1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,879
Speaker 1: Make sure that I get it right. It's ruly to

2
00:00:04,919 --> 00:00:06,960
Shara to share Teshierra.

3
00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:13,759
Speaker 2: It's a Allen on the screen. But whatever, yeah, all right, changed.

4
00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:18,800
Speaker 1: That one, and then we welcome back to the podcast.

5
00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:24,879
Speaker 3: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask

6
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:26,839
what you can do for your country.

7
00:00:27,559 --> 00:00:31,399
Speaker 4: Mister Garbaschoff, Tear down this wall.

8
00:00:32,759 --> 00:00:35,320
Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast with Charles C. W. Cook and

9
00:00:35,399 --> 00:00:38,280
Stephen Hayward. I'm James Lillings. Today we talked to Luie,

10
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:40,439
to Shara, Liberal Patriot.

11
00:00:41,079 --> 00:00:42,200
Speaker 2: How did we get here?

12
00:00:42,719 --> 00:00:46,719
Speaker 4: Because the mainstream wing of the party is scared the death.

13
00:00:47,039 --> 00:00:47,960
Speaker 5: Of the Moon wing.

14
00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:49,479
Speaker 2: They won't speak.

15
00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,600
Speaker 4: Up and they don't stand for anything anymore. All they

16
00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:57,880
stand for is whatever UH is against whatever President Trump

17
00:00:58,000 --> 00:00:58,560
stands for.

18
00:00:59,159 --> 00:01:02,320
Speaker 2: This is I think typical of Trump the man.

19
00:01:02,439 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 4: This is the kind of character or lack thereof who's

20
00:01:05,599 --> 00:01:06,319
now president.

21
00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:10,480
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, episode number five hundred

22
00:01:10,599 --> 00:01:14,560
and seventy four, Not just Kidding, seven hundred and fifty four.

23
00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:16,799
Join us at ricochet dot com. You can be part

24
00:01:16,799 --> 00:01:19,640
of the most stimulating conversations and community on the web.

25
00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:22,280
It's the place you've been looking for ever since they

26
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,439
plugged this thing in. I'm James Lollox in Minneapolis, Cloudy Misty,

27
00:01:26,799 --> 00:01:29,519
and I'm joined by Stephen Hayward in California and Charles C. W.

28
00:01:29,719 --> 00:01:31,359
Cook in Florida. And as I say, we have the

29
00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:37,000
entire country covered. Gentlemen, how are you good? Good? How

30
00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:42,879
are you could be better? Last week I had absolutely

31
00:01:42,879 --> 00:01:46,280
no opinion about cracker barrel whatsoever, and never been to one,

32
00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,480
never never set foot in one, had no desire to

33
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:51,879
set foot in one. But now I've got an opinion

34
00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:54,519
about cracker barrel. We'll get to that in a second.

35
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:58,280
Last week, I wasn't really thinking very much about over

36
00:01:58,319 --> 00:02:02,319
the road truckers and exactly what problems some of them

37
00:02:02,319 --> 00:02:04,519
may face. And now, of course, first and foremost in

38
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,480
my mind, both of these things are things that have

39
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,479
been bubbling around on Twitter for the last week and

40
00:02:08,599 --> 00:02:10,759
have yet to really hit the news, but I think

41
00:02:10,759 --> 00:02:14,680
they will now because Marco Rubio has made a statement

42
00:02:15,159 --> 00:02:18,960
that the government is going to suspend all renovation of

43
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:21,000
the cracker Barrel restaurants. No, I'm sorry, he's going to

44
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:24,120
suspect they're going to suspend the people coming in to

45
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:28,599
get driver's licenses from other countries. CDLs, And I wonder

46
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:31,159
what you guys think about this, because what's interesting to

47
00:02:31,199 --> 00:02:36,080
me about it is the speed with between this issue

48
00:02:36,199 --> 00:02:42,319
surfacing and actual government action seems to be new but

49
00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:45,719
also a defining characteristic of our age. Before we would

50
00:02:45,719 --> 00:02:49,400
have a blue ribbon commission that would turn out a

51
00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:51,919
white paper at the end of it, and recommendations would

52
00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:53,840
be made and it would work its way through dot

53
00:02:54,199 --> 00:02:57,080
and eventually there would be something and nothing would change.

54
00:02:57,199 --> 00:02:58,560
But now it's sort of like, which.

55
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:02,439
Speaker 3: I look, long haul truck driving, actually any truck driving,

56
00:03:02,439 --> 00:03:05,400
but especially those longer haul the bigger trucks, which require

57
00:03:05,439 --> 00:03:08,400
a different classification of license. That's not an easy job.

58
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:11,080
And you know, my brother was a teamster. He drove

59
00:03:11,159 --> 00:03:14,479
one of those trucks for a while and he used

60
00:03:14,479 --> 00:03:16,520
to say, and my perception when I drive out on

61
00:03:16,639 --> 00:03:20,599
say a Interstate five in California, is that, you know,

62
00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:22,639
there's a I'm not sure if it's the bell curve

63
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:24,560
for truck drivers is the right phrase for it, but

64
00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:28,280
they are short of good qualified Almost every truck, especially

65
00:03:28,439 --> 00:03:31,919
independent line or even the big chains like Hunt Brothers

66
00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,439
or something. They'll have big banners on the truck saying

67
00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:37,960
drivers wanted call one eight hundred, get paid right, and

68
00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,479
a lot of those jobs pay six figures pretty fast.

69
00:03:40,879 --> 00:03:43,240
For whatever reason. I think because it's a lonely job.

70
00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,080
You know, you're away from your family. They're under a

71
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,840
lot of pressure to get your destination in time. On

72
00:03:48,879 --> 00:03:52,680
the other hand, and now all have GPS widgets in them,

73
00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:56,120
and so your maximum hours are capped, and so anyway,

74
00:03:56,159 --> 00:03:58,319
I think it's kind of a miserable life. And I'll

75
00:03:58,319 --> 00:04:00,520
bet that a lot of trucking comp and he's pick

76
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:02,159
a lot of people at the margins who are, shall

77
00:04:02,199 --> 00:04:05,599
we say, if he drivers? And my observation is the

78
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:07,800
quality of truck drivers I see on the road. Some

79
00:04:07,879 --> 00:04:09,919
of them it's not what I remember when I was

80
00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:11,680
younger and putting in a lot of miles on the road.

81
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:14,360
But there's more of them. The other thing, if you

82
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,680
ever want to see, I should take a video sometime

83
00:04:17,759 --> 00:04:20,639
if you take Interstate five out of Los Angeles north

84
00:04:20,879 --> 00:04:23,399
up toward what we used to call the Grapevine, and

85
00:04:23,439 --> 00:04:25,360
there's a couple of very steep hills, and the truck's

86
00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:27,120
all bunch up there going up the hill at about

87
00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:30,600
twenty five miles an hour in low gear and it's amazing.

88
00:04:30,639 --> 00:04:32,279
And of course, you know, we know Long Beach is

89
00:04:32,319 --> 00:04:34,600
one of the leading ports in America and a lot

90
00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:36,639
of that ends up on trucks going all over the country.

91
00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:39,879
But the truck traffic is just enormous these days. And

92
00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:42,639
I've never looked for data to see how much it's grown,

93
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:44,839
but I'll bet it's been quite substantial in the last

94
00:04:44,879 --> 00:04:45,920
twenty thirty years.

95
00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:48,120
Speaker 1: My father was a truck driver. I mean, he owned

96
00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:51,160
the oil company gas business in Fargo, but he drove ry.

97
00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:53,240
He loved to drive semi. He could find I mean,

98
00:04:53,519 --> 00:04:55,160
he could climb into a cabin and look at that,

99
00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:58,399
you know, sixteen years and he could find the right

100
00:04:58,439 --> 00:05:01,319
one could he could back up up a double tanker

101
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:04,240
to a loading dock to get product filled. I mean,

102
00:05:04,439 --> 00:05:06,720
it's just amazing. So I respect that. But at the

103
00:05:06,759 --> 00:05:09,639
same time, one of his drivers had a diabetic episode

104
00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:12,199
back in the day and actually started driving the wrong

105
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:14,680
way on the other side of the highway with oncoming

106
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:17,720
traffic with a full load of number two in the back.

107
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,040
Oh boy, that was a disaster reverted. So yeah, it's

108
00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:23,600
always been a dangerous job, but it seems to be yes,

109
00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:26,800
they aren't getting enough so we have more accidents. We

110
00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:29,399
have more guys who are going down hills just jamming

111
00:05:29,439 --> 00:05:32,079
on the brakes and sitting letting the engine throttle. At Charles,

112
00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:34,160
we would have to ask you about your opinion about

113
00:05:34,399 --> 00:05:36,800
LORI drivers, wouldn't we You would?

114
00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:37,959
Speaker 5: You would? Do you know?

115
00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:41,560
Speaker 6: I actually said that word on my trip to Pigeon Ford's, Tennessee,

116
00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,959
and my wife said, don't say Laurie like that. Normally

117
00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:48,680
she likes my accent and linguistic foibles, but this time

118
00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:50,759
I think that one was not attractive, so she said,

119
00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:56,040
don't say Laurie. Don't But I did say Laurie anyhow. Yes,

120
00:05:56,439 --> 00:06:01,199
this story which happened in Florida is horrible. A family

121
00:06:01,279 --> 00:06:07,040
was wiped out. I think there are some obvious government

122
00:06:07,199 --> 00:06:13,759
interests here. One of the problems, beyond truck driving proficiency,

123
00:06:13,879 --> 00:06:14,519
about which I.

124
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:19,120
Speaker 5: Know very little, is English speaking.

125
00:06:20,319 --> 00:06:23,439
Speaker 6: That is the complaint that I have heard from people

126
00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:25,720
over the last three or four years.

127
00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:27,959
Speaker 5: It's always pooh poohed.

128
00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:31,720
Speaker 6: I submit that it won't be from now on, but

129
00:06:31,839 --> 00:06:34,240
I've heard it said over and over again that we

130
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:35,639
have a big problem in America because there are a

131
00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:40,040
bunch of illegal immigrants who do not speak English who

132
00:06:40,199 --> 00:06:43,439
drive trucks, and they can't read the signs on the road,

133
00:06:43,439 --> 00:06:48,639
and that's very important if you're expected to know where

134
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:51,959
the runoff lane is, or look at the gradient information,

135
00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:57,839
or see where the way station is located. So I

136
00:06:57,879 --> 00:06:59,480
do think that that's a problem. And I say this

137
00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:03,800
having come fresh off speaking at a naturalization ceremony here

138
00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:07,319
in Jacksonville yesterday. I was the featured speaker at the

139
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:08,680
big citizenship ceremony.

140
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:09,480
Speaker 5: Was very moving.

141
00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 6: But of course everyone who went through that and followed

142
00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:17,720
the rules has to display a proficiency in English. And

143
00:07:17,759 --> 00:07:21,519
there's a good reason that we have these expectations. So

144
00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:23,639
I don't know enough about it to give you a

145
00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:26,959
white paper answer, but I do think reformers in the cards,

146
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:29,759
because that was a horrible thing that happened, and it's

147
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:31,959
not something that came out of the blue. It's an

148
00:07:31,959 --> 00:07:35,439
odd thing to have been told about, but I have

149
00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:38,120
been told about this problem for years. People have brought

150
00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:41,360
it up, and now we have this this tragedy.

151
00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:43,360
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that came out of the

152
00:07:43,399 --> 00:07:46,079
blue was the rating of John Bolton's house. John Bolton,

153
00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:50,759
of course, a man who possesses the best, most accedence

154
00:07:50,759 --> 00:07:52,879
in Wilford Brimley. I think he bought it from him,

155
00:07:52,879 --> 00:07:55,160
actually or actually no, I think it's more he's up

156
00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:58,199
there with the sam Eliot quality. In any case, Bolton

157
00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:02,879
got rated. BI director Cosh Ptel said on Twitter, of course,

158
00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:05,160
because that's what we say these things, is that no

159
00:08:05,199 --> 00:08:07,920
one is above the law. I FBI agent's on the mission.

160
00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,120
We're hearing that phrasing awful lot. Trump said, I don't

161
00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:15,000
know anything about it. What's going on here? I have

162
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:15,800
no idea.

163
00:08:16,759 --> 00:08:19,040
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's some kind of payback by

164
00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,959
some people in the Trump administration. We know that Biden

165
00:08:23,079 --> 00:08:26,480
was sloppy about keeping documents, and you know Trump, like Lise,

166
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,839
you know, I know John a little bit. My office

167
00:08:29,879 --> 00:08:32,120
was right next door to his at AEI way back when,

168
00:08:32,559 --> 00:08:34,039
and he always.

169
00:08:33,759 --> 00:08:35,440
Speaker 2: Struck me as someone who's not sloppy.

170
00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,399
Speaker 3: I mean, he always had a neat desk, he was

171
00:08:37,639 --> 00:08:40,320
always worth long hours, was always very precise about things.

172
00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:43,759
So I'd be surprised if he was sloppy about keeping documents.

173
00:08:43,759 --> 00:08:44,360
Speaker 2: But I don't know.

174
00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:46,559
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows. I'll be curious to see if

175
00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:50,120
we ever find the affidavit behind the warrant at some point.

176
00:08:51,399 --> 00:08:54,879
Speaker 1: His persistence in the national political theater is something of

177
00:08:54,919 --> 00:08:57,559
a mystery to me. But I gather that he's getting

178
00:08:57,559 --> 00:09:00,320
more currency lately because he's not exactly a fan Donald

179
00:09:00,360 --> 00:09:05,240
Trump and Charles, what do you take of this? Is

180
00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:08,519
this more authoritarian payback? Or is this as somebody said, well, look,

181
00:09:08,519 --> 00:09:10,120
if you're going to take on the deep state in

182
00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:12,480
all of its manifestations, doesn't hurt to go after people

183
00:09:12,480 --> 00:09:14,440
in your own party first, just to show that it's

184
00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:17,000
not partisan. Although although.

185
00:09:18,279 --> 00:09:20,639
Speaker 6: Wow, that one I'm not sold on. I don't think

186
00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:24,039
Donald Trump thinks they're at the same party. Right, How

187
00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:26,759
long have you got? This is a really complicated issue.

188
00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,399
The answer is there is a Steelman case for this

189
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:36,240
which goes something like this, John Bolton did it. He

190
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:39,559
is not the president, therefore is not protected by his

191
00:09:39,639 --> 00:09:43,200
ability to declassify information and all the Supreme Court case

192
00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:48,279
Trump for the United States, we do and should prosecute

193
00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:51,320
people who violate the rules surrounding classified information.

194
00:09:51,519 --> 00:09:54,840
Speaker 5: No one is above the law. That's the steel Man argument.

195
00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:58,279
Speaker 6: That might be completely irrelevant in this case because this

196
00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:04,960
could be political payback. The worrying possibility is that the

197
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:10,159
Trump administration simply hates John Bolton is still smarting at

198
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:15,480
having been targeted by Joe Biden and wanted to make

199
00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:21,919
somebody who doesn't like pay. The broader thought that I

200
00:10:21,960 --> 00:10:24,559
have given that I don't know any more details than

201
00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:28,360
you do, is that the original sin here was James

202
00:10:28,399 --> 00:10:33,360
Comy's treatment of Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was guilty of

203
00:10:33,519 --> 00:10:37,879
violating the law. Now I am open to the idea

204
00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:42,120
that that is a bad and in some sense unconstitutional law,

205
00:10:42,399 --> 00:10:46,159
the Wilson ere Espionage Act, and that it was not

206
00:10:46,279 --> 00:10:49,600
in the public interest to prosecute her. But James Comy

207
00:10:49,639 --> 00:10:54,080
found a loophole and he used it to let her

208
00:10:54,120 --> 00:10:58,879
off the hook. And then that loophole was not applied

209
00:10:58,919 --> 00:11:03,080
equally to everyone. Joe Biden got the advantage of it,

210
00:11:03,159 --> 00:11:06,519
although there was another excuse with him. Donald Trump did not,

211
00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:08,919
And I don't think you can run a country like this.

212
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:10,840
So when the Biden one broke, my view was you

213
00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:12,759
can't touch Biden because you didn't touch Hillary. And when

214
00:11:12,759 --> 00:11:14,639
the Trump one broke, my view was you can't touch

215
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:17,080
Trump because you didn't touch Biden and you didn't touch Hillary.

216
00:11:17,759 --> 00:11:19,639
Speaker 5: And I still hold that.

217
00:11:19,799 --> 00:11:25,039
Speaker 6: So if we are talking here about equal crimes alleged

218
00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:27,279
crimes which I don't know.

219
00:11:28,039 --> 00:11:29,559
Speaker 5: Then my view will be the same here.

220
00:11:29,639 --> 00:11:33,120
Speaker 6: You can't touch Bolton because you didn't touch Trump, and

221
00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:36,879
you didn't touch Biden, then you didn't touch Hillary. I

222
00:11:36,879 --> 00:11:39,879
think James Comey did something really really bad. Was that

223
00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:45,120
rather than try and establish a rule of prosecutorial discretion

224
00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:48,240
that was broad and clear and could be applied to everyone,

225
00:11:48,279 --> 00:11:50,399
he's simply made up the law. And when you make

226
00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:54,519
up the law, you create really difficult scenarios for your successes.

227
00:11:54,559 --> 00:11:57,600
And that could be what we're looking at here. So

228
00:11:57,720 --> 00:11:59,960
I am, in a sense giving you a non answer, James,

229
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,519
I'm all the way from could be still manned, could

230
00:12:03,559 --> 00:12:05,279
be complicated, or could be tyranny.

231
00:12:05,279 --> 00:12:08,399
Speaker 1: It's one of the three. There's more no touching in

232
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:10,360
that last thing. You said that in a Fargo Lutheran

233
00:12:10,399 --> 00:12:14,519
church in nineteen SISO. So is there anything more to

234
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:16,519
say about this? Or should we move along to other things,

235
00:12:16,519 --> 00:12:19,399
such as the Trump find being tossed half a billion?

236
00:12:19,840 --> 00:12:23,120
Speaker 2: Guess not well before we do that, James, or maybe after.

237
00:12:23,159 --> 00:12:23,840
I don't care.

238
00:12:24,159 --> 00:12:26,840
Speaker 3: I thought Trump was going on a ride along with

239
00:12:26,879 --> 00:12:29,240
a DC police or National Guard last time. I haven't

240
00:12:29,279 --> 00:12:32,200
heard anything about it. I mean, my joke was Trump

241
00:12:32,279 --> 00:12:35,159
has gone from just trolling the left to patrolling.

242
00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:37,639
Speaker 1: Against the left. Yeah, I know. I mean there was

243
00:12:37,639 --> 00:12:40,440
an MSNBC or an ms NOW person who was saying

244
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:43,240
the other day that before he decided that he said

245
00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:44,440
he was going to go on the right along. They

246
00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:46,080
said that when it came to d C crime, Trump

247
00:12:46,159 --> 00:12:48,759
thinks he's Batman. And I thought, that's not a very

248
00:12:48,759 --> 00:12:52,759
good argument to make people like Batman. You want to

249
00:12:52,759 --> 00:12:54,960
make the case that he thinks he's bane. That's something else.

250
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,759
But people kind of like a rich guy with lots

251
00:12:57,759 --> 00:12:59,639
of tools who goes around at night and keeps the

252
00:12:59,639 --> 00:13:03,360
bad guy and drows them off roofs. Anyway, So should

253
00:13:03,759 --> 00:13:07,080
the fine has been tossed? And what is that that that?

254
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:08,960
I mean, everyone is still going to call him a

255
00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:13,080
fellon thirty four counts, et cetera. But now the fine's tossed.

256
00:13:13,159 --> 00:13:17,399
Is that indicate that there might be success on the

257
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:19,360
appeal because it's still appealing.

258
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:21,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks to me like it's going to fall

259
00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:25,000
apart like the Georgia case against him did. And I

260
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:27,279
don't know, I kind of expected this all along. The

261
00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:29,440
one question is what took the court so long. The

262
00:13:29,559 --> 00:13:32,039
New York Court of Appeals whatever their high court is called,

263
00:13:32,519 --> 00:13:34,840
it usually works with great dispatch.

264
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:36,840
Speaker 2: So and apparently it's a split ruling.

265
00:13:36,879 --> 00:13:39,519
Speaker 3: I haven't chased it down yet, but my guess is

266
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:41,639
this is the first big step to the whole thing

267
00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:42,279
going away.

268
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:46,080
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of going away, one of the things you

269
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:49,759
hate to have go away is your money. You know,

270
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:52,320
inflation takes it away, bat investments to take it away.

271
00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:55,159
But listen to me about this. Yeah, when it comes

272
00:13:55,159 --> 00:13:56,879
to your money, you want to be told the truth.

273
00:13:57,440 --> 00:13:59,720
And you got to ask yourself are you being lied to?

274
00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:02,120
You know they tell you to defer paying your taxes

275
00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:03,759
by saving in a four and one K or an

276
00:14:03,799 --> 00:14:06,039
IRA because then you'll retire at all our tax bracket.

277
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,039
But if that's true, why are so many retirees in

278
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:12,399
the highest tax bracket of their lives. Look, it's time

279
00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:14,519
to get the truth and discover a better way to

280
00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:17,919
grow and protect your money. Bank on yourself. It's the

281
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,080
proven retirement plan alternative that banks in Wall Street. I

282
00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:23,600
desperately hope you never hear about why, because it gives

283
00:14:23,639 --> 00:14:28,559
you one guaranteed predictable growth and retirement income with bank

284
00:14:28,559 --> 00:14:31,279
on yourself. Your plan doesn't go backwards when the market tumbles.

285
00:14:31,279 --> 00:14:33,480
Your growth and your principle locked in.

286
00:14:33,759 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 5: Two.

287
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:38,840
Speaker 1: Tax free retirement income beautiful words. You'll know that your

288
00:14:38,879 --> 00:14:43,200
tax rate in retirement is zero under current tax laws,

289
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,320
which protects you from the upcoming tax tsunami it's going

290
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:50,320
to hit everybody. Three built in inflation protection. Your money

291
00:14:50,399 --> 00:14:52,679
is guaranteed to grow by a larger dollar amount every

292
00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:55,000
year in both the good times and the bad. And

293
00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:58,559
finally you get peace of mind. You'll know the minimum

294
00:14:58,639 --> 00:15:01,159
guaranteed value of your retire savings on the day you

295
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,799
plan to tap into them, and at every point along

296
00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:07,080
the way. So what is this? How does it work? Well?

297
00:15:07,159 --> 00:15:08,840
You can get a free report that tells you how

298
00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:12,320
bank on Yourself works and how you can enjoy tax

299
00:15:12,519 --> 00:15:16,519
free retirement income, guaranteed growth and control of your money.

300
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:20,320
Just go to bank on Yourself dot com slash ricochet

301
00:15:20,399 --> 00:15:22,480
and get your free report. That's bank on yourself dot

302
00:15:22,559 --> 00:15:26,519
com slash ricochet. Bank on yourself dot com slash ricochet,

303
00:15:26,559 --> 00:15:30,080
and we thank bank on Yourself. Responsoring this the Ricochet podcast,

304
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:33,159
at Ali, welcome back to the podcast. RUI to share

305
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:36,000
on He's a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute,

306
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,279
co founder and politics editor of the SUBSEAC newsletter The

307
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:41,879
Liberal Patriot. He was a founding fellow of the Center

308
00:15:41,919 --> 00:15:45,519
of American Progress and co author The Emerging Democratic Majority

309
00:15:45,559 --> 00:15:48,159
in two thousand and two. More recent publications have included

310
00:15:48,159 --> 00:15:53,799
The Optimistic Leftist and Where have all the Democrats Gone? Welcome, well,

311
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:56,200
thank you, glad to be here. A lot of talk

312
00:15:56,279 --> 00:15:58,200
this week about how the Democrats are losing some of

313
00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:02,960
their customary support, that they are pulling horribly with young men.

314
00:16:03,039 --> 00:16:04,480
As a matter of fact, there seems to be a

315
00:16:04,519 --> 00:16:08,360
move from young men to the Republican Party. As somebody

316
00:16:08,399 --> 00:16:10,360
else was pointing out this morning, that they got a

317
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:13,000
Karen problem, and they refuse to acknowledge it. Problem is

318
00:16:13,039 --> 00:16:16,200
that Karen's are their base, and Karen's vote all the

319
00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:20,919
rest of these things. So the change in their appeal

320
00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:24,279
seems to have been rather size maicing, tectonic, and it

321
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:27,600
shifts due to a variety of reasons. So I'm gonna

322
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:30,279
ask you if indeed you see that big of a shift,

323
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:32,879
and if you do, if you share what the writer

324
00:16:32,919 --> 00:16:35,600
of pinning as the reasons for it. Mainly a sense

325
00:16:35,639 --> 00:16:40,159
of cultural disdain, looking down, being scolds and no fund

326
00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:42,360
and all the rest of that stuff, right.

327
00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:45,159
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, No, I do think they're in a bit

328
00:16:45,159 --> 00:16:46,799
of a pickle. I mean, I think the data is

329
00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,919
pretty clear in this. Obviously, we all know what happened

330
00:16:49,919 --> 00:16:53,039
in twenty twenty four A and what so many Democrats

331
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,320
kidded themselves could never happen, That Trump would actually do

332
00:16:56,399 --> 00:16:59,320
better in the selection they'd ever done before, and there

333
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:04,319
would be this shoe, these huge shifts among working class Hispanics, Hispanic.

334
00:17:03,919 --> 00:17:05,359
Speaker 2: Men, young men.

335
00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:07,880
Speaker 7: You know, there is even shifts among women who were

336
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:12,920
just smaller than among men. So it was generally an

337
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:17,119
all around, you know, clock cleaning by Trump. Since then,

338
00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:21,680
we've seen Democrats fail to really break out. Despite all

339
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:24,720
the vulnerabilities that Trump is as evidence and a lot

340
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:26,720
of the things he's done, they just aren't very popular.

341
00:17:27,279 --> 00:17:30,960
The overreach on a variety of different issues. People don't

342
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:33,359
have much faith in the economy, even despite the fact

343
00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:35,880
they elected Trump to some extent to fix the economy.

344
00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:39,039
None of that has elevated the Democrats, who have historically

345
00:17:39,079 --> 00:17:42,440
low favorability ratings. They don't have much of a lead

346
00:17:42,519 --> 00:17:44,839
in the generic congressional ballot when if you compare it

347
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:47,279
to twenty eighteen, they were already far ahead at this point.

348
00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:49,759
Speaker 2: And just for recently, of course.

349
00:17:50,039 --> 00:17:52,480
Speaker 7: There was this huge I mean, and people who follow

350
00:17:52,559 --> 00:17:53,920
these data kind of knew a lot of the stuff.

351
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,039
Speaker 2: Anyway, there's a big data, deep data dive in the.

352
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:59,839
Speaker 7: New York Times about voter registration trends over the last

353
00:17:59,839 --> 00:18:02,200
period of time, both up to twenty twenty four and

354
00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:05,359
even since twenty twenty four, and it's all bad, bad,

355
00:18:05,559 --> 00:18:08,000
bad news for the Democrats. I mean, they're just losing

356
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:12,559
ground everywhere to Republicans, particularly in important states. Somebody actually

357
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,519
crunched the data and looked at, for example, what's happening

358
00:18:15,519 --> 00:18:17,200
with young men and young women. I was just looking

359
00:18:17,279 --> 00:18:20,640
at this today, and among young women, those willing to

360
00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:25,160
register as Democrats has declined only slightly. But among young

361
00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:29,119
men it's just cratered. It's now under thirty percent, whereas

362
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:31,519
it was close to fifty percent not that long ago.

363
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:35,960
So so something's going on here, you know, it's Dylan said,

364
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:39,279
But you don't know what it is, do you, mister Democrat.

365
00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:42,000
I think some of them suspect it, but I do

366
00:18:42,039 --> 00:18:47,319
think that they're quite reluctant to really embrace it, understand it,

367
00:18:47,599 --> 00:18:49,480
actually try to fix it. They think if they just

368
00:18:49,599 --> 00:18:51,920
change the subject, or they turn up the volume in

369
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:54,559
economic issues, or they talk about abundance, so what have you,

370
00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:55,599
this will do it.

371
00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:57,319
Speaker 2: And I do not think that's true.

372
00:18:57,519 --> 00:19:00,480
Speaker 7: I think the critique that they're culturally out of step

373
00:19:00,559 --> 00:19:03,759
with the median working class voter and indeed the bulk

374
00:19:03,799 --> 00:19:07,039
of the population is just true. I mean, that's true

375
00:19:07,039 --> 00:19:09,240
in a variety of issues. You know it's true from

376
00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:12,400
voting behavior. We know it's true from where they're losing ground.

377
00:19:12,839 --> 00:19:15,640
I mean, this is a party whose national profile and

378
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:17,640
the people who run it and the people who are

379
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:21,319
associated with it are simply not the same type of

380
00:19:21,319 --> 00:19:23,400
people who they want to vote for them. And they

381
00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,640
have a series of cultural attitudes that in fact does

382
00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:31,359
translate into disdain for the great unwashed of these United States.

383
00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:33,279
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, people aren't dumb.

384
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 7: They sense this, they know this, and they realize not

385
00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:39,000
only was that true leading up to twenty twenty four,

386
00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:41,079
and this is what I just wrote about on The

387
00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:44,319
Liberal Patriot. There's not a lot of change since then, right,

388
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:48,279
I Mean, basically they've only backtracked very slightly. On some

389
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:51,799
issues where people have tried to break from the pack,

390
00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:56,279
they've been immediately slapped down by the activists and other politicians.

391
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,119
And where the real action is in the Democratic Party

392
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:03,319
now is basically amping up your resistance cred And that's

393
00:20:03,319 --> 00:20:07,440
why Gavin Newsom, the dreadful, dreadful Gavin Newsom, has actually

394
00:20:07,519 --> 00:20:08,640
like broken out of the pack.

395
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:11,200
Speaker 2: I mean, they've sent these poles mean anything at this point.

396
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:14,319
Speaker 7: He's clearly benefited from his willingness to do anything and

397
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:18,119
say anything to maximize his resistance profile. So I think

398
00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,319
that's what plays within the Democratic Party now, but I

399
00:20:21,319 --> 00:20:24,319
think it's actually not what would play with the broad

400
00:20:24,319 --> 00:20:27,160
electorate as we move, you know, toward twenty twenty eight

401
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:29,960
and beyond. I mean one way to one way I

402
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:32,880
summarize it is they still we're at a populist moment,

403
00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:37,160
a populist age, right, and they still don't get it.

404
00:20:37,599 --> 00:20:40,319
They still are not willing to be in touch with it,

405
00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:44,559
to acknowledge their weaknesses, which go far beyond not having

406
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,119
you know, the best economic program or something.

407
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:49,240
Speaker 2: So I think that's where we're at.

408
00:20:49,279 --> 00:20:52,200
Speaker 7: And again, like I see little evidence that they're changing

409
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:54,960
their tune very fast. In the piece I was just

410
00:20:55,039 --> 00:20:58,559
alluding to, I called it two three many sister soldier movements.

411
00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:01,039
That's soldier moments. That's what the Democrats need, and I

412
00:21:01,039 --> 00:21:04,119
think that's true. They need to profile themselves as a

413
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:06,440
different kind of Democrat, and to do that you have

414
00:21:06,519 --> 00:21:09,920
to break ostentatiously and directly with the forces in their

415
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:13,000
party and specific individuals and groups. We were pushing this

416
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:14,960
slow to say so really, let.

417
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:15,799
Speaker 2: Me jump in right here.

418
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,640
Speaker 3: First of all, it warms my heart as an inmate

419
00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:21,720
of Gavin Newsom's stand that you call him dreadful. I

420
00:21:21,759 --> 00:21:24,400
heard Mark Halpern yesterday saying he right now, in Mark

421
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:26,880
Helper's judgment, is the front runner for twenty twenty eight.

422
00:21:27,279 --> 00:21:29,799
But you know, when I read your piece yesterday, one

423
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:33,400
too many sister soldier moments, I had a flashback because

424
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:36,359
it seems to me the Democratic Party has been there before,

425
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:39,599
and I'm thinking of that time after George H. W.

426
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:41,880
Bush won in nineteen eighty eight. I don't know if

427
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,440
you remember the book by Peter Brown, the reply to

428
00:21:44,599 --> 00:21:48,240
it even right well, there's one quote from here to

429
00:21:48,279 --> 00:21:51,200
share with you and listeners, and it's of the young

430
00:21:51,519 --> 00:21:54,960
Democratic governor of Arkansas, and as a long passes about

431
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:58,359
how you know Jesse Jackson, who younger listeners may not know,

432
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:01,400
was a real contender for the nomination in nineteen eighty

433
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,440
eight and panic the Democratic establishment as much as Bernie

434
00:22:04,519 --> 00:22:07,759
Sanders did twice, and he quotes Bill Clinton here saying,

435
00:22:08,839 --> 00:22:11,960
I have never believed Democrats need to distance themselves from

436
00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:16,799
Jesse Jackson. I think the Democrats need to disagree with him.

437
00:22:17,079 --> 00:22:19,279
And of course that's what Clinton did three years later.

438
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 7: Right well, I think, you know, it's like kind of

439
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:23,160
a semantic distinction.

440
00:22:23,279 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he really did distance.

441
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:28,359
Speaker 7: So he did his intervention at Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.

442
00:22:28,799 --> 00:22:31,279
I mean, it wasn't saying I hate Jesse Jackson, but

443
00:22:31,319 --> 00:22:32,640
the message couldn't have been clear.

444
00:22:33,079 --> 00:22:36,200
Speaker 3: So right, well, my question is is I don't think

445
00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:38,640
that person is Gavenusom, but is there somebody out there?

446
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,920
And more to the point, if you strip away all

447
00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:46,519
the sort of social and cultural baggage drowning Democrats right

448
00:22:46,559 --> 00:22:48,680
now and they get back to an economic message, what

449
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:51,559
is that message? I mean, I'm a fan of the

450
00:22:51,599 --> 00:22:54,559
abundance people, but I think there's some limitations to that.

451
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,960
Although you know, I can't make their conference next month, unfortunately.

452
00:22:57,960 --> 00:22:59,079
I know you'll be there, but.

453
00:22:59,079 --> 00:23:00,400
Speaker 2: I'll be there case.

454
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 3: So that looks very promising to me as a policy

455
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:06,240
wonk that I am. But beyond that, what is the message?

456
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,799
What could work for a sensible democrat, say, I rot

457
00:23:08,839 --> 00:23:12,000
Emmanuel who if he gets out of the witness protection

458
00:23:12,079 --> 00:23:15,480
program for disagreeing about the transgender business. Right, what's the

459
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:16,279
message going to be?

460
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:18,279
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know. I think that's a you know,

461
00:23:18,279 --> 00:23:20,400
it's an excellent question. I mean, I do think that

462
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:25,079
even a better economic program is merely a necessary but

463
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:30,000
not sufficient condition to rehabilitate themselves without the cultural shift.

464
00:23:30,079 --> 00:23:32,079
I think even that won't go anywhere, no matter how.

465
00:23:32,039 --> 00:23:32,400
Speaker 2: Good it is.

466
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,079
Speaker 7: But they do need dad say something about and what's

467
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,680
their plan for the economy, what's their plan for national development?

468
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,960
What's their plan for moving the country forward economically? And

469
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,160
I think right now the abundance people are having a moment,

470
00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:45,920
that's clear.

471
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,039
Speaker 2: But whose moment is this? Right?

472
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 7: I think this is a moment within the elite democratic discourse.

473
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:55,480
I think it's a moment within you know, those who

474
00:23:55,559 --> 00:23:58,359
control the commanding heights of cultural production, right, they're willing

475
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:02,799
to countenance. The Ideamocrats have screwed up some things. There's

476
00:24:02,839 --> 00:24:06,759
too many rigs, need more housing. Even our sacred clean

477
00:24:06,839 --> 00:24:11,400
energy commitments, you know, are are falling under the under

478
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,119
the sway of all these regulations which you're holding it back.

479
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:15,839
That's a really bad thing because then we're all going

480
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:17,599
to die if we don't have more clean energy.

481
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:21,440
Speaker 2: So I think that's real. I think it's happening.

482
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 7: But what is its cachet among normy voters who might

483
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,079
be interested in voting for the Democrats. What is its

484
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:33,039
cachet with the working lass, both those who are still

485
00:24:33,039 --> 00:24:35,039
in the Democratic Party and those who have left it.

486
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:37,599
I don't think it's really high. I mean, I think

487
00:24:37,599 --> 00:24:40,160
this is an elite discourse. I mean, even though I

488
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,359
support various aspects of it, I do think that it's

489
00:24:43,759 --> 00:24:46,119
it's it's kind of problematic in a lot of ways.

490
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:50,119
I can use that terrible term. It's just it's not

491
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,599
focused on the working class. It's not focused on abundances.

492
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,359
Most people would define it who are not coast to

493
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,279
liberals who live in big metropolitan areas, right, that's what

494
00:24:58,279 --> 00:25:01,880
they care about infield housing, fifteen minute cities, more wind

495
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,400
and solar blah blah blah. This is not what people

496
00:25:05,559 --> 00:25:11,359
care about. People care about more stuff, being richer, having

497
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,680
a big ass truck, living in the suburbs. They want more.

498
00:25:15,319 --> 00:25:17,319
And when you say abundance to a normal person, to

499
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:18,480
extent they even understand the words.

500
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,519
Speaker 2: That's what they think. Oh, great, you're gonna there's gonna

501
00:25:20,559 --> 00:25:22,359
be more stuff. Tell me how do we do this?

502
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 7: And let's say, oh, we have to change the zoning regulations,

503
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:26,920
and then we have to make sure that this uh,

504
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,480
you know this, this wind and solar project goes through

505
00:25:30,519 --> 00:25:32,279
and you know, much less time than it used to.

506
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,279
And I don't totally do I don't think people are

507
00:25:34,759 --> 00:25:37,519
say what you want what I mean? In a way,

508
00:25:37,519 --> 00:25:39,880
it reminds me of the reformicons back in the day,

509
00:25:40,279 --> 00:25:43,759
when we had an interesting set of ideas which certainly

510
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,160
could have been an improvement, and where the Republicans were

511
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,359
at the time, but it was again, it was part

512
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:49,319
of the elite discourse.

513
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:51,599
Speaker 2: It never really percolated down to normy voters.

514
00:25:51,799 --> 00:25:53,519
Speaker 3: Yeah I was one of them, by the way, and

515
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,079
we get would we get run over by the Trump

516
00:25:56,079 --> 00:25:57,200
train in a hurry?

517
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:57,799
Speaker 1: You did?

518
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 2: You did? The tire tracks are still your back man.

519
00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 5: Hi, Really, it's Charles Kirk to speak to you again.

520
00:26:06,599 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 6: So I have a question about how you get from

521
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,400
where the Democratic Party currently is to where you would

522
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:16,200
like it to be.

523
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:18,640
Speaker 5: I use you in the VU form. I don't think

524
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:19,720
it's your responsibility.

525
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:26,279
Speaker 6: On the right, we have a certain autoimmune deficiency in that,

526
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,440
for understandable reasons, we don't like the media, and we

527
00:26:30,519 --> 00:26:35,759
also distrust a bunch of institutions, health institutions, for example.

528
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,720
But sometimes that leads us to believe nothing that is

529
00:26:40,759 --> 00:26:44,480
said by a figure in authority or of expertise, and

530
00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:47,599
sometimes that can lead to really bad outcomes. And so

531
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:52,240
if those who know what they're talking about are opposed

532
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,200
to something, then that just gets discounted and it can

533
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:01,440
be quite difficult to advance reforms within the framework. On

534
00:27:01,519 --> 00:27:04,759
the left, it seems to me that the autoimmune deficiency

535
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:15,799
is a sense that compromise is allowing in evil or

536
00:27:15,799 --> 00:27:17,960
bigotry or racism or whatever. And if you look at,

537
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,880
for example, immigration, you see this all the time. For

538
00:27:21,039 --> 00:27:24,880
most of modern American history, at least since the nineteen

539
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,119
thirties forties, it was accepted that we have debates over

540
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,440
who comes in, and sometimes the consequences are ugly, and

541
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,599
sometimes they weren't, and sometimes we wanted more and less

542
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,440
and different. But that was something we debated. And in

543
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,200
the nineties when Clinton was president, you had Barbara Jordan

544
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:42,079
who was in the same party.

545
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 5: People who were more in favor of open borders, right.

546
00:27:45,599 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 6: But now the idea in a lot of the party

547
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,440
and certainly culturally, is that any immigration enforcement whatsoever, forget Trump,

548
00:27:53,519 --> 00:27:56,960
any enforcement is racism, xenophobia, bigotry, or whatever. And that's

549
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,839
the sort of autoimmune deficiency, and that it prevents compromise

550
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,319
or moving forward. And my question is how do the

551
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,319
Democrats as a party get past that, because the average

552
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,960
Democratic voted doesn't seem to me to be of that

553
00:28:10,039 --> 00:28:10,640
view at all.

554
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 5: But no politician.

555
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,839
Speaker 6: Seems to be able to stand up and say, well,

556
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,720
we need to compromise on this, this, that and the other,

557
00:28:17,799 --> 00:28:19,519
or debate this, that and the other because they get

558
00:28:19,559 --> 00:28:22,039
called names and they're terrified of being called names.

559
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

560
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:24,839
Speaker 7: No, obviously there's a lot to that. I mean, who

561
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:30,359
are who are the Democrats these days? Certainly if you

562
00:28:30,519 --> 00:28:33,000
just look at everybody who votes for a Democrat in

563
00:28:33,079 --> 00:28:36,599
any race, or even people who party ID at least

564
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,200
leans democratic. I mean, there's certainly a lot more diversity

565
00:28:39,599 --> 00:28:41,559
than you see among the people who seem to be

566
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:43,240
calling the shots in the Democratic Party.

567
00:28:43,279 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 2: I think that's true, But I think the farther up

568
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:47,119
you go in.

569
00:28:47,079 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 7: The food chain, right from the activists to the people

570
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,160
who run party organizations, to the people in the NGO,

571
00:28:53,359 --> 00:28:55,640
so the people in the foundation, to the people who

572
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,960
control the media discourse who lean democratic, the people who

573
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,240
who contribute the most money, the people have the loudest megaphones,

574
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,000
the biggest voices. In other words, the hupper middle class

575
00:29:07,039 --> 00:29:10,759
professional liberals who really set the tone for the party.

576
00:29:10,799 --> 00:29:12,519
They're just way more of them than they used to be,

577
00:29:12,559 --> 00:29:14,160
and they're way more liberal than they used to be.

578
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,400
And they are the ones who make the trains run

579
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,079
on time. They're the ones who are in the institutions

580
00:29:22,119 --> 00:29:26,359
that really are responsible for giving the Democratic Party the

581
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,119
cultural legimity it has. And why should they change? I mean,

582
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,279
they feel these things are moral commitments. Plus they owe

583
00:29:32,279 --> 00:29:35,720
their position to some extent from reading chapter and verse

584
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:38,440
from the Bible we currently have, So again, why should

585
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,519
they change. It may not be optimizing for the Democratic

586
00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:43,960
Party as a whole, but they don't see it that way,

587
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,480
and they're really optimizing to some extent their own individual

588
00:29:47,519 --> 00:29:49,880
position in the labor market or in the cultural discourse.

589
00:29:50,359 --> 00:29:52,039
So I think, yeah, I mean, it's a long winding

590
00:29:52,079 --> 00:29:53,759
way of saying I think it's really going to be

591
00:29:53,799 --> 00:29:56,960
hard to change because I think the people who could

592
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:01,119
most directly change the discourse are not going to do

593
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,039
it willingly. And then you know, it would really come

594
00:30:05,079 --> 00:30:07,319
down to a sense, it's not going to be upswelling

595
00:30:07,359 --> 00:30:10,400
from the ground up of more moderate Democrats.

596
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 2: I just don't think that's going to work.

597
00:30:13,079 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 7: I think you would have to have, in the context

598
00:30:15,799 --> 00:30:19,920
probably of the presidential contest moving into twenty twenty eight,

599
00:30:20,039 --> 00:30:24,240
someone who's willing to break the crockery and thereby shift

600
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:25,400
the discourse.

601
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:26,319
Speaker 2: Is willing to take a chance.

602
00:30:26,359 --> 00:30:28,799
Speaker 7: I mean, I think the most probable outcome is they're

603
00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:30,960
all going to be herded toward you know, who's the

604
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,960
biggest resistance fighter. I mean, I already see it happening.

605
00:30:34,359 --> 00:30:36,519
I mean, look at even someone like Andy Basheer, right,

606
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,880
the big moderate from Kentucky. What is his big applause line.

607
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:45,240
It's because he vetoed hateful bills against the LGBTQI plus population.

608
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,319
I mean, this tells you a lot about where even

609
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,440
moderates feel they have to go at this point within

610
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:52,839
the Democratic Party debate.

611
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you brought up.

612
00:30:54,559 --> 00:30:58,119
Speaker 7: The issue of immigration. It's really quite extraordinary. I mean,

613
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,599
they got totally hammered on the issue. Everybody saw it

614
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,640
was a massive failure. But now that Trump is actually

615
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,680
shut down the border, there's no support for that whatsoever,

616
00:31:08,799 --> 00:31:11,160
other than even maybe even there's not even a lot

617
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:15,480
of acknowledgment that it's happened, because the real concentration is

618
00:31:15,519 --> 00:31:19,839
on the ice raids, the pickups, the deportations.

619
00:31:20,559 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 2: I mean, people.

620
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 7: Uniformly Democrats and Democratic activists are apoplectic about this. This

621
00:31:25,799 --> 00:31:29,200
is a police state. This is completely unjustified. There's nothing

622
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:33,000
good about it. Well, there are obviously stuff that's happening

623
00:31:33,039 --> 00:31:35,839
that's kind of noxious, But on the other hand, what

624
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:40,839
is their program for deportations? So they would believe in deportations. Obviously,

625
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,200
if someone can come here and if they stay for

626
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,720
three weeks, they can stay here forever. That's not a

627
00:31:45,799 --> 00:31:50,079
viable strategy, right, that's not The incentive structure is all wrong. So,

628
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,799
and this is one reason why people don't trust the Democrats,

629
00:31:53,839 --> 00:31:57,519
because even though they may pick up on some things

630
00:31:57,519 --> 00:32:01,400
that are happening that people are viscerally apt and seem cruel.

631
00:32:02,119 --> 00:32:04,680
They don't trust the Democrats to trend, you know, sort

632
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,240
of move on from that to an actual workable immigration

633
00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:10,759
program that what, as you say, decide who gets in

634
00:32:10,799 --> 00:32:13,960
and who doesn't and would stick to the rules. I

635
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,200
think voters have no faith in the Democrats for that

636
00:32:17,279 --> 00:32:19,640
at this point, and I think again, breaking out of

637
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:21,440
that will be really hard for all the reasons we

638
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,240
just we've just been discussing.

639
00:32:27,079 --> 00:32:29,039
Speaker 3: So Ry, can I ask you a different question about

640
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,079
another about economics and populism?

641
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:32,039
Speaker 2: Uh.

642
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 3: In addition to that amazing New York Times story about

643
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,640
the voting problems, there was also this week, uh, the

644
00:32:38,759 --> 00:32:41,400
latest series of headlines I can go back to and

645
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:43,920
feature stories in the Times. I want to call it

646
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:47,440
up here about oh shoot, I'm having a trouble here.

647
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 2: No, here it comes.

648
00:32:48,359 --> 00:32:52,359
Speaker 3: Here's the headline, abolish the Senate and the Electoral College

649
00:32:52,599 --> 00:32:55,799
packed the court? Why the Left can't win without a

650
00:32:55,839 --> 00:32:56,640
new constitution?

651
00:32:57,039 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 2: Now could go wrong? What could go wrong? These are

652
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:00,960
great ideas, right?

653
00:33:01,039 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 4: Well?

654
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, aside from the merits or I think demerits of

655
00:33:04,039 --> 00:33:07,720
all those ideas. I have a simple question, which I

656
00:33:07,759 --> 00:33:10,839
have various answers, both psychological and philosophical for it, but I.

657
00:33:10,839 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 2: Want to hear yours. Okay, My question is, well, wait

658
00:33:13,279 --> 00:33:13,599
a minute.

659
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,279
Speaker 3: The Democratic Party dominated American politics for fifty years in

660
00:33:17,319 --> 00:33:21,000
a New Deal era. They did just fine under those rules.

661
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:23,079
So why do we need to change them now? Well,

662
00:33:23,079 --> 00:33:26,759
because they're not dominating politics anymore. They're actually losing elections.

663
00:33:27,559 --> 00:33:30,559
And so I mean, you know, the partisan conservative Republican

664
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,440
will say, and I joined them half the time, is gee,

665
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,960
now that you're losing, what's your answer? Change the rules

666
00:33:36,119 --> 00:33:38,000
rather than change your message or adapt to it. But

667
00:33:38,839 --> 00:33:41,480
I mean, is that a is there some merit to

668
00:33:41,519 --> 00:33:43,440
that objection? I mean, I want to hear from a

669
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,960
smart social democrat like you about how we should think

670
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,160
about By the way, I've got a whole file of

671
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,799
Times articles like that the Constitution is obsolete, we should

672
00:33:51,799 --> 00:33:54,640
get rid of it, it's an obstacle to change and

673
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:55,200
so forth.

674
00:33:55,759 --> 00:33:57,599
Speaker 7: Now, wasn't there someone who wrote an op ed in

675
00:33:57,640 --> 00:33:59,480
the Times a while ago? I think this is before

676
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,519
the twenty four election that advocated turning DC into seven

677
00:34:03,559 --> 00:34:06,519
hundred and twenty eight different histories, all of which would

678
00:34:06,519 --> 00:34:09,280
have their own senator or something. I mean, there's been

679
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,840
a lot of right, there's been a lot of wacky stuff.

680
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:12,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're here.

681
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:15,559
Speaker 3: Sorry, here we Here are four more headlines that I've collected,

682
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,559
all from the last two years. The Constitution is broken

683
00:34:18,559 --> 00:34:22,000
and should not be reclaimed all New York Times elections

684
00:34:22,039 --> 00:34:23,320
are bad for democracy.

685
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 2: Now, that one was just who could argue with that?

686
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: Right?

687
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 3: And then but another more serious one is the Constitution

688
00:34:28,559 --> 00:34:31,960
is sacred? Is it all so dangerous? In other words,

689
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,079
I'm an old fashioned person who reads the Federal's papers

690
00:34:35,079 --> 00:34:38,320
that said, you know, Madison Hamilton's saying, you know, if

691
00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:40,000
the rule of law is going to replace the rule

692
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,599
of men, that means our fundamental legal document must be

693
00:34:42,679 --> 00:34:45,239
an object of reverence by the people. They use that

694
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:48,480
word reverence right now, I'm kind of old fashioned devote,

695
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,960
devote on the founding, but I'm kind of seeing a

696
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,880
loss of reverence for the Constitution among many progressives. I'll

697
00:34:55,039 --> 00:34:55,639
stop there.

698
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, obviously that's that's true. And I think your

699
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:01,920
point earlier about well, why would they be saying this now?

700
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,599
And they really did just fine with the rules, and

701
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:06,559
you know, long ears of American politics.

702
00:35:06,639 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 2: It really isn't that complicated.

703
00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 7: It's like you say, the wrong people now have too

704
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,719
much influence, and the wrong people have too much influence

705
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,599
because of the way our constitution's structuralway or institution. Therefore

706
00:35:16,639 --> 00:35:18,760
we need to change that so the right people will

707
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:19,639
have more influence.

708
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 2: So this is I mean, this is basically insane, I think.

709
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 7: I mean, the very fact that Democrats progressives would toy

710
00:35:27,559 --> 00:35:30,800
with this stuff, it's just an indication they're you know,

711
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,360
they're they're running out of room, they're running out of

712
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,280
they're desperate, they're flailing, right. I mean, this is what

713
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,920
you do, and you can't think of anything else to say,

714
00:35:39,039 --> 00:35:41,719
Let's just change the prigand rules. See, I know the

715
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:44,280
guy who wrote that op ed you you were mentioning earlier.

716
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,039
You used to write for the New Republic, the first

717
00:35:46,039 --> 00:35:49,840
one you mentioned, he's look, I mean, he's this is

718
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:54,360
a kind of wild you know, progressivism, unhinged type stuff

719
00:35:54,599 --> 00:35:57,440
that plays very well in significant sectors of the party,

720
00:35:57,639 --> 00:36:01,000
and it's playing better now as the trumpetmen stration goes on,

721
00:36:01,639 --> 00:36:04,800
because you know, people are in full resistance mode. How

722
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:06,679
could this terrible thing have happened? I mean, there was

723
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,800
like a window of maybe two months where Democrats seemed

724
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,119
a little chase in well, maybe maybe we did screw

725
00:36:13,119 --> 00:36:14,920
it all up, Maybe we really do need to change

726
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,039
a lot, And they say, nah, we don't need to

727
00:36:17,079 --> 00:36:19,400
do that. We need to change the constitution. We need

728
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:21,960
more people like Zora and Ondani. You know that'll totally

729
00:36:22,599 --> 00:36:25,400
solve the problem. So I just think that all the

730
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,719
indicators are now flashing red, as it were, on their

731
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:31,960
ability to reinvent the party. So I don't expect anything

732
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,559
to happen anytime soon. And you know, we may have

733
00:36:35,599 --> 00:36:39,199
to go through another presidential cycle where they do even worse.

734
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 2: I can easily see that happen.

735
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 3: That was the story arc of the eighties into the nineties,

736
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,400
right as you've finally lost enough elections by a lot

737
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,960
that a talented person like Clinton came on. By the way,

738
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:50,519
I just have to say, and then I'll shut up.

739
00:36:50,679 --> 00:36:52,239
I like the way you framed the beginning of your

740
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,320
answer about you know, the right people the wrong people

741
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:57,639
reminds me of that great Yes Minister scene where Sir

742
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,000
Humphrey Applebee says to Bernard says, you know what happened

743
00:37:00,199 --> 00:37:02,760
when the right people don't get power the wrong people

744
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,039
get it.

745
00:37:05,519 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 2: Such a great show.

746
00:37:07,199 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 6: Yeah, I am interested in patriotism.

747
00:37:14,159 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: My question, that's my question. Now good, we're all dying

748
00:37:18,519 --> 00:37:23,480
to ask this, right because the term liberal patriot warms

749
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,920
my heart. When I was a liberal in college in

750
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:31,000
the eighties, Democrats new republic style democrat, I suppose we're

751
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:33,400
all patriotic. We loved America. It was, you know, the

752
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,280
phrase that Rush Limbaugh would later use, the greatest country

753
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,440
on God's green Earth. We would nod along too, because

754
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,199
we understood a little bit of history and a little

755
00:37:40,199 --> 00:37:43,519
bit of American exceptionalism. Could see exactly why this was

756
00:37:43,519 --> 00:37:47,239
a great endeavor. What people get, I think nowadays, not

757
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,079
from the you know, from the Democrats who may work

758
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,880
you know, in their city, you know, in various civic roles,

759
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:56,760
but from the intellectual heavyweight to the party is sixteen

760
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,519
nineteen is the original sins of this country that make

761
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:02,519
it uniquely bad, and that to be a patriot is

762
00:38:02,559 --> 00:38:05,880
to align yourself with an enterprise that has caused all

763
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,960
manner of horrors on humanity. Because the isms of the colonialism,

764
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,400
the Sexismombia, all of this stuff. This is a bad place.

765
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,039
You can be patriotic about an ideal to which we

766
00:38:17,199 --> 00:38:21,800
might ascribe should it happen. But the idea of accepting

767
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,960
this flawed structure, this crooked timber, is something great and

768
00:38:26,039 --> 00:38:28,360
being proud of seems to be lost in the party.

769
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:32,880
And when they try it, it's not authentic because how

770
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,719
much of the ideological energy comes from colleges and comes

771
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:38,719
from the people who have their degrees and the books

772
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:44,280
and all that stuff, which there's a little use and

773
00:38:44,559 --> 00:38:49,119
seems to ignore history. Liberal patriot how many of you

774
00:38:49,599 --> 00:38:50,079
are there?

775
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,119
Speaker 7: Well, I would not say we're a majority at this

776
00:38:54,199 --> 00:38:58,159
point and left of center circles, but you know, we're

777
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,480
growing slowly, I think, I hope, But I do think

778
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,800
you're right that the whole issue of patriotism and its

779
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,639
identification and lact thereof with the left has become like

780
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,599
a mega problem, and it wasn't really so long ago.

781
00:39:12,199 --> 00:39:15,239
I mean, Obama is really pretty different than the way

782
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:17,960
the center gravity of the Democrats, certainly Clinton. You know,

783
00:39:18,159 --> 00:39:20,599
there's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by

784
00:39:20,639 --> 00:39:25,360
what's right with America. That stuff is like borderline, you know, problematic,

785
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,159
racist and all that kind of stuff. So it's funny

786
00:39:28,159 --> 00:39:30,079
you bring this up, though, because I just put out

787
00:39:30,079 --> 00:39:34,119
a big report with Rick Callenberg at AI called Bobby

788
00:39:34,159 --> 00:39:37,519
Kennedy Liberal Patriot, where we basically make a big deal

789
00:39:38,039 --> 00:39:41,239
in this in this report, and there should be an

790
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,840
article about this coming out in the Free Press. That

791
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:48,000
you know, Kennedy is just so different from the way

792
00:39:48,039 --> 00:39:54,079
Democrats comport themselves these tastes. He was unabashedly patriotic, you know,

793
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:59,480
pro family, pro working class work over welfare, against.

794
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 2: Crime, law and order.

795
00:40:01,199 --> 00:40:03,679
Speaker 7: You know, I mean, he was just a different cat

796
00:40:04,039 --> 00:40:06,880
than we have nowadays running around in the Democratic Party,

797
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,000
and he was unapologetic about it. He was trying in

798
00:40:10,039 --> 00:40:13,840
a sense to rescue the party from its evolving trend

799
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,880
away from a lot of these values and bring black

800
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,280
and white working class voters back together and the party. Tragically,

801
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:21,920
of course that was cut short, and who knew who

802
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,000
we would have worked. But I think he's an interesting model,

803
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,360
and you know, he suffused a lot of what he

804
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:32,360
did on his various policy positions with the fundamental idea

805
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,800
of patriots. Even the way he treated poverty was patriotic.

806
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,400
Like in a great country like this, you know, the

807
00:40:37,519 --> 00:40:42,360
United States of America, we should be able to have

808
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,280
a decent standard of living for everybody, and people should

809
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,280
pay their fair share because it's patriotic. He always that

810
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,119
was kind of his touchstone, and I.

811
00:40:51,079 --> 00:40:52,559
Speaker 2: Think that's totally lacking now.

812
00:40:52,599 --> 00:40:55,119
Speaker 7: I mean, you brought up the sixteen nineteen project, because

813
00:40:55,159 --> 00:40:56,960
to me, that was a bit that really was a

814
00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:59,519
bit of a cut point to me when it came out.

815
00:41:00,199 --> 00:41:02,079
I mean, I know a lot of people went gaga

816
00:41:02,159 --> 00:41:05,079
over in liberal circles. So my first reaction is, are

817
00:41:05,119 --> 00:41:05,840
you kidding me?

818
00:41:06,199 --> 00:41:09,039
Speaker 8: This is terrible and you can't believe you're doing this

819
00:41:09,039 --> 00:41:11,960
is gonna alienate us from normy voters and it's not

820
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,559
even true. I mean, this is a terrible way that

821
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,760
this is a terrible way to conduct yourself. But it

822
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:18,960
was the New York Times, the official.

823
00:41:18,639 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 7: Arbiter of you know, civilized discourse, that was like foisting

824
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,679
this on the American public, at least the American educated public.

825
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 2: And I was I was appalled.

826
00:41:28,519 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 7: I could not believe it, and I said, oh man,

827
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,400
we're in for it now. This is this is I mean,

828
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:35,159
things that have already been going south on a lot

829
00:41:35,159 --> 00:41:37,719
of this stuff. But I just thought, not only the peace,

830
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,679
but who promulgated it, and the rapture with which it

831
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,760
was greeted in most educated left leaning liberal circles.

832
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,519
Speaker 2: It's just just amazing. I was like, Oh, well, I

833
00:41:48,519 --> 00:41:51,159
guess we're not in Kansas anymore. Wow.

834
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: Those of us in the right take a look at

835
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:55,360
things like the sixteen to nine project, take a look

836
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:57,519
at the way that the culture has shifted in the

837
00:41:57,559 --> 00:42:01,400
overclass and what their ideas are, and we see, to

838
00:42:01,519 --> 00:42:03,559
use all the cliches, the results of the long march

839
00:42:03,599 --> 00:42:08,559
to the institutions where now you have colleges, museums and

840
00:42:08,599 --> 00:42:11,280
the rest of them are ascribed to a particular sad

841
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,880
of ideological precepts. And now when we try to push

842
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,079
back on that, such Trump is trying to do with

843
00:42:17,079 --> 00:42:20,920
the Smithsonian, that's regarded as trying to change an objective

844
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:24,920
reality to fit the criteria of dear Leader. When a

845
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,639
lot of us are looking at this and saying, no,

846
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:33,400
it's rewriting the plaque under the picture of Valley Forge

847
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,280
so that it doesn't say that the result of the

848
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,639
victory was the expansion of the country and the exclusion

849
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:43,719
of the Indian I mean, investing absolutely everything less narrative.

850
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,159
I mean, do you guys see it that way? I mean,

851
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,920
you're rational, sensible man. Do you sometimes see these things

852
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,400
and say, why must this suffuse absolutely everything? And it's

853
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:57,320
not wrong to get back to a more positive sort

854
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,000
of accounting of these things without having to rub people

855
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,880
noses in the filth of American history every second. Of course,

856
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,000
I'm not making a question, I'm just ranting.

857
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 7: Right, No, I mean I agree with that. I mean

858
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,679
I think it's become a huge problem. I mean, we're

859
00:43:08,679 --> 00:43:11,599
just talking about the sixteen nineteen project with the exemplar

860
00:43:11,639 --> 00:43:14,599
of this, and it gets back to Charles's point about

861
00:43:14,599 --> 00:43:16,880
the sort of autoimmune disorder or something.

862
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:17,599
Speaker 2: I mean, you.

863
00:43:17,679 --> 00:43:22,599
Speaker 7: Cannot in Democratic party or liberal circles admit that there

864
00:43:22,679 --> 00:43:26,480
might be something to what Trump is doing, you know,

865
00:43:26,559 --> 00:43:31,280
to the universities, to an institutional like the Smithsonian, because

866
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,679
by definition, what he's doing is nothing but a drive

867
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:40,519
for white supremacy and authoritarianism. I mean, there's no gray areas, right,

868
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,360
I mean, it can't be like he's overreaching.

869
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:43,199
Speaker 2: In some ways.

870
00:43:43,519 --> 00:43:47,039
Speaker 7: This happened, you know, he went too far, but you

871
00:43:47,079 --> 00:43:48,440
know there was a lot of stuff that needed to

872
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:49,039
be corrected.

873
00:43:49,199 --> 00:43:51,039
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of this stuff is crazy.

874
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 7: How they're rubbing people's noses and you know, they want

875
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,199
you to think about the terrible stuff before you can

876
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,119
think about the good stuff, and in the process, people's

877
00:43:59,159 --> 00:44:02,840
sense of you know, a country that is worth identifying

878
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,840
with gets lost. And I think you know, Robert Bella,

879
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,559
I think once talked a long time ago about the

880
00:44:09,599 --> 00:44:14,519
civil religion that's America, right, that's important to unifying our country,

881
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,239
and it's you know, attached to various symbols, to various holidays,

882
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:19,880
to various stories and myths.

883
00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a good thing. That's a good thing.

884
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:24,239
That civil religion needs to be revived.

885
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 7: And one thing that's peculiar about the Democratic Party today

886
00:44:27,519 --> 00:44:31,400
is there adamantly one hundred and fifty percent opposed to

887
00:44:31,519 --> 00:44:33,599
anything like that. They do not want people to feel

888
00:44:33,639 --> 00:44:35,880
good about their country. They do not want people to

889
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,519
buy into, you know, a glorious vision of their country,

890
00:44:39,599 --> 00:44:40,760
because that's what MAGA does.

891
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,599
Speaker 2: Man, that's right wing. You know, so many things are

892
00:44:43,679 --> 00:44:44,320
right coded.

893
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 7: Now that again, if you are a Democrat and you

894
00:44:48,119 --> 00:44:50,639
raise some of these issues, say, well, clearly a lot

895
00:44:50,639 --> 00:44:53,679
of this was bullshit. Basically that the left was doing

896
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:56,599
what people in the universities did or was it. I mean,

897
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:01,320
your persona on grata immediately, you are just you know,

898
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,280
you're just basically shilling for Trump, you're Trump enabling.

899
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 6: So who in elected office is getting this right? You said,

900
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:14,280
even Andy Bisheer, Is anyone getting this right? In the

901
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,320
Democratic Party? Do you see any Clintonian figure on the

902
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,239
horizon who can pull the party back?

903
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 2: I'd say no at this point. I think they'll have

904
00:45:25,519 --> 00:45:26,119
to emerge.

905
00:45:26,159 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 7: I think there are people out there clearly who probably

906
00:45:29,559 --> 00:45:32,760
have a view that is fairly might be fairly close

907
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,079
to reality of what's going on, but they're afraid to

908
00:45:35,119 --> 00:45:38,159
say it. I mean, you think preference falsification is off

909
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,320
a problem for people in bureaucracies or corporations or whatever.

910
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,320
I mean, upon politicians, it's huge. They hide a lot

911
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:48,960
of what they think frequently, and you know, because they

912
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:51,400
think it's in politic to say it. So there probably

913
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,920
are people out there Ruben Diego, for all, I know,

914
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,159
there might be others who are like, realize, you know,

915
00:45:56,159 --> 00:45:59,960
we're lost. We really have to be out front about

916
00:46:00,079 --> 00:46:02,039
that we stand for something different. There were different kind

917
00:46:02,079 --> 00:46:05,159
of Democrats, but they're afraid to go through the Sister

918
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,960
Soldier moments that I outlined in my piece that might

919
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,920
actually underscore that. You know, the person who comes closer

920
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:12,480
to it, oddly enough, is Betterman.

921
00:46:13,159 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 2: I mean, Betterman has been well, this is crazy. You know,

922
00:46:18,039 --> 00:46:20,199
we can't before this. You're nuts, you know.

923
00:46:20,559 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 7: But he's he's a you know, realistically, he's a marginal

924
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,920
figure in the Democratic Party universe, even though I get

925
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,280
a kick out of him. But you know, Jos Shapiro

926
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:31,960
is the other guy from Pennsylvania, right, And Jos Shapiro

927
00:46:32,079 --> 00:46:35,199
is a perfect example of someone who probably has reasonably

928
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,800
sensible instincts and a lot of stuff, but is way

929
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:43,320
too measured, way too cautious to really get get out

930
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,000
there and do it at least I think needs to

931
00:46:46,039 --> 00:46:49,000
be done to get out of the ideological prison they're

932
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:49,480
in now.

933
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 2: I think he.

934
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,760
Speaker 7: Will cautiously try to feel his way to the nomination,

935
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,199
and I think in the process, he liked the rest

936
00:46:56,199 --> 00:47:00,760
of them, will be hurted toward toward Nusimism. Right, Gaba,

937
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,559
Newcism has really opposed to Trump. I'm opposed to Trump,

938
00:47:03,599 --> 00:47:06,880
you know, so I think realistically that's where we are.

939
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:09,440
I mean, it pains me to say it, but that's

940
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:10,159
how it looks to me.

941
00:47:11,079 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: Folks. You can find more of this often at the

942
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,960
Liberal Patriot, the Substack newsletter that Roy is one of

943
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,000
the co founder and the politics editor of, and you

944
00:47:19,039 --> 00:47:22,639
should and you should subscribe because you will find interesting

945
00:47:22,679 --> 00:47:25,960
ideas counter to your own and sometimes intersecting with. And

946
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,760
it's important to understand the smart liberal patriots on the

947
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:31,480
other side of the political aisle so that we can

948
00:47:31,519 --> 00:47:33,840
figure out what we can do down the road together.

949
00:47:34,039 --> 00:47:36,599
And of course, you know, in slight conflict over some

950
00:47:36,599 --> 00:47:40,280
of the things, work will never because you guys are

951
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:40,840
just wrong.

952
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:43,519
Speaker 2: That's for another podcast.

953
00:47:43,679 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: That's another podcast, and that would be fun. But I've

954
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:47,840
enjoyed I've enjoyed this very much listening to what you

955
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,280
have to say. And it's been great to talk to you, Roy,

956
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:53,559
And good luck with a Substack and we hope to

957
00:47:53,599 --> 00:47:55,800
have you next time you come up with a book.

958
00:47:56,119 --> 00:47:58,440
Speaker 2: Absolutely happy to do it. Thanks all right, bye bye, right,

959
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,679
okay bye.

960
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,119
Speaker 1: And that was indeed a pleasure. But here's the thing, folks,

961
00:48:04,159 --> 00:48:06,079
we got to figure out is that there's conflict and

962
00:48:06,119 --> 00:48:08,760
then there's football conflict. And we have football conflict to

963
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:12,400
tell you about. Charles, tell them.

964
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 5: It's of the virtual variety. Don't worry.

965
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 6: You don't have to be drafted into the NFL, sign

966
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,559
up for a college team, and to the transfer portal

967
00:48:18,639 --> 00:48:21,199
or any of that. But if you are a Ricochet

968
00:48:21,199 --> 00:48:26,039
member and then you can take part in this year's

969
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:30,599
fantasy football extravaganza. And if you do is, if not

970
00:48:30,679 --> 00:48:32,800
the best part, at least a good part. You might

971
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:37,079
even win some money. You might win fifty bucks if

972
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,199
you win the league. If you go to Ricochet right now,

973
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,280
you'll see on the right hand side of the site

974
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:48,079
there is a link. It looks like a football, so

975
00:48:48,119 --> 00:48:50,119
it's fantasy football on it. You can't really miss it,

976
00:48:50,199 --> 00:48:52,880
and that will explain everything. The draft is going to

977
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,760
be not tomorrow but the Saturday after that. The time

978
00:48:57,039 --> 00:48:59,679
is on there, so are all the rest of the details.

979
00:49:00,119 --> 00:49:03,960
There is an address that you can email expressing your interest,

980
00:49:04,199 --> 00:49:09,599
so go do it. You have eight days to.

981
00:49:08,559 --> 00:49:11,519
Speaker 5: Sign up and take pop grand.

982
00:49:11,679 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: Well do that. And while you're at Ricochet there by

983
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,840
the way, if you haven't been there before signing up

984
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:18,840
just to scrape some cash out of us, it's fine,

985
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:20,880
you might take a look at some of the other

986
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,039
things that we have. It's great when a piece from

987
00:49:23,039 --> 00:49:25,239
the member feed, which is for paying members only, and

988
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:26,800
by paying members. I mean, it's not going to break

989
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:28,519
the bank, don't worry, and you get more than you

990
00:49:28,559 --> 00:49:31,079
get a lot when the member feed, stuff goes to

991
00:49:31,159 --> 00:49:34,320
the main feed, just to show you what ricochet is

992
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:38,480
all about. Yes, there's politics, there's podcasts on intellectual property,

993
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:42,239
there are pieces about motherhood. There's a post about a

994
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,519
guy who's accusing his power company of maybe stealing his juice.

995
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,280
There's my diner, there's of course, and then there was

996
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,079
a post that I absolutely loved by Gary McVay, one

997
00:49:52,079 --> 00:49:56,079
of our one of our great writers on the site,

998
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,400
who's talking about the rarity of television moving to film

999
00:49:59,559 --> 00:50:01,719
and spends a lot of time talking about Jack Web,

1000
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,039
and one hundred comments later, we're all talking about the

1001
00:50:04,079 --> 00:50:06,559
sprockets and the frame rates of kinescopes and thirty five

1002
00:50:06,599 --> 00:50:10,639
and sea. It's nerdy, it's wonderfully pop culture in a

1003
00:50:10,679 --> 00:50:14,159
way that you haven't seen before. And it's just it's

1004
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:18,199
so ricochet to me to see something like that where

1005
00:50:18,199 --> 00:50:21,159
you can talk about what happened yesterday, and also the

1006
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:23,960
fact that Jack Web was not a stupid man. He

1007
00:50:24,039 --> 00:50:26,480
hired Julian London. So go to ricochet dot com and

1008
00:50:26,519 --> 00:50:29,239
you will find everything there, in addition to meetups, of course,

1009
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:31,400
because that's the great thing. If you are a human

1010
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:33,719
being not a bot, you can put out a little

1011
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,239
call and Ricochet members will come to you, and you

1012
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,400
can sit around and drink and have hamburgers and enjoy yourselves.

1013
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:43,920
And if my memory serves, probably talk about everything except politics.

1014
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,039
When we get together, we talk about all the other

1015
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:53,360
wonderful things in lives. Well, what is left to go?

1016
00:50:53,559 --> 00:50:57,880
Let's see Trump's going to go. He's going to put

1017
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:02,039
an end to mail in ballots, which I think is

1018
00:51:02,079 --> 00:51:04,360
a good idea. I don't like them. I think they

1019
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,440
lead to harvesting. I think this trend where we just

1020
00:51:07,519 --> 00:51:10,079
have all kinds of loosey goosey stuff for Oh, voting

1021
00:51:10,159 --> 00:51:11,599
is going to be over seven days. Oh it's going

1022
00:51:11,639 --> 00:51:14,079
to be ranked voting. Oh you can mail it in. No,

1023
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,159
you go to a place, you show them your ID,

1024
00:51:17,639 --> 00:51:20,000
you sign a piece of paper, you go into a

1025
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,000
little hacked off porta potty, and you make your marks

1026
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,280
in the oval, like the Iowa Basics test. That's how

1027
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:29,800
you vote. Now, maybe that makes me a boomer I am,

1028
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:32,360
but I think that I think Drum's right here. No

1029
00:51:32,679 --> 00:51:36,039
mail in voting. You're here.

1030
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 3: One little trivia point that I always like to bring

1031
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,079
up is, I don't know. It's twenty five or maybe

1032
00:51:42,079 --> 00:51:43,920
even thirty years ago now that Jimmy Carter and I

1033
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:46,559
think James Baker got together. It did some kind of

1034
00:51:46,559 --> 00:51:50,119
commission on voting, and one of their findings was, we

1035
00:51:50,119 --> 00:51:52,840
shouldn't have mail in voting. It's just too prone to

1036
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,639
fraud and manipulation all things you just said. And that

1037
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:57,800
was the Saint of Jimmy Carter putting his name to

1038
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,679
that report. That always gets forgotten in these debates about it,

1039
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,960
that even the Saint Jimmy Carter of Plains, Georgia was

1040
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:06,679
skeptical of mail in voting. One reason for that, by

1041
00:52:06,679 --> 00:52:08,920
the way, is that he nearly lost his first rate

1042
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:11,559
race with the state Senate, I think in nineteen sixty

1043
00:52:11,599 --> 00:52:14,800
two or sixty because of some fraudulent votes in this district,

1044
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,079
and he had to go to court to get them invalidated,

1045
00:52:17,119 --> 00:52:19,480
and so he won by fifty votes or something. So

1046
00:52:19,519 --> 00:52:22,400
he has a long memory of what voting fraud can do.

1047
00:52:23,199 --> 00:52:25,519
Speaker 5: Can we must?

1048
00:52:25,639 --> 00:52:30,199
Speaker 6: I think we split up the beginning of Trump's tweets

1049
00:52:30,519 --> 00:52:35,000
in the middle. The beginning is correct, I also disliked

1050
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:36,719
mail in voting, although I will note that it works

1051
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:40,639
fairly well in Florida. I dislike all voting that is

1052
00:52:40,679 --> 00:52:44,119
an election day voting in person, and would apply exemptions

1053
00:52:44,159 --> 00:52:48,800
only for military overseas. So on the merits of it,

1054
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,159
I basically agree with you James, and you Steve and

1055
00:52:53,159 --> 00:52:58,480
Donald Trump. But the mechanism Trump suggested for implementing this

1056
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:04,280
was a'tistrophically unconstitutional, and he did use the phrase the

1057
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:08,280
states have to obey the federal government as represented by

1058
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:09,119
the president.

1059
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:10,639
Speaker 5: Now, hang on a minute.

1060
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,559
Speaker 6: So I am a conservative, and one of the things

1061
00:53:14,599 --> 00:53:18,920
that I like about the federal government is that it

1062
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:25,800
is a charter of enumerated powers, and the states retain

1063
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:32,079
pretty much all control over everything that the federal government

1064
00:53:32,119 --> 00:53:33,800
has not been given. Another thing I like about the

1065
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:37,440
federal government, as contrived by James Madison at al. Is

1066
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:41,960
that decisions about what the federal government is allowed to

1067
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,239
do are made by Congress, not by the President in

1068
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:48,320
most cases. So in one fell suoite there, having gone

1069
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,719
from a very sensible position, which is mail and voting

1070
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:54,679
as bad, Donald Trump has articulated a view of power

1071
00:53:54,679 --> 00:53:59,599
that would have made Woodrow Wilson Blush, and I don't

1072
00:53:59,639 --> 00:54:01,360
want that power to be in the hands of anyone.

1073
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:02,400
I don't want it to be in the hands of

1074
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:05,320
Donald Trump, and I don't think anyone who likes Donald

1075
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:07,639
Trump wants it to be in the hands of the

1076
00:54:07,679 --> 00:54:10,880
next Democratic president. We saw what even Congress tried to

1077
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:14,119
do last time around under Biden, which was abmolished the

1078
00:54:14,119 --> 00:54:16,559
Philip Buster to take over the entire electoral system to

1079
00:54:16,599 --> 00:54:22,360
permanently advantage Democrats. And it is just worth pointing out that, yes,

1080
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,599
he's right on the merits, but if he were to

1081
00:54:24,639 --> 00:54:28,199
try to do that, it would be and should be

1082
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,880
struck down by the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas presumably would

1083
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,760
write a coruscating opinion of the sort that he has

1084
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,880
written before when this was presented to him.

1085
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,599
Speaker 5: So yeah, correct idea. When he says he will lead

1086
00:54:40,639 --> 00:54:41,960
a movement, that's how he starts.

1087
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 1: I'm with him.

1088
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:44,519
Speaker 6: I hope Trump does a leader movement against it. I

1089
00:54:44,519 --> 00:54:47,039
hope he persuades the country to change how it votes.

1090
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:48,280
He can't do on his own.

1091
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:53,719
Speaker 1: Problem is problem is is that you're absolutely right, but

1092
00:54:54,119 --> 00:54:56,679
with almost everything it seems to me that Trump is doing.

1093
00:54:58,039 --> 00:54:59,639
I mean, we could be again the show by saying

1094
00:54:59,639 --> 00:55:01,239
this is a this is a wise This is a

1095
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:02,599
good thing to be done. It should have been done

1096
00:55:02,599 --> 00:55:07,000
a long time ago. The fundamentals are sound, but I

1097
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:10,039
don't like he was how he's going about it. Most

1098
00:55:10,079 --> 00:55:13,199
people don't care because nothing was done and now something's

1099
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:16,880
being done, and that's the norm erosion that I worry about.

1100
00:55:17,960 --> 00:55:19,800
But on the other hand, I mean, you go back

1101
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:21,320
and forth on this and say, well, let me sort

1102
00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:25,039
of how bad of an apologist for a post constitutional

1103
00:55:25,159 --> 00:55:27,000
United States it might be coming here because I say

1104
00:55:27,079 --> 00:55:30,559
that I'm glad it's being done. I grapple with these things.

1105
00:55:30,639 --> 00:55:32,480
But a lot of people will grapple because they're happy

1106
00:55:32,519 --> 00:55:34,159
to see ICE doing what they should have been doing

1107
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,039
all of these years before, which is enforcing the border

1108
00:55:37,039 --> 00:55:38,599
and getting criminals out of the country, et cetera.

1109
00:55:38,679 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 6: Well, there's nothing wrong with that, of course, that's reasonable.

1110
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:42,920
I would just say that one of the things that

1111
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:46,440
has slightly disappointed me over this one, right, is that

1112
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,920
if the Joe Biden had said on Twitter or elsewhere,

1113
00:55:52,039 --> 00:55:54,599
the states have to do what the federal government says,

1114
00:55:54,639 --> 00:55:57,960
through me, the representative of the federal government, your president.

1115
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,679
Speaker 5: I mean we'd have gone and flicked the safety off rifles.

1116
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:06,840
Speaker 1: Like, come on, Stephen, last question before we go here.

1117
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:09,519
Have you ever been to a cracker barrel? You know,

1118
00:56:09,559 --> 00:56:11,079
I don't think I ever have. They don't They don't

1119
00:56:11,079 --> 00:56:13,239
have very many of them out here in California. I'm

1120
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:14,880
not sure I've ever seen one out here. I know

1121
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:18,000
I've seen them elsewhere. But you know, I'm worried now

1122
00:56:18,039 --> 00:56:19,320
about the slippery slope.

1123
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:22,639
Speaker 3: We've lost Aunt Jemima, We've lost the you know, the

1124
00:56:22,639 --> 00:56:25,760
the Indian lady on Land of Lakes. Butter, I'm worried

1125
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:26,679
about Crackerjack.

1126
00:56:27,119 --> 00:56:28,199
Speaker 2: That could be next.

1127
00:56:28,679 --> 00:56:31,519
Speaker 1: Well, as he's a tired and sort of early twentieth

1128
00:56:31,559 --> 00:56:35,440
century naval uniform. So there's a militarism there extend. You

1129
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:37,800
know that that was the time when the Great White Fleet,

1130
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:39,239
oh my gosh, the White Fleet was, you know, it

1131
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:41,239
was doing bad things in the Philippines. So yeah, I

1132
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:43,039
think get rid of him and just keep hugged the

1133
00:56:43,119 --> 00:56:44,800
dug whatever the dog was named.

1134
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 3: I do know how cracker Barrel can turn it around.

1135
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,159
This is obligatory. Well, they need to obviously start an

1136
00:56:50,199 --> 00:56:53,800
ad campaign with Sidney Sweeney because you know, just because

1137
00:56:54,199 --> 00:56:54,719
the crack.

1138
00:56:54,599 --> 00:56:58,280
Speaker 5: Of barrels, yes, jams, yes.

1139
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:01,239
Speaker 6: Now I want to know you think of crackerball because

1140
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,199
you are the great collector of Americana, so you must

1141
00:57:04,199 --> 00:57:05,039
have a take on this.

1142
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:05,599
Speaker 2: No.

1143
00:57:05,639 --> 00:57:09,119
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I have no cracker barrel stuff. As

1144
00:57:09,159 --> 00:57:11,199
I said before, I've never been into one, never had

1145
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:15,119
a particular desire to do one. I find suicidal brand

1146
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:19,079
changes to be fascinating because they took rid of the

1147
00:57:19,119 --> 00:57:21,679
guy in the rocking chair. He has a name, he's

1148
00:57:21,719 --> 00:57:24,159
part of their whole corporate mythology. They got rid of

1149
00:57:24,199 --> 00:57:27,199
him in favor of a bland logo with the words

1150
00:57:27,199 --> 00:57:31,000
cracker barrel are too small, driving me nuts. But what

1151
00:57:31,440 --> 00:57:34,159
they're doing there is they're sort of getting away from basically,

1152
00:57:34,519 --> 00:57:38,920
you know, explicit chatty iconography from the eighties and the

1153
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:40,719
nineties and the rest of it would have worked, but

1154
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:43,000
it's dated. To them. Everything is dated, everything's brown. They

1155
00:57:43,039 --> 00:57:45,480
don't like the clientele because they're old, and so they

1156
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:47,199
want to bring new people in. But the people that

1157
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:49,679
will be brought in by a brightened up place are

1158
00:57:49,679 --> 00:57:51,159
not the people are going to go to cracker Barrel

1159
00:57:51,159 --> 00:57:53,639
in the first place. I mean, they're in a difficult position.

1160
00:57:53,760 --> 00:57:56,880
They have to satiate the desires of the old clientele

1161
00:57:56,880 --> 00:57:58,440
at the same time bring in some new people to

1162
00:57:58,519 --> 00:58:01,760
look around and say, I feel somewhat hip. Now this

1163
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:06,000
is a modified look at what my grandma's kitchen used to.

1164
00:58:06,159 --> 00:58:11,760
You know, I'm just fascinated how chains die. Chili is

1165
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:14,719
having a moment at present because they've just done very

1166
00:58:14,719 --> 00:58:16,440
well with their ads. They've come up with some price

1167
00:58:16,519 --> 00:58:18,719
points that hit the right spot, and all of a sudden,

1168
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:21,760
Chili's is just big and it's booming. And then you

1169
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:23,559
look back and you say, what was across the street

1170
00:58:23,559 --> 00:58:26,559
from Chili's, Well, TGIF with that explosion of an antique

1171
00:58:26,559 --> 00:58:29,079
store in the wall motif that they had, and TGIF

1172
00:58:29,119 --> 00:58:32,320
now expires and dies. What happened to Roy Rogers? What

1173
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:35,239
happened to Shonyes? What happened to Big Boy? What happened

1174
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,159
to driving out on an American street? And there's a fighting

1175
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,679
chance you would see a fiberglass statue of a boy

1176
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:44,800
in a red and white checked overalls holding aloft her.

1177
00:58:45,239 --> 00:58:48,360
Why did these things die? Why did they change? And

1178
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:53,599
it's it's an almost spiritual question when it comes to

1179
00:58:53,599 --> 00:58:56,440
commercial America. So I think that cracker Barrel is in

1180
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:58,639
a hard position. I understand what they did what they did.

1181
00:58:59,079 --> 00:59:04,599
I find it interesting, however, that this fed instantaneously into

1182
00:59:04,639 --> 00:59:08,079
the whole woke, go broke thing because Cracker Barrel at

1183
00:59:08,119 --> 00:59:13,079
one point post twenty twenty, when companies were obliged to

1184
00:59:13,159 --> 00:59:15,599
have a position on the major issues of the day.

1185
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,440
If you remember back in the eighties, Charles Stephen, do

1186
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:21,679
you remember what the slogan was from the AIDS activists

1187
00:59:23,039 --> 00:59:26,400
silence equals death right, ah right, And that was a

1188
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:29,599
way of politicizing every corner of America, demanding that if

1189
00:59:29,599 --> 00:59:31,639
you don't say anything about a particular issue, then we

1190
00:59:31,679 --> 00:59:33,840
are going to assume you're on the wrong side of it.

1191
00:59:34,199 --> 00:59:36,519
And Cracker Barrel, which is supposed to be rural and

1192
00:59:36,559 --> 00:59:38,880
Middle America and all the rest of it, put out

1193
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,360
rainbow rockers on the porches of their place to show

1194
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:45,360
that everyone was welcome. Well, so that sort of inclusion,

1195
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:48,519
if you want to call it, that sends a message

1196
00:59:48,519 --> 00:59:52,239
to people who previously had never won in a million years,

1197
00:59:52,519 --> 00:59:57,000
wondered what the position of Cracker Barrel was on gay rights.

1198
00:59:57,360 --> 00:59:59,719
And now they're looking at they're looking at a rocking

1199
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:01,880
chair or as they walk in to have their hotcakes

1200
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:05,320
and thinking, well, does that mean that Cracker Barrel is

1201
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:09,920
in favor of puberty blockers for minors? Because if they are,

1202
01:00:10,719 --> 01:00:13,440
I've got a problem with that. And so when they

1203
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:17,239
did that, that was part of the first problem. And

1204
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:19,960
then the stripping down on the modernization and getting rid

1205
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:23,599
of the old guy and the rest of it. Just sorry,

1206
01:00:23,599 --> 01:00:26,000
my mic field down, they got a problem. That's only

1207
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:28,960
going to say nothing, just repeating myself at this point.

1208
01:00:29,239 --> 01:00:31,079
So would either of you like to repeat yourself or

1209
01:00:31,119 --> 01:00:33,639
would you like to call it a day and let

1210
01:00:33,719 --> 01:00:35,679
people get on with their lives or whatever they're doing

1211
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:39,039
right now, vacuuming gardenings, just sitting under the porch watching

1212
01:00:39,079 --> 01:00:39,760
the world go by.

1213
01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:42,519
Speaker 6: I have a one minute take if I can delay

1214
01:00:42,519 --> 01:00:43,719
people watching the world go by.

1215
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:47,199
Speaker 5: Take it's my take. I don't think it's woke. I

1216
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:48,039
think it's crap.

1217
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 6: And I think that it's crap because we have systematically

1218
01:00:55,239 --> 01:00:58,760
removed creative people from corporations and replace them with those

1219
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:01,159
who know how to play the game, who don't actually

1220
01:01:01,159 --> 01:01:04,119
have any talent. And this is true in the movie industry,

1221
01:01:04,239 --> 01:01:06,760
and it's true in the restaurant industry. That woman is

1222
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:10,920
probably not some hyper progressive lunatic who is trying to

1223
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:13,360
destroy a crack a Bower because she thinks anything associated

1224
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,159
with the South, a rural America or America's past needs

1225
01:01:16,239 --> 01:01:21,119
to be obviated. She's probably just incompetent and bland. And

1226
01:01:21,159 --> 01:01:23,559
she looked at those designs and says, yes, I love that,

1227
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:27,719
because everything in her life looks like that. And people

1228
01:01:27,719 --> 01:01:29,920
who aren't like that, which is most people who can't

1229
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:31,920
play the corporate game that she has played, are looking

1230
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:34,599
at this and saying that's crap. And now this stock

1231
01:01:34,599 --> 01:01:36,760
price is going to go down even further than it

1232
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,039
has over the last five years, and she's going to

1233
01:01:39,119 --> 01:01:41,599
get fired. And instead of replacing her with somebody who's

1234
01:01:41,599 --> 01:01:44,079
actually talented, they were replaced her with the next person

1235
01:01:44,119 --> 01:01:45,920
in line, who has said all the right things for

1236
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:48,239
the last twenty three years and has no personality.

1237
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:54,159
Speaker 1: Very good. I agree with you completely. My daughter's inn advertising, though,

1238
01:01:54,199 --> 01:01:55,800
and so I'm here to tell you there is hope.

1239
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:58,559
There is hope for imagination and true creativity in the

1240
01:01:58,559 --> 01:02:00,719
rest of it. On the other end, mentioned movies in

1241
01:02:00,719 --> 01:02:04,360
television all being crapped more or less. I was paging

1242
01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:05,960
through the pain the other day and then the pain

1243
01:02:06,039 --> 01:02:08,440
and the streaming channel, and then the other streaming channel,

1244
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:10,639
desperately trying to find something to watch that didn't seem

1245
01:02:10,679 --> 01:02:13,760
formulaic or had stunt casting or a historical casting, and

1246
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,280
the rest of it. And I decided that I would

1247
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:20,000
give another chance to this highly tottered, highly weighted, highly

1248
01:02:20,639 --> 01:02:23,960
apparently desirable idea Aliens Earth. I don't know if you've

1249
01:02:24,199 --> 01:02:27,880
heard about this, right, Finally they do in a television

1250
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:29,519
series what they should have been in the third movie,

1251
01:02:29,519 --> 01:02:31,719
which is to take the xenomorphs and put them on Earth.

1252
01:02:32,039 --> 01:02:34,760
But let me tell you something, Guys, stop me if

1253
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:37,800
you've ever heard of this idea. It's actually turning into

1254
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:42,519
a philosophical disquisition on the differences between humans and synthetic people.

1255
01:02:43,679 --> 01:02:47,320
I mean, what does it mean to be human? What

1256
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:51,559
does it mean to be mechanical? I'm stunned that this

1257
01:02:51,639 --> 01:02:54,079
is the only the forty seventh iteration that I've seen

1258
01:02:54,119 --> 01:02:56,000
of this in the last ten years or something like that.

1259
01:02:56,039 --> 01:02:59,760
I want to take Westworld scripts, roll them up like

1260
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:02,320
in the first movie, and jam them down the throat.

1261
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:06,119
Whoever wrote this thing, I'm just not there, all right,

1262
01:03:06,159 --> 01:03:08,800
that's enough. I'm ranting too much coffee, too much fun.

1263
01:03:09,039 --> 01:03:11,039
I love talking to you guys, and it's been great

1264
01:03:11,039 --> 01:03:13,840
to do so today. This has been the Ricochet Podcast.

1265
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:16,039
You can join us, of course, at ricochet dot com,

1266
01:03:16,079 --> 01:03:19,719
where also you'll find links to bank on yourself, support them,

1267
01:03:19,760 --> 01:03:22,760
support yourself. Great idea and if you could leave a

1268
01:03:22,760 --> 01:03:25,320
five Yeah, I was gonna say it wasn't I was

1269
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:27,519
gonna say you could leave a five star review. I

1270
01:03:27,559 --> 01:03:30,239
don't know why I bother, but I gotta tell you

1271
01:03:30,320 --> 01:03:31,800
it's in the contract. If you could be a five

1272
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:33,840
star review for us on an Apple podcast, we would

1273
01:03:33,840 --> 01:03:36,679
be very very happy about that. There, I've fulfilled my

1274
01:03:36,679 --> 01:03:39,280
contractual obligation and I now commend you all to the

1275
01:03:39,280 --> 01:03:41,119
rest of your day and we'll see everybody in the

1276
01:03:41,159 --> 01:03:44,280
comments at Ricochet. Four point what Charles, because man, have

1277
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:44,960
you been tweaking?

1278
01:03:45,519 --> 01:03:45,639
Speaker 4: Oh?

1279
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:48,719
Speaker 6: I think it's full point twelve point seven right now.

1280
01:03:49,159 --> 01:03:52,039
Speaker 1: Wow, that's spoken like a man who knows his business.

1281
01:03:52,159 --> 01:03:54,000
It's been great guys. Bye bye,