 We're going to talk about the elections. So obviously, these are big midterm elections. A lot is at stake. The Democrats obviously have the White House for at least another two years. At the same time, Palmetto asked, when will I visit South Carolina? The general principle about visiting anyway is this. I visit anywhere where I'm invited. So if you'd like to arrange a talk for me in South Carolina, if you can arrange a university, a club, a group of businessmen, a business, anything like that that would like to invite me, I would be happy, happy, happy, happy to come to South Carolina and speak. All right, so let me know, Palmetto, anybody want me to come and speak in Europe, in Asia, in South America, in any state in the union, then you can email me at your one-to-one book. You run at your one-brookshow.com. So I haven't spoken to Clemson in a long time. We can talk to Brad about speaking to Clemson. I used to speak at Clemson pretty frequently, but it's been a while. I guess after a while, you speak so many times at the same place, it's less attractive to have you back. All right, let's get back to the election. So Democrats have the White House. The Senate is 50-50, it's split. The Democrats have a small majority in the House of Representatives. What the Democrats would love is to be able to control both houses. And the White House, now, they already control both houses because the 50-50 split in the Senate goes their way because the tie is broken by the vice president. But they've got Mnuchin and they've got Sinema who are slightly more centrist, Democrats and don't let the Democrats just pass whatever the hell they want. So they want to be able to pass whatever the hell they want. And for that, they need another, probably two seats in the Senate and they need to maintain the majority in the House. Now, I think the bottom line is the Democrats having all the levers of power, the House, the Senate and the White House would be an unmitigated disaster. They have shown themselves to be incredibly, incredibly irresponsible from an economic perspective. The economy is doing poorly. We're probably heading into recession. We definitely have inflation. We might have stagflation, we'll see. But whatever happens next year is gonna be a very, very difficult year, I believe, economically for all of us. The last thing we want is tax and spend Democrats running things, tanks, spend, and most importantly, regulate Democrats who wanna control and limit and exacerbate all the problems. I mean, ultimately, the reason we got to the problems we have today is tax and spend and regulate. That gives you inflation and it gives you supply-side problems and it gives you, ultimately, the recession and stagnation that is likely to occur next year. More of that would be a disaster. And, of course, it wouldn't just be a disaster from an economic perspective. If Democrats win on Tuesday, that is, maintain the House and win a seat or two in the Senate, they will take from that as a conclusion that their agenda is popular in America. The agenda that I think most Americans are actually rebelling against, I think it will emboldened the most progressive, the most nutty wing within the Democratic Party, it will emboldened the defund the police and the CRT and the rest of it. And look, there's no question that the Democrats deserve to lose. The Democrats are anti-American, anti-Americanism. They're anti-capitalism, anti-freedom, economic freedom, but they have now become, to a large extent, anti-free speech. They want to break up big tech, they want to increase antitrust laws. In every single dimension one can think of, maybe with the exception of abortion, the Democrats are anti-liberty and anti-freedom and deserve to lose. The record of the last two years is a record of devastation. It's a disastrous record of massive stimuli of massive infrastructure bills, the chip bill, which of course a lot of Republicans voted for as well, so can't really blame that. All in Democrats, which is central planning and involves industrial policy, American industrial policy. So the legislative agenda of the Democrats has been a disaster, as you would expect. Who would have expected anything different from a Democratic House, Senate, and White House? And of course, it's exactly what I predicted. What happened, that if you gave the Democrats the Senate, the House, and the White House, it would be an absolutely unmitigated disaster. And it's only an idiot or moron like Donald Trump who could actually give them that, right? Not only lose the White House, which I think you deserve to lose, so that's a good thing, but then also lose the House, and in the most stunning occasion, actually lose the Senate. Georgia was lost because of Donald Trump and nobody else. This is the fact that we had two disastrous years is the consequence of the Trump presidency. It's a consequence of Trump's inability to get any Republicans elected, even in a state like Georgia, where you think it would be relatively easy. So Democrats deserve to lose. You know, Adam says the big exception is immigration and abortion, but I'm not even sure that immigration, it's true. I mean, what has changed with Biden in the White House in terms of immigration? Nothing, almost every single one of Donald Trump's policies with regard to immigration, stupid policies, you know, self-destructive policies with regard to immigration stand. Immigration is at a low, particularly legal immigration. So no, Democrats are no good at immigration. They never have been any good at immigration. The only thing they're good on today anymore is on abortion. So Democrats, no question, deserve to lose. The problem is, that's so do Republicans. What do we have for the Republicans running right now? We have a Republican party committed to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. A Republican party, at least in certain places, committed to the idea that if it happened again, they wouldn't certify the votes. Think about the person running for Secretary of State in Arizona, who might actually win. Who said, if he was Secretary of State in 2020, he wouldn't have certified the votes. So Republicans are running right now on a campaign that says, we don't believe in the voters. We will decide who gets elected in the future. True in Wisconsin, true in Michigan, true in Arizona, luckily, not true in Georgia, one exception, across the board. I mean, don't even get me started on the governor, on the Republican governor candidate in Pennsylvania. Republicans are fielding a group of horrible, anti-American, anti-constitution, anti-wool of law, this is the party of law and order, candidates, they're fielding a group of candidates on economic issues that don't really disagree with the Democrats. They would have supported the infrastructure bill, maybe even bigger than the one Biden had passed. They certainly would have supported the original stimulus and many of them supported the chip bill, the industrial planning bill. So across the board, you've got Republicans who in economic policy are not that different than the Democrats, who claim to be for law and order when it comes to policing out there, but when it comes to voting, don't believe in the Constitution, don't believe in law and order anymore, throw it out. Republican Party committed not to the Constitution, not the founding principles of this country, not to individual rights, not to freedom and liberty, but a Republican Party committed to a personality, Donald Trump, and anything he says goes. If he says the election was stolen, it was stolen. If he says we should spend more money, we should spend more money. If he says we should build a wall, then definitely we should build a wall. It doesn't matter what he says. If he said the exact opposite tomorrow, the Republican Party would be for that. So we have a Republican Party that does not deserve to win. A Republican Party that is a... I mean, the Republican Party is always pathetic, always pathetic. I mean, are you really going to tell me that a Party that has Marjorie Taylor Greene as a unruhable member might be part of a Trump cabinet in the future? Is a Party you can vote for enthusiastically that is a Party that deserves to be in power? It is a Party that deserves to win? Marjorie Taylor Greene? The Christian Nationalist? The Conspiracy Theory Waco? These are the people who we should get excited about as an alternative to the Democrats that don't deserve to win? We should elect a bunch of Republicans who don't deserve to win? No, the Republican Party does not deserve victory. It has done nothing to deserve victory. It is running on a campaign. It is running on Biden's negatives, on inflation, on slow economic growth, on the coming recession. But what is it proposed to do to deal with any of this? Nothing. What is the positive economic plan proposed by the Republicans? Zero. I mean, the morons, the kind of really horrible people that they put up, the guy running in Pennsylvania is just horrific. Dr. Oz, this is a senator? Yeah. Pitching you the latest cream to make you feel 20 years younger. He can do that from the floor of the Senate now. A election denier like Carrie Lake? The whole slate in Arizona is not detached from reality. Rejecting completely rejecting of the Constitution and the rule of law. Who's a walker? A good Christian conservative, right? Who fathers children all over the place and then pays for abortions and then fights to have abortions illegal across the board. No exceptions. These are people who should be in the Senate. These are people you can get excited for voting for. So I've had a column. When was it? Today? Yesterday. Yesterday as I was preparing for the show. Yesterday. Election deniers are complete wackos. There's zero evidence, zero evidence of any election, of election fraud and a scale that would have changed the election. Zero evidence. Every single claim that has been put out there has been refuted completely thoroughly. You can't have facts against something, you can't prove a negative. If you claim that something happened, it is upon you to show proof. And all the proof that people, suppose that evidence that people have showed has been refuted thoroughly. You guys should prove there's not a gremlin under my table. There's a gremlin here kicking me right now. Under my desk. Can you prove? He's an invisible gremlin, by the way. He's an invisible gremlin only I can feel. He is. And he's part of a massive conspiracy to control the U.S. government. And he tells me what's going to happen by whispering to me. The 2000 mules has been refuted dozens of places. It's so easy to refute it. It's been refuted over and over and over and over again. So go and read the refutations. It's beneath me and it's beneath you to have to do it on the Iran Book Show. Because really, there's no there, there. No there, there. Nothing. All right. So I was reading yesterday an essay by somebody who I don't talk to anymore because he's not, who I've lost a lot of respect for over many, many years. But who is a good writer? And in politics I found that I've agreed with him more than almost anybody else over the last, you know, since Trump got elected because he's been very anti-Trump, good for him. And that's Robert Trasinski. I don't know how many of you know Robert Trasinski. He's got a sub-stack. But he now works for the Atlas Society. So my respect for him only diminishes in spite of the fact that on most issues regarding politics I agree with him. Anyway, yesterday he wrote a piece about the coming election. And his recommendation was, his recommendation was that you should vote across the board Democratic. That you should not vote for any Republicans. That the only hope the country has is that this group of Republicans is repudiated. That this version of the Republican Party is crushed. I mean this was my argument about not voting for Trump. And hoping, and it didn't work and I didn't see Trump's trick. Trump had a trick up his sleeve, of course. But I was hoping that Trump in the 2020 election would get crushed. I still think, unfortunately, that that was the only hope the Republican Party had and since the Republican Party is in some senses the only hope this country has. When Donald Trump didn't get crushed it was a very, very, very bad sign for the future of America. He needed to have gotten crushed in 2020, I argued for that throughout the election campaign. He won by a small enough margin that he could then claim fraud. So losing was not, you know, so of course in Republicans' minds he never lost so therefore he stole a viable candidate for the future and of course his ideas, if you can call them ideas, his method of governing, his method of politicizing politics has been legitimized because he didn't lose. The election was stolen from him. Even people here on my chat think the election was stolen. Anything is possible in the world in which we live. So just since he's got his argument is Republicans have to lose big time and only if a Republican lose big time will they learn the lesson and maybe, maybe, maybe, and this is the only hope the country has they will shift away from nationalism, conservatism, religiosity the nuttiness of the last six years on the right. The new right and ultimately Trump. Now unfortunately, so that's Tristansky's reasoning and a lot of his reasoning has to do with the fact of this election deniers. You know, he's another one who's looked carefully at the facts around this and it came to a conclusion, you know, quite obviously that there was no, the election was not stolen, Donald Trump lost and the thing that scares him and I think that scares a lot of people is the idea that these election deniers will win on Tuesday and if the election deniers win on Tuesday then all future elections are going to be suspect because the facts won't matter anymore. Conspiracy theories will rule who wins elections. Power in other words will determine who wins elections. The people in power will get to decide not the voters. Now I know none of us is a huge fan of pure democracy. We still don't have pure democracy in the United States. Electing our leaders is a crucial aspect of liberty. Electing our leaders is a crucial part of what it means to be free. Kicking the bastards out is important and having a system, a method to do that, a method that is dependent on us, the voters, the citizens of the United States. The alternative to that is authoritarianism of one sort or another. The alternative to that is that our elected officials do not get determined by us the people. They stop being our representatives as corrupt and as bad as they are right now. But they stop doing that. And instead they get chosen by the powers to be. They get chosen by influential people. They get chosen by secretaries of state. They get chosen by the political party that happens to be in power in a particular state. And if we start down that road, not only are we starting down a road of constitutional crisis, we're starting down a road of political violence, we're starting down a road of dissent into chaos in America and ultimately into authoritarianism. That's Tristinsky's argument. By the way, the fact that I agree with Robert Tristinsky on some of these political issues does not change my general view of Rob, which is not positive. I'll just mention one funny note, as I was reading the article, I thought of this. I thought it was really funny because in 2004, in the presidential election between George Bush and John Kerry, Lenin Pieckoff came out with a statement saying that all objectives should vote for John Kerry. They should vote Democratic. They should punish the Republicans. They should punish George Bush. And what's funny is that Rob Tristinsky flipped out when Lenin did that. I mean, he went, and for years later, he was accusatory towards Leonard. How could he do that? How could he embrace Kerry over Trump? So, you know, now it seems like it's flipped somewhat. Now it's Tristinsky calling for electing Democrats. By the way, if Kerry had won in 2004, the world would be very different today. In that sense, Lenin Pieckoff was absolutely right. If Kerry had won, he would have been blamed for the disaster in Iraq. If Kerry had won, Democrats would have been blamed for the financial crisis. If Kerry had won, we would have never got Obama. If we'd never got Obama, we'd have never got Trump. I think the world would be a lot better today. If people had followed Lenin Pieckoff's advice in 2004. Okay, so Tristinsky says, democracy is at stake. Rule of law is at stake. You cannot vote Republican. Same day, I get a substack from Jonah Goldberg. Again, somebody who I have a lot of misgivings about because of his attitude towards Iron Man. And he writes, no, no, no, this election is not about democracy. It's not about the rule of law. Forget about all that. Democracy is well instituted in the United States. Yes, Trump is full of it when it comes to claiming the election was stolen. But nobody's going to get away with those claims. Democracy is secure in America. It's not going away. These issues are completely exaggerated. And yes, Donald Trump is a disaster. Yes, the Republican Party has a lot of problems, but this is an optimistic piece, right? We're not moving away from democracy. We're not moving away from the rule of law. We're not moving away from fair elections. Now, I have to say, I thought the piece was super weak, was not very convincing at all. But I sympathize because I do think a vast majority of Americans, a vast majority of Americans, even Americans who, you know, even Americans who, you know, to some pollster are going to say, yeah, we think maybe the election wasn't fair. At the end of the day, the bottom line, if the Supreme Court ruled that person X1, and I think the Supreme Court is still fairly healthy, I think the Supreme Court would have ruled against Trump if it had gone there. And I think there's a reason it never went to the Supreme Court because there was no there there. I think even the Trump nominees would have ruled for the rule of law, for the voters. So I don't actually think that, I mean, you could create a constitutional crisis. You could create a lot of noise. You could create a lot of problems. You can even create some political violence. But at the end of the day, our legal system is strong enough still, just barely, that I think we could survive all that. So I'm somewhere between Trisinski and Jonah Goldberg. I think there's going to be a real crisis when it comes to the elections in the future. I think that the Republicans should lose. I think the Republicans are horrible right now. But I also think the Democrats should lose. In other words, while I think the Republicans should lose, I don't think we deserve the consequence of that. I think what people underappreciate is the damage the Democrats can do, even with just two years in power, if they controlled all three branches of government. So I don't want the Democrats to win. And I don't want the Republicans to win. And look, my position here is exactly the same as it was in 2020. I don't want either party to win. And the only way to avoid the damage, the damage that these two parties can do to us is by selectively. Now, of course, it's not in my control and it's not in your control. We're too small. But if I had the power, I would want divided government. But I wouldn't want the divided government to be selective. I'd like Republicans to win the House. I'd like, in particular, Katie Porter in California to lose. I'd like Republicans to take the House. I'd like the Republicans to take the House, not by a massive majority. I don't want this to be a massive wave. I'd like them to take the House by enough votes so Democrats can't get anything done. On the Senate side, I would like every single Republican who is an election denier, who has groveled before Donald Trump, who is a conservative nationalist. I'd like every single one of those to lose. Oh, Hoco in North, in New Hampshire is a complete and utter nutcase. He needs to lose. The Secretary of State in Arizona needs, the Republican needs to lose. Herschel Walker needs to lose. Dr. Oz needs to lose. I mean, I hope Republicans gain the seat in Nevada. The person there doesn't seem that bad. I mean, be cool. If Republicans became Governor of Oregon, again, not a governor that seems that bad. I mean, if I were voting, and I'm not voting because I live in Puerto Rico, so I can't vote. But if I were voting, I would basically look at my Republican candidates. If they were election deniers, they would never get my vote. Who the hell needs a senator who can communicate? Why the hell do we care if a senator can communicate? All they do is say yes or no. I mean, if the senators didn't communicate, wouldn't that be better? I don't want communicating senators. So I would love what I would want is for people to go out and say, Republicans who are election deniers, Republicans who are explicitly anti the rule of law, explicitly anti the principles of this country who lean authoritarian and who on economic policy lean towards central planning, I can't vote for. At the same time, Democrats who are total progressives, who are part of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, I can't vote for. So when you have an election between a progressive Democrat and a nutty Republican, you don't vote. You don't vote. But if the Democrats are middle of the world Democrat and the Republicans are not, vote Democratic. And if the Republicans reasonable, vote for the Republican. I'd like the message of this election to be at best ambiguous. I'd like Trump-like candidates all to lose. I think the big benefit of Trump-like candidates losing is that Trump might not run. And then some of you will get what you want, which is DeSantis will run. And DeSantis will crush Biden in two years. Trump could lose to Biden in two years. I don't want low turnout. I want bad candidates, bad Republican candidates. I mean, not just bad. Awful Republican candidates to lose. But if they win, if everybody wins, if Oz wins and Walker wins and Masters wins and, you know, the guy in Ohio wins and all these people win, then Trump is going to announce he's running for president. And if Trump announces he's running for president, DeSantis won't run. That is my prediction of the day. Trump runs for president, DeSantis won't run. There's no advantage for DeSantis running against Trump. He'll sit it out. He'll probably get the VP nod. Or not. He'll be ready for four years later. And by then Trump will be too old. Why would he run against Trump and suffer the beating, the verbal abuse that Trump will inflict on him? Gazillions of dollars Trump will spend to diminish him. Why do it? Why do it to yourself? And there's no way Trump will pick him as a VP if he runs against him. So if you guys like DeSantis, then you should hope, pray, do whatever you can to avoid Trump from running. So my hope for this coming election is the Republicans win the House. The Senate doesn't change, 50-50. And that the Senate candidates who lose are the Senate candidates, the Republican candidates who lose are those Senate candidates who are the horrible Trumpists. That's my recommendation. In a sense it was my recommendation in 2020. I was, in 2020 I was hopeful that Republicans would hold the Senate. The Democrats looked like they would hold the House but barely and that Biden would win. I wanted Biden to win, I did, but I also wanted Republicans to win the Senate. I want divided government. The best governments the United States of America has had since World War II have basically been Democratic presidents with Republican House and Senate. They've been governments of gridlock. When it's not gridlock, bad stuff happens. Primarily, bad economic stuff but also bad social stuff. So that is my view. Thank you for listening or watching The Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to www.uranbookshow.com. I go to Patreon, subscribe to our locals and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see The Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. Those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.