J.D. Vance vs the Proposition Nation

Trump’s Inauguration Speech and the Effect of the Assassination Attempt

I did want to give some of my impressions on the RNC and specifically the vice presidential candidates speech and also President Trump's speech from last night. I thought President Trump's speech, although it was long, it kept my attention and I was pretty impressed, especially with the beginning of the speech where Donald Trump just seems to be a different person after that incident.

And why wouldn't he be? I think most people would have a hard time getting back to their normal self after almost dying. And to hear Trump multiple times credit God, God's providence even, he used that word with the reason that he's still around is just encouraging.

And I am praying for President Trump. I hope you're praying for President Trump, that that leads to more, more, well, ultimately that it leads to salvation in Christ. I know some of you out there may think that he is a Christian.

I'm not sure in the born again sense of the word, an actual Christian. I, I haven't seen the evidence for that. I see that there's a respect for Christianity. I see that he grew up with a certain cultural Christianity.

He talked about his father really respecting Billy Graham last night, but Trump hasn't ever really articulated that in terms that would make you think that he actually has a relationship with Christ or has been justified by grace and understands what that means.

He seems to instead want to tip his hat to Christian morality, at least the morality he grew up with. He's done this really his whole entire political career, as far as I can tell. And he enjoys the approval of evangelical leaders and evangelical votes.

And I think as JD Vance said, I think it was yesterday at the RNC that evangelicals have a place at the table. And it certainly seems that president Trump agrees with that, but they're certainly not driving the bus.

If they were, I don't think the platform would have changed the way it did this year on issues like abortion and marriage. So Trump is influenced by that. He seems respectful of that. He's said a lot of nice things about Franklin Graham, but I would hope that an incident like this would cause him to reflect.

And it certainly seems like it is and think more about his eternal destiny. And so let's just pray. Let's just pray that that is the case. And I'm very thankful, though, let me tell you, I'm thankful that he's not only okay, but that he has this new outlook, or at least he's developing, hopefully, a new outlook on life.

And I think he said at the end of his speech that every life or every moment is what he said is precious and given to us by God. And I think he you could just sense he feels that. And I just, you know, I don't really know what else to say that other than it almost brought a tear to my eye at the beginning of the speech.

It was just so touching and moving to see him up there and to see not the braggadocious Trump that you're used to. He just seemed humble. He seemed somewhat, I don't know, like he wasn't the same Trump.

He was subdued. And then somewhere around the halfway mark, I think it's when the chart came up, he showed the chart, same chart that he was looking at before he was someone attempted to assassinate him of the level of illegal migrants flowing into the country.

And somewhere in there, the old Trump started to come back. But still, I would say somewhat subdued. So anyway, that's my thought. I don't really have a lot of other things to say about his speech. Other than I thought all the points he hit were good.

Obviously, as a Christian, I think there are deeper moral things that also need to be discussed. But he did hit on some of the major issues that are affecting our country. And I would say, and I've said this before, I think the migration issue is probably the number one thing, number one issue of this election as far as what the government should do and can do and isn't doing.

And that will change the character of this country forever. I've even said this to people who are very anti-abortion, as I am, that if you really want to do something on the abortion issue, you have an avenue to do it right now through a federal arrangement, through the states, through local regions.

And you can get something done under President Trump, much more so than you can under Joe Biden. But let me tell you what, if you have four more years of the levels of migration that we are seeing into this country, you won't have that option.

You just won't. What happened to California will happen to the rest of the country. And I think we're in that process. And the question is, does that process stop? Does it end? Are the mass deportations that the Republicans are talking about, do they come to fruition?

If that happens, we actually can reverse some of the changes that we've seen over the last four years. And if you, whether you're concerned about the life issue or you're concerned about other moral issues, this will be the thing, I think, that guarantees the Democrats get a permanent voter base if Trump loses.

They will have majorities from here on out. That's really the truth of the matter. So just on a practical level, if you care about any of the issues that you care about on the right, that's the main thing you should be concerned about.

And the integrity of elections is another one, which he did talk about. So glad he talked about needing to take measures to ensure the integrity of our elections in the United States. So those are just some overall first impressions, I suppose.

J.D. Vance and the Challenge to the Proposition Nation

But I really want to talk more about J .D. Vance's speech, because I think J .D. Vance said something that is. Well, it's been taboo for quite some time in the Republican Party, it's not the kind of language you are used to hearing.

In fact, I had many people on X tagging me and saying, is J .D. Vance listening to John Harris? And people like Stephen Wolfe, it sounds like the same things they say. I haven't heard this from a Republican politician before.

And no, you haven't. You haven't heard it probably in a very long time. J .D. Vance essentially said that we the United States is more than an idea to people. And although I would prefer he probably just said it's not an idea, it's not what he said certainly was.

A big shift in direction from what you usually hear, which is America is an idea, America is a bundle of propositions, America is equality, America is freedom, America represents freedom to everyone in the world, we need to spread democracy.

These are the kinds of things you are used to hearing and you didn't hear him as much this year. That is a shift. And I explained in a podcast, I would encourage you to go back earlier this week if you haven't seen it, where I talk about the history of the Republican Party and their interaction with the religious right.

In fact, this was turned into an article along with William Wolfe. William Wolfe and I, I guess, co-authored because there was a long Twitter post he made and then there was one I made and they got merged into an article.

You can go to American Reformer and check that out. But I talked in more detail on this podcast about I think what happened in the early nineties was a deal was cut and throughout the nineties really a deal was cut.

But most especially in the election of George Bush, there was a deal cut between the religious right, which was a populist movement, and the Republican establishment. And this really in a concrete form, I think, is seen in what happened between Pat Buchanan and George Bush when evangelicals backed George Bush, the establishment figure over Pat Buchanan.

And and I write about this. I show you exactly what I'm talking about. The Christian Coalition, really the main organization driving that. And this meant something, I think, for decades. I think until this convention, it really meant something.

It meant that Republicans would get the evangelical voter base. It meant that evangelicals would have their talking points at least referenced and they would get to feel good about themselves because they got to sit at the table with the establishment Republicans.

But what good the question is, did it do the evangelicals and their concerns? Not much. It took a populist. It took Donald Trump, who was not a part of that deal, I would say, just as Pat Buchanan was not part of that deal, who was a populist as well.

It took Donald Trump to really put the things in motion that ended Roe v. Wade ultimately and give the ability of states today to do things to limit abortion. I'm going to have someone on the podcast next week, Josh Turner, who's been arguing on behalf of the state of Idaho and their restriction restriction on abortion, who's been arguing that this is constitutional and this can be repeated in other states.

So we're going to talk to him and get more details on that. But that's the kind of thing that would not have happened even a few years ago. This is a shift. This is a change. So evangelicals have benefited somewhat.

But I think the evangelical base has it's still the foundation of the Republican Party in many ways, but their influence has shrunk. I think Donald Trump knows that Donald Trump doesn't really come from that world.

He doesn't see things the same way. He's wrong on some things socially. And he wasn't part of that original deal. And so he doesn't really have to abide by it. And the question is, what happens next? And that remains to be seen.

What is going to happen between evangelicals and populists? Because evangelicals themselves, their instincts are populist. The voters themselves. I'm not talking about the institutions, not talking about focus on the family.

I'm not talking about the E .R .L .C. I'm not talking about even the I mean, I respect a great deal. Probably one of my favorite evangelical right organizations would be the American Family Association.

But I'm not talking about them either. I don't know that any of these evangelical organizations, although they will have some influence to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the organization. I don't know that any of them really.

Was highly influential in previous administrations before the Trump administration in getting their agenda through. They there are little wins here and there you can look to, but it's really insignificant stuff around the edges.

They don't have the voice. They didn't have the voice to really do much on the marriage issue. I remember going to a conference in twenty twenty one, I think it was at the Bible Museum. It was this religious right group, very influential religious right group.

And I got to sit in on a number of the sessions because I had a friend who was speaking there. And I noticed the shift in the language because throughout the 90s, evangelicals in evangelical right organizations started saying things like family values, Judeo-Christian values.

They watered it down and it got watered down even more after, I don't know, I think 2015, the Obergefell decision. It seems like it's family values you still hear about quite a bit, but there's this shift to, I would say, more of an expansive, quote unquote, inclusive.

You know, we are for like when they talk about the marriage issue, I'll say I remember this at the event. They'll say things like, oh, we are for the integrity of marriage. They never flesh out what it means.

They never tell you, yeah, there's two guys getting married down the road and that's wrong. You don't hear the specifics. It's just that we're for the integrity of marriage or we're for the success of families.

We want families to thrive. And of course we do. Right. But what does that mean? That can mean all kinds of different things to different people. You're not really specifying exactly what you mean. And I think this is the direction that the evangelical right establishment has been going on for quite some time to the point that they just need to be replaced.

That's my feeling on it. I think that evangelical right establishments, organizations need to be, by and large, gutted and replaced. New leadership needs to come in. That's more unapologetic, hardcore.

I think that it's the same thing with the Republican Party. It's a swamp. It needs to be replaced. And we are in the beginning of that process of that replacement. That's what's happening. Populists have pretty much taken over.

You didn't see Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney or, you know, some of the previous influential people like Paul Ryan at the convention. And it's simple. The reason they're not there is because they're not really welcome.

It's not their convention anymore. It's not their people. So who are the evangelicals who will have a seat at the table under a Trump and potentially in the future, if things go the way the Republicans want to advance administration?

That's the question moving forward. That's something you need to pray about. And that's something you need to think about. If you are a working class evangelical, these things matter to you. Maybe consider running for office.

And I'm serious about that. Consider getting involved in politics in the local area. See where it takes you. We need more good men of character in these positions. We're lacking that. And it's easy to, I think, cast aspersions at Donald Trump.

But we ultimately need someone who has the kind of courage he has and more so, spiritually speaking, in the position that he's in and other positions surrounding him. That's what we need. We're just we're lacking it.

That's our main problem right now. So consider what you will do with that. OK, well, I said that I wanted to talk about the speech by J .D. Vance. That's more the subject of this podcast, because as I said, he's talked about America not just being an idea, but a people.

Ben Shapiro’s Proposition Nation Defense

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Go to equipping the persecuted dot org. All right. Well, consider supporting Equipping the Persecuted. With that said, I want to play for you this clip from Ben Shapiro, the Ben Shapiro show, which I would assume some in this audience probably listen to.

I would encourage you not to listen to Ben Shapiro or at least not get your opinions on politics from Ben Shapiro necessarily. It doesn't mean all his opinions are bad. Many of them are very good. I used to listen to Ben Shapiro in 2015, 2016, because I thought that he had a lot of good sequences on his show of the news.

I could get in a very short form the main headlines. And I had to stop, though, because Ben Shapiro is clearly not a traditional conservative. He is more of a neoconservative slash libertarian. And I would find 80 percent of the issues I would probably agree with him on.

But he was so wrong on that 20 percent. And I just thought, I can't support this guy anymore. And I got to look for alternatives, which I found at this point. So that's just my personal advice to those who are listening.

You're still listening to Ben Shapiro. Maybe consider finding your source of information from other places. Maybe listen to someone like an R .N. McIntyre on The Blaze. I think he's pretty good as far as he's a Southern Baptist.

And he talks about some of the same issues Ben Shapiro talks about. But from, I think, a more traditional conservative point of view. And yeah, I mean, I think Jesse Kelly might be another guy that you could listen to that is much more populous, much more, I think, traditional conservative.

But I'm about to show you why I say what I just said about Ben Shapiro. And in this clip, Ben Shapiro does us the service of also playing for you some clips from the RNC. He talks about a veteran and he shows you the clip saying essentially that we are not just an idea.

We are a country with actual people. It's the same thing that J .D. Vance says. And J .D. Vance talks about how people don't actually go to war to fight for ideas. They go to fight for people. They go to fight for the ones they love back home.

And Ben Shapiro just has a cow over this. And well, here you go.

Why the Nation Is More Than an Idea

Vance's speech is getting a lot of attention is his point. And it was also made by the World War Two veteran who spoke yesterday that America is not just an idea. It's a homeland, which, of course, is absolutely true.

Here is here is Senator Vance last night.

America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation. Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms.

People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first.

Now, again, I agree with everything he's saying, I'm just not sure what he's arguing against, because obviously America is a nation. France is also a nation. Poland is also a nation. And when he says that America is a land, yes, so is literally every other land.

That's true. And America happens to be the best land. I mean, it's absolutely incredible. It's the best land and it's the best nation. But why? Why? And the answer is the idea that's connected to those things.

So he says that America is not just an idea. And of course, that's true. I think the thing that he's arguing against and here I agree with him, I think the thing he's arguing against is this sort of abstracted idea that Joe Biden uses all the time where he says it's not who we are.

And what he means by that is it's not who the left is. And the attempt to universalize American values in the sense that they can either be exported to Iraq or imported from Guatemala, that's silly and it's wrong, and I think that's what he is saying right there.

But when he says that people don't fight for ideas, obviously, that's not true. That's certainly not true. I mean, I'm sorry, the Cold War was a war of ideas. It turns out it was not just a war of territories.

Otherwise, it would be like most European wars, which are wars of territory. Turns out that people fight for ideas all the time. The idea is connected to the home. That's what America that's what makes America a nation.

And I think that's what he's trying to say. I hope that's what he's trying to say, because otherwise I'm not sure what the exact kind of what is he arguing against? That's that's really the question that I'm asking here, and I know there are a lot of people online who are taking like significant pleasure in this particular line, but it's obviously self-evident.

America is not just an idea. Lots of things are just an idea. Quantum physics is just an idea. It's not a nation. It's not a home. And obviously, that's true. Obviously, that's true. But the point of the American idea is even stated by JD Vance there, which is you can join.

If America were only a nation or if it were only a home, how would you join it? Obviously, he thinks you can join it, which means that the idea is very much in contention. If what he means is like baseline patriotism, wave the flag, this land matters.

It matters where I'm born and where I die. Obviously agree. Obviously agree. And I assume that's what he means by that.

America as a People, Not a Proposition

All right, meanwhile, so I think the key part of what you heard from Ben Shapiro, it's funny to me, I should say this first, it's funny to me that he says what he says, because it shows it. I can't believe he's that dim.

That's what I can't believe.

I really can't because Ben Shapiro, I thought, was more well read. It's just odd to me to hear him confused over this. How could J .D. Vance say this? What must he mean? It's a little nebulous. We don't really know.

We got to try to parse it out. It's obvious what J .D. Vance meant. In fact, before I even analyze Ben Shapiro, let me play this for you. OK, this is the intro to the 1607 project, which I directed. I made this intro, this whole intro I made.

I just took clips from various presidents and other influential people. And it's really knocking on the 1619 project. But I'm showing that even the Republican establishment has supported the basic premise of the 1619 project, which is that America is an idea.

It's an idea we haven't lived up to. Now, many Republicans say, no, we have lived up to it. That's what the civil rights movement was. That's the 1776 commission, which honestly, I think is kind of ridiculous.

And yeah, there's a lot of Republicans. I think Victor Davis Hanson and Claremont guys were involved in that. But guys, it's just not true. And both agree. Both agree. America is an idea. One says we've lived up to it.

One says we haven't lived up to it. That's the major difference between those two projects. But this is what I wanted people to understand going into the 1607 project, which if you haven't seen, you need to watch the whole thing.

We are still looking for people to promote this. If you have a connection to anyone who's got a platform, we're doing interviews. We're trying to get the word out there. We are making the case for what J .D. Vance said.

But here's the introduction. Here's the overwhelming narrative that you hear from both sides of the political aisle that America is an idea.

All right. Coming up straight ahead. What advice would Condoleezza Rice offer? She joins us live next.

America is an idea. It is not nationality, religion, ethnicity. It's an idea. Human rights invented America. I was was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea.

This idea that is the United States.

We rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America.

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, three thousand one hundred and ninety two U .S. troops have been killed.

Our vision of spreading freedom throughout the greater Middle East.

We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal.

America is an idea.

Folks, America is an idea.

Many large entities in the U .S. have taken a stand against transgender inequality.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Leah Thomas taking first place.

America wasn't founded on a government or a political system. America is the only nation founded on an idea.

Officials are overwhelmed as thousands of migrants are crossing into the U .S. from Texas to California.

The May Day march by immigrants demanding a piece of the American dream.

America is the only country that was founded on the idea of individual rights and liberty that was founded on the idea of God given inalienable rights. None of those other European. I mean, these were monarchies.

They weren't founded on the idea that every person had equal rights, but we were.

Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter.

Which country do we want to be? Do we want to be the country that begins in 1619 with the practice of slavery? Or do we want to be the country that was conceived in 1776 with the ideas of liberty and equality?

The Republican Establishment, the 1619 Project, and the 1776 Commission

So the question I have is, how come Ben Shapiro living in this country, commenting on these politics, doesn't see what J .D. Vance is talking about? Obviously, this is in the water. It's part and parcel to American politics.

This notion that America is the shining city, this ideal, this thing that you can import and export and spread. And it's kind of it doesn't really have a concrete foundation in anything other than abstractions.

So you can plant it in the Middle East. It'll grow there. It despite the fact that the culture is very different and hasn't had the generations of development that we have had in an Anglo-American or an Anglo-influenced country.

Ben Shapiro should know what's going on. He should be familiar with the debates between Harry Jaffa and Mel Bradford. If you don't know, Harry Jaffa is, I think, the main one responsible for crafting this Americanist idea.

And by the way, the Democrats are the bad guys because of their history on the right. This is picked up by Dinesh D'Souza and David Barton and a number of other people who don't seem to see the big picture of history.

They follow a, I would say, very narrow line to try to get you from Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama or Joe Biden and show you all the bad things the Democrats did. And they're the bad guys. And Republicans are good because Republicans have conserved this idea of America.

You're probably so used to hearing that now that you hear me describing it. You're like, oh, yeah, I've heard that. I hear that all the time. Yeah, you hear it because Ben Shapiro is one of the people who talks about it.

And so that's why this shouldn't be confusing to Ben Shapiro. He's talking about you, Ben. JD Vance is talking about people like you, Ben. That's why it shouldn't really be confusing. What do you mean, John?

Well, I didn't do extensive research on what Ben Shapiro said, but I did go to because I read his book years ago, The Right Side of History, which the name of that should imply to you that Ben Shapiro believes there that this right side of history, because oftentimes when that used, it's by the left, but that we are on the side of what?

Pushing forward equality in some ways. You're on the right side of history. If you're for gay marriage, you're on the right side of history. If you support transgender athletes, you're on the right side of history.

If you were against all the horrible things of the antiquated past, divine right of kings, arranged marriages, slavery, feudal labor relationships, children working 12 hour shifts, the you take whatever you want, women voting.

You know, you're on the right side of history. If you picked the more equality side of those debates. Right. The side that's going to and I'm not saying that the side that wanted to end some of these practices was always wrong.

But the idea, the notion that we have today, this emancipation myth that you're going to hear from the Democratic Party of history, I say myth in the sense of like we all need myths, not that it's not true, but that it's following this.

Well, some of it isn't true, but it's following this trajectory and saying we're on this progressive move upward into greater and greater levels of equality and freedom because we are leaving the past behind with those dark.

The dark forces of inequality. That's the myth of history that the Democrats push on you. The emancipation myth. Now, what you heard from the Republicans last night in Donald Trump's speech was very different.

Donald Trump actually gives it's very fascinating. If you go back and look at the end of his speech, he talks about the fact that the United States is a country that has the people of which have endured various struggles.

So from the settlers who came here, the call of the colonizers, if you want to call them that, to those who pushed out West, they suffered deprivation. They scaled mountains. They achieved great things.

It's this it's a different narrative than the emancipation narrative. OK, and for a long time in our country, we didn't really have the emancipation narrative to sustain us or to give us and for us any identity.

What we had was this this sacrifice narrative that many people who came before us, our forefathers have sacrificed to make America what it is. And we should conserve that. That is what you're going to hear on the right.

Often, if you're not hearing that, I mean, this is sometimes merged with the American is an idea, but I would suggest to you it's somewhat incompatible with the America is an idea because this is a very tangible flesh and blood.

Our ancestors came here and did this. If you came later and your ancestors weren't part of that, there are ways to be assimilated. But don't claim that. Don't don't say that your ancestors were necessarily part of that.

You need to be it. You need to be integrated into our story. And then your children, as in our marriages and so forth happen, you know, your children are integrated into that story. But but this is a story for as the Constitution says, we the people ourselves and our posterity.

Right. We and those who are coming after us, who are sons and our daughters and their sons and their daughters and their sons and their daughters. That's that's every country in the world. OK, that's the foundation of this country.

And those who are now living generations later can look back and say, our ancestors really did some amazing things to bring us the benefits that we enjoy. And these benefits were not sacrificed by other people's ancestors.

And they don't get to enjoy those benefits. They didn't put they don't have skin in the game. We we are the ones who determine who is able to benefit from these things and who is not. That's the bottom line.

If we choose to confer it to some people, then that's our choice. But it belongs to us. OK, that's what you heard from Trump. That's very much, I would say, in keeping with this populist right populist understanding of history.

In fact, I just had an article come out yesterday on or today, actually, on TruthScript, where I talk about the movie Horizon. Kevin Costner's new movie Horizon. It is very much this. It is that version of history as well.

It's the it's the inspirational sacrifice, courage and determination and achievement myth of history. That you heard Trump say this is very this is different. I think that sometimes I said they're merged, but this is very different than the America is an idea narrative.

Ben Shapiro very much is an America is an idea guy. He's a proposition nation guy. That's who he is. OK, and I know this because I read his book, Right Side of History, years ago. Here's a quote from Ben Shapiro.

He's speaking to Vox about his book, The Right Side of History. And he says there are basically two visions of American history. You ready? One is that America was founded on great moral principles that we failed to live up to historically, and we've been striving to fulfill.

OK, well, that what is that? I'm not going to tell you yet, but what is that? Think about what I just conveyed. Think about the 1619 Project. Does that sound familiar to you? America is founded on great moral principles, but we fail to live up to them.

It is.

It's also, unfortunately, kind of it's Harry Jaffa's 1776 Commission. It's the same narrative you're going to hear from those guys, right? OK, so that's one narrative. The other is that America is rooted in racism, bigotry, sexism and homophobia, and that these great moral principles were the founders.

Merely flattering themselves. Now, which narrative is that? They might say, wait, that sounds like the 1619. Project it. That also sounds like the 1619 Project, but what the 1619 Project attempts to communicate to you is that we don't have to be that America, right?

So that there's there's these two light and darkness. There's these two sort of versions of America running parallel. There's this one that's racism, bigotry, sexism. That's the past, and we're overcoming that.

We're moving past that, but it still saddles us. It still keeps us back from achieving greater things. And then there's the the more authentic, real America that we have yet to achieve, which is 1776 and the 1619 Project.

You know, the people behind it pretty much admit this. They admit this, that that is what the real America that they're trying to achieve. 1776 Commission, the conservatives, you quote unquote, neoconservatives say we have achieved it, though, right?

That's the difference. So what is Ben Shapiro saying in this quote? There's two visions of American history. One is the proposition nation, basically. And one is that we're terrible. And he says, well, obviously, I'm the proposition nation guy.

And he only gives you two options. That's it. Two options. And obviously, that's this is fairly, I would say, innovative in the history of mankind. What other country would say this? What other would Germany say this?

Would Ecuador say this? Would China say this? Would Russia say this? Would any other country say, well, you know, there's two versions of French history. There's the one that were founded on great moral principles.

And then there's the one that were terrible. Actually, they probably say, like, well, what are you talking about? That wouldn't even make sense to them. Two visions. I mean, there's we're French. We've had centuries and centuries of interaction and shared experience and law and revolution and war and all kinds of things that have shaped who we are and religion and these things and mostly parents passing on to their children property and certainly ways of living are part of this.

Ideals can be part of this story. But these are fashioned within a context in which the children then marry within with other children and trust is built along generational lines. And you know where the families are.

And they would just say French history is is that French history is our story. French history is the it's the experiences we've shared. We're proud of it. This is who we are. Bring it down to the family level.

Would you say of a family? Well, there's two versions of the Johnson family. There's one that they are founded on great moral principles. And then there's this other version that they're kind of crummy.