Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein analyze the "New American Civil War," critiquing state overreach via mass surveillance and prison overcrowding while condemning mob violence against Senator Rand Paul. They argue the RNC succeeded by contrasting Trump's sharp optics with Biden's cognitive decline, noting Dana White's refreshing support and Ivanka Trump's transparency strategy. The hosts predict a Trump victory, asserting that without a debate, Biden cannot counter Trump's aggression, suggesting anarcho-tyranny may force citizens toward private defense as the state fails to protect civil society. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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War Against Optimum00:02:49
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
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.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Of course, I am Dave Smith, and of course, he is the fire, Robbie Bernstein, king of the caucs, internet working for now.
How are you, sir?
Well, we'll see.
I'm still in a war against Optimum.
This thing is ongoing.
They have yet to send these technicians over.
It's going to get ugly, buddy.
Robbie, great podcasters do not fight endless wars.
I need you to either win this war or I need you to retreat.
No, this is my new life's work.
I'm done with stand-up comedy.
I've retired from comedy and I'm now in the war against Optimum.
This is going to be your Afghanistan.
This is my life's work.
It's a quagmire, sir.
You can't get out of it.
There's no military solution with Optimum.
It does really suck, those goddamn, like, fucking monopolistic fucking rules where there's like so few options of internet providers.
Yeah, it's a shame.
State keeps everything.
They'll keep calling you, though, and going, hey, have you tried unplugging and replugging the box?
And then they call you again like they haven't suggested that or you have.
And then they send a technician over here and he's just standing in your apartment unplugging and replugging the box.
Yeah, you're like, it's 2020.
I know about the unplugging and replugging thing.
Like we've figured that out.
By the way, it really is amazing that that still works about 85% of the time.
Like with all this technology, how crazy it is, the fact that I have like basically a studio right here just in front of me in this little box and I'll be having problems and then I'll turn my computer off and on and you're like, oh, everything's fixed now.
So, okay.
So I wanted to talk on today's show about the Republican National Convention, the prime speakers.
It ended last night, of course, ended with Donald Trump's speech.
I want to get into that.
But first, before we mention that, I just wanted to say that on the last podcast, I very just quickly brought up that two people were killed and one other was shot in Wisconsin.
And as I said, I hadn't really looked into it at all.
I was kind of busy with recording Legion of Skanks and keeping up with the RNC.
Self-Defense or Mob Violence00:07:37
So obviously, for anyone who listened to that and knows, I didn't really know about the story.
It's actually a much more interesting and crazy story than I thought.
It involves this kid who had gone there, or at least he says he had gone there to protect property and to protect people during the craziness.
He ended up getting into an altercation and shooting two other people or three other people, killing two people.
Really crazy videos that have come out of the situation.
Did you see that stuff?
Yeah, I'm going to say this is my take.
This is another incident where since you don't see the whole video, I really can't give my opinion.
The kid's on the floor and two people come over to attack him and he takes him out.
As far as I'm concerned, if that's all that happened, people are attacking him and he's got a gun, that's self-defense.
And you really, you know, that's lucky that he had a gun.
Otherwise, they would have fucking stomped him out.
If prior to that incident, he did something where he was shooting at, then those people were heroes that they were trying to jump at a guy who's shooting at people.
It's really hard based on what I saw, which is just a video of him on the floor, people running over, attacking him, and him shooting them to just assign with my just reason of, hey, who do I think is being the figure?
Yeah, the whole thing kind of hinges on how it started.
There's from what you see in the video, there's really no question to me.
The guy who comes over and hits him with a skateboard or attempts to hit him with a skateboard, and he's on his back with a gun.
He clearly, by the way, had been chased away by the mob.
He's retreating and at least seemingly in that situation trying to avoid it.
And strips in hilarious fashion.
I mean, what a white guy, you know, shouldn't be out trying to get into trouble moment.
Yeah, we really.
But so that part of it clearly seems like self-defense.
There's another guy who comes over, kind of hesitates for a minute.
This guy had a gun as well, and then comes over to confront him with the gun.
He shoots him in the arm.
That part clearly seemed like self-defense.
Again, like you said, I think you nailed it perfectly.
We don't know exactly what led to the altercation to begin with.
Something was thrown at him.
I don't know exactly what it was that was thrown at him.
I do think, you know, I think it's reasonable for us to just kind of stick to the thing that we say with all of these things, where it's like, you really need to know more about the situation to make a conclusive statement one way or the other.
Of course, that won't stop a whole lot of people from making conclusive statements one way or the other.
The one thing I will say is that I've heard a lot of people who are defending, excusing the riots, basically saying things along the line of, well, what do you expect when cops are acting this way?
Obviously, people are going to be angry and it's going to lead to these situations.
I don't really find that to be a very compelling argument.
What I find to be a much more compelling argument is, what do you expect when there's riots like this?
Obviously, we're going to see more situations like this.
And we've been talking about this for like months now, that you're going to have people.
This is a country that has hundreds of millions of guns.
And there are going to be people who come out there and defend themselves.
You know, it's like a lot of people, particularly libertarians, like to point to the example of the rooftop Koreans.
You remember who they were in the LA riots?
There were these fucking Koreans.
They were fucking awesome.
Oh, they were.
The Korean businesses were particularly targeted in the LA riots.
And there were just violent mobs of people coming in and destroying these stores and looting them and beating people up and shit like that.
And there was these group of Koreans who were like literally protecting their stores.
They had a bunch of them on the rooftop, like marching back and forth with fucking, you know, like, you know, semi-automatic weapons, rifles.
And then, yeah, I don't know about that, but they were in front of the store and they protected their businesses.
And everyone's like, wow, that's really awesome.
Or at least everyone who's not defending the mob was like, oh, that's awesome that these guys defended their property.
But obviously, when you're doing that, it's like, okay, well, what's going to happen if somebody doesn't, you know, if the deterrent doesn't work of just holding your guns and the mob does attack?
Well, the obvious next step is that they're prepared to shoot.
And this is going to happen.
I got to say, I've seen a lot of libertarians, like a lot's been made of this.
And people are, you know, a lot of left-leaning people on the internet were saying he's a white supremacist or things like that, which there's absolutely no evidence to back up.
From all the video of the kid, he certainly doesn't seem like that was his angle at all.
Um, and uh, it's just you know, basically, white supremacist has become anyone we don't like and can't win an argument with, you know, here.
We'll just call him this name, and then that does all the work for us, which is uh bullshit.
Um, there were people making a big deal of the fact that he was 17 doesn't really mean anything to me.
Um, you know, in this context, I think he was a man.
I don't know.
Um, the fact that they were making a big fact that he drove a half hour to be there, as if they were presenting this as if that's like driving eight hours to be somewhere, like driving a half hour to be somewhere in the suburbs is nothing.
That's basically going to the grocery market.
Yes, that's right.
Most people who live in the suburbs, they're at least a half hour away from the city, from wherever they're going to go, where there'll be a thing.
So, that to me didn't mean anything.
Um, the fact that he crossed state lines, I mean, this is all like just like, uh, however, I think in one of the videos, you kind of see him like when he's just walking around fake patrolling.
It does just look like he's got that energy of hero syndrome.
Like, if I was a cop, I would have seen that kid and been like, Can you not be out here?
But he did have that feeling where he's like, I'm showing up into this.
I'm going to help out.
I'm going to get like, it just looked like he had that strut to him.
Well, this is a problem when you have, um, you know, you don't have it's like what people call anarcho-tyranny, right?
Where you have this big state that will come down and crush people, but will not protect you in the most simple, you know, instances where you would rightfully expect protection.
So, the idea of anarcho-tyranny, right, is like, or an example of anarcho-tyranny is like you have this militarized police, say, in New York City.
Um, you have all of these laws and regulations.
If you're opening a business and you have 52 people in there instead of 50, and they're not socially distancing and wearing masks, you'll be fined, you'll be shut down.
If you miss your taxes, you'll be shut down, your life will be ruined.
Um, but if your car gets stolen in New York City and you go to the cops, they're pretty much like, Yeah, that sucks.
You know, fill out a piece of paper, no one's ever going to do anything about it.
So, you have all of the kind of negative aspects of a big state, and you don't even get any of the protection for it, you know.
And so, what happens here is that you have the worst of all situations where the state basically declares a monopoly on protection known as the police.
State Monopoly on Protection00:02:20
And that police, that police organization doesn't protect property or people.
So, they claim the monopoly and then they don't do the job.
And so, they also don't allow the market to adjust to this and have firms or businesses or groups of people who will come in and develop systems and develop kind of protocols for how to defend people and property.
And so, you're left with just random people deciding, oh, okay, I'm going to try to do this.
And oftentimes, they put themselves in very bad situations.
You need businesses to start installing like home alone types boogie traps.
You know, you walk in, you get hit with a can of paint, maybe some flamethrowers.
This is you're describing anarcho-capitalism.
This is basically what I've been all about for a decade.
Okay, yes.
Home alone style defense organizations.
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Sheath Underwear Promo Code00:07:53
All right, let's get back on the show.
I'll say, though, it is, you know, I see, look, and this is just like completely speculating.
No, not speculating, but this is just me drawing conclusions and not even drawing conclusions.
Let me try to start over and rephrase all of this.
I look at the situations and the evidence that we do have.
I am standing by the fact that I say, I don't think we should jump to conclusions in these situations.
I think we should take deep dives.
We should look at all the evidence.
We should wait for investigations, all of this stuff.
Also, why is law more on the side of the angry mob?
Like, why is this kid instantly arrested?
Why is he going to have to really fight against extreme charges?
I can't tell you how many of the people who were defending Garrett Foster, I see condemning this guy, or at least staying silent about this guy.
And this to me just seems to be this crazy double standard where if you're a part of the mob, you get the benefit of the doubt.
And if you're opposing the mob, you get the opposite.
Like, I look at, so I see a video of Garrett Foster.
Now, again, I'm not drawing conclusions from any of this.
I don't know.
Maybe Garrett Foster was murdered.
I don't know.
I don't know what was in the head of that guy who is driving.
And maybe this kid is guilty of some crime.
I don't know.
And we're probably going to find out.
But I look at, I see a video of Garrett Foster, you know, hours before he's shot.
And he's basically like, yeah, fuck these bitches who oppose us.
I could point my gun at them and they're not going to do shit.
I wouldn't point my gun at the cops because that's basically suicide.
But these other people, they're too pussy to do anything.
And you're like, okay.
But then people will see that and go, he was just trying to protect people.
And he ran up and did this.
And it's like, well, I mean, that's, that's not exactly clear that he was just trying to protect.
Now, I don't know.
Look, you could talk shit when you, when there's a camera in your face and not really mean it.
And maybe he was trying to protect people, but that at least casts it into doubt.
You know what I mean?
Like, oh, I don't know.
He's kind of saying he's going to do this.
And then he does this.
It's kind of a famous last words situation.
With this kid, I see video of him.
And he's like, look, man, people have a right to protest.
I have no problem with people protesting, but I'm just out here to protect people.
I just want to make sure that, you know, businesses aren't destroyed.
There's video of him cleaning graffiti off of the side of a business.
And then he gets into a thing.
And these same people are like, he was just there to start shit.
And you're like, I don't know.
I mean, again, I'm not drawing like a conclusion from these snippets of interview, but it certainly seems to point in one direction versus the other.
And it's just weird to see people not only ignoring that, but actually having like the inverted response from what you would expect to those two pieces of audio.
So I don't know exactly what happened to this kid.
It does seem very likely that he was acting in self-defense.
If he was, then there you go.
The important of assault rifles that you can easily shoot them off your back.
Can you do that with a shotgun?
I don't know.
Well, he's also, there's also a guy who's attacking him with a handgun.
And, you know, that it seems like, yes, there, it's also, if you're at the range practicing, make sure you practice the post-trip and shoot because you never know when you're going to find out that you're uncoordinated and that it comes push to shove and you just fall on your ass.
Well, I mean, look, we can make fun of the kid for tripping.
I do have to say, he fucking, yeah, but he did a pretty good job once he was on the ground in terms of like defending himself at that point.
And he was able to like kind of take out people.
And the thing to me that like really did stick out to me, again, none of this is a conclusion, but what did stick out to me was that he very clearly in the video, there was this moment when the guy who had a handgun comes up.
He's running up toward him and he pauses because he sees the other guy get taken out.
And then he kind of pauses and the kid doesn't shoot him.
The kid's waiting.
And then he decides he's going for it, charges the kid, and the kid shoots him in the arm.
And that just to me kind of indicates that he wasn't just looking to be trigger happy and shoot people.
He was doing this because, I mean, you could very easily convince me that that kid feared for his life.
My, again, my guess in this situation, and I don't fucking know, but we'll hopefully find out more information.
But my guess in this situation is that this kid went out there with this idea that he's going to protect people.
I don't think it's the smartest thing in the world.
I don't think it's a great idea to go out alone with a gun.
Like, I'm going to be the one who fucking, you know, unless you're Rambo.
I mean, if you're fucking Rambo, get out there.
Do what you can.
But it's not a good idea to think you're going to be Rambo.
This is the type of thing I'd be much happier to see militias or something like that or some type of organization where you've got a lot of people with a lot of guns who are committed to keeping this peaceful and are going to handle it, you know, some type of plan of how to handle this in a way that de-escalates the situation.
So my guess is that he went out there alone, kind of with a little bit of a like, this is so badass and awesome fantasy.
But I do think it seems like, again, this is all my guess.
It seems like with kind of good intentions, like, oh, we're just, we're going to be out here and protect people.
People can protest, but let's keep it not violent.
I think he very possibly angered the mob and found himself very quickly in a situation that he couldn't control.
I think things were being thrown at him.
I think he was probably being threatened and cursed at by a mob of people, which is a very scary situation to be in.
And things got out of control.
Now, I don't think that that means that he didn't act in self-defense.
My guess would be that he did, but I don't know.
But still, it's just this is a terrible situation.
We're magically going to get more footage of whatever was before that at some point.
There's enough street cameras and cell phone cameras at this point.
We're going to get the footage of what happened.
Yeah, I think you're probably right about that.
But it's just, you know, it's like such a fucking tragic situation where you have like two people are dead.
Another guy is fucking, you know, shot.
This kid's life will never be the same.
Like this will be the moment that defines his life for the rest of his life, one way or the other.
And it's all just, I don't know, just seems needless and horrible.
And I just, I hope people realize that like the more these riots continue, we're going to see much more of this.
In the best case scenario, we're just going to see more situations like this.
In the worst case scenario, you're going to see a drastic escalation from this.
So this is, you know, another reason why this shit just has to end, just has to end.
So, I want to get into the RNC, but maybe what I'll start with is what happened right after the Republican National Convention, which is that Senator Rand Paul and his wife were surrounded by a mob as they were trying to walk back to their hotel.
Thankfully, they're both okay.
DC police had to come in and escort them back.
I don't know if you saw any of this video, but I just, you know, I don't quite know how to put into words how disgusted I am with these mobs of people.
I know I've said this before, but let me say it again.
I, you know, I know there's like some fucking group of bitch libertarians who will criticize me for saying this.
Disgust at Political Mobs00:02:39
I really do not give a shit.
On my on my things I care about list, they could not be closer to the bottom.
I think these mobs need to be put down.
I would prefer that they are put down by private gun owners and private citizens.
But if it's the state that has to do it, then it's the state that has to do it.
I don't care.
This shit needs to be fucking put down.
The idea that you'll surround a man who's with his wife, you don't even have the decency to be like, oh, okay, we're clear, all that shit about the left wingers like really caring about protecting women.
You know what I mean?
And like, oh my God, someone made an inappropriate comment in the workplace.
And that's a really horrible position for a woman to be in.
They have no sympathy for a woman, a mother, a wife being surrounded by a mob of people, literally being held against her will, having being cursed at, watching people get shoved all around her.
No, how terrifying that is, but a horrible thing to do to somebody.
Like, fuck all of those people.
I do not care.
And it's almost like, you know, it's an opportunity for some of these left libertarian types to look at this and go, oh, yeah, no, the mob doesn't give a shit.
They don't care that you posted something against racism once.
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Quit Nicotine with Lucy Co00:12:08
You know, like I'm looking at people on Twitter justifying this attack on Rand Paul.
And by the way, Rand Paul, who's been shot at, who's been attacked by his neighbor in the last few years, and they justified every last bit of it.
Rand Paul, excuse me.
Listen, Rand Paul is by their own standards, the best senator, certainly the best Republican they've ever had.
Rand Paul has been a fierce opponent of the war on drugs, a fierce opponent of mandatory minimums, a fierce opponent of all of this stuff, of mass incarceration, of all of this shit.
He gave a speech at the RNC.
He even condemned Joe Biden for signing the crime bill in the 90s.
He's like the, I mean, by their own standards, you'd have to admit he's better, and it buys him no favor.
They'll still attack, terrorize him and his family, and then cheer about it after it's over.
And do you know what the justification they were using was?
Because it was that Rand Paul voted against an anti-lynching bill because that's a random paul basically went, you know, it's 2020 and lynching isn't a problem and lynching is already illegal.
And this bill is like hundreds of pages long and it labels all types of things a hate crime that aren't necessarily a hate crime.
And yeah, I'm not going to support this.
So that's enough.
It doesn't matter.
You have to meet their entire agenda, even when it's complete horseshit, or they will look at you as the enemy.
So recognize, recognize them for what they are.
Anyway, I just, I can't explain, like, you know, it's like so many times, so these people, these left-wing types, you know, they'll speak like their rhetoric is all about how you have to be pro-woman and you have to, you know what I mean?
Like you have to like protect women and care about women's rights and all of this stuff and all these kind of empty platitudes.
I'm somebody who's like has a wife and a daughter.
I don't give out these empty platitudes, but I actually care about women and girls.
Like I'm actually, you know, up at night at 3 a.m. rocking my daughter to sleep when she has a cold or something like that.
You know what I mean?
Like I actually support my girls and like take care of them and love them and protect them.
I look at naked ones on the internet.
Yeah, right.
We're both coming from the same place here.
And to see somebody with their wife get surrounded by a violent mob, like the fact that you don't even have the decency to be like this guy's with his family right now.
It's just, I can't tell you.
I want that shit put down any way it needs to be put down.
And obviously I have my preferences for how it would be handled, which would be by private citizens.
But at this point, I really don't care.
I just, I can't explain how disgusting I find that shit.
And luckily, Rand and Kelly Paul are okay.
There's one like moment where they push a police officer down, and you can see Rand Paul with one hand holding his wife and the other hand goes over to hold the police officer up and check if he's okay.
And, you know, it's funny because, of course, you're looking at a senator and a police officer, and these are figures of the state.
And I'm an anarchist.
I don't like the state.
But if anyone can look at that situation and not see which side the decency is on, like the man who's like holding his wife by the hand and checking on a police officer or the violent entitled fucking pricks around them, surrounding them, screaming at them.
Why?
Because you don't like their politics.
So this is acceptable behavior now.
Those people.
And that's all I got to say about that.
Long term, those incidents I think are actually going to really affect the left and this crowd because, for one, you're going to end up with increased security costs, which sucks for all of us.
Like now they're going to have to start providing more security for senators, more police.
Like the long-term effects of you guys ruining your own cities is twofold.
One, some of the wealthiest people are going to move out and your cities are going to disappear and you're going to be begging to be able to move to where these businesses move to.
Like I heard Boeing is leaving Seattle, wherever they were in Seattle.
Yeah, I heard that that might be happening, which is interesting because that just says that there's a ton of government money in that town through that one business.
But regardless, I bet that's a pretty big part of the economy, and that's going to be a pretty big loss for them.
But then also, you got to think of the increased police costs when this is all over.
And they start like, there's no defunding the police.
They're going to be allocating more budgets for fucking military gear to be putting into these towns because like they saw.
But so you're both going to have an increased in like Rand Paul will probably get more security now.
So he can thank you guys for attacking him.
That he'll probably get like Capitol Police, which is like very similar to Secret Service escorting him everywhere.
So nice work, guys.
You probably just did Rand Paul a favor.
Also, they now have the ability to play this footage of guys.
If this mob feels comfortable attacking us, it's a war against all of us.
They're not even allowing us to have civil discourse.
We need to put an end to this.
This is what the other side wants.
They like, you want to talk about fucking not respecting democracy?
It's attacking politics.
Like that's not respecting democracy.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, absolutely.
That's the least of my problems with it.
It's just not respecting civil society or decency or like boundaries of morality.
But I'll say this.
But I'm saying it's going to become harder to justify that this is some mob that's out there protesting like when they're attacking senators like this, you know?
Yeah, no, I agree.
I'll say this.
One of the things that I'm pretty concerned about is the fact that these riots, although they have flamed out in certain areas, they haven't flamed out across the country.
They're still going on.
And I got to tell you, it's looking more and more to me like Donald Trump's going to get re-elected.
And then I think you're going to see real mass riots across the country.
And it's a bad situation.
It's a bad situation for the country.
That's me thinking Donald Trump's going to get re-elected.
Maybe that's a transition into.
Oh, did you see Nancy Pelosi's comment?
Yes.
Yes, I did.
Nancy Pelosi.
Well, listen, man, I've been fucking predicting this for a long time.
So I'm not surprised if you don't know what Rob's referring to is that Nancy Pelosi basically advised Joe Biden not to debate it in a ditchiest way.
Yes.
She said, don't tell Joe Biden, as she says it.
No, not it wasn't, but also that Donald Trump is so reprehensible.
We shouldn't dignify him like he's Iran.
You're not allowed to talk.
He's the sitting president of the United States.
We shouldn't legitimize him by having a debate.
Yes, I'm sure.
I'm sure that's your issue with having Joe Biden debate Donald Trump.
The issue is that it might legitimize Donald Trump.
The issue is that Joe Biden is going to collapse if he debates Donald Trump.
And I'll tell you, I'm still not completely sure he'll be able to pull off not debating him, especially after these conventions.
Go ahead.
No, I think you nailed it.
It's the hilariousness that we can't legitimize the person that the country wants me to work with.
Like, how are you?
How after that comment are you supposed to sit down and have a partisan meeting with this guy to come to terms on anything when you just said, well, I can't even legitimize his existence.
That is, you're basically saying, hey, I think that this should be a dictatorship with a lie image because the person that you guys are looking for me to work with, I refuse to work with.
And the hypocrisy of this coming from the leader of the party who's talking about the threat to democracy and undermining democracy, but you're literally sitting here saying the duly elected president can't be legitimized.
It's, you know, it's just the irony is astounding.
I got to say, I want to just start with Trump's speech and maybe about the convention in general.
But I'll say the one, the thing that the comment that I had made after the DNC going into the RNC, which to me just seemed very obvious, was that there was this unbelievable hand that had been given to the Republicans with the Democrats completely ignoring the riots across the country.
It's almost hard to imagine that in the midst. of these riots, you would have a national convention from one of the two major parties that doesn't even bring it up, doesn't even mention it.
And this was a big opportunity for the Republicans, and they took full advantage, full advantage of it.
It was a constant theme throughout the convention, and it was a major theme in Donald Trump's speech.
This was, you know, just, it was just there for the taking and they seized upon it.
And yeah, it's a big political win for the Republicans.
Turns out riots and property destruction, assault, looting, murder, arson, not that popular with the vast majority of Americans.
And the Republicans pounced right on that.
And rightfully so, rightfully so on every level.
Morally, it was the right thing and politically, it was the right thing to do.
One of my major thoughts on it was that I think something you said really turned out to be correct.
I think you really nailed it when you said when we were previewing the RNC and you said something to the effect of like, Donald Trump is just, he's a TV guy.
He's a marketer.
He's going to know how to present this thing in a better way than the Democrats did.
And that was just spot on.
I mean, Donald Trump made sure he had an audience.
He had a better looking backdrop.
You know, he came out of the White House, flags all around, a big crowd there.
He just, they really won the optics war of what convention looked better and more presidential than the others.
And I don't think that those things are unimportant.
I mean, I think that there's a reason why politics is all a show.
And you know what I mean?
Like there's a reason why, let's just say, if someone showed up to one of the debates in sweatpants, there's no chance they could be president.
Like it doesn't matter how well you performed at the debate, how many good points you made.
If you're wearing sweatpants and the other guy's wearing a suit and tie, everyone's just going to be like, no, that guy's presidential.
That guy's ready to lead.
This guy's not.
It's something about, it might be a flaw in the way our brains work, but it's something about the way human like social psychology works.
We're picking the alpha leader monkey and you have to present in a certain way.
And Trump did a much better job of that than Biden.
There's a really good book about that.
It's called The Selling of an American President.
It was following the Nixon campaign.
And I believe that Roger Ailes worked on that campaign, who was the guy from Fox News.
And that guy knew television optics more than fucking anybody.
But this book gives you a little bit of like the inside look into the way they built out the places where they filmed Nixon and the way that they had like these really controlled environments and like they pre-screened for questions and they made sure that like it was air conditioned so that Nixon didn't look too sweaty.
Like there was a lot of shit going on.
A big part of that was that, and I think I've told this story on the podcast before, but in 1960, when Nixon lost to JFK, it was the first televised presidential debate and he absolutely blew it.
He was like fucking sweaty and like looked like shit and JFK was all like, you know, JFK and fucking there.
And so people who listened to it on the radio all thought Nixon, not all, but they polled him and the majority thought Nixon won the debate.
But the people who watched it on television were like, Nixon was terrible.
Like Nixon refused makeup.
Like they were like, oh, we're going to put makeup sissy stuff.
Nixon's Televised Debate Fail00:15:44
Yeah, yeah.
And Richard Nixon and the city was like, that faggot away from it.
I don't need any goddamn makeup.
And like, John Kennedy is like, hey, give me a dabbler powder.
So he just ended up looking awesome and fucking.
And so, and they learned from that mistake when he came back and ran in 68.
So that it's anyway, that stuff does matter.
And I think the Republicans did a much better job.
I really got to say, just overall, I think the conventions were a huge win for the Republicans.
I just think they did a much better job.
Of course, the Republicans had the advantage of going last so they could respond to the Democratic convention where the Democrats couldn't do the same.
But they just, look, I'll say this.
I try to be fair and just analyze this stuff.
And I don't have any prejudice on it.
The Republican Party just actually has some energy because even the Democrats, as good as they are at lying, cannot support or really get enthusiastic about Biden.
Yeah, well, that's that's and so you're just you're just sensing the staleness that even they can't sell it.
Look, I said that I thought Biden, judging on a Biden curve, knocked it out of the park in his speech.
He didn't, he didn't, you know, fumble around, he didn't stutter his way through it, he didn't collapse at any point, and he gave a speech.
Now, yes, it's basically the same speech he's been giving forever, but it was very generic and kind of, you know, whatever, hopeful in America, basic shit.
But if I don't judge him on a curve and you just judge him front, it was like okay, you know, it was just an okay speech.
Donald Trump, and I'll preface by saying Donald Trump is not particularly great at these type of speeches.
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I will say, I don't think Donald Trump is very good, generally speaking, at these type of speeches.
Donald Trump, his ability, his unique talent is doing the off-the-cuff, unscripted, you know, kind of campaign stop speeches.
Just delivering pre-written remarks is not his.
He sounds like a bottom mitzvah girl.
Wow, Yes, he's not great.
He's not great at it.
But I will say, this speech, I think, and I think me and you might disagree on this here, but I thought Donald Trump gave the speech of his life.
I thought he nailed it.
I really think this, number one, it was just way more compelling than Joe Biden's speech.
It was longer.
I think he did that intentionally to kind of show his durability or whatever, you know, his stamina or whatever he would say.
He had, he was much more specific about actual policies.
He and he really roasted Biden in a way that Biden was not able to do to him.
I mean, the thing is that, and of course, look, like I say, I'm trying to analyze this and leave out my prejudices, but that's impossible to do completely for anyone, I think.
But the problem, one of the major problems that the DNC has is that they're hitting Donald Trump for being racist and incompetent and all of this stuff.
But there's just no power to this anymore because people have heard this over and over and over again from the corporate press every single day, from the Democrats, from Hollywood, from academia, from everyone.
Everyone says this stuff over and over.
And in fact, they say way worse.
They say they've been hearing for years that he's a Russian asset.
They've been hearing that he's literally Hitler.
So then after that, if you come out with incompetent, it's like, oh, it doesn't really have so much sting to it at this point, does it?
But what Trump was hitting Biden with really had sting, like really had sting.
No, nobody has really been standing up in this way and forcefully condemning him.
He was still able to get a few Trumpian, hilarious lines off.
I mean, dude, I'm a fucking stand-up comic.
For almost a decade and a half, I've been doing stand-up comedy.
You know, hanging out with like David Tell and Patrice O'Neill type people, hanging out with Jay Okerson and Louis Gomez and fucking, you know, Kurt Metzger, like guys like that.
You know what I mean?
I've been to a whole lot of roasts and like the roast battles.
Like I'm fairly hardened to the type of like, I don't know, like rough comedy.
I got to say, there was genuinely a moment in the speech where I'm watching Trump's speech and I actually went, oh, like almost the way you'd react to like a roast battle line.
But when he said the thing about, he goes, Joe Biden's been a politician for a long time.
He's been going around giving people hugs and sometimes kisses.
And the whole crowd just starts laughing.
And you're like, oh, shit.
Like, fuck, he roasted him for nuzzle humping everybody who he meets on the campaign trail.
And there's going to be a lot more of that stuff.
And it's just something I don't think, just like everyone else in politics since Trump's been around.
People in this world do not know how to handle that.
They just don't like, it's just something.
It's, it's, you're playing two different games.
You're playing the game of politics and God bless America and my policy proposal for this and this.
And he's playing roast battle.
And it's very hard for them to deal with that energy.
And especially because the country has become so cynical, so in bed, like the level of irony that people expect in their movies and their commercials and things like this.
It's just, it plays well to that audience.
I don't think it would play well to a 1950s audience, but it plays really well to 2020.
Anyway, look, Donald Trump came out and made a very strong pitch.
His pitch was basically, we love this country and the other side doesn't.
And I know that kind of traditionally would be the type of thing that Republicans would say.
And a lot of people would roll their eyes at it or even think it's unfair.
You know, it'd be like, oh, well, this guy might disagree with you, but you can't say he hates the country.
But I think it really resonates in the current time right now.
He went out there.
So he starts right away by talking about the greatness of America and great American figures.
You know, he's like, we're celebrating Andrew Jackson.
We're celebrating Teddy Roosevelt.
A lot of these figures I don't particularly like.
So this isn't my bias inserted there, but he is making the pitch that while the other side wants to tear down statues of that, I think they're great men.
I think this is a great country.
He said the Democrats look around this country and you can see it from their convention that they see us as a racist country, a sexist country, an unfair country that deserves what it has coming to it.
And I don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
I see the greatest country that's ever existed.
And that's kind of his pitch.
And we will not give up our Second Amendment.
We will not give up capitalism.
We will not give up our history and we will not let these riots continue.
He blasted Democrat-run cities for being where these riots have gotten out of control and said that they could be put down in a second.
And he's waiting.
He said, as soon as they're willing to ask me to, I will have these things put down in a second.
It was an interesting way to bridge the law and order aspect of his presidency or of his campaign rather that he's saying, right, because we were both talking about how, okay, well, you can say we need to put these riots down and have law and order, but you haven't really put the riots down.
And then if you do go put the riots down, they're going to call you a fascist.
So he needled it right in the middle and said, yes, I'm so law and order that I respect the fact that I don't have the constitutional authority to go put them down unless I'm invited in by the states.
But the second they invite me in, the riots are over the next day.
You know, like that was kind of his angle on it.
I thought that was very politically wise.
I thought, you know, his pitch about what he's done for the country pre the virus, you know, was okay.
You know, parts of it I liked, parts of it I didn't like.
But basically his focus was that this came from China.
Joe Biden is cozy with China.
I'm not.
When I first put on the travel ban from China, they all called me xenophobic.
If I hadn't done that, way more people would have died.
And this is now at their feet, not at mine.
You know, now I don't know how effective that'll be, but it was not bad politics.
Overall, I thought the speech, it just left you feeling like I looked at after that speech and I said, I think Trump's going to get re-elected.
We still might get a big October surprise.
We'll see if Biden's willing to debate him.
But I think Trump's going to get a big bump in the polls from this convention.
And I think that I think right now, if I had to put money on it, I'd put money on Trump being re-elected.
I don't know.
What were your thoughts of the thoughts were for fourth day of the convention?
I think three days of convention is enough convention.
They kind of patience when we went to four.
Also, I already popped my load.
I got to see the people I wanted to see.
I got to see the kid who confronted the Indian.
Got to see the gun orders.
I got to see Jim Jordan.
We weren't coming into a lot with day three that I was like, fuck yeah, I get to see this.
In a second, I do want to talk about Dana White because I thought that was interesting.
But first, let's just talk Trump.
I haven't seen Dana White's speech yet.
I wasn't able to watch that, but so I'm interested to hear your takes.
But first, just for Trump, so I went to the Trump speech and I did not watch it because just right off the bat, I want to see coked up fucking disco Trump.
That's the Trump I like.
Just fucking out there saying crazy shit, slinging the jokes.
I don't like Bob Mitzvah's speech reading off the thing with the.
I'm like, all right, whatever, fine.
I guess he's doing the presidential thing.
Fuck you.
You're boring me.
I'm here for the spectacle.
Let's make it.
So I honestly, I didn't watch his speech, but Dana White.
So firstly, Dana White just as like a sales guy watching a sales guy.
I love Dana White as much as I love the UFC.
I just love him.
I just think he's so fucking cool, the way he handles everything.
I'm a Dana White fan.
And then he's out there and he's doing, you know, basically the way he plugs for fights, but for Trump, which is fun.
But here's what's so fucking cool about Dana White is that you look at how many people have been trashed or how many people have to play into the Trump's erasus card in media and entertainment.
That's most people have to go the route of fuck Trump.
He's a racist.
And then you look at these other sports that are protesting games that they're showing up and putting down a Black Lives Matter t-shirt and just walking off the field.
And then you got Dana White, who's like, I'm fucking pro-Trump.
And here I'm advocating for Trump.
And here's why I like Trump.
And then it's interesting to see that has not affected the UFC.
You haven't seen fighters go, I'm not working here because this guy's pro-Trump.
So it's interesting as a model to see that if you're a strong enough personality, you can have your political opinions and you can also have your business.
And, you know, this is supposed to be a free country where if you like the president that I don't like, you're allowed to do so.
And so on that basis, I just kind of thought that that was refreshing to see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that was something else that Trump did mention pretty forcefully in his speech: the idea that there's, he said, we need free speech on college campuses.
We need to end this cancel culture where people are afraid to say what they want to say.
And I got to think that that is going to resonate with a large chunk of voters.
So yeah, I haven't, I didn't get a chance to watch the Dana White speech.
I will go and check that out.
I saw Ivanka Trump's speech as she gave a speech and led into Donald Trump's.
I thought she did a very good job of kind of like she did a good job of selling Donald Trump to the people who don't like him personally.
Like she basically said, you know, she was like, listen, I get it.
He used to beat me as a kid.
I get why people don't like this guy.
He's a creep.
He still smacks me on the ass and calls me hot.
I get why you don't like him.
It was so clear, by the way, that he's that she's his favorite.
Like it's almost like you could just see with the kids.
He's like, I love all my kids, particularly my hottest kid.
I love all my kids in this particular order.
It's Ivanka, then Don Jr., then Eric, then what's her name?
Like, he's just got, but, but she basically said in her speech, she said, look, you may disagree with my father.
I disagree with my father a lot, but you always know where he stands.
And you always know that he's going to tell you what he's thinking.
You may not like some of his tweets, but you know what he thinks, you know?
And I thought that was a powerful, kind of interesting way to present Donald Trump, where it's like, okay, basically, like the subtext that's not so far removed is you're like, yes, this guy says whatever the fuck is in his head, but at least he's telling you what's in his head.
Like these other guys, you don't know what the fuck they stand for, you know?
Like, do you really think Donald Trump could be quietly a racist?
Like, do you really think that if those thoughts were floating around, it wouldn't be every other word out of his mouth?
Right, right, exactly.
So, look, anyway, I got to say, I thought that they just, I guess, my overall thoughts on it is I thought the Republicans pulled off in this COVID, you know, lockdown environment, pulled off a much more successful convention than the Democrats did.
I really think, and I've seen this going on in the media now.
So, I don't know if people caught, but there was a video of Don Lemon over at CNN.
Even he said, he said, you know, I think it's a mistake that the Democrats aren't talking about the riots.
And I think it's a real problem because it's starting to show up in the polls.
Now, a lot of people started beating him up, and rightfully so, for the fact that he says it's a mistake to not talk about the riots because it could hurt us gain political power, not because humans are being terrorized, beaten, murdered, you know, like businesses destroyed.
It's like, okay, fair enough.
Fact Checkers and Tough Questions00:07:43
That's fair to hit him on all of that stuff.
But there's something really interesting about the fact that that's making it into the CNN narrative now.
I think that this could really, the idea of not wanting to address the riots could really backfire on the Democrats.
Like I've been saying for months now, I have to believe that there's still a lot of normal, decent people out there who are just going to be opposed to this.
Like, I don't care.
I don't care how left you are or how right you are.
I don't care what you think we need to do with policy.
You can't just destroy neighborhoods.
That's not okay.
That's worse.
Like, that's worse than whatever your policy proposal is, you know?
So I have to think that a lot of people are going to feel that way.
And you just saw, look, Trump and Biden are both old, right?
They're both old men.
But as people know in life, there's different types of old.
And when you get to be that age, the age just affects people differently.
We've all known some older people in our life.
And you know, there's like an 80-year-old who you know who's like literally hasn't lost a step intellectually.
He is having a whole life.
So there's an 80-year-old who hasn't lost a step intellectually.
You talk to him.
They're as sharp as they've ever been.
They're brilliant people.
And then there's an 80-year-old who's like, oh, he's 80.
He doesn't remember things anymore.
He can't finish his stories.
He like gets confused.
And you just saw Biden and Trump, and they're just a different type of prepared.
And this is, I think one way or the other, this is going to really be exposed in the next couple of months, even if Biden ducks the debates.
I'm sorry.
Hot life and mannies.
That's the key.
Well, it doesn't seem to hurt for sure.
A lot of fast food.
With that cognitive decline, and I say this from my grandfather was a pretty brilliant man.
It kind of happens fast from when you first notice, like, oh, I think this guy's slipping to not being the same person.
So yeah, there has been a drastic change in Joe Biden over the last few years.
I mean, if you listen, if you listen to Joe Biden's speech at the 2016 Democratic convention and you listen to Joe Biden today, there's a big, big difference.
He looks it.
You see it in his face.
He looks it.
He sounds it.
It's just, and then you have to realize that if he's going to be president for four years, my God, what's going to happen in the next four years?
It's going to be crazy.
One last question.
So Biden was putting forward, let's have a debate, but we need a fact checker there.
Now, a fact checker at the debate firstly, I want to know who is this fact checker.
How do I know he's not playing for sides?
But let's say we do establish that it is an unbiased fact checker.
Does that actually work more in Biden's favor?
Because I would think if I remember in some of the earlier debates, specifically when he's talking about his healthcare policies and ignoring the costs on some of the things that he's putting forward, and especially with the war record, I would almost think that a fact check and the criminal justice reform, that a fact checker would not work in Biden's favor.
Well, yes, a non-biased fact checker or an unbelievable.
But we can understand that they would not be, that they would be biased.
It could.
Like it could work.
And listen, neither Trump nor Biden are really married to the truth.
You know what I mean?
So a fact checker there could hurt either one of them.
We know for sure that it will be a biased fact checker and that they will do everything they can to present Trump as lying more than Joe Biden.
That being, even with that, I think it could backfire on Biden.
Because even if there is a fact checker there who's going to say, here's the way these things tend to work.
Biden might come forward and say, we're currently on Mars and the fact checker's got to go.
It's actually Earth.
Well, here's the thing, right?
Even when they want to present it this way, there's an interesting dance that has to happen, right?
So, if you're in the Biden team and you want a fact checker there, you can't have a fact checker that will only check Donald Trump.
Like, you can't have a fact checker that will call Donald Trump out for 15 lies and call Biden out for zero lies, because then it becomes obvious that the fact checker is working for you.
And then it actually plays into Trump's hands in the same way that they couldn't have a moderator who only asks Trump tough questions and asks Hillary none.
What they need them to do is present as if they're asking both tough questions.
So, you ask Hillary three tough questions and Trump 15 tough questions.
And then you can kind of present as if, oh, I was grilling everybody and it just happens that Donald Trump's so much more outrageous, right?
So, you'd need a fact checker that calls Trump out on lies 15 times and two or three times for Joe Biden.
You know, that's how you have to do it to sell it.
But even in those two or three times, Biden might just collapse and Trump will battle all day long.
Call him a fact checker.
Okay, you're a fake fact checker.
You know what?
We need to check your facts.
I'm 100% true.
I've never lied once in my life.
Like, that'll be Trump's energy.
And Biden's energy will be, oh, come on, man.
What?
Well, what were we even talking about?
I don't, you know, like, it's just, so no matter what happens, no matter what happens, if these two men stand on stage together live, no cuts, no, you know, like scripts, it's just not going to work out well for Biden.
I don't see any scenario where it ends up that way.
And Trump is a, here's the thing, right?
This is what ends up happening.
And this is what happened with Hillary Clinton, too.
This is why Trump ends up doing so well at these things.
You can't be kind and cordial to Donald Trump if you're the Democrat.
You can't do that because your entire base is energized on this guy's fucking Hitler.
And maybe not quite that for the whole base, but basically that's like the sub.
This is an evil figure who has destroyed America and hates minorities and puts children in cages and all, you know, this shit destroys our country.
The worst thing that's ever happened ever.
So you can't go up there and be like, hey, look, Donald Trump's a good guy.
We just have a difference on the issues.
So let's talk about the issues.
You can't do that.
It's impossible.
Because if you do that, you undercut your number one thing that you have going for you that's driving people to the polls, which is that he's not a good guy.
We don't just have a difference on the issues.
He's profoundly evil.
Okay.
But then if you're going to go up there and call Trump names, well, now you're inviting Trump to a fight.
Now you're giving him permission to call you names back to fight back with you.
And this was one of the things that I found so fascinating in the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton.
If people, if like people don't remember this, but Trump would start really calm and he'd actually start kind of friendly and he'd wait for Hillary Clinton to attack him and then he'd instantly hit back, instantly hit back much, much harder.
All of the big Trump lines, look, the Trump thing, yeah, because you'd be in jail, which was the huge, that was a response to Hillary Clinton saying, it's just a good thing.
There's no one with his temperament in the office.
He's a brilliant counter puncher.
Like he just understands how to wait for you to hit and then smash back way harder.
And no one can really accuse him of just being mean and hitting.
I mean, they try to, but it doesn't resonate because, well, we saw you try to hit him and then he hit you back.
So Biden's going to be trapped if he debates him, where he has to forcefully come at him.
And then he's going to be inviting Trump to a fight.
And I don't think he can fight like that.
Biden as a Counter Puncher00:00:28
So, you know, we'll see what happens.
I think that the RNC was a huge win for the Republicans.
If I had to put money on it, I think Trump's going to get reelected.
Again, there might be a huge October surprise.
They're pulling out all the stops on this one.
So we'll see what ends up happening.
But I'm looking forward to watching and to talking about it with all of you good people.
Thank you for listening.
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