To the plot to change america. That is why the new book the plot to change america is so important and why we are hosting this conversation. We will have a lively discussion that has the most articulate observers of American Culture today. And host of the two most popular podcast in america. Finally a conversation we will have a q a session which i will moderate so that any point during the program you would like to ask please submit the question in the questions boss one box. Really answer as many questions in the time that we have. Want to introduce us special guests to kickoff the program that is Heritage Foundation president mrs. James the floor is yours. Good morning i am so excited to welcome you to the Heritage Foundation and our book launch with the plot to change america. Thank you all for joining us today we are so honored to have you with us, michael. We are so proud of Mike Gonzalez in the time and research he has put into this tremendous book. Hes not afraid to point out what is happening to our beloved country or than the destructive nature of identity politics. He is often at the tip of the spear one spear when it comes to the politics he doesnt want to see our country go down the treacherous road. Only in the 19 sixties we were struggling to desegregate and courageous whites and blacks were trying to bring races together to make sure it would live up to its promise of liberty and justice and equal treatment for all people. Today, most americans live in racial harmony we have our first black president and women in colors of the highest ranks of government and business, and yet young people are coming out of colleges and universities believing grievance politic politics, identity politics at one politics is the road to equality. Were the nation is where we have never been more interrupted. The book cannot be any more timely with the riots and distractions of the statues and monuments rewriting of the history in the classroom the American People need to wake up to the insidious of politics and they need to understand how it will poison our children and grandchildren if we just stand by and allow it to continue. We cannot let that happen and we walked. So thank you for writing this important book and for being here to talk about that. We are all looking forward to the conversation. Thank you mrs. James. Its an honor to be at the Heritage Foundation although virtually and its a pleasure to be joined by Mike Gonzalez and talking about the plot to change america. When i look around today and i see roving band of anarchist tearing down statues of the Founding Fathers all using the rhetoric of identity politics summer selfproclaimed marxist. I cannot help but wonder if you hire these group of people as a Marketing Tool to promote the thesis of this book because we see it play out. Thank you for being here. Im happy my book is selling well and the ideas are getting out but im not happy at all with the reasons why. I did not hire these people that you put your finger on it everything from anarchy in portland to the project to the organization the antiracism all of this is at the heart why i wrote my book little did i know writing one year ago today the summer of 2020 im calling the summer of hate and from what we have done to ourselves. And people are skeptical of that designation of the time but now the description is apt with those ideologies. Theres one moment early on in the book that was a little surprising to me but you are absolutely right that when people think of identity politics a Political Correctness, intersection nullity a lot of people consider that the eccentricity. We need to talk about the budget or foreign policy. That you say it much more specific and it has become a National Partner what do you mean by that . It is the software for culture we have become mean divided based on race and ethnicity and sexual orientation, gender and disability status. Any degree of victimhood to get attention or rewards from on your daughters principle says and then to high school when the kids are made to read which is a wonderful job not of telling history but thats really at the heart of this and then obviously the University Campuses taken over by this but it migrates over to the workforce. Age on hr tells people to put a sign on the desk that they are an ally. Are we at war . So i have come to believe it is a jugular issue. But not every group gets to claim identity politics grievance status even though i have sicilian heritage it seems i would not qualify. So how does one get to claim this privilege of being oppressed . We decided in the sixties to siphon off people to call them minorities. We have never done this before. Not even in the twenties with a huge number of lebanese or sicilians were jewish people from Eastern Europe those that could be identified. But we chose not to. We choose to say let them join the melting pie and become americans through simulation and in the fort 19 forties they would associate the collective discrimination and in 1961 with the association of victimhood. We divide all these people into minority groups and it is that to say and to be systemically racist and to change the institutions. You mentioned social scientist in the institutions. And with the popular imagination identity politics is something developed from the grassroots people spontaneously taking to the streets with a consciousness as a group of people to demand their rights that is the official leftwing narrative people pushing identity politics. You say the origins are much more specific involving a small group of people and is highly intentional. Who is behind it . Is not a grassroots effort. In fact it was written by elite activists and ideologues who formed a bureaucracy to create these groups and then promoted this at the universities and in the sixties the Ford Foundation gave 600,000 to ucla for mexican americans and they came back that mexican americans did not feel they were minorities or a victim group they did know they were facing discrimination but they thought they could solve their own problems at the individual level use their own agency to overcome the problems. This was very bad news for ucla researchers in the foundation that started the process to create identities the Ford Foundation was already giving money to instill those identities and then the Ford Foundation begins to support all of this and behind all of this postmodernist that wanted to replace the narrative and to replace what is the American Dream of the american story we are not perfect but it would be improved by using our ideals. These theories as you see play over and over again among the people who create the groups and create identities. You mentioned antonio who is founder of the Italian Communist Party the most significant marxist philosopher even more than karl marx himself. So in the beginning he was formulating these ideas out into a critical theory and modern university. Today people claim the mantle of identity politics claiming they are trained marxist as part of that blm organization it seems to be people who are communist but then when you raise that specter people say thats a Conspiracy Theory you see communist everywhere as a red scare. Is that a theory or a conspirac conspiracy . The one who first comes up with the idea the fascist goes to prison it was a very bad idea we know from the apostle st. Paul people do thinking and present so he begins to think why having revolutions happen the only succeeded one place with russia in 1719 there is no italian and soviet and then they fail in italy and he begins to say the reason the worker is his own oppressor and has accepted the givings of that pressure class with family and religion and the Economic System and the institutions. So this is his theory we have to destroy the hegemonic narrative. This is what we see today. The creator of the 1619 project this replaces the narrative of america. And then refinement comes from the Franklin School and then to come up with the idea of critical theory that mark and jay who wrote a very good book there were no attacks on stalin. And on those western norms. What you have today on campus . That hasnt infiltrated every the faculty in law school to study critical the goal theory. And those that started in the sixties by these activists. And angela davis and was thought directly in the sixties and she says that ethnic studies are the intellectual arm of the revolution. She knows what shes saying. So to take it seriously we see what is happening to repeat the same phrase that they used in the twenties and thirties and forties and fifties and sixties. You go into detail in the book is intellectual evolution that flows into crazy politics. Not a dedicated chapter to black identity that the black people of the history of the United States and jim crow and everything that accompanies those institutions. Identity politics attempts to conflate the experience of other minority groups with the black experience in america. So how do these minority groups develop . What about hispanic or latino . But i do notice your last name is gonzalez. What is the hispanic identity . And people did not buy into it. It is the analogy of the unique black experience they did on purpose a National Organization for women and then to make a Clear Association with jim crow. Thurgood marshall said this experience is unique. But off the bat i will not have a chapter on africanamericans because they are a unique experience. It is healthy to fill the hearts and minds with africanamericans not with hatred but jim crow happened in segregation happened. In fact i fight so hard because i dont want to go back to plessy versus ferguson but very rapidly separate but equal we are going back with identity politics. The hispanic model is very clear when they first try to organize in the late forties with the election of the city council to organize mexican americans who worked with saul zelensky who did not think they were organized enough. But then to have disbelief mexicans should be considered a race. It is a nationality many mexicans are indigenous, there are a mix of african mexicans. So they do have the association of mexican then they want to expand to bring in cuban immigrants to florida and then you start to come up with the idea of hispanics which the activist really begin to almost intimidate into creating the bureaucracy finally in 1977 omb comes that what policy directive number 15 which has a hispanic identity than three years later its introduced in the census of 1980 to have a hispanic identity and also Asian Americans which is another huge group to brings together americans of many different origins like pakistan or korea or china or the philippines america is very different as a cultural indicator with the umbrella of Asian Americans many people listen to this would be surprised to hear hispanics were concocted by the bureaucracy and thinking this has been around forever in fact a professor who wrote about this said people will forget and accept the identity this is what they wanted to do in north africa to create another Identity Group for arabamericans or persian americans. The development of mean i think we have collective amnesia that was a new Identity Group the left try to put on us during the Obama Administration and it never took off. Been one for the good guys there is at one more Grievance Group concocted. Because as you point out the vast majority of history arabs were considered light you name number of wellknown arabs like the governor of indiana those of middle eastern origins. Like steve jobs and that raises the question of White Privilege bestselling books are written on the subject. You cannot take a job within the School Without taking a Training Session castigated for your White Privilege. But if one receives a special privilege by being white and why are activists clamoring to remove their designation to create a new identity Politics Group . Yes. It gives to the idea of White Privilege the book hillbilly elegy described and when he got to yale or he was unaware what was expected culturally or which utensils to use. A quote the activist who met at the Census Bureau including one radical palestinian activists the very idea they bring people to their offices in 2015 to create mean that tells you everything you want to know of this agency of the left. They were very clear when they were discussing want to do they wanted to model on hispanics and then arabamericans dont want this we are not asking for that category but then a professor of studies said we want to understand there are benefits associated and government contracts and they showed right away that these racial purposes as a gateway drug to identity politics. But also you could derive benefit from proving that you are not white. You could call it oppression privilege that is totally inverted and to point out that she wore the hijab and she was just another white woman because in addition to racial categories there are sexual categories that women make up the majority of the population and the majority of College Students so how is it the majority is the aggrieved minority . And the they analogize the situation of black americans and they use the jane crow analogy. This is a new iteration of this but white women are now seen as a are moved to the oppressor class. And which is a bizarre phenomenon to be happening. And i havent read her book white fragility called white womens tears. So yes women are classified and moving back into the oppressor class. I havent read on read the white fragility but. It is a racial slur. It is a social acceptable luck so this evolution and what these racial categories are protected and to be a disagreement and then to believe in biological sex i am woman hear me roar. Now it is obliterated aid newsagency referred to individuals with the cervix. Now im individual with the cervix hear me roar so that is a contradiction with that particular identity category. Is there a chance identity politics will collapse in on itself or require a greater effort. I am hopeful. The reason i wrote my book is to shed light on what has happened. They first need to be aware of what happened who and why they did it before we start thinking ways to reverse what happened. At the end of the day these are marxist ideas with the concept of the conflict between groups and dynamics but at the end of the day the marxist set out to do the impossible in the supremely vain attempt to change human nature shea guevara said he wanted to create the new man but if you read the odyssey or the bible you come across people like abraham and sarah and you recognize them right away but they have the same vice and virtue that we have human nature is unchangeable. When we fail to change then marxist have to pull back from coercion if not violence. That is a feature of every system that has ever existed has had to rely on coercion the American People are too attached to freedom or their liberal date on liberties so this is a push back against cancel culture those to use that defense so my purpose is to explain as i can how this is done and how we talk about this and change the conversation in a more informed way and thats the process of solution i do believe that i am pollyanna. This is probably the sole consolation in Popular Culture of politics that reality reasserts itself in the end maybe 70 years of the soviet union that because you cannot change human nature ultimately that will reassert itself and it does appear people are coming to realize thes categories individuals that you name in the book but that gender ideology people know that a man is not a woman and a matter how many times of a professor for those Identity Groups no matter how many times they are told they say i dont think that describes me. Before we move on to q a the point that you make in the first chapter of your book we are here as a constant mantra diversity is our strength and what people mean by that putting ourselves into smaller Identity Groups we can look around and discover that is not the case we also have E Pluribus Unum and that unity is our strength have people woke up to that specific issue that President Trump has made . There is a common good and here in america . Is that argument catching on or do we have a ways to go for division before reality reasserts itself . But you have to represent the group congresswoman presley put it well when she said late last year if you come to the table as a member of the group you have to speak for the group if he will not come in to represent that group and what is assigned to you dont come to the table we have to think and speak with the idea of the hispanic category. What makes the country possible to come together as the american creating culture and then continue if you want i could continue to smoke cigars which i do and america is unique i lived in seven other countries at least for one year other countries many months this country is exceptional does take people in from all over the world and says you are an american and here is what we do. At the end of the day we solve all of our problems, slaver problems, slavery, segregation,e jim crow going back to the ideals of the revolution all men are created equal when lincoln fight against slavery he put in for somebody like me to come along mlk says we are here to cash the promissory note and we have to go back to aspiring to live by those ideals and then by aspiring to this idea we will solve identity politics. I thank you are right. Building of that equality principle we should notice the equality of viewers and take some questions from the audience. We will do as many as possible. The first is from jan in centennial colorado. What professional sports leagues and universities and every other powerful institution on board how does the average person fight against this . I dont want anyone to lose their jobs but we need to draw inspiration from those who live behind the iron curtain for those who do speak the truth and face consequences. There are great basketball players remain standing during the National Anthem. But that is not courageous. And people saluting hitler and this is one man with his arms folded. So when the Company Comes along there would be another struggle session and to use prudence and say what is happening. I think we have to summon some courage. I agree with everything you have said but i am reminded of the irony but the left tells us there is institutional racism. And every Major Institution of the United States media, big tech, hollywoo tech, hollywood, government, ed whose fault is that . Bringing up the basketball player and stood up for the National Anthem when everybody else took a knee we saw his name was jonathan and isaac im not a big nba fee and one fan but the lesson is even though he is a relatively unknown player he now sells more jerseys than anybody else in the league even more than lebron james. There is a silent majority not necessarily conservative but those who feel bullied and censored and intimidated by the ideology environment and they want to push back and reward people who fight back. Kids will ask me shed eyes speak up in class or keep my mouth shut and talk later . It seems honesty is a have it we dont want anyone to lose their jobs or kicked out of school wise as serpents to be innocent as a dove. Its not easier tomorrow to practice or tell the truth or have integrity when you are out of college with a job and a family to support. It will be easier to 20 years from now. Courage is a prerequisite. But if you show courage there are a lot of people out there, more than most people think to word reward speaking truth in the present environment. You mentioned your out talking to College Students so you talk to average people who try to navigate this. For those who dont study marks how does the average person talk about what is going on in laymans terms and explain why its dangerous . Thats key because so much of what is in mikes book is the highly technical jargon of those leftist academics going back 100 years to the point now to engage in a conversation with have no idea what we are talking about. If we speak in plain terms that are be a much easier way to communicate. Because you have this leftist culture the idea Political Correctness itself is to have these polysyllabic euphemism that says the obvious things. Engage at that level i cannot get through the dribble but there are many people in the country that feel something is off and something isnt right to come back to thes thinkers to pretend all philosophy is a science. The science of history or the social science and they use the term science so its impossible to disagree but with authentic politics there is debate since the dawn of civilization. Its legitimate. You dont need to have 15 letters and credentials behind your name to engage. We still have a voice at least for now, we the people. Very good michael. My son said talking about critical theory but once the opposite critical theory is the opposite of critical thinking. They tell you what to do and make you a puppet. If anybody wants to keep up with this there is a great resource with a great podcast. Thank you very much. On africanamericans a very unique history so why do you think black leaders have not far back of all of these invented groups hijacking . That is a very good question i have asked myself all along. Some people have said the Ford Foundation had the fear the Civil Rights Movement needed a wider constituency not just africanamericans. It could be the leaders or those constituencies in large man talking on behalf of all colored people so the average rank and File Americans with people of color or minorities and with africanamericans. I have all of mikes thoughts. [laughter] i actually think this point that mike makes in the book not to have a chapter on black identity is the key. The black identity in america is unique and we cannot analogize other groups experiences. For one simple reason that a huge number of black people today have their ancestors that were brought here against their will and that is a category graphically different experience from those who chose to come here. The idea your greatgrandfather decided to come in search of a better life is a free active will shows how preposterous it is generations later contrive a grievance as a country that your ancestors sought out the country a place to build a better life. And with that insertion of identity politics dealing with this and Montgomery County so what advice would you give those who have kids in school . Asking the tough questions and then you have to ask why you spending money on the cultural response to teaching . And then to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent on books and computers. With those policy recommendations with that category creation business. And the second is a corollary to stop giving benefits for people to adhere to these categories. I believe affirmative action which is racial preferences is unconstitutional and is running out of time and said we will approve this but only 25 more years. With the Chinese Americans and indian americans. This is clearly a violation of equality under the law. And to be involved with childrens schools, school board meetings, look at the curricula. How damaging identity politics can be for Young Children in the schools. There is nothing worse you can tell a young child that you cannot succeed because of your skin color or Sexual Identity or whatever category you prefer. And seventies we told them they could do whatever they wanted and then god participation trophies and maybe went too far now it has swung in the opposite direction. Know how the population is told you will not succeed. You cannot do anything and dont even try. But then to teach us to grow and tame passion for those who can strive and achieve. When identity politics creeps in we can joke about those categories but it can be damaging. If it comes across punctuality or hard work or the use of reason to say do not teach this poison to my child. It is racist on this one you really have to stand up and say what set on separates us is reason so dont say it is a white thing i cant believe in say that in 2020. There was an argument on twitter yesterday of two plus two equals four and people were serious. [laughter] now we have a question from canada, why do corporations and foundations find the movement . What do they get out of it if so few people support it . A great question from our neighbors to the north that i refer to as americas hat. [laughter] there has been a big mistake for several decades with that everexpanding size and scope of government they give a pass with a Bad Reputation to be promoted on promoters of Corporate America and the meaning this leftward lurch and embrace seeing identity politics to hurtle us into nonsense and oblivion because that would be to follow the all Mighty Dollar and its easier to have activist groups that are well he on dash wellfunded in the plot to change america. When those are threatening boycotts even with a couple the zune phone calls its easier they will save a little bit of money why not capitulate . We need to hold them to account. There has been a debate since the rise of President Trump those that dont seem to have much loyalty to the United States. And the nba seems more loyal to china and the United States. I dont blame corporations for following the alMighty Dollar but we have to hold them to account. Even if by some miracle to reign in the educational system, you would have a major power and if we dont get them on the right track we cannot escape this scourge of identity politics. Talking about identity politics we know we have a shared american identity. How do we restore that . We have to go back to teach civics. Who were the founders . What were their strengths or arguments . And what it is natural rights or natural law . And with that legitimacy it is all over founding documents. What do these things mean . So what is the separation and power . How do you become civic leave engage . Civics is taught as participation go in the stree street, you can get extra points in the civics class. And to go back to the old traditional understanding and then to do the hard job and also made up of plenty of different people. And the pleasure from knowing the background. We enjoy a grandma is cooking and Family History but also this other thing of americans. Just like someone like me who is born here. Not promising it will be easy but if we lose our freedoms. My thought is people should read the book. You are absolutely right. We will lose our freedom as we understand that and cherish it. We will do that if we have a sense of natural law allowing grievance to multiply. This didnt happen by accident not just a Grassroots Campaign that specific individuals going back 100 years who plotted this and affected the campaign to dismantle america and the fruit is all around us from jefferson and washington are falling all around the country. That was intentional not an accident. To save our country and the cherished institutions and freedoms that will be an intentional act to muster the courage to do it. And thats why i strongly encourage people to read the plot to change america. And listen to the Michael Knowles show. [laughter] i cannot think of a better way to spend the last hour. Thank you for giving us your time and your mind and your works. We will share a recording of this later. We purchased a copy of the plot to change america. He already purchased one by one as a gift. Go to heritage. Org the plot. Second subscribe to both of Michael Knowles podcasts. Thank you for joining us and have a wonderful tuesday. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you