The Ricochet Podcast - RIP GOP?

Episode Date: July 29, 2016

We open with some thoughts on the just concluded Democratic convention, and then segue into our guest, Avik Roy. His interview with Vox has been discussed extensively on Ricochet, and we give him the full court Ricochet Podcast press. Is the GOP on life support as Avik suggests and can be saved? Or, is everything just fine, and the party should stay the course? We delve into all of that with Roy... Source

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South American, all the ships at sea, let's go to press. Hello. Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my coffee. 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. I don't know why that's funny. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex and our guest today, Ovik Roy. The GOP is dead. Welcome, everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, and it's number 313, if you're keeping track. We're brought to you by many fine people who make this podcast possible, including ZipRecruiter.com. You can find candidates in any city or industry nationwide.

Post once and watch your qualified candidates just roll into ZipRecruiter's easy-to-use interface. And we're brought to you by The Great Courses Plus. To start your free trial today, sign up now at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com slash Ricochet. And we're brought to you for a great shave at an even greater price. Go to Harrys.com and enter the coupon code Ricochet. And as you might imagine, for a great shave at an even greater price. Go to harrys.com and enter the coupon code Ricochet. And as you might imagine, I'll be saying something about them later. Somebody complained in the comments. He doesn't listen to me

anymore because every time I start to speak, he knows it's just a long and elaborate wind-up that ends in a commercial. So I've been rendered utterly irrelevant. Or not. Rob, tell me. Tell me that I matter. Tell me that I matter. Of course you matter.

We all matter. But interestingly, you mentioned the comments. That's one of the perks of being a member of Ricochet is you get to join the comments. You get to join the conversation. You get to be part of it. You get to create it. You get to shape it. If you are listening to this podcast and you're a member, we are thrilled that you're a member with us.

If you're not a member, and that is a huge number of you, I'm going to have to ask that you do that today. Very, very important for us. We have a very small but crucial goal in order to achieve some growth here.

We need 1,500 new members. That's not that many. We got some last week. We'd like to get some more this week. We really,,500 new members. That's not that many. We got some last week. We'd like to get some more this week. We really, really, really, really would like to hit Labor Day with 1,500 members, more members than we have now. That would put us on a very sound financial footing and allow us to continue to do these great podcasts and to have the most interesting, most civil, and smartest conversation between and among the center right on the web.

That's a very hard thing to do. Very hard thing to do these days. We're the only people doing it. No one else is doing it. People out – what most people do is just shut down any kind of comment system they have or they have a crazy free-for-all. We're trying to thread the needle needle and we need your help to do that. So please go to Ricochet.com.

You get a free month so there's no risk to you and look, there's lots to talk about. It's not like... Really? Really? You don't say. You're right. Ricochet.com. Join the conversation. We would like to have you and feel

free to join just for the sheer um fun and privilege of heaping abuse on james lalix yes well the ricochet tries to thread the needle as you put it other sites jam it repeatedly into your eye i was at uh i went to yahoo yesterday for some reason a link took me there. The comments section after Hillary's speech, I think, was something like 7,323 comments. Nobody wants to read 7,323 comments at all. But in Ricochet, you have a manageable

number. And I imagine that we'll have some after this podcast. Peter, you are here to tell us what you thought about last night. For example, lots of people already discussing in Ricochet what they thought about Hillary Clinton's last speech from various directions. What did you take of that large, large, gelatinous mass embedded with shrill metal fillings? I believe, Counselor, that is what is known as a leading question.

Just a tad. She's, well, what is there to say? Everything that can be accomplished through sheer hard work and practice and determination and a kind of naked, hungry ambition extended through four decades, she has accomplished. The speech was competent. It was a competent speech about her competence. It was the work of an experienced politician talking about her experience. I, in my, you know, me, I wasn't moved by it. It didn't bring a tear to my eye. It didn't change anything that I myself thought about her.

But it was a more than competent piece of work. What strikes me, and I turn this back to you and Rob, because I want to hear your thoughts on this as well. Not only do we have two different personalities competing for president and two, broadly speaking, quite different sets of policy approaches. I'd say sets of policies if I thought Donald Trump had actually worked out his policies and details yet. But different policy approaches. We have different theories of this campaign. Donald Trump believes the country wants change. The Democrats clearly, it was a beautifully produced, Rob, I'm sure can speak to this with greater knowledge than I, production values, lots of stars. They had Paul Simon, I don't know who we had, but here's fundamentally what you got out of it.

Bill Clinton gave a speech saying she's been around for four decades preparing for this job. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama gave speeches that essentially said Hillary Clinton will represent the third term of Barack Obama. And then Hillary last night got up and said, look, she didn't even really make a play for affection. Look, I know that some people don't know what to make of me. Actually, I think they do know what to make of her, but we set that aside. But she said, and she rehearsed her experience. Clearly, they just have a different view of this campaign. They believe that the country either doesn't want change or is so rattled by between Donald Trump and killings of police and Europe on fire that the country is so rattled that what they want is reassurance and calm. So this really is change versus status quo.

Trump is running on change and happy to do so. And the Democrats really seem to have made a very calculated decision. This is experience, status quo, calm the public. There's a moment in the movie, an actual history in which it is based, Titanic, in which the vessel, having struck the iceberg, going down fast by the head, splits in two. There's a moment when it splits in two and the stern rights itself in a way. Yes, yes. And so I almost see Hillary Clinton asking to be the third term of Barack Obama as somebody

who's taken over from Captain Smith and is now commandeering the rear section of the Titanic after it's snapped over and telling everybody, we're going to steam to port this way. If you found that reassuring, then good on you for people who aren't paying attention or for that little class, that managerial collegiate class, which believes that the most important thing in the country is finally figuring out a way to codify into law gender pronouns that are non-binary. I mean for those people who live in that particular bubble, she's a heroine. For everybody else looking around, they don't share the concerns. They may like Barack Obama because they like what they liked about himself, about liking Barack.

They like themselves for liking Barack Obama. It makes them good people. Yes, simply put. And they're sad to see him go. They don't get that from Hillary. They don't get the same charge. Oh, they're proud of themselves for saying, of course a woman can be president, as though that's something novel. They like themselves for that.

But it's not as much of a kick as it was for liking themselves for liking Obama. So, I mean, on that gust, that pale breath of wind, she may be pushed into office. And she may be helped well by the typhoons of rhetoric that are coming from the other side. But there's just – for those of us who are looking around the country and saying we had a guy who eight years ago said it was the beginning of the fundamental transformation of America. Yeah, well, that's working out pretty well for that side and i can imagine well why they're able to take the podium and be optimistic about the future of america because they have been able to change the culture in ways that force everybody else to be dragged along by the little short hairs in their neck rob i'm just trying to figure out if there's any room left here i yeah you guys have pretty much started up uh i i let me just say three things one thing i'm just just struck by – I was struck by last night.

The past two weeks, we've had political conventions starring and about and nominating two of the most famous people in America, two people who have been known for over two decades, two people whose intimate lives – I mean quite literally intimate lives we have been hearing about for 20 years. And the theme of both of those conventions was, you got me all wrong. I'm not that person. I'm this other – very, very strange, disorienting thing. The second thing was campaigns are about – every campaign is two campaigns, right? One is I'm great and that's the first – that's one campaign. The other campaign is that other guy is awful and you kind of have to balance it. It was an interesting choice for me to see her make the hold argument on the war on I'm great, right?

Not really make that argument too much. You like me. I'm a visionary leader for the future, all that stuff. I make you feel good. And then – but to prosecute the war, the other guy is terrible. I think she did a really good job of that. Just pure theater statecraft. I guess what I find so unusual and I know this because I do know a couple people in that campaign.

I've known them for a long time. And through back channels, I've been asking this for other people who know people in the democratic media machine. So why isn't she answering the question in our heads if you're over 40, which is – help me understand who – the disconnect with Hillary Clinton is why – what is that marriage? That was a – it was sort of a sad speech by Bill Clinton because he's clearly not well and he's frail and he's older and he is not nearly at his power. That guy used to be able to give a speech and the speech he gave at the convention was – the vocal cords weren't there. But what's up? I need to know that I think if I'm really going to trust

this person. Part of the mistrust is you're lying to me about this fundamental thing. I don't understand. She had this opportunity and she almost – she never connects the dots but she kind of like throws them out there of saying, look, I stuck with my commitment because it was important to me and I stick with things and I keep my promises. And it would be a very good contrast to say, listen, I stuck with my marriage. My opponent walked away twice. That's how I treat America. That's how I treat working Americans. I'll stick with you.

And I thought that would be sort of an effective way to kind of, and then I got, when I sort of was asking around, just to find out why she's not doing this, I heard from people who know her and people who work in my campaign, one is, she don't do that. That's not her and never, never is going to be her.

What is it, what is the that that she don't do? She just doesn't talk about her marriage? She doesn't reveal herself. Either one. And she's running against a guy who really – there is nothing hidden. I mean he's going to tell you whatever he wants to tell you. We'll never learn the truth about the hair. Yeah, right, right.

You know what? I think – well, I'll follow it up with another little tidbit about this. And then finally I would just say – so what they've chosen is a 1988 campaign, a George H.W. Bush vice presidential campaign running essentially as to stay the course, which is bizarre because it's not as if the course is doing that great. But I suspect all in all, although I was disappointed in the speech because I was disappointed just as a sheer spectator on American politics, it just indicates a very safe, a very

calculated, a very, very, very tested focus group message. And in that respect, I think it was probably, I mean I would give it a C. But it probably was a B. The course is going great, Rob, as I said before. The Navy is naming a ship after Harvey Milk. So the course is going fantastic.

In the things that matter to them while the rest of the world erupts and comes. Well, but it's not the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it's not the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it's not the rest of the world. Her, the job she has is not insanely hard. I mean, the job she has is just to simply say, which I was surprised that she didn't do,

but to say, I'm a moderate, I'll be a moderate, and to be the automaton is running against the guy who's not the automaton, who a lot of people find erratic and unstable. So it's a matter of like stagecraft or just sheer – part of the problem for our side is that we – and I know we'll talk about this with Ove because I agree with him – is that we live in this bubble where we just do not accept that half of the country votes against us. And so we go, I don't – she's a liar. We're going to say Benghazi in emails all the way to November.

Well, yeah, I accept that. I understand that half the country votes against us. What I don't understand – the other half, however, regards us as being uncaring and racist. And now it is apparently the popular thing on our side to say, boy, you're right about that. You got us dead to rights. Ho, ho, we're awful people. I wrote about this in response to a post. I think Mona Charan did something that was anti-Trump.

Surprise, I know. And I was noting that in a speech about the – in a question about the minimum wage, Trump said that he would advocate raising it as contrast to what he had said before and he said that we have to help people. I know that's not a very republican thing to say because the way you get every – the stragglers on your side is to repeatedly jab them in the eyeball with a knitting needle. Well, look, an old friend of mine who has been in politics a long time once said to me years ago, you want to know what's happening in an election, in a campaign. Listen to black radio, African-American AM radio in the weeks before election day because that's when the dirty stuff comes out and that's where it comes out.

And she's going to have $50, $60, $70 million in PAC money. Every African-American voter in Cleveland – I think I said this last week. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Charlotte. You pick a swing state with African-American voters. Philadelphia. They're going to know that Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally. And they're going to know that Fred Trump – or they're going to think they know. We don't know for sure that Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally. And they're going to know that Fred Trump, or they're going to think they know,

we don't know for sure, that Fred Trump was a Klansman and that wore robes, was wearing robes. They're going to know that. And our sides can say, well, what about Robert Byrd? Or worse, the Trump campaigns can say, this is beneath contempt,

to which she can only reply, tell that to Rafael Cruz. So the problem isn't whether what's true or not at bedrock. I do not feel guilt about that. I do not feel that my positions and policies need to be apologized for. I do not feel that I am racist.

But I'm not that 11, 16 percent, whatever it is in the center, that is susceptible to that argument. And that's a problem. And I'm not an African American voter that is probably thinking, well, maybe I'll vote for the old white lady. Maybe I won't. And then suddenly the first black president shows

up and says, no, you got to do it. The van's out there. And by the way, I've been seeing door knockers and flyers and ads on black radio for the past month telling me that Donald Trump's dad is a Klansman. And you want to win some swing states. That's how you do it. If Donald Trump is president, he's going to screen Birth of the Nation in the White House. And you point out to somebody, well, actually, that was already done by a Democrat 100 years ago.

They say the past doesn't matter. 100 years ago, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the country was founded on slavery. 300 years. I mean – The past does matter, James. What difference at this point does it make to Hillary Clinton? There's only some way for us to brush up on history.

Yeah, and thank you for just holding the door open so I can stroll right through. Don't mean to have a long, boring wind-up about something that's quick and exciting, and that would be the great courses. We love to learn stuff. I'm helping. I'm trying to help now. It was like the guy at the shoe store. And I help. It was like the guy at the shoe store who gives you

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Oh, they'll break in. They're going to break in. They just feel stiff now. Everything does. That's the great thing about interesting ideas, though, is that they may feel like new shoes at the start, but after a while, after you've inhabited them, the the ideas become supple and your way of traveling becomes different because you've incorporated a new idea into your life and that's what the great courses plus video

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slash ricochet. Well, we should probably stop blathering amongst ourselves and invite our guest in to talk about the aforementioned topic, what's wrong with the Republican Party? We could just do 10,000 hours on that. Our host, or our guest today is Ovik Roy. He's the opinion editor at Forbes and has advised Florida Senator Marco Rubio on policy.

In 2015, he was senior advisor to former Texas Governor Rick Perry, and in 2012, he served as a healthcare policy advisor to Mitt Romney. Welcome to the podcast. Well, hello there. Ovik, the last time we spoke to you, I believe you were working for Rick Perry and now post-Perry, pre-Trump, there's an interesting, fascinating interview in Vox where you're talking about a Republican intellectual explains why the Republican Party is going to die. And I get the

feeling from what you say that you believe it deserves it. Yeah, I mean, parties don't have a right to last forever, and it's not clear to me that the Republican Party any longer stands for making life better for every American. But more than that, you talk about the way that conservative intellectuals in the beltway or elsewhere have fooled themselves into thinking that this actually was a party of ideas when actually it's predicated and there's a history of being predicated on racism white racism and white nationalism which is going to come as a surprise i suppose to those of us who live in the bubble or don't and regard that as a broad brush with which to tar the whole movement?

Well, I think my commentary was slightly more nuanced than the way you described it, though it was still somewhat provocative. My argument was twofold. One, the conservative movement was a movement of ideas and has been historically. The Buckley National Review ecosystem that we're all a part of that family, that still exists. That infrastructure still exists. But a bunch of people writing in magazines and websites does not alone constitute a movement. You actually have to have voters who agree with you on issues and elect candidates who agree with you on issues. And particularly since the end of the Cold War, we've struggled to

keep that conservative coalition, the famous three-legged stool of individual liberty, social conservatism, and anti-communism together. And what we've seen that's underlied that trend of how we've responded to or how our coalition has changed since the Cold War has really been about something that we didn't notice all the way along but has been there all the way along. And that is when Barry Goldwater in 1964 ran for president, was nominated by the Republicans, and this was seen as a great triumph at that time of the new right, it was then called. Barry Goldwater, who was a card-carrying member of the NAACP, it should be said, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he thought it was unconstitutional.

But, and the end result of that was a lot of blacks who really cared about civil rights were driven out of the Republican Party over the ensuing decades, and a lot of segregationists, or people who were just a tad south of segregationists signed on with Republicans. And the end result of that has been while we do have movement conservatives in the Republican Party, I think we've also inherited a coalition that's a lot more about white identity politics than we had thought about before. Well, two points come to mind right away. First of all, the Vox piece delves deeply into what we're now calling the foundational myth of the modern conservative movement, that it actually supported the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

In fact, the piece said, if I can quote, even though many Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act in Congress, the post-Goldwater Party became the party of aggrieved whites. Now, the second part, we can argue. But as far as many Republicans, if you look at the House, 61% of the Democrats in the House voted for it. 80% of the Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act. So it's not many.

Is this actually true that it's a myth that Republicans in general supported the Civil Rights Act over a lot of revanchist Democrats at the time. Well, what's very important in the Vox piece to distinguish between the things I actually say, which are surrounded by quotation marks, and the things that the Vox author writes along the margins, how he annotates the interview, right? So make sure that you're attributing what I actually say to the things that are in the quotation marks. And I will

say that in his defense, he did quote me accurately. So my argument, again, is somewhat more subtle than that, right? So I said, yes, Republicans voted and put the Civil Rights Act of 1964 over the edge. But again, Republican and Democrat in 1964 is not Republican and Democrat in 2016. Both parties were much more ideologically diverse than they are today. So the Democrats who opposed civil rights in 1964 were Southern Democrats. Northern Democrats, by and large, today, don't see themselves as part of the Republican Party. Many of their descendants see themselves as Democrats or independents. You see a lot that they were often what we can now consider Rockefeller Republicans.

The classic example might be someone like George Romney, who was governor of Michigan and marched in the civil rights movement in marches in Detroit. He, you know, he's not somebody who we think of as like the movement conservative Republican of today. Yeah. Oh, but Peter here, I just want to push a little bit. Hmm. You can tidy this up if you'd like to in the Vox the overall argument is conservatives the overall argument I get from the Vox and this may do some injustice to you because very good point

the way you were quoted was intermixed it wasn't a straight interview it was intermixed with the writer's own views and that gets complicated but the argument is A that the modern Republican Party is pretty racist and owes a great deal to its current makeup to racism. And, well, let's just take that. Just – we've already made the point that the civil rights legislation was enacted very substantially by Republicans. A far higher proportion, far higher in the Senate, a proportion of Republicans voted for that legislation than of Democratic senators. So Barry Goldwater within his own party is an anomaly.

Now, I don't for one moment doubt he was an anomaly, but he was also the presidential nominee. So many people take their cues from where the nominee the candidate stands clearly uh but and i'm even willing to grant that blacks are to some extent driven from the republican party to the democratic party by that but that's an older as you well know fdr begins bringing african-american voters when they're finally permitted to vote, as they're finally being permitted to vote, brings African-American voters into the Democratic Party. They'd been Republicans earlier because of Lincoln. And Eisenhower only gets 39 percent, sounds high to us now,

but he only gets 39 percent in 56. Nixon gets 32 percent in 1960. So the movement of African-Americans starts well before the civil rights legislation. The white segregationists, again, I just want to point out the history there is really quite important. Dwight Eisenhower makes inroads into the South in 1952 and again in 1956 before the civil rights legislation. Nixon and his losing candidacy to JFK in 1960, one, two, three presidential elections in a row, Republicans get almost half the electoral votes in the South before the civil rights legislation. Richard Nixon, this supposed Southern strategy, it wasn't until George Wallace got shot and forced out of the race that Southerners went to Nixon in large numbers.

They resisted going to him, and it was because their candidate dropped out, the white segregationist candidate dropped out. They went to Nixon. He didn't go to them. And if you look at Nixon's record as president, he gave the South, he gave southern segregationists nothing. He insisted on desegregating the schools. He's the author of what we now think of as affirmative action. So indeed, it's a pretty subtle picture and people should understand that if there is a conservative misreading of the founding of the modern

conservative movement. I, my experience is that it's not nearly as widely held as the liberal mischaracterization of what took place in the sixties. So let me try to respond to that, Peter, if I can, because you made a lot of points there. First,

it's very important to make a distinction between the conservative movement and the Republican party, right? So in the conservative movement of which Barry Goldwater was the hero, Mr. Conservative, in the conservative movement, you tell me because you're a much better historian of National Review than I am, but I don't recall National Review in the 50s and 60s overflowing with commentary about the evils of segregation.

That was much more the province of the progressive movement and northern republicans who were uh part of that lincoln lincoln heritage shall we say so over time what we see is that the conservative movement on constitutional principle and sometimes less than constitutional principle was were not fans of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And the combination of – so what happened was Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act on that constitutional principle. Why do you make such a strong argument just stating the case that they were opposing it on constitutional principle? Why do you stick in that dirty stiletto of, and sometimes not unconstitutional principle? With Barry Goldwater, hold on, let me just finish the question. With

Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley, it was always unconstitutional principle. And if you're going to focus on the heroes, the Mr. Conservatives, in those days, it was Barry Goldwater and Bill. Well, Peter, you have to make the distinction between what the leaders do and what the voters do, right? So yes, Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley may have had very polished intellectual and constitutional justifications for their stance on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but voters who supported segregation were not particularly concerned with constitutional justification. They're like, these are the guys who are opposed to the Civil Rights Act. I'm voting directionally with that.

So just because there's an intellectual rationale for an argument doesn't mean the people who are actually providing the electoral ballast for that argument share that intellectual point of view. Well, OK, but you have to be very careful in attributing motives even to voters that gets murky as well uh you could say that but then again if you look at the trends right so which what states did barry goldwater win in 1964 i don't remember i can't name them what states in the south did he win he won very few except in the south isn't that right right so i don't have w have Wikipedia in front of me, but he won, like, I want to say six states of which it was Arizona and five states in the Deep South, something like that. So you're exactly right. It was Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Okay. So, you know, correlation is not causation, but I think it's not unreasonable to point to that map and say that a big part of why those voters were supporting Goldwater

is because he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At the very least, you can't dismiss that argument as somehow unreasonable or a libel against conservatism that's then this is now as they like to say and what if if the conservative movement is to be discredited because of this uh because of what we're talking about in 1964 at what point does the modern left become discredited by its retreat into racial balkanization in other words is it going to be 50 years 50 years before they get to be held accountable? So listen, I mean, my concern with the remarks I made to the Vox reporter, I'm concerned with the health of the conservative movement in the Republican Party. If the left is terrible, that's not as important to me than if the right is terrible.

And so my concern, the left has long been practitioners of and exploited racial identity politics for their own gain, as we all know. But I think this is part of the problem is that we on the conservative side have had a conceit that we treat everyone Republican Party has been infested with white identity politics as a kind of equal and opposite reaction to the minority identity politics of the left. Hey, Ovik, it's Rob Long here. And I just want to say I agree with almost everything you said, mostly because some of it I've been trying to say myself but not quite as well. The white identity politics, though, I would push back on that a little bit because I think anything – pretty much everything you say about the Goldwater and the Goldwater fallout, we could have said four years ago. We could have said in 1980. We could have said in 84.

We could have said in 88. Could have said in 1984. It could have said in 88. It could have said in 2000, 2004. I mean there's still a way for republican coalitions to win and for republic so badly, and the ensuing 20 years were unbridled statism where we got all the bad stuff including … The ensuing two years. Right. That's exactly right. Lyndon Johnson moved fast after that. That's right. Exactly. conservatives that I know who are even the capital C National Review style conservatives

look back on it wistfully as like, well, that was a great watershed moment because it set up Reagan as if 16 years later the country had been frozen, but the federal government had just simply been tripled. Right. I think that's absolutely right. So my question here is this. If the Republican

I mean, and I have also been, I mean these are all preambles. I've also been surprised by the amount of white nationalism and frankly sort of racism and racist anti-Semitism that Trump has stirred up, whether real or by Russian Twitter bots, that I – just simply in my Twitter feed. Right. Just simply in my Twitter feed, if I say something critical or joking about Donald Trump, even last autumn on Fox, on Red Eye at 3 in the morning, the next morning my Twitter mentions are filled with people who I really didn't think existed anymore. That said, is that really what's going to – is that really what's going to happen? Is that some 1% fringe or is that the real balance? It seems to me like there's so much – there are plenty of present-day problems with the Republican Party. And I do agree with you.

I think the brand is dead. You don't need to reach back to civil rights. I think the brand is dead because our core identity has now thrown itself to a big government socialist. So if I told you that 54 percent of Republican voters believe that President Obama is a Muslim, what's your takeaway from that statistic? You know, my takeaway is to probably cavil at it and pick at it and demand to know how it was done and then find the equivalent or close to equivalent nuttiness of the Democratic side. I mean, yeah, it's probably to weasel word my way out of it,

but I just am not that... Partisan questions and partisan rage from Democrats to Republicans and back, I don't find convincing. So if I told you 29 percent of Republican voters believe that Obama was born in the United States, you wouldn't find that problematic? Yeah. I would like to hear exactly how that poll question was conducted. But either way, I don't feel that that makes your point.

Okay. Let me make a – I can see how a partisan Republican will say yes in a poll because I don't like that guy. So tell me something bad about him and I believe it. And it's not quite the same thing as the party being toxified. Sure, so we can talk – if you don't buy that argument, and we'll leave it there for listeners to think about, how about the fact that 67% of likely Republican voters favor a ban on all Muslim immigration to the United States, echoing Trump's call for a pause, shall we say, based on religion?

Sorry, let me register a little protest. Ovik, you just gave me quite a dressing down for failing to distinguish between conservatives and Republicans. Sure, fair enough. Now you're producing a list of statistics that includes only Republicans. Are you really concerned, as you put it beautifully, your formulation I thought was beautiful. I think I'm quoting you exactly. I'm concerned about the health of the conservative movement within the Republican Party. So if that's your genuine concern, you also have to draw distinctions.

Sorry. Beautiful question, and let me answer that question. So in 1964, there was not a great alignment between the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Today, that alignment, in theory, at least until recently, based on our own viewpoints and our understanding, was quite tight. We thought of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as much more unified or aligned than, say, they were in the early 1960s. So you're right. These are polls of Republican voters, not of conservative voters,

but that's how polling is done these days. I can't cite these same numbers for self-identified conservatives because those polls, maybe they're out there, but I just haven't been able to pull them up. Let me try out a theory on you and tell me what you think.

And as a caveat, I say at the start, I actually do agree with your conclusion, and I have said this for a while, that the Republican brand is probably dead. I don't know what replaces it, but I think it's probably dead. It's on the – great American brands. That does happen. I don't think the Democratic Party is eternal either.

Big brands fall apart. You can't buy an IBM computer now to save your life, and you can't buy Kodak film. And American brands, before they disappear, they first go on the discount rack and it feels to me like the Republican brand is on the discount rack right now. Let me just try out a theory for you. People,

presidents run generals, general campaigns like prime ministers and they then have to govern like executives but the prime minister you build a coalition you have a bunch of people you promise all these people different things you bring in more you bring in all the factions in the camps into your into your team and you try to convince the rest of the people that this is this is a team that represents americans represents

the future and the democrats have done a pretty good job of that over 20, 30, 40 years because they have embraced these kind of very, very – many of them very angry, a lot of them separatist, some of them kooky, a lot of them kooky ethnic pressure groups within their tent. We know that the white working class, thanks to Charles Murray's research, resembles more and more the African American working class or working poor. Why can't the Republican Party just adopt that wing and why can't the Republican Party have a winking, nodding relationship to its crackpot racial separatists in the same way, let's be frank, that the Democratic Party has it with theirs and kind of move forward? repudiate them from the podium when we're forced to but in general

include them in the larger political movement coalition I'm not saying it works for the Democrats politically, why wouldn't it work for us? What I would say is that that's exactly what the Republican Party has been doing for the last several decades so it's been winking and nodding at more racially polarized or racially biased commentary or motives among its coalition, but trying to cater to those voters all the same using other alternative, whether it's policies or rhetoric.

So we've been doing that. And the problem is this, that the end result of this sorting that we've had is that the Democratic Party, for all of its flaws, is a coalition that is demographically and in other ways economically quite diverse. Now you can, again, I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a lefty, right? So I'm not arguing for the virtue of their coalition in that sense. But I will say this, that one advantage of the Democratic coalition is because it's so cacophonous, they hear the points of view of other people and have to be empathic to the backgrounds and points of view of other people. And they have to have as a party an aspiration of representing the interests and advancing the interests of all Americans.

What's happened to the Republican Party is that because it's much more demographically homogenous, it has effectively become both a geographically segregated party and also a demographically segregated party. So that has enormous consequences on every level first in terms of politics it means that we're just not good at hearing how other people think about the world let me give you a great example so when ted cruz at one of the debates said well i'm not about new york values i'm about iowa values you know and this is a rhetorical trope you hear from conservatives and republicans all the times i'm in the real america where i can have french fries and pork on a stick you know like that's awesome. Believe me, I love pork chops on a stick. Don't get me wrong. But New York City alone, the metropolitan area is 10% of the US population. And I haven't even

yet added in Chicago and Philadelphia and San Francisco and Los Angeles. And when we write off the entire urban and suburban part of the country as un-American, what are we telling minority voters? We're basically implying that, well, the real America is places that are 90 percent white and the non-real America is the places that Asians and Hispanics and blacks live in. And again, it's not it's not I don't think people do it consciously to say, you know, I'm a racist or anything like that. I think a lot of genuinely sincere people who want what's good for the country will say these kinds of things. But it's an example of how much white identity politics has permeated our rhetoric. I think I'm going to go to a spot. But before I do, I want to give you something to chew on here in response to what you just said. First of all, you said that the Democrats are much more diverse

economically and so forth, and therefore have a better understanding and grasp of all the issues, etc. I'd say to that, that I've yet yet to meet any democrat especially those in the higher echelon who have any any experience whatsoever and what it's like to run a family business that's heavily regulated by the government none as a matter of fact if you want to go outside of that you're going to find people who are republican and as to the second point it's the republicans who have been marinating in a generally progressive leftist media culture for the last 20 or 30 years. So we have a far greater grasp on what the other side actually believes than the Democrats do when it comes to what conservatives believe. That's my assertion.

Chew on that. Let me get this ad out and we'll come back to you. Okay. The ad basically is talking about something that Republicans know about and that's hiring, finding qualified people for a job, and then having to deal with the masses of regulations that the Democrats unthinkingly have ladled on top of your life. Oh, well, if you're hiring, do you know actually where you want to post your job to find the best candidates? Posting a job in one place isn't enough to find the quality candidates.

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because we've been listening to their arguments for 30, 40 years. They don't get us because they have actually no experience in the sort of things that we do.

That was my... Yeah, no, and that's a great point. Jonathan Haidt, the NYU professor who wrote The Righteous Mind, Why Good People

Are Divided by Politics and Religion, a book that I recommend to all your listeners, he talks about this, about how how if you think about – he divides the moral – he creates five moral categories that people are aligned on and says that conservatives tend to have a little bit of each of them, whereas liberals are much more oriented towards things like fairness and equality and adventurism and new experiences and things like that. So there is some, shall we call it empirical and psychological evidence to back that up.

I will say, though, that I think that that is changing as we go through the generations. I think if we look at the younger generations, the Gen X and millennials, you see a lot more people who identify with the left, who identify with the Democratic Party, who are in every other way operationally how they live their life conservative. They're more entrepreneurial. They own family businesses. They're trying to create startups. And that's, I think, part of what I sort of stumbled upon in this interview with Vox was this real generational divide between older voters and younger voters, of which Gen X is kind of sandwiched in the middle.

Go ahead. Oh, but Peter, could I, Peter here, could I, Rob has, Rob has stated that he generally agrees with you. Let me state, so I myself don't particularly, I don't think I buy more than about 20 percent of your argument about the racist stuff. What I do think is – what is simply factual is that the Republican Party has a different demographic base. It is in the interior of the country. It tends to be small towns and rural rather than urban, and it is overwhelmingly white. And in a country in which that demographic is shrinking as a proportion of the population, that is a problem.

On that much, we can all agree. I myself, I think I would push back at you. This isn't going to turn into a full speech anyway. I love learning from you. So I myself feel that the conservative movement within the Republican Party, as you so beautifully put it a moment ago, we may be unaware of a great deal. But the notion that it is either in its genesis or currently racist, I think if you polled conservatives today, the conservative hero, the conservative hero right now would be Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas. So I

think, I just don't, I myself, this doesn't feel to me right to suggest that there's a lot of quiet or suppressed racism within the conservative movement. So respond to that if you wish, but what I'm trying to do is sort of tee it up and just

let you know where I agree and disagree, and tee up what we really need to get to, which is what does Ovik recommend? At a minimum, we have a demographic problem. You and Rob argue that there are worse problems, but I'll grant you at least a demographic problem. What do we do? What do we do, Ovik? Yes. So let me say a couple of things. One, I don't think the conservative movement is fundamentally racist, nor the Republican Party. That's what the Vox author said. What I said is that the conservative movement and the Republican Party are crippled by white identity politics, which is not the same thing as racism. So identity politics, just to make that distinction as explicit as possible, possible. Racism, I think of as a view that we should actively discriminate against people of

a different ethnic group or a different race, whatever you have it, whatever you want to call it, or have some sort of real prejudice as to their value in society. White identity politics is a little different. White identity politics is more about saying, it's more about saying, I want to, shall we say, adopt the cultural rhetoric of, and to some degree, feel a kind of like a focus on the interests of white Americans. Not so much in the sense of

at the expense of anyone else consciously, but much more from a defensive standpoint, really saying like, we're the only ones that you can make fun of, you can call people crackers, you can call people white trash, we really don't like that, we're the ones who are being told that we have to be politically correct all the time, etc., etc., etc. And the backlash to that leads to a contrary problem, which we may not have the scope on this interview to talk about, but I'd love for you all to think about.

Why is it that blacks overwhelmingly vote Democrat today? Why is it that Asians overwhelmingly vote Democrat today? They vote Democrat at higher proportions than Hispanics do. So, you know, it could be as the common response to that, and I'm not going to put words in your mouths, but the common response to that as well – and this is what Mitt Romney, for example, said in 2012. Well, the reason why minorities voted for Barack Obama is because he gave them more free stuff than we give. And think about what that means for a second. What you're basically saying is that nonwhite voters in America are more interested in being bribed for their votes than white voters are. You're making effectively a moral claim about the motives of minority voters versus white voters.

And you can imagine why, A, that might not be a complete compilation of the motives of minority voters and a real understanding of what their thinking is. And you might also understand why that kind of rhetoric would further drive away minorities from the Republican Party. And this is a big part of the problem, is that our response, whether it's conservatives or Republicans, to the problem that you've described of minorities not voting Republican or conservative, has basically been to say, well, they're not really going to be conservatives. They're from strange countries where they don't have traditions of liberalism. Or they're getting a lot of free stuff.

Well, wait a minute. You're trying to steal seconds. Hold on. Hold on. The picture hasn't even released. You're trying to steal seconds. Let me push back on that a little bit because I feel like I've been involved in endless conversations both on this podcast and around the country on why Latinos and Asians don't vote Republican, why they should, and why we should do more outreach and why we should be reaching out to the Latinos. Latinos are natural Republicans, people say. Asians, natural Republicans, small business owners almost all.

Why aren't they voting Republican? And all sorts of different reasons. But I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you said that Republicans have been complacent. We've had – if you looked at the old Republican electoral map in 1988, that's a pretty good year to start because there's a lot of parallels between this year and that. And you saw a big red Republican L went straight down the west and cut across the southwest and the south. Now, if you look at a projected electoral map of the red states and blue states that are kind of in each person's column, it's a small L. It starts a third of the way in from the west and ends before you hit the coasts. And a lot of that is that Republicans

have been high on this crack that they've had for a long time, which has been very successful, of running successful generals and then every now and then taking back the House and the Senate without having a metropolitan strategy. So I agree with you there.

But I would just say that I honestly do believe, and maybe I'm a Pollyanna, that the fear of the white nationalism – I mean, again, that said, umbrella Republican brand dead. I totally agree with that. But the fear of white nationalism is – I sense, and again, I have zero evidence except my Twitter feed, which is probably all Russian bots anyway. If you're a working class or out of work white American and you are watching TV, you see other aggrieved groups getting stuff and complaining and getting attention, and you naturally are furious at those groups for getting what you think you deserve.

And if you look at the number of people, the percentage of that particular population that's on some form of government assistance, and it's very, very high. So couldn't all of these problems be solved by growth, economic growth? Because look, we didn't – the Republican Party wasn't dead in – even in 2008. It wasn't dead in 2004. And it wasn't dead in the midterms. I mean those are different issues, I grant you. And I firmly believe and I'm almost certain you believe too, that we would be having a very different conversation with a very different tone, with a different nominee, but the same Republican Party in the same country. sociological evidence to support the contention that when economies are growing robustly, there's less intra-ethnic tension in a particular country. And that's true across

the advanced economies. So there is something to be said for that. But let me bring up another polling statistic, which I think is really striking. And you can speculate as to what this really means or unpack it as you wish. Pew asked a standard question repeatedly in their polls where they asked, do you believe that life for people like you has gotten better or worse over the past 50 years? People like you, wow. People like you. I don't like that, but okay. Okay, just roll with me here.

Right, 75 percent. Now, what has happened in the last 50 years from an economic growth standpoint, as you all well know, over the 50-year period, I mean, okay, last 10 years, I get it. But over the last 50 years, there's been enormous gains economically, technologically, in every way in America. What are the biggest differences between America 50 years ago and America today? It's demographic composition, and also 50 years of civil rights. And so again, I'm not trying to draw a direct connection there, but I think that it's important for us not to dismiss the possibility, at the very least, that a lot of what's going on here are people who are uncomfortable with demographic change, not people who are frustrated with the economy. Well, okay, that may very well be so.

On the other hand, for goodness, again, I don't know about this poll, but during Barack, the last seven years of Barack Obama, what used to be many, much of what used to be considered uncontroversial Judeo-Christian culture. The attack upon that has accelerated. It begins at least as far back as 1973 with Roe versus Wade, and now we have ordinary, what used to be considered perfectly standard and ordinary pieties are now illegal, marginalized. There are plenty of things you can respond to that can make you feel that life for people like you has gotten worse other than demographics but i don't myself think

that it's necessarily outrageous to object to demographic change when so much of it has taken place extra democratically, that is to say, in violation of law. Anyway, respond to that if you want to because I don't want to make a point and then fail to give you a chance to respond. But I have a question that is related to Rob's that either you have a perfect answer for now or you will a year from now because you have just – you are now a Texan. Go for it. All kinds of problems that we have been discussing are not problems in Texas. I'm so glad you asked that question or made that point. You know, in California, 1980 – Rob mentioned 1988. That was the last time a Republican presidential candidate carried California

and now Trump would be out of his mind to spend money here. As California and the Northeast have moved to the left, Texas has become more conservative. And yet, I don't myself, again, does vote more Democratic than the rest of the state. But you don't – I don't feel – and correct me if I'm wrong. I don't feel that the conservative movement and the Republican Party – and in Texas you can talk about them. They are more or less coincident. I think that's fair, is closed off to Hispanics in particular. On the contrary, there are a lot of Hispanics who think of themselves as proud conservatives. So how does Texas get so much of this right, or at least avoid

problems, demographic problems, and what can we learn from the great Lone Star State? Such a great question, Peter. I'm so glad you asked. And you will recall that we talked about this when I came and visited you out in Hoover a couple of months back. I do. I do. So I would say there's a lot we can learn from Texas, but there are also things that are unique to Texas that make that the case. The first is that the Texan Anglos, as we call them, who are here in Texas, don't see Texas as proprietarily white. Insofar as Texas was part of Mexican territory prior to it being an independent country, the Republic of Texas, and then being part of the United States. So there are a lot of Hispanics

who live in Texas whose ancestry in Texas goes back much further than the ancestry of the whites who came and settled later. So that very historical fact leads people to just have a more common ground, shall we say, in terms of how they think about everyone's place in the state of Texas. That's number one. Number two, the fact that Texas has such a limited welfare state means that even if you come over and understand, okay, you came over the border legally, I don't have the personal ability to deport you, but you're only going to make it here if you work hard because the state of Texas is not going to give you a lot of cash to just kind of sit around and do your own thing. So that's a part of it. And I think another part of it is that Texas, because of its heritage as this kind of cowboy, rugged individualism kind of western state, has a – there's a culture, a nationalistic culture in Texas of individualism. It's a state that has long welcomed people,

adventurers from elsewhere, who've tried to make it in Texas and have made it big. And so that sense of Texas being a place that, well, you know, come here, try it out, do what you want. You know, it's really hot and dry, and there's not a lot of other ways to enjoy yourself if you don't make it. So that kind of, that spirit of individualism infects everyone. And then finally, let me just say that the Republican politicians, precisely, I think, because of that, those antecedent historical and cultural circumstances have never had this sense that, well, we're going to practice white identity politics in the way that I've been describing. There is very much, in every Texan cowboy, a lot of Spanish and Spanglish lingo in the way they talk, you'll notice. There's very much a sense of tacos and barbecue being part of Texan culture, not something foreign.

So that's a big part of it. Someone like Greg Abbott can campaign on cracking down on illegal immigration and still win 40% of the Hispanic vote. Why? He has Mexican-Americans in his family. His wife. Yes. There is a way to train.

This is my whole point. My point I'm trying to make here is that there is absolutely zero that conservatives or Republicans have to compromise on policy if they simply change their attitude and start committing themselves to truly and genuinely listening to people from all walks of life, all demographies, all parts of the country, and genuinely apply themselves to advancing the interests of those individuals, listening to their concerns, and hearing them out in their own communities of how individual liberty can help them. And that's not what we're doing. Even if they do that, though, they will be overmatched by the left and the progressive desire to reform society to the right modes. In other words, give Austin enough time and power and 50 years from now, Texas will be

proclaiming itself that it no longer produced. It's replaced oil with fetal body parts as its leading export industry. Well, listen, if you're right, then we shouldn't be doing this podcast because we're all doomed. But if we actually believe that the conservatives can actually win, then these are the things that we have to do. I agree. We just have to recognize the strength of the other side arrayed against us.

And we also have to agree on one thing, Ovik. Never talk to Vox. I think that's what we want. Never talk to Vox. Ovik Roy, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It's been a great conversation. We look forward to people hashing out the issues at Ricochet.com. We'll talk to you again down the road.

Loved it. Loved the exchange. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ovik. Ovik, now go get yourself some barbecue. Will you please? I will do. Take care.

You know, there's so much there, and I wanted to let him go, and I wanted to say something without the difficulty of having to deal with the response because it's just so much nicer. Nice to make your point um and that was you know when it came to the question about uh 69 of the people who responded to the poll said that we should limit muslim immigration like you rob i'm thinking a how is it phrased what's the methodology but b right what what are people really responding to and are there people who say no more muslims in america absolutely no question about it. But are there people who hear behind this the obverse which is, well, you must

then agree to a complete and wholesale re-changing of your culture against your will. That the other side of the argument is you have no ability whatsoever to argue against the changing of your culture. That's the theme behind an awful lot of these things. And that's why people feel that

things are getting worse for them. As Peter said, so much of the Judean... I'm sorry, I haven't had enough coffee. No, I've had too much coffee. So much of the Judeo-Christian ethic. I mean, we have, you know, people who are proud and learn generations as essentially microwaving

corn because we made so much and they believe that there will always be enough of it. We look at this and say, look, the other side doesn't have some secret agenda. They're open in their contempt for America, for what we regard as the important parts of America. They hate it. They want to get rid of it. And by any means possible, they'll do it. But here's how we won in the past or at least here's how we captured part of the national conversation is that we paid attention to what was really happening in America.

And we're not now? No, I don't think we really are. I mean I think we sort of lost the thread. And I kind of feel like part of this argument for the white nationalism and all that stuff, it presupposes this idea that there are these all-white enclaves. And I know that there are. Just statistically, there are because there have to be. But I find – I have never been to – and I drive across the country a lot – small

towns where you can't find a South Asian doing something. You can't find – Did you say Salvation or South Asian? No, a South Asian running the motel. Oh, surely, Rob. That's the Motel 6. Surely you stay at a better quality place. I mean at better quality places, right?

I mean better quality places to take the dog. You don't – I mean it's just – it's hard to find that. As much as I think that there are people in America who are probably – not all of them and not even maybe most of them, but there's a core or a small group of pro-Trumpers who are white nationalists and white supremacists even, I think that there's a whole bunch of them for whom this – the conversation, that's like way past who they really are. And they may have legitimate issues about economic growth and stagnation. They may have legitimate problems. And the culture, I would add. And the culture. But it isn't really a xenophobic culture, and they may have legitimate questions or legitimate beef about why some groups seem to be – some groups' grievances seem to be prioritized over theirs. Now, that to me is a problem in America.

A big problem, but I don't think that problem is laid to rest or even identified with Republicans. I mean the people who divided us into groups um that's that was the left that's how they built their coalition so we're naturally tribalistic i was talking to a friend of mine who uh is from iowa and he was talking about how his father is you know not crazy about building this new meat processing plant they're talking about and it actually is a bit of a controversy because everyone thinks the jobs will go to Mexicans or Central Americans or whatnot. And his father, when he says, it'll be too much traffic, he thinks maybe his father actually is objecting to the immigrants, which is funny to him because his father is an immigrant from India.

But he's been here for an awful long time, and so he wants things to stay the way they are. Exactly. That's a classic American thing. Right. But if you go to a place that is predominantly, that has been historically white, Minnesota does come to mind. You can look at it monolithically, but what you don't see to the outsider is to pick apart the different groups, the Finns versus the Germans versus the Swedes versus the Norwegians. Right. I mean, I was giving this little march around the park, explaining the history of one of

our local parks yesterday when we came to a statue of a great violinist and the reason that statue was there is not because he lived in minnesota he didn't but the norwegians in 1897 said we want something that expresses our national cultural pride they weren't even a nation yet they were trying to get free of sweden so and so they so they spent all this money on this statue as a way of saying this is our ethnic identity as distinct from some great big Scandinavian. So I mean, it's even within what appears to be a monogamous or a homogenous situation, there

are fissures that we'll never see. And when you look at how the Germans dominated the state's politics, everyone thinks we're Scandinavian. And they have great factories, those Germans. That's exactly where I was going with that. That's precisely where I was going with that. I want to get a Robert. Weirdly left unused for a while, so I think some American companies actually That's exactly where I was going with that. That's precisely where I was going with that. I don't want to get in the way. It's the best factory ever.

Weirdly left unused for a while. So I think some American companies actually profit from that by buying those factories. You know, in the fine shoe places, they have a shoe horn that's actually on a long stick so you don't have to bend down to do it. That's how the good shoppers do it. And it's just a fine thing. Now, you won't find, however, a shaving blade with a handle that's long because that would be ridiculous. That would be like having somebody else try to shave you from across the room. And when you've got a Harry's blade, you don't want anybody else to shave. You want to shave it yourself because it's such a fine, fine situation and experience.

Now, Harry's, as you know, they were started by two guys who were passionate about creating for you a better shaving experience. And that's why I love the blade, be it the orange one or the great silver-handled one that looks like it belongs on the Hindenburg. The balance of that thing, it's just a pleasure to shave with it. But how do they do this exactly? Well, as Rob mentioned, those German factories, their blade factory has been crafting some of the world's highest quality blades for a century. And by cutting out the middleman, and they own that place, they can offer an amazing shave at a fraction of the price of drugstore brands, which, as you know, are ridiculous. Now, they ship the blades right to your door at those factory direct prices.

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All right, gentlemen, before we go, we should probably talk about something to do with the member feed. Lots of fun. There's the auto-promotion feature now, which is surfacing to the main page. Things that the members themselves, like a true democracy, are saying, we want to see this get more promotion, more reads, more clicks.

I'm loving 3.0. How about you guys? I'm loving 3.0 as I talk the Blue Yeti out of the auto suppression where members get to bury our stuff. Yeah. Well, we're still tweaking it, Peter. We haven't made any final decisions on it. There is a great post up now called Why I Left Ricochet and Came Back.

Yes, it is a great post. It is indeed. And if you're wondering about joining, which we desperately need you to do, just go to Ricochet and read it. I think it will be persuasive. Look, this is a – I mean this is a really challenging time for us, especially the Ricochet brand, right? We are trying to sell civility and politeness and a general sort of 360-degree respect on the web, which is psychologically and sort of even neurologically designed to remove all the standard cues for good behavior and politeness. And so we've had a bunch of flare-ups this week, and we've had – I'm probably going to continue to have them. What I would say is that I was watching a lot of CNN coverage of the convention.

I was looking back and forth, and I actually found the CNN coverage to be the best. Although I was surprised by how bad everybody was. Just something that the guests and the pundits being how low rent they were. It was like, you know, it seemed like these are the people you dragged out of here to do this? Mark Shields, he's back.

Oh my God, yeah. But at least he's like a genuine old man figure. A lot of these people were like know-nothings. Jeffrey Lord, older dude, was in the movement for a long time, worked for Reagan. You know Jeffrey Lord, Peter. Yeah. Ups and downs I think Democratic convention anyway, bringing the Trump perspective and the Trump response in a way that was sort of civil and smart and thoughtful. And I thought – I mean I thought it was almost a waste for him. He should be in the campaign. And I feel like that's a very good way for – a very good model for those of us who are for Trump and those of us who are not for Trump and those of us who are just trying to hold our noses and pretend it's December.

That seemed like a very good model. Ask yourself if you're going to post – if you're a member posting on Ricochet for or against, if you really think this is going to actually move the ball, if you really think this is going to persuade somebody or it's just going to be a rah-rah for your side. I don't agree. Okay. I don't. I mean I see what you're saying and yes, we want it to be persuasive, but I think there's also something that's very clarifying about this point

in American political history. And I would rather that everybody understand everything about everybody else's position than people try to soft pedal what they may think in order to persuade. I just want it all out in the open. I mean, I just – But soft pedaling isn't the same thing as – soft pedaling – debating and persuading is not soft pedaling. Of course it is.

A lot of it has to do with putting under the carpet the things that you think will make the other person run away screaming in fear? Of course it is. I mean when everybody gets together who's on the same page, the level of rhetoric and the level of argument is different than when you're in mixed company, right? Yeah, but if you – what you want to do is if you're advocating for your position. Right. position right and part of what you should be part of the toolkit you should be using is the toolkit of let me help persuade you why i'm right and you're wrong i mean obviously that's an aggressive act anyway but it does seem to me that it would be useful for both sides and i think on

in in in um on ricochet right now that both both sides are – there are three sides, right? There's pro-Trump. There's never Trump. And there's – I don't know. And we seem like – and that's in many ways what the national – the general election always is, which is that you have to get your partisans on both sides. And in the middle, people are fighting over the middle. I would just ask that it's going to get worse. It's going to get uglier.

It's going to get more incendiary. It's going to get more crazy because the campaigns are beginning. And right after labor, it's going to get even more worse. Worse, sir. Even let's, you know,

try to wait. Let's try to be more like Jeffrey Lord on CNN. It's really, okay. Well, I mean, I agree that in the, that in the interest of comedy and civility,

that everybody should keep a cool head. But if somebody believes that saying, I don't want to vote for Donald Trump is the, is the exact ideological equipment equivalent of saying, I endorse every policy of the progressive left. If that's what they think, I want to know that because that's revelatory about them. Just as if I think,

which I don't, that anybody who votes for trump is a knuckle dragging absolute white supremacist living in his basement guy who says conservative which i don't but if i do believe that i think people who are in favor of trump for a variety of full spectrum of reasons deserve to know that about me that's all that's all i'm saying can't you do all that and be nice yes yes of course you can but it requires not saying what you want to say because what you want to say isn't nice. I mean that's all I'm saying. Like what I'm saying is be nice.

I agree. Be nice. That's what Ricochet is for. But at the same time, what I enjoy about this whole period is the way in which we have had revelatory information about people that we thought were on the same page with us. We're finding out that to be a conservative does not necessarily mean that you believe in international alliances, that you don't believe necessarily in free trade, that you don't believe in various amendments that you do. I mean, things that we thought were part and parcel of the movement no longer are the case that people are all over the road on these things and they still call themselves with

the same terms that we apply to ourselves. That's what's interesting. And I'm glad to know that now. I'm glad to understand the extent to which there is anti-Semitism on the right, which I thought had been a coal seam that wasn't as wide and flaming as it apparently is. How much of this is Russian bots? I don't know, but I'm seeing stuff that I never saw before. Yeah, it's been disconcerting. I agree. That's been disconcerting. I just mean that for our community, which is sort of an important community and a place that people go

to, and I would say this probably more, and I don't mean this in any particular specific way or any judgmental way, but I think more for the pro-Trump crowd, that I know that there is a genuine search in sort of the larger news media, cable news operations for new and different and interesting and articulate pro-Trump voices.

I mean I know – laugh, laugh, laugh, but they do try that. And if you want to advance your – we are now over. You no longer have to worry about solidifying his core audience. It's got to be grown. And if you really want this guy to win and you think he's got a shot at it, he's only going to have a shot at it if the conversation shifts to the general audience, the general public, and my advice to people who are pro-Trump is think about what you're writing on the member feed if you're a pro-Trump and think about what could automatically get promoted to the main feed and ask yourself if you're helping your guy or you're not. I mean you may feel good. I mean I feel good giving screeds about all sorts of things, but I'm not necessarily moving the ball. So that's just advice.

Take it. leave it. If you're a member of Ricochet and you think that what I just said was crazy and stupid, you can ignore it if you want. That's fine too, but I'm just telling you what I think would be edifying for the national conversation. And I think for that particular

candidate, I think it would be kind of useful if he did it too, But enough. Yes. I assume like a lot of advice, this will be taken to heart and absorbed into Mr. Trump's way of looking at things. Yeah. He's good at making these adjustments. Yeah. And hey, somebody once said that the words that nobody ever hears, ever listens to, are the words said at the end of a podcast because people know that it's over and what's the point.

And so here's the thing. I'm going to say something at the end of this podcast which you are not going to believe. And so hold on. You got to listen to me say this. We have to tell you that it's brought to you by the great courses plus.com by zip recruiter by harry's all of these places have a coupon code uh you know a free trial for zip recruiter great courses ricochet harry's ricochet it's right there in the on the podcast description so uh give them a click give them a look and thank them for sponsoring this the ricochet podcast also you can visit the

ricochet store with lots of great swag in there to show the world what you believe in and where you go to believe in it if you enjoyed it also take a minute to leave a review on itunes if you wouldn't mind those reviews allow the new listeners to discover us which keeps the show going and gets more people those 1500 that rob wants to add to our cohort we need you we need you absolutely and here's the thing i'm going to say that you're absolutely not going to believe and uh it's this um the world is flat. Not in the Tom Friedman sense, but literally flat. I am a flat earther. I always knew it. I always knew it.

Exactly. No, that's a lie. But if enough people want me to be a flat earther, I will. For 1,500 members, I'll be a flat earther. That's exactly what I'm saying. How about this, Rob? We'll believe both in a flat earth for 1,500 members and in underground lizardoid humanoids who are controlling us. Now, how you square those underground center-of-the-planet lizard humanoids with a flat Earth is something we'll have to –

I'll tell you this. I'll make this – this offer – this is good stuff for the end of the podcast. I know we've got to go. This offer may actually be a federal crime. But I'm going to commit a federal crime right now. You want Russian hackers to produce 1,500 fake – If we get 1,500 new members before, I don't know, Labor Day, October 1, November 1. Let's say November 1 just because it would be fair.

Well, let's say 2,000 new members by november one let's let that be correct i will vote for donald trump for sure and i will take a picture of my ballot in california i mean i get it my california votes not so much but i will i will i will take a picture of my ballot i'm selling my vote i am so stunned i'm gonna have to turn it over. And if you join, if we get 2,000, this is more of a federal crime, okay, if we get 1,500 votes, I mean new members by Labor Day,

I will switch my registration from California to New York State, which actually will be kind of an interesting state. And if the new members, all the new members can choose in a majority

vote how I vote. I'm selling my vote. I'm selling. That's how much I need you to join Ricochet. I'm willing to commit the federal crime of selling my vote. There you go. I have just turned on the webcam to look at Peter Robinson's face and it's blank

with his mouth hanging open. He's had a series of small strokes. Can somebody slap him? Peter, are you okay? Are you okay, Peter? You lost him. Yeah. Okay. Well, he distanced himself from this federal crime as quickly as possible, as do I. My vote's not for sale for anybody, but I thank you for listening to the

podcast with me, James Lilacs, future felon and federal inmate Rob Long, Peter Robinson, and everybody else. We'll see you in the comments, the boisterous comments, where everybody will be saying virtually nothing about what we've been talking about except to tell EJ what a great job he's done. I haven't seen it, and I already know it's a great job. Hey, folks, see you next week. Thanks for listening. Next week, fellas. I so thought today at the reception

A glass of wine in her hand I knew she was gonna meet her connection At her feet was a footloose man You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes You might find I can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need. Oh, yeah. I went down to this demonstration

To get my fair share of abuse Singing we're gonna vent our frustration If we don't, we're gonna blow a 50 amp fuse You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just have to. You get what you need.

Oh baby, yeah. Oh. I went down to the Chelsea drugstore to get your prescription filled I was standing in line with Mr. Jimmy A man did he look pretty in We decided that we would have a soda My favorite flavor, cherry red I'm somebody's song to Mr. Jerry And he said one word to me and I said

I said this You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want. No. You can't always get what you want. No. You can't always get what you want. No. But if you try sometimes, it just might find. You get what you need.

Oh, yeah. Woo! Woo! Ricochet. Join the conversation. Oh, yeah. I saw her today at the reception In a glass-woven, bleeding maze She was practiced at the art of deception Well, I could tell by bloodstained hands. You can't always get what you want.

You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime, it's just my fault. It's just my fault. You can't watch me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I use it.