11-29-25 The Weekend Hour 2: George Orwell and the Meaning of Words

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night. Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA
director of talk.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job The Weekend with Michael Brown broadcasting
from Denver, Colorado.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
You've joined The Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have
you joined the program today. Hope everybody had a great
Thanksgiving and you're now ready for the holiday season where
nobody does anything. Nobody works until after the first of
the year. I'm always fascinated by this time of the
year when you know people are taking off work or
they're traveling and doing things, and everything just seems to

(00:31):
kind of slow down, and then January one comes around,
everybody gets hung over, and then boom, January two. Right
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(00:52):
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Michael Brown. So I want to talk about Orwell, George Orwell.
Eighty years ago he wrote an incredible essay Politics and
the English Language, and I think that it still is

(01:56):
a quintessential piece of writing, and quite frankly, it's a
pretty good instruction manual. There's a strang kind of a
strange liturgy to American politics right now. I don't mean
liturgy in the religious sense, though it may tap into
that same kind of instinct, but in the way that
people you know, use specific phrases, and they use these

(02:19):
phrases with absolute confidence and generally no understanding at all.
There was a recent calling by Peggy Noonan. She had
read Kamala Harris's book One hundred and seven Days, and
she noted that Harris referred to illegal immigration, which I
refer to as well illegal immigration, but those who commit

(02:41):
illegal immigration I refer to as illegal aliens. And the
reason I do that is that's the actual language in
the federal statute that designates people that cross our borders
without authorization. Those are referred to in federal law as
illegal alien. Well, Peggy Noonan's column, and look, I've got

(03:03):
great respect for Peggy Noonan. She was a speech writer
for Ronald Reagan. She does a weekly call him in
the Wall Street Journal. I read it religiously and I
agree with it. I was going to say half the time,
but as scotten now to where I agree with her
maybe a third of the time, and two thirds of
the time, I'm like, no, I think, Peggy, your way
off here. But when she wrote this particular article, as

(03:27):
I said, she noted that Kamala Harris had referred to
illegal immigration as irregular migration, irregular migration. Now that's a
euphemism that is so gently ridiculous that it practically dissolves,
like you put you know, you poured salt on a

(03:51):
snail or something. But I think that's the point. I
think that's why Kamala Harris. Harris uses language like that.
The irregular migration doesn't have any sort of harshness to
it at all, does it. It's kind of like oatmeal pablum.
It's kind of like, you know, mushed up baby food

(04:13):
irregular migration. But I think that's her point. I think
that's exactly why Kamala Harris uses that phrase. It sounds softer, safer,
less politically radioactive. It's not going to tick off people
except why. I think what she doesn't understand is those
of us who use our words a lot.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
It is.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
It does tick me off. I see it constantly. The
public vocabulary is just full of words and phrases that
signal some sort of urgency or righteousness or moral sophistication,
and it doesn't ever require anybody to say something concrete.
And George Orwell warned about this nearly eighty years ago,

(05:00):
calling them meaningless words. What he said, quote is designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Get that
calling them meaningless words designed to make lies sound truthful,

(05:23):
murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to
pure win. That's from Orwell's nineteen forty six essay Politics
and the English Language. Now, I know that most people
have a casual knowledge of George Orwell in his novels,
especially nineteen eighty four and probably Animal Farm. And he

(05:43):
was don't get me wrong, he was an absolute wonderful novelist,
but he was an amazing essayist. And if you have
a chance, you can pick up a book of his essays,
or you can go to the Orwell Foundation and read
those essays online totally free. The politics in the English
language is primarily about writing, but still what he says

(06:08):
goes beyond how somebody might write, and describes how words
and phrases used in politics have really kind of become
pointless and tedious, to the extent that the words don't
have any real meaning. They merely appear to have great profundity.
It's why when I refer to Democrats as Marxists or fascists,

(06:28):
because we'll get into that in a second. I try
to explain why what is it they are saying or
doing that is Marxist or fascist or socialist. When I
refer to, for example, we're going to talk if we
have time today, we're going to talk later about Bill
Gates and his kind of one one hundred and eighty

(06:50):
degree turn about on climate. And so I use the
phrase about the congreants in the church of the climate activists.
And I chose those words very specifically because it conveys
that I believe that climate change for many people has
become a religion. Doesn't make any difference. You know, I
could talk to a climate activist till I'm blue in

(07:12):
the face about you know, facts, facts, facts, study, study,
study peer review, peer review, peer reviewed, or real world
temperature readings, whatever. It doesn't make any difference to them
because they believe what they believe, and no amount of
facts poured onto faith is going to change their belief.

(07:35):
So it does appear to me to be a religion.
But back to Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language,
because it holds value even in twenty twenty five, he
writes the following, many political words are similarly abused the

(07:55):
word fascism. The word fascism has now no meaning except
insofar as it signifies something not desirable. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic,
justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot
be reconciled with one another. In the case of a

(08:17):
word like democracy, not only is there no degree definition,
but the attempt to make one to make one is
resisted from every side. It is almost universally felt, and
when we call a country democratic, we are praising it. Consequently,
the defenders of every kind of regime think that it
is a democracy, and fear that they might have to

(08:39):
stop using the word if it were tied down to
any one singular meaning. Words of this kind often used
in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who
uses them has his own private definition, but allows us
here to think he means something quite different by definition.
You've had conversation with people like that, right, Or I've

(09:02):
heard news stories where they'll say one thing and I
just intuitively know they really mean something else. Orwell continues
in just a minute, I'll be right back. Hey, welcome
back the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have you
with me. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know
I certainly did. It's good to be back with you,

(09:24):
and I appreciate you joining in this weekend. We're talking
about George Orwell and his essay about politics and words
politics in the English language. Now, I was describing one
paragraph in which he's talking about how words really don't
have any particular meaning. So we'll get back to that
in one second, but I want to remind you the
rules of engagement. Text lines always open three three one

(09:46):
zero three keyword micro Michael, go follow me on x
at Michael Brown USSA, and then I would suggest this,
if you're traveling about you've heard this program for the
first time, you kind of like what we're doing, you
can also hear what we do Every weekday. I broadcast
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Mountain Time on this station, which you should go set

(10:07):
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It's KOA. It's at eight point fifty AM or ninety
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and go stream us live Monday through Friday. Nine to
noon Mountain time. So back to George Orwell, and I

(10:27):
was talking about how people have their own private definition
of a word, and that private definition means you can
use the word, but the here, just the person you're
speaking to, just here's what they want to hear. So
they think what they want to think, and it may
be quite different from what you're trying to convey. He writes.

(10:47):
Statements like Marshall Pataine was a true patriot. The Soviet
press is the freest in the in the world. The
Catholic Church is opposed to persecution. Are all always made
with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings,
in most cases more or less dishonestly are class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary,

(11:13):
bourgeois equality. I think democracy, let's pick on democracy for
a second, is probably the critical word here, because I've
likely heard the phrase uttered in some form or other
in the last I don't know particularly ten years. I've
heard I've obviously heard of my entire life, but in
particularly I've heard it a lot in the last ten years,

(11:36):
probably a gazillion times. It has become entirely synonymous with
Donald Trump. You know, we got to save the democracy
you got to save our democracy from Donald Trump and
for all. For the longest time, it was all about
Donald Trump and the threat that he was to democracy.

(11:58):
But go back just ten years. Since twenty fifteen, threat
to democracy or threat to our democracy has come to
apply to whatever political niche that anybody chooses. You could
pick from a hat all the threats, well, the Supreme
Court is a threat to democracy. Certain types of laws

(12:19):
are threats to democracy. E. Long Musk buying Twitter and
turning it into X. That's a threat to democracy. Climate
change threat to democracy, Fox News threat to democracy. The
Weekend with Michael Brown a threat to democracy. The makeup
of the Senate when it's controlled by the Republicans a
threat to democracy. The Electoral College always a threat to democracy.

(12:41):
AI a threat to democracy, while elections themselves having an
election is a threat to democracy. It kind of gets
to the point where it really doesn't have much meaning
to most people, who we should remember, don't spend a
good chunk of their time in any given day, any week,
a month, or a year immersed in politics. Like you

(13:05):
and I are thirty percent of Americans thirty a third
let's just say, Can I just say a third? A
third of Americans cannot name all three branches of government.
That's way too high. Can you let's say, all count
to three, you name all three, the first one, the

(13:25):
second one, Okay, do you get the third one? All right?
How many have you got it? And while seventy percent
can name all three? The problem is that's just basic civics.
That's not an indicator of your proclivity as it relates
to daily political life. If only a third know what

(13:46):
the three branches of government are, what percentage do you
think know what a discharge petition is? And I choose
discharge petition because that was a huge phrase used during
the government shutdown. Remember they had to get to sixty
votes to invoke cloture. Do you remember what invoking culture meant? Well,

(14:09):
in the Senate, there's a rule that you can just debate, debate,
debate until you can get sixty votes to stop debate.
That's called invoking cloture. Once you invoke cloture and you
stop debate, you still need another vote before you can
even vote on the bill, and that is to have
a discharge petition, meaning that it just comes out of committee,

(14:30):
goes straight to the floor for a vote, and nobody
can interfere with that. I would guess that the majority
of Americans have no clue what a discharge petition is.
And I would even go one step further. I'm not
sure they need to know. I certainly wish they knew,
because the more they understood about the minutia of politics,

(14:53):
the minutia of our legislative process, then they would understand
why it is, for example, that some people vote for
something and then when it you know, initially, and then
as it gets amended, they vote against it. You know,
maybe they voted for it because they wanted to get

(15:14):
to the floor where it could be amended so they
could try to get their amendment in. They fail to
get their amendment in, and so they vote against the bill.
So remember, I think it was John Kerry who once
famously said something about I think it was like a
climate bill, or or maybe it was the I think
it was the war in Iraq that you know, I voted,
I voted, you know, for it before I voted against it.

(15:37):
It's that kind of thing. So when the average person
does tune in, which is usually getting close to an election,
or there's some big crisis or controversy going on, and
they become inundated with the phrase threat to democracy at
every turn. Have you ever thought about what impact that has,
because I think about it a lot.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Trump.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
After all, despite everything that went down on January sixth,
the investigations, all the indictments, the convictions, the promise to
be the retribution for his voters, he still won. He
went back all the states that he lost in twenty
twenty that he won in twenty sixteen, and then picked
up Nevada as well, while convincing seventy seven million people
to vote for him, three million more than voted for

(16:21):
him back in twenty twenty, and a whopping fifteen million
more than in twenty sixteen. And one could say, but
Michael Trump, Trump is a threat to democracy. Well, wait
a minute, isn't everything I just described isn't that a
democratic process? It may not be democracy as we might

(16:44):
define the term, but it was a democratic process, and
he won that democratic process. Read what Orwell said about
the word fascism, as noted. People have chosen to apply
that phrase, as Orwell Orwell said, that's something not desirable.
Go look up any of the examples and you'll find
a lot of examples, and not among the fever swamps

(17:08):
of the far left, but from even mainstream journalists, think
tanks other institutions. The electoral college is the greatest threat
to our democracy. The electoral colleges a threat to twenty
first democracy That comes from the Aspen Institute. The electoral
college is a ticking time bomb. William Galston for the
Brookings Institute. The nationalist right, the new right, whatever you

(17:29):
want to call the right side of the political spectrum
does something similar. When they talk about a Republican politician
they don't like, they become a neo con. Have you
thought about what a neo con is? Tyler Bauer of
Talking Point USA. I'm sorry, Turning Point USA playing white
Knight for JD. Vance, who he says is getting attacked

(17:52):
and that means criticism for some people. The anti Trump
movement wants to nominate someone other than Jdvans for president.
Them the most likely outcome of attacking JD. Evans is
far more neo con, terrible candidate, useful idiots. What does
that really mean? Has anybody ever really stopped to think
about what does that really mean? I'm not sure they have.

(18:13):
It's the weekend with Michael Brown. Hang tight, I'll be
right back tonight. Michael Brown joins me here, the former
FEMA director of talk show host Michael Brown.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
the Weekend with Michael Brown.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Happy Thanksgiving.
I hope everybody's having a great holiday. Appreciate you tuning
in as you do on the weekend. I always appreciate
the audience turn it tuning in on a Saturday. If
you like the program, be sure let other people know
about the program too. Don't forget text lines always open.
I read them all the time, even when I you know,
sometimes when i'm just you know, having I'm grabbing a

(18:54):
diet coke or something, I'll kind of glance down at
my phone because I keep this on a separate message JAT,
and I'll just read through the messages. So three three
one zero three keyword Mike or Michael. So the Nationalist's right,
the new right, conservative right. I mean, it's just it
goes by so many different names, and when when the
new right, the nationalists right, the conservative right, it just

(19:18):
doesn't make any difference, because again, even those words are
losing their meaning. But they start using the word neocon,
or they'll use the term rhino republican in name only.
And some people can be a rhino one day, and
then the next day they vote or say something, and
suddenly they're they're God's gift to conservatism again, whatever conservatism

(19:40):
means to that individual, and then the next day they're
a neocon. And they just go from one label to another,
to another to another. And I think that's the point
that George Orwell is trying to make, is we use
the terms, but we don't really define the terms, so
that whatever we're saying people get to hear whatever it

(20:02):
is they want to hear. I find it fascinating in
radio that now, when I'm doing, you know, when I'm
doing three hours a day like I do, there's obvious
times that I mis state something, or I mispronounced something,
or I use the wrong word. The other day this
past week, I was talking about Thomas Jefferson the Barbary

(20:27):
Pirates and how the Barbary Pirates was very much like
what's going on with the drug dealers coming out of Venezuela,
and I just, without even thinking, I said, you know,
and Thomas Jefferson, I think I think I was joking
and said Tommy Jefferson was our second commander in chief. Huh.
I didn't even realize i'd said it until somebody called

(20:48):
me out on the text line and said Jefferson wasn't
the second commander in chief, he was the third commander
in chief. And I looked at it and I thought
to myself, well, I know that Washington had Jefferson Madison Rowe. Yeah, yeah, oh,
I did say number two. We often get, at least

(21:09):
I do, get so wound up in what I'm talking
about that my mouth, my brain's like four steps ahead
of where my mouth is because I'm already thinking about
the next thing I'm about to say, following on what
I'm saying right now, and sometimes I missstate things. The
other The inverse of that is I'll say something exactly

(21:29):
the way that I want to say it, mean exactly
what it is that I think I'm conveying, and then
I'll go to text message or an email or somebody.
I'll post something on Twitter or X and I'll be like,
you said X, y Z, and I'll think, yeah, that's
exactly what I said, and then the response will be,
you are totally wrong about X.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Y Z.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Now. I always take fills with a grain assault, and
by that I mean I read them because I really
want to know. Did I miss something, did I say
something wrong? Did I miss a fact? Did I leave
something yet that I didn't mean to leave out? But
I'll go back and I'll read what it is as
they say I said, and I'll think to myself, yeah,
I think I said exactly that, And then i'll read

(22:11):
what they say the thing is wrong about it, and
I can't. I can't connect the two. I simply can't
connect them at all. And that's because people heard what
they wanted to hear, not what was actually said. And
you have to learn in radio, for example, that I
don't know, for example, right now, don't I have no
clue what you're doing at this very moment. You could

(22:35):
send me a text message and lie that you know.
I'm listening to while I'm taking a shower. I'm listening
to while I'm decorating the Christmas tree, I'm cleaning up
the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers and throwing out the dressing has
gotten bad. I'm doing whatever. When you're doing that, whatever
it is you're doing, there will be a split second,

(22:56):
a micro second where your brain goes to something else.
I know everybody thinks that they can multitask. Everybody thinks
they can multitask, But what you're really doing is you
are micro secing. In microseconds. You're going from one task
to another. Your brain is thinking about this, and then

(23:17):
your brain says, oh, reach over here and pick up
your diet coke. And as you reach over to pick
up your diet coke, you miss one word, two words,
three words, depends on how long it takes you pick
up your diet coke of what I said, And so
you miss something and the interpretation becomes entirely different. It's
why when and I know this drives my friends crazy,

(23:37):
but when I sit down with people at dinner, or
we're having a lunch meeting, or I'm in a meeting,
and I'm not bored to death, I truly try to
be an active listener. And I think that's just my
training as a lawyer, to listen to what people actually say,
because oftentimes they don't really mean what they say, and

(24:00):
they don't really say what they mean, or they themselves
aren't really sure about what they are saying. And so
I try to listen intently to what people say. But
even when I'm doing that, something something makes me get distracted.
I'm in a conference room in this building at iHeart
and something happens outside the window and I look out

(24:22):
for a brief second that takes my mind, even for
a microsecond, off what that person is saying that I'm
listening to. And I think this fills in or fits
in with what George Orwell is saying about. We hear
what we want to hear, and we use words that
we don't really know what we mean by them. Or

(24:45):
if people want to be really disingenuous, they know what
they mean by the word, but they know what somebody
else thinks about the word, so they use that word
to convince them to their side, knowing that you're really
not really not communicating, You're really not being persuasive, You're
just arguing. Go back to the term neo con. A

(25:12):
lot of people use the term neo con as a pejority,
But do they really have an idea what it actually means,
because neo con is just a short version of neo conservative,
And you could probably ask, I don't know ten people
twenty people aligned with Tyler Bauer from Turning Point USA

(25:34):
the person who's tweet I told you about JD Vance earlier.
You could ask ten or twenty different people align with
him politically to define neo conservatism, and you'd probably get
ten different answers. Just like our tax returns. You can
take one set of facts to ten different accountants and
you'll get ten different tax returns, and all of them

(25:56):
might be wrong. They might claim that a neo conservative
he's a warmonger. I hear that a lot, or your
pro war or your pro interventionist likely to be the
constant thread among the responses if you ask somebody what
a neo con means. They use the term to describe
any Republican who holds an interventionist philosophy and foreign policy.

(26:20):
But does that make them a neo conservative or a
neo con Now. I don't want to get into all
of what it means, but you might go listen to
Jonah Goldberg, who I don't necessarily agree with a lot.
He has a podcast from I think maybe a year
ago called The New Neo cons and he goes into

(26:40):
detail about the origin of the term, how it evolved,
and essentially how it became as Orwell says, a term
for just something I do not like. The ultimate goal
of using particular words and phrases, as Orwell said, is
an intent to deceive. When people say, for example, which
drives me crazy, that the Supreme Court is a threat

(27:01):
to democracy, what are they really saying? You know what
they're really saying, Well, I don't like the rulings of
the current makeup of the court and how they're issuing it.
You know, when the War in Court was around, I
didn't necessarily like the decisions from the War in Court,
but I didn't think they were a threat to democracy.
I thought, Oh, this is a bad decision. We've got

(27:22):
to get Congress to figure out a way to overrule
that decision with legislation, or we've got to change the laws,
or we've got to somehow appeal this, or at some
point they'll they'll reverse the decision whatever. I didn't think
it was going to be the end of civilization. But
many people, and sometimes I'm prone to that too. I think, oh,

(27:42):
this next step that we'd take in our politics might
be the end of the country. But is it really
Probably not. So we came with Michael Brown hang type,
I'll be right back, Welcome back to the Weekend. With
Michael Brown. Good to have you with me. Appreciate you

(28:03):
tuning in on Thanksgiving weekend. Hope everybody a great holiday.
Text line as usual was always open three three one
zero three three three one zero three on your messy
japp keyword Mike ro Michael, do me a favor, go
follow me on except Michael Brown USA. We're talking about
Orwell's essay from almost eighty years ago entitled Politics and
the English Language, and one of those stories I kind

(28:26):
of wanted to do on a weekend like this because
it gives me a chance to just talk about something
other than specific issues in politics, because the ultimate goal
of using particular words and phrases, according to Orwell, is
an intent to deceive. How many times do you, in

(28:48):
response to your kids, or your spouse, or a coworker
or somebody else, you phrase something so that you kind
of mislead but you're not actually lying to the I mean,
I hope you don't just outright lie to them, but
I understand that sometimes you just don't want to deal
with the issue, or you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings.

(29:11):
You're just not in the mood to get into the
middle of a debate, So you just say, yeah, that's interesting.
That tends to be my phrase. Oh well, that's interesting.
That's by way of saying, I need to really think
about that, or I think you might be absolutely nuts,
But let me think about that and give me time
to come up with a good retort to That's that's

(29:32):
kind of my go to phrase occasionally. So it really is.
And am I trying to deceive? I suppose in the
actual term term deceive, I probably am trying to be deceitful.
It's true. I find it interesting, But is that the
entire context of what I'm what I mean, No, I'm

(29:53):
trying to get you to just drop the issue. Let
me think about what you said and when and the
time is appropriate. If I have a rebuttal or retort
or an agreement, then I'll tell you. But I'm tired,
i'm busy, i'm distracted, whatever it might be. So I'm
not going to tell you exactly what I think. Oh
so that's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting. And sometimes I'll do

(30:16):
that when I'm just like not interested. So think about
doing that. Someone's talking to you about something and you're
really you're at a party. It's the time for office parties. Right,
you're at a party and you get cornered by somebody
that's a coworker or maybe it's a client or who
knows what it is, and they're droning on and on

(30:37):
about something that just doesn't interest you, like you might
be see, this is what's hilarious about this topic, is like,
right now, some of you may have zero interest in
this topic. Now you may have already tuned out other
people who do have an interest in this topic because
it applies to them too, and they're thinking to themselves, yeah,

(30:58):
I've done exactly what you've done. They're listening. But am
I upset with the people who got bored and tuned out? No,
because I'm talking about what I wanted to talk about
and I find it interesting, but you may not. But
I would never say to someone I shouldn't say never,
that's probably a little harsh, but I would never say

(31:19):
to somebody in casual conversation who's trying to tell me
a story about something I'm not interested in that, you know,
basically telling somebody, hey, shut up, I don't want to
talk about that. I'm not interested. It's our words that
we use trying to convey something that may be a
little deceitful, maybe by omission or comission, but we're being

(31:41):
slightly deceitful about something if you can, if deceitful is
something that you can either be slightly deceitful or fully deceitful.
I love words. So go back to the court. The
Supreme Court is a threat to democracy. No, it's actually not,
because if the Supreme Court were indeed a threat to democracy,

(32:01):
this country would have gone down the crapper, you know,
one hundred years ago, or probably within the first ten years,
or with the very first decision in Marbury versus Madison.
The Court makes decisions based upon the makeup and the
judicial philosophy of the nine justices at the time that
a case comes before them, and that case may remain

(32:24):
on the books and may remain precedent for decades, if
not a century, and then eventually gets overturned. For example,
separate but equal was seen as non racist. So the
Court said, as long as schools are desegregated but are segregated,

(32:48):
as long as the segregated schools are equal, well that's okay.
So you can put all the black kids over here,
and that's okay. And the Asian kids over here and
the Caucasian kids over here, but as long as they
have the same education, then that's okay. And then comes
along Brown versus Board of Education, and the court says,
that's crazy, that's absolutely crazy. No, that is that is segregation.

(33:13):
You are segregating based upon immutable characteristics. So in Brown
versus Board of Education nineteen fifty four, they overturned the
previous ruling and said, no, you cannot do that. But
guess what happened in the meantime. Yes, it was awful
and there was still segregation, but the republic continued. So
was the original decision truly a threat to democracy? I mean,

(33:37):
it was a horrible decision. I disagree with the decision.
I think brown board Brown versus Board of Education put
it back where it should be. But during that interim,
whatever it was, maybe one hundred years, it was like, Okay,
we still survived. We may have been pretty bigoted and
pretty racist about it, but we survived, and we survived

(34:01):
to what become better. The point being that people agree
or disagree with court decisions at all levels all the time. However,
claiming the decisions that one doesn't like is a threat
to democracy is just bad faith, just as it is
in describing, say the makeup of the Senate, the electoral College,
or legislation, or any one political party. Do I like

(34:25):
the Marxist Party? Do I like the Democrat Socialists of America?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
No?

Speaker 1 (34:29):
I can't stand them, and I actually think they are
a threat to democracy. But are they today? Maybe not?
Only if they become a majority party and they actually
change us into a socialist state, well then it's too late.
So at what point on that timeline do they become
a threat to democracy? To think about Senator Chris Murphy

(34:54):
and the latest Continuing Resolution passed and signed by the
President when he reopened the government a few weeks ago.
His message on the spending bill during the shutdown was that, quote,
none of us have an obligation to vote for a
budget that funds the destruction of democracy. Close quote Oh,

(35:17):
I would like to ask Senator Murphy what do you
mean by that? Because it's been several weeks now. The
Continuing Resolution only goes through I think the first week
or so of January, and we're going to go through
this same charade, this same ballee who all over again
over government spending and will probably survive, so I don't

(35:40):
think that the last Continuing Resolution indeed was the destruction
of democracy, but they won't let up on that kind
of phrase. The point would be simply this. I would
challenge you, as we enter into the holidays and enter
into the new year, that every time you come across

(36:01):
a word or a phrase, or you hear someone saying something,
including yours, truly that says something that is maybe too generalized,
or is without a definition, or you're not quite sure
what I mean when I say that that is a
Marxist policy, you should challenge me. Challenge yourself. How is
it a Marxist policy? How is that fascism? How is

(36:23):
that socialism? How is that small R republicanism? How is
that a representative government piece of legislation? For example? Because
if we don't do that, if we just allow ourselves
to just let the words mean what people mean and
never challenge them or even ask them what you mean
by that, for example, I would just say, the next

(36:44):
time you run into you in particularly those who are
left of center, and they say, oh my gosh, Donald
Trump is a threat to democracy, I'd love to see
somebody like on MS now or CNN or any of
the liberal outlets, you know, National Public Radio. Would you explain,
please explain to the audience how it is that Donald
Trump or Republicans are a threat to democracy. And by

(37:08):
the way, could I have specifics because I'm really interested
in the specifics. Try it, see how that goes. Since
the weekend with Michael Brown, text line as usual as
always open, hang tight, I'll be right back.