Ep. 585 Why The Left Will Never Win the Argument on Gun Control
In this episode - This brilliant piece sums up the many reasons behind liberals’ failed efforts to enact their gun control agenda. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453445/gun-control-never-happens-why?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED In the show I dismantle the silly arguments against tax rate cuts made in this Washington Post piece. www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/ CNN gets caught running another fake news story about Trump’s foreign visit. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/cnn-runs-second-bogus-story-in-single-day/article/2639797 Liberal universities who have advocated for higher taxes are about to get smacked with a higher tax bill themselves. https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/11/republican-tax-plan-would-tap-growing-college-endowments/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29 How Obamacare repeal would be the biggest tax cut of all. https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/hits-keep-on-coming-obamacare-premiums-rising-by-1k-per-month
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Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Happy Tuesday to you, Daniel.
Yeah, happy Tuesday is right.
You know, folks, let me get right into this.
I didn't tell Joe what I was going to talk about before, but you know, you got to learn to defend yourself, man.
You really do.
And woman.
No, I mean, I mean, this Texas thing is, you know, I know we've seen this before.
Sadly, this is not the first attack with a car, a knife, a bomb, a firearm.
It's not the first homicidal maniac.
It's not the first terrorist attack and none of that.
We've seen all of this, sadly, tragically before.
But I mean, you know, I don't like to get into my jujitsu stuff too much, especially outside of Rough Cuts episodes.
This is more of a political show.
And, you know, I don't like to talk about it because I You know, I hate that kind of stuff.
Like, hey, look, I'm really tough.
It's all BS.
There's always someone who can whoop your ass, I promise you.
I hate it too, Dan.
I mean, even laughing about our pain and stuff.
I hate that.
Yeah, but the audience doesn't like to hear me whining all the time.
But, you know, I woke up this morning, I'm in really...
Really bad pain today.
And because I, Saturday, I had a, I took a whooping on Saturday, like I haven't taken in a long time.
We wrestled and yeah, we were doing standup wrestling, which, you know, for those of you from, you know, wrestling is, I'm not talking about WWF, I'm talking about like wrestling, wrestling, takedowns.
And, and I haven't done wrestling in a while in the jujitsu class.
And, you know, wrestling in open space is different than grappling on the mat because it's more dynamic because, you know, when you're grappling on the floor, when you're on the ground, ground fighting, that the floor is below you.
So you can't move in one direction because there's a floor.
You can't move through the floor unless you've developed some shape-shifting ability.
In open space it's different.
So we wrestled for about an hour and then I grappled.
And I went with this guy who is a Czech guy in our class.
He's a super nice guy, but he's just a savage.
I'm telling you folks, he's your worst nightmare.
Wow.
I mean, I'm serious.
Like, this is a guy who... It's not that he feels no pain.
He feels pain differently than others.
He is an unbelievably skilled stand-up fighter who will knock you out on your feet in a heartbeat.
He's an unbelievably skilled wrestler, and he was a guy who previously weighed about 240 pounds, who's now about 190.
But he is still... You know when people lose a lot of weight, but they still retain that nervous system strength?
He is unbelievably strong.
And like I said, he feels almost no pain.
I'm bringing this up because I like to roll with this guy and grapple with him and wrestle with him because he is your worst case scenario.
He is.
He's fought.
He's fought in the ring.
He's fought against professional UFC fighters.
I think he won that fight as a matter of fact.
He didn't fight in the UFC.
He fought a guy who fought UFC and he won.
He's just a beast.
And I'm rolling with him for about a half an hour.
This is after the hour of wrestling with him and after the hour of the class I did before that.
I was in there for about three hours.
And at one point, You know, he gets the top position and he's just smashing me.
And I, folks, it's the worst thing ever.
And I'm thinking to myself, I can't breathe.
I'm totally out of energy.
My shoulders are wrecked right now.
They can barely move.
I can barely see anymore because the sweat is like burning my eyeballs.
And I didn't want to tap out.
I couldn't.
And if finally he gets me in a, you know, an arm bar and I had to tap or he'd broke my arm.
But why do you do, why would I do all this?
And I was reminded today, because I, and this is the genesis of this story.
I woke up this morning and I'm just, I mean, I'm really a mess.
My shoulders are falling apart.
I can't, I mean, I'm having a tough time even moving around.
I went to the gym this morning.
I got my workout in and it was really excruciating, but I thought, why do this?
And I heard a story about Texas today, this morning, about this awful shooting in Sutherland Springs.
And I was reminded as to why I do this.
You know, this animal breaks into the church in body armor and a skeleton mask with a 556 or 223 rifle.
He systematically and callously, you know, is murdering and shooting 20 plus people.
And a mom, did you hear this story?
And a mother jumps on her kids.
She takes rounds, but she falls on top of her kids to save their lives.
You know, folks, we live in a scary world.
Nobody should panic and, you know, I'm not your priest, I'm not your pastor, I'm certainly not your preacher.
But my God, and I'm not using his name in vain, you better learn to defend yourself.
We live in a different world, full of very sick people.
Some evil people looking to do very bad things.
And these are black swan events that may never, hopefully, likely, will never happen to you.
But they are not zero probability events anymore.
You better go and learn how to use a firearm.
You better learn how to defend yourself.
The government cannot protect you.
The police department is not your personal security force.
It is your personal responsibility to realize that the world is changing.
And as you see societal collapse in some places in the Middle East, and you see the growth and explosion in ISIS, and 24-hour news motivating some of these people to engage in these horrible acts of Homicidal rage.
What do you think is gonna save you?
I'm serious.
I'm not lecturing anyone.
I'm just saying like I took a massive beating at 40, soon to be 43 years old on December 4th.
I mean a beating like I haven't taken in a long time.
I am freaking hurt, man.
Bad.
And I do it because I know that's the worst it's ever gonna get.
And that God forbid my wife or my kids and me are involved in a situation where we have to go hands-on or I have to shoot someone.
I know how to use that gun and I'm damn well willing to do it.
And you need to be too.
I saw another story about this shooting.
This heroic NRA member who went and got his rifle and engaged this guy.
I'm sure you heard this, Joe.
Oh yeah.
And he was on this morning.
He had tears in his eyes.
And you know, God bless this man's candor.
You know what he said, Joe?
This is a quote.
He said, I was scared to death.
Yep, he did.
I heard it.
He was scared to death.
He wasn't up there pretending to be freaking He-Man or G.I.
Joe.
Oh, man, I had out there and I saw, I got that.
So, but no, no, he was an honest hero.
He didn't even want to be called a hero, which most heroes don't.
And he said, I was in a moment of honesty and candor.
We should all listen to.
He said, I was scared to death because you'll be too.
And so will I.
I was scared this weekend getting my, really, I was running out of breath, I was tired, and that was in a controlled environment in a jujitsu school where no one's looking to hurt you.
In the real world, someone's looking to potentially kill you.
There isn't going to be any tapping out.
There's only going to be broken arms and you losing consciousness.
There are real people out there training in real time to whoop your butt.
You have to go out there and prepare.
You know, I was thinking about this all morning.
I really do feel an obligation to tell you that.
I mean, I know we live in the greatest country on earth, and you all have busy lives, and you don't have the time.
Folks, there's no excuse.
You gotta find the time.
Go find a jiu-jitsu school, a Krav Maga school, go buy a firearm, learn how to use it.
I don't, I'm not telling, if you don't want to carry it every day, don't carry it.
But gosh, to not have access to one and not even know how to use one is grossly irresponsible.
Don't listen to these leftist idiots.
I love the cops.
I was one, but they are not there to protect you.
You were there to protect yourself.
Don't assume our functioning society is always going to be there to rescue you from these situations.
Because as we've seen tragically over the last few months, they aren't.
All right.
I'm sorry about it.
Again, I don't mean that in any way as any type of a lecture.
I'm in no position to do that to anyone.
I mean it more as a warning from someone who's read Intel and seen all this stuff.
And I think it's only going to get worse as ISIS collapses in the Middle East.
They've lost Raqqa, they've lost all their major strongholds, and they've been relegated to the outskirts of towns.
The only way to maintain their credibility to raise money and new recruits is going to be to attack at home over and over and over and over again.
It isn't going to stop.
Alright, last night I was on Tucker's show, and I see this guy's on Fox now, Stephen Williford's his name, the man who shot the gunman.
This guy's amazing.
I mean, scared to death.
You are gonna be scared to death.
Can you pull that trigger while you're scared to death?
Can you align those sights?
Can you hit that target while he's got body armor on?
It's a tough question.
I have to answer that one too.
And I've been training for, you know, gosh, I got on the NYPD when I was in my early twenties.
I've been shooting for 23 years.
And I don't know if I can honestly answer those questions.
Please just go do something.
Do something.
Learn how to defend yourself and take care of yourself.
Let's harden up our entire society one person at a time.
All right, so I was on the show last night and the gist of the show, the appearance show, is why the left will never win this gun control debate.
And I read an amazing, amazing piece.
It will be in the show notes.
It is not subscriber only.
I still get complaints about that.
I'm sorry.
But it's a National Review article by Ramesh Ponnaranu.
I usually say his name wrong.
I'm sorry.
But he's a He's a really unbelievable author, writer.
He does wonderful work and the pieces, it describes in very good detail why the left will never win this debate.
So as always, I'll take some of it and I will add on my own thoughts and ideas to it because I think he's onto something here.
Why the left will always lose on guns?
Folks, they're getting smoked on this issue, and they keep doubling down.
And what started as an effort at gun control has turned into a rage-filled effort to insult all Americans.
Now, Joe, the left are attacking people, I don't know if you saw this, who are actually praying for the victims of Sutherland Springs.
Oh yeah, I've seen it.
There have been actors, this guy Mike, what is it, Mike McKeon, this actor who I had never heard of, I don't know if he was, I don't know where he comes from, but he tweeted out, the prayers were shot out of the people in Sutherland Springs.
That's really cute, you freaking loser.
There are other actors out there, thoughts and prayers, are you praying, is it enough?
You know what, praying is enough, because God will always answer prayers.
And you know what, answering prayers doesn't mean a stop to violence, it means a prayer for strength.
It means a prayer for all of us to get through what God has deemed us necessary, our struggle.
Now, Hollywood dopes don't get that.
And how they think they're going to win an election, by the way, let me take a breath here, how they think they're going to win another election by attacking people, patriotic, God-fearing Americans who pray for the victims of horrible crimes like this and terrorist attacks.
How they think that's going to win them another election just speaks to the utter lack of moral values these clowns inside these coastal cities and these Democratic major enclaves and cities have.
They have nothing left.
These are total moral vacuums.
Now, Why they'll never win this debate.
As always, I like facts and data and rational, reasonable arguments.
Here's number one.
Why the left will always lose on gun control.
Joe, social media and the 24-hour news cycle has shown people that this threat is very real.
Now, Joe's favorite book, I say that laughingly, The Black Swan, one of my favorite books by Nassim Taleb, he talks about black swan events.
In other words, a black swan's a very rare occurrence.
Swans are white.
But the book goes into more detail on this.
These are black swan events, Joe.
We can all agree, right?
Thank God, terrorist attacks and homicidal shooting sprees by maniacs like we saw in Sutherland Springs are rare.
The chances of you being caught in one are infinitesimally small.
We all need to keep that in mind.
And you know, America's, we're tough people.
We nobody, people don't panic here.
That's why I hate, sometimes I've said that on the air and I always regret it afterwards.
Like, why are we lecturing Americans not to panic?
We never panic.
We just don't, we didn't panic after 9-11.
We're not going to panic after this.
These are black swan events, but as Taleb always points out in his work, it is the consequences of that black swan event that matter.
The consequences of you being caught in a black swan event like a homicidal shooting spree from some maniac or a terrorist attack like we saw just recently up in New York with the rented Home Depot van Joe are death or serious physical injury you will likely not recover from.
These are pretty drastic consequences for low probability events that entirely change the calculus.
Now, you can say to yourself, over and over again, you can say, well, you know what?
I'm not gonna waste a lot of time preparing myself, learning how to fight, learning how to ground fight, learning how to wrestle, learning how to shoot, because the chances of me being caught in this are infinitesimally small.
They are, but the consequences for you, again, are termination of your life.
There is no coming back ever.
For me, that calculation is well worth it.
Now, what does this have to do with social media in a 24-hour news cycle?
Folks, in the past, if Walter Cronkite did not cover it, if Tom Brokaw didn't cover it, if Peter Jennings didn't cover it on the nightly news before cable and before Twitter and Facebook, Joe, did it happen?
Nope.
Nope.
It only happened for the people in those local communities where it made the local news.
If it did not make the national news, folks, I'm telling you, it happened, but it didn't happen for people outside because the tree fell in the woods and nobody heard it.
Listen, there have been mass shootings in the past.
There have been mass shootings throughout human history.
I mean, you know, Al Capone and the mobs wiped out people forever.
But if it did not make the national news show, the point I'm trying to make is it did not impress upon people the gravity of the threat, even though it's limited in scope.
They didn't even know it was out there because they never heard about it.
Of course everybody knew they could be a victim of crime, but now, with the advent of social media and 24-hour cable news all the time, all of these stories, these active shooter targeted violence scenarios, become national stories like that.
And it impresses upon people the idea that this is increasing in occurrence, Joe, even though the statistics don't really say that.
So in other words, the problem hasn't changed, this is my point here, the recognition of the problem has changed.
The recognition of the problem is reason number one why the left will never again win the gun control debate.
Because now all of a sudden, in the past, and I have some polling data because I love numbers, to show you, to make my point here at Hammer at Home, which I'll get to in a second here, But in the past, Joe, the left could make arguments like, oh, you don't need a gun.
We need to ban guns.
Bad guys have guns.
This threat isn't real.
What are you going to be involved in?
Some kind of mass shooting?
What are you, an idiot?
That argument kind of looks pretty stupid now, wouldn't you agree?
Now, 50 years ago, that argument may have held some water because, again, before the advent of national news, you weren't being hammered every day with the evil in men's hearts.
Now you're seeing it like that.
So all of a sudden, people are out there and they see incidents like this, and you see them doing what, Joe?
Going out and buying guns.
Yeah.
Now, the level in gun ownership, to be clear, hasn't really changed that much, but the number of guns per household has, because people who are aware of the threat are going out there and saying, well, you know what, I'm going to get another gun.
Maybe a gun I can shoot better, more efficiently.
And an interesting story today I saw in Washington Secrets, Paul Bedard's column, Which will be at the show notes at Bongino.com along with the Ramesh Pamanuranu piece at National Review.
You can join my email list as always at Bongino.com.
I'll send them right to you.
But Podard says the number of gun checks through October of this year, we're hitting like record levels now.
So there was this running theory that if Hillary Clinton got elected, you know, gun sales would go through the roof because of their constant threats against the NRA.
But what we've seen, Joe, is no matter who gets elected, Hillary or Trump, people are still going out and buying guns.
So, again, proving my point that the advent of, I think, well, not proving, but I think pointing evidence to my point that the advent of 24-hour news is making people more aware of what's going on out there and saying to themselves, I need to defend myself.
Reason number two.
Why the left can't win this argument.
They lie to us and then they lecture us.
First, they lie to us, Joe, by saying things like, we're not trying to take your guns, you don't believe me?
Go to my Twitter account, where I was tweeting about the Second Amendment yesterday, and of course, a bunch of crazy Looney Tunes lefties responded back, no one's trying to take your guns, man.
Yeah.
I mean, by the way, thank you to everyone, including Eddie, who sent me that Giphy from, yeah, it ain't cool being no jive turkey.
He sent me a Giphy on that, which is really, really funny.
So thank you for doing that.
But they lie to us.
They say all the time, you know, they tweet me back to go, we're not trying to confiscate and take your guns.
Why do you keep citing Australia?
Folks, what you're citing in Australia as evidence of a policy you want to enact was a gun confiscation buyback program, which was a failure, by the way.
So Joe, you see the point I'm trying to make?
Why gun control won't work for the left?
Because you lie to us and people know you're lying.
You'll tweet me in one respect and go, we're not trying to take your guns, you liar.
Stop saying that on Fox & Friends.
I got tweets, multiple tweets yesterday about that.
While they simultaneously tweet about the success of Australia's confiscation and buyback.
Okay.
Let me get this straight.
I'm supposed to trust you in a reasonable debate on the use of firearms in our society in the second amendment.
While you tell me on one hand we're not trying to take your guns, but then you tell me on the other hand we need to emulate a policy that in fact took your guns.
Do you get it now why the left can't win?
Because you're not honest brokers.
You're liars and everybody knows you're liars.
We can- Joe.
Yeah?
Note to self.
You're on Twitter, right?
Yeah.
Joe, what are you, Joe Haas one?
Yeah.
Joe's, I've seen some people tweet him.
Can you acknowledge that for me and for everyone out there, this is a fact check moment, not a trick question again.
If you tweet something, people on Twitter can see it, right?
Yeah.
It's not an email.
No.
It's not a private message.
No.
I don't know if the liberals understand this.
So if you tweet five minutes before you tweet me, we need to be more like Australia, which engaged in a gun confiscation program.
And then you tweet me two minutes later and say, Hey, Dan Bongino, stop lying to people.
We're not trying to confiscate your guns.
That's kind of like a cognitive dissonance kind of moment there.
People can see that.
That's not an email.
Therefore, nobody trusts you.
That's why, no, because you're liars.
We're not trying to take your guns, but we're advocating for policies to take your guns.
Okay.
You know, and then you lecture us from a faux moral high ground.
You lecture us and you say, you know, Americans, we need to abandon our love affair with guns.
And who's saying this, Joe?
Hollywood people and politicians who both have one thing in common.
Large, large portions of them, especially the wealthiest ones with the biggest mouths, are protected by what?
People with guns!
Guns!
Yeah!
So first you lie to us about your intentions, you expect us then to trust you, as you expect to win a debate where you're lying, then you lecture us from a phony moral high ground about giving up our guns or our quote love affair with guns, while you're protected by people with guns!
And then you're like, you're scratching.
This goes to show you, you know, I and I've acknowledged repeatedly, I think sometimes the Democrats have moments of strategic brilliance, evil, evil, horrible policies, but strategically brilliant.
Their gaslighting and their use of the media is incredible to lie to people.
But this is a moment of unbelievably pure stupidity.
Insulting people who pray for the victims in the Texas, the Texas homicides.
And you think that's going to convince people?
How is that going to convince anyone?
And then you turn around and you try to win a debate on guns while lying and lecturing people from a fake moral high ground.
Okay, so point number one.
Social media has made everybody aware of the violence around them.
They're preparing.
Point number two.
You cannot lie about your intentions, lie on social media where people can see it, lecture Americans, insult Americans, and then lecture them from a fake moral high ground of standards you don't live up to.
Give up your guns first.
You can't do that and win the debate.
Third.
Ladies and gentlemen, the government can't protect you and everybody knows it.
Listen, this is not a knock on government in general.
I know I'm a small government conservatarian, but our government does do some things well.
We have a pretty good court system, and we have a damn good military of very patriotic men and women.
That's our government.
Unfortunately, the majority of what government does is total crap.
They've pissed away your retirement, they've wasted your tax money, and they've caused you to accumulate you and your kids 20 trillion dollars in debt we probably will never pay off.
But the government cannot protect you.
Now, you may say, well, Dan, that's a pretty, you know, bold statement.
You were a secret service agent.
Yeah.
We weren't there to protect you.
And folks, I can't say this enough.
Neither are the cops.
Yeah.
You don't believe me?
Call the cops and ask them to sit out in front of your house, Joe.
Say you're afraid of getting robbed tonight.
They're not going to stand there.
It is not that they're not doing their jobs.
Their job is not to protect you.
Their job is to enforce the law.
It is not to protect you individually.
Now, you may say, oh no, what does that have to do with why the left will lose the argument?
Because the left's argument, Joe, is precisely that you should forfeit your individual liberty to protect yourself with a firearm under the guise, Joe, that the government is going to pick up the load.
Now, if they actually believe that, it would reflect in the polling.
Aha!
Here's the polling, which by the way, is in Ramesh's piece in National Review, again in my show notes.
In 1959, Joe, when they asked people in public polling about a handgun ban, should you support a handgun ban?
Believe it or not, 1959, 60% of people thought they should.
It's a big number.
Yeah.
Now, the left has been engaged in an all-out war against the Second Amendment for, gosh, a hundred years now, if not more.
What are those numbers now in 2017?
Well, here are the numbers now.
There is 76% against, 23% for.
So 60% supported a handgun ban in 1959, only 23% support that now.
You are losing!
Now, why are you losing on things like a handgun ban?
Because people understand the government cannot protect you.
Oh, you doubt me?
I have more facts and data because that's what we do!
Universal background checks and assault weapons bans.
Here's how they poll.
People who support universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.
People support them, Joe!
A majority of the people who support them and a plurality of people who support these things, respectively, agree that they'll make no difference when it comes to crime.
Gun crime.
So let me get this straight.
You support universal background checks and an assault weapons ban while you simultaneously acknowledge it'll make no difference in gun violence.
Do you see how this absolutely supports my premise that people understand the government is entirely ineffective on this?
Yeah.
What you're saying on one hand is, yes, I support the Democrat talking points, universal background checks, assault weapons ban.
Is it going to work?
Uh, no.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks for playing.
What does that say to you?
That says to you that people understand, because they don't support a handgun ban anymore, they support these universal background checks and some who support an assault weapons ban, but even a plurality of those people agree that it's not going to do anything.
Because the government can't protect you.
Finally, and this is most important, this is the biggest takeaway as to why the left will continue to get smoked on this gun control debate.
Folks, gun control does not animate the left, but it does animate the right.
There are people on the right side of the political aisle who are single-issue voters who will absolutely not forfeit their right to protect themselves.
Why?
For all the reasons I just told you.
They know the government can't protect them.
They see in a 24-hour news and social media cycle, Joe, that they could be the victim of this.
Small chance, but a chance nonetheless, and a chance that results in death if you're involved in it.
They understand they've been lied to.
They understand they've been lectured.
Single-issue voters will vote on the gun control issue, or I should say against it.
They'll vote for their own gun rights, Joe.
You following where I'm going with this?
Yeah, yeah.
But anti-gun people, the gun grabbers, will not vote on that issue for themselves.
Because, precisely because, and this is Ramesh's takeaway in the piece, and it's a good one.
The anti-gun crowd understands that everything they're proposing is a steaming pile of horse waste.
That was very restrained.
Yes, I'm trying.
It's a family-friendly show.
They get it!
They are not gonna go and vote on this one issue.
I'm not saying it doesn't matter to them.
But I'm saying to them, I'm saying to you, and I know this because I ran in a Democrat, largely Democrat-leaning district as a big Second Amendment advocate, and it didn't hurt me at all.
Right.
Because liberals will not vote.
They'll vote against you for all kinds of reasons.
Taxes, you're a Republican, you support Trump.
But they will not generally be animated by a pro-gun candidate because they understand everything they're proposing.
So they're not going to go out and vote on that issue.
They'll vote on something else, Joe.
Taxes, Obamacare.
But that's not going to animate them.
But!
On the conservative side, they will go out and vote for a candidate who will passionately defend their right to defend themselves because they want to stay alive!
And they want to defend their wives and their kids and their moms and their dads!
Democrats, you can't win on this!
It is asymmetric warfare!
It's actually a call to arms for conservatives.
You're damn right it is!
You're damn right it is!
You can't win!
You sound like Adrian right now in Rocky IV.
You can't win, Rock!
You can't!
No, you seriously, you can't win on this.
It is ideological asymmetric warfare.
On one side you're suggesting things your own people acknowledge won't work, while the other side you're asking them to forfeit their right to stay alive in a firearm fight.
What?
You will lose.
This is a loser.
Now, keep it up because this is what I think is wiping you out in large portions of America that used to be Democrat-leaning in the culture wars.
This is why you can't win a race in West Virginia anymore.
Keep it up.
I'm not telling you to change your mind.
I'm just telling you, this for Republicans, take this as a glimmer of hope.
Man, that was a long one.
I intended that to be like a 10-minute segment, but it requires a lot to talk about there.
All right, today's show brought to you by our buddies at iTarget.
You know I'm a huge fan of these guys, and it's kind of convenient that we opened up talking about preparedness.
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Okay.
Where do we go next?
All right.
Someone sent me an email.
about a piece in the Washington Post which I will reluctantly put in the show notes today because it's written by Bruce Bartlett who worked in the Reagan administration but has become a advocate for far-left economics and I don't know Bruce Bartlett so I don't and I don't know what happened to him but he worked in the Reagan administration and he's used as a mouthpiece for the left that was a Freudian slip a mouthpiece for the left to advocate against tax cuts pretty much all the time.
So what you'll see is he's cited by the left often because of his prominence in the Reagan administration, Joe.
Obviously, you know, like, I mean, listen, we do it too, kind of the way we used to use Dick Morris a lot to rebut Bill Clinton, who worked in the Clinton administration, because it gives it more bona fides, more credibility.
If, oh, look, a Reagan guy saying tax cuts don't work.
What they conveniently leave out is the 99.9% of former Reagan administration officials, including Mark Levin, by the way, Who will tell you how terrific the Reagan tax cuts worked.
You know, Art Laffer and these other people who had worked with Reagan on these tax cuts.
They ignore all those for this one guy who, I don't know if he's disgruntled or what, but a lot of what he says is just junk.
So a listener forwarded me this piece in the Washington Post, came out the other day.
It's written by Bartlett.
Anytime you see this guy's name again, be very skeptical.
I think he's got some kind of a grudge.
But he wrote a piece saying how, listen, tax cuts are crap and you comparing this tax cut to the Reagan years, the Reagan year tax cuts basically sucked.
I mean, I don't know any other way to sum up what he's saying, but I took a few bullet points from the piece I wanted to put out there because I know your liberal friends will find this and use it against you at some point.
So here's point number one he makes.
He goes, listen, aggregate real GDP was higher in the 70s, 37.2, than the 80s, 35.9.
In other words, Joe, gosh, Reagan really couldn't be that great.
Look, the aggregate GDP growth in the 70s, where Reagan wasn't president, was higher than it was in the 80s.
Yeah.
Now, if you're a regular listener, you're probably already picking up the scam.
I've always warned you about using household data and aggregate data.
If it's an aggregate GDP figure, one of the first things that should come to mind is, well, when Reagan got into office in 1980, we were still getting out of a deep recession that happened in the Carter years.
Not only were we coming out of a deep recession, but we had really atrocious inflation as well.
So if you factor in aggregate numbers using the entire decade, by the way, two of which Reagan was not president, he was president from 1980 to 88, of course you're gonna get skewed numbers.
That doesn't take into account, again, the recession Reagan came into office with.
He lost almost two years of his presidency in the recovery effort from the disastrous Jimmy Carter years, right?
But it doesn't take into account the two years afterwards where George H.W.
did not really pursue Reagan-esque policies.
Aggregate data is a scam.
It's a scam to avoid the effect.
Now, if you really wanted to know the effects of the tax cuts, which Bartlett doesn't, he never does, he wants to skew you with tortured statistics, what would you do, Joe?
You'd say, well, what was the economy like before the tax cuts?
Yeah.
And what was the economy like after?
Oh, is that hard to figure out?
Let's, let's tease out the effects of tax cuts, but by doing it, let's not tease it out and let's aggregate the data so it confuses everything.
Let's look at the data before tax cuts and after.
Reagan cut the tax rate.
The economy grew at 6, 5, and 4%.
The highest numbers we've had in, what, 30 years?
We haven't seen those numbers since.
No.
Now, again, Bartlett conveniently ignores that.
Oh, no, let's use aggregate data.
Let's not tease out what happened after the tax cuts.
That's just stupid.
That's just unscientific, pseudo-tortured statistical garbage, okay?
Secondly, And I'll put the piece in there.
Read it yourself.
You're going to get PO'd.
I hate giving Washington Post the clicks, but you've got to know what you're up against because Bartlett, again, he's cited all the time.
Secondly, he says, well, you know, the Reagan boom wasn't due to the tax cuts.
Remember, keep in mind.
This is funny, Joe.
First, he says there was no boom, right?
He says, oh, the 80s sucked.
The 70s were better.
Which, by the way, someone should tell people in the 80s that.
It was like the run-run 80s, you know?
Yeah.
The economy was great.
Joe and I lived through it, OK?
Yeah, baby.
It was damn good.
Reagan wanted a massive landslide.
So first, he says the 80s sucked.
Then he talks about the boom.
Well, I thought there was no boom.
So now he acknowledges the boom in the subsequent paragraph, which, you know, seemingly refutes this whole argument.
But again, the guy's a leftist now, so let's not confuse the facts with reality.
And he says the boom was due to interest rates being lowered, which he's correct.
Interest rates were lowered during the course of the Reagan presidency.
When he came into office, they were very high as an effort by Paul Volcker to combat rampant inflation in the economy.
Interest rates, you know, suck up money from the economy, it's harder to get loans, and basically it prevents more money from chasing fewer goods, the cause of inflation.
But there's a problem here, Joe.
Yeah?
Now, we're going to use logic.
Bartlett seems to be incapable of this.
Bartlett's point here, and Joe, you're not an economist, right?
So it's not a trick question again, but he's saying lower interest rates With the cause of the Reagan boom, or one of the causes, right?
Okay.
So lower, you got that?
Now take a note of this, low interest rates.
Low interest rates, got it.
Now, the interest rates in the Reagan years, interestingly enough, dropped at one of their lowest points to 9% after coming down from around 16 to 19%.
So low interest rate's good, right?
Low interest rate's good, yes.
You are the audience ombudsman.
This is Bartlett's point, right?
Let's use caveman language for the liberals.
Low interest rate, good.
Good.
Okay, so the lowest they got in the initial years of the Reagan administration when the boom started were around 9%.
What do you think the interest rates were under Obama?
Uh, let's say about one to two percent the entire time.
So let's try caveman logic again for Bartlett.
Low interest rates.
Good.
Good.
Reagan, nine percent.
Good.
Led the boom.
Obama, two percent.
That would mean very good, right Joe?
Even in caveman logic.
Good, yeah.
You see, Joe, he's got this.
Even Joe, resorting to his Neanderthal state, has figured this out.
That 9% is low, 2% must have been awesome, and I'm being generous, they were even lower than that at certain points in the Obama administration.
Obama's economy must have been awesome then, if low interest rates lead to economic booms.
Good.
Well, what happened?
Obama never reached 3% in any GDP growth in any year of his presidency.
After the tax cuts, Reagan doubled that, 6%.
I mean, again, folks, let's not let logic get in the way of far-left ridiculousness.
Low interest rates, good, but just not for Obama.
Okay, makes sense.
Here's another one.
He says, well, tax cuts basically sucked, and it was due to the defense buildup and highway construction.
So basically, Bartlett's saying, oh, it's government spending.
That's what did it.
Oh, yeah, because that always does it.
OK, government spending.
Joe, caveman logic again.
I'm asking you to revert to your Neanderthal state, because liberals really have a tough time with this.
They have been vaccinated to facts, OK?
No problem.
Government spending, good or bad?
Good, yes, good!
He's saying defense build-up, government spending, and the construction infrastructure projects by the Reagan administration, good.
Okay, government spending, good.
Now, the Obama administration comes into office, explodes the federal budget.
To massive levels, spent up to four trillion dollars and enacts the largest stimulus in U.S.
history over a trillion dollars of government spending.
Now Joe, using caveman logic, if government spending is good, is record government spending good?
Good.
Yes, yes!
Even Caveman Joe gets it!
So, what happened under Obama?
People cite this guy.
He embarrasses himself in his own piece.
He's saying the government spending rescued Reagan, but then he fails to cite how Obama's stimulus, which was a A magnitude larger than the spending under Reagan, at least in that stimulus, failed to rescue the economy from anything.
We had the worst recovery post-World War II in American history.
I mean, post-World War II economic history.
All right, one more, because this is fun.
Another one?
Yeah, there's a lot more in the piece, but I just picked out, because it's so stupid, I had to pick out the best of the best.
The best of the worst.
I'm having fun, thank you.
He says oh and listen the Reagan tax cuts didn't do anything because not only was it government spending and interest rate booms and by the way let's aggregate the data to confuse everyone.
He says oh it was just a simple bounce back from a deep recession.
Oh okay Joe one more time.
Please put your intellectual side aside.
Let's go back to Neanderthal Joe again to make this easy for lips.
So Here's his point, Caveman Joe, right?
He says, recessions, bad.
But after recessions, economies bounce back.
So post-recession, Joe?
Good.
You following?
Bad recession, bad.
Post-recession, good.
And he uses the term, and I'm quoting, it's a simple bounce back from recession.
OK, so Caveman Joe, you're tracking, right?
So Obama comes into office in an even worse recession.
Why?
Now, Joe, again, Caveman Joe, last question for you.
If Obama came into office with a recession, bad, right?
Bad?
Okay.
Now, would the post-recession, would that be good or bad?
Yes, good!
It would be good!
Okay, thank you, K-Banjo.
Here's the problem.
It wasn't good.
It was the worst recovery from a recession post-World War II in our economic history.
So this guy's logic is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
He goes, oh, and by the way, the tax cuts sucked.
It was just a simple bounce back from a recession.
But he fails to mention that we didn't bounce back from the recession post-Obama.
I mean, Folks, it's really, it's so easy, I mean, you know, I went to graduate school, who cares, gives a damn, I mean, I study, I love economics, I'm passionate about refuting Keynesian stupidity, but it's just like, do these guys even read their articles?
Does he ever read it and go like, this doesn't make any sense at all?
Like, I write once in a while, I don't do as much anymore, but I used to write a lot for Conservative Review.
And, you know, before I submitted something, They check it.
I mean, they have editors read over it, and a couple times they've sent me back stuff and said, Dan, can you clarify this?
How does the Washington Post run this piece?
And I'd say, dude, this really, the whole premise of your piece makes absolutely no sense.
It's the dumbest thing ever.
All right, I'll put the piece in there, read it, and just, you'll see how dumb it sounds now that you have some background on it.
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All right, one final article, because I thought this was really funny.
You know, again, I'm always hesitant to bring up Obamacare, but it's just such a cornucopia of good stories about dopey liberals.
So, you know, Joe, for years the liberals have been citing CBO estimates about enrollment to show how successful Obamacare is, despite the fact that the enrollment was largely not in Obamacare plans, but Medicaid.
Right, right.
So they've been saying like, oh, look how successful Obamacare is.
We have all these people who signed up.
They signed up for Medicaid.
They basically signed up for free health care you're paying for.
That's not the marker of success.
Anybody could give away free stuff.
If I gave you my home address and said, hey, I'm giving away free copies of my book, I'm sure people would show up.
Any idiot can give away free stuff.
That's what Obamacare did.
But they have been relying on these CBO estimates forever for enrollment numbers.
Now, this is blowing up in their face huge.
Huge.
Or hugely.
Using the new language we've incorporated.
What is it?
Bigly.
Or Big League, Trump says.
Bigly, yeah.
It's blowing up Big League.
I love that, that he says that.
Why?
Because these constant overestimates of the number of people that have enrolled in Obamacare are now being used against them by Republican lawmakers as a vehicle to be able to enhance the tax cuts.
You're probably like, what the hell are you talking about?
This is really a cool story.
So, in other words, let's say they said 100 people were going to, you know, CBO is pretty much wrong about everything, but let's say they said 100 people were going to sign up for Obamacare, Joe, and really only 25 did.
The Democrats will cite that 100 figure even though it's not close to the truth.
But now they can't run away from it because what's happening is the Republicans have said, I got an idea.
How about to save some money, government money, in this tax cut plan.
In other words, they need to save money to fit in the scoring.
So they need to cut government spending to be able to cut taxes because of the scoring.
You get what I'm saying, folks?
So to give you a dollar of tax cuts, right now they're trying to find a dollar of savings in the budget to give it back to you.
So in their efforts to find savings, I think it was Tom Cotton who dreamed this one up.
I'm not sure, the senator.
I'm not positive, but I read it somewhere.
This was ingenious.
He said, what if we dumped the individual mandate?
In other words, the legal mandate to buy insurance under Obamacare.
How would that blow up in their face?
Because by using the CBO's overinflated numbers, Of the predictions and the number of people who are going to buy Obamacare?
If those numbers are accurate, which they're not, but what are the Democrats going to say?
Now they're going to say all of a sudden, no, Obamacare isn't popular, the CBO's been wrong?
What would that do, Joe?
It would save a fortune because if they dump the mandate and the CBO said, oh, 100 people next year are going to buy Obamacare because it's so wonderful, even though we know it's not true.
Obamacare would cost us Medicaid money because it's you know you'd have to pay for these people to Medicaid right from the Medicaid expansion and Joe even in the individual market some of those same people would be eligible for taxpayer subsidies so if the CBO If we use their over-inflated numbers, now all of a sudden we use their own numbers against them.
We go, hey, you guys said Obamacare was popular and 100 people are going to sign up.
Now if we dump the individual, excuse me, individual mandate and we don't make people sign up, we're going to use your 100 number against you and look at all that money we save because we don't have to pay for Medicaid and subsidies now.
You see where I'm going with this?
Yeah, I sure do.
What a, listen, I'm not a huge fan of the establishmentarian class and I'm not suggesting cotton is one, but What a genius move.
My point is this, and I'll sum it up here.
No mandate means no Medicaid expansion.
It means no subsidies, which means savings in the federal budget, which means additional tax cuts.
And what the hell are the Democrats gonna do?
What are they gonna say, Joe?
Oh no!
No, no.
Our estimates of how popular Obamacare is, they've been wrong forever.
And there's really no savings in there because no one wants to sign up for this crap Obamacare.
Therefore, there'll be no savings when you stop people from, mandating people from signing up for this crap Obamacare.
There's nothing they can say!
They're screwed!
They're up the creek!
Beautiful, beautiful move.
So push your legislators to get that individual mandate scrapped in the tax bill and we'll have a lot more room for tax cuts and the Democrats will be left going, uh, uh, uh, back to caveman Joe.
What do we do now?
They will have nothing to say because you'll have to acknowledge that Obamacare is not popular and people just don't want to sign up.
Ah, beautiful stuff.
Alright folks, thanks again for tuning in.
Please go to my website again, Bongino.com and give us a show review at iTunes if you don't mind.
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Thanks again.
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