According to Bethany Mandel, and her co-author Karol Markowicz, “the Left is waging an all-out battle on the American family, particularly the youngest members. If they can make our children miserable, lead them to question every building block of society, and rebuild their entire concept of reality, then the Left and their woke indoctrinators will consider that a victory.”
They go on to argue “As concerned parents and American citizens, we have to understand what’s truly going on before we can do something about it. Stolen Youth provides an urgent deep dive into issues surrounding the current woke indoctrination happening in politics, education, medicine, mental health, entertainment, and culture. These issues may seem subtle, insidious, and hard to make sense of, but armed with the information provided in this book, we now have a framework from which to fight. While we may simply be trying to parent our children well and create a healthy and happy home environment, this is no longer enough.”
The authors firmly believe “Our children’s lives and the survival of our families are at stake.”
In this conversation Dr. Shermer agrees with some of the authors’ conclusions, disagrees with others, and pushes back against some aspects of conservatism.
Bethany Mandel is a contributing writer for Deseret News, an editor of the children’s book series Heroes of Liberty, a columnist for Fox News, and a homeschooling mother of six. She is a frequent guest and host on talk radio and occasionally appears of Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax. She has written for the New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Spectator, and more. Bethany lives with her husband Seth and their children in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her new book, co-authored with Karol Markowicz, is Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation.
Shermer and Mandel discuss:
- How widespread is the problem of woke ideology?
- Of the tens of thousands of schools and libraries how many embrace wokeness?
- What is “the left” and how does it differ from liberalism, classical liberalism, and libertarianism?
- What is progressive?
- What is woke?
- What are the true motives of woke progressive leftists?
- anecdotes vs. data about woke actions and intentions
- What is a woman? What is a man?
- What is trans?
- sex and gender
- woke medicine
- transgender affirming care
- libraries and publishers of children’s books
- government vs. private responses to social movements and ideas (Florida vs. Disney)
- Trump, DeSantis, Liz Cheney, the Lincoln Project, and other GOP issues
- abortion: pro-Choice or pro-Life?
- support for children: government or private?
If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.
This episode is sponsored by Brilliant:
This episode was released on June 27, 2023.
