Hello and welcome to the official release of the one and only Ben Shapiro's new book.

Now the book is not the one and only. Ben has written many books, many bestsellers, all of them impressively with words.

The latest book, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, What Began as a Prophecy has now become a news report. But for the moment, while we still

have some semblance of a country left, we are pleased to welcome you to this live signing premiere

of How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps. Typically, you may recall, on our shows, you have got to be

a daily wire member to ask the questions, but today, oh today,

it is a special exception. Anyone who orders a signed copy of Ben's new book can submit

a question to be answered right here live while your book is being signed by this guy,

the one and only. If you want your question answered while Ben signs your book, head on over to dailywire.com

slash Ben right now. And while we wait for the questions to come in, Ben, how do you destroy America

in three days? Well, first of all, I have to say that this distance is like the best distance

I feel too far from you. I know, but it's exactly the right now distance. It like, it's absolutely perfect. So the basic thesis of the book, if you haven't heard me talk about it on the show for the last couple months, is essentially that what ties America together is our philosophy, our culture, and our history. And that without those three elements, any culture, any nation is going to fall apart. The philosophy of the United States is embedded in the Declaration of Independence, certain fundamental principles, that there are natural

rights, they come from God or from nature, and that they pre-exist government, that those rights

are endowed, inalienable in all of us, and that government is instituted in order to protect

those rights, and that a limited government is created in order not to infringe upon those rights. So the declaration is the ideological framework, and then the

Constitution is what really formalizes that into a workable system. That's the philosophy,

and that philosophy has been consistent throughout the U.S. history of the United States. We'll get to

the history in just one second. Second, you need a common culture. And what that means is you have to have a certain framework beyond mere government that we share. And that framework used to be things like social institutions that inculcated virtue, right? Churches and schools and communities. You needed those things. You also needed a general spirit of tolerance for other people's rights, meaning that rights exist. But one of the big problems with rights is that you then have to tolerate the guy next to you completely using the right in a way you don't like. You like free speech, but you don't like what that guy's saying. Well, there has to be a culture of tolerance for that guy using his rights in a way that you don't think. Could our common culture be cancel culture? That seems like the only thing we should. I think that that's exactly right. And that's kind of where we're going, is tearing down all of this in the name of a new faux unity. But you have to have that. You have to have a culture of entrepreneurship and adventure. You have to cultivate a spirit that says that the only thing you're promised in the United States is not a bunch of entitlements from the government. It is instead the adventure that comes along with freedom and the responsibility that comes along with freedom. And finally, you have to have a culture that says that it is worth standing up for those rights. It's not merely tolerating other people's rights. It's standing militantly when rights are violated. And that has been a common thread throughout American history, which brings us to the final element. You have to share a vision of American history. Well, that vision used to be pretty obvious. America was founded in 1776. It was founded on the

fundamental philosophical principles. The history of the United States is about the attempt to

fulfill those principles gradually step by step, stumbling, falling, sinning dramatically,

doing horrible things along the way. But eventually, the story of America is about the spread of prosperity and freedom to untold numbers of human beings at home and abroad. It's about the fulfillment of founding principle. And it's a glorious story. It is not, in fact, a downcast story about the vicious evil of the United States. Disintegrationists have attacked all three of these elements. They seek to level the United States by destroying all the ties that bind us. American philosophy has to be destroyed. American culture has to be destroyed. American history has to be rewritten as the story of exploitation of one group by another group that has never abated. There's never been any attempt to abate it. That 1619 is the same as 2020. Every article in the New York Times is this, right? Here's a bad thing that happened in 1720 with slavery.

And now here's a story about Michael Brown, and they're exactly the same. It's like, well, no, you missed a few things. But that culture, the disintegrationist view of America is taking real hold. I mean, there's this poll from the Wall Street Journal today that said that 59% of Americans, 58% of Americans said that the United States was a racist country. A huge percentage of Americans now say a majority of Americans now say kneeling for the American flag is appropriate.

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