Point of View May 20, 2026 – Hour 2 : Wednesday’s Top Stories

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View Anderson. Second hour today on this Wednesday, if you'd like to join the conversation, that number is 1-800-351-1212.

[00:00:27] Thought I'd open it up in case there are any comments by Dr. Paul Weaver that you found interesting, or maybe your student of archaeology, certainly those would be relevant. But I do want to spend some time now as we get into this next hour talking about not only this election, but the next election. This election, of course, we had very significant changes in Kentucky and Georgia and a number of other places.

[00:00:51] And we'll probably postpone some of that conversation till Friday because Dr. Merle Matthews will be with us. We have Jonathan Teague with us. I think we'll get into what this midterm election cycle looks like. But I thought it was very intriguing that two different individuals from two different political wings of the spectrum all were talking about the no bad ideas that came out through Kamala Harris.

[00:01:20] Now, you might not be familiar with that, and that's fine because we will break that down. But the first one is from Rich Lowry in which he says that the 2028 election, so he's looking ahead to the presidential election. I know it's hard to get your head around the fact that we haven't even finished the midterm elections, 2026. But let's just be honest, you know, within a year or two, we'll be pretty much having a good idea of who is going to be running in 2028 and what kind of philosophy they have.

[00:01:49] Now, the reason he brings it up, which I might as well explain right off the bat, is the other day Kamala Harris, who has the potential of being the presidential nominee in 2028, said that she wanted to make sure on this podcast that there would be no bad ideas. In other words, she wants to have a no bad idea brainstorm. In other words, any idea you Democratic candidates have, we ought to seriously think about implementing.

[00:02:18] Okay, now, first of all, I might point out that Jonathan Turley says Kamala Noe, bad ideas is a uniquely bad idea. But Rich Lowry looks at it in a different way. He says the real Flight 93 election. He starts out by saying we all know the famous Flight 93 essay from the 2016 election, arguing that the stakes in the context between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were existential.

[00:02:45] First of all, I love how politicians and political pundits think. Everybody knows. I'm sure some of you are going, what is he talking about? Well, there was this argument that was being made at the time by Mike Anton that just as the Flight 93 was, we've got to bring these terrorists down or they will destroy another building, just as there was an existential threat that we have to address.

[00:03:12] His argument at the time was the 2016 election was an existential threat. And it turns out, as Rich Lowry points out, it was definitely better that Donald Trump won in 2016. But he goes on to say Mike Anton's argument was overwrought. His contention that a Clinton win would cement Democratic electoral dominance forever, such that Republicans needed to charge the cockpit and die,

[00:03:40] was implausible at the time and seems more so in retrospect. Okay, so that essay has been kind of set aside. But Rich Lowry says it may have been maybe premature, overwrought, a little bit of hyperbole in 2016. It's right on target for 2028. And you might think, well, why? Well, it gets us back to, of course, Kamala Harris. Because he says this time things might be really different.

[00:04:10] Democrats are now seriously contemplating, he says, measures that wouldn't have occurred to Hillary Clinton back in 2016. Endorsing some version of court packing or court reform, as Democrats insist on calling it, is becoming orthodoxy among mainstream Democrats. He points out that a couple of weeks ago, James Carville, remember him, the raging Cajun, James Carville said that Democrats should pack the court,

[00:04:39] and they should add the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states in 2028, if they get unified control of Washington, D.C. Now, that would, of course, require Democratic president, Democratic House, and Senate, which is not unthinkable, by the way, but let's leave that as it is. And so now Carville is just a political pundit, although a prominent one, who has been a relative moderate in the past, at least in the Democratic context.

[00:05:07] But the most immediate past Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, who has some chance of winning the 2028 nomination, associated herself with the same ideas the other day, and even added abolishing the Electoral College. Now, just again, I know some of you don't think politics every day, and you just go, well, whatever is going on, I guess that's just maybe the next step in political punditry,

[00:05:37] and maybe even what we might need to make this country more like a democracy. But these are, I think you could agree, radical ideas. And so then Rich Lowry says, if all of these were to become consensus Democratic agenda ideas in 2028, they would constitute one of the most radical political platforms of a major political party in American history, perhaps the most radical.

[00:06:00] He says court packing alone would be a seismic system-changing event. That's not surprising to those of you that have heard Kelly Shackelford on this program say this time and time again. He says, likewise, abolishing the Electoral College, which has been the foundation to our presidential elections from the beginning, would also be, again, a system-changing event. And he says, if nothing else,

[00:06:29] the idea that you would want to now put four new progressive justices on the court, you'd want to have four new Democratic senators from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, is probably, by definition, a blatant power grab. Would you agree? I don't think too many people in the listening audience would disagree. And he goes on to then say that the effect on our politics would be toxic.

[00:06:56] What would a world look like where a substantial portion of the country thinks the Supreme Court is a sham? And not because the court is issuing opinions they don't like, but because the court has been fashioned to produce a predetermined ideological result through a grotesque end run around the rules. Now, he does acknowledge that some Democrats may say Republicans have already done this,

[00:07:23] even though the GOP operated within standard procedures to give you what we, of course, now call a conservative, and I put that in quotes, majority. But manufacturing new seats out of nothing, forcing the retirements of justices by fiat, which, of course, they were talking about then even in Virginia, is rigging the court. And if a portion of the country thinks that it no longer needs to abide by the court's decisions,

[00:07:48] that obviously creates the predicate for serious civil strife. He says the same is true if the Congress is no longer seen as legitimate after it has been packed with newly minted Democratic senators. So the point he's making is simply this. We might be really talking about a real Flight 93 election. We might really be talking about a real existential challenge that comes from the Democratic Party.

[00:08:18] And you've heard the phrase so many times, well, both parties, both sides have become more radical. No. And look at the Republican platform in 2000 and compare it to the most recent one. Look at the party platform for even 2016 and compare it to what they're talking about in 2028. We know who's become radical, and it has become the leaders in the Democratic Party. Anyway, that's Rich Lowry's comment. Let's go back in a minute.

[00:08:47] We'll hear from Jonathan Turley. All that coming up right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Every few months, another credible study is published that warns of the dangers of frequent use of marijuana. The most recent study came from researchers at the University of California, San Diego, of 11,000 adolescents.

[00:09:17] They discovered that marijuana users experience impaired brain development compared to non-users. This affected everything from verbal recall to working memory and spatial skills. As I've said in previous commentaries, we're seeing more and more states legalizing marijuana as we're learning more and more about its dangers. The editors of the Wall Street Journal referred to this as marijuana is for dummies. More than two dozen states have legalized marijuana, while 40 allow it on the market for medicinal use.

[00:09:46] Last month, the Trump administration decided to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The editors rightly ask, is the goal to reduce America's collective IQ? We're certain to see more marijuana since this reclassification will now allow marijuana growers and retailers to deduct expenses from their taxes like other companies. More marijuana means more opportunities for this drug to harm young brains. We were assured by the pot lobby that legalization wouldn't result in more teen use.

[00:10:15] That is just the opposite of what has taken place. Two months ago, I quoted from the New York Times that had the headline, It's time for America to admit that it has a marijuana problem. The editors had accepted the view that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits, and that legalization might not lead to greater use. They concluded that many of these predictions were wrong. These states and the federal government are proving that marijuana is for dummies. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. And once again, if nothing else, Kamala Harris really got a number of people thinking and a number of pundits writing. And one of those, of course, I mentioned a minute ago was Rich Lowry, which is entitled The Real Flight 93 Election.

[00:11:19] I just simply call it the importance of midterm elections and, of course, the next elections. Because the midterms right now are determining, in some respects, who's going to be in leadership and whether or not that 2028 election is going to be important. But there's another individual that has written about this, and I'll hold up the book by Jonathan Turley. Here is an individual that, again, has written this very good book, An Indispensable Right, Free Speech in an Age of Rage. He is an individual we quote quite often.

[00:11:48] He is what I think you could probably identify as a moderate Democrat, who is equally concerned about what Kamala Harris said and where the Democratic Party might be going. So you've had a chance to hear from somebody. Rich Lauer, I'm pretty sure, is a Republican. Jonathan Turley, I'm virtually certain, is a Democrat. And yet they're both sometimes saying the same kinds of things. His particular piece is, again, No Bad Ideas Democracy, because he says on Thursday,

[00:12:15] the former Vice President Kamala Harris posted a live stream on a podcast to call for a No Bad Idea brainstorm of the Democratic Party. She used that pretense to throw out there the idea that Democrats should make radical constitutional and political changes as soon as they retake power. Now, why is this relevant now? We don't vote until 2028.

[00:12:41] Well, you're voting right now on people in the various primaries and then in the general election in November 2026 who either agree with these or do not. These are the kinds of questions that could be and should be asked right now. So Jonathan Turley goes on and says, look, this includes packing the Supreme Court, admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia as states, killing the Electoral College.

[00:13:08] He says, look, all of these have been raised in the past by liberal professors and pundits and things of that nature. But this is different. This is, if you will, not necessarily the heir apparent, but certainly one of the viable candidates for the Democratic Party. And Jonathan Turley, as a lawyer at George Washington University, said it was a telling rationalization.

[00:13:35] The Democratic Party has become the party of moral and political relativism, embodied in a popular by any means mantra used by many on the left today. He goes on to say, but there are bad ideas just as there are bad people who want to win at any cost. And so he said, for some, Kamala Harris herself showed the existence of truly bad ideas by accepting the position of Biden's border czar.

[00:14:02] And then I love this, allowing, of course, 10 million people to pour into this country. Another bad idea was her selection of Tim Walz as a running mate before his series of what he calls rake steps. And indeed, her sudden surprise nomination was a bad idea, one that cost $1.5 billion in just 15 weeks and led to one of her party's most crushing losses in decades. You can see he's lamenting that we couldn't maybe come up with a better Democratic candidate.

[00:14:32] So that's kind of his perspective. But he says the worst idea, however, is to celebrate our 250th anniversary by destroying the very institutions and values that created the most successful and stable democracy in history. He says in my book, which I just showed rage and republic. I discuss lawyers and law professors who rationalize the trashing of the Constitution and our institutions to achieve their political goals.

[00:15:01] He says I even debated one of these Harvard law professors who rattled off a list of Democratic proposals for our system and then added that the left would first need to take control of the Supreme Court. Of course, it was an acknowledgment, as he points out, that the court would likely declare some or all of these particular proposals unconstitutional. Well, he gets into this in his book. And let me try to explain that. He says I previously wrote about the rise of the New Jacobins.

[00:15:29] That goes back to the French Revolution. These are influential figures who are seeking to dismantle our system after facing judicial and political setbacks. He says even the dean. I love this. Even the dean of the Berkeley Law School wrote a book titled No Democracy Lasts Forever, How the Constitution Threatens the United States.

[00:15:51] So, you know, if you're a constitutional lawyer and you value the Constitution, having the dean of the law school in University of California at Berkeley saying, you know, Constitution's really just getting in our way, you can see the problem. And so it goes on to say that now you have leading Democrats, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have declared the Supreme Court as illegitimate.

[00:16:16] They've even called for a massive overhaul of both state and federal courts to make them submit to Democrats' demands. This is pretty tough stuff from an individual who calls himself a Democrat and certainly has been somebody who has been more leaning to the progressive side than most.

[00:16:35] He says this was Jeffries' reaction to, of course, what we talked about last week, what happened in Virginia, the Supreme Court's rejection of the attempt by the Democrats there to wipe out Republican representation in Virginia. If you're not familiar, they actually gerrymandered the state so that originally it was like six to five Democrat to Republican. It would be ten to one. And the Republican would be lucky to win the one.

[00:17:03] I mean, it's pretty significant gerrymandering. But nevertheless, that's the case. But nevertheless, Hakeem Jeffries is not the only one adding bad ideas to the list of Kamala Harris. Various politicians and pundits called for the sacking and packing of the Virginia Supreme Court. And they wanted to do that, as you remember us talking about, by lowering the mandatory age for retirement from, was it 73 to 54?

[00:17:32] That would simply force out many of the current justices and replace them with rubber-stamped liberal appointees. And so, as a result, there were others. One of those is the former campaign lawyer for Hillary Clinton, Mark Elias, who said he would just scrap the entire Virginia government over the refusal to let Democrats gerrymander the state.

[00:17:53] And so, the point he's making is, it doesn't really matter that even a justice appointed by former Democratic Governor Mark Warner found that the move was unconstitutional, or that Democratic figures such as the current Governor, Abigail Spanberger, believed that it could be overturned. This latest effort to throw out some of the bad ideas, of course, is something he's talking about.

[00:18:17] And he says, even when he and others flagged some of the posts by Mark Elias, he criticized me for taking him to task for merely quoting the state constitution. Yet it is all part of the effort to normalize extreme measures and condition American voters to fundamentally changing our system. Harris calls it an expanded playbook.

[00:18:40] And what you see here is that the former Attorney General Eric Holder right now is pushing for the packing of the Supreme Court, explaining how simple it would be. It is all about the acquisition and use of power. And, of course, James Carville used some words I won't use, but that's what we need to do, his argument was. And he says, these are the same voices that have been plaguing our system for generations.

[00:19:03] It is what he calls the siren calls for unleashing forms of direct democracy and removing moderating influences in our system. And I think, if nothing else, it's a reminder that we benefit from a system that has checks and balances. James Madison famously wrote that even when the founders were talking about trying to benefit from some of the mistakes that were made in other democracies,

[00:19:29] he said, had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. So he concludes by simply saying the framers rejected more direct democratic systems to blunt the impulses and passions that destroyed other systems. They wanted to avoid democracy becoming what, of course, Benjamin Rush referred to as a mobocracy.

[00:19:53] So, if nothing else, he concludes by reminding us that the American Constitution was a rejection of bad ideas, and that, if anything, this is why we should look at what is being proposed right now by Kamala Harris. We do not need an expanded playbook designed to secure and retain power for one party.

[00:20:16] What we need to do is recognize that this was a government which was based on the protection of rights derived not from the government but from God. He says, now that was a good idea. Well, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into some other issues. But I thought, if nothing else, isn't it interesting that we have both Rich Lowry and Jonathan Turley talking about this bad ideas

[00:20:39] and a warning if I think we can see what could happen if, indeed, not only in this election but in certainly the next election, we allow some of those bad ideas to be part of our government. Let's take a break, though. When we come back, we'll get into some other issues. But most importantly, I wanted to point you to some very interesting things being said today about some offhanded comments

[00:21:03] from the former vice president of the United States who could be the next presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. So let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into a couple other issues. But if you are interested in joining us, 1-800-351-1212. We'll take a break. Be back with more right after this.

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[00:23:00] 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 for a few more minutes. Let's see if we can focus on a couple of issues. First of all, my commentary today is entitled Marijuana for Dummies. Now, that is not the phrase that I used. It actually was one that the Wall Street Journal used.

[00:23:29] And the reason for that is that there has been another study that has come out. This is the most recent one from the University of California at San Diego of about 11,000 teenagers, adolescents. And they discovered, I don't think this is a real surprise now, that marijuana users experienced impaired brain development compared to non-users. That affected everything from verbal recall to working memory and spatial skills. As I've said in many of my other commentaries,

[00:23:57] we are seeing more and more states legalizing marijuana as we're learning more and more about its dangers. But one of the reasons they brought this up is because even the Trump administration has decided to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. And that's why they said, you know, again, they called it Marijuana's for Dummies. And they rightly ask, is the goal to reduce America's collective IQ?

[00:24:22] Because if nothing else, it is probably certain that more marijuana use will take place because we are allowing marijuana growers and retailers to deduct expenses from their taxes like other companies. You, of course, seen more and more publicity, advertising and the rest. And so more marijuana, I would have to say, in light of what we now know, is more opportunities for this drug to harm young brains.

[00:24:52] And, of course, we were assured by the pot lobby that legalization wouldn't result in more teen use. That was wrong. And, quite frankly, just the opposite has taken place. And two months ago, you might remember I quoted from a New York Times headline. You know, you're really kind of in elite company when the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are saying the same thing. New York Times headline was, it's time for America to admit that it has a marijuana problem.

[00:25:21] The editors had accepted the view that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. Legalization might not lead to greater use. And, of course, as they said, many of these predictions were wrong. These states and federal governments are, in a sense, proving that, if nothing else, they're not paying attention to what we now know is to be the case. So, if nothing else, marijuana is for dummies. That's my commentary today.

[00:25:50] And you can find out more by going to the website, pointofview.net. Let me just mention real quickly, then, a couple of other articles I've posted. One by our good friend Cal Thomas, a lesson in economics for AOC. And we did talk about this the other day, but it's worth a mention once again.

[00:26:11] And that is, he points out that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, graduated from Boston University. And, by the way, in economics, which is even more frustrating when you see what she actually is saying now. But worked as a bartender and a waitress to help her mother fight disclosure of their home. She said nothing wrong with that, but her life experiences have taught her very little.

[00:26:37] In some recent comments, she claimed that the very wealthy became that way not from salaried work, but from investments. A version of this economic envy has been told and retold, as he says, ever since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He says the central flaw in this reasoning, and this is something we talk about in the upcoming Outlook magazine, is there's only a fixed amount of money to go around.

[00:27:04] And if someone makes more than you, well, it isn't fair. Because if there's a fixed amount, it's a zero sum. Your success is based on my failure. You took more of the pie in the refrigerator, and so it left less for me. But, as Cal Thomas wisely points out, the opposite is really true. The money supply is unlimited. You certainly see that right now with central banks.

[00:27:33] But, more importantly, wealth increases. We have a better standard of living because of all the entrepreneurs and all the inventions and things like that. Nevertheless, he goes on to say that AOC and her socialist fellow travelers think there's something wrong with earnings from investments and other non-salaried income. And, of course, he points out that investments in the stock market produce capital for corporations. They hire people and pay them salaries.

[00:28:00] They are then able to make investments that help sustain them and their families. If nothing else, he says one good example he takes from Calvin Coolidge. By the way, I happen to know that Cal Thomas had parents that worked for Calvin Coolidge. So, that's where his name comes from. Cal is for Calvin Thomas. But, nevertheless, he talks about the Revenue Act of 1926 promoted by President Calvin Coolidge. Benefited all the classes, not just the wealthy.

[00:28:28] Before Coolidge entered office, the federal income tax rate was 73%. The Revenue Act lowered it to 25%. And so, in his first message to Congress, Calvin Coolidge said, High taxes reach everywhere and burden everybody. They diminish industry and commerce. They make agriculture unprofitable. They increase the rates of transportation. They are a charge on every necessity of life.

[00:28:57] And, in some respects, he says, these are difficult lessons to learn. Unfortunately, AOC, Senator Bernie Sanders, even the New York City Democratic Socialist and Mayor, Zoran Mamdani, have allowed their radical ideology to obscure the economic and political lessons from their recent past. And, what you are seeing today is high state and city taxes. All sorts of problems there.

[00:29:24] And, it's illustrative of the fact that over these many years, we have produced, and I'll hold them up again, a biblical point of view on capitalism and socialism. Biblical point of view on socialism. And, even the most recent one, a biblical point of view on the road to serfdom, which is a book that really is providing a great critique of socialism, because we have a younger generation that is convinced that socialism is superior to capitalism.

[00:29:54] I can understand some of their frustration. We talk about it so often here on Point of View. But, at the same time, we have a great deal of evidence to show that if you really want to improve the standard of living of individuals, if you want to lead to human flourishing, certainly that is something that is going to happen in a free market, not one controlled by a few bureaucrats. You know, then Cal Thomas quotes from the late David Horowitz, who said,

[00:30:23] Socialism is a plan of morally sanctioned theft. It is about dividing up what others have created. Consequently, socialist economies don't work. They create poverty instead of wealth. He also says, here's another quote, and this comes from the economist and social philosopher Ludwig von Mises, somebody we probably should quote more often here on Point of View. But, nevertheless, Ludwig von Mises put it this way.

[00:30:50] The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent on abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship.

[00:31:17] They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. And so, just a reminder once again that we are finding ourselves with some of the individuals that for some time have been following kind of the siren call of socialism. They're convinced that, indeed, we should actually have a system which would be fair to everybody.

[00:31:42] And as much as we might desire to have fairness universal, what almost always has happened in a socialist economy is you make everybody universally poor. And in this particular book I did on socialism, I quote from Dinesh D'Souza in his book dealing with this very important issue of socialism.

[00:32:04] The title of his book was The United States of Socialism, in which he gives us this long list of countries in Eastern Europe, Poland, Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and East Germany. And then countries in Asia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, and China, as well as, of course, our countries here in South America, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela.

[00:32:32] And, of course, we might also mention some in Africa, Angola, Ghana, Tanzania, Menin, Mali, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. If you do the count, that's 25 failed experiments on socialism. Why do we want to export those ideas from those countries to this country? Why do we want to import them into the New York City legal system?

[00:33:01] Well, that's what's going to be happening, and it's all the more reason for us, your own point of view, to address these issues of socialism, to educate you and your children and your grandchildren about some of the very significant dangers taking place. Let's take a break, though, and we come back. Some final comments. Our good friend Jeremy Dice has once again written about a book that we've covered on this program called What Really Matters?

[00:33:29] Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family, written by Timothy Gagline. And even though we've talked about it before with Timothy, I thought we might summarize some of the points that Jeremy Dice learned from the book right up to these important messages.

[00:33:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes. Let me just mention real quickly that we're going to spend some time now just looking at a very good piece by Jeremy Dice. He is, of course, with First Liberty Institute. He's been on the program with us many times before. He used to listen to Point of View sometimes in the back seat of a van while his sister was having, I think it was piano lessons, and he was listening to Point of View back when he was young. And now, of course, he's been on the program with us many times.

[00:34:29] But he spends a little bit of time talking about a book by Timothy Gagline. Timothy has been on the program with us. He used to be in the Bush administration. His latest book is What Really Matters? Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family. And he says he delivers a compelling and urgent manifesto for a nation at a crossroads. With the precision, he says, of a historian and the unflagging passion of a patriot,

[00:34:57] Timothy Gagline examines the cultural, moral, and spiritual decline of America, offering a roadmap to reclaim the values that once made this nation a beacon of hope and liberty. Now, again, America's greatness, according to Timothy Gagline, is rooted in our foundational principles of faith, family, and freedom. Something we talk about so often here on Point of View. Faith, family, and freedom.

[00:35:24] It's really the grid that I use oftentimes to determine what we'll be talking about here on Point of View. And Timothy says these are pillars that have been really important for the flourishing of this country. And they're under, right now, what he says, relentless attack from a culture that's become increasingly hostile to religious values and historical truth.

[00:35:47] He says readers who engage with his mix of personal anecdotes and unique experience in evaluating the culture are certainly going to benefit because he's been a political insider working in the administration. But that's also helped him, in some respects, diagnose, as he says, some of the nation's ailments and encouraged by what could be happening in the future.

[00:36:13] You might remember when Timothy was on the program, he says, I'm a very significant optimist. But at the same time, he sees what's going on in the culture. And so that, I think, is really important. So one of the most potent themes, and you wouldn't be surprised that Jeremy Dice talks about this, is the defense of religious liberty. He says, as the cornerstone of all other freedoms, Timothy Gagline recognizes its placement of the head of the Bill of Rights,

[00:36:42] for its essential role in fostering a moral and virtuous citizenry. Yet this foundational freedom, he says, is in the present day facing civilizational challenges, from government mandates, which are now, of course, forcing religious organizations to violate their beliefs because of cultural pressures and things like that, to even threats to religious liberty. These are all real and growing, he says.

[00:37:10] Here, Gagline's analysis, he says, is not merely theological or theoretical. It's deeply practical. The consequences of a society that abandons its Judeo-Christian heritage does more than risk the structural support of freedom. A society such as ours that abandons its rich heritage faces the pain of loneliness, despair, and division at the personal level. So, if nothing else, that is, I think, the great threat.

[00:37:40] He says, thankfully there is a antidote to this cultural decay, and Timothy Gagline draws upon his years spent engaging the political elite to look for ways in which our leaders might restore what he calls the bedrock of society. And these come from how, for example, the decline of marriage and family have led to all sorts of social ills. That could be poverty and crime and mental health crises and things like that.

[00:38:08] He also wants to offer hope, pointing to the power of faith and committed parenting and the rest. As a matter of fact, he writes, if we are to restore marriage and the family and begin to reverse this decline, we must start with the restoration of religious faith, which, as he says, unironically is where the founders of the great nation started. But, of course, he says that requires one more thing, a clear understanding of our nation's history.

[00:38:37] Sadly, American citizenry lacks in its historical literacy. Such widespread ignorance of American history, which Timothy Gagline attributes to decades of revisionist teaching and cultural amnesia, stands as, again, a threat to this one great nation. Ignore your past and be doomed to repeat your mistakes. Or, as Timothy Gagline quotes President Ronald Reagan, saying,

[00:39:04] if we forget what we did, we don't know who we are. And so, again, he talks about the fact that for progressives, they want to mask historical literacy as an alternative, a historical narrative that only serves to make the nation more historically illiterate. He points, for example, to Project 1690. The 1619 Project was one that wanted to only focus on the flaws, said that slavery began in Jamestown,

[00:39:33] and that the Revolutionary War was fought about slavery, which it was not, and all sorts of other issues there as well. And then points to the fact that you have some very good alternatives. He mentions one of those, Hillsdale College's 1776 curriculum, which is certainly the case. So, nevertheless, Jeremy Dice then goes on to say, ultimately what really matters is a call to action. Readers will be challenged to reject the cultural mantra of,

[00:40:01] you do you, and instead embrace a life of service, sacrifice, and commitment to others. He is a patient, optimistic individual urging Americans to return to the values that made this nation a city set on a hill. Timothy Gagline also leaves despair to others and uses his critique of what is wrong to offer, but he calls a hopeful vision of what could be. Or maybe we could say, to what has been and can be again.

[00:40:31] Given the foundational principles that have made this nation not only to be welcomed, but be reinvented. Those who would work through this general critique will be eager to join him in the work of restoration. Finally, Jeremy Dice says,

[00:41:05] If I remember right, I think we did the interview on April 30th, but you can certainly type in that book, of what really matters, and find the interview there as well. But as we wind down, let me just mention tomorrow, Dr. Matthews will be with us, and he is going to be looking at some very important issues. Then we have our Friday weekend edition. But if you find yourself saying, Okay, you went through some of this fairly quickly, or I would like to learn a little more about archaeology,

[00:41:32] we of course in the first hour had Dr. Paul Weaver with us. We've given you an opportunity to certainly find the interview by going down to the section that says, Watch or Listen, because he was in studio. You can also, of course, go to his website, which is BibleAndTheologyMatters.com, and you can find his podcast, you can find the videos we talked about, you might want to even contact him, and of course his book, Faith Affirming Findings,

[00:42:00] 50 Archaeological Discoveries That Validate the Historicity and Reliability of Scripture. Moreover, we of course also covered some great material that comes from a number of individuals, Rich Lowry on the importance of the midterm elections and the 2028 election, No Bad Ideas from Jonathan Turley, AOC and Economics by Cal Thomas, and of course this one by Jeremy Dice, on the whole idea of, once again, the book,

[00:42:29] What Really Matters? Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family. That's all we have for today. If you find yourself wanting to learn some more about these issues, let me encourage you to go to the website, pointofview.net. Let me hold up again the fact we're still making available a copy of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and go to the website, pointofview.net, and see that banner there, and you can get a free booklet today. As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program behind the scenes.

[00:42:59] Steve, thank you for producing the program. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View. Have you ever met a child you knew would do great things? They displayed remarkable imagination, understanding, and a zest for learning. Now imagine someone takes that child, and instead of fostering their potential with a real education,

[00:43:29] they feed them nothing but lies. You know, that scenario isn't so far from reality. From a young age, Americans are fed a consistent stream of distorted facts, from the secular indoctrination they receive in many public schools, to the biases presented as fact in many colleges and universities, to the barrage of misinformation from the mainstream media, and the lack of moral grounding in our society. It's not that Americans aren't capable of understanding the truth.

[00:43:58] It's that they aren't exposed to it enough. You can expose more Americans to the truth when you give to Point of View, where listeners receive facts, perspective, and biblical truth they don't get from society. As long as we have truth, we have hope. Give today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:31] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.