Speaker 1: Will that crazy twelve percent that believes in this conspiracy
Speaker 1: be the determining factor in electing Donald Trump. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: February fifteenth. There are two hundred and sixty four days
Speaker 1: left until America decides and chooses who will be the
Speaker 1: next head of state, commander in chief, and President of
Speaker 1: the United States. There are two political parties in America,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Did you know
Speaker 1: that they are also the first and the third oldest
Speaker 1: political parties in the world. The Republican Party is the
Speaker 1: junior partner, founded in eighteen fifty four, and today in
Speaker 1: our country of three hundred and thirty million Americans, thirty
Speaker 1: eight million of them are registered Republicans, slightly more than
Speaker 1: ten percent of the actual population of the country. Third
Speaker 1: of Republicans, according to polling, believe that there is a
Speaker 1: conspiracy affoot involving Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey to somehow
Speaker 1: fix the Super Bowl tied into the general election and
Speaker 1: participate in some nefarious manner that will steal the election
Speaker 1: again from Donald Trump. If I understand the conspiracy correctly,
Speaker 1: let's think about that number. One third of thirty eight
Speaker 1: million is a little bit north of twelve million people,
Speaker 1: and this lays out the choice in our country. Are
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty million of us in total going
Speaker 1: to be ruled over by our lowest common denominator? Will
Speaker 1: that crazy twelve percent that believes in this conspiracy be
Speaker 1: the determining factor in electing Donald Trump? Because that base
Speaker 1: is the hardcore MAGA core, and it's nuts. The crazy
Speaker 1: people just didn't spontaneously generate. We've always had crazy people
Speaker 1: in America, yet at the same time, we've retained the
Speaker 1: wisdom to make certain that they never took control of
Speaker 1: the nation. It would have been much better for the
Speaker 1: world if a crazy faction of Americans were able to
Speaker 1: take the whole of the country hostage. That it would
Speaker 1: have taken place when America was a much less powerful nation,
Speaker 1: not the world's pre eminent one its most potent nuclear power.
Speaker 1: Yet that is the situation that we face. Across all
Speaker 1: of the history of humanity. There are only about seven
Speaker 1: hundred million people that have ever lived that can call
Speaker 1: themselves properly Americans. It's interesting to consider on the eve
Speaker 1: of America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday and the anniversary
Speaker 1: of independence, that half of all Americans who ever lived
Speaker 1: are alive right now today. And the dominant, most powerful
Speaker 1: political faction, the one that has their hand on the
Speaker 1: throat of American politics, that has consumed the overwhelming amount
Speaker 1: of the nation's attention for the last eight years, that
Speaker 1: has powered an extremist element that turned into a fascist movement,
Speaker 1: is found in a minority. And this is always the case.
Speaker 1: The core of the Trump movement is relatively small, thirteen
Speaker 1: million people. That this is the business model of the
Speaker 1: cable companies. They're able to reach a faction of that
Speaker 1: thirteen million, a couple million on Fox, a couple hundred
Speaker 1: thousand on news Max. When you disaggregate it through social media,
Speaker 1: everybody gets a little piece. And it works exactly the
Speaker 1: same way on the Democratic Party side. And what this
Speaker 1: has done, plus the algorithm, is create a situation where
Speaker 1: everybody lives in their own bubble, their own delusion and
Speaker 1: their own reality. They're disconnected from the concepts of Americanism
Speaker 1: and community and patriotism. And when patriotism weakens the weed,
Speaker 1: the pestilence, the malevolence that comes in its place is nationalism.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be surprised that there's twelve million people in
Speaker 1: this country who would vote for a rapist. Why would
Speaker 1: we be We shouldn't be surprised that there's twelve million
Speaker 1: people in this country who believed the presidential election will
Speaker 1: be decided in a conspiracy between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be surprised about any of it. The surprising
Speaker 1: part about it is that the overwhelming majority would allow,
Speaker 1: through indifference, this deluded, crazy faction to actually take political
Speaker 1: power and be the authors of our destiny and shape
Speaker 1: the future. Is it surprising that a third of Republicans
Speaker 1: believe this nonsense? The Speaker of the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: is a bonafide, full on religious fanatic, a theocrat who
Speaker 1: believes people in dinosaurs walked around together six thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: These people are nuts, and Donald Trump, the greatest demagogue
Speaker 1: of his age, a malignant narcissist, a sociopathic personality, a
Speaker 1: convicted rapist, a fraudster, has built a cult of personality
Speaker 1: around this core of madness. Nobody is asking anybody in
Speaker 1: America to quit their jobs, to vote their lives to
Speaker 1: stopping this. But the way you stop it is to
Speaker 1: go vote a couple times a year is to participate
Speaker 1: a little bit, to practice citizenship. Because there's a difference
Speaker 1: between you and the crazy ass people that believe in
Speaker 1: the conspiracy between Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. Those crazy
Speaker 1: ass people are going to go vote, They're going to
Speaker 1: vote in primaries, and you're not u And so that
Speaker 1: crazy group, which is a third of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: and a much smaller percentage nationally, becomes the dominant percentage
Speaker 1: in a primary, and voila, guess what it produces. The
Speaker 1: Carrie Lakes of the world, the Marjorie Taylor Greens of
Speaker 1: the world, the Lauren Boberts of the world, the Nancy
Speaker 1: Maces of the world. Cynicism yields insanity. In difference yields fascism.
Speaker 1: What's happening in America is very real. Do the forty
Speaker 1: percent of the people in this country who have four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars cash available do they live in a democracy?
Speaker 1: Do they have choice, control agency? Are they able to
Speaker 1: pursue happiness? I don't think so. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to my political commentary. If you like what you heard today,
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Speaker 1: Our democracy hangs in the balance. The twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential election is the most consequential in America's history. It's
Speaker 1: not hyperbole, it's a fact. That is why the mission
Speaker 1: of The Warning with Steve Schmidt is to help readers
Speaker 1: orient to the currents that are shaping our times and
Speaker 1: the unseen forces driving politics that are very rarely discussed
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Speaker 1: Thank you to each and every one of you for
Speaker 1: listening and watching