyWirePlus.com and get 25% off annual memberships with the code fight. That's right. 25% off when you use code fight at checkout.
Starting point is 00:42:10 Don't miss out. Join the fight today. Now let's get to our daily cancellation. Many decades ago, as the legend goes, a shaman in the remote 2000 member Maribu tribe in the Amazon rainforest had a vision. He foretold that someday there would be a mysterious device that people could hold in the palm of their hands and used to interact with the rest of the world in an instant.
Starting point is 00:42:35 And supposedly, according to the prophecy, this device would initially appear to be a net positive for society, but eventually it would lead to chaos and ultimately war. This dark prophecy was recounted this week in a lengthy article in The New York Times. And even though it sounds a bit like the shaman just got high and described a Palm Pilot that he saw in a magazine somewhere,
Starting point is 00:42:54 his warning is presented this story as a really haunting prediction. And that's because last September, for the first time in their history, the Meru Bo people were finally connected to the Internet. And while there's no war yet, things are not going according to plan. The process of getting this village online began two years ago when the government of Brazil,
Starting point is 00:43:12 approve the use of the Starlink service in the country. Starlink is a subsidiary of Elon Musk's company SpaceX, and it provides broadband quality internet via satellite. Shortly after the approval, one of the leaders of the Maribou tribe started soliciting donations to acquire Starlink equipment after the villagers had expressed interest. And eventually, with the help of American entrepreneur named Allison Renault,
Starting point is 00:43:33 the technology was installed. Here's what that installation looked like. Watch. We've the pleasure to show to you this story, shea of the challenges and
Starting point is 00:43:43 experience. Realizam the major action of connectivity of Amazonia in September of 2023,
Starting point is 00:43:50 connecting 20 Aldeaos in one of the areas more remote of the Amazonia. And if you're
Starting point is 00:43:57 listening to the audio podcast, I'm sure you can understand everything that was just said there.
Starting point is 00:44:01 As you can see, the Maribbo people aren't anywhere near as primitive as some of the totally
Starting point is 00:44:04 uncontacted tribes that still exists in South America. They have clothes and tables and glasses and all that.
Starting point is 00:44:10 In fact, some of them already had phones, but still pretty primitive. But until September, they haven't had access to the internet. They didn't have the tiny, glowing device to connect to a limitless supply of content. And now they do, for better or worse. And mostly, as it turns out, worse. There have been thousands of articles and academic papers written about the effects of the internet on people's brains and behaviors. I've talked about some of the findings before, for example, the fact that depression spiked as soon as a majority of kids in the country began owning smartphones all the way back in 2012.
Starting point is 00:44:37 But a lot of the analysis so far has relied on correlation. People who support giving smartphones to children can always respond by pointing to a million other variables that might be affecting the mental state of children. They can say, you know, the economy got worse. They can point to other cultural shifts, et cetera, and so on. But none of those alternative explanations apply to this remote Amazon village. The arrival of Starlink, Maribow, allows us to pinpoint precisely how a society might be affected by the Internet, because in this tribe, they're pretty much controlling for every other variable at the moment. So what changes can we observe? It's a very interesting anthropological sort of study that can be done here.
Starting point is 00:45:19 Well, here's the New York Post headline to give you some idea. Quote, remote Amazon tribe finally connects to the internet, only to wind up hooked on porn and social media. As one villager told the times, quote, when it arrived, everybody was happy. But now things have gotten worse. young people have gotten lazy because of the internet. They're learning the ways of the white people. Then the villager added, with impeccable comedic timing, by the way, but please don't take our internet away. That's how you know they're fully bought in. It's how you know this tribe is now living in the internet age officially. For one thing, there's the jab at white people, so they've already picked up on that.
Starting point is 00:45:55 But then also there's this attitude that the internet is terrible and it's destroying us and we hate it, but don't take it away. We need it. The Times reports that in the village, common sites now include, quote, teenagers glued to phones, group chats full of gossip, addictive social networks, online strangers, violent video games, scams, misinformation, and minors watching pornography. Here's what the Times reporter saw when he arrived. Watch. I've been reporting on the arrival of high-speed Starlink Internet in remote indigenous villages in the Amazon rainforest. Myself and our photographer Victor Moriama, we ended up hiking in total. about 50 miles in order to reach villages of the Marubo people, which are an indigenous tribe that has lived for hundreds of years, if not longer, in one of the most isolated
Starting point is 00:46:44 stretches of the Amazon rainforest. One of the striking things for me was to see this contrast between this old traditional way of life that the Marubos have had for many, many, many years. And this very new way of life that looks far more familiar to me, frankly. And that meant, you know, seeing people hunched over on their phones, typing away, sending voice notes, watching, you know, video clips. The internet was a huge hit and people were on it all the time. So much that it became a problem for the hunting and the farming that are necessary for their way of life. And so what the Murovo leaders did is nowadays, in almost all of the villages, the internet is only on for several hours in the morning and several hours in the evening and then all day Sunday.
Starting point is 00:47:30 So it's pretty striking imagery. You have people in the middle of nowhere who have never had internet access before. And in just a few months, the village now looks like an airport terminal. Everyone's just staring at a screen. So they're desperately trying to limit the number of hours people can access this because it's getting to be a problem. One village leader named Alfredo Marubo reported that, quote, everyone is so connected that sometimes they don't even talk to their own family. He added that young men are becoming more, quote, sexually aggressive, which is notable because the tribe's pre-internet culture. was chased and didn't permit kissing in public, which would be quite uncommon for these tribal cultures, by the way. Many of them are not chased at all, but apparently this one was. That's all changed now. They've had access to pornography for less than a year, and already it's changing how boys and girls are interacting. Alfredo says that kids are sharing pornography in group chats and that he's worried that they're going to start mimicking what they see online. Meanwhile, another villager named Tamaseh Morubo, no relation to Alfredo. This village just hasn't invented last names yet. That's complaining that many young people now just want to
Starting point is 00:48:30 spend the whole afternoon on their phones. No, they're just like us. On the more positive side of things, someone named Inoke Marubo reports that technology has already saved live, particularly because it now is much easier for villagers to request medical attention when they get bitten by snakes and that sort of thing. At the same time, Anoucault pointed out that productivity in the village has plummeted, quote, it changed the routine so much that it was detrimental. In the village, if you don't hunt, fish and plant, you don't eat.
Starting point is 00:48:55 Now, it might be why some young people in the village now have ambitions of leaving as quickly as they can. For example, the time states that one 15-year-old girl wants to travel the world and visit places she can see online. Another teenager says that she wants to become a dentist now. You can't blame them for wanting to leave the mud huts. I certainly would if I was then. But the internet has ushered in this sudden cataclysmic collapse of their culture and their way of life as the tribe becomes assimilated into the digital age. Of course, the village elders don't approve of any of this because if enough young people leave and if they're not hunting and doing the things that you do, then the village will die out. So there's a lot of tension right now in the village about Starlink and how it'll be
Starting point is 00:49:32 used going forward. If nothing else, this is a real live experiment that proves a few things that I've been saying for a very long time. Many people have been saying, first of all, it's clear evidence as if we needed it, that the internet does indeed drastically change human behavior, and it has a particularly significant effect on young people. Second, the arrival of Starlink in this village proves that the change happens very quickly. It doesn't take long for people to become dependent on the internet to the point of neglecting the responsibilities and relationships, just takes a few weeks. In fact, in fact, you can observe this on a much smaller scale in your own families. Many parents have observed it. Like, when you finally decide to give the phone or whatever, the device, let your
Starting point is 00:50:14 children have a device of that kind, whether it's an iPad or a phone, every parent has observed that within like 30 seconds, the kids are addicted to it. And immediately, it should, you changes their behavior and everything. That's why I said earlier this year, as I said earlier this year, the best way to prevent your child from being harmed by a smartphone is to keep smartphones away from them. Because at the most fundamental level, this puts kind of the catch-22 on display.
Starting point is 00:50:44 But the internet will connect you to the world. It will open up opportunities. It will give you a chance to see things you would never see otherwise. But this does not come free. And I'm not talking about the cost that you pay, to your internet service provider or whatever. The real cost is much deeper. The internet will give you those things,
Starting point is 00:51:03 which are good things, no doubt, but it demands something in return. Namely, it demands the reordering and restructuring of your community and culture and your life. There is no society that I'm aware of that has managed to simply have the internet
Starting point is 00:51:20 as a useful tool and communication device. Every society with the internet, which is almost all of them at this point, and will soon be literally all of them, every society with the internet in that way has become a society centered around the internet, changed by it, defined by it. It becomes the focal point of life
Starting point is 00:51:38 and the primary lens through which people encounter the world and each other. Life with the internet is life on the internet. There's no way to, there's no distinction. And that ultimately is a diminished life. It's a less authentic, less beautiful, less real less vibrant life. The internet is a net negative for mankind.
Starting point is 00:52:01 I'm certainly convinced of that at this point. And I understand the irony of me saying that on the internet as a guy who makes his living here. I'm fully aware of the contradiction, but my own paradoxical situation aside, this new evidence from a remote tribe in the Amazon makes the profound and life-altering effects of the internet very clear. And that's why anyone who has doubted those effects is today canceled. that'll do for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a great day. God's been.

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