Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive August 24, 2026
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Episodes Episode #2415 Segments
MainContent Politics as Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2415 CWSA 03/16/24

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an interview about the allegations that his wife is a man. Now here's the funny part. He didn't ask that question specifically. He didn't say, you know, there's an allegation your wife is a man. What he said was there's an allegation that some of the Mar-a-Lago files included some information about Macron's sex life. And that Trump said at one point that he had some shocking information about Macr…

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. I could imagine it happened. Now that makes you speculate what is it that the public would not be able to see so many years later. And I would say the obvious answer is that it was an inside job. Isn't that the obvious answer? Because if it was an inside job then it suggests that nothing's changed and they could take out the president anytime they wanted. So I'm going to say that the lack of producing it probably means exactly what you think it means. Probably means exactly what you think it means. Yeah, it might implicate some famous people from our past in a way that we couldn't survive it. This might actually be an existential threat. It could reduce the trust in the system. I don't know why anybody trusts the system at this point, but there are people who do. And that could be like the final blow to any trust in the system. And that'd be bad.

Now here's the weirdest story in the world. Apparently there's a Russia election and Russia's new electronic voting system — the very same system that Putin himself voted on — got massively hacked, they say. So over 990,000 cyber attacks reportedly traced back to Ukraine and North America. Huh. North America. Surprise. It's almost as if America tries to interfere in elections in other countries.

Now here's some questions you might ask. Why did Russia introduce electronic voting machines that are connected to the internet and therefore could be hacked? Russia has electronic voting machines attached to the internet. Why is it? Because electronic voting machines attached to the internet saves you money? Big cost saver. I've never heard that. Is it because it reduces costs for ongoing maintenance? Probably not. Is it because you get faster results when you have machines? No indication of that. Is it because you can reduce cheating with machines? Opposite.

So what would be the reason that Russia has machines, and interestingly attached to the internet? Can you think of any other reason other than to make it easier for Putin to cheat and guarantee a win? What would be the other reason? I mean I'm open to another reason. You can't conclude something from lack of reasons. I'm just saying that there is an interesting lack of reasons. And I wonder if there was anything we can learn from the Russia situation that would apply to us. I wonder.

Well, here's a story about the moms and dads taking charge when the government fails. There's a group called MomsAcrossAmerica.org. And apparently somebody said they do good work and do their homework, etc. But they say donuts contain way too much of this thing called glyphosate, which I believe is a weed killer. Is that true? Is glyphosate a weed killer? I think it is. But they're saying that Dunkin' Donuts has too much. Now again that's just a claim by this group. I can't know what's true. And they say it's like way more dangerous than other foods and you shouldn't start your day with a bunch of glyphosate. They say.

Now regardless of whether this is technically accurate or dangerous or not, those are questions I can't answer. I am interested that there's a group called Moms Across America and they're going out and doing something that you would very much want your mom to do, which is make sure your food was safe. Isn't that the most mom thing you could ever do? Make sure the kids are eating safe food. So I love that.

At the same time you're seeing a lot of internet dads trying to close the border. So that's sort of a dad job, security. And you see David Sacks and other internet dads — I'll call them — trying to end the Ukraine war, trying to talk that out of existence. And that's a dad job. And my earlier comment was when there's danger people retreat to gender roles because that's their greatest truth. Right? You know you can have the luxury of playing around with stuff when you're not in danger. But as soon as there's danger people just go right to gender roles. Now again like everything I say that's a generality. It does not apply to every single person because every person is infinitely unique. But there are some generalities which are worth noting.

So here's a perfect example. The moms are going after the quality of the food as they should. The dads are going after let's stop this war and close the border as they should. So at least that part's working out. At least even if politics is broken, you know what's not broken? Mom and dad. Mom and dad's still not broken. I would argue that now mom and dad is the most important for us in

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the country because they're the ones holding it together against all odds. Well, Elliot Page — you know Elliot Page, actor Elliot Page, who was once an actress but I think I'm deadnaming her old job or something by saying actress — is now an actor named Elliot Page. And NBC News reports that Elliot is taking aim at the notion that queer films only have a small audience, saying that 30% of young p…

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