The Real Clear Podcast with Dr Lucas Klein is the in-depth analysis and commentary on current political events through a psychological lens. The Real Clear podcast covers a wide range of topics, from the latest election results to policy debates, to exploring the impact of current events on the political landscape.
Transcript
Good morning folks. Saturday, september 9th 2023. Real clear podcast. Your host, dr Lucas Klein. Psychologist. Why am I coming to you this morning? Why am I coming to you with these political and psychological analyses at all? It takes time. When I have longer interviews it takes a lot of production value. Soon I'm going to be having an exceptional co-host joining me monthly. You're really going to enjoy this. It's going to be released in the earlier part of every month, so stay tuned for that. But I've really been wondering why am I speaking to you at all and why are you listening? Maybe you have a need to listen to me. If you do, I'd like to know what the need is. Go to realclearpodcastcom and Comment on this post and let me know. Maybe you can all chime in and interact. You can message me if you don't have the funds to become a subscribing member. It is just five dollars or nine dollars a month at present. It might go up in the future. So get in now if you can, and that'll allow you to comment and interact with me on the post. But if you really don't have the change, then you can message me. I might have time to respond to you. I try to, but I don't always. In any event, I'd like to know what am I offering here that is necessary. I'm getting messages I have since I began saying that there are certain themes that are present. I don't tend to get too radicalized in my responses to radical things, and a lot of people experience that as a keeping of sanity, so that's one thing that I've heard that is useful. What I'm wondering about this morning is is the world really really crazier, or is it some sort of Illusion where we're not noticing positive stories? So let's investigate this a little bit. I Could easily go through any number of crazy stories that indicate a loss of social sanity. As I'd mentioned a lot of times on the podcast, 2020 was actually a psychotic break for the country. Everyone was in lockdown and then George Floyd hit and we went insane. All right, that's a clinical diagnosis for our entire country. We went insane. Here's an example in in Minnesota, the vice chair of the Democrat Party who, in 2020, was decrying in an arrogant fashion. From what I can read on the various stories, defunding the police and so forth. I mean I don't need to read you the quotes, I mean you know what they were it's defund the police. Let's say it with me now. All together, we can dismantle the police. You know that kind of chatter, that kind of nonsense from 2020 which some people are still peddling out these days. Well, guess what's happened to her? She's been bloodied in her own driveway from a carjacking, broken leg, contused head. And guess what she's doing now? Calling for tougher crime measures. Yep, yep. She wants the police to be quicker. She wants more, more funny against crime out there. We need to really hold these people accountable. She's now saying Folks, she's not the only one like that out there, she's just one story. How did so many people like her lose it in 2020 and now have a some sort of amnestic disorder For what was going on with them back then? Now they're behaving as though they have a righteous indignation For the failings of a police response. Well, hello, you don't need me to provide an analysis on this. You could shift to another story. There's a man who's been appointed as an elementary school teacher in Oklahoma, who has a record of being accused of child pornography and spends a lot of his time as a drag queen. Well, the latter is not maybe as Disturbing as the former, but my god, you would think, even if you've got a history of being accused of child pornography, you would not be hired as an elementary school teacher and you wouldn't seek to be. So that's crazy. We could go on. I mean, this stuff just keeps going. Apparently, the higher levels of kidney disease in the African-American community. That's definitely racism right there, definitely. But you don't want to look at the fact that Stanley Goldfarb, md, is a renowned physician and distinguished professor from Penn Med, told me previously on our podcast Well, no, that's because they have a gene that is adaptive, from sub-Saharan Africa, that fights against malaria but happens to predispose people to kidney disease. Okay, hello, that's a reasonable response. But apparently being reasonable these days is racist. Another story I read this past week was that getting up early is white supremacy. Yep, yep, getting up early. If you get up early, you're a white supremacist, and if you think others should too, like being on time, that is definitely white supremacy. If you expect people to be on time, you're simply following a white Eurocentric focus on chronological time. You can't make this stuff up, folks. Okay, how does a society function when certain people can lay claim to well, I have a different cultural value around time. So I know I'm supposed to be here at 830, but you know I might get here around 10, and if you think I should be here earlier, you're white supremacist. You cannot have an economy at that point. If people can't show up on time, they can't start projects on time. So how have we gotten here? I mean, this is this is really bananas, or have we gotten here? Let's return to my premise. Are there some sort of litany of positive stories that we're just missing? Well, let me go to theweekcom and read the good news of the week, september 7th. You'll see that these are really significant stories. Pilot reunites Texas girl with a doll she left in Tokyo. A rare bird was reintroduced into the New Zealand wild. A nursing home adopts dogs that kept letting himself in. A new snake-like robot could make major discoveries in space. That's pretty cool. And a groundbreaking surgery gives women her voice back. Last two pretty cool. First three complete nonsense. And this is from a news site that is seeking out positive stories. I don't know what to tell you. There's a counter-baller, there's an imbalance here. I should say the negative stories. Maybe we're all attracted to them, maybe we're all masochistic. Now we're drawn to suffering in a way that makes us tune into these stories inordinately and there's less of an interest, and hence less capital, going towards sourcing positive stories. That's probably true. Stephen Pinker thinks that's true. But what about something else? As I mentioned last time, we may be alive altogether, everyone listening now to witness the actual end of the Democrat process, the Democratic process in America. Think what you like about Donald Trump. Okay, this is not a support of him. I'm simply saying he's a candidate who might be removed from the ballot in certain states and if that happens, you will have witnessed the actual termination date of the Democratic process in the United States. You'll be in a rocking chair someday explaining to kids a wistful looking through cataracts, out into the planes, smoking a corn cob pipe, talking about the day it all ended. Really, I mean, this is the seriousness of this moment. So let's run through it for a second. As I mentioned, he is being charged on RICO statutes in Georgia. If he's convicted of that of racketeering, conspiracy to commit crime broadly then he can be barred from running for any seat in the United States, any political office, according to the federal code I believe it's section 12 or 18. So that's what the various states will use. That's the entry point for the DNC in various states to remove the major frontrunner against them from the ballot. If that happens, in even one swing state, it's over. The Democrat process will, at that point, have ended. Why do I think this? And what's really going on? Okay, so some people will say, well, no, no, no, they'll be writing ballots. People will just show up and write his name in. Not the case, if you look at voter turnout. If a candidate is Alleged to be removed from the ballot and that news story proliferates through the communities, it will suppress voter turnout to an extent that Write-in on the ballot will be really ineffectual, and that's what's gonna happen if this goes down. So are we in a state of demoralization? I mean, if the Democrats can remove a candidate from the ballot, why can't the Republicans next time? And then back and forth. And now we're in a banana Republic. This will have demoted us to a third world state and, like I said last time, maybe because we have crumbling airports, we just have a crumbling civilization, I don't know, but most people feel as though they're in the midst of a period of demoralization. And what's the greatest measure of that? The greatest measure in your personal life is Do you find yourself having to say things that you don't believe are true and that you believe are truly absurd. If that's the case, if you have to say things or you feel like you have to, you're at great risk, publicly or interpersonally, for saying things that are reasonable, and that you feel pressured to say things and State support for things that are crazy and absurd. That is probably the greatest indication that our society is in a slant towards demoralization. And when demoralization happens, usually Historically, that is the entry point for a tremendous amount of authoritarianism. The civilization loses its Hutzpah, loses its gusto, and when the voting members of people on their feet going to the ballot box no longer see the purpose in doing so, then you've got the recipe for a vertical disaster top-down power actually running society for their own means, and this could be, you know, people can talk about this as a Marxist aim, a Maoist aim. I happen to think it is a Maoist aim. And of course, the end is not going to be equality, because in systems of equality Some people are more equal than others, if I can put it that way. What this really does is disband society and it's the cycle, perhaps, of Disintegration. I think all civilizations, all economies certainly are on a circular, endless path of going from profound extreme capitalism with no safeguards to a socialism that has some sort of interweaving of capitalism, like you see in Scandinavia and really what you see in America to actual communism which crumbles, and then you have the Revitalization of a pure capitalist economy, and so on and so forth, and cycle goes. And you might find it interesting to know, by the way, that the United States, as a percentage of its GDP, spends more on government than China as a percentage of its GDP. America spends more on its government than Communist China does as a percentage. Holy smokes Guys. I bet you didn't know that, and so maybe I'm leaving you with a sense of demoralization even further. I don't know. It's okay. If that's needed, that's needed. Maybe that's why you turn to me. Maybe these kinds of Grim realities, the determination to look squarely into a sobering picture of what's really happening, is why you tune into me. I don't know. I'd love to know, so let me know. All right, all right. So that's this morning's thought, that's this morning's rant. I don't know, I find myself ranting more and more these days. Maybe you find that useful. Rants are interesting things because they represent a certain kind of spontaneity and willingness to put yourself on a role without, without, restraint, like I have nothing in front of me right now. I'm not looking at a script, I'm not reading. I'm just coming to you with a reflective process about being in the world in 2023, september 9th. Okay, folks, I'll tune into you and and give you more of this this coming week and, as I'd mentioned, I plan on coming to you just about every day, as much as I can. Stay tuned and, as always, take care of yourself.