Podcast 539

Podcast 539 What Now? Election 2016 is a bust. Primary voters and the party political process selected the two worst possible candidates. No one can make the case that one will be worse than the other, despite the constant attacks and demands that each side ‘bleed red’ or ‘bleed blue’. Hold your nose and vote for the ‘least worst’. Which one is ‘least worst’? The tragic story in this whole drama? If Trump wins, Republicans will be the most shocked and disappointed by what he does. Meanwhile, Trump trails Clinton 6 points with serious deficits in key battleground states. If the democrats maintain this lead, republicans won’t have to face the reality of their decision to embrace and nominate someone who seems to be both a republican and a democrat, when it suits him. Someone who has doubled down on rhetoric and ‘earned media’, someone who doesn’t really stand for or the carry the standard for ‘traditional republican values’, whatever those are. In Podcast 539 Now What? Election 2016 is bust, time to go back to the drawing board. What is a liberal? What is a conservative? What are the issues? What is grassroots? What do we believe? What do we stand for? What do we want? Building a movement strong enough to take on the establishment, especially now that rules have been changed to prevent such movements in both mainline parties, is going to take more than a few protests and some meetings on Tuesday nights. Guess what? An establishment that stands for nothing except maintaining their hold on political power isn’t going to reduce the size scope and and power of government, and I’m talking about republicans. Podcast 539 Now What, as a beginning, asks some of the questions that need to be asked. I don’t expect answers and don’t answer these questions, but think about them. Meditate on them. Answering questions, and making a good plan are only a start down a very long road. The sooner we start, the better. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Brush Studio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:31 — 92.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Podcast 529

First Night at EAA. Sunday nights are load in nights for exhibitors, fly-ins, and media at the EAA AirVenture Air Show at Osh Kosh, Wisconsin. I always celebrate with a regular podcast, live from just under the control tower as we start a new week, on the First Night at EAA. It’s late. Everyone is asleep, but I am getting in the last few thoughts on the coming show, and new developments in the political world this weekend. Having just come from the RNC at Cleveland and witnessing the divisions in the Republican party firsthand, it’s a little weird to see the same kinds of fissures developing with the democrats at Philadelphia with the specter of the democrat establishment killing the grassroots too. Throughout this hot and stormy Sunday I’ve been thinking about a recent email exchange with a Trump supporter that says so much about American politics today. A gentleman who normally sends me great jokes via email suddenly swerved into politics exhorting me and a few score others on his email list to ‘vote Trump’. Why? Because Trump is going to get rid of NAFTA and the TPP and bring all the jobs back to the United States. I decided to press him to find out exactly why he thinks what he thinks and why he would take the unusual step of pushing his friends to vote Trump. It took several emails to learn he just ‘feels’ Trump is the best guy, Trump is like Lincoln, Trump knows what to do and he’ll do it, and don’t make me explain this stuff, google it. Then he asks me what I think of the questions I asked him! That serves as a debate in the land of Trump. A place where everyone gets what he wants, when he wants it, because Trump said so. A place where one bright morning a box will arrive from China and everyone will open it up and find a note that reads, “Sorry about taking your job at the bucket factory way back in 1997 but we needed it. Here it is back, slightly used but we hope you’ll forgive us”. There it is people. Donald J. Trump is going to get Uncle Joe his job back at Bethlehem Steel so he and Martha can buy back the 1993 Buick Regal, which the GM plant in Flint will be making again thanks to old ‘I’ll make the trains run on time’ Trump. I realized, while ordering coffee at the concessions stand next to the beautiful B-25 out here on the airfield, that there are a lot of 50+ children out there. Thinking is just too hard. Researching facts takes too much time. Actually learning the contours of an issue is a job no one wants. Lots of final thoughts — for the time being — on the convention, the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the DNC chair, and the impending Trump presidency. Or not. Thank God I can talk about airplanes for the next few days! Sponsored by Hydrus Performance.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:00 — 103.0MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS