EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,023 words- 0:02 – 1:40
End-times mood: wildfires, COVID, and political dysfunction colliding
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- DMDouglas Murray
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music) Douglas, how are you?
- DMDouglas Murray
Great to be with you again, Joe. How are you?
- JRJoe Rogan
Great to be with you as well. And we were talking about you potentially being able to come to America, hopefully, sometime soon.
- DMDouglas Murray
That's right, I'm hoping too. I'm hoping to, ah, it would be nice to be with you for the end times.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Well, I've escaped to Texas, so I think I'll avoid the end times by at least a couple of months.
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I think, ah, we'll know for-
- DMDouglas Murray
Do you think that's what it might have brought you?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's already happening in California. I mean, this is, if it keeps burning the way it's burning, what's gonna be left? Some friends of ours, ah, sent photos from Mammoth, California, up in the mountains. It is a hellscape. It's a terrifying-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... vision. I mean, it's just everything is on fire. It's, it's so bizarre.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it's, um, it's a combination of events, isn't it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
That's the other thing that's so terrifying. It's like, um, just seeing a civilization being hit by plague, by fires, by pestilence, by politicians-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... you know, everything.
- JRJoe Rogan
If we were in, uh, another time, where we didn't have access to information, we would be sure that this is the end. If we were-
- DMDouglas Murray
I think we'd be expecting the, the sun not to come up tomorrow by this stage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. We'd be expecting-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... demons to arise out of the fires and, and ride horses with searing eyes. (laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
And then we'd be trying to work out which of our friends were the demons and slaying them for no reason.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right, like the Salem-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Witch Trials. Yeah, it's-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- 1:40 – 3:59
Portland and Antifa: branding, media framing, and the reality of street power
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah, Los Angeles, which I, I was telling you that I, well, before we got started that I fled, um, I, I really never thought too much about the government there. I never thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... too much about who the mayor is or who the governor is, but my God does that matter.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah. I just saw the mayor of Portland has done another cracking one, ah, in the last 24 hours. I think he's sort of... There's some, it's some move to have even less policing or something like that, but I can't remember.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) He's, he's hilarious because he is the most progressive mayor in this country, and yet like, "Fuck you. Not good enough. Resign."
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"No cops, no laws, no rules."
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, I saw-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's madness.
- DMDouglas Murray
... so they ca- they came to his house, didn't they?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, they lit his lobby on fire.
- DMDouglas Murray
And that, that didn't persuade him. Yeah, yeah, that didn't persuade him that it was a problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's like, "They, they all, they mean the right thing. They're antifascists. How could they be wrong?"
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) That's, that's one of the other plagues. That's one of the other plagues.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
It's weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just amazing that that name is still being used by people. I, I, there's, there's some people, particularly like hardcore left-wing sites that still call them antifascists.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Instead of Antifa, they're calling them antifascists, which is like-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... an obvious move to distort what they've done and what they stand for, and what happened-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in Seattle, and what's happened for over 100 days in Portland.
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, it all matters, doesn't it? The, the, the language matters, and everyone's been caught on the back foot by it, 'cause a huge number of people have clearly been persuaded that they are what they pretended they were. You know, I suppose people are falling away bit by bit from believing that the antifascists are an- actually anti-fascist, but, ah, they've, they've clearly fooled a lot of people. It's, it's been a clever move on their part, calling themselves this. If they'd have just called themselves fascists, they might have, you know, everyone else might have got there a bit faster, but they were quite clever on the naming.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, because if you look at what they're doing, there's nothing antifascist about what they're doing at all. In fact, what they're trying to do is get people to comply. They're actually-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... using fascist tactics, get-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... getting people to use their language and comply and, and, and they're trying to literally get rid of the current police and the current authority. And they're-
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and-
- 3:59 – 7:26
Public compliance rituals: the DC restaurant confrontation and mob psychology
- DMDouglas Murray
The best example of the fact they're not even trying to disguise it is that they're trying to make everyone raise their, their arm.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was amazing.
- DMDouglas Murray
That used, that used to be a giveaway.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the thing that they did in Washington DC, where my... I, I just, I'm c- continually astounded. Like every day, I look at the news for, uh, a hope, like a, a-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... glimmer of light, like some reason-
- DMDouglas Murray
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... has popped through, and it's, it's not coming. Every day it gets more and more bonkers. Those people-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... outside, a bunch of white people, by the way-
- DMDouglas Murray
I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
... screaming at this lady, who has marched for Black Lives Matter multiple times-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... telling her she must raise her fist in compliance.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yes. But you know, she's my hero. Uh, uh, and she, she's my glimmer of light.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
She really is. I, I, you know, qu- quite often i- in sort of good times or comparatively good times, people say things like, you know, "Where are the heroic people?" And they sort of forget that heroic people come up because bad things occur, and heroism, which they didn't know was there, comes out. I think that woman's a very good example of that. She probably didn't know she had the heroic instinct to make her not go along with the mob, and she just, one evening, in her own spare time, out for dinner, proves this incredibly heroic trait, which is, "No, I won't go along with you. You can't tell me what you do. I won't raise my fist. I won't kneel. I won't dance."
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- DMDouglas Murray
And so yeah, there's a glimmer of light.
- JRJoe Rogan
And she was really, I- I mean, she was in a beautiful position being that she has marched for Black Lives Matter. She does believe in the cause of stopping police brutality against people of color.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
She believes in all those things. But she's like, "That's not what this is. This is a bunch of thugs bullying me into compliance." And it's a nat-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... bizarre, disgusting natural human instinct to try to get people to bend to your will. And that's what all those idiots were doing-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when they were surrounding her with this arbitrary gesture of raise your fist-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... as if that helps anything.
- DMDouglas Murray
Also, d- didn't you feel... I mean, people are too generous to the people who go along with this, but when I saw the footage of the people in DC restaurants who did go along with that. You know, sitting having a quiet dinner with their girlfriend and then these people come in, and they sort of do agree to raise their fists. And you could see some of them looking a little nervous when the chanting started to become "Fuck the police." You know, it was like, "Oh, I'm not sure I'm going with that one."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 7:26 – 10:21
From unrest to civil-war talk: Kenosha, open carry, and the election tinderbox
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's what's scary about these things happening in places that have open carry for- for firearms.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- DMDouglas Murray
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you know, you're- you're seeing that obviously in Kenosha when that 17-year-old kid showed up with a gun and they attacked him and he shot and killed two people. And this is- th- this is a really scary moment where it could tip one way or the other, and my fear-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is that after the election, it tips in the worst way possible. 'Cause I don't see, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... I don't see a positive resolution left or right. I think if Biden wins, people will be furious, and if Trump wins, people will be furious.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I- I mean, I've, um, I've always loved your country and I've spent quite a lot of time in it. And, um, uh, but I do have to say, watching it at the moment, I mean, this is all- this is all the basis for a civil war.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
And I- I'm- I'm sure, you know, you know that, but I- I think a lot of people haven't quite realized this yet. This is all... You know, my country went through this 400 years ago, um, a fundamental debate over the nature of our- our state and our government. And it seems to me you have a fundamental disagreement like that going on there now. You know, a portion of the country doesn't believe in the founding principles, and another one holds them to be absolutely holy. Uh, I don't see how you reconcile that.
- JRJoe Rogan
I- I agree with you, and my friend Tim Pool was talking about this, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... over a year ago. He's saying, "I- I see this country headed to civil war." I was like, "That's a bit hyperbolic." I'm like, "That's kind of ridiculous." I thought he was just being silly. I thought he was just taking it too far, like, "Oh, we'll be fine."
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
But this was pre-COVID, this was pre-the... I think COVID has ramped up everything considerably because everyone's so nervous and there's so many people out of work-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and there's so many people that have the time to do these things-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to show up in front of the- the mayor's office or the mayor's house-
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and light it on fire in Portland, 'cause they don't have jobs. There's nowhere to go to.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's also-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... no hope. And as they see these, uh, traditional structures, the traditional s- economic structure, the traditional political structure, as they see these things deteriorating, they're- they're making their moves. And this is where-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... i- it gets really spooky. Because-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- 10:21 – 17:23
‘The Madness of Crowds’ updated: how COVID didn’t pause identity politics—it intensified it
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, they should read your book. The Madness of Crowds is excellent. It really is. It's a very good book, and, you know, you wrote that book before the shit really hit the fan. But, uh, it was, uh, eerily accurate in- in many ways when you were- you were talking about the current problems and where they could lead. And th- there's- there's so much of what you were saying in that book that could be used as a, like a guide to what's happening today.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I hoped. I mean, I did it a year ago. I've updated it now. And, uh, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
What did you update?
- DMDouglas Murray
Well, basically because now, um, it's out th- it's out this month, is that basically, I- I- I thought something very interesting happened through the COVID era, which was that at the beginning of it, I thought, like we all thought, "Okay, this is a plague like the Justinian plague. It's gonna end the empire. You know, we're all gonna lose ma- massive numbers of our loved ones." And if that's the case, at least at these end times, the social justice warriors will pipe down. Uh, you know, it was my one consolation, was I thought at least- at least we won't have to deal with them so much. Because if everyone's got real, uh, problems, if everyone's got real complaints, kind of microaggressions start to seem less important than they have done in recent years. So that was my assumption at the beginning, was if the plague was what it seemed at first, then we'd hear less from these people. And then my impression was that as- as- as COVID went on, something very interesting happened, which was that our tolerance for the social justice activists diminished. I mean, there were little- little things like, uh, little-... bits of light, like Sam Smith, you know, uh, uh, from his mansion, posts a photo of him, uh, uh, sort of crying a bit and sort of, "Oh," sad because he's lonely. And normally that would be, "Oh, Sam Smith, they, they is feeling, uh, bad," and, and, and so on. And there was just total, uh, uh, um, ob- "We don't care. We don't care." You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Who's Sam Smith?
- DMDouglas Murray
Sam S- Smith is a Brit- Ah, I'm so pleased you don't know of him.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, uh, it fills me with joy.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
He's got a horrible, horrible whiny voice. He sang, uh, the, one of the worst Bond song- theme songs, against some really stiff competition, as you know. And, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
... it was one that, that, that, that nobody had... Anyhow, Sam Smith was a guy who came out as gay, then as genderqueer, and then as non-binary, or "look at me".
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Or "look at me".
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, uh, uh, at least it's, it's coming out as, it's coming out as "look at me".
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) That's what it should be called. It should be called coming out as "look at me".
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, what the fuck-
- DMDouglas Murray
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
... is non-binary? My God.
- DMDouglas Murray
So, so then he... So he came out as "look at me" and then, a bit later, he wanted more attention, he posted a photo of himself in his mansion saying, you know, how it's difficult he was finding COVID.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- DMDouglas Murray
And just there was a complete (laughs) lack of empathy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and I sort of thought things like that were a good sign, you know? Because, because that, that's, you know... If, if at best we're all gonna see a massive decline in our living standards, uh, and, and our whole societies have got mass unemployment and so on, then the... I thought, "Well, at l- least we'll hear a bit less from those guys." And then several things happened. Um, the first was that, s- that some people started doing things along the following lines... As you know, in Madness of Crowds, I do each of these in turn. I do gay, women, that is relations between the sexes, race, and trans. And I noticed that the women thing came in first, that people started saying things like, "Women are suffering most from COVID." And I thought, "Well, well, okay, we've got to look at the stats on this." And then the stats came in and it showed that men were disproportionately likely to die. And then the same people said, "Well, the men might be do- doing the dying, but the women are doing the suffering," or something. And that didn't make very much sense, but it, it showed that there were some people who needed to look at this through the prism they've looked through everything, which is women, men, uh, disproportionate, uh, relations between the sexes. And then you got some people doing that with gay. Um, the BBC in my own country, in Britain, started running pieces about, you know, "It's difficult for a lot of LGBT people because they're, they're living with their families who might be homophobic." And, um, again, you know, you sort of read these stories and you thought, "Well, yeah, a lot of people are living with their families who are th- well, they're families. I, I mean they're having to live with their mum and dad, and they, they might be heterosexual and they've just been forced into chastity by government regulations." You know, they... You know what I mean? It's difficult for everyone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
Why do we need to single that out? Then there was a story about somebody who... I kid you not, by the way, Joe. You'll love this one. The BBC had a story which was of a trans person who said... (laughs) I'm... Sorry. The headline was, "I'm, I'm, I'm fearful that I'm going to be buried in the wrong gender."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, of course, I just thought, "Well, a lot of us are just fearful of being buried," you know? Period.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, y-
- 17:23 – 20:19
Protests vs pandemic rules: the ‘public health’ double standard and fear of being called racist
- JRJoe Rogan
We also got to this weird point where we're supposed to collectively ignore the fact that having 50,000 people marching through the streets arm in arm could easily be spreading the disease. And there was this giant uptick of the disease in America, and everyone stuffed their head in the sand and pretended they were not connected.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Everyone wanted to pretend, "Well, it had nothing to do with the protests." Well, if you looked at the-
- DMDouglas Murray
Even more.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's clear-
- DMDouglas Murray
Even more. It wasn't, it wasn't just c- head in the sand. It was actually saying-
- JRJoe Rogan
That-
- DMDouglas Murray
... "We don't mind." I mean, the medical, medical professionals in America who signed the joint letter defending people going out on the protests were saying that...... that, that racism kills and so does COVID, but racism is, uh, clearly a bigger underlying risk than COVID. And if you've taken that view, then everything's possible, isn't it?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, I mean, I mean, I mean, apart from the fact that it's not- it's clearly not true. Because however you would, you know, work out the numbers of people killed by racism, uh, which does exist, but I mean, the, the, uh, the, to claim that the mortality rates from racism are, are higher than those from COVID when one of the figures in America now, you know, six figures of, of people who've died and-
- JRJoe Rogan
190,000 is the latest.
- DMDouglas Murray
190,000? You know, I just n- it, it surely the people who claimed that racism kills more people than COVID should have to answer and say, "Where are the 190,000 racist murders in America this year?" You know? And that doesn't happen, and that's medical professionals saying that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you've got everyone terrified of being labeled as a racist. That- that's-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's where we've gotten to this poi- how we've gotten to this point.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we live in an era where all of the, all of the worst things you can be accused of are also not provable and not disprovable.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
And that's something I say in The Madness of Crowds, which is just very difficult for us. You know, it happens every day to someone, as you know. I mean, someone gets called the whole charge sheet, they're homophobe, transphobe, misogynist, uh, racist. And first of all, obviously people can level that without any evidence, and often knowing that it's not true. But the problem is that the person who is said to has no defense 'cause you, you, you cannot a- actually prove you're not a racist. You can't prove you're not a misogynist. You can't prove you're not a homophobe. It happens all the time. People say, you know, "I'm not a homophobe." You know, uh, um, it happened with the former Australian prime minister the other day. "I'm not a homophobe. Uh, uh, my, my sister-in-law's a lesbian and she married her partner and I was at the wedding." But they still say he's a homophobe. You know, you, you can't prove-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
... that the claim isn't true. And the worst of that is obviously with racism. And so obviously everybody in the era is trying desperately to avoid the claim because once the claim is made, we- our society has no way to brush it off.
- 20:19 – 24:45
Hate speech, tech enforcement, and the shrinking space for legitimate debate
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I've been having conversations lately with people about the term hate speech-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and it brings me back to, um, a conversation that I had with someone who worked for YouTube. This was just randomly at a party, I happened to be with someone who worked for You- for YouTube, and I was talking to them about some of the problems with YouTube and suppression particularly. At the time, there was a, a person who had taken a conversation with you and Sam Harris and they had put it on their playlist. I believe I talked to you about this. Did I not?
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They put it on their playlist and they got a flag for violating the community guidelines just from putting that conversation with you and Sam Harris. I brought this up to her and she immediately dismissively said, "Well, that was because it's hate speech." And so then I got upset.
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
I had a couple glasses of wine in me, and I was like, "What are you ... Wait, wait a minute. Why do you just say... Tell me what was the content of the conversation? Why do you s-" And my wife is squeezing my leg under the table-
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... 'cause she thinks I'm about to go ballistic. I'm like, "How do you ... How can you just flippantly say this is hate speech?"
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"You're talking about two public intellectuals who are discussing all sorts of intricate and nuanced issues."
- DMDouglas Murray
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"And you're just saying it's hate speech and that you're, you're justifying a community guideline strike on this person's channel who just had it on their playlist." Like, this is an interesting conversation that I enjoyed, I'm gonna put this on my playlist-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... whether I agree or disagree. It's, it, it, it's, it inspired thought.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah. But that's ... I mean, this is th- one of the most sinister things at the time. As you know, I mean, I do a chapter on tech in the book and, um, spent some time in Silicon Valley trying to work out what the hell's going on. Uh, uh, uh, I mean, if there's a big underlying thing that's gone on here, Joe, I mean, I think it's that in all of our countries, the people in charge of, as it were, what correct opinion is have managed to draw their lines in a way that excludes majority opinions. And that is ... I mean, it's sustainable, I suppose, it obviously is for some people as a business model, but it's a disaster for our societies. I mean, you know, if you decide that, that talking about certain issues is beyond the pale on each of these subjects, uh, and, you know, you could do that if it was a wildly minority held opinion. But actually, I mean, most people, for instance, don't think men have to just never talk about women. Like most people think the sexes need to get on. I'm among them. It's not my personal area of study, but, but it's, uh, it's, you know, and I, I, I reckon that men and women have to be able to, uh, have to be able to thrive and, and have relationships without this being this, this, this unbelievable landmine, uh, uh, territory.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
And yet, and yet the social media companies decide, no, even to talk around any of the necessary but difficult stuff must comprise hate speech. And therefore we're ... And, and, and what they don't seem to realize is but you, you're keeping majority's concerns and thoughts and conversations out. And you can't, you, you just can't... You know, it's, it's, it's long term it's an unsustainable thing to do.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's also a minority perspective, minority perspective that's deciding to censor the discussion between two enormous groups of people.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
The people that are on the left and the people that are on the right. You're, you're siding entirely with the people on, on the left and deciding that the people on the right should be silenced in, in many of these cases, and I think many of the people on the left don't agree with that 'cause there's a lot of people-
- DMDouglas Murray
I agree.
- JRJoe Rogan
... on the left that would like to have b- uh, freedom of speech is a c- a core tenet of this culture.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's enormous. It's how we work things out. And if you say-
- DMDouglas Murray
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... "I disagree, so shut them up."Well, you've-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... fucked this whole thing up because the whole re-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- 24:45 – 28:56
Illiberal ‘victory laps’: retroactive moral tests, deplatforming, and backlash politics
- DMDouglas Murray
And you're also, by the way, I mean, one that really troubles me is you, you should be magnanimous in victory. I mean, that is a, th- th- that, that is so str- It's so striking to me in, in the one I do first of, of the, the issue of gay, which is that w- we are currently, and the tech companies are doing this, are pretending, first of all, that our current views on, for instance, gay marriage, which I was an early supporter of, but the, the if, if you weren't for gay marriage before almost anyone else was, you're now a homophobe.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
And, and that, apart from the fact that doesn't seem reasonable, it's an unbelievably un-magnanimous thing to do in victory, you know, to sort of stalk around. I give some examples of this, of really prominent figures in television and elsewhere in the States who, you know, in the 2000s weren't in favor of gay marriage. What are you talking about? Barack Obama wasn't in favor of gay marriage at that stage. But, but they're already going back like this and saying, "You didn't hold in the past views that people hold now."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
And this, this, this goes against one of the absolute central tenets, which is, you know, boot on the other foot-ism. You know, gay rights, like all other rights movements, managed to advance because it said, uh, w- you know, "You may not want to do this, but we're not asking you to do this. We're looking for the right to live our own lives this way too." And then there's this terrible moment, and I, I say it happens in every rights claim, the terrible moment when equal doesn't seem to do it for some people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
And they say, "No, now we've got the upper hand. We're gonna behave to you in a way that we would have hated when you did it to us."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
"And we're, and we're gonna make you a non-person and we're gonna say you can't even gather in private places and you can't even talk to each other online or on the internet." This is a profoundly illiberal viewpoint, and it's being done by people in the name of liberalism.
- JRJoe Rogan
It really is. And it's, it's people on the fringes that are the loudest and these are the ones that are causing people to be most upset and ironically making people lean towards the right. They're saying-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... "These people on the left are out of control," because the people that are on the left that they're hearing from are the ones that are outrageous. They're not-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the ones that are reasonable, ce- mo- left of center, and that you just have, uh, opinions that most of us believe about, uh-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... civil unions, about lib- about gay rights, civil rights, about, uh, you know, women's rights, all the different areas that p- people think of when they think of people on the left. I support all those.
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Until you get to these far, far left people that are so loud and outrageous and they wanna get rid of the police and get rid of the laws and everyone should be a communist. You're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's making people go right. It's forcing-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... people towards-
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the right and forcing people, ironically, towards Donald Trump. The more people-
- DMDouglas Murray
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... freak the fuck out over here, the more they go, "Who's gonna protect us from this shit? What's that guy? He's the only guy."
- DMDouglas Murray
I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's crazy.
- DMDouglas Murray
The number of s- The number of friends of mine in, in America who are saying exactly this privately at the moment, I, I don't know anyone who says... Well, maybe I know a couple, but I don't know very many people who say, "I just love Donald Trump and everything about him and his character is just so good and his, he's just..."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 28:56 – 1:03:17
Trump as symptom and shield: competence critiques, viral absurdity, and the left’s strategic failure
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, on almost any issue-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
... this is the case. I mean, th- there was, uh, there was this, uh, in the John Bolton memoir, there's this rather hair-raising story of, of President Trump talking with our then prime minister and it becomes clear that Donald Trump doesn't know that the UK is a nuclear power.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs) It was like...
- JRJoe Rogan
What does he say?
- DMDouglas Murray
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What does he say?
- DMDouglas Murray
He said... Oh, it's a, it's an unbelievable exchange. Uh, he- he's standing in, in, in Chequers, the country house of the British prime minister. The Russians had just done this, um, Novichok attack in Salisbury where they took out this former agent and, uh, his daughter with this unbelievably, you know, toxic nerve agent.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was the doorknob, right? They put it on-
- DMDouglas Murray
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the doorknob. Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
Uh, classic, you know, uh, KGB tactics. You use, uh, the most dangerous biological weapon in order to demonstrate that you can.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
Anyhow, and that had just happened in a little, little, the, the cathedral city of Salisbury. Theresa May, the then prime minister, says to Donald Trump in Chequers, uh, um, uh, you know, uh, "Mr. President, you know, we should- I'd like to remind you that, that we and Britain regard this as a WMD attack. And what's more," she says, looking at him meaningfully, "a WMD attack on a nuclear power." (laughs) And Donald Trump turns to, uh, uh, one of the other people with Theresa May and says, "Have you got nukes?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
It's, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
... it's- it's- it's striking.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, and yeah-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... the- the point about this is that you hear this sort of story and you think, "Well, that's shocking, but not that surprising." And then you think, "But anyway, look what else is being offered." And this- this- this thought is just obviously going through everyone's minds because the left in America has screwed up so badly. They could have... It's- it's- it's so striking to me as an outsider, they could have spent the last four years saying, "How did this person with all of these- these character traits that we sort of agreed on that we don't like, and with lots of downsides and things, how did he win anyway?" And they could have looked at that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and worked- and worked so much out. And instead, you've had four wasted years of, you know, frankly, bullshit claims that have wasted everyone's time.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think they thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
We, by the way, have had something very similar in Britain, but- but I just... It's- it's horrifying for an outsider to see this.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think they thought those claims were gonna work. I think they thought-
- DMDouglas Murray
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the Russia scandal was going to work. I think they thought his affairs were gonna ruin him. I think they thought all these various chess pieces that they moved into position, that they thought they were at checkmate multiple times. And he's like, "Nope, fuck you." And they're like, "What?"
- 1:03:17 – 1:18:50
Revolution dynamics: historical parallels, symbolic rituals, and the ‘silent majority’ strategy
- DMDouglas Murray
Yeah, and, and, and, and they're all... I mean, I, I've been reading quite a lot about revolutions recently for obvious reasons, and it's, uh, it's a good time to do it. I high- I highly recommend it. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What have you been reading? Which books?
- DMDouglas Murray
Read? Well, um, uh, uh, lots of books on the Russian Revolution in 1917 and, of course, everything on the French Revolution always remains pertinent, mainly because of, of just the, the unchanging nature of our species, you know? It, it, it always happens in similar ways. I mean, you know, at the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917, people who weren't on the side of the revolutionaries but didn't want to get hurt would affix to their sleeves, you know, signs of the revolution so that the mob would leave them alone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- DMDouglas Murray
Um, and what is, what is people doing Blackout Day on Instagram-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and all of that but that in the technological age? Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
But sometimes that doesn't even work. Did you see the Kenosha business that had a giant billboard that said, "Black lives matter," and yet it was in flames?
- DMDouglas Murray
That's... I loved that one early on. Uh, you shouldn't say you loved it, but I did, of those sort of three jocks who were sort of in a, in a- an apartment and they were kind of going, "Yeah, fuck- black lives matter."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
And then they're, and then they're, then all the windows get smashed in-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
... and they're sort of shouting, "We're on your side, we're on your side!"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DMDouglas Murray
And smash. Um, because-
- JRJoe Rogan
It just shows you what's really going on.
- DMDouglas Murray
It shows you what's really going on. And I think that quite a lot of people have been in a performative stage. They've-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
... been in a performative stage with... They, they've done their stuff of saying, "Well, you know, America's a racist society, and of course we live in a slightly white supremacist s- society," and they did all of that. And now they've got to this other stage when, when the rubber hits the road and when people start to act on it because they believe it. And this is the most dangerous stage. And I mean, one of the things, of course, is all the people pushing this now will not survive the revolution. None of them will survive. That's what you learn from 1789 in France-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DMDouglas Murray
... among other places. All the people who push it. And by the way, it's also always for the same reason. Uh, uh, uh, the, uh, the in, in when, when the Assembly meets uh, uh, a- after the revolution, they immediately start to talk about the rights of man and the rights that they're all going to acquire. They don't talk about laws. Why? Because it's, it's easier and happier to talk about rights, and they put off the laws for another day. And then you get everything including the terror. And everybody, everybody, seam by seam, of the revolution is taken out. And what's amazing watching America at this stage is that the, the revolutionaries seem to know that they're playing history again. You saw this so- this, this scene where they, they built a guillotine outside the, the house-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- DMDouglas Murray
... of, of was it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Jeff Bezos.
- DMDouglas Murray
Jeff, Jeff Bezos.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DMDouglas Murray
It's like we, we, we, we don't need very many more clues, you know, as to what these people are trying to do and aiming to do. They actually seem to look at these cultural revolutions and, and think-... "that seemed to go well. Why don't we try that again?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's very confusing to me because I don't know how we get out of it. I don't see any map of the territory that, that seems like all we have to do is band together on these critical issues and just agree that we could speak civilly and discuss things and debate things, and... I, I don't see any of that. I don't, I don't-
- DMDouglas Murray
I, uh... I think there are answers, uh, to get out of it. I think there's a very obvious one, by the way, which is staring everyone in the face, which is, in all of our countries we have this term "the silent majority." You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
Episode duration: 2:15:44
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