David Pakman (24:39)
Now, consider a couple things here. Number one, when Trump says the Dow decline, the stock market decline, rather hasn't been that bad, what he's saying is he would have been willing to suffer to sacrifice rather way more on the behalf of the American people whose retirement accounts depend on the stock market. He actually expected you to lose even more money out of your retirement account when he did this, and he was fine with that. He volunteered you. It hasn't been as bad as he expected yet. But more importantly, this endless discussion of Dow 50K, it has now been seven weeks since the Dow briefly hit 50,000. You can see that that happened between February6 and 10, and it has not seen those numbers since because of the fiasco that has been unleashed. Now, don't get me wrong, I want it back there. You think I like logging in and seeing my index fund account the way it is lately? It's a bloodbath. But I've got to tell the truth. And Donald Trump is losing his speaking ability. He's lost his ability to tell the truth if he ever had it. And he has no shame about committing crimes. That's where we are today. How many people in my audience realize that a ton of these elected officials do not give an F about you? Of all the reasons to tune out of politics, most of which I think are terrible. I really can't argue with the notion that a large share of elected officials primarily care about themselves and their political careers. Not you and not me. Now, I know that that sounds harsh, but stay with me for a second. Every single election cycle, every campaign, every speech is built on this idea that they really care about you. These elected officials, these candidates. They care about your life, your future. They don't. They mostly do not give an F about you. What they care about is getting elected and getting reelected. Now, I know some of you will say, but what about this other person who does care? What about Bernie? What about my elected official? Yes, of course, some do care. This is not everybody. But if we look at incentives and we understand the system, you can only see that this is logical. Start with why do elected officials say one thing one week and the exact opposite the next? The ones that do, why do they suddenly evolve on issues right as the polling changes? Why does Trump say he does want a cease fire and he doesn't want a cease fire. A woman who gets an abortion should be punished, and then she shouldn't be punished. Why is this going on? Because they aren't fundamentally operating from ideology, they're operating from incentives. There are exceptions on the left and some on the right. I think Rand Paul mostly just tells us what he really believes. And he believes, although I think he's wrong, he believes that what he wants to see happen would be better for the country. I think the same thing about Thomas Massie. I think the same thing about Bernie. I think the same thing about just to pick random people when Congressman Jake Auchincloss is on the show and a lot of you like them because you said, this guy genuinely seems to get it and care. I'm not saying it's none of them, but the incentive is to say whatever polling tells you people want to hear. They'll, you know, say Taylor Swift is the best thing in music, if that's what's trending, and if it's going to get him votes, if they'll be more libertarian, if that polls well. And then they'll say, raise some taxes, or maybe it's fees, but we'll cut taxes, maybe on some people, not others. For too many people in politics today, there is no real core. The core is rotten. There's no belief system. It's what gets me the most votes right now. And the part that a lot of people don't want to admit is that while you might sound horrified by this, you go, oh, I would never. A lot of voters reward that behavior because voters say that they want authenticity, but then they respond to whatever message feels good to them in the moment. So politicians adapt to that all the time. They do focus groups and internal polls and external polls and messaging tweaks and micro targeting on social media. It's a performance. And the irony is that the people who try to appeal to everyone often end up appealing to no one, because people can sometimes sense it, even if they can't fully articulate it. They start to feel that something is off, but it sometimes takes a while, which is why the incentives are to try to do this. Now. There are exceptions. I again want to say it. There are people who go into politics because they do want to help. That does exist. But the point I'm making is that the system doesn't reward those people, I would argue, nearly as much as it rewards those who are flexible, let's call it that, and have a communication strategy that is about trying to just convince people you're flexible on beliefs and messaging. And then you get something else that is really important. The same person criticizing politicians with no ideology will turn around and say, my preferred politicians are courageous truth tellers. Now, I would like to say. I would like to say that we all know who the real truth tellers are, but we know that there's a big bias with this. There is very low approval for Congress, but much higher approval for the specific representatives of people. It's sort of like when you ask people, do you think you're in the best 50% of drivers or the worst 50% of drivers? And like 80% of people believe they're in the top 50%. Mathematically impossible. Similarly, we have a lot of people who go, so many of these elected officials are terrible, they're disingenuous, they don't have the best interests of the people in mind. My elected officials, good, though. Much higher approval rating. So statistically, that doesn't make sense. Something's got to give here. The other thing that I think is important to consider is that it has become a big element of politics, that people want their ideology validated. They want their. They want someone who's on their side. And inconsistency really doesn't matter anymore. Now, later in the week, I'm going to talk about how being wrong also doesn't really have a downside for a lot of elected officials. But if we zoom out here, we have a situation where double standards and inconsistency have stopped mattering as long as you hear what you believe you want to hear from your elected officials. Now, if we zoom out even further, this is more or less the structure of modern politics, short term incentives. I think a lot of the people talking about politics also don't care about you. Now I'm talking about content creators, the people on your feed you should critically analyze the people making videos telling you how angry you should be, how scared you should be, who you should hate, doing the scapegoating and all of this stuff. A lot of them are operating out of incentives, clicks, views, Watch Time subscribers. And if outrage performs, that's what they'll give you. If fear performs, that's what they'll try to induce in you. As I've said before, there are a lot of areas where I'm leaving a lot on the table. I could be playing up the whole they're canceling the election thing. That wouldn't be honest, but it would perform really well. I don't do that kind of thing. I just tell you what I believe. Some of what I believe doesn't get a lot of clicks. That's the reality. If telling you that everything is collapsing takes more or gets more engagement, that's what you're going to get. So the system that affects elected officials to a great degree affects content creators as well. Again, there are tons of people who don't fall under the umbrella that I am pointing out. So what I think is important to consider is that once you see this reality about the political messaging that you're getting, a lot of what is out there is less confusing. You can better understand why elected officials behave the way they do and why a lot of content creators behave the way they do. If you understand that the primary incentive is stay in power, keep my audience. Everything else comes after that. I to be clear, again, this is a harsh critique. It does not apply to everybody, but it applies to too many. And we have to remember that when we're analyzing the messages that we get. So now I want to hear from you. Who do you believe this critique applies to and who do you believe it doesn't apply to? I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Send me an email info@david pakman.com Donald Trump may find himself too weak to pick his successor as the leader of maga. Let me explain. If you're waiting for a sort of Julius Caesar moment where the MAGA movement finally turns on Trump, I don't believe that it's going to happen. You are kind of like waiting around for a lightning strike when it's more likely that. That the tide coming in will slowly drown you. To use a kind of metaphor, imagery. I think that the reality of what's happening on, on the MAGA side is actually more interesting and more consequential than just they've turned on Trump. They're not so much breaking away from Trump, but they're preparing for a world in which Trump is not the center of their political movement. Now, for years, the kind of gravity of the movement was stay close to Trump and by his sheer weight. And I'm using that metaphorically. I'm not talking about Trump's obesity. By the sheer weight of Trump. If you stay close, he's going to kind of keep you in that orbit, circling. But lately it's a little different. And if you look past the public displays of fealty that are still there, the behavior of a lot of these people has changed. You are seeing a more insurance mindset, a risk mitigation mindset from a lot of magazines. The big players are starting to build their own lifeboats. J.D. vance is, you know, got Peter Thiel and there are many others, media people, etc. They're kind of crafting their own messaging lanes. They're cultivating donor bases like Marco Rubio. They're carving out an identity that doesn't necessarily depend on Donald Trump.
