SOUL OF MAGA

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
What is the soul or essence of the MAGA movement?
What does it mean to make America great again? Who
represents this movement, what does it stand for? And what
version of America is MAGA trying to revive the era
of the founding America in the nineteenth century America in
the nineteen fifties. I've been thinking about these questions lately

(00:36):
as I ponder two lines of critique I've been seeing
a lot. I'm not talking about the critique from the left.
Strangely enough, there's virtually no critique coming from the left.
They're against everything Trump does, they're against MAGA, but they
no longer attempt to say why. The left's focus these
days is on what it must do fight redistricting, stack

(00:57):
the courts, mobilize its voters. Otherwise, the left is oddly silent.
It seems to have run out of things to say.
So the first line of critique I'm seeing is from
the never Trump types. These are guys like Tim Miller
at The Bulwark, Tim Alberta at The Atlantic, David French
and David Brooks at the New York Times, some of
the crew at Christianity Today. Some of these people still

(01:20):
claim to be Republicans Republicans against Mega. Their argument is
that anyone who backs Trump has sold out and abandoned
their conscience. The underlying logic of the never trumpers goes
like this. All smart people know that what Trump says
is lies and nonsense. All smart people know the twenty
twenty election wasn't stolen. All smart people know Trump is

(01:42):
wrong on tariffs, wrong on Iran, wrong on everything. Yet
these smart people, whatever their qualms, in the end, side
with Trump. Why Because in this narrative, they're scared of Trump.
They're scared of his wrath. They're scared he will campaign
against them. They're scared they will lose their seat, so
they give in. Their ambition in sense, overcomes their morality.

(02:06):
One may say they wrestle with their consciences and prevail.
They choke their conscience to the point where their conscience
taps out. I saw a profile by Tim Alberta of
Senator Mike Lee and it took this line. Now, I
like Mike Lee. I think the critique of him is
wrong headed, but I'm going to follow its logic because
I want to use the critique to make a point. Well,

(02:27):
considering the example of Mike Lee here to address and
robut a very common mantra of the never trumper. So
let's see what Tim Alberta has to say about Mike Lee.
Here's Alberta's storyline. Mike Lee is a traditional Reaganite Republican.
He's not a Trump guy yet. Alberta argues that Mike
Lee has surrendered to Trump because ultimately he cares more

(02:49):
about his re election than he cares about personal integrity
or personal decency. He has sold his soul to Trump.
So whom do these never trumpers admire? Well, they admire
people like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Tom Tillis, Mike Penn.
Some of those people might be out office, politically irrelevant
hangers on, but at least there are men and women

(03:09):
of integrity. They stood up to Trump. They went with
their conscience, They paid the price. They might be inconsequential,
but they are admirable. Now there is a second group,
quite apart from the never trumpers, who are also taking
a similar line. This is the anti Trump right. I'm
thinking here of Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly,

(03:30):
Dave Smith. Many of the people who are mourning Thomas
Massey's electoral demise. They too think that Massy is a
hero because he didn't give in to Trump. He could
have been a political opportunist and gone with Trump. Instead,
he stood up to Trump. He stood up for his principles. Then,
in this view, the whole Trump operation, backed by the

(03:52):
Israeli lobby, came down on Massey and toppled him. He
went down fighting. This is how it's done. This is
political heroism. Now there is a real problem with this
understanding of Massey that reflects a broader problem with these
critiques from the anti Trump right and also than never trumpers.
Let's start with the idea that the Israel lobby opposed

(04:13):
Massey and that's why he lost. Well, the fault in
this reasoning is that the Israel lobby has always they
have long opposed Thomas Massey. He has long been anti
Israel and they have long been against him. So why
did Massey lose? Now? While previously he had no problem
defeating the Israel lobby, Massey won his early elections with

(04:33):
huge margins seventy seventy five percent. Well, this time he
lost by double digits. So what changed? You might say?
Trump came down hard against him. But Massey has been
running somewhat independently of Trump even before. Trump's opposition in
the past didn't take him down. What took Massey down
this time? There's really only one answer to this question.

(04:54):
His voters. His voters took him down. His voters are
the ones who get to decide every two year now.
Previously they were for him, Now they turned on him.
This is why Massey lost, because he no longer commanded
the support of his own constituency. Now. This broader point
can be applied to the never Trump analysis of just

(05:15):
about any Republican. One set of Republicans Mike Pence is
an obvious example, appraised for resisting Trump, while another set
Mike Lee and others are scorned for going along with
Trump out of fear. But this whole mode of analysis,
to me, misses the key point. What is it about
Trump that causes the supposed fear. The premise of the

(05:38):
critics like Tim Alberta is that Mike Lee doesn't want
Trump to go against him. Well, why not? Well, because
Trump has this power. But where does the power come from?
If Mike Lee is worried about losing a Senate seat,
who's the one who decides whether he keeps that seat,
not Trump. The voters decide. So if Mike Lee is
worried about anything, he's worried about the vot voters in

(06:00):
his own state who retired John Cornyin, who just lost
his primary to Ken Paxton. I hope I'm not belaboring
the obvious by saying once again that Cornin was retired
by his own voters. And predictably, we're now seeing post
mortems from the never trumpers that say Cordin was punished
for showing a modicum of independence from Trump. He tried

(06:21):
unsuccessfully to portray himself as Maga at the end. Yet
it wasn't enough for Trump. Wrong, it wasn't enough for
his voters. If Republican candidates swing in the direction of Maga,
either in reality or just during election time, if they
seek the support of Trump and fear the wrath of Trump,
it's because Trump connects with their voters better than they do.

(06:44):
If they don't want Trump campaigning against him, it's because
they think their voters are closer to Trump than they
are to them. The point is that Trump's power does
not come from himself so much as it comes from
the fact that he represents a wider movement. He articulates
the fears, the concerns, the aspirations of that movement. He
speaks its language and has therefore become its spokesman. He's

(07:07):
convinced those people that even though he doesn't need them,
he has chosen to ally with them, and they need him.
He's the one who can help them get where they
want to go. Why because all societal transformations, all political revolutions,
are the work of elites. Yes, it's true. There's not
a single example in world history where the people accomplish

(07:28):
these changes on their own. Usually, one elite challenges and
displaces another. Now, Trump unquestionably came out of these elite circles.
He was a credential member of America's financial and cultural elite,
and yet he opted to take up the cause of
the people. This makes him invaluable. But again, he's invaluable
to the people because he's an elite guy who speaks

(07:50):
the people's language and has taken up the people's cause.
Trump never lost touch with the people. I suspect that
this comes in large part from his construction background. Trump
is comfortable on the construction lot. He knows a lot
of blue collar people. He likes them, he listens to them.
Although many people see Trump as arrogant, in reality, Trump's
attentiveness to people who are in a very different station

(08:13):
from himself shows he is not arrogant. Now, I want
to make a similar point about the people in another way,
using the example not of Trump, but of my son
in law, Brandon Gil Brandon and his staff are often
approached by other members of Congress or their staff, and
what they hear is this, while Brandon, you're so good
at messaging, man, Brandon, you sure know how to communicate

(08:35):
with the base. But Brandon doesn't spend any time on
quote messaging. Why because Brandon is the base. It's not
even because he grew up on a ranch at Abilene.
It's not even because he's a down to or a
Texan with a text and drawl. It's because he fundamentally
agrees with the grassroots activists and the political base that
put him in office. The base thinks that many politicians

(08:56):
are full of crap, so does Brandon. The base thinks
that twenty election was stolen, So does Brandon. The base
things America is for Americans and that immigrants are only
welcome if they want to be part of America and
make life better for the Americans who are born here.
So does Brandon. Brandon also knows there are lots of
people with conservative values who have been left behind by

(09:18):
America in the last thirty years. They know about the
American dream, but they've never experienced the fruits of it.
They've seen their jobs outsourced or displaced by technology. They've
seen rising crime and drugs in their communities. They see
illegals getting more benefits than native born Americans. Brandon knows
these people. He grew up with them, He's still friends
with them. He knows their families. What distinguishes Brandon from

(09:40):
some of the other Republicans and Conservatives is he doesn't
live in a Reaganite bubble. In fact, how can he.
He wasn't even born in the Reagan era. He's too
young to be a Reaganite. His youth then becomes a
political strength. He doesn't just spout a neo conservative or
libertarian slogans peace through strength, trust the market. He speaks
within four are people who are dealing with a very

(10:01):
different set of problems than America faced in the nineteen eighties.
So when Brandon speaks, he doesn't say what the base
wants him to say. He doesn't hold meetings about how
to message, he doesn't employ focus groups, he doesn't look
at what the poly market survey show who's up who's down.
He just says what he thinks, and that's what the
base thinks. Also, it's the easiest form of political communication.

(10:25):
We live in a constitutional democracy where elected leaders are
supposed to represent their constituents. They're supposed to reflect the
values of the majority that put them in office. Sure,
we live in a representative democracy. The people don't rule directly.
They rule through leaders whom they have chosen. Even so,
they rightly expect those leaders to reflect their values and

(10:47):
interests in everything that they do in office. And unfortunately,
many elected leaders think they are better than their constituents.
They are up here and the people are down there.
Their job is to do what they want, or what
they call un dictate, and then they have to bring
the people around here. I'm thinking about guys like John
Thune and other members of the GOP establishment. They have

(11:10):
to make sure they have good messaging. They study the
polymarket odds on issues and races. They have to figure
out how to communicate to people that what they want
is also what the people ought to want if they
knew what was good for them. Now, this type of
elitism is prevalent not only on the right but also
on the left. For the left, the people are irrelevant.

(11:31):
Democracy has nothing to do with what the people want.
Democracy means putting in place an entitled bureaucracy that serves
its all own interests while invoking the name of the people.
That's why progressives to need effective messaging to keep their
ignorant yahoos voting democratic. All these people who call Trump
and egomaniac are themselves the egomaniacal ones. They are the

(11:54):
ones who are truly arrogant. They think they know better
because they're smarter and because they have government experience. Even
when their voters grow disenchanted with them, they never blame themselves.
In fact, like Thomas Massey and Mike Pence, they congratulate
themselves on how lofty their consciences are and how noble
they are to have been thrown to the curb. The
MAGA movement is a repudiation of this type of elitism,

(12:18):
whether it comes from the left or from the right,
and the good news I think about guys like Mike
Lee is. They've done some important rethinking of what their
constituents want. They've made the necessary transition from the priorities
of the Reagan era to the priorities of today. They
were Reagan heights as I was, and now they are
Maga as I am. Ted Cruz has gone down the spats,

(12:39):
so has Mark or Rubio. It's not because their sellouts.
On the contrary, it's because they've come to see to
recognize what Trump recognized early on, what Brandon couldn't help
but realize because of his youth. They have updated their
politics in line with how the voters think and feel,
and this represents growth and wisdom on their part. Others

(13:00):
like Mike Pence and Thomas Massey have not been able
to make this transition. They're stuck in the past, stuck
in their old slogans, and thus politically obsolete. The GOP
has very little use for them. The only people who
have use for them now are Democrats, and so the
Democrats praise these stuck in the mud Republicans and the
Mike Pence types learn to appreciate the praise and respond

(13:22):
to it. They become excited about going on CNN and
being quoted by the New York Times. So this is
their new reality, being asked to speak at Harvard for example.
In short, they are the opportunists and sellouts. Make America
great again isn't just about returning to some America of
the past. It does, in fact mean restoring lost virtues

(13:45):
from earlier times, such as the traditional family, civic virtues
of revival of Christianity. But just as much, it means
returning the government to the voters. This is not direct democracy,
whether the people ruled directly, as was the case and
ancient Athens. But it is the next best thing, a
government that stays close to the cherished values and aspirations

(14:07):
of the people it claims to represent. And that's the
way I see it. Summer travel season is here, and
if you're planning to hit the road, catch a flight,
or spend time with family, now's the time to make
sure you have the medications you may need before you leave.
Think about it. Airports are crowded, schedules get disrupted. Being

(14:30):
away from home can make simple problems a lot harder
to solve. Having your medications ready before your trip gives
you peace of mind. Friends at all family pharmacy are
giving my viewers and listeners ten percent off the entire
website with promo code Denesh ten. They've got maintenance medications, Travelmed's, antibiotics,

(14:50):
anti virals and ad plus emergency and Haler's iibermectin, mebenzatol,
hydroxychloroquin and more, all in one place. And unlike our
broken healthcare system, that process is straightforward. You fell out
a quick online form license, doctors review your request, prescribe
if appropriate, and your medication ship directly to your door. Simple, practical,

(15:12):
the way healthcare should work. Go to Allfamilypharmacy dot com
slash DNS that's Allfamilypharmacy dot com, slash tennes news, Coode
dinesch ten for ten percent off your entire order today.
Here's the thing about crypto. It's here to stay. That

(15:32):
argument is over. But think about if this is a
market that never sleeps. It's moving at midnight, it's two am,
three am, and while you're asleep, who's watching. Because here's
what nobody tells you. Most crypto platforms give you a login,
wish you luck and call it a day. That's not investing.
That's gambling with your retirement and hoping for the best.

(15:54):
That's why I've partnered with block trust Ira. Block trust
Ira is Cryptora bill for Americans who refuse to be
on the losing side of that equation. Their award winning
AI engine navigates the notoriously volatile crypto markets around the clock,
automatically rebalancing your portfolio to protect your gains and limit

(16:16):
your exposure when markets swing. No panic, no emotion, no missleep.
At three am. Your savings sit inside a two hundred
million dollar institutional grade insurance shield, managed intelligently and secured
from day one. Their AI never sleeps. It's rebalancing your
portfolio around the clock, managing risk, responding to volatility, protecting

(16:40):
what you've built, automatically, intelligently, without panic. Voted Bitcoin Magazine
number one Technology platform, and that doesn't surprise me one bit.
Open your CRYPTOIRA today and block trust Ira will give
you up to a twenty five hundred dollars inflation shield
bonus straight in to your account. Go to dineshecrypto dot

(17:03):
com and sign up today. They can print dollars, but
they cannot plint crypto. That's Dineshcrypto dot com. Guys. I'm
delighted to welcome to the show my good friend Eric Mataxis.
Eric is the founder of the group called Socrates in
the City, and he is the author of a slew

(17:24):
of best selling books, perhaps most notably Bonhoeffer, which has
become a kind of contemporary classic. He's also the author
of the End of a Atheism. But the new book
the one that we want to talk about, and is
particularly appropriate on the eve of the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. It is called simply Revolution,

(17:46):
and it is a It is a tome. It is
a deeply researched, brilliantly laid out story of the American
Revolution in its widest significance. Eric, great to have you,
Thanks war thanks for joining me. Let me start by
asking you, would it be right to say that the
American Revolution was a singular event in world history, and

(18:12):
for the reason that, prior to the American Revolution, you
never really had any example of a self governing society,
of a society in which the people, we the people,
were in fact the shapers of the destiny of the nation.
You had other revolutions, but they never produced this kind

(18:36):
of constitutional self government which is now endured, as we know,
for two hundred and fifty years is that the importance
of the American Revolution. It brought something new into the
world that is now a kind of example to the world.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
I'm going to go with, yes, did I get it right? Honestly,
denize the trouble with talking to you. You know this
as well or better than I do, even though I
wrote the book this, Listen. The difficulty in talking about
the American Revolution is in seeming to overstate the case,

(19:14):
seeming to sound hyperbolic, when in fact we're only being factual.
My research on the American Revolution dramatically confirmed what I suspected,
what I think I knew. There is nothing to compare
to the American Revolution. The reason my book is not
titled the American Revolution. It's simply titled Revolution. There has

(19:36):
never been a revolution in the history of the world
to compare with the American Revolution. What happened two hundred
and fifty years ago was, as you said, a singularity
in the history of the world. It cannot happen again.
It never happened before. It introduced a new way of
being into the world of nations. Nothing like it had

(19:57):
ever existed before. Nothing really has duplicated it. We have
had you know, in the West we've seen kind of copycats,
but nothing, absolutely nothing can seriously compare to the nation
created two hundred and fifty years ago. And the most
dramatic example would be you say, oh, we have the

(20:18):
American Revolution seventeen seventy six, then they had the French
Revolution in seventeen eighty nine. Boloney, The French Revolution is
a joke. The French Revolution is a dramatic failure. Why
and this is so simple, And again I didn't well,
I didn't mean to write my book about this. My
book is simply a gallop through the history. It's an
American history book. It's a joyful retelling of all of

(20:42):
the events leading up to seventeen seventy five seventeen seventy six,
and then the war and the victory. So it's just
a joyful telling. It's a history book. But in the
course of doing the research, you can't help but see,
if you're honest, especially if you're a person of faith,
it kind of it grabs you that because the men
of the revolution understood that if we get rid of

(21:03):
King George, we can't replace him with nothing. In France,
you know, they behead the king and Queen and then
they kind of hope for the best and they get
a blood bath, anarchy, chaos, and then finally they get
worse than a king, a dictator, emperor Napoleon. Why did
it fail dramatically there and succeed dramatically here? And the

(21:25):
simple answer is the men of the revolution in America
understood that if we get rid of an earthly king,
we have to look to God directly, the way they
did in Sinai in the wilderness three thousand years before
the Israelites said we were going to govern ourselves. We
don't have an earthly king. Our king is the Lord.
Now you can't do that officially. It just has to

(21:49):
come out of who we are. You can't legislate that
everybody's going to go to church and be a Christian.
But this is what made our revolution succeed, and as
you put it, it is it is something that is unique,
genuinely unique in the history of the world. Why hadn't
it happened before? Why hasn't it really happened after? So

(22:12):
the dramatic aspect of what we're talking about, I'm glad
that in the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary we have
a moment really to appreciate that what we have in
this nation, what we created twohundred fifty years ago, is
genuinely unlike anything in history. We need to understand that
so that we can appreciate it and so that we
can continue it, because, as you know, in the last

(22:33):
number of years, we've drifted very far from this founding
vision and we've lost our liberties. We need to understand
where those liberties come from. So I think simply understanding
the story, really understanding it is now vital for every American, you.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Know, as conservatives by and large, the term revolution is
a bad word. Edmund Burke wrote his famous denunciation of
the French Revolution, and in it, Burke attacks the idea
of revolution because what Burke says is that look, societies
develop organically and they try various institutions over long periods

(23:13):
of time. So a revolution is going to come in
and knock everything down, because the word revolution itself means
to turn something like upside down, and Burke goes, it's
going to be a mess. Now he was completely right
about the French Revolution. Yeah, and one could say if
you look at other famous revolutions, the most famous being
the Russian Revolution, I mean these revolutions at the best

(23:36):
were ambiguous, but more realistically they both ended the French
and the Russian in complete disaster. I take you to
be saying that those revolutions tried to in a way
create something that was either secular or anti God. But
in the case of the American Revolution, the king was

(23:59):
replaced by kind of do acknowledgment that there is only
one true king, and that is God himself. Do you
take that kind of almost theological insight to be critical
to the American Revolution?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
I think it is. It's let's say, even more than critical.
It's indispensable, it's inescapable, it is not extra credit. It
is absolutely central. It is as central as anything can be.
And the funny thing is it makes sense, right, why

(24:33):
did people not govern themselves before? Why is it difficult
for people to govern themselves? I mean, even Thomas Paine
in you know, the very document Common Sense, where he
argues against monarchy, he's explaining that, you know, why do
we need government? We need government because man is fallen.
We need government. Okay, so we need some kind of government.

(24:54):
We're kind of government. And then he goes on to
say that monarchy is just this preposterous idea of heredity.
What is that that come from? So if you just
say we want to get rid of these institutions, we
don't want anybody governing over us.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
If you don't have God, if we are not governing
ourselves genuinely, it's going to be a free for all,
lunatic madness, anarchy, chaos, blood bath, and then the strong man,
the strongest man, the strongest force will eventually take over.
This happens over and over and over in history. It's
the normal way of things. But in our revolution you

(25:30):
have a unique moment in world history. You have these
Thirteen colonies that are dramatically Christian, dramatically Christian. The culture
is Christian. Everyone knows the Bible. It's just who we are.
We've come across the ocean in search of religious liberty.
Almost everybody came over wanting to be left alone to
worship God along the lines of the Protestant Reformation. That

(25:53):
was the warp and the woof of American culture. Then
in the next century, in the eighteenth century, you have
the Greater Way, George Whitfield preaching up and down the
Thirteen Colonies, reviving this Puritan spirit. This Reformation spirit, this
Christian spirit, and the founders, the revolutionaries really Samuel Adams,
John Adams in the seventies sixties, they saw this moment.

(26:17):
They said, we have people here in these thirteen colonies,
unlike anybody in the world, who've been governing themselves, who
have been effectively looking to God directly. And the bottom
line is, if people are disposed to obey God, disposed
to behave themselves because of their fear of God, their

(26:37):
love of God, their reverence for God, then you don't
need a strong government to threaten them. They're already governing themselves.
So here you have a moment in world history where
a number of these figures, George Washington among them, sees
that this is the case and that if we throw
off the shackles of George the third of tyrannical government,

(27:02):
we won't be free to wander and flail. We will
continue to govern ourselves. So we are not going to
be enslaved by a monarch, but we will voluntarily submit
ourselves to obey God. And John Adams and all of
those figures wrote about this that listen, if the population,

(27:27):
if the citizenry are not moral and virtuous self government
goes out the window. So in France chaos, they throw
God out and they just think it's all going to
work out. It's utopianist lunacy. In the Bolshevik Revolution, they
they kill the priests. In the French Revolution they kill
the priests and nuns. They're radically anti clerical, radically against

(27:49):
the church, radically against God, which leads to chaos. The
Maoist Revolution in China, all of these Marxist revolutions and
the French Revolution are at war with God, and they
claim we're going to put the people in charge. What
happens the people are enslaved under these communist regimes. Only
in America did we actually accomplish what we set out

(28:12):
to do. We said, we're going to get rid of
King George the Third. We're gonna get rid of it.
We're going to be independent of them, but we are
going to be voluntarily dependent on God. That is, it's dramatic,
it's inescapable. It's not taught in public schools, but it's
the simple math. There's just there. I guess the bottom

(28:34):
line is, even if somebody doesn't like it, or they
say I don't like that idea, I don't agree with it. Well,
here's the problem. Every single one of the founders saw
it this way, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who
are the least religious. So if we're at least honest
about the history, we understand that what enabled this revolution

(28:54):
to happen and then to succeed, every single person involved
understood that's the narrative. We're going back to the Sinai Covenant,
We're going to reject an earthly king, and we're going
to be free under heaven. That's it. Eric.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
This is a key point, I think because even within
the sort of sweep of American conservatism, it is widely
taught and understood that the key idea of the American
Revolution is the idea of a freedom of liberty. And
this can give rise to a sort of libertarian understanding

(29:31):
of the American Revolution in which freedom is the ultimate
well maybe not the ultimate end goal of life, but
it is the end goal of politics. It's the highest
political virtue. And of course if you affirm freedom in isolation,
then you're saying that it doesn't really matter what people
do with their freedom, because it is the freedom that

(29:54):
is important. Whether the American people choose to become entrepreneurs
or pornographers, whether they choose to live one kind of
life or another. The American founders are kind of indifferent
to all this, and you're saying, actually, no, the American
Revolution was created for a specific kind of people and
embedded in a specific cultural context. The cultural context supplied

(30:19):
the Ten Commandments, the story of the Exodus, and the
story of creation. It supplied the wisdom of the Psalms
and proverbs, and the American Revolution was created within that
and for a life that would be shaped by not
just the idea of freedom, but also by the idea
of moral obligation, and the good life was seen to

(30:41):
come out of that.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
There's nothing debatable about this, Tanesh. And it's such a joy.
I know you understand this as a joy to hear
you explain it. But this is not debatable. The idea
that we have been taught in American public schools, you know,
since I was a kid till now now, that you
can have liberty without all that stuff. We don't mention virtue,

(31:06):
We sneer at virtue or honor. These were foundational ideas
to every one of the men involved in the American Revolution,
and every one of them understood that we have to
be like ancient Israel in a covenantal relationship with God.
Now again, you can't legislate this. You can't put a
gun to people's head and say you will obey the

(31:28):
God of the Bible. It has to come voluntarily. We
have religious liberty. They understood it must be voluntary. But
if we don't have it, we cannot have liberty. And
so every one of them, John Adams and George Washington.
Some people dare to say, oh, he was a deist,
absolute nonsense. You can read what he wrote. He understood

(31:52):
that if we will behave in a way that honors God,
if we will fight the war in a way that
honors God, if our soldiers will behave in way that
honors God, God will honor us. God will be with us.
Otherwise we don't stand a chance if we stoop to
the barbarity of the British. And that's a big part
of my book is you see, the British were barbarous,

(32:14):
they were cruel, They sneered at God, they sneered at
the biblical faith of the colonists. They were decadent. It's
extraordinary contrast. The Americans said, We're not going to stoop
to that. We're going to be virtuous. We're going to
be good. Washington sternly and joins his officers to behave

(32:37):
in a certain way, to treat our enemies as we
would want to be treated when your captured. When you
capture them the way we treat them, we'll teach them
a lesson about how enemies ought to be properly treated.
Because the British treated us just sadistically. It's almost unbelievable.
And so this is everywhere I looked, and I thought,

(32:57):
why haven't I seen this before? Why have we sold
this narrative of lies that you can get American liberty
with French Enlightenment principles. That's simply not true. And again,
even if you want to believe it, none of the
founders believed it. So this lie that oh Jefferson believed
it or Franklin believed it, they didn't. I mean maybe

(33:19):
Jefferson later on did, and he got kind of swept
up into the French Revolution asad Thomas Paine. But when
Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are asked in seventeen seventy
six to design a seal for the new nation. What
do to the two quote unquote least religious founders come
up with? Franklin comes up with the image of Moses

(33:42):
parting the Red Sea as Pharaoh's army and Pharaoh are drowned.
This is the narrative. Jefferson comes up with the image
of the Israelites and the Sinai wilderness following the pillar
of fire and the cloud. Everyone understood, this is the
name narrative. We have been freed by God from Egypt.

(34:03):
We've been freed by God from slavery, from bondage, from tyranny.
We are now free. We're walking with God. We are
under his authority, which we voluntarily bow to. And if
we do not, he will take his hand from us
and we'll be on our own. We don't want to
do that. And so you have John Adams writing many
letters to Abigail and so many others underscoring this idea,

(34:25):
dramatically underscoring this idea. You have Washington himself underscoring this idea,
and so many others. So when I did the research
for the book, everywhere I looked, I mean from the beginning,
you know, seventeen sixty one, seventeen sixty two, sixty three,
when the whole thing starts, all the way to seventeen
eighty three, when John Adams and Franklin sign the treaty

(34:47):
in Paris, and it's all over. Everywhere you look, you
see this narrative. And you know, my book is full
of stories. And there are the great stories of the
great heroes, and Nathan Hale and Henry Knox and the
Battle of Brooklyn Lexington and Conquered and Bunker Hill and
this it's filled with these heroes and a few horrible villains.

(35:07):
But almost every one of them was on this page.
And I thought, we do them an injustice. We do
our history and injustice, and we do these men who
sacrificed everything an injustice if we don't at least acknowledge
where they were coming from. And this is very clearly,
dramatically where they were coming from. And for decades we
have historians and others have shoved this away, and I thought, look,

(35:30):
this is not my interpretation. Let the facts speak for themselves.
And so I mean, that's why I wrote the book,
because I said, we need a simple recounting of what happened.
But I did not expect in writing the simple story
of the Revolution, all these great stories that this narrative
would kind of bubble up, but it is absolutely everywhere.
I was shocked a little bit, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Let me ask you this. If I were to think about,
what are the forces that have tried to work to
undo the America in other words, counter revolutionary forces in
our history, I can think of two notable ones, and
I'd like to have you comment on them. The two
notable ones are the following the progressive movement of the

(36:14):
early twentieth century, which sought to undo the whole Madisonian
framework of separation of powers, checks and balances, that tried
to create the sort of very powerful and continuously growing
welfare state, which was the antithesis of what the Founders
had in mind. The other was the sort of moral

(36:36):
or perhaps amoral, maybe immoral revolution of the nineteen sixties,
which tried to subvert the kind of public civic virtue
that the Founders had worked so hard to kind of
affirm and inculcate in the society. You know, many people
think that somehow the Civil War was a counter revolution,
but I don't think so, because to my mind, when

(36:56):
I look at the documents of the Civil War, there
was a deep reverence for the Founding and the Constitution
on both sides. Right, they both appeal. Nobody said the
Constitution is a living document that sort of evolves. They
said things like no, but the Constitution is one hundred
percent on my side and the other side goes, no.
The Constitution of firms what we believe. But the reverence

(37:19):
for the Founding and the Constitution was unequivocal, both among
the Union side and on the side of the Confederacy.
But this changes in the twentieth century. So do you
agree that the to some degree the unraveling of the
American Revolution really begins about a century ago with with
Woodrow Wilson FDR. And then of course the sixties.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well as usual, yes, I agree with everything you say,
and I mean, listen, there's so much to it. The
undermining of God begins in the nineteenth century. Of course,
you know, whether you look at Darwin in eighteen fifty nine,
but one on you take God away, it all unravels.

(38:04):
You cannot work it out, The math does not work.
If you take God out, you cannot have America, you
cannot have genuine self government. So we have been let's say,
like a cut flower society where you know, you cut
off the roots and you say, oh, the flower is
still beautiful. Everything's fine, and three days later it's still fine,

(38:25):
but you know, three weeks later it's very dead. We
are at that point where if we do not reconnect
to our roots, if we do not understand that everything
that we want, everything that we like, cannot flourish apart
from these ideas. Every American used to know this, and
as you've been saying, it's been undermined and undermined and undermined.

(38:48):
And on the conservative side quote unquote, you know, the
libertarians or whatever have pushed this idea that well, we
can have this too. You know, it's all about the
free market. It's all about the way. Listen, none of
that works, including the free market, none of it works
if you wrensh it from its moorings. Nobody really understood
this better than Abraham Lincoln. I mean, he writes a

(39:09):
speech he's twenty nine years old and the Young Men's
Lyceum of Springfield. He understands that we have to be
connected to the revolutionary era, we have to understand where
these things come from. If we don't teach each other
these stories, if our children don't know the story of

(39:30):
Paul Revere's ride and what happened at Lexington and conquered
and the details of what does the declaration say and
why did they say this? And where do our rights
come from? From the government or from God? That was
the debate. Then every American understood this. If you stuck
a microphone in anybody's face in mainStreet, America nineteen sixty,
they all knew this. They all knew the names of

(39:51):
Samuel Adams and doctor Joseph Warren and the Sons of
Liberty and on and on. They knew. We all knew this,
But it has been pushed away and pushed away and
sneered at by progressives and leftists until you arrive at
a point where if we do not reconnect to this now,
if our children don't connect to this, and we don't

(40:12):
know this and celebrate this, it goes away. And you
and I have tasted some of that in the last
six years or so. What happens when when you really
turn sharply away from these things. So I feel that
in the two hundred and fiftieth year, this is a
moment to say, look, this is our history. Let's examine
it and if you look at it again, honestly, it's inescapable.

(40:37):
So I'm fascinated by how people push a narrative, usually
by you know, attaching themselves to Thomas Jefferson, saying, oh,
he was a deist, and he and he and he,
and you think, well, Thomas Jefferson had virtually nothing to
do with the revolution, and he really didn't even write
the Declaration of Independence. They act like he kind of
came up with this, you know, he was told to
take these ideas and to put them in some res

(41:00):
in form. And he was a great writer, and he
put them in beautiful form. And there's a couple of
notable senses. But even a sentence, we hold these twos
to be self evident, that's not even his. He wrote,
we hold these twos to be sacred and undeniable. And
Benjamin Franklin comes in and says, I think self evident
would do it better, you know, the Yankee. Whatever the

(41:20):
terseness of the great writer, the older writer, double the age.
So somehow this narrative has been pushed, you know, largely
through Jefferson, twisting Jefferson in a way, but using him
as this enlightenment stalking horse. You know it's all about
the French Enlightenment. The French Enlightenment gives you the blood
bath of the terror in the French Revolution, and it

(41:42):
gives you the dictator Napoleon. God at the center of
American culture gave us the freest, most prosperous nation in
the history of the world. These are radically different paths.
We need to understand why our nation has florid, and
we need to understand that these biblical ideas, every single

(42:06):
one of these figures. John Adams really at the head
of the pack in some ways, they not only understood this,
but they understood that if we don't do it this way,
if we don't covenant with God, if we don't submit
ourselves to God in the process of trying to get free,
it will go nowhere. And again, if you don't believe it,
you just have to see what happened to the French

(42:27):
just a few years later, and people like Thomas Payne
and Thomas Jefferson and others kind of thought, well, it's
sort of the same thing. Yeah, it's sort of the
same thing, but it's radically different and it does not succeed.
And I think again the stories, I was very moved
by the stories and by these men, Henry Knox, some

(42:48):
of these figures. They're just such beautiful people, such great characters,
and almost all of them were men of very serious
biblical faith. So I think, again, this is simply our history,
but we must know it. And I wrote the book
too because I thought, there are so many books on
the Revolution, but we kind of need one book that
tells the whole story in a fun way. I always
want my books to be readable, because you know, people like,

(43:10):
what should I read? There's so many options, and I thought,
I'll just do a very readable version of the American Revolution.
Here it is all the stories, but this narrative bubbles up.
And again, my book is not about the narrative. My
book is a telling of the story, but that narrative
that we've been talking about, it's simply inescapable from the
letters and from the narrative itself.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
The book is Revolution by my friend Eric Matexas. It's
just out, so get it now. Eric. As we close out,
you know, I was just reading a post by the
singer Martina McBride, and she is pulling out of these
America two fifty celebrations. She was evidently scheduled to sing,

(43:54):
but she makes this point. She goes, I thought it
was going to be a partisan celebration, and it's turning
out to be partisan and ideological. Now, let me tell
you what what I get from our conversation. What I
get from our conversation is following that the American Founding

(44:15):
was in fact partisan and ideological if you look at
it through a modern lens. In other words, I'm going
to go so far as to say that the founders,
all of them, were modern day Republicans. And by that
I mean that the left today associates with the word.
They use. It's their own word. We didn't foist it
on them progressivism, right, and we all know that if

(44:37):
they were organizing this celebration, it would be a kind
of glorified apology tour for America. The reason that young
people think that the Founding was horrible and the founders
were all racists is because that's what the progressives have
taught them for fifty years, from the elementary school all
the way through the college curriculum. So when they say progressivism,

(44:59):
what they really mean they won't put this quite this way,
is progress is defined as a movement away from the
principles of the American Founding. That's the living Constitution is
an apologia for essentially leaving the dead Constitution. I either
rail Constitution behind and creating a new document or a

(45:20):
new interpretation that leaves the old meanings kind of in
the grave. Us.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
You agree with us, Oh, look, as usual, I agree
almost violently with everything you say, which is why it's
a joy that you're out there, Dennis, because you understand this,
and it's vital that everyone understand this. It's vital that
everyone understand the the dramatic distance between you know, many

(45:47):
of our cultural leaders today, certainly the Democratic Party today
and the Founders. You you simply to be honest about it.
Unless you you love America and you love these ideas,
you're moving dramatically away from them. You're moving back. I mean, look,
there were people in America at the time, and there

(46:08):
were people in Parliament at the time that hated everything
we're talking about, and they sneered at it, just as
secular progressives sneer at it today. You know, give your
faith garbage. Please, you're nothing but hypocrites. Power is what matters.
We have the power, and you know you're the children
where the mother country, shut up, pay your taxes and

(46:28):
will treat you well. And the Americans said, no, no, no,
we actually believe these things. We believe our rights come
from God. We believe that to act and to go
along with those lies is to be complicit with evil.
We won't do that. We'd rather die. These are men
of honor, men of principle. It's beautiful and there are
many Americans that get that today. But they need to

(46:48):
know where it comes from. And again, they need to
know the stories. I mean the stories in my book.
Every American is i think, indebted to the to the
men and women in these stories and has a debt
to pay that You need to know their names. You
need to know these stories. So whether you get it
from my book or someplace else, you need to know
the history of this fount, of this nation, how we

(47:11):
came into being. It is unique, it is outrageous. It
ought never to have happened, but God ordained that it
might happen, and it did happen, and there are actual
miracles involved. I mean, nobody more than Washington acknowledged that
that the hand of providence over and over where we're
staring at defeat and something happens. So it's a beautiful story,

(47:32):
it's an uplifting story, but it's a story that most
in our generation and those younger don't know the details.
And I said, I want to write a book that
gives you the details because it actually matters. And we're
living at a point now where if we don't have
enough people who know this and can teach us to
their kids and can celebrate this nation, it's over. We're
We're in kind of a moment where I think it's

(47:55):
God's will that we prevail. But we have to know
these things, we have to we have to pray. And
the bottom line is all of these figures, I mean,
especially Washington, they trusted God dramatically. They knew that we're
going to try to behave in such a way to
honor God, and we're going to trust him with the results.
That's the way people can be free, that's the way

(48:18):
we can flourish. And you know that story needs to
be told over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
Eric Mettaxas, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Thank you, Denesh. Privileged to be with you.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Well, it's finally happening. I'm turning sixty five and I
got to take a little pause and do a little
bit of a shriek. You know, ah, I'm not happy
about this, and it also means I've officially become a target.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Now.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
For months, I've been bombarded by junk mail and robo
calls from insurance companies trying to sell me on their
Medicare plans. Like many government programs, Medicare is confusing, and
if you don't get honest and act secured advice, you
can end up on the wrong plan, overpaying for the
same coverage that you could be receiving for a fraction
of the cost. That's why I started working with Chapter chapters.

(49:10):
Licensed Medicare advisors offer unbiased guidance. They can review all
your options in under twenty minutes. In fact, if you're
already on the best plan for your needs, they'll tell you.
If you aren't, they can help you switch. There's no pressure,
no sales tactics, just straightforward help from people who understand
Medicare inside and out. And the best part is totally free.
I've worked with them. They help me navigate Medicare. I

(49:33):
know they can help you too, so give them a call.
Seven oh six two six two four seven seven four
against seven oh six two, six, two, four, seven, seven four.
Big news coming out on silver right now. The US
just added silver to the Critical Minerals List. What does
this mean? This is an important list of minerals that

(49:55):
are considered crucial for US security and economic viability. So
when you buy silver to help protect your savings, you're
also buying a critical mineral that's needed for the US
and it's economy to survive. That's why I want you
to reach out to my partners over at gold Co.
They're the number one gold and silver company in the country.
They have over eight thousand and five star reviews, and

(50:18):
they have the best gold and silver offer in the business.
So don't put this off, don't ignore the facts. Get
your free twenty twenty six gold and silver kit from
gold Co while you still can, and get up to
ten percent in bonus gold or silver while supplies last.
Go to dineshgold dot com. That's Dinesh goold dot com. Hey,

(50:42):
I'm now on substack. It's kind of full circle for me.
I started out as a journalist writing articles for National Review,
the American Spectator, the Washington Post, lots of places. After
my stint in the Reagan White House, I pivoted to
writing books, and that was way back in nineteen ninety one.
So I've been mainly known as an author and of
course later as a filmmaker. But my first job journalist,

(51:05):
and now I'm getting back to that. On Substack you'll
get original articles on commentary, groundbreaking investigations, exclusive access to
film clips and show clips and guess what, it's free.
So check it out. Go to Denesh Desuza dot substack
dot com. Guys, I want to announce I have a

(51:28):
new book coming out in the fall. I'm very excited
about it. It's called The End of Time, the subtitle Biblical Archaeology,
Prophecy and the Last Days. The book outlines the greatest
discoveries in Biblical archaeology that affirm the Bible, confirm the
presence of the Jews in the Holy Land, and also
support the twin foundations of Western civilization, which are Athens

(51:51):
and Jerusalem. The End of Time has rave reviews from archaeologists,
from leading pastors, and from prominent commentators of the book,
published by Charisma, book is available now for pre orders
on Amazon. So I'm calling a new early birds to
order your copies now. You'll be the first to get
it when it's out.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}SOUL OF MAGA

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

All Episodes

SOUL OF MAGA

Stuff You Should Know