Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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your support. Political capital. I remember the first time I
heard this term political capital. George W. Bush said it
after he won re election and he said, We're going
to try to reform social security. Outrage ensued, but he
said at that original press conference where he talked about it,
he said that he had some political capital and he
intended to spend it. What was he talking about, Well,
he had won the popular vote, right he had, if
I recall correctly, he had won reelection against John F. Kerry,
who I believe served in Vietnam I think, and John Edwards.
He had beaten them to win reelection in two thousand
and four, and he had amassed this political capital. And
that was the first time I had heard that term.
But that's what jd. Vance is sort of referencing, but
not by the same name. But he's saying that you
have a mandate from the citizens. When you run a campaign,
you say these are the things I'm going to do.
They then vote for you to do those things. That's
what gives you the power in a democracy. That's the point.
If you are going to not do the things that
the citizens want, you create the instability because the people
are demands something that you're not giving them. This just
came across three minutes ago from Legal insurrection dot com.
They've got the results of a Marquette pull and Donald
Trump has broad support on multiple issues. We're talking sixty
percent really across the board, plus or minus one or
two points here. But for example, sixty three percent favor
government's recognition of only two sexes sixty three percent. Sixty
percent want the deporting of immigrants who are here illegally,
sixty percent want to expand oil and gas production. Fifty
nine percent support the declaration of an emergency at the
southern border. So these are things that the American public wants.
Trump promise to do these things, and he is now
simply trying to fulfill his campaign promises. He will not
be punished for that. He will be celebrated for it.
And when you have this class of quote unquote elites,
which at some point now that's turning into a slur.
I'm not sure they're aware of it. But when you
think you know better than all of these other people,
these hundreds of millions of people, but you know better
because you're the expert, but they don't want what you
are doing. They don't want what you're selling, but they
don't know what's good for them. I'm not so sure
about that. I think maybe maybe they do. You get
enough people that have a similar view of something, I
would say they probably do have a pretty good idea
of what they want. You have to at least ask them.
And in your it's the same thing. And that's what jd.
Vance references when he's talking about the migration problem, the
illegal immigration problem in Europe. Your citizens do not want
this anymore, if they ever did initially. This is why
astroturfing never succeeds in the long term. These are you know,
whatever gains. So astroturfing is the fake grassroots, right, So
a grassroots movement like the Tea Party, for example, that
was a grassroots movement inside the Republican Party that has
legs that will be built to last because those are
actual people with actual beliefs that turn out they're not
politically engaged, but then they become engaged over a particular issue,
as the Tea partiers did, and that is a there
is a difference there than the astroturfing through these NGOs,
these government funded or foundation funded entities, these activist groups
that turn out in the streets and you know, handcuff
themselves to you know, famous works of art and throw
paint on them and scream at people and set up
tentifadas everywhere. Like that is not built to last because
it's not real. It's AstroTurf. You think it's going to last,
You think it's going to be the superior product. Look,
it's fake. It won't wither, it won't die, you won't whatever. Yeah,
I'm yeah. The grass is actually better, like the natural
grassroots that's actually more durable than the astroturfing. So he's
talking about having a mandate from your citizens to govern. Okay,
you need the mandates from your people. If you want
to enjoy competitive economics, affordable energy, and secure supply chains.
Speaker 2: You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents
or putting them in jail, whether that's the leader of
the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home,
or a journalist trying to report the news.
Speaker 3: Nor can you win one.
Speaker 2: By disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets
to be a part of our shared society, and of
all the pressings challenges that the nations represented your face,
I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today,
almost one in five people living in this country moved
here from abroad.
Speaker 3: That is, of course, an all time high.
Speaker 2: Is a similar number, by the way, in the United States,
also an all time high. The number of immigrants who
entered the EU from non EU countries doubled between twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty two alone, and of course
it's gotten much higher since. And we know this situation.
It didn't materialize in a vacuum. It's the result of
a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over
the continent and others across the world over the span
of a decade.
Speaker 1: Right, it's been intentional. It is absolutely intentional, and your
citizens do not want it and that's why you are
seeing the blowback. Right. The blowback is coming in the
form of these quote unquote right wing depending on which
country you're in, but they're coming from these quote right
wing populist movements. And when you keep banning them or
you try to suppress their speech, you don't invite them
to participate in the conference, for example, you're actually amplifying
their grievances. And people then start saying, well, wait a minute,
how come these guys are getting shut out? I happen
to agree. I think it's gotten out of control. I
know somebody who got attacked by some you know, Assi
Lee or something. Right, you end up creating more of
the thing that you're trying to stamp out. It's like
the the tighter you clench the fist, the more slips
through your fingers. That's what he's warning them about. And
just the day before, so Thursday, the day before this
Friday conference, there was a terrorist attack in the very
city where they held the conference, in Munich.
Speaker 2: How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before
we change course and take our shared civilization in a
new direction. No voter on this continent went to the
ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.
Speaker 3: But you know what they did vote for.
Speaker 2: In England, they voted for Brexit, and agree or disagree,
they voted for it, and more and more all over
Europe they're voting for political leaders who promised to put
an end to out of control migration.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns,
but you don't have to agree with me. I just
think that people care about their homes, they care about
their dreams, they care about their safety and their capacity
to provide for themselves and their children, and they're smart.
I think this is one of the most important things
I've learned in my brief.
Speaker 3: Time in politics.
Speaker 2: Contrary to what you might hear a couple mountains over
in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don't
generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable
cogs of a global economy. And it's hardly surprising that
they don't want to be shuffled about.
Speaker 3: Or relentlessly ignored by their leaders.
Speaker 2: And it is the business of democracy to adjudicate these
big questions at the ballot box. I believe that dismissing people,
dismissing their concerns, or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting
down elections, or shutting people out of the political process
protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way
to destroy democracy.
Speaker 1: They're sore losers, right, They're sore losers. They're like, oh,
this is the way forward, this is the way to
do it. And then when the people say, well, actually no,
we don't want to go that way, well, you don't
know what you're talking about. It's for democracy. I have
to protect democracy, so shut up. Like that's the argument
that this German guy is going to make after jd
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and make memories that'll last a lifetime. So jd Vance
goes in front of the European the Munich Security Conference,
I believe it was in Munich, and he talks about uh,
you know, having a from your voters, having you know,
listening to the things that they want. That's the strength
of a democracy for all you defenders of it, and
he said, look, you know, I get it. You know,
people have different ideas than you, and you want to
do one thing and they want to do something else.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 1: But if you win an election, if you're the elected leadership,
and your citizens want to do something that you don't
want to do, then like you need to listen to
your citizens, or else you no longer have a mandate.
And then he pointed out, look, if America can survive
a decade of scolding from Greta Thunberg, then Europe can
survive a few months of Elon Musk, he said, which
I've always a pretty good line. And then he says,
no democracy will survive if the people have their concerns, aspirations,
their opinions, and they're pleased. Foref if they are told
that these things are invalid right, or they are even
unworthy of even being considered, your democracy will not survive.
Speaker 2: Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of
the people matters. There's no room for firewalls. You either
uphold the principle or you don't. Europeans, the people have
a voice. European leaders have a choice and my strong
belief is that we do not need to be afraid
of the future. You can embrace what your people tell you,
even when it's surprising, even when you don't agree, and
if you do so, you can face the future with
certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind
each of you.
Speaker 3: And that, to me is the great magic of democracy.
Speaker 2: It's not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotel It's
not even in the great institutions that we have built
together as a shared society. To believe in democracy is
to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and
has a voice, and if we refuse to listen to
that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little.
Speaker 1: Right, What is he like? What is the purpose of
all of this? He is issuing them a warning, a
warning that it seems like the American people have heeded
with this last election, the support that ran through the
numbers of the favorability of these things that Trump is
doing sixty percent to prove. I would like it to
be higher, and maybe it will go higher, that's possible.
But he's telling them something that really shouldn't even have
to be said, but apparently does. Right to return to
the principles upon which this society, the civilization was founded,
and you're not going to preserve this thing by ignoring
or you know, being in direct opposition to these fundamental principles.
And it's just to listen to your people. I mean,
how absurd is this really when you think, step back
and think for a moment, how absurd it must be
to have to tell people in leadership, political leadership that
claim to be the defenders of the democracy that that
means you have to listen to your people. I don't
know what you think this whole democracy thing is, but
it means listening to the will of the people as
expressed at the ballot box and not suppressing them when
they tell you they think you're doing it wrong, because
the people are telling you you're doing it wrong. And
then the guy from Germany got up there, Boris Pistorius.
We'll take a listen to Boris. Well, actually we'll hear
a translator. All right. I hope you had a happy
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to a couple of messages. This is from Kevin. He says, Pete,
I was listening to NPR over the weekend, and they
of course put a slant on it, saying that somehow
JD Vance was supporting right wing ideology, extremism, et cetera.
And then I listened to his speech and he said basically,
free speech and listen to all sides. NPR feeding the
lefties what they want to hear. Yeah, it I've become
just so disappointed in NPR over the last twenty years.
It just gets worse and worse, my goodness. I mean,
every single story has the same slant. Every I mean
there's a show where it's like, we welcome your participation
and then you basically have to either call and leave
a voicemail, which they of course will then screen out,
so it says, you know, they're only going to put
on the air a voicemail from somebody that has something
that they want to hear, or you can send them
an email and they'll read your email if it comports
with what they want to say, the narrative they're trying
to advance. It's very obvious. And every single show, every report,
it's all filtered through every kind of you know, social
justice matrix. Oh my gosh, it's just exhausting, and it's like, oh,
something happened, but how did it impact you know, this
indigenous lesbian trans person whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, real, Like,
that's it can't just be about the thing that happened.
It's always got to be through this prism. So but
what you've just described there is is on brand for NPR.
They're going to frame it a certain way to make
their audience believe that they are correct in whatever notions
they have of JD. Vance. You listen to what Vance
says in this speech, and it is very clear that
he's saying you need to listen to your citizens when
they are telling you things. But see the NPR crowd
and these European leaders, they don't want to hear what
JD or the citizens are saying, so they have to
reject what Vance is saying, and they can't argue on
the merits. So they're going to say, oh, well, he's
just trying to be a right winger or something like that.
That's it's so juvenile. It is anti intellectual. Listen to
what he is saying and then combat his arguments intellectually
and logically, but they cannot do so because he is
simply saying the thing that he thought everybody agreed that
the point of a democracy is for the people to
elect leaders that will then do the things that the
people want them to do. And you know, when in
the course of human events that the bonds between the
government and the people have been severed because the government
is not listening to the people, the people have a
right to throw off that government. That's the point of
all of it. Otherwise, just go get yourself a king Europe.
Just go back to the way you guys used to
do it, if that's what you wanted to want to do.
In fact, hang on, I think I saw Yeah, I
have a message here from Chip. Chip says, as far
as I know, the US is the only country ever
founded on an idea. A monarch or a pope seems
to be the default position in Europe. Therefore, is it
any surprise that you see what's happening in Europe? By
the way, would you point out the difference between misinformation
and disinformation? Well, uh, well, disinformation is the easy thing.
So like when I'm talking, for example, I'm bringing you
disinformation versus that information. No, I'm kidding. Misinformation. Misinformation is
when information is not married, otherwise that would be missus information. No,
that's not true either. Misinformation is basically when you're spreading
stuff that you don't know is false, right. It really
it goes to intent. Right. So if you are like,
oh my gosh, I heard this story, and you start
spreading the story around, but you don't know that the
story is not true. You're just spreading it because you
know for the likes and the clicks or whatever, or
you like, uh, it's crazy too good to check, and
so you don't check it and you just share it.
It's misinformation. It's not true. Now. Disinformation is when the information,
the lie is intentional and there is a purpose behind it.
So there's a it's deliberately misleading so as to affect
people's opinions. It's not done as to, oh my mistake,
I made an error, you can make a correction whatever.
That would be misinformation. Disinformation is when you purposefully lie
about something and get other people to spread it. See,
so like if I made up a lie, I would
be engaged in disinformation. But if you heard that lie
and you thought it was true and then you promulgated,
you would be spreading misinformation. You would be misinforming. I
would be disinforming. I hope that makes sense. Another email,
This is from Susan, is there a difference between a
democratic republic or a constitutional republic? Like, Look, I know
a lot of people get hung up on this stuff,
on these terms. I understand why, Okay, But honestly, like,
if you go and look up like the founders, they
oftentimes use these terms interchangeably because what they were talking
about was a comparison between the monarchy and a government
of the people, by the people for the people, a democracy, right,
And they come from different routes. So like democracy is
from Greek, that means rule by the people, right. Republic
comes from Latin and that means public good or public
affair that was used in Rome ancient Rome to mean
the state or the country with reference to the Roman republic.
And so you know, if you look up the dictionary
definitions here, like they are very very similar, and people
use them interchangeably. But I understand why people get upset
when it's like, because I mean, democracy is you know,
three wolves in a lamb voting on dinner. That's why. Like,
the republic is the system that you create and you
democratically elect people to then represent the voters in the
republican system. Does that makes sense? Yeah, I don't know
if I've described it well enough. But like I but
I know people it trips a lot of people's trigger
when they hear democracy versus republic, constitutional republic, right, the
constitutional republic, like republic is a system. Constitutional means that
we have a set of laws rules, and that's why
that's how the system is governed is by these rules.
Because you could, like the Islamic state in Iran, that's
a republic too. Do you think they've got the same
thing we do. No, No, they do not, because you
can all say representative republic. All right, if you're listening
to this show, you know I try to keep up
with all sorts of current events, and I know you
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news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you
detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed
with ground News. It's an app and it's a website,
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more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate
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The former government entrusted to us by our founders was
a republic, not a democracy. The founders had so a okay,
so again like a system. A republic is a system.
The constitutional republic is a system, but we employ democracy,
the will of the voters, the people right to elect
the representatives to the constitutional representative republic. Right, that's the idea.
So one is a mechanism and one is the system.
Because without that republic as the system, you would just
have pure democracy, or is the founders called it mobocracy.
That's the three wolves and a land voting on dinner.
And you don't want that because it will burn itself out,
So I think that one's a mechanism on a system.
I hope that makes sense. That was in answer to
I think it was Susie who asked me. Mike writes
into Pete at thepetecleanershow dot com. I too, have been
so disappointed in NPR over the past fifteen years. I
think a publicly supported network such as NPR should be
the station where we get an unbiased news report. I
have my charities that I donate money to, and other
than my charities, I get a little stingy. However, I
would donate to any organization whose purpose was to stop
the FEDS from giving money to NPR. Well. I don't
know if Doge is taking donations, but I think they
may be. They're looking at him, or the FCC is
looking at him. I forget who let me play this
because I said I would, and you know me, I'm
all about paying off the teases. Here is the German
Defense Minister, through an interpreter, Boris Pistorius, who took umbradge
what's the German word for umbridge, Probably something with way
too many consonants and not enough that outs.
Speaker 3: But he.
Speaker 1: Got up there at the Munich Security Conference and had
a response to JD Vance's earlier speech.
Speaker 4: I cannot just ignore what we heard before. I cannot
not comment on the speech we heard by the US
Vice president. We fight for your right to be against us.
That is the motto, one of the mottos of the Bundespher,
and it stands for our democracy, this democracy that was
just called into question by the Hughes Vice President, and
not just the German democracy, but Europe as a whole.
He spoke of the annulment of democracy, and if I
understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe with
the condition that prevails in some auto authoritarian regimes. Ladies
and gentlemen, this is not acceptable.
Speaker 1: Listen to this applause.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: It's not acceptable, not accepted. I always feel like they're
still flabbing. It's not intile. I feel like you should
read like the German lines in that voice.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the point, dude, Like you saying it's
not acceptable, it is acceptable. He's telling you something you
don't want to hear, but that doesn't make it unacceptable.
He's identifying a problem, he says. A vociferous minority in
their countries will not automatically be right and they cannot
decide what truth is.
Speaker 4: It does not mean that anyone can say anything. And
democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists that
try to destroy it. I am puppy to live in
Europe where this democracy is defended every day against its
internal and external enemies. Definitely, and therefore I would like
to explicitly contradict and oppose the impression that Vice President
Vance suggested. He that our democracies oppressed and silence minorities.
We not only know against whom we defend our countries,
but also what we defend it for. It's for democracy,
for freedom of opinion, for the rule of law, and
the dignity of each and everyone.
Speaker 1: Ladies and chapmen, hm oh, but were the true democracy
must defend itself. That's what he said. What is he
talking about? And what did JD. Vance talk about? He's
talking about censorship. You guys are censoring opposition voices. And
this is why NPR frames it has Oh he's defending
the far right or whatever.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 1: He's saying, you cannot you should not suppress dissenting voices
in your own society. You will not have a political
mandate to govern if you do so. That's not what
democracy is, right. You have to allow people to have
their voices heard in the public square. But in Europe
they believe, well, we can censor this stuff if it's offensive.
We can censor this stuff if we believe that it
is a threat to the democracy. Yeah, and then the
world's stupidest reporter, Margaret Brennan, she weighs in on all
of this and it is stupid.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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