The Ricochet Podcast - Contagious

Episode Date: September 16, 2016

Another week, another show in which gab and you listen. This week, our guests are two world class gabbers: The Hoover Institution’s Bill Whalen stops by to discuss the state of the race, and some predictions for the next 55 days. Then, author and Ricochet Podcast Super Fan Tevi Troy Skypes in to chat about his new book Shall We Wake the President?: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the... Source

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Deeds and fees apply. See OnPost.com. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South American. All the ships at sea, let's go to press. Hello. As you may know, I recently had a cough that turned out to be pneumonia. One of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don't use a politician's filter.

However, that is not without its downsides. What Boehner is angry with is the American people holding him accountable. If I become president, oh, do they have problems. They're going to have such problems. That's funny. I don't know why that's funny.

It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lawlix, and today we have Bill Whalen from the Hoover Institution and Tevi Troy asking, Should we wake the president? Well, let's find out. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Hello, everybody. And here we go. Three, two, one. Welcome, everybody, to this, the Ricochet Podcast, and it's number 320.

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So go to thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet now. And we're brought to you by Ricochet, home of the thermometer that really should be at one-third but kind of looks like it's at three-fourths. And we like that, but it's hopeful. But I think you ought to roll that thing back a little bit. Otherwise, people think that we're almost there. We're not.

Rob? Well, listen, if you're listening to this podcast and you are a member of Ricochet, we thank you. If you're listening to this podcast and you're not, here's what we do. We do need your help. We do need your support. And we need it kind of soon. Ricochet is the fastest growing civil conversation

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Ricochet's addictive and fun and interesting and lively, and it's a nice place with nice people. So join today. Ricochet.com. You'll also find lots of tendrils, webs, strings that join Ricochet to other like-minded sites in the sort of nexus of center-right sensibility. One of them of course is the Hoover, that Hoover-placed guy thing where they got that uncommon knowledge run by that Pete – That guy Pete.

Pete Robinson. Mr. Robinson, you had one recently that was posted on Ricochet talking about the question as to whether or not we really should stop our rather embarrassing fixation. Some might say a fetish with the constitution, right? It's a time to start looking past it. And really, isn't a brighter – doesn't a brighter America start with the assumption that the constitution itself has really outlived its usefulness? You know I don't feel that way, James. I don't think that way and I don't feel that way. But one of my colleagues at the Hoover Institution, Terry Moe, does.

And he's written a book called Relic. He and a co-author who's at the University of Chicago. And it is a straightforward, unabashed – I mean even though I disagree with I think most – maybe not quite all of the argument but certainly most of the argument. I give Terry full credit for having written a sprightly book that is just straightforward in saying Woodrow Wilson got it right for his time. The progressive movement did in effect adjust the constitutional order in the United States in a way that needed adjusting, but it's been a century since Woodrow Wilson and we need more adjusting the mandate. We need more presidential power, not less.

Congress is dysfunctional and makes a mess of everything it touches and presidents have to have the power to override that. And if you would like to see Terry make his case, he makes it very eloquently. And if you would like to see me do my humble best to pose a few questions and raise an objection or two, go to Ricochet and click on that episode of

Uncommon Knowledge. There are already quite a few comments. First one. Right, exactly. And I'm sure the ghost of Huey Long is jumping up and down at the thought of having more unbridled presidential power and somehow making the case that the progressives retooled the definition of what the Constitution did. That's not exactly an argument for me in doing it again. But Rob, let me ask you this. One of the things that we learned during the Tea Party surge and also the surge of Donald Trump was that the enemy of progress, the enemy of getting our side straight and having us be effective, the enemy were the rhinos, the establishment

types, the ones who went to Washington and compromised and used the terms and the tools of the other side, the dealmakers. Now, unless I've missed something, this is the greatest virtue you can have because it allows us to turn the Leviathan to our own devices and our own outcomes and goals after which we will disassemble it. Am I right or am I wrong? Did everything flip in the last couple of months? No, no. You're totally right. I mean look, the problem with the federal government

is the word you use, which is leviathan. And a leviathan is something, the size of the federal government and its reach and its tendrils and tentacles into your world, so much more complex and massive. It would boggle even Woodrow Wilson, that old nasty, evil statist, which he was, a terrible person. Even he, I think, would recoil at the length and the depth with which the federal government inserts itself in local affairs and in your life and in your house and in your living room and in your bathroom.

I think that that would be shocking to anybody back then. It would certainly be. We know. I mean, it is not historical projections to suggest that it would be shocking to the founders. But the problem is for us is that the federal government is really huge. So you get in there and how do you change 30 years of ossified layers upon layers and layers of left-wing DOJ employees, or for that manner, left-wing Department of Commerce employees. I mean, even the secretary, cabinet secretaries,

even under a conservative president, even Reagan, they make speeches, they do what they can, but they wouldn't, they're not magicians. They can't really turn the state around unless it's to chop of the state's interest, which is to say the state can't insert itself here or there. That's really all it could do is starve the beast. And I'm not hopeful that's going to happen when we have two big government candidates running now, two regulatory state candidates running now. I don't see that there's any interest or enthusiasm in the country for a smaller federal government that doesn't tax and tariff and regulate

and tell you how many months the federal government says that you need for family leave and all sorts of things. I mean, where is the argument for that? And then the second thing I heard Peter say, so you want to get on this, is that the constitutional argument is based on – there is – we have a mechanism for amending the constitution. And we had a whole bunch of them in a very short period of time around the turn of the century. It is possible to do. What I find hilarious that people now say, well, that's too hard. It's too hard to do that now.

That would never happen now. And I think one of the things that we could say, having looked at the most astonishing past two years of American political history, is that it is a fool who says that could never happen because it could happen and there's a mechanism for it to happen and it's a perfectly legitimate mechanism and we've had many amendments before people are too lazy to do them now it's not much i can do about it i'm not in favor of making it easier that's so i'm done now you would you would no i did whom a little bit because – You whom did me. I did slightly. That I subscribe to the argument that Larry Arnn made here – what was it?

About a month ago on behalf of Donald Trump. I stipulate that I do not rise to the level of enthusiasm when it comes to Donald Trump. But I just think you could make a pretty good case that with a couple of exceptions, notable exceptions, one of them is takings, the Keogh case and so forth, but with a couple of carve-outs, Donald Trump is much more skeptical of expansion of the federal government

than Hillary Clinton has been. I'm not going to do it because I can't do it, but Larry did do it and went back and cited chapter and verse that one of the few places where Donald Trump has been demonstrating consistency over the years is objecting to the size and scope of the federal government. Would he have the political smarts to do anything about it? I'm not sure.

That's always the question with Trump. His policy is in motion. I grant all of that, but it just strikes me as reasonable, maybe not plausible. Maybe I'll just make it as modest a case as that. It's at least plausible to suggest that under Donald Trump, you'd get less expansion of government than under Hillary Clinton, who really, really believes in it, who really believes in it. I think that's very, very fair. I would agree with that.

Even as a person who's not a fan of Trump at all, I would agree with that. But I will also say that it's clear. I'm not blaming the candidates here. I don't think it's the candidates' fault. I'm really not making an anti-Trump argument. I'm simply talking about what the American voter wants. The American voter seems to want absolutely no adjustment to federal entitlements, a federal mandate for family and parental leave,

a high-tariff state. I mean, Donald Trump said this week he wants to slap tariffs on Ford cars. They want an interventionist and an economic top-down planning model for the federal government. They want that, and they're going to get that. Whoever wins, they're going to get that. And saying that one is a little less than the other is probably true, but it's like no one is arguing or voting for small government

in any meaningful way in this election. And that's a failure of conservatives to make and connect and take their argument to the voters. It's not the failure of the candidates, I don't think. And I grant that the federal government is a particular problem. During the Reagan years, we thought we had it figured out. You couldn't actually really cut because the vested interests were so powerful. But what you could do was slow the growth of the federal government and get the economy to grow faster so that relative to the

economy, relative to the private sector, the federal domain was shrinking. And that worked for a few years. But of course, what happens is that when you get buoyant economic growth, you get tax revenues thrown off and the next president comes along and starts spending them on the federal government. I grant every bit of the argument. When the federal government, we have a quandary. I don't know how to fix it and I don't know how that anybody does. But I do know that we need to insist upon federalism because I do know that in Texas, they ares and now continuing under Mike Spence was able to cut taxes and scale back regulations and actually reduce the number of state workers. I do know that governors are – for reasons I don't fully understand, it turns out to be almost impossible in Washington. But if we insist on a separate sphere of action, on freedom of movement for the states,

then you're going to get impressive experiments. They are taking place in state after state after state, and that's where the hope lies for future. I mean this is a problem for the decades, but that's where the hope lies. So we need to insist on federalism. And there again, I think it's plausible to argue that Donald Trump is going to be more welcoming, more welcoming to degrees of freedom for the states than is Hillary Clinton. So all of this adds up to a great big powerful – no, it doesn't. All of this adds up to a preference for Donald Trump given the alternative. By the way, by the way, you, you, Rob Long, who in one podcast after another permitted John Podhoretz to say it's over. It's already over.

The polls are done. It's cooked. Trump's eight points down in Georgia. And Rob Long just sat there and said, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, which leads, James, I think, to the next item on our agenda here this morning, which is, I have a note here that says polls continue to tighten. You were, I'm sorry, Rob.

I am, you are, I'm using, you're the goose who's going to be the pate. I'm taking a funnel and putting it in your mouth and jamming this down because you were absent last week when the polls were first continuing to tighten, depriving me altogether of any chance to gloat and chortle. So I have held that.

But if you thought I was going to forget, this is my week for gloating and chortling. No, I knew you weren't going to forget. I've actually engineered all sorts of audio and Skype problems today to sort of steer up and kind of avoid this call. You are right. It is tightening. And here's where you know that the people are nervous. And by the people, I mean me, because of the argument I'm about to say.

Hey, Peter, the only poll that matters is the one in November. When you hear that, you know the situation's getting a little dicey. So I will admit to you that it's getting dicey by saying um you know the only poll that matters is one in november uh i don't know what i want to happen in november that's my problem i think i mean for me the future of amer. I care. I think he's going to lose. I just think structurally he's going to lose. I just am looking at the states and I think he's going to lose.

But I would love it to be close. I don't want one more vote. And there was a little pause there where I was trying to come up with a phrase that wouldn't be a gross violation of our code of conduct. One more vote for that witch, that lying, greedy, meretricious, grasping Hillary Clinton, then absolutely, that she absolutely has to fight and claw for. And I think she's going to win.

And when she gets in there, I want her to walk into that White House wounded. I want her to walk in the weakest, the weakest president in American history walking into the White House politically. I mean, I don't mean politically. There you have it. Here's Rob Long just saying to everybody, I want Hillary to win, but by only one vote. I know. Only one. I only want to give her one vote.

You remind me of the telegram that Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. sent to Bobby Kennedy concerning the West Virginia primary in which John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running against Hubert Humphrey. Buy no more votes than necessary. I refuse to pay for a landslide. Exactly. I don't want her to win. I want everyone to – I want to postpone the whole thing for a year and have more candidates run. That's what I want.

But I think she is going to win despite these tightening polls. And I'm perfectly, I've come to a, not a happy place, but a peaceful place with that. And what I want most of all is for her to be the most, the weakest first term president,

one term president ever. And I want a strong Rob Portman back in the Senate and a strong Marco Rubio back in the Senate. Both those guys are doing great in their respective states. We didn't think that was true in the early summer, even midsummer, Peter. We weren't sure what was going to happen in Ohio and Florida. True, true.

And I think their strength is helping – is really helping Trump in both those states um and not the other way around they're really pulling him up more than he's uh helping them um so listen i'm i'm not at peace with it because it's like i don't feel i feel like i lose either way but if it's close um and she and she's like kind of a like a wounded gazelle struggling in there i think i think a larger beast perhaps something a gazelle well yeah larger well you know that's right because i think of that as weak you know the weakness and the lion is like you know it's hard for that but it isn't really true is it but i said this on the other podcast and i think it's i mean it still is the metaphor that i think is is controlling for me for this campaign is you know and i't – I'm not trying to make fun of Hillary Clinton and her pneumonia.

God forbid, knock wood, that we're all healthy, right? Because you did that two days ago on the Glob podcast. Shut up! All your good lines are gone! No, but I mean when they're guiding her in, she's collapsing, and everybody's working together to kind of get her in the car. She can barely make it. That is what I think the media sees as its role in the next month, month and a half, whatever it is. Their role is to take this sick, frail thing and move it into the White House. And our role as conservatives who believe in limited government and free markets across

the board, even when it comes to trade, our goal is to make sure that if she's going to win, and I think structurally she's going to win, she wins weak. They do have to carry her in. She is in there, kind of like Woodrow Wilson in those last two weeks. Or John Gill behind the microphone in the Patterns of Force Star Trek episode, but that's another issue. As they will tell you, Rob, you have to vote for somebody. There are two choices. This is not a Hobson's choice.

No, no, not at all. But if you did want a choice from somebody named Hobson and his friend Billy, you would go to Cricket Shirts. And what am I talking about? Well, Cricket Shirts. And what am I talking about? Well, Cricket Shirts. Oh, wow. That was amazing. The results of two guys named Hobson and Billy from Austin, Texas. They were lamenting the loss of great,

hard-to-replace polo shirts of years past. You know, the great ones, the great, the things you imagine that Peter Robinson would wear. Peter Robinson would probably, whose placenta had an IZOD logo on it. Think that classic style. These guys set out on a quest to find the perfect shirt. You know, guided by memories of their very first collared shirts

from the early days in prep school together and the well-worn hand-me-downs from dads and uncles and others, these two brave men spared no effort to find that shirt. And in the end, unable to track down this elusive prize, they did what any two enterprising young men would do. They set out to design it themselves and make it on their own. Now, the perfect shirt, what, would be comfortable, yes. It would look great on and off the golf course, if you golf.

It would take inspiration from the past, and it would bring new ideas about design and materials into play whenever that made sense. Well, in a world of Southern prep and East Coast classic, cricket has an easygoing, fun-loving Austin spirit to its own. The designers took that classic style with a fresh set of eyes looked at it, and their inspiration comes often from the iconic shirts they recall from the past, as well as the occasional thrift store, vintage store treasure.

Now, the spirit of the 19th hole, that's what Cricket's ultimately all about. The 19th hole is wherever, whenever you're most at ease. The folks at Cricket, it's a favorite bar on Rainy Street, a relaxing afternoon in Barton Springs, or simply the backyard of the Klum House. Now, Austin is full of 19th holes, and wherever you live, well, wherever your 19th hole might be, you know it at once, and that's where you kick back with friends when you're finished,

where you swap the best stories, share the best deals, make the best calls. The 19th hole comes after the first 18th, and before all the others that follow. I have one of these Cricut shirts. I tried it on. My wife noticed it instantly because it was different from the shirts that I usually wear. And she said, you wear that well. That looks good.

What husband doesn't like to hear that? Well, if you'd like one yourself, if you'd like to buy it for someone, 20% off your first purchase, visit C-R-I-Q-U-E-T, shirts.com, slash Ricochet. Enter the promo code Ricochet. Again, C-R-I-Q-U-E-T.

And we thank Cricket for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Now we move on. They're good shirts, by the way. I've got to say, they're really good shirts. I like them. Your wife may have said, you wear that well, because that's you, James. My wife said something far more pertinent and useful. It makes you look thinner.

Well, there you go. So you can't beat that. A slendering effect, and you don't even have to get it in black with the stripes, and you're good. Black and stripes, that's what we want. That's what Bill, that's what Rob wants Hillary to be wearing soon, of course. Prison stripes.

Well, she should. This is one of the things apparently that Garrison Keillor said on his web page the other day. No other presidential candidate has ever been shown in prison stripes. That's how bad and nasty and mean these people are.

Let's talk bad, nasty and mean with Bill Whalen. He's a Hoover Institute Research Fellow since 1999. Writes and comments on campaigns, elections, and governance with an emphasis on California and America's political landscapes. Columnist for the SACB and writes on politics and current events for Forbes.com. His commentary can also be seen on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, Real Clear Politics, the LA Times, and Fox News' website. Welcome to the podcast. So looking back, is this the most vicious, vile campaign ever in human history going back to Roman times? I think if you go back, gentlemen, first, great to be with you. I think if you go back into the 19th century, you'll find political campaigns that literally

cause spouses' wives to die. So I don't think we've quite hit that mark in this campaign. But not something to shoot for. But no, nobody has died quite yet. Some have stumbled in the streets, but nobody has actually died to result in what's been said. But no, I think to the extent it feels worse than ever, I think that's first of all a product of obviously the two choices you have. And then just social media is just even more intense than it was four years ago. And I think that just adds to the whole struggle.

Hey, Bill, Peter here. Listen, I have two questions before I permit Rob Long to elbow his way in here. You can tell. I'm sure he's going to be asking tendentious questions that lead the witness, as they say. Don't you give him any satisfaction. He's going to want you to say that Donald Trump can't win. And I, of course, want you to do nothing but give me your totally unvarnished, just straightforward analysis. Tell us why Donald Trump will win.

How about if I tell you how he can win? No, actually, serious question, serious question. Rob keeps saying, I think structurally, he's going to lose. Structurally, she's going to win. So give us that structural argument, and then go ahead and give us your argument. Structural argument for Rob Long is that structurally, presidential campaigns work the following. They are muscular affairs. They're about turnout. They're about getting out the vote, not just spending millions of dollars on advertising, Peter, but about actually targeting people on the telephone, putting people into buses, harassing people into voting, just making sure that your army shows up in larger numbers in those states that you need to win.

And if you look at how these two campaigns are set up, one of the campaigns, Hillary's in particular, is banking on it. If you look at a state like Florida, he doesn't have much in the way of groundwork in Florida. She has basically flooded the interstate four with workers to turn out people. So if the old rules apply, and that's the key phrase here, the old rules, if the old rules apply, then yes, she's going to win. Oh, but? That's if the old rules apply, then yes, she's going to win. Oh, but? That's if the old rules apply

because what Donald Trump has done is not just an affront to common sense, not just an affront to your sensibilities, but also an affront to political science. And he's made the calculation that somebody with A, stratospheric name recognition, B, the ability to work social media, C, the ability to get inside the head of his opponents, B, the ability to work social media, C, the ability to get inside the head of his opponents, D, the ability to tap into the great frustrations with politicians and the way politics are conducted, that that person can win in this environment. And the scary thing, Peter, is he's gotten pretty far proving that point. And isn't it also one of the old rules

of politics that you need a candidate? That too, you need a candidate. Now, 52 days out, there is great worry in Democratic circles about Hillary being able to campaign down the stretch now hard. But you know what? If you go through the history of her patterns and the history of her popularity, the less you see of her, the better she does.

There's a perverse argument to be made that the best strategy for her at this point is to let Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth warren let them carry the water and she ought to stay behind the scenes hey bill it's rob long you have uh you have uh summed up my argument beautifully um uh and i would just only add one thing to that by saying that um we political science hasn't i mean still – the old ways still work. You still have to get people to the polling station.

They've got to vote. You've still got to get people who are enthusiastic about your candidate. If they're not, you've got to get them in a van, and someone's got to have the van, and that means that someone's got to have organized state. Because we still – I mean we could tweet all we want, but we still elect presidents in the old-fashioned 18th century way. You show up and you make a mark on a piece of paper. So I kind of feel like that's, I mean, for all of this sort of new media idea, we need to sort of focus on the fact that eventually you got to show up,

your warm body's got to show up and do it. Let me ask you a question about how I'm seeing it, just tell me if you think that this is right or not. My basic premise of this election is that if the election is about Hillary Clinton, Trump wins. And if it's about Donald Trump, then Hillary Clinton wins. And for most of the year and most of the summer, both of those candidates have seemed to want to make it about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is Donald Trump's favorite subject. And the minute people suddenly go, wait, wait, let's look at this Hillary again, she falters. And a lot of that is because they're reminding us of the emails, sort of the cloud of meretricious kind of greed that surrounds the Clintons in general. So if you are Hillary Clinton right now and you're on bed rest, what do you think she should do?

The first thing she ought to do is continue to rest and continue to stay low-key. No, I mean, seriously, she needs to stay low-key for the next week and be as fresh as she can going into Monday the 26th when they have their first debate. And I think in that debate she has to focus on two things. Number one, the economy. You look at polling. I'm lucky. At Hoover, I'm privy to some internal polling that some of our very talented political scientists are doing. And I've been looking in particular at this one rolling poll they've been doing since May of last year.

And the issue that dominates is the economy. National security is obviously important. There are some other issues, but the economy drives all. So she needs to step up to the plate and tap into this economic angst, which he, as the non-politician, probably has an easier ability to step into. But then secondly, I think she just has to focus, Rob, on his temperament. He with his 60% disapproval rating and she with her 58% disapproval rating or whatever it is this week. You're not going to like either of these people, so you have to make voters be more wary of him than her, or else you can stomach more for the next four years. And I think the most effective ticket is to tap into the temperament more than any particular idea. And if you're Donald Trump, your argument is, all right, that's right.

My strategy is to remind people of this crooked Hillary, right? So each one of the, we're going to watch debates, or I think there are two or three of them, we're going to watch debates that are all about, you're a crook, and you're a racist. Because that actually, even as distasteful and horrible as that is, that is people's strategy for both those people. These days, to be a racist is worse than being a crook. To be a racist is the worst thing that somebody can be in a society, to be a crook. Well, how does being a crook interfere with people getting what they want out of the government? I mean as long as the money keeps flowing downstream, the crew is happy.

If she can – I mean the point is to make people feel virtuous for who they vote for, right? And if they vote for the person who's not the racist, then they're the virtuous person. I'm not sure I would push it so much along the ideas of either one being crooked. These are two fighters in the ring who have the most scar damage imaginable from having been in the public spotlight for the better part of 30 years. You throw everything by the kitchen sink at Trump and his numbers really don't move that much. They move based on what he says, not what people say about him. And the same for her. It's based more on her actions and the criticism. What new thing can you throw up in the next 52 days to really throw this election into chaos? I'm not sure at this point what could be done. It's more, I think, a function

about the two personalities of the candidates. And again, the undecided voter, to the extent there's still a very small piece of the electorate out there that has not made up his mind, but that small sliver of the electorate that has not quite been able to decide which one of these two people can I tolerate the most? In other words, which one do I really detest the most? Which one can I best abide with? Hey, so Bill, I know Peter's got a couple more questions. I mean, can I ask you this? Maybe the answer is no, but I'm not going to allow the answer no. But this is second best. What is the American presidential campaign in history that most resembles this one? 68 is a very tempting place to go to in part because a lot of the social unrest, the foreign policy uncertainties do tap in 1968.

Obviously, the country is not having quite the same nervous breakdown it was in 1968. But the Humphrey-Nixon choice, I think, is very analogous in this regard, and just two products of a party that neither party was terribly excited about to begin with. So that might be that. Although, oddly enough, she is more Nixon than the Republican Trump is in this cycle because she carries all of Nixon's problems, literally from everything from being a very familiar figure to trying to adapt to modern times. I find one of the more interesting standards of this campaign, by the way, who answers

the Rob Long question. I was thinking about this when she went down for the count last week and how she could have turned the situation around. And the answer would be this. The easiest thing would have been for her, Rob, to go out and try to do or say something funny, turn it into a joke in a situation. I thought myself as a candidate, I'd call Rob Long and I'd say, Rob, can you write me 10 very good jokes? And Rob Long would write 10 really outstanding jokes for her.

And then the question, Rob, is could she actually pull off one of the jokes? And the answer is no, because she's not funny. She's just – I don't know if she's a joke, but just she's not – you don't look at her and you just don't want to laugh. She's just not a comical figure in that regard. Reagan could make it work. She can't. Trump's not that funny either. But which candidate is really capable in this election of causing any kind of mirth and joy?

And the answer is neither. They're grim choices for the American public. By the way, that she's not funny is the second reason that having Rob write jokes for her would never have worked. The first is that although she has $120 million in the bank, she still can't afford him. Bill. No way you can afford me. Bill, so listen. One week before election day in 1980, Gallup had Ronald Reagan at 39.

And that evening, there was a debate. And one week later, the polls had moved 12 points and Ronald Reagan had won by 51 percent. It is – I believe you and I share the view that in 1980, it was pretty simple. The country wanted change. And on the night of the debate, there was only one debate that year. On the night of that debate, it went into it wanting to vote for Reagan but thinking he was too old or too crazy and Reagan appeared vigorous and had a nice, light, lovely touch. He appeared non-crazy and everybody said, you know what? We can live with that guy. So they voted for him. two questions. One, is that fundamental premise at work here? Is this fundamentally a change election where people would like to be able to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump needs to achieve only a sort of comfortableness or plausibility? Is that a correct premise? Two, there are three debates this year, but will it once again come down to the debates?

The answer to the first question is yes. Where Reagan prevailed in 1980, he struggled in the Gallup polls under one particular category, and that was the so-called commander-in-chief question. Do you see this guy as a commander-in-chief? Ronald Reagan had a reputation going in the 1980 campaign of what? A guy who was going to get us into a nuclear war, a guy who was going to send troops to Nicaragua. He helped assuage that. He helped tone down that perception in the first debate,

and that was a big part of his movement. If you look at the current polls with Trump, that is probably the largest glaring, biggest gap he has right now with Hillary. It's the commander-in-chief question. So if he can address that, yes, he's going to have a much better shot. But the second part of the question in terms of three debates, absolutely, because keep in mind, they're going to have to be on the stage with each other for however many hours it adds up to, what, three, four and a half hours? And two things here. Number one, how does she conduct herself?

She needs to consider this poll. This debate is going to be a combination of both 2012 in terms of if Trump can get an advantage over her in the first debate. Can he keep him up in the next two debates or does he blow an opportunity? Second, it's going to be a little bit of the 2000 debate where you had Al Gore on the stage with George Bush for three times and he just couldn't control himself being in the presence of George Bush, this person he clearly looked down to not physically so much but intellectually, just what am I doing to stage this person, sighing Al Gore, smirking Al Gore, confronting George Bush, Al Gore, thoroughly obnoxious Al Gore who drove away votes? How does she conduct herself temperamentally in his presence for three nights?

I think she makes him look good because she comes across as a pill. Let me ask you. Let's look beyond this. Let's say the election is over. Trump has won and there is a new day in Washington. There won't be necessarily a new day countrywide though. You had a great little piece in the SACB about a teacher who said that we ought to take George Washington's name off the high school and replace it with Maya Angelou because George Washington was a slave owner and these people must be extirpated from the public sphere. Those people are not going to go away at all.

And the power that they have and the way in which they have like termites gone through every single facet of the educational system, the media and the rest of it. I mean even if people don't think that that guy was right, they're nodding along with it because he makes an interesting point and who are we? So in other words, Donald Trump wins. That's just the start. And how does Donald Trump change the culture? I'm not sure how Donald Trump changes the culture because we've become such a pocketed country. I'm speaking to you from Charleston, South Carolina. Peter Robinson can appreciate how bizar bizarre Charleston, South Carolina is compared

to Palo Alto. This is a place that is pro-military. This is a place which is pro-free trade. This is a place where the default position, in other words, you have to explain yourself. In Northern California, you have to explain yourself. If you're a Republican here, if you're a Democrat, you have to explain yourself. So it's complete up is down, down is up. And I think a lot of the nation is the same way in that regard. I mean, show me the parts of the country that are split evenly between the two parties, not that many, and parts which culturally along the same pages. So I'm not sure about Trump's ability to bridge the divide, but I don't think she has the talent to do it either. So I think the country is probably looking at a four to eight year period waiting for a new

figure to come along, somebody who could bridge the divide. In theory, this is Barack Obama and the idea of post-racial politics in America and somebody so great and wonderful that he can heal us all. That didn't happen. So I think we have to wait for President 46 to come along and take a shot at it. Oh, great. Okay. Well, Augusta Caesar is still a few years away. It gives you guys four to eight more years to talk about. Hey, Bill, I can't resist. I can't resist. We got you, and to me, you're a treat.

Is it going to come down to three states, four states? If so, what are the states? Okay, well, let's look at the last polls, and let's give Trump a few states. Sorry, Rob, but we're going to give him Ohio and Florida just for the sake of argument. Now if you do that, if you go back to 2012 and move forward to 2016, if you give Trump Florida and Ohio, they both will be close, but let's say he picks them both up. It's now a 285-253 race. Here's the problem for Trump, plain and simple. This is why she still has the institutional edge in this election. He has to find 17 electoral votes. Pennsylvania with 20 would do the job.

She's still doing well in Pennsylvania, so that's going to be a tough haul. His numbers are better than they were in Virginia. That's 13. That only gets him to 266. So it's going to be a combination of Kenny Play and Virginia. I would look at Iowa, which very quietly has become a very Republican state in terms of who it's putting into office. Almost all statewide officers are Republican now. I would look at Nevada, oddly enough, where you would think with Hispanics he'd be in trouble, but his numbers remain strong. He's about four points ahead of her. I'd look at Colorado as well enough, where you would think with the Hispanics he'd be in trouble, but his numbers remain strong. He's about four points ahead of her. I'd look at Colorado as well. So I think those are probably the cluster states that will drive it.

So he needs Ohio and Florida and Virginia plus one small state. Right. If he can't get Pennsylvania, Peter, which puts him over 270, Virginia puts him at 266. So he needs at least one of those other states which have, I think, Nevada as a minimum force. That gets him to 270. So again, it's very doable. But again, I'm going to make Rob Long smile. Here's the problem. She has states to give away. He has no margin for error. If he drops in North Carolina, if he drops in Georgia, if he drops in Arizona, it's probably game over. Okay. Well, as the street sweet-spear said to the elephant,

that will be enough out of you. It was fine until you started pleasing Rob. Until you started talking about facts and reality. Yeah, silly me. Silly me. Well, we'll have you on after the election to figure out exactly what we got right and what we got wrong and how we're, of course, fully qualified to judge the future regardless of what we said before. Well, that's if I'm running after the election. Actually, true story. I have a speech to give on behalf of Hoover and Cancun in the middle of October, and I am still seriously debating on whether or not to do a one-way or round-trip ticket. You're going to have trouble getting back in, baby, because that wall will be built by then.

It'll be built by then. Finally, somebody said he's going to leave the country if and actually does. I'm so tired of these celebrities. Say hello to Lena Dunham down there when you see her. Finally, somebody said he's going to leave the country if and actually does. I'm so tired of these celebrities. Say hello to Lena Dunham down there when you see her. Thanks, Bill. Send the man who used to be a birther who today is no longer a birther. It's not going to be Dolphins in a few days, is it?

I agree. Talk to you later, Bill. Thanks, Bill. That would be great, actually. Now it would be great to lose him to Cancun. But on the other hand, when know what you think about it? You wonder whether or not if this election – if Trump wins, whether or not there is going to be a sort of seismic reshuffling of media opinion outlets because it will be the sort of thing that just proves beyond question how wrong some people have been and thus calls into question perhaps their judgment.

Doesn't it not? So you would see all of these – Rob will have to spend the next four years explaining himself. So you have all these newsrooms and you'll have all these editorial sections and you'll have all of these television places and all the pundits and the rest of it. It's entirely possible that somebody will look over the landscape, look at the pundits that they've been going to and say, fire the lot of them. But where are they going to get new ones? Where are they going to find new ones?

How are they going to recruit new ones? Where do you get new ones? Well, if you want to find the best candidate. How could you possibly recruit new candidates? I don't see where that – that's literally impossible. Well, not really. It would be literally impossible to recruit better pundits. Well, you might mean that in a figurative sense, which is how most people do when they use the word literary, literally.

But I'm here to tell you that if you want to find the perfect hire, you need to post your job on all of the top websites. And now you can. Yes, with what? With ZipRecruiter.com. Yes, you can post your job to 100 plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click. We need people who know what's going on. Out goes the email and then you just sit back and watch your qualified candidates roll into

ZipRecruiter's easy to use interface. Any industry, any city nationwide. No juggling the emails, no calls to your office. You can quickly screen candidates, rate them, and hit the right person fast. Now find out today why ZipRecruiter has been used by over 800,000 businesses. And right now, you can post jobs in ZipRecruiter for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial, one word. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash free trial.

One more time, to try it for free and find the candidate and the job you need, go to ZipRecruiter.com. Now we bring Trevi – I'm sorry. I just conjoined his name into one portmanteau. Portmanteau. I can't say anything today. I need some more coffee. You guys take it. I'm out of here.

No. Tevi Troy. You can do a lilacs too. Go ahead, Shane. That's right. Zippity-doo-dah, zippity-recruiter. In addition to being a Ricochet Podcast superfan, Tavi Troy is the president of the American Health Policy Institute.

He's also the author of the bestselling book, What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted, 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House. Frequent television and radio analyst and has appeared on Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, and The News Hour, among other outlets. You know, the shows. His newest book is Shall We Wake the President? Welcome back to the podcast, sir. And tell us about this book you just wrote.

Well, thanks for that very nice introduction. The kindest part of it and the one I will tweet later is that you called me a ricochet podcast superfan, to which I plead guilty. Excellent. The book is about presidents and disasters, how presidents have handled disasters throughout our history. And what I found in the book is that as government has gotten bigger and as communications became more instantaneous, the expectations of the American people on presidents when it came to disaster

have grown ever higher. And now I think we have unrealistic expectations on the president to drop everything and run to every disaster site and be disaster responder in chief. And I'm not sure it's good for the presidency and I'm not sure it's good for the nation. Hey, Tabby Peter here. Harry Truman, Harry Truman, I read this in one biography or another. Harry Truman is reported to have told his staff – now, this is during the final days. As you well remember, he became president on the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. The Second World War was still months from ending. Germany wouldn't surrender until May, Japan not until August.

And Harry Truman said to the staff, don't wake me up unless I can make a decision that will help us end the war quicker. Don't wake me up unless I can do something that has an effect. Is that a pretty good rule? I think it's an excellent rule. And related to the book, I just put a piece in Politico about the 3 a.m. phone call and suggesting that it is a bit of a myth that there really is very little a president can do at 3 a.m. And in fact suggesting that it is a bit of a myth that there really is very little a president can do at 3 a.m. And in fact, there have been very few times in our history when presidents were awakened and made some action that changed the course of events. You know, presidents have gotten involved in disasters, as I point out in the book, but the 3 a.m. phone call

itself is not a wise move by the staff. And I think Harry Truman was smart to put forward that rule. So that's kind of the time, though, that Russia would be invading a Baltic state. Look, I kind of want him to get him up for that. Look, James, you're right. If there is that kind of situation, presidents can and should be awakened. But that, you know, unfortunately, this is more common these days. But overall, throughout our history, it's a relatively rare thing. And so for something like that, Peter, you worked in the Reagan administration when there was the horrible bombing in Lebanon and over 200 Marines were killed. President Reagan was awakened for that and stayed up the rest of the night with meetings dealing with it. But I think that is a rare event, and in most cases, the president does not need to get involved.

I worked in the Bush White House, as you guys know. Yes. And the general rule was that if, unless there was something really urgent, you don't wake the president. If there's something that is an important development overnight, you would put it in his reading file. President Bush did get up pretty early. And there really wasn't that much difference between him being notified of something at 3am and 6am if there was nothing the president needed to do about it immediately. Right. So, Tevi, in researching Shall We Wake the President, writing that book, who screwed up? Who took a crisis and either in terms of the actual substance of the crisis or in terms of the politics? I guess those two are very related.

What are lessons that the next president, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, can learn about how not to do it? OK, so the number one worst president that I pick in terms of dealing with disasters is Woodrow Wilson. There was the flu in 1918. Six hundred seventy five thousand Americans died and Wilson did nothing about it. In fact, he was told that the troop transports taking American servicemen over to Europe during World War One were killing people. In fact, they were spreading the disease among American servicemen but also in Europe, and he did nothing to stop them. He raised it with the general or was raised to the generals, and the generals said, no, we can't stop the troop transports at all,

even though it was one month before the hostilities ended. So I put Truman on the bad list of presidents who don't do a good job of disasters. And where – so you write about George W. Bush and Katrina. Where does that go? That was not – actually, that's a place – now that we have plenty of hindsight, distinguish between how the president, how George W. Bush handled the substance, the policy substance, what a president actually could and should have done at the time of Katrina from the public affairs or

political aspect of it. Yeah, I think you're right to distinguish among them, Peter, because there was definitely a public affairs debacle when it came to Katrina. The flyover, I thought, was really not a good move. Everybody agrees it's not a good move. Dan Martlett called it one of the worst moments of the Bush presidency. He was a communications aide. But that's only part of the story. Remind us when you say the flyover. You're right. Remind us.

You know the capital T and capital F in the flyover. But President Bush in 2005 during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, he flew over on Air Force One, the affected areas, and looked down with a look of concern, but he didn't stop in the area. And that was seen as a sign of presidential ineptness and lack of compassion. Interestingly, in the book, I found that Lyndon Johnson did a similar flyover in 1968 in Washington during the riots after Martin Luther King was assassinated, and he flew over the affected areas, and he looked down looking eerily like President George W. Bush. So I think the general rule I have for my book is if you're a president and there's a disaster,

maybe go, maybe don't go, but definitely don't do a flyover. Hey, Jeffy, it's Rob Long. How are you? Thanks for being on. So I want to drill down on that a little bit because it seems to me – I'm just thinking like were I president, I don't know whether I would give that – I mean it is rational to say that Harry Truman made a rational order, gave a rational order to his team. There is an argument to be made that flying over the flooded areas has much more impact and is much more affecting than being on the ground, although the optics are terrible. So if I were president, I would say, yeah, wake me at 3 a.m. just because I know they will ask you the next morning, did you wake the president? Was the president – when was the president informed? Because everyone seems to be obsessed with that. So yeah, wake me up and then let me go back to bed. Because that way, I mean, isn't that the

best political solution to this problem? Because people are obsessed with when the president knew and when did you call him, the 3 a.m. phone call and all that stuff. Maybe we'll just take that off the table in the early days of whatever the crisis is. It's a great question, Rob. And first let me say, were you president, I would sleep better at night, either now or post-November.

So you are one of the few. This is my base. My base is on the podcast. And James and I would be in New Zealand. Right. But on this point, you're absolutely right, Rob. And one of the things I found in that article is that there is pressure to wake the president in these instances and that it's not Edwin Meese did in 1983 when he did not wake Ronald Reagan when two U.S. F-14s shot down two Libyan MiGs, and they didn't immediately

wake Reagan. They did notify him later in the night, but they didn't immediately wake him, and that led to exactly the scenario you're laying out, Rob, where people are saying, when did the president know when was he awakened? So there's clearly a political component to it but from a substantive perspective harry truman was right so let me add just because i'm fascinated by actually the tick tock of this something happens and you are going to wake the president i mean if you're a normal president normal person your first question is all right what do we know

and i guarantee you at three in the morning, if you woke me up, the answer is we don't know much yet, Mr. President. We're getting more information. And then I'm going to look at you like, so you woke me up to tell me something bad happened, and you don't really know what happened, and you don't really know what we should do about it, and you don't know what my options are. You just woke me up because you want me to sleep another 45 minutes in a fitful state? I mean, the actual theater of waking somebody up like that, who does that? Who knocks on the door? Yeah, Rob, you're totally right. And that's exactly why I think that the wake up should

be a very, very rare occurrence. I don't think the door is knocked on. It is a phone call that goes to the president. And I talked to people who were my colleagues in the Bush administration, there was a process and a procedure for it from the Situation Room. You'd have to get the approval of the chief of staff or the National Security Advisor, and then there would be a call. And, Rob, you'll love this. In the mid-1970s movie about the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, there's actually a scene where Clouseau is causing all kinds of damage in Europe,

and a Jerry Ford lookalike is awakened in the middle of the night, and he fumbles with his glasses, and he's told that there's this thing going on, that Clouseau has killed something like 25 top assassins around the world. So President Ford did nothing about it and couldn't do anything about it, but it was a very funny moment of a presidential wake-up, and it's worth looking up on YouTube. All right, so just to get the good guess, so the chain of command will go – right now, the chain of information, I should say, it goes from the Situation Room. So there's somebody monitoring the Situation Room, a bunch of high-level national security personnel, and then something happens that's bad, and then they call a few other people. What's the – who's the gatekeeper for the shall we wake the president? Who's the gatekeeper for George W. Bush?

Do we know who the gatekeeper is for Barack Obama? I fear it's Valerie Jarrett. Right. So so let me speak to the Bush administration, which I know better because I served there. But it's not actually high level people in the situation. It's really low level people who are constantly monitoring what's going on. The situation room is active 24 hours. If something really bad happens, they would notify someone like the NSC Executive Secretary, who then would notify either the Chief of Staff or the National Security Advisor, and those two are the people with the ability to

wake the President. When it comes to Obama, there's a story I just have to quickly tell, which is the one time that I know of that President Obama was wakened in the middle of the night was to be notified that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize somewhat undeservedly a few months into his administration. That is a perfect metaphor for the Obama administration. Only wake me when I'm getting an award. Right. An award I especially don't deserve because I just started my presidency. By the way, in the Reagan White

House, I don't know about the Bush White House, you can address this to me, in the Reagan White House, there'd be a kind of self-correcting mechanism. The thing that a staffer would think twice about wouldn't be calling President Reagan because no matter what you said or no matter how soundly he'd been sleeping, he'd have been perfectly polite

and lovely about it. You would for sure have thought twice about having to wake up jim baker oh i thought you were going to say about waking nancy reagan oh no that me too actually that's exactly that actually yes yes the president would have been fine but if the call also wake awoke mrs reagan yes quite right quite right you're right about that peter you can speak to this but there was clearly a sense that the re Reagan White House was a little taken aback by the criticism in the Mies situation in the F-14s because they did – there's a cover of US News and World Report later in that year in 1983 showing Reagan in his pajamas with a phone in his hand. So showing that this guy is ready at any time. This was at a time when there was actually a cover to US News and World Report. Ed Mies, there's actually a story.

Here's one reason, probably the reason, Ed Meese saw no reason to wake Ronald Reagan when our MiG shot down the Libyan fighters. Because this was still relatively early in the administration, the president wanted us to reassert ourselves over the Mediterranean and indeed in international – the Libyans had claimed international airspace and he wanted us to reclaim it. And so there was a meeting in the Oval Office and Ed Meese told me – Ed was there and he has told me the story that the military – this was the first time they were going to – or one of the first times they were going to be put in a kind of a difficult position where shots might be exchanged. And since Jimmy Carter had been the preceding president, they wanted to hear the new president, make sure that Ronald Reagan understood that if we flew into this airspace, there might be a fight. And Ed Meese, the thing that stays in my mind is there was a map that wouldn't fit on the president's desk and they actually unrolled it on the floor of the Oval Office so they could show the president, here's the Mediterranean, here's the international airspace, here's where the Libyans have been flying. And, Mr. President, what are the rules of engagement?

If a Libyan jet fires on us, are we permitted only to pursue them in international airspace, or are we permitted to pursue them all the way back over Libyan airspace? And Ronald Reagan replied, you can pursue them all the way back into their goddamn hangars as far as I'm concerned. And that was that. So it was so decisive that the president said, if you're fired on, you fire back, that Ed Meese saw no reason to wake them at. Yeah, that's absolutely right. You're fired on. You fire back that Ed Meese saw no reason to wake the man. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

And there's just an idea that Meese, though, unfortunately, is still a little defensive about the situation you've seen he's written about. Because he really took some hits in the press. But you're right. He had the right direction. And what he said in his explanation to the situation is that we knew what to do and that we also knew there was no need to wait the president at that time because there was nothing he could have or should have done at that moment. The Harry Truman rule. Yes. I love how this goes back to our previous discussion about the debates and how Ronald

Reagan assured everybody that he wasn't a crazy militaristic warmonger but was a reasonable fellow. I mean I love the fact that you said you can presume back to your goddamn hangers. But if he'd said that actually in the debate, people would have freaked out because that's absolute madness. Why? No, no. The international line is a magic place and once they get behind that, all should be safe. Well, that's only when we're thinking of this planet in terms of just one small little orb hanging in the sky. Tevye of course is a great fan of Star Trek and has written a piece in TheObserver.com about the presidential relationship between Star Trek and presidents.

There's this line that supposedly Obama was a great Star Trek fan. Anybody who uses the phrase Jedi mind meld is a poser, an absolute poser. So I'm not going to give him that. But explain to us why it is necessary for the next president to understand what is a venerable part of a half century of American culture. Yeah, it's a really good point. And President Obama did make a big deal about his being a fan of Star Trek and that he had a crush on Lieutenant Uhura when he was young. But there was that big blowup where he said the Jedi mind meld. I don't know what he was young, but there was that big blow-up where he said the Jedi mind-meld. I don't know what he was thinking. It was later called a Wookiee mistake, W-O-O-K-I-E.

But not by him, not by him. By the lick-spittle avatars eager to buff the image of their president as some nerd god. But go ahead. But you're right. So he clearly made that mistake. But look, there is a history of presidents dealing with Star Trek. The show was founded on this idea of the searching for the final frontier. And it's somewhat influenced by John F. Kennedy and the new frontier. J.K. were Kennedy's initials and James Kirk's initials. Spock was supposed to represent the intellectuals of the Kennedy administration, the McGeorge Bundy types. And so the show, even in its origins, has a presidential touch to it. But let me tell one quick great story about Ronald Reagan.

He went to visit the set of Star Trek The Next Generation, and he asked sheepishly if he could sit in the chair, which Patrick Stewart allowed him to do, who played Captain Picard. And then he said, he noted that he was a fan of the show, and he said that the Klingons remind him of Congress are these the old Klingons with the ridges on their hands or these were the smooth ones who were the result of a genetic experiment

that Dr. Noonien-Sung went to he was involved in the cure right the whole forehead smoothing thing. You and your pre or post Gorbachev. The pre or post Gorbachev Klingons, remember? Yes.

Well, I'm going to have you on my ramble and we're going to talk about this because every era rewrites Star Trek and every era imprints the zeitgeist on the show, which is why 50 years of it are completely different from start to finish. We'll talk about that when we have you back on my show and this show. And everybody, if you're up at 3 o'clock in the morning and you can't sleep, don't read his new book because you'll stay up. It will keep you up because it's fun.

But if you're interested in why they shouldn't wake the president at 3 o'clock in the morning, you're going to want to read his book. So thanks for coming on the podcast. We'll see you down the road, Terry. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Tavi. Well, that – you know what? When I start talking, I can hear Peter's – I can actually hear through the magic of Skype the little – the mucous membranes inside Peter Robinson's eyeballs, the small, almost

imperceptible amount of friction as they roll up into his head as we discuss something like this. But it's actually – given the drivel that goes on in college campuses these days, I could make a very serious intellectual case for studying lots of aspects of pop culture including Star Trek. You can't – it's like saying we shouldn't study jazz. We shouldn't study B-movies. We shouldn't study jazz. We shouldn't study B-movies. We shouldn't study noir.

We shouldn't study musicals. All of these things are intrinsic and explanatory of the American experience, and it would make a great course. Speaking of which – Whoa! Again, I was about to contribute to that, and then you took it into a – Yeah, well, I kind of had that feeling, Rob. That's why I quickly got out of it.

You cut me off. We're talking about the great courses. As you know, we've been talking about them for years. They've been continuing to add engaging video lecture series all the time. You've got unlimited access to hundreds of topics like politics, business, law, and even photography and art. With each 30-minute

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Hey, see, he doesn't know. It's effective communication skills. I put myself on mute. That's right. I literally hit mute. So I wouldn't interrupt you because interrupting is rude. I know that you did, and that's number one. And I won't do that. Effective communication skills is putting yourself on mute.

Actually, it's probably not in the course. They probably have useful things to tell you. And you can learn how to improve the way you communicate with others. The course is taught by Professor Dalton Kehoehoe and it's got 24 lectures, 30 minutes. Some of the topics include the magic of everyday communication, social context that shapes our talk, which is hard to know when you're texting somebody. The development of our

sense of self, challenges to effective communication, compassionate confrontation, oh I love that, and healing relationships with dialogue, often necessary, especially after November 4th. Sign up for The Great Courses Plus today, okay? Because they're giving you, the listener, a special offer, a free month of unlimited access to all of their lectures.

So get your free month today. Sign up at thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. That's thegreatcoursesplus.com slash ricochet. Well, we have a couple of things we could do. We could just sort of blather about ourselves and what's on our mind. Or, yes, Rob? Well, I was going to say, because you said something about the post after November, whatever it is, 9 or 8 or 7, whatever that date is in November. And it does remind me of a member fee post from Doc J, which I thought was really, you know, a little bit living in a

fantasy land, but I think a fantasy land worth going to. Is it okay if I, can I jump into that? Yes, absolutely. Go ahead. Go. So, Doc J. Rick, and again, if you're not a Ricochet member, you missed this. It's really the fun of Ricochet is the member conversations. Part of owning a never Trump position should be not being allowed to whine about the consequences of Hillary. Part of owning a never-Trump position should be not being allowed to whine about the consequences of Hillary. Part of owning a Trump position should be not being allowed to whine about him if he wins. We've all been warned about these folks, and one of the two will be president. I like that idea because, of course, whining is whining.

I'm not quite sure I believe that being never-Trump or my position on Trump, which is, is, um, meaning that I can't complain about Hillary. Cause I like to be able to complain about everybody, um, and all the time. But I do think that there, it, it, it would be nice if our side had a build down after who, I mean, and I believe, you know, in my heart of hearts, I believe that Hillary Clinton's good. If I have money to put down, I put down on a Hillary Clinton win, um, and, and start to, um, re reacquaint voters with conservative principles and that we all agree on and join hands and do that.

Um, I think that would be, I think that the, the gesture there is a good one. No whining, no complaining, just move forward. I mean the problem is for the – if Trump wins, for the Trump supporters is that there's going to be this natural inclination on the part of the – when your guy wins, I mean it doesn't matter who it is, but your guy wins, to sort of explain away all sorts of stuff, which may be difficult. But it would be good if we all developed plans for a post-November relationship, don't you think? Easy, easy to do. Here's what we do right now. The three of us can agree on this right now. No matter who wins, no matter who wins, what the Ricochet podcast should start doing, we should devote a segment in every podcast.

Actually, I say this. We'll discuss it. But maybe we should – in every podcast to some different fundamental principle of conservatism, free markets, individual liberty. I can see Paul Ray coming on and we can start with Aristotle and the conception of the human being and why human beings need to be free because of their innate dignity. And that's a pretty good,

I was going to say that's a six minute segment, but once Rob gets going, it'll turn into 12 minutes. And within 12 minutes, we will have done Aristotle. I don't, but seriously. I have lost all of our listeners. Oh, I agree.

It's all Aristotle. I agree with Peter. We start with a seminar. We get back to basics. We educate. We explain. We explore. We elucidate.

And we start – you know, Aristotle is a great place to start. Another great place to start is saying, if we nominated Rubio, we would have won. But that's – neither here nor there. That's just one opinion however. There are some people who feel different and if you want to read a really –

I'm sorry. I blew up my voice there. Insightful – Are you OK? No, I'm fine. Do you need a moment? I don't. Are you dehydrated? I need to swallow something but there's nothing around You know I'm fine. Do you need a moment? I don't. Are you dehydrated?

I need to swallow something, but there's nothing around me. I'm back. You know, your staff has been trying to get you to drink water, James, and you just refuse to drink water. I know.

TKC1101 wrote a great post. It was a member feed post that got promoted, and rightly so. It's on the front page now. Winners, losers, and then there are conservatives. Quote, you want to win for a generation?

Be the party in power when the millennials start making money and earning serious wealth. Whoever sets the economy on fire when they get their piece will be their Reagan. That's just one point. He has a ten-point agenda for what needs to be done. I don't agree with a lot of it. Well, I don't agree with a couple of points that have to do with the acquiescence to the idea of big government, but I see his point. And it's a very clear, logically

laid out argument. He's on the Trump side. He's always been on the Trump side, and he's been fighting for Trump on the intellectual, theoretical thought level in the member feed for an awful long time, which is why he's fun to read. So that's the member post that I suggest you go to. Look at Doc J, TKC, a couple of stalwarts,

and then go to the member feed yourself and take a look at something up and coming and promote it. What's that? You can't go to the member feed because you're not a member? Well, we can do something about that. You can do something about that. Go to Ricochet. Sign up. Free month.

And what will you get besides the knowledge of knowing that you've helped this enterprise on? You will get that wonderful, zesty, yeasty member fee. This podcast, by the way, was brought to you by more than the members. It was brought to you also by the great courses. That's the greatcoursesplus.com. Cricket shirts, C-R-I-Q-U-E-T. And by ziprecruiter.com. And, of course, you can always visit the Ricochet store where you'll get T-shirts, mugs, totes, and even USB flash drives that you can load up with viruses and give to your favorite Russian friend.

If you enjoyed this show, by the way, take a minute to – it's only fair they do it to us. Leave a review on iTunes if you could. Your reviews allow other listeners to discover us, which helps keep this show going. And be one of the stalwart 1,500. We'll see you in the comments, everybody. Rob, Peter, it's been great. See you next week. Next week, fellas. Hey, before, it's been great. See you next week. Next week, fellas.

Hey, before we go, I forgot to say this. We only need 1,000 more members, right? That's all we need. 1,000 members puts us on the footing that we need to be. If you're listening and you've been putting it off, we need you to join. It's really not – we can do this. We really can, but we can't do it without you. And I agree with the sentiments entirely, but ladies and gentlemen,

you've just heard a man say something after the post concluded the podcast. I know, I know. This is a definition of, you know, of, of, of,

of the little, I apologize. Okay. Okay. This is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, saying goodbye. Really say goodbye. Cut to the Indians. Bye. Cut to the Indians. Next week, boys. Take care. Take care. You don't know how you move me

Deconstruct me and consume me I'm all used up I'm out of luck I am starstruck There's something in your eyes That is keeping my hope alive. I'm sick of myself when I look at you. Something is beautiful and true.

The world looks ugly and alive. It's hard to even want to try. I begin to think That you don't know I'll take or leave The room to breathe The choice to leave I'll throw away a chance at greatness Just to make this dream come into play

I don't know if I'll find a way Cause I'm sick of myself when I look at you Something is beautiful and true. The world that's ugly and alive. It's hard to even want to try. I'm beginning to think. That you don't know. I'm beginning to think.

That you don't know Ricochet! Join the conversation. There's something in your eyes That is keeping my hope alive I'm sick of myself when I look at you Something is beautiful and true A world that's ugly and alive

It's hard to even want to try And I'm beginning to think That you don't know I'm beginning to think That you don't know One more time.