The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 29, 2024


PREVIEW: Brokenomics | Will Trump Win? with Dr. Steve Turley


Episode Stats

Length

24 minutes

Words per Minute

185.06038

Word Count

4,613

Sentence Count

289

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

We're a week from Election Day, and there's a lot to be optimistic about. We talk to Dr. Steve Turley about why we should be optimistic, and why we shouldn't be. Plus, we talk about why it's a good idea to vote early.


Transcript

00:00:00.120 Hello, and welcome to Brokernomics. Now, as you can see, I've been upgraded to the main studio today.
00:00:04.680 The tech gremlins have eaten my library, so we have people working on that.
00:00:09.620 Now, we're a week away from the election, possibly one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime.
00:00:16.720 Now, I know they always say that, but normally that's not true.
00:00:19.240 It really doesn't make any difference if it's Obama or whoever that other guy was.
00:00:23.220 I've forgotten his name already.
00:00:24.180 You know, a lot of the time it's just uniparty versus uniparty, but this time it really does matter.
00:00:30.700 On one hand, you've got a man who could save Western civilization against a low IQ puppet who would start World War III if they told it to or put it on the teleprompter.
00:00:38.600 So what I really need in these nail-biting last few days before the election is I need an injection of optimism.
00:00:45.360 And for that, we've reached out to fan favorite Dr. Steve Turley.
00:00:49.580 Welcome back to Brokernomics.
00:00:50.640 Dan, it's an honor. It's great to be with kindred spirits here.
00:00:54.380 I'll try to be as optimistic as I can.
00:00:57.660 Well, how is the optimism going?
00:00:59.520 And what are your optimism levels going into this?
00:01:03.120 Well, Dan, I was raised in a middle-class neighborhood with...
00:01:06.320 No, that's been Kamala's stock answer for anything she's asked.
00:01:13.180 Well, it's funny because we've just been through an election where the guy...
00:01:16.680 Every single question was...
00:01:17.900 My dad was a toolmaker, so I know what you're going through.
00:01:20.640 Yeah, they must have the same advisors of the advisor class.
00:01:24.540 It's just...
00:01:25.100 They're the same on both sides of the pond.
00:01:27.480 Yeah, I think there is cautious optimism.
00:01:32.800 There is definitely a sense among the right here that this may be it.
00:01:40.380 Kamala looks like she's collapsing.
00:01:42.440 All the indicators certainly seem to suggest that.
00:01:45.180 But people are very worried.
00:01:47.960 We were talking before the interview.
00:01:50.580 Our elections are basically third world.
00:01:53.160 I mean, that's an insult to the third world, to be honest with you.
00:01:56.940 Our elections...
00:01:58.460 They come down to the different states.
00:02:00.760 Each state is in charge of their own elections.
00:02:03.440 So Florida always wraps up the results within basically an hour or two after the polls close.
00:02:10.600 Texas always gives you the results.
00:02:13.000 Tennessee, North Carolina, you name it.
00:02:15.480 It's always those states like Georgia.
00:02:18.660 These swing states, as we call them.
00:02:20.420 Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.
00:02:24.480 Oh, we'll know in three days, four days after the election.
00:02:27.460 And it just, it really does reek of corruption for a lot of people.
00:02:32.980 So there's a lot of concern there.
00:02:34.440 We're all still kind of traumatized from 2020 when Trump almost pulled it off.
00:02:39.700 It came within 40,000 votes of winning that election.
00:02:43.620 And it was just so clearly the establishment just united against him.
00:02:51.000 Talk about election interference all the way through.
00:02:53.860 And then that same establishment, particularly the legacy media, tells us, oh, no, it's the
00:02:58.440 most pristine election ever to have taken place in the history of humanity.
00:03:03.100 So I think there's still a lot of trauma that's getting worked out.
00:03:08.920 It's kind of our Vietnam of elections.
00:03:12.020 You know, we're still trying to get over those ghosts.
00:03:15.340 But all the indicators show Trump is stronger than he has ever been, either in 2016 or 2020.
00:03:21.260 And the Democrat is weaker than they've ever been.
00:03:24.380 Well, I mean, it's probably no coincidence that the swing states are the ones that take
00:03:27.940 the longest account.
00:03:28.740 I'm sure that's not, you know, that's not happenstance.
00:03:32.200 I think if this was a normal election, everything I'm seeing tells me that Trump would absolutely
00:03:36.440 romp home.
00:03:37.240 But of course, the question is, can he win by greater than the margin that they couldn't
00:03:42.660 fortify?
00:03:43.960 There you go.
00:03:44.700 The margin of fraud, as we call it.
00:03:47.440 Yeah, and I look at some things and I think it's a deadlock.
00:03:51.760 He's definitely, definitely going to win.
00:03:53.940 And then I listen to people like, I don't say, Mike Benz, who looks a lot at the security
00:03:58.780 state.
00:03:59.380 And I think, but they cannot let him.
00:04:02.860 So, I mean, I don't know.
00:04:04.380 I mean, how much protection is there in the system against, you know, just sheer vote
00:04:09.460 power?
00:04:09.980 I mean, how much can they really do if they need to?
00:04:12.680 The whole system is obfuscated by design.
00:04:17.860 You can't audit it.
00:04:20.480 You can't canvas the votes, as we say.
00:04:24.600 There is, the system is designed to be confusing, like our tax systems.
00:04:31.260 And unfortunately, yeah, Benz is pressing on a soft spot in our elections.
00:04:39.700 Just, you would hope that there's still, at least at the state level, because that's
00:04:44.180 what's running this.
00:04:45.400 It's not the federal governments, the state governments, that there's still enough integrity
00:04:49.860 there for this to be a fair and free election, basically.
00:04:55.580 You know, there's still going to be a bunch of cheating there, no question.
00:04:58.600 And I'm right outside of Philly.
00:05:00.740 And Philly is notorious for, you know, having 105% turnout in some districts, you know.
00:05:06.600 So, um, but that is impressive civil engagement.
00:05:10.320 That is my late grandparents didn't know they voted for Obama, you know.
00:05:17.400 So, yeah, uh, right.
00:05:19.660 It's, uh, again, though, one of the things we do have to, we'll bring the optimism back.
00:05:24.860 We have to protect ourselves from, uh, is what we call doomerism.
00:05:28.720 Uh, what I like to say is stop dooming about it and do something about it.
00:05:32.820 Uh, it's very American, right?
00:05:34.660 You find a little, a little jingle there.
00:05:36.540 Stop dooming about it.
00:05:37.700 Start doing something about it.
00:05:39.480 I mean, contact your local officials and the like, make sure they're doing whatever they,
00:05:43.340 um, possibly can to secure the democratic integrity of this election.
00:05:47.980 Because again, I don't, to be honest with you, Dan, I just got to tell you, I don't know
00:05:51.280 how Kamala can win legitimately in the eyes of, oh yeah, we're talking to 80 million people
00:05:57.680 right now that just, no matter what they could blame, they can blame Trump's loss on Jack
00:06:02.640 Smith and our, our, the prosecution and the lawfare.
00:06:05.560 They can blame it on the way the media has been covering up for, uh, for Kamala.
00:06:10.020 They can blame it all, all kinds.
00:06:11.780 They can blame it on just, you know, blatant nefarious forces and behind the, uh, the polling
00:06:16.840 in, in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, they can blame it all kinds of things that
00:06:20.420 Democrats can't win.
00:06:22.280 It seems to me a legitimate election anymore.
00:06:25.080 This, this is unfortunately the, the toll of 2020.
00:06:28.560 That's still, it's a scar.
00:06:29.920 That's going to be with us for a long time.
00:06:32.320 Yeah.
00:06:32.840 So, uh, well, actually, I mean, on that, they might be doing us a favor because if this
00:06:39.480 was a normal election, a lot of people might feel that they don't need to do their best,
00:06:44.280 but they don't need to go out and vote because it's such a lot for Trump.
00:06:47.000 Whereas raising this ambiguity and everybody knowing that they need to vote so strong that
00:06:51.380 it goes beyond the margin of fortification, it could actually end up rebounding in our
00:06:54.820 favor.
00:06:55.440 I mean, that's a possibility.
00:06:57.300 Um, it's, it seems, it seems to be happening, uh, with the early voting.
00:07:01.420 Well, the, uh, yeah, the Republicans are crushing it.
00:07:04.520 We've never seen early voting numbers like this.
00:07:06.660 Never.
00:07:07.080 I mean, they're, they're ahead in North Carolina.
00:07:09.180 Republicans are never ahead in early voting.
00:07:12.160 Democrats, Republicans are election day civic duty voters.
00:07:16.360 They've been that way for decades.
00:07:18.160 They're ahead in Arizona.
00:07:19.940 They're ahead in Georgia.
00:07:21.400 They're ahead in North Carolina.
00:07:23.220 This is, this is insane.
00:07:25.540 What's driving that then?
00:07:26.700 Is that because of there's always election day shenanigans.
00:07:29.800 I mean, I remember things like sending the wrong size ballot papers out to coincidentally,
00:07:34.680 um, only Republican voting areas so that they wouldn't run through the, you know, the automatic
00:07:39.860 counting machines, you know, doing other things, you know, uh, not, not giving the right
00:07:44.400 power supply to the voting machines in Republican only areas by coincidence, but there was long
00:07:48.740 queues.
00:07:49.280 Is, is it Republicans are sort of wising up to, they know that they're going to, they
00:07:53.440 are actively going to be disenfranchised and therefore they need to pull every lever.
00:07:57.000 Uh, yes.
00:07:58.520 Yeah.
00:07:58.760 I think you said it perfectly.
00:08:00.540 I think we've been waiting for this for four years.
00:08:03.260 We've been waiting for this moment for four years.
00:08:05.580 We knew Trump was going to come back for a third go.
00:08:08.700 Uh, we, we knew this was going to be Trump 2.0 and we just, they've been galvanized and
00:08:14.380 now Laura Trump, his daughter-in-law, uh, she's in charge of the Republican National
00:08:19.200 Committee along with, uh, with Mike Watley, who was instrumental in, uh, turning the Republican
00:08:25.260 Party into a super majority in North Carolina.
00:08:27.860 He's from the North Carolina Republican Party.
00:08:29.760 He's brilliant.
00:08:30.860 I think, I think they're, I think they're up to it again.
00:08:33.280 We'll see, we'll see how it plays out.
00:08:35.340 But right now, as we speak, Republicans are crushing early voting like never before.
00:08:40.980 And I just think it's, it's been this get out the vote effort, this, uh, voter registration
00:08:45.640 effort and, uh, and, and also get getting out what we call low propensity to no propensity
00:08:52.000 voters.
00:08:52.480 So voters who didn't vote, who only voted in one of the last four elections, they're
00:08:58.060 called low propensity and voters that didn't vote in any of the last four elections are
00:09:02.700 called no propensity, low prop and no prop.
00:09:05.680 And we're finding, uh, they're coming out in spades for early voting that, that comes
00:09:10.140 through the voter registration efforts and, and ballot chasing and all that.
00:09:14.360 And, uh, they're voting overwhelmingly Republican, very similar.
00:09:17.820 We'll talk about, I'm sure, very similar to the Brexit vote, uh, where, where low prop
00:09:23.120 and no prop voters came out in mass to vote for that referendum.
00:09:27.440 I mean, I, I've, I've seen a number of clips at this point of, um, these sort of vox pops
00:09:32.500 on the streets of, of black men being asked which way they're going to vote.
00:09:36.020 And now, of course, historically, they've always gone very heavily Democrat and to a man,
00:09:40.780 they're going, there's no way I'm letting that woman to be president.
00:09:42.880 Um, yeah, it's stunning and, and it's gotten so bad now that they're blaming, they're not
00:09:48.300 blaming race anymore.
00:09:50.280 Now, now they're deferring back to sex.
00:09:52.520 They're deferring back to gender, right?
00:09:55.200 So it's men, it's men who, who, uh, I love, uh, who was it who said it?
00:10:00.360 I forget the other day.
00:10:01.460 Um, men are worried about strong, independent women who are, uh, who are seeking power.
00:10:08.820 And so these men are becoming fascists.
00:10:11.780 Yeah, I think this is Mika Brzezinski from MSNBC.
00:10:14.820 These men are becoming fascists.
00:10:16.620 They're embracing fascism to stop these strong, independent women from, from, uh, taking power.
00:10:23.700 And I'm thinking, you mean like Georgia Maloney?
00:10:26.640 You mean like Marine Le Pen?
00:10:29.520 So, so, so strong, independent women, strong, independent women seeking power.
00:10:34.620 They can't be called fascists, Mika.
00:10:37.480 Do you, do I need to actually bring back to you the headlines that were greeting Georgia
00:10:42.780 Maloney and, uh, Marine Le Pen or the, uh, Lee, I'm forgetting her name, the leader of
00:10:47.200 the AFD, the alternative for Deutschland, uh, you know, they're, they're, I mean, yeah,
00:10:51.520 Dutch farmers party.
00:10:52.680 I mean, yeah, there's a whole bunch of them, isn't there?
00:10:53.860 Yeah.
00:10:54.140 Exactly.
00:10:54.780 Exactly.
00:10:55.300 They have females, strong females leading them, but who are fascists in the end, they
00:10:59.580 just have no intellectual credibility whatsoever at this point.
00:11:03.220 Yeah.
00:11:04.280 So, I mean, a number of, I mean, we're here to talk about your book, which is excellent,
00:11:08.080 by the way, we are definitely coming to that, but I just want to catch up on a couple of
00:11:11.720 bits that have happened since we last spoke.
00:11:13.800 I mean, the, the big political events has been many, but I mean, I think we'd probably
00:11:17.400 focus on things like, um, JD Vance coming on board, um, the candidates switching to Kamala,
00:11:23.800 a couple of assassinations.
00:11:25.380 There's also a UK, UK election, but boring.
00:11:28.040 We talk about that another time.
00:11:29.540 Um, yeah, I mean, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we're on the front, you, you were
00:11:32.680 on the front lines, a change of that, man.
00:11:34.700 You, you even coined the term.
00:11:37.240 We, we, we, we did what we could on that one, but, uh, but yeah, so, I mean, uh, I mean,
00:11:42.800 where do we, where do we start?
00:11:43.840 I mean, what do you want to go with, uh, um, JD Vance, I think was the first, wasn't,
00:11:47.140 no, actually, no, the assassination was first, wasn't it?
00:11:49.700 By a day.
00:11:50.340 Yeah, that's right.
00:11:51.440 So that's true.
00:11:52.220 That was July 13th.
00:11:53.600 So that would have been a week, about a week before he chose JD Vance.
00:11:57.320 Cause he, it was on a Saturday and they had the Republican convention that week, that following
00:12:02.800 week.
00:12:03.740 Uh, yeah, yeah.
00:12:05.120 Um, what do you make of Vance then?
00:12:06.900 I mean, what, what, what's your assessment of that pick?
00:12:09.800 Vance, Vance is huge.
00:12:11.400 It's, it's absolutely, it's, Vance has solidified the fact that the Republican party is now officially
00:12:17.800 our reform party.
00:12:19.920 So Trump in many ways is a third party candidate, right?
00:12:24.100 Third party can't who took over a major party.
00:12:26.840 So it'd be something akin to Farage taking over the Tories and just totally revamping them.
00:12:33.200 The Republicans have, have fought tooth and nail all these eight years, uh, for this.
00:12:39.720 They were hoping Trump was a one and done.
00:12:42.100 He was a fluke.
00:12:43.920 Um, JD Vance is now, especially after the VP,
00:12:47.640 debate where he demolished Tim Walz, who just ended up looking like a cartoon character
00:12:52.260 up there.
00:12:53.260 Um, he has now solidified the future of the Republican party as a MAGA, uh, party as, as
00:13:01.000 a, as our reform party.
00:13:03.240 That's so you're confident that MAGA will outlift Trump.
00:13:06.940 Absolutely.
00:13:07.480 That's what my book's all about.
00:13:08.820 Absolutely.
00:13:09.560 The, because again, we, we have a lot of that, uh, uh, oh, we owe over to you because
00:13:15.480 of the, the very similar processes that, uh, that animated Brexit and that will continue
00:13:21.240 to animate our politics.
00:13:23.300 Uh, granted we are, I like to tell our audience, if you're worried about globalism and globalists
00:13:29.540 and liberals and so forth, I'm sorry, you got to look in the mirror.
00:13:32.180 We are it for places like Russia or China or, uh, India or Turkey, uh, liberal globalism
00:13:40.840 is a foreign invader.
00:13:42.160 You know, they're trying, they're trying to take over their country.
00:13:45.080 And so they can galvanize their people and push it back almost like, you know, uh, Attila
00:13:49.480 the Hun threat or something akin to that for us, for us, although you have a little bit
00:13:54.260 of that with the, you had that with the bullies in Brussels for us, it's a civil war.
00:13:58.920 These guys, these guys are entrenched in all of our cultural institutions.
00:14:04.120 They have all the lives of power and, um, it's going to take time to literally exorcise
00:14:11.980 this from, from our, uh, from our society.
00:14:15.540 But the argument I try to make, and I think JD Vance would be a perfect embodiment of it
00:14:20.840 is that there, these are just, you know, history moves like a, like a tide in the ocean
00:14:27.740 and we're on a raft and we can kind of move around and rearrange the tape, the chairs in
00:14:32.280 all kinds of ways, but we're still moving.
00:14:34.300 And what I try to do is look at the big picture trends to show we're moving in a direction
00:14:39.820 that I think, uh, all of us would say is, uh, is the direction of, of sanity and yeah.
00:14:46.700 I don't know if you, if you use the word, if you use those words, you describe it like
00:14:51.280 a tide in the book.
00:14:52.600 I can't remember, but that is very much the kind of message that you're getting across,
00:14:56.300 but there is that sort of groundswell that is happening.
00:14:59.160 So, so yes, we must come to that, but, but also very quickly, um, Kamala.
00:15:05.540 What, um, what do you say?
00:15:09.380 Yeah.
00:15:11.220 Yeah.
00:15:11.760 The, the, the most, the most, probably the most fabricated public figure on the planet
00:15:17.360 right now.
00:15:18.100 I mean, what do you say when she was in a law, when she was a, she was a district attorney,
00:15:24.200 the joke was in California, that if you were a defense attorney and you found out you were
00:15:31.400 going up against Kamala Harris, uh, in the prosecution, you high fived your client said,
00:15:37.240 we got this.
00:15:38.180 She was known all across, all across the Western legal system as one of the stupidest morons
00:15:46.500 out there.
00:15:46.980 And she proves it every day.
00:15:49.220 She proves it.
00:15:50.280 She, you just compare her mind to someone like a JD Vance.
00:15:54.120 And I mean, it's just, I mean, there's, I don't know what do you even say about it?
00:15:58.300 It's obviously she just, she has a really hard time being in front of a camera, being in
00:16:03.280 front of people, being, being in front of us, a puffball interviewer.
00:16:07.420 I mean, it's just, it's bizarre.
00:16:10.340 Is it possible that DEI got her all the way to running for president?
00:16:15.400 Is it, is that possible?
00:16:17.080 It is possible.
00:16:18.020 And you have about 43, 45% of our population ready to reward that because they hate the
00:16:25.400 other side so much.
00:16:26.580 They've learned to hate the, uh, the MAGA side, uh, so much.
00:16:31.260 Um, and, and, and again, it's similar dynamics I know are going across the pond, um, where
00:16:37.580 literally, yeah, where, we're just, where I, I have to say on our side, I have to say
00:16:45.220 because probably because of the, the, um, the strength of religiosity and traditional
00:16:52.540 Christianity, uh, on our side, there's still an empathy that I see for people on the left.
00:16:59.940 I mean, you see it even just the way, the way we stand up for free speech.
00:17:03.980 No, go ahead, say your piece, but allow me to say mine and let's, let's let the best
00:17:08.820 argument win.
00:17:09.620 I think this is why Elon Musk has been coming over and Jordan Peterson have been coming over
00:17:14.000 to our side, but their side is just animated with this radical perspectivalism that says,
00:17:20.560 if you do not, if you do not comport to our way of thinking, you ironically are a heretic
00:17:27.640 and heretics must be punished.
00:17:30.600 They must be burned.
00:17:32.100 Hence cancel culture.
00:17:33.120 That's, it's a form of secular exclusion.
00:17:35.320 And there is, there is a level up from there, isn't there?
00:17:37.880 Um, I've, I've got to get your take on the assassination.
00:17:40.160 You do, you have a touching anecdote, I think at the end of the book, but I, I get the impression
00:17:45.060 most of this book was written by the time the, the assassination taken place, but you've
00:17:49.020 got a touching story at the end, which I won't spoil for people.
00:17:51.280 Um, but yeah, what, what, what, what was your, what was your take on, well, what, what are
00:17:55.660 now, um, two assassination attempts?
00:17:58.140 Yeah.
00:17:58.320 Two assassination attempts.
00:17:59.800 Yeah.
00:18:00.260 Um, it, it was, we've all been, we've all been saying it's not a matter of if it's only
00:18:06.320 a matter of when somebody would try it.
00:18:08.720 We've all been saying that because the rhetoric against Trump is so over the top.
00:18:13.440 I think the latest article, was it from the Atlantic or the New Yorker?
00:18:16.920 Uh, Trump sound, what was the, it was the headline Trump sounds like Hitler, Mussolini
00:18:21.760 and Mao all rolled up in one and everyone just started to lie.
00:18:25.640 It was one of the most mocked, you know?
00:18:28.060 So we've graduated from Trump is Hitler to Trump is Mussolini to Trump is Mao to now let's
00:18:34.460 just throw them all together, you know?
00:18:36.340 Yeah.
00:18:36.560 Stick Gengar Khan in there as well.
00:18:38.200 Why not?
00:18:38.520 Yep.
00:18:39.260 Yeah, exactly.
00:18:40.100 And, and, and one of the most famous moral dilemmas, uh, that we have in hypothetical
00:18:47.160 ethics is, you know, if you could have taken Hitler out, would you have?
00:18:51.740 And 99% of people say, sure.
00:18:53.940 Yeah.
00:18:54.480 Well, there you go.
00:18:57.060 Uh, you know, this, this kid crook tried to ironically, ironic last name, uh, tried to
00:19:02.540 take him out and the, and the radical incompetence.
00:19:05.900 I mean, somebody actually described it as apocalyptic incompetence on the part of the
00:19:12.900 secret service does seem to suggest a kind of intentional neglect.
00:19:18.800 That's how Jack Kosobiec puts it in his book.
00:19:21.140 He just wrote a book on, uh, on the shooting.
00:19:24.180 You could view it as sort of this sarcastic terrorism term that the left sort of originally
00:19:29.340 engendered.
00:19:30.080 You can say, okay, well, on one hand, they're creating, um, a pool of likely shooters with
00:19:35.640 their, their media appearance.
00:19:37.560 Um, now they know that in any large population, you've got, you know, 350 million people to
00:19:42.960 pick from, you run that sort of rhetoric.
00:19:44.700 You are going to generate naturally a number of people who are want to, want to take that
00:19:48.560 shot.
00:19:49.080 And the only thing you need to add to that is opportunity.
00:19:51.660 Um, and it is quite clear that opportunities are being left open in order for that to happen.
00:19:56.860 And, you know, this story has gone very quiet, like a lot of these things do.
00:20:01.000 I mean, the Las Vegas shooter and a whole bunch of other ones, they've, they've gone
00:20:03.720 very quiet and Trump seems to go very quiet on it himself.
00:20:08.300 But I don't think missing a bullet by a quarter of an inch is the sort of thing that you just
00:20:12.480 forget about after a few months.
00:20:13.960 I hope that he's going to bring the hammer down on the deep state and, and the, and the
00:20:18.720 mechanisms that the liberals are running the moment he comes to power.
00:20:22.400 Yes, with him and with Robert Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr.
00:20:25.920 was one of the first people we talked about, talked to afterward.
00:20:29.140 I think that was it.
00:20:30.140 That's when they, they made the decision, uh, to realign, create a populist alignment
00:20:35.280 between the two and, uh, and Elon Musk as well.
00:20:38.460 Elon's already joking.
00:20:39.460 You know, I remember when I took over Twitter, I fired 80% of the workforce there.
00:20:44.500 We can do the same thing in DC.
00:20:46.220 Yeah, exactly.
00:20:47.160 And it's so much better.
00:20:48.400 That would be superb.
00:20:49.460 Yeah.
00:20:49.820 I mean, one of the guys said to me here, he says, um, do you think maybe we're doing too
00:20:54.060 many segments on Trump and Elon?
00:20:55.960 And I've, and I said to him, well, yeah, but if, if this was 48 BC and we had a podcast
00:21:00.840 then, would you be complaining that we're doing too many segments about Pompey and Caesar
00:21:04.260 and Mark Antony?
00:21:05.380 And you don't know, you, you, you, you got, you got to go with the great men of the time,
00:21:08.560 haven't you?
00:21:08.900 I mean, that's, that's the fascinating stuff.
00:21:10.540 Yeah.
00:21:10.640 Yeah.
00:21:10.860 It's what, um, I think Patrick Deneen refers to as, uh, aristopopulism, where he draws from
00:21:16.760 Aristotle on that.
00:21:18.420 Aristotle said you can, you can have an oligarchy that rules for its own values, interests, concerns,
00:21:23.680 and, uh, completely, uh, disregards and dismisses the people, this sort of Marie Antoinette sort
00:21:30.040 of thing, let them, let them eat cake.
00:21:31.640 Uh, or on the other hand, you can have, uh, a total mass, you know, French revolution uprising
00:21:38.540 democracy in its ultimate sense, which is a mob rule.
00:21:43.040 What you want is a balance.
00:21:44.460 You want an aristopopulism you want.
00:21:46.720 And again, the best of when British society is at its best, this is what you guys do.
00:21:51.840 Like no one else, you have an aristocracy that puts into reality that, that uses their
00:21:58.700 power and their influence to make a reality, the values and interests and concerns of the
00:22:03.720 people who do not have the means to do it themselves.
00:22:07.180 And when you have an, an aristopopulism like that, Aristotle says you have the basis for
00:22:12.620 a flourishing society.
00:22:14.120 And I think that's what these guys represent.
00:22:15.840 You want competing, um, tendencies amongst the elites, because if it's not going to be
00:22:21.140 amongst the elites, that circulation of power, it's going to be, it's going to have to be
00:22:24.680 the full French revolution.
00:22:25.680 It's going to have to be that full undoing of a civilization, which could be quite cathartic
00:22:30.480 at this point, but it would also be, you know, there'd be a lot of drama that went
00:22:36.920 along with it.
00:22:37.340 You said it, I did it.
00:22:38.320 You probably don't want to go there.
00:22:41.060 So you want these sort of competing tensions in the elites, but we've had the, we've had
00:22:44.060 for decades now, a system where the system has been so predictable and so uniform that
00:22:49.860 we've had a class of elites who are all basically aligned interest.
00:22:53.120 And that, and that's simply by virtue of the fact that you would not be an elite if
00:22:56.380 you did not compete very well in this stable environment.
00:22:59.140 That's exactly right.
00:22:59.680 So you've got this stable elite, but now we've got, we've got a new elite emerging.
00:23:04.000 Um, you know, Elon is probably the best example of that.
00:23:06.680 Somebody who does not adhere to the old model.
00:23:09.340 Um, you know, and there's a bunch of others.
00:23:11.180 I mean, the, the, the former PayPal guys, you know, the David Sachs and the, um, Peter
00:23:15.740 Teal.
00:23:16.260 Peter Teal.
00:23:17.000 That's the one.
00:23:17.540 You're getting all of these characters emerging.
00:23:19.540 It looks like they're not happy having all of this sort of power and money, but no sort
00:23:24.280 of political influence.
00:23:25.300 And they're, yeah, they're going to try and push through one way or another.
00:23:29.820 And to close the loop on that, JD Vance embodies that because JD Vance made his money with Peter
00:23:35.160 Teal.
00:23:35.560 So he, he brings together Appalachian working class with the new tech, right?
00:23:41.320 That's rising up these kind of anti-Silicon Valley techies like Elon Musk, like Peter
00:23:47.680 Teal, like Vivek Ramaswamy and so forth.
00:23:50.800 Uh, and, and no one embodies the sort of aristopopulist, um, uh, movement, uh, like, uh, JD Vance.
00:23:58.700 Yeah.
00:23:59.600 So Steve, it was, it was so good to catch up, but we must move on to your book because I
00:24:03.520 got this over the weekend.
00:24:05.040 Um, it's a great read.
00:24:07.040 Um, I, I, I, there were many things I like about it.
00:24:09.940 The message, obviously, but I also like the fact that it gets to the point, it delivers
00:24:14.540 its point and it, and it, it doesn't run on anything.
00:24:17.320 What are we, it's something like 150 pages.
00:24:19.300 I'll tell you the amount of books I read these days, the sort of 300 pages long and the second
00:24:23.800 half is all filler.
00:24:25.240 Um, you didn't do that.
00:24:26.520 You made your point and, and you got it done.
00:24:29.040 So I, I really appreciate that if nothing else, but let, let, let, let's, let's jump into,
00:24:33.480 into some of the points you're making there because you start off in, in, in the first
00:24:36.900 chapter, the first part of the book talking about the rise of liberalism.
00:24:39.940 So what is it about liberalism that makes it so incompatible with a decent functioning
00:24:47.600 society?
00:24:48.440 And was, and was it always like that?
00:24:49.920 How did we get into this situation?
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