Podcast 476

No Trump. No Trump in this podcast because it is a Trump Free Zone. Time to tackle something fun! The End Of The World. Lately, everyone seems to wonder ‘what’s going on’? The answer is usually some form of ‘the end of the world’. Aliens, Planet X, Comets, Global Warming, Famine, Disease, and General Weirdness. You name it, someone thinks that’s causing the end of the world. There’s a definitive answer for the question, is the world ending? Yes. The world is ending. The world you grew up in, regardless of your age, is slowly ending. For some, the specter of a new time, with new demographics, new ideas, and new tools is too frightening. So, the bogeyman in the closet takes many forms. Now, these days we do face a number of challenges; Economic, social, political and personal. At the same time, some of the institutions created in this country decades ago to deal with problems current at the time, are crumbling. This is inevitable. The question is how we deal with this change. Do we run from it? Stick our fingers in our ears and demand that no one discuss it? Retreat into endless discussions of conspiracy theory, the arrival of some rogue planet, and alien bases on the dark side of the moon? Or do we get all hands on deck, trim the sales, and get ready for the storm. Yes the world has changed. Some things that were great are gone. Some things that are great have arrived. A great age is upon this country and this world. Some of the changes will be very positive. Some changes will be very negative. Either way, it is coming and it cannot be avoided. It’s time to turn off the cable news shows, let the election proceed, and start examining what we think about, how we think, and how we greet each new day, sometimes referred to as ‘the future’. You can be afraid and run from reality, or you can take it head on. Which one do you prefer? Sponsored by Brush Studio and Hydrus.

PODCAST 457

Donald J. Trump Authoritarian. If you are a Trump supporter you probably want to know, the left has decided you have ‘authoritarian tendencies’. What is an authoritarian? We can now name the New Yorker with confidence; Donald J Trump Authoritarian. What does it make you if you support Donald J. Trump Authoritarian? What does it mean to have Authoritarian ‘tendencies’. Is it a new fangled way to call you a fascist? Since it’s well known that the first person who brings up Hitler in an argument has lost the argument, and since the left has already tagged the New York business man as another Hitler, they have to come up with something new. While you’re guzzling white wine and picking at the brie at the local university cocktail party, and someone asks what you think of Trump you can simply say, “Well you know his supporters are a bit authoritarian, don’t you think?” Where is this coming from? A self described ‘Phd candidate’ and Massachusetts political consultant Matthew MacWilliams has done a study. His study and ‘simple’ statistical analysis shows Trump supporters to have these authoritarian tendencies. It’s not enough that Trump supporters supposedly have lower education levels (and therefore must be stupid), or hail from the Blue Collar side of the tracks (which used to be democrat territory, back in the day), now it appears the kind of government they like is a little more on the authoritarian side. Hey! There’s a study, so it must be true, right? The bottom line is, if Republicans vote the way the polls show, and it’s a big if, Donald J Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. It’s been pretty clear from the get go that Trump not only terrifies the republican establishment, apparently he also terrifies the socialist left, which if it isn’t busy trying to put you in the photo with Hitler and Eva, is busy coming up with clever new ways to say you’re a fascist. What are the origins of fascism? What are the conditions that have to be met before you can have fascism? Which part of the political spectrum is meeting those conditions? What kind of political system is susceptible to fascism? The answers might surprise you. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Trucks.

Podcast 419

Time Travel. This Walk and Talk Podcast starts out with some observations about the media reaction to Candidate for the Republican Nomination Donald Trump. The Bob Davis Podcasts will never endorse a specific candidate, tell you how to vote, or cover the presidential election process with an undisclosed point of view, with the intention of pointing listeners in the direction of a specific candidate. Comments here about Donald Trump are only observations, but one thing is clear; The establishment media’s reaction to the Trump candidacy prove he is the front runner. Punditry predictions about how Trump ‘will fade’ keep coming up, but the New York Times and The Atlantic are already treating the New Yorker like the nominee, doing their best to notch him down, starting with a hatchet job on his financial credentials and education history, a commentary written by republican moderates regarding ‘anarchy’ in the House with the resignation of the Speaker, and a ridiculous piece in the Atlantic that asserts American Prosperity until 1980 was the result of Unions and High Taxes, saying if Trump wants to return ‘White America’ to this halcyon time, he must be advocating for Union and High Taxes. What tripe! It was the Atlantic piece that began a flight of fancy on this Walk and Talk about Time Travel. If you could return to any era, would it be as history described it? Which era in history would you most like to return to? (Editor’s Note: My problem is I want to go back to all of them.) If you went back hundreds, or thousands of years, would you even be able to understand what was happening. Would you need time to physically absorb the context of the time, from language, immunity to germs and disease, smells, sounds, even a different blanket of stars in the sky. It is said history is written by the victors. How different is real history from the history we’re taught, the history we read, and the history we experience on a day to day basis in our time? Sponsored by Baklund R&D and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.