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In our continuing effort to bring as much ideological balance to the flagship podcast, today we bring you Bill Bennett, host of The Bill Bennett Show (conveniently available right on this site) sitting in the Long Chair®. You’d think that would be enough, that we wouldn’t need to go even further in our quest to feature all sides of the movement. But no! We go even further with this week’s guest: Mr Dilbert himself, Scott Adams. We talk about North Korea, the economy, why President Trump should stay the course, that Google memo, and more.
Music from this week’s podcast: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M.
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Allow me to focus a bit on the point about the 5% that Mr. Adams brought up. That Trump’s master persuasion is aimed at them. And that the other 95% of the voting public is basically locked into their partisan affiliation. His theory holds that Trump’s actions served to persuade enough of those 5% to tip the election towards him. My question is how do you disprove the following counter hypothesis? That 5% is not actually persuadable it votes randomly basically picking between the two major parties. Because this choice is almost binary (there are third parties) if the election gets down to these 5% then the election is a coin flip. If it is a coin flip how can you say Trump is persuading anyone?
Let us apply Mr. Adams’ theory to presidential elections where the winner wins by more that a 5% margin. How is it possible for Reagan to have won so bigly if only 5% of the voting block was persuadable? The essence of persuasion to me seems like it would be to be able to flip people who are disinclined to vote for you to being inclined. Trump rather seems to operate on finding those that are inclined and making them more accepting of him. His great luck is that Hillary Clinton was not a Master Persuader her self. So then the interpretation of the election is that this was a base election, and Hillary could not turnout here base in the states that mattered.
Of course all of this doesn’t matter to being president. Regardless of how Trump won he has the job now, and he must make the tough decisions about things like North Korea. But, so much of the upcoming political struggle in both the Democratic and Republican parties going into 2018 and 2020 will be what did this election in 2016 mean. What I am not seeing anyone seriously contemplate is the possibility that it meant nothing. Yet, to me it seems that this may very well be the most likely true interpretation of the event. Remember how much emphasis was place on Obama’s 2008 victory, and its supposed realignment of the political stars? Looking back on it now does anyone really see that anymore?
The 2008 election I would say was basically a personality driven phenomenon with little policy substance. Once the Democrats lost the ability to pass legislation on purely partisan basis the country went into stasis mode. I think we may well see the same with Trump and the Republicans this time around, except that they may not even be able to pass any legislation of significance.
We will always have Gorsuch though, and maybe one other judge…
I think you are missing the key factor: this is a different electorate than what Reagan had to deal with. I personally, don’t think you will ever see another presidential candidate win over 55% again because the country is so divided and are able to stay divided. It’s part of why there is this lament out there on both the Left and the Right about “two separate set of facts.” There is no interaction between the two sides, not a grand scale. There are onesies and twosies here and there but there really are two separate countries trying to hold control over the same government. I think that’s why there is this argument about the 5% or even the 10% who are “up for grabs.”
Also, I can’t really think of any presidential campaign that was policy driven, not in my political lifetime which dates back to 2000.
2000: the Frat Boy vs. Policy Wonk (that’s how it was sold to the public)
2004: The Frat Boy vs. the Erudite Sophisticate
2008: The Crazy Old Man and his Witch Running Mate vs. He Ain’t Bush, and Wouldn’t it be Cool to Have a Black Guy
2012: It’s Still Cool to Have a Black Guy vs. Ken Doll
2016: Nurse Ratchet vs. WWF, Whatayagonnado Brotha.
Great podcast, guys. Prayers for you @jameslileks. I’d come help if I lived closer. Breaks my heart.
Fair point, but how would we characterize the last 16 years but as a great legislative stasis with the exception of Obamacare where the stars briefly aligned with a veto proof Democratic Congress and President. Trump doesn’t break this cycle then, and in a way this cycle of passive failure can be seen as contributing to our current malaise? The general feeling I pick up on is that people feel like nothing of worth gets done, and what gets done turns out bad.
And now you understand government, Grasshopper.
I don’t think so. You had major pieces of legislation during Bush too. Med Part D was huge. The Patriot Act which basically opened the door to constant surveillance by the general government of US citizens. These were both just as powerful in terms of the state-citizen relationship as was O-care.
Look you have no one other than the GOP to blame for only bad things getting done. They offered “smart” government as a means of competing with “never ending” government and it has blown up in their face.
Bingo!
I’m a Ph. D. in philosophy. I almost supported Trump.
I’m delighted with the cutting of regulations, with Gorsuch, and with a number of other appointments. Critical of many things. And the covfefe is always hilarious.
Instant $9 trillion unfunded liability.
Scott is right. This is all about power not fairness. The ACA is nothing but a Cloward and Piven strategy and it’s working perfectly.
Good luck commandeering never ending ***2%*** GDP.
Well, it certainly was with me, although I don’t pretend to have a PhD or even a bachelor’s degree. I’m completely self educated — enough to know a bombastic lying huckster when I see one.
But what’s truly baffling is why so much attention is being paid to the man in the White House when the real change is taking place in the culture. The United States is on a steady Left Wing slide down a hill that terminates in the kind of social democracy prevailing in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. The overheated (and patently dishonest) reaction to the “anti-diversity” memo circulating at Google this week is just the latest example of this, but there seems to be a new one every three days or so.
Andrew Breitbart’s maxim that “Politics is downstream from culture” holds more truth now than ever before, but too many on the Right can’t bring themselves to believe it. I’m not even sure Peter Robinson does. Not really. And he’s no fool.
But Conservatives like Peter – – and their numbers are legion – – cannot see past the ballot box. And they must. Because it is all — all — about the culture.
Why does this podcast not work for me? I listened to the Jim Rogers interview and Williamson/Cooke and also to the Bill Bennett podcast – but this one refuses to respond to my clicks.
Hi @dubyac,
Try clicking here.
Let us know if that doesn’t work.
People should never get so bent out of shape over politics that they simply disassociate with other people over votes, as Bill Bennett has described he was exiled.
Throwing people out of their circles because people have become “heretics” to our personal notions of what politics should be–whether we’re in the “I supported Trump” camp or the “I really don’t like him” camp–is what the Left does.
I want no part of that, though I will also say I don’t think Bennett meant some of the things I thought he meant over the years, which is reasonable on my part as well. I still understand I have much more in common with Bill Bennett than I have in common with the “resistance.”
That said, I am still not persuaded that the reason I dislike Trump or disapprove of him is because I hear bad things about him on cable news all day long or I’m simply offended by his lack of good graces. I don’t actually watch cable news, and I find that whole line rather patronizing. The unrelenting criticism he gets from CNN–dishonesty at Google–is about the only thing that makes me want to jump on the T train b/c I know some of that rhetoric is unhinged.
Additionally, I wasn’t bothered at all by Trump’s threat of force to North Korea. Truth is, I didn’t care that Trump was using Game of Thrones language. I’d think it was pretty cool if he mounted a dragon and flew to Pyongyang.
But, but, but… I was bothered by the box I thought Trump created for himself, and that has nothing to do with me being “Never Trump” or whatever.
He reminded me a bit of myself learning how to parent.
I wasn’t going to enforce taking a kid’s car away for leaving dirty clothes on the bathroom floor even though I found such actions disrespectful, and it drove me bats**t crazy. That would have meant *I* had to drive a kid to school or practice or whatever! Uh… No thanks.
If a kid snuck out?
Yeah. That was worth fire and fury from mom, and that got fire and fury.
So I don’t think Scott Adams ever addressed the real problem with the statement on N. Korea.
Any mom could tell you as soon as you lay down lines that you don’t intend to enforce–and then those lines are crossed and not enforced–you start losing–not building–authority. The little things kill you.
Trump talked about creating “fire and fury” if NK threatened the US again, and they immediately threatened the US again after that speech to… what consequence?
Not fire & fury.
That’s a legitimate criticism of Trump, right?
I don’t know where NK ends up, but I can’t go with the Adam’s analysis that T’s approach was somehow about genius negotiating skills.
(Siggggghhhhhhhh…..)