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June 21, 2018 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
18:41
Episode 112 - New Executive Order to Keep Families Together
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I've got a little cup of coffee here, but it's more of a reflex than because I need it.
Are you all watching the news?
The news is happening so quickly, I can barely keep up.
There's news all over the place.
News, news, news.
I'm gonna let a few more of you sign on here before we get going.
You're watching one of the most interesting things I've ever seen.
And I don't know if everybody understands exactly what they're seeing.
And maybe I don't either.
So I'm gonna give you the flash reaction.
If you'll allow me to back out of that, should I learn in 10 minutes that everything I'm saying is wrong?
All right, let us start with, as you well know, I had framed the situation, I think accurately, and saying that there were two sides.
One side wanted to keep families together and were opposed to children being separated from children.
And the other side was sort of in favor of child trafficking because that's what happens if you're not in favor of the other side.
There were only two choices. And then the president signs an act that says, we're going to keep families together.
And so people are rushing to me on Twitter to say, see, you said there were only two options.
We told you he could just sign a paper.
Is that what happened?
Did he make the problem go away by signing a piece of paper?
Do you think that's what happened?
Have you seen the detail of what it's going to take to keep all the families together?
No, you haven't.
So here's what I think is happening.
And again, I'm going to, you know, I'll adjust my opinion as information pours in.
So this is just the preliminary opinion.
The president was trapped with two bad choices.
Separating the children This is just the short run.
In the long run, I think we all agree, if we had lots of time and resources, we could get to a good place that everybody likes.
In the short run, it looked like he had two choices and they were both bad.
Separate the kids or create a situation where immigration looks like such a good deal if you bring in a kid, whether it's yours or not, and that would be even a worse situation.
But, because, and this is the fun part, And by the way, let me back up.
I don't want to use the word fun before I first acknowledged that taking children from their parents and putting them in cages, nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that.
That's bad news.
If we can avoid it, we all want to.
So we're all on the same page about how bad that is.
But let's talk about what the options are.
So the president caught between two bad choices.
It's either a bad choice, his base hated, or a bad choice that would get him, you know, the midterms would be a disaster, he'd get impeached.
Terrible choices. And the problem was that there were only two bad choices, but his critics were imagining, here's the key word, imagining there was a third choice, in which you could just sign something and the problem goes away.
Now the reality is, just signing something to say we'll stop, let's say, enforcing it the way we were, just creates the other problem, which is more people are incented to come in.
So there was no third choice.
What do you do when there are two real choices, they're both bad, and the public is demanding a third imaginary choice?
The imaginary choice is that you sign a piece of paper, problem solved.
That's all you had to do.
If you sign a piece of paper, all our problems go away.
The old problem goes away, the new problem, sign that piece of paper.
So what did President Trump do when he had two hard choices that were real and one imaginary choice that the public was demanding?
He signed on to the imaginary choice.
laughter laughter Ha ha ha.
He actually embraced the imaginary.
Because in this case, the imaginary was real to people.
So instead of trying to convince them that no, you're living in an imaginary world, of course I can make the families stay together, but that just creates this other problem that we're trying to avoid.
He couldn't convince anybody of that.
So what does he do?
The only thing you could do...
And by the way, I did not see this coming.
So this is...
I did not see this coming in any way whatsoever.
So he's embracing the imaginary choice.
What is the...
Now what's going to happen next?
What's going to happen next is that the news has to report what's wrong with his choice.
In other words, they're going to have to argue against their own opinion from this morning.
What are they going to do?
They've been telling him all he has to do is sign a thing that says keep the families together and it's problem solved.
So he embraced the imaginary and just signed it.
Now did signing that paper Make a facility appear in which would be suitable for keeping families together.
Did signing that paper create a new staff that are immediately in place to sort things out?
Did signing that paper cause the judges that we would like to add to the situation to transport from wherever they are to here?
Maybe, but I don't think so.
So here's what happened.
Because the president was very clearly focused on the long-term solution, which was terrible in the short run, had bad visuals and it was bad for people.
It wasn't just the visuals, it was bad for people.
Bad for the people involved, bad for the public, it was just bad.
But it was the stronger long-term play.
So instead of doing that, which he couldn't sell, He just signed a piece of paper, and now everybody's saying, what just happened?
Because that's what we asked him to do.
And then he did it.
So everything's fixed now, right?
Because he signed a piece of paper?
Which is what we asked him to do, because we were sure that would fix it.
But judges can't transport from where they are to here, and facilities don't just become available.
So what exactly does it mean?
Here's what I think happened.
It seems to me that the president was being blamed largely for his intentions.
You with me?
The big complaint about the president was not, oh, we have two choices, they're both bad, and you picked the wrong bad one.
It wasn't that. The real problem was his intentions.
So what did he fix when he signed that document?
Just his intentions.
Because it didn't change a damn thing on the ground, did it?
We still don't have enough facilities.
We don't have enough people. Now in the long run, we would like to have all of that stuff.
But in the short run, he fixed the part where they say you're not doing anything because he did something.
He fixed the part where they say you're not doing what we tell you is easy and you can do it.
So he just did it.
He's been saying it wouldn't make any difference.
Now they will have to argue against their own policy To figure out why it didn't make any difference in the short run.
In the long run, and the long run in this case could be just a matter of weeks.
It could be fairly soon, but it's still a longer run than today.
The problem was today.
So he managed to extricate himself from today's problem by joining the side of his critics.
Not only did he join their side, he signs a document just like they said.
And so, yeah, somebody's saying worst Hitler ever.
So now they have to hold in their heads, wait a minute, he's supposed to be a monster, but when it was pointed out that his policy was hurting people, he agreed with us and within a matter of days signed an executive order that is what people wanted.
Like Hitler! Wait a minute, that's not like Hitler.
So there's this insanely interesting thing happening here.
And again, when I say that something is entertaining or interesting, I'm not forgetting.
That the primary concern where empathy should be is with the families that are in dire straits, the kids being separated from their moms.
That's all real. I've been on that train from the beginning that that's an unacceptable situation in the long term.
So the president has now created A long-term solution because there is no short-term solution.
I mean, nothing's going to happen this afternoon, right?
Those kids are pretty much going to be where they are this afternoon, I'm guessing.
Unless there's some whole new thing we don't know about.
That's the part that would revise my opinion.
If it turns out there's a lot of detail on this that just hasn't been announced.
Then I will say, oh, okay, I'm wrong.
There was a bunch of detail, and that fixes the problem.
But I've been saying from the start that there's no easy solution, and then the president went and signed a document which tells all the people who believe there are easy solutions that they just got one.
In the meantime, They can work on fixing the situation, which will take a little time, a little money, little resources, might take a little congressional action stuff.
So they can start moving in the right direction.
But the president fixed the hardest part, which is they believed his intentions were to use the children as, you know, gambling or as pawns, etc.
And this action sort of takes that argument away from them a little bit.
How dare you, sir?
I'm not sure what that means.
So Peter Fonda.
So most of you saw Peter Fonda's, Peter Fonda's quote, But here's my take on Peter Fonda.
He's 78 years old and he's done some drugs in his life.
Probably still doing him, if you know what I mean.
I think we could just ignore him.
That's not a topic that has any resonance.
Yeah, we don't need to know if he's drunk or senile or old.
It doesn't matter. He's 78.
I hope I get a free pass when I'm 78 when I say some dumbass thing on Twitter.
It would be better than my current situation.
Uh... How absolutely dare you, sir.
Yeah, what we've seen, I've been wondering if this is biological or just strategic, but watching people try to be the most offended and the most sad about this situation, I hate to say it is a little bit entertaining, which again, Does not take away from the seriousness of children being taken from parents and put in cages.
That's all deadly serious stuff.
But it's a big world and at the same time watching people do public meltdowns so that they can be on record as being the most offended by this situation.
I have more empathy than you.
Oh yeah? Rachel Maddow cried on camera?
I'll beat that.
I can top that.
I will kill myself on camera to show how my empathy is greater than yours.
Honestly, it doesn't come across as sincere, even if it is.
It might be sincere, but it doesn't read that way.
It just doesn't look sincere, especially when you see them competing to be the most offended.
So you're saying that families will be released into the wild?
We don't know.
We don't know what details are being considered for fixing it.
Now, it's possible that the president didn't have a specific set of details, but maybe just ordering his people to go forward and fix it.
That could be enough.
It just won't happen this afternoon.
Was Van Jones crying too?
How many criers did we get?
Keep in mind, as I said on my earlier periscope, if what we're caring about is bad things happen to children, the world is full of worse examples.
And I didn't see anybody crying about them.
They're going to use old army base.
Oh, is that the actual detail?
Or is somebody just guessing that?
Has somebody seen details yet?
And by the way, just having a facility is still going to take a while to get this working.
That doesn't mean that the bus is just pulled up this afternoon and they're taking them to the facility.
I would imagine that there's a lot to do.
And by the way, the moment you get some new facilities and treat everybody well, does that create more people coming and then you need more facilities?
We'll find out.
What is the title of the EO? I didn't see it.
Geraldo is taking an empathetic view of this, and that's consistent.
He's always had a lot of empathy for the people in trouble.
Nothing wrong with that. Schools are vacant and can be used.
Well, here's the thing. It's one thing to say we have facilities that can be used.
It turns out it's very hard to actually do things in the real world.
So even if you had, let's say, a school that was a block away and empty, actually getting the rights to use that school and getting the lights turned on and figuring out how to manage it and all that, we're still talking about probably months.
But if it turns out that there's a fast way to do this, That would be great, but don't you think we would have been told what it is?
If there were a fast way to do it, to keep the families together from the current situation, you'd hear some details, wouldn't you?
So, I think that Trump did all that he could do in this situation.
It might be ridiculously effective, given the bad alternatives.
Because it puts him squarely on the side of his critics.
He just took their side and said, yeah, can't do this.
I'm going to sign something to make sure it doesn't happen.
Now, if it takes a while to get it done, at least he's fixed his intentions, and by then he'll be able to point to things that are happening in the near term that will get us there.
Um... All right.
I think that's all I had to say on this.
Not much more to say. Let's try to follow the news and try to keep up with this fast, evolving story.
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