In the first of a series of election specials for Fox News Sunday night, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro closed out the episode by responding to former presidential candidate and devout democratic socialist Bernie Sanders’ disparaging comments about the United States of America.
“This week, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), official beloved loonbag of the Democratic establishment, sounded off on what America meant to him,” said Shapiro. “He did so while appearing with alleged comedienne Sarah Silverman, who is mostly famous for saying dirty words in a little girl voice.”
Shapiro then played a clip of the perpetual grumpy Sanders complaining:
“We can’t even use dirty words. This is the United States Senate … We just starve little children, we go bomb houses and buses of children, and give tax breaks to billionaires, but we don’t use dirty words.”
Sanders’ “ignorant and unfunny” take on the country, said Shapiro, was important to examine a little more closely because “it reveals a serious gap in the way Americans from the hard Left think versus the rest of America.”
“In the view of the hard Left, universal ills are uniquely America’s fault; specific goods are actually the result of universal culture. So, poverty: America’s fault. Landing on the moon: a world achievement. War: America’s fault. A thriving global economy: a world achievement,” said Shapiro.
“The hard Left believes America is an awful, evil place, founded in racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia. All of our pretentious talk about all men being created equal with inalienable rights – all of that is just cover for the patriarchy, heteronormative, cisgender power structure that deprives outsiders of their due. That’s the view of Howard Zinn, of Hollywood, and of Bernie Sanders. It’s why many on the Left kneel for the flag. The flag is the symbol of a uniquely bad nation with a uniquely bad idea,” he continued.
“This is all absolutely wrong,” Shapiro stressed. “America’s founding creed – the belief in God-given individual rights protected by a limited government and enshrined by a virtuous people – has achieved precisely the opposite of what Sanders says. No, America does not starve little children. America lifts little children from poverty. The power of the America-led free trade and free market economy has alleviated global poverty faster than any force in human history. We are the engine of the world’s prosperity – and that engine is going strong. According to the World Bank, over the last three decades, extreme global poverty has dropped by 74.1 percent. Literally hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from poverty by the power of the American economy and its involvement in the world economy.”
And what of Sanders’ claim that we “starve little children”? Shapiro dismantled that hyperbolic assertion as well, citing a report by Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation:
“A poor child is more likely to have cable TV, a computer, a wide-screen plasma TV, an X-box, or a TiVo in the home than to be hungry.” According to Pew Research, “The US stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world” in terms of wealth: 56% of Americans were high income by global standards, and 32% were upper-middle income. Only 2% of Americans are poor by global standards.
Shapiro also debunked the idea that the “One Percenters” don’t pay their “fair share,” noting that the top 1 percent “pay 39 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay 70.6 percent of federal income taxes. The bottom 50 percent of income earners pay less than 3 percent of our federal income taxes. America’s tax system is more progressive than any other developed country in the world, according to The Washington Post.”
Shapiro then took Sanders’ ugly “we go bomb houses and buses of children” smear to task. “Let’s just remind Senator Sanders that America defeated slavery and Nazism and communism – well, to be fair, he might still be a bit torn about that last one,” he said. “America has spent more blood and treasure defending the freedom of others than any country in world history. The Union lost some 365,000 soldiers in the Civil War to free the slaves; 117,000 in World War I to keep Europe free of German imperialism; 405,000 Americans died in World War II to keep the world free of fascism; 37,000 died to keep the South Korean people free; 58,000 died in a vain attempt to keep the Vietnamese people free; more than 2,000 in a continuing attempt to free Afghanistan of its terror-masters; and yes, 4,500 in a continuing attempt to free Iraq.”
“That doesn’t mean America hasn’t made mistakes,” he continued. “But the American fighting men and women have been more humane in their pursuit of liberty for others than any other fighting force in human history, and the world has trended toward democracy and freedom because of it.”
Shapiro concluded with a direct message for Sanders.
“So, Senator Sanders, I’d love to tell you precisely where you can go,” he said. “But I’m on Fox News. And on Fox News, just like in the Senate, we’re still not allowed to curse.”