AS288: A Final Election 2016 Episode (VOTE!!!)

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 288 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. Quick little announcement before I get going. You've probably heard this if you've listened to Opening Arguments as well. You may remember I had everybody fill out a PodTrack survey a while back. Well, PodTracks kind of jerked me around a little bit with the ads. It seemed like it was happening, then it's not happening. I'm going elsewhere. I'm gonna try Libsyn now. If you don't mind, apologies for this, but please go to survey.libsyn.com. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N.com/atheist. Fill out the survey. Now, for those of you who filled out the PodTrack survey, that took quite some time, probably like 10 minutes.

0:01:15 Thomas: This is four questions. It'll take you 13 seconds. Please do it right now. If you don't mind, survey.libsyn.com/atheist, I will put it in the show notes as well. It will really help me out. Thank you. Here's what I'm doing. I am doing a commentary. I realized I've got a lot of interviews lined up, and I realized we are quickly closing in on voting day. So I'm going to do it. One more election commentary. This is it. This is the last one. I have a few things left over I've needed to say. They're new things. Well, I mean, they're mostly do things. I can't help but say Trump is horrible several times. But other than that, I got some new angles, some new thoughts.

0:02:01 Thomas: I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this, but then I realized voting day is coming up and there won't be another opportunity to talk about this before then. So I give you my final commentary on the 2016 election.

0:02:21 Thomas: Where to begin? Well, first off, I'm going to look at my pinned tweet from, let's see, it is from the 24th of June, when the world was freaking out. It says, I hereby predict that Trump will lose in the biggest landslide in recent history. There, I said it. Please don't make me wrong, America. Now, I shouldn't have even inserted that doubt in there, but I did. I hedged a little bit. I hedge a little. Don't make me wrong, but I didn't need to. I think a lot of people were applying the following logic. Here's the very simplified logic. And then even I was a little guilty of it, but I think in retrospect, we can look at it for what it was. People said, well, everyone was wrong about Trump.

0:03:06 Thomas: Everyone was wrong about Trump in the primaries. No one paid him any attention. No one thought he could do anything. He just breaks all the rules. None of the rules apply to him. And he won. We were all wrong. Therefore, don't make a prediction about the general election because it might be wrong. And it's certainly something that gives you pause when someone does something unpredictable like Trump did. It gives you cause and it makes you think, oh, can we predict what's going to happen? Who knows? Maybe whatever. But it turns out that that logic is just kind of a flawed way of looking at it. What happened wasn't that everybody was wrong about Trump, like, and therefore you're going to be wrong about him again. That's not really how that works. The specific thing everyone was wrong about was the electorate of the GOP.

0:03:55 Thomas: The GOP, the conservative, the people actually nominating the Republican nominee for president. That's who we were wrong about. We weren't wrong about the country. You know, it turned out that that's just a strong 35, 40% of people who, I mean, I'm trying not to use really bad words. The deplorables. I don't know what to call them, but who would support somebody like that? That just doesn't translate over to the rest of the country. And I think that's what we're seeing now. Now, having said that, we can't celebrate early. Of course we have to vote. The voting has to happen. We can't, the polls are astronomically in Hillary's favor, but we have to actually vote for that to happen. So don't get complacent. Vote, vote.

0:04:41 Thomas: I'm going to vote, I'm actually voting. It'll be like the second time, but I'm doing it. Please vote. But I made that tweet at a time when the polls were not entirely in Hillary's favor and I did it because I really, here's why I said it, and I could have been wrong, but I wasn't, I don't think I was wrong, don't make me wrong. I said it because he of hearts, which actually maybe I should say brain of brains, like this some little chamber of my brain, I knew even as much as I can get negative about the country and the people in this country and whether or not you agree with Bill Maher that it's like a stupid country, he said that the other day, or maybe actually he just reset it, I think it was a viral clip from a few years ago. Anyway, no matter what, I thought there had to be a limit on the number of people who won't see through this nonsense.

0:05:29 Thomas: Sense. And I also thought, just based on the demographics of the previous election, Hillary only has to win the states that Obama won, or maybe change a few here and there. But it's not like Democrats should be coming from a great disadvantage. Pile that on top of the worst candidate in history that I know, in the history of me paying any attention, which is not very long, admittedly. Somebody who's just not serious at all, in Donald Trump.

Somebody whose every answer to every question he's making up on the spot based on the three or four words he remembers from the tiny amount, the minuscule, miniscule amount of studying he did on it, which sometimes is none. Aleppo. He said it's fallen, it doesn't, that is not, he made it up, it's nothing. And then he tried to justify, well, yeah, it's falling by any video, it's We're just, it's not officially declared fallen or anything, but I just meant in general it's not very good. So, you know, it's falling for that. Yeah, he doesn't study. He has no, no intellectual curiosity. His sentences are terrible. His, but this is, I've covered all this, I'm just reminding you briefly. He has no vocabulary. His answers are completely vapid. He's nothing. And I figured that there just has to be a cap on the percentage of people who could possibly go for that.

And anyone who sees through it couldn't possibly vote for it. I mean, really, anyone who sees through the people who buy into it, buy into it hard. The people who see through it are repulsed like me, I would think for the most part. So, I stand by my pinned tweet. It's a little early to brag.

0:07:04 Thomas: I'm not, I don't want to brag, I just want to remind everybody that I made that pinned tweet, so, so if I'm wrong and it's President Trump, I'm going to be even more devastated, but that's, that was my prediction. Now, I don't know. I want to start off with the, there's been a lot said about who's to blame for Trump. I think I've said a little bit on who's the blame for. And I think I've got my answer for the most part. I think I've pretty much got my answer. It's one guy named Jeff. I found it. No, not really. There's a good... Actually, Obama said something that I thought was maybe the smartest thing anyone has said on this that I've seen so far, and it really solidified in my mind what the cause is. Here's what he said in a speech in Las Vegas. He said, For years, Republican politicians and the far-right media outlets have pumped up all kinds of crazy stuff about me, about Hillary, about Harry Reid.

0:07:54 Thomas: They say I wasn't born here. They said climate change is a hoax. They say that I was going to take everybody's guns away. There are a lot of politicians who knew better. There are a lot of senators who knew better, but they went along with these stories because they figured, you know what, this will help rile up the base. Base. It will give us an excuse to obstruct what we're trying to do. We won't be able to appoint justices. We'll gum up the works. We'll create gridlock. It'll give us a political advantage. So they just stood by and said nothing. And their base began to actually believe this crazy stuff. So Donald Trump did not start this. This is actually a good, whatever speech writer wrote this, it's pretty good. Donald Trump did not start this. Donald Trump didn't start it. He just did what he always did, which is slap his name on it, take credit for it, and promote it.

0:08:42 Thomas: That's what he does. And now when he's suddenly it's not working and people are saying, wow, this guy is kind of out of line. All of a sudden, these Republican politicians who were okay with all this crazy stuff up to a point, suddenly they're all walking away. Oh, this is too much. Well, what took you so long? That's what he said. I think this is largely the correct answer, and here's, I'll do you one better, so that this is not just, because I try on this show to not be just an echo chamber, to, I want to challenge myself, I want to challenge you guys. I think we can even learn a lesson from this. When I say we, I apologize, I mean if you count yourself as a liberal, which I didn't used to, this election has a really, really brought that out in me because it's been appalling. But I think there's a lesson for liberals.

0:09:27 Thomas: I brought up before in a previous episode, the liberal version of Trump, what would that be? Well, I think we can look at that and we can look at what caused the actual Trump and we can utilize these lessons to make sure that this never happens on the left, if you count yourself as part of the left. I think the biggest issue is the conspiracy theory bullshit that's being peddled on the right about, well, starting off with about Obama, as he pointed out, but it went right on through to Hillary, or maybe it was around the same time, I'm not sure, that's, that's the culprit, and the people who started that and the people who perpetuate it. I think Alonzo Fyfe gave us some really good insight into how that works. There are, a there are people who outright just hate women or hate black people and so saw fit to try to spread false things, or or maybe convince themselves of things that were completely false.

0:10:25 Thomas: And B, as he put it, you have the people who maybe aren't outright doing that. They don't think they're biased. They think they are just normal people. They think there, they're merely adjusting their criteria. Like Alonzo brought up with the test where there would be a resume with experience versus a resume with education, and depending on which was the female candidate, they would pick the other one. And then they would say, well, education is more important, or they would say, oh, well, experience is more important. That happens. B is that group of people who thought in their mind, not consciously, but maybe somewhere in their minds, they figured there must be something wrong with Hillary. There just must be. And so gave credence to all this stuff. And they do things like pretend that the email hack is horrible.

0:11:14 Thomas: Not her email server, the WikiLeak leaked emails. They keep sharing them as as though some revelations were in there. There's nothing. There's no, there are no revelations in there, there's a few like embarrassing things that people have said, but it's nothing you wouldn't expect when private communication is made public, there's nothing in it like Trump saying the The things he said about what he does to women in that hot mic situation. There's nothing nearly as bad as that. And this is the issue.

And I'm thinking about it on the left. And here's where we can be introspective. On the left, we have conspiracy theory people. I think, to some degree, some people may hate me for this, I think Bernie played into that a little bit. I think the left version of conspiracy theory stuff is very, very anti-corporation to, and again, it's not as though I think normal is pro-corportation necessarily, necessarily, but there's an unhealthy fear, like a corporate phobia on the left where you think Monsanto is evil and just poisoning people and GMOs are poisoning people. Vaccines are poisoning people. There's a little bit of overlap with the right there. Sure. But, but that is the left version. And Bernie, I think played into this a little, a little bit, not, not horrendously, but I think a lot of Bernie supporters, there was overlap of every corporation is out to completely ruin everybody's lives. They need to be taxed to oblivion.

He also was pro-GMO labeling, which really frustrated me with Bernie as much as I like him on a lot of other stuff. So there's a little bit of that. But the difference, I think here's where the difference comes in. The right targets individuals. The Right, and I don't know who's doing it.

0:13:00 Thomas: I can blame Fox News a little bit. I can blame Glenn Beck a little bit. People like that. People who have Alex Jones, I guess. A lot of people listen to Alex Jones. It's those people who target individuals with their conspiracy theory nonsense. Think back to 2012. I mean, I can't think granted, I don't have the best memory for this. Anyone comment if you think I'm forgetting something. I don't remember any sort of left version for any candidate that is conspiracy theory targeting the right-wing candidate. Now, we, of course, we disagree. I think, I think there is a little bit of, there was a little bit of demonization going on. There was a Mitt Romney doesn't pay any taxes.

0:13:46 Thomas: He thinks that there was that hot mic situation where he said something like 45% of the country is, you know, is on welfare and is going to vote whatever their loss. Yeah, but those are, those, that's not of conspiracy theory stuff. There's certainly demonization. There's certainly othering going on. I'm not saying that the left is perfect with that, but I can't think of a whole lot of conspiracy theory nonsense about the individuals themselves on the right. And frankly, I think it's because we don't need that personally. I think my biased opinion would be it's pretty easy to just look at policy for these candidates and these representatives and just say, wow, I really don't like that policy they have or to look at their comments they've made and say, wow, you've said some sexist or racist stuff in your time.

0:14:35 Thomas: There's no, I don't know of any left-wing equivalent to the kind of stuff about Obama being a Muslim. People really believe that. The kind of stuff about Hillary. She murdered somebody. She had somebody killed. She did all this stuff. You just say, oh, you don't think they're corrupt with their Clinton. You just say these people, I've witnessed it in my family. They just say oh, Clinton Foundation, huh? Clinton Foundation. It's like what? What about them? What? Do you have any details? No. There's a foundation named Clinton. Clinton? Am I making sense? Are you connecting the dots here? No, I'm not. I think that's a good time when that implicit bias is happening. I think that's a good indicator when someone just says, well, you don't think that, you know, pay for play, man, Clinton Foundation.

0:15:21 Thomas: There's no proof of anything. There is some interesting timing a couple of times, but when you look into the details, there's really not much to it. And the Clinton Foundation has done a ton of charity, has done a good, done really good work, it's an, you can look into it, it's something I think it was about a 92 percent of the money goes to charity, which is a great rate for a charity.

Every instance of where people allege, oh, someone made a big donation and then she met with them as the Secretary of State, hmm, well, it's always somebody she probably would have met with anyway, it was somebody appropriate, a world leader or somebody significant, and then keep in mind that 92% rate to charity, if there's a big donate and it's pay to play, I don't know, that's almost kind of admirable that she would, I mean, if she did use her power. Power. Or use her, utilize her, leverage her time that she can give people as Secretary of State to get money for a charity? What are we talking about here? Are we talking like a horrible person? I don't know. I mean, the only thing that was, that I did question back in the primary days, she got paid a lot of money to make speeches. Um, yeah, that's not great. I don't think that's great. She's not perfect.

And if you if that's what the criticism were on the right, if we had a right wing candidate who weren't Trump, who were somebody else and said, you know what she's bought and paid for or at least she's going to be influenced, I'd say, hey, you're making a valid point. You're making. A valid point about Hillary Clinton. But they don't do that. There's a little bit of that. There's a little bit of truth mixed into a lot of nonsense, to a lot of lies, to a lot of conspiracy theory, bullshit, that's what's here.

0:17:02 Thomas: So here's what's happened. We finally have a candidate who's actually doing that. Before, we just had people who would take advantage of it. We had candidates on the right. There was a little bit of tea party action where people were getting a little conspiracy-minded, but for the most part, we got people on the Right just utilizing these people, not really believing the Obama's and Muslim stuff, but knowing that their base is supporting it and whatever. No harm, no foul. As Obama said, I think he pointed this out well. Then we get Trump, who's somebody who, well, and actually, to be honest with you, Cruz was the same way. It was, and maybe it's, it's I think most of the candidates were for the, on the right in the primary. I think almost all of them, now that I say this, almost all OF them were buying into the Hillary stuff to a certain extent.

0:17:51 Thomas: I think Trump does it a lot more. I think he does not, he is so intellectually bankrupt. He is so lazy. He does not check his sources at all. He doesn't weed out the completely nonsensically foolish conspiracy theories from the ones that are like, okay, there's a grain of truth, so you can maybe go with this one and people will believe it. So he doesn't separate the extremely nonsensical stuff from the only mostly dead, nonsensical stuff, and that's because again he is a lazy person, he is not intelligent, he has no patience, he has, know, he doesn't research anything, and he's taken it to a whole new level in this debate. I might play some clips from the debate, I watched it, I was astounded at Hillary's performance, but anyway, back to what I was saying, I'll get to that later.

0:18:43 Thomas: That seems to be the difference for me, and it's not a question of the left is perfect, the right is crap. I will never buy into that. I think people are very flawed on both sides. I have said I think the left overall deals with facts more so than the right, more so. But there are plenty examples of crap on the left, and what I wanted to say about this, I think the reason I was, I was sort of excited, I was gratified to have in my mind what I think is a good explanation for what went on with Trump, it's that that people have utilized these conspiracy theories for years now, and it finally all came together with somebody who actually believes them. I think Trump really believes this crap, or he just doesn't, he doesn't care about what's true, actually, one or the other. And And it has percolated to the point where there is a solid, like I've said, 30, 35% of the right, or of the country, actually, that percentage is on the right who believe this crap.

0:19:38 Thomas: And they, as a result, no matter how bad Trump is, no matter how awful he is, no matter the crap he says, Hillary is a murderous dishonest. Well, it doesn't matter. Like, they've made her so bad that nothing Trump does will matter. He can't be any worse in their minds. Here's where I introspect. As someone who considers himself moderate to left, and in this election, certainly left, again, this election has really brought it out, as someone who is invested in the political party of the Democrats more so than conservatives, what I would want to make sure we never do is return the favor and create the liberal version of Trump. Now, I think what that would look like, well, it's impossible, but let's say there's only one Trump, I think.

0:20:29 Thomas: But if we fed in, if we feed into horribly sourced, badly written, and badly researched stories about the personal failings of people on the right, I think that's where we could go wrong. If we form any sort of mythology, and this, you know what, I think this happened with Bush and Cheney a little bit. Now, Bush and Cheney, I mean, I think people might react to me saying that a littlebit, but I think they were demonized, Cheney a little less. He's perhaps a little more worthy of being demonized. But with Bush, I think people demonized him on the left a lot. I think people believed, I remember experiences with speaking with liberal friends, and this would have been back during these years, I was a littlemore conservative, and people would say things that were just nonsense about him, but nobody would challenge it, and that's what we have to be careful of.

0:21:25 Thomas: In order to not let this happen on the left, we can't let these conspiracy theories ever happen. Now, here's the thing about Trump, you don't need conspiracy theories to point out the horrible things he's done. He said himself, we have his own words, and then we have tons of accusers. Now, and they have merely confirmed what he said with his own mouth that he does. And there are many of them, and they keep coming out of the woodwork. There are his business dealings. These are not things, the fact that he won't release his own tax returns. And it really, because that's so unprecedented, it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to think something is going on there. I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory thing to say, but I think that would be the equivalent of if they did the 9-11 commission report and the government was like, we're not releasing that, nevermind, just forget it happened.

0:22:19 Thomas: It didn't. Look over there. There was no 9-11. Like, then you would be like, you know, maybe something happened if they won't release it. Same goes for the tax returns. Here, it's unprecedented. It's a, it's in fact, it's a horrible new precedent to set. It's actually, it could really damage our politics. I've heard people say this, that this is so important that everybody, that candidates disclose this kind of thing so that we really know what's going on with their financial situation. That that this sets a dangerous precedent, and I don't think it'll be a problem. I think, hopefully, the next, in four years when we have another Republican candidate that's not Trump, I'm hoping they won't try to take advantage of the fact that he started this new thing.

0:23:04 Thomas: But it's clear there's something horrible going on there, and combined with other evidence about his tax returns, he's a horrible businessman. Now, you could get all conspiracy theory and come up with a bunch of weird stuff he's done business-wise, But I think the evidence bears out that he's not a great businessman. So in an effort to wrap this part of it all up, to be consistent, to be consistent, I will never support anyone on the left who has no qualifications whatsoever, who doesn't, who has not researched any of his positions, I could even see supporting someone with no political experience if they were some sort of super genius. If they were like, hey, I'm in the academy. I'm somebody who has thought about these, I've written about these issues.

0:23:52 Thomas: I'm an economist. I don't know. Something like that. I could see an outsider saying, you know what? I've researched the hell out of all of this. Here, let me tell you my detailed positions on all this. I could seed that. But Trump is just a guy who just has no experience and then just says he'll be fine. I'll be great. I'll be good. I'll be good. Don't worry. I'll be great. Well, the best, the best, the best. There's nothing. There's nothing to that. And the other thing I would say about not being hypocritical on the left at all is I'm going to do my best to combat any sort of left-wing conspiracy theory-esque stuff about Monsanto and about, you know, vaccines or whatever it might be. Anything. Let's stick to the evidence. Stick to the evidence. Let be good. And if anyone who's right-wing is listening to me, which I think there are a few, I mean, there's no reason you can't do that too, and I'm sure you are if you're listening to this show for the most part.

0:24:43 Thomas: I think you would be pretty bored of it if you weren't an evidence-based person, or I'd like to think so. Go with the evidence and make sure it's good evidence. Let's get our politics back to the point where we just disagree on certain things. We disagree on taxes or we disagree on regulation or we do whatever it is. Let's go back to that point. Let's give back to policy. If there ever was a time, maybe I'm looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, but certainly Any time in my lifetime that's not now was better than now politically. I'm pretty, I think I can be pretty confident in that just by the nature of how bad this Trump movement has been. Now, transitioning a little bit, one thing that has really fascinated me has been seeing how Republicans, different Republicans have reacted to Trump. And I had Haley do a lot of research, thank you, Haley, on different Republicans and what they've said in their statements on Trump.

0:25:34 Thomas: And I keep going back and forth on this, and I'm going to tell you about why. Part of me, and I'm sure a lot of you, and I know a lot of liberals have said this, if you're a liberal, have said, how can you endorse Trump? How can you not just be completely anti-Trump? Come on, Republicans. This is a joke. You can't back him.

I'm sure I've said things sort of to that effect, but every time I think about that, every time I'm like, yeah, he's a joke, anyone with dignity could not vote for him. Every time I I think, well, if the tables are turned and I have candidate, just, just the Supreme Court, think about nothing but the Supreme court, pretend I, and it's, I don't need to pretend.

I care a ton about those possibly three Supreme court seats and I want them to go to at least moderates, maybe center left ish people, not just not Scalia's, you know, and, and put yourself in the position of someone on the right who feels the same way. Except, of course, on the right. That's valuable. I could see just saying, I don't like Trump. I'm voting for him because we can't have the Supreme Court go this direction. I mean, as much as I want to say everyone, every Republican should disown Trump. They should talk about how horrible he is. They should just not vote for him. I don't know.

I don't know that that's realistic. But in thinking about it, here's what I think we should have been able to expect from Republicans. Currently, I think what we should expect is what, frankly, some of them are doing, which is not talk about Trump, not endorse him, not whatever, but maybe say, look, I'm voting for him.

0:27:18 Thomas: I'm a conservative. He's the Republican. I have to do it. He is awful. Maybe if we really wanted people to be reasonable, we could expect them to say, no, he's awful. The things he said are awful. Awful. I just care about those Supreme Court spots. And maybe if they're a Republican, they might say, you should too, Republicans. You should care about the Supreme Court. You should get out and vote, and we'll do our best to contain him as a president and to steer him in the right way. But we can't have a liberal Supreme Court that's going to ruin all our lives and take away our guns or whatever it might be. But I think what we really should have expected if we're being a little more proactive, if we are increasing our expectations, expecting a little bit more of Republicans, this all needed to happen in the primary.

0:28:05 Thomas: It really did. It absolutely needed to happen in the primary. It did a little bit, it did for a few people. A few people said Trump is unfit, you know. They didn't look much into it. They did not find these recordings. These recordings were around. All this stuff was around. All the evidence was there, things he has said in the past, it was all there. They didn't use it. They didn't use it because of the old thing about not wanting to cause too much damage to the fellow Republican, because you never know who's going to win, and then they would go on to have the new nomination, they would need to be elected president. Well, Trump was not that typical nominee. Some people figured this out, some people didn't. The right needed to figure this out. They needed to realize, no, this is unacceptable. Look, we can't just have some carnival act as the nominee.

0:28:55 Thomas: We can't do the normal, treat him with kid gloves and not bring out any of his past, and not everybody needed to unite and say this man is not qualified to be president. But I think a lot of things got in the way of that. For one, I think the general right-wing view, this tends to be a more right-wing thing, the attitude that you don't want an insider. You need a businessman. You need someone who knows how business works. He's going to go in there and clean things up. I think that narrative is present more in the right. The left doesn't really have that that I know of. They don't have like, oh, what's a left version of somebody that has no experience that's going to go fix everything. We don't, I don't think we have that as much. And I think that got in the way a little bit.

0:29:42 Thomas: And I think that's something that happens on the right more because of the right-wing view, the pro-business, the, bro, we need to run the government like a business, all that stuff is very Republican, and maybe some of it's true some of the time, I'm not even judging it necessarily, but I think that narrative gets in the way of being able to look at somebody like Trump and say, no, this person has no, they have no business being here. Now, here's the thing. Here's the weird thing, though, because you know how I said who I blame. I didn't earlier when I talked about who was to blame. I didn't talk about the candidates not ganging up on Trump. I think that's part of it, but I don't know that that would have worked. I think, I mean, maybe, maybe if they had all united from the very beginning and they would, and by the way, pretty much all the same stuff applies to Ben Carson.

0:30:32 Thomas: So they would need to do that too, but they're afraid to, they can't do that. They can't be seen as elites like the Democrats. They have to be a party where anyone can be president because you don't need experience. You just need good old-fashioned know-how. You just like Ben Carson has. And I don't know that it would work. So there's the rub, as they say. They could have all united against Trump, and it could have horrendously backfired like it kind of did for some of them individually. Maybe it would have been enough. Maybe it could convince the voters, the primary electorate, but maybe it wouldn't. Maybe they would all be in the worst position where Trump still won and they all were out of favor with that huge portion of their base. So that's why ultimately I blame the 35 to 40 percent. I blame the voters themselves, but also the people feeling the conspiracy theory aspect of it.

0:31:21 Thomas: But let's look at some of these Republicans, because I think it's good to sort of recognize who's been consistent and who's been right on this. Barbara Bush, Jeb Bush. Barbara said, I mean, unbelievable. I don't know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly. It's terrible, and we knew what he meant too. And that was back, Megyn Kelley, that was during the primary, so she's been on it from the beginning. Jeb Bush didn't attend the RNC, says he will not vote for Trump. Mitt Romney even. He said I wanted my grandkids to see that I simply couldn't ignore what Mr. Trump was saying and doing, which revealed a character and temperament unfit for the leader of the free world. You know, I really think we should give these people credit. Good for Mitt Romney, you know, for being on this from the beginning. He did what he could.

0:32:07 Thomas: Now, he probably would have supported someone like Ted Cruz, who, in my opinion, isn't all that much worse than Trump. But anyway, that's another story. Give credit to Lindsey Graham.

0:32:19 Thomas: He said, this is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy. If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this was probably it. There will come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary. I can rattle off a few more names, not to go into depth on all of them, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, John Negroponte, there's a huge list, Tom Ridge, George P. Schultz, Paul Wolfowitz, there's a lot of them. Oh, here's another one, Colin Powell, will, will be backing Hillary, incredible. Incredible. So maybe I... I don't know. I keep going back and forth. I apologize, but I really do. I... Maybe it is reasonable to say that Trump is so bad that it's not even worth the Supreme Court picks.

0:33:06 Thomas: But I can just say that I think you have to be a certain kind of Republican. I think it's self-consistent. I'm looking at what's self-consistent, you know? Of course, if I'm just being liberal me who wants, you know, liberal justices and all that, then I'm not going to even entertain the notion of Trump. But if I'm trying to be consistent and really look at it from someone else's point of view, someone who thinks abortion is murder, and someone who thinks, all those things, where the Supreme Court, they're really worried about, they need it. I think it's self-consistent to say, I'm just voting on that, and I don't, I know he's the worst, I am voting on them. But if you're somebody who is maybe, you know, maybe you're even pro-choice Republican, and you don't see the Supreme court as like this do-or-die thing, then I would say, yes, you do need to vote Hillary, you need to support Hillary, because Trump is that bad.

0:33:56 Thomas: So maybe I should have said that first now that I think about it more. But I really have gone back and forth on this. Back to Republicans, you may have seen Glenn Beck posted like a Facebook note that went a little viral, and he said, if the consequence of standing against Trump and four principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it, at least it is a moral, ethical choice. He wasn't endorsing Hillary, but he also said, Trump cannot win, I don't want my children to look at that man and say, yeah, he's my president, I won't have that, I will not endorse it, I would not tolerate it. There's something to be said for people who are actually religious conservatives who are actually sticking to their religious values and seeing that Trump does not care about religion.

0:34:43 Thomas: He's not religious. They're seeing through his bullshit on that, his two Corinthians, and they're seeing that he's a horrible example of a person. I mean, at least you're being consistent. That's my whole thing here is consistency. Of course, I would love that everyone agreed on the facts and agreed on politics, you know, with me or, well, maybe that wouldn't be a good idea, but if everybody was closer to, maybe closer to what I think, that would be great, but at the very least, we can expect consistency even if we disagree on certain political ideals. Deals. But now we move on to the people who are still supporting him, who I really, really, I really hope it ends up hurting these people, politically, because, there's no excuse, there is no excuse for outwardly supporting this candidate.

0:35:34 Thomas: It's nothing but being opportunistic, trying to hope that he's going to win, and then you get to, you know, join in on his victory, because there is, there's no other good reason, or you're just as awful as Trump, it's one or the other. John Boehner, Trent Lott, Ben Carson, Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, Cruz, Ted Cruz, oh, oh, we thought Ted Cruz was so principled and impressive at the RNC. I, I was, I have to say, I was slightly impressed that he had the guts to say what he did at the RNC and then he completely ruined all that. And, and, and like I tweeted, there was one, exactly one good thing about Ted Cruz and he got rid of it, which was that he was against Trump.

0:36:19 Thomas: And now there's back to zero good things about Ted Cruz. Rubio hasn't had the gut to do anything. Rand Paul is even supporting him. Man, Donald Rumsfeld, Chris Christie, of course. I mean, these are people who I really hope end up going down with this ship.

All right, I want to transition now that we've dealt with some of the Republican examples to another thought I was having that really does scare me, which is this, we may have only been saved from a President Trump by the fact that Trump is a horrendous pile of shit candidate. What if he weren't that, but with all the same views? I mean, I guess he would have to be to a certain extent, a little less sexist, maybe a little little less conspiracy minded, but it's possible that someone could have all the same nativist kind of bigoted sort of misogynistic views and not be just as horrible as Trump as a person and as horrible as a candidate, and they could get elected. And that's why I think that, and I said it before, I don't think Ted Cruz is that much better than Trump. I think I even said at the time, in fact, I'll cop to it, I said Ted Cruz was worse than Trump.

I believe I may have been mistaken, but not by much. I think that the true depths of how clueless Trump is and how much of a loose cannon he would be is what changed. Back when I said Cruz was worst than Trump, I envisioned a Trump who was just being cynical, who was kind of saying whatever he needed to to be elected, but once it became more clear that he truly has some sort of narcissistic disorder.

0:38:02 Thomas: I mean, he really, he's incapable of self-deprecation. He's incapable laughing at himself or admitting that he's ever wrong about anything. Once I saw how truly, how much of a loose cannon he would be, I do think ultimately he's more dangerous. So I believe I was wrong when I said Cruz is more dangerous, but not by that that much. Cruz is a lot of the same bad things, but just more controlled. Really, I mean, we were rescued by Trump being as bad as he is, assuming, again, assuming the polls hold and Hillary wins as she should. I'm seeing a lot of people saying Trumpism will die with this.

I'm, I don't know, I don't know, I saw another thing that said the KKK is growing as a result of this, more members, more organizations, it's interesting, I wish I had all the answers as to what that dynamic is. Does someone like Trump being in the spotlight really merely emboldened people who already are having these feelings, or does he actually create racism and bigoted views in people? I suspect it's probably both. And so, I do think it will be a positive if Trump is not as much in the limelight and is not the major candidate, but I do not think it'll make it go away. I don't think Trumpism, if you can call it anything, I think that Trumpism is merely an expression of this horrible culture of conspiracy theory, facts not mattering, immunity to evidence, it's merely a particular representation of that.

0:39:50 Thomas: Because when you have those things, they could latch on to anyone, really. I mean, they can latch on anyone in your movement who's willing to take advantage of them. And so, I think that's what's going on here. They picked the most shiny person to go along with, Because pretend Trump doesn't exist, I think Cruz would have been the likely nominee. Cruz, someone who also would take advantage of the same crowd. You wouldn't call it Trumpism, you'd call it Cruzism. It would be a little different, sure. It'd be a tiny bit more reasonable in a way. It'll be more controlled, it'll be a bit less... of like a loose canon, anything on the internet is true attitude, but it wouldn't be that much better. It would not be that much better, so I don't think it's going away.

0:40:38 Thomas: I think that's sticking with us, and that's that. It'll just look a little different. The next candidate will have to leverage these people. Do you think they're just going to disappear? They're not going anywhere. They'll leverage these voters to get the nomination, unless something truly crazy happens, unless there's a big fracture or something. The last thing I want to say today is that it's a bit random, I admit, but it's something that I had thought, you know, I had always said, I can't remember how much on this show, but I think maybe just in conversation, but, I've always said that I liked Ivanka Trump. Trump. I think she's an impressive person. I still do, to a certain extent. I thought her speech at the RNC could have happened at the DNC.

0:41:25 Thomas: I thought she made that speech and I was shocked. I was watching it live, too, I think that's one of the ones I get to watch live, and I thought, what is this? What candidate is she for? It was very pro-woman, pro, uh, it was just, all the things that you wouldn't think Republicans would be, and, I thought hmm, interesting, interesting that she's, she thinks these things. Maybe she's merely going along with the family and then she's going to be a positive influence of kind of liberal values. But I think she really blew it when those things came out about Donald Trump and what he said about women. There was a real opportunity. I meant to say this at the time and I didn't get to it in that commentary. I'm saying it now. Could you imagine if Ivanka Trump, who in some ways has the respect of or had before this, maybe still does, the the respect of a lot of liberals, you know, a lot, a lot of Liberals were like, what is she doing with, you know, like, I wish she would, you know, kind of break away from that.

0:42:22 Thomas: Could you imagine what it might have looked like if she had had the presence of mind, and I don't know what else would be involved, because I don't know about her relationship with Trump. I don't, I don't know what it actually is. But if she'd had the presence of mind, assuming she's opportunistic enough or whatever, to see those tapes, to hear what was said, to realize this is over. Trump is not winning this election. She could have realized that. She could've jumped ship. She could Have said, you know what? It's my own father. I'll always love him because he's my father, but these attitudes are unacceptable. Those things he said, they could have been about me. If I were not related to him, they're unacceptable. On behalf of women everywhere, I say they're unacceptable.

0:43:08 Thomas: I can't do this anymore. I'm not supporting my father anymore. Could you imagine the kind of hero she could become? She could run for office as a liberal after that. I kind of think, I mean, who knows? But anyway, that was a little thought I had that I wish she would have done, you know, and if nothing else, if nothing other than just for the opportunism of it, you know, even if it's not sincere, like she had to be smart enough, I would hope, I would hope she's smart enough to realize that it was over when those tapes came out. We're not electing a person president who says those things. I, gosh, I hope it seems like it, you know, and I wish she would have recognized that would have been really interesting. That would have been a, I think that would've been a good career move for her because the, I mean, it's not going to look good for anyone who was on this campaign after they lose historically, by the way, everyone vote, everyone, vote.

0:43:59 Thomas: We can't just talk about how the fact we are, the fact that we're probably going to win because of the polls, we have to vote. But assuming we all go out and vote, if you haven't already done through early voting, or something. I don't think she has much of a future in politics at all. I don't know if any of them do. I think this is, I really think this is going to ruin most anyone involved, but we'll see.

0:44:32 Thomas: Alright, well now it's time to thank my lovely patrons. Sorry that I sort of lost my voice over the course of this recording. Not sure what happened. Maybe I'm getting a... I don't know. I don't know what. But anyway, I've got to thank, my lovely new patrons. And they are ricky fetters, Brother Brewer, Eric Brewer. That's kind of odd. SueMeImAnAtheist, Armature.

0:44:55 Thomas: Good times. Armature Atheists, Martin Johnson. Thank you guys for your pledge. Very kindly. I appreciate that very much. Lots of great interviews on the horizon. I'm very excited for them. And I guess that's all I have to say. Oh, please, one more quick reminder. Please, if you could be so kind, quick survey. I guarantee you it took 10 seconds. It will take no time. survey.libsyn.com slash atheist. I even think I'll let you in on a little secret. I think the email field is optional. I don't think you have to put that in. You can if you want.

0:45:33 Thomas: I I think I have to do this and I would appreciate your support for it, especially if you if you're not able to be a patron of the show, you know, no hard feelings. This is something you can certainly do to help me out and it would mean a lot to me. So thank you. And then I've got to thank my top all time greats and they are Hunter Ash, Sakashite Fukasumi, Jesse, Inciting Incident Podcast, Along Blackhawk, Kaylee Reiser, Jonathan Moyet, uh Jay Aldenwalt Ian Rozzano pretheist roger metcalf robert schepis sammy Adrian Borszczow blackhawks aerosign sharks steve Steve Sigmund, Peter Skelton, Brian Gerfort, and Dale and Matt Garrett, thank you guys, very kindly, for being my top supporters, and with that said, thanks for another week, I will see you guys next week.