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December 28, 2023 15 mins

In this conversation, Senator Ted Cruz discusses his book 'Unwoke' and the cultural societal problems in America. He explains how the radical left has seized control of major institutions and provides a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of his book, focusing on universities, K-12 education, journalism, government, big business, big tech, entertainment, science, and China. Senator Cruz emphasizes the importance of shining a light on the radical left's ideas, increasing the costs for going woke, and investing in the organs of transmission of ideas. He also shares his personal story and the American dream. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Are you single and don't want to be? Here's your
new Year's resolution? Stop texting. Look, I despise talking on
the phone. I don't have voicemail. I don't listen to
voice notes. I'm a texter all the way. By the way,
I don't listen to voice notes. Do not send me

(00:26):
voice notes. They will never be heard. Don't do it.
So maybe I'm a hypocrite. But I can afford to
be a hypocrite because I'm not on the dating scene.
I can limit all of my conversations with my husband
to text. Buy milk kid is sick because there's very
little for us to misunderstand, and more important, at the
end of the day, we have face to face conversations.

(00:49):
Studies have actually found that too much texting, even when
you're already in a relationship, isn't healthy. Either quick I
Love you or scheduling text are fine, even positive, but
any attempt to conduct serious conversations via text quickly leads
to lower relationship quality. It's obvious why texting is divorced

(01:10):
from tone and can lead to misinterpretation. Was that a
joke or is my boyfriend a jerk? What does that
emoji convey? Texting blurs intent. For example, you know young
kids are super anti putting a period at the end
of text. Now or if you don't know that? What
if you know you're from a generation that still does that,

(01:30):
but they've adopted this new philosophy. It's all interpreted as
throwing shade, so you can easily make a mistake and
not even know it. The TV show Catfish highlights stories
of people who meet and fall in love online, sometimes
spending years in relationships solely on the computer or phone
before finding out that person isn't who they thought they were.

(01:52):
And while sure they were attracted to their words on
a screen, finding out that the picture their boyfriend or
girlfriend uses fake fizzles the whole thing out very quickly.
It's rare that the tricky decides that they still love
the trigger due to all the great texting conversations they had.
That's because actual physical, in person attraction matters, and so

(02:15):
does the breach of trust that develops when long term
text only relationships are revealed to contain distortions. Is it
possible to fall in love over text or email, then
meet and have all of your feelings confirmed. Sure, we
all have friends who have done this, but we also
have plenty of friends who will spend weeks or months
texting before meeting and sometimes end up not meeting at all.

(02:39):
Too often people will meet the person with whom they
have texting chemistry, only to find out they have no
in person chemistry. I get it. It's hard to be
the weirdo demanding phone conversation when everyone around you is texting.
But you'll save yourself a ton of wasted time if
you make that leap. Institute a policy for yourself where
you can texts for half an hour to see if

(03:01):
there's a connection, and then switch to setting up an
in person date. Move your life offline as much as
possible in twenty twenty four. Coming up next an interview
with Senator Ted Cruz. Join us after the break, Hi,
and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.

(03:22):
My guest today is Senator Ted Cruz, one of my
favorite senators who has definitely had me thinking I should
have converted to Texan and author of the excellent new
book Unwoke. So nice to have you on, Senator Carol.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Great to be with you thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
A question I ask all of my guests, and I
imagine we'll take us in the direction of your book,
is what do you think is the largest cultural societal
problem in America? And is it solvable?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Well? I think there are a lot of cultural societal problems,
but one of the most massive, and the topic of
my book is is how the radical left has seized
control of virtually every major institution of our society. The
full title of the book is Unwoke, How to Defeat
Cultural Marxism in America. And what the book does is

(04:13):
it chronicles exactly how that has happened. And each chapter
of the book focuses on a different institution. So chapter
one starts with universities, because the universities I describe as
the Wuhan lab of the Woke virus. It's where the
virus was created, it's where it mutated, it's where it spread.

(04:35):
And from universities, the book then goes on to K
through twelve. Education, it goes on to journalism, It goes
on to government, it goes on to big business, it
goes on to big tech, It goes on to entertainment,
to Hollywood, movies, television, music, sports, it goes on to science,
and the final chapter in the book is on China,

(04:55):
which I view China as a central nexus intertwine with
each of them. And what the book does is two things.
It explains how and why the radical left seized each
of these institutions, and then secondly, it lays out a productive,
positive battle plan for how we take them back, because

(05:16):
I think if we don't take the institutions back, we're
going to lose our country.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Absolutely. So, which one was the scariest chapter for you?
Which one do you think is the hardest for us
to conquer and take back?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think the most dangerous is entertainment. Entertainment is incredibly pervasive.
The left understands the power of ideas. The left understands
and they engage in the battle the arena of ideas
in a way that the right systematically does not. So

(05:48):
in terms of how we fight back, I advocate essentially
using three sets of tools. The first set of tools
is sunlight and transparency. Because the ideas of the radical
life left are wildly unpopular. Normal rational people don't support
abolishing the police. Normal rational people don't support open borders

(06:10):
and chaos at our southern border. Normal rational people are
not struggling to figure out what a woman is, and
normal rational people do not celebrate the horrific atrocities of
Hamas terrorists, that those are not mainstream positions. Simply shining
a light on what the radical left is doing is

(06:31):
a powerful tool for fighting back. The second tool I
advocate is shifting the cost benefit analysis, increasing the costs
for those who choose to go woke to increase the
disincentives for going down that road. And the third tool,
and this applies in particular to entertainment, I encourage conservatives

(06:54):
and libertarians with resources, those who've been successful in business,
invest in the or organs of transmission of ideas. Go
buy a TV station, buy a radio station, buy a
book publishing house, buy a movie studio, buy a record label,
engage and speak. And you know, one example, the most
profound example of this is Elon Musk's buying Twitter, which

(07:18):
I think is the single biggest victory for free speech
in modern times. But you know, Carol, I also point
out in the book, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post
for three hundred million dollars. Now, he didn't do so
because he was bullish on the profitability of media in
the long time. He did it because he wanted to

(07:38):
own the commanding heights of public discourse. We need conservatives
and libertarians and those who love America to fight in
those arenas to take the back.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah. Absolutely. You open the book describing how your father
was for the cast Or Revolution in Cuba and how
he ultimately changed his mind, and you describe him as
a reformed revolutionary, but you also know that the new
leftist of the seventies stayed committed to Marxism against all odds. Really,
do you think changing minds as possible and how do

(08:11):
we reform more revolutionaries?

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Look, I do think it's possible with some not necessarily
for the hardcore committed ideologues. But as you know the
opening of the book, I tell my family story, and
my dad was born in Cuba, grew up in Cuba,
and as a kid he fought in the Cuban Revolution.
He fought alongside Fidel Castro. Now, at the time he

(08:36):
didn't know that Castro was a communist. What he knew
was that Batista was corrupt and cruel and was a
terrible dictator. But it's interesting my dad has explained to
me many times that the people fighting in the revolution
were just like him. They were fourteen and fifteen year
old young boys who didn't know any better. And as
you know well, Carol, communist revolutions across the globe they're

(09:01):
always fought by teenagers who are young and passionate and idealistic,
and they don't have any life experience, they don't have
any wisdom, so they're easily deceived into being part of
a mission they believe in until the Communists sees power
and they begin brutally murdering and torturing and using force

(09:21):
and power. And I will say, look for my father.
He was in prisoned, he was tortured in Cuba. He
fled to America in nineteen fifty seven. In nineteen fifty nine,
the revolution succeeded. My dad saw firsthand what happened. He
saw that Castro was even worse than the guy who
preceded him, was even worse than Batista. Sadly, the Cubans

(09:43):
went from one son of a bitch to an even
worse son of a bitch. And my aunt Mike thea Sonia,
my father's younger sister. She was still living in Cuba.
She fought in the counter revolution against Castro, and she
ended up sadly being in prison being tortured by Castro's goon.

(10:03):
That had a powerful effect on my dad when he
saw his kid's sister being tortured by the same people
he had been fighting alongside. That helped open his eyes.
But you know many leftists that they refuse to open
their eyes. I will say, Carol, I do think people
on the left in the United States who are not
hardcore Marxist, their eyes are opening up right now on

(10:27):
what's happening on college campuses and the vicious anti semitism
we're seeing on college campuses is a manifestation of cultural Marxism,
and we're seeing people who had been on the left saying,
wait a second, I don't like these people that I'm
associated with. I don't like what they stand for, I
don't like what they're doing. And it is it is

(10:48):
a potential tipping point in terms of at least some
people waking up and realizing that the ideology they had
supported is wrong.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, as a Jew and as a conservative, I hope
that lasts because my concern always is that memories are
very short, and I hope they remember that for future elections.
Your dad came to the United States penniless and his
son is a senator. Do you feel like you've made it?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Oh? I feel like I live in the greatest country
on the face of the earth. And this is the
American dream. You get to live in it. I get
to live in it. All of us get to live
in a world where we have a chance to pursue
the American dream. And I'll tell you, Carol, it was
eleven years ago that I arrived in the Senate. I

(11:36):
was elected in twenty twelve. I was sworn in in
January of twenty thirteen. And I have to tell you,
as I was being sworn in, I couldn't help thinking
back to my dad in Austin, Texas in nineteen fifty seven.
His first job when he got to the US he
washed dishes. He made fifty cents an hour washing dishes
to pay his way through school. And what I kept

(11:59):
thinking is if someone had come to that teenage immigrant
and told him fifty years hence, your son will become
a senator for the great state of Texas, that kid
could not have believed that. That would have been beyond
anything my father was capable of imagining. And on that day,

(12:20):
when I was sworn in, I had my left hand
on my father's Bible, and sitting up in the gallery
was my dad looking down and he just had tears
streaming down his face. And as my dad said afterwards,
he said, only in America. That there is no other
country on Earth where this is possible. And sadly, Carol,
that's one of the reasons, one of the central reasons

(12:40):
why the left, why the cultural Marxists hate America's why
they want to destroy that freedom, that opportunity. They want
to replace it with central power and control.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, and that's so beautiful. I love
hearing about your dad and about your family, so I
could talk to you forever, But I know you're a
busy guy, So end here with your best tip for
my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Well, improve your lives, I would say, do more to
fight to save our country. Look, every person wants to
live for something larger than themselves. I think America is
at a greater crisis today than it has ever been,
certainly in our lifetimes, and in many ways, Carol, I
think you and I are blessed. We're blessed Number one

(13:28):
to be Americans number two. Oh yeah, to have family
stories where we've seen oppression, we've seen that freedom can
be taken away, that we can't take it for granted,
and we're blessed to be fighting for something that matters,
you know. I tell people, listen, we're not battling today
over whether the top marginal tax rate is thirty six
percent or thirty eight percent. That matters, sure, but the

(13:50):
fate of the cosmos is not going to turn on
that question. We are fighting, I fully believe, over whether
this nation the greatest cun in the history of the world,
whether we survive, or whether our nation is destroyed, and
that that's a blessing to jump up every day and
say this is worth fighting for. And I want to

(14:10):
encourage your listeners the book Unwoke. It is designed to
help you fight to save America, to empower you, to
educate you, to inform you, to give you tools to
go and fight with your friends, your family. So I
want to encourage folks. You can get the book anywhere.
You can get it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
or any place you get books, but I want to

(14:31):
encourage you to go buy it. And Christmas time is
right around the corner. I would encourage you don't buy
just one. It makes a great gift. Buy a copy
for your mom, buy a copy for your best friend,
buy a copy for your crazy left wing neighbor who
you need to knock some sense into. Or even better,
buy a copy for your kids or for your grandkids

(14:54):
so they can understand what it is that people are
trying to indoctrinate them with. They can be prepared to
fight back. This book was written to help empower people
to fight together to save our country.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Thank you so much, Senator Cruz. The book is Unwoke.
Get it wherever you buy your books. It's really excellent.
I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much for
coming on.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Thank you, Carol, and I appreciate everything you do. Your
voice is powerful and it has a real impact that
it's needed.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Thank you, senator. Thanks so much for joining us on
the Carol Marcowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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