Back-Road-Trip-Chattanooga-Bob Davis Podcast-841

These days if you want to find out what’s going on you have to hit the road. We’re in Tennessee for a few surprises. Learn more in Back-Road-Trip-Chattanooga-Bob Davis Podcast-841.

Southeastern Tennessee is as Republican as it gets in this country. Even more, a modern economic miracle has taken place in Chattanooga, where a public private partnership has transformed the city.

All the talk about what people in this country might do in the 2020 election is most noteworthy. A theme in these podcasts has been attacking the perception that people with an R in front of their name are actually conservative.

Certainly Chattanooga is a miracle. Back in the day it was an industrial powerhouse. Due to it’s role it was considered one of the dirtiest cities in North America. A public private partnership turned it around. Learn more here.

In addition, Tennessee as a whole is certainly booming these days. From Volkswagen in Chattanooga to the music business in Nashville and the federal government corporate entity known as The Tennessee Valley Authority, things are good here.

Especially relevant to me though is the right-wing orientation of the state as a whole, and yet, all these institutions which might be considered socialist, by any other name.

Finally, local expert John E. Holland joins the podcast to talk about politics in the region and Tennessee’s burgeoning development strategy today.

In conclusion people here consider themselves ‘conservative’ down to flying confederate flags and wide margins for President Trump in 2016. Meanwhile public/private partnerships and Federal corporate assets allocate tax dollars and investment and they love it.

To be sure Tennessee as a whole is truly wonderful. When it comes to principles, though, one wonders what ‘conservative’ means, after all.

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Back-Road-Trip-Chattanooga-Bob Davis Podcast-841

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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.

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Podcast 465

A Jeb Bush Event. Live from Sumter, South Carolina The Bob Davis Podcasts joins the Bush campaign for a Jeb Bush Event featuring Senator Lindsay Graham and Governor Bush. Originally planned for a local diner, the campaign had to move the event to the University of South Carolina, which was a shame since the potato soup at Baker’s Sweets in Sumter is amazing. Another feature of this podcast is to set the record straight regarding Jason Lewis’ appearance in Bob Davis Podcast 404, in which he stated he generally supported the President’s Iran deal with caveats. Lewis’ campaign for Congress in Minnesota’s Second District is apparently scaring his opponents so much, they’re excerpting liner notes about his foreign policy views, rather than actually listening to what he said in the podcast. There will be a new editorial note on podcast 404 which everyone can read, clarifying what Jason said. What is amazing about the current controversy surrounding Jason’s view that the country cannot have limited government at home and big government abroad is that when you’re on the campaign trail you hear republican candidates walking right up to the line advocating another war, and apparently Republicans love it. Maybe the 2nd District’s Republican candidate for congress is correct to question this impulse among all the GOP candidates? (You’ll hear it in this podcast too.) How can talk show hosts and commentators compare the current crop of bellicose campaigners with Ronald Reagan who negotiated, and kept the United States out of major military commitments and war for 8 years. Thus, a local congressional district issue dovetails beautifully with what a candidate says on the hustings in South Carolina. In any case, the Reagan era is over and is not coming back. The challenges of our current time are multi-polar, not bi-polar. Even the economic challenges are different. All these challenges will require new and different solutions that can only come from people who are able to consider opinions that might be unorthodox. Also in this podcast, a flavor of night life in Charleston, and some good bluegrass music. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus.

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