The Last Election
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
134.15688
Summary
In this episode, I discuss the current events surrounding Donald Trump s presidency and how they relate to the current state of the country and the world at large. I also discuss the possibility that Trump could be a traitor or coup attempter and how that could affect the future of the United States.
Transcript
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i wonder the degree to which 2024 will be the last election in the united states
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and i i know that sounds a bit much hysterical etc but i'm not sure it really is you could be
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a serial killer and get elected president from prison uh hypothetically at least uh but
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insurrectionists no and he's not being charged on those matters but it does he is effectively
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being charged as a traitor or coup attempter and we're these things are adding up to where
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his possible jail sentences are much longer than this 80 year old man will be alive it's basically
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the election is pitched to the point of and this is how it will be perceived even if it won't quite
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work out this way that it's pitched to the point of when or you die and i i think there's always
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been an existential quality to trump from 2016 and onward i mean in 2016 there was a lot of talk
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of the wall which is you know of course a kind of existential entity even if it was used simply as
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a mnemonic for trump to remember to talk about immigration which is what i learned from maggie
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haberman's book regardless there was an existential quality to it are you know are we going to be a
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nation or are we not and yes everyone always says this is the most important election of your lifetime
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but there was a little more oomph to this one with that concept of the wall and it's funny you know when
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you look back on it that this you know goofy uh reality show star fraudulent uh internet celebrity
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uh former real estate wheeler dealer who blew himself up doing casinos in atlantic city i mean it is kind of
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hilarious that such a person would speak to americans on this existential level but there you go uh in 2020
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it i i think there was the general angst of covid and the general sense of something has gone wrong
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we don't trust the government there's you add to this blm which i think was not caused by covid
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it was certainly catalyzed by covid i don't i i don't you know beyond george floyd it was it came
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in the wake of everyone being locked up for for three months and wanting to go outside and and how
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and carrying these burden of extreme angst as well so it was all there was an existential quality to
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2020 and of course with the election and all that um you know immediately afterward everyone was patting
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themselves on the on the back um trump announced that you know we won and it wasn't even close or
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whatever he said and uh then it became this existential crisis of you know what do we think
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of elections uh is it real uh can we trust any of this uh and maybe there was a little underlying
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anxiety about uh demographic change you know election fraud almost seems a kind of metaphor
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for demographic fraud or different graphic change you could say so there was another existential
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quality to this and now it's been pitched up to kind of a personal level but it's
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i i i think but that i that's not to say that it is diminishing its quality you know it's not all of
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these politicians are you know you could say rampant uh narcissist and and and egomaniacs etc i mean that
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comes with the territory there's not a i i think the people who are in the state house in wyoming are
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probably rampant narcissists on some levels this is just a given with any politician so but with trump
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the personal is bigger than that i mean the personal is deeply symbolic and monumental and it becomes
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whether trump is going to survive or whether he is going to be sent to prison now you could argue
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if if we do have another indictment coming down from georgia about his phone call and attempt to
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capture what is it we all we need is 50 000 votes or whatever he said um
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he can't pardon himself if he wins in a state crime uh now maybe there's a way around that maybe
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once if he were to be president they the georgia district attorney would be just kind of at a loss
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to do anything it's you know how can we prosecute this person at this time we get delayed indefinitely
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who knows but there is this sense of like where can we go beyond this and you could say that this is
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all you know great theater break out the popcorn that's true you could say this is a nightmare when
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can we go back to normal there's also some truth to that but like i i guess my view of this is like
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where do you exactly go from here um if trump wins and pardons himself or something
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i i i think there will be some sort of unrest on the left and at the very least there's going to be
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a tremendous amount of anxiety now i don't think trump will win but does he have a five percent chance
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absolutely uh it can be done he probably had a five percent chance in 2016 and he did it you know
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at it's very few teams go undefeated you know like at some point just something is going to go wrong
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and the best team in the league loses to the worst team in the league due to due to a fluke or
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their best player got the flu etc i mean these things happen then they always happen they happen
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regularly a five percent chance is actually huge you certainly wouldn't get on an airplane if they
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said there's a 95 percent chance that we're going to land safely i mean that five percent chance is a
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real thing he he has something like that in order to win maybe it's higher maybe it's 10 maybe it's 20
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i don't think it's 50 but it's something and like i i think that that would create some sort of unrest
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obviously he loses i i just i don't see how the conservatives can talk themselves out of this frenzy
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this this this this like lather that they have about uh uh elections being fraudulent you know it's
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like the at the very mildest they will say that you know the the prosecutors and jack smith and the
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deep state they just threw everything at the wall to try to get something to stick and they destroyed
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this innocent man by just indicting him to death effectively that that will be the mildest thing
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they would say um we know that they are willing to use cockamamie cockamamie legal theories in order to
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try to keep trump in office there's an interesting kind of moment in the indictment as well
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uh where trump was speaking with uh i i guess it's like co-conspirator six or something it's the guy
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who was like an environmental lawyer who became who was up for uh replacing bill barr etc and they they
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were talking about this they were saying like people are going to go nuts if you remain in office
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you know the the the democratic coalition of all of these millions of people they got excited about
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the election they were talking about it obsessed with it they went out to vote more people voted in
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history if you remain in office there is going to be rioting and the response to that was that's when
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we use the insurrection act so you know as buffoonish as j6 was it was very real it was very much an
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attempt to keep trump in office if he had pulled that card i i think you know probably 90 percent of
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or 95 percent of the bureaucracy would have uh you resigned and protest i mean who you know obviously
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god knows what would have happened but that that idea is in the air i mean they have done this and
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presumably they would be a little bit better at it or even more brutal about it let's not even lie
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about it anymore let's just force our way in and we'll use the you know election lies we'll use whatever
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maybe we won't even use those at some point maybe we'll just outright say we cannot allow the evil
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democrats in the deep state to control the country it's 1776 time now i think they're going to fail but
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like where do you go from that i mean there's just there's no reason for me to believe that things are
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getting milder or softer or you know this is just going to be fun and games so i i don't know i mean i i
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wonder the degree to which this is the last election and i don't think i'm being i don't
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think i'm being hysterical about this i think this is a very real thing but do you guys want to jump in