Democrat’s Needs For Inclusion
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Who is the superior party in the government? Regardless of who you prefer, the one that has more control is superior. Today, Bill Stierle and Tom talk about Democrats and inclusion. The Republican party has been making loud noises for quite some time, thereby prompting others to scream to have their needs recognized. Discussing Bernie Sander’s speech about his progressive agenda and letting everyone vote, they highlight on the importance of staying out of binary thinking and recognizing how Republicans have painted themselves into a catastrophic corner. It is evident that the Republican’s narrative about justice and fairness directly counters the primary needs for inclusion, cooperation, and harmony that the Democrats are looking to meet. Immerse yourself in this interesting conversation as Bill and Tom share their insights on how people who voted for Trump are stuck in a binary option, and so much more.
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Bill, I’m looking forward to doing something similar with what we did in the last episode, which was talking about some things regarding the Republicans, the challenges they face and the needs they face, but now talking about the Democrats. It’s important we try to give equal time here and point out that some of these communication issues exist both sides of the political spectrum and Democrats have needs too.
It’s exciting because if the Republicans need party loyalty and the votes that go with that over the need for truth, they’re going to go there. They’re going to do a better job. They’ve done a wonderful, better job of setting up the binary, which is all this or none this. You could see that on how wonderful a job they’ve done, although there are some tragic problems with it is that in a t-shirt that says, “I’d rather be a Russian rather than being a Democrat.” There are t-shirts that are written like that, “I’d rather be a communist than being a Democrat.” How does that equate? I’d rather be a Russian versus being a Democrat. When you get a binary experience, it shows up. It’s either yes or no, right or wrong.
When you get a right-wrong narrative, what happens is that whatever the other party is showing up at, you can’t listen to it because it’s already wrong. This is something that is valuable. You can’t please everyone. A lot of times, Democrats get caught with questions they ask and they’ve got to tell the person a disappointing sentence. Here’s a good one from 2016 when Jill Stein was running. She was asked, “There are a lot of questions about 9/11. As president, what are you going to do to bring the truth out about 9/11?” That was a question that Jill Stein was asked in 2016.
It seems like a landmine waiting to happen with that question.
Her answer pulled the pin on the landmine, which was, “That will be one thing that we’re going to be looking into.” It’s like it’s 2016. There was a report that was given on it. You’re trying to please this one voter and other voters that are like this person that has some doubts about 9/11 but tragically speaking, it’s not a winning narrative. Whether or not it was a true narrative or not a true narrative, her best response would have been a compassionate response rather than saying yes to a person and it would’ve been better to disappoint them by saying, “At this time in our nation’s growth and experience in 2016, as president, that is not at the top of my list of something to investigate because it’s outside of the scope of something I could get done. It’s not something that I would consider looking into.” You might be feeling disappointed because you would like greater truth and as an American, you most certainly can follow that thread if you’d like. As the president, I need to be working on the greater economy, the greater things.
You pivot vision and moving forward, not living in the past and trying to have a post-mortem on 9/11, which probably has had more effort put into that than a lot of events in our nation’s history.
You could even pivot in this way, “We’ve experienced what it’s like to over investigate something. You may have noticed that the Benghazi trials were something that was over investigated and there was no evidence that was found there. As president, I would make sure that we keep our eye on the ball to what’s most important to America’s growth.” I am talking about my vision and also gently telling no to a person that is on the margin. In America, you could be a part of a documentary that comes up with that or look to reinvestigate that in a way that you could provide support with, but as a part of my presidency, that is not something that’s at the top of my list. Bernie Sanders gets caught here.
Let’s use an example of maybe each of them because that’s important to ground things in what’s happening with the Democrats. They are in an interesting little place of each jockeying for position, trying to climb to the top of the glass mountain. There is some danger of potentially winning some battles, but losing the bigger war.
Bernie Sanders gets asked the question about people in prison voting or people in prison that come out. He says, “I’m in favor of people in prison voting. They get to have a voice here in America too.” Watch the rat trap that’s set for him, “How about the Boston Marathon bomber? Would he get a right to vote?” Bernie Sanders has to say yes.
I see red lights going off, “Danger, danger.”
“Instead of the compassionate response is so important for American’s votes to be counted, we want to strengthen the ability for people to have a say and have their vote and not to be marginalized. As president, I’ll be working to make sure that doesn’t happen in the greater sense of things. In prisoners, I’m not focused on that as much at this time because the greater need is getting access to Americans that are living by the law to have their rights to vote being protected because that’s not happening right now. That’s higher on my list than getting that person to vote.”
He could also potentially have pivoted to say, “As president, I’d certainly be more in support of considering having people who have exited prison, who are convicted felons potentially or have criminal records being able to vote as to whether people still in prison.” At least you could have an off-ramp to say, “People that haven’t fully paid their ‘debt to society or served their sentence.’” You can stay away from that third rail but allow consideration for people that have been rehabilitated or however you want to spin that.
The closest you can get to it is that there are some laws that allow people to vote after they get out of prison in certain states. It’d be great if that was more unified at the national level. You could go there, but as soon as you start advocating for somebody that did something wrong that got caught, he’s getting punished, then you’re in trouble because you get caught in the third form of language conflict that’s called rewards, deals and punishments, which are forms of bribery. I’m going to bribe you not to do something and I’m going to punish you if you’re going to do it. I’m going to reward you if you do something. Those are strategies that you could try to use with a kid and you are going to get a temporary win the battle, lose the war.
Tom, as you and I have kids, if you bribed them to do something, they’re going to bribe you back. They’ll say, “I’ll do my homework if you give me $10.” “If you do your homework, I’ll get you some ice cream.” “How about $10?” “No.” “If you pay for my car insurance, I’ll get Bs.” It’s like, “No, you won’t.” You’re going to tank on that deal in a heartbeat. Why? They’re not accountable. They’re making the deal. It gives them permission to tank the deal even though you’re already spent money on their insurance. It’s important to stay out of binary thinking. Also, recognize that the Republicans have painted themselves into such a corner that there is regrettably catastrophically a diminishing return because the wave that’s getting accumulated is tsunami-like every time there’s a new tweet where justice doesn’t take place.
Do you mean in terms of voter suppression in these things? Is that where you’re going with this?
Yes, the tsunami is coming back in their direction, “You’re going to take it away. Watch what happens next.” It can happen in multiple ways to where the tsunami takes place. If we’re not in a place of collaboration and cooperation between each other as Americans, then any foreign country can sow the seeds of divisiveness through social media. They have the ability to message us as divisive, argumentative and they can create the binary experience called use the First Amendment against themselves. Freedom of speech against collaboration and cooperation. That’s what they’re doing.
People that are close to me that repost that propaganda are going like, “Look at that person reposting that propaganda.” They don’t even know it’s propaganda because it’s a written thing. They’re taking it as if it was written. Therefore, it’s true because it reinforces their bias and validates their pain. It doesn’t help heal it. It just validates it. Yes, because those Democrats are too collaborative, too snowflakey. They’re too socialists. There are too many communists and that reinforces it.
You’re saying Bernie Sanders should stay out of any binary thinking or taking a position on that and instead pivot from, “We should be allowing prisoners to vote,” to “When I’m president, I’m more concerned with making sure that everyone’s voice is heard. Everyone who wants to vote is able to and we’ll have to see how we consider people that may be in prison,” but not take a position on it.
I wouldn’t even use that lesson, consider people in prison. I want to know because that’s the sound bite that they promote in our marketplace, in our media thing. The only one they’ll hear is those crazy Democrats again. They are extremes. That person did a crime and they should be punished. Meanwhile, their binary thought in their head is, “If my guy does a crime, it’s okay.” That’s the experience that we’re having with truth and Roger Stone. The truth is that from what he did and what’s the law in the book, he had up to 50 years in jail.
All of a sudden, it was reduced down and the prosecutors went along with 7 to 9 years. All of the four prosecutors of the Justice Department quit because their need for support and justice was not met when Bill Barr said reduced the sentence even more. They’re going like, “We came to you and we gave you the 7 to 9. What slap in the wrist are you doing here for this level of crime? This is one that’s up here. Murder is right above it as worse. Stealing is right above that, which is worst but you’re going to allow this one to go through without a 7 to 9-year thing on it?”
This is a good discussion for a future episode, Bill, because there is clearly favoritism. Is Bill Barr being an independent Justice Department or is he showing favoritism to the president because that’s what he does? There’s a whole thing there but let’s stay focused on the Democrats if we can.
The truth regarding the Democrats is they don’t have a counter-narrative to that. If you’re trying to include, be compassionate and try to get harmony, then you’re going to go along a little more rather than say, “We’re not doing that. We don’t agree with that. That is not integrity with the law.” I get to be a spokesman now and make myself a senator or a congressman and say, “The need for justice and fairness is not met with what the president did. Justice and fairness looked like he followed the sentencing guidelines.”
He was convicted by the client. The judge did it. He’s got to take his lumps because he did those things. The sentencings guideline is where the truth is. The truth should be supported by the sentencing guidelines. This is the initial sentencing guidelines. As a Democrat, I can see why they reduced it from 50 years to 9 years. I could appreciate the generosity of the prosecutors by not taking it all the way up to 50 years because he did say and do things that were mistakes. To give him less than that, when the sentencing guidelines are 50 years, that doesn’t sound like justice. It’s not justice to all the people that are being sentenced under the other set of guidelines. Doesn’t that sound unfair to you?
You make it seem like, “He’s getting a deal, to begin with. He’s lucky. It’s only this and not that. It makes it look like whatever the president and Bill Barr doing is clearly favoritism.”
What’s happening now and this is what the Democrats need that are a problem, are that they act as if their hair is on fire. As if that metaphor works for me as a bald guy, “I can’t believe they did it.” All of a sudden, the prosecutors go, “We’re going to quit.” Instead of going like, “Fairness and justice do not look like this. Equality under the law does not look like this.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if the judge came back? The judge has the final say on pronouncing the sentence even though the Justice Department is asking for less or recommending it be less or whatever and these prosecutors resigned and protest. It’s ultimately up to the judge. If the judge is reading this blog, the judge would have some language that she could use in order to come out and make it hard for the president to claim that she is biased and is a liberal judge or whatever he’s going to do to label her if she doesn’t essentially let Roger Stone go.
All of a sudden, the judge uses the language of fairness and justice and cites other cases. He says, “Here’s a similar sentence that took place here. Here’s where precedent was set in the past. Here’s what so-and-so got meant.” There was a meme on the internet and I didn’t check out the validity of truth around it, but I would imagine that it’s true. During the Clinton administration, when he was impeached, it was Karen McDougal. She went to jail and she was in solitary for part of that time. All of these other people refused to testify, which under the letter of the law puts them in jail. There’s nobody there to arrest them because they’re following this thread called the executive privilege.
The Republican narrative about justice and fairness for their side directly counters the primary needs for inclusion, cooperation and harmony that the Democrats are looking to do. They are labeled soft because they are looking to be collaborative. They’re cooperative. They’re trying to make a deal. Instead of going like, “We are going to follow this thread.” What makes it difficult is when the Democrats have this next layer of legality, you could see what they’re going to do next. They’ll put a set of laws in place.
If Nancy Pelosi would have been ahead of this, when this whole impeachment started with Robert Mueller, she could’ve put us on an entire set of laws in place before this thing showed up about being arrested. This is how the arrests would take place. This is what the law looks like. This is what the arrests would look like. They would be picked up by so-and-so. This is what she gets to do because she has the votes, it’s like, “We get to do this because of the law and we voted on it this way.” All those people regarding executive privilege, it’s like, “No, we’re an equal branch of government and we voted this in place. You didn’t vote this in place and you can’t use executive privilege to hide crimes.” Arrest the whole crew of them, Mick Mulvaney.
Could be the House have done that on their own without the Senate also passing it or are you talking about House rules?
You can put some things in place. The Senate could say, “We’re not going to vote on that. That’s another thing on the graveyard.” At which time what that does and the trouble with that whole mindset is that it’s against the Democrats inclusion, cooperation and harmony that they keep hoping that the Republicans are going to come around. Even the moderate Republicans are going like, “Donald Trump has learned his lesson.”
That was the most absurd thing to happen. After that where Susan Collins says, “He learned his lesson.” That is going to follow her. She’s going to lose the election in Maine on that point alone because they’re going to hammer her with it. I don’t know even know if she was that naive but to take that position. It was almost like what you were saying if Bernie Sanders took a position on and stated a position on whether criminals should get to vote. Hers was almost the same thing. Trying to justify her vote saying, “The process we’ve been through on its own is enough to discipline the president and he’s learned his lesson. Every action he’s taken since then shows completely the opposite.”
Let’s come back to your Democrats with the need for inclusion because there are some interesting things that have come out since this New Hampshire primary in a couple of ways that some of the candidates are speaking. Let’s take Pete Buttigieg, who in his quasi victory speech. Bernie Sanders technically won New Hampshire. Pete Buttigieg came in a close second. It is certainly a victory in many ways, but you could hear him speaking saying that it’s important that we as Democrats don’t take the, “It’s my way or the highway approach.” He was speaking to Bernie Sanders voters who are more progressive and feeling very committed to some of Bernie Sanders’s positions on maybe Medicare for all or something like that. It’s largely what he was referring to is the healthcare saying, “We can have universal healthcare, but if we stick to, “It has to be this way,” then we are going to lose.”
He’s behind the eight-ball a little bit and the same as Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden are behind the eight-ball a little bit. What that means is this. Bernie Sanders has spent his lifetime populating the narrative that healthcare is a human right. It has made sense for people that it is. He follows that up with, “Other countries are doing this. We could do this.” There is a truth out there that other countries are doing this, therefore we can do this. We can take care of all of our people. We can take care of it. There have got to be a bunch of rich people that aren’t going to like this because they’re going to be less rich but they’re still going to be rich. There’s still going to be affluent, they’re not going to get the same level of affluence year over year that they can’t spend. Once we set the ship in that direction, it’s going to make a difference.
I think that Pete Buttigieg needs to purchase a little bit of truth by agreeing with that statement you made that healthcare should be a universal right in the United States of America, but where he would pivot is the Medicare for all part because that’s how Bernie Sanders is being labeled a socialist and as being too extreme. What do you think about the reality of that? Even though Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary that there were more votes out of New Hampshire for moderates between Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar splitting that vote. There were for the real progressive agendas of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The moderates don’t believe that Bernie Sanders’ progressive agenda will be able to be successful. What they’re forgetting is what has the last 4 or 5 presidents have done, has leaned the executive order piece in order to get stuff done in a gridlock narrative. Bernie Sanders will never come out and say, “I’m going to use executive orders to get these things done because this is why I got mandated.” Donald Trump will do that. He will say that Ronald Reagan did that. He had to fight Tip O’Neill. Tip O’Neill is going like, “I am not doing that.” He wrote an executive order and all of a sudden everybody was following the executive order. Tip O’Neill’s going like, “That’s a bad thing to allow media to do this, to have their own free will and propagate whatever things. They’ve got to tell the truth.” We’re seeing the consequence of that. They cannot feed Americans’ lies. They can’t propagate lies. They can’t propagate half trues. News media cannot run over truth. Before Ronald Reagan, you can never get away with Fox. That causes an adversarial position, binary black and white situation where you’re all or none. It’s what story is going to get us the most eyeballs, the truth is damned.
Bill, what do you think about the language that we heard coming out in New Hampshire, I mentioned Pete Buttigieg already but Elizabeth Warren who was speaking as though she knows the writings on the wall? She’s probably not going to get the nomination. She was speaking in this cooperative, inclusive way almost foreshadowing that “Regardless of who the nominee is, we all need to keep our eyes on what’s most important and that is making sure Donald Trump does not get reelected. We all need to come together,” type of thing. You seemed to be saying in some of the things earlier in this episode that may be having the Democrats be speaking from a position of maybe weakness and not strength on certain issues.
Her best play would have been saying, “The Democratic Party stands for integrity and integrity to us looks like this. Donald Trump does not look like integrity. Respect for other countries doesn’t look like being a person that threatens and/or calls people’s names.” That’s a respectful thing rather than, “Let’s get behind.” It’s, “Let’s go after the behaviors that are not fitting a president.” Use her time and her spokesperson not to say and also getting to conciliation too early. You get into, “Here’s how I want to use the momentum that I have to assist the collaborative narrative about this identity of a president not being it. It’s very difficult because the Republicans have no problem scaring Americans. We have no problem talking about the yellowcake, nuclear stuff that Saddam Hussein has.
I remember Dick Cheney, the vice president, being interviewed during the run-up to the election in 2004 saying, “The danger is if we make the wrong choice that we’ll get hit again. If we don’t reelect George W. Bush, we’re in danger of being attacked again like we were on 9/11.” He tried to spin his way and walk up back, but that was what he said.
It’s called pushing the safety protection button to cause doubt and skepticism about the other side. I choose to scare because their belief is when you do that harmony kumbaya thing, it doesn’t work. It’s like, “Yes, it does because if we make an agreement that the other side feels like they have a say, they still won’t like us, but they won’t hate us as much.” What winds up happening is that the mindset of power over and power over equal strength means that I could scare people to show them that I have strength or respect or recognition because of look at how strong I am.
A lot of the other nations are shrugging their shoulders. It’s like, “You have the greatest military. Good luck with that. We’ll put some protections up, but if you want to spend and waste your money there, watch what happens to your nation.” China is building roads and bridges in other countries and providing them support in order to build relationships. Are we doing that? No. We’re building a ship in case they want to attack us because somebody is scaring somebody.
Do you think these factions of these different Democrats that are still running for the Democratic nomination for president, this infighting is playing right into the Republican’s hands? They’re all jockeying for position to be the nominee.
They have no awareness about how to communicate a compassionate no to a fringe element of their own party. They have no ability to language compassion to something they hate that the Republicans are doing. All they do is language outrage. Can you see the difference? If your language outrage, it just makes the other side pissed. Try screaming at your kid. They will get submissive. They will bend to your will until they’re fifteen and they’re letting you have it. Either they let themselves have it, tank their grades, use drugs, wreck cars or they let you have it by rebelling, not doing what you say and messing up the room.
We’ve got to be careful about how we scare people. When we scare people, we get a temporary or win the battle and then we lose the war. The Republicans regrettably have painted themselves into a corner and the Democrats are painting themselves into a different corner of peace, harmony and we’re going to work together. It’s like, “No, I’m not working together with that. I have a binary choice. My binary choice is I’m going in this direction that’s going to make a difference.” Because they can’t language their way into the position and know how to talk from values, vision and avoid the sand traps and the rabbit holes that are presented to them. They don’t know how to do it. We lost three more candidates.
We lost Andy Yang, Deval Patrick, who was barely in it anyway, and we lost Michael Bennet from Colorado.
Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang have great ideas and great people. They have some moderate energy there. Andrew Yang stuff around, charging social media giants for our own information. He’ll have a spot in the new administration for that. He can advance that cause. That is exactly why I would go with him.
How do you think Michael Bloomberg figures into this equation as we move forward?
The cooperation, the harmony, the inclusion, he has all of those same value sets. He has the anti-Donald Trump stuff but regrettably, that’s not as strong as I would like it to be.
Did you see the golf commercial?
No, I haven’t seen that one.
You need to look this one up. It’s a Michael Bloomberg commercial. It ran during the Super Bowl that it showed how he, as mayor of New York, enlisted Donald Trump to assist the city in building this new golf course. It showed a lot of different images of Donald Trump playing golf that was not flattering images of his body and climbing from getting a ball out of the rough or whatever. Saying that was the only thing that he was suited for. The only thing I would trust him to do is to build a golf course-type of thing. It was well done and the language was better than what I said.
I did see Michael Bloomberg stumble, answering a question that you would be able to help direct him how to answer it much better. Bill, the question was about him buying the election that if he felt using his $300 million in ad spend, that he’s doing that if he was buying the election. He tripped over that question. He didn’t answer it the right way, “No, I’m not buying the election.” He said no. He didn’t have a compassionate response to why people might think he’s buying the election, but pivot to freedom and freedom of speech. He’s not taking money from special interests. There are so many other ways he could have answered that question to make it look like him using his own money was coming from a place of integrity, but he did not do it that way.
I’ll be Michael Bloomberg and you ask the question and watch what I do.
“Mayor Michael Bloomberg, what do you say to people that criticize you as just another billionaire trying to buy an election?”
“I feel delighted that you asked that question because it has to do with the way I see service as a person that has benefited from the capitalist system that I have been able to both contribute to and receive money for. There’s nothing that I value more than providing opportunities for Americans to do what I was able to do with the money that I received. The hard work that my team and I has done to contribute to the American dream for all the different people that I contributed to. When I moved into a lifetime of service as the mayor of New York, I was able to contribute that same intention, integrity, respect and to be able to get the city to move in the direction that was healthier for the city. Yes, we made some choices that didn’t work out the way they turned out and I felt disappointed about the impact that those choices made. As somebody that has received the amount of wealth that I have, there’s nothing I could see better is to be able to contribute to America as a whole the way I’ve contributed service to New York City the way I did. It’s not buying an election when you have the needs of the country first.”
We need to make sure that everyone's voice is heard and everyone who wants to vote is able to.
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That’s the key moment.
It’s not buying it when you have the needs of the country, but yet regrettably, if you buy an election and you have the needs of yourself or your family first, it looks like what we have right now with Donald Trump. All of us can agree that he is not putting the needs of the country first.
Note to self-campaign managers and staffers for Michael Bloomberg, Bill Stierle gave you the recipe for how to battle the billionaire buying an election thing, but not only that, how to go up against Donald Trump and distance, separate yourself in a way that has integrity. It points out all of the things that half of the country find so wrong about the current administration.
We’ve got to have strength in the delivery of a compassionate sentence and also acknowledged the people that voted for Donald Trump are stuck in a binary position. Why? They’ve been scared into that it’s dangerous over there, called communism. It’s not happening the way that they’re being scared into what the Democrats are looking to do with some of the items that would make a difference. When a politician looks to scare somebody to make a decision, that’s a politician you don’t vote for if they scare you. I would never tell a Democrat the sentence, “Do you want four more years of Donald Trump?”
That sentence is looking to scare someone into voting, which then says, “I’m not going to deal with this at all. I don’t want to be scared or not scared. I am going to stay away from the voting booth because I’m scared because you scared me.” They did a good job of scaring people away from voting for Hillary Clinton. They did a good job of scaring people into voting for Donald Trump as the person that is the disruptor, “I’m an outsider.” Michael Bloomberg has a lot of work to do regarding how does a billionaire empathizes with a working person. He needs to increase his narrative on how to be compassionate to what that person is doing when the only job in their community is being a waitress in a restaurant because there’s no other manufacturing or other jobs that are above.
He’s got to be compassionate to those cities that have lost the backbone of their financial purchasing power because the jobs that were providing that backbone have left. Did you get to have some compassion for them and are you going to put a works program here? Are you going to put a training program in here? You can’t give them those two answers. Yes, I’m going to put a works program. No, you’re not. When you’re looking for party change or communication in leadership, you’ve got to set the vision and give small messages towards the vision. Do not flush out the vision and welcome to Elizabeth Warren’s failed campaign.
“I have a plan for that,” doesn’t set the vision.
As soon as Hillary Clinton said that on that debate stage, she lost 100,000 votes at least, “I have a plan.” He doesn’t have a plan and brander goes, “I don’t need one because they’re voting for my charisma, they’re not voting for your reality.” That’s what played out. They voted for charisma. The brain is a little tricky on this was because as soon as you scare somebody, they get nervous, anxious, worried, scared and panicked. They get escalated into that corner and their brain shuts off and all kinds of physiological stuff show up and they can’t listen anymore. These are some things to embrace and see us something that we got to be mindful of moving forward. The Democrats’ inclusion narrative has had some problems with it. Hillary Clinton’s slogan was, “Stronger together,” and not, “Make America great again.” See those two slogans, this one is power over, “Make America great again.” This one is power with that’s in alignment with the values of inclusion. This is, “We are competitors and we could be great again.”
It also clearly in the 2016 election, the Republican’s narrative was setting more of a vision. It was like you said, “Stronger Together.” It has cooperation. It has some good qualities, but it isn’t setting a big vision. “Make America great again,” there’s the visionary statement.
All of them, if you think about Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg, none of them have landed on a compelling vision. Please tell me, Tom, what was Barack Obama’s visionary word?
It was hope. It’s not a very strong word. For me, as a business person, one of my mantras is hope is not a strategy. I believe that in business. I’m much more of an action taker and setting vision. You hope for things to happen, you’re not taking control of your future. It’s interesting that hope works, that hope you change a thing as Sarah Palin would have said.
It worked from a voting standpoint because it’s a little bit more binary that I could get behind hope rather than the eight years that brought us to this crashed economy, two wars starting on war number three in Syria. They needed to get out.
The banking crisis started to collapse from 2007 to 2008, the mortgage crisis and all of that. People may be at that time in the context of where we are as a nation, maybe hope is what Americans needed.
We needed hope that somebody could lead us out of that. It’s pretty damn good except for the war piece. If you think about it, John Kerry got Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons, at least most of them because he did the takeaway ploy. He did the uncertainty. It’s not like that they’re going to give them up. We’re going to need to take action because it doesn’t seem like they’re going to give them up. What does that create? Uncertainty as you and I have talked about raising dopamine inside the body. All of a sudden, they’re ready to, “You won’t bomb us and you won’t send troops if we give you these weapons? We’ll give you these weapons.”
They scored a win, but they didn’t leverage or market the win at home as much as they needed to in order to see how brilliant a solution that was to keep us out of American going to war in Syria as if we needed another one of those. That would’ve needed to look at all different things. There are a lot of wonderful things to embrace here regarding language. What the thing I would like all of our audience to embrace a little bit is it’s not about my opinions. It’s not about Tom’s opinions. It’s about how to language through conflict is what this show is about. How do your language through the gray areas stay out of the binaries? I can be a consultant to Republicans if they would like to restore their party. Why? They painted themselves in a dark corner and they can’t get out.
They’re going to have a serious identity crisis, post-Donald Trump.
Who is going to occupy that space? Marco Rubio? Ted Cruz? There’s strong leadership magnetism. Those people got no place to go. The only one that could possibly get close is Mitt Romney if they don’t throw him under the bus completely, which is what they’re doing.
They’re trying. Not to be discriminating against age, but his time has come and gone. He’s getting older.
Age doesn’t matter. He’s not a fit for you, but he is a fit for the people that are on that side.
He’s a man of integrity. I have enormous respect for the decision he made during the impeachment trial. He’s the only person on the Republican side of the aisle that voted his conscience and was true to his oath to uphold the constitution. Everybody else ignored their constitutional responsibility in denying that the president violated the Constitution. I have a lot of respect for Mitt Romney. If John McCain were alive and was there, he would have probably been with him.
It would’ve been an interesting vote. Tom, more to come on this. Next time, what we’ll do is we’ll roll up our sleeves in order to take a look at as these messages come up during the campaign. Are these messages sticking or are they missing? What messages do we need to escalate? Is there any pivot taking place on the Republican side? I would say no, but there are some pivot options. There are some off-ramps that they can get regrettably. They’re stuck into various different mindsets that all handcuff their ability to make decisions. That’s the thing to go forward with in the field of time.
I look forward to that. I like looking at the messaging and seeing how it could be improved, what’s working and what’s not. That sounds great, Bill.
There is more to come. Thanks.
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