Peace in Gaza, Homicidal Text Messages, and the Future of Obamacare
Summary
Geopolitical Insight: Discussion on the potential ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, with skepticism about its longevity and the political motivations behind it.
State Economics: Examination of the "red moocher state" myth, highlighting the complexity of federal tax contributions and expenditures across states, and questioning why blue states don't pursue secession if they feel exploited.
Political Climate: Analysis of the Virginia Attorney General race, focusing on the Democratic candidate's controversial comments and the lack of condemnation from major party figures, reflecting increasing political radicalization.
Healthcare Policy: Commentary on the Republican Party's shift from opposing to supporting Obamacare, with a focus on the unsustainable nature of current healthcare subsidies and the lack of meaningful reform.
Market Solutions: Highlighting the growth of alternative healthcare solutions like direct primary care as a response to the failures of Obamacare, emphasizing market-driven innovation.
Transcript
[Music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMin, executive editor at the Mises Institute. This is our current event podcast where we talk more casually about some of the things that are going on every week. But of course, if you want more academically rigorous work, that's really what we specialize in at the Mises Institute. So, I would recommend you visit our website for a lot of great content, economic theory, economic history, uh, general cultural history, lots of good topics that you can get there at mises.org. That's mises.org. And we'll cover a lot of similar topics coming up at our supporter summit, which is next week here. And th why don't you give us a few more details about that? I think you can still uh get in get into that if you are so inclined. >> There are a few seats remaining, not a lot of them. There are a few more seats remaining for that. It will be next week, October 16th through the 18th down in beautiful Delray Beach, Florida. Uh Ryan and Ryan, what do you think about uh vintage pinball? >> Known they've got a great vintage pinball uh facility right down the road from this venue. So, I know I will be checking that out when we are down there. We are going to have a great great group of speakers, uh, including the the prolific James Board. Always a great time. Already looking forward to enjoying a cigar with him during the event. Um, but we also have Joe Serno, we've got Guido Hollesman, we've got Tom Woods, Bob Murphy, Jeff Herbner, Herb Dog, of course, and many, many more, including Ryan McMakon. Connor and I will also be there. Come out, tell us you're a fan of the show. I'll buy you a beer particularly when it's uh you know particularly some nights and uh yeah so next week again it's a great event for our supporters and u you know we're excited for it. It's going to be a good time. >> Find out more.org/events as well. mises.org/events and you can see our full calendar. Our calendar next year guys is insane. We've got like 10 events planned. It's going to be a big one. So if you want to see everything we've got coming up in 2026 mises.org/events /events will not only give you the supporter summit, but our but but are are starting to build our lineup for next week. We are going places. >> Yeah. Not only stuff at our campus in Auburn, but just at >> stuff all over the country, >> North Carolina, Texas, even like maybe maybe some California to figure that one out. But yeah, there's going to be a lot of stuff going on. >> Uh well, do they have any like vintage cabinets of just video games at this thing? What? I I got to get online. What is this pinball thing? I didn't >> Silverball retro arcade. Oh, >> a lot of lot of vintage pinball. I see some ski ball going on. So, yeah, checking that place out. >> All right. Well, that it sounds like it's a 1980s sort of thing. So, of course, I'm in favor. >> All right. Well, let's uh let's talk. We got four issues for you today. Let's see if we can get to all of them. >> Uh issue one is uh Trump is telling us that there is a Gaza deal. There is a Gaza ceasefire. So this is the summary just the basic facts from anti-war.com one of our uh friendly ally sites. The headline is Trump says Hamas and Israel have quote signed off on first phase of ceasefire deal. And this is what Trump has to say. I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line as the first step toward a strong, durable, and everlasting peace. All parties will be treated fairly. The president wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday night, and then he includes all the usual Trumpian sort of, you know, aren't I great and the future is bright sort of stuff. So, I mean, by this point, right, I don't want to be awarded a fooled me again award by taking anything Trump says at face value. So, I suppose maybe just the most important questions are why is this happening now? Assuming it is happening, why is it happening now? And what are we going to be saying about it six weeks from now? like and sort of what's like what's the the short-term outcome uh once it's revealed to have been fake or the whole thing blows up even though Trump did get something very short. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. So, I'm just going to get readings from you guys. So, yeah, what's going to happen here? And why now? Well, I'm hopeful, optimistic. We'll see how this all plays out. We've seen ceasefires come and go in the past. Uh you know, both sides saying the other side violated something here or there. There seems to be a lot more regional players involved in this. There seems to be a little bit more forward thinking or at least the, you know, concepts of a plan, if you will, about, you know, something more lasting here. Um, in terms of like how we got here, there's there's kind of two different narratives out there that I'll let people decide which one seems more right to them. Obviously, I think there's a major turning point with uh when Israel struck Qatar a couple weeks ago. Um, Netanyahu had apologized for that. There were some reports that Trump was furious about it. There's others that that were saying that basically, oh, the Trump administration, you know, technically agreed to that in order to put additional pressure on Qar and that Qatar finally, you know, got you pressured Hamas in a way that could do this sort of stuff. So, like there's two different narratives there. Either Trump was, you know, getting getting tired of Netanyahu. It's like the Steve Bannon narrative that's out there. The other one is, well, they finally got serious on, you know, Hamas's sugar daddies and like that's what led to this. I don't have a strong opinion about which of those narratives are correct. I do think it's interesting that I I saw like Jared Kushner was was out um you know he he's been you know for the most part you know you you out of out of the picture in Trump 2.0. Um he did come up in the news a couple weeks ago because him and some Saudis bought um EA Sports which for gamers out there is is a very interesting deal. I don't think it can get much worse. Um, so we'll see how how the Kushner regime at EA Sports handles it. But but I do think it's an interesting component there where you know obviously Kushner his relation with Netanyahu business partners with the Saudis like you he was obviously played a major role in the Abraham Accords last time around right you know in terms of of of you know Trump's fascination with the Gulf States and the way that this this plays within this dynamic there. So so you know it is interesting to see him play a role um in Egypt and some final negotiations there. It did look at last week that like publicly Israel was thinking that you know Hamas trying to figure out or or the other side um and all the partners involved trying to negotiate some of the finer points from an announced framework last week that oh well see you know they're not agreeing upon it we're going to go back in more right um and and so the fact that it it survived that last week um you know that that Israel does seem to to be agreeing to this um publicly again we'll see how things look out next week we've seen this play before but I think there's a lot more reason for optimism here than we have seen. You know, it's most reason for optimism since October 7th. This is much bigger than anything we've seen on any other front here. And so again, hopefully hopefully we have something that will last. >> Connor, what do you think? >> I mean, I agree with all your analysis there. I I think I just have like a learned Yeah. >> um response to not, you know, put too much not get my hopes too high here. I was kind of hopeful back in I think it was January the last time where it was similar. You were seeing people celebrating in the streets in Gaza and Israel and then that ended up falling apart. And there are just like some elements that I'm concerned about with uh especially Netanyah Netanyahu and his faction in Israel. It's really seemed like they their intent this whole time has been to as they say completely destroy Hamas. and it's looking like they're going to come up short of of that if this goes forward. And I do know like they have elections coming up soon. There's a tremendous amount of pressure. Um that's been put on them to get the hostages out. Uh so this could be them relenting to that. Um but I I guess I my overall take is that u I I wouldn't be that surprised if you know a week from now things start falling apart. I'm kind of mentally preparing myself for that. But that said, with just how horrendous the situation has been over there, if we get a week of peace, I think that's that's still worth celebrating. >> Yeah. I kind of wonder, I mean, on the why now question, it's what motivation. You have to look beyond the strategic situation to figure out any motivation behind why they would agree to a ceasefire now. And by they, I mean state of Israel. um cuz they're winning in terms of just straight up strategy and and tactics, right? The US is not going to withdraw funding. They can just keep bombing the hell out of the place and it's eventually there's not going to be anything there and then they can just annex the area and that's the direction they're headed in. And I'm I'm sure they can accomplish it given enough time. So the question is I mean that would go back I think to what th is saying is that what pressure can the US possibly apply in this situation to uh create a ceasefire agreement? Obviously the the Hamas side or the Palestine side. I mean I guess normal Palestinians aren't even part of the negotiations. I guess it's Hamas. I'm not quite sure how those happen. Um the clearly benefit from a a ceasefire just a temporary one. Uh so it's just it's just unclear to me as to what motivation is is behind it. Uh it's like with the Russians, right? The Russians have absolutely no reason to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine right now. They're winning. There's about a 90% chance they will win. Uh so why stop now? And so I mean I guess we'll just see. We might find out later in terms of what deal is being struck. But maybe maybe Trump's just presenting it as a personal favor to himself uh for something for a time being so he can claim some kind of uh victory here, diplomatic victory, but in the longer term, right, I I even if there's like good faith right now, I have a hard time believing that uh six months from now, let alone a year from now or 18 months from now, that there's still an enduring ceasefire. there that just seems really hard to believe. >> Well, I think it's going to be a question of what's the political situation like in Israel, right? Like if if Netanyahu is is removed from the table there, then I I think that whole dynamic changes very very quickly. Um and so like that's I think it's kind of similar with the Ukraine situation, right? Like you know, Zalinsky is not someone who I think can accept a deal that seeds massive parts of territory. And so you have the interconnectedness of his political career with the the existence of that conflict. Netanyahu again. Yeah, I think the analysis out there that Netanyahu kind of needed the war to continue in order for his own political aspirations to continue considering all the turmoil that he had prior to October 7th and however that might have played into that whole origin of the conflict there. Um, do with that what you will. And so that's I think that is the most interesting aspect going forward is that you know is is Netanyahu defeated politically or is he rewarded in which case who knows? Um but I do think if you get a political change that that you know changes the calculation there in terms of what this means you know a year from now. >> Yeah. There's so many things up in the air like that and it would be interesting to watch if fighting does resume after these hostages have been released. Like that's been an interesting dynamic to watch. Is the dynamic going forward that Hamas has lost their leverage because they're no longer holding any captives or is that the Israeli government has lost their excuse? Cuz like I'm sure you guys saw like anytime you'd say anything about how this war is terrible that the like the first thing you'd hear back was well it would all stop if the host hostages got released and if they lose that then it's like what what do they really have to to stand on? >> Right. Well, and it's not like there wasn't an ongoing bloody conflict before the >> before October 7th. I mean, it's been a constant state of conflict since the ' 40s. And so, this idea that, right, the the only reason there's any sort of conflict going on is because of the hostages just isn't plausible at all. So, given the length and duration of of the the conflict, the scope of it, why would it stop now even with a ceasefire? Um, it's obviously not a truce. It's not some sort of change. It's not a two-state solution. It's just some sort of ceasefire that uh could potentially make Trump look better. So, uh I guess we'll just see how that plays out. Uh issue two. I guess we'll just have to wait and see see more >> uh as time goes on. >> Fingers crossed. >> Yeah. Now, the the next issue I think is something that's it's this is something that comes up repeatedly as well every now and then. Um I'll just I'll just note that there's a headline the Wall Street Journal. The reason I bring it up is the Wall Street Journal was talking about it again um in recent weeks is uh the headline out of the journal was Newsome falls for the red moocher state myth. Now, I'm sure you guys are familiar with this. Uh this is this is the idea that that blue states contribute most of the tax dollars in the United States and that red states are filled with unproductive moochers and that there's a general transfer of wealth from blue states to red states. And this has been this has been a general theme uh used by Gavin Nuome uh for months now and maybe it even goes back even further this particular headlines from last month. But he keeps making hints along these lines right about how productive and amazing California is and how all the red states are crimeridden poverty uh hell hole sorts of places. And this is just a thing he keeps coming back to. So the journal then was looking at this issue and and it caught my attention because we at mises.org org have run a number of articles on this topic over the years as well where you can just go into the numbers and you can come up with the idea, right? And the idea is you got to look at um the amount of tax revenue produced in each state, which is easy enough info to get, but then you need to look at uh how much federal dollars are going to each state and then you compare one to the other, right? And if more tax revenue is coming out of that state going to the feds than is coming back, then uh you're a you're one of the nonmoocher states? If you're if you're a state where you're getting more tax revenue uh than you're sending to Washington your uh you're a moocher state. So the question is are red states moocher states? Now I've run the numbers a couple of times and it man it totally depends on what numbers you use and how you crunch the numbers and that's a little bit of the point uh he's making here. The author is uh Stephven Malanga at um at the journal and he picks apart a little bit about Nuome's Nuome's numbers saying that well if you look at it this way if you look at it that way what I found is that for the most part a lot of these states are really more like a dollar in a dollar out like a$15 in dollar five cent dollar out 98 cents in $1 out right it's not like there's some big difference there are some states where there is a big difference say like Mississippi and West Virginia for example there are a couple stands out standouts uh New Mexico probably where the major industries in these places or the major source of income is transfer payments through federal programs most states aren't like that though and also and those three states by the way all have very different demographics we might note West Virginia is a white person state Mississippi not so much New Mexico is a largely Hispanic state lots of federal jobs there. It's not actually poverty relief that you see as much there um as you might say see in West Virginia. So once you start crunching all these numbers this there's this idea that oh you red states should be thankful for all of the money that we blue states pump in and it's it's kind of an attempt and it's obvious pandering to his his core audience, right? I mean he's just saying these things because other people who are already diehard Democrats are going to agree with it and think it's fun to point that out and makes red state people look stupid. Uh the question though is that they always kind of imply that they're being exploited by red states. Look, we're giving this money. We're not getting it back. You red state people are getting it. So they so the implication is they're getting some sort of raw deal by just being in the United States. So the question is if they're being exploited so bad with the red states, why don't the blue states just leave? If how come they never suggest, hey, we should just secede and leave and keep our dollars? They never seem to say that. that never seems to be an option. Uh so what is the solution then to this horrible problem that the blue states are pointing out of their exploitation by the red states? Wouldn't simple separation then? California could easily go it alone as they like to point out but they they never if you actually propose that they they never take the idea seriously. So so how do how do we solve the problem? What should California do to solve this horrible exploitation that's going on? You know, I'm fully in favor of Klexic. They can they can even throw in Washington and uh Oregon and you know, hey, more power to you. King Newsome. Hey, that that's seems a good ring to it out there. But no, I mean, and what's also interesting is just like how much this this stuff has changed in terms of how normal people are reacting, right? You're not people people very rarely flee to poverty. And yet what we've seen, you know, and obviously there's there's a political component to it, which I think is the most interesting aspect of modern American politics is is is the the vote by your feet feet political migration aspect of domestic American politics. I as a Floridaian, I see that all the time. Um, but people are fleeing California and New York and Illinois. Um, and it's it's they're not fleeing because they desire, you know, the poverty of Mississippi, right? You know, they're they're they're fleeing. I mean, you Florida, Texas, I mean, Tennessee, um, you know, Indiana. And I mean these these are all up and cominging and and obviously a major part of this too is the separation between major cities and rural America. You you've historically had you know major cities within blue states for a variety of reasons. Now you're seeing you know certain areas you places like Miami like Tampa um you know other areas you know have have have really you know risen significantly over the last few decades as well here. But but you know they they can't you know this is not within their mentality. Uh it is interesting. We we noted last week about with the uh federal uh troops going into certain areas. It is interesting that we saw this play out particularly with um uh Illinois and Chicago this week about a refusal to cooperate there. So we're starting to get a little bit more of that that states rights tension. Of course, you know, predictably, you know, MAGA intellectuals out there, you know, talking about, oh, you know, the the Democrats are finding their their traditional neoconfederate uh roots there and plain off is a bad thing. He's like, "No, like you morons." Um, but you know, so so maybe you know, maybe maybe we're a year away from from having a a reconsideration of of a callexit dynamic there. But I think this all you know, you the the major uh I think motivating factor of the political left is their their their great pride in their uh you know, it's progressive supremacy over the rest of the rubes who uh can't see you know make up you know progressive boogeyman x y and z. And so therefore, this just feeds into, you know, an entire political aesthetic that is based upon their own intellectual superiority to the rest. And therefore, the the the red state moocher myth narrative fits very very well with the way that they view the rest of the world. >> Yeah. Why don't they just leave, Connor? I mean, what what's stopping them? >> That's a big question. I do think like this does get brought up usually in the context of like when a red state or somebody from a red state is talking about, hey, you know, we should secede. It's sort of a counter like, hey, well, you guys are going to really suffer because you're, you know, riding off of us and all of our resources. And it's just like it's just politics. If it was the reverse and they were convinced that things were flowing the other way, they would just paint the red states as greedy there. So, I don't put too much stake in that specific um claim here. I do hope you're right, though. Like, if if we're a few years away from a serious calexit movement, that's great. I just think that there is a lot of um mythologizing of the civil war especially that has to be uh worked back. I think like people uh and I we're raised we're trained to think this way. They think secession is a synonym for being enthusiastically pro-slavery and that's certainly true in California and like there's a lot of uh work to be done there. You've obvious obviously done great work on that Ryan. That's like that's one of your issues but I think um that's a huge barrier when it comes to you know this rhetoric being uh transitioned within that kind of California world into actual you know real thoughts about hey what what could this look like? >> Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I wrote Breaking Away, which is my book on secession, is uh I the world did not need another book about 19th century American secession. So, it mostly covers other countries uh secession as it occurred throughout the 19th and 20th century in other places where it had nothing to do with slavery whatsoever. But I think it's pretty safe to say that the average American uh knows nothing about those things. The average American probably couldn't even find any of those countries mentioned on a map, right? So, I mean, what happened with secession in Malta in the 60s, Malta? Well, never heard of it. That's probably what you'd get from most Americans. So, I mean, it's just the issue is to them is it's it's Lincoln. It's Civil War stuff. And they think it has something to do with slavery. So, that's Yeah, that's going to be a hard thing to overcome. It will I wonder what they'll have to say about Alberta because Alberta has an election coming up on the issue of secession from Canada. And if they vote yes, I'm told by I was recently told by an Albertan that there would then be a genuine legislative uh committee set up to pursue the option of secession uh and to explore it. Well, I don't know. Will we be told that Albertans are latent slave mongers? I I mean I don't I don't know. Uh it seems like that's a that's an it's an unpleasant counter example just like Scotland's secession from uh the United Kingdom several years back. However, this brings us back a little bit to this issue of oh, we're paying all the money in uh and we're not getting it back. Is that in the case of the Scotland secession, a a um a tactic was to tell all of the old pensioners, well, you can't secede because you depend on our social security dollars. And so I think that's going to work the best on older people. This idea of you can never split up the country because then you won't get your social security which is just one of the most brilliant things the government ever did was to create this centralized federal welfare state instead of allowing states to do their own welfare systems which was one of the options during New Deal years if you look at it. But uh that was deemed unacceptable by the central government. we want one big welfare state and now they got everybody over a barrel basically leave and you don't get your welfare dollars so that's probably going to work for a long time and this seems to be a related argument to that I've got a silly idea but I I'm also kind of serious about it what we really need a couple years ago there was discussions about like uh the game of thrones people were looking at doing an alternative history about like what the south had won the confederates or something there's a few other projects that came out and they all got scrapped what we really need is like a Netflix drama uh of like an America where the where the south had one and but like instead of focusing on like how the south is bad just talk about like the utopia like really leaning into this myth right like like you know you could have like every everyone just has like a plucky character talking about how great their healthare system is because they don't have to deal with those you know that poverty written south and like look at all all these incredible things like just just put it out there within the culture and allow for this perspective leaning into this very narrative about how think imagine how great things would be if they wouldn't have to deal with, you know, the these backwards racist Nazi southerners and we could just all have our our our our, you know, cosmopolitan city wealth and the the great world we could live in. Um, so again, if anyone out there has a Netflix connection, you know, pitch that out there as a drama because I think I think if if people conceived of that, like if you could actually have that sort of visual and that sort of narrative out there, I think that would actually go a long way in terms of uh making the world a better place. >> Well, that was William Lloyd Garrison's idea, right? is the the North should secede from the United States and create a non-slavery republic of its own and that was his idea in the 1840s and in the 50s which was a great idea and why not and also uh George Templeton Strong who was a attorney at the time in the early days of secession there was no clear position lots of people were like oh I guess secession's a thing now so I guess bye-bye southern states it didn't occur to people that they would fight a four-year year bloody war to maintain the status quo. And uh Strong wrote uh at the time he said, "Oh, you know, let him go. This is like cutting off an infected limb. So now we won't have to deal with slavery anymore." Just think how great that would have turned out if you'd been an anti-slavery person. Now you just don't even have to uh be responsible for it any more. It would be like, "Hey, there's there's this other country where bad things we don't like are happening. Let's annex it and hope it all works out." That's I mean now that makes a lot of sense to a lot of Americans who we our foreign policy often is that we effectively annexed Iraq for a number of years. We effectively annexed Afghanistan for 20 years before returning it back to the Taliban. And I mean so stupid policy and so I but I guess many Americans could get behind that sort of thing. But yeah, they should have just had a uh at that point it would it was foreign policy, right? As soon as the southern states secceeded then your dealings with the south was foreign policy and they should have had a non-interventionist foreign policy and and for all the reasons you state though right how great that would be an interesting coup I wonder obviously it would make the south look real bad right so that would make Hollywood happy because they love making the south look bad but at the same time it would make secession look good which would be a great reason to support that uh that miniseries also you know who would have benefited probably from that would have been the native Americans, they would have been able to play off North against South. There wouldn't have been this militarization that occurred during the war, which wiped out tribes way more than probably uh the North would have been able to do after the war after their victory. So there probably would be a lot more tribes extent now um than is the case now. And there would probably be more extensive tribal lands than uh than there are had uh the South been allowed to secede. They could have played up that side of it as well. Also, you could have played up that maybe some Mexicans retook some territory uh in the Southwest, too. Hey, why not? It would have all been a very interesting thing. You're right. And you could have done it in a way that it looked like basically a wonderful wonderful thing. Alas, I don't think they will. Um, but I'm I'm behind you on this though, for sure. >> Yeah. There you go. Especially since I think this is a good way to kind of it's it's sneakily attacking that imperial mindset that Americans certainly have had since World War II, which is what you were saying, Brian, that anytime anything bad happens anywhere on Earth, it's our responsibility to go stop that. That is like I think a major barrier to this thinking that the whole idea that we can let the south go be terrible and that like it's not on us to to do something about that would uh like that that's a major barrier to this kind of thinking. It's a major barrier obviously to a lot of isolationism when it comes to foreign policy. And that would be it's like a different enough scenario where people's guard rails are not going to be up for that. I don't know. It maybe it doesn't have to be a Netflix series. It could be an interesting little like nolla or something, but it it's an interesting way to smuggle in those ideas. >> Well, and of course, they would try to guilt you into it by saying, "Oh, well, don't you care what happens to the slaves in the South?" Absolutely. I care just like I care what happens to innocent Christians who are murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime on a regular basis, but I'm not going to be in favor of the US troops invading Saudi Arabia for the same reasons I wouldn't want them to start a war in the South. And then they resort to some sort of spiritual nonsense. Oh, but we're all Americans. We have a spiritual bond, like complete mumbo jumbo. But that's where it usually ends up is that we have a bond with those people. We're one people. Garbage. Uh, no thanks. Uh, I'm not even one people with New Yorkers. I'm not even one people with people in Connecticut. I have nothing in common with those people. So any claim that we're one people, I would not I would absolutely not uh die to defend uh Connecticut from something. I mean, please. I have a family. I have children. I'm going to what? Volunteer to go off dig a bullet in the head to save Connecticut where most of the people there all the time despise me and my way of life anyway. So, uh yeah, no thanks. Uh I'm out. All right. So, let's move on to the the next topic here. Let's see. Issue three. Uh the Jay Jones thing. This is this has been uh pretty uh pretty big deal. Um, th you wrote a column on this that ran today. Democrats endorse political violence in Virginia. Why don't you just give us the details on what's going on? >> So, it's it's funny. I mean, like this is just such a crazy crazy story. Um, you know, for for those who who may not know, you know, again, Virginia has offyear elections. So, they're electing their attorney general, who is the the leading legal figure in the state. And it comes out their candidate, you know, in in text messages, you know, was was it started off like, you know, there's there's a classic joke, right? something you don't like and and then you add Pulp Pot and Hitler and into the story and it's like, "Oh, you got two bullets. What do you do with them?" You you put two in the head of whoever you're you're making the joke about and it's a dark joke and whatever. Um, you know, and not the first time I've heard that framing, right? And and but it was he was making this in a in a text thread with other people like someone like, "Man, I kind of bothered by this." this guy doubled down like he he was upset that this person was upset and then went on to say that like I wish that this he was referring to the Republican speaker of the house of Virginia like I I I want his kids to dead I want his kids dead like I I want them to feel the pain for policies I assume like you know probably gun control or something that the only way people change their mind is if they feel personal pain that the his wife is evil because he's because she's married to this guy and the the kids who were literally skill. These this is not like don't picture like Eric Trump and Donnie Jr. I mean these are these are school age like eight and nineyear-old kids they're little fascists and they should die. U and then there's another little thing that came out about you know talking about pissing on the graves of Republicans and it was because like Republicans said something nice about a Virginia Democrat that just died and he was like you know apoplelectic that you know they were saying nice things this kumbaya moment. I mean, this guy's running for attorney general. Like, this is not like, you know, running for, you know, state rep in a extremely progressive area, right? I mean, this is this is the chief legal officer for Virginia and no Democrat, no serious Democrat has condemned him. The governor's running with him. Like, in the article, I compared it to Roy Moore's uh scandal that he had, which invol which was 40 years old, dealt with him dating high school's kids. I'm not endorsing dating high school kids when you're a 31-year-old Alabama lawyer, but like that was 40 years ago. Um, you know, it was a bunch of he, you know, she said cases. Again, I'm not trying to say that, you know, not trying to claim it, you know, not trying to any sort of stand on that, but like when that happened, that happened a week a month out of the election. I was I was looking back like, what's the time frame there? Like, you know, was there something different there procedurally, right? They're cared about, you know, this was a national race. This was this was who decided the Senate, right? Like this is higher stakes than a single state. And you had you had all the Republicans, you know, saying like, "No, this guy needs to go out." And like you didn't and and to me, the important thing is not, oh, you know, Democrats are bad, Republicans are good. Like obviously that's that's absurd. The the issue is is that you have a major political party that has no reflex dealing with someone who is who who who has explicitly doubled down believing that the political opposition should be killed because they don't agree with them. It's the complete breakdown of any sort of claim to common morality. It is a complete this is an escalation and this has always been an element again you know if if you if you look at politics in the most cynical way possible right politics is war by other means right this always at the end of the day when you're talking about the use of violence here you always can can break it down to this when there is no common morality that you can appeal to in the middle and what we're seeing what this to me the importance of this story is it's showing just how radicalized the politics is getting not in terms of you know candidate and and you public rhetoric this is personal rhetoric these are personal views and there No like, oh well, sorry guys, like I I hate that we're blowing this race. I don't want 45% of the state to feel like their attorney general wants to kill them. And that is ex that is what is on the ballot here is and and imagine being like again like you know betting betting sites yesterday had this guy you know as as the favorite to win. It was a much smaller margin than it was a couple weeks ago. But like imagine being in Virginia and having this guy elected and and you know I I think again this goes into the the much broader pattern right we're seeing a lot more political migration right I I think this is for all the chaos of DC having having states having localities become increasingly politically homogeneous which is you know basically you know a replacement for culture or something like that just easier to identify as right I think that is a very positive dynamic that's going forward here but it's a shame that what is the the Next uh bastion of this is literal homicidal rants by the potential attorney general of a state. And so I just think the story is just freaking insane. >> I have a well two points on that. Right. The these I might know touching back on just the last issue. People like Jay Jones are the ones who will try and shame you for not caring enough about the lives of people in other places. Meanwhile calling for the literal murder of children in his own backyard. So that's the moral level these people are on. Uh, I just don't want to take part in other people's murder. How about that? But no, that's that's apparently the bad thing. That's the bad position. So, uh, I have a real question here though specifically because looking at this, right, and just the extreme nature of the comments and the fact that anybody with the internet now, anybody can plaster these comments up again and again as we get through the election, right? This isn't like 40 years ago where someone could say something and unless Newsweek brought it up again later, you'd kind of forget about it. Uh, so I I make the point and I don't know if you guys took classes that taught this sort of thing, but since one of my degrees was in political science, I remember this in in school. They would talk about how candidates during the primaries would would move to the wings of the party, right? The more they would take the more extreme positions on the party so that they could get the approval of the diehard partisans. And then during the general election, they would all move to the center and the two candidates would be a lot more similar and they would start saying all these really super like moderate things. Uh so my question is Connor is is that still a thing or if we move beyond that, do we now just get radical and stay crazy through the whole election then and just as long as our core constituents are happy, we somehow manage to ek out a win? I I don't know. Uh I I I have a hard time seeing what the situation is now. >> So I haven't uh thought super deeply about this yet, but my initial reaction uh to to your question to that framing is that I think there's a difference between rhetoric in policy and rhetoric in or extremism in in gosh extremism in policy and extremism in rhetoric. That's what I was trying to say. So, I think the the model still seems to be fairly sound to me when it comes to the actual policies put forward by candidates, but I think Trump especially showed that if you run on pretty moderate policies, but use very extreme rhetoric, you'll get a lot of attention and attention is very good. And when the policies are still somewhat moderate, then the the potential for there to be downsides to all that attention from your extreme rhetoric are it's it's the potential is not that high there. And so I think you we're seeing a lot of of um politicians clumsily trying to sort of copy the Trump model, but they're not quite as good at it as he is. Um I this is a little bit of a different situation just because these were supposed to be private text messages um and and they got out. But that that's kind of my my basic read of of that you know 101 uh polyai kind of election dynamic. Well, so >> I also think it's it's Yeah. Well Well, I think if you think about like what what like the the you know, general election and and you know, there's always a conversation about like the voters in the middle and the voters in the middle like there's different types of like nonpartisan voter, right? You have the apathetic voter that only shows up once every four years, right? Kind of the lowest hanging fruit there. I think that's where like the the Joe Rogan crowd like the the podcast sort of circuit was really big part of the Trump's campaign in 2024. Neither here or there, but it's like that apathetic voter. And then like within the moderate voter, you've got people that there's some some, you know, you've got a segment that they don't think that the the party that they are, you know, in theory more aligned with is is strong enough. So like they're they're upset with the except the Republican party for not being right-wing enough or, you know, Democrat party for not being leftwing on and and and that's going to be the interesting thing though is like Virginia is conceived as right a a moderate state, right? You know, it's it's been kind of reliably blue in terms of some national stuff. Obviously Yncan got elected as the governorship but it was the defin progressing that way. North Virginia, right? You know, a lot of federal money and and you know, even there, right? It was a conception that like, oh, you know, the Republicans are moderate, the Democrats were moderate. And that's why, like, again, like, you know, and maybe this guy loses, right? And and if that's the case, then good for Virginia and like you and it will be because of this. And so, hey, you know, fantastic. But there's there's also a situation where again, moderate Virginia where again, Northern Virginia, which is the the blow the bluest part, which is the the very serious federal employees, right? and these, you know, are okay with this that that that or or at the very least like, oh, you know, I don't like those views, but fantasizing about killing children is less odious than Donald Trump, right? And it's like, look, and I can conceive, you know, I I get it, but at the same time, this but at the same time, like what does that say? Like like this attorney general, this isn't this isn't a legislator. So again, and what that will say and and so to me that the interesting thing is is is how this outcome go. But again, it's just the fact that nobody in the Democratic party of any substance saying no, we we we don't want to be associated with that. And it goes much broader. It goes into some of the rhetoric around Charlie Kirk. It goes into it is a it is a a per a preview of where politics is going. And and again, like the answer is we need to recognize this. We need to take this seriously and we need to talk about things like separating and and you know, raining down these political strengths, right? It goes in the conversation we were having last last week about like, you know, if you need the National Guard to go in there and and to to to write policy, then it shows that you do not have that support there and we need to have a serious conversation about what that really really means. And so again, if the fact that violent explicit violent uh rhetoric is just okay, like I I don't I don't support it, but okay, like this is this is where we're going. And this is not again I I I the the the the number one narrative and I think 2024 disproved that but the number one rhetoric you've heard out there is that Trump was a fever dream. This this is this is an anomaly. He's an outlier. He's the he's the reason for a vulgar discourse etc etc etc. I think this is a very clear demonstration even though you can blame it on Trump. We can't have a Trump MAGA attorney general which I'm I'm sure that guy is like super radical right like you know. Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure he's a diehard you know MAGA guy just like just like Glenn Yncan when I think of uh you know when I think of MAGA you hardcoreism I think of Glenn Yncan. Um, you know, Trump's not an anomaly. He is he is where our politics are going because we're so fundamentally divided on the most basic aspects such as the the the value of life of fellow citizens of of of school children if if their politics of the parents disagree with us. >> Yeah. I think you could easily say that Trump is not the one who created the zeitgeist. The zeitgeist created Trump or made Trump presidency possible. That that's what the the broader reality is. And so maybe we should just be prepared to deal with that uh as as unpleasant as it may be. Well, let's go ahead and move on to issue four, which is uh on Obamacare. I saw that Ron Paul's weekly column this week uh which you can also read at mises.org. Uh he he points out how the Republicans have basically just given up on Obamacare. Remember, if you remember 2016, you remember that the GOP ran on the idea of repealing Obamacare. But that's not even controversial anymore. The Republicans are simply now voting to fund it, to increase its subsidies. And this is something Ron points out in his his uh most recent column all of these points on how yeah that used to be the Republican position and that they now have quote a de facto embrace of the increased Obamacare subsidies which were supposed to be a temporary increase to help Americans who lost their jobs because of the COVID lockdowns. And it's a a little notice but ma but but major milestone in the history of Obamacare. For many years, Republicans campaigned on a promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Opposition to Obamacare along with opposition to the big bank bailouts and cap and trade scheme fueled the Tea Party movement which led to the 2010 2010 election of Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. In 2013, as the federal government was implementing Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans orchestrated a government shutdown. The argument was this u that this was the last chance to repeal Obamacare because once it was fully implemented the number of people who would become reliant on the program would make Obamacare politically impossible to repeal. Looks like looks like that happened. Uh Tea Party was right. They didn't get their repeal because people like Paul Ryan and other centrist Republicans were fine with Obamacare. They weren't willing to expend a scent of of political capital to go against that. And now if you look at the sort of money being spent on health care, most of which is going to Obamacare subsidies and those basically Medicaid, right, which is essentially Obamacare in many cases. Um it's it's through the roof. I mean, just the prices are just amazing. The cost is amazing. It's becoming a larger and larger part of the federal budget every year. Uh you couple that up with interest on the debt. I I mean the the federal budget is just being uh reduced to a health care and interest uh program. Uh of course you have to include Medicare in there. Uh hey, you got to pay for, you know, the elderly's third knee replacement surgery and things like that. Uh at age 90. That's what Medicare is doing a lot of these days. And so uh it's just astounding as to what's eating up the budget. And the Republicans don't care. I mean, it's just this this is the future. It's Obamacare forever. Now they're arguing over, oh, should illegal aliens get access to it? That's the farthest Republicans are willing to go. So, uh, is that up? Should we even bother talking about Obamacare uh anymore? Um, Connor, I mean, is it over? The game's over, right? Obamacare won. Obama won. That's it. I do think Obama won, but I don't think that means we should stop talking about it. I think we should be shaming the Republicans extra hard for this. This I touched on this dynamic in my article this week that like the most you could really expect from Republicans is that they'll push to stop the government from growing. Usually they're just grow they're pushing for the pace of government growth to slow down a little bit. They never really push to reverse it. And when you look at healthare specifically, you have like a 100 plus years of um the government ruining that industry that need to be walked back and like going back like from the beginning they really went after Patrick Newman has a great presentation about this. I think from Misesu a few years ago about how the AMA was put in charge of accreditation standards and they closed like half the medical schools and so like and that was during the progressive era. So like over a century ago, the supply of healthcare was artificially lowered by the government and then especially with like Medicare and Medicaid, they they left all those shortages in place and then just poured tax dollars into it which like cranked up demand. And anybody who's taken even like the basic uh what economics 101 can tell you that like when you do that the price is going to explode and the price did explode. Of course, you know, there's all that uh the through the tax code especially the insurance, health insurance was decoupled from risk and now it's not it's not even really insurance anymore. It's just this third party payment and you basically had this bubble that was growing and growing and growing and then in the early 2000s that was sort of where it peaked and insurance enrollment was going down and it was like this emergency. The whole industry thought that the money would just be coming in forever. And that was specifically what Obamacare came in and fixed from their perspective. It required everybody to have insurance. It cranked up demand for health insurance again. And it basically papered over the problem and kicked the can down the road. And so, yeah, like if if uh if you took them at their word that the whole point of the Affordable Care Act was to make care more affordable, no, it was this huge failure that they'll kind of paper over. But that wasn't the actual purpose of it. It was to keep the racket going. And yeah, that they were absolutely successful with that, which is of course a bad thing. >> I have a slightly different view than Dr. Paul on this one. And and one of the reasons we still have Obamacare is Rand Paul, which is I went on my rant last week about that and I'm still still a little miffed about. Um, but I I I think what what the Yeah, I mean obviously in the short term, yes, the Obamacare framework is there. This is continuing the Obamacare framework as it currently existed, which among its many joys, right? Like I have you seen guys seen like the the pharmaceutical ads for uh uh various brands of like prep's a HIV preventative uh Medicare uh medicine uh which has to be covered by Obamacare insurance plans. Like I we're literally just subsidizing the activity that creates HIV. Do that what you will. Uh which is very good for the Democrat uh constituency particularly in 2010. Um but I I I think the fact that they're having to do these in continual injections of the subsidies again like this was a temporary measure for COVID and now it cannot continue. Yeah. Essentially there's this full recognition that the Obamacare framework does not work without the continuing of these subsidies. I think this actually a a death rattle of the frame. Now what we might get is something worse, right? Like the expectation should be the next attempt to fix this problem is going to be something even further centralizing, right? like that that you know I'm not saying that we're h we we were vindicated. Yeah. See all all those concerns we had back in 2010 turned out to be right and so therefore you're going to listen to us this time. I'm not expecting that. But I I think this is showing that the framework that that Obamacare created is unsustainable. Um and so I I assume that we're going to get a we're going to replace put back in place some of these subsidies right now. I mean and again what else are you going to do in the short term? you you can't fix the I mean just like I mean you know realistically right like you know do you want a situation this is bad policy but like you know I think Marjorie Taylor Green was making this point like look like the people in my district like I don't want them to deal with the consequences of getting rid of this because of how dependent they all become with it right so like they're kind of you know even you know they're kind of screwed off the model that was always built to get to this point right um and so what will be interesting is and that's this is the problem though and I think this is a larger issue I think this is the biggest issue that MAGA has is that all the focus has been on culture wars. It's been on immigration. It's been on um and and there's been this narrow but but influential aspect of it and in thinking about trade in particular, right? Tariffs and screwing us over and whatever. But there's been a complete disinterest in kind of the real core questions on the economic side of things. Economics doesn't matter, you bunch of nerds, right? Like you know, do whatever you will within that. But like it's like we don't need we don't need economists right and what we're seeing is that you know the immigration situation you know you can you can look at uh you there's people that are happy with that right obviously not in places that you know ISIS is getting shut up but like you know there's you MAGA I think MAGA world is happy with immigration MAGA's happy on the cultural front MAGA's happy on a lot of the focuses that the intellectual sphere the Twitter sphere the MAGA sphere has been pushing but what they're not happy with is the economic reality and healthcare which again they've never really considered And ultimately the unraveling I think of you know what is going on right now are these kitchen table issues. It's like we were ranting a couple weeks ago. Why does no one care really about inflation? Inflation is going to undermine all this sort of stuff. Healthcare is going to undermine all this sort of stuff. And so until you have a a a sincere interest in re refiguring out this entire broken system and it's going to turn out that matters. It's going to turn out that you can be good on a lot of a whole lot of things. But if people are are concerned about their ability to access health healthare, all of a sudden their concerns about immigration are going to be a little that's it's not going to be enough. It's it's necessary but insufficient if you will. Um and I I so so again I I think that in the short term this is definitely a win for the you know we're going to get the Republicans signing on to another subsidy, you know, bada boom. But I think this is the start of just get and again you're seeing it from Obamacare fans, Obamacare propaganda saying this isn't working. You're seeing conservatives, haha, we were right. And I and I think going big in this this this arch overarching theme of you know institutions falling apart and particularly the radicalization of the right in view of its view of our governing institutions the positive things that we'd consider. Um Randy Barnett has made this point. I think it's a great point and I think it's it's it's overseen a lot. I think that the reason why the right stopped caring about the constitution, stopped caring about limited government, right, stopped caring about the the the, you know, schoolhouse rock version of the way the conservatives always held themselves in terms of respecting institutions. It was the failure of the Supreme Court to appropriately adjudicate the Obamacare decision. And so you had this entire constitutional tea party movement, right? You you had the people out there and try corner hats and handing out pocket constitutions and and Glenn Beck doing specials about, you know, you know, name your favorite founding father of a week, right? you had that entire, you know, remember the 1776 mentality, right? And it all went out the window and the Supreme Court simply signed off. And it's like, if the processor doesn't work, it's a sucker's game. You're a fool for playing it. And that's why it's like, okay, give us Trump, tear the whole thing down. Give us, you know, whatever, you know, right-wing, you know, give us rightwing FDR, right? That's that decision. It all goes back to that that the Supreme Court failing to do what theoretically it's supposed to do. That has brought us to this point. And it's Obamacare, it's it's continues to live on. Uh we don't have the doctors that we had, but uh it continues to live on. And then the good and and the one positive thing, it's not all doom and gloom, right? Like if if you are someone who utilizes uh direct primary care, then you're probably a lot less concerned about your Obamacare subsidy, right? Did the entire rising industry of the alternatives that were forced to be created because of how freaking insane and stupid and dumb Obamacare is? Uh Dr. Keith Smith, Oklahoma Surgery Center, Free Market Medical Association, all these people. Again, there's a massive massive increase in these alternative services. And this goes to justifying a nerdy, you know, weak libertarian position, right, that the markets can create the solutions to our biggest problems. We're seeing that just not a you know we're not at scale because we still have most of our doctors are still programmed just go along the system as we saw you know very well during co um and so it's going to require a massive shift to the medical profession as well as everything else because again everything has been so freaking indoctrinated going back to you know the point that you made about Dr. Newman's comments about uh uh medical accreditation. Everyone has that the entire profession has been regimented into serving the state for decent now. And so we're starting to see cracks. Like that's the only that's the only solution out to this very very broken system we have. >> All right. Well, um yeah, I think you're right with that assessment, but we'll go ahead and have to wrap up for this episode here. >> I have to go refill my prep medication. Well, yes. Be well. Let's make sure and uh let's do a short on that. Do a to a do YouTube short. >> I'll walk you through the process later on. I want to talk about Del Re. >> Well, thank you everyone out there for listening to this episode of Power and Market. I do not think we will have an episode next week because of the supporters summit. So, um >> see if you want Power and Market next week, you got to be on Del Rey. That's worth the cost of admission right there. >> So, yes, you might have to if you're not in uh if you're not in Florida, then you might have to wait a little bit. >> Yeah. do Power and Market at the Bar exclusive showing. >> We will be back again, however, in the not too distant future. So, we will see you next time. [Music]
Peace in Gaza, Homicidal Text Messages, and the Future of Obamacare
Summary
Transcript
[Music] Welcome back to the Power and Market podcast. I'm Ryan McMin, executive editor at the Mises Institute. This is our current event podcast where we talk more casually about some of the things that are going on every week. But of course, if you want more academically rigorous work, that's really what we specialize in at the Mises Institute. So, I would recommend you visit our website for a lot of great content, economic theory, economic history, uh, general cultural history, lots of good topics that you can get there at mises.org. That's mises.org. And we'll cover a lot of similar topics coming up at our supporter summit, which is next week here. And th why don't you give us a few more details about that? I think you can still uh get in get into that if you are so inclined. >> There are a few seats remaining, not a lot of them. There are a few more seats remaining for that. It will be next week, October 16th through the 18th down in beautiful Delray Beach, Florida. Uh Ryan and Ryan, what do you think about uh vintage pinball? >> Known they've got a great vintage pinball uh facility right down the road from this venue. So, I know I will be checking that out when we are down there. We are going to have a great great group of speakers, uh, including the the prolific James Board. Always a great time. Already looking forward to enjoying a cigar with him during the event. Um, but we also have Joe Serno, we've got Guido Hollesman, we've got Tom Woods, Bob Murphy, Jeff Herbner, Herb Dog, of course, and many, many more, including Ryan McMakon. Connor and I will also be there. Come out, tell us you're a fan of the show. I'll buy you a beer particularly when it's uh you know particularly some nights and uh yeah so next week again it's a great event for our supporters and u you know we're excited for it. It's going to be a good time. >> Find out more.org/events as well. mises.org/events and you can see our full calendar. Our calendar next year guys is insane. We've got like 10 events planned. It's going to be a big one. So if you want to see everything we've got coming up in 2026 mises.org/events /events will not only give you the supporter summit, but our but but are are starting to build our lineup for next week. We are going places. >> Yeah. Not only stuff at our campus in Auburn, but just at >> stuff all over the country, >> North Carolina, Texas, even like maybe maybe some California to figure that one out. But yeah, there's going to be a lot of stuff going on. >> Uh well, do they have any like vintage cabinets of just video games at this thing? What? I I got to get online. What is this pinball thing? I didn't >> Silverball retro arcade. Oh, >> a lot of lot of vintage pinball. I see some ski ball going on. So, yeah, checking that place out. >> All right. Well, that it sounds like it's a 1980s sort of thing. So, of course, I'm in favor. >> All right. Well, let's uh let's talk. We got four issues for you today. Let's see if we can get to all of them. >> Uh issue one is uh Trump is telling us that there is a Gaza deal. There is a Gaza ceasefire. So this is the summary just the basic facts from anti-war.com one of our uh friendly ally sites. The headline is Trump says Hamas and Israel have quote signed off on first phase of ceasefire deal. And this is what Trump has to say. I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line as the first step toward a strong, durable, and everlasting peace. All parties will be treated fairly. The president wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday night, and then he includes all the usual Trumpian sort of, you know, aren't I great and the future is bright sort of stuff. So, I mean, by this point, right, I don't want to be awarded a fooled me again award by taking anything Trump says at face value. So, I suppose maybe just the most important questions are why is this happening now? Assuming it is happening, why is it happening now? And what are we going to be saying about it six weeks from now? like and sort of what's like what's the the short-term outcome uh once it's revealed to have been fake or the whole thing blows up even though Trump did get something very short. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. So, I'm just going to get readings from you guys. So, yeah, what's going to happen here? And why now? Well, I'm hopeful, optimistic. We'll see how this all plays out. We've seen ceasefires come and go in the past. Uh you know, both sides saying the other side violated something here or there. There seems to be a lot more regional players involved in this. There seems to be a little bit more forward thinking or at least the, you know, concepts of a plan, if you will, about, you know, something more lasting here. Um, in terms of like how we got here, there's there's kind of two different narratives out there that I'll let people decide which one seems more right to them. Obviously, I think there's a major turning point with uh when Israel struck Qatar a couple weeks ago. Um, Netanyahu had apologized for that. There were some reports that Trump was furious about it. There's others that that were saying that basically, oh, the Trump administration, you know, technically agreed to that in order to put additional pressure on Qar and that Qatar finally, you know, got you pressured Hamas in a way that could do this sort of stuff. So, like there's two different narratives there. Either Trump was, you know, getting getting tired of Netanyahu. It's like the Steve Bannon narrative that's out there. The other one is, well, they finally got serious on, you know, Hamas's sugar daddies and like that's what led to this. I don't have a strong opinion about which of those narratives are correct. I do think it's interesting that I I saw like Jared Kushner was was out um you know he he's been you know for the most part you know you you out of out of the picture in Trump 2.0. Um he did come up in the news a couple weeks ago because him and some Saudis bought um EA Sports which for gamers out there is is a very interesting deal. I don't think it can get much worse. Um, so we'll see how how the Kushner regime at EA Sports handles it. But but I do think it's an interesting component there where you know obviously Kushner his relation with Netanyahu business partners with the Saudis like you he was obviously played a major role in the Abraham Accords last time around right you know in terms of of of you know Trump's fascination with the Gulf States and the way that this this plays within this dynamic there. So so you know it is interesting to see him play a role um in Egypt and some final negotiations there. It did look at last week that like publicly Israel was thinking that you know Hamas trying to figure out or or the other side um and all the partners involved trying to negotiate some of the finer points from an announced framework last week that oh well see you know they're not agreeing upon it we're going to go back in more right um and and so the fact that it it survived that last week um you know that that Israel does seem to to be agreeing to this um publicly again we'll see how things look out next week we've seen this play before but I think there's a lot more reason for optimism here than we have seen. You know, it's most reason for optimism since October 7th. This is much bigger than anything we've seen on any other front here. And so again, hopefully hopefully we have something that will last. >> Connor, what do you think? >> I mean, I agree with all your analysis there. I I think I just have like a learned Yeah. >> um response to not, you know, put too much not get my hopes too high here. I was kind of hopeful back in I think it was January the last time where it was similar. You were seeing people celebrating in the streets in Gaza and Israel and then that ended up falling apart. And there are just like some elements that I'm concerned about with uh especially Netanyah Netanyahu and his faction in Israel. It's really seemed like they their intent this whole time has been to as they say completely destroy Hamas. and it's looking like they're going to come up short of of that if this goes forward. And I do know like they have elections coming up soon. There's a tremendous amount of pressure. Um that's been put on them to get the hostages out. Uh so this could be them relenting to that. Um but I I guess I my overall take is that u I I wouldn't be that surprised if you know a week from now things start falling apart. I'm kind of mentally preparing myself for that. But that said, with just how horrendous the situation has been over there, if we get a week of peace, I think that's that's still worth celebrating. >> Yeah. I kind of wonder, I mean, on the why now question, it's what motivation. You have to look beyond the strategic situation to figure out any motivation behind why they would agree to a ceasefire now. And by they, I mean state of Israel. um cuz they're winning in terms of just straight up strategy and and tactics, right? The US is not going to withdraw funding. They can just keep bombing the hell out of the place and it's eventually there's not going to be anything there and then they can just annex the area and that's the direction they're headed in. And I'm I'm sure they can accomplish it given enough time. So the question is I mean that would go back I think to what th is saying is that what pressure can the US possibly apply in this situation to uh create a ceasefire agreement? Obviously the the Hamas side or the Palestine side. I mean I guess normal Palestinians aren't even part of the negotiations. I guess it's Hamas. I'm not quite sure how those happen. Um the clearly benefit from a a ceasefire just a temporary one. Uh so it's just it's just unclear to me as to what motivation is is behind it. Uh it's like with the Russians, right? The Russians have absolutely no reason to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine right now. They're winning. There's about a 90% chance they will win. Uh so why stop now? And so I mean I guess we'll just see. We might find out later in terms of what deal is being struck. But maybe maybe Trump's just presenting it as a personal favor to himself uh for something for a time being so he can claim some kind of uh victory here, diplomatic victory, but in the longer term, right, I I even if there's like good faith right now, I have a hard time believing that uh six months from now, let alone a year from now or 18 months from now, that there's still an enduring ceasefire. there that just seems really hard to believe. >> Well, I think it's going to be a question of what's the political situation like in Israel, right? Like if if Netanyahu is is removed from the table there, then I I think that whole dynamic changes very very quickly. Um and so like that's I think it's kind of similar with the Ukraine situation, right? Like you know, Zalinsky is not someone who I think can accept a deal that seeds massive parts of territory. And so you have the interconnectedness of his political career with the the existence of that conflict. Netanyahu again. Yeah, I think the analysis out there that Netanyahu kind of needed the war to continue in order for his own political aspirations to continue considering all the turmoil that he had prior to October 7th and however that might have played into that whole origin of the conflict there. Um, do with that what you will. And so that's I think that is the most interesting aspect going forward is that you know is is Netanyahu defeated politically or is he rewarded in which case who knows? Um but I do think if you get a political change that that you know changes the calculation there in terms of what this means you know a year from now. >> Yeah. There's so many things up in the air like that and it would be interesting to watch if fighting does resume after these hostages have been released. Like that's been an interesting dynamic to watch. Is the dynamic going forward that Hamas has lost their leverage because they're no longer holding any captives or is that the Israeli government has lost their excuse? Cuz like I'm sure you guys saw like anytime you'd say anything about how this war is terrible that the like the first thing you'd hear back was well it would all stop if the host hostages got released and if they lose that then it's like what what do they really have to to stand on? >> Right. Well, and it's not like there wasn't an ongoing bloody conflict before the >> before October 7th. I mean, it's been a constant state of conflict since the ' 40s. And so, this idea that, right, the the only reason there's any sort of conflict going on is because of the hostages just isn't plausible at all. So, given the length and duration of of the the conflict, the scope of it, why would it stop now even with a ceasefire? Um, it's obviously not a truce. It's not some sort of change. It's not a two-state solution. It's just some sort of ceasefire that uh could potentially make Trump look better. So, uh I guess we'll just see how that plays out. Uh issue two. I guess we'll just have to wait and see see more >> uh as time goes on. >> Fingers crossed. >> Yeah. Now, the the next issue I think is something that's it's this is something that comes up repeatedly as well every now and then. Um I'll just I'll just note that there's a headline the Wall Street Journal. The reason I bring it up is the Wall Street Journal was talking about it again um in recent weeks is uh the headline out of the journal was Newsome falls for the red moocher state myth. Now, I'm sure you guys are familiar with this. Uh this is this is the idea that that blue states contribute most of the tax dollars in the United States and that red states are filled with unproductive moochers and that there's a general transfer of wealth from blue states to red states. And this has been this has been a general theme uh used by Gavin Nuome uh for months now and maybe it even goes back even further this particular headlines from last month. But he keeps making hints along these lines right about how productive and amazing California is and how all the red states are crimeridden poverty uh hell hole sorts of places. And this is just a thing he keeps coming back to. So the journal then was looking at this issue and and it caught my attention because we at mises.org org have run a number of articles on this topic over the years as well where you can just go into the numbers and you can come up with the idea, right? And the idea is you got to look at um the amount of tax revenue produced in each state, which is easy enough info to get, but then you need to look at uh how much federal dollars are going to each state and then you compare one to the other, right? And if more tax revenue is coming out of that state going to the feds than is coming back, then uh you're a you're one of the nonmoocher states? If you're if you're a state where you're getting more tax revenue uh than you're sending to Washington your uh you're a moocher state. So the question is are red states moocher states? Now I've run the numbers a couple of times and it man it totally depends on what numbers you use and how you crunch the numbers and that's a little bit of the point uh he's making here. The author is uh Stephven Malanga at um at the journal and he picks apart a little bit about Nuome's Nuome's numbers saying that well if you look at it this way if you look at it that way what I found is that for the most part a lot of these states are really more like a dollar in a dollar out like a$15 in dollar five cent dollar out 98 cents in $1 out right it's not like there's some big difference there are some states where there is a big difference say like Mississippi and West Virginia for example there are a couple stands out standouts uh New Mexico probably where the major industries in these places or the major source of income is transfer payments through federal programs most states aren't like that though and also and those three states by the way all have very different demographics we might note West Virginia is a white person state Mississippi not so much New Mexico is a largely Hispanic state lots of federal jobs there. It's not actually poverty relief that you see as much there um as you might say see in West Virginia. So once you start crunching all these numbers this there's this idea that oh you red states should be thankful for all of the money that we blue states pump in and it's it's kind of an attempt and it's obvious pandering to his his core audience, right? I mean he's just saying these things because other people who are already diehard Democrats are going to agree with it and think it's fun to point that out and makes red state people look stupid. Uh the question though is that they always kind of imply that they're being exploited by red states. Look, we're giving this money. We're not getting it back. You red state people are getting it. So they so the implication is they're getting some sort of raw deal by just being in the United States. So the question is if they're being exploited so bad with the red states, why don't the blue states just leave? If how come they never suggest, hey, we should just secede and leave and keep our dollars? They never seem to say that. that never seems to be an option. Uh so what is the solution then to this horrible problem that the blue states are pointing out of their exploitation by the red states? Wouldn't simple separation then? California could easily go it alone as they like to point out but they they never if you actually propose that they they never take the idea seriously. So so how do how do we solve the problem? What should California do to solve this horrible exploitation that's going on? You know, I'm fully in favor of Klexic. They can they can even throw in Washington and uh Oregon and you know, hey, more power to you. King Newsome. Hey, that that's seems a good ring to it out there. But no, I mean, and what's also interesting is just like how much this this stuff has changed in terms of how normal people are reacting, right? You're not people people very rarely flee to poverty. And yet what we've seen, you know, and obviously there's there's a political component to it, which I think is the most interesting aspect of modern American politics is is is the the vote by your feet feet political migration aspect of domestic American politics. I as a Floridaian, I see that all the time. Um, but people are fleeing California and New York and Illinois. Um, and it's it's they're not fleeing because they desire, you know, the poverty of Mississippi, right? You know, they're they're they're fleeing. I mean, you Florida, Texas, I mean, Tennessee, um, you know, Indiana. And I mean these these are all up and cominging and and obviously a major part of this too is the separation between major cities and rural America. You you've historically had you know major cities within blue states for a variety of reasons. Now you're seeing you know certain areas you places like Miami like Tampa um you know other areas you know have have have really you know risen significantly over the last few decades as well here. But but you know they they can't you know this is not within their mentality. Uh it is interesting. We we noted last week about with the uh federal uh troops going into certain areas. It is interesting that we saw this play out particularly with um uh Illinois and Chicago this week about a refusal to cooperate there. So we're starting to get a little bit more of that that states rights tension. Of course, you know, predictably, you know, MAGA intellectuals out there, you know, talking about, oh, you know, the the Democrats are finding their their traditional neoconfederate uh roots there and plain off is a bad thing. He's like, "No, like you morons." Um, but you know, so so maybe you know, maybe maybe we're a year away from from having a a reconsideration of of a callexit dynamic there. But I think this all you know, you the the major uh I think motivating factor of the political left is their their their great pride in their uh you know, it's progressive supremacy over the rest of the rubes who uh can't see you know make up you know progressive boogeyman x y and z. And so therefore, this just feeds into, you know, an entire political aesthetic that is based upon their own intellectual superiority to the rest. And therefore, the the the red state moocher myth narrative fits very very well with the way that they view the rest of the world. >> Yeah. Why don't they just leave, Connor? I mean, what what's stopping them? >> That's a big question. I do think like this does get brought up usually in the context of like when a red state or somebody from a red state is talking about, hey, you know, we should secede. It's sort of a counter like, hey, well, you guys are going to really suffer because you're, you know, riding off of us and all of our resources. And it's just like it's just politics. If it was the reverse and they were convinced that things were flowing the other way, they would just paint the red states as greedy there. So, I don't put too much stake in that specific um claim here. I do hope you're right, though. Like, if if we're a few years away from a serious calexit movement, that's great. I just think that there is a lot of um mythologizing of the civil war especially that has to be uh worked back. I think like people uh and I we're raised we're trained to think this way. They think secession is a synonym for being enthusiastically pro-slavery and that's certainly true in California and like there's a lot of uh work to be done there. You've obvious obviously done great work on that Ryan. That's like that's one of your issues but I think um that's a huge barrier when it comes to you know this rhetoric being uh transitioned within that kind of California world into actual you know real thoughts about hey what what could this look like? >> Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason I wrote Breaking Away, which is my book on secession, is uh I the world did not need another book about 19th century American secession. So, it mostly covers other countries uh secession as it occurred throughout the 19th and 20th century in other places where it had nothing to do with slavery whatsoever. But I think it's pretty safe to say that the average American uh knows nothing about those things. The average American probably couldn't even find any of those countries mentioned on a map, right? So, I mean, what happened with secession in Malta in the 60s, Malta? Well, never heard of it. That's probably what you'd get from most Americans. So, I mean, it's just the issue is to them is it's it's Lincoln. It's Civil War stuff. And they think it has something to do with slavery. So, that's Yeah, that's going to be a hard thing to overcome. It will I wonder what they'll have to say about Alberta because Alberta has an election coming up on the issue of secession from Canada. And if they vote yes, I'm told by I was recently told by an Albertan that there would then be a genuine legislative uh committee set up to pursue the option of secession uh and to explore it. Well, I don't know. Will we be told that Albertans are latent slave mongers? I I mean I don't I don't know. Uh it seems like that's a that's an it's an unpleasant counter example just like Scotland's secession from uh the United Kingdom several years back. However, this brings us back a little bit to this issue of oh, we're paying all the money in uh and we're not getting it back. Is that in the case of the Scotland secession, a a um a tactic was to tell all of the old pensioners, well, you can't secede because you depend on our social security dollars. And so I think that's going to work the best on older people. This idea of you can never split up the country because then you won't get your social security which is just one of the most brilliant things the government ever did was to create this centralized federal welfare state instead of allowing states to do their own welfare systems which was one of the options during New Deal years if you look at it. But uh that was deemed unacceptable by the central government. we want one big welfare state and now they got everybody over a barrel basically leave and you don't get your welfare dollars so that's probably going to work for a long time and this seems to be a related argument to that I've got a silly idea but I I'm also kind of serious about it what we really need a couple years ago there was discussions about like uh the game of thrones people were looking at doing an alternative history about like what the south had won the confederates or something there's a few other projects that came out and they all got scrapped what we really need is like a Netflix drama uh of like an America where the where the south had one and but like instead of focusing on like how the south is bad just talk about like the utopia like really leaning into this myth right like like you know you could have like every everyone just has like a plucky character talking about how great their healthare system is because they don't have to deal with those you know that poverty written south and like look at all all these incredible things like just just put it out there within the culture and allow for this perspective leaning into this very narrative about how think imagine how great things would be if they wouldn't have to deal with, you know, the these backwards racist Nazi southerners and we could just all have our our our our, you know, cosmopolitan city wealth and the the great world we could live in. Um, so again, if anyone out there has a Netflix connection, you know, pitch that out there as a drama because I think I think if if people conceived of that, like if you could actually have that sort of visual and that sort of narrative out there, I think that would actually go a long way in terms of uh making the world a better place. >> Well, that was William Lloyd Garrison's idea, right? is the the North should secede from the United States and create a non-slavery republic of its own and that was his idea in the 1840s and in the 50s which was a great idea and why not and also uh George Templeton Strong who was a attorney at the time in the early days of secession there was no clear position lots of people were like oh I guess secession's a thing now so I guess bye-bye southern states it didn't occur to people that they would fight a four-year year bloody war to maintain the status quo. And uh Strong wrote uh at the time he said, "Oh, you know, let him go. This is like cutting off an infected limb. So now we won't have to deal with slavery anymore." Just think how great that would have turned out if you'd been an anti-slavery person. Now you just don't even have to uh be responsible for it any more. It would be like, "Hey, there's there's this other country where bad things we don't like are happening. Let's annex it and hope it all works out." That's I mean now that makes a lot of sense to a lot of Americans who we our foreign policy often is that we effectively annexed Iraq for a number of years. We effectively annexed Afghanistan for 20 years before returning it back to the Taliban. And I mean so stupid policy and so I but I guess many Americans could get behind that sort of thing. But yeah, they should have just had a uh at that point it would it was foreign policy, right? As soon as the southern states secceeded then your dealings with the south was foreign policy and they should have had a non-interventionist foreign policy and and for all the reasons you state though right how great that would be an interesting coup I wonder obviously it would make the south look real bad right so that would make Hollywood happy because they love making the south look bad but at the same time it would make secession look good which would be a great reason to support that uh that miniseries also you know who would have benefited probably from that would have been the native Americans, they would have been able to play off North against South. There wouldn't have been this militarization that occurred during the war, which wiped out tribes way more than probably uh the North would have been able to do after the war after their victory. So there probably would be a lot more tribes extent now um than is the case now. And there would probably be more extensive tribal lands than uh than there are had uh the South been allowed to secede. They could have played up that side of it as well. Also, you could have played up that maybe some Mexicans retook some territory uh in the Southwest, too. Hey, why not? It would have all been a very interesting thing. You're right. And you could have done it in a way that it looked like basically a wonderful wonderful thing. Alas, I don't think they will. Um, but I'm I'm behind you on this though, for sure. >> Yeah. There you go. Especially since I think this is a good way to kind of it's it's sneakily attacking that imperial mindset that Americans certainly have had since World War II, which is what you were saying, Brian, that anytime anything bad happens anywhere on Earth, it's our responsibility to go stop that. That is like I think a major barrier to this thinking that the whole idea that we can let the south go be terrible and that like it's not on us to to do something about that would uh like that that's a major barrier to this kind of thinking. It's a major barrier obviously to a lot of isolationism when it comes to foreign policy. And that would be it's like a different enough scenario where people's guard rails are not going to be up for that. I don't know. It maybe it doesn't have to be a Netflix series. It could be an interesting little like nolla or something, but it it's an interesting way to smuggle in those ideas. >> Well, and of course, they would try to guilt you into it by saying, "Oh, well, don't you care what happens to the slaves in the South?" Absolutely. I care just like I care what happens to innocent Christians who are murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime on a regular basis, but I'm not going to be in favor of the US troops invading Saudi Arabia for the same reasons I wouldn't want them to start a war in the South. And then they resort to some sort of spiritual nonsense. Oh, but we're all Americans. We have a spiritual bond, like complete mumbo jumbo. But that's where it usually ends up is that we have a bond with those people. We're one people. Garbage. Uh, no thanks. Uh, I'm not even one people with New Yorkers. I'm not even one people with people in Connecticut. I have nothing in common with those people. So any claim that we're one people, I would not I would absolutely not uh die to defend uh Connecticut from something. I mean, please. I have a family. I have children. I'm going to what? Volunteer to go off dig a bullet in the head to save Connecticut where most of the people there all the time despise me and my way of life anyway. So, uh yeah, no thanks. Uh I'm out. All right. So, let's move on to the the next topic here. Let's see. Issue three. Uh the Jay Jones thing. This is this has been uh pretty uh pretty big deal. Um, th you wrote a column on this that ran today. Democrats endorse political violence in Virginia. Why don't you just give us the details on what's going on? >> So, it's it's funny. I mean, like this is just such a crazy crazy story. Um, you know, for for those who who may not know, you know, again, Virginia has offyear elections. So, they're electing their attorney general, who is the the leading legal figure in the state. And it comes out their candidate, you know, in in text messages, you know, was was it started off like, you know, there's there's a classic joke, right? something you don't like and and then you add Pulp Pot and Hitler and into the story and it's like, "Oh, you got two bullets. What do you do with them?" You you put two in the head of whoever you're you're making the joke about and it's a dark joke and whatever. Um, you know, and not the first time I've heard that framing, right? And and but it was he was making this in a in a text thread with other people like someone like, "Man, I kind of bothered by this." this guy doubled down like he he was upset that this person was upset and then went on to say that like I wish that this he was referring to the Republican speaker of the house of Virginia like I I I want his kids to dead I want his kids dead like I I want them to feel the pain for policies I assume like you know probably gun control or something that the only way people change their mind is if they feel personal pain that the his wife is evil because he's because she's married to this guy and the the kids who were literally skill. These this is not like don't picture like Eric Trump and Donnie Jr. I mean these are these are school age like eight and nineyear-old kids they're little fascists and they should die. U and then there's another little thing that came out about you know talking about pissing on the graves of Republicans and it was because like Republicans said something nice about a Virginia Democrat that just died and he was like you know apoplelectic that you know they were saying nice things this kumbaya moment. I mean, this guy's running for attorney general. Like, this is not like, you know, running for, you know, state rep in a extremely progressive area, right? I mean, this is this is the chief legal officer for Virginia and no Democrat, no serious Democrat has condemned him. The governor's running with him. Like, in the article, I compared it to Roy Moore's uh scandal that he had, which invol which was 40 years old, dealt with him dating high school's kids. I'm not endorsing dating high school kids when you're a 31-year-old Alabama lawyer, but like that was 40 years ago. Um, you know, it was a bunch of he, you know, she said cases. Again, I'm not trying to say that, you know, not trying to claim it, you know, not trying to any sort of stand on that, but like when that happened, that happened a week a month out of the election. I was I was looking back like, what's the time frame there? Like, you know, was there something different there procedurally, right? They're cared about, you know, this was a national race. This was this was who decided the Senate, right? Like this is higher stakes than a single state. And you had you had all the Republicans, you know, saying like, "No, this guy needs to go out." And like you didn't and and to me, the important thing is not, oh, you know, Democrats are bad, Republicans are good. Like obviously that's that's absurd. The the issue is is that you have a major political party that has no reflex dealing with someone who is who who who has explicitly doubled down believing that the political opposition should be killed because they don't agree with them. It's the complete breakdown of any sort of claim to common morality. It is a complete this is an escalation and this has always been an element again you know if if you if you look at politics in the most cynical way possible right politics is war by other means right this always at the end of the day when you're talking about the use of violence here you always can can break it down to this when there is no common morality that you can appeal to in the middle and what we're seeing what this to me the importance of this story is it's showing just how radicalized the politics is getting not in terms of you know candidate and and you public rhetoric this is personal rhetoric these are personal views and there No like, oh well, sorry guys, like I I hate that we're blowing this race. I don't want 45% of the state to feel like their attorney general wants to kill them. And that is ex that is what is on the ballot here is and and imagine being like again like you know betting betting sites yesterday had this guy you know as as the favorite to win. It was a much smaller margin than it was a couple weeks ago. But like imagine being in Virginia and having this guy elected and and you know I I think again this goes into the the much broader pattern right we're seeing a lot more political migration right I I think this is for all the chaos of DC having having states having localities become increasingly politically homogeneous which is you know basically you know a replacement for culture or something like that just easier to identify as right I think that is a very positive dynamic that's going forward here but it's a shame that what is the the Next uh bastion of this is literal homicidal rants by the potential attorney general of a state. And so I just think the story is just freaking insane. >> I have a well two points on that. Right. The these I might know touching back on just the last issue. People like Jay Jones are the ones who will try and shame you for not caring enough about the lives of people in other places. Meanwhile calling for the literal murder of children in his own backyard. So that's the moral level these people are on. Uh, I just don't want to take part in other people's murder. How about that? But no, that's that's apparently the bad thing. That's the bad position. So, uh, I have a real question here though specifically because looking at this, right, and just the extreme nature of the comments and the fact that anybody with the internet now, anybody can plaster these comments up again and again as we get through the election, right? This isn't like 40 years ago where someone could say something and unless Newsweek brought it up again later, you'd kind of forget about it. Uh, so I I make the point and I don't know if you guys took classes that taught this sort of thing, but since one of my degrees was in political science, I remember this in in school. They would talk about how candidates during the primaries would would move to the wings of the party, right? The more they would take the more extreme positions on the party so that they could get the approval of the diehard partisans. And then during the general election, they would all move to the center and the two candidates would be a lot more similar and they would start saying all these really super like moderate things. Uh so my question is Connor is is that still a thing or if we move beyond that, do we now just get radical and stay crazy through the whole election then and just as long as our core constituents are happy, we somehow manage to ek out a win? I I don't know. Uh I I I have a hard time seeing what the situation is now. >> So I haven't uh thought super deeply about this yet, but my initial reaction uh to to your question to that framing is that I think there's a difference between rhetoric in policy and rhetoric in or extremism in in gosh extremism in policy and extremism in rhetoric. That's what I was trying to say. So, I think the the model still seems to be fairly sound to me when it comes to the actual policies put forward by candidates, but I think Trump especially showed that if you run on pretty moderate policies, but use very extreme rhetoric, you'll get a lot of attention and attention is very good. And when the policies are still somewhat moderate, then the the potential for there to be downsides to all that attention from your extreme rhetoric are it's it's the potential is not that high there. And so I think you we're seeing a lot of of um politicians clumsily trying to sort of copy the Trump model, but they're not quite as good at it as he is. Um I this is a little bit of a different situation just because these were supposed to be private text messages um and and they got out. But that that's kind of my my basic read of of that you know 101 uh polyai kind of election dynamic. Well, so >> I also think it's it's Yeah. Well Well, I think if you think about like what what like the the you know, general election and and you know, there's always a conversation about like the voters in the middle and the voters in the middle like there's different types of like nonpartisan voter, right? You have the apathetic voter that only shows up once every four years, right? Kind of the lowest hanging fruit there. I think that's where like the the Joe Rogan crowd like the the podcast sort of circuit was really big part of the Trump's campaign in 2024. Neither here or there, but it's like that apathetic voter. And then like within the moderate voter, you've got people that there's some some, you know, you've got a segment that they don't think that the the party that they are, you know, in theory more aligned with is is strong enough. So like they're they're upset with the except the Republican party for not being right-wing enough or, you know, Democrat party for not being leftwing on and and and that's going to be the interesting thing though is like Virginia is conceived as right a a moderate state, right? You know, it's it's been kind of reliably blue in terms of some national stuff. Obviously Yncan got elected as the governorship but it was the defin progressing that way. North Virginia, right? You know, a lot of federal money and and you know, even there, right? It was a conception that like, oh, you know, the Republicans are moderate, the Democrats were moderate. And that's why, like, again, like, you know, and maybe this guy loses, right? And and if that's the case, then good for Virginia and like you and it will be because of this. And so, hey, you know, fantastic. But there's there's also a situation where again, moderate Virginia where again, Northern Virginia, which is the the blow the bluest part, which is the the very serious federal employees, right? and these, you know, are okay with this that that that or or at the very least like, oh, you know, I don't like those views, but fantasizing about killing children is less odious than Donald Trump, right? And it's like, look, and I can conceive, you know, I I get it, but at the same time, this but at the same time, like what does that say? Like like this attorney general, this isn't this isn't a legislator. So again, and what that will say and and so to me that the interesting thing is is is how this outcome go. But again, it's just the fact that nobody in the Democratic party of any substance saying no, we we we don't want to be associated with that. And it goes much broader. It goes into some of the rhetoric around Charlie Kirk. It goes into it is a it is a a per a preview of where politics is going. And and again, like the answer is we need to recognize this. We need to take this seriously and we need to talk about things like separating and and you know, raining down these political strengths, right? It goes in the conversation we were having last last week about like, you know, if you need the National Guard to go in there and and to to to write policy, then it shows that you do not have that support there and we need to have a serious conversation about what that really really means. And so again, if the fact that violent explicit violent uh rhetoric is just okay, like I I don't I don't support it, but okay, like this is this is where we're going. And this is not again I I I the the the the number one narrative and I think 2024 disproved that but the number one rhetoric you've heard out there is that Trump was a fever dream. This this is this is an anomaly. He's an outlier. He's the he's the reason for a vulgar discourse etc etc etc. I think this is a very clear demonstration even though you can blame it on Trump. We can't have a Trump MAGA attorney general which I'm I'm sure that guy is like super radical right like you know. Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure he's a diehard you know MAGA guy just like just like Glenn Yncan when I think of uh you know when I think of MAGA you hardcoreism I think of Glenn Yncan. Um, you know, Trump's not an anomaly. He is he is where our politics are going because we're so fundamentally divided on the most basic aspects such as the the the value of life of fellow citizens of of of school children if if their politics of the parents disagree with us. >> Yeah. I think you could easily say that Trump is not the one who created the zeitgeist. The zeitgeist created Trump or made Trump presidency possible. That that's what the the broader reality is. And so maybe we should just be prepared to deal with that uh as as unpleasant as it may be. Well, let's go ahead and move on to issue four, which is uh on Obamacare. I saw that Ron Paul's weekly column this week uh which you can also read at mises.org. Uh he he points out how the Republicans have basically just given up on Obamacare. Remember, if you remember 2016, you remember that the GOP ran on the idea of repealing Obamacare. But that's not even controversial anymore. The Republicans are simply now voting to fund it, to increase its subsidies. And this is something Ron points out in his his uh most recent column all of these points on how yeah that used to be the Republican position and that they now have quote a de facto embrace of the increased Obamacare subsidies which were supposed to be a temporary increase to help Americans who lost their jobs because of the COVID lockdowns. And it's a a little notice but ma but but major milestone in the history of Obamacare. For many years, Republicans campaigned on a promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Opposition to Obamacare along with opposition to the big bank bailouts and cap and trade scheme fueled the Tea Party movement which led to the 2010 2010 election of Republican takeover of the House of Representatives. In 2013, as the federal government was implementing Obamacare, Tea Party Republicans orchestrated a government shutdown. The argument was this u that this was the last chance to repeal Obamacare because once it was fully implemented the number of people who would become reliant on the program would make Obamacare politically impossible to repeal. Looks like looks like that happened. Uh Tea Party was right. They didn't get their repeal because people like Paul Ryan and other centrist Republicans were fine with Obamacare. They weren't willing to expend a scent of of political capital to go against that. And now if you look at the sort of money being spent on health care, most of which is going to Obamacare subsidies and those basically Medicaid, right, which is essentially Obamacare in many cases. Um it's it's through the roof. I mean, just the prices are just amazing. The cost is amazing. It's becoming a larger and larger part of the federal budget every year. Uh you couple that up with interest on the debt. I I mean the the federal budget is just being uh reduced to a health care and interest uh program. Uh of course you have to include Medicare in there. Uh hey, you got to pay for, you know, the elderly's third knee replacement surgery and things like that. Uh at age 90. That's what Medicare is doing a lot of these days. And so uh it's just astounding as to what's eating up the budget. And the Republicans don't care. I mean, it's just this this is the future. It's Obamacare forever. Now they're arguing over, oh, should illegal aliens get access to it? That's the farthest Republicans are willing to go. So, uh, is that up? Should we even bother talking about Obamacare uh anymore? Um, Connor, I mean, is it over? The game's over, right? Obamacare won. Obama won. That's it. I do think Obama won, but I don't think that means we should stop talking about it. I think we should be shaming the Republicans extra hard for this. This I touched on this dynamic in my article this week that like the most you could really expect from Republicans is that they'll push to stop the government from growing. Usually they're just grow they're pushing for the pace of government growth to slow down a little bit. They never really push to reverse it. And when you look at healthare specifically, you have like a 100 plus years of um the government ruining that industry that need to be walked back and like going back like from the beginning they really went after Patrick Newman has a great presentation about this. I think from Misesu a few years ago about how the AMA was put in charge of accreditation standards and they closed like half the medical schools and so like and that was during the progressive era. So like over a century ago, the supply of healthcare was artificially lowered by the government and then especially with like Medicare and Medicaid, they they left all those shortages in place and then just poured tax dollars into it which like cranked up demand. And anybody who's taken even like the basic uh what economics 101 can tell you that like when you do that the price is going to explode and the price did explode. Of course, you know, there's all that uh the through the tax code especially the insurance, health insurance was decoupled from risk and now it's not it's not even really insurance anymore. It's just this third party payment and you basically had this bubble that was growing and growing and growing and then in the early 2000s that was sort of where it peaked and insurance enrollment was going down and it was like this emergency. The whole industry thought that the money would just be coming in forever. And that was specifically what Obamacare came in and fixed from their perspective. It required everybody to have insurance. It cranked up demand for health insurance again. And it basically papered over the problem and kicked the can down the road. And so, yeah, like if if uh if you took them at their word that the whole point of the Affordable Care Act was to make care more affordable, no, it was this huge failure that they'll kind of paper over. But that wasn't the actual purpose of it. It was to keep the racket going. And yeah, that they were absolutely successful with that, which is of course a bad thing. >> I have a slightly different view than Dr. Paul on this one. And and one of the reasons we still have Obamacare is Rand Paul, which is I went on my rant last week about that and I'm still still a little miffed about. Um, but I I I think what what the Yeah, I mean obviously in the short term, yes, the Obamacare framework is there. This is continuing the Obamacare framework as it currently existed, which among its many joys, right? Like I have you seen guys seen like the the pharmaceutical ads for uh uh various brands of like prep's a HIV preventative uh Medicare uh medicine uh which has to be covered by Obamacare insurance plans. Like I we're literally just subsidizing the activity that creates HIV. Do that what you will. Uh which is very good for the Democrat uh constituency particularly in 2010. Um but I I I think the fact that they're having to do these in continual injections of the subsidies again like this was a temporary measure for COVID and now it cannot continue. Yeah. Essentially there's this full recognition that the Obamacare framework does not work without the continuing of these subsidies. I think this actually a a death rattle of the frame. Now what we might get is something worse, right? Like the expectation should be the next attempt to fix this problem is going to be something even further centralizing, right? like that that you know I'm not saying that we're h we we were vindicated. Yeah. See all all those concerns we had back in 2010 turned out to be right and so therefore you're going to listen to us this time. I'm not expecting that. But I I think this is showing that the framework that that Obamacare created is unsustainable. Um and so I I assume that we're going to get a we're going to replace put back in place some of these subsidies right now. I mean and again what else are you going to do in the short term? you you can't fix the I mean just like I mean you know realistically right like you know do you want a situation this is bad policy but like you know I think Marjorie Taylor Green was making this point like look like the people in my district like I don't want them to deal with the consequences of getting rid of this because of how dependent they all become with it right so like they're kind of you know even you know they're kind of screwed off the model that was always built to get to this point right um and so what will be interesting is and that's this is the problem though and I think this is a larger issue I think this is the biggest issue that MAGA has is that all the focus has been on culture wars. It's been on immigration. It's been on um and and there's been this narrow but but influential aspect of it and in thinking about trade in particular, right? Tariffs and screwing us over and whatever. But there's been a complete disinterest in kind of the real core questions on the economic side of things. Economics doesn't matter, you bunch of nerds, right? Like you know, do whatever you will within that. But like it's like we don't need we don't need economists right and what we're seeing is that you know the immigration situation you know you can you can look at uh you there's people that are happy with that right obviously not in places that you know ISIS is getting shut up but like you know there's you MAGA I think MAGA world is happy with immigration MAGA's happy on the cultural front MAGA's happy on a lot of the focuses that the intellectual sphere the Twitter sphere the MAGA sphere has been pushing but what they're not happy with is the economic reality and healthcare which again they've never really considered And ultimately the unraveling I think of you know what is going on right now are these kitchen table issues. It's like we were ranting a couple weeks ago. Why does no one care really about inflation? Inflation is going to undermine all this sort of stuff. Healthcare is going to undermine all this sort of stuff. And so until you have a a a sincere interest in re refiguring out this entire broken system and it's going to turn out that matters. It's going to turn out that you can be good on a lot of a whole lot of things. But if people are are concerned about their ability to access health healthare, all of a sudden their concerns about immigration are going to be a little that's it's not going to be enough. It's it's necessary but insufficient if you will. Um and I I so so again I I think that in the short term this is definitely a win for the you know we're going to get the Republicans signing on to another subsidy, you know, bada boom. But I think this is the start of just get and again you're seeing it from Obamacare fans, Obamacare propaganda saying this isn't working. You're seeing conservatives, haha, we were right. And I and I think going big in this this this arch overarching theme of you know institutions falling apart and particularly the radicalization of the right in view of its view of our governing institutions the positive things that we'd consider. Um Randy Barnett has made this point. I think it's a great point and I think it's it's it's overseen a lot. I think that the reason why the right stopped caring about the constitution, stopped caring about limited government, right, stopped caring about the the the, you know, schoolhouse rock version of the way the conservatives always held themselves in terms of respecting institutions. It was the failure of the Supreme Court to appropriately adjudicate the Obamacare decision. And so you had this entire constitutional tea party movement, right? You you had the people out there and try corner hats and handing out pocket constitutions and and Glenn Beck doing specials about, you know, you know, name your favorite founding father of a week, right? you had that entire, you know, remember the 1776 mentality, right? And it all went out the window and the Supreme Court simply signed off. And it's like, if the processor doesn't work, it's a sucker's game. You're a fool for playing it. And that's why it's like, okay, give us Trump, tear the whole thing down. Give us, you know, whatever, you know, right-wing, you know, give us rightwing FDR, right? That's that decision. It all goes back to that that the Supreme Court failing to do what theoretically it's supposed to do. That has brought us to this point. And it's Obamacare, it's it's continues to live on. Uh we don't have the doctors that we had, but uh it continues to live on. And then the good and and the one positive thing, it's not all doom and gloom, right? Like if if you are someone who utilizes uh direct primary care, then you're probably a lot less concerned about your Obamacare subsidy, right? Did the entire rising industry of the alternatives that were forced to be created because of how freaking insane and stupid and dumb Obamacare is? Uh Dr. Keith Smith, Oklahoma Surgery Center, Free Market Medical Association, all these people. Again, there's a massive massive increase in these alternative services. And this goes to justifying a nerdy, you know, weak libertarian position, right, that the markets can create the solutions to our biggest problems. We're seeing that just not a you know we're not at scale because we still have most of our doctors are still programmed just go along the system as we saw you know very well during co um and so it's going to require a massive shift to the medical profession as well as everything else because again everything has been so freaking indoctrinated going back to you know the point that you made about Dr. Newman's comments about uh uh medical accreditation. Everyone has that the entire profession has been regimented into serving the state for decent now. And so we're starting to see cracks. Like that's the only that's the only solution out to this very very broken system we have. >> All right. Well, um yeah, I think you're right with that assessment, but we'll go ahead and have to wrap up for this episode here. >> I have to go refill my prep medication. Well, yes. Be well. Let's make sure and uh let's do a short on that. Do a to a do YouTube short. >> I'll walk you through the process later on. I want to talk about Del Re. >> Well, thank you everyone out there for listening to this episode of Power and Market. I do not think we will have an episode next week because of the supporters summit. So, um >> see if you want Power and Market next week, you got to be on Del Rey. That's worth the cost of admission right there. >> So, yes, you might have to if you're not in uh if you're not in Florida, then you might have to wait a little bit. >> Yeah. do Power and Market at the Bar exclusive showing. >> We will be back again, however, in the not too distant future. So, we will see you next time. [Music]