Point of View December 17, 2024 – Hour 1 : Stumbling Toward Utopia

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. Anna Dexter. Thank you very much for joining us ladies and gentlemen. I'm so excited to be hosting today and especially about the two guests that I have. One of them in the first hour is Tim Gagline. He's written a new book called Stumbling Toward Utopia. It really takes us back to the 60s and how many of the problems that we've got in the country.

[00:00:44] Today start from attempts in those years and even earlier to try to achieve some sort of utopia in America a la Marxism. And so he's going to join me to talk about this book. We're going to really dig into it for the first hour. And also Mike Ferris is going to join me. He is working for the National Religious Broadcasters. He's kind of he's been around a long time and been just a wonderful participant on Point of View.

[00:01:14] He's going to continue programming in many of his capacities. But the one that that we're going to address today is the one where he's counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters Association. He is actually suing on behalf of them to try to strike down the Johnson Amendment, which is the amendment that was also put in place in the I think in the 70s.

[00:01:39] And it really stymies and muzzles pastors and nonprofit organizations from giving all the information about candidates and to voters. And so, you know, it's something that shouldn't be there. Pastors are actually sometimes they self censor and talking about politics and elections.

[00:02:03] And so NRB is concerned about that. And I'm really glad for what they're doing. So that'll be later in the second hour. But right now, I'm so happy to be able to introduce my guest.

[00:02:14] He's Tim Gagline, and he's the vice president for external and government relations that focus on the family. He's based in Washington, D.C.

[00:02:22] And for decades, he served in high level government posts. He worked as special assistant to President George W. Bush. And he was deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008.

[00:02:37] And that's how I know Tim, because he was the president's principal outreach contact for conservatives and faith based groups.

[00:02:46] And I got to participate in a call with him every week where we got lots of great information and things that we could pass on to those listening to us.

[00:02:56] And so I got to know him that way. And I've known him ever since. And he's also he worked before that for Senator Dan Coats.

[00:03:05] He was press secretary, deputy press secretary and press secretary there. And he's written several books, including the one that I'm going to talk about with him today.

[00:03:15] Stumbling Toward Utopia, How the 1960s Turned into a National Nightmare and How We Can Revive the American Dream.

[00:03:23] Tim, thank you so much for joining me.

[00:03:26] Penna, it is truly great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.

[00:03:30] Well, those were fun days when you were in the White House and we got to hear what was on the heart of President Bush.

[00:03:38] Many things pleased those of us who are Christians and conservatives.

[00:03:43] He was you know, he he was actually a great president in that sense.

[00:03:48] And sometimes I also miss just what a family man he was and sort of an upstanding citizen that you could be proud as your president.

[00:03:57] I know a lot of people are critical, but I really love that time.

[00:04:03] You know, I did, too. And I wrote a whole book about it, as you know, called Man in the Middle.

[00:04:07] It was my first book. And the reason I wrote that book, Penna, is the thing you're alluding to, which is when you read Man in the Middle, overwhelmingly, it's not a political book.

[00:04:20] It was meant to be a memoir, a series of snapshots of what it is like to be a Christian working at close hand with a United States president.

[00:04:31] And I think that those years were so unique.

[00:04:34] And in fact, I would even suggest that the political years since the Bush years have been really, I think, very dramatic.

[00:04:45] You think so?

[00:04:47] I actually am trying to be understated.

[00:04:51] But I think that the years between 2000 and 2008, the Bush presidency, I think quite unfortunately, Penna, sort of gets swallowed up in history or it gets overshadowed by the war.

[00:05:07] But there was a lot going on and there were monumental things going on.

[00:05:11] And, of course, you and I worked on them.

[00:05:14] And I think the most profound one of which was the fundamental reshaping of the federal judiciary.

[00:05:20] I think it's fair to say that if you are a fellow conservative and you are more often than not pleased, for once, with what's happening in the district and the appellate and the Supreme Court decisions, not on everything but on many things, we really have George W. Bush to thank.

[00:05:40] He did a fabulous job in paying attention and making the Constitution the center of it.

[00:05:46] Yes, he did.

[00:05:47] And a lot of that was undoing damage that is described in the book that you wrote, Stumbling Toward Utopia, Tim.

[00:05:54] And I think if people want to know what's wrong with our society today, they could very easily pick up this book and read it.

[00:06:03] And it's not long.

[00:06:04] It's only 180 pages.

[00:06:05] But it really brings you through what has happened since the 1960s and even before, what the progressives did, how they tried to get a, I guess you would call it a utopia.

[00:06:20] And in doing so, Tim, they really messed a lot of things up, didn't they?

[00:06:25] They really did.

[00:06:26] And, in fact, I'm glad, my friend, that you used that phrase, messing it up, because that was the common phrase that I heard in the three years before I wrote Stumbling Toward Utopia,

[00:06:37] because as one of the vice presidents that focus on the family, even though I live and work here in Washington, D.C., I travel extensively, about a third of the time.

[00:06:48] And whether I was in front of a left-wing audience, right-wing or non-ideological, I'm not a betting man, Tana, but within the first two, three, four questions, someone would say something like,

[00:07:00] how in the world did we get into this mess?

[00:07:02] And having heard this recurring question, I was intrigued.

[00:07:06] And I was coming back from a speaking date in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I asked one of the stewards on the airplane to hand me a sheaf of those tiny little,

[00:07:17] they may be the smallest napkins in world history, Tana, on airplanes.

[00:07:21] And he gave me a stack of napkins, and I began to outline the answer to how do we get into this mess?

[00:07:27] And the short answer is the moral and the social revolution of the 1960s and what the radicalism of that period in law and legal spaces,

[00:07:40] in politics, in education, in popular entertainment, all of these things in Stumbling Toward Utopia answer the question,

[00:07:50] how do we get into this mess?

[00:07:51] And I'm very eager for my fellow Christians and conservatives to read Stumbling Toward Utopia and to learn about this incredible moral revolution that was imposed upon our country.

[00:08:03] And I think most people who were living through it at the time had no idea what was being planned for our remarkable country.

[00:08:12] No, I don't think they didn't.

[00:08:14] And I do hope, I'm very hopeful, I read the book from cover to cover because I resonated with it.

[00:08:23] I actually lived through it.

[00:08:24] And so, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you'll stick with us for the full first hour of Point of View as Tim Gagline takes us through the things that happened.

[00:08:33] And, of course, we won't be able to cover them all, but I think you may get a taste for this book and want to get a copy.

[00:08:40] So stick with us.

[00:08:41] We've got more of Point of View after these messages.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] You know, it is estimated that Charles Wesley wrote over 6,500 hymns.

[00:09:06] Perhaps his best-known hymn is Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

[00:09:09] Over the years, it has been edited slightly, but the meaning and theology remains as he wrote it more than two centuries ago.

[00:09:16] It begins with a proclamation of the birth of Jesus.

[00:09:19] Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King.

[00:09:23] Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.

[00:09:27] The hymn reminds us why Christ came to earth.

[00:09:30] Jesus came into the world to bring peace, but many who sing this song failed to realize that it was to bring peace between us and God.

[00:09:38] Wesley's hymn reminds us that his birth was so that God and sinners could be reconciled.

[00:09:43] We are the sinners in this hymn, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

[00:09:48] All we like sheep have gone astray.

[00:09:50] We have broken God's commandments and need to be reconciled with God.

[00:09:54] This was done when Christ died for our sins.

[00:09:57] This hymn by Charles Wesley goes on to describe who Jesus Christ is.

[00:10:01] Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord.

[00:10:05] Late in time behold him come, offspring of the virgin's womb.

[00:10:09] Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.

[00:10:14] Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus are Emmanuel.

[00:10:18] This is the wonder of the incarnation.

[00:10:20] Jesus became the offspring of the virgin's womb.

[00:10:23] God became man and was veiled in flesh, even though he was the incarnate deity.

[00:10:28] This Christmas week, let us all once again reflect upon the incarnation.

[00:10:32] How wonderful yet mysterious that God would become man and dwell among us.

[00:10:36] And that he would be willing to die on a cross for our sins.

[00:10:40] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] Go deeper on topics like you here on Viewpoints by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] Visit pointofview.net.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] Well, as much as we would like to create a utopia, we won't be able to do that.

[00:11:10] Tim Gaglin is my guest.

[00:11:12] His book is Stumbling Toward Utopia.

[00:11:14] We know now that we didn't reach that, I guess, utopia that some people longed for.

[00:11:22] But there's an element that thinks man can perfect things, Tim.

[00:11:28] And it's an element that tends to discard God and sort of trust man's efforts in doing things.

[00:11:37] And all of this that started back in the 60s started on the coast.

[00:11:42] I was actually in California at that time.

[00:11:44] I remember a bit of it.

[00:11:46] I was actually born in the 50s, so that dates me.

[00:11:50] But I remember my mom complaining about education.

[00:11:53] And I also remember the fact that we went to church, but the church turned left.

[00:11:58] And we ended up leaving because it wasn't really giving us any answers.

[00:12:03] You had a pen pal to whom the same thing happened, didn't you?

[00:12:07] I did, and I write about that.

[00:12:10] He grew up in Northern California and is of the same generation as you, my friend.

[00:12:16] And he penned this series of observations that shows the incremental but decline in the area where he lived,

[00:12:27] in the Bay Area of California, rooted completely in the moral and social revolution of the 1960s.

[00:12:35] And you are absolutely right.

[00:12:37] It began corrosively on the coast and began to move inward.

[00:12:43] And what I show and demonstrate, Penna, in Stumbling Toward Utopia, is that the radicalism of the 1960s did not come from nowhere.

[00:12:52] It was planned really at the turn of the century, the turn of the 20th century,

[00:12:58] by a handful of very influential, well-funded, powerful Americans.

[00:13:03] One of them was a U.S. president, Woodrow Wilson.

[00:13:06] He was very uncomfortable with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

[00:13:12] In fact, he said the country should be run by experts.

[00:13:16] He was very concerned about what he called citizen sovereignty.

[00:13:22] Can you imagine that?

[00:13:23] The founder of the ACLU plays another starring role in Stumbling Toward Utopia.

[00:13:30] This is Roger Baldwin.

[00:13:31] And a lot of our fellow conservatives do not know that the founder of the ACLU was a communist.

[00:13:38] He was very uncomfortable with faith and religion in the public square and wanted to fundamentally change our legal system.

[00:13:46] Another one was John Dewey.

[00:13:49] This is a name that should be on the tip of the tongue of every conservative who is concerned about what's happened in American education,

[00:13:58] because John Dewey, as you know, Penna, was very eager to shift American education from right and wrong, good and bad, objective standards of truth.

[00:14:09] You know, the idea of science, math, reading, English.

[00:14:14] He wanted to use the schools to create a new kind of transformative global citizen.

[00:14:20] And he unfortunately succeeded in doing that in our public schools.

[00:14:26] Margaret Sanger, the founder of the sexual revolution, she was a eugenicist, the founder of Planned Parenthood, in fact.

[00:14:33] And this matrix of very bad ideas really gets jet fuel in the early part of the 20th century, Penna.

[00:14:42] And it did not take long that as the 50s and especially the 60s and 70s were coming into focus,

[00:14:50] the radical revolution that these people and a few others envisioned really, really fundamentally changed our nation.

[00:14:58] You know, it seems like it sort of percolated.

[00:15:02] All these Marxists were starting at the turn of the century, as you said, and then in the 20s.

[00:15:06] And then you had Woodrow Wilson, which I really didn't know his role until I read your book quite in depth.

[00:15:13] And you get these stories in the book.

[00:15:15] But then, you know, in the 60s, you mentioned that the progressives wanted a faster takeover of the institutions.

[00:15:23] It already seemed like it was pretty fast.

[00:15:25] But so they pinpointed the universities, didn't they?

[00:15:29] They did indeed.

[00:15:30] And in fact, something that is almost forgotten now is called the Port Huron Statement.

[00:15:36] And this statement should not be considered kind of old and dusty news.

[00:15:42] In fact, it's on the progressive left.

[00:15:45] It was really the ultimate catalyzing force of the 1960s.

[00:15:50] Because as I demonstrate in Stumbling Toward Utopia, this document, which was written by Tom Hayden, your fellow Californian, later the husband of Jane Fonda,

[00:16:02] this was, kind of, ultimately the most important blueprint of the 1960s for the overtaking of American higher education.

[00:16:12] The Port Huron Statement's goal was to use the universities as a truncheon against the values of the overwhelming majority of the American people,

[00:16:25] and to use modern universities and eventually all other schools, really, in a kind of weaponization against our country.

[00:16:35] And people who went to the University of California, who went to Berkeley, who went to UCLA on the other side of the 1950s knew these as among the most important, excellent areas of higher education in world history.

[00:16:53] And what had happened to them as a result of the 1960s by the 70s and 80s was a complete radicalization.

[00:17:01] And, of course, what we saw in our own nation, the anti-Semitism, the using of campuses for purely political reasons, was a direct result of what happened in the 1960s.

[00:17:15] You know, when you talk about the results and you are talking about, you know, what we're seeing today with anti-Semitism on campus,

[00:17:23] but also, I mean, right now one of the focuses of this election has been the working class and the change in allegiance that you've seen.

[00:17:31] But when we saw what happened on the campus with kids, really upper middle class, getting into drugs, getting into sexual promiscuity,

[00:17:42] and just kind of losing the traditional values they'd been raised with.

[00:17:47] And I really lived through this.

[00:17:50] Fortunately, my dad didn't let me go to any of those University of California schools that you mentioned, but I saw it.

[00:17:57] And the effects are not limited to just one generation, but I do see that the working class is hurt more by these moral changes, really, than anyone, don't you think?

[00:18:07] I do.

[00:18:08] And, in fact, I'm really pleased that you say that because in Stumbling Toward Utopia, I was particularly curious about two big things.

[00:18:18] The first was what kind of the new elite morality would ultimately mean for everybody else.

[00:18:25] And the second thing, Hannah, directly related to it, was the fundamental takeover of popular entertainment.

[00:18:33] I think we have to remember that Hollywood, you know, and there's California again,

[00:18:39] but Hollywood was capable of making these extraordinary films.

[00:18:42] You know, Goodbye, Mr. Chip.

[00:18:46] You know, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

[00:18:48] Here we are in the season of It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street.

[00:18:52] I mean, these will be great films in 100 years.

[00:18:56] You know, I even think of all the early Disney movies.

[00:18:59] Oh, yes.

[00:19:00] They were just spectacular.

[00:19:02] They were spectacular and they were high art.

[00:19:05] And the fact that Hollywood allowed itself to be overtaken by the 1960s,

[00:19:12] foisting the new morality on the middle and working classes,

[00:19:16] was part of what the radicals of the 60s intended to do.

[00:19:21] Well, I think so.

[00:19:22] And they certainly succeeded in many ways.

[00:19:26] And, you know, we can talk about the influence of a man named Norman Lear,

[00:19:30] who we used to kind of openly talk about his ideas and point of view,

[00:19:36] because they were antithetical to ours.

[00:19:39] I'm really glad you said that, because he also plays, as you know, Hannah,

[00:19:43] a starring role in the book.

[00:19:46] You know, before the radicalization of the 60s, American sitcoms had gentle humor.

[00:19:53] And they are really great sitcoms.

[00:19:55] Leave it to Beaver, Andy Griffith.

[00:19:57] I could go on and on.

[00:19:58] The Dick Van Dyke Show.

[00:20:00] These are wonderful comedies.

[00:20:02] And mostly they are free of what Norman Lear absorbed from the 1960s in changing the idea of American humor

[00:20:13] and the idea of American sitcoms in prime time,

[00:20:16] which is that he inhaled this enormous amount of skepticism and cynicism

[00:20:22] and also used politics and weaved that into his humor.

[00:20:28] And so the next thing you know, you have series like Maud, which are actually sitcoms that celebrate abortion.

[00:20:38] You have, you know, All in the Family, where we were all supposed to really revile Archie Bunker

[00:20:46] for every single thing, because, of course, he supported America during Vietnam.

[00:20:51] And he thought that there were rightful questions about the resignation of a U.S. president.

[00:20:57] And he was really made out to be, if I may say, kind of retrograde.

[00:21:02] And I think much of Lear's, not all.

[00:21:05] I've got to jump in here, Tim.

[00:21:07] But much of Lear's entertainment goals.

[00:21:08] You bet.

[00:21:08] We've got a break.

[00:21:09] And, yes, there's so many great points made in this book about certain phenomena in our culture and society

[00:21:17] and how they've affected us today.

[00:21:18] So we're going to continue that discussion with Tim Gagline.

[00:21:22] Stick with us.

[00:21:22] We'll be more with Point of View.

[00:21:29] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:39] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:47] London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:21:53] Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:21:59] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:22:03] Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:07] It is truth for all of life.

[00:22:09] Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:15] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox

[00:22:20] when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:22:26] Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

[00:22:34] It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now.

[00:22:40] Pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:22:46] Point of View will continue after this.

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[00:23:01] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again, is Penna Dexter.

[00:23:13] I'm so grateful to have Timothy Gagline as my guest today on Point of View

[00:23:17] and for the book that he has written, Stumbling Toward Utopia.

[00:23:20] It really explains a lot of things, and I think you'll want to read it.

[00:23:25] As I mentioned, it's not even a long book, but it's packed with information

[00:23:29] and explanation for the way the culture is today.

[00:23:33] And, Tim, we were talking about Norman Lear,

[00:23:35] and you tell stories of different players and people who were really progressive

[00:23:41] and they affected the country.

[00:23:43] And I think that, you know, that's a good way to help us to understand this.

[00:23:49] And, you know, going back from entertainment and just that influence,

[00:23:55] let's step back a little bit.

[00:23:57] You've got these chapters, and every chapter has sort of a stumble

[00:24:00] that our society took on the way to trying to get utopia.

[00:24:05] And one of them, of course, is in education.

[00:24:07] It's a huge one.

[00:24:08] And if you're going to attack the foundations, you've got to start with the youth.

[00:24:12] That started before the 60s at the turn of the century, really, with John Dewey.

[00:24:18] And the idea was to get rid of the spiritual influences on these kids' lives.

[00:24:25] It wasn't part of his thinking.

[00:24:27] And to deemphasize learning and replace it with attitudes.

[00:24:32] And they're still doing this, aren't they?

[00:24:34] They are indeed.

[00:24:35] And I'm really glad, Penn, as we open up this second part of our conversation,

[00:24:40] that we're beginning with the rising generation of young Americans.

[00:24:44] Because, you know, having lived and worked in Washington now for, you know,

[00:24:49] going on four decades, but as one of us,

[00:24:52] one thing I have learned is that progressives have a plan for getting the rising generation.

[00:24:58] Whoever wants this generation is going to get them, it seems to me.

[00:25:01] And I often say to myself, you know, our Christians and conservatives,

[00:25:06] what is our plan, you know, to help get the rising generation?

[00:25:11] But progressives are far ahead of us on this because they've been thinking about this systematically for such a very long time.

[00:25:20] And one of the absolute goals of the 1960s was to capture the youth.

[00:25:27] You know, in our first half an hour of discussion, Appena,

[00:25:31] you were discussing your growing up years in California.

[00:25:35] On the other coast, of course, there was the Woodstock generation.

[00:25:39] And I write in Stumbling Toward Utopia how what was happening at Woodstock,

[00:25:46] sex, drugs, rock and roll, wallowing in the mud, shooting.

[00:25:50] You know, this was to be the new model for the 1960s and 70s.

[00:25:55] In fact, what happened at Woodstock, the Woodstock generation, the age of Aquarius,

[00:26:02] you know, smack dope acid.

[00:26:03] You know, there's a lot going on.

[00:26:06] And it's all mixed in with neo-Marxist thinking.

[00:26:10] There's a reason on the cover of Stumbling Toward Utopia where I have, you know,

[00:26:15] a huge student protest that I have the photo, the portrait of Che Guevara right in the middle

[00:26:21] because the goal of the image makers of the 60s was to wrap all together the rising generation

[00:26:28] of young Americans, radicalization of education at the campus,

[00:26:33] and the use of people like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others, you know,

[00:26:39] as models for young people.

[00:26:41] And, of course, unfortunately, deeply unfortunately, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

[00:26:48] They did.

[00:26:49] But we did see the devastation of that drug culture that you described from Woodstock.

[00:26:55] Oh, yeah.

[00:26:55] Which made that just a horrible event.

[00:26:58] But that's why I don't understand.

[00:27:01] You know, we really tried to fight that for a while.

[00:27:04] But it's just coming back, legalizing so many drugs, even marijuana,

[00:27:08] which is so much stronger than it was back then, and the opioid crisis.

[00:27:14] And, you know, instead of trying to stop that again and the devastation that it causes,

[00:27:22] we're actually facilitating it.

[00:27:25] Absolutely right.

[00:27:26] And, in fact, there's so much going on every single day in the national headline count

[00:27:32] that it's difficult to often keep up with the way that progressives,

[00:27:37] who are the natural inheritors of the utopians of the 60s and 70s,

[00:27:42] are busy as beavers doing everything they can to destroy Western culture

[00:27:49] and the idea that we are all made in the image of God.

[00:27:52] And you touched on one of the most important ones,

[00:27:55] which is the wide availability of drugs, the celebration of drugs.

[00:28:00] And now, Pena, you know, kind of in the 60s, point two,

[00:28:04] or should I say, point three or four,

[00:28:06] their newest obsession is, you know, is suicide.

[00:28:12] And what they call, you know, euthanasia and death with dignity.

[00:28:17] And always wrapping in the use of drugs, psychedelics, et cetera,

[00:28:22] you know, as a gentle way into that good night.

[00:28:25] And they learned, as George Orwell did, as a man of the left,

[00:28:30] but who came through, you know, the terrible footprint of Soviet totalitarianism,

[00:28:36] that the first duty, he said, of an intelligent person is to restate the obvious.

[00:28:42] And I think he restated the obvious in 1984, an animal farm,

[00:28:48] as reminders to 21st century Americans, you know, as an echo in stumbling toward utopia,

[00:28:54] that we have to get up every single day and we have to confront what people who are motivated

[00:29:01] by the moral relativism of the 60s and 70s and the nihilism of the 60s and 70s.

[00:29:08] You know, we have to confront this with the idea of objective truth

[00:29:13] and the reality that Christianity so beautifully provides to our nation.

[00:29:18] That's why we believers have such a role to play.

[00:29:22] And, you know, it seems even back in the 60s,

[00:29:26] you saw this big effort by progressives to get rid of all semblance of Christianity in the schools.

[00:29:34] And there were court cases after court case after court case that in which that happened.

[00:29:40] You know, I'd love to see some of that coming back.

[00:29:42] And, you know, we are getting back some religious freedoms.

[00:29:46] But the schools are still, you know, the public schools are really, really still hotbeds of progressivism.

[00:29:54] And you see it now because parents are pushed out of many decisions,

[00:29:59] even affecting the actual bodies of their own children who think they are the opposite gender.

[00:30:06] You know, again, I'm just so pleased that you raised these crucial issues.

[00:30:11] I was in a debate when Stumbling Toward Utopia just came out, when it was brand new, just in late September.

[00:30:19] I was in a debate, and my interlocutor was talking about, you know, kind of a celebration of the 1960s.

[00:30:28] She profoundly disagrees with the narrative of what you and I are describing.

[00:30:33] And she delineated what she felt was the principal target or targets of the 1960s.

[00:30:40] And I absorbed, I pray with civility, what she was saying.

[00:30:44] But the thing that I said to her, Penna, is the thing that I respond to you,

[00:30:49] which is that I believe that the number one target of the 1960s was the natural nuclear family,

[00:30:58] the natural nuclear family as the absolute foundation of American society and culture

[00:31:06] and an ordered, confident, strong nation.

[00:31:09] And, of course, you cannot understand the goodness of marriage, family, and parenting

[00:31:15] without understanding the incredible importance of the Judaic Christian culture

[00:31:22] and its absolute foundational impact on the founding of our great country.

[00:31:27] And it remains the reason that we are one of the, if not the most powerful nations in world history.

[00:31:37] You cannot understand, you know, our power as a nation apart from the fact that we are a religious republic

[00:31:45] despite what the 60s wanted for the future of our nation.

[00:31:51] You also have a chapter, and I think this and the family stumble chapter and the fiscal stumble chapter

[00:31:58] dovetail in many ways because the actual policies of the 1960s

[00:32:04] and President Johnson's great society programs, the war on poverty,

[00:32:09] I mean an obvious attempt for utopia here to solve problems that we had,

[00:32:14] but they actually made them worse and they also harmed the family, didn't they?

[00:32:21] They absolutely did.

[00:32:22] And, in fact, I spent at length time on the great society,

[00:32:27] which is perhaps the nadir and the lowest moment in public policy of the 1960s.

[00:32:34] Lyndon Johnson, who becomes president after the murder of John Kennedy,

[00:32:39] becomes president then in his own right elected against Barry Goldwater in 1964.

[00:32:46] Unlike John Kennedy, a really radical leftist, and he begins launching the great society.

[00:32:55] He launches it at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

[00:32:59] And, Penn, you can hardly believe the promises that gargantuan government is going to resolve.

[00:33:05] I had to go back and read most of the major speeches of LBJ.

[00:33:10] I mean, the government was going to solve poverty.

[00:33:12] It was going to solve the problems of our inner cities.

[00:33:15] It was going to solve racial relations.

[00:33:17] It was going to take over education and make education excellent.

[00:33:21] It goes on and on, and we all know that what government incentivizes it makes worse.

[00:33:26] Well, other than race, I think it has made everything worse.

[00:33:31] And, you know, we're going to talk about some of the ways in which that has happened.

[00:33:36] After the break, Tim Gagline is my guest.

[00:33:39] Stay with us for the final segment of this interview.

[00:33:43] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:00] As we look at the institution of marriage today and the lower marriage rates,

[00:34:07] fewer of the poor are marrying.

[00:34:10] And that, I believe, the Great Society programs were the genesis of this.

[00:34:15] What do you think, Tim?

[00:34:17] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:34:18] As I was saying when we went into the break,

[00:34:20] I think that very often what government incentivizes, it gets more of.

[00:34:24] And, Penn, because government often incentivizes bad things, it gets bad outcomes.

[00:34:29] You know, I show in the book that in 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that it was a crisis

[00:34:39] that 25% of all black Americans were born out of wedlock.

[00:34:44] That number today in America is between 70 and 75%.

[00:34:48] 53% of all Hispanic Americans are born out of wedlock.

[00:34:55] And above 30% of native-born whites are born out of wedlock.

[00:35:00] In fact, the majority of babies, Tena, who are born to American women who are 30 years of age and under

[00:35:07] are born out of wedlock.

[00:35:09] You know, we have a fatherhood crisis, which in many ways is a direct result of the Great Society.

[00:35:17] And I show in the book that in 1960, and this wasn't very long ago,

[00:35:22] in 1960, 73% of all young people were living in an American home with a married mother and father.

[00:35:32] That number by 1980 was down to 53%, and the number by 2015 was barely above 40%.

[00:35:41] I mean, these are really shocking numbers.

[00:35:44] And it was a rapid decline.

[00:35:46] And you can look at the 1960s in the way that we've been talking about it in this great conversation,

[00:35:53] and you can look at the way that progressives have overtaken the public policy process,

[00:35:59] especially with regard to marriage, family, parenting, human life, religious liberty.

[00:36:05] And almost always the outcomes are precisely the opposite of what are good

[00:36:11] for the overwhelming majority of the American people.

[00:36:15] You know, this is all so depressing in a sense.

[00:36:19] I think what happened to the intact black family is just an absolute travesty.

[00:36:24] And also the idea that, you know, these welfare programs that were launched back in the 60s

[00:36:30] in the war on poverty, quote unquote, they didn't cure poverty.

[00:36:35] They destroyed the family.

[00:36:37] And our welfare programs have simply grown astronomically, haven't they?

[00:36:44] They have.

[00:36:45] And I must say, and I want to be very clear about this, I am, despite what we've been talking about,

[00:36:53] I am an inveterate, bottomless optimist about America's future.

[00:36:58] I really am.

[00:36:59] I believe that the restoration of the American dream is ahead of us because I think there are millions of people,

[00:37:07] many of whom have not traditionally been conservatives or Republicans,

[00:37:10] but I think there are millions of people who have been so terribly impacted by these things,

[00:37:16] and they are overwhelmingly rethinking, which is a great thing.

[00:37:20] And I believe that American restoration might very well be ahead of us.

[00:37:25] Tim, I agree with you.

[00:37:27] I mean, it doesn't sound like I'm an optimist today, but, you know, we've had this election, this big shift,

[00:37:33] and as you said, different people now are actually waking up to things that, you know,

[00:37:39] we should be doing and that we can do.

[00:37:42] And I think that maybe you could give some words of encouragement,

[00:37:46] and we should probably do another interview on, you know, policy and what we can do,

[00:37:51] but that Christians, conservative believers, I mean, you know,

[00:37:58] we have a lot more people now in our tribe, in a sense, for elections,

[00:38:03] but there are still the thinkers, the people that understand how God works

[00:38:08] and how conservative values work, how the economy works.

[00:38:12] And so I think we're going to have to, rather than sit back and say, oh, you know, we won the election,

[00:38:19] we're going to need to be involved, aren't we?

[00:38:22] Absolutely.

[00:38:22] And I know that we share in common that you and I would rather, you know,

[00:38:26] strike a match than curse the darkness.

[00:38:29] And I feel very strongly that of a sudden the whole trans debate,

[00:38:35] whether people are Democrats or Republicans, liberals, conservatives,

[00:38:39] of a sudden, you know, the overwhelming majority of the American people do not want boys playing in girls' sports

[00:38:47] and they don't want men playing in women's sports.

[00:38:49] All of a sudden, we have large numbers of average Americans who are running for school boards,

[00:38:57] winning, and getting involved in major debates in the refashioning of the curriculum of schools.

[00:39:04] School choice, charter schools.

[00:39:06] You know, Penn, here in Washington, where our public schools were among the worst in the nation,

[00:39:12] more than 40% of all public school children in Washington, D.C. are now in a charter school,

[00:39:19] which is really remarkable.

[00:39:21] And so I think there are all kinds of measurable, very positive outcomes in our nation.

[00:39:30] Almost 4 million young people are now being homeschooled.

[00:39:33] I mean, I think there is a lot of really good news, both in public policy and in culture.

[00:39:40] And I think even better days are ahead of us.

[00:39:43] You know, we mentioned that Woodrow Wilson and his effect on the courts

[00:39:49] and then the whole public education system where parents are sort of squeezed out.

[00:39:54] And they've been, you know, I think during COVID, a lot of parents realized what was going on in their children's schools.

[00:40:02] And it's been a shift in their involvement and, you know, fighting back.

[00:40:07] I hope that it's not something that's just temporary.

[00:40:11] I hope this is a permanent shift because I don't think we'll ever go back to being able to completely trust the public schools.

[00:40:19] Yes.

[00:40:19] I'll tell you one thing I have learned in Washington in all of my time here, 10 years in the Senate,

[00:40:25] nearly eight at the White House and 16 here at Focus on the Family.

[00:40:30] And that is, Pena, I have learned that by and large in Washington, there are no permanent defeats

[00:40:36] and there are no permanent victories.

[00:40:38] I've learned that we have to work together.

[00:40:42] Multiplication and addition always beats out subtraction and division.

[00:40:46] And I believe that expanding our coalition, you know, identifying where people who may not agree with us on a host of things,

[00:40:56] but who do agree with us on other things, identifying them and working together for the common good is the seedbed of social renewal.

[00:41:05] And I think it's also the seedbed of culture and civilization.

[00:41:10] I call it the one nation principle, you know.

[00:41:13] And I go back to the great Benjamin Franklin.

[00:41:16] He said there's no freedom without order and no order without virtue.

[00:41:20] And I think the degree to which moral excellence helps to feed into the, you know, the elongation of liberty and freedom,

[00:41:29] that's what we want in the public square.

[00:41:32] And I think there are millions of people, Pena, who are now with us.

[00:41:35] I think you're right.

[00:41:37] I'm grateful for you as an encourager of some of these trends.

[00:41:41] You have said in your book, while good people are sleeping, some of these things happened.

[00:41:47] They're waking up.

[00:41:49] And it's a time to, I think, take advantage of that.

[00:41:52] So, Tim, thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:41:54] I forgot how fun it is to talk to you.

[00:41:57] And we'll have to do it again soon.

[00:42:00] What a blessing and joy.

[00:42:02] Thank you so much, Pena.

[00:42:03] And I hope people will enjoy the book.

[00:42:05] Yes.

[00:42:06] It's Stumbling Toward Utopia by Tim Gagline.

[00:42:09] And for some of you who are watching online, here's the book.

[00:42:13] See, it's not that thick.

[00:42:15] But it is full of wisdom.

[00:42:17] Maybe a good Christmas present for a friend who would be interested in this.

[00:42:22] I'm grateful to Tim Gagline for joining me.

[00:42:25] Mike Ferris is going to join me.

[00:42:29] And he's joining me in his capacity as counsel for the National Religious Broadcasters.

[00:42:35] We're going to talk about, it's kind of funny, we're going to talk about the Johnson Amendment.

[00:42:38] Because some bad things happened during the Johnson Administration.

[00:42:42] One of them was the Great Society.

[00:42:44] That was pretty bad.

[00:42:45] Another one was the Johnson Amendment, which curtails the ability of pastors and nonprofit organizations to speak about candidates.

[00:42:57] And especially, you can talk about issues, but you can't connect the issues with the candidates.

[00:43:01] And that's not helpful to some people.

[00:43:04] So Mike Ferris is going to talk about the fight against that, the challenge in courts.

[00:43:08] And we'll do that after this.

[00:43:10] If you have ever wondered what kind of impact you have when you give to Point of View, let me introduce you to Bill.

[00:43:19] His story is a perfect illustration.

[00:43:22] Well, I've been a supporter at Point of View since the 70s.

[00:43:26] And I appreciate the fact that truth and love are discussed equally and that God's Word never changes.

[00:43:33] We have four generations in my family who have been taught these things, these truths.

[00:43:38] And the fifth generation we've just been blessed with, who I'm sure will be blessed by this ministry also.

[00:43:45] So I just appreciate the fact that it's solid, it's truthful, it's honest, and there's no changing God's Word.

[00:43:51] And that is the kind of multi-generational impact you have when you support Point of View.

[00:43:58] So give today.

[00:44:00] Equip the next generation with the clarity of God's unchanging Word.

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[00:44:27] Point of View will continue after this.