The New Socialism with Dinesh D’Souza | Interviews — Transcript

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1. 0:01welcome to office hours i'm georgia howe
2. 0:03with the daily wire
3. 0:05today we're sitting down with author
4. 0:06filmmaker and podcaster dinesh d'souza
5. 0:09dinesh's most recent prageru video is
6. 0:11titled what is identity socialism
7. 0:13and in the video he discusses the new
8. 0:15kind of socialist ideology we're seeing
9. 0:17in america today
10. 0:18which is basically socialism based on
11. 0:20identity characteristics rather than
12. 0:22economic class
13. 0:23sometimes you'll also hear this concept
14. 0:24referred to as cultural marxism
15. 0:27in the video dinesh talks a bit about
16. 0:28the history of identity socialism
17. 0:30and how the ideas became so popular here
18. 0:32in the u.s if you haven't seen the video
19. 0:34yet
20. 0:34you can find a link to it in the
21. 0:36description below let's jump right in
22. 0:39[Music]
23. 0:43well i'm really excited to have you here
24. 0:45because the things that you're talking
25. 0:46about in this video
26. 0:48i think are kind of the main theme to
27. 0:49american life right now in terms of
28. 0:51identity socialism
29. 0:52yet i feel like a lot of americans don't
30. 0:54understand what it is
31. 0:56or why it's happening right now you know
32. 0:58if you think about socialism in the
33. 1:00classic
34. 1:00sense uh when marx talked about it it
35. 1:03was really a class division an economic
36. 1:05division between the rich and the poor
37. 1:07or really between the working class and
38. 1:10the capitalist class marx
39. 1:12that was the only division that mattered
40. 1:14and every other division kind of comes
41. 1:15out of this fundamental one
42. 1:17but today in america we have this hybrid
43. 1:20type of socialism it has a class
44. 1:21component for sure
45. 1:23but even more important than class are
46. 1:26the race category the gender category
47. 1:28the transgender category
48. 1:30so if you go to a socialist conference
49. 1:32these days you'll find people who care a
50. 1:34lot more about abortion than the minimum
51. 1:36wage they care more about
52. 1:37the transgender athlete or the
53. 1:39transgender bathroom
54. 1:40than they do about universal basic
55. 1:42income so it's a new type of socialism
56. 1:45and this video is essentially putting uh
57. 1:47giving a definition to it and showing
58. 1:49how we got here
59. 1:50well i think a lot of people are
60. 1:51watching this stuff kind of unfolding
61. 1:53especially over the past year
62. 1:54the protests and kind of the increase in
63. 1:56censorship
64. 1:57and they're kind of wondering why this
65. 2:00is happening now and they may be
66. 2:01imagining
67. 2:02that it's happening organically and
68. 2:04they're not necessarily aware of the
69. 2:05broader architecture behind it
70. 2:07would you mind talking for a minute
71. 2:09about the history of this school of
72. 2:10thought and kind of how that connects to
73. 2:12what we're seeing right now
74. 2:13it really comes out of the failure of
75. 2:15the prophecies of marxism marx had
76. 2:17predicted there would be this
77. 2:18working-class revolt
78. 2:20and so all these marxists when they saw
79. 2:22that this was not happening it didn't
80. 2:23happen in germany in england did it
81. 2:25happen anywhere in the world it hasn't
82. 2:26happened to this day
83. 2:27right so these marxists were like why
84. 2:29isn't it happening and they go well the
85. 2:31reason is
86. 2:32because of what they call bourgeois
87. 2:33culture so they're talking about not
88. 2:35just the capitalist economic system
89. 2:37but they go all these working-class
90. 2:39people like to go to church and they
91. 2:40care about their families and they love
92. 2:42their country
93. 2:43they've got all these other attachments
94. 2:45so according to these leftists they said
95. 2:47listen
96. 2:48what we have to do is take over the
97. 2:49universities take over the churches take
98. 2:51over all the institutions of culture
99. 2:53and indoctrinate people particularly
100. 2:55young people in
101. 2:57our cultural marxist ideology and so
102. 3:00this began
103. 3:01i would say in earnest in the 1960s a
104. 3:03real
105. 3:04project by the left to take over the
106. 3:06media the
107. 3:07entertainment industry uh to take over
108. 3:10the
109. 3:10universities and they've done it they've
110. 3:12been largely successful in this project
111. 3:14and so we now see that those have become
112. 3:16megaphones for the
113. 3:18left uh and they're not even really
114. 3:20going after the working class anymore
115. 3:21they would prefer like the bohemian
116. 3:23student
117. 3:24the kind of other they'd like to tap the
118. 3:26veins of racial resentment so they found
119. 3:28these new ways
120. 3:30to create you may almost call it a new
121. 3:32proletariat a new working class
122. 3:34to displace the real working class which
123. 3:36is not on their side anymore
124. 3:38so you bring up the racial component
125. 3:39here and that reminds me of the blm
126. 3:41movement
127. 3:42so you may recall over the past summer
128. 3:44there was that clip circulating
129. 3:45of patrice colors she's the leader of
130. 3:47the blm movement and she was
131. 3:49describing herself as a trained marxist
132. 3:51could you talk for a minute about
133. 3:53the bialab movement and how that
134. 3:54connects to cultural marxism
135. 3:56well you know interestingly if marx were
136. 3:58alive today he would consider them to be
137. 4:00complete fools because
138. 4:01marx basically believed that that the
139. 4:03engine of society is the economic one
140. 4:06not the racial one that was just not an
141. 4:08important
142. 4:09fundamental category for marx but i
143. 4:11think what's happened today is that in
144. 4:13america
145. 4:14the leftists have realized listen it's
146. 4:15kind of difficult to stir up class
147. 4:17grievances because if you find some
148. 4:18working-class guy
149. 4:20he doesn't hate the capitalist system he
150. 4:21wants to be part of it he doesn't hate
151. 4:23his boss he wants to become the boss
152. 4:25but on the other hand there are
153. 4:26legitimate and ancient
154. 4:28veins of racial grievance so the
155. 4:30leftists realized well listen
156. 4:32what about if we kind of rub the source
157. 4:34of racial resentment we can maybe make
158. 4:36more headway
159. 4:38than we could by appealing solely to
160. 4:39class
161. 4:41so understanding kind of how far this is
162. 4:43infiltrated into
163. 4:44our institutions schools government that
164. 4:46kind of thing do you think there's any
165. 4:47way to turn the tide at this point or
166. 4:49are we destined for a socialist
167. 4:51revolution here in the us
168. 4:52no i think that the the last bastion of
169. 4:55resistance really is
170. 4:57just i would say the ordinary
171. 4:58sensibility because i mean hey
172. 5:00if you look around in america today by
173. 5:03and large far from seeing rampant racism
174. 5:05you see people bending over backwards to
175. 5:07be accommodationists people are
176. 5:09so willing to do backwards somersaults
177. 5:12almost to accommodate particularly
178. 5:13anyone who's
179. 5:15championing a minority cause of any kind
180. 5:17gets deferential
181. 5:19or treatment that is not made available
182. 5:21to everybody else so
183. 5:22the truth of it is we see very little
184. 5:24racism and yet we have non-stop talk
185. 5:27about racism so there's a disjunction
186. 5:28between our
187. 5:29actual experience and then all the
188. 5:31rhetoric our professors throw at us and
189. 5:33the media throws at us
190. 5:35so we just have to be like the little
191. 5:36kid who recognizes that the emperor has
192. 5:38no clothes
193. 5:39we shouldn't buy into this false
194. 5:42narrative
195. 5:42and i think if we do that we just
196. 5:44explode it we refuse to be cowed
197. 5:46by political correctness ultimately
198. 5:48people will realize that the whole thing
199. 5:50even the outrage is largely made up the
200. 5:53the media people who
201. 5:54act like i'm so outraged i mean they're
202. 5:55play acting they're not genuinely
203. 5:57outraged
204. 5:58but they're using the kind of the
205. 6:00exhibition of outrage to try to get you
206. 6:02to go down on your knees and kiss their
207. 6:03feet
208. 6:04and we just shouldn't do it so i hate to
209. 6:06be a debbie downer and honestly i kind
210. 6:08of go
211. 6:08back and forth on this but how confident
212. 6:12are you
213. 6:12that americans are going to wake up to
214. 6:14what's going on they have to hear the
215. 6:16other side
216. 6:17that's the key i find on campuses a lot
217. 6:19of young people don't reject
218. 6:20conservatism they don't even know what
219. 6:22it is
220. 6:23you know and i also think back to when i
221. 6:25was 17 and 18 years old i set foot on
222. 6:27the dartmouth campus
223. 6:28the thing i wanted most of all was to
224. 6:30become a kind of sophisticated ivy
225. 6:31league guy i was so susceptible
226. 6:33to the influence of my professors
227. 6:35literally had they told me that up is
228. 6:36down
229. 6:37and you know the front is the back out
230. 6:38have been like yeah yeah as long as you
231. 6:40say so
232. 6:41i'm willing to go along so people
233. 6:43ultimately can be suckered and the left
234. 6:45dominance of media and academia makes it
235. 6:47easy for
236. 6:48them to do it but once we develop rival
237. 6:51media rival
238. 6:52ways of reaching people and they hear
239. 6:54the other side the left is finished
240. 6:56that's why they're so big on censorship
241. 6:58they just don't even want people to hear
242. 7:00the other side because
243. 7:01they can't stand up to it so as an
244. 7:03immigrant to this country
245. 7:04and especially at a place like dartmouth
246. 7:06was there ever a time that
247. 7:07the marxist agenda was compelling to you
248. 7:10well
249. 7:11the strange thing is that no immigrant
250. 7:14and i'm talking here about
251. 7:15immigrants people who voluntarily come
252. 7:17to this country no immigrant is really a
253. 7:19liberal
254. 7:19uh immigrants by and large are
255. 7:21inherently conservative
256. 7:23and by the way many of us come from
257. 7:24countries where our ordinary lifestyle
258. 7:26is to the right of pat robertson
259. 7:28you know so it's really a puzzle as to
260. 7:30why groups like asian americans still
261. 7:32vote for the democratic party i think
262. 7:33the simple reason is this
263. 7:34the asian americans end up in very good
264. 7:36universities they want to assimilate and
265. 7:38for them assimilation means
266. 7:40copying the kind of mores that are
267. 7:42established by the cultural left
268. 7:44on these elite campuses that's their way
269. 7:46of becoming american so
270. 7:48in reality do they believe any of it
271. 7:49really no because they
272. 7:51it is so out of sync with the life that
273. 7:53they actually live
274. 7:54right but the typical indian parent for
275. 7:56example you know they they
276. 7:58do not want to raise their kids in the
277. 8:00in the liberal way
278. 8:01they just think that they can sound like
279. 8:03liberals so this way they get their
280. 8:04picture taken with obama
281. 8:06but they still don't want their
282. 8:07daughters to get pregnant go on drugs or
283. 8:09suddenly declare that they are
284. 8:10that that the girls are actually boys
285. 8:12but in your case dinesh
286. 8:14was there ever a time that you were
287. 8:15swayed by the leftist rhetoric or
288. 8:18did you see through it from the
289. 8:18beginning it was my good fortune to be a
290. 8:21dartmouth
291. 8:21in 1980 at the time of the reagan
292. 8:23revolution i saw reagan campaigning in
293. 8:25new hampshire
294. 8:26i had a conservative group of friends
295. 8:28and a mentor
296. 8:29who was an editor of national review so
297. 8:31when they described the conservative
298. 8:33philosophy it wasn't that i quote became
299. 8:34a conservative i sort of realized wow
300. 8:36that's what i already am that's what
301. 8:38i've always been it was more a moment of
302. 8:40recognition than it was a moment of
303. 8:42conversion
304. 8:43proponents of socialism here in the u.s
305. 8:45they'll often point to northern europe
306. 8:47specifically scandinavia as a model of
307. 8:50how socialism could work
308. 8:51what would you say to those people well
309. 8:53my response would be number one that the
310. 8:55scandinavians are
311. 8:57capitalist in wealth creation uh they
312. 9:00have
313. 9:00they're not socialist in wealth creation
314. 9:02they may be socialist in wealth
315. 9:04distribution but they have low corporate
316. 9:05income taxes very little regulation no
317. 9:08minimum wage no wealth tax no
318. 9:10inheritance tax so
319. 9:11in many ways they have a more greater
320. 9:13free market than we do in this country
321. 9:15now
322. 9:16they also have a very big welfare state
323. 9:17but the key point is that they impose
324. 9:19the burden
325. 9:20on the whole society their belief is
326. 9:22we're all in the same boat so this idea
327. 9:24of soak the rich
328. 9:25go after the millionaires and
329. 9:26billionaires they're going to pay your
330. 9:28bills
331. 9:28the scandinavians don't do that they
332. 9:30don't demonize their rich
333. 9:32in fact some of their taxes like the
334. 9:33value-added tax the so-called vat it's
335. 9:3625
336. 9:36on consumption it falls heavier on the
337. 9:38poor than on the middle class heavier on
338. 9:40the middle class and on the rich
339. 9:42so they don't soak the rich they soak
340. 9:43the whole society so what it sounds like
341. 9:45you're saying
342. 9:46is the policies that they pursue in
343. 9:48scandinavia more evenly distribute the
344. 9:50burden
345. 9:51across all of the different classes so
346. 9:53for example you mentioned the
347. 9:53consumption tax
348. 9:55whereas the policies that are being
349. 9:56proposed here are more like a
350. 9:58tax the rich super high and they don't
351. 10:01really mention the lower classes is that
352. 10:02correct
353. 10:04yeah the scandinavians have high taxes
354. 10:06but the high taxes kick in at a very low
355. 10:08level so in norway or in sweden
356. 10:10you know you make 75 or 80 000
357. 10:13a year you're in the 50 tax rate now the
358. 10:16left knows they can never get away with
359. 10:17this in america if you say to americans
360. 10:19hey listen you make 80 or 90 000
361. 10:21you know take half your paycheck and
362. 10:23give it over the federal government
363. 10:24there'll be a tax revolt in this country
364. 10:26like you couldn't believe
365. 10:27so the left is now all about robbing
366. 10:29peter to pay paul
367. 10:30in the hope that they can get paul's
368. 10:32support and paul's vote
369. 10:33and i'm saying that that's not the
370. 10:34politics of the left in scandinavia at
371. 10:36all
372. 10:37dinesh thank you so much for joining me
373. 10:39my pleasure
374. 10:40if you want to hear more from dinesh
375. 10:42check out his new podcast the dinesh
376. 10:43d'souza podcast which is available
377. 10:45anywhere you get your podcast
378. 10:46as well as on youtube and rumble that's
379. 10:48the end of today's office hours
380. 10:50make sure to tune in next week for our
381. 10:51next conversation with a new prageru
382. 10:53presenter
383. 10:54i'm georgia howe thanks for tuning in
384. 11:03thanks for watching this episode of
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