A Radical Reset

The Democratic Party's Identity Crisis: A Libertarian Solution?

• Herby • Season 1 • Episode 28

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A call for the Democratic Party to embrace classical liberalism as a solution to their identity crisis, with proposals for a revitalized alternative to Republican nationalism focused on smaller government and state-level welfare programs.

• Discussion of political party evolution and the potential dissolution of the Democratic Party as we know it
• Analysis of why Republicans have clear positions while Democrats appear to be simply defending a failing status quo
• Exploration of how Democrats have lost connection with young men by rejecting traditional masculine values
• Proposal for Democrats to adopt libertarian principles: socially liberal, fiscally conservative
• Warning about the impending debt crisis and the need for alternatives to both current parties
• Introduction to Antipolitism as a system to prevent democracy's historical slide into tyranny

Pick up a copy of "A Radical Reset" on Amazon to learn more about Antipolitism as an alternative to the current political system.


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Speaker 1:

Good morning gang. Happy Monday, june the 9th. It's me, herbie, your host at A Radical Reset. First, big change I changed the name of the podcast from the Spiritual Agnostic to A Radical Reset because, let's be honest, I was descending into the direction of talking about the system of anti-politism, mostly anyway. So you know, in any new venture you make tweaks. Hope you like the new name, which is really the old name, and I hope you like the new logo, which looks like me, although a little sterner than I usually am. But you know what can I say? You've got to look serious for these kind of things. Anyway, today we're going to talk about what's going on in the world today. What's going on in the world today.

Speaker 1:

So, in in uh, los Angeles, as you all know, over the last weekend there've been a series of uh riots that are being quelled by the national at this point, the national guard, president Trump, senate, the national guard, the democratic party, is doing what it always does lately, which is pick exactly the wrong way to go. You know, one of the interesting things about our political evolution lately is, I believe we're living in a time when, at the very minimum, one of the two major parties is going to cease to exist as we understand it, and there have been other times in our history when this sort of thing has happened. You know, the Republican Party is just an evolution from the Whigs who preceded them. That would be not W-I-G-S for those of you, but W-H-I-G-S, and I don't really know where that name comes from, but anyway, the Whigs. And Abraham Lincoln was elected as the first Republican president and I think it had something to do with the slavery positions and so on and so forth. I'm really not a student on that transition, but the one party ceased to exist and another party took its place, and we're about to have that again, only this time it's going to be on the Democratic side, because what's going on now in the Democratic Party is a debate for the soul of the party. What is the Democratic Party? I want to speak this morning to you Democrats out there, primarily because what you're doing is a guaranteed act of self-immolation.

Speaker 1:

So if you went to a Republican today and you said to them, what does the Republican Party stand for? The answer is going to be some version of MAGA Make America Great Again. And how do we do that? We reduce taxes, we reduce regulations, we create an environment for fair trade so that we're not being taken advantage of by foreign countries. We even up the trade deficit, which shows how much money is leaving the country, unnecessarily, by the way.

Speaker 1:

I don't agree with any of this. I'm just saying that a Republican. The point is I'm not going to go through everything, but a Republican can easily tick off. We're anti-illegal immigration. We want to shut the border. We're anti-abortion. Abortion's been returned to the states.

Speaker 1:

That was a huge victory for the Republicans, as Trump gave the speech in Saudi Arabia. We're for commerce over conflict. No more meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. In other words, the point I'm telling you is the Republicans have a list of positions where they have an actual position. Now, you may agree with the position or you may disagree with the position, but it is a position where the Democrats their position I know I'm overusing the word position, I wish I could think of a different word their perspective on issues. They don't have any ideals left. All they're doing is defending the status quo, and the status quo is corrupt and the status quo has crossed the line, or, as I like to put it, jumped the shark.

Speaker 1:

So what I mean by jumped the shark, which is an obscure reference to an old TV sitcom called Happy Days, when the central character a guy named Fonzie for those of you old enough to remember played by Henry Winkler, no less as a tough guy, because Henry Winkler today is just a big smush button, but anyway, he played a tough guy back in the day and they were running out of plots and at one point his character, fonzie Arthur Fonzirello, was going to jump his motorcycle. This was all set in the 50s, kind of an American graffiti sort of setting for that obscure reference. I'm dating myself terribly, but that doesn't really matter. Anyway, he literally jumps a shark tank and it was such a stupid episode and the show went off the air shortly thereafter. And ever since then, whenever someone goes just a little too far, it's called jumping the shark. It's when you run out of ideas you jump the shark.

Speaker 1:

The Democratic Party has jumped the shark and they jumped the shark on the transgender movement. That's where they did themselves in. You can't undo it, they can't pull back from it. At least they feel that way. A rational Democrat would stand up and say you know what this transgender thing is? Nonsense, this illegal immigration thing? That was our fault. That was a gigantic mistake. And the border has to be closed. And this reparations thing is stupid. And you know, this reparations thing is stupid.

Speaker 1:

And the welfare state has failed and we've done nothing but institutionalized poverty, converting it from something that used to be temporary into a permanent lifestyle that people are born, raised, die within and have no hope of escaping, and the list goes on. The drug war, etc. Etc. All cetera, et cetera. All of this, okay, these are all failed policies. The welfare state has failed. The whole idea of redistributing wealth to lift those who are less fortunate than ourselves has turned out, as was predictable to be, a gigantic failure. By the way, the reason it's a gigantic failure is it's just. It's never worked in history.

Speaker 1:

You can't take from the rich and give the money to the poor, and the poor do nothing for it, but be poor and think that they're going to improve their lives, their problem. Poor people are poor not because of bad luck or anything. They're poor because they make shit decisions. They make vile, terrible decisions when they find themselves with any money ahead, rather than think to themselves maybe I should put a few dollars away, make a little cushion, maybe I should be a little smarter, maybe I should finish. They just don't make those decisions. Okay, poor people are poor.

Speaker 1:

There are three things you have to do in the United States not to be poor. It's really very simple. The first is okay, finish high school. Now, unfortunately, high school has become such a joke thanks to the poisonous public education system in our country, which the teachers unions have been fighting changing since the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. I kid you not, we're still using the same basic teaching techniques of a teacher standing in front of a class drawing things on a board that today might be white but used to be a chalkboard, but otherwise it's the same boring crap, only it's gotten worse. It used to be, at least. It was tough and you could fail. Now they've taken away failure. So kids are graduating from high school, and I'm not exaggerating when I say functionally illiterate. They can barely read their own names and they're graduating from high school.

Speaker 1:

But let's assume that you went to a decent high school, at least relatively decent. Number one you got to finish high. Don't get married until you have to. What's the word I'm looking for? Avoid having children before the age of 21 and don't have children outside of marriage. If you do those three things, you will be successful in America. You will have a nice young family and live to be, live as close to happily ever after as possible within the American dream. If you can do those three things Finish school, don't get married too young, don't have children out of wedlock, and then move on in life happily married over the age of 21,. Yada, yada, yada. It's very, very simple.

Speaker 1:

America is still the place to make it in the world, but somehow the Democratic Party has become the champion of sloth, laziness, very little effort, all dominated by an intellectual elite who believes itself to be morally superior. The reason that, for example, if you've had the experience of talking to a Democrat these days which is, by the way, synonymous term with progressive and you get on the subject of like, for example, let's use the obvious incendiary topic of Trump. You get on the subject of like, for example, let's use the obvious incendiary topic of Trump, and you say why do you hate Trump? And they'll go into a litany of things that have been debunked. You know he's a Russian stooge and he was on the Epstein list and you know everything. He's going to be a dictator, he's a Hitler. None of these things are actually facts and evidence. These are all just repetitions of a propaganda rather than a position.

Speaker 1:

So if you said to a Republican, what do you think of Donald Trump, they'd go well. He's far from a perfect person. I know this because I have a lot of Republican friends. None of them think he's a perfect person, unlike the caricature that's painted by the far left. They don't think he walks on water. They think he's a deeply flawed person, as are we all, whose heart is in the right place, who has seen the light and who's guiding the country because he's in a unique position to do so.

Speaker 1:

From their point of view, the Democrats don't have a point of view other than digging our heels. Support their one power base, which is public employee unions, which, by the way, should be illegal. Public employees should not be allowed to unionize. You shouldn't be able to strike the taxpayers. That's just completely. It's ridiculous. It's not something that ever existed before President Carter's and we should do away with it now. But anyway, I think it was President Carter. If I'm wrong about that, write me a letter. Anyway, so they basically support a status quo that's wildly unpopular outside of the elites and it's going to grow increasingly unpopular. There's no way to sell.

Speaker 1:

For example, I saw a really funny cartoon the other day about. It was on a YouTube channel called Freedom Tunes and it was about the Democrats in the story where they're spending $20 million to learn how to message to young men. And you know, it's basically these two radical feminist women with, you know, purple and pink hair. Well, actually, one of them is black, One of them is white, with purple and pink hair and and fat and a, and a man who is, you know, let's just say not an alpha male, and they're talking about all the different democratic policies and they have three ordinary men. Anyway, they get down to the ball kicking machine and they kind of skip over it and the three men go wait a minute, wait a minute, why don't you just get rid of the ball kicking machine and we can listen to your other positions? No, no, they just try to explain the ball kicking machine to them in different ways and the men keep saying no, it's the ball kicking machine, just get rid of the ball kicking machine. Well, maybe if we explain to you why you need to have your balls kicked, and this goes on and on.

Speaker 1:

This is the problem with the Democratic Party They've lost young men altogether Young men are. They don't. Again, they don't necessarily think Donald Trump is perfect or the Republican Party is perfect, but it doesn't shy away from masculine values. You know, when the Secretary of Defense, pete Hegseth, says we're reinstilling the warrior spirit, and then enlistments go through the roof instantly, that is a sign that men in America primarily men it's not that women don't enlist, but it's primarily still male that men in America are longing to be allowed to be men, and that's what the Republicans allow them. There's no, you can't sell to half the population that they need to be women when they're men. Forget it. And I'm not saying that the Democratic Party is advocating everybody becomes transgender. Although the term transgender is ludicrous, there's no way to transition a gender okay. When you start swimming against objective reality, you're doomed. So anyway. I could go on and on and on. We all know these examples.

Speaker 1:

You've listened to all the other podcasts. I'm just going to end up repeating what other people have said. You know, you want to hear a real hatchet job on the Democrats? Go listen to podcasts like hatchet jobs, the wrong word. You want to hear a tough assessment of Democrats? Go watch Like Hatchet John's, the wrong word. You want to hear a tough assessment of Democrats, go watch the morning meeting. 2a on the morning meeting and their morning meeting with Mark Halperin Excellent podcast. Go watch All In. Go watch Joe Rogan. Go watch Trigonometry.

Speaker 1:

There's tons of podcasts on the right which do a very good job of pointing out that the Democrats just don't have any other position but degeneracy. The entire Democratic Party has become the poster child for degeneracy and decadence, and that's not anything you can't sell. That other than to pull people down into your slime. And that's why you're seeing, for example and thank God for this Gen Z is returning to church. What a wonderful, wonderful happenstance returning to church, what a wonderful, wonderful happenstance. And they're going to church because they want to hear a traditional philosophy preached from a pulpit by people who don't hate them.

Speaker 1:

This is what young men want. There is no male issue. Men just want to be allowed to be men. They want to protect, they want to provide, they want to be the center of the family, as nature intended it to be, and the Republican parties go along with that. They're not anti-women, they just believe that women are probably, by and large, much happier in the context of a traditional family, having children at a relatively young age when they can do it and not have any issues and live happily ever after. And to the extent that they haven't done, that is why women have become increasingly unhappy. That's all Republican position.

Speaker 1:

Now the Democrats, they're just out. What can they possibly do? None of them are going to. You're not going to see Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries and Charles Schumer and all the rest of them stand up and go. We were wrong about everything, which is what they are. They're wrong about almost every key issue. That's the problem. So what do they? Not only it's not that they're just wrong on the issue, they're wrong on the fundamental standard of decency for each issue.

Speaker 1:

It's indecent to promote the idea of transgenderism. It's indecent to allow children to take drugs or to be operated upon. It's indecent to allow children to take drugs or to be operated upon. It's indecent to allow abortion without restriction up until the ninth month. These things are indecent and it flies in the face of people's sense of decency. For example, I'm pro-choice but I'm still grossed out by third trimester abortions, as is most of America.

Speaker 1:

But the Democratic Party doesn't want to realize that they can't be reasonably pro-choice. So what can take their place? And the answer is, I think that there's a substantial wing of the Democratic Party that is, in fact, libertarian. Now, they don't speak up because they're surrounded by you know, they're not surrounded, I'm sorry. It's a loud, vociferous, nasty minority. It's the tail wagging the dog, but the dog is basically libertarian, which is to say socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

Speaker 1:

And if the Democratic Party were to embrace libertarianism, okay, and come up with a program that says this we're for unrestricted free speech, we're for sane immigration, a strong border, but a sane immigration policy that allows in immigrants that have something to bring to the table. That therefore due process, which is a good issue when you don't pick a poster child who's a gangbanger. I mean, it's just amazing to me the tenor of these democratic politicians. But anyway, a due process, a legal process supporting the institution of the courts and the justice system, that's all a legitimate issue, as long as you don't use it to support something like illegal immigration. Get out of the way of that.

Speaker 1:

It's okay to agree with the opposition on certain key issues. The public isn't looking for you to disagree on every issue. The public is looking for you to differentiate yourself, and the way you differentiate yourself is to be libertarian. Be for much smaller government. Be anti-tariff. Tariffs are dumb. Be a free trade party. Be a party of advocate for an elimination of the income tax and for, let's say, a national sales tax or a value added tax to replace it Not to supplant it, but replace it. People would love you for that. Get ahead of the Republicans on some of these issues. Be a libertarian. Say the welfare state at the federal level has failed, but it could still work at the local level and begin advocating that the welfare system be transitioned from a federal program to state programs and each state can devise their own version of welfare based upon the demographics of their individual states, since all 50 states are basically little, small countries.

Speaker 1:

I can go on and on. There's lots of positions that are very libertarian. That would be in line with what Democrats believe. On abortion pro-choice, but with reasonable restrictions Okay, that would take the steam. 70% of the American people are pro-choice, but 70% of the American people think abortion is murder. I'm being again. This is based on polling and I'm being roughly that. That's around the number, and the numbers can vary by a few points one way or the other, but what that's telling you is that most people want women to have a right to choose, but they also don't want them to have the right to choose to murder a viable infant, and that's not an unreasonable. You can give an inch, okay, you can become reasonable. You don't have to be a well for a guy with a podcast called A Radical Reset. This sounds crazy, but what I'm telling you is Democrats, if you want to survive as a party, you need to realize that the term liberal was hijacked.

Speaker 1:

Libertarians are classical liberals. The word libertarian is an invented word because the term liberal was taken by the socialists, and liberalism is not socialism. You should abandon all socialist concepts. Socialism is a failed ideology. Get it out concepts. Socialism is a failed ideology. Get it out the idea of redistributed wealth, shared wealth, confiscatory wealth, that's just. It's a failure. You know, become like.

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you who you should emulate. Democrats, you should emulate the Swedes and the Norwegians and the Danes, who lots of people in this country foolishly believe we're socialists, but they're not. They have a welfare state that works, but it works because they have a country. All three of those countries are basically the size of American states with small populations. The most populous country in Scandinavia is Sweden. It's got like five and a half million people, or nine and a half million people, I mean, that's the population of Los Angeles, that's the whole country of Sweden, and they're the biggest one, okay, in terms of population, but the thing is they're all Swedes, and so the analogy could be made that since, for example, they have a fairly good national healthcare system, but in a country where everyone is uniform and a small population, maybe healthcare can work on a state level if properly designed and, you know, with proper safeguards. Anyway, democrats, you can advocate for a social safety net at the state level and still be Democrats, but be bending to rationality and change the whole conversation and make a constructive contribution to the national debate. Anyway, that's what I think Now.

Speaker 1:

What I really think is that all of this is going to end up failing, and we're going to. We are already in the beginning stages of a debt spiral, and Donald Trump's great failure, in my opinion, is the one that's obvious. That's right in front of us. He's not doing anything about the national debt. He's counting on changing the growth trajectory, and I hope he's right. I hope that our economy starts growing faster than the debt, and he's right. Then the debt would be no issue at all. Economy starts growing faster than the debt and he's right Then the debt would be no issue at all. Think of the debt as a mortgage. As long as you can make your payments, you're good to go, but you don't have to pay it all off in one day. As long as you're making your payments and then slowly chipping away at it, you're good to go. Well, that's not where we are and I don't think that's where we're headed, and we will see.

Speaker 1:

Ultimately, I think we're going to come to what Jamie Dimon called about a week, week and a half ago. Jamie Dimon, for those of you who aren't familiar, is the chairman of JPMorgan Chase. He's the most powerful banker in the United States and the world and he believes the bond market's going to crack, and I think he's right. That means that we won't be able to sell our bonds and that'll be the kickoff of a debt spiral where the Federal Reserve has to buy bonds and it's going to be very inflationary, and yada, yada, yada. That's another podcast for another day.

Speaker 1:

But when that day comes and I believe it's an inevitability then we're going to need an alternative, because tyranny, democracy we've destroyed our republic and in its place we've created the democracy, and democracy is mob rule. To quote, I think it's GK Chesterton. Tell me if I'm wrong about that, guys. I think it was GK Chesterton, but he said democracy is when the masses get what they want good and hard, I'm paraphrasing it, but that's what we're getting. We're getting democracy good and hard and we're going to end up paying the price for it and we need to return to a republic.

Speaker 1:

And the new republic I call antipolitism. I'm presenting it as an alternative to the tyranny that has historically always been what happens to democracy. Democracy historically always ends in tyranny. What's the alternative? Antipolitism? How do you learn about it? You pick up a copy of A Radical Reset. That's the book and manifesto of anti-politism available to you on Amazon right at this very minute. A Radical Reset by me, herbie Kay, the author and your host here on A Radical Reset podcast. And that's where I'm going to leave it.

Speaker 1:

Today, the Democrats need to not be Democrats. I think they should call themselves the New Democratic Party or the Democratic Liberty Party. They could come up with any number of alternatives, but it's time for the Democrats to fade away and be replaced by a new, classically liberal party I won't use the word libertarian, classically liberal, which is the same thing, liberal, which is the same thing, and as an alternative to the nationalist, statist, interventionalist, tariff-endorsing Republicans. And then you can have a really good debate on issues that people care about, where people have a legitimate choice, and it's what would happen in an anti-political government that I advocate, which, again, you can read about in the Radical Reset. That's it for now.

Speaker 1:

Don't forget to tell your friends to check out this podcast, because it's fabulous, if I do say so myself. Actually, I really don't know if it's fabulous or not. I'm just plugging away, baby, just a working guy plugging away, and the next time you and I will talk to each other is Wednesday, and until then I say to you have a beautiful, beautiful next couple of days. Until I speak to you next, peace out, god bless you and God bless America.