Episode 2575 CWSA 08/23/24 — Scott Adams Philosophy

Episodes › Episode #2575 › Segments

NewsReaction Politics as Persuasion

Back to episode — Episode 2575 CWSA 08/23/24

Context —

mp. Trump actually called him. He's on air. Like, "Give me a call." And next thing you know, he's on the phone live with Trump. He puts on the speakerphone and Greg has to tell him, you know, "The audience is here. Don't say anything embarrassing." And then the funniest part, the funniest part is that Greg had to do a show and it wasn't really the most convenient thing to have a half-hour conversa…

← Previous segment →

ourselves from violence? So I think Trump is still in the clearly acceptable range of discussion. I don't think Pelosi is, and I don't think Kamala Harris is when they talk about he's stealing your freedom and stuff and being an insurrectionist. Some of it is just normal political talk. If a candidate says, oh, they're taking away your freedom, that alone isn't going to cause violence because it just sounds like political talk. But if you pair that with, well, he did try to take over the country once and he's this unstable crazy narcissist, he's a psychopath, doesn't care about anything but himself, if you start adding it all together, he sounds like somebody who's literally really dangerous in the real world, which he's not as far as I can tell. So that's that.

All right. RFK Jr. I believe I heard that Trump has a secret guest today at his rally. And we heard that RFK Jr. has pulled out of Arizona from the presidential race, which you wouldn't do if you were planning to stay in. So the rumors seem to be pretty strong and consistent, and we don't see any denials when there's plenty of time to deny. For example, Nicole Shanahan has not made a denial, and it looks like something's going to happen. Now, I'm going to stop short of saying that the rumors are true. So the rumors are that RFK Jr. is going to endorse Trump, and in return would get some role in the government. I think it's going to be less than that. I'm not saying those things won't happen, but I think by today's rally it might not be as strong as that. It might be a little circumspect. So it could be, for example, I'm just speculating now, it could be that RFK Jr. doesn't want to do an unambiguous, complete endorsement of Trump because that might be too far. I mean, the reason he was running against Trump and against Biden at the time was because he thought the two candidates didn't have the goods. If he had from the very beginning thought everything Trump was doing was the good stuff, he wouldn't have run.

So here's what would make me feel like honesty had happened. Because

Context —

I'll tell you the one thing that I most appreciate about Kennedy and Shanahan: I don't think they lied about the other team. Can you give me any example? Have either of them at any time said something about the other candidates that you said, well, that's just a lie, that's not true, you just made up something so you can complain about it? I don't think I saw it once. Did any of you see that? Did…

Next segment → →

← ← Previous segment

Next segment → →

Wisdom from this episode

"Some of it is just normal political talk. If a candidate says, oh, they're taking away your freedom, that alone isn't going to cause violence because it just sounds like political talk. But if you pair that with, well, he did try to take over the country once and he's this unstable crazy narcissist, he's a psychopath, doesn't care about anything but himself, if you start adding it all together, he sounds like somebody who's literally really dangerous in the real world."

Routine political hyperbole about losing freedoms registers as empty rhetoric and rarely sparks violence, but combining it with claims that someone is a psychopath or insurrectionist builds a picture of genuine real-world danger.