Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 470: Partisan Death Spiral

Transcript

Episode 470: Partisan Death Spiral · Words & Numbers

• 0:00
  Today on WORDS and Numbers, sports gambling, false scarcity,
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  YouTube TV and the fracturing of political parties.
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  All this and more coming up on Words and NUMBERS, a civil
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  original production. Check us out at civil.com.
• 0:13
  That's civl.com. Hi, I'm James and I'm Anthony
• 0:17
  and this is Words and Numbers. Yeah, it's new and exciting in
• 0:25
  your world this week. Something's happened.
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  Since we've gone to two episodes, we're getting so much
• 0:30
  listener e-mail that that's pretty much all I do now is read
• 0:34
  listener. It's hard to keep.
• 0:35
  It is it's hard to keep up. This latest is from one of our
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  listeners, Muhammad Ali. He says I've been watching you
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  fastidiously since your very first Learn Liberty video on
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  government debt. And I have to say something here
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  that if you if you haven't seen that video, check it out.
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  It's got to be 10 years old plus now it's on the government debt
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  and it's all of 30 seconds long. What had happened is I'd gone
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  down to the where we were doing the Learn Liberty videos and
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  spent all day recording a whole bunch of these videos, all of
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  which they released. And we're all done getting ready
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  to wrap up and, and I said, hey, let's try something.
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  And I threw up a slide of, of the government debt compared to
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  other things and said, I'm going to, I'm going to walk across and
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  talk about this. Just follow me with the camera.
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  And they did. And it was like a 32nd video.
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  And that one video I think got more views than all of my other
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  100 videos combined. It turned into a chapter in our
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  book. That's right.
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  Yeah, Yeah, I did. And and I, I remember when we
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  were trying to figure out how to explain the debt in in our book.
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  And it was a like a cute amount back then, only in the 20
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  trillions. I don't remember which of the
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  20s it was, but not like 38 trillion like we have now.
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  And we were trying to figure out how many drops of water were in
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  an Olympic sized swimming pool, which come to find out is a
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  rather difficult thing to figure out.
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  And the, the, the line you kept using was we need an analogy to
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  explain the analogy to explain the deck, right?
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  So we're probably 4-4 stages into it now, right?
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  We an analogy to explain the analogy to explain the analogy
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  to explain the analogy. But but you know, looking back
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  on it, that was probably the most productive 30 seconds of my
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  life was it was just off the cuff.
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  Let's do this, but nonetheless has a lot of I have a lot of
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  jokes to make right now and I'm just going to let them pass.
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  I'm going to let them pass because everybody knows exactly
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  what they are. Anthony has physics children,
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  that's 5 seconds each, etcetera, etcetera, our listener Muhammad
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  Ali says. I was thinking about the concept
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  of false scarcity that posits that government could create a
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  shortage of sand in the Sahara and applying it to water crises
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  manifesting in California and Saudi Arabia due to government
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  pushes for agriculture. There is no reason that Saudi
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  Arabia needs to grow its own wheat when it can import cheaply
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  from neighbors. Saudi monarchs and politicians
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  decide it was necessary for Saudi to Arabia to control its
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  own food supply. This sounds just like American
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  politicians on about how it's necessary for us to be
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  independent and have our own oil supply and and all of that.
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  He goes on by the way and says thank you for talking about
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  Canada. 2 episodes a week have been even better and the quality
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  has improved more. He's talking about me, not you.
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  I seriously don't know how you. He did say you too.
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  That must have been a typo. I seriously don't know how you
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  are so consistent and so good Muhammad.
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  Now I have some thoughts on this.
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  I think he's he's right to point to the politicians that the
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  Saudi politicians are obsessed with being self-sufficient in
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  water like American politicians are obsessed with being
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  self-sufficient in oil. They, and this sounds good
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  initially, but if you dig into it, I think that position
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  ultimately arises from and engenders a lack of trust.
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  I mean, arises from a lack of trust.
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  Of course, of course it does. Yeah, because of what's going to
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  happen if the if the Saudis stop selling me oil and the Saudis,
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  what happens if the Americans stop selling me wheat?
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  This is exactly the perspective behind anti globalism, right?
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  So you can, you can see how this arises from a lack of trust, but
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  it also engenders a lack of trust becomes a self fulfilling
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  prophecy. Because if, if this, if I become
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  self-sufficient in oil, now I don't need the Saudis and the
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  Saudis know that, which means the Saudis are thinking, well,
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  the Americans might cut off my supply of wheat and, and vice
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  versa. And we see this repeatedly when
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  you look at trade numbers, countries that trade more are
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  more peaceful toward each other. They can't afford to, to, to, to
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  go to war. Not only that, they're, they're
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  more peaceful generally. They're more, yes, yes, that's
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  an interesting thing. If you look at the data, they're
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  not just more peaceful with regard to, you know, military
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  things and, and, and other countries, but they're more
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  peaceful in regard to how they treat their own citizens.
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  That's right. They're more peaceful externally
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  to their trading partners, but also to everybody else.
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  Yeah. Then they're they're, they're
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  more decent to their own people, which is, you would think the
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  prescription for some sort of heavenly existence here on
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  earth. But yet, wait a second, the
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  politicians will say, we can't have that.
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  And there's this innate fear that whatever you need that you
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  get from somebody else, that it will eventually dry up or
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  they'll withhold it, you know, though this sort of thing.
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  And these are rational fears because people do behave that
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  way and this drives a certain kind of politics everywhere that
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  becomes more destructive everywhere over time.
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  I don't know that there's a way around this, I really don't.
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  And think of it this way, if you, you individually, Anthony
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  Davies could be perfectly self-sufficient, you would be
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  right if it if, if you could do it without a tremendous cost to
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  yourself. Of course, you that that
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  footnote is the important part. If I could do it without a
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  tremendous cost, right, without a tremendous cost.
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  But you would incur some cost to be perfectly self-sufficient and
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  irrational person would OK, step back.
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  Look at a nation. How's the nation going to behave
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  precisely that way. The the beauty of it is, is that
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  resources are scattered across the globe, right?
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  Yes, that's the beauty of it. You can't be self-sufficient.
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  Even if you could be, it would cost so much that it wouldn't be
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  worth it. So you have to find a way to get
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  along. Now you know the old saying we
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  could go easy or we could go hard.
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  I'd rather go easy. And if if I were in a position
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  of authority, it's precisely what I would do.
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  But and and I think we we find other people who like to drive a
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  hard bargain, right. They want to win somehow.
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  The thing that people miss when they talk about self-sufficiency
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  is the tremendous power of specialization.
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  You talked about it in in our words and numbers live last time
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  that you know, whatever it was, I forget Adam Smith's numbers,
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  but one person could make so many pins an hour.
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  And if you specialized and had broke it down to steps, you
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  could produce 10s or hundreds of thousands more pins using the
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  same labels. That's yeah, yeah.
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  And and that happens as well, you know, at the country level
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  you specialize in doing what you do better and trade with other
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  people. But this is a very long winded
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  way of getting to his to Muhammad score question, which
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  is about groundwater or or freshwater.
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  And I don't know, I know enough to know that the question is
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  very complicated. And so there's not a lot I can
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  say about it. I'm thinking about California or
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  your situation in Arizona. But I can speak in broad strokes
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  and in broad strokes I would say, look, if you have a problem
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  like he points out with Saudi Arabia or or California
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  depletion of groundwater, you ask why do we have a deletion of
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  groundwater? My knee jerk answer is because
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  you don't have a market price attached to it.
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  If you had a market price attached to it, the price would
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  go up and the depletion would would attenuate.
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  Why don't you have a market price?
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  Well, because property rights either aren't established or
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  they're established in name only.
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  They aren't enforced. And when I did a little digging
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  into California and I said, what's the deal with property
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  rights and water in California? I get this thing that says, oh,
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  no property rights. Water is a public resource.
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  Yeah, that sounds really good. But what it means is nobody owns
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  the thing. And so everybody has an
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  incentive to use it. Nobody has an incentive to
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  preserve it. But that's right.
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  And look, here in Arizona, we get like, an inch and a half of
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  rain a year where I live. Back when I lived in New England
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  and in western Pennsylvania, water fell free from the sky,
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  right? There was no shortage.
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  And I think don't, don't hold me to this, but I'm almost positive
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  that I pay less for water here than I did in Pennsylvania.
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  Really. Because it's controlled by
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  politicians. Now what?
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  What's what's going to happen when living in the desert has no
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  associated cost for something that is that your life depends
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  on? And what's going to happen is
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  lots of people are going to move here and further deplete the
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  resource. You talk about market price.
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  Market price goes much deeper than paying by the gallon.
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  It it goes as deep as choosing where you'll live.
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  Yeah. And now California has an
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  obvious answer. They can desalinize ocean water,
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  and the Saudis can do that too. And that's going to happen,
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  right? It already happens in limited
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  respects, but sooner or later, that's going to be the right
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  answer. It's going to be cheap enough
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  just to do. Yeah.
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  And you say sooner or later, and I would argue it would have been
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  a lot sooner if they had actual property rights and market
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  prices, because what would have happened is the price of water
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  would have skyrocketed. And all of a sudden there would
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  have been a tremendous profit incentive in investing in R&D
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  for desalinization. And and that's why, you know,
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  people ask why it's taken Americans so long to start
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  adopting electric vehicles. Well, part of it was because
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  petroleum was subsidized to a greater or lesser degree in this
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  country. Oil is relatively cheap.
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  And so there wasn't the incentive, there wasn't a profit
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  incentive to invest in what was necessary to make electric
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  vehicles a thing. Last thing in the world I want
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  to do is pay twice as much for a car that I have to.
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  But if if I turned on the spigot in my kitchen, knowing that the
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  water that was coming out cost $10 a gallon, I would be very
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  judicious in my use of water because it costs pennies.
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  I have a swimming pool. Yeah.
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  In Arizona. Yeah, in the desert.
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  And I had to replace the water in the pool last year, and I
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  found out that everybody gets a free refill.
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  You're kidding. I didn't have to pay.
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  I didn't have to pay for the water.
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  Wow. There you go.
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  Subscribe to Civil for $5 a month or $50.00 for an annual
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  subscription. Switching gears a little bit, I
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  mean, this is all about a lot of unintended consequences and I
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  have a massive on an unintended consequence to talk about today.
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  And I know your eyes are just going to dull right over with
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  the next two things I talked about, but I want to start.
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  We are going to talk about sports.
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  Yes, we are. And shut up, God, try, try to
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  try to pretend to be a man for a minute.
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  I mean, it's just for a minute. The UFC.
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  Do you even know what the UFC is?
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  It's mixed martial arts. People get in a in an octagonal
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  cage and beat the ever loving hell out of each other until one
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  of them can't continue. And Needless to say, I think
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  this is one of the greatest things in the world.
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  I love watching 2 grown men or even, and sometimes better two
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  grown women beating the hell out of each other.
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  This is entertainment at its finest.
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  But a bunch of years ago, I was standing in a classroom and I
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  said, someday sports wagering is going to be legal in the United
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  States and all hell is going to break loose when that happens.
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  And don't get me wrong, I think sports betting should be legal.
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  It's my money. I'm watching sports.
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  I do what I want. But the UFC has cut a fighter
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  named Isaac Dulgarian after his first fight.
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  You have to. You have to be very good to get
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  to the UFC. That's like the major leagues of
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  mixed martial arts. And there were betting
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  irregularities around his fight, which he lost.
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  And he was a prohibitive favorite.
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  Yeah, a lot of smart money came in against him.
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  What did they know that the other people didn't?
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  The fight was fixed. There's a long history of fight
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  fixing in the United States, right?
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  All the way back to the 1910s and even before in boxing.
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  And it it's now crept up here. It used to be the mob that fixed
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  fights so they would know to bet a heavy underdog because they
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  knew he would win. Well, in the wake of this, a
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  raft of UFC fighters came out and said I've been approached to
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  throw a fight. Huh.
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  We got a problem here. And it's not just here.
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  When you watch an NFL game and a referee blows an obvious call,
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  was it an honest mistake or is the fix in?
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  There was an NBA referee who was fixing games.
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  We all know it. He was caught.
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  And you start to think about the incentives that referees face.
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  They're not making money like athletes, but they could, right?
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  We've got a an NBA problem right now where a, a player's been
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  suspended and it's usually not fixing games.
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  It's usually point shaving. So you either cover or don't
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  cover a spread, something like this.
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  And there's a player who's out, there's a Hall of Fame coach
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  who's in a world of trouble. And you're going to see this
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  over and over and over in every sport that has betting.
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  And I have no idea where it's going to land.
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  But this is just the tip of a gigantic iceberg.
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  Now, it makes me think about there are economists.
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  I want to say Don Boudreaux, but don't quote me on that, who have
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  argued that insider trading in stocks should not be illegal.
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  I agree. And you should be arguing yes,
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  That's yes. And and it touches on what
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  you're talking about. It's OK.
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  There's people behind the scenes.
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  Don't, don't outlaw the betting. Just increase information.
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  Let everybody know who's betting, how much on whom.
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  Show every single thing right down to the individual bets.
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  Let me see who's betting and make shell betting illegal,
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  Right. So I can't get you to place a
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  bet for me on something I know about, which is, you know what
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  the insider trading almost always is too, right?
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  It's usually. But that sort of thing.
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  There, I dare I say it, Nancy Pelosi.
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  For everybody who thinks I only pick on Republicans, Nancy
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  Pelosi has a remarkable stock trading record.
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  It's remarkable. Yeah.
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  Yeah, so much so. And I know there's something
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  dirty in it. It was something about the
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  Clintons way back. Maybe it was it Hillary that she
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  turned like, like make a multi $100,000 profit in a matter of
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  days on some stock trade or something.
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  But we all shrug our shoulders. It sounds counterintuitive, this
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  business about, well, you should allow insider trading.
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  But the important thing is the information.
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  If everybody knows, you know what, what's going to happen.
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  If, for example, suppose it's legal for ACEO, who has insider
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  information to trade on his own stock.
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  What we're going to be doing is watching that CEO all the time.
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  And as soon as he moves, as soon as he buys or sells the stock,
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  we're going to mimic it knowing that he he knows something what
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  you don't. And that and the information
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  then gets incorporated into the price much more quickly.
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  What you just said is key. We have to see it in real time
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  because there are reporting requirements right at the for,
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  for CEOs and, and officers and what have you.
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  But you get the information way too late to capitalize on it
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  yourself, right, right, right. It, it you get it a quarter too
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  late And, and that's no good. And honestly, there's no excuse
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  for it in the information age. We can know right now who's
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  doing what all the time. And I see no problem with that.
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  None whatsoever. Anyway, this brings us to the
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  foolishness of the weak That is somehow related.
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  Not exactly. I am so cheesed right now at
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  YouTube TV that I can barely contain my ink.
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  Tell us how you really feel, James.
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  Oh, the words I want to say now would would melt our podcast.
• 19:48
  Everybody's little ears would just close right up yours.
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  First YouTube TVA company that I spent I sent nearly $100 to
• 19:59
  every month so I can watch TV has a beef with Disney and I
• 20:06
  don't like Disney either. They also can go make sweet,
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  sweet love to themselves. And they decided together that
• 20:14
  they were going to have such a beef that the Disney channels
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  all disappeared from the package that I pay $100 a month to see.
• 20:23
  Now you would think me rambling on in anger about Disney would
• 20:28
  be a bit of a non sequitur. And you'd be right.
• 20:31
  Until you realize that today is Tuesday and ESPN is part of the
• 20:37
  Disney package and Monday Night Football was yesterday.
• 20:46
  Oh my God and YouTube TV under idiotic extreme says if if this
• 20:57
  is a protracted problem we will credit you for $20.00 a month.
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  It's a protracted problem already every Monday this goes
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  on is the very definition of a protracted problem.
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  The hell you can't get and and the NFL they can kiss my
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  posterior as well, because the NFL could have said all you Jack
• 21:25
  wagons get in the same room, lock the door and don't come out
• 21:28
  until you fix this and nobody did that.
• 21:33
  Now, aunt, you know, you know full well that in this life, I
• 21:38
  don't ask for much. I really don't.
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  But on Monday nights, I want to sit down outside, smoke a cigar,
• 21:47
  drink a soda and watch Monday Night Football.
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  And three groups of assholes have made that completely
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  impossible. All right, so let's back up a
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  minute. Am I correct?
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  You can just get a subscription to Disney Channel.
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  I'm not paying another 20 bucks a month to watch a game that I
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  should get with the $100 a month I already pay.
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  But if YouTube is crediting you $20.00 a month and they're not,
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  they will. They will at some magical time
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  in the future. What else, just out of
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  curiosity? All of them.
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  What else do you get for your $100 YouTube subscription?
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  All the cable channels and and all my local channels.
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  OK, It's functionally cable TV. Yeah, I don't hope.
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  I hope YouTube. I hope YouTube goes out of
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  business. My heart is filled with hatred
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  for these people. I got a YouTube subscription
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  maybe, maybe four years ago, and it wasn't what you're talking
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  about. It was like, if I remember
• 22:52
  correctly, it's like 100 bucks for the year.
• 22:54
  It's their whatever they is it YouTube plus it's whatever it
• 22:58
  is. They take out the ads, yes, it's
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  whatever. It just takes the ads out
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  because going back to the birth of YouTube, I had browsers that
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  stripped ads out. And I'd lived with them for so
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  long, I didn't realize there were ads in YouTube until my
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  browser about four years ago stopped working, if I may.
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  And another thing, and another thing, I pay YouTube TVA $100 a
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  month and I still get ads on YouTube.
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  Oh, that's not right. And kiss my ass.
• 23:35
  I told them they were going to be the foolishness of the week
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  on Twitter last night, and here it is.
• 23:41
  They're going to be the foolishness of the week next
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  week too. If I can't see Monday Night
• 23:45
  Football, I ask for nothing in this world.
• 23:48
  And I somehow managed to get even less week after week after
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  week. Anyway, let's move on.
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  Now that I'm all worked up, we might as well go talk about
• 24:03
  something else that's really pissing me off.
• 24:06
  Because this past week. Tucker Carlson.
• 24:10
  Who? What's that word I'm looking for
• 24:13
  Aunt who is an idiot. Tucker Carlson's a moron.
• 24:18
  I don't know how else to put it. He's in the pocket of Vladimir
• 24:22
  Putin. He says stupid things on a
• 24:25
  regular basis and and yet maybe yet isn't the right word.
• 24:30
  Maybe the right word is so a bunch of morons take him
• 24:34
  seriously. And what did he do last week?
• 24:39
  He had this little twerp. His name is not escaping me.
• 24:43
  I'm so angry. Fuentes.
• 24:45
  Nick Fuentes, I believe. Is that correct, Nick?
• 24:48
  First name? Yes, I believe so.
• 24:50
  Yeah. Nick Puentes.
• 24:52
  Nick Fuentes, who I try desperately not to pay attention
• 24:54
  to because he's a little tiny troll who crawled out from under
• 24:59
  a bridge somewhere and the minute let's just say Charlie
• 25:05
  Kirk's blood had not yet cooled when Nick Fuentes was weaseling
• 25:11
  his way in to be the new Charlie Kirk figure in the world.
• 25:16
  Problem with that is, is that Nick Fuentes is a white
• 25:21
  nationalist and an anti semite who praises Hitler and praises
• 25:28
  Stalin. Wow.
• 25:31
  And Tucker Carlson decided to have him on.
• 25:36
  There's no hope for Nick Fuentes.
• 25:39
  He is what he is. He makes no bones about it.
• 25:43
  But let me ask you this. If I came to you and said, aunt,
• 25:47
  we could get like 100 times the views on an episode if we invite
• 25:51
  Nick Fuentes on, what would be your reaction?
• 25:54
  I didn't know anything about him till I just looked him up.
• 25:57
  But yeah, given all of that, I don't want to be anywhere near
• 25:59
  the guy. That's right.
• 26:01
  It doesn't matter what good he can do for you, right?
• 26:05
  Because God help me, you have principles. 1 doesn't.
• 26:10
  One doesn't only need principles.
• 26:12
  One can get away with the practicality of let's say he's
• 26:16
  got a million followers. They're not followers you want.
• 26:20
  He's got multiple millions of followers, and so does Tucker
• 26:24
  Carlson. 10s of millions. I wouldn't go near the guy
• 26:29
  unless it was to slap him. He's a terrible human being.
• 26:35
  I have no problem saying this out loud.
• 26:38
  None whatsoever. He is the worst of the worst in
• 26:43
  that little space that he occupies.
• 26:45
  And Tucker Carlson just decides to have him on and they talk in
• 26:50
  public about things that just a generation ago everybody would
• 26:55
  have been ashamed to say out loud.
• 26:58
  There was a reason Klansmen wore ropes, right?
• 27:04
  You got to hide your face if you're going to say this kind of
• 27:07
  crap. And yet they just went on and
• 27:10
  on. But this isn't the bad part.
• 27:13
  The bad part is still coming. Because once it happened.
• 27:19
  Kevin Roberts. Is that a name you're familiar
• 27:22
  with? No Kevin Roberts is the
• 27:25
  president of the Heritage Foundation.
• 27:27
  That's a pretty big post at the hand of a pretty big operation.
• 27:33
  He came out and defended Tucker Carlson as a friend of the
• 27:38
  Heritage Foundation, and we always stand by our friends,
• 27:42
  said Kevin. The backlash, as you could
• 27:47
  imagine, was pretty quick and he started backpedaling.
• 27:52
  Not enough, but he started and then there was a quick
• 27:57
  reorganization at Heritage. He's still the president as of
• 28:03
  this recording. I can't see a way that he
• 28:06
  remains president, but I can't see a way he said what he said.
• 28:12
  And I can't see a way that Tucker Carlson has Nick Fuentes
• 28:15
  on. And I can't see a way that Nick
• 28:18
  Fuentes believes what he believes.
• 28:20
  So who knows? Who knows?
• 28:22
  And it got me to thinking a lot these past few days.
• 28:27
  And you and I had a very brief chat about this couple of days
• 28:30
  ago, before all this really bubbled up.
• 28:34
  But we're old enough to remember, you and I, that each
• 28:40
  of the parties had a real problem with the fringe elements
• 28:45
  that they attracted. You remember those days when
• 28:49
  when you looked at Democrats and at the outer left fringe, there
• 28:54
  were avowed communists and Democrats didn't quite know what
• 28:59
  to do with them, but knew that they wanted their votes.
• 29:02
  So they mostly kept quiet about it.
• 29:05
  And with the Republicans that their outer fringe, the John
• 29:08
  Birch Society and beyond, well, they had racists and they didn't
• 29:15
  know what to say about that, but they wanted the votes, so they
• 29:19
  didn't say much. And I, I never for a second
• 29:24
  thought that mainstream Republicans were racist.
• 29:27
  And I never thought for a second that mainstream Democrats were
• 29:30
  communists, right. They had crazy uncles in their
• 29:35
  in, in their medics, which people have.
• 29:37
  Yeah, Yeah. And these were difficult things
• 29:40
  to deal with. And I think they had a bit of a
• 29:43
  gentleman's agreement that they were going to ignore each
• 29:45
  other's crazies for the most part until and unless the
• 29:49
  crazies got out of line and started saying a bunch of weird
• 29:53
  shit in public. But now it's starting to look
• 29:56
  for all the world like the crazy elements are the mainstream
• 30:02
  elements in the parties. Yeah, I don't think for a second
• 30:07
  that the the crazy elements are the mainstream in the United
• 30:10
  States. And I think this explains why
• 30:14
  that independent number grows each year and the partisan
• 30:19
  faithful drop by a point here and a point there each year.
• 30:24
  Yeah. And I think people have washed
• 30:25
  their hands of this lunacy. You have to go back over the
• 30:29
  past several decades and look at look at articles, look at
• 30:33
  opinion. Pieces to see this.
• 30:36
  But Sanders, Sanders and AOC, who had become, I don't know if
• 30:41
  mainstream is the right word, but they're pretty close to it.
• 30:44
  Mainstream Democrats 20 years ago.
• 30:47
  Well, 20 years ago, AOC wasn't on the scene.
• 30:49
  But Sanders was a crazy person. He was the crazy uncle, right?
• 30:53
  And AOC was also right. Exactly.
• 30:59
  Yeah. He hasn't gotten any less crazy,
• 31:01
  but it's just somehow they've they've taken over and the the
• 31:06
  same Democrats are now a minority.
• 31:08
  They're they've become, if anything, the crazy uncle.
• 31:11
  If you brought John F Kennedy back from the dead, he would be
• 31:15
  a very conservative man at this point.
• 31:18
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:21
  And he wasn't in 1960. But at by today's standards, for
• 31:29
  the life of me, I can't figure out how the Democrats look to
• 31:32
  his image and say that's our guy, we're like him.
• 31:37
  And the Republicans, God help me, do the exact same thing with
• 31:42
  Ronald Reagan, who would be unwelcome in today's Republican
• 31:47
  Party. He was by far the most popular
• 31:51
  president we have had at least since Roosevelt.
• 31:57
  Oh, yeah. It by if you go by the by the
• 32:00
  electoral vote, by electoral. By electoral, he's second.
• 32:03
  Yeah. He is second only to George
• 32:05
  Washington. And George Washington, let's
• 32:09
  just say it was kind of fixed for him, right?
• 32:14
  Yeah. That that election was rigged.
• 32:17
  George Washington won the Electoral College at the time
• 32:19
  unanimously because every human being in the United States knew
• 32:25
  that George Washington was going to be President.
• 32:27
  Hell, even John Adams knew it and it bothered him until the
• 32:30
  end of his life. John Adams really wanted being
• 32:33
  2nd president really didn't sit well with him, but everybody
• 32:37
  knew. Now Reagan shows up and wins a
• 32:40
  landslide victory in 1980 against Carter.
• 32:45
  And everybody said, oh, he's he's crazy.
• 32:47
  Nobody believed that because four years later, he won an even
• 32:51
  bigger landslide. Walter Mondale 1984 won his home
• 32:56
  state of Minnesota and Washington, DC, and nothing
• 33:00
  else. And it's the last time Americans
• 33:05
  have seen an electoral map that was all one color it.
• 33:09
  It was a no doubter. And Reagan had two, Reagan had
• 33:14
  two of them. And as late as last week, we had
• 33:18
  a president of the United States misrepresenting what Ronald
• 33:22
  Reagan stood for almost completely.
• 33:25
  Reagan would not be welcome in today's Republican Party any
• 33:29
  more than I would be, or you for that matter.
• 33:33
  So if you look at it, I, I honestly think we've gotten to
• 33:37
  the point where crackpots are in control of everything.
• 33:41
  Yeah, Now you, we talked about the Democrats, the communists
• 33:45
  basically becoming the mainstream and the reasonable
• 33:48
  Democrats now the crazy uncle. But on the right, it's it's the
• 33:54
  the extreme nationalists who have become the mainstream
• 34:00
  Republicans. And the reasonable Republicans
• 34:03
  are now the crazy uncle. And we're in this very weird
• 34:06
  space where the two major parties are each fringe groups.
• 34:12
  That's right. And they're being led by the
• 34:15
  nose by a bunch of grifters who we all call influencers.
• 34:21
  They're not influencers, they're grifters.
• 34:24
  They look around and they say, how can I make the biggest
• 34:27
  splash I can make and get all the likes and clicks I can get?
• 34:31
  That will make me really important, so people will follow
• 34:34
  me and lots of money will fall from the sky into my lap.
• 34:38
  And you know what? That happens, That happens.
• 34:42
  The village idiots have finally found a way to unite, to find
• 34:46
  each other, to unite and to become a powerful force.
• 34:51
  That's what social media has allowed.
• 34:53
  It's a lot of a lot of other really great things, but it is
• 34:57
  absolutely allowed this to happen.
• 34:59
  So you have to joke that the Kardashians were famous for
• 35:03
  being famous. That's right.
• 35:06
  That's now the thing. Now I'm looking at at Nick.
• 35:08
  I was looking at Nick Fuentes since you mentioned him.
• 35:11
  I don't see anything in his biography that would lead him to
• 35:16
  be in the position that he's currently in.
• 35:19
  But no, he says things that other people find agreeable.
• 35:24
  He's got millions of village idiots following him, so all of
• 35:29
  a sudden politicians take him seriously because he can deliver
• 35:34
  the votes of millions of village idiots.
• 35:36
  The morons are running the show. They have found each other,
• 35:40
  they've become self aware, they have actualized and they are
• 35:44
  many. I don't I I disagree with that
• 35:48
  statement. And now, yes, they're running
• 35:50
  the show, but they're running the show because the reasonable
• 35:54
  people have have seated the field.
• 35:57
  That's right. I'm looking at numbers here of
• 35:59
  Americans by party. This is as in 20/20/24.
• 36:04
  And Republicans, 28% of us identifies Republicans, 28% of
• 36:08
  us identify as Democrats, basically 1/4 and 1/4.
• 36:12
  Where's the other half of Americans in the middle,
• 36:16
  wondering what the Hell's gone wrong, Wondering what's going
• 36:18
  on? Yeah, now you can break it down.
• 36:21
  And problem is, is they don't find each other.
• 36:26
  They don't actualize. And how do I know this?
• 36:31
  We're in that group, and we don't have 5 million followers.
• 36:34
  Speaking the obvious truth in an easygoing way doesn't do
• 36:40
  anything if your primary goal is to become famous.
• 36:44
  That's not our primary goal. Never hasn't.
• 36:47
  That's that's funny because it reminds me so much of of the
• 36:50
  thing I often talk about when it comes to politicians, that if
• 36:54
  you give me two politicians, one whose primary goal is to serve
• 36:59
  the public and the other whose primary goal is to win
• 37:01
  elections, the second guy is the one who's going to win every
• 37:05
  time. And, and what you end up with is
• 37:07
  a government filled with people whose primary goal it is to be
• 37:11
  in government and they don't have the mental firepower to be
• 37:14
  there. We have a bunch of
• 37:16
  representatives right now who are so stupid I wouldn't trust
• 37:21
  them to babysit my dog. And yet they're in Congress.
• 37:27
  We have a president who I am sure does not participate in
• 37:31
  reality the same way I do. Nobody thinks twice about it.
• 37:34
  The last president we had was demented and nobody said a word.
• 37:43
  Why? Because having power to them was
• 37:45
  the important thing, and it didn't matter what they had to
• 37:49
  do or say to get it. So Joe Biden doesn't know what
• 37:53
  day it is or where he is. I just put him in his room.
• 37:56
  He'll be fine. We can get on with the business
• 37:59
  of governing the way we want to. We'll trot him out when he's
• 38:02
  lucid. Everybody now knows that's
• 38:05
  exactly what happened, and nobody gave enough of a damn at
• 38:09
  the time to raise their hand and say this is unacceptable, we
• 38:14
  can't do this the same way nobody's putting up their hand
• 38:17
  right now. Saying anybody who puts Nick
• 38:21
  Fuentes in a position where he could reach more village idiots
• 38:25
  is not to be tolerated. James and I are delighted to be
• 38:28
  working with Civil. For years we have been pushing
• 38:31
  people to think about how we can make the world a better place.
• 38:34
  Civil's mission of upgrading society fits exactly with what
• 38:38
  James and I have been talking about for years.
• 38:40
  Civil helps us by allowing us to do what we do best, which is
• 38:44
  researching topics that are important and communicating
• 38:47
  those to our listeners in ways that we hope they find
• 38:50
  enjoyable. To see Civil's extensive list of
• 38:53
  content, including our podcast Words and Numbers and our new
• 38:57
  lecture series, Words and Numbers live, visit civil.com.
• 39:00
  That's civl.com. Let me take you to something you
• 39:06
  have mentioned a couple of times over the years that we used the
• 39:11
  parties used to pick their candidates from smoke filled
• 39:14
  rooms and I'm still in, I'm still in favor of.
• 39:18
  It each each. Time you have said it, we've
• 39:21
  gotten a huge bump in listeners writing in saying, tell me more
• 39:26
  about this. Yeah, that's right.
• 39:29
  It used to be the case that when I said it, people would call me
• 39:32
  terrible names. You're anti Democratic.
• 39:36
  You don't want the people to have a say in their government.
• 39:38
  And I would say you're right, but I don't like your tone, this
• 39:44
  sort of thing. And over the years, people have
• 39:47
  come around to say exactly what you just said.
• 39:50
  Tell me more about this. How can we do?
• 39:52
  How can we get back to some semblance of normalcy?
• 39:58
  Because allowing the village idiots to make all the decisions
• 40:02
  gets you idiotic answers. And if if you can't look out
• 40:07
  your window and see that that's precisely what has happened, I
• 40:12
  don't know what to tell you. I really don't.
• 40:15
  It's so obvious to me where the problems lie.
• 40:19
  That I, I think it should be evident to everybody just at
• 40:22
  first blush. The president of the Heritage
• 40:26
  Foundation couldn't find it in his heart to say there is no
• 40:30
  place for white nationalists and anti semites on the national
• 40:36
  stage, he said. We shouldn't de platform anybody
• 40:40
  bullshit. We should de platform all kinds
• 40:43
  of people. Do you want Maoists coming on
• 40:48
  and say, well, we have to give Maoists to say, OK, Maoists have
• 40:53
  to be allowed to say what they want, right?
• 40:55
  We have free speech. You have they have to be allowed
• 40:58
  to speak. That doesn't mean that they have
• 41:01
  to go on Tucker Carlson. OK, Right.
• 41:04
  Yes. It's not a matter of them not
• 41:06
  having the right to say what they want to say.
• 41:09
  Basically Tucker show Tucker gets to say who's on there and
• 41:13
  this is a stupid choice and, and, but Tucker said, oh, this
• 41:16
  is going to get me lots more clicks.
• 41:19
  Right. So Tucker's an idiot too.
• 41:23
  And I, I would, I would say no, no, he's a destructive force.
• 41:28
  He's different than being idiot. He's got, he has an objective
• 41:32
  and he's pursuing it. And long term, he's an idiot
• 41:35
  because what will result is the destruction of civil society as
• 41:40
  as we want it to be. That's the unintended
• 41:43
  consequence of behaving like this and becoming powerful
• 41:47
  enough. So deplatforming.
• 41:52
  Everybody loves to talk about deplatforming.
• 41:54
  And I think it's kind of ridiculous when somebody who has
• 41:58
  a view slightly out of the mainstream to the left or the
• 42:01
  right isn't allowed to go to an event where he's been invited to
• 42:06
  offer that view, right. You think of somebody like
• 42:08
  Charles Murray who wrote The Bell Curve.
• 42:10
  This is a perfectly reasonable human being who wrote perfectly
• 42:13
  reasonable book that you might disagree with and you might have
• 42:17
  reason to disagree with it. That's fine.
• 42:20
  If the College Republicans want to invite Charles Murray and he
• 42:23
  wants to come, what gives you the right to say, well, no, he
• 42:27
  shouldn't be allowed to come. But when somebody like Nick
• 42:31
  Fuentes, who praises Hitler and Stalin, wants to be more famous,
• 42:38
  every rational person should be standing in the way of that.
• 42:41
  Every rational person person should look at that and say, oh,
• 42:45
  no, no, no, no. And this is the shit that
• 42:48
  happens when you call everybody you don't like a Nazi.
• 42:52
  When an actual Nazi shows up, what do you get to say?
• 42:55
  No, it's a shame on everybody. And this is, dare I say it, a
• 43:03
  problem that the left has bequeathed us because the left
• 43:07
  decided to stymie things that they disagreed with, that they
• 43:11
  were going to make sure nobody could get in on the ACT.
• 43:15
  And if you doubt me, go look at every sociology department in
• 43:19
  the United States and give me a list of all the Republicans who
• 43:23
  work in them. Right, right, right.
• 43:26
  And don't stop there. Go to English and history and on
• 43:29
  and on and on and on. The left decided that 60s
• 43:32
  radicals were the only voice to be heard.
• 43:36
  And that's exactly what they got.
• 43:38
  And this is the backlash. And if people don't stop it, and
• 43:43
  I mean soon, this is going to end very badly.
• 43:48
  And let's be clear, the problem isn't that there's something
• 43:53
  wrong with leftist thought. The problem is when all you have
• 43:58
  is 1 version, be it left or right, you got nobody to check
• 44:02
  your errors against because everybody's just agreeing with
• 44:05
  you. And then you go off and you end
• 44:07
  up espousing stupid stuff. They know deep in their hearts
• 44:12
  that they have no errors. You can't tell them anything and
• 44:17
  they don't want to hear it. This is exactly what they
• 44:20
  wanted. They never thought that there
• 44:23
  would be a severe backlash to it like this.
• 44:27
  This is a backlash to that. It's the unintended consequence
• 44:31
  of taking over the realm of ideas.
• 44:34
  And now we all have to live with it.
• 44:37
  Thanks leftists. Way to go well and be and that's
• 44:42
  fine. I, I don't disagree with you,
• 44:44
  but I'll throw out a warning to the people on the right.
• 44:47
  Don't think that when you, when you do and it will happen, that
• 44:52
  you gain back control of colleges and departments and
• 44:56
  whatnot, that all of a sudden now you can do what the leftist
• 44:59
  did. We'll end up right back where we
• 45:01
  started, just with a different set of stupid ideas.
• 45:05
  And we think now in terms of purges, we have to take over and
• 45:10
  purge everybody else, get them. And, and as long as you keep
• 45:15
  thinking that way, that's exactly, exactly what you're
• 45:17
  going to accomplish. The pendulum will keep swinging.
• 45:20
  So you won't accomplish it for long.
• 45:22
  And I'm going to throw out one of the most ridiculous things
• 45:26
  I've ever said. And I know I've said some
• 45:29
  ridiculous things over the years.
• 45:32
  Somebody who knows better has to step up and be the much bigger
• 45:38
  man. That's what's going to have to
• 45:40
  happen if this is ever going to end.
• 45:43
  We need see the the founders end.
• 45:46
  It's a curiosity. If you read the the literature
• 45:51
  of the American founding and especially the Federalist,
• 45:56
  right, the 85 essays that comprise the Federalist, the
• 45:59
  word leader is never used except pejoratively.
• 46:05
  It's an insult. The only time it's ever used as
• 46:12
  a compliment is when they referred to the leaders of the
• 46:15
  American Revolution. But when they talk about
• 46:18
  political leaders, it's always an insult.
• 46:22
  What was the word that they used instead?
• 46:25
  Statesman. They called for statesman and
• 46:30
  statesmanship, not leaders in leadership.
• 46:35
  So all these colleges that have departments of leadership,
• 46:38
  they're all barking up the wrong tree.
• 46:41
  And what are they producing? People who know that they are
• 46:44
  there to lead, to lead what nobody has any idea.
• 46:49
  What we need now is a statesman to emerge, somebody who knows
• 46:54
  better and who can somehow capture the public imagination.
• 47:01
  And that's hard because look at what the public imagination
• 47:04
  glorifies. Now we're probably in a death
• 47:08
  spiral. I disagree.
• 47:11
  I I know I agree. It looks like that.
• 47:13
  But. But let me quote you some
• 47:16
  numbers. This is from from Gallup.
• 47:21
  What fraction of Americans identify as Republican,
• 47:25
  independent, Democrat 1988, it was roughly one third, one
• 47:29
  third, one third. And it's been slow, but it has
• 47:35
  been accelerating of late. The the 2 ends, people who
• 47:39
  identify as Republican, Democrat have been dropping, while the
• 47:42
  middle, the the fraction identify as independent had been
• 47:46
  growing. So it's up since 1988 to to now.
• 47:50
  The independents are up 10 percentage points, so roughly
• 47:53
  1/3 from quite a lot, 43%. But here's the problem, and you
• 47:58
  know it as well as I do, and a number of people who we've had
• 48:01
  on his guests have pointed it out over the years.
• 48:04
  The two parties, no matter what slim minority they come to
• 48:08
  represent, make the rules of the game.
• 48:12
  And that's the real problem, in my opinion.
• 48:16
  This is not going to stop fixed in favor of those two parties
• 48:20
  and they will not stop making the rules of the game.
• 48:23
  Yep, we're in a death spiral unless someone better.
• 48:30
  And I, I don't use that word lightly.
• 48:32
  I don't call one human being better than another human being,
• 48:36
  right? That's not, it's not my ACT, but
• 48:39
  somebody who is just substantively better.
• 48:43
  I mean by a, by a big, big margin, unless people like that
• 48:49
  come along the way. They came along at the time of
• 48:53
  the American founding. Everywhere you looked, someone
• 48:57
  who knew better was in charge. How did people.
• 49:03
  Get to the Continental. Congress.
• 49:06
  Well, let Let's go one better How did they get to the
• 49:08
  Constitutional Convention? How was it that every single
• 49:13
  great mind in the United States, minus Thomas Jefferson, who was
• 49:19
  in Paris at the time, and mine is Patrick Henry, who said he
• 49:23
  smelled a rat and so he knew early on it wasn't going to
• 49:27
  work. How is it that every great mind
• 49:29
  in the country ended up in one room in Philadelphia?
• 49:32
  Because that's how things used to work.
• 49:36
  And when you got to make big decisions, make sure the best
• 49:39
  people you've got her in the room.
• 49:41
  And we don't do it that way at all anymore.
• 49:44
  If we did, but we wouldn't. See the bullshit?
• 49:47
  That we see day after day after day.
• 49:50
  I can give you a a clue as to how you can identify these
• 49:55
  people. They're the people who don't
• 49:58
  want the job. Yeah, but they don't.
• 50:01
  Actually, ever get the? Job.
• 50:04
  Look, I've made no clear I don't.
• 50:05
  I don't want to be a politician, therefore I'm not and never will
• 50:09
  be. Why?
• 50:11
  Because it would cost. Me, my soul.
• 50:14
  I'd have to lie. All the time.
• 50:16
  About everything. To get re elected, not doing it.
• 50:21
  I, I, I, I thought the other day and I want I want you to do this
• 50:25
  thought experiment. I want you to think first about
• 50:28
  Republicans. What's the last national
• 50:32
  Republican? So think the House, the Senate,
• 50:37
  the presidency, vice presidency if you like, this is the last
• 50:42
  national Republican that you could say I respect him.
• 50:47
  Probably Reagan. Yep, that was my answer to Now
• 50:53
  let's do the Democrats harder, isn't it?
• 50:57
  I have to make a distinction between respect and and respect
• 51:02
  for the person and respect for what John did.
• 51:05
  Nope, don't do it. Don't say Jimmy Carter.
• 51:07
  No, don't do it. I mean, respect for everything
• 51:13
  all the way through Ford. Ford was a Republican.
• 51:18
  Try again. Oh, shoot, of course he was
• 51:24
  Truman. Wow, really?
• 51:29
  Dropping atomic bombs? No.
• 51:31
  Big deal. That's a whole episode unto
• 51:33
  itself. Yet it is.
• 51:36
  It's probably one we should have.
• 51:38
  For me, it's Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a a gentleman
• 51:43
  and and a legitimate scholar and an all around good human being.
• 51:49
  I would love. To have been able to have.
• 51:52
  Dinner with him one just once. Reagan through.
• 51:56
  But both of these guys were active a very long time ago, you
• 52:00
  know, and Truman even longer. That's where we are.
• 52:04
  You can't think of a politician you respect.
• 52:06
  It's that hard. In a self governing Republic, we
• 52:09
  should have nothing but answers, right?
• 52:12
  There should be lots of answers. This should come to the top of
• 52:14
  the mind immediately. And they don't.
• 52:16
  And if you don't think that's a problem, you're the problem.
• 52:19
  Because we the people allowed this to happen.
• 52:24
  It's our fault. That's how it works in a self
• 52:27
  governing Republic. And if you, if your first
• 52:29
  reaction is to blame the other guy, whoever the other guy
• 52:32
  happens to be, now it's twice as much your fault.
• 52:36
  There are people out there, there are Democrats out there
• 52:38
  and who think that no Republican thing that has ever happened has
• 52:42
  any merit. And there are Republicans who
• 52:44
  think that no Democratic thing that has ever happened has any
• 52:47
  merit. These people are legitimately
• 52:49
  crazy. They're wounds.
• 52:51
  We had gotten into the habit and then got out of the habit of
• 52:56
  closing our episode with a segment.
• 52:59
  And we've gotten out of the habit such, I even forget what
• 53:01
  we called it, but it's basically what should we what, what should
• 53:05
  we do? And I think there's there's an
• 53:08
  obvious one here that people dismiss out of hand, but it is
• 53:12
  the answer. And that is when election time
• 53:17
  comes around, get off the couch, go and vote for the third party.
• 53:24
  Don't vote. Vote and don't vote.
• 53:26
  For either of the major parties, because that's the that's the
• 53:30
  only way we break that duopoly that the major parties have.
• 53:35
  But you'll waste your vote, Aunt No see, and that's the thing.
• 53:40
  I that's the thing. Everybody says that.
• 53:42
  And yet the plurality of Americans are independent.
• 53:46
  I don't think that's the answer. I really don't.
• 53:50
  I think the answer. Has to be to demand better from
• 53:53
  the institutions. We already have to be on that
• 53:56
  really practically I to to I would say to not vote, but we're
• 54:01
  already doing that. No, no, I mean nobody.
• 54:04
  Just don't do it. Stay home.
• 54:07
  Vote no. I talked, I think it was in our
• 54:11
  last episode. It might have been in the live
• 54:14
  stream that we did yesterday. It was, it was in the live
• 54:17
  stream. See, we have a the foundation of
• 54:20
  our government is consent, and it's very difficult.
• 54:24
  If not impossible. To say when a people consents,
• 54:30
  are the American people actively consenting to their government
• 54:33
  right now? And I say yes because I don't
• 54:36
  see any evidence to the contrary, right?
• 54:40
  I don't walk out my door and see everything in disarray.
• 54:45
  I see people protesting, but that that's actually relatively
• 54:48
  healthy. And when your protest, that's
• 54:50
  even a form. Of consent, right?
• 54:52
  Because what are you saying? You're saying I like the system,
• 54:55
  but we have to make it better in this way.
• 54:58
  So I mean, even protests can be, I think legitimately seen as
• 55:02
  consent. If 8% of the American people
• 55:05
  voted in the next presidential election, Consent is a a thing
• 55:09
  of the past and everybody knows it, Then you would see people
• 55:15
  start to panic. Do you think or do you think all
• 55:20
  that would happen is they, whoever wins, say, would say,
• 55:24
  I've got 51% of the vote. Doesn't matter how many.
• 55:28
  Nobody walks around claiming A mandate because 8% of the people
• 55:32
  voted. Everybody knows at that point
• 55:36
  that everybody's on thin ice. And I think it's only in that
• 55:41
  sort of extreme condition that Washington will heal.
• 55:47
  Itself from within. But let me offer a third
• 55:52
  alternative because I just voted today, by the way, here in
• 55:55
  Virginia. And one of the things that
• 55:59
  disturbed me as I'm looking through the ballot, there's
• 56:02
  Republican for every position, a Republican candidate, a
• 56:05
  Democratic candidate. There's no third party
• 56:08
  candidate. OK, fine.
• 56:12
  But I found myself wanting a none of the above.
• 56:17
  Why? Why can we not require that that
• 56:20
  be an option if we did that nationally or you would get a
• 56:24
  different snapshot of the electorate immediately.
• 56:27
  Yes, yes, I would love to see that.
• 56:31
  At the at the federal. Level right for the presidency,
• 56:35
  and I would like to see that for Congress and for the House and
• 56:38
  the Senate as well that would. Change things instantly.
• 56:44
  Yeah, that satisfies both of our prescriptions.
• 56:48
  You can stay home and there's one less vote being.
• 56:52
  Cast or you can. Go and vote and you vote for
• 56:54
  none of the above. And you've actively said I'm not
• 56:57
  happy. I would like to vote no in a lot
• 57:00
  of elections, not all. I'm, I'm happy to admit, not
• 57:05
  all. Every now and then a candidate
• 57:07
  passes my, my field of vision. And I think that person's not
• 57:11
  terrible. Let's try this.
• 57:14
  But how often that happens, it's negligible.
• 57:19
  We're in a death spiral. I believe it's my core.
• 57:23
  Now I don't think. The American people are in a
• 57:25
  death spiral. I think very highly of the
• 57:28
  American people. I used to think very highly of
• 57:31
  the American system, but the American system has been
• 57:35
  hijacked by the village idiots and there's no way to get it
• 57:37
  back, not easily. So this is how we're going to
• 57:42
  live now. We'll keep calling it out when
• 57:44
  we see it and it won't make any difference.
• 57:46
  And we will never have the following that Nick Fuentes has
• 57:51
  or Tucker Carlson. But you know, this is part of
• 57:54
  the death of expertise. We spent our entire life
• 57:57
  studying these things. We know what the hell we're
• 57:59
  talking about. If you want to listen to people
• 58:02
  who know what the hell we're talking about, it's us.
• 58:05
  It's not Nick Fuentes. But the people have spoken.
• 58:10
  That's what they want. OK, I guess they should get it
• 58:14
  good and hard at Words and Numbers we spend a lot of time
• 58:17
  talking about what's going on in the economy and government, but
• 58:20
  fundamentally all of this boils down to one thing.
• 58:24
  The greatest threat facing modern society is a lack of
• 58:27
  respect. That people who disagree somehow
• 58:30
  find it difficult, if not impossible to discuss their
• 58:33
  differences in a civil manner is at the core of our problem.
• 58:37
  We at Civil are interested in upgrading civilization by
• 58:40
  encouraging people to engage with new ideas and ultimately
• 58:43
  engage civilly with each other. If you share this idea, please
• 58:47
  join us by subscribing at civilcomthatscivl.com.