Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 491: Redistrict This!

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Episode 491: Redistrict This! · Words & Numbers

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Coming up next on Words and Numbers Grok Fixing my computer,
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The Smithsonian. And the midterm elections all.
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This and more coming up next on Words and Numbers, a Civil
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original production. Check us out at civil.com.
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That's civl.com. Hi, I'm James.
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And I'm Anthony and this. Is words and numbers.
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Aunt, what's new and exciting in your world this week?
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Well, as the listeners know, because we mentioned it several
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times, we've lost an episode last week week before because of
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all that technical things. But all these technical things
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ended up with me having to repair my computer.
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Turns out that one of my hard drives was going bad and I need
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to swap it out. I've done that kind of thing
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before, but it's been years and I thought I would employ AI.
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So I'd say to AI, look, I've got this kind of system, oerating
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system, all this stuff I've got to this hard drive is bad.
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What do I do here? And it goes through step by step
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do this, this, this, this. All right, fine.
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I get the computer open and I'm not seeing what it described to
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me. So I take a picture of the thing
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uloaded to chat GT and it says, oh, I can see you have a such
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and such and such drive. You just need to unplug it.
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You can see the plugs right there.
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And I think I understood what it was saying, but here's what I
1:32
did. I took the picture and I circled
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in red the thing I thought it was referring to and I uploaded
1:38
that and I said, is this the part you're talking about?
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It says no. The part to the left of that
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said, oh, that's why I circled that.
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I said this one. Yes, that's the one.
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It was astounding, this conversation I'm having with the
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AI and apparently it was right because everything worked.
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That's my repair story. I'm not done.
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We talked about I'm going to show the calendar from our
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listener Jordan Woodhems sends this.
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Can can I just step on you for one second?
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Sure. When we showed this last time, I
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held it up. Not you.
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I got requests from female listeners.
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In other news, we have. Female.
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All three of them. That's right.
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All three of them asked if they could have the calendar.
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Yeah, well, Jordan Wouldiams, one of our listeners and he's
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the president of the West Australia Libertarian Party,
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sends this thing and when I mentioned it, I.
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Couldn't find mine. It was.
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Sitting right here on my desk. My wife had taken it, but she
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pointed out which I missed. Mr. February.
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That's Jordan. Yeah.
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Yeah, how about that? So.
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You want to play this off now as well?
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I got this calendar of men without their shirts on, but I
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didn't look at any of them. No, no, but I'm, I'm going to
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leverage this to my own benefit that you know, if any listeners
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out there want to join the Patreon, any female listeners
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want to join pay or male for that matter, want to join
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Patreon and are interested in meeting Jordan?
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He's a friend. I know his e-mail address.
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We'll work something out, we'll work.
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And I don't know what kind of response we're going to get from
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Woody about this. Maybe he just won't listen to
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this. Episode We're monetizing him
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shamelessly. That that's right.
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I've got all kinds of remarks, but they involve things like
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Vaseline and tissues. I'm just going to leave it off
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to the side. And why you?
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Always have to go too far. What is wrong with you?
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You did this. You brought this on yourself.
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You held up the calendar. I was a class act about it.
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You have to go into the gutter. Anyway, well, and, and I'm going
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to stay in the gutter and I'm going to talk about AI, which is
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kind of a nice segue that we didn't plan in any way.
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You, you might recall it. We, we talked about the
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possibility of deep fake pornographic video.
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Do you remember when we talked about that, right.
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And how, how I had brought this up to a number of women in my
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orbit and asked them what they thought of this.
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And every single one of them said it was a violation.
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Now notice I didn't ask any of the men in my orbit because not
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a one of them would have cared, right?
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It's just a different animal, male to female.
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And when I asked the women, they said it was a violation, but
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they couldn't put their finger on exactly why they thought
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that. And you, you had come up with
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this thought, which I thought was the correct one actually.
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And I'm giving you all kinds of credit here because I didn't
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come up with it at all, but this one was on you.
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And and you said there's going to come a time probably in the
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not too distant future when we own our image, something like
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the the college athletes now with name, image and likeness,
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right, That they have a property rights interest in their name,
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image and likeness. And we're probably heading down
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that road. And I don't know if you saw this
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story, but Grok is all over the media right now because it is
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providing users with altered images that they upload.
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So people upload an image of a woman and they'll say, show me
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this woman in a bikini. And Grok will come up with its
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own version and upload it. And the, the Europeans are fit
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to be tied in a way that the Americans are not.
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And they're really dragging, they're dragging acts into
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various, I mean, for lack of a better word, it's going to be
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trials, right? But it's going to be, I don't
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think it's going to end up being judicial.
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I think it's going to end up being executive in nature and,
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and this sort of thing. So I don't want to parse out
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the, the the language too carefully.
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I just want to speak about this broadly because it seems like
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what's what's happening is people are coming around to your
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point of view that we individually do in fact own our
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name image and like this. And you're not going to be able
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to just run roughshod over us when it comes to things that are
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forward facing, public facing. And to to see, I mean, the, the
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good people at Grok came up with a rule by which only premium
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users can now use this feature, which doesn't seem to be the
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correct rule at all. Right.
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So I, being a premium user, headed over to Grok this very
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morning and I said find me photographs of Anthony Davies.
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Oh no. You can see where this is going.
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I did. I did this and it it it spat out
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three pictures of you and I said make that middle 1 shirtless and
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then it spat out two images of shirtless men who are not you.
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Really. And I said, that's not Anthony
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Davies. And it responded, of course
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you're correct, it's not, these are two other people, blah blah,
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blah, blah, blah. And I said, and then it showed
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ME3 pictures of you again. And I said, make that middle 1
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shirtless. And we went back and forth like
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this for almost an hour and I couldn't get it.
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I could not get it to deliver. So maybe the nice people at Grok
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have already figured something out here, but it would not, no
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matter what I told it, construct A shirtless photo of you notice
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I didn't say a leather clad shirtless photo.
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No, no, no, just shirtless was was kind of a that low level
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barrier to entry and it would not do it.
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So I I think we might be kind of fumbling our way towards a new
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rule. Wouldn't that be interesting?
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I wonder what happens as as AI evolves and on the one hand,
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you're getting your companies like Crockett open AI and so
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forth, putting putting pretty solid guardrails on these things
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to to the extent that sometimes I can't get answers to
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legitimate questions I want because that's right, I bumped
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up against the guardrail. But what happens as less
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reputable organizations start to come out with their own AIS,
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which apparently is not overly hard to do.
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That's right. Yeah, without the guardrails.
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Well, I was. Just I mean.
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We're talking about now what happens when it's, you know,
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give me a recipe for an explosive or.
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Have Anthony Davies explain to me the benefits of socialism.
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Just something you would never. Put it into a video, right?
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Yeah. Send it out, right.
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you would never do so.
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I mean, look, I, I don't want to make light of it.
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That would undermine a brand interest that you have in
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yourself. And I think we all have a brand
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interest in ourselves. Whether it's actualized or not,
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that's another question. But I think this idea of name,
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image and likeness, it, it's going to have some legs for all
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kinds of really good reasons. And I think once these fakes are
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actionable, you're going to see a difference in behavior.
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And notice what I I've just done.
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I've just opened a door to wide wholesale government regulation.
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But it's in the interest of a property right, which is exactly
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what government should be doing. Yep.
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So now we wait. I don't know where it's going to
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end up, but I am fascinated to watch this unfold.
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10:45
This, of course, amp brings us to the foolishness of the Week,
10:48
and for that we go to the August Institution of the Smithsonian.
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I don't know that we've ever had the Smithsonian on the receiving
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end of a foolishness of the week before.
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I think we might have once. But at the Smithsonian
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yesterday, they have removed the reference to Trump's impeachment
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from their. Yeah, I saw that.
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Their presidential photos section as if it never happened.
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What does he think that we'll? Forget about it or something.
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As as if they never happened because he was impeached twice.
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Yeah, right. I think we, we talked about this
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topic before and I don't understand.
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If I were him, I'd wear, I'd wear that like a badge of honor.
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I survived to impeachment. The only only the second, well,
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I guess third president in history to be impeached, the
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first one to be impeached twice. I survived both of them.
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Yeah, that's right. And he's going to be impeached
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1/3 time. I predicted this a week or two
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ago. It's going to happen, and we're
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going to talk about the midterm elections in a minute.
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But the Republicans are sure to lose the House of
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Representatives. I see no way they can hold on
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absent some kind of massive intervening variable, which
12:07
could happen, what with Iran right now in Venezuela, Who the
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hell knows. But I I don't see it happening
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in the realm of the probable. So he's likely to be impeached
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again. And if he's wearing the 1st 2 as
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a badge of honor, the third one doesn't seem all that bad.
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But if he's distancing himself from them now it now it just
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lands differently, doesn't it? Right.
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I mean, he's been impeached as many times as every other
12:36
president before him combined. Do you think he's?
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Do you think he's afraid that it's possible the Senate could
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go the other way and that he'd actually be removed?
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I don't think so. I mean, the numbers just don't
12:48
get you there. I, I think there are kind of
12:51
extraordinary circumstances where you might be able to see
12:55
it. I mean, Nixon had lost Senate
12:58
support from his own party and that's why he resigned, because
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he knew he was going to be impeached and convicted.
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And it would have to be something like that.
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And I, I just don't see that happening.
13:10
Even if he deserves to be convicted, I don't think you
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would be able to find the 2/3 necessary in the US Senate to do
13:17
it because he's got people in his own party utterly cowed by
13:23
his authority. And yet, having just said that
13:26
he is a lame duck president and he's starting to sense that the
13:31
judgement of history is all he's got to fight for now, right?
13:34
There's no re election unless he wants Don Junior to run for
13:38
president next, which is a possibility.
13:41
Let's face it, he hasn't endorsed JD Vance yet.
13:44
He hasn't said, well, of course, Vance is my successor, right?
13:47
But there's there are a number of particularly good reasons for
13:51
that where JD Vance's liability at this point, he doesn't have
13:55
the gravitas that Trump has to get through these sorts of
13:59
things. So, you know, who the hell
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knows? I just can't see it playing out
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in the Senate any other way than than having it just disappear.
14:09
So what's the lesson he wants to leave for history?
14:13
And I think leaning on the Smithsonian kind of indicates
14:16
what lesson he wants to leave, if only in the negative.
14:20
I don't know what the positive would be.
14:22
It's certainly he knows that the minute he's out of office, that
14:26
plaque or whatever it is gets rearranged again.
14:30
It's not like the rest of us forgot this.
14:33
I think that's right. And I think he probably knows
14:36
that the minute he's out of office, most, if not all of his
14:40
executive orders go down in flames, right?
14:43
This sort of thing. But we've just come to expect
14:45
that at this point, right? Executive orders come and they
14:48
go and they come and they go with the exact regularity that
14:54
the president comes and goes. Do you think he even thinks
14:57
about his legacy? I think he does, really.
15:01
Yeah. A couple of months ago, it was
15:03
interesting, right, Because he, he started mumbling to the press
15:08
corps on Air Force One about whether he would get into heaven
15:12
or not. And he, he opined that he
15:14
probably wouldn't. And I I would submit that only a
15:19
man who cares about his legacy would even be thinking in those
15:23
terms. That's a weird thing to be
15:25
thinking about. The reason I ask is standard
15:28
run-of-the-mill politicians. Of course they think about their
15:30
legacy. Their entire life has been
15:33
building up their persona. But Donald Trump is not your
15:39
run-of-the-mill politician. He he he kind of stumbled into
15:43
the office by accident. Well, I don't want to go so far
15:47
as to say that, but I, boy, I'm sympathetic to where you're
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coming from, right? I, I think he wanted the office
15:53
and didn't think he could ever get it.
15:54
Gave it a shot and found out that he could divide the vote in
15:57
the Republican primary in just such a way as to make it happen.
16:01
And then captured just enough of the important states to make it
16:06
happen in the general election. And, you know, that's
16:10
interesting on 2 accounts. And then you move forward and
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he's not a, a particularly, he's not a garden variety politician.
16:20
And I think that's, that's why the people who love him love him
16:23
the way they do. Yeah.
16:25
But he also, I think he is a garden variety overachieving
16:30
male. And I think in that respect,
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thinking that he's interested in legacy is not surprising at all
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because there comes a point in a life filled with achievements,
16:43
what else do you have? That's how you're going to be
16:46
remembered. And, you know, I, I wonder what
16:49
his legacy is going to be. It only unfolds with time.
16:53
I can't imagine it's going to be any good.
16:55
But I don't know what comes after him.
16:57
I mean, he history could judge him very favorably.
16:59
I don't see it happening, but it could happen.
17:03
And I, I would imagine that he's interested in that.
17:06
So what do you see happening in the midterms?
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Any surprises? I don't think so.
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There's there's a number of cross cutting currents here.
17:16
I've said repeatedly that the party in power typically loses
17:20
24 seats in the the House. That's true.
17:23
But it's also true right now that House races are more
17:29
tightly aligned with presidential votes than at any
17:32
time in our history. So if a district went for Trump,
17:36
it's very likely not to break the other way.
17:40
So you've got one current of history pushing one way, the
17:43
other pushing another way. And which of those two are we
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going to see? And I don't know.
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And the states are involving themselves.
17:53
You remember when Texas decided that it was going to redistrict
17:57
so Trump could pick up five more seats in in the House?
18:01
Right. And the minute that happened,
18:04
Gavin Newsom out in California said, hold my beer, we're going
18:07
to do it, too. And now both of those projects
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are stalled in the courts. How will they end?
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I have no earthly idea. How should they end?
18:20
Well, they should end with the courts saying redistricting is a
18:25
state issue. The party in power gets to do
18:28
this. Elections have consequences.
18:30
This is just how it goes. And if you didn't want
18:34
Republicans or Democrats to own all of your seats, you should
18:38
have thought about that before you elected an overwhelming
18:41
majority of them into the the seats in the 1st place.
18:45
And look, California's a single party state.
18:49
Texas, not as much. But getting there, well, that's
18:52
going to lead to certain outcomes.
18:54
And that's just how it is. Now, if the party out of power
18:58
in those states ever takes over again, you can bet they will
19:02
flip things around exactly as much as they can, right?
19:06
But that's what parties in power always do.
19:09
Gerrymandering is a thing because states are allowed to
19:13
district the way the state wants to, which means one party will
19:18
have more power than the other party in that negotiation.
19:22
And everybody pulls out every stop.
19:25
They sue in court every way they can, right?
19:28
They say things like this will dissipate the minority vote and
19:33
as such as a civil rights violation.
19:35
That seems like red hot nonsense to me.
19:38
But the Supreme Court of the United States has taken that
19:41
seriously time and time again. I don't think this Supreme Court
19:44
ever would, and I think that's for the best.
19:47
But gerrymandering is political. Elections are political.
19:50
Political outcomes are the only thing you will ever get from
19:54
this. Make peace with it and move on.
19:57
But that means one team will have to concede Texas and the
20:01
other team will have to concede California.
20:04
And then what will Illinois do? Are there's a lot of votes in
20:09
Illinois, What will Pennsylvania do?
20:13
Well, exactly as much as they can get away with.
20:16
Now that you say that I pictured the states, if this goes to the
20:22
extreme, setting themselves up for the people to tear them
20:25
apart, yes, for example, that's exactly what's going to happen.
20:29
I've spent a lot of time in Illinois as part of my current
20:34
job talking to people in the rural areas.
20:38
And of course, you know, they say what I see in the numbers
20:42
that there's an Illinois that is Chicago and there's an Illinois
20:46
that's everything else. And they're markedly different.
20:50
In all ways, including the people new.
20:53
York City and New York State are not in the same place.
20:56
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So too, Pennsylvania and
20:59
Philadelphia. I was Philadelphia.
21:01
I was in Philadelphia when Lynn, excuse me, in Pennsylvania when
21:06
Lynn Swann ran for governor. And you could look at the
21:09
electoral map. Lynn Swann took the entire state
21:14
except for Philadelphia, and he lost.
21:17
And some of. Pittsburgh, right?
21:19
Yeah, Yeah. But you know, again, two
21:22
different sets of people. So if it if a state goes whole
21:27
hog in One Direction, like California does or like Texas is
21:30
appearing to do, does the state set itself up for the rural
21:35
counties to say we secede? Well, secession is is unlikely
21:40
for any number of legal reasons. But you, you set yourself up for
21:45
all kinds of falls in the next couple of years, right?
21:48
And two years out, three years out, five years out.
21:51
What happens then? Who the hell knows?
21:53
Look, I can remember when the state of California had
21:57
Republican governors. I mean, it seems all but
22:01
impossible at this point, but it didn't seem impossible. 1520
22:05
years. Ago.
22:06
Yeah, it wasn't that long ago. No, things change.
22:09
And, and look, if if I were advising a state, the state
22:14
Republicans, the state Democrats, take your pick, I
22:17
would always say the same thing. Yes, redistrict.
22:20
Yes, redistrict as best you can. But do it immediately after the
22:26
census, and only immediately after the census, right?
22:31
Because we count people every 10 years, we decide which state's
22:36
going to get how many representatives, right?
22:39
The House of Representatives is capped at 435.
22:42
So when the population of Texas explodes at the expense of
22:47
California, say, California will lose seats, Texas will gain
22:51
seats, and then you have no choice but to redistrict.
22:54
Right. Right.
22:55
And that seems to be the natural order of things that you would
22:59
do it after the the census. But now Republicans typically
23:05
are saying, well, Democrats had this period of open borders
23:09
where they brought all these people in from foreign lands.
23:13
And those people get counted into the census.
23:16
And largely they do because everybody has to be represented.
23:23
Legal, illegal American citizen, non American.
23:27
If you're living here, you're being represented.
23:31
So how do you start counting these things up?
23:34
Boy, it gets really thorny. Should illegal immigrants count
23:38
in the census? Probably not.
23:40
Should legal immigrants count in the census?
23:43
Very much probably. How do you differentiate one
23:46
from the next without estimating?
23:48
Wow, that's hard. Yeah, that's really, really
23:51
hard. And that's what the census is
23:54
designed to do, to give you an answer without estimating.
23:57
Now, you and I both know they do their fair share of estimating.
24:01
So right there, there's a problem with the census you're
24:03
admitting there's a problem. If you're estimating anything,
24:06
you're admitting you can't count them all.
24:09
And can you? Can you count 340 million people
24:14
in a census while simultaneously asking all the other questions
24:18
you ask, which probably have all kinds of good reasons behind
24:22
them? You probably want to ask all
24:24
kinds of census questions. I did tell this story recently
24:28
to my family. When when was it was the 2000
24:32
census? A census worker actually knocked
24:34
on my door and started asking me all kinds of questions and I got
24:39
aggravated beyond all belief. And she asked me how many
24:43
bedrooms I had in the house and I said eight.
24:48
There were clearly not 8 bedrooms in the house.
24:51
Clearly not anybody could look at the house and say no, that's
24:54
not right. And then she asked and how many
24:57
toilets are in the house? And I said none, she said none.
25:02
And I said none. And she said really.
25:06
And I said really because I just got tired of answering
25:09
questions. Why are you asking me about
25:10
toilets? Were you supposed to be counting
25:12
people? See, now you, you mess up it.
25:15
They produce data that I used and sometimes I need to know
25:19
stuff like that. You've gone and messed the data
25:21
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25:22
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25:26
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26:02
There are all kinds of problems woven into this sort of thing
26:05
and really what we do, or what I would do were I advising a
26:11
political party in the state, is to make the best of it, right?
26:15
Wait until it's time, make your best case and do exactly what
26:21
you think you can get away with and no more and move forward.
26:27
I mean, look, the Elon Musk is forever saying why aren't there
26:32
more Republicans in this place that has 4050?
26:36
Forty 45% Republican New England, perfect example.
26:42
There are no almost no in in all of Congress.
26:45
There are almost no Republicans from New England.
26:49
And the, the one that I'm thinking of, the senator from
26:51
Maine, is not, to use a hackneyed phrase, Republican in
26:56
name only. Well, does that mean those
26:59
people aren't represented? No, it means they're not
27:02
represented by Republicans, right?
27:05
And they may not like that, but it's a winner take all system.
27:08
It's not like you can have one third Republican wherever you
27:12
go, which is because 33% of the population in the state happens
27:16
to be Republican. You could flip this and say
27:18
Democrat instead, and I would give you the same answer, right?
27:23
These are all imperfect things. And when you have an imperfect
27:27
thing in a political system, and I would say every political
27:30
system has imperfect things, your your goal is to minimize
27:34
them as best you can, not to get rid of them.
27:37
What kind of crazy person are you?
27:39
You think you could just wipe away human difficulties?
27:43
Yeah, but but you see, that's the thing.
27:44
I think people have in their heads that there exists a
27:48
perfect system. We just need to get to it.
27:51
Good luck with that. Look, the rest of the civilized
27:56
world in no uncertain terms, and the uncivilized world, as I
28:02
would characterize it, look at us as an ideal.
28:05
They say, look how well they do things there.
28:07
How do I know? They say this because they keep
28:10
trying to move here, right? We have net inflow all the time,
28:16
so much so that we try to limit it.
28:18
That's what the rest of the world thinks about our system.
28:21
Internally, we look at that system and we think, wow, what a
28:24
mess, you know? But it's still pretty damn good.
28:27
Well, it isn't. It may be may be a good metric
28:31
for is the system good? Is can can the system tolerate
28:37
change of power from one group to another without people dying?
28:42
The answer is yes, that's a good system.
28:44
Look, the first place in human history that had ever happened
28:47
was here. Human history was very long
28:51
prior to the United States of America, and it was the election
28:54
of 1800 where we had the first peaceful transition of power,
28:58
where Thomas Jefferson came in and the ruling Federalist Party,
29:02
George Washington, John Adams went out.
29:06
That was the first time in human history that it happened.
29:09
And we've slowly over the last five or six changes, gotten away
29:15
from that. I think you can point to January
29:17
6th and say that's a real problem.
29:20
And when people minimize what a problem it is, I think back to
29:24
the election of 1800 where it was such a big deal that there
29:28
was no bloodshed whatsoever with the transition of power, that
29:32
all of a sudden in 2020 there was.
29:36
Was it a lot of bloodshed? No.
29:38
Was it bloodshed? It was people died because of a
29:43
transfer of power. Well, look, the the Trump
29:47
administration and this gets to the heart of the election issues
29:52
that we're looking at with the upcoming midterms.
29:55
The Trump administration, Trump on down has staffed federal
30:00
agencies with election 2020, election deniers top to bottom.
30:06
So when you see all of the various federal agencies that
30:09
are going to be involved in one way, shape or form with the
30:13
election, what do you find behind the curtain?
30:17
You find a bunch of people who honestly believe the election in
30:20
2020 was stolen. It wasn't.
30:22
I'll go to my grave saying it wasn't, but they believe it was.
30:26
And belief is enough. It it doesn't matter what the
30:30
facts on the ground are. OK, so you've got all these
30:33
people in positions of authority who will be there, A, to shape
30:38
the way the election unfolds and B, shape the way the votes are
30:43
counted afterwards. And, and you heard it here
30:47
first, aunt, when this administration gets its ass
30:50
handed to it in the midterms, as I predict will happen, you will
30:54
hear a bevy of administration types saying this election was
31:01
rigged. How do I know this?
31:03
It's what they always do. There's a group of people now in
31:06
the United States, in the Republican Party who think every
31:09
election they don't win is rigged.
31:12
And not, not to be left out in the cold, the Democrats in the
31:15
last election pulled the exact same shit.
31:18
We had a bunch of Democrats saying no, no, no, this was
31:20
rigged. How could, how could Harris
31:22
possibly lose to this man? I've lost to this.
31:25
Well, she did. There's no question she lost.
31:30
She was probably the worst presidential candidate I've ever
31:33
seen. And I lasted through Walter
31:37
Mondale, for example, who was until that point, the worst
31:43
presidential candidate I had ever seen.
31:45
Might there have been worse ones?
31:47
Maybe. But boy, it's hard to imagine.
31:49
So you're left with all of these issues swimming just below the
31:53
surface. And we're already seeing the
31:57
Trump administration attack states that do mail in voting.
32:01
Well, there are 8 states I believe at this point, and the
32:05
District of Columbia, which do primarily if not exclusively
32:09
mail in voting. Are those eight states all
32:13
committing wholesale voter fraud according to the administration.
32:17
Even Utah, which does 100% mail in voting, it's the last time a
32:24
Democrat took Utah. So the Republicans there must be
32:28
engaged in voter fraud by this logic.
32:31
That's not true. That's not true at all.
32:34
And yet this is the narrative that we're already being spoon
32:37
fed. This is the narrative that we
32:41
see in the administration being set up.
32:45
We already know what's coming. I've just predicted it.
32:47
I would bet my life on it. And if I'm that sure, people who
32:52
know a lot more than I do are absolutely that sure.
32:56
So what are we going to see? Hell if I know, man.
32:59
But it's not going to be conducive to further and future
33:04
peaceful exchanges of power. It's just going to muddy the
33:08
waters unnecessarily and without regard to consequence.
33:15
And that's a bad set of circumstances.
33:17
Do you see in the next 1-2, three presidential elections?
33:25
Do you see the United States pulling back from this extremism
33:30
that we saw first with Trump and and Hillary and now, you know,
33:35
Trump and Biden? Or alternatively, do you see it
33:37
getting worse? Yeah, I get, I think I see it
33:40
getting worse. And I I predicted when Charlie
33:44
Kirk was killed that we would see an escalation of political
33:49
violence. And that's exactly what's been
33:52
happening when we've got law enforcement officers shooting
33:57
women in the head in cars. Now, look, let me be clear
34:01
before I get the hate mail. The people who are out
34:05
protesting ICE are looking for trouble.
34:09
The ICE officers who shoot at these people are predisposed to
34:15
using deadly violence. Everybody is a problem here, and
34:19
if everybody doesn't tone it down, then everybody is going to
34:24
be worse off. I I don't have a dog in this
34:27
hunt. Not really.
34:28
I I have a problem with everybody.
34:30
Who are you protesting who should be protesting like that
34:34
right now? Iranians.
34:37
Who should not be protesting like that right now?
34:40
Americans protesting, yes. And is it your right to protest?
34:45
Of course it is. So go, if that's what you think
34:47
you must do. But you just saw what it yields,
34:51
and I'm here to tell you it will yield that more before it yields
34:55
that less. So you're taking your life into
34:58
your hands when you do these things.
35:00
Careful, careful out there. Oh, OK.
35:02
But I, I have to push back a bit because it sounds like what you
35:05
just described is a situation in which we have federal overreach
35:12
to the extent of, of killing people.
35:15
And I'm not saying whether justified or unjustified, but
35:17
I'm just saying that's what happened.
35:19
And I'm hearing you say the answer is be afraid, don't go
35:24
protest. Nope, that's not the answer.
35:27
The answer is be afraid. Because look, my answer is
35:30
always be afraid of your government, no matter what.
35:34
I've been saying this since I was 18 years old, and I saw
35:37
first hand what government can do.
35:40
Be afraid of your government. Every law carries with it a
35:43
death sentence. Every single one.
35:46
Every time you agitate for yet another law, you're saying
35:49
people should be killed for this too.
35:52
And people don't realize that that's what they're agitating
35:55
for. But it is.
35:57
Now, we have a group of people in the United States right now
36:02
on the hard left who are, for lack of a better term,
36:06
professional protesters. They move from one hot button
36:10
issue to another, causing as much trouble as they can for
36:13
everybody involved. And when you marry that to an
36:18
excitable law enforcement apparatus, as you typically see
36:23
in right wing administrations, that's powder keg.
36:28
Now, if you must protest, if you can't sleep at night, if you
36:32
don't go to a protest, go. Just understand what might
36:36
happen there and let that inform your behavior.
36:42
Because what am I not going to do?
36:44
I'm not going to drive with an ICE officer within 6 inches of
36:48
my car, right? Because I know that's that's
36:51
trouble. What else am I not going to do?
36:54
I'm not going to grab a weapon I might have on my person and take
36:59
it out of a holster in the presence of a law enforcement
37:03
officer, because that's a surefire way of getting your
37:06
head blown right off. Now, I just said how things are.
37:11
I didn't say how I thought they should be.
37:13
But they are this way. And if you don't think they're
37:15
this way, you're a crazy person. Ask yourself, do you want people
37:20
you love at protests right now, or would you worry about them
37:24
quite a lot? And would you want your children
37:27
going to a protest in downtown DC?
37:30
No, probably not. Yeah.
37:31
Probably not. Does that mean it should be that
37:34
way? No, doesn't mean that at all.
37:36
But elections have consequences. And when you see people saying
37:40
things like this is what I voted for, you should believe them.
37:45
This is what they voted for and it's what they're going to get
37:49
because people always, in one way or another, get what they
37:52
voted for. People get the government.
37:54
They deserve us too, sadly. So what happens in the midterm?
38:00
What what happens in the midterms?
38:01
I suspect we, the Republicans, lose ±24 seats.
38:07
I I also suspect that the Trump administration will trot out
38:13
their election denying machine to address this.
38:18
I suspect that 30 to 40% of the American public will buy that
38:23
explanation. And I suspect that political
38:26
violence will escalate yet again in the wake of that election.
38:31
I'll point out that I haven't been wrong lately about these
38:34
things. I have been wrong, terribly so,
38:37
but not lately. I think I'm much better at
38:39
predicting the social impact of these things than I am the
38:44
political possibilities of these things.
38:46
I I frequently predict that this person or that will win an
38:50
election. I'm almost always wrong, but I'm
38:52
almost always right about what I say will happen as a result.
38:56
And I suppose that the economy plays here.
39:01
The the more comfortable people are, the more secure they feel
39:07
economically, the less apartment they are to engage in in
39:14
physical violence or to get riled up by the level of
39:18
economically. We're not in a great space right
39:21
now. I mean, great, objectively we
39:23
are, but subjectively we aren't. And it's a subjectively that
39:25
matters here. And, and let's bring it to the
39:28
level of brass tacks. People are riled up.
39:33
They have an anti immigrant stance right now.
39:37
There's a this vague feeling that I'm worse off because of
39:42
you, and you can't reason with that because in the end, those
39:50
people are in fact worse off. They may have.
39:53
There's nothing because of that. Wrong.
39:55
They may have because of wrong, but they've been fed a Victoria,
39:59
they've been fed a villain, and they buy it because, well, who
40:04
wouldn't? I am worse off who did this to
40:06
me. I want to go hate that person
40:09
now. Well, that comes home to roost.
40:13
It does and we're going to have to deal with it and I'm
40:17
concerned with how we might deal with it.
40:19
And I'll just leave it at that. We'll we'll figure it out next
40:23
year, November. At Words and Numbers, we spend a
40:26
lot of time thinking about what's going on in the economy
40:29
and the government, but fundamentally, everything boils
40:31
down to one thing. The greatest threat facing
40:34
modern society is a lack of respect.
40:36
The people who disagree somehow find it difficult, if not
40:40
impossible, to discuss their differences in a civil manner.
40:43
We at Civil are interested in upgrading civilization by
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40:50
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