Episode 1244 Scott Adams: In Hindsight, A More Transparent Election Might've Been A Good Idea

Come on in. Come on in. Come on. Come on. You know you need this. Sometimes you want it. Sometimes you do it out of habit. But sometimes. Sometimes you need it. Gather round. Gather round. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. Mmm. Oh, that's so good. Are you ready? Are you ready to make it official? Sure you are. All you need is a copper mugger, glass of tanker chalice this time, a canteen jacker flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like afternoon coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that quells revolutions. Yeah, there hasn't been one yet. Not when you're drinking the simultaneous sip that happens now. Go. Oh, yeah. So can somebody tell me in the comments, what is the approximate estimate of the number of protesters who have descended upon our capital? Is it 100? Is it 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? I'll bet you don't know, do you? I have no idea. I'm seeing a few estimates. Now, these look like wild guesses because they're all over the place. I don't even want to read them because they're just all over the place. Now, I think what we're seeing is that the news industry has decided that instead of reporting the news, they will try to stop the news. So the news has decided to try to suppress the protests. And let me tell you where I am on the protest, because if I don't say that right up front, everybody will wonder, well, where are you? So I know what to think about your dumb opinion. Here's my take. I like to do this thing called being consistent. And it's really annoying, but I do it anyway. And here's how I'm going to apply it in this situation, when Colin Kaepernick was doing his kneeling and disrupting this fine sport situations, while many of you said, how dare he make us feel uncomfortable and disrespect our flag and words to those effect, I said the opposite. And I said, that's a good protest. Good protest makes you feel uncomfortable. That's what it's supposed to do. I just tweeted something from AOC that I think was maybe a month ago or so. She tweeted exactly the same idea. That a protest is supposed to make the people who are viewing it uncomfortable. Now, if I would say that about Colin Kaepernick, shouldn't I be consistent? I believe I should. Should I also not be consistent? In which I always say, don't blame A few bad apples for, you know, for the spoiling, the whole bunch, you know what I mean? Every big group is going to have some bad people in it. So it doesn't define the group. So let's start there. So do the protesters have a, let's say, a free speech right to do what they're doing? Well, I say yes. I say that this situation called for, say, a dramatic tap on the shoulder. Now, of course, I oppose all forms of, you know, violence or destruction of property. If a few windows get broken in the course of a major demonstration, I wouldn't make a big deal about it, no matter who it was. You know, a few windows, a little bit of damage that's going to come with free speech and with the right to assemble and all the rest. So I'm not going to make a big deal about the little stuff. If somebody got killed and we're still in fog of war, so I don't know what the circumstances are, but there's reports that somebody got shot. If that happened, it's a tragedy and should never happen. But we don't know what that's about. And I'm not making any assumptions about it. What I feel about this is that the Congress of the United States and the state governments collectively, let's just say, or a government, they gave us an election without giving us confidence. So that's the part we can all agree on, right? We can disagree about was the election stolen or was it not stolen? But there is one thing we can agree on. The Congress and the state governments especially did not provide the people of this country a transparent, credible election. When they didn't provide one that was transparent and credible to begin with. And they did have a chance really to correct that in the form of maybe audits or looking at the source code of any voting things, that sort of thing. Maybe a real hearing of the evidence as opposed to having everything kicked out of the court for doctrine of latches and for standing and stuff like that. Whereas the fake news has decided to report consistently that somehow the evidence, alleged evidence, purported evidence of any election irregularities or fraud they report, as if the court cases actually listened to the evidence. But that didn't happen. There were lots of cases rejected for tactical reasons, but not because of the evidence. They didn't get to hear the evidence. So what happens when you've got a fake news industry sitting on top of an incompetent government that does not deliver the single most basic element, the Republic, a fair, transparent, credible election. Now, what should be the response of the Public, what's the proper response to a government that is too incompetent or unwilling? Who knows? Bribed? We don't know. Whatever the reason is, I'm not even sure it matters. But they were incapable, for whatever reason, to deliver the most basic element that holds the whole thing together. And they could get away with that because the fake news industry protects them. So under these circumstances, and I don't have an opinion about what might be found if we did more audits, etc. I feel that any system that can be corrupted will be. But beyond that, I don't have an opinion on any specific claim, except that most of them probably will be debunked, maybe all of them. Easily could happen. But do we not agree that no matter what happened, our government didn't let us check it out? It prevented the people from gaining the, the certainty and the confidence that they wanted. And it is the most. Have I mentioned this yet? The most basic part of the entire system, and we were prevented from it by incompetence or, who knows, greed, stupidity, whatever it is that drives our collective governments, state and federal. But they were certainly protected by the fake media, the way they report it. So what is the proper level of response? In my opinion? You're looking at it. You're looking at it. The response that you're seeing, in my opinion, and this is entirely subjective. I won't even try to. I won't make any attempt to convince you to my opinion, because this is just subjective. Right? You all get to decide how big is the problem? What are the other alternatives besides protest? Because our system allows protest, right? So how big is the problem? So how big should the response be? It's got to be big enough to address the problem, right? Would you want to have another election in which we allowed our government to be this incompetent? Again, I'm not saying that the election was necessarily fraudulent. The incompetence is that they didn't give us credibility. They didn't give us a process we could trust. They didn't give us transparency. And then when we had questions, when we had questions, and then when we had questions, those motherfuckers didn't let us answer them. So what is the right size of the response to that? I think you're looking at it. I think that the right size was we're not going to hurt anybody. Ideally, they're not going to hurt anybody. I don't really see bloodlust in the crowd, do you? I. I feel as if this crowd might leave the scene A little bit neater than they found it. I feel if they find anything that needs any repair, there are a lot of guys with trucks and skills. They might actually fix some things that needed repairs more than they break stuff. This is not a regular protest. In order to get these people all the way into the center of the Capitol. Something went wrong. I heard. I forget who it was. I think it was somebody on Fox. Was maybe you, Brett Bear? I'm not sure, but whoever said it sounded wise that what we're seeing is not a, not a failure of security, it's the failure of government. And I think that's exactly right. It's not a failure of security. Security actually is, I think, doing a good job. Did you see anything that the security did that looked like a bad job? I didn't. I think security is doing an excellent job. The, the protesters had numbers and so the, the security wisely, you know, gave a little grounds just like they should. So textbook. I think they're doing a great job. So yeah, we don't know the, anything about the situation to the shooting. My guess is it's sort of a one off situation. I doubt it was representative of what's going on there. So here's my feeling. If you're worried about something like taking over the government, let me remind you that the government is not that room. That's not the government. The government is not the real estate. The government is not the thing behind the closed door. The government doesn't need a building. They can zoom. Literally, they can zoom. So what the protesters are taking over is not anything like the government. What they're taking over is some space because it makes people uncomfortable. And did I mention that making people uncomfortable is the point of a protest? Do you think that our election security and transparency. Do you think it would suddenly get better for the next election if this were not happening? I'd love to think that was going to happen, but I doubt it. Don't you, don't you doubt anything would happen for next time? This, this is exactly the size and type of response that I think is perfectly fit to the size of the problem. And the fact that absolutely nothing was going to happen to fix this for next time. Nothing was going to happen. You get that, right? Does anybody disagree with that? You can tell. I mean, you don't have to be some management genius, you don't have to be a world famous political pundit to know that the following statement is real. The government wasn't going to fix it for next time. Right. Did anybody think, well, now we saw some complaints. I guess we're good for next time because next time, next time, they're going to fix it. Literally, not one fucking person who's listening to this thinks the government was just going to fucking fix wasn't. Whatever it was that made them not fix it last time, the time before, the time before, the time before, in terms of how good election security could be compared to what it is, whatever that was is not different today. The only thing that's fucking different is that a bunch of people in red hats said, we're going to stand in your fucking building until you just treat us seriously, just treat the concern seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get, I get that you believe you being somebody out there, you believe that the election's over. We should have a peaceful transfer. I, I agree. I do think the election's over, in my opinion, you know, ever since the, the media called it for Biden, I congratulated him publicly the same day. And at no point since I congratulated Biden same day as the media did, at no point, if I reversed that and said, oh, he's not going to get into office, to me, it was obvious the system would just grind along. But no matter who takes office, we can't let this happen again, right? I don't think we should stand for it. And if that requires taking over some space, not taking over the government, because the government just needs a phone, right? The government is the government. No matter where they are, they just go somewhere else. Nobody was kidnapping the government. Nobody was trying to assassinate the government. It wasn't really about the people so much. It was about a system that just. Just isn't working. Just isn't working. So if some patriots want to take some personal risk, and there's a lot of personal risk involved here, if some patriots want to take some personal risk, I give them the same respect that I gave Colin Kaepernick, which is if you're going to do it, make somebody uncomfortable or else you didn't do it, right? So we're seeing some people making some people uncomfortable. I can't oppose that. But I also don't condone any kind of violence or threats, that sort of thing. But I do understand the size of the, the size of the response. I understand the emotion. I understand the reason. I would have maybe a difference of opinion about how certain I am about, you know, what size of fraud there is and whether or not it would reverse things. But we can all agree that the system did not do what it is supposed to do. Make you feel you voted in a credible way, make you feel you could check. Make you feel later if you had questions, you could look into them. Make you feel your concerns were heard. None of that happened. None of that happened. Not only did none of that happen in terms of, you know, concerns being properly aired out and addressed, but the fake news reported that it had been just consistently. Just keeps reporting. Yeah, totally. That stuff's been looked into by. I don't know. Now, again, I think 95% of all the alleged claims are complete bullshit. And maybe the other 5% too. I just agree with everybody who said, if we can't tell, we didn't have an election. It might be completely accurate. It might be accurate enough the vote count and maybe the outcome is about what it should be. Maybe. But if you can't tell, you didn't really have an election, did you? You just had sort of the impression of an election. So I don't think that I need to be too worried. And I would recommend that you not be too worried about this snowballing into some bigger thing. I believe that the limit of what can be done is being done, which is to make a statement that you can't forget. And you can't really forget this, can you? Right. Simply by the fact. Well, I just have to say this because it's just honest. And you wouldn't tune in if you didn't hear me say something like this once in a while. I've said before that when I hear stories about serial killers, I often have two feelings. One is, my God, that's horrible. The things that serial killer did. And then often depending on how industrious the serial killer was and how well he planned and executed and built his underground bunker or whatever he did. I'm also thinking, but that was a pretty good plan, strategy wise. It was pretty good. Pretty good. So I feel as though we're all human. You could have two conflicting feelings and hold them at the same time. And I'm having two conflicting feelings that I'm holding at the same time about the protesters. One is that I don't want to see anybody get hurt, and I don't want to see the Capitol defaced. I don't want to see just any unnecessary damage. Right. So don't want any of that So I can hold that thought in my head while at the same time hold the other thought in my head. That is. That was one awesome protest. How long did it take him to slice through security and get on the inside of the Capitol building? I've got a feeling that antifa is looking at this protest. Don't you have this image of antifa? Let's see, I must have my antifa disguise around here somewhere. But don't you have an image of antifa watching this on TV and they're like, hey, hey, look at this. These maggot guys, they're trying to protest. They don't know how to protest. We've had a lot of practice. I'll tell you. We know how they did what. They've penetrated the inner core of the Capitol building of the Capitol of the United States in 10 minutes. Okay, that's some good protesting. That, that's some good protesting right there. That's some good protesting. So I would not worry that this is going to, you know, snowball into some big revolution. It doesn't look like it has any kind of energy for that. What it does have is the right kind of energy that in my opinion, very subjective. I'm fine if you disagree with this because there's lots of room for disagreement here. In my opinion, it is sized correctly to the problem. Sized correctly. Just like Colin Kaepernick. Colin Kaepernick didn't punch anybody. He didn't start a fire. He just got on one knee and offended people. His protest was well sized for the attention it got to the size of the problem he was talking about. So I can't, I can't fault, I never fault protesters if they're not hurting anybody because that's one of the best parts about this place. Yeah, Antifa. Hold my beer. Now I do expect, I do expect the Trump supporters to be unusually peaceful. Yeah, I know it's getting a little rowdy down there, but I would trust them to know what is the limit of a good aggressive protest and what is too far. And I'd be really disappointed, you know, if, if they don't kind of collectively feel that limit without anybody needing to tell them. So I feel we're in good shape. Good shape in terms of, you're watching freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and by the way, compliments to the Capitol Security Capitol Police. I mean, I think you got to give it up for the Capitol Police. They are playing it exactly right because the MAGA people are not likely to trash all the furniture and set things on fire. Fire. So, so letting them through, so long as, you know, other people have been secured, it was the right play. And I think that everybody's going to appreciate that in time. So I'm seeing a, a well executed protest and I'm Seeing a security service that's acting very responsibly. What I am also seeing is a media that is trying to suppress it rather than appreciate where it's coming from. So I would say that the worst actors right now are the media. The, the way it's being covered. The, the stars, the stars of the protesters. And the stars are the, the D.C. police who are trying to keep things under control. They're both stars right now, both doing great work. And Congress, of course, I would say, is a disaster. That's why they're, that's why this is happening. Congress is a disaster. And the news, the news business is, is just absurd at this point. Somebody says in the Comments this is gaslighting 101. No, no, you must be new here. Read my book, Loser. Think there's a chapter on there about people like you who don't know what gaslighting is? Literally, you just called me something that I have a chapter in a book. Well, it's probably not your best moment. All right. Trump's Twitter is banned. Interesting. Is that true? Can I get a. Well, it looks like a lot of people saying it. Trump's Twitter is banned. Somebody says Capitol Police killed the person. Yeah, I don't think we know anything about the shooting yet. Somebody's dead. I understand. For those of you who are too stupid to understand the, the following point, I'm going to say it three times. Nobody's in favor of violence. Nobody's in favor of violence. Nobody's in favor of violence. Now can you stop saying, duh, somebody got shot. Because nobody's in favor of violence. So the dumb people here should maybe go to another live stream if that's too complicated for you. So Trump is blocked unless he deletes two tweets. Well, somebody needs to tell me what those two tweets are. Were they tweets that supported the, the protests I'm seeing in the comments? It's not true. Some people support violence. You know, there's always somebody. It's a big crowd. So I would agree with the statement that in a big crowd, there's somebody who supports just about anything. So he's got a 12 hour suspension. So have you noticed that social media and the mainstream news are acting as the gatekeepers of, let's say, order? Do you want them to have that job? Is it the job of social media and the job of the news to manage the news in a way that controls our natural passions or our inflamed opinions or our aggressive protests? Is it really the job of the news to do that. It's very good that they don't make it worse. So we don't want them, you know, mixing things up. But couldn't they be a little more neutral and just say what's happening? I feel as if they're trying pretty hard to reduce it now. I don't know how big it is because as far as I can tell, it's not been reported, the number of people there. If I found out that the number of people there was, I don't know, 500 and it's not growing, I have a very different opinion of it than if it was 500 an hour ago, but it's 2000 now, I'd be a little worried. But you're not going to get any reporting on that, because if they report that the number is going up, it will make the number go up some more. So the news can't really report what's there without changing it. There's some Heisenberg principle or something there. I don't know what I'm talking about, so ignore that part. Yeah. And if it's true, and I assume it is, because everybody's saying it, that Twitter has suspended Trump, I'm sure, just guessing, it has something to do with whipping up passions. Sue, There's a funny joke in the comments, but if you missed it, that's on. You see, Metro D.C. police confirmed the girl was shot and died. So I would make. I'll probably say this 10 more times before tomorrow. I would make no judgments, if I were you, on the question of what happened with that shooting, because it's fog of war, and whoever got shot could well have done something that, you know, earned that response. But it could have also been a tragic mistake. Let's wait until we find out. Why would they take a off a video calling for peace? I don't know. Is that what happened? Jack Spear put out today. They should pull out the 25th Amendment. Yeah. I think you're going to see a lot of people calling for Trump to resign or to be removed from office, and I don't really have an opinion on that. I don't think it matters, frankly. Frankly, what would it matter? It's a few weeks. I don't think it doesn't make much difference. All right. I'm seeing in the comments that Trump asked for a peaceful retreat and that he was accused of inciting violence. Well, only, only Trump could word a tweet that asked for a peaceful retreat and make it sound like he was asking for violence. Trump told people to Calm down and go home. According to the comments. All right, well, here's what I would not worry about. I would not worry about it getting out of hand. I think the protests are proportionate. Any kind of death, of course, is not what anybody wants, but I don't think that represents what was happening as a whole. And I think that this country needs a more transparent and credible election system, and this might go a long way toward creating the energy to make that happen. Because seriously, if we're having this conversation in the next presidential election, we should do this again, right? I mean, if nothing changes and the election is just as non transparent, forget about being fraudulent or fair. If it's non transparent, it's worthless. If we don't fix it by next time, maybe there'll be a bigger protest. We'll see. All right, that's all for today. I'll see you in the morning. Don't panic. You will be fine. All right. And bitcoin is going crazy. You get it. Congress doesn't. Thank you. You are intentionally dishonest and speaking in opposition. Wait, what? You are intentionally dishonest and speaking in opposition to what can be realized. Okay, Blake, you need to work on your commenting skills so they make more sense. I can't say that I even know what that means. Will Trump end up in jail? You know, almost anything's possible now. Trump Tower. Where was the sip? You missed it. Yeah, I was asking on Twitter, which side is Antifa on? Shouldn't Antifa be on the same side? Because chaos, force. It's a false flag to force the vote tonight. Yeah, it doesn't look like a false flag to me. Can certification be delayed for a week? I think they have five days to do the certification. Let's see. It makes a difference. Because Democrats are in power. They think they can do what? Yeah, I think. I think that the protests are the people who feel somewhat abused by this election. I think it's them just saying that they're a force to be reckoned with. So I'm not sure that that's bad. Trump should address the crowd in person. No, he shouldn't. No, he's. He's a match in gasoline. And now you should stay away. Is there any way to hold the media accountable? Probably not, because if you tried to hold them accountable, you'd destroy free speech as well. Senator Rand Paul says. What do you say? He said it was a big mistake to do this. He said if the challenge to the. Oh, so he's saying that the challenge to the Electoral College vote was a big mistake. Maybe. Maybe. All right, that's all for now. Stay cool. You'll be fine.