Season 11, Episode 3 March 15, 2025

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is The Listening Tube.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. Elon Musk said I have to cut my staff by 50%. Luckily, my booth announcer lady agreed to let me do her yard work in lieu of payment. On this episode, we'll hear how I feel about trans athletes, and I'll have a conversation with the host of the Homeless Conservative podcast, Blake Fisher.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

But first, not the headlines.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Well, it finally happened. California Governor Gabin Newsome, one of the most progressive leftists in American politics today, jumped ship on the transathlete debate. On his new podcast, the governor said it's simply a matter of fairness that men pretending to be women shouldn't be allowed to compete against actual women. This brings up a couple questions. First, why does the governor of California have a podcast? Doesn't he have more important things to do? I think that the job of governor normally doesn't leave a lot of spare time. If he's not doing it in his spare time, I wonder what the taxpayers of California think of their governor making a podcast on their dime. But topically, why is the governor who made the state a sanctuary for not just illegal aliens, but also juveniles who claim to be transgender suddenly changing his mind? I'm sure the welcome mat for so-called trans kids is still out, and the parents of said kids still have no rights in California, so he hasn't completely changed his mind. He seems to be singling out only the trans people who wish to compete in sports. More specifically, men who claim to be women in order to compete against them. What many heterosexual men would call a pussy. I wonder if that's how Gabin Newsom thinks of them now. Back in the day, I was acquainted with several effeminate men going all the way back to high school. And yes, I was familiar with some of the derogatory names some of the guys would use to describe them. But I was friends with them, or at least treated them with the same disinterest I treated most of my schoolmates. But those somewhat effeminate men had more balls than these mascuffemletes we're dealing with today. And yes, I just made up the word mascufemletes. It's a guy who's clearly a guy but can't compete with other guys, so he resorts to Plan B and claims to be something he isn't in order to compete with the half of humanity over which he has a biological advantage. And yes, I said he. If you're offended by that, I'll make a deal with you. If a man wants to compete against women in sports, then get your penis cut off and have a vagina installed. Then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. You don't even have to get the boobs. That way, if you want to compete in the high jump or be a gymnast, you'll still be more or less the same as the women who do that stuff. And no, that's not sexist. All athletes, regardless of gender, require a certain body type to compete at a high level. It's why Shaquille O'Neal never mastered the uneven parallel bars. He's at least a C cup. But if you're going to claim to be a woman in order to compete with women in sports, then you should have to show a little conviction by getting your penis removed. You are, after all, trapped in the wrong body, right? Then let's get rid of everything that makes you a man in the first place. Otherwise, you're not any gender. We have men's sports and we have women's sports. If you haven't made the transition complete, you may feel like a woman, but you are not a woman. You can walk and talk and act like a woman, but as long as you have man parts like a penis and a prostate, you're still a man. And that's okay as long as you don't want to compete in sports against women. I actually feel sorry for these guys. How demoralized do you have to be to lower yourself to such depths? What happened in your life that made you so insecure that you would stoop as low as cheating in such a manner for the hollow reward you get in return? Is it satisfying to get that medal or trophy, to stand on that podium, knowing that you couldn't compete with other men? I played sports when I was a kid. I never excelled at it, but I enjoyed it. Winning is always great, but losing has value too. We can't all be champions. I guess some men can't accept that and resort to squeezing their way into competition where they don't belong. All for the sake of being called a winner. If that's all you care about, then it isn't your body that's betraying you, it's your mind. You're not stuck in the wrong body, you're stuck in the wrong attitude. Winning a competition isn't worth giving up the most concrete evidence of your being, your body. But hey, if you're an adult who wants to change into the other gender, have at it. You're free to do that. But there are a couple of caveats. You can't compete against women in sports if you were originally a man, and you can't make everybody else in the world accept what you've done to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

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

SPEAKER_00 6:32

This week in 1776, during the American Revolution, British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts, ending the Siege of Boston after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city. Well, we all know who George Washington is, but who's this Henry Knox guy? I'm going to look that up.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

He's gonna look it up. He's really gonna do it. The truth! You can't handle the truth.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Like Washington, Henry Knox was a founding father of the United States. Almost a right-hand man to Washington, Knox was an artillery officer for many of Washington's campaigns during the Revolution. After the war, he was chief of the War Department and continued in that role under the very first administration of the new United States of America as Washington's Secretary of War, a post currently held by Pete Hegseth. Secretary Knox is famous for his exploits in war in the Boston area, but it's a fort in Kentucky that bears his name Fort Knox, notable for the nearby gold repository and where I had shoulder surgery in 1982. But this isn't about me or Henry Knox or George Washington. It's about Boston and the expulsion of British forces from the city. Today, British forces would be welcome in Boston. It's a sanctuary city where local law enforcement is prohibited from assisting federal agencies in apprehending people who are in the country illegally, even if they're killing other people. The city of Boston has become an embarrassment to the ideals for which it once stood. Boston natives like Henry Knox had a much different idea of freedom and liberty than the people leading Boston today. What would happen if the British, or anyone else for that matter, were to invade the United States and make Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Denver their first points of attack? I can't help but believe there would be a lot of people who would welcome the invaders, which is sad. But also that city rules would actually prohibit local law enforcement from assisting the federal government in repelling the invading force because they're a protected class. If that sounds outrageous to you, you're right. But that's what's already happening, and Boston has become a poor example of what America stands for. All of America is a sanctuary. A sanctuary from dictators and oppression for people from all over the world. If you need sanctuary from the United States of America, like that provided by sanctuary cities, then you probably shouldn't be here to begin with. But what gets me is how city governments can just ignore federal law, and in doing so put the legal citizens at risk, deplete city budgets by paying for housing, education, and health care for the people you're protecting, and deprive legal residents of the freedoms and values and lifestyles they've earned. Nobody ever said, I'm gonna move to Boston because they protect illegal immigrants from the federal government. Because if you did, you'd eventually say it like this I'm gonna move to Boston because they protect illegal immigrants from the federal government. I'm sure someone from Boston could do it better. What bothers me is that sanctuary cities would rather let a convicted criminal who's wanted by immigration out the back door of the courthouse than let immigration officers take custody inside the jail. That step alone puts the general public and immigration officials at risk. There is no reason for it other than spite at the possible expense of personal injury to or even death of somebody who has to find and arrest him in public or an innocent passerby. Sanctuary policies are misplaced, dangerous, and irresponsible. America is a sanctuary, but sanctuary cities are un-American.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

The listening tube will return at the speed of sound. Send email to thelistening tube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

My guest this week is a podcast host. So there is another one. His name is Blake Fisher, and he hosts a podcast called The Homeless Conservative. I thought it was the Democrats who were wandering around in the wilderness. As it turns out, conservatives like Blake are still looking for a place to say.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And you can hang your hat on that.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

You say that you help politically exhausted conservatives stay informed on what matters in U.S. politics. So my first question is what's so exhausting?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I think most people are exhausted by this trickling down to the restaurants they can go to. They're told they can't go to that restaurant if you're a real conservative because they're not, you know, I think that kind of stuff has gotten kind of crazy. We've we've made politics, I think we've replaced it with like religion with politics a lot of Americans have. And it's making it where it's something that is too in our face. And for the most part, people are kind of disgusted by the furthest left and the furthest right being the loudest voices. And I think most people just feel like they can't identify with those, and so they kind of check out.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

It seems to me you find it more exhilarating than exhausting. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Uh yes and no. I've always been kind of a political junkie. In fact, I say that on my show, I'm a political junkie so that you don't have to be, because I've just always found it interesting. And I've I like reading about this stuff. I enjoy reading about the news. I don't enjoy the stuff that doesn't matter, though. So I am one of those exhausted people in one way, in the sense that I hate that I feel like I've got to cut through a whole lot of noise to get to something that is of substance in political news and media and politics in general. You just look at the way that our elected officials are acting. It doesn't seem like they're taking their jobs very seriously. So it's like I take politics seriously, but I often can't take the politicians seriously because they I don't think they're taking their job seriously. I don't think they're taking their institution seriously. Like, for example, it's exhausting to get through the mountain of articles that are about did Elon Musk do a Nazi symbol? That's what everyone talks about for an entire week, right? Meanwhile, there's actual a substance that we need to pay attention to and actually matters and affects our daily lives and our future that is not that story. And yet that's the story that gets covered all week and we don't cover the other stuff. So it it is exhausting, but I do enjoy keeping up with it.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

As do I. I find a lot of it fascinating, interesting, and sometimes even mind-boggling. Yeah, certainly a lot of that. I think the mind-boggling part comes where it like you just described, it seems like a lot of our politicians have become caricatures of themselves.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

You've taken it upon yourself then to try to wade through all the trash and find what matters. So that brings me to the rest of your mission statement. Isn't what matters up to the individual, his or herself? Who who has the authority to tell us what's important?

SPEAKER_02 14:47

You're right. That is the hardest part of what about what I try to do is figure out what when I say what matters, what I really mean is what are we, what is still going to be an issue we're talking about in, I mean, sometimes 24 hours, sometimes 30 days. But I certainly like to think of it as a month from now. If I think this is a story that we're gonna spill a bunch of ink on, and then no one's even gonna remember that this happened in three months, I don't think it's worth talking about. And I think that stuff is sometimes pretty easy to figure out what it is. Elon Musk's Nazi salute, for example. I don't think that event alone was worth talking about because it was just virtue signaling of what side you were on, essentially. Uh, I think there's other things, for example, Donald Trump says a lot of things. He says a lot of things. I don't love to take seriously just the things he says. For example, his Maragaza sort of plan of I'm gonna go in there and we're gonna put all the Palestinians somewhere else for a while, then we're gonna build this resort. I don't think that's really going to happen. And until there are actions that are following up those words, I'm not gonna waste time talking about it because I think it will be a thing that it would be something that I go, this is kind of wild, and maybe it's worth talking about to say it's kind of crazy that a president of the United States would do this, but we've got to stop being shocked all the time by the norm breaking when it's something like that that doesn't really matter. That's normally how I'm weighing stuff. How do I think this is going to affect the future of America, not just trying to hop on whatever trend? Because I think that's what's exhausting people is that they're drinking from a fire hose. And it's really happening right now with the Trump administration because, you know, we're in the first 100 days, we're in the first 46 days or whatever at this point, and it has been rapid and there's a lot of news. So trying to sort through the stuff that I think is worth ignoring, or at least maybe not ignoring, but saying, hey, I don't think we have enough information on this yet. A lot of what Doge is doing is like that for me. So it is hard though, because I am trying to say, hey, I think this is gonna matter in the long term, but I'm trying not to do it in a way I and obviously I'm showing my bias in the title of it, homeless conservative. I'm coming at this from a conservative viewpoint too. So there might be things that I think don't matter because they're, you know, I'm not gonna talk about Democrats as much on like the their policy arguments because I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a liberal. I don't I don't feel like I'm in that thing. Now I'm happy to make the argument between the conservative argument against a Democrat, but I'm not gonna cover, you know, the the Senate races in in California necessarily because I don't feel like my audience is gonna like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Donald Trump does say a lot of stuff. And I think a lot of it he says, you know, simply to get people riled up or see what the reaction will be or how quickly the reaction will come. And it always comes very quickly. And then the next thing you know, what he said five minutes ago is now different. But everybody already had a knee-jerk reaction to it. Now they have to step back and re-examine the whole thing all over again, where is if they had just sat back for a moment in the first place, that situation would have changed anyway. So uh from what I've observed, the Democrats try to pounce on every little thing that he does, and quite often it just it it never comes to fruition. But I do have to give Donald Trump some credit for being a macro thinker. You know, you brought up the the Gaza plan. No one else had ever thought of that. No one else even considered anything like that. No one else said, let's get Greenland, let's take Panam the Panama Canal back. He does think on this on a much larger broader scale, it seems, than the rest of us. And I think it it it I think it brings into focus how much macroengineering can be done in the geopolitical world, and he seems to have a really good grasp on it.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, I it I I'm torn on it a lot of times because what happens often I think is Trump just says exactly what he feels in the moment or exactly what he's thinking. There's not really a filter that runs through it. I certainly think the government needs new ideas. I think we need new ideas in lots of different areas, and I'm open to wild, um, sort of half-baked ideas. I'm open to that in general as someone in the government doing that. I don't love the president doing it because there's so much uncertainty around it. I'd rather the the president have a know like where principally they stand. And the problem is I don't know principally where Donald Trump stands on anything, and neither do any of the Republicans in Congress or his cabinet. And then everyone goes, oh, this is a great idea, without thinking about the logistics of it. Okay, so wait, which one is it? Is it that you want you want us out of forever wars, or you want to send troops to Gaza, the like number one place that they might get blown up by a terrorist, so that they can, you know, kick all these Palestinians out and build this hotel. I mean, you know what I mean? It's like those two things are in in juxtaposition of each other. And they they can't both be true at the same time. You can't be against sending our troops into foreign battles that are for no reason, other than you can't get on a George W. Bush for going into Iraq and they want to go into Gaza so you can build some hotels. I I do agree. I'm like, I like that he wants to shake things up. That's what I like about the idea of Doge. That's what I like about bringing someone like Elon Musk in. I just think that sometimes they act before they think about it. And I I think they would be better served by listening to the smart people that they hired. And I think it would be good for him to listen to that advice sometimes. Instead, he just kind of acts and then we've got to work backwards from it. So it's not that he has terrible ideas, it's just that he shouldn't say them out loud as early as he does. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

What should matter to American conservatives?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Well, I I would like the Constitution to matter again. And I would like the things that conservatives were traditionally for: smaller government, lower taxes, not $33 trillion in debt, uh, being financially responsible federal government. Uh, I would like Congress to have more power. They need to jealously guard that power and take it back. They've they've given way too much power to the president. I would look at the speech on Tuesday night that Donald Trump gave. He only mentioned Congress doing anything like twice in that entire speech. And if you want laws, if you want things to change, everything Donald Trump has done so far, every single thing other than the Lake O'Neilly Act has been an executive order, which means every single thing that he's done right now, if you care about, can be undone in four years if a Democrat gets elected with a stroke of a pin, without Congress, without anything else. Just one guy in the White House can undo every single thing that Donald Trump has done so far. Joe Biden abused the power by trying to do things like forgiving student loans, which I think was absolutely illegal. The Supreme Court was correct. He kept trying to do it because he wanted to use these emergency powers and stuff that Congress has given him and these legal loopholes. And instead of fighting him, and Congress, instead of Democrats in Congress saying, no, that's our job. We are the only ones that could do that. There's no one jealously guarding their institution. So most politicians in Congress are really only interested in getting reelected and keeping their seat, but they really want to be pundits on TV. Seem like they want to legislate because they're not wanting to pass bills. They would rather the president be the guy that does it because then they don't have to deal with potentially getting primaried from their right or the left, because there's only like 40 seats in Congress now that are jumping back and forth that are kind of purple. Most of them are very safely red or very safely blue. So there's a lot wrong there. And essentially, I think that conservatives should care about the things that we cared about 10 years ago. I'd like to go back to those basic principles that I've had for forever. And I feel like the whole Republican Party has shifted to where it's just whatever Donald Trump says. And that is not conservatism. Following a cult of personality is not conservatism. The whole point of the founding of this country was that we don't trust polit, we don't trust men. We think that men are corrupt. If if men were perfect, what's the is it Madison quote? The if men were angels, you wouldn't need a government. And so conservatism is sort of going, there need to be checks and balances. That's what I think conservatives should care about is like going back to constitutional stuff. I think most of our problems are because we're not really following the structure of the Constitution.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

It seems to me you really don't feel like this whole Department of Government efficiency protocol is meant at all to uh relieve us of some of that uh some of the bureaucracy, like almost almost like a fourth branch of government that's that's creating laws or not laws, but regulations. From what I understand, you you think or you feel that the current Republican Party is in favor of this bureaucracy, but it it looks to me like they're trying to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

No, they're not really, because the bureaucracy problem is not a so constitutionally, let's just talk about the structure of it. So obviously, everything in the executive branch is under one person. So I I've absolutely legally, constitutionally, Donald Trump has the right, for example, to look under the hood of any of these agencies. And I think, you know, we're gonna deal with the courts and stuff like that. But the the president is the head of the executive branch, and all power from the executive branch flows from the president of the United States of America. That's how the constitution is set up. But the president gets those agencies and bureaucracies and stuff like that from Congress passing laws and creating the agencies. So the Congress created the Department of Justice, for example, and the Department of Treasury and all of these different departments. And they also give them the budgets. Republicans are actually not saying that they want to get rid of the bureaucracy. They're just saying we're okay with the bureaucracy as long as Donald Trump's the head of it. And they might be firing people and readjusting stuff, but what they're really doing right now, like what I what I tell conservatives to think about, or Republicans. Right now, Donald Trump is basically saying we're gonna try to fire people. And I know their goal is efficiency, but they're kind of they've made some very bad mistakes. They've fired people that are in charge of keeping our nuclear arsenal safe and they've had to try to hire them back. They've had several of these sort of mistakes where they fire people that actually have really important jobs inside the federal government. And these are, I know there's bloat, I know there's corruption, I know that there is the administrative state is a problem. I think uh Neil Gorsuch's most recent book is about that. It's about how there are so many federal laws that are tied into like rules that the EPA can make, but then they can also charge you with federal crimes that were never passed by Congress. That is what I'm talking about when I'm saying get rid of the administrative state. I don't think the executive branch should be able to make laws. But the Congress has given the executive branch the ability to do that. And that's why we have presidents the ability to sign pent, you know, sign an executive order and change things, or the EPA, they give a bunch of rules that now businesses have to follow or they can face fines or jail time and things. And these are not okay because that Congress should be the only body that can do that. The Constitution says that they are the body that gets to make laws. But Congress has decided well, what we're gonna do is we'll spin up an agency to do that, we'll give it no sunset date, and then that we'll let the agency make the rules. And unless we just really strongly disagree with a rule, we can basically sort of veto a rule they make uh or or they, but they're not really saying making the laws. Sometimes that's necessary. It's it's a good idea to have some regulatory agencies that you give the power to say, we trust that you're gonna be able to keep up with this better. Like FDA, for example. It wouldn't make sense for Congress to have to approve every sort of thing that goes on the FDA because they're doing research and science, and there is some stuff that you need to allow those agencies to do. But ultimately, Congress should keep them more in check. I don't think it's that the president should keep them more in check, because really it's the wrong branch. Like the Congress is supposed to keep the legislative branch is supposed to keep the executive branch in check, and vice versa. That's why the president can veto a law that Congress puts on his desk. And I think that's where it's the structural problems that I'm talking about. I the goal of having the government be more efficient and getting rid of the administration. I'm fine with those goals. I just think they're going about it the wrong way. The right way would be for Donald Trump to go to Congress and say, you want to get rid of the Department of Education? You got to go to Congress to do that constitutionally. That's what I want to see happen.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

A lot of the actions that the president has taken so far have been met with lawsuits brought by individuals, by other agencies, by the agencies affected that that are that are themselves affected. Sometimes I wonder if if if these policies are being implemented for the sole purpose of generating a lawsuit against it to set a precedent while the president still has the advantage of a Supreme Court balanced in his favor. Do you think that might be what's going on here? That maybe maybe he's not that interested in in changing the rules, but he's more interested in establishing where they are.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah, I I think there's something to that. There's um I think unfortunately we've gotten in a situation where presidents use, you know, they take an oath that they swear to uphold the constitution. And we've had several presidents in a row now that have out loud said things like this started like George W. Bush. He signed, I can't remember the law, but he says, I think this might be unconstitutional, but we'll see how it works out essentially. I think that's an impeachable offense. I know that sounds crazy. I think if the president says, I think this is illegal, but I'm gonna sign it anyway, you're not upholding the constitution. You are punting something to the Supreme Court that you shouldn't have to punt to the Supreme Court. Biden did this a lot. So Biden did that with student loans, as mentioned again. He says, you know, everyone says Lance De Pelosi comes out and says, Biden can't do that. That's Congress's job, et cetera. Biden does it anyway. And then when the courts strike it down, he's like, this illegitimate court, and is like acting like the court did something wrong. The court upheld the law. And that's what I think is I'm worried about. And I think that Trump is doing a little bit of that for sure, is trying to say, try me. And so I do think there's a little bit of that with Trump. It's uh he's testing some of this to see what happens. I do think the federal government needs a shakeup. I think the executive branch needs a shakeup. I just wish it would come from the other branches of government because I don't trust like the stuff that Donald Trump is doing inside the federal government, I also wouldn't want a Democrat to do. When we give someone powers, especially in the executive branch, you really have to think of what's the worst case scenario. If I've if I thought of the worst person in the world, which should not be hard for Democrats that hate Donald Trump to imagine because he's there right now. So it's weird to me that they also they wanted to give Biden powers when they knew that it was a very real possibility. It was about a 50-50 chance that Donald Trump would be the next guy that has those powers. And it's like they learned no lessons from his first term, and vice versa for Republicans. Republicans in Trump's first term were happy to give him powers and let him get away with stuff because they felt okay about the things he was doing. But then you go, yeah, but you know, there's gonna be a Democrat that comes at some point and is gonna have those same powers. I think that's what I think there's just a real short-sightedness in all of this, including in Trump. I don't really believe that he's playing 3D chess most of the time. I think he wants to sort of move fast and break things, and then hopefully stuff shakes out in the end better than worse. I think that's kind of the plan with the Doge stuff. And I mean, I I see a breakup between Musk and Trump before the summer. I don't I don't see there's any way those two egos can exist in the same world. Um, I I don't think it's gonna work out very well. And uh Musk has made some pretty bad mistakes, and I obviously Donald Trump doesn't want to look bad because of those.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I don't think Elon Musk has any actual power anyway. I think he's more or less an advisor. People say he fired these people or he cut that budget, but I I don't think he has the power to fire anybody.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

He doesn't, but he was. That's the problem, and that's where the lawsuits came from, is that he was he was basically firing people and saying this money can't go to that anymore. And the Trump White House had to kind of walk stuff back and say, no, um, there's someone they first of all they wouldn't say who his boss was, but they said, no, there is someone in charge of Doge, but we we won't reveal their identity. That's insane to me. You can't talk about government transparency in the deep state all the time and then say, we're not gonna tell you who Elon Musk Musk's boss is. That's lunatic, right? I mean, that's crazy, right? So yeah, I think that that was the clarification that we got this week was him telling his cabinet, because I'm sure there was confusion. Elon Musk is telling me to do something. Who's in charge, him or me? And that was a very clear public thing of saying, my cabinet positions, like those, you are in charge of your cabinet, of your agency. Elon Musk can make recommendations, but it is up to you. Now, I think that that is going to turn into fighting within the White House, but that's okay. I don't, I don't mind there being sort of Lincoln's team of rivals. I don't mind people sort of positioning and jockeying and fighting for who's right. I think that you're you're wiser to have people like around you that we're gonna fight about stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

As for the lawsuits, I'm convinced that once all's said and done and the dust settles, I think we will know a lot more about where specific powers lie among the branches of our government. And I think much uh probably to your satisfaction, I think it will move us closer to returning to the constitutional government that was envisioned by our founding fathers. Uh but again, we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

That uh I I think the Supreme Court is there. I mean, I think the Supreme Court right now is they're not all in for Donald Trump. I think that for the most part, and you look back at even the Supreme Court's decision to say uh what was the uh the the Chevron doctrine, we're basically saying, no, the there are things that Congress has to do. And so they I think they the Supreme Court is kind of saying, hey, no, that's Congress's job. The EPA can't say that, Congress has to say that. And they are trying to claw back some of that, specifically the executive branch, kind of overreach of powers. It does seem like they have over the last several years been pulling that back. It will be interesting to see what happens when they butt up against more Donald Trump stuff because it was a little easier when it was Joe Biden, probably. But so I hope that they remain true to that thing. Because I think you're right. The Supreme Court could make a lot of these decisions that haven't been made because they were just sort of norms. And I hope that they can more clarify nope, the president cannot do that, the executive branch cannot do that, agencies cannot do that, Congress cannot, you know. I would like to see some more definition of that, as long as they get it right. Uh, I I and I I think they will. I have general trust in in most of the Supreme Court to uh look at the Constitution as originally intended.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Now, it seems to me a lot of the people on the left, Democrats, are asking their party to move more toward the center. And if they do, I think that might force the Republicans to move a little bit more to the right. And then that pendulum is going to start swinging the other way. Do you see that as a logical course of events, or do you see the pendulum acting differently this time?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

I think what's weird about the right-left, this, you know, we call everything right and left, but what's weird is that some of the things, I actually was just talking about this today uh on another thing, is let's take the transgender um women in sports thing. That's the thing that happened this week because Gavin Newsom comes out and says on his podcast that he thinks it's unfair uh that that you should have biological men competing against women. And that's kind of the first big Democrat that has that said that. And obviously he wants to be the president in 2028. And he knows that 80% of Americans, so this is not a left-right thing. 80% of Americans think that that's the case. They go, no, that's not fair. That that doesn't mean they don't want trans people to exist. That doesn't mean they don't have other rights. They just go, you can't play sports, though. Okay. That's all we're talking about, is just sports here. To me, there's a lot of issues like that that are 70, 30, 80, 20 issues where most of the country is there. And yet the parties are having trouble finding the line to walk because, you know, most of them are really captured by that far left and that far right, the people that are purest on the far left and the far right. I think that most of the swing back to the right is just course correction for normalcy, because most of the stuff that people rejected in November, in my opinion, was all the identity politics and including from minorities. I mean, look, Trump gained in every demographic, essentially. I think it was pretty clear that people don't like being defined by their race, by their sex, by their sexuality, by all these things that the Democrats have obsessed with for the last 15 years or so. And so I really think that's more just course correction of Democrats coming a little bit more to what we're saying is the center, but I don't really think it's a left-right thing. I think it's more of just the identity politics that's being rejected rejected right now. I hope that goes away because I think it's really bad for America and Americans. I I hope that Republicans don't try to take it as an opportunity to go too far to their side, too. There is, for example, I think one thing that would say that you're right is that the DEI stuff. I think DEI is bad, especially in government. I think it's got really it's racist, essentially, to say that some people are good because of their skin color and some people are bad because of their skin color and and sort of that critical race theory and some of the DEI stuff. I don't think diversity is a bad thing. I think trying to mandate diversity or have um, you know, uh sort of affirmative action and those kind of things. I'm I'm glad that that's been swatted down by the Supreme Court, for example, in some education stuff. And I think that the right certainly has a tendency to go too far. And I think most people, the problem is that we get in power, either party, and then we think, well, we better do everything we possibly can as quickly as we can. It's like they know they're gonna lose the next time, but I think that's what invites the backlash.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Is there a place in the Republican Party or on the conservative side of the political spectrum for someone who smokes pot and believes a woman should have the right to an abortion, even though they don't personally support the idea?

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Are you do you mean what I think conservatives should think or what the Republican Party actually thinks right now?

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Well, I uh you're speaking, uh I'd like you to speak on behalf of uh what you believe conservativism is?

SPEAKER_02 37:48

I think conservatism should be a little bit more personal liberty focused. Like my issue with trans thing would be look, I don't think we should do anything to kids, for example, because they're minors and I think you're permanently doing damage to their body that you can't do. But if you want to be an adult and trans, I don't really care. Like I until it infringes on my rights, I think you can have your rights to do things. But I don't think you can play sports at college. You know, I think there are some limitations there because now you're infringing on someone else's rights. The Republican Party is a pro-choice party now. They might be less pro-choice than the Democrats, but they're pro-choice. Like they're not, they Donald Trump threw the pro-life movement under the bus and to get elected last year. And that's unfortunately how politics works. I would like to see the Republican Party actually do stuff with these votes that they got, you know, from minorities and like I said, all those demographics. They, I mean, the Donald Trump did not win the youth vote as he claims so often, but he gained 11 points on them, which is a huge gain between 2020 and 2024. I hope that Republicans are smart enough to actually use that well and actually show people that like we do care about you. You know what? I think there's a point that Republicans have when they say, what have the Democrats done for black people? I think that's a valid point to make. But I also think Republicans have to put their money where their mouth is and actually follow through on the things that they, the reason those people voted for them, or they might not have. So I don't, I think there is room for those. And I think the Republican Party is trying to uh be like, but it's like I said, it's really hard to drown out the loud voices on the right, and it's the same problem with the Democrats. So I think most of them feel that way that Gavin Newsom said they just felt like they couldn't say it because they would get crucified by people further to the left of them.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Well, thank you for your perspective, Blake. You've certainly put out some fodder for thought and make it clear that conservatives still have issues to be addressed by the current administration. Blake Fisher tackles all of these issues from a conservative standpoint on his podcast, The Homeless Conservative. The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Support the show.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Hey, if he says something smart, you can support the show from the homepage.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Or text me from the homepage.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

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