The Ricochet Podcast - Conventional Thinking

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

It’s the Republican National Convention week, or as pundits on the right call it — Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and whatever other major holiday you want to thrown in there. We break it all down: the pluses, the minus, the hits and the misses. And we make some predictions for the next couple of months. As you’re hear, we recorded this show on Zoom in front of an audience of our beloved Ricochet... Source

Laptop, check. Spanner, check. Screwdriver, check. A career built around me, check. Bring your best self to work every day with exciting heavy vehicle mechanic apprenticeship opportunities with BusAaron and Dublin Bus. We are leading the way in sustainable public transport, moving from fossil fuel to zero emissions. Join our team and help keep Ireland on the road to greener journeys. Enjoy a career that's built around you. To apply, visit careers.busseran.ie today. All right, so the people who are watching can actually see. They're getting a little behind the scenes here is what you're telling me.

Yeah, this fascinating behind the scenes. This is not a TV show. I have a dream. This nation will rise up. Live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Washington has not changed Donald Trump. Donald Trump has changed Washington. I'm the president and you're fake news. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robertson. I'm James Lyle. It's the day, no guests. We're just doing Zoom live. So let's have ourselves a Zoom cast. I can hear you! Welcome everybody. It's the Lickers J podcast number 510 and it's live on Zoom this time or it's pre-recorded or transcribed for your enjoyment as they used to say on old radio. I'm James Lilacs here in Minneapolis in the WJM newsroom, of course, depopulated at the time because everybody was fired. Peter Robinson is in a shrouded room, and the curtains

are closed. I expect to keep us from marveling at the beauty of the California Vista beyond. And Rob Long is in New York in his airy, his pied-à-terre, which has now been reconnected to the internet thanks to the juice he has. He's able to pull together all kinds of authority and get Comcast or whoever to come in and plug him in.

So I'm in a recently riot-devastated city. Rob is in a formerly riot-devastated city that's now sort of depopulated. Peter, of course, is doing the mask of the Red Death thing in California. And we're all together again on a happy friday hey guys how are you did you watch the convention what did you think i suppose is the obvious question how much did you watch rob uh i watched a lot of it i didn't watch actually i didn't watch much last night until this morning um but mostly what I thought was that you and I were wrong last week. We both agreed that the Republican National Convention was going to be a lot worse than the DNC.

And in fact, until last night, I think it was a lot better. Yes, it was. It showed a full engagement with the uphill climb they have. They were addressing the things they need to address they completely memory hold is the only thing is they must do the idea of immigration remember immigration four years ago we're going to build a wall and that's who's going to pay for it he hasn't done that at all has not he's failed at that that's a broken promise so what do they do they simply didn't mention it smart politics um He also seemed to be engaging in outreach with,

I don't know, he, the party, with ethnic minorities, with African Americans. There was a prosperity kind of move there. He didn't talk that much about COVID. Actually, COVID seemed to be completely disappeared from the stage two. Again, that's really smart politics. It's surprising to me that, but it's also true. The weakest link in the Trump reelect effort is Trump. And that's what it was last night. It was a very, very bad speech, very poorly given. But I'm not sure it's going to have any effect. That's the ultimate, give us something to talk about last week, DNC somebody's talking about this week with the rnc next week this is going to be a fade but i will say one thing about uh about what i thought was interesting about the rnc and the dnc together now

is that republicans are making a big deal which smart politics, about the unrest in the cities, which is a very peculiar argument for them to be making, right? I mean, they are the incumbent, so they're arguing, things are terrible, you got to re-elect us. And the Democrats seem to be unable to pick this layup, this soft blob, and to run with it. Like the most curious thing is that Joe Biden hasn't appeared in some burned out street in Minneapolis or Kenosha to make a healing come together kumbaya speech. And maybe it makes some people, I think, in the middle, some people haven't decided yet, think that, well, maybe that Democrats just think this is normal. Maybe they think this is all

okay uh and that is a very very dangerous message to be sending if you're joe biden anyway that's that's me in a nutshell rob said it was a horrible speech poorly given um you of course are a former speech writer so how would you uh rate it i was interested in the litany of accomplishments but they seem to lack focus the delivery you know you know, I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump on teleprompter. I think there's a certain lassitude. There's a certain way of talking that just doesn't grab me. It may interest other people, but it doesn't grab me. Then again, I'm not sure I want the firebrand pounding the podium, red meat kind of guy, because

I don't know, I'd rather listen to the words than I would concentrate on being stirred by the delivery. It didn't do a lot for me, but like Rob said, I think it's not particularly relevant. As a speech writer, how would you have rated the construction and then perhaps the delivery i rob said horrible i'd say i'd say not great i wouldn't say horrible it was too long he's not terribly good on teleprompter was it beautiful was it elegant was it memorable no the question in politics though of course is always was it effective is it going to do anything? Will it have any effect? By the way, I agree with almost every word Rob said.

No, I agree with every word Rob said about the convention. All right, stop podcast. Yeah, exactly. Oh, by the way, and my pleasure. By quip, and please. A couple of people in the comments last week took us to task for saying, and we both just assumed Republicans are uncool. They're cool. Our guys can't pull themselves together with production values.

Their guys are all Hollywood guys. They can. We just assumed the Republicans would make a hash of this convention. And it's on my to-do list, as apparently was on Rob's, to say, you know what? I was just wrong about that. The convention was a beautiful thing. But really, I do think it was a beautiful thing. It did a couple, I'll come back to the speech in a moment, but the convention

did a couple of things. It was very good television. I thought it was very entertaining. It was tremendously moving as far as the politics of it go. It did a couple of things. The Republican, that convention was a fanfare to the common man. The Republican Party has now positioned itself accurately, I believe. I believe this is its demographic base now. It has accurately positioned itself as the party of ordinary working people. By contrast with the Democratic Convention where we saw Hollywood and major universities and Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and at the Republican convention, we saw a lobsterman and a teacher and the widow of a police chief who was shot during a riot. Item one. Item two, the clear outreach to African-Americans.

Now, there are all kinds of ways of describing that cynically and saying Republicans know they can never get the African American vote. I'm not sure that's the case. Even in a question of crass analytical politics, you'd say there are going to be at least two states, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where shifting in the low tens, 15,000 votes, 20,000 votes in Philadelphia and the immediate suburbs of inner city suburbs of Philadelphia, not quite city proper, Wilmington, North Carolina. If you shift even 10 or 15 or 20,000 African-American votes in those two states, you could carry those two states and that may carry the election. So there may be a political point to it, but it just, it felt good. I'd be fascinated to hear what the two of you have to say about this. I attended the 2000 convention where George W. Bush, there was an overt appeal to African

Americans in that convention, and every moment of it felt contrived. I mean, Bush and his people get high marks for trying, but it just felt like the guy at the country club trying to dance to rap music. This convention felt authentic. It felt unforced. And I give it very high marks for that. The speech, by the way, on immigration, I don't think it's quite right to say that Trump has failed. They have the numbers of people being deported.

The immigration across the border is lower than it was under Obama. They're deporting a lot of people. It's certainly fair to say that that language has just disappeared. I did a word count this morning. The as-delivered speech last night was over 6,900 words, which is too long by at least half, probably at least twice too long. I did count words on immigration and the border and building the wall. 80, 80 of them. Yeah. I'm biased. I just spent three days with my old friend and Coulter at the meeting.

Okay. Ann was there? If you want to hear, I mean, look, she wrote the book. She did. We should have her on if you want to debate immigration, because she is not a fan of the Trump administration and their broken promise to build a wall. So she probably, I haven't checked in with her today, but I'm sure she counted those words too. Well, so here's the politics of the speech last night, of dropping immigration and of the speech last night. The speech last night was Donald Trump trying to do what we have spent four years wishing he would try to do, which is to be presidential. He gave a long speech. He went

through the entire record. He used a long speech. He went through the entire record. He used a teleprompter, the backdrop of the White House. And it was not Trump unhinged to the clear disappointment of television commentators on both sides. You could see the Fox News commentators trying to gin up the enthusiasm that Trump himself had failed to gin up. But letting immigration go means he's trying to appeal to the hispanic vote he's or at least he's he has decided to cease offending hispanics he wants to bring them in so i take the speech last night as not a very good speech but politically significant and that the guy's trying to appear presidential i would say on two things i think i mean it's very smart politics

to memory hole the failures i mean i i call them failure failure to to to you can't crow about the accomplishment you promise you're going to build a wall you didn't do it you can't you had four years that's right uh covet has been sort of a disaster whether you blame him or you don't blame him psychographically the voters do blame him because he's the president. But the idea of still giving this enthusiastic, proud, almost strutting reelect convention is it was really smart. I mean, for sure, that all said that, I mean, I again, I I revere Ronald Reagan and I, as we all know, I do not revere Donald Trump at all. But there is there's that great moment where the with somebody hears Reagan give a speech. I think it was Goldwater actually give the speech goes, oh, my God, he's going to run as Goldwater. Right. We thought he's going to. And this is like this is the Trump administration.

This is exactly what you expected. Four years ago, I would have predicted this kind of, you know, in person. But this kind of tone and feeling to a convention for Donald Trump. He's not changing his spots, but he's also not retreating. And if you're look, he is he is the underdog in all the polls. It's uphill for him more than it is for his opponent. That's whatever you think might happen at the end. It is silly to say it's not uphill. It's uphill.

I believe that the markets and the and all the indications are that this is a change election. So what he needs to convey to his supporters, which people denigrate as appealing to your base, but it's that I'm in this, that I'm serious about this, and that I'm proud of it, and I'm not running from it. And I think for a lot of Republicans, especially Republicans, especially presidential campaigns, Republicans always have this feeling at these conventions that we should, well, yeah, you know, we're not that great. Well, you know, they always feel a little tentative.

This is all very true, very true. And I think it's a very, very good message to send to his supporters. It's all going to be about getting those supporters to go to the polls. He's not going to win the African-American vote. That's not how Republicans win. What they win is by taking the wind out of the sails of the African-American vote for the opponent, for the Democrat. That's how they win. And, you know, look, I don't think any of this is going to matter, but it is an indication of the strategy we're going to be watching ahead.

The tactics we'll be watching in the next month and a half. If they can execute at this, I think they're really in the race. I ultimately don't think he's going to win, but I think Joe Biden's going to have to earn it. Yeah, here's the other

political effect, I think. It's still too early to say, but here's the other political effect. Going into both conventions, if you were kind of to do a sort of a probability dispersion in your mind, what's the likely outcome of this election? You'd say maybe there's a third chance that Biden will win very narrowly. There's maybe a quarter chance that Trump will eke out a win in the electoral college, even if he loses in the popular vote. And then there's something like a two-fifths chance that the country is just sick of Donald Trump, and it's going to be like an organ rejection,

and it will be a massive defeat for Trump and the Republicans. I now think that possibility has been narrowed dramatically. I can tell you here from Minnesota that's the case. That a lot of people who were... put their feelings about Donald Trump aside because they're used to them and they factored them in. I want to address something that our man Max said in the comments here. It was a great thing.

We got these people listening. We should... Where are you seeing the comments? Where do I see these? You've got to go down a chat. Max was saying... max was saying it i i shouldn't paraphrase i should read it exactly hard for me to take seriously complaints today about how trump's speech was boring from people who normally complain that trump is a supposedly unpresidential just proves to me that trump can do literally nothing right in these people's minds, which I assume would be us in the Brady Bunch grid here. As I said many years ago, the original crime of Trump is that he got

elected and the criminals are the voters. Well, I don't think that's I think Max is like Max is Trump derangement syndrome works for Trump supporters, too. I've said being boring is not a criticism of somebody's presidential skills. Ronald Reagan was boring every now and then. Presidents and candidates that I'd like very much have given bad speeches. The problem with the somebody's presidential skills. Ronald Reagan was boring every now and then. Presidents and candidates that I like very much have given bad speeches. The problem with the Trump supporters like Max is that anytime you say anything about the dear leader that they love, like he didn't build a wall, the top of their head explodes. Like it was instructive for me to spend a few days with Ann Coulter with a bunch of Trump supporters as they looked at her aghast because she said he didn't build the wall.

Now, she's a bona fide OG Trump supporter, right? She got more votes for Trump than anybody on this podcast or on Ricochet. And she's able to see the truth and to criticize the leader the way I wish some of the Trump supporters on the chat room would. I'm just telling you that the speech was 85 minutes long, and it was long. And it is not unusual for somebody to say it was boring. If you can't say that Donald Trump gave a lackluster, boring speech last night, Trump derangement syndrome exists with you, Max. Not me.

Here's the fickle finger of Rob Longfate coming at you. I would add to that this. What I find unpresidential, and we've just all factored it in and moved along, are the tweets. A lot of the things that he says in the tweets. A few things he said in speeches. But, I mean, but Donald Trump, when he's freely wheeling on the stump and he's making it up as he's going along and he's improv-ing and he's feeding off the crowd is a different sort of entertainment dynamic than a presidential acceptance speech and you can say that the acceptance speech should not have that but there's got to be something in between in other words bring that energy that you have when you're feeding off the crowd to something that is prepared it's not impossible to infuse the lines

that you're reading with a little bit more gusto and i And I think sometimes that he just associates the flatness with presidentiality. But again, I don't care. Doesn't matter. What I was listening to in that speech was objectives and accomplishments. So if he'd gotten out there and been as dull as Calvin Coolidge, who of course would have not said 8,000 words, he probably would have said 80. If he'd gotten out there in a very rote and boring, flat, monotone, never blinking, whatever, and listed off a series of accomplishments that I found to be salutary, that's what I would take away from that. Because like I said before, do I want to approach these speeches from what I can learn and see what they're coming up with and what they want me to

think, or am I going to judge them as entertainment? Of course, we do both. Of course, a lot of people do both. But still, I was interested in the list of accomplishments, which are some things that I'd forgotten. Sure. Look, this was, I think Max may not be as upset with me. I hope not, because I recognize that Trump is, let's all be upset with Rob, just because it feels so good. And Trump was trying to be presidential. But here's the remarkable thing. We should step back just for a moment, at least I feel I should step back just for a moment and say this. The conventions happened, and they worked. They worked. Because now the country understands the choice. With the Biden campaign, the Democratic campaign,

the fundamental Biden argument is it's me or it's him, and he's a bad guy. And the Republican argument is not just it's Donald Trump or it's him, but it's us or it's them. And there are two conceptions of the country that are at stake here. Ours involves flags and fireworks and celebration or it's them. And there are two conceptions of the country that are at stake here. Ours involves flags and fireworks and celebration and the ability of ordinary working people to step forward and talk about how the country has improved their lives and how much they love it, and to talk about their faith in God in an unembarrassed fashion. And the Democratic

Party is just a different... The choice is you know trump said trump said last night that this is the most important election in history which is at some level since the civil war did he say since so i mean the election of 1800 the election of 1860 those but he's not wrong in the sense that this is one of those few elections when our conception of the country itself what we think the country is and should be yes right is going to be in large measure decided those don't come along very often and this one peter is so curious to me because look take away the trumpiness and the trump versus all that so just incumbent versus challenger. Right. After a first term. Incumbent versus challenger.

Usually a successful challenger goes around the country and says, see this awful stuff? I'll fix it. See how terrible this is? I'll fix it. That's essentially what Donald Trump did in trying to break the idea of a third Obama term under Hillary Clinton. It helped everybody hated her. That's definitely what Reagan did. That is also what Clinton did.

Now, Clinton had a little help from Ross Perot, but the argument was essentially the same. You see how terrible this is? I will fix it. Right. Donald Trump is the one going around. It's illogical, but saying, see all this terrible stuff that's happening? I will fix it, which a lot of you are saying, why aren't you fixing it now?

But, okay, that's a separate thing. It, to me, it's astonishing that the challenger in an, in this race is not going around to all the terrible stuff that's happening and saying, see this terrible stuff that's happening in Kenosha and Minneapolis and all these places.

I will fix it. You know what you, but I was just saying is the reason he's not doing it. I think for Democrats is they don't think it's bad. They think it's bad of America. He can't stand there and complain about it because they fundamentally, as sort of intellectual underpinning and the intellectual movement in the party is, there's nothing you can do about it. This is actually supposed to happen. This is actually maybe good. And to me, that is... Those protesters don't have to wear masks because they are doing

God's work. If there were a God... There's an intellectual affinity for what's being done. They may be a little bit too radical. They may break off too many windows. But at heart, they're pure. What they want is an altruistic version of leftism that that a lot of people on the left in the media say you know they got a good point america is a horrible country 1619 is right we're systemically racist these people are out against that and if there's a few people who get a little bit exaggerated well you know you're going to have that in any movement so yeah there's that there's also the fact that all of these hideous conditions that we've been talking about that that that seem that people are protesting exist in democratically run cities, historically democratically run cities.

Big places that have not elected a Republican or anybody to the right for 40 years. So it's difficult for them to go around and point to these models of governance, this intellectual construct of collectivism and say, well, it hasn't worked yet, but elect me and we'll have just enough more of it so that the statism and the collectivism solves everything because they've had their opportunity and this is what their opportunity gets them. You know, Kenosha is not Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not Chicago. Chicago is not Portland. But every one of them shares a certain attitude toward society and government and people and class and race right that they can't really criticize because it's them and and you boys are on to what i consider a very profound point very profound political point joe biden has two difficulties the first difficulty is that he's

trying to hold together two different democratic parties and why was he so slow in coming forward to condemn the violence precisely because of what just james just said the radical wing of the democratic party thinks the violence is actually commendable it's normal things have to get worse before they get better this is a this is justice working itself out in real time in our cities so he has to keep those people he has to keep alexandria ocasio-cortez on his side that's where the energy is at the same time he has to keep those people, he has to keep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on his side. That's where the energy is. At the same time, he has to reach out to a lot of moderate, Clinton-esque, the people

who voted for Hillary, the people who, the new Democrats, as they used to be called, they're all very old Democrats, but the Clinton people who are trying to hold the center of the country. And that's just very hard to do because they don't believe the same thing that's a hard thing to do the other and now the trump if the republicans are coming if there's some strength in the republicans if the polls close if republicans get some bounce out of this convention that's he'll have to deal with that first problem he did yesterday he condemned the violence and i have ham-fisted way but he did it of course his second problem is if this race starts to close he's going

to have to leave his basement and that i think rob is the other reason that the democrats aren't insisting on on the typical challenger going to from city to city and saying i'll fix this because they don't think he's up to it and And honestly, it's not clear to me that he is. That may be true. I mean, I just have two sort of larger macro issues. One is how fascinating it is to watch the Democratic Party hollow itself out, right? In my lifetime, I agree, I'm old, but you don't have to be that old to remember when the Democratic party represented this gigantic massive political party that was sam nunn on one side the democratic very conservative senator from georgia and bernie sanders on the other not bernie sanders but like ted kennedy like like you when you would

look when you watch a democratic national convention it was like you really kind of like it was the idea was they got big and that kind of covered up a lot of flaws for that party as they were sort of attracting votes um that's what's so strange about this is that i feel like he i feel like the democratic party's now shackled because they they don't think i believe that they're going to get white working class men back and they may not get white working class or suburban women back despite the midterms i mean i think they probably will but but if they don't get those back then they have to like be all in for the population demographic change that is going to happen in 5 10 15 20 years in america but isn't happening now. So it's almost like the Democratic Party's got to decide whether they want to run

and lead America in 2020 the way America looks and feels and actually is, or they want to go into hibernation for another 10 years and hope that the Donald Trump voter is dead, right? I mean, that is

essentially the media argument, right? That's the MSNBC and that is essentially the media argument right that's the msnbc argument that's the cnn argument it's like yes you wait it's all moving our way more people watch fox news but you know they're all like 90 right um that is a as a political strategy that is too clever by half you run in the country that exists at that moment you can't suss it out or figure it out you have to have a message and what's surprising to me is that you know the psychographic of the voter of the of the anti-incumbent voter is usually that this guy i know who's president doesn't make anything better like in my head all the problems i see he doesn't make anything better i'm worried about soviets in

afghanistan i'm worried about the cold war i'm worried about the't make anything better. I'm worried about Soviets in Afghanistan. I'm worried about the Cold War. I'm worried about the hostage in Iraq. I'm worried about all that stuff. Carter doesn't make any of this better. And that is a very powerful argument for the challenger to make. And this challenger is just not making it. It's so when you talk, when you go on about the, you know, the white working class and the fact that I mean, the white working class may look at the elites, of course, to use that term that everybody hates, especially the elites, and think that they hate them because they do. I mean, I read a story the other day about how pickup trucks, the big F-150 pickup

trucks are murder machines and those grills are designed to kill people. And so you think, well, we can blow off those truck driving yahoos that white working class but it's you know the hispanic working class any working class in america is a guy who wants his pickup who likes his pickup and when they say we can talk about we can tell people they shouldn't eat hamburgers because it's bad for global warming and We may lose the white working class. Are you telling me that these other guys? It's the working class period which looks at these people and sees a set of assumptions and ideas that they're supposed to follow because they're good for the planet and good for everybody else. When they themselves are just saying, you want to take away my pickup?

You want to take away my hamburger? Look, not everybody has access to high-quality meat. I'm telling you right now. Not everybody has convenient access. Minneapolis, great example. Stores went up in fire. People can't get meat. I'm telling you right now. Not everybody has convenient access. Minneapolis, great example. Stores went up in fire. People can't get it. So what do you do?

Well, I can't interrupt you on Zoom. It's too rude. I can see his face. Oh, wait, I just interrupted you. Sorry. I'll put myself on mute. Not really. It's so rude to do it visually, but not when he's actually on there anyway so rob there uh

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That's two pounds of ground beef in every box for the life of your subscription. Wow. That's a lot, and it's great. So go to butcherbox.com slash ricochet, butcherbox.com slash ricochet, and we thank ButcherBox for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. I'm on mute. All right. Rob is off mute that's that's that's good while we're while we're talking about this can i just add one little moment that i from today's new york times which is fascinating um there's a kevin roos piece we'll link to it in which he basically talks about how how powerful facebook is amongst conservatives how facebook is now a powerful engine for creating community and for engagement like ben shapiro's engagement on facebook is like higher than anybody's it's like

in crazy crazy high level of engagement and the the whole piece is written as you might imagine from this kind of alarmist perspective like what are we going to do about the fact that facebook is like conservative um and i recommend that you reread it and actually maybe want to go to Facebook more. And also, we know, know Facebook is going to be in big, big trouble. You know, after November, Facebook is in big, big trouble. But what I was interested in is I just mentally read, reread the article and replaced Facebook with CNN, New York Times, American News Media, every American university. And the piece still works. Like it's about the rnc is that

in 2008 2012 the the republican tech initiative and tech outreach was universally derided as a joke and it was terrible it was terrible um it wasn't sophisticated it broke down i'm afraid it was orca the the great or it wasn't the good remember the whale they had some brilliant plan in 2012 um and it was oh god you know the democrat they're so far ahead of us well what i mean politically you can see the the benefit of the republican party the benefit of the conservative movement was that they didn't need they really didn't need to have their own cloud system and their own database all they needed to do was essentially to colonize one that already existed was for free

and it just shows you how powerful it is if you shut people out of the national conversation as they've done with derivatives if you just absolutely disappear them then they find ways to connect with each other that are actually more powerful than just passively reading the op-ed page of the New York Times. I mean, what was interesting about this piece is that how tone deaf it was to the culpability of liberals in the media for creating their own monster. And I recommend everybody read it. It's online. You don't have to subscribe to New York Times like I do. Just read it once for the interesting facts about Facebook and people like Ben Shapiro, who are generally heroic, communicating the right message. But also read it, and then just replace Facebook with any collection of media institutions, educational institutions you want. And it still works. I don't know.

So it's fascinating to me. Good point. And I'd rather saw off my left leg than go to Facebook. I just despise everything about it. But I imagine that a lot of the stuff that people see on Facebook is a lot of the stuff that I see on Twitter. And what I see on Twitter, cesspool that it is, is a huge number of clips as to what's going on out there. The riots, the disorder. And it's the fantastic amount of craziness, the night after night shrieking in

Portland, the drums, the fireworks. It's just, it's insane. I never see it on the major media. I never see stills of it from the newspaper. It's just kind of put off to the side. But somehow, Rob, you're right. People either on Facebook or on Twitter are finding out what's going on out there. They don't like it. And I think as Don Lamon realized the other day, in a little clip we're going to play for you here, it's not so much, it's bad that the cities are burning, I guess. They got insurance. But what's

really horrifying is that it's starting to affect the polling numbers. I do think that what you said was happening in Kenosha is a Rorschach test for the entire country and i think this is a blind spot for democrats i think democrats are ignoring this problem or hoping that it will go away so don was saying that um you know the the polling is bad it's

starting to show up in the polling which is which is a horrifying thing um and all of a sudden you you have this little sense that the wind has shifted and they have to get out. They have to get around this. They got to get in front of it. They got to condemn it. And they're speaking about it the way sort of, there's something about the way they're speaking about this disorder that reminds me of Al Gore dancing at the, at the 92, 96 convention. It's an awkwardness, inauthenticity. What's amazing is that he he read this you

know we always say don't read the stage directions yeah he read the stage he actually said well listen it's starting to show up in the polls of focus groups so maybe we should do something like it was not and he said it to a to to as if he is works for the dnc speaking to his uh colleague who's also the dnc as if and to me it was what was extraordinary was this kind of uh a total lack of self-consciousness you get a sense from when you watch fox news that talk like tucker carlson right you get a sense that tucker knows that liberals hate watch this stuff and they do he's just trying to give as many of them a stroke as he can and that you know he loves it like if you if a million people more people watch tucker carlson tonight uh but uh but 10 10 fewer liberals do he'll consider that a failure right he's not trying

to convince them he's trying to give him a stroke these guys are unaware that there's anyone listening to them who may share even mildly different priorities and to me that's just like after like if if if the presidency of donald j trump can't shake you from your liberal complacency i i don't know i i can't help you i mean like you want to say like it's like like you're coming into the shrink's office, like, I cannot help you. You need to be lobotomized. There's really nothing else we can do. There's no therapy for you.

The liberal media, liberal political media complex needs to be completely and utterly refreshed. Because they have lost the thread of the argument. Now, but can I ask you guys just a...

Please. As you know, I'm not a Trump fan. No, hold on a second. Wait a minute. Mark the tape. Mark the tape. I am willing, as you know, to criticize the president. And last night we had this gigantic political rally with fireworks on the White House lawn.

Right? The people's house. Now, I know that I'm supposed to be discomfited by that, but I just can't. I just don't care. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. And I am a Trump, you know, agnostic at the very least, but a Trump disliker at the more accurately. And it doesn't bug me. So have I if I define deviancy down or is this really just an idiotic thing that doesn't matter? In the laundry list of things that you're supposed to set your hair on fire about,

it is not near the top. I think it's interesting that, in a way, it's a masterstroke, because if we go back to normal in four years, nobody can do that again. The convention will take place at a location, and the president or the candidate will have to come on stage and do it. Won't be able to do it from the White House because that would be weird. I guess it, and this may be my fault, maybe perhaps I'm just so used to the clanging sound of norms hitting the floor every single day that something like this, I can't get as spun up as some people expect me to. And when I see a lot of people asking me to be spun up, I realized you wanted me to be spun up about 48 things also last week and are judging me for being only spun up about 23 of them. There are greater things to worry about. And he wanted to have it in Charlotte, right? That was the original plan was Charlotte. So it's not

like all along they've been planning this. So here's a question for the norms people then. If indeed you are upset about the fact, and i understand why some people would be it's the people's house etc if you are upset about that how do you feel about the fact that there was a ravening raging mad spitting crowd outside for the first time that i can remember at a convention where actually there was there was i mean you could hear them during the speech at one point during trump you could hear this long wailing siren of despair from the from somebody blowing an air horn. And I mean, there have always been protesters, but I've never seen people mob the people as they leave an event or engage with the police in a fashion as they did yesterday. To the point where Rand Paul is chased down and people are accosting him for not saying Breonna Taylor's name.

Did you hear that? Say her name. Breonna Taylor. Say her name. To Rand Paul. To Rand Paul. And as somebody pointed out, Rand Paul had introduced the Breonna Taylor bill, which addressed and specifically dealt with no-knock rates. So here's literally the guy who's doing what you want him to do, but you don't know that.

It doesn't matter because he's- Let me ask you something you're a glenn reynolds fan i found you through glenn reynolds insta pundit how long has glenn reynolds insta pundit when at what point the most popular blogger in the country still very very popular blogger libertarian conservative how long has he been arguing about has he been agitating about no knock raids a lot forever and at least 15 years right and con and and confiscation and uh you know the the ability of the police yeah so it's it's not as if people suddenly saw religion about this they've been talking about this for an awfully long time you're right and now and now that part of conservatism has bubbled up and

entered the right-wing mainstream, which is interesting because that's sort of a variant with the we support the police. It's entirely possible to support law enforcement and, in fact, not want to defund them, but want more of them for the safety of the very communities that are the most in peril, which in my city happens to be the north part of town, which has the most crime. Those people want cops, right? So you can support that. At the same time, you can say over-militarization in some aspects may be unwise. No-knock raids are a bad deal. Confiscation of property because you caught somebody driving and they had a roach in the glove compartment and you get to take their Mercedes. All of that is bad. These not inconsistent things and it and an intelligent mind can apprehend and entertain a constellation

of ideas about this without having to go one side of the a diversified set of principles one might say right well i mean diversified in the in their, but perhaps unified in a basic core idea, which is that police authority are necessary. Otherwise, you got the kid in Kenosha popping off. Right. Which some people's like, what are you telling me? You're justifying him shooting all these people? It's not what I'm saying at all. It's just that if you remove the police and authority and people watch things burn, into that comes something else.

What did you think was going to happen exactly when cities were allowed to be burned and the police did nothing or were unable to do so? It's hard to argue. On the one hand, we should take your gun. You don't need guns because we have the police. And then argue, well, we should defund the police. And then argue that you can't actually do anything about it because, although, I mean, I'm not defending what that kid did.

I think what that kid did was crazy. But he but he's gonna face he's looking at an investigation he's been he's gonna face a trial and we're gonna find out the truth so yeah and if they charge him on first degree murder he'll get off just like in the george floyd case here they there's you know there's a case there's a lot of question as to how that's going to go although there may be a you know an issue that it has to go a certain way because if it doesn't, there'll be unrest. I mean, Minneapolis was downtown, was ripped apart a couple of nights ago over absolute false rumors, just absolute nonsense, which was immediately debunked and spread around, but it didn't matter. It was the proper pretext. And so, I mean, the idea then is that going to the election, is that you empower the side that believes, you know, maybe in their heart of hearts that it is kind of sort of reparations and all the rest of it is not a winning strategy.

We should go to ask a question, by the way. Paul Beltman, I hope I got that right, said this 2020 election will be different than the 2016 election and Trump won't win with a 2016 strategy. I use that term generously he says so what would be a good tactic for the 2020 election that that accommodates the differences between then and now that we've been talking about this i guess but uh what would be the different strategy i think weren't we told that trump painted a dark picture in 2016? I don't think he's painting a dark picture. I think things are changed.

That's changed. Things are measurably darker now. And he's not painting a dark picture. He's trying to go for a sense of American optimism can do. We're going to bounce back. I mean, there was the line that the Democratic Party believes that you essentially are sinful. And the only way to redeem yourself is to vote for them which is not entirely inaccurate you know i i uh occasionally i i fall into the pattern of thinking

well this is totally different nothing there are no lessons from the past but it's still an election and it's an incumbent and a challenger and one of the smart things that bill clinton did in that 96 re-elect campaign which was a brilliant brilliant campaign not as good as 92 but very very good is to appeal to the center with a series of like moderate centrist appealing initiatives that didn't really do much uh but sent the message that he wasn't against it so 100 in 96, we heard about 100,000 cops on the street, thanks to the federal government. It was not exactly true,

but what it meant was that he's not against putting cops on the street. School uniforms. He had a series of many initiatives starting from the time he lost the House that sort of kind of reclaimed a little bit of the center and made it harder for Republicans to run to the center against him. And that's kind of what that's kind of what Trump needs to do is to sort of it's not in his nature, but to appeal to the reasonable people in the center who are now up for grabs, like everybody watch everybody in the chat, everybody on Ricochet.

They're not going to vote for Joe Biden. So who's going to vote for joe biden so who's going to vote for joe biden absolute 40 you know democrats are going to vote for joe biden but this the center pier which is which is up for grabs in pennsylvania and florida and ohio and michigan and and wisconsin and places like that and that's what he should be doing he didn't do a very good job of it last night but the rnc in general did a pretty good job if any if any of those people are watching which i guess the irony is they never really are but many initiatives are what every president does in a re-elect many initiatives use the power of the presidency to advance your idea that's what obama did very very successfully clinton did george w bush did ronald reagan did When you're in a re-elect,

you can continue to talk to the voters from the center of power in America by signing a lot of executive orders, by making a lot of speeches in defense of really simple anodyne things. Swearing in an

American citizen at the top of that RNC was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And I would just say, do something like that every day. It's not like he's busy. You know, Peter, two hours every day where he does his hair and makeup. He's not busy. Peter, the I want to get to a quote from a very famous person who said something about the economy. We'll get to that in a second. But well, let me just ask you right now. In 2016, Donald Trump was promising certain things were going to happen to the economy if he was able to do X, Y and Z. X, Y and Z were kind of sort of maybe. Yes, indeed happened. And wow, like a a rocket it took off do you think that this should be emphasized more is it sort of is that is that a winning strategy now to remind people of how good things were

because all of that prosperity and the seven million jobs that were unfilled that just where to go it's it's that that whole that whole idea of what happened has been memory hold right right i here's what's different from 2016 the The big thing, in my judgment, that's different from 2016, of course, Trump is the incumbent. In 2016, he was running against a candidate whom everyone disliked, even the people who liked or disliked her. Even her husband. Even her husband has trouble with her. I remember one of my kids was still at Dartmouth College, which is in New Hampshire, which gets a lot of presidential candidates. And one of my kids went

to a Hillary Clinton rally and just took pictures of the people at the rally. These were Hillary Clinton supporters, and they looked bored. They had long faces. It was just unpleasant. She was, Rob is always saying saying don't give people homework entertain them uplift them and hillary clinton was a kind of walking homework assignment the school marm okay joe biden is not dislikable he's not going to be able to run against joe biden but what has emerged in the last four years is two different conceptions of the country. And Donald Trump, for all the shortcomings of the speech last night, Donald Trump and the Republican convention did a very good job of saying, we're on the side of hardworking immigrants. We're on the side of

African-Americans who want more cops on the street because they know the score, the ordinary people. We're on the side of fireworks and the flag and a strong military and traditional morality. One of the speakers was a nun who held up her rosary beads. Clinton Obama Biden sues the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Republican National Convention puts a nun in a habit on camera, and she holds up a rosary bead and says, Mr. President, we're praying for you. That's Trump's America. The rioters on Pennsylvania Avenue and 16th Street are, if you're Donald Trump, you're going to say that's the vision of America. The other thing that was struck, this is actually one place where I thought the speech was effective last night. He attacked Joe Biden plenty, but he also said, imagine those people in charge. Joe Biden says Donald Trump is a bad guy. Donald Trump says the Democratic Party is dangerous for all of us. It's dangerous for all of us. It's not just biden's a bad guy their ideas are wrong that's

that all strikes me as as effective and fair i do believe trump really believes that that's not inauthentic he fumbles here and there he doesn't know that much history he's not an expert on policy but he does believe that the people ravening in the streets are not the one they're not saying we demand a marginal tax rate that's significantly higher than what we have today what they want is all of your money what they want is the abolition of the system and the confiscation of all property in a wonderful little socialistic marxist paradise to follow after that the republicans say we want you to have more money so you can buy more stuff so you can go places so you can bring up your children well. And, you know, we'll take a little of it.

But we want you to have more money because it's good for the economy. And the Democrat side says, well, you know, okay, all right, we want you to have more money, but we want a lot of it because we've got good things to do for it, and you people may waste it on stuff that you don't need. There's all these wonderful things that we have to do. So, okay, all right, we'll let you have more money. But, you know, we've got a preexisting right to half of it at the least uh well you know when it comes to

investing we have anything left over from the democrats um sometimes you don't know where to put it right right rob right rob i tried already and it didn't work okay well i said diversification i did all that stuff and you did yeah. Yeah, I did. And you didn't pick up on it. So you know what? You don't deserve to be interrupted. No, that's oh, oh, well, you haven't earned the right. Let me exist in that fallen state of sin the rest of our days. Now, when Rob used the word diversified, he may have been thinking of your portfolio. He may have been thinking of his own. You know what he got? You got stocks, you got bonds, you get mutual funds, that sort of thing. That's what diversification means to

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Fundrise.com slash ricochet. And a thanks to Fundrise for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. Question from Michael S. Tarian. And I'm going to ask this, and then I have to leave for a moment because my roof inspector is almost here. We had hail, you know. It's not enough the city's burning. God has to dump rocks on my roof, which is great because the roof is old. So I'm hoping that he goes up there

and finds damage. It's kind of perverse, isn't it? Anyway, Michael says, I'm curious how each of you thinks Biden will actually govern, assuming he wins. Is it more Clinton or Obama or more Bernie and AOC? What do you think will actually get in practice?

I'm going to leave that to you two guys, and then I'm going to come back having heard nothing you say and probably repeat what you said, irritating the audience even more. Be right back. It'll be more Bernie and AOC. Well, I mean, I don't know. I actually feel like the problem with him is that he won't. I mean, the president of the party that controls the House instantly becomes just desperately trying to hold the house back from their crazy right so he's gonna try to run as clinton but my guess is he'll be like clinton's first term where he gets run over by the and actually frankly obama's first term to run over by the liberals in the house and in the part of the senate that the democrats control

and uh suffer for it in the midterms probably i mean the the democrat controlled house doesn't seem at all interested in leading or governing right like just oh i'm not sure i think alexandria okay so yeah okay i'm willing to take the democratic party pretty much at their word and look at the platform here's how the democratic platform got written joe biden sent a few of his staffers to a committee the other members of which were chosen by alexandria ocasio-cortez i think she sat on the committee and to which Bernie Sanders sent some representatives. And the platform they chose was pretty much a Bernie Sanders platform. This is not just two ticks to the left of Bill Clinton, not just two ticks to the left of Barack

Obama. This is the platform. The deal they struck was this. We nominate a centrist, sort of mild-mattered, moderate candidate who actually doesn't have any fire in the belly. We're not so sure there's much cognition even going on. But still, he gets to be the nominee, a guy in his 70s. Those of us in our 30s and 40s, well, and a few old red babies like Bernie Sanders, we get the policy. Now, my guess is that's the policy. They mean it. They're serious about it. And they also have the energy to staff up much of the administration. You need a couple of thousand people to run the federal government.

And it's not going to be old Bill Clinton leftovers, so to speak. Those guys are all in law firms, lobbying firms, making good living livings now they don't want to go back to the federal government work for for relative peanuts the alexandria ocasio-cortez is of the world for those people and their supporters those are pretty good jobs those are all a step up they'll be running the federal government yeah i think that's probably true the appointment the appointment politics will be solidly far left. I just think that what usually happens when, what has happened in the past when a liberal president has been elected is there's a huge amount of fighting in the White House, a huge amount of hostility between the White House and the Democrats in the House,

because the Democrats in the House are always trying to pull everybody very, very far to the left, and the guys in the White House are a little bit more tend to be, they run a general. They've at least felt the sting of the moderate voter, the way Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has not felt, the way Nancy Pelosi has not felt. Nancy Pelosi has never met a moderate voter. Like, why would she ever bother? They don't live in her district.

They don't live in their district. So like, she's in there anyway. So that is, historically, that is what has happened. And so I think historically, that is probably what will happen. I don't mean to demean the man and i don't mean to engage in distasteful or unseemly talk about what just how how his how well his brain works but your argument presumes that the president of the that the president will be president that he will be making central decisions. And although Joe Biden did a very good job delivering his speech to a prompter, which was set up in front of the camera, so it looked as though he was looking into the camera as opposed to Trump last night,

who had the prompters on each side. By the way, as far as I can tell, the Democratic Party still hasn't fessed up to whether that thing was live or live to tape or whether it involved 227 takes to get that nice performance out of Biden. But yesterday when he was he did two interviews in which he denounced violence, but he also attacked the Trump people and he tried to attack them using a quotation from Kellyanne Conway, which he was twisting in any event. But in both interviews, he looked down to read the quotation. He couldn't read it. He bungled reading a quotation. So I just, and in the circumstances in which I've seen Jill Biden step forward. Dr. Jill Biden. Dr. Jill. Dr. Jill Biden, yes. forward dr jill biden doctor dr jill biden yes in other words what i'm saying is

again i don't a part of this is creepy and i don't want to engage in sort of morbid speculation but this could be like this could be something like woodrow wilson after his stroke when there's just not not not really fundamentally in charge right and then the question is i mean when franklin roosevelt during his last term his last 18 months or so in office when he was very ill and we now know he could only really work for a few hours a day but by then he had established his policies he'd substantially won the war the people who worked with him and who took over and to whom he delegated responsibility knew what he wanted. The administration was still formed by the mind of FDR.

I just don't know what role Joe Biden would play in his own administration. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, I truly I just don't know how it would work. Well, here's what the other thing I was going to say, just in conclusion, because I do have to run in four minutes. But the other thing I was going to say, which was to me was staggering and a huge indictment oh wait wait rob stop right there stop right there i know you got to run but at least you got your your internet back and go back in the web but you know gosh i i suppose you're worried that uh somebody's going to find out where you're worried they always i know i'm being spied on but there's literally nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do about it. That's where you're wrong.

Yes, yes, yes. All the usual segue interrupting folder all is over because we have to tell you about something important. And that is, as you might expect, ExpressVPN. Why would you use ExpressVPN? Well, ExpressVPN lets you access the Internet if you're from a different country, for example. Netflix, they got different shows and different movies, depending on whether you're here or there. With ExpressVPN, you can unlock thousands of new shows and movies from streaming libraries around the globe.

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Anyway, Rob, you were saying? I was going to say, the other thing I noticed was memory hold the past two weeks, not just the not building the wall but notice that no democrat mentioned and or has mentioned impeachment they impeach the president of the united states good point and it's like uh forget it forget about forget all about it i mean the argument that the trump administration is so crazy and we're entering this period where they don't remember anything and one lie to another

all right maybe you can make an argument about that i guess but what about the fact that we impeached a sitting president and you would think that that would be a battle rallying cry for the party that impeached him and failed to remove him. Instead, it was as if it never happened. That to me is like a sign that they just aren't serious. Yeah. Well, don't each get one bogey. He doesn't mention

the wall. They don't mention impeachment. They're even. Okay. All right. Well, closing thoughts then, gentlemen, because Rob has to go. Rob, what would you like to leave us with? By next week, what do you think we'll be talking about? Oh, who knows? Something totally different. I don't think anything that happened the past two weeks is really going to matter.

It might indicate a strategy that's going to unfold. But it seems to me that both of these guys are just going to try to stay one step ahead of the sheriff all the way to November. And right now i think that that right now i think that strategy benefits biden and rob do you find it curious that in the conventions and even today one of the things we haven't talked about is oh i don't know the rest of the world all biden has said essentially i get from him is he's going to rejoin the paris accords and that's supposed to be a stand-in for all the wonderful good things the international community will do but we're not a tremendous amount of foreign policy. I mean,

Trump, yes, in terms of trade, but what's the DNC position on Europe? What's the DNC position on Putin, except that he's bad because of Trump? What? Is there anything there? They were against the slaughter of the Uyghurs. We heard about that. All that stuff is important stuff. I mean, I don't think the Trump administration is not doing that either. In fact, I think the Trump administration wisely backtracked on its stupid desire to get out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership by basically suggesting that we start a Trans-Pacific Partnership. That's kind of what they did last week. That's all. That's fine but i mean as we all we

always learn over and over and over again that is not why americans vote they don't vote for the president of the united nations they vote for the president united states do they vote because do they vote because uh the legislature came up with ab45 and lyft and uber had to leave their state i imagine i say this because you have to now. And are you going to go outside of your New York apartment and hail a taxi? Or are you going to do it for Uber? I will probably get a cab, but only because in New York you can always get a cab.

If it was in LA, I would get an Uber. But the conditions are different, aren't they? I remember New York cabs as being not particularly hygienic places. They had a particular aroma and one wished to disinfect with substantial quantities of chemicals after you got out in aroma like midwestern spices yes spices or vanilla vanilla or is it lots of vanilla covers up yeah tremendous amounts of curry lots of curry curry curry and bo the smell of me the perfume of new

york i want you to know two things rob the internet does work beautifully so thank you for going to the trouble of having your entire building rewired and the second thing is please go we know you have to go and we've already arranged with max to come in and fill in for you for the next 15 i tell you why actually you're holding him up he's busy right i just when max talks about you can just if you want, you just close your eyes and hear him say Reverend Sung Young Moon. And it's kind of the same. All right. Folks, bye bye. Bye bye. Take care, man. Peter, just you and me. Yes, you drew you drew. Max just Max just no, no.

Well, Max just chastised me for saying that Trump didn't mention the wall. Max must have missed the first few minutes of the podcast. Trump did mention the wall, and I said so. He devoted 80 words to it last night, 80 words. He didn't mention it much, but he did mention it in fairness. So here's what I'd like to see. Summary statement after the two conventions. In 1988, Dukakis came out of the Democratic Convention 17 points ahead of George H.W. Bush and lost. Ronald Reagan in 1980 trailed Jimmy Carter by between four and six points throughout the entire campaign up until one week before election day when they had their debate and the polls closed and then reversed themselves in time for the election. To me, the significant political

fact to emerge from these two weeks is that we have a race on. It's not as if the Democrats and Joe Biden are going to be simply able to ride a wave of anti-Trump revulsion. That just isn't going to happen. This is going to be a race. I would love to see the president, just as Rob said, he can take actions, executive orders, relatively small initiatives would do the trick of signaling where he stands, that he's with the middle of the country. I'd actually love to see him give two or three policy speech, 20 minutes on foreign policy. The UAE has recognized Israel. He's squared up with China. He has real accomplishments to his record. 20 minutes on the economic policy for a second term, just to lay out the policy. But the big thing here is that Trump is swinging and the Republican, the people who ran that convention, who are running the campaign

are really good at what they're doing. We have a fight on our hands. Terrific. Indeed. Well, the debates will be fun if they happen. I mean, now that Nancy Pelosi is floating the fact that she doesn't think there'll be debates because the president lies. So what's the point? Which is interesting because what were we being told just a little while ago that only people who were on the nuts side of the spectrum were suggesting that Biden might dodge the debate? I think he has to debate. He's got to debate. Not only not only does he have to debate, but he will probably in the first debate, at least he'll probably people will say he did very, very well because you're judged by expectations. People are even on his own side. They're clearly worried that he won't be able to get through.

He'll be able to get through a debate. He managed to get through the primary debates one after the other. He's OK for that kind of thing. Here's something that else might happen. And that's the continuation of the violence. I want to read you a thread, a little Twitter thread. We're going to close with this here. A Twitter thread from a respected analyst who is looking at what might happen and how it affects Trump. And I want you, Peter, at any point

to interject with either astonishment, agreement, or a waving of hands or whatever. All right. This is like a hearing test where I hold up a finger if I'm not right. Yes. Right. Tweet by tweet. First tweet. All right. This report, citing a report, confirms that there may be links to white supremacist groups among U.S. law enforcement. Next tweet. It's plausible to suspect some law enforcement agencies have been infiltrated by white supremacists. If so, this is what will happen in the next 66 days. One, black men will be killed by white cops.

Two, this will be filmed. Three, these videos will go straight to Twitter, where they'll be boosted and amplified not only by terrified black Americans, but by Trump's campaign and by our friends in the GRU. GRU stands for? That's the Russian Intelligence Service. Oh, thank you. Black Americans can do one of three things. One, nothing. Two, realize it's a provocation and respond intelligently. And then it goes on to talk about how violent protests are insane and the rest of it. But it says Donald Trump is the candidate of the right. He is not a normal candidate. He is an authoritarian goon itching for a pretext.

His supporters will see videos of breaking windows and burning buildings on a loop over and again, and they will see Trump as their savior. He's counting on this. He's counting on the riots to elect him. He wants to do this, and he believes that the GRU will amplify Trump. Okay? Do you think that this is wise or sane? No, I don't think it's sane at all and what we have i mean it it's looney tunes

conspiracy theory but it is astounding to me that after four years of almost four years if you include the last campaign of watching this guy they still think what was the phrase he's an authoritarian goon authoritarian is exactly what he's not. When the executive orders on immigration got held up in the courts, he had them rewritten. They get held up in other courts. He has them rewritten again. He obeys the courts. When he issues the executive orders, which I'm unhappy that he issued executive orders, what was it, just two weeks ago, but it's all very carefully lawyered up. It's constitutional. It simply follows precedence by other presidents, including Barack Obama. The guy follows the law and obeys the Constitution. Even last night, it bothered me. I didn't discuss this. You and Rob

did, but I didn't actually like having a rally, a campaign rally, effectively, a political event, a partisan political event on the South Lawn of the White House. So I looked into it, and guess what? The White House sought the federal government's ethics panel's permission, or permission judgment on the matter first. And a formally instituted ethics panel of the federal government said they could use the South Lawn for that event. The guy is not authoritarian. He follows the law. And that's perfectly, you may dislike him, you may dislike the bluster, you may dislike the tweets. I don't care for them myself. But there's no instance in which he's tried to subvert the law or ignored the law. Zero.

Well, if you don't think he's an authoritarian goon who's hoping for riots and mass disorder in the cities then you would have issues with the author of that tweet and perhaps we should have her on the show she's not a stranger to ricochet she used to be around here an awful lot as a matter of fact but we don't hear from claire very much anymore that's claire that's claire's lived in france too long i get the same thing. I enjoy reading a lot of the stuff that she reads. I find it piquant and provocative, as Michael made it, but I was used to say when he disagreed with something intensely. But I often get that feeling, too.

You're in France. Come home. Unless, of course, you don't regard it as such anymore. Hey, folks, it's been lots of fun. Peter and I will stick around for a little bit now. If there are any questions, if anybody has anything to say about Ricochet or just wants to tell us what a bang-up fantastic job we're doing, we'll be here for that. That doesn't seem the way. That's not the drift in the comments section here.

Go ahead. We're brought to you by ExpressVPN, by Fundrise, and by ButcherBox. Great meat, incredible real estate opportunities for investment, and ExpressVPN to keep you safe on the internet. Great ideas. You support them, you get stuff yourself. They support us. It's win-win-win.

Lots of mutual hand-washing and back-scratching and the rest of it. And, you know, if you went over to that Apple podcast thing there and gave us five, count them five stars, we'd love that too. I love doing Zoom because I can actually indicate by digital means how many stars I wish you to get. The reviews help the show get more popular. That brings more people to Ricochet, about which we've said little, because of course Rob's gone. But if he were here, he'd give you a tendentious seven-minute explanation as to why you should join Ricochet. So perhaps we'll just drop that in later when he gets back. Thanks for watching, everybody. I'm James Loddix in Minneapolis, Peter Robinson in California. Rob Long's gone, but it was great to have him here. And it's been fun talking to you,

letting you listen, seeing how it works. And from the WJM Newsroom in Minneapolis, Minnesota, good night and good news. Next week, James. Thank you. No. Hey, think the time is right for a ballast revolution. Cause where I live, the game to play a compromise solution. Well, no, I got a four-boy dude. Except he's saying four rock and roll fans. Cause he's sleeping on a dark time. There's just no place for Steve Bolland's fame. Oh. Oh.

Yeah. Hey, until my name is called disturbance I shout and scream, I tell the gang I rail at all his servants And what can a poor boy do Except to sing for rock and roll bands Ricochet. Join the conversation. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Join the conversation.