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Fun fact, no. I have to make my own with McDonald's Sprite, and you guessed it, Texas Pete. I am genuinely horrified to hear that.
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Where's my Mountain Dew? You're listening to Clear View Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm Jon Galantis. You can find us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-58-25028, or you can email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com.
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We're going to leave a couple of links right there in the description so you can do just that. And we are here once again, live in The Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, it's a fantastic day.
Yes, it is. It's a fantastic day. I wonder why.
We're celebrating today because today is a good day. Now with some of these guys, these guys, folks know I don't drink alcohol or any fermented drinks, but I do have occasional, what is this? It's just an energy drink. Zero sugar.
So that's how you know it's healthy. I love it. Bottoms up, my friends. Energized. Energized. Wow. That can was pretty much empty.
Okay. So people, that tastes like one of those, you know, the rare white and blue popsicles, the rocket ship ones. That's what that tastes like. It's called phase pop. Phase pop. I'm trying to, trying to get that into the election somehow, but I don't think I can. I think a lot of people were phased last night when they saw the results. There you go, my dude.
Okay. So people want us to talk about the election. Dr. Shah, how late did you stay up? I was up until three thirty. So three o'clock is when the big celebration in Palm Beach was finished. And so I was talking to a friend of mine who was at the location in Palm Beach and he sent me a picture of him and his wife.
They were somehow seen on TV. And so I was having a conversation with this person and it was just excited about which direction our country is headed now. And this is not just like, hey, we won in celebration. No, this is about what's next. Right. So I was going to say that too. At any rally that I've seen for Kamala Harris, the chant is always the same.
Kamala, Kamala. And then she's like, come on, you guys chant your names. And then everyone tries to do it.
It doesn't work. At every Trump rally I've ever seen. And we've been to two in person. I know you've been to like three or four.
USA, USA. I never hear people shout Trump, Trump, Trump. I'm sure it happens. But I've never seen it. But that's not the final shout.
No. I think even last night, I think the final shout was more about, hey, we're excited about the future. We're excited about which direction we're headed. It's time to heal the nation. I think that's we've heard that kind of rhetoric before. But this time, I truly believe it's going to happen and needs to happen where everybody comes together. And we recognize that we are Canadians and we are we're coming. Look, I am not coming from a Caucasian background. OK, so so even I am in that mix of what makes America, America.
So, yeah, right. It was it was real. Did you stay up? I'm going to be honest.
I did not. I intended to stay up. I sat down on the couch, like ready to go. And then I woke up on my couch at like eleven thirty. I fell asleep at nine thirty on the couch.
Wow. I was like, I'm going to I'm going to watch this. And then I woke up like two hours later, like with my neck all messed up. But I was I was looking at it at eleven thirty. Could barely keep my eyes open. I got home. So you guys were still doing the you guys were still doing play rehearsal last night. And Dr. Shay, you were here with with Adam. You kind of looking at lights and stuff in the building.
I went home as my son's birthday party and we had it up on the TV. And Trump started with a phenomenal lead. And I was like, oh, wow, this is incredible. But they kept telling you, you know, hey, this is too soon to call. And they just kept saying, hold off, hold off, hold off.
Yeah. And he stayed. The thing I thought was interesting was he stayed ahead the entire time. And it seemed like at one point, I think it was like around midnight or so, it had been stuck at two thirty for Trump versus two ten for Kamala for like an hour and a half.
And it just wasn't moving. Right. And I remember we were in a thread. We were like kind of all talking and everybody was watching from different sources. And Ellie, my wife was watching some some streamer, I don't know. And he had numbers that I couldn't find anywhere.
So I was like, where are these people getting these numbers? And that was when I kind of called you. I was like, where are you watching? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I was watching Fox News and I was also watching Newsmax. And then occasionally I would drop into Google and try to figure out if somebody else is talking about this and whatnot. And that that helped sort of understand where things were.
And of course, I am also have live alerts that come from CNN. So I was also looking at them. So I was not like all this all conservative news and nothing else.
And I was listening to everybody. Right. But mostly those two, Fox News and Newsmax were my my my source. Yeah. I was looking at the I was looking at the live feed from Associated Associated Press. I don't even know where where they stand politically.
But when you Google like election results, they for some reason they pushed Associated Press. Did it was that a shiver up your spine? A shiver is just like wow. Yeah.
It's got some kick to it. I was I was going I was kind of doing the same thing. I went over to CNN, but they were so you could tell it was kind of late in the night and their spirits were down and it just looked like a pity party. So I turned it off. I went to the Reddit threads.
Yeah. And I used to be on Reddit. I'm not on Reddit no more. But I remember the live streamer that Ella was watching talking about, I can't wait to see all the liberal meltdowns, all the snowflakes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
So I texted Dr. Shah. I said, do you do you think it'll be like that? And I remember you saying, no, I don't think anyone's going to be surprised.
And I don't think there's going to be the amount of pushback that we're expecting. Yeah. What made you say that?
Well, for several reasons. One is they know and has been coming like this for a while that Kamala Harris has not been gaining ground with voters. I mean, last night, if anything, people realized that this is not a racial thing. Right.
That's true. That was the biggest shocker to some people, but not to me. I was like, look, whether they are Christians or not, on average, Americans are not resonating with what she is saying or what the Democratic Party has been saying.
It's like it's not connecting. And the ones who are still diehard loyal, they're like diehard loyal, but they are not diehard loyal to the things that are being said. Right. And so it was like, I don't think people are going to be either shocked or even disappointed.
It would be more like I sort of expected that. Yeah. Glad that's over. Yeah. I think that kind of brings up an interesting point.
You know, we hear a lot about this being at least I got the perception that it was a much closer race than it actually was. Right. From like political ads. But then, you know, media is largely controlled by liberal sources. Right. Most media, I would say. Yeah. Hollywood.
I mean, TV shows, streaming services. It's mostly liberal control. That's why I think it's so funny when people talk about how Trump manipulates and controls the media. I was like, who was the last person that you saw go on TV and say a good thing about Donald Trump? The last person that I ever heard say a good thing about Donald Trump was the women on The View in 2016 before he actually got elected.
Since then, I've never once heard the media say good stuff about him. But that just reminds us that, you know, what we hear is often a vocal minority. It doesn't represent how most of the American population feels as evidenced by the popular vote last night. So I think you're exactly right.
And Dr. Sean, maybe you can weigh in on this. I think a lot of young, like Gen Z to millennial liberal people learned that lesson last night that I feel like they should have learned in 2020, which is social media. The social media echo chamber that you live your life in is not what America is. It's not reality.
It's not real. That's a good term for an echo chamber. Well, last night, they didn't expect African American vote to go towards Trump. They didn't expect African American men or African American women.
Shucks. They didn't expect the Hispanic vote to go towards Trump or Hispanic men, Hispanic women. They voted Trump.
See, all this was a shocker, which means the Democratic Party, as so many other commentators and newscasters have said, so I am not unique and first time saying this. No, they have a lot of soul searching to do. Do you even remotely represent the people you think you represent? Or are you are you representing people on the fringe movements, which, of course, that's what makes America America. We even fight for the rights of those who are on the fringe. But if the fringe begins to control everything and wants to shove this narrative down your throat, that's when you go, wait, wait, wait. You have the freedom in America to do this and then the other. But you don't have the freedom to do all this. At the same time, you don't control the narrative.
And unfortunately, they've allowed the fringe people to control the entire narrative to their own detriment. Fantastic point. It's funny, I kind of learned that lesson a little bit earlier this year, maybe late last year, with that whole baptism thing. You know what I mean by that?
Like, I remember always being told baptism doesn't save you, baptism doesn't save you. And it being true, that being completely true. But I was so convinced that to me, that was just normal. That was that was taken. What do you say? Taken for granted. Exactly. And so when I learned that people really, truly with all their hearts didn't believe that, it was shocking to me.
I mean, it really threw me. And I think that's what a lot of left-leaning millennials and Gen Z voters are seeing now is that they could not comprehend that most of the country disagrees with them. This make-believe world out of TikTok and Instagram reels is not reality. They grow up a little bit and you realize there's bigger things out there. Their value is worth fighting for.
There's money. I have some of the big things that I feel also move people, that people are saying, I don't care about that. I care about character. Well, when they went to the polling stations, they're like, I care about money.
Yeah, I know that I need to feed my family. And again, we can debate the character thing for a while, right? I'm not voting for a pastor. That's such a great point.
There are so many people, especially people who claim to be Christian, evangelical, Bible-believing individuals that have a problem. And you said this before, and I really appreciate, we're not electing a pastor. God raises up kings and he takes down kings. King David was not a perfect man. That's true. Okay, so the whole point is this. Now, I know we don't have kings and queens in America, but we have leaders.
If God hasn't expected that standard from them, why are you? It's not a high school popularity contest. We're not electing the prom king and the prom queen. And unless you have God on the ballot, Jesus was running. He's got my vote. I think I might would vote for Jesus. Then you can talk about character because everybody has a character flaw. So what are you talking about? Perfect candidates. Where are you going to find that?
Well, I like the way you put that where people are like, I don't care about money. Oh, is it Bill Clinton? No, maybe. No, sorry, Monica. I mean, you can't do that. Cool.
Who are we going to pick? Yeah, shout out to Monica. It's funny because a lot of people did say that. They're like, look, I don't care about the economy. I don't care about policies.
I just care about their character. And it turns out the left becomes very hyper-focused on all these social issues. And they found out that people really don't care about them if they can't eat. If they can't feed their families, a lot of even Democrats do not care about gay rights. They don't care about transgender rights. They don't care about women's rights and sports and any of that stuff if they can't afford groceries.
Yeah. Somehow this small group of intelligentsia, they really thought they understood American people and they realized they didn't. And no, our people are not prejudiced. No, they are not racist or sexist or anything else. I mean, they were not saying that we hate gay people.
None of that was happening. It was more like, hey, I just don't want those things shoved down my throat. I don't want those things in the public school. I want parents to have the final say so in their child's life.
I don't want boys to play in girls' sports. And right now, I know there are people who will minimize this and say, ah, for you, you're just making a big deal out of nothing and that's not really what's happening. OK, just because you dismiss something does not mean that wasn't the big party platform.
That's right. But it gets misappropriated as you're a racist, you're a homophobe, you're a bigot. Or you take away women's right to choose.
Like, no, a woman has a right to choose. Just don't try to kill babies. Right. Right. Don't try to murder children.
It's like, well, you know, it's not a child. OK, now that's now an existential argument. Right. And I know when it comes to a question like that, somebody's will is going to prevail. That's right. I'm coming from a perspective that I believe life is precious. Yes. That God made life and killing life is murder.
And what is that based on? Let's talk about that. Have you seen an ultrasound? OK, look at that life inside.
It's a real baby. Have you ever heard of how abortions are done, especially the later trimesters? It's horrible. Yeah, it's horrific.
It's chopping up the limbs of a child, injecting their fetal heart until that beating stops. I mean, all this. OK, my view is not just like I'm a Christian and that's what I believe. It's also based on looking at things and studying this.
It's not haphazardly done. And that's when you go, I cannot say that's not life. Yeah, I saw I saw a debate online recently that was around the idea of abortion. And it was a very liberal person presenting the question to a very conservative panelist. And he told her, he said, you know, all of my beliefs, my beliefs come from my religious system as a Christian.
However, all of my positions are defensible based on logic and previous legal standards. And when she heard that, it completely dismantled her whole argument because she was going to attack it from you're a Christian and you're trying to prove this from the Bible. And that's discriminatory. But he's like, no, if you look at the basics of this, yes, I'm a Christian and that informs what I believe. But if you look at the basics of your non-Christian and that informs what you believe, of course it does. It's going to go back to morality.
It's going to be your morality is going to be defined by something. Great point. Great point, because I think of what a lot of what we'll start to see in these next few weeks as as more and more people, because we're not the only ones discussing this.
Everybody in the country is talking about this right now. But I think what you'll see a lot of is, well, it wasn't her fault. She was dealt a bad hand. She had a hundred days to put together a campaign.
That's not fair. This and that and this and that. And they'll blame Biden and they'll blame all this stuff. But I think Dr. Shah, you kind of hit on it. And I think you just hit on it, too, is that with Kamala Harris and really, I would say, zoom out the whole Democratic Party or Democrat Party, there's a fundamental disconnect with the American people. They don't. It has been coming for a long time.
They don't know or care about really the American people. You know, there's an agenda, there's an ideology. And we furthered that and we gather who will support it.
And I think this time it just wasn't enough. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think they have, like I said a few moments ago, a lot of soul searching used to happen. I'm not like this one party person. Yeah, it's great to have a second party. Great to give that option to people.
But make sure that you're in somewhere in the in the vicinity of where most Americans are rather than going off in off the of the deep end and then expecting your constituents to follow you. They're not following you there. Right. Right. So this is a question that maybe you can kind of shed some light on talking about identity.
Yes. You know, as a whole, I feel like the Democrats have really failed to put together a cohesive identity. And what I mean by that is Republican or Democrat. Nobody was excited about having Kamala Harris.
Nobody was excited about having Joe Biden. Right. There's not really a cohesive identity. Whereas meanwhile, Republicans, I don't, despite what they say, I don't think a lot of Republicans really find their identity in Trump.
They find it in the Bible. And so there's there's a fundamental or really a foundational cohesion that puts us together. Right. What if you had to map a a what was the word? If you had to map that onto what the Democrats have, what would it be? Whereas ours is the Bible. What what is theirs?
What would you say that the liberal identity is? I think they've crafted one successfully here. Yeah.
So I'm putting up something I covered. It's been a while back. And what kind of a government system do we have in America? OK, that's that's the that's the big question. What kind of a government system do we have? We have a democratically elected constitutional republic. Democratically elected constitutional republic.
Now, what does that mean? Democratically elected means we allow our people to vote. Right. And allow it maybe maybe a big word, but we we we have our system set up that all our people who are American citizens.
Right. Have the right to vote. They vote their values. They vote their needs, their expectations.
They vote democratically elected constitutional republic constitution. This is a document that was crafted, right? Crafted Thomas Jefferson, one of the main or James Madison, really. But but also Thomas Jefferson was very involved in this. And the other fathers were also part of this this document.
James Madison might more have been the writer, but others were involved a constitution that that declares who we are as a people, what we stand for, what matters. If you think people back then were just prejudice and old white men who wanted to keep slaves, you need to go study history again. I've studied it and that's not the case. They examine politics, political theories. They looked at Europe. They looked at our new new new form nation. They studied the Bible. They really studied the Bible. And based on that, they created this constitution.
So now you have to think, is this an old outdated document or is this something really written with a lot of thought and prayer? Constitutional republic means we elect representatives who have more knowledge, understanding, even education experience to go out there and represent us. So I may not understand all the issues, but I'm trusting these people who I have elected to use the constitution as their guide to make the best decisions in my stead. That's what American government is. I mean, democratically elected constitutional republic. Now, if you have a party that's saying the constitution is all outdated, should be done away with, you have a problem. Right. Because it is the foundation for how our country operates.
That's right. If you tell the representatives that you're just going to do what I tell you to do, what I tell you to do, that's not what I'm sending my representative to Washington to do. Of course, I want them to stand for me, our values, and all of that. But I'm hoping when I'm voting for that person, I'm already expecting that.
And if they don't, guess what? Next elections, we're going to vote you out. In a democratic party right now, what's happening is, a democrat party, I should say, what's happening is the constitution is not there. It's not being valued. It's been debated. And it's almost like we need to redo all this because it's fundamentally flawed. So you have a problem.
Yeah. So if they've torn up their own foundation, if they don't have any identity that the American people can sort of latch onto, I guess all they have is just empty values. Like their own, the values, and what's the other word that you used?
Like empty values? Empty values of these people, of these certain characters, certain individuals with personalities and personas who have an ulterior motive, and we're expected to band around these people's ideologies. Good point.
Good point. Because I think a lot of times you see the majority of celebrity endorsements, big, big, big personalities. They're all Democrat.
They're all Democrat. Because it's like, we're going to, and you know what's really funny for a party who's so focused on income inequality, they sure go for celebrity endorsements a lot. They want the superstars and the ultra Hollywood elite to vote for them and then turn around and talk about, we got to equalize income across the country. They pay for them to come to this thing.
But that's a, that's a great point. It's all about these ultra hip personalities. I think we've talked about this on the show before, but when Trump won in 2016, he, there was, there was a group I listened to who they said out of their mouths, I could probably find it and put it in this episode if I wanted to, but they said, you know, I never thought there was an entire population in the country who doesn't care what Beyonce thinks. If Beyonce endorses, who is he running against, Obama or Biden in 2016? Oh, well Biden. So he was running against Biden. If Beyonce endorsed Biden, they truly thought Biden's got it. And he said, we'd never considered, he was a hundred percent serious. He wasn't joking. He was like, we never considered there's an entire country out there who doesn't know or care what Beyonce thinks.
I was floored when I heard that. Beyonce does not represent us. So when you go back and you think about all these things and your question was, what is it that the democratic party stands for? That's the question. Are you guided by this constitution, which was heavily influenced by the Bible and also by the leading philosophers of the time in Europe? Or is it your own personal values? Are you sending people there to thoughtfully make the best decisions and trust them with that? And if they don't, if they break your trust, bring them back. So you're done.
You're out of here. Or are we going to elect, you know, lifetime politicians who will stay there like we have many right now and who will keep keep the swamp going? Is that okay to do? Right. Yeah. Which seems like that is largely the goal of the Democrat party is lifetime politicians. And it's the, it's almost like I, as the person, as the citizen and giving you my elected official permission to be in power, permission to govern, permission to represent. And if, if you do something that does not represent me, then I'm going to, in my next vote, I'm going to vote to remove you from office. It seems like the Democrat party wants to turn that on its head.
Yeah. Good point. One thing I really liked about Trump, and I mean, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Trump doesn't punch back. If someone attacks him, he's going to punch back and say, no, they're wrong.
They're lying. So I'm not pretending that, but it seemed like his focus is here's what we're going to do. Here's my plan. We're going to fix this.
We're going to get this right. And it seemed like from the other end, it was all Trump is bad guys. Trump is dangerous. If you vote for him, it's, it's going to be bad vote for us.
And that doesn't inspire anybody. Yeah. And it's also not what our Republic is supposed to be. Right.
Democratic elect, democratically elected constitutional Republic. Is he going to hold fast to the constitution? Did he do that in the past four years? Yes. Is he going to represent you? Is he going to fight for your rights, your finances, your values, and you know, make America safe. Right. Okay.
He'll do it. That's what it's supposed to be. Democratically elected constitutional Republic. So you said, what about the man's character? What about the man's character? We already addressed that.
I mean, do you think he's a bad person or whatever? I mean, that's a different issue. He's not.
You can check, check that out real quick before, before it goes away on the TV. It says president Donald Trump and vice president Kamala Harris spoke by phone earlier today where she congratulated him on his historic victory present. Thank you for pausing that president Trump acknowledged vice president Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign.
And both leaders agreed on the importance of the nation. So, Hey, look, if they're moving forward, let's all move forward. Exactly.
Yes. That's a great, that's a great point. That's the, that's the direction we need to be looking in light of the results of the election in light of where we are as a nation. Let's look forward. Let's, let's move in a positive direction. Finally, instead of just bickering back and forth, one of the thing you'll never see on this show.
And I respect Dr. Shah for this a lot. And all of the guys who make the show possible is we're not doing the, the let's drink in the liberal tears videos of snowflakes crying. We don't do that because at the end of the day, we're still one nation under God. Absolutely. I love people across the line.
I don't care what they vote for. And in our community, we love people. We help people.
Somebody is, doesn't matter what side of the political landscape you stand for. If you need help, let me know. We'll help you. That's right. That's right. And that's how it ought to be. We are, we are the United States of America. We're one nation under God. And I think there are people who, you know, especially people who are, have media platforms, people who have been in the public spotlight that would have you believe otherwise and would fight for a, a, a divided America because they want to, they want to weaken what God has blessed us and where God has brought us as a nation.
I think we got a few minutes left, but I want to just highlight one last thing. And it's something that Dr. Shah has already said, but I think it really speaks to the heart of what we're saying is that you're going to hear a lot of talk about how the democratic party fumbled this, how they, you know, they made some wrong decisions and how she was put in a bad spot and all that stuff may or may not be true, but at the end of the day, there's a fundamental problem. There's a problem at the bedrock of their foundational identity. And if we can, as a nation, and I even agree with what you said, still you're, you might have two parties, but as a nation, if we can have a common ground, a common foundation. Yeah.
And decency with it. Yeah. I think that there will be a lot of hope in America.
Absolutely. We've been there before. We've had two parties. We've had rough times, but I think we can still move forward. And I really, really doubt that anybody has said then we worried, oh boy, since you got the presidency and the Senate and the house, I think the house so far, I don't know for sure what the numbers are there right now. I think it was leaning.
I think it was trending red. Okay. But the, oh, you're going to run everybody out. That didn't happen the last time.
It's not happening this time. That's right. That's right. So helpful for us and engaging that conversation and talking about what is the way forward? What is the path forward?
Right. We're clear view today. And our goal is to set your sights on what God is still doing in this nation and how God is still moving through, uh, through things like the political parties, through things like government, and ultimately got tanned us still in America. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, write in and let us know two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can visit us online at clear view today show.com. Don't forget you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button and let us know it's coming from our clear view today show family. John, anything you want to plug as our show ends today?
Absolutely. 30 days of praying for America, daily devotions to heal our nation. Believe it or not, president Trump has a copy of this book in his office right now. That is a confirmed fact. I could, I almost thought in his victory speech, I don't know why, but I thought he might hold it up.
I'm not making that up folks. Uh, president Trump was given a copy of Dr. Shah's book for real. Make sure that you buy it on Amazon. It's available right now. Also our debut album heaven here and now is available on iTunes and Spotify and anywhere else. Digital music sold. We're going to make that available for you and your church over CCLI and a lot more licensing, uh, distribution companies here in the next few weeks.
That's right. Make sure you guys tune in tomorrow. We got a great show playing for you guys. We love you. We'll see you tomorrow on clear view today.
