Tim Wildman is president of the American Family Association
>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
>> Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening to AFR. it's Monday, July 13, 2026. Tim, Ed. And now, Steve Paisley Jordah joins us. Good morning, Steve.
>> Steve Jordahl: Hey everybody.
>> Tim Wildmon: hey, Carl and Angela from Victoria, Texas stopped by earlier.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Very nice couple.
>> Tim Wildmon: Took a tour of our facilities here and said hello and they're praying for us and supporting us. And we, do welcome folks to stop by and see us if they're traveling this way. Ed, is that right?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Absolutely. You can go to, by the way, you can go to American, American Family Association's, main webpage, afa.net and if you see along the top, some of the dropdown menus, one says more. and you can go down that drop down menu to visits. And if you click on that, we do ask that you just give us a heads up that you're coming. So we try to make sure there's folks here and pick a day where your chances of meeting someone that you'd like to meet are increased. And so, we, we don't usually allow folks just to drop in without that. We, we do like to get a heads up.
>> Tim Wildmon: So how do they do that?
>> Ed Vitagliano: You just go to afa.net and the drop down menu that says more.
>> Tim Wildmon: Yeah. Or less.
>> Steve Jordahl: No, we don't have a less, but
>> Ed Vitagliano: we do have a more. And you just scroll down to visits. And if you click on visits, it does say all visits are scheduled in advance. Tells you when you can come. it's 9:00am through 3:00pm and then we do ask for the date, your name, driver's license number, that kind of thing.
>> Tim Wildmon: and also there is a, there's a new box there. Did you see that? Where it asks bringing donuts, yes or no?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Oh, well, we can add that if you'd like.
>> Tim Wildmon: Yeah, I'd like to add that.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, bring donuts.
>> Tim Wildmon: No, do a subset, blueberry glazed. And so custard filled.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I will have it.
>> Tim Wildmon: get on there.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, get on.
>> Tim Wildmon: I just think it'd be helpful to know.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah, they get the, they, they get an enhanced tour. In that case you might get to see the executive officers in that case, thinking you get what you pay for.
>> Tim Wildmon: You know what I'm saying?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, they, they may need to come come up with more than just the donuts to see the executive.
>> Steve Jordahl: This.
>> Ed Vitagliano: No.
>> Steve Jordahl: Oh, really? You're not gonna let him in just for a donut or two.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I'm thinking pizza.
>> Steve Jordahl: Oh.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I'm thinking, you know, we. But that's. That's funny. We could. We could, We could have that as a. Just, as a little joke thing.
Steve Martin: The rise of the Democrat socialist group in America is worrisome
>> Tim Wildmon: All right, Steve, what do you got, my friend?
>> Steve Jordahl: Hey, one of the things that we have been. That I have been talking about for a while is the rise of the Democrat socialist group in America. This is a, These are liberal. Liberal Democrats who are running and endorsing candidates. And they're more than just liberal. They claim proudly to be socialists. And, they have. I don't know if we. There was a discussion earlier in our story meeting whether they are an official political party or not. I don't know if they're registered as one, but they are having a convention at the end of the month in July. at the end of July.
>> Tim Wildmon: Where are they having that?
>> Steve Jordahl: I'm not planning on going. I didn't even look at where it was. It's coming up, somewhere in the Midwest, I think, and, maybe it can tell me where that's going to be.
>> Tim Wildmon: So they're going to. The socialists are going to provide a financial boom.
>> Steve Jordahl: Oh, yes.
>> Tim Wildmon: To the, city, that,
>> Steve Jordahl: everywhere socialists go, they provide a financial boom. No, Fox News is reporting that they're going to roll out an updated platform, who is now the Democrat Socialists of America.
>> Tim Wildmon: Okay.
>> Steve Jordahl: An updated platform.
>> Tim Wildmon: They're gonna roll it out.
>> Steve Jordahl: They're gonna roll it out. They're gonna publish. And a platform is what, a political party or organization, what the. The details of what they're running on. So, for example, in the Republican platform, there are things that say we value life, we oppose abortion. the Republican platform might have something to do with. We. We favor, voter, ID and that kind of thing. Well, the Democrat Socialists, this is what they say they're going to do. They want to abolish the U.S. senate. They want to abolish the presidency and the Supreme Court. They want to.
>> Tim Wildmon: I say this.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yes. They want to establish a Congress. They're going to, Update includes eliminating the Senate, replacing the president and Supreme Court with executive branch and judiciary chosen and subordinate to Congress. Do not downplay this. I was just talking with Gary Bauer, and this is what Gary had to say about what this. This coming threat got 13.
>> Frank Gaffney: They want to bring down Western civilization. Now, when they run candidates for office, does candidates, just say things like, $10 a day for child care, Medicare for all guaranteed housing? They Just throw these phrases out there. And people think, oh, these guys, they're fighting the man, they're fighting the establishment. And so, you know, I'm going to vote for them. But in fact, these are extremists, Marxists, leftists, and they are at war with our founding fathers and everything the founding fathers believed in. There have been existential threats to our country. Before the revolution was, you know, we didn't, it wasn't guaranteed that there would even be a country. The Civil war, World War II, these were existential threats. We are facing an existential threat.
There are a lot of versions of socialism. Ed says some people only have a vague understanding
>> Tim Wildmon: Well, Ed, if you can, can you synopsize what socialism is? Because there may be. That word is being used a lot now, but some people may only have a vague understanding.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, so it's not an easy question to answer because there are a lot of versions of socialism. But true socialism, communism, is a revolutionary movement. Karl Marx is one of the most famous proponents of that with the Communist Manifesto, published in, I think 1848. There were socialist versions before Karl Marx, but he's probably the most well known. And it sees capitalism as being the true threat to human happiness. And as a result, true, socialists and communists want to seize the means of production and distribution and give that to the state, a state created by, by the workers. And they see that as necessitating a dictatorship. So the state would be a totalitarian state until everyone got on board with the means of production and distribution being in the hands of the people. Okay, so that's done by force. There has been for, since the time of Karl Marx, a more democratic approach to that which insists that it is possible by voting to take the wealth of capitalists and capitalism and give it to the people in a kind of more, gradual democratic approach. That seems to be what democratic socialists of America advocate. So they would advocate voting to overthrow the Constitution of the United States and to change it so that the money is taken away from capitalists and capitalism and given to the people. Does that make sense? There are different approaches even of that kind of process.
>> Tim Wildmon: But you mentioned state controlled, production and distribution, that kind of thing. Like what groceries or gasoline or insurance or what?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. So when you, when you see for example in Venezuela when that, that country was taken over by Hugo Chavez, that was a communist takeover. That what they frequently do is they nationalize all the big industry. So they would nationalize the oil companies. That's what Venezuela did. They would nationalize everything. So they take it away private ownership, because private ownership of property and companies is Seen as, as the villain. And you have Mamdani in NewSong York City. Okay. Zoran Mamdani saying, we are going to provide as an alternative. This is a first step as an alternative government run grocery stores. So for the initial part of this, you would have government alternatives to private industry, private grocery stores, which eventually puts the private ownership out of business because the government run grocery stores would be subsidized and private owners would not be able to compete with that. So initially you would have a government version.
>> Tim Wildmon: Is that why a lot of these people who are, who promote socialism, Steve, are for guaranteed income?
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah. You've heard things like equality of outcome. so everybody deserves to be the same salary.
>> Tim Wildmon: I'm for that in pro football.
>> Steve Jordahl: Right.
>> Tim Wildmon: I mean, in college football, rather I'm for that.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Tim Wildmon: I'm ready for some little quality.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah. Everybody gets a 5 and 5 season. Is that what it's going to happen?
>> Tim Wildmon: I know it's time for my team to.
Ed: A lot of people think socialism is done by the ballot box
>> Steve Jordahl: Ed, you seemed, you mentioned communism in the same breath as socialism. What's the difference?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, again, this is not an easy thing to define because there are so many versions of this. one definition I have always liked is that socialism, looks to take private ownership, turn it over to everybody else, that socialism does that, and that communism is socialism with a gun. So a lot of people think socialism is done by the ballot box. and when it is done by revolutionary means, through violent overthrow, that, that's communism.
>> Tim Wildmon: communism is also very much aligned to totalitarianism, dictatorship like we see in communist China. Okay. The state, they have, you know, a top guy, and then they have the party and they control the whole country by force of a gun if they need to. I was just reading yesterday about how, many Christians have gone missing in communist China.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yes.
>> Tim Wildmon: In the last few years. They are having a crackdown because, they don't allow for, churches to operate outside of state control.
>> Steve Jordahl: That's right. There's a three brother, three something church. the state does control. You have to register, you have to go to a school, school. And they teach you whatever theology they want to teach you. And you have to have a picture of Chairman Xi.
>> Tim Wildmon: That's where it operates. That's the way communism is usually, run by a dictator. You look at, Fidel Castro, you look at Chavez and what was the guy's name who we went down and got out of power?
>> Ed Vitagliano: Maduro.
>> Tim Wildmon: Maduro.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, true communism is dictatorship. In fact, Karl Marx, disputed with so called democratic socialists that it was possible. He, Karl Marx did not believe it was possible to change the system gradually through voting. So he believed that socialism and communism were essentially the same thing. That you had to have a dictatorship because capitalists aren't going to give up their capitalism and their wealth voluntarily and they will use the army and the police to fight back. That's why Karl Marx said has to be a revolutionary approach. And that's why it like we're talking, you talking about Tim, Venezuela, Cuba, these kinds of places. The communists won the civil war in China in 1949. That's how, that's how Taiwan wound up being free is the nationalist forces that fought the communists in China when it was obvious they were going to lose under Chiang Kai Shek, they went to Taiwan. And that's why China all this time says that, that that island belongs to us.
>> Steve Jordahl: We can vote in socialist candidates and they're, they've been doing that in several districts in the United States, NewSong York City being the mayor being one of them. There's several candidates that are going to be on the ballot for Congress that are democrat socialists. But what Gary told me is you can vote them in but you will never vote them out.
>> Ed Vitagliano: You have to fight your way out.
>> Steve Jordahl: You have to fight your way out because it will be. They don't give up their power either. And so that's why he's saying we need to vote. The solution to this is to get people with the right thinking to vote. Young people are being swayed. They don't have the historical perspective to see that every single time not only has it failed but it has brought with it death and destruction, starvation.
>> Tim Wildmon: Listen, the free enterprise system. My dad used to say this. The free enterprise system, undergirded with Christian moral values is the greatest economic system in the history of the world. It's provided the best for the most. And you look at the United States is the envy of the world economically as much you know, as troubles that we may have. And why is that? Well there's a lot of reasons for it, but primarily it's the the idea that you can keep the money you make. Now we do have taxation because we have to pay for services that we all use. And there's always going to be a debate about, you know, is there waste in that? and there is sometimes, but people vote on this, you know, but we have to have. But people are able to keep the money that they make for the most part. And Whereas, in other parts of the world, that money is seized and you only get a fraction of what you make. Well, it kills the incentive for people. And if you kill the incentive for people, how do you make them work? Well, you put a gun to their head and you tell them, if you don't work for the state, then guess what? We'll kill you or your family or make life miserable for you, or we'll put you in prison. Which is what goes on in, communist countries a lot of times.
>> Steve Jordahl: So we had a very perilous time in the country.
>> Tim Wildmon: So I'm just saying that, so. But a lot. But it's easy to foment resentment for the free, enterprise system because you take people, maybe who are in the middle or the lower end, and you pit them against, the rich man who's exploiting you and taking advantage of you, and they're not paying their fair share. We've all heard these comments before. Now, the people who blame the rich man don't tell you how many people the rich man employs.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Tim Wildmon: How many businesses he owns. Yeah, he drives his Mercedes Benz, but guess what? He provides, jobs for a lot of people.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Or people will complain on social media about the rich and the capitalists on their iPhones made by a, by a capitalist company.
>> Tim Wildmon: Yeah. Yeah. So, you got the class warfare appeals to people's base instincts, but it works. It's been proven to work a lot of times. And I think that's what these Democrat, national, what they call themselves.
>> Steve Jordahl: Democrat Socialists.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Democratic. Democratic Socialists of America. It's not the only socialist group in our country, but it is a group, it's a growing group, and it's not a political party yet.
>> Tim Wildmon: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: There is some, noise that maybe the DSA might create a political party, but I think they'd be foolish to do that because it looks like they are going to try to take over the Democratic Party, make it their own.
>> Tim Wildmon: You're listening to today's issues on American Family Radio. Tim, Ed and Steve, next story. Steve?
New report looks at influence that Southern Poverty Law Center has on education
>> Steve Jordahl: All right, several months ago, the Justice Department came out with a report on the Southern Poverty Law center, which found that they were giving money to radical racist groups because they needed to foment the racism that they were fighting, in order to keep in business, basically, is the charge that the Justice Department has levied against them. There's a new report that's come out from a group called Defending Education, which is looking at, at the, influence that the Southern Poverty Law center had on education. Colleges, colleges of education. And it found that they had
>> Tim Wildmon: kind of m. Trained teachers.
>> Steve Jordahl: Training teachers. Yeah, college. Yeah, college, if you want to train educators. So teachers, colleges. And basically it was they were mandating all of the woke curriculum, standards of equity, access, anti bias education, teaching for social justice, socially, just teachers. these are the programs that they have put and they are rife throughout. Almost all of these teachers, colleges, have implemented these. So the people that are going to be training your kids and your grandkids have this social justice background. the woke part of what we've been talking about in this country, they're infusing that into the kids so that the kids are kind of think that that's normal stuff, that it works.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Listen, 38 states. This new report found in 38 states the Southern Poverty Law Center's educational materials were being used to train Future kindergarten through 12th grade teachers. 38 states. So when we talk about the susceptibility of young people to the message of socialism or the message that America is an illegitimate country, and that it's systemically racist and the Constitution is promoting this systemically, all that garbage we've been talking about. You have teachers being taught that they go to the schools, they. And teach kids. It's no wonder that we have a lot of young people who are falling prey to this. We're actually allowing people to teach that this country should be radically changed and we're paying for it with our tax dollars. Incredible.
>> Tim Wildmon: But how, if I'm living in a state, how can you know whether your state is using. Where did you get this article?
>> Steve Jordahl: This is on Fox News. We'll have it put up at our Facebook page.
>> Tim Wildmon: Our Today's Issues Facebook.
>> Steve Jordahl: Today's Issues Facebook page. We'll have a copy of this article. The title is scope of SPLC's deeply embedded influence Training teachers Nationwide is Uncovered.
>> Tim Wildmon: I always feel the need to do this. I know that people say, well I know what it is, Tim. You don't tell me again. But just to be clear, because we have new listeners and because the name is so innocuous people, it doesn't really explain what these folks do. The Southern Poverty Law center is an organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. They are. They started as a civil rights group in the 60s. I think I'm right. 60s, early 70s, something like that. And so their cause was championing the the rights of African Americans, basically overturning the racial. Which. Okay. But when that fight ended, it morphed into a they Needed a reason to exist. So how do we, what, what cause do we take up? Well, we fight the racist white people across America and the xenophobic and especially the homophobic.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Tim Wildmon: Who are the homophobic Southern Poverty Law Center? Well, there are groups like the Christian American Family association or Family Research Council or Penn Carson, who basically they, if you disagree, if you have disagreed, with the LGBTQ movement, you are a de facto a hater.
>> Steve Jordahl: Right.
>> Tim Wildmon: Also they, that's what they labeled us as a hater on Zelg. But they, they also, Southern Poverty Law center have, inflated the number of, KKK type groups. They want, they want you to think that KKK is in every town, because. And so what they got, what they got caught doing. Allegedly, it's got to be proven. But they got caught doing here. A few couple months ago we reported on this. Was they, they, the Southern Poverty Law center were accused of giving money, two racist groups so that they could then report what the racist groups are doing.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Keeping the racist groups alive. Yeah, with money so that they could
>> Tim Wildmon: keep their cause alive.
>> Ed Vitagliano: This is the accusation against the accusation.
>> Tim Wildmon: Anyway, let's move on.
Tom Rainer says a lot of people are not bringing their Bible
We got one minute left here.
>> Steve Jordahl: All right, listen, the Thom Rainer who is, ah, part of Lifeway, he's the founder of Church Answers, he is saying that he wants to see more people bring their Bibles to church. Yeah, I don't know if you've been watching, but a lot of people are not bringing their Bible. Every time you read the Bible verse, you put it up on the screen. And nobody's bringing their physical Bible to church anymore. Thom says, does your phone count? I don't know. I do the same thing.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I personally try to take my Bible always just because I prefer physical Bible, my physical Bible. But on occasion I will forget. And I do have a Bible app that's very good.
>> Steve Jordahl: You can underline in your physical Bible.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I don't do that in the Bible. I don't, I don't write in it.
>> Tim Wildmon: because it says don't add to. Am I right?
>> Ed Vitagliano: It's not, that's not why my eyesight is going. But I think the phone is important. But I do think people ought to be in the physical word and read their Bible that way too.
>> Tim Wildmon: So we're out of time. Thank you for yours. We'll see you tomorrow.
