The David Pakman Show - 11/4/22: Democracy or Gas Prices? Stupid Questions Shouldn't Be Celebrated

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Republicans and many independents seem to care more about the price of gas than protecting democracy -- Tucker Carlson asks stupid questions about the attack on Paul Pelosi -- MyPillow guy Mike Lindell goes wild with conspiracy theories on Lindell TV -- Caller asks when the right will start accepting election results and stop encouraging violence -- Caller wants to know how to convince people about the legitimacy of elections -- Caller wonders what the right would say if a left-winger attacked Melania Trump -- Caller talks about children who have Trump-supporting parents -- Caller is worried the right wing is going to make America a dictatorship -- Caller wants to see the 2022 midterm ballot early -- Caller discusses conspiracy theorists and reality deniers -- David responds to viewer emails and social media messages -- On the Bonus Show: Pelosi attacker was in US illegally, rising profits are driving inflation, #TrumpIsDead trends on Twitter, and much more... 🌳 Established Titles: Code PAKMAN for extra 10% OFF at https://establishedtitles.com/pakman ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 🧻 Reel Paper: Use code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/pakman 👍 Get 20% off an Allform sofa or armchair at https://allform.com/pakman 🔊 Try Blinkist for FREE and get 25% off at http://www.blinkist.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Does MAGA care more about democracy or gas prices, or maybe more accurately, does MAGA care more about democracy or the promise of lower gas prices when the current gas prices aren't even very high? A version of this question is what Chauncey de Vega asks in a very good new commentary in Salon called Is America Ready to Trade Democracy for Cheap Gas? That's fascism in a nutshell. Americans understand, writes Chauncey, that democracy is in dire peril. That doesn't mean they believe in it or give a damn.

I encourage you to check out this piece written yesterday. He references The New York Times headline, which says voters see democracy in peril, but saving it isn't a priority. He writes, the details are grim. Voters, quote, overwhelmingly believe American democracy is under threat, but seem remarkably apathetic about that danger, with relatively few calling it the nation's most pressing problem. More than one third of independent voters in the poll said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election because economic concerns are more urgent.

Seventy one percent agreed democracy was at risk. Only seven percent said it was the most important problem in the country. So one of the important things to consider is that for many of these MAGA voters, it's the promise of lower gas prices, which they're willing to trade for democracy, for the will of the people, depending who is in office. But when you look at gas prices, you say they're not even really that high. They're down like 30 something percent from the peak. And for the average vehicle, even if they were to go down another 30 percent, you're only talking about quite literally a few dollars difference for every full tank. That couldn't really be worth trading for a functioning

democracy, could it? But it appears that for many voters, indeed it is. And so we are down to the very end here as it comes to the 2022 midterms. We're going to have results starting Tuesday night and I hope you'll be live with me on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. The 2022 midterms may be just the beginning. In fact, they almost certainly will be just the beginning. We will probably learn in the 24 to 48 hours that follow Tuesday's elections. If and how committed are right wingers to democracy? 2020 suggested the answer is not particularly committed, but we will see very quickly. Are they doing this?

If we won, it was fair. But if we lost its rigged thing, are they going to do it again? And if they do, it will be a sign that it is now just SOP standard operating procedure for these folks. And that will be yet another divot in the democracy that is left at this point in time. I don't know that they do care about democracy at this point anymore. I think that at this point they just want to win. Now, we also just want to win, but we want to win by people realizing their ideas are a disaster. We're not trying to win by just putting in office people who got fewer votes. That is a critical fundamental difference. You might think the top tax rate should be 38 percent and you might think it's 42 and I might think it's 43. And those are

reasonable differences that exist in reality. But if one of us believes that actually, if my candidate gets fewer votes, we should figure out a way to install them anyway. That is very different than a disagreement about tax policy or foreign policy or whatever the case may be. I hate I hate the fact that the answer to is America ready to give up democracy because they have been convinced cheaper gas is more expect more important? I am afraid that the answer is indeed yes. And we will know much more about that. What? Seventy two hours from now. I want to talk a little bit about this idea of asking questions. Now, we've talked before about how I'm just asking questions is sometimes used to create cover for bad faith questions, destructive questions, corrosive questions, push questions

like, for example, listen, I'm just asking questions. If Democrats continue their communist murder campaign of Republicans, would you still vote for them? Guys, I'm just asking questions. You're not going to tell me questions are bad, are you? We've seen it used in that way. But I want to mention something else about question and questions, and it relates to our friend Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson.

Asking questions in and of itself isn't virtuous. Isn't virtuous. Asking obviously stupid, ridiculous questions meant merely to fire up low information voters isn't something we should celebrate. But Tucker is increasingly using this meme questions. Are we no longer allowed to ask questions in the United States? As he likes to laugh. If everybody is free to ask questions about it and demand real answers, if you're coming up with some sort of crazy theory about what happened at Nancy Pelosi's house last Friday,

instead of yelling at you or calling you names or telling you you're a conspiracy, not your Alex Jones, Just produce the police body camp. Why is that so hard? If you think something weird was going on on January 6th, OK, it's not your fault. Maybe it's the fault of the people who are hiding thousands of hours of video. Speaker 1 Or maybe the fault of the people telling you something weird went on when you OK, Speaker 4 from January 6th. Why haven't they released that? The onus is on them, not the rest of us. We're not the crazy people. You're the liars.

OK, so a couple of different things there. Tucker fundamentally misunderstands burden of proof. If you are going to make a claim, like, for example, a claim that's been made many times, there was fraud in multiple states organized by different people in each state significant enough that the true winner, if it represented the will of the voters, would have been Trump instead of Biden. It's up to you if you believe that instead of a of an obviously politically motivated right wing attack on the Pelosi household in San Francisco last week. What took place was a lover's quarrel between Paul Pelosi and his gay prostitute who was already inside the house at the time of the altercation. You need to produce that evidence. You need to

produce evidence. But let's put aside burden of proof. We shouldn't fall for the absurd notion that bad faith, absurd questions should be celebrated because in a vacuum, asking questions is a good thing. I think we're dealing mostly with adults, at least legally to a three year old. You might want to encourage curiosity and all that. And you say there's never a stupid question. Always. I want to hear every single one of your questions. Oh, it's a beautiful thing to a six year old. When they ask a silly question, you might say that's such a silly question. Let me tell you why. To a 10 year old, you might say, hey, you know what? Let's focus our questions up to build on what we already know. You know that there's some questions that are useful and some questions that are just nonsense. But to adults,

you would say cut the stupid questions, you imbeciles. It is neither good nor righteous to make up so-called evidence out of the blue, claim that now it is the default official story we should believe, and then ask other people to disprove your crazy ideas. The immediate assumption should be why is that the question at this point in time? Where is the burden of proof? Does the evidence actually fit that being the question and being put in the position all the time by these folks to prove negatives the way they love to do? It's not virtuous.

It's not to be admired. It's simply nonsense. And so let's not fall for there's no such thing as stupid or silly questions. There are what you say to a kid about questions is different than what you might say to Tucker Carlson or to these MAGA people. Keep it in mind. One sign that things might be about to get very dicey with Tuesday's election is that my pillow CEO and founder, Mike Lindell, known as Mike Pillow or simply pillow over 54 countries have now been taken by the machines.

Yeah, he is claiming that he has a real time crime desk to monitor deviations and anomalies of Democrats, no doubt attempting to steal Tuesday's election. Listen to what this guy is saying. It is as scary as it is delusional. Speaker 4 Where will you be election night? Speaker 5 I will be at in Tennessee at our studios for Frank's speech. I will be there. I'm going to have my we have two studios and I'm going to have the real crime, the real time crime deaths with cyber guys. So you can tune in to Lindell TV and watch. And we're going to you want to see what's happening with your candidate or whatever. If it's getting sold in real time, if it is getting sold in real time, pillows, cyber guys will tell you, folks, we are screwed.

This is what's going to happen if they, I will say, when they try and steal, we're watching from every camera angle and they're going to do it. And when they do it, we're going to, on the morning of the 9th, if ones are counted, ones that aren't counted, everything's going to stand out. And if they don't, here's what we can pray for. We can pray for that the media covers the deviations and anomalies. And I'm talking to Fox News, Newsmax and the conservative media. They better start reporting election crime, period. Wow.

That is a sick individual or someone who has drank gallons of his own Kool-Aid. I genuinely don't know. You know, people write to me all the time. They say, sir, tears, they're crying. They say, is Mike Pillow for real? You've interviewed him, David. Is Mike Pillow for real when he says this stuff? We're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines. I do not know the answer. I genuinely don't know the answer. I go back and forth. I've now interviewed him in longer form interviews multiple times. I do not know whether Pillow is delusional, whether he is knowingly saying things that aren't true to rile people up. I do not have the answer at this point in time. Your guess is as

good as mine, I would say at this point. So we should be it. I don't I continue to think he might be admitting to crimes, claiming he has cameras on the polling places. I don't know if any of the stuff he's claiming is legal or if it's actually happening, but we should pay very close attention. I hope you will be with me live on Tuesday night. That's my sincere hope. I will be live with election results nationally. We'll be going all night till like 8 p.m.. No, I'm kidding. We're going to go. We're going to go until we have definition, quite frankly. YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. I hope you'll be with me. And remember, subscribe on YouTube, folks. We're pushing to two. Million YouTube subscribers, I would love for you to hit that subscribe button,

particularly if you're watching and don't subscribe, there's almost three million of you, three million. We'll take a quick break and be right back. project that lets you ceremonially purchase as little as one square foot of dedicated land in Edelston, Scotland, so that you can call yourself a lord or a lady like the historic Scottish tradition. Some people even change their plane tickets or credit cards to include lord or lady. Your title pack comes with an official certificate. You can see exactly where your plot of land is located. It makes a perfect last minute gift. But most importantly, established titles plants one free tree for every plot of land sold. Established titles does really good work all over the world with reforestation organizations

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The link is in the podcast notes notes and they'll give you an entire month's supply for free when you use promo code Pacman. That's P.A.K.M.A.N. All you do is pay five dollars for shipping. The David Pakman show is funded directly by our audience. That's just the reality. You know, maybe I would love to have something like Steve Bannon's gig where you've just you don't really need to fund your show. You've you've got people funding it. You don't care about your audience. We care about the audience.

We've got the bonus show. We've got the commercial free audio and video streams of the show. We have the members only town halls and all of it. And you can access it quickly, cheaply and efficiently by signing up at join Pacman dot com. And for just a few more days until the 2022 midterm election, you can save big with the coupon code big voting 22. Let's get to our live calls today. The most important people for the show are the viewers and the listeners. Without you, I'm a guy in a room talking to no one. And it's sad.

So we take calls via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. And let's see what is on people's minds. Let's start today with is it Desmond or Desmoo from Birmingham? Yeah, it's Desmond. Desmond, what's going on today? Hey, I'm chilling, man. Good. Hey. So my question for you was it seems to be that there is a trend to undermine American democracy by the right, as well as things like encouraging general political violence. Do you think that this is a trend that will continue into the future or do you think that

this is something that will slow down? It will continue unless there is something that stops it and says that it's unacceptable. And that is a number of different words. I'm sorry. You think like worsen or maybe like pretty much the same it is now? I think it will almost certainly worsen. Barack Obama at a speech earlier this week in Nevada made this point, and I think he made it astutely and accurately, which is when you have one side that generically will condemn violence when there is violence, but they will coddle and inspire and allude to it being

an acceptable form of political speech. And then their followers start to do the violence in small scale stuff like an individual attack on Paul Pelosi and in large scale stuff like the January 6 Trump riots. And yes, the Trump writers are slowly being held accountable as their cases are adjudicated. But those who inspired that event have not been held accountable. Why on earth would they stop to the extent that they believe it benefits them? And it's good to keep the other side scared, which clearly they believe something has to happen to get them to stop.

OK, thanks for having my question. Absolutely. Everything. Things are OK in Alabama. I mean, I'm in Birmingham, so it's kind of like a blue bubble surrounded in a sea of red. So it's a little different here compared to the rest of the state. So I can't really speak for the more rural areas, but we're chilling in Birmingham.

It's nothing too out of the ordinary right now. You can get like a good, uh, you can get a good cappuccino in Birmingham. Yeah. It's nothing too out of the ordinary. It's kind of like a, it's not like a huge city or anything comparable to like Atlanta or anything, but it's pretty normie. There's like, you know what I mean? There's like nothing too odd going on. I would love to visit someday. It would be cool to see you. All right. Desmond from Birmingham. Appreciate the call very much. Thank you.

Let's go next to Grant from Iowa City. Grant, welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Hey, David. So you might have already addressed this question in the past at some point. So I apologize that that's the case. But apology accepted. Great.

But what, if anything, do you think can be done to regain the majority of people's confidence in the fairness and security of the voting and election process? Well, the reason I love this question is that it's based on a false premise. And I understand why you're asking it this way. Most people do trust the election results that we've had in the United States. It's it's not a majority that doubts the election results, which should make us ask, why do those claims that most people don't believe get so much attention and amplification? And it's because there is one side, the Republican Party, that has abandoned policy and they want to try to win through hijinks and election interference and getting votes thrown

out or closing polling places, et cetera. Your question more generically would be, what can we do to increase confidence in our election systems? But you said, how can we get back to a majority? We have a majority who already trust our election system. Right. I think I just I asked it poorly, I guess. Yeah, I was more so wondering, like of the people who don't trust it, how do we regain the majority of like those people? Sadly, it's not simple. And here's why. When critical thinking is is weakened and diminished in the United States. It creates a vacuum into which elected officials on any side could convince their followers of obviously untrue things. You look at some of the people who say they're going to vote for Herschel Walker despite all of the claims against him. They go, no, well, he apologized and he's denying it.

And it was something he did when he was young. He was 50 and on and on. They can explain it away, however. And so when you have such a population that's vulnerable to nonthinking and disinformation, et cetera, if the Republican Party decides we benefit from convincing our followers that the elections aren't fair. It's very hard to disabuse folks of that belief. So unfortunately, I hate to be such a downer on this. We need to basically vaccinate people against falling for false beliefs like this in the first place, which goes back to what we teach starting in middle school and in high school and getting people not to fall for this stuff in the first place. So it's a very big uphill battle.

Yeah. Yeah. To the extent one other idea would be. If Republicans stop believing it's to their advantage to tell the it was rigged story, then they would stop doing it. And I just broke a glass. Wow. That was very loud. And but but to the extent that they continue to benefit from that, they're going to keep doing it. Yeah, that's probably very true. All right. Well, let's take my call. No problem. I'm actually wondering how loud that was. We do have broken glass in the studio, so we're going to have to we're going to have to deal with that at a moment. But let's continue with let's continue with calls for the time being. Let's go to Jorge from South Florida. Welcome to the show.

Hey, David. Hi, you hear me? I can hear you. How's it going? Hi, nice to meet you. Thank you. Long time fan since 2020. Actually, I've been a fan.

I appreciate it. I got a question. Really, like, my family's a little bit Trumpist, so I have some issues talking to them about bias commentary. So one of the things that I'm just curious to know, the whole thing with Paul Pelosi happening, you know, the papi going into his house and breaking in, it would have been the other way around. If it would have been Trump in his house and someone breaks into his house.

Yeah. And attacks on Trump. I'm wondering how the right media would have, you know, attacked and commentated on that segment. Well, you know, the answer to that. I know, you know, the answer. I do. I just want to say this is the culture that is encouraged by Democrats who want to defund the police and let crime run rampant and open the borders and that's it's, of course, what they would have done. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And they would have convinced a lot of people with it, by the way. I mean, listen, they've convinced a lot of people that this entire thing was like a false flag inside job with a gay lover, uh, even though there's no evidence of that. And if it were someone breaking into Trump's house and, you know, hitting Melania with a hammer, uh, they'd be calling for

congressional hearings. It would be 24 seven on Fox News. I can't even imagine what they would be doing. Speaker 4 That's my thought, too. Yeah, I just want to put it out there because I'm like, you know, like I want to show people and my friends and family, like, do you see the bias out there? Like, can you really understand that if it was the other way around, it would just be constant 24 hour like what's going on? The world is ending, you know? So, and I guess that's where I'm frustrated. And I'm, I get those pain points. Like, like, do you not see reality? But so you said your family is kind of Trumpy. What kind of stuff are they saying? Exactly that, exactly that, that, you know, like they literally ate it up, you know,

Elon Musk published it and they said, Hey, look, it's, you know, it's, it's already closed out. It's, you know, it was his lover. And I said, well, wait, that doesn't make any sense. Like that is your family Cuban. Um, yes, they are Cuban. So you hit on the nail with that. But actually I was talking to my in-laws who are kind of a mix. They're from other parts of from, you know. South America, specifically, not Argentina, I hope. Yes, I are. Oh, no. Oh, my God.

Oh, that's horrifying. I don't want to say I don't want to say because I know you're Argentinian. Dear God. Well, listen, you're bumming me out, but it sounds like you're fighting the good fight and doing what you can to push back. I'm trying. Yeah, thank you. All right. Thank you for the call. Very much appreciate that. You're bumming me out, but it sounds like you're fighting the good fight and doing what you can to push back. I'm trying. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for the call. Very much appreciate that. There is Jorge from South Florida. Let's go next to Sam from New York City. Sam, welcome to the program. What's going on? Thanks so much.

I'm sort of got a question about, you know, I need to cover some of the Trump rallies that are tied for. Unfortunately, they're young kids, you know, three, four, five that are there and you kind of skip over that part. I agree with that because I really do see them as victims of, again, a very narrow media space where they've just been fed propaganda. So what I wonder sort of theoretically is at what point, at what age in their development do we then sort of turn and start holding

them responsible? Because I really struggle with that. Right. You have a three year old. I'm not going to blame a three year old for having Trump views and being forced to wear like a Trump. But the three year old is going to grow up still ingesting the same media diet. Yeah.

So is there a point where then we can start holding that former three year old responsible? Here's why this is really tough. If we had a system of education in the United States where we knew with confidence, Sam, that starting in fifth grade and then definitely by seventh and eighth grade and 100 percent in high school, we were really teaching kids. Here's how you think for yourself. Here's how you think for yourself. Here's how you think critically. Here's how you evaluate claims.

Here's how you do research, et cetera. If we did that, I would be very comfortable saying to you, listen, by the time kids are 15, we can start to say. You are responsible for the things you now believe, right, that would be that's hypothetical. But the truth is, many schools don't teach this stuff. I visited rural conservative parts of the country where people's entire kind of socio cultural lives revolve around their churches and the local shooting range. If that's what they're exposed to until they're 18 or ever at, I don't know what the

answer is because they sort of are in a bubble they were born into indefinitely so that, you know, blame. I don't know about blame. I don't know about the word blame necessarily, but I think as people get closer and closer to age 18, I think they are more and more independent in all ways. And that would be both legally, but also in terms of the things they believe. I mean, listen, if you look at kids at 14, they are still very likely to hold the same political views as their parents, even at 18. That's still the case, because in general, people continue to hold the political views that you're more likely to hold the political views of the family you were brought up in that that we know that that that persists. So I don't know when there's a clean break. And we say, I mean, listen, a four year old is a four

year old. They're not thinking for themselves about politics. A 12 year old might be depending on how they were brought up. A 15 year old should be. But we can't really be sure. I don't know the answer. It's a very gray area. Yeah 4 00 00 00 Speaker 5 00 00 Speaker 6 00 00 Speaker 1 Yeah, no, that's exactly how I feel. I appreciate your nuanced thought on it. But I also just close with with risk of causing some controversy, my own belief and where you get the best bagel in New York City, please. All right. Absolute bagel, one hundred seventh and Broadway. I don't know if you're familiar. I never get out there. I never get up there. All right. Well, if you ever are, I'm telling you, it's a. Darn good bagel, I'm telling you, I believe that only those who be prepared.

Listen, here's the thing. There's hundreds of places with great bagels in New York City. You know, that's just the reality. And I know I'm with you there. And there's dozens of places with great brisket. And, you know, so it's almost like a little bit of a joke. But where are you on places like, for example, Russ and Daughters, where like they are they've become so known and touristy that it's like, yes, it's good. But like, is it as good as people make it out to be? I don't know. I don't know. Speaker 4 So you will never catch me waiting in that like two hour line in Russ and Daughters. Maybe it's marginally better if someone else wants to wait for me and let me try a bite of their pastrami sandwich. I'm all for it. But no, I avoid all those places just like I avoid, you know, Times Square,

you know, exactly. Times Square is just the worst. Yep. I'm with you. All right. You know, going there. All right. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you. Take care. OK, Sam. Take it. Sam shot out of a cannon on the bagel topic. And I Thank you. Take care. Speaker 1 OK, Sam. Take Sam shot out of a cannon on the bagel topic. And I understand that. I mean, it is one of the foremost issues that that humanity is contending with right now. Let's go next to I don't know how to say this. Is it Saki Kazi from California?

Am I pronouncing that even approximately correctly? Speaker 5 No, that's all right. What's the right pronunciation? Speaker 6 I go. go well my name is it's it's a shorter our nickname i go by it's like saw in like the saw the tool you use then chi as in tai chi or something sachi kazi is that right yeah so it's So it's fine. I get to show that. Speaker 1 Do you know how to pronounce it? I guess let's start there. Speaker 4 I would go with like saw then she does, you know, like the tools saw and then

she hasn't touched or something. Speaker 1 All right. Well, what's on your mind today? Speaker 4 Well, first I want to say congratulations on your child. Thank you. So little time for me to say now and I'm all. Speaker 1 Oh, boy. So your your connection is going almost like like lo fi.

So did you have a question? Just because I want to make sure I get to it before we potentially get disconnected. Speaker 4 Yeah. Oh, yeah. I had a question. Yes. Do you think that the Republicans, if they were to take over the House, do you think they would like to make the U.S. or the United States kind of like a dictator's country? North Korea, in a way. No, they would not be able to install a dictator. So as horrible as it will be, if Republicans take over the House and or Senate, they will obstruct Joe Biden. They will say horrible things. They will continue to encourage

political violence. They're going to do all of those things, but they will not, at least in the next two years, turn the U.S. into a dictatorship. Speaker 4 Well, I think it's like I remember when Trump was still president at the time, it felt like it was going to be a type of leadership. Well, to me anyway. Speaker 1 No, no, no. I mean, listen, if you have the president, the House and the Senate, then it's a little bit different. I say, OK, Satya Kazi, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly from California. I really appreciate the call. I'm it's an honor to talk with you.

I'm a big fan. Thank you so much. Very much appreciate it. Let's take a very quick break. Don't hang up. Don't hang up unless you're just mad at me. But please stay on the line because we're going right back to the phones in a moment. We talk about it all the time.

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but this time I'll keep it with the voting since that's everybody's mind. Beautiful. First of all, thanks for my name correctly. It's really rare that that happens. I don't know how else how else could it be pronounced? It seems so obvious. I've got Roland, Raylan. I don't even know. Dear God. If people don't look like they can pronounce the first time I just say Roy, just say Roy. Beautiful. OK, fine.

Well, I'm glad to have you here. Yeah. So quick question. So I'm trying to get people to vote. But obviously, ballots are all over the place of confusing candidates. Do you have like any references or websites that you refer to for just progressively endorsed candidates or places that are like, you know, kind of some kind of list of candidates that you that people would endorse for the progressive caucus or anything? I probably should have asked this during the primaries and not the midterms.

But no, I don't have any. I thought you were going to ask a place where you can figure out exactly where you vote based on your address. And can you vote early and can you vote absentee and all of these different things? I'm not aware of any central place for like an endorsement type thing, because the endorsements are made. Organizations make it there's no official progressive endorsements. There's different organizations which claim to be the clearinghouse for who should be who should be voted for. But no, I don't know that such a central thing really exists. That's so unfortunate because I have people that are like ready to vote, but when they get to the things like like I'm in Michigan and

when you get past the parts that say like what the Democrats are, they don't really know who to vote for. So, yeah. So listen, what I would recommend is if you just search on Google for Michigan ballot 2022, the first result is a Michigan secretary of state website where you put in exactly where you vote. You put in your county, you put in exactly where you vote, you put in your county, you put in the jurisdiction. So it seems some counties like, for example, you know, Bay County,

you put in exactly where you are, you even put in your precinct and then it will show you your exact ballot, your exact ballot with everything that's on it as a starting point. Familiarize yourself with what you will be voting for. And then, like, for example, you know, in Michigan, whatever, wherever I'm looking here, there is a proposal to make some changes to how elections are financed. You can look at that in advance and and research what it is you believe about that. So these aren't secrets. You know, you don't have to wait until Election Day and then get all confused about the things you're voting on. Just Google it. Google where you live and all confused about the things you're voting on.

Just Google it. Google where you live and you can find the exact ballot you will have. Absolutely. Yeah, I was kind of more asking for like the lazy person, you know, because I'm aware of all this, but I just would love to send reference to people. I mean, sadly, the lazy thing is to just you vote all for Democrats or all Republicans in the races that are partisan, which aren't all of them necessarily. There's like nonpartisan races, but there are shortcuts if people are looking for them. I don't know that I recommend them. Yeah, like I said, this probably should have been a question during the primaries and not this far into the election. I haven't had a chance to call since then. But also one more thing, I haven't had a chance to call since you since you had your child. Congratulations on that. Thank you. I do remember an episode where you kind of like had to address a grief that some of the viewers have been giving you about taking time off to spend time with your children. Yeah.

Your child. And I think that's just so disappointing as a viewer, as a listener, that you had to make those comments because you're supposed to be like, you know, a beacon for progressive thoughts. And, you know, paid paternity leave and paternity leave in general, something we should all aspire to be. So the fact that you get the ability to do that is, you know, I, I, a lot of people probably envy that. And I think that on your next child, if you were to take a whole month off there, there's plenty of us that would be totally understanding and happy for you nonetheless. Well, I very much appreciate that Royal. And thank you for making that declaration. I like it. Yes. All right. Well, you have a good rest of your day, man. OK, you too. There's Royal in with very important questions from Grand Rapids,

Michigan. Yes. Understand the ballot that you will be presented with. Just Google it. You can find it easily. Let's go to Anibal from Guatemala. Welcome to the program. Hi, how are you? I'm doing well. Okay, okay. I have a little question. How do you deal with negationists? I am talking about, well, in Guatemala, we had a really big war, a civil war some years ago.

And even today, I have some colleagues, teachers who are talking about how the glorious army of Guatemala who committed genocide was too good for us. They keep us away from the communists. And thanks to God, all of us are okay now. We are not Venezuela. It's really awkward. You're saying they just deny basic reality. Yeah. And even if I say,

well, maybe it's not God, you can see a lot of religious groups look for the evidence of this and everything. They say something like, oh, but you know, they were just Catholics or Jews. Sorry, I don't know what know, they were just Catholics or Jews.

Sorry, I don't know what to say in English. Jesuitas. Jesuits. Yes. Yes. Or everything is the fault of the Masons and Illuminati. Yeah. It's really bad. Yeah, I don't when people are just straight up, you know, they don't live in reality. It's very difficult. You know, there's an example from Argentina as well, where, of course, there was as many people know, there was this Falklands war that took place. Isla Malvinas, as they're known in Argentina. And the other day, you know, the. I don't want to pretend that there's literally only one interpretation of every detail, but I think it's hard to it's hard to deny that that was a completely idiotic, wrongheaded move in Argentina to distract from the horrors of the military dictatorship. And it was just an absurd thing for Argentina to be doing. And the other day when it was like the the anniversary,

I saw a news piece that basically like they just brought in a few veterans who fought for Argentina in that conflict. And they acted like it was, you know, World War Two fighting against the Nazis as opposed to a completely contrived and wrongheaded propaganda conflict. And it's like if if that's the alternate reality you're living in, I don't know that we can even really talk, you know, I mean, it's just so disconnected from the truth. Yes, I know. Let me recommend you a really great movie, La Llorona from Jairo Bustamante, not the one about the Warren Brothers, La Llorona. OK, I will check it out. It was absolutely amazing. It even went to the shortlist of the Oscars. Well, about that, even our president, Alejandro Giammattei, is talking about how USAID is making claims and

helping people to create an agenda for indigenism and it all feels so wrong I mean

so there are like a republican idea in Guatemala and they are talking about how this group of indigenous people who commit human sacrifice are now going to govern us. Nobody is saying that. You just watch, it's obvious how Heritage Foundation is talking with Alejandro Yamate.

Everything is so obvious to them. They are just making the claim about critical race theory, but in Guatemala. Interesting. I don't know enough about that, but it sounds interesting and I will research it. I'm pretty sure there are just Republicans who are helping Alejandro Giammattei because they want to use this idea of critical race theory everywhere. Right. Yeah. When all you have is a hammer, everything, everything looks like a nail. Listen, Anibal, I do have to let you go. But quick question. What I know nothing about the cuisine of your country. What is a what is a typical food item in Guatemala? Speaker 2 Oh, there are a lot. Soups are some of the greatest things. And maybe it means in Cachical red soup. It is amazing. It's made of chilies, beef or maybe chicken. It's amazing. All right. Very good. I appreciate the call.

Thank you. You're welcome. All right. There is an evil from Guatemala. Let's go next. Where are we going next? Let's go to Logan from San Jose, California. Logan, welcome. Speaker 3 Hey, David. Can you hear me? Speaker 1 Sort of.

Yeah, there's something weird going on, but I think we can we can make it work. Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm not. Speaker 1 Oh, God. Speaker 4 It's not a question. And I think my answer. Speaker 1 So I'm going to have to let you Oh, God. It's not a question. And I think my answer. So I'm going to have to let you go. It's it's not workable. The audio just went. It went very, very bad, completely nuclear and horrifying. Let's go to Shelly from Indiana. Shelly, welcome. Hi, David. My question today was about the student loan forgiveness. Okay. So with all of the people that are against

it, it seems like they kind of encourage the lawsuits against it. And with there being a lawsuit against it right now, my question is, at what point do these lawsuits that they're encouraging end up costing more money than it would have to actually supported the program? I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I think the lawsuits. The lawsuits would have to go on for a really long time and be multijurisdictional and be very expensive before they would approximate the cost of the student debt relief. But I don't even know that that's necessarily the best argument to make for why this doesn't

make any sense. It's remember, this student loan debt forgiveness would be economically stimulative. It would free up money rather than being paid for interest on loans to be injected into the economy, into businesses of all sorts of different kinds. So you're not making your argument is fine, which is the lawsuits to fight the forgiveness cost money. And at some point that's going to add up to a whole bunch of money. It's also that the student loan debt forgiveness would be very good demand side stimulus and

good for the economy. Speaker 4 Yes. Yeah, you're right. I agree. I guess the other question is then what what do they actually do with the interest that they're already getting from all of these love and what is like for all of the years of the interest that they've already get? God wanted that have ultimately paid for it.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure I understand. You're saying what should happen in the context of the forgiveness with already paid interest? Well, I'm saying like where when they do collect the interest, you know, because I've been paying on my school loans for 20 years. So you're figuring, you know, oh, it's just it's just it's profits or it goes back if they're government loans, then it goes back into the government coffers. I mean, it's just like any debt service. Right.

So then at that point, wouldn't there be like a surplus to where they could just pay? You know what I mean? Where it could just be paid for to begin with. At this point in time. So it's like all of these loans over all this year, all these. Oh, you're saying just pay off the current loans with the interest that they've already collected over the years. Correct. Oh, you're saying just pay off the current loans with the interest that they've already collected over the years. Correct.

Oh, I see. Yeah. I mean, that money has been spent, of course, but you're the idea of what you're saying is not crazy, which is a ton of money has already been made on the interest on these loans. But what happened to it? It was spent on other stuff, is the answer, Shelley. Speaker 2 Right.

OK. All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Speaker 1 Appreciate it. Things are OK in Indiana. Speaker 2 Oh. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Speaker 1 Appreciate it. Things are OK in Indiana. Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, they're really good.

Speaker 1 I can't honestly I can't tell if you're kidding. Speaker 1 I know it's good right now. I'm actually kind of nervous about Tuesday. Yeah. You know, because I mean, it's a red state. So, you know, you can't even know what you shouldn't get the ball. But you can always hope for the best. And no doubt you will be voting, I'm sure. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Shelley, always great to hear from you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. There goes Shelley in Indiana voting. That's what you

call a likely voter. She's she's going to vote. I can just tell she's going to vote. You can count on Shelley's vote. That does it for calls today. We're going to go to a break. I appreciate every single one of you who has signed up on the YouTube channel recently approaching two million subscribers. I appreciate everyone who called in, even those I did not get to. But we will take calls again very, very soon. It's Blinkist also condenses episodes of popular podcasts into 15 minute explainers. I've been using Blinkist for years to supplement the books I read. I love reading. I read all the time, but there's even more books I don't have time to read. And you can often find those nonfiction books on Blinkist and consume the entire thing in

15 minutes. My favorite new feature on the app is Blinkist Connect, which lets you share your Blinkist premium account with someone else. You basically get two accounts for the price of one. And then you can also share Blinkist books and podcasts between users. I have a joint Blinkist premium account with my girlfriend. Blinkist Connect lets us sync together what books and podcasts we're listening to on Blinkist sparks many interesting discussions. We just listened to Robert Green's The 48 Laws of Power, the new version. Robert Green, super interesting writer.

Find his books fascinating. You can try Blinkist free for seven days and get 25 percent off a premium subscription at Blinkist dot com slash David Pakman. That's B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T dot com slash David Pakman to get Blinkist free for seven days and 25 percent off a subscription. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's get right to the mailbag, the last mailbag before the 2022 midterms. You can email info at David Pakman dot com. Sometimes we'll highlight a YouTube comment or a Twitter message or Facebook message. It really could be anything, but it's mostly email and the email address is info at David

Pakman dot com. Let's start today with a message from Fred. No, this is the wrong one. That's for later. Here is the one I wanted to start with. David, dear Mr. Pacman, they say, I was attempting to listen on YouTube to the Fetterman Oz debate. However, your constant comments and biased interjections and opinions are extremely troubling. Are they really troubling?

I should be careful. Are you wanting to convince your listeners to follow your to follow your partisan views? Not sure how you can be a leader of a show in this capacity and expect to be successful as a reporter. You should be more balanced and especially not give your comments. This is another right winger who doesn't have a clue what's going on. I am not a reporter. This is a commentary show. This show can only be successful if I give my opinion. Now, am I trying to convince people? Whatever. I'm just giving my opinions. It's not troubling that an opinion person gives opinions. And in fact, it's not about expect to be successful. We've got nearly two million

subscribers across all of our platforms, actually more like two point three, two point two million across all of our platforms. So there are people who are furious when I give my opinion, but that's what the show is. And again, it's that lack of media literacy. There is no news show here. This is an opinion show. It's an opinion podcast where I give my opinion. I got another email about the debate coverage, and we've been getting a lot

of these because what happens is. People look for the debate, and sometimes when you type in, you know, Oz Fetterman debate. Our live stream can come up in the first few results on YouTube. And so people who have no clue about our show will just click over to it. And then they stumble across me and here I am making comments. How dare I? And so people get confused and they write in and they prefer me to just sit there silently, not saying anything. Joe S., who misspelled his own name after listening and watching you on side screen, it is very well seen that you are a demo rat. I believe what this and

I believe this is Joseph. And what Joseph is trying to say is that after watching me on the side of the screen alongside the debate, it became obvious to him that I am a Democrat. Now, I know I'm correcting six or seven different things there to come up with that interpretation, but I feel like it's probably accurate. I am not a Democrat. And if you want someone who just says nothing during the debates, there are endless other free streams that you can find. One more. And this is an actually interesting and productive comment about the debates. Twitchell says, why is it after a debate where the Democrat destroys the Republican, nothing changes with polling. But if a Democrat doesn't do well, the polls tip towards the Republican. It would seem swing voters would be the reason. But why are Democrats held to a higher

standard? This is absolutely the case. And I know that there are so many right wingers who will reject the notion that Democrats hold candidates to a higher standard than Republicans. It is undeniably true in every way. Let's talk through it. Donald Trump could never have been the Democratic nominee. Democrats would not have accepted an obvious con man grifter from the business world who isn't even particularly good at business, but he was just given a great head start with a small loan of a million dollars and much more help with his debt. Democrats never would have accepted Trump as a nominee because their standards are higher. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm just telling you that that's the reality. The only

electorate that would be so low information and bamboozle a bull that Trump could trick them into nominating him is the Republican Party, because their standards are significantly lower. Their standards are. Do you claim to be against abortion even when you're obviously not? And Trump did that. Do you claim to be religious even when you're obviously not? Trump did it. OK, can you attack the right people to make us a Mexican rapist and all this stuff? Trump did those things. The standards are way lower. I have to tell you, it's similar to a even with like the sexual assault stuff where Republicans will often defend their own when they are accused of sexual assault and misconduct endlessly.

Whereas if anything, Democrats are too quick to condemn. Remember the Al Franken situation? What Al Frank, the tasteless joke that Al Franken participated in was absolutely in poor taste. But immediate demands for Al Franken to resign, which he did. Democrats arguably went too far because their standards are so much higher than those of Republicans. So that's why the debates matter in the way that Twitchell is saying.

Astute observation. Allen wrote in. This depresses me, OK? This really depresses me. Allen wrote in and said, you say you want subscribers. You say it's free. There is no way to subscribe without paying. What kind of scam are you running? Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Listen. As I've said before, it is free to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We have over a million and a half YouTube

subscribers. As much as it would be amazing to have a million and a half paid subscribers, we don't. OK, it is free to subscribe on YouTube. It is free to subscribe on YouTube. You just hit subscribe. It's free. I've said subscribe to the podcast. It is free to subscribe to the podcast. We produce it every day, every weekday, and it is free. It's on iTunes, Spotify, et cetera, et cetera. The one thing that you pay for is to become a website member. Yes, you do pay for that. But folks, I'm not scamming anybody. It's really free to subscribe on YouTube. It is really free to subscribe to the podcast. It's free to like us on Facebook, to follow on Twitch. All those things are free. But to become a website member, you do pay. All right. Please, please,

please. Let's be clear. I can't tell whether this email is serious, but it seemed like it was. As I mentioned last week, we are working on a white paper with techniques for how to talk about politics with people in your family or coworkers, whatever. The term white paper is a typical, well-known term. I got an email from someone saying my opinion, but I would never call a document a white paper. It sounds very KKK ish. I do love your show. Besides this mistake, I hope I hope.

Yes, I'm deliberately using a racist term white paper. Folks, I don't know if this is serious. A white paper is a completely established and well-known term. It's an informational document that a company uses to highlight something, to highlight research about an issue or to highlight a product or a service or a market opportunity or whatever. It's it's a completely benign, banal term. It's it's a white paper. I don't know if this viewer genuinely thinks that it might be a racist term. I just got to move on, folks. I can't I can't even deal with it. OK, it's it's just a white paper. Raymond wrote in about my interview with former Scientologist

Mike Rinder. Now, Raymond is a Scientologist. It might not shock you to hear that Raymond isn't happy with my Mike Rinder interview. Raymond wrote in David, I watch your channel for info on recent political events, but your recent interview with Mike Rinder is one sided. You have someone who's trying to make money on his experiences with Scientology. I don't see you trying to get to the other side of the coin and interview an executive from Scientology or better yet, why don't you pay a visit to a church of Scientology? So listen, no Scientology executives are going to come on the show, first of all, and secondly, visit a church.

Come on, dude, give me a break. At this point, I started to think maybe this is a Scientologist. Seems to me Mike has a problem with the management of the church. And instead of straightening out his disagreement, but air his differences on your program and write a book to make money. Yes, that sentence makes no sense, but I'm reading it as written. I gave you more credit than maybe you deserve if you don't give both sides the same platform. I have been a Scientologist for 43 years. There it is. And has changed my life and gave me the tools to deal with life successfully. I've researched all of those tools. They're all a scam. I hate to tell you, Ray. Ray goes on to say currently and for about 15 years, we don't always agree with the upper

management of the church. But to go to the media and for about 15 years, we don't always agree with the upper management of the church. But to go to the media and take your disagreements is irresponsible. So, David, I challenge you. Go find out on your own. Either visit a church, find out yourself or read a book and see for yourself. I dare you. LOL. Sincerely, Ray.

I've read I've read five books about Scientology. I've interviewed 10 Scientologists. I've seen 10 documentaries about Scientology. Have I visited a church? No. Would the sanitized experience I would get if I was even allowed to visit a church really tell me anything about Scientology? No. But I understand Scientologists don't like interviews critical of Scientology that question the cult. Fred wrote in and said, David, I've got to say for this to be a progressive show, I have been shocked that you have not covered the Arkansas governor debate where Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going against an MIT Ph.D. Democrat, Chris Jones,

who is the epitome of form over substance and Pacman show ideals in many ways. Their debate was today and it will re-air tonight. So listen, I hate to kind of like end on a negative note here. We can't cover every debate. That race is not even close. The Arkansas gubernatorial debate, AR governor polling RCP. It's it's like crazy. Yet Sarah Huckabee Sanders is winning by double digits. OK, it's I get it. Chris Jones is an interesting candidate. We streamed like 15 debates, mostly close races, races that could end up making a difference

in the balance. We just can't do everything. We can't do everything. And that race isn't close. Would I love to be able to cover more? Sure. But we've got to pick and choose. So I'm sorry, Fred, but it it is not an indication of any kind of our progressive stature that we were not able to cover that debate. All right. Info at David Pakman dot com. Send in your thoughts for the mailbag. We have a great bonus show coming up for you today, which you can instantly access by signing

up at join Pacman dot com.