The David Pakman Show - 4/14/23: Are Republicans fascist and what happened to the alt-right?

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Many on the left claim that the Republican Party is "fascist" but is that actually the case? -- What happened to the alt-right? -- Caller asks if there's any evidence for Donald Trump's claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election -- Caller wonders what's next for the Republican Party after Trumpism -- Caller points out why Republicans may be opposed to ranked-choice voting and the popular vote -- Caller asks if Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis is a bigger threat to democracy. -- Caller compares left-wing and right-wing media -- Caller wonders if Donald Trump could run for president while in prison -- Caller discusses why Joe Biden isn't talking about Donald Trump's arrest -- Caller talks about discussing politics with Trump supporters -- Caller asks about the effect of Trump's arrest on the 2024 election -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Right-wingers disagree about whether Mario movie is "woke," DeSantis signs 6-week abortion bill, and much more... 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com/pakman 🚲 Lectric eBikes! Shop for your new electric bike at https://lectricebikes.com 💻 Get Private Internet Access for 83% OFF + 4 months free at https://www.piavpn.com/David -- 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 -- 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

. I often get emails that say, David, is the modern Republican Party now fascist? Is fascism what they would employ if there were no barriers or opposition or obstacles? So let's explore this a little bit and think it through. And where I end up coming down is that the modern Republican Party is a fascistic authoritarian party, but not actually fascist. But part of the reason why they are not actually fascist is that there is opposition in the United States. So let's start with the definition. What are we talking about when we talk about fascism? Fascism is a far right authoritarian political ideology, which often includes dictatorial power, forcible suppression of

opposition and very strongly regimented society and a very strongly regimented economy. Now, some of these things might not sound like the rhetoric of the Republican Party with strong regimentation. The Republican Party is all about freedom and liberty. Yes, the rhetoric is. But are they actually like that when it comes to policy? So we're going to talk about that. What is the Republican Party platform and policy versus fascism or fascistic authoritarianism? Because it is true that it used to be the case that the Republican Party was known for conservative values actually being for small government, promoting truly free market capitalism or something close to it.

But that is not at all what the modern report, modern Republican Party, particularly under MAGA Trump ism, has become. It has become a party of hyper nationalism, populist rhetoric, as well as extraordinarily overbearing suppression of opposition, all fascistic characteristics. And the bulk of this, the culmination of it has been seen in the shift during the rise of Donald Trump and his influence on the Republican Party. The rhetoric of Trump and the policies that Trump ists would like to implement are every combination of authoritarian, sometimes xenophobic, anti-competitive, etc. And we're going to look at a bunch of examples, the Muslim ban,

a family separation at the border, trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, trying to limit the speech of the press and trying to get adversarial reporters banned, including Jim Acosta, et cetera. In addition to this, the attempt to suppress opposition through election meddling tactics that disproportionately affect young people, people of color, low income individuals, disproportionately those who vote on the left, is another way in which Republicans under MAGA have tried to hold on to power by any means necessary, even when they've been voted out completely anti democratically. Now there are people who will argue these are straight up fascist tactics. Others say it's kind of too extreme a term, but it is very hard to argue that it isn't

fascistic and hard line authoritarianism, the actions and the rhetoric of MAGA Trump ism, a.k.a. the modern Republican Party, have taken that bent. So let's talk about some of the specific policies. And there are so many. But let's talk about a few. The Muslim ban. One of the first things that Donald Trump did as president was sign an executive order banning travel from several Muslim majority countries.

It was done under the guise of protecting the United States, but it targeted Muslim majority countries that had not actually been the sources of terrorism to the United States. You could make the case that either way it was fascistic, but particularly when you're not even targeting the quote right countries based on what you claim to want to achieve discriminatory and absolutely authoritarian scale up of the separation of families at the border, the zero tolerance policy at the southern border, which resulted in the separation of families and the detention of children in cages. Inhumane, cruel, emblematic of fascistic authoritarianism, the attacks on

media, Trump calling the media fake news, Trump saying you can't believe what you are hearing and seeing. You've got to listen to me to know the truth. Enemy of the people get Jim Acosta out of the White House press briefing room, get adversarial media shut down, et cetera, et cetera, undermining free press, which is a cornerstone of democracy, voter suppression, pushing for voter I.D. of the kind that would just make it harder for people to vote, shortening early voting hours, pushing for all of these different things while claiming they are trying to steal and cheat and rob an election. Extraordinarily fascistic, militarizing the police. Trump supported the use of military equipment by police under the

guise of law and order. And that was an open attempt to suppress dissident protesters and those with views adversarial to Trump embracing authoritarian and dictatorial leaders. Right. I mean, listen, when you criticize Canada and France and Germany, democratic countries and you go, I don't know. I believe Putin, no matter what he says. And I Kim Jong Un and I wrote each other love letters. And Duterte has been very strong on drugs. And she does quick trials and the death penalty for drug dealers and Bolsonaro and Erdogan and Orban. This is another authoritarian, fascistic slide. The entire attempt to steal an election Trump didn't win, of course, straight out of the dictator's playbook. And then lastly, I would also point to hardcore attempts to control private and private businesses for your personal political gain. And I'm thinking of big tech and social media. We don't want to we don't want to regulate businesses unless it's absolutely necessary. Businesses should be allowed to regulate themselves and do what they want,

except when we want to force Twitter to publish Trump's election lies, COVID, this information and on and on. So bottom line, the modern Republican Party may not fit all of the characteristics of fascist ideology, and we certainly are not living under fascism in the United States. And we weren't when Trump was president either. But there are elements of extreme authoritarianism, nationalism, right wing populist rhetoric used to justify some pretty hardcore policy. And it should concern all of us who worry about this fascistic direction to the American Republican Party. Fascism? No, not yet.

Fascistic authoritarianism with some dictatorial dreams. One hundred percent. Let's talk about something else many have written to me about. What the hell happened to the alt right? Where did they go? Are they still around? At the start of Trump's presidency, everything was alt right. We are the alt right. They are the alt right, both self-professed and discussed in media, in policy circles,

etc. Rarely if ever do we hear about the alt right today. So what happened to it? Did it go the way of the Tea Party, partially destroyed, partially integrated into the modern Republican Party? Has MAGA Trump ism essentially absorbed the alt right? Well, let's talk about it in the the early 2010s, as the Tea Party had gotten their wins and then started to fade, that happened in 2010. So then you go to 2013, 2014. This new political movement emerged in the United States, which was ultimately known as the alt right, loosely defined group of individuals, rejected mainstream conservatism, dabbled in white nationalism, dabbled in

anti-Semitism, dabbled in xenophobia and all sorts of other far right ideologies. And as the 2016 presidential election got going and Donald Trump ultimately won the nomination of the Republican Party and became a general election candidate and won 2015, 2016, 2017. We saw the alt right gain significant prominence. Since then, though, the alt right as such has significantly faded out of public eye. Why did this happen? There's a number of things that are going on. Important to identify to understand the continued evolution of mega Trump ism. Number one, the alt right as such

started to get hit with significant backlash from media, from the left and from mainstream conservatives as well. People like Mitt Romney, Kinzinger, et cetera, who distanced themselves from the movement and condemned its extremist views. They saw that under Trump ism, it was continuing to grow and that it wasn't a good thing as far as they were concerned. Secondly, many of the alt right leaders ended up exposed. They were exposed as really just being racist, really just being anti-Semitic, really just being xenophobic. And so many of the alt right leaders lost credibility

and they lost support. And some of them ended up kind of dissolving into MAGA Trump ism. Third, we saw MAGA Trump ism. Accept and absorb some elements of alt right ideology, certainly the cultish loyalty to Donald Trump, the rejection of establishment politics, embracing populist rhetoric, which you then fill in with right wing policy prescriptions when it comes to it. And so MAGA Trump ism. I mean, listen, I'm trying to be fair and charitable here. There are, of course, elements of anti-Semitism and white nationalism and mega Trump ism. Without a doubt, I don't believe Trump created them, but he coalesced them and he welcomed

them in the mega Trump ism. What I'm trying to be accurate, but also not weak in it. Maga Trump ism was less overtly anti-Semitic and homophobic and whatever else the case may be than the alt-right and thus has achieved some success by kind of integrating some of those alt-right elements into it. One big difference between the alt-right and MAGA Trumpism is that MAGA Trumpism has succeeded in part because they have this charismatic to to some degree, cult like leader in Trump, whereas the alt right never really had that leader. They had a bunch of different people who led different aspects of it.

Richard Spencer, maybe Gavin McGinnis. And I know I'm forgetting a bunch of others, but they didn't have Trump. And so Trump's presence was a big factor in MAGA Trump is superseding the alt right. So bottom line, the alt right as such has indeed greatly faded from public view. Its views haven't gone away and it has a legacy inside of MAGA Trump ism. The question we are now left with is, will it survive another election cycle or will the Boebert's and the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Trump himself suffer a 2024 defeat? That could be the final nail in the coffin for this roughly decade period is what it will be at the end of the day, eight years,

10 years, roughly 11 years, depending on when you consider the start of alt right. Will alt right die as part of mega Trump ism in 2024? That's the question that remains to be answered and one we're going to continue asking. We'll take a quick break. Make sure you are subscribed to the YouTube channel at youtube.com slash The David Pakman Show, pushing very strongly towards two million subscribers. Plastic, it's everywhere we look and not enough is being done about it. One hundred billion plastic bags are used and thrown away every year. Here's something super simple you can do to reduce plastic and help the planet a little

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join Pakman dot com. But we have too much to talk about today for me to spend too much more time on that. All right. Let's hear from some people in the audience. I want to start today with Josh from Delaware. We take calls via discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. Josh, welcome. What is on your mind today? Hey, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Awesome. First time caller. Glad to be here. Yeah, so definitely wanted to talk about last week. I know one of the big things that gets talked about a lot of is the election lies. And, you

know, I do have some friends that always talk about a election was stolen. It was stolen. There's so much evidence. But where is the evidence? Just kind of wanted to hear from you on has anyone ever sent you anything just showcasing any evidence of electric fraud at all? No. I mean, many people all the way up to Mike Pillow have said, as soon as we get off this interview, I'm going to send you all the evidence from my cyber guys or whatever. They've never sent any evidence at all.

Sometimes they will send me a link to that Dinesh D'Souza movie, 2000 Mules. But of course, even that doesn't have any evidence. It just has video of people dropping off ballots at drop boxes with ominous music playing and some geolocation data that doesn't actually prove anything. And you know that I'm willing to work forwards, which is show me the evidence from which I can draw a conclusion. And if the conclusion is that the election was stolen by Joe Biden, I will tell you after this many years of claims with no evidence, I'm starting to wonder whether maybe the evidence doesn't exist.

Josh. Thank you, David. And I have one more follow up question pretty quick. But Fox News, you know, I know one of the other things has always been the pretty recently the text messages that were sent privately between the Fox News host, especially with Tucker Carlson. Yeah. Kind of your thoughts on that.

How how can people still watch Fox News after that information was released? And I also got to say, I don't remember Tucker even denouncing that those messages weren't even him. So how can people still watch Fox News and believe that's still a good news organization to get their their daily news from? Primarily, the answer is that Tucker's viewers either will never hear about the text messages in which Tucker says he despises Trump or they will explain it away by saying, well, Tucker had to say that for this reason or that reason, but he didn't really mean

it or they will say he has since changed his mind. They'll explain it away one way or the other. They seem pretty committed at this point to Tucker and to Fox News. You got it. Well, thanks, David. Appreciate your time and hope you have a good rest your day. Pleasure. There is Josh from Delaware.

Very, very much appreciate that. Remember to ideally get right to your question. And I love that everybody's got their correct audio devices selected today. Let's go to Carolyn from Utah. Carolyn from Utah. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. What's on your mind today? What can I do for you? Carolyn from Utah, you've been invited to join. Welcome. Yes, I can. OK, great. I've been a longtime listener. Now, this is a question. Okay, I'm from Utah, like you said. We have a Republican governor, Fox, who's more of a mainstream Republican.

He's not too far to the left or too far to the right. But he had nominated a Democratic person to go to our environmental council or whatever. And the Republican, the people who would approve this nomination, of course, put it down. They said, no, you can't be on the committee. Now, my question has to do with the fact that the Republicans have for so long let misinformation rule in regards to climate change and things like that, and in particular, the way the Democrats act. trying to, of course, make a turnaround. And when they realized they went too far,

is there any way that you think that they can pull back the Republican Party short of, I don't know, I'm worried about the Civil War thing, but short of Civil War, is there any way that we can pull back the people that are so far gone, they can't understand reason and logic? So, Carolyn, I apologize. A lot of the first stuff you said, they can't understand reason and logic. So Carolyn, I apologize. A lot of the first stuff you said I did not. Carolyn, a lot of the first stuff you said I didn't really understand. And you also had a couple of audio glitches in there. But but what I think you're asking me is, is there any way to pull extremist Republicans

who are in fantasy land kind of back to reality? Is that generally your question? Yeah, but in particular, if there's any way, well, for the mainstream Republicans to do it, I don't think we have any chance. Oh, OK. I think the best shot that mainstream Republicans, to the extent that they still exist, have to pull the extremists back to reality is by proving to them, really showing them that if you guys are the direction the party goes, we lose.

I think that that's the only way. And even then, I think that if the MAGA extremist wing just started losing badly, I don't even know that you would convert a lot of those people. I think a lot of those people would give up and leave politics. So it's it's not it might not even really be a conversion. But I do think that it's possible not with all of these people, but with some if Republicans start taking more and more and more losses as they already have, but even more. And then the mainstream Republicans say it's because of you, we need to come back to something

more approximating like Mitt Romney or John McCain. I think that that's their best shot. And even that may not work. I don't know. Speaker 4 Yeah, that would be great. So I know there's been a lot of articles lately about civil war and everything. What do you think our chances are of ending up in something like that? Speaker 1 As of right now?

So I never like to make these long term predictions. The U.S. will never have a civil war. We just don't know. The way I would assess it is I see the chance of a civil war over the next five years as extremely close to zero, not zero, but extremely close to zero over the next five years. That's kind of where I'm comfortable going right now. Speaker 4 OK. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking my call. Speaker 1 Pleasure, Carolyn from Utah. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to a treatise from Boston, a treatise from Boston? Welcome back to the program. How's it going?

Speaker 5 It would be good to talk to you again. Likewise, I have a quick question. I remember a few months ago we briefly talked about ranked choice voting. Yes. And I can remember three, four years ago it not being a very well-known system. But after Alaska adopted it and it's, blaming it with Sarah Palin's loss and things like that. Do you think that it'll kind of its progress in being adopted nationwide will be stagnated just kind of by these right wing talking points of that? It's just a tool by the left to tear the majority of that sort of thing. I don't think it will help.

And it's sort of similar to movements to move from an electoral college system to a national popular vote are limited by a number of different factors. But many Republicans are aware that were it not for the electoral vote, if we had a national popular vote, there's a whole bunch of their winners who would have actually lost. So it is without question that at least the Republicans that pay attention know that popular vote isn't great for them. The extent to which they know that that transferable voter rank choice voting is bad for them.

I think it's less clear. But I do think that the Sarah Palin situation in Alaska is a cautionary tale. You know, the truth is, in the midst of all the insanity of the last year, it hasn't been a topic anyone's been talking about too much. So it actually could be an opportunity to make some progress on rank choice voting for dedicated activists. Yeah, I would say, like, definitely now, while it's not as in the mainstream, I think it kind of was within like the few months before the midterms. But after all that kind of got lost in the shuffle.

I agree. I have one other quick that. Thank you for that. I do have one quick follow up question. Do you have a favorite political movie? Not really. I mean, I think as far as a documentary, I actually forget the name of it, but it's a documentary from when Paul Begala and James Carville ran Bill Clinton's campaign. What is it called? The War Room. Now, I don't remember.

It's a it's a good document. I don't really watch too many political movies, to be honest. Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, this one in 10 are of quality, but fair. Thank you so much for taking my call. All right. A treatise from Boston. Great to hear from you again. Why don't we go next to Thomas from New York?

Thomas from New York. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Hey, David, how's it going? Going well. All right. New York. Thomas from New York. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. Hey, David, how's it going? Going well. All right. So I'm sure you know, obviously, that Donald Trump got indicted last week and that may or may not affect Trump's run for president.

But I may just want to ask about Ron DeSantis. People say that Ron DeSantis is more of a threat to democracy than Donald Trump is due to the multiple bills he assigned in Florida. So just don't say gay bill and his bills are to affect elections. My question is, is if you agree with the sentiment that Ron DeSantis is more dangerous to the sanctity of democracy if he were to become president rather than Donald Trump post January six and his arrest. I generally believe so. This is the way I kind of frame it. If you said to me today. Either Trump or DeSantis will be president for four years, I think I see DeSantis as the greater threat and would say, if those are my choices, I would rather Trump be president

four years rather than DeSantis. DeSantis seems much more focused, whereas Trump's brain is kind of all over the place. DeSantis is likely to be more effective at actually making horrible legislative accomplishments, whereas again, Trump gets so distracted and embroiled in controversy that I think he would be less effective. The counterpoint to all of this is that on the world stage, Trump is so cartoonish and such a joke that it might damage American reputation more to see Trump president for another four years than DeSantis. So it's sort of like DeSantis would make our reputation not quite as bad, but he would do far more damage. Now, there's another

layer to this which you didn't directly ask about, but I think is also important in the polling right now. There's Trump versus Biden polling and DeSantis versus Biden polling. Biden does better against Trump than against DeSantis. So that would be another reason to want Trump as the nominee rather than DeSantis, because it seems it's more likely to lead to a Democratic president winning in twenty twenty four. But again, this is all very early polling data. Yeah, I think Trump is definitely is a lot more cares about his ego, so he will be less. He kind of doesn't get led as much by the Republicans. I think Ron DeSantis is a lot smarter and a lot more nefarious in that way. I think that's true.

I appreciate the answer. My pleasure. Thomas from New York. Great to hear from you. Got right to his question. I mean, really a perfect phone call. Audio was good. Just a good call in really every way.

We're taking calls via discord. David Pakman dot com slash discord. Just a reminder, if you want to get on your nickname must be your name and where you're calling from or where you're calling from and your name, you know, just names alone or nicknames or sort of stuff like that is not likely to get you on. Let's go to Rodney from St. Louis. Rodney from St. Louis. Welcome to the program.

Hey, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. We are great. First of all, I want to say congratulations on last week or week and a half ago when you had the right wing attacking you and your audience was able to rally. We made it. We made it, Rodney. I appreciate that. Yeah, it was amazing. It's got me thinking that obviously the number one thing that we all run into on every single issue is the money powered interest. And every single time the media doesn't ever cover it. And it's not really covered

that much even on independent media. But I would think if maybe I don't know if you and like Sam and Jank or TYT and others on the left ever get together and like try to like use your audiences to strategically get the word out or even acknowledge that the left media is even existing? Yeah. You know, we really don't. And we should. The last time I saw Jenkins, Sam was like in the same place. I saw Sam more recently. But the last time the three of us were in the same place was at a conference in Vegas, like right before the pandemic. And I'll be honest, this this particular issue did not come up. It was really kind of a social thing. We went to dinner. But I actually do think, you know, one of the things I've talked about before and I

think you're kind of getting at this, Rodney, is that when it comes to funding independent media and creating this sort of like under underbelly sounds negative, but in a sense, it's an underbelly. It's a layer, we might call it, of a media to really try to get young people to come to our side right when they leave college. The right funds that to an insane degree. I mean, I recently heard I don't know if this is true, that Turning Point USA raised like 40 million dollars or something like that.

And the right has way more of these right wing think tanks, whether when you join, you're much better paid than if you're on the left and you join like whatever the left wing equivalent would be. So I actually think there would be a lot of value. It doesn't have to be, you know, me along with Jenkins Sam, but somebody and I'm willing to be a part of it. And obviously, Jenkins Sam would be great people to have involved as well. We need to just make really clear, like, listen, to some degree, like there's not actually

a mystery about what's going on here. We're winning on so many of the issues. When you ask people their view on abortion, their view on gay marriage, their view on using taxes, all these different things. It's like it's very clear the left is winning on the issues, but we simply aren't doing what we need to do in terms of funding the messaging. And the right crushes us on this. And for all the talk about George Soros, George Soros has never funded me or any of the people you mentioned. And it is something where if the left they're hosting you guys, they're ghosting a hundred percent.

Like, I mean, when's the last time you seen AOC or Bernie talk about David Pakman or T.Y.T. or the majority report? That hundred percent like that needs to happen. A hundred percent spark has to T.Y.T. or the majority report. That 100 percent like that needs to happen. A hundred percent spark has to happen. Yeah. And I think we need to have more advocates in Congress. And we do have some, you know, Roe Kahn is a big advocate and I think to some degree like Eric Swalwell.

And I can certainly name people, but you're up. This is a huge systemic problem. It's bigger than me, Jenkins, Sam. But to the extent I can be a part of solving it, I'm glad to be. Yeah, you guys are just in my wheelhouse. Yeah. You know, I agree with ninety nine percent of what you guys talk about. And I love it.

You're going to do a great job. Thanks so much, Rodney. Great, great call and great topic. Thank you. All right. There goes Rodney. Let's take just a very quick break just to let cooler heads prevail. No, I'm kidding.

We just need a quick break. If you're still wanting to talk to me, just hold on, because we're coming right back to the phones after this. One of our sponsors is electric e-bikes. I've been watching e-bike reviews on YouTube for a while because I've been thinking of getting one and I continually come across electric as the brand to go with. If your budget is between eight hundred and thirteen hundred dollars. And I have to agree from experience, I've had my electric e-bike for a little while now. I've almost ditched my car and regularly bike at this point for errands and things around

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car. Electric has models for every lifestyle and you can finance for as little as seventy three bucks a month. Go to electric e-bikes dot com to learn more. Explore all of the incredible e-bike models they offer. That's L.E.C.T.R.I.C. e-bikes dot com. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's hear from a few more people in the audience. How about Ramiro from Indiana? Welcome back to the program, sir. Ramiro, please accept my invitation to join the program. There he is. There. Sorry about that. So my quick question is, so Donald Trump, everything going on, obviously, you know, there's nothing in place that would prevent him from running for president, even from prison. Correct. That's that's my understanding. Yeah. for that is it simply because there isn't a specific law in the books for that or is it a

conscious effort to say prevent something like uh let's just for example if donald trump well when he won in 2016 let's say 2020 he was running against hillary again and he was afraid that she would beat him so like he would jail his political prisoner, like saying, lock her up in an attempt to, I guess. So is that the reason something like that, a law preventing that from happening? Is it in place? That's a good question, which is, is the reason why you're allowed to run for president from prison, that it prevents someone from jailing a political opponent to get them out of a

race? Yeah. So that's not my understanding of the reasoning why I think the reasoning is a lot kind of less less exciting, which is the principle of law that if something isn't banned, then it's allowed. And since nothing expressly banned someone from being in prison and running for president, it's allowed. We've never really had a situation in which I think someone would actually have a shot at winning the way Trump ban someone from being in prison and running for president. It's allowed. We've never really had a situation in which I think someone would actually have a shot at winning the way Trump

would. But I'll be honest, Romero, it's a very interesting question. I don't think it's going to play out in any real way because I don't think Trump's going to be in prison. No, and I don't either. I don't either. But I guess I wanted to know your opinion. Do you think that that law should be in place? Or like I said, do you think it shouldn't be in place to possibly prevent something like Bolsonaro trying to jail Lula da Silva and all that stuff? Generally speaking, generally speaking, I'm OK with the requirements to be president being super, super basic. Now, remember, I'm not allowed to run for president because I wasn't born in the United

States. I could make the argument. Actually, that should be changed. But forget about me. I'm not allowed to run for president because I wasn't born in the United States. I could make the argument, actually, that should be changed. But forget about me. I'm not even arguing just in general age, natural born citizen. OK, I actually think that I don't want to be putting a whole bunch of new requirements on, although I am obviously ideologically interested in the idea of some kind of composite competency test, which might have ruled out Donald Trump. But the one thing that's a little crazy for me is if in some states, if you're a felon,

you can't vote, but yet you could be a convicted felon and people vote for you and you win. Something about that seems a little incongruous. You know, it's weird. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. And that's why I asked the question, because if you would have asked me before 2016, yeah, I would have said, yeah, no, you should absolutely not be able to run for president if you're jailed. But then I got to thinking like, right, we, you know, with him running his campaign, screaming, lock her up, lock her up. And I got to thinking, you know, maybe that's maybe it's a good thing that that's not on the books. But it is funny

that you can be in prison and not be allowed to vote after you get out. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of these weird, incongruous things, but it's I think the point we both come away with is the next 18 months are going to be pretty insane. Yeah, absolutely. All right. My friend, thank you for the call. Appreciate it.

There's Ramiro from Indiana. Why don't we go next to Casey from Kansas? Casey from Kansas. Welcome back to the program. Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah, I just have a simple question this time, since I think you already covered it a little bit on your show. Do you think with the win of Brandon Johnson in Chicago against his more tough on crime, more police endorsed by the fraternal order candidate. Do you think that could make Democrats like Joe Biden rethink their tough on crime pivot?

Maybe, you know, go to a more solve it from the roots type of thing. Why would so you're saying the fact that Brandon Johnson won with his we're going to reform but support police sort of mentality. Would that make Biden change his mind about his approach? Why would it make Biden change his mind? Well, I mean, Biden has seemed like he's going for a more traditional tough on crime type of thing. Oh, I see.

At least the most. You know why I don't think that would really influence Biden much. What makes sense politically at the city level is different than what makes sense at the state level and certainly for running as as a presidential campaign. So I don't think Biden would be moved much by what worked in Chicago for a mayoral race. What about like other, you know, city Democrats like Eric Adams or somebody like that? Speaker 3 That may be that may be that it could, although all of these mayors often think, and it might be true that their city's circumstances are different than others.

And so they really shouldn't go by what other mayors do. It's just a kind of a general thought that often is in mayor's minds. Speaker 3 OK, well, I guarantee you that if the opposite had happened and if Paul Vallis had won that, people like Eric Adams would be shouting from the rooftops like this is proof that yeah, Democrats need to get more tough on crime. We need harsher charges for felons and everything like that. Speaker 1 You're probably right. You're probably right as far as that goes. Yeah, I know. But I don't expect to see Biden adjust much as a on the basis

of what happened in Chicago to answer the first question. Well, I wish he would, but yeah, I guess he'll probably continue as he's going into 2024, I believe so. Casey from Kansas, always great to hear from you. OK, thank you. All right. There he goes. Why don't we go next to Ronald from Illinois? Speaking of Illinois, let's go to Ronald from Illinois. Welcome to the program. Hey, can you hear me? Yeah. Hey, I'm at work, David, but I have got a quick question for you. So last week Trump got arrested. Why has Biden been so quiet about it? I actually like it. I think I think the reason Biden's being quiet is Trump and others are already saying Biden's

orchestrating the entire thing. You know, Democrats, Biden, George, they're all orchestrating the entire thing. When Joe Biden was asked about it, he just said, I'm not going to comment. He is making it. What I think Biden doesn't want is to make whatever Biden says is going to be accused of being extremely politically biased. People are going to read into it that Biden was somehow involved or whatever. I love that. Listen, this is law enforcement looking at evidence and bringing charges in New York City. It should have nothing to do with Joe Biden. And I like that Biden's not saying a word. The right, by the way, Rodney,

Ronald, is triggered by this. I saw a Fox News report the other day where they said, look at Biden's just smiling and not saying anything, even not saying anything is angering them. I think it's the right move. And I think Biden's smart for keeping his mouth shut for now. Thanks for that question, man. I'll keep up with the work. All right. Ronald from Illinois. Thank you so much for the call. Very much appreciate it. Yeah. If anybody thinks Biden should be talking about it, let me know. I just I just don't see it. Let's go to Andrew from California. Andrew from California. Welcome. What's on your mind?

Speaker 4 Hi. First time caller, longtime listener. Thank you. Kind of nervous, but I'll power through it. Yeah, you're doing great. So far, I just wanted to discuss with you about the when dealing with irrational like trump trump supporters yeah well what is the calculus because i've seen a lot of progressive hosts handle it both ways where they're like very patient and uh charitable in a sense versus like just steamrolling them and then just hanging up

on them and not letting them talk like for example for example, for with you, you had that guy who you guys were getting into, like the semantics of like Trump not being allowed with the nuclear codes. And I feel like you took like a charitable approach, which I agree. I agreed with you, but I felt like you could have been more charitable. But I don't know. I'm just a schmuck. I don't know. So listen, it depends what you want

to achieve. Right. I mean, my point with that guy, that was Bobby Polo. The reason I gave that guy so much time and so much leeway was he was one of those guys who showed up in our super chats during a live stream and said, I want to debate you and you won't debate me and you won't give me time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so the point I was trying to make was I'll gladly give you time and I'll allow you every opportunity to make your point. And the guy had 10 minutes and he quite literally wasn't able to make a single point. And the point of that was less about telling him he was wrong about every particular issue. He didn't even bring up an issue. That was the funny thing. The guy was desperate to debate and couldn't actually even hold a conversation. So that was more about like these people who are big, tough guys on the Internet who want to debate. Then you give them

a chance. They make no sense. They might as well be speaking a foreign language in other situations on somebody who comes at me with a particular issue that they're wrong about. Then it would be less about being as charitable as possible and more a particular issue that they're wrong about, then it would be less about being as charitable as possible and more about showing them that they're actually wrong on the issue. Does that make sense, Andrew? Like it depends on the situation. Yeah, I guess it's I don't know, I guess sometimes I prefer the more charitable approach. I just feel like maybe then there'd be more of a chance of connection. But maybe that's just wishful thinking. No, I think on balance, you're right.

It just with that particular guy you're thinking of, it went nowhere because there was no substance to it. You know, we could he wouldn't even understand what my position was. And yet he still tried to tell me I'm wrong. But it's like, dude, you don't even understand what I'm saying. How can we go forward here? I felt like with the nuclear weapons issue, which I think was like the one that kind of was ballooned. I felt like you could have been a little bit more like, OK, when you make a black and white statement where I don't think Trump should be around nuclear weapons, which is ridiculous. The president must, you know, have, you know, access to that. I just think that he would be very irresponsible. I didn't feel like you said it in a way where he was going to be able to receive that and digest it and maybe understand that. I mean, well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 You're right. I don't think he was going to be able to understand what I was saying, but the extent to which I just have to keep restating it, I think, you know, he had a bunch of time and he wasn't getting it. So it was just time to move on, you know. OK. All right. One last comment. Bring back Jimmy from Philly. Haven't heard from him for years, Andrew. It's crazy. I just miss his voice. Fair enough. Maybe we can find that impersonator. All right, Andrew, thanks so much for the call.

Thank you. All right. There goes Andrew with a very, very powerful declaration. Let's go to Darryl from Texas. Darryl from Texas. Welcome. What's on your mind today? Oh, hi, David.

Oh, oh, hi. Sorry, I'm just kind of nervous. OK, so my question, it pertains to the debates about like Trump's indictment and whether it's going to help. I just saw a recent poll from like Rasmussen, I believe, that shows Biden trailing both Trump and DeSantis. So just so you know, Rasmussen is not a good pollster. So I tend not to look at Rasmussen. What I would do is maybe look at an average of recent polls or look at like the five thirty eight recent polling and just look at pollsters rated A and B. I just don't think Rasmussen is a good pollster. But but it may not matter for the question you're going towards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to put like damage away on a single poll. No, but anyways,

when it comes to like Trump's indictment, like, like it could help him in the primary, but I still have a hard time seeing how in the general, you know, like Trump, he needs like independence, right. And like moderate Republicans, you know, to win the general, not just a mag of base. So my question to you is when it comes to the indictment, what actually went over like independent and swing voters or could actually like hurt him in general? Speaker 1 I think in general, I don't think the indictment. So for now, we're talking just about the one indictment, right? If there's a different indictment in Georgia, we would have to evaluate the charges, the implications, what that's going to do to Trump's ability to campaign. And then I'll give you an updated opinion based only on the arrest and indictment in New York City with the 34 felonies. I do believe it helps Trump in the primary.

It helps Trump because nobody's been talking about Ron DeSantis since the Trump arrest happened. And so publicity wise, it's been better for Trump than DeSantis. I think it has activated some of Trump's base. And so I do think Trump is helped in the primary by this New York City indictment. I don't think it gets him a single new vote in the general. And so there I think it actually hurts him. Oh, God. OK. Yes.

Yes. I was only wondering because I remember during during during the during like the 2016 election, like James Comey, like he released a letter on like Hillary Clinton and and like Hillary, like she was never indicted, never arrested. But yet, you know, but it didn't help her at all in the general elections. So I'm just here wondering, you know, Trump was actually indicted, arrested and is likely to get indicted again in future cases. I said part time, you know, seeing how people outside the MAGA base is as like a W or good

for Trump. I agree with you 100 percent. And honestly, if they really believed it was good, they'd be less angry and they'd be happier than they are. So I don't buy it for a second. I think your analysis is spot on. Oh, gotcha. OK. Yes.

Like like that's all I want to ask you. Like, thank you for taking my call. All right. Daryl from Texas. Great to hear from you. We're going to go to a break. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get to everyone, but we will take calls again back with much more right after this.

When you're using websites and apps, your device sends out data about you into the open, who you are, where you go, things you like. That data then gets sold around for advertising purposes, which is why every time I connect to the Internet, I use a VPN to hide my IP address. And our sponsor, Private Internet Access, is the most trustworthy VPN on the market. It's the only VPN that has proven multiple times in court. They don't log your activity. Private Internet access

protects you from the prying eyes of hackers, your Internet service provider, tech companies. Private Internet access is also super fast for streaming and for downloads. You can watch your favorite streaming platforms as if you're in another country like the UK to access cool new content. And with just one account, you can protect unlimited devices all at the same time. This is really a game changer. Private Internet access is giving my audience 83 percent off. That's two or three a month plus four months free. Go to PIA VPN dot com slash David. The link is in the podcast notes. All right. Let's get into Friday feedback. So many different messages coming in, continuing for all sorts of different reasons. And I want to have an opportunity here to go

over some stuff with people in the audience. One of the things that I love about my audience is you all don't forget about gun safety just because it's been like a little while since the last major mass shooting. Now, in the United States, we have individual shootings. We have mass shootings and then we have major mass shootings. Major means like it actually makes national headlines. It's a crazy country where we actually have mass shootings every day, but most of them don't make national headlines. OK, you all keep your eye on the ball, even when there hasn't been a major national mass shooting for a little bit.

Here's a very interesting YouTube comment, which is David, as a law abiding citizen who owns several firearms that I use for sports shooting and hunting. There's something no one has been able to explain to me. How is it that the federal government can implement and enforce a national ban on fully automatic weapons and sawed off shotguns, but is unable to do the same for semiautomatic firearms? Seems to me that every mass shooting in recent history has involved a semiautomatic firearm. A ban on semiautomatic firearms would not violate the Second Amendment. And as a matter of fact, could be argued that it speaks directly to the well-regulated militia aspect of the Second Amendment.

What are your thoughts? Well, the answer is, of course, you could ban semiautomatic weapons, but there isn't congressional support to do it. This I'm not going to pretend that I can cite every law on which the current status quo is based. OK, that I'm making that very, very clear. But the National Firearms Act of 1934 is very much, if not the only reason, again, I want to defer a little bit to possibility. It is a huge part of the reason why fully automatic machine guns are not legal. And it's because of how they are classified. And it goes back to the National Firearms Act of 1934

and other elements of law. There have been votes in the House of Representatives as to whether to ban semiautomatic weapons as well. But these votes have not succeeded at a time when you could also get a vote to succeed in the Senate and have it signed by the president. This is absolutely something that could be done. As this viewer points out, it wouldn't violate the Second Amendment. Now, it's just a matter of where we draw the line. Do we we most people agree that shoulder mounted RPGs are on the band side and should be not. They agree they are. They agree they should be on the band side. We have the National Firearms Act of 1934 when it comes to fully automatic machine guns. Just a matter of where we draw

the line. The answer for why semiautomatic weapons aren't banned is that they there is not the political will to actually do it. It's that simple. And I don't know, maybe it will change, but you're absolutely correct that a disproportionate number of these major mass shootings are committed at the hands of such a semiautomatic weapon. Scott commented on YouTube, says, David, I've been watching on you, been watching your content for a couple of years. Love what you do. Love your presentation style and the way you do. You think about things. You help me to craft my own ideas about how to engage with my Trumpster dad and still allow room for grace, knowing he has been brainwashed by Fox. That's sad. I hope you weather this storm. I'm in Georgia. I'm a retired 20 year U.S. Army infantry senior NCO.

I am a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't really know if it's even possible or helpful, but if there is anything I can do to provide for you and your loved ones protection and safety, I would do it for free. Well, I might ask for a dry place to sleep and food if it's too far from home. Thank you, sir. And thank you for your service. And we are weathering the storm. You know, it is upsetting to many of the in the hate mob. I know they're furious because they keep writing to me. They really thought they were going to get me canceled over the tweet from now a couple of weeks ago. They really did. And they saw that we came out of it with tens of thousands more YouTube subscribers and

the website generated over a thousand new paid subscribers and messages of support from celebrities and elected officials. And listen, anyone with half a brain knows what I'm talking about. Anyone with half a brain knows I'm not going to blame kids who were killed for being killed. We blame our elected officials and we blame the shooters. That's who we blame and aspects of the society that have gone wrong. But I really appreciate that. And we are getting through it and it's been crazy, but we are doing what we can. Jack commented on YouTube and said, I used to be a conservative. I switched because of people like Pacman and Kyle Kalinske.

Keep doing what you're doing right now, David. They only hate the tweet because you are 100 percent correct. Conservatives are more angry over your tweet than they are that kids were murdered. It's a useful distraction. If you're mad at me and some of them still are, if you're mad at me, you don't have to talk about the fact that you don't want to do a damn thing about guns. One other message along these lines. This one's from Scott. This one might be fake. It's funny, though. It might be real. I used to be a conservative for over 40 years. Pacman

changed that. Trump changed that. I put in the paperwork to become a Democrat and I've never been happier. I even lost weight hanging around left wingers. You know, this may be a joke. I genuinely don't know. What's so funny about it is obesity is dramatically higher in red states. I mean, it's not about make everything political. There was recently a study about life expectancy at birth in the deep blue areas of the country and the deep red areas of the country. Obviously, you have to take economics into account. Big, big part of this. But you are likely to live much longer. If you are born and live in blue areas, it's it is an incredible thing that we have going on in this country where political allegiance and the allegiance of state government has such an impact on every

aspect of our lives. Really incredible stuff. Raymond emailed me and said, just a comment from an average Joe. I think this is super interesting and also very depressing. Raymond said, was just watching Friday feedback and heard your advice about debating people online. I'm pretty good at it, probably because I'm 64. I've been a politics junkie since age 16, used to skip school so I could stay home and watch the Watergate hearings. In the last two years, I've debated at least 40 magas into silence. I set traps for them by writing things I know they'll agree with and then pointing out how the sum of those beliefs add up to the opposite of the point they're trying to make. Then they go quiet. They'll never admit it. They'll never admit

I'm right in the moment, but their silence signals their capitulation. But then it occurred to me there are 70 million more of them out there and suddenly those victories feel pretty hollow. It's demoralizing. This one hits guys. This one hits. As I've said before, we can spend hours trying to show these people the errors in their ways and sometimes we'll succeed. And then you remember 70 million people voted for Trump and you realize what we are up against. So an inspiring message from Raymond in the sense that he he has clearly figured out a way to do it. But then you remember there's 70 million of them. And then then what? Then where do we go? This is the whole retail versus wholesale strategy thing that's often

discussed. The ways to achieve rapid social change often are to enforce them via dictatorship, which I'm against. I know Trump's enamored with all these dictators, but I'm not. So then you say, well, then how do you do it? And it is very slow change over long periods of time, focusing on education, focusing on media literacy, extremely, extremely difficult to do. Daniel wrote in and says, I'm evil. This is still like the sort of stuff that's coming in based on the tweet from a couple weeks ago.

Daniel says, David, you are evil. I saw the tweet. You mocked murdered Christian children. I am sorry for you. Your parents failed and you are troubled on the inside. May somehow you find peace. Your hatred must be a serious burden. Yeah. No, that's not really it. I am disgusted by our elected officials who send thoughts and prayers and do nothing else. That's basically it. It's not about evil. It's not about

troubled. It's not about finding peace. It's not about any of it. But these folks won't stop, guys. They keep emailing. Here's George. All right. This is something I think you guys are going to enjoy. George wrote in and said, David, considering how small the trans population is worldwide, why do you spend so much time covering trans issues? Please tell me how to cancel my membership. Thank you, George. I've told you guys before about what I call unsubscribe trolls. These are people who write to me and they say, David, I was just about to become a paid member. And then you said X. And now I'm not going to. David, I've been a subscriber for five years. But now that you said why I'm canceling, I looked up George. George was last a member in 2020. And since 2020, this is why why

we file all of our messages. Sometimes law enforcement needs them. But this is another reason why. Since 2020, George has written to me 16 times saying he's going to cancel his membership because I said X and then because I said Y and then because I said Z. In fact, when I look this up. It's like, who has time to do this stuff? George wrote to me back in November and said, you're not talking about the CCP enough. I'm canceling. And then George wrote to me in the so. There's so many of these, it's hard to find all of them. God, when was this? George wrote to me in May and said they need to do something about smart fencing at schools and you're not talking about it and I'm going to

cancel. OK, the point here is. George has written to me 16 times saying he's going to cancel since he was last a member, folks, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the freedom that I get from being supported by individual members is that no one person can come in and tell me cover this or don't cover it or whatever the case may be. That's a great thing. And I will continue covering what I think makes sense. Why am I covering the trans issue more than the prevalence of trans people in the population? Very good question. The reason is because the American right wing has now started devoting way too much of their time to making the lives of trans people a living hell. And so when I see a group being targeted unfairly, I come to their

defense. As soon as the mob leaves trans people alone, I will be able to move away from that issue. So that's why George. All right, my friend. Best of luck with all of it. Send in your emails. Info at David Pakman dot com. YouTube comment, tweet Facebook. We pull these from all over the place and yours might be featured next week.

Fantastic bonus show for you today. Sign up at join Pakman dot com. Don't miss it. Extraordinary stuff. the Trump administration.