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USAA, what you're made of, we're

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made for. Restrictions apply. Joining

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us on the line is Senator Ted Cruz, the Center for

0:17

Texas ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. He

0:19

has a brand new book out called Unwoke, How

0:21

to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.

0:24

Senator, thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

0:26

Ben, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. So

0:29

honestly, I'm not sure that you've ever written a more timely

0:31

book. The book is about how Marxism has

0:33

gained such a foothold in America. And you can see how

0:35

it's spread its tentacles nearly everywhere. When people

0:37

are wondering why you see wide coalitions

0:40

of people marching in support of Hamas, the answer is that

0:42

cultural Marxism has a lot to do with it. Why don't

0:44

you talk a little bit about what we are seeing on the

0:46

streets of our major cities these days, people

0:48

ripping down posters, trying to

0:51

justify terrorist atrocities. Where

0:54

is all this coming from?

0:55

Well, look, you're exactly right. We're seeing

0:57

manifestations of this every day. And I wrote

1:00

the book because like millions of Americans, I'm

1:02

looking at the country wondering what the hell is

1:04

going on? How did we get in this mess? And

1:06

so this book tries to explain it.

1:08

And it examines how

1:10

the radical left has seized each of the major

1:13

institutions of our society. And

1:15

so chapter one

1:17

focuses on universities, which I

1:19

call the Wuhan lab of

1:21

the woke virus. Universities

1:23

are where the virus was created, where it mutated,

1:26

where it spread.

1:27

And then each chapter goes to a different

1:29

institution. So it goes from universities

1:31

to K through 12 education, to

1:33

journalism, to government, to big business,

1:36

to big tech, to entertainment, to science.

1:39

And the last chapter is China, which

1:41

is a nexus that connects all of them.

1:43

Now you ask how cultural Marxism is

1:46

producing what's happening right now. I

1:48

explained the origins of this, that Marxism

1:51

began as you know, with Karl Marx writing

1:53

the Communist Manifesto and describing

1:56

his worldview,

1:57

that we have an inevitable conflict

1:59

between. oppressors and victims. And

2:01

he viewed it in socioeconomic terms. So his

2:04

oppressors were the owners of capital. His

2:06

victims were the proletariat, the working man.

2:09

And the solution that Marx advocated

2:11

for was the violent revolution

2:13

of the proletariat, overthrowing

2:16

the oppressors and using government

2:18

force and power to redistribute

2:21

the wealth away from the oppressors. As

2:23

I described in the book in the 1960s and 70s,

2:26

Marxists began infiltrating universities,

2:29

including many of our elite universities. And sadly,

2:31

Ben, you're in my alma mater, Harvard,

2:34

was ground zero for all of this

2:37

mess. In the universities,

2:39

it then mutated and it wasn't

2:41

just socioeconomic. It became multiple

2:44

variants, including critical race theory uses

2:46

the same prism of oppressors and victims,

2:49

but instead of socioeconomic, it's race,

2:52

the same inevitable conflict and the same solution,

2:54

a violent overthrow of the victims, overthrowing

2:57

the oppressors. It shifted from there to

2:59

gender, to sexual orientation, to gender

3:01

identity. And when you look

3:03

now, you know what? A couple of weeks ago, I

3:05

was talking with a very successful entrepreneur

3:08

in tech in Silicon Valley. And

3:11

he's a man of the left. He's been a Democrat his whole life.

3:13

And he was expressing bewilderment at

3:16

the vicious anti-Semitism we're

3:18

seeing from the left, whether it's the squad

3:20

in the house or these protests

3:23

on campuses all over America.

3:25

And what I told him is I said, look, you have to understand

3:27

to the radical left, Jews

3:30

are coded as oppressors and

3:33

Palestinians are coded as victims.

3:36

And so the cultural Marxist, the solution

3:39

they support is the violent

3:41

revolution and overthrow of the victims

3:44

against the oppressors. And that's why you were

3:46

seeing leftists cheering on

3:49

the Hamas terrorists. It's why you

3:51

see 35 student groups at Harvard

3:53

sign a statement saying that

3:55

all of the atrocities of Hamas, the murders,

3:58

the rapes, the slaughter of infants. Is 100%

4:00

the fault of Israel

4:03

because that is the cultural Marxist view.

4:05

Whoever they've decided the victim is, they root

4:08

for that person to engage in violence

4:11

against the oppressors. So

4:14

looking at sort of how this has spread throughout

4:16

our society, the obvious question becomes how do you fight it?

4:19

Because this has been an issue that is literally

4:21

centuries in the making. I mean you trace this all the way back

4:24

to Karl Marx. And you're right

4:26

to do so. That means that it's taken 150 years to

4:28

get – 170 years to get to this point. So

4:33

how exactly do we reverse that polarity?

4:36

How exactly do we reject that process

4:39

and bring sanity back to our politics when it's taken

4:41

this long for them to actually take over all the institutions? So

4:44

Ben, that is exactly what this

4:47

book is designed to do. It is un-woke

4:50

how to defeat cultural Marxism in America. And

4:53

so the book really does two things. Number one, it explains

4:55

systematically how and why

4:58

the cultural Marxist sees

5:00

these institutions from inside.

5:03

And you think about it, that seems an unlikely

5:05

thing to do. Ten years ago, if I

5:07

would have told you that big business, the Fortune 100,

5:10

would become the economic enforcers of the

5:12

radical left-wing agenda, that

5:14

would have sounded loopy. That would have made

5:16

no sense a decade ago, and yet now

5:19

it is reality. But

5:21

the book also lays out a

5:23

clear, direct battle plan

5:25

for how we combat it. It's several things. Number one,

5:28

it is transparency and sunshine.

5:31

The ideas of the radical left are wildly

5:33

unpopular. There's a reason they rely on

5:35

force and indoctrination to push

5:37

them through. Normal,

5:39

rational people don't support abolishing

5:42

the police. Normal, rational

5:44

people don't support open borders and the chaos

5:46

on our southern border. Normal, rational

5:48

people don't support surgically

5:50

sterilizing and castrating eight-year-old

5:53

children. Normal, rational people

5:55

don't cheer for Hamas terrorists.

5:58

All of those are wildly, wildly different. on popular

6:01

views and so sunshine is powerful.

6:03

But then secondly, we've

6:06

got to change the cost-benefit

6:08

analysis for each of the players in

6:10

the game. So for example, my chapter

6:12

on big business, I explained

6:15

that in recent years it was

6:17

rational for a CEO, an utterly apolitical

6:20

CEO, to give in to

6:22

the woke mob. And why is that?

6:24

Because the costs of getting into the woke

6:26

mob were pretty low and the benefits

6:28

were high. When they came marching

6:31

with the pitchforks and torches, they didn't

6:33

burn you down if you gave in to them. We

6:36

are seeing that change somewhat.

6:38

And so I talk a lot, for example, about what

6:40

happened with Bud Light and with Target.

6:43

And in both instances, the companies

6:45

lit themselves on fire and lost tens

6:48

of billions of dollars of market

6:50

value. That is significant,

6:52

especially when Target began

6:55

lighting itself on fire. The executives

6:57

were talking saying, dear God, we don't want to be

6:59

another Bud Light. That is

7:01

a very good thing because to change

7:04

this, we've got to change the

7:06

cost-benefit analysis. One other thing I

7:08

would say that is critically important

7:10

to retaking these institutions. We

7:12

need conservatives and libertarians

7:15

with resources to invest

7:17

in acquiring the organs of transmission

7:20

of ideas. Ben, what you're doing with The Daily

7:22

Wire is massively important

7:25

for how we take this back. You're creating

7:27

alternatives. You're creating movie studios. You're creating

7:29

your podcast is a hugely

7:31

important organ of communication.

7:34

But as you know, most

7:36

people on the right undervalue

7:38

ideas. Let's just get this. They

7:41

are, this is their religion. This is their life.

7:43

An example

7:45

I discuss in the book. Jeff

7:48

Bezos acquired the Washington

7:50

Post for 300 million dollars. He

7:53

didn't do so because he's bullish

7:55

on the long term profitability of print

7:57

media. That's not why he did that. did

8:00

it because he wanted to own the commanding

8:02

heights of public discourse. Too

8:04

many conservatives with resources, successful

8:06

business people, just look at the rate

8:08

of return. They say, you know, I could earn another half

8:11

percent manufacturing widgets in

8:13

North Carolina. Well, that's great, but we're

8:15

losing our country. And so I encourage people

8:18

buy a movie studio, buy a network, buy

8:20

a TV station, buy a radio station, buy

8:22

a book publishing house, buy

8:24

a music label, engage

8:27

and fight. The best

8:29

example, and I talk about it a lot in the

8:31

book, is Elon Musk's

8:33

buying Twitter. That changed the

8:35

entire game. It was the most important

8:37

step for free speech in decades. Well,

8:41

the book is Unwoke Had a Defeat Cultural Marxism

8:43

in America. It is totally worth the read. It's never been more

8:45

important. Senator Cruz, thanks so much for what you're doing on a

8:47

daily basis. And everybody should go out and pick up

8:49

a copy of the book today. Thank

8:52

you, Ben. I appreciate it. And I would

8:54

note also it is it is at the top of the Amazon

8:56

bestseller list and the holidays are coming

8:58

up. Let me encourage you buy a copy today. Go to

9:01

Amazon or a bookstore. But it also makes

9:03

a great present. Buy a copy

9:05

for your mom. Buy a copy for your kids.

9:07

Your kids need to know the garbage

9:10

that's being fed to them. It's interesting.

9:12

It's fun. It's readable. It's not

9:14

an abstract academic tome. It is real facts.

9:16

It is real stories. And it equips and empowers

9:19

you to fight back in your life.

9:21

I think you'll really enjoy the book.

9:24

Go check it out Unwoke Had a Defeat Cultural Marxism

9:26

in America. I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro

9:28

Show.