Trumpism As America's Future: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Speaker 0 00:00:05 Well, hello, Dr. Salzman got a good group here with us. For those of you who are just joining, feel free to vote in our poll. Um, that's just something fun I added for while we were hanging out here. Um, let's see. Speaker 1 00:00:34 Can you hear me at Speaker 0 00:00:34 Me? Yes. I can hear you. You are with, Speaker 1 00:00:38 Let me know when you want to start. Speaker 0 00:00:39 All right. Ready to start. Well, I want to just start with an announcement. I said earlier, uh, we are going to be releasing morals and markets as a podcast. This will be the second session of the podcast. Yes, claps all around. This will be the second session because we'll be releasing Dr. Salzmann's, um, October session on his book where have all the capitalists gone. That will be our inaugural session of the morals and markets podcast. So if you are listening on your favorite podcast app, join us usually on the fourth, Thursday of every month, live for morals and markets. There'll be a link in the bio or the description of your podcast to join us so that you can take part in the Q and a because the podcast is going to be Dr. Salzmann's presentation. But if you want to take part in the Q and a join us live. So with that, I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Salzman. We're talking Trumpism as America's future, the good, the bad and the ugly. So I'm going to show the results of our poll and then move into Dr. Salzman, give the floor to him, Speaker 1 00:01:43 Abbey. Thank you. And welcome back everyone to morals and markets. This is, uh, an off date for us. We're usually, uh, the last, uh, what the fourth Thursday of every month, but, uh, we want to avoid Thanksgiving this time. So that's why we're doing this. Um, I want to talk about Trump ism because I've come to realize, uh, or suspect in recent weeks that, uh, this isn't going away. Now, the question is what is it? And that the term Trumpism itself, I think is somewhat interesting and worth examining because it's different than the person. Anytime you would attach an ism to something, uh, there's purportedly more to it than that. So the question is what is the more to it and what part of it is good or bad if it's really going to be with us. And I do have a suspicion that this set of ideas or the set of policies or the set of attitudes, or even if you want to get into the emotions and fears of it are going to be with us for a while. Speaker 1 00:02:46 And I, I somewhat provocatively said on social media today, uh, Obama is part of Trumpism. That'll sound weird to people, uh, because the Obama approach or the Biden approach is often seen as distinct Trump, but it's not that distinct. When you think about it, just on one, maybe just two dimensions alone, authoritarianism and narcissism. Now authoritarianism is much more of a political attitude and approach, but narcissism is much more of a psychological defect. And the fact that those two share, uh, the same, those that Obama himself was an authoritarian. Remember he used to say, I'm okay if I can't get things passed through Congress, I still have a pen and a phone. I can do what I want. In many interviews. He used to express regret that he didn't have full, uh, tyrannical powers. Um, so there's an authoritarianism in these two and there's a narcissism in these two in many ways, neither of them was experienced enough to be president. Speaker 1 00:03:53 That's another very weird and interesting thing that Americans would elect people who are basically inexperienced at politics. So, uh, but really, uh, whether, whether Trump runs again in 2024 or not, I think it's worth discussing and examining what Trump ism is. Uh, and as I said, the good, the bad and the ugly of it and, and how likely it is in our future. My own estimate is it's very likely. So let's talk about what it is, but first I have to say, I'm going to say four or five positive things about Trump. It was just, apparently I'm told a very rare among Objectivists. I don't keep track of all this. I don't follow frankly much of what other Objectivists say, but I'm told through the grapevine that, um, certain people at Ari Rome broken others, uh, on car, God pay basically paint him as a, uh, would be dictator, uh, a faint echo of Mussolini. Speaker 1 00:04:58 And to me, that is complete nonsense. That is utter nonsense. And the idea that you would vote for Biden over Trump, or that you would vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in the last two elections to me is so bizarre. It is true that the American political choice menu, if you will, is deteriorating badly. Uh, but that doesn't mean there isn't a difference between the choices given us the good, the good versus the bad and the ugly Donald Trump is a businessman. And to my knowledge, he's only the second businessman who was ever elected president and the other one was Hoover. Now Hoover was a complete disaster. Uh, but it's still interesting to me that the American people would vote for a business person because typically in academia and elsewhere, as you know, is this and the profit motive itself is largely, uh, disdained and distrusted. Speaker 1 00:05:55 So that alone is interesting. And I would also say there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, ha ha actually having followed his career from the time I was in New York, working in business and banking in the 1980s, he definitely earned his wealth. So he's no he's no. Um, what do they call it? Um, cronyism, if anything, all apologies. We were running to him asking for, uh, contributions over the years. He was not running the government to, um, you know, get special favors. The other remarkable thing I think about Donald Trump, having lived in New York for all those years is he was in the construction business. He built buildings, he dealt with unions, he dealt with corruption and he himself really is free of corruption. That is remarkable to have built a career building stuff in New York city without just being, um, but debt with, uh, with, uh, scandals and corruption and pay offs is really quite amazing as a Testament, I think to his honesty and integrity. Speaker 1 00:07:01 That's 0.1. Now I want to contrast him quickly with, um, Mitt Romney. Now I'm a big, I, if you know, I'm a big admirer of Mitt Romney, I know the conservatives don't like him, but I admired him. Also admire him to this day as also an accomplished business person and decent politician. He was a governor of Massachusetts, I think for a couple of terms. And I certainly think he should've won against Obama in 2012. It was a much better choice, but interestingly notice the American people's attitude toward Romney Romney made his money in finance Romney, made his money in venture capital. That is much less understood than building skyscrapers. It's much less understood than building building. So one, so, so you could say, look, one defect of the American people is they don't quite understand the financial sector and they distrust it. Whereas they do understand people building things and putting their name on it like Trump used to do now. Speaker 1 00:07:57 Uh, and so I think that was one of the problems. Uh, Romney had no pro no folder Romney himself, but if you're a member of Newt Gingrich and others, uh, colder, vulture, capitalists, they, they were really nasty toward him in ways you couldn't be toward Trump. So now the second point I want to make Trump was unabashed about his success and the American people liked that, especially if they see the success in businesses earn. So now it's obvious when he puts his name on buildings. I remember one time in the mid eighties, someone said, why don't you put your name on all your buildings? And he said, because I built them. And so that kind of unabashed unapologetic attitude about success, I think is very American and not, not every business person does this. As you know, often they'll just apologize for their wealth like bill gates, or they'll say, you know, I don't really become moral until I start giving away mine. Speaker 1 00:08:49 Well, not when I build my wealth, Trump has never said he's a big philanthropist ever. And, and again, still admired and loved by at least half the American people who voted for him now, uh, another thing he hates the media. There's no doubt about that. And the American people generally don't trust the media. So they they're attracted to Trump also because he, he calls the media out and says, they're dishonest. Now, when he said that they're the enemy of the people that might've been a bit over the top, there were fears in the beginning that he might engage in censorship. Of course we know he didn't do any such thing, but when he was actually in office, he didn't do anything towards trying to sensor, uh, uh, what's called legacy media. Whereas notice today, both are both parties are trying to sensor social media. So Trump is a positive, uh, civil, libertarian and free speech guy when it comes to, to that at least. Speaker 1 00:09:46 Uh, okay. Now another point, another good point about Trump, uh, America first that phrase America first and in largely having to do with foreign policy, largely having to do with America's position in the world, largely having to do with things like the UN or NATO, or, uh, support for Israel or not, or, uh, involvement in so-called green treaties. Trump. When you think about it from an objectivist standpoint, which is rational legalism, if you said to you, your family members me first, uh, that would sound selfish and that's why the media reacted against Trump doing that. Uh, but the idea of being first is not the idea of being only being first simply means being for yourself first and foremost, but that's the starting point and that's the standard. And it's from there that you say now, who shall I deal with on what grounds for what purpose? Speaker 1 00:10:48 And you're basically naming your terms. You're refusing to be like a sacrificial lamb, either for family and friends or in the case of Trump for the international community. So that was, that is, was one of the best things in Trump. I thought it was certainly not a view that said, America must run rough shot over others. He wasn't imperialist at all. If anything, he was saying, the us should not be involved heavily in NATO in the sense of providing national security and national defense for other countries, he basically said, why don't you provide your own national defense and national security? Why is the us providing that in a way it was a very anti-colonial anti-imperialist position because Europe, for years, as you know, including, and I would include Japan in this have, have, uh, been anti-American, but at the same time said, give us a national defense national security shield paid for by American taxpayers. Speaker 1 00:11:44 That's just ridiculous. If they're really grown up countries, they have their own national defense and Donald Trump believed that. And so that was another great thing about Trump. If this is part of Trumpism, Trumpism is good. Uh, w another thing, the idea of make America great again, now, obviously you need a standard for saying what does greatness mean? But here he's capturing. And by the way, he borrowed that line from Ronald Reagan. I don't know if you knew this, but the Reagan campaign in, uh, 1980 had the phrase, uh, let's make America great again. So he just dropped the lens. Oh, by the way, before I forget America first was a philosophy and a tagline in 1940, when the Republican party opposed Roosevelt and said, we should not be sending American boys to world war II to be sacrificed. So I think that is very interesting. And it was, it wasn't really so much isolationism. Speaker 1 00:12:44 It was a philosophy that said America should pursue its self-interest. And if there's no direct self-interest in sending, uh, boys abroad, then they shouldn't be sent abroad. And of course the, the long-term Wilsonian, uh, FDR view was that the world should be made safe for democracy. So there, there gone was democracy. Uh, Americans could be sacrificed for the sake of it and the Republican party to its credit in the forties, opposed that, so Trump was somewhat reviving that view, which I think is a rational view. Okay. Back to make America great. Again, every poll in the last, uh, two decades when asked is America on the right track or not the answer almost uniformly is no, but the question is what is the right track? What are people looking for the track to be, to go to where toward what destination, uh, now here Trump is mixed. Speaker 1 00:13:41 He is not an avowed capitalist capitalist in the sense that we know of limited government constitutionally limited government limited to only the functions and powers that respect individual rights. Okay. So that would mean defense courts and police he's obviously condones believes in doesn't object to the welfare state. So notice when he ran 2016, he said, explicitly, I'm not going to touch social security. I'm not going to touch Medicare and Medicaid. I might even ask a FA I may even add a family leave provision to the welfare state. So Donald Trump was no opponent of the welfare state, this idea that he was slashing the welfare state or cutting back on that is totally ridiculous. The welfare state spending and other things expanded enormously under Trump yet still. Uh, I think he recognized that that there's something going wrong in America. And they're down from Lee is what he doesn't realize and what his allies do not realize is that the problem is the welfare state itself. Speaker 1 00:14:43 The problem is this mixed economy. And, um, the failure to recognize that the mix has to move toward capitalism, uh, away from statism. Now on this point, I want to cite something. That's very interesting about Trump and his, I think it's the second. I think it's a state of the union, his last state of the union. You remember the famous line, and this was in response to the rise of AOC and the democratic socialists. He said, famously America will never become a socialist country. Now the conservatives love that. And I understand, and it's actually something I would say. That's very nice to hear. It's nice to know. It's nice to know that that is his sentiment, but notice how defensive it is, notice how, instead of saying something like America should become, or we should strive to become more capitalist. That would be a very controversial statement. Speaker 1 00:15:40 Of course, he didn't say that. He said we won't become socialists. So that alone is a tip off to what Trumpism is. It is not a, an attempt to dismantle the welfare state and move toward capitalism by the way, as was happening under Reagan and Thatcher, that was happening actually from 1980 to 2000. So that's not too far ago. It isn't impossible to move in that direction, but that's definitely not the direction the world has been moving in in the last 20 years. And, and Trump has just the last four years of that. So, so keep that in mind, Joe, he wants America to be great. He's not quite sure why it was great in the past. And the answer is it had not yet metastasized to this current cancer of the welfare state and statism, and now we're seeing authoritarianism. Um, so, uh, you can't just be for you. Speaker 1 00:16:34 Can't just be against socialism. You have to be for capitalism if you're going to make any headway, but, but still the American people who, the Americans who voted for him on the tagline, that, that America should be great. Again, it's understandable to me why they would vote for him. Cause they, cause he's definitely a patriotic guy. He definitely loves America. He definitely seems to be grateful for the success he's had. And he obviously did observe the Reagan years. He wasn't really close to Reagan. I mean, he was basically a New York liberal Democrat in the eighties and nineties. I don't know if people know this. He was not a Republican, uh, and even the move on, uh, being anti choice for women and things like that was, was a change was a, uh, basically a flip-flop from his views from the eighties and nineties. Okay. Now, uh, before I go to the negative, I just want to say something about isms. Speaker 1 00:17:31 If you think of things like Stalinism, Leninism, even something like Obamacare or, uh, supply-side economics in the eighties referred to as Reaganomics, any, any Kate or Marxism, any case where a set of ideas is attributed to the person, uh, is in part a critique it's, it's two things. One, it's a basically a, a compliment you're basically crediting someone with having discovered a set of ideas. So that's a good part. The bad part is usually by critics saying, this is idiosyncratic, meaning this is not a, an enduring legitimate set of ideas. These are a set of ideas that will come and go with the person. So, um, I, I remember specifically that was done with Reaganomics by the Keynesians, although even the word Keynesian represent a set of ideas by John Maynard Keynes. So th the first thing to recognize is when you're talking about ideas, if you hear words like capitalism, socialism, fascism, uh, those are more in many ways, there are more objective and more intellectual and more conceptually direct, uh, ways of treating ideas. Speaker 1 00:18:55 When the names are imported into the, uh, systems it's less illuminating. I believe it is much more of the suggestion that this too shall pass. Now. Some of these ideas, you know, were quite enduring. Uh, I mean, Marxism today, who would have believed from, uh, if I said in 1848, when the communist manifesto came out, if you told people that in 2021, they would still be running around using the word Marxism, and most people would know what it means as a set of ideas. Not only that they would be able to tick off at least a few countries that were organized that way. That is really quite amazing. So how about Christianity? I mean, that is the most obvious one Christianity, the philosophy of Christ. So why is it worth thinking about Trumpism? Well, here are the ideas I believe are part of Trumpism and that are enduring. Speaker 1 00:19:53 If you will, beyond him. In other words, if he get got hit by a bus tomorrow and was never a candidate ever again, I still think there would be something people call Trumpism. And by the way, if you Google Trumpism, there are at least two dozen articles about Trumpism. So I'm not making up the word. It's a word, mostly thrown around by critics of Trump. And some of them try to define what it is, but most of them are just snarky nasty in many ways, inaccurate treatments of Trumpism. Let me give you what I think are the three elements of Trumpism and why I believe, um, it will persist in some way in some form. Um, now the first one is populism popular. Populism is not pro capitalist. Populism is the idea that all wisdom and knowledge originates in people. Now, I don't, I don't mean as opposed to animals. Speaker 1 00:20:58 I mean, populism specifically very dominant than us, by the way, in the 1870s, eighties and nineties, it's the view that elites are not to be trusted. That people who are highly educated are not to be trusted, that the quote unquote establishment, meaning credentialed people, you know, who got degrees and have experienced running things are not to be trusted. Uh, the extraordinary man, the extraordinary person is not to be trusted. The outliers, the Mavericks are not to be trusted. This is very odd actually, because Trump, in many ways is himself a Maverick, Trump himself in many ways is an outlier. But the philosophy that says don't trust elites, don't trust the educated don't trust the credentialed because they've messed up the world. And certainly there's a lot of evidence that they have, but rather trust the kind of like homie wisdom of the common man is the essence of populism. Speaker 1 00:21:59 Now that is definitely part of Trumpism and part of populism also. And this is in Trump himself is an enormous just trust for finance for the financial sector. So it's much more geared to the idea that only the farming or agriculture farming, agricultural and manufacturing sectors are real, that the other sectors that are really not real, that they're just parasitical. And the odd thing about it is this is largely Marxism. This was, are mainly Marx's view that, um, the more mental and skilled labor was involved. It wasn't really legitimate labor. It was exploitative later in labor. It was kind of late the white collar labor that exploited, uh, blue collar labor. So that is a very anticapitalist aspect of Trumpism and it's called populism. So we can, we can talk about that more when the Q and a, but, um, that's part of it. Now, the other part of it is nationalism. Speaker 1 00:22:59 Now, interestingly nationalism, it means it comes from the idea of the nation and the nation in political science. Generally a nation is distinct from a state in the sense of it's a group of people who kind of share the same language, culture, history, ethnicity. I mean, that is generally what a nation is. And now whether a state encompasses a nation, you know, by borders and constitutional law and other things is a separate question. Sometimes they're at odds with each other, but is there an American nation? Yes, there, is there a distinctly American nation? Yes. A history of Americans, uh, believing similar things. That's what makes America actually exceptional. There were very few countries founded on a specific set of ideas. There's only two. I really know of, one of them is the United States of America founded on Locky and Montesquieu skewing principles. And the other one is a Soviet union, frankly, they're, they're exceptional in the sense of the Soviet union in 1917 was definitely based on driven by the Marxist Leninist doctrines. Speaker 1 00:24:15 So, but it's very rare. Normally, uh, states, the history of states has been, they come about due to conquest. They come about due a battles. They come about due to accidents, sometimes just hereditary accidents because of bloodlines. So if nationalism means there's simply a nation that you admire and you want to promote, that's fine. But the history of nationalism in the last a hundred years or so has been much nastier, it's been this idea that the individual is nothing relative to the nation that the nation should have priority over the individual. That is very collectivist. It was used by the national socialists in Germany. They combined nationalism, the Germanic area and a purity allegedly with social. And that's why they called it national socialism. So nationalism can be very dangerous. And to the extent it's part of Trump, as in which I think it is, it's not so dangerous if it's the original American system, but that's not what we have anymore. Speaker 1 00:25:20 We don't have the original American system. We have a very mixed system now moving toward fascism. So that's very problematic and unfortunately, part of Trumpism, okay, let me just mention also protectionism. Now this comes from somewhat from nationalism and also from a suspicion of capitalism and financial flows. All right. So when you get into issues like international trade, if any of you economics students out there know matters of international trade are very complex. It's probably maybe after monetary economics, although I put them on the same level, they're the two most difficult subsets of economics. It's very difficult to grasp, even for students who specialize in it. So international trade and monetary economics has a lot of room there for messing things up, but the arguments for free trade are so overwhelming and they really were begun by Adam Smith, 1776, followed by David Ricardo are so overwhelming. Speaker 1 00:26:27 And so convincing that the only reason people would not be for free trade frankly, is mostly just ignorance. Now some of it might be what they call xenophobia. I'm not really sure about Trump is a xenophobe, by the way, full beans, irrational fear. Xeno just means foreigners. Does Trump have an irrational fear of foreigners? I don't think so. I don't think he's racist. I don't think he's sexist. I don't think he's a xenophobe. I think he's worried about America losing her status in the world and by status for him, it means prosperity. Manufacturing, agriculture doesn't really mean wall street and the stock market. Although sometimes he would cite a rising stock market as a vote of confidence in his policies. That was the only, the only time he would say nice things about the financial sector, but he basically ruined his, uh, time and office, his presidency. Speaker 1 00:27:25 He basically, uh, risked his reelection on two things, protectionism and then the authoritarianism of Fowchee, what a disaster in each case, uh, Trump went the wrong way. Now he did campaign on this, so it wasn't totally surprising, but he slapped on those tariffs, not just on China, by the way, but also on, uh, Europe, on Mexico, on Canada, he basically tore up NAFTA NAFTA, which had been the north American free trade agreement, which have been negotiated not only by Reagan and Bush, but by Clinton and gore. So Reagan Bush, Clinton and gore advocated NAFTA, and notice it was Ross Perot and other businessmen who tried to become president in the mid nineties, who was against NAFTA businessmen and tr and Hoover was like this businessmen who run for political office in America. I have a very bad record of opposing free trade and it not only ruins them, it ruins the country. Speaker 1 00:28:31 It's a real head head Turner. Uh, there's something about business people who seem to be too myopic and unaware of the enormous benefits of free trade. So at any rate, you know, that Trump, uh, is a big protectionist. He put up the tariffs, he put up the quotas, he shrunk trade with these foreign and it really hurt the U S economy. And then, and, and in cases where us farmers like farmers of soybeans and others were suffering, he would turn around and subsidize the soybean farmers. So it's an example of one intervention leading to a disaster leading to yet another intervention where he tries to subsidize those he's harmed. It was very bad. It was a very bad idea. And notice, this is typical of Biden. Biden has retained all the bad Trump ideas and he's reversed all the good Trump ideas. So that's typical Biden. Speaker 1 00:29:22 He also just reappointed Powell at the fed, who is apparently trying to engage in a hyperinflation. Incredible. Now the other thing Trump did, and I think this is part of Trumpism. I hate to say it, the authoritarianism of public health, you know, he put front and found Jian Berks. It was Trump who said the government should be heavily involved with lockdowns and masking and distancing and all that other stuff. Now he wasn't as authoritarian as Cuomo or in New York or, um, Pritzker in Illinois, or I can't even remember who was the other one Newsome in California. There were at least four or five governors, uh, true, true despots, looking for an excuse to be authoritarians. And, um, he didn't really do anything about it. We didn't, he didn't really stop them. He didn't really defund them. He could have. And remember the other thing he did, he basically allowed lawlessness through the cities. Speaker 1 00:30:29 And then, uh, in the 2020 summer of 2020, very odd coming from a guy who said, I'm for law and order, he really wasn't for law and order. He didn't really intervene where he should've and told the governors and mayors that they cannot allow, you know, the burning looting and all the other things, not only of private sector business, but a precincts and courthouses and things like that. So I'm not saying that's part of Trumpism, but I, I want to bring that up from the standpoint of most critics of Trump and those who use the word Trumpism, actually try to paint him as a fascist, as an authoritarian, who will intervene in all these things. And actually in the case of law and order, he didn't intervene and Biden and Obama in many ways are much more authoritarian than Trump, but they all share this lean toward authoritarianism. Speaker 1 00:31:28 And it's a very, it's a very unhealthy and un-American trend that's happening. Last thing I'll say on authoritarianism, then I just want to stop and hear what you guys have to say. If you notice, uh, I would say I've noticed this in the last four presidents, they come into office and you see this on TV. They'll spend the first day at the desk with a pile of executive orders signing executive orders. Have you noticed this? It's very weird. It's very odd. The first time I noticed it, I mean, executive orders as you know, happen all the time at president's issue executive orders, but they usually have to do with telling the bureaucracy to do something that it's already legislative led legislatively approved to do. And so it's done, you know, usually in normal time it's done periodically. So the president of course, is in charge of the executive branch. Speaker 1 00:32:31 So the president and also be in charge of the, the various regulatory agencies and bureaucracy. So I, until about 20 ago, maybe 15 years ago, executive orders were just kind of a administrative innocuous directives to make the bureaucracy work better. Um, I starting largely with Obama, so this is going on 10 or 15 years now, the executive orders have been used to just dictate policy, just dictate policy that cannot be passed in Congress. And so it is a complete lawless unconstitutional, power grab, and Obama did it a lot. And then when, um, Trump got in, Trump signed a bunch of executive orders to just reverse Obama's executive orders and then to add his own executive orders. And so he stepped it up enormously and now Biden is even worse. Biden. Last count I looked, his executive orders are just, you know, a cascade of executive orders trying to overturn Trump's executive order. Speaker 1 00:33:38 What I'm getting at here is we're looking at, uh, a bi-partisan, it isn't one party or the other, a bipartisan shift toward, uh, uh, authoritarianism decree, uh, rule by decree. I hate to say it, but it's despotism. It's a kind of tyrannical approach and there's pushback a little bit from the American people, you know, on mandated vaccines or mandated lockdowns or mandated this or that, but it really is not a one party versus the other, doing it. Both parties are doing this and it's a very disturbing, very bad trend. So let me summarize by saying, um, I'm never really big on having a name and then an ism. And I think I know what the motive is when both advocates and mostly critics do this, but in this case, I think in the case of Trumpism, there is a set of ideas, populism, nationalism, fascism protection that is in there. Speaker 1 00:34:44 And it's very sad because Donald Trump himself, I believe is no desperate, but he's embodying a set of ideas that have already been taught and spread in the American culture is literally been taught and spread by the universities it's been taught and spread by the government schools, AKA the public schools. So they're the ones teaching this. They're the ones basically responsible for whatever they call Trumpism. And, uh, unless we have a really good full throated defense of capitalism, uh, this is going to be a problem for quite a while. So I'll stop there. And I'm curious to hear your, your views or your criticism, your take on this. How far, how long did I go, Abby? Oh my gosh, 40 minutes. I think Speaker 0 00:35:33 So, everybody, um, you are welcome to unmute yourself and ask the question in the chat for those of you listening on podcast. If you want to be a part of the Q and a join us live description will be in the link will be in the description. So like, and subscribe to the podcast for everyone else. If you have questions, feel free to unmute yourself. I'm going to scroll through the chat and see if there's anything in there. Okay. So it looks like Jake says, but what presidents, I don't want to start off obstructionists, but what presidents have not been authoritarian was Bush with the NFC. I'm just not in it. My thing moved there was Bush with the NSA. I'm just not used to Obama being referred to as authoritarian. It seems sort of arbitrary. Speaker 1 00:36:31 Well, um, many that I would say the most authoritarian presidents, it's just take the last century. Um, the first and most obvious one is, um, Wilson Woodrow Wilson was just awful by the way, a really good account of this. If you want to read it is, um, by, uh, Jonah Goldberg, liberal fascism, Jonah wrote that I think, uh, 10 years ago, 2009, but he goes through the Wilson years, the FDR years, FDR, I would consider also an authoritarian, uh, who followed him. I wouldn't say Truman was, I wouldn't say Eisenhower was, I wouldn't even say Kennedy was, although Kennedy tried to brow beat the steel industry, uh, LBJ, I would say actually Nixon was a bit authoritarian. Uh, lots of the regulatory state was pushed and developed under Nixon. And everyone thinks of Nixon is a Watergate. But the worst thing about Nixon actually was, I don't know, one obvious one was 1970, the EPA, a very authoritarian, uh, agency. Speaker 1 00:37:41 He went off the gold standard. He just unilaterally took the us off. The gold standard were very authoritarian. Then he imposed wage and price controls. Very authoritarian. I mean, Nixon was a disaster, but not mainly because of Watergate, Ford was not authoritarian. I wouldn't even say Carter was Reagan definitely was not Bush. Senior was not Bush. Jr. Was not really. I mean, he's just to me a non-entity George Bush, George W. Bush. Couldn't be, couldn't be an authoritarian. If he tried to, he was just incompetent. I wouldn't say bill Clinton was authoritarian. I would say Al gore is, but he never made, he never made it to the presidency. Obama is definitely an authoritarian. There are many, many interviews where authority where well, Bama basically wishes. He was on the third chair and he says to the interviewers, I, you, I wish I could do this with the stroke of a pen, but I can't because there's a Congress or something like that. Speaker 1 00:38:41 And Obamacare itself, you remember was stuffed down people's throat. So someone once remarked that in terms of expansions of the U S welfare state, like social security, Medicare, Medicaid, uh, all of them bad as they were, were bipartisan. Both parties negotiated them. Both parties basically contributed to passing them. Uh, Obamacare was passed, uh, literally without any Republican support at all. And he didn't give a damn his view was I'm going to socialize medicine, regardless of whether it hurts me. And interestingly it hurts the, uh, in the midterm elections and elsewhere Obama basically lost what was it? The house and the Senate. That's how dictatorial he was. He has another example. Some one point he said, uh, we need to raise, uh, the tax rate on capital gains to very high levels, almost punitive levels. And I remember Charlie Gibson, one said to him, do you realize that that will not raise any revenue? You're not going to get any revenue if you raise the tax rate. So I that's just the Laffer curve, you know, and Obama said, I know that I don't care. So just the punitive nature of, of Obama, uh, he's definitely an authoritarian and a narcissist. So yeah, I won't say more than that, but I think there's plenty of evidence to show which of these presidents were authoritarian or not. Speaker 2 00:40:07 Dr. Salesmen. I just want to ask, just clarifying what is an authoritarian, Speaker 1 00:40:12 Someone who believes they should just dictate policy and their views toward others without getting consensus or agreement. Speaker 3 00:40:21 What's, what's wrong with that? Speaker 1 00:40:23 Uh, it's wrong because it's not objective. It's basically a subjectivist approach to governance. It's the idea of Speaker 3 00:40:29 What'd you what'd you contend that Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or bill gates are authoritarian? Speaker 1 00:40:36 Well, it's difficult to, I think classified business people as authoritarian because they don't have political power. They literally cannot compel you to buy their stuff. So I would restrict authoritarianism to the political realm and it goes to the whole, there's a long history of documenting those who have been authoritarian and have oppressed impoverished and killed millions of people. You can't name a single businessman that's ever done that. Speaker 3 00:41:06 So you believe just not to be argumentative. You believe that group think. And the collective wisdom of the hill in fact is a better way for making decisions than someone who has a skillset and operates as a CEO. For instance, Speaker 1 00:41:26 I'm not sure of the question, but do I believe group think is a good way to go? Never, no, I don't believe in group thing. Um, so I'm not sure what the question is. No. The Speaker 3 00:41:36 Question is Speaker 1 00:41:38 A CEO as a position. If we're talking about authoritarianism, if you mean, okay, there's a CEO, who's in a position of authority. Uh, even the word author, you know, the author of a book, someone who directs the writing of a book of the chapters, uh, authoritarian is, and when you add ism to authority, it isn't just that this person is authoritative. That they're knowledgeable, that they're skilled, that they should be running some enterprise. That's some kind of an innocuous. And to me, perfectly legitimate use of the word authority. Uh, even the idea, he's an authority figure. I don't have any problem with that, but authoritarianism, if you look it up authoritarianism particularly relates to the political realm where there's no consensus anymore. It's just an authority figure. An also called an autocrat who just dictates and decrees from on high, Speaker 1 00:42:35 What America, that's, what American politics is moving toward. Mostly because there's a disbelief in objectivity and constitutional restrictions that the American people are losing a sense of whether government can be objective and run by the rule of law. And as a result, they're moving toward the idea that particular individuals in certain, certainly in some cases, cult of personality should be running things. And there was on the left. You can say they absolutely adored Obama. I mean, he was completely unfit to be president and completely inexperienced. And they gushed over him as a kind of God-like figure. Now the same thing has happened with Trump on the right. They gushed about Trump as a godlike figure. So this is a very bad trend, but it's happening on both sides. It's not anything to do with, I mean, bayzos and bayzos and gates and others, even George. So they have almost zero power to Lord it over anyone. Most of their, Speaker 3 00:43:39 Uh, again, just the final point would be, um, Steve jobs, Steve jobs was a recognized for his decision not to listen to his team, but make decisions on his own. And without his creativity, without his preschool, apple would not be the company. It is. And so there's something to be said about an authoritative figure that brings Speaker 1 00:44:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. We don't do it. If that's what you're saying, we don't disagree. Some people are smarter than others and go there, make decisions on their own and dispense with, uh, a group that I L yeah, of course, some of the great achievements in business and science and elsewhere have come from that, but that is not to blend that together with authoritarianism, I think is a mistake. Speaker 4 00:44:36 Uh, Richard, uh, this is Scott. Thank you. A good show. Um, I just wanted to bring up the, uh, context of, you know, Trump running was right after we basically had the hound banner out of the speakers job and they could hardly find anyone to fill it before Ryan took it. Uh, we just continually felt the trade. And so I want there to be some sort of definition, you know, for Trumpism or some other word that is for someone that actually has the guts to fight back against the left. He also exposed a lot of people that were unwilling to fight like Jonah Goldberg and others, that all of their tough rhetoric was just that. And they didn't really mean it in reality. And so, you know, I just don't want Trumpism as a slur to be something to mean anyone who fights back so that like, you know, your own who's against anyone he's against, uh, you know, even someone like, uh, DeSantis in Florida or anyone that's gonna take an aggressive stance because that's what people are responding to more than anything else. And, and the fact that he happens to be in the tariffs, that's just, you know, something on the side because of the increased, perceived threat that we see from the left and someone actually responding to it. Speaker 1 00:45:58 Thank you for that, Scott. I think this is a really interesting, uh, point you're making and I would class, I would put it this way. If I were to ask is part of Trumpism. Um, the pugnaciousness the, the, the combativeness, uh, of the approach possibly. I don't think that's fundamentally there, but possibly now the reason that I do think I would classify as a positive, if you're fighting, uh, in an uncompromising way for your ideals and the ideals are truly ideals, you're truly, truly a set of good ideas. It's absolutely true that the Republican party, uh, should be much more aggressive. If you will much more combative, much more pugnacious, much less compromising in the, in the fifties, they used to call it me to republicanism the Eisenhower Republican, meaning what that the other side was setting the tone and the agenda for things. And the Republican side would just, uh, you know, so there were reformers and radicals and they were like moving the ball. Speaker 1 00:47:13 And the other side were just like behind the eight ball compromising and, you know, trying to pay for it all. I would classify Reagan, Jack Kemp, the supply siders, Laffer others in the foreign policy establishment at the time, who basically said, we're not here to have detente with the Soviet union. We're here to defeat the Soviet union. Uh, we're not here to, you know, pay for the welfare state. We, we are here to, uh, restrain its growth and massively cut tax rates. So a certain pug nation has already was existing and Reagan, which I thought was very good. He was willing to fight and, and, and not compromise on very important things. And he was very good at saying I'll compromise, but on tactics, not on principles and policy. And it was very successful. Now, I think the problem with Trump is not that combativeness. That's good. Speaker 1 00:48:07 And that's why, um, TrueBlue Republicans hate people like Ryan and Mitch McConnell and others. I think you're right, Scott. They, they hate them or don't like them or Romney, uh, because they'll say they just don't fight. They just don't fight the good fight. They're, uh, they don't have any spine. And Trump definitely does have that, but the problem is he's, he's nowhere near, you must know this he's nowhere near the pro capitalist. That Reagan was, uh, if facture, if you remember was called the iron lady in Britain, iron, like an iron background uncompromising. So she too was combative. She too succeeded by being combative, if you will, by being uncompromising. But it's the combination of combativeness confidence in your views, uh, taking it to the other side, so to speak, giving a positive message and, and combined with the right message. That's what works. I think the weakness and the problem in Trumpism is that it has the combativeness while basically at the same time, endorsing the views of the opponents. So it's a very mixed message. I mean, in the case of protectionism, for example, that is anti-capitalist. So if Trump is very combative and intransigent and aggressive about imposing tariffs, it doesn't help us. It doesn't do us any good. If we're advocates of categories. Speaker 1 00:49:37 At some point he would even say things like, know I'm really, you know, sticking it to China. You know, I'm slapping tariffs on China and you know, in China and, and the guy didn't even realize he was taxing Americans. I mean, it's just maniacal. I mean, tariffs are paid by American importers by households and companies, that import stuff. Right? So, so he didn't, he either didn't know, or wasn't told by whom by the Kudlow and others who were advising them, they did not tell him. You're basically raising taxes on Americans. That's not a good thing. Stop saying that China pays these tariffs. They do. China does not pay tariffs. I mean, it's just Speaker 4 00:50:17 Win an election as well, but he, you know, China was trying to wait him out. He thought he could have used it to affect foreign policy in a second term. It's not just the trade. It's just the, you have to be a fighter first or else it's, it's almost just rationalism. Speaker 1 00:50:36 No, I don't think you have to be a fighter first. You have to get the ideas and policies right first. Then if you're mealy mouthed about them. Yes, that's a disaster. I mean, I would, I would put Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney in that camp, their views on governance and politics and economics were far superior to Trump's. They just were, they're just more pro capitalists than Trump. I'm talking about Paul Ryan. I'm not, I wouldn't put Mitch McConnell in there, but Paul Ryan and Mitch and Mitt Romney who were on the same ticket, by the way, in 2000 pro, if you look at what they were advocating and, and Ryan was looking for a real, severe reduction in the welfare state, that's one of the reasons they got on his back. Remember even Nancy Pelosi and others used to say to Ryan, uh you're unchristian, you're cutting the budget. You're un-Christian you reading nine ran and citing nine ran. You're terrible. You're evil. You're Speaker 4 00:51:30 Down the cliff. Speaker 1 00:51:33 Now, on the other hand, they weren't aggressive. They weren't combative. They, they didn't have the tactical skills to get their way. Now, in Trump's case, he had the combativeness and pugnaciousness too. I mean, he just wiped out all his Republican opponents in the primaries, remember that, but mostly due to name-calling and other kind of like bullying tactics. But the real problem is that. So I would say the real problem here is not combativeness it's combativeness plus what's your policy. So if his policy is tax the American people on their imports and do it in a very aggressive manner, that's just a losing, that's just a losing combination. And we need to separate the two. The issue is not, he was too combative. The issue is he was combative on con battling the American people, uh, on taxing them, what their tariffs and stuff like that. Just crazy. And I th this may sound a little far-fetched, but I actually think the whole Wu Han virus thing was China getting back at him. So Trump asked for it. I mean, he got an import from China that he'd never expected, and it totally ruined the U S economy and his presidency. So it wasn't cars and it wasn't apparel, but it was a virus. Speaker 4 00:52:50 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:52:51 But mostly the reaction. I mean, Trump reacted to it by getting a very authoritarian in 2020. Speaker 4 00:52:58 Um, I mean, Fowchee went to him and told them he'd be responsible for millions of deaths if he didn't shut. Speaker 1 00:53:03 Yeah. And it's true. And if Trump had any backbone, he would've said, get out of my office. That's ridiculous. I'm not only going to look at, uh, public health measures. I'm not going to shut down the economy and make people suffer, you know, when all these other ways. Yeah. I mean, for it, he was totally rolled by, I think by the public Paul, but the public health establishment, which itself we know now by retrospect has very authoritarian elements, the CDC, the who, a Fowchee group. I mean, the idea that group financed in part the whole Ruan thing that these people are dangerous. And Trump empowered them, gave them podium every day felt he was at that podium with Trump behind him. And now, now today, yeah. Speaker 4 00:53:56 He was trying to counter them, using it, to make it his Katrina, where he wasn't communicating with the public. So he went so far in the opposite direction to just go in their face and be out there every day. I mean, it was, you know, it was all about Speaker 1 00:54:12 Not the election, not to be too negative. The other positive thing about Trump was the whole, um, streamlining the approval process at the FDA and elsewhere and the right to try, but no right to try. Right. But notice also that, um, it's the kind of thing that doesn't have any lasting value because once he leaves office, the FDA is still there. It goes back to foot-dragging, uh, it's happening right now. Actually the FDA is not approving things. They should be approving the whole thing about the, uh, the ridiculousness of the, uh, supply chain disruptions and the mismanagement of the California ports. I I'm guessing that if Trump was still president, that wouldn't be happening, but this is the kind of thing you do not want to have to rely on some authoritarian president setting things, right. You know, LLC economy falls apart. Tell us the economy is, um, you know, paralyzed into inaction because of what I call fascism, the American economy. Speaker 1 00:55:13 And the American system of liberties is basically under assault now for many reasons. But one of them is, uh, a wholly new phenomenon that people would not have expected even three years ago. And I call it fascism it's, it's fascism pushed by the public health sector. This is not going to end unless people realize what's happening here. This is a Trojan horse for fascism, the, the public health establishment, which is really too nice. A name for it is a bunch of people who are literally phobics. They are literally irrationally fearful of germs. They're germaphobes. Now here's the problem. They're also Germanic in the sense of they're totalitarian, they're efficient stick. And so on the one hand they pose as humanitarians. We're just trying to make sure people don't get sick. We're just trying to make sure people don't die. Who could be against this. And now give us these totalitarian powers to shut down your business, to say who's essential or non-essential to, you know, force injections into your body. I mean, it is actually incredible what the American people are putting up with. And since our topic tonight is Trumpism, I just hate to say that Trump did enable this. He started it and it's, it's still going and that's never happened before. So he can't play. He can't be totally blameless for having empowered Fowchee and fascism. Sad to say, Speaker 0 00:56:51 Uh, sheesh, I think is next, uh, with your question, if you're ready. Speaker 5 00:56:56 Yup. Uh, hi Richard. Speaker 1 00:57:00 Yes. I'm glad you can join us. Speaker 5 00:57:02 Uh, so I just had a point first, um, uh, you were talking about nationalism and, um, I read this, uh, really interesting take by a letter pickup or the other day it said, uh, patriotism is when, um, uh, members of a country, uh, like the country and support the country because they believe in their ideas and nationalism is when they believe in a country, no matter what the ideas are. Yeah. So, so that's, Speaker 1 00:57:30 That's an important distinction in that. Speaker 5 00:57:33 Yes. So, so I see why nationalism is a very slippery slope because if the ideals of a country are right, then, then, then you're justified in being a nationalist. But it's, it's a very slippery slope because it only takes a couple of wrong ideas to go down a rabbit hole. Um, and I, yeah, we've been talking about, uh, presidents and I feel like sometimes we, we get caught in a vacuum of sorts. Like we look at their, uh, decision-making and actions purely on the basis of, um, uh, abstract ideas, but in systems it's, it's, it can be complicated for, for example, like putting tariffs on China. Uh, we, we don't realize that we are actually sending $500 billion a year to China, uh, in, in, uh, uh, as part of the deal that we made with them. I don't know how many years ago. And, and, uh, and also like China is, uh, does not care about piracy laws at all. Speaker 5 00:58:32 And they're basically stealing all our intellectual property in and building cheaper stuff, uh, because they don't have to do any R and D rest. Basically, we are doing all the R and D for them. So, so when, when you keep, uh, take all that into account, uh, isn't, it sort of justified to, to put tariffs on them, even though in the short run, it hurts the American consumer and the American producer, but, but you also realize you are also hurting China beyond repair at a point where they have to come up with a new plan of action. Speaker 1 00:59:06 That's a really good question. Okay. I noticed what you said though. You said, so doesn't this justify putting tariffs on them. Yes. Tariffs. Don't, aren't put on them. They're put on Americans that China does not pay tariffs when you put tariffs on imports. It's another word for taxing Americans who import stuff. So now let's set aside for a moment what China's doing. It's whatever it's doing, if your answer is punish Americans, that's just weird. That's just wrong. That's just so misguided, but that, but that's what a tariff is. And so it's just maniacal on that grounds alone to say, you know, China's hurting us, therefore, you know, smash Americans in the toe. It just illogic. It's just illogical now. But by the way, before, before I, before I say something about China, by the way, nationalism, here's the good part of nationalism. Um, if by nationalism is meant, and this is part of Trumpism, by the way, if, if part of nationalism is not, you know, subjugating the individual to the nation as the Nazis did, but rather a dissatisfaction with, and a distrust of internationalism, meaning now internationalism here, meaning sacrificing us interests for some broader global government. Speaker 1 01:00:34 That is definitely a good idea. And so to the end, and Trump did do this to some extent he would pick certain inter-governmental organizations like the UN or NATO or other things where he was absolutely right to point out, why are we in these groups? If, if the only point is to dilute our sovereignty, and we're not going to do that anymore. And we're sick of that. And we're not, we're certainly not going to sacrifice ourselves to other members of these groups that are inferior to us. Remember, you used to say, you used to say some of these, some of these countries are chivalry. I mean, he was absolutely right. And yet they were dictating terms to America. Now, if that's what nationalism is a pushback against, uh, some now some international group telling America how it should govern itself, that's prompt. That is right and proper. Speaker 1 01:01:28 So I just wanted to make that point now on China, I think, um, on, on trade with a country like this, and this is a very important principle, uh, government has to decide, and it's usually done through diplomacy and the state department and all countries have foreign ministries. A country has to decide whether another country is a legitimate country or not. Um, it's usually done by, you know, um, re it's called a recognition of the country. Not for example, when the Soviet union was established in 1917, I don't know if you know this, that the us did not recognize it as a legitimate government. It basically said this a tRNA. And, and, and by doing that, by the way is very important. You designate this other country as an enemy, and it means you can restrict trade with it means that, um, you will try to isolate it in foreign affairs now in not until 19 33, 7, 16 years later, did FDR recognize the Soviet union as a legitimate government? Speaker 1 01:02:32 I don't think he should have done that, but I'm just, I'm just giving you examples of cases where, um, there certain countries get on a list. I ran as on the list. Now I think North Korea and others, once you do that, I think it is legitimate to say you can restrict companies, uh, from trading with that entity, but that's not how the U S has designated China. And we might say it should, but I think you have to go through the legitimate channels. So designating a country that way. Now, if I were in the state department, if I were advising a president, I would not classify China as an enemy of the United States. I know that's not something people, um, endorse, but if you know, the longer history of not only China, but the Soviet union, uh, the Soviet union disbanded in 1991. And however mixed they are now, they are nowhere near the military threat, uh, to the U S or that they used to be. Speaker 1 01:03:30 So there's no reason to designate Russia as an enemy of the United States. They're not the best friend of the United States, but they're not an enemy of the United States. Uh, same thing with China, China under Mao, 1949 and 1979, the first 30 years were just horrendous. We're just murderous. We're just impoverishing. And when did the U S finally recognize or deal with China under Nixon in 1972, up to them, they pretty much designated China as an enemy of the United States and there wasn't that much trade between them. Anyway. So Nixon went there in 1972 mile was still in power mountain diet, I think until 1976 or so. So not much happened for four years, but very importantly on the American people have totally forgotten this, or they don't know this starting in 1978. China started liberalizing, uh, enormously under, under, uh, downtown Pang. I think his name was, they started liberalizing the economy in the first five years. Speaker 1 01:04:31 No one believed that no one believed they were really doing it. And, uh, but that is actually what they did. And in the subsequent now, 1978, where are we now? 22, almost 42 years later. Something like 800 million people in China have come out of poverty into some kind of standard of living, which is civilized. And are they a purely capitalist country? No, but I don't think they're the enemy of the United States. They basically didn't want to become prosperous. They're definitely still authoritarian on politics, but in many ways they're more libertarian on economics than the United States is they, they have much more of a robust energy sector. They're building, they're building dams and nuclear energy plants, all the place. They're very pro-business. They leave Shanghai and other provinces, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, by the way, economically free. Um, and so in the case of us businesses, by the way, I remember, um, it was, uh, Carly Fiorina once was interviewed. Speaker 1 01:05:33 And I thought, if this is what's going on, this is how the authentic American businesses, she was asked one time, how does Hewlett Packard deal with, or how has it dealt with China? And she said, well, we wanted access to China's market. We wanted to sell HP stuff to China. And we also wanted to set up factories in China. And she said, uh, when we did this, they would sit down and they would say, well, what are you, how are you going to pay to get access to our country? That's the same kind of thing that Donald Trump would do. And she would say, you know, we started giving them IP as a form of payment, almost like barter. And she said, but we would give them our intellectual property, you know, usually second, third generation. So it wasn't state-of-the-art type stuff that the point of the point of a story like that is apparently hundreds of thousands of cases of businesses doing that. Speaker 1 01:06:24 It's not that their technology was stolen. Although there are cases of industrial espionage, of course, but it turns out that many, much of the intellectual property was transferred voluntarily by companies eager to gain access to China's markets. So this isn't widely known, but, um, again, you can dispute whether that's legitimate or not, but no company had to go to China. You live Packard did not have to go to China and do anything with China. They didn't have to, at all, China was not compelling them to come over to China and start bartering their IP. So, so it's just as background to that. I think the whole Trump anti-China thing was, uh, was, is a massive mistake. And it's still, I think it's still part of Trumpism and it's still part of the, the conservative, you know, take on world affairs, which I think is very wrong, very damaging. Speaker 1 01:07:21 One last point about China and America. I interpret this. I could be totally wrong about this. And I've been resisted by some critics. China has moved from communism to fascism and it's remains to be seen whether they'll move toward capitalism, but, but socialism is government ownership and control of the means of production. Fascism is a hybrid system. It's not government owning the means of production, but regulating it. And it's moving toward capitalism. In the sense of, it's increasingly not telling local businesses what to do. The U S is going in the complete opposite direction. The U S started as a capitalist country. It's moving toward fascism. In other words, there's not nationalization of business yet, but there's heavy. As you can see, heavy government intervention and regulation of business in. So the two countries are basically passing systematically in different directions and every member needs to be seen, whether the us will go totally totalitarian socialist. Speaker 1 01:08:27 I'm not sure it will, but that is really what's happening. So the idea of at this point in time, the us saying, you know, China's charitable, China's anatomy, China's gone from communism to fascism and America's gone from capitalism to fascism. They're basically both heavily mixed economies. And the point, and the question remains where they'll go in the future. China, I think is moving in a capitalist direction in America, in a status, a totalitarian direction, a hundred years from now, we can be looking at it saying the U S has been vanquished by China. Not because China attacked America militarily, but because it eclipsed America just as America eclipsed Britain, a hundred years ago, we didn't attack Britain. We just clipped it. We were freer and more prosperous and Britain embraced socialism and went down and went from great Britain to just plain old Britain. So that's my take on U S China right now. Speaker 5 01:09:23 So, uh, does that mean that America first policies that Trump is implementing will only be efficient as long as, uh, America holds the upper hand in terms of economics? Because, because what he's basically trying to do is, uh, bully everyone else. So if, if they're not the most powerful anymore than, than the bullying would work, tariffs don't have to do with power tariffs, uh, are bad generally. So, uh, yeah, I wanted to correct that, uh, that was a Freudian slip. Uh, what I meant was because the Americans were, uh, tariff on China, the Chinese had to sell their goods for, for more, more money, which meant that there wasn't any incentive for Americans to buy Chinese, then buy American. So, Speaker 1 01:10:12 So what ha what actually China did was just sold and they sold it to other people. So for example, the U S lost the soybean business and they sold it to Brazil and stuff. I mean, bought, they just bought soybeans from somewhere else, but China has very many options. If the U S shuts them out, they'll just go somewhere else. It's, it's a really smart thing to do. The question you asked though, is a good one bullying. No, I don't think it works. If Trump, if part of Trumpism is bullying that doesn't work. I think the most powerful geopolitical thing Trumpism entails, and I'm not even sure Trump fully realizes it, but he was onto something. The us government spends way too much money on military, not obviously to help the military and defense of the United States. I mean, the Afghan disaster, the Syrian disaster, that has been just one foreign policy disaster after another, regarding America in the last 50 years, starting with the Vietnam war, actually. Speaker 1 01:11:12 So he had a session I think, on moles and markets called why American can't win wars anymore. All right. So what would be the positive aspect of that America? First don't do not enter awards for the sake of other countries, enter them only if necessary for the sake of America. So either defending America or helping a true ally, that is not what the us was doing in Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq, they were doing nation building. They were doing Wilsonian type crap about making the world safe for democracy. That is not a Republican foreign policy. That's a Democrat foreign policy and it's disastrous. So to the extent Trump was saying, get the hell out of there. And I wouldn't have gone to Iraq. And he was criticizing George W. Bush. Trump was right about all of that. And known as the Democrats came back and said, no, we should be warmongering all over the place. Speaker 1 01:12:00 They, they, they started channeling John McCain and Lindsey Graham. That's where the Democrats are. They are literally for sacrificing American troops and American treasure all over the world. That's terrible. And now here's another thing I said, the America spends too much Europe and others. One of the reasons they have huge welfare states, guess why they don't pay anything for military. They have no military budgets. They relying on a umbrella of defense from NATO, which is largely funded by America. So it never ceases to amaze me. These critics of Trump, who said he was, you know, anti internationalists and this and that. He was literally anti-colonial illness. He was anti imperialism. He was basically saying the us should not have a bunch of colonies in Europe. Colonies, literally, meaning we'll give you national defense. If, if in turn you give us products and things like that, Trump said, what's going on here. Speaker 1 01:13:01 If you're a grownup in effect, if you're a grownup country, Norway provide your own national defense, why are we providing it? There's nothing in the American constitution that says the U S government should be biting, be providing national defense to anyone else, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France, and, and, and notice his, his attempt to make them pay more of the NATO budget was met with enormous objections from the international community and international community, which historically has condemned America for being colonial and imperialist. And yet that's what they're asking for. They're asking for the U S to continue to treat these countries as little babies, uh, that they oversee and protect. Speaker 1 01:13:50 Trump tried to change that it didn't have much effect, but no one else is trying to change that. I hope that is actually the future of if Trumpism has a future. I hope that is part of it. Uh, so the U S can reduce its military spending stop these foreign adventures and stop paying for the national defense of other countries. That sounds like a more Ram poll libertarian view. I recognize, but it's not an isolationist view. It's, it's an America first view. American military should be to protect Americans, not Norwegians or French or anyone else. Speaker 0 01:14:30 All right. I think Steve, I think you're up next. And I think there's a few questions in the chat to do that, but feel free to raise your hands guys, if you have. Speaker 3 01:14:36 Yeah. I just wanted to respond to the doctor's comment on NATO. Is it how much of the investment the us makes over there? Yeah. You can criticize the EU members for not paying their fair share, but if in fact the us pulled out, do you actually think that NATO or rather the EU members of NATO would stat and we would, you know, militarize themselves, isn't this more an issue of foreign policy and not have Russia encroach on Eastern Europe and throughout, you know, you've got the, you know, you've got the, um, the pipeline now in Germany, you've got, you know, what's going on. You know, if in fact Russia does intrude on Ukraine, do you actually think NATO is going to take action? If the U S wasn't there? I don't think so. So I think that the natal play is really a strategy promoted by the us to maintain a presence over there, to offset any, you know, undue influence from the Russians. Speaker 1 01:15:38 I mean, we could be, we could be talking like it's 1990. I mean, I'm, am I in a time war NATO was opposed by the Warsaw pact. There's a worse off pack. Still exist. Am I missing something? No, the worst off pack doesn't exist anymore. So why does NATO exist? And it, I don't know what you're saying, actually, you're, you're basically saying the American people should pay for the defensive other countries because Russia, because Russia might invade them. It's almost like we're talking about 1978. Speaker 3 01:16:13 I'm I'm not suggesting that the U S paid for it. All I'm looking at is observing Speaker 1 01:16:19 That's what needed that's what NATO is. You started by saying, if we pulled out of NATO, wouldn't all these other bad things happen. Um, if countries don't want to provide for their own national defense, why has that got anything to do with the United States? You literally are saying Europe would not defend itself against Russia. Why, why would they not do that? They're just blackmailing the United States. They're basically saying, unless you pay for our national defense, we might not pay for it. And we might get invaded by Russia. I mean, that is bizarre. Speaker 3 01:16:52 No, but do you, but do you think that Russia's excursion into the Ukraine and then into Europe would be actually a military thing? Or is it more of an economic expansion that the us really doesn't want economic influence in UW EDU? Um, from Russia? Speaker 1 01:17:13 I'm not sure what you're asking. Should the us trade with Russia and the EU and China, I would say yes. If the U S stops doing this immoral, irrational thing, namely providing national defense for other countries. The idea that if we stop doing that, if we stop sacrificing ourselves, other countries might be invaded or hurt. That is not an argument for refusing to sacrifice Speaker 1 01:17:42 These countries. These countries need to grow up. And an essential part of a sovereign nation is that it has a national defense. These countries apparently don't have that. Why? Because this argument I'm hearing from you and others, this argument has been put for so long and it's been pushed for 30 years after the cold war ended. I didn't even believe in this argument, by the way, during the cold war, I think even then it was improper for the U S to be spending so much money on NATO, but after the cold war ended, this could be going on for 30 years now, I Eisenhower. It was apparently right. There's a military industrial complex where people keep arguing for spending on national defense for defense contractors to defend other countries. And now it's, it to me is even more bizarre than ever to say, Putin and Russia, which have barely have an economy no bigger than Texas. It really is not any bigger than Texas is a threat to Europe. You know, it's as if it's 1978, Speaker 3 01:18:42 Sir. So why, why would you say that? Um, why would, I guess it's your conclusion that the, uh, the U S criticism on the, um, the pipeline into Germany, uh, was something that it was against sort of us interests, because number one, you've got Russia coming in economically, uh, uh, and the oil, the, basically the oil coming in from Russia, less expensive than what the U S provides. Speaker 1 01:19:14 Yeah. So the, so understand what you just said, Russia coming in economically with a pipeline. I mean, for Christ's sake, this is not the red army invading Europe. We're confusing economic power with political power. I'm glad the Soviet union is invading Europe by trying to sell them natural, natural gas. Speaker 3 01:19:39 And then I guess that's the point I'm making is that I think, Speaker 1 01:19:43 What does this got to do with the Pentagon, the pen, the us should not be opposing a more economic trade between Russia and Europe, which is what that pipeline was. What did the Americans conservatives do? The American conservatives opposed approval of that pipeline as if they have any say in the matter, by the way, what, like, what are the, Speaker 3 01:20:06 Why did they, uh, why did they, Speaker 1 01:20:11 Yeah, because they're trying to portray the, the Russia and China as enemies of the United States, which is false there because they're trying to gen up animosity toward Putin, Russia, and China, and make them out to be, make them out to be literally the equivalent of what they were under Mao and Khrushchev. I've talked about missing the world events for the last 30 years. China is not run by Mao anymore, and Russia is not run by Stalin and Lenin anymore. I mean, it's bizarre that the American can I blame the, not only the American conservative movement, but the, a lot of the democratic establishment as well, frankly, uh, Haas and others at the council on foreign relations. They're warmongers. These people are literally warmongers. They are constantly wanting the U S to be policemen of the world, which is a nice word for it, really, because I love policemen. Speaker 1 01:21:05 It's not really policemen of the world. It is sacrifice American military prowess and young American boys sacrifice them like Christ on the cross to the benefit of foreign countries who refuse to pay for their own national defense. It's disgusting. It's immoral. It's, self-sacrificing, it's the opposite of a, what did patent tell the army when he sent them off in world war two, your goal is not to die for your country. Your goal is to make the other bastard die for his country. A simple question, last question. It's a, it's a, it's an America first self-interested view. And, but that's not what we have today. We have both the conservative Christian establishment and the Republican party, the iStat or not the Trumpism. This is in the establishment Republican party, always wanting to be on a war footing. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. And only the only ones I know of are, uh, ran Paul, maybe Mike Lee, maybe, maybe Ted Cruz who were against it. Uh, rightly so. And, but that's a small minority. Most of the Republican establishment is still in the John McCain, Lindsey Graham camp of wanting massive military spending for other countries. It's ridiculous. Speaker 3 01:22:26 So just the last question and LLS I'll curtail my a query. Speaker 1 01:22:30 Is, is this a good stuff, Steve? No, no, Speaker 3 01:22:33 No. I'm just curious. Um, if you were the finance minister of say Sweden or Italy or France, will you dedicate money to a military, as you say, each country should have their own military, or is that an offense that is like, why who's going to be invading? Who, what, you know, w what horizon, Speaker 1 01:22:57 If I got a message from the United States that, and it doesn't have to be a pullout overnight that doesn't have to be anything like that, but this has been going on for three decades. Now, if I got a message from a good United States president saying, we're not in the business anymore of taxing Americans to provide national defense for you, dear Sweden. And so we're going to phase this out over five years. If I were the finance minister or foreign minister of Sweden, the first assessment I would make is, do we need to provide for a military or not? Maybe we contract that out with other countries, are we likely to be attacked or not? But the basic calculation would be, we're not going to get a free ride anymore. We're not going to get, we're not going to outsource our military to the United States anymore. Speaker 1 01:23:41 Not our choice. The Americans have come to us and said, we're not doing this anymore. I, the rational Swedish political leader would say something like, what do we need to protect ourselves? If the assessment is no, one's going to attack us. And then maybe they wouldn't change their spending at all. But if they said, oh my God, the minute the United States stops providing the umbrella, we're going to get attacked by then. They need to make arrangements. Um, I don't, I don't know what the mystery is. Uh, as I said before, a grownup sovereign country has to provide for national defense. And whether they do that in an Alliance, maybe Europe has their own Alliance, but what's a good to do in the United States. Maybe the Nordic countries get together and provide a joint military projection. Okay. What's that got to do with the United States? The United States shouldn't have anything to do with that. Speaker 1 01:24:33 Originally mind you, I'm not saying they should expose themselves, and I'm not even saying they should, but, but, uh, it is kind of a real gimmick. They, they love this because their view is, and they'll say in Bernie Sanders will say this. So I was like, oh, look how much the Nordic countries spend on the welfare state. They're wonderful. The us should do that. No one ever mentioned to Bernie that the only reason those countries get away with it is the American people are paying for their military protection. Does Bernie ever say that? No. What does Bernie say? He actually says the U S military spending should go down. Talk about a cockeyed assessment of things. If the U S military spending went down, there wouldn't be any umbrella protection of these Nordic countries. And they would have to massively reduce their welfare states in order to pay for some military. Speaker 1 01:25:19 That's how, that's how crazy this whole conversation is in terms of, um, and their price control. But, but one thing I give Trump credit for, he never quite explained it this way, but what he should have said to the international community is I'm sick and tired of America running a colonial imperialist, foreign policy. Everyone in academia should have applauded him cause they keep blaming America for being colonialist. Yeah. But when Trump says I'm sick of providing military support for you, little babies, your little colonies, they criticized him for it. So they were the pro colonial pro imperialist, uh, faction the critics of Trump, the critics of Trump saying, I'm, I'm done with the whole NATO thing. And the cold war really is 30 years ago. So let's move on. Let's get on in the world. Speaker 0 01:26:11 Do you think Dr. that for some people, the cold war is still very real in their minds, especially in social conservative mind. So do you think like Trump would almost create a little bit of schizophrenia for people because he would, on the one hand be like China, China's a huge, China's really scary, but I won't pull the military out. And so you had conservatives, we have the military because China will take all of Europe and attack us and they're going to land on our shores tomorrow. It's red Dawn, but then also they were, so I felt like he CA he almost hurt himself. Those were two narratives that didn't, you know, on the one hand we have to protect ourselves against China. On the other hand, I don't want to have a colonial, you know, hold up. Speaker 1 01:26:51 That's a really good point, Abby. I think my only response to that would be, he never really said, and I don't think he actually believes that the threat from China is military. If you think about it, mostly what he said was it's economic, they're stealing our jobs. They're, they're coring out our manufacturing, which is, which is really funny, because if anything, if that, if an American president worried about, in my view, the proper thing, even an American president, worried about anything regarding a foreign country, his main concern should be, are they going to attack us militarily? Or are they building up a military that could hurt us? The primary should not be, are they sending too much stuff to Walmart? I mean, that's just, it's just asinine. It's just crazy. But, but, but if he had said something like, which he never did, if he said something like, oh, the reason I worry about their economic prowess is that it's actually going to lead to military prowess. Speaker 1 01:27:55 And then we're going to have a new cold war again. I mean, that's just not true. The U S military, as much as it's been as much as it's been caught out by spending money on foreign, uh, foreign countries defense, and by the whole woke thing, it's still a premiere military, uh, establishment. And it would wipe out China's military in a weekend. I mean, China's military just isn't that strong, but even if it were as strong as the U S military, you still have to make an assessment. Why would China attack the United States? Unlike the Soviet union, the Soviet union was actually on record saying, we want to vanquish you. And we're invading one country after another. China's not doing that. China is not invading, you know, 17 countries like the Soviet union Soviet union at a whole bunch of colonies called satellites, right. Of Bulgaria, Romania, all of Eastern Europe and everything they had, you know, 17 or 18 satellites. And during the cold war, the China doesn't have that. There's no evidence, Gordon Chang and all these other warmongers painting China, as you know, a military threat is, is really childhood really crazy Speaker 4 01:29:07 Richard. This week we saw, um, Bellaruse threatened to cut off oil supplies to Poland, um, with their border skirmish talking about, you know, war over Ukraine. And so I just don't know that it's that outlandish of, for them to eventually use oil as a way to almost blackmail the EU into going along with their foreign policy decisions. Speaker 1 01:29:36 So you're talking about Russia and, uh, Speaker 4 01:29:39 Yeah, I mean, what warning about the Nord stream pipeline, you know, could have legitimate national security issues. I mean, NATO was originally against Russia now Germany's, Speaker 1 01:29:52 Uh, legitimate national security issues for the U S Speaker 4 01:29:55 Well, well, it's more for Europe and the fact that, you know, we're working with them for NATO. And then if they go in and, uh, you know, attack Ukraine or decide they want to unify Kaliningrad by invading one of the Baltics. And all of a sudden they're saying, well, you know, if you, uh, if you all, you know, make war over this, I'm going to shut off your oil. And then part of our war planning now has to be scrambling to make sure Europe has a loyal. Speaker 1 01:30:27 I think the U S should be completely uninvolved in any of this it's it's to me, ridiculous. And, uh, that the us would care about this one wit the suppose. In other words, all of what you're saying is true. And suppose that if the U S did not have a role in NATO, that Russia would be more aggressive in Europe. Yeah. Yeah. They might. So what, I still don't get it. So they might, I actually think they're more aggressive now because Europe has not spent the last 30 years building up its own military by, by 30 years. I mean, the cold war is over the U S should have spent the last 30 years telling these other countries, we're not going to provide the umbrella anymore. That is not a legitimate function of the United States military. The U S has not done that. So I'm totally agreeing with you, Scott, that, that has made Europe still infant tile military-wise and Russia is not infant tile. Speaker 1 01:31:30 Russia is the former Soviet union after all. And so, and they're very militaristic. They tend to bit, but they're, they're not invading. I don't think they're really invading countries, but even if they were, I still think my point is true. Namely Europe is vulnerable because it's got training wheels on it. Isn't able to ride the bike on its own, the military bike, the foreign policy, but why, because the U S was provided the support for it continues to, and Trump barely got them to spend what, 2% of their, so I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't go against my point. My point is that the us policy is wrong to be outsourcing it, or these other countries outsourcing their military support from the U S and that makes them vulnerable. And of course, Russia knows that, but if the last do you agree that if the last, Speaker 4 01:32:24 And it's just that there's a national security place for us to advise them not to get closer to the Russian? Speaker 1 01:32:32 I don't agree if they're getting closer by pipelines, that's called economic trade. They, they should be, they're not trading bullets. They're trading barrels of oil Speaker 4 01:32:44 Sound, evidence of Russia getting aggressive in places like Georgia and Ukraine. Speaker 1 01:32:50 They're doing that only because the U S military has been basically been totally. I don't even know how to describe it. It has been so debased under, uh, by that they're pressing, you know, what did Reagan used to say? Tyrants are tempted only when you're weak, but by weak, here has meant the complete disgraceful exit from Afghanistan and other things, but mostly the act, the willingness of Biden and Obama and others to sacrifice American military to altruistic ends, of course, for us, is going to take advantage of that. But Russia would have no chance chance militarily in Europe had Europe not, uh, spent the last, if they had spent the last decades building up their own military and literally becoming adults on the international stage rather than children and, and frankly brat, blackmailers trying to get the American people to pay for their national defense. It's it's, to me, it's one of the most immoral and disgusting things. The U S military financial establishment has permitted. It has permitted the American people to be sat, literally sacked, um, and to lose thousands of lives, to protect other countries who were not citizens of the United States. Outrageous. Speaker 0 01:34:09 All right. We're getting close to time here, but I think Franklin has one last quick question for you, Dr. Salzman, if you have the time. Speaker 6 01:34:18 Yeah, just a quick question. Yeah. So I remember ane run in the virtue of selfishness. She wrote that a country or a government has the right to liberalize on our country. That is under operation, always that this action, eh, is driving by assault interest, eh, policy of self-sacrifice, right. My question would be, do you agree with her on this? And the second one is, eh, if you agree, what condition a do we actually need, or a government actually needs in order to liberalize a Norwalk. And it's not the price of salt self-sacrifice, but at the price of, I mean, self-interest, Speaker 1 01:35:08 That's a great question that I could answer it conceptually, but let me give you two examples that might help concretize it w one, I do agree with her principal, um, to invade another country, not invade to liberate another country, uh, if it's in your self-interest, uh, yes, I do endorse that idea. And, uh, so the two examples I would give of the U S doing this right, and doing it wrong is the first one is Britain under attack from the Nazis. So now, even though Britain had weakened itself and exposed itself by appeasement, we all know that story Chamberlain, uh, even though it had done that, it's still the, it's still a fact. I think that in 1940, when the Nazis are starting to bomb Britain, that the us could say that is an ally. That is our distant cousin or parent. However, they are still largely a free country. Speaker 1 01:36:08 There's still a constitutional country. We have a history with them, goddamn are we're going to defend the Brits. And I think that was, and we did to a large extent, and then the Brits joined us, of course, in liberating the continent. That's a second set, the secondary question, whether that should have been done or not, but certainly in a case like Britain, as misbehaved, as they had been to join with Churchill and save Britain from the Nazis, I think was proper. And in an America, self-interest now an obvious opposite case would be Vietnam. So Vietnam. And by the way, I would say Korea. So Korea, the Korean war when the north invaded the south in 1950 and the U S got involved mostly through the UN. So it really wasn't self-interest, it was this group think thing, and then the Vietnam war. So those are two cases where the us purported to liberate. Speaker 1 01:37:01 And, but it wasn't dinner. I don't think it was in our self-interest. So that was a purely self-sacrificing approach. I believe actually most of the U S military ventures, since world war two, having have entailed this kind of self-sacrificing sometimes called humanitarian very bad word for motives. Um, even in the case of the Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein, what, who did he invade? He invaded Kuwait, right? Why do we care whether he invaded Kuwait or not? I mean, it was terrible for the Kuwait people, but the Bush administration said, no, we got to know, we have to go liberate Kuwait. And instead of getting rid of Saddam, we just pushed him back into Baghdad. So, but that's what happened with South Korea, North Korea, we didn't vanquish North Korea. We just pushed the north Koreans back over the 38th parallel. The same thing with the Vietnam war. We didn't, uh, vanquish the north, the communists for invading. Speaker 1 01:38:01 We just tried to liberate south Vietnam. That one didn't even work. We didn't sell, we didn't liberate them the whole, the whole, uh, Vietnam peninsula went communist. So these are all self-sacrificing moves the last, even in the case of the Iraq war, if you remember, um, there, the U S was being criticized for invading just so they could gain access to oil. So the minute there was even any hint that the us might have a self-interest in defending Kuwait, um, the us backed off and said, well, we're not doing it for the oil. We're doing it to help the Kuwaitis. Again, I don't, I don't see anything in the U S constitution that says the American taxpayers should be defending Kuwaitis. So I hope that I don't know if that helps Franklin, but, uh, there are these cases and the principles are, are that if they're an ally and really important, and there's no doubt that Britain was an ally of ours, if it's under assault, you can't just stand by and let Britain be vanquished by the Nazis. Speaker 1 01:38:58 That's just ridiculous. No, yes. And if you, if you remember, she also had the view, which I thought was very interesting. She thought that we should not help the Soviets fight the Nazis. Of course, she came from the Soviet union and she hated the climate. And her view was why are we allying with the Soviet union during world war II? It's just ridiculous. Yeah. It made the, it made, uh, possible the Soviet takeover of half of Europe after the war. Plus she thought it was just immoral. And she thought, why, why not let the Nazis and the commies kill each other and then just finish off the winner. Uh, so if you know, um, the Soviets actually fought back, um, quite well against the Nazis, so they could, they, but not because we allied with them. Uh, they just hated Nazis. So I thought that view was interesting. Speaker 1 01:39:53 She, she, she was part of the America first theme in 1940. We, we talked about this theme, the America first, she actually, uh, backed the candidacy of Wendell Willkie, who was the Republican nominee. I forget something, I think it was 1940 against FDR. And interestingly ran supported Wilkie because he said we should not enter world war two. Interesting. So, but, but not because Iran was an isolationist because Iran said that's not in our self interest. And she, and she calculated that the Nazis and the commies would slaughter each other. And that would be good. But, uh, I, I don't think she was on record saying don't help the Brits. Um, she loved the Brits as much as any, um, but objective, would that help Franklin Speaker 6 01:40:44 Sad the lot, I agree. A hundred percent with you actually, I'm one of the only few Venezuelans who I don't actually support the idea of, uh, you know, the American trying to liberalize Venezuela, because I don't think it's in the self interest of Americans. So I agree a hundred percent with you. Speaker 1 01:41:03 Uh, so Venezuela. Yeah, we met up, should've talked about other this. So, uh, so what do you think the U S view for Venezuela should be? I suppose you agree that at minimum Obama should not have been hobnobbing with Chavez and Madera, which he did, you know, that Obama loved those guys. And Bernie Sanders said Venezuela was a Paragon of a wonderfulness. I mean, the American left as you know, totally embraced. Speaker 6 01:41:36 Yeah. Yeah. I think it was in, uh, 2012. Bernie Sanders said the American dream is not longer in America. It is Ecuador. Our European in Venezuela right now has the highest inflation in the world in the second place in south America is Argentina. Oh. And now he's, he's talking actually about Denmark and Sweden and all these European countries. But yeah, I mean, it depends on the situation is very complicated. I do agree with the sanctions just because I think we should not allow criminals who negotiate with Americans. Same thing with the embargo in Cuba. That is a, trying to be justified in the idea that that government nationalized American businesses in 1850s. So, I mean, you, in order to protect individual rights of Americans, that once had businesses there, now they are nationalized. So the idea of living the ne negotiate with us is like letting someone who stole my car to sell my car in negotiate with my car. That's the view. At least I have maybe not remove Maduro tomorrow. I'm not going to do it, but it feels good. It feels good that they come to us and cannot buy, uh, you know, with, um, dollar store or things like that. It helps at least. Speaker 1 01:42:58 Yeah. I mean, if there were a case that there was a long relationship with Venezuela, and this is key, especially in a revolution and an overthrow, this is very hard to judge. If there's an alternative, uh, political power within that, you can help. Maybe there's an argument for it, but it's a very tenuous argument that the main thing in the case, like Venezuela to me, is that the us should not be helping socialists come to power, but it's also, but it's also interesting because Venezuela is a great case. I think because there are similar to the Nazi case where in the early going at least people voted for this stuff. I mean, there were, it was democratic socialism. It may not be now, but that's always how socialism goes, that it has a couple of elections. You vote a there's one man, one vote one time, and then there's no money. Speaker 1 01:43:50 And then there's no more voting, but, but this may have surprised people a century ago, but after 50 cases of this, no one should be surprised when a socialist gets up and says, we need socialism, by the way, they're going to tear up the constitution in about 10 years. That's what happened in Nazi Germany. That's what happened in Venezuela. Why anyone is perplexed about this anymore? Or why anyone is pro AOC, Bernie Sanders, and all these people who say socialism is perfectly fine. So long as it's democratic. So as long as people vote for it, I mean, it's just ridiculous. If socialism is evil, which it is, why is it any better that people vote for it? I mean, in many ways, in many ways, that's worse than, you know, a coup because people voting for the is like mass suicide. It's like, it's like Jonestown. It's like people literally contributing to their own demise in many ways. That's almost more disgusting than if they were just, you know, bullied and overtaken. So, so to me in many ways, democratic socialism is more disgusting morally than revolutionary socialism. And yet that's what the young people, they all, they love AOC because she's a democratic socialist. Sometimes I'll say to students, if democracy whitewashes evil like that, then a democratic Fascisms should be okay. Are you okay with democratic fascism? They never say yes, but it's not clear why, uh, why they don't say yes, Speaker 6 01:45:14 No. Yes. I agree. Actually, there is a video that I made is on the Atlas societies, a YouTube channel. The title is how collective using destroyed Venezuela. And there I talked and I explained that Venezuelans is supported socialism. And they wanted someone like Chavez to be in power for a while. Chavez who openly said, it doesn't matter if we are naked. It doesn't matter. If what if we don't have food? If we're hungry, we are for, this is about saving. The revolution is the worst thing in the world. Reach. Don't go to a rich people, don't go to heaven. So someone like that was so popular in Venezuela. And for me to understand, eh, but you know, and now you can see results. So yes, right now we cannot take the, the, the decision to take him out or Madura because Chavez is dead. Um, but it's because it's too late, that Venezuelans wanted socialism. They wanted collectivism and they got that. Now you can see our results. It is too late to change the situation. But yeah, I mean, they, they voted for it. They supported that. They, they didn't care the idea of, well, we're going to be hungry, but yes, this is about saving the revolution. And you're not trying to punish the rich people that, you know, they are so bad and now you can see your assaults. It is sad, but I mean, that's what you get, right. When you do that kind of decisions. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:46:46 I'm glad you're here Franklin and not incorrectness. Oh yes. I'm glad too. But those of you, for those of you injured in this topic of, I might, I might close with a couple of suggestions, uh, uh, on the web. If you just look for my name and then put in the essay, why socialism worked in Venezuela and then the other one's called spring time or spring break and Caracas or something like that. Now the first one I specifically titled provocatively. Cause it sounds odd. Like why would I say socialism worked in Venezuela? Mostly because if you listen to American conservatives, when they critique socialism, they'll say socialism just doesn't work. Why do people still want socialism? It doesn't work. Okay. Now think of what they're saying. Any think socialists want, or they assume socialists want Liberty prosperity security. And they just don't ever get it. Speaker 1 01:47:51 Of course they don't get it. They deliver poverty, misery mass murder. They usually militaristic. But the conservatives by saying it doesn't work, they're basically complimenting the socialists. They're basically saying the socialists want the same thing we do, but they're just stupid. They need to learn economics or they need to learn this and that. At some point you have to say, they want the destruction. There have been 50 quote unquote, experiments of socialism by now. So people have to know this history and it's no longer an excuse to say, we didn't know what would happen once we nationalized everything. We didn't know what would happen after we voted for Madero. We didn't know what, what happened after we voted for Chavez. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's such a level of naive. Hey, at some point you have to say these people just want to see the world burn their nail lists. Speaker 1 01:48:50 They're they're not interested in the same things a capitalist is. And so, and so it works in the sense of it totally destroys things, but that's their aim. That's their goal. And it works beautifully. It works perfectly. If you really want to destroy a country and dismantle its economy and make it stop producing any oil. And if you want to starve people out, and if you want to see them starting to eat their pets in the street, you need to get socialism because it works really well, uh, destroying things. But the conservatives won't say that they keep assuming that the socialists want, uh, all of these great American values like prosperity, Liberty and freedom and security. It's just not true. It hasn't been true for decades. It's about time. We got realistic about this. Speaker 0 01:49:40 All right. Well, we have reached 9 53, so we're almost 30 minutes over our time. Speaker 1 01:49:47 I don't mind going over. I don't want you going over. I hope, Speaker 0 01:49:50 I hope you guys enjoyed you happy. Yeah, we had a, I had a really great time. I hope you guys had a good time. I know there was, I think one more question, but maybe we can, we'll we'll join in on more topics, more morals and markets. So, um, you know, it's almost 10:00 PM on the east coast for Dr. Salzman is so we, um, we will continue these conversations every fourth, Thursday of the month. And this month we're on December 30th. I'm going to post the link in here. We don't have a topic. I don't know if you have a topic idea just yet, but I'll post a link. Okay.