RadixJournal - Heads, I Win; Tails, You Lose

00:00:00.000 I know this is real Euro hours, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the Ron DeSantis

00:00:10.000 stunt.

00:00:12.120 I was just taking care of my kids for the last four or five days, so I've kind of been

00:00:16.500 off social media to a large degree, and I haven't really commented on it, but I do think

00:00:23.120 the whole thing is pretty fascinating.

00:00:24.960 So I did want to talk about that, but we can take the conversation wherever we want to

00:00:33.740 go, and there's just some kind of crazy things that were occurring this weekend as well with

00:00:40.420 a Trump rally in Ohio and stuff like that, so I guess I want to make this an American, or

00:00:45.180 at least my impulse is to make it an American-centric real Euro hours, but of course you guys can

00:00:50.860 change the conversation as you will. 0.97

00:00:54.960 I found the DeSantis stunt, I found it pretty stupid and grotesque, and I found the response 1.00

00:01:12.340 that I saw from conservatives to be equally stupid, and I actually think it's going to 1.00

00:01:21.500 be a long-term problem, if not a disaster, and it might actually become a disaster. 0.99

00:01:31.260 So this morning, I was just editing this video to get up for subscriber video and all that kind

00:01:38.020 of stuff, but I was doing some research, and I saw these Venezuelan immigrants came originally

00:01:47.500 from the San Antonio area.

00:01:50.440 Now, first off, just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, I presume you have heard

00:01:56.920 that there was this shipment by plane of migrants to Martha's Vineyard. I think it happened last

00:02:04.000 Friday, and they've been processed and so on, and this was really played up. I mean, it was probably

00:02:13.100 tightly coordinated with Tucker Carlson and Fox News and other social media people.

00:02:19.540 So you have all of this, you know, accusations of hypocrisy, I guess is what it is, of sending

00:02:28.760 diversity and migrants to Martha's Vineyard. And oh my gosh, look at how hypocritical they are, 0.97

00:02:37.120 although I don't think the thing makes sense at all. So there have been a lot of shipments of 0.96

00:02:44.200 migrants from mainly Texas, where Greg Abbott, the governor, is basically taking a lot of people

00:02:53.800 who have been processed to some degree and sending them to big cities. I mean, he's saying they're

00:03:01.640 sending them to blue states, but they're sending them to these big cities that are governed by

00:03:05.460 Democrats, where there are millions of immigrants, illegal and otherwise, like Chicago, New York City,

00:03:12.340 Los Angeles, etc. And this has been, there has been some pushback from even, I've noticed it's been

00:03:22.640 brought up even in press conferences for the Biden administration, where they're saying, oh, this is

00:03:28.040 cruel, you're just moving people around and so on. And I guess you can fairly say, well, you know,

00:03:36.200 we're in Texas, we happen to be on the border, and you don't know what we're going through. You don't

00:03:41.960 know how difficult this is, where there are millions. There's actually more border crossings

00:03:47.980 than ever before. I think there was an article I also read that was over, what was the, it was in

00:03:55.840 the New York Times, I forget the exact stat, but it's over a million a month or a year, something like

00:04:01.280 that. Now, that might be a bit deceptive. Because there are far more border agents now. And the way that

00:04:13.760 illegal immigration in the United States is measured is through apprehensions, because that's kind of the only

00:04:19.940 way when you can get a number. I mean, they are illegal immigrants, after all. And, you know, the whole point of 1.00

00:04:30.500 what they're doing is to work in a secret manner. I, I generally don't believe that immigration, 1.00

00:04:41.120 like, illegal immigration across the Mexican border is higher than it was 20 years ago. And I do think 1.00

00:04:49.500 that I don't doubt that it's high and that it's out of control. I don't doubt that at all. But

00:04:53.980 I'm just saying this purely anecdotally, but we didn't have a Department of Homeland Security

00:05:01.980 in the turn of the 21st century. I guess that came in like 2002 or 2003, it was post 9-11.

00:05:10.880 We had far fewer border agents. And so what I have heard from people, I mean, I grew up in Texas.

00:05:20.340 I remember hearing from my mother and sister who went to some like flea market kind of thing in

00:05:26.440 Mexico, or you could, you know, create amazing prices on, you know, antiques and all this kind

00:05:33.400 of stuff. And they were just describing it is almost comically out of control, where they were sitting

00:05:41.120 in their hotel in Mexico, and just watching people cross the border, perhaps they were perhaps they're on

00:05:48.300 the border, like staying at, you know, a Hilton or whatever, near the Mexican border, and just watching

00:05:56.420 dozens of people cross at will. I do think it was actually worse 20 years ago, but I don't doubt that it's 1.00

00:06:04.000 out of control now. And, and obviously, it seems worse now, because we have more information. But anyway, I get it,

00:06:14.740 it is a huge problem. They're claiming this is a Biden issue. But again, that also is rather

00:06:22.400 not exactly accurate. Biden has, you know, to the chagrin of most of the liberals maintained

00:06:31.440 the Trump era policy. Now they've, they've tried to reverse things of like, separating children from

00:06:39.900 their parents, and some of the more draconian things, but they haven't really gone towards all

00:06:46.000 open borders. I mean, it's an it's an out of control situation. And I'm forgetting the exact

00:06:53.560 I'm forgetting the exact piece of regulation that they've maintained, but they have effective,

00:07:00.240 there's the name for it. It's like section seven, or something like that. Anyway,

00:07:03.720 I'll have to go look into it. I'm sure it can get lost in the details. But the overall picture is

00:07:09.980 that they have maintained that Kamala Harris traveled to Mexico and told people not to come

00:07:15.760 the borders closed. So we're just basically in the status quo. But of course, conservatives,

00:07:22.500 and we're also in a very different environment than we were in COVID, where not only did you have,

00:07:27.880 you know, the pandemic, but you just had this major slowdown, shutdown for, you know, for a long time,

00:07:36.880 but certainly a massive slowdown, in terms of the economic incentives to migrate. So there were

00:07:43.820 less construction, restaurants were closed down, etc. But you know, it is an issue. It's a real issue.

00:07:52.400 But it's also this kind of theatrical issue. So Ron DeSantis saw what Greg Abbott was doing,

00:08:02.080 in terms of moving migrants to big cities. And he also saw the pushback that it got,

00:08:10.080 that the liberals were freaking out and seemingly being racist in a way, because they're saying,

00:08:17.240 you know, what are you doing? This is extremely cruel. And you can counter, well, what,

00:08:21.880 you've told us that, you know, people don't have borders, or, you know, diversity is our strength.

00:08:28.620 So why are you complaining? And so it becomes this kind of passive, aggressive maneuver. And,

00:08:35.460 you know, Ron DeSantis just one-upped everyone by not sending them to, say, Chicago or Boston,

00:08:45.760 but sending them to Martha's Venue, which is this beautiful, and, as you've heard, you know,

00:08:53.240 extremely luxurious and wealth, wealthy island in Massachusetts. I've actually been there as many,

00:09:06.280 many years ago is when I was actually a child. But yeah, an awesome place to live. And it is kind of a

00:09:13.120 image of an older America. I was actually up in Boston just a couple of weeks ago. And

00:09:19.680 because I got shipped on a plane by Ron DeSantis. No, just kidding. I was just visiting Matt and a

00:09:27.320 mutual friend. And yeah, Massachusetts is gorgeous. And you do when you're around Concord and other

00:09:36.980 places. Concord is much more of like a working class place. But nevertheless, it just, yeah, there's a

00:09:43.980 really nostalgic kind of older America that is still visible. And so basically, they shipped them to

00:09:54.620 Martha's Vineyard. Now, also, Barack Obama has this, you know, gigantic estate in Martha's Vineyard.

00:10:01.320 I'm sure there are other celebrities or just extremely wealthy people. I'm not quite convinced that it's

00:10:08.120 entirely liberal. I mean, granted, it's Massachusetts. And there is a strong tendency for wealthy people to

00:10:17.780 adopt the Democratic Party. Now, there wasn't one, say, 20 or 30 years ago. And, but I imagine you could find

00:10:29.600 quite a few Republicans in Martha's Vineyard. But putting that aside, it just becomes this

00:10:36.160 really kind of strange political stunt where they passively, aggressively force the migrants to be in 0.99

00:10:49.400 Martha's Vineyard. And then it's a heads I win, tails you lose situation. So, and I saw some of these

00:10:59.220 opening monologues from Tucker Carlson, where, that I just found on YouTube, because they're, they're put up

00:11:10.540 there. I saw some clips on Twitter as well. And it's, it's kind of this weird thing of like, what exactly do you

00:11:18.240 expect them to do? And so he, he did one monologue on, on Friday, I believe, where he was like, oh, well,

00:11:27.000 look, finally, at last, this, you know, 89% white Martha's Vineyard will be diversified. You know, they

00:11:35.380 should have a ticker tape parade, but oh, no, there's nothing going on. There's, there's just crickets. He

00:11:41.240 actually showed a live image of Martha's Vineyard, like the center of Martha's Vineyard. And they played

00:11:45.740 crickets as an audio track over it. But what, what do you, like, what are you talking about? Like

00:11:53.780 this, this was a political stunt created by a governor. And the whole point of it was that no

00:12:01.260 one was notified. They, these people were promised, well, we learn later, they're promised jobs, they're

00:12:07.300 promised food and shelter, et cetera. And they're put on a plane and flown up there clandestinely. So what

00:12:15.000 do you, what do you, how could they possibly throw a ticker tape parade to embrace diversity

00:12:20.580 in this situation? It's just total nonsense. And then you have, again, this heads I win, tails you

00:12:27.760 lose attitude with Martha Vineyard, Vineyard people. So basically the people there said, and they're

00:12:34.980 obviously being accurate. Maybe they're, I don't know. I mean, I get the hypocrisy thing, but they're

00:12:41.120 just being accurate. This is a super wealthy elite town. There is no like homeless, there's no homeless

00:12:51.120 shelter here. There's no, like, I guess they could maybe work in a restaurant bussing tables or

00:12:58.060 something, but this is just not the place for them. There's no processing center here that would be in

00:13:04.640 Boston or something. So there's, you know, you can, there's nothing for them to do. And then the,

00:13:11.520 the, the conservatives would be like, well, you should just take them into your homes, just, you know,

00:13:16.860 uh, uh, set up a new room for them, have them marry your daughter or whatever. I mean, it's just all 0.81

00:13:21.280 this really extreme, unreasonable, passive aggressive nonsense. And the fact is those people,

00:13:29.720 the people of Martha's Vineyard dealt with, um, the situation in a reasonable manner. They were

00:13:38.060 like serving them food or something. And again, I saw this one clip where Tucker Carlson was accusing

00:13:43.680 them. Why are you giving them just, you know, kind of like Mexican food or hamburgers or whatever they

00:13:48.500 gave them some basic thing. Um, why didn't you give them kale? And, you know, uh, uh, I don't know,

00:13:55.940 some kind of confit or, uh, uh, uh, you know, why didn't you give them some, the elaborate food that

00:14:02.260 you eat or something? This is just totally ridiculous. And I, I don't, you know, again, 0.99

00:14:11.120 if they had, um, like lynched them or something, then the conservatives would be like, oh, look at 1.00

00:14:19.160 these racist bastards. Dems are the real racist. That's horrible. If they treated them in a reasonable 1.00

00:14:25.920 manner, then they're like, oh, well, why didn't you, uh, you know, give them chocolate eclairs and,

00:14:33.140 you know, moose and so on. It's just, it's just heads I win, tails you lose. It's just totally

00:14:39.320 ridiculous. And it's just this kind of like passive aggressive thing. I mean, I noticed this one, 0.97

00:14:44.900 I saw this other monologue from Tucker Carlson where I thought he was actually, cause Tucker is

00:14:51.600 smarter. Tucker due to his dad's, um, uh, fortuitous marriage was raised in, uh, the lap of luxury,

00:15:02.460 uh, the Swanson TV dinner fortune, whatever. Um, and, and so he is smarter. He is kind of more

00:15:11.220 cultured and educated. And he, he's done this thing that I've seen him do before where he's,

00:15:17.020 he's saying something that is actually real. And that I, I totally sympathize with, which is like,

00:15:23.480 you know, most of America used to look like Martha's Vineyard. Well, that's not exactly true,

00:15:29.980 but we get your point that things used to be a little more human centered, walkable,

00:15:36.420 just pretty nice wooden buildings, colonial architecture. Okay. We get it. That's an

00:15:43.700 exaggeration, but I get your point. And, um, and he was like, well, now the wealthier just hoarding

00:15:51.660 things for themselves as if this is some like sadistic act done by wealthy liberals. Um, I think

00:16:01.900 it is pretty telling that where there isn't a lot of wealth, you have, you know, the dollar store,

00:16:08.220 which is this metaphor that Tucker uses and McDonald's and truck stops and Walmart and all this

00:16:15.420 other stuff. Um, and it is interesting that when people of, you know, wealth education and refinement

00:16:25.500 are given the opportunity, they find a way to live in a kind of nostalgic like world of America's past.

00:16:37.720 That is very interesting. And I, uh, you know, there's some counter examples to that, of course,

00:16:44.460 but I, I get it. It's, it's correct. Um, but then Tucker's, uh, response to that is that like,

00:16:54.400 this is great that we're just sending this diversity there. It's this kind of like passive aggressive, 0.72

00:17:00.160 we're going to go put a turd in your punch bowl. And I just, I don't know, this whole thing just

00:17:09.820 strikes me as grotesque. Um, why is it that we have Walmarts and dollar stores and so on? There

00:17:20.580 are actually some real reasons to that. And it has not been created by sadistic white Democrats because 0.98

00:17:28.780 they hate Americans or something like that. It's a largely a product of, you know, uh, car culture, 0.98

00:17:38.500 unadulterated capitalism, um, lack of zoning laws, and to be frank, a real problem of bad taste

00:17:48.680 among developers and even the people who patron this stuff. Um, so it is what it is. It's a, it is a

00:17:57.400 serious issue. I, I resonate with the kind of conservative, um, you know, almost kind of hoity

00:18:05.140 toity lament at the lack of culture and sophistication and so on of so much of America. I get it,

00:18:14.440 but it's not a product of like white Democrats who did this intentionally to harm people because 0.91

00:18:23.320 they hate America. It's just ridiculous to say that. And when you do say that and you make it this 0.99

00:18:30.080 kind of like neo Southern strategy technique, you're going to be completely, you'll be completely

00:18:37.160 unable to actually solve that problem. I mean, there are ways of making the current fallen world

00:18:49.360 we live in nicer. You can actually have real strict zoning laws. You can promote the creation of public

00:18:58.860 infrastructure and public parks. You can have architectural committees, which become the bane of the existence of

00:19:06.840 developers, but, and I get that, but maybe there's actually a good reason why you should maintain some kind of

00:19:15.660 consistent style that is connected to tradition. You can actually do these things. And it is very often

00:19:24.600 liberals who do do these things and like liberal hoity toity fruity people who actually care about this stuff

00:19:36.640 and want to engage in some kind of historic preservation and so on. And in doing it, drive up property values.

00:19:45.000 So there, yeah, there's kind of like a, a yin and yang to it or a flip side to it. I get all of that,

00:19:52.540 but, you know, even if there are these contradictions, there are ways of solving that problem.

00:19:58.820 And to just blame it on rich whites, it's kind of absurd.

00:20:07.560 And I guess even more absurd knowing Tucker Carlson's background, but anyway, I do think that DeSantis' plan was a little too cute by half.

00:20:24.260 Um, so as of this morning, um, the, uh, police chief in San Antonio is considering, uh, leveling charges against, uh, DeSantis for, in effect, human trafficking.

00:20:42.220 Now, it was interesting that he said, these are, um, the, uh, police chief said that these people were here legally.

00:20:50.320 And what he, he, he, he of course didn't mean that they're citizens. Uh, what he meant is that I, I presume they're applying for asylum or applying for some kind of status.

00:21:01.040 So you are there legally, you're, you're kind of like, you know, a tourist in a way, um, in the sense that, you know, you can travel to another country and not get expelled immediately.

00:21:12.420 So what they were doing was illegally, but they were actually enticed under a false premise to engage in this political stunt.

00:21:21.040 And so I don't know exactly what law might be applied to this, but it could very well be kidnapping or human trafficking.

00:21:30.320 And this could very well end up as a total disaster. Um, now, obviously DeSantis didn't kill them. He did seem to lie to them.

00:21:42.160 Um, he, uh, this was tightly planned. There was a videographer on board. There was a, um, hired plane. Uh, they were giving them maps and all this kind of stuff, uh, telling them that this, you know, they, they were actually misinforming them about where they need to go visit, um, immigration, you know, processing centers.

00:22:05.200 But they were absolutely lying to them. And so it's just, you know, no, I, I don't think they, DeSantis wanted to kill them or whatever, but, you know, you still cannot, you know, you can't kidnap someone under false premise, even if your, uh, intentions are not totally malign.

00:22:29.980 Um, you know, you, you, you can't just tell me, Oh, you know, um, I'm, uh, I'm going to take you on a, um, you, you've just won a free hiking trip. Congratulations. You know, come with me this right this way. And then you fly me to St. Louis, Missouri or something and be like, ah, psych. Ha ha ha. Well, don't worry about it. You didn't know skin off your back.

00:22:53.900 You just simply, even if it is like somewhat benign, it is still illegal to do this. And so I think this might very well turn into a complete disaster. Um, there was another report that, uh, that the, the plane is actually scheduled to fly to like where Joe Biden has a summer home or something.

00:23:18.840 So again, it's just this endless kind of passive aggressive attempt to rub the liberals face in diversity. And so it's, it's a kind of double message. So on the one hand, it relies totally on a sort of racism.

00:23:38.140 And the sense that it, you know, none of this makes sense if all of these people are, you know, from Finland and they're, uh, you know, applying to be a side, their asylum seekers, because they're just too horrified by the prime ministers, um, uh, partying with Instagram, um, influencers.

00:24:05.580 And they're just horrified by this. It's gone too far this time. And we need to apply for, you know, asylum in the United States, where, uh, at least your presidents aren't, uh, dancing and getting drunk and hanging out with bare chested Instagram models.

00:24:21.940 Um, you know, no one, if that were the case, then you would expect these Finnish people to be completely upstanding, probably have, you know, money in the bank, able to handle themselves, find hotels, get a job, et cetera. 0.98

00:24:39.340 No, the whole point of it is that these are the wretched of the earth. And it doesn't make sense otherwise. And so it relies on this kind of racism. And yet the overriding message of it is Dems are the real racist.

00:24:56.880 So it's basically saying, oh, you Martha, you racist Martha's Vineyard residing bastards. You want to keep out all this diversity because of your racism. And so we're going to force it on you. So it's, it's a kind of weird game. And I, I don't think, I don't think it's going to work. 1.00

00:25:21.360 I think generally speaking, talking about illegal immigration and particularly as it kind of like affects people's lives, there's crime, there, you know, working class people can get displaced or whatever. I think those are all pretty much winning issues, um, for Republicans. Um, but this kind of political stunt and owning the libs games, gamesmanship, not to mention if it blows up in DeSantis' face and he's

00:25:50.900 has like a legal investigation. I just don't see this as winning at all. And I, I, yeah, I ultimately find it to be a stupid and grotesque stunt and not at all surprising. Again, it's like, you know, if taking Tucker Carlson as like the, the most intelligent

00:26:19.320 and cultured view of this, if you believe that Martha's Vineyard is beautiful and represents some timeless American value or style that you want to maintain, why are you forcing, you know, migrants there? Why, why would you do that? Isn't that kind of sadistic 0.99

00:26:43.720 on your part? I mean, it's just, the whole thing strikes me as just very odd. I think it's a bad message and is, I think it will ultimately be a, a political failure and it might very well be a political disaster for DeSantis if he gets charged with kidnapping.

00:27:03.720 But anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on the matter. I don't know if you guys want to jump in on this.

RadixJournal - September 22, 2022

Heads, I Win; Tails, You Lose

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