Season 10, Episode Three November 10, 2024 Election postmortem

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This is the listening tube.

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Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. Yes, I will consider a cabinet position, but only if my job is to eliminate the department. On this episode, we'll hear about an armistice, an occupation, and a free world. We'll also hear about the media's influence on politics.

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But first, not the headlines.

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As you probably know by now, Donald Trump won the presidential election in the United States. On the same day, there were a few other results from elections that would seem to indicate a shift in the way we look at our candidates. Aside from the convincing victory in the federal elections for conservatives, smaller pockets of Americans let their local politicians know that the liberal or progressive idealism isn't working. Specifically in the deep blue state of California, where liberalism thrives. Three high-profile elected officials were removed from office. Two by recall and one by not getting re-elected. All are extreme liberals who have created societies where the people aren't safe, all in the name of progressivism. My word processor tells me I just made up that word. I do want to point out that progressive is the absolute wrong word to describe the ideals of the extreme liberalism. It's regressive at best. Progressive policies have led to inner city decay, and the people subject to its effects have had enough. Alameda County California District Attorney Pamela Price was one of the recall subjects. Her liberal policies, which were well known prior to her election in 2022, included intervening in high-profile murder cases, according to the San Jose Mercury News. She wanted people who were to be sentenced to life in prison to have to serve less time, and refused to apply enhancements to crimes or charge juveniles with adult crimes, no matter how heinous. Her reforms are being blamed for an increase in crime and all the side effects that come with it. Along with her, the progressive mayor of Oakland, Sheng Tao, was also recalled on the same ballot. In addition to her liberal stance on law enforcement, she's also accused of not managing the city's finances well. But the feel on the street is that of caution, as the citizens often don't feel safe. Businesses have moved out. Oh yeah, and the FBI raided her home not too long ago, but nobody is saying why. Way down near the bottom of California, the Los Angeles district attorney lost his bid for re-election. George Gascone, a product of the George Floyd riots and George Soros funding, was elected in 2020 and had survived two recall attempts, but not Tuesday's election. Gascone has a very liberal agenda when it comes to crime, which is kind of the opposite of what a district attorney is supposed to be, if you ask me. But you don't have to take my word for it. An NBC news story about it says that even some of the prosecutors on his own staff felt he was soft on crime. His opponent ran on the premise that Gascone is soft on crime, and enough people felt that to be true. All three of these liberal California progressive reformers were forced out of office by the people they let down. They were more concerned with the rights of criminals than the rights of victims. Hey, if you want to fight for the rights of criminals, I'm fine with that. Criminals have rights too. But it shouldn't be the guy whose job it is to enforce the law. It's called district attorney, not defense attorney. Do your damn job. Do the job you were elected to do. We don't need DAs changing laws or not enforcing laws they don't agree with. The legislature decides what the laws are, not the district attorney. You want to be a reformer? Run for office that has the authority to make laws, not the agency charged with enforcing them. But in California, the laws are sometimes changed by the people in favor of the criminal. That was the case with Proposition 47, which decriminalized some misdemeanors and set a high bar for felony charges. That proposition, passed by a vote of the people in 2014, reclassified shoplifting of merchandise with a value of less than $950 as a misdemeanor. Sure you could still get arrested for it. It was still a crime to steal merchandise from a store. The problem was that police rarely investigated theft, leaving it up to the insurance company to compensate the victim, and so-called prosecutors didn't care to charge anyone for that amount of theft anyway. Especially liberal prosecutors. Ten years later, the people have had enough. Proposition thirty six overwhelmingly passed on election day, according to the Los Angeles Times. Proposition thirty six was the antidote to the old Proposition forty seven, increasing penalties for theft crimes, among other things. It's actually called the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, and will increase penalties for crimes involving fentanyl as well as repeat theft charges. Walmart and other large retailers back the measure. The governor of California opposed the measure for fear it would lead to prison overcrowding, which has been a problem in California for decades. Prison overcrowding is partly to blame for a lot of reformist policies when it comes to crime. Housing prisoners costs money, maybe too much money. States have an incentive to be soft on crime if it means they can save millions of dollars a year, even at the expense of public safety. But now the people are demanding more from their local government. Not much more, though. Actually, the people are only demanding what they should already have. A government that works for the good of the people, not to the detriment of the people. Any government's first responsibility is the safety of the constituents, the well-being of society in general. That responsibility includes laws that protect people's safety and property. If your government won't provide that basic service, you need a new government. It seems the people in California have realized that the progressive left have left the people behind in an effort to advance an agenda that has no value other than disarray. They're demanding change in the other direction. It seems a majority of Americans feel the same way. Perhaps liberalism has finally crossed the line and alienated enough of us that they have to now recoil and re-examine. It's not just crime that has the majority resisting the progressive left. Gender issues, immigration, mandates, and more have led many Americans to question the end game of the Democrats and the lunatic fringe they bring. But instead, Democratic governors are now promising to Trump proof their states in preparation for the January handover. California and Illinois are fighting back against the will of the nation, defiant to the end, having decided to fall and die on the sword of progressivism. What are they afraid is going to happen? A better economy? More security? Lower prices? They're stuck on this talking point that's been drilled into their heads that Donald Trump is going to take away their rights. They peddled the lies about Trump's plans for revenge and oppression for so long that they can't see beyond the fog of myths and accusations. There's a difference between looking defiant and looking stupid. Doubling down on the progressive policies that cost Democrats the election just makes most Americans shake their heads in disbelief. There are some on the left who hear what the country is saying. Not all have dug in their heels. I understand that you may have very strong beliefs when it comes to certain issues, and maybe the Democrats are the only party that will support your cause, or seem to support your cause. But living in America's system of government means you don't always get everything to go your way. But the progressives feel entitled to what they believe is right and have a hard time accepting opposing views. Election day is when those views become acts, and the acts of the American people this election day would indicate the left needs to start accepting opposing views. But even the talking heads on the liberal news stations, despite the looks of condemnation they get from the hosts, have at least begun to admit that the Democratic Party needs to rein in the progressive wing of the party if they want to get more support in the next election. The Progressive Wing is alienating Americans from the Democratic Party, and those who are willing to admit it and adjust will be the next leaders of the party. The summer of 2020 ushered in a whole new vision of what progressive meant, and when the election came around in November, America was willing to give Democrats a chance because of the promises Joe Biden made from his basement. We get unity again, he said, as if the riots were Donald Trump's fault. Because of Joe Biden and his policies, America's more divided than ever. And what Joe says is often the reason why. Calling Donald Trump a dictator and a fascist, calling his supporters garbage, likening Trump's Madison Square Garden rally to a Nazi rally. Joe never tried to unify anybody. He became a puppet of the left and only did what would cement the power of the Democrats, like the student loan forgiveness hoax and allowing millions of people to enter the country by calling off the Border Patrol and any other obstacle that got in the way. He said he'd get us through the pandemic, which he doesn't deserve any credit for at all. Americans suffered from isolation and children suffered in ways not yet understood because Joe played lapdog to the teachers' unions and kept schools closed as long as possible or until enough money flowed their way. He pretended to support auto workers while issuing mandates for electric cars and sending the industry into a money losing scramble to meet a demand that never came and isn't coming. I'm not saying Joe Biden never did anything good, but now he's been abandoned by his party and another puppet put in his place. The American people clearly didn't want more of the same, and most didn't want to vote for whomever the puppet masters are running the Democratic Party. But they say all politics is local, and local politics are also showing how the voters feel about progressive policies, pushed by the left and championed by the Democrats. When the backlash is great enough to recall politicians for not keeping their promise to protect the citizens, then those politicians need to go home and look in the mirror and figure out what America really stands for. Because, pardon my grammar, you ain't it. These soft on crime politicians who are more concerned with social justice than social safety are being shown the door in some of the most liberal areas of the country. If that's not enough of a clue for the Democrats to be the catalyst for change they claim to be, and apply it to their own party, another party will have to come along to take its place because nobody will want to support the losing cause of progressive politics.

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Let's go back through the listening tube for this week in history.

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This week in 1911, many cities in the Midwestern United States break their record high temperatures and low temperatures on the same day as a strong cold front rolls through. Climate change, said no one. This week in 1918, near the end of World War I, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Campinay, France. Hope I pronounced that correctly. The fighting officially ends at 11 AM, the 11th hour in the eleventh month on the 11th day. And this is annually honored with a two-minute silence. The war would officially end more than six months later, but November 11th would later become Armistice Day in the United States and elsewhere. In the United States today, it's called Veterans Day in honor of anyone who served in the United States military. It's often recognized with parades and discounts at restaurants for those who served. This week in 1918, Allied troops occupy Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Just because Germany signed an armistice agreement a few days earlier doesn't mean all the activity came to an abrupt halt. In existence since 1453, the Ottoman Empire covered a huge swath of territory from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea and everything south of the Black Sea, and teamed up with Germany during the Great War. It would be split up by the victors. Today it includes a variety of primarily Muslim countries and parts of others. Constantinople, named after the Roman Emperor Constantine in the year 330, has been called the Turkish city of Istanbul since 1930, and is the world's 16th largest city. This week in 1940, the Armistice Day Blizzard. An unexpected blizzard kills 144 people in the US Midwest. Well, that freak weather event I just spoke about that happened in 1911 didn't get a fancy name. That's just because it happened before the war and not after. Don't worry, freak cold front from 1911. I got your back. This week in 1956, the United States Supreme Court declares Alabama laws requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott. It took until 2023 for the United States Supreme Court to come to the same conclusion about admissions to college. This week in 1970, the Bola Cyclone. A 150 mile per hour tropical cyclone hits the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, killing an estimated 500,000 people in one night. This is regarded as the 20th century's worst natural disaster. Not long after, the Bangladesh Liberation War took place with another 250,000 deaths. A musician named Robbie Shankar spoke about the plight of the region to his friend George Harrison, who recently found himself to not be a part of the Beatles anymore. George organized a benefit concert that would put the area on the map and in the minds of people around the world. It was perhaps the first large-scale music fundraiser. Two shows were held on the same day at New York's Madison Square Garden. A large cast was assembled, including Harrison, his ex-bandmate Ringo Star, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and others. Both shows sold out. Millions of those dollars sat in escrow for years. Eventually, that money and more made it to Bangladesh and the people who needed it. Sales of the recordings still benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. This week in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. Everybody knows who the Amazon guy and the Facebook guy and the PayPal guy are, but those guys only found ways to use the World Wide Web to make money. Tim actually created the World Wide Web itself. It was no fluke either. This guy's pretty smart, so are his parents. His bio on Wikipedia says he worked for CERN in Switzerland as an independent contractor. The internet already existed, and so did hypertext, or the concept of it. Tim was later quoted as saying, creating the web was really an act of desperation, because the situation without it was very difficult when I was working at CERN later. Most of the technology involved in the web, like the hypertext, like the internet, multifont text objects, had already been designed. I just had to put them together. It was a step of generalizing, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as being possibly part of a larger imaginary documentation system. Tim Bernersley formed the World Wide Web Consortium along with companies that were willing to work to create standards for the web and improve the quality, with no patents or royalties so that anyone could use it. Since then, it has become a large part of everyday life. I hope I don't have to tell you how much the World Wide Web is a part of your life and mine, because I don't know. We're probably exposed to some part of it a hundred times a day or more, maybe thousands, depending upon what you do for a living or how you spend your time. At the very least, it's made it possible for people to communicate with each other faster and over vast distances, just about anywhere in the world, than we ever thought possible. It wasn't that long ago that the phone company charged you extra for a long-distance call, or if you didn't choose a long-distance service. The World Wide Web changed all that and more. If it wasn't for the World Wide Web, I couldn't distribute this program to the 48 countries around the world where it's been downloaded. So thank you, Tim.

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For better or worse, you made it possible for the world to keep in touch with the rest of the world like never before.com.

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Following an election like the one we just had, there's bound to be what analysts call the post-mortem. An examination of what went right, but more importantly, what went wrong. For the Democrats, there seems to be plenty of blame to go around. The Listening To podcast has only existed during the Biden administration. I began the listening to because I was appalled by the terrible job the media was doing. Sure, a lot of the stories they tell are true. That human interest story about the lady whose dog came home after being lost for six months is very heartwarming. But the reality is that most of us, regardless of political affiliation, have very little trust in the information we get from the legacy media. If there was a way the media could turn the dog homecoming story into a political story, they probably would. And without a doubt, it would be Donald Trump's fault the dog got lost in the first place, and Donald Trump went out of his way to keep the dog away from his human family as long as possible. Who knows? We now have more than four years for Donald Trump to accidentally step on a dog's tail or whatever he might do that can be amplified to excess. We'll see if the media has learned anything from the results of Tuesday's election. What's clear is that despite the media's best efforts, the American people were still able to distinguish the difference between the opposing ideologies and recognize the candidate that had very little to offer. The most the Democratic candidate could put out there was giving away our tax dollars in an attempt to artificially boost what a capitalist system will regulate when left to itself without government regulation and restrictions. Even though it was obvious to the majority of Americans, our talking heads on most of the television channels couldn't see it or were directed to ignore it. The press kept telling the American people that the economy was doing great, and whatever they were feeling was wrong. The liberal press, which is a lot of it, twisted every story they possibly could to make conservatives look bad and liberals look good. Telling the truth about what happened has no role in the mission of the media anymore. If the truth can be told without compromising the agenda of the management, that's okay. Go ahead and tell the truth, but be certain to look for a way to make it look like the other guy, or girl, is bad. I included or girl, there to establish that I'm not being sexist, but the media certainly is. Many of the left-wing outlets were quick to blame sexism as the reason the Democratic candidate didn't win the election. Racism has also been blamed for the result. What the press doesn't acknowledge is its own role in the outcome, and how most of them picked the wrong side, with a few exceptions. The funny thing is, none of the conservative news outlets are bragging about how they influence the election, but all of the liberal outlets are suddenly trying to justify what happened. Cable news stations like CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC have program hosts that are stuttering and stammering about what went wrong, confused and surprised as to why all of the influence they believe they have didn't produce the results they took for granted. Even if the Democratic Party decides it's time to take a step back and take another look at its agenda, the media has to stick by the current status quo or admit they were wrong, or misleading, or worse. The truth is, many left-wing news outlets, including ABC, CBS, and NBC, could probably be charged with election interference, collusion, and possibly money laundering, depending upon whose money they took to support the Democratic candidate. The results of the election demonstrate that the citizens of the U.S. haven't bought into what the media was preaching. Make no mistake, the left-leaning media, which is most of it when it comes to the large-scale outlets, did everything they could to support the party that wants to regulate free speech. How ironic. But because the media had very little to support when it came to the candidates' policies, the only option was to portray the opposition as a dangerous evil. They figured it would be easy since they'd been practicing since 2016. What the leftist media didn't see was that almost everything they were doing was working in Donald Trump's favor. Even if they did realize it, it was too late to change the narrative. They'd already dove off the high board, and it was too late to change direction. And even if they could, the only alternative was to land on the concrete instead of in the water. The American press has put itself in a lose lose situation by taking sides. Let me rephrase that. The American press has put itself in a lose-lose lose situation by taking sides. I had to add an extra lose for the rest of us. The citizens are the biggest losers when we don't have a media that holds our elected officials accountable. The only reason the freedom of the press is in the Bill of Rights is to keep tabs on the government. Our media has failed miserably ever since Donald Trump came down an escalator and announced his intent to become president of the United States about ten years ago. If it was going on before that, it wasn't as obvious. In fact, I know it was, but it was much more subtle. Plus, there was more balance on the network news because they took their responsibility seriously. They don't anymore. Every story you see or hear has to go through a series of checks and balances behind the scenes. Not for accuracy or fairness, but to make sure it aligns with the company doctrine. Stories are stopped, stories are released, stories are rewritten to make sure they include proper words and phrases and don't include others. Not just by spell checkers and grammar experts, but by people who can find a way the story may be favoring someone not favorable or not supporting someone who management wants to support or look for violations of diversity and inclusion standards. Today's media isn't concerned as much with informing you than it is with influencing you. When it became clear who the winner of the presidential election was, the left-wing talking heads were quick to tell everybody watching that the majority was wrong. They said the people who voted conservative were un-American, racist, sexist, and just plain stupid. The press can't accept the results of the democracy they claimed was threatened by the candidate who won. The Democratic candidate accepted it the next day. But the press is still trying to justify why it didn't do its job as the fourth estate by trying to make us believe we're wrong for the way we feel, and we're wrong about our bank accounts and credit card debt and housing prices and the cost of eggs and gasoline and our confidence to walk down the street without getting assaulted. That last one doesn't apply everywhere like inflation does, but people still feel that way, and people's perception is their reality, right or wrong. Inflation, on the other hand, isn't perception. It's measurable, and it's been too high since the early part of the current administration. You don't have to feel it. You can see it on price tags and grocery receipts. The problem is we also feel it. The press was so desperate to maintain their posture that they even tried to tell us inflation was under control when it never got back below two percent, which was the Biden administration's goal. In other words, prices have increased by two percent or more every time they measured it since 2020. The rate of inflation has dropped and steadied, but it's still more inflation. But the media will tell us inflation is down, as if prices have somehow dropped. As long as fuel costs are high, we'll continue to have inflation. The legacy or mainstream media seems to have gone out of its way to make itself irrelevant. What used to be a valuable contribution to our system of government has instead become a tool of half of it. As it stands right now, the losing half. But that's irrelevant. The press isn't supposed to be on either half. When the press chooses a side, the consumers of that information are deprived of the opportunity to make an informed decision. But the big three networks from days gone by when we could trust the media, ABC, CBS, and NBC, have all turned against us in favor of an agenda. Why? I don't know. All I can figure is the money. There's an unseen force out there that's turning what were news organizations into propaganda machines. The origin of our media's bias in favor of the left may begin in journalism schools. Maybe young journalists come out of school ready to be unbiased, but they become biased through pressure from colleagues when they enter the workforce. In any case, there are few reporters in the field today who are allowed to be unbiased, whether because of peer pressure or corporate pressure. This is a terrible time for any young journalist to enter the workforce, not just because of the economic turmoil in the industry, but also because of the divisiveness within it. The media has made itself a toxic waste site in need of superfund help to save it from being unusable for decades to come. There are still independent news organizations out there that try to bring unbiased news, even if it is political. But there's also a new category of news media. I've only begun hearing the title recently. It's called earned media. And it relates not to legacy or mainstream media, nor paid media, but free media, which has the option of helping a political candidate make their case. More specifically, podcast media. This election was perhaps the first to have such a participation by the candidates to employ podcasts. Both Donald and Kamala showed up for multiple podcasts, each appealing to a different audience by doing so and avoiding other audiences. That's the thing about podcasts. They're very fragmented. If you have a specific interest, there's a podcast for you. There are very few that reach large-scale audiences, but there's no longer any doubt about the influence podcasts have on this election and will have on elections in the future. However, just as television's influence has waned over the years due to the abundance of options we now have with cable, satellite, and streaming services, podcasts are already fractured because of their very nature. Political candidates with national aspirations will have to be careful about how much time they can devote to podcast audiences, as it's impossible to be on all of them. Those seeking local offices will have a much smaller pool from which to choose. I'm not sure I favor the term earned media, though, as it indicates you must somehow gain the support of the host or producers of the program to earn an appearance. As you know, as the host of the listening tube, I've had a variety of guests on the program with varying political viewpoints. The only way to earn a spot on the listening tube is to be interesting. The influence of podcasts on political issues is sure to exist moving forward, but the amount of influence may level off a bit lower than it is now. That's just a gut feeling. But perhaps Donald Trump's appearance on the Joe Rogan program was as big an audience as any politician will ever have. We'll find out in four years, I guess. There was a time when a single television show could attract 70% or more of the population of America, like when the Beatles or Elbus were on Ed Sullivan or the final episode of MASH. A podcast has worldwide reach, but hasn't been able to attract as much of the population of a single place as a designated time, like television once did. I realize that there are things on the internet that have been viewed or downloaded millions of times, but to capture the attention of 70% of America all at once is hard to do anymore. But television has become what podcasts are designed to be, specific to a desired audience. And it's okay for television to be programmed to a specific audience, just like music radio stations, but when it comes to the news, catering to a specific audience has led to failure of the mission of the press. That's why podcasts, while a new tool in the candidate's toolbox, will not become the dominant force for political messaging. But it is, after all, the truth that matters, and you're more likely to get the truth from a podcast than you are from a news outlet with an agenda. Assuming the podcast isn't the product of a for-profit news organization with an agenda. America's trust in the media is at an all time low. It has been declining for almost a decade. A lot of people, including the media, will tell you it's because Donald Trump is the media basher in chief and he's done all he can to discredit the media. The truth is he didn't have to do a lot. The true mainstream media showed itself when Donald Trump came down an escalator and announced he was running for president. When he got elected the first time, the clause really came out, and the media did what it was supposed to do when it came to keeping an eye on the government. But it went overboard with falsehoods and misinformation about Russia and anything else they thought they could make stick. Eventually the truth about Russia came out. Eventually the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop came out. It wasn't hard to see that the media was telling us lies and hiding the truth to make one man look bad and another look good. Then when the guy they were trying to make look good looked really bad in a debate with the guy they were trying to make look bad, they had to replace the guy they were trying to make look good with a woman who they already said wasn't so good. Then they had to make her look good while still making the bad guy look even worse because that's all the press had. While the plan worked for years, it couldn't work forever. And it failed at the most inopportune time, just before the election. For as much as the Democrats need to re-examine their posture, the press needs to start sitting up straight and telling us the truth instead of trying to create an illusion. The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, Copyright 2024. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Support the show or text me from the homepage. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for the I'll add infinitum.