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Flyover 52 – Ricochet Celebrity and Celebrity Candidates
We are joined this week by local Ricochet celebrity, Shawn Buell, also known as our “Majestyk.” Shawn shares the key to his new-found success, and — whether any of us want to talk about it or not — we try to wrap our heads around all of this business with Donald J. Trump.
Stick around, and even if you disagree with us, let’s talk about it in the comments!
Intro contains music from Ronald Jenkees, closing music is Paul Simon.
Published in Politics
Yay. It’s the number one podcast on Ricochet. I gave up podcasts for Lent, I can’t wait to catch up.
Spoiler alert: we’re not pro-Trump.
I guess that means we’re the establishment.
Hear that, guys? PM me for the address and where to send my check… I think you’ve been sending it to the wrong place for quite some time now.
Hey, where’s my establishment check?
Anarchists like myself are well known establishment hacks.
In this Topsy turvy world, Mike, we’re bought and paid for by the same folks, I’m afraid.
I will be a guest on your podcast someday.
Wow, Ryan… and I thought I disliked Trump. I’ve tried to see him as at least amusing (no easy task) but he’s hitting levels of Obama nausea for me now. Apparently he passed that for you long ago.
I should warn you however, don’t flirt with voting for Hillary no matter how much you may despise Trump. That way only leads to disaster for your soul.
We live in very blue state that has a late primary, so we can be assured our votes won’t matter. Let that be an excuse to vote your conscience, come what may.
Trump is no better than Hillary, even if Trump may technically do less bad things. They both appeal to the worst of human biases and there should be at least one party that doesn’t do that.
Majestyk, I think of you as a friendmesis.
I want to download this to my computer, to put it on my mp3 player. But I can’t find the usual download link.
Still listening, but there’s something that keeps coming up that gets my goat. It’s the idea that Trump supporters are fools for believing what he says. The anti-Trump people need to consider that many of the Trumpites may not believe him, but that after decades of disappointment from the GOP, the standard, focus-group-tested, politically-acceptable sound-bite answers come across as just more of the same empty promises we’ve always gotten. If you come to the debate as disbelieving everyone, there’s a logic to supporting the guy that at least is willing to rhetorically take on the other side, and not in the standard, focus-group-tested, politically-acceptable sound-bite way.
Standard disclaimer: I can’t stand Trump. I can’t express my level of disgust with the man while staying COC-compliant. But the idea that all his supporters are dupes seems to me to be almost willfully obtuse.
Obama didn’t alone create the current political atmosphere. Bush, Dole, Bush, Boehner, McConnell, McCain, et. al., share some of the blame, by their buying into many of the assumptions of the left and serially ignoring the base. They squandered the goodwill that would have made the Trump candidacy little more than a historical footnote.
Instead, when people saw a massive campaign war chest amassed by yet another patrician Bush with a habit of lecturing us about illegal immigration being an “act of love” and how D. C. is best suited to improve education by imposing Common Core and other leftist ideas, many people rebelled.
My man majestyk, we share even more of the same brain than i realized…. White lib with a deep deep tan…. Trump is zactly what american ppl want and are going to get, good and hard
Bout halfway thru, great discussion guys. Thx for speaking for this girl stuck in flyover bunker…
Boy, it would be nice if we could actually download it so we could, you know, listen.
Sorry everyone, it’s something I have to do on my end. Just fixed it!
I don’t disagree with anything you say. While I think that those Trump supporters who believe what he says may indeed be fools (though not all of them are), and are certainly falling for a con, I agree that this does not answer for everyone. Elsewhere, I broke Trump supporters down into categories – that was mocked by a few commenters, but it wasn’t contradicted, and I think those categories still stand. One thing that we discussed is that this idea that the non-soundbite candidate will be better requires a deep misunderstanding of our present situation. Like that “nothing to lose” category of voters who really do have a lot to lose (Sanders fans fall into this camp), I think it is, while maybe not foolish, only a surface-deep analysis.
It is well past time that the GOP started to unify behind a clear and simple message – one of shrinking government – and hammer on that constantly. They have needed to basically set that up as their mantra and then talk constantly about how what they’re doing (or trying to do) fits into that scheme. From gay marriage to foreign aid to trade to national debt, virtually everything can be presented in those simple terms, and that is what the GOP has been failing at. I don’t believe that Trump supporters would be appeased in that manner, but I do think conservatives would find it easier to trust their politicians if they all spoke in the straight-forward principled manner of Ben Sasse.
I agree on this as well. One of our past guests and sometime Ricochet-lurker, DocJay, put it even more bluntly: “Jeb created Trump,” he said. I think there is a lot of truth in that. If this was a race where Rubio was the “establishment” candidate, where we didn’t have so many distractions (in the forms of Carson, Fiorina, etc…), and where guys like Perry and Walker stayed in, I think Trump would have been drowned out rather quickly. The sheer arrogance of the Jeb campaign created a lot of anger…
… but … as Klavan says: “I don’t think very well when I’m angry.”
But Ben is not all about shrinking government. That is an important piece of his philosophy, but it is not the core of it. He is for freedom, choices, and virtue, and government must be changed to be consistent with those tenets- but the strategic objectives are not the tactics. Shrinking government is one means to important ends- there are other means as well.
Thanks for the podcast. I appreciated the discussion about arguments on ricochet, and the nature of commenting on the internet in general. I just had an unpleasant exchange with a member, guess it’s something we all go through, probably no one is immune. If it gets too bad, you are right that one could always private message the person.
*edit: and when you pm the person, you can type with your middle fingers.
As a libertarian on Ricochet who supports gay marriage, I feel obliged to say that I neither supported Obergefell nor changed my Facebook avatar.
It was a lousy, wrongly-decided decision.
I can’t speak for other conservatives, by I wouldn’t find it any easier to trust them. I’m not looking for straightforward, principled language. I’m looking for straightforward, principled action. The language is necessary to sell the action, but I’ve had my fill of well-sounding yet empty rhetoric from the GOP.
Sure, they got in the way of some of Obama’s idiotic schemes, but occasionally saying “No” doesn’t cut much mustard. They often cave. We very seldom get any positive action, and never enough to offset the stuff they caved on.
And that’s without unforced errors like how the Iran agreement was handled, and reauthorizing the Ex/Im bank.
Listening to Ben Sasse or Tom Cotton can be a joy. But then I remember that it’ll all come to nothing, if the past is any indication.
And just to be clear, I’m not expecting the GOP Congress to work wonders in the face of Obama’s veto. I would like to see them show some effort and not roll over and show their belly so often.
The failures to advance the cause during the Bush administration is the most galling to me. The GOP missed a grand opportunity to store up a pile of goodwill. They couldn’t be bothered.
Hey gang, check it out. For the undecided voter, there’s always
“Clump”
Have they ever been seen in the same place at the same time???
Horrific.
Great. Yet another thing I can’t un-see.
Thanks a lot.
<shudder>
Agreed in large part. They should be doing more. But keep in mind the differences in anger. I think clarity could go a long way for people who pay less attention. I’ll lump most trump supporters into this because if you really see no difference between trump and republicans, you’re simply not paying much attention. For our politicians to say “here is why what we did is consistent with our goals” could really help. I don’t think they have done as little as you say. Obama has been blocked most of the way and has had to resort to illegal means. Republicans can reverse much of it, provided we do not nominate trump, but it would help for them to constantly talk about the things they actually are doing.
The same should be said for Lawrence v. Texas. Libertarians aren’t particularly impressive on this front (as a group, though Ricochet’s Libertarians are far more consistent). The decision does not limit our government’s authority by recognizing the constitution as an enabling document (square one being zero authority, all authority derived specifically from the constitution). Rather, it creates positive rights on the part of a group of citizens. The unintended consequence of this is an expansion of government power by implication.
Would you be surprised if I said I thought Thomas had it about right?
It would not surprise me in the least. Notice how I do not lump many of the libertarian Ricochetti in with some of the less impressive folks elsewhere.
Another reason why Scalia will be greatly missed and Thomas more appreciated than ever!
Pure applesauce.
Nothing but jiggery-pokery.