Dave Smith critiques Joe Biden's "steady, stable leadership" pitch by exposing factual errors like misplacing FDR's TV appearance and Parkland survivor meetings. He argues the 2016 Libertarian Party missed a chance to stop Trump and Hillary Clinton, while condemning government intervention in the 2008 housing bubble. The host also highlights election integrity issues, contrasting scrutiny of Russian collusion with ignored big tech biases, and criticizes social media for banning right-wing figures while allowing Antifa. Ultimately, he suggests street violence stems from immature thrill-seeking rather than political necessity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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AnarchoCoffee Sponsor Spotlight00:03:04
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We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host.
Here I am.
Here I am.
Is that the frozen song?
No, that's the.
Oh, maybe.
I was thinking the Van Halen song.
Yeah, that's where my mind's at right now.
Father of a little girl.
More thinking about Frozen than Van Halen.
Well, it's good to be back in New York.
Good to be back with Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
Hell yeah.
I just got back late yesterday from Los Angeles.
Had a great trip.
A lot of fun, man.
Two great shows at the comedy store.
Did Rogan's podcast again with the Skanks.
A lot of fun.
Thanks to everybody who came out.
We sold out both the shows.
Oh, yeah.
Great time, man.
And you got to see Bert's Nipples.
Yeah.
Trips, it's always an added bonus if you can see Bert Kreischer's Nipples on a show.
God damn, Bert was fucking hilarious, dude.
Dude, Bert Kreischer has this whole chunk that he closed on in his stand-up set.
That was just so goddamn funny.
Got him really sharp.
Returning to New York00:06:39
Oh, yeah.
It's really, really strong, man.
Really strong.
If you haven't, you got to check out that guy.
Whatever his next thing that he puts out, I'm sure this will be on it.
It's really, really fucking funny.
Great time.
Great time, as always, at the comedy store.
Great time with Rogan as always.
But it's good to be home.
Good to be back.
Good to be back in the studio with you.
We've, you know, with the traveling and the vacations and your illness, we've, me and you haven't been podcasting as regularly together, so it's good.
It's good to be back with you.
We're getting the consistency back up and running.
That's right.
We're consistently inconsistent, and then we consistently get consistent for a while.
If you look at it as a whole, consistently.
Consistent.
Yeah, exactly.
The most consistent, you could say.
The most consistent, you know.
I believe it.
Maybe throw a curse word in there.
You got yourself a slogan.
All right.
Well, oh, and also, of course, don't forget, from what I understand, there are still a few seats available, but this thing is going to sell out for sure.
So, September 10th.
People are flying in for it.
People have been tweeting me their plane tickets.
Libertarians are coming in from all different areas of the country.
It's going to be a fun time.
I will be debating Nicholas Sarwak, who is the chairman of the Libertarian Party about the future of the Libertarian Party.
The resolution is something along the lines of that goes to show you that I've been preparing.
That's always good.
If it's something along the lines, that means something along the lines of, you know, kicking ass, taking names.
That's good because that means you're not going to be so technical.
Sometimes people get in there and like they're too technical.
They're going to speak to themes and truth.
That's right.
Well, this is a different type of debate than a lot of the debates that are there.
So the resolution is something.
I may not get this exactly.
Well, he's got to defend Gary Johnson being a good idea.
Well, the resolution is the LP should never again run candidates with views similar to Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.
So that and it's...
Can you define Gary Johnson's views, though?
I don't even know if he knows his own views.
Well, I think there's a couple things that are.
Foreign policy.
What are foreign places?
Yeah, well, that's, but that's, you know, listen, this is stuff that we'll get into in the debate, I'm sure.
But the thing is, a lot of times it'll be, you know, like they've had, you know, they'll have like resolutions that are very tightly worded and academic.
Very like, you know, man-made carbon emissions have not raised temperatures by more than four degrees Celsius over the last, you know, like this really tightly worded.
Social security does not add to the deficit of, you know, like these really tightly worded resolutions.
This one is much more broad in the sense that there are these things like the LP should never.
It's like, well, that already kind of leaves you to wonder why you think the LP should do something versus shouldn't.
Like what's the reasoning behind that?
And then views similar to Gary Johnson.
Well, what are those views?
How do you define them?
So that's all open, but I like this very much because that's it leads to a conversation that I feel more comfortable and credible to have, where it's like, you know, if we're just talking about the libertarian movement in general and what should be done, that's a conversation that I'm very happy to engage in.
Whereas if it was some technical academic thing, I'd be like, yeah, you could probably find someone more qualified for this than me.
But in this case, I think I'm very qualified.
And I think it'll be an interesting conversation.
I'll tell you, as I've started to think about it, I really don't know what angle Nick Sarwak is going to take or how he's going to play this thing.
I think my guess would be that he pretty much knows what I'm going to argue.
I think anybody who listens to this show could pretty much tell you what my main points are going to be and what angle I'm going to take on arguing this.
But I don't really know with Nick.
And I'm genuinely interested to find out and to respond to it.
I think his argument's probably going to be if we can get someone with the broadest possible appeal, we can get the most momentum or get the most people interested in our party.
The problem is maybe that's true, but you need someone with broad appeal who actually can be on the news and not seem like, you know what I mean?
If anything, you got more people to vote for Hillary Norman and Trump.
That's basically, you know, people were like, hey, what else is out there?
And he came along.
Well, I think the way I look at it, and here I'll give you a little bit of a preview of my debate.
And here, Nick Sarwak, if you're listening, you can take this one.
I'll tell you what pitch I'm going to throw.
Let's see if you can hit it.
More or less is that you had in 2016, you have an opportunity when you have the two candidates with the highest unlikability ratings of all time, the most unliked candidates that have ever run, number one and number two, right against each other.
And then you have a third party, the biggest third party in the country.
And they have ballot access in all 50 states.
And they're going to get on television and they're using this word, libertarian, that means a lot to me.
So I'd say if you have this opportunity where you know for a fact, and a lot of it is because the media hated Donald Trump so much that they were like, hey, let's give these libertarians some TV time because the thought process was this could probably take away votes from Donald Trump.
And well, I will just say so you have an opportunity.
Think about this as a libertarian, right?
If you, isn't it almost, isn't it our wet dream in some sense that you could actually get hold of like the whole country and have them listen to a libertarian for just a few minutes.
You get to present our ideas to them.
This incredible philosophy that we have inherited.
You get to explain these ideas to them.
And then the question becomes, if you could get the whole country, grab the entire country by the ears and tell them something, what would you want to tell them?
What would be the message that could in some way, you know, I'm not saying you're going to get everybody through, you know, human action and man economy and state in three minutes, but what would you want to say to them that would let them know who we are and what our beliefs?
Greed and Free Market Housing00:14:21
And that's what we ended up saying to them.
Well, I think that if there was just a real moderate Republican and that that's, I better represent what used to be a fiscal Democrat.
So if that's what it's going to be, then what's the point?
What's the point of existing?
You might as well just close up shop.
There's no reason.
So that's, you know, there's just a little bit of a hint into a little bit of a peek into some of the arguments that I'll be making.
And like I said, I'm really, you know, I'm genuinely curious and excited to see what is thrown back in response to this.
And then I'll adjust.
I'm pretty quick on my toes.
So I'll deal with that.
I'm walking in confident with my hands down, just like DC started doing in round two.
And that worked out great for him.
And I'm going to be walking around the back going, hey, Gene, Tom Woods over here.
Tom Woods.
Oh, you know, you can only say Tom Woods once.
I'm saying so many Tom Woods.
No, I know.
I've tried.
It doesn't get you more drinks.
It's just the one.
It's just, you say Tom Woods to Gene Epstein and then he has to buy you a free drink.
But, you know, it's.
It's just one drink.
Yeah.
What if you put on disguises?
Does that ever work?
Have you tried that?
I've thought about it.
I've never successfully pulled it off.
But I say go for it or just have other people go up for you and get a real little kid thing.
Hey, can you walk up to that guy and say Tom Woods for me?
Bring me back the beer.
Be like, I'll give you a dollar.
I'll give you a dollar.
And then you're just getting beers for that's a decent spread.
Maybe you can turn around and sell the beer for four.
And they got free sandwiches in the back there.
Oh, I ate all the sandwiches.
Yeah.
They put out a pretty nice platter at that forum.
Those meatballs, the dumplings are pretty solid.
Yeah.
Anyway, if you want to come, go to thesohoforum.org.
There are still a few tickets left.
This thing is going to sell out.
So if you're in the area or you can get to the area and you want to come, go do it, ASAP.
This is going to be your last chance.
And also, just check out all the info at thesohoforum.org.
It's really just incredible debate series.
By the way, what was Gene emailed me?
He had a few corrections.
Gene emailed me.
He's after you.
I like it.
We got a fact checker on our tails.
Gene is, here's the thing, right?
Gene is the Don of the New York libertarian family.
And so if anyone, you know, if anyone's not acting the right way, the Don has to come slap you around a little bit.
And so anytime I get something wrong, he's like, you know, he's my libertarian professor.
So he's always, you know, I get some email with like red ink on it that's like, this was no, so what he said, and I should correct it because he was right.
But I guess you said something about Bill Clinton blowing up the housing bubble.
And I was like, well, it really blew up under George W. Bush.
And then he sent me like these graphs of it.
And like, okay, I stand corrected.
It blew up under both of them.
It was the bubble.
The bubble did start in under Bill Clinton.
I think what he was saying was that as a theoretical, if Bush never existed, even Joe Blackboard.
There still would have been a bubble.
There would have been a bubble.
Right.
Right.
So it's not that Bush might not have tacked on to it.
It's just like, even if Bush never existed, he had a bubble as a result of Clinton's policies.
Right.
And then I know that they did.
It was early.
I mean, it certainly exacerbated.
Here we go.
But I know that they, it was, it was, you know, George W. Bush won the election in 2000 and was sworn in in January of 2001.
And they were really, they were dealing with the recession early on from the tech bubble, which had burst.
And they lowered interest rates, you know, to kind of stave off that.
And so they made the housing bubble quite a bit worse because that's where a lot of that, you know, misallocated wealth went into.
But yeah, so yes, Bill Clinton, bad guy, starved hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and helped create the housing bubble.
If you haven't hadn't seen that documentary, The Bubble is really fantastic.
I haven't seen it.
Really excited about it.
It's really excellent.
It's a movie about the housing bubble, a documentary about it.
And the footage that they got was just unreal.
It was unreal.
I mean, you had Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and all these different politicians, Barney Frank, a whole bunch of others, just bragging.
Because before the bubble bursts, you know, people aren't watching their words.
So they're saying things.
He's got them on record.
You got to go watch the documentary, The Bubble.
I think it's The Bubble Film.
Let me check that out and I'll get back to you on it.
But it actually, let me see if I can just pull up on my phone real quick so I can give them a proper plug here.
But it's so they have, okay, their Twitter is at thebubble film.
So at thebubble film is the Twitter.
And it's okay, thebubblefilms.com.
So thebubblefilms.com to check it out.
It's really excellent.
And so they have these.
So this is in the midst of, you know, while no one thinks it's a bubble, it's just like, oh, this is great.
And they're actually bragging about the government intervention.
Like they're going like, you know, without us, none of these people would have houses.
You know, the home ownership rate is way up because of what we did.
It's so funny because after, you know, the bubble pops, when the bubble bursts, everyone's like, it's the market.
Oh, the free market's out of control.
But while the bubble's being built up, they're going, no, no, no.
The free market never would have given these people loans.
The free market never would have gotten these people into these homes.
And look at us.
We got all of these people who couldn't otherwise qualify for loans, really huge loans.
Isn't that wonderful?
What could possibly go wrong with that?
Can you believe the returns of these pension plans because we've been able to group together subprime mortgages into tranches and sell them off packaged based off the loans?
Isn't it wonderful?
Isn't it just wonderful?
And the idea that like, I love when people tried to blame the 2008 crash on the free market.
I just always thought it was such a funny, like, number one, you know, the thing that they would say was just greed.
That was what was to blame for it was just greed, which, you know, Bernie Sanders still talks about greed all the time.
Like, as if there's this human emotion that just, I guess, like really peaked in the 90s and early 2000s.
Like, greed was kept in check for a while.
If you have greed and sound money, you end up with people who are working in finance who end up benefiting the economy.
Well, sure.
If you have artificially low interest rates and the only opportunities to make money are through, you know, mischievous, nefarious things that the root of which the starting point is the ultra-low interest rates, then yeah, you get all these fucking schemes.
Well, it's just the always kind of the thing that attracts me to the free market is the idea that like, look, I mean, I think that greed, there certainly is a certain, like a level of greed that can be a destructive quality in people that you'd like to control.
Like you want people to not be, whatever, you know, even if you just like your kid has a friend over and you want him to like share his toys, you're kind of like, yeah, don't be greedy.
Like you have your toy, let's share the others with them.
Like there's something there.
But the truth is that it's very hard to actually precisely scientifically separate what is greed from what is self-interest.
You know, like what is just you, like you want to have a good life.
Let's say you're like, I want to have a good life.
I want to live a really comfortable life.
Is that greed?
Or is that just you kind of looking out for yourself?
Well, if I want to give my kid a really good life, I want to give my wife a really good life.
Is that like me being greedy?
I mean, I guess kind of, but it's kind of a positive thing.
I assume maybe in excess, it can be a little bit too much.
But if you're dealing with the free market, and this is really just the difference, forget even free market versus government.
What it all comes down to is if you're dealing with voluntary interactions versus forced interactions, in the voluntary interactions, when you're greedy, it channels your greed into producing something.
Because if you have to voluntarily get someone to come to the table, well, then you can't just be like, I want your stuff.
You'll be like, well, no, I'm not giving it to you.
And be like, okay, well, I'll do something for you.
You know, like, I want your money.
Okay, well, you're not going to give it to me.
Can I mow your lawn?
Can I build you something?
Can I work for you?
I mean, sure, everybody kind of, you know, I shouldn't say everybody, but the vast majority of people work for the compensation, or at least if it wasn't for the compensation, wouldn't be able to do that job.
You got to eat.
You got to live.
But so somebody like, you know, Steve Jobs gets very, very rich, but it's because he made a product that everybody wanted.
So we all get a product we want and he gets to be very, very rich.
Now, how much of Steve Jobs desire was that he, was it greed?
Like he wanted all this money?
Was it ego?
Like he wanted to be a great man and change things and be the guy who did that?
Was it some type of more noble, higher, I want to improve people's lives and change the world?
I don't fucking know.
I mean, I don't know if Steve's jobs, Steve Jobs' wife knows exactly what degree.
I'm sure all of it was mixed in there to some degree.
But regardless, the only way to really achieve it in a free market is to fucking.
Now, if you're using violence, whether you're the state or a criminal or whatever, I repeat myself, then you don't need to produce anything.
You can just take from people.
Now, the funny thing with the crash of 2008, and I've asked a lot of people this back in, you know, back in the day when this was more of a topic that was on people's mind.
But I remember back in like, you know, because in 2010, 2011, people were still really talking about, you know, the 2008 crash a lot because they were still really living in the direct aftermath of it.
And they'd go, oh, this was capitalism out of control.
That's what it was.
You know, this was greed and capitalism.
This was this, people used to say this was proof that capitalism failed.
And I would say to people, I would be like, okay, so walk me through this scheme.
Okay, I'm so greedy, right?
There's no government intervention.
We're in a market here.
So I'm so greedy.
Here's my plot.
I'm so greedy, Rob, that I'm going to give you a whole bunch of money that I know you'll never be able to give back to me.
How exactly is that a good plan for me?
Just think about it.
Without a third party covering, without intervention, without a bailout, without all of this, how is it a good plan for me to be greedy to go, hey, here's all my money.
I know you'll never be able to give it back to me.
Who's the greedy one here?
It seems like if anything, your greed would more line up with, let me get this money.
Banks have always had standards for lending because of their greed.
Because they go, well, I don't want to give a bunch of money to someone who's not going to be able to pay it back to me.
Well, in this case, they actually offset most of that risk by packaging up the bonds, getting stamping good ratings on it and handing it off to institutional investors.
Well, while you're right, that the greed is not just on the bank side, it's also on the homeowner side that people decided to take on loans.
So to just point to the bank and go, they were the greedy ones is inaccurate.
But in this particular case, they weren't, they were making, there were two problems.
First is they were able to sell off the debt.
And so they were less concerned about whether or not people could actually pay it back.
Sure.
And especially the people who were really writing and making the loans, they really didn't care.
They were making their commissions.
Sure.
Yeah.
Happy to pay shitty loans.
The rating agencies were happy to get paid to slash on this.
The point I'm making is just you go, so there must be a little bit something more at work here, right?
And then just people being greedy.
So here's money that I know you won't pay back.
So you're right.
It was a more complicated system than that.
They're chopping these products off.
They're bundling them together and they're selling them to other people.
And I think part of the money was made available to them through lend by the government.
With an expansionary housing policy.
Right.
Without the cheap money.
Now, if someone just starts giving you money for dirt cheap and any interest you get off that is pretty much going to be a profit because you're getting it for like one and a half, two percent interest.
And if you can get three, four, five percent interest, now you're going to be making a huge, well, now all of a sudden you're incentivized to lend out more and more of this money.
Then you have these government organizations like, you know, Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac and Sally and all these.
And by the way, the biggest thing was all of the models that everyone was basically working off.
And you're talking about some of the smartest people working in Wall Street and finance.
Now, you definitely have people who are just selling the loans.
They didn't give a shit.
But all the models were, hey, the housing market can't come down.
And if you're looking at a model where the housing market just keeps going up and up and up, the root cause of that is because government introduced money and increased housing demand.
Right.
And then, of course, on top of that, you have like the Community Reinvestment Act and all these like kind of like different regulations that are like making it kind of forcing financial institutions to lend to people they wouldn't otherwise lend to.
It's all just a horrible, horrible mix of crony state, you know, crony state-fueled bubble.
But anyway, go check out the bubble film at thebubblefilms.com.
It was really, really fantastic.
Really breaks down.
How great must it be to sell an adjustable rate mortgage to a dumb person?
Like, dude, it's like, it's no interest.
Two full years.
But it's all.
You'll never have to worry about this thing.
But it's really interest rates don't go up.
Well, even with the credit cards, I mean, they fucking do it all the time, right?
It's like, you have no interest for the first six months or something like that.
Six months, have fun.
No, but look, this is part there.
But this is part of being an adult, too.
There's got to be some responsibility on the borrower's end as well because it's kind of like, look, I, you know, I got a credit card fairly recently, just got a new credit card.
You need stuff now and you'll have more money in six months.
Come on.
Well, but look, I mean, I did, I do feel a little bit.
I don't even use it.
I just got one more credit card because I kind of, you know, once you have a kid, you're a little bit more like, look, just in case of an emergency, let's have a little bit more credit at our disposal.
Even though I, but I don't, I don't really use it at all.
I'll just like put a little bit on it and then pay it off every month.
Adjustable Rate Mortgage Woes00:13:11
I don't care.
A little shopping spree.
But no big deal.
But you know what they're doing.
They go, oh, no interest for the first six months.
And then your interest goes up to, you know, whatever ungodly number it is.
And they know, they know.
You know, you're almost looking at the guy like, you know, if you say this to everyone, a lot of people are going to put a lot on that in the six months, thinking in their mind, I'll pay this off in six months.
And then that six months comes around, you didn't pay it off, and now you're going to be paying interest rates on it.
But look, I don't even fucking hate on it.
It's like, this is the, like, you're giving me money.
What am I expecting?
It to be fucking for free.
Okay, you're, you're not doing it out of the goodness of your heart.
I'm not giving you any of my money.
So why would I expect you to give me money without there being some type of string attached to it?
So, you know, I don't know, man.
I guess I just never really, I do have a lot of sympathy for people who are caught in shitty situations.
I do.
I just, on net, I think freedom and the market will do a much better job of helping people out in general.
But it seems like people who argue for different forms of statism, they always like play on your emotions to just feel so terrible for people in any situation.
And it's like, sometimes that's appropriate.
You know, it's just like in your own personal life.
Like sometimes there's someone, like someone doesn't have a job and they have no money coming in.
Well, sometimes it's somebody who, you know, like hurt themselves at their last job and is a real honest guy, but just can't, you know, like, you know, it's injured and can't.
And like, you should feel bad for that guy.
And sometimes they're like a lazy bum and you're like, no, you need to fucking get your life together.
Like both of those things exist.
And I just see it.
There's a real problem with just having a blanket, I feel sorry for you, you're a victim mentality, which obviously, you know, you see, particularly out of the left, like all the time.
And it's like, you know, there's, they'll even say this guy, they'll be like, so-and-so has been working for minimum wage for 10 years and hasn't gotten a raise.
Shouldn't we raise the minimum wage?
It's like, you've been working a job for 10 years for minimum wage?
You haven't been able to improve your value at all over 10 years?
Like, doesn't part of that have to be on that person?
You know, like, it's something like 60% of people who work minimum wage get a raise the first year.
How the fuck have you not gotten it after 10, you know?
Or so I, you know, I only make $12 an hour.
I can't support my family on this.
Like, what are you doing having a family when you only make $12 an hour?
Yeah, abortions are free, dude.
Come on.
Have you not listened to this show?
Yeah, they're fucking, I mean, they're very reasonably priced.
Even a minimum wage worker can afford one.
You shouldn't, though.
They're immoral.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's get into some things because there's a few things that I wanted to talk about.
So, it's becoming more and more apparent that this 2020 election is just going to be the most hilarious election of all time.
It seems like there's almost no way it won't be.
And it's quite an interesting moment to be living through.
2016 was a fucking, you know, it was.
I think everybody, whether you were thrilled or terrified or kind of anywhere in the middle or horrified or whatever, you know, a lot of the people who really thought, you know, you remember seeing those videos of Clinton supporters when Trump got elected and they're like wailing in the streets.
Dude, I mean, I worked with young women.
Like, there were a bunch of, you know, 23, 24.
Rob was doing an internship at Epstein Island.
Exactly.
It was wonderful.
I missed that job.
How do I get that job back?
Didn't pay that good, but the perks.
The worst.
Let me tell you.
I'm telling you, we had to do Team Huddle every morning, which is the worst thing in the entire world.
If you got a job up with Team Huddle, it was so bad.
It just sent like a pain up.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, I wasn't, well, whatever.
You had to do Team Huddle every morning.
And that Team Huddle, it was like a counseling session that someone had died.
It was embarrassing.
Me and the three other dudes there were like, it literally was a morning circle as if someone had died the night before.
It was tangibly uncomfortable.
Right.
And I was told that I could leave the circle and go work because I wasn't positively contributing.
Well, it's, but I think whether you're those people who were like, I need therapy basically after Trump being elected, or you were a MAGA hat-wearing person, whatever side you fell on there, I think it was pretty hard to deny that this was a really historic election.
That something different happened in American politics in a system we're used to nothing different happening, you know?
Yeah.
And this was a big one.
And I get that same feeling about 2020.
Like we're living through something that's big.
And I don't know if any of us will exactly understand what it meant until a few years in the future at least.
You know, I don't know.
When we look back on this in 20 years, God willing, we're still around.
I don't know what we're going to be like this moment meant.
You're going to be like, man, we still don't have a better option.
Really?
20 years from now, they go, we're running Joe Biden again?
This is getting insane.
What's going on here?
This is just nutty.
By then, he might be so confused, he just starts getting facts right.
Well, let me tell you, Joe Biden.
I mean, this guy, this motherfucker is, he has a lot of fun.
He has a lot of fun.
I've said this before, but Joe Biden's got a thing about him where he thinks he's a lot more clever than he is.
They know me.
But yeah, it really, it leads to some weird, weird dynamics.
But look, I've said from the beginning, I don't think Joe Biden's going to be the nominee.
I think this campaign is going to crash.
I could be wrong.
He's held on to this number one spot in the poll since announcing.
Anyway, Joe Biden, he ran his first campaign ad in Iowa.
So let's play that ad.
It's only about a minute long.
Let's play the Joe Biden ad.
We can, for the people watching, we can take a look at it.
Here's a guy who was got like that or whatever, right?
Yes, they sure do.
Bones, this election is different.
The stakes are higher, the threat more serious.
We have to beat Donald Trump.
All right, let's agree.
So, Joe Biden, within four seconds of his ad, it's the Charlottesville tiki torch, guys, again.
That just happened, and it's a cultural revolution of racists in our country.
Well, that's right.
He said the stakes are higher.
The threats are graver than ever.
Like, I mean, that just happened, and it's a growing trend.
So, I mean, it's really important.
Isn't it just, I mean, I just find it.
It's almost as important as thanking bucket people.
It's well, well, it's up there.
I'm sure he'll cover that.
We still got another 50 seconds in the ad.
But it really is like it's pretty strong evidence that you've got just about nothing when you have to open with, oh my God, the threat of Charlottesville, the threat of these tiki torch-carrying monsters.
This is countless repeated incidents of that since, what was it, two years ago?
Yes, it was in 2016.
Right.
And since then, I mean, it's just been repeated over and over and been a growing trend.
Well, they had a follow-up a year later in 2017.
It drew almost a dozen people to that.
So, growing movement.
Good thing Biden's getting ahead of this.
The idea that this is the threat, it's just so.
It's not our debt.
It's not the failed trade negotiations with China.
It's not that people don't have the healthcare policies they were promised.
The fact that right away, what we're leading with is this.
This is the issue.
It's Charlottesville.
All right.
Anyway, let's keep playing.
Joe Biden is the strongest Democrat to do the job.
No one is more qualified.
For eight years, President Obama and Vice President Biden were an administration America could be proud of.
Our allies could trust and our kids could look up to.
Together, they worked to save the American economy, to pass the historic Affordable Care Act, protecting over 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions.
Now, Joe Biden is running for president with a plan for America's future to build on Obamacare, not scrap it, to make a record investment in America's schools, to lead the world on climate, to rebuild our alliances.
Most of all, he'll restore the soul of the nation.
Battered by an erratic vicious bull.
So this is, so Joe Biden, here's his one-two punch.
Okay.
Charlottesville, Obama.
This is the message that he's running on.
And Obama is a bad person.
Charlottesville, bad.
Obama, I was with Obama.
I'm that guy.
Obama.
I got black friends.
There's okay.
So there's, let's take each of these one by one real quick.
Anybody who's who's a grown-up who's thinking clearly knows that Charlottesville is not a threat.
Listen, I don't care if you're the most hardcore alt-right person.
Like, I'm a radical myself.
I'm an anarcho-capitalist.
I'm an anarchist, right?
I want to see the abolition of the government, the abolition of states.
If you were to say to me, you know, it's a real threat that the United States government is going to be abolished tomorrow.
I think we'd be like, yeah, I mean, probably not, right?
So even if you're a hardcore alt-right guy, you got to realize you're not much of a threat to the system right now.
You're really not.
The idea that Charlottesville is going to sweep through the country and this is something we have to be worried about.
I just don't think, guys, even for people like myself, you have to step outside of your bubble a little bit.
Like me and you, we love these ideas and we think about this shit and we talk about politics and the political race and all this.
If you step outside your bubble a little bit, this is not what most people are concerned with and what they're thinking about.
Most people are like, ah, shit, my gas bill went up.
Like, that's what they're worried about.
Oh, they cut my hours at work.
Or, oh, you know, there's like a million other problems.
Real people who could be swung are not worrying about one fucking demonstration that they had two years ago or three years ago in Charlottesville.
It's just not that big of a fucking thing.
And by the way, it's not even like, you know, that thing in Charlottesville, it was fucking, you know, it was a shit show.
It was awful.
It was horrible.
A bunch of people got hurt.
One chick got killed.
It was terrible.
But also, there was just a thing the other day in Portland with the fucking Antifa and the Proud Boys where these maniacs are fucking throwing fucking things at little girls.
Go look at some of the videos of it.
It's goddamn horrific.
So it's a little bit bigger of a problem than just this one thing in Charlottesville.
That, yeah, there are these groups clashing.
By the way, Antifa is a real huge problem too.
But even that, most people just don't go to Portland to the counter protests and we go live our lives.
That's how most people react.
So number one, your number one punch is playing up a fear that most people aren't really that concerned with.
And if you notice, a lot of the people who are concerned with it don't really have other concerns in their life.
You know, like I'm sure Alyssa Milano is really concerned about Charlottesville, but it's also kind of because she's a rich actress.
People who are worrying about their bills are worrying about their fucking bills.
So that's your number one.
You're hyping up some threat that isn't really a threat to anyone.
Biden's Weird Political Moves00:11:26
Number two, Obama.
I was Obama's guy.
Well, there's a couple real big problems with the Obama pitch.
And the first one, which you kind of just indicated because it's the first thing that comes to your mind when you say it, you're like, okay, well, if you're Obama guy and your whole pitch is Obama, we're great friends.
He chose me to be his vice president.
We love each other.
We've dry humped a few times.
My closest bro out there in the world.
Well, the problem is that Obama doesn't support you.
Obama didn't endorse you.
Obama has been silent, seemingly waiting for your campaign to collapse so he can get in there and endorse somebody else.
Because Obama's treating this like business, which I think he always did.
I think, you know, I think he thought Joe Biden could help him win Pennsylvania.
I don't think he ever, you know, like Obama is about Obama.
He's about his legacy.
And he's not going to come out here and endorse Joe Biden and then see his campaign fall apart and then go, actually, I endorse Kamala Harris.
And then his endorsement's kind of watered down.
He's going to wait and see how you do.
And then he'll decide if he's going to get behind you or not.
So it kind of takes away from your whole, here's my big thing.
I'm Obama's guy.
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The other problem with Obama is that, look, Obama was an incredibly talented guy, incredibly talented politician, incredibly talented actor, but I repeat myself.
Unbelievable public speaker.
Unbelievable.
Off the charts.
As good a public speaker as just about anybody I've ever seen.
Very, very bright guy, very good, very charismatic.
So people, especially Democrats, have a real tough time criticizing Obama.
But when you take someone else and now he represents Obama, you take away all of those qualities that I just listed.
And you're just standing on the track record.
And there's been lots of polls that back this up, but truthfully, Obama himself was always way more popular with Democrats than his policies were.
Obama was always way more popular with the country than his policies were.
That's the truth.
And so now you go, okay, so it's just Joe Biden owning Obama, not the smooth charismatic guy, the old sleepy guy.
Okay, so he's the guy now.
Well, here's the problem with Obama that should jump out at anyone right away.
What did we get after eight years of Obama?
Trump.
That's what you got.
That's what that resulted in.
Now you can just say, oh, it's because the racists were so mad that after they voted for Obama twice, they decided to vote for Trump.
Look, that's a bunch of bullshit.
What happened was people were really upset in this country.
They had many different grievances after eight years of Obama's policies.
And so you want to own that stuff.
Okay.
Listen, the problem is that the Republicans who, the people who voted for Trump, you're not going to sell them on how great were the Obama years, right?
If there's anyone who voted for Trump, the people of like all those hundreds of counties that went for Obama and went for Trump, you got to be trying to pull some of those people back.
Do you think it's possible?
Just thinking it through, do you think it's possible that you're going to pull those people back by going, how great was Obama?
They're like, motherfucker, Obama was so bad.
I voted for Trump after voting for Obama.
So they're not going to be pulled back by that message.
That's impossible.
And the fact of the matter is that it's like you can sit here and go, I'm standing behind Obama.
Guess who else isn't standing behind Obama?
Not just the people who voted for Trump.
You know who else isn't standing behind Obama?
The Democrats.
They're not running on how great Obamacare is.
They're running on Medicare for all.
They're not running on how great Obama was.
They're running on, without saying it directly because they want his endorsement and they don't want to challenge the real smooth charismatic guy who everyone on the Democratic side loves.
But they're basically running on like, this wasn't great.
Not enough was done.
Obama's positions that he had in 2008 would basically make you a Nazi, according to most of the Democrats.
Certainly a fucking homophobe, a racist for deporting people, a homophobe for not supporting gay marriage.
You know, I always had a problem with Obama for being a murderer.
That's a whole different issue.
It doesn't seem to bother too many people on the Democratic side, aside from the Tulsi Gabbard supporters.
Anyway, this is just, it's a one-two punch with the weight of a piece of paper behind it.
This is a very bad sign for a campaign that this is what he's got to run on.
All right, now let's there is one more message in there at the end, so let's play the rest of the commercial bullying president, strong, steady, stable leadership, Biden, president.
I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message.
Steady, steady, strong, stable leadership.
There's the final pitch, which finally involves Joe Biden.
So steady, strong, stable leadership.
So there's his pitch.
I'm the guy who's steady and stable.
The problem with that pitch is that it's not going to work for anybody who watches Joe Biden.
This is not how anyone who saw him in the debates or anyone sees him at a speech or answering questions from the media.
That's just not what comes across.
Steady, strong, and stable is not what you see.
In fact, you're more likely to see things like this.
Joe Biden gave us another fucking golden Joe Biden moment.
Let's play the next video.
Watch what happened when those kids from Parkland came up to see me when I was vice president.
They went under the, and some of you covered it.
All right.
There is Joe Biden.
Remember when those kids from Parkland came up to see him as vice president and a lot of you covered it.
Well, a lot of them didn't cover it because the Parkland shooting happened last year.
No, no, but that's in our reality.
But Biden's reporting on his reality.
I mean, it's a whole different thing.
Yeah.
Did I, I think I may have played that.
And his reality gets a touch kids too.
You know, it's a whole different thing.
Well, that happens in my reality too.
In my reality, Joe Biden touches kids.
No, no, but it's okay and they like it in his reality.
Oh, okay.
So there's the difference.
I see.
He's getting praised.
There's something, though, about this that I actually find.
And everybody knows him in his reality, too.
Yeah, well, that's true.
And they know his intentions.
They know how happy people.
But this is something that really baffles me a little bit because this isn't just like making a gaffe or getting something wrong.
It's that's a very strange thing.
You know, he's still traumatic since his son Bo died.
Yeah, maybe, maybe so.
Well, here's before his son Bo died.
This was a famous one.
I think I played this before on the show, but it's my favorite Joe Biden current.
Did you watch a little of him on the soapbox?
It looked like that was the soapbox stuff.
What?
Go back to the other video.
He was off.
It was going back.
That was the end of it.
I want to see some.
Well, here, hold on.
I want to queue up this other video.
This is my favorite Joe Biden gaff.
We may have played this on the show before, but this is the type of stuff that Joe Biden does.
And this is before Bo died.
So we can't blame it on that.
So here's Joe Biden being interviewed by Katie Curric.
The best ever.
Part of what a leader does to instill confidence is demonstrate that he or she knows what they're talking about and communicates to people.
If you listen to me and follow what I'm suggesting, we can fix this.
When the stock market crashed, Franklin Rosenborough got on television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.
He said, look, here's what happened.
So Joe Biden tells Katie Couric that when the stock market crashed, FDR got on TV.
And this was part of his point to say that leaders know what they're talking about.
Now, not only was FDR not president in 1929 when the stock markets crashed, but he never went on TV.
Never went on television his entire career.
So this is a weird, this is a thing that Joe Biden does.
He kind of lives in a fantasy world.
And there's something really amazing about this.
Like he feels so confident in himself that he can just start talking about these things and is not concerned that they're completely untethered from reality.
It's just like, yeah, and then this happened and then this happened and it went this way and it went blah, blah, blah, blah.
And like he, I don't know.
Know it's something about the greatness of Joe Biden that nobody will question or point this out.
By the way, Katie Kirk doesn't call him on that during the interview.
She just nods along and keeps moving.
Maybe part of it's also that Katie Kirk doesn't fucking know anything.
So she's just like, no, okay, sounds right.
I guess when the markets crashed, FDR got on TV.
Sure.
You know, but I don't know.
It's a very strange thing to say that Joe Biden to say that the Parkland kids came and visited me last year.
Like, really?
You're just saying that?
You don't.
You're like, in today's day and age, where if you make something up, you know, people are going to find out about it.
You, at the very least, even if you remembered in your mind that Parkland happened five years ago and not last year, you're certainly not sure that they came and saw you because you never fucking met these kids.
So wouldn't you be a little careful before saying that they came up with them?
Biden remembers kids when it comes to kids.
I sniffed some of their hair.
I was humping one.
I can remember the scent like it was yesterday.
Yeah, I don't know.
Very, very bizarre.
A very, very strange moment.
But this is, but this is the problem: is that, and the reason why I was really relating it back to that commercial is that his pitch is steady, strong leadership.
And that's going to become a problem when you're this guy.
Monday.com Workflow Trial00:02:40
And I just can't wait.
I mean, I can't wait for more.
There's just always more and more gaffes.
And it's not that any one gaffe is so, you know, unforgivable.
It's like a 30-second commercial coming up in the campaign of just all the moments.
All of them.
Yeah.
All of them.
One after another, after another, after another.
And your whole thing is, I'm not Trump.
I'm the steady, experienced one.
But you don't know basic facts and you don't, you're just saying things that are completely divorced from reality.
This is going, this is going to be a tough one.
It's going to be a tough sale.
But look, he's still polling pretty well right now.
So we'll see.
We'll see how long this lasts for.
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Google Study on Disinformation00:15:14
All right, let's get back into the show.
Oh, can you pull up, Brian?
I didn't give you this one before, but can you pull up Joe Biden's wife?
This was the best thing.
Just YouTube Joe Biden's wife.
And I think it should be one of the first things that comes up.
This was, by the way, this goes perfectly.
This will show you the strength of the pitch for Joe Biden more than anything else.
Here, just pull up the YouTube thing so I can see it.
Wife tries to help.
Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, healthcare than Joe is.
But you've got to look at who's going to win this election.
And maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, okay, I sort of personally like so-and-so better, but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump.
That was her pitch.
Do you think that's a strong candidate when that's what the candidate's wife is telling you?
It's like, look, you may not like him.
Are some people better on the issues?
Sure.
But we're going to need you to swallow all of that and just vote for him anyway.
Because, you know, it's him.
Because we just really want to win and be in power.
And I get that he doesn't represent you all or know what's going on, but we just really want to be in power.
Is he great on healthcare?
No.
Can he help?
He's terrible.
You're probably all going to die.
But, you know, it's his turn.
And this gets to the other point in the commercial that he made there, is that they say, and with no sense of like, no sense of their own audacity, they say, Joe Biden will restore the American soul.
This is kind of the pitch.
It's like Joe Biden is so great that obviously he's the one.
So yeah, yeah, you may have your little feeling about healthcare or whatever, but it doesn't matter.
He's the great one.
So vote for him.
Because the problem is that there's nothing great about him.
You actually see the person and you're like, he's the great one?
What the hell does that even mean?
Anyway, he's not even like, yeah, he's winning in the head-to-head polls with Donald Trump right now, but so is Bernie Sanders.
That's his big claim.
It's like, okay, well, you got another guy who can beat Trump according to your same logic.
Who is their favorite guy on healthcare?
And are those the same polls that made it seem like Trump couldn't possibly beat Hillary?
So I'm pretty sure the whole way going, they were saying it wasn't even close.
Yeah, this is all.
Am I wrong in that?
Wasn't the whole, like, it seemed like going into election night.
Well, that Nate Silver guy gave Hillary Clinton like a 90-something percent chance of winning.
And he's supposed to be this political genius and all these guys.
They were all saying the election's over weeks before the election of 2016.
No, yeah, they all got it wrong.
They got it very, very wrong.
And it also to me, it doesn't mean anything what somebody's polling against Donald Trump right now.
Like, yeah, Donald, look, Donald Trump is a very divisive person.
And he's polarized the country.
And the people who are against him are very against him.
And his approval rating isn't great.
It's still under 50%.
But here's what's going to happen.
We're going to get into a presidential season.
You're going to stand one-on-one with Donald Trump three times on a debate stage.
All of your issues are going to be hammered home every single day.
And then we'll see what happens when people actually vote.
And it's a whole different thing.
And national polls don't mean anything.
They literally don't mean anything.
I mean, Hillary Clinton did beat Donald Trump in the national race, but it doesn't mean anything.
Or maybe not.
Maybe Google fucking cheated and flipped around all the votes.
Who knows?
That was the thing that you were talking about with the That Trump quoted that study that showed that Google, you know, flipped votes.
I'm always a little bit reluctant to just accept any of that.
Well, I would say actually, you've no doubt.
Here's what's really interesting to me.
Firstly, I've read studies that said that all of the social media stuff had no effect on the election.
I've seen those studies published by some pretty big academics.
Okay.
Now, for the last two years, we've heard a lot about Russia collusion, which now finally has disappeared.
I haven't heard anything about Russia collusion, and I haven't heard any retractions about Russia collusion.
Isn't that amazing?
And I want you to finish your statement.
I want you to finish what you're saying.
But that just can't be overplayed enough.
It is unbelievable.
Like one of two I could accept.
Hey, we're not going to talk about Russia collusion anymore.
And also, we're going to tell you we really overplayed this.
We got this wrong.
Our bad.
But the idea that it's both, it's just both.
It's like, we're going to pretend this doesn't exist and no one's saying they got it wrong.
Everyone's like, oh, great job.
Great job reporting.
Anyway, that's in the past now.
What?
I thought this was the scandal of the century.
I know for two full years, they were able to make a big stink out of something and then just move on from it.
But yes, you're right.
That's completely, I mean, like, almost nobody's talking about it now.
And I mean, this goes back, this goes back a while, but you also had your whole Cambridge analytica thing and the fact that they and the okay.
So basically what you have with this election is you go, all right, this is the first time like the president could get coverage outside of the mainstream media and he was able to get directly to people through Twitter and they start reviewing, holy shit, how did this outsider get elected?
And it's partly because he can interact with people directly free of charge through social media.
Okay.
Now that's that's accurate.
But then they start looking in and going, hey, there was disinformation from the Russians.
There was all this disinformation on social media that persuaded the election.
We had Cambridge Analytica and all the things that they were doing on Facebook.
Okay.
Now let's understand that I believe the Trump campaign spent significantly less money than Clinton's campaign.
Way less.
Significantly less.
So did they strategize better, that they had a better internet marketing strategy?
Is that how they won?
Especially, and that would be an epic blunder considering the fact that Obama was the first person who did very well with social media.
And that's partly what won him the election.
So for a long time, we've been hearing this story about, hey, there's been all this crap that Trump's been doing that's online that isn't fair.
And that's what won him the election.
But then I got two questions.
So firstly is, has there been any study about what Hillary Clinton was doing online?
Because I refuse to believe that with all of her internet spending, she didn't have her version of a Cambridge whatever, that they weren't doing some sort of a study on Facebook.
Like, wait, you're telling me that there was information available from Facebook.
Facebook is gathering profiles on us, and the Hillary Clinton campaign had nobody who wanted to buy that information and try and market on Facebook.
So either they made an epic strategic blunder or you're doing a very one-side analysis of how people tried, what strategies people used during the campaign that in reality, both people were doing this.
And also, we know that it's one-sided because this whole idea of colluding with foreign governments to win the campaign.
So you're telling me Clinton wasn't working with Saudi Arabia?
But not even just the, look, not even just the colluding with foreign governments.
Even the other piece, just of Russian interference in our election.
So you're going to tell me that when the Russians buy some Facebook ads, this is a huge deal because it's got all of this influence and this is interfering in an election.
But when actual Facebook, the company, Twitter, the company, Google, the company are all obviously Hillary supporters and hate Donald Trump.
That's conspiracy theory to think that maybe that could have an influence.
So it's got to be one or the other.
It has, listen, everybody knows, everybody knows, nobody who's looking at this stuff, honestly, does not know that there is a left-wing bias across the social media companies, across the big tech companies.
Now, you can, different people feel different ways about that, but that is the reality.
I mean, you can be, look, even just the fact what Tim Poole called Jack out for when he was on Rogan's thing was he goes, oh, you guys are inherently biased at one point.
And they were like, no, we just have our terms of service that you can't, you know, like hate speech or something like that.
And he goes, okay, but you say that misgendering somebody is hate speech.
And they're like, yes, that's against our terms of service.
And you're like, right, but that's a political view.
See, you're so in a bubble that you don't even think of that as a political view.
But that is the left-wing view that calling somebody the biological sex that they were born as is hate speech.
Now, to a right winger or to a dissident voice or, you know, a sane person, you might argue that being transgender is misgendering someone, right?
I mean, you can, with biology on your side, make a sounder argument that somebody with a Y chromosome who's referring to themselves as a woman is misgendering themselves, right?
But my point is, like, I've known a lot of trans people in my life.
Like, I call them by the pronoun they want to be called by.
It just seems like the move to not be a dick to me.
I don't know.
Sometimes you fuck up and then you feel a little weird.
But I'm not like, you're not evil for doing it.
It's just, you know, you're kind of used to calling somebody, you know, the sex that they are.
But the idea that you're just going to say, oh, we can kick you off for this, this is obviously biased.
You may agree with the politics or disagree with the politics, but there's no doubt that they're siding with one side versus the other.
If you look at the people who get kicked off, particularly the people who have big audiences, it's outrageously one-sided.
So here's my bigger problem, right?
I look at it this way.
I'm very skeptical, and I think everybody should be in general.
You should be very skeptical of studies that claim to know things that if you just think it through, would be pretty difficult, if not impossible, to know.
Like, if you say this flipped votes, doing something on social media flipped X number of votes.
Well, how the hell do you know that?
You know, it'd be the most important thing.
I mean, we all take in a whole bunch of information and then make conclusions.
And who exactly knows what our decisions are motivated by?
Even if I were to say to you, well, I did X because of Y, that doesn't mean I did X because of Y. Number one, I could be lying.
Number two, I could believe that and be wrong.
People are not always super aware of what their emotions are.
You know, there might be some girl out there who's like, oh yeah, like I was a huge slut for like a few years, but it had nothing to do with my father leaving.
But the fact that she says that doesn't mean it didn't have anything to do with her father leaving.
And by the way, I'm talking about a chick that all of us know.
She's a slut because her dad left.
How do I meet this chick?
I'll give you a number.
The more interesting way to look at the information would be the way Tulsi Gabbard's campaign is suing Google, and they're saying that the fact that they made her website.
That is, to me, completely.
No, because they're saying the financial value of people looking us up.
So it would be interesting for someone to go, hey, I can see that you guys manipulated the results, that you broadcasted more of Hillary Clinton, and here's the financial value of how much support.
And I'm not a lawyer, so I don't even know the legal ground.
I don't know how it'll go in court.
But yes, if you're suing for damages, That's a different thing.
But I'm just saying to claim that something flipped votes to me.
See, it's not that I'm saying it didn't flip votes.
I'm just skeptical of the idea that we can actually measure that.
That we can actually measure what flipped one person where, look, everybody, everything that they do is obviously attempting to influence the way people vote.
That commercial that we just watched, Joe Biden run, is attempting to influence people to vote for Joe Biden.
If they didn't think it could influence anybody, they wouldn't be running the commercial, right?
That's why they're spending the money on this.
I already affiliated him with stability because I've never won.
So, can you imagine being stronger?
Stable, secure leadership, or whatever the fuck he said.
So, okay, so everybody's trying to do this.
I don't exactly get it.
It's like, well, now the internet is here.
There's all of this information out there.
Obviously, people are going to try to use that to influence you the way they want to.
The truth is that most of the time, you only really have a problem with it when somebody's influencing you into a direction that you don't agree with.
But I think it's pretty difficult to say that.
Look, like, I don't know exactly.
I don't know what extent that Cambridge Analytica stuff, what extent.
But here's what's interesting.
Where's the Hillary Clinton stat?
So, fine.
If I know that Trump spent X amount of money buying data off of Facebook, what did Hillary Clinton spend?
I refuse to believe that she didn't spend money and she didn't have a team that was doing flipping.
So, to say, like, I guess what I'm really arguing is a lot of this stuff is just the way the game is played now.
So, to point to one side and go, hey, how can you be doing this without a full understanding of, no, no, no, here's what both people spend.
Here's what both people did.
And here's why Trump's Trump was more successful in doing it.
I mean, that's kind of a fair analysis.
But this idea that like Trump cheated and did something nefarious because he did something that Hillary didn't do is pretty clearly not true.
Yeah.
And then what's most interesting with this one is I haven't had a chance to review this guy's Google study, and I agree with you.
How could he possibly know it?
It seems like it's false.
But the actual analysis of CNN and suddenly them going, hey, we have to understand some context to this claim is remarkable considering two years of bullshit when it comes to this idea of Russia collusion.
And there's no sense of the proportion of the like, okay, so you will be like, Russia interfered in our election.
We don't need to get context.
We don't need to know how much they spent.
We don't need to estimate how much influence interfered.
And that's that.
But then when Google, like not somebody buying ads on Google, Google themselves are fucking all ideologically conforming to one point of view against a particular political candidate and against a school of thought, like pretty much all right-wing or non-woke social justice thought.
That's like, well, you can't prove what the influence was.
So yeah, there's an outrageous double standard there.
And I'm not going to say I know how many votes that flipped because I'm trying to be consistent on my opinion.
I don't know if we can measure this exactly, but I am very confident that the actual companies themselves having a bias and suppressing dissenting opinions has a bigger impact than a few targeted ads or buying some information or whatever.
Street Clashes and Antifa00:14:40
I mean, look, just from people I know, like people that I know, like even, you know, Anthony Cumia and Gavin McGinnis and people like that.
These are people who are like, can't be on social media anymore.
These are people who had hundreds of thousands of followers.
Owen Benjamin, hundreds of thousands of followers.
They were seriously influential people.
Now, these are people who others look to for information, for insight to help shape their perspective.
Some of them, you know, have straight-up followers.
Like, like Owen Benjamin has hardcore followers.
Now, he's still got a lot of them.
But the fact that they kick him off Twitter or they kick him off some of these social media sites, what effect does that have?
Now, again, I'm not saying we can actually measure it tangibly.
It's hard to say, but it certainly has an effect.
You know, I mean, the fact that Alex Jones, who's got millions and millions of views, gets kicked off, that has an effect.
There are people now who aren't seeing his commentary the way they used to be.
So that, to your point, it's like, are we actually trying to look at this and measure both sides and see what's going on here?
Well, obviously they're not trying to do that.
Now, again, I'm very skeptical of anyone saying this flipped a vote or this flipped a vote because, you know, I just think people are it's just to me, it seems more reasonable to treat people with some degree of agency.
And I don't think that most people are going to go vote some way because they saw one targeted ad or one thing like that.
It's probably a lot of information that comes down.
There's a lot of stuff that's already there about who they grew up around, who they hang out with, what their family is, what their traditions are.
You know, like there's, I think probably, maybe I'm just estimating, but somewhere in the neighborhood of like 90% of people, I think their political leanings are influenced by who's around them, what's considered acceptable.
People just kind of stay in their lane.
You know, it's like if they want to, you know, there's a reason why there's red states and blue states.
And a lot of it's just because you kind of go along with what's around you.
And for most of the part, people just kind of think of the other side as the bad guys and their side as the good guys.
And that's that.
That's not to say that these things don't have any effect.
But look, it's the world we're living in now.
Like I, my Facebook, if I, if I go on Facebook, which I'm not on too often, but when I go on Facebook, if I'm scrolling down, I get tons of ads for baby products now.
They know.
They know.
It's baby clothes, toys, like all these things.
They're just, it's what's popping up.
It's like, I don't know.
I don't know if there's.
There's a real creepy one.
I was hanging out with Dave Temple the other day.
I like Dave Temple a lot.
Good guy.
Then I go on Twitter who recommend to follow Dave Temple.
They never recommended Dave Temple to me before.
How the fuck do they know I was hanging out with Dave Temple?
Hold on, what the fuck?
I'm telling you, man, I was having a conversation with Dave Temple here for like 20 minutes.
I bet like our phones, they fucking track you.
They see that I know him.
Well, I know that Alexa thing is fucking listening to people.
I used to have on my phone when I had an iPhone.
I'd wake up in the morning and like I could scroll down and it would tell me best route.
Like my phone knew my schedule and it was very helpful because they tell you if there's traffic and they tell you the best route.
But the other time it's like, I don't want you to know that.
That's fucking creepy.
Well, look, there is something though that it is for the most part helpful.
And I don't know.
It's creepy.
It's all just voluntary information.
It's on us.
It's creepy donkeys.
Yes, like you said, it's on us.
It's on us.
It is a little bit creepy, but it's also like you can choose how much information you want to put out there, how much you don't.
And the truth is that this is the future, man.
This is where we're going.
More and more of our information is out there.
We're going.
So, but I just don't.
I don't know, man.
I feel like, look, there are some nefarious things that come along with that.
We should probably try to...
It's good when people raise awareness about what they're doing, how they're listening, how this information is going.
Let people know that so they're aware of it.
And then you can kind of make a choice.
But it's the same way that people used to say, like, you know, commercials are like, you know, brainwashing the children or all this.
It's like, I don't know, man.
Yes, they have an influence on you, of course.
That's why they're doing it.
But don't park your kid in front of the TV.
Yeah, like it's kind of on you.
I don't know, man.
So fucking, like, that commercial was designed by a person.
You're a person too.
So as much as he can try to influence you, you also have the autonomy to be like, no, that's stupid.
I'm not going to buy that.
I don't know.
If Donald Trump did, you know, like, was smart enough to use data online to influence people.
It's like, all right, well, then I guess you guys got to try to do that too.
I don't know what to say.
Like, I'm not.
The problem with being outraged by it is that everything they do is trying to influence you, right?
So Joe Biden cutting that commercial is trying to influence you.
Me recording this podcast is trying to influence you.
CNN calling Trump a racist for two years.
All of this is an attempt to influence you.
So fine.
I mean, you want to talk about influencing people?
The fucking government kidnaps all our kids at the threat of violence and fucking educates, schools them for whatever, 12 years.
So I don't know.
I'm just not freaking out about those like, oh my God, this is such an outrage.
It's like, look, maybe you should be careful about the information you put out there about yourself online.
But the other side of it is, is that if you want to actually have this conversation and say, where is the threat coming from?
I mean, look, it's a lot, it's a lot more of an issue that all of these powerful companies, some of the most powerful companies in the world, all have a political bent and are all pretty much in line and suppressing voices from the other side.
That I really do have a problem with.
So I don't really care about more people buying data, more people buying ads, getting their pitch out there.
I just want people who are calling them on their bullshit to be able to be heard as well.
And I'm not asking for anything.
You know, I'm not like saying like, oh, Twitter should put me in front of more people or Twitter should like give me a bigger platform.
I just want the platform that I create.
I want them to not be taking that shit away from people.
And all that stuff with like, you know, like the shadow banning and the outright banning and suspensions and all this.
It's so obviously vastly disproportionate on one side.
I'm not saying nobody from the left ever gets kicked off, but holy shit.
I mean, Antifa still has Twitter pages.
Like I'm like arguing with the New York Antifa guys.
It's like, how the fuck are you guys still here?
You're a straight up violent organization that goes around like fucking, I don't know, like vultures or hyenas or something and attacks people in packs and like this crazy shit.
They're fine.
Yet Joe Biden's still running on Charlottesville.
Fucking, you know, like if there was a Unite the Right Charlottesville 2016 rally Twitter page, I think they'd be kicked off by now.
But they've got Antifa.
New York is still fucking up there.
All those guys, they organize online.
They'll plan out their next attack.
Dude, that shit is fucking bonkers.
Did you watch any of those videos from the Portland Antifa thing?
Yeah.
Bonkers, man.
It's a weird.
That's a weird fucking thing.
I don't even get what's going on there, man.
It's like you guys are...
Everybody's like.
Seems real big in Portland, right?
All the footage seems to kick.
Portland is like Antifa's, I think, stronghold.
Which sucks, you know?
It's so cool.
Portland's real.
Portland's a real left-wing fucking town, man.
But I just don't...
It's like these guys are playing out some type of fantasy.
I don't know what it is.
It's like a war game fantasy.
Making a difference.
Doing something noble.
Yeah, I guess they convince themselves of that.
But really, you can see there's this kind of, you know, I don't know.
But it's like, if I think about the Antifa guys, and I almost try to, you know, psychoanalyze, do some amateur psychoanalysis.
There's something weird to me where you look.
Look, I mean, if you look at the group of guys who are in Antifa, they're not exactly the most masculine guys.
These don't look like a bunch of guys who, I mean, you know, you've seen a bunch of the videos already, but let's just say none of them can fight.
in like a one-on-one fight situation.
These aren't guys who were like beating people up in life.
That's not who they are.
There seem to be a lot of like kind of beta guys who are steeped in this left-wing ideology, like straight up communism and whatever.
And, you know, they think they're standing up to fascism.
There are probably a whole bunch of them who have fucking been on medication their whole fucking life.
Like I bet you that's a big thing there.
There's like a lot of these guys who have been on like ADD medicine, antidepressants, like all this kind of, all this stuff that's kind of suppressing these natural tendencies.
You know, like if your tendency was to be hyperactive, you suppress that.
If your tendency was to be sad, it suppresses that.
Like all these different psycho psychotropic drugs that kind of like suppress these natural, you know, naturally occurring feelings or behaviors.
And there seems to be something where it's like they're trying to have some type of a masculine energy.
Like they're like, we're going to go beat some people up and then justifying it in this kind of noble thing.
But really, it seems like they're just having fun kind of breaking stuff.
And, you know, it's like a lot of these guys who weren't the tough ones who now can bully someone because that's what the whole thing is.
They fight like bullies.
You know, they'll find someone when it's like 12 on one and fucking start, you know what I mean?
Like jumping this guy.
There was one video I alluded to earlier where I saw there was the guy with a little girl and they're throwing stuff and like they almost hit this little girl.
And it's really, I don't know, man.
I don't even know what to say about it.
I was having a conversation probably like two years ago in a green room.
I think I'm trying to remember who it was with, but it was really interesting.
We were talking to it like when you're real young, like 12, 13, it kind of seems okay to be like shitty, like a punk and break shit.
And then something just shifts in your brain where all of a sudden you just realize like, I'm just being a jerk.
Like something, like, literally, it's like your brain is undeveloped.
And then it just hits a stage in development when you realize, oh, it's really.
And the other people noticed that the shift for them was when they started to own things themselves, they could kind of better conceptualize like, oh, really, like, like, at some point in your life, you never really own anything.
Yeah.
You just have your parents' stuff.
So you can't really conceptualize how much it sucks to have someone like break your fuck it is.
Oh, this capitalism's an oppressive patriarchal system that it's, you know, it's exploitive and blah, blah.
We're going to smash this Starbucks window.
Or the idea of like smashing mailboxes.
You go like, but like.
I never did that.
Do you ever do mailbox baseball?
It still sounds so cool.
You hang out a window with the baseball bag, you fucking smash people's.
And there's a part of my brain even, but then like when I was 12, you might think that's the coolest.
But now it's like, oh, I'm going to fuck up this guy's mailbox.
I'm going to have to go get a new mailbox.
Well, that's the other thing with breaking a Starbucks window.
It's like, you realize like tomorrow, like, someone's got to clean that shit up.
By the way, it's not the CEO of Starbucks.
Yeah, it's some dude.
It's some fucking janitor.
Like, it's some dude.
The dude you claim to be like trying to represent.
Like, he's got to do that.
He's fucking cutting up his fingers, trying to fucking clean this shit up.
Everyone else has to work twice as hard now.
Other people just can't get their coffee, you know, like in their fucking break.
It's like, you literally just fucked up a whole bunch of people's day, inconvenience their lives.
Just getting back to the Antifa thing, so I guess it's weird to me because they look like they're like 20 to 30, even older, that like they just don't seem to have that part of their brain yet.
Well, there's um which goes with what you with the med thing might be like some fucked up development or something.
I don't know.
I'm really talking out of my favorite.
I am too.
I'm just kind of speculating on this.
I don't really know, but there's something about it that you'd go like it's hard to not see that thing and go, what the fuck is going on here, man?
Like, why would you guys, it's not, it's like you could so easily avoid this confrontation, and yet you're going and seeking it out.
Like, you're, you're trying to be a part of this, you know.
It's also like that, the Jordan Peterson clean up your room, or I was, I kind of live by this one.
The best revenge is just a life well lived.
It's like, quit trying to fix the world with violence.
It's so stupid.
Just go live a better life.
Figure out your own shit.
Well, I mean, I completely agree with that.
And I think that you, you know.
Or suppress your emotions with sandwiches.
That works well too.
Another good strategy.
I just, it's weird to me.
I guess what's, and I've kind of always felt this way, but it's one thing for me, the idea of like getting in a fight, like a fight versus a guy, a one-on-one confrontation, or even like a one-on-two or something like that.
You at least feel a sense of like, well, I like I have somewhat control over this situation.
Like I got to land a punch and keep my hands up.
I got to beat this guy.
You know, like I can kind of see what's coming at me and try to block it and get out of the way and try to hurt him before he hurts me or whatever.
But the idea of wanting to be in a fucking 30 on 50 brawl where you have no control of being blindsided, just being hit, pepper spray everywhere, throwing things.
I really don't get why people want to jump into that.
But it seems to have its appeal.
And I don't know.
I also particularly with the internet and podcasting and social media, maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't quite get from either perspective, from the Antifa perspective or the Proud Boys perspective, why do you want to go have this clash in the streets?
You can kind of talk to people without doing this.
And I don't know.
Dangerous Psychology of Conflict00:01:33
I don't know.
You know, there's something maybe, again, just kind of speculating or just real amateur level psychology.
But isn't there something to where, you know, like we have amusement parks in rich countries.
Like people like, people who live kind of comfortable lives like to go do a kind of scary thing because it's kind of thrilling.
And maybe there's something like that.
Like these people kind of have very comfortable lives, but then they're like, oh, let's go feel like the rush of this is scary.
I could get cracked in the head.
I could, you know, maybe there's just something about that.
There's like the rush of it.
But it's, it's a fucking dangerous game these guys are playing.
A real dangerous fucking game.
And you could fucking seriously get hurt.
You could seriously hurt someone else.
You could get fucking arrested and be looking at a long period of fucking time.
And I don't know, man.
I just, it's crazy to me that people would be into that and just kind of like, oh yeah, let's go fucking go risk everything for having a little bit of fun.
And to your point, I mean, I don't know exactly what the age are, but they're too old for this to be acceptable.
Yeah.
They're not 15-year-olds.
Like, you know, you're way too old to be a part of any of this shit.
Anyway, let's wrap there.
It's good to be back.
Be back on Friday with a brand new episode.
Go follow Robbie at Robbie the Fire.
Listen to the Run Your Mouth podcast.
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Go check it out.
Come see me debate Nick Sarwak, chairman of the LP, September 10th at the Soho Forum.