Episode 1317 Scott Adams: Introducing the Anti-Violent-Idiot Party. If you Don't Support it, Well, Look at You
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Content:
Hillary's "pied piper" strategy that got Trump elected
Confirmed: Democrats and media colluded to paint GOP as racist
Diminishing White people and Republicans
Violent idiots are intentionally starting a race war in America
The Anti-Violent-Idiot party
Self-filtered immigrants
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Hey, everybody. I forgot to tweet this morning about this live stream, so we may not have as many people on here for a while.
Come on in, come on in.
It's just us for now.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better, even when you've got a collar on your shirt.
It's called the Simultaneous Sip, and it's about to happen now all over the world at the same time.
Go! All right, don't make fun of me about my collared shirt.
There's a reason. Doesn't matter.
All right, here's the news.
So now our experts are telling us that six feet of social distance may be overkill, and that maybe, just maybe, three feet is good enough.
And a lot of people are quite reasonably saying, uh, no, I'm not wearing shoes, and I'm still wearing pajamas.
The bottom half is all pajamas and bare feet.
But it turns out that there was no data for the six-foot guidance we originally had.
Do you think, therefore, that the experts did a bad job because they said six feet of distance when three feet was good enough?
Probably. Or at least there's no data to say six is better.
To which I say, no.
Remember, in the beginning of the pandemic, Everybody was guessing.
Everybody. The experts were guessing.
The leaders were guessing.
The public was guessing.
Everybody was guessing. So I don't hold the experts responsible for guessing that six feet was safer than three.
If you don't know, it's pretty reasonable.
Isn't that pretty reasonable?
Doesn't your common sense say how far does your spittle go?
It definitely goes three feet.
I don't know if my spittle goes six feet, but it definitely goes three.
I can hit you right here.
Stand there and see if you can feel my spray.
So I think that was reasonable.
Six feet, I think, was totally reasonably good sense that the entire six feet didn't make much difference.
Dan Bongino got picked to fill in for the spot that Rush Limbaugh left with his passing.
And a person who, if you looked at any one of his individuals, how much discrimination?
I mean, I don't know how you measure such things, but I don't think anybody thinks they not only overcome it, but they crush it.
Right? I think I can say that.
Isn't that a fair statement?
That the Asian American communities have been unusually successful despite unusually high discrimination.
So they kind of ruin the whole hard work doesn't work theory.
So let's talk more about this because there's a larger picture that's coming together.
So I'm going to give you a bunch of individual stories But then we're going to tie them together into this beautiful quilt.
So wait for the beautiful quilt part.
I'm looking at the comments and people are obsessed by me finally wearing a nice shirt.
Let me ask you this.
Should I wear a nice shirt every day?
Because I'm genuinely curious about this.
I feel as if wearing the actual shirt I woke up in, my pajamas, is more casual.
Oh, a lot of no's. I got one yes, a lot of no.
Sure, yes, sure, no, be comfy.
No. Well, okay, the no's win.
There you go. The decision is made.
The audience has spoken.
We're going to go back to maximum comfort, because that's how the simultaneous sip was meant to be.
All right, you got it.
Casual it is tomorrow.
All right. So I'll go through a number of anecdotes, and then we'll tie them together into a tapestry.
So WikiLeaks is reporting that the reason Trump won, or at least one of them, is that Clinton used media contacts.
In other words, she used the news, to which she had close ties, to elevate Trump during the primary.
And it even had a name.
It was called the Pied Piper Strategy.
And now there's actually documents...
Where you can read the Democrats' actual strategy.
And it's funny to actually read it, because it's stuff you suspect.
Maybe they were thinking that way.
But then you read it, and it's detailed.
And it says directly that their strategy was to, in the primaries anyway, in 2016, to promote these three candidates, Cruz, Trump, and Carson, Because they would be seen as too extreme, they would drive all the other candidates to the left, which would ruin the Republican Party, and that ultimately they would end up electing somebody for the general who could not get elected.
But what they didn't count on...
What they didn't count on is the last thing you want to do is give Trump extra energy.
Because Trump, as I've often said, is an energy monster.
You could call it anti-fragile, maybe.
I don't know if that really fits.
But if you give Ben Carson lots of attention, does he become a better candidate?
Or does it start to highlight maybe some suboptimal things about his policies or whatever?
I don't know that Carson was an energy monster.
How about Ted Cruz?
Very capable. One of my favorite politicians, just in terms of pure talent, Ted Cruz is among the top.
But he's not an energy monster, meaning that if you give Ted Cruz more attention, does he become more popular?
You know, to some extent everybody does, but it's got to be a matter of degree, right?
But then look at Trump.
What happens when you send more energy toward Trump?
He uses it. Trump actually, it's like he's an energy monster, meaning that he takes the energy that you're sending him, he reforms it, and then he sends it out in another direction that benefits him.
Who else does that?
Let me name some names.
Mike Cernovich.
Mike Cernovich is an energy monster.
The more energy you send to Mike Cernovich, the more he will reform it, send it out the way he wants to, and get stronger.
Who else is an energy monster?
Me. Me.
By technique. I don't know if it's something you're born with or if it's technique.
It looks more like technique, actually.
But the more energy people send my way, You've watched it right in front of you, right?
You've seen it with your own eyes.
I reform the energy into the form I want, and then I send it out the way I want it.
Not everybody's an energy monster.
It's kind of rare. AOC, somebody's saying in the comments.
Yeah, AOC is an energy monster.
Every time somebody says, watch this great criticism we have about AOC, this will take her down, and they send that energy toward her, she reforms it, sends it out the way she wants it.
She's an energy monster.
Never use the Pied Piper strategy on an energy monster.
Big mistake, right?
Somebody says Jordan Peterson.
In a way, I think I'll accept that one.
He's a different kind of character.
Bill Burr, good example.
Bill Burr is an energy monster.
He causes controversy.
People say, we're going to cancel this guy.
They send all this energy toward Bill Burr, and Bill Burr says, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, reform.
Here you go.
Who made me a little bit richer?
Candace Owens, perfect example.
Yeah. So you start to recognize the energy monsters, right?
How about this one? Pierce Morgan.
Right? Pierce Morgan not only walked off his show...
And it dropped by 30%.
But as of today, the news says it went down another 100,000 viewers.
He took 40% off of the profits and, well, 40% off of the traffic for his network just by walking off.
He's an energy monster.
All that energy and hate went toward Piers Morgan, and he said, boom, there you go.
40% of your audience just walked off.
How many job offers did Piers Morgan get in the last week?
Well, I don't know, but I'll bet they're pretty profitable looking.
Because if you can make 40% of your audience disappear just by walking off, you can get a very big offer for your next job, because it means you have, obviously, a following.
So that's the first story.
The first story is that WikiLeaks says that the Clinton strategy was definitely to promote these characters and also then to promote their extremism, making them look like racists.
So here's the first part of the story.
We know, it's documented, that the Clinton strategy was to use their media, their friendly media, to paint the Republicans as extremists, which really means racists, right?
That's part one. Now let's get to current news.
These will seem like separate stories until I tie them together.
Anecdotally, we're seeing lots of stories of specific, what looks like anti-Asian racism.
There's a video today of some gym fitness guy who was yelling at a woman in traffic.
They were in their cars and At one point he gets out of his car and he's yelling stuff and blaming her for the Wuhan virus, etc.
So he's saying racist stuff.
And she's recording him with her camera.
And then you see the fitness guy who's threatening her and saying racist stuff.
You see him say, you know, recording doesn't do anything.
Recording doesn't do anything.
And I said to myself, I don't think racism is the problem here.
Because she recorded him in 2021.
What happens when you record somebody saying racist things in 2021?
She killed him.
She used her phone and killed him.
Right? Because we knew his name within minutes.
I mean, that thing shows up on a viral video.
We know his name.
He's canceled. Right?
Her phone was as powerful as a gun.
Not in the death kind, but in his, let's say, his social and economic life, she just killed him.
And I don't give a fuck at all.
Do you? I don't care that she killed him.
He had it coming. He started it.
He started the fight.
She just ended it. She frickin' killed him with a phone.
2021, here you go.
So, what do you think about that guy?
Do you say to yourself, well, there's an example of a racist?
Well, yes, yes.
There's no doubt that you could label him a racist based on what we saw in the video.
He was saying unambiguously racist stuff.
But isn't there a sort of a larger story that's sort of peeking out?
That maybe he was...
I'm going to do a little cursing, do you mind?
Does anybody mind if I do a little cursing?
Because there's an F word that needs to flavor this story, and it just needs a little flavoring.
When this guy said, you know, recording doesn't do anything, he revealed that in addition to being a racist, and I don't think anybody can doubt this, he's a fucking idiot.
Because recording him saying racist stuff ended his life, basically.
So here's a guy who somehow in 2021 didn't realize that being recorded saying racist stuff in public was going to work against his self-interest.
That's not a racist just.
I mean, he's also racist.
It's kind of a fucking idiot problem, isn't it?
The guy was a fucking idiot.
Now, he happened to be white.
This might be provocative, and I'm not sure if you know the answer to this, but are all fucking idiots white?
I don't know. I mean, I read the news and it sounds like they are, but I don't think it's true.
I would like to think that the population of fucking idiots is somewhat distributed.
I would like to think it's not concentrated.
In one ethnicity. I mean, I haven't noticed that it is.
The news says it is, but I don't think so.
So, hold that story.
Now, put together the following things.
You've got the Pied Piper strategy, where the Democrats work with the press to make Republicans look like racists.
That's now documented.
And it's documented as a strategy as opposed to a truth.
It's documented as manipulation and propaganda by definition.
Then remember the fine people hoax?
Where you had these people who again appeared on camera carrying torches and saying racist stuff.
But when the president talked about it, I mean the racists were real.
But when the president talked about it, if there's anybody new to my livestream, I hope all of you know by now that the fine people thing was a hoax, right?
The president never said there were fine people on the racist side.
He clarified, I'm not talking about the racists.
They should be disowned.
But the hoax is created by cutting out that part where he says, I'm not talking about the racists.
They just cut that part out, and then it looks like he is talking about the racists.
So that's how the hoax was perpetuated.
So that fits into the Pied Piper strategy, doesn't it?
So once you see that the Democrats working with the press had an actual strategy, the fine people hoax fits right into it, doesn't it?
Now that you've seen the strategy, I'll start filling in the parts and you can see how well it worked.
Fine people hoax worked very well.
Now you see the CNN is trying to cancel Abraham Lincoln.
And they're running stories and writing articles about how his racial opinions were, let's say, complicated.
And they're trying to make him out that maybe he was a little bit racist.
A little bit racist.
Now, I would think that by modern standards, that's true.
He probably was...
I think that would just be an obvious thing to say, that you could pick really anybody from that era.
Just anybody. Even somebody who was famous for being an abolitionist...
Probably they were racist compared to modern standards.
So canceling Lincoln, what do you think is the point of that?
Do you think that they're running this because it's interesting?
Is that why? CNN said, what's the most interesting thing we can do that's not current?
So it's a historical thing that our audience would be interested in.
Of all the things that we could talk about in all of history, And by the way, CNN does really good historical shows.
They do a great job on those.
I really enjoy them. But why was it they picked Lincoln, do you think?
Now, part of it is because the statues were coming down and then some places were being renamed that had Lincoln in the name.
So he was a little bit in the news.
But it seems to me that there's a bigger play here, which is that Lincoln is...
Lincoln is the escape valve for accusations of white racism.
Lincoln is sort of the get-out-of-jail card.
So if you say, hey, you white people are all racists.
You did slavery.
You did however many decades of racial discrimination.
White people are bad.
But then there was Lincoln.
And Lincoln was a white person who was revered.
Who is most famous for freeing the slaves?
So he's kind of like a problem white guy, right?
Because he doesn't fit the narrative.
Do you know who else doesn't fit the narrative?
Successful Asian Americans.
Now watch the patterns start to come together.
So here are just two points.
Now two points can draw a line, but it doesn't really mean it's a pattern.
You can easily see false patterns.
So two things that look kind of similar, taking out the Taking out the counter-arguments, right?
Asian Americans being successful is a counter-argument to the narrative that everything is about race.
And Abe Lincoln is a counter-argument to all white people are racists because he freed the slaves.
So if you take out the hero and you take out the Asian American counter-example, you'll start to...
I'm not done yet.
Then you add the fine people hoax, start to see it come together...
The Pied Piper strategy.
And now we see that the, especially the New York Times leading the call, trying to make these anecdotal situations where there is a white person who did do real damage and violence to Asian Americans, to make it sort of a white supremacist narrative.
And so now we have this situation where the A young white guy killed a bunch of people in massage parlors.
Most of them were Asian-American or Asian.
I don't know if they were American, but I think they were Asian-American.
And the narrative is that it's racist.
Except when they talk to the guy, he doesn't have any racial motivation.
He said that he was a sex addict, basically.
He had a sexual obsession.
And he thought that the massage parlors were, you know, making it too easy for his addiction.
Now, basically, he's just a crazy guy, right?
Just a crazy guy.
But they're going to make it, they're going to try to turn it into, it's got to fit into the narrative as part of the all white people are bad and are hating Asian Americans just like Trump.
Because of calling that a China virus instead of just a virus.
And then it goes to the extra absurd level.
Because the sheriff who was talking about this case, Georgia sheriff, they found that he once made a China virus joke in social media.
So this is the cop who's handling it and talking about it.
So now he's cancelled.
Because he once made a China virus joke online.
Now, he didn't say Chinese virus, because Chinese would be the people.
He said China the country, which is literally the starting point.
Like other viruses that were named after places, doesn't look racist to me, right?
It looks Republican, but it doesn't look racist.
So they throw that in there, because they've got to smear this guy because he's white.
And then they go after him for what he said.
So he was talking about this, the perpetrator having essentially mental illness.
Not essentially, he has mental illness, obviously.
And that on the day of the shooting, he was having a, quote, bad day.
Now the context was, this was somebody who was on the edge, mentally.
And then there was one day that pushed him over the edge.
Does that sound racist?
What I just said? There was a person with mental illness, and then one day he got pushed over the edge.
Not at all, right? It's not even a little bit racist.
But I'll just word it the way this guy worded it.
That he said things had been going poorly for him, and then he had a bad day.
All the sheriff is talking about is that he was pushed over the edge that day.
That's all. That turned racist because saying it was a bad day minimizes the fact that he slaughtered six Asian or Asian-American women.
I don't know if they were Asian or Asian-American.
But that's not there.
This is just making some stuff up.
I've been eating some China food.
Somebody says, stop lying, Scott.
Well, let me solve your problem.
Look at that. I blocked you and you won't hear even one more lie.
Good for you. All right.
And then, of course, the Capitol protests have been hammered into the narrative that it has a white supremacist element to it.
Now, what exactly was that?
What exactly was the white supremacist element of the Capitol riot?
There were probably some people there who were white supremacists.
Do you think that any group of protesters does not have some criminals in it and some pedophiles and some rapists and some murderers sometimes?
I would guess that any large group of Americans has a good smattering of pretty bad people in it.
All right, so here's my take.
Putting it all together, you can see that there's a tapestry here in which the media is creating a story of white supremacy as the problem in the United States, and they're forcing all these anecdotal things in there.
And the way human brains are organized, we will easily see this pattern if they keep telling us it's there.
And so, of course, people are.
So largely the...
The concern about anti-Asian racism is real, of course.
Very real.
But it's now part of the narrative to make white people diminished.
And the Republicans who are in that category to diminish them as well.
Alright. And it's amazing to watch this develop.
So here's Here's what I'm feeling.
As a targeted person, so I would say that I'm in the target group, meaning that as a successful older white male, I'm kind of the enemy now.
I must be the cause of all problems, and just being in my demographic group makes me a problem.
And I would like to not be seen as a problem, so I would suggest the following.
I'm going to start a new political party.
We're not going to do any paperwork.
So it's a conceptual party.
Sort of like, have you noticed the genius of Antifa?
We've talked about this before.
They say we're Antifa.
We're anti-fascists.
So if you're against us, what are you?
A fascist.
So cleverly, Antifa came up with a name that makes everybody who attacks them a bad person, which was pretty brilliant.
Now take Black Lives Matter.
If you don't agree with the statement, Black Lives Matter, and you say anything that sounds racist to the people who get to define you as racist, like, hey, all lives matter.
Whoa, ho, ho, ho, you racist.
Don't come in here with your all lives matter stuff.
That's pretty bad.
Now, from a persuasion perspective, both Antifa and Black Lives Matter really did a good job.
You might not like it.
But they really did a good job with coming up with names and slogans, because their names and slogans are weaponized.
Pretty darn good.
And they both did it, and it both worked.
So here's the party that I'm going to start.
It's called the Anti-Violent Idiot Party.
Because there are a lot of violent idiots in the world.
Many of them are white.
And so am I. Have you noticed that?
There are many violent idiots in the world, and a lot of them are white.
Gotta say. A lot of them are black.
A lot of them are Hispanic-American.
A lot of them are Europeans.
There are a lot of violent idiots in the world.
But I'm anti-violent idiot.
And I would say that when I look at, say, CNN's framing of white people as the problem, I would say they're promoting violence, ultimately.
And that they're...
Yeah, it's the AVI party.
Anti-violent idiot.
So every time somebody takes one of these anecdotes, like this guy who shot up the massage parlors...
And tries to turn it into a racial story, you say, oh, I'm against you guys, because you guys are trying to start a race war.
And if starting a race war would be an idiot thing to do.
Because all the people who are the citizens don't know that their opinions have been assigned to them, and they've been assigned the opinion that white people are white supremacists and must be stopped.
So... Anybody who has that opinion is an idiot.
And they're a little bit violent, in my opinion.
Because even if they're not doing the violence, I think we all agree that speech can be violence if the speech sort of promotes violence, right?
Sort of a continuum. If the speech is what directly causes the violence, well, then the speech is part of that violence, right?
So I would say that the main narrative that the press is spreading, which is that white supremacy is the problem for the anti-Asian racism, is a violent idiot problem.
Not only are the press violent idiots, because they're framing this in the most unproductive way, to cause a race war.
What could be dumber?
Than intentionally causing a race war in the United States.
Like, raise your hand and can you think of anything dumber?
I mean, I don't know, raising taxes 200% might be dumber, but we're not really talking about it.
Of the things we're actually considering, what would be dumber than that?
Can you think of anything?
What would be dumber or more violent, in the way that words are violent, Then framing everything as a racial problem.
Nothing. There's actually nothing dumber than that.
So I'm anti-violent idiots.
So stop calling me white.
Because you know what I don't do?
When I see a story about some white people who, let's say, invented something or were successful, here's what I don't do.
Wow. Look at those white people go.
Never once.
Never once have I said, man, I'm feeling proud now because I'm white and complete strangers who have nothing to do with me, who are also white, did something cool on the other side of the country.
Yay me! I've never done that.
They just look like different people.
So I choose not to be labeled by my group.
And if you label me by my group and throw me in there and say I'm part of systemic racism, you're a violent idiot.
You're not a racist.
You're actually just an idiot.
Because a racist would have a little more thinking.
At least the racist is being selfish, right?
The racist actually has a philosophy of selfishness.
I want everything for me and bad for them.
Or they might have a belief that they're superior or something.
But it would be at least a philosophy.
The violent idiots don't have anything.
They're just violent and idiots.
So I'm anti-violent idiot.
You can be on my party, no matter your ethnicity, no matter anything.
There's no restriction.
You just have to be not a violent idiot.
So anybody who wants to make everything look like a racial problem is a violent idiot.
Because you're leading to violence and you're very, very dumb.
And let me say this as clearly as possible.
The violent idiots, for the most part, are not people who made up their own minds.
They're not. They're people whose opinions have been assigned to them and their brains are so weak because they're idiots.
That they just accept the narrative and run with it.
All right. Antiva, somebody says.
AVI. All right, that's my take on that.
Let's see, what else is going on? There's a 3D-printed community being built in Rancho Mirage...
So they're building an upscale community.
This won't be for, like, cheap little 3D-printed homes.
So they're building 1,450-square-foot single-story homes made from stone composite materials that's strong and fire-resistant and water-resistant and termite-proof and all that.
And it's, let's see, the Polari Group is doing it.
Now here's what's interesting about this.
They say they can make these homes far cheaper.
And you've seen the 3D printer that's like a giant arm, and it's just printing the entire house.
I always thought that was a bad idea, because if you wanted to change the house, and you always do eventually, it's like this 3D printed thing.
Like, how are you going to add a new window?
What, carve it?
I mean, it just didn't seem like a good model.
But this company is using 3D, but it looks like what they're doing is Off-site, or maybe on-site, I don't know.
They're making panels.
So instead of just 3D-ing the entire thing, they're 3D-ing the parts.
And then the parts are assembled more or less in a traditional way.
So if you needed to change it later, you just remove a part.
So that would be different.
So I think that they have a better model.
And I think they're 3D printing even cabinetry and, I don't know, maybe...
Maybe faucets.
Who knows? But let's keep an eye on this.
So it looks like it would only bring down the price maybe 25%, which is good enough for a really good business.
But I think that ultimately housing could be reduced by 90%.
So there's my prediction.
Housing costs could be, almost, with our current technology, but maybe with a little extra technology, I think housing costs could be reduced to 90%.
And that we will need to, because there's no way we can survive as a civilization unless we do.
You can't survive as a civilization when 80% of your people can't afford a home.
That's just not going to work.
So the border crisis continues.
I saw something that Tucker Carlson said, and he was referring to the people who make the dangerous and arduous trip across the border, the migrants or the immigrants.
Eddie, I think he referred to them, if I remember their words, like the boldest and most ambitious.
And I thought to myself, we've accidentally created a filter With immigration that is surprisingly good, accidentally.
Surprisingly good.
I've always said this about the United States, that one of our biggest advantages is that the people who came here first, the original founders and pilgrims and all that, were self-filtered.
There were people who said to themselves, I'm going to sail across this ocean, very dangerous, and To a whole new place.
Very dangerous. That's already owned by the Native Americans.
Very dangerous. We don't have any homes there.
There's nothing there. It's just going to be land.
And we're going to figure it out.
If all the people who were willing to take that risk and were capable enough, healthy enough to survive it, smart enough to make it work, haven't you sort of self-selected, really capable people?
Who are likely to be entrepreneurial?
Because whatever it is that causes you to leave your country and go across an ocean to a new world, it's got to be close in type to whatever makes you an entrepreneur.
So don't you end up with a whole bunch of people who are self-selected to be bold and entrepreneurial?
And didn't the United States grow up with that DNA? I mean, no matter what the ethnicity was or where they came from, we were skimming off the boldest, most capable.
Now, they didn't have to necessarily be the highest IQ, but that's not everything about success, right?
Success is also about risk-taking, your mental approach, your optimism, and all those things.
And I have a feeling, no, obviously bad people get...
I'm not going to minimize the fact that bad people get into the country.
So can we stipulate?
Will everybody be happy if I stipulate that open immigration lets lots of bad people into the country?
If you will also accept my other point, which is that the vast majority of people have this weird characteristic, which is they're pretty brave.
Pretty brave. They're also resourceful.
They're also ambitious.
They're also looking for a better life, and they're also willing to work hard.
What's that say about the future of the United States?
Now, I know that people who are racist are saying, wait a minute, you're bringing in the lower-quality, uneducated people.
How could that be good? First generation, there's something to be said to that, right?
Because they might be bringing in Less education than is the average, so on average it would look like it's lowering the average.
But wait a generation.
We are filtering the boldest, the most ambitious, the most hard-working people are all coming here.
If you don't think that's going to pay off, I don't know how well you understand economics.
And so my main point here is this.
Where are the economists in this discussion?
I feel like the entire profession of economists just took a vacation when it's the very thing they should be dealing with, which is how much and what kind of immigration is the healthiest.
Because I'm watching a comment.
Somebody says, oh my god, this guy is brainwashed.
I'll bet he has an Asian wife.
I don't. Let me say this.
If your sense of me is that I'm brainwashed and crazy, you're experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Which is, the things I'm saying do make sense, but it disagrees with you and it's causing you some distress.
And you're trying to explain your world that no longer makes sense.
And there are two ways you can explain it.
Is that there was something wrong with the way you were thinking before, or two, there's something wrong with me.
One of those is more likely to be true.
They could both be true. But one of them is more likely to be true.
And if you're having this feeling that's sort of like this generic bad feeling, that's like, this guy is crazy, or this guy must be lying, or this guy must be paid by Russia, or anything like that, Then you're experiencing cognitive dissonance.
And that's how you know.
Because your objection doesn't have a specific reason that just stands right out.
You just feel like, I must have an Asian wife or something.
Or maybe somebody's paying me.
If you're having any of those thoughts, that is cognitive dissonance.
And good luck with that.
So... The economists should be weighing in, and the economists should be telling us this.
They should say, under our current conditions, which is, you know, still recovering from a pandemic, current employment rates, current everything, current GDP, take that all into account.
How much employment do we need, etc.?
Consider our demographic trajectory, which is too many old people, but younger people are coming into the country, so Backfilling the older people with youth is good.
Where is that not happening?
Japan. Not happening, right?
So there are countries that have a real big problem because they have more old people than young people.
The United States would have that problem too, but we're accidentally solving it by bringing in a lot of young people over the border.
Now where is the economist, Republican or Democrat, or both, ideally, Who get together and say, look, given all this, the right amount of immigration from, let's say, the southern border is X people per year.
Because I'll tell you what the right number is not.
The right number is not zero.
Is it? And I don't think the right number is 10 million a year.
Is it? But if it's not 10 million a year, and it's not zero people a year, who gets to decide what it is?
Shouldn't the economists weigh in on this?
Shouldn't an economist say, look, for example, shouldn't the economist be telling us, I think we can handle, I'll just put a number on it, 100,000 per year.
I think it's a lot bigger, but let's say 100,000.
No, let's bump it up.
Our economy, given the size of the country, probably need a minimum of, I'll just throw in a number, just top of my head, 400,000 a year.
We probably need something like 400,000 immigrants a year.
Maybe it's a million. Maybe it's more.
I don't know. Could be more than a million, actually.
That would be an optimal economic situation.
I see somebody going, no!
Now, who would be against?
Let me just ask the question.
Who would be opposed?
Let's say the economists were right.
I don't know how likely that would be.
But let's say the economists were right.
And that the number of people they said should come in, doesn't have to be a million, whatever that number is, and we let in that number of people.
Are you worse off?
Do you feel that you would be worse off if we let in exactly the number of people the economists say will make us stronger?
How would you be worse off?
Somebody says, too many people, traffic.
You know, I think the too-many-people traffic problem may be working itself out because the cities are getting depopulated, and if you take away rush hour, you don't have the traffic problem, right?
Because non-rush hour traffic, except for LA, is not that bad.
All right. So I think the economists have something to explain about why they're missing from this conversation.
Because you and I don't know how many people should come over.
If you and I are arguing that we have too many people coming, or too few, based on what?
How could you say that there are too many people coming?
It feels like too many, right?
Like, just your common sense, you see the pictures, and you see all these people coming over, and then you look at our unemployment rate, and you say, wait a minute.
There's no way this is good.
All those people still have unemployment, plus the coronavirus makes everything worse.
You and I don't have the information to know whether this is good or bad or what level would be good or bad.
I would agree with your...
And here's where I say, by the way, if it sounded like I'm for open immigration, I'm not.
I'm for data. I'm for knowing how much is the right amount.
And I'm definitely for having a strong border.
Because the stronger your border is, the more control you have over what is the right amount.
You know, open the door bigger when you need more, close it a little bit when you need less.
So we should be treating the border like a valve.
That sometimes we open, sometimes we close.
Just depends on the economics, right?
And And why is there no leader explaining it to you like I just did?
Imagine, if you will, Democrat or Republican.
If I run for president, this is how I'll do it.
I'm going to say, this isn't a Republican-Democrat question.
It's an economic question.
The economic health of the United States requires some amount of immigration of some type.
Let's figure out what is the right amount.
Build a strong border and then only let in that amount.
And as we need more, open it up.
As we need fewer, close it down.
That's how I'd handle it.
That's called the high ground approach and would make anybody president if they ever used that approach.
Nobody will. Putin is interesting.
So I guess Joe Biden had said that Putin was a killer with no soul.
And Putin responded by wishing Joe Biden good health.
I wish you good health, the Russian president said.
Now, what could be scarier than Vladimir Putin wishing you good health?
I don't know if I've heard a scarier threat in my whole life.
Because Putin actually kills people right in front of you with poisoning.
He has his critics poisoned right in front of the world.
So he is literally a mass murderer in public.
He's like a smiling mass murderer.
And Biden called him out, which is fair.
And then the biggest mass murderer, who is also the head of a country, says, I wish you good health.
Take care. Be well.
That's the scariest thing I've ever heard in my life.
Oh, my God.
I mean, it almost sounds like Putin is getting ready to, like, poison Biden or something.
Hey, I wish you good health.
Enjoy your beverages.
When you're eating your dinner tonight, don't think about all the people I've poisoned for being my critic.
No, no.
Enjoy your food tonight.
Mmm. Mmm.
That's what it sounded like to me.
Canada. I love Canada.
Not only do I like Canada because Canadians are so damn nice, which is just true, by the way.
There's some generalizations that just don't seem fair, but one of the generalizations that's just always fair is that Canadians are nice.
They're nice. But this move had me laughing.
So as you know in the news, the AstraZeneca-Oxford coronavirus vaccine is being rejected by a number of European countries because they have anecdotal stories of people who had blood clots.
Now, the data says that there are no more blood clots with the vaccine than without.
So there's literally zero data to suggest that this specific vaccination type is dangerous, and yet European countries are banning it.
Canada is sitting over there saying, what?
What? Yes, Canada, there's a shortage of vaccines, and any country that could get more of the vaccines would be in good shape.
But there's a serious shortage.
However, there's not as much of a shortage on the one that...
The violent idiots in Europe, I'll just call them violent idiots for fun, believe is going to kill them with blood clots.
So the Canadians are over here, seriously?
Is Europe really being that stupid?
They're going to give us all these vaccines?
Because basically that frees up a lot of supply, right?
And the Canadians are like, let's just play this kind of quietly and...
We're not going to make a big deal about it.
We don't want to say unkind things, but I'm just saying that over here maybe we're going to use this vaccine.
So, thumbs up to Canada for seeing an opening and driving a truck through it.
That was funny. And why didn't we do this?
Was there some reason that the United States can't have this vaccine as well?
Where is Biden saying, oh yeah, give us some of that too.
If you've got some extra left over because Europe doesn't want it, send it our way.
So I think Biden's asleep on the switch on this.
So Canada, I mean, it's just so funny.
This is such a Canada move.
I would say the signature move of Canada is that they find an advantage that doesn't seem to hurt anybody else.
It's just so Canadian.
It's just hilarious.
All right. Biden got fact-checked by CNN's Daniel Dale.
I guess he had several statistical facts that were way off.
But none of them are really fun.
He likes to confuse millions and billions, which should worry you.
Because Biden often says, he said something about was 700, he said something was almost 800 billion dollars.
But it turns out it was 750 million.
So Biden is all confused in his numbers.
I can't wait for his first press conference.
So we all talked about the deepfake Biden video that is allegedly not a deepfake.
It's actually him. And you know the one I'm talking about where his hand seems to cut the plane of a microphone that seems impossible.
It's on both sides of the microphone, and it just can't happen.
And I saw a fact check on that, saying that it's not a deep fake, and the way you can tell is that the angle from other cameras shows the microphones and the hand, and so therefore you can tell it's not a deep fake.
But that doesn't quite explain what we're seeing on the video, does it?
Now, I get the fact that other camera angles show there's nothing weird going on.
But why does the one camera angle show the weird thing?
Because that's not explained.
The only explanation is that the other cameras don't show something.
But it does explain why this one camera does.
So... I don't think it's a green screen, but it's a fun story.
Rasmussen is reporting that 64% of likely U.S. voters say they oppose tax increases.
To which I say to myself, who answers a poll saying they like tax increases?
Isn't this one of those questions where it kind of depends how you ask it?
Because if you ask me, do I like a tax increase...
I think the answer has to be no every time.
Now, if you said to me, would you like a tax increase if what we were going to do with that money was X, Y, and Z, then I would say to you, oh, okay, there's some costs, there's some benefits, I'll weigh them, and I'll decide which one is more.
But if your question is, what do you think about a tax increase, sort of open-ended it.
I don't like a tax increase if I'm only looking at the cost.
How would you like to give me $1,000 for nothing?
I don't like that.
I don't like that at all.
Oh, I left out the part where I'm going to sell you my car.
Oh, oh, if you took $1,000 from me and you gave me your used car, that might be okay.
But if it's just the $1,000, I don't like that at all.
So I don't think that people can answer a question about how they like tax increases, because they don't know the details.
They don't know what they're agreeing to, basically.
But it is worth noting that now we have Biden is on the other side of immigration from the public, and he's on the other side of tax increases from the public, and way on the other side on both issues.
So, how long can Biden do things which three-quarters or two-thirds of the country oppose?
I've got a feeling that Biden might end up being one of the least popular presidents of all time, except for his clever trick of not appearing much in public.
What has happened, do you think, to Trump's popularity by staying out of the news?
I'll bet it's improving.
I bet it's improving. What's happening to Biden's popularity by staying out of the news?
It's improving. I mean, it's staying high.
It's sky high. So there may be something to the fact that the less people see of you, or let me put it this way.
I think the optimal situation is the highest level of name recognition with the lowest level of current exposure.
So I'm working on this hypothesis.
That to become president, that's your perfect situation.
The most name recognition with the least daily attention.
Because the nature of the news is criticism.
If things are going well, there's no news to that.
So the more you're in the news, the more you're being criticized.
If you're already famous...
You're not getting more famous, so there's no benefit from the extra attention.
It's only extra criticisms.
So I think that might be the only way to become president.
So if I ran for president, the strategy would be the same, which would be I have reasonably high name recognition.
Most people have heard of the comic strip, at least.
So I would have high name recognition, and I would barely ever appear in public.
I wouldn't even do campaigning.
I wouldn't do a stump speech.
I would do maybe one interview a week.
I would take questions from the public and the press.
I would do a real thorough press conference kind of thing.
And that's it. And then you wouldn't see me again for six days.
And everybody would say, damn it, he's running for president.
Where is he? And I'd say, I'm home.
Well, what are you doing? I don't know.
What I do usually. Nothing different.
But one day a week, you're going to get to see me.
I feel like that's the formula that works now because of the nature of the news.
You want to be famous, but not in the news.
Yeah, and you're seeing Kamala Harris is following the same pattern.
Kamala Harris is basically just invisible.
And that definitely works in her favor.
Because she's got the weird cackle and anything she does is going to invite criticism.
So she's just going to be that name that gets mentioned a lot, but not in any important way.
Will the stock market crash if he quits?
You mean Biden?
No, I don't think the stock market would crash.
Okay. That's how Led Zeppelin developed its aura of mystery and vague menace in the 70s, by avoiding the press.
Somebody says, this is all so damn ridiculous.
It is. You know, I would be the only person who ran for president by telling you all of my personal faults.
I think most politicians run for president by hiding and minimizing their faults.
I don't think I would do that.
Because it feels like that's just going to cause trouble later.
I would rather run for president telling you all my faults.
And if somebody has some extra ones, throw them on too.
If I can't win the presidency with all of my faults, my personal mistakes or anything I've done in the past...
If I can't win anyway, then I shouldn't be president.
So I'm not even going to fight that stuff.
I'm going to let you know. I'm just going to let you know all the bad stuff, and then I'll tell you how I would handle the job.
I would tell you the systems I would use, the transparency I would bring, how I would do public debates that I managed in front of the public, and I would just tell you the system I'd use.
And that's it. Somebody says, too many voters wouldn't get it, and you'd lose.
Well, I would say that falls into the category of how well you execute.
There are lots of things that look like bad ideas or good ideas, and all that matters is how well you execute it.
So I don't believe there are too many people who could execute the strategy that I just described.
But I'm one of them.
There's some specific people who could pull that off, and I'm one of them.
Location value, can I explain it to you?
I don't understand that. Some of your comments seem so off-target.
A high percentage of voters vote purely on party lines.
Exactly. Do you know what I would do then?
I would run as a Democrat.
I would run as a Democrat.
Because my greatest base of support is Republican.
Right? So that would be the right strategy.
Because I've said from the beginning, I'm left of Bernie, just better at math, meaning that I like the systems that Republicans favor, but I like the goals of having a fair, good life for everybody that the Democrats are much better at expressing.
They're far better at expressing where we want to be, but they're way worse at expressing how to get there.
And I would just take the best things from the two parties, put them together.
The public would be arguing all day long if I'm a Democrat or a Republican.
They would be arguing all day, is he really a Democrat?
Because why was he so pro-Trump?
That can't be. And then the Republicans would be, well, I thought he was sort of on our side, but then he's running as a Democrat, and that doesn't make any sense.
But why are his policies not so Democrat?
How could he be a Democrat if he doesn't have Democrat policies, but he's not really Republican, but he was pro-Trump, we don't get it.
Right? Do you know what the strategy there is?
The strategy is you let people make up their mind what I am.
If I tell them what I am, the other side decides not to vote for me.
The day you say you're a Republican, you've lost all the Democrats.
The day you say you're a Democrat, you've lost all the Republicans.
But if you say, I don't know what I am.
I'm going to run as this one, but I'm sort of all over the map.
People won't know what you are.
And so they'll make it up in their mind.
And that's where you want to be.
We live in a feelings over logic world.
That's right. So I'm not suggesting that I would use logic alone.
You'd have to be persuasive.
And I have those skills.
Yeah, Trump, years ago in a Playboy interview, somebody saying in the comments, he said that if he ran for president, this was many years ago, that he would run as a Democrat.
He was a Democrat at the time, I think.
And I've always said that...
Trump, having been a Democrat, helped him win the election.
Because I think that if you can say, I used to be the other and then I became this, you at least have an appreciation for both sides.
Could an independent win?
I don't think so. I don't think so.
You'd have to have a party behind you.
Trump was to the left of everyone at the primaries.
Well, it depends on the topic.
Probably not on immigration, maybe.
But, you know, gay marriage, yes, probably.
Oh, somebody said Reagan the same.
Now, is that true? Remind me of my history.
Was Reagan a Democrat that turned Republican?
Yeah, I think he was, right?
See, I think that formula works.
I think it worked for both of them.
As soon as you can introduce any kind of ambiguity about what your political affiliation is, I think that works.
Yes? People are saying yes.
Okay. All right.
That's all for now. Oh, yes.
Somebody's saying in the comments that Reagan was an energy monster.
