Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
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MainContent Cognitive Reframing

Back to episode — Episode 2695 CWSA 12/20/24

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was for ordinary Americans and the answer simply couldn't be that it wasn't. Do you call that not dishonest? I don't know. Seems to me if you start with a narrative and you do everything you can to prove it and then you find out that you can't prove it and then you write the story anyway, that feels dishonest to me. I don't know how you define dishonest but as described it looks a little dishonest…

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gitimate press by saying anti-immigration.

Then here's the second part. They're saying that this AfD party in Germany has quote historical connections to Nazi era rhetoric. What? That's like saying that the Democrats were the founders of the KKK which by the way somebody says on social media every freaking day and it drives me crazy. No I'm not going to judge the Democrats by something that long dead people did if they're not doing it today and they're clearly not. Back the KKK today? Would it be fair to say I'm going to describe the Democrat Party as the party that has historical connections to the KKK and there's nothing else you need to know? Would that be news? Well it's true but it's completely opposite of what reality is which is the Democrats are very anti-KKK obviously.

So when I read the news saying that this party has historical connections to Nazi era rhetoric and Elon Musk is maybe some kind of a Nazi because he supports them, I don't know the truth but I'll tell you what it leads me to think. It leads me to think that this party might be the only thing that can save Germany. I'm not terribly worried that they're all going to become Nazis because if the only thing you could say is they have some historical connection to bad rhetoric, historic connection, come on that's all you got.

Now to be fair if there's more to this story and that party does worse things than I know, I would like to know that. Maybe I will revise my opinion. But if your summary of the party for how bad they are is anti-immigration and historical connections to bad talking, that's all you got. Those are your top two lines in criticizing that party. I'm not in favor of them so somebody's going to say Adams is supporting the Nazi party. I don't know anything about them. I'm not supporting them. I'm just saying the reporting is strongly screaming that maybe they're not so bad. That's what the reporting is telling me. That's not my opinion.

So of course Pelosi is on the bandwagon calling Trump a puppet of Musk and of course all they're doing is gaslighting when Republicans are trying to solve a problem. But poor David Axelrod, one of the last smart advisers on the Democrat side. I like following him because he keeps saying things that are close to just common sense but he can't get any Democrats to agree with him. He's trying as hard as he can to get the Democrats to act like a proper political party, you know with reasonable opinions and stuff. Poor guy.

Anyway he said quote not sure about this speculation about Trump tiring of Musk and shunning him. So he's basically telling the Democrats that their main messaging is just not a good idea and it's dumb. So yeah he's one of the few ones who feel comfortable. But he must feel the absurdity level of going from the Democrats instantly pivoted from Trump is a dictator, strongman, Nazi personality who must control everything all the time and then immediately he became under the control of one person, Elon Musk. Now of course that didn't happen. Of course Trump's in charge and of course he's one of the most confident people in the world.

Here's where I think the, oh reportedly considering separating each individual bill to vote on instead of a big one. So it looks like the vote today may have hit a breaking point where they need to break it into separate bills. That's a good idea if they can make that work.

So did Trump really turn from the strongman insurrectionist Hitler into a puppet of Musk? The level of absurdity in that gaslighting is one that Axelrod just didn't want to be part of apparently. He's like I'm not so sure this is a good idea because it just looks stupid. Just looks stupid.

Now I can't speak for what Trump is thinking but I can say with some confidence that there's one thing that the Democrats probably don't understand because I think that they believe their own narratives. And one of their narratives is that Trump is insecure. He's insecure. What if, if there's one thing I'm completely certain of, he's not insecure. He might be the most confident person you've ever met. And he likes people who are smarter than he is if they're on his side. Musk is on his side. He's smarter than all of us. Trump likes that. He doesn't dislike that. Now he might dislike the messaging that the Democrats are doing but do you think that Trump is dumb enough to push Musk out of the most useful thing anybody's ever done in this country which is DOGE? You would have to assume that Trump was a completely different person. Trump likes winning. He likes really smart people and Musk is popular so he likes everything about this. And I think the Democrat messaging is really just another sign that they don't have anything. They have nothing to offer to the American people. They don't have a policy. They don't even have truth. They don't have fact checking. What do they have? It's literally nothing but gaslighting.

All right. I think it's funny that Justin Trudeau might lose his job just because Trump rattled his cage but also because Trump is looking hyper capable when Trudeau is not. So there's a contrast problem in persuasion. The idea of contrast is, some, you can even argue it's all of persuasion because all persuasion is choosing between alternatives. You're trying to get somebody to choose one alternative versus another. So what you compare things to usually determines what people will choose. Your comparison.

So Trudeau was being compared until now to let's say the new president of Mexico who's not exactly hitting home runs, to the president of the United States who is literally mentally disabled.

All right so I was just reading a comment because I thought it was about the bill approval. So I think when you have a Trump who is not even elected president and he is already de facto president because we like what he's doing, he's collected the smartest people in the world, he's already changing things. Putin's already said he wants to talk. I mean basically Trump is killing it like no president ever has. Would you agree with that statement? Would you agree that as a president-elect, someone who hasn't been sworn in, nobody's ever been close? Is that a fair statement? I don't think there's any hyperbole in that. I don't believe anybody has ever done anything as impressive for the pre-presidency. Nothing as impressive as what Trump has done. Not even close.

Now Canada is up there watching that and they're like did they just figure out how to attack their debt problem bec

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ause the smartest people are going to work on it. The two smartest people, Trump and Musk. They must be getting jealous as hell. And then he starts teasing them like maybe they should be a 51st state. Now I don't think he means that and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to take on that many crazy people and add them to the vote. That'd be a little jarring for the United States. But the fact that…

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