Over Target

Guests. We don't need no steaking guests. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Mister Garbatschev, tear down this wall, read my lips. It's the Ricoche podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilacs today. Our guests are nobody. It's just us talking. We all beling it, so let's have ourselves a podcast. But we also understand governing is not entertainment, not about building

a brand or virtue signaling. It is about delivering results. And our results in Florida have been second to nine. We can and we must deliver big results for America. I agree. We never get bored. Welcome everybody. This is the Ricoche Podcast, number six hundred and forty three. That's a lot of podcast and you may ask yourself, how did you get to that number. We've got a thriving, wonderful, vivacious community over at ricochet dot com. Why don't you go there? Why don't you join? For that

matter? When you do, you'll discover the part of the Internet that you've been looking for for years, A saying center right civil conversation, the likes of which is nowhere else, and we're proud of it. I'm joined by well who I am, James Lyles. I am joined by Robin Long in New York and Peter Robinson in California, and rob the New York aspect comes to me to mind today because we had a rumble at our high school last night. Really, what does it mean? That's a story, it does,

and it made me think of West Side. So we had a bet, you know, about fifty kids, fifty sixty kids or so, and in a melee, in a fracas, there was a stabbing. There was gunfire, wow, serious, there was There was a glock recovered with a fifty bullet magazine, the likes of which I'm never I'm imagining some some you know, pepper pot gun that a guy had. And it made me think

of West Side story exactly for the rumble, just that. But it made me also turn into Milton Glazier, you know, the old man who ran the pathetic little drug store, who, at one point, just in absolute despairer asks I think Riff or Tony or one of them, is what is the matter with you kids? Why do you have to do that? You know? And if you go back and look at West Side story. From the very start, they had every single liberal piety nailed in that Officer Krupsky

song. They really did, probably proclaiming, Hey, I'm deprived on account of I'm depraved, or I'm the prave, not acond of I'm deprived.

And fifty sixty years and nothing appears have changed, because I'm looking at all the sudden the local subredits, as people discussed this today, and it's generally society's fault, it's the gun's fault, it's we've failed these children at home and all the rest of these I think you have that you wants to have your facts wrong, though, James, because if they recovered it, I don't think they possibly could have recover were to glock because those there would be

illegal for those children to have you, So wouldn't you write right in Violet? And I tend to think that perhaps the sign the signs that proclaimed the school to be a gun free zone may have been um uh, not in a proper type, not big enough. If they've been twenty four points, they might have worked, but they were probably twelve or fourteen. Now, so, um, what do you think that elapsed time is between something like

that happening. Something's like that happening in New York a lot. And then and then someone else saying, sort of in the press or sort of like, well, actually, you know, crime is down. Yes, we do get that. It's always your evidence of your eyes and ears of no, really, you shouldn't pay attention to your eyes and ears. Crime is

down? Which is I mean, as an aggregate, I guess it's true actually in New York City in some ways, some things, but it's really just how you you know, you you throw in the scoff laws and the you know, the meter cheats, and also of crime. It does seem like it's down. But if you just just just concentrate on people shooting at each other and hitting each other with heavy objects, I think it's not down at all. Or pushing each other in front of trains. Here's something to

consider. I knew somebody, I know somebody who was braced by some youths last night after the event who were looking for a confederate of theirs and who would would apparently one of the miscreants involved in who'd escaped the attention of the police. And when this person declined to assist them any further, they moved close. One of them moved closer as if to relieve this person of her property or phone, who whatever it was, and apparently the dog interceded vocificate

dogs, whereupon the person's hand went to their waistband. Now, if this person had indeed produced a firearm and then backed off when the dog did something and then ran away, the question is do you report this? Do you report it because there's no point in reporting it because they're not going to find the and if they find the person, nothing is going to happen to the person. So this isn't reported, and therefore there's no statistic that says that

crime is actually going up. How many people just refuse to participate in this because they know there is no point and you know, it breaks down as you can expect on the neighborhood, the neighborhood group on next door, which is Twitter for old people. Everybody's appalled. But you wait, you look at all of them and say, look, nothing is going to change. You know, look around here. Look at all the sign the multicolored signs

and everybody's long. Look at the way that everybody around here votes. Look at the last election that we had, Look at the legislature that we have and what their concerns are. Nothing is going to change. You realize that, don't you. James. I wanted to about a two or three question interview of you because I don't understand it's been a long time now, but what ten twelve years ago I was fortunate enough to visit your house. You're

talking about a neighborhood high school. I gather you live in a beautiful neighborhood of large homes. I'm going to guess your home. This neighborhood was built

in the twenties, perhaps nineteen fifteen. Who was one of the outliers, fifty built by a candy manufacturer, built by a man who was part of the booming Minneapolis candy industry who made the walnetto in addition to the in addition to the Scotch loaf, which I don't think is a So so we go from my memory of you, of your just beautiful, leafy Midwestern never been invited, So I wouldn't turn to the last century neighborhood to this image now

of a melee that was serious enough that somebody got stabbed. That meant that means there were knives present, the cups retrieve a glock with fifty rounds nearby? Is this gang activity? Is this how did it come about? Is this pre planned? We were joe about West Side story. Did the cops have to get called to break what happened? Happened in that beautiful neighborhood. Well, I'll tell you that the cops showed up all mass There was everybody.

There was park police, there was highway patrol, there was sheriffs. There was everybody here. They all came running facts. They got there quickly. They got there quickly, And apparently it was rival factions at a community event that have been held at the high school. It was not necessarily specifically high schoolers themselves. Some of them may have been no, but yes, So this leafy, beautiful neighborhood of mine, which I had absolutely adore and

feel lucky to live in. I'm looking at video online. There was not related to the stabbing or the shooting, but just simply a couple of people pummeling and kicking somebody who was on the sidewalk. Now, that sidewalk, that space is where I watched my daughter walk into high school for the first day and for the last. That space is where I pass every day over

that house there, that's the one in the corner of my street. And in addition to the person being pummeled, there's the usual techno savages who are milling about their phones to make sure that every single little incident, moment of the kick and the push and the shove and the stealing, is captured and

uploaded to social Vietna social media. So it is one of those things that sticks with you and gives you a sense of burning, burning impotence, because, as I said, unless there is some seismic shift in what people have come to expect about the civic order, nothing will be done. Okay, two more questions, if I may, well, I mean just trying to understand this. And again, obviously for you it's personal because it happened to your high school. But for me, I've been there all right. Are

the cops neighborhood cops? Is there going to be the kind of thing where the neighbors can talk to the police and there's some neighborly small scale maybe doesn't arise to the level of getting debated on the floor of the Minneapolis of the State House. Over in Saint Paul. You said, should you report gun and My answer is, if you know the cops, if there's a genuine sense of neighborliness, you'd report it and just say, officers, I want you to know, you've got guys out on patrol. We live here.

There's a kid with a gun in the neighborhood. Right. Well, if if, if, if somebody, if there had been a police car, to whom one would have been able to speak. Yes, I'm sure, I mean there were just there were cops everywhere and you could approach them and you could ask them what was going on in the light. But we don't have officers Krupkey or Clancy walking the beach, swinging swinging a club and you know, checking keying a little box on a pole and checking in. So

we don't know. Okay, So the last question is did what kind of reporting took place? Is there a strip woulden cover a neighborhood event like this? I guess is there a local newspaper or is it? So just tell me what was the press? Well, the press was one stabbing shooting at this high school and it was it was Wow, it's right there in the front page of our paper today. So yeah, it was a big thing because it's anomalous and um uh, you know they can. They're not going

to be able to not cover it. It's a big deal. It doesn't happen around here, but it did, and so yes it did get covered. Um but again, you know, part of the problem on social media is that the wrong accounts on Twitter are covering it. There's one that is quite quite peppery when it comes to local crime, and people are accusing them of all sorts of built in biases and the rest of it. So you can't trust them. So I hate to link to these people. I don't

want to do. We have a fair source that we can use. It's it's it's fraught with so many angles that it is just difficult for people to sometimes confronted anyway. So that I do not not to be labor everybody with the details of of my little corner of the world. But it's indicative of sort of a larger social crackling fracturing that we see in every single large American

city. The sense is that it is getting worse and that there is no not that there's no will to do anything about it, but there's just there's there's just well maybe that there is no will nobody really really talks about what's necessary. And if you if you start talking about stern penalties for juveniles of actually putting carjackers the first time into jail, you will get everybody come in another woodwork and saying, well, you can't do that. That just hardens

them. It doesn't teach them anything. Um well, it may dissuade them. The knowledge of six months, you know, picking up trash on these I might might turn a mind or two against this sort of thing if they knew it would be swift and certain. But we can't have that discussion, I guess. So that's where I am. So the other thing, of course, and people say Minneapolis is not that they say Target, because that's the big head gruss. I can almost see it from here and we'll get

to De Santis and Trump had just a minute here. But it really is fascinating to me to see exactly how corporations are behaving and reacting to this. Now, you guys, I'm just ask you, what's your take on the whole target controversy in the latest and like it won't go broke thing, I can tell you we're talking about personal things. Target matters to me. I

never shove a Target, but my daughters love it. Why is this because there's stylish stuff and I'm not just talking about clothing here, but stylish stuff if you've got to. I have a son who's moving from San Francisco to Austin, Texas, and Target is one of the places you think of for curtains and maybe some desk furniture office furniture, because it's stylish and inexpensive, and it's extremely as far as I can tell, it's extremely well run.

The people there are trained, you can they know their inventory. It's a well run operation. And then we hear that Target is well, you'll have to explain the immediate controversy. I mean Target, there's a there's a woke transgender element to the story. The story that has my attention because of where I live, is that I think it's the Target CEO who announced in the most recent earnings call that inventory shrinkage, that is to say, theft is

now costing Target half a billion dollars a year. And similar related story, the enormous Nordstrom in downtown San Francisco announced that it's closing and they put it in an official statement. They didn't say anything about crime. They didn't use that word, but conditions have changed and they can no longer do business in San Francisco when they're customers and employees no longer feel safe. Oh my, these are two major well run retailers. Of of course, Target headquartered in

Minneapolis. And there's a second strand to the Target story that I'm not up on, but there's some sort of transgender or woke element as well. Fill me in on that one, James. Well, at first as Nordstrom is citing changing dynamics, which you just yes and yes, and they're leaving and organized shoplifting rings, you know, point zero zero one percent of the people doing ninety percent of the work is probably part of it. But I'll ask you, Rob, I know you have Target in Manhattan. I think there

has to be a few. Yeah, there's one in Manhattan. And there's one which is some I would describe as hell on Earth in Brooklyn, which I once was forced to go to and regretted every minute of it because that's it's it's just bedlam. It's just it's impossible to make your way through it. It's not it's not the clean, beautiful Target that we all remember in love. So what is your impression of the embroider the Bruhaha, they're kurf

Fluffel that they're currently undergoing. Well, I mean, I don't you know, I don't know. I think it's a mistake for corporations to sort of try to go past what they need to do, which is to sell good products and you know, clean space and that kind of thing. Um. I think it's a disconnect between the people sort of in HQ and the people who are running the stores. I mean, the analogy I would use is that they used to be in Burger King. I know when the Burger King

camp account was that Jay Walter Thompson. This is million years, billion, billion years ago. The Burger King company, the corporation, the suits would always want to come up with some of the clever, creative, edgy kind of ad campaign. But you know it's the these these these franchise businesses are a little like you know, medieval fiefdoms, right, there's a you could be the king or the lord, but you don't have that much power.

The barons have a lot of power too. And the barons in this case where the store owners, the franchise owners would own a string of burglings around the country and they would always come for the big convention and see the fancy new creative, very edgy campaign, and they would just say, no, no, no, no, Show the burger. Show a hot burger, juicee burger. That's what people want to see. People come into our restaurants because they're hungry. They want to eat the food. So show the food.

The fries are crispin thing and salt, and the burger and the cold ice cool. Just do that. Just do not attempt to grow a brain. And that is probably the problem. You see. I think you saw bud Light, I think you see the Target. Yes, that the woke

thing is the way it's expressed. But the tendency of people in media and in the corporate HQ to attempt to make a simple thing more complicated or to do additional things in addition to trying to get you into Target to buy stuff, to do something else, to seem hip and cool with it is almost always a disaster. Always a disaster. Yeah, I think it's right. I mean Target has been having pride material for I don't know how many years,

and it really hasn't been much for a nation. Nobody cares. I think what changed this year is all of a sudden people got the impression and correctly so that all of a sudden there was this trans element that had been amplified in the problem. So and then that's who's it four? Right?

I mean the question is just just shure numbers. Who's it four? I mean, if if we all took a pill tonight and got rid of whatever our transphobia or whatever it is, that with the decome we all got rid of tomorrow, how many trans people were talking about I mean, let's we're

talking about a very small number of people. The idea that you want to like to devote your part of your store for this kind of merchandise is like, well, that seems kind of eccentric, especially in places where I mean, look most of the you know, eventually the look I understand the pride I mean the target in Manhattan or Brooklyn or big cities that happing in pride sections that might make sense. Actually they were they're smart to do that.

Um, but this obsession with like the idea that this this thing, so that the numbers just aren't there, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I mean, you can say virtue signaling in the rest of it, wad I think what I think this is my This is my impression that it's a result of the ideological loadstar moving that. Whereas before when you had pride was

LGP, you know T will attack that on whatever it's statistically insignificant. Now you have, as Andrew Sullivan wrote in a pretty good substack, I think last week, you have what used to be the old gay rights movement being supplanted by queer theory. People would say, well, isn't that the same? Don't think you want to be called queers? Well, it is complicated because queer theory is much more cultural. Marxism is much more Michael Folk.

It's much more deconstructing gender. It's it's much more blowing up a whole bunch of ideas and replacing them. Well, there's infinitely malleable set of thought about human beings and sexuality that is different from the old you know you're a gay man, you're a lesbian, you know, you like both whatever. It's

much different. So when you say queer now you can actually mean somebody who is probably heterosexual but has adopted some peculiar little derivation that they found on Tumblr to make themselves feel special, so they are now part of this because it's cool to be that. Right. You don't really have to change what you do or you're interested in. But you've got your own little particular flag and your own little gender and your own little side, and you're own little pronouns,

so you're queer. So the intellectual loadstar of the whole gay rights movement moved seamlessly without anybody really noticing it into queer to queer theory, just the way that equality moved somehow into equity without anybody absolutely noticing. And in both of these cases it is a structural shift of language and thought. The guys the target aren't that's smart to probably note this. They just note that while we got more queer people now, so let's go all in on that.

That means going all more on the trans bit because that's cool. And you know, the governor lieutenant governor of Minnesota sported this t shirt the other day said protect trans kids. It's got a big knife on it, and I think she can stab somebody who who is opposed to mastectomies for sixteen year olds. That's what you're talking about. And since the whole forces of hate are supposedly assembling to keep children from transitioning medically physically in the rest of it,

then we must be opposed to those forces of me. So there's a virtue in coming and opposing the people who are opposing this new good thing. And there's also this sort of go along get along borne by the cultural wind things, where people fall into this and say, well, obviously this is this is new, and this is important and trans is important, and all the pass just blown up. What they don't get, I think is that a

lot of people who are perfectly content to I don't care. If you are an adult and you think this that whatever, I just I don't care. They're not interested in having biological mails compete in women's sports. They're not interested in biological mails who have not done any sort of physical transition and whats're mending full access to women's spaces and calling them So they don't buy it. They

just they don't buy it. And whereas before that they would be content to just ignore it, now they are being compelled to believe it and having compelled speech in which they are required to say these things that that is a woman. You can't say otherwise, are your folk or you are, as our political constituents in the newspapers that a bigot who's knuckles are literally dragging on the ground. So that's what I think it is. It's an ideological capture.

It it's people not paying attention to this. And you think, well, the other part of it is that Satanism got attached to this. Isn't that fun that one of the artists with whom Target was partnering is a Satanist and has all this Satanist cool pasteli stuff in his website. Well, it's a

different kind of Satan than we're thinking about. It's the sort of there is no Satan really, but we're just being individualistic and you are your own God, etc. But still, it's like, you don't have to actually probably antagonize your Middle America base by going with guys who are putting out a little Satanist pins about how we need to put up guillotines for homophobes. I've been clicking around during this conversation because now I'll shut up. Now I've dominated those

whole damn thing. I'll shut up. I've been clicking around during this conversation, and here's what I found. Target hasn't just put for sale a few sweatshirts with the Pride rainbow on them. They've got according to what I found, they put up Take Pride, a sort of displays in store after store after store with hashtag take Pride, which leads you to we at Target, we have a simple but powerful manifesto. We're not born with pride, We

take pride. We're making our message loud and clear. Targets proudly stands with the LGBT COM. That's politics, that's not retail. Target has waded into an ideological battle that nobody invited, unless, of course, so if you're you spoke to the Middle American, even though I live in California, I would view myself as a Middle American. I would find that offensive. I do find a defensive. They didn't need to wade in, They didn't need

to take sides. They perfectly find selling this or that piece of retail. But they took sides. They waded into an ideological struggle, and they shouldn't be surprised if there's pushback. We're going to be people who disagree. I think Target has a little explaining to do to its shareholders into its customers. Honestly, I had thought they just found themselves in the middle of something. Nope, they waded into it. Rob. Do you think it's an ideological

position or is it? Is it simply? I mean I I you know, yes, I feel I'm torn because part of me feels that, yes, this, you know, the sort of wokeism is a problem. But another part of me finds myself in um unexpected for me and um vociferous agreement with Peter Teel, who, in a recent interview with Barry Weiss identified about ten or fifteen things he was more worried about for America than wokeism. And I think sometimes people on the right it's we's when we go to this kind

of outrage. And I'm not sure. I I'm not sure. I really I really feel that I think Target's going to pay a price in the marketplaces they should. I mean, I put it this way. Had had Target convened a giant zoom meeting of Target store managers across the country and said, hey, what do you think of this? You're the ones that you're the closest to your customer, what do you think of this? I think those results would be very interesting and probably very revealing for Target. I'm interested in

Peter Deal's fifteen things that are more important than I mean. I understand that people get spun up about particular examples and the rest of it. And yeah, and that, yes, there are economic, political, demographic things to be concerned about. I think we can be concerned about all of them. We can walk and chew gum. But there is an ideological deconstruction taking place in American culture that woke and would not even a term I like anymore.

I wish we had a better one is cumulatively injury. And when it when it happens to nearly every single institution at the same time, it's it's it's termites that know how big and grand your house may look, it's being eaten away from the inside, which is the intention, the expressed intention critical race theory. Yeah, Rob, I hear you. Hear being really bored with me talking about this, Yam. I might be honest with you. I understand it's a difficult issue, but it's just it's to me, it's so

boring. It's what everyone talks about all the time. And when I watch you know, when you watch cable news, they're talking about it. When you read a conservative press, they're talking about everyone's talking about all the time. I agree it's crucial, but it's I'm just so I can't. I'm just being honest. I am so bored with it. There's nothing new about it, there's nothing new. It's just it's just a one more outrage machine, which I get, I understand, but I just I'm just being honest.

I'm just I just can't gin up at on Friday at twelve thirty two pm, I just can't gin up any enthusiasm for once again going through all the terrible, woke things that are happening. I just don't care right now about them. I mean, I know I've probably I will the future, but there's nothing for me to be, not only for me to do about it right now. I don't got to Target anyway except say, oh,

you know Target's gonna pay a price. Well, here's the thing. I mean, I got to go there soon to get stuff for my daughter when she gets a new apartment because she's got a job, which is great, and she's she's incredibly we're gonna have to outfit a new place for her. And Target's got some great sheets, but there's no way I'm gonna buy them at Target. No, certain, No, I don't think you should buy your sheets a target. You know where I think you should buy you Where

would that be? Well, boll And Branch. They're the best sheets you can buy exactly why And the reason is well, I mean where she is probably not gonna have air conditioning because she's still at that stage in her life.

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the promo code at Ricochet at boldon branch dot com. That's Bolden Branch bla n d branch dot com promo code Ricochet Exclusion supplies the side for details and we thank boldon Branch responsing this the Ricochet Podcast. All right, gentlemen, Um, Tim Scott, Ronda Santists, they're in Rian. What do you think? So? Um? I just loved Tim Scott. I just loved him. Now I have a kind of background question that touches everything I'm about

to say. I want to go on and on, but the background question is this, Am I just nostalgic for something that at least half the population now doesn't even remember? And that's the That's Ronald Reagan. That's politicians who understood optimism and a lightness of touch and who could connect with their audiences as ordinary human beings in a neighborly American way. Tim Scott has all of that.

He has a I found it and just an immensely moving personal story getting into trouble as a kid, being raised by this saintly single mother who worked and worked and did her best to keep him out of trouble, turning himself around becoming a Christian, understanding the importance of hard work, the gifts of being an American. He talks about his faith. I'm not just tossing that

in there. It's all just tremendously moving details to follow. There's not a lot of policy that comes out of all of this, and he barely touches on foreign policy. So you take one look and say, this is not a fully baked campaign yet. But oh my goodness, in the current climate, I just found him so refreshing. And then De Santist is almost exactly the reverse for me, in that there's a record as governor, there's a fundraising operation, there are plans to put people on the ground in Iowa and

New Hampshire. Deeply organized, he's highly intelligent. He's thought his policies through. You've got everything there that you want to put in that half dozen thick binders that go on the on the bookshelf in every campaign headquarters, so you can look up where your candidate stands on any issue. And gee, and I really want de Santists to succeed. That's where I started. But there's a kind of, I don't know, a kind of flatness to the affect

I just feel as though he's just even when he's doing that. The campaign video, the announcement video, now you have to expect that to be pretty good because they've got as much time in the world as they want to shoot that. That's him in a camera and they can do take after take after take. So I'm going to guess that this is the top of his form and he's It's not that it's just not that good. There's no warmth,

there's no connection with it. I'm just so this is why I'm interested, especially what Rob has to say, because of course Rob would be all over the professionalism or likely So you've got these strange candidates, yin and yang versions of each other. I personally, I'll just go ahead and say it right now, not that I think listeners would be in any doubt about it. I hope either one of them can overtake Donald Trump, but each has these

enormous strengths but also glaring weaknesses. That's what I think. And again I sort of wonder if I say, the Wall Street Journal said it and it's editorial on Rond de Santis said he could benefit from even a little bit of Ronald Reagan's self deprecating humor. Tim Scott understands humor and lightness of touch in De Santis has none of it. But I might just am I saying things that nobody relates to anymore. Does everybody want anger? No? No,

I think I mean, I think you're that's the situation think about. I don't think you have to remember how Ronald Reagan ran to know that he he ran very successfully. Like it's it's a people or people don't really change. They do like optimistic future. You know, someone their leader facing the future and talking about the future optimistically, which is what Ronald Reagan did. He talk about the future a lot for an old man, talked about the future.

And I think that is actually what not only Republican primary voters want, but what the general voters want somebody talking about the future. And luckily for the Republicans, they have like the world's oldest relic from the past to run against, so really talking about the future right and unfortunately, the front runner for the Republicans right now, just right now, I don't think that's going to last. But for right now is somebody who's also obsessed with the past,

not the future. I think it's really right about Ron to Sanders. I have an old friend who does a lot of campaigns, and he said that a campaign error is when you don't take advantage of an opportunity to be a human being. Because the way you win the presidency really is to you have to act more normal for about ten more seconds than your opponent. You don't have to be normal. I mean, Donald Trump's not a normal person. He's very abnormal in many many ways. He lives in and lived in

a giant golden tower and has had a golden toilet. Right, but he's still, even to this day, seems more normal than his opponent in twenty sixteen, Hilary clown who seems so weird. Right, So so Ron Sanders. Guess the Twitter thing had a lot of these glitches and was this and that and people, oh my god, I mean, this is an opportunity for him to say, yeah, boy, a lot of it was a lot of fun to do. I find Eon a fascinating guy. I wish

there weren't those glitches. But we've all been on that zoom call, right, We've all had that problem, right, and most of working Americans will not and say, yeah, you know, I know. Sometimes the thing just doesn't work, right, Okay, that's fine. Then you're then then it's a it's not a one day story where you're trying to mitigate damage. It's a story in which you are moving your identity and your personality forward. And that is what happens to him. The next week is going to be.

I mean, look, I think he's um. I think he's running a classic gubernatorial campaign. We talked to Simscott a minute. You know, this is these are not done people. These are smart people. They looked at the past. Right The last Republican city Republican governor to get into the White House was a quarter of a century ago, George W. Bush. He ran against you know, Orn Hatch, Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, Alan Keys. He only really won contender, and that was John McCain.

That's right, that's fairy. This is not This is not that campaign. And so I I think what I'm interested in, I mean, I'm trying

to you know, not I don't necessarily have a favorite right now. But what I'm interested in is just watching how how how much relish Ronda Santis has to take a part Donald Trump, because that's the only way for him to win the nominations, the only way from getting the White House and where where he's planning to take apart Donald Trump, And he just said something very shrewd

yesterday which he said he kept it on COVID. Donald Trump did great stuff in the first three years, so totally supported him, which is true. And then he turned over his presidency to Anthony Fauci, right, And that is a very stark difference between the two of them. And it doesn't require him to say, oh, you know the January sixth, this not doesn't require to get in any of those. Letting get any of those just just clear eye to the Republican primary voter. When it push came to shove,

he blew it. And when push came the video what I had the same what the Santis video. Yeah, there's nothing but Trump saying we shut it down, we shut it down, and we were right. We shut it down. Right, it's like a minute and a half Trum saying shut very very shrewd um. But on the other hand, he doesn't seem like he seems kind of like a jerk a little bit like I meant, I mean DeSantis. People I know who've met him say he's not. But I know,

it's like, he just seems kind of jerky. So he's gonna have to I think when you're when you're your your chief opponent is everybody knows is kind of a lovable jerk. I mean, in a way if you like Trump, nobody says he's not a jerk. He's a jerk. So you're gonna have to come up with a contrast. So I was what I like was but Tim Scott is that Tim Scott seems to be running the way old

timey Republicans run, you know, and I kind of like that. So um, but I think we're gonna see some more people jumped in, and I think it's I mean, the only the secret weapon that I think that Drawn de Santis has is that the press thinks he's worse than Donald Trump. Yeah, how can that be? That really does feel like the tenor of the coverage. They hate him more than they hate Trump because he might win. Because he might win. That's it. Yeah, that's it exactly.

Also because he's like he's he's affective. Right, So if you, if you, if you, if you, if you're looking for these political fights, you're this is a governor who's been effective. He's been effective at like I mean, you know, I just said I was bored of wokeism, But you know, Rod De Santis has been effective at like combating that.

I I you know, I feel like, you know, I'm the governors like De Santis and Brian Kemp who were smart about COVID, I think are would be much better in the White House then the former president who wasn't try you. I mean, we say to the press, why do you guys hate De Santas? He's Trump but without the Trump, And they reply,

that's why we hate him, right, That's why. I mean, all this talking about how he's a Nazi, all that stuff, like the plant, all that stuff that that I think is gonna play well for him in the Republican primary. He'll wear it like a badge. Republican primary voters are hip to the character assassination that happens in the mainstream press. They already,

they've discounted that already. When Donald Trump is indicted and loses a lawsuit, his popularity among Republicans goes up. And it's not because Republicans are somehow degenerate. It's because they understand that this guy has been treated unfairly, whether you like him or you don't like him. I don't like him, but I do think he was treated unfairly. So you know, DeSantis should be wearing this as a badge all you. You know, he should be a liberal

media left and right and tell Tumps. You know that it tell Tums comes time to actually run a general, right, which is what what every Republican candidate does. You win the nominate, you run right and win the nomination, and then you run to the center to win the general. So Rob, could you as a professional in media? And you too, I mean, James, You're I think of you more as a broadcaster, but that's probably because your voice is so beautiful. In any event, the question is

this. I had one encounter with Rhonda Sanders in person. It was when he was a congressman and we were both at a conference and we both got bored at the same time. So we went off to the coffee shop and each of us had a cup of coffee and a croissants. He was heavier than than he is now. He was he was he was just he was a perfectly lovely guy. We just chatted, we talked politics, and I see the Rhonda Santis in the campaign video of the announcement video, and it

looks to me. Tell me if I'm wrong, is the question at the end of this. But it looks to me like a guy who thinks that the moment the camera is on, he has to be somebody else. Yeah, and that is a rookie's mistake. Yeah, what do you think? No, I totally agree. Yeah, I do kind of get that feel. But I'm just thinking of Newsom coming in and hip hip checking Biden off the stage, and the country having the opportunity to literally vote between the California

and the fact that would be great for the country. That would be great, That would be a clean debate. Here's a choice too, totally different ways of looking at America. But I think it would come down to I mean, I think we I mean maybe this is I'm obsessed with it. Maybe maybe I'm obsessed with this and I shouldn't be. I should be obsessed with wokism. Who knows, But I am obsessed with the test of COVID. And if you're gonna put Florida against California, Florida wins. Um And

we know that Florida wins because you can look on the www. Whitehouse dot gov website to see the states in action in their excess deaths, and there are more excess deaths in California than there are in Florida. Um, but you cannot you cannot separate wokeism. Again, we got to come up with a better word from the COVID response because both are theition on the imposition of restriction on human activity and thought by the state. Okay, so I accept

that. I guess what I mean is that the left and the media want to say that row On de Santis, and again I have no dog in this fight, but just because they're talking about Rhn de Santis, that Ronda Santis is his entire governorship and leadership and ninety nine point nine percent, you know, smashing victory when you ran for real ectum was because he's a reactionary and he is like to put it in a six week abortion ban, which

is probably a mistake. But whatever anti trans policies, his like quixotic fight against Disney, all that stuff, right when I really think it's because he was right about lockdowns and school closures. Gavin Newsom, Donald Trump, Anthony Fauci were wrong, and the New York Times also wrong about them. So they are trying to memory hole this incredibly incredibly, incredibly tragic, long lasting, decades long ill effect mistake they all made and celebrated and squashed all squashed

all the dissent for and they try to pretend that didn't happen. So there now they're they're they're they're looking for trivial things to jump on. But I think that the more the more Descantis says, at the most, the most monumental event of the past worldwide event of the past decade, maybe the past two decades. The only time the world has been talking about the same thing before the COVID was World War Two. Right wherever you went in the world.

In World War Two, they were talking about World War Two. Wherever you went in the world during COVID, they were talking about In that moment, we had a frivolous president who could not concentrate or learn, and we had a very very strong, powerful governor in Florida, and we had a frivolous president and frivolous governor in California, and we had a couple really strong Republican governor as you made the right call, that to me is like he

should be saying that over and over and over again. Could you touched on this notion that they're trying to memory hole at all? Yeah? I okay, So this has been puzzling me, and I've come up with this kind of cockamami analogy in my mind, and you'll agree that it's cockamamie. I don't know whether you'll agree with the analogy, but let me try it out and see what you both do with it. It's like, it's this and I have just been this weird thing that for two years the country was shut

down, the state assumed dictatorial powers, unlike this cockamami. Public health official in the county where I live in California, who twenty four hours before with the lockdown nobody had ever heard of, suddenly told us we had to stay in our homes, shut down our businesses, wear masks if we want to. It was unbelieved, and now it's as if it never happened. We don't talk about it now. Part of that is understandable, in that we

don't want to talk about it. But I have this. Here's my analogy, or my cockamami theory, is that this is all like a childhood trauma. We're pressing something but it still explains. We won't talk about it, therefore we won't understand the way this is true. But in some weird way, what we all just went through and our pretending never happened, still explains eighty percent of what's happening in the country, including the rumble at your high

school. In some way those are connected, I think, Well, maybe so in that the kids were deprived of a year or two of actual school exactly, they forgot how to socialize. They've got out of right. It's

entirely possible. But you know, we don't talk about it because why Well, because a lot of the people who went along with the lockdowns were people in the media who were neurotic and who were we're part of the modern thought that replaced that that elevated health to above all else, not your spiritual well being or your emotional or your intellectual apparatum. No, it was just you know, the church, the cult of health. If you eat the right

things, you'll you'll be a turnal. And so to them this was very important, and they were very good at playing all the rules, and they were very good at enforcing the rules, and they had the total societal endorsement behind them. Of being the good little people who followed the good little rules, so they participated in this and the fact that it may have been overblown

or that it lasted too, they're not going to give that up. They would rather just move along rather than have a full accounting of it, because in their hearts they really think that they were always right and the mat was the yahoo's in the Red States who were doing what they were supposed to do,

and that's the reason that everybody died. I mean, if you go to the coronavirus sub credit, you will find to the the dead enders who every day gathered by the thousands and talk about how the rest of us are fools for not wearing masks on on airplanes for example, to still there and they're all and they're all, they're all they're sifting through the guts of every single little story about long COVID because they're all convinced that they have it and

explains everything else for them. So yeah, we're not going to get the accounting because the people who would be doing that don't want to admit anything they're wrong because they don't think that they were. And go back to the last time we had something like this, Peter, and I think it would probably be in the last few years of the teens underwood Row Wilson, when we

had things happened that today we completely forget. The amount of government censorship, the mandatory Rara Palmer raids, the Palmer, the nationalization of the rails. Right, there's all kinds of things that happened that change the culture in a lot of ways. And if you look through the newspapers, it's fascinating to see everybody flip and switch on a dime and march right along with what the government was now telling them. And that was forgotten in the Devil May Care

twenties that followed. You know, just it just people just moved along. We're not moving along right now because there are all kinds of injuries that were made that were deep than we thought. And the you know, does Randy Weingarten want to apologize, No, she's double she's red conning and rewriting history to make herself to the person who was to her. She's you know, if he was the one who was trying to rip the chains from the schoolhouse

door to let the kids pour in. Do any of the people who believe that it was probably not a good idea to send everybody home for work permanently, that it destroyed the office basis tax. No, they won't because all of a sudden the work at home, you know, people don't want to mingle too much or so no, we're not going to have that. Say

two things about the three things about politics, right. The first thing is that I feel like that Peter, You're absolutely right, and I don't think we're sure yet how long these ripple effects will go or how they'll work themselves

out. I mean, I think that what happened in twenty sixteen and sort of the Trump administer Trump campaign and certainly his administration kind of collected this frustration that people had from the two thousand and eight financial collapse, where it seemed to people and I don't think they were wrong that the very powerful financiers who made huge mistakes um didn't really pay a price and bailed out bailed out. But but I hear I actually would different view that it's not that they didn't

went to jail, because the truth is they didn't. Most of them didn't do anything illegal, anything wrong. They just should have gone broke, because that's what happens in capitalism and I remember talking to a friend of mine who is a very big financier, and I was saying, you know, we're good, what we had to protect the financial system. What do you want people selling apples on the street. And I was like, well, I kind of I kind of want the chairman of AIG selling apples on the street.

I kind of want those people to lose their net worth. I really do um at least as a down payment on the bailout. I'm not saying that we shouldn't bail them out, but I think that the first payment should have been checks from the liquidated network of the people running banks that failed, and there seemed to be and then within a year everybody who's back to making

bank again. And I just didn't feel right. I don't think it feels right to people that that now in America where it used to be that if you were going to get seriously rich, I mean, you're gonna get a family office rich. You were going to get like your grandchildren weren't going to have to work and be they're gonna be screwed up rich. That kind of

rich. You're gonna build a museum rich that you had to build something you had to make something, you had to invent something, and now you can get you can be you can have almost a billion dollars, you can have seven hundred million dollars getting stock options for being the CEO of a publicly health company. I mean, you can make all you can get. You can have generational wealth from being an executive in a company. And that I think

also disquiets people. And I think that is part of kind of where we see the tuitional kind of things breaking down because Republicans have traditionally been allied with that kind of stuff. Um, and I suspect that there are a lot of Republicans who think that's something that needs to be addressed. Rob, just one more thing about politics, because you had by politics, is that the strength that um, the strength that that that that people like n governors like

Ronda Santists. But I would I know he's not running, but Brian Camp I'd just say because it isn't like Ronda Santis is a standing on top of a pyramid all by himself. That they're not just giving you bad news. That's what makes the campaign, that makes this campaign strut so important. They're telling you I made the right decision. I brought good news to my state. It's not just I wouldn't make a mistake like those guys are jerks and

and they're terrible. It's I was right. I made the right decision. If you vote for me, you're not You don't have to just vote a negative. You could vote a positive. And I think that's a very power full psychological state for a voter, whether you're a Republican, a primary voter, or you're a general in the general elect I think to have somebody who you're like, oh, this guy made the right decision, I think is

it powerful? You know, whether he can capitalize one or not. A certain rains to be seen, but it's a powerful campaign strut for sure. Get him through the primaries. Rob. I happen to know that you're working on a big project, and this is one reason that you are able to speak with particular insight and passion about COVID. And I just want to start teasing this project because it's fascinating to hear you talk about it. You and I talk. I hear this, So let me ask you this question.

What's the project? And why is Jay Bodicharia? Really briefly, and why is Jay Bodicharia to pick up on where you just on the statement you just made. Why is Jay Bodicharia in a position to give a testimony as he did the other day for a few minutes he died in He was part of Ron de Sanders's announcement on Twitter. Why is your friends? So, what's the project? And why? What the heck does Jay have to do with? Confirming that? To sand explain that, Well, we know, we

know Jaj's a friend of the podcast. Jay's a friend of the Ricochet, He's a friend of ours. He's you know, and he's a we've ever met him. He is the most He's the sort of the kindest, gentlest person. Like you kind of meet him, you think, like man, you know, Actually, I think Jay would do better if ten percent of the nasty things people said about him are true. Actually, I think he'd probably be a little bit like happier in his life. Um uh So the

story we're telling a long form stories now in the Ricoche network. We're sort of preparing them. We got a bunch more we're doing, um and we've raised some money to do that. And what are the ones we're doing is a story really kind of a to ten episode serialized thing. It's part of our large master plan for ricochet um of the story of COVID. But I'm i'm you know, you can't tell the whole STIs as too many things.

But essentially I'm telling a story in three parts. The first part is everything we knew about viruses and everything we knew about COVID resist up to like March of twenty twenty. The second part is all the mistakes that we made. And then the third part is what we did to the person and the people, not just Jay, but people who were right. And we're giving us the right science and the right research and the right conclusions. And so my

general theory is that Americans decided, not Americans. This is the big distinction, Not Americans, but American and public health officials and politicians a panic attack, and the media too, the media panic attack, and they behave like

people who have panic attacks. They shut down all external information. They decided very early on on the course they were going to take in February of March, shut down everything, shut down schools, nobody leader have spray your lettuce and were I'm asked it to bed And they never ever change course, ever, even though, people like Jay Jay Brandon's study in at Santa Clara County in April twenty twenty, where he revealed some pretty good news we should have

been celebrating, which is that, hey, tons of people have much so many more people have COVID than we thought they are. They they've had COVID. They either tested positive for this, they're Sarah positive for COVID. Right, because this is I'm going to get the weeds here April twenty twenty. They didn't have the nasal swab. They just had to take your food. He said, isn't that great? Look how big the denominator is. Like everyone's got COVID, but only the same number of people are saying this is

good news what you wants? Right? And instead of saying, oh, well then now that we know this, we can do X y Z, people said, shut up, you're a liar. The test was corrupt every step of the way. He and Jay will admit this. He was not He was not exactly right about everything, but he was directionally correct about everything right. And and then a couple of governors called him for advice. Right, one of them was drawn to Santas and Jay said this, said this

to us years. I mean such as wasn't same day as he talked to him, Yeah, and said, wow, that guy did the reading. That guy did extra remember them. Yeah, and uh, you know when you you know, I talked to Jay now all the time to do this project, and like, you know, you will not be shocked to know that I don't always do the reading. Like I'm kind of like I'm sad. It's really hard, Like it's I don't under I don't I'm not I don't have that brain, right. Um. And he's very very Jay is

very gentle with me. When I say something stupid, He'll say like, well, you know, yeah, in a way, you're you correct. You know, he's very right. But that's what he said about Um, he said that rond to Santa's now. The only other person I've heard talking about a candidate who's not a Candonnymore is Mike Pompeo's a friend of mine said was one of the smartest people she'd ever met. Um. But oh that

so so that that that's that's framing my argument. But I but and though I'm sort of the deep head deep underwater with COVID, I actually do think it's you're looking for those crucible moments where you can say we all knew, we all had the same set of information. I just chose to read past

the first page. I didn't take Anthony Fauci's advice, and I was right, and Anthony Faucci detacted him attack Jay, you know, personally after Great Barrington in November Great and I still say that they should have held that conference and made the declaration from someplace else, because it makes it sound as if, well, there's you know, we could give you a Barrington declaration, but we're going to the And when you talk about being attacked by Faucci,

well that's a badge of honor for some, but for others who told them exactly what to think. I still remember going to the local boutique shop where you get the nice little gift for the wine mom because it's her birthday, and they had candles and mug they had, you know, voted candle with folchi ug I mean, like St. Anthony Faucci, that sort of thing, right, unbelievable, and a and a mug that said wwf D what

would Fauci do? So he had replaced Jesus in the popular consciousness, one of the things you're gonna have to talk about, Rob And I am not kidding here. I think this matters is that when everybody went home and sat

in front of Netflix, there were two options that they had. One was Tiger King, which told them all they need to know about the South, of course, and the other was a movie called Outbreak, which had come out a few years before and was banging around one on streaming and people could watch it and it presented for them a blueprint of what they believed was to come. And at Kate Winslet, being very very concerned about these things.

As a matter of fact, going to Minnesota. It took place in Minnesota because it was written by a guy named Scott Burns who was from Minnesota, who actually worked for the Minnesota Daily. I remember him. I remember beating him out for attacking the attentions of some reporter gal. But that's another story. And so his construction of that, and it's it's a good construction of the story, was this template that people were just imposing on their current events.

And when we saw that strange video from China, people dropping in the streets, and right, we didn't right, we didn't know, And that was was a hammer blow that resonated for weeks, but it stopped ringing in most of our in my ears after very shortly, but it didn't for others. I remember when I was the only guy coming to the office in April or in March or so. There was an addition to the to the washroom.

In the washroom, you leave one door, and then there's a short little tunnel because the construction of the office, and then you get to another door. They had placed a waste paper basket in that tunnel because you were supposed to use a towel to open the door and then to scard it on your way out, and then you and then you would use another towel,

and then there was a waste paper basket that had been outside. Because this was the new contain this is the new idea that everything was teaming with foam artes, that the whole world itself needed to be strayed down with lysol and napalm and all the rest of it at all times. Well, we got away from that pretty quickly, but that but but it didn't for most. For for a lot of the people, it seems, who still regarded the world as just contaminated in a way that. Well, let me ask you

this. Do you think it's sort of affirmed what they'd always really wanted to think about the world, or it just made neurotics out of people who had never thought about these things before, big broad ended question. We're getting to the end here together. I think all those things you're true. I think I think that yes, I would say yes to all of it. I

mean, it was, you know, these things aren't aren't separate. And I think that you can see now that sort of collected you know, the collected response to this has been that, you know, like you know, I had germaphobe friends who are like, see, I was right all along, you know, for carrying around purel everywhere. You know. Okay, maybe you're right, right. I have a friend who I have ranged like, you come into her house, you do not sit on something. She

puts something down. If you come in you were on the subway. You got to sit on like a sheet or something, and she's nuts, right, But okay, well, let you vindicated. They're people who believe that vaccines give you autism, which of course has been disproved. But like, I don't know, like this they've they've sold this vaccine and they said it was gonna do a lot of things, and it's kind of like it's not better by any by it's worse by a factor than actually getting COVID and having

natural immunity or having acquired immunity. So I don't know, I mean all those this is a big basket of things. I think Peter's right, that's it's they're going to work themselves out and um. But I think what we need to remember is that the the research and science mistakes, like I would say, akin to the technical glitches in the Rhonda Santists launch, are not the great crimes. Like it's it's okay, like they made a mistake, that's fine. Like I don't think that. I don't think the American people

have this idea. If they do, they should be disabused of it. That these people are always going to be right. That's the reasearch is always going to point to the right thing. You're gonna make mistakes, You're gonna the zoom calls not gonna work, The Twitter spaces thing is gonna break down, right right. It's not the word not the end of the world. The end of the world is when you triple quadruple Quinn, tuple down on your mistakes. You refuse to admit them, you refuse to change course.

It's like teacher once said to me, like, look, the point is everyone makes mistakes. You're allowed to make mistakes, just don't keep making the same mistake. Right, And every day, every week, every month that COVID unfolded, they kept making the same mistake. And then as as as the panic attack got more and more paranoid, right, because that's what happens when people have a panic attack. Really it's a cortisol event, like it's

it actually has a hormonal effect on your brain. They get more and more aggressive, so they get more and more angry at people like Jay Badachario, Like maybe he shouldn't be at stands ord, maybe he should be fired. Maybe these people should be silence. Maybe Twitter should like just not post their posts. Maybe we should block people or shadow band people on all these things.

Maybe we shouldn't have them on CNN to say they're to say that masks aren't effective and that herd immunity is the best way to go, and that a lot of closing schools is going to have more do more damage, cost

more lives than it saves. And then at that point that's when we that's that those are those are things we need to remember, not that people make mistakes, but that some people, when they make mistakes, higher have the armed forces and the entire bureaucracy that are correct behind them, and that we can't have the only way to repair, to rebuild trust in our institutions is

for our institutions to admit that they did not deserve it. Yeah, you know, every everyone that we looked at failed under pressure, and the refusal of them to admit that is the thing that keeps us from trusting them again. And that's the FBI and Carress secrecy. That's all. The great thing now is that we do get together in person from time to time because we're not afraid. We live life three facers and Rob, I think you could

tell people that we have some upcoming meetups that we do. I'm so exhausted now from this this. We didn't have any guests either, Like, this is crazy. So if you if you if you we're happy not having a guest, um, well then you kind of recreated a ricochet meet up, which is the guests are you? So we like talking on the on the on the podcast We also like being on the site. We like talking to

our members, but we also like needing them in person and meet. Ricochet meetups are the most fun and joyful way to be part of the Rickeche community. Um so uh. And also look if you if you want to talk about woke is them and make jokes about it, which I do, actually making jokes about it, I do. This is the place to go. By the way, you'll be surrounded by people who will give you the latest I to have. I got one from somebody who's at the New Orleans meetup.

That's fantastic and I will not post it, but it's really funny. Um well, maybe able to do in the member feed, but it's just a funny little little cartoons. So face to face IRL meetings the way to go. We have some solicitations, so we have some people who are trying to put one together. We have I'll do the first we have. The schedule. Meetups are Winston Salem in mid July, Matt Ballser's annual German Fest meet up in Milwaukee that's happening the last weekend in July. Stuff's happening July.

And Randy um just posted info about a Labor Day. We can meet up in Cookeville, Tennessee, which actually sounds like a lot of fun. Um. But we have some members who put up solicitations for Columbus, Ohio late late June, so late next month, Portland, the Portland, Oregon area. Whe that'll be fun. That's in mid July. I want pictures of that, and then Mammoth. I want to go to that so I can say I'm for Minneapolis, which is sixteen percent better than you guys right

now. If you if it's still sixteen by then m Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky in August. So there's lots going on. If you one of those sounds interesting to you, join Ricochet and show up. If one of those sounds interesting but you can't make it for whatever reason, join Ricochet and post your own meet up suggestion and Ricochet members will show up because that is what we do. That and talk and our down talk and write. And the thing about writing. If you go to ricochet dot com, you will

see some of the best writers you may never have heard of. Some people that I absolutely love to read write a lot true, and sometimes you can only find them on the member feed because that's where we talk amongst ourselves. And so you got to join Ricochet, and you have to pay actual money. I mean, it's just a little bit, but it gets you access to a community that really, you know, the folks that I've met in

real life, the people that I've met online. Now a day goes by that I don't hit it four or five six times and comment as much as I feel like I should. And it's just a great home on the Internet. And you guys are the ones who founded in for which I am eternally grateful, and brought me into it, for which I'm also eternally grateful. So yeah, we don't even know guests. We can sit here and argue. I can ramble on about things that Peter Roger is tired about and Rob's

tired about. But I guarantee you between talking about queer theory and wokeism and youth violence and the COVID era and the rest of it, we may get a few comments that go here hither and yawn. Let's just say this, It's Memorial Day and we haven't spoken word about that, and I feel remiss in doing so. But there would be many tributes to the veterans to the

people who sacrificed to the American wars of the past. There will be a remarkable, diverse, respectful, fascinating, deep historical dive into the holiday all over Ricochet, written by people who are doing it for the love of the correct and exchanging ideas. And so that's why I had to go there. I know I've pitched it a lot, but I don't enough. Sometimes I will say that this has been fun. Rob, Peter, have a great weekend, and we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet four point zero Next

week, Boys, next week. Follas Ricochet joined the conversation