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i want to talk to you about the electoral college and why it matters all right i know this doesn't sound like the most sensational topic of the day but stay with me because i promise you it's one of the most important to explain why requires a very brief civics review the president and vice president of the united states are not chosen by a nationwide popular vote of the american people rather they are chosen by 538 electors this process is spelled out in the united states constitution why didn't the founders just make it easy and let the presidential candidate with the most votes claim victory why did they create and why do we continue to need this electoral college the answer is critical to understanding not only the electoral college but also america the founders had no intention of creating a pure majority rural democracy they knew from careful study of history what most have forgotten today or never learned pure democracies do not work they implode democracy has been colorfully described as two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner in a pure democracy fair majorities can easily tyrannize the rest of the country the founders wanted to avoid this at all costs this is why we have three branches of government executive legislative and judicial it's why each state has two senators no matter what its population but also different numbers of representatives based entirely on population it's why it takes a super majority in congress and three quarters of the states to change the constitution and it's why we have the electoral college here's how the electoral college works the presidential election happens in two phases the first phase is purely democratic we hold 51 popular elections every presidential election year one in each state and one in dc on election day in 2012 you may have thought you were voting for barack obama or mitt romney but you are really voting for a slate of presidential electors in rhode island for example if you voted for barack obama you voted for the state's four democratic electors if you voted for mitt romney you are really voting for the state's four republican electors part two of the election is held in december and it is this december election among the state's 538 electors not the november election which officially determines the identity of the next president at least 270 votes are needed to win why is this so important because the system encourages coalition building and national campaigning in order to win a candidate must have the support of many different types of voters from various parts of the country winning only the south or the midwest is not good enough you cannot win 270 electoral votes if only one part of the country is supporting you but if winning were only about getting the most votes a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts in the biggest cities or the biggest states why would that candidate care about what people in west virginia or iowa or montana think but you might ask isn't the election really only about the so-called swing states actually no if nothing else safe and swing states are constantly changing california voted safely republican as recently as 1988 texas used to vote democrat neither new hampshire nor virginia used to be swing states most people think that george w bush won the 2000 election because of florida well sort of but he really won the election because he managed to flip one state which the democrats thought was safe west virginia its four electoral votes turned out to be decisive no political party can ignore any state for too long without suffering the consequences every state and therefore every voter in every state is important the electoral college also makes it harder to steal elections votes must be stolen in the right state in order to change the outcome of the electoral college with so many swing states this is hard to predict and hard to do but without the electoral college any vote stolen in any precinct in the country could affect the national outcome even if that vote was easily stolen in the bluest california precinct or the reddest texas one the electoral college is an ingenious method of selecting a president for a great diverse republic such as our own it protects against the tyranny the majority encourages coalition building and discourages voter fraud our founders were proud of it we can be too i'm tara russ for prager university was the american civil war fought because of slavery more than 150 years later this remains a controversial question why because many people don't want to believe that the citizens of the southern states were willing to fight and die to preserve a morally repugnant institution there has to be another reason we are told well there isn't the evidence is clear and overwhelming slavery was by a wide margin the single most important cause of the civil war for both sides before the presidential election of 1860 a south carolina newspaper warned that the issue before the country was the extinction of slavery and called on all who were not prepared to surrender the institution to act shortly after abraham lincoln's victory they did the secession documents of every southern state made clear crystal clear that they were leaving the union in order to protect their peculiar institution of slavery a phrase that at the time meant the thing special to them the vote to secede was 169 to zero in south carolina 166 to 7 in texas 84 to 15 in mississippi in no southern state was the vote close alexander stevens of georgia the confederacy's vice president clearly articulated the views of the south in march 1861. our new government he said was founded on slavery its foundations are laid its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man that slavery submission to the superior race is his natural and normal condition yet despite the evidence many continue to argue that other factors superseded slavery as the cause of the civil war some argue that the south only wanted to protect states rights but this raises an obvious question the state's rights to what wasn't it to maintain and spread slavery moreover states rights was not an exclusive southern issue all the states north and south sought to protect their rights sometimes they petition the federal government sometimes they quarrel with each other in fact mississippians complained that new york had too strong a concept of states rights because it would not allow delta planners to bring their slaves to manhattan the south was preoccupied with states rights because it was preoccupied first and foremost with retaining slavery some argue that the cause of the war was economic the north was industrial and the south agrarian and so the two lived in such economically different societies that they could no longer stay together not true in the middle of the 19th century both north and south were agrarian societies in fact the north produced far more food crops than to the south but northern farmers had to pay their farmhands who were free to come and go as they pleased while southern plantation owners exploited slaves over whom they had total control and it wasn't just plantation owners who supported slavery the slave society was embraced by all classes in the south the rich had multiple motivations for wanting to maintain slavery but so did the poor non-slave-holding whites the peculiar institution ensured that they did not fall to the bottom rung of the social ladder that's why another argument that the civil war couldn't have been about slavery because so few people own slaves has little merit finally many have argued that president abraham lincoln fought the war to keep the union together not to end slavery that was true at the outset of the war but he did so with the clear knowledge that keeping the union together meant either spreading slavery to all the states an unacceptable solution or vanquishing it all together in a famous campaign speech in 1858 lincoln said a house divided against itself cannot stand what was it that divided the country it was slavery and only slavery he continued i believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free it will become all one thing or all the other lincoln's view never changed and as the war progressed the moral component ending slavery became more and more fixed in his mind his emancipation proclamation in 1863 turned that into law slavery is the great shame of america's history no one denies that but it's to america's everlasting credit that it fought the most devastating war in its history in order to abolish slavery as a soldier i am proud that the united states army my army defeated the confederates in its finest hour soldiers wearing this blue uniform almost 200 000 of them former slaves themselves destroyed chattel slavery freed four million men women and children from human bondage and saved the united states of america i'm colonel ty sigily professor and head department of history at the united states military academy west point for prager university when you think about racial equality and civil rights which political party comes to mind the republicans or the democrats most people would probably say the democrats but this answer is incorrect since its founding in 1829 the democratic party has fought against every major civil rights initiative and has a long history of discrimination the democratic party defended slavery started the civil war opposed reconstruction founded the ku klux klan imposed segregation perpetrated lynchings and fought against the civil rights acts of the 1950s and 1960s in contrast the republican party was founded in 1854 as an anti-slavery party its mission was to stop the spread of slavery into the new western territories with the aim of abolishing it entirely this effort however was dealt a major blow by the supreme court in the 1857 case dred scott versus sanford the court ruled that slaves aren't citizens their property the seven justices who voted in favor of slavery all democrats the two justices who dissented both republicans the slavery question was of course ultimately resolved by bloody civil war the commander-in-chief during that war was the first republican president abraham lincoln the man who freed the slaves six days after the confederate army surrendered john wilkes booth a democrat assassinated president lincoln lincoln's vice president a democrat named andrew johnson assumed the presidency but johnson adamantly opposed lincoln's plan to integrate the newly freed slaves into the south's economic and social order johnson and the democratic party were unified in their opposition to the 13th amendment which abolished slavery the 14th amendment which gave black citizenship and the 15th amendment which gave blacks the vote all three passed only because of universal republican support during the era of reconstruction federal troops stationed in the south helped secure rights for the newly freed slaves hundreds of black men were elected to southern state legislatures as republicans and 22 black republicans served in the u.s congress by 1900 the democrats did not elect a black man to congress until 1935 but after reconstruction ended when the federal troops went home democrats roared back into power in the south they quickly reestablished white supremacy across the region with measures like black codes laws that restricted the ability of blacks to own property and run businesses and they impose poll taxes and literacy tests used to subvert black citizens right to vote and how is all of this enforced by terror much of it instigated by the ku klux klan founded by democrat nathan bedford force as historian eric foner himself a democrat notes in effect the klan was a military force serving the interests of the democratic party president woodrow wilson a democrat shared many views with the klan he re-segregated many federal agencies and even screened the first movie ever played at the white house the racist film the birth of a nation originally entitled the klansmen a few decades later the only serious congressional opposition to the landmark civil rights act of 1964 came from democrats 80 percent of republicans in congress supported the bill less than 70 percent of democrats did democratic senators filibustered the bill for 75 days until republicans mustered the few extra votes needed to break the log jam and when all of their efforts to enslave blacks keep them enslaved and then keep them from voting had failed the democrats came up with a new strategy if black people are going to vote they might as well vote for democrats as president lyndon johnson was purported to have said about the civil rights act i'll have them as voting democrat for 200 years so now the democratic party prospers on the votes of the very people it has spent much of its history oppressing democrats falsely claim that the republican party is the villain when in reality it's the failed policies of the democratic party that have kept black stand massive government welfare has decimated the black family opposition to school choice has kept them trapped in failing schools politically correct policing has left black neighborhoods defenseless against violent crime so when you think about racial equality and civil rights which political party should come to mind i'm carol swain professor of political science and law at vanderbilt university for prager university do you believe in free speech do you believe that people should be judged by their character not their skin color do you believe in freedom of religion if you believe these things you're probably not a progressive you might think you're a progressive i used to think i was my show the reuben report was originally part of the progressive young turks network progressives struck me as liberals but louder progressives were the nice guys they looked out for the little guy they cared about women and minorities they embraced change in short who wouldn't want to be a progressive but over the last couple years the meaning of the word progressive has changed progressives used to say i may disagree with what you say but i'll fight to the death for your right to say it not anymore banning speakers whose opinions you don't agree with from college campuses that's not progressive prohibiting any words not approved of as politically correct that's not progressive putting trigger warnings on books movies music anything that might offend people that's not progressive either all of this has led me to believe that much of the left is no longer progressive but regressive this is one of the reasons i've spent so much time on my show talking about the regressive left this regressive ideology doesn't judge people as individuals but as a collective if you're black or female or muslim or hispanic or member of any other minority group you're judged differently than the most evil of all things a white christian male the regressive left ranks minority groups in a pecking order to compete in a kind of oppression olympics gold medal goes to the most offended martin luther king jr's dream that his children would be judged by their character and not their skin color was a liberal idea but these days it's not a progressive ideal and what about religious freedom the idea that no one else can tell you what you have to believe surely progressives still support that basic right well not so much i'm a married gay man so you might think that i appreciate the government forcing a christian baker or photographer or florist to act against their religion in order to cater photograph or decorate my wedding but you'd be wrong a government that can force christians to violate their conscience can force me to violate mine if a baker won't bake you a cake find another baker don't demand that the state tell him what to do with his private business i'm pro-choice but a government that can force a group of catholic nuns literally called the little sisters of the poor to violate their faith and pay for abortion inducing birth control can force anyone to do anything that's not progressive that's regressive today's progressivism has become a faux moral movement hurling charges of racism bigotry xenophobia homophobia islamophobia and a slew of other meaningless buzzwords at anyone they disagree with the battle of ideas has been replaced by a battle of feelings and outrage has replaced honesty diversity reigns supreme as long as it's not that pesky diversity of thought this isn't the recipe for a free society it's a recipe for authoritarianism for these reasons i can no longer call myself a progressive i don't really call myself a democrat either i'm a classical liberal a free thinker and as much as i don't like to admit it defending my liberal values has suddenly become a conservative position so if you think people should be able to say what they think without being punished for it that people should be judged by their behavior not their skin color and that people should be able to live the way that they want to live without government interference then there's not much left on the left for you i'll keep trying to explain that to progressives until i'm totally left out i'm dave rubin of the reuben report for prager university being a normal boy is a serious liability in today's classroom boys tend to be disorganized and restless some have even been known to be noisy and hard to manage sound like any boy you know but increasingly our schools have little patience for what only a couple of decades ago would have been described as boyishness a psychologist michael thompson has aptly observed girls behavior is the gold standard in schools boys are treated like defective girls as a result these defective girls are not faring well academically compared with girls boys earn lower grades they win fewer honors they're far less likely to go to college boys are languishing academically while girls are prospering in an ever more knowledge-based economy this is not a recipe for a successful society we need to start thinking about how we can make our grade school classrooms more boy friendly well here are four reforms that would make a very good start one turn boys into readers in all age groups across all ethnic lines boys score lower than girls on national reading tests good reading skills need i say are critical to academic and workplace success a major study in the uk discovered not surprisingly that girls prefer fiction magazines and poetry while boys prefer comics and non-fiction boys whose eyes glaze over if forced to read little house on the prairie may be riveted by the guinness book of records cool boys will read if given materials that interest them if you're looking for suggestions for books that have proved irresistible to boys go to guysread.com two inspire the male imagination celebrated writing instructor ralph fletcher contends that too many teachers take what is called the confessional poet as the classroom ideal personal narratives full of emotions and self-disclosure these are stories girls commonly write and these are prized whereas action stories describing say a skateboard competition or a monster devouring a city these are not i recently read about a third grader in southern california named justin who loved science fiction pirates and battles well an alarm teacher summoned his parents to school to discuss the picture the eight-year-old had drawn of a sword fight which included several decapitated heads the teacher expressed grave concern about justin's values the boy's father was astonished not by his son's drawing which to him was typical boy stuff but by the teacher's overwrought and female-centered reaction if boys are constantly subject to disapproval for their interests and enthusiasms they're likely to become disengaged and lag further behind our schools need to work with not against the kinetic imaginations of boys three zero out zero tolerance boys are nearly five times as likely to be expelled from preschool as girls and in grades k through 12 boys account for nearly 70 percent of suspensions now this is often for minor acts of insubordination and sometimes for entirely innocent behavior hardly a week goes by without a news story about a young boy running afoul of the school's zero tolerance policy josh welch age seven was recently sent home from his maryland school for nibbling off the corners of a strawberry pop-tart into the shape of a gun josh like many other boys punished for violating zero tolerance policies was guilty of nothing more than being a typical seven-year-old boy four bring back recess believe it or not recess may soon be a thing of the past according to research summarized by the science daily since the 1970s school children have lost close to 50 percent of their unstructured outdoor playtime and much left games have vanished from schoolyards in schools throughout the country games like dodgeball red rover even tag have all but disappeared too damaging to self-esteem or too violent being the usual excuse one popular classroom guide suggests tug of war be replaced with tug of peace boys need to work off their energy they need to be free to play games they enjoy and keeping them cooped up and inside all day will not help them learn as our schools become more feeling centered more competition free more sedentary they move further away from the needs of boys we need to reverse the boy averse trends male under achievement is everyone's concern these are our sons these are the young men with whom our daughters will build a future if boys are in trouble so are we all i'm christina hoff summers at the american enterprise institute for prager university once upon a time there were three brothers triplets named tom dick and harry class they were raised in the same home with the same parents had the same iq same skills and same opportunities each was married and had two children they were all carpenters making 25 dollars per hour while they were very similar in all these respects they had different priorities for example tom chose to work 20 hours per week while his brother dick worked 40 hours and harry 60. it should also be noted that harry's wife worked full time as an office manager for a salary of fifty thousand dollars dick's wife sold real estate part-time ten hours a week and made twenty five thousand dollars per year tom's wife did not work tom and dick spent all of their family income since they paid into social security they figured they didn't need to save for retirement harry and his wife on the other hand had over many years put away money each month and invested it in stocks and bonds here's how it worked out tom made twenty five thousand dollars a year dick and his wife made seventy five thousand dollars and harry and his wife one hundred and fifty thousand dollars when a new housing development opened up in their community the brothers decided to buy equally priced homes on the same private street one day the brothers decided to pool their funds for the purpose of improving their street concerned about crime and safety and wanting a more attractive setting for their homes the three families decided to install a security gate at the streets entrance repaved the streets surface and enhanced the lighting and landscaping the work was done for a total cost of thirty thousand dollars harry assumed they would divide the bill three ways each brother paying ten thousand dollars but tom and dick objected why should we pay the same as you they said you make much more money than we do harry was puzzled what does that have to do with anything he asked my family makes more money because my wife and i work long hours and because we have saved some of the money we've earned to make additional money from investments why should we be penalized for that harry you can work and save all you like tom countered but my wife and i want to enjoy ourselves now not 25 years from now fine tom do what you want it's a free country but why should i have to pay for that i can't believe you're being so unbrotherly tom argued you have a lot of money and i don't i thought you'd be more generous at this point dick the peacemaker in the family entered the conversation i've got an idea dick said our combined income is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and thirty thousand dollars is twelve percent of that amount why don't we each pay that percentage of our income under that formula tom would pay three thousand i would pay nine thousand and harry would pay eighteen thousand i have a much better idea said tom and one that's fairer than what you're proposing dick and harry turned to tom harry should pay twenty three thousand four hundred and fifty dollars dick you should pay 6550. and i will pay nothing to dick this sounded completely arbitrary and not really fair but it did have one big plus his share would be four hundred and fifty dollars less under tom's formula than under his own so he decided to be silent harry however was stunned you want me to pay almost eighty percent of the bill despite the fact that each of us is receiving the exact same benefits where did you get such a crazy idea from no less than authority than the u.s government tom responded as he pulled out a gray booklet it's all right here in the irs tax tables this is the progressive income tax system all u.s taxpayers live under and i don't see why we should be any different in fact i believe all future improvements should be paid in this way works for me said dick so by a vote of two to one the cost of the street improvements was divided as tom had proposed even though they benefited equally and even though the reason harry had more money was that he and his wife had worked many more hours than his brothers and their wives and had saved some of what they had earned instead of spending it all tom and dick lived happily ever after with their new arrangement harry grumbled a lot but whenever he complained his brothers called him greedy and selfish the end [Music] i was raised a practicing muslim and remained one for almost half my life i attended madrassas that is islamic schools and memorized large parts of the quran as a child i lived in mecca for a time and frequently visited the grand mosque as a teenager i sympathized with the muslim brotherhood at 22 while my family was living in kenya my father arranged my marriage to a member of our family clan a man that i had never met i ran away made my way to holland studied there and eventually was elected a member of the dutch parliament now i live in the united states in short i have seen islam from the inside and the outside i believe that a reform of islam is necessary and possible and only muslims can make that reform a reality but we in the west cannot remain on the sidelines as though the outcome of this struggle has nothing to do with us if the jihadists win and the hope for a reformed islam dies the rest of the world will pay a terrible price the terror attacks in new york london madrid paris and many other places are only a preview for what's to come for this reason i believe that it's foolish to insist as western leaders habitually do that the violent acts committed in the name of islam can somehow be divorced from the religion itself for more than a decade my message has been simple islam is not a religion of peace when i assert this i do not mean that islamic belief makes all muslims violent this is manifestly not the case there are many millions of peaceful muslims in the world what i do say is that the call to violence and the justification for it are explicitly stated in the sacred texts of islam moreover this theologically sanctioned violence is there to be activated by any number of offences including but not limited to adultery blasphemy homosexuality and apostasy that is to leave islam those who tolerate this intolerance do so at their peril as someone who has known what it is to live without freedom i watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberals and progressives people who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threat to that very freedom and those very minorities in 2014 i was invited to accept an honorary degree from brandeis university for the work i have done on behalf of women's rights in the muslim world that invitation was withdrawn after professors and students protested my criticism of islam my subsequent disinvitation as it came to be called was no favor to muslims just the opposite by labeling critical examination of islam as inherently racist we make the chances of reformation far less likely there are no limits on criticism of christianity at american universities or anywhere else for that matter why should there be of islam instead of contorting western intellectual traditions so as not to offend our muslim fellow citizens we need to defend both those traditions and the muslim dissidents who take great risks to promote them we should support these brave men and women in every way possible imagine a platform for muslim dissidents that communicated their message through youtube twitter facebook and instagram these are the muslims we should be supporting for our sake as much as for the sake of islam in the cold war the west celebrated dissidents such as alexander solzhenitsyn andrei sakharov and vaclav havel who had the courage to challenge the soviet system from within today there are many dissidents who challenge islam but the west either ignores them or dismisses them as not representative this is a grave mistake reformers such as tawfiq hamid aslan omani and zhuhi jasser and many others must be supported and protected they should be as well known as solzhenitsyn sakharov and havel were in the 1980s if we do in fact support political social and religious freedom then we cannot in good conscience give islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity we need to say to muslims living in the west if you want to live in our societies to share in the material benefits then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional islam is at a crossroads of reformation or self-destruction but so is the west i'm ayaan hirsi ali of harvard university for prager university once there was a south american country with a promising future it had a functioning democracy a rapidly developing economy and a growing middle class all the important indicators including education health care and foreign investment were pointed in the right direction it was far from perfect but the mood was hopeful and with good reason but now all that promise is gone the country is a failed state a hollowed-out shelf of its former self services like power and water are sporadic the most basic consumer goods from bread to toilet paper are in chronically short supply crime has skyrocketed freedom of the press is almost non-existent democracy has been replaced by a virtual dictatorship the country is i'm sorry to say my beloved venezuela a place in which my family has deep roots i can tell you what happened to it in one word socialism in 1999 then candidate for president hugo chavez promised to lead the people of venezuela to a socialist paradise his theme was esperanza cambio hope and change venezuela is a nation of great wealth chavez said but it's being stolen from its citizens by the evil capitalists and evil corporations this wrong would be righted he assured the voters if they elected him and they did to their everlasting regret chavez drew inspiration from his mentor fidel castro like his mentor he enjoyed giving speeches that sometimes lasted as many as seven hours he even gave himself his own weekly television show where he would spontaneously break into song here's a rule when your nation's leader starts singing on national television you're in trouble under chavez the government of venezuela took over industry after industry the government he assured everyone would run these businesses better than private enterprise and the profits would be shared by the people with great fanfare he tore up contracts with multinational oil and gas companies and demanded that they pay much higher royalties when they refused he told them to leave they did his image was burnished by hollywood celebrities who flocked to see the great work he was doing taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor progressive politicians from the u.s and europe also praised him lavishly here's another rule when hollywood celebrities visit your country to praise your leader you're in trouble when the leader sings on national television and is praised by hollywood celebrities you're doomed socialism always works in the beginning so people are fooled in the beginning it's easy for governments to confiscate money but eventually there's no more money to confiscate in the case of venezuela i mean that literally people who could get money out of the country did many left the country altogether nearly two million according to venezuelan sociologist tomas baez the wealth creators continued to create wealth but they created it somewhere else miami or madrid and other places around the world when chavez first ran for president in 1999 he said he would leave in two years if people weren't happy with them but like castro chavez never had any intention of giving up power he died in office in 2013 replaced by his vice president nicolas maduro maduro is chavez without the charisma or the voice the country is now a pariah shunned by the world and isolated it's so bad that many international airlines refuse to fly there people stand in lines for hours just to get food sometimes they walk away empty-handed a recent survey found that 75 percent of venezuelan adults lost weight in 2016 an average of 19 pounds this national weight loss program is known cynically as the maduro diet still maduro holds on to power opposition leaders and journalists who report the truth are jailed venezuela is a cautionary tale once a country goes down a socialist path there's no easy way back and the longer a country stays socialist the harder it is to reform it venezuela has been socialist for two decades if you don't think it can happen here whether here is the united states or europe or anywhere else you're fooling yourself when people get used to depending on the government no matter how poor they remain that dependency is hard to break that's why you should never buy the socialist lie socialism is a drug and like a drug it feels great at first but eventually it will ruin your country just like it ruined venezuela i'm debbie d'souza for prager university once upon a time every student of history and that meant pretty much everyone with a high school education knew this the democratic party was the party of slavery and jim crow and the republican party was the party of emancipation and racial integration democrats were the confederacy and republicans were the union jim crow democrats were dominant in the south and socially tolerant republicans were dominant in the north but then in the 1960s and 70s everything supposedly flipped suddenly the republicans became the racist and the democrats became the champions of civil rights fabricated by left-leaning academic elites and journalists the story went like this republicans couldn't win a national election by appealing to the better nature of the country they could only win by appealing to the worst attributed to richard nixon the media's all-purpose bad guy this came to be known as the southern strategy it was very simple win elections by winning the south and to win the south appeal to races so the republicans the party of lincoln were to now be labeled the party of rednecks but this story of the two parties switching identities is a myth in fact it's three myths wrapped into one false narrative let's take a brief look at each myth in turn myth number one in order to be competitive in the south republicans started to pander to white races in the 1960s fact republicans actually became competitive in the south as early as 1928 when republican herbert hoover won over 47 of the south's popular vote against democrat al smith in 1952 republican president dwight eisenhower won the southern states of tennessee florida and virginia and in 1956 he picked up louisiana kentucky and west virginia too and that was after he supported the supreme court decision in brown versus board of education that desegregated public schools and after he sent the 101st airborne to little rock central high school to enforce integration myth number two southern democrats angry with the civil rights act of 1964 switched parties fact of the 21 democratic senators who opposed the civil rights act just one became a republican the other 20 continued to be elected as democrats or were replaced by other democrats on average those 20 seats didn't go republican for another two and a half decades myth number three since the implementation of the southern strategy the republicans have dominated the south fact richard nixon the man who was often credited with creating the southern strategy lost the deep south in 1968 in contrast democrat jimmy carter nearly swept the region in 1976 12 years after the civil rights act of 1964 and in 1992 over 28 years later democrat bill clinton won georgia louisiana arkansas tennessee kentucky and west virginia the truth is republicans didn't hold a majority of southern congressional seats until 1994 30 years after the civil rights act as kevin williamson of national review writes if southern rednecks ditched the democrats because of a civil rights law passed in 1964 it is strange that they waited until the late 1980s and early 1990s to do so they say things move slower in the south but not that slow so what really happened why does the south now vote overwhelmingly republican because the south itself has changed its values have changed the racism that once defined it doesn't anymore its values today are conservative ones pro-life pro-gun and pro-small government and here's the proof southern whites are far more likely to vote for a black conservative like senator tim scott of south carolina than a white liberal in short history has moved on like other regions of the country the south votes values not skin color the myth of the southern strategy is just the democrats excuse for losing the south and yet another way to smear republicans with the labor races don't buy it i'm carol swain professor of political science and law at vanderbilt university for prager university once there was a south american country with a promising future it had a functioning democracy a rapidly developing economy and a growing middle class all the important indicators including education health care and foreign investment were pointed in the right direction it was far from perfect but the mood was hopeful and with good reason but now all that promise is gone the country is a failed state a hollowed-out shelf of its former self services like power and water are sporadic the most basic consumer goods from bread to toilet paper are in chronically short supply crime has skyrocketed freedom of the press is almost non-existent democracy has been replaced by a virtual dictatorship the country is i'm sorry to say my beloved venezuela a place in which my family has deep roots i can tell you what happened to it in one word socialism in 1999 then candidate for president hugo chavez promised to lead the people of venezuela to a socialist paradise his theme was esperanza cambio hope and change venezuela is a nation of great wealth chavez said but it's being stolen from its citizens by the evil capitalists and evil corporations this wrong would be righted he assured the voters if they elected him and they did to their everlasting regret chavez drew inspiration from his mentor fidel castro like his mentor he enjoyed giving speeches that sometimes lasted as many as seven hours he even gave himself his own weekly television show where he would spontaneously break into song here's a rule when your nation's leader starts singing on national television you're in trouble under chavez the government of venezuela took over industry after industry the government he assured everyone would run these businesses better than private enterprise and the profits would be shared by the people with great fanfare he tore up contracts with multinational oil and gas companies and demanded that they pay much higher royalties when they refused he told them to leave they did his image was burnished by hollywood celebrities who flocked to see the great work he was doing taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor progressive politicians from the u.s and europe also praised him lavishly here's another rule when hollywood celebrities visit your country to praise your leader you're in trouble when the leader sings on national television and is praised by hollywood celebrities you're doomed socialism always works in the beginning so people are fooled in the beginning it's easy for governments to confiscate money but eventually there's no more money to confiscate in the case of venezuela i mean that literally people who could get money out of the country did many left the country altogether nearly 2 million according to venezuelan sociologist tomas the wealth creators continue to create wealth but they created it somewhere else miami or madrid and other places around the world when chavez first ran for president in 1999 he said he would leave in two years if people weren't happy with them but like castro chavez never had any intention of giving up power he died in office in 2013 replaced by his vice president nicolas maduro maduro is chavez without the charisma or the voice the country is now a pariah shunned by the world and isolated it's so bad that many international airlines refused to fly there people stand in lines for hours just to get food sometimes they walk away empty-handed a recent survey found that 75 of venezuelan adults lost weight in 2016 an average of 19 pounds this national weight loss program is known cynically as the maduro diet still maduro holds on to power opposition leaders and journalists who report the truth are jailed venezuela is a cautionary tale once a country goes down a socialist path there's no easy way back and the longer a country stays socialist the harder it is to reform it venezuela has been socialist for two decades if you don't think it can happen here whether here is the united states or europe or anywhere else you're fooling yourself when people get used to depending on the government no matter how poor they remain that dependency is hard to break that's why you should never buy the socialist lie socialism is a drug and like a drug it feels great at first but eventually it will ruin your country just like it ruined venezuela i'm debbie d'souza for prager university you