Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Over the last few days, as social media's still been
kind of consumed with Charlie Kirk's assassination, I've been thinking
a lot more about this topic that I actually Charlie
Kirk was sort of at the center of it all
back in the twenty early twenty twenties, late twenty tens.
(00:22):
The topic of cancel culture. I want to think about
and talk about it. How the left is still sort
of trying to apply it, how the right is now
applying it, and when and where and why and how.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It is applied. All right, So.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The words the term cancel culture is one of those
words that got way overused, one of those terms during
the Trump era that got way overused, and it became
a personal pet peeve of me and my wife. We
were constantly like, hey, to talk about cancel culture, cancel culture,
cancel culture. We just felt like anywhere we looked in
(01:02):
conservative leaning media, you had people on the right complaining
about cancel culture. And the complaint seemed to be along
these these lines that cancel culture registered trademark is bad,
(01:23):
that quote, cancel culture, the culture, the practice, the habit
of reporting to someone, snitching to someone's job, trying to
get someone fired to get trying to get someone basically
completely pushed out of civil society to the level of
(01:45):
something even like de banking someone, which is maybe one
of the scarier lengths to which cancel culture was extended.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That this is bad.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
From a procedural classical liberal mindset and classical liberalism, the
basic idea of it is that every person's entitled to
their own pursuit of the good, and that everyone can
then duke out what is the good in the marketplace
(02:24):
of ideas. So to have a culture where you get
people fired for what they believe is profoundly illiberal. That
seemed to be without stating it the whole way through,
without defining it. Sort of the unspoken assumption find all
(02:45):
the criticism of cancel culture, cancel culture, liberals just are
crazy about cancel culture, cancel culture, cancel culture, that the
fact of canceling was deemed to be something wrong, the
implication being if we conservatives were in charge, we would
not be so canceling. The problem with that mindset everyone
(03:06):
should be able to free to duke out their ideas and.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
The marketplace ideas, and canceling someone for their ideas isn't right.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
No one actually believes that nobody actually believes.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That to be true. Why do I say such a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, if I got on this show and started regurgitating
a bunch of Nazi ideas, I don't care if you're
liberal or conservative, you'd probably say, all right, big boy,
time to step away from the microphone. No one would
let me keep doing a show if I was talking
(03:44):
about the superiority of the Aryan race and the crimes
against humanity of the Jews. If I turn into John Girardi,
hard Nazi, uh yeah, no one's gonna give me a job.
Certainly not a job doing this radio show. My board
of directors that write the life of Central California would
have to really rethink things. Why Well, because everyone realizes
(04:08):
the Nazis were horrible, beyond the pale, terrible, and there
are plenty of things for which any culture will cancel you.
If I win on the show and talked about how
(04:29):
I think if fourteen year olds are super hot and
I'd like to go on dates with them, blah blah, Yeah,
I'd get fired. This is not a thing I believe.
Just want to clarify. This is by way of example, Okay, yeah,
criminal activity with minors cancelable punishable by crimes, and that
(04:54):
has not always been the case at all times, in
all places, in all cultures. Okay, there have been other
cultures a lot more permissive towards that sort of thing.
Any culture worth its salt will actually cancel for certain
(05:17):
kinds of things. There are perimeters of ethical conduct that
any culture is going to enforce, parameters.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Of ethical conduct that any culture is going to.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Enforce, all right, And it's interesting right now to see
what the right thinks those parameters are and what sort
of the soft majority is kind of agreeing with because
a lot of these people actually are getting fired versus
what some of the people on the hardcore left are
(05:54):
thinking as it relates to Charlie Kirk himself, and what
our attitude should be following death. What you're seeing right
now on social media is an absolute title wave of
left wing professionals who had various forms of monstrous reactions
(06:19):
to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, including some folks locally
like local college professors, who reacted to Charlie Kirk's death
with all kinds of just.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Horrific sentiments saying things like, well.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You know, I hope he's dead, like after the initial
news was heard that he got shot versus before it
was announced that he died.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Well, you know, I hope he's dead. He's terrible. Blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
These monstrous statements from people, and the range of liberal
responses to Charlie Kirk have ranged from good responses of
this is as bad, Charlie Kirk was not that bad
a guy. Obviously we disagreed with him, but that's irrelevant,
like this is horrible, to a lot of throat clearing
(07:10):
about you know, rhetoric and politics and how Charlie Kirk
maybe contributed to that rhetoric, almost as if well, oh
so it's his fault.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That he got assassinated, to some people saying it's.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Bad that he got shot, but he was a horrible
person and a monster all the way, to you know,
what did he expect too, I'm glad he's debt.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's been sort of the range of liberal opinions.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Now, many liberals, included many elected liberals, had relatively good responses,
some did not.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
JB.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, had a pretty lame, dumb response.
A couple of other electeds had really lame responses, but
most people responded fine. But what we're seeing so much
of is that the monstrous kinds of response were engaged
(08:02):
in by a whole ton of people, and it seems
like disproportionately. It's not just you know, unemployed losers. Online
seems like a lot of like nurses, doctors, teachers, school administrators,
like real a lot of different kinds of people with
(08:24):
positions of public trust.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
One person they found one person who.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was a Secret Service agent who was saying that, which
is like, all right, well, that person one hundred percent
needs to get fired because that person thinks it's like,
you know, somehow rationalizable that Charlie Kirk got hassassinated.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Good God.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
The Secret Services job is to protect the president and
other you know, Secret Service protectees, many of whom are
Republicans and Republicans' family members. And it made me think,
and it's made me think, especially the attitude online where
(09:06):
there are a lot of sort of right wing social
media types who you know, four or five years ago
were decrying the notion of cancel culture and now are.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Sort of reveling in it.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And this is what I always said at the time,
back at the height of you know twenty twenty wokeness,
height of twenty twenty canceling. What I kept saying was
I hate the term cancel culture because, as I said,
all cultures canceled. Our objection should not be to the
(09:39):
concept of canceling people. If you will, it's what you
cancel people for. We need to have a substantive argument
about what morals, what ethics, what you know, boundaries our
culture is willing to inform. What are the commonly held.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Views that are within the parameters or at least the
viewpoints that are within the parameters of polite conversation, and
what are the things that are beyond that point that
we have to police.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
In the wake of Kirk's death, the parameter that we've
seemed to enforce is, Hey, political assassination's really bad. It
kind of doesn't matter who it's happening to. So gloating
and celebrating that someone got shot and killed because he's
(10:46):
on the other side of politics from you, that's bad
and maybe you should you know, maybe if you're in
some public position or it seems like a lot of
these people are, or sort of public, kind of quasi public,
if you're declaring that position publicly. This is the thing
(11:07):
I this is the thing. I don't get people going
out of their way to go onto a social media
platform to let the world know their monstrous opinion when
nobody asked for it. And this is this is a
(11:27):
thing that baffles me. If you go on my Facebook account,
for example, I am very rarely talking politics on there.
I do a radio show every day, and I feel
like I talk about politics less on Facebook than a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Some guy I.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Knew from law school who was pretty conservative, who has
despised Trump and all his works, he goes on Facebook
to say, well, yeah, it's bad, but you know what,
Charlie Kirk opposed the Civil Rights Act, so you know therefore,
now I don't know what quote he was taking somewhat
(12:11):
out of context or what point he was making. There
were a lot of conservatives who had some critiques of
the Civil Rights Act and the idea, well, does he
does the enforcement of anti segregation laws? Does it have
to does getting rid of segregation? Does that have to
be done with law? I don't even know the context
or content of whatever criticism Charlie Kirk allegedly had about
(12:35):
the Civil Rights Act, But this guy is not a
public figure. He's a lawyer. He's not a public figure.
He's not an elected official. He has no need to
proclaim to the world his hot take about Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And yet liberals just feel very comfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Doing so, as do a lot of conservatives, I'm sure,
but he's just like, well yeah. And it astounds me
the number of people who like, when presented with a
very controversial public topic, feel the need when they have
no need. I mean, I have a radio show, I
have to kind of talk about it. I've chosen to
(13:16):
do this as sort of a major life decision, to
do an hour long show every day. I've chosen to
give my views on topics of public interest and concerns.
So yes, I'm going to give my opinion. It astounds
me that people just go out of their way on
social media just to blather anyway. But it seems that
(13:40):
what we have accepted as a culture broadly to enforce
is hey, gloating over a political assassination's no good, and
if you do it, maybe there should be a consequence
for it. And that seems to me. There was a
part of me that at first was a little felt
(14:02):
a little weird about it, and I don't know, maybe
it's just something within the conservative attitude, the conservative mindset
of you know, we're not the kind of people who
are gonna, you know, do the French Revolution. We're not
Madame Defarge, you know, we're not like trying to put
together the prescriptions list for Sula or the second Triumvirit
(14:27):
put together the list of people to be executed. It's
generally not a conservative instinct. And there's a part of
me that's like, all right, well, yeah, this person's a moron.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Do they need to get fired from their job for this?
Certain people really do.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
A secret service agent saying that, yeah, a secret service
agent or police officer or someone implying that it's okay
for people to get their neck blown out by an
assassin's rifle. People who are supposed to protect the public, Yeah,
that's a real bad sign. If you think that's true,
(15:04):
then how can I trust you to protect you know,
half the count half of the country that mostly agreed
with Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So it's an interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I must admit I've been a little conflicted about the
whole thing. When we return a little bit more about
like the conservative attitude and how today's online right is
challenging that the tension's there.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's next on the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's interesting, I think the tension right now between what
the online right is doing since Charlie Kirk's assassination, basically
getting a whole bunch of liberals fired from their jobs,
and the attitudes of traditional conservatives, and it's there's this
generational shift I think between kind of old school conservatives
(16:00):
new school conservatives, and it can kind of be seen
in the reactions to Charlie Kirk. So old school conservatives,
old school conservatives tend to be classical liberals. That's what
they are. It's very deep down, deeply held what they are.
(16:23):
They espouse libertarianism, which is the classical liberalism of economics.
They very firmly believe in sort of these ideas about
the marketplace of ideas in they're very old school in
this is the old guard of American conservatism. And they
(16:44):
have looked with some nervousness at this emerging new right,
which is not as hide bound to these liberal principles.
Liberalism at its core, classical liberalism at its core, means
(17:06):
the freedom the libertas hence liberal to choose the good
for oneself one's own conception of the good, and the
role of government is to maximally secure your liberty, your
libertas to be liberal, allowing you the maximal space to
(17:30):
pursue the good as you see fit. If everyone is
allowed to pursue the good as they see fit, to
peacefully dialogue about their conceptions of the good in the
marketplace of ideas, in the marketplace of financial transactions, et cetera,
what a better world we would have.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
The problem with that worldview is that it's kind of
at tension with this thing called the Bible. Okay, the
Bible is not very liberal in that classical liberal sense.
There is certainly the idea that people must be must
choose the good freely. You can't be coerced into authentic faith,
(18:14):
you can't be coerced into authentically being good. But there
it's not open season as to what the good is.
There is one single objective good towards which we are
all ordered. So American conservatism has always had this tension
(18:38):
again between Christianity, natural law, the Bible on one hand,
and liberal you know, classical liberality the Enlightenment principles on
the other. And I feel like the movement of modern
(18:59):
conservative is towards some kind of enforcement of the good
because I think the biblical slash non classical liberal approach
to these things on the right is actually more true
and more accurate. Everyone acknowledges that there are parameters cancelable
(19:24):
things that you shouldn't do in society, and if you
do them, we should kind of push you out of
polite society to a greater extent or a lesser extent.
And I think the modern right is willing to say, yeah,
(19:48):
we should enforce these sort of social since Charlie Kirk's death,
and seemingly Kirk's death has been the thing to sort
of open people's eyes to this. We should enforce what
we think is right. We should accomplish this. We should
you know, Governor DeSantis has been great at this. We
(20:10):
should actually take these things that we believe to be true,
and we shouldn't seed the field to the left. We
should aggressively push for super right wing school boards and
every school board up and down the whole state of Florida.
We should fire people from the boards of trustees of
(20:30):
the University of Florida and Florida State and replace them
with conservatives put in a new conservative president at University
of Florida, put in new conservatives actually push, promote and
force our ideas rather than seeding all of these things,
these huge swaths of American life to the left. And
(20:54):
it's so funny how old school conservatives have been like
so nervous at the ron Desantises of the world doing this.
Maybe not so much Trump, but a lot of people
in the Trump world who are much more willing to
enforce actually do the things that conservatives have been talking
(21:17):
about doing for fifty years. And you can see this
again with the reaction to Charlie Kirk. Classical liberal, the
sort of old school conservative actually classical liberal is like
wringing his hands, nervous about this whole wave of canceling people.
Right now, I'm pulled up my Twitter thing. It's a
(21:39):
wrestling Twitter account talking about how the Rock's daughter, Dwayne
Johnson's daughter Ava who saying not you know, saying like
implying Charlie Kirk deserved it sort of. He said, if
you want people to have kind words when you pass,
(22:00):
you should say kind words when you're alive. Following bash clash,
Eva responded with another message and I'll stand behind this,
be kind now more than ever. Now, the Rock's daughter has,
you know, the ability to say whatever the heck she
wants because she's got fu you know daddy, her dad
is Dwayne the Rock Johnson money.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
She can you know, she can stand firm wherever she is.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
But this is the level to which conservatives are trying
to go, trying to like cancel even you know, random
people who are real nothing burgers in society. This is
the Rocks kid. I've never heard of this woman's name,
and classical conservatives are so super nervous about it. So
there's a part of me that's again, I think temperamentally,
(22:49):
there's a part of me that's like, I'm not that
bloodthirsty like someone said something stupid, Do I really want
to get them fired for it? Like, you know, I
you know, I wouldn't want someone digging through all of
my tweets and finding the stupidest thing I ever said.
You know, there's a part of me that's like not
(23:10):
comfortable with it all. Now, I must admit, even though
I am not a classical liberal in that sense, I
do think there's an objective good.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I do think it's legitimate to push that objective good.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'm not as much of a you know, free marketplace
of ideas kind of guys certainly don't.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Think we should shoot each other over our disagreements in
the free marketplace of ideas. But you know, basically I
am uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Like if you know I talked about I've got a
lawyer friend who said a bunch of really dumb things
on Facebook. I'm not going to go out of my
way to like email his law firm to say, look
at this horrible thing this guy. Did you know we
were friendly in law school. I think he's marrying as kids,
Like he's a moron.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I just don't have that bone in me to go
report the guy. But when it involves positions of trust,
positions of you have to deal with fifty percent of
the population fairly who agreed with the things Charlie Kirk said,
(24:21):
How can you do that if these are the kinds
of things you're saying, if you wish Charlie, Because fundamentally
it's this, if you wish Charlie Kirk dead, you kind
of wish all the rest of us dead. When we
return the fascism charge and why it's so wrong next
on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The chief reason why.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Liberals feel like they're entitled to either both sides it
with Charlie Kirk's assassination or even to some extent, say
it was justified, is because of this ridiculous association of
fascism with Charlie Kirk. I want to talk about this, okay,
(25:03):
because you know, the idea is we can cancel people
who are completely beyond the bounds of polite.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And accept a discourse in this country. Both sides actually
do agree with it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
As much as conservatives want to hem and haw and
talk about the marketplace of ideas and free exchangement, conservatives
are actually also probably deep down, okay, if someone's an
actual Nazi, they're actually pretty okay with that person. Maybe
if they're in some kind of position of public trust,
losing their job, getting exposed, shamed whatever. Espousing Nazi beliefs
(25:45):
or beliefs about racial superiority.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Are generally quite bad, and both sides actually do agree
with it.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The left feels has continued to feel throughout the Charlie
Kirk story since his assassination last week, that they're entitled
to kind of say something bad about him because Charlie had,
at some point in his life, in one way or another,
said something that they deemed cancelable cancelable, and to a
certain extent, they've been kind of rummaging around for what
(26:20):
was the thing he said that was actually cancelable, And
it's been actually a bit gratifying to sort of realize,
like Charlie Kirk was not that hard right, Like he
had very conventional conservative beliefs. He was very socially conservative certainly,
(26:43):
and this much to his credit, that he never moderate.
He never caved when it came to the abortion issue,
he never caved when it came to the physicianist, to
gay marriage or any of that stuff. So he was
very socially conservative, but his viewpoints on pretty much everything
(27:06):
were pretty conventional Republican politics. And so if you're someone
who says I'm okay with Charlie Kirk being assassinated or something,
basically what you're saying is I'm okay with like half
the country being assassinated. Half the country doesn't deserve our
mourning if they were to be horrifically murdered, And it
(27:31):
keeps what the word I keep seeing that keeps boiling
down to.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Is fascism.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
People keep saying, well, Charlie Kirk was a fascist. He
supported fascist beliefs we have always opposed in this country.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Fascism.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Supporting fascism is the thing that puts you out of
the balance of polite society.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Therefore, my monstrous opinion about you, Charlie Kirk, should be
And it gets me. This is a real pet peeve
of mine.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
People who take very vague concepts that don't have super
precise definitions and running with it. I'll give you a
couple of examples of what I mean. Here's a couple
of examples from the right. Anytime you hear a speaker
talking about the concept of cultural Marxism, a conservative talking
(28:27):
about cultural Marxism, it's almost certainly a sign that you're
interacting with someone who doesn't really think clearly and is
a bit of a chill. Why well, not because Marxism
is good cultural or otherwise. But whenever people use the
(28:49):
phrase cultural Marxism, I don't actually know what cultural Marxism is.
I think that most of the people who talk about
it don't exactly know what cultural Marxism is. Normal Marxism
is cultural, but there's some idea that it was associated
with the Italian communist named Gramsci and that it's infected
(29:10):
all of modern day democrat ideas. And what seems to
happen is that conservatives who just want to talk about
liberals being bad and have some veneer of like intelligence
and learning to the what a sophisticated, you know, book
read person I am, will start talking about cultural Marxism
and it feels like to me, to me anyway, maybe
(29:31):
I'm just not smart enough to understand it. To me,
it feels like it's conservatives taking just everything they don't
like and throwing it into the cultural Marxist bucket. Catholic
traditionalist commentators, i feel, do the same thing with the
term modernism. When you hear a Catholic traditionalist talking about
this guy's a modernist, this thing is modernists, modernism, modernism,
modern it's usually a sign that they've just anything they
(29:54):
don't like they just throw in the modernist bucket. And
it's not to say that those terms don't have some
definition or some value. I'm sure cultural Marxism was at
some point, somewhere, some way, has some kind of definition
that's helpful for describing a certain kind of thing. Modernism
was a thing that a Pope Saint Piece of tenth
(30:15):
wrote a whole in cyclical talking about the errors of modernism.
But he then would like to find what I'm talking
about are these specific errors. So I'm always leery of
these kind of big, broad concepts that people just treat
as a bucket and they just throw anything they don't
like into it. And the left does that just so
(30:38):
affirm that I'm not just picking on conservatives here, I'm not.
The left does that with fascism. They've done it with
fascism for actually a really long time.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Now. You can tell.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
That this is true based on the fact that fascism
is really kind of.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Difficult to define.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I mean, just we look up the Wikipedia entry for fascism.
Fascism is a far right, authoritarian and ultra nationalist political
ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early twentieth
century Europe. Fascism is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism,
forcible suppression of opposition, belief in the natural social hierarchy,
(31:26):
subordination of individual interests to the perceived interest of the nation,
or race and strong regimentation of society and the economy,
opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism. Fashion Fascism
is at the far right of the traditional left right spectrum,
and that's how Wikipedia defines it. But there's also all
(31:48):
kinds of ideas with fascism having to do with like
public private subordination, so subordination of private companies, to subordination,
co opting of private companies within the economy by the state,
(32:10):
so the cozy relations that the Nazi regime developed.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
With a lot of German auto manufacturers.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Volkswagen, why do you think it was called Volkswagen the
People's Wagon, And it involved a lot of things that
aren't always necessarily you know, it's easy to say it's
on the far right of the right left spectrum, but.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
There can I don't know that it's always so simple.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Applying different kinds of socialist principles to the economy, for example,
could be you know, strict controls over prices and things
like that, could be something that's characteristic of a fascist regime,
which is not necessarily a super conservative thing to do.
And it's also like it's not like you flip a
(33:07):
switch and then you're you know, notice that the definition
I gave, it's not an actual definition.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
It's a is characterized by it's characterized by.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
A dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition.
It's not defined by it because fascism is more sort
of like it's almost like a style of governance that
it often includes all of those things. But you might
(33:39):
have an individual regime that does not have all of
those individual things.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Okay, was Charlete de Gaull.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Charles de gall was not a fascist, but he was
an extremely powerful French president who gathered enormous power to himself.
I mean, so was he a full on fascist? Well,
maybe some would argue. He certainly argued he was fascist leaning.
(34:13):
The kind of fascist that Franco was in Spain was
very different from the kind of fascist that Mussolini was
in Italy from Hitler in Germany. Now, all of them
had bad sides to them. I don't think anyone's going
to argue that Franco.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Was exactly as bad as Hitler. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I mean maybe that's a historical debate, and I'm kind
of wading into historical waters that I'm not as well
versed and I'm not as super well versed in the
history of modern Europe, you know, twentieth century European politics,
all right. Regardless, Fascism is as the point I'm making here,
fascism is a pretty loosely defined thing, and you're not.
(35:01):
It's not like you flip a switch and you go
from not a fascist to immediately fascist. And what's happened
is the left basically said, in effect, because he supported
Donald Trump, and Donald Trump wants to have more forcible
centralization of the executive branch, that that's you know, a
(35:25):
more powerful executive is characteristic of fascism.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Ergo Trump fascist, ergo. Charlie Kirk fascist.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Trump challenged the twenty twenty election, and you know, his
influence whatever led to resulted in whatever the riot on
January sixth, that's fascist. Refusing to accept elections is fascist,
and Charlie Kirk was like, you know, down with stop
the steal.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I don't actually know if Charlie Kirk was ergo.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
And it's like, you do anything that sort of smacks
of you support anything that kind of sort of smacks
of something hinting at a more authoritarian right wing governance.
Ergo fascist, ergo nazi, ergo it's okay too.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Have monstrous opinions about your assassination.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And it's sort of like the you know, if an
actual Nazi had been a All right, when we returned,
the left is really going to try to make this
fascism thing stick, and I'll explain when we return why
it's just not going to work next on the John
Girardi Show. The left is really going to try to
make this fascism claim stick. That's the reason why allegedly
(37:00):
they're allowed to say a monstrous thing about Charlie Kirks.
Charlie Kirk supported fascism. Fascism conveniently a very loose broad,
loosely defined term that liberals have.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Can you know, sort of throw any thing they don't
like into it.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
If you are a fascist, you are beyond the pale
of acceptable society. Because Hitler was a fascist, ergo us
saying well he kind of had it coming, is all right.
Here's the problem. Americans don't view themselves as fascists, and
they're not probably by any reasonable definition. But what most
(37:40):
conservatives have been thinking ever since Kirk's death, because again,
Kirk had very normy right wing politics is Wow, if
you're gonna say something that horrible about Charlie Kirk, you'd
say the same about me, Because I think of a
whole bunch of things exactly the same as Charlie Kirk does.
I mean, I've thought it. Charlie Kirk is at least
(38:03):
as right wing as I am. I'd guess maybe I'm
more right wing in certain ways. If you're okay with
assassinating him, you'd probably be okay with assassinating John Girardi.
And that's why this is not gonna stick for the left.
That'll do it, John Girardi Show. See you next time
on Power Talk.
Over the last few days, as social media's still been
kind of consumed with Charlie Kirk's assassination, I've been thinking
a lot more about this topic that I actually Charlie
Kirk was sort of at the center of it all
back in the twenty early twenty twenties, late twenty tens.
(00:22):
The topic of cancel culture. I want to think about
and talk about it. How the left is still sort
of trying to apply it, how the right is now
applying it, and when and where and why and how.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
It is applied. All right, So.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The words the term cancel culture is one of those
words that got way overused, one of those terms during
the Trump era that got way overused, and it became
a personal pet peeve of me and my wife. We
were constantly like, hey, to talk about cancel culture, cancel culture,
cancel culture. We just felt like anywhere we looked in
(01:02):
conservative leaning media, you had people on the right complaining
about cancel culture. And the complaint seemed to be along
these these lines that cancel culture registered trademark is bad,
(01:23):
that quote, cancel culture, the culture, the practice, the habit
of reporting to someone, snitching to someone's job, trying to
get someone fired to get trying to get someone basically
completely pushed out of civil society to the level of
(01:45):
something even like de banking someone, which is maybe one
of the scarier lengths to which cancel culture was extended.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
That this is bad.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
From a procedural classical liberal mindset and classical liberalism, the
basic idea of it is that every person's entitled to
their own pursuit of the good, and that everyone can
then duke out what is the good in the marketplace
(02:24):
of ideas. So to have a culture where you get
people fired for what they believe is profoundly illiberal. That
seemed to be without stating it the whole way through,
without defining it. Sort of the unspoken assumption find all
(02:45):
the criticism of cancel culture, cancel culture, liberals just are
crazy about cancel culture, cancel culture, cancel culture, that the
fact of canceling was deemed to be something wrong, the
implication being if we conservatives were in charge, we would
not be so canceling. The problem with that mindset everyone
(03:06):
should be able to free to duke out their ideas and.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
The marketplace ideas, and canceling someone for their ideas isn't right.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
No one actually believes that nobody actually believes.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That to be true. Why do I say such a thing.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, if I got on this show and started regurgitating
a bunch of Nazi ideas, I don't care if you're
liberal or conservative, you'd probably say, all right, big boy,
time to step away from the microphone. No one would
let me keep doing a show if I was talking
(03:44):
about the superiority of the Aryan race and the crimes
against humanity of the Jews. If I turn into John Girardi,
hard Nazi, uh yeah, no one's gonna give me a job.
Certainly not a job doing this radio show. My board
of directors that write the life of Central California would
have to really rethink things. Why Well, because everyone realizes
(04:08):
the Nazis were horrible, beyond the pale, terrible, and there
are plenty of things for which any culture will cancel you.
If I win on the show and talked about how
(04:29):
I think if fourteen year olds are super hot and
I'd like to go on dates with them, blah blah, Yeah,
I'd get fired. This is not a thing I believe.
Just want to clarify. This is by way of example, Okay, yeah,
criminal activity with minors cancelable punishable by crimes, and that
(04:54):
has not always been the case at all times, in
all places, in all cultures. Okay, there have been other
cultures a lot more permissive towards that sort of thing.
Any culture worth its salt will actually cancel for certain
(05:17):
kinds of things. There are perimeters of ethical conduct that
any culture is going to enforce, parameters.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Of ethical conduct that any culture is going to.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Enforce, all right, And it's interesting right now to see
what the right thinks those parameters are and what sort
of the soft majority is kind of agreeing with because
a lot of these people actually are getting fired versus
what some of the people on the hardcore left are
(05:54):
thinking as it relates to Charlie Kirk himself, and what
our attitude should be following death. What you're seeing right
now on social media is an absolute title wave of
left wing professionals who had various forms of monstrous reactions
(06:19):
to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, including some folks locally
like local college professors, who reacted to Charlie Kirk's death
with all kinds of just.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Horrific sentiments saying things like, well.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You know, I hope he's dead, like after the initial
news was heard that he got shot versus before it
was announced that he died.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Well, you know, I hope he's dead. He's terrible. Blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
These monstrous statements from people, and the range of liberal
responses to Charlie Kirk have ranged from good responses of
this is as bad, Charlie Kirk was not that bad
a guy. Obviously we disagreed with him, but that's irrelevant,
like this is horrible, to a lot of throat clearing
(07:10):
about you know, rhetoric and politics and how Charlie Kirk
maybe contributed to that rhetoric, almost as if well, oh
so it's his fault.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
That he got assassinated, to some people saying it's.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Bad that he got shot, but he was a horrible
person and a monster all the way, to you know,
what did he expect too, I'm glad he's debt.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's been sort of the range of liberal opinions.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Now, many liberals, included many elected liberals, had relatively good responses,
some did not.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
JB.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, had a pretty lame, dumb response.
A couple of other electeds had really lame responses, but
most people responded fine. But what we're seeing so much
of is that the monstrous kinds of response were engaged
(08:02):
in by a whole ton of people, and it seems
like disproportionately. It's not just you know, unemployed losers. Online
seems like a lot of like nurses, doctors, teachers, school administrators,
like real a lot of different kinds of people with
(08:24):
positions of public trust.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
One person they found one person who.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Was a Secret Service agent who was saying that, which
is like, all right, well, that person one hundred percent
needs to get fired because that person thinks it's like,
you know, somehow rationalizable that Charlie Kirk got hassassinated.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Good God.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
The Secret Services job is to protect the president and
other you know, Secret Service protectees, many of whom are
Republicans and Republicans' family members. And it made me think,
and it's made me think, especially the attitude online where
(09:06):
there are a lot of sort of right wing social
media types who you know, four or five years ago
were decrying the notion of cancel culture and now are.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Sort of reveling in it.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
And this is what I always said at the time,
back at the height of you know twenty twenty wokeness,
height of twenty twenty canceling. What I kept saying was
I hate the term cancel culture because, as I said,
all cultures canceled. Our objection should not be to the
(09:39):
concept of canceling people. If you will, it's what you
cancel people for. We need to have a substantive argument
about what morals, what ethics, what you know, boundaries our
culture is willing to inform. What are the commonly held.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Views that are within the parameters or at least the
viewpoints that are within the parameters of polite conversation, and
what are the things that are beyond that point that
we have to police.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
In the wake of Kirk's death, the parameter that we've
seemed to enforce is, Hey, political assassination's really bad. It
kind of doesn't matter who it's happening to. So gloating
and celebrating that someone got shot and killed because he's
(10:46):
on the other side of politics from you, that's bad
and maybe you should you know, maybe if you're in
some public position or it seems like a lot of
these people are, or sort of public, kind of quasi public,
if you're declaring that position publicly. This is the thing
(11:07):
I this is the thing. I don't get people going
out of their way to go onto a social media
platform to let the world know their monstrous opinion when
nobody asked for it. And this is this is a
(11:27):
thing that baffles me. If you go on my Facebook account,
for example, I am very rarely talking politics on there.
I do a radio show every day, and I feel
like I talk about politics less on Facebook than a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Some guy I.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Knew from law school who was pretty conservative, who has
despised Trump and all his works, he goes on Facebook
to say, well, yeah, it's bad, but you know what,
Charlie Kirk opposed the Civil Rights Act, so you know therefore,
now I don't know what quote he was taking somewhat
(12:11):
out of context or what point he was making. There
were a lot of conservatives who had some critiques of
the Civil Rights Act and the idea, well, does he
does the enforcement of anti segregation laws? Does it have
to does getting rid of segregation? Does that have to
be done with law? I don't even know the context
or content of whatever criticism Charlie Kirk allegedly had about
(12:35):
the Civil Rights Act, But this guy is not a
public figure. He's a lawyer. He's not a public figure.
He's not an elected official. He has no need to
proclaim to the world his hot take about Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And yet liberals just feel very comfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Doing so, as do a lot of conservatives, I'm sure,
but he's just like, well yeah. And it astounds me
the number of people who like, when presented with a
very controversial public topic, feel the need when they have
no need. I mean, I have a radio show, I
have to kind of talk about it. I've chosen to
(13:16):
do this as sort of a major life decision, to
do an hour long show every day. I've chosen to
give my views on topics of public interest and concerns.
So yes, I'm going to give my opinion. It astounds
me that people just go out of their way on
social media just to blather anyway. But it seems that
(13:40):
what we have accepted as a culture broadly to enforce
is hey, gloating over a political assassination's no good, and
if you do it, maybe there should be a consequence
for it. And that seems to me. There was a
part of me that at first was a little felt
(14:02):
a little weird about it, and I don't know, maybe
it's just something within the conservative attitude, the conservative mindset
of you know, we're not the kind of people who
are gonna, you know, do the French Revolution. We're not
Madame Defarge, you know, we're not like trying to put
together the prescriptions list for Sula or the second Triumvirit
(14:27):
put together the list of people to be executed. It's
generally not a conservative instinct. And there's a part of
me that's like, all right, well, yeah, this person's a moron.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Do they need to get fired from their job for this?
Certain people really do.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
A secret service agent saying that, yeah, a secret service
agent or police officer or someone implying that it's okay
for people to get their neck blown out by an
assassin's rifle. People who are supposed to protect the public, Yeah,
that's a real bad sign. If you think that's true,
(15:04):
then how can I trust you to protect you know,
half the count half of the country that mostly agreed
with Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So it's an interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I must admit I've been a little conflicted about the
whole thing. When we return a little bit more about
like the conservative attitude and how today's online right is
challenging that the tension's there.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's next on the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's interesting, I think the tension right now between what
the online right is doing since Charlie Kirk's assassination, basically
getting a whole bunch of liberals fired from their jobs,
and the attitudes of traditional conservatives, and it's there's this
generational shift I think between kind of old school conservatives
(16:00):
new school conservatives, and it can kind of be seen
in the reactions to Charlie Kirk. So old school conservatives,
old school conservatives tend to be classical liberals. That's what
they are. It's very deep down, deeply held what they are.
(16:23):
They espouse libertarianism, which is the classical liberalism of economics.
They very firmly believe in sort of these ideas about
the marketplace of ideas in they're very old school in
this is the old guard of American conservatism. And they
(16:44):
have looked with some nervousness at this emerging new right,
which is not as hide bound to these liberal principles.
Liberalism at its core, classical liberalism at its core, means
(17:06):
the freedom the libertas hence liberal to choose the good
for oneself one's own conception of the good, and the
role of government is to maximally secure your liberty, your
libertas to be liberal, allowing you the maximal space to
(17:30):
pursue the good as you see fit. If everyone is
allowed to pursue the good as they see fit, to
peacefully dialogue about their conceptions of the good in the
marketplace of ideas, in the marketplace of financial transactions, et cetera,
what a better world we would have.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
The problem with that worldview is that it's kind of
at tension with this thing called the Bible. Okay, the
Bible is not very liberal in that classical liberal sense.
There is certainly the idea that people must be must
choose the good freely. You can't be coerced into authentic faith,
(18:14):
you can't be coerced into authentically being good. But there
it's not open season as to what the good is.
There is one single objective good towards which we are
all ordered. So American conservatism has always had this tension
(18:38):
again between Christianity, natural law, the Bible on one hand,
and liberal you know, classical liberality the Enlightenment principles on
the other. And I feel like the movement of modern
(18:59):
conservative is towards some kind of enforcement of the good
because I think the biblical slash non classical liberal approach
to these things on the right is actually more true
and more accurate. Everyone acknowledges that there are parameters cancelable
(19:24):
things that you shouldn't do in society, and if you
do them, we should kind of push you out of
polite society to a greater extent or a lesser extent.
And I think the modern right is willing to say, yeah,
(19:48):
we should enforce these sort of social since Charlie Kirk's death,
and seemingly Kirk's death has been the thing to sort
of open people's eyes to this. We should enforce what
we think is right. We should accomplish this. We should
you know, Governor DeSantis has been great at this. We
(20:10):
should actually take these things that we believe to be true,
and we shouldn't seed the field to the left. We
should aggressively push for super right wing school boards and
every school board up and down the whole state of Florida.
We should fire people from the boards of trustees of
(20:30):
the University of Florida and Florida State and replace them
with conservatives put in a new conservative president at University
of Florida, put in new conservatives actually push, promote and
force our ideas rather than seeding all of these things,
these huge swaths of American life to the left. And
(20:54):
it's so funny how old school conservatives have been like
so nervous at the ron Desantises of the world doing this.
Maybe not so much Trump, but a lot of people
in the Trump world who are much more willing to
enforce actually do the things that conservatives have been talking
(21:17):
about doing for fifty years. And you can see this
again with the reaction to Charlie Kirk. Classical liberal, the
sort of old school conservative actually classical liberal is like
wringing his hands, nervous about this whole wave of canceling people.
Right now, I'm pulled up my Twitter thing. It's a
(21:39):
wrestling Twitter account talking about how the Rock's daughter, Dwayne
Johnson's daughter Ava who saying not you know, saying like
implying Charlie Kirk deserved it sort of. He said, if
you want people to have kind words when you pass,
(22:00):
you should say kind words when you're alive. Following bash clash,
Eva responded with another message and I'll stand behind this,
be kind now more than ever. Now, the Rock's daughter has,
you know, the ability to say whatever the heck she
wants because she's got fu you know daddy, her dad
is Dwayne the Rock Johnson money.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
She can you know, she can stand firm wherever she is.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
But this is the level to which conservatives are trying
to go, trying to like cancel even you know, random
people who are real nothing burgers in society. This is
the Rocks kid. I've never heard of this woman's name,
and classical conservatives are so super nervous about it. So
there's a part of me that's again, I think temperamentally,
(22:49):
there's a part of me that's like, I'm not that
bloodthirsty like someone said something stupid, Do I really want
to get them fired for it? Like, you know, I
you know, I wouldn't want someone digging through all of
my tweets and finding the stupidest thing I ever said.
You know, there's a part of me that's like not
(23:10):
comfortable with it all. Now, I must admit, even though
I am not a classical liberal in that sense, I
do think there's an objective good.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I do think it's legitimate to push that objective good.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'm not as much of a you know, free marketplace
of ideas kind of guys certainly don't.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Think we should shoot each other over our disagreements in
the free marketplace of ideas. But you know, basically I
am uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Like if you know I talked about I've got a
lawyer friend who said a bunch of really dumb things
on Facebook. I'm not going to go out of my
way to like email his law firm to say, look
at this horrible thing this guy. Did you know we
were friendly in law school. I think he's marrying as kids,
Like he's a moron.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I just don't have that bone in me to go
report the guy. But when it involves positions of trust,
positions of you have to deal with fifty percent of
the population fairly who agreed with the things Charlie Kirk said,
(24:21):
How can you do that if these are the kinds
of things you're saying, if you wish Charlie, Because fundamentally
it's this, if you wish Charlie Kirk dead, you kind
of wish all the rest of us dead. When we
return the fascism charge and why it's so wrong next
on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The chief reason why.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Liberals feel like they're entitled to either both sides it
with Charlie Kirk's assassination or even to some extent, say
it was justified, is because of this ridiculous association of
fascism with Charlie Kirk. I want to talk about this, okay,
(25:03):
because you know, the idea is we can cancel people
who are completely beyond the bounds of polite.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And accept a discourse in this country. Both sides actually
do agree with it.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
As much as conservatives want to hem and haw and
talk about the marketplace of ideas and free exchangement, conservatives
are actually also probably deep down, okay, if someone's an
actual Nazi, they're actually pretty okay with that person. Maybe
if they're in some kind of position of public trust,
losing their job, getting exposed, shamed whatever. Espousing Nazi beliefs
(25:45):
or beliefs about racial superiority.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Are generally quite bad, and both sides actually do agree
with it.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The left feels has continued to feel throughout the Charlie
Kirk story since his assassination last week, that they're entitled
to kind of say something bad about him because Charlie had,
at some point in his life, in one way or another,
said something that they deemed cancelable cancelable, and to a
certain extent, they've been kind of rummaging around for what
(26:20):
was the thing he said that was actually cancelable, And
it's been actually a bit gratifying to sort of realize,
like Charlie Kirk was not that hard right, Like he
had very conventional conservative beliefs. He was very socially conservative certainly,
(26:43):
and this much to his credit, that he never moderate.
He never caved when it came to the abortion issue,
he never caved when it came to the physicianist, to
gay marriage or any of that stuff. So he was
very socially conservative, but his viewpoints on pretty much everything
(27:06):
were pretty conventional Republican politics. And so if you're someone
who says I'm okay with Charlie Kirk being assassinated or something,
basically what you're saying is I'm okay with like half
the country being assassinated. Half the country doesn't deserve our
mourning if they were to be horrifically murdered, And it
(27:31):
keeps what the word I keep seeing that keeps boiling
down to.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Is fascism.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
People keep saying, well, Charlie Kirk was a fascist. He
supported fascist beliefs we have always opposed in this country.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Fascism.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Supporting fascism is the thing that puts you out of
the balance of polite society.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Therefore, my monstrous opinion about you, Charlie Kirk, should be
And it gets me. This is a real pet peeve
of mine.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
People who take very vague concepts that don't have super
precise definitions and running with it. I'll give you a
couple of examples of what I mean. Here's a couple
of examples from the right. Anytime you hear a speaker
talking about the concept of cultural Marxism, a conservative talking
(28:27):
about cultural Marxism, it's almost certainly a sign that you're
interacting with someone who doesn't really think clearly and is
a bit of a chill. Why well, not because Marxism
is good cultural or otherwise. But whenever people use the
(28:49):
phrase cultural Marxism, I don't actually know what cultural Marxism is.
I think that most of the people who talk about
it don't exactly know what cultural Marxism is. Normal Marxism
is cultural, but there's some idea that it was associated
with the Italian communist named Gramsci and that it's infected
(29:10):
all of modern day democrat ideas. And what seems to
happen is that conservatives who just want to talk about
liberals being bad and have some veneer of like intelligence
and learning to the what a sophisticated, you know, book
read person I am, will start talking about cultural Marxism
and it feels like to me, to me anyway, maybe
(29:31):
I'm just not smart enough to understand it. To me,
it feels like it's conservatives taking just everything they don't
like and throwing it into the cultural Marxist bucket. Catholic
traditionalist commentators, i feel, do the same thing with the
term modernism. When you hear a Catholic traditionalist talking about
this guy's a modernist, this thing is modernists, modernism, modernism,
modern it's usually a sign that they've just anything they
(29:54):
don't like they just throw in the modernist bucket. And
it's not to say that those terms don't have some
definition or some value. I'm sure cultural Marxism was at
some point, somewhere, some way, has some kind of definition
that's helpful for describing a certain kind of thing. Modernism
was a thing that a Pope Saint Piece of tenth
(30:15):
wrote a whole in cyclical talking about the errors of modernism.
But he then would like to find what I'm talking
about are these specific errors. So I'm always leery of
these kind of big, broad concepts that people just treat
as a bucket and they just throw anything they don't
like into it. And the left does that just so
(30:38):
affirm that I'm not just picking on conservatives here, I'm not.
The left does that with fascism. They've done it with
fascism for actually a really long time.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Now. You can tell.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
That this is true based on the fact that fascism
is really kind of.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Difficult to define.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I mean, just we look up the Wikipedia entry for fascism.
Fascism is a far right, authoritarian and ultra nationalist political
ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early twentieth
century Europe. Fascism is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism,
forcible suppression of opposition, belief in the natural social hierarchy,
(31:26):
subordination of individual interests to the perceived interest of the nation,
or race and strong regimentation of society and the economy,
opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism. Fashion Fascism
is at the far right of the traditional left right spectrum,
and that's how Wikipedia defines it. But there's also all
(31:48):
kinds of ideas with fascism having to do with like
public private subordination, so subordination of private companies, to subordination,
co opting of private companies within the economy by the state,
(32:10):
so the cozy relations that the Nazi regime developed.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
With a lot of German auto manufacturers.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Volkswagen, why do you think it was called Volkswagen the
People's Wagon, And it involved a lot of things that
aren't always necessarily you know, it's easy to say it's
on the far right of the right left spectrum, but.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
There can I don't know that it's always so simple.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Applying different kinds of socialist principles to the economy, for example,
could be you know, strict controls over prices and things
like that, could be something that's characteristic of a fascist regime,
which is not necessarily a super conservative thing to do.
And it's also like it's not like you flip a
(33:07):
switch and then you're you know, notice that the definition
I gave, it's not an actual definition.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
It's a is characterized by it's characterized by.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
A dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition.
It's not defined by it because fascism is more sort
of like it's almost like a style of governance that
it often includes all of those things. But you might
(33:39):
have an individual regime that does not have all of
those individual things.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Okay, was Charlete de Gaull.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Charles de gall was not a fascist, but he was
an extremely powerful French president who gathered enormous power to himself.
I mean, so was he a full on fascist? Well,
maybe some would argue. He certainly argued he was fascist leaning.
(34:13):
The kind of fascist that Franco was in Spain was
very different from the kind of fascist that Mussolini was
in Italy from Hitler in Germany. Now, all of them
had bad sides to them. I don't think anyone's going
to argue that Franco.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Was exactly as bad as Hitler. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I mean maybe that's a historical debate, and I'm kind
of wading into historical waters that I'm not as well
versed and I'm not as super well versed in the
history of modern Europe, you know, twentieth century European politics,
all right. Regardless, Fascism is as the point I'm making here,
fascism is a pretty loosely defined thing, and you're not.
(35:01):
It's not like you flip a switch and you go
from not a fascist to immediately fascist. And what's happened
is the left basically said, in effect, because he supported
Donald Trump, and Donald Trump wants to have more forcible
centralization of the executive branch, that that's you know, a
(35:25):
more powerful executive is characteristic of fascism.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Ergo Trump fascist, ergo. Charlie Kirk fascist.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Trump challenged the twenty twenty election, and you know, his
influence whatever led to resulted in whatever the riot on
January sixth, that's fascist. Refusing to accept elections is fascist,
and Charlie Kirk was like, you know, down with stop
the steal.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I don't actually know if Charlie Kirk was ergo.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
And it's like, you do anything that sort of smacks
of you support anything that kind of sort of smacks
of something hinting at a more authoritarian right wing governance.
Ergo fascist, ergo nazi, ergo it's okay too.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Have monstrous opinions about your assassination.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
And it's sort of like the you know, if an
actual Nazi had been a All right, when we returned,
the left is really going to try to make this
fascism thing stick, and I'll explain when we return why
it's just not going to work next on the John
Girardi Show. The left is really going to try to
make this fascism claim stick. That's the reason why allegedly
(37:00):
they're allowed to say a monstrous thing about Charlie Kirks.
Charlie Kirk supported fascism. Fascism conveniently a very loose broad,
loosely defined term that liberals have.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Can you know, sort of throw any thing they don't
like into it.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
If you are a fascist, you are beyond the pale
of acceptable society. Because Hitler was a fascist, ergo us
saying well he kind of had it coming, is all right.
Here's the problem. Americans don't view themselves as fascists, and
they're not probably by any reasonable definition. But what most
(37:40):
conservatives have been thinking ever since Kirk's death, because again,
Kirk had very normy right wing politics is Wow, if
you're gonna say something that horrible about Charlie Kirk, you'd
say the same about me, Because I think of a
whole bunch of things exactly the same as Charlie Kirk does.
I mean, I've thought it. Charlie Kirk is at least
(38:03):
as right wing as I am. I'd guess maybe I'm
more right wing in certain ways. If you're okay with
assassinating him, you'd probably be okay with assassinating John Girardi.
And that's why this is not gonna stick for the left.
That'll do it, John Girardi Show. See you next time
on Power Talk.
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