You never have to wait long to get down to laughs with Steven Crowder, but he barely got a sentence out Friday on The Glenn Beck Program without letting the jokes fly.
“Do we have a clip of that, Pat?” Glenn asked co-host Pat Gray. “Let's see if we can play a clip of that. We'll get Steven on the phone. Steven, are you there?”
Crowder quickly quipped back in his typical fashion, dripping in sarcasm.
“I am here, sir. But I am not a clip.”
“I know you're not a clip,” Glenn chuckled.
With all the pleasantries out of the way, the two jumped right into finding the humor in the politics of the day – and of course socialism.
A Man of Many Talents
GLENN: Tell me about the audio here. Tell me what you did.
STEVEN: A lot of people, Republicans, conservatives, particularly those kind of in the AM radio set, why do you keep focusing on Bernie instead of Hillary? Because he is a movement candidate. And people specifically my age who are far, far removed from the authoritarian left and socialism or communism, they buy this myth that if you put "democratic" before "socialism," which is what Bernie Sanders does, all of a sudden it's different from socialism. So it's a 20-minute video, but pretty in-depth. It's designed to point out why that, of course, is folly.
GLENN: That's not usually what you do, Steven. Is it?
STEVEN: Sometimes. I'm a man of many -- I wouldn't say -- talents. I'm a man who tries many things. It's just so irking. You know, I show up at colleges. And unlike these other people, you know, they'll stir the pot. They'll try and have protests so they can post it on -- like, I just want to do comedy, right? I just want to do jokes.
But I have so many stand up and go, "What about corporate system, man? And the top 1 percent, the fact that the countries like Norway and Denmark -- I want to my head to explode, and I want to spontaneously combust. So I say, "Okay. Before I have to do this in another Q&A, at a college campus, let's make one video."
Also, you know, I was raised in it. I was raised in socialism. I experienced socialized health care. I was in Quebec. My mom still talks with the accent. People in Texas can't understand her. It's got to be addressed at some point. I hate that I have to do it. But, you know, we all have our cross to bear.
A Democratic Socialist by Any Other Name Is... A Communist
GLENN: You know, we found something -- a fact about democratic socialism, that the term was actually coined by Lenin.
STEVEN: Yeah.
GLENN: And the revolution of the Soviet Union, which we found it incredible. There's no difference.
STEVEN: No, no. Exactly. As a matter of fact, we include that in the video. We have paper-cut-out Lenin, which some people find offensive. But I just find Lenin offensive. So, you know, different strokes.
We talk about how he says, yeah, that the goal of socialism is necessarily communism. For some reason -- you know, my producer, for all of his faults, over there at your affiliate, he had a brilliant point: Democratic socialism is just communism with a check box. You can paint it any way you want. For some reason, people buy this.
And one thing, Glenn, as someone who lives in the United States and was raised in Canada, whenever they say, "We are the only nation -- the United States is the only country that does not have, insert socialist program here." I go, "Yeah, that's how we became America. There's the whole point. We left because of that. We wanted to say we're the only guys we do this." How is that an argument?
But the problem is, younger people believe it. Something fascinating, Glenn, I wrote about this on the website, just a couple days ago. Cuban-Americans, like Ted Cruz's dad, right? Were either Republicans or they saw you as communists. For the first time, Cuban-Americans now lean Democratic. You know why? Because these kids are two generations removed, and they just never experienced communism or socialism. So to them, they hear Bernie, he's going to give you free money, free college, and free health care, all of a sudden it sounds good because you put "democratic" before it. It's mind-numbing.
Misappropriation of Culture
GLENN: Talk about the kid with the dreadlocks. The white kid with the dreadlocks that was pummeled by -- because you're not part of the black culture, kid.
STEVEN: Yeah. Neither was the band Corn. I mean, new metal in the early 2000s, all it was was dreads swinging around on MTV. It was horrible. This is an actual story: A black story who works -- she works at this campus, grabs and physically assaults this white student for racial appropriation because he's wearing cornrows. Now, I know there must be more to this story. There's not. There's not. That's the story. She assaults a white kid for wearing cornrows because it's racist. I don't -- if someone is going to say, hey, you're white. You can't wear cornrows. Why? It's cultural appropriation. You say, well, you're black. You can't wear Levi's. I mean, we've kind of exchanged these goods for a long time. They're stylistic.
John Kasich: The Indifference Affair
GLENN: Talk to me about John Kasich. This is a guy that is -- you know, I think acting as a spoiler in the race. You seem to have a real hatred for John Kasich.
STEVEN: Come on. That's not fair. You know what nobody has ever said -- nobody ever pops their head off their pillow and says, "I hate John Kasich."
GLENN: Right. There's no passion for John Kasich. So -- but you have called him an insufferable fraud.
PAT: I don't know. I'm pretty close to hatred for John Kasich. I'm teetering on the brink. Yeah.
STEVEN: I don't know.
JEFFY: Did you know that his dad was a mailman?
PAT: Yeah, and that almost pushes me over the edge.
GLENN: With John Kasich, I happen to agree with Steven. You can't really hate him because nobody really loves him. The opposite of hate is -- well, no, the opposite of love is indifference. So I guess you would have to hate him. Because, I mean, most people really are -- you look at John Kasich and he doesn't bring anything out of you.
STEVEN: No, no. He doesn't. You know, it's 2016, right. You know what you never hear anybody say if you're talking politics with your. Damn that Gerald Ford, it doesn't come up. It's same thing. I don't think people think of John Kasich, outside of the fact that right now the guy is just a major, major turd. The way he is acting it is unbelievable. There's no way for him to win.
He was sitting there. And people were going, "Why is Ted Cruz trying to bump you out of the election right now?" No, you're bumping yourself out -- by the way, incredible loser. You have to give it to John Kasich. When it comes to losing, the guy is tough. I don't know how he figured it out, but he does incredibly well. My problem is with the fakery. It's the fakery of Donald Trump acting like he's tough. Oh, I'm very tough. Someone should just respond with, okay. Fifteen push-ups. Let's start with that. Just call him out on it. When John Kasich says I'm a nice guy, everything he's ever done has been underhanded. And if you look at the article that I wrote, by all personal accounts, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, John Kasich is an act in person. Nothing about him is true. That's my problem. Outside of that, I never think of the guy.
The Glass Ceiling for Trump
GLENN: Steven, Pat said that he thought that Donald Trump hit his high-water mark, and it's all downhill from here because of everything he's done in the last two weeks is just to crap all over women.
STEVEN: Yeah. Listen, I don't know if this is borderline appropriate. Because the only reason it ever occurred to me -- and, Glenn, I know the only time it ever occurred to me to think of Heidi Cruz, to rate her attractiveness, is when Donald Trump imply she was ugly. So I did my due diligence. I did research. And I thought, "Ted seems to be swinging above his batting average. I think she's a good-looking woman."
GLENN: That's not -- I think five mistresses is so ridiculous. The guy just doesn't have enough game. Come on. It's Ted Cruz.
STEVEN: Yeah, that's my point. He should be grateful he has Heidi.
GLENN: Yeah.
STEVEN: If Ted wanted, he could buy them. Mail-order brides. Or you could buy portions of them. It just doesn't impress me that much. I also don't think it's a fair comparison. Let's compare these wives. And people typed in, Ted Cruz first wife, and Donald Trump first wife. And it looked like the female gremlin, not a great movie. But more character. Jim Hanson, PGI. I think the first wife comparison is more valid.