Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And if Broncos cheerleaders and former Broncos aren't enough, maybe
Bruce Melman will be there too.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I think Bruce probably travels too much to come to
Denver right now. But Bruce Melman is one of the
most interesting and in demand political analysts and consultants anywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We're very, very.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Fortunate to get some of his time, especially Bruce after
just having traveled like NonStop for the last However, however
much I'm gratefully you're taking a few minutes with us
as you're catching your breath.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Well, it's great to be here, Ross, And apparently there's
interest in something happening in a week. So who knew?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And who knew? Indeed?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All right, let me start with with this. If if
you had to bet, without giving or receiving odds, just
straight up, if you had to bet on who's going
to be the next president of the United States, who
would you bet on? And then the more important part
of the question is why would you make that choice?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Or I'll start with I'm comfortable taking either side of
a bet at this point. It's so close and I
can easily see a path that either of these folks
are going to win. If you told me right now though,
that you and I are betting, and you're going to
get me tickets to the to the Broncos, And if
I win or you win, I'll get you tickets to
(01:22):
the Washington commanders, who appear to be on a mission
from God. If you watch the end of the last
game against Chicago, I say, on election night before we
go to bed, it's clear that the Senate has gone
to the Republicans. By the end of the election week,
the Trump will be declared the winner by the Associated Press,
and we won't know who won the House of Representatives
(01:44):
until the middle of December, because it's going to come
down to just a few races and a few recounts.
It's going to be that tight. Like I said, I
can easily make a case either way. But right now,
if I had to bet a dollar, that's my current betting.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Okay, I think you and I are about on this
same page.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I think I think you and I are about
on the same page in that I told listeners at
fifty to fifty with no odds, I would bet on
Trump right now. And I'm not betting on the election,
by the way, but on a lot of these betting websites. Now, Kamala,
if you bet on Kamala Harris, you get two to
one odds, And I actually think that's probably the bet
(02:22):
with the most value. Kamala Harris at two to one,
I think that's under priced, even though I think with
no odds, I think Trump is probably a very slight favorite.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So do you think that the you know, the let
me reword that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It seems like the coalitions in this election are pretty
different than the last two presidential elections, right, you know,
Trump is picking up some Hispanics and picking up some
blacks and picking up.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Some young men.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But Kamala, I don't know. So how do you see
who is voting for each of these?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, you're right, although you'd also asked on the watch,
and I think if if at the you know, when
we look back and the answer is and by the way,
you're right, two to one odds are way better than
you'll get on I think reality where it's super tight.
If Harris loses, it'll be first because she's part of
an incumbent administration. Since the pandemic, incumbents have been losing
(03:19):
elections all around the world. Happened in the UK happened
to a degree in France. You know, the coalition got
busted up. It's going to happen in Japan. It's happened.
It's going to happen in Canada. It happened in Korea.
It's she ultimately will not have been able if she loses,
to have had enough distance from an unpopular Biden administration
(03:41):
for her to be the change candidate. Number one. Number two,
people are unhappy with prices having gone up, and even
though the rate of inflation is moderated, at the end
of the day, the party in power owns the fact
that things cost a lot more today than they cost
when they came in. You know, number three, I think
she's not. If she loses, she will not have been
(04:02):
able to get the distance she needed to get from
a lot of the very left positions she staked out
in twenty twenty, which she ran. If Trump loses, it'll
be a variety of things. First, you know, he has
made a point for nine years of sticking his finger
in the eye of lots of different people and lots
of different group He beat Hillary Clinton in the electoral College,
but he got about forty seven percent of the vote.
(04:24):
He barely lost to Joe Biden, getting more votes than
any incumbent president in history, just fewer than Joe Biden got.
It's twenty twenty, but he got forty seven percent of
the vote, the real clear average, not the margin between
him and Harris, but his share for the most of
the year has been forty seven percent, So he may
have a hard stealing here where some combination of sort
(04:46):
of the Nikki Haley, Liz Chain, he just don't think
he's fit folks, combined with particularly women who are really
upset about the Dobbs decision, may ultimately power a win
by Harris. As could add in, her campaign has more
money than any campaign in history by a lot, So
if she doesn't win, and eight for lack of resources,
(05:07):
she's been able to advertise, she has a much bigger
and more professional get out the vote operation. She's got
a stronger execution capability than Trump has. So there is
a totally foreseeable story out there on coalitions. You're right,
he's trying. We're seeing a bit of a realignment where
if you have a college degree, you're increasingly a Democrat.
(05:30):
If you don't, you're increasingly a Republican. And this is
cutting across racial lines in a way that people used
to think couldn't happen, but is happening now. The Dems
have gone from the being the party of the factory
floor to being the party of the faculty lounge. Republicans
have gone from being a party of the country club
to being the party of the countryside. And you're seeing
(05:53):
Trump's vote, Trump's numbers among a multi racial working class
coalition growing. You know that may Or may not out
last Trump, but likewise Harris is. There'll be a bigger
gender graph we've ever seen, and Harris will do better
with college educated voters than any president, any Democrat in
modern history.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We're talking with Bruce Melman.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I want to make sure that you go to his substack,
sign up for his substack.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
He does.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He posts these things.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Called six Chart Sunday, which unsurprisingly comes out on Sunday,
and it's just fantastic information and just very clear thinking
and analysis. So if you just type into whatever you
search engine you use Bruce Melman, which is m E
H L M A N substack, you will find it.
His substack is called Age of Disruption and you can
(06:45):
you can subscribe for free.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So let's do a little bit of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Hyper Yeah, and it's free.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, it's free. That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It's not often you get great content for free these days.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Why is it free?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Your content is uh, you know, good enough to be
paid for, So why is it free?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Well, uh, it's not what I core do for a living.
I find it fun and interesting, and at least for now,
I'd rather have more eyeballs, the people of different backgrounds
taking it out, checking it out and giving me feedback
than than trying to you know, beg everybody like a
lot of my favorite substacts. Do you know, please sign up?
(07:26):
If you sign up today, you get a light bulb
and like I, you know, maybe I'll end up there
somewhere in my future. But for now, I've got a
bipartisan public affairs firm, you know, half Republican, half Democrat.
I earn a fine living and a lot of the
work that a lot of the thinking, a lot of
the analysis that goes into these are are part of
(07:46):
you know, more in depth and bespoke work that we
do on behalf of paid clients. But it's you know,
sort of like your great work. It's just fun. It's
fun to have people care and find it interesting. And
share it with others, and it's it's fun to have
people sign up and shoot you an email and you know,
usually politely tell you what they don't agree with or
or hopefully politely tell you what they like.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
All Right, I don't want to take this next thing
too far, but I'm going to ask you if you
think there's anything to it at all. So, way back
in the day, the South was dominated by conservative Democrats
who and I'm talking about forties, fifties, sixties ish right
(08:28):
conservative Democrats against civil rights legislation and so on, and
a lot of those people turned into Republicans, and that's
why the South is deep red now do you?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And again, I don't want to take this.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Too far, because the Democratic Party still has.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The squad and still has all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
But when we're talking about these changing coalition alignments, and
you know, you talked about the what was it, the
the going from the what to the countryside what was it?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Country club to the countryside country club?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Country club?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So how much does it feel to you like the
Democratic Party is turning into the Republican Party, and the
Republican Party is turning into the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It doesn't feel like that to me no. I mean
that maybe depends on where you want to go look
and win. But you know, the Republican Party and a
Democratic Party are both amidst civil wars. A lot of
people complain that we don't have multi party systems. What
we have is we have two parties that kind of
continue to evolve, and they evolve often when it's clear
(09:38):
they're no longer satisfying people. So I would go back
at maybe at least the Ross Parrot and the reform
energy from Ross Perot went in one direction and ultimately
became Bernie Sanders kind of the left wing populists who
think globalization and big corporations, big business or screwing everybody,
and the other one went through Pat Buchanan. It up
(10:00):
as the Mago wing of the Trump Republican Party. It's
not your father's Republican Party, you know, where whether it's
fiscal rectitude, I don't see either party doing that. You know,
the Dems have a civil war between the progressive base
that was clearly winning out in eighteen and nineteen and
was going to nominate Bernie Standards if the establishment Democrats
(10:21):
didn't all get behind Joe Biden to avoid the Trump
beating Bernie in twenty twenty. The Republican establishment tried to
stop Trump and failed. In twenty sixteen. They sort of
kind of tried and canton the primaries this time when
he swatted them away. But it's definitely the Democrats are
definitely not the old Republicans. To some degree, they are
(10:43):
because there was a time to your point, when Republicans
were better on civil rights and civil liberties. Certainly Lincoln
you could check that box, and even in the fifties,
You're right, the old FDR coalition. At the end of
the day, the New Deal put civil rights on the
back burner because they needed Southern Democrat populists to go
along with a lot of the FDR economic reforms. And
(11:05):
even though history suggests that FDR and particularly his wife
were want to be civil rights reformers, there's a lot
of stuff they didn't do that they should have done,
whether you know, the GI Bill or just a lot
of reforms really did not bring African Americans along in
a way that is to the discredit of the then
(11:25):
Democratic Party. Although you know, they I assume we're trying
to live in the art of the doable as opposed
to you know, die getting nothing done, but standing entirely
for what's right. The Republican Party back then was better
old civil rights. But in the Nixon era, the Republican Party,
through the so called Southern Strategy, started winning over the
(11:47):
Southern Conservatives who were who didn't appreciate Lindon Johnson's civil
rights efforts, and they came over to the GOP. The
GOP now and possibly going forward, though, is no longer
the party of big business. They want to be a
multi racial, working class party. The Democrats also don't want
(12:07):
to be the party of big business. They like big
business leaders to a degree, but they're far more in
favor of taxation of business, regulation of business, anti trust,
breakup of business. They're a lot. They are like the
Republicans under Trump, are much more skeptical of free markets
and free trade. Big business is politically homeless right now.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, I will say.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I neither I neither love nor hate big business. What
I hate is what's called crony capitalism and the way
that big business has the ability to buy or rent
politicians and get them to change the law to benefit
big business, to stomp competition, and so on. The other
just quick comment in response to what you said. What
scares me most about all of this is that there's
(12:56):
not there's nobody on the Democratic side and not enough
people on the Republican side who care about debt and
deficit anymore. And for me, that's the biggest issue, right
I keep I have two teenage kids, and I think
about what are their opportunities going to be in the
future if America continues on this fiscal path. And this
is what scares me the most. Do you come in
(13:16):
on that quickly? And then I'm gonna ask you one
more thing.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, look, America seems to be going bankrupt gradually. And
then suddenly, Now that said, you've been following the stuff
I put out for a while, ross I did wanted
twenty three on the four Addictions, pointing out debt as
something we seem addicted to, and I figured it's going
to end ugly at some point when you know, the
bond market or inflation or something forces rough change. But
(13:45):
I also was willing to acknowledge by putting out magazine covers.
Here are the magazine covers in the seventies, the debt bomb,
Why America can't you know? Why are debts going to
dround us? In the eighties. America is going bankrupt in
the nineties. We can't keep going debt forever. The tens,
the twenty twenties. It can't last forever. But a holy cow,
has it lasted longer than I thought it would last.
(14:08):
At the moment, there's no alternative. If you have money,
where are you going to put it? You want to
go invest in China? Good luck to you, buddy. You
don't do the wrong side of you know, President she
and you know in the Communist Party in your toast.
We still have rule of law, We still have prey
liquid markets. I worry a lot about debt if it's
the only issue you worry about. When you go and
(14:29):
you look at all of the analyzes, what they find
is if the next president does nothing, debt as a
share of the economy will be greater than after World
War Two. Harris makes it worse, and Trump makes it
even worse because Trump and Vance want to cut eleven
trillion dollars in taxes, which some of which I will appreciate,
but they don't. There aren't the spending cuts by not
(14:51):
touching entitlements, not touching defense, not touching VA veterans, there
aren't eleven trillion dollars spending. The cut even if you
cut it all, wants to raise taxes by five trillion
dollars because of a sense that her spending, which is
larger than Trump's, is not adequately offset, so she offsets
it with five trillion dollars of tax cuts. So there
(15:14):
is no candidate who stands for fiscal rectitude, and I
don't see either of the next presidencies enforcing it. Theoretically,
if it's a Harris president and a Republican Senate, you
could envision a tax and spend ugly standoffs, sort of
like you saw with Bayner and Obama ultimately led to
a flat federal spend for a bunch of years.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Right, That whole sequester thing, which was actually Obama's Treasury
Secretary Jack Lu's idea, turned out to be the best
fiscal thing that the Republican Congress did the whole time
they were there, and it was sort of an accident.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Only have about three minutes left, So see if you
can give me maybe one minute each for each party
on what I hope will be an interesting question. We're
going to know who is the president at some point,
and then the other and won't be president. For Harris
and for Trump, for Democrats and for Republicans, what will
be their key takeaway if they lose?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So the Democrats are a little easier, I think if
they lose, I suspect the number one takeaway is President
Biden waited too long and the people who kind of
protected him and protected the world from a better awareness
of his cognitive state before the debate, you know, made
(16:32):
the mistake of hiding the ball and not allowing the
Democrats to have a competitive primary. There's a healthiness and
a competitive primary. I think the Dam's will look at
the players they didn't throw in the game, whether it's
Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretch Whitber and Michigan Pete, go
to Judge Gavin Newsom, and they'll realize, you know, we
didn't put forward our strongest player to go against Trump.
(16:52):
To be a little bit fair, cognitive decline is not linear,
and so it's even possible that you know that really
pick pace up the end of twenty three and twenty
four and all of a sudden they found themselves where
they were in the debate. But I think their biggest
regret will be not having a competitive primary right at
starting right after the mid terms for the Republicans. You know, theoretically,
(17:15):
if you lose, you're supposed to learn. That's how parties evolve,
That's how sports teams evolve, That's how you know, radio
shows and businesses figure out. Lack of success in the
marketplace causes you to make tweaks and to make changes
so you start having success. You know, the Republicans went
in the Trump era. The answer has been, well, if
you just deny that you lost, then you don't have
(17:36):
to all of the you know, the repercussions, but you
also don't have the learning, and so I do worry.
I think, you know, there was Trump identified ways that
the Republican Party could get more competitive, but he also
has manifest weaknesses, and the Republican Party has not been
able to take what has been meaningful and profound and
(17:57):
effective about Trump and marry it up with an all
of the baggage and without all of the things that
are clearly negative. I would hope if Harris wins, that
Republicans will be willing to say, as you are with
your sports team or you are in the stock market,
sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, and move forward.
My worry is, you know, every court case Trump's ever lost,
(18:19):
every election he's ever lost, including the primary against Ted
Cruz in Iowa, he claims was rigged. So I worry that,
rather than learning, evolving and improving, we run the risk
of yet more years of you know, people going to
four seasons landscaping trying to claim that you know, there
is that the proof of a stolen election is the
lack of proof, you know, which is sort of the
(18:41):
definitional conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Bruce Melman's brilliant substack is called the Age of Disruption.
If you just do an online search for Bruce Melman
Bruce me e hl m a n substack, you can
find it. You can subscribe for free, and it's worth
a lot more than that. Really, Bruce, I know how
much you've been traveling. I'm super grateful that you made
time for us. I know everybody wants to talk to you,
(19:04):
and I'm really appreciative that you that you made some
time for us.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
And uh and and hang in there through the election,
and we'll talk with you again soon.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Always fun being all with your ross.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Thanks, all right, thank you, Bruce. All right, that's the
great Bruce Melman,
And if Broncos cheerleaders and former Broncos aren't enough, maybe
Bruce Melman will be there too.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I think Bruce probably travels too much to come to
Denver right now. But Bruce Melman is one of the
most interesting and in demand political analysts and consultants anywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We're very, very.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Fortunate to get some of his time, especially Bruce after
just having traveled like NonStop for the last However, however
much I'm gratefully you're taking a few minutes with us
as you're catching your breath.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Well, it's great to be here, Ross, And apparently there's
interest in something happening in a week. So who knew?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And who knew? Indeed?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
All right, let me start with with this. If if
you had to bet, without giving or receiving odds, just
straight up, if you had to bet on who's going
to be the next president of the United States, who
would you bet on? And then the more important part
of the question is why would you make that choice?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Or I'll start with I'm comfortable taking either side of
a bet at this point. It's so close and I
can easily see a path that either of these folks
are going to win. If you told me right now though,
that you and I are betting, and you're going to
get me tickets to the to the Broncos, And if
I win or you win, I'll get you tickets to
(01:22):
the Washington commanders, who appear to be on a mission
from God. If you watch the end of the last
game against Chicago, I say, on election night before we
go to bed, it's clear that the Senate has gone
to the Republicans. By the end of the election week,
the Trump will be declared the winner by the Associated Press,
and we won't know who won the House of Representatives
(01:44):
until the middle of December, because it's going to come
down to just a few races and a few recounts.
It's going to be that tight. Like I said, I
can easily make a case either way. But right now,
if I had to bet a dollar, that's my current betting.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Okay, I think you and I are about on this
same page.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, I think I think you and I are about
on the same page in that I told listeners at
fifty to fifty with no odds, I would bet on
Trump right now. And I'm not betting on the election,
by the way, but on a lot of these betting websites. Now, Kamala,
if you bet on Kamala Harris, you get two to
one odds, And I actually think that's probably the bet
(02:22):
with the most value. Kamala Harris at two to one,
I think that's under priced, even though I think with
no odds, I think Trump is probably a very slight favorite.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So do you think that the you know, the let
me reword that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
It seems like the coalitions in this election are pretty
different than the last two presidential elections, right, you know,
Trump is picking up some Hispanics and picking up some
blacks and picking up.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Some young men.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
But Kamala, I don't know. So how do you see
who is voting for each of these?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, you're right, although you'd also asked on the watch,
and I think if if at the you know, when
we look back and the answer is and by the way,
you're right, two to one odds are way better than
you'll get on I think reality where it's super tight.
If Harris loses, it'll be first because she's part of
an incumbent administration. Since the pandemic, incumbents have been losing
(03:19):
elections all around the world. Happened in the UK happened
to a degree in France. You know, the coalition got
busted up. It's going to happen in Japan. It's happened.
It's going to happen in Canada. It happened in Korea.
It's she ultimately will not have been able if she loses,
to have had enough distance from an unpopular Biden administration
(03:41):
for her to be the change candidate. Number one. Number two,
people are unhappy with prices having gone up, and even
though the rate of inflation is moderated, at the end
of the day, the party in power owns the fact
that things cost a lot more today than they cost
when they came in. You know, number three, I think
she's not. If she loses, she will not have been
(04:02):
able to get the distance she needed to get from
a lot of the very left positions she staked out
in twenty twenty, which she ran. If Trump loses, it'll
be a variety of things. First, you know, he has
made a point for nine years of sticking his finger
in the eye of lots of different people and lots
of different group He beat Hillary Clinton in the electoral College,
but he got about forty seven percent of the vote.
(04:24):
He barely lost to Joe Biden, getting more votes than
any incumbent president in history, just fewer than Joe Biden got.
It's twenty twenty, but he got forty seven percent of
the vote, the real clear average, not the margin between
him and Harris, but his share for the most of
the year has been forty seven percent, So he may
have a hard stealing here where some combination of sort
(04:46):
of the Nikki Haley, Liz Chain, he just don't think
he's fit folks, combined with particularly women who are really
upset about the Dobbs decision, may ultimately power a win
by Harris. As could add in, her campaign has more
money than any campaign in history by a lot, So
if she doesn't win, and eight for lack of resources,
(05:07):
she's been able to advertise, she has a much bigger
and more professional get out the vote operation. She's got
a stronger execution capability than Trump has. So there is
a totally foreseeable story out there on coalitions. You're right,
he's trying. We're seeing a bit of a realignment where
if you have a college degree, you're increasingly a Democrat.
(05:30):
If you don't, you're increasingly a Republican. And this is
cutting across racial lines in a way that people used
to think couldn't happen, but is happening now. The Dems
have gone from the being the party of the factory
floor to being the party of the faculty lounge. Republicans
have gone from being a party of the country club
to being the party of the countryside. And you're seeing
(05:53):
Trump's vote, Trump's numbers among a multi racial working class
coalition growing. You know that may Or may not out
last Trump, but likewise Harris is. There'll be a bigger
gender graph we've ever seen, and Harris will do better
with college educated voters than any president, any Democrat in
modern history.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We're talking with Bruce Melman.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I want to make sure that you go to his substack,
sign up for his substack.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
He does.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He posts these things.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Called six Chart Sunday, which unsurprisingly comes out on Sunday,
and it's just fantastic information and just very clear thinking
and analysis. So if you just type into whatever you
search engine you use Bruce Melman, which is m E
H L M A N substack, you will find it.
His substack is called Age of Disruption and you can
(06:45):
you can subscribe for free.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So let's do a little bit of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Hyper Yeah, and it's free.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, it's free. That's right.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
It's not often you get great content for free these days.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Why is it free?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Your content is uh, you know, good enough to be
paid for, So why is it free?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Well, uh, it's not what I core do for a living.
I find it fun and interesting, and at least for now,
I'd rather have more eyeballs, the people of different backgrounds
taking it out, checking it out and giving me feedback
than than trying to you know, beg everybody like a
lot of my favorite substacts. Do you know, please sign up?
(07:26):
If you sign up today, you get a light bulb
and like I, you know, maybe I'll end up there
somewhere in my future. But for now, I've got a
bipartisan public affairs firm, you know, half Republican, half Democrat.
I earn a fine living and a lot of the
work that a lot of the thinking, a lot of
the analysis that goes into these are are part of
(07:46):
you know, more in depth and bespoke work that we
do on behalf of paid clients. But it's you know,
sort of like your great work. It's just fun. It's
fun to have people care and find it interesting. And
share it with others, and it's it's fun to have
people sign up and shoot you an email and you know,
usually politely tell you what they don't agree with or
or hopefully politely tell you what they like.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
All Right, I don't want to take this next thing
too far, but I'm going to ask you if you
think there's anything to it at all. So, way back
in the day, the South was dominated by conservative Democrats
who and I'm talking about forties, fifties, sixties ish right
(08:28):
conservative Democrats against civil rights legislation and so on, and
a lot of those people turned into Republicans, and that's
why the South is deep red now do you?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And again, I don't want to take this.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Too far, because the Democratic Party still has.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
The squad and still has all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
But when we're talking about these changing coalition alignments, and
you know, you talked about the what was it, the
the going from the what to the countryside what was it?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Country club to the countryside country club?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Country club?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So how much does it feel to you like the
Democratic Party is turning into the Republican Party, and the
Republican Party is turning into the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It doesn't feel like that to me no. I mean
that maybe depends on where you want to go look
and win. But you know, the Republican Party and a
Democratic Party are both amidst civil wars. A lot of
people complain that we don't have multi party systems. What
we have is we have two parties that kind of
continue to evolve, and they evolve often when it's clear
(09:38):
they're no longer satisfying people. So I would go back
at maybe at least the Ross Parrot and the reform
energy from Ross Perot went in one direction and ultimately
became Bernie Sanders kind of the left wing populists who
think globalization and big corporations, big business or screwing everybody,
and the other one went through Pat Buchanan. It up
(10:00):
as the Mago wing of the Trump Republican Party. It's
not your father's Republican Party, you know, where whether it's
fiscal rectitude, I don't see either party doing that. You know,
the Dems have a civil war between the progressive base
that was clearly winning out in eighteen and nineteen and
was going to nominate Bernie Standards if the establishment Democrats
(10:21):
didn't all get behind Joe Biden to avoid the Trump
beating Bernie in twenty twenty. The Republican establishment tried to
stop Trump and failed. In twenty sixteen. They sort of
kind of tried and canton the primaries this time when
he swatted them away. But it's definitely the Democrats are
definitely not the old Republicans. To some degree, they are
(10:43):
because there was a time to your point, when Republicans
were better on civil rights and civil liberties. Certainly Lincoln
you could check that box, and even in the fifties,
You're right, the old FDR coalition. At the end of
the day, the New Deal put civil rights on the
back burner because they needed Southern Democrat populists to go
along with a lot of the FDR economic reforms. And
(11:05):
even though history suggests that FDR and particularly his wife
were want to be civil rights reformers, there's a lot
of stuff they didn't do that they should have done,
whether you know, the GI Bill or just a lot
of reforms really did not bring African Americans along in
a way that is to the discredit of the then
(11:25):
Democratic Party. Although you know, they I assume we're trying
to live in the art of the doable as opposed
to you know, die getting nothing done, but standing entirely
for what's right. The Republican Party back then was better
old civil rights. But in the Nixon era, the Republican Party,
through the so called Southern Strategy, started winning over the
(11:47):
Southern Conservatives who were who didn't appreciate Lindon Johnson's civil
rights efforts, and they came over to the GOP. The
GOP now and possibly going forward, though, is no longer
the party of big business. They want to be a
multi racial, working class party. The Democrats also don't want
(12:07):
to be the party of big business. They like big
business leaders to a degree, but they're far more in
favor of taxation of business, regulation of business, anti trust,
breakup of business. They're a lot. They are like the
Republicans under Trump, are much more skeptical of free markets
and free trade. Big business is politically homeless right now.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, I will say.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
I neither I neither love nor hate big business. What
I hate is what's called crony capitalism and the way
that big business has the ability to buy or rent
politicians and get them to change the law to benefit
big business, to stomp competition, and so on. The other
just quick comment in response to what you said. What
scares me most about all of this is that there's
(12:56):
not there's nobody on the Democratic side and not enough
people on the Republican side who care about debt and
deficit anymore. And for me, that's the biggest issue, right
I keep I have two teenage kids, and I think
about what are their opportunities going to be in the
future if America continues on this fiscal path. And this
is what scares me the most. Do you come in
(13:16):
on that quickly? And then I'm gonna ask you one
more thing.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, look, America seems to be going bankrupt gradually. And
then suddenly, Now that said, you've been following the stuff
I put out for a while, ross I did wanted
twenty three on the four Addictions, pointing out debt as
something we seem addicted to, and I figured it's going
to end ugly at some point when you know, the
bond market or inflation or something forces rough change. But
(13:45):
I also was willing to acknowledge by putting out magazine covers.
Here are the magazine covers in the seventies, the debt bomb,
Why America can't you know? Why are debts going to
dround us? In the eighties. America is going bankrupt in
the nineties. We can't keep going debt forever. The tens,
the twenty twenties. It can't last forever. But a holy cow,
has it lasted longer than I thought it would last.
(14:08):
At the moment, there's no alternative. If you have money,
where are you going to put it? You want to
go invest in China? Good luck to you, buddy. You
don't do the wrong side of you know, President she
and you know in the Communist Party in your toast.
We still have rule of law, We still have prey
liquid markets. I worry a lot about debt if it's
the only issue you worry about. When you go and
(14:29):
you look at all of the analyzes, what they find
is if the next president does nothing, debt as a
share of the economy will be greater than after World
War Two. Harris makes it worse, and Trump makes it
even worse because Trump and Vance want to cut eleven
trillion dollars in taxes, which some of which I will appreciate,
but they don't. There aren't the spending cuts by not
(14:51):
touching entitlements, not touching defense, not touching VA veterans, there
aren't eleven trillion dollars spending. The cut even if you
cut it all, wants to raise taxes by five trillion
dollars because of a sense that her spending, which is
larger than Trump's, is not adequately offset, so she offsets
it with five trillion dollars of tax cuts. So there
(15:14):
is no candidate who stands for fiscal rectitude, and I
don't see either of the next presidencies enforcing it. Theoretically,
if it's a Harris president and a Republican Senate, you
could envision a tax and spend ugly standoffs, sort of
like you saw with Bayner and Obama ultimately led to
a flat federal spend for a bunch of years.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Right, That whole sequester thing, which was actually Obama's Treasury
Secretary Jack Lu's idea, turned out to be the best
fiscal thing that the Republican Congress did the whole time
they were there, and it was sort of an accident.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Only have about three minutes left, So see if you
can give me maybe one minute each for each party
on what I hope will be an interesting question. We're
going to know who is the president at some point,
and then the other and won't be president. For Harris
and for Trump, for Democrats and for Republicans, what will
be their key takeaway if they lose?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So the Democrats are a little easier, I think if
they lose, I suspect the number one takeaway is President
Biden waited too long and the people who kind of
protected him and protected the world from a better awareness
of his cognitive state before the debate, you know, made
(16:32):
the mistake of hiding the ball and not allowing the
Democrats to have a competitive primary. There's a healthiness and
a competitive primary. I think the Dam's will look at
the players they didn't throw in the game, whether it's
Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretch Whitber and Michigan Pete, go
to Judge Gavin Newsom, and they'll realize, you know, we
didn't put forward our strongest player to go against Trump.
(16:52):
To be a little bit fair, cognitive decline is not linear,
and so it's even possible that you know that really
pick pace up the end of twenty three and twenty
four and all of a sudden they found themselves where
they were in the debate. But I think their biggest
regret will be not having a competitive primary right at
starting right after the mid terms for the Republicans. You know, theoretically,
(17:15):
if you lose, you're supposed to learn. That's how parties evolve,
That's how sports teams evolve, That's how you know, radio
shows and businesses figure out. Lack of success in the
marketplace causes you to make tweaks and to make changes
so you start having success. You know, the Republicans went
in the Trump era. The answer has been, well, if
you just deny that you lost, then you don't have
(17:36):
to all of the you know, the repercussions, but you
also don't have the learning, and so I do worry.
I think, you know, there was Trump identified ways that
the Republican Party could get more competitive, but he also
has manifest weaknesses, and the Republican Party has not been
able to take what has been meaningful and profound and
(17:57):
effective about Trump and marry it up with an all
of the baggage and without all of the things that
are clearly negative. I would hope if Harris wins, that
Republicans will be willing to say, as you are with
your sports team or you are in the stock market,
sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, and move forward.
My worry is, you know, every court case Trump's ever lost,
(18:19):
every election he's ever lost, including the primary against Ted
Cruz in Iowa, he claims was rigged. So I worry that,
rather than learning, evolving and improving, we run the risk
of yet more years of you know, people going to
four seasons landscaping trying to claim that you know, there
is that the proof of a stolen election is the
lack of proof, you know, which is sort of the
(18:41):
definitional conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Bruce Melman's brilliant substack is called the Age of Disruption.
If you just do an online search for Bruce Melman
Bruce me e hl m a n substack, you can
find it. You can subscribe for free, and it's worth
a lot more than that. Really, Bruce, I know how
much you've been traveling. I'm super grateful that you made
time for us. I know everybody wants to talk to you,
(19:04):
and I'm really appreciative that you that you made some
time for us.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
And uh and and hang in there through the election,
and we'll talk with you again soon.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Always fun being all with your ross.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Thanks, all right, thank you, Bruce. All right, that's the
great Bruce Melman,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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