The Death of the Republic

[00:00:02] While infighting has become rampant in the MAGA movement, does it really matter? Has the deep state already killed our country's Democratic Republican experiment? [00:00:13] Welcome to Crisis Point. [00:00:32] Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, editor in chief of Crisis magazine, host of this podcast, Crisis Point. So this is the third week in a row that the live podcast has been about politics. [00:00:44] And if you've been following for any length of time, you know, I'm not a guy who really likes to focus a whole bunch on politics. I rather talk about Catholicism, about the church, what's going on in the church, evangelization, things of that nature. But the fact is the war going on, so obviously politics take a bit of precedent after all. [00:01:05] So I wanted to kind of just share with you some of my thoughts I've been having over the past few weeks. Actually more like few months since probably last April or so. And I've shared some of them with you before. And I will be the first to admit this might be these thoughts are evolving and I might change my mind in the future, but this is the general direction I'm going. So I want to talk about here today was a couple things. First is kind of the state of conservative MAGA movement, Republican Party, and the infighting that's going on, particularly due to the relationship United States has with Israel. And then also I want to talk more generally, though, about our political system and that we live under and why I think honestly, it's not really a republic anymore, that we've kind of. The republic's been killed and we're ruled by a hidden oligarchy, I'll put that way. That's my teaser for, for later in the program. [00:02:06] So I want to bring up this post there on X everybody's talking about. And it's from Insurrection Barbie. Yes, that is the name of the, the, the account. Now first I want to note that I actually had an encounter with Instruction Barbie last week. I. I feel like I've heard of the account before. I'm not trying to act like I never heard of it, but I, I don't. I never followed it that much. But anyway, it's a political account and it had up. I'll put it up here with my beautiful beard there in the image. I posted something, a short from last week's video that said Christian Zionism fueled by Sola Scriptura has deadly consequences. And it was my point that Sola Scriptura is the only thing that leads to Christian Zionism, the misinterpretation of the Bible. And so Instruction Barbie then reposted this and comment says once you see it, you can't unsee it. These people are telling you reading the Bible has deadly consequences. Wake up, America. This is a, this is never about Israel. [00:03:03] And what the reason I know it was that Ted Cruz actually reposted this. The Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. [00:03:11] And I just think it's interesting. Of course, that's not what I was saying. I didn't say reading the Bible has deadly consequences. Although I would argue that misinterpreting the Bible has deadly consequences. Because that's exactly what I was saying. [00:03:24] The misinterpret. The misinterpretation of the Bible to support the idea that we need to build a third Temple, we need to support the modern state of Israel has had deadly consequences. And there's plenty of examples in history of how the misinterpretation of the Bible has deadly consequences. But reading the Bible itself, obviously that's not it. I mean it's kind of funny. He says or she or whatever. Instruction Barbie says this about me. I'm literally teaching a class right now on sacred Scripture to a group of homeschoolers, a homeschooling co op. And I'm telling them all the time, you got to read your Bibles, you got to read your Bibles, you got to read your Bibles. I'm also telling them all the time you can't interpret them outside of the church and what the magisterium of the church says. So that's basically consistent with what I'm saying here. So anyway, so that's, that's kind of what Instruction Barbie. But she. I say she. I, I don't think it's a she. Actually. Instruction Barbie has a million followers on X and she posted a long article which I. I'll pull up here. The. Let me see if I can get on this on the screen here properly so I can see it as well as you. [00:04:32] So I, I'm going to show you instead the. [00:04:36] Where is that? Oh, I'm in the wrong place here. Okay, this is from the Insurrection Barbie substack. It was on X. It got over 4 million views, but this is a little easier to read. So it was called the Long Game. [00:04:50] How a network of Catholic integralists, Russian ideologues and media provocateurs are systematically dismantling the evangelical foundation of the American right now. This also gain, like I said, was huge on X. Over 4 million views at this point and Ted Cruz enthusiastically supported it. I'm starting to think the Instruction Barbie and Ted Cruz might have some type of relationship. But other neocons, other supporters of the state of Israel, they also. [00:05:20] Let me get this off the page here a little. Oh, there it goes. It went away. [00:05:26] Basically. This article is very long. I do want to note one thing. [00:05:31] So Instruction Barbie is an anonymous account. We don't know who it is. The image is just a cartoon character, I think. [00:05:38] But this article, I have an AI detector that's pretty good because I use it for my work for Zetter Crisis. I check every article submitted to me to see if it's AI written. I just had one today that was submitted that was literally 100% confidence that it was AI generated. [00:05:55] And so I ran it, I ran this through it and, you know, I said 95% confidence that this is AI generated. And if you read it carefully enough and you kind of know the way AI works, you know that you're not that surprised by that result. [00:06:10] So it's interesting that this is the topic of conversation for so many people. An article written by an anonymous account by AI. [00:06:20] I mean, it's kind of like, are we even living in a real world right now? I mean, what kind of world are we living in where everybody's commenting about an article by someone. We don't even know who it is, and we don't. And it wasn't even written by a human. [00:06:35] This very well could just be an Astroturf campaign. Now, I know the person has. The account has a million followers. That doesn't mean anything. This could literally be an account that's just run by a state government. I won't say which state, you can guess. [00:06:48] But, you know, so it. That first of all is just crazy. [00:06:53] So anyway, it's saying that this article has a. I mean, kind of rambling. It goes on and on. I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but it's making the point. It says, you know, who controls the ideological and theological DNA of the Republican Party's base? Says for 70 years that answer has been evangelical Protestant Christians, roughly 30 of the American electorate, 80% of whom vote Republican. [00:07:14] Motivated by deep biblical conviction, organized through tens of thousands of local churches and bound together by a theological commitment to the Bible that has been the driver's seat of the conservative movement. And I would agree with this, I would agree with that, that the Republican, the modern Republican Party, particularly after Reagan was elected and you had the. The rise of religious right, the moral majority, whatever you want to call it, Evangelical Protestantism is definitely been the dominant force in Republican Party politics. Now I will also say Though there's been a big move towards Catholicism among many of the intellectuals on the right in the Republican Party. I mean you see that with the appointments to the Supreme Court, you see that with J.D. vance as the Vice President, Marco Rubio Secretary of State So it's not as true as it was in the 80s that the evangelical Protestants dominate the Republican Party. But still I'm not going to disagree with that, with that summation of the Republican Party's theological and base. [00:08:17] Okay, so then it's saying okay, now we're have a problem because we have the most sophisticated attack in modern political history and all its corresponding vectors. [00:08:26] And he's going, and she's going to explain how each one feeds into a single 10 year project. First, I don't know how she came with 10 years, which is the replacement of evangelical Protestant political theology with a Catholic integralist or, or ethno nationalist framework that views Jews, Israel and Protestants not as covenant partners but as adversaries of Christian civilization. [00:08:47] I mean, you see there's a whole mess of things here right now already. This is, in fact, this is the problem with this article is AI, you know, this AI article just conflated a ton of stuff together, a lot of it conflicting with each other and put it all in a stew and said okay, here we have dinner. [00:09:04] For example, Catholic integralist and ethno nationalist framework aren't exactly the same thing. Later we're going to see that she he it basically lumps together people like the integralists with like Nick Fuentes and they're not fans of each other. [00:09:23] But also this idea that views Jews, Israel and Protestants not as covenant partners by its adversaries of Christian civilization. Well, first of all, the modern state of Israel is definitely not a covenant partner with Christianity. And the idea that it is is only because of wackadoodle evangelical dispensationalist Protestant theology which I went over last week. [00:09:42] Jews aren't covenant partners with Christian civilization. I'm not saying they can't be allies. In many ways I'm not as anti the phrase Judeo Christian as a lot of people are that I, that I know. But at the same time I wouldn't call them covenant partners and Protestants. I mean, what do you even mean by covenant partners? Now I think about it, I mean definitely Evangelical Protestants have been our allies, Catholic allies over the years, but they're not Catholic. So they're not truly the solution to building a Christian civilization. [00:10:19] So anyway, then she gets on or it, I think I'm just going to call it Circle on it instruction Barbies and says, oh, this isn't about Catholics, regular Catholics. This is about certain types of Catholics. Which of course is a way of saying I'm going to be completely anti Catholic, but I'm going to try to act like I'm not. But what we see though is the ideological cocktail that it brings up is three distinct ingredients, none of which represent mainstream American Catholic life. The first is integralism, a pre Vatican do political theology that holds the Catholic Church to exercise direct authority over temporal governments, that religious liberty is a Protestant error and a properly ordered state must subordinate itself to church teaching. And so it mentions, it's funny, this is an AI tell. It says it is not the position of Pope Francis. Pope Francis is dead. AI some update your algorithm. [00:11:10] But it mentions it's a position of a small but highly credentialed group of academic theorists. Vermeil, Hamari, Deneen Papen, these guys are integralists. I mean they are. [00:11:24] But what you're going to see is and I like a lot of stuff they say, by the way, I'm not an integralist. I am not. And I don't like some of this stuff. Like the one I'm the most familiar with is Hamari because he says some crazy things, some dumb things, but he also does some very smart things, but they're all, they're part of a group. So anyway, but then what's interesting is the next group is the SSPX adjacent traditionalism. I mean this is clearly A Protestant would never write this. [00:11:53] A Protestant would never write this. This is why, you know, it's AI generated because Protestants don't even know what the SSPX is. And I doubt this person does either. [00:12:02] This account, it says the world of Latin Mass hardliners, the Society of St. Pius X, the Sedevacantes and near Sedevacantes who regard Second Vatican Council as a catastrophic betrayal in the post conciliated church is illegitimate or great gravely compromised. Nick Fuentes operates in this world. Well, okay, Nick Fuentes does not like the Latin Mass. He attends the Novus Ordo. He has criticized the Latin Mass. He's criticized the side St. Pius X. [00:12:28] And you know, so the. And he doesn't like rail on the Second Vatican Council. So it's kind of weird that clearly you're just kind of throwing a bunch of people together. [00:12:38] And so like, you know, it says his entire theological framework is drawn from a traditionalist Catholic melo that the Vatican self is repeatedly disciplined and most American Catholics have never encountered. I mean, yeah, it Also is the SSPX was in irregular canonical status room for decades. It still is AI. It still is AI. So anyway, and then the third group. Oh, I want to mention that these people are not aligned with the Integralist mentioned earlier. [00:13:05] I mean they, they, they attack each other a lot. [00:13:09] And yet the third ingredient is imported European and Middle Eastern sectarianism. This was I think, an interesting one because basically all it's saying is that anti Semitism. Anti Semitism is native to Europe and therefore what really saying Catholicism but it's not native to America, I. E. Protestantism, that's America does not have a native anti Semitism rooted in 2,000 years of living, close proximity to Jewish communities and a Catholic or Orthodox Christian civilization. So basically it's saying Protestants aren't anti Semitic, naturally, but the, the Catholics and the Orthodox are. [00:13:45] Have you ever read Martin Luther? [00:13:48] Now, is Martin Luther Catholic? I don't think so. Was he Orthodox? I don't think so. Was he extremely anti Semitic by today's standards? Absolutely. And he's the founder of Protestantism. So this idea that somehow Protestantism doesn't have anti Semitic, you know, anti Jewish flavor as well is just kind of silly. But he's trying to act like any anti Semitism here in America is imported from Europe or the Middle East. [00:14:14] Another thing that this article does. Again, I'm not, I don't want to just dwell on this only, but I do think it's an important article for kind of showing the divisions in the MAGA movement, the divisions in conservatism. [00:14:27] Okay, let me just scroll down because it's, you know, just going on about this. Okay, the, the voter problem. [00:14:34] I want to get to this point where, okay, this is why the operation must convert rather than persuade this. Now what happens, it gets into this idea it can. That. That the push by Catholics to convert Protestants is really a fundamentally political activity. The idea is that we're trying to convert Protestants in order to get them into this group of traditionalists and integralists and Europeans, anti Semites or whatever. [00:15:06] It cannot win a fair fight for the Republican base because it does not represent the Republican base. Okay, fine. I don't want to represent the Republican base. So it must change the base by demoralizing and theologically disorienting the evangelical voters who currently constitute it by. By recruiting the next generation before they form stable convictions and by capturing the institutional infrastructure through which that base is organized. [00:15:29] The aggression of the current moment is not the confidence of a movement that knows it is winning, is the urgency of a movement that knows it's not have the voters and needs to acquire them before the window closes. I actually don't think a lot of us think we have a ton of voters in the Republican base. [00:15:44] So it says this. Here we go. The goal is not to win a debate with Fuentes. The goal is to ensure that the evangelical base he's trying to convert understands with clarity, in common confidence that what is being done to them by. By whom and what is at stake if it succeeds. In other words, by the way, it is bringing up Fuentes because it knows that's a lightning rod figure. It's not going to bring up very many mainstream people. It's going to bring up Fuentes a lot more because it just knows that's like a red flag. It's, it's easy to get people excited about that. [00:16:13] But it talks about. I don't, I don't, I saw it. I can't remember where in the article is. [00:16:18] It talks about though, the idea that Catholic. There's like a whole concerted effort by Catholics to basically demean evangelical prostitism as intellectually unsatisfying. And all the smart people are really becoming Catholic and they get them when, get Catholics when they're young, Protestants when they're young, so that they become Catholic. This will then change the base. Now, I want to say a couple things about that. First of all, it's true that evangelical Protestantism is intellectually bankrupt. I mean, it's just not. I'm not saying there aren't smart evangelical evangelical process. There are evangelical process that are smarter than me. Much smarter than me. They're evangelical processants who are as smart as Trent Horn or whatever the case may be. However, at its base at, at the, the fundamental belief system of evangelical processing, but particularly the dispensationalist evangelicals who tout the, the Christian Zionist line that is intellectually just. [00:17:18] It's, it's bankrupt. It's not. You can't respect it, to be honest, the views. And so it's true that Catholics there is a concern. I mean even they even. [00:17:28] It even mentions Catholic Answers as one of the, the evil people in this, this cohort because they're trying to convert people. Not that they've been trying to convert people for 50 years. [00:17:40] But the problem though is it only sees things in political ways. Insurrection Barbie is just a 100% political account that only sees the world through a political lens. So the algorithm that generates the Insurrection Barbie posts is 100% politically based. [00:17:57] So there's no concept of like, okay, we're trying to convert Protestants because we believe the Catholic Church is the one true faith and we want people to join that so that they can be in heaven forever with God. [00:18:10] I mean, when I was converted 30 plus years ago in the early 1990s and my roommate was the main person driving that, he wasn't thinking, oh, I can get a evangelical Protestant voter part of the Republican base. I can start a process where we replace that base and make it something more powerful. [00:18:31] That's not what he was doing. He was, it was completely for religious reasons he was doing. And that's the reason for why Catholic Answers does its stuff and stuff like, and everything like that. [00:18:40] So I'm gonna, I'll close this out now. [00:18:44] The, the thing is about this Insurrection Barbie account and this, the popularity of this post, this article is the fact that it is true that the Republican Party is disintegrating. [00:19:04] That is true. And they have a. They should be worried. [00:19:08] They should be worried. [00:19:10] However, it's not because of some conspiracy of a bunch of Catholics in a back room where you get Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes and Adrian Vermeil and what's so Rob's first name anyway, and the Integralists and Gladden Papin and people like that. You get them all together. And people like Taylor Marshall and me and others, we're all getting together because they do mention at one point a group of people that basically very much describes what I do. And I wondered if I was thought of because of the fact that the Instruction Barbie talked about me and Soul Scriptor last week. But the point is, is that there's no conspiracy here. What's really happening is people are waking up that one of the fundamental tenets of the Republican Party, which is unadulterated support for Israel for theological reasons, just isn't working, just isn't something that they're willing to support. More and more people are seeing that and they're just simply not supporting it. And this is something that it's not just, it's not religious either. Because the whole thing about the Trump coalition in 2024, Trump was not elected for the same reasons 2024, he was in 2016. It wasn't the same base either. [00:20:26] In 2024, Donald Trump, who has great political instincts, he realized I had to go a bit beyond MAGA to win. And he did. He did perfectly. He got the libertarian, a lot of libertarians. He got the anti interventionalists. He got the people, the podcasters, like the Joe Rogans on board, the theo Vons, he, He brought in RFK, all this coalition he brought together to win in 2024, and it was incredibly successful. [00:20:56] But one of the planks of that, everybody knew that Donald Trump was pro Israel. Nobody was like, under illusion, okay, he's not going to support Israel. We all knew that. I've said that multiple times. I knew that myself. However, he seemed to make it very clear he wasn't going to go to war with Iran. He wasn't going to start any stupid wars or anything like that. That was one of his basic, basic planks of his campaign. [00:21:19] And so what's happening is there's a growing dissatisfaction among previously Republican conservative voters with the evangelical Protestant base. [00:21:32] The Evangelical Protestant Zionist base is probably a better way to put it. The Ted Cruzes, the Lindsey Grahams, the Mike Huckabees, the insurrection Barbies. [00:21:42] And so people are fleeing and some of them are being attracted to people like, following, like Nick Fuentes. Some of them are the Catholic integralists who see the problems. Some of them are just libertarians who aren't even religious. [00:21:56] And, you know, some of them might be the anti Semites, but frankly, if they're anti Semites, they weren't really rooting for Trump in the first place because he's always been pro Israel. So that, that's kind of not really it. So really, the, the push of the evangelical Protestant Zionist base to really go all in has fractured the Republican Party. [00:22:16] And Donald Trump has chosen a side. [00:22:19] He has chosen a side, and it's the side of the evangelical Protestant Zionist base. That's what he is decided for. The problem is that base is not the entire Republican Party, not the entire conservative for, for sure. [00:22:35] And it's, it, it's frankly, it's the wrong side, in my opinion. [00:22:41] So, okay, so I all this is kind of, you know, brings me to my main point of this podcast, which I titled the Death of the Republic. [00:22:53] Now, people know who know me, know I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist. I do believe certain conspiracies. I think there was conspiracies behind Covid and things like that. [00:23:03] I think there are conspiracies out there. But like, I think that we landed on the moon and I don't think the Jews are behind everything and things of that nature. [00:23:12] That being said, though, and I've criticized, and also I've criticized people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson for, I think, being too conspiratorial. I've criticized my fellow Catholics. I've had articles submitted by authors, writers of crisis who have written for me for a long time that I think are too conspiratorial. I don't run them because I don't think they, they rise to the level of what crisis is trying to do. Not that I'm trying to silence them. I just don't think they're very good in presenting the facts. But anyway, that all being said, I do think I am convinced that the president, United States does not run this country. Congress does not run this country. [00:23:50] I'm convinced that the deep state, the national security apparatus, whatever you want to call it, is actually in charge that I'm increasingly feeling like the whole electoral system, we have, our whole democracy, you know, which we know is a democratic republic. [00:24:09] It's all performative. [00:24:12] It's all performative that really who's in the White House and even in Congress mostly doesn't matter that except on the margins. I'm not saying there's no difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. What I am saying, though, is on the fundamental issues of our day, of how our country's run, I don't think there's a difference. I don't think there's a significant difference between the two, between the Democrats and Republicans. And for me, the Iran war, this Iran war that we're in was the final straw. [00:24:51] And I say this because it's clear to me, I think it's clear that Donald Trump did not want to do this, that Donald Trump was sincere when he was campaigning. I don't actually think he was lying when he was campaigning saying I'm not going to go to war with Iran, basically. [00:25:07] And now, don't get me wrong, I don't think Donald Trump was a Ron Paul, you know, non interventionalist. I knew he was going, and I know he was pro Israel, but I think it was pretty clear with the people he surrounded himself by and by his own words and actions, he did not want to start a war with Iran. [00:25:25] Also, just as clear, the American people didn't want a war with Iran. I mean, I think that's very obvious. In fact, I think most of them don't care about the Middle East. You know, the only way they care about the Middle east is when all of a sudden they see the gas just went up. Like gas here was about 240 or something, 250 or something like that, then all of a sudden spiked up to, to 350. [00:25:48] And then today, I was just out earlier today and it spiked up to 380. So it's gone up again. I Think it's going to keep going up. People care about that. [00:25:56] American people, most of them. So that, and that of course related to the Middle east, but they don't really care about this. They don't really support this war. And in fact, it's interesting I said this is all performative, but I think it's actually getting less performative. What I mean by that is they're starting to just do what they want, the deep state, without even trying to act like the people are behind it. If you think about the war with Iraq, those of us who are, those of you who are old enough to remember the build up to the second Iraq War, actually the first Iraq, I remember both of them, but let's just talk about the second was George W. Bush. George W. Bush clearly decided he was going to use 911 to finish his daddy's work and attack Iraq. I mean that was, he just wanted that from day one. All the neocons with them, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld and all those people, they want that. [00:26:44] But he understood, okay, I have to sell it to the American people. I can't just all of a sudden, you know, one Friday night say, okay, we're at war with Iraq and give like 15 different reasons that have them contradict each other. [00:26:57] So he did, he, they went on a huge spree for about a year selling the need to go to war with Iraq and there's weapons of mass destruction. He was somehow supporting Osama bin Laden. There was going to be another, a worse 911 if we didn't attack them all. [00:27:12] All lies. I mean, all complete lies. But at least there was an attempt. [00:27:18] Donald Trump didn't even try that. He just literally just announced a war that after it already started. He didn't go to Congress. He didn't try to get like, you know, support from, you know, like you would for a bill like the big beautiful bill, remember that one last year? He, he actually did try to get support from Congress and the congressional members, thing like that. He didn't do that with this. He just went to war. [00:27:41] So I kind of feel like when I say it's all performative, maybe it's not even, it's becoming less performant in the sense that they're just doing whatever they want. They don't even try to pretend they're getting the support of the people because there's clearly not support for this war among the populace. Yes, I know MAGA identified Republicans support it, but Trump could literally do anything. He could literally, like he said, go on Times Square and Murder somebody in cold blood and innocent baby. And maga. A lot of MAGA supporting Republicans would. [00:28:08] Identifying Republicans would support him. But general populace does not support this. So why did Trump do this then? [00:28:16] I don't believe it's the reasons he gives, which are different every day. [00:28:20] That. Because clearly he's been talking for over a decade against actions like this. [00:28:28] So why did. And it's not politically a good idea to do what he's doing. Why. Why in the year of a midterms would you do something that spikes the gas prices up and can cause all these problems when your vice president, it's known, is completely against it as well, you just have to answer. [00:28:47] Maybe he's not in control or maybe I should say he's controlled. [00:28:52] Maybe it's not that he is actually the one calling the shots now. It's funny because all of this, these thoughts of mine about like, who's controlling the government to dissipate state, they're all connected to me in my mind also because I was in Dallas, as you know, for the blessed Carl symposium last weekend. [00:29:11] I guess that was two weekends ago now. [00:29:14] And when I was in Dallas, I went for the first time in the Dallas a few times. I went for the first time, though, to the JFK assassination site. And I got to see it and it was very interesting to see. You know, I've seen videos, I've seen the pictures, but it's good to be there. You can actually picture, you know, where Oswald supposedly was, where, you know, the grassy knoll is, where the car would have been, where he was shot and all that stuff. [00:29:36] And I'm reading a book right now on the JFK assassination that basically argues I don't have it. I should. It's upstairs. Sorry. I should be able to say who wrote it. It's a Catholic who wrote it. Basically, he's saying that the CIA, the national security apparatus, was behind his assassination. And it's mostly, he argues, it's mostly because he was turning towards peace. He was turning against kind of supporting belligerent, you know, war against Cuba, against Vietnam, against USSR and things like that. And whether or not you believe, like, the reasons behind it. I do believe that the CIA was behind the assassination of jfk. [00:30:12] But it's funny because I've been thinking about this myself, been reading this book about JFK's assassination. I was at Dallas, I saw where he was assassinated. But then I overheard, I heard on a couple podcasts recently, two different people who basically were arguing, or at least they kind of mentioned in Passing that the JFK assassination is kind of the, the start of the deep state controlling the United States. [00:30:35] Because here was a president in JFK that was trying to resist the deep state. Because remember the deep state, really, you can't really date it before World War II. [00:30:44] I'm not saying there weren't forces like kind of, you know, having influence on the President and Congress, things like that, but really it was the establishment of CIA, establishment of the whole anti communist aspect of the government that we have to, I mean, like, I think it was William F. Buckley who said we have to be basically become totalitarian to fight this totalitarian government, which is insane. But that's exactly what happened. [00:31:06] And so like, in a certain sense, communism won the Cold War because I'm not saying we're a communist country, but we lost a lot of our freedoms and we lost a lot of the reality of our, our democratic republic government, I think. [00:31:20] And so JFK somebody, in fact this, it was Jeffrey Sachs was saying that, he was saying that you date the beginning of the Roman Empire. It's funny, I'm also reading a book about ancient Rome. [00:31:33] And so I'm reading this book about ancient Rome. I'm reading a book about JFK's assassination and why it was done. I'm seeing all this stuff happening and I hear this guy who's talking about how you date the beginning of the Roman Empire at 27 BC, but that Julius Caesar was assassinated, of course, in 44 BC and he was saying that like you could say that November 22, 1963 is almost like our 44 BC where you. The assassination of the political leader and then that leads to empire. Now I'm already convinced that America is an empire in all but name. It's almost like how in ancient Rome they never, nobody ever wanted to be called a king. Kings were bad. That was early, like after Romulus and Remus, that was bad. I mean, you could have dictators, you could have emperors, but you couldn't have kings. In fact, that was the great insult that you would give to a politician, is he's trying to be a king. And that really meant something. That was a real big insult. [00:32:25] And so just like now a president wouldn't call himself an emperor, we wouldn't call ourselves an empire, but we act like it. [00:32:34] And so the whole point here is, is like this is not a matter of, okay, Donald Trump broke some promises, his campaign promises. That's one thing politicians always do that this is really more about is he in control of his decisions, is he really Deciding on his own or with and his advisors what, what's best for the country or does he have. Is somebody controlling him now? [00:32:59] I want to make it clear here. I know what people are thinking, oh, Eric's blaming the Jews. [00:33:06] Eric's blaming the Jews. I'm actually not. [00:33:09] I'm actually don't think it's the Jews that are behind all this. What I think is, I think Israel, this modern state of Israel, has a humongous, undue influence on our government, but that in general, what they want aligns with what our deep state wants. And yes, I'm sure there are some Jews in our deep state, just like there are Jews everywhere in our country in various industries and areas of power and influence. But also there are blacks, there are, you know, Caucasian, evangelical Protestants, Catholics, whatever. [00:33:43] My point is, is that we have a deep state that has decided it knows what's best for our country. It will make decisions like, okay, if the president doesn't do what we want him to do, we're going to assassinate him like they did with jfk, or we're going to influence him somehow that we don't know. [00:33:59] And I think in general, what the deep state wants, which is American empire, American hegemony in the whole world, aligns with what Israel wants in the Middle east, which is a, basically a greater Israel hegemony, where they have hegemony over the Middle east that aligns with the deep state. So I'm not. So I think this is an important distinction. [00:34:20] I'm not saying the Jews control our government or the deep state or, or even Israel controls our government. What I'm saying is Israel has a, the state of Israel has a huge influence on our government because what they want aligns with the people who are actually in control of our government, I. E. The deep state. [00:34:36] And you see this with like, Epstein, how there's all this connection between Epstein and Israel and things like that. And that does get some people like the Nick Fuentes types, I. To really get the Jews behind everything, whatever. I just think it's a good example of how this is all intertwined. The, the desires and, and the, the, the, the goals of the state of Israel aligns with what the deep state want. And so you have Israel influencing our politicians in a great way. You have our politicians being influenced by the deep state because they're working with Israel because they want the same thing. I mean, the whole Epstein thing wasn't about, isn't really about pedophilia, trust me. That's evil. That's awful. And Those people should be, you know, arrested and probably castrated. But it's really about power. That Epstein, the whole Epstein thing kind of revealed, lifted the curtain just a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes. [00:35:27] But, you know, obviously it meant nothing. Again, it was all performative. They have this whole vote. I mean, Thomas Massey I like, and what. I think he was sincere in what he did, but he made it. So, okay, let's all. Let's vote, you know, let's make it so the Epstein files are released. And then they get released. And what happens? [00:35:41] Nothing. Because they didn't release them all. They redacted it. I mean, it just was like a few people get, you know, you have a few sacrificial lambs. That's how the state always works. When you start getting a little too deep into what they're doing, they throw out a sacrificial lamb. So, like Howard Lutnick or Prince Andrew or something like that. Former Prince Andrew. [00:35:59] I also want to say that I don't think when I talk about the deep space state, I don't think they're, like, all powerful in the sense they always get what they want. Like, I personally do think they didn't want Donald Trump to win in 2016 or probably 2020 or 2024. It wouldn't surprise me if the deep state would rather have had Democrats running it than Trump. [00:36:20] And so I'm not saying they always get what they want, but the point is, this is why I'm talking about voting. Being somewhat performative is. Yes. Okay, so Trump won. That's kind of a defeat for the deep state on One Sense. And the first couple months of the Trump presidency, the second one really did show, like, oh, my gosh, we have a whole bunch going on. [00:36:39] And so. Okay, actually, I just saw a comment. I'll put this up. JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas. Yes, that's exactly the book I'm talking about. Thank you. Irish Papist 83. The book I was talking about that I'm reading right now, JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas. Okay, so to get back what I was saying, though, before. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So it's not that, you know, Trump was doing things very good for the first few months, but then I had a podcast about this in, like, April, May of last year, the tone shifted dramatically in everything Trump did. All of a sudden he was anti elon. And, you know, Doge. Do you remember Doge anymore? He started becoming more and More obsessed with like defending Israel rather than worrying about cutting our government or solving our problems here. [00:37:23] And so I really do think this was a matter of, of did these fate got to him, I would say. I don't necessarily think it's as clear as, okay, some guy showed up at the Oval Office and says, you know, Mr. President, if you don't, and we're going to, I don't know, take out one of your sons or reveal this about one of your daughters or whatever, or about you. [00:37:43] But I do think what happened was, is the influence on him became more and more directed towards what the Deep State wanted. And so the Lindsey Grahams became much more, who was a puppet for the Deep State, you know, became much more prominent in his ears. [00:37:59] And because of all this, I really think there's a good chance at this point it's only 2026, things can change. [00:38:05] There's a decent chance I'm not going to vote for president in 2028. [00:38:09] I'm just not. Or I will vote for a third party as a protest vote. [00:38:13] I am not going to vote for somebody who supports the Iran war and I'm not going to vote for somebody who supports abortion either. Guess what? That eliminates everybody, all the major candidates. Because I am sure, I mean, unless something happens where this war is a complete disaster for us and you actually get a Republican candidate who, who's against the Iran war, who runs, you're going to have that. But honestly I just don't think it would matter. Even if somebody ran as a Republican and he was against the Iran war, I still think, honestly it wouldn't matter that in the end he would just end up going along with the Deep State because I really don't think that the President controls the government and I think we're basically, the Republic is dead. Now I probably will vote in local elections because I do think, like I said, that can have an impact. [00:38:58] But I don't want to hear what always happens. Every four years and during the midterm sometimes you get the pro life, professional pro lifers who like basically bully you and guilt you, saying if you don't vote for this person, then all the unborn babies are going to die. [00:39:16] You know, I have to say that. Just shut up. [00:39:19] I mean, I've been arrested for my pro life convictions. I've been thrown into jail for protesting, you know, blocking abortion clinics. Don't try to act like I'm not. My, my pro life credentials aren't good enough because I won't vote for the guy you say is more pro life. The fact is, after Dobbs on the national level, it doesn't really matter that much. And the Republicans have used it for so many years as just a way to get your votes. And I'm not going to vote for them just because they say the right words when I know they're going to do nothing and I'm not going to vote for them, particularly if they say the right words about abortion. But then they also, like, yeah, let's go bomb another school, a school of girls in Iran. They don't apologize for that. [00:39:59] I mean, that's not very pro life, is it, people? [00:40:02] So, yeah. So I think there's a decent chance I'm not gonna vote, but we'll see. I might change my mind. [00:40:07] I don't know what the future of our country is. I know this probably is very negative podcast sounds very cynical and stuff like that, but I just know it's not a republic by any reasonable definition. I don't think we're a Republican anymore. But what does this mean? [00:40:21] And here's why I want to, you know, I'm not as down as it might seem like I am about our country in the sense of, like, I'm going to lose sleep over this. [00:40:31] As Catholics, we should keep our internal peace and our trust that God is in control. [00:40:36] Here's the reality. [00:40:38] Most people in most times throughout history were ruled by corrupt leaders. They did not choose. [00:40:47] That is a fact of life that most people, like I said, in most times throughout history have been ruled by people who are corrupt and they did not choose. [00:40:59] So the fact that that's a reality here in America today isn't really that big a deal. I know it might seem scandalous because of what we've been taught in our schools, our government schools growing up and our history and all that. [00:41:12] I mean, consider the time of Christ and the first Christians. [00:41:15] They're under that Roman Empire that had just been founded 30 some years before the birth of Christ. [00:41:22] St. Paul is writing about that you need to obey your leaders, your political rulers. And he's under Nero, one of the most evil rulers who ever lived, who eventually had him killed. [00:41:36] And so the fact is, is that ultimately, for the spread of the gospel and for our own personal life of holiness and following Christ, it's not really that important who our leaders are and how the system of government we have, we can all have our. What we think is best. Like, I might say that, you know, monarchy is best. [00:42:03] Hereditary monarchy is best. [00:42:05] You know, as Charles Colon would say that I know that others might say that, Catholics might say that. Some people might say, no, we need a full democracy or socialism, whatever. Ultimately, what matters is, is that we follow Christ and we're faithful to him and we spread the gospel. And the thing is, is like, we can spread the gospel in a lot of different government situations. And so I still think we should. I don't think this should. This kind of realization I'm having. I think a lot of people are having that, that we're being lied to and, like, the way we're ruled isn't the way it's claimed to be. And our impact isn't that big a deal. [00:42:40] I don't think that should lead us to despair or anything like that. I do think it should make us a lot more wise and prudent during election cycles. Because what I see is, you see Catholics get super worked up about politics every two years, especially every four years, and for what? [00:42:59] Because there might be a few changes in the margins. It doesn't have a real huge impact on how things are run. And yet we act like it's the end of the world every couple years. I mean, I know my experience here at Crisis, when I write something controversial about the church, I get some pushback. You maybe about the Pope or something like that, but when I write something against Donald Trump or against like the conservative line, political line, I am treated like I'm a. I'm the great worst heretic who's ever lived, that I'm awful, I'm evil, and things like that. It just, it's weird. I mean, people support me, too. I'm not saying it's like I'm attacked. I'm like some victim. I'm just simply saying that I've noticed that people get more upset if you criticize their political heroes than if you criticize their spiritual heroes or spiritual people, which I think is a bit off. So. [00:43:50] Okay, let me go to the live chat here. How to be Catholic, by the way, everybody. Thank you for joining the live chat on Tuesday. That was a little bit later this today. I had to do something earlier today, but I really appreciate people joining the live chat. I. I'd like to see how it. Watching the, the comments go by and we do try and pick a few to talk about the end here. How do you catch this? So it's all your fault. It is. It is my fault. I voted for Trump. So I'll put. I should get a bumper sticker. Do blame me. I voted for Trump. [00:44:17] Okay. OMB review says God bless you and keep it Up. You have been spot on, especially on these issues. Thank you. OMB reviews. By the way, check out OMB Views reviews. He. He does movie reviews. He's one of the best at this. I think he's mostly on. I think. I know he's on YouTube, but rumble go his Rumble Channel. Thank you, though. I appreciate that. [00:44:35] YouTube. EO says the KKK is. Was anti Semitic and Protestant. Yeah, I didn't even mention them. [00:44:42] That's a great point. I was talking about how this Insurrection Barbie account was saying. It was saying that, oh, my gosh, you know, the Protestantism in America, it doesn't have this anti Semitic background. It's all this European, I. E. In other words, Catholic imports. The kkk. That's American, that's Protestant, that was anti Semitic. How to be Catholic. Also, things have pretty much just melded into a single party system. Where do you think Catholicism lands within that? That's a great point. It is a single party system. I think Catholicism is outside of that. I think we can make common cause with both parties. I do think, just to be clear, the Democratic Party is lost and we can maybe agree with him on certain things, but I don't trust them. Like the Democrat, if a Democrat criticizes Trump about the war, which, as you know, I'm extremely critical of, I don't listen to them because I know they're just doing it simply because they don't like Trump. It's not like, in fact, you know, Cardinal cupich and Cardinal McElroy, you know, two of the most progressive bishops, cardinals in America. They, they both made statements condemning the war. I agree with them in condemning the war, but I don't. I'm not going to all of a sudden act like I'm buddy buddy with them because I know they're just doing it because they're anti Trump. They just want to find ways to bring down Trump. [00:45:54] Now people accuse me of that, which I always think is a joke because I've done so much to support Trump over the years, especially in recent years. [00:46:01] I just am critical because I don't like what he's doing. So I think Catholics, I think this is where we need to stand out, that we can support Trump when he's doing things that we like. But as Catholics, we need to be more prophetic. That's why I get frustrated with Catholics who just blindly go along with anything Trump does because it does harm our witness. I think we need to be more prophetic. And when he does something we don't like, we call him out. And if he does something that's good. We can support that as well. [00:46:27] Okay. Patriot Pooh Bear. Oh, I met Patriot Pooh Bear in person at the Blessed Carl symposium and it was great. It was really nice to, to meet you. I won't say your name on camera since you're anonymous, but you know who you are. Given that Trump has always had a bone to pick with Iran for 40 something years, I don't think this war is proof that he's in the bag for Israel. That said, it still has that look and feel. I mean, I get what you're saying, Patriot Pooh Bear. I get it. [00:46:54] There's no question Trump is not a fan of Iran, but at the same time, he has been clear he did not want. He. I mean, he criticized the war in Iraq and he did the same thing. I mean, that's how he got on the map in the Republican primaries in 2015, is that he was the first one to say bravely, courageously. And I was so happy he did this. Where he broke the neocon dominance and say, no, this was stupid. And he goes and does something just like it. And so I. He hasn't really. I mean, he has a bone to pick with him, but this idea of just launching a war against him, I mean, basically out of the blue too. Let's not act like, I mean, this was. There was no reason to do it at this point other than Israel wanted to do it, it seems to me. [00:47:39] Okay, Jeffrey McLean says, big comment. So it's covering my face here. Let me go like this. Hello. Okay. The war on terrorism has been happening since 2001. After September 11th. The conflict with Iran has been ongoing since 1979. And the hostage crisis, October 7th, 46Americans were murdered by Hamas proxies. Iran. Yes, all this is true. Do you Catholics really believe that the Islamist caliphate is going to stop with blowing up Tel Aviv? FYI, the Vatican, Rome, AKA Catholic Church is on the Islamic hit list. Death to all Christians and Jews. Pope Francis, too. [00:48:09] Oh, Francis has two assassination attempts by Islamic narrative operas. Okay, a lot to unpack there. [00:48:17] A lot of it's not true. I mean, I shouldn't say that. Most of it's true, but it's not complete. For example, the war on terrorism been happening since2011. After September 11, we have to ask a question. [00:48:29] Why did September 11 happen? [00:48:32] Is it just because they hate our freedoms? [00:48:36] Or is it because, you know, take this kind of knowing, not even be able to see my own face here. But did September 11 happen just because they hate our Freedom. No, that's a lie from George Bush. Is it because just a bunch of Islamists were just evil and decided one day we just want to attack America? No, it's because America had been in the Middle east for so long. If we were not in the Middle east, if we had not launched the first Iraq war, September 11th wouldn't have happened. So we have to look further back than that. Also, he says the conflict with Iran has been ongoing since 1979 in the hostage crisis. This is another problem with how Americans see things. They find specific dates and they say everything starts at that date. The fact is, America overthrew a. Basically a, A pop. A government supported by the people in the 1950s and installed the Shah of Iran. And the, the, the, the takeover by The Ayatollah in 1979 was a response to that. [00:49:34] And so again, if you just start. If America, Americans love picking certain dates. We start with September 11th, act like nothing happened before that. It just happened out of the blue. We start with Iran with 1979, the hostage crisis and the takeover by the Ayatollah, like nothing ever happened before that. And then the next thing he says, Jeffrey. By the way, Jeffrey, I do appreciate your comment. And, and, you know, putting this out there. On October 7th, Americans were murdered by Hamas proxies of Iran. Okay, Again, it didn't start on October 7th. October 7th. The attacks from Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. [00:50:06] There has been an ongoing war with Israel between Israel and the Palestinians since 1940s, even before that. [00:50:15] And America has been supportive of that. That has caused all of this. And so the fact is, is that if you just pick a certain date and say, and we did this with the Ukrainian war, too, everybody acted like it started with when Putin invaded in 2022. No, it went back a lot further than that, at least to 2014 even, I would say all the way to the 1990s. [00:50:35] We just want to start these things so that our narrative is that, that we're right, that, that we've done nothing wrong. We've just been blindly attacked. In fact, I would, I would dispute this whole idea of the Islamic caliphate, you know, is going to blow, stop with blowing up Tel Aviv. [00:50:51] The fact is there's no real evidence that Iran was going to attack anybody. [00:50:57] Now, I'm not saying they're a good government, they're evil. I'm not saying they didn't support terrorist organizations. They did. But the idea that all of a sudden, and this is, remember, this is what we're sold on after the Fact that is that they were about to take over the Middle east, they're about to nuke Israel, stuff like that. I mean, it tried to act like they're about to attack Israel. And so we had to do something about it. There's actually no evidence that that was going to happen. The status quo was going to remain if we hadn't attacked them. And the status quo, frankly, was not. Date. Was not. [00:51:24] Was not really an attack on America. [00:51:27] It might have been. And so, like, the fact is, is if we start dates with conflicts, we just make up dates that we say, okay, we start with September 11, we start with 1979, we start with October 7, then we can make everything look like okay. America and Israel are just these innocent countries doing nothing wrong, having nothing, just friends with everybody. And just all of a sudden these evil Muslims decide to kill us. [00:51:52] That's simply not. That's simply not what happened. I mean, if you look at, for example, the history of the Middle east, the fact is, is like, we did not have a problem. America did not have a problem with Islam or Islamicists in the early 20th century, nothing like today. And why is it all of a sudden we do now? Because we're over there. The fact is, is we shouldn't be over there. We shouldn't have military bases over there. We shouldn't be over there, but we are. And so we're dealing with the consequences, with the blowback. So. Okay, so. But my main point here is trust in God. Put your trust not in men, put your trust not in princes, as the sacred scriptures say, but in God alone. And if I think we do that, we'll be okay. And we can survive, we can thrive. The. The faith can be spread, no matter who is in control of our government and whether or not we even know who's in control of our government. [00:52:41] Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.