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I tweet that and then I finish the day
and I wake up the next morning and I
glance at my phone I'm seeing all these
verified accounts that are you know
quote tweeting it and demanding a
retraction and whatever and I go uh oh
okay this looks like it's getting looks
like it's getting some attention um I
then continue about my day around noon I
hear from my dad that he got a 100
messages from you should have aborted
your son to we're going to find all of
you to whatever else my dad has no idea
what's going on he's like I don't know
what this is but I have a 100
DMS to everything else you can imagine
um and I start to get emails about you
know we you know your Jewish faith this
and that and the other thing and so at
that point to me I thought this is just
going to get worse and worse and worse
and so I deleted the tweet and I really
regret doing that because over the 48
hours that followed yes the attacks
escalated it went through Candace Owens
and then at foxnews.com Newsmax kind of
peing with with Donald Trump Jr and it
was
horrible the following is a conversation
with David Pacman a left-wing
Progressive political commentator and
host of the David Pacman show I hope to
continue to have many conversations on
politics with prominent insightful and
sometimes controversial figures across
the political Spectrum David and I have
been planning to speak for a long time
and I'm sure we'll speak many more times
this conversation was challenging eye
openening and fun this is Alex Freedman
podcast to support it please check out
our sponsors in the description and now
dear friends here's David
pman are there interesting differences
to you between terms like liberal
Democrat leftwing leftist Progressive
Socialist Communist Marxist farle Center
left all these labels is there
interesting distinctions between them
yeah there's two sets of distinctions
one is if you just want to say let's
define each of these as political terms
they're all different terms you can be a
progressive ideologically but not be a
member of the democratic party many say
the Democratic party isn't even really
very Progressive so these are certainly
terms that we could Define uh in order
to have a conversation about the next
thing kind of as a precursor to a
conversation sometimes the terms are
used in order to tag someone with a
certain ideology that's not really
linked to policy or any particular
political question but they can be used
positively or negatively to just kind of
say here is the image of this individual
that I have in my mind so like Marxist
is right now very popularly being used
by some on the right um to attack
Democrats there's very few actual
marxists certainly not in positions of
power in the United United States but
even among the general population um so
I think it's important to distinguish
are we defining these terms because we
want to compare and contrast the ideas
that a particular group might bring to
the discussion or are we using them as
insults or to stifle conversation
they're terms that can be used to start
conversation or to stop it and the use
of those terms is evolving rapidly month
by month so the term leftist I think is
a relatively popular term now to use in
the negative context to
describe um
what an outraged leftwing commentator I
think what you're kind of grasping on to
is that there's probably some set of
ideas that would apply to most of those
who consider themselves to be on the
left the discussion of how that term is
mostly being used is not about policy
ideas you're accurately kind of uh uh
identifying that and it does seem like
Progressive is no longer being used as a
smear and leftist is being used as a
smear more at this point okay but
sometimes some of these terms are useful
like can we try to pick the terms that
are useful like liberal and Progressive
and
Democrat liberal and Progressive is
there an interesting definable
distinction between liberal and
Progressive to you that's a maybe one of
the most interesting ones 10 years ago
liberal often meant prog what now we
mean by
Progressive more recently the progress
socialist leaning part of the political
Spectrum has started to use liberal to
Mean Joe Biden to mean someone who is
not really left enough so liberal is
very interesting because I remember
talking with my audience years ago maybe
eight years ago or something like that
where I identified I'm going to now use
the term Progressive more commonly to
describe my own beliefs because liberal
has now been made a smear it's being
shifted into something else and it also
means more of like a center left
politics so it's changed in some sense
by by necessity by force and also
because the the Spectrum has shifted to
some degree so the term liberal has
evolved now liberal meaning some kind of
uh embodiment of the mainstream
Democratic party almost to some degree
sometimes I'm called uh I'm written off
by you know within my space there are
all sorts of Shades of Gray which I'm
sure we can talk about about where I am
versus should be could be or am wrongly
placed and sometimes an attack on me is
he's just a lib meaning I'm not left
enough I'm not Progressive socialist
wherever else you want to go so yeah the
the problem with a lot of these terms
and they're used very casually by people
who call into my show is that unless we
actually Define them each time they very
often mean very different things to
different people and often come with an
agenda attached to them and so I find
that they often stifle meaningful
conversation rather than encourage it
hey do you sense that there's a
drifting of uh what is the threshold to
be a progressive or is is there should
be used Progressive synonymously with uh
Democratic Socialist I think we should
not use it synonymously with Democratic
Socialist and this is where there's
another linguistic confusion and a
political confusion so we'll first talk
about the linguistic one social
democracy versus Democratic socialism
very similar words in a different order
okay my the way I operate is democratic
socialism is actually a form of
Socialism where one would seek to
socialize ownership of the means of
production as an example social
democracy is a very uh highly regulated
form of capitalism the likes of which we
would see in northern Europe Denmark Etc
these are very different things I
associate progressivism in
2023 with social democracy and would
consider Democratic socialism a form of
actual socialism that is different is
we're no longer talking about uh a
capitalist organization of society so
transition from one to the other is a
fundamental shift in how in how Society
operates then absolutely and when you
talk about social democracy you're
talking about socializing a couple more
things than we socialize in most modern
uh capitalist countries I had this
conversation with Patrick Bet David
recently social democracy is okay we've
socialized the military already in the
United States uh We've socialized some
health care in the sense of like the VA
and Medicaid Etc we're talking about
socializing a couple more things still
in a capitalist country Democratic
socialism would be something beyond that
and and as someone who is not a
Democratic Socialist myself I'm I'm
maybe not the best advocate for
explaining exactly how that system would
function but it would have some version
of socializing ownership of the means of
production businesses Etc so you
mentioned you appeared on the pbd
podcast with Patrick bad David um the
debate was pretty intense I I I I should
say I personally enjoyed it I thought uh
actually you did well and I thought
Patrick did well it was a good
conversation I there was a little bit of
tension and I I thought that Patrick
actually so I disagree with the internet
I thought Patrick just took on a kind of
Devil's Advocate like he was he was
purposely being stubborn to bring out
the best than you but the internet
thought that he's being stubborn not
being open to your ideas I thought the
tension between ideas um I think a lot
of the tension had to do probably with
uh Donald Trump and Trump supporters
that certainly could be the case and
people wrote to me a people wrote To Me
the full gamut of everything you can
imagine from this was your best thing
you've ever done in public to you got
humiliated and your mother should have
aborted you okay so every and everything
in between so you know take your pick
but um the most interesting feedback I
got was from people who asked me after
was it incredibly tense and awkward and
because it seemed so combative and I
think for I'm so used to those types of
tensions in the discussions that I have
that it's very comfortable to me it's
not like afterwards it's it's there's a
grudge or it's tense or whatever the
case may be I'm very comfortable just I
I disagree with people and that's it so
I did not find anything that happened
inappropriate I disagreed with a lot of
the things he said certainly uh so you
also spoken to Michael noes um I think
about the idea of what is a woman do you
can you speak broadly about your
conversation with the people you
disagree with uh you know some of the
cases it feels like it's gone wrong the
conversations have gone wrong yeah I
mean I think there's a couple different
things and I'm the first to tell you
that depending on who I'm talking to I
go in with a different attitude about
how quote seriously I'm taking it in the
sense of whether I think it's going to
be a deep policy discussion versus where
whether it's going to be more of a
performance for an audience that is
expecting a certain thing and I think
there's different types of shows when I
was interviewed by this guy Jesse Lee
Peterson in Los Angeles it's very
different for example than when I'm
talking to Patrick Bet David just to
give two two examples I I think the
reason I stopped doing the Michael nlls
show was the number of of threats I
would get after the fact that's really
the re I was glad to engage with him to
the extent that the interviews were
interesting and you know we could
organize it reasonably efficiently um
but the reason I stepped away was sort
of the aftermath but I did find him to
be someone who was abundantly clear
about his View and where he comes from
and while I could not possibly disagree
with more with him in terms of politics
and culture and our backgrounds
everything is just so so different I
found it easy to engage in the
conversation just because of how upfront
and clear he was about what his beliefs
were but the number of threats was too
much yeah it was just too much and this
um you know I don't know if how much you
saw about this recent Twitter dust up I
was involved in that peaked with Donald
Trump Jr tweeting about me and then that
then declining from there oh let's let's
talk through it I didn't see it I have
to understand like uh the way you study
Shakespeare I have to study your Twitter
I have to understand so much how much of
it sarcasm it's mostly sarcasm I mean
here's the thing and I know that there
are people who will say David you're
dealing with such serious issues it's
really not okay not to take everything
you do completely seriously but my view
is it's so incredible that I've between
chance and timing and so different
things fallen into a position where this
is what I do professionally and it's a
career and it's financially sustainable
and all these different things I don't
want to end up taking myself too
seriously because I recognize the timing
and luck and all of these other things
and this could have gone a completely
different way so my approach to a lot of
this is let's not take ourselves too
seriously and in particular on Twitter a
platform that you know the degree to
which it should be taken very seriously
may maybe has changed over time I'm
always sort of thinking a little bit
tongue-and-cheek on Twitter so what
happened with uh Donald Trump Jr so or
the full Arc of it yeah the to make give
you a one minute Arc and then we can
pick whichever parts we want after a
mass shooting now you might say there's
like two or three a day you're correct
after the Nashville mass shooting at a
Christian School I tweeted snark tongue
and cheek to point that thoughts and
prayers not only aren't particularly
useful after a shooting they also don't
prevent shootings that there's some
confusion about how there would be a
shooting at a Christian School given
that it is a place where prayer is
taking place I think I I you know
jokingly said something like um were
they not praying enough for correctly in
my deep journalistic Integrity you have
it I have your tweet this is this is the
only display of journalistic
Integrity I will show today okay and I
have a couple of responses beautiful and
you deleted the Tweet since then which I
regret oh interesting and we can talk
about that I would love to because it's
such a yeah interesting
decision uh because when you tweet
something one of the things I've also
learned is you don't often understand
how it's going to be read it's going to
be analyzed like I mentioned Shakespeare
like there's certain the use of certain
words that you regret saying in a
certain kind of way maybe just because
it wasn't as eloquent as as as powerful
didn't actually convey the thing um or
is a distraction to the main message all
that kind of stuff okay the actual tweet
is very surprising that there would be a
mass shooting at a Christian School
given that lack of prayer is often
blamed for these horrible events is it
possible they weren't praying enough or
correctly despite being a Christian
School and
um uh a lot of people quote retweeted
that which I'm assuming was
uh uh criticism so Colin Wright wrote I
used to consider you a reasonable
progress Rive but you clearly devolved
into partisan hackery I'm an atheist yet
cannot begin to Fathom using the murder
of children and adults at a Christian
School is an opportunity to dunk on the
concept of prayer and you responded I'm
dunking on the people who send thoughts
and prayers and do nothing else and the
shootings continue okay I'm sure there's
a lot of other interactions there's a
few other hundred thousand interactions
so that do you want the arc leading to
the deleting so so basically I just
wanted to display do you know what time
of day I tweeted the original one I feel
like it was in the afternoon or evening
of on a
Monday 3:42 p.m. on 27th March 27th
which was a Monday okay so basically I
tweet that and then I finish the day and
so you tweet and then you go on with
your day I might have looked once at
Twitter and it had 2,000 likes and a few
people saying ah this might have missed
the mark but it's sort of like it's one
of my 20,000 tweets I don't know I wake
up the next morning my baby daughter did
not sleep till 7:30 the way I would like
so she's up at 6:00 a.m. and I get up
and I'm just there starting to make
breakfast and I glance at my phone and
I'm starting to this was when verified
meant a different thing than it means
now um I'm seeing all these verified
accounts that are you know quote
tweeting it and demanding a retraction
and whatever and I go uh oh okay this
looks like it's getting looks like it's
getting some attention um I then
continue about my day around noon I hear
from my dad that he got a hundred
messages from you should have aborted
your son to we're g to find all of you
to whatever else my dad has no idea
what's going on he's like I don't know
what this is but I have a hundred
DMS to everything else you can imagine
um and I start to get emails about you
know we you know your Jewish faith this
and that and the other thing and so at
that point to me I thought this is just
going to get worse and worse and worse
and so I deleted the tweet and I really
regret doing that because over the 48
hours that followed yes the attacks
escalated it went through Candace Owens
and then at Fox news.com Newsmax kind of
peing with with Donald Trump Jr and it
was horrible I mean thousands and
thousands of the okay but once I told my
audience about what happened I got
thousands of messages from people saying
saying David only someone who doesn't
know you and is determined to interpret
this in the worst possible Faith would
think you're blaming kids who died for
getting shot of course you weren't doing
that I wish you hadn't deleted it so
that it would still be up and you would
now see the tide kind of turning on it
this was not a fun three days regardless
but I do regret having deleted it
because um it was a p i wanted to do the
quickest thing I thought I could to get
people to stop trying to find family
members and send them threats and so
around noon that's what I did and the
truth is the threats didn't stop anyway
because everybody had screenshotted it
and I do wish I had left it up andan is
there some degree maybe stepping outside
yourself that you regret tweeting that
in that it feeds the mockery engine that
that fuels Twitter so like does that
tweet really represent what you
believe it absolutely represents the
disgust with a politics that includes
saying we can't touch guns we just we
can't but we're willing to point to
mental health or say we need more prayer
in schools or whatever
1,000% it represents that view is it the
type of snark and sarcasm that I would
use if given an hour to discuss the
topic rather than whatever the number of
characters is now on Twitter no
definitely not and so I am very
cognizant of the fact that it was
unnecessarily provocative How It Was
Written I I think I asked a similar
question to Ben Shapiro do you worry
that this style of presentation can turn
you from being um you know a deeply
thoughtful objective political thinker
to somebody who is just a
partisan hack or
partisan um what's a good word talking
head do you mean with regard to Twitter
or the format of my show in general so
Twitter for now let's start with Twitter
for now and can you Silo
your style of communication on Twitter
from being a virus that affects your
mind right I don't have deep thoughts
about the Twitter component Beyond I
think across all sorts of disciplines
this is not the best way to most
effectively solve
problems and figure out solutions to
complex issues you're talking about
Twitter now right now I'm talking about
Twitter that being said I think all of
us to some degree have to adapt our
content to the platform that we're using
in the same way that what I post to
YouTube is different than what I post to
Tik Tok what I post to Twitter is also
different do I think Twitter has been an
unmitigated good for society no um have
I chosen to step into Twitter as one of
the ways in which I get my message out
with the good and the bad yes and I
think that there is a deep conversation
to be had there I think zooming out a
little bit in terms of what I do and I
was hoping this would come up because I
think it's really interesting I will
often get emails from people who say two
things I will get the you would have
such a bigger audience if you did X Type
emails and usually they are plays to
sensationalism M salacious and and
titilating content more pop culture
Stuff Etc on the other hand it's folks
who say listen what you're doing really
isn't as serious as it could be and it
seems like you could do something more
serious and you should consider doing
deep Dives you know once it was do a
deep dive into Calvin coolage and I was
like nobody will watch that so there
it's not by accident that my show is the
way it is right in an hour I'm thinking
of all the platforms I'm on and I'm
saying okay I want to do a relatively
deep dive on the federal budget and I
want to talk about some of the um uh
political Tom Foolery going on within
the post office and I'm going to do a
segment about the wacky rally where
Trump said crazy things and made up
three words and said he endorsed a
candidate whose named right I'm crafting
that in total to find a balance between
let's build this audience as much as I
can in order to have a bigger base to
get my message out there and include the
more serious stuff with the hope that
there's a little bit of something for
everyone and I'm finding a balance
between those two sides of the spectrum
it it's a deliberate thing and I'm aware
that if I were producing my show 50
years ago the balance would probably be
different and it would probably change
again if we didn't if the show was Audio
Only rather than having all these video
platforms it would also be different but
it's a decision that's proactively made
to try to get the best and most out of
the hour that I'm creating every day
well it just feels like there's an
entire machine fed by Twitter and
journalism that wants to divide people
and the drama of that division
highlighting the the the partisan
division the drama of that division
feels like it's a tension with objective
clear thinking sometimes and so that's
the I worry that there's a drug to it
that's too much fun to mock
ridiculous people on on a uh on the
other side I think you're right about
that and the fact that that is
true to me supports I've talked with my
audience about you know like the old
food pyramid which I guess was like
wrong but let's imagine that there was a
pyramid that that made sense what's at
the bottom bread I think uh like whole
grains maybe I don't remember it's been
a while suar on the top junk food is at
the very top I'm very open with my
audience the vast majority of what I do
is the top of that pyramid and I tell
people very openly I don't consume a lot
of the type of content I produce and I
think it's really important to as a base
be doing critical thinking epistemology
how do we believe the things we believe
Basics about the world after that
reading history economics philosophy Etc
after that now we're getting into
current events I would mostly be looking
at
consuming um primary source reporting
things like Associated Press whatever I
know everybody will have a different
list of what counts there after that is
when I'd say indulge in some of the
commentary type stuff that I do if you
find that I'm thoughtful enough to make
it into that but I'm very open and
really what I try to do on my Show often
is in being that at the top of the P
pyramid tell people there's all this
other stuff that should be forming your
foundation that I hope you're consuming
in addition to just watching me and I'm
very open with my audience about that
what about the shape the Dynamics the
the characteristics of your audience is
there some degree to which you're
through mocking maybe
Republicans that there's
um there's a lean to that audience and
then you become captured by the audience
do you worry about the audience capture
I worry about it I'm relatively
comfortable that it's not shaping the
program to a great
degree in the sense that at this point I
have a pretty good sense of the things I
can say that will upset what I might
call my core audience you know one of
the interesting things just to briefly
go back to the Twitter thing was those
people who were furious with me on
Twitter and they contacted my
advertisers and some advertisers dropped
me and on and on and on none of them are
actually in my audience none none of
them are regular consumers of my
audience they were kind of weaponized
Against Me by people who said hey look
at this the people who follow Candace
Owens on Twitter other than for the kind
of shock value they're not in my
audience and with my core audience I
know there are things I can talk about
that will generate um displeasure I
guess you could say with my audience
sometimes when I touch the Israeli
Palestinian conflict that will happen
sometimes on vaccines there's a portion
of my audience that is more generally
skeptical of vaccines um sometimes on
some foreign policy uh issues or you
know I'm not a big fan of Maryann
Williamson nor Bobby Kennedy Junior's um
challenges to Joe Biden not because I
love Joe Biden but because I don't
consider them to be the most serious
Challengers I know there's people in my
audience who don't like that they get
they get mad at me about that and I'm
totally okay with that uh and that
tension with with my core audience so in
that sense I don't feel as though I've
had that audience capture take place but
I know it can happen and I'm very open
to to being told ways in which it may be
happening without me noticing uh so I've
uh made a call for questions on Reddit
for this
conversation there's a lot of good
questions that I'll probably bring up
but one of them was about miam
Williamson um asking why David thinks
she is a garbage candidate uh which of
course I've never said U but perhaps you
have more eloquently criticized so let's
let's go there sure to the 2024 election
okay so Biden Joe Biden officially
announced that he's running again Donald
Trump officially announced that he's
running again in if that's the matchup
who do you think
wins if the elections held
today I think
Biden why well first of all I believe he
won last time and if I start with the
results from 2020 and I think to myself
what has happened since then that would
push or pull voters one way or the other
I have a hard time making a case that
Trump is in a better position today than
he was in November of
2020 so that's kind of my starting point
which is it's a rematch of an election
with a known outcome what has changed
and I can't make a case for
circumstances having changed in Trump's
favor to give a couple of state level
examples Florida seems to be kind of
moving more to the Republican side since
2020 but Trump won that state already in
2020 so it wouldn't really change the
outcome Arizona was close I think
Arizona has moved to the left since 2020
so I don't see Trump taking that one
Wisconsin I think the same sort of thing
applies so being very like practical
that would be kind of the start of my
reasoning do you think Joe Biden is a
better candidate now than he was in
2020 I think he's a worse candidate this
is going to sound agist but I think he's
a worse candidate in that he's even
older and there already seems to be an
appetite for younger candidates
particularly on the Democratic vote in
side so he's going to be 4 years older
and in a sense that could be a
liability however he also is going to
have four years of accomplishments now
you might not like the things he's done
in which case that would hurt him but he
has started to accumulate um not
insignificant number of accomplishments
some of the big things that are known
inflation reduction act and Co stimulus
you know but also less well-known things
like a bunch of little tweaks to
healthcare
of little tweaks to student lending
there's been a lot of little things um
at the macro level I don't actually
think Joe Biden has that much to do with
this the same way I didn't credit or
attack Trump for a lot of the
macroeconomic stuff but inflation has
started to come down significantly the
stock market's quite steady you these
sort of things I think looking
historically it's a pretty okay
environment for Joe Biden with the
exception that he was already the oldest
president to be inaugurated in 2021 and
would beat his own record in January of
2025 and I just don't know how voters
are going to see that so in terms of
just a public human being uh how would
you compare Trump and Biden so if I were
to give criticism towards trump it would
be that he's
chaotic maybe to the point of being
disrespectful to a lot of different
groups to a lot of different ideas to a
lot of different nations and leaders and
all that kind of stuff and then the
criticism towards Biden would be that he
maybe perhaps because of age or any
other kind of cognitive capabilities is
not really there mentally as uh you know
in the way that perhaps you could say
like Barack Obama was there just
mentally being able to handle all kinds
of aspects of being a public
representative of a Nation to the world
and to the people of that Nation so
which uh in the competition of
Personality flaws which do you think is
more powerful you've laid out fair and I
believe accurate assessments of elements
of both of those uh men yeah you haven't
weighed in on to what degree you value
each of those assessments which is where
I think the the kind of meat of this
question really is um I don't see and I
know that you know Biden's going to get
us into World War II World War III
doesn't seem to be happening um I don't
see the Biden deficit you listed which I
agree with you on I don't see them as um
dangerous or threatening to the standing
of the United States in this kind of
environment with our Western traditional
Western allies and Geo politics Etc in
the way that the sort of unhinged
personality of trump combined with his
lack of knowledge about most issues is a
threat so for me if those two are the
candidates Biden would be my choice now
are there people I would rather see on
the Democratic side yes if I knew the
president would be a republican can I
think of better options than Trump
absolutely you know I it's it's so funny
when in 2012 it was Obama versus Romney
the difference seemed so significant
between them thinking back I'm sure I
would disagree with Mitt Romney about
tax rates and his views on LGBT are I'm
sure I I know are different than mine
but it seems without looking at him with
rosecolor glasses so comparatively
benign given the the four years of trump
so that's kind of where I come down even
uh McCain and Obama the the the
differences seemed quite drastic yeah
McCain was interesting because Palin as
his running mate opened the door to the
sort of cartoonish stuff that we've
started to see on the Republican side
Palin Trump marjerie Taylor green it
started going in that direction which
has made the party a bit of a joke aside
from what you believe the tax rate would
be right you can say taxes are too high
but Jewish space lasers come on you know
so uh but but I I agree with you on
McCain also so going back to the
political terms we talked about what
where in that Spectrum do you place
yourself today um what which of the
label do you think captures your
political views Progressive Social
Democrat um which which again is a
capitalist I own my own business I pay
the taxes I'm legal Al required to pay
and not a penny more and you know all
all those things that's where I place
myself would you place yourself to the
left of Joe Biden for
yes where does AOC fit into
that it's a good question what do you
think about aocc as a candidate do you
think she eventually runs I think that
if she doesn't run into some kind of
Scandal and I don't mean scandal in the
sense of some personal impropriety
that you know but I mean some kind of
major political problem it seems that
she has the staying power to be an
American elected politics for a long
time whether she would even want to be
president versus maybe going to the
senate or being Governor whatever the
case may be I have no idea what her
Ambitions are in that sense but
certainly like policy aside she has this
combination of
charisma likeability to some but also
something about her personality that
angers the people who don't like her in
a way that only fuels her sort of uh
presence uh which I think applies to
Trump as well um that I do think that
she has the potential to be to have
significant staying power in American
politics president I don't know do you
think that's the future of of uh
political elections and politics in
general is people who are able to
skillfully piss off the other side like
a and Trump did I think it's it's an
aspect of it I think it's also
understanding how to communicate policy
ideas Trump you know I have things I can
praise Trump about if we want to get to
that segment at some point you you let
me know when that is but I I I do think
that there are some things Trump is very
good at and this is why it's very hard
for me to believe that Ronda santis has
what it takes to actually fight Trump in
a national primary and um one of those
things is Trump has a even though often
says very strange things that if you
transcribe them you go that's what
language is that that doesn't make any
sense whatsoever in the moment the way
he relates to um adversaries on stage
Etc is very good in that he is very much
aware of how it is going to be seen by
the audience and so that's why a lot of
times it's more about doesn't matter
that a word salad came out of his mouth
how he immediately responded and related
to the person who very good so I think
that knowing how to be good when Clips
are shared all the time often out of
context is extraordinarily important
knowing how to use social media which
every election cycle that means
something different but understanding
how to use social media very important
those things are
absolutely so important and whether
you're able to do a deep dive on the
deficit it's certainly useful but I
would say it's a bad thing it's becoming
less important in terms of figuring out
who we want to represent us so just
lingering on the aocc and then maybe
let's throwing in Bernie Sanders on that
yeah so where do you place yourself and
how do you do the layout of the land of
Bernie Sanders AOC Joe Biden and uh
David Pacman my instinct is and the the
I'm going to answer it the thing that
makes this tough is Bernie says I'm he's
a Democratic Socialist he ran as a
Social Democrat he didn't run on
anything that was really socialism right
so I'm going by their public facing
platforms I've been listening to him for
many many years and all all the way back
to the Tom Hartman show and I think
using the terms as you've been using
them yeah he has I don't think ever been
a Democratic Socialist I haven't heard
him speak about
socialism I I think he I've heard him
speak about social programs and the
value of social programs throughout the
history of the United States and their
and how they've been benefit
my understanding is very similar to
yours although there may be stuff from
the 70s where he really was talking shit
in the 70s yeah yeah you and I even who
weren't around we were doing stuff in
the 70s I feel like we did yeah my sense
would be you know Biden is like Center
left and then I'm to the left of that
but maybe just inside of where AOC and
Bernie are very very similar to Bernie I
mean I I identify with a lot of Bernie's
ideas maybe their implementation I'm
more flexible on I'll give you one
example Medicare for all one way of
trying to get health care to everybody
which Bernie's very big on is you take
the current Medicare program you just
eliminate the age limit make it
available to everybody pay for it
through taxation interesting however I'm
open to other models if they get
everybody healthare that is good quality
and affordable Singapore has an
interesting model Germany has an
interesting model I am I am more
agnostic about how we do it than just
saying let's expand Medicare whether
that puts me to the right of of Bernie I
don't I don't know but I'm not like
exactly right there on it has to be
Medicare for all yeah that's more of a
that's more just flexibility versus
dogmatism so I don't know if that puts
you to the left or to the right I don't
either what do you think about the we
could term manipulation or the
corruption in the DNC that perhaps
tipped the scales against Bernie in the
election do you think there was 2016 or
2020 uh both I would say uh in different
the Dynamics there were different with
Hillary Clinton and um like the pressure
from Hillary Clinton as a candidate and
so on yeah what I mean was there why
didn't Bernie win I guess is one one
would ask okay I think there's a couple
things here first the DNC I'm not a
Democrat just your audience May not no
I'm just a independent yeah I mostly
vote for candidates that end up being
Democrats in local elections often
there's no party designation so okay I'm
obviously on the left I'm not denying
that but the Democratic party as as an
institution has never really been
interesting to me you're still a rebel
that resists belonging to any
institution exactly right exactly right
and whether it matters I I don't know um
the DNC and the RNC really are
organizations that to some degree exist
to justify their own existence because
if they were no longer necessary um they
would go away and so they have to assert
their value and their importance they do
this in a number of different ways
organizing the way that the dominee is
chosen the convention uh working with
States on everything from redistricting
to whatever else the case may be setting
the order of primaries and having some
involvement in how that's all going to
happen and also coordinating behind the
scenes uh I guess they would describe it
as making sure our candidates don't get
in each other's ways we might see it and
say they're picking MH the the winner
there's nothing illegal about them being
involved in picking the winner but we
might say it's not in people's interests
I think the 2020 primary was really
interesting Bernie supporter
myself I started telling my audience
after a couple primaries and even before
based on polling and different things I
see a real uphill battle here for
Bernie and it's really important people
in my audience are not the average you
know union worker in Michigan who is
mostly working and raising a family and
then goes to vote on primary day and
goes to vote on Election Day if you
spend a lot of time on Reddit and
Twitter you're going to have an inflated
sense of Bernie's popularity within the
Democratic party that was my sense and
to some degree we saw that in certain
States I don't have the exact primary
order and results in front of me or in
my head but the big turning point was
South Carolina South Carolina was when
Joe Biden one and one handly understood
to be because of the larger
African-American population in South
Carolina and right around that exact
same time I actually don't remember now
whether it was the day after or the day
before some of the smaller Democratic
candidate smaller in terms of support
got out and said I'm endorsing Joe Biden
and
to some degree of course it was all
organized and timed to help Joe Biden
there's no doubt about that this is what
the DNC does it's hard for me to be mad
at the DNC because this is sort of like
if if we believed they were there to be
unbiased Arbiters and to stay as much on
the side as possible it would make sense
to be furious that they've gone against
their stated you know kind kind of
mandate but we know that the
DNC negotiates and is working behind the
scenes and has a favorite that favorite
was Hillary in 2016 2020 so I share the
frustration about the power that the DNC
has but for people who were saying they
did something illegal or whatever else
the case may be that that doesn't seem
to be the case but this is part of why I
mean I would love there not to be this
duopoly of Republicans and Democrats and
there's probably four major changes that
have to happen in order to make that a
reality but I share the frustration of
of folks while recognizing
that Reddit was not accurately
representing Bernie's level of
popularity still I wish that the bias
wasn't towards the uh what could be
negatively termed the Deep State towards
the bureaucracy towards the momentum of
the past which I think Joe Biden kind of
represents uh versus new ideas which is
funny to say that Bernie Sanders somehow
represents new ideas because he's also
an older gentleman well it's frame it's
a lot of Framing and the other aspect to
that is on paper Joe Biden's platform
was arguably the most Progressive of any
Democratic candidate who won the
nomination now of course there were
people who challenged the nominations
who were to Joe Biden's left a lot of
this is perspective and it you know
that's how you end up saying the guy
who's a couple years older than Biden is
actually the guy with the fresh
perspective which is interesting because
I don't disagree with you yeah and you
also have to say the perspective doesn't
always align with the policy policies
you're right and you know the actual
policies of Joe Biden are different than
the maybe the perception of Joe Biden or
what he ran on I mean just two examples
I would give are during his campaign he
played up a little bit his interest in
doing student loan forgiveness and
something on cannabis I never bought it
I told my audience I think he's saying
this stuff because this is the way the
tide is kind of the wind is blowing and
he's being advised to say this stuff I
don't think he's going to do very much
on either of these things he did
actually do some student loan stuff but
that would be two examples I think okay
let's go to the uh something you alluded
to which is the pros and cons of a
particular candidate well what do you as
a Critic of trump what do you are um the
pros the strengths of uh Donald Trump
and what you are his biggest weaknesses
the strengths of trump see how I can
frame though in a way that is both
accurate and and
accurately assesses my my feeling about
it and can be taken out of context most
M masterfully through the clipping
process yes Trump's strengths are mostly
superficial and in terms of
presentation Trump was able to I I call
it a grift some on the right say he's
just so good at relating to different
types of people Trump as a rich guy from
New York City was able to convince
people that he spent most of his life
trying to be kept isolated from that he
had their best interests in mind that he
knew why they weren't doing well in the
2016 economy and that he had solutions
that he was going to bring forward the
truth is he never really liked those
people and as soon as they weren't
useful to him for a brief period of time
he you know that that love affair with
his followers stopped and then now it's
back that he needs them again he didn't
really understand the causes of the
problems that those folks were
experiencing and his Solutions were
laughable right like Jared was going to
solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict
in year one he was going to replace
Obamacare in 2017 things that were never
going anywhere anywhere um but what he
did really well was he put up a united
front of I know what is ailing you I
know how to fix it and I know how to fix
it I guess because he's a businessman
and he's been Above The Fray of politics
for so long knowing how to use political
donations to his Advantage he called
that smart Etc I think that's his
greatest strength why do he say that the
the the the Jared plan for Israel and
Palestine and the plan for healthcare to
improve Obamacare why why do you say
that's laughable well only someone I
would include the North Korea plan as
well which I'm glad to talk about only
someone who doesn't know anything about
the size and scope of these issues could
so arrogantly say that they could solve
them in that way and on that time frame
I'm all for optimism and and bringing a
new face to things absolutely without a
doubt but you know a wall with Mexico
that Mexico will pay for at the end of
my first
term I I know there were people who
believed it because they would call into
my show and say I'm voting for Trump
because of it but it's hard to believe
that anybody serious would fall for that
unless were deliberately wanting to just
believe whatever was being fed to you or
you just hadn't ever thought about these
issues before the health care plan you
know in 2017 they proposed one would
have led to 24 million or so people
ending up without Healthcare didn't go
anywhere because it was so terrible and
then in August of 2020 Trump said in in
two weeks I'm going to finally have my
health care proposal it's 2023 we we
still never got it you know with all of
these things when you think them through
it was just sort of arrogance and I get
the perspective of I want optimism and I
liked that optimism it worked I mean
Fair a lot of people saw it and liked it
as someone who followed a lot of those
those issues closely they seemed of
course like impossible promises well
it's a double-edged sword so to push
back a little bit if we look at the
things I have um a little bit more
knowledge about which is the space of
artificial
intelligence there's a company called
Deep Mind and there's a company called
open AI that were laughed at for a long
time when they were talking about that
they're going to solve intelligence and
now they've made um especially Deep Mind
and our most recently open AI with GPT
they've made progress that most of the
community would not have imagined to be
able to make everything from alpha go
beating the world CH uh world go
Champion just all the different steps
and progress I can get into were
surprised everybody and they are
legitimately
uh fearlessly pursuing uh the task of
solving intelligence the other aspect he
gets a lot of criticism now but another
example is Elon
Musk uh in I can say a lot of things
like SpaceX so commercial space flight
he was laughed at for a long time that
that's possible uh same thing with
autopilot in Tesla autonomous vehicles
his approach was harshly criticized by
all the experts and and still criticized
to this day deeply criticized and I as a
person that I believe objectively can
look at the progress of autopilot as a
semi-autonomous vehicle system has been
incredibly surprising so the reason I
mentioned that is sometimes it feels
like you need the guy or the gal who's
who makes those uh Preposterous
ambitious statements like we're going to
solve Healthcare this year
like and then and then there's experts
like yourself that are looking thinking
have you read anything about the history
of this Israel Palestine is a good is a
good example of that do you know there's
a history there do you realize how
complicated how many people have tried
how many people have failed how many
millions of people hate each other in
this in this little uh place in this in
this land like sometimes the expertise
can really weigh you down so sort of to
push back sometimes you have to have the
almost be naive and stupid and just rush
in with an optimism in order to actually
make some progress I agree with you 100%
I think it's interesting that all of the
examples you gave of of successes are
from the technology space not politics
yes not from politics which I mean
listen I would love to be able to make
Headway on some of these issues more
quickly without a doubt I do think at
some point though when it comes down to
voting and saying one of these people is
going to be ostensibly in charge for 4
years through all of the Departments and
secretaries and choices that they make
we do want to apply some level of
realism with the with the understanding
that your examples are from the tech
space and they're good examples there's
there's no question about it one th
thing I'll add to this I recently read
Bradley Hope's new book about North
Korea um and it's really about an
activist um
who it doesn't even really matter but
the in the background of the book it's
written much of what is written about
happens during the Trump era and when
Trump did the first and then the second
um I guess you'd call them Summits with
Kim Jong-un and it actually did seem
like to some degree Trump's were going
to handle this like I do a business deal
approach to Kim Jong-un in some sense it
actually was
logical because of Kim Jong-un and the
way that it was so ego driven and they
both as sort of author Arian strong men
types to different degrees wanted that
there was actually a konel where I
actually thought as I read it Trump's
initial idea wasn't crazy the problem
was he knew nothing about the backstory
of the relationship he fell for all
sorts of lies from Kim Jong-un and he
made offers that didn't make any sense
to make it fell apart fine but that's an
example where I think Trump's
personality was not actually at its base
the the problem when it came to North
Korea well there's other things of this
nature that could go or some people
argue goes into the strengths and pros
of Donald Trump for China for example
Terrace on China can you make the case
that there's some positive outcomes of
the way Donald
Trump acted with China it's really tough
and I'll give you a couple Reas okay
then also cons I'll give you it's tough
to make so the China thing is really so
just um very recently to when we're
recording this Trump was on Fox News
interviewed by a guy named Mark Levin
and Trump proposed a new I call it a
conspiracy theory maybe it will strike
you as something different about China
covid and tariffs and Trump's suggestion
was that the tariffs cost China so much
money China sent the us so much money
and tariffs that they released covid as
punishment now there's a couple problems
with that one American companies pay the
tariffs Trump still doesn't seem to know
this Trump seems to believe that when he
puts a tariff on Chinese Imports someone
in China is cutting a check to the
United States American companies buy the
stuff from China and then American
companies cut a check to the United
States for the
Tariff Trump doesn't seem to get that
but it still has a sting to the Chinese
economy you can make the argument that
if there is a suitable alternative
domestically or from a different country
that it will reduce Imports but it
didn't happen and we actually have
reports now that the tariffs on China
cost about a quarter million American
jobs the other problem with that idea is
China created and released a virus in
order to hurt you but as of today 5.7 of
the 6.8 million deaths were in other
countries it's a very indirect way
you're mostly killing people in other
countries to hurt Trump maybe there was
a this is the sort of thing where when I
think about how Trump dealt with China
it's very scary because given another
four years who who knows what he might
do if he still doesn't understand how
tariffs work so geopolitics
operates in complicated ways with
carrots and sticks and Henry kisser has
written quite a a lot about this and in
some sense the positive aspect here that
uh Donald Trump is willing t