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