Speaker 1: Well, whiskey coming game, my pain, Honey, Molly, Oh Whiskey,
Speaker 1: don't you leave me?
Speaker 2: From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet
Speaker 2: dot Com. This is the Three Whiskey Happy Hour with
Speaker 2: your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International
Speaker 2: Woman of Mystery Lucretia cat Gotta giving.
Speaker 1: Let that whiskey bloon where you're being in loud down
Speaker 1: in loon. Well, Hi, everybody, and welcome to this very
Speaker 1: special edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Now, I
Speaker 1: know we say that every week and it's kind of stick,
Speaker 1: but in fact it's true. This week, at least, this
Speaker 1: is an irregular version of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
Speaker 1: The problem is the three bartenders couldn't get together. At
Speaker 1: the end of this week. We're all scattered of the
Speaker 1: four wins. I was in Los Angeles for the second
Speaker 1: half of the week, mostly in my role as master
Speaker 1: of ceremonies for an old fashioned Dean Martin style roast
Speaker 1: of Charles Kessler, the editor of the Claremont Review of Books,
Speaker 1: and several other notable things. And maybe there'll be a
Speaker 1: recording of that in the fullness of time. I think
Speaker 1: it was a great success, even though none of us
Speaker 1: are Don Rickles. John, you said he was off for
Speaker 1: a lightning fast trip to give a lecture in Zurich, Switzerland.
Speaker 1: I think this is a cover story. He's really clandestinely
Speaker 1: traveling United States to all the locations at McDonald's that
Speaker 1: are serving up the McRib and stashing him away in
Speaker 1: his freezer for a long winter ahead. And Lucretia is
Speaker 1: also tied up with a whole lot of end of
Speaker 1: semester business at her university, where she takes on way
Speaker 1: too much work. However, I thought that it might be
Speaker 1: in lieu of a traditional get together to talk about
Speaker 1: the week's news. Listeners who need their fix every week
Speaker 1: might enjoy the presentations that John and Lucretian I gave
Speaker 1: in Florence a few weeks ago, explaining to an Ataenian
Speaker 1: audience of students and professors exactly what happened in the election,
Speaker 1: and so what I'm going to share with you here
Speaker 1: is our opening commentance for me and John and Lucretia,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to begin toward the end of the
Speaker 1: introduction by our chief hosts, Professor of Veronica Federico of
Speaker 1: the Department the Law faculty at the University of Lawrence,
Speaker 1: and then you'll hear me, and then you'll hear Lucretia,
Speaker 1: and it'll be a short episode. But we didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave you without anything to listen to this weekend,
Speaker 1: So without further ado, here we are almost live from Florence, Italy.
Speaker 3: And last but not least, because it was our broker here,
Speaker 3: meaning that it was the person built the panel and
Speaker 3: broke this colleagues with us Professor John You from the
Speaker 3: University of California, Berkeley as well to all of you, released.
Speaker 4: Grazier ragatzirigatza.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 5: Thank you, I think, thank you for not doing no more,
Speaker 5: no more, no more Italian, although if anyone wants to
Speaker 5: ask questions in Latin, I could do a good job.
Speaker 4: But thank you all for coming.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: We're all here, I think because all of us share
Speaker 4: a great love of Italy, and also I think we're
Speaker 4: also equally puzzled or surprised as you are as to
Speaker 4: the results of our elections. Just in November, all across America,
Speaker 4: at all of our universities, we're having panels exactly like
Speaker 4: this one, trying to figure out how did the results
Speaker 4: come about? How did Trump win and Harris lose? And
Speaker 4: then why was there such a majority? And what does
Speaker 4: it mean for our institutions?
Speaker 1: And I hope also we'll talk.
Speaker 4: About what does it mean for you Italy relations. I've
Speaker 4: noticed he didn't say US European Union relations in America.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, I think represents a return of sovereignty of
Speaker 4: the nation, So he will think that way US Italy relations.
Speaker 4: And as you know, he is a big fan of
Speaker 4: Georgia Maloney or Prime Minister. So I think where you
Speaker 4: have a lot to learn from you, and so I
Speaker 4: hope during the question and answer we will have forty
Speaker 4: five minutes at least for dialogue between us, So don't
Speaker 4: be shy. Also, I'll tell you in the United States,
Speaker 4: when students don't ask questions, the professors randomly call on
Speaker 4: people and say we will ask you questions. So better
Speaker 4: to volunteer and ask questions and we'll call on people.
Speaker 4: Raise your hand. So we'll start with Steve Hayward right
Speaker 4: to my left too, is at the University of California,
Speaker 4: Berkeley and also at Pepperdine University in California.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you, John. Yeah, so I've taken
Speaker 1: a what I hope is a scene setting theme for
Speaker 1: my brief opening remarks, and that theme is the age
Speaker 1: of luke warmness is over. And I think meaning will
Speaker 1: become clear as I go, but it'll be especially clear
Speaker 1: in my conclusion. It happens every now and then that
Speaker 1: you mentioned European Union. Is it going okay? So it
Speaker 1: happens every now and then that someone in Brussels, at
Speaker 1: the European Commission will make a formal announcement in English
Speaker 1: of a new competency, you know, a new ability. It's
Speaker 1: a euphemism for a new rule or regulation, a new
Speaker 1: program to deal with some problem. And most Americans, if
Speaker 1: they hear these announcements, will smile at this, if not
Speaker 1: laugh out loud. No American would use that phrase a
Speaker 1: new competency, because most Americans they have split personalities. We Americans,
Speaker 1: but we tend to think that the government is incompetent,
Speaker 1: and we laugh at the government. We'd laugh at someone
Speaker 1: who'd say a new competency of our national government. You know.
Speaker 1: There's a famous American comedian one hundred years ago named
Speaker 1: Will Rogers, and he used to say, it's no trouble
Speaker 1: being a comedian when you have the whole government working
Speaker 1: for you, and most of his jokes are about the
Speaker 1: government and political parties and so forth. Now in America,
Speaker 1: our government gets ever larger and spends more and more money,
Speaker 1: and finds ways to rule over or try to affect
Speaker 1: more and more things. But it's clearly failing at its
Speaker 1: basic tax tasks. Our government nowadays cannot deal with crime.
Speaker 1: We spend more and more on public education and get
Speaker 1: worse and worse results for our students. We spend the
Speaker 1: most of any country in the world on healthcare, and
Speaker 1: everybody hates it because you can't understand it or comprehend it.
Speaker 1: I can go on on the list. Our foreign policy.
Speaker 1: We are committed to defending the borders of Ukraine, but
Speaker 1: somehow cannot defend our own borders. Why this is significant,
Speaker 1: I think not just for the US, but for all
Speaker 1: industrialized countries. Is a trend in public opinion in America
Speaker 1: that I is repeated in other countries where surveys are taken,
Speaker 1: and the trend is this Starting in the late nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: are leading opinion poll companies would ask Americans do you
Speaker 1: have confidence in the national government to do the right thing?
Speaker 1: Most of the time when they started in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: eighty percent of Americans eight zero said they had confidence
Speaker 1: that our national government would do the right thing most
Speaker 1: of the time. Today that number is at fifteen percent.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the data series from the
Speaker 1: late fifties to today, it's a long downward slope with
Speaker 1: one exception. The only sustained reversal, the only long term
Speaker 1: reversal in that trend for several years, was under President
Speaker 1: Reagan in the nineteen eighties, who promised less and accomplished
Speaker 1: a lot. He made government work again, ironically enough, and
Speaker 1: so as I say, I've looked at surveys for other nations,
Speaker 1: I don't remember numbers for Italy off the top of
Speaker 1: my head, but I suspect there's something similar, perhaps that
Speaker 1: you'd observe here in the numbers. Now. The result, the
Speaker 1: response to this from around the world has been what
Speaker 1: is called populism. And in America, populism is always thought
Speaker 1: to be a bad thing. I like to define populism
Speaker 1: is when the wrong person wins an election. That's my
Speaker 1: popular definition of it. It's always criticized, attacked by you
Speaker 1: might say, our establishment, our cultural elites, our universities, our
Speaker 1: media and by politicians in office, because populists are always
Speaker 1: a threat to whoever is ruling a country at a time,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter which party, and so we see examples
Speaker 1: around the world of very unconventional people like Javier Malay
Speaker 1: and Argentina with his chainsaw, who is making dramatic changes
Speaker 1: using executive authority alone. We see the president Bukeley is
Speaker 1: that his name in El Salvador, whose measures have made
Speaker 1: him very popular, even though they might might not stand
Speaker 1: up to our standards of due process. A lot more
Speaker 1: can be said about that. We're also seeing ruling parties
Speaker 1: around Europe, such as in France, in Holland and elsewhere Germany,
Speaker 1: trying very hard to suppress their rival candidates who are rising.
Speaker 1: I think you probably know these stories better than I do.
Speaker 1: I will pass over saying anything about your prime minister
Speaker 1: because I don't know everyone here will know more than
Speaker 1: I do about that. It can make a judgment much
Speaker 1: more informed than my own. But that brings us to
Speaker 1: Trump against immense obstacles he achieved. I don't think this
Speaker 1: is news the greatest political comeback in American history and
Speaker 1: maybe in global history. It's hard to think of someone
Speaker 1: who's made a more dramatic comeback against the odds, and
Speaker 1: his election in twenty sixteen was a shock because it
Speaker 1: was unexpected, thought to be a fluke, a chance event,
Speaker 1: something out of the ordinary. This time, it's not that,
Speaker 1: and this selection feels different. And rather than going through
Speaker 1: the numbers, I think some other panelist Ryan may talk
Speaker 1: I'm about this. I'll just tell you that on American
Speaker 1: social media right now, you can find thousands of people,
Speaker 1: people whose opinions and politics tend toward the left, all
Speaker 1: saying the same thing. I hate Donald Trump. I can't
Speaker 1: stand him, and I voted for him. This has caused
Speaker 1: and by the way, you'll see this reported now in
Speaker 1: the regular media like the New York Times and the
Speaker 1: network news broadcasts. This has proved a great shock and
Speaker 1: is causing a crisis in our leading media organizations in
Speaker 1: many of our universities. So I'll conclude with this, I said,
Speaker 1: the age of lukewarmness is over. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of voters across our political spectrum are tired of things,
Speaker 1: and they're now willing to embrace unconventional people. I'll put
Speaker 1: it that mild way. And I was drawn back in
Speaker 1: my mind to the famous passage that I'm sure many
Speaker 1: of you are familiar with, at least in passing from
Speaker 1: Machiavelli's Chapter six, where he talks about the danger and
Speaker 1: difficulty of introducing new modes and orders, and he said,
Speaker 1: the people well enjoy the existing order will be your enemies.
Speaker 1: And the people who might benefit from it, well, they're
Speaker 1: kind of lukewarm. And I'll just one sentence from that
Speaker 1: famous book. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of adversaries
Speaker 1: who have the law on their side. Whenever those who
Speaker 1: are enemies have the opportunity to attack, they do so
Speaker 1: with partisan zeal. So there's no guarantee that any of
Speaker 1: these populist figures are going to succeed. I think if
Speaker 1: you want to see an example of a populas figure
Speaker 1: who failed miserably, you just mentioned Boris Johnson in England.
Speaker 1: But I will stop there and hand it over to
Speaker 1: whoever's next.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Professor Denik Versus in Arizona.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Can you hear me? It's wonderful. So I
Speaker 6: was asked to do something a little different than i'd planned,
Speaker 6: but I thought about it and I believe I can
Speaker 6: weave it all together. So let me talk a little
Speaker 6: bit about a more concrete example of what Steve was
Speaker 6: talking about, and that is realignment. If you know that term,
Speaker 6: it means that our politics has shifted in some sort
Speaker 6: of massive and almost across the board imperceptible ways. What
Speaker 6: we saw in the election season was this feminist icon
Speaker 6: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, who was said by many
Speaker 6: many people to be sexist, of course, and racist, and
Speaker 6: he was going to take away women's rights. And you know,
Speaker 6: women are protesting even still today in the United States
Speaker 6: by feminists by shaving their heads. I guess the purpose
Speaker 6: for that is to make themselves unattractive to men for
Speaker 6: some reason. So Donald Trump is this polarizing figure, and
Speaker 6: everyone warned that only men would be voting for Donald Trump,
Speaker 6: and women would all rally around Kamala Harris. One of
Speaker 6: her popular campaign slogans a little bit earlier on, especially
Speaker 6: among little girls, was to wear a T shirt that said,
Speaker 6: I'm speaking as if it was necessary for you know,
Speaker 6: of a woman to have to assert herself in order
Speaker 6: to be heard by men. And so we went into
Speaker 6: this election being told that women women are going to
Speaker 6: vote for Kamala Harris because of abortion rights. Women are
Speaker 6: going to vote for Kamala Harris because she's a feminist icon.
Speaker 6: Look at all of the things she has accomplished. She
Speaker 6: was attorney general in California. She was a Senator from
Speaker 6: California before she was picked as a representative of the
Speaker 6: identity Groverum group that Biden had promised he would pick
Speaker 6: for his vice president. She's it's a little funny in
Speaker 6: the United States, she's often called a black woman, but
Speaker 6: she's actually Indian, an East Indian, and anyway, so she
Speaker 6: was chosen for her identity as a woman and as
Speaker 6: a marginalized community person, and so she was going to
Speaker 6: be drawing all of these people to her. And Donald Trump,
Speaker 6: of course, was a sexist. He treated women terribly. He
Speaker 6: was going to make abortion a crime, and on and on.
Speaker 6: And what we actually saw in the election is becoming
Speaker 6: more and more clear all of the time that it's
Speaker 6: true enough that among a certain demographic of feminist women,
Speaker 6: Kamala Harris did well. But Donald Trump had as his
Speaker 6: campaign manager the first female campaign manager in history, and
Speaker 6: he had a number of strong females around him in
Speaker 6: his campaign, and as it turns out, many many women
Speaker 6: with the exception perhaps of college educated, graduate level single
Speaker 6: women actually preferred Donald Trump as well. He talked about
Speaker 6: the things they cared about, how to pay for their
Speaker 6: groceries and the gas in their car, and other kinds
Speaker 6: of economic issues, and of course safety crimes rose for
Speaker 6: a variety of different reasons under the last administration. Donald
Speaker 6: Trump focused on all of these things. And I do
Speaker 6: have to say that you can ask Professor U if
Speaker 6: this is true. He asked me a month ago, what
Speaker 6: did I predict? I said, I predict a landslide, and
Speaker 6: I was right by any standards. You know, our country is,
Speaker 6: as Steve talked about, fairly divided. But the interesting thing,
Speaker 6: and the thing that I want to leave you with
Speaker 6: is that not only was Donald Trump always very very
Speaker 6: inclusive of women in the past and in this past
Speaker 6: campaign especially, but he has chosen for his nominees, both
Speaker 6: those that need to be confirmed by the Senate and
Speaker 6: those that he can appoint and they don't have to
Speaker 6: be confirmed, a number of women, a number of women
Speaker 6: who will run major agencies at the in the Trump administration.
Speaker 6: And there is every indication that women are coming around
Speaker 6: to the idea that the identity politics of feminism is
Speaker 6: no longer controlling in the United States in the way
Speaker 6: that not only it was, but that the media assured
Speaker 6: us was absolutely dominant. And so that I think is
Speaker 6: a really interesting aspect of the outcome of this election,
Speaker 6: is that perhaps the focus the obsession, even with men
Speaker 6: are going to vote for Trump, women are going to
Speaker 6: vote for Harris, and all that that implies, that has
Speaker 6: been overcome. And let me add one last thing to that.
Speaker 6: The other thing that we've seen is that the Republican
Speaker 6: Party itself is no longer the party of rich white
Speaker 6: country club If you know that terment know, the exclusive
Speaker 6: clubs that rich white males belong to and get together
Speaker 6: and drink the whiskey and smoke their cigars and plot
Speaker 6: evil in the world. You know, that's the kind of
Speaker 6: the perception that's given of them. But it's no longer
Speaker 6: that party. It's the party of family women, it's the
Speaker 6: party of Hispanic men. It's the party, more so than ever,
Speaker 6: of black men. And a really surprising outcome was that
Speaker 6: we were told that no black woman would ever vote
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump, and it turns out that a great
Speaker 6: number of them did way more than anybody expected. So
Speaker 6: we saw Donald Trump who is in some ways, at
Speaker 6: least if you believe the media, the most hated guy
Speaker 6: that's ever been in politics winning over all of these
Speaker 6: different constituencies, and it has changed American politics in ways
Speaker 6: we don't even know yet how that's going to turn out.
Speaker 6: So that's where I'll leave it. Thank you to him.
Speaker 6: I just thank you.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: So there you have it for this week's abbreviated episode. However,
Speaker 1: we are going to do our best, since it is
Speaker 1: the holiday season, to do a mid week episode, maybe
Speaker 1: about Wednesday this week, where we will catch up on
Speaker 1: the news and looking ahead to some things, maybe some
Speaker 1: holiday and year end reflections. So don't worry. You'll have
Speaker 1: the three of us with our whiskeys in hand, hopefully
Speaker 1: midweek whiskeys and mcribs probably hopefully midweek. But for now, wait,
Speaker 1: what is our sign off these days? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I need a new one, and we'll have one by
Speaker 1: the next issue. But for now we can celebrate being
Speaker 1: unburdened by what has been. Bye bye for this week, everybody.
Speaker 2: H m hm. Ricochet join the conversation.