Ep. 2136 - No More TRANSING The Military!

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The Ben Shapiro Show 54 min 7 speakers 2 chapters transcribed
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How is culture impacting politics today?

Ben Shapiro 0:00
Well, folks, it turns out that when it comes to getting things done, the image of the thing matters an awful, awful lot. And this is something Democrats have understood for a very long time, that the image that any particular department gives off has a cultural impact. There are people like me who learned from Andrew Breitbart who said that politics is downstream from culture. But the truth is. It's more of a cycle. It's more that politics is downstream of culture, which is downstream of politics, which is downstream of culture. What I mean by this is that politics, the power of government, can in fact shape culture to its own whims. And so if you give off an image of DEI or ESG, From the government, you create an unofficial sanction against people who disagree.
Ben Shapiro 0:43
Sometimes you have actual formal strictures against people who disagree. In other words, the government does an awful lot to shape culture in this country. This is something the left has understood for a very long time in a way that the right traditionally has not. And that includes people like me. Because I tend to believe that the government should have a set of delegated powers, and the government performs those delegated powers, and we elect that government. So really, culture should shape – our politics should shape our governance. But the truth is it works the other way, too. And this is a point that many people on the MAGA right have been making for a long time, is that when you have, for example, a defense department that decides that it's going to put out ads that feature – lesbian families finding themselves, that this actually has an impact on the kind of people who are recruited into the military.
Ben Shapiro 1:23
And that in turn has an impact on how people think of the military. And that in turn has an impact on how people around the world think of the United States. And they're not wrong about this. That's obviously true. The reason I say this is because now nature is healing and things are going back to normal, and it's starting with governmental action. Now, you can say that culture led to that governmental action. You can say that the culture in the United States changed. There was a backlash against the insane, radical left-wing wokeism of the last decade and a half. in the United States. And that is why President Trump was reelected. It's why he has a conservative Supreme Court. It is why he has a Republican-led Senate and a Republican-led House. And all of that is true. But it is also true that now that the cycle has begun, now that culture has shaped politics, politics is shaping culture again. Perhaps the tip of the spear in this battle is the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
Ben Shapiro 2:12
So again, remember, the Defense Department, when we were growing up, when I was a mere child, the Defense Department was all about the idea that America was winning wars, a battle machine made up of strong, particularly men, who were going to go into difficult places and do things that no one wanted to see them do in order to keep America safe. That was always the image of the military. And the movies and TV shows that many of us grew up on were rooted in that image of the United States military. And the other day, I was looking for a movie to watch with my eight-year-old son, and I brought up one of my favorites from when I was a kid. I tended to watch old movies when I was a kid, meaning movies from the 50s and 60s. And so I brought up a favorite to show him.
Ben Shapiro 2:52
The old Gregory Peck, David Niven film, The Guns of Navarone, which is a classic. Terrific, terrific film if you have kids. Teenagers, it's a wonderful film. It's about a secret mission by a group of essentially American and British commandos to blow up a Nazi-held stronghold. And it's a really, really good movie. But the entire basis of the movie is that sometimes men have to do violent, nasty things in order to fight the bad guys. And this was always the idea of the American military. And then somehow it shifted. Somehow the American military became a tool of social engineering.

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