AS293: President Trump's Second Term, with Eli Bosnick and Andrew Torrez

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 293, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and yeah, I just, because I want to be able to shock you, I I named it President Trump's Second Term. Make me wrong.

0:00:46 Thomas: Come on, please make me wrong! All right, I've got part two with Eli and Andrew, it's even longer with them than part one, really good stuff. I didn't have time to edit because I'm putting this out as soon as I physically possibly can so that it can maybe comfort you in this horrible time. So here it is, part two, with Eli Bosnick and Andrew Torrez on President Trump.

[0:01:25] I don't know. I want to get Eli to make a penis joke real quick, just so we can feel like oh I mean I think Andrew really hit it on the head and to put it in great penis joke no I'm just

[0:01:42] It's because she didn't have one, um, but that's true though, remember how that's true, remember how fun, uh, which is that the Trump voters came out in anger, the Trump voters are angry, they're angry, they had anger to motivate them and we did not, and and to just pile on to another thing that Andrew said that I think is really important is Hillary ran the wrong campaign for America, she ran a Swedish campaign, she ran a British campaign, she should have walked out on that third debate or wherever when we had the pussy grabbing video and opened up her pantsuit and just had a big fucking TV with the video playing over and over again and they should

[0:02:22] have had to of wrestled her to the floor to stop that video from playing, she should have ripped off her shirt and had "rapists" tattooed off her tits, she needed to run a campaign for Americans who are stupid and racist, and we ran a better campaign, right? You guys have a fun show where it's like Andrew, whose voice sounds like milk chocolate, and Norm Macdonald explained why those emails don't mean what you think you do, stupid uncle Steve, and uncle Steve, if he makes it all the way through, right? Sam Harris shared that shit and I looked in the comment section, and when Andrew was done batting around the trolls like a cat playing with catnip, everyone else was like, huh, I never thought of it that

[0:03:02] way, I guess this guy's right, and these are fucking Pepe the Frog profiles, but it's because you guys spoke, and you didn't speak, you didn't, you weren't like a happy little monkey speak down to them, but you spoke at the level, and at no point did Hillary do anything except, like, the way she tried to, who appealed to America was like, I'm a grandmother, I don't like my grandmother, I don't like my grandmother, nobody in America gives a fuck that you're a grandmother, you just need to point across the stage and be like, monster, monster, he's gonna get you, he's gonna get you, run people run, yeah, you know what, now we're invigorated, now we have the anger, now we're all scared and

[0:03:42] sad, and I can't, it on Facebook and my wife is crying, I don't like that my wife is upset, and now we have the anchor, and that is, we are going to obliterate whatever comes next, don't get me wrong, like I'm not downplaying the pain and destruction that's about to happen because it's very real, but the moment we can get our hands on levers again, we're- We're going to elect a black trans midget. We're going to elect a black trans midget who believes in Wicca. It's going to be Jill Stein's gay lover. It's going to be nuts. The next Supreme Court justice is going to be Doc McStuffins. It's going to be fucking nuts. Yeah, okay. I like that.

[0:04:22] A couple of things. This plays into my counter as well to the people who, and I almost don't even want to talk about it with you guys, because I know I have a feeling you're just going to agree, but the people who are chirping at me non-stop about how, what

[0:04:37] we need to do, Christina Hoff Sommers says, what we need to do is, always, always a good predicate to an argument, we need to stop calling people racist and sexist, that's the thing, because they we mode, and and uh, and uh helpful uh skeptic on my Twitter says, we've the angry with the anger like you've said. Here's the thing though. Fewer voters for Trump than Romney. Fewer voters. He didn't get more voters.

[0:05:01] I think it worked, but that's why I really point to the depression in liberal turnout as the problem. And I guess we still could argue about who's more to blame and the cause of it, if it's Hillary's badly run campaign or if it's, I put more personal responsibility because Trump is so bad that we needed to turn out and vote against him. But seriously, fewer

[0:05:26] votes than McCain and Romney, actually. And simple, one sentence answer: no one has ever been nice out of racism, ever, ever. Maybe, what, you had a personal relationship with someone and you sit them down and you explain that they, all they don't all smell different, maybe. But historically, you know, George Wallace didn't move aside from the door because someone said pretty please. All right. Eventually things become societally unacceptable, unacceptable, and I cannot say how many, because I've been talking about how fucking horrible Trump poster Trumps are and Trump voters are, and the last two days people have just been on my Facebook being like, you know, when you talk down to them, if you don't, and they're a hard work, they're not

[0:06:06] fucking salt of the earth, they are stupid or evil, and their TV box showed too many Kellyanne Conway commercials, that's why they voted the way they did, because CNN Wolf Blitzer sat across from that fucking store mannequin and was like, uh -huh all the wars you're saying the Jews started, a hundred percent of them, hmm, let's go to a Harvard lawyer and see what he says, these people both had opinions

[0:06:34] so, um, yeah, uh, first, yeah, there's a lot for you to deal with, yeah, there's a lot, so the the first thing I would say is I, I do, I, this is somewhat of a of a of a narrative that's being constructed after the fact, but but I think there is some some truth to that, and that is, um, the a lot of the visceral anger that Trump campaigned on, right, that was not doctrinaire Republicanism, right, was the- The running around and the horrible trade deals, right? And the – kind

[0:07:14] of the message behind that is this notion that does dovetail with Republican conservatism, the sort of end of the blue-collar middle class in this country, right? And when you say like NAFTA shipped our jobs to Mexico, what you mean is the kind of jobs people had in 1975 when you had the husband in the family worked in the steel mill and brought home an above average income. Mom stayed home and raised three kids and we all had the American dream. Like, it is correct,

[0:07:55] right, as a matter of description that those jobs are gone.

[0:08:00] And what no Democrat has said, certainly what Hillary Clinton hasn't said, and she's terrible and pandering and awful. On this issue, right, like the answer to that is, I'm really, really sorry, those jobs are gone, and you know what, like because of globalization those jobs are never coming back, we're not a country that's going to be able to take unskilled jobs. Oh, I don't know, are you saying she should have said that?

Let me, let me, I don't know, I don't, I don't remember, remember when she, I, you make a great point, but remember when she said the thing about the coal miners or whatever, right, and she got got killed for that? Sure, because that's gonna be my point two, so I would get that point two in a second, but the but point

[0:08:40] one is, like, it is, the three of us are three of the most diehard Hillary Clinton supporters out there, do any of us believe that she's gonna be protectionist and is gonna rescind these trading, like, she's gonna sign the fucking TPP the second she got into office, we all know that, and if we know that, like, then so do all the voters, and so when when Trump is like, like, railing on trade deals.

And Clinton is like, no, no, I'm going to stick up and I don't like that. It adds to the problem of insincerity. Like it was just, in my view, that's one of her worst moments in the campaign was whenever trade comes up, like make the defense, like, look, I explained this issue to my son, like you make

[0:09:21] the counter issue of, I get that free trade and globalization hurts and displaces workers. Here's what I'm doing to help ease that transition and suffering and help have people have access to education and job retraining and be prepared for the best jobs we can have. But like, yes, steelworkers have lost their jobs. I'm really, really sorry about that. But like, that's the way, you know, that in order to have a functioning economy, like, you know, I'm sorry, like those steelworking jobs paying upper middle class wages are never coming back to this country. If you think they are, like you're lying to people and you're pandering

[0:10:01] to them and stop it. Stop telling them, Donald Trump, that if you get elected, like, somebody that's a high school dropout is going to go be able to make $200,000 a year. Like, that's never going to happen. He knows it and I know it, and I'm the only person who's willing to tell you that. The second thing, the coal miners thing, I think lumps in with the deplorables thing. And the other sort of massive mistake that I'm upset about – and I was upset about it at the Hillary Clinton campaign at the time, I'm more upset now because she lost – is confusing using it's bad to use racism to appeal to people, but somehow that message got transformed when she would speak to, it's

[0:10:42] bad for people who respond to that, right? And, like, you, you need to keep the focus, right? The focus needs to be on the Trump campaign using racist language, not, you have lots of white supremacists and racists who are your, who are your voters, because there are lots of of people who don't consider themselves to be white supremacists and racists who voted for Trump and who, you know, may or may not have responded to the language. But, like, the problem is the appeal, right? Like, when you get up there and say, we have a bunch of bad hombres out there, like, blame the campaign, right? Don't blame the people who are responding to

[0:11:22] it. And that's what I think, like that's where you go off the rails. When you start blaming the people who are responding instead of blaming the appeal, because the good part about blaming the appeal is that you get Eli's shame thing, right? Like somebody who's sitting there going like, yeah, Mexicans are a lot of bad hombres that are coming over the border. And then somebody is like, how dare you try and appeal to the most basest and vile instincts? And then the person is like, oh, yeah, well, maybe I'll shut up about the hombre thing. Let me ask you this, Andrew.

Are we somewhat agreed, I don'T know. All three of us, or maybe just me and Andrew that low turnout for, for Hillary, for whatever the cause was, but that was, uh whatever the cause of it, that was a major factor. I would say uh I don't know that the bad, or not the bad numbers, the uh the deplorables thing, do you think that kept kept otherwise Hillary voting liberals home? Because I don't think it does. I think that that would maybe alienate some Republicans, possibly, but I don't know that that would alienate liberals and make them stay home.

[0:12:33] It's spoiled. Yeah, I think it's spoiled. I agree with, with you, Thomas, and I, and I think also, Andrew, uh, I, I think it is spoiled liberals, and not in, I, I think that Republicans who we had, were, you know, the Trump voters were full of anger and had the anger motivating them, but I don't think it's why they won. I think they won because we, as in the liberals on our side, were too lazy and too divided and too stupid to put our pride aside and vote for, for the person who we needed to win, for the safety of others.

[0:13:09] Yeah, and I think I agree with that as the primary cause. And when I talk about the deplorables and everything else, I am talking about sort of the secondary cause, which is Clinton also made massive, and I thought really, these These were good aspects of her campaign, right? Like appeals to centrist, you know, suburban Republican women, right? Like I thought some of those late commercials, right? Like did you see the one with the Republican woman who was the mom of the autistic son? And yeah, and like that, I thought that was one of the best commercials I've

[0:13:49] ever seen, right? Like, and it's super, she's like, autistic kids, like, flap their hands sometime, time, and when I saw Donald Trump up there, you know, flapping his hands, I, I knew I couldn't vote for that guy. And I don't, I don't agree with anything Hillary Clinton says, but, you know, she's smart and she's reasonable and she can work with people and she's not Donald Trump, and you've got to go out and vote for him.

And, like, I like that commercial, to me, was really, really moving. Yeah, but I think that that those voters didn't turn out either, right? Like, so it's easy for us to to bitch about, about people on the left who didn't turn out, and it's correct. But also, those people didn't turn out for Hillary Clinton either. So I guess I just wanted to clarify things that I

[0:14:29] thought didn't work. Well, and that's a great point. And here's another point that links back to something we were both kind of saying earlier. And I think, Andrew, you started with this and it's something I wanted to reinforce. In an election where, as I said, and if you believe this 538 article, which I am going with for now, 1% difference, there's a ton of little things that would make a 1% difference that we could all identify. And it's impossible to say, oh, that's the one. That's the one little thing that made the one difference. So I get that these are a number of things that could have made a huge difference. And it's also why the regressive left argument is such nonsense to me. The idea that that somehow, as Eli so expertly said, the idea that calling people out on their racism is what made the difference.

0:15:15 Thomas: Like you said, Andrew, I think early, you can pick any pet issue you have and just say that because it was close, this would have been the difference. And that's nonsense. But let me ask, unless I cut anyone off before you're going to make a point, I wanted to move on to a different question, which I'm genuinely, I think I know the answer, but I'm still uncertain on, so I'm interested to talk about it. And I'll put it to, I'm going to put it to Eli first, just to make sure we

[0:15:43] get Eli's voice in there. I don't need your petty question. We're all here for Andrew. It's fine. I chime in with jokes when jokes are needed. We can find out what Andrew has to say, and I'll come in with a sham-a-lam-a-ling-dong at the end. No. Well, you have to ask Andrew. No. I'm asking you. No, it's fine. You guys have your own show. You never start Eli speaking.

I want to know what you, I'm not doing this here, I want, it's been a rough week for us. Okay, it's been a rough week for everybody. Here, I think, I want to put out, I put in a plug because we just re, we republished the second amendment on uh on OA, and I put in a plug in the, like, first three minutes for God Awful Phone Book, so yes

[0:16:23] I did, and then you called me an abortion activist. I started to write a tweet about that, I was like, ha, I'm gonna accuse Andrew of calling me an abortion activist, because you were like, I think Eli's, like, this, to give a point about, like, needing to change the Constitution, and then I was like, I don't have time for the people who won't get this joke. I just don't have the spiritual energy for the people who are gonna be like, what did he do, explain it to me. So here's what I really want to know, Eli, from you, more than anything in the world.

0:16:52 Thomas: Do you think Bernie would have won? That's the thing everybody's saying now. I want to get, I want to know your thoughts on this. The Bernie would have won crowd and the DNC fucked us or whatever that, what are your thoughts on that? I mean,

[0:17:04] well, there's, there are two separate questions. The first is, would Bernie have won? And the truth is, I have absolutely no idea. I have absolutely no idea. Very, very late into the primary, a bunch of Bernie's policies and promises fell apart. His budgets didn't work, certain plans he had, he had financial advisors, and really left-leaning people saying, this is not viable, this is not a good idea, we couldn't actually implement this. And I really liked him. But then the other thing was that, like, a tremendous amount of voters, like, mainstay Democrats who very likely would have just gotten in line, but whoever behind

[0:17:45] whoever the Democratic candidate was chose Hillary, not him. So I don't know whether or not he would have won. What I will say is that he lost. There was no magic thing. There's no WikiLeak. There's no DNC, Illuminati, Lizard, Backgammon, Rock, Paper, Scissors. He just lost. And he lost with black people. And we need to all have them because there's this like undercurrent, especially among white people, white liberals being like, and we chose Hillary who called him super predators. And it's like, no, no, no. They chose Hillary. They overwhelmingly chose Hillary. We

[0:18:25] overwhelmingly chose. We were the ones who were like, hey, little Jewish guy, and we can't, we, the white guilt, white man's burden side of that, like, Bernie was going to be their champion thing, they chose, and honestly, the way the numbers are looking out right now, they chose Hillary and then they didn't turn out for her, and that's not on us, that's honestly, that's just a matter of dynamic, and that's something that we need to accept. Yeah, that, that goes into what I, my answer has been every time somebody's asked this is Bernie couldn't win with the group, group of people that should have been most on his side, and the counter to it in the primary, and he lost by a big margin. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't anywhere near as close as Obama and Hillary, as we all know. He lost by quite a wide margin.

And if he couldn't even do that, it's a weird question to ask, but would he have won in the popular, you know, in the general election? However, the counter is to say, well, sure, but if he had won in the primary, all the Democrats would have still voted for him, and fewer – and he would have turned more out because he doesn't have scandals, or whatever it might be. What do you think, Andrew?

0:19:32 Thomas: Yeah.

[0:19:34] I feel even more strongly than that. Look, the Democrats who turned out – registered Democrats were 38% of the electorate, right? And that's typically what you get even in a year of big turnout, right? Like, those additional turnout from the early Obama numbers are people that were, were, uh, not registered Democrats or new voters, or whatever. Hillary Clinton ran the tamest, the most kind, the most positive campaign against Bernie Sanders in the primary that's possibly – you were talking about somebody who is a

[0:20:14] self-described socialist who vacationed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And if you don't think that the Republican machine would have made him disqualifying as a candidate over the course of that, that would have been the easiest thing on earth for them to do. They would have not run a single ad with Donald Trump in it. It would have just been like pictures of the little like dancing Cossacks and Bernie Sanders at the front of the line. And it would have been, I'm not kidding. Like, I think he would have been disqualified as a candidate. Now, is it fair to disqualify him as a candidate when you have Donald Trump and Gary Johnson and

[0:20:54] Jill Stein? Like, no, it's not fair, but it doesn't matter, right? 70% of this country, when you ask them, do you support European-style socialism, the answer is no. Not just like a little, like no, definitely not. I think it's like fuck no, actually. Yeah, it really is. And so and Hillary Clinton never once said that I found that really, really weird during the primary, to be honest, right? Like when I'm sitting there, like watching the debates, and Bernie Sanders is like, I want college, I want all colleges to be free for everyone. I kind of wanted Hillary Clinton to say, and again, I'm gonna lose all my liberal cred here. But like, I kind of wanted Hillary Clinton to say, like, I don't want that. Like,

[0:21:34] I'm a capitalist. List, and I think, yeah, well, I think that plays into the same reason she did the fucking trade deal stuff. I think she saw the the enormous support that Bernie, who did have, because it was surprising, and I think she got a little worried and she

[0:21:48] got a little spooked and didn't want to alienate anybody and I, and yeah, but, but if she was going to run, but think about the general election campaign she ran and suppose that she had run coming out of the Democratic primaries with, okay, we are not going to make this a personal election, I'm not going to say anything negative about Bernie, Bernie's not going to say anything negative about me, but I want this to be a clash of ideas.

And if you believe in capitalism and free markets, now you believe that, mind you, we have a duty to take care of those people who've fallen through the cracks, and we have a duty to make sure that markets are fair, and we have a duty to make sure that all of the liberal programs that buttress capitalism, that make us a market

[0:22:28] Economy. Yeah, and I've been behind those my entire life. Right, so I'm for increasing the minimum wage. Speaking? Or is this, yeah, this is Hillary, this is Hillary speaking, right? And, and uh, and said, and so that's what, and that's the vote, right? Vote for capitalism or vote for socialism. And just said that at every single time and then come out and been like, yes, I'm the democratic candidate that is, you know, a capitalist and a free.

Like, I, I think it would have made her just as strong, uh, and and and I think that you know it would have made that sort of - the primary easier or - that contrast more clear. And I think you were right that she didn't want to take on that ideological

[0:23:08] divide. But there's a really easy argument to make. When you're Hillary Clinton and you say, "I'm in favor of a $10 minimum wage, which would be huge for working people in this country." But when Bernie Sanders says, "That's not good enough, it's got to be $15." To turn to him and and be like, you know, it's $7 in Idaho right now. Like, you know, if you make a dishwasher get paid $15 an hour in Pocatello, like there's only going to be one of two options, right? Like either that person is going to be paid illegally, which none of us want, or that restaurant is going out of business. And like, there's no way you can double labor costs in Idaho and say

[0:23:48] that that's good for working people. And, and anyway, sorry, yeah, I'm raising the, the one counter people bring up is all the, the polls, though. When you, when you look at Bernie versus Trump, Bernie versus Rubio, Bernie

[0:24:00] versus Cruz. Cruz, he was, uh, he was up in all of those. And is your counter just that that's before? Yeah, right, the strategic, this is, I, I have a political communications degree from my undergrad. I never, ever get to use it. So I'm going to use it here. So one of the things they do in polling to sort of calibrate things is they put in fake candidates. They don't really talk about this, but they will put in like people with candidate-y sounding names, right? Like, you know, C. Milton Enright III, right? And so they'll ask you like when they're calibrating, so what do you think of the following democratic candidates? It's Hillary Clinton, Bernie

[0:24:40] Sanders, Eli Bosno-Malley, C. Milton Enright the third, and like, you would think, right, that those people would show up as 50 and they don't, they show up as like 85 on a, like, zero to a hundred scale, because people are like, "Oh yeah, you know that guy though, like, oh, you mean the, the three-term congressman from, oh yeah, no, he's Bearing Von Enright, that's that, right?" And, and so, yeah, like whenever you have the, the, it's just well known in the political science literature, that I love it, you have somebody who is an unknown slate, yeah, that, that they pull off the fucking trucks.

[0:25:21] Okay, so all of these, like, well, you know, the polls show that Bernie said, like, if you put C. Milton Enright the third on there, like, it would show that person beating Trump. Maybe we should have nominated C. Milton Enright III. We really should have.

[0:25:35] No? Okay. No laughter. I found my one edit point. No, I'm just kidding.

[0:25:44] Un -edited episode.

0:25:48 Thomas: I'm glad that we got to finally get some expertise from Andrew. It's about fucking time that we got to get some actual

[0:25:55] expert knowledge from him. I have been carrying this episode.

0:26:00 Thomas: Yeah, how's your back, Eli, you really just, man, even carrying this, crew. Well, I think that's a satisfactory answer for the Bernie question. I, agree. That gives me even more ammunition for that stupid argument. I love Bernie too, but I think Eli, you hit it on the head as well. He really, his policies did start to fall apart and he, really started going, what, anti -GMO

[0:26:26] Toward the end of his run there. Right, yeah, there's lots of little things, don't get me wrong, like, I would have been very happy to have Bernie because I like exciting shiny things and I'm not super well informed. Like, I had to be excited in a staff meeting with Noah and be like, you know, Bernie's gonna give everyone free college, I think that's really great.

And Noah would be like, "Here, read this Robert article," and I'd be like, "Oh, this has numbers," and then you'd be like, "All right, I'll explain it to you." You know, like, that I'm just excited by shiny things, so it's like, it's not the nature of me understanding. Is that your Noah? Because your Tom is way better. But anyway. Oh, you like my Tom? This is my Tom.

[0:27:03] Trumpety is not a virtue. That's much more Bill Cosby than his Tom. That's what I said, too. I said that the last time. My impersonations are about someone's essence, not about their necessary English voice. Just to get it straight, just to get the claim straight, you're saying that Tom is as bad as Bill Cosby in his essence. I mean, I've said that before. I'll say that again. Again. I'm glad I finally get to air that out. It's the regressive left that has let Tom go wild and rampant.

0:27:31 Thomas: So here's what another thing that I saw making the rounds. Maybe you guys might have seen it as well. Maajid Nawaz wrote an article and others have given a similar thing. Ties in a little bit with the these people are angry kind of thing is this notion now that we need to be conciliatory. We need to understand why were they so angry? Why were these Trump supporters so angry We need to understand it because he won. So clearly we're missing something. Uh I have an answer. I'll save it though. And I'll go to my panel, my

[0:28:02] esteemed panel. And Eli, what do you think about that? Oh, I think the absolute opposite. I think the conciliatory, the, the conciliatory was him winning. The, like, oh, why, what do you tell us? What it's like when they all smell different? I think we need to put the fear of non-existent God into these people. We need to spend the next four years just with with them constantly terrified that Obama in a Jane Goodall mask is just going to burst through their door and make all black lives matter all over their wall. We need to rise

[0:28:43] up like a fanged beast and we need to not suffer fools. And really where I'll put that is actually not at us, not at the electorate, but at the foot of the media. Because the media gave Trump more attention than he deserved, earlier than he deserved, and treated him and his clown car of shit skulls more seriously than they deserved until it was too late. And by the time they turned on him to say this, no, it's all a joke. We just loved it when you watched and we wanted to

[0:29:23] sell McDonald's and it was so easy. He was like, don't trust them. And we all were like, yeah, don't trust them because we're stupid. And so they paid too much attention too early and then took too seriously until it was too late. And I lay that squarely at the feet of media and as members of media, I mean, we're not big media, we're not CNN, but as members of media, it's time to stop suffering fools gladly. It's time to, the people like Dave Rubin, and you talk about him all the time, but like the people like Dave Rubin are what empower the Trump voter, right? Right? It's the like, and today my guest thinks that all Jews are actually

[0:30:03] snakes. I'm going to hear him out and then I'll push back. Exchange of ideas. And at a certain point we need to stop. And I mean, look, this is the Eli Bosnick song on this show and everywhere I've ever spoken seriously, but we need to stop pretending everyone has an opinion that's worthy of respect.

And if we had done that early on, if the first time he went down that escalator, it had just been, "What a fucking asshole, all right, on to the election," and just refused to cover him, we wouldn't be doing that right now. We'd be like, "Yay, Bernie beat Rubio," or whatever the fuck we'd be talking about it, but we were just like, "Oh, I want to watch the wrestling, I want to, I like the funny

[0:30:43] TV where he says the pussy and I like it so much." And then attention is the greatest currency, attention is the single greatest currency, and he just spent it.

[0:30:57] Andrew. Yeah, I, I, of course, agree, and I get that this is an echo chamber right now to a certain extent, but fuck it, I, I've earned a little bit of echo chamber after this, uh, I doubt Andrew's about to end his statement with num num num num, he just spent it, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, no, I'm pretty sure he's gonna say exactly what Eli said, uh, that he says, what do you think, Andrew?

[0:31:20] I mean, do you remember the question? No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it was after all that, right? No, so the question was, you know, how do we have to understand what motivated the Trump voter, and I, I don't think you have to understand that, but you have to understand that that they're there, right? Like, so I mean, think about like the Tea Party voters in 2010, right? Like, I, I still can't understand, you know, what produced Christine O'Donnell as a senate candidate, right? But I understand that that, that movement was there, right? Like, so I don't need to get in their head, all I have to know is like, okay, there's

[0:32:00] now a super energized far right wing party in this country, and the Republicans are riding that, and we need to know that that's the new normal. And so yeah, like, so what we need to know is like, we need to know that there's a super energized, really, really angry, non-orthodox Republican party that is comprised of, uh, white people without a college education, and like, and they're really, really fucking pissed off, and like, they, they're pissed off for a variety of reasons, so like, you know, I don't. The one thing I think I would say that I guess sort of differs

[0:32:41] from, you know, maybe is a slight disagreement here is, right, I think a lot of those people are not – do not think of themselves as racist. Sure, yeah. And from my perspective, I don't know that it does a lot of good to say like, "No, no, but you really are racist." I don't really give a shit what they are, right? Like, I don't want to say I'm willing to take them at their word that they're not racist. Like, I don't want to spend my time arguing, "Yes, yes, you are racist," right? I just want to say like, "Okay, so noted. We've seen this. You're"

[0:33:21] this group. And our next strategy, starting with the midterm elections, is how are we going to be larger than your group? Because we know how big your group is, right? Like you've posted the little blue and red graph on your Twitter account and everyone should go look at it. It's not a huge number, right? It's not an insurmountable number, but it's a number that you can fall less than if you suck when you're running your campaigns. And we need to make sure we're not less than that number. Yeah, one thing, so I agree with that. I think that's a good point. And I will say as much as I rail against the idea that the PC, you know, the getting two PC is what lost the election. That's not true. However, I do think, yeah, there's a line of accusing people of racism and sexism that, you know, there's no reason to go way the fuck overboard on that and insult people and call them racist and sexist. If they're not, I'm just not going to tiptoe around it if they are.

But anyway, one of the lines that I think really frustrated me about this article by Maajid is essentially, I forget if this is a quote or if I just typed a summary, but it was something like now we're acting fearful of Trump and that's what we mock the right for doing

0:34:34 Thomas: All these years with Obama. And I'm so sick of this bullshit false equivalency. No, we mock the right for being afraid of nothing, for being afraid that Obama was a Muslim, for being afraid that Obama was born in Kenya, for being afraid that he was going to take our Gun, all this stuff. I mock them for for being afraid of just stuff that's not factual, that has no basis in fact. But the analogy I thought of is like, I can mock someone for being afraid of the Illuminati and being scared or, I don't know, wearing a tinfoil hat or something. And then when someone comes into the room with a gun, I get all scared. They're like, whoa, hold on. We're both scared. It's like, no, I have a reason to be scared. Trump is a man with a gun. It's ridiculous.

[0:35:19] So let me ask my question that I think directly plays into that. And I don't have an answer to this, so I'm curious, Eli, Thomas, if either of you do. I think the biggest problem is that the right have created an alternate universe in which they can gather their information from Fox News and Breitbart and sources that are not tethered to reality. Reality. And I don't know, right, like, so I don't know how to, right, like, I've given up trying to penetrate that bubble, right, like, so when somebody, you know, comes to me and is like, well, how do you respond to this claim from Red State Watch

[0:35:59] and I'm like, well, it's from Red State Watch, so it's not worth, you know, fucking pixels it's printed on. But like, right, so that's the answer. Uh I agree, and it's like, it's so hard because you can't, in order to answer these questions, you'd have to start from scratch. Like there's so much misunderstanding. You'd be like, okay, you know what atoms are, right? Okay. We'll start there and then we'll build our way

[0:36:21] up. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, we have to go before atoms. Oh, crap. Yeah, I agree, it's impossible, it's too much work. But sorry, I mean, do you just, do you just like draw a wall around those people and say, okay, well, you know, if your claim comes from Fox News or Breitbart or Red State Watch or whatever, then like, uh, just not going to talk to you, going to mobilize everybody else. But like, right, isn't that, isn't that how we sort of got here in the first place, right? Gosh, I just don't know, you know. Yeah, and, and I, and I agree, I agree that's that is my diagnosis of the problem.

There, there, it's misinformation, that's what won It's not, it's it's not, you know, for all of Hillary's faults, and I agree, she has faults, I agree. But I thought the guy I had on a while back who talked about implicit biases and how it affects every, basically, I think there is implicit sexism that went on and made people think that, well, Hillary can't be trustworthy. Therefore, I'm going to reinforce all these things and made all these scandals out of nothing. I think that's a significant portion of it. I don't know what you do about that. That. And here's where I want to say too, the left isn't fucking perfect. I can't believe I've gotten to this point in my life and in

0:37:32 Thomas: My podcasts where I'm this leftist. I really can't because I really didn't used to be. I started out a scant few years ago. I was damn near a Republican, like just not even that long ago. But this election really brought it out in me and it It really made me see that, yes, the left is not perfect. They've got all kinds of flaws, but it's so much more reality based. It's so Much closer to reality. And I don't know how you fix that. I really don't. And one thing I go back and forth on is I've heard a range of opinions about people like Oliver.

John Oliver is probably my favorite to watch, Bill Maher, people who do the kind of comedy ridicule the other side thing. I've heard some people say that that's the problem and that's causing a huge rift and it doesn't solve anything and all that. But on the other hand, I mean, I have my own thoughts about it. What do you think about this whole thing, Eli? What do you think about the alternate reality that the right is living in, some people on the right? And is there any way that you think we can solve that? And I'm also curious to hear your opinion on the sort of comedy left news that is sort of how a lot of people on the left are getting their

[0:38:41] political news. Well, it'll probably come to no surprise to anybody that I do approve of scathing humor aimed at TM people. Yeah, exactly. But the truth of the matter is, I mean, in response to Andrew's question and yours, I think we need to stop trying to break through that bubble. I don't think it's a breakable bubble. I think it's always been there in some form or another. You know, it used to be the uncle who whispered Jews papers, and now they have Breitbart. Like, now that uncle's got a website. He has his own Jews paper. Exactly. He's got a thing that tells him. Exactly,

[0:39:22] yeah. But it's never been, I don't think those people have ever been, with rare exception, reachable. I mean, those people are reachable, and I'm very biased because I get emails pretty regularly and messages pretty regularly from people who are like, hey, I listened to your show and you reached me. You broke through. But I definitely didn't break through by being nice. I think rather than worrying about how do we compromise with evil, we need to start focusing on how we empower good. I mean, if we took any of the resources that we as the left or as liberals have spent trying to reach across the aisle

[0:40:02] and instead just empowered enough people who were tired of the the right to replace them, the story's over. It's what we did with the KKK. Again, the KKK didn't go away because we slowly transitioned them out of racism. What happened was we invigorated the entire world through Superman cartoons, ironically. We invigorated the entire world through Superman cartoons and radio shows that the KKK were a bunch of assholes and that they they were ridiculous and it destroyed their recruiting and just invigorated the everyday non-interested, non-political

[0:40:42] Joe against the KKK. We just expose them for what they are. So it's like, you know, I don't want to convince one Republican. I want to empower a hundred liberals.

0:40:53 Thomas: Yeah, that's a good answer. I would say the only danger becomes what happens when they somehow

[0:40:59] become the majority, you know what I mean? Because then you're totally fucked. You You have no way of reaching them. Which is now. I mean, like, that's what we're looking at. Yeah, yeah. I mean, not technically the actual majority, but the voting majority by well, and not even that, but the electoral college majority.

[0:41:17] We're looking at control of all three branches of government. That's true. Like, you don't get a better majority than that. You're right. And so I - But my argument, my argument is that the reason that happened is because the Democrats, and I lay this, you want to talk about things I lay at their feet, the Democrats have spent the last eight years playing nicey nice and trying and begging them to do their jobs instead of empowering people to replace them.

You know, one of the things, and I said this, and I'm sure I said it on this show, I'm sure I said it on the air, I was like, when Hillary gets into office, she's gonna crush balls, you know, and she's gonna be the one that's just just like, get

[0:41:57] the fuck out of my way and get stuff done. And because I was so disappointed in Obama's precious, careful handling of his legacy and all the reaching across the aisle. I mean, that to me is what handed over the majority, not the fact that we didn't reach out enough. I think we reached out too much. We spent too much time. I keep coming back to this. We spent too much time taking people whose ideas are not worthy seriously. Seriously well uh I yeah I I see that I think that I think that andrew yes um they're they're a majority They control you know everything right now. But I would say an even more dire situation is when the turnout thing isn't even an issue, you know when when you couldn't even solve the election by turnout. If if it and I don't know. I mean, I don'T know how powerful these these shitty ideas are. They could be very powerful or this alternate reality. I hope that it's something that most, you know, maybe two thirds of people are resistant to.

I hope it's kind of a sort of like a 35% sort of thing who are really into this stuff. That may be too optimistic. I don't know. But the real danger of the strategy of ignoring them, I think, would be that. I mean, if that,

0:43:12 Thomas: If they reproduce faster than we do, or if they, you know, whatever it is, then you're left with no option. But I don't know if there is a better one. We're coming to a close. One more thing I did want to say on that, Andrew, to actually try to answer your question seriously. I'm going to attempt my best at a serious answer to it, which is I would encourage as best we can, and I'll put myself under this too, and anyone like Oliver, anyone that in the left version of that media, well, it's it's not a version, but in the left media and the left entertainment politics thing, to do as good of job as of not relying on shared assumptions as possible. And the, only, this is the theory I'm just working on right now, but I think that might be the best way because that's the best way, your

[0:44:05] dog disagrees, Dan.

0:44:06 Thomas: That's the best way, I think, to have a chance of actually reaching other people. I would like it to be, when we share that John Oliver segment, for there to be enough kind of basic agreed upon premises in it to where they could reach a different conclusion and not merely to rely on, "Okay, we all know that this," or "we all know that the Republican opinion on this is bullshit, and therefore here's the punchline." It might make more of a difference to, and I think Oliver actually does an okay job at this, to to stick, to try, do our best to stick to premises that maybe everyone can agree upon, and that might have a good chance of reaching outsiders. I don't know. That's my attempt at an answer. But I

[0:44:49] would say we're, we've gone a long time. Thank you guys so much. I have a question for Andrew. I have a very important question. Andrew, how fucked are we? Cause I am, I'm real, I'm not scared for me. And that's what makes it terrifying. Cause I'm white, and tomorrow everybody's going to wake up and be super excited to hear what Noah has to say, and I heard the diatribe and it's great, so actually this is really weirdly good for me, like the stock price just went up. But yeah, I'm worried for the people who I love who are fucked. How fucked are they? You know, they're gonna have to tune into Opening Arguments, I think. What do you think, Andrew? Because we're actually, our next show

[0:45:30] our next show is gonna be all that kind of stuff. Um, but but I'll, oh, I'm glad I set you up like that.

[0:45:38] but no, Andrew, are you muted or something, or no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm still here. That was, that was just such a perfect setup, I didn't want to walk on the line, so I, know, I, I think I said this, I, I have said this conversationally to people, I don't, I don't know if I've, uh, posted it publicly. But it was around 1 a.m. on election night when the sort of wave of self-awareness of my own privilege kind of hit, right? Because, you know, if you were following me on Facebook, right, like I was sort of, I went through the like DEFCON 5

[0:46:18] to DEFCON 4. This is where I have to say, I just have to say, Andrew, I was negative far sooner than you were. You were so positive, and I was like, no, this is not happening. We're fucked. I was trying to keep it together, and I felt like, you know, that sort of the fate of it. You kept it together for both of us.

0:46:36 Thomas: Had she pulled it out, I would have thanked you. I would have been like, man, I almost jumped off a building like I had the noose around my neck, but you talked

[0:46:42] me down. And look, like, at 9:30, like, things were trending in a bad direction, But there was still, like, there was still plenty of, like, you know, I mean, like I said, it was a good time to panic, but it was not a good time to, like, you know, start murdering each other and cracking open each other's skulls, right? Too late. That was later. That came later.

[0:47:03] But so I sort of, as I was watching this, like, because it was a slow death spiral, and I never prior, it was, right, it was like 1230. So this was the sequence of things. At like 11 o'clock, intellectually, I was like, well, this is pretty much over. And then at 1230, I was like, oh, the consequence of that means we're going to have President Trump. And that was literally the first time I considered, it ever crossed my mind that Donald Trump could be the president, right? I knew all the models beforehand, like, okay, there's a five or 10 or 1% chance or whatever it was. But never in my mind did I think this

[0:47:43] could really happen. And at about 1230, I was like, "Okay, now I need to think about what a Trump presidency is going to be like." And then about 10 minutes after that was when I was just struck by – and I'm not usually a person to use and describe my own privilege, but I was really overwhelmed by that sense of of of individual privilege of saying like, "Yeah, I, you know, I'm a, a you know, an educated professional white straight guy, you know, who's good looking, kids," I mean,

[0:48:25] that that goes without saying, um, and, and, and I, and it just, it, it really hit me of like, yeah, I can philosophically say like, "This is how I'm going to deal with a Trump presidency." Like, like, I've talked a little bit about my son in this. He takes French lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And it's a, there are two kids in his class. Yeah, you're privileged, you're privileged. Yeah, there are two kids in his class, and his friend is Muslim, right? And so when I picked him up from French class today, you know, I mean, he got in the car and was almost in tears and was like, "I don't really know, you know, like, what's a mean gonna do under President

[0:49:05] Trump, right?" And I didn't have an answer to that. I don't have an answer to the country just elected somebody who said, "Your kind doesn't belong in this country." And you could talk about like, well, did he walk it back? But he said that. He has said, "Your kind don't belong in this country." And I, I can't imagine that experience of, yeah, having to go through life, uh, with the president having said that about you, like, yeah it's true that we're three of the people who'd be least affected really and it's it sucks but

[0:49:48] uh, that is, well, it's, it sucks and it's, it's, it's, it's terrifying because I, I want to help, and I worry that the people with the power to implement the change that this fear and this anger has caused will allow themselves to be paralyzed. And I see it already, you know, I, I, one of the things that I talked about a lot today was like, "What are you gonna do?" And there's too many people who can do a thing on my like Twitter and Facebook feed right right now being like, "I don't know, I'm gonna get drunk and fuck myself," and I'm just like, I, because that's what I couldn't

[0:50:28] do, we need to do something else, like, I can do that and it'll never matter, and I said this months, I said this when I was on the Don't Vote for Third Party show on Callie's show three months ago, I was like, "This will never affect me, I will be sad that my wife is, is sad, that is my path in the Trump presidency, and other than that I'm just like, oh, bummer, turns out they're sending Callie to a camp somewhere, I hope she learns to concentrate," you know, it's, wow, and, and, and so the question, and so my worry is, what do we do, you know, we, we gotta do something. We

[0:51:08] can't just be lazy and we can't fight amongst ourselves. We need to fucking unleash the dogs of war. You need to stop being nice to your racist uncle. You need to put on a show trial at Thanksgiving this year. And then I do want to walk one thing back from earlier because Andrew made a really good point. And people have already stopped listening and they're just going to tag me for it anyways. But Andrew pointed out, saying, "Hey, man, you're racist," when it's just you and him, that's really not useful. That's the moment to reach out and be smart and change someone's mind. But if you have an audience, if you have a chance, put

[0:51:48] someone on show and embarrass them. Make them look terrible. Terrible make them be embarrassed to be that person in public again embarrass people on your facebook Make them feel really, really terrible. That's the thing you can do. And then you can also do good, useful stuff that the other two will recommend. Men, but I'm telling you, you can embarrass your racist uncle on Facebook. That's something I genuinely believe will help and that you can do. So I'm going to take the exact opposite side. So I've said a couple of times that really, really is true that

[0:52:29] I think is, and I think think about this in the context of the ACA. The other side, the repeal Obamacare and burn it to the ground and salt the earth, those people are conveying anger and they are relying on abstractions. Tell your story is what I have been telling people. And I mean schedule an It's not hard to schedule an appointment with your representative, right? That is one of the easiest things on earth to do. And people are super scared. Representatives are – they're not really

[0:53:09] often that impressive of human beings even. It will not be intimidating. And go in and say, and I don't care if your representative is a hard right, repeal Obamacare. They listen when their constituents come in and say, hey, I just want to tell you, I have a preexisting condition and my medication costs $50,000 a month. And thanks to Obamacare, I'm not dead. And if you repeal Obamacare, I can't get health insurance anywhere. And I won't be able to afford life-saving, you know, chemotherapy or whatever. Like, that's

[0:53:49] really, really, really fucking powerful. Tell your story online, on Facebook, on Twitter, and seriously, like, tell it to your elected representative. And I kind of feel like if we're going to stop Obamacare from being repealed, that it needs to not be, you know, an abstraction argument, right? Because an abstraction argument, you can start talking about like, well, did the premiums go up 22% or whatever?

But like when somebody comes in and looks at you and says, if you repeal Obamacare, that's a death sentence for me. Like, that's a hard, I don't care how hard right you are. Like, there are not too many people who can turn that away. That's a great answer. And that's why I'm glad you went second. I thought they were both great answers.

[0:54:29] I think they were both great answers. If we think about it, I think it was probably a tie. Oh Guys, I really cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this. I enjoyed this so fucking much. I really thank you for coming on, making me feel better, for giving me thoughtful answers on everything, talking this out. I Seriously,

[0:54:47] This was, this, this helped me, this helped me a lot. I think if you guys happen to listen and you hear what I recorded that's gonna go before this, I think you'll I think you'll understand why I'm saying this. Was the beginning

[0:55:00] of this show a suicide note? Yeah, yeah, kind of was. This your, if someone smiles at me, I won't jump. Didn't you, didn't you release like the first 15 minutes already to Patreon? No, I didn't, I would have if I had time, but there's just, I thought I saw something on my feed that said President Trump. No, I, that was me merely showing what the the name of the next episode would be, because it was the same, it was the same as the, like, 260 or whatever when I did a President Trump Trump episode, and actually a lot of people listened to it. But, okay, so thank you guys, really. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. This was a very late recording for Andrew and Eli, and it's perfect for me. I'm the privileged one in this situation. I feel great. But they stayed up very late to make it happen. Thank

[0:55:44] you. Truly, thank you. Oh, this is a ton of fun. Yeah, it's always fun. All right. Uh Yeah, that's we'll sign out awkwardly. Bye.

0:56:19 Thomas: Well, there you have it. If you enjoyed that a third as much as I did, then I think it will have well been worth it for you, because I really, man, that helped me a lot, being able to record with those guys, really did. Okay, I'm recording this, you may be hearing this Monday, but I'm still back in Thursday time, so I don't know what's happened since then, sorry about that, but, I sure you can follow all my social media and find out what I think.

That out, but yeah, check out at Speak Atheism, at T and the B, check out the Facebook, friend me on Facebook, I'm there, Thomas Smith, find me podcaster, I don't know, somehow you can find, there's a, there's a lot of Thomas Smith, but maybe you have a friend in common with me, because I have friends with a lot of listeners, I'm enjoying interacting with listeners there, so please do that. Okay, that's all to say for now, we'll be back with Michael A. Wood Jr., uh, that was what got pushed off because the, the world ended, but that's a great interview, and I will have part one of that for you on Thursday. See you then.