GLENN: Hello, America. So there's a couple of things. The -- the amazing way this is all being spun in the media that is making all of us believe that the country is full of Nazis and the -- the right believes that the Nazis are okay. And that the left is completely clean. Or that it's just the media that is stirring this up. None of that is true. None of that is true.
Do we have more Nazis in America than I thought? Yeah. Do we have more communists in America than I thought? Yeah. Are there people trying to get to us tear each other apart? Yeah.
Is the media making this into more than it is? Yeah. Is the right media also blaming everything on the media and not looking in and doing any self-reflection, as we accused the left media of doing? Yeah. But that's not the problem.
That's really not the problem. But can we just -- can we just take these one by one?
Does anybody really believe that Donald Trump is a secret Nazi?
STU: No.
GLENN: Right?
STU: No.
PAT: No.
GLENN: Does anybody believe that Donald Trump is a secret Klan member?
STU: No.
PAT: No.
GLENN: Does anybody believe that Donald Trump is secretly in bed with Vladimir Putin because he thinks he can control the world or thwart America or he's got some business pact with Putin that, screw America? Does anybody believe that?
PAT: No.
GLENN: No. I don't. Stu is -- you think --
STU: Hmm.
No.
(chuckling)
GLENN: Now, let me rephrase -- no, let me just ask the next question: Do we believe that Donald Trump or people around him are no different than the Democrats were when they brought in communist and Marxist radicals. Bill Ayers. People who want to destroy the country because they believe they can use those guys as fuel, as useful idiots for votes, for fundraising, or whatever. Do we believe that the right is just as guilty as the left?
STU: There's definitely aspects of that, that are true.
JEFFY: Yeah.
GLENN: Tell me what's happening on campuses, Stu.
STU: Well, I mean, there's a great story on National Review today about how, you know, the alt-right, which should be a giant nothing, right? It should be a giant zilch in our world; however, a lot of conservative groups, particularly campus conservative groups, gave a platform to people like Milo, whatever his name is, to -- because they thought it was something, "We'll get a lot of attention for our group. Yeah, he's kind of crazy. But we'll bring him in. It will piss off the other side, and we'll get some attention. And we'll get to play the victims because, you know, it will look like people are cracking down on free speech. And we'll be able to push back on that and say, 'Hey, we're free speech people.'"
And they braced that part of it. A lot of things that are good, right? I mean, like, free speech is good. We all obviously believe it. We obviously want people to look at the viewpoints of the right.
The problem is, when you adopt people like this, they change your organization. They change who you are. When you allow your principles to go out the window for a moment -- a burst of attention, you give up so much of yourself. And so many groups did this, many which we like, frankly, that wound up embracing this sort of mindset when it didn't feel like a threat. Now we're at a point where people are running over people in protest lines, and the same people that Milo, Milo was saying was the intellectual centerpiece of the movement he was talking about, the alt-right, that guy, Richard Spencer is the guy leading these rallies and doing Nazi salutes.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
STU: So you can say -- at one point there was a probably a point where you could say, "Well, look, I mean, he's not really doing that. I'm sure he's not really that person. You know, Breitbart has got a lot of really good stories." And they do. Breitbart has some good stories. They do take viewpoints that everyone in this room would agree with.
But when you allow that to infest and infect your world, it changes your world and it changes you.
GLENN: So can someone tell me alt-right, "alt" is the shorthand for what word?
STU: Alternative.
PAT: Altimeter?
GLENN: No.
PAT: Alternator?
GLENN: No.
STU: Alternator.
GLENN: Seriously, it is?
STU: Alternate.
GLENN: Alternate. Somebody define "alternate" for me.
PAT: Something used instead of something else.
GLENN: Something used instead of something else.
PAT: Uh-huh.
STU: Uh-huh.
GLENN: So if it's the alternate right, what it's saying is, we are something to be used instead of the conservative constitutional movement.
STU: Uh-huh. The literal definition of alternate is taking the place of.
GLENN: Hmm.
PAT: Hmm.
GLENN: So the alt-right, which the right opened its doors and said, "Come on in," announced, "We are the group that will take the place of you."