WEBVTT

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I turn on the burner to make
some eggs, and I turn on the

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wrong burner and goes tick tick tick
tick, and it goes whoomph right like

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I should, and then I turn
it off. Then I turn on the

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other burner and there's no tick tick
tick, and the coffeemaker isn't working,

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and all the power in the kitchen
has gone. Ask not what your country

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can do for you, Ask what
you can do for your country. Mister

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Gorbuchoff, Tear down this wall.
It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lilyns

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back again, Steven Hayward sitting in
for Peter Robinson. Rob Long is with

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us, and we're going to talk
to Henry Olson about politics and elections,

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domestic and foreign. So let's have
ourselves a podcast. And now I want

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to hand it over to the President
of Ukraine, who has as much courage

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as he has determination. Ladies,
John, I'm a president Putin. I

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wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to
be vice president. I think she was

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not qualified to be president. So
let's start there. Did you ever watch

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the debate afterwards? I don't think
I did. No. Welcome everybody,

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It's the Ricochet Podcast. Let's see
what number is. It's number six hundred

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and ninety nine. I think we
had to stop after this one and then

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just leave everybody with a shave and
a haircut and no two bits. But

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no, we'll be coming. We'll
be cruising to seven hundred sometimes soon.

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In the meantime, we're here for
an hour to discuss things small, large

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and great. And speaking of great
and large, I'm small. We have

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Stephen Hayward sitting in for Peter Robinson
and Rob Long as well. Now,

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Rob, we know that you are
in Gotham. I am not that daughter

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hates it when I call it that, or really, where are you?

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I'm on a little island off the
coast of Massachusetts. Okay, you can

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go straight to Hell. I'm sure
it's absolutely beautiful and well it's been a

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little bit foggy, so don't you
know, but it's lovely today. So

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I want to wrap this up so
I can go to the beach. But

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go ahead. We have fog on
the island where all the rich people are

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gambling about, no doubt, wearing
white with little parasols and having gin drinks.

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It sounds great. Stephen, where
are you? I'm the foggy and

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cool central coast of California, where
today, by the way, I am

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identifying as Peter Robinson. Oh okay, good, Well did you what you

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have to do? Would you do
that? You can't just do it.

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You can't just say you Peter Robinson. You have to put some effort into

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it. So you know, I'm
looking at you in the zoom here.

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You're not wearing a sweater that's carelessly
knotted around your shoulders. So let's get

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to that. Well, last week
I was in Glasgow, which is interesting

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meteorologically because sometimes it doesn't rain.
It actually happened. There's like forty five

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second intervals in which the sun blares
through, which is great. But now

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I'm back in Minneapolis in a beautiful
summer day, and here we are barreling

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towards the election, wondering exactly what's
going to happen. And Joe Biden had

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a big boy conference news conference yesterday. So I did not actually see it.

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I was working on something else.
But I assume Stephen, it being

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your job, rob it being your
pleasure, you saw it, and you

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have thought, do you have thoughts? You know? I have to be

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honest, I did not see it. I just read about it, and

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I actually feel like it's more interesting
what I wanted to read about it wasn't

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really what happened, because I don't. My feeling about this is simple that

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every American, certainly I do,
and I think every American except they're very

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young, have a a familiarity,
unsought after familiarity with decline in old age,

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right either our parents or our grandparents
or our relative. I mean,

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we all have had that experience,
and we know what we're looking at.

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So the question isn't do we know
what we're looking at? The question is

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does President doctor Joe Biden know what
she's looking at? And whether the enough

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Democrats know what they're looking at?
And I think I think the answer is

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no. I mean, it doesn't
look at this point like this guy's gonna

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looks like he's standing for re election
in November, which is bananas to me

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and just the pinnacle of or the
nadier of where we are as a country

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where we I mean, say you
like about Trump. He's not a normal

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dude. He's a weird dude with
impulse control and all sorts of emotional problems.

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And Biden is completely Scottish cheese and
scrambled eggs up there and Robert F.

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Kennedy Junior is a crazy person.
It's like that we only have mentally

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deficient people running for president of the
United States of America. And I deficient,

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I mean yeah, I mean Trump
maybe a short fingered vulgarian, his

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spy famously called him, but he
can count to five without using him.

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Yes, right on Twitter, as
somebody was saying, you know, you're

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saying Biden's in decline now, you
guys were saying that four years ago.

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Yes, we were for a reason
because those of us have been watching this

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guy all of these years, ever
since the eighties, know the baseline and

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know that this, this adult Joe
gildfigure is not the Biden that we knew.

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So yeah, we do four years
ago and four years on it's mortifying.

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Uh so you know we all know
this Stephen telling something new. Yeah,

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well I did watch the whole thing
out of professional duty, and it's

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like watching a high wire act at
the circus with the wind blowing and you're

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riveted to see if he's going to
fall, And there were a lot of

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wobbles, but I guess the consensus
is he cleared a very low bar that's

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not very reassuring. So, first
of all, so highlights from yesterday if

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you missed it. Before the press
conference at the end of the NATO meeting,

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he has Zelenski standing next to him
and he says, and now I

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want to introduce the President of Ukraine, President Putin, and then he walks

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two feet offices. Oh wait a
minute, and he comes back and he

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sort of catches himself and tries to
make a joke about it. And then

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finally Putin could be president of Ukraine. So maybe he's got in his old

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age he has second sight correct.
And then very early in the press conference,

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someone asked him about, you know, if you were had to stand

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down, are you confident that Kamila
Harris could win and be president? Something

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like that, and he says,
I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump if

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I didn't think she wasn't qualified.
I mean, it was just this total

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syntactical disaster, and then calling Harris
present vice President Trump, and it sort

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of it went on like that,
but the questions were mostly too polite.

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I thought, I thought they should
have had a harder edge about why did

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your staff conceal this? Things like
that, they didn't do any of that,

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and mostly what he did was filibuster
with obvious, canned speeches on foreign

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policy. So it sort of lean
on that. There weren't many questions about

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NATO or the Summitter foreign policy.
Most of them were about the political problem,

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and he sort of dodged all that. But there weren't any complete car

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crashes like you saw at the debate. So I think that means that the

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democratic agony is going to con you
for the indeterminate future. I love the

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idea. Okay, sorry, I
was going to say, and Rob you

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can, you can speak to this. I love the idea that is being

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brooded about now on the left and
the liberal side. That what we saw

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yesterday in a Joe Biden that was
not debate quality, that once again reminded

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this man really is a modern day
Metternick. It comes to Thorn, it

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comes to foreign policy. You know, Joe's Joe's got it. He's just

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he just has that innate nine dimensional
chess. This guy, you know,

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inherent understanding of these things, which
I find. I mean, I'm trying

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to think of an issue on which
this man has been correct my entire lifetime

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of observing him. This guy who
after nine to eleven, I believe was

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talking about what was he saying that, you know, we should send a

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bunch of money to Iran? We
should you know, send him twohundred million

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dollars or something like that. Let's
uh, let's partition a rack upt.

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I mean, I mean, I
don't get it. But anyway you were

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going to say, well that that
is the strangest thing. I mean,

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part partly is the idea that this
guy who I mean, even if you're

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a supporter of his, this guy
is the most political hack. He defines

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political hack. He's been in politics
for one thousand years. He's only been

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in politics. He's had failed runs
for president. He was a joke for

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a long time. This guy is
not a statesman. He's been wrong,

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as you say, wrong about everything, especially in foreign policy and of course

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in legal policy. But I mean, I'm just talking about foreign policy because

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it's sort of non partisan, right. I mean, I disagreed with everything

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he said is when he was chairman
of the House Judicial but I mean the

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Senate Judiciary Committee. But that those
are partisan disagreements I have with him.

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But he's wrong on the commander in
chief level. And somehow he's been turned

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in by some of this. Now
it's winally number of supporters, but still

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supporters. Has this great grand old
gentleman, this great statesman, thank you

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for your service to this nation.
This guy is about as dirty a crook

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as they come in the White House. And that's saying something. I mean,

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he's I mean, even if you
love him, you have to say

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the guy is guilty of influence,
pedaling it at the most extreme degree.

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And somehow the people are deciding he's
a great hero. And you know,

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it used to be this. We
used to say this thing about politics,

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right, Hey, politics ain't bean
bag. We would say, you know,

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this is like you want a friend, get a dog in DC,

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like all that stuff is because it's
tough. People are tough. It seems

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like the cushiest non tough job ever. Because any nobody would let this guy

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drive home from the restaurant, Nobody
would let this guy run a company,

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nobody would hire him to do anything. In a real tough world that we

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live in, this guy would be
fired. As they say, every company

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or everybody I know who runs a
company says the same thing. Look,

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one of the rules is with hr
high or slow fire fast, meaning don't

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wait if you think it's going to
get better, it's not going to get

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better. Take your time in hiring
somebody, which of course we do in

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this concrete we take nine months practically. But fire him, and even if

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it's like a little unfair, it's
okay. Even if his feelings are hurt,

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it's okay. This guy should have
been dumped and we'll find somebody else,

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is what the Democrats should have been
saying, and they haven't. And

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to me, it's like, well, anybody, anybody listening to this podcast

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who has a job in that performance
not be gone. I think he's actually

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worse than being wrong and being a
crook. I think he's been pernicious to

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American politics for a long time.
And I just point to one thing that

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has plagued us ever since the mid
eighties. Remember in nineteen eighty six,

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he gives a quote to a newspaper
and I don't remember the exact words,

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but it went something like, if
President Reagan sends up Robert Borock, I'd

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have to vote for him because he's
qualified. And I'm not Ted Kennedy.

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He did. That was a direct
quote, I'm not Ted Kennedy. A

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year later, Bork is nominated Biden
became ted. Kennedy switched on a dime,

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stretched out the hearings to enable an
unprecedented personal tax campaign against Bork,

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and that has poison our judicial politics
and many other ways ever since. He's

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responsible for that. If he'd said
no to Norman Lear and the lefty groups

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had said we would have to attack
work, and they'd done a normal confirmation

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hearings within a month or you know, six weeks, we wouldn't have some

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of the poisonous politics that has spilled
out to other agents, you know,

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other aspects of our ever since.
He's responsible for that. That was a

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decisive turning point in American politics,
much for the worse. People who talk

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about how were dangerously polarized today,
they ought to point a really fat finger

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at Joe Biden. You're right.
I was in England a couple of weeks

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ago, and I was discussing American
politics with some friends who are very smart

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people, and one of them was
saying that you liked Joe Biden because he

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was a He was a kindly man. He was a kindly man who radiated

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empathy. And I said, you're
thinking of Neil Kinnick. And she didn't

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know what I meant, and I
had to explain this, and had to

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explain who Joe Biden has been all
of these years, that what you are

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seeing is the diminished nerve version.
That you're right, that the perniciousness is

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there and we have been suffering from
it ever since we woke up after Bork

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with a ringing, pounding head.
Speaking of which, gotta tell you,

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there are times, you know,
when you have a great night out and

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you just don't bounce back. Yeah, it's hard to bounce back like you

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did when you were twenty. You
know, I'm not twenty. And there

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are times you go out, I
mean it was just in a great vacation.

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Who's at a pub where the selection
of ales and whiskies is extraordinary?

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You know, So you got to
make a choice, really, either have

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a great night or a great next
day. And you know how it is

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00:12:41.399 --> 00:12:45.360
when you're out having fun. But
but, but, but but that choice

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fifteen percent off. And thanks zibiotics
for sponsoring this the Ricochet podcast, and

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also for our good times and Awi. Welcome to the podcast. Henry Olson,

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Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public
Policy Center, the author of the

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Four Faces of the Republican Party and
the Working Class Republican. He is the

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host of the podcast Beyond the Polls, which you can find at this thing.

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I understand it's called ricochet dot com. Henry, Welcome, Wow,

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thank you for having me. We've
been talking about Joe Biden and the fact

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that maybe it's just us. I
know, we're partisans here and sometimes that

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blinds a man to the truth.
But we're starting to get the suspicion that

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the man is a little bit old
and feeble in the brain. I know,

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I know, I know it's a
grotesque extrapolation. But ever since I

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don't know, six seven, eight, nine months ago, I've always been

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thinking, you know what, They're
gonna dump him before the convention. They're

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going to swap mod for Gavin Newsom
and gall will Win. Tell us how

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you think this is going to play
out up until to the convention and beyond.

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Are we seeing another sixty eight?
Are we seeing something unprecedented crystal ball

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time. Yeah, Well, by
definition, we're seeing something unprecedented because no

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one has dropped out this close to
a convention in I think history, certainly

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not somebody during the primary era where
delegates are not controlled by bosses but are

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instead controlled by voters. I think
that what's going to happen is the pressure

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is going to ratchet up. That
there are a lot of senior Democrats who

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think that Joe Biden is not the
person who can beat Donald Trump, and

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not only that, that he is
the person who can give the Republicans a

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massive wave election, and they're not
going to stop. That doesn't mean Biden's

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going to give in. He holds
the high ground. But you know,

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if you have more and more Democrats
of elected office at different levels come in

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and say he shouldn't be the candidate, and maybe you finally have Nancy Pelosi

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or somebody like that bite the bullet
and go out in front and make Biden's

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position politically difficult and untenable, you
could see him dropping out. I think

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it'll happen before the convention rather than
after, but never say never. You

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basically have until September if you want
Biden's name on off the ballot. And

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if you just want to tell Democrats
vote for electors and trust them, well

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heck, you could even wait until
October or so and then swamp them out

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to the r n c d As. I've got a couple questions. One

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is are they right? I mean, I just have to ask this because

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it seems like everybody nods and he
goes, there's no way he can win.

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Are they right? Is there no
way this guy can win? No

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way? I mean, you know, like or the risk is that we're

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really rolling the dice here. I
mean, already a high wire act with

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both It was a high wire act
for both of these candidates when we thought

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both of them had you know,
one of them didn't have scrambled eggs up

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there. But now it's even higher
wire. I think that's an actual phrase.

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Yeah, how high is the wire
now for them? Yeah? The

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fundamental problem is that Joe Biden is
the most unpopular president in the history of

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polling, which is to say that
at this point in a president's first term,

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no one has lower job apoofa ratings
period. Jimmy Carter wasn't worse than

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this. Donald Trump wasn't worse than
this. So you've already got somebody who,

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by all rights, should be losing
in a landslide. He's not losing

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in a landslide because of Donald's Jay
Trump, who is also incredibly unpopular.

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But then you've got the fact that
now you have a person who is simply

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prone to being incapable of stringing three
sentences together. Yes, Biden did okay

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at the press conference yesterday. There's
no guarantee that over the next four months

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there won't be a freeze up on
camera. There won't be another moment like

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the debate. There won't be extended
moments like the debate. Everybody knows that.

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So you combine the two things together
and you say he could pull out

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of it. But it's just not
realistic to think so. So my follow

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up there is have we mean,
part of like building any kind of team,

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political or otherwise, right, is
that there's a bench. And if

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you look at the Republican primary,
there was a pretty deep bench. I

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mean, the primary vote has voted
for, to me, the most risky

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of the candidates, But they had
a bench, they had people to choose

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from. I had. I had
my favorites, not the current non presumptive

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nominee, but I certainly had my
favorites. But you know, we could

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argue a whole bunch of things that
nobody would say, I'm not sure this

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guy's ready or that is ready.
The Democratic bench is much thinner. So

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isn't this kind of problem the idea
of when you don't take the job of

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the or the part of the vice
president seriously and you throw all in for

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a popular president for two terms Obama, and you lose houses house races,

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and you lose Senate races, and
you lose state houses. Isn't this aren't

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they reaping this sort of bad showing
season they've had for the past decade or

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two, Or am I just going
too far? I think they have a

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stronger bench than you're letting on.
But I think the problem is is that

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they've got a week manager and they've
got a week assistant coach, and they're

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not really willing to rip the band
aid off and say let's clean house.

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You know, it's if this to
continue the sports metaphor, if there were

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a new owner in charge, the
manager of the general manager, and everybody

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this Keith Scout and the person who
sells folks would be out the door.

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But that's not the case in the
Democratic Party. Look, the fundamental problem

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the Democratic Party has is it is
beholden to a left that is wildly out

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of step with the sentiments and values
of the American center. They're not willing

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to suppress that left and drive it
out of the party or limit its influence.

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So it means it is continually the
tail that doesn't wag the dog in

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the way the tail wants, but
wags the dog enough that people notice.

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The fundamental fact that no one's talking
about except me, is this is going

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to be the most pro Republican electorate
since the Great Depression. The Democrats since

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the Great Depression have always had an
edge in voter identification surveys, in exit

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polls, and general polling. That's
not the case anymore, guys. This

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is historic. Republicans will have been
ahead in either the straight party identification or

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the leaned party identification, including independents
who say they leaned to one party or

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another in the Gallon poll for over
two and a half years before Henry Hold

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that thought about the Republican edge for
a moment. What I noticed is,

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I don't want to take you back
to twenty sixteen for just a moment.

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What I notice is the polls are
still really have a wide variance. Right

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now, there's some showing Trump with
a six even eight point lead nationally in

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key states, and then there's a
couple of women out the last few days

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showing Biden even or ahead by a
point. I don't want to get off

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into the weeds of polling methodology because
we'll drive listeners crazy. But here's the

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question. In twenty sixteen, I
think you were the first person to notice

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and make a point that every time
Trump did something stupid, attacked the gold

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Star family of the Access Hollywood tape, his numbers would tank five, six,

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seven, eight points, but Hillary's
didn't go up. And that's when

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you were saying, hum, this
is interesting. And then Trump would Over

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the next week, Trump would improve
well like a point a day, and

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then, of course we know how
that turned out. It looks to me

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like something in the same is happening
here. I don't see Trump's numbers,

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however, you want to wash out
the variation going up very much. You

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see is Biden's going down. That
is the thing that says to me,

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Biden's not out of it. You
know, we're having this great gooey shot

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in freudy happy time right now watching
this disaster. But could he sneak up

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on us the way Trump snuck up
on Hillary? Yes, and that I'm

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glad you made that point. That
is exactly what's going on. Is Trump's

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not going up, Biden's going down, which means that just like Trump with

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his incessant foot in the mouth disease
in twenty sixteen, would drop and then

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people who didn't want Hillary would come
back once that faded from view, you

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could say that that'll happen with Bien. The question is will this fade from

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view that you know with Trump,
at some point you just incorporated the fact

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that this guy has virtues and flaws
to being a president candidate that we've never

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seen before, and he ultimately benefited
from the fact that people really really didn't

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want Hillary enough, people really didn't
want Hillary, that they really held their

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nose and voted for somebody they didn't
want to win. And that's the question

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for Biden. But this gets back
to the how it's different, which is

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that what we saw in twenty sixteen
is people incorporated Trump's eccentricity and they would

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react to specific examples of it,
but then then come back, which meant

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that the eccentricity itself was not fatal. Do people feel that about the president's

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mental capacity? Follow up question on
the Republican edge? You point out two

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parts of this. One, is
it okay that discount that Trump has got

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negatives almost as bad as Biden,
and that can account for the fact that

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he has a hard ceiling. But
second, there are I know, you've

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seen a lot of the state by
statepholes showing a lot of Democratic Senate candidates

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in particular running ahead of Biden and
running ahead of the Republican challengers. And

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so that makes me wonder is this
Republican edge not yet showing up or the

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00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:07.680
follow up question is a parallel the
row brought up a couple times the last

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couple of weeks, which is just
in some ways the selection looks like nineteen

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eighty when it was neck and neck. Sometimes Ronald Reagan was trailing. He

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usually was ahead by a point most
of the time, but sometimes trailing,

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and it broke big at the end
when people decided after the debate that gosh,

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you know, he actually looks fine
to me and Carter really is okay.

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So there was a ten point win
in the end of the day,

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where well beyond the margin of the
last public polls. So it looks to

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me like either the Republican edge is
overstated, oh by the way, and

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the Senate races in nineteen eighty,
as you know, being history geeks,

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you have six or eight Republican candidates
who were way down on the polls who

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won, right. So do you
think we're looking at at this date a

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possible rerun of a nineteen eighty surprise
where Republicans pick up six eight Senate seats

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and Trump actually does win by six
points or something like that, or do

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you have a hunch on it right
now? With respect to the current Senate

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00:25:02.359 --> 00:25:07.000
polls. I've written about this for
National View online, I will worry as

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a Republican. As an analyst,
I don't worry because I can read the

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00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:12.839
polls all the time. But as
a Republican I would worry if we're on

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October first and that's still the case. Why name identification? Every one of

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00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:23.880
these Democratic senators has an edge in
name identification, So What you're seeing is

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00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:27.880
that when you look at the polls, Republicans like the Republican, Democrats like

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00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:33.599
the Democrat, and independents are going
to the incumbent. Why it's the name

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00:25:33.599 --> 00:25:37.799
they've heard. What we know is
that over the next few months, Republicans

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00:25:37.799 --> 00:25:40.680
will spend tens of millions of dollars
in each of these states, and by

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October one they will know the Republican
as well, or at least the hard

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name idea will be pretty close to
the hard name idea of the Democratic senators.

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To ask me on October first,
how far Democratic senators are running ahead

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00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:59.680
of Joe Biden. Now I've looked
at the numbers being Nerd squared, and

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typically Democratic senators will run a couple
of points ahead of the president in the

365
00:26:03.480 --> 00:26:10.480
modern era. So if Joe Biden
does bounce back and he's down by one

366
00:26:10.599 --> 00:26:17.480
nationally, that probably means he's running
even in Pennsylvania, which probably means Joe

367
00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:22.039
Bob Casey will be ahead by a
point or two. I don't think that

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absent a massive candidate meltdown by Republicans, and I think Steve Danes, the

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00:26:27.799 --> 00:26:33.200
head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has done a good job working with

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00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:37.559
President Trump to make sure there are
not going to be doctor Oz's and herschel

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Walker's this night. These people may
be bland, they may be in experienced,

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00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:48.960
they may largely be self funders,
but they are not fatally flawed in

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the way these other people work.
So what we know is that Democrats are

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only going to run a couple of
points ahead of their president. So that

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makes Biden's standing crucial, which explains
the freak. Biden losing by four nationally

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00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:10.119
means the possibility of as many as
eight Senate seat losses, including West Virginia.

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Biden losing by one nationally probably limits
those losses to between two and four.

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You know, Rob has some questions
I think that have to do with

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US politics. I've got one that
shows that shows that my mind ranges far,

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00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:33.359
far, very continental man. So
we'll get to that second. Here's

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00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:38.400
my question. My basic premise has
been I sort of agreed with the Democratic

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00:27:38.599 --> 00:27:45.720
Party strategy, which is Trump is
awful. People hate him, He's unstable,

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00:27:47.079 --> 00:27:51.079
he has impulse control problems. He's
going to say do something stupid.

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00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:59.480
Yeah, the Republican Party is now
in the grip of uh kamikaze uh,

385
00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:03.759
politics in that they would rather lose
and you know, hold dear to their

386
00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:07.200
crackpot views that are unpopular with Americans. And I though thought, like,

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that's a that's a pretty that's not
a crazy strategy. It's not a strategy

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00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:18.880
I would use, but it doesn't
seem insane to me. The opposite seems

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to be happening. You saw a
very forceful Trump. I mean I was

390
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watching the debate, the debate with
a bunch of lefties from public radio,

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and you know, he made good
points and they go, it's good point,

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made a really good point on abortion. I thought he made a really

393
00:28:33.960 --> 00:28:36.200
good answer in a lot of these
things, and he kind of held himself

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in check and he at one point
he kind of looked at it. He

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00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:40.640
did a take. He looked at
the camera and said, I have no

396
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:42.519
idea what that guy just said.
That sentence means I don't think he does

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00:28:42.519 --> 00:28:45.039
either, And he kind of looked
directly in the camera kind of Jack Benny

398
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:49.160
style, which you know he's very
talented at that stuff. So so he

399
00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:56.319
seems to be in control of himself. The Republican Party platform seems to be

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00:28:56.480 --> 00:28:59.720
a throwback, almost like you're looking
at it and it feels like it's nineteen

401
00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:06.559
eighty eight again or ninety ninety two
again. What happens if the Republicans have

402
00:29:06.599 --> 00:29:11.720
their act together. First of all, Donald Trump has been demonstrating for the

403
00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:17.400
last year and a half that he
is a more disciplined candidate than he was

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00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:22.359
in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty.
Anyone who was surprised by the debate stage

405
00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:25.759
hasn't been watching, you know,
the old liberal bumper sticker. If you're

406
00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:30.480
not angry, you're not paying attention. If you're surprised that Trump's relative self

407
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:34.599
control, you're not paying attention.
And this gets to the incredible bubble that

408
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:42.759
so many aggressive activists live in.
Look two things, one, rally the

409
00:29:42.759 --> 00:29:48.799
base and split the independence. By
scaring works when you have an advantage in

410
00:29:48.839 --> 00:29:55.880
partisan identification, it's a recipe for
loss when you don't have. Democrats have

411
00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:00.880
never run a national campaign went out
holding the highhigh ground. They still think

412
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:06.839
they hold the high ground. Rally
the base, split the independence means Donald

413
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:10.640
Trump wins by two to four points
nationally. It's also hard to scare people

414
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:14.359
at that this is the democracies on
the line. But you know we're gonna

415
00:30:14.440 --> 00:30:17.720
let this old man kind of like
Totter his way to November. That doesn't

416
00:30:18.359 --> 00:30:21.319
that doesn't seem those two things cannot
both be true. More important than the

417
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:26.960
choices, the fact is the number
show people aren't buying it. Democratic voter

418
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:32.799
registration has been declining in virtually every
state that tracks it during the Biden administration.

419
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:38.400
They're losing hundreds of thousands of registrants. Partisan identification in polls has been

420
00:30:38.440 --> 00:30:45.400
declining throughout the Biden presidency. This
has nothing to do with Joe Biden's age.

421
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:49.680
This has to do with people look
at what's on offer. They hear

422
00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:55.640
what the Republicans are saying, and
they don't drink the progressive kool aid.

423
00:30:56.480 --> 00:31:00.880
And that is not something that is
getting through to these people because they have

424
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:06.240
drunk the progressive kool aid. Yeah, that's why I think that if you

425
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:11.359
ripped the band aid off and put
on a ticket of Gretchen Whitmer and Rafael

426
00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:15.519
Warnack, they would have the credibility
to say we're turning a new leaf,

427
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:18.279
We're a new Democratic Party, blah
blah blah. It would be trying to

428
00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:22.480
do here. And this gets into
the elections. Don't just happen in the

429
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:29.000
United States of America. This is
Jacindomania from New Zealand where they got rid

430
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:32.480
of the leader a few weeks before
their election, and suddenly this new,

431
00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:34.559
fresh, young face made people think, Hey, this is a new labor

432
00:31:34.599 --> 00:31:38.880
party. That's what I would do
if I were the Democrats, but it

433
00:31:38.920 --> 00:31:45.559
requires courage to do it and an
organization which they've never had. Well,

434
00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:52.480
yeah, that is Will Rogers' statement. I don't belong for the people who

435
00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:56.480
I don't know the same I don't
belong to an organized political party, and

436
00:31:56.480 --> 00:32:01.200
I'm a Democrat. But fundamentally,
what you just have to do is say

437
00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:06.480
we are willing. I'm willing to
blow up my political career, potentially to

438
00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:09.640
blow up the president because that's what's
in the interest of the party. And

439
00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:13.359
nobody's been willing to do that so
far. But we've still got a few

440
00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:15.920
weeks to go, so I know
James wants to come in. I just

441
00:32:15.960 --> 00:32:20.480
have one scenario to pitch you,
which is a no. I'm reme'mb rethinking

442
00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:22.480
all of my political fears. So
this is my pitch. I was talking

443
00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:27.599
to somebody last night about this.
She didn't see that she was completely convinced.

444
00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:32.440
But I feel that's probably because she
was an ardent partisan Democrat. It's

445
00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:37.400
entirely possible that Donald Trump in his
but it will be his second term,

446
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:43.279
his last term will be like every
other president in his second and last term,

447
00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:46.559
and we'll be thinking about legacy,
not so much the fight, but

448
00:32:46.599 --> 00:32:50.839
the legacy. Am I going to
get on a stamp? Am I going

449
00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:53.000
to get on a statue? Am
I going to get win over the people

450
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:58.519
who don't like me? How big
can I be? And that's to me?

451
00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:02.039
I mean I could be reading he
leaves as I almost always do wrong

452
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:07.720
Lee, But it seems to be
that is his ability now to like shut

453
00:33:07.799 --> 00:33:14.599
up, to let a pretty anadyne
boilerplate Republican platform get passed through, to

454
00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:17.440
kind of behave a little a little
bit suggests that he's thinking, well,

455
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:20.559
you know, he's not gonna be
able to run again. If he wins,

456
00:33:22.559 --> 00:33:27.640
he's going to have four years to
become something other than a very controversial,

457
00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:32.680
you know, kind of tainted president. He's gonna have a chance to

458
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:37.799
become a one of the great president's, A two term president. Is that?

459
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:43.880
Am I crazy? No? No, I don't think you're crazy.

460
00:33:43.960 --> 00:33:49.960
But I think Donald Trump's entire life
is built on a couple of things.

461
00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:57.119
One is bringing the name Trump to
the center of every conversation possible. Two

462
00:33:57.160 --> 00:34:02.440
is courting the media in order to
build a mass following that brings the name

463
00:34:02.680 --> 00:34:09.760
Trump to every conversation possible. And
three is doing so by flaunting conventional wisdom

464
00:34:10.440 --> 00:34:15.920
throughout. He's gonna build the biggest
building. He's going to build the biggest

465
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:22.920
casino. He's going to sleep around
and dispense with his lives. He's going

466
00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:30.800
to be the guy who makes it
without conforming to expectations. And I look

467
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:37.159
and I think if Donald Trump were
going to be the person who wants to

468
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:42.159
be popular and conform, he would
have done that in his first term.

469
00:34:43.480 --> 00:34:45.559
That would have been the easiest thing. That's what people were kind of hoping,

470
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:49.960
is, Hey, now that you've
made it, make can be presidential.

471
00:34:50.440 --> 00:34:52.159
So I look at this and I
think, Yes, Donald Trump wants

472
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.719
to have a legacy. He wants
to have his name in the center of

473
00:34:54.719 --> 00:35:00.719
every conversation. He wants that proverbial
statue. And he believes he's going to

474
00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:10.440
do it by being the most direct, confrontational, victory focused, ruthless president

475
00:35:10.599 --> 00:35:15.960
that we have seen since Franklin rose
Remember Franklin. One of my favorite lines

476
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:20.920
from Franklin Roosevelt is from the Madison
Square Garden speech in nineteen thirty six when

477
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:25.480
he's under attack from the Liberty Lobby
and so forth for destroying America, and

478
00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:34.320
he says, they are universal in
their hate for me, and I welcome

479
00:35:34.519 --> 00:35:39.599
their hatred. That's Donald Trump.
Yeah, well After Hour was pretty successful.

480
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:45.159
So yeah, last time I checked, Yeah, Henry. Last Monday,

481
00:35:45.159 --> 00:35:49.400
I was in a hotel room in
the UK, enjoying my morning coffee,

482
00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:52.320
watching the television, and there was
a bright faced young woman from Labor,

483
00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:55.239
all happy and talking about the new
labor and how they're going to fix

484
00:35:55.239 --> 00:36:00.199
the country and sort everything. And
then they had the conservative spokesman, who

485
00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:04.280
was a rather portly fellow with an
excessive number of jowels, who is named

486
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:07.440
Lord Pickles. And I'm like,
and I'm looking at this, and I'm

487
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:10.960
thinking, well, you know,
Bush comes to shove. I'm gonna go

488
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.360
with the picture. But this,
this this bright new face of labor.

489
00:36:16.119 --> 00:36:20.039
Hmm. Not sure. I'm not
sure I'm believing it. I spent a

490
00:36:20.119 --> 00:36:22.800
fortnight in England, and you know, I'm the kind of guy who reads

491
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:29.360
the telegraph so take that for which
you will, but dismaying to see what

492
00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:31.719
happened and how everybody said seems to
have said, well, yes, we

493
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.079
know that essentially labor is probably lying
to us, not going to drive the

494
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:38.280
country off the cliff economically in terms
of energy policy and the rest of it,

495
00:36:38.280 --> 00:36:40.639
and probably can't fish fix the NHL. But on the other hand,

496
00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:45.840
you know, the Tories have just
really cocked things. Explain to us exactly

497
00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:51.400
what happened over there briefly and why
it matters, because it does, and

498
00:36:51.440 --> 00:36:54.440
maybe throwing in France for the for
the fun of it too. Yeah,

499
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:58.400
well, you know, it certainly
matters for Britain and it matters for us.

500
00:36:58.440 --> 00:37:02.800
Look what happened over there was in
twenty nineteen. The Tories had done

501
00:37:02.840 --> 00:37:07.639
something that nobody else had been able
to successfully do, with the possible exception

502
00:37:07.719 --> 00:37:12.239
of Donald Trump, is that they
were able to lean into the global realignment,

503
00:37:12.920 --> 00:37:16.719
which is that upper ed class educated
people are moving center left and working

504
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:22.199
class people are moving center right.
And they created a majority that, for

505
00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:27.599
the first time in modern polling history, meant that the Conservatives did better among

506
00:37:27.719 --> 00:37:35.119
the social classes that are less well
privileged than the ones that are more privileged.

507
00:37:35.639 --> 00:37:38.519
They blew it up. They blew
it up, and they basically blew

508
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:45.480
it up intentionally, although they didn't
know intention would actually give them a direction

509
00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:50.559
and a thought that they did not
possess fundamentally. They won an election in

510
00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:54.599
twenty nineteen making promises they did not
believe in and did not intend to keep.

511
00:37:55.199 --> 00:38:01.280
They did not intend to bring immigration
down to the net ten thousands.

512
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:09.039
They did not intend to level up
working class communities and working class people by

513
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:14.840
tilting the public policies in their favor. They did not intend to take on

514
00:38:15.079 --> 00:38:20.039
the Tory shires and begin to force
them to allow more homes to be built

515
00:38:20.039 --> 00:38:22.599
in the most economically vibrant part of
the country, you know, London,

516
00:38:23.320 --> 00:38:29.360
which has massively high home prices because
of restrictive zoning in the Tory areas.

517
00:38:29.800 --> 00:38:34.079
They did not intend to do what
they said, and the voters finally figured

518
00:38:34.119 --> 00:38:38.199
that out that this was not a
problem of Boris Johnson having a lapse of

519
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:42.559
judgment. This is a fundamental problem
with the Tories. And so what you

520
00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:46.480
had was people who wanted competent public
services went to the center left, and

521
00:38:46.519 --> 00:38:50.639
for people who wanted the old promises, they either didn't vote or they went

522
00:38:50.760 --> 00:38:53.239
to Reform Party, and that's what
happened. This was not a vote in

523
00:38:53.320 --> 00:38:58.400
favor of Kere Starmer and Labor.
It was a vote to say, you

524
00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:02.719
are incompetent and did honest and we
want the door to hit you very hard

525
00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:07.599
on your way out. Can they
come back from that? Well, it's

526
00:39:07.679 --> 00:39:10.280
kind of like Joe Biden. I
can always say can. But you know,

527
00:39:12.679 --> 00:39:17.719
fundamentally, in a democracy, to
quote somebody who Steve would know,

528
00:39:17.960 --> 00:39:22.760
you know, public opinion is everything, you know. Abraham Lincoln said it.

529
00:39:22.920 --> 00:39:27.679
James Madison said it. Oh well, that's what leads to my follow

530
00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:31.199
up question, Henry, which is
to people who go beyond the headlines,

531
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:36.519
which you do, you'll notice something
quite odd about both the British and French

532
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:40.920
elections. I think it's correct that
Labor received fewer actual votes they did five

533
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:45.039
years ago, and second it was
thirty four percent of the total vote,

534
00:39:45.039 --> 00:39:49.440
and yet they got four hundred and
twelve two thirds of the seats. The

535
00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:53.039
old Lib Dem Party they got i
think twelve percent of the vote in seventy

536
00:39:53.039 --> 00:39:58.679
one seats, and Nigel Faraja's New
Reform Party got fourteen percent of the vote.

537
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:00.800
And what five seats. So,
you know, here in this country

538
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:06.519
and in similar situation in France.
Here in this country, all the quote

539
00:40:06.559 --> 00:40:09.679
unquote reformers say, oh, our
systems so undemocratic. You know, jerry

540
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:14.840
mandering for the House the Senate is
you know, undemocratic, and of course

541
00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:20.039
they hate the electoral college. Here's
a system where you have this massive number

542
00:40:20.119 --> 00:40:23.039
of seats with only a third of
the vote. And then similarly in France.

543
00:40:23.079 --> 00:40:27.920
The question I'm coming to is this. It seems to me that although

544
00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:30.920
it's correct that, you know,
kick the Tories out for being so incompetent,

545
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:36.800
but it does seem to me that
these parliamentary majorities you see are wildly

546
00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:39.039
out of step with the European public
opinion. I mean, I think in

547
00:40:39.079 --> 00:40:44.320
France, all you've done is postpone
and make more likely the presidency of Marine

548
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:49.000
Lapan three years from now. So, I mean, you know, in

549
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:52.119
the nineties, Bill Clinton, as
we all know, moved to the center

550
00:40:52.199 --> 00:40:55.280
after his he understood public opinion was
not with him. It doesn't seem to

551
00:40:55.320 --> 00:41:00.320
me that the labor rights in Britain, or certainly not in France, they

552
00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:05.800
understand that they're wrong against public opinion
and aren't they setting themselves up for even

553
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:09.199
more populous furies in the next four
years. It's pretty much globally. I

554
00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:14.360
mean, what are the establishment you
know, to be frank, what do

555
00:41:14.440 --> 00:41:22.639
the establishment Republicans think? Well,
we can wake up and from the political

556
00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:24.960
version of the Dallas Dream season and
Pam will go in and you know,

557
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:30.719
see Bobby's in the shower, and
then Trump never happened. Look, good

558
00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:35.559
lord, you're showing our age,
Henry. Okay, well, I usually

559
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:43.000
show my age. I don't know
what you boomers are talking about. Yeah,

560
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:47.280
hold my beer. Okay, Yeah. Look, this is happening globally

561
00:41:47.360 --> 00:41:52.719
because there's a class of people who
legitimately see that the people who run their

562
00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:57.119
countries don't care about them. They
care more about their own values than the

563
00:41:57.159 --> 00:42:01.199
traditional national values. They care more
about their own any economic benefits than anything

564
00:42:01.239 --> 00:42:07.800
that flows to their broader citizens.
And this elite class exists, we know

565
00:42:07.079 --> 00:42:13.880
people in it. It spans left
and right, and they have now had

566
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:16.920
ten, depending on the country,
ten to fifteen years to see and read

567
00:42:16.960 --> 00:42:20.639
the mood of their people. They
refuse to do it. At this point,

568
00:42:21.880 --> 00:42:24.199
they're not going to change. And
so the question is do you think

569
00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:30.039
that doing more of the same old
little twink here and there of the post

570
00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:37.639
nineteen ninety left right consensus will solve
the problems of the West if you do

571
00:42:37.239 --> 00:42:42.760
well, I want to have some
of what you're having, but you would

572
00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:47.280
fit very nicely in the elites.
I think the entire world developed world is

573
00:42:47.719 --> 00:42:52.719
focusing for a populist showdown. I
think that's one of the things that the

574
00:42:52.800 --> 00:42:58.960
devils the inability to see why Donald
Trump can win, and center right parties

575
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:04.559
that want to lean into this and
actually become new center right parties kent profit.

576
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:07.519
Those that don't go the way of
the Tories, go the way of

577
00:43:07.559 --> 00:43:12.480
the establishment, old guard Republicans,
you know, dream for two thousand and

578
00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:15.880
eight. You know, it's it's
kind of like going back to your high

579
00:43:15.880 --> 00:43:19.840
school reunion and thinking that you can
still fit into your letterman's jacket. It's

580
00:43:19.840 --> 00:43:22.320
just not going to happen. So
Hender, I know, we got to

581
00:43:22.400 --> 00:43:24.639
let you go. But one question
is at a larger American history question,

582
00:43:24.880 --> 00:43:30.719
are we living through something that twenty
years and now thirty years from now people

583
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:36.480
will talk about a big transformation period
in American history where the parties are out

584
00:43:36.519 --> 00:43:42.880
of gas, where the traditional pathways
are got to go, and we look

585
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:44.079
at it, we look at the
past, go, well, you know,

586
00:43:44.079 --> 00:43:45.239
they're the whigs that around heads to
cop whatever. We had, all

587
00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:49.119
those parties, wed all those we
had, all those movements, and we

588
00:43:49.159 --> 00:43:52.800
think of them as eras that ended. Is this? What is this what

589
00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:58.920
we're living through? Just read the
end of five days after the two thousand

590
00:43:58.920 --> 00:44:02.679
and eight election in Los Angeles five
six something like that, And I was

591
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:07.199
with my then young, now middle
aged assistant, and I said, let's

592
00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:13.639
go up to the top of the
Bonaventure Hotel Bonaventure with its revolving boone and

593
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:15.239
I had a drink and I said, the reason I want to do this,

594
00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:20.800
of course this person was too young
to remember. Why I know anything

595
00:44:20.840 --> 00:44:24.360
about this is that in nineteen eighty
I did this after the Reagan election.

596
00:44:24.679 --> 00:44:30.679
And the Reagan era is over.
The Reagan era has been over since two

597
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:36.880
thousand and eight. The post nineteen
ninety era has been over since two thousand

598
00:44:36.920 --> 00:44:39.599
and eight. We are in the
middle of what we will look at as

599
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:45.159
a thirty to forty year movement that
is on par with the rise of social

600
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:50.760
democracy from the end of the nineteenth
century to its final triumph as the dominant

601
00:44:50.800 --> 00:44:54.079
force after World War Two. We
are maybe not in the middle of it,

602
00:44:54.119 --> 00:44:59.119
We're only in the third of it. Maybe maybe it's the end of

603
00:44:59.199 --> 00:45:01.679
the beginning and not the beginning of
the end. But this has been going

604
00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:07.079
on. There is no populist moment. It is a populist era and the

605
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:12.719
only question that remains is how will
it end. It will end with a

606
00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:19.880
fundamentally transformed West. The question is
is it a fundamentally transformed West that we

607
00:45:19.960 --> 00:45:22.320
want to live in or one that
we don't want to live in? And

608
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:27.440
that is the only question that elites
really ought to be trying to answer.

609
00:45:27.440 --> 00:45:30.599
But of course that's not the question
they want to answer, which simply increases

610
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:39.119
the likelihood of strong, rapid and
perhaps misguided populism. The question the elites

611
00:45:39.159 --> 00:45:44.360
want to have answered is what exactly
is going to be on the menu the

612
00:45:44.360 --> 00:45:49.400
first day of DeVos because I have
a peanut allergy and my wife doesn't like

613
00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:53.000
shrimp. Yeah, I think.
I think the next statement that's going to

614
00:45:53.000 --> 00:46:00.400
come out of DeVos is let them
eat gluten free, right to see.

615
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:01.599
I mean, I hope it is
the West that we recognize and I'll live

616
00:46:01.639 --> 00:46:06.000
in the pod and eating the bug
and that sort of thing. But we'll

617
00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:08.800
see, so we'll have you.
This is podcast number six ninety nine,

618
00:46:08.840 --> 00:46:13.800
Henry. We're going to have you
on for podcast number one, three hundred

619
00:46:13.800 --> 00:46:16.360
and ninety eight, where we'll discuss
exactly what has become of the West in

620
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:20.679
the meantime. Thanks, it's been
a pleasure talking to you and hearing your

621
00:46:20.679 --> 00:46:25.159
insights, and everybody go to his
podcast at ricochet dot com and read the

622
00:46:25.159 --> 00:46:30.760
books. Henry. Thanks, thank
k Henry. Before we go, a

623
00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:35.000
couple of things. First of all, Rob's here, So Rob's going to

624
00:46:35.039 --> 00:46:37.000
be happy to tell you about all
the meetups which and he's going to I

625
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:39.760
think he's going to every single one
of them, and he's going to be

626
00:46:39.880 --> 00:46:45.400
I'd love to winch to down a
in a breeches boy. And so what's

627
00:46:45.440 --> 00:46:47.280
coming up, Well, of course
that's the benefit of being a member of

628
00:46:47.320 --> 00:46:51.320
Ricoshet. You get to go to
the meetup, says one, the German

629
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:54.039
Fest meetup in Milwaukee, which is
coming up actually weekend of July twenty six,

630
00:46:55.440 --> 00:47:00.400
and then there's one scheduled in Saint
Louis on October third, so there's

631
00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:04.519
only two in the on the docket
right now. That can change in an

632
00:47:04.559 --> 00:47:07.400
instant. You could change that by
joining Ricochet and picking a weekend or picking

633
00:47:07.400 --> 00:47:13.440
a day. Post it and people, your fellow Ricochet members will show up

634
00:47:13.440 --> 00:47:15.840
and you, guys, I guarantee
you have a great time. It is

635
00:47:15.920 --> 00:47:22.119
always fun to hang out with the
Ricochet members. They are always lots of

636
00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:24.639
fun to talk to. It is
not all politics. In fact, the

637
00:47:24.679 --> 00:47:28.920
last one I went to, I
think I don't think I really had a

638
00:47:28.920 --> 00:47:31.559
political conversation with We think we had
one, like we won a dinner time

639
00:47:31.599 --> 00:47:35.599
at the table. We had one, and it was just kind of casual.

640
00:47:35.679 --> 00:47:38.920
But it's really more about a big, wide life and world that we

641
00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:44.920
live in which goes beyond the momentary
politics. It was music and movies and

642
00:47:45.039 --> 00:47:47.000
architecture the last one that I was
at, and not a word about politics,

643
00:47:47.000 --> 00:47:51.719
because you know, there's just so
much more to life. Of course,

644
00:47:51.719 --> 00:47:54.920
nothing affects us as deeply on a
pocketbook level or a street safety level

645
00:47:55.039 --> 00:48:00.400
or all that stuff. But still
there's something about getting together with life minded

646
00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:04.280
people and not expressing the like mindedness
that is all of Ricochet. To me,

647
00:48:05.159 --> 00:48:07.159
that's a very good way to put
it. Yeah, Stephen, why

648
00:48:07.159 --> 00:48:12.639
don't you host one out there in
your cality zone and report back. I'm

649
00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:15.599
sure people would love to congregate and
hear you expound on your tales of the

650
00:48:15.599 --> 00:48:21.679
world. Speaking of tales of the
world, there's a note here in the

651
00:48:21.800 --> 00:48:24.119
rundown and yes we do have a
couple of lines that are suggested to us

652
00:48:24.119 --> 00:48:32.360
by our producers. Perry big thumbs
up. It says James Lillax's European sojourn.

653
00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:37.119
Well, my friends, A nobody
cares and b it's the entirety of

654
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:40.480
my diner this week. But it's
not I went here and then I did

655
00:48:40.519 --> 00:48:45.559
this. It's who cares. It's
just various thoughts, observations and moments from

656
00:48:45.639 --> 00:48:50.920
Europe, which is a different place. I love the UK and I absolutely

657
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:53.639
now adore Scotland, but I have
to say this. The power of images,

658
00:48:53.840 --> 00:48:58.440
the power of deep fakes, the
power of falsehoes, the power of

659
00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:06.719
belief. There's nothing that really drives
this home like sitting on a big boat

660
00:49:06.760 --> 00:49:09.920
and realizing you've paid forty five dollars
to be driven out into the middle of

661
00:49:10.039 --> 00:49:17.719
loch Ness. This whole industry that
is of putting out ships and selling souvenirs

662
00:49:17.719 --> 00:49:22.440
for the lock Nest Monster. All
seems to be based on a grainy nineteen

663
00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:28.280
thirties picture where somebody took a pen
and drew in a sea monster. And

664
00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:34.960
so everybody deeply wants to believe and
piles one after the other, sun up

665
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:37.199
to sun down. These ships are
filled with people, and I'm laughing at

666
00:49:37.239 --> 00:49:40.440
myself for a couple of reasons.
One, I wanted to do it.

667
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:45.760
I really did. I had no
illusions whatsoever. But there's just something about

668
00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:50.239
if ever the lock Nest Monster comes
up shrugging sort of and saying, yeah,

669
00:49:51.519 --> 00:49:55.079
I've been there, and it is
beautiful, and it is terrifying when

670
00:49:55.079 --> 00:49:58.760
they tell you the tales the deep
in the dark and what they actually do

671
00:49:58.840 --> 00:50:01.480
think is down there. That's fascinating. And it took a long time to

672
00:50:01.519 --> 00:50:04.760
get there and a long time to
get back. And we saw all sorts

673
00:50:04.760 --> 00:50:07.840
of Scottish highlands and this and that
and the irons and cairns and battlefields and

674
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:13.000
the rest of it, all narrated
by we Dennis McCafferty, who steered the

675
00:50:13.119 --> 00:50:15.840
enormous bus with one hand as we
went down these twisty roads at fifty kilometers

676
00:50:15.840 --> 00:50:20.400
while he gestured with the other at
empty battlefields full of full of you know,

677
00:50:20.480 --> 00:50:24.800
coups telling us that blood was spent
there, and the Campbell's and McDonald's,

678
00:50:24.800 --> 00:50:28.840
and they're still angry about it.
But what amazed me, and it

679
00:50:28.920 --> 00:50:34.760
shouldn't have, because I've traveled a
lot. The bus stops were to walk

680
00:50:34.760 --> 00:50:37.559
across this bridge to go to the
boats that will take us out there.

681
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:43.920
And it's not a far distance.
But between the bus and boarding and boarding

682
00:50:43.960 --> 00:50:47.639
the boat, my wife found a
store that she could just nip into for

683
00:50:47.679 --> 00:50:51.519
a second and have a look,
And having done so, she found a

684
00:50:51.519 --> 00:50:55.119
sweater. I don't know a man
in the world who doesn't think I'm at

685
00:50:55.119 --> 00:50:58.559
the bus. I must get to
the boat, and you go to the

686
00:50:58.559 --> 00:51:00.800
boat, and that's your first priority. But she sees, she sees this

687
00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:04.639
little shop, and you know,
and I'm just gonna look in for a

688
00:51:04.679 --> 00:51:10.039
second, and I'd be like,
why you're not walking around in rags?

689
00:51:10.159 --> 00:51:14.559
You have clothes. God knows you
have an escape, but I don't.

690
00:51:14.559 --> 00:51:16.159
Of course, I just off she
goes, and then I just have to

691
00:51:16.199 --> 00:51:22.400
wait. James, I reject I
reject your your gender conformity. Yeah,

692
00:51:23.119 --> 00:51:28.039
but I will say this, you
clearly have been duped by the global elites

693
00:51:28.199 --> 00:51:31.400
because you think that the Lockedest Monster
does not exist. That's just what they

694
00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:35.840
want, The dapples crowd wants you
to believe. Uh huh uh huh uh

695
00:51:35.920 --> 00:51:39.280
huh. Probably so yes, would
you don't don't look, don't don't look

696
00:51:39.320 --> 00:51:43.760
too deep, don't peer too deeply
into the midnight blue waters coming up?

697
00:51:43.840 --> 00:51:46.239
You know, But I'm disappointed,
Rob. I thought our theologian and training

698
00:51:46.280 --> 00:51:51.480
would say that the uh, the
fascination of things like the Lockedest Monster speaks

699
00:51:51.480 --> 00:51:54.400
to the deep innate desire of human
beings for some kind of transcendence and mystery.

700
00:51:54.599 --> 00:51:59.639
And sometimes you said default, right, Well, my default is always

701
00:51:59.639 --> 00:52:02.280
going to be like you know,
James, that's true. But so I

702
00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:04.920
just I know you got to run, Jays, But I do want to

703
00:52:04.960 --> 00:52:07.800
ask because I've been in this position
a couple of times and it is always

704
00:52:07.840 --> 00:52:14.400
weird but really fascinating to be in
a foreign country when they are in the

705
00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:17.360
middle of that election. Yes,
and you kind of see how that goes.

706
00:52:17.440 --> 00:52:24.159
It was. It's always really interesting
and like how they what they think

707
00:52:24.159 --> 00:52:28.559
about the mechanisms. And I'm certainly
in England it's or UK. It's interesting

708
00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:31.239
because of their parliamentary. Their elections
are always so so weird. There's always

709
00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:37.360
some weird lunatic running as well,
but it's always it's just kind of a

710
00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:38.400
strange things. You think, oh, well, elections are run, here's

711
00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:43.559
how they go, the way we
go, but they don't and I don't

712
00:52:43.599 --> 00:52:45.719
know. So it's a it's a
it's a kind of a tourism only political

713
00:52:45.719 --> 00:52:51.920
nerds would engage in. But I'm
I'm I'm jealous that you were there for

714
00:52:51.960 --> 00:52:54.199
that. It was fun, But
on the other hand, it was sad

715
00:52:54.280 --> 00:53:00.840
because in my heart, you know, I have motions towards the British Isles.

716
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:04.039
I love the place I have.
I mean, my second favorite place

717
00:53:04.079 --> 00:53:07.960
on Earth is the town of wompers
Wick. It's my it's my second home,

718
00:53:07.119 --> 00:53:13.000
and I invested in it all doing
well, and it just feels as

719
00:53:13.039 --> 00:53:17.280
if they've taken a path, taken
a taken a choice that I I mean,

720
00:53:19.119 --> 00:53:22.719
granted I read the telegraph, but
the news is not good over there.

721
00:53:22.760 --> 00:53:25.760
There's not a good feeling about the
way the country is situated, and

722
00:53:25.800 --> 00:53:34.239
the problems seem large and insoluble.
And again, the political classes, you

723
00:53:34.239 --> 00:53:37.159
know, as Henry was talking about, just just completely blew off their ability

724
00:53:37.199 --> 00:53:40.480
to do anything about it. Now
where where I go to Walbers there is

725
00:53:40.639 --> 00:53:44.880
there is a sense of being not
besieged but the outside world, but that

726
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:49.719
it is somehow a they get they
it hasn't hit there yet. The energy

727
00:53:49.719 --> 00:53:52.360
prices are ridiculously high, and there
are things that complain about, but the

728
00:53:52.920 --> 00:53:59.159
problems that beset the country and the
big cities haven't gone there yet. And

729
00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:02.000
a lot of America few was like
that too. So yes, it was

730
00:54:02.440 --> 00:54:06.480
fun to be there. But I
mean it's fun to be sitting in the

731
00:54:06.519 --> 00:54:08.320
bar and a guy walks in with
his dog and everybody's you know, you're

732
00:54:08.320 --> 00:54:12.599
looking at the dog, and then
you look at the guy. Oh he's

733
00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:16.039
a movie director. Did those things
about missions impossible? He lives around here.

734
00:54:16.039 --> 00:54:20.159
That's right, I forgot. And
then another guy walks in and oh,

735
00:54:20.239 --> 00:54:24.079
it's that guy who wrote the movie. It's just amazing town. It

736
00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:31.079
just is. And nobody bothers the
people who are there famous. It's just

737
00:54:31.119 --> 00:54:35.920
part of the atmosphere anyway, babbling
it Like I say, you thought that

738
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:37.800
was dull. Listened to the diner
this week. I'm really on a terror

739
00:54:38.039 --> 00:54:44.199
now it sounds great. Yes,
indeed, anyway, So okay, I

740
00:54:44.239 --> 00:54:46.679
gotta say one of the guys that
I met because he's friends of my friends.

741
00:54:46.880 --> 00:54:54.039
He's Jesus of Nazareth in the movie
in the nineteen eighties to the TV

742
00:54:54.320 --> 00:55:00.760
mini series. Do you remember that
guys, Oh, Franco Zephyrrelli, Anthony

743
00:55:00.760 --> 00:55:06.719
Burgess scriptwriter. Yeah. It's very
interesting when you talk to actors and you

744
00:55:06.719 --> 00:55:08.119
want to ask them one little thing, but you really don't want to say,

745
00:55:08.559 --> 00:55:13.039
here's this role for which you were
known, you know, thirty forty

746
00:55:13.079 --> 00:55:15.639
years ago. So I'm not going
to see you entirely through that prison,

747
00:55:15.639 --> 00:55:19.679
but I just have to know.
And then once you ask that question,

748
00:55:19.760 --> 00:55:22.280
of course they go on for seventeen
minutes because they're very happy. John and

749
00:55:22.320 --> 00:55:27.519
I didn't even get around to the
fact that he'd played Gustav Mahler in Ken

750
00:55:27.559 --> 00:55:30.639
Russell's version of the Model Biography,
and I didn't even get to that.

751
00:55:31.719 --> 00:55:35.880
Anyway, enough, we're done,
listen, folks. What you got to

752
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:37.920
do is go to ricochet dot com
and sign up because it is your place

753
00:55:37.960 --> 00:55:42.280
for fine, fun, civil center
right conversation on the internet. As I

754
00:55:42.360 --> 00:55:44.960
keep saying, you'll be wondering where
it's been all your life when you go

755
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:49.119
to the member feed, because that
is really more social, more interesting,

756
00:55:49.159 --> 00:55:52.320
more more of a community than any
place I've been on the web. And

757
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:57.760
you need to go to Apple Music
give us five stars, because we are

758
00:55:58.440 --> 00:56:00.320
been asking you to do that for
six hundred ninety nine times and it's you

759
00:56:00.360 --> 00:56:02.800
know, maybe seven hundred will be
the charm, but that's next week to

760
00:56:02.840 --> 00:56:06.800
find out. Maybe Peter will be
with us next week, maybe not.

761
00:56:06.920 --> 00:56:09.280
If so, Stephen, it's always
a pleasure to have you here, Rob.

762
00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:12.800
Likewise, always a pleasure to see
you guy's face. Good to be

763
00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:15.960
back, and we'll see everybody in
the comment, said Ricochet. Four point

764
00:56:16.039 --> 00:56:25.639
oh next week. Next week,
Fells Ricochet join the conversation.