The Bob Davis Podcasts

Podcast 532

What I think of Election 2016. Getting emails and calls from people political analysts would consider ‘low information voters’ asking what I think and who they should vote for. So in this podcast I am going to tell you. First thing? When you consider the low quality of all reporting on election 2016 everyone is pretty much a low information voter. In 2016 the country is facing decisions on major issues in economics, immigration, trade, foreign policy, military, diplomacy, social issues and more. Almost no one fully understands the contours of these issues well enough to discuss them. Instead what we have are tribes of people who are very emotional about these issues. They know the latest meme. They know all about the latest scandal and the latest ‘story’ evolving concerning who said what about who, and the reaction to it, but when they’re asked to discuss any of the key issues of our time with clarity and depth, as they say in the windy city; “fergitaboutit”. Who do I think should be president in 2017? None of them. Repeat. None of them. If you include the so called independent candidates and the mainline party candidates they’re nothing but placeholders. Someone needs to lay out what the potential outcome of this election will be, regardless of who wins the office. I start – repeat start – to do that in this podcast. I realized about twenty minutes in, this is going to take more than one ‘talk’ podcast (with no editing) to lay out all the possibilities and outcomes. Bottom line? None of the potential outcomes bode well for the future of the United States. We’ve had a series of placeholder presidents, and it looks like we’re about to have another. Meanwhile, the country is getting closer and closer to what I call a ‘clarifying’ event that will wake people up from their media induced hypnosis, and reinvigorate the political process. Maybe. Maybe not. Meanwhile, if you expect to get information from television and radio, and from the standard websites these days, I feel sorry for you. If you guess you’ll find “the truth” on You Tube’s conspiracy channels, and the Drudge Report, guess again. In What I Think of Election 2016 you’ll get my read at the present time, which sets up future podcasts specifically on the issues in the hope of giving listeners to the Bob Davis Podcasts a little more substance and depth than you’ll find anywhere else. Meanwhile, it’s on to the motorcycle rally at Sturgis from here. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:01 — 100.7MB) | 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

Podcast 517-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-32

Podcast 517-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-32. With huge reaction in the financial markets, the media and in political circles raging over the British vote to exit the EU this week, it seems as though 2016 just kicked off in earnest. In fact, for me this week flew by. One of the week’s features was the visit of my son. Andrew Davis joined me on a radio show I did last week for the Northern Alliance, and then we came back to the ‘broadcast bunker’ to have some steak, father and son time, and record a podcast. Honestly, I would probably not have talked that much about the potential for the Brits to leave the EU and the impact on foreign trade, the markets and politics. Andrew Davis is an International Relations guy, with some experience in government (working on Capitol Hill for a couple of years). Our conversations about trade and the potential for a British Exit turned out to be prescient, given the surprise of a close vote in Britain on the EU question. My problem with the whole issue isn’t the vote so much as the coverage of this story by the media, and the coverage of trade issues in the United States. While trade as a whole is a complex issue that can’t be explained away with a soundbite or snarky comment, it is also a core issue in the 2016 election cycle. It is amusing and instructive that during the run up to the vote in Britain, republican candidate for the nomination Donald Trump said, as a private citizen that he could understand why the British would want to leave the EU, while President Obama condescended to lecture British on why they should stay and Hillary Clinton supported Obama. For its part the media characterized, and demonized a no vote as ‘xenophobic’, ‘populist’ and ‘nationalist’. My question is, what if the people have no words anymore to describe the frustration of living under a regime of regulation, taxation, laws that nudge (governenment-ese for encourage) certain behaviors and get in our business in so many other irritating ways? We’ve lived under a construct that government is the solution for so many years we don’t even have the words to oppose it anymore, but we do still have a vote…for the time being. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:37 — 111.3MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS