Tariff Tiffs and DOGEmestic Disruption

community that I like. Let's let's talk with some like minded fellow citizens about this, that and the other. But every single subreddit has been infected by a level of craziness I haven't seen before. There is an utter conviction that we are basically in nineteen thirty four Germany. It's going to get worse. We are under the boot of fascism at the moment, and it's interesting how it manifests itself. In one subreddit, they were noting that a whole bunch

of subreddits had been turned off, had been banned. Now they were porn subreddits, you know, r R slash feet, our slash teens, stuff like that. But the general consensus was was this was a switch that had been installed by the administration or the Reddit administrators on the orders of the administration, to test how easy it would simply be to just shut Reddit down. Because, as we all know, Donald Trump paces you know, the Oval Office at two

o'clock in the morning worrying about what Reddit is doing. Think, well, that's paranoid nonsense. Let's go over here to where we're talking about the best ways to store all of the videos and books and things that we've downloaded, and there they are talking about the fact that it is necessary for everybody with a conscience to download as much information as possible from federal government websites, because it's all going to be taken down in the interests of installing the

imminent fascists. I'm I don't want to go to the comic strip history one because I am relatively certain that there will be an argument about banning Twitter links. It's crazy.

Only eighteen days, by the way, it seems so much longer, which is what's so glorious about it, Charles.

to think that USAID is like that. It's a very small thing, but yet how illustrative and defining of the entire organization the government. It truly is. What we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg, the Minnesota part that juts indicators.

Mash should be able to audit? It probably depends what you mean. Do you think that this is the beginning of a constitutional crisis? No, but it would be if the president were doing things that it doesn't look as if he's doing. And then you've got some of the illustrative elements, as you noted, where whatever is found, however stupid it is, the rejoinder is, well, it's only x percent of the federal budget, which is not a defense. It's just not an defense.

much money they're going to save. And that's all very good, but they should have said at the same time, I think in marketing terms, they should have said, we have a dual mandate, one to find waste and fraud and abuse and corruption, and some of this really is basically log rolling for progressives, and we're going to find things that America should not be doing at all. And you know that the excuse, oh well, it's not very much money just doesn't address that side of this.

thought through, and so forth. I have a hunch that what happened here is there may be some career people inside USAID who raised the flag for the incoming Trumpers that you really ought to look closely at how some of these AID slush funds are going to activist groups. By the way, I think most Americans have probably never heard of USAID until five days ago. What they're hearing, I think they don't like. But last thing for as an opener, is the latest figure I saw just this

morning from the Columbia Journalism Review. Certainly not a member of the right, vast right wing conspiracy, that AID grants supported over six thousand journalists, over seven hundred different news outlets, and as the way they put it, two hundred and seventy nine media sectors, civil society organizations. That's a euphemism

for something bad, more than thirty countries. One of the publications we've heard about Politico and a few others, but I'm shocked to learn that one of the publications that has somehow gotten some of USAID money is Christianity. Today. It's a whole separate story that they've sort of been moving left for quite a while. But you know a lot of them is how in the world is Christianity today getting money from the USAID. I want to learn

more about that. But this looks like they've really and there's gonna be more of these kinds of things in other agencies EPA regular state department. I remember going through the COVID relief bill in twenty twenty one, that was your past in haste, and I found in there, you know, a grant of three million dollars for gender education in Pakistan. So it's not just USAID, it's everywhere, and good for them for rooting this out. And I don't care if it only saves a dime.

to learn what's happening in Washington and government. But set that aside, if you will, Charles Wright does. This is the part that fascinates me, and you mentioned slush funds is there's a Twitter account x called data Republican I think is her handle, and she's developed all kinds of tools that allow you to drill down. You enter in various codes and whatnot, and it spits out thanks to AI, these marvelous little grafts that tell you exactly how the

money flows. And the boxes that are marked red are the ones that receive federal government money. And the almost every single instance here it's all read on the left and then on the right where the money eventually ends up. It's some NGO, it's some private enterprise or the likes.

And you see how these institutions are. These organizations angos get grants and then sort of wash them through other through an educational facility so that they you know, Ford gets the money and gives it to Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt then gives it to uh, you know, Tides Foundation, which pops up a lot and Tides gives it to some local entity, which sounds perfectly wonderful doing marvelous things for

the people and the rest of it. But you just see this money as it flows from the state to the to the to the private enterprises, getting less and less as it goes along, of course, because everybody's got to take their cut. And when this is when, when this visual is repeated over and over and over again, it is hard not to assume that there's just a

tremendous amount of inefficiency going on here. And I think, yes, the idea is to zero it out and build it from scratch and justify anew every single one of these things. Now you can say that's just simply too much work.

I think we got enough people in Washington who are who could probably work nine to five figuring out exactly how to do this and put it into a bill so that instead of having is big slashing that money that goes everywhere, that you have specific lines and specific laws that empower and instruct instead of the blob And Charles, I know you're with me on this, and Stephen too, that it's not that we're opposed necessarily to spending United

States government money on philanthropic efforts. We just want something rigorous, something codified, so that there are actuals so that Congress does its job that we have a budget, not a continuing resolution, but a budget. And do you think we might actually get a budget out of this after two years? Or does Trump lack the discipline to actually keep going and follow this to its natural conclusion?

because it's a structural question, not a partisan question. Most notably, I think given the scale of the usurpation, I spent a couple of years shouting at Joe Biden for trying to spend four hundred trillion dollars billion dollars, not four hundred trillion that's next time, four hundred billion dollars bailing out student loans with public money that he was not

allowed to do. And I did not see this as a partisan question, and I opened my arms and asked other people to come in with me on the endeavor and say, no, the president's not allowed to do this. Democrats, Republicans, independence, whatever, just please accept that Congress is supposed to it is. And you know what I got. I got nothing. I got absolutely nothing. In fact, you've got the usual suspects either stayed quiet about it or said no, he can

do it, or well, it's nice. We have had a Republican president for what is it, fifteen days sixteen days now, and that Republican president, as far as I can see, is exercising powers that were delegated by Congress.

President Trump, but you can't cancel it. But thus far we seem to be in a situation in which the president is just auditing what he is able to spend, and in some cases saying I'm no longer going to spend it, I'm no longer going to use the discre that I have been given, that every president has been given. And what is the press saying? It's a constitutional crisis.

So what we have is a scenario in which when presidents Barack Obama did it with DHAKA, Joe Biden did it with student loans, where the executive branch is literally stealing the power of Congress, is literally usurping the constitutional authority that has been given to Congress. These people are

silent or endorse it. And the second that a president starts to use the delegated authority that they have actually been given in a way that they don't like, they're say, this is the coming of Hitler, this is the end of the republic. This is a constitutional crisis. Is this is insane. This is making me so cross because I've been standing asking these people to come help for ten fifteen years and they won't do it. And then the second the president is actually doing what he's been allowed

to do. Agreed, he shouldn't be allowed to do it, but he is. It's a constitutional You have got to be kidding me. You have just got to be kidding me.

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Take the next step to improving your health by going to Lumen, dot me slash ricochet to get twenty percent off. You're a Llumin It's Lume and dot me slash ricochet for twenty percent off your purchase, and we thank Luman for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast and now were welcome to the podcast. Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age, the vice president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and contributing editor to American Conservative and The Spectator. You can find his

writings in countless of the publications. You can find him on x at Tory Anarchist. Daniel, Welcome, Thank you, delighted to be here. Well, Monday, you had a piece in the Post New York called Trump's Canada tariff tiff, and I think there should have just been Trump's tariff tiff for alliterative purposes, tells America's friends to get real on defense spending. We don't usually think of Canada when it comes to defense spending. We're looking at Europe at what

they are or are not doing. Explain exactly how that relates, because a lot of people may have looked at that and said, why Canada. Maybe it's fentanyl, but there's something else going on.

behind that. Canada spends about I think one point three percent one point seven percent where between those figures on its defense right now. I think it's actually one point three it's significantly less than two. And Pierre Trudeau is just not serious about meeting his obligations, and he said it's actually going to take until the twenty thirties before Canada is able to reach the mark that we expect

from our allies in NATO. So I think Donald Trump is using tariffs here to put pressure on Trudeau, pressure on Canada on a whole number of issues, including this one of Canada being a free rider on national security coming from the United States and the NATO Alliance.

for this, against foreign entanglements and military events overseas. I think that viewpoint has caught on with a lot of people. But two things in particular. Right now, what, Well, let's start in reverse order, reverse chronology. So the last couple of days, Trump has let fly with this idea that we ought to take a role in rebuilding Gaza and moving people out, and you know, we'll have a I don't know, it's like a real estate deal, an ownership stake and the resource that will be built. What do

you think of this prospective entanglement? Do you like this? How do you are you enthusiastic for it? Or does this violate the McCarthy proviso?

chess pieces in the air. Nobody knows whether they're going to land or what's going to happen. Now that said, I really don't think Trump is going to send troops to Gaza. I don't think we're going to have a military occupation. I do think he's saying, you know what. First of all, I mean, it's been interesting to see typical hawks like Lindsey Graham now suddenly having to sound like doves as they say, wait a minute, this proposal

goes too far. So okay, Now he's, you know, sort of testing the limits of where the morehawker side of his own party will stand. Second, he's also telling the gozens, wait a minute, why the heck do you want to come back to this, you know, land of yours, which has been reduced to brubble. And if you do come back, how is it going to be any different than last

time when you guys launched an attack on Israel. So I think that too, is again getting to the core of the dispute here and is kind of forcing negotiators to be more honest about what they actually want and are willing to do.

Israel and any kind of military action against Iran. Where do you land on that?

can't do. We're not Israel's keeper. They are a sovereign nation. They can act according to their own interests.

to actually look at what's happening. I would be very skeptical of the ability. I mean, we can certainly, you know, have missile strikes, we can do a number of things. I think if we get into regime change and occupations, then we'd have a real nightmare on our hands. So it's all. And the other thing too, is that it's very hard to tell. Obviously, there are signs that the Iranian regime is weakening. There are signs that, you know, it is indeed, its oppressions have reached a point where

the people are showing their discontent. On the other hand, it's hard to know exactly, you know, how deep that reaches into the countryside in Iran. So I'm kind of optimistic actually that you know, Iran's regime, like the Soviet regime you know in the nineteen eighties, is not necessarily

going to be around for that much longer. But that said, I mean, containment, I think is the white policy for the US there, And if something more than containments needed, I would think Israel is the best person, the best state to undertake that.

anytime soon. But you're paired off with the Andy Smarrick on Trump's appointments, especially of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Junior, and you give a good spirited defense of those. I could pick some knits with the way you characterize Reagan, but I don't want to bore listeners for that. But I do want to pick one knit. You mentioned briefly that, oh, National Review, in the old days of Fusionism went tilted too far in accepting expert social science, and don't think

that's correct. I mean, I mean, yeah, they used to have Ernest vonden Hogg, but he was usually trashing the established social science. So I thought you were being a little mean to National Review there, which seems to be a popular sport these days. And I'm doing this for Charles benefits, so he doesn't have to be put on the spot. But I'm an old guy's been reading it forever.

But maybe the last point is, or maybe could turn this into a question is Yeah, I share all of the sort of Russell Kirk and other conservatives disdain for social science on very deep levels, but I'm also a consumer of it. And there's you know, some of the best social science the last generation has been by people like Charles Murray and James Q. Wilson. And you know, when our guys do it well, or back to Ernest Vonden Hogg forty years ago, when our guys do it well,

we clapper the heck out of the left. So maybe maybe can I get Dan McCarthy to say just the kindest little thing in favor of decent social science? Or is that a bridge too far?

kind of contention that I wanted to get at. Also, the other thing being that obviously James Burnham had a long standing feud with Frank Meyer. Meyer thought, you know, conservatism needed to be an ideology or kind of you know, a well articulated philosophy. Burnham thought that conservatives should be more empirical, more machiavelian. Even so, that's the kind of

dispute I was getting at. And in fact National Review was a lot of fun, and I think, you know, to the extent that comes through today can still be a lot of fun when these kinds of clashes between different methodologies among conservatives arise. That said, I do think that the vast majority of social science is absolutely worthless.

And the idea, the fundamental idea that if only you know, we put science in government, that if we have the right technocrats large of our bureaucracy, we're going to get wonderful outcomes. I think that's wrong. And even conservative you know, conservatives from think tanks and you know, who have social science credentials or you know, credentials in you know, even economics and things that are relatively more grounded than most

social science. I'm just skeptical of their ability to actually govern and maneuver the country in the direction they want to go. I think there's actually and that's you know, one reason why I favor a much more decentralization and also just you know, more of a sense of dealing with human beings as the essence of politics rather than dealing with sort of Benthamite abstractions of maximum utility.

don't do that. And because we're in this honeymoon period for Trump, it is sort of looks odd to some because they want to be all in right, so I wonder what, from your perspective would a successful second Trump presidency look like. Right, neither of us is in a cult, so neither of us is sort of tied to Trump or so angry with Trump that we will reject it

when he does things that we like. So if you were to look forward four years, what would he have to achieve maybe two or three things in the next four years for you to say, well, that was a really good presidency and he moved the country and the right and the Republican Party in the direction that I Daniel McCarthy like.

at those percentages. It's really a matter of the threat environment, and when you have Russia engaged in an invasion of Ukraine right now, obviously Europe should be spending not just two percent, but a lot more trying to keep their neighborhood as peaceful as possible. So one thing I want to see is more of a kind of tiered defense

system where our allies are contributing more for themselves. We are still there, but we are the provider of security of last resort, rather than what we are now, which is more or less the kind of sugar daddy that everybody goes to for their first line of support. In terms of social policy, I think Trump is already making tremendous advances, So getting rid of the federal government's role in affirmative action, DEI, all these other things, that's exactly

the right move. I tend to think that Trump is actually right strategically for the pro life movement in terms of saying that you have to focus on the local before you can hope to do anything at the national level. So I think Trump is correct to keep abortion as much as possible in the States rather than trying to make a federal issue of it right now, where pro lifers would certainly lose. And then in terms of taxes

and domestic issues, you know, economics. I want to see first of all that Doge continues to do the fantastic work it's doing right now, stripping out this entire ecosystem, this class system whereby the federal government takes our taxpayer dollars gives them to mostly left wing NGOs. These left wing NGOs, of course, then take that money and spread it around their friends. It upholds an entire ecosystem of

progressivism that I'm very happy to see defunded. I like to see tax cuts, you know, I'm not one of these conservatives who thinks that suddenly there's something virtuous about taxing the American people more. We're taxed enough already. In terms of trade policy, I kind of like what I see from Trump so far, where he's willing to use, you know, the threat of tariffs to get you know, various kinds of concession, just open negotiations, you know, from

a position of strength. I do you know, think that if he suddenly slapped you know, twenty five percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, maybe on Europe. I mean, who knows who else would get those kinds of tariffs. If you do that too, suddenly you're going to have price shocks, You're going to have supply problems, all all sorts of issues. Now, whether you could have a more gradually implemented, large scale tear of plan that I think, you know is probably

something you and I would disagree on. Yeah, but I'm a gradualist, I'm a conservative. I'm someone who tends to look with a certain degree of anxiety upon sudden drastic shifts from one direction to another. That said, I think Trump so far is not so much trying to do something, you know, grabbing the steering wheel and suddenly turning the car one hundred and eighty degrees. I think what he's actually doing here is setting up a very interesting set of moves for negotiations.

It really has a very flimsy grounding. And we know the Supreme Court has made, you know, mistakes in the past, so I think it's time that we get the Supreme Court to revisit the idea of birthright citizenship and give

it a more constrained definition. Clearly, you know, the notion of what it constitutes to be subject to America's jurisdiction, which is the you know, the wording that is used to say, well, look, anyone you know on our territory subject to our jurisdiction, including illegal immigrants, including legal immigrants, therefore they must be covered by birthright citizenship as well.

But you know, being subject to the jurisdiction actually means different things for American citizens because we're still subject to the United States and jurisdiction even when we don't live in the United States, because we are taxed even if we're living abroad. And obviously no Mexican citizen, either a legal immigrant or an illegal one, is subject to that

kind of jurisdiction. So I think there's you know, Trump is doing the right thing to question this building block of kind of illegal immigration and of leftist you know,

promotion of mass immigration in general. And then you know, I do want to see legal immigration limited as well as illegal immigration, and I think that, you know, I tend to side more with the critics of the vig Ramaswami on H one B visas than I do with you know, Ramaswami himself, although I acknowledge, you know, certainly, when you have absolute, you know, Olympian level talents, when you have Einstein level geniuses, yes you want to bring them into your country, but you don't want to have,

you know, a kind of indentured servitude for tech workers with H one v's.

The other day, I was making eggs for breakfast, as is my wont and I have this wonderful little this egg beater. You push down on it and it whips your eggs. It's the second one I bought, because the first one, after two or three months, started leaking black

oil into my eggs I bought. I bought another one within two or three from a different and mind you, this was a different one from a different company on Amazon that had a list of consonants for its name that you know XK five three seven two, as opposed to the other one, which was nine three you know, made up brand names. It's all coming from the same Chinese factory, and I'm using it, and it dumps black oil into my eggs, And I said, all right, that's it,

you know, twice bit and thrice whatever. Stupid me, but I'm kind of used to like buying cheap junk from China, and it's like, I'd rather pay a little bit more and have quality goods made right here that employ American citizens, if such a thing is possible these days? Is that what Trump is trying to do? What does he want out of China from the terra Does he want disengagement? Does does he want, you know, for the people to just simply move their factories elsewhere to India or Vietnam

or heaven forfend Indiana. What's the endgame with the with the Chinese tariffs.

trying to do here. He wants to encourage, you know, the taking of industry and of trade away from China and putting it anywhere else possible, ideally here in the

United States with more manufacturing. But friend shoring is better than having, you know, a trade dependency on China, so you know, I think one of Secretary Rubio's accomplishments in visiting the Caribbean and Central America in the past week has been to try to deepen trade friendships and relationships with the nations of Central America and the Caribbean in order to try to you know, create more of an industrial capacity more of a trade base here in the Americas,

for both the goods we want to sell to them and also for their ability to develop and sell to us.

them in the long run. Do you think that others that this is the beginning of a diminution of Chinese influence in that a way.

And I think one of the successes of Secretary of Rubio's visit has been to work on a lot of those things that are further down the agenda saying that, you know, we need to have you know, supplies, especially for you know, high technology coming from America. Five G networks for example, we want those to be American based five G networks. We do not want Huawei to be you know, the primary communications NOE for Central America and the Caribbean. So I think there's been significant progress there

and I'm hoping that's going to continue. And I think that you know, most of the nations of the region do understand that it's much better to be you know, America's friend, much better to have these dependencies if you're going to have them on America, don't have them on communist China, because Communist China really you know, is going to use that in ways that are going to be

harmful to the US. Then the US is going to have to retaliate by you know, limiting perhaps our trade and relations with people would like to be our friends, because there are neighbors. A whole number of bad things will happen if China is economic influence grows in Latin America in general, but in the Central America and the Caribbean.

and all the rest of that. And you point out rightly that this is a long standing negotiating tactic of Trump, and I wonder if you're going to reach the point of diminishing returns right. It is amazing to me that people have not figured this out about Trump, but it's still working for him like a charm. But reach a point of diminishing returns, doesn't he At some point you really have to draw the line and really follow through. I mean, I don't know whether it's invading Panama or

seizing Greenland. I mean I think those are crazy ideas, but it does seem to be getting it does seem to be getting results. Like you say, but what happens if he doesn't? Where do you think Trump needs to draw a line? I'll do the question that way.

even hear from Pat Buchanan back in the nineties. This is this is you know, certainly creating a public impression of being quite not just willing, but eager to employ tariffs in a big way. So I think, you know, there will come a time when someone's going to call his bluff. And you know, I think Trump is quite willing to use tariffs. Now he probably doesn't want to do it. You know, if you have twenty five percent on Mexico, twenty five percent on Canada, all going into

effect the same moment. That's a big disruption. On the other hand, if Canada doesn't get serious about what he's asking of Trudeau, it's entirely possible. Maybe we have a deal with Mexico, but we don't have a deal with Canada. Immediately, Tariff's going to effect for a while, and then the Canadians come back and say, oh gosh, we should have taken you seriously the first time. Now we're willing to make a deal about fisheries or NATO or other things.

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dot com slash free demo. Do I have to say it again, bamboo hr dot com slash free demo, and we thank bamboo hr for responsoring this the Rocachet Podcast. Well here we are again, closing up another episode, but plenty of time to chat amongst ourselves. There was a description of Twitter that I saw the other day. A wonderful little exchange included a news report, then John from Commentary weighing in, and then Selina Zito, and it all began, I think with somebody who was saying that they were

facing quote and Orwellian Knightmarre. I believe that wasn't what it was because they no longer knew whether or not they had the lifetime protection that a federal job afforded them hm. And was pointed out to this person that actually this is what most people called real life in a dynamic economy. And also the people the federal government didn't seem particularly interested in the plight of the people who were having their industries destroyed, downsized, or it made

irrelevant by various government decisions. Nobody asked to call. Everybody told the coal miners to learn to coal, but nobody seems to be We're supposed to have sympathy for the somebody who lives in suburban DC and has been sitting at home for four years, tapping away with a cat in their lap.

going to devastate our budgets. It's gonna require huge spending cuts. It's gonna be terrible for government in California. And the person said he looked out at the audiences at rotary clubs and wherever, and always saw were people smiling. And of course Prop thirteen passed by a nearly two to one margin, And it was that point that guy said, I changed my mind about Proposition thirteen. Well, I think

something similar is going on now. I think there's no sympathy for people who well, the bargain's always been kind of phony. We need to have higher salaries and lavish pensions for public employees at the state and federal level because they don't have, you know, to compensate for the lack of you know, pensions and stock options and things

like that. But of course when you look into these things, you find that the pensions it's bankrupt in Chicago and Illinois and so forth, and California is also way behind. And so this is long overdue. And it amazes me how Democrats want to die on all these hills. They want to just end the transgender business, you know, aid to media groups and all the rest. And I'll land here Democrats revealing that they really are the most incompetent

political party. Republicans maybe the stupid party, but Democrats seem incompetent.

the private sector, but you have better job security. Now government workers, especially at the federal level, have both the job security insane levels of job security and pensions that can't be matched in the private sector and salaries that are on average hire. Now you have to be careful how you passe that between me and and so forth. But the deal that was once offered has been essentially reworked so that government employees win on both sides of

the coin. And one of the reasons for that is that the public sector unions have put themselves in a position in which they get to play both the employee and employer. Under Franklin Roosevelt, who was hardly a mean right winger, the idea of a public sector union was deemed to be ridiculous. It was only in the sixties under Kennedy via an executive order, that public sector unions

became permissible. And the reason was obvious is that if you have a private sector union, and I think the way the government puts his thumb on the skills is outrageous, but just in theory, if you have a public sector a private sector union, then you have two people in the equation that have an interest in meeting one another in the middle. Because you have a guy who owns a business and he needs things to be done, and if he doesn't get his employees or employees on side,

then he'll go out of business. But you also have people who have jobs and they don't want to lose them. They don't want the company to go out of business either. I don't think it always works exactly like that. I'm not that naive, but the idea makes sense in theory. You have these two, So that's not true here. So we've ended up with this absurdly sprawling, largely useless federal workforce that gets to set the terms of its own employment by bullying the people who employ them with its votes.

That should never have existed in the first place in that setup, and that violate the original deal, which was come here for the job security. But you'll make less money. I mean, it's just something that's got to be done about it.

What I'm looking forward to because all of what we've been seeing with the USA idea is just to tune up. It's just it's it's you know, it's the overture. It's giving us the themes that we're going to be hearing the operator to come. But the Department of Education is in the sites now because every day it seems like the administration wakes up and says, all right, we need

another galvaniced seismic, tectonic shift shock. You know, nobody's talking about Greenland anymore because invading, occupying, and rebuilding Greenland is like that, that's so a fortnight ago. We're so far beyond that. These things will be dropped depth charges and then everybody will absolutely freak out about them, and then necessarily something has to be done about them, and perhaps

necessarily something will be the Department of Education. The I began this hour by talking about the shrieking Unreddit and the rending of garments. The reaction on Reddit to the elimination of the Department of Education or even just pairing it back to its statutory confines, which I believe that they can do by executive action. You have to get

Congress to get rid of the cabinet. Is uniform in that this is a concerted effort to stupefy the American people and make them dumb, so that I don't know, I guess ten eighteen years hence they willingly accept the fascism in which they've grown up, that they're not critical thinkers anymore. That the idea that if the Department of Education does not exist, there is no education in America.

because that's not the point. And then simultaneously, some of these people will be coming in from our slash teachers or public school credits, where people are talking about the inanities and the horrors that they face trying to teach an uneducatable generation, which has nothing to do with the amount of federal spinning and has everything to do with

cultural events and the rest of it. So, I mean, the idea that education right now is dependent upon A the federal teat and b federal instruction is nonsense because we've lived under this and we've seen what's happened. We've cratered, we could be better.

too many Americans are sentimental. And I think, how the part it's about education, the EPA's environmental protection and we like all those things, and so sort of a labeling thing. But yeah, it's add this other thought, which is I am watching again another perhaps example of democratic incompetence on this. They're all attacking Musk. Who elected Musk, to which you ask who elected all these bureaucrats that he's reviewing right now.

And people have also saying at some point Trump's big ego and narcissism will cause him to have to break with Trump because Trump's richer and getting all this press, and I think you're missing that Trump is sorry. The Musk is such a useful lightning rod for Trump, and he's confusing and dividing the opposition that otherwise would be focused wholly on Trump and Trump alone. And so I'm just sitting back and popping more popcorn and enjoying the whole spectacle.

truly believe that nothing of value would be lost. This is why there is this great disconnect in politics at the moment, because, leaving aside again the debate over structure, the people you're discussing on Reddit, and many people within the Democratic Party honestly seem to believe that if you even let one bureaucrat go, the whole thing will fall apart. And I think the opposite is true. I think you could fire half of the federal workforce and no one

would notice. It would make the country better to do that. And you know, this is the problem that the Democrats have. Republicans will suffer if they if they seem callous or they go too fast. But the problem that the Democrats have is that reaction that was just mentioned with the proposition. Remind me which one it is, Steve in California thirteen.

It's that reaction is that if you look at polling on this the sob stories that I keep reading in the New York Times that people say I have took her and for a third day of the week, I can't even imagine it. I cried myself to sleep this morning. Just sounds completely insane to people. Yeah, but they don't know that because they don't talk to anyone outside of that group.

little Claire, and then have a meaningless meeting with a couple of other people. They're staring at screens and talking about something, and then lunch on the deck in the sun with the sprouts and the and then it would be some other pointless and then it'd be yoga, and then it would be then they would take their dinner home and the rest of it. And it all looked like this ridiculous experience, I mean, very very nice to live, I suppose, but producing exactly what Twitter did. One thing.

It took in tweets, it gave out tweets. It was back and forth. What they were talking about. I don't know. Musk comes in and fires eighty five percent of them, and Twitter somehow staggers on someone. You could get rid of all of those people who are having all day meetings about this, that or the other thing, and and it turned out not to be essential to the thing that they were doing.

what it used to be. And it used to be all the big brand names, right, they were all out there, and then they all pulled back because because Muscus a fascist and turned it into a right wing sess pool, which I find into an interesting comment because I am on Twitter a great deal, as our previous guest said, more than I should be, and I find the amount of left wing invective or arguments is precisely what it

was before. What I don't find are the throttling of ideas and opinions that are at the moment unpopular and deemed to be hurtful disinformation that we have to do something about. That's the other part about this. One of the notes that we have here for the podcast is how basically the resistance appears to be rudderless that you

have a democratic party having learned nothing. Putting David Hogg as the vice chair of the DNC, that you have these rallies where people are waving the flags of other nations, which does not necessarily endear them to the population amongst which they wish to live, and that you have all of these, you know, people hyperventilating in the steps of various state capitals insisting that fascism is on the way or here as in Minnesota, one of the placards said,

there are no illegals on stolen Okay, make that argument and see how that goes for you. So you want to say, well, you know what got them on the run. They'll never be able to pick it up and figure it out. But of course perhaps they will or can they? Is there a Clinton out there waiting to be born who can triangulate and get them back? That may be a whole another podcast that we should have. We kind

of gotta go, it's been an hour. I gotta hit lunch, I gotta go to the gym, anything else, guys, or you just contend to let me go with a self indulgent peroration and leave it at that.

We also want you to go to ricochet dot com if you manage to listen to seven hundred and twenty six podcasts without figuring that out. Ricochet dot com is the well spring from which we come, and you would love to dip your cup in there and imbibe of its fresh, clean, artisanal waters. Same civil debate. Mostly thanks for joining us, folks. We'll see you, Charlie Stephen, We'll see you next week, and we'll see everybody in the comment, said Ricochet four point.