Leighton Smith Podcast #259 - October 9th 2024 - Patrick Basham

Patrick has some new and fresh polling numbers. Again. He details the methodology used by Democracy Institute in gathering them, and it's proved to be very reliable. However, that aside, I woke up this morning feeling different, a different frame of mind, if you like. Can't explain it, but can say that it's denying me the desire to be too serious. So after the mail room, I'll reveal what Jeremy Clarkson and I have in common. That is probably not what

you think. But first, on the subject of multiculturalism, which seems to be plaguing the world at the moment, there's a few references I'd like to make mention of. In twenty eleven, a Muslim from Canada named Salem men Surr wrote a book called Delectable Lie, a Liberal repudiation of Multiculturalism. It was a book that, well, let me put it

this way. My point is that although multiculturalism once seemed a very good idea, at least to politicians and others smitten with the ambition for unity, it is increasingly shown to be a lie, a delectable lie, perhaps yet a lie nevertheless that is destructive of the West's life, liberal democratic heritage, its tradition and values based on individual rights

and freedoms. This could have been foretold, as indeed, those philosophers and historians of ideas who viewed freedom as immeasurably more important than equality in the development of the West did foretell. They admonished people against the temptation to abridge freedom in pursuit of equality. Now that's a very telling little paragraph, And there is much more to it, of course, especially in Canada, which seems to have led the way over the years of trying to abridge this problem. Now

in Australia. Over the weekend, of course, there were lots of demonstrations, and some of them pretty vicious. Nick Cator, writing in The Australian under the heading of failure of leadership has led to ugly tribalism on streets and university campuses, wrote some extremely good commentary, referring to a speech, one speech in particular, but some more in general. He said that hideous distortion of the truth was voiced by Sheikh Ibrahim de Doon in Western Sydney a day after the attacks,

when he said, I'm smiling and unhappy, I'm elated. It's a day of courage, it's a day of resistance, it's a day of pride, it's a day of victory. He told the crowd. That was the day after, of course, October seventh of last year. Nick says the importation of this tribal animus into Australian civic society is the most disturbing consequence of last year's attacks. It found fertile ground among progressive intellectuals mired in Western self loathing and affixated

on race, gender and identity. The plight of civilians caught in the middle of the war in Gaza is merely the post hoc justification for a visceral sense of historical grievance against the Jewish state and the Jewish people. And then there is this. The wealthy owner of the Nomad restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne has been revealed as the protester arrested for allegedly holding up a Swashtika sign superimposed over an Israeli flag at Sunday's pro Palestine rally in Sydney.

Alan Yazbek being charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol in public after he allegedly held the sign which bore the words stopped Nazi Israel. He and his wife, who was an interior architect, have run the popular Surrey Hills restaurant No Mad since twenty thirteen. The Australian newspaper understands they say several patrons rushed to cancel bookings on Tuesday night after news of the charges spread among the Jewish community.

And who can blame them this couple. I don't know whether they were migrants from far away or whether they were born in Australia. It doesn't reveal that. But they started their business just over a decade ago with a thirty seat cellar door that became a two hundred seat restaurant with food inspired by their travels through Spain and the Middle East. Had a focus on cooking over fire.

I'm sure there must be a book or two on the restaurants, and then, as the media generally does in circumstances like this, they list the restaurants that they owned or now own, and then went into a bit of private life. The couple paid four million for their home in the affluent eastern Sydney suburb of Willara in twenty sixteen, but more recently this year apparently they bought an eleven

million dollar house in Albert Park in Melbourne. On Sunday, mister Yazbek joined the crowd of ten thousand pro Palestine protesters who had been given permission to march through the streets of Sydney CBD, but police allege the fifty six

year old failed to heat warnings not to display offensive material. Now, the first mistake that was made was to give them permission to demonstrate against the country that their kinvote, that their kinfolk attacked and murdered and slaughtered twelve hundred people, not to forget those who were hijacked back to Gaza. But that's not right, that's not really what I mentioned this for. It's multiculturalism that we have a problem with, and it's a growing problem and it needs to be addressed.

The Australian government the most incompetent government arguably ever. I heard somebody say that it was worse than the Golf Whitnam government. Well it is. They are hopeless, useless and stupid. But Australia is in trouble because there is a shortage of real talent. The Liberal leader, of course, is improving out of sight. But nevertheless there's a way to go and one hopes and even praise that peace will settle itself on these problems facing Australia now in a moment.

Patrick Masham Laton Smith. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quality. Leverix relieves hay fever and skin allergies or itchy skin. It's a dual action antihistamine and has a unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief, and it works in under an hour and lasts for over twenty four hours. Leverrix is a tiny tablet that unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland

to the highest quantity. So next time you're in need of an effective antihistamine, call into the pharmacy and ask for Leverrix lv Rix, Levrix and always read the label. Takes directed and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland. Patrick Basham is the director of the Democracy Institute. He's the founder of the Democracy Institute. Patrick,

It's excellent to have you back on the podcast. And I know that that greeting is matched by thousands of others because I get it all the time.

some stuff right on the bill. So I have a question for you, and I'll be interested in your response today as we speak, what would be the biggest political headline in the US.

Harris putting the coalition back together again? You know? So it's reflective of the fact that it's a reflection of the fact that even the traditionally unreliable mainstream media polling indicates that this is it is a very competitive race and that no one can be certain based on that those sort of polls as to you know, who will be the victor, even though we all know who should be. So that's the sort of horse race thing that is

dominating right now. If I might take a moment to mention what I think should be the story, one because I believe it should be, and also because I think it's it's a below the radar story in terms or variable that is actually going to impact the outcome to some extent. And the story, of course should be the appalling pathetic in all senses of the word federal government Biden Harris regime response to the hurricane in the Southeast

States of the United States. That that story was completely buried the first few days by the mainstream media, but the situation cuation was so bad and thanks to social media, that the mainstream media by late last week had to start covering it with at least a modicum of accuracy.

And of course that's the story gets out. Things just get worse and worse, and Harris and her campaign are so inept that and so to have such a ten ear politically cannot read the room that they've sort of made every optic related mistake and sort of verbal mistake you can make in terms of responding to this, and so the story has more than the story that there's a real story that has truly has legs, should have legs.

But what they've done and what Biden's done, or more to the point, what they haven't done, has just fueled that fire. And so it is something which is reinforcing the enthusiasm amongst those who are already committed to voting against Harris to ensure that they do because they see this, I think, with a great deal of accuracy, very correctly as it epitomizes the incompetence and of the Biden Harris administration and also the degree to which they enthusiastically politicize

every decision that they make. Uh, and they have as they have a pear to have done so.

No one, no average voter, regardless of how they're voting, knows much about what they what she is going to do or says she's going to do, because she hasn't said very much. But the one issue where you get something like twenty five thirty thirty five percent across the board, everybody's confident in saying, I know where she stands on abortion. It's the one thing that they have stressed and so her.

What they're doing with that, I mean, we don't know yet whether it's going to work, but it's you know, it's incredibly disingenuous. Is they are doing the traditional democratic thing of saying, you know, where for a woman's right to choose, we protect a woman's reproductive freedom, et cetera.

The other guys are anti abortion, but they've extended that and they're just blatantly lying about what the Supreme Court decision over over through Roe v. Wade means and meant they're completely lying about Trump's position on whether on a national abortion ban, which she's against, et cetera, et cetera. And so they they're using this and it's often very effective in terms of fundraising and ensuring that the liberal female base of the party turns out to vote, you know,

where they paint whoever the Republican is. In this came Trump case case Trump as someone you know from the you know from from nineteen twenty four, not twenty twenty four, in terms of their attitudes to female to women's reproductive rights, and themselves as a defender of that. And of course, the one quite effective way in which both Trump and JD. Vance and others have pushed back is they have pointed out one that you know, they actually do but think

that there are exceptions to abortion bands. They're not in favor of a national one. But they've pointed out that Harris and her running mate do not agree with any restrictions literally up to the moment, in fact, past the moment of birth. And so it's become this you know, sort of ping pong match, which is important, very important to some people on both sides, but in both cases it's a minority, and you know, there are other issues that are far more important right now to most people.

But what I think the thing it really tells us latent. It epitomizes how the Harris campaign has focused from the get go on issues which are really really important to

their core constituency. Now, obviously you have to keep your core your base vot is happy, but she's in a position, as Biden was, of needing to enlarge the tent a little, and they're not obviously attempting to do that, which you can either view as an aptitude or you can view it as an acknowledgment on their part that they just simply have to minimize their losses.

most important issues. I'm interested to see that. I was that abortion is fifth on the list, but only eleven percent, So you've got inflation at the top, immigration, economy, crime, abortion, healthcare, and I'm very pleased to say climate change is last on six percent.

of the issue. But this is an election that is being and will be dominated issue wise by the candidates actual and perceived positions on a whole range of economic issues, the immigration issue, the slash border issue, and crime, And of course those sure will are where later and I'm sure most of your listeners are that those the economic issue,

the immigration issue, the crime issue. In twenty twenty four across pretty much all of the West, those three are interwoven in terms of how they impact the quality of life of the average voter, and they're interwoven in terms of the politics of them, and they favor as they have done in most elections across the West in the

last couple of years. They favor the challenger. The it's not that they disfavor the incumbent, because when people are concerned about inflation and immigration and the economy and crime, it's because they think there's there's there's too much of all of those things, right, And so it's it's a it's a really important foundation for the Trump campaign to

build on. Is I think largely it's done fairly success successfully, and it's an albatross around the neck of the Harris campaign, as it was around the neck of the Biden campaign, and as it has been around the next of so many incumbents and governments around the West, whether you know, whether they were normally conservative or nominally liberal or of the left. You know, it's just when when people aren't happy about material things and their physical security, they tend

to want change in the government. But on the abortion issue specifically, it's important to note, well, it is very important to note, as you did, that it is only issue number five, uh in terms of voters' priorities. That does not mean that the eleven percent we found our most recent poll are all pro choice, you know. It's it's that there are a good number of people on the pro life side who think it's the most important issue.

And I'm always arguing with friends on both sides, were particularly on the right, who they may be pro life, not necessarily but may be procate, but they think that it's a loser for the for the Republicans and for Trump, and I argue it is necessarily so because the reason for it is so crudely, well simply therefore crudely as necessary here is that those who are pro choice, who depending on how on the poll you ask, but most polls you find them more of them, they vote all

the time on all for all kinds of reasons, including abortion, and they vote for the Democrats these days. The folks who are really really concerned about abortion from the pro life perspective, they don't vote all the time. They're what we call in the polling business, low perpen city or medium propensity voters. They show up every two or three or four elections, or every once in a twenty years, it depends, but they tend to be moved by that issue.

They're easily moved by that issue more than anything else. So all to say, when people come into new voters come in to vote on that issue, they tend to be on the pro life side, which rather balances things out. But the bottom line is that the issues that conventional wisdom says and traditionally historically a favor of the Democrats, the environment, healthcare, put my view aside, and let's say

abortion is another one of those. They're out there, they mean something to voters, to really much all voters, but they're not what overwhelmingly voters are choosing to cast their ballot on the basis of. And that is bad news for the Democrats. Just as when issues like healthcare were far more of a priority for voters in past elections, those inherently benefitted the Democrats, whether they were in power or whether they were in opposition.

you contact who are willing to take a poll. I mean, that's just that, you know, the problem in the polling industry. That's number one. You know, you get one two three percent of folks are actually willing to talk to you, whereas you know, decades ago it might be fifty percent or forty or thirty percent. So that's that's the first problem. So we contact people. I mean, there are various ways

of doing it these days because of technology. The way we do it, what we think is the least worst way of doing it, that is potentially the most accurate, is we phone. We phone voters just as you know in the old days, as it were, but we don't use live callers. A couple of reasons for that. The principal one is expense. So we have a we have recorded questions and someone answers their phone. They sort of picks up in this these days almost all cell phones,

mobile phones. They answer their phone and a human voice, but a recorded voice. After introducing the concept and them and the person on the other end of the of the call agreeing to take part in the poll, they answer the question. The questions are given to them, read to them, you know, a human, real voice, but recorded, and then they answer by pressing numbers on their keypads,

sort of multiple choice. And that way we're able to all huge numbers of people and it's relatively over two or three days and actually come up with a good number. So one thing that we do in just about all our polling that only a couple of other posters do. We think it makes a big difference. And this might be you know, relevant to your to your audience, is we only take the responses of those we determine what we call likely voters. And the reason we do that

is that, you know, it's not rocket science. They're the people who are actually going to show up and vote. Right. We're not interesting. We're interested intellectually in whateverybody who lives in America thinks, but in terms of the election outcome, we're interested in what the people who are going to vote think. Uh. And you say, well, okay, well don't most people vote, well, yes, but enough don't. It makes

a difference. So, for example, there are there are polls out there the survey adults, and that means they survey every single well every person person they survey may be a voter, they may not be a voter, they may not even be a citizen. And so it's kind of like asking a thousand consumers what they're going to buy, which might be relevant because they're all spending money in the in the grocery store, but they're not all going

to vote. The other way of doing it, which is the most common, is you just you talk to registered voters because in America you have to register before you can get a ballot, and your register as a Republican, a Democrat, as an independent. And that's better than looking at everyone. But it's of those registered voters, about twenty five thirty thirty five percent any given election aren't actually

going to show up. Sooks. Posters use registered voters or they use adults because it's way cheaper because you don't have to call or email or text or online communicate with anything like as many because you are not rejecting you know, we're rejecting so many potential respondents. It takes longer and costs a lot more money. And then of course the other the art I mean This is a

combination of art and science. And another part of the art involved is, Okay, you've got all these you know, we've got our fifteen hundred likely voters who have completed this phone survey, but how do we figure out whether

they are representative of the country right? And so you have to then weight those responses based on what we believe are the most accurate up to date demographic factors, socioeconomic factors, you know, age, gender, race, ethnicity, where they live, and of course where they what their political affiliation is. And one of the ways in which many polls, and this has gone on for a long time, but it's particularly prominent in the recent elections, and I would say

still in this one. What happens so often is that these polls are not weighting it accurately, either intentionally or out of ignorance. And so you'll see polls that are attractive in terms of the headline for the Democrat, and then you look underneath the hood and you'll see that they have weighted it in such a way that the

Democrats are disproportionately represented. And that means, of course, you know, if you if your sample has ten percent to me Democrats you're probably going to have a headline number that you know skews to the Democrats. Now you say, well, it could go both ways. Of course, it can go both ways. But if you look at the media polling over the last decade, it always skews in one direction. Right. To ensure I don't bore anybody any further, I'll stop.

But those that's sort of the the outline, the skeleton of sort of how we approach it and why we do some of the things we do with our polling.

I presume you look at zero Hedge occasionally, Yes, so you know you know Tyler Durden or who he is or who he represents anyway, he's they're responsible for this story rather than somebody else feeding it to them that Trump trouncing Carmela in key battleground states after sudden poly market surge. And I want to refer to the New

York Times. Even the New York Times notes that Harris's edge in Pennsylvania in mainstream polling could be faked news, as the pole average could even be so stable in part because many posters are using heavy handed statistical techniques that reduce the variance of their results from from pole to pole, but that increase the risk of systematic errors. Systematic polling errors in which which one side does better than expected across the board have been common in recent cycles.

And that's essentially what you're referring to.

and you know, by the bottom line is Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden's numbers, whatever their eventual numbers were, they

were much less than were forecasts. And Trump's numbers, whatever you think they really were, were officially much higher than the polls the quote unquote heralded polls and averages had suggested, and so many of these forecasters and modelers on the right are now taking the current polls and saying the only sensible thing is to is to adjust them on the basis of what we now know is an historical polling error and say, look, actually Trump, wherever he is

ahead or behind, he's usually really give him a few more points, because we know from recent history that that's how it pans out. Because Trump, it's not simply that these polls have been inaccurate, again by accident or by design. But Trump, whether it's a primary, whether it's a general election, Trump consistently outvotes his polls. He just does better for four kinds of reasons that we've discussed in the past, you know. So, yeah, it's a very valid concern.

this sort of two three point lead. That's that's that's Fay state fairly consistent and not that one should view judge one's own polling based on what other posters are doing, but it's just a point of reference for your audience, latent. As you correctly said, this is out of line with most mainstream polls, who generally show Harris with a small lead, maybe a tie. The occasional one has Trump maybe up

a point. But there are two or three that have consistently been the more accurate national polls that show that that are showing now or have shown consistently consistently like we have over recent weeks and months, Trump with a one two three point lead. So we are we're in minority company, but I think but I think we're in a very good company, if I might put it that way.

of era. But as you've alluded to already, people are now starting to talk about and I'm talking about polsters and commentators are starting to talk about the fact that you've got to allow Trump a bit more space than that, because he's very likely to poll better than the forty seven.

For all our flaws and imperfections. The one thing that we have consistently done over the years since Trump's been on the scene is we've tended to nail his vote, whether it's in primaries or in general elections, pretty comparatively on the nose because for a couple of reasons, you know, Boyer listeners with but in terms of how we approach identifying what became known as the shy Trump voter right, because we think we still do that well, we may

be proven wrong. Because we think we still do that well. We think our Trump numbers this year are are pretty accurate, although we acknowledge, as I've been acknowledging to you and others are acknowledging that the likelihood is that Trump's numbers in any poll are not his ceiling, but they're his flaw. Right, So I think we're close to the mark. But I do agree, wouldn cur with anyone who said, if you're wrong,

you're probably underestimating him a bit. He may be a point or two above that, And I would say, yeah, that's that's entirely possible. That's where if there's an error the eras I think in that direction.

so it's a blue Democratic state. Something things have to go crazy for the Republicans to win it. So Kamala Harris, she chooses the Minnesota governor as her running mate, and that I means for a bunch of reasons. Number one being the fact he wasn't Jewish. But besides besides that, it was the fact that her weakness or you know, she can't. She has to run the table in the Midwestern states, the ross belt states, one presumes, and Trump merely has his million really needs probably to pierce that

blue wall to be victorious overall. So she chose a governor who was quote unquote popular, you know, being re elected in a Midwestern state and with a sort of folksy everyman persona someone who was older than her and whiter than her and all that sort of stuff. The problem is, what this polling and other polling demonstrates is that she chose someone who because minnies Sota is dominated by its very liberal urban areas, politically, it's popular there.

He was very woke and very anti police and all this stuff, but and with you know, particularly interesting ties to communist China. But it's not actually popular with blue collar Minnesotan's. And the reason that's important is not what's less what happens in Minnesota than the fact that it's blue collar white Midwesterners who are going to determine how those rustbelt Midwestern states go. So they they sort of did their identity politics thing, you know, middle aged, older

white guy who gets elected in the Midwest. So we'll we'll put him on the ticket, and he'll make sure we keep Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And it's not worked out seemingly that great, you know, in his performance in the vibe presidential debates sort have exemplified that. And so if Minnesota goes is retained by the Democrats and Harris in November, well no surprise there. But there's the potential. It appears that it could be a lot closer, in

sort of almost uncomfortably close. What that tells you is that the neighboring state of Wisconsin, which is a true swing state, and one or two others are likely to be trending even more away from the Democrats. Uh. And so this four point lead for Harrison Minnesota is something which doesn't say, you know, panic, panic, panic, but it says, oh, this is looking up hill, this is this is an uncomfortable number for us. We have to hope this is

as an outlier. But other polls are showing, you know, comparable results that are in this margin of era, you know area. So it's that's why it's worth doing and worth as it turns out, I think, you know, reflecting upon.

and I'm sure he would have done. But what was overlooked by the Democrats the powers that been was that, yeah, they have this guy who's this pop unpopular failed president, and they won this this quote unquote fresh face, and maybe we can build a new narrative around this younger,

darker woman, right and all of that. What they overlooked is that her natural appeal is strongest in areas as dissimilar from the Midwest as you can find in America, that is, on the East and West coast, right where Biden.

This is the thing with Biden, and this is the part of why he you know, even if in my view the election had been fairly contested in Pennsylvania, it still would have been a close thing, even though I think Trump would have won, is because Biden, rightly or wrongly, he retained throughout his career an image not only as the as the sort of gaff prone, humorous every man guy who you know, sort of was comfortable with with with everybody and wasn't that bright, but he just had

everybody's best interest in heart. That he was someone who was by by his default position was always to be supportive of the labor unions. He was blue collar Joe. He was. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the northern part of the state, and the state is littered with buildings and highways, et cetera named after him already, uh and he retained a reservoir of goodwill amongst older blue collar Democrats, many of whom no elsewhere in the country no longer vote or vote for vote for the

Trump or vote for the Republicans. But these folks ex union, many of them retired white blue collar jobs occupations when they were working, they they remember this this, you know, uncle Joe, who looked out for them and their and their and their interests, and they turned out for him. It's quite skewed. Actually, they turned out for him disproportionately in areas of Pennsylvania where you know, their numbers, you know, tend to dominate. Now, that's great for the Democrats. He

was greade in twenty twenty. The problem is that they that demographic pro that demographic and Democratic profile voter has absolutely no interest in a Kamala Harris type candidate. And I mean, you know, she doesn't get them. They don't get her. And it's just a complete mismatch, right, it just is, you know, putting all preferences and opinions aside. So her appeal in Pennsylvania was always going to be limited.

Now what was going What could have made the difference was that the popular governor of Pennsylvania, who also wanted to be the next candidate and would like to be the next president. Still, if she'd chosen him, he played a great hit, great influence on how the election was a show we say contested in twenty twenty. And he might have been able, by hook and by crook, to have guaranteed Pennsylvania to her, but she couldn't choose him because the base of her party wouldn't accept a pro

Israeli Jewish vice presidential candidate. So her one card, the one ace she could have played in that key state, she chose not to play. And that means that she has her comparatively low ceiling. And when you see, you know, what was it Saturday night in a town of thirteen and a half thousand people in Pennsylvania, Trump gets one hundred and five thousand to show up, it just demonstrates that the last estimate, the final estimate, I believe, was

one hundred and five thousand. That's obviously from all around the Yeah, it's it's extremely big. So it just demonstrates that he has the wind of his sale, you know, in his sales. She's fighting uphill, doesn't mean she can't pull it off. It's probably going to be within the margin of error in terms of the file outcome because

these you know, these states are so closely contested. But it's just a calculation of Democrats made and they may have made it thinking they could get that govern they would have that governor because he was the obvious pick. As you said, you're tired of hearing how Pennsylvania is everything to the Harris campaign. But they made the other decisions, they mean, decisions that took them in a different direction, and so they're in a real battle.

So we'll do probably the national popular vote a couple of times, we'll do we do some you know, this recent poll that you're kindly discussing now, Laton, this is Midwest wing states and some blue states in the north. Will be looking at the sun so called sun Belt, the swing states and the Sun Belt over the next couple of weeks. So it's a roundabout way of saying, you know, to keep keep watching, keep listening, because in the next week or two there will be more numbers.

opponents had said, and so they were devastated. But then they got this second chance. Right the second they've grabbed this second chance, they now have hope. So let's, you know, how much time can we squeeze, you know, how much Jews can we squeeze out of what's rest in the campaign to get Kamala Harris over the top. So some Democrats are actually you know, not wanting this to end because they think the more time she's on she's out there, the better it will go. Some of us argue the opposite.

And then on the on the Republican side, you have a good and I would say growing number of Trump voters who with every assassination attempt, every federal government response or lack of to a hurricane. Everything that happens in terms of the politics of the country, they are more and more enthused and keen to ensure do what they can to make this election mean something from their point of view. And so there's what I'm trying to say is that there's renewed energy on both sides for very

different reasons. And of course the fact that just as Trump being the candidate for the third election in a row means that for the third election in the row for the Democrats, the main the only thing they have to say to most of their loyal voters is Trump's are publican candidate, and that's it. You know, they're off, They're frothing at the mouth, and they're after the polling stations or in their case, you know, railing in the

posting the ballot. On the Republican side, there was tremendous antipathy obviously to Biden, but most Trump voters dislike personally Harris far more than they dislike Biden personally and are more terror even more terrified of her views than they are of Biden's policies. So on both sides, there's more juice at this late stage most of which could not have been anticipated even a few months ago.

What happens in America on all fronts, really, if it's dramatic, what happens in America has an effect or is likely to have an effect on the rest of the world. And if you've got a useless president, whoever it might be, and they've had some, then we're all in dire straits

or likely to be. And there's another aspect too, and that is that you can watch how people follow politics in America and react to it, and learn what their attitude is to their own country and what's important or not important, or how much they care or how much they know or don't know in many cases. And I find all of that intriguing, apart from the fact that it's also scary at times.

in the past. But nevertheless, one of the reasons that many people outside the country find it easy to automatically criticize American politics is because they know so much about it. In part because, as you say, for all those reasons you enunciated, laden it's important for the rest of it influences the rest of the world, but also because Americans sort of can't keep their mouth shut and they sort

of show the world what's going on. Right the characteristic American personality of telling everybody what they think about everything also applies to their politics and wanting to export their system, their style of politics around the world. Also, you know, robs some people the wrong way, but it influences how things happen elsewhere. Has done America's intervening for good or for ill, and for good or for bad intentions around

the world. I mean, just just one thing on, why you know the importance of it, and not of your listeners say, well, Patrickson now about to bash Harris and

Biden over foreign policy. I'm not actually going to mention that these following two things for that reason, but to make another point, which is much of the criticism of the hurricane response has been because so much money has been and continues to be showered upon foreign governments and foreign countries by Biden and Harris, who they deem to

be clearly in greater need than anybody at home in America. Now, whether you know whether one thinks that money should or shouldn't be spent in Lebanon, in Ukraine and wherever, the bottom line is that America is in a position through oh been part these days, through some very artful accounting, but that America is in a position to at least in the short term, to spend these huge sums and to therefore influence what happens in country X or y. Right, they can choose that Biden and Harris are in a

position where they can make these kinds of choices about whether the money goes externally or internally. Now, most people think they're making the wrong choices, and I think they're making the wrong choices, but the fact is they're making them, and those choices will make a difference. Do make a difference elsewhere. It doesn't necessarily it's necessary for good, but

they make a difference. Whereas your average democracy in the world, the government may have all kinds of views, and they may be good ones about what's happening elsewhere, but they can't do much about it because they have a small military, or they don't have the foreign aid, whatever the heck it is. They don't have the trade influence in the trade power that kind of thing, and the economic might the hest to put muscle behind their words, but America does.

And so you know, if you don't think American elections are that important, you have to somehow gel that with the fact that America might be intervening in your country, or a country neighbor to yours, or one that you think is really important around the world as a result of its election outcome, or as a way of trying to influence that election outcome domestically here in America, let

alone influence it and influence what's happening elsewhere. I mean the fact that Harris yesterday on CBS's sixty minutes in one of for very rare sit down interviews, refuse to say that, yes, Naiu in Israel there was an ally of the United States. I mean, you can say why, I don't think he is. But for her, as vice president of a quote unquote pro Israeli administration, to not be able to say yes to that tells you, you know, is important not just for American voters information, but it's

important for what's going on in the Middle East right now. Right. Yes, that's just a fact. We may like that fact or dislike that fact, but it's a fact.

the more they changed. And now most of the ideas that disturb us in particular come from the United States, all the woke stuff, all the craziness that we have that we have been reading about, hearing about, experiencing, and it has spread to this part of the world. In fact, it has spread the many parts of the world. But in the in the free world, as we like to

think we are, it's affected as most. And I picked this up back in the back in the early eighties more than before that, partly due to age and interest in development, but I picked it up. And political correctness as it was initially has developed into all sorts of very ugly and unhelpful attitudes to life, reflected most recently in my opinion today or yesterday by Hillary Clinton, who, talking about social media, says, we have to control social media.

If we don't control social media, then we we've lost. We can only control it. We can only get get where we want by controlling social media and associated comments. That's where that's where it originates.

it's make a great point. I mean, there's a a now long departed I think Nobel Laureate winning economist Joseph Schumpeter German Chap if I've got that right, who said many important things for which he got many accolades and

much controversy. But one of his sort of central thoughts was that the problem, and this is this is something that I think became apparent is really where I'm getting to in the eighties and nineties in the West, across the West, was that capitalism was the best way to organize things economically, right, most most productivity, most wealth, greatest consumption,

quality of life, all that material stuff. But he foresaw the fact that capitalism's success would be problematic for capitalism or capitalist societies because once you've sort of once you've got all this wealth and everyone's most people are fairly comfortable by historical standards, So what do you do next?

And next comes people's the average no, the average person at first, but the average intellectual and thinker and bureaucrat and policy maker about what they can do now because they don't have to worry about feeding everybody and most people having a job and clean water. It's like, what do we do? And of course you give enough intellectuals enough time to ruminate and fester, and they start coming up with all kinds of wacky notions about the planet,

you know, dying off. We've got to do all kinds of things about that, and all this social you know,

you know, wokeness. Of course, there is the bastard child of political correctness from the eighties, and you know, we get all of that stuff that started in the eighties, as you say, started in America, and America being the most successful capitalist economy, much of this stuff, and being just numerically large, you've just got more numerically more folks, more affluent folks, and more universities, and more intellectuals and more public policy types, more think tanks who are coming

up with more and more crazy ideas and telling convincing each other that they're good and then you know, starting to work their magic in terms of the system. And of course America, because it was so politically powerful, because it was so economically powerful, it became culturally powerful around the world. And then that culture, you know, political correctness didn't didn't seep into the sinew of other Western nations

because people voted on it. It's because it was exported through American culture right in many and American academics and

all of that American think tanks. So you end up, in the case of America, with a country that culturally, socially, and in many ways politically, I would argue now is almost unrecognizable from the country it was even twenty years ago, certainly a generation or two ago, and in almost all cases not for the better right, and that that America is still I think America is probably even more criticized than she was in the past, but she's still influential.

And therefore, depending on which country you chew, western country you name, that country has been influenced in what I would view and I'm guessing you would view as unfortunate ways,

but to varying, varying degrees. You know, in another way that this is we've demonstrated how we've lost that genius, the method of the in the madness of those sixteen seventeen eighteenth century you know, true intellectuals from across Europe is that when the Cold War ended and there was much talk everywhere, but particularly in the US, about the Cold War dividend, the peace dividend, the defense dividend, because we have this massive spending all this money on this

defense budget, paying for most of you know, Europe's defense. But now we've won the Cold War, we don't have to spend all that money on defense now. Whereas in the past, the react the response would have been, that's great news, So we can now reduce bring the size of government back down to a more reasonable level, we can cut taxes, we can give people back sort of

more economic freedom, et cetera, et cetera. Oh no, The response was across the board pretty much with the exception of you know which your Reaganites was, We're not going to spend all this money on defense, So which social programs can we spend it on now? Like what can the government do in a for the first time or in bigger and better, in my view, bader ways than it was already doing. And that's what's happened, right, So

it's that choice happened in the nineties. If it had happened in the fifties, the choices would have nineteen fifties, the choices I think made would have been quite different. And if they were made now, when only imagine in which direction they would be headed.

that has on the Trump side. Meant that Trump is, according to the polls, getting a lot more Jewish support than he has in the past. And that this or is what's traditional for Republican because your listeners may or may not know Jewish Americas in Cheish American voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic right and you know, for a whole host

of reasons. You know, time topic for another conversation, perhaps at the same time, on the Democratic side, they have sort of owned the the the the small but growing Muslim vote, an Arab vote, and those folks are really upset, really upset with Biden and Harris over what they view is their slavish support for Israel uh. And so they are they are either deciding not to vote or are, according to the polls again showing much more interest in Trump than in the past as a sort of protest

to Harris and Biden. And crucially, I mean, your question really kind of actually takes us back to these specific states because the Arab and the Arab vote is I mean, it's it's in all kinds of places, but it's in terms of politics where it matters is in Michigan swing state. It matters in and around Detroit and Arab voters there by staying home or by let's say thirty forty percent voting for Trump where normally only ten percent would could

swing that state. Where and we go back to Minnesota, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, the big liberal centers, that is where your Muslim voters are concentrated, especially Somalian voters, and they are having the same buyer's remorse about Biden and Harris, and although it's less likely the tit Minnesota for the reasons we've already discussed in our conversation today, it's still one of the factors that appears to be making it a

closet an uncomfortably close race of the Democrats. So there are obvious ethnic groups religious groups in America for whom what's happening in the Middle East is the number one issue an America's role in response to it, Whereas most voters they're broadly vaguely aware of what's going on, but they're concerned about it is more under the umbrella of the world seems to be spinning a bit out of control.

And do I think these guys have a handle on it and can get things back on track, stabilize things, or do I blame them for it? So it's in a bucket with Ukraine, Iran. You know, it's all this stuff that if you're on the Trump side, you think, you know, they just screwed things up, and if you're on the Harris Biden side, you think they've made the best of a bad hand.

response of ordinary individual, regular average Americans. Both the financial assistance the people, number of people who are dropping everything and traveling there, and the hope they can do something to help the people there who are affected. They may have been as affected as anyone else, or they may have, from their point of view, been lucky in their house is flooded, but it's not destroyed. You know this, The people who still have water, or people some people have

electricity back. They who are just dropping everything, you know, and just putting their shoulders to the will literally and figuratively to help out their neighbors, their you know, their their fellow citizens, they're fellow Americans. It is a phenomenal

thing that's happening. It is incredibly it's conreadily moving and touching, and it's reassuring that this the sort of grassroots spirit of compassion and neighborliness and concern and a sense that what's happening to others, whether you know them or not, might in the moment, be as important, even more important,

than what's happening to you in your own life. I think it's really it's you know, really quite something, really kind of moving, and I think it will become more and more prominent in terms of the coverage, and I think, you know, I suspect that, you know, they'll it's one of those things. There'll be at some point there'll be Netflix movies about this, because it is worse than Katrina. We just don't most people don't realize that because the media has decided to not announce it that way, not

to allow that narrative to completely blossom. But so, yeah, that's actually it's there is There is good news beneath all of the all of the bad news.

once a decade or once the century. It's all happening in the same few months that it sort of gives one a bolt of energy each time the latest craziness occurs, if I may sound put it so cold bloodedly.

an economic and reliable supply. It won't. The problem is that to provide enough energy for the four thousand milliwatts of postulated new demand, we will need to install about twelve thousand megawatts of wind and solar power. Sometimes this will produce maybe ten thousand megawatts and other times maybe a few hundred. This does not provide a reliable supply, and the cost of twelve thousand megawatts to supply eight

four thousand megawatt load is extortionate. Another factor is that wind and solar are abundant, the surplus energy available will crash the price, and when they are not available, the prices will skyrocket. The economics of installing more and more wind and solar power is more than is installed. There is also a major problem with systems stability, but it is probably beyond the understanding of the average person. International statistics show that the more wind and solar power connected

to the system, the higher the power price. That's from Brian.

May the light stir and grow within humanity till it simply cannot be constrained. The dark elements will fight tooth and nail for increasing control, for it knows it cannot survive in the light should critical mass be reached. What is feared most is the common people having the empowerment of freedom of thought, of will and self determination. A self empowered, well informed people are the hardest to control and contain. Little bit of philosophy from HTT thank.

carnage we have now. If we carry on like this, it can be assumed trade worldwide will become increasingly difficult for a lot of countries. So I then looked at how they voted, first of all, going back to where they backed Hillary Clinton, who is part of the Obama administration. Then they backed Biden, who was also part of the same administration. Harris became his vice president, and this has

also become a weak administration. It is difficult seeing Harris making much improvement as the same powerful people that support her and her running maker right back to that very administration. So therefore, the States has had a weak administration before and after Trump's, which gave a form of stability for US in the world until COVID. A lot of our boardroom people ignore that and give Harris their backing. I suppose it is to be expected as many of them

pushed for the ar Durn administration and its disaster. So in summary, I concluded that some of the private and public executives seem to be quite a lot out of touch. Is this why so many of late are being or need to be replaced, Not so much because their qualifications don't fit, but because of their ingrained, woke herd mentality. And then Colin goes on to say, I see Toyota is sorting out more of the junk that their administrators

and hung up on. So that will be a positive if more companies follow suitor.

I only just got it. I haven't actually read it, but I've grasped that it's a sensitive email. I will give it to you consideration. Thank you now from Murray again, thanks for your excellent work. I still listen every week, and so you should. Doctor Merrick was a name that harked back to when I first became a fully fledged conspiracy theorist in twenty twenty. Along with Robert Malone, doctor McCulloch,

doctor Kouri and others. These guys were the heroes, truth being too important for them to follow the money and Guy Hatchett and New Zealand also should take a bow. My horror at how everything went upside down in my home country was a lesson that I didn't really want. But as they say, you can't unsee these things. New Zealand's terrible authoritarian labor government, what they did for the country and certainly for me, or did to the country.

You might say. I still follow the news from my new home in Australia, and it's not with pleasure that I see the media continue to follow the path that they have been on. I do hope that the natsen act and NZF the Coalition find good common ground and stick to their guns. The labor of mob in Australia is similar to the adern mob and almost as inept. They also have the taxpayer fund at ABC to do

their media bidding. It looks like the worst excesses of neo Marxism are only getting worse, with the ABC concocting a scurlous hit job on Australian Defense Force soldiers. Thank goodness for Sky News Australia via YouTube. Who I would recommend to your listeners. I like your idea of recommended reading and I appreciate that. And there to be more today. Excellent guests, insightful interviewing Laton, thank you, Thank you, Marry.

The one saving grace is that my son and his mates thought it was ridiculous. Let's hope the next generation can sort this nonsense out and get back to using language as intended. It's interesting talking to everyday people. While they tend to keep their opinions to themselves, people can see the nonsense for what it is. By the way, says Greg, we won't be staying long term. New Zealand isn't as bad as we thought. That's nice to hear.

wrote it. And America's beauty pageant contests and Kamala Harris Kamala's girlish laughing and word Salard unburdening the burden is alleged to be a Marxist saying she's a good looking girl. Though really till he was telling Porky's about attending the nineteen eighty ninety Animan Square protest question mark, God bless America and God help America. On November five.

Yet on all things COVID related, chose to suddenly trust both media's and government's total capitulation to one very lucrative industry where the contracts were militantly hidden from all public scrutiny and still are.

I'm hopeful, I'm not surprised that Benjamin Netanya, who's polling as PM, has jumped ever since he decided to retaliate hard against the damned hamas Hezbila and Iranian terrorists, with or without the limp wristed Biden Harris America. Recently, I've come to realize one thing. This world has only two types of country leaders, the nice ones and the not so nice ones. The nice ones always prioritize looking good over the interests of their people. They always try to

be friend terrorists at great cost to their own. These nice leaders always end up running their country down to the ground by feeding their desire to please all the wrong people. Examples of nice leaders include just Senda Adoern, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden, and Kamander Harris. Then there are the not so nice leaders. These leaders prioritize the protection of their country's interests over their own because they know that if their country does well under their watch, they'll

be rewarded by the people. These not always nice leaders don't be friend terrorists, they bomb them. Examples of not so nice leaders include Benjamin Netting, Yahoo, Javille Miller, South America, Donald Trump and JD. Vance and In less than thirty days, America decides between a nice Harris and a not so nice Trump. May God save America if they don't wish to save themselves. Thank you, Jim Missus, producer, Thank you, thank you. That was the mail room that was so

to Jeremy Clarkson and what we have in common. And it's not the Farm. I bet you thought it was. It's not. For years the well, the family and others have been nagging me to watch Clarkson's Farm. I tried it once and I couldn't last. And the only reason I can put on it because everyone tells me how

good it is and how much I'd love it. The only reason I can hold responsible for me not wanting to watch it is that it makes me sad having had one, having done all the things, driven the track, that grown the grapes, played with the Chucks, and I don't want to see somebody else doing it, had all the experience, and it would make me sad and maybe even shed a tear. So it's not that. No, it's Jeremy Clarkson reviewing the merceds AMGGT sixty three. Now I

think it was the last. At the end of twenty eighteen, just before Christmas and we finished of the program I the radio program. I was asked what I wanted for Christmas. Could have been the first year of the podcast, it doesn't really matter it. Actually this is how it went. I said, I wanted a V eight and it had to be at least five liters, it had to be read, it had to be an suv, and it had to

do not to one hundred and under five second. Well, in the end, I got everything bar the V eight, got the V six twin turbo Amgsuv and I love it. So this is Jeremy Clarkson in the Mescedes AMGGT sixty threes is in opening. When I put my foot down in my supercharged F type Jaguar, I never think on something's broken. To the accompaniment of a muted but rather delicious rear end cackle, it sets off at a pace you'd call exhilarating.

the McLaren p one. He goes into a bit of detail and from there he said, I'm often told by planet enthusiasts that purely electrical cars can offer this level of performance, but that's nonsense. EV's are like teenage boys, lots of Well. I won't go into detail because this is a family show, but I drove an EV for the first time, the only time, when I had the car serviced about three months ago, and I have to say it was fascinating, but I still don't want one anyway.

There's another problem with cars this fast. People adenoid people. Ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine. They've been in their villagers, hands on hips and dressed as speed cameras asking loudly why cars can can ever go faster than eighty k's an hour. And that's because that's the speed limit. Do you hear? Now? Today these people have developed a new technique. They get into their faceless boxes and drive around unbelievably slowly. I came back from

somewhere last night. I don't know where it was, sirencestor. Hang on, I'm going to go and check with missus producer. She'd lived there somewhere. Okay, got it? Sirensster cr e n ceest sirens sster Now if they had it with an S at the front, it would have been easy,

Siren says. Anyway, we sorted them. So I I'm back from the Siren Sister last night behind some kind of Mercedes people carrier, and it never once on a beautiful country road, exceeded fifty five k's and the break lights flashed on and off so regularly that I began to think that I was at a seventies rock gig. And then this morning I latched onto the bank of an MG going down the A forty at thirty ks an hour.

Dawdling has become a national pastime, and there was a time when even the littlest old lady cruised down the road a road like this at ninety Not only more and this makes the idiotically fast cars even more soley as it's no longer the case that you aren't allowed to drive them quickly. You actually can't, and you can't overtake because there's always a cyclist coming the other way. All of which brings me to the new Mercedes AMG GT sixty three new questioned mark. It doesn't look it.

It looks pretty much identical to the old GT sixty three, but it isn't. A very panel is different and now there are two seats in the back and four wheel drive. Plus it's bigger, much bigger. Parking will be an issue, I can assure you. And there's more. The gearbox is no longer at the other end of the prop shaft. It's attached to the engine, and the anti roll bars are being replaced by electronics, so they won't work after

a while if you want everything to not work. There's even a hybrid version with fewer carbon dioxides the Mercedes AMGGT sixty three dash. The car I drove was the Premium Plus, which costs one hundred and sixty five thousand pounds in the UK, and I must say it feels like it should be more. It also feels like the engine is more powerful than it is because it's silly fast, scary fast. It's also loud, loud, like AMG Merks used to be when I was one of their most passionate customers.

This car the growl of a bear called thunderstorm. It's a wondrous noise. And yet when you dig into the stats, you discover that the engine is not as the badge would imply, a six point three liter of the eight. It's a twin turbo four liter, just like mine, and it only produces four hundred and thirty kilowatts. It feels like a lot more. Maybe it's because the car is

so huge. It's as though someone has fitted after burners to Yorkshire Mercedi says the car hits one hundred k's in three point two seconds, but again, I'd bet it's faster than that. The company also says it has limited the top speed to three hundred and fifteen k's, which brings me back to where I was. It's not the electronics that keeps this car anchored in the real world. It's the adenoidal clown in front and his horrible kiir. You don't know precisely what adenoidal means. You can look

it up. It's not very kind. And then he goes on with the cat of experiences about driving between the farm and the pub, he says, but in the AMG it was a constant frustration, because even the tractors were being held up. Still, it gave me plenty of time to think about other things, such as the meaning of life, whether I could make it to the pub before mine ended,

and how lovely the dashboard was. I also noticed the seats were superb, that the rear wheel steering wasn't too vicious, and that the ride in comfort mode at least was rather good, maybe because the front and back wheels are so far apart. And then he concludes, ordinarily, using drapes and tape to make a car bearable would cause me the question to question the wisdom of buying it. And I'd be similarly hesitant about buying all that power that I could never use, especially as it comes in a

package that's only really parkable in Nevada. And yet this is the first fast Mercedes I've driven in a very long time that I've truly enjoyed. It's mad and completely out of tune with the times, but I loved the loudness and the unnecessariness of it all. Richard Hammond tells me that he seriously thought about buying a GT, but settled in the end for some kind of portion nine

to eleven. You made a mistake, mate. The Merks and Absolute Belter details four liter of V eight twin turbo petrol performance not to one hundred and three point two seconds top speed, three hundred and fifteen k's price. The GT sixty three series starts from three hundred and sixty six thousand, five hundred Australian dollars and it still only gets four stars, not five. So that's what Jeremy and I have in common, a love for a particular Mercedes.

And I read no, I didn't. I watched a review of the latest of my model, which is now three years old, a couple of days ago, and I thought, do I need that? The answer was no, I don't need it. And besides that, it's got one of those feral engines, which actually would save a lot of money. I will probably just stick to the one I've got forever. And the thought of the GT sixty three, and would I could I afford it? If I started saving.

complaints to her. This is the official complaints handler. So we shall return shortly with podcast number two hundred and sixty. In the meantime, thank you for listening to us always, and we shall talk soon.