AS260: President Trump

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 260, and I am your host, Thomas Smith. All right, I've got a lot I want to talk about today, but I first want to make sure I remind you guys of an event I'm going to be at that is quickly approaching. That's the Myth Information Conference number three, and that's going to be in Milwaukee. That's Friday, October 21st. The whole thing is from 1 to 9 p.m. There's also a VIP party after the whole event that I will be at, so if you want to spend a little extra and get that VIP ticket, do it. We'll be able to talk and hang out and all that good stuff. So, again, that's Myth Information Conference. That's Friday, October 21st, 1 to 9 p.m.

0:01:15 Thomas: The main event is Dr. Robert Price and Bart Ehrman are debating, so that's going to be really exciting. I'm really happy that I get to see that. And then, in addition, the speakers include Ali Jackson, some guy named Thomas Smith, Rob Moore, Dan Barker, and actually Matt Dillahunty will be moderating the debate between the Price and Ehrman. So sounds really cool. I really, I can't wait to do it. My talk, I'm hoping it's going to be funny, insightful, all that good stuff. You'll enjoy it. So please come if you can. I'd love to meet you. All right, just want to make sure I mention that because someone messaged me and had no idea I was going to this thing, which is not good. I should definitely promote these things when I'm going because this is my first one, so there you have it.

0:02:00 Thomas: All right. Lots to talk about today. I got some clips I want to play you, some stuff. It's been a while since I've done some commentary, so that's what this is going to be, and it's going to be about a lot of different issues, but mainly in the spirit of the Republican convention that's happening right now. It's about politics and Bernie or bust and that sort of thing. So let's hit that music Well, if I wanted to, I could very easily be a show that just covers all of the crap that Trump is doing that's hilariously awful, and sometimes a little too awful to be hilarious.

0:02:42 Thomas: There's so much. There's a 60 Minutes interview. I want to play part of it, just a very small part of that. But I'm not gonna belabor this stuff because I think you're seeing it everywhere else. You're hearing it everywhere. It's probably all over your Facebook, Twitter, whatever, Instagram, I don't know, newsfeeds. I'm not cool enough for anything besides Facebook and Twitter. That's how much I've mastered. I haven't gotten past that. But anyway, I'm an old man now, apparently, because I don't have Instagram and Snapchat and whatever else the kids are doing. But anyway, it's all over. And I think it's all over because one side, and this tends to be the side that atheists are, the liberal side, is very, very, very concerned about Trump and has no, has a limitless appetite for anti-Trump stuff.

0:03:32 Thomas: But having said that, we've all heard it. We know. We should know by now. I think I have very few Trump supporter listeners. It might not be zero. I think I've heard a few listeners of mine threaten that they're voting Trump for some odd reason or another. Please message me if you are. I'm very curious. But even if you're not voting for Trump, if you are voting third party or if you so concerned with the Bernie or bust kind of mentality that you are willing to risk a very real chance of a Trump presidency in order to spite Hillary or the system or whatever it may be, that's kind of who my commentary for a lot of today is going to be directed at because I see that all over Facebook as well.

0:04:18 Thomas: Bernie or bust is very real. I have a lot of friends who were somewhat shocked when Bernie endorsed Hillary as though that was somehow in doubt, as though he wasn't going to do that. And it really blows my mind because it was so obvious from the get-go, I guess. So then that got me thinking like, what is it in the minds of these Bernie or Bust people, which made it so shocking that Bernie would turn around and support Hillary? Because to me, it was a no-brainer. I mean, he had said, I'm pretty sure in one of the debates he said, They both said they would support whoever the nominee was, and it's just so clear to me that, sure, while there are differences between Bernie and Hillary, there are definitely things he hit her for, you know, different issues and money in politics, the speeches, all that stuff.

0:05:10 Thomas: It's such a simple, simple calculation that Trump is just far worse, and it really blows my mind that anyone could think anything other than that, unless you're an actual Republican, then that's not really who this is directed at, though. This is directed at the liberals who are so heartbroken that Bernie is not the nominee or one or the other. They're so anti-Hillary that they're willing to, if not vote for Trump, like I said, cause willing to contribute to the very real possibility of President Trump by voting third party or just not voting. I think some percent of this is like a cynical ploy, sort of like when you're listening to a religious debate, Atheist versus Christian, and the Christian will say, now I used to be a devout atheist, I was an evolutionist, and then you're like, okay, alright, sure buddy, I'm sure you were, you went to atheism church every day, but then you saw the error of your ways.

Some of it is sort of like that, where I see people who are pretty clearly conservatives who are like, well, now that Bernie's out of it, I get to vote for Trump, that sort of thing, trying to, or at least encouraging that mentality of not voting or being so disillusioned with the whole thing that it doesn't matter, in a way to sort of encourage Trump voting or to encourage Trump becoming president. I do see some of that.

Trump did that himself, so I think he kind of led. By the way, he talked like Bernie was some great candidate because obviously he was trying to keep him in the race to hurt Hillary for as long as he could.

0:06:54 Thomas: So that's pretty basic politics. But when Bernie endorsed Hillary and the Bernie supporters went crazy and, you know, essentially said Bernie's not Bernie enough for them anymore, it's, I was trying to think what it reminds me of. I think it's a pretty, I think it's a pretty classic trope, so I'm, it probably something more famous than what I'm thinking of, but what I did remember, for anyone who is a Firefly fan, I think this will be really funny. It's like in the episode, Jaynestown, where...

0:07:26 Thomas: This is really great for those who know it and probably terrible for those that don't. So I won't spend too much time on it. Just like 20 minutes. No, just a few seconds. There's an episode, spoilers from 2001 or whatever it was, there's an episode where a character who's really unsavory, he's completely not in any way like Bernie, He's just kind of a criminal and, and, uh, that sort of thing. He accidentally, when leaving this planet, he, uh. Had to drop some gold, some, I don't know, money or something that he stole in order to get away because the spacecraft was, uh, losing altitude or something. And as a result, he became this like folk hero, this legend in this planet. And this town is called Jaynestown and they got a statue named after him. And so it's pretty funny.

0:08:12 Thomas: I think, I think there's other, like I said, this is some sort of trope, but anyway, what, what ends up happening, which is pretty foreseeable, even if you aren't familiar with it is he goes down there, he finds, they find out this out, like there's this whole town that worships him. And then of course he exploits it for a little bit. And then, and then eventually it weighs on his conscience and he tries to come clean and the people can't accept that he's not a hero. He's still a hero to them. And no matter how much he protests and says, no, I'm not really a hero or the truth comes out, they still believe it and they have to believe it. And it's exactly like the Bernie or Buss thing. After Bernie comes out and says look, we got all banded together, we have to stop Trump, I am going to be voting Hillary, that's how it is, look, look, we lost.

0:09:02 Thomas: And Bernie supporters can't accept it. They're still going to take a bullet for him and they're still gonna write him in, write his name in when he himself will not be doing that come November. And it's really funny. I think you guys might recall that I was supporting Bernie. I voted for Bernie in the primary. And I actually, the funny thing was, I don't even think I said this on the show. A few months back, I decided to go to isidewith.com, I think is the website, and I took the test, I took the extended test, like the longest version they have, because you can take like different lengths, and I was kind of surprised to find out I sided with Hillary, highest of all the candidates, 92% to Bernie Sanders, 89%, which, you know, that's not a huge difference, but it did make me think like, oh, well, that's interesting that I was supporting Bernie and yet when I take a test, I side slightly more with Hillary.

I mean, there's more things to candidates than strictly their positions, of course, and one could make the argument that if you're just going by positions, then, oh, well, then you should just, then Trump's not all that bad, he just has a few different positions from you, but my argument to that is that he's on both sides of literally everything he says. I don't think there's even such a thing as Trump's positions, really. I mean, that's subject to change at any time.

0:10:35 Thomas: Now, you can make a lot of accusations about Hillary if she's been dishonest, and I'm actually going to get to that. There's two things that I really strongly dislike that I just found out kind of recently about Hillary. Probably won't be news to you. But anyway, I do think that she has lied. And from time to time and about certain things, but it would be an incredible stretch to say that she's completely lied about her agenda and that she is all of a sudden going to be like a Republican or something or she's going to all of the sudden be anti-gay marriage or she is going to ban Muslims, things that Trump has said he will do and then gone back and then said, like things he very realistically could do, that volatility is so much higher in Trump, someone with no track record.

0:11:22 Thomas: Nothing we can pin to him, it's just too much of a risk, and not to mention he has no business being president for a million other reasons. But back to the I side with, I would say the biggest thing that's turned me off about Bernie is he is so against GMOs, he's pro-GMO labeling, and he's done nothing but harp on that for the past, like, month on Twitter, it's really weird, he just all of a sudden decided to harp on it all the time, and that turned me of a little bit, but the reason I wanted Bernie, the reason that I voted for Bernie in the primary, was that he strikes me as an honest person. He strikes me as the most honest politician that I think I know of, at least that has run for president that I know.

0:12:10 Thomas: And I like that he walked the walk. He, you know, has one suit. He's got like a, he probably drives like a Ford Taurus from 1993 or something. No, I don't know that. But he just, he just seemed like he really walked the Walk of what he was, what his whole goal is, you Know, and that's what I like. I figured no one's going to get much done because of the Republican Congress, but, you know, he'll nominate the right justices, I'm sure. Probably wouldn't be too much different than Hillary. And I'm at least voting for a good guy. But now that he's not the guy, he's not the guy. It's that simple. There's no, it's astounding to me that this is surprising to people. I want to try to break this down a little bit. So let me play a clip here. I'll play a click that I think people, Bernie or Bust people have been referencing that That'll maybe educate us on a little bit of what they're thinking.

0:13:03 Clip: She has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote-unquote, not qualified to be president.

0:13:15 Clip: Well, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton, I don't believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don't think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC. I

0:14:00 Thomas: Okay, so there you have it. Back when they were both running, you know, back when it was closer, that's what he said. That was the famous not qualified thing. So, I've seen a lot of tweets that are, you know, Bernie says not qualified, and then all of a sudden now he's endorsing her, and I don't know if it's... It's... with the Bernie or Bust people, it really is almost conspiracy theory-esque, like they think now that he's one of the lizard people, like he was... he was a normal guy and then he got taken over by a lizard. No, not, I think only a small percentage of people probably think that. But no, they really are quite taken aback by this supposed change of heart of Bernie's. But what was he really saying there? He didn't say, blanket, she's not qualified to be president. That was a bit of rhetoric.

0:14:46 Thomas: He said, she is not qualified if she's receiving, you know, and he listed some things that he thought disqualified her, or at least rhetorically was saying, as a response to Hillary saying he wasn't qualified, which clearly he is, in the same rhetorical fashion, he was saying she's not qualified. There's a difference there. There is a difference between just saying, she's not qualified to be president, just apropos of nothing, and then using a rhetorical device, when she has said he's not qualify, then replying and using the same device. I think that's different. I we ought to be able to handle that in our minds that that's a different thing. But what was he really saying? That she's taken money from special interests? That she has a super PAC and all that? So why in Bernie's mind?

0:15:33 Thomas: And let's, again, we're pretending, let's think of these people. They're Bernie supporters. They love him. They were supporting him for this. So we have to assume they agree with him. So he's saying that disqualifies her. Why? Well, we can imagine the reason would be because she's now beholden to those interests. So she might act in ways that we don't want. She might do things that are more loyal to these special interest groups than they are to us. The thing that I think people are doing, that Bernie or Bust people are doing, or Never Hillary or whatever you want to call it, is they take on this sort of almost religious way of thinking, or this sort of very tribal way of thing, which is they spent all this time hating Hillary, and they've gotten it to the point where it's something more than it is.

0:16:24 Thomas: In the end, it still needs to be a calculation of what you think the right consequences are. What do you think, what course of action has the better consequences, or I guess the less bad consequences, if you want to put it that way. On one hand, sure, I, you could say Hillary is possible beholden to some corporation, I would say that it's It's not as cut and dry as it sounds, I think she took these speeches and got paid a lot for them in a time in her political career, kind of in between careers, in between positions, and I don't know, honestly, I don′t know how much that makes a difference in her agenda. I think her agenda is pretty clear. I don't see any reason to doubt her.

0:17:09 Thomas: Again, I did, I side with, do I think that she is going to out of... loyalty to these places that paid her a few hundred grand, you know, five years ago or whatever it was, is she going to change what she's declared as her position? Well, she will suffer political consequences for that if she does. It's possible, it's not impossible, but, and you can weigh that, I mean, you can assign a probability to that, you can do that in your own mind, but then keep in mind the other side, though, there's two sides to this, there's another person, President Trump, which, seriously, like, already, argument over for me, but just in case there are some still Bernie or Bust people, I'll enumerate it further. There's very real consequences to a President Trump.

0:17:56 Thomas: Sure, she might have some special interest groups that she's somewhat beholden to. Maybe she feels beholden. What about Trump, who just is a disaster? When he's not just saying whatever the hell he wants about anything and talking in a way that really is like a third to fourth grade level of speaking. I mean, just incredibly unintelligent, weird ramblings where he thinks if he just says, this is great, it's great, it's going to be great. He thinks if you just emphasizes the same adjective four times, then he's convinced us. It's a way of speaking. When I hear it, I cannot believe this person is a major candidate.

0:18:42 Thomas: He could be the president. I can't believe it. It's just, oh, it's the greatest. We got the greatest, it's good. I got, when I do this, it is going to be the best. Who does that work on? Who does he think that works on? Apparently, it works on people. This is where I want to bring up Sam Harris because Sam Harris comes up from time to time on the show. I like a lot of what he said. I dislike some things he said, one thing where he really, really impressed me. And I was very, very happy. The best. He's the best. I caught myself using the same word twice. I was very happy to hear what he was saying in this podcast where he talked about Trump because Because he has said, and it's a position I disagree with, I disagree that the left has created Trump and all that stuff.

0:19:32 Thomas: I disagree with that. He thinks it has. He thinks, and I'll get into that later. But anyway, so I just want to bring that up to say I disagree with parts of that position. I don't think it's right. But Sam Harris is also, fortunately, not a complete moron in that he broke down what Trump was doing perfectly. I think I'm going to find a clip to play. He broke it down in his podcast in such a clear way that is the reason I really like listening to Sam Harris is because he speaks so clearly and he's able to say these things that sometimes I'm thinking, but I would never have thought to put that perfectly.

0:20:12 Clip: And at the core of this, the core of what bothers me about Trump is the vacuousness of his speech. He will literally say the same thing three times in a row, and it was meaningless the first time. The problem is the caricatures of him are true. He'll say, it's going to be amazing. You won't believe how amazing it will be. It will be very, very amazing. This is an intellectual problem. Smart people don't talk this way. When people are speaking, they're thinking out loud. I am thinking out aloud at this moment. If you've listened to my podcast for a few hours, you know how I think. So when people don't make sense, it's not like they're thinking brilliant, incisive thoughts in the privacy of their minds, and then they just sound like dummies when they open their mouths.

0:21:01 Clip: Generally speaking, what you hear is what they've got. Yes, it's true that not every smart person is a great public speaker. And you can find great public speakers who are essentially just reading what some smarter person wrote. But it is significant that Trump never manages to utter a single extemporaneous string of sentences that is deep, insightful, or even interesting. This reveals something about him and

0:21:27 Thomas: Absolutely, I feel that perfectly sums it up to me. I think one thing that people like to do a lot for some reason is say, oh no, he knows what he's doing. It's always fun to have that sort of conspiracy theory kind of view that like, no, that person, they're a genius. They know exactly what they're doing. You're talking about him, aren't you? He got this far, didn't he? He knows exactly, it's a calculated thing. And I think that it can be true that Trump has a certain instinct for something, like he knows how to bully people and he knows how to bully the media and play off of people's reactions, but I think that's an instinctual thing that he's probably learned over a long period of time.

I don't really think that that's some inner genius he has. And I think what Sam said is right on. The reality of the situation is that he's never uttered a single sentence that was remotely interesting. It's all nonsense, isn't it? Seriously, every time I hear him talk, I want to do the Mugatu thing and say, like, it's nonsense. Am I taking crazy pills? Doesn't everybody realize this? It's nothing. He doesn't say anything. So back to the Never Hillary, Bernie or bust kind of thing. I do want to say that this is totally based on the circumstances.

0:22:59 Thomas: If there were a Republican candidate who was somewhat moderate, maybe like a John Kasich, although I'm not a huge fan of his, but relative to the other candidates, he certainly looked a lot better. He's very anti Planned Parenthood, so that's a big problem for me. But if there were a candidate who was something of a moderate on the other side, it would be different. I'm not saying that, uh, it's, it's always Hillary, or we, oh, she's a fantastic, she's the best politician ever, she's most qualified, I'm not saying any of that. It's completely dependent on the fact that there's someone who is a horse's ass on the other side who it should not be, be anywhere near the leader of the free world.

0:23:45 Thomas: He should not be near that position. It's absurd to even countenance the notion that he could be the leader of the world, as they say. This is someone with major psychological issues. He is some sort of narcissist. For real. Not just, and look, every politician is this to a certain extent. Every politician is self-serving, you know, but there's such a big difference and look at Trump sticking out as a champion among already a group of narcissists. Already a group who are probably, you know, pretty in love with themselves, people who want to be president. He's head and shoulders above the next person. I just read today, and it's looking like it's in the July 25th edition of the New Yorker, so I hail to you from the future, apparently, I don't know how that works, but I guess they posted it online early.

0:24:38 Thomas: I read, it's an article written, or it's an interview, I guess, not written by, an interview with a guy named Tony Schwartz, who was the ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal. So, this was before my time. I mean, I was barely alive. This was 1987. So, sorry, I couldn't do anything about it. But this guy, he, it's incredible. I'm going to link this. I recommend the entire thing. I tweeted it. It's a long-ish read, but it is so worth it. And it's, this isn't conspiracy theory. It's the kind of thing that I would be skeptical of. Well, I'm skeptical of everything. First off, I would, I would have cause to doubt an account like this if it didn't have so much explanatory power. It, it's like you're testing a different, you know, physics theory or something.

0:25:26 Thomas: This, this kind of thing, it's very disparaging of Trump. And it, well, it, it's hard to even say it's disparaging. It's just real. He just says, like, look, here's what happened when I tried to ghostwrite a book for Trump. This guy talks about it. He tried to interview him. He wanted to get to know about Trump's background and he couldn't do it. Trump is so impatient. He wasn't able to sit him down in order to hear stories long enough for any substance. So it was going to be a biography. He was going to ghostwrite his autobiography, and it turned into The Art of the Deal because he couldn't get Trump to talk about his background for long enough. He couldn't. He would get impatient with the questions.

0:26:11 Thomas: He would Get mad. He would storm off like he just has no attention span. The author says he's pretty sure Trump hasn't read a book in his adult life. This is, like Sam Harris said, this is a profoundly uncurious person. It's, it's amazing. And the way he describes it, read it, read the article for yourself. I really, I believe it because it goes, it explains so much. He, the guy is, he has problems. Trump has problems, he's only interested in self-promotion. That's all it is. Is. That's why, remember back a few episodes ago, it was probably like a few months ago, actually, where I complained about everyone saying, I don't get it with Trump running for president. It's going to be a joke, right? It'll turn out to be an episode. It'll be a prank, right, a joke.

0:26:58 Thomas: That's what I never had any patience for. No, he wants to be the most powerful guy. He wants to be the guy. He's going to do whatever he can to be THE guy. It it's the highest office. You know, maybe that was a shoeshine episode. I'm blanking now because it's been a few few months. But I said it somewhere. I kept hearing my friends saying this, like, oh, it'll be a joke. He'll just say it's not real. No, of course it's real. Nothing he says is real, really, because he's saying whatever he can to get elected. He doesn't really have any positions on stuff that I can tell. I mean, some of the racism is probably pretty hard to fake. I don't think he's faking it, but I don'T think he cares a whole lot about specific propositions of politics. The most amazing thing about Trump is his entire business is a fraud.

0:27:47 Thomas: Everyone knows this. Everyone, this is not new. This is my lot. Look, I can't 100% promise I'm not going to do another episode related to Trump. It's too difficult, it's too big of an event. But this is sort of my last ditch effort to convince anyone who's thinking of doing anything other than voting for Hillary. Anything other. Now, if you're in a state where it doesn't matter, matter. And it's going to go one way or the other, or it's definitely going to go for Hillary, and you want to vote third party, sure. But be very careful. I mean, as Andrew Torrez said, what, last episode I guess it would be for you guys, for you non-patrons? I can't remember. As he said, just the few hundred people who voted for Nader could have changed the world, world, you know?

0:28:38 Thomas: I mean, it's hard to say any given hundred people who voted one way or the other. I mean you could say that they could have changed their vote, sure, but it's sort of who were the people who likely would have gone some other way? Like who likely could have changed their mind? Like of course there were Bush voters. You can blame all the Bush voters, it's not like you can't blame people who voting for Bush. But it's almost like the people who voted for Nader have a special amount of blame. And the people who are going to vote third party in this election, I think, are going to have a lot of responsibility if Trump becomes president. It's so, again, if there were anything close to an okay Republican candidate, it could be something to consider. This is a unique thing.

0:29:26 Thomas: There has never been a major candidate for president this bad. Trump makes George Bush looks look like a good candidate Bush doesn't even that's the greatest thing Bush isn't even at the convention he's like fuck that guy okay there's no way I'm not I mean that's how bad this is Listen to this clip from 60 Minutes.

0:29:45 Clip: At least I've read, a very low-key, very religious. You are a brash New Yorker. Religious. Religious? Religious, yeah, religious. Hey, I won the Evangelicals. The Evangelical, you know, nobody thought, well, I think it means a lot.

0:30:02 Thomas: This is really, there's something wrong with this man. There's got to be, I'm not a psychologist, a psychiatrist, whatever, I forget to do, I don't know if I need to prescribe Trump something, I am one, if I don't, I'm the other. But anyway, I'm not either of those things, but I swear that's something. So if any experts are in the crowd, let me know. Is it just narcissism? Is it just some sort of psychopathy? But when someone asks you, are you religious? Or rather, they suggest you're not religious. And you say, religious? Yeah, I'm religious. And they ask you why? And you say, well, I won evangelicals. His measure of whether or not he's religious is who voted it for him. That's literally, like, he doesn't understand how humans actually see things.

0:30:51 Thomas: Like, how a normal, that a normal human being would say, yeah, I'm religious. Yeah. I pray every night. I go to church. Yeah, I go, I don't, maybe I don't go every time, you know, but I go. I don't go every Sunday, but maybe I go once a month. I pray. You know, I'm not, I'm religious to a certain extent. It's so easy. Like I could make up a bullshit answer. It's not hard. And we know that, we know that it's not a question of needing to tell the truth. We know that's not the issue. It's not like Trump was trying to say he's religious, but his heart, you know, he just couldn't tell a lie. He's like Abe Lincoln or something. No, we know he doesn't give a shit about telling a lie, he literally doesn't know how to answer that question in a way that us humans would understand.

0:31:36 Thomas: How easy is that? I'm religious. Look, I may not be as religious as my friend Mike Pence here. He's definitely very religious, but I'm not not religious. I go to church from time to time. I pray. Tell you what, when I really need guidance, you know, when times are tough, I pray to the man upstairs. And even though I'm not in church every Sunday, you can give any bullshit answer. It's so easy. It is incredibly easy. But his go-to is because he quote-unquote won with evangelicals. It has nothing to do with anything. That doesn't even mean you're religious. Look, Hillary's probably religious. Well, okay, I don't know how much she is, but the Democratic candidates still pretend they're religious.

0:32:23 Thomas: Everyone pretends they're religious. Whether or not evangelicals voted for him doesn't... You could be super devout, I dunno, Muslim. You would still say you're religious, but evangelicals aren't going to vote for you. I seriously think he doesn't know how to answer that question in a way that us flesh bag human beings are biolog- He's like, what do you biological units consider a good answer to this? It's- seriously. And then there's the part at the end of this interview that I have to play. It's two seconds. It's just so fun.

0:32:54 Clip: You're not known to be a humble man, but I wonder- I think I am actually humble. I think I'm much more humble than you would understand.

0:33:04 Thomas: I need to, you know what I need for right now is like five minutes of Tom and Cecil laughing from Cogdiss. That's what I, that's totally what I. I'm more humble than you could understand.

0:33:20 Thomas: It's not that hard. Just say, oh, frankly, I'm disappointed that I'm perceived that way. I know I can be brash, but I'd like to think that when it comes to ideas in this great country of ours, I am a humble man. I'm humble next to our founding fathers. Just do a bunch of conservative bullshit. It's easy. It's easy. I could do it. It's not hard. Hard, he, he literally can't do it. Like, he doesn't, he's not a person, he really, he just is not a, he's not a real person, he's a fake person. This is not, you can't, guys, you can't let this happen. Look, I'm sorry, I'm just speaking to people who are doing anything but voting for Hillary, uh, in this election. You can't let this hap- this is, this is you can't let this happen. You can't, this is ridiculous. I, we shouldn't even be having this conversation.

0:34:12 Thomas: I'm going to do this episode. I'm gonna pretend that we never have to have this conversation again. And if I get a bunch of comments to the opposite effect, then I guess I'll have to do another one. I don't know. Okay, now that I've said that, I actually forgot I need to talk about the things that I found out about Hillary. So, all this I'm saying, all of this anti-Trump stuff that I just spewed to you comes at a time when I am probably the least supportive of Hillary that I have ever been because I found out a couple things. Let's go with the easy one. The email thing came out, the investigation, the no indictment. Now, she said during the campaign, and her response was always, oh, these emails weren't classified at the time, they were marked classified later.

0:34:59 Thomas: And that's why, and I bought into that, you know, like, honestly, I didn't really care too much about it, but, I mean, I care, but I didn't really look into the details, so I just thought, whatever. And so I bought, I just thought, okay, that's her answer. They weren't classified at the time. I saw some other people echoing that. It turns out that was a lie. They were classified at the time. Here's the weird thing about Hillary. She lied to the people, but because she didn't lie to the FBI, she is actually okay. Like she didn't, that's why she's, that's why she's, you know, not being indicted right now or didn't get indicted, I guess, is because she told the public one thing and it was a lie, but she told the FBI the truth when they interviewed her. So that, I mean, that's not great.

0:35:45 Thomas: I still, it's still, but we can do that. We're smart people, guys. We can imagine a continuum of awfulness and we can realize that Trump is on the furthest end of awfulness ever that with maybe that we've ever seen in current political theater. And Hillary is somewhere not over there. You know, she, she, what was the advantage of the email thing? I'll ask you that. What was the disadvantage of it? What was her, what did she stand to gain? Because a lot of people can't stand her. And they tell me this, they know the email, she's such a liar. She should be in debt. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, she lied. I readily admit that she lied to the American people. What did she gain with this email server?

0:36:32 Thomas: What was really like, is it, did she get paid for it? Did she, you know, did you like, was she, uh, did she have sex with the email server, or what do you think she stood to gain? You know, like, that's the thing, you have to look at the weight of this lie. You know? It's just not much. I mean, there's other things you can dredge up of hers, I'm sure. Uh, and, and I'll get to another item that's even worse, but I just think this is a the case of she kind of plays by her own rules. And then she, she kind of thought sort of like, you know, Bill Clinton did that. She's a little bit invincible and she can set up this server cause she doesn't want Republicans looking at her emails or something like that. And, and you know, it's, so that's bad. You know, that's not good. I'm not saying it's good. It's not okay, but it's one level of bad.

0:37:18 Thomas: And then Trump as a candidate is 42 billion levels of bad and maybe it's, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. Let me, maybe she's a, let's go, let's try a scale of 10. We can debate for an hour about, is it a logarithmic scale? Is it a linear scale? Let's try, let's try a little inside joke. Let's try a linear scale of ten of dishonesty and, and not just dishonesty as like a count of how often someone lies, but as a measure of how bad it will be for the country or how bad it could be for the country. I would put Hillary at like a, maybe a six, and Trump at a 10, because Trump has no regard for the truth. He has no regard for the truth at all. You can't, that breaks your scale.

0:38:06 Thomas: Whatever it is, whatever instrument you're using to measure these people, having literally no regard for the Truth just breaks it. It just doesn't work. Okay, so let me get to the other thing. And this, oh man, this pisses me off about Hillary. This is the thing, guys. I hope you get what I'm saying. We need to be complex humans. We need to be capable of complex thought. We need to be rational. And I hate this about Hillary, so I finally decided to read up a bit more on Benghazi. I do it from time to time. I think I just, I think I missed this particular detail. Actually, you know what? But it was elaborated on a little further in that report that came out that the Republicans just released a little bit ago.

0:38:52 Thomas: When Benghazi happened, Hillary could not stop blaming the dumbass who made that Innocence of Muslims video. It's just this stupid video that had nothing to do with anything. It was horror. It wasn't even a movie. It, it wasn't a full-length movie. It was a preview of a stupid full- length movie, uploaded on YouTube, obviously dubbed, not even, and this happened in, I think it happened in L.A., like whoever made this video. I think they served some time because and and I'll get to that. But anyway, this person made a video They dubbed over it With some, like, anti-Muslim stuff. I don't even know what it is because I don′t understand the language, but it′s whatever. Let′ s just let it suffice to say it″s stuff against the Prophet Muhammad or something.

0:39:39 Thomas: And this caused riots in the Middle East, which is idiotic. That couldn't be a bigger waste of time. So here's one level of idiocy. That is completely moronic. The idea that a nothing video preview for a movie, not even a full length movie, clearly dubbed over. It's like if someone took a video and dubbed over like, I hate Jews, Jews, you know, like it's bad, but you can just say, well, that's a moron. Like that's clearly he, and it's a badly made thing. You know, the production is really bad. You could just say well, this person is an asshole, but whatever, like that's one asshole in Southern California somewhere. Like that doesn't matter. So, the idea that this caused any violence at all is a terrible indictment on these Muslim countries where it happened, by the way.

0:40:28 Thomas: Not them as a whole, maybe, but on whoever. It's enough of a big deal that it caused riots. So that's one thing. Hillary kept trying to blame Benghazi and pin that terrorist attack, which was a coordinated, planned terrorist attack. She kept trying to say, if you read up on this, back at the time, this might not be news to you, I'm sorry if it It isn't, but for those who it is, this really surprised me. She kept trying to say, oh, well, it's that video. You know, it caused these protests. They evolved into violence, and that's what caused the Benghazi attack. She kept saying that even after people knew that wasn't true. It was a coordinated attack. It was something like 200 people with guns. You know?

0:41:13 Thomas: It wasn't a riot. And there were no riots reported that day around Benghazi, around the area where the attack happened. There was nothing like that. So she was just wrong about that. Here's what was even worse. Again, this is me at my least supportive of Hillary. Here is what was ever worse. She told the family members of some of the victims of the Benghazi attack. She said, we're going to get that filmmaker. That was her way of dealing with this. We're going to get that filmmaker. Now that is horrible. That's really dumb. And the idea that it's that idiot filmmaker's fault, who by the way, is serving a jail sentence because he used these actors without their permission.

0:41:59 Thomas: I believe that's what he got charged with. Either that or it was some distribution thing that he did that was illegal. But he did get sued by some of the actors, and actually YouTube took down the video because the actors didn't give their permission to be in the video. So it was sort of a copyright issue or a rights issue in that way. And I think that's what he's serving time for, but that's her response to the victims. Not, oh, we'll get the people who killed your son or daughter or your husband or whatever. Not that. No, we're get the guy who made a bullshit 10 minute YouTube video. It's his fault. We'll get at him. That's what she said. Now, that is idiotic. That is completely backwards. Here's the thing. I was racking my brain trying to figure out why she did this, like why she kept fixating on this film and this video as a cause.

0:42:54 Thomas: And I didn't get it. I was trying to think like, what is to gain by her doing that? And I think the answer is, I talked to a friend of mine who's incredibly incredibly political and knows all this stuff. He's pretty anti-Hillary too.

But he says that it's because she, and again, this is speculation, just in terms of providing some peace of mind for why she would be so fixated on this, that it's Because she encouraged the uprising initially, the regime change in Libya that led to the instability. So she wants to have like a scapegoat to put that down on.

She doesn't want it to be true that That because she led this push for regime change in Libya, that led to violence, which led to the Benghazi terrorist attack. She's trying to distract from that. She's telling sort of a lie, she's misleading in order to cover her ass for a policy decision that might have been wrong, um, and, and I, and that's bad. That's bad, that's certainly bad, I, when I read this, I don't know why I decided to, I think when the Benghazi thing came out, I heard something like this so I decided I had to read more into it. It is really bad. It's not illegal. She didn't do anything impeachable or whatever, like the Republicans think.

But yeah, I mean, she was wrong on this issue. She's wrong in who she was blaming. She was probably doing it out of convenience for her personal political career. It still nowhere near as bad as Trump. It just isn't as bad as electing Trump. And if you look at where she is on the issues, evaluate that for yourself.

0:44:28 Thomas: If you go to I Side With, and it turns out you side with Trump more than Hillary, you know, have at it. I guess that means you're a Trump voter. But if it's not true, if you go to I Side With and you side with Hillary, because like me, you're probably somewhat liberal, I'm guessing, maybe not everybody, but pretty much like 95% of you, I think, and you decide with Hillary more, but you still think, nope, never, never Bernie or bust, never Hillary, shillery, can't do it. And you're going to let this awful human go into the White House because of that. I just, you're just, I just think you're wrong. And I really think you need to re-examine what you're doing. I All right, I think I've made my point on that.

0:45:14 Thomas: Oh, last thing I wanted to say that I didn't get to. I saw, well, actually, there was a few things. There always are. I never know if it's do that or do thought, whatever. I'll say Ross Douthat, we'll say. He's a conservative columnist for the New York Times, and he tweeted something that I just thought, I thought it was great. I'm going to read it to you. Now, this was sometime, what would this be, Tuesday of convention week, Tuesday night? Ross Douthat, conservative columnist, tweeted, every major figure who participated in this grotesquerie has disgraced themselves on a level unique in the history of our republic. Don't laugh and don't ever forget.

Conservative columnist. Lifelong conservative. Ross Douthat, you know, I don't agree with him on stuff. He's like Catholic or something, and he always writes annoying things like that. Conservatively based, uh, things that I disagree with and he gets it, you know, like it's, this is a unit. I think people keep trying to pretend like this is any other election. Oh, well, it's you got the Democrat on one side and you got The Republican on the other side. And, you know, if I look at Hillary, I don't like her. I hate her. She's liar, whatever. And so I'll just go with The Republican. No, it's, this is, this is an absurdity.

This, this, it's a farce. Everything about it can't be taken seriously by serious people. It really can't. So don't let it happen. Oh, you know, actually, there's one more thing I want to say, and this is maybe to bridge a tiny gap to Bernie or bust people. I think people, I think they're feeling like, wow, we supported Bernie. Millions of people supported Bernie, and they did.

0:46:53 Thomas: I think, I think it was like 13 million votes or something. He got a lot of votes, got a lot of delegates, and now it feels like it's all for naught. It feels like Shillery just killed all that. They killed this buzz, this excitement, the trying to make a change. Let me tell you this. I think that the future is bright, assuming we stop President Trump, assuming that doesn't happen, because the youngest people voted for Sanders. He was killer with young people.

That's the future of the party. And it made a difference. Let me ask you this. Do you think next election, next time that it's assuming, let's say it's 2024 and that's the next time like a Democrat, hopefully the next time a Democrat not named Hillary has to campaign. Pain. Do you think candidates who are preparing for 2020 or 2024 on the Democratic side, do you think they're going to be in a hurry to make speeches for some of these big banks and accept money?

After how much trouble that gave Hillary, after what should have been a shoo-in candidacy nomination by her, like she was given so much trouble by a 90-year-old Jew largely because of these speeches she gave. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that that set a precedent of, wait, well, shoot, if I'm going to run for office on the Democratic side, I sure as shit shouldn't give a bunch of speeches to a bunchof banks for, you know, $300,000. I think that made a difference. I think there's going to be other things like that, you know? Where the younger voters are going to decide the future. They all went for Sanders. I think it'll happen.

So, but God, we can't afford Trump. All right. I've, I've said enough on this, I hope, but we'll see. Let me know what you think. If I, if I still haven't convinced you to not vote third party, you know, then I don't know. Talk to me. I'll try. I want to convince you. I want To do everything I can because really, I, it just can't be Trump.

0:48:52 Thomas: All right, enough of that. Next week, I'll be back with guests. Don't worry, I only do a full commentary episode probably once every, like, four. Some people like it better. Some people, uh, like guests better. So, you know, I do, I do half and, no, not even half and half. I do like a quarter are me and then three, three quarters are guests. So hopefully that's a nice balance for you guys and I hope you can enjoy it. All right, right. So I got to thank my new patrons, my awesome people. Thank you so much to Faye Reppas, Suzanna Pohjolainen, oh, I might've thanked them already. Cause I remember that name being tough. Franco or Franco Villarreal, Clement Lafko, Craig A. Youngman and Hausdorff.

0:49:37 Thomas: Thank you guys so much for becoming patrons, getting early access to content, occasional bonus content, at patreon.com/atheistically if you'd like to support more clear thinking like hopefully I have given you today because this really matters to me. All right, next week will be great. I've got a couple different guests. We'll see how the schedule works out, which one it's going to be, but no matter what it is, it's gonna be awesome because I try to find the most interesting people to talk to, and I try bring you different ideas, and, uh, I hope I continue to do that. So, thanks for listening so much, and I will see you guys next week.