0:04

On this episode of Newts World. There's

0:07

a religious zealotry to the woke

0:09

left movement not so long ago,

0:12

imposing a moral framework. When

0:14

every aspect of life was a conservative

0:17

approach, it was the right who saw

0:19

the world through a moral prison. And

0:21

when the right was doing the moralizing, the

0:24

left could be counted on to oppose them.

0:26

But the tables have turned. In

0:29

his new book, The Rise of

0:31

the New Puritans, Fighting Back

0:33

against Progressive's War on fund

0:36

Noah Rothman dies deeply into

0:38

the realities of this provocative societal

0:41

change, rooting out its origins

0:43

and exploring how it threatens the ideals

0:45

of freedom and personal fulfillment

0:48

at the heart of the American experiment. This

0:50

inclination towards meddlesomeness is

0:53

nothing new in our history, and

0:55

as he dissects this mounting aspect

0:57

of the social justice movement, Rothman

1:00

draws parallels to the zealotry that

1:02

lends the New Puritanism its name. It

1:04

is an impulse that judges and attacks

1:07

its victims based on a narrow

1:09

moral judgment, the lack of subtlety

1:12

or an appreciation for human complexity.

1:15

Here to talk about his new book, I'm

1:17

really pleased to welcome my guest, Noah

1:19

Rotha. He is the associate editor of

1:21

Commentary magazine, author of

1:24

Unjust, and an NBC News

1:26

contributor. Noah,

1:37

welcome and thank you for joining me a news

1:39

world, mister speaker. Thank you so much for having me.

1:41

It's a pleasure. I'm curious

1:44

what led you to write

1:46

this book. I

1:48

was miserable to be frank. This

1:50

is back in the late fall

1:53

winter of twenty twenty. It's the

1:55

height of the pandemic. We had just had the riots,

1:58

and every institution in America had committed

2:00

itself to reconceptualizing

2:02

the Founding as something rather terrible

2:05

in all its subsequent emanations,

2:07

as something you should be suspective and hostile

2:10

toward. And I'm sitting down with my wife and describing

2:12

my misery. She asks, what would

2:14

you like to do if you could do anything, well, I'd

2:16

like to speak with people who are in institutions

2:18

that I like, work in comics,

2:21

sports, broadcasters, chefs, people

2:24

who create entertainment for a living, screenwriters,

2:26

And they're like, no, I can't because

2:28

everything is political now. There is no

2:30

escape from the politics that has infected

2:33

even a political aspects of

2:35

life. Those things that should be outside the

2:37

realm of politics properly understood. And

2:39

she says that's the book, and it was. So

2:42

you're saying that even chefs end

2:44

up being political. Oh, and they'll

2:47

tell you about how miserable they are about it.

2:49

There's a fair amount of the third chapter on Prudence

2:52

that describes the extent to which

2:54

food, not just preparation but

2:57

generally the pleasant atmospherics of dining

2:59

have become a pro that your meat consumption

3:01

is making you into a burden on your

3:04

family and your community and destroying

3:06

the eden into which you were conceived that

3:08

you should be consuming a lot more insects, not

3:10

because they're good. In fact, good is beside

3:12

the point, because you're contributing to a social

3:15

value, and that sense of satisfaction

3:18

should be sustenance enough. There are plenty

3:20

of chefs who are getting out of this industry,

3:23

not because they're no longer good at what they do or they've

3:25

gotten bad reviews, because they no

3:27

longer find their life's work fulfilling, in part

3:29

because they can't do their life's work.

3:31

They get up every morning consumed

3:33

with the mission now before them, which

3:35

is conducting politics, being political

3:38

and that's not what they signed up for. A lot of

3:40

the people I spoke with are liberal Democrats. Wouldn't

3:42

vote Republican if you paid them, But their enthusiasm

3:45

for their life's work is being robbed of them,

3:47

and they bitterly resented what happened

3:50

to them if they just ignored all that pressure and

3:52

cooked what they wanted to. So part of my

3:54

book is an attempt to give them a permission

3:56

structure to do just that. Most

3:59

of the who genuflect before

4:01

the WOP movement share its goals,

4:03

share its objectives, and part of the reason why

4:06

I organize this chapter by unimpeachable

4:08

virtues, piety, prudence, austerity,

4:11

the fear of God, temperance, and order is

4:13

because the mission, in its

4:16

abstract to which progressives adhere

4:19

was objectively good. It is the

4:21

way in which it is being pursued by

4:23

its most zealous adherents

4:25

that is the problem. A lot of

4:28

these people share the idea and the importance of the progressive

4:30

mission that leaves them unable to

4:32

based on their social circles and the industries

4:34

in which they inhabit, leaves them unable to just simply walk

4:37

away to ignore it. You can

4:39

try, but there's a collective action problem

4:41

here. The first to go is only

4:43

the first to go, and then they need to crowd behind

4:46

them. And so the prescription that I try

4:48

to offer here is to live your life in a care

4:50

free way, in a joyous way, to mock

4:52

those who have made a spectacle of themselves,

4:54

because you know it only takes a first

4:57

couple of people to do it, and then you'll have a collective

4:59

action behind them, and ultimately to consume

5:02

and to reward commercially

5:04

those who are bucking this trend and

5:07

create an incentive structure to continue to

5:09

do so. So there's a set of prescriptions there. But right

5:11

now those who don't want to run a foul

5:13

of this movement are quite frankly scared. There are

5:15

real consequences for running

5:17

a foul of it, especially if you don't have an institution

5:19

backing you that is institutionally

5:22

committed to free expression

5:24

and the exploration of ideas that can perhaps

5:27

offend the more puritanically inclined progressive.

5:30

Is this largely a big

5:32

city problem? I mean, if

5:34

you're a chef, are you under greater pressure

5:36

in a New York or Chicago

5:38

or Los Angeles? And you would

5:40

be in you know, Des Moines

5:43

or Birmingham, doubtlessly,

5:46

but that is where the commanding heights

5:48

of culture are located, right. This

5:50

is a problem of the capture of

5:53

these institutions in a spectacular act of

5:55

piracy by a narrow

5:57

band of committed

5:59

progress inclined towards puritanism.

6:01

I'm not talking about democrats, per sec I'm not talking about

6:04

liberals, not even all progressives. It's hard

6:06

to quantify, but it's a smallish

6:08

band of very enthusiastic zealots

6:11

who have captured these institutions and who

6:13

are meeting out at comumpets against those

6:15

who do not bend to their will.

6:17

But they punch way above their weight, and

6:20

they have managed to use the pseudo

6:22

authoritative language of critical

6:24

studies departments on campuses to morally

6:28

blackmail, intimidate, and capture

6:30

institutions that are bigger

6:32

than them, that have a broader mission statement.

6:35

But they are all being subsumed

6:37

into this one project, which is the

6:39

advancement of the progressive mission. And

6:41

it's the three legs of that stool.

6:44

Rachel reproachement, economic

6:46

egalitarianism, and environmental

6:49

protection. All of these things in the abstract are

6:51

noble. It is when they become

6:54

a religious conviction and are prosecuted

6:57

with absolute zelotry, that

6:59

they've become intell colerable. In the

7:01

model you're building just the actual reference

7:03

to New Puritans,

7:06

you're describing a

7:08

kind of religious or quasi religious

7:10

movement more than a political movement,

7:13

and it has elements of

7:15

a secular faith. It mimics a secular

7:17

faith. I depart slightly from

7:20

some people in this field whom I admired quite

7:22

a bit, Professor John mcwater, Michael

7:25

Crichton, all of whom I identified

7:27

really sort of religious traits

7:29

in this secular approach

7:31

to life. But I maintain that it transcends

7:35

the conduct of politics and religion

7:38

in a way that mimics

7:40

the Puritan experience, because Puritanism

7:43

wasn't simply a religion. It wasn't congregationalism

7:46

alone. It wasn't the management of

7:48

the colonies. It was both of those things.

7:50

That was a way of life. I prefer to

7:52

describe it as a theory of social organization

7:55

more so than a religion per se. It lacks

7:58

what I think is a key element of any conduct

8:00

of spirituality, which is a deism,

8:03

something that can provide you with absolution

8:06

and allow you to conduct

8:08

yourself in a way that is without

8:10

sin. There is no way to escape sin in

8:13

this idea of the new

8:15

puritanical conception of the environment in which

8:17

we're in. The sin, the sinner, and the environment in which

8:19

the sin are committed are all along

8:21

the same continuum. You can't block

8:23

them off, because that's how your hand in

8:26

this existential fight against a ubiquitous

8:28

evil. So, historically,

8:32

the concept of Puritanism was seen as something

8:34

on the right, and

8:36

it was some sense of imposing

8:39

a set of values on people

8:42

that was often on fair and that was often

8:45

arbitrary. And you're

8:47

suggesting, as a number of people have that in

8:49

fact, that's been transferred to the moral

8:52

fervor and the intensity

8:54

that we used to identify with the right

8:57

is now in many ways to be found

8:59

on the lay. Yeah, and it's an absolute

9:02

mystery as to how this happened.

9:04

That's where I begin unpacking this

9:06

is that, Yeah, it was traditionally in a

9:08

tendency to see in seemingly innocent

9:10

cultural products nefarious

9:13

influences that would corrupt you into grade. Society

9:15

as a whole was primarily a predilection

9:17

on the right. Now, all of a a sudden on the left were

9:19

treated to moral crusades that very much

9:21

mimic that big entertainment companies

9:24

introducing themes to products

9:26

that deemphasize the entertainment value

9:28

of that because that's actually rather trite. It has to

9:30

serve a higher social purpose than mere entertainment.

9:34

Comedians who are emphasizing the pain that

9:36

someone had to experience so that you could

9:38

enjoy something as frivolous as a punchline

9:41

sports coverage, sit down to ESPN

9:43

and you'll be treated to long digressions about the lamentable

9:45

state of racial dynamics in America.

9:47

And when fans object, as they do, often

9:50

they're explicitly admonished for

9:52

putting their need for escapism over

9:55

their duty to dwell on the world's miseries.

9:57

Indeed, dwelling on the world's miseries seems

10:00

to be the highest goal, even above

10:02

and beyond the principle that whatever

10:05

the principle happens to be that they're promoting at any

10:07

given time. This is indeed a puritanical

10:10

impulse. Scholars of Puritanism get

10:12

a little frustrated when you conflate big

10:14

p Puritans of the sixteen hundred seventeen hundreds

10:16

with the kind of the calm stockery into which

10:18

it evolved in the nineteenth century. And

10:21

that's more what we think of when we think of stereotypes

10:23

of crudish Puritans who wanted to

10:25

remake the world anew But that is

10:27

where progressivism was birst.

10:30

It came to be in the heart of mainline Protestant

10:33

New England, and it retains quite a lot of

10:35

its characteristics, among them utopianism,

10:38

a messianic approach to political

10:40

organizing, and a fear of idleness. That

10:43

which is idle is an empty

10:45

vessel that can be filled up and will be filled

10:47

with the influences that are working all around

10:49

us, that are corrupting us and corrupting

10:52

our society at large.

11:08

When I was a kid, they would say that idle hands

11:10

are the devil's workshop, and there

11:12

was that whole notion that, you know, if you don't stay

11:15

busy and virtuous, the bad

11:17

things will happen automatically, And there was sort of

11:19

a hangover from the Puritan

11:21

ethic. I've often wondered if Harvard

11:24

and Yale had not been in New England,

11:27

how different would things have been. Because the dynamic

11:30

which led to abolitionism and

11:32

led to a whole range of things comes

11:35

straight out of the Puritan

11:37

tradition, the Puritan passion for

11:40

creating a city on the hill. Absolutely,

11:42

the Puritans get a bad rap, and I try

11:44

to make that point frequently in this manuscript

11:47

that, as you say, they bequeathed us with

11:50

some of the greatest gifts that Americans

11:52

should be cherishing, the proto democratic

11:54

institutions that evolved into what

11:57

became the Constitutional Convention. I've

11:59

really profound commitment to abolitionism,

12:02

so committed that many prominent

12:04

Puritan activists back to Mexico and the Mexican

12:07

American War is one of the reasons why there zelotry

12:09

can be a bit grading

12:11

in mixed company. And a social contract

12:14

that left us with so that you wouldn't

12:16

have to depend on charity in your darkest hours.

12:18

These are profoundly good things. And

12:21

if that tradition hadn't arisen

12:23

in New England and perhaps in the mid Atlantic, we might

12:25

have a much more Catholic conception of

12:27

virtue. We much have elevated social

12:29

justice in a way that was muted

12:32

in the early eighteen hundreds. So who

12:34

knows. I mean, that's an interesting counterfactual,

12:36

but along with this puritanical virtues

12:40

comes puritanical zeal. The two

12:42

things are intertwined. I don't think that can

12:44

be separated. And the progressive

12:46

tradition has its roots in puritanical

12:49

soil, and progressives might not recognize that

12:51

impulse in themselves, but that's vanity, and

12:53

this book hopes to address that. So

12:55

you talk about the progressives war on fund.

12:59

I understand why in the religious tradition

13:01

that was a serious component, because fun

13:04

was inherently putting you in

13:06

risk of sin and was

13:08

taking your mind away from God and

13:11

away from preparing for heaven. But

13:13

why in the modern period have

13:16

all of these folks decided that having

13:19

fun is inherently dangerous. Well,

13:21

so if you replace the mission

13:24

of creating a new Zion, which

13:26

is not dissimilar from the mission of perfecting

13:28

the human experience if you believe it

13:30

can be perfected, is this

13:33

messianic mission towards remaking

13:36

the world anew and certainly extirpating the

13:38

sins that we inherited. One of the

13:40

scholars who I quote very often in this manuscript,

13:42

George McKenna, whose book The Puritan

13:44

Origins of American Patriotism is one of

13:47

the best scholarly works on how Puritanism

13:50

has bequeathed us with all these political traditions,

13:52

and identified a series of traits that are native

13:55

to a typical Puritan, And the one I

13:57

focus on is one that he called anxious

13:59

introspect, which is the

14:02

constant interrogation of yourself and

14:04

the projection of inward insecurities

14:07

on your external environment. And the

14:09

manifestation which this most

14:12

frequently materializes is

14:14

in a fear and mistrust of what

14:16

we would understand to be really banal activities.

14:20

They have embraced a narrower understanding

14:22

of the origins of the United States,

14:24

elevating its original sins to a

14:26

place of prominence that would confuse and confound

14:29

us. I think we would agree a founding

14:31

generation because it is so outside

14:34

the scope of what they understood to be its importance,

14:37

but indicting everything on the flimsiest

14:39

of pretext around that. So, when you

14:41

have this anxious introspection and you projected

14:43

onto environment, you can see how

14:45

the activity of knitting and sewing are

14:48

irreparably linked coupled

14:50

with the legacy of American slavery. It

14:53

takes an initiated puritanical

14:55

progressive to see that. But that's

14:57

the kind of thing they can see. They can see that in fly fishing,

15:00

they can see that in interior

15:02

decorating, in gardening. And

15:04

it is the conduct of, for example,

15:07

the mistrust of holidays that I

15:09

think is one of the many ways in which this particular

15:12

tendency has really

15:14

impossible to ignore links to the past,

15:16

because, as Cotton Mather said, it isn't the holiday

15:18

itself, it is the immodest behavior

15:21

that the holiday encourages, lud

15:23

drinking, excessive eating, displays

15:26

of gluttony. And we see that in

15:28

the way of the modern puritan does their best to ruin

15:30

holidays. They admonish you to berate

15:32

your relatives over the abject state

15:34

in which the country in the world finds itself during

15:37

this otherwise joyous time, because joy

15:39

is beside the point. In fact, it's rather

15:42

counterproductive to be joyous, particularly

15:44

in such dire times in which we find ourselves.

15:46

This anxious introspection typifies

15:49

quite a lot of how the new purit and navigates

15:51

the world which has become the enemy of joy itself.

16:11

I'm very curious when you think about the

16:15

shutdowns and people being locked

16:17

at home and all the different things that came out

16:19

of the pandemic. To what extent

16:21

do you think that accelerated or intensified

16:24

or changed the move towards

16:27

the new Puritanism? Perhaps quite

16:29

a bit in a way I don't get into in

16:31

this manuscript, in part because it was written in

16:34

the middle of it, so it lacked any perspective

16:36

on it. Nevertheless, in

16:39

the middle of this profound

16:41

and unprecedented for most of our lifetimes mini

16:44

civilizational collapse, we

16:46

haven't actually had a full reckoning with the way

16:48

in which our institutions

16:51

and our understanding of ourselves and our communities and

16:53

our interpersonal relationships sort of imploded

16:55

on us. We haven't really reckoned with that. But

16:57

in the middle of that, after about three

16:59

months of berating

17:01

the public that the highest possible good

17:04

they could engage with is to keep

17:06

to themselves and stay away from others, and

17:09

if they had to venture out then to observe

17:11

a series of rituals and protocols, then

17:13

all of a sudden, all these voices turned on a dime

17:16

and decided that the highest social good

17:18

was to protest outside in the streets in

17:21

an act of contrition. It

17:24

was a big, booming display of

17:26

pursuit of absolution for things

17:28

that you couldn't possibly absolve yourself

17:31

of the principle on display

17:33

in that moment. I'm talking about the

17:35

way in which public health advocates affixed

17:37

their name to an open letter that demanded

17:40

you go outside and protest, because racism is

17:42

a public health emergency, perhaps even

17:44

a greater public health emergency than the actual

17:46

public health emergency. And

17:48

it was that sort of principle on

17:50

display that manifested itself in some

17:53

serious ways, but also some very silly ways.

17:55

So the protests were about combating

17:58

police violence. An unobjectionable

18:00

principle is that local police authorities generally

18:03

should be subordinate to the communities they serve

18:05

and responsible to elected officials.

18:08

That's a reasonable principle, one that is unimpeachable,

18:10

frankly, but it was de emphasized

18:12

in the pursuit of rather silly

18:16

ways that this could manifest. So

18:18

one of those ways was the backlash against

18:20

cop shows. We were told that

18:23

the good cop archtype is

18:25

something that could not and should not be allowed

18:27

on television in media generally,

18:30

it resulted in the cancelation of programs

18:32

like Cops and Live PD shows

18:34

that had done tangible good.

18:36

They had found missing persons, they had solved

18:38

cold cases, they had found felons at

18:41

large. That tangible good was

18:43

subordinated to a theory, the theory

18:45

being that this good cop arc type

18:47

had contributed to police abuses.

18:50

The theory went out over the facts,

18:52

and perhaps the silliest manifestation of this

18:55

was a backlash against the Nickelodeon cartoon

18:57

show Paw Patrol. It's a cartoon

18:59

show featuring cartoon dogs as

19:01

first responders. Was a New York Times

19:03

article about the backlash against this show

19:06

and how it was contributing to police

19:08

violence. This silliness ultimately

19:10

undermined the principle that was at work

19:12

here that police should be subordinate to the communities

19:14

they serve. Instead, it seemed

19:16

to be elevated above the principle. So

19:18

we're left to conclude that it was the

19:20

display of zelotry, this big booming

19:23

pageant of zeal and self sacrifice,

19:25

because they're sacrificing their entertainment

19:27

too, not just you, them too. They're making

19:30

this sacrifice for the greater good. But

19:32

it was that sacrifice. It was this display

19:34

of labor, the work that

19:37

was the ultimate objective here. The principle

19:39

itself fell by the wayside, ultimately

19:42

to be forgotten in favor of this big,

19:44

booming display of sanctimony.

19:47

You see this again and again. I mean Disney's

19:49

entire behavior, which has been astonishingly

19:52

unprofitable. I mean the

19:54

amount they've cost their shareholders

19:57

as people reacted negatively to their

20:00

aggressively woke strategy. There's

20:03

kind minishing comment on culture

20:05

dominating economics. Yeah,

20:07

and so the commercial aspect of this

20:09

is I think one of the ways it probably falls

20:12

apart. I think this is encapsulated

20:14

mostly in the phrase banned in Boston.

20:16

Band in Boston again back to the part of

20:18

mainline Protestantism, the incubator

20:21

of progressivism in America as we understand

20:23

it, Banned in Boston was a

20:26

phrase that warned of impure

20:28

literature, the calm stockery

20:30

of the time, and the Society for the Suppression

20:32

of Vice, which mobilized in response

20:35

to a profound menace. Leaves

20:37

of Grass by Walt Whitman was very

20:39

effective. It effectively blocked the publication

20:41

of that book in New England. It bottlerized

20:44

plays. It banned dime store novels

20:46

that are popular throughout the country. Songs couldn't

20:48

be played on the radio in this area, and it was

20:50

a very effective tool for warning

20:53

the ethically and morally pure away

20:56

from impious literature. But

20:58

the backlash materialized around it, and it manifested

21:00

in commercial ways, so that eventually

21:03

banned in Boston went from being a warning against

21:05

impure literature to a powerful advertisement

21:07

for it. Publishers actively sought

21:10

to have their titles banned in Boston

21:12

so that they could increase sales across the country.

21:15

And I think if there's a modern parallel, it would

21:17

be banned on Facebook, banned on Amazon.

21:20

Because when conservative books find themselves

21:22

in the crosshairs of twenty three year

21:24

old censors who have no idea what they're

21:26

doing and limit access to this

21:28

material, it advertises it in ways

21:31

that I don't think any pr campaign could accomplish.

21:33

These books become best sellers overnight

21:36

only in response to the overshooting

21:39

the mark of the censors on the left who

21:41

would try to prevent you from having

21:43

access to this very seditious,

21:45

titillating material. So the commercial

21:47

aspect is something you can't discount. Well,

21:50

it's commasson to watch because the

21:52

extraordinary success of

21:55

Top Gun Maverick, which was

21:57

patriotic, positive and

22:00

has blown the doors off of everybody

22:02

else in terms of people coming out to see

22:05

it. It'll be exting to see whether or not Hollywood

22:07

can resist making money

22:10

right. The obstacle of that has been China.

22:13

Right. Access to the Chinese market has

22:15

been more lucrative than Western

22:18

markets, and this film among

22:20

others, but this film most prominently bucked

22:22

that trend in an old way

22:25

and was rewarded for the gamble.

22:27

So yeah, it would be interesting to see if anybody follows

22:29

in their market. But it was just a refreshing movie in so far

22:31

as it didn't beat you over the head with

22:34

this plotting. Didactic narrative

22:36

meant to communicate whatever our contemporary

22:39

sins are and may force you to think about

22:41

things for a little bit. Yeah, the country

22:43

was actually interested in relaxing

22:45

and being entertained and feeling patriotic,

22:48

and there's nothing wrong with that. But the combinations

22:50

of three things, you would say that the new Puritanism

22:52

would oppose all three parts of it. Yes,

22:55

yes, I mean part because it's a waste

22:57

of time. You are idle, you're

22:59

actively not doing the work, which means you're

23:01

actively being influenced

23:04

in ways that they can't control, and

23:06

that because they are mistrustful of you,

23:09

there's an element of condescension to a lot of

23:11

this. That they believe you to be rather

23:13

easily influenced, poorly educated,

23:16

morally infirmed, and

23:18

if you're not constantly being burted with

23:21

stimuli that reinforces the

23:24

particular norms that they believe advanced

23:27

the progressive project, and that cure us

23:29

of the ills of the society

23:31

into which we were born, this milieu in which we're

23:33

steeped, which is corrupting. If you're not

23:35

constantly being beaten over the head

23:37

with that, you're steeping yourself in it,

23:39

you're marinating in it, and you will eventually emerge

23:42

a bad person as a result of that. That there's

23:44

an education process that is unending,

23:47

and if it ever does end, it ends

23:50

frankly with you being a menace to

23:52

your neighbors and to society, and perpetuating

23:54

the ills that you were born into and flawed

23:57

an imperfect union. One of

23:59

the things I was by, though I

24:01

thought was particularly sobering, was that when

24:03

you were conducting interviews with a number of

24:05

professionals, you found a

24:07

number who agreed with

24:09

your premise, but didn't share conservative

24:11

politics. But you also found that there

24:13

were a number who really didn't

24:15

want to talk on the record, that they were genuinely

24:18

concerned that if they told you

24:20

how they really felt that

24:22

they would be risking their career or risking

24:25

their status. Yeah. Well they told me how

24:27

they really felt. They just can't print their names,

24:29

but yeah, I mean there are real consequences

24:32

social and professional and

24:35

to a lesser degree legal, But still

24:37

they're out there for speaking your mind.

24:40

How much do you think this is a detour and

24:43

how much do you think it's potentially a really

24:45

profound, long term change.

24:48

So that's an interesting question because I'm of two

24:50

minds on it. I think the shift back

24:52

towards a progressive ethos away

24:54

from a classically liberal or

24:56

just liberal sort of if it feels good,

24:58

do it mentality, sort of hedonism

25:01

and licentiousness that typified the

25:04

baby boomer generation after the Sexual Revolution.

25:06

I think that was a passing fat I

25:08

think progressivism is here to stay. The

25:11

kind of progressivism that manifests

25:13

in this totalistic,

25:15

puritanical program for society,

25:18

I don't think that's long for this world. It is a

25:20

cult of misery and cults of misery

25:22

do not have long shelf lives. It will leave its

25:24

mark on American politics it already

25:26

has, and society. It already has left

25:29

an indelible and in some ways

25:31

laudable mark on the institutions

25:34

it has trained its fire on. But

25:36

like the Puritans, who are not remembered

25:39

for all the great traditions

25:41

they've bequeathed us, the Puritans,

25:43

Big pe Puritans are remembered as

25:46

stereotypes, many of which are

25:48

laughable. They're laughing stocks. And I

25:50

think frankly that this book is an

25:52

attempt to hasten what I believe is already

25:54

going to be an inevitable trend to finding

25:57

the humor in the ways in which these people

26:00

are making spectacles of themselves,

26:02

sacrificing towards no end. I

26:04

think that eventually we'll be able to laugh at

26:06

them. We're not there yet, but I think it's coming. You

26:09

may have found the title for your next book

26:11

in the Cult of Misery. Ah,

26:14

I am looking for another pitch. You got a strike while

26:16

the iron's hot. I think that is so intriguing

26:20

and captures this very

26:22

strange phenomenon. I was

26:24

recently doing Sean Hannity's radio show and we

26:26

were exploring why would

26:28

you say that oil produced in Texas

26:31

and Pennsylvania

26:34

and North Dakota is

26:36

bad, but oil produced in Venezuela

26:38

and Iran and Saudi

26:41

Arabia and Russia is good. And I

26:43

think it's part of this cult of misery.

26:45

I mean, I think you have a phrase there that you could become

26:47

very famous with. Thank you, sir. I'm

26:49

going to rush out and capitalize

26:51

on this now patent pending. That's right, that the

26:53

trick is trademarket before anybody else thinks

26:55

of it. It's great, listen. I

26:57

really appreciate you doing this. This is fascinating.

27:01

I think you've had some marvelous insights.

27:03

We are certainly going to promote your

27:06

book, which I think is a real contribution

27:08

to understanding what's happening in America,

27:10

and we're going to have the Rise of the New Puritans

27:13

fighting back against progressives. War

27:15

and fund will be on our show page

27:17

with a link, and I hope it does extraordinarily

27:20

well. Lester Speaker, thank you so much. It's

27:22

been a privilege to talk to you, and I really appreciate

27:24

your endorsement. That's very high praised. Thank

27:29

you to my guest Noah Rothman. You

27:31

can get a link to buy his new book, The

27:34

Rise of the New Puritans on our showpage

27:36

at Newtsworld dot com. News

27:38

World is produced by Gingriche three sixty

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27:43

producer is Garnsey Slope, our producer

27:45

is Rebecca Hall, and our researcher

27:48

is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for

27:50

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27:53

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