Podcast 509

Final Primary In South Dakota. A gonzo talk podcast from the driveway aboard Mobile Podcast Command as we load in and run through the checklists before final departure to the Mount Rushmore State. Why South Dakota? First it’s been awhile since a road trip. Second, coverage of the Presidential Preference Primaries and Caucuses began with Wisconsin Governor Walker’s candidacy announcement last summer, continued into Iowa in February, onto South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, on through to Texas and back home in the first couple of weeks of March. So it is a fitting end that one of the states with the latest primaries, as opposed to the earliest, is South Dakota. While all eyes are focused on the June 7th primary in California, because Bernie Sanders is giving Hillary Clinton fits there, do you think anyone is going to cover voting in South Dakota? That’s why I am going. Aside from the fact that South Dakota is awesome, from the Sturgis celebration to Deadwood, Mount Rushmore, Rapid City and more. Even with the contest between Sanders and Clinton in the Golden State, the media still seems to be focused on finding some negative way to define ‘presumptive’ republican nominee Donald Trump and by extension, the Republican Party. First it was Trump the authoritarian. Then it was Trump the fascist with his incitements to violence – which as an aside seems to be on the other side, with ‘anti-trump protesters’ spitting at passive Trump supporters and my sense is this gets the New York Developer more votes and may just put him in the White House but I digress. Suddenly Trump is Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States, and the Republican Party is the Whig Party. Is this an apt comparison? Maybe, even with the scare quotes to describe Taylor and Whigs, but then again, kind of not really. Politics feels like heavy metal, the energy is so low and the results so negative. It’s gonna be good to get out on the road. Sponsored by Brush Studio and Hydrus.

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Podcast 504

Choices. A companion to the ‘slipping into summer’ podcast for the political junkies. Choices. The Choices we make, politically, As the primary season draws to a close, Memorial Day Weekend is a good place to take stock of what has happened in this tumultuous and unpredictable 2016 Presidential Preference Primary and Caucus season. In Podcast 503 there was some discussion of an uneasy feeling seeing FB posts from politicos about the weekend’s conventions and promotions of party unity. This gets explored a lot more deeply in Podcast 504; Choices. Republican presidential preference primary and caucus voters have settled on Donald J. Trump as their choice for nominee of the republican party. While it remains to be seen whether Trump actually gets to the RNC with enough delegates to clinch the nomination, or whether some other fate befalls the New York Developer and Realty Television Star, it’s significant that republican and so called ‘conservative’ voters have settled on three major pools of thought. The ‘Trumpist’ pool which seems to be about winning the argument, the evangelist and self-described ‘constitutionalist’ pool represented by the Cruz supporters and the establishment pool, which is about the status quo. There’s one other pool, but it’s really a puddle; The Libertarian pool which is the only group that actually wants to reduce the size, scope and power of government. On the democrat side, is an establishment political operator who can only be described as a Statist (with a capital S) and a self described Democratic Socialist, really a socialist and also a STATIST. So, voters have settled on a political insider who is also a statist, a socialist and a populist statist, with second choices that include politicians who claim to be ‘conservative’ but are also going to make sure ‘The Government’ operates more efficiently. Sigh. What are the takeaways? These are the people the voters – who have been exhorted to get involved – have chosen. Of these three or four, one will be President of The United States. In November the voters will choose a president, a congress and a third of the US Senate, as well as a slew of statewide and state legislative and local officers across the country. What will it mean? What will happen? The media keeps trying to tell us, but we cannot know the future. We’re just going to have to wait and see. Takeaways for political junkies on Memorial Day Weekend. Sponsored by Brush Studio, in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

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Podcast 499 – The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show – 26

Podcast 499 – The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show – 26. Throughout this week the theme running through the podcasts has been the tribal nature of politics in the United States these days. There’s a great story in Gibbon’s ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire’ about how Chariot Racing in Rome evolved from a convivial affair to a feral, bloody sport. It began with the idea that some Chariot teams would carry different colored flags to differentiate themselves. This progressed to ‘tribes’ supporting the various colors, and this eventually evolved to the point where there were pitched battles between the different groups supporting different chariot teams. Eventually the different groups began political pressure groups. These days, people seem to be supporting candidates, or joining cults of personalities. You’re for you’re guy no matter what. Depending on what tribe we belong to, we get our information from sources that confirm our worst fears. When we discuss politics with people in different tribes, discussions quickly devolve into arguments and fights. Not only are we not making progress, we’re making ‘regress’. Modern media and news sources online aren’t making the situation any better, since an individual’s newsfeed on FaceBook or YouTube or Twitter doesn’t expose that person to anything that isn’t part of their friends list, worldview or political orientation. Snark, insults, and shouts only add to alienation and separation of today’s political ‘chariot teams’. The radio show is posted here in digital quality sound. As I keep posting shows on here on the Bob Davis Podcasts I am learning each week’s radio is a good summary of the general trend of news and discussion for the week. Thanks for listening! Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating and X Government Cars.

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