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The Buford Vision · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

0:01
You know what's going to happen here in the morning, Sir?
0:05
Oh, damn. Rebel army's going to be here.
0:09
They'll move through this town, occupy these hills on the other
0:11
side, and our people get here. Lee will have the high ground.
0:14
They'll be the devil to pay the high ground.
0:20
Need will come in slowly, cautiously, near the command to
0:26
be on his back from Washington, wire hot with messages attacked.
0:34
Oh, you will set up a ring around these hills.
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And when Lee's arm is all nicely entrenched behind fat rocks on
0:43
the high ground, he'll finally attack.
0:45
If he can coordinate the army straight up the hillside, out in
0:49
the open and that gorgeous feeling of fire, we will charge
0:56
valiantly and be butchered valiantly afterwards.
1:05
Men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and
1:09
see what a brave charge it was. Devin, I LED a soldier life.
1:23
I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this.
1:27
It's as if I can actually see the blue troops in one long
1:30
bloody woman going up the long slope to the Stony top.
1:36
If we're already done already in memory, God sent don't equality
1:46
to us. Tomorrow's already happened.
1:50
There's nothing you can do about it.
1:52
This is plausibly. Live the official.
1:55
Podcast of the Dave Bowman Show. In the amazing film Gettysburg,
2:09
which I highly recommend, Yes, it's long, but it is very good,
2:15
very well done. There is a scene that captures
2:20
the sheer weight of history pressing down on one man,
2:26
Brigadier General John Buford and his shoulders is on the
2:31
evening of June 30th, 1863. He surveys the rolling hills
2:36
around him and considers what's about to happen.
2:44
He peers with gritty determination through those
2:47
binoculars and sees the future laid out.
2:50
Blood and smoke. He knows that if the Union does
2:55
not hold the high ground, it won't just be another battle
3:00
lost. It could be and will be a
3:03
disaster of catastrophic proportions.
3:06
He can almost hear the Confederate cannon fire ripping
3:10
through his men. He sees the desperate struggle
3:14
of Union troops pushed back through the town, overwhelmed by
3:17
a force determined to crush the last hope of a united country.
3:22
And he is painfully aware that if they lose this ground, it
3:26
will be the beginning of a long, bloody defeat, with the Southern
3:32
forces in command of the battlefield and the future of
3:34
America itself at stake. Buford's contemplation that
3:41
morning aren't what he says to his troopers isn't just a
3:45
tactical analysis. It's a plea for action, for the
3:52
urgency of that action, a warning of what's to come if the
3:56
union falters this day, in this critical moment.
3:59
His vision that he can see almost as if it has already
4:04
happened is grim. But his determination to stop it
4:11
from happening is unwavering, because he knows what's at stake
4:16
isn't just a hill. It's the very survival of the
4:22
Union. Buford sees not just what needs
4:28
to be done. He's a soldier.
4:30
He's lived a soldiers life. He understands the tactical
4:35
situation of it. But in this vision of that
4:38
moment, he sees so much more than just what the tactical
4:43
situation. He understands the assignment.
4:47
He understands the situation. It is July 1863.
4:53
Robert E Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia and the
4:55
Confederacy have invaded Union territory.
5:00
They are in Pennsylvania, not Virginia, not Tennessee, not
5:07
even conflicted ground like Kentucky or Missouri.
5:11
They are in Pennsylvania. They are in Union country.
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And if they win this fight, it is very likely that the
5:22
Confederacy would be recognized by Great Britain, that the Union
5:29
would be forced to sue for peace.
5:34
And while we look at it today as historians, we look back and go,
5:36
well, the defeat of the Confederacy was inevitable.
5:40
They simply didn't have the supplies.
5:44
They didn't have the the equipment, They didn't have the
5:47
situation. But there were moments during
5:50
that war that that could have changed, much like the American
5:54
Revolution changed after the Battle of Saratoga when France
5:57
began to aid America. If Britain begins to aid the
6:02
Confederacy or support the Confederacy, Union victory
6:06
becomes much less likely. Buford understands this.
6:13
And as he looks at that land, that Gettysburg, just just to
6:17
the north of Gettysburg, that that road coming down, the
6:21
General Heath score is going to come down in the morning.
6:24
He understands that he and his 2500 men are all that stand
6:29
between the entire Army of Northern Virginia and holding
6:35
those hills, buying time for the Union to to, to get up there and
6:40
dig in to hold the to hold the ground, the high ground.
6:46
He understands the assignment and instead of just saying,
6:50
well, this is hopeless, I can't, we can't do this.
6:55
It's just going to be another defeat.
6:58
It's just going to be another route.
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I can see it as if it has already happened.
7:05
Instead of accepting that, he acts.
7:09
He deploys his troopers, he motivates them, he explains to
7:12
them the situation. He doesn't just say just do this
7:15
because I'm telling you to. He says This is why we have to
7:18
do this. And he sends his 2500 troopers,
7:23
cavalry troopers out there to slow down the original ideas,
7:32
simply delay them for a few hours and that turns into an old
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day fight, the end of which the Calvary units are pretty much
7:43
chewed up. But if you know your history and
7:47
you know what happened at Gettysburg, you know that those
7:52
hours change the course of history.
7:58
As we woke up on Wednesday morning, or like me, stayed up
8:03
all all Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, I told myself
8:07
I wasn't going to do it. I had actually told myself, you
8:10
know what? In the grand scheme of things,
8:14
me staying up isn't going to change anything.
8:17
This is not the World Series. This is not where I have to sit
8:22
here with my baseball in my hand, my right hand when we're
8:25
at bat, my left hand when we're not at bat.
8:27
I have to have the right hat on. I have to eat the right food.
8:33
I have to do all of these things to help the Dodgers win.
8:36
None of that was going to matter in this election.
8:38
Of course it worked. That's why the Dodgers won the
8:41
World Series, because of me and me doing those things that, you
8:45
know, are superstitious. In this particular case,
8:50
however, I pretty much knew that none of that was going to matter
8:53
in the election. I had cast my vote and that was
8:57
it. It's all I can do.
8:59
So I had decided I was going to to bed and that was the end of
9:03
it. But of course, I don't know.
9:07
I'm like anybody else you know you, you lay there for a while
9:12
and your phone. I don't know about your phone,
9:15
but my phone lights up because a tweet comes in.
9:17
I hadn't turned down the the brightness like I normally do
9:21
and so I don't know what's going on when I started rolling over
9:25
and beginning it's a Tuesday. So for me, Tuesday morning
9:28
starts at 2:00 in the morning. So get up ready for Bill's show.
9:35
I was tired by 830 our time, I was beat.
9:39
But start checking stuff, start doom scrolling, you know how it
9:43
goes. Fully expecting to not be
9:47
satisfied, not be happy about it.
9:49
But it was obvious early on what was happening.
9:53
And as that momentum grew and grew and grew and grew into that
9:57
tsunami, it captivated my attention.
10:03
And by 4:00 in the morning, I was still wide awake listening
10:07
to Bill's show, talking to him about, you know, some quote that
10:10
some caller had called in with before I finally drifted off
10:15
around 5530, only to have to get up at 7:00 because Ben had an
10:19
orthodontist appointment this morning.
10:24
All that said, I've had long had this vision of what's coming
10:29
next. You know this, I've told you
10:31
already, I firmly believe, but the Democratic Party was
10:38
playing, I don't know, prevent defense.
10:43
They weren't trying to win. They were trying not to lose,
10:46
but they weren't playing to win. Some of the mistakes that they
10:50
made were so basic and so obvious that I can hardly come
10:57
to any other conclusion. And we've detailed those and
11:00
discussed those on other shows and other places.
11:04
But if you're going to make those mistakes, you damn well
11:06
better have a commanding lead. And they didn't.
11:11
But I believe, because I have this vision in my head, that for
11:17
the Democrat Party, it is more beneficial to lose this election
11:23
than it would have been to win. Now, I'm going to tell you
11:25
something surprising. I haven't talked much about this
11:28
in the last four years. I've stayed out of the whole
11:31
debate about whether the 2020 election was stolen.
11:35
I, I at this point what you know, to, to borrow a phrase,
11:39
what difference did it make? But I will tell you now that I
11:45
have believed that the 2020 election had some funkiness to
11:48
it that wasn't being explained properly.
11:53
But I will also explain to you that I believe that was a
11:57
strategic error on behalf of the Democrat Party.
12:01
Do you realize that if Trump had won the 2020 election, they were
12:04
never going to impeach? I mean, they could keep
12:06
impeaching him, but they were never going to get a conviction.
12:09
That wasn't going to happen unless you had video of him
12:12
kicking puppies off the Golden Gate Bridge, which you didn't.
12:16
So they could have legislatively tied him up, prevented all that
12:20
stuff. And do you realize what last
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night would have been? It would have been the end of
12:24
Donald Trump. He would have been gone, never
12:26
have to hear from him again. But now because of what they did
12:30
in this election, because of what they did in that election,
12:33
those the ensuing 4 years and this election, they have
12:38
essentially created, ignited a movement which potentially has
12:46
the, it has the potential to be generational.
12:52
This could go on for election cycle after election cycle.
12:56
How many Democrat analysis have you see?
12:59
Analysts, have you seen the analysis making up words?
13:03
Again? Analysts have you seen this
13:05
morning talking about the Democrats have got to get real.
13:07
They've got to face the reality that they are.
13:10
Extremism isn't playing in America.
13:15
You can blame Hispanics, you can blame African Americans, you can
13:18
blame men all you want. But reality is it was your
13:22
positions and your shitty economy that you did nothing
13:27
about. It was the perception that you
13:30
would rather use government to go after a pet squirrel than
13:35
illegal aliens that cost you elections.
13:39
It was your characterization of your opponents in negative ways
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that caused you to lose elections.
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And, and these analysis people are talking about, well, we've
13:51
got to get real. We've got to stop doing that
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kind of thing. We've got to reach back to to
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reality, start talking about policy rather than people many
14:01
times. Have you seen that this morning?
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I really believe that the Democrats made a strategic error
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in whatever funkiness it is that they did, and I'm not going to
14:13
detail it here, in the 2020 election, they would have been
14:17
done with Donald. They could have essentially
14:20
paralyzed Trump. But instead they got rid of him
14:24
and replaced him with ineffective leadership.
14:26
And now they have to deal with him again with at least two
14:29
years, and if I had to guess, today, probably more of a
14:34
Republican Congress, which means that he's essentially a
14:37
untouchable. They're not going to be able to
14:38
impeach him at all. And #2 they're not even going to
14:42
be able to stop his nominations. That's a major strategic
14:47
blunder, almost like wandering into Gettysburg looking for
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shoes. It will be harder this time for
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the Democrats to interfere with that, at least for two years.
15:00
And the way that they have built this coalition against them
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probably in two years as well. But there is that vision still,
15:12
that chaos is going to be created.
15:15
Saw a little bit of this in Seattle last night.
15:17
We saw Antifa, stupid name. We saw Antifa protesting in
15:26
Seattle before the polls had even closed on the East Coast.
15:31
They were protesting in Seattle in the old Chaz, CHOP, whatever
15:35
you want to call it. This time, though, the Seattle
15:38
police just started arresting people.
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We're not putting up with that crap anymore.
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OK, if you've been on social media today, you know, the
15:51
meltdowns that are happening, the insanity, the the things
15:56
that people are saying. If you've been around, you know
15:59
that there are Democrat spokespeople out there who are
16:04
claiming that it was Republicans who were calling you Nazis, not
16:08
Democrats. That's not dealing with reality,
16:13
folks. But they're still going to be
16:17
that chaos. We now have, what, two months
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before the inauguration? What's going to go on in there?
16:27
Kamala Harris has already conceded.
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So I don't think we're going to see, you know, a January 6th
16:32
type protest. But you know as well as I do
16:36
that there's going to be a lot of resistance.
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That's that whole thing again, resist, resist, resist.
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You know, that's coming. How detailed will it be?
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1 of the good things about this election is that you know Trump
16:48
wins the popular vote. By the way, as a complete aside
16:52
with no clutch shift, we heard anything today from the national
16:56
popular vote. People.
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I told you that would happen once they realized that the
17:03
outcome of the election could mean that California or
17:05
Washington or Oregon would have to give their electoral votes to
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Donald Trump or a Republican candidate.
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That would be the death knell of that thing.
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What would have happened? Can you imagine California today
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having to say, well, we're part of this compact, and so we have
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to give our electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote,
17:23
which is Donald Trump. Can you imagine that?
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Yeah, That thing was never going to work, and it died there.
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That said, we have an opportunity on the conservative
17:38
side, on the right side of the political bell curve, if you
17:43
will. Whether you're towards the
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middle of it, whether you're towards the extreme right of it
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really doesn't matter. We have this vision that the
17:54
Democrat, the left, is going to come down that road in the
17:58
morning, and who's going to hold the high ground?
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If we screw this up and we allow Buford's vision to come to pass,
18:10
somehow or another, we could allow the left to occupy that
18:14
high ground. And then we'll have to make
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bloody assault after bloody assault, which will not work and
18:21
not succeed and will cost us everything.
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Or we can get to the high ground, get things delayed long
18:32
enough that we can seize the high ground and hold it.
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The political high ground, not the moral high ground, although
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morality certainly plays a part in this.
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We have to hold that political high ground, and we have to do
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that by understanding the assignment.
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Even within Republicanism, even within conservatism, there are
18:55
disagreements. There are different visions,
18:59
different ideas. But we've managed to, in this
19:05
election cycle, Donald Trump and the conservatives and the
19:09
Republicans have managed to convince America that our vision
19:13
for that high ground is better. The only way we maintain that
19:20
going forward is to maintain that sense of unity.
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That line along the high ground night 1863, that line was held
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by men from Maine, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois,
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Pennsylvania, Iowa, Delaware, was held by men from all over
19:54
the country who didn't see things the same way.
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It was held by men who were abolitionists.
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It was held by men who were racists.
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But they understood. That the only way forward was
20:06
union, the age-old argument that had been made since the time of
20:12
Benjamin Franklin. Unite or die.
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And that's where we are now. We are looking at that high
20:20
ground and we have to decide whether we're going to occupy
20:24
that high ground and unite or whether we're going to let our
20:28
divisions throw us off and cause us to be delayed.
20:37
On that fateful morning of July 1st, 1863, Buford's men, armed
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with carbines and grit, 6 guns, 6 cannon, held that defensive
20:50
line West of Gettysburg for hours, hours.
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The dismounted cavalry formed a thin line, but it was
20:59
determined, and they delayed the Confederate events long enough
21:03
to give the Union first core, led by Major General John
21:06
Reynolds, a chance to arrive. They fought classically, cavalry
21:11
style, riding to key points, dismounting, firing steady
21:13
volleys, remounting, moving back, moving around.
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They fired their Sharps rifles faster.
21:21
They kept the Confederate soldiers guessing as to where
21:23
they were going. It was disciplined.
21:27
It was relentless, and it was action that forced the
21:30
Confederacy to halt repeatedly, which slowed them down.
21:36
By the time 10:00 in the morning rolled around, Reynolds had
21:39
arrived. He would die a few minutes
21:42
later, tragically, but his forces had made it, and
21:46
Beaufort's division holding that line was relieved.
21:52
And his stand had changed the course, not just of the Battle
21:55
of Gettysburg, not just of that day, but it changed the course
22:05
of the war, it changed the course of history.
22:10
It changed everything. And that's the assignment for
22:16
us. What will we stand for on the
22:19
high ground? What will we do to keep Buford's
22:25
vision from coming to pass? To keep my vision from coming to
22:29
pass? We.
22:31
What will we do? What will we do to change the
22:37
course of history?