We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.
Morgan:We need to learn stuff about the world.
Morgan:We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking and entertaining
Morgan:review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.
Morgan:We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Trevor:Yes, we're back dear listener.
Trevor:Episode 451, Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.
Trevor:I'm Trevor, with me as always, Scott the Velvet Glove.
Trevor:How are you, Scott?
Scott:I'm okay, thanks.
Scott:Trevor, and yourself?
Scott:Pretty good.
Trevor:And Joe, how are you?
Joe:I am surviving.
Trevor:Yes, Joe's had a rough day of medical tests.
Trevor:Right.
Joe:Had some good drugs though, so.
Trevor:There we go.
Trevor:There's always a silver lining.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Ah, I love being knocked out.
Trevor:Actually, yes, it's fantastic.
Trevor:But anyway, um, well, dear listener, our first episode
Trevor:post the second Trump victory.
Trevor:So we're going to talk about that.
Trevor:That's on the agenda.
Trevor:Our thoughts on the Trump victory.
Trevor:What happened?
Trevor:What it means?
Trevor:Thoughts that we'll have, um, I'm going to talk about a book I read years
Trevor:ago called Democracy for Realists.
Trevor:It helps to explain the Trump phenomenon.
Trevor:We're going to look at Kevin Rudd as our American ambassador.
Trevor:Maybe make some predictions about Trump over the next four years.
Trevor:J.
Trevor:D.
Trevor:Vance, a little bit on him.
Trevor:And then once we're done with Trump, a little bit on Australia, where we've
Trevor:got that social media age limit rule that Albanese and the opposition want
Trevor:to pass, which is just the craziest rule I think I've heard in a long time, um.
Trevor:The Amsterdam Pogrom, uh, we'll touch base on whether there's any North Koreans
Trevor:in the Ukraine and gosh, if we get through all that, we'll be doing well.
Trevor:So, um, look, I'll just kick off in that last, um, last time we, we were
Trevor:speaking, I mentioned I was confident that we would make episode 500,
Trevor:but I wasn't sure I'd get to 501.
Trevor:I was kind of thinking maybe we'll be done and and I've had enough.
Trevor:But after the Trump victory, I just know there is going to be so
Trevor:much shit over the next four years.
Trevor:It would be impossible not to hop on a microphone and just whinge about
Trevor:it, Scott, and get it off my chest.
Scott:That's assuming he actually does last the full four years.
Scott:You know, he could end up dropping dead, or he could actually, you know, get
Scott:himself in the White House and get his J.
Scott:D.
Scott:Vance to take over, and then after that, Vance can make all
Scott:his criminal issues disappear.
Scott:Either way,
Joe:it's still gonna be stuff to talk about.
Trevor:Yes.
Scott:Oh yeah, of course.
Trevor:Crazy stuff.
Trevor:Based on what we already know of past performance, it'll be quite extraordinary.
Trevor:Yeah, so, um, in the chat room they're asking if a brain scan was
Trevor:done, Joe, and possibly failed to find anything is the mean suggestion.
Joe:Not on the ultrasound.
Joe:The MRI was all the way in the tunnel, so who knows?
Trevor:Yeah, so, yeah.
Trevor:Right, um, so, I watched Planet America, that was pretty good.
Trevor:Um, seemed to be that from exit polling and and sort of going through the
Trevor:entrails of it, people decided on the economy and on immigration as the key
Trevor:factors and probably not abortion.
Trevor:So that was something to come out of, sort of, the polling after the election?
Joe:Yeah, I mean a number of states had standalone abortion changes on their,
Joe:um, polls and I wonder whether they felt if they codified state abortion law in
Joe:their constitution, whether then they were safe to elect a Christian nationalist.
Trevor:Exactly right.
Trevor:Putting that on the ballot paper probably worked very much in Trump's
Trevor:favour because the people who were, who were wanting to maintain the
Trevor:right to abortion could, could vote on the state ballot question and have
Trevor:that, that abortion right secured.
Trevor:And then feel free to vote for double Donald Trump on other issues, um,
Trevor:having secured it at the state level.
Trevor:So, I think, uh,
Joe:yeah, I think that would be Although interestingly enough, um, uh, Florida
Joe:voted against, uh, legalising abortion and voted against legalising marijuana.
Trevor:Well, all those boomers Yeah.
Trevor:They're not going to fall pregnant and they drink alcohol rather than smoke dope.
Trevor:Well, there is that.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:I think that would explain it.
Trevor:Uh, the other interesting sort of one to come out of it was that, um, legal
Trevor:Latinos, sort of documented Latinos, were quite willing to vote on immigration
Trevor:lines and pull up the ladder and prevent fellow illegal Latinos from entering.
Trevor:Seem to be a
Joe:strong feature of this.
Joe:And also now, um, one of Trump's supposed administration is saying We're document,
Joe:we're turbocharging, what was it, un naturalizing, denaturalizing people.
Joe:So anybody, anybody who's naturalized, so who's come over in the past and
Joe:now is an American citizen, they want to get rid of their naturalization.
Trevor:They're going to revoke their documents.
Trevor:Right, right.
Trevor:Is this the leopard, face eating leopard story again, Joe?
Trevor:Yeah, yeah,
Joe:yeah, absolutely.
Joe:There's a Face eating leopards, Reddit is going wild with
Joe:various, um, uh, lots of people.
Joe:Which is essentially,
Trevor:I voted for the face eating leopard party and I never thought
Trevor:that the leopards would eat my face.
Trevor:And there's going to be all these Latinos going, I voted for the Latino
Trevor:haters, I never thought they'd hate
Joe:Latinos.
Joe:Well, exactly.
Joe:And again, um, there was one Latino Trump voter who was complaining
Joe:that the other Trump voters in his street wouldn't play with his kids.
Joe:Barred their kids from playing with his kids.
Joe:Uh, there was the black Trump voter, who was then getting hassled by the
Joe:white Trump supporters, going, you'll never be one of us, you're a black.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:Uh, there was the trans, um, Caitlyn Jenner, isn't it?
Joe:Yes.
Joe:Who, who congratulated Trump and then was piled on by the MAGAs
Joe:as, you're not a real woman.
Joe:Yeah, how dare you, you trans weirdo.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:And you're not even a real trans if you're supporting Donald Trump there.
Trevor:Well,
Joe:yes, exactly.
Joe:So this seems, but, um, there's also the whole, uh, what do you mean tariffs?
Trevor:Yes.
Joe:You mean tariffs are going to affect my low, low paid manufacturing job.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:Um, yeah, I think there's been a lot of people who just went in and voted and
Joe:are now being told that possibly they might have voted for the wrong person.
Trevor:Is this true though?
Trevor:Are there really people like this who are now going, oh, what, are they
Trevor:starting to pay attention to policy?
Scott:I think there are some stupid people out there about tariffs.
Joe:Um, again, the whole Brexit vote.
Joe:Very much, there were people after the fact going, I did it as a protest,
Joe:I didn't really think we'd get 50%.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:It wouldn't surprise me.
Joe:I don't think
Trevor:people, I don't think, I don't think people voted for Trump
Trevor:as a protest, and thinking that he wasn't going to win though, that was
Joe:No, no, I think, I think they just, um, from what I'm hearing, a lot
Joe:of people bought into the rhetoric.
Trevor:Mm.
Joe:Uh, that Trump was going to give them money, you know, Trump was going to
Joe:stop tax on tips and stop tax on overtime.
Trevor:And
Joe:of course he's going to stop tax on overtime because
Joe:he's going to ban overtime.
Trevor:Yeah, yes, yeah.
Trevor:Look, I've got an all encompassing solution to all this coming up.
Trevor:But before we get there, let's just do it the standard way
Trevor:that everyone else is doing it.
Trevor:Um, uh, Harris didn't have any policies, except that she's not Donald
Trevor:Trump and, uh, she was selling joy.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:But she did have policies.
Trevor:She
Joe:articulated her policies.
Trevor:What were they?
Joe:They were out there.
Joe:People could look at them.
Trevor:Yeah, well she didn't sell them very well.
Trevor:Whatever they might have been.
Trevor:It was pretty much more of the same.
Trevor:And, I'll protect abortion.
Trevor:And, and I'm selling jewelry.
Trevor:You'll have the wonder of having a black, a coloured female president.
Trevor:Won't that be joyful?
Joe:Well, I think it was more workers protection.
Trevor:Mmm.
Joe:Um, yeah.
Joe:I didn't pay attention to the politics because I wasn't voting, so I didn't care.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um, what else have we got here?
Trevor:Um, um, ah, the ABC locally here.
Trevor:Reporting was horrendous whenever I switched over to the ABC.
Trevor:You know, they get these commentators saying that, um, the USA has
Trevor:the best economy in the world.
Trevor:And it's like, okay, in the last 12 months it's economy might have been
Trevor:performing better than most of the Western countries, but there's a shitload of
Trevor:other countries whose growth and other measures are way better than the USA.
Trevor:It's just this Western centric commentary, um, an ABC reporter claiming that Biden
Trevor:had been conciliatory towards China,
Trevor:um, and then Well, well, but he hasn't been conciliatory towards China.
Trevor:Um, he's, you know, levied Special Chips Act and whatnot against them.
Trevor:Um, what else did he do?
Trevor:Oh, and we had a reporter in a bar in Taiwan.
Trevor:Musing over the local reaction in Taiwan to the US election.
Trevor:It's like, for God's sake, ABC, you've got to do better than that.
Trevor:And then they had a
Joe:interview I think they should have had a reporter in Gaza.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:Musing over the reaction.
Trevor:That would have been better.
Trevor:And then they had interviewed an employee of Joe Hockey's lobbying firm.
Trevor:Um, who of course turned out to be quite pro Trump.
Trevor:in their positive outlook.
Trevor:So, um, Shocked.
Trevor:That just annoyed the heck of me.
Trevor:Um, I'm up for a new law, I think, when it comes to interviews and opinion pieces.
Trevor:That they've got to start with a disclosure of any conflicts of interest.
Trevor:Otherwise, both the publisher and the interviewee are liable
Trevor:for some penalty or something.
Trevor:Like, I am just sick of, of these think tank operatives being invited
Trevor:onto the ABC and other places.
Trevor:Mouthing off with their opinions, and nobody at any point says, Well
Trevor:of course it's in your financial interest what you're saying.
Trevor:And of course you would say that, because you work for a company that sells weapons.
Trevor:So, you would accentuate that there's going to be a war with China and
Trevor:therefore weapons need to be built up.
Trevor:Like,
Trevor:I think I've reached the point where I'd like to see that
Trevor:in an Iron Fist dictatorship.
Trevor:Thank you.
Trevor:Not everyone would agree with me, I know, but I'm so shitty with it, so.
Trevor:Chip in, Scott, if you want to say anything as I, as I meander
Trevor:my way through these things.
Scott:No, it's fine.
Trevor:Bernie Sanders said it should come as no great surprise that a
Trevor:Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that
Trevor:the working class has abandoned them.
Trevor:So.
Joe:I have to say they could have avoided all this back in 2016.
Joe:The Democrats, Having had Bernie as the person chosen in the
Joe:primaries, then pulling him out and sticking Clinton in instead, I
Joe:think was a large cause of Trump.
Joe:I think a lot of disaffected voters would happily have voted for Bernie.
Joe:And I think a lot of this wouldn't have gone the way.
Joe:But they were worried, the bankers were worried, weren't they?
Joe:The bankers were worried that Bernie was going to be slightly
Joe:more left than they wanted.
Trevor:Oh yeah, so the powerful groups in the Democratic Party didn't
Trevor:want Bernie and, um, he was quickly shuffled off in favour of Bernie.
Trevor:What
Scott:did Bernie actually do?
Scott:All he wanted was a healthcare system like we've got here in Australia.
Scott:That's all.
Scott:He also wanted to improve the rights of workers and that type of thing.
Scott:Probably bring them up to Australian standards more so than their standards.
Scott:I don't think Australia is a socialist country.
Scott:And Bernie Sanders was pilloried because he referred to himself
Scott:as a democratic socialist.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:He was trying to bring the U.
Joe:S.
Joe:into line with the rest of the Western world.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:In terms of worker protection and poor people protection.
Scott:Exactly.
Scott:I didn't think there was anything offensive about what Bernie
Scott:Sanders was actually trying to do.
Joe:It meant that rich companies would be paying more tax, and
Joe:that's what was offensive.
Trevor:And they make up, the rich donors make up a huge proportion of the Not
Trevor:only the donors, but just the power and influence in these political parties.
Trevor:So
Joe:I just re watched, um, Inequality for All, the Robert Reich documentary.
Joe:Yep.
Joe:Talking about, um, what was the Citizens United Act, or Citizens United ruling?
Joe:And, um, just basically how lobbying and money have just
Joe:infected, um, politics in the US.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:And, and how basically because of that, the, the rules, he, he's saying
Joe:there is no such thing as a free market.
Joe:The free market is always constrained by laws.
Joe:The question is, who are those laws working in favor of?
Joe:Are they working in favor of business, big business, or are they
Joe:working in favor of the common man?
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:I mean, we see it in our own defence policies here.
Trevor:Labor, opposition, totally infested with right wing, pro war, weapons
Trevor:manufacturing, lobbying types.
Trevor:Um, that's why we're in the position we're in.
Trevor:So, um, I've got a bit of an explanation here.
Trevor:Years ago, on this very podcast, I would have mentioned a book
Trevor:called Democracy for Realists.
Trevor:Why elections do not produce responsible government.
Trevor:And I'm just going to run through a few of the main ideas from this book
Trevor:as a sort of an explanation of of what went on, not only in this election, but
Trevor:all elections, is what they're saying.
Trevor:And they come to these conclusions based on a lot of studies of people,
Trevor:a lot of in depth, um, studies.
Trevor:So, well, in my own words, we can dissect demographics in these elections, like
Trevor:age, race, education, income, religion, ethnicity, gender, et cetera, which of
Trevor:these demographics voted for who and Um, at election time, according to the, this
Trevor:book, voters choose a party validating their social and political identity,
Trevor:then rationalise their decisions with appropriate party supplied reasons.
Trevor:It's very tribal.
Trevor:Political campaigns consist in a large part of reminding voters
Trevor:of their partisan identities.
Trevor:They say evidence demonstrates that the great majority of citizens
Trevor:pay little attention to politics.
Trevor:It's very tribal.
Trevor:At election time, they are swayed by how they feel about the nature of the
Trevor:times, especially the current state of the economy, and by political loyalties
Trevor:typically acquired in childhood.
Trevor:Those loyalties, not the facts of political life and government
Trevor:policy, are the primary drivers of political behaviour.
Trevor:Even the most informed voters typically make choices not on the basis of policy
Trevor:preferences or ideology, but on the basis of who they are, their social identities.
Trevor:The political belief systems of ordinary citizens are generally thin,
Trevor:disorganised and ideologically incoherent.
Trevor:And why does this happen?
Trevor:Well, people are naturally group oriented.
Trevor:Human thought is deeply conditioned by culture, including group subcultures.
Trevor:And people take their views from the groups to which they belong.
Trevor:Often because the people around them make it difficult not to do so.
Trevor:So the power of groups to shape thinking, um, have been reinforced
Trevor:by the results of multiple studies.
Trevor:So, so, people identify with a tribe and then, What does my tribe believe
Trevor:in, or do, and just accept that holus bolus and, and just justify
Trevor:everything with the thought bubbles that the tribe provides for you?
Joe:There was an interesting You Are Not So Smart episode talking about masking.
Joe:Right.
Joe:And how masking was nothing to do with the evidence, nothing to do with the science.
Joe:It has everything to do with what my tribe believes or what the other tribe believes.
Joe:And, um, the same guy has done a book called How Minds Change.
Joe:And it's very much the cost, the social cost, of going against
Joe:what your tribe believes.
Joe:And in historical times, to be excluded from the tribe was death.
Joe:And so we actually would prefer to die than to exclude ourselves from the tribe.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Yep, we're highly conditioned to, to massage our thoughts to be in line
Trevor:with the prevailing group think.
Trevor:And um, well, one of the studies that was in this book, researchers asked
Trevor:a group of previously unacquainted male undergraduates to judge which
Trevor:of three line segments was closest in length to a fourth reference line.
Trevor:Left to themselves, more than 99 percent of students gave the correct answer.
Trevor:But in groups, the outcome was quite different.
Trevor:Unbeknownst to the experimental subjects, um, the other group members
Trevor:were confederates of the experimenter.
Trevor:The confederates were seated in such a way that they spoke first, leaving the
Trevor:remaining student, the innocent, unknowing one, to either give the correct answer, in
Trevor:defiance of everyone else, or to go along.
Trevor:A large majority of the experimental subjects conformed on what they said.
Trevor:At least some of the trials, some conformed all of the time.
Trevor:In debriefing afterwards, the conformists ranged from those who knew that their
Trevor:answers were wrong but thought they should go along with what everyone
Trevor:else was saying, or those who thought that their eyes must be deceiving them,
Trevor:and so adopted the group's perception.
Trevor:So, uh, Um, all sorts of experiments done along those lines, where
Trevor:people comply with groupthink.
Trevor:And I just think that, um, the sort of, um,
Trevor:um, I can hear you tapping away, Scott.
Trevor:The, um, this all reminds me of Howard's Battlers.
Trevor:I just think Trump has captured what was Howard's Battlers in Australia.
Trevor:And you've just got these people who consider themselves as,
Trevor:um, well, what have I got here?
Trevor:Somewhere, um, sort of, um,
Trevor:government hating, freedom loving, hard working, aspirational,
Trevor:aggressively pro American.
Trevor:Um, very, very similar to the ideal of the Howard Battlers.
Trevor:And He was basically able to say to that group of people, Do you
Trevor:identify as an American battler?
Trevor:Well, I'm the man for you.
Trevor:If you're a battler, this is your party.
Trevor:And don't worry so much about the fine detail of the policies.
Trevor:Don't you worry about that.
Trevor:You're a battler and I'm for you.
Joe:It's interesting.
Joe:They, um, asked a bunch of Trump voters.
Joe:Uh, about, uh, democratic policies, without saying who they were.
Joe:They were saying, you know, do you believe that, uh, I don't know, corporations
Joe:should pay more tax, or should pay a larger, more tax income, or the same
Joe:amount of tax as you pay in your tax bill.
Joe:Oh, absolutely.
Joe:And asked them a whole series of questions without saying whose they were.
Joe:And at the end of their said, you do realize that those are all.
Joe:Democratic policies.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:Oh, oh no.
Joe:And, and it was very much, I don't know if you've also seen the, um, the
Joe:Obamacare versus the Affordable Care Act?
Trevor:No.
Joe:Okay, so the Affordable Care Act, which did a basic, horrible,
Joe:uh, it was a Republican idea, and it was all that Obama could get past.
Joe:Which basically said that all insurance companies had to provide a
Joe:minimum level of insurance, even for people with pre existing conditions.
Joe:And everyone would be covered by it.
Joe:And, um, the Republicans, because even though it was a Republican idea
Joe:originally, couldn't possibly let it lie.
Joe:They called it Obamacare.
Joe:And there are a number of Americans who are using this Affordable Care
Joe:Act to get health insurance they wouldn't otherwise be able to get.
Trevor:Who
Joe:wants to repeal Obamacare but they're very fond of ACA.
Joe:So they don't know that it's the same thing and that it's what they're
Joe:relying on for their health insurance.
Joe:One has the word Obama in it and therefore it's bad.
Trevor:Yep, because that's what their tribe has said, and
Trevor:that's the sort of argument that they are given, and, yeah, so.
Scott:That reminds me of, there was a talk about that ages ago, you
Scott:were talking about that, Trevor, there was a protester who was out
Scott:there protesting against Obamacare.
Scott:And it was pointed out to her that, uh, this is exactly what you're on.
Scott:She said, no, I'm on the Affordable Care Act.
Trevor:Right.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:You know.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:So, I, I think that tribalism and the failure to then really address the actual
Trevor:policies because who's got time and, um, and, and then innately, we just, if you
Trevor:lived in small town America, if you'd have grown up in small town America,
Trevor:you've got a business, you've the local car workshop, or a farm, or something,
Trevor:you're embedded in that community.
Trevor:If you don't conform to that community, you're making life hell for you.
Trevor:As a human being, you are going to be wanting to, um, fall in line
Trevor:with the culture that surrounds you.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Maybe instead of a vote for a politician, we should have, like, the vote compass.
Joe:Where you go, how do you feel on this?
Joe:You know, do you support more this policy, that policy?
Joe:Make it a selection of 20 policies and at the end of that, it
Joe:automatically selects the candidate who is most close to those beliefs.
Trevor:It would just get contaminated with the tribes telling their tribe
Trevor:members what their answers should be.
Joe:Possibly.
Trevor:The tribe would say, here's our tribal response to these.
Trevor:And that's what you should do.
Trevor:Because people would go, I can't be bothered reading that, I don't
Trevor:understand it, what's my tribe say?
Trevor:That's what we do with referendums, isn't it?
Trevor:So, it's a sort of a policy question, but invariably it becomes tribal, doesn't it?
Trevor:Yeah, so, yeah.
Trevor:Ah, there we go.
Trevor:Um, you know, you do hear.
Trevor:from different people, I think Jonathan Pye sort of said this and others say it,
Trevor:that, that, um, voters are struggling financially and vote for Trump as a
Trevor:protest vote for their dire circumstances.
Trevor:Um, I don't think so.
Trevor:I, these people believe Trump will fix things.
Trevor:I've never seen anyone in these street interviews say, Look, I
Trevor:know he's a liar and a conman and won't do what he says, but I'm
Trevor:voting for him anyway as a protest.
Trevor:These people are the most credulous people on earth.
Trevor:They actually think that he's going to do something about these things.
Joe:But there's also, um,
Joe:he's going to hurt people.
Joe:And I don't care if it hurts me slightly, as long as it
Joe:hurts the people I hate more.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:So, in that way, it's not a protest vote per se, but it's, I don't like
Joe:these immigrants, so he's going to, he's going to hurt these immigrants,
Joe:and if I have to pay a bit of tax for that to happen, well, I'm all for that.
Joe:Mmm.
Scott:Yeah, but you know, it's just, everything I've read When they've
Scott:actually started to put everything that he's actually proposing under a
Scott:microscope, they're going to have to round up between 11 and 15 million
Scott:undocumented aliens in the United States.
Scott:Now, their entire prison population is only 1.
Scott:5 million people.
Joe:Have you seen how much the private prison stock index has gone up?
Scott:Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
Scott:It has gone through the roof because they're going to have to build new
Scott:prisons, and because he wants it done quickly, they're going to have to put up
Scott:barbed wire and everything, they're going to have to put up razor wire around tents,
Scott:and they're going to have to lock people in there for a very quick turnaround.
Scott:Now, what's that going to do?
Scott:What's that going to do is it's going to drive the price of wages up so that the
Scott:Average American will get off his ass and go and do these jobs, which is going to
Scott:drive up the price of food, it's going to make food more expensive, it's going
Scott:to make um, clothing more expensive, it's going to make um, anything to do
Scott:with hospitality more expensive, because these are the, those are the industries.
Scott:That most of the undocumented aliens work in.
Joe:But they're willing to pay it because it's going to
Joe:hurt the brown skinned people.
Trevor:Well,
Trevor:yeah, what was I going to say about tariffs?
Trevor:You know, the other thing, like, tariffs can be a good thing.
Trevor:If you were then going to have a, um, a policy of reinvigorating
Trevor:your local production industry.
Trevor:So if you're using the tariffs to protect local industry while it got up and
Trevor:running, Then, you know, tariffs can be a good idea, but there's no talk of using
Trevor:the breathing space offered by tariffs to reinvigorate American manufacturing.
Trevor:It's just not going to happen.
Trevor:No.
Trevor:So
Joe:Yeah, I mean, all this talk of on shoring jobs, on shoring jobs is never
Joe:going to, certainly the manufacturing jobs that were there in the 50s and 60s
Joe:have moved offshore because it's cheaper.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:And they never come back.
Trevor:The skill base has been lost.
Trevor:It's like Australia saying, let's start a car manufacturing industry again.
Trevor:Like, so much has been lost, it would be, it could be done, but
Trevor:the commitment required to But
Joe:it's also the same with digging up coal, you know, we need to move away from
Joe:coal, we need to retrain these people, we need to find viable industries in the
Joe:regions that is going to replace coal.
Joe:And just saying we need to ban coal isn't going to work, because otherwise you're
Joe:just going to have a huge disaffected workforce who are voting against you.
Trevor:Yep, the Howard Battlers,
Joe:yep, yeah,
Trevor:yeah, um, look Do you remember when Donald Trump once
Trevor:said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and still get elected?
Trevor:Hmm.
Trevor:Turns out that was a modest claim.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Because presidential candidates can promise to continue a
Trevor:genocide and still get elected.
Trevor:That's what's happened in this election.
Trevor:Both sides are essentially saying we're going to support Israel, we're going to
Trevor:keep selling the weapons, They're just as responsible as the Israelis, cause
Trevor:they're providing the bulk of the weapons.
Trevor:They could stop it tomorrow.
Joe:The Arab Americans really showed it to Kamala for supporting the genocide.
Joe:Because obviously, um, Gaza is going to do so much better under a Trump
Joe:government than they will under Kamala.
Trevor:Yeah,
Joe:that's
Trevor:right.
Trevor:There was no choice.
Trevor:Both, both parties.
Trevor:Except for the Greens.
Trevor:The Greens actually did quite well in a Muslim district.
Trevor:Yes,
Joe:um, so, so the Greens who were sponsored by Putin, uh, What
Joe:do you mean they were sponsored?
Joe:The Greens were sponsored by Putin, what's that story?
Joe:Jill Stein basically was at a Russia Today dinner celebrating 10 years of RT.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:And, um, She basically turns up every four years.
Joe:In the meantime she does nothing, she doesn't support any of the
Joe:local Greens groups, none of the local, all she does is put her name
Joe:on the ballot every four years.
Joe:The only reason can be seen is to take votes away from one of the candidates.
Joe:There's a lot of criticism.
Joe:It could be
Trevor:that she's lazy in between elections.
Trevor:But she's not offering an alternative.
Trevor:No, she's not offering
Joe:an alternative.
Trevor:Well, she did it on Gaza.
Trevor:Well, yeah.
Trevor:And I'm pretty sure, I thought they were offering a few different, a
Trevor:bunch of different policies that sounded reasonable to me at the time.
Trevor:Typical sort of green stuff in terms of tax and wealth taxes and stuff like that.
Joe:Yeah, I, there is certainly a lot of feeling that.
Joe:She's just there as a spoiler vote and is doing quite nicely out of it.
Joe:She, she's making in money for each, uh, presidential election and then sits back
Joe:and coasts on the money in the meantime.
Trevor:Ah, there you go.
Trevor:Is the
Joe:allegation.
Trevor:From bitter Democrats who don't want her spoiling the two party system?
Joe:Probably, but even from Greens people who say, we don't see her, we
Joe:don't see any form of cross routes.
Joe:Right.
Joe:In the meantime, she just turns up for a presidential election
Joe:and then pisses off again.
Trevor:But wouldn't that be up to the Greens then to bring
Trevor:about some other candidate?
Trevor:I'd
Joe:hope so.
Joe:I don't know how it works.
Trevor:Yeah, except that Russia's sponsoring her.
Trevor:You know that much.
Joe:Uh, yeah.
Joe:I mean, she seems to be very ply with RT and Right.
Joe:I was on rt.
Joe:I'm not sponsored by the Russians.
Joe:Uh, I'm asking questions.
Joe:The commentators mother
Scott:surprised me.
Scott:The
Trevor:commentators thought I was Jewish because of my nose.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:They were like, look at him.
Trevor:He must be Jewish.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:That was all to do with that, uh, tempo Satan stuff.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Okay, well that's um, you know, I think I would have been tempted
Trevor:to vote for the Greens if I was in America, this last vote.
Trevor:I just, the genocide in Gaza, I just, every day am watching poor,
Trevor:poor parents crying over the bodies of their deceased children.
Trevor:And children crying over their siblings and their parents and lost kids wandering
Trevor:the streets and it just breaks my heart.
Trevor:I can't, I can believe it.
Trevor:It's the crime of this propaganda that these images are not plastered on
Trevor:mainstream media every day where people could just for a moment empathise and
Trevor:put themselves in the place of the.
Trevor:Palestinians and think just how horrible it would be.
Trevor:So, um,
Joe:Yes, but people get tired.
Trevor:Yeah, I know, but they wouldn't if the media actually
Joe:did its job.
Trevor:What's that?
Joe:They'd just stop watching.
Trevor:They wouldn't.
Trevor:They would be outraged and continue to watch.
Trevor:They would not look at these images and go, Oh, not another crying, crying kid.
Trevor:Properly shown, people would just get more and more outraged and, and want
Trevor:to see more and more of it, I think.
Trevor:Even as hard as it is.
Trevor:It's
Scott:just,
Trevor:um
Scott:I think you're looking at the world through rose
Scott:coloured glasses there, Trevor.
Scott:I think that people would actually be turned off and they wouldn't
Scott:bother watching it any longer.
Joe:I, I would say the, the groundswell of opinion, uh, supports Ukraine.
Joe:And I think the, the media is not covering Ukraine these days.
Joe:Because people are bored.
Joe:People are tired.
Trevor:But, you know, there's a limited amount you can actually show of Ukraine.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:But, but in terms of footage in Gaza, there's just
Trevor:hours and hours of it that people could see and be just outraged by.
Trevor:And I just, uh, if it was presented as it should be, I
Trevor:don't think people would go, Oh.
Trevor:Another atrocity.
Scott:Come on,
Trevor:move on.
Trevor:I'm waiting for the footy result.
Scott:I think you, I think that's probably what a lot
Scott:of people would be saying.
Scott:They'd be outraged for a couple of weeks, but then after that they'd get bored.
Trevor:Well, I wish somebody would test it.
Joe:Human nature, I'm afraid.
Trevor:Well.
Trevor:Particularly
Joe:as it's so far away and, uh Those
Trevor:brown people whose lives don't matter.
Joe:Exactly.
Trevor:Meanwhile, what about those poor Israeli football supporters who've
Trevor:been beaten up by some Dutch football supporters, and isn't it terrible that
Trevor:there's a pogrom in Amsterdam, and let's spend, you know, heaps of time showing
Trevor:that, rather than some other things.
Joe:Right, but I think that that's a five minute, that's an interesting,
Joe:this is an outlier, this is normal, it'll get attention for five
Joe:minutes and then it'll go away.
Joe:If it was happening on an ongoing basis, I'm sure people would
Joe:go, oh not more of this shit.
Trevor:Lord Don, essential Lord Don in the chat says, there's a thing
Trevor:called grief and disaster fatigue.
Trevor:People get to the point where they can't feel any worse.
Trevor:Well, when there's a flood or a hurricane, we get wall to wall
Trevor:coverage for a few weeks at least.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:And you know, the hurricane's gone and the cleanup starts.
Trevor:It's just a continual hurricane.
Trevor:Look, I think there's more to it than just fear of boredom of people
Trevor:not watching the shows anymore.
Trevor:It's, it's, they don't want to show it.
Joe:I'm sure there's political, yes.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um, Kevin Rudd, the American ambassador, had to delete one of his, well, the
Trevor:Australia's ambassador to the US.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Had to delete one of his old, um, tweets, which was this, um, by Kevin
Trevor:Rudd, with a picture of Donald Trump.
Trevor:The most destructive president in history.
Trevor:He drags America and democracy through the mud.
Trevor:He thrives on fermenting, not healing, division.
Trevor:He abuses Christianity, church and Bible to justify violence.
Trevor:All aided and abetted by Murdoch's Fox News network in America, which feeds this.
Trevor:And, uh, apparently on election night he quickly deleted it.
Trevor:Uh, yeah.
Trevor:Anyway.
Trevor:Predictions.
Trevor:Gentlemen, I've got a few.
Trevor:Number one.
Trevor:Trump really hated being in court so often.
Joe:Yep.
Trevor:Lookout justice system.
Joe:There is an argument.
Joe:So, New York put off sentencing until after the election.
Joe:Hmm.
Joe:There is a possibility that New York will jail Trump for his 34
Joe:crimes that he's been convicted of.
Trevor:Hmm.
Joe:He could be the first US president to serve his presidency whilst in jail.
Trevor:That will not happen.
Trevor:He will refuse to submit to any authority that attempts to
Trevor:handcuff him and drag him off.
Trevor:And he will surround himself with secret service agents
Scott:who will
Trevor:fight off anyone who tries.
Scott:This is a state government that would actually be imposing a
Scott:state government sentence on him.
Scott:The End.
Scott:He's not got the breadth of, uh, Secret Service agents around him just right now.
Scott:So, yeah.
Scott:Oh, I
Trevor:see.
Trevor:This will be before his, um.
Trevor:Before he's inaugurated.
Trevor:Ah, okay.
Trevor:But,
Trevor:yeah.
Scott:See, it's like the It's still not gonna happen.
Scott:It's like the Georgia thing, because that's a state, that's also a
Scott:state government prosecution too, that he can't do anything about.
Joe:And he, he can't even, um, give himself clemency.
Trevor:He will lock himself in Mar a Lago and tell his supporters to gather
Trevor:round and create a human cordon, um, shielding him from anybody coming in.
Trevor:There's just no way he is going to submit to that.
Trevor:Yeah,
Scott:but then he won't be able to get inaugurated, which will be over.
Trevor:He'll hold out until his inauguration and then the Secret
Trevor:Service arrives and he flies out in a helicopter straight to the White House.
Trevor:There's just no way he is going to submit himself.
Trevor:He hates being in court.
Trevor:He's, look, whatever happens There's going to be massive
Trevor:abuses of the justice system.
Trevor:He
Joe:loves being in court when he's suing somebody.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:He hates being a defendant in court.
Trevor:Yes, correct.
Trevor:In particularly a criminal court.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:More the case.
Trevor:Yeah, true.
Trevor:So Project 2025 means tens of thousands of public servants will
Trevor:be replaced with political So
Joe:Project 2025, we don't know if it'll happen.
Joe:Schedule F happened last time, he will be re implementing it.
Joe:And that is the sacking of civil servants.
Trevor:And just putting in place his own appointees.
Trevor:So, who will do all sorts of administrative
Trevor:shenanigans to favour Trump.
Trevor:Now,
Joe:the question is how effective they will be at general
Joe:day to day running of things.
Joe:Because if you stick in a bunch of people who have no idea how government works
Joe:into a government, it could well be that all sorts of things fall apart because
Joe:of that, but you can guarantee that his, uh, his ideas will get priority.
Trevor:That will just prove to everybody that, um, governments are a waste of
Trevor:money and should be done away with.
Joe:Probably.
Trevor:That's all part of the, the tribal.
Trevor:Um, identity that voted him in, anti government, big business, or pro business,
Trevor:anti government, anti regulation.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:These people can't run these regulations, let's just
Trevor:get rid of the regulations.
Trevor:So, look out for that, um, he hates China, he really hates China, so tariffs
Trevor:are coming in one way or another.
Trevor:How long they survive, or?
Trevor:Well,
Joe:Elmo has said, please don't implement them.
Joe:Straight away, build them up slowly so that he can build up
Joe:his stock and get ready for it.
Joe:Who, who said that?
Joe:Elmo.
Trevor:Elmo?
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Who's Elmo?
Joe:Elon.
Trevor:Oh, Elon.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Don't do it straight away until he's got his ducks in a row.
Joe:Basically until he's built up his stock and he's, he's got everything
Joe:ready for all these increased tariffs because obviously he imports parts.
Joe:Right.
Joe:So he wants to make sure that he's ready for the increased price of the parts that
Joe:he wants to build his EVs in America.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Except he doesn't build them in America, does he?
Scott:He builds them in China, doesn't he?
Scott:Most of it
Trevor:in China.
Trevor:There's various places.
Trevor:A little bit in America.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Obviously Trump loves money for himself.
Trevor:There is going to be more graft and lucrative contracts
Trevor:for himself and his family.
Trevor:I say, expect his family to cash in on consulting to military contractors.
Trevor:So,
Joe:in the past I expect to be courted for his name to be on
Joe:various schemes around the world.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:And, and for, um, visiting important members of foreign governments to stay
Joe:at his, uh, his hotels in Washington.
Trevor:But, you know, something, you know, the word seems to be, of
Trevor:course, he'll be very pro Israel and give them whatever weapons they want.
Trevor:And he will be happy to build up weapons against China.
Trevor:Seems to be less inclined to spend money on Ukraine because Oh,
Scott:no, no.
Trevor:He
Joe:will force Ukraine to settle.
Joe:He will pull all the weapons out of Ukraine and give those weapons to Israel.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:And, um, or, you see, if I was a military contractor supplying the government with
Trevor:stuff that's currently going to Ukraine, And I'm wanting that to continue and
Trevor:I want Donald Trump not to cancel it.
Trevor:What I would be doing is offering Donald's trusts, family trusts, obscure Cayman
Trevor:Island companies, a consultancy fee.
Trevor:And, uh, and that would of course encourage Donald Trump to
Trevor:continue with The, um, supplies spending from the government.
Trevor:I'm sure that would be going through the minds of lots of people.
Trevor:Scott?
Trevor:Yeah, it would be.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:And we know it's not beyond him.
Trevor:Like, that's, if you're a military contractor, worried
Trevor:about losing, you would just say, well, how can we pay him off?
Trevor:If, if he, if we pay him off, he'll keep it going.
Trevor:It's obvious.
Joe:A a lot of the arms to Ukraine Don't forget.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Don't however much money was actually to replenish us stock of
Joe:arms that were going out of date.
Trevor:Right?
Joe:Yes.
Joe:So, so realistically it's a, it's a done deal.
Joe:Mm-Hmm.
Joe:They, those weapons need replacing anyway.
Trevor:Mm-Hmm.
Trevor:. Joe: But the question is where they're gonna get sent to and Israel needs
Trevor:some bombs to, and, and some shells.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:So, it's just going to be really easy for, um, for these guys to shuffle consultancy
Trevor:fees to Trump family interests, I reckon.
Trevor:Look out for that.
Trevor:You heard it here first.
Trevor:Um, um, obviously he likes Israel and he will let them finish the job.
Trevor:So, look out, poor Palestinians.
Trevor:There's no easing off in that corner of the world.
Trevor:They're just going to.
Trevor:Wipe them out and Israel wants the land, it wants the oil that is offshore of Gaza,
Trevor:it wants a whole kit and caboodle, it's taking it over and Donald Trump will,
Trevor:will um, let them finish the job and
Joe:then get his beachfront hotel.
Trevor:Indeed.
Trevor:Because the
Joe:Gaza is a lovely bit of the Mediterranean.
Trevor:And his evangelical supporters will be very happy,
Trevor:um, because he's so pro Israel.
Trevor:It all leads to the,
Joe:you know,
Trevor:what's it called?
Trevor:The final
Joe:Armageddon.
Trevor:The rapture.
Trevor:Yeah, the rapture.
Trevor:So, puts all in one place.
Trevor:So, yep, that's the prediction there.
Trevor:He doesn't care much for allies.
Trevor:He sees America as spending all the money And these allies
Trevor:are just sponging off America.
Trevor:So, look out NATO, um, and Ukraine.
Trevor:Unless, of course, he can personally cash in.
Trevor:Um, so, you know, just when it comes to allies actually,
Trevor:uh, his Vice President, J.
Trevor:D.
Trevor:Vance, had some stuff to say about this.
Trevor:I'll just play a little clip from, uh, Vice President J.
Trevor:D.
Trevor:Vance.
Trevor:He could well be president at some point.
Trevor:The
JD Vance:leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European
JD Vance:Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, we're going
JD Vance:to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump, who by the way, is the likely
JD Vance:next president of the United States.
JD Vance:So what America should be saying is, oh, if NATO wants us to
JD Vance:continue supporting them, And NATO wants us to continue to be a good
JD Vance:participant in this military alliance.
JD Vance:Why don't you respect American values and respect free speech?
JD Vance:Excuse me.
JD Vance:It's insane that we would support a military alliance if
JD Vance:that military alliance isn't going to be pro free speech.
JD Vance:I think we can do both, but we've got to say American power comes
JD Vance:with certain strings attached.
JD Vance:One of those is respect free speech, especially in our European allies.
JD Vance:Like, look, I'm not going to go to some backwoods country and tell them
JD Vance:how to live their lives, but European countries should theoretically share
JD Vance:American values, especially about some
Trevor:There you go, um, American, um, military alliances
Trevor:come with strings attached.
Trevor:Who would have thought?
Joe:Elon should respect free speech and not ban people from
Joe:Twitter who he doesn't like.
Joe:Is that what I'm hearing?
Trevor:Now you're, now you're picking up hypocrisies.
Trevor:So, so, you know, the two things to come out of that are, one,
Trevor:um, military allies have to toe the line in, um, in, in values.
Trevor:Thanks.
Trevor:With America if they want America to continue to be an ally and then
Trevor:just the rewarding of Elon Musk in whatever he does Because Musk has
Trevor:Continuing value for Donald Trump.
Trevor:What continuing value does he have?
Trevor:Twitter.
Joe:He may be an illegal immigrant.
Trevor:Yeah He may be but he's continuing value for Um for, for
Trevor:Trump is, is via Twitter, like, that is a cesspool of bro Yeah, it's a
Scott:cesspool of garbage now.
Trevor:Of bro, pro Trumpish stuff.
Trevor:Yeah, for sure.
Trevor:Is, is highlighted and emphasised on that place now.
Joe:Trump doesn't like Elon because Elon's actually a billionaire.
Trevor:I don't think that's a problem.
Trevor:Yeah,
Scott:but the other thing is that Elon also makes a hell of money selling Teslas.
Scott:Which Donald Trump doesn't like.
Trevor:He doesn't like Teslas?
Trevor:No.
Joe:He doesn't
Trevor:like renewables.
Trevor:Right.
Trevor:Well, he gets stuff from Elon Musk in terms of Twitter.
Trevor:Yeah.
Joe:And plus 150 million towards his election campaign.
Trevor:Yeah, yes.
Trevor:So, and they'll get, you know, Trump will ditch people when
Trevor:they're no longer of value.
Trevor:But I see, I see Elon Musk having continuing value for Trump.
Trevor:So, um, yeah.
Trevor:Um, that, that, you know, Twitter is definitely becoming
Trevor:a cesspool for that sort of
Scott:Elon
Trevor:Musk.
Trevor:Yeah, so if you're on Twitter, dear listener, just use lists, you go on
Trevor:there and you can just put, create your own custom list of people you
Trevor:follow and you just look at that and you can avoid the cesspool stuff.
Trevor:Don't
Joe:give Elon your money and just give up on Twitter.
Trevor:Yes, although there's still things that you get there
Trevor:that you don't get anywhere else.
Trevor:So, um, stuff with.
Trevor:I think, say, the Amsterdam Pogrom, with some of the revealing footage
Trevor:of what actually had happened there.
Trevor:Um, speaking of which, do you guys have any thoughts on
Trevor:that, what happened over there?
Scott:I only heard that, um, there was Yeah, forgive me if I'm wrong, but there
Scott:was some story about a Israeli soccer team or something like that in Amsterdam
Scott:and there were a few Israeli supporters that were beaten up by Dutch people?
Trevor:Yep.
Scott:Now, I don't know whether or not they were Dutch Muslims or
Scott:whatever they were, they were Dutch and they beat the shit out of them.
Scott:And they are referring to it as a pogrom and they were making all sorts of
Scott:inflammatory comments saying that it's the worst, worst bit of anti Semitic
Scott:violence since the Second World War.
Scott:So where
Trevor:did you hear all that?
Scott:I heard that on the ABC.
Scott:So have I got everything right or not?
Scott:Have they
Joe:forgotten about the Arabs who were shooting Israelis
Joe:in France five years ago?
Joe:I couldn't tell you,
Trevor:yeah.
Trevor:Well the bit that they left out then, Scott, was that prior to any skirmishes,
Trevor:the Maccabee football supporters were marching on the streets of Amsterdam,
Trevor:pulling down Palestinian flags that were just on people's homes, and
Trevor:chanting all sorts of anti Arab chants.
Trevor:One of which was, there are no schools in Gaza, there are no children left there.
Trevor:Fuck the Arabs.
Scott:Jesus Christ.
Trevor:That, you know, they're in the railway stations and the airports, in the
Trevor:streets, saying, there are no schools in Gaza, there are no children left there.
Trevor:Ha ha ha.
Trevor:Fuck the Arabs.
Trevor:For fuck's sake.
Trevor:What did, like, there's the context that you didn't get.
Trevor:But, you know, that at least is all over Twitter and the video footage of it.
Trevor:I mean, so, what would you do if you were
Trevor:in Amsterdam with that sort of There is such a thing in criminal
Trevor:law, the defence of provocation.
Trevor:That's the context that was left out.
Trevor:Is it
Joe:a defence or is it a Uh, a qualifier.
Trevor:Is it a mitigating, uh,
Joe:um Mitigating circumstance, yes.
Trevor:Good question, Joe, but, um,
Joe:uh Surely you're still culpable of assault.
Joe:It's just the assault was
Trevor:Do you know, I think it might have been one of the defences, though.
Trevor:Not so easy to prove, but, um Right.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um But, I mean,
Joe:that just ignores the, um God, was it Charlie Hebdo?
Joe:It was anyway, there was an Arab guy who went around and shut up
Joe:a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
Joe:And this is, you know, five, 10 years ago.
Joe:Surely that was the worst anti Semitic pogrom since the Second World War.
Scott:Yeah, I would have thought so.
Scott:Anyway, it's just, it's just that Netanyahu is just
Scott:making a big deal out of it.
Trevor:Sky News did a piece originally, which gave the full context, and then they
Trevor:pulled it and gave The story without the full context that I've just explained.
Trevor:So, someone got on to them and said, Hey, hang on a minute.
Trevor:It's got a bit of anti Israeli content in there by providing that content,
Trevor:that context, um, but change that.
Trevor:So I actually got rid of that context.
Trevor:That's where we're at.
Trevor:So, um, just back to Trump predictions before I go anywhere else.
Trevor:More Supreme Court appointments of course.
Trevor:That is the
Joe:scariest bit.
Joe:Because, um, you know, you've got three Supreme Court Justices who are
Joe:getting close to their last legs.
Joe:And if he does the same as he did with his previous appointments and sticks a 40
Joe:year old in there, Yeah, that's, that's 30 years of right wing Supreme Court.
Joe:Mm-Hmm.
Joe:So may, maybe the balance won't change at all if it's the old right wingers that
Joe:are going, uh, but by replacing 'em with young right wingers, you've guaranteed
Joe:a right wing court for 30 years.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:I've actually heard that, um, the Democrats were suggesting
Scott:that, uh, you are, quote, going to get Republican fetuses.
Scott:On the, on the bench.
Scott:Yes.
Trevor:I don't understand that.
Trevor:What's young people?
Trevor:No, they were, they were gonna get young people.
Trevor:Oh, right.
Trevor:So they're saying Republican and we say young.
Trevor:Right?
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Um, to ensure longevity of their decision making.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Mm-Hmm.
Trevor:. Um, and the other one, of course, it seems like JFK Jr.
Joe:RF Power of K JR.
Joe:FK
Trevor:Jr.
Trevor:Is gonna be given, um, yes.
Trevor:Some, some power in relation to health, mate.
Scott:He's got a real problem with fluoridation, fluoridation of water.
Scott:Yeah, and vaccines.
Scott:And vaccines.
Scott:He's an idiot, basically, but, um, one of the things that I said today
Scott:was that fluoridation of water started in Nazi Germany, and they said, well,
Scott:that's, you know, the conspiracy theory is that was a way of getting docile
Scott:people so you can control their minds.
Scott:And I said, no, Nazi Germany wasn't a bad place to live, provided
Scott:you weren't Jewish or communist.
Trevor:You
Scott:know, if you're prepared to, if you're prepared to look the
Scott:other way and that sort of stuff, it wasn't a bad place to live.
Scott:And fluoridation of water has led to a hell of a lot less cavities
Scott:and everything else in your teeth.
Trevor:Oh, if you're half inclined to become a dentist in America, keep going.
Trevor:Yeah, you're going to have more work than you can poke a stick at.
Joe:I mean, Nazi scientists were some of the best in the world.
Joe:Yeah, they were.
Joe:So to just dismiss everything because it was dreamt up by
Joe:the Nazis, it would be stupid.
Scott:Exactly,
Trevor:it was stupid,
Joe:you know.
Trevor:Hey, Joe, we have to look at something with the chat room, like
Trevor:it's sort of doubling up, isn't it?
Trevor:The restream bot is doing something.
Trevor:Yeah,
Joe:the bot is doing some weird thing and I don't know
Trevor:why.
Trevor:Don't know why either.
Trevor:So anyway, um, That's the sort of main, um, predictions I had in terms of Trump.
Trevor:Um, what else have we got here?
Trevor:Uh, So yeah, unless you guys have got anything else you want to say
Trevor:about Trump, we might just move on to some other issues, just quickly.
Trevor:Well,
Joe:I thought it was quite interesting looking at the demographics,
Joe:the total number of votes.
Joe:Now, admittedly, we haven't got the full numbers.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:But, uh, Trump was polling slightly less than he did in 2020.
Joe:Yep.
Joe:But there was at least 10 million people missing.
Joe:Who had voted for Biden, who just didn't vote for Kamala.
Trevor:So, I saw your graph and yeah.
Trevor:I poked around and I think there's been increases to that number,
Trevor:which is not as bad as it looked.
Trevor:Um, so we still need more time to see how many votes still come in on that one.
Trevor:It does look like Yeah, I mean
Joe:the popular vote, because I didn't think that people had flipped.
Joe:I think people just hadn't turned up was the point.
Joe:Yes.
Trevor:Yeah, it's also showing that the turnout was low,
Trevor:particularly for Democrats.
Trevor:But, um Still voting.
Trevor:Still, somehow, numbers being added to that, even now.
Trevor:So Well, yeah,
Joe:I mean, they still haven't finished the primary votes.
Joe:They've gone far enough to go, Oh, he's definitely won
Joe:this, she can't come back, but
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:Yeah.
Trevor:So, um, Scott, have you heard about this social media age limit?
Trevor:Yeah, it's a
Scott:ridiculous bloody thing that Albanese has dreamed up.
Trevor:And the opposition are bipartisan on this.
Scott:They're both bloody idiots on the whole thing.
Scott:It's one of those things that has to come back.
Scott:You know, Joe was right when he was talking about it
Scott:and all that sort of stuff.
Scott:He says what you've got to do is you've got to do the hard yards with
Scott:education because you can't actually, you know, what are they going to do?
Scott:Are they going to hold a gun to people's head and say you've got to tell the truth?
Trevor:Somehow, they're going to force the social media companies
Trevor:to check on people's identities to ensure that they are over 16.
Joe:So you're either going to have to set up a government system where
Joe:you've identified yourself to the government and then they validate
Joe:you to social media companies, in which case the government knows who
Joe:everybody is on every social media site.
Trevor:Yep, or you're divulging the information to
Trevor:the social media company, yeah,
Joe:and you hope that they keep all your identifiable information secure.
Joe:So you want to send this passport or your credit card or something
Joe:and give it to each of those sites.
Scott:I'll just give up on social media, I think.
Scott:It's insane.
Scott:It's not
Trevor:just kids who have to jump through hoops to get on social media.
Trevor:It's everybody is going to have to prove their
Joe:age.
Joe:But hang on, once this infrastructure is in place, then they can
Joe:push it out to the porn sites.
Joe:Yes.
Joe:So this is, this is the porn site validation through a backdoor.
Joe:Now,
Trevor:who Who wants this law?
Trevor:Does, you know, if you, if you checked with the majority of
Trevor:Australians and explained that.
Joe:I, I would suggest that the government want this law because it allows
Joe:them to track people on the internet.
Trevor:Uh, no.
Trevor:I'll tell you why they want it.
Trevor:They've been bullied into it by the Murdoch press.
Joe:Right.
Trevor:So, um, dear listener, for my sins, I read the
Trevor:fucking Courier Mail every day.
Trevor:And I can tell you that there has been a campaign in that paper, and presumably
Trevor:run through all the Murdoch papers, basically about how tough it is for kids
Trevor:on social media, um, finding examples where kids have committed suicide or had
Trevor:other issues, demanding the government do something to bring in age restrictions.
Trevor:And And why have the Murdoch press run this campaign?
Trevor:Is it because they're genuinely interested in the welfare of
Trevor:young teenage Australians?
Trevor:No.
Trevor:No.
Trevor:The reason is, Meta announced it wasn't going to renew the news deals.
Trevor:Remember how Meta was forced, if you're going to be reproducing links
Trevor:to websites, you had to pay money.
Trevor:Well, in February, 29th of February, Meta announced, they're just not going to do
Trevor:it, they're going to withdraw from that.
Trevor:And within few days, News Corp just exploded in anger, the mastheads
Trevor:immediately blew up, and literally 19 days later, uh, actually no, that was February
Trevor:29th, it was May 19th, News Corp launched.
Trevor:Let them be kids campaign.
Trevor:Calling on the federal government to raise the age limit, to access
Trevor:social media to 16, to stop the scourge of social media and give our
Trevor:kids back three years of childhood.
Trevor:And they're the ones who have been calling for it, not because of, um,
Trevor:uh, a love of children or because of any You know, detailed examination of
Trevor:the best way to deal with this problem.
Trevor:It's purely because they're pissed with Meta.
Trevor:And they started a campaign and fucking Albanese is so gutless
Trevor:that he's fallen into line.
Trevor:Because he's so scared of the Murdoch papers.
Trevor:And the opposition are falling into line because They need the
Trevor:support of the Murdoch Papers.
Trevor:So here we've got a policy that's being introduced into the Parliament
Trevor:in a flash, within months, without really the community having any
Trevor:groundswell of support for it.
Trevor:And if you just talk to people, they'll all recognise it as a shitty
Trevor:idea, but driven by fucking News Corp.
Trevor:That's, you could, you've got other policies where not, you
Trevor:know, 80, 70, 80 percent of people want done and it never happens.
Trevor:And just cause News Corp pressures Albanesey, it's happening.
Trevor:It disgusts me that they are so pathetic, this Labor government.
Trevor:And the only ones opposing it, the Greens.
Trevor:Three cheers for the Greens, hip hip hooray.
Trevor:I say, oh, that's the story.
Trevor:If you want to know what's behind this social media thing, now I could
Trevor:have told you all of that, but there's a lovely article from Crikey that
Trevor:explains it in detail by Danielle Saeed, that I've been saying in my head
Trevor:for days or weeks, this is a bloody Murdoch campaign that I've been reading
Trevor:in the Courier Mail all this time.
Trevor:So, um, I reckon, Scott, next election, Albanese will be associated with The
Trevor:Voice, which failed, this stupid social media ban, his big new house on the beach,
Trevor:the Qantas Chairman's Lounge, and when it comes to cancelling debt for uni students,
Trevor:they're gonna drag up examples of, of, Privileged uni kids getting 170, 000,
Trevor:you know, huge amounts of money, um, for, it'll be painted by the Murdoch press as
Trevor:privileged uni students getting money, but your average battler not getting money.
Trevor:And I reckon he's gonna lose.
Trevor:I reckon he'll be blamed for the cost of living.
Trevor:I reckon Dutton could pull this off based on what he's
Joe:too young to have had the free uni, wasn't he?
Trevor:I don't, uh, I don't know.
Trevor:But it doesn't matter what he's It's about, again, that appeal to the battlers.
Joe:And there's all of
Trevor:those things, all those issues are going to run against Albanese.
Joe:Well, I think if Albanese had any sense, he'd be
Joe:straight in going to Dutton.
Joe:How much do you pay for uni?
Trevor:And nobody will care.
Trevor:Nobody will care.
Trevor:Because they'll only read in the Murdoch press the examples of people,
Trevor:you know, they're not going to read about Dutton's contracts for Paladin
Trevor:and all that shit that happened when he was Home Affairs Minister.
Trevor:They're not going to read that, they're not going to know anything about it.
Scott:I don't think Dutton's actually got a hope in Helen winning because he
Scott:hasn't concentrated, he hasn't got those inner city seats that were Liberal seats.
Trevor:He's leading 51 to 49.
Scott:Yeah, I know, but
Joe:he's not going to win those seats back.
Joe:I've told you, haven't I, there's a strong Facebook advertising campaign
Joe:about basically a Teal in my electorate.
Trevor:Hmm.
Joe:Uh, there's a lot of money being pumped in by, uh,
Joe:God, what was his name now?
Joe:Acourt, wasn't it?
Scott:Holmes Acourt.
Scott:Yeah.
Joe:Um, Simon Holmes Acourt.
Joe:Yeah, into the Dixon electorate, looking for a Teal to stand against him.
Trevor:Oh, well,
Scott:it would
Joe:be quite funny if he lost his seat.
Joe:It
Scott:would be absolutely hilarious if he lost his seat.
Scott:I just don't think that he has done enough to actually convince those liberal
Scott:voters that did actually vote TL last time, to actually convince them that
Scott:he's not enough or anything like that.
Scott:And he's not going to, say again?
Joe:I said I haven't seen a green energy plan
Scott:from
Joe:the LNP.
Joe:No, they don't have one.
Joe:Well, exactly.
Joe:So why would the Teals vote for him?
Scott:No, I'm just saying they're not going to.
Joe:Yeah.
Scott:You know, and I just think to myself that that is a hell of a
Scott:lot of seats that he's turned his back on and he's not really saying
Scott:the right things that he could actually win the Outer Suburbs.
Scott:He might win a few seats, but he's not going to win enough to make up for all
Scott:those seats that he's already lost.
Scott:in the inner cities.
Scott:And I just think to myself that, yeah, I understand what you're saying,
Scott:but I just don't agree with you.
Scott:I think that, um, the most likely scenario is that Albanese is going to
Scott:be plunged into minority government.
Scott:And he will be propped up by either the Teals or the Greens.
Trevor:If he, if this social media thing is passed, even though the opposition
Trevor:will support it, it will be, it will be, it'll be the end of Albanese.
Trevor:If people are going to go, what?
Trevor:I've got to disclose my details to log into a Facebook, an
Trevor:Instagram, a Twitch account,
Joe:they're going to be so pissed.
Joe:And then after the first breach.
Joe:Yep.
Trevor:They're just going to be so pissed.
Trevor:Add to that the other issues.
Trevor:It's, it's going to be really easy for Dutton to, to paint a picture
Trevor:of an out of touch, woke, um,
Scott:Labour Party.
Scott:Dutton's actually in favour of it.
Trevor:I know, but, but he'll, he'll have the support of the, of the propaganda that
Trevor:will paint it all as Albanese is doing.
Trevor:That's what will happen.
Trevor:Because it'll,
Scott:it'll be his.
Scott:He'll,
Trevor:he'll make sure it's his.
Scott:Yeah, I know, he's going to have to wear it and that sort of thing.
Scott:I just don't think that, um
Trevor:That's where we're heading.
Scott:Well, we'll have to wait and see.
Scott:Yeah.
Scott:But it really wouldn't surprise me that, uh, it really wouldn't surprise me that
Scott:someone might actually move against Albanese before the next election.
Trevor:Now,
Scott:the rules of the Labor Party means that you can't actually do that
Scott:because he's only in the first term.
Scott:That's the Rudd, um, Rudd rule and that sort of stuff that says you can't move
Scott:against the first term Prime Minister.
Scott:Which means that No, you can't.
Scott:Well, but I really wouldn't be surprised if someone actually taps
Scott:his on the shoulder and say, mate, you're fucking this up badly.
Scott:They won't.
Trevor:There's nobody there for that.
Trevor:So, yeah.
Trevor:Anyway, I think that's a good point to end up with, unless you had something
Trevor:pressing you wanted to add at this point?
Scott:No, I just don't think that Albanese is done for, but it really
Scott:wouldn't surprise me if after the next election he's replaced.
Joe:Going back to the US, there has been a suggestion that Biden should step down
Joe:and make Kamala president for the last, whatever, hundred days that are left.
Joe:Oh yeah?
Joe:And that way at least America has had its first, um, black and female president.
Joe:Which kind of breaks the mould, sets the precedent, so no longer
Joe:is any election about this is going to be our first whatever president,
Joe:because there's already been one.
Trevor:Wow.
Trevor:Who's come up with that?
Trevor:Who's saying that?
Joe:A number of people in the states are going, yeah, he's got nothing left
Joe:to lose, why shouldn't he step down now and just give it to her, give her
Joe:the easy win at least for, you That
Trevor:sounds like the most stupid idea, and if she was to accept
Trevor:that, even stupider decision.
Trevor:Just to, to sort of belittle the role of the President, so that
Trevor:you just slip into it for a few months to say that you were there.
Joe:He was only ever supposed to be a caretaker President anyway.
Trevor:Yeah, for four years, well, for three years, yeah.
Trevor:That's a crazy idea.
Scott:How do you have actually done what he said he was going to do?
Scott:He would go down in history as probably one of the greater presidents.
Scott:Now he's going to go down in history as the one that
Scott:spoiled Kamala Harris chances.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:Well, uh, in the chat room, uh, John says, I don't think
Trevor:Albo will make the next election.
Trevor:There you go.
Trevor:Um, uh, also, Bye.
Trevor:John says most of California is not in yet, so there'll be a lot of
Trevor:votes there to add up to the total.
Trevor:Um, Essential Lord Don Oh, that's who the House of Representatives is, is it?
Trevor:Yeah, um, must be, um, in Congress.
Trevor:Um, Essential Lord Don says Trump gave him the mission to go wild on health.
Joe:This is RFK.
Joe:Yeah.
Trevor:Yes, Junior.
Trevor:Um, John has bailed on Twitter.
Trevor:Um, what else we got?
Joe:By the way, there's an interesting Behind the Bastards series on RFK Junior.
Joe:Yeah, it's a podcast.
Trevor:Yep.
Joe:Uh, not a huge fan of the way they present the content,
Joe:but the content is interesting.
Trevor:Okay.
Trevor:Um, what else we got here?
Trevor:John still, he may not get, be able to get out of Ukraine.
Trevor:There are a lot of Republican politicians with arms manufacturers in their states.
Trevor:So, um, Talking about Trump pulling out of Ukraine.
Trevor:Um, incidentally, John, still haven't seen a picture of 10, 000 North
Trevor:Korean soldiers in the Ukraine.
Trevor:No, but
Joe:these imaginary soldiers apparently are now for the first
Joe:time in their lives looking at porn.
Joe:Yes, exactly.
Scott:According to who?
Scott:No, I saw that too, and I just didn't bother finding out whether
Scott:or not it was true, it's just
Joe:According to who?
Joe:It's like, for an invisible army, there's a lot of stuff being made up about them.
Trevor:Yeah, it's just amazing that they're there, they're doing exercises.
Trevor:They're looking at porn, and yet nobody can take a picture of them.
Trevor:It's not as if there are, sort of, phones that people have that might
Trevor:be able to video or record this.
Trevor:Yeah, but the
Scott:North Koreans don't have those sorts of phones.
Scott:No, but the, you know,
Trevor:but there's been plenty of, um, Russian dissidents around
Trevor:who would like to prove it.
Joe:You don't trust them, do you?
Trevor:Who?
Joe:The dissidents.
Joe:The dissidents.
Trevor:I don't trust them, but you'd expect them to put forward
Trevor:some evidence if they could.
Trevor:It hasn't even, you know, there's nothing yet.
Joe:Apparently there are radio intercepts of Russian troops
Joe:going, these fucking Koreans, why are they posting them with us?
Joe:And who said that?
Joe:Ah, the Ukrainians.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:But again, surely they're as believable as a Russian dissident.
Trevor:Yeah, yeah.
Trevor:What?
Trevor:Where is it?
Trevor:You don't see, where's the audio?
Trevor:Where's the video?
Trevor:Like it just, I'm, I'm looking, I'm looking, John I'd like to, you
Trevor:know, I'm happy to buy your video, I'm just waiting for the evidence.
Trevor:So, um, what else is in the chatroom?
Trevor:Um, John again, the biggest problem with Trump will be the people
Trevor:around him running the show.
Trevor:Was anyone else in the chat, in the chat besides John?
Trevor:Um, uh,
Joe:John and Don basically.
Joe:Yeah,
Trevor:okay.
Trevor:Um, Trevor for First World President.
Trevor:Thanks, Don.
Trevor:Right, well, we'll finish up on that note.
Trevor:Um, we'll be back next week for another episode.
Trevor:I mean, we've got at least four years and a bit to go.
Trevor:Might as well get started on it.
Joe:Under his eye.
Trevor:Yes.
Trevor:Right, we'll be back.
Trevor:Talk to you then.
Trevor:Bye for now.
Trevor:And it's a good night from me.
Joe:And it's a good night from him.
Trevor:Good night.