RadixJournal - Assassination Insurance

00:00:00.000 Okay. Reactionary Tree, thank you for being on this emergency podcast. I appreciate it. I've been meaning to have you on for a couple of months now, but it's unfortunate you have to be under such frustrating circumstances as Mike Pence, but welcome.

00:00:19.000 Well, thank you. When the future king of the white race calls, you answer, so here I am. 0.99

00:00:25.280 That's a good answer, Tree. We joked about this. I said it's going to be kind of weird calling you Tree, but we're getting in touch with our Native American heritage. Like, yes, great tree.

00:00:42.200 Getting it, we're, you know, harkening back to paganism, getting around, tree hugging, worshiping Odin. We're going to get into it.

00:00:52.220 That's what we're into. But why do you think Trump did this? And I guess that's a loaded question because I obviously think this was a very strange move and a very boring move, a very un-Trumpian move at the same time.

00:01:09.640 But what do you think his rationale was? What is the strategy for doing this?

00:01:16.240 Well, there's one of two things, and they both probably go together, is since Paul Manafort has taken over his campaign, it's kind of to water down some of Trump's kind of anti-establishment, I guess you could call it radicalism.

00:01:37.400 Even though he's actually quite moderate on all issues, he's just an anti-establishment guy.

00:01:43.920 The other thing is that it's meant to appease the Republican establishment.

00:01:51.160 I think it's both. I think you're both right on that.

00:01:54.560 I've heard a lot of strategery on Twitter about winning over the Midwest and things like that.

00:02:03.140 I'm not sure Pence could do that. I'm not sure any VP pick can really do that.

00:02:09.400 I've actually read some articles that are very skeptical of how much a VP pick really matters.

00:02:16.740 But yeah, I think we should take Trump at his word.

00:02:20.740 In his address, which he gave today, which I actually just listened to before coming on the podcast, he explicitly said he goes,

00:02:29.100 one word, part of unity.

00:02:30.920 And I think that is what he is doing.

00:02:34.600 But I guess I just find this such a strange strategy.

00:02:38.740 Because Trump, from the beginning of his campaign up to now, one of the reasons why I admire him,

00:02:48.740 despite whatever criticism I might have, and in criticism of the whole system in general, 0.96

00:02:54.000 what I admire him, he is willing to do things that just demonstrate that he has balls, 0.99

00:03:01.920 that he doesn't give a fuck, that he is just going to go for it, and double down on Trumpness. 0.99

00:03:11.220 So when he was in South Carolina, if I were his campaign manager, I would have told him, 0.99

00:03:16.940 don't talk about the war in Iraq, don't talk about the 2000s, because that stuff was actually popular here.

00:03:24.660 But no, Trump, in the debate in South Carolina before the primary, he went on this impassioned anti-Bush family

00:03:34.040 and anti-Iraq war tirade, which I liked.

00:03:38.560 I mean, I agree with everything he said, and he was clearly emotional about it.

00:03:44.140 But it seemed a bad strategy.

00:03:45.760 But the fact is, I think people, even South Carolinians who might have been pro-war, pro-Bush,

00:03:50.940 just admired the guy, that he's this ballsy and this genuine.

00:03:56.920 And he was just, he was doubling down on being, separating himself from the field,

00:04:01.660 being the badass in the field, and all this stuff.

00:04:04.640 And he would always do this.

00:04:05.980 He would double down, like when, with the whole wall thing,

00:04:09.220 when he got pushed back from the Mexican, or Vincente Fox, the former Mexican president,

00:04:13.960 he said, all right, the wall's going to be 10 feet taller.

00:04:16.360 He just keeps pushing.

00:04:17.740 The Mike Pence thing seems to be this, just the reverse.

00:04:23.100 And what I don't understand is that Trump has miraculously defeated all of these forces.

00:04:30.720 The GOP establishment obviously does not like him.

00:04:34.440 They are not willing to go to the mat.

00:04:36.600 They are not willing to disrupt the convention,

00:04:40.840 or disrupt the whole structure and process that they have in order to stop him.

00:04:46.760 But they clearly don't like him.

00:04:48.060 I don't know anyone could disagree with that.

00:04:50.980 The cucks don't like him.

00:04:54.580 The religious right leadership, at least, or at least most of the religious right leadership, 0.71

00:04:58.800 does not like him.

00:05:00.180 Jerry Falwell Jr. and one of these Dallas guys, notwithstanding.

00:05:06.160 Just the mainstream Republicans do not like him.

00:05:09.840 There is actually reason to believe that Mike Pence does not like him.

00:05:13.220 A man named Dan Sr. tweeted just when this happened,

00:05:18.700 I can't believe someone would work with Trump who expressed privately the fact that he found Trump unacceptable.

00:05:26.200 The stuff.

00:05:26.880 I mean, so Trump beat all these people.

00:05:30.020 And then now, after he beats them, after he demonstrates that they're not relevant,

00:05:35.120 after he's now entering the general election, where you don't need them as much,

00:05:39.820 where you've got to reach new people, you don't have to reach conservative movement ideologues,

00:05:44.920 now he throws them a bone.

00:05:47.240 Now he lets them win.

00:05:49.280 I just, I don't get it.

00:05:51.820 It just makes no sense.

00:05:53.040 I, I, the, the, I, I, I've, I've been thinking about this for about 24 hours,

00:05:57.840 and I, I do think that what you said, the, the, the Paul Manafort idea that he is coming in,

00:06:04.080 he clearly has the backing of the Trump family.

00:06:06.440 He clear, as someone who has a lot, a lot of experience, clearly Trump, trust him.

00:06:11.100 And Paul Manafort is, you know, just watering him down and weakening him.

00:06:15.960 But you don't win that way.

00:06:17.940 You know, like you win by going bold.

00:06:20.320 I've just, these past couple of weeks, I've actually been reading the art of the deal.

00:06:24.660 Trump would always talk about this.

00:06:26.320 He was, one of his deals that he did in, near Lincoln Center,

00:06:32.720 there was a, another developer whose name I'm forgetting.

00:06:35.860 And Trump actually says, I really liked that guy.

00:06:38.160 He was a, you know, genuine, nice man.

00:06:41.180 But he was doing something called Lincoln Center West, I believe.

00:06:45.180 And he, he'd never, he didn't promote it correctly.

00:06:48.020 It wasn't interesting.

00:06:49.420 It wasn't exciting.

00:06:50.540 There was no reason for its being.

00:06:53.300 And he, he ultimately got in over his head and couldn't handle the financing and had to sell to

00:06:58.460 Trump.

00:06:59.200 Trump went in and the first thing he's, he called it television city.

00:07:02.960 It was going to be this new city on the Upper West Side.

00:07:05.420 It was going to have literally the tallest building in the world.

00:07:09.160 You know, I mean, this, you know, and this, this never was realized, of course,

00:07:13.980 but it's just an expression of his boldness, his willingness to shake things up, to go against

00:07:19.700 the grain, to, to go totally out of left field.

00:07:23.260 Sometimes like I, I was, I was, part of me was expecting that he was going to do something

00:07:28.500 wild.

00:07:29.020 Like he was going to pick someone that we'd never heard of.

00:07:31.640 He, he was going to pick a non-political person maybe, or maybe a Democrat or I, you know,

00:07:37.660 I, I was really thinking that he was going to do something fascinating.

00:07:40.260 And instead he surprised us with the most boring man I could imagine.

00:07:47.700 I don't get it.

00:07:49.620 It doesn't make any sense, you know, and you're right.

00:07:52.220 He, uh, Donald Trump is this anti-establishment wrecking ball and he just literally destroyed

00:08:00.660 the entire Republican party single-handedly.

00:08:03.460 And then now he's the guy and he's just bringing them back in to the woodwork.

00:08:10.900 It doesn't make sense.

00:08:12.740 What he should have done obviously is, yeah, done something that, uh, is more fitting to

00:08:17.820 his character and roll with some type of out of left field, uh, pick or just, um, double

00:08:26.640 down on someone who agrees with you on one or two of your issues very strongly.

00:08:32.500 Like, you know, Senator Jeff Sessions would have been a great compliment because Jeff Sessions

00:08:39.500 is a hardliner on immigration.

00:08:42.440 He, uh, probably played a very strong role in developing Donald Trump's immigration plan.

00:08:48.160 Yeah.

00:08:49.180 And it would just make sense.

00:08:51.040 It would just strengthen the ticket.

00:08:52.900 It would really say that this is what this, this campaign is about.

00:08:57.600 It's about immigration.

00:08:59.020 It's about trade.

00:09:00.360 It's about globalism and that we're not going to stand for it. 0.98

00:09:04.860 Instead, he picks the most basic bitch conservative he can find that exists. 1.00

00:09:11.080 And that's Mike Pence. 0.99

00:09:12.420 I mean, if you're looking for your average milquetoast conservative and that's going to

00:09:19.440 be your presidential campaign, then yeah, Mike Pence makes a lot of sense.

00:09:23.040 But for Donald Trump, it doesn't make any sense at all.

00:09:27.660 And Donald Trump, Donald Trump used to talk about, we're going to, we're going to have

00:09:32.120 a different strategy.

00:09:33.240 It's, we're not going to assume that all these, uh, red states, or we're not going to assume

00:09:38.040 that all these blue states are going to be blue states.

00:09:39.820 We're going to win New York.

00:09:41.080 We're going to win California.

00:09:41.960 Okay.

00:09:42.880 Granted, maybe that's aspirational, delusional.

00:09:48.520 Okay.

00:09:49.140 But maybe it's not, you know, like Massachusetts went so intensely for Trump that clearly there

00:09:56.540 are those townies out there.

00:09:58.040 We always associate Massachusetts with Elizabeth Warren, but there are tons of people outside

00:10:03.960 of Boston and maybe some, maybe many in Boston, uh, who are, who are totally good for Trump.

00:10:09.460 Why, why not just try for something like that?

00:10:12.340 I think, you know, we, we've actually had pretty conventional, uh, Republicans, uh, try

00:10:18.900 to do this red state strategy that we, that we've been doing really since 2000.

00:10:25.020 And, uh, and you know, they're more or less the same swing states, small changes, but generally

00:10:30.380 the structure's there.

00:10:31.540 And, you know, and it, it can't work anymore.

00:10:35.740 Uh, you know, I, I mean, didn't Romney prove that?

00:10:38.280 Didn't McCain prove that?

00:10:40.360 Uh, it's just, you, you, I think if the, if the GOP is going to, is going to be a party,

00:10:45.960 it's got to go outside the box.

00:10:47.660 And, you know, the GOP keeps getting whiter more and more every year, more, it keeps getting 0.97

00:10:53.380 whiter more white people.

00:10:54.720 It's like a percentage and a half are going towards the Republican party because basically 0.95

00:10:59.160 the Democratic party is the party of minorities and crazy liberals and so on. 0.64

00:11:03.280 And the Republican party is, is not so much the conservative party. 0.63

00:11:07.520 It's, it's basically the normal person party.

00:11:09.840 It's the people who are offended by black lives matter and, and so on.

00:11:14.980 And, you know, so there are tons of people that do not resonate with religious right kind

00:11:21.620 of stuff, uh, which is what Mike Pence always plays footsie with.

00:11:26.380 And that's probably who he is.

00:11:27.920 If there is something there, I'm not sure there is.

00:11:31.280 He's so boring.

00:11:31.920 Uh, but you know, why not, why not become this nationalist candidate where it's like,

00:11:37.100 we're going to bring back the draw jobs with, with strong, uh, some tariff barriers.

00:11:42.820 Uh, we're going to not go into these crazy middle Eastern wars.

00:11:47.120 We're going to start protecting the environment because, you know, he, Trump talked about that.

00:11:51.060 He, he started something that Republicans never talk about.

00:11:54.240 Our infrastructure is crumbling.

00:11:56.060 I'm going to, I'm going to fix the infrastructure.

00:11:58.480 Uh, why doesn't he talk about like, let's protect the environment.

00:12:01.060 That is a, that's just a total win issue, particularly with these normal middle of the

00:12:06.720 range white people, uh, who are our people where our movement shouldn't just be about,

00:12:11.840 uh, religious, the religious right.

00:12:14.760 And yet he, he does this where it's like, I don't, I don't think he is decisively lost

00:12:21.480 these middle of the road people, but he, but I don't think we should also underestimate

00:12:26.400 the way that Mike Pence alienates them.

00:12:28.760 Uh, yeah, when you look at the, uh, for example, if you're looking at the election map, your swing

00:12:35.980 states are going to, the big swing states that you're going to need to win.

00:12:40.680 If you're a Republican, you're going to need Ohio, you're going to need Florida, you're going

00:12:46.360 to need Virginia, you're going to need states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

00:12:50.580 And, you know, sure in the more, uh, rural parts of those, uh, states, you're going to

00:12:59.260 have, uh, your evangelical, strong Christian conservative types, but you're right.

00:13:05.400 Your average white American is fairly moderate on religious issues.

00:13:11.380 And they're really not feeling like the whole, uh, Christian conservative right when like

00:13:19.760 the snake handlers and all these kind of nutty people out there that doesn't resonate with

00:13:25.760 them at all.

00:13:26.820 And Trump's nationalist message of, you know, of populism to a degree and resisting, um, third

00:13:36.300 rural immigration, and also having a foreign policy that's sensible.

00:13:42.120 People don't want to get involved in the Middle East anymore.

00:13:48.960 And when you look at someone like Mike Pence, he is the neocon.

00:13:53.560 He's totally a neoconservative.

00:13:55.600 He supported the Iraq war.

00:13:57.640 He opposed setting a withdrawal date on Iraq.

00:14:00.720 He supported the surge in Iraq and he has supported intervention in Libya.

00:14:05.320 Most, even your average, uh, conservative nowadays who probably supported the war, everyone has

00:14:12.540 gone sour on this, this militarism over in the Middle East.

00:14:18.200 And so that's another reason why this pick doesn't make any sense.

00:14:24.180 People are more concerned at what's going on here at home than they are overseas.

00:14:28.880 And people are more concerned about, will I be able to put food on my family's table?

00:14:37.800 Will I have job security?

00:14:39.900 Is there going to be a future here in this country for my, my grandchildren? 0.74

00:14:45.880 They're not concerned about gay wedding cakes.

00:14:49.480 Yeah, I would echo everything you just said.

00:14:53.700 And I, I would, I would add to it, uh, I don't really know who Pence is.

00:14:58.660 I mean, I, I was actually forcing myself to watch some videos on, on YouTube of him responding

00:15:04.520 to things.

00:15:04.920 And he's just so colossally boring that I, I don't know if there's any there, there.

00:15:09.380 I mean, he is, he is one of the least compelling people.

00:15:12.240 Uh, but yeah, as you were saying, and, and, and lots of people have, uh, have mentioned

00:15:16.980 this on Twitter, so I should, I should give them credit, but like Hillary Clinton can run, 1.00

00:15:22.580 literally run ads where he, she, she, she can quite legitimately say, oh, really Trump?

00:15:30.300 Like you want, you want a better foreign policy?

00:15:32.400 Why did you pick this guy?

00:15:33.700 Oh, really Trump?

00:15:34.860 You want a, uh, Fortress America, you know, uh, tariff barriers and so on.

00:15:39.460 Why did you pick this guy?

00:15:40.840 Cause he, he, he, he supports, he goes along with Clinton and this whole kind of neocon

00:15:46.000 neoliberal, you know, mishmash on all of those issues.

00:15:50.160 So it just, it just undermines everything he did.

00:15:52.440 I, I just, it just doesn't make sense.

00:15:54.840 Also just to go, uh, to push a little harder on, on Pence himself in terms of the gay wedding

00:16:01.000 cake stuff.

00:16:02.340 Um, I had never heard of Mike Pence until about a year and a half ago, uh, when Indiana became

00:16:08.160 this meme for, uh, the culture war.

00:16:11.320 And this was over an Indiana law that basically, uh, there was, you know, usually goes under

00:16:16.620 the rubric of religious freedom and allows people to, uh, not patron.

00:16:23.020 If you, a business owner allows you to do something like not make a gay wedding cake, 1.00

00:16:27.140 not provide pizza for a hypothetical gay pizza wedding.

00:16:31.820 And, you know, I don't, I don't even, I, I have a difficult time talking about this because

00:16:38.520 I don't, I don't want to say that I oppose such a law because I am in complete support

00:16:44.740 of freedom of association.

00:16:46.460 Um, I think that anyone has the right to deal with anyone and, or not deal with anyone for

00:16:55.340 any reason.

00:16:56.560 Uh, I have the right to not go to this restaurant because I don't like their food.

00:17:01.540 I have the right not to go buy something at the store because I, I, I, uh, know the guy

00:17:07.520 who owns it and I didn't like him in high school.

00:17:09.440 And what I mean by that, I, I can go, I can not patron someone's business for any reason, 0.99

00:17:13.680 no matter whether it's rational, irrational, stupid, or intelligent. 0.97

00:17:18.120 And I think businesses have the same right. 0.99

00:17:20.340 I don't, a business that is your private, uh, property.

00:17:24.920 You don't have to do, you don't have to serve everyone. 0.70

00:17:28.600 If I'm, if I make cakes and someone says, make me a giant dildo cake for my horrifying 0.98

00:17:36.300 gay wedding, I can be like, you know, sorry, life is short. 0.99

00:17:40.280 I don't want to do that.

00:17:41.760 Uh, and you know, no, you, you know, a hundred bucks, that's just not worth it for me.

00:17:48.120 So I'm sorry.

00:17:48.940 You can go somewhere else.

00:17:50.260 You can make the cake yourself.

00:17:51.940 And I, so I totally support everyone's right for that.

00:17:54.840 I do.

00:17:55.160 The problem with this, like religious freedom nonsense is that these people will like, you 1.00

00:18:00.800 know, the, the civil rights act basically violates these basic rights of a free association.

00:18:07.880 They explicitly do it.

00:18:09.580 A business owner should have a right not to serve a black person. 1.00

00:18:13.220 Sorry about that. 0.88

00:18:14.420 But it just is what it is that, that, that if we're going to live in a free society, you

00:18:18.280 can do that.

00:18:18.920 The civil rights act obviously violates, uh, private property and free association.

00:18:24.740 So the religious right who will endorse Martin Luther King will deify Martin Luther King and

00:18:31.480 say how much they love the civil rights act.

00:18:33.220 But, but apparently if you, if you have a monotheistic or religious commandment not to do something,

00:18:40.760 then it's okay.

00:18:42.040 So they don't even support true freedom of association.

00:18:45.580 They just support this bullshit freedom of association that if you can lawyer up, go to 0.67

00:18:53.080 court and claim that my holy book made me do it. 0.99

00:18:56.860 And therefore you don't have to service a gay wedding. 0.96

00:19:00.380 I mean, it's just, look, I don't want to say that I'm against this free association, but

00:19:05.940 the freedom of religious freedom as defined by the religious right and the conservative movement 1.00

00:19:11.040 is totally stupid. 0.99

00:19:12.780 And I'm sorry about that, but that's what it is. 0.99

00:19:16.360 And that Indiana law, first off, explicitly said in the law that a federal, the federal

00:19:22.200 government can override this law whenever it sees fit, which they don't even have to

00:19:27.240 say, cause that's implicit.

00:19:28.380 We live in a federal structure, but anyway, so it was, the law was basically meaningless.

00:19:33.600 I mean, if someone, if someone claimed the religious freedom, like a Mormon claimed 0.99

00:19:38.680 it's religious freedom, not to serve people with the mark of cane or something that would

00:19:43.440 kind of be hilarious, but clearly the federal government would come in and stop that. 0.97

00:19:48.860 So the law was totally meaningless.

00:19:50.260 And then after that law passed in the state of Indiana and the, in, in the Congress of

00:19:56.580 Indiana, uh, and they had all this pushback and on the media was going wild. 0.99

00:20:00.860 You know, Tim Cook of Apple wrote his stupid op-ed against all this kind of stuff. 0.97

00:20:05.820 After Mike Pence felt the heat, he backed down and he, he, he watered down the law even 1.00

00:20:11.180 more.

00:20:11.600 So it was this, he, he wanted to have his cake. 0.95

00:20:14.180 He wanted to have his gay wedding cake and eat it too, so to speak. 0.62

00:20:17.660 He wanted to signal morally signal that he is a member of the religious right. 0.83

00:20:23.100 He's a card carrying, uh, you know, uh, American traditionalist, uh, yeah.

00:20:27.680 But then he didn't want to actually do anything.

00:20:30.060 So, uh, you know, I, as I was joking with you before we, we, we turn on the recorder,

00:20:34.940 you know, I almost respect a, like a dyed in the wool creationist or, or, or, uh, really

00:20:42.180 deeply serious, uh, religious person.

00:20:45.740 I respect them for the courage of their convictions.

00:20:48.760 I don't respect someone like Mike Pence who lacks the courage of his convictions.

00:20:53.300 He's just, he's just a morally signal signaling, uh, fake, uh, conservative.

00:20:59.940 And so the other thing, Mike Pence is going to get a ton of heat.

00:21:05.100 He is going to get so much pushback by the fact that he's associated with Trump because

00:21:10.160 Trump is associated with white nationalism, with, uh, Russia with, you know, let's throw

00:21:16.260 out other thing, you know, uh, radical conservatism and so on. 0.95

00:21:20.880 And all we've seen from him is that he's just this milk toast weakling.

00:21:26.940 So when he gets pushed on something, I guarantee you that Hillary, cause Hillary's smart and 0.91

00:21:31.980 crafty and she is getting old and, but she still has some craftiness left in her. 1.00

00:21:37.000 I just listened to an interview with her.

00:21:39.100 It's not like this woman is senile. 0.96

00:21:41.160 Okay. 1.00

00:21:41.420 Let's not, you know, she, she's still an intelligent bitch and she's going to push him 1.00

00:21:47.340 into a corner and she's going to get him in a way where she's going to make him basically 0.99

00:21:52.200 disagree with Trump and, and, and undermine Trump's nationalism.

00:21:56.800 And I, I guarantee you this is going to happen.

00:22:00.780 Yeah.

00:22:01.480 They're going to purposely try and divide the ticket because Mike Pence is nothing at all. 0.99

00:22:09.780 Like, like Donald Trump, he's like you said, he's this basic bitch, milk toast conservative 0.99

00:22:17.900 who doesn't really compliment the ticket in any way. 1.00

00:22:20.640 He brings nothing.

00:22:22.340 And if anything, he's just dead weight.

00:22:25.220 I mean, from here on out until the election, we're just going to be witnessing weekly struggle

00:22:31.020 sessions for Mike Pence on the cable news networks when they're going to pull up like, oh, Donald

00:22:38.480 Trump said this.

00:22:39.700 Do you disavow white supremacy?

00:22:42.020 Do you support Vladimir Putin who, you know, he's guilty of all these like human rights violations.

00:22:48.780 Do you believe all these things?

00:22:50.840 Where do you stand on gay issues?

00:22:52.520 Because Donald Trump said he'd let Bruce Jenner use the ladies room at Trump Tower.

00:23:00.100 Would you do that?

00:23:01.300 You know, it's, it's, he doesn't stand with Trump on any of the issues that Trump has really

00:23:10.120 formed his campaign out of.

00:23:12.560 And so from here on out, it's just going to, that's going to be the strategy of the, the 0.99

00:23:17.320 Democrats and the Clinton war machine is to basically make Mike Pence look like a fool because 0.97

00:23:25.320 he's essentially has to flip flop on, on the wars. 0.96

00:23:29.120 He has to flip flop on the Christian conservative values because Donald Trump, Donald Trump, I

00:23:36.120 don't really think he believes in any of the Christian conservative right stuff.

00:23:41.320 And I think he's always, he's just signaled like, oh yeah, I'm pro-life now because, you

00:23:46.360 know, I had this change of heart and I just think it's really bad.

00:23:50.600 It's really a lighthearted attempt to just appeal to the Christian conservative right in

00:23:57.880 order for him to get the nomination.

00:23:59.860 I don't think he, he's from New York City.

00:24:02.220 He seems like a fairly secular guy, probably libertarian in his social beliefs.

00:24:08.760 So I don't think he really cares about any of those issues to be entirely honest.

00:24:14.720 He seems more concerned about the issues he's formed his campaign around of and Mike Pence

00:24:21.440 doesn't stand with him.

00:24:22.320 So it just, it, it doesn't make any sense.

00:24:25.700 Mike Pence doesn't stand with him on LBG.

00:24:27.820 He doesn't stand with him on trade either.

00:24:29.680 Donald Trump wants to reform trade deals.

00:24:32.560 Uh, meanwhile, you have Mike Pence here who, he supported the Central American Free Trade

00:24:39.360 Agreement.

00:24:40.260 He supports TPP.

00:24:41.940 He supported free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Oman, Chile,

00:24:47.620 Singapore, and Donald Trump is against all of those things.

00:24:51.880 Yeah.

00:24:52.680 Yeah.

00:24:53.120 I, I just, I can't believe it.

00:24:55.000 Well, so do you know a lot about Manafort?

00:24:58.880 I mean, I, all I've heard is he's a former Reagan hand, and then he's kind of been around

00:25:05.240 the world and was involved with Yanukovych, who was a pro-Russian president in, uh, in

00:25:12.760 Ukraine, who was, um, uh, overthrown by the Maidan, uh, revolution.

00:25:18.040 Uh, so I, I, I've heard things like that and I've been like, oh, this guy sounds kind of

00:25:21.840 interesting.

00:25:22.240 Um, but I, I, you know, and I, and I felt, I almost imagined him to be this Machiavellian

00:25:28.720 cold, uh, uh, person, but I, I, and maybe he is, but I, I almost feel like it just because

00:25:36.700 of his age and his experience in the American context, he, he's just kind of a, a, a, a 0.94

00:25:43.360 movement conservative cock. 0.84

00:25:45.000 And, and he, so we're seeing his tendencies and Corey Lewandowski, who I look, I, I don't,

00:25:53.780 I don't think we should totally, uh, lionize Corey Lewandowski.

00:25:58.020 I mean, he, the, the Trump campaign was just basically Trump's like Twitter feed that, that

00:26:05.000 was, that was like their campaign.

00:26:07.460 They didn't have a ground game and Trump overcame it all, which is great.

00:26:13.340 But, uh, but, but, you know, I, I, I, I don't think Corey Lewandowski, I think Corey Lewandowski

00:26:18.080 looked to be a little bit out of his league, although he, he seemed to be a genuine guy.

00:26:24.180 And I, and I think I, I've heard this, this story, I don't know if you've heard as well,

00:26:27.700 like there was a sign in the campaign headquarters, which said, let Trump be Trump.

00:26:32.780 And, you know, whatever you want to say about Corey, he made some mistakes, but that was

00:26:37.460 probably the best strategy is to own it.

00:26:41.160 One thing, yeah.

00:26:41.580 One thing you got with, uh, Corey Lewandowski is Corey Lewandowski came out of the Tea Party

00:26:48.000 movement.

00:26:49.020 And regardless of what you think about the Tea Party movement, it was kind of a anti-establishment

00:26:56.080 grassroots backlash against the system.

00:26:59.640 Um, and Corey Lewandowski has kind of, you know, he came out of that movement.

00:27:05.280 And so he does hold some anti-establishment views himself.

00:27:09.740 And so he was the perfect, uh, manager at the time for Donald Trump because Donald Trump's

00:27:16.300 the anti-establishment guy.

00:27:18.200 Donald Trump represents, he's become the shelling point for all these, you know, right-wing

00:27:24.380 groups like the libertarians, the Tea Party, the white nationalists, the agrarian people,

00:27:31.640 the nativists.

00:27:33.020 He, and he just popped up and everyone just naturally gravitated towards him.

00:27:38.520 And like, this is the wrecking ball we're going to use.

00:27:41.780 And that was what Corey Lewandowski was kind of helping lead the charge with that.

00:27:46.320 But now Corey Lewandowski's gone.

00:27:48.420 You got Paul Manafort and I'm looking at his Wikipedia page now.

00:27:52.680 And sure, he's a, you know, he's a consultant. 0.92

00:27:55.800 I don't even think he's necessarily a basic bitch conservative. 1.00

00:27:59.240 I think he's just a, a Republican, he's a party guy. 0.97

00:28:02.380 Yeah.

00:28:03.040 He's been an advisor to Ford, Reagan, Bush one, Dole, Bush two, McCain.

00:28:08.560 He's, he's just a Republican.

00:28:11.440 He's a Republican party guy who comes in and this is probably why he was brought in, was 0.87

00:28:19.260 to, to help with the convention because that's important that Donald Trump not get screwed

00:28:25.060 out of the convention.

00:28:26.040 But also it seems that Paul Manafort has perhaps neutered the Donald Trump campaign to some extent

00:28:34.880 by not allowing Donald Trump to be Trump.

00:28:39.040 And instead he's trying to whip up the party to get everyone behind Donald Trump so that

00:28:45.680 they could win an election, which ultimately that's the goal here is to win an election.

00:28:51.080 But Donald Trump is also leading a political movement.

00:28:56.420 It's not just, oh, we're going to win an election and do some conservative things.

00:29:00.380 This is about changing the political discussion.

00:29:04.860 And when Paul Manafort comes in and he pulls, you know, someone like Mike Pence and decides

00:29:12.620 this is going to be the guy we're going to put on the ticket.

00:29:14.520 It really takes away from the message and ultimately it hurts the movement in the short term and

00:29:24.680 in the long term because this just sets up someone like Mike Pence to run for president in the

00:29:31.740 future and you know that it's going to be back to business as usual.

00:29:37.380 And we know that Donald Trump doesn't even necessarily like the Michael Pence pick.

00:29:43.400 There's some news stories that came out that says that Donald Trump was even hesitant to

00:29:47.900 pick Mike Pence as his VP.

00:29:50.500 And so Donald Trump's not going with his gut here, which is something he's been essentially

00:29:55.460 doing the whole time is just going with his gut and doing what Donald Trump does.

00:30:01.480 And it seems that Paul Manafort has taken over the campaign of Donald Trump.

00:30:07.100 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:08.140 There's actually two reports.

00:30:09.820 So they might have been reporting from the same source or perhaps they were reporting

00:30:14.420 from two sources.

00:30:15.140 But basically, they were saying that Donald Trump was making these last minute phone calls

00:30:20.040 on Friday night, seeing if he could switch gears if it were too late.

00:30:25.380 And it was too late.

00:30:26.880 I mean, he shouldn't have allowed it to go that far.

00:30:29.460 But yeah, I mean, that is one piece of evidence.

00:30:34.160 That's certainly not definitive that Trump's gut was not in this and that he wanted to

00:30:40.380 throw out a wild card.

00:30:43.320 And instead, he picked a successor who was just a return to 2000 era, Bush era conservatism.

00:30:53.040 It's everything he defeated.

00:30:54.780 It's everything he was overcoming.

00:30:56.120 He just said that, no, my successor, my right-hand man is that, like in its essence, in its

00:31:03.200 most purified and therefore most boring form is Mike Pence.

00:31:09.080 And let me ask you this.

00:31:10.900 Okay.

00:31:11.180 Um, how would you gauge the alt-right Twitter reaction?

00:31:17.840 Uh, because I have my opinion, but I want yours, because obviously it's difficult to

00:31:22.880 measure this scientifically.

00:31:24.040 We're kind of going with feedback we're getting, but, but what, what is your sense of the alt-right

00:31:29.380 Twitter reaction?

00:31:31.860 Um, I think it's mixed, but mostly negative.

00:31:36.580 I don't think anyone's really impressed by the pick.

00:31:40.400 A lot of people think that this is just a pick to appease the conservative establishment.

00:31:48.860 Vice presidential choices are entirely irrelevant.

00:31:54.060 And Trump was just going to pick a non-important person to be on the ticket because, I mean, Donald

00:32:02.280 Trump is the main event.

00:32:04.060 But there's nothing that you can put on the ticket that would really jazz it up in a way

00:32:10.340 that would make it more exciting than it already is.

00:32:14.020 Yeah.

00:32:14.780 And so-

00:32:15.520 No one's going to go to the convention for Pence.

00:32:18.460 Exactly.

00:32:19.540 And, and also I think, you know, there's probably some apologists, uh, in our sphere for the pick.

00:32:28.480 Maybe they're very, they're a little more emotionally invested in the Donald Trump campaign than they

00:32:35.160 should be.

00:32:35.760 Yeah.

00:32:36.440 And so they're going to, anytime Trump has a slip up, they're going to immediately come

00:32:42.100 to the defense because ultimately they just want Donald Trump to be the candidate.

00:32:46.600 But I think most everyone is not really impressed.

00:32:49.440 They find it boring.

00:32:50.860 And then a lot of us are, you know, repulsed by the pick. 1.00

00:32:55.120 We just think it's stupid and it doesn't make sense. 1.00

00:32:57.620 Yeah. 0.99

00:32:57.780 I think that that's my impression.

00:32:59.360 I have felt the wrath of people.

00:33:01.880 I feel like they're rationalizing, uh, more than anything.

00:33:06.020 And then, and they'll make arguments like, well, he's not black or, or he, we need to 0.77

00:33:13.240 win over all these people, which is, again, it's like the, the religious rights stuff does

00:33:19.380 really rub people the wrong way.

00:33:21.240 And, and so I don't buy that.

00:33:22.940 I don't buy that.

00:33:24.040 He's going to deliver the whole Midwest.

00:33:26.360 He, he's, Pence is actually having trouble within his own state.

00:33:29.380 He might, he might very well have been elected, but that was actually in question.

00:33:33.100 It's a very close, uh, contest.

00:33:35.160 Uh, and, and Indiana is going red anyway.

00:33:38.780 So I, I don't, I don't really see what it is.

00:33:42.940 Um, and, and they, they just seem to be rationalizing.

00:33:45.600 I think there's a lot of also like, uh, keep calm and put your faith in Trump because Trump

00:33:50.500 knows.

00:33:51.280 And okay.

00:33:53.420 Um, you know, he, he, this has worked so far, but, uh, you know, he, Trump actually has made

00:34:01.860 some pretty big errors.

00:34:03.700 Uh, the, the abortion thing, I think, I think was a clearly an error.

00:34:08.000 I, I don't think that was that, that brought him absolutely nothing.

00:34:11.740 And he backtracked and flipped very uncharacteristically, uh, effectively apologized.

00:34:17.860 So, uh, I, I don't, you know, I, he, he has made some major errors and I think there's,

00:34:24.480 there's reason to believe there's evidence, not definitive evidence that his gut really wasn't

00:34:30.500 in this.

00:34:31.800 And, uh, so, uh, I, I don't know.

00:34:34.680 I, I don't, I think, I think our movement is going to be, is we're going to be, we're

00:34:39.620 going to gain more respect.

00:34:40.520 And I think we're going to have more impact and influence when we criticize people.

00:34:45.000 If, if we're taken for granted as the Trump cheerleading squad, no one, people aren't going

00:34:52.100 to respect us.

00:34:53.560 Um, and I agree, look, Trump has been like overwhelmingly inspiring thus far.

00:34:59.660 Uh, but I, I always knew there was going to come a time when you have to push back.

00:35:04.820 And I think this is definitely a time.

00:35:06.500 This is not definitive.

00:35:07.660 I don't, I don't know how many people are really off the Trump train.

00:35:11.600 Um, there are probably a few people like that.

00:35:14.200 Um, but I think, I, I think generally speaking, even the people who are rationalizing it, I

00:35:21.160 think if you, if they really were honest with you, they would admit that this is really

00:35:25.780 uninspiring.

00:35:26.520 It's, it's kind of like a, a punch in the gut.

00:35:29.560 It's just not, it's not what we wanted and it's just not exciting.

00:35:34.540 Again, like choosing Jim Webb or something totally outside the box, uh, that would have

00:35:41.480 been awesome.

00:35:42.100 Another interesting pick, you know, uh, generally when you're running, uh, for president, another

00:35:50.700 move is to pick someone that you were running against.

00:35:55.420 Yeah.

00:35:56.200 So, uh, Chris Christie, maybe, but not really, but also an interesting pick, kind of an out

00:36:04.180 there pick would have been someone like Rand Paul.

00:36:06.940 Yeah.

00:36:07.140 Who Rand Paul is appealing to a lot of, you know, Midwestern types because he's kind of

00:36:13.100 like a libert, he's like his father in some ways, you know, very libertarian, very sensible

00:36:19.120 person.

00:36:19.840 And he's, he's, he's not necessarily one of these, you know, culture war, the, you know,

00:36:25.880 the Christian conservative, right.

00:36:27.640 That's more concerned about gay weddings and like gay conversion therapy. 0.59

00:36:32.720 He seems to be more concerned about foreign policy and like government surveillance.

00:36:38.940 And those are things that a lot of Americans are concerned about.

00:36:44.340 And it has some appeals, even though Rand Paul cucked himself by calling himself a Detroit

00:36:51.080 Republican.

00:36:52.220 That was just kind of a goofball move, but that would have been a more interesting pick than

00:36:57.260 Michael Pence.

00:36:57.980 I agree.

00:36:58.820 I think Rand shot himself in the foot by going, he, he was effectively never Trump or at the

00:37:05.380 very least pretty viciously anti-Trump, uh, during the early primaries before he dropped

00:37:10.580 out.

00:37:10.960 I mean, I remember he went on, um, uh, one of those like post John Stewart daily show thing,

00:37:17.320 like the black daily shows that are now running. 0.94

00:37:20.080 And he was like, Oh, he's an orange face clown. 0.75

00:37:23.080 He, he just, that, that kind of stuff was really unnecessary. 0.63

00:37:27.240 And, and also when you're down, uh, you know, it, it, it look, it just looks cheap, you know,

00:37:33.360 and easy.

00:37:33.680 It's like, of course you hate this guy.

00:37:35.560 He, he, he's, he has many multiples more support than you do.

00:37:40.280 You know, the sad thing is that, uh, that this movement was ran to Paul's to kind of take

00:37:47.760 over and to be this grassroots populism, let's take back our country, rah, rah, rah.

00:37:54.020 And instead he's in Detroit throwing the, you know, the federal tax code in a wood chipper 0.98

00:37:58.800 and he just looks like a goofball. 0.98

00:38:02.200 Yeah. 0.97

00:38:02.680 You know, I, I've, I've pointed this out.

00:38:04.520 I, this whole election was ran Paul's to lose and we forget that now.

00:38:09.240 Uh, but he was in early 2015, I think he was announced as the most interesting man in

00:38:14.600 politics by time magazine.

00:38:17.120 Uh, he was an early favorite.

00:38:19.400 Lots of people picked him, but I think more than that, the Trump movement was his to lose

00:38:23.380 because his father had a little mini Trump movement going and, um, and there, you know,

00:38:30.640 and his father was genuine.

00:38:31.740 And, and, and I think you had a lot of genuine people who, uh, would have voted for, would

00:38:37.920 have gotten on board with Rand if he had been this kind of, you know, libertarian, conservative

00:38:42.920 amalgamation synthesis.

00:38:45.500 Uh, and instead he became this left libertarian black lives matter synthesis, which, uh, basically

00:38:55.200 gets you 1% in the GOP primary.

00:38:57.880 Yeah.

00:38:58.860 Prior to Donald Trump getting into the race, if you would have told me a few years ago

00:39:03.760 that I would be voting for Donald Trump and not for Rand Paul, I would have said that you're 0.99

00:39:09.480 crazy. 0.98

00:39:10.640 And I'm sure a lot of the guys in the alt-right are like that. 0.97

00:39:13.640 I was a big Ron Paul person.

00:39:16.120 I know lots of guys in the alternative right were Ron Paul people.

00:39:20.840 Yeah.

00:39:21.160 And, uh, in 2012, we were looking at this like, oh, Rand Paul is going to be the guy

00:39:26.200 that this is going to be at, and he, he just, um, really dropped the ball to say the least.

00:39:33.080 Yeah.

00:39:33.200 It's, it's like he, he's, he pursued a strategy that was somewhat similar to what Weld and,

00:39:40.320 uh, Gary Johnson are pursuing, which they, they'll, they'll say things like, oh, we're,

00:39:45.460 uh, socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, like as if they're the best of both worlds.

00:39:50.120 But what they really are is the worst of both worlds, uh, because they don't, they, they

00:39:55.740 seem actually rather squishy on foreign policy.

00:39:59.460 They're, they're definitely not populist about it.

00:40:02.000 Uh, they want all the stuff that turns off graph grassroots conservatives.

00:40:07.600 They seem to love all of that kind of stuff.

00:40:10.640 Uh, uh, but then, you know, they're pro I'm sure they're, they would say nice things about

00:40:15.040 BLM and so on. 0.79

00:40:17.060 Uh, but then they're also like, oh, but also by the way, we're going to take away your social

00:40:22.020 security.

00:40:22.740 I mean, it's just like, you know, if you wanted to construct a less attractive candidate, I'm

00:40:28.300 not sure you could.

00:40:30.800 I'm for BLM and against your pension vote for me. 0.91

00:40:35.960 You're welcome America.

00:40:37.440 Yeah.

00:40:37.600 I mean, it's, and, and, and Rand Paul had a little bit of that going where he, he was

00:40:41.740 like drawing on all the, the wrong aspects of left and right.

00:40:46.380 Uh, and, and, and Donald Trump draws on the positive aspects of left and right.

00:40:50.820 He does, he's not a religious right person.

00:40:53.120 He draws on the nationalism, the anti-immigration stuff, the let's bring the jobs back.

00:40:58.240 Let's protect what we have.

00:40:59.240 This like basic conservatism that is very appealing.

00:41:03.360 Uh, and then he'll pull some things from the left.

00:41:05.440 I mean, he, as many have pointed out, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump sound very similar

00:41:10.760 on a lot of issues on wall street and so on.

00:41:14.560 That's interesting.

00:41:16.260 And, uh, so, I mean, that's the kind of, I mean, it's just clear.

00:41:19.960 That's the kind of thing that you can start a movement and shake things up.

00:41:23.540 Um, and again, I, I just, I don't know what to say.

00:41:26.500 I, I'm not, I mean, I'm not never Trump at this point.

00:41:30.100 I still think the whole thing's fascinating.

00:41:32.360 I admire Trump, but this, this is a blow.

00:41:36.460 I mean, this just seems to be pointing in the wrong direction and it's all symbolism because

00:41:42.200 again, the VP does not have a tremendous out of power.

00:41:45.200 He's basically the, he presides over the Senate.

00:41:49.080 I mean, it's not, you know, and he's in the cabinet, uh, and, and Trump doesn't, you know,

00:41:54.800 Trump listens to Trump, uh, mostly.

00:41:58.740 He doesn't, he's not always going to listen to his cabinet, uh, but nevertheless, it's just

00:42:03.920 sim, it's symbolism and symbolism matters.

00:42:06.240 And this symbolism is very bad.

00:42:09.160 Yeah.

00:42:09.460 Um, I don't know if you've read the piece in Breitbart, it was written about 10 days

00:42:14.200 ago by Ann Coulter, but, uh, she was saying that, uh, yeah, if Donald Trump picks any one 0.93

00:42:21.740 of these insider Republicans, it's going to be garbage, they're not going to add anything 0.97

00:42:27.200 to the ticket. 0.99

00:42:27.920 If anything, they're just going to weigh the ticket down because now the media is going

00:42:33.980 to, uh, attack and try and pry him apart.

00:42:36.940 And like we mentioned earlier, put Michael Pence through a weekly struggle session of, uh, 0.98

00:42:43.300 being an apologist for Donald Trump being, you know, a nasty racist who hangs out with 1.00

00:42:48.760 white supremacists on Twitter and all this shit. 1.00

00:42:52.000 And then she also made a very interesting point, which I don't know if they would ever do this, 0.99

00:42:57.860 but she said that, um, if Donald Trump were elected with one of these Republican insiders

00:43:03.640 like Michael Pence, that, uh, the, the Republican party would then lead an impeachment campaign

00:43:11.760 against Donald Trump to kick them to the curb and then put their party establishment guy

00:43:17.460 into the presidency.

00:43:19.300 Look, I mean, let, let's go there.

00:43:21.640 I mean, I, I've, I've heard this, uh, bandied about on Twitter and I, I, I, for good reason,

00:43:27.080 I think, and that, that is assassination insurance.

00:43:30.060 Um, Rand Paul is definitely not his father.

00:43:32.600 Uh, definitely not, but I think Rand Paul would have given some assassination insurance

00:43:38.700 because the, the neocons have never trusted Rand Paul, uh, liberals don't really trust them

00:43:46.140 because they, they see in his father and the libertarian movement, they, they just have,

00:43:50.160 it has the whiff of white racism about it.

00:43:52.920 They, they don't like it. 0.94

00:43:54.300 I think Rand Paul could have been assassination insurance.

00:43:57.000 I think a total wild card could have been too.

00:44:00.100 Jim Webb, total assassination insurance.

00:44:02.360 Jim Webb, who knows what he would have done, would have been, you know, Jacksonian America, 0.98

00:44:09.080 you know, reborn or something. 0.98

00:44:11.300 Uh, so, uh, but yeah, Mike Pence, he, he's not only is he a generic basic bitch Republican, 1.00

00:44:17.260 but, but he's just, he's weak. 0.94

00:44:19.620 And so I, I think they, I think a lot of the people who are, uh, uh, against Trump correctly

00:44:27.540 view him as like, we can do this.

00:44:29.500 I think someone tweeted at me before we, just before we went on this podcast that, um, it's

00:44:33.680 a Gerald Ford type figure.

00:44:35.400 Uh, Gerald Ford actually was a fairly smart guy, but he's generally remembered as a, as

00:44:40.320 a pushover, as a total middle of the road, no real ideas, you know, pragmatic to a fault

00:44:47.140 doofus and that, that is Mike Pence.

00:44:51.360 And so again, can, are, can you do it?

00:44:54.700 Are the, can you find a reason to gin up hatred against Trump, uh, to get enough people in

00:45:00.780 Congress and the, including Democrats and Republicans to impeach him to do something

00:45:04.860 like this?

00:45:05.360 Uh, yeah, of course you can.

00:45:07.860 Um, and, and there, there is the terrible thing that I don't even want to talk about because

00:45:12.820 it's so distasteful and, uh, and that is the, you know, assassination, uh, kind of thing.

00:45:18.840 Um, you know, look, if these people, trillions of dollars are at stake, the future of the world's

00:45:24.360 at stake, uh, things like for, you know, foreign geopolitics, foreign policy, you know, they're

00:45:30.620 willing to kill people over that.

00:45:31.980 Uh, so I don't, I don't think we should be Pollyannish and say, Oh, they'd never do that.

00:45:37.460 Uh, I don't, I, again, I don't like talking about that because it's, it's just so distasteful.

00:45:42.600 Uh, but yeah, um, get, you know, get rid of Trump by, by impeachment or some other means. 0.94

00:45:49.440 And you have this doofus up there who's going to appoint some other doofus as his new VP 0.95

00:45:55.100 and we're back to square one. 0.95

00:45:57.100 I, I think that that is a possibility.

00:45:59.700 I think also just to add onto that and, and to talk in less sinister terms, I think this

00:46:05.240 is generally what the GOP wants.

00:46:07.720 Uh, the GOP, the GOP establishment never wanted Trump.

00:46:12.500 I think they're comfortable with conservatism as their dominant ideology and Trump, they're,

00:46:19.780 they're not at all comfortable with nationalism as their dominant ideology.

00:46:23.780 So even if the, some of the far reaches of the religious right might offend them, they

00:46:29.720 generally would prefer that to, um, you know, the, the kind of nationalism that, that Trump

00:46:36.900 is putting forward.

00:46:37.900 Uh, so I think they ultimately want a reset.

00:46:41.020 Um, I, I think that they were experimenting with different rules, um, here and there, uh, that

00:46:48.860 they were, you know, there's this rule, what is it?

00:46:51.060 Rule 40 that to be nominated by the floor, you have to have won, uh, what is it?

00:46:57.260 Eight primaries or do you, do you know the details of that?

00:46:59.940 Yeah, the, the, the, the Ron Paul rule essentially from, uh, 2008 in order, you had to win, yeah,

00:47:08.820 I believe it was something like five, it sounds right.

00:47:12.060 Eight states, you had to win eight primaries in order to be eligible for nomination on the

00:47:18.080 floor.

00:47:19.140 Uh, that is the rule.

00:47:21.080 So they, they doubled down on that rule actually.

00:47:24.900 So the never Trump movement, you know, William Kristol's wet dream of having Doug French

00:47:31.400 be the nominee or whatever, that's done.

00:47:35.240 So that's, that's done with, uh, that ain't going to happen.

00:47:38.660 But now we have this new thing where now we have, we have someone, we have basically a

00:47:44.100 total establishment party insider guy who is, uh, right there, one breath away from the,

00:47:52.700 the white house of being the president.

00:47:55.840 So perhaps they could try to impeach Donald Trump and that would have the support of both

00:48:01.160 sides.

00:48:01.700 That would be the only bipartisan support that would ever happen in Washington would be kicking

00:48:06.640 out Donald Trump because the left would, wants to get rid of him and the Republicans

00:48:13.080 also want to get rid of him.

00:48:15.340 So yay, impeaching him.

00:48:17.600 That'd be great.

00:48:18.380 The left will love to see the Republicans eat themselves alive and the Republicans would 1.00

00:48:23.200 rather die a cock than live a proud white man. 0.99

00:48:27.800 So that's, uh, that's a distinct possibility. 0.99

00:48:31.420 I mean, Donald Trump is, this is a phenomenon.

00:48:34.940 This is never heard of before this total outsider running on these radical new ideas that don't

00:48:42.560 fall within your typical left, right divide.

00:48:46.540 We live in very interesting times as you know, we're always saying, and it's true.

00:48:52.880 Uh, I mean, the future of this country's at stake, the future of Europe's at stake.

00:48:56.840 Uh, we don't know what is going to happen.

00:48:59.900 Everyone has lots of anxiety about the future.

00:49:03.120 And if we can, uh, you know, squelch that by kicking Donald Trump out and going back to

00:49:09.320 business as usual, then, you know, the party, the establishment would definitely want to

00:49:14.640 do that.

00:49:15.760 Yeah.

00:49:15.940 And that would just piss off.

00:49:18.460 That'll just piss all of us off.

00:49:20.400 I mean, it would piss off everyone who voted for Donald Trump.

00:49:22.740 Well, I think they, I think they originally wanted to keep rule 40 last, uh, fall and winter,

00:49:30.140 uh, before the primaries, because they felt that Donald Trump wouldn't get to eight states

00:49:35.480 or, or whatever it is.

00:49:37.020 Uh, and then, then they kind of got to this new situation where after he was winning, they're

00:49:42.180 like, oh, well, maybe we should get rid of rule 40.

00:49:44.740 It's rule 40 B.

00:49:45.820 I'll put this in the show notes.

00:49:47.560 Uh, that basically says, maybe we should get rid of it so that we can have a never Trump,

00:49:51.340 you know, contested fight and Ted Cruz will get up there.

00:49:54.680 I think at some point, um, the rents previous of the world, uh, basically set down and, and

00:50:01.920 look, these guys are nothing if not pragmatic.

00:50:04.980 I mean, they're, they're, they're brutally pragmatic.

00:50:08.080 Uh, and they look, they, they sat down and said, look, if we, after what's just happened

00:50:13.320 with the creation of this movement and, and also just Trump's success winning New Hampshire,

00:50:17.680 South Carolina on, on that, if we were to take it away from him, that, that might seriously

00:50:24.040 jeopardize the, the Republican party going forward.

00:50:28.020 And so I think they came to a, you know, accommodation where they said, let's lose this

00:50:34.180 time.

00:50:34.900 You know, let's give them what they want.

00:50:36.380 And then basically say, we told you so you can't do this stuff.

00:50:39.660 And then they'll just go to a reset and we will be back with, you know, a battle between

00:50:46.520 Jeb Bush and Mike Pence for the presidency in, uh, 2020.

00:50:52.220 It's just going to be back to that same boring nonsense.

00:50:54.400 They're just going to, you know, write out Western civilization.

00:50:59.200 And, uh, you know, and I, I don't think you can go back.

00:51:02.940 I think Trump has unleashed energies and in many ways, unleashed energies unwillingly to

00:51:08.380 the point that you can't go back.

00:51:10.820 Uh, but, uh, but, but nevertheless, I think that is their strategy.

00:51:15.080 I think they're just going to reluctantly hold their nose and give the nomination to

00:51:18.360 Trump.

00:51:18.600 I think the possibility of a contested convention is approaching zero.

00:51:23.560 Uh, and they're just going to do that. 0.74

00:51:24.980 And with the hope that we'll just reset it, you know, uh, you know, in 2017.

00:51:29.960 And, um, so yeah, I, I think that's what they want, but I don't think they'll get that.

00:51:35.200 But again, if, if Trump, if Trump blows this and Trump, you know, allows himself to be impeached

00:51:43.420 and then we get, and then Mike Pence is there, if Trump sets up Mike Pence as his successor, 0.57

00:51:48.200 which just seems ridiculous in a way, just look at this guy.

00:51:52.460 Um, I, I think that we could see that this, this was just kind of like this moment had all

00:51:58.160 this potential, but didn't really go anywhere.

00:52:00.620 And that would be very, very sad.

00:52:02.620 Um, yeah, it would be, and it would hurt a lot because while the alternative right is

00:52:12.000 not necessarily as emotionally invested in Trump's success, uh, middle America is, I mean,

00:52:20.980 they're going to rallies where they're putting their lives in danger and they're getting

00:52:26.860 attacked, they're getting beat up.

00:52:29.260 They do, in a lot of ways, they do view a lot of middle Americans who, they're very much

00:52:35.020 married to the idea of what they think America is or what it was.

00:52:42.080 And Trump getting totally neutered in that way would really be, I think, heartbreaking to

00:52:48.880 a lot of them.

00:52:49.660 Um, and they, in many ways might give up on, on America as a whole.

00:52:56.700 Right.

00:52:57.300 I think that's, that's, uh, very poignant what you just said.

00:53:01.360 I mean, I, to a very large degree, the alt-right is intellectually and ideologically post-American.

00:53:08.040 Uh, I know I am, but a lot of people who, who might even call themselves all right now because

00:53:15.100 the alt-right term has, has exploded.

00:53:17.240 It's certainly not defined by me anymore.

00:53:19.960 Uh, but, uh, definitely, I mean, it's definitely not, I'm a small part of it actually, but, um,

00:53:25.760 but, but definitely a conservative Trump type.

00:53:29.000 They are not intellectually or ideologically or emotionally, uh, post-American at all.

00:53:36.840 And, uh, they have, they have a lot more of their heart at stake in this election.

00:53:42.820 And, uh, so yeah, I, I, I think for them, it is very sad because conservatives have been,

00:53:48.320 uh, terrible to them.

00:53:49.640 Conservatives have just consistently sold them out and it's like they finally found a guy

00:53:54.560 who wouldn't.

00:53:55.680 And then, and then it's looking like he might.

00:54:00.880 Yeah, it's, uh, and that's the thing is they're not going to know where to go because

00:54:07.120 a lot of the people, uh, the, you know, the middle America, the Mars, as Sam Francis put

00:54:13.180 it, the middle American revolution, they're not willing to do what people in the alternative 0.68

00:54:19.360 right do.

00:54:20.480 I mean, in a lot of ways we have completely uninstalled, um, America and installed like 0.99

00:54:29.180 new post-American thinking of how we're going to operate in this new environment.

00:54:33.960 They, once that Americana is uninstalled from their minds because it essentially has been

00:54:40.400 destroyed by the destruction of the Trump campaign, they don't know where to go.

00:54:45.600 And, you know, we're the scary, you know, anonymous racists on the internet.

00:54:51.120 They don't want to be racist.

00:54:52.800 You know, they're generally, they're, they're not racially conscious in the way that we are.

00:54:58.440 They just, they view themselves as they're Americans and they very strongly believe in,

00:55:04.760 you know, the ideas of America.

00:55:07.360 And when Trump, the man who's going to stand for America goes down, then it's back to business

00:55:14.520 as usual.

00:55:15.120 And they don't know where to turn and they're going to be very afraid and hesitant to turn

00:55:19.760 to people like us, which is we need to get those people.

00:55:23.040 We need to get those people regardless if Trump is successful or not, because that's

00:55:27.760 where the movement is.

00:55:29.380 If, you know, that's white America, that's where we want the movement. 0.92

00:55:33.140 We need those people and they're going to be lost and they're going to feel, they're

00:55:38.600 going to be defeated, I think.

00:55:40.620 Yeah, I agree.

00:55:41.600 And, and I don't, I don't think we should just assume that, uh, they're going to come

00:55:45.900 to us.

00:55:46.340 I think we should be honest with ourselves, um, that we're going to have to come to them

00:55:51.460 a little bit also, you know, we, we, we don't, you don't want to always, when I'm speaking

00:55:56.860 with people who are already initiated, I think that is the time to, uh, you know, go full red

00:56:03.720 pill, talk about the coming European order, talk about being post America, but yeah, let's

00:56:09.520 be honest.

00:56:09.840 We're going to also need to speak to people on their level.

00:56:12.540 And that doesn't mean that we're lying to them.

00:56:14.520 There's a very big difference between trying to manipulate someone and just understanding

00:56:19.800 your audiences and speaking to them on their terms and maybe not giving them the whole

00:56:25.440 red pill all at once because they're not going to swallow it.

00:56:28.640 So I think that is definitely a, uh, a major challenge for us.

00:56:32.880 Yeah, basically we have to take these radical, um, I would say non-American ideas or post-American 0.60

00:56:42.520 ideas and package them so that these people who, they are diehard Americans and basically

00:56:52.800 we need to take alt-right thinking, package it in Americana and give it to these people

00:56:57.500 so that it's not foreign and weird to them, that it's something that resonates with them.

00:57:03.360 Yeah.

00:57:04.600 And so that, that is going to be a big part of what the alternative right has to do.

00:57:09.000 They have to Americanize, uh, the message and not in a bad way, but, you know, appeal

00:57:15.540 to, uh, the American spirit.

00:57:18.660 And there's a lot of things that Americans should be proud of.

00:57:22.680 And there's a lot of things here, the revolutionary spirit of the American revolution, the archetypes

00:57:28.800 of like the pioneer, the cowboy, the astronaut, we went to space, we went to the moon, we've

00:57:36.540 done a lot of great things here in America and, you know, we're all, everyone, we all 0.99

00:57:41.520 love to shit on America, but we, we, and you know, America's shit on by all kinds of people 0.98

00:57:47.800 all the time and we do it ourselves, but it's time to start, you know, it's time to stop 1.00

00:57:53.600 shitting on America. 0.77

00:57:54.480 It's time to see what do we have here that we can really work with that can, can we get 0.99

00:58:00.100 it to resonate with American people so that all of white America can be in the alt-right 0.57

00:58:05.440 so that we can make this, uh, something real, something that we can actually build a society

00:58:13.680 around if it's strange and it doesn't make sense to American people, then it's, it's

00:58:22.400 dead on arrival.

00:58:23.260 It's not going anywhere.

00:58:25.120 Yeah, I agree.

00:58:25.560 I think we need both because I, I think the intellectual side and, you know, the, the, the

00:58:32.100 totally red pilled Evolian or Nietzschean side, I don't think we should ever lose that.

00:58:37.220 Uh, because, you know, you, you have to have, sometimes you do have to think for people.

00:58:42.320 You, you've got, you've got to develop the software and you, so you've got to know the

00:58:45.840 whole ins and outs of it.

00:58:47.540 Uh, and I, and I think also we, we, one thing that we can start to do because the, the environments

00:58:54.460 change so much in terms of technology, but also in terms of legitimacy is start to really

00:58:59.540 replace the conservative movement in terms of intellectual activity.

00:59:03.760 And that, that is in terms of publishing and so on.

00:59:06.700 And that's not going to be, that's an achievable goal.

00:59:09.940 That's not going to be too hard because the, the conservative movement really is brain

00:59:13.800 dead. 0.94

00:59:14.900 Yeah.

00:59:14.940 I was going to say, you're implying that there is an intellectual movement in American

00:59:19.520 conservatism.

00:59:21.060 Right.

00:59:21.800 I mean, there, there was to a degree, uh, it was a, you know, Buckley hammered together

00:59:28.960 a bunch of things that didn't quite fit together.

00:59:32.080 There was a, a kind of old right libertarianism clobbered onto a, you know, uh, this European 0.98

00:59:40.540 Catholic traditionalism that was brought to them from immigrants, including many Jews.

00:59:47.020 Uh, it, it, it was a weird thing that they started to create.

00:59:50.600 And you had people like Russell Kirk kind of imagining that he was the next step in this

00:59:56.480 tradition and so on.

00:59:58.040 Um, you know, I think I described it as a, as a jigsaw puzzle, but the pieces didn't

01:00:03.680 fit together.

01:00:04.640 And, and that is definitely, um, pretty accurate, but, uh, but I, I think we can replace them

01:00:11.360 because it, you know, they, they don't, there's not a lot of gas left in the tank.

01:00:15.580 I mean, they, they, they, they were a more intellectual movement.

01:00:19.120 And I think at this point, their, their intellectual side are these, you know, Ann Coulter book knockoff

01:00:25.540 books with, you know, one word title, you know, like treason, Hillary Clinton's plan to appoint

01:00:32.680 Osama bin Laden to the Supreme court.

01:00:34.660 And, you know, and they, they have a picture of a, you know, caught looking talk conservative

01:00:39.680 talking head with bleached blonde hair.

01:00:41.700 And she's holding a assault rifle and standing against a brick wall wearing a prom dress. 0.99

01:00:48.220 Um, that's basically what conservatism is.

01:00:54.680 Yeah, it is what it is.

01:00:57.740 I mean, like, yeah, like Dana Lesh, she's got a cowboy hat on and her, you know, she has 1.00

01:01:04.040 six shooters and she, there's a picture of Dana Lesh's books, a new book.

01:01:08.360 It's called like fly over country or something.

01:01:09.980 And she, she's got like four layers on, she's got like a, a leather jacket and a vest and 0.87

01:01:15.620 a t-shirt and a, like something, it's just this like layered cowboy hat.

01:01:19.980 And then she has like gun, like Western style bullets holster and, and like a six shooter. 1.00

01:01:26.640 I mean, it is so ridiculous. 0.98

01:01:29.400 Yeah. 0.98

01:01:29.920 It's like a caricature in a way it's, it's very tacky and, you know, it's very unappealing

01:01:38.980 to young people.

01:01:40.360 And then that's another reason why the alternative right is growing because they look at that 0.99

01:01:44.140 and they just think that's like goofy shit that only really appeals to like boomers. 0.99

01:01:49.600 Yeah. 0.99

01:01:49.920 And that's really all that it does.

01:01:52.120 And so that's why also Ron Paul is popular because he, Ooh, he's like, he has ideas.

01:01:57.440 He's actually talking about philosophers that have influenced his way of thinking.

01:02:02.300 You know, he's actually a pretty interesting guy.

01:02:04.900 And, and then if you stuck around long enough, the, um, the rumors are true.

01:02:10.820 Ron Paul leads to racism and you'll be having a podcast with Richard Spencer.

01:02:17.240 Well, on that note, uh, let's put a book, bookmark in it.

01:02:20.980 All right.

01:02:21.620 Thanks.

01:02:22.280 I should have you back on again, uh, tree.

01:02:25.120 Uh, this was, this was fun.

01:02:26.520 And, uh, I think there are going to be some, some more things.

01:02:29.200 I'm glad, I'm glad also that we're criticizing Donald.

01:02:32.140 I, I, I, I was waiting for this moment when it was the time for us to seriously criticize

01:02:38.940 him.

01:02:39.460 And, and, and I think this is the moment.

01:02:42.580 Yeah.

01:02:43.200 It's important that we're not just cheerleaders for Donald Trump.

01:02:47.880 You know, we are our own ideological metapolitical movement.

01:02:52.920 And, um, we should applaud people when they step to us and, uh, wave our finger at them when

01:03:00.920 they don't.

01:03:01.540 And this is the opportunity where Donald Trump deserves to be criticized because the Michael

01:03:07.460 Pence pick doesn't make any sense.

01:03:10.220 All the key issues Donald Trump cares about, Michael Pence has been opposed to his entire

01:03:15.100 career.

01:03:15.760 So it just doesn't make sense.

01:03:17.400 Absolutely.

01:03:30.920 Thank you.

01:04:00.920 Thank you.

01:04:30.920 Thank you.

01:05:00.920 Thank you.

01:05:30.920 Thank you.

01:06:00.920 Thank you.

01:06:30.920 Thank you.

01:07:00.920 Thank you.

01:07:30.920 Thank you.

01:08:00.920 Thank you.

01:08:30.920 Thank you.

01:09:00.920 Thank you.

01:09:30.920 Thank you.

01:10:00.920 Thank you.

01:10:30.920 Thank you.

01:11:00.920 Thank you.

01:11:30.920 Thank you.

01:12:00.920 Thank you.

01:12:30.920 Thank you.

01:13:00.920 Thank you.

01:13:30.920 Thank you.

01:14:00.920 Thank you.

01:14:30.920 Thank you.

01:15:00.920 Thank you.

01:15:30.920 Thank you.

01:15:31.920 Thank you.

RadixJournal - July 17, 2016

Assassination Insurance

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