Podcast 461

All About Iowa. Do you want the Iowa Caucuses to determine which presidential candidates are ‘viable’? In a state of slightly more than three million people, party leaders expect one hundred fifty thousand to show up to caucus, slightly more than in the 2012 cycle. Over the last year Iowans have been sliced and diced by pollsters, pundits, political psychologists, and sociologists. Anyone who attends political events – and there have been hundreds of them since last year – will see famous candidates, film stars, and national TV stars. It’s a spectacle, a circus, and a show being put on for one state. As the hours are counting down to the caucus Monday, February 1st, the Bob Davis Podcasts attends a Marco Rubio rally. One side of the room is reserved for the stage, the other for media. In between, are the Iowans, ready to comment when reporters approach them. Of course reporters will approach, like fish feeding at the water’s surface. ‘Who will you caucus for?’, ‘What do you think of Donald Trump?’. The answers to these and many other scintillating questions will be filed, dissected, and added to the national story line. All About Iowa. Fasten your seat belts. A rural backwater, albiet a very nice one with very nice people, is about to decide which candidates are the most viable. At least that’s how they see this process. After Monday’s caucus, the story lines will change, predictions will be adjusted, and some campaigns will never recover. Is this how we want to elect a president? While there is much to celebrate in the American political system, as I attend events and cover the caucus and the events leading up to it, what comes through louder and clearer is the dark and potentially dangerous relationship between big government, big media, politicians, pollsters and the population of a single state that has insinuated itself into the political process in an unprecedented way. All about Iowa? Indeed. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 458

Not George Washington. With the Iowa Caucuses less than a week away, political prognosticators have finally gone off the rails. This week’s poster child for idiocy goes to the talk show host who claims Texas Senator Ted Cruz is ‘The New George Washington’. How is the ‘endorsement’ of candidates from personalities, talk show hosts and commentators different from endorsements that come from governors, senators and candidates who are exiting the race? How has the endorsing of candidates by talk show hosts hurt talk radio? Ted Cruz is Not George Washington, but that fact doesn’t stop charlatans from saying so. Why do they do it? It’s a desperate quest for something called ‘relevance’, which is yet another example of the talk radio cesspool. This podcast has been steadfast in not supporting any candidate for president in 2016. The penchant commentators have this year, to influence voters to support candidates based only on polling data, is shameful. Moreover, participation in primaries and caucuses is very low. The result of primaries and caucuses this spring and summer have more to do with the nominating conventions for both mainline parties than the general election. Despite this fact, talk radio and the media are already making predictions and issuing endorsements for the presidency? The victors in the first few primaries or caucuses, at least on the republican side, are usually not the nominee. The only reasonable conclusion is that commentators are manipulating their listeners and voters for their own gain; a sad feature of a presidential cycle already off the rails. You can imagine how the real election will be reported. This podcaster is not going to endorse anyone for president, since all of them are more like Nucky Thompson than anything approaching George Washington. Sponsored by Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate and Hydrus.

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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.

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