Greg Gutfeld: Does calling people evil help you win an argument?

Happy Thursday, everyone. It's my second favorite day after spa day. I love giving couples massages in my van. Hey, let's roll the nexio.

ANNOUNCER: Greg's philosophical monologue of the week, because the news is really boring right now, and he had to come up with something.

Tonight's monologue. Evil. Yeah. An uplifting topic, right? Well, it was either evil or this.

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Man. I love that. Yeah, I'll take evil. Now, evil obviously exists. But does calling people evil help you win an argument? Or is it like me after three aperol spritzers? It's just too easy. And really, when someone does something awful, just saying it's evil won't stop it.

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I mean, "The View" is in its 25th year. I kid, they aren't evil. They're just wrong. So what is evil? Well, communists are evil. Fascists are evil. Cats are evil. Especially that one. Threw that into a wok. But when you get in a debate about stuff such evil branding sucks, the left will often call you evil to end conversation. Which is why I'm glad when Geraldo does it. Because it ends the conversation. 

But they'll often call you something worse, like racist. So it's no wonder Governor DeSantis said "no" to doing "The View" after they asked. And after a past year where they've smeared him like one of Joy Behar's eight morning bagels, they've thrown more shade his way, than Stelter does sitting on a snow globe. Just visualize it. But how could you be civil with people like this?

JOY BEHAR 2021: You're just short of calling him a negligent, homicidal sociopath, because that's what he is. He's risking the lives of children, children's parents, their grandparents, anyone they may come in contact with so that he could appeal to his white supremacist base. 

SUNNY HOSTIN JUNE 2022: DeSantis... I think he's a fascist and a bigot.

SUNNY HOSTIN APRIL 2022: It's anti-black, it's anti-gay, it's anti LGBTQ+.

ANA NAVARRO APRIL 2022: It's anti-American.

SUNNY HOSTIN FEBRUARY 2022: And it started with CRT... If you start coming after black people, what comes next, right? Of course, the LGBTQ community and then women and then other marginalized groups.

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Oh, my soul is bleeding. So basically, DeSantis is a racist, sexist, transphobic homophobe. In other words, evil. And once you're evil, who needs conversation? It eliminates dialogue. Meaning all that's left is aggression. 

You know, I was guilty of this once. I'm pretty sure I called Pelosi "evil." And not to her face, or at least her most recent face. Terrible. And I'm sure I call this block of wood evil, when really he's not, he's just dumb as a block of wood. Who else is evil? Well, the person who invented double stuffed Oreos, that's for sure. And the guy at the gym who filled my speedo with... Now I have to do my pole dancing in jeans. Why did I sign up for those classes? And people, they've called me evil, too, which is hard to believe. I'm so lovable it hurts, at least for 7 to 10 days, and then it goes away. But I certainly don't think I'm evil. 

So it stands to reason, the people I call evil don't consider themselves evil either. I mean, if you asked Lucifer himself if he was evil, he'd probably be like "hey, I'm no day at the beach, but I'm no Joy Reid either." So liberals aren't evil, even if they think we are. It's the key difference that Charles Krauthammer noted first, we think they're wrong, they think we're evil. It's something to remember when you're trying to persuade people. 

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You know, as Russia invaded Ukraine, we call Putin evil. But does he think he's evil? No. He just thinks he's working on behalf of mother Russia and he'll kill anyone to do it. Hell, he violated international law. And those shirtless horseback photos were a crime against humanity. Is George Soros evil? Maybe. Maybe not. But really, what if he's just dumb? I mean, does this guy really think more murders is a good thing? Maybe he's just a psychopath, like so many corporate heads, not ours though, they're the best. Please give my puppy back. But the idea that he's a Batman villain makes it easier to categorize him. The "he's evil" argument saves a butt load of time and energy. 

Mass shooters, so they are evil. But that's just the first step in that problem. What made them evil? Drugs? Isolation? Mental illness? A culture that applauds violence? Media coverage? Brian Kilmeade's last book? The point? Calling someone evil can be accurate, but it blunts efforts to figure out what comes next. For that, you need strategic empathy. You need to ask why something happened, but temporarily exclude yourself from saying "because they're evil." 

Why did Putin invade Ukraine? Why does Soros fund idiotic prosecutors who ruin our lives? Why does a sick fiend killed dozens of children? If we knew why Putin invaded, well, we did know, he warned us a bunch, kind of the way China's warning us now. And now Brittney Griner just got nine years for pot. Joe Biden is demanding that Russia set her free. But how do you call Putin up to have that conversation after you've already labeled him "an evil war criminal"? 

Language paints us into corners. George Soros claims he's all about criminal justice and he may believe it, which means he's not evil, he's just stupid. Really stupid like Joy Behar stupid, if that's possible. But calling him evil misses what's really going on, which is he has no idea what's going on. He's more insulated from the real world than a Kardashian, with way worse pictures of his. But you don't want to look at that.

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Fact is, stupid people can be effective at certain things, good or evil. Mass shooters, if you call the scum "evil," you're right. But you've got to look closer, you'd find the incentive is infamy. If I kill more than the last guy, I live forever. It's like trying to outscore another video gamer they're competing against on their laptop. Once you see that, you see the solution, a media blackout. We can cover what happened without making each perp famous. So while evil exists, it's often times a fact that you should put aside if you need to solve an intractable problem. But of course, that suggestion goes out the window. If the person is absolutely, truly evil and there's nothing you can do about it, I'm sure you'll know that when you see it.