What are they thinking?
Our culture. The media. Democrat politicians and mouthpieces... They'd have you believe conservatives are white supremacist, racist, bigoted, homophobic, sexist, and inhuman. On purpose.
But conservatives walk among you. You're probably friends with one. Who are they? What do they think? And why do they think it?
What are they thinking?
#19: The definitive, long-awaited dissection of the Trump, MAGA, and conservative phenomenon
People have been trying to understand the Trump dynamic for some time, and I still don't think anyone has gotten it completely right. So here you go. This is THE definitive explanation of the Trump phenomenon.
Much longer than usual - or intended - but necessarily so to be complete and thorough in presentation. Hopefully, it will help unify everyone around the goal of doing our best for each other and this country.
Be kind. Have grace. Give the benefit of the doubt. Seek common ground. Don't be afraid to ask questions. And never make assumptions about what people are thinking... or why.
Be kind. Have grace. Give the benefit of the doubt. Seek common ground. Don't be afraid to ask questions. And never make assumptions about what people are thinking... or why.
I've been waiting for someone to accurately explain the Trump phenomena in its entirety. For what is it? Eight years now, and I think Rush Limbaugh has probably come closest. No surprise there. Todd Herman has done a pretty good job of it as well. He's gotten aspects of it, but nobody has really completely explored and covered it from angles that everybody can at least understand where we are, why we're having the conversations we're having and where everybody stands.
Speaker 1:This podcast was created largely because so much of my frustration or what led to me even starting this and starting writing blog content was because I've just never. I have so many thoughts on these things and so many perceptions that I just never see or hear anywhere else. Now I know that sounds arrogant, but I'm also telling you that doesn't mean I'm right. It just means I've got a perspective that no one else seems to be considering or thinking about or entertaining, and one of the great things about free speech is when you share ideas, especially unique or interesting ones, that you don't hear anyone else. That gives everybody a chance to stop and consider and expand on what they know and maybe look at things through a different lens. So finally, after eight years of waiting for someone to get this whole Trump thing right. I am going to take my shot at it and see if I can explain exactly where we are with Trump, the Trump phenomena, from all the angles, to help everybody understand exactly where we are, how we got there and maybe even what happens next. Welcome to. What Are they Thinking?
Speaker 1:This is a look at conservatives and conservatism in America. As you know our culture, the media, left, politicians would all have you believe that conservatives are white supremacists, racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists and all sorts of other inhuman and terrible things. And now a lot of MAGA Make America Great Again. Trump supporters would have you believe conservatives are all rhinos. Conservatives are just getting it from all over the place, and that's on purpose. But conservatives walk among you. You may be one yourself, you may be friends with one, you don't even know it, but who are these people? Who are conservatives and what do they think and why do they think it? This is John Frisch and I'm a conservative, and in this episode we'll be looking at the Trump phenomena through a conservative lens, the Trump phenomena through a conservative lens, and hopefully we can all walk away conservatives, maga, desantis, supporters all hand in hand and unified in trying to make this country great again. My goal with this podcast is to keep it pretty short, manageable chunks. You can walk to the grocery store maybe in back back and get a good listen in, get a good episode or two in this one. I think might be necessarily a little bit longer and I'll try to keep it as short as possible. The Trump phenomenon is a dynamic one and I think that's where we all fail to explain it properly, because everybody's trying to do it in a meme. Definitely mega supporters try and do as much as they can in memes and even then, when I say mega supporters, not all mega supporters, there are many different kinds and we'll explore this as well. But to start this, we're going to go back very quickly to 1988, I believe is the year we're going to go back very quickly to 1988. I believe is the year.
Speaker 1:Two significant events for me, one of them personal, one of them, I think, culturally and societally. In 1986 I started paying attention to politics and it happened because I was sitting at the lunch table. I think I've mentioned this before on here. Sitting at the lunch table, I think I've mentioned this before on here Sitting at the lunch table, I would eat with my friends Brian and Robert, both very left, and they would be talking a lot about Reagan and Oliver North and the scandals and how Republicans all hate clean water and hate children and hate all good things and Christmas and etc. Etc. And I would always listen to this but never really know what the other side is. I just figured there has to be another side because my dad was a Republican and I looked at my dad and I said, well, my dad's a really really good guy, very nice, very giving coaches, youth sports, always there for his family, an amazing man. And how could he be a Republican and support so much evil? So I started asking him about this and instead of just telling me what to think, he just told me start reading the back four pages of the Wall Street Journal and see what you think. And so I did that and I was starting to read and I was starting to see the other side of what Robert and Brian were saying. So I started to actually engage in the conversation and say, well, what about this, what about that? And you know this went on for a couple of years and then 1988, I went to college and that's when I was really out on my own and at this point I had been reading a lot more and starting to really be able to develop my own thoughts and opinions on this and understand the dynamics of politics. I also engaged, then, started my political science degree and started understanding the Constitution and how that works and just how the inner workings of government, especially the congressional side, and I really started to understand the dynamics.
Speaker 1:At the same time and this is more societally I believe it was 1988, possibly 89, the Simpsons came out. Now why is that important? Because I think the Simpsons, culturally, they weren't probably technically the first, but they were massive cultural phenomena. It is still running to this day. I think it's the longest running television show ever, aside from, you know, news broadcasts and whatnot.
Speaker 1:But it was the first show that really started celebrating simplicity and stupidity. Homer Simpson was obviously an idiot character and you know the kids were all smarter than he was and the kids were bratty and poorly behaved. It was kind of turned culture on its head and it really started making it funny to be stupid and acceptable to be shifty, and I think that's it was just another big step in a long series of big steps culturally of how we got away from faith and ethics and morals and consequences and trying to do the right thing and how to serve others. And we started getting into more simplicity as well. People were. You know, we've always been headline-driven to some extent. But you know, a while ago it was more common to read a full newspaper article, to sit and actually read an article from the front page to the jump on the eighth page. There was no internet at the time so you were getting your news through watching a news broadcast, but most people were getting their news through reading a newspaper. So you were reading and digesting and contemplating and considering and there were editorial pages.
Speaker 1:Fast forward quite a bit and maybe not. Actually, let's fast forward four years. At this time, in 92, bill Clinton becomes president. He runs for president and it becomes clear and this is a lot of people said about it as he ran against George HW Bush who you know probably had his own secrets and you know had his own, probably compromised positions here and there. But I think everybody thought and believed that George Bush was a good guy, was a classy man, upstanding individual, motivated by the right things, still believed in decorum, just like his son, and still believed in manners, being courteous, polite, and then comes along Bill Clinton, who was obviously littered and known for his scandals and his womanizing. And it was there that the idea that character doesn't matter anymore when we're electing a president was born. Now again, it wasn't just automatic zero to 60. There were obviously shifty people in government all along, all throughout history. It's back to the Bible. But I think culturally it was the first time in America that we had really kind of actively made the decision that character doesn't matter. What these people do in their private lives is irrelevant to how they might govern. And of course we all know how that went and ended. And even though he was impeached, he still he wasn't convicted and he still went on to finish his presidency. And so there was the first, one of the first significant public examples, especially for younger generation growing up, that showed that there are no consequences for your actions. So let's go forward a lot since then.
Speaker 1:While all this is happening, donald Trump becomes a phenomenon in the 80s and he is through the 90s as a builder. Now Trump obviously. This is indisputable. I mean, he inherited a lot of money and so a lot of Democrats will tell you that because he inherited a bunch of money. That makes him foolish and, you know, stupid and whatever else you want to call him, and that he didn't earn any of the money he has. Nobody even really knows or understands exactly how much money he has and, quite quite honestly, I don't think it's our business. But they will all tell you that, because he inherited it, it's none of it's real. None of it is anything he did, and then they'll show you all of his scandals or failed businesses, his, his filing for bankruptcies, his trump stakes, his University things that he's been sued over, and they'll tell you that that means that he doesn't have any, you know, any abilities, anything worthwhile to offer.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not sure that's the case, but he became famous and one of the things he did in his spare time is he would appear in shows like you know, phil Donahue, oprah, anywhere. He would weigh in on government from time to time and he said a lot of things that was probably correct at the time, some of which he's saying now, and you can see these clips, some of them cherry-picked, some of them are completely in context, where he points out things about the US that are happening even now, things about China, things about our debt, things about even our morality in government. But one of the things you have to understand about Trump and he somewhat alluded to this, if not said it, in one of his debates with Hillary is that Trump understood the system and played the system as it is played, and a lot of people think that makes him a terrible person. But sure he filed for bankruptcy, not because he was bankrupt but because legally he could, and it was the best way to get out of various business situations in which he found himself. And there's nothing wrong with filing for bankruptcy. I know people who filed for bankruptcy. You see businesses do it and oftentimes bankruptcy because it's called bankruptcy makes people think that they failed, they're out of money, they didn't make it. But bankruptcy is a tool and sometimes you use it to avoid various consequences or harsher penalties. Sometimes you are equipped to file bankruptcy for a business, but you still have other means and funds, whether they're hidden away or whether they're out there in the open, that will allow you to get by and make it through it.
Speaker 1:Likewise, people can point out that Trump donated money to Democrats and Republicans alike Many times in the same year. Many times. Two people running against each other. He supported both. Now why would he do that? Because he knew then as well as he knows now that you can buy off politicians and the more money you give to them, the more favors they're going to owe you, or the more they're at least going to listen to you If you need their help or you need them to propose a bill or vote a certain way. Trump knows this because he was doing it, and it's just like filing his taxes, and when people like to point out how little he has filed in taxes, trump hired the best people he could, I'm sure, who understood the system and knew how to creatively work around it.
Speaker 1:Why wouldn't he? All systems exist to get broken and worked around. When you put a rule in place, a regulation, a system, people are creative. They're always going to find a way around it. They're always going to find a way to beat it. Trump's no different. Does that make him a horrible person or does that make him really smart? We can decide that all day, we can debate it all day, but the fact is he's hardly the only one doing it, and a lot of people would argue why wouldn't he? So we go through the Obama administrations. You have McCain Before McCain. You had Bush, before Bush you had Dole, before Dole you had HW Bush and then you get to Romney. So what do all these people have in common? Well, this is another important thing to go back a little bit to understand.
Speaker 1:Conservatism has been around a long time. A lot of people credit William F Buckley with maybe being the father of conservatism, but as a philosophy it's been around even before him. He was just very articulate on it and started a magazine National Review on it and conservatism really took hold and got a voice from one of the students of William F Buckley, rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh had a radio show. We all obviously know that that reached 20 to 30 million, depending on how they measured it. I first heard Rush Limbaugh had a radio show. We all obviously know that that reached 20 to 30 million, depending on how they measured it.
Speaker 1:I first heard Rush Limbaugh in 1990, which was a year after he started. I was working for a construction company and I was getting all the crap jobs because I was in college and they used to make fun of me for being a college boy and that's probably a different podcast we'll talk about. Make fun of me for being a college boy, and that's probably a different podcast we'll talk about. But Rush Limbaugh understood conservatism better and articulated it better than anybody I had ever heard. It was an instant success for a lot of people and I gravitated toward him because I always thought and he would say this a lot I always thought I was the only people who thought about things the way I was thinking about it and who would talk about conservatism with friends the way I was and understood it the way I did. Until Rush Limbaugh came out and showed that he got it too, although that's probably arrogant of me to say that maybe I got it also, but we had very similar approaches and thinking on things, and we weren't the only ones. I'm sure most of his listeners really appreciated what he brought to the table and the way he spoke of the philosophy. So conservatism had been around a long time and it was.
Speaker 1:But what ended up happening is you got to bush and then mccain and then romney especially. You started to see that there was a disconnect between conservatives and Republicans and it became very clear in the 2000s if not even with Dole before him that in 96, that conservatives aren't Republicans and Republicans aren't conservatives. But because everybody thinks Republicans represent conservatives, it's easy once you demonize Republicans. As I say in my opening of this podcast, every time Democrats talk about conservatives or Republicans usually Republicans they say this are white supremacists, racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists. They say that about Republicans and everybody assumes that means conservatives as well. But any conservatives will tell you that they can't stand the Republican Party, often more than Democrats can't stand them. Conservatives will tell you it is worse to be a Republican who lies to their constituents and then behaves like a Democrat than to just be a Democrat. Democrats are just doing what they do, but Republicans are betraying the base constantly.
Speaker 1:After 9-11, bush's approval ratings went up to 90%, but by the end of his term he was hovering in the 30%. What people didn't realize is, sure, democrats didn't like him they never did but 70% of the country is not Democrats. To get to 30%, you need to be angering conservatives, and people never really understood or gave credit to the fact that conservatives were the ones who couldn't stand Bush the most because he wasn't conservative. He wasn't behaving as a conservative, he was behaving like a Democrat. And conservatives get very frustrated with Republicans because they're behaving like Democrats. And this is where you could really start seeing the reality of the Republican Party and the continuing evolution and shift of the Republican Party to joining with Democrats to become a uniparty. And the unifying aspect of the two parties was grift, corruption, greed, lying and sticking it to the American people and doing things at the expense of the American people, together for years and you'd think it'd be like winners and losers. Like Republicans won the election, so it's going to be like this, but Republicans would win election and start behaving like Democrats Not as much. They would basically manage to decline, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, versus cause the decline, but it was somewhat two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1:So, true, conservatives became rarer and rarer in politics, and in Congress especially, and conservatives would back them whenever they saw them and had the chance. Conservatives knew Mitt Romney wasn't the guy. As soon as he said he was severely conservative, conservatives knew exactly what that meant that he's not at all a conservative, that he's soft, he's afraid he's weak, just like McCain, who was continually capitulating, compromising and selling out. Conservatives have been watching this with great frustration for decades and a lot of them checked out. A lot of them were disenchanted, disenfranchised and gave up on it and just decided they're fed up, they're not going to bother with. They're not going to give any more money, they're not going to support, they're not even going to come out and vote. They're just going to live their lives and do their thing and keep their head down and just stop worrying about it and just try and be as happy as possible Now, before we get to 2016,.
Speaker 1:Two other aspects of this we need to discuss. One of them is, as I've said many times and I've been saying since around 1992, save for Rush Limbaugh, conservatives, republicans, especially we'll just say Republicans have remarkably had the worst marketing department in the history of marketing, while having the best product in the history of products, and that product is freedom. But they've never been able to articulate it, they've never been able to explain it, they've never been able to sell it and they've never even. Oftentimes they don't try, and this is how Democrats have been able to successfully brand Republicans as white supremacists, racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists and just evil, nasty people who just say the most ridiculous things. I just saw a tweet just recently that said you know that about this most recent and this is being recorded in December this is most recent continuing resolution deal. One of the Democrats said Republicans would rather give a tax cut to their billionaire donors and they would rather not fund research. And this is what Democrats one of the great marketing tactics Democrats have had forever they're mind readers.
Speaker 1:They will always tell you what Republicans are really readers. They will always tell you what Republicans are really thinking. They will always tell you what Republicans' real motivation is. Republicans hate children. Republicans hate the earth. They hate clean water, even though we all drink the same water. They hate clean air, even though we all drink, you know, breathe the same air. It never made sense, but they'll always be happy to tell you what Republicans real motivations are. And how do they know? Because they're mind readers.
Speaker 1:No Republican has actually said this, because Republicans are keeping it secret, because they don't want anyone to know how much they hate everybody. And they hate women, even though half the Republican base is women. But somehow, if you think about it, it doesn't make any sense. But who's thinking these days? And so America hears this and plenty of them eat it up and start saying well, I don't hate black people, I don't hate gay people, I don't hate women. So I must be a Democrat, even though they live their lives entirely like a conservative, which kind of gets again to the point of this entire podcast, because I think so many more people are conservative than realize. So Republicans have always failed in marketing and always failed to stand up for their own cause. They've often failed to even understand their own cause and it makes you wonder are Republicans even understand conservatism? Are they even representing it at all? Do they even care? So the next part about this that goes hand in hand with it is understanding conservatives.
Speaker 1:Conservatives are a natural disadvantage in marketing from Democrats, because they just want to live their lives. They don't want to lord over others, they don't want to control everybody or anything, they just want to be left alone. They just want everybody to get out of their way. Just let me do my thing, you do your thing and we're all cool. This is why you know what race activists, gay activists, trans activists all the activists never understood about conservatives, like Pride Month. No, conservatives aren't oppressing you. Conservatives just never cared that you were out there. Do your thing, great, just you know. Swing your arms all you want, just don't hit me in the nose. And so you have like like gay activists, with the pride it is in your face. You have to. You know, you have to believe what we believe. We have to say what we say, and conservatives don't hate them. They just don't care. We just don't need to see or know you do your thing. I'm not out here thinking about you. I'm not judging you, I'm not trying to prevent you from doing anything. I just don't need to have you in my face all the time.
Speaker 1:And so conservatives are at a natural disadvantage with marketing, because they aren't trying to market, they aren't trying to sell anybody on ideas, they're not trying to push their agenda, they're not trying to make anyone do anything. For the most part, the only possible exception to this is Christians, who, biblically, are called to disciple. Now, christians don't do as great a job at it as Mormons, who are literally going door to door around the world trying to bring you into the Mormon faith, but Christians are called to disciple. And so, yes, you will have a faction of the conservative movement that is fairly vocal on issues of morality and ethics, but even there that is fairly vocal on issues of morality and ethics, but even there they're not. Okay, there are rare instances, but they're, for the most part, not trying to legislate them, not trying to watch you in your bedroom, not trying to, you know, watch what goes on in your home. They're more trying to prevent others from making that the case, and so that's one of the.
Speaker 1:Besides having a horrible marketing department, conservatives just aren't motivated to be activists and stand out in protests. They'd rather just go to work. So this is the landscape You've got. You're coming off eight years of Obama. You've got conservatives who, at this point, don't believe in the Republican Party. They're starting there's rumblings about a third party or should we vote with the libertarians? And then they just kind of shrug their shoulders and say, well, the Republican Party is best I got. Maybe we can put pressure on the Republican Party, maybe we can win it or take it over and make it more conservative. But what they don't realize is the Republican Party is so entrenched in grift and payouts from lobbyists and corruption and insider trading and they're doing it right there with Democrats that they're all behaving together at the expense of the American people. And conservatives know this. They've known it all along. That's what the tea party was all about back in 2009, 2010, and this all predates trump.
Speaker 1:But here's the other thing about conservatives just as a personality trait is, conservatives are generally courteous and polite, well-mannered, because that's how they were brought up, they have morals, they have ethics, they have standards and they treat people as fairly as they can. Obviously, we're all broken. We all have examples where we didn't do that, but conservatives generally probably will reflect and tell you well, they should have, but we failed. And so you've also got a culture where conservatives are still under the belief, the notion, the nostalgic view, that character does matter, and it's what you do when no one's looking, and so they have a hard time. Besides not really wanting to be activists, they have a hard time just basically punching people in the face with the truth and saying what needs to be said, and Rush Limbaugh was best at it and it's why conservatives gravitated toward him.
Speaker 1:Rush Limbaugh's show was not listened to by Republicans, it was listened to by conservatives. Rush Limbaugh talked about the Republican Party a lot, but he knew what the Republican Party was. He knew about their failures to represent or articulate the faith he knew, because he was best at it, and he knew that there weren't many other people who can do it as well as he could. In fact, there was nobody who could do it as well as he could, which is why Rush Limbaugh knew in 2015, when Donald Trump came down the golden escalator and started talking about immigration and building a wall that he was going to be the nominee. Now I would say most conservatives, including me, did not know that or believe it or even want it to be true, but it was. There was no way to know that at the time. So we want it to be true, but it was. There was no way to know that at the time. So we still have to go forward.
Speaker 1:Actually, one other thing worth mentioning the other thing I think Rush Limbaugh knew, or at least was considering that a lot of people hadn't is that Obama had a lot of effects on culture. For sure, but one of the effects he had on politics, especially presidential politics, is integrating the president into common culture. Played saxophone on Arsenio Hall's show, things like that. Presidents traditionally had their moments where they maybe bowed down and became acknowledged or became part of a cultural phenomenon, just as a way to identify with the people. But Obama made it an art. Obama started appearing regularly on the nightly shows the Jimmy Fallons, the Jimmy Kimmel's. Obama started sharing his NCAA bracket picks with us. Obama installed himself in the culture in a way no president had, and conservatives in particular. I'm sure this rubbed a lot the wrong way, because conservatives in particular still valued the decorum and the almost aloofness of the presidency. They valued the president as someone who.
Speaker 1:You didn't really want to see the president a lot, you didn't really want to hear from the president a whole lot, and if the president had something to say, there would be a be a you know, an address to the nation. That would happen. I don't know this at all, but it's what seemed like, especially childhood growing up, what seemed like maybe three to five times a year the president would find something worth addressing the nation about. It was probably more than that, but it seemed that way. But the president was stately, the president was above it all. The president was kind of quietly watching over the country, the nation. You, however, you want to look at it from the background. And clinton obviously, through his escapades in the news cycles and the way news cap covered things, became more prominent. And then george w bush. You know there's always been the news, the nightly news, and there's and saturday night live, things like that. They've always made fun of the president. So the president's always been part of the conversation, for sure, and target of jokes and comments and whatnot. But obama just took it that next step and really made the president part of your nightly, day-to-day culture, and he did a also understood that Trump was part of the culture already, obviously with the Apprentice, but with his long-standing, ongoing appearances on news shows, talk shows his ability to get press.
Speaker 1:I think Trump saw something that a lot of conservatives didn't. So who were the conservatives backing? The conservatives were backing Ted Cruz because they figured Ted Cruz seems most willing to articulate conservatism in the way conservatives have been waiting to hear for a long time. They figured Ted Cruz might just be willing to buck the system and fight against what had become Washington establishment ways of doing things. Now, there was always an element of doubt, because some of the best voices of conservatism still just give you doubt. Well, are you really on the up and up or have you just mastered how to say it better than others? So there was still an element of doubt, as if we voted for ted cruz and he became president, would he actually do it or would he just talk the talk? And then his actions would be either moderate or left-leaning, the way so many republic before him. And this was exactly the opportunity needed for Trump to come in and win the nomination. I think most people at the time would have told you that Cruz was going to win the nomination. He was going to beat Hillary Clinton and he was going to be an amazing president. We will never know we don an amazing president. We will never know. We don't know and we will never know if Cruz was truly going to be transformative, if he was truly going to buck the system, prove he was not corrupt and actually make hard decisions for America, the American people, and to fight Democrats in the way Republicans really never did and still haven't.
Speaker 1:I remember in the first debate going in, I was so excited to listen to Cruz. Cruz was a thinking man's conservative conservative, I should say a thinking conservative's conservative, I should say a thinking conservative's conservative. Cruz articulated the tenets, the philosophies at such at a high level and at the minutia detail, better than anybody we had heard in a long time. It was exciting for conservatives. It was like I can't even tell you it was like a renaissance for conservatives. We were very excited about Cruz and then he got into the debate and the debate.
Speaker 1:I remember being so excited to watch the debate against not just against Trump, but against the field and to watch Cruz eat everybody up. And I was watching the debate and I was thinking here goes. And then I watched the debate and they asked Cruz about health care and he gave exactly the kind of answers conservatives would have given about health care, all the limitations of it, removing a lot of the restrictions, letting health care go across state lines, like all the things a conservative would say we don't need to get into that right now and made his argument. And then I remember when it got to Trump and obviously I'm paraphrasing here when I say Trump's answer was essentially well, Cruz has got poopy pants and any conservative watching was like wow, like he is not ready for this. He is just like some guy off the street. He clearly doesn't understand the system, he doesn't understand the constitution, he doesn't understand the rules, the regulations, the laws and he's you know, he's obviously got no decorum. And conservatives would have told you yeah, trump's not going to win the primary at all. He lost the debate.
Speaker 1:And then this was a big wake-up call for a lot of people. And I don't even think it was a wake-up call, I think it was disbelief. I think it took a second and third debate before it was a wake-up call, but Trump's approach of just calling people names, making funny little quips and, quite honestly, sounding like kind of an idiot to a lot of conservatives turned out that was amazing. No politician had ever spoken like that. And it spoke to all the disenchanted and disenfranchised people people who knew themselves to be conservative, people who had been following, but a lot of people who just gave up on politics and weren't following anything, because he knew they were all corrupt, because we knew they were all lying. People that knew that none of these people can be trusted. None of these people are working in the best interests of Americans. People who understood that we should be doing single-issue bills and people who understood that omnibus bills were inherently corrupt. People who understood that the laws they made in Congress didn't apply to Congress because of rules they had set up. People who knew this and understood it from the beginning. Trump blew past all that and started speaking to the people who weren't following, who didn't know all that, who just had this desire for politicians to finally get their comeuppance, to finally get that metaphorical punch in the face with our dissatisfaction, with our anger. And when he spoke of immigration and talked about a wall and talked about illegal immigrants who are running drugs and killing people, which obviously some illegal immigrants were and are still. No politician up to that point was talking about that that way, and he changed that Now if you listen to Todd Herman's podcast and Todd Herman was a radio voice in Seattle for a long time, but he also spent a couple years working at the Republican National Committee and talks about it fairly often, and we'll tell you that, as much as they talked about it behind closed doors, the Republicans never wanted to talk about immigration this way, and that's because the Republicans were also profiting from it.
Speaker 1:They also saw the benefits to themselves and they didn't want to put themselves on the radar. I mean on record that way. And, incidentally, if you're not listening to the Todd Herman podcast, I recommend it strongly. He is excellent and thought provoking and brings up a lot of things and deep dives on a lot of subjects and topics, just the way Rush did, and in fact he subbed in for Rush Limbaugh, I think, more than any other of the subs in Rush's last years. Definitely worth a listen, anyway. And so I think in many ways Rush Limbaugh knew that his audience was also Trump's audience and that Trump was going to appeal to them in the same way that Rush did, because he talked about these things the way you're not supposed to talk about them, and he did it with irreverence and he did it with humility, with humor. He was great at it. Obviously we know that about Rush.
Speaker 1:Now I don't think Trump is as good, anywhere near as good as Rush Limbaugh as talking about conservatism, the issues, the solutions, the nuances, the technicalities of it. But, like Rush, trump is a great storyteller and so that's where I missed it when I watched him debate people like Ted Cruz. Cruz was a wonk, a policy wonk, as they say. Cruz is deep in the studies. He's, you know, he's textbook smart. He's the 4.0 kid who didn't have the street smarts or didn't have the street savvy. Trump's the street savvy who doesn't have probably even a 1.5 grade point average in politics, in the Constitution, in government, in how all this stuff works, but he's absolutely got a 4.0 in street smart and talking to people and relating to people and the challenges they face and the indignation they have when they watch politicians walking away from a $150,000 a year job with multi-million dollars worth of net worth over time and coming to the same conclusion that we all come to, that it's corruption, that they're getting funded, they're getting paid, they're getting either money laundered to them or they're getting payouts or gifts. Whatever however it comes, and people can only take it for so long, and I think rush also saw, as I think trump saw, that we're at this inflection point where we're not going to take it anymore. So Trump ran, became the Republican nominee, continued to say terrible, awful things about people, including Cruz, and this is where I think conservatives started. This is probably where the Never Trumper, the Never Trump movement came from.
Speaker 1:A couple places. I think there were at least two types generalizations for sure, two types of conservative that wanted nothing to do with them. One, the people who just didn't want to see the further de-evolution of our culture into Simpsons land and this is why I go back to Simpsons Because Trump has no decorum. Clearly he has very little manners. He doesn't care what he says about anybody or how he says it. When you're this frustrated and this pent up and this angered and this pissed off about all of the money and time that politicians have stolen from us because they just take our tax money and raise it whenever they want, it's a great again to quote Todd Herman, it's a great business model. You just decide how much money you want whenever you want, and you take it from us. And yes, we have very justified, if not righteous, anger over that and maybe being polite hasn't worked and we're done with that. But there are still people who want to see us live by a moral and ethical standard, with courtesy and respect for others, by biblical standards.
Speaker 1:Trump is not those things, but he's also in many ways effective because he's not those things, and so you have to acknowledge that, and so some people didn't want him for that. But in many ways, trump is the first Republican character doesn't matter cultural icon Clinton, obama candidate that the Republican Party's ever had. Republican Party people and the conservatives, who couldn't stand that about Clinton and about Obama, were suddenly faced with having their own version on their side of those very things. They couldn't stand, and I think a lot of conservatives had a very hard time navigating it and they stood by Cruz and they voted for Cruz to the end, for Cruz to the end. I mean Cruz took that a long way. People may not remember, but Cruz lasted a long time until he finally just realized that he couldn't mathematically do it, and so Trump became the nominee and some people didn't trust.
Speaker 1:Also this is another component to it a lot of people didn't trust that Trump was even conservative. He illustrated over the course of the campaign that he didn't understand conservatism. He couldn't articulate it, he didn't really know what it was he was, because conservatism is such a natural element. People are born conservative until they're educated into being liberal, where they have to learn about transgenderism, they have to learn about racism and fairness and all these things and all the terrible things that the United States supposedly had done in its history that make a lot of people turn liberal. But people are also confronted with this constant hammering of conservatives again being white supremacists, homophobes, sexists, etc. And people just weren't sure where Trump was on that because he had backed so many people and he wasn't really able to articulate or even defend conservatism against those kinds of attacks or even defend conservatism against those kinds of attacks. He didn't even seem interested in it. But he did want to make America great again and I believe, and I think a lot of conservatives believe, that Trump has America's best interests at heart, even if he doesn't know how to accomplish that.
Speaker 1:I don't think a lot of people question his patriotism. The only questioning of his patriotism that I'm aware of by conservatives is whether Trump is in it for the country or if he's in it for himself. And I don't think there's any question. I think a lot of people who are Trump supporters understand he's in it for himself, not in it for his own. You know, growing his wealth, his base, but for his own ego.
Speaker 1:Is Trump a narcissist? I think there's plenty of argument to suggest he is. We can't know that for sure, but, as you know, we most of us don't know him personally, but so it would seem. But then you always hear this undercurrent of stories about all the great things he's done to help others and you can see that when he's out in public talking to people, he truly connects. I have no doubt I don't think people can fake that I have no doubt that he really likes and believes in people and is intrigued by people and wants to talk to them and learn from them and understand their perspective. I get that and then that way he connects in a way most conservatives, including Ted Cruz, never could.
Speaker 1:So we have the Trump years. Then Trump gets elected. He beats Hillary who could have seen that coming? Democrats, of course, blast Trump with everything they've got, as they do with every Republican. People forget. But conservatives remember. But people forget that Romney was driving around with his car on the hood of the car and he had a file of women and all the scandals for McCain and Bush being a drunk driver and Bush being his own version of womanizing and right on down the line. And every single Republican candidate since I've been alive has been Hitler. That's an old one that just comes up every time. You can just take it for granted that they're Hitler, they're racist, they hate children, they hate the economy. So no surprise that that was going to come at Trump.
Speaker 1:The only difference is that Trump was using the tactics of the left. He was being aggressive, he was name-calling. Conservatives never did that. Conservatives were always polite, were always nice, were always on the defensive. Trump went on offense and Trump was calling names and Trump was calling people out.
Speaker 1:And so you saw the attacks on conservatives that you normally see these are not new intensify in ways you'd never seen them before, and you saw the Republican Party stand by and let them happen, which, for a lot of people, confirmed that they were in on it all along. They were part of the corruption. They were part of the Uniparty and they also didn't like Trump because they knew Trump was possibly going to cut off their place in line at the trough. They knew that they were all possibly exposed and so something had to be done. So you saw Paul Ryan undercut Trump. You saw McConnell undercut Trump. You saw a lot of what would be his allies, as he had the Senate and the House undercut him, and so Trump was in it alone, but he also, in some ways, had his own self to blame. So Trump did what he could. He started the wall, but several things, especially immigration, and a lot of conservatives felt like the economy was doing very well up into going into 2020.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of conservatives believe like and you heard this a lot conservatives saying, well, I don't really like Trump as a person. It's kind of a reprobate. Saying, well, I don't really like Trump as a person. He's kind of a reprobate, he doesn't seem like, but he's doing a good thing for the country, so we're going to let it go.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, maga Nation. Maga became a thing, had its own acronym, obviously Make American Great Again. Maga started becoming its own personality and its own kind of voting block People who identified as MAGA. The thing about MAGA is MAGA consists of a lot of people. Maga consists of conservatives who've been saying and doing this all along and waiting for someone to come along and fight for it, say it out loud, articulate it especially, talk about the media the way Trump does. No one in the Republican Party historically had ever, ever been able to address the media the way Trump did and, let's face it, it was refreshing. On a visceral level, it was very refreshing and satisfying.
Speaker 1:Just like you know, when people go on now and they want to go on social media, they want to go on Twitter, they want to go on. Just like you know, when people go on now and they want to go on social media, they want to go on Twitter, they want to go on X. And you know you want to own the liberals. You want to get into conversations and just let them have it and prove they're wrong and for you get that personal satisfaction. Then you get off the keyboard. Great, but what did you really accomplish? It's kind of like that on a national level with Trump. He says these things and everybody loves to finally hear it said in public. It's just like why Rush Limbaugh had the base. He did because people just wanted to hear someone say it in public.
Speaker 1:And now that Rush is gone God rest his soul Trump is somewhat the de facto Trump. He, he's the de facto Limbaugh. He's nowhere near as good as Rush Limbaugh. He's nowhere near as principled. He doesn't understand conservatism, even to any degree that Rush Limbaugh understood it. He doesn't understand the Constitution. He doesn't understand the inner workings the way Limbaugh did. He doesn't understand the philosophy the way Limbaugh did. Trump is very, very, very much a very, very poor man's Rush Limbaugh did. He doesn't understand the philosophy of the way Limbaugh did. Trump is very, very, very much a very, very poor man's Rush Limbaugh, but he has that same appeal because he connects in a way and, just like Rush Limbaugh, you can't take Trump's base away from him.
Speaker 1:So where conservatives get frustrated is because MAGA comes along, and I think MAGA consists of a lot of people, as I said, who are disenfranchised, disenchanted and are now back because they're finally finally getting feeling they're getting represented by somebody. So they're back, but but they didn't seem to understand that conservatives had always been there and so, like Trump, a lot of the MAGA followers, a lot of not all of them are very quick to behave like thugs, get in your face, shout at you, speak in absolutes and act like jackasses basically not, not all of MAGA. So of course anyone MAGA listening to this, right on cue with the stereotype, with the personality, would automatically tell me I'm stupid and I'm a jerk, just like Trump would do so. Not actually address any of the content, not actually address any of the content, not actually address any of the ideas. The thoughts just start making fun of you, belittling you, and you know.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing about Cruz. Cruz never came up with an answer to that. Cruz didn't know how to handle it. Nobody did. Because how do you handle it when you're debating something on a highly informed intellectual level, which I know? That word rubs a lot of people the wrong way because it implies you think you're better than someone else. But let's just call a spade a spade. I mean, cruz was debating on a very high level with someone who essentially said oh yeah, well, you're dumb.
Speaker 1:How do you address that? How do you even? It means you're talking to someone unserious who can't even, who can't even take on, who can't even address what you said, but then a lot of the base comes along and does the same thing. You can watch them on X all the time and you know who they are when you're talking to them, because they don't even address the content. They don't even acknowledge what you said or show that they understand in the slightest what it is you're talking about. They just said, well, yeah, well, you're stupid. And then LOL. And then here come the memes and the laughing face emojis and whatnot. Memes and the laughing face emojis and whatnot. It's unserious. So what do you do with that? There's nothing you can do with it.
Speaker 1:And when it becomes a massive mob, you start to think, wow, they're no better than the left, who are also trying to install tyranny and control everything and take away our freedoms and take away our rights. The problem is these people even think they're more on the right side than the left does. The other problem is to the degree they represent conservatism and are fighting for and articulating it. They are on the right side, and so, as conservatives, maga is our friends. We want MAGA, we want them to be in the tent, we want them to be on the train, but too often. Well, let's go back to the Trump record. So Trump's the economy is flowing along, everything's going great, and then COVID hits great. And then COVID hits. Now conservatives, who have been distrustful of the government for years and had been paying attention to how they do it, how they manipulate, how they position things, what they tell you, what they don't, how they work with the media and how the media works with them and parrots not only each other the media but what the government has to say. Only each other the media but what the government has to say.
Speaker 1:You could see the appearance of conspiracy easily. You could see where this was all going and I was writing about a lot of this early on and you could see I called a lot of this properly. It's simple as the lockdowns. I called a lot of this properly. It's simple as the lockdowns. It was so important that nobody died of COVID, which was killing 99, which was killing what? 0.04% of people, usually with comorbidities, obesity, already ill, older. It was more important that if we could say nobody died of that great, it doesn't matter if they died of alcoholism, isolation, loneliness, domestic abuse, depression, suicide, drug addiction, that's all fine, just so long as they don't die of COVID, it's a win.
Speaker 1:We could all see that Trump is known for being brash and strong, and sometimes a bully, hardheaded, stubborn, his own man. These should have been absolute boons for him in 2020. We were counting on that. This was his time to shine. This was the one time where Trump's personality, his I don't care what you say, get in your face punch in the face with the truth. This is where we really needed him to be.
Speaker 1:Donald J Trump, the guy that we all either loved or hated as conservatives, and sometimes even as MAGA, and he caved. He caved to Fauci, he caved to Birx and then he caved to Congress when he signed the CARES Act, which catapulted the inflation we've all experienced for the last four years. It all started there, when we just printed a ton of money and basically laundered it to the Democrats to defeat Trump in the 2020 election with what was a ton of election rigging, the Hunter Biden laptop election rigging, whatever. I mean. That's a whole different subject as well. A lot of people will say well, you know, the courts never showed that there was any. It's because the courts didn't take any of the cases, but they wanted to. Democrats are so good with their wording. They, you know it went to a court and the court rejected it, so therefore, it was tried in court and they proved there was never any rigging. No, the courts didn't hear the case. They threw them all out. But the states were all changing their rules. We suddenly were doing mail-in ballots, extended balloting, ballot harvesting was now allowed.
Speaker 1:Trump didn't show any indication that he saw any of that coming. But an experienced politician would have An experienced person in the Constitution and how Congress works and how all these corrupt people work, would have seen that coming. Trump gave way to all of it and Trump gave way to COVID. He bought into it. He got behind Operation Warp Speed and, yes, he did not ever back mandates. We get it. And we also know that he had limited powers as president. The states were going to do what they were going to do. We get that as well but he didn't use his pulpit, his megaphone, to the nation to say any of this.
Speaker 1:For the first time ever that I've ever seen, and a lot of people have ever seen, trump caved, he gave in, he went silent and then during that summer, all the George Floyd protests started up and it was another opportunity for Trump to show his strength. In fact, his lack of understanding of the Constitution, how it works, would have been an absolute win for the country if he had just gone along. And you know, someone as brash and stubborn as he is and unscared, could have used martial law and just gone into all these states and shut down all of it, all the looting, the rioting, especially when there was covid and we weren't supposed to be near each other until we all learned that scientific, we were following the science and realized that covid doesn't spread in a massive protest, it just spreads everywhere else. But trump disappeared and I think to a lot of conservatives we there was a combination of not surprising. He finally showed his true colors, to disappointed that we finally had a guy, a real conservative, who could have stood up to it, who backed out and then signed the act that led to all the inflation we're currently experiencing, which undercut himself and his whole economy. So then the election happens and we can all debate I think there's no question that could prove it forever that it was rigged, whether it was stolen or not, whether he would have won otherwise. Harder to prove.
Speaker 1:But then you go for the next four years and the Democrats do what the Democrats always do, which is overplay their hand. They still have a grip on the media and so people still are largely getting their news from the media. But then Elon Musk buys Twitter and suddenly Twitter is exposed and the government's involvement in media and stories starts getting exposed, and at first only to conservatives, because conservatives generally are more well-informed than the left. I think there's a lot of studies to prove that. But one of the reasons we know conservatives are more well-informed because conservatives watch both the mainstream news and then follow conservative outlets and their active participants in intake for that information, whereas leftists are generally in the general population are more passive intake. The more passive population still hear the nightly news as it's on during dinner or as they're doing chores, but they don't pursue news. So they're not even aware there is conservative news and what the other side of the story may be, and so that was a big part of it. But one of the phenomena that happens is MAGA is out there, relatively new to the party, and they start looking at conservatives true conservatives, who've been strong and with the movement from the beginning, and start identifying them as rhinos Republicans in name only or as not down with the cause because they're not kissing the ring of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1:The other aspect of some mega people that really, I think, turns a lot of conservatives off is their inability to show any critical thinking or acknowledgement of some of Trump's failures, because everybody has failures. We're broken people None of us gets it right all the time but they start treating him like a messiah, like an idol. Start treating him like a messiah, like an idol. I remember going to CPAC I think it was 2022, when Trump was going to speak there and seeing the golden Trump idol that you can find online. It was this golden statue of Trump with red, white and blue. You know, I believe it was a suit or an outfit of some sort, and it was in some ways, disgusting. It was basically the golden calf when Moses went up into the mountains and came back and everybody was partying and worshiping new gods. And when you can't criticize someone, it really calls into question who you are and whether you are following with discernment and critical thinking or whether you're part of a cult.
Speaker 1:Again, this is not all of MAGA, but this is what's happening between conservatives and MAGA right now, and sure I would consider myself MAGA in that. I would love to make America great again and I believe in a lot of what Trump is talking about. For sure I'm all in. I voted for him, I'll put it on record. But I am not a Trumpist, and so what happens during this time is MAGA, republicans, conservatives, trump supporters all become one and you start seeing a lot of things. I will tell you right now. You've already heard my podcast, hopefully, on dating apps. I am on them. I can tell you it's not uncommon to see women say specifically no Trumpists, trumpists, swipe left, no Trump supporters, no racist bigots, homophobes or Trumpists, no MAGA, no sexists. They lump them all together. It's just not that simple, because Trump is not the guy most conservatives would want and a lot of conservatives don't like how MAGA just behaves, with no decorum, no etiquette, no manners, and I get it because they're sick of being pushed around, and so you can understand why they're acting that way, absolutely. But so this kind of gets to where we are.
Speaker 1:2024 happens and there's a primary and everybody knows Trump's going to run. He declares early and conservatives who've been watching as conservatives do have been watching Ron DeSantis for years behave exactly like they want a conservative to behave. He's strong, he speaks strongly, he's not afraid, he takes on the press, he takes on the media, he takes on the left, he articulates the story better than anyone else. He defends it well, he makes sense. He defeats pretty much everybody he talks to. His state is an absolute success story. Everybody's moving there. They're becoming number one in all the rankings that matter an opportunity for DeSantis to become their nominee. And they know conservatives know that that's the person they want, because when they look at Trump's record, they know that DeSantis is a true, consistent and informed conservative, whereas Trump did a lot of conservative things that worked as conservative things do but he also did a lot of left things. Sometimes he supports abortion, sometimes not. Sometimes he's for banning the mutilation and, you know, with hormone therapy and whatnot, transgender. Other times, you know, after they're 18, they can do whatever they want, whereas a good conservative will tell you ban it completely Because it's doing irreparable damage to people. And so this is kind of where we are Now.
Speaker 1:Trump comes, trump runs against DeSantis, desantis runs. Conservatives absolutely back him. The other thing about conservatives is that it's not a popularity contest with conservatives. They're looking for someone who's truly conservative. Popularity contests with conservatives. They're looking for someone who's truly conservative, whether they're tall or short or whether they're head bobs, as Ron DeSantis unnervingly does.
Speaker 1:And I would be the first to say that I voted for DeSantis, or I would have. I guess it never got to me. In the primary I rooted for DeSantis. I would love to see DeSantis in there right now. But because DeSantis ran, it created a wedge that still exists between MAGA and conservatives. You now had MAGA people when DeSantis was running saying DeSantis is a rhino because Trump went after him. This is another point of contention for conservatives. Trump has endorsed McConnell, paul Ryan, speaker Mike Johnson, mitt Romney, lindsey Graham. The list goes on and on People that any conservative in the world for years would have been able to tell you was a rhino, and Trump endorsed them all.
Speaker 1:And then Trump goes on to try and destroy the single greatest conservative we have in politics right now. That's kind of the 11th Reagan's 11th commandment about you don't attack your own. For many it's unforgivable. The only problem is and then and Magid does this as if they kind of illustrating they don't really understand conservatism. They don't even know what conservatism is or who are the conservatives. They don't understand who their, who their best weapons are. So just they run desantis. They do their best to destroy desantis. He goes on for his last two years as governor of florida and just decide, and he does the right thing and he backs Trump and defends him in times when he's defendable.
Speaker 1:And MAGA goes on and suddenly kind of takes on a life of their own and they don't really understand or acknowledge conservatism. They don't understand conservatives and they don't understand why DeSantis supporters were supporting him and they consider DeSantis supporters and conservatives the enemy. And so you see more and more MAGA people now calling other longstanding, good standing conservatives rhinos. It's kind of like they don't even understand what rhino is, which is why I did the last episode of the contest of this podcast that I did, which I think Rhino is no longer Republican. When it says Republican in name only, I think it speaks more to conservatives these days, conservatives who are Republican in name only but are basically too conservative for MAGA.
Speaker 1:And again, this is not all MAGA, but with MAGA, listening there's a lot of people in MAGA that frustrate conservatives because it doesn't seem like listening is one of their best traits of MAGA, who behaves somewhat like a cult and can't acknowledge that Trump is worthy of any criticism at all and can't acknowledge that this criticism could make Trump better, but just says if you're criticizing Trump in any way. You're the enemy. You're a leftist, you're a communist, and so conservatives, to a lot of MAGA, have become now communists. You can add to the label of white supremacists racists, bigots. They're socialists because they're supposedly now against Trump, who seems to be absolutely personality-based. Trump doesn't seem to be principled. He doesn't seem to be grounded in a philosophy other than kiss his ring and be loyal to him, otherwise he'll destroy you, no matter who you are. And so trump wins the presidency. This is a good thing, because conservatives know there's no way in the universe they are going to let kamala harris win, because they understand how close we are, or were, to absolute totalitarianism, socialism. We're on the precipice.
Speaker 1:Ted Cruz laid out in one of his podcasts exactly why we may never, ever have a fair election or see a Republican elected ever again if Harris had won. So we united and we voted Trump in. We supported him. But you still see people making fun of those who supported DeSantis, with no understanding of why they might have or could have. So that brings us to the latest continuing resolution.
Speaker 1:Conservatives will tell you all along there shouldn't even be these CRs. Congress, so long ago, abdicated their one constitutional duty, which is to produce and debate and argue and pass an annual budget. They haven't done that in years. Conservatives know this, but a lot of MAGA people will show you that they don't. Now MAGA is still fighting on the side of conservatism. So conservatives should be loving MAGA and MAGA should be loving conservatives. We should be playing together. We should be loving MAGA and MAGA should be loving conservatives. We should be playing together. We should be able to discuss and have differences, but understand. We're all trying to accomplish the same thing Freedom, draining the swamp, getting rid of corruption, holding our reps accountable, holding our politicians accountable at all levels, politicians accountable at all levels and exposing all of the things that were done to Trump.
Speaker 1:Conservatives knew what was happening to Trump. They defended it and they should have been defending it because they knew it was a witch hunt and they knew it was illegal and any good conservative worth their salt understood that what was happening to Trump was a political witch hunt. We got it. We knew it because of our years of experience following these things, not just because Trump told us so saw it happening a mile away and it was unfair and we were defending Trump because it shouldn't happen to anybody. It wasn't about Trump. It was about, as Trump often says, says and he's right to say so they're just trying to get to us and he's the line of defense. There was a lot of truth to that, and the sense of fairness is trump didn't deserve any of that, and so we came to his aid.
Speaker 1:Now we get to this continuing resolution and you got people like chip roy, who traditionally won't vote for any spending, ever without cuts, without real spending cuts never has. Thomas massey, another person who understands exactly what's happening in congress and how it works. So, by my count, trump has endorsed mcconnell, who's absolutely proven to be corrupt, and against the American people. Paul Ryan, who stood in his way, lindsey Graham the other names that I mentioned earlier Speaker, mike Johnson he could go on and on but he has also attacked and done significant damage to Ron DeSantis, thomas Massey and now Chip Roy, who he specifically called out and said we are going to primary him, and so this is where we are heading into the upcoming inauguration of Trump.
Speaker 1:You've got conservatives who are highly skeptical of Trump because they've seen the cracks. They've seen that he's just as likely to behave as a Democrat as he is a conservative. Basically, on a minute-to-minute whim, you can't ever predict it. You can't ever know what Trump's going to stand for at any given time. Because the other thing Trump does that I like and I think a lot of conservatives if they think about it like Trump floats a lot of trial balloons. He says a lot of stuff just to see the reaction he's going to get. He tests a lot of ideas and things.
Speaker 1:I think this is great. I am a fan, absolutely. It's also why he's such an excellent foreign policy president, because countries all over the world have no idea what Trump is capable of and that scares them, and that is fantastic. We would like our enemies scared. We would like these other nations scared. We want people questioning what Trump can do To some degree. We want Democrats questioning what Trump can do. But in the end, his actions are always going to speak louder than his words and he's got just enough actions to make any good conservative doubt that he still understands the philosophy and is going to always be behaving in the best interests of American people, in the best interests of conservatism, which means in the best interests of the country. Conservatism, which means in the best interest of the country.
Speaker 1:So the continuous resolution vote happens, and I'm not sure who started pointing this out, whether it was Vivek Ramaswamy or Elon Musk or Trump but suddenly you start seeing a lot of people from MAGA on x and twitter specifically talking about single issue bills and we should be doing single issue bills. And hey, single issue bills. And they say it like it's a revelation, like it's a new idea. And conservatives who just went through a lot of attacking and malignment because they supported DeSantis also a conservative, who've been talking about single issue bills for years are suddenly hearing about it like it's a new idea and MAGA thought of it. And for a lot of people and I think this is a fairly common personality trait I can tell you few things can frustrate people more than when you tell them something that they already knew, like they'd never thought of it before. So when you're new to an idea, you know if you talk to a farmer and you've never been a farmer and you just started farming and you learn something that's fundamental and basic to farming that any good farmer has known for decades, and you tell it to them with great enthusiasm like, oh my gosh, I got this new idea, you'll never guess. And then they tell you their thing and farmers are just like, yeah, we know we've been doing that for decades, for hundreds of years. You have to keep in mind that it's good that they now know this and realize it, but if they would just stop telling me this like I never knew it before, it gets frustrating.
Speaker 1:Also frustrating is that conservatism is the thinking person's political philosophy. There's a lot of dynamics and understanding of human beings and how dynamic people are and how they think, how dynamic the economy is, what people's true motivations are, that we're all broken, where our failings can be, how we sometimes put money ahead of faith ahead of friends. We understand all that and what ends up happening is this is another thing about where society has gone, but we oversimplify everything now. So now and you see a lot of this through the influencers that Trump hired wisely so and effectively so to fight for him in the primary against DeSantis and in this election but everything boils down to a meme. Conservatism doesn't lend itself to memes.
Speaker 1:Conservatism is a complicated, thoughtful thinking person's philosophy. So to see things boiled down to memes when you try and present an argument or a thought and you expect thoughtful response and debate, and you get a ridiculous meme that basically makes fun of you or says cope more or you're a loser, or whatever. It only reflects on the person sending it, not the person to whom it was sent, but it also stifles conversation and debate and basically proves that people don't really not everybody's really understanding what we're doing and why. And so, again, it's a very dynamic thing because Republicans aren't conservatives, conservatives aren't Republicans, conservatives aren't MAGA, magas aren't conservatives, but they all overlap at different times for different reasons, and conservatives and MAGA are absolutely on the same side. I think we want the same things for the country, but conservatives are wary because this can't be about Trump. This can't be as big as Trump. This can't be determined by Trump. It doesn't end and begin with Trump.
Speaker 1:Conservatism is the philosophy that is going to win the day 100 years ago, today and 100 years from now. Trump's a guy who's now got two terms and will be leading this country for eight years and will hopefully do the best he can and will make positive changes and, at the worst, at least stave off tyranny for another four years until we can get a candidate in there who's a little bit more understanding of the philosophy and can represent us. Being about Trump and this country depending on Trump is not scalable. It doesn't work. He'll be gone in four years, if not sooner. If something terrible happens to him, god forbid.
Speaker 1:It has to be about the philosophy, it has to be about conservatism and, quite frankly, it needs to be about Christianity again. It needs to be about conservatism and, quite frankly, it needs to be about Christianity again. It needs to be because we haven't talked a lot about this but now you throw the aspect that faith and God and living for eternity beyond this world is bigger than all of this. Sorry to quote Todd Herman again, but a successful America is a consolation prize. Eternal life is what it's all about, and so it's not just about making this country exceptional and doing the things that allows freedom to spread not only in this country but around the world, and allows people to reach their potential speak uncensored, say what they want to say free speech but it's also about morals and ethics and manners and how we behave to each other and how we love one another and how we forgive and have grace one another and how we forgive and have grace. These are all the dynamics between Republicans, maga and conservatives, and Trump is a very dynamic person who I've never seen complicate all of these three factors as much as he does and in some ways I love it.
Speaker 1:It's great. It's great viewing, it's unpredictable. It's fun to watch. It's an interesting movie. I can't wait to see how this goes and ends. The twists and turns are going to be fantastic and magnificent. On the other hand, I just want conservatism Predictable, reliable, sure-handed, well-spoken, courageously fought for conservatism and we'll see in the next four years how much of that's going to happen and what we get.
Speaker 1:But the one thing that motivated this entire podcast is there's too much oversimplification of who MAGA is, who conservatives are, who leftists are, who Republicans are, and I think conservatives and MAGA specifically need to start understanding that, despite their not only philosophical differences but their approaches, whereas MAGA just wants to punch you in the face and stand over you and say yeah, conservatives want to want you to understand and agree and see and join the movement on a, on a, on a logic level, on a, you know, on a thinking level. Conservatives have always been critical thinkers and they lament when people aren't. And they want people to see it and understand it at a visceral level, so they can speak it and say it in their own way and so that we can all understand why freedom and individuality is so important and I for one and I did a podcast on this also we don't want people to leave X. We want all the leftists in the world to join X, because right now, too many leftists are only getting exposure to CNN or MSNBC and it's quite literally driving some of them crazy. You can see their little posts on TikTok and whatnot. We don't want those people crazy. I feel bad for them that they've been driven to this sort of thinking in this emotional state. We want as many people as possible to join X so that we can have these debates and we can talk through things and not just laugh at people or make fun of them or call them names. That's not productive in any social media context, nor in any conversation. We want discussion of the ideas, because we know that conservatism will always win those ideas and always win those discussions Again.
Speaker 1:Rush Limbaugh always used to say that leftist Democrats can't compete in the arena of ideas. It's why they seek to personally destroy people. But now you see MAGA doing the exact same thing. Too many people in MAGA just want to personally destroy people. We're using the tactics of the left now to destroy people in our own, in our within, our own philosophy in our own party. That has to stop.
Speaker 1:So this is, this is what's happening. This is the Trump dynamic, and I just don't see anybody discussing it. I don't see anybody acknowledging it or even showing they understand it. And we've got to if we're going to work together, not only between MAGA and conservative, but if we're going to bring other people who think they're Democrats but behave as and believe in conservatism, if we're going to bring them along and help them see and understand, so we can grow this space to the point where our elections are 70% for the Republican and 30% for the Democrat, as it probably should be, and when we know that the Republican is actually doing their best interest for the people who voted for them and understand they work for us and are not just there to grift and take money from taxpayers and empower and enrich themselves. This is where we got to get to, and we can't do it by being just so nasty and being so thuggish to each other.
Speaker 1:So I hope this helped you understand where we all stand with Trump, how he came to be, the dynamics that got us to where we are and where we could possibly take this in the future and where we hope to go. You've been listening to what Are they Thinking and, of course, while my observations don't speak for all conservatives or all MAGA, if one of us conservatives thinks like this and I happen to be MAGA and conservative if one of us thinks like this, there's a good chance others do as well, and who knows, you may also. Perhaps you are more conservative than you thought. So until next time, have grace for one another, give each other the benefit of the doubt, ask questions and don't make assumptions about what other people are thinking. Don't be like the left. Let's open up the discussion to everybody and teach where we're called to teach and understand where we're called to understand.