Question for Glenn: By welcoming Trump's reelection, do you view yourself as abandoning the liberal democratic tradition? (I'm referring to philosophical liberalism, not the brand of politics associated with the Democratic Party.)
I hope you select this question. You come across lately as being strongly isolationist and I'm curious where you pitch your tent regarding foreign military policy. You set up a false and forced binary (in your after show thoughts of the Trump victory with John) of either being a complete isolationist or a warmonger. You completely ignore the path of selective deterrence which Trump effectively marshaled in his first term to keep people in check without any wars. You further seem to cast your lot with the extreme isolationists by suggesting confronting Russia or Iran would cause world war three or nuclear war (which is especially perplexing in Iran's case as they don't have it yet).
You obviously don't want America to be the world's policemen. My question is: what alternative would you have? The alternative of apparently Jeffrey Sachs' preference (according to you) that the UN lead the world - that hive of corruption, incompetence, impotence, and evil? The other alternative is a different world power filling the power vacuum - who would you prefer Russia? China? I imagine not. So, in the end: what is your better and rational alternative to America being the world's policemen?
A question for John: is there a widely accepted metric for linguistic complexity and, should this exist, do the measurements correlate to how advanced the societies using the languages are?
A question for Glenn: In your book you describe yourself making a bit of a shift to the left when speaking on prison/criminal justice disparities. You finish more as a conservative. Thomas Sowell doesn't seem to make the shifts back and forth as his writings/beliefs are based on "the facts" as he might say. Do you think "the facts" supported your case when you embraced the left leaning philosophies regarding CJ/incarceration?
Well, well, well… This is a rhetorical question for Professor McWhorter. I was wondering if perhaps a certain double standard has creeped into your subconscious? I noticed that you were greatly offended when Prosecutor Keith Ellison, wrote to you and Professor Loury and used the term, “Gentlemen” instead of addressing you individually and by your respective academic titles; yet, you also defended yourself when someone asked if it was not wrong to refer to Vice-President elect, JD Vance, as a MomFornicator. Had you noticed a certain disparity of treatment standards? Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)
Of course there is a slight difference. In one instance you are being addressed directly and in the other, you are talking about someone who is not present. : )
Robin D'Angelo has not been held to account for her alleged plagiarism by U. Washington. From what I saw, she lifted entire sections from the work of others. Do either of you have connections with academics who could tell us what really went on behind the scenes not to discipline her? I think she should be stripped of her Ph.D. - Rhonda
To both. Now that Trump has won & the backlash against "woke" rhetoric & actions prevailed, Are you seeing or hearing of any changes in your respective universities? Are your students talking or are they self-censoring on the other side?
Do either of you gents (ahem! LOL) have any familiarity with Stephen L. Carter, law professor and writer? While I don't have a Bloomberg subscription and haven't read his articles, I have read all his fiction work and the biography of his grandmother who was part of Dewey's legal prosecution team. He'd make a very interesting guest and I think it would be a great show no matter what you three discuss.
At this point I have only one question for this show. How is it possible that Glenn does not have any interest in responding to each and every part of this?
The 22nd Amendment, passed in the 1950s, prohibits a President from seeking more than 2 terms. I don't think any self-respecting originalist justice or legal scholar could reach the conclusion that Trump is eligible to run for or serve another term. That being said, if Trump wants to run again (and there are plenty of reasons why he may not), it will ultimately be the voters who decide whether or not that Constitutional provision matters. No courts (including SCOTUS), or members of Congress or Senators, or state election officials will successfully bar him from the ballot if he wants to run and his base wants him to run.
Do you agree or disagree? If you agree, what do you think that says about our constitutional order?
Edit: To be clear, I think it is more likely than not that Trump will not seek a third term. My question is about the hypothetical in which he does.
Q: What is the best policy change you would support to increase the wages of low IQ workers?
(Bottom third, or bottom two quintiles).
My own vision is that even a Forrest Gump person, working and saving and avoiding the vices of drugs & drinking, can afford to join the lower middle class & buying a low cost house in a lousy neighborhood close to where they work, and have kept working for more than a year.
I'm worried about the Republican party. We were once the "facts don't care about your feelings" party. Now we're completely consumed by conspiracies.
For instance, in this very Q&A chat there's talk about how the lower vote totals in 2024 PROVE that there was cheating in 2020. After all, there were ~8 million fewer votes this year. Where did those votes go? On the surface it does sound quite suspicious...
But if you take just 5 minutes to look into the numbers you'll see that ALL the swing states have higher vote totals in this election. GA up 1.2%, MI up 1.7%, NC up 2.3%, WI up 3.8%, GA up 5.6%, and NV up 5.7%. The only swing state lagging 2020 is AZ which is currently down 1.0%, but with 3.0% of it's votes yet to be counted. If Biden stuffed the ballot boxes in 2020 then he picked the wrong states in which to do so.
I'd laugh if this weren't so sad. These conspiracies are rampant and they range from the comical (like 'Haitians eating all our cats' or 'Jewish space lasers starting wild fires') to the nefarious (like fraudulent ballots swinging the election). How do we fix this? Is the Republican party salvageable at this point?
Honestly, I don't have a problem with voter ID laws. I think they'd be a good thing. But the most glaring instance of fraud in the 2020 election was the fake elector scheme organized by Trump. If we're going to shore up the integrity of our elections then maybe we should start there.
No, I would say the most glaring instance of fraud was the conspiracy (and, yes, that is what it was) to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in late October, a conspiracy topped off by 51 former top intelligence officials who knew the FBI already had verified the laptop months earlier but who lied about it being likely Russian disinformation. There is good reason to believe this suppression affected a great many votes.
I see below here, Luke, that this is a constant refrain from you. I wonder if you have given thought to how Hillary still regards Trump's 2016 win as "stolen" in that it was due to Russian interference or whatever? Or that many celebs and others in late November 2016 were appealing to Electors in Trump states to violate their pledges and vote for Hillary? Or that many Democrats refused to certify Ohio electors in 2004, or claimed the Supreme Court stole the 2000 election from Al Gore?
Perhaps, that is, we are faced with a longer-term erosion of trust that may in fact be due to deeper problems, only one of which might be the insane refusal to demand valid ID or opposition to this idea, which every other democratic nation appears to recognize is basic common sense?
Addendum: Also, Luke, I wonder what your views are about what is going on in Pennsylvania now regarding Casey's effort to count all the votes and then some so as to overturn McCormick's victory.
Suppressing the laptop story was wrong, but you think this was worse than a sitting president trying to overturn an election? Not sure I agree, but let’s dig into this laptop issue a bit further:
1. We agree that the suppression was wrong. That’s at least a good starting point.
2. This was suppressed on Twitter for ~24 hours. The suppression of this story caused it to go viral. People seem to think this hurt Trump’s chances in 2020, but honestly I think it helped. We can agree to disagree here I guess, but let’s make sure we agree on the length of suppression.
3. In your mind did this justify Trump’s attempt to overturn the election?
4. How is this any different than the JD Vance dossier being suppressed on X? Should the left be storming the capitol this year?
"After all, there were ~8 million fewer votes this year."
With an estimated 97% of the votes counted, there have been 150.9 total votes. The actual decline in votes will be more like ~3 million, and most of that will probably be voters who didn't like either option and chose not to bother.
Absolutely. This conspiracy started as "15 million missing votes". A week later it's 8 million and by the end of this it'll be ~3 million. The conspiracy is eroding before our eyes, but that still doesn't stop people from latching onto it. It's baffling to me.
Thanks for the numbers, tho I'm not checking them.
I did read that in the Wisconsin senate race, there was some 100,000+ ballots that came in at 4am, with 90% for the Dems -- not enough to overtake Trump, but making the Dem win the Senate race.
There should be no excuse for such huge last minute surges--as ballots come in, even by mail, their envelope validity should be checked and the numbers noted before finding out what's on the ballot.
Before we dive into another conspiracy, do you agree that this "8 million missing votes" idea is bogus? Or did you want to make an argument in favor?
As for the late surges of blue votes: Ironically I think Steve Bannon gave the best explanation for this phenomenon. Prior to the 2020 election Bannon sat down with a Chinese news organization and described how Democrats will favor mail in ballots, how these will take longer to count than day-of ballots, and that Trump would take advantage of this fact by declaring himself the winner prematurely. This is all in an audio recording if you want to look it up.
So again, you can always find new trends that allow you to jump to your preferred conclusion. Let's pressure test those ideas a bit before crying fraud.
A question for both of you: What do you believe, realistically, are some of the best possibilities and worst possibilities that a 2nd Trump presidency could be instrumental to achieving or influencing?
Hi Glenn and team. I have been a fan of the show for a couple years now. There seems to be an awakening right now to the bias of the mainstream media and to the excesses of many attacks on Trump. There seems to be a growing disdain towards the flaws of identity politics—a massive red-pilling of Democrats. The center left seems to me to have shifted right. What do you think of this? Will MAGA have a similar awakening or will America just increasingly ignore the flaws of the Trump cult? Are you hopeful or scared by this shift? Is there a way to keep an increasingly popular Right accountable and sane? I think this is an exciting and scary time where big realignments in the party system (such as new parties) might finally be possible. What do you think?
Question for Glenn: By welcoming Trump's reelection, do you view yourself as abandoning the liberal democratic tradition? (I'm referring to philosophical liberalism, not the brand of politics associated with the Democratic Party.)
Dr Loury:
I hope you select this question. You come across lately as being strongly isolationist and I'm curious where you pitch your tent regarding foreign military policy. You set up a false and forced binary (in your after show thoughts of the Trump victory with John) of either being a complete isolationist or a warmonger. You completely ignore the path of selective deterrence which Trump effectively marshaled in his first term to keep people in check without any wars. You further seem to cast your lot with the extreme isolationists by suggesting confronting Russia or Iran would cause world war three or nuclear war (which is especially perplexing in Iran's case as they don't have it yet).
You obviously don't want America to be the world's policemen. My question is: what alternative would you have? The alternative of apparently Jeffrey Sachs' preference (according to you) that the UN lead the world - that hive of corruption, incompetence, impotence, and evil? The other alternative is a different world power filling the power vacuum - who would you prefer Russia? China? I imagine not. So, in the end: what is your better and rational alternative to America being the world's policemen?
A question for John: is there a widely accepted metric for linguistic complexity and, should this exist, do the measurements correlate to how advanced the societies using the languages are?
A question for Glenn: In your book you describe yourself making a bit of a shift to the left when speaking on prison/criminal justice disparities. You finish more as a conservative. Thomas Sowell doesn't seem to make the shifts back and forth as his writings/beliefs are based on "the facts" as he might say. Do you think "the facts" supported your case when you embraced the left leaning philosophies regarding CJ/incarceration?
Dear Glenn and John,
Are we in the mutual ruin of the contending classes?
Hope you are well.
Well, well, well… This is a rhetorical question for Professor McWhorter. I was wondering if perhaps a certain double standard has creeped into your subconscious? I noticed that you were greatly offended when Prosecutor Keith Ellison, wrote to you and Professor Loury and used the term, “Gentlemen” instead of addressing you individually and by your respective academic titles; yet, you also defended yourself when someone asked if it was not wrong to refer to Vice-President elect, JD Vance, as a MomFornicator. Had you noticed a certain disparity of treatment standards? Inquiring minds want to know. ;-)
Of course there is a slight difference. In one instance you are being addressed directly and in the other, you are talking about someone who is not present. : )
I'm not sure a Q&A thread is the right place for a rhetorical question. Maybe Glenn should start a "Q" thread for these. :)
Or perhaps an intro could go something like this: I’m feeling a little verklempt… Okay here’s a topic ______ discuss among yourselves. ;-)
Robin D'Angelo has not been held to account for her alleged plagiarism by U. Washington. From what I saw, she lifted entire sections from the work of others. Do either of you have connections with academics who could tell us what really went on behind the scenes not to discipline her? I think she should be stripped of her Ph.D. - Rhonda
To both. Now that Trump has won & the backlash against "woke" rhetoric & actions prevailed, Are you seeing or hearing of any changes in your respective universities? Are your students talking or are they self-censoring on the other side?
Do either of you gents (ahem! LOL) have any familiarity with Stephen L. Carter, law professor and writer? While I don't have a Bloomberg subscription and haven't read his articles, I have read all his fiction work and the biography of his grandmother who was part of Dewey's legal prosecution team. He'd make a very interesting guest and I think it would be a great show no matter what you three discuss.
At this point I have only one question for this show. How is it possible that Glenn does not have any interest in responding to each and every part of this?
https://www.commentary.org/articles/mike-cote/ta-nehisi-coates-charlatan/
The 22nd Amendment, passed in the 1950s, prohibits a President from seeking more than 2 terms. I don't think any self-respecting originalist justice or legal scholar could reach the conclusion that Trump is eligible to run for or serve another term. That being said, if Trump wants to run again (and there are plenty of reasons why he may not), it will ultimately be the voters who decide whether or not that Constitutional provision matters. No courts (including SCOTUS), or members of Congress or Senators, or state election officials will successfully bar him from the ballot if he wants to run and his base wants him to run.
Do you agree or disagree? If you agree, what do you think that says about our constitutional order?
Edit: To be clear, I think it is more likely than not that Trump will not seek a third term. My question is about the hypothetical in which he does.
I believe Trump made his intentions for 2028 clear by picking Vance as his VP. Looking forward to it.
Q: What is the best policy change you would support to increase the wages of low IQ workers?
(Bottom third, or bottom two quintiles).
My own vision is that even a Forrest Gump person, working and saving and avoiding the vices of drugs & drinking, can afford to join the lower middle class & buying a low cost house in a lousy neighborhood close to where they work, and have kept working for more than a year.
I'm worried about the Republican party. We were once the "facts don't care about your feelings" party. Now we're completely consumed by conspiracies.
For instance, in this very Q&A chat there's talk about how the lower vote totals in 2024 PROVE that there was cheating in 2020. After all, there were ~8 million fewer votes this year. Where did those votes go? On the surface it does sound quite suspicious...
But if you take just 5 minutes to look into the numbers you'll see that ALL the swing states have higher vote totals in this election. GA up 1.2%, MI up 1.7%, NC up 2.3%, WI up 3.8%, GA up 5.6%, and NV up 5.7%. The only swing state lagging 2020 is AZ which is currently down 1.0%, but with 3.0% of it's votes yet to be counted. If Biden stuffed the ballot boxes in 2020 then he picked the wrong states in which to do so.
I'd laugh if this weren't so sad. These conspiracies are rampant and they range from the comical (like 'Haitians eating all our cats' or 'Jewish space lasers starting wild fires') to the nefarious (like fraudulent ballots swinging the election). How do we fix this? Is the Republican party salvageable at this point?
Very simple fix: paper ballots on Election Day with photo voter ID.
With or without a special half-day election half-holiday.
Most OECD democracies (all but the US and one other) hugely restrict mail-in ballots.
You should be worried about the Democratic Party which opposes making elections secure.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with voter ID laws. I think they'd be a good thing. But the most glaring instance of fraud in the 2020 election was the fake elector scheme organized by Trump. If we're going to shore up the integrity of our elections then maybe we should start there.
No, I would say the most glaring instance of fraud was the conspiracy (and, yes, that is what it was) to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in late October, a conspiracy topped off by 51 former top intelligence officials who knew the FBI already had verified the laptop months earlier but who lied about it being likely Russian disinformation. There is good reason to believe this suppression affected a great many votes.
I see below here, Luke, that this is a constant refrain from you. I wonder if you have given thought to how Hillary still regards Trump's 2016 win as "stolen" in that it was due to Russian interference or whatever? Or that many celebs and others in late November 2016 were appealing to Electors in Trump states to violate their pledges and vote for Hillary? Or that many Democrats refused to certify Ohio electors in 2004, or claimed the Supreme Court stole the 2000 election from Al Gore?
Perhaps, that is, we are faced with a longer-term erosion of trust that may in fact be due to deeper problems, only one of which might be the insane refusal to demand valid ID or opposition to this idea, which every other democratic nation appears to recognize is basic common sense?
Addendum: Also, Luke, I wonder what your views are about what is going on in Pennsylvania now regarding Casey's effort to count all the votes and then some so as to overturn McCormick's victory.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/11/in-plain-view-2.php
Suppressing the laptop story was wrong, but you think this was worse than a sitting president trying to overturn an election? Not sure I agree, but let’s dig into this laptop issue a bit further:
1. We agree that the suppression was wrong. That’s at least a good starting point.
2. This was suppressed on Twitter for ~24 hours. The suppression of this story caused it to go viral. People seem to think this hurt Trump’s chances in 2020, but honestly I think it helped. We can agree to disagree here I guess, but let’s make sure we agree on the length of suppression.
3. In your mind did this justify Trump’s attempt to overturn the election?
4. How is this any different than the JD Vance dossier being suppressed on X? Should the left be storming the capitol this year?
"After all, there were ~8 million fewer votes this year."
With an estimated 97% of the votes counted, there have been 150.9 total votes. The actual decline in votes will be more like ~3 million, and most of that will probably be voters who didn't like either option and chose not to bother.
Absolutely. This conspiracy started as "15 million missing votes". A week later it's 8 million and by the end of this it'll be ~3 million. The conspiracy is eroding before our eyes, but that still doesn't stop people from latching onto it. It's baffling to me.
And please, I encourage people to check my numbers. I could be wrong! Copy/pasta errors, bad math…
The numbers are out there so the more the merrier. Let’s at least pressure test this idea that fewer votes definitively means fraud.
Thanks for the numbers, tho I'm not checking them.
I did read that in the Wisconsin senate race, there was some 100,000+ ballots that came in at 4am, with 90% for the Dems -- not enough to overtake Trump, but making the Dem win the Senate race.
There should be no excuse for such huge last minute surges--as ballots come in, even by mail, their envelope validity should be checked and the numbers noted before finding out what's on the ballot.
Before we dive into another conspiracy, do you agree that this "8 million missing votes" idea is bogus? Or did you want to make an argument in favor?
As for the late surges of blue votes: Ironically I think Steve Bannon gave the best explanation for this phenomenon. Prior to the 2020 election Bannon sat down with a Chinese news organization and described how Democrats will favor mail in ballots, how these will take longer to count than day-of ballots, and that Trump would take advantage of this fact by declaring himself the winner prematurely. This is all in an audio recording if you want to look it up.
So again, you can always find new trends that allow you to jump to your preferred conclusion. Let's pressure test those ideas a bit before crying fraud.
A question for both of you: What do you believe, realistically, are some of the best possibilities and worst possibilities that a 2nd Trump presidency could be instrumental to achieving or influencing?
Glenn casually floated the idea of doing public service on one of his post-election shows.
Is there any particular position that John or Glenn might consider in the federal government?
Can you do a q&a sometime soon where we can only ask linguistics questions to John and economics questions to Glenn?
Hi Glenn and team. I have been a fan of the show for a couple years now. There seems to be an awakening right now to the bias of the mainstream media and to the excesses of many attacks on Trump. There seems to be a growing disdain towards the flaws of identity politics—a massive red-pilling of Democrats. The center left seems to me to have shifted right. What do you think of this? Will MAGA have a similar awakening or will America just increasingly ignore the flaws of the Trump cult? Are you hopeful or scared by this shift? Is there a way to keep an increasingly popular Right accountable and sane? I think this is an exciting and scary time where big realignments in the party system (such as new parties) might finally be possible. What do you think?