Red vs. Blue

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 pragertopia.com.

Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. I'm John Hinderacker from Powerline, filling in for Dennis today. And some of you might not be aware of it, but in addition to writing for Powerline, I am the president of Center of the American Experiment, which is the conservative policy organization, really the only policy organization based in Minnesota. And American Experiment is having its annual dinner tonight. This is our big annual fundraiser. It's the biggest conservative event every year in the state of Minnesota. And Dennis Prager is going to be our keynote speaker at our annual dinner tonight. So while Dennis is jetting across America to get to Minnesota for our event, I am sitting in for him on the radio, and I'll be with Dennis later on this evening. So I'm delighted to be with you today on the Dennis Prager Show. I want to start the show today talking about one of the phenomena that we're all aware of, and that's one of the really important things going on today in the United States, not just in our political life, but really in every aspect of American life. And that is the ongoing sorting of states into red states and blue states. It seems as if the red states are getting redder, the blue states are getting bluer, and there are fewer purple states all the time. There used to be a number of states where legislatures would be split. The House might be Republican, the Senate Democrat, or whatever. Or you'd have a legislature of one party and the governor of a different party. That's becoming less common all the time. And in fact, my home state of Minnesota was the last state that had a split legislature. We had a Democratic House and a Republican Senate until last November's election. And unfortunately, we now have a Democratic Senate to go with our Democratic House. And I believe it's the case that there's not a single state in America today that has got a split legislature. Every state is either a Republican state or a Democratic state. And I think another, another place where we see this is that we don't have many Senate delegations of different parties anymore. That used to be relatively common where a state would send one Republican senator to Washington and one Democratic senator to Washington. Not too many years ago, my home state of Minnesota simultaneously had the most liberal senator in the United States, Paul Wellstone, and the most conservative senator in the United States, Rod Grams, serving simultaneously. That was pretty unusual. But that kind of thing doesn't happen much anymore. States are sorting themselves more and more into either the red state category or the blue state category. And fewer seem to be purple. And one of the things that we are seeing as part of this process, and really an important demographic change across the United States, is that there's a lot of migration. From state to state, and a lot of it seems to have to do with the red and blue nature of the states. And for better or worse, this migration seems to be pretty much a one-way street. We're not seeing a lot of people abandoning the red states so that they can move to California or Illinois or New York. The migration that we're seeing is overwhelmingly in the other direction. That is, people leaving blue states, which increasingly have floundering economies, high taxation, high levels of crime, and a lot of kind of social dysfunction. So increasingly, we are seeing people migrating away from the blue states and toward the red states. And we all know about this.

This.

I mean, this is not a novel observation. I mean, we all know that people are leaving California. It's kind of an amazing thing. California has gained seats in the House of Representatives in every census until the 2020 census. For the first time, California lost seats in the House of Representatives. People are leaving California. And people are leaving New York, New York State and New York City in huge numbers. And they're moving overwhelmingly to red states, and in particular to Florida. Illinois is another state, large state, large blue state, that is suffering this net exodus of population. And I think everybody knows that the two biggest states that are gaining population, and they're getting new seats in the House of Representatives instead of losing seats, the two big red states obviously are Florida and Texas. And huge numbers of people are migrating to those states. Many Californians are moving to Texas, some also to places like Colorado and Arizona. And many New Yorkers, as well as people from other states, are moving to Florida. But in addition to the big two, Texas and Florida, there are other red states that are doing very well in terms of net population gain due to migration from other states. So we see states like Tennessee. Half the people I know, I feel like, are moving to Nashville. Nashville is this magnet that is attracting people from across the country. So Tennessee is growing. South Carolina is growing. South Dakota is doing very, very well, gaining population. And so liberals in the United States have got a real problem. They see this, and everybody knows about it. They can't hide it. They see that people are increasingly leaving the states that they govern, and they're moving to the states that they don't govern. And the problems that are being experienced in states like California and New York are so obvious and so well-known, and their fiscal problems are so severe, that liberals have a very hard time holding up those states, or Illinois, same thing, and saying, look at the success of liberal governance. Look how great it works to follow liberal principles, because nobody's gonna buy that. Everybody understands those states have got a lot of problems, and that's why people are leaving them as fast as they can go. So what are liberals going to do? Well, one of the things liberals are doing is holding up Minnesota, my home state, as the exemplar of a blue state with very liberal government, very liberal policies that is successful, unlike states like California and New York. And this is actually not a new thing. If you've lived in our state for a while, it's like everything old is new again. This is not the first time or the second time that Minnesota has been held up by liberals as the paragon of a blue state that is actually successful. And many people remember the famous cover story in Time magazine back when Time was actually a big deal, still publishing a print edition and still widely read back in 1973. And in 1973, Time magazine did kind of a famous cover story where they had a picture of Wendy Anderson, who at the time was the Democratic governor of Minnesota, And he's fishing on one of our northern lakes, and he's holding up a walleye that he's just caught, wearing a plaid shirt. And there's a big headline across the front of the COVID of the magazine that says, "Minnesota, the state that works." And there's this article then, the COVID story is this pan of praise to the state of Minnesota and the turn that the state at that time had taken to the left and the Time magazine article praised Minnesota's DFL Party, Democrat Farmer Labor Party, for having the courage to significantly increase taxes, among other things. And so all the way back in 1973, the national Democratic Party, the liberals around the country, were holding up Minnesota as the successful blue state. We've seen that in the time that's gone by since, too. Barack Obama, when he was president, talked about Minnesota as being such a successful state. And he contrasted Minnesota with Wisconsin because at the time, Wisconsin, which actually is a lot like Minnesota, happened to have a Republican governor, Scott Walker, while Minnesota had a Democrat governor. And so Barack Obama really misleadingly contrasted the two states and garbled some statistics. But again, to the point that Minnesota is the successful blue state. So, this is something that I think is worth talking about because if you haven't been hearing this theme yet, wherever you live around the country, I think you're going to start hearing it. I think more and more, we're going to see liberals around the country holding up Minnesota as the paragon that other states ought to emulate. And I wanna refer to some liberal news stories of the last week or two that have promoted this theme. And here's one, for example, from the Daily Beast. I'll just kinda tease this one and come back with more after the break. This is the Daily Beast. They say, Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz is the anti-DeSantis. Dems take note. You heard that correctly. Liberals are actually promoting our governor, Tim Walz, who you probably have never heard of, as the antidote to Ron DeSantis of Florida. We're going to have more on this, and we're going to be joined by economist John Phelan after this break.

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Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show. I'm John Hinderacker from Powerline, filling in for Dennis today. Before the break, we were talking about this great sort that is going on between blue states and red states and the migration that we're seeing, which is typically away from blue states and toward red states. And in particular, at the end there, I was talking about the fact that while California and New York and Illinois are pretty obviously failed states by any reasonable standard, liberals around the country are now turning to Minnesota as the state that they can hold up as being successful, despite being blue. We are joined now by John Phelan, who is an economist at Center of the American Experiment. John, as you'll be able to tell when he starts talking here in a few minutes, is not from Minnesota. He is from England. And has an advanced degree from the London School of Economics. I want to pick up where we left off before the break, talking about the fact that the American left is increasingly using Minnesota as its example of a blue state that has succeeded and can succeed. There's this Daily Beast article that I teased right before the break where they say Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz is the anti- DeSantis Dems, take note. And I'll just read a little bit from this piece. It's just interesting to see what they're doing. The Daily Beast writes, with the prospect of DeSantis winning the GOP nomination, Biden will look decrepit by comparison. Well, that's true. A common lament among Democrats is that there is not somebody younger and more vital to support, but the Democrats need only look to Minnesota for a candidate 22 years younger who calls out bullies when he sees them and stands up for what he seems to actually believe. And they talk about some of the, the blue achievements that we've seen in Minnesota. For example, a quote here: On March 3rd, Walz signed a bill making 55,000 felons eligible to vote. Well, that's true, that did pass the legislature and Walz did sign it. 55,000 thousand felons now voting. And it goes on to say he, that's Tim Walz, also further proved that the Democrats do in fact have an alternative who can stand up to whichever bully the Republicans nominate. That's the Daily Beast. Then we've got the New York Times, reliable mouthpiece of the national Democratic Party, and they too are hailing the spate of left-wing legislation that is making its way through Minnesota's legislature. And they begin by talking about legalizing recreational marijuana, which is, they say, the latest in a string of policy moves to the left. And I'll quote here the New York Times: Despite having only a 1-seat majority in Minnesota's Senate, Democrats have moved swiftly to push through a pile of liberal legislation. Minnesota legislators have codified abortion rights, funded school meals for all children, set a goal to transition entirely to clean energy by 2040, and allowed unauthorized immigrants to get a driver's license. And it goes on and on. Governor Tim Walz called this a transformative moment for Minnesotans, as Minnesota is becoming a refuge for people who have lost rights in Republican-led states. They quote Tim Walz. Tim Walz says, "We are now an island of decency." Just think about that for a moment. Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, says, "We are now an island of decency." What's he talking about? He's talking about the fact that based on legislation that has just passed in this state, You can now get an abortion at will up to and including the moment of birth, and Minnesota has now become a refuge for minors seeking sex change operations that would not be legal where they live or that are not approved of by both parents. And those are the measures that causes Governor Tim Walz to say that Minnesota is now an island of decency. NBC News, here's another one. NBC News says Minnesota is becoming a laboratory in pushing progressive policy. They say it's Minnesota that's attracting attention as a laboratory for how to effectively use power to achieve progressive policy priorities. And I think that's, in some sense, that's true. NBC News goes on to say, interviews with a dozen federal and state lawmakers in Minnesota, as well as progressive activists in the state and across the country, paint a picture of a state fully controlled by Democrats that has offered protections on key Democratic social issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights while maintaining a robust economy while maintaining a robust economy and low crime. Well, let's bring on John Phelan now, economist at Center of the American Experiment, who has been following these issues now for a number of years. John, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.

So, John, let's talk about Minnesota's robust economy. You're an economist. You've studied Minnesota's economy closely. What are the actual facts? Impacts on Minnesota's economic performance?

Well, I think it's this idea that Walz is the anti-DeSantis. I mean, if that's the confrontation that they're going to have, I think it's a comparison that DeSantis would appreciate very well, very greatly. If you compare the two economies, actually, the economy of Florida in terms of GDP, real GDP growth, has grown at a rate about twice that of Minnesota since DeSantis and Waltz took office in 2019. And in terms of job growth, employment is well up in Florida over the same period since the two took office. And in Minnesota, employment is actually lower now than it was when Tim Waltz took office. So in terms of the economy, they've got absolutely nothing to go with. And also, when you look at Minnesota, it's one of the few states in America to have fewer people employed now than at the pre-pandemic peak at the end of 2019. This is not a healthy economy. When you look at the numbers in terms of labor force participation, you hear the same old myths, the same old responses that get trotted out. Well, there's people retiring. In actual fact, the big drop in Minnesota's employment ratios have been driven not by retirees. They've been driven by people aged 20 to 24. These are people who should not be dropping out of the workforce, and that they are is a sign of economic ill health. So it's not good. I mean, the idea that anybody is holding Minnesota up as an example of anything is absolutely bizarre for somebody who lives here.

And as you showed in your work, John, if you look at the whole 21st century, it's not just the last few years, but if you look at the whole 21st century, Minnesota's economic growth has been below The national average, below the national average, hardly a model. We gotta run to a break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about the other claim that was made here by NBC, and that is the low crime rate in the state of Minnesota. We'll be right back after these messages.

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Welcome back to the Dennis Prager Show. I'm John Hinderacher from Powerline filling in for Dennis today. Before the break, we were talking about this praise that liberal journalists across the country are giving Minnesota and its Governor Tim Walz for the strength of our economy despite having liberal proposals, and John Phelan, who's an economist, debunked that. The other one, John, is crime. NBC News says that we're maintaining low crime rates. And this is wonderful. The Daily Beast, in promoting Governor Tim Walz as a presidential candidate, says he reacted with a veteran NCO's doggedness after Minnesota cops killed George Floyd in May 2020, which couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, Tim Walz froze up, didn't act, waited— was it what, 3 days or 4 days before finally calling out the National Guard? In the meantime, throwing the mayor of Minneapolis under the bus. It was a pathetic performance. But John, what about the broader, the broader issue of crime? What's the fact when it comes to recent crime in recent years in Minnesota?

Well, it's absolutely true that we are still a state with violent crime rates below that in other states and that nationally. But if you look at the trends, the gap is narrowing and not in our favor. And we are actually, in terms of some property crimes, now above the national average, which is the first time on record that that's been the case. And if you look at the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minneapolis just last year or so has recorded levels of homicide in each year which we've not seen since the mid-1990s, when the city was known as Murderapolis because of the out-of-control violence that there was. It's, it's, it's bad. If you look at the downtowns of the cities, particularly downtown Minneapolis, It's become a ghost town. You know, nobody— people don't want to go there. Data on cell phone tracking shows that people are avoiding downtown Minneapolis. Businesses are fleeing downtown Minneapolis. There's a new report out that I wrote about on the website that talks about that. And the plan apparently is to replace all these people with subsidized Section 8 housing. And so that's what downtown Minneapolis is going to be in future. And all this because they won't do what it takes to fight crime. We know what works. You know, I'm not the crime guy at the center. I kind of filled in on a temporary basis for a while, and I looked at some of the research papers. And there's actually, you know, in criminology, which is a field like economics with empirical literature that you can go and see what works, test what works, more police do mean less crime. It's a simple empirical fact. And in Minneapolis and elsewhere in Minnesota, we've moved away from that idea when we have these kind of various crazy ideas of violence interrupters and all rest of it. Which, as there's no evidence that shows that that works, by the way, in the empirical literature. It's just a wing and a prayer, and let's hope. So yeah.

Well, and, and when you look at what the FBI classifies as Part 1 crimes, which are the most serious crimes from murder through arson, Minnesota now for the very first time in its history has a worse than average per capita rate of serious part 1 crimes. So the idea that Tim Walz has somehow maintained a low crime rate is, you know, pure fiction. And in fact, it's a lie. And in fact, we're seeing the evil fruits of liberal policies in Minnesota, just as we're seeing them in places like California and New York. And the thing I want to turn to now, John Phelan, is something that you have been studying closely now for some years, and that is migration patterns into and out of the state of Minnesota. Because what we're seeing is Minnesota is just like California and New York. Instead of moving into the state, people are moving out of the state.

Absolutely. And one thing that's notable is you talked about Minnesota's economic growth earlier has kind of lagged since the turn of the century. It's also true that all through the '90s, Minnesota saw net inflows of domestic migrants. And that kind of flipped around the turn of the century and you start to see net outflows. But what's really notable is the massive acceleration in the exodus of people from the state of Minnesota since 2019, funnily enough. We've seen— we had about 14,000 people on net— I thought maybe it was 16,000, I think— leave in the year 2019 to 2020. And the figures got revised up subsequently. So I think it's about 16,000. And that's on net loss. And that was a record for going back to at least 1991. Record stood for one year because we smashed it in the most recent year when we lost 19,400 residents on net to other parts of the United States. So whenever someone tries to hold Minnesota and Tim Walz up and say, this is the guy, this is the model that works, I always say to people, if it's so great, why does everyone want to get out?

John, we're gonna come back and talk more about migration right after this break. Welcome back. We are talking with economist John Phelan about this theme that we're seeing increasingly around the country of Minnesota being the blue state that shows that liberal policies can work. And in particular, we were talking about the fact that Minnesota is just like California and New York in the sense that way, way more people are moving out than moving in. And John, in the last year for which we have Census Bureau data, what was the net outmigration from the, from the state of Minnesota?

The net outmigration was 19,400, which was the highest going back to at least 1991. It was well up on kind of the average since 2000, 2001, when we flipped over into the net loss category. And I think what's interesting about that is, so we lost residents in 2019, 2020. Like I said, it's about 16,000. And people said, you know, that's COVID, that's COVID. Although, you know, that doesn't really answer the question. Why does COVID make this a place that you want to get away from? You know, and secondly is the issue that when you get to— by the time you get to 2020, 2021, it's a bit harder to kind of make that case now. You know, I mean, yeah, okay, maybe there's some lingering COVID thing. People have rent contracts they can't break if they want to move. But at some point, we're going to have to stop using that excuse. So I think that's a really interesting point.

So John, let's talk about the demographics of who's coming and who's going, because I think the raw numbers are obviously significant. But it's even more significant if you drill down and you say, well, who's coming into Minnesota? And who's leaving Minnesota? And the IRS maintains a massive database that allows us to, to answer those questions.

Yeah, so I said earlier on about employment, there are these kind of standard liberal responses, you know, 'Well, people retiring, that's why the labor force is down.' And very often, these things are just kind of knee-jerks, you know, they just, you know, like you pat somebody on the head, and they say this particular thing. And the same thing with migration. Whenever you talk about the migration numbers, I get the same responses all the time. People say, 'Well, it's all people retiring.' But again, if you look at most recent year for which there's data, every single age category that the IRS breaks data down into recorded a net loss of residents from Minnesota to other parts of the United States, under-26-year-olds and up, every single group we saw losses. So it's not just old people leaving, everybody's leaving. Another interesting point is they break down the net flows by income. Now, if you look at, you know, so if you look at it across a chart, what you see there is Minnesota attracts residents in the two income categories up to $25,000 to $50,000 a year. So below $25,000 a year, Minnesota gains residents on net. As soon as you flip over to $25,000 to $50,000 a year, you start to lose people. So, so when we're talking about— occasionally people talk about, you know, the rich leaving to escape Minnesota's high taxes, as though that's not a problem. But the other aspect is that it's not just rich people. Middle-class people are skedaddling too. Young people, middle-class people, basically nobody who is looking to start their future looking to start their life and looking to live that middle-class dream sees Minnesota as a place that you can do it.

So Minnesota suffers a net outflow of residents at every income level over $25,000. And it accelerates, I think, at some of the higher income levels. But what does that mean for the future of a state if you attract people who earn $0 to $25,000 and you lose people who earn more money than that. What kind of an economic and fiscal future does that imply?

Well, this is a situation where if you talk about income as a proxy for productivity, this is one of those things, kind of people hate it when you say this, as though you're being mean to people on low incomes. This conveys no moral judgment whatsoever. It's purely an economic thing that income is a kind of function of productivity on average. And that's a very standard economic assumption. So if you're losing higher income people, what that tells you is you're losing high productivity people. And that tells you in turn that your economy is becoming less productive, it's deskilling, in effect. So what you're gonna see actually, as a result of all this over time, is metrics like per capita GDP, which is the key welfare measure, That's gonna start to drift downwards. It's gonna exert a downward pressure on that. And that's obviously not a good thing for the state's future.

The other thing that's interesting to look at, John, is where are these people going? You know, there's two halves to this problem. Well, part of it is people aren't coming to Minnesota, and I take it that's primarily because we're not creating the kind of good high-paying jobs that attract people from around the country. And then the second part of it is, is people leaving Minnesota. Where are we seeing the biggest— to what states are we seeing the biggest net outmigration from Minnesota?

Well, Florida is the clear winner. So again, this whole Waltz versus DeSantis thing, when people vote with their feet, they choose DeSantis in Florida every time. We also lose a lot of people to Wisconsin. Now, Wisconsin's, you know, it's not what you would call a kind of red state. It's one of the purple states. And, you know, so it's interesting. We're losing people there. We are losing people to South Dakota. So again, one of the standard liberal responses is, oh, it's cold here. So people are moving to warmer places. Well, I mean, the weather sucks in South Dakota too, half the year. I mean, you know that better than I do. You know, so why is South Dakota seeing an inflow of people? North Dakota, by contrast, in the last year was the largest source of migrants, domestic migrants into Minnesota. It replaced Illinois, which is traditionally Minnesota's largest source of migrants. But what I think really reflects in North Dakota, what you see there is that state's got some real economic problems. Its economy is still smaller than it was pre-pandemic, and that is entirely a factor of the federal government's war on American energy.

Right, so a lot of people left Minnesota a few years ago for North Dakota to work in the oil fields, and then when the government shut down the oil fields, a bunch of people moved back. I think that's basically what we're seeing there, isn't it? So, it's so interesting. Here are the Democrats and the liberals trying to hold up Minnesota as this wonderful exemplar of a successful blue state, but the truth is we are just like California and Illinois and New York in that we are hemorrhaging residents. And where are they going? They're going to the red states. They're going to Florida, they're going to South Dakota, and even purple Wisconsin people are finding to be preferable. We're going to run to a break now, but when we come back, I want to talk about a broader kind of more philosophical issue, and that is what are the implications of this ongoing sorting of America into red zones and blue zones? What does that mean for our future? The Dennis Prager Show. Welcome back to The Dennis Prager Show. I'm John Hinderacker from Powerline, filling in for Dennis today, and we are joined now by Heather Macdonald. Heather is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a prolific author, and one of America's leading intellectuals. Heather, thank you so much for being on the show.

It's great being with you, John. Thank you for inviting me.

Heather, you've got a brand new book out. It's called When Race Trumps Merit, and it talks about some things that I've heard you speak about before groups and that I think you've written about in various ways, and you've kind of pulled it all together in this book, When Race Trumps Merit. Why don't we start by just asking you to tell our listeners what's the theme of this book?

The theme is that America has to stop being cowed by phony charges of racism. We are tearing down Western civilization in the name of fighting phantom racism. The left uses a very effective tool, which is to charge that any institution that is not proportionally racially diverse is by definition a racist institution. And that any standards that stand in the way of achieving racial proportionality are racist standards and must be torn down. So, if a medical school faculty does not have 13% Black doctors on it, 13% being the proportion of Blacks in the national population, that is a racist medical school. If the student body is not 13% Black medical students, that is racist admission standards. And what we're seeing in medicine, John, is the elimination of standards of medical achievement because those standards do have a negative disparate impact on Black students, on Black doctors. And what we're doing is stalling medical progress, and we will eventually put lives at risk. That same disparate impact analysis is being used across our civilization. At all fields of science, in the arts, in law enforcement. We are not a racist society any longer, John. We once were, but as long as the left succeeds in this war on standards in the name of fighting phony racism, we're gonna lose everything.

You know, Heather, any measure of merit that you can think of whether it's how well you play the violin or what free-throw percentage you sink, you know, any measure of merit you think of, it'd be a miracle coincidence if it happened to divide races exactly equally. You know what I'm saying? I mean, if disparate impact is the standard, there is no measure of merit that's ever going to happen to satisfy that standard.

Well, the problem with American and why it's so— this is such a difficult subject is that it's not randomly distributed. There are very large academic skills gaps that explain why standards right now do have a racially disparate impact. And so that's true for virtually any kind of standard. It's also true in the criminal law. Where enforcement that's colorblind, that's constitutional, does have a disparate impact on Black criminals, not because the law is racist, but because crime rates are also very racially disproportionate. But when you have 66% of all Black 12th graders who don't even possess partial mastery of the most basic 12th grade math skills, defined as being able to do arithmetic or read a graph, 66% of Black 12th graders do not have partial mastery of those skills, and the number of Black 12th graders who are advanced in math is too small to show up statistically, it's absurd to expect that a tech engineering force will be 13% Black absent racism, and that the only allowable explanation for the lack of that racial proportionality in a computer engineering lab or a neurology research lab, an Alzheimer's research lab, a cancer research lab, is racism. The pipeline does not contain 13% qualified black neurologists or computer scientists. The solution is to narrow that skills gap. It's not to tear down meritocratic standards.

But you know, it's amazing how devoted our institutions are to this elevation of race over merit. As you know, Heather, there's a case pending in the US Supreme Court in which Harvard and the University of North Carolina are defendants, and their practice of engaging in pretty naked race discrimination is being challenged. And I believe Harvard recently announced they're gonna stop requiring the SAT test. If merit doesn't give you the right racial percentages, then the heck with merit.

Well, the University of California system has banned the submission of SATs. It's not just that they've made it optional, they banned it. And I think the reason for that is these schools want to put the SAT out of existence entirely so that nobody will take it any longer. Because as long as we have objective tests of merit, whether it's the SAT, the LSAT, the Medical College Admissions Test, those tests do show us that there are these vast academic skills gaps that explain racial disparities in institutions. But universities and law schools and medical schools now have decided to turn on their very own traditions in the service of racial proportionality. And so you have The most prestigious medical journals like the Journal of American Medical Association or Lancet saying now that medicine and science is racist. The American Medical Association goes around saying that, oh, medicine is systemically racist. Its materials, its publications, at this point, John, read like a Black Studies tract. It's quite stunning.

It really is stunning, Heather. And, you know, if you get rid of these objective measures of merit and of ability, you're really going to limit opportunity. You know, I feel this myself. I grew up in a small town in South Dakota, and I was nobody. I didn't have any connections, you know. And, however, I did score quite well on the SAT, and that is really what kind of got me, you know, launched into a series of lifelong opportunities. And if we don't hold those opportunities out to young people, on what basis do they get admitted? You know, it seems to me that you evolve toward a system of a combination of quotas and, you know, some kind of favoritism.

Civilization depends on excellence. You have to have rewards for effort. And right now, we are crushing effort and we are crushing success. People come up to me all the time telling me about their sons, heterosexual white male sons, who have perfect SATs, you know, perfect AP scores, National Merit Scholarship. They're not getting admitted to colleges. They're not getting admitted to medical schools, to law school. Somebody today just said it's been— it's son who was highly qualified, 3 years to get admitted to a medical school, and often the interviewers are saying, "Sorry, you're not getting in because you're a white male." And so if we think that by rewarding lack of effort and mediocrity, we're going to be able to continue making the progress that Western civilization has made on behalf of all of humanity in curing disease, in engineering absolute miracles of construction. I mean, I'm amazed, to be honest, absolutely true, I'm amazed at electricity. I mean, we take this all for granted. I'm amazed at clean water. The Western civilization has freed humanity from squalor, depravity, degradation, early childhood death, and now we wanna tear it all down because we have such a guilty conscience, an understandably guilty conscience, but it is time to move beyond and expect excellence of everybody and not apologize for it.

We're talking with Heather MacDonald, the author of a brand new book, When Race Trumps Merit. And Heather, in your book, you go through a whole series of areas where you make the same observations about merit being overruled by race quotas and so forth. We've got just a little over a minute before the break, but I'd like to at least start talking about the arts because I know that's a special interest of yours. And maybe in just a minute or so we've got, then we'll come back after the break. What are we seeing in this regard in the arts?

We're seeing the betrayal of our arts leaders, an absolutely cowardly —despicable betrayal where every head of every arts institution now is saying, "Oh, because I preside over a European civilization, it's a racist tradition, and I'm now going to become an anti-racist institution and betray my civilizational legacy." It's absolutely unbelievable, and you're a particular expert, I think, with respect to music, Heather.

And music, orchestras used to have a colorblind standard where people would try out behind a curtain so that there could be no bias or prejudice. And unfortunately, that's not what the leftists are asking for nowadays. Let's talk about that, Heather, when we come back from the break. Welcome back. We're talking with Heather Macdonald about her new book, When Race Trumps Merit. Heather, we just had mentioned the area of classical music before the break, and I know this is close to your heart. What has this war on standards done to the world of classical music?

Well, as you mentioned, John, uh, the lead music critic of the New York Times, Anthony Tomassini, in the great psychotic meltdown that we saw across elite institutions in the summer of 2020 after the George Floyd race riots, called for de-blinding orchestra auditions. That means that they would no longer be blind, they would no longer be conducted behind a screen that hides the identity of people auditioning for a seat in an orchestra. And Anthony Tomassini called for de-blinding these auditions, removing the screen so that orchestras could hire on the basis of race. Now, this is like what you were saying with the SAT. The SAT is an objective colorblind test. It was created in order to remove any possible prejudice, to allow opportunity on a basis that is free of economic advantage. The orchestral screen is the same thing. It's, it's by definition not racist. And now we're moving back to racism. We have amazing demands being made on, on by these racial advocacy groups in classical music demanding that orchestras be like 50, 20%, 25% person of color. The programming should change. The, the composers chosen should change. Conductors should change. But what is worse is the idea that because our classical music tradition was predominantly coming out of Europe, which was demographically Caucasian— that's simply the facts— that therefore the only reason that human beings have been brought into a state of sublime understanding and, and being able to leave their own petty narrow selves for some greater human experience, the only reason they've had that experience with Beethoven or Bach or Brahms or Chopin or Schubert or any of the great composers in this tradition is because they were white males. That the classical music tradition is simply white supremacy. That's absurd, John. These are works of extraordinary creation, of sublimity, of beauty, and the Western critics, the anti-racist critics, only use demographic past on the Western tradition. They are not going after Chinese classical opera because it was predominantly Chinese. They're not going after Yoruba drum language in Nigeria, because the drummers are predominantly black. No, they continue to treat those traditions with respect, taking the composers that there were, taking artists that were. Only the West is being subjected to this ignorant corrosive acid, and we are teaching young people to reject traditions that are already pretty alien to them, to look at everything in art, in literature, through the completely trivial and irrelevant lenses of race and sex.

Heather, as tragic as it is what's happening in the arts, what's happening in the sciences may be even more dangerous. I mean, what's going on there? Are people abandoning standards of merit in the sciences?

The federal science agencies, the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, CDC have all now made race an explicit component of their grant-making. So if you are a cancer research lab and you have got the best oncologists that have the most chance of making a breakthrough in our understanding and treatment of cancer, and your lab is not diverse along the ways that the National Institutes of Health favors, you are going to have a very hard time getting a grant. The Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute sent out a request last year to all of the National Cancer Centers— these are federally funded major, major cancer research labs at universities across the country— saying, in essence, you've sent us the wrong Nominies for the very prestigious cancer research grant. It's— we haven't been sending us diverse nominees. Change your criteria so you can send us diverse nominees so we can give our grants on a diverse fashion. She didn't say send us your best oncologist. She said send us diverse nominees. We are absolutely going to end medical progress with using the trivialities of sex and race as criteria to award research grants to. And the universities are just as guilty. They are making scientists profess their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion. If they cannot show how their research on Alzheimer's disease has a diversity and equity impact they won't get a grant. And by an equity impact, they're not saying, "We are going to free all of humanity from the scourge of Alzheimer's disease." That would be equitable. But no, what they mean is, "We are going to— we promise you that we will use racial preferences in our hiring to try and understand Alzheimer's disease," something that is completely irrelevant to curing Alzheimer's disease.

You know, it's shocking what's happening in science as well as the arts. You know, you might think that the profit motive would cause business to want to focus on merit, but business too has been swept away by the whole racial hysteria. We've got about 2 minutes here, and then I want to finish up with another question, but what about big business?

Well, they're captured. CEOs fear their wives and daughters. They fear their young employees that are being, you know, every year college belches forth thousands more of these brainwashed youth that go into corporations and start advocating for what they view as racial advocacy or gender advocacy. And corporations are kowtowing. So far, we still have the power of the market. Consumers cannot be forced to buy the latest woke creation out of Hollywood. But I am such a pessimist, John, that I think that we're going to figure out a way to make sure that people's pocketbooks are deducted from to go buy that remaking of a classic film that now, you know, has a sufficient number of trans performers in it, you know, and, and it has the all the litmus test. Because right now, those, those woke products can absolutely bomb at the box office of the marketplace, or, you know, Bud Light can bomb, but that's not going to last much longer. They will figure out a way to deduct from our paycheck, uh, contributions to woke America, woke corporate America, I'm sure.

Heather, it's a scary vision. Thank you so much for being on the program. And to all of our listeners, buy Heather's book, When Race Trumps Merit. I notice it's published by The Daily Wire, by the way. So Heather, thank you so much for being with us. And we will be back with novelist CJ Box after these messages. The Dennis Prager Show. Welcome to The Dennis Prager Show. Hello, I'm John Hinderacher from Powerline filling in for Dennis today. And Dennis is winging his way from California to Minnesota where he is going to be the keynote speaker tonight at the annual dinner fundraiser on behalf of the organization that I run, Center of the American Experiment. And so since Dennis is on his way to give a speech for my organization, we thought it would be great if I filled in for him on the radio today, and, that's what I've been doing. So we are delighted now to be joined by Riley Gaines. Riley, thank you so much for being on the program.

Of course. Well, thank you for having me on.

Riley, you've become a hero to a lot of people, frankly, including me, for the way that you have stood up to the extremist trans mob on behalf of women's sports. And I want to talk about that. But first, let's get some background on you. You are an athlete of very considerable accomplishment.

I, I appreciate that a lot. I have accomplished a lot of things in my career that I will forever be proud of. I'm a 2-time Olympic trial qualifier. When I qualified when I was 15 years old, making me one of the youngest at that meet. I'm a 12-time NCAA All-American, a 5-time SEC champion. I'm actually the SEC record holder in the 200 butterfly, which means I have really big shoulders. But this made me one of the fastest Americans of all time. SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year, SEC Community Service Leader of the Year. But really all of that to say that competing and being successful at this level is far from easy. And it's a lifelong journey. It's impossible to put into words the amount of time, and sacrifices and dedication that it takes to compete at the highest level.

Now you swam for the University of Kentucky, right? And I think— have you graduated now?

I graduated last year, so yes.

And while you were still at Kentucky, and I think, and competing in the NCAA, you were among the early women athletes who had an encounter with Leah Thomas and got exposed to the whole trans sports movement. Can you tell our listeners about that? Absolutely.

Um, so it was my senior year at the University of Kentucky. I had made it my goal to win a national title, which would of course mean becoming the fastest woman in the nation in my respective event. About midway through my senior year, I was ranked third in the country behind one amazing female athlete who I knew very well, ranked second, but one person I had never heard of before before. And of course, this was the first time I became aware of a swimmer named Lia Thomas. But for all I knew at the time, this was a girl who came out of nowhere senior year to post the fastest times in the nation in multiple events, beating everyone else in the country by multiple seconds. It didn't really make sense until an article came out disclosing that Lia Thomas was formerly Will Thomas and swam 3 years on the men's team at University of Pennsylvania before deciding to transition to the women's team. I was so shocked when I heard this, but truthfully, I felt a sense of relief because I was able to look up who Will Thomas was. Because I was curious, was this someone who went from ranking first to now continuing to rank first? Which is of course not what we saw. This was a mediocre male swimmer at best, ranking 462nd in the nation among the men the year prior to again now trailing the women. And so at our national championships in March of last year, that first day of competition, I watched on the side of the pool as Leah Thomas swam to a national title, beating Olympians, beating American record holders, beating the most impressive female swimmers in this country by body lengths. Again, the year prior, ranking 462nd. But that next day of competition was the 200 freestyle, which was the day that Thomas and I raced each other. And almost impossibly enough, We went the exact same time down to the hundredth of a second. And so upon tying, we go behind the awards podium where the NCAA official looks at both Thomas and myself and says, great job, but you guys tied. And we only have one trophy. So this trophy goes to Leah. Riley, you go home empty-handed. And I, of course, question this. Why does the trophy go to Leah? I understood there was one trophy. I understood we tied. But I asked, the official why. And he looked at me and said, well, Leah has to have the trophy for photo purposes. You can pose with this one, but you have to give it back. You go home empty-handed and Leah takes the trophy home. And that's what ultimately thrusted me into this position of no longer willing to lie. Because that's what they were asking us to do. Asking us to kindly smile and step aside and allow a male onto our podiums, taking our scholarships and our titles and our awards and our trophies. And pretend this was a woman that was asking us to lie. And I knew the unfair competition was wrong. And I knew, of course, what we dealt with in the locker room was wrong. But when they reduced everything I had worked, not just myself, everything we had all at that meet, worked our entire lives for, they reduced that down to a photo op to validate the feelings and the identity of a male. That's when I had had enough. And that's when I knew I was I was willing to do whatever it took to fight to protect women and girls in sports.

Now, you mentioned the locker room briefly, Riley. Talk about that a little bit. Have you encountered Lia Thomas in the locker room? I did.

At that same national championships, first of all, we were not forewarned we would be sharing a locker room. No one told us that we were sharing this changing space. No one asked for our consent. We did not give our consent. The only time that we became aware that we were sharing this changing space was when we had to turn around and see a 6-foot-4, 22-year-old male disrobing, dropping his clothes, fully intact with and exposing male genitalia, watching other girls undress. It, of course, felt like betrayal. It felt like belittlement. It felt— it's awkward. It's embarrassing. It's uncomfortable. But I think the best word to describe the feeling that we all felt is traumatic. I immediately left that locker room and went up to another official on the pool deck and I said, I want to see what the guidelines are that allowed someone of the opposite sex into our locker room. What are the rules that allowed this? Because I can guarantee you there's nothing in place that says someone as a male can walk into the women's locker room and face no repercussions. And he responded back to me, oh, we actually got around this by making the locker rooms unisex. So I was sitting there thinking, unisex? So any man could have walked into that locker room? Any coach, any official, any man who wanted to would have had full access and reins to walk into that locker room, and bare minimum, we weren't told about this? And that's why I said it felt like betrayal.

It's almost unbelievable, Riley. So they didn't even tell you to expect this? They didn't give you a warning? You're going to turn around and see some 6-foot-4 4-inch guy standing in the women's locker room? I mean, no heads up at all?

No heads up, no nothing. And it's come to my, it's been almost a year since this incident happened. And I've developed really amazing relationships with Leah Thomas's teammates who opposed his inclusion on the women's team. And to hear what they went through every single day, I only had to share a locker room with Thomas at that one meet. But these girls had to do this daily, and the way they were gaslit and emotionally blackmailed into silence, into feeling like they should apologize for feeling uncomfortable in that locker room. When they sent an email to their administration expressing their discomfort, their administration responded back with, "If you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources that you should seek." So these girls were thought to be wrong for feeling like they were exploited. For feeling vulnerable in that environment. They were told they were wrong and they had to be kind and they had to be inclusive.

It's almost unbelievable. You've actually gotten to know some of the women on that Penn swimming team who, I guess for the whole season, sharing locker rooms and so forth with Leah Thomas. Absolutely, I have.

Listening to their stories is heartbreaking, is what it is. It feels like I'm being punched in the gut every time I have to hear them tell me just exactly what they went through. They were forced to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings every week to learn about how just by being cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas. They were told, you will never get a job, you will never get into grad school, you'll lose your friends, you'll lose your scholarship and your playing time if you speak out. These girls were told, you know, you can't take a stance because your school has already taken your stance for you. They were told that if they happen to speak out, and any harm whatsoever comes towards Leah's way, whether that be emotional, physical, mental harm, then they were solely responsible. And then they would further press them. And you don't want to be responsible for someone else's harm, do you? So I suggest you be kind, and I suggest you be inclusive.

Riley, we've got just about a minute left in this segment, and then we're going to be up against a break. But I want to at least introduce the topic there are significant biological differences between men and women, right? I mean, it just seems crazy that in the 21st century we have to point that out, right? But there are significant— apart from just generally being bigger, there are some significant biological advantages that male athletes have. Is that right? Absolutely.

And this is something that you don't even need a 5th grade understanding of biology to understand. Men, of course, they're taller, but they have Larger lungs, larger heart. It sounds silly, but in swimming this matters. Men have on average a 40% larger throat than women. There are so many little things that, and all of those things I mentioned, those will never be changed with hormone suppressants. Men will always have an advantage over women on average when it comes to something that requires athleticism or strength.

We're up against the break. We will be back with more with Riley Gaines. We are talking with Riley Gaines, swimmer who has become an activist, and we've got a call here from John in Illinois on the line.

John, go ahead. Hi John, hi Riley, and thanks both of you for being there today, and especially thanks Riley for taking a stand when so many You know, when basically everybody in your situation has been viciously threatened with speaking out against this woke agenda. I've encountered some of these people online, and they would absolutely crush women's sports just to get this type of agenda item through and accepted. And the only other thing I'd like to say is, you know, the rest of us, we can do our part by even resisting with things like when they say the gender selected at birth. No, it's the paternal chromosome selected at conception which determines this. And I send that in every time to the text line of the local news when I hear them use that line on the TV newscasts.

All right, thank you for your call, John. Raleigh, before the break, you mentioned something I just want to follow up on a little bit, and that is the inherent biological advantages that men have over women that are highly relevant to sports. And one of them is lung capacity. You know, you swimmers swim as fast as you can go for often long distances and the race is decided by a tenth of a second, sometimes hundredths of a second. And I think I'm quoting the statistic correctly, but I believe that a man, someone who goes through puberty as a man, on the average has got something like a 17% greater lung capacity than a woman. Am I saying that approximately right?

Absolutely. And it might not— 17% might not sound like a big number, but it is a big number. When you are doing everything in your power, just as you mentioned, in regards to, of course, your sport-specific training, but also your weight room training, your diet, your sleep, your physical rehabilitation, when you're doing everything in your power to achieve maximum performance, and when you're competing at the level that I was, which that in the championships is the fastest meet in the world, when you're doing everything in your power to shave merely a few one-hundredths of a second off, and you're competing against someone who has 17% greater lung capacity, that makes a huge difference, especially in a sport like swimming where you are starving yourself for oxygen and you need to oxygenate your muscles to continue propelling yourself forward. Of course, that makes a huge difference. Of course, we know the testosterone, we know the height, we know the limb size, the hand size, the feet size. But I think lung, lung capacity and the size of your heart, which of course pumps the blood to the muscles that need to be oxygenated, Those are huge differences that will never be mitigated when comparing males to females.

Riley, let's move on and talk about how you became an activist. You were appalled by what was happening. You thought it was unfair, not just to you, but to the other women competitors. Pick up the story. How did you get involved in trying to push back against this?

It was after the trophy scenario when I decided that I was going to take a public stance. I called my athletic director at the University of Kentucky. And I told him, you know, this is what happened and this is how we feel. And when I say we, I mean my entire team at the University of Kentucky, which consisted of 40 girls. And I asked him, how do you feel if I take a public stance in saying that this is wrong? And he responded back with, Riley, I love you. I support you. I would support whatever stance you took. Speak your heart, stay true to your convictions, and don't worry about painting the university in a bad light. We're behind you. And I hung up and I, you know, I said thank you and I thought nothing of it. I thought that's how any athletic director would treat their student athlete. It really, I appreciated it, but I didn't think anything of it. And that's what I did.

I think that's highly surprising, but go ahead. What happened after that?

It absolutely is highly surprising. And that's why now I realize how naive I was and how grateful I should be to have that kind of support from a university. Because the other girls that I've talked to around the country, oh my gosh, my situation is an anomaly. It's a rarity. No one else has had that. Actually just found out today that my athletic director called every single other athletic director in the SEC and told them to stand behind me and that they, that, that I needed them, that they have to use their voice because he's sick of everyone being quiet. So to have that support from someone in power, your athletic director, my coach was extremely supportive of me. It means so much. It might not seem like a lot, but it really does. And so that's ultimately how I really thrusted myself into this position. I agreed to do an interview with The Daily Wire, which very quickly turned into Fox News and CPAC. But I almost felt as if I was preaching to the choir. Of course, these people agreed with me, but how could I reach the people who didn't agree with me? And that's when I started traveling college to college campuses, trying to engage people my age to understand my perspective, my lived experience, our lived experience of what we were, we actually saw how we were directly impacted by this, because I think it's so important that people my age see this. And I think a common misconception is, oh, you're getting paid to do this, you're making money. No, I was paying out of my own pocket to fly to these states to get in front of state legislature to talk about this, to testify, to do anything in my power that I could to ultimately make change so no girl, no woman had to go through what myself and my teammates did. And I want to mention, after college, I graduated with my degree in human health sciences and health law, and I had every intent on being in dental school this year. So this is not something I felt equipped for. I still don't feel equipped for what I'm doing, but I realize what's at stake if someone doesn't fight for it. So I've rerouted my entire life plans and what I thought I was, was what, what I was going to do. I've deferred dental school twice now. And so it's, it's been a big commitment.

Riley, after this next break, I want to come back and talk about the reception that you've gotten at colleges and universities and so on across the country. If our listeners have a question for Riley, if they want to get on the air, this is the number to call. It's 1-877-243-7776. That's 1-8-PRAGER-776. And we will be back with more with Riley Gaines after these messages.

Folks, this show is now available on TV, and I urge you to go there and watch it. Go to SalemNewsChannel.com or download the app. You can also watch us on Roku and Fire Stick. Salem News Channel, the antidote to the mainstream media.

The Dennis Prager Show. We are back. We are talking with Riley Gaines, and Riley, Just before the break, you said that you started going out kind of on the road, going to colleges and universities and so on to talk about this threat to women's athletics. Well, what kind of reception have you gotten as you have done that?

For the most part, I've probably been to 20 or so college campuses all over the country, and for the most part, it's been really well received. I've had people who have come into it with their mind made that I was, you know, anti-trans, that I was hateful, that I was pushing this agenda of trying to eradicate transgenderism. But then they listen to me and they feel how I felt. They, they see exactly what we went through and they have their minds changed, which is really, really powerful. Um, of course, that's not the case for everywhere I've been. Um, just recently I went to San Francisco State University and And of course, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into by this being a different environment, as we know San Francisco tends to be. But I was excited for this, not because I was looking for controversy or for arguments, but I knew it was an opportunity to change more minds. But the people I spoke with did not come open-minded. I was met with, after my speech, I was met with an ambush. I was physically assaulted. I was held for ransom for over 3 hours, barricaded in a classroom where the protesters on the outside, with just the door separating us, were yelling awful, hateful, vengeful, violent things, again, for hours. They were demanding money from me if I wanted to make it home safely. They said it is only fair that I pay them. They felt as if they were owed something because they said they had to listen to me sit there and spread violence for, for the duration of my speech. And let me reiterate what I was there to talk about. I talked about why it's unfair for men to compete against women. It's that simple. Um, which I think this opened my eyes to how unhinged this group of people can be and what they're willing to do to silence you when they know they don't have the truth or common sense or science or logic or reasoning to dissuade from my argument. They resort to violence.

Now, Riley, I want to just tease out a little bit more what you said there. So you went to San Francisco State, which by the way, took a lot of courage in itself. That place has got a pretty miserable history, and you did your presentation, and then you really got mobbed, right? I mean, you were attacked by a mob. I think a guy in a dress actually hit you a couple of times.

Is that right? Yes, this is true, which it sounds crazy to say. But yes, this, this is when I realized that security is a necessity, because up until this point I had given everyone the benefit of the doubt. Because again, in my heart there is no hate. There's compassion for every single person. But after seeing what I saw and how soulless these people looked, how angry and how hateful and just how vengeful they looked, that's when I realized my safety. I mean, I feared for my life in those moments.

Well, Riley, there's a lot of video of what happened available. People were just filming on their phones, and you were right to fear for your life. I mean, there was very minimal security there. A couple of guys kind of helped you, you know, hustled you down a corridor and into a room, right? And meanwhile, the mob is chasing you and yelling threats and so on. Absolutely.

I was actually set to meet the campus police department an hour and a half before the event. We were set to meet at a parking garage, and I was there a of course on time, and the campus police never showed up. And so I figured they would introduce themselves to me somewhere within that hour before the event, and they never did. An officer who eventually grabs me and kind of saved me from the mob, she was unmarked, she had a mask covering her face, and so she grabs me as I'm getting ambushed and she says, come with me, I'm an officer. But I didn't believe her because why would I believe her? I didn't know who she was and she was trying to lead me out of the room. But ultimately, I had no choice but to trust her, and she eventually did lead me out of the room, and she was an officer. But my fear in those moments, because there was no one who was protecting me, um, there— they— of course, I respect all law enforcement, but these officers did an extremely poor job of doing their job. They told me that they didn't want to be seen as anything other than an ally to this community. So it affected how they performed their job.

Riley, we've got just 30 seconds before this next break, but after this incident, did the administration at San Francisco State apologize, try to make it right? Absolutely not.

They doubled down. They released an email to their student body saying that they were proud of their brave students for handling someone who is so apparent, such as myself, with such bravery and so peacefully.

Unbelievable. Riley, we gotta run to a break. When we come back, we're gonna take some calls from, from our listeners. We'll be right back after these messages. The Dennis Prager Show. I don't think you realize we are talking with swimmer and activist Riley Gaines. And Riley, during the break, we've had one telephone call after another coming in, basically from people wanting to show their support for you. Let's take some calls now, starting with Mark in Scottsdale, Arizona. Oh, Mark dropped off. All right, let's go to Kara in Denver.

Hi Riley, can you hear me?

Yes, I can. I turned down my radio because I'm listening simultaneously on my, uh, iPhone and my radio.

I just wanted to say I appreciate your, uh, taking a stand.

I myself am a stand today.

I am driving around the Capitol building and the Supreme Court in Denver in my car with all of my statements on it and my American flag. And I believe in everything that you stand for. Male or male.

I think we lost, we lost Kara there. Let's go to John in Denver. John, you are on the air.

Pastor Ali, I want to congratulate you and honor you for your stand.

I think it's, I think it's really honorable. And I was just wondering what the average citizen like myself can do to help this cause.

What do you think would be the most effective way an average citizen might fight against this thing?

Absolutely.

I will tell you that the Biden administration, the people in the White House right now, are actively working to rewrite Title IX. So what this means, of course, Title IX is a federal civil rights law that is supposed to stop discrimination on the basis of sex among college campuses. They are trying to equate sex to gender identity. So ultimately what this means is men could join sororities, men could live in dorm rooms with women, men would have full access to bathrooms and locker rooms. Men, of course, could take academic and athletic scholarships away from women. In this new rewrite, it's actually sexual harassment if you complain about being housed with a man. If you complain, if you misgender a trans-identifying individual, then you're guilty of sexual harassment, not the individual who's parading around in your locker room showing the opposite genitalia, that's encouraged. But if you complain, you're guilty. But what can be done about it? Um, they have opened the comment period for the general public to allow their voices to be heard for 30 days. Typically, this period is open for 90 days, but the Biden administration knows that the average person knows this is wrong, regardless of where you, where you fall politically in regards to party affiliation. So they've only opened it for 30 days, and it's only open for a few more days. I think it closes May 15th. And so if I can urge everyone listening to comment on this, you can find the link at www.iwf.org. There's a quick way to access the page where you can comment. Other than that, I think it's crucial, especially for parents, to be willing to defend your daughters and to teach your sons masculinity. We've reached a point where that seems as if it's a rarity. We've deemed masculinity as something that's toxic, but we need strong men. So keep being strong men. Be a strong man. Be emboldened. Be empowered. And don't be afraid to stand firm in the truth. And I appreciate you calling in. Thank you.

Oh my goodness. Let's take one more call. Let's go to David in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. David, you're on the air.

Yeah, hi, it's Dan Riley. God bless you for having the guts and the courage. Hello, can you hear me? Yep. Yeah, go ahead. I was saying, Riley, God bless you for having the guts and the courage to speak out in defense of women's rights, the dignity of women, and for fair play in competitive women's sports. The judges, they need to revisit their horrifically wrong decision that awarded that winning trophy to, to, to the 6-foot-4 male instead of yourself, who actually was able to tie him despite all the physiological advantages that he has of being a male. I mean, I hope that can happen because it definitely should. It's the only right thing to do. Absolutely.

I totally agree. Um, after all of this, I thought that's the approach the NCAA would take. I tried to give them grace. I thought maybe this happened too quickly and they didn't have time to assess, and they'll, they'll fix it. But rather than doing that, they nominated— I got nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year. But then they released the full list of nominees, and NCAA Woman of the Year was not exclusive to just women, because Thomas was also nominated. And that's when I realized just how corrupt and spineless the NCAA has gotten, just along with other organizations and companies like ESPN and Disney, and the list goes on. Thank you very much. I can't even tell you how much that means to me.

Riley, I want to follow up on something you just said there, how crazy the NCAA has gotten about this. Why? Have you talked to people there? Do you have any insight into why the NCAA is not sticking up for Title IX and for women's sports?

It doesn't make sense. I actually, at this big NCAA conference where they were announcing their NCAA Woman of the Year. I went, but I of course did not go in good spirits. I bought a booth inside the convention center where athletic directors would walk around, and I of course explained the benefits of Title IX. And I want to mention, when I applied with my name, I was denied twice. But when I applied with an alias, they let me buy this booth. And I talked to athletic director after athletic director. it must have been 100 of them, and every single one looked at me and said, I agree with you, keep doing what you're doing, keep fighting. And so if we're all on the same page, I'm so confused what the discrepancy is. Why, why are we catering to the radical minority at the expense of the majority, with we as women being the collateral damage? Of course, there's a bigger picture here.

Riley, we're up against the break, but we're going to come back for for one last segment after these commercial messages. We'll be right back with Riley Gaines. The Dennis Prager Show. We are back with swimmer Riley Gaines. Riley, we don't have time to take them, but I just want you to know that our phones are ringing off the hook with callers from all across America who are just calling to say that they appreciate and support what you are doing and they wish you the best.

Well, let me tell you what, I feel the support. Of course, there is a lot of backlash that comes with what I'm doing, but the support is tenfold. And so I so appreciate the callers calling in, the parents. It, it really means a lot because I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for that next generation, those girls who don't yet have a voice or who don't yet understand the implications of what this means. And so That support means the world to me.

Riley, I want to talk about one more thing that you're doing that we haven't touched on yet, which I think is terrific. You have started reaching out, I think on Twitter, social media of some kind, to other well-known women athletes encouraging them to be outspoken in defense of women's sports as you have been.

Talk about that a little bit. Absolutely. For the longest time, I had empathy for these people who have sponsorships and coaches who fear losing their jobs. And I could understand because we do live in this cancel culture, unfortunately. But I'm realizing that by being silent, that's how we've gotten here. We can no longer accept silence because silence is now an answer and it means you don't care about women and girls in sports. And so it's crucial to call on these strong women who have platforms, who are athletically successful, who have influence over these, these sport-specific governing bodies to say that they don't want to compete against men, to say it's wrong, that it's unfair for women to have to compete against men, and it's harassment to ask a girl to change in a locker room with a man. We need these strong, powerful women. Venus and Serena Williams, where are you guys? Ronda Rousey, Katie Ledecky. I mean, I could— the list goes going on, of course we need them, and it's time they speak up because their silence is deafening.

So how is that going, Riley? Have some of these women athletes, uh, come out, uh, in support of women's sports? Are they just staying silent? What's happening publicly?

They're staying silent. Um, I have had people reach out to me privately who don't feel comfortable sharing publicly, um, how they feel. Which is a step in the right direction, but it's, it's again, that's how we've gotten here. It's not enough. Um, and so again, they are still being silent. The private support, at first I was honored, but it's, it's gotten to the point where it's frustrating. Um, and I need more people speaking out.

Hey Riley, before we go, last thing, I want you to give the website again where people can go and comment on that the Biden administration proposal?

Where can they go? Yes, it's www.iwf.org. So IWF, it stands for Independent Women's Forum. They have a quick and easy link that you can access the public comment and really allow yourself to be heard.

Riley Gaines, thank you so much for being on the Dennis Prager Show. We appreciate it. Well, thank you all for— thank you all for listening. See you again soon. The Dennis Prager Show, live from the Relief Factor Pain Free Studio.

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 pragertopia.com.