Transcript: 2024 Presidential Election Episode III—Donald Trump: The Next Four Years

 

Date of recording: November 21, 2024, The Savvy Street Show

Host: Vinay Kolhatkar. Guests: Ruth Papazian, David Harriman, Ed Mazlish, Roger Bissell.

 

For those who prefer to watch the video, it is here.

Editor’s Note: The Savvy Street Show’s AI-generated transcripts are edited for removal of repetitions and pause terms, and for grammar and clarity. Explanatory references are added in parentheses. Material edits are advised to the reader as edits [in square brackets].

 

Summary

In this episode of The Savvy Street Show, the panel discusses the current state and future of the Republican Party in the light of Trump’s influence. They analyze the anti-establishment sentiment among voters, whether the GOP is being or can be transformed. They also delve into the dynamics between mainstream and alternative media, mainstream media credibility, and the psychological aspects of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). They discuss the role of social media in shaping political narratives, the implications of Section 230 of the Communications Act (1934), and the future of the Democratic Party amidst rising left radicalism. Finally, the panel explores the potential for a massive political realignment in the coming years.

 

Takeaways

1. The GOP is still fundamentally the same despite Trump’s influence.
2. Trump’s focus is on remaking government rather than the Republican Party.
3. Voters are increasingly anti-establishment, seeking change from both parties.
4. The GOP faces internal conflicts and challenges in pushing Trump’s agenda.
5. Media dynamics are shifting, with traditional outlets losing relevance.
6. Trump’s supporters are more committed to populist ideals than traditional Republicans.
7. The panelists express skepticism about the GOP’s ability to seize opportunities.
8. Mainstream media’s resources vastly overshadow alternative media, yet they are losing relevance. Trump’s success could further undermine mainstream media’s credibility.
9. TDS may stem from an inability to admit being wrong.
10. The Far Left has a strong grip on the Democratic Party.

 

Sound Bites

1. “The GOP is still the GOP.”
2. “Trump is correctly focusing on remaking government.”
3. “Trump does stand for something.”
4. “Biden wants to go out with a bang.”
5. “The GOP snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.”
6. “The [mainstream] media [outlets] are becoming dinosaurs by themselves.”
7. “TDS comes from people afraid to admit they’re wrong.”
8. “The Far Left owns the Democratic Party now.”

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Good evening and welcome back to The Savvy Street Show. We have our politically savvy panel again. Yes, the one that on November 1 forecasted a landslide, or a resounding Trump victory, and got it right. So, we have once again David Harriman, who is a physicist, philosopher, and author of the book, The Logical Leap. Welcome to the show, David.

 

David Harriman

Thanks for having me on.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

And we have Ruth Papazian, a political consultant who helps centrist Democrats unseat the leftist ones. Welcome to the show, Ruth.

 

Ruth Papazian

Thank you. It’s fun to be with you all again.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Lovely. And we have Ed Mazlish, who was a delegate for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in 2016, and he co-hosts a conservative podcast. Welcome to the show, Ed. [Ed: No response.]

And we have Roger Bissell, musician, writer, philosopher, and a savvy observer of US politics. Welcome to the show, Roger.

 

Roger Bissell

Thank you, sir.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Congratulations to all panelists. Everyone also forecasted that Trump would win the popular vote [and the Electoral College], which he did.

First, I’ll say congratulations to all panelists. If you recall, on the last podcast, Roger forecasted 312 to 344 [Electoral College votes for Trump]. Bullseye on the lower end of that forecast. Ruth forecast 275 to 319 electoral college votes, so [we ended up] at the upper end of her forecast. Ed and David were 348-plus, but obviously they caveated that Harris might only win in states that have no voter ID requirements. Otherwise, who knows, Trump might have reached 348. So, congratulations to all four of you. Not only that, but everyone also forecasted that Trump would win the popular vote, which he did. So, double congratulations.

Okay, now we’re going to discuss the next four years, and already the criticism has started. This fascist, this Hitler, he’s only taking people very loyal to him, and therefore he’s remaking the Republican Party in his own image like an autocrat. It’s not my reading. My reading is he’s very dedicated to the cause of busting up what I call the Global Deep State, in which he was frustrated in his first term. So, it’s not people loyal to him as much as people loyal to the cause becoming loyal to him. Any remake of the GOP is, in my opinion, incidental to that cause. But let’s start with Ed on this. What’s your perspective? Is the GOP being remade?

 

Ed Mazlish

No, the GOP is still the GOP. We’re recording this on the day that Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination. If the GOP were being remade, Matt Gaetz and every other Trump appointee would have sailed through. If you look at all the Biden appointees that went through, all the Obama appointees that went through, there’s no reason why Matt Gaetz shouldn’t go through. There’s no reason why every Trump appointee shouldn’t go through. Trump won a bigger mandate than either of those previous presidents, even bigger than I think Obama in 2008, although that’s questionable. The GOP is still antagonistic to Trump. I think that MAGA is not really Republican. It is populist, and it has Republican elements, but they’re almost as sick of the Republicans as they are of the Democrats.

One of the ironies that we’re going to see over the next four years, or potentially see, if Trump succeeds, is that almost all of the MAGA supporters, both in the electorate and in the elected branches, are far more MAGA than Trump is, with the possible exception of tariffs. Trump is pretty committed to tariffs. But other than that, I think that Trump is still a deal maker. I think that the MAGA people are genuine liberty people and genuine constitutionalists that really want to rein in the government.

The American electorate taking a test drive of Trump, and if they like the way the car goes, if they like the way the presidency goes, we’re going to see a major realignment of parties.

Rather than reshaping the GOP, what we’re about to see is the American electorate taking a test drive of Trump, and if they like the way the car goes, if they like the way the presidency goes, we’re going to see a major realignment of parties, and a lot of former Democrats are going to become either Republicans or Trumpists or whatever you want to call them.

I think that Trump is just going around the GOP and around the Democrats. I don’t think that he’s changing them. Mitch McConnell still hates him. Susan Collins still hates him. The leaders in the elites in the Republican Party still don’t want to work with him, even with him winning the way he won. So, I don’t think that he’s changed the Republican Party.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, thank you. Ruth, are there also going to be Republicans leaving to go join the Democrats? What’s your take?

 

Ruth Papazian

Okay, I’m going to back into the answer to this question. I live in AOC’s district, which lies on both sides of the Whitestone Bridge, and I want to report, unfortunately, that she won handily in the Bronx and Queens neighborhoods that [otherwise] went heavily for Trump. Now, this sounds crazy until you consider that both candidates are seen as being anti-establishment. Even though they are diametrically opposed politically, this year many voters just wanted to completely upend the status quo, so they voted for AOC and Trump.

AOC won handily in the Bronx and Queens neighborhoods that [otherwise] went heavily for Trump.

Now, another reason AOC coasted to a fourth term is because the hapless Bronx and Queens GOP ran a social-media influencer who aspired to be the AOC of the GOP, and she ran on socialism. In my opinion, it was political malpractice not to run against inflation, immigration, and crime, and not to point out that AOC voted with Biden and Harris nearly 100% of the time. This candidate ran on socialism. There’s a lot of infighting and ineptitude in state and local committees and plenty of cowardice and corruption in the consulting class. Frankly, consulting firms that work with Republican candidates are more interested in sucking down donor dollars than they are in winning. So, in my opinion, it is a total waste of time to try to remake the Republican Party.

Trump is correctly focusing on remaking government so that it’s once again of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Trump is correctly focusing on remaking government so that it’s once again of the people, by the people, and for the people. This means cutting the size of government and limiting its scope to what is within the four corners of the Constitution. For me, that means half of the bureaucrats and the permanent administrative state should be fired, and the remainder should be kept on a short leash to ensure that the regulations that they write to implement the laws passed by Congress reflect the president’s agenda and purpose and not their own. So, for me, the mission is remaking government, not remaking the Republican Party. That’s a lost cause. Personally, I think the Republican Party should go the way of the Whigs.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, great. David, Ruth mentioned anti-establishment, but anti-establishment doesn’t define any particular direction. Six different directions could all be anti-establishment. What’s your take on whether the GOP is being changed or is it [the change in the GOP] just incidental to what is really being changed?

 

David Harriman

I think it [the GOP] is being changed.

I think it is being changed. People are coming around to the view that so-called Republicans like Mitch McConnell don’t stand for anything except the status quo and bringing in money from big businesses. It’s total corruption. People are realizing that Trump does stand for something, and he’s willing to fight for it. These other Republicans aren’t willing to fight for anything except their own pocketbooks, and I think 75 million people have said: “We don’t want that anymore.”

I do think Trump has a lot of popular support, and in one sense, he’s for less government. He’s for more freedom, freedom of speech and so on, so he is driving the Republican Party in a constitutional direction, which they had completely lost sight of before. If you want to call that a remake of the Republican Party, then yes, I would go along with that.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, Roger, if you recall in 2016, the mainstream media elevated Jeb Bush to the favorite horse, if you will, but he was one of the first to be kicked out. So, what’s your take on the way people are reshaping the GOP through their decisions?

 

Roger Bissell

Well, Jeb Bush was very low energy. That was what Trump said. Whether you want to talk about the GOP or Donald Trump’s movement, which happens to be living in the GOP right now with its label, there’s a big problem going on with who gets to define the terms. In this case, who gets to define the character of the Republican Party and, in particular, Trump’s agenda? There are a lot of continuing attempts to stir up suspicion and opposition. This agenda is not like a radical bomb-throwing agenda that Trump [supposedly] has. It’s moderately right leaning, and it leans toward the constitution. It leans toward more freedom, less controls, etcetera. But [the way the Democrats talk about it], it sounds like scare stories that are left over from Halloween.

Do you have a translator’s guide handy? When they say Trump’s party or the GOP is racist, they mean that it’s anti-reverse discrimination, but racist sounds really bad. They keep saying Trump is isolationist. No, he doesn’t want to get us involved in unnecessary aggressive wars. Authoritarian—that sounds bad, almost like Hitler—but enforcing the law and defending American citizens against invasion and aggression is what we’re talking about. They make it sound like you’re a Nazi who wants to enslave or kill people. A lot of this, I think, is just projection.

The Deep State realizes that Trump is now a more serious threat than he was eight years ago.

The Deep State realizes that Trump is now a more serious threat than he was eight years ago. Last time, we had guys like Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush and so on who were challenging Trump. This time, nobody really challenged him. I mean, Nikki Haley sort of did, Ron DeSantis sort of did, but Trump was just overwhelming, and he came in without any trouble. So, now we’ve got an older but wiser Trump, and he’s going to lower the boom, so they’re pulling out every dirty trick in their playbook. I think he might have made some of his cabinet picks just in order to rattle the Deep State and get them to overreact. I think he loves it when they overreact, and they just go unhinged and start saying crazy, alarming things. Matt Gaetz just [withdrew] today, as Ed pointed out. I hope he has enough backup choices so that if some of them get bounced by the Senate, he’ll have some strong ones that will still help him move forward.

I’m still concerned [about getting] Trump advanced safely to inauguration. I hope that works out. I’m really concerned about this Ukraine situation, and I think there are elements in the GOP that really like our involvement with Ukraine, that really like us giving long-range missiles to Ukraine, and they probably are rubbing their hands together when they hear about Ukraine shooting long range missiles into Russia. I think this is very stupid. I really think that Putin will probably not retaliate by hitting us or other NATO countries, but that remains to be seen. So yes, I think there are conflicting elements in the Republican party, and whether enough of them go along with Trump in his picks and help him carry out his agenda, that’s something we just don’t know yet.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, I’ve got a pet peeve, if you will. This is the time when you have such a fantastic mandate that the new cabinet should be absolutely merciless. I imagine Elise Stefanik moving into her first address at the UN and doing what Javier Milei did—just castigate them for their belief in not only the climate farce and [the] scam, but their very active encouragement of it.

Do you think they have the stomach for that kind of thing, Ruth?

 

Ruth Papazian

Well, Trump is certainly ready to fight the battle for the soul of America and also for our country’s economic, diplomatic, and military standing in the world. That the Senate chose John Thune as the majority leader is to me very telling and troubling. On one side of his mouth, Thune says that Trump has a right to have people he wants in his cabinet. But then on the other side, he’s already signaling that several of Trump’s nominees will likely not be confirmed. We already saw that with Matt Gaetz. I don’t think RFK [Jr.] is going to have much of an easier time either. So, I’m pessimistic about the GOP’s ability to push Trump’s bold agenda forward and to hold on to the down-ballot gains that he made in the midterms.

I’m not the oldest person on this panel, but I’m not the youngest, and I’ve been around long enough to never ever underestimate the ability of the GOP—and I call them the “Gonads Optional Party,” by the way [laughter]—never underestimate their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I’ve seen it time and time again, and so have we all. So, I don’t think they have the stomach for a fight, particularly over cultural Marxism. I just don’t see it. It’s the same old, same old.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay. David, how do you see that? At least the cabinet, if not the party?

 

David Harriman

I think Trump has changed things. He’s picking different kinds of people, [people] that are fighters. I’m really hoping for the best here. In terms of energy secretary, I hope the whole energy policy changes drastically, because this attack on fossil fuels has the potential to destroy the country. One of the things people need to realize is this whole business about global warming is a diversion, and it’s disingenuous because a lot of these people who are against fossil fuels are also against nuclear power. If you’re going to be against fossil fuels, you have to be for nuclear power because it’s the only real alternative. You can’t run a country on windmills. Everybody knows that. So, I think Trump is going to fight hard on that issue, which is exactly right.

Can I pick up on something that Roger said earlier? I think it’s incredible that the last act of this Biden administration is to try and start World War III. It’s just extraordinary what they’re doing right now, giving long-range missiles to Ukraine, this landmine program, giving them F-16 jet fighters for attacks inside Russia—it just keeps going. They’ve escalated this thing just in the last month, and that’s what they seem to want before Trump comes in. I mean, they’re warmongers, basically. Trump is trying for peace, and the Democrats are warmongers. This is what they want to leave him with, this chaos of an expanded war.

 

Ruth Papazian

Yeah, Biden wants to go out with a bang, that’s for sure. Literally.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

I call it the most egregiously irresponsible act by a lame duck president, ever.

Roger, the Democrats clearly have the stomach to do all sorts of outrageous things, even in the lame duck period. But what about the Republicans? Do you think they have the stomach to define themselves philosophically and take on the media in the next four years?

 

Roger Bissell

I have a Charles Schultz view of the political parties. Until Trump came along, the GOP was the party of Charlie Brown, and the Democratic party was the party of Lucy. Every fall at the beginning of football season, Lucy’s holding the football for Charlie Brown to come up and kick it, and as soon as he gets there, she pulls it away and he falls flat on his back. When Ruth said the GOP snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, I immediately thought of Charlie Brown and Lucy. Yes, I agree totally with what David and Ruth just said.

I want to sound a word of caution here. Vinay, you mentioned Elise Stefanik talking to the UN, what should she say, and will she say it? I think it’s well and good to go after the dragon and to know who your enemy is and to identify them and say, this is bad, we can’t have this, we must get rid of it and so on. But you also have to hold up the positive values—economic freedom, civil liberties, and non-interventionism. Otherwise, if you’re just opposed to the big spenders and the cultural Marxists and the climate freaks, a lot of people are going to say, that just sounds really negative. Sometimes people are excited and energized by being negative and against, but the problem is that even if you succeed in batting down the evilest manifestation, there are always other bad policies waiting as a plan B and they may be less toxic, maybe not. I’m afraid many people would be seduced into taking a watered-down version of the poison and then say, we won—but maybe you didn’t. If you’ve just been duped into taking a slower acting version of the poison, that’s still bad.

So, I think Elise Stefanik should not only go and talk about the climate scam and taking away national sovereignty, but also hold up the banner of science and the facts, and the ability of people making voluntary decisions in a free market to come up with solutions to problems, and that we don’t need government, whether it’s international or national, interfering with our lives. She may not have the intellectual understanding of the core principles. But if she does, then she’s got the rhetoric and the personality to do it. She could really rock the UN back on their heels, like Javier Milei did. That would be a real treat to see. We’d love that.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Yes, I do wish more of that would happen. Ed, do you see that happening?

 

Ed Mazlish

Well, with respect to that last point, I’m going to take a contrarian view. I don’t think that that’s going to happen, and I don’t think it would be a good thing for it to happen. I think that what’s going to happen and what should happen is US retrenchment from these international organizations. I don’t think that Trump is going to spend a lot of time trying to convince them to be better. The International Criminal Court just issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest on war crimes. The UN and even NATO are corrupt organizations. I just don’t see Trump investing a lot of time in that. More generally, obviously, I think it’s clear to anyone with eyes and a brain that Biden is not just trying to start World War III, but to tie Trump’s hands before he takes over as president.

The UN and even NATO are corrupt organizations.

I used the Hound of the Baskervilles analogy in the last show, and I see that again now. Trump is not saying a whole lot; he’s not doing a lot of mean tweets. He’s posting a little bit on Truth Social. There are some videos that are coming out. He’s not completely quiet, but he’s not really saying a whole lot. My take on that is that on January 20th, starting at about 12:05 PM, he is going to blitzkrieg, and he is going to hit them in so many different directions that they’re going to be paralyzed. I don’t think that anyone’s expecting what I see coming. I think that he is going to make a lot of change and make it very rapidly, and he’s going to do it in a way where he’s going to overwhelm the opposition. That’s my sense of where things are going. I think that that’s what Musk and Vivek are trying to do. I think that that’s what they’re talking about privately with him.

As far as reforming government, one populist idea that I think really needs to be hashed out is defending tariffs and reviving tariffs as a form of financing the government as it was done in the 19th century. The way I frame it in my head is, I would rather have customs agents at the border than internal revenue agents within our borders. I think that if Trump would frame it that way, he could change the conversation very quickly. I think that while it would be hard to finance the government in its current state solely through tariffs, even if he just replaces half the income tax with tariffs, that would be an excellent thing. If he could cut enough government that he could replace the whole thing, the entire internal revenue structure with taxes at the border rather than within the country, that would go a very long way towards restoring freedom, liberty, and limited government in this country. The Internal Revenue Service has access to everything about your life. They have the ability to audit you and, of course, during Obama’s and Biden’s terms, that was weaponized against conservative opponents of the government. I think that’s a really big thing. I realize that I’m a little bit optimistic and wearing some rosy-colored glasses, but I think that some of that is coming.

 

Ruth Papazian

Can I jump in about those folks? I’m sorry about those rosy-colored glasses, but if you want to take a walk down memory lane, in Trump’s first term, you had Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell colluding with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to slow Trump’s roll and limit how much he could do. I frankly see that happening already. Trump explicitly asked the Senate not to allow Biden to confirm federal judges, and they’re in negotiations with them to confirm federal judges. It’s ridiculous. I mean, the Republicans are undermining Trump already.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Now, that tells you what the GOP is really like. Roger?

 

Roger Bissell

Yes, two quick comments. Number one, Ed, if you call it anything other than “blitzkrieg,” that would probably be better. I mean, considering how many Hitler mustaches have been put on Republican president after Republican president, maybe blitzkrieg would not be the right term.

The other thing, and it’s related verbally anyway, is flame war. If you think of flame wars in email discussions, part of the point of going to battle against irrational, evil people is not to convince them, but to let the silent majority out there—those who are listening in or reading, without putting their own selves on the line—to let them know somebody’s fighting for them. Even if it’s just to go out and do a broadside at the UN before pulling the plug and say, see ya suckers, no more money for the UN, I think it would be great.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, great. We’ll move on to the media, and I have a bit of a complex, double question here, so bear with me. One statistic I heard is the median age of a CNN viewer now is 69 and probably [it’s] similar for other mainstream media. So, they are declining and becoming dinosaurs by themselves. Perhaps the administration can accelerate their demise. I had two or three things in mind.

One is I don’t know if Newsmax or Epoch Times get invited to those press briefings that are small. Maybe their cabinet [should] talk many more times to big podcasters rather than mainstream media. That’s one option, to co-opt other media with the mainstream media.

Another option is to cancel the very idea, [that is,] repeal media licensing totally, so that no one has a media license. It’s not just CBS News being attacked. The whole idea is being attacked. The current FCC chairman who’s been there since 2017 is perhaps now ready to press the button on section 230 and attack the censorship in social media, so you can’t be a platform while you’re also censoring and editorializing. One or the other, you’ve got to choose.

So, let’s go to David first. Do we leave the media alone, or can Section 230 for social media and the deliberate pulldown of mainstream media be a strategy?

 

David Harriman

Before I take the media question, can I go back to something Roger said earlier? I hope that this Trump administration keeps the focus on the positive, more than attacking injustices in the past and so on, because he has so much to do in the next four years. I think he has to focus on getting that job done, and going back to the crimes committed by Hillary or Biden is just going to take the focus away. I really want him to focus on the positive here and push his agenda forward.

I want the government out of the information business. I mean, completely.

Now, in terms of the media, I want the government out of the information business. I mean, completely. Obviously, the FBI has no business meeting with social media companies and telling them that you shouldn’t report the Hunter Biden laptop story. That’s absurd. To the extent that these factcheck organizations have any connection to the government, it’s the connection to government that has to be eliminated.

People can say bizarre, untrue things. If I post that the moon really is made out of cheese, people can say that I’m a complete idiot, and I would have to be an idiot to post that. But the government doesn’t have any business coming in and saying that’s misinformation. So, I want [them] out of this completely. The only business government has in terms of restricting people’s speech along those lines are the libel laws. If I tell lies about something that can be demonstrated to do damage to them, obviously I’ve committed a crime. But other than that government has no business in that topic. I don’t even like the idea of any licensing laws.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, Roger, your take.

 

Roger Bissell

Well, you asked about alternative media versus the mainstream media, like at White House briefings and so on. I’m wondering if it’s really worth their time, for podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Joe Rogan, and so on. The mainstream media has vast resources, and they can spare those resources to send someone there to ask questions of the press secretary and so on. But people like Rogan and Carlson and Kelly are already very effective in the way they currently operate. So, I don’t know how it would be to their advantage, to be included in the reindeer games. But yes, if they are going to be there, then put them up front, because they seem to be the ones who are really interested in asking the tough questions.

As far as the FCC law you asked about, what should be done with it? Should it be enforced? Should it be repealed? It’s not going to be used against those who violate it, why is it on the books? I think that the market of alternative media is largely taking care of the problem. If the government, like the FBI and so on, is going out and shutting down websites or censoring people and threatening them, I think that’s where the real danger is, in the weaponization of the bureaucracy, like the security agencies and so on. To the extent that the legacy media, the mainstream media, are using fraud and smears and bully tactics, they’re going to continue to lose viewers to Fox News and the alternative media, and I think the problem will largely solve itself. In fact, we saw a big slide and that was part of the big slide—I wouldn’t call it a landslide—a big shift that happened this past month. We’ve seen MSNBC and CNN just continue to lose viewers, and it couldn’t happen to a finer bunch of <plug in your own derogatory term here>.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Thank you. Before I move to Ed, David said the fact-checking NGOs—the fact checking organizations—are technically not [connected to] government, but as I understand it, they’re funded by Soros (or someone like that). So, they are a threat. Ed, how would you handle the mainstream and social media?

 

Ed Mazlish

As I said earlier, Trump is on a test drive right now, and he doesn’t need to attack them directly. He just needs to succeed. If he succeeds, they will humiliate themselves, and they will continue to hemorrhage viewers and hemorrhage credibility. If he fails, if he winds up being all talk and no action, then they’re going to have a rebirth, they’re going to pounce on him, and they’re going to try and eat away at his carcass if they can kill him.

If he succeeds, they will humiliate themselves, and they will continue to hemorrhage viewers and hemorrhage credibility.

But I’m optimistic, and I think that if he succeeds, and I expect that he will succeed, I think that his success will be the death knell to these media organizations. I don’t think they can survive not just four years of him, but—if he’s successful—at least four more years of either Vance or somebody like Vance. I just don’t see them surviving eight years of prosperity and good times with the kind of lies and nonsense that they’ve been spreading for a long time, not just during the Trump years and not just during the Obama years. You go back to Dan Rather fabricating stories about George W. Bush and the National Guard. This has been going on for a long time, and I think that people have gotten wise to it and want an alternative. They want to jump ship. Trump just needs to demonstrate that he is reliable and that it’s worth it to leave the mainstream media types and the Democrat types—and the Republican types, for that matter—for him and his populist movement.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay. Ruth…on the media?

 

Ruth Papazian

Trump didn’t need the legacy media to get his message out.

Trump didn’t need the legacy media to get his message out, and it wasn’t just the [Rogan] podcast that helped him, but surprisingly, social media did as well. Just in time for today’s podcast [ours], as luck would have it, there was a new study that came out from the Pew Knight Initiative that found that among what they call “news influencers” with at least a hundred thousand followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube, more of them were likely to lean right than to lean left. For example, the right-left partisan lean is 39% to 13% on Facebook—that’s pretty substantial—and 26% to 21% on X. That’s kind of expected (on X) since Musk, but the Facebook [result] was surprising, especially since everybody complains about ending up in Facebook jail all the time. But there are actually more conservative news influencers on Facebook than liberal ones. Of all the social-media outlets included in the report, only TikTok leaned liberal, but it wasn’t that much of a lean. It was 28% to 25%. So, podcasts and social media—alternative media—is going to be very important going forward for candidates, not just Trump, to get their message out.

Given that 90% of [all] counties in this country shifted to the right in this election cycle, I think the White House briefing room should absolutely include conservative news influencers and publications on podcasts. Their questions should be given priority so that the American people can get the news they want, and they need.

As far as section 230 of the Communications Act goes, I’m not a fan of amending it. I’m thinking of senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley who want the protections in section 230 to be extended only to politically neutral online publishers and platforms. That sounds good in theory, but in practice, I think it will lead to even more censorship, so that the social media and online platforms can limit their exposure to civil suits over third-party content. So, I think it’s going to have an unintended effect and one we don’t like.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

It could, indeed. Okay, we’ll move on to one of those crazy phrases that have been flung around for eight years. I’ve been the subject of it as well in the early years when I didn’t like Trump. If I said a single word against him, I [was said to have] suffered from TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. I have been cured.

 

Roger Bissell

Hallelujah.

 

Ruth Papazian

How did you get cured?

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

The evidence for the last eight or so years has been absolutely overwhelming. In particular, I feel sad that a lot of the people who call themselves Objectivists or libertarians are suffering from TDS. In my opinion, they just do not have a theory [/concept] or any in-depth understanding of the Global Deep State, the lack of the concept being what causes TDS in them and in Republicans, [in] the innocent ones at least. Let’s go to Roger first. What causes TDS according to you? Especially among the activists and libertarians.

 

Roger Bissell

I find a really good approach [to answering this] is the approach that Ayn Rand used in her article on “the student rebellion,” from almost 60 years ago. She was analyzing who’s involved in this rebellion, and the answer was…there’s no one category of person that’s involved. She analyzed four or five or six different profiles of a person that might be involved. If we look at TDS, some of them are faking it, and they’re just posturing. They are putting on a façade of being anguished and they are fussing and crying and shouting and screaming. Some of them are pursuing power or desire for popular approval, while some of them are just full of spite and want to tear things down, and Trump’s the handy target. It can be hard to tell whether somebody is a fraud or just one of the misguided intellectuals who can serve as “useful idiots.” You know, bring in our Harvard or MIT intellectual; he’ll set them straight. Yeah, right. But in general, if somebody’s actually deranged by Trump, like emotionally and mentally discombobulated, then there’s something or other that they really fear is going to harm them as a result of him being in power.

Now, they might be sincere, true believers in an ideology and are just genuinely fearful of the things that Trump’s going to cause, and they think, that’s evil; if he gets rid of Social Security, that would be horrible. Some are power seekers; they don’t want to lose their power or their wealth, and they see that he’s going to pull the rug out, right? Some are unintellectual people, but they’re being manipulated into being afraid of losing a freedom, like the freedom to have an abortion or a benefit like paying off their student loans, and some of the benefits or freedoms we get are deserved and some of them aren’t.

So, the answer is, there’s no single explanation about TDS, but the Democrats are going to be the people who exploit it, along with the RINOs who are trying to undercut Trump in the Republican Party. Some of the time, the RINOs will go along with Trump in order to get something that they want. But I don’t think we have just two centers of power. I think we actually do have [two centers in both the Democratic and Republican parties]…somebody like Lindsey Graham, for instance [is an example of the RINO/neo-con establishment wing of the GOP]. He talks a good game—oh, I’m all for Mr. Trump. Yet, he never saw a war he didn’t like, and he wants us to be over there in the thick of it, and I shudder when I see him on the screen because I know that he’s going to get a lot of people all excited about another war.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Ed, what causes TDS?

 

Ed Mazlish

I actually think it’s simpler than [what] Roger alludes to. I think it comes from people that are afraid to admit that they’re wrong and that are not willing to judge things based on the actual facts of reality but who are insistent on coming up with a theory and then marrying the theory and staying with it through thick and thin regardless of whether the facts of reality bear out that theory. Not to psychologize them, but I believe that the more the facts of reality contradict that theory, the angrier they become because their self-esteem feels threatened because they just can’t admit that they’re wrong. So, they double down and triple down and quadruple down on the insults, on the attacks, and on the derangement. The anger looks like it’s aimed at Trump and the people supporting Trump, but it’s really aimed at themselves because they’re so angry about being wrong and being unwilling to admit that they’re wrong. I think that’s the source of TDS.

 

Roger Bissell

Hey, how did you escape?

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Ha! I admit I was a bit wrong on Trump early on, and the evidence just kind of piled up, more particularly about how evil the other side was. [In 2016,] I actually did celebrate his victory over Hillary and evil. But I thought of him as a “lesser evil”—with emphasis on the word “evil” rather than “lesser.” Over time, it became…Actually, he’s a force for good rather than just a lesser evil.

 

Ed Mazlish

I was even more TDS than that. I did not vote for him in 2016. I didn’t celebrate one way or the other. In 2016, I thought that he was interchangeable with the Clintons. It didn’t take me more than two weeks before he started passing executive orders and coming out on immigration and coming out with energy policy, and I said, you know what, maybe I was wrong about the guy. I think that’s why it wasn’t TDS for me. I was dead set against him in 2016. I was a Ted Cruz guy, and I just didn’t think that Trump could live up to that. But the facts of reality showed me that he could do it, and he did do it, and I changed my mind, and that’s why I don’t have TDS. But I think people who have TDS are just not willing to engage in that kind of correction and self-analysis. They are just committed to what they decided in 2015, 2016, and no fact of reality will ever change their mind. In fact, the more the facts of reality contradict them, the angrier they get.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Yes, I wouldn’t say I had TDS [either], but the problem was, the world was dividing everyone into: You’re either a Trumper or you have TDS. So, if you didn’t fit into [one of] those two extreme boxes [neatly], you were shoved into one, and I was shoved into TDS.

Ruth, what’s your take on this?

 

Ruth Papazian

Well, before I answer that, I just want to say that I call “balls and strikes,” so I’m not a fangirl, and I don’t have TDS. If Trump does something I like, I say so. If Trump does something I don’t like, I say so. Trump is a populist, which makes him a political heterodox. So, for instance, he’s at odds with Republican establishment warmongering, and he’s at odds with the conservatives’ antipathy towards tariffs.

Going back to 2016, I think maybe one of the reasons Ed might not have liked Trump is when he first ran, he and the Green Party’s Jill Stein actually overlapped on several issues. Both were anti-war, both were against NAFTA, TPP, and other job-killing trade deals, both opposed the bank bailouts, and both disapproved of regime change, and they both believed that the US should have better relationships with Russia. There was so much overlap between Trump and Stein that even though the Green Party was striving to get the 5% of people voting for Jill Stein so that they could get automatic ballot access, they were really striving for that. In places where Hillary and Trump were running neck and neck, they actually switched gears and voted for Trump because, [although the] Green Party [is] very diverse in their political beliefs, one thing that brings them together is that they’re anti-Hillary. So, there was enough overlap between Jill Stein and Trump that they were able to execute this strategy and keep Hillary out of the White House. If I am remembering correctly, once Bernie Sanders was also denied the nomination, the Bernie Bros (fans) were [so] upset [that] 12% of them gave their votes to Trump. So, that’s a lot for Ed to get upset about, I think. Not to upset you again, Ed, but just the other day, socialist Bernie Sanders said he wants to work with Trump on capping credit card interest rates at 10%. So, on policy alone, Trump gives Democrats, establishment Republicans, and Libertarians plenty of reasons to become apoplectic. But he is [a] plain spoken, shoot-from-the-hip [person], and his mean tweets—that only stokes the hatred of him even more.

That’s my personal theory of TDS from a political point of view. Other stuff, shaving your head and all these other crazy things that are going on right now, I don’t know what that’s about. I don’t want to know what that’s about [laughter]. I said that I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to answer this question because I really don’t understand why a lot of people do the things they do, especially on social media. But I think I came up with a reasonable theory. I hope so.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Yes, I think you did. David, why do you think so many Objectivists, and ARI [fans] in particular, have TDS?

 

David Harriman

Yes, well, “derangement” is the key word there, isn’t it, and it applies to ARI. I think they’ve completely lost sight of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. I’ve said before that I think if Ayn Rand could come back alive, the first thing she would do is close down that cesspool in one day. I don’t have anything else to say about ARI.

Just expanding on this Trump derangement syndrome, there’s something really different here. It’s one thing to strongly disagree with a politician’s point of view. I strongly disagree with Bernie Sanders, but I’ve never come out saying I want to kill him. This is what these Trump derangement people are doing. They literally are crazy.

I think Ed hit on a major point, that somehow, they find him very personally threatening. And it’s not threatening in any real political sense. It’s threatening to their ideology, their mindset. Part of that is because they went to college, and 95% of the professors are far left. They’ve been taught all this stuff and brainwashed, and this is suddenly a threat to their whole worldview. They can’t think for themselves. They feel helpless. So, when somebody threatens them with an opposing view, they don’t know what to do other than grab a club and try to hit the person. They can’t think. So, yes, it really is derangement.

I know a psychologist that I talk to about this, and she has literally had patients come in saying that they would like to kill Trump and the people that voted for him. Psychologists sometimes find themselves in a position where they might have to call the police. That’s how crazy these people are.

 

Ruth Papazian

Well, you know, the media is 24/7 telling people that Trump is Hitler. He’s a danger to our democracy. He’s a danger to freedom. He’s going to do all kinds of horrible things to you and your children. They’re getting a steady diet of this, and people just go into a frenzy after a while. I think the media is stoking a lot of this.

 

David Harriman

Yes, the opposite is true [though], right? I mean, Trump actually wants to increase our freedoms. He wants to reduce the power of government. He wants free speech, as opposed to the Democrats. So, everything the Democrats accuse him of, including fascism, is their position, not his.

 

Roger Bissell

Remember, when I started my point, I was saying there’s several possibilities? One is that they’re just ideologues who can’t give up their philosophy. Another is people that are really emotionally disturbed. Then there are the frauds, and this past week we’ve seen the frauds come out in full force. Joe Biden smiling and shaking his hand and saying, “Welcome to the White House. It’s wonderful to see you,” and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski [of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC] going down to Mar-a-Lago after saying he’s Hitler and fascist. All three of these people did a complete 180. Now, how could they do that if he were literally a homicidal maniac who wanted to imprison and kill people? Obviously, that was all just talk, just partisan crap, and they were frauds. They were trying to pull the wool over our eyes for the sake of power. They were not demented and emotionally disturbed, and they were not ideologues. They were just trying to cling onto power or their salaries, and they’re still doing it.

 

Ruth Papazian

Yeah, so all these crazy ladies who shaved their heads, they did it for nothing. They’re bald now, and Mika and Joe go to Mar-a-Lago. I hope they feel like suckers. I hope they feel like they’ve been had.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

We have time for one short question, short answer. I don’t want to give the Democratic Party any good advice, but Ruth, there’s a few people in there saying they should become more centrist. I think they mean in regard to cultural Marxism, rather than economic policies or doing away with the climate net zero. Do you think the centrists will prevail within the Democratic Party?

 

Ruth Papazian

Not right away. I think right now the left wing of the Democratic Party is in its death throes, and they are very dangerous, and the first targets of their wrath are going to be any Democrats that try to move to the center. Seth Moulton found that out. That’s the Massachusetts representative who called his party out for being more concerned about not offending fringe groups than about the struggles of workaday Americans. The lefties went ballistic when he said that he has two little girls, and he didn’t want them like getting mowed down on a playing field by a man or a male or formerly male athlete. Then he noted, as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that. Well, it wasn’t his freedom of speech to say this that enraged them, but his fatherly concern that his daughters could be potentially suffering a life-altering or fatal injury while competing against a taller, stronger, and faster boy pretending to be a girl. That’s what enraged them. So, the backlash that he received is the reason that blue state governors in California and Illinois and New York are now vowing a resistance that voters have no appetite for.

In the short term, the radicals are going to fight like hell to keep their iron grip on the party, but I think that if in the midterms they get another shellacking, you’re going to find Democrats trying to move to the center so that somebody in the primary doesn’t actually run to the right of them, or the [people] don’t [vote for] a Republican in the general. The midterms are going to determine this. If they get another shellacking, [it] will see them start to become centrist, and you will see that the grip of the lefties will finally be loosened on the party.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Okay, would anyone else like to venture an opinion on what the centrists could do in the future within the Democratic Party? Ed?

 

Ed Mazlish

Yes, I have a couple of thoughts on it, and I’ll try to be quick. I think that the audience for the centrists is not other Democrats. For the most part, I think the audience is generally Republicans, and it’s just a trick that the Democrats always use. When the Democrats win an election, they could win by one vote, and they think they have a mandate. Trump wins a landslide, and they think that he needs to tack to the center and be bipartisan and reach across the aisle. To me, that’s what this talk is about. But even in so far as there are Democrats that are speaking up, I don’t think that they will prevail. I disagree with Ruth that even getting shellacked in the midterms would lead to them becoming empowered. I think the Democrats are a more ideological party than the Republicans. I think that their party is committed to this Far-Left agenda and this Far-Left ideology. I don’t think it’s some fringe element, I think that that is who they are.

I think that the Democratic party is committed to this Far-Left agenda and this Far-Left ideology.

I don’t see the centrists as having any power or any sway. I don’t think that the typical Democrat voter really hears them anymore. I think the typical Democrat voter is all in on the gender confusion and gender transition and cultural Marxism and DEI and all the stuff that we think is just abominable. I think even if they get shellacked, all that’ll do is knock off the moderates and the centrists that are still in the Democratic Party, and you’ll have a much more undiluted far-left Democratic Party, albeit smaller. I don’t see them moving to the center [let alone] towards the right. I think that they are committed to their ideas in a way that the Republicans really aren’t. I think that they will stick to that, and that’s why I think it’s so important for Trump to succeed. If he does succeed, we could get a realignment that’s even bigger than what FDR got through in 1932 and 1936. I think we can really see a gigantic realignment as these centrists that Ruth is alluding to, and that your question presupposes, all shift to the Trump populism and give the Republicans the kind of 20-year stranglehold on government that FDR gave to the Democrats in 1932.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

David, are the Democrats that intrinsic a part of the Deep State that they cannot extricate even a bit out of that?

 

David Harriman

I think the Far Left owns the Democratic Party now.

Yes, I think the Far Left owns the Democratic Party now, and I don’t really see that changing. I don’t think the Far Left is going to give an inch, even if they lose some elections. They’re in the grip of that ideology, and they’re committed to it. Maybe there will be that realignment that Ed is talking about where the more reasonable Democrats just decide to switch over and start voting Republican on a more populist agenda. That would be good.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Roger?

 

Roger Bissell

The Democrats always talk about becoming more centrist during an election campaign, and they try to put on a show of moderation.

The Democrats always talk about becoming more centrist during an election campaign, and they try to put on a show of moderation. Then, after they win, they come out with both barrels. But now, in this year and in elections in the past, when they took a real shellacking, they did the same thing. They got really beaten in 1972, then Carter was kind of a centrist guy and made a mess of things. 1988 was a big win for George H.W. Bush, then Clinton got in, but he pushed too far, so he had to settle with the GOP Congress. Biden made a mess of things and Harris was no better and she tried to cover up her radical beliefs by just platitudes and stealing Trump’s ideas. I think they’re just going to keep doing this seesawing and trying to fool the voters into thinking they’re just harmless centrists. Obama’s big term was “pragmatic problem solver.” If you ever hear someone say: “I just want to roll up my sleeves and help solve problems,” look out. They’re making a beeline for your pocketbook.

So, I don’t think the Dems are going to be able to come up with a solid agenda. They’re going to keep squabbling like this because, as somebody already pointed out, they’re going to bump up against the hard left. The hard left is not going to go away quietly. The only hope for the Democrats is that Trump is going to be so overloaded with disasters like a war and[/or] like a recession, that his attempts to keep peace and to keep prosperity are going to be severely challenged. He can still succeed. I hope he does, but there’s going to be a lot of opposition and obstruction from not only the Democrats, but also [from] part of the Republican Party. The Democrats will have another opportunity in 2028, and I predict at that time they will try to present themselves as a reasonable alternative to the Orange Hitler, or the Orange Authoritarian, whatever the term is then.

 

Vinay Kolhatkar

Or [to] his appointed successor.

Okay, thanks all of you for coming here. Congratulations, again, on that wonderful forecast a few days before the election. We may meet again, perhaps after January 20, to see how we’re going, but thank you for coming here and thank you to all the viewers. This is where you tune in to become more savvy. And in Ed Murrow’s words: “Good night and good luck.”