SIO155: Thoughts On McCain and Louis CK; Listener Voicemail

Transcript

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

[0:00:04] You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 155. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and it's time for some commentary. I've got some stuff to say. And then I also have some very interesting voicemails, most of which are related to my dire political predictions from earlier in the month. I guess maybe that was last voicemail. I don't remember. But there's a lot of reaction to that. And that's good.

I'm very interested to hear what you guys think and to kind of go back and forth. So that's going to be fun. But first, I need to talk about a couple things that are in the news. I'm going to start with John McCain. I just have a couple observations about this whole thing. I mean, obviously, I'm not doing the same thing everybody else is doing and talking about his entire life and his legacy and blah, blah, blah. Everybody's covered it. I'm just interested in a couple reactions I've seen on Twitter and in the social media. I think there's a strong appeal. And actually, there's even a certain amount of liberal endorsement to the idea that you can't say, you know, it's not appropriate to speak ill of the dead. It's not appropriate to, you know, say bad things about McCain when he died. And honestly, I don't really buy it. I think that if John McCain were somebody I knew personally, or I knew his family, or I knew they followed my social media, that might be a different thing. Then that's a personal relationship. I'm not going to... If somebody I know passes

0:01:49 Thomas: Away, of course, I'm not going to say things about them to their family or anything like that. I think that's a horrible thing. Even if I think they're not a great person. I just don't think that's appropriate or useful, but it's just not the same when we're talking about a public figure. And one thing that frustrated me was I had so many, and honestly, I didn't even tweet a whole lot about this. I retweeted some things I thought were really good.

You know, just quick, quick little things. But even, even to that, I get pushback. And one thing I see is this idea like, whoa, now you're so brave. Now that he's gone is is now you're talking crap about him or you're criticizing him. And I did a little thread about that and you might've seen it, but I just want to echo some of those points, which is, first off, it's not like people weren't criticizing him before. No, I don't think any, but it was one thing when it was like Christopher Hitchens, and he would pretty much demolish anyone in a debate.

And then after he died, people waited a little while, a year or two, and then they started lobbing all these straw man arguments about his positions because he wasn't going to be there to hitch slapped them back, which was frustrating. And not to say that he was right about everything, but it became much easier to strawman the person once he was gone. But I don't think that's what's happening here. I mean, what John McCain's positions throughout the years and what he did is pretty

0:03:09 Thomas: Clear. It's not like there's a whole lot to interpret. I mean, there's a little bit, but it's not as though him being alive was stopping any of us. People criticized him when he was alive. And now once he's passed away, the reason people are bringing it up is because he's in the frigging news. I just saw a parallel that I'm not sure too many people have pointed out between when there's a shooting and when, you know, people on the left are like gun control and people on the right, oh, don't politicize this. Don't politicize this. Well, I mean, honestly, it's the same kind of thing because when McCain passes away, that's right when people are whitewashing his history and celebrating his life. And honestly, if you're somebody

[0:03:51] like me who disagrees with a lot of what he did, that's a time when you're going to want to chime in. I mean, naturally, what am I going to do? Wait a year and then be like, so John McCain? It's like, no, it's in the news now. People talk about what's in the news now. It's not as though, So, you know, a hurricane hits, an earthquake hits, and people are like, well, you can't talk about it until... No, everybody wants to talk about the current thing. And so, in terms of talking about McCain, even though he passed away, like, that's how I feel about it. It's in the news. That's the nature of public discourse. Now, I do want to say that I, for one, you know, this might set me apart from some of you.

[0:04:30] I'm not sure some of you might disagree, agree.

0:04:31 Thomas: But I, for one, do find it pretty appropriate to honor his service to his country. You know, what he went through in Vietnam was just horrifying. I mean, I couldn't imagine going through something like that. And I honestly, I have a little bit of a hard time with how much people can minimize that sometimes on the left, just because they disagree with the Vietnam War. Well, yeah, of course, you know, like, but he didn't start it. Like, I, because I tweeted, "Oh, he served his country." That was one part of my thread. He served his country. You know, he even, as I'm sure you all know, I'm sure you all heard, he even refused an early release because there are people who had become prisoners of war before him who were due to be released first.

0:05:11 Thomas: And I can't, I mean, can you imagine making that decision? I mean, that is a heroic thing. I just, I don't, I don't think it's, I think that deserves a certain amount of respect, you know, that he did that. And when I said he served his country, someone was like, well, how did he help the country because the Vietnam War didn't help the country. It's like, it's not, he served the country.

It doesn't, you know, he did what was asked of him and more, he was courageous. The problem was people were asking crappy things of him and blame them. It's not his fault. You know what I mean? Like, just because you go in to serve and the people at the top who are making these decisions are making horrible decisions, they are the ones who were doing a disservice to the country, not the people in uniform. I think that's pretty basic. It seems to me, but I mean, maybe you could argue that if a war is so unjust that even the soldiers should know to not, you know, to just quit, to just not do it.

You could argue that, but I think with Vietnam, so much information was kept from the public that I'm not, I mean, it's hard to say that, you know, it's hard to say that people in the military should have known better than to go fight. You know, I think if things were being hidden from the public and information about that, you know, attack was fabricated and that kind of thing. And I don't know that, I blame those people, you know, like I blame the people at the top.

0:06:32 Thomas: I don't blame the people who sacrificed their lives and put their lives at risk. And I even said, most importantly, I think what McCain did for his fellow service member is, to me, that's the top. Like in terms of things he did, sacrifices he made, for me, the sacrifice he made to not accept an early release because other people I mean, that's tops for me, because that's just him serving others who are in his situation. That's not him serving, you know, the government. That's just him making a sacrifice for his fellow, you know, man who is with him. And I think that's incredibly brave and to be commended.

Now, when he came back, when he got into a position of power, he did a lot of bad things. And I don't support those things. And I think it's totally appropriate to criticize those things and not let them be whitewashed into, you know, oh, he's the greatest. He was such a maverick. Yeah, he wasn't really that much of a maverick. You know, he was a maverick when, you know, he wanted to build that reputation. And then when he was running for office, he all of a sudden was voting party line. And, you know, he was pretty politically self-serving, I think, but he did do some good things. He was the kind of conservative who I wish more Republicans were like him, certainly, but it still would

0:07:52 Thomas: Be bad. I still wouldn't agree with him, but he is still better than a lot of Republicans, basically. Of course, one of the worst things McCain did was support the Iraq war, but so did a lot of Democrats, you know? I mean, I struggle a little bit looking back on the Iraq war. Now, it was unequivocally horrible and I'm not saying I support it. Don't get me wrong. I'm just start off the bat. I don't support it. It was bad. It was awful. Hundreds of thousands of people dead. It was awful.

But in terms of the blame and how mad that we as a country can be at Congress, you know, I'm certainly very angry at anyone who lied and misrepresented the facts in order to drive a pro-war narrative. But when it comes specifically to Congress, it's something I slightly struggle with because polling showed a fluctuated between like 52 to 60% approval of the war in the public. And then in retrospect, we're furious with senators who voted in favor of something that a majority of the country supported. And honestly, I like, part of me is a little weirded out by that, you know, because when Congress doesn't do things that the majority

0:09:12 Thomas: Of people support, for example, gun control, like the majority of the public supports gun control, the majority of the public probably favors some sort of, you know, like campaign finance reform. Like there's certain issues where the public is actually, honestly, usually pretty liberal and supports them. And we're furious that Congress is not doing what we want. But then in retrospect with the war, the public actually favored it by a small majority, but were furious with anyone who could have voted in the Senate to support it. Something about that is a little weird to me. You know, like I'm upset with people who lied, with people who were at the top making these decisions and misrepresenting the evidence. That's

[0:09:52] first and foremost. Most. I don't know how, how mad I am at people who voted for something the majority of people in this country supported. You know, it's, it's, it's kind of weird. Does that not seem weird in some ways? Like I blame, I blame us a little bit too. Like I think we're to blame that because if public support was at 20%, I do not think that, you know, then we really have a case for being angry with the Senate or something. But, you know, that's something I struggle with. So, like, I'm, obviously, I'm upset that he supported it, but I think something like 77 of the 100 senators supported it. So, there's a lot of people we should be mad at, but also 60% of the country at times supported it. So, it's kind of, it's a weird thing.

And, of course, McCain also screwed over poor people and LGBT people and, you know, all kinds of awful positions that I don't, you know, know, I just don't want to honor him for. Like, I honor his service to the country and to his fellow service member in Vietnam and a few things he did. I really, you know, oh, I want to talk about this. The clip of him defending Obama when that insane person, that lady, was talking about how Obama was, you know, what she said, an Arab, she said. This is another thing that I think liberals are being a little unfair toward him for, because, and I've gone back and forth on this. I've gone back and forth. It's a sensitive thing. It's a close call. So, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying anybody

0:11:24 Thomas: Is being too irrational either way, but I've settled on the opinion that I think that was really commendable what he did. Here's how the argument goes. If you listen to the clip, or specifically if you read it, it's actually a little, the transcript loses a little bit of the nuance months because, you know, a batshit crazy right winger lady says like, I just don't trust this Obama. He's an Arab and he's a terrorist, supports terrorists, that kind of thing. And McCain says, no, no, give me the mic. No, no, no. He's a good man. He's a family man, that kind of thing. And some lefties now are saying, oh, how dare he say, no, he's not an Arab, he's a family man, as though that's contradicting the fact that an Arab could even be a family man. He should have said, so what if he's an Arab? And two things. I've gone back and forth. At first, I was like, yeah, okay, I see the argument. It is weird. If someone said, oh, I think he's a

[0:12:24] Black man, you're like, no, no, he's a family man. That would be offensive, of course. But when I listened to the clip, it doesn't really play out exactly like that. You know, it's more like he's saying no, no to her whole thing. He's kind of rejecting her entire thesis statement that he's just, you know, an Arab and supports terrorism. Okay. He doesn't really directly say, no, he's not an Arab. He's a good man, you know, that kind of thing. And secondly, I think the people on Pod Save America, I think they pointed this out really really well too, that would be holding a Republican to a standard that even Democrats at the time didn't meet. So, even the Obama campaign at the time answered that question the same way.

When people said, Obama's a Muslim, it would say, no, no, no, he's not a Muslim. He's a good Christian, that kind of thing. Where now, I believe times have changed. You know, that was still, you know, we were still pretty close-ish to 9-11, the Iraq war. And I think times were a little different. And I think it's different now, whereas people, I hope, I hope it's different now. I hope people would proudly say, well, so what if you were a Muslim? That's fine. You know, like, so what? It doesn't matter. Your insult of he's a Muslim, he's from the Middle East or something, okay, that's not an insult. We should all recognize now, I hope, as a society that

0:13:51 Thomas: That's not an insult. Back then, I think McCain knew that it was an insult with a certain group of people. And he was just, as I said, he was also just rejecting that on the whole. And back to the Pod Save America people, they pointed out that, you know, they answered that question kind of the same way in 2008. You know, so that would be liberals holding conservatives to a standard that liberals didn't even really meet.

You know, certainly a lot of liberals didn't even really meet in 2008. And honestly, I don't really think that's fair. I think that is one of those moments that McCain is to be commended for. I think he had some other ones too, some other examples when he kind of knew he was going to lose in 2008 and had some good moments of not feeding into the just awful conspiracy mongering. However, he also kind of enabled his running mate, and she was certainly echoing that same terrible rhetoric, and he didn't seem to want to correct her. So, it's a mixed bag, but ultimately, that's where I come down. I certainly wish more Republicans were like McCain. I do think he's also overrated and has some really, really, really bad parts to his legacy, but I honor his service to the country, and that's that all

[0:15:09] right, now I want to talk about Louis C.K. Oh, geez, this is a tough one. So,

[0:15:17] Louis C.K. just performed at the, whatever, the New York Comedy Club, he's the, what's it called? I don't remember. He performed at the club he normally performs at, and it's just a surprise. It's been, I believe it's been not even a year, really, it's been like eight months or something. And there's just a couple things I want to say about that, um, and it's really disappointing. And And I say this is a tough one for me because I make no, you know, I don't try to hide the fact that I was a huge fan of Louis C.K. Still am a fan of his comedy, back before I knew what he did. I'm a fan of the material and the jokes and the insights that he brought, you know, when I didn't know that he did this.

And I'm not going to pretend that I don't like him. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not still a huge fan of his comedy and that I love the show Louis. It's literally one of my favorites. Like, you can go back and find the tweets of, you know, the last 10 years of me saying, basically, this is my favorite guy. Like, I really, I really love Louis C.K. And I think what makes me so upset about it is, well, there's several things, obviously, and not that, not that I'm the one who has the right to be most upset. I'm not saying that at all. But as a fan of his, I think what drives me insane is that his comedy at times was so aware and so insightful and so human and so deprecating.

0:16:44 Thomas: And I just don't understand how he hasn't turned that lens toward himself on this issue. I don't, I just am at a loss. His apology wasn't very good. You know, he didn't do enough, not anywhere near enough. And like, frankly, that kind of surprises me, you know, because I talk about, again, Aaron Rabbi on Philosophers in Space, we've talked about Dan Harmon, the one of the co-creators, showrunner of Rick and Morty and, you know, Community and that kind of thing, and he had an episode, it was really bad, where it turned out that he had, uh, sexually harassed someone or had, I think he had kind of exploited her and made her think he was going to help her out and the writing staff, and then when she rebuffed him, I believe the details are, he was really cold or that kind of thing.

It was, it was bad. And he really put in the effort, I don't think it was perfect by any means in my opinion, but he really put in the effort to try to make it better. He really put in the effort. And you can come to your own conclusions about how far

[0:17:49] that goes for you. That's up to you. That's up to the victim. I think the victim eventually forgave him because of how much he really genuinely understood what he did and wanted to make it better in any way he could. I don't think Louis C.K. didn't even try. I don't get it. And I'm genuinely surprised because all it would take is a little bit of self-awareness. And it's so frustrating. He shouldn't be performing. And I got to say, he's getting a ton of pushback and frankly, he deserves it. He shouldn't, as much as I want him to be performing still, as a fan, I wish he had never done any of this crap and I wish he could just be out there delivering great standup and I could be be enjoying it, but you know, he really didn't put in the effort at all. His apology was weak and it's so unnecessary. He could have, he could have said, you know what? I have

[0:18:46] benefited from shutting out these victims, from not letting them be heard. I benefited, materially, I benefited. I'm going to donate half of my income forever to whatever, I don't know, some organization or, or better yet, I robbed women of their careers. I'm going to do what what I can to see if I can fix that. I'm going to see if there's any way, maybe I, you know, I have connections. Maybe I can find a way to give them an opportunity again, or if they'll accept it.

I don't know. But you know, like he could have tried so much harder and maybe it wouldn't have been enough. I don't know, but he could have at least tried. And he could have said, I had a misunderstanding of consent. I thought if I asked somebody, Hey, can I do this? It was fine. But I didn't realize, you know, cause according to him, he always asked before he he pulled out his dick, but he didn't understand that people were not really saying yes, or they were too nervous to say anything, and he counted that as consent, and it just wasn't, and he could have said, I was wrong, I didn't understand the power dynamics, I didn't understand consent, I do now, I'm horrified by what, he could have made such a better statement, such a better apology, and he didn't.

[0:19:55] Frankly, he didn't. And, you know, that time is kind of over.

0:20:01 Thomas: You know, the window of him properly reconciling seems to me to be way over. Like, he had a chance, and he didn't. I still wish he would try. Every day, I wish he would realize what an asshole he's been and do his best to try to find some redemption. But there's all this concern out there, like, oh, is there a path to redemption for these people? And it's like, well, they're not trying. You know, they're already, like, him and, you know, what's his name, the Today Show guy, are already doing stuff. They don't, they didn't even, they didn't even do anything. They just, they just took a vacation for a few months. Matt Lauer is the guy I was trying to think of. And it saddens me. It really, it really does. Um, because, and

[0:20:43] one thing that I, that, that does bug me a little bit, although of course it's, it's very minor in the grand scheme of things, but there is a attitude and I'm not talking about talking to Louis CK or anything, but in talking to each other on this, where people will tell me or will tweet, you know, oh, no big deal. Find another standup. He ruined careers. His career's over. There's plenty of other standups. And you're right. Like you're, you're technically right. Of course. Uh, and I do think that I, I, you know, I hope other people get opportunities, but it's a little weird.

Like, I don't think we would do that for other things where this was my favorite thing, like in the world. And then someone just says, ah, who cares about your favorite thing? Just find another thing. We don't really do that to people much. And again, I'm not saying that this doesn't matter, you know, for Louis C.K. He, he did what he did. He doesn't deserve to come back. I'm just saying in speaking to each other, I'm saying, you know, in you and I speaking to each other, it's a, it's kind of a weird thing when people just insist that I should get over the fact that this was my favorite guy and just not even worry about it. And it's like, well, we don't really do that too much else.

We don't really just say, hey, what's your favorite thing in the whole, like picture your, Louis C.K. was literally like like my favorite thing. This is like, I wish it weren't true. I really do. But picture like your favorite thing. And then someone says, eh, find a new thing. You never get to have that ever again. And you know, I don't, because he shouldn't come back. But I'm just saying, all I'm saying is a little understanding when, you

0:22:09 Thomas: Know, when you and I are talking to each other, a little understanding, a little empathy for people who have lost something that was genuinely something they really, really, really loved. You know, that's a little empathy never hurts. Now, again, I'm not not saying this cuts him any breaks. It's not about him. This is about you and I speaking to each other about a thing.

But TLDR of all that is, as much as it pains me, as much as I was a huge fan, he doesn't deserve to come back. He hasn't come close to reconciling what he did. I don't know if he can, but he hasn't even tried. And you got to at least try. I mean, come on. That's ridiculous. This idea that, you know, so many people are worried about men's careers and almost almost nothing happens to anybody. Like there's a, there's a little bit of a stigma and then apparently you can just come back and it's, it's bizarre. And by the way, if you were ever going to come back, don't thrust it on an unknowing audience, you know, like give, give people a heads up, you know, give people the chance to decide, like, is this something I'm okay with? You know, if you, if you want to do a show because you're

[0:23:11] Louis CK and you're like, well, whoever forgives me, I guess that'll be my new audience. Fine. But don't, don't do a surprise appearance somewhere, you know, where people didn't really, again, they didn't consent. I guess they could have left, but you know, that's a bad way to do it. It's just miserable all around. Like, what are you doing, man? It's like, and it really makes me wonder if he, I just don't think he understands. And I don't think he values his victims. And I don't think he really, I guess That's the only thing I can imagine, to have this attitude that, okay, I'm going to sit, I'm going to wait it out. Okay, it's been eight months. I'll just do an appearance and surprise people. It just doesn't seem right to me.

[0:23:57] It's time to check the voicemail. And of course, if you'd like to leave a message, that's 916-750-4SIO.

0:24:04 Thomas: That's 916-750-4746. Let's check out this week's

[0:24:10] messages.

[0:24:16] Zach here, calling about episode 151. And Thomas, your dystopian predictions about the future of politics in the United States and how you're predicting that things will inevitably switch switch back to extreme Republican control in just a few years, I think I've got a little bit of optimism. One part of history in 2010 that I think you're culturally not taking into account is the flip of union workers to Republicans in 2010. In the Midwest, you had a lot of baby boomer, blue collar workers that culturally were Fox News watchers and culturally conservative, but check

[0:24:56] the box on the ballot for Democrats because they voted with union lines. In 2010, at the bottom of the recession, those people were unemployed, and there was a large sentiment that unions didn't protect them and didn't protect their jobs at the end of the day, and voting Democrat didn't protect them. So a lot of those people switched to Republican. So that's one factor to keep in mind about 2010 that I don't think we're going to see again, unless Trump sends us into another depression. Another thing to keep in mind is that young people vote with the party that they start voting with when they first begin voting. And in

[0:25:37] 2008, a lot of young people, millennial generation, they came out and voted for Obama. They were energized by that. And millennials still are heavily liberal and heavily democratic And it looks like the Gen Y, the next generation coming up after the millennials, they're so energized and angry about conservatism and the Republican control that they're all going to vote for the Democrats. And that voting bloc is going to keep moving into the future. So just two factors to keep in mind, hopefully give you a little bit of optimism, things to consider about the future of the country. Besides the Supreme Court, I think once we get

[0:26:17] past Trump, I think we're looking pretty good. So thanks for a great show. Love everything you do. Love opening arguments. Bye. Hey, thanks for the call. Thanks for the attempt at optimism. I'm glad you're optimistic. I hear what you're saying, I'm not really convinced, to be honest with you, because I think this is part of my whole problem. I think, you know, I'll take you at your word for what you're saying that, you know, people switched from Democrat to Republican, especially people who lost their jobs for party unions.

I'll grant all that and say, you know, I'm not looking into it, but I'll take you at your word and say that even still, the fact is that we went for two years, Like 2008 was a blowout, 2006 was a blowout, 2008 was a blowout for Democrats because of how catastrophically awful Bush was. And two measly years later, and by the way, Bush was way lower in approval rating than Trump still is. Like, and I don't think that Trump will get that low unless the Mueller report is really, really compelling. I don't know that he'll ever get to 25 or whatever Bush, the lowest in history. He had the highest and lowest in history, trivia fact, approval rating. And the fact

[0:27:35] remains that people were at least convinced that he was awful and Republicans were awful and that Democrats were the answer in 2008. And in two years, like I said, I mean, Obama delivered healthcare reform and, you know, kept the economy afloat, at least from a massive crash. And I know know, there's inequality. We'll get to that in some later voicemails, but he did a lot of good things. And two years later, again, again, it wasn't just that Democrats lost a handful of seats. It was the biggest blowout in whatever I said that episode. It was the biggest blowout in, I don't know, at least certainly since 40 years or it might've been even since like FDR or some crap.

The idea that two years out from a catastrophically bad president, it could flip that hard really bothers me. And if I grant the idea that they blame Democrats for losing their jobs because it hypothetically happened in the two years that they, you know, Democrats were in power, that's still nonsense. I mean, the idea that Republicans are not to blame, and not only are they not to blame for them losing their jobs, that Republican policies are going to help them. The idea that enough people could believe that and be motivated by that to win in a landslide in 2010, it

0:28:58 Thomas: Really

[0:29:00] makes me pessimistic. It really does. I mean, maybe they're Wrong. I believe they're wrong in their reasoning, but still, if that many people were wrong in their reasoning, I don't see why they wouldn't happen again. Now, as for the age thing, yeah, I feel like I've been hearing this all my life. I think I said this on a recent show or something. I don't, doesn't it seem like it's been forever that the young people were overwhelmingly Democrat and the Republicans are over and now they control every single branch of government and 30 states or whatever it is and like all this, doesn't it seem like perpetually, oh, it's, oh, you waived demographics, you know, demographics are destiny. There's no way. And it hasn't happened. And, you know, maybe it'll happen, but maybe it won't, you know, it might just be that the demographics of people that are Democrats never can quite muster up the right enthusiasm for long enough. And you can blame whoever you want to blame. I mean, you can blame the candidates, I guess, if you want. I kind

[0:30:03] of also blame the voters.

0:30:05 Thomas: That's just me. But either way, it might just be that that's how the system works. And it also, by the way, not only, not only that, 2010 happened before all the horrible gerrymandering. So just think of what, of what it'll take after, you know, the subsequent horrible gerrymandering. It doesn't even take as much. We have to, we have such an uphill climb. I'm just worried. I mean, again, as the, the great opening arguments patron name that we shout out every week goes, you know, let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair. You know, do everything you can. Vote, get other people to vote, donate your time or money or whatever you want to do. And I am as well. And I want things to happen, but I'm not optimistic. But, you know, I hope you're right. I hope that demographics are going to swing it. I hope that we won't have a similar situation in

[0:30:54] 2022. But, you know, I made the predictions on that prediction website. I ironed them. Yeah, I earned them. I set them in stone.

0:31:04 Thomas: I think I was trying to say I earned them out or combined two things. And they're there, you know, and I hope I'll be wrong. I haven't been wrong yet. I think I'm two for two on that website, whatever that was. I'd share it, but it's not really important. The point is they're there and I'll share it once I'm right, I guess. I'll say, hey, I remember, what, eight years ago or six years ago when I predicted this. And then if I'm wrong, I'll just be happy and I'll probably not share it. Or I'll even share, I don't care. I I want to be wrong about this, so I will be very happy.

[0:31:29] Hi, Thomas. It's Covey. Your piece on despair in politics was pretty interesting to me because what you described as your despair scenario, which is the Democrats winning the next two elections and losing the third, is kind of my best case scenario. I'm telling it from the perspective that long-term, demographically, a party platform founded on racism and sexism isn't going to hold much water. Economic conservatism will probably always be with us, but social conservatism 50 years from now will probably be far different from what it is today, even more so than social conservatism today is different from what it was 50 years ago, and probably because America is a multi-ethnic society in 50 years, so appeals to the majority's identity just won't work numerically.

[0:32:10] So my vision of the political future is a series of close elections decided on turnout, since there are a few swing voters left for the next 10 to 20 years, followed by a Republican pivot away from ethno-nationalism towards either libertarianism or neoconservatism, at which my politics will potentially return to quote-unquote normal. In this scenario, the best case is for the Republicans to continue moving on the side of the leftward in the public discourse, while preventing the government from being dragged too far to the right. Right. And this divided government is as good as actual control of government. Maybe I'm too optimistic about the long term. And, you know, maybe I'm so cynical that endless divided government actually sounds good to me. But honestly, what I just

[0:32:50] described doesn't sound that bad to my ears. Anyway, I'm not looking forward to both of us being wrong and the Republicans winning in both 2018 and 2020.

0:32:59 Thomas: Well, yeah, thanks for the call. And yeah, let's never forget that that is fully a possibility. Possibility, it absolutely is a possibility. 538 prediction, and you know, they are pretty good, predicts that we have what, 70, 75 chance I think it was of taking the House, and by the way, that could range from like by one seat to, to be fair, it could range from one seat to like I don't know, 50 or something, which would be amazing, but you know, if we take the House by like one or two seats, that's not even that good.

I mean, it's, it's, it's necessary and we need it and it allows us to get, get a lot done because all you need is that simple majority. But still, if we only take back the House by a seat or two, I'm going to be pretty depressed about the future, personally, because I think that will portend bad things in the future. We need to do better. But I do pretty fundamentally disagree with what you're saying. I think you're not taking into account the damage that is being done by the courts right now, especially the Supreme Court, but also, you know, he is packed. The Republicans have packed the courts with awful, awful people. That's going to screw us over for a very long time. Things are going to be bad. I think also the last caller referenced like, oh, pretty much everything's fine except the Supreme Court. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,

0:34:20 Thomas: We lost like net neutrality. We lost, you know, there's all these things. The tax bill, that's, there's a lot we have to undo. It's not enough to have split government because then nothing happens and inequality gets worse and worse and worse because of the $1.5 trillion BS tax bill. People don't get healthcare. If all we get is divided government, sure, maybe in 30 years when everything's gotten more progressive, then maybe we can get some stuff done, but we can't give people healthcare. We can't reverse that terrible tax bill and start trying to do better things for people.

0:34:58 Thomas: Monopolies aren't being broken up right now, like you know, corporate campaign finance reform, like a lot of stuff is just not getting fixed. And while the courts are just stacked Republican, they will get worse because they are, they are activists, as much as they think they're not, they're activists who are able to make decisions that ruin a bunch of stuff for us and allow people to discriminate against people on the basis of whatever, because you know, their, their book told them to, they think, you know, all kinds of things that we can't fix if we don't have substantial majorities of government, like we just can't fix them.

And I think maybe you're not waiting that enough, in my opinion, just how bad things are and how much we need to make them better. And we can't if there's always a veto, or if there, you know, or vice versa, there's a president, Democratic president, but not Congress. You know, we can't, we're not going to, nothing happens. We'll just get nothing done. And that's going to be really bad. I think it will get worse. Inequality will get worse. People won't have jobs. People will be working too, or they'll have to work too many gig, crappy economy jobs to make barely any money and no one will do anything about it and there won't be any good minimum wage law or anything.

[0:36:12] I mean, it's not good. That's not a bright future to me. Thomas, this is Hillary. And nobody ever expected Obama to look at the future and realize how disgusting the Republicans would be. What we did expect him to do is not appoint Goldman Sachs, Lauren Summers, and the other people who tanked the economy to his cabinet from the very beginning. We also didn't expect him to totally spurn and ignore this grassroots army that he had built and that he had told that he was going to be asking for input from and then never did. You can look

[0:36:52] this up and, you know, it happened to people, you know, it happened to our family. You know, everybody was prepared to meet and get feedback to the White House, which we were were told the White House was going to want as soon as he was in office, and that went nowhere. In the end, you know, you're jumping through hoops, you know, the centrists are jumping through hoops, but we would never have had Trump, we would never have our health care, our basic liberties in any jeopardy if the Democrats had not played such terrible defense over and over and over again. Again, somebody on the Internet I read said that basically the Democrats are paid to

[0:37:33] be weak, a weak defense. And I think that that is absolutely true. So, you know, you can keep, you know, rationalizing and justifying and jumping through all of these logical contortions to try to figure out where we are. But it's not that hard. People are not that irrational, or at least the majority of people aren't. Thanks for the show. Thanks for listening. Take care. Bye. Yeah. Hi, it's Hillary again. Sorry. I'm a big fan. But this last monologue, I mean, the fact that you can say he saved the economy, dot, dot, dot. But yeah, inequality grew and you're sort of dismissing

[0:38:14] inequality. That's the blinders right there. That's what you're not understanding. Obama basically did what he could. He preserved sort of the structures of capital. Middle, but all kinds of ordinary people got screwed, completely screwed. Obamacare was a good thing, but lots of other things he did were not. He also, you know, got out of politics, super wealthy, and nobody should be able to do that on either side of the aisle. It just, it's too corrupting. Okay, thanks for listening twice. Thank you. Bye. Oh, Hillary, thank you for the call. I'm glad. I hope you're still a fan. I don't know. But yeah, it's very clear that we have very different views. And I'll take the last claim first, because I think that's the easiest.

I'm wondering if you've got some bad info somewhere along the line or something, because I'm looking at it right here. President Obama made $10.8 million while in office. Okay, sounds like a lot. Lot. Here's the breakdown. $3 million was from Audacity of Hope, $4.5 million was from Dreams of My Father, and $3.1 million is the presidential salary. So that leaves like 120,000 other stuff, and most of that is interest, according to this Forbes article. So, you know, if you have a different source, let me know, but I don't know how that... Using that as a knock on Obama, the fact that he made money from the books that he sold? What kind of bad, corrupting influence do you think that has? It'd be one thing if you thought he made a bunch of money from

[0:39:53] corporate donors or something.

0:39:55 Thomas: And it is true that in 2008, he had a ton of big bank donors, and we can talk about that, and we will because of the other parts of your voicemail. But I think that last part, it seems pretty baseless to me. I don't think he, and in fact, his salary went down. He made less the longer he was in office because most of it, again, was from those book sales and the sales kind of dwindled as he left.

So I don't think that's in any way a valid critique of him. So kind of going in reverse order, you also dinged me pretty hard for saying Obama saved the economy and yet there's still all this inequality, that kind of thing. Yeah, I don't know that he had the power to fix inequality. Inequality. I hold Obama accountable for what he had the power to do. And by the way, there's all kinds of negatives in that. You know, drone strikes, you know, there's plenty of stuff. There's like, he didn't come down hard enough on monopolies. He didn't, you know, all kinds of critiques. I don't, I hope no one ever thinks that I'm just 100%, whatever he did is good. I don't think that. But I'm, my biggest thing is I'm realistic about what power he had and when he had it. He had power to do stuff for two years. That's it. That's all the power he had. And he gave us a landmark, a gigantic bill

0:41:16 Thomas: In Obamacare, and it would have been better had one effing person not ruined it, had one Joe Lieberman taken away, he threatened to vote against it and threw the whole wrench in the works, and he caused a lot of harm. And yeah, okay, it's not a a perfect bill, of course. Yeah. But he did a gigantic thing. Millions of people, tens of millions of people were not insured and then became insured. That's a giant achievement. He also bailed out banks because in his view, the economy would have crashed. And in a lot of people's view, I think this is pretty well substantiated. There would have been a massive crash.

And so, yes, in that sense, he had to use all that political power to fix George Bush's and, And as you said, Lawrence Summers, you kind of talked about him, he was, according to some people, responsible for a lot of this crash because he advocated for removing some of these regulations, and I'll talk about that in a minute. But yeah, he had to spend that capital, but he also gave us Obamacare, he gave us some other things, and then he completely lost power because the Republicans would not work with him. So, I don't know how you're mad at Obama for not fixing income inequality. Quality. No one would give him a bill to sign. There's no bill. It doesn't matter.

0:42:36 Thomas: In 2010, I guess this is the point I'm trying to make. When the clock struck 2010 and Republicans wiped out Democrats, it doesn't matter who was in office. So when you say, oh, Obama, you know, he didn't fix this, he didn't fix that. It doesn't matter if Karl Marx himself had been president, it wouldn't have mattered. Now, we can argue about the marginal difference that somebody else could have made, and that's valid, you know, valid topic. Maybe he could have done some things differently. You know, we can nitpick here and there.

On the whole, though, I do not think the picture would be very much different, no matter who was in office after the 2010 midterms, when he no longer had any power to really do anything. And I just don't know how people could be so upset as to not even bother to vote in midterms when there was so much excitement just two years prior and Obama accomplished a lot in his first two years. And that's what bums me out about that entire thing. But, you know, I want to say there's a lot of validity to what you're saying. Like there, again, I want to emphasize there's room to criticize him.

You mentioned Lawrence Summers. He wasn't in the cabinet or anything. He was at one point, I'm looking it it up here. He was floated as possibly, you know, someone to lead the Fed, but then he had to withdraw his name because nobody liked that idea. And

0:43:57 Thomas: I don't know if you're, you didn't really go into, you just mentioned his name, but is it the association with Obama or the fact that he might have listened to him, that Obama might have listened to him, that causes you trouble regarding that? And, you know, I think there's a lot of validity to what you're saying. There's a lot of ties to big banks here and there, and you can argue that maybe they would have influenced him to bail them out.

But I think that the information I have is that that was the right thing to do, because it would have caused an even greater economic meltdown, which, guess what, would hit the people who are in the lowest socioeconomic rung of the ladder the hardest, even though fixing it didn't fix income inequality, but not fixing it would have made income inequality even worse, I think. And there's, you know, there were some Republican ads about how many Goldman Sachs people Obama appointed. And then there's also a fact check saying that was largely overblown. You know, there are a few. Sure, there are a few. I don't know. We'd have to look at like what you think they did or what you think, what harm that caused. You know, Maybe if you want to argue he was still a little

[0:45:07] too cozy to big banks, okay, I don't know policy-wise what difference it made. We'd have to talk about specifics because to me, just an association isn't a downside unless there's a policy outcome that we can argue about. Overall, though, there's plenty, again, there's plenty to criticize Obama for, But I think what isn't fair to criticize him for is stuff he couldn't have changed, like income inequality, really. He did what he could. By the way, giving people health care is a gigantic way to start fixing income inequality. When poor people don't have to worry about getting sent to the hospital and having no income security, you know, the feeling that they don't have insurance, they're not going to be able to afford it.

That's a massive barrier in income inequality. And it doesn't fix it, of course, but that's a big step. So, blaming him, though, for not just magically fixing it, what frustrates me about this entire thing is that we need to, Democrats have to be empowered. There's no other option, is the thing. The option of, oh, well, Democrats didn't do somehow exactly what I wanted in that mere two years that they had from 2008 to 2010, haven't been in power since to be able to do, you know, of course there's Obama, but there's nobody giving him bills. They haven't had enough power to really pass

0:46:29 Thomas: Anything since. So nothing from 2010 to 2016 could have been done. Honestly, to use a silly analogy, it's really like someone's just like, I'm just standing there and just somebody's just kicking me in the groin over and over. And someone comes, it's just agony. It's awful. It's awful. Awful. And someone comes over and is like, can I, let me help. I'll try to block some of these kicks and they start blocking the kicks. I'm like, oh, that's, that is better. Definitely. And then they like fumble and miss a kick and it kicks me in the groin again. And then I decide, well, get out of

[0:47:02] here, dude. I'm not, I'm just, just get out of my, just stop trying to help. I'll just have the guy kick me in the groin over and over.

0:47:10 Thomas: It's like, that's not the option. The option is okay. Yes. I'm upset that you didn't protect me me there and you didn't quite do exactly the right thing. But the option of just getting rid of that person and saying, okay, let's go back to the person kicking you in the groin over and over, that's just not an option to me. And that's what I don't get with, I guess, some voters. That isn't an option. The only option is to drive things so far to

[0:47:34] the left that we've got Ocasio-Cortez primarying someone who's just not quite liberal enough. That is the only option for me. That's the only way things actually will happen. Ocasio-Cortez isn't going to win in a Republican district. She's not going to win in a Republican district where maybe there was like a centrist Democrat, but then he was too centrist, so Democrats didn't vote for him, and then a Republican wins. Ocasio-Cortez is not winning in that district. That's just not what happens. I mean, people want to think that's what happens, but I don't have any evidence of that. If you do, let me know.

But the places where Ocasio-Cortez and people like her, far lefties win, is places where Democrats are in power, where we give power to Democrats, and then in the primaries, we can favor the more lefty candidates, the more progressive candidates who are promised to do campaign finance reform, promised to not take corporate money. That's how we make that happen. We don't make that happen by by saying this Democrat wasn't perfect. I quit. I'm not voting. It just doesn't work. It's, it's not an option. So I just, I'm sorry. I don't get it. You know, and this isn't all directed at Hillary. Like I, the caller Hillary, I just don't, I don't even understand that as a path

[0:48:47] forward. It just doesn't make sense. It's just not good enough. Hey Thomas, love your show. My name's Alex. And I just wanted to, um, I was just listening to episode 153, and I thought it was quite funny, your little rant about the Green Party, and I was wondering what you were thinking about, what is it, preferential voting, the voting system Australia seems to have, where you vote for the first candidate that you want, and if they are not getting the the majority of the votes, then you can also select the second candidate that your votes could go to. And I always thought, like, Like for situations where people want to vote for the Green Party, then that would be

[0:49:27] an ideal solution because, yeah, they can vote for whoever they want, the nobody who's not going to win. And then they can actually make their vote matter by voting for a second person candidate who will actually possibly win the vote and actually gain the vote of the party members who obviously wasn't going to win. So I was just wondering what you thought about that kind of stuff. And love your show. Bye. Hey, thanks for the call. I absolutely love that kind of stuff. I don't spend too much time talking about it because I just do not think it's going to happen. I wish it would

[0:50:01] happen.

0:50:02 Thomas: My understanding is that we could do it on a state level, but that federal elections would require a constitutional amendment, which is effing impossible. I don't see that happening anytime soon. And if I were to be able to magic one constitutional amendment, if someone just gave me a wish and I got to have one, that might be it. But I also, first off, I think mandatory voting is also a way to fix it. You know, if you hear from everybody, the majority of people who aren't able to vote because of our stupid system would vote Democrat. And I think that would fix a lot of it. This is definitely a candidate for that. Like, I think this would be a great change. But I also think I might just, you know, undo Citizens United and that kind of thing. Like, there's a lot we could do with that one amendment. But I don't think that's happening anyway. We're just nowhere near the level of support in the country or the level of power on the left to be able to do a constitutional amendment.

0:50:59 Thomas: I wish we were. But yeah, if I could wave a magic wand and do this kind of ranked voting, that would be awesome. That would, I would love that. I mean, that would mean that I wouldn't have to argue with, there would be so many people I wouldn't have to argue with. With.

You know, if people were genuinely not fans of Hillary, like go back to 2016, if they genuinely were not fans of Hillary and weren't just pretending, you know, that they were actually Trump supporters, then I could just say, oh, good. Well, number one, put whoever the hell you want and then put Hillary and don't put Trump. And then we have no argument. That's great. That'd be a great world. I'd love that.

I just, I don't, honestly, I don't waste much time thinking about it because I just, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't see any chance that that's happening. I mean, maybe one, maybe a state here or there could do it, but on a, certainly on a federal level, it's never happening. And I, so I guess I don't waste much time thinking about it, but I wish, I wish we could have that. I wish we could have mandatory voting. I wish we could have like a week of voting. You know, I wish we could have a federal holiday. There's all kinds of

[0:52:00] things I wish. But, you know, let's make them happen if we can. But I just, I don't see it happening. Hey, this is Patrick, trying to do a shorter message, hopefully it'll get played on the show. So basically, do you support ranked choice voting? I don't see how we can shame voters and third parties when they have no anti-war candidate, when they're constantly being told that the progressives are splitting the vote, and then when corporate schlocks are running, the progressives get their vote split by a fake progressive who's running milk toast ads saying, you know, I support health care for your families, but they're not on board with health care for all. Like, how the

[0:52:40] Democrats are just flat out lying. Look at Doug Jones, votes with Trump half the time, after being Roy Moore. Why would people come out to vote for them when they're struggling to make the pit defeat their children, and then they have to take off a day of work just to vote for someone who then supported Trump 50 of the time? Why would you expect people to keep suffering just for someone who looks the other way and doesn't care because corporate money rules all? All right. Another vote for ranked voting. I agree.

0:53:09 Thomas: Yeah, I would love that. I don't. So I selected this one. There's some things I want to respond to. There's some things I can't respond to. I don't understand the stuff about a fake progressive splitting votes. I don't know if that's based on a specific district or story. I don't think it's based on 2016 that I know of. So

[0:53:28] I don't know about that. I'm sorry.

0:53:30 Thomas: Feel free to send me specifics if you want. I got to say something about the no anti-war candidate claim. I recently watched the documentary The White Helmets. It's on Netflix. Please watch that and then tell me how crazy it was or how evil it was for Hillary to want a no-fly zone over Syria. Just do me a favor, because when it came to the pro-war candidate, I mean, that was the big knock on Hillary. That That was what I heard anyway. The big knock on Hillary was, oh, she wants this no-fly zone over Syria. Well, that's going to lead to war, you know. And then, of course, there's also, as Secretary of State, she did support intervention in Libya and stuff like that.

So, sure. But to say she didn't campaign on let's go to war, and the one thing that she did campaign on at all was a no-fly zone in Syria. And I would just invite you to watch that documentary where people are pulling kids kids out of the rubble because they're being bombed from the air by the Syrian government. Watch that and let me know what you think of a no-fly zone after that documentary. Because personally, I don't know how bad of an idea it was. I really don't. You know, maybe it would have been worth a little geopolitical capital to say, hey, you're bombing your civilians and children

0:54:51 Thomas: Are being pulled out of the rubble. So let's not have you do that and see how that goes. You know, it's a tough situation. I get it. I'm not a pro-war person, but sometimes when you have horrible humanitarian disasters like that, is it that evil to want to help in a way that I guess can be looked at as too interventionist? I don't know. You know, there's certain, like when it comes to Syria, I don't know that anyone has the answer. And I don't, and I want want to help. I wish we could help. And no one seems to want to really do too much.

And it's easy to think, well, the right thing to do is always don't do the military bad thing because that was bad in Iraq and Vietnam. And yeah, it was bad in Iraq and Vietnam. Does that mean it's wrong when just all kinds of hundreds of thousands of people are dying, children are starving and dying and being gassed in Syria? Does that mean it's wrong then? I don't know. I'm not necessarily sure. I know that's a little bit of a branch off. Sorry, that's not directly per se related to your voicemail, but I do think it's related to the anti-war candidate thing. And I think my same answer earlier kind of to Hillary sort of applies to your voicemail, which is there isn't another

0:56:11 Thomas: Option. Yeah, I want ranked voting. That would be great. But the idea that we can just let Republicans have control isn't an option. It doesn't work. Furthermore, they irrevocably ruin things to the point where even if you got your magical progressive candidate who's exactly what you want, we can't elect them because we've been gerrymandered to oblivion. And if you want to try to sue over that, oh, darn, the Supreme Court is also Republican, so

[0:56:42] you can't win. It's just not an option.

0:56:45 Thomas: So, I'm sorry. Fight like hell in the primary. Here's what I want to say about this. There's a weird thing that happens in 2016. And again, caller, this wasn't 100% directed at you. It's related, but don't take take this as all an attack on you or anything. There was this tendency in 2016 for people to blame Hillary for not being whatever, for not being electable enough, even though she won by 3 million votes. Blame her for that. But when you talked about Bernie in the primary, then it was everybody but Bernie's fault. So there was no consistency there. When Hillary lost, it's Hillary's fault. She was terrible. And furthermore, it was your fault for voting for her. When Bernie lost to Hillary, oh, well, that's your fault too. Like, that's also your fault. You should have voted for him. Wait a minute. Why wasn't it his fault for not winning? It was Hillary's fault a minute ago for not winning the general, even though she won the general popular vote. Why isn't it Bernie's fault for losing?

[0:57:43] I want some consistency.

0:57:45 Thomas: I think that if you as a primary voter and as a Bernie supporter or whatever, like insert progressive candidate who who inevitably you'll hope will win the Democratic primary in 2020 and who won't. When they don't win, and by the way, I'll probably be voting for them too, as I voted for Bernie in the primary. When they don't win, and then, you know, you don't want to vote, you're not excited by whoever it is, and you just want to sit on your hands and not do anything. If you're consistent, I believe you have to blame both yourself and your candidate. They did not convince enough people. Oh, side note, I'm glad we're, you know, they're kind of getting rid of those superdelegates, who, by the way, had absolutely no effect on anything, which is a great reason to get rid of them. They didn't have any effect on anything. Get rid of them. I know they're not fully gone, but they're going to be mostly gone.

[0:58:32] They're irrelevant.

0:58:34 Thomas: I'm fine with getting rid of them. But furthermore, I'm really happy as I covered, I don't know, a while back about the reforms I'd want to see in the DNC. If I could change anything, it would mainly be getting rid of caucuses because they're absurd and

[0:58:47] they require people who have like an entire day or evening evening to just give away to a primary contest. So, get rid of those. And they are getting rid of a few of them, I think. So, that's good. So, things are going the right direction in the DNC. But it's just so weird that when your progressive amazing candidate doesn't win, that's my fault. But when my candidate doesn't win the general, that's that candidate's fault. I just don't think that's true. I think you need some consistency there. There. So fight like hell in the primary, as I've said, fight like hell in the primary for your candidate. And if they didn't win, they didn't win. They didn't convince enough people. That's what happened. They didn't convince enough people or enough people didn't vote. Maybe they, you know, whatever, whatever the reason is, that's what it is. And after that's over,

[0:59:38] there's no takesies-backsies. Like there's no, you can't undo, there's no whatever. Like it's just, that's what it is. And then you have to vote for the Democrat because Republicans are ruining the world. So talk about Doug Jones. So Doug Jones wins in an incredibly Republican area because of that was the child molester one, right? I'm pretty sure Doug Jones. It's been a while. There's a lot of news since then. So,

[1:00:01] you're saying, oh, he votes with Trump. Okay. So, his Trump score score is 52.6%. That's not amazing, but it's not as bad as you might have thought.

1:00:15 Thomas: 538, as always, has a fantastic tool for this. I actually didn't even know this existed until now, but this

[1:00:21] is, I am going to reference this a lot. This tool takes a candidate's, or sorry, I guess a senator's or representatives, Trump's score, and then compares it with the percentage

[1:00:33] of voters in that district who support Trump, and then gives you the difference there.

1:00:40 Thomas: So let's say Doug Jones won, well, for example, if he wins in a district, or I guess a state, it's the Senate, so in the state, where 77.7% of people, no, I think it's more like like 86.7% of people supported Trump, and he only supports Trump 52.6% of the time, that's an improvement. That's better than a Republican. We need to start accepting that we need to do better. That perfect or nothing doesn't work. And by the way, this Trump score of 52.6%, it's actually not on a lot of the important important things. Nomination of a secretary of veteran affairs. But here's one of the things he supported that Trump supported, expanding private care options for veterans. That won 92 to five. So, but virtually everybody supported that. He supported the nomination of Mike Pompeo to be secretary of state. Okay. A fiscal appropriations bill, rolling back the bank regulations put in place by Dodd-Frank. But 67 senators supported that. Not sure why so many Democrats supported that. That's bad, but that's another conversation. A budget bill, that's nothing.

1:02:00 Thomas: A nomination of secretary extending government funding, that's nothing. Extending

[1:02:06] government funding.

1:02:09 Thomas: Reauthorizing warrantless spying program. Okay, that's not good. Here's what he opposed, though, that Trump supported. This is a great tool. So it's all the differences, you know, and places they agreed. He opposed banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. He opposed it, even though Trump supported it, you know, things like that. So it's an improvement. And when voters in a district or a state are overwhelmingly Republican, it's weird to expect that we ought to get a super liberal out of that. I don't know that we're entitled to do that, to expect that.

I think if your state as Alabama was, was like 86.7% Alabama kind of thing or whatever, something like that, according to these numbers, then for us to expect, well, no, you have to be, you know, you have to be Bernie Sanders himself. You have to be the most liberal person. Otherwise, why are we even voting for you? No, I just don't think that's true. We have to realize what we, the power we have and what we can do with it, you know, in a district that's majority liberal and that is a safely liberal district or state, I expect a super liberal Democrat. That we can expect. Now, if a California senator has a Trump score of 52.6%, by all means, let's be pissed

1:03:29 Thomas: About that. Let's primary them. Let's get them out of there. If a senator in a state that's overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly Republican, votes with Trump about half the time and it's not even the most important things usually, take the win, take the win everybody, just accept the victory of that you know, and hope that he supports the right things, it's just I don't know how many times I can say it, the options of letting Republicans do whatever they want is not an option. So if you say, oh, Doug Jones, 50% of the time he's with Trump, I'm not supporting him. And then you get a Republican who, guess what, is 100% with Trump, 100% of the time, that's not a solution to the problem. All right. Well, sorry to keep harping on that, but very interesting stuff there.

I know a lot of people still disagree with me quite a lot, but that's okay. You know, I don't, I feel like I mainly heard from people who disagree today, but that's okay. Call in next month. I like this end of the month thing. Furthermore, I think I might be able to get you a bonus episode. This is a really hectic schedule schedule on this last week, but I might be able to get you another episode

1:04:36 Thomas: In the end of August here. We'll see how it goes. But thank you so much for listening. I really hope you'll support the show, patreon.com slash seriespod or seriespod.com

[1:04:44] slash support.

1:04:46 Thomas: Same thing either way without the middleman, but I really hope you'll support the show to keep it going.

[1:04:51] If it loses support, I don't do it anymore because that's how life works. So thank you for those who are making it happen. I really do appreciate you. And thank you for those who left voicemails. I'll see you you again in about a month. And in the meantime, let's get to some amazing interviews coming up. I'm really excited for them. And that's that. Thank you for listening. See you next time.