BUCK: I think, Clay, he’s right there’s a shift underway. I think unfortunately his administration is playing a role in it in a bad way, away from a sense of American leadership — and America as the last best freest hope of mankind — and toward China, Russia, not-aligned states that are finding ways to exploit weaknesses, notably recently the fact that we’re more reliant than we should be on foreign energy sources. But on a whole range of ways and factors it feels like a Biden-led new world order is one in which Putin and Xi and others are getting a bigger piece of the pie.
CLAY: Yeah, and one of the big challenges that we got is when we grew up, Buck, there was a universal enemy in some way. Beating the Russians was something that was in the back of your mind if you were growing up in the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’60s, any of those eras. You really had the sense of America as a force for good in the world. We talked about to start the show off, the protest that’s going on in Yale Law School.
What unites all of these woke ideologies, Buck — and I don’t think we spend enough time talking about this — is the idea that America is evil and was founded on evil grounds. And that as a result, our progress does not matter because at inception we were founded upon a great evil, which is slavery. And so if there is no moral authority in America, then you tear down and denigrate the institutions of America.
And what many of these woke imbeciles are not sophisticated enough to understand is you have to compare American ideology with ideologies around the world right now. China is doing and committing genocide on its own people right now. And that’s why to me the window of the world showing up in Beijing, Buck… We bent the knee to China after they lied about covid, after they created covid in a lab, in my opinion, based on all of the evidence.
And the whole world, every democratic country — us, Canada, England, Australia — all these places that are supposed to be standing for the betterment of human rights around the world all showed up and bent the knee at Beijing for the Winter Olympics and said virtually zero — nobody did — about China’s obligations and responsibilities in the world.
BUCK: Do you think that some of the emotional validation that it seems many in the West, notably here in this country, seek with their fervent support of the Ukrainian cause and the righteousness of it and the flag pins and the, “Zelensky is Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Pericles wrapped in one,” whatever…? Do you think some of that is in reaction to, for those who at least pay attention to these things, the underlying recognition that China is engaged in human rights crimes and atrocities on a regular basis?
China is undermining the United States. China is a totalitarian state. And we were basically all clapping during the Olympics while the Chinese Communist party was saying, “Yeah, you guys will bend the knee.” It’s almost like a compensation. We’re so anti-Putin in some cases in some places here because we’ve already sort of said, “Well, Xi, come on! I really like those cheap products I get from China, and I don’t want to cause any problems.”
CLAY: I think that’s a good point, and that raises the question of the precedent that’s being set with Russia. I asked this question, Buck, on the show after the State of the Union with Joe Biden when we saw all the politicians with Ukrainian lapel flags that they were wearing at the State of the Union. How many people would wear Taiwan lapel flags if China invaded Taiwan?
Would we isolate China’s global economy and businesses like we’ve done with Russia? I severely doubt it. Buck, you and I are fans of Top Gun the movie. You know they took the Taiwan flag off Maverick’s jacket in Top Gun II to avoid offending the Chinese. They changed…
In the remake of Red Dawn, they changed the country that invades America from China to North Korea because they wanted to avoid offending China. There are no Asian bad guys. There are no Asian villains in any Hollywood films now because China has got all of Hollywood by the throat, and that’s a metaphor of the larger control that China exerts upon American business everywhere.
BUCK: This is also why when people get all mobilized and very preachy on countries that they’re outraged about their human rights abuses. Look, if you’re right, you’re right. But you also need to be consistent or be aware of inconsistencies. The fact of the matter is — because the elites in this country make so much money from China and need, in their mind, access to the Chinese market — we have very different standards. We have a relativism, if you will, of human rights standards.
And remember, we talk about Saudi Arabia, we could talk about a lot of places with whom we do business, but there are the good guys and the bad guys in our minds. And I think that the discussion around Ukraine and around Russia has fallen into a simplistic narrative that is not particularly helpful to the moment, which is first and foremost about how we get the bullets and the bombs to stop.
Right? I mean, how do we get people to be safe and then we can figure out what the new world order, as Biden said, may be. But I don’t think it’s helpful to us to think that there’s a simple storyline here, and if only we all rallied to one side or the other in just our words and the way that we sort of promote individual brands on social media… I don’t mean us. I mean everybody. Everybody, “I stand with Ukraine!” Okay. But what does that mean?
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: And how do we bring this whole thing to a conclusion? And I think there’s also been… I do believe there’s been a transfer of the mass mobilization mentality from, “I listen to Fauci. I obey. I obey the elites, I do whatever I’m told with covid,” to, “Anything Ukraine needs, we should do.
“Ukraine! Ukraine!” This is the most important thing to a lot of people. And that’s why I found that study or the poll out of Canada so interesting, where there’s a direct correlation. Basically, the more shots you get, the more involved you want, as a Canadian, the military to be there. I am certain if there was a poll like in America it would be the same result.
CLAY: The crazy thing, Buck, is emotion governs everything. Most people don’t take the time… And the wild thing is, remember, initially, when social media kind of took off, Buck, the idea was, “Wow, this is going to be the full flourishment of the First Amendment”? How quickly does social media demand consensus? And if you step outside of the lines of consensus, I’m not sure there’s ever been any American media entities that have enforced consensus more than social media companies.
BUCK: There was a guy, I think the book is called The Net Delusion, I read it many, many years ago, and his point was that this notion… I’m going back now I think 15 years. I think The Net Delusion was the name of the book, and the notion was that we believe that the Internet is going to create this free flow of information that’s going to liberate man in terms of speech and the dissemination of knowledge.
And there is some truth to that. There’s also truth to we have entered into the panopticon, which it’s a prison where you’re being watched at all times. We have seen — and China is obviously pioneering this — the usage of the technology that was supposed to free us all and allow us to communicate instantaneously (and does at some levels) being turned now increasingly into tools of suppression, tools of control, of constant surveillance and let’s be honest, of power, as we’re seeing in social media companies in this country who are telling us, “Bend the knee. Say a man is a woman, peasant, or else — or else.”