Dennis Prager Reacts to Brazil’s Election | Dennis

Hi, Dennis. How are you? Hi, Marissa. Good to see you. Would love to hear what's on your mind this week. There's certainly a lot going on in the world. I tell you, many years ago, about, I would say 30 years ago, I was already in radio for 10 years, and people said, when people, strangers would meet me, what do you do for a living? I'm a talk show host. They said, oh, and what are your future plans? I will be employed till I die because I talk about the world's problems. So this is a perfect example. Within one week here, we have the Israeli elections, the Brazilian elections, and then a week later, we have the American elections. It's quite remarkable what's happening. So let me talk to you first about the Latin American giant, Brazil. Brazil is elected, theoretically elected, a guy named Lula. I think it's his third or fourth time being elected. He's 81 years old, and he's a leftist. He's a true leftist. And it pains me to say, I don't believe he won. Let me read to you what the Wall Street Journal editorial page wrote. Mr. Bolsonaro, that's the conservative. Let in the first voting round. Now, as far as I know, I'm departing from the Wall Street Journal text. As far as I know, in Brazilian history, the winner of the first round has always won the final round. But it didn't happen this time. Bolsonaro won in the first round. So I continue from the Wall Street Journal. The socialist comeback victory surprised markets, not least because Brazil's $2.6 trillion economy is sputtering and wages aren't keeping up with inflation. By the way, it is another amazing thing how the left ruins economies. Their whole appeal is economic and they ruin economies. So I go on now. Brazilian GDP grew a mere 2.3 percent in 2025. That's not enough to reduce poverty, while the rest of the world runs ahead. The Workers' Party, that's Lula's party, has held the presidency for nearly 18 of the last 24 years. In that time, 14 countries. have overtaken Brazil in per capita GDP, including the Dominican Republic, Guyana, and Thailand. So what happened? How did they work this out? Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula's former lawyer, extended voting for two hours at the request of the Lula campaign. He's a socialist judge. Again, the silvers. Lula's personal lawyer, now listen to this, he increased voting by two hours after all the conservative districts had shut down their operations and could not restart their voting machines. Would you say that that's corrupt? So every Latin American country is governed now by A conservative with Brazil. And Mexico, the two giants, exceptions. Anyway, in Israel, of course, as I speak to you, this is the election day in Israel. So people won't be seeing this until they already know the results. I don't know the results. So let me just say one thing, maybe two. First of all, no matter who wins. You're going to have the same policies vis-a-vis Iran, vis-a-vis Lebanon, vis-a-vis Hamas. So all of this, oh, we love Israel, we hate Netanyahu, that will be tested if Netanyahu doesn't win, because they'll have the same policies. Number two, because of Israel's cockamamie parliamentary system, you have to have, you You have to join. with some other parties in order to have a majority and be able to govern. If any of the opposition parties would join with Netanyahu, since again they have the same policies vis-a-vis Israel's enemies, if any of them did that, then he would not have to have These right-wing kooks, like Ben Gavir and Smotrich, in his cabinet. He wouldn't need their parties, and he wouldn't need the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, who get state funds but won't serve in the armed forces. So I believe that Israel's opposition has Bibi Netanyahu derangement syndrome, like there is derangement syndrome vis-a-vis. Donald Trump in the United States. It's really sad. Anyway, so Marissa, I suspect you do not follow the Women's National Basketball Association. No, I actually know more about the elections in Brazil than women's basketball. Dennis, I have a question for you about Brazil, because millions of PragerU followers actually reside in Brazil. They write to us all the time, especially the moms who are attempting to homeschool their kids. And if anybody is following what homeschool families are trying to do in Brazil, you know that they've become a direct target. And so they have been writing to me since the Brazilian election, and I really don't know what to say to them. They feel such despair and are disaffected because they feel that even when they try to get involved and vote and get involved in their civic duty. Nothing changes because once the left wins one election, that's it. There's just cheating and corruption from then and on. So what advice would you give to our Brazilian listeners who are so upset? I came up with a slogan before my accident on my radio show where I read in one of the many Bible commentaries that I've been consulting. For the writing of my own commentary, The Rational Bible, where the spies went into Canaan to see, you know, how Israel should fight there. Ten of them, ten of the twelve, came back with despair, and the commentator wrote, despair is a sin. And I apply that to my own life and my own condition. As is obvious to you and anybody who has seen me or heard me, I am not in a state of despair. And I apply that to the macro. What you have to do is fight. And ultimately, we will prevail. The problem is the word ultimately, how long it will take and how much damage will the left do. Before we prevail, whether it's in America or Brazil, but ----, they can't, they can't despair. You know, I was planning to go to Brazil to speak because both I and PragerU have so many fans there. And God knows that's my dream is to really go back to international speeches. And if I do, Brazil will be the first place. The other thing that is very telling is I've been hearing that as soon as the election results came in, Bolsonaro had to get on a plane and flee Brazil, which if everything is all fair and balanced and it's truly a democratic vote, why did the opposing candidate who lost need to flee the country right away? Yeah, because they probably wanted to arrest him. This is common. What did they want to do to Donald Trump? This attorney general in New York State, what did she want to do? She wanted to arrest him. And she, what was it, 41 counts? It was all one count done, 41 times. The people don't know what the record of the last 100 years of the left in the world has been. It's all they do is damage. That American young people can vote for so-called democratic socialists and prefer socialism to capitalism. One has always led to mass enslavement, deprivation of basic rights, and death. And one has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in world history. They don't know that. Or they don't want to know that. I'm not sure which it is. That's what we're encountering. Dennis, last time we chatted, we talked about how multiculturalism has effectively destroyed France and you saw the supposed student riots who are rioting because they wanted better conditions in classrooms, yet they had to run around and burn the city down with their free Palestine flags. Now you're seeing the same type of youth erupting all over Europe, especially in Spain now. Most recently, Barcelona is almost burning down. Again, supposedly these are students, student riots, wanting a better life, yet they're running around with the Free Palestine flag in Spain. I don't know what Spain has to do with Free Palestine, neither what does France have to do with Free Palestine, but it seems like every time you see the Free Palestine flag, it has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with an attack on these Western countries. The Palestinian flag has become the international symbol of destruction. If you want to destroy. Your society and Western society, specifically, the symbol is the Palestinian flag. The hatred of Israel has nothing to do with being pro-Palestinian. It has to do with hatred of Israel as embodying Western civilization, which is what it does. That's what it embodies with it being a liberal democracy. And so what they do is they make up. Enormous lies about Israel, like genocide. There are more Gazans than before the war. There are more Palestinians than before the war. It's a pure lie, pure lie. You know, a lot of lies have a little truth. There is no truth. It doesn't matter. They have to lie about In order to. Demoralize it. In other words, remove any moral authority from Israel. And that way they could help the anti-Western civilization cause. People should ask, what the hell is the Palestinian flag doing at all of these demonstrations and all of these fires that these arsonists set? It's a question everyone should ask. One of the questions that I've received online in response to some of your commentary about how the West is being destroyed, and in many ways actively by billionaires who are funding some of these riots, and we're hearing allegations that maybe George Soros, maybe people like him are actually funding riots in Western cities all around the world. And the question that that we've received was, well, why would billionaires want to fund the destruction of Western cities? What's in it for them? Do you have an answer for that? Yeah. They know that they personally won't get hurt. And that's their ideology. These people, George Soros, believes in leftism like the Pope believes in Catholicism. That's his belief system. He's a nihilist. It's hard for any of us. To imagine believing in nihilism, the denial that anything has meaning, but that's what they are. So it's irrelevant that they're billionaires. If anything, there is residual guilt. I have so much money and there are so many poor people. Let me atone for all the money I have by being a leftist. So there's that element, too. Do you think it's possible that these heads of states like Macron or the billionaires who are funding these riots are watching what's happening in the streets and saying to themselves? Oh my gosh, what have I done? I can't believe I funded this. I can't believe I supported this. I made this huge mistake. It went too far. I didn't realize they would burn down these beautiful cities. It would destroy Western civilization. I regret it. Please forgive me, God. I can't believe I've done this. Is it possible that there's going to be some remorse that we will see where they're just going to grab their heads and say, wow, I made a huge mistake? The answer to your question is... I know of no example. There was an example. They weren't billionaires. People should read the book, The God That Failed. It's a bunch of communists in the late 40s, I think, who got together and wrote a book about how their whole lifetime of belief in communism is crumbled now that they know what Stalin really did. But most communists, even when they found out about The mass murder of about 20 million people by Stalin didn't change. The people who support him now didn't say to themselves, wow, that man murdered 60 million people. I can't believe I supported him. I don't know. There must have been somebody who said that, but it doesn't matter because there's people who support the left. Don't do so. On the basis of facts, they do it on the basis of ideology. So since they didn't get to their leftism by facts, they won't leave their leftism by facts. It feels like it takes a lifetime to understand how the left thinks because it just makes no sense. It just seems so chaotic and disruptive. I guess it's certainly helpful that we can ask you these questions given how much you've studied the left. I just still, I can't reconcile how it makes no sense. I'll tell you what makes sense. They hate the Judeo-Christian value system. And consciously or not, they want to undo the order that it had created in the world. That's how you can understand that they believe that a boy can become a girl and a girl can become a boy. They really believe that. That's a gigantic lie. There is no truth to that. A boy cannot become a girl. He can think he's a girl. He can think he's a squirrel. He can think he's a tree. But he isn't one. He's a boy and she's a girl. You know, they speak about, what is it, affirmation. Gender affirming care. Yeah, gender-affirming care. It's totally, that term is entirely Orwellian. Gender-affirming care would be care to affirm the real gender of that child. This is gender-unaffirming care. But we have adopted their language, as we have so often. So what do they gain by saying a boy Can become a girl and then compete in girls' sports. Chaos. The ultimate end of autism is chaos. It is power, but power used to spread chaos. That's all it is. Well, I have some, on a lighter note, I have some really fun questions from around the world, from our Prager United members, people of all ages. So Dennis, are you ready for some of these questions? I am. I just, I wasn't fooling when I asked you about the WNBA. I just wanted to note it's all run by the left. And one of the most despicable displays is just happening. They just had their finals, their championship match between Atlanta and Golden State. And both teams leave the court. Prior to the playing of the national anthem, they run off the court. Is that disgusting? It's disgusting. I hope that hockey is not going to get destroyed by the left, too, because we have one thing that we can enjoy for now, and I think it's hockey. So pray with us that we don't lose that sport as well. My favorite sport. All right, so I have a Prager United question from Alex, 45 years old, Dallas, Texas. I have a son who graduated high school and has no ambition. How do we instill ambition and work ethic into him? Wow, my God, my heart breaks for that father. This is really somewhat new in America, certainly. There was not one kid in my high school class who did not have ambition. It would be like saying, That somebody in my class didn't know how to breathe. I'm better off at knowing what's caused it. And again, I go back to social media and I go back to the notion that no demands were made of this generation. The participation trophy is the perfect example. You're getting a trophy for doing nothing, nothing. You didn't win. You may not have even played. You may have sat on the bench the whole game, but you get a trophy. So why be ambitious if I'm going to be given everything anyway? I'll tell you off the top of my head, the less these parents give to this kid, the better. If you don't work, you don't get anything free. You will have to pay for your own food. Your own room and board, nothing may make you as ambitious as not having lunch. Those people get ambitious. We gave them way, way, way too much, and all they got was praise. I remember I tell the story. My father was a pretty rough World War II vet. I would say that until high school, mid-high school. I would say he complimented me twice in my life. Once was my bar mitzvah, when I did an incredible job. I read from the Torah scroll the longest portions that you could have, 248 verses. I memorized the words and the musical notations to be able to sing it properly. After I did it, without one mistake, my father said to me, good job. That was it. Kids get praised for being in a pot more than I got praised for 248 biblical verses. So I think this father should take a look very carefully. How much does he give his child without the child having to earn it? As I have said. And Charlie Kirk adopted. My favorite English verb is earn. And that's what that child needs to do. Yeah, it's always so hard for parents to withhold things that feel so essential. It is so hard. So courageous parenting is a rare, rare thing. Yeah. This one is from Noah, 30-year-old Fairfax County, Virginia. Dennis, I recently started a family and I am worried about the landscape my kids will be growing up in. How do I know when it's time to move my family to a more family-friendly area and leave our friends and family behind? Yeah, how do you know? The minute you wrote this, you knew. There is the only thing that Hillary Clinton ever said that I agreed with is it takes To raise a child, it's absolutely right. You need a village of like-minded people. It could be your church, your synagogue, some book club. It could be your family. I don't know what it would be. But remember, parents need to know. Peers raise children often, more than the parents do. So they need good peers. Also, they might consider... If they want to stay where they are, homeschooling. With homeschooling, you can find kindred spirits, even in a community that has no obvious like-minded people. So that's my answer. Madison, 25, from Naples, Florida. I'm in my 20s, and the dating landscape is difficult. I've been told that my church is a great place to meet like-minded partners, but I haven't had any luck. What other locations would you suggest are good places to meet future spouses other than church? Work for PragerU. That's true. We have a lot of PragerU marriages here, thank God. I encourage people to go on dating sites, but a lot of people have pretty poor results. One of the reasons is they're not nearly as honest and specific as they should be in describing themselves. You know, they will write, love Italian food, love the outdoors, love to exercise, love to bicycle. So what? So shallow. Yes, exactly. That's all bonuses. That's not what matters. What you write in your self-description is, I love America. I love Judeo-Christian values. I love Western civilization. If you have contempt for any of them, please don't respond to this. That's why you write, and you might get very, very few results, but they'll be kindred spirits. It's sure as hell. Beats. I love the outdoors. So good. Values. Okay, Dennis, this is probably the youngest question, from the youngest person we've ever received. Caleb, 13 years old, from Louisiana. My teacher is having my history and government class debate whether or not President Andrew Jackson should be removed from the $20 bill. Would you be pro or against removing Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill? And how would you make your case? Yeah, look, Jackson's a mixed bag. I totally get that. But I am against almost all of these removals. That's our history. And Jackson was obviously a very powerful figure and extremely popular president. And who would they prefer to put on the $20 bill? Whoever they put on Years later, we'll be found. to be very flawed. It's very dangerous to tamper with history that much, as has happened during COVID and the George Floyd riots. There were schools that stopped being Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. Somebody told me recently that he spoke to a bunch of high school kids And ask them what they knew. about Abraham Lincoln. And you know what they said? He was a slave owner. I mean, that's what we're teaching. The man was a moral giant. He was a giant. And that's all they know about him, which wasn't even true anyway. We got a lot of battle on our hands. We've got to encourage Caleb and everybody in his class to watch the PragerU videos. And learn a little bit about history. I'm profoundly familiar. I have learned so much from these videos. So this is what I was going to say. If some young people watched every video, read the books or the readings that are attached to the videos, they wouldn't have to go to college. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. That is how good they are. That is how much they would learn. And you know what else they would get? Wisdom, which is more important, even than knowledge. Yep. They'll probably learn that Andrew Jackson actually helped eliminate the national debt, which if a president could do that today, they would be considered an absolute hero all around. Well, they don't want him because of his treatment of... Native Americans. Yeah, yeah, sure. The Trail of Tears. Right. Well, Dennis, thank you for another great chat. And for all of you, Prager United members, keep sending in the questions. And I know that you're having your kids send in questions. It's always fun to read those to Dennis. We get to learn what's happening in your lives through these questions. So thank you, Prager United members, for supporting this project. And for all of you who are listening, God bless you. And make sure that you get involved in your civic duty. Get involved and help us save our country. And the world, by extension. So, bye, Dennis. Bye, Marissa. See you next week.