Transcript

Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277

From Glenn Beck · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 10,235 words · 96 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277", an episode of Glenn Beck published February 7, 2026 (1 h 2 min, about 10,235 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Constitution, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Rage of the Republic, French Revolution.

What this episode is about

The discussion draws parallels between contemporary American political turmoil and the violent outcomes of the French Revolution, emphasizing the dangers of unchecked rage and the importance of constitutional governance to channel dissent constructively. It highlights themes from Jonathan's book, "Rage in the Republic," which compares the different paths taken by Philadelphia and Paris after their respective revolutions, noting how a structured political system can prevent civil unrest.

Key takeaways

  • Rage isn't new; history reminds us that mobs can dismantle democracies faster than they build them.
  • Thomas Paine's reliance on 'pure democracy' nearly cost him his head—a cautionary tale for modern idealists.
  • The U.S. Constitution’s checks and balances aimed to protect against 'mobocracy'; 18th-century fears are relevant today.
  • Democracy is in the air, but unchecked democracy can breed tyranny; the Founders knew this could end badly.
  • As we approach the 250th anniversary, let's reflect: unity saved Philadelphia, while chaos ruined Paris.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Constitution, French Revolution, Thomas Paine, Declaration of Independence
  2. – 20:00: French Revolution, Common Sense, George Washington, Benny (grandson of Benjamin Franklin)
  3. – 30:00: Congressman Adam Smith, Constitution, French Revolution, Benny (grandson of Benjamin Franklin)
  4. – 40:00: Constitution, Artificial Intelligence, Minnesota
  5. – 50:00: Constitution
  6. – 1:00:00: Artificial Intelligence
  7. – 1:01:31: Rage of the Republic

Notable quotes from "Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277"

  • Like about you is I get the same thing from you that I get from the Constitution, and that is you're not always on my side. and that's how I know somebody's reading the…
    about Constitution · at
  • Well, Payne is without question one of the most fascinating historical figures I have ever researched. Great.
    about Thomas Paine · at
  • Came to the United States, taxi drivers wouldn't even pick him up because he was despised so much. Benjamin Franklin's daughter, as I talked about in the book, was one of his…
    about Common Sense · at
  • Show that a lot because a lot of people attacked him but I think the thing that cut him the deepest was he felt that Washington abandoned him that when he was sitting in the…
    about George Washington · at
  • I mean that's what Benjamin Franklin was talking about when he said it's your republic if you can keep it. Every generation can lose this gift that we have gotten. And what worries me is how.
    about Benny (grandson of Benjamin Franklin) · at
  • Book goes into what we're looking at in the 21st century, which is unprecedented. With AI and robotics, we are looking at massive unemployment numbers. Even the most…
    about Artificial Intelligence · at
  • What I call a liberty enhancing economy, which is capitalism. People forget that wealth of nations by Adam Smith came out the same year as the Declaration of Independence, and it did not go over well back in Great Britain.
    about Congressman Adam Smith · at
  • Just gave a speech in Prague where I may have irritated my audience and said that I have less faith that the EU will survive the century. I the key here is how can we preserve…
    about EU · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Thomas Paine — Person · Central historical figure (referenced) · 3 mentions · first at
    Used as the key comparative figure linking the American and French Revolutions; discussed as a revolutionary writer whose democratic views clashed with constitutional 'precautionary measures.'
  • George Washington — Person · Referenced leader / comparative example · 4 mentions · first at
    Presented as the stabilizing figure who understood the difference between revolution and durable republic; discussed in relation to Paine (support during the war; perceived abandonment in France).
  • Benny (grandson of Benjamin Franklin) — Person · Referenced founder / catalyst figure · 4 mentions · first at
    Described as the person who recognized Paine’s potential, enabled his move to America, and thus indirectly helped catalyze Paine’s revolutionary writings.
  • Congressman Adam Smith — Person · Referenced economist / philosophical support · 3 mentions · first at
    Invoked to connect founding-era political theory with capitalism as a 'liberty-enhancing economy,' emphasizing moral sentiments alongside markets.

Books & papers

  • Rage of the Republic — Book · Primary recommendation · 3 mentions · first at
    Main subject of discussion, exploring the parallels between historical revolutions and current political tensions.
    Well, the book itself coming out before the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence gives us a chance to take stock of not just where we are, but who we are. And the.
  • Common Sense — Book · Referenced work · 4 mentions · first at
    Cited as a pivotal work by Thomas Payne during the American Revolution.

Companies & orgs

  • EU — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed as an example of global governance systems and their potential instability.

Concepts & topics

  • Constitution — Concept · Core topic · 12 mentions · first at
    Central theme of the episode, discussing the importance of preserving the US Constitution and its values.
  • Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of future challenges to democracy and employment.
  • Declaration of Independence — Concept · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of the book's release timing and historical significance.
    Well, the book itself coming out before the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence gives us a chance to take stock of not just where we are, but who we are. And the.

Places & events

  • French Revolution — Event · Key argument · 11 mentions · first at
    Used as a historical example to contrast with the American Revolution and discuss current political dynamics.
    What destroyed the French Revolution were many of the same types of voices we're hearing today. These are riots.
  • Minnesota — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a location experiencing political unrest and riots.
    Let me go through a couple of a couple of things. how do we how do we get to a place to where first give me your give me your thoughts on Minnesota and what is happening there? Is that insurrection? Is that a.

Media & podcasts

  • Star Trek — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Used as a metaphor to discuss jobs that may remain human-centric despite technological advances.
    Certain jobs as what I call gynan jobs which are it's actually named after the bartender on the Star Trek Enterprise. I used to always as a kid marvel the fact that Gynan the…

Full transcript with timestamps

What destroyed the French Revolution uh were many of the same types of voices we're hearing today. These are riots. They are people who are inebriated by rage.

I think it was a miracle that saved his life. Actually, people today talk like they want to kill each other. And I said, Congressman, they were actually trying to kill each other back. That what that's what the Alien and Sedition Acts were. Jonathan, thank you so much uh for coming on. I am, as you know, a big fan of yours and uh and as I said to you before the interview started, what I like about you is is I get the same thing from you that I get from the Constitution, and that is you're not always on my side. Uh and that's how I know somebody's reading the Constitution the right way is it doesn't always cut my way. Uh, and uh, and you're an honest broker, and I' I've always appreciated that over the years. I I want to talk about your name.

You bet. I I want to talk about your book, Rage in the Republic. I mean, the name kind of says it all and it's right where we are. Why did you write the book? Well, you know, the the book itself coming out before the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence gives us a chance to take stock of not just where we are, but who we are. And the first half of the book looks backwards. It looks at really what were the unique characters and and actions that came together to create the most successful democracy in the history of the world.

And to do that, I compare two revolutions. It's really a tale of two cities, Philadelphia and Paris, both of which were experiencing growing violence. This is after the revolution uh in Philadelphia. But one Philadelphia stopped almost on a dime. The violence ended uh with the ratification of the United States Constitution, a system that allowed for pressures to be vented within the system instead of on the streets. Paris of course turned into a bloodletting known as the terror. And so I explored that by looking at a common denominator in the form of Thomas Payne who was one of two of our great leaders of the of the early republic that was involved in both revolutions. The other one being Lafayette.

The what really comes out of this as you I think really poignantly noted uh Glenn is that we've been here before that the rage we're seeing many of the voices we're hearing we have seen and heard before and it is a caution sort of a cautionary tale of what destroyed the French Revolution uh were many of the same types of voices we're hearing today. The second half of the book looks forward and asks, can that unique American republic survived in the 21st century and it looks at everything from robotics to AI to global governance like systems like the EU? And I believe that we can. But the key here is Yeah.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Give the key and then we're going to come back. We're I want to start at the beginning first

and then we'll get to the second half, but go ahead. The key is well the key is for us to remember who we are in this moment and to there's a lot of effort to sort of discard the US Constitution and the values that brought us here. Those values are going to be the very thing that will allow us to survive this century. So let's go back to Thomas Payne um and the difference between the American French Revolution. Um it's it's it's interesting to me he was involved in both of them. Washington seemed to get it. Uh I believe Hamilton was the other one that that understood this is not the American Revolution. Jefferson didn't.

Um uh Jefferson thought, you know, that it was very similar to the American Revolution. What was it that Washington saw that Thomas Payne did not see?

Well, Payne is without question one of the most fascinating historical figures I have ever researched. Great.

Um he is just extraordinary. Keep in mind that when he landed in Philadelphia two years before the Declaration of Independence, he had to be carried off the ship. He was a wreck. He had failed in everything he had put his hand to, marriages, employment. He had been fired from every job he held. And he sort of washed up on these shores. There was only one person who saw something in that wreckage, and he was Benjamin Franklin. And Franklin met Thomas Payne when he was penniless and totally out of of the running of anything. And it was Benjamin Franklin that sent him to this country. Two years later, he would be called the penman of the revolution. But where the book criticizes Payne is that he was a believer in pure democratic action. uh the sort of rouso view that the general will will produce good things. The framers didn't believe that.

They believed that the greatest threat to democracies was mobocracy was the what was one framer called democratic despatism. That's why Madison created a constitution that protected against tyranny of the majority with checks and balances and shared powers. Payne didn't sign on to all of that and when he went to France uh he did not argue for those what were called precautionary measures and it damn near killed him. He came within a very short period of being guillotined.

Yeah. And I think it was a miracle that saved his life actually. Um the um so tell me the um uh tell me right now you are looking at a country where you hear all the time democracy democracy democracy. Um and that's should be cautionary to anybody who hears that if you're preaching for a democracy that is not what we are for a reason. Um and people don't believe they believe majority rules. They believe that's important. They want to get rid of the electoral college and everything else. Explain the dangers of majority rules.

Yeah, I that's exactly right, Glenn. And there's a chapter in the book called the new jackabens. And it is a chapter that looks at this growing movement to uh strip away powers of the Supreme Court, pack the Supreme Court, dump the Constitution. You have leading legal figures who are saying that the US Constitution has to go on the 250th anniversary of our independence. This is the most successful and stable democracy in the history of the world. And you've got law professors telling people the Constitution is our problem. And what they are really restating is what we heard in the French Revolution. this belief that we just need to strip away those barriers to democratic action that historically has proven a disaster time and time again. The irony that I point out in the book is that when you look at these past systems like the French Revolution, they tend to produce a single tyrant. So at the end, what they

do is they melt down and then the people embrace a tyrant like Napoleon. And that's the greatest irony when people talk about the Athenian democracy. The Athenian democracy collapsed and the framers didn't want the Athenian uh democracy because they saw it as a mobocracy. That is always the case, isn't it? I mean, very few revolutions end with the people who started them. I think we're one of the only

ones that that that ended with the people because it always it ends in a mobocracy and then people are screaming out somebody make this madness stop and that's when you get your dictator. I mean that is that the way it always happens. It does and paint came to understand that you know um I always think I'm a big film noir buff and I remember there's a great line in a film noir movie where Fred Murray turns to the fem fatal and says I love you so much I only wish I liked you and that's sort of what happens with a lot of people with pain he's he he died without any friends it was he he alienated everyone he started fights but the great genius of pain is Payne knew what it took to win a revolution.

Madison and Madison knew what it took to create a republic. And in many ways, those two figures shaped our destiny. Payne understood in the end what Madison was talking about when he was sitting the Luxembourg prison waiting to be guillotined. He understood that, you know, he advocated a unilateral system, I'm sorry, a unicameal system. He didn't like two houses. He wanted the the the masses to have this enhanced voice. He came to abandon that and he came to understand that you have to control democracies if they are going to flourish. And ultimately he was saved literally by a swinging door because he was in with a group of Belgians and he was dying. He was very sick and they convinced the jailer to open the door.

Well, when they opened the door, you couldn't see a mark of four on the door. That was a marked place that all four of them were to be executed that night. So he was saved literally by a swinging door. Otherwise, he would have joined his other friends who were guillotined in the French Revolution. I I love that story. You know, um one of the reasons why he had no friends in the end is because I think he was gravely misunderstood on Age of Reason. Um you know, he's trying to make a case to the French that don't believe in God. in fact relate to God right directly to the king and government and they not seeing any of it. Um we have a letter and I'll have to share it with you sometime. Uh I have a letter in Thomas Payne's own handwriting where he is writing back saying to the founders what are you doing to me? I'm I'm I'm trying to make this case. I'm I'm not talking about you know America. I I clearly I saw the

miracles. I mean he is misunderstood as this this grand atheist and he's really not doesn't believe in God the way necessarily I believe in God but he is not an atheist at all.

No he's not. And what's also interesting about Payne is that he was the ultimate contrarian and he was also incredibly principled. You know, he was so unpopular. He has the distinction of being tried and convicted in three countries uh and actually being accused of sedition in three countries. When he came to the United States, taxi drivers wouldn't even pick him up because he was despised so much. Benjamin Franklin's daughter, as I talked about in the in the book, was one of his friends. And she said it would have been better if he died after he wrote Common Sense. That was one of his friends. So it it it's it's an amazing story about this guy who always had a sense of his north star, but he also had a sense of when he was wrong. And that's different from a lot of people. But Payne was never someone they wanted to embrace. They like Thomas Jefferson, you know, he's tall, handsome, ariodite, you know, slave

owner. Payne was against slavery. Um, they didn't like Pete, who was a hardrinking guy, penniless, uh, who just started fights in every pub he went into. U, by the way, one of the reasons he was penniles is that he insisted that his works, he had the first best seller. That's what common sense was. He was the first world best seller. And he insisted that not only should that some of that money go to people fighting for the revolution, but that the price should be kept low so everyone could afford it. And I believe 23 of Americans had either read it or had a copy of it by the time which is right

which is crazy. I mean there's not twothirds of anything that has been written except maybe the Bible in today's America. That's just that's an outrageous especially in a time when you didn't have books. Um,

no, it's it's so true, you know, and I drove my kids crazy for years because I did nothing but research Thomas Payne and um, but he is so darn interesting. You know, he was a corset maker like his father and hated it. But corset making may have saved the American Revolution because he hated it so much he was going to become a privateeer and which is basically a lawful pirate. It was his father through this secret network of corset makers I that found out and found him on the ship and took him off the ship. That ship went out and was absolutely destroyed by a French privateeer. He would have died on that ship, but he ultimately joined another ship and actually became effectively a pirate. And the only reason that's important, as I mentioned in the book, is it gave him something he had never had before, money. He went when when he finished that voyage, he was able to return and study the enlightenment and

go to university classes. So in some ways, we were not only saved by corset making and a swinging door, but strangely enough, piracy. You know, I don't know if we ever would have gotten to the American Revolution without common sense. And I don't know if we would have won it without the American crisis. I mean, in in in a year period, he played such a critical role in clarifying and saying, "Look, this is common sense. This is what we're fighting for." And driving us to the declaration. And then when everybody is when we're losing and we're running from the British and everybody is saying, "Well, this was a mistake." He galvanizes at least the troops behind Washington.

Is it true that he wrote that on the head of a drum? Well, partially it is true. What's interesting is that um you know his relationship with Washington was a really a fatherson relationship. you know, he rode into Philadelphia with with uh Washington. Washington credited him uh with saving the revolution. When when Washington was in in the winter at Valley Forge and his troops had no uh um morale left, he turned to Thomas Payne and said, "Right, and he did." And it rallied the troops. Now that relationship I explore in the book towards the end of the French Revolution discussion because I think the greatest disappointment for Payne I and he didn't show that a lot because a lot of people attacked him but I think the thing that cut him the deepest was he felt that Washington abandoned him that when he was sitting in the Luxembourg prison he did not feel that Washington came to his side and reading his letters But

when he left, when he left, wasn't it? I mean, Washington said, "This is not the American Revolution. You're wrong." And and he was upset at Washington. And didn't Washington at the time make it clear, you're on your own, dude. You're on your own. Or is that not true?

Well, I think that it wasn't clear to Payne. Payne dedicated rights to Washington, which Washington didn't like. So, when he sent Washington the books, Washington didn't respond. But then when he got sent to the Luxembourg prison, I there was no real strong intervention by the United States to save his life. And you could see it was really having this impact on Payne. Uh because Washington really was his northstar. He he believed in Washington

and um that was one of the most telling moments for Payne. That was a very dark period of his life. The French Revolution had turned into the terror. uh they were going to execute him. Then suddenly Robes Pierre was executed instead and he was he was released. But I think it was that break with Washington that took its greatest toll on Payne. So I'm convinced there would be no American Revolution without Thomas Payne, but I believe there would be no republic without Washington. Talk to me a little bit about the the mob that started to take root um after the American Revolution.

Yeah, Washington was in it was terribly important as you know, Glenn, that you know, he was this rallying figure. It was pain that gave him the words that he needed. It was Washington that was the symbol. People didn't rally around pain. In fact, common sense was anonymous. And actually one of his originally and one of his um greatest critics John Adams who I think was a bit jealous of Payne's influence

um admitted that when his wife wrote him and said uh people say you wrote Common Sense and at this time Payne was not really that well known and John Adams said I could never have written that. I think I know who wrote it. It's a guy by the name of Thomas Payne. and he wrote to a friend and said,"I met him," and this is a quote, "and he had genius in his eyes." And that's the same thing that Franklin saw and I think the same thing that Washington saw. So Washington and Madison together helped temper this republic and to create the things that limit the passions of democracy, force compromise. That's what people today resist the most, right? They want to just pack the Supreme Court uh with with a liberal majority. They want to to reduce uh the influence of the Senate to try to force compromise. All of those things were the rallying cries of the French Revolution. All of those things were what Washington and Madison

rejected. And in some ways um I think pain uh was the voice of righteous rage in our revolution and Madison was the voice of pious reason and and Washington preferred Madison after the revolution. As I say in the book there's nothing more inconvenient uh than a revolutionary after a revolution. And that's what Payne found in two countries. So, let's move to today. Um, where's the righteous reason today?

Well, that really gets back to where we are and you're so right about that. I I mentioned in the book that I was working on the French chapter of this book. I was sitting in my office at George Washington and all of a sudden I heard guillotine, guillotine, guillotine. I I had this sort of odd moment. I felt like I was being pulled into my pages of the French Revolution. In fact, students outside my window with a guillotine uh during the Palestin pro Palestinian protest, they brought a guillotine and they were listing people they wanted to guillotine from the university. Now, I don't think that they really wanted to see uh anyone guillotined, but it made me think uh you know, is it possible?

You have that moment of doubt after all of our history. Could we still lose it all? And the answer is of course we can. I mean that's what Benjamin Franklin was talking about when he said it's your republic if you can keep it. Every generation can lose this gift that we have gotten. And what worries me is how the establishment have become the new jackabins. Remember the jackabins of the French Revolution were establishment figures. They were journalists, lawyers, aristocrats much like people today. You've got Irwin Shimmerinsky, dean of Berkeley, saying the Constitution basically has to be trashed. Uh you've got he's just one of a number of people have said the Constitution is now the problem that we have to get rid of.

Those are the familiar voices that you also have you also have politicians now who will not openly say that, but I have talked to senators and congressmen um that say nobody reads it. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. It's all about policy. It's not about the Constitution anymore. So, I mean, while you can say you love the Constitution, your actions show, no, you you really you really don't. You don't know it. You don't rever it. You don't follow it. So, it's it's it's just a step down from somebody openly saying, "Get rid of it."

No, you're right. And and that is the thing about rage is that it gives you a license to do and say things you wouldn't otherwise do. Uh it's addictive and it's contagious. But what people won't admit is that they like it. When you look at the streets of Minneapolis and other cities, those people like it and it it spreads. That's what happens in these these revolutions where people are saying, "Let's get rid of these precautions. let's have direct democratic rule. Uh that's what we're really talking about here. The irony, as I point out in my book, uh is that the racial republic really shows over and over again that today's revolutionaries become tomorrow's reactionaries. All of the so-called mountain as they were called in the French Revolution, Robes, Pierre, Moroc, all of them, they were all guillotined. They were all killed.

Yeah. In the end. Um and so it's why I quote at the beginning of the book u a one of the few Frenchmen to survive um from the revolution and he observed that uh revolutions like Saturn devour their children and Payne himself made reference to that expression and it has proven itself over and over again uh that revolution unleashes not just the best but the worst of us and if you don't have a system that can take those pressures. It consumes you with the rest of the world around you. Now, that's going to be very important because the book goes into what we're looking at in the 21st century, which is unprecedented. With AI and robotics, we are looking at massive unemployment numbers. Even the most conservative estimates are looking at a huge population of citizens that may have to be subsidized by the government. And the book, there's a lot of research on that.

What that's different about raging the republic is I look at what does that mean about being a citizen? What does that mean if a large part of our population is supported entirely by the government? How does that change a relationship to the government? How do we make this republic work if we are essentially a kept citizenry? And I explore that and suggest ways that we can avoid it. But the only way we will survive this is if we return to the principles that created us, including what I call a liberty enhancing economy, uh, which is capitalism. People forget that wealth of nations by Adam Smith came out the same year as the Declaration of Independence, and it did not go over well back in Great Britain.

It its success was in the United States. The framers immediately saw capitalism as the key economic theory to coexist with their political theory. They realized that unless people are economically free, they can never be politically free. But they they also I think had read the first book on moral sentiments.

Um and and that is the part that we completely leave out of the conversation. If you don't have moral sentiments, the invisible hand of the market will give you everything you want and it will strangle you to death. Um, and you know, we we we think we thought cuz I don't think we've had capitalism, real true capitalism for a very long time. Um, uh, but what we are in now, I don't I don't even know what to call it now. Um but uh you know we have we have so what people have a problem with with capitalism I think is the fact that there is no uh there's no understanding of moral sentiments our responsibility and that doesn't mean just capitalism that means also freedom as you said it's a republic if you can keep it that requires you to have moral sentiments.

No, you're so right. This is why I love talking with you. You're the best read person I know in the media. And you're absolutely right. Uh that people forget that Adams uh that Adam Smith uh was really offering a theory of political economic uh rules, not just economic rules. It was an economic model. He tied it directly into his view of of society. he did believe in morals and in that sense he broke from some people in what's called the Scottish Enlightenment who sort of downplayed the role of faith and morals uh in in their theories.

Adam Smith did not uh he he believed wholeheartedly in those decisions and people often mispray him as you of you noted because they say oh well you know it's it's not for the love of the butcher which is you know why we we uh the system works it is self-interest but Adam Smith still believed that individuals still needed to make virtuous decisions

yes yeah it I mean real capitalism I think is the greatest parity of all time. You get to do what you believe. You pay the price for it if it fails. You get the winnings if you keep it. And if you are, if you're a good capitalist, you realize the only thing you have to do to win is figure out how to make people's lives better.

Um, you know, or give them what they want. Yeah. Give them what they want. And in an immoral society, then you get into all kinds of problems. But in a moral society you get into a it I mean it works really really well. Um so let me go through a couple of things. Um we are looking at so many things where we don't agree on truth on morals on on anything on right and wrong. Um and if you don't agree with one side you're evil. And and there that works on both sides. You're either evil on one side or you're a Nazi according to the other side. Um h how do we how do we you know the secret of America is unum e pluribus unum the one thing we agreed on was the declaration and the bill of rights that you have these rights and responsibilities and that's what makes us free and prosperous.

If we don't have that, what do we have and how do we get back to that? Well, I do think that's what we need to be talking about. You know, I have I just gave a speech in Prague where I may have irritated my my audience and said that I have less faith that the EU will survive the century. I the key here is how can we preserve a republic with the pressures that are coming and the book lays out a couple of critical components of that uh that basically mean that we have to reaffirm and magnify some of the original values that created the American republic. That includes keeping government as local as possible avoiding these global governance systems like EU.

It means trying to to maintain a what I call a liberty-enhancing economy. Uh and we do that by trying to to not subsidize just you know half or more of the population but to try to make wise decisions about what areas are likely to be homosentric and what are going to be uh roboentric as I talk about in the book and the book actually refers to certain jobs as what I call gynan jobs which are it's actually named after the bartender on the Star Trek Enterprise. I used to always as a kid marvel the fact that Gynan the bartender was was standing in front of a replicator that could make the perfect Romulan sunrise cocktail and yet she made it. And so I call these Gynan jobs that for some reason they wanted Gynan to do it. Now there are lots of jobs like that where people are still prefer humans but there are other jobs which will be wiped out by robotics and we need to to look at that. But what I'm afraid of is that the

usual response in government is let's just subsidize dying industries and you know and penalize industries going robotic.

That's right. And it's never going to work. You're just going to burn money. No.

Uh the key is to be smart about this. And we need to lead the world in that. You know the um Kondrachov is one of my favorite um economists from history. you know, Stalin's uh economist and he came up with the Kraki of wave and uh yeah

he actually did research when Stalin said you know which is better capitalism or communism and he's like let me think that through the answer to Stalin is whatever you say uh he was killed after you know he came up with his wave but his his whole thing was capitalism will it's seasonal and it it will burn itself out it will go into winter where where communism M and socialism and all this try to take the trees and force them into growth when they have to have sleep and you have to burn out the you know the dead stuff. Um and we are headed towards a deep deep winter and those things have to die. Um but you know as you point out in the book you're talking about such displacement of people. Um, you know, I have I have been Jonathan, I've been talking about this for 30 years. I've been warning about AI. I'm a big fan of AI. Also a big proponent of of saying warning um because it is it's like everything. It is a double-edged

sword. It will cut our throat or it will cut the cut the uh forest down in front of us so we can we can expand. Um, but I don't, you know, you get to this place to where if we're not careful, we will have a very few people making all of the money, controlling absolutely everything, and then we're kind of just sheep that are have to be fed by the machine and by the elites. How do we avoid that?

You know, I talk about that in in the book. I because I you know I ask a question in the book that was asked by a Frenchman who went by the name of Farmer John and he was a Frenchman came to our shores and wrote a book that was itself a rage success in Europe and it described what was happening in the United States. People were fascinated by these Americans. We were viewed as a type of new species and he asked this this poignant question. He said, "What then is this American?" It was an honest question because we were the hottest thing of the time. We were the first enlightenment revolution. And we have to ask ourselves again, what then is this American? Who are we? And the fact is that people came to this country. We don't have a a a legacy of land or shared culture. We have a legacy of ideas. That's that's what makes us unique. People came here because they could reinvent themselves the way Thomas

Payne did. He came here as a human wreck, as a lifetime failure. And he reinvented himself. And he said at the time when he landed that there was quote something special here. There is still something special here. It is who we are. And we need to make sure that people have this ability to go through self-exloration to become the people they want to be. And as bad as jobs are, you know, my grand one of my grandfathers was a coal miner who got black lung in the mines and my other grandfather was a cooper made made barrels.

They didn't like their jobs. Certainly my coal mining grandfather didn't like getting black lung. But if you asked him who he was, he'd say, "I'm a coal miner." We've always been defined by what we did, by how we were productive.

And we can't go into this century with a huge percentage of our population of unproductive people who have no identity because the only identity they will have then is the government that's supporting them.

So, how do they find identity? I mean, I see because I think there's like there's two I I am a big proponent of AI and I warn at the same time,

but I use it I see it as a tool to allow me to do things that I have in here. I just don't have the staff of 400 to be able to keep up with what's in here. I you know what I mean? I I it can do so much and I have a staff check everything, check everything, check everything because I know what it is. But it's a tool and a great tool. But there's also a part of the population that is like it'll do my job for me.

And when you get to when you get to that, well then you're going to be a slave to the technology or to the government or whatever. I mean there are people that just they want to punch in, punch out and just live their life.

Yeah. That's what I refer to in in the racial republic as a kept citizenry. We can't have that. And we also cannot create an economy that's fake. Right? You can't have an arts and craft citizenry that just has a bunch of people doing effectively arts and crafts. Right? None of that is going to give them the sense of worth. So it means that we have to focus on those industries that we still want human beings to be part of uh and then can be productive. They are there. I I believe in capitalism. I believe that there will be those industries as you suggest Glenn there's going to be a burnoff but then people will shift. We have to facilitate that by not artificially subsidizing some industries. We have to allow people to find ways to advance themselves. What we need to avoid is that if you have a small percentage of productive citizens, they're going to increasingly live separately and they're going to demand

more power over how money is spent and you're going to have a calcified class structure that has never existed in this country. And that's what we have to avoid. But I think we can. But we won't if we follow the the way of the new jackabens, these leaders and this mob that is calling for us to trash the very thing that we will need to survive this century. There comes a point where everybody everybody starts to feel um sore, you know, where your body is offering unhelpful feedback usually at inconvenient times. You stand up and something like all of a sudden you're like, "Hey." Um that's not good. You reach for the floor thinking that Jesus might be calling you home. This is why you should trust relief factor. It's why I take relief factor. It's not about pretending you're 20 again or powering through things that you know like nothing hurts. It's about supporting your body where a lot of these issues

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Let me go through a couple of um a couple of things. Um, how do we how do we get to a place to where first give me your give me your thoughts on um Minnesota and what is happening there? Is that insurrection? Is that a protest? What's happening there?

Well, I don't like the term insurrection. People used that at January 6th. I said it wasn't an insurrection that day afterwards. Uh I don't think

Can you define what an insurrection is? An insurrection is truly trying to overthrow the government itself. Uh I think this these are riots. They are people who are inebriated by rage. It's also caused by these politicians who are so similar to what I describe in the book in France. They are so much like these figures that enabled the mob in France and then ultimately were themselves guillotined and devoured essentially by the revolution. I we're certainly seeing that I don't think we're at an insurrection here. The what should worry us is what these people are saying that is what it is that they want. You know, they want instant power.

They want democratic change without those Misonsonian precautions. They want to just get rid of the Supreme Court or stack it. Get rid of the Constitution. One of my colleagues has argued that we have to rewrite the First Amendment because it's quote aggressively individualistic. These are not fringe voices.

Yeah. But these are not fringe voices anymore. I mean these figures and they're telling the public, you know what your problem is? It's this constitution. It's this republic then it could become an insurrection. And what we're seeing in the terms of the sort of unrequited rage will spread. That's the reason I'm so concerned with what we're hearing from Democratic leaders. They want to ride this rage wave to the to the uh to the elections in this year, the midterm elections. Um they don't they don't realize that history has shown people just like them uh who are ultimately declared reactionaries by the mob that they are leading. But for them, the only thing that's important is the midterm elections.

I I tell you, Jonathan, I've been saying this for a long time. I I said this when they first put Michael Moore in the presidential box maybe in 2004 and I said you can't put a revolutionary. You can't put a guy who doesn't you know fit into that constitutional box and believe in that um and and make friends cuz it's not him. It's the people who are left of him and left of them and left of them that now have access. And these people will come in. they believe something and they they will come in and uh they will they'll eat you in the end. They will eat you in the end. You think you can control them, but they're actually revolutionaries that actually believe in something. And I you know, when you say we're not in an insurrection, I think that the average person in Minneapolis does not consider what they are wanting or thinking about as an insurrection.

But you are looking at people who you know these turtle island people who are saying you know America it was a mistake never should be blah blah blah who are actively working to overthrow the government. Then you have crooked politicians who either think they can control this and use this to their advantage or I think in some cases to cover their own crimes on something entirely different. Um that's just a bad stew. It is. And there's nothing more pathetic than watching people like Schumer and Walsh, you know, mouthing these revolutionary and and reckless rhetoric uh lines.

It's pathetic because this is only going to come out one way. I mean, this mob is not going to embrace those individuals as uh their leaders. They they are the temporary uh convenience that they that they need. But what they are unleashing uh could be uncontrollable. Now having said that we have a system that is still working. You know we have been stress tested before. The what worries me are these figures like Shimarinsky and others who want to change the system itself because as long as we keep the constitutional system I have no question about our survival and that we are going to flourish. It's only if they take that system down and that unfortunately is what a lot of these law professors and others are arguing for.

So I I agree with you. However, there is a step in between this and that is so to so perverted. I mean, how does the president prosecute people for crimes in states where the prosecutors or the attorney general or the even federal judges will not stand with the Constitution and the rule of law of the United States. And I'm not saying there's a lot a lot of them, but there seems to be a lot more than I thought there was.

No, there is. I think the New York legal system was an example of that. You know, I covered the Trump trials. I And I I I was in the courtroom when he was tried and and convicted. And when I came out, there were people dancing in the street. There it was complete ecstasy. It was it was true rage that was being unleashed. And the joy of it, and this the legal system failed. Eventually, it corrected it. Eventually, appallet courts did the right thing. I'm hoping they continue to do the right thing. Uh but this is a problem. You know, you have jurors and judges who can ignore the law. But we've had that throughout our history and we have survived. Fortunately, we have a multi-layered system. It doesn't always happen as fast as we want, but it works.

Has it been this bad? Well, yeah. I mean, if you look back at like the Jefferson Adams period, you know, the I once was in a u in a hearing and a a member said, you know, professor, don't tell us about the forming of the republic. People today talk like they want to kill each other. And I said, Congressman, they were actually trying to kill each other. That what that's what the alien and sedition acts were. You know, they wanted to kill each other. So, don't pretend that your problems are unique. There's this dangerous conceit from people on the left that we've never faced these problems. Of course we have. And you're the same voices that we've heard throughout our history. The key that we have to keep our focus on is as long as we preserve this system, we can outlast these people as we have in other ages of rage. It is only that's why they are so insistent on trying to change the system. I had one I had a debate with

one Harvard professor who admitted that they want to change the Supreme Court because they can't make radical changes to the constitutional system if the Supreme Court is still around. He'd said that openly. So this is a concerted knowing effort to try to to get rid of the Supreme Court and then to push through these radical agendas to change our system.

And the scary thing is is I think they'll do it. I think they'll actually do it if they're given the chance. Um, so let me ask you this about u changing the system. Um, they're talking about the zombie um oh filibuster. Getting rid of the zombie filibuster and getting rid of anything related to the filibuster scares the heck out of me. But from what I understand, the zombie filibuster u puts it back closer to the way it's supposed to be where you actually have to stand up and make your case. I mean, if it's my understanding, filibuster was to slow everything in government in our constitution is just meant to slow the process down so you don't do anything hasty and you give people time to think and that's what the filibuster was supposed to do. But now you just filibuster and then it's over and it needs a 60 vote uh to, you know, bring it to the floor. Um, getting rid of the zombie filibuster, good idea or bad

idea? Well, I'm not too sure it was so essential to have Strong Thurman with with Bacon in his pockets trying to talk for days on end. Certainly made for good theater. Made for a great movie uh with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I think the key here, what I talk about in the Ra of the Republic is that we have to look at preserving uh these minority protections in our constitutional system. everything from the filibuster I to um electoral the electoral college ways of guaranteeing that we have for example a federalism system where states have real power to go their own way. All of those are bull works against a tyranny of the majority and it's why many of these people on the left want to eliminate that. Uh you have law professors that said even without I talked about this in the book. You've a couple of Yale and Harvard law professors that have argued that they could change the Senate without a

constitutional amendment so that uh you can give more representation to more populous states. I have no idea how they think that comports with the constitution but it won't matter if you can pack the Supreme Court successfully. those things become less important as to whether you can make the case as opposed to make the court.

Yeah. Uh Ellen Dersuitz told me if they pack the Supreme Court that's the end. That's the end.

Um let me um let me just ask you a couple quick questions here. Um I have been I held my tongue on Pam Bondi uh for a year. Um, and I've seen her do some what I think are stupid things. And I've also seen nothing uh seemingly none of the big guys go to go to jail. Nobody seems to be paying a price. And that's one of the things that has to be um fixed or clarified. If you don't have a case to put somebody in jail, then explain it and move on. I don't There are some people who just want people to go to jail. I don't. I want people tried. I want it fair and if they're guilty, put them in jail. And it doesn't matter if they're at the lowest ladder or the highest ladder. But right now, America is starting to think that there are two systems of justice. And it was this idea that maybe it's if you if you're on the left, you get away with it, and you're on the right, you get hammered. I don't think so. I I think it

might be power. Um, and Pam has not been putting cases together, or I want to be really fair. This is my question. What am I missing? You know, I I I worry that maybe cuz I just started coming out and saying, you know, you're either crap or get off the pot. You know, what is happening? Give it give us some give us some, you know, uh updates here. Um and I I'm not a prosecutor. I'm I'm I don't know anything about all of this and I'm afraid that I I'm missing something that would slow this process down to almost a snail's pace, but I also believe we're running out of time. If you don't start prosecuting people that did do things that were wrong, there's not nobody's ever going to pay a price and then we we have just this outofcontrol government just going on both sides.

Well, it is a legitimate concern. I've been critical of some aspects of attorney general bonding and I've been complimentary of others. Although I look I've that's certainly been the case of every attorney general in my lifetime, every president in my lifetime.

But a good test of that is going to be the Clinton impeachment uh uh sorry Clinton contempt sanction. You know the Clintons did an extraordinary thing by telling the uh House Oversight Committee to pound sand. They had a legitimate subpoena uh lawfully issued but on a bipartisan vote and they just said we don't feel like it. Uh it is the most open and clear case of contempt I have seen in my lifetime. Now we I think the Clintons are counting on the fact that they might be able to play this out until after the Trump administration. If there's a Democratic president, uh they'll scuttle this effort. But what if they don't? You know, it does take a long time to put cases together. What if the next president is named Vance? Uh, the fact is I don't see any cognizable defense here. One of the things I've been writing about is this is the first time where there's not even a suggestion of a defense. It's just basically we're

the Clintons and we don't feel like showing up. So, this would be the world's fastest trial. Now, this goes to your point, Glenn, that they may be counting on the fact that they would be tried in Washington DC. And it's pretty hard to imagine a jury pool in Washington without at least one person who wouldn't convict the Clintons uh if they had a video of them committing heinous crimes. But they can't count on that. And and this is going to be a real test to our system. Democrats voted to hold them in contempt. That's another difference here. So you not only have a bipartisan vote for the subpoenas, you have a bipartisan vote to hold them in contempt. And the Department of Justice needs to move with the speed of the the the Biden administration. They went uh to 0 to 60 on Bannon and other figures.

We'll see if they can here. Um how is Scotas going to rule on tariffs? And if they rule against the president, what does that mean?

Well, you know, I've always said the odds are against the president on AIPA. I but I have to tell you after the or oral argument I said you know it's not as clear as people suggest uh the the the justices did uh I would say a majority have serious questions about the president's interpretation but if you look closely they had different reasons and so how that cycles out in the final vote is something we'll have to see but if they do

wait wait wait wait because if they you don't you wouldn't say I have a reason different than yours but I'm going to vote the same way as you or what does that mean?

Well, because some we've seen justices who disagree with with an interpretation of the majority but still wrote a concurrence with the majority and they can choose whether it's a concurrence or a disscent. So, is it possible you could have a divided court, maybe a plurality that preserves the tariffs? Yeah, they could fracture on the rationale and you could have some that say that they will concur with upholding the tariffs. All of that is possible. Uh but if he if the administration loses, there are a myriad of other tariff provisions that they can rely on. So the tariffs are not going to immediately go away. Also, even if the court rules against the administration, it could make any relief prospective so that they don't have to return the money. So there's a lot of elements here that we don't really don't know and that's why we're all waiting to see that that opinion get handed down. your

guess. You know, I would always guess that uh because AIP is is silent that that they lose it. I I thought that Solicitor General Sour did one of the best jobs I've seen in front of the Supreme Court. And man, he made some great arguments and his main argument is look AIPA is based on a prior uh statute with the same language and you said under that statute a president has tariff authorities. I thought that was a real haymaker of a point and we'll have to see if the justices when they drill down on this go well yeah that that is a bit of a problem isn't it?

So you were talking about AI and you talk about it in the book and um you also talk about local local make sure everything is as local as possible. Our AI policy now um is that states really don't have much to say about anything because they don't want to slow down the process. I think this is extraordinarily dangerous. Um I mean I don't care what it is, the people have a right to say no, I don't want to do it that way. Um and is you know in in every state, how do you feel and will it stand if if that's if if that's what we actually end up with that no, the federal government has control of this and they're going to make all of the rules and no state has anything to say about it?

You know, I I talk about this in Raging the Republic and saying that I don't think we're going to get this cat to walk backwards. AI uh is now integrated so thoroughly in various industries. I do not think that any given state is going to be able to seriously curtail it or even a government can curtail it. I don't think the EU could curtail it if they wanted to, which they don't. Uh so AI is here and it's going to continue to grow. What we can do is to rein enforce its protections. For example, I talk about in the book how AI has been accused for example of inducing suicides or or enabling suicides uh with teens.

And these are shocking cases where AI is advising teens how to hide marks of prior suicidal attempts.

Yes. And the argument of these these companies is well look it's not like we did it. That's AI. Look, you replaced employees with AI. That's why these teenagers are talking to AI is because there used to be a human there. If you do that, I think you should treat the AI like an employee and you are liable for it. In my view, they can sue under tort, which I teach. Um, those are the types of precautions that we can have. The same thing is with defamation. You know, in Raging Republic, I talk about the fact that um Chat GBT uh defamed me in a bizarre situation that the Washington Post and New York Times uh got involved in because uh Chat GBT said that I had sexually assaulted students on a trip to Alaska uh while teaching at Georgetown. Now, every every aspect of that was hallucinated. I've never taught at Georgetown. We don't take students on field trips. I've never taken a student on field trip. I've

never been accused of sexual harassment or assault. And I think that the Washington Post was a bit disappointed when they found out it was untrue. But then they, you know, but they they they then sort of begrudgingly said, we're sort of interested because this is the only pure hallucination we've ever encountered because we can't find any basis for hallucination. There's not even an article that would cause hallucination. Now, the fact is I regret now uh that I didn't sue. I I've never sued for defamation, but I almost regret now that I didn't u because the solution of Chad GBT was to ghost me. So, if you go on and ask Chad BT about Jonathan Charlie for years, and I think it still is is still the case, um but it might have loosened up a little recently, but for years it would I didn't exist. They just basically ghosted me. And I write in the book, this sort of captures the inherent dangers of AI and these

companies that if you raise defamation, they then eliminate your existence so that you disappear and there's no right to be recognized so they can get away with it. That is a heck of a lot of power. uh and it's largely unchecked and we do have to look at things like that. How far be how far are we away from somebody you know because people are already marrying their you know their avatar their you know chat GPT avatar um and you can see people it's coming where they will say this is my husband this is my spouse this is my best friend you don't have a right to terminate him in the you know the next upgrade you don't have a right etc and as chat chat GPT and and AI becomes ASI um or AGI, you're you're going to have a you're going to reach a moment where it's going to claim or uh people will claim that it is it should have rights, should have human rights.

Yeah, I don't think you go ahead. Yeah, not in the short term. I don't think in the short term we're going to see that. The question that you're raising is a good one. is the degree to which AI and robotics are combined and you have greater sense of interaction. It can give the illusion of sensience and sensience has always been the key issue as to whether you have rights. The reason that human beings are treated differently from other animals is because of sensience, the awareness of who you are, consciousness. And so this is sort of the Westworld, you know, type of yeah of theory that eventually they could break through to sensience. We're a long way from that. I I think that what we have to focus on immediately is what AI is going to do to us as opposed to what we're going to do to AI and prepare ourselves for the elimination of whole uh job categories.

There's not going to be taxi drivers. There's not going to be bus drivers. There's not going to be many radiologists. All of that is going to go the way of the buggy whip, right? And when I talk about AI and Rage of the Republic, I I mention the uh the wonderful first work of of Ke of Vonagget, uh Kurt Vonagget and called Player Piano. And he describes the scene of this this carpenter looking at this vast factory of wathe and each lathe is reproducing or exactly replicating his actions and he was told what an honor it would be that he would be immortalized.

But of course he and the rest of his colleagues were then fired and they just watch these machines do what they did. Um the player piano problem is a serious one that we become player pianos. we the that robots and AI mimic what we do and then we are not necessary and so we have to have that that debate we got to talk about it but what rage of the republic suggests is that we have to talk about it not just in terms of the economic impact we have to start to talk about it on its democratic impact of how that's going to change our relationship with the government

Jonathan is always great to talk to you I wish we could talk more fascinating Thank you so much. Your book is great, Rage in the Republic. It's available everywhere. Thank you so much, Jonathan.

Thank you, Glenn. Good to be with you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277"?

Glenn Beck (Guest), Jonathan (Guest).

What is "Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277" about?

The discussion draws parallels between contemporary American political turmoil and the violent outcomes of the French Revolution, emphasizing the dangers of unchecked rage and the importance of constitutional governance to channel dissent constructively. It highlights themes from Jonathan's book, "Rage in the Republic," which compares the different paths taken by Philadelphia and Paris after…

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13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Constitution, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Rage of the Republic, French Revolution, Benny (grandson of Benjamin Franklin). Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Is Leftist Rage About to Turn as BLOODY as the French Revolution?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 277"?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 10,235 words in 96 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 8, 2026.