GREG GUTFELD: People will imitate behavior if it's incentivized and allowed

Welcome to the world's most dangerous show. And not just because of what I'm wearing under this. It's because this is the most honest thing you're going to hear on TV. This past weekend an L.A. crowd of about 50 criminals decided that Nordstrom might be Swedish for "free stuff." Roll it. 

The crowd ransacked the shop, stealing 100 grand worth of designer goods. Wait a minute. This is not the right video. That's Chicago from last week. That's the mob that looted a 7-Eleven. I didn't think Nordstrom sold beef jerky. Can we roll the right one, please? Go ahead. All right. So in L.A. last week, 50 criminals... Wait a second. That's not L.A. either. That's Philly. That's when kids took a Wawa apart. That's the last time I let you guys smoke weed at the production meeting. Let's try it again. So out in California, for God's sake, who's working the video today? Kilmeade? That's California but it's from Glendale last week when a mob looted 300 grand from an Eves Saint Laurent store. All right. All right. There's Nordstrom. That was long. By now, though, you do get the point. I mean, this video looks so familiar Hunter Biden should hit on it. Another mob, another ransacking. The only difference this time, security guards tried to intervene, but the thieves used bear spray to drive them away. Bear spray, I guess that'll be locked up now as well. And thanks to those jerks, law-abiding citizens won't be able to get the spray they need.

VIDEO SKIT

((Gutfeld!))

I didn't see that one coming at all. 

Anyway, I also had a front-row seat myself to scenes like we saw this weekend during the 2020 Summer of Love when thieves decided what they actually loved was ransacking shops. I'd never seen that level of criminality, and Lindsay Lohan lived in my building. So you've got to wonder what causes all this organized looting? We go to the expert. I bet they got to go out and feed their child and they don't have money. 

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: They're put in a position where they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night. 

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Well, that's dangerously stupid. So here's the scary part. Why is it that when a largely White attended event goes bad, it's one and done? And I don't mean my last birthday party when Tom Shillue jumped out of the cake. Take Charlottesville. That's largely White if I remember. And it was gross and disgusting. Did it repeat? Nope. There was universal revulsion and condemnation, just like my honeymoon. The same thing, though, happened on Jan 6. What made that so bad was that it was so jarring, an exception to the rule for any Dems that might have tuned in by accident. It lasted 6 hours, not days or weeks. But what about other events with racial components that turned violent, as in looting mobs? 

A large group of 30-50 people were caught on video ransacking a Nordstrom at Topanga Mall in Los Angeles, California on Aug. 12, 2023. (Courtesy: Instagram / @ella_ise24.)

It's a story so common we could just replay old videos. Why is this so common? Because it's obviously being imitated. People in general will imitate behavior if it's incentivized and allowed. So let's compare. In Charlottesville condemnation, right? Not incentivized and so, not imitated. The 2020 Floyd riots? Incentivized by refusal to criminalize, despite billions in damage and at least 25 deaths. You got a future VP setting up a bail fund for looters, money that should have gone to hiring her a speech coach. And so it continued. Imitated. The point being the media and its acolytes cannot deny Blacks their right to imitate bad behavior while they inform Blacks that imitating productive behavior is selling out to the oppressor. Why are Black youth enraged or encouraged to imitate only bad behavior? You don't see Little League coaches showing their teams endless clips of the Mets. I didn't write that joke. I don't know anything about baseball. So don't. Don't come at me over this. There are people leaving in Mets jerseys. 

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So what will the Dems say? They'll say it's about systemic oppression, whatever. That's less a policy than a fortune cookie. And with this administration, there's really no difference. Sometimes I think they get most of their ideas from Panda Express. But blaming the oppressors as always, are all Whites, means one cannot or won't accept them as worthy of imitation. Which is sad because boy, do you miss out on the excellence of individuals. But if you only use the group filter of oppressor versus oppressed, you can't see individuals and how they act and achieve. Which makes it impossible to imitate their good behavior. Will there still be injustices? Of course and that sucks, but you don't let it own you.

Instead, use all the tools you learned, the things you imitate from others who were successful to reach success. I guarantee you right now, Jimmy Kimmel is watching a rerun of my last show for the 58th time and asking, "How the f*** is this dwarf doing it?" That's imitation. But it's only the media academic complex who assume that Blacks as a group can only follow bad examples. And that assumption guarantees more young Black folks will do it because doing anything else is seen as embracing Whitey. But we need to expand their horizons, their choices, their examples for excellence. I mean, all you hear about is the carrot or the stick, when in reality I prefer a carrot the size of a stick and then beat looters with it. 

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Greg Gutfeld currently serves as host of Gutfeld! (weeknights, 11PM-12AM/ET) and co-host of cable news’ highest-rated program The Five (weekdays, 5-6PM/ET).