WEBVTT - Part Two: Ron DeSantis: Florida Man 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:08.240 What's still meatball? My continues to be ron Uh. How 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:13.080 we doing, everybody? I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:19.200 a podcast about Ronathan DeSantis with me again, Cody Johnston, 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.200 Katie Stole. How do you guys think your lives would 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.320 be different if your last names were reversed? 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:27.920 Who Stole Katie? 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:28.640 No? 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.000 No, no, if you if you were Katie Johnston and 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:32.320 you were Cody Stole. 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.480 Oh, in a way, I feel like you'd be called 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.000 Cody Stoley a lot. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.640 Cody Stole probably, Yeah, that would have been your college nickname, 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:42.800 like because of because of the vodka. Like, oh, I 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.199 had asked Cody Stolely, why well why was that? 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.120 Why was that not Katie Stoley's nickname? 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.520 Because that would not be appropriate? 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.280 What does Katie Stoley doesn't sound right to me? 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.200 People called me Stolely just Stolely in college because that 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.920 would be like a cool Yeah, you. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.000 Know, I think would be a nice nickname. 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:07.040 Katy J. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:12.080 Katie J is Yeah, I'd go by that. I think 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.080 I'd be a very different person if I'd grown up 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:16.000 with that as my nickname. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:16.440 Katie J. 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think if I had a saw 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.000 that Cody stole too. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.520 I think it'd be different too, Yeah, totally different. Now, yeah, 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:26.679 you would be working for the Daily Wire right now, 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.360 Before we get into Ron DeSantis, I've I've just found 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.200 a list of gen Z slang terms. Uh and in 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:38.360 order to uh to boost our appeal with the youth demographic, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.360 I'm gonna I'm gonna key you in on some of these. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.880 On some of these slang words, Google's AI has coreliated 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.440 them from a mix of Mommy, Daddy dot com, uh, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.920 mental floss and parades. So you know, this is the 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.960 best information on gen Z well researched. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:55.600 Wait is this an article or is this like a 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.360 Google search? It appears to be. 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.680 Yeah, this is just like the Google search result for 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.200 Z slang list. Because I was trying to just stay cool. Yeah, 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.120 it's just it's become great, falling, falling apart. So number 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.840 three on the list is s I C slash s 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.520 I c K. Just these are the two spellings of 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.079 sick that gen Z kids do. It means next level cool, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.640 so not just normal cool. That's good obviously. Salty means 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:26.040 bitter or angry, lyddy again exciting or wild once more. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.320 Lyddy is it's something I've heard it that is seeped 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.480 its way into I just. 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:34.919 I know that's what made me. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.240 I used it this morning to describe myself last night. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.679 Does that mean does that mean I'm hashtag cool? 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:47.239 Oh? Yeah, truly Sophie or your coolness. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.240 Those these words are no longer cool. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:49.839 Yeah. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:55.800 I'm personally pissed at this because dope is number two 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.519 and like, that's not a gen Z term. That's that's 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.320 that's well well before gen zve been. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.520 Saying it for a long time, people saw me had 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:04.880 been saying it for a long time. 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.400 Yeah, I feel like that's like an ex millennial they have. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.079 There's got to be something good. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.880 Uh, they got Gucci. I do feel like that's solidly 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:14.880 gion gen Z. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.040 Yeah, yeah, they've got You've got your word riz. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.040 They do have the word riz that is not on 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:22.560 this list. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:24.600 I was gonna say, it's like, is there anything on 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.400 the list that's like no correct or like youthful? 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.800 No, Like everything that AI puts together it's a piece 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:31.200 of ship. 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.239 They don't even have a rizz. That's so weird. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.080 They don't have no cap, they don't have any of 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.880 the charisma based isn't on here. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:44.040 Riz is gen Z shortening charisma like yeah, you have swag, 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:44.680 you have ri. 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.080 It's more like in the context of like flirting, but 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:50.960 it is short for anyway. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.680 This has been gen Z corner where. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.560 We uh ah olves. 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.640 Our credentials with the with the young'insu with the with 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:00.360 the ones. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.560 We might it works, we might listen back to this single. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.400 Wow, we should cut this on account of we sound 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:08.720 so old, all right. 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.240 I mean people have been complaining a lot about gen 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.520 Z on Twitter lately, about them being you know, prudes, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.000 not liking sex and things and stuff, and watching movies weird, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.160 watching movies weird. I just rewatched the original Bad News 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.719 Bears with Walter Mathow, and I think the solution is 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.960 we got to get cigarettes back in kids' hands. Like 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.080 fapes aren't doing it. We got to get them smoking. 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:30.520 We gotta get them smoking. 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.200 Uh shortcut. We just put them back in the mines. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.960 Put them back in the mines just to go for 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:37.560 the lungs. 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.120 Yeah, and we get some work. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.680 Done to fuck up their lungs. 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.599 It's not to make them look cool or make them 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.640 generally cooler. Okay either way. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.320 Yeah, cheap labor. But if we if we want to 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.800 make them cool. Then I guess give them cigarettes. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:02.800 Fine, excellent. So uh we are back, and uh. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.239 We are on top of spaghetti, all covered in cheese, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:07.240 all covered. 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:15.480 In a meat ball, a meatball made of Ron. So, yeah, I. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:20.560 Find my handsome, handsome meatball that's. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.000 Often described as handsome me. I have not. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.360 Stopped thinking about that, to be honest, I mean I have, 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.839 but it's been several days since last we met. Yeah, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:39.480 discussed mister Ronald and yeah, Nathan, apologies, I just can't 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:44.920 believe it. Anyway, I've spent so much time talking about So. 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.480 Ron was thirty three years old when he went on 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.760 his first political campaign. Running for an open district that 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.600 your party dominates is a pretty sweet spot for for 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.440 a politician trying to break into the national level. This 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.080 is kind of the easiest way you can possibly start 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:06.039 in national politics. And the only stumbling block between him 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.040 and this first step on the ladder up towards the 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.479 presidency was the Republican primary. Right, because there's just not 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.280 going to be a general election competition. He wins the primary, 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.000 the seat is his, and luckily for Ron, his competition 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:20.800 were all utter non entities, so all he had to 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:25.280 do to succeed was make himself into somebody. He opted 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.720 for the smart play here and decided that rather than 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:31.960 focusing on his opponents, he would run against President Obama. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.480 This was at the height and we're talking two twenty 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.800 twelve here, so this is kind of like a little 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.680 past maybe the peak of influence for the Tea Party, 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.640 but it's it's still like the big name in Republican 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.159 politics at the moment, and Ron leaned hard into that movement. 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.560 He patterned himself specifically off of Ted Cruz. That was 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.039 his whoa water. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:55.719 Makes so much sense? 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:00.640 Yeah, uh huh yeah, equally likable man. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:03.160 That's reflexing. 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.920 Yeah, so funny that he's all I see when thinking 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:13.240 about him is Ted Cruz. That's so funny. Yeah, it's 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.200 on purpose, it is. And he's just as doomed as 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.520 old Teddy. And you get the same thing too, where 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.560 like his his co workers, no one will say a 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.840 nice word about Ron as a person, right who works 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:31.320 with him? Oh yeah, he's just deeply unlikable. So yeah, 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.920 he starts attacking Obama's record. He runs primarily on dismantling 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.320 the Affordable Care Act, ending gun control, you know, border ship, 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.400 all that good Republican jazz. It was not do any 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:48.040 of that, I mean not really. No, it was not 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.640 a creative line of attack, nor did it set him 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.800 apart from the pack, but it was enough. He kind 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.440 of is good enough at sort of leaning into these 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:02.120 big conservative targets that he gets attention from the usual 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.400 pack of right wing funders, these different sort of think 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.840 tanks and packs and whatnot, like Freedom Works in the 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:12.120 Club for Growth, who fund all of the really awful 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.000 conservative candidates that have made life so colorful in our 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.440 democracy of late. Ron also makes a habit of showing 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.880 up at tea party rallies, and he's able to build 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.640 a reputation for himself as an economic wonk. Another model 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.640 that he really embraces is Paul Ryan, Right, So like 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:33.080 he's trying to do that, he really does. It's so 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:34.199 bad national. 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.439 Yeah, yeah, he perfect. 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.800 It's so funny, especially like obviously you know, hindsight and 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:48.480 all that, but to model yourself after after Ted Cruz 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:53.120 and Paul Ryan and now try to beat Donald Trump 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.640 in an election, this is very funny. That's not going 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.160 to happen, my man, You pick the two wrong guys. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:05.679 Yep, yeah, yeah, he really did like pick the exactly 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.360 wrong dudes. Now, kind of the one intelligent thing he 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.440 did is he also leans into glenbeck stick of portraying 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.000 himself as a historian. This is like a big part 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.840 of early Ron DeSantis, and he's really kind of patterning 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.000 himself specifically on this style of conservative media dude who 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.840 rewrites history in order to make political points. Key to 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.800 this strategy is self publishing his first book, Dreams from 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.920 Our Founding Fathers. The title, as in everything Else About Ron, 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.640 was a direct snipe at President Obama, particularly Bama's pre 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.880 election memoir, but the content was more in line with 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.559 the work of pop history big name right wing media 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.719 stars like Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, all 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.760 of whom had started publishing history books. Now, Ron's self 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.280 published book does not hit the best seller list. He 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.000 seems to have made less than six thousand dollars in sales, 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.599 which is not bad for an independent book well. 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:03.559 Published. 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.199 Yeah, and he's I guess he's not as known as 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.240 he is now I am thinking, I am thinking of 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.280 it in terms of right now. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.400 But yeah, yeah, it's not like it's certainly not a 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.920 big deal. But the book is a success in a 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.880 different way, which is that he's able to take copies 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.800 of it with him when he goes to speak at 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.200 tea party rallies. And even if they don't sell the 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.640 fact that he's sort of setting himself up as one 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.079 of these guys who shows up with their like self 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.800 published manifestos and tea party rallies, that makes him feel 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.240 like he's one of them, right, Like that's a He's 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.480 this very highly educated a Yale guy who is like 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.120 has been previously tied to the kind of most austere 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.080 chunks of the Republican Party, and showing up with your 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.280 self published like manifesto at a tea party rally is 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.480 a great way to make like make them feel like 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.000 you're one of them, you know. Absolutely, So we should 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.080 probably talk about this book a little bit because it 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.680 shows off Ron's very consistent obsession with an narrow chunk 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:04.880 of the historic discipline, the history of American federalism. Two 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.200 of his kids are named after He has a child 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.280 named after James Madison and a child named after George Mason, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.359 both of whom like our federalists who helped write the Constitution, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.120 and in Ron's eyes, they're the guys who saved the 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.120 early Republic from the demagogues who threatened the property of 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.880 wealthy Americans. Now we can talk about what that property is, 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.080 and in fact, well in the second Okay, Dreams of 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.679 our Founding Fathers quotes liberally from the arguments that DeSantis 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.760 agrees with that were made by quote unquote founding fathers. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.880 This largely means equating freedom with the right to own property, 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.280 which is, you know, land and people. At this time, 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.720 Ron of course, does not defend slavery. In his self 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.920 published book, he simply denies that our nation's history with 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.360 it should have any impact on the way people think 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.960 about founders, or our constitution or property rights. From an 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.200 analysis in the Atlantic Quote, it's rather how his entire 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.520 reading of American history is enveloped in both unquestioning fealty 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.640 to the founders and an insistence that the role of 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.640 slavery and race more broadly in that history does not 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.720 seriously change anything about how we should understand the birth 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.640 and development of our country. For Obama and his teachers, 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.040 the problem of slavery exemplified the need to adapt and 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:19.000 improve the constitution. For DeSantis would be reformers who misunderstand 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.240 the role of slavery in our history are themselves the 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.880 root of the problem in our politics. And the most 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.200 infuriating portion of this book is when Moron makes very 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:31.360 limited quotes, takes very limited quotes from Martin Luther King 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.920 Junior and makes them into an argument that he was 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.920 a famous endorser of the founding documents of this country, 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.679 right because he would he would quote from the Constitution 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:41.920 a lot to make you know, and the Declaration of 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:43.440 Independence to make certain arguments. 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.920 Now how it was flawed and made right, we weren't 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:47.360 doing it. 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:54.160 Yeah, love love when Whiteman do that, take take him 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.880 out of context and use it to fit a narrative. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.320 Yeah, it's galling that, Kate, what King was doing pointing 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.679 out how the country has never lived up to even 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.040 the promises that it made, and Ron as like, see, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.719 he was a constitutionalist. It's just like antonin Scalia. 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.280 God, this is absolutely not what he was saying at all. 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.880 He's a fucking originalist. By far. The most galling moment 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.120 in the book, though, is when Ron cites the dread 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.360 Scott decision as an example of an activist judge ignoring 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.400 the letter of the law. Something his beloved originalists would 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.959 never do quote. There is a consensus among historians and 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.760 legal scholars that dread Scott v. Sanford, which turned on 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:33.839 the question of whether a fugitive slave could sue for 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.199 his freedom after he crossed into a free state, was 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.520 wrongly decided because Teney declared that African Americans could not 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.800 be considered citizens. They had in fact been voting citizens 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.920 in numerous states. DeSantis wants to distance himself and the 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.679 Constitution from Tanee's obvious and decisive hatefulness, so he doesn't 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.959 mention that the entire logic of Teney's wilful forgetting of 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.280 statutory laws rested on his insistence that the founding fathers 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.040 could never have meant for there to be any kind 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.359 of racial equality. In other words, Taney made a politically 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.000 conservative notably part as a decision precisely on his interpretation 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.800 of the founder's intent. It was originalist to the core. 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.360 The original originalism where gut feelings about what the founders 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.640 thought and wanted trump to trump actual state laws. Desantists 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.720 can't see or won't admit that it is often originalism 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.000 that is selective with evidence, So he's basically saying, like 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.520 the dread Scott decision is like what liberals do, right, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.360 They're just going off of their political opinions and not 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.880 being originalists, where the reality is that like, no, it 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:30.920 was a fundamentally originalist decision. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.880 Yeah, do you think he knows? Do you think he 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.800 read the criticism of the book and was like, I've 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.800 changed my ways now that people know they're talking about No, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.920 of course that's it. No, Like I don't know. 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.200 I don't know the degree to which One of the 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.000 things that's frustrated me about my research into desantists is 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.200 I don't know the degree to which he believes the 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.360 shit he's selling m hm, as opposed to just kind 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.800 of laying it out because it's an effective argument to 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.640 make to get the things that he wants. I lean 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.320 towards he's full of shit and this is just what 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.240 he saw is the best way to get into power, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:13.320 and like he is. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.880 It seems, especially these days like the like knowing this 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.400 stuff from this book and then seeing where he is 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.560 now with education and history, yeah, and just the Florida 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.000 of it all, it does seem like he knows yeah, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.480 and is too and is smarter than he is letting 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.280 on by just sort of yeah, I can say this 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:35.760 stuff and people eat it up. 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.640 Oh yeah, absolutely, he's definitely doing that now. 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:40.880 But I do think it's pretty calculated, and I do 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:42.520 think he's a smart person. 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.280 That he's definitely a smart pat's been playing. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:50.000 But it's all a part of a a game, not 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.200 a game, but yeah, a plan. It feels strategic. Yeah, 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.320 it's also feels pathetic because it's. 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.560 It's pathetic just now, you know, Yeah, we're looking at 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.040 it now because his shit starts to fall apart. But 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.400 you do have to note that like from the point 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:08.120 at which he starts running, it works startlingly well for 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:08.880 quite a while. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.360 Well that's why he genuinely scared at the beginning of this. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.320 I've had this conversation with you guys of like he 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.840 actually if it was to take he was to take 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.120 a route in some way, Like he actually does scare 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.520 me because he's smarter than a lot of them. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.360 What he's done is very scary. Like he's done a lot. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.440 I mean, we'll continue talking about that. So Ron's selective 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.760 reading of our founding documents in history is not new, 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.080 but it did solidify a place for him on the 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.239 wonky side of the post bush Gop This caused him difficulty, 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.760 namely due to the fact that his new funders liked 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.280 what he had to say, but didn't like the fact 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:44.920 that he was an extremely obvious void of charisma. The 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.560 kind of the person who saves him here from the 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.000 fact that he's just terrible at actually like hand to 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.960 hand campaigning is his wife, Casey. She is his charisma. 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.080 One colleague of Ron's later told a reporter he doesn't 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.440 make small talk easily, but Casey was always with him, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:02.720 and she filled that gap. He puts so much emphasis 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.160 on her. Every single speech she ever made, he almost 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.119 always led off with her or within two minutes he 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.879 had mentioned her. And she is like going door to 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.639 door for him. She's like shaking hands, knocking, knocking on 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.440 doors and shit like. She is his his ground game 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.159 to a really significant extent, and a big part of 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.560 like making him feel like a normal person when he's 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.080 doing these events with donors and stuff. Ron and Casey 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.120 had been married for just three years when they get 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.440 start campaigning together, so three years after their fun little 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.000 Disney wedding. As the election continued, Ron started to collect 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.280 celebrity endorsements. Savvy Your Eyes and the Republican fold had 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.400 marked him out for greatness. He earned Joe R. Pyo's 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:49.920 endorsement along with that. How about that celebrity endor celebrity endorsements. Hey, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.600 our Pio's a big name, especially in twenty twelve. 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.639 Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.440 And he also gets the coveted John Bolton endorsement. 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:03.160 Yeah that's a big yeah wow wow. Yeah. 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.280 But perhaps his most important endorsement was that of Donald Trump. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.359 Trump gave to Santas. Yeah, this and again this is 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.119 twenty twelve birtherism. Trump gives him an early boost when 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:19.240 he tweets out on March twentieth, twenty twelve. Iraqviitt Navy Hero, 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:25.679 Bronze Star, Yale, Harvard Law. Very impressive. Yeah, I like 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:26.960 to hear. 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.640 What Donald Trump has to say about all. He's still 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:34.440 a Navy here out. You still like Harvard and Yale? 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.600 You think those are like not where the snobby elites 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.359 go to do communism. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.400 Yeah, the communist communist Harvard Law. In his first term, 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.159 Ron was a reli so he does get elected, by 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.520 the way, obviously, in his first term in Congress, Ron 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.919 is a reliable vote on the piece of shit Caucus. 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.760 He tried to stop Hurricane Sandy aid. He voted to 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.720 support the government. Yeah, he does of that. None of 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.840 that don't help people with government money. We need that 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:08.040 money to not spend. I guess cloudy with a chance 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.359 of meatballs, all right, yeah, yeah, he votes to support 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.119 the government shutdown. He voted against an update for the 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.160 Violence Against Women Act. If you want a short idea 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:18.640 about what. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:19.879 A sorry you dare? 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:24.760 Everyone not laugh at that joke for Cody, I didn't. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.800 I didn't catch it, Sophie silently. 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:32.040 I was silently dying, Cody. I guess I didn't really laugh, 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.000 but that's okay. 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.040 It was just a reference to weather and meatballs. Clouding 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.080 with the chance of meatballs. It was really good, better 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:41.640 than my mone joke last week. 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:49.159 Moanent so good stuff. The Heritage Foundation gives him one 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.840 hundred percent. So if you want to know the kind 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.080 of dude he is as a as a as a congressman, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:54.600 there you go. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:55.400 Yeah. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.320 Ron gets a junior seat on the Freedom Caucus. He 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.360 is one of the nine original members, although he's kind 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.439 of the least of them. He's not very prominent at 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:04.320 this point, but he is. 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:05.199 He is. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.160 This is kind of show some political foresight, right He sees, 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.639 because the Freedom Caucus is really a precursor to a 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.280 lot of trump Ist shit hitting. Yeah, and he's he's 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.800 he's on that right from from an early stage. If 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.399 DeSantis has a reputation in this period, he it is 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.960 as a very far right vote who you cannot talk 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.560 to a reason with. Right, he is going to vote 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:32.439 against anything Obama wants to do. Reflexively, Ron openly agreed 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.720 with Mitch McConnell that there was nothing more important in 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.040 this period than interrupting the president's second term. This was 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.280 a job that played to Ron's strength. He is the 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.520 kind of dude who does not care much about people 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.240 or they're suffering, and so can just kind of vote 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.520 to hurt things, right, Like that's that's what he's doing. 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:50.440 It's just kind of like voting to make the country 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.080 worse consistently. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.720 And like brush it off, like brush off criticism, like 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.119 you doesn't care about being asked the question about it 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:57.320