In this monologue from The Dennis Prager Show, Prager argues that the COVID‑19 lockdowns imposed by governments, guided by public‑health experts and amplified by the media, constitute a self‑inflicted "mass suicide" of civilization. He contends that experts lack wisdom despite their knowledge, and that their policies are causing far‑greater harm than the virus itself. Prager cites a range of statistics and anecdotes—spikes in crisis‑hotline calls, increases in domestic‑violence reports, shelter overcrowding, and UN warnings of famine in dozens of countries—to illustrate the mental‑health, humanitarian, and economic fallout of lockdowns. He references specific figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Emanuel (Biden’s science advisor), journalist Nicholas Kristof, former WFP chief David Beasley, MIT economist Esther Duflo, and UN health expert Dr. David Nabarro, using their statements to underscore his critique. Prager also presents demographic arguments, noting lower percentages of elderly and obesity in many developing nations, suggesting that lockdowns are unnecessary and harmful there. Throughout, he frames the issue politically, contrasting conservative concerns for the poor with what he portrays as left‑wing indifference, and condemns the media’s role in perpetuating the policies. The overall narrative is a polemical warning that the lockdown response is a humanitarian catastrophe driven by expert and media overreach rather than the virus itself.
Chapters
All this is self-inflicted, by the way. This is not inflicted by the coronavirus. It's inflicted by the media and scientists. I've had contempt for experts my whole life because they have no more wisdom than your 8th grade child. They have knowledge, they have no wisdom. In some cases they do, obviously, but people in the secular society which worships knowledge, not wisdom. There is no wisdom in secular life. There's only knowledge. Everything I've said my whole life is unfortunately being vindicated at this moment. We have— it's the world has committed suicide based on experts. Okay? And they can't be proven wrong because if not, if there were a tiny number of deaths, which is what we have now, is a tiny number of deaths. If it's tiny, oh, you see, thank God you listened to us. If there's a huge amount of deaths, you see, we told you. They got it, nothing that could happen that could show what fools the experts are and the media and the left. It's really angering. I'm not angry on my behalf. I get my salary. I have a lovely home. I'm doing fine. I'm angry on behalf of vast numbers of other people people in America and elsewhere ruined by politicians believing experts. Then why even have politicians? Just have experts, right? What's the point of having leaders if the experts make the decisions? Correct? Ah, but you'll say, you see, oh, conservative doesn't believe in experts. There you go. Their tautology works. Experts are experts, therefore experts should be listened to. Listened to, agreed, obeyed, don't agree. Should these predictions materialize, and if history can be our guide, we are going to lose tens of thousands of American lives to suicide. Or more if these impacts of a 3-month shutdown were extended to realize Emanuel's plan of 12 to 18 months of shutdown. He's the advisor to Biden. On that alone, if you vote for Biden, you're a fool. Man advocates that we stay locked down until a vaccine, and he is the science advisor to, to Joe Biden. But it doesn't matter. Hating Trump is more important than saving jobs, saving lives. Nothing is as important as hating Trump. It is a pathology. After only a few weeks of lockdown, calls to crisis hotlines increased from 1,000 to 25,000 a day in Indiana. Wow. Did you hear that? In one— in a day, from 1,000 to 25,000 calls to crisis hotlines in Indiana. And 8,900% Los Angeles. And we don't even have— it's exceedingly rare even to die here in LA where we live. 1 in 5 calls in LA express suicidal desire. You fools who've directed this policy. Sweden will show you up. Domestic violence spikes in times of home confinement after only one week of shelter-in-place. Women's shelters in the Dallas-Fort Worth region were fielding an increase in, quote, extremely violent calls that are COVID-19 related, unquote, according to Paige Flink, CEO of The Family Place. Running out of space, they diverted victims from shelters to hotels. Is that being reported on CNN? And then the well-meaning, foolish, but he is well-meaning, Nicholas Kristof, unlike Krugman, who I think is actually a mean-spirited human being, and most of the people who write at the Times on the opinion page, I think that Kristof means well. Dennis Prager, but it's just a naive, foolish man. But I, you know, I know he means well. More suffering is ahead for the developing world. But of course, I'm sure he's for the lockdown, right? They act as if the lockdown was made by the coronavirus, not by people. It's so amazing, the delusions that these people live with. We are not only facing a global health pandemic, but also a global humanitarian catastrophe. David Beasley, a former South Carolina governor, was executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned the Security Council this week. We could be looking at famine in about 3 dozen countries. Congratulations, experts. Congratulations, Dr. Fauci and all, and the New York Times and CNN. Congratulations. Congratulations. By the way, not just them, the media in all these countries. I'm just picking on the US media, composed of extremely foolish, sometimes just mean-spirited humans. Congratulations. Famine in 3 dozen countries. That's UN. You— that— it's— therefore it's holy writ for you folks. The virus is particularly likely to kill older people. Especially those suffering from pre-existing medical conditions. And that's where developing countries have a huge advantage. So we're making these— PSY said the day he did it in India, I said, what a stupid thing to do. The elderly are disproportionately in affluent countries because affluent people don't have children because they're so secular. And they don't want to be bugged in their affluence. Uh, please take care of a kid? I'd much rather go out to dinner. Anyway, you won't have many places to go out to dinner after this. Only 2% of people in Angola— that's astonishing— Burkina Faso— if you don't know where Burkina Faso is, it's the former Upper Volta— or Kenya are over the age of 65. In Haiti, 5%. India, 6%. It's another reason India shouldn't have done it. Kids don't die from this thing. In contrast, 23% in Italy and 16% in the U.S. are over 65. 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, a significant risk factor for the coronavirus. That's a far greater share of the population than in the developing world. Put that all together and how badly will COVID-19 strike poor countries? This is Nicholas Kristof, a liberal, I wouldn't call him a leftist, at the New York Times. We just don't know, Esther Duflo, an MIT economist who won the Nobel in Economic Science last year, told me. Dr. David Nabarro, a veteran UN global health expert, put it this way: we can only have hypotheses. And the hypotheses are vaguely hopeful. So what does it mean? They're vaguely hopeful that they won't die of the disease, but we in the West decide we would, and so they can't have any money and they will have famine and die. Thank you, experts. Thank you, Western media. The havoc these people— oh, we're internationalists. Turns out the conservatives give a lot damn more about the the peasant or the poor worker in Cambodia than you guys on the left do. This is a very human-induced mass suicide. Never thought I'd see it. The Dennis Prager Show, live.
