Forty Year Anniversary

Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of Prager Utopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at pragerutopia.com. Hello everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. I am back From Florida, spent 8 days there. What I did was one of the truly wonderful weeks, 8 days of my life. The Daily Wire with Jordan Peterson, who is known to the great majority of you. He's one of the great thinkers, great in terms of thought and great in terms of fighting, one of the great minds of our time and our values. And he has come to believe, as many secular intellectuals have, like Douglas Murray in England, that our crisis is fundamentally a religious crisis. That the, the abandonment of God, and specifically the Bible, is the root of the chaos of the West. The sick, sick stuff that is taught to children from kindergarten on. I have, of course— I drop 'of course'— I have noted this all— not noted, I have emphasized this all of my life. I have always summarized my career as explaining to people the consequences of secularism, the death of Judeo-Christian values, the death of Christianity in the West. These have been the calamities of our time. There is no wisdom in secularism. There's knowledge, but there's no wisdom, and increasingly there isn't even knowledge. So I was invited to partake in the Exodus seminar, or Exodus project. I don't really know, I don't know the official name. It will be out later this year with Jordan Peterson, myself, and 5 others, verse by verse through the book of Exodus. For me, this was a dream come true to get the, the first 5 books out to even more people. Secular conservatives have done a great deal of good, great deal, no question, but they, they have not encountered the fundamental root of our problem, which is a religious problem. When society drops the Bible, it, it doesn't become atheist, it becomes pagan. There are more phony gods today than there were in the ancient Middle East, like the earth, like science. Has science ever told anybody, do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not covet? Honor your father and mother. Science has nothing, nothing to say. It has as much to say about good and evil and the meaning of life as a pebble. The stupid idea of 'I believe in science.' Of course I believe in science, purely as a methodology of arriving at scientific truth. But it is zero, zero with regard to telling me how to live a life, what is important, what is meaningful, how to treat my fellow human being. So what does it mean you believe in science? What else do you believe in? And when you see the utter corruption, the utter corruption that the left has done with science— American Medical Association announcing that birth certificates should not list the sex of a child because we don't know it yet. That's science? Men give birth and men menstruate is science? The suppression— the suppressing of doctors who believe in therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine and zinc or ivermectin, that's not science. That's communism. That's fascism. When you shut down scientists who dissent Wow, has this ever happened in American history, that doctors were forbidden to give a, a completely safe drug to people? Has it ever happened before? No, because science has been taken over by the scum. Sorry to come back in such a fighting mood, but here I am. It was invigorating to be with these wonderful people for 8 days. Well, of course, I'll inform you when it comes out. Daily Wire is doing a lot of wonderful things in America. The left has not yet won Canada. It's won. Jordan Peterson was returning to Canada, where he is a Canadian, as many of you know. And it was interesting, when I said goodbye to him last night in Miami, I said, you know, it's such an awful feeling to go from Florida to California, to go from freedom to corruption. And he said, how do you think I feel going from Florida to Ontario? He got me. California is freer than Ontario. Justin Trudeau is the only Western leader who praised Castro when he died, for good reason. He loves the man. He hates his truckers. But he loves his, his Fidel Castro. So this is, uh, a big week for me, and I would like to make it as meaningful as I can, as I try to do with every show. I will intersperse news items, but there's not much to report right now, which is perfect. It's August 1st. My birthday is tomorrow, August 2nd. As a result, we have fundraising month for PragerU. If you're worried about this country, please donate to PragerU. It's very simple, just to prageru.com. Half of our donations come through the internet, the other half from donors who give more money than is usually given on the internet. The other thing is, this is a milestone in my life. This week marks 40 years of talk radio, and I'd like to reflect on things that I have learned and take your calls on the matter. What it is like to have had a talk show for 40 years. 40 years ago, had you told me I would be speaking on a national show, let alone speaking at all. I— first of all, when you're young, 40 years seems like it will never happen. That's just the way the human mind is configured. But it's happened. And I have mentioned to you I've thought about this subject I bounced it off people to see, am I, am I deluding myself? But so far I can't figure out what's incorrect about my statement that I have spoken with, not to. I always emphasize there's a big difference between with and to. I've spoken with more people than probably any living human being. So somebody said, well, what about a therapist who sees 15 patients a day for 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Well, probably 15 minutes. I didn't know that there are such therapists, but I presume that there are. But even— I thought about that, and even such a therapist doesn't speak to as many people as I have because they have recurring patients. I, I have on occasion a recurring caller, but it's a rare thing. So it's really new people virtually every time. That has given me a laboratory of humanity. That is how I regard this show. And by the way, if you're a regular listener, you have the exact same— well, not the exact same, but you have a very similar experience. You're not talking with these people, but you're hearing humanity speak, or a chunk of humanity. And I have learned a lot about humanity. Most— mostly, in the case of my callers, good stuff, but some troubling stuff as well. I'll tell you one thing that is worth noting, and I have: talk radio can affect you much more than TV, and there's a reason for that. The ear is deeper than the eye. That's why it is much harder to fool the ear than it is to fool the eye. 1-800-PRAGER-776. Take your calls and keep going here. I'm Dennis Prager. The Dennis Prager Show. Even though rates are inching up, they're still historically low. So if you're tired of the high cost of renting, there's still time to buy a home, whether it's your first home or your dream home. Andrew Del Rey and Todd Avakian at andrewandtodd.com are the ones I recommend that you contact. To get you financing and into your new home. They're not just mortgage brokers, they're lenders with Sierra Mortgage. They've been through multiple up and down economic markets like the ones we are seeing today. They have years of experience to get you into your new home. Just go to andrewandtodd.com. Whether you're considering owning versus renting or seeking a safer haven for your family in a new state, now is the time to get a pre-approved loan to give you the edge over other buyers when it's time to make that offer. Go to AndrewandTodd.com today. Don't wait. Get your pre-approved loan today while rates are still historically low. Go to AndrewandTodd.com. Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here, and I'm reflecting on the 40th anniversary of my radio show this week. I'll be— I'll sound a little corny, but I'm not going to not tell you just because it sounds corny. When I was in high school, I wrote in my diary, which unfortunately I stopped keeping once I got to college, I wrote that I know what I want to do with my life, and I wrote the words influence people to the good. I had no idea how I would do it, let alone if I would make a living doing it. No idea. So I, I remember being worried in my junior year in college What am I going to do for a living? That's a pretty, uh, pretty good question when what you want to do with your life is not be a— is not, not, not be someone in finance or law or medicine or blue-collar work or any other white-collar job. I— it's amazing that I didn't sort of panic, but something came along. Amazingly, I was sent into the Soviet Union that year, my junior year, by the government of Israel, which— I had friends in Israel who told their foreign office there, which sent in young Jews to smuggle in religious items and to smuggle out names, people who wanted to leave. That I spoke— that they found this kid who spoke Hebrew and Russian. I spoke Hebrew from school from the age of 5. I spoke Russian because I studied it for 3 years in college. So they sent me for a month. I came back and started lecturing, and that was how I began a public life, lecturing on what I experienced in the Soviet Union. And then gradually my name was brought— I moved to LA to run an educational institute. So the influencing that I wanted to do began very, very early in my life. At 25, I wrote the most widely bought, or maybe read as well, Introduction to Judaism, with my co-author and friend Joseph Telushkin. And it was off to the races. I started radio at 30, 34. I was a kid. It was on ABC Radio in Los Angeles. And I have wonderful memories of being there before Disney took it over and ruined it. It was an amazing switch from ABC to Disney. They didn't have the idea of woke then. Disney ruined it by cheapening it. You know, I can tell you stories about that, but I'm reflecting on this. So it's a very powerful thing to have this. I was talking to you about the ear being more powerful than the eye. The eye is more emotion. If you see something, it's very much more emotional impact than if you just hear about it. However, when it comes to ideas and thought and values and all of that is not visible, the ear is of course much more powerful. That's why people call me and often say how much I've touched their lives. They don't say that about television figures, some of whom are wonderful. It's just not the same thing. Talk radio has been the most powerful force for conservatism. People talk about Fox News, and correctly so, but it doesn't compare in impact to the accumulation of all the talk show hosts who are conservative, all the stations in the United States. Europe doesn't have this. Canada doesn't have this. Australia doesn't. New Zealand doesn't. And when I started this, then I started thinking, wow, what I wrote in my diary is coming true. And little by little, went from a local show in Los Angeles, which is the second biggest market in the country, so it's not exactly a small market, My first show was as the moderator of a priest, rabbi, and minister— Catholic, Protestant, Jew— every week for 2 hours. And at that time, stations were obligated to have some 2 hours of the week without commercials. So I did 2 hours without commercial which is equivalent to almost 3 hours. It was life-changing for me. Life-changing. My introduction to Christianity for 10 years. And what an introduction it was to talk to some wonderful people. I would say that the average Christian clergyman was, was a delight to be with and talk to. And of course the rabbis, but rabbis I had known. And I realized, by the way, on this program, which I did exactly for 10 years, August '82 to August '92— August is the big month aside from my birthday for me— I realized then the great battle was not Jew-Christian. The great divide was not Jew-Christian. The great divide was right-left. We return. The Dennis Prager Show. Towels just don't seem to dry you anymore. They feel soft and lotiony in the store, but you get them home and they don't absorb. Well, Mike Lindell at MyPillow found that out around 2006, and towels changed forever. He found the best towel company right here in the USA. They have proprietary technology to create towels that feel soft but actually work, and that happens to be true. I use them. They are all made with USA cotton, and they come with the MyPillow 60-day money-back guarantee. 6-piece set, 2 bath, 2 hand towels, 2 washcloths. Regularly $109.99, now $39.99. Just go to mypillow.com and click on the new radio listener specials and get deep discounts on all MyPillow products, including the towels by entering the promo code PRAGER or call 800-761-6302 for these great radio specials. MyPillow.com, promo code PRAGER. Hey everybody, Dennis Prager, and fundraising month because my birthday is tomorrow, so we use August to ask you to help PragerU fight for this country and its values. We drive the people who want to destroy the West crazy because we're very sophisticated and we change a lot of minds, mostly young people. We have a billion views a year. A billion. Most of them are under 35 years of age. We have an international young people's group called Prager Force, and it is my delight during fundraising month to have a member of Prager Force on almost every day. Elise McGowan is almost 16. I asked her right before, I wonder what age people stop saying I'm almost. Can't imagine somebody say, how old are you? I'm almost 63. Elise is another one of these people who give you hope. Elise, welcome to my show. Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.

Thank you for having me on, Dennis. And I didn't know it was almost your birthday, so happy early birthday.

Indeed. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So let us hear your story for a moment. You are from Ontario, of course, Canada, correct?

I am.

What city?

Uh, Guelph.

And how far is that from Toronto?

About an hour with good traffic.

Okay. And your views of life prior to encountering the PragerU, if indeed that's even a fair way of characterizing it. We'll find out. Were they left, right, indifferent, apathetic, uh, not involved? What would you say if I had spoken to you 3 years ago?

Well, if I would, uh, sum it up, uh, briefly, I'd say that I was more, um, left-leaning, but out of not knowing. Um, I was fairly young at that point. This was a couple of years ago. So I would say I leaned left on a lot of issues just out of, you know, inertia. Save the planet. It sounds nice, you know, free health care. It sounds nice. You know, I didn't really know. But once I started really finding PragerU and some other sources and really digging into issues on an individual level, Uh, that's when I started to lean right on most issues.

Well, folks, if that means something to you, change a bright young person's mind. This is the fundraising time. Please go to prageru.com and help us touch great people. She's really terrific. Uh, how are you raised? Uh, Is your home secular, religious? What was it religiously?

Me and my parents are Christian, and I was raised going to church quite a bit. Our church, I'd say, either avoided politics or was more of a left-leaning church. So that definitely— I definitely did not get conservative values at that specific church. But like I said, once I looked into issues both from a logical and political standpoint, but then also from a biblical standpoint, then I did realize that, you know, yes, I do lean right. And also I have a strong— some of those values really do come from the Bible. And I also have a strong backing, not only logically but also biblically. Definitely for many of those views.

You have siblings?

Uh, yeah, actually I have a sister, a half-sister. She's actually 20 years older than me and she's still in Canada. She's in Alberta. She has two little daughters and they're a lot like sisters as well, so it's like I have three sisters.

The sister who's in Alberta, which is the most conservative of the provinces, maybe tied with Saskatchewan, How does she think about these issues? Left, right, center, or doesn't think about them?

If I'm going to be fully honest with you, we don't actually talk about it probably as much as we should, but I would say she's more moderate, leans right on some stuff, some of the more common sense stuff, and then Some of the other stuff Shaleen left on. I'm working on it with her.

I'm going to come back to you in a moment. And the obvious question I think anybody listening to you would have, or one obvious question, is how did you find PragerU? I don't know the answer. We'll hear it. Elise McGowan is a member of Prager Force, and her family moved from Canada to Florida. I want to talk to her about that. Hey everybody, Dennis Prager here. 40th anniversary of my radio show this week, this month. Been reflecting on it. I have so much to say. Now this caller, Bob in Pasadena, very interesting. Are you the Bob that I know?

Yes.

OMG! Exclamation point, exclamation point. An emoji. Ladies and gentlemen, this man was one of the only regular callers on my first radio show in LA. Let's see, you then were in your 20s, correct?

Yes, I just turned 63, so 40 years. Wow, fast.

Don't rub it in. So this— so after about, I don't know, his 5th call, I started identifying a very, very few people. And I don't like regular callers, not because I don't like them, but I want to give people a chance to come in the first time. But when Bob would call, his questions were so intelligent that I looked forward to hearing from you. So were you— did you hear me the first show I did?

I think so, um, because I just come back. I was expecting Carol Hemingway. I'd, I'd been, been out of Southern California for a couple of years, and I was curious, so I turned it on and, and it was you. And I don't know if it's your first show, but it might have been. It was certainly close.

Now Were you at the time religious?

Yes, yes, very much.

Okay, because one of the fascinating things about the audience of Religion on the Line, the priest, minister, rabbi, and Dennis Prager, and of course different priests, different rabbis, different ministers each week, was a very large percentage was atheist or agnostic and certainly secular. But of course we had religious listeners, but you just asked common sense questions in a very subdued tone. Have you— you've since married, correct?

Oh, I was, I was already married. We just had our first— well, actually, today is our 41st anniversary.

Well, congratulations. So, wow, you are married one year longer than I'm broadcasting. We basically have the same career. You made a living being married and I made a living doing a talk show. Do you have grandkids?

Um, no, no children.

Oh, you didn't have children?

Okay, right, right. Kelly has a health situation.

I understand.

Yeah, yeah.

What is your— what is your church?

Um, well, actually, with Kelly, we've been going— we haven't, because of her health situation, we do it on, on the, uh, what do they call it, the TV version, but on Jack Hibbs Church.

Oh, he's a very special human being. God bless you, Bob. You bring back wonderful memories to me. Hello everybody, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. Hope you had a good weekend. I had a great one. I just flew in last night from Miami back to Los Angeles, somewhat like going from Austria back into Eastern Europe when it was behind the Iron Curtain. Ask anybody who's moved from California to Florida, they can tell you that the feeling of freedom is palpable. It is so sad that one can actually speak this way. Everything the left touches, it ruins. You add California to the list. Fecal matter should be on, on the on the flag of California. I don't mean someone should poop on it, I mean it should be portrayed on it. Cities like San Francisco feature it. Amazing, amazing. But my friends, just understand something that you probably don't know if you're a conservative: the left doesn't think it's winning. It is an amazing thing when you have virtually every university, high school, and elementary school, when you have virtually all mainstream media, Hollywood, the medical profession, journalism everywhere. You would think that it's a very sick mind that does not perceive that it is winning, but they don't think that. I know this because I speak to people privately who are in the— who define themselves as centrist and who have people on the left as friends, and that is almost a universal response. Yeah, they can't— they can't believe how much vim and vigor trying to preserve American values is, shows, demonstrates in the United States. Which reminds me that this is fundraising month for PragerU because they chose August because it's my birthday. My birthday is tomorrow, and if you'd like to contribute in honor of the birthday, my birthday, or simply contribute in honor of this country and what it stands for, go to prageru.com and please do so. So I'm reflecting— it's not a big news day and I have a lot to talk to you about, but I'm reflecting on another big deal, certainly in my life and presumably in many of yours. This is the 40th anniversary this week of my debut on radio. To be in anything 40 years is not common. To be on talk radio for 40 years is almost unheard of. I don't know if there's anybody who's been broadcasting longer than I. I would be very interested. In fact, I would like to talk to them. Be fun. But the thing that I have noted is that I believe that I have talked with more people than anyone living. Not to more people. The head of China talks to more people in a 5-minute address than I'll ever talk to in my life. But with, that's a different story. I've learned a lot, and I'm reflecting on that. So here's another fascinating reflection: people are a lot brighter than a lot of people think. It's a very important subject, very important. Do you know that in all of these 40 years of talking to people I have rarely felt that I was talking to somebody of, of a truly inferior intelligence. I have often felt that I was talking to people who were confused, who didn't think clearly, but I almost never felt I was talking to a dummy. Now Dummies teach your children from elementary school to college, but these are not dummies in the sense that they don't have a functioning brain. They do. They may even have a good brain, but good brain doesn't mean you're not a dummy. But I have almost never felt I talked to somebody with an inferior brain. It's a very important revelation to me. Basically, people can get it. The reason people don't think clearly is that they don't think clearly. It is not that they don't have the mind capable of thinking clearly. This is one of the conclusions that I, I drew Early on in my career, I never talked down at any time in my show. Never. If I, if I use a word that I sense is new, and I always know if it's new because Sean looks it up, it's a very, it's a very big help, right? I mean, like if I use the word mellifluous Right, Sean? You'll look it up. And then not only that, we'll hear it pronounced by computer. I don't know why mellifluous came to my brain, but anyway, I've never— I have never talked down, neither with a caller nor in any of my monologues, which are common. In other words, my speaking not with somebody, but on my own. And the reason that I have never talked down is that I've never felt I had to. I knew that the vast majority of people understood something, even if it was brand new vocabulary notwithstanding the depth of the concept. I have an Ultimate Issues Hour which is very heavy duty on the intellect.

Maleficent.

There you go. I didn't think I'd get a woman. Interesting. Malifluous. That's right. Malifluous. Well, thank you, Sean, on behalf of the multitudes listening. It's a very important thing to realize that everybody, unless, unless truly an outlier, everybody has a perfectly fine intellect. Our problem is entirely one of what, what the intellect is used for. Clarity of thought and common sense are rare, but not decent intellect. That's almost the norm. It is the norm. There are always exceptions to anything. Some people with spectacular intellect, some people with inferior intellect, but the great majority of people have a fine intellect. So I adopted a motto that was, was not mine. It was actually one I had heard very early on in my career: never underestimate people's intelligence and never overestimate their knowledge. Very, very good thing for anybody who talks publicly or writes to understand. That's why I explain everything. I don't assume— if I mention the Gulag Archipelago, I don't assume— tragically, I wish I could— that everybody knows of it, especially younger people. So I will have to say the system of camps that killed tens of millions in Siberia, established by Stalin. I won't explain it every single time I mention the Gulag or explain Auschwitz. I haven't— I don't know if I've explained Auschwitz. I think I assumed— I, I assume everybody of the baby boomer generation knows what it is, but the young generation, I don't assume. I have no idea what the young generation knows. In Miami, I was signing some of my books to my fellow participants in the seminars on Exodus that I was doing for Daily Wire. And when I wrote it in script or cursive. He mentioned that he didn't think young people would be able to even read what I wrote. Do you know that when I sign my book or any of my books to a young person, I actually ask them, do you read cursive? Because it's useless for me to inscribe something to them that they can't read. They don't, they don't learn music, they don't learn art, they don't learn cursive, they don't learn grammar, but they do learn to question whether they're a boy or a girl. That's something. So we're fighting that. This is fundraising month for PragerU. Please donate at prageru.com. I will take your calls reflecting on the 40th anniversary of my radio career this week. The Dennis Prager Show. Are you a good person if you have good intentions? Many people think so. There are a lot of problems with this belief. In fact, good intentions are the source of much of the evil in the world. I explain that in my new video for PragerU. It's a life changer, I promise. See it at prageru.com, where we teach what should be taught. Yeah, I'm always asked if you could show one PragerU video to someone on the left. I don't— I never have an answer, but I think this is a good one. It's a good intentioned matter. So that's the latest PragerU video reflecting on 40 years of radio. And where is the guy who— yes, Dallas, Texas. Alan, hello. Good afternoon, Dennis Prager. Thank you, Dennis.

Uh, you know the man that I'm speaking about, I'm sure, because you grew up in the Big Apple.

And you know, I grew up in Mystic, Connecticut at the same time you were growing up in Brooklyn.

And, uh, I used to listen to stations in Boston and of course New York, and I couldn't wait Till Saturday evening to listen to Cousin Brucey.

A legend. 77 WABC. That's true. So he's on longer than I am. Well, I don't know for sure because— yeah, I looked it up. I— when I saw your call, I looked it up. However, his was not a daily show. Oh, you're gonna get me that way, are you? No, I didn't. I really— you crack me up. I wasn't trying to get you, and I'm not taking any credit. The guy's a legend, and deservedly so. So I won't say I'm on longer than anyone. That doesn't even matter to me whether I'm on longer than anyone. What matters to me is that I'm on this long— it's the 40th anniversary this week, and I'm reflecting on what I've learned about life. Massive stuff. Thank you for the call. It's a pleasure to hear you. Sounds like a happy dude. Tell you an interesting and sad thing that I learned, and I mean, and I literally mean learned. In other words, I did not know what I'm about to tell you prior to, to learning it from callers on the Happiness Hour specifically. How many people don't have a close friend? This was a revelatory thing to me because I speak about personal or micro subjects, as I call them, almost as much as macro subjects. Personal as much, or almost as much, as social subjects, societal subjects. I have learned so much about people's lives, and if you're a listener, so have you. But that was one of them, people calling up and telling me What I learned as well is how many parents and children are alienated from one another. At speeches, I will on occasion say, would you raise your hand please? And don't be embarrassed because it doesn't mean it's your family. Anyway, don't be embarrassed in any case. It's not— it's probably not your fault. But raise your hand, I would say, if you know any family in which an adult child does not speak to a parent. And the— I don't know how many hands, but at least half the hands go up. And, and I'm, and I'm generally speaking to conservative audiences. Well, maybe that's more common there because left-wing children will on more often than not stop speaking to a conservative parent. Personal integrity is not a big issue on the left. Social justice, equity, inclusion— they are. Anyway, I did learn that so many people are lonely, meaning don't have a close friend. By close friend, I give a definition someone to whom you can say just about anything. That broke my heart because I know how important friends have been to my sanity all of my life. Since 6th grade, I've always had at least one male in my life whom I really loved and never had a problem saying I love him. Yep, it was, it was thanks to my show that I learned this great, great statement of a caller that you've heard me state often, and I say it in speeches when I have the subject on the Happiness Hour of can you be happier than your least happy child. That's the phrase people say, you can't be happier than your least happy child, which which I don't happen to agree with. I don't— I believe you should not allow your— any of your children to hold your happiness hostage. And she called up, said she had a miserable daughter, acted miserably, was miserable personally, in her 30s. And she said, Dennis— I wish we had the actual call She said, Dennis, tell you what I decided. I didn't break her, I can't fix her. And I thought, oh my God, I just had a burning bush moment. That I have to explain a burning bush moment is a sign of our times. All through American history, every single person, even the illiterate, would have known what I was talking about. Moses at the burning bush encountering God. All right, let's see here. Glendale, Arizona, and Glenn— it's a little confusing. Glenn of Glendale. Hi.

Hi, Mr. Prager. So I've been about— I've been almost 10 years with you. I picked you up when I was, uh, a trucking— I was going to trucking school, and I was obviously listening to a lot of the radio, and I just heard this really wise man, uh, that was you. And I've been with you for about 10 years now, and the biggest takeaway I've gotten from you is the wisdom issue. You know, you talk about universities teach knowledge, no wisdom. And the beginning of wisdom, the scriptures teach, is the fear. Fear of the Lord is the wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And what I've noticed is in universities, there is no fear of God.

Well, not only no fear of God, just no God.

Amen. So that's what you're— you, you really, in the last 10 years, really drilled home on that with me, especially. I have a 12-year-old now. Now, you can have all the knowledge you want in the world and you'll still be a, a childlike person.

That's right.

Wisdom.

Well, you know, this is a great example. I assume that he's still a trucker, truck driver. There's no doubt in my mind he has more wisdom than 95% of the professors at any university, including the most prestigious. There's no doubt in my mind. All right, we continue on a Prager 776. I could certainly have had a normal show today, and there's, there's a lot I want to talk to you about that's happening, but there's no urgent news item that I feel I needed to cover. And it's August 1st, so I'm reflecting on the fact that I believe it was the first week of August that I began broadcasting 40 years ago. So it's 40 years and I thought I'd reflect on talk radio and specifically my talk show. So I've offered you a number of insights. Here's another one that I learned through speaking and through— in other words, non-radio speaking and through radio. You know what the most important thing in communication is? When you hear it, you— it will make sense immediately, but I'm not sure that most people would think about it. But you should think about it if you do any writing or speaking. It's pretty big. It's so big that it applies to all modes of communication. Including music, you have to be interesting. You could be brilliant, you could be wise, you could be everything, but if you don't hold people's interest, you will not— you will not get your ideas across. Think about teachers you had in school. The interesting ones could make subjects you didn't even care about interesting. The most interesting teacher I had in graduate school taught me a subject that at the time I didn't care about— international economics. It is certainly my, my a gap in my, my, my mind that I wasn't interested. But I'm leveling with you. Charles Issawi, I-S-S-A-W-I, a Lebanese American. He was a fixture at Columbia University. There was— that was at a time when Columbia was going left but had not yet ruined itself, committed suicide, intellectual and moral suicide as it has. The interesting can make something you couldn't care less about interesting, and the boring could make something you deeply care about completely uninteresting. The question is, can people who are boring when they communicate— or, well, can they? I'll leave it at that. Can they know it? Didn't you ever wonder when somebody droned on, whether it was a teacher or a clergyman? Yeah, I guess those are the two most obvious. I, I remember thinking this in high school. If the teacher was boring, does he or she know that they're boring? Is he interested in what he's saying? That would crack me up. I mean, how could somebody be boring and not know it. And yet it's— I would, I would imagine that that could happen. I think it did happen. It does happen, certainly, in talk radio. I can say this: there are totally different types, and Where there's left-wing talk radio, which is not common because they had— the left owns everything else, they don't need to have talk shows. But even where there is a left-wing talk show host on television, I promise you there is one thing every one of us has in common: we can hold people's interest, or we get fired. Interesting is to talk TV or radio what flying is to a pilot. You don't fly well, you don't get to be a pilot, or you get fired. It's very, very basic, but I realize it is basic in everything. You know my, my love of classical music. Why do I prefer one pianist to another? They're playing the exact same notes. It's always puzzled me. Why do I prefer one performance to another? And now I know the answer. And I did not know the answer until just a few years ago. They hold my interest even if I don't agree with their interpretation. They held my interest. That's number one. Hello, my friends, Dennis Prager here. This is a complete coincidence, but it's so fitting because I've been talking to you this show about this week being the 40th anniversary of myself of being on radio. And this was scheduled before I even thought about talking about this. I just— I literally thought about this last night flying home from Florida where I just spent 8 days, and I'll tell you why again later. And it is perfect because the, the man who hired me Ultimately the man who hired a legend, and I say that with absolute seriousness, in radio and beyond radio, Larry Elder. Larry and I know each other for much of the 40 years. I had the good, good fortune of meeting him in Cleveland, bringing his name to George Green at ABC in in LA, and the rest, as they say, is history. And we had a great time promoting each other's show because he would follow me, and the highlight of the day was the promo of, of his show when invariably we would insult each other to the delight of both of us. Larry Elder ran for governor of California, should have won if people had understood their own interest, not even the interest of others, just their own, and voted. But he made a tremendous impact on the nation in running with regard to the recall of Gavin Newsom. Who is as nothing a governor as any state has ever had. Larry has— Larry made a tremendously successful documentary called Uncle Tom, and now Uncle Tom 2 is coming out. You could see it at the Salem News Channel starting the end of this month, and you could pre-order it now, and you should, and you should watch it. Might as well get it as a gift for friends as well. Anyway, that was a good introduction, my friend Larry Elder. So question for you. Yes. All right. There you go. All right. Okay. All right.

Oh, please. Thank you. Thank you.

Nothing like canned applause, right? I mean, that's really what you needed.

No applause, throw money.

Yeah, exactly. So Larry, what does Uncle Tom 2 do that Uncle Tom 1 didn't?

Well, it goes deeper into the influence of socialists and Marxists in the civil rights movement. What they did was to tether themselves to the just cause that many blacks were pursuing but they had their own agenda, whether it was abortion, whether it was collectivism, whether it was government ownership of businesses, you name it. We have a lot of archival footage and speeches given by people who are communists that literally talk about how we're going to use the plight of the black man to sow dissent in America to achieve our objectives. It's about a deeper exploration of how government has become a substitute for family and for God. And by the way, you can see Uncle Tom 1 now for free. Just go to UncleTom.com. I urge everybody to see Uncle Tom 1 before they see Uncle Tom 2. And also you can go and see, you can preorder Uncle Tom 2 on UncleTom.com and on SalemNow.com. But Dennis, as you pointed out, the first movie was so incredibly successful. I am the executive producer. The director is a man named Justin Malone with a beautiful eye, artistic. It's shot beautifully and the music is just beautiful. And the first one, somebody said, Dennis, was a love letter to America about the work ethic of Blacks after slavery, about all the people like Booker T. Washington that worked to build this country. They didn't think of themselves as victims. They didn't sit around whining. They were aware, obviously, of the oppression, But the point was to put your faith in family and in hard work. And somehow, some way, that's been co-opted to now we have a whole group of young black people who are angry at the world, believe that America is systemically racist after the election and reelection of a black president, for crying out loud. We have a movement called Black Lives Matter where the co-founders admit that they are trained Marxists. And as you know, Karl Marx wanted to, quote, dethrone God. Well, the whole backbone of the civil rights movement was with church, with people like MLK and Ralph Abernathy and all the other ministers that made the moral argument that America should live up to its ideals. And now it's all been co-opted. And even the website initially of Black Lives Matter said that we need to get away from the traditional matriarchal, patriarchal family, and they're touting single-parent households. It's outrageous what's happened. And how so many young Black people now are growing up believing that somebody's out to get them and somebody's holding them back. Meanwhile, you have Cubans braving shark-infested waters to get here, Haitians coming up here, people coming up here from Central America for what? To be oppressed by the man? It's ridiculous. But that's what the civil rights movement has now become in America in 2022.

God, what a great monologue. Just great. I'm sorry you stopped.

Yeah, I was sitting on it. I saved it up. By the way, Dennis, the NAACP has their annual meeting. They just had it, and they're producing 4 separate things. First is reproductive rights. After the reversal of Roe v. Wade, somehow access to abortion is now a civil right, even though probably about a third of all the abortions performed in America performed on Black women. The second civil right is student debt forgiveness, even though most of it is held by white people who are middle class and upper middle class, many of whom attended these very expensive institutions and got the master's and PhD degrees. The other one—

Masters and PhDs in worthless subjects.

Of course. And then the next one is voting rights. Remember all this business about Georgia passing laws to suppress the vote? And what happened? They had the election in Georgia, and a greater percentage of Blacks voted than whites. And the final one is police brutality. Even though study after study after study shows the police kill twice as many white people as Black people, they kill more unarmed whites than Blacks, and if anything, the police are more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a Black person than a white person. But this lie has caused the police to pull back. It's called the Ferguson effect or the George Floyd effect. And the people that are killed, excess deaths that would not have taken place, are primarily the Black and brown people, the people on the left, claim that they care about. So this is what the NAACP is pursuing this year. Not one word about the breakdown of the family, not one word about the fact, Dennis, 85% of black 8th graders, 85%, can neither read nor do math at grade proficiency. I kid you not. 85%, that means 85% of black 8th graders are functionally illiterate. NAACP has not said one word about that. There are 13 public high schools in Baltimore, Dennis, where 0% of the kids are math proficient, and another half a dozen where only 1% is. That's almost half of the public high schools in Baltimore, and these are in the inner city, 0% math proficient, and another half a dozen where only 1% is. What are we talking about? Critical race theory, reparations? Are you kidding me? Are you smoking something?

Great. That's just great. I know there's no objectively correct answer to this, but it always interests me to think, do the heads of the NAACP think that with those 4 subjects at their annual meeting, they're actually helping Blacks?

That's an excellent question. I would love to put that question to Barack Obama. Who is probably the most influential Black person right now. Has he said a word about any of this stuff? Has he said a word about the fact that Bennie Thompson, the chair of the so-called January 6th Committee, referred to Clarence Thomas as an Uncle Tom? When Obama got that same treatment when he ran against Bobby Rush for Congress in Chicago, he was maligned as a carpetbagger who had gone to Harvard, who taught at University of Chicago, didn't understand the streets. They maligned him. As an Uncle Tom, but when this happens to other people, Obama says absolutely nothing. And Dennis, as you know, one of the reasons people voted for Obama is they said, okay, he may have some ideas we don't like, but at least he's going to bring around some degree of racial reconciliation. When he walked into the Oval Office the third week of January 2009, Dennis, his popularity was at 70%, even though he's elected with a little more than 52% of the vote. Why? Because so many people who didn't vote for him said, okay, at least he'll do this. What did he do? Every single time he could have done something constructive, he picked up the race card and he played it. Whether it was, if I had a son, he looked like Trayvon, whether it was embracing the Black Lives Matter movement, whether he was talking about Ferguson, even though we know that was a lie, whether at the time he said racism is in America's DNA, every single time he had a chance to say something sensible and calming, he went the other way.

Why? All right, go to SalemNow.com. And preorder Larry Elder's film coming out later in August, Uncle Tom 2. The, uh, the importance of what he's doing, uh, is, is unique. I think that's the highest praise I can give. We'll be back in a moment. Dennis Prager here with Larry Elder. The Dennis Prager Show. The question is, does this music give Larry Elder chills? I'm serious, does it?

It does, Dennis. I I really, I really miss it. Can I say a couple quick things?

Of course, you could say a couple of slow things.

Okay, have you been following this thing about, uh, the, the Muppet character that ignored these black kids?

Yep.

At this, at this theme park called Sesame Place, Philadelphia.

They claim it was racist.

Yeah, two class action lawsuits, $25 million each, right? And Jesse Jackson has weighed in.

Oh, then I know it's not true.

Of course, the theme park has apologized, but that's not good enough. Jackson now wants them to hire at least one Black member of its board of directors. He wants all the workers to undergo sensitivity training, and he wants the theme park to spend more money on Black businesses. Now, Dennis, I'm not saying that, assuming it's true that these kids were ignored, is something that should be completely ignored. It's about their parents teaching them that there are going to be some nutcases every now and then you're going to run into in life. But to characterize this as some sort of microcosm of the second-class status of Black people would be nothing short of child abuse. But that's what's going on right now. But Dennis, this is Philadelphia. Philadelphia has had more than one Black mayor. The chief of the police is a Black female. The legislature is roughly 8% Black. Both houses Black. The state is around 10% Black. And Philadelphia is on track, Dennis, for more homicides than at any time in their history. Most of these homicides are Black perps and Black victims. And the school system is so lousy. The average family in America, 10% of us have our kids in private schools. About 6% of Blacks have their kids in private schools. Of the Philadelphia government school teachers, K-12, with school-age kids, 44% of them have them in private schools. Has Jesse Jackson said anything at all about the homicides, anything at all about the fact that public school teachers in Philadelphia don't put their own kids in that lousy school system?

No.

But he weighs in on a couple of kids being slighted by Rosita the Muffet. Are you kidding me? This is what our so-called leadership is doing. I've said this many times, Dennis Prager, if bad leadership were a crime, some of these people like Jesse Jackson and the NAACP, they'd be on death row. It is offensive to me they're not telling kids to take advantage of the opportunities and they're not addressing the number one problem in America, which is the large number of kids who enter the world without a father married to the mother. 70% in the Black community, 50% in the Hispanic community, 40% of all Americans now enter the world without a father married to the mother. 25% of white kids do. And we're not even talking about this. They want to talk about nonsense. They want to talk about the alleged systemic racism on the part of the police, and it's getting people killed. Meanwhile, the big issues— poor education and entering the world without a father married to the mother— are completely and totally ignored.

That's right.

The other thing I wanted to mention Is what you didn't say, Dennis, is the reason I ran for governor is that you and a few other people strongly encouraged me. Just as you were instrumental in my radio career, you've also been instrumental in my political career. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have run for governor. And I'm giving some thought to running for something even higher, but I'll leave that to your imagination, what that might be.

Boy, am I tempted to talk about that, but I know you want to unveil those thoughts on your own, and I will facilitate it to the best of my ability. I think there is no doubt in my mind you should have a national stage for what you have to say, because nobody says it better. Very few say it as well. And you also— this was a great dry run for you in California.

And if you think about it, I got 3.5 million votes. I know that my opponent got 7 million, but on the replacement side, Dennis, California has 58 counties. I carried 57 of the 58 counties. The only one I didn't carry was San Francisco, and I lost that by, wait for it, 149 votes. We didn't spend one dime, one minute campaigning there. And the candidate that the Republicans wanted, Kevin McCarthy wanted, is a two-term former mayor of San Diego. His name is Kevin Faulkner. I took San Diego County by 32 points. We raised $22 million in 7.5 weeks. We got 150,000 donors, individual donors. Half of them were from outside of California. They never been to California. They weren't coming to California. They had no businesses here, but they just knew how California went, so goes the rest of the country. We have, as you know, supermajorities of Democrats in the state assembly and the state senate. And look what we got. We got our finances are a wreck, our schools are a wreck, half third graders can't read at proficiency levels. We have a governor who believes in hiring DAs that believe in cashless bail. He just now set up a task action, a task force for reparations. He's banned gasoline-powered cars by 2035. He's already banned gasoline-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers. He's mandated that if you're a big toy store, You have to have a gender-neutral aisle. He's just gone further and further and further to the left. And he's the alternative to Joe Biden if Joe Biden doesn't run in 2024? Are you kidding me? So I set up a PAC called Elder for America. I'm asking people to throw a little something in the tip jar. We're trying to take back the House, take back the Senate, campaign for school choice, campaign to get rid of critical race theory, and campaign for initiatives that strengthen the nuclear intact family.

And he's coming out, or he's already made it of course, but his next edition of Uncle Tom, his great documentary Uncle Tom 2, is coming out at the end of this month. And you can pre-order it at salemnow.com. And if you've seen Uncle Tom, you certainly want to see Uncle Tom 2. If you haven't seen Uncle Tom 1 You can see it for free at UncleTom.com, and I assume at Salem Now as well. Could you see Uncle Tom? Great. So go to, go to, go to that way. It's good for Salem and it's good for Larry. Larry, I want to bounce something big, big macro theme because that's how I think off you. We, there are parallels. There's a, I'm thinking of one parallel in our lives that you may have not thought of as long as you and I know each other and are quite close. So I underwent a fascinating realization early in my life. I was raised in a very Jewish world, Orthodox Jew, Brooklyn, New York. It was pretty insular, and I heard a lot about Christian antisemitism. This was, after all, not too long after the Holocaust, and Jews were preoccupied with antisemitism, understandably, and there was a lot of Christian antisemitism in Europe historically. Then my life brought me into contact constantly with Christians, and all I met were wonderful people. And I have a feeling that there's a parallel in your life in that you are immersed with white people And they're not particularly racist, just as these Christians were not particularly anti-Semitic. So comment on that when we get back, because I have the chills when I talk about this, right? And I have a feeling Larry resonates. Uncle Tom too. And of course, while you're at it, folks, this is fundraising month beginning today, August 1st, because tomorrow is my birthday. So we chose August for PragerU at prageru.com. Help us help this country. The Dennis Prager Show. Hey everybody, speaking to Larry Elder, now nationally known as he should be, and I've known how much he should be known. From the first minute I met him. When did we meet Larry in Cleveland? When was that? What year?

I want to say 19— maybe '90, '91, around in there.

Yeah, it's a great story. I won't get into it now, although it is my 40th anniversary on radio and I've been talking about that. And Larry's played a big role as my comrade in arms. But I said something before, which is touching. And I want you to react. And I said that there's a parallel in our lives when I came as a Jew to know all these American Christians and just sort of fell in love with them, and you as a Black came to know all these whites, again conservative whites in particular. And I can't speak for you, but I have a feeling that you had a similar response. So you just feel free to react to this.

Well, Dennis, you know, you know my mom. My mom adored you. My mom's favorite show was Christian on the Line.

Religion on the Line.

Religion on the Line. And she feels that was your best work. And my mom taught Sunday school. I went to church every Sunday. I had a very, very Christian-oriented background. And when I ran for office, it was interesting. The evangelical community embraced me. My pastor is Pastor Jack Hibbs of the Calvary Church in Chino Hills. He embraced me. Joe Pettick, who has a Calvary Church in Huntington Beach, embraced me. Rob McCoy, Thousand Oaks. The Christian community that did not embrace me was the Black Christian community. I had a Zoom call, maybe about 8 different Black pastors. It was the most contentious of the 100 different events I did over the course of 8 weeks. And everything was going okay until I told them that the number one problem facing the Black community was not systemic racism. It was a breakdown of the Black family. And they went nuts. They all began telling me about individual instances in which they had encountered with the police that they thought were bad. They talked about Derek Chauvin. And I said, however you feel about Derek Chauvin, and I believe the verdict was just, there is zero evidence that what Derek Chauvin did was because of George Floyd's race. Even the lead prosecutor, a Black man, never argued that what Derek Chauvin did was motivated by race. He was not charged with a hate crime. And Dennis, they went nuts. I said, here you guys are, role models, you are leaders in the Black community, and you are ignoring the 800-pound elephant in the room, which is the absence of Black fathers? How dare you? But I'm a bad guy? I'm an Uncle Tom? and it was really quite contentious. There were a handful of black pastors that embraced me, but for the most part, the black Christian community wanted nothing whatever to do with me. They think I'm a sellout, think I'm an Uncle Tom, while they're pursuing all these nonsensical kinds of issues and ignoring the big ones.

So it's another parallel between us because I suspect that my most contentious sort of meetings, if you will, are with liberal Jews. Because I'm a Jew and I have the audacity to say that conservatism is closer to Judaism than progressivism, that Christians in America are our best friends, not our enemies. It's very sad what we're what we've both experienced in, in chunks of, of our community. But I believe that you can make an impact above the heads of so-called Black leaders to a lot of Blacks. Is that you? Is that your feeling?

That's my feeling, Dennis. I mean, you look at the Black community again, 70% of Black kids enter the world without a father married to the mother, a 50% dropout rate in the inner city, 25% of young Black boys living in the inner city have criminal records. What has the Black leadership done other than made things worse? And the treatment that I got from the Black media, an LA Times columnist whose initials are Erica D. Smith referred to me as the black face of white supremacy. A Latina columnist, Jean Guerrero, called my views white supremacist. Tavis Smiley, longtime radio broadcaster and PBS broadcaster, called my views anti-Black. And I've known Tavis for about 20 years. I said, Tavis, why are my views anti-black? He said, well, you're opposed to reparations. I said, Obama was opposed to reparations until a year ago. Was he anti-black until a year ago? He changed the subject.

That's fascinating. I did not— Obama has come out for reparations. Oh yeah. All right, listen, listen, Larry, let me tell everybody, because I'm going to do a part 2 with you. Uncle Tom 2 is coming out at the end of the month. You can, uh, you can now pre-order it at SalemNow.com, where you could also see the first Uncle Tom for free. Definitely pre-order it. We've got to make this a national event, Uncle Tom 2. All right, Laird, it's always great.

My pleasure, Dennis. Thank you. God bless.

He has blessed me. God bless you. That's what I always tell people when they say, "God bless you," that he has. Dennis Prager here. Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire 3 hours of my radio show commercial-free every single day, become a member of PragerTopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep. Subscribe at prageropia.com.