Breaking the Resistance (11-25-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] All right, so last hour I was, yeah, last hour we were talking about immigration and I guess this, well, let me see here. Hello, let's talk to Nick. Hello, Nick. How are you?

[00:00:41] I'm good. How are you?

[00:00:42] I'm good. What's up?

[00:00:45] Okay, I was just listening to your commenting about how Trump is not going to get much accomplished in this next term that he's going to be a lame duck.

[00:00:57] I said, no, that's not what I said. Nick, Nick, Nick, that's not what I said. I said, I don't, I said, I have low expectations that he's going to be able to accomplish a lot. That's what I said. And then I outlined the reasons why.

[00:01:12] Okay, I understand. And your pessimism is a buzzkill for us that voted for him. And the reason I say that is, if you think about how much he got accomplished as a complete outsider his first term, and everything that was against him, the Russia hoax, and you know all the things that happened.

[00:01:33] And now he's coming in. This is a new Trump. And you could tell by, you haven't heard much out of Trump directly himself since he won the election. He's having his surrogates speak for him.

[00:01:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:01:48] And he's got, everything has already been laid out. He's playing chess now. He's no longer playing checkers.

[00:01:55] I was no, I was assured he was playing like multidimensional chess the first term. Are you saying he wasn't the first term?

[00:02:05] First term he was totally naive and he was not. He trusted all the wrong people. This time around, he's playing chess.

[00:02:12] That's retconning.

[00:02:14] Three-dimensional if you'd like. I like that even better.

[00:02:16] No, but that's, but Nick, that's retconning. So Nick, you're trying to go back and you're, and you may, you may really believe that, and believe this at the time, that he was in over his head, he was naive or whatever.

[00:02:28] Uh, but that's not what Trump world and the Trump supporters were saying to me for the four years at that time.

[00:02:36] They told me at the time that he was, he was engaged in, you know, multidimensional chess and that we just didn't understand all of the moves he was making and why he was making them, but it was all going to, it was all going to work out.

[00:02:50] Um, and so now you're saying that that wasn't true. So that's just, I mean, and you're entitled to a different opinion, no doubt about it, but I mean, I could say like, that's kind of a buzzkill to the people that said that he was operating at a higher level.

[00:03:05] Well, I don't, I think he was too naive his first time around. He trusted the wrong people and he was relying on people that he expected to be helping him.

[00:03:17] I agree with you. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And he relied on, he relied because a lot of people, uh, if you'll recall, uh, there were a lot of people on the right and in the conservative media, uh, that were saying, you know, don't go to work for this guy.

[00:03:35] If you're a Republican and you go to work in his administration, you're done with, you know, you'll never work again. Um, and those, obviously those voices were amplified then by the legacy media outlets at the time.

[00:03:46] So there were, yeah, there, he was relying on sort of a smaller talent pool to draw from. And then he had people that were in there that did not want him to succeed.

[00:03:57] And like you said, he was an outsider and I've made this argument for eight years. And there is a, there's a downside to that, which is that nobody owes you favors.

[00:04:07] You don't have, you know, long-term relationships with people that are, you know, in the halls of Congress and power and you, and that it hamstrings you.

[00:04:17] Jimmy Carter learned that too. So there is a, there's a pro side of being an outsider, but there is definitely a downside to it.

[00:04:23] And so maybe he avoids that this time around. That's, that's possible too.

[00:04:29] Jimmy Carter had the advantage of being a Democrat governor supported fully by the Democrat party.

[00:04:37] And he had, and he won the primary.

[00:04:40] So why, yeah, but why does that matter? I was making a comparison on the fact that they were both considered to be outsiders outside of DC.

[00:04:49] They did not come from, they did not work with these members of Congress. That's all the point I was making. It's not a, that wasn't an attack on Donald Trump.

[00:04:56] I wasn't savaging Donald Trump. Okay. Okay.

[00:05:00] I'm just, okay. I'm, I'm just surprised at, like I said, I'm very optimistic that he's going to accomplish an awful lot.

[00:05:07] Everything he's talked out. No, but I think that he's going to have a very successful next four years.

[00:05:14] And if it goes as well as I'm expecting it, it's going to be a layup for Vance to take over when he steps down.

[00:05:21] That's possible too.

[00:05:22] So yeah, that, that's my feeling, but okay. You know, we're, we're, I think we're on the same side.

[00:05:29] We're just looking at things from a different, a different prism. That's all.

[00:05:32] Correct. Yes. My, my expectation is based on not Donald Trump. My expectation is based on the way Congress works.

[00:05:43] That's what I outlined was that the people that he needs in Congress to help him do stuff on a permanent basis,

[00:05:50] rather than just write an executive order that gets overturned by the next Democrat that comes in,

[00:05:55] he's going to need congressional power behind him. And the time, the, the, the window for Congress to be brave is very limited

[00:06:05] because the closer you get to the midterm election, members of Congress, they start, they start getting cold feet on things,

[00:06:14] things that they think will, will jeopardize their reelection. That's why I said, he's only going to,

[00:06:19] my belief is he's going to have about a year and a half, a year to a year and a half to really get stuff done.

[00:06:26] Everything else that's going to take longer is going to become more difficult the longer he goes.

[00:06:31] That's why they're called lame duck presidencies.

[00:06:35] All right. No, no argument on the 18 months. I'll, I'll go along with you on that one.

[00:06:40] And that's why he's got to get hit the ground running. This first couple of months is going to be crucial.

[00:06:46] Yes.

[00:06:46] And if that'll set the tone for the next 18 and that'll make the midterms, if he's successful,

[00:06:53] the midterms will be a lot easier and he will have a lot of the, let's say fence,

[00:06:59] the fence sitter Republicans will definitely go his way. You know, I moved down here from Chicago,

[00:07:05] not that long ago. It doesn't get worse. Okay. Then Chicago. So it's a, and, and luckily I,

[00:07:12] I didn't bring Chicago politics with me. Like a lot of the New York, New Jersey people have done

[00:07:17] that have come down to, to Charlotte. And it's, uh, it's, it's refreshing to at least

[00:07:23] see and hear a lot of people that are thinking that for the country and not just the party.

[00:07:30] So yeah, thank you for your time. Yeah. Nick, I appreciate the call. All right. Yeah. Like I'm

[00:07:36] not, I'm not being pessimistic on a Trump presidency. I don't have any idea what he's

[00:07:44] going to be able to do and what he's not. I don't know how he's going to prioritize stuff. I don't know

[00:07:47] if he's going to be successful. I don't know what the stuff is going to look like. I don't know.

[00:07:51] I'm not telling you. I do. I'm just saying he's got a, he's got a window of opportunity

[00:07:57] that again, if the historical norms hold and they may not like that, that might be what happens.

[00:08:03] Also the historical norm might not. Nick said that he thinks that if Trump is successful,

[00:08:08] then that will mean, uh, uh, electoral benefit for these, uh, members of Congress that are up in

[00:08:16] the midterms in 2028 that's or 26, sorry. In 2026, that's possible too. That would not be on

[00:08:25] trend with the historical norm. So I look at the trend lines. And so when the trend is that the

[00:08:32] party that holds the white house in modern history loses seats in the midterms, that is the fear that

[00:08:41] members of Congress have now, maybe members of Congress, enough of them say, you know what?

[00:08:45] Screw it. We're all in, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound. We're all in. We're going to go

[00:08:50] ahead with this. And if it means we lose, we lose. And maybe they're actually rewarded, right? That

[00:08:56] might happen too. That would, but that, that would be a, a divergence from the trend. That's all.

[00:09:03] So I just look at those trends and I say just at a high level, just to say, Hmm, probably members,

[00:09:09] members of Congress are going to get cowardly. They're not going to go along with stuff.

[00:09:13] And then, and he's going to be fighting lawsuits. He's going to be fighting Democrat state

[00:09:17] attorneys general. And all of that is going to slow down what he's trying to do. And he's on a clock.

[00:09:26] He's on a four year clock. He can't do another term. So whatever he's going to get done,

[00:09:31] he's got to get done sooner rather than later. Now the stacking of his, um, of his cabinet picks

[00:09:38] and having all of that stuff done so early, that's a good sign. But I, but I have no idea if he's,

[00:09:45] what he's going to choose first as the priorities and how successful they're going to be. I don't have

[00:09:49] any idea. I just say me personally, I don't have high expectations that he's going to get anything

[00:09:55] done because I fear what's going to happen is a bogging down of all of these initiatives.

[00:10:03] You can disagree. That's totally fine, but it's all just speculation.

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[00:11:11] So this dovetailing off of my discussion there with Nick, who had called in about whether or

[00:11:21] not, you know, Trump will be able to get a lot done in the beginning of his term or through

[00:11:26] all four years of the term. Again, I don't know. If I could predict the future, I would probably be

[00:11:33] way wealthier than I am right now. But one thing that might have changed, although I'm not

[00:11:40] so sure I'll believe it when I see it, because I'm skeptical by nature. I'm a bit of a contrarian.

[00:11:45] So when I look out over this vast wasteland of the resistance, I am not so sure that it is broken.

[00:11:57] I'm not sure that the fever has broken on the left. I think there's a regrouping that's going on,

[00:12:05] and then there will be a resurgence of the resistance. They may not be wearing the pink cat hats

[00:12:12] this time around. Remember those? But I suspect they're going to, you know, get different types

[00:12:21] of uniforms. I don't think they can keep using the Hamas whole lace adjacent keffias and the

[00:12:30] and the Palestinian flags in their protests against Trump. I'm not sure the black block works very well.

[00:12:36] Everybody's kind of caught on to the whole anti-fug garb at this point. So maybe they go with a different

[00:12:41] costume. I don't know. But I suspect you're going to see more of what we saw when Trump first won in

[00:12:48] 2016. I saw, was it Fox News had a story? I didn't get to hear it or see it, but I'm going to pass

[00:12:56] along what I saw on the crawl underneath a little chyron. And it talked about Airbnb houses, I guess,

[00:13:04] in the D.C. area that are shutting down. They're refusing to book any guests for Trump's inauguration.

[00:13:12] Right? So, like, that's the kind of mentality that hasn't gone away. These are petty and vindictive

[00:13:22] and, to quote Donald Trump, nasty people. They're not going away. So I think they're going to regroup.

[00:13:30] But right now, it appears like they've kind of gone into hiding. And maybe they're just depressed.

[00:13:39] They're hanging out in their cry closets or something. But I expect them to return.

[00:13:47] There was a piece over at Red State by Bob Hogue. And he talks about how, remember, back in 2016,

[00:13:56] there were, yes, the pink cat hats, as I call them, the widespread outrage, the riots, the

[00:14:06] unhinged commentary from a corrupt media. He says,

[00:14:10] we still see that today, some eight years later, as Trump won yet again. But it's not the same.

[00:14:15] There's a feeling of defeat emanating from the left. And I agree with that. I do agree with that.

[00:14:23] There is a there is this sense that a lot of people on the left are trying to figure out how

[00:14:28] they've lost to Donald Trump yet again, of all the people to lose to and to lose by a bigger margin.

[00:14:37] How did that happen? Surely it's not us, obviously. So it's got to be more people have gone racist.

[00:14:46] More people are sexist. He's making everybody more racist and sexist. Like, that's kind of what

[00:14:52] I got about. That's what they're saying. That's the explanation. It's not them. It's us.

[00:14:59] So. I don't think that that goes away. I think the tactics just shift.

[00:15:08] Mostly, says we see videos, though, of mentally disturbed Democrats losing their minds on social

[00:15:14] media and misty eyed anchors at MSNBC and CNN still trying to tell us our democracy is in peril.

[00:15:21] But we haven't seen any serious coordinated reaction. I would just add one word yet yet.

[00:15:33] Right. The people who view Donald Trump as an existential threat to the democracy, to America,

[00:15:40] to, you know, everything and anything. They still retain their purchase of power.

[00:15:49] Right. They are still there. They are still embedded in government. They're in the NGOs.

[00:15:55] They're in the nonprofits. Right. They're in state, local government. They're in the media.

[00:16:00] They haven't gone anywhere. So right now, I think they may perceive that they're not the majority.

[00:16:06] And so they may be a little bit more hesitant to flex in the way that we saw.

[00:16:12] But flex, they will. That's my prediction. Flex, they will. Because that's what they do.

[00:16:18] All right. Hey, real quick. If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000

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[00:16:40] message. Pete at the Pete Calendar show dot com. And I can show you how it works. Run the numbers with

[00:16:45] you. Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar show dot com. So this Bob Hogue piece over at

[00:16:51] redstate.com talking about how the resistance is mostly MIA for Trump 2.0. And so far, I like

[00:17:03] I agree that so far it does seem to be a bit MIA. That being said, I don't think it will remain so.

[00:17:13] He says there's or sorry, he quotes Axios as saying there's still plenty of resistance to

[00:17:19] Trump across the country, but little mass mobilization. Yet, I would add Axios has a quote from Lisa

[00:17:30] Muller, a political science professor at Macalester College. It's very likely that there is some

[00:17:39] disillusionment with activism. Oh, God, please let that be true. Man, that would be awesome.

[00:17:47] Hogue says to be sure there are many who will continue to fight on for the failed progressive

[00:17:52] movement, especially blue state governors and expect some knockdown drag out fights over Trump's

[00:17:58] cabinet picks. There are also plans for inauguration day protests, but we'll see if some of the usual

[00:18:04] agitators are too burnt out from all the pro Hamas demonstrations they've been attending since October

[00:18:10] of 2023. That is one of the things that Saul Alinsky talks about is that in his rules for radicals,

[00:18:18] he does talk about like, like, you have to find tactics and ways of protest or the work that your

[00:18:28] activist crowd that you've attracted to the cause, you have to find things that they like to do.

[00:18:36] And you have to you got to mix it up a little bit. You got to switch it up. You can't just keep doing

[00:18:42] the same thing over and over and over again. People will grow bored of that. And yeah, I mean,

[00:18:49] they're still doing chants from the 1960s anti-war protests marches, right? I mean, come on. So I think

[00:18:56] that I think there may be some truth to this, that maybe there is some burnout among the activist crowd,

[00:19:05] but I don't think it's going to last. I think they're going to have a resurgence. I think they're

[00:19:10] going to, you know, take some time. I got the holidays here. They're going to spend it with family.

[00:19:15] Actually, no, I take that back. They're probably not spending it with family. If judging by any of the

[00:19:20] articles that I've been seeing and the social media posts, they are, they're probably not actually

[00:19:26] going to be spending it with family. But he says it does feel different than 2016. It feels like Trump

[00:19:34] broke them. If you are optimistic, then you are free, like caller Nick at the beginning of the program,

[00:19:42] you are free to believe that. I do not. I don't think Trump broke them. I think he has broken a lot of

[00:19:48] people's brains. But I don't think he has broken this kind of leftist activism because even when you,

[00:19:54] even when you stamp it down, it still comes back. We are where we are right now because it,

[00:20:01] it returned, right? This, this neo-Marxism, it, I'm afraid it doesn't die. We are just doomed

[00:20:11] to fight it over and over and over and over and over again. It just won't go away.

[00:20:18] I can get biblical about it, spiritual about it, because that's where I think it comes from.

[00:20:24] But I think that's what, that's why we are destined to be constantly fighting it. It doesn't

[00:20:30] ever go away. Congressman Daryl Issa from California. He went off on Secretary of State

[00:20:40] Antony Blinken after it was reported that the State Department held therapy sessions for employees

[00:20:46] who were upset by Trump's victory. He wrote a letter, as irate Congress people do. He says,

[00:20:53] I am concerned that the department is catering to federal employees who are personally devastated

[00:20:58] by the normal functioning of American democracy through the provision of government-funded mental

[00:21:05] health counseling because Kamala Harris was not elected. The letter comes after a Washington Free

[00:21:11] Beacon report earlier this month that detailed two alleged therapy sessions that were held at the

[00:21:18] State Department after Trump's victory, with sources telling the outlet that one of these instances

[00:21:24] amounted to an information, quote, cry session. So it wasn't like an actually,

[00:21:33] like, constructed cry session. It just amounted to one. So it just kind of happened. Everybody is there

[00:21:41] and it just kind of turns into a cry session. In his letter to Blinken, Issa argued that the reported

[00:21:47] sessions were disturbing and that, quote, nonpartisan government officials should not be suffering a

[00:21:53] personal meltdown over the result of a free and fair election. But look, I understand people are depressed

[00:22:03] when their team loses. People get sad when their team loses. As one who has never voted for a major

[00:22:09] party candidate until this time around for president, I know what it's like to lose elections.

[00:22:14] I know what that's like. To cast your vote for somebody and they don't lose. It's not, it's not

[00:22:20] preferable, okay? It's not optimal. I would prefer that my candidate, my, the one that I voted for,

[00:22:26] I would prefer that person wins. And then they don't. And so it's like, oh, that stinks.

[00:22:31] And some people who believe a lot of media that they consume will believe that it is the end of the

[00:22:37] world as they know it. And they will get really depressed. Now, that being said, this is why this

[00:22:44] story is important. Not for just the simple mockery of the cry session, but Issa raised fears that the

[00:22:51] sessions could also call into question the willingness of some of the State Department's employees

[00:22:57] to carry out Trump's new vision for the agency. That is correct. That is absolutely correct.

[00:23:05] They have self-selected themselves into a networking opportunity.

[00:23:11] Right? If you're good, think about it. You're at work, the election happens, you come into work the

[00:23:16] next day, and you don't really want like, you know, you don't want to shave your head like all of these

[00:23:21] people on social media are doing because they're so depressed about Kamala's loss that they're shaving

[00:23:26] their heads. Like, you don't want to go that route. So you go to the cry session. And while you're at

[00:23:33] the cry session, you come in contact with all of your other colleagues who are so brain busted that

[00:23:42] they had to attend this session too. And so now you look around, these are my allies. These are,

[00:23:51] this is my team. And so now you can network, oh, I'm over in this, you know, division of state. Oh,

[00:23:58] I'm over doing this stuff. And so now you know who to talk to if you're trying to throw sand in the

[00:24:04] gears of the Trump administration. That's my concern. See, so that's why I'm saying like this stuff isn't

[00:24:08] going away. So Axios had an article along the lines here of the, you know, Democrats in there

[00:24:17] and whether the resistance has been broken. Jim Vande Hei, founder, Mike Allen, founder of Axios

[00:24:26] behind the curtain, deep democratic depression. Democrats didn't just lose badly. They lost to a

[00:24:34] convicted felon that they ridiculed as a racist, misogynist, fascist, and an existential threat to

[00:24:41] democracy. And they didn't just lose to president elect Trump. They lost the Senate, the house, many

[00:24:47] Hispanic men, all three blue wall States, both Southern swing States, even substantial support in

[00:24:54] the bluest of States and cities. Come January, they'll have scant power in the federal government

[00:25:01] and shriveling clout in the courts and States. The traditional media structure sympathetic to their

[00:25:08] views and hostile to Trump's was shattered. That is quite the admission. The traditional media

[00:25:18] structure sympathetic to Democrats views and hostile to Trump's was shattered. The irony here is that

[00:25:28] Trump's views are actually not very conservative. They never really have been.

[00:25:35] This is, this was the criticism of him way back in 2015 in the Republican primary that he wasn't

[00:25:41] really a conservative. The road to Democrats Damascus requires deep, honest self-reflection.

[00:25:50] Well, that's not going to happen. And many party insiders tell us they're going to need new

[00:25:55] leadership. White house officials were dismissive of reporting about screw ups. When journalists

[00:26:01] held up a mirror, they often looked away. This is one of the games that these legacy reporters and

[00:26:08] journalists, uh, journalismers, uh, do where, you know, after Democrats suffered defeat, they kind of

[00:26:14] step away from the Democrats and like, Oh, look, this is on you. Like, what did you do? Oh my gosh.

[00:26:21] It ain't have anything to do with this. They will not be led by Joe Biden. That much is clear. Oh, by the way,

[00:26:30] I have a soundbite here from Joe Biden. Um, because he did the pardoning of the Thanksgiving

[00:26:36] turkeys, a loathsome tradition, in my opinion. Um, are we, how many turkeys are we up to now? Is it like,

[00:26:43] is it like 12 or 13? Have we gotten to double digits on the, on the turkeys getting pardoned?

[00:26:49] Anyway, because they still do eat turkeys at the Thanksgiving dinner table at the white house,

[00:26:55] they're going to eat turkeys. So some Turkey is dying. Not these two privileged ones that he pardoned

[00:27:01] today with this memorable, uh, uh, speech. That's just 1,100 miles. Takes 16.5 hours through it all.

[00:27:12] They stayed calm. They gobbled on and still gobbling. They were, they were, they were,

[00:27:22] they were stayed nice listening to their favorite music, which apparently includes a song living on

[00:27:28] a prayer. Profound, profound. As Tom Elliott said, crushing it, just crushing it. See what I mean?

[00:27:41] Just a loathsome tradition. We all know where the turkey on the table comes from. Just don't trot

[00:27:50] these things out and show them to us and then give them some pardon. So they get to go live on a farm

[00:27:56] and some other Turkey that we don't know their name gets slaughtered. Okay. All right. Good talk.

[00:28:02] All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show

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