Turn Out To Decide Election Results

0:05 Thank you. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, let's do it. Bill Martinez Live, a program about current events, our culture, our values, our politics, and our future. And now, Bill Martinez. And right now, six. Minutes after the top of the hour, Bill Martinez here with Dr. Michael Bussler, a public policy analyst, economics expert, and professor of finance at Stockton University in New Jersey. Dr. Michael, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing very well, Bill. Thanks for having me. As you know, it's always my pleasure. To be here. Well, we couldn't ask for a better time here. We're weeks away from the midterms and the economy is still being discussed. I think the economy in many ways. is being maligned and misrepresented. But this is the uphill battle for Republicans. And even Donald Trump, who is working his tail off, crisscrossing the country, putting out the message of what his administration has done in the last two years.

1:13 Yeah, and he's trying to do that and trying to emphasize all the good that he's done in the last nearly two years. The problem is, What people feel every day and see every day is paying prices for things. So when they go to buy gas, they see that number at the pump and it just sticks in their mind. When they go to buy food, they see how much they're paying, even though groceries did inch down a little bit last month. But they're seeing the high prices. And for President Trump to say, well, look, business investment is way up and $ 20 trillion being invested by foreign countries and the future looks very bright. They understand all that.

1:55 But today, today they're feeling pain. And it appears to them that the president doesn't seem to be doing a lot better. about that. And for that reason, I think his approval ratings are very low. The Republicans may not do quite as well here. Personally, I think he made a big mistake in the way he's handling this whole Iran conflict. When we look at the inflation numbers, so it came out yesterday, annual inflation is running at 3.7 percent. It was 3.4 the month before, so it's getting. Worse.

2:35 And all of it is due to energy. If you take energy out of that, food actually went down a little bit last month. But if you take energy out of that, the inflation rate is down in the 2.2% range, right about where we'd like to see it. And what I'm a little upset with the president, as you know, I'm a strong supporter of his economic policies, but what I'm a little upset, he launched this in February 28th or whatever it was, He said, this will get over shortly. And then he told us in March and April and May and June and July and August, September. And he just said the other day, this will get over shortly. Well, he's losing credibility. You know, he told the Americans shortly they expected this to get over shortly. It didn't. And now we have a big mess on our hands that I'm not sure how he's going to get out of this.

3:28 Well, and of course, the mainstream media. And the opposition party is putting it in the bank. I mean, they are banging the drum here. And so, I mean, this is really putting a lot of pressure on Trump's leadership, no doubt. And that's what it comes down to. And this is why he's traveling across the country is to you know, bang the mission drum and say, OK, here's where we are. And he's like, you know, of mice and men, you know, casting out the dream again, like Steinbeck wrote about. So, you know, and the deal is, is that, yes, there are some good things there. And I think that had I think Trump has said, look, let's take energy out of it.

4:09 And we're 2.2%. Again, compared to where we were at under Joe Biden, even the best of Joe Biden compared to where we are now, what's the comparative, Michael? Even the best of Joe Biden, when he got out of office, energy prices had come down somewhat. The inflation rate had come down, but it was still above where it is now. We're better off than we were under Biden, but The voters don't see that. All they see is President Trump said he's going to get inflation down. Here he is nearly two years in here. Inflation is going up. And I'm looking at how much money I'm paying for gasoline.

4:52 And he said he's going to increase energy supply and gasoline. Energy prices will be low. And it hasn't happened. President Trump and Scott Besant, who I have the most respect for, the utmost respect for, But he's losing some credibility, too, because a month or so ago, he said, well, we put these economic sanctions on. It's crippling the Iran economy. They'll be lucky if they last another two weeks. Well, they last a lot more than two weeks. And frankly, no matter how tough you make it for them economically, even if their people are starving to death. They will not quit. Their regime wants to just survive, and they don't care about the welfare of their people. This is a very difficult war in that normally when you fight a war and it looks like you're going to hurt the opposition's people, they quit. I mean, look, we dropped bombs in Japan, and when they saw how bad things were, they... Surrendered.

5:50 Yeah, but you're talking a major atomic bomb that just devastated two cities there. Yeah, so here, and Trump is doing everything he can to avoid that because of the collateral damage and the damage that it would have on the Iranians and not the IRGC, the troublemakers. This is why all along, Michael, I mean, being, you know, former military officer, And understanding the psychology, and I think this is where America, as a rule, misunderstands the Muslims there in Iran, in the Houthis, in Hezbollah, in Hamas. They are so ideologically fixed that they will fight to the death.

6:37 Exactly. And normally leaders care about their populations. Like in Japan, we did all that. The leader said, look, we're going to surrender before you really hurt the people. The Iranian regime doesn't care about their people. In fact, they've killed more of their people than we have. So if you're fighting like that, these people will never surrender. no matter what happens, they're not going to surrender. So we took a military action. And look, I'm not a military expert, but when you take a military action, you have to fight to win. You can't fight for a tie. This is what happened in Vietnam. We didn't fight to win. We fought for a tie and ended up a disaster.

7:18 Same thing here. You have to fight to win. He had them really down. And then he backed off because he said humanitarian reasons. I don't want to kill a lot of people. So look, I beat him up. They can see they can't win. Any rational person would come to the table and resolve this. But you're not dealing with rational people. Exactly. I was going to say the key word is rational. If you kill them, they're okay with that because they think they're going to be martyrs and they're going to give them 50 virgins to live with. And it's just a life of the best you can have. So they don't mind dying and becoming a martyr. If you're fighting people like that, you have to fight to win. You have to fight to completely wipe them out. If there's collateral damage, you want to minimize that. But if there is, there is. You have to fight to win. Let's get this thing over with. And now it's expanded with the Houthis.

8:14 I don't know what happened to Saudi Arabia. We sold them, I think, 100 fighter jets and all this Patriot missiles. And they can't defend themselves. And they're asking the U.S. to defend them. And I think Trump was right. He said, listen, we gave you all this military equipment. This is a ragtag kind of thing here. Just use it and beat them. And they can't do it. They're asking Trump to intervene. Well, and because we get back to the situation, what we're suggesting here is boots on the ground. And what Trump is doing, everything he can do to avoid is having any more American casualties. And this could be foreboding and could be a possibility. This is why Americans keep saying, I do not want to have any American boots on the ground. But you can't dictate that in war, to your point. Let's go to a quick break. We've got more from Dr.

9:03 Bussler after this. Stay with us. As the workforce's most essential. Skill, but less than one-third of employees prioritize judgment. At the same time, 60% of employees worry AI is eroding their skills, with critical thinking cited most often as declining.

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12:37 In early October, the Tide took a team to Lahore, Pakistan, to participate in a leadership conference for indigenous pastors, as well as get a first-hand look at how the ministry is faring on the ground. In addition to making new connections and strengthening existing relationships, team members gained a clearer picture of the spiritual environment in Pakistan and and a deeper understanding of church life and what it means to follow Jesus in a hostile environment. To learn how you can pray for and encourage people around the world whose lives have been eternally impacted by hearing the good news of Christ in their own language, visit thetide.org. That's thetide.org. Welcome back. Bill Martinez here with Dr. Michael Bussler, public policy analyst, economics expert. and a professor of finance at Stockton University. So, Michael, your best read, Perception Over Reality, and what Trump is trying to And basically, he and J.D. Vance are saying, hey, give us two more years. Let's get on the other side of this Iranian war, the things that are coming into play with superintelligence, the $ 20 trillion investment. All these companies who left America are coming back home in order to avoid tariff sanctions. Their idea and vision gives you a lot to think about compared to the DSA and the Democrats that all they're selling is, hey, we're going to do Medicare for all.

14:04 Well, wait a minute. You've got Medicare, in a sense, for a lot of people under Obamacare, and that has not fared very well. So what's the consequence? What's the forward thinking and expectation that we should have after what you've put America through with Obamacare? Regarding the health care system, as you know, in 2010, when this was passed, there were a lot of promises made to the public. You can keep your doctor. You can go to where you've been going. Premiums will drop about $ 2, 000. They told us none of that happened. People lost their doctors. Premiums are skyrocketing, and things are getting worse.

14:46 You know, we had this fixed. During Trump's first term, he had something put in. It was passed by the House. It had to get passed by the Senate. It was very close. And John McCain was in the hospital. He said, look, I'm going to come out of the hospital so I'll be able to vote for this and we can pass it. He got there and he voted against it. It didn't pass. Now we have to start all over again. The health care system we have now is not working. It's very expensive. The quality of care, I don't think people have a problem with. I think the quality of care we get here is better than you get anywhere in the world. But the system and the payment system and the way it's all working isn't right. So all that has got to be fixed. With this last inflation number, 3.7% for the year, most of it was energy. I think energy costs went up 34% in one month alone, which pushed that CPI. so high. But the other part of it that went up was health care costs. And they continue to go up almost no matter what we do about it.

15:51 And I talk about future solutions. The Democrats' solution is just throw more money at this and let's have a single system where we have Medicare for all. And they'll cite to you every industrialized country in the world has some kind of socialized medicine except the U.S., Now, my wife. And those countries, oh, by the way, right now, they're going bankrupt. Exactly right. The quality of service goes down. I mean, look, they're all quality doctor. I'm not saying that. But because it's a system where it doesn't cost you anything to go see the doctor every time your nose is running, somebody goes to see the doctor. As a result, they're all overcrowded.

16:37 My father in law needed cataract surgery. You've got to wait six months just to get an appointment to see the doctor. Here, you call your doctor next week and you go in. My daughter was playing field hockey in New York. One of the girls who was in college, one of the girls got an injury the last day of the season. Well, she lived in Vancouver. She said, look, I'll just go home and get an MRI there. She went home. They said six months to get an MRI. She flew back to New York and got it the next morning. So the quality of care will suffer if you go to a single payer system. And virtually nobody wants to lose their private health insurance, although it's expensive and we've got some problems. We want to have that over a system that the government is running.

17:25 Well, thank God we're able to get that back because of what Trump did in his first term to bring that back. And, of course, the Democrats want to get rid of it. And we've got I mean, what it comes down to, Michael, is you got roughly 50 percent of the country carrying the load of the other 50 that have been living off of entitlements. And this is in spite of the things that Trump is creatively trying to employ here in terms of favored nation status, in terms of drug pricing. But, you know, that's just one aspect of health care. It's the other, you know, hospitalization and the cost of doctors and insurance that doctors have to pay. All this regulatory complication is that adds to the expense of healthcare, that gets in the way of us really attaining that sense of gold standard delivery of healthcare to the American populace, right?

18:21 That's exactly right. And we don't want to do anything that will harm the quality of healthcare and will harm innovation. Because right now, AI is coming into the healthcare system. And the doctors I talk to are all amazed at how much help AI will be. I was talking to an oncologist the other day. He said to me, AI is going to figure out how to cure cancer within five to 10 years. So we don't want to discourage that. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but we don't want to discourage that. So we want our healthcare system to take care of as many people as possible, but provide the highest quality care for the vast majority of Going to a single-payer system is really a terrible thing to do. The quality will suffer. It will end up costing you more in the in the long run.

19:16 Innovation and research, to your point, will all crash on us, right? That's exactly right. So your point before was the Republicans have to get out what their message is. So one thing that happened, so we had Doge. So Doge went in and we said, find out all the inefficiency. So they looked at Medicaid. There are 70 million Americans, 70 million That's 20% of the population on Medicaid. So we took a look at that and they looked through and they said, look, of the 70 million, 10 million shouldn't be there. Either they have other insurance, they're double collecting or they're an illegal person and shouldn't be on it in the first place. And look, there's some people collecting it who are young, able bodied people who should be paying for their own. So they tried to cut Medicaid spending, even with a Republican Congress. They were only able to cut a little bit. Well, what did the Democrats do?

20:16 They said, hey, they just cut Medicaid. I saw an ad in Pennsylvania. This congressman voted to throw 300,000 Pennsylvanians off Medicaid rolls. Well, we're taking off the Medicaid rolls people who shouldn't be there. Exactly. But yet the Democrats run on that and said, oh, you better not vote for Republican. You're going to end up losing all your health care benefits is what it is. It sounds like. So I think that the Republicans are going to have a very difficult time during this election. I keep thinking Trump is going to come up with some kind of an October surprise. And that's happened over the years. Some kind of an October surprise that really pushes everything forward. everybody to look at the Republicans favorably.

21:04 I'm not sure what that'll be, but I hope he comes up with it soon because we're running out of time. Boy, you think of the evidence, the empirical data that's out there, the fraud and how the Democrats are doing everything they can to sustain it and protect it. I mean, even like insider trading, Michael, a simple thing, no brainer. All the Republicans, 100 percent said, yes, insider trading, get it out of there. And the Democrats said, oh, no, I mean, you know, so all these things that are unfair and unrighteous, the Democrats are on the side of. And I don't know why that's not translating to the voter, because all those things that are manipulated so that they can get reelected, it is attributable to me to the unaffordability issue. And they talk affordability, but they do things in their policies they enact and vote for, you know, promote unaffordability.

21:59 And Trump is really the answer to the affordability crisis. When this Iran conflict is over, and it will get over at some point. Energy, oil is going to flow very freely. Again, that will vastly increase the supply of oil. The price of oil, which is like $ 100 a barrel now, will come down to at least $ 70 and I think even lower. You'll see the price of gasoline come down to $ 3 a gallon and maybe even a little bit lower. And when that happens, you know, people will start to feel good about what Republicans are doing. The problem is he's not going to be able to do that before the midterms. It looks now, and it's very hard to tell, but it looks now like the Republicans are going to lose the House and they're probably going to hang on to the Senate. Well, once you lose the House, the House is where most of these bills originate, and they're going to start impeaching Trump and spending a lot of time not not doing anything. I wish President Trump would have gotten this Iran conflict over much sooner.

23:01 Dr. Michael Bussler, public policy analyst, economics expert and professor of finance at Stockton University. Michael, as always, appreciate the time. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, Bill. My pleasure. Have you written a book or do you have a manuscript ready and just need to find the right publisher? Christian Faith Publishing supports authors like yourself to bring their books to life. And right now we're offering you a free writer's guide designed to steer you towards book completion. Christian Faith Publishing evaluates each manuscript we receive. If your book earns approval, we take care of everything. Editing, designing, printing, promotion, and widespread online and in-store distribution. Picture your book gracing the shelves of specialty Christian bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and numerous other retail destinations. It's time to get that manuscript published and to work with a publisher who shares your values of integrity and honesty. You can get your book published. Get your manuscript reviewed and a free writer's guide today.

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25:54 800-705-6581 800-705-6581 800-705-6581 That's 800-705-6581 Well, welcome back. Bill Martinez here. For more information on the show, you can check it out. BillMartinezLive.com. It's time for Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Dr. Paul, how are you? Doing good, Bill. How about you? Hey, I'm doing terrific. I mean, hey, I can't wait to get these elections over with so that I can watch my TV like normal.

26:35 I mean, it's just like one election ad after another, and it's just like, you know, we could almost do a show, Paul, on point-counterpoint, because... The things that the left is saying, it's like, based on what? I mean, are you convinced that America is suffering from amnesia that we didn't experience, you know, two years ago for in horrific years under Joe Biden? And then before that, with a little intermission with Donald Trump, we had eight years, disastrous years with one Barack Obama. And now what they're proposing is worse than what we experienced under both regimes. Yeah, they're definitely to the left, right? The people that are running right now. By the way, I'm lucky in my Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh market, we don't have a Senate race going on right now. So I'm not getting inundated with those commercials like some other markets. My colleague, Ellie Gardy at American Spectator, she lives in Michigan. And she said when they tried to watch the Detroit Lions play Every single commercial break is about Saeed and Rogers up there in Michigan. So I'm not seeing it quite as bad here. And also our governor race is Josh Shapiro versus Stacey Garrity. And she's so far down in the polls that Shapiro is really not even doing any advertising.

27:58 But yeah, in some places, it's just complete media saturation. And what's scary is that a lot of these far left Democratic Socialists of America candidates that are infiltrating the Democratic Party, they're doing quite well. If the House flips, if the Senate flips, it's going to be, these people will have had a lot to do with it for sure. Paul, we've already found out, I mean, there's already been a couple of polling agencies that have exited stage left because they were found to be manipulative and really, you know, cooking the books here, so to speak, which is typical of what they've done in the past. And, you know, you talk about election interference and they do this with impunity.

28:42 Nobody goes to jail. What's going on? Yeah, they get away with it because they're leftists, right? And they're also not going to get the, you know, the media spotlight on them. The isn't going to talk about it over and over again. When they find somebody who does that from the right, it becomes a 24-7 story by the entirety of the media. And so it'll get some coverage by Fox, by Newsmax, by conservative sites, but that's about it. And if it doesn't make it into the mainstream media, then they get away with it, right? And I mean, we could take this as far back as over 50 years ago with what they did to Richard Nixon. Exactly.

29:22 Whatever Nixon did at Watergate was nothing compared to what LBJ did basically every single day. Right. And when LBJ did it, they're like, oh, old Wyndon. Yeah, he's really he's quite the card, isn't he? Right. It was this cute, fun. Thing. And then, you know, then there's one thing that Nixon does and it becomes, you know, this gigantic scandal that's gone on and on. They went after Reagan. You and I are old enough to know that they went after Reagan, a guy who won 49 out of 50 states. Actually, what did Nixon win? 48, 49 out of 50. Yeah, Nixon did too. And there's no one that they hate as much as Donald Trump. And look what they did to nice guy George W.

30:08 Bush, right? I mean, Bush, like Reagan, was this really nice... Bush was this born-again Christian who talked all the time about forgiveness and mercy. There's no mercy from the secular... militantly atheistic left. Well, you're like negotiating with a jihadi when you're talking about the left, because they look at that as weakness, and then they go after the juggler. I mean, this is what they've done time and time again. I mean, you talk about things they got away with. I mean, look at Barack Obama, what he did with Russian collusion. And there's this long list of, to me, scandals that he claims his administration was scandal-free over, you know, which is amazing to me.

30:55 Talk about being gaslit. Well, you mentioned jihadi. So I teach Middle East politics, and we're reading the Koran right now. And, you know, the number one virtue, quote-unquote, in the Koran is justice, right? Whereas the main virtue in Christianity is mercy, right? It's mercy. It's forgiveness. And when you have the secular left, the non-Christian left, this isn't even like the religious left, there's no mercy. That's why they're all about cancel culture. You say one thing that they don't like about their holy trinity of race, gender, and sexual orientation. I mean, they will hound you on Twitter, on X, on Facebook, on social media. They'll make sure that you can never do anything in public ever again. They're merciless, right?

31:46 Well, look what they're doing. I mean, Alyssa Slotkin said the quiet thing out loud the other day again. when she told these young graduates, hey, don't get involved with the Trump administration because you might as well have a scarlet T on your chest because all weapons, like you said to your point, are going to be targeted at you. Yeah, that's exactly right. I've had to advise family members on things where I'll say, listen, you might want to be careful about doing that because if you do it, they're going to come after and be like, but dad, I'm not even saying that I'm supporting this, it's like, it doesn't matter. The left is merciless. Since they don't have virtue, they're filled with vice. And vicious actually means vice.

32:30 Vicious means filled with vice. They are merciless and they are vicious. And for them, politics, it's everything to them. You and I wake up in the morning and You know, we read our scripture verses. We read our meditation. They get up in the morning and they read whatever political ideological thing gets them frosted and fired up on social media. And they've got their marching orders for the day to go out and attack people. Well, you see, this is the thing, you know, sociologically, Paul, how are we supposed to reason together when you are dealing with somebody that's so ideologically fixed? I mean, if you're not on their side, if you're not speaking their dogma, then forget it. I mean, unfortunately, this is where we are.

33:14 I mean, we are a 50-50 country now. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, to quote the scripture verse, right? If you're not for us, you're against us. Yeah, exactly. And that's definitely how the secular left sees it. And again, in a way without mercy, without forgiveness. And they really do see people as the enemy. Yeah, I think often you and I, we're old cold warriors, right? And the quote from James Burnham, who was one of the founding editors of National Review, the founding editors of National Review were all ex-communists, with the obvious exception of someone like Bill Buckley, right? Whitaker Chambers was an ex-communist. Frank Meyer was an ex-communist. James Burnham was an ex-communist, an ex-Trotskyist.

33:55 And he said, for the left, the preferred enemy is always to the right. And so you might say to them, look, do you guys really support somebody like Hassan Piker? Right. Aren't you concerned about someone like Saeed and his association with Piker? They're not even going to answer the question. They're just going to start screaming at you about Trump or calling you a racist or something, right? But listen, please, can you just please answer the question? And if they said honestly, they'd be like, well, for me, the enemy is on the right. The preferred enemy is on the right. So frankly, I don't care what anyone says to the left of me. That's not where I'm looking. They're not the enemy.

34:39 You are. It's how they're hell-bent. Some people on the truly liberal left will point out the hypocrisy of Bill Maher, James Carville, right? It bothers them. But for most people on the ideological left, they're modern day revolutionaries, right? Oh, yeah. And it's all about forward, go forward, right? Forwarding the revolution. That's the goal. Well, you know, to your point, El-Sayed, you know, his association with BLM, right? Oh, yeah. You know, forget it. They were like that, too, at BLM. And, you know, let us never forget the hellacious summer of 2020. Oh, yeah. That mostly peaceful protest period of time that they're saying is going on in France right now, by the way.

35:23 Mostly people. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, and remember, too, how they were telling all of us to do social distancing and go back inside our houses and don't dare go to your place of worship. And there they are out there protesting, right? And big mobs out in the streets. But yeah, and BLM was all about cancel culture as well. And if you disagreed, if you told your neighbor, you know, you got that BLM sign in your front yard. Likewise, I don't like racism, but have you gone to the website of these people? I mean, it's just filled with Marxist junk. What are they going to do? They're going to scream at you, call you a racist, and then go on Twitter and tell everyone in the neighborhood that you're anti-BLM and you're a racist.

36:04 We've got to go to a quick break. We've got more from Dr. Paul after this. Stay with us. A new study finds a major increase in STEM learning in after-school programs, but gaps remain. Today, 92% of parents with children in after-school say STEM is available, up from 69% a decade ago. That's 6.4 million kids now getting STEM in after-school. Emma Binet, Overdeck Family Foundation. This study underscores the remarkable work out-of-school time programs do to help students discover the joy in learning while preparing them to succeed now and into the future. The study finds rural and low-income students are less likely to get frequent STEM opportunities, with rural programs also offering fewer opportunities in computer science and technology. Jody Grant, Executive Director of the After-School Alliance.

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38:57 800-284-1349. 800-284-1349. 800-284-1349. That's 800-284-1349. Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-830 I'm here with spokesman John Wolf. So John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here.

39:39 It's always nice to answer the listeners' questions. Now, as far as who should call in, anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now. 800-830-5050. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and call now. 800-830-5050. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center may not be available in all states, not available in California. Hey, welcome back. Bill Martinez here, and we're coming at you with Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College. Yeah, it is amazing. I mean, this is the thing that makes it difficult, Paul, for, you know, I know they think they're rational, and we think we're rational, but... Together, we're both, you know, I guess we're just irrational. I mean, and how can you connect to have this conversation when they're so ideologically fixed? And as Jordan Peterson says, and I love the quote, is that you can be so ideologically fixed that you render yourself stupid. And I mean, you hear Barack Obama. He's on the campaign trail trying to find some relevance. I mean, he is begging for relevance, Paul.

40:58 And it's I mean, it's almost like they're just tolerating him now. Almost, not quite as bad as Kamala Harris, certainly. She's far gone. I cringe every time I hear her talking and see her on any kind of soundbite. It's cringeworthy. Yeah, my colleague at American Spectator, Dan Flynn, wrote a great book a few years ago called Intellectual Morons. And it opens up where he makes the point, he says, ideology makes you stupid. And Russell Kirk, a founding father of conservatism, modern conservatism, used to say he objected to the idea of conservatism being described as an ideology. He said, It's really not an ideology. It's an attitude. It's about simply believing in tradition, biblical law, natural law, family, faith, freedom.

41:54 And he said ideology is for ideologues, and ideologues are on the left, right? He said the true ideologues came out of the French Revolution, right? Marxists are ideologues. Communists are ideologues. And leftists really are ideologues. And so they're following an ideology. These are all secular ideologies. And then generally, there's probably an even broader category of sort of liberals, progressives who are really driven by emotion more than they are rationality. And they would object to that, of course, but it really is true. And Anyone who's come up through this over the decades, I mean, you've had arguments your whole life, right? Bill, you and I with liberals, and they'll be screaming at you. Charlie Kirk used to go through this, right? Where he would go out in public and they'd just start calling him a hater and a Nazi. And then he would really calmly say, well, why are you saying that?

42:53 Right. And you just watch the dialogue and and you can see who's emotional and who's rational. And what really pulls you out of the left is if you stop thinking emotionally and you start thinking rationally. Right. And you can see this, by the way, even go into like reader comments and articles that conservative versus liberal Web sites. The conservative– look at our reader comments articles at the end of our pieces at the American Spectator. Some of these guys will write paragraphs, right, where they're kind of elucidating their viewpoint. right? There's a stream of cohesive rationality to it, whereas the left, the response is simply fascist, hater, bigot, Nazi, racist, right? It's like, racist?

43:42 I'm not even talking about race here. What are you talking about, right? That doesn't make rational sense. Well, no, because it's an emotional accusation. It's not a rational accusation. Well, you're exactly right, and this is where we are, and you just You know, sometimes I just want to ask these people, I think you're in need of a hug. You know, because they're just so. Emotive that you can't get through it. And it's such an exercise because you end up going, OK, well, I know it's not worthy of my time. You know, as the Bible says, you cast pearls before swine. And I know that sounds kind of brutal, but it really is a warning, you know, from the word of God that you're wasting your time on people like this. Right, right.

44:29 Yeah, and yet, you know, as the Christian would say too, right, you really kind of have to give it your time. You have to, of course, there's a limit to it, right? And you discover that. Sometimes, I mean, many times I've gotten to the point where they've kind of pulled me into a dialogue, and I say, oh, okay, I'll give this a shot, right? This person, they're not hitting me with F-bombs. Right. Actually interested in dialoguing. And then by your first email response, and you think you responded to their point with like four or five paragraphs, and then their response is to ignore everything that you said, and then go into, but this is why Trump's a racist.

45:12 You emailed me about point A, right? And I responded to it for you. you need to stay focused on the point here, right? Can we finish with this now? What do you disagree about what I said? Let's stay focused here. They can't stay focused because they're flailing around, not thinking rationally, but emotionally. Yeah, they want to win an argument. They do. They want to win an argument. They want to have a hissy fit. And so they don't really argue, right? They just kind of lash out. They kind of accuse. And that's when you get to a point. And I had this not that long ago with a lady who emailed me after hearing me on a talk radio show.

45:56 And she said, you're saying that I'm. And I said, well, I never said that at all. Right. You're calling me. And I did not call you a name at all. Right. And then I just simply said something. Listen, God bless you. Peace to you. I don't think this is really going to go anywhere. Take care. Right. Yeah. You know, I think going back to our earlier point here, Paul, is that, you know, as the Bible says, the fool says there is no God. Right. Right. And that's and when you're dealing with people, these progressives that you pointed out, people that are more, you know, they more want justice and they want mercy, which is loved.

46:39 You know, it's antithetical to God's personality. And it's their definition of justice, which is a skewed definition of justice. Right, exactly. But it's without God. It's godless. So if it's godless, I'm justified to murder millions of people. Yeah, and if it's godless, then it's lacking faith, hope, and charity. And you can see they already have the lack of faith, obviously. And there's a lack of charity throughout everything that you're dialing. It's like, well, there's no charity here at all, right? This is plain viciousness. And also that third theological virtue, hope, right? Yes. As well. And they act like there really is no hope. There's nothing else out there, which is why they have to win what they're winning right now, period. Because there's no better solution to it, right?

47:27 G.K. Chesterton said that hope is about having hope when things seem hopeless. And truly, your only hope is in God, right? Your hope is in the better life here after that. And to quote Russell Kirk again, he said, the conservative believes that you can't make a heaven. Of earth, right? Heaven is in the next life, but you can make a hell of earth. And it's the godless utopian, it's the leftist, it's the communist or the Marxist who thinks that you can have heaven on earth. And you have to have heaven on earth because there's no heaven at all in the afterlife. And that's what gets you your hell of earth. Well, going back to hope, this reminds me of early on why I had resisted Barack Obama. Because that marketing move of hope and change just seemed so empty to me, Paul.

48:18 Yeah, yeah. I could see it. And I just couldn't understand why nobody else. The only thing I thought was in terms of hope was, I think a lot of Americans had hoped the first black president would do something to resolve this racial divide. And look what happened. It took a white guy from New York selecting the right kind of Supreme Court justices to get us on track and give us relief that we all wanted, not the black messiah. Yeah, I remember Rush Limbaugh used to say, if you think this is going to give us racial reconciliation, you don't know how the left works, right? No, it's going to be, what, you voted against Obama? You racist, right?

49:05 You're opposing him on his tax policy? You racist, right? The same kind of thing. And it was with another example, same-sex marriage, right? Well, let's give them this, and then they'll you know, then they'll be happy. It's like, no, then if you're a conservative, if you're a Christian, you say, I'm sorry, you know, I love you as a brother and everything. But, you know, but Bible teaches, natural law teaches, my church teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman. That's the way it is. Oh, really? Then they cancel you. They attack you. They report you. Again, there's no mercy.

49:46 Yeah. And they'll use everything. They'll use everything against you. They'll weaponize the government against you and on and on. We've seen this happen. Last couple of minutes here left, Paul, and I did want to talk to that article yesterday. that you wrote about Mike Ditka. I think a lot of people didn't understand. In fact, I shared with some friends of mine, I'm involved with the Knights of Columbus here in Florida. And a lot of the guys didn't know that Ditka was, he was very active. In the Knights of Columbus. He, every Sunday when he was in town, he was a lector at the seven o'clock mass at his church, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, going to the local church and the local parish, the local Catholic school. And he remained devout throughout his entire life. And to circle this back to Obama, one of the reasons I wrote that article, I just wanted to write a tribute to Ditka because he's from my area in Western PA and I know a lot about him. But what everybody forgets about Ditka is that the Republicans tried to get him to run against Barack Obama for that open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois in 2004. And Ditka couldn't do it because he was too busy. But if Ditka had run.

50:57 We wouldn't be talking about Barack Obama here today. No one would have ever even heard of Barack Obama. I mean, maybe he would have gotten elected later to something else, but he, he certainly would never have been president in 2008. And Ditka understood that. So that was in a way kind of, uh, you know, this great Superbowl champion, um, that was Ditka's biggest loss. And even said it was one, it was maybe his biggest regret that he didn't run against Obama. Wow. Um, not only his personally, but America, I think, at large. But look at, you know, experience defines preference. And, you know, my prayer is that we've experienced enough of the left that, you know, Americans come out in mass and record numbers to reclaim this great American idea.

51:46 We have to leave it there. Paul Kengor, how can people be in touch with you? Yeah, thanks, Bill. Follow me at American Spectator. That's spectator.org. And you can read my articles there, including my Saturday column every week. Every 40 seconds, a child disappears. That's 2,000 children every single day. Find the Children is a nonprofit organization fighting to bring them home. But we can't do it without you. Your unwanted car, running or not, can help find missing kids, reunite families, and support the search and rescue efforts that protect children every day. We'll pick it up fast and free with a 24-hour response. And your donation may qualify for a tax deduction. Find the Children provides crucial resources to help locate missing children and educational programs to teach kids how to recognize and avoid predators before it's too late. Together, we can give families hope and bring children home where they belong. Donate your car today and help bring a child home. Find the children, because every child deserves to come home. 800-547-5331 800-547-5331 800-547-5331 This advertisement was paid for in partnership with Cars R Us and Find the Children.