SIO38: Obama's Unfortunate Payday

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 38, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, very happy to have you with me today. So, today we're going to talk about Obama's big payday, the $400,000 he's earning from Cantor Fitzgerald for giving a speech of some kind. And after that I've got yet another really good voicemail segment, my favorite, seriously that's actually my favorite part of this show now because I love hearing from you guys, the questions have been good, the points have been good, and this one especially, so please keep that up, it's my favorite thing that this show now does, so look forward to that. But with that said, let's get over to it, I need to talk about this Obama thing and the post that I did on Facebook because it illustrated just how much liberals disagree with one another, which is interesting. How many different arguments that I believe are a bit fallacious that liberals are using when it comes to this, and I'm excited to talk about it. So let's get over to it.

0:01:41 Thomas: First things first, this is not the most important thing going on. I need to emphasize this because a lot of the complaints, so what's so interesting about this to me is I post an opinion about this speech, this $400,000, and I get such a range, like it's a taxonomy of arguments about why I'm wrong. And it's so interesting because I'm sort of doing just that. I'm categorizing. I'm saying, okay, here's this group of arguments here and why I don't really think that's valid. Here's a group of agreements here. Well, maybe there's some merit to this point, maybe not to this point. I really love doing this. And it is so interesting, because all of this is among liberals. And that is healthy. I am really glad, by the way, that we disagree with each other. That is healthy, we are not a monoculture, we're not just going along with anything anyone says, we aren't the right wing, basically.

0:02:30 Thomas: Basically. We're not as strongly partisan. That's all good. But I do have to say that a major thing, a theme that came up, a recurring thing is a lot of, why are we paying attention to this? Why aren't we paying intention to Trump? Dear God, if I have to do another episode where all I talk about is Trump, it's nice to have the opportunity to talk about something else. But just because I'm spending some time talking about what I think is a very interesting confluence of opinions and wrong opinions and bad arguments, just because I'm doing this and I'm being critical of something Obama did, that does not at all suggest, that shouldn't suggest, that he's worse than Trump, that it's a bigger deal, not at all. There's no rules about you only need to focus on one thing ever or else.

0:03:17 Thomas: That's not how it works. But I do want to emphasize what Trump is doing every day is worse, far worse. The way he's taking advantage of his office is far worse than what might happen with the health care bill, which maybe I'll do an update next week. But now it looks like they're changing it in ways that could, it could pass. Like, but last week, I know I talked about it and it wasn't exactly looking great because I thought the moderates wouldn't vote yes. And I think that opinion was correct because they're change it. They're being forced to change it in a way that's not right. And so I think it's a good thing that ways that will maybe appeal to moderates and that, that should worry you. It worries me because that has a greater chance of passing. I don't want this bill to pass at all, no matter how it is. All that aside, I'll talk about that next week. For now, I want to talk about this. Obama got paid $400,000 to make a speech to Cantor Fitzgerald.

0:04:07 Thomas: Here's what I posted. Just want to let you know what I hosted. So what started this whole hundreds of comments mess pretty much on my Facebook page. So I had seen an article going around titled, White Liberals Troubled by Barack Obama $400,000 Speaking Fee. And I posted, I shared it and posted. Not sure why this headline decides to make this about race. And I'll get back to that. Put a pin in that. I'm going to come back to that. Forget the race issue for the time being. I said, 2016 was all about hating Wall Street influence on politics. So having trouble with a large Wall Street payday for a liberal icon seems pretty reasonable to me. I have no problem with him getting paid, but he's going to get about a bazillion dollars in a book deal.

0:04:53 Thomas: This just seems so unnecessary to me unless he's donating it or using it for philanthropic purposes, question mark. Seems like a really pointless threat to his legacy. So that's what I posted. And then the deluge of which I am categorizing and making a taxonomy now of arguments came at But me. I want make sure my position is clear. Here is my position currently. I really don't want Obama to do this. I think he's already gotten paid for this one. I thank he should. My My opinion is he should announce that he's donating that and any further, feel free to take the money, but any further Wall Street paydays, he should announced that he is donating them. And here is why. It is estimated by some people, and I will cite sources as I always do.

0:05:42 Thomas: It's estimated that the Obamas are going to make something like 200 plus million dollars in the next 15 years from a Business Insider article. They have a book deal currently, the estimates are, we don't know for sure. The estimates are I've seen as low as $20 million, a paltry $20 million, and as high as $65 million, $65 million for a book. Now, that part is great.

You will not see anywhere in my status or in my opinions how dare Obama get paid $65 million for book deal. You will not see that anywhere. You will NOT see me being mad in any way about him getting paid at all, except the specific point of Wall Street money. Trump, Trump was just elected president, Donald mother effing Trump was just elected President in 2016, not in small part because he was able to voters against Hillary's sort of alleged big money ties and her, I say alleged, I mean, yeah, sure, she made speeches to Wall Street, she got paid a lot for them, I think that was not good, I didn't think it was good in the primary, I thought that it was okay to spout against her. Now, the big irony there, of course, and the thing that voters were completely duped about was the fact that Trump was far worse and he was far more a Wall Street candidate.

And he proceeded to hire a bunch of people who worked at Goldman Sachs to run the government. And that's all fine, accurate thing to say that Hillary was in the pocket of big business and Trump wasn't. However, it was a large issue, you cannot deny, especially with all, with how big of a division there, worker, was in the Democratic Party, just in the primary, between Bernie, someone who everyone looked at as a true believer, a pure anti-big business pro.

0:07:29 Thomas: Pro, progressive tax, pro all that stuff. He, he, he caused a stir. He has a lot of supporters. I supported him in the primary. I voted Bernie Sanders in the primarily. And I did so because I thought his money was where his mouth is, or his mouth was where his money wasn't because he's there or something. 'Cause he was, you know, he really did walk the walk. I believe he does. He has lived his life as someone in support of his principles, and he believes in his principles, and he's been consistent. And I like that. And you can't deny if you were paying any attention at all that these Wall Street speeches that Hillary made had impact. They had a huge impact, I think. They colored her as a big money candidate and a lot of other things did as well. This was in no small part a reason why a horrendous boob is running our country now and is potentially starting wars with North Korea and is doing all kinds of things.

0:08:19 Thomas: And we lost a Supreme Court justice seat. I mean, I don't need to sell you guys on just how harmful Trump has been. I don't think I need to tell you on just our harmful the Trump presidency has been, so at this very special time when Obama's legacy is in large part being ruined by Trump, a lot of Obama's policies, a lot of his executive orders, a lot of his actions, and indeed, maybe even Obamacare is going to be undone because of this, in no small part of this issue of this big business issue. And so my opinion is, if you were destitute, if this was all he could do, sure, take the paycheck, I get it. My opinion is very clear, I want to make it very clear, my opinion in the taking, taking the big picture, that I wish Barack Obama, I really sincerely wish that he would either not take this money or he would announce that he was donating it.

0:09:12 Thomas: I wish he would because the potential harm in allowing Republicans to be able to point to this and say, oh, look, he was bought off the whole time, all his policies, they were bought off. And indeed, not even Republicans, maybe some independent voters, maybe some Bernie bros to beable to say, look liberals are just as bad as Republicans. As we speak right now, I have a Bernie bro Facebook friend on my personal Facebook who thinks just this, who thinks that Republicans and Democrats are on equal footing when it comes to big business. I don't think that's true. I just don't Think that's right. I think Democrats, they're not perfect. I Think that largely they're better when it Comes to the influence of money in politics. I would rather have a Democrat in power for many reasons. And certainly I thought Obama was pretty good. It was pretty objective in this, but this just tarnishes his legacy needlessly for $400,000 when he's potentially getting a $65 million book deal.

0:10:06 Thomas: He just doesn't need that money. So that's my position. I wish he would do this. Let me make this point too, just to preempt some arguments potentially. If he started a GoFundMe that said, hey liberals, girls, I don't want to ruin my legacy, I'm going to pass up on this $400,000, can you make that up for me? Just donate it. I would literally donate to that GoFundMe. It is worth money to me for him to not risk tarnishing his legacy and risk the potential backlash in a 2020 election or the potential Republican Fox News narrative to weaken it. I would rather, I'll give him 20 bucks. Let's all pony up 20 bucks so that Obama can have $400,000 that he would have otherwise had for turning this down.

0:10:51 Thomas: I would really do that. Like just to give you an indication, it's not, That but I'm mad that Obama is making money. That is not at all it. And so many of the responses were that. So that's my position. Let's get into what people say. Actually, let's first tackle this race issue because this really frustrated me. This there are some times when people are right when they say liberals are a little little too crazy about race issues sometimes, because here we have an article from, I don't want to give them any business or clicks, but it is from News One, whatever But this article that was being shared had a massive number of shares. Like I said, the headline was white liberals troubled by Barack Obama speaking. Now, I thought, okay, whatever. Maybe this will be an argument why there's some sort of privilege issue going on. Maybe it'll be, it'll talk about how, you know, he's the first black president.

0:11:40 Thomas: Yeah, I thought that's what it's going to talk about. At least it's gonna make an argument and then I can engage the argument. No, it's even worse, guys. This article is even worse. After the headline, white liberals troubled by Barack Obama, blah, blah. Speaking fee. There is not a word about race after that. There's nothing. All it is, is it says that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Warren. It just says they have some problems with this. Here's their quotes. That's it. By the way, Warren's quote is, I was troubled by that. One of the things I talk about in the book, her recently published book, is the influence of money. I describe it as a snake that slithers through Washington and that it shows up in so many different ways here in Washington. That was her quote. That is it. Nothing going on there. Here is Bernie Sanders' quote.

0:12:26 Thomas: I think it is unfortunate President Obama is now a private citizen and he can do anything he wants to, too, but I think it's unfortunate, said Sanders. That's it. There's nothing in this article about race. Nothing. At the end, it says, what do you think? Sound off in the comments. So, this is clickbait of the worst kind, in my opinion, and clickbait that I even fell for. I thought, oh, there would be an argument or something in this. Nope, no argument. This is just, here, inflame people by saying white liberals are pissed about this, whatever. Make us think there's going to be some argument in here, and then just quote Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, and then just say, what do you think? This is stupid. This is, this is, this is the problem, guys. This really is, this is the worst kind of clickbait. It's directly just trying to profit on our anger.

0:13:13 Thomas: It is trying to profit on you and I saying, white liberal, white liberal. I, or don't know if they're targeting black people, white people, or it might be both. I mean, maybe people of color would click on this because they're like, yeah, freaking white liberals. And maybe white liberals would click on it because they are like, hey, what am I doing wrong here? What's the problem? Either way, it's profiting off of this racial tension directly and it doesn't even have any content. If you, again, if you had some content, if you said, and I'm going to play, by the way, I'm gonna play, there's someone linked me a Trevor Noah clip from The Daily Show where he had at least an opinion about why it should be okay for Obama to do this, and it's related to his race, race, that's fine, I'm happy to hear that, that's at least an opinion, that's content, this is pure clickbait profiting off of racial tension, I hate it, I think it's stupid, and I, it got, I clicked on it, I clicked it, so there you go about, let's talk about the race issue briefly.

0:14:08 Thomas: Kenny Weiland, who I really like, Kenny, if you're listening, I enjoy your comments and opinions. I think you're very informed and I enjoy her takes. He posted a link to this Trevor Noah thing. I'm going to play all a minute and a half of it, forgive me, I'm gonna play a minute and a half of this, if you'll permit me, Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Obama and and race and his four hundred thousand dollar paycheck. I think this is a very influential show. I think I think important argument to tackle. And I think this is represented well, and likely a lot of people out there may agree with this. So here you go. And

0:14:41 Clip: Obama's getting $400,000 to be a keynote speaker. He's probably going to give a very important policy speech entitled The Four Boats I'm Gonna Buy.

0:14:53 Clip: Now, look, I know people may say that it weakens public trust when politicians cash in immediately after leaving office, but at least Obama waited until he left office, unlike this guy who's using the White House like an ATM machine. And yeah, Yeah, don't get me wrong. I agree that the system must change. But it doesn't change with Obama, all right? People are like, oh, why doesn't he not accept the money? No, f*** that. F*** that! Sorry, I'm sorry. So the first black president must also be the first one to not take money afterwards? No, no, no. No, my friend. He can't be the First of Everything. F***ing that and f***ing you. Yeah, I said it.

0:15:42 Clip: No. Make that money, Obama. Make that money. But Obama should know better. Oh, what about the Clintons? Yeah, well, I mean, the Clinton's, it's already done. Well, then let him already done it as well. And then you guys can start that with the first white president to not take the money. F*** you, Obama, make that money. Make that money.

0:16:07 Thomas: Right. Funny. Point taken. I get it. I think that it is fair to say that I and others are holding Obama to a high standard here. I think that's fair and probably to a higher standard than other people. Now, I don't think it's fair to say. Now notice a couple things he did though. He changed the very specific question of $400,000 from Wall Street to making money at all. He presented it as cashing in. Obama's already cashing.

I have no problem with them cashing in by getting a $65 million book deal. No problem with that whatsoever. Give talks to whoever that's not wall street or some other, uh, very tainted money that, that can easily be a campaign issue in the future. Make all the money you want. So right there that you already have to notice that there's a bit of a straw man in there. He also compared it to Clinton as though we were okay with Hillary Clinton crashing. We weren't okay with that. We were not okay with that. A lot of the people are still not okay. She lost and a lot people are kicking her for the fact that she was a Wall Street candidate, allegedly. So like, we're not okay that. That's just not true.

So I don't need him to be the first president to not cash in as, as he says, I don'T need that cash in all you want, just not from from this particular thing. Just don't take Wall Street money. And the reason I don't want him to is for his own legacy, is for the sake of liberalism going forward. We are in a very special time in history. There has never been a worse president than Trump.

There's never been a bigger threat than Trump, there's never being such an imbecile elected, and a part of that is because of this Wall Street Money as a campaign issue.

0:17:47 Thomas: So yes, yes, I am holding Obama to a high standard. I am telling him, oh no, I'm telling him be happy with your 65 million and give up this particular 400,000. Is it that hard? I mean, is that really that hard. Incidentally, someone linked to me on this thread a quote by Jabari Brisport, who was on the show some time back. Jabari is black, just I have to say it because we're talking about race. And here's his take on it, just to dispel any notion that this perfectly divides on racial lines. He says this, dear neoliberals, racist. Obama was really born in Kenya. Not racist. 400,000 is what the average American makes in eight years. Racist. Obama's wife looks like an ape.

0:18:33 Thomas: Not racist. $400,000 an hour is over 50,000 times the federal minimum wage. Racist. Dumb Negro, dumb Negro, dum Negro. Not racist. This is after his presidency watched income inequality accelerate. Class warfare with a rainbow at the top is still class warfare. Thank you. That's Jabari Brisport, everybody. And here's the thing, so there are some good points there. I actually still disagree, because the issue is not that four hundred thousand dollars is fifty thousand times the federal minimum wage. That's not the issue, because he's going to be making $65 billion dollars on a book deal. I mean, go ahead and do that calculation for me. That's not the issue at all. I mean, maybe that is for Jabari. Maybe he thinks nobody should make a certain amount of money and or they should donate. I don't know if that's his, his position.

0:19:21 Thomas: That's his position for me though. That doesn't even really cover it. The point is though, that this is not a race thing and it is not necessarily a racial attack to have a consistent position, a consistent position, by the way, that goes back further than Obama's presidency of I'm tired of the influence of wall street money. And in particular, bytheway, I also want to say this, had Hillary won in 2016, if this was president Hillary, this would not be on my radar. Are. I really mean it. I would not care. It's really contingent on the fact that we're in huge trouble now, and it's so unnecessary. It is so unnecessary for Obama to do this. So let's look at this taxonomy. Now I've got a few categories of comment and I've already sort of covered some of them, but here we go.

0:20:07 Thomas: A lot of why am I, what makes you the arbiter of how much he gets paid? I saw that same line like four times. Who are you to decide how much he he gets paid. I don't care how much he gets. And you all saw, by the way, I read you the text of my post. It's not as though somewhere that you guys aren't hearing, I was saying Obama shouldn't make any money or he should make only this much money. All I'm saying is it is an unnecessary risk to his legacy, a terribly unnecessary risk to His legacy to take this money. Because it's going to be so easy for Trump in 2020 even to point to this and say, look, picture this, everybody, 2020. Trump is running for reelection on I think Trump's going to lose, but I don't want to take any chances, guys.

0:20:58 Thomas: We all thought Trump was going to loose, most of us, a second ago. I was convinced he was going to loose. I don'T want him to take ANY chances. We cannot take chances. WE have to vote. We have have to do all that. But picture 2020. On the long list of grievances is how Trump has made money from the presidency. Look at this. Look At This Thing He's Done. I'm sure that'll be in the campaign ads. I'M SURE. But look at how he's enriched himself. Look AT THIS. LookAT THAT. And here's what he'll be able to say. Well, look at Obama. LookAt The Payouts He Got. You thought he was so great. Lookat The Payout He Got After He Was President. We're all the same. We're both the same, Democrats and Republicans. The system is corrupt. We'RE all in it. Yeah, that's the argument he's going to be able to make. And you know what? It might sway some people. It might sway a few people on the margins. And by the way, 2016, look at how close it was, 110,000 or 140,000 votes in three swing states.

0:21:48 Thomas: That's all it was. So every vote is important. And anything like this that has a chance of influencing the election is incredibly important. Stack that against the fact that this is an inconsequential amount of money relative to how much money the Obamas are going to be making. It's unnecessary. It's an unnecessary risk. So, I'm not the arbiter of how much he gets paid. I don't care how much it gets paid. I don't care if it was $20 or $1,000,000. Obviously, it was 20 dollars, I guess no one would notice. But it's not about that. It's about where the money is coming from. And this is a time where I want to read a comment, guys, because it relates to what I just said. Said. Now, I don't know, I'm not going to use this person's name, but I want to read this comment to respond to this kind of objection. "Empower the other side, Thomas." You mean the other side that thinks he was born in Kenya, is a Muslim, hates America, and is coming after their guns and religion?

0:22:38 Thomas: Yeah, let's worry about how they might view his taking money to talk to people on Wall Street. If you believe Obama is corrupt, then this isn't going to change your mind. If you don't believe he's corrupt, this isn't going to change your mind. Nobody's going to believe believe anything differently than they did before this. Nobody. "But it sure gives liberals a chance to eat their own, like they tend to do. Why do we keep focused on Trump and his evil actions when we can throw shade on one of our own for no reason? It's no wonder we can't win elections." This wasn't the only comment to express this point of view. I think it should be clear to say this is a self-defeating point of view. If your point of vue is no one is going to change their mind, and then you go on to say we need to focus on Trump, why focus on Trump? What does that matter? No one's going to choose their mind. You mean the side that thinks Obama was a Muslim hating?

0:23:23 Thomas: What does it matter if we focus on trump? Who cares? Doesn't nobody's going change their Mind. Why do we say anything? No one is changing their mind? If that's your attitude, then just don't say anything. Why are you commenting on my status? Nobody's going to change their mind. I'm not changing my mind. It's a self-defeating attitude to say, why do this? No one's going to change their mind. I think people, I think there are, again, to go back to how close the election is, I think There are people marginally who might change their Mind on this. Tell you what, what? Let me look at this. So one of the commenters talked a lot about how the bailout, this was likely payback from the bail out. Now, I'm not going to go into that claim. I don't really necessarily think that's true, but a lot of people think that. A lot of People think, look, this $400,000 evidence that the whole time Obama was working for Wall Street and he was bailing them out.

0:24:08 Thomas: That's coming from a liberal, by the way. So we're not talking about the Kenyan Muslim conspiracy theorists. We're talking about liberals. We'RE talking about potentially Bernie supporters. We're talking about maybe even independents. And this is an unnecessary threat to those votes. And it's marginal. It's all marginal, but the election was marginal. And I am not willing to risk that. So I'm happy to say, I I wish Obama wouldn't do this. That's all I'm saying. And by the way, as I said, he's not worse than Trump. This doesn't make him by any stretch even close to as bad as Trump. And this doesn't making him a bad guy. Can we keep two thoughts in our minds at once? Can we keep the thought of Obama was a pretty great president? I'm a big fan of Obama. I thought he was the best president in my lifetime that I know of. Say that I know of as though there's like a president I might find out about later that happened during my lifetime.

0:24:57 Thomas: No, I mean, but as far as my research and my knowledge of the effects of presidencies in my lifetime, I think he's been the best. I think she's a great guy. I like him. I just wish he would make a different decision. We can keep all this in our minds at once. And I think a lot of what I'm seeing here, and a lot the theme of this episode, is we don't need to push each other to black and white. Look at how many arguments in this thread that I've already read you. But if you want to to check it out, by the way, I will link the thread in the show notes. I will link that. Hopefully, your friends with me on Facebook, facebook.com slash Thomas podcast. Look at how many of the premises of this are so scared that if I criticize Obama, I'm endorsing Trump somehow. That's not a straw man. A lot of them are, are using that premise. "Oh, look at Trump." "Oh, but but Trump did this." Oh yeah, I know, Trump is way worse.

0:25:42 Thomas: That is not the question. Look at what Trevor Noah said. Trump, oh but look what Trump is doing. Of course, Trump is worse. Let's be better. Just because we found the worst person, Trump is the worst person. Are we really just trying to be barely better than the worst person? Let's just be a lot better than that. That And brings me to kind of argument number two, I suppose. There's several that I can... I'll pair into one because this is already going on too long, frankly. But I'll put these into one. I saw, I don't see why you're surprised. I saw a lot of that. Why are you surprised? What does that matter if I'm surprised? I don't. I'm just saying I wish you wouldn't do this. And I would put that in the same category as this is what presidents do. I sawed a lot that. I sawa lot ofthat. This is whatpresidents do after the business. This is like they're explaining the world to me. Thank you. Thank you for explaining the status quo of what happens.

0:26:29 Thomas: And he can. That's another one. Well, he's doing it because he can't. A lot of responses I put in the category of explaining to me how the world works. And this is what happens and this is what it is. Yeah, those aren't arguments.

0:26:43 Thomas: I just want people to be careful of the fact that what I'm always policing myself against is bias and motivated reasoning. And what I've seen here, what I have seen demonstrated in this thread a lot, is what What I'm saying is a threat to people's beliefs. What I am saying, me being critical to Obama, is a threat to their, potentially, possibly, hero worship of Obama, and it's a threat to their liberal worldview, and it shouldn't be. Don't take everything that way, guys. So, I think that reaction, my theory is, that that reaction of, ah, this is how it works, this is, is an effort to just kind of, and Divert away from an argument they don't like. An argument that is challenging someone. An agreement that is critical of someone that they love. And I get it. But I think we need to be better than that. I want to be better than that.

0:27:29 Thomas: And I do my best. As far as the status quo goes, yeah, the people saying, this is, this is what happens, this is, I'm not, why are you surprised, this is what happened. Yeah, this is exactly the time when we need to not do the status quo. Trump ran against the status qua. I'm not going to, I don't need to say this a third time. Trump is historically bad. We need to, this now is a bigger time than ever that we need to reject the status quo, especially in such an easy case like this. So easy. Final point on this I saw in the news here. Headline, Obama announces $2 million donation to Chicago summer jobs programs. Now But that's fantastic. I am seeing a lot of people though celebrating about how right they were all along as if they knew this somehow. Did they know this data ahead of time that they had in the future know that he was going to donate?

0:28:16 Thomas: Here's what I say to this. This is great. Even more reason, even more reason he should just say, here's where that $400,000 went. Just say it, Obama. Now we're not even talking about hurting your money because you already have decided you're donating $2 million. You're already donating more than you got from Wall Street. Just saying, hey, here's where this $400,000 went. He should have said it ahead of time, by the way. And now just say, this is where that's going. Anything else I get from Wall Street, here is where it's going, donating it. That was my argument all along. I read it to you in the beginning. My argument was, unless he is going to donate this or use it for charitable purposes, which he should announce, that was my agreement all along, I wish he would do it. Now it's even easier. Now I'm not even taking money out of his pocket. All I'm telling him to do, all I wish you would do, is just allocate, you know, explicitly, just say, here's where that money is and problem solved.

0:29:08 Thomas: I think it's a bit of, again, again, motivated reasoning people are doing to now see this and share it as though that made them right all along. Did you know this was happening? No, you didn't know this. We have to argue on the information that's available that we can establish. This didn't make you right all along. Unless your argument was explicitly, I am very confident he will donate more than he gets in Wall Street money. Unless that was your argument, but I let me remind you guys that that wasn't the argument. The hundreds of comments on my post are not that. They're not, I bet you he will donate it. The arguments were what I said. They They were, "What do you care? How do you, do, why are you the arbiter of how much he makes?" And by the way, the final thing I'll say to put a button on this whole thing is it's just funny to me how many conservative sounding arguments I heard in this.

0:29:56 Thomas: All of a sudden, when they're defending Obama, it was like, what are you to say what he does with his money? Aren't all these the argument? We're the, we're the Democrats, right? Aren't we the ones who always say like, hey, maybe let's make the tax structure more progressive because why do you need like a seventh yacht? Yacht. And then all of a sudden, those of you, well, who are you to say maybe Obama wants a seventh yacht? Like, it's amazing to me that those are the same Republican arguments that you hear. We are the party of, again, if you consider yourself a Democrat, if You are in favor of progressive taxation, progressive values, we are the Party then of people saying, maybe you don't need that extra million after you already have hundreds of millions. You know, Maybe we do a little, a small tax to help fund Obamacare.

0:30:42 Thomas: We are the party of that. So it's funny to me that those same people are making these arguments. I found it a little ironic. So there It's not good enough for me to be as bad as Trump or Republicans. It's not good enoug h for me. I want to be better.

0:31:00 Thomas: I election, we can point to these things and say, no, Democrats are the better option. They're the better option, they're the less Wall Street-influenced party. I want to be able to say that. So there you have it.

0:31:14 Thomas: It's time to check the voicemail. And of course, if you'd like to leave a message, that's 916-750-4SIO. That's 916-750-4746. Let's check out this week's messages.

0:31:34 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. I was just listening to your latest show, and you said something that sparked me. You said that one problem with convincing Trump voters is that they're operating off of such a different set of facts. From us. They believe things are fundamentally different that have radically profound consequences for what they think is going on. And I just wanted to say that, well, obviously this problem is not exactly new, but growing up on the far conservative Christian right, that was one of the first things I noticed was that these people, these people all believe facts that are at odds with what mainstream scholars believe.

0:32:21 Voicemail: And they don't care about that. They don't care that there's a disconnect there because they have a different epistemology. And honestly, that's why we still have indoctrination. Anyway, that was my thought. Thank you so much for doing what you do. It's wonderful.

0:32:36 Thomas: Hey, thanks so much, caller. You didn't give your name, so I can't thank you by name, but that's okay. Thanks for calling. I think that's right. I think that it's my firm belief that the polarization is getting worse and worse. And what's the biggest barrier in our country is the two different spheres of reality that people are operating in. It's really bad and I don't know how to fix it. And a lot of you, I know, listen to Dan Carlin Common Sense Podcast. If you do, you will have heard the most recent episode.

0:33:07 Thomas: I honestly, I think Dan Carlin has been around obviously a lot longer than I have. He knows a ton of stuff I don't know, but I was very disappointed in his take pre-election, which was that he didn't support Hillary. He wanted us to go like, I don't know, third party or something. I think he even hinted that Trump might be someone who could shake up the status quo. I don't think he went so far as to support Trump, but he certainly didn't support Hillary in what I thought was a vital, vital choice between two candidates. As I've talked about before, we had two choices. That's it. If you didn't choose one, you chose the other. That's all we, that's the only option we had. This is a huge argument that I don't want to get into now, but let it suffice to say that that was kind of where he was. And now I've noticed that he has changed his tune.

0:33:55 Thomas: It's interesting. He's talking a lot as, as though he was wrong, and that our biggest problem is maybe not what he thought it was, which was money and politics. Now, it's still a huge problem, of course, but I think now that Trump is on his way to starting potentially several wars, and other things, Trump is doing a lot of things that Dan Carlin maybe didn't anticipate. So that's certainly where I was before the election. My position was always that Donald Trump is such a profoundly dangerous person and for the entire world that it really is a question of let's serve two evils. And if you thought otherwise, if you voted third party, I'm sorry, you contributed to Trump. Anyway, not to get into that. The point is, in that podcast, Dan Carlin, his latest one, he thought our new current biggest problem is just literally how much each side hates the other.

0:34:47 Thomas: And I think that's part of this. I think part of why that is, is these dueling kind of, well, you know what? It's not even accurate to say they're dueling. Like Fox News and whatever you want to say, the liberal news sources or, you know, the equivalent, I don't even think they're, they're not, it actually would be good if they were dueling, if they were going, if they were battling, if it was like Fox News versus MSNBC or whatever you want to say, some other liberal news network, that would be great. But they're not. They're not engaging. And I blame Fox News more. I think the right-wing media is way worse at this, personally. But it's happening. The right-wing media sucks the right wing further and further into a just different set of world facts that you just can't, you can't do battle with.

0:35:35 Thomas: You can't, there's no way, it takes forever to try to even get on the same page with any base assumptions about the the world. As you saw with my conversation with Dr. Price, it's truly can be impenetrable. And I think that, I think Dan Carlin is right that that is the biggest problem. And how do we fix it? I really don't know. And I really worry. I think there are a lot of people who have just been under the assumption because of, I don't know, Disney movies or something that there is just some like possible good outcome. I sometimes worry because there's no limit to my pessimism, but in trying to be objective, I sometimes worry, what if there is no cure for this? What if the internet and the way media has bifurcated, what if it just keeps continuing? What if it literally cannot stop?

0:36:21 Thomas: And right now I feel like we're slightly kept afloat by the fact that Trump's hardcore supporters are only in the 40% range, maybe 35, 40%, somewhere in there. But imagine, imagine if it was 60%. Imagine if the hardcore Trump supporters who are in that weird worldview, that worldview that Dr. Price came on and said where he welcomes another Kent State, that we're not that far away from that. And it's truly frightening. I'm truly scared of a day when that influence goes above the tipping point. Can you imagine how much harm 60% of people of a population believing in just a completely completely alternate reality and a set of facts. Can you imagine the potential harm?

0:37:07 Thomas: It's horrifying. So all I'm doing, all I'm trying to do right now is come on my show, speak about the truth as I see it, be open to changing my mind, and hope that I can influence people for the better. I mean, that's all I'm trying to do. I hope, you know, what can we do? Again, I don't know that there is a solution. There may not be, but that's the best that I can think of right now. Just just do my best to spread critical thinking, to remain calm in the face of horrendous opinions, and to do my best to change them. That's what I hope for. So I know that was a bit of a branch off from what you were saying, Collar, whose name I don't know. But that's something that's been on my mind. So I'm glad I got an opportunity to talk about it. And thank you for the call and for saying those nice things.

0:37:54 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. This is Dylan from Vermont. I love the show. I just wanted to talk in regards to Trump bombing Syria. I know it's kind of an old topic at this point, but you asked several times whether liberals would be against it if Obama did these strikes. But then you mentioned a poll that showed that 38% of Democrats were in favor of these strikes under Obama in 2013, and 37% are in favor of them now. So I'm just wondering why you keep bringing up that 1% of Democrats who seem to have changed their minds on this issue when addressing the majority of liberals who were against the strikes.

0:38:48 Voicemail: But my real question is, I wanted to know your opinion on how far this policy of retaliation for war crimes should go, or crimes against humanity. Does this apply to all nations or just small nations who can't retaliate against us? Like if China or Russia were gassing their own people, should we possibly instigate a war by doing the right thing and punishing them for that? And does this just apply to chemical weapons? Or if we have evidence that North Korea or Ukraine are running concentration camps, do we then retaliate against them despite whatever the possible repercussions could be to stop those terrible things?

0:39:37 Voicemail: So thanks for listening to my call. Love the show again. All right. Thanks. Bye.

0:39:42 Thomas: Wow, Dylan, what a thoughtful comment. What a great call. Thank you so much. This one, really great points, challenging stuff to think about. So as to the first part of your question, yeah, okay, so let me clarify and make sure that I didn't, you know, missay some things. I didn't intend to focus on the 1% who changed their opinion. I said multiple times during that, that this is proof that Republicans are more partisan. It's solid proof. And I congratulate Democrats, you know, pat ourselves on the back for being less partisan in this. I totally grant that. I didn't at all mean to. I didn't bring up what about Obama in that way.

0:40:24 Thomas: The way I meant to bring up the Obama thing was just to challenge anyone who was thinking that this was a sign that Trump was some disgusting warmonger, because I don't, I just don't think it is. I mean, there are other signs, but the fact that I just wanted to point out that these very same strikes and indeed bigger strikes were on the table during the Obama administration and he would have gone through with them. I didn't intend to say, look how hypocritical everybody is on the left. That wasn't really what I meant. What I meant was if you saw the news, if you haven't been paying attention and if you have a short memory or you didn't read into it or whatever, and you saw Trump strikes on Syria, and you're using this as evidence that he's some madman, I think you were wrong.

0:41:12 Thomas: I think that that wouldn't be a good argument. I think that you have to look at the full history of it. But excellent that you clarified that. You're right that it may have been not worthwhile, though, for me to ask, picture Obama Obama doing this and see how you feel, because you're right that maybe only a small percentage of people were in fact, uh, short-sightedly engaging in kind of a hypocritical view of this strike. So great point. Uh, you know, that, that's a, that's a great clarification, uh, and a great point. And I'm glad that, uh, that you brought it up. And one more thing I did say multiple times, and I, I maybe didn't spell it out as much as I could have, but I did say, if you were someone who was against it, then you're against it now, that's a okay. You know, like I'm, I'm just just looking for consistency. If you're a pacifist and you're never in favor of any sort of intervention, you were against it then, you're against it now, that's totally fine.

0:42:04 Thomas: I didn't, so I think that would kind of cover the fact that only 38% of liberals supported it back then and only 37 support now. I think that kind of covers that. Like most, it sounds like a majority of liberals, I shouldn't say are pacifists, but at least as evidenced by this, don't support that that kind of intervention then and now. So that's good. They're consistent. So the reason I brought up think about Obama doing it was just to address the people I was seeing who were complaining about it from that perspective, that this is something Trump is doing that Obama would never do or something like that. Now, for the second part of your call, that is also incredibly fascinating, a very good point to raise. So how far does this go? Well, I think that if I'm being honest with with you and myself, maybe it turns out that I might be more in favor of intervention than your typical liberal.

0:42:55 Thomas: I'm not too terribly sure. I think we have to take it on a realistic case by case basis. But for a lot of these things, you bring up a good point where you're like, well, do we only do it to a country that's small enough to not really be able to retaliate? At first I thought, oh, good point. Like this is kind of picking on them. And then I thought, well, this also might just be a practical reality. I mean, if our goal, let's just assume for the sake of argument that, you know, you and I or me or whoever, if I'm, if I were in control of these decisions and my goal is just to reduce the amount of human rights violations in the world, which I wish that was, I wish that was the focus of our foreign policy. And I wish that was something we were doing because I, I see human rights abuses throughout the world. It makes me incredibly sad. There's a, there's a lot of people losing their lives, being starved to death, being tortured, being abused.

0:43:43 Thomas: The world is a horrible place, and I do wish there was some easy way to do it. So I look at this situation in Syria, and I see a clear violation of international law. Now, I'm not any sort of expert in international law, but I do know that there are a lot of people who believe, and I tend to agree, that there are ways in which a sovereign state can forfeit its sovereignty, and any sort of genocide or horrific abuse of your own citizens is certainly one of them. So I guess if you ask the hypothetical, what if Russia were doing this? What if a powerful country were doing this? The truth is this does kind of happen. And there are a lot of human rights abuses, not chemical weapons per se, but going on in places like China. And what we do in that situation where it's not easy for us to just knock out a few planes is we impose sanctions on them and we do everything we can.

0:44:32 Thomas: Well, I shouldn't say that. I would do everything I I could, if I were in control, I would really put a focus on putting lives and quality of life in front of merely trade, because I feel like a lot of our international politics from everybody, not just us, not just the US, but the UN and other organizations internationally, they put a priority on trade and it's everything for the sake of keeping trade going.

This favors countries countries like China who are really cracking down on free speech, cracking down on political freedoms. They don't suffer any consequences because you know what? They've got a big market full of people who can buy stuff. So if I were in charge, which is a scary thought, but just to illustrate what my position is, because you asked, I do wish we overall had perhaps a more more interventionalist policy, but in a way that did everything we could to focus on ending human rights violations where we can, where we can do that. In the case of Syria, I think that it was a calculation of, here's the reality of the situation on the ground. We can knock out these planes. It should disincentivize them to using chemical weapons again.

Now, there's all kinds of, I guess, hypocrisy in the fact that, you know, that same day or the next day, they're using and conventional weapons on their citizens and blowing them up, yeah, I wish we could be stopping that too. But when it comes down to this calculation, I don't think it was that bad of one, which is let's knock out a few planes, minimize civilian or military casualties.

A few soldiers were killed, of course, but let's do this in the hopes of stopping the next chemical weapons attack, which the international community does look at as a horrible violation of human rights with good reason.

0:46:19 Thomas: But yeah, I look at like the Chechnyan concentration camp for gay people that I just talked about the other week. Yeah, I wish we would do something about that. I do, you know, I mean, I think we run into trouble because we've done a lot of that in US foreign policy. We've done a lot of attempted regime change and let's go send some boots on the ground and interfere with everything. You know, there's certainly a huge negative to that. There's... there's a big cost to trying to enforce stuff around the world. I get it. But, you know, personally, I wish we were doing everything we could to end something like those Chechnyan concentration camps for homosexual people. I mean, that's horrible. There's also a giant cost to doing nothing. And we do need to recognize that.

0:47:05 Thomas: I think people take maybe a little too much comfort in the idea that if we don't interfere anywhere, then we're kind of not culpable, and, you know, there's a lot to be said for that, but you have to look at both sides. There's a huge cost as well. I don't know what the best way, like right now, what would be the best way to stop the, I was going to say the human rights abuses in Chechnya. I'm sure if you, if a robot did a calculation of what is the worst thing going on in the world right now in terms of human rights abuses, probably wouldn't even be that because I don't know about the scale of it. It doesn't sound like it's on a massive scale, like, like, I mean, the Syrian civil war, obviously, but other conflicts around the world. I mean, there's all kinds of crap going on, but what, but if we were to ask what is the best way to stop that, you know, I don't know.

0:47:51 Thomas: I don't think it's a question of, okay, we're going to send some troops in there or something, but strong diplomacy, you know, perhaps sanctions of some kind, if we can, maybe doing whatever we can to work with the rest of of the world so that going forward, there's more international leverage? I don't know. But anyway, those are very good questions. That's how I feel. I think that... So I wouldn't say that because I perhaps advocate this strike in Syria to do our best to disincentivize the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons again, I don't know that it would be fair to say, okay, if Russia did that tomorrow, if Russia did a chemical attack on their people tomorrow, that means I'm obligated to say we need to strike them militarily. Because there is a reality that is what's going to happen to us.

0:48:40 Thomas: There is a full calculus of what harm or good will be caused by this strike. And part of the calculus is, is it a superpower with nuclear weapons or is it Syria? Is it a Syrian regime that's not really going to fight back? And I think that it's not inconsistent to say I would advocate doing whatever we could if Putin were to gas his own people right now. And let me just say, I saw the memes about good thing no one did a strike on the US for gassing their own people. And it showed pictures of, I think maybe from the Occupy protests when the police used pepper spray. Like, come on, guys. I mean, if there is ever a false equivalency, pepper spray, which I think that was awful. I think those people should lose their jobs and they should, they should be sued.

0:49:27 Thomas: They should have to pay recompense to the victims. But are you really saying that a few police officers making a horrible decision, doing the wrong thing and pepper spraying people unnecessarily, are you really saying that that is worthy of losing your sovereignty as a nation in the same way that using sarin gas to kill and to disgustingly and horrifyingly murder your own people is on the same level? Do you really think that that's the same level? I'm really tired of that false equivalency. It's not even close. It's just not even close. So anyway, if Putin did something like use sarin gas on his own people, maybe, maybe there's an attempted revolution in Russia or something and he gasses his own people.

0:50:12 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, part of the calculation would be, well, can we even use military force in this situation? Will it be something that will result in even more deaths? And I bet the answer will be no. I bet you we won't be able to just do a surgical strike that takes out a few Russian airplanes. I don't think that would work on them. But excellent question. Lots to think about there. Thank you for the call. Seriously, that's really good stuff. I like that. I like challenging you and being challenged by you guys to keep our thinking and our arguments good. And I'm willing to change my mind. I really think I am. And you made me think about a lot of stuff, Dylan. So thank you for that call. And let's go to the next one.

0:50:59 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. This is David in Kentucky. I was just giving you a call real quick because I wanted to make a point about Trump's wall. I think that Trump is fully aware that it will never be constructed, and he uses it both as a lightning rod and as a red herring to manipulate both his allies and his opponents. The reason I say that the wall will never get built is that it is a construction project that is a magnitude, order of magnitude, huger than anything I can think of, with the exception of maybe the Hoover Dam. In my state, we just spent six years building a bridge that cost $4 billion, and that wall is well beyond that. I would be surprised if just the construction portion of it would take less than a decade, let alone design, planning, or anything.

0:51:52 Voicemail: And that's presuming the simplest of walls that I can imagine. There's a reason that Bush chose a fence over some sort of wall. But just my two cents, it would take 10 to 20 years to build. And that's well outside of any time frame that Trump will have power. Thanks for the show. Keep up the great work and have a good day.

0:52:13 Thomas: Hey, David, thanks so much for the call. Now, I think I agree with just about everything you said, except the part where you said you think Trump is aware and knows that the wall will never be constructed. I do not at all think that's true. I think that he has shown repeatedly a complete ignorance for how politics works. I mean, he thinks that he can just make this impossible health care bill happen. He thinks he can force people to vote for it.

0:52:37 Thomas: He's tried numerous times to strong arm the wall funding into bills that definitely could never have it in there. I think he doesn't know how government works. I think he wants a wall. I think he wants a wall built. He has promised, I mean, that is a huge, major campaign promise of his. I think he very much wants it to be done. I do not think he knows that it can't be done. Everything else you said, I agree with. I mean, that sounds like a massive project. And that, good point, putting it in perspective. I mean, how long did a $4 billion bridge or whatever you said take, you know, something like that? Yeah, this is massively more than that. How long will it take? Like, I don't think it matters if it takes longer than he's in power, by the way, because I think once, if a bill is passed to fund it, I think you're kind of stuck unless Congress unfunds it or, you know, so it doesn't really matter if it lasts, if it takes longer than his presidency, I don't think.

0:53:33 Thomas: But anyway, yeah, everything else, I agree with that. It's a massive project. It's way too, it's way impractical. It's a waste of money. All of that stuff, I totally agree with. However, I do really think he thinks he's going to get it done. Done. I think he still thinks he's going to make Mexico pay for it in some way. And it's impossible. It's not going to happen. But I think, I don't know. I think when people tell you what they mean a million times in a row, even someone like Trump, who says whatever he's thinking at the time, when they're that consistent, I tend to believe them. And the wall is something he's been incredibly consistent about. I don't think he's ever budged on that an inch. So for now, I mean, mean, I think he wants to get it done. But anyway, thank you for the call. And hey, thanks everyone for the calls.

0:54:18 Thomas: Keep them coming. I mean it. Please, please, please check the numbers in the show notes if that's an easy way to find it on your podcast app. If you have a thought, and I just want to emphasize again, you can't take the whole three minute time limit and then record more. I'm not, it's just too much. You got to jot down some thoughts, keep it to like two minutes. And if you mess up, feel free, call again, start over, do a fresh call. No problem. That's no big deal at all because it's fine. It doesn't, no harm done. I can see that you did it and go to the one where you're like, okay, trying again. So please keep them coming. It's been really cool to interact with your calls.

0:55:02 Thomas: All right. That's it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you especially to my patrons. New patrons this week. Heath Gemar, Robin, Anonymous, and Art H4. Thank you guys for pledging so much. You can pledge at patreon.com/seriouspod. Please support the show if it's something you care about, if you care about. Skepticism, fighting these terrible arguments, changing our conversation, all these things, please support me at patreon.com/seriouspod. Keep the show going.

And speaking of people who have done that very incredibly generous thing, I'd like to thank my top patrons. They are Travis Peterson, Matt Garrett, Dale, Brian Gearford, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigmund, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Metcalf, Matthew Andrew Waddington, Zabby, John Bodley Esquire, Ian Ryan, Matthew Vernon, Ray Loves Jenny, Robin, Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Hunter Sakashite Fukasumi, Michael Rops, Michael Schaefer of Reason Real Estate, a Ash, and Kaylee Reiser. Thank you guys so, so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Oh, another note. Lot of people asked about the Charles Murray episode of Sam Harris, the bell curve. I do want to comment on that. I, man, there's a lot to take on. I've never read the book, so I want to do my research.

I potentially, I might be talking to Eli about it, or we might be finding an expert, one way or the other. I do wanna talk about it, but it's not something I wanna tackle without having done an extensive amount of research. So for those who have requested that, quite a few people have requested that I talk about that. I agree, it's a big topic. It's important. It is something that I am thinking about and I want to make sure that I have done my reading.

0:56:44 Thomas: So that will hopefully be upcoming. Thanks for requesting topics. You are always, of course, free to do so and I am happy to consider them and guest suggestions and all that. So thank you for all that and I will see you soon.