Point of View March 11, 2025 – Hour 2 : Issues That Affect You

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, This is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today we're going to get into some of the things happening in the news, but I really appreciated the conversation last hour with Keisha Russell, Uncommon Courage.

[00:00:29] I told her that often times in the past we have sometimes selected books that we make available during our truth team, send them to some of our major donors. We're not doing that this time, but if we did this would be one of those books as well as maybe the book by Sean McDowell and even the one by Natasha Crane. We've had a couple of really good interviews lately and even if we aren't going to send you those books, which we sometimes do to some of our major donors,

[00:00:53] I would encourage you to buy those books and we make it pretty easy for you to do so because we post a lot of that on our website at pointofview.net. Okay, program note. I'm going to be talking about a lot of negative things for the next couple of minutes and sometimes after I do that and sometimes in an open meeting I say I'm just a regular bluebird of happiness, but I got to tell you the good and the bad. Let's start with the economy, which was not good yesterday.

[00:01:19] I almost brought it up yesterday. I thought let me get the facts and the numbers, but this was a brutal day yesterday for the stock market. Now if you are convinced that some of this as a result of decades of misspending by the federal government and then maybe a reaction to doge, then you'd say that's probably going to be a blame I'm going to put on previous presidents.

[00:01:45] If you're convinced that this is all due to the tariffs and I think that's partially true as well, then you're going to put that blame on Donald Trump. So everybody sees what they want to see in some of the facts, but here are the facts. The Dow Jones average closed 890 points down. That was a really bad day. What the first thing that probably goes to your mind is, well, I don't own these stocks, so why should I care?

[00:02:10] That would be incorrect. Turns out, and again, I'll pull some of this from Jim Garrity, who does a good job of digging up some of the statistics. Most recent numbers we have, 62% of Americans own stocks. I remember a time when I first started being a guest host with Marlon Maddox. We had a huge drop in the stock market. And at the time, some people said, well, who cares? Because that just affects people that own stocks.

[00:02:37] And back then, not a lot of people did own stocks, but now a lot of people do. 62% do. If you want to look at it a different way, those of you that are still working and have some kind of workplace retirement plan, an IRA, a 401k, 53% of you have that in the private sector. And also, about 49% have a private sector retirement savings plan.

[00:03:05] So again, whatever it is, a 401k, a 501, you know, just an IRA, whatever it might be. Then, just think about this. You might say, well, I'm a government worker. Okay, I work for the state or the local government. You are, again, in a situation where 81% of you in the various local governments participate in a workplace retirement plan. Another 18% participate in a retirement savings plan.

[00:03:35] So again, 401k, 403b, 503b, a thrift savings account, IRA, KEO, whatever, you know, so quite a bit. And one last one, I know some of you are saving money for your kids' future college. That's about 17 million American families, and they're using 529s, which are invested in stock as well. And then some of you say, well, I'm a retiree.

[00:04:03] Well, again, according to the Federal Reserve, and you know that must be true, 48% of American retirees depend on interest, dividends, or rental income. That's not broken out, so maybe a little less than a majority, but still a significant number. So when the stock market goes down, it affects a lot of Americans. It probably even affected you.

[00:04:26] So again, that's something to mention, and that is something we will certainly pay attention to, because that was a precipitous drop in the stock market, and we'll see where that takes us. While we're talking about that, there's also some real concerns about the fact that it is becoming a little more difficult to be Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, or Elon Musk. Donald Trump, well, you already knew that, but again, you're hearing all sorts of people saying we're at war.

[00:04:55] Democrats saying after the inauguration of Donald Trump, we're going to fight in the streets and all the rest. But then what about J.D. Vance? Perhaps you have seen, and I've watched the video of where J.D. Vance, the vice president, was walking with his three-year-old daughter, and he was harassed by a number of individuals. And there have been, I think he handled himself well, but again, can it even be possible now for an individual to just go for a walk with his three-year-old?

[00:05:25] Apparently, that's a bit much, and he handled it as best as he could, but maybe next time some people aren't going to be willing to stop and just talk to him, but throw things at him or do whatever. Of course, when you have the Secret Service around, probably going to be a little bit more difficult. What about Elon Musk?

[00:05:47] Well, he said he's had more death threats than he's ever even imagined, but have you noticed the Tesla dealerships that are being firebombed or been shot at or vandalized? We've seen Tesla charging stations that have been destroyed at a time when you thought, didn't the left like electric cars? Yeah, but not by this guy, apparently.

[00:06:07] I've seen videos of people driving a Tesla and being accosted by that, or people having a Tesla parked and having people knock the windows out, and certainly that is the case. And then if we go back to, of course, what it's like to be in the White House or the Southern White House, twice this week, Air Force fighter jets intercepted unidentified airplanes that were illegally approaching Mar-a-Lago.

[00:06:39] And then, of course, you had the Secret Service the other day shot a deranged man who was armed with a gun and a knife trying to get to the White House. So it is a little bit scary for individuals right now. Elon Musk, of course, has also said that his ex-social media platform has been under a massive cyber attack.

[00:07:02] And Gary Bauer points out in his piece that it's hard to believe that President Trump has not been given all the information from the FBI and the Secret Service about last year's assassination attempts. And one of those involves an individual that was attempting to shoot Donald Trump from his Florida golf course. This guy had 17 cell phones, but he's practically broke. Where did he get that money?

[00:07:30] So there are certainly some very concerning things that are unfolding. And anybody that has always wanted to say that we have problems with domestic violence, but it's always from the right. First of all, hasn't been paying attention to Antifa and a lot of leftist groups. But all you need to do is look at the newspapers right now. Look at any of the Internet websites or look at some of these YouTube videos to recognize pretty dangerous. We come back, though.

[00:07:59] I want to spend just a minute talking about another very sad story. And it is disturbing and concerning. And this comes out of Syria. So we'll talk about that as well. Then we'll get into some of the topics that I've posted on the website for you to read. And if you're reading ahead, we'll get to this first one by Rich Lowry. The limits of apocalyptic incrementalism. What is Doge doing? What can Doge do? What should it not be allowed to do?

[00:08:27] We'll see if we can sort some of that out in just a minute. But let's take a break. And if you find yourself wanting some of the material we're going to be talking about today, as always, it's available on our website, pointofview.net. We'll be right back.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. A significant number of young people have a positive view of socialism. In my booklet on a biblical point of view on socialism, I suggest this because of what they hear on college campuses and what they hear from politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. John Stossel now provides another reason for socialism's popularity, social media. He documents the dumb things socialists promise.

[00:09:28] For example, one TikTok social influencer has a video proclaiming socialism is working better than capitalism 93% of the time. That misleading statistic is drawn from a study by self-described Marxists in the Journal of Health Services from nearly four decades ago. Another social media influencer proclaims, socialism worked in China because it lifted over 800 million people from poverty.

[00:09:52] Yes, the per capita income in China has increased, but much of that increase came after China gave up on socialism and created a hybrid capitalism-communism society. Hong Kong, which adopted true capitalism, increased personal income much more and much faster than mainline China. Another social media influencer tells his YouTube subscribers, the central idea that unites all socialists is maximizing freedom, democratization of power.

[00:10:20] The reality in most socialist countries is less freedom and only one political party. Perhaps you have a friend or family member that is promoting socialism. Let me offer my booklet on socialism, either in digital form or printed form. We need to be prepared to answer these socialist claims and promises. I'm Kirby Anderson. And that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Socialism, go to viewpoints.info slash socialism. That's viewpoints.info slash socialism. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Let's talk about Syria for just a few minutes, and it has been three years since the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow. But his departure did not end the civil war.

[00:11:16] More than a thousand people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the past few days as armed forces of the current Islamic regime battle the loyalists to Assad. The numbers are higher if you go to open doors. You know that we oftentimes have open doors on this program. They're saying about 1,300. And the shocking news is that these various Islamist and Muslim forces

[00:11:46] were going door-to-door, just wiping out entire families in what you might call summary executions. And so some great concern here as well. I know that Tulsi Gabbard probably is not inclined to say, I told you so, but she did tell you so. She is, of course, the director of national intelligence, in which she warned that this kind of thing could happen. And again, let me just read one of these news reports here. Violence has returned in Syria,

[00:12:15] bringing more new questions about the stability of a post-Assad regime and alarming vulnerability to different religious groups, most notably Christians. And we're talking about Druze, Alouettes, and a number of others. But anyway, they point here more than 1,000. I think the number is now up to 1,300. Many were civilians executed and killed in cold blood in recent days, according to a report that came out yesterday from the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

[00:12:45] They go on to say clashes between forces loyal to new Syrian interim president, Ahmad al-Sharia, and opposed dictator Bashar al-Assad, have led to the deaths of security force members and militants, but also hundreds, literally now more than 1,000, civilians, according to NBC reports. And, matter of fact, even when I brought this up last hour off air, Keisha was saying, you know, you're going to talk about Syria, but nobody else is.

[00:13:13] Well, I'll give NBC, CBS credit, Fox News, but a lot of people covering it are actually conservative or Christian outlets as well. Anyway, NBC goes on to say that violence has occurred mostly in the coastal areas of Syria, which is the home of the Alouette community, which is a small Shia Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs. After about 50 years of rule as Assad ended with his overflow last December,

[00:13:43] Syria is currently governed by al-Sharia, as I talked about before, a Sunni. And again, I've said before, sometimes the greatest threat to a Muslim is another Muslim, because if you're Shia and they are Sunni in power, they will kill you like they kill the Christians. One individual I thought I'd at least quote from real quickly is Eric Prince. He's the founder of this security firm called Blackwater. And he said,

[00:14:09] And the individual, the Sunni, has not been reformed. He might be a better tailor and even a better PR guy, but he's still very much an ISIS guy. And there is where we are once again. You know, just recently I was speaking about ISIS, and even as I was speaking about it, I was thinking most of the individuals hearing me speak about Islam and ISIS probably thought, Well, isn't that old news? Well, no, it's as recent as this weekend.

[00:14:38] And it's a reminder once again to pray for persecuted Christians around the world. We will probably get some updates from our friends at Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors. But I meant to cover some of that earlier, but did want to at least bring it up today. Just sad news. And the numbers go up every time I get a news report. Let's bring some attention back home, because a lot of people have wondered, Okay, what about Doge? If you listened to my program yesterday,

[00:15:07] we spent some time talking about how Donald Trump kind of pulled the reins up on Elon Musk quite a bit. And at the same time, Rich Lowry points out that, as we have said before, in budgetary terms, he says, Doge is small bore stuff. Although a relatively minor scale has been masked by its lightning pace, the screaming headlines and the feeling of a fight between good and evil, it's been what he calls apocalyptic incrementalism.

[00:15:37] And the point he's making is, it's something I've made before. Doge, or the Department of Government Efficiency, is not going to balance the budget. Doge is doing some good work in that it is pointing to some things which have been known for some time, have been great abuses of the federal budget. But again, these are pretty, what he calls, small drivers of spending. And some of the others, to be honest and to be fair,

[00:16:07] Elon Musk and the individuals working with him cannot touch those, either because of legal matters or political matters. For example, political, Donald Trump doesn't want to cut entitlements. Well, that's where most of the spending is. Probably not going to cut defense very much. And there are certain contracts anyway in defense, and even in the Department of Health and Human Services and other places, that you simply could not change at the moment.

[00:16:36] But what I think Rich Lowry says is, is that Doge is sort of a typical or traditional Republican budgetary policy on steroids. And he says it's created the impression of a scandal after scandal revealed in real time with instantaneous results, that these are leading to large-scale changes, and they're not. You know, there's a point in back and forth. We talked about the fact that when you have the Grace Commission back in the 1980s,

[00:17:06] they waited to the very end and released their report, which then was greeted by a collective yawn and tapping of the mouth. Oh, it's okay. That's all we already knew anyway, and nothing happened. So this time, Elon Musk said, I'm going to, when we find a scandal, we're going to release it immediately, which in some respects has caused the Democrats to lose their minds, almost hair on fire kind of reaction. And on the other hand,

[00:17:33] people that are looking to cut the government thinking that we've done more than we really have. And so whether, as he calls it, a freak out on the left or maybe a confidence on the right, we just need to face what it is. And again, he gives us some positives. He says, it's no doubt that DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, has identified true outrages and done good work, but the rush driven by urgency

[00:18:02] has led to maybe some exaggerations and mistakes. And as we pointed out yesterday, DOGE and Elon Musk have had to walk back one or two of their mistakes and reverse field on a few of their initiatives. But if nothing else, certainly Elon Musk has changed the narrative around Washington spending and may be going to open up the idea of getting some intelligent cooperation from Congress

[00:18:28] to produce some really significant reforms and cuts. So good news, bad news on that. But just before we take a break, I also want to point you to another article, and this one written by Senator Rand Paul, in which he says, congratulations to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency for stopping the insane left-wing advocacy spread through foreign aid. He talks about some of these boondoggles, which he used to highlight through his Festivus report. But he says, fortunately,

[00:18:58] we can see some of the stops, but the best thing is for the Congress to codify these actions. And he says, fortunately, the law allows the president to send funds that he determined are wasted or unnecessary back to Congress via special legislative vehicle called rescission. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but you might want to read this because rescission bills are privileged. They must receive a vote

[00:19:25] and only needs a simple majority to prevail. He said the last time the president attempted to use rescission was back in 2018 during his first term where he proposed about $15 billion in cuts. In that case, Senate blocked it. This time, you have a Republican Senate and a House. So he points out that there are, in his own reports over these years, billions of dollars of waste and that these have written,

[00:19:53] actually hit a record high because of the previous administration. And so he says, rescissions aren't about gutting essential services, but about stopping unnecessary spending. Every year, federal agencies rush to exhaust funds before the fiscal year ends to justify their bigger budgets. We've talked about this before. The throwing the gold bricks over the Titanic, as we called it. And he says, rescissions would help break the cycle

[00:20:22] by returning unspent funds instead of letting bureaucrats funnel them into pet projects. If a program runs under cost, the savings should go back to the treasury, not be repurposed for waste. So there is a piece that you can read on the pros and cons of Doge and one on what can Congress do to make some of these necessary cuts permanent. And so again, I think you're going to find

[00:20:51] some of that very helpful and be watching because very soon we're going to be posting a new take action item. And I think you will certainly want to let your members of Congress know about that as well. By the way, if we don't hear pretty soon from Congress, we're going to have to say it's maybe time to contact Congress because we're going to run out of money at the end of the week. Yes, once again, we could have a showdown and a shutdown. Let's hope not.

[00:21:20] But we'll pay attention to what's happening each day and we'll talk about that maybe right after these important messages. If you appreciate the trustworthy news and biblical worldview that you hear on Point of View, would you consider joining our team, the Truth Team? Listeners like you have been the backbone of Point of View for 53 years. But today there are

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[00:22:45] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again,

[00:23:14] we're going to get into some other issues, but I did mention this in passing and it's worth bringing up again that a little bit later today, now I know some of you listen to this program on tape delay, but certainly as this program is ending, which would be 4 p.m. Eastern Time, 3 p.m. Central, or you can kind of figure out wherever you are in the country, the House will vote on this particular bill, and this bill is what is called a clean CR.

[00:23:43] What does that mean? This would be a continuing resolution. In the past, sometimes we've had some continuing resolutions that have been loaded up with all sorts of pork barrel spending, and this one would be just a clean one because there is a desire on the part of the House of Representatives to pass it so that we don't have to shut down the government after Friday. That makes some sense, and there has always been a desire on the part

[00:24:13] of an opposing party to use that to get some things they want, and so obviously when Democrats were in control of the House of Representatives under Nancy Pelosi or whoever it might have been, the Republicans said, well, we want to get some cuts in the CR, the continuing resolution, and the argument then was, well, are you going to shut down the government knowing full well that most of the mainstream press, New York Times, Washington Post, and others,

[00:24:43] would blame the Republicans for the shutdown. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. The role is reversed. Now the Republicans are in control of the House, and Democrats, because they don't like Doge or don't like Trump or whatever, want to shut down the government, but do they really risk doing that because this is a completely what you call clean, continuing resolution. This just provides the funds to actually go

[00:25:12] from March to the end of September, which is the fiscal year. Now there are some Democrats that, well, most Democrats would vote against that just because they're supposed to. You have at least one Republican that for sure will vote against it, and that is Representative Thomas Massey, the Republican from Kentucky, but you have a handful of others that are undecided, and the desire right now for the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is to pass

[00:25:41] this continuing resolution and then send it to the Senate. Now, your problem with the Senate is you need 60 votes to end cloture, to actually enact cloture, to end the filibuster, however you want to say it, and so you have 53 Republicans. Do you have seven Democrats that would rather not shut down the government? I know some would love to do so, but are there a few that might

[00:26:11] at least say that makes no sense, we need to keep funding the government, we'll fight our battle for another day, but if you can get 53 Republicans to all vote for it, I think you have those, and at least seven Democrats, then you have the funding for the federal government. If not, this time next week we're going to talk about a federal government that's been shut down. So anyway, that's the story there, and if the vote does not go well in the next couple of hours, I can predict what might end up being our action

[00:26:41] alert for the rest of the week, but we'll see how it goes. And more to the point, tomorrow we have Bruce Shaw in studio, and he's kind of an expert on economic issues. We're going to talk about democratic capitalism with him, and I'm sure he'll have some things to say whether it passes or doesn't pass, so we'll cover some of that tomorrow, but in the meantime, let's just hope and pray that we just keep the government going. The last thing we need right now is a government shut down. Does everybody agree? We've got

[00:27:11] enough problems. We do not need a government being shut down simply because some Democrats can't decide to keep the funding going at least to September 30th. So, you got what you got. A couple other pieces of Democrats, this piece by Colonel Allen West. I was even telling Keisha that every once in a while I'll see an Allen West column and I just have to post it for you because it's so good, and it has this very fundamental question. What do

[00:27:40] Democrats stand for? Now, he's using it in both senses. What do you stand for in terms of ideology, but also what would you stand for at the State of the Union address? And since it's a week after the State of the Union address, I thought it would be good to one more time remind us what Democrats in unison did not stand for at the State of the Union address. I'll just read a few. He says, why not stand when it was announced that military recruiting

[00:28:10] hit a 15-year high? Another one, why not stand to congratulate a who found out from the President of the United States that he was accepted to the U.S. military academy at West Point? Why not pay homage and stand for a woman who has lost her 12-year-old daughter to two criminal illegal immigrants who now has a nature-preserved name for her honor? He goes on to say, why not stand and support a young woman, a volleyball

[00:28:40] player, who had her head smashed and suffered traumatic brain injury from a biological male who spiked a ball to her head? And one more, he says, why not stand for a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor who was ceremoniously given an honorary membership into the U.S. Secret Service who then gave the head of that said agency a huge hug? And so again, he's asking, you know, why wouldn't you stand for some of those? You may not like

[00:29:09] Donald Trump, you may think that he is a fascist, you may think that this country is headed down the road towards tyranny, none of which I believe, and I think most of them don't really believe, but they all had to sit. Now, the one time they did decide to stand was a few days later when there was the censuring of Representative Al Gore, Al Green, the Democrat from Texas, and in order to actually

[00:29:39] disrupt again the censure ceremony, you had those willing to stand in the well of the House of Representatives, this time they did decide to stand and sing, we shall overcome. Colonel Allen West says, overcome what? And he says, I remember the time when Democrats did stand and cheer in unison, that's when Barack Hussein Obama asserted during the State of Union just that he had a pen and a phone and would take executive action. They were all fine with that,

[00:30:09] he says. A couple more in his piece. Does the Democratic Party stand for open borders and for allowing criminal, illegal immigrants like the ones who murdered 12-year-old Jocelyn Nunkere to remain in our country? Democrats had some cute little paddles, he said, with messages. One of them said, Musk steals. And yet here, the Democrats could not stand for the revelation of fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Do the Democrats not stand

[00:30:38] for a strong military with increased recruiting? Do they really stand with a biological male that smashed a volleyball into young group's head? Do they really stand against Title IX and protecting women's sports? Even when it was announced, he says, that an ISIS terrorist responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing, which took place in Afghanistan, that took the lives of 13 American troops, Marines, sailors, and a soldier, the Democrats could not stand. And so again,

[00:31:09] the question he has is this, are there any Democrats who will stand for the right reason with the American people? There must be five who would look at what happened a week ago at the joint session of Congress and say, I cannot stand for this anymore. Come on, no, there are some who reject the despicable behavior and wish not to stand for progressive socialists and their ideological agenda. The judgment of the American people is coming, the electoral power will never be bestowed upon those

[00:31:38] who would not stand last Tuesday evening. So, peace by Alan West. Just again, a reminder that that happened a week ago. Americans' memory is pretty short. Maybe by the next election it will all be forgotten and perhaps even forgiven, but it's something to remind us of at the very least one week after that special message before

[00:32:08] the joint session of Congress. Just before I take a break, let me just mention real quickly that Keisha Russell talked about what was happening at Columbia, and I might just mention that over the weekend, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalili, leader of the pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University, and interestingly enough, Columbia's reaction was not to try to say, good, we want to protect Jewish students. Instead, Columbia posted

[00:32:38] a protocol with phone numbers to call if students are approached by law enforcement when they are engaged in anti-Jewish protest on campus. They also gave suggestions on how staff members could delay ICE agents. So, did the Trump administration sit back and say, well, I guess there's nothing we can do? No, the Trump administration just announced that it's revoking

[00:33:08] $400 million in grants to Columbia University. They asked for it, and we'll see where that goes in the next few weeks. Come back, just one last piece, some of the comments being made about J.D. Vance, and some of the reactions to that as well as we wind down. Don't forget, tomorrow we will be spending some time talking about the economy with Bruce Shaw. Also, our good friend Paul Baraka will be dropping by and we'll get an update on some things happening overseas

[00:33:38] and maybe even an update on our trip to Greece. All that coming up right after these important messages. you're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, let me just mention that my commentary today is on socialism. Let me also mention that we do have a booklet on

[00:34:07] socialism, which, interestingly enough, was really tied to some of the great material put out a number of years ago by Dinesh D'Souza in his book, The United States of Socialism, and really gives kind of an answer to some of the arguments being made at the time by Bernie Sanders and Alexander Ocasio-Cortez. That book is still available, and of course you can request it, but my commentary today also maybe suggests that it's time to do an additional booklet, because this

[00:34:37] one is all about some of the material that John Stossel dug up in his latest video, Dumb Things Socialist Promise. We've always wondered, why is it so many young people believe socialism is better than capitalism? Even in my book on socialism, I have a whole section here on does the Bible teach socialism? Because some people think, well, that's more biblical, it's more Christianly, it's more compassionate, and all the rest. Well, that's one issue, and I certainly take that on

[00:35:07] in the booklet, as well as one on capitalism and socialism, which we'll talk about tomorrow with our conversation. But the piece that is done by John Stossel talks about a lot of the social media influencers that are spreading a lot of misinformation, almost intentionally erroneous information about socialism. And in the commentary that I have there, I mention three different statements by social influencers

[00:35:36] that then are quickly answered. And so as a result, you may have a friend or a family member, maybe a young person has gone off to college and convinced that socialism is a good thing. first of all, we are making available my booklet on socialism. You can get it either in digital form or printed form. Just let us know that you would like it, and we can either mail it out to you or we can send it out by email, and you can take that one. But also this commentary is just a quick

[00:36:06] answer to some of the kinds of things being spread on social media. So again, it's a resource we want to hand to you, and it is a service that we provide here at Point of View. Last piece, humor and the cultural divide is what I called it. Selena Zito called it, the left's reaction to Vance memes underscores the cultural divide. First of all, everybody seems to right now enjoy putting together memes or various

[00:36:35] fake images of the vice president. And his face sort of lends itself to that. Of course, look at all the pictures they've used of Donald Trump over the years. But Selena Zito put it this way. She said, on Sunday, a reporter for Atlantic wrote a 1,200-word think piece on memes of Vice President J.D. Vance. And if you haven't seen him, there's, and we on the article can see it, there's one where they photoshopped his face onto the face of Abraham Lincoln, because after all,

[00:37:05] Lincoln and J.D. Vance have a beard. And it's amazing. It really is well done. And then they have one where it shows him in the body of Leonardo DiCaprio once upon a time in Hollywood, and others. And so you can see those pictures if you go to our website right now. And they're pretty funny if you think about that. But the argument from the writer is this. The best jokes always have a kernel of truth in them. And these memes he's saying about J.D. Vance work

[00:37:35] against him, because there's no silver lining to look like a doofus. In other words, the argument he's making is that all these memes are making him look like an idiot. And maybe that's the goal of the liberals to try to make J.D. Vance look like he's not well educated. They got away with that with a previous vice president, but that was under George Herbert Walker Bush. And I just don't think this is going to work with a guy that has been a

[00:38:04] lawyer, a successful person in Silicon Valley, very articulate in the rest. But Zito, that is, Salina Zito said, I've been writing about a culture divide that exists in our country between regular people and cultural curators. And she says, basically, people in power see the world differently than those who do not have power. And she says, the divide has never been more glaring than in the conclusion of the

[00:38:34] piece by Atlantic. reality. And she says, look, the reporter's not a bad person. That's just how he sees the world and how he views consequences in American politics through it. So then she begins to talk about some of the comments of these memes. One comes from a lawyer in central Pennsylvania who actually wondered if anyone in the media has any sense of humor at all, saying, if anything, this is the lawyer, Scott Paterno says, Vance, if nothing

[00:39:04] else, is comfortable in his own skin and confident in his own ability. And another one, he said the retweet by, again, J.D. Vance was, he said, brilliant. Then she quotes from Wendell Lee, an individual in Missouri, who said that Vance isn't being ridiculed, but he's being treated no differently than any of us treat one another when we're joking about it in real life. And so Wendell Lee

[00:39:33] says he's one of us. If anything, the way in which, and I started by talking about some of the people that were berating J.D. Vance when he was walking his three-year-old, and if you see him, he's got a sweater on, he's got a hat on, just looks like one of the people, you know, and these memes kind of create that as well. And interestingly enough, Selena Zito, I gather because of that last name is

[00:40:03] probably Italian, talks about some of the stories that we've all told. She says, for example, living in a tight-knit community where the temperatures got really cold, one time a guy slipped on a red sweatshirt when the air got cold, and he was called Mr. Rogers all night. We've all done this, you know, we see somebody dressed up, and they got a red sweatshirt on, oh, are you Mr. Rogers, or something like that. Said another guy

[00:40:31] looks so much like the former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback that he was called the quarterback's name more often than his own. We all throw insults at one another, and none of us in the neighborhood ever thought it was abnormal. And she says, as a someone who came from a family of many uncles, brothers, sons, nephews, and son-in-laws, I can personally attest that if they did not give you a rather undesirable

[00:41:00] nickname, or find a way to give you the business, they wouldn't think much of you. And let me just end with this. Haven't we all been in a situation where we give somebody some screwy nickname, and then we do it because we like the guy? I have not ever said on the air all the nickname names I've collected over the years, but starting first when I played basketball,

[00:41:29] some of the various individuals playing basketball against me had some rather quaint nicknames, not which I can repeat. My first job was in a machine shop, and I'm around a lot of people with some pretty coarse language, and then I got some nicknames there. Then I worked for PG&E, Digging Ditches, working with ditch diggers, right? And people that are swinging shovels and digging with back holes, and I got those. Worked later, even when I went to Yale University,

[00:41:57] I was a janitor in the Yale Bowl. Got some nicknames there. We've all had them, right? And it is amazing to me, but as she points out, this reporter in Atlantic thinks that as soon as they put out a rather humorous meme about J.D. Vance, or give him a nickname, that somehow then we all think he's doofus. And I think they have completely misread the world. And I really wonder what world they live in. It's probably not the

[00:42:27] world that most of you who listen to Point of View live in, and I just thought we'd end with that one. Humor and the cultural divide. Maybe that's why sometimes they don't get those jokes in the Babylon Bee either. But nevertheless, one more illustration of the cultural divide in America. Tomorrow, we're going to have a really good program. We had a great one today with Keisha Russell. If you didn't hear it, you might want to listen to it again. It's all available at the website pointofview.net. Some of those will make their way into the Point of

[00:42:57] View highlights on Spotify that Megan does. And Megan, thank you for doing that. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:43:25] Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say

[00:43:55] to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151 pointofview.net and

[00:44:21] 800-347-5151 Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.