Hello and welcome the crosstown for all things are considered im Peter Lavelle as expected ballots are still being counted but what we do know about this election that its close in the country is deeply divided what are some of the lessons to be learned was it enough to frame this election as a referendum on donald trump. There is goes this and more im joined by my guest Christopher Metzler in washington he is a legal scholar in monterrey we have spencers ridgeley he is the author of patriots of 2 nations and is the former Communications Advisor for obama or america in los angeles we have ram elwood he is a free guest on that your show and the podcast the political vigilante and. You tube or angelic dust up rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it ok lets go to spencer in monterey whats whats happening in the selection because for days and weeks before i kept hearing all of these polls this is going to trump is going to be. This is going to be essentially a blowout and now its not its much much closer than we thought and a lot of ballots still need to be counted and it can go either way here did you expect it to be this close go ahead yes i think its. More or less in the middle of the range that i expected that it that i think was the man line range of expectations there was a hopeful version for democrats where florida would go for biden and it would basically be over and everybody could stop worrying after 4 years of intense anxiety thats obviously not happening it does look like there is some polling or i dont think we can claim there is none even if you account for the fact that there is always a margin of error it looks skewed in trumps favor so far although even there we need to remember that weve all been told this is early days when it comes to vote and vote counting for many of these states which are barely Getting Started on counting their votes and there was what was called a red mirage predicted and all that said i would say from a democrats point of view of the fact that its even plausible that trump would be reelected i think means were still in the same crisis of division that we were before no matter how this comes out ok were going to pressure i mean isnt it a crisis of the Democratic Party as well i think you know theres a lot of blame to be shared around here go ahead chris yeah i am indeed i believe that there is i mean from our perspective you know from the very beginning this whole idea of the low out just didnt make all mosques sense and i think democrats ban on lot of time i think in my dreams out of florida was never going to go. Oh are 2 democrats and they spent a whole lot of time taxes seriously i mean it was just and i think they couldve spent better time in class bases that actually mattered and that thats where we find ourselves at this ill lead our. Grammy and it wasnt supposed to be this way here i mean one of the interesting things i find particularly in the liberal media is that not only do they demonize donald trump i know hes a politician thats fair game but it seems to me they demonized his supporters and i think that has a boomerang effect graham wow i mean you know theres theres some fair criticisms to be made of some of his supporters and dirt you know doris by white nationalists and stuff like that but the problem here the Democratic Party in 2016 they you know cheated in their own primary and then ran a centrist and they lost and so what did they do in 2020 oh they cheated again and their primary and ran centrist and theyve had no platform no policy their whole campaign has been trumps bad were better than him so youve got people who were in the middle of a pandemic if someone was saying i have medicare for all i have student Debt Forgiveness which is something the president could do by executive order 85 percent of all student debt is federal the president just write it with a pad i watched the debates and i felt like i was watching a republican primary i mean it was like well im not im not going to ban fracking will need to remind america im not for a Green New Deal there was no difference if theyre pretty united least and i know you pretty well i mean joe bidens assist a liberal republican and thats the problem for the democrats. Its into thinking about the issues here spencer what were the issues here because again it was just very emotional you know i think you know an anxiety and all that and it didnt say and im going to blame the republicans on this one too where were. The issues here i didnt see an affirmative case mate during this election i had spent you know i actually disagree with without analysis and i write about this in my book and i want to emphasize again weve got to be careful not to read too much into where we are now its still quite likely its still very likely that biden is going to win this election for me the the story is that its even close as i say you know the the story that this is about policy i just dont think is supported by the data and my view of the issues that the Democratic Party faces and those issues will remain whether biden wins or not and i think that there are serious issues because and in important ways i think the Democratic Party created the opening for trump to exploit it actually has more to do with culture than economics most voters dont actually know very much about policy and they dont very care of very much about policy and yet democrats are always arguing about policies they care about the ones that affect them directly if theyre working in the fracking industry of course they care about that if theyre in agriculture they care about firm issues etc etc but they really are not voting primarily on policy theyre always voting on is this a strong leader who cares about people like me and i actually think thats one of joe bidens greatest strengths is unlike Hillary Clinton who i feel as a classic example of a very highly qualified democratic candidate but not an effective campaigner joe biden is highly qualified and is also an effective campaigner because hes capable of connecting with people on that in 2 of level i me on leader cares about me Christy Barrett and those words strong doesnt come to mind when i look at joe biden ok i see a lot of weakness i see a lot of frailty and i dont and i didnt see him as being on tolleson here i mean what it would for me is 2016 and this election and spencer is right its far from over here but there seems to be a realignment going on here its working people going to the Republican Party not to the Democratic Party just. Well and thats that thats absolutely correct and you know again look at as it really late screw the Democratic Party for my perspective joe biden should have run when Hillary Clinton rat i mean its simply too late at this point in my view and so biden runs then he gets how will i have to back a muck and the whole thing is just a side show and from the perspective of strong i dont see him as a strong decisive leader i simply dont see that what i do see is the Democratic Party frailing all over the place its like oh it cme that and all of this discussion for example the progressives and i get all of this kind of something psychologists you know what about the person who has to go to work every day it seems like youre forgotten about that person and i think thats a major part of what we have here and i think that we find ourselves so close it you chris or youre absolutely right and who would have thought that that the default position for somebody else people would be donald trump ok thats what i find really extraordinary and you know if graham i mean i know you well enough here is that you know whatever the outcome is yours are going to be a reckoning within the Democratic Party because you know it seems to me that in this election there was a lot of voter shaming ok and they did it and then the lot of voting shaming was inside the Democratic Party against progressive i mean you know nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer have more venom for the progressive wing of the party than they do for the g. O. P. Go ahead but thats absolutely true i mean look the Democratic Party would rather lose to republicans than what progressives take it over because a progressive take it over their donor class leaves so thats what the Democratic Party is all about and these you know the neo liberals that shame progressives if they spent as my. After holding the Democratic Party accountable as they do shaming people that are there would be real change i think you say you have a bond and is likely a chance of reforming the Democratic Party from within as you do joining a drug cartel and getting them to stop selling drugs and still be good smoothies. Ok so spenser to be in the way what is the positives that you think that white people want to vote for joe biden is it as i said in my introduction is this and i think that the Democratic Party is running a referendum on donald trump was any good it was or was not a mistake i actually think they ran a Good Campaign and lets remember again lets look at what the data actually says not what we you know believe it should say depending on where we sit on the ideological spectrum biden was never even close to being below donald trump in a Approval Rating and he won the primary fair and square you know if you look at they. Actual numbers about where americans sit ideologically 75 percent if im remembering right of americans identify themselves as either conservative or moderate and that includes among democrats if you look at democrats you find i think its im reaching back a little ways here so forgive me if these numbers are a little wrong but i think its Something Like 12 percent of the population identifies as progressive and when you get down to very progressive youre down to Something Like 7 percent so you know the claim that if the Democratic Party would stop making all these compromises and supposedly selling out to big donors theyd start winning elections with progressive policies i dont think so i think that the strongest case that somebody like a Bernie Sanders made was more as i say of a sense that with bernie you got the feeling like it was authentic and that he would fight for you that he actually cared about you if it was progressive policies why would these people be running to this you know darling of billionaire. Hes essentially a puppet of billionaires and hes does has these incredibly regressive policies i maintain its because democrats tend to be strong on economics their economic policies are usually right and theyre usually right for everybody by the way. At the bottom top and middle but theyre really bad at culture and i believe that what theyve done since the sixtys has chased away much of their working class base and not just White Working Class they have a problem with people of color as well because they do tend to come across as technocratic and in their heads and frankly kind of arrogant sometimes because they are they are arrogant they feel the people should vote a certain way i mean oh my goodness you might vote differently thats not thats so deep demeaning i theres a theres a i got i believe this actually goes back to our roots in the enlightenment and again this is in my book its kind of the enlightenment versus the counter in like men and people of the enlightenment you know theres a lot to be said for it of course reason has brought us democracy and science and medicine and all kinds of wonderful things but the fundamental mistake is thinking that reason explains everything and you become hyper rational and you tend to think that people who disagree with you are at best mistaken you know and they need either reeducation her punishment because theres no theres no chance they have a valid point of view as you you know have figured any going to diminish it before we go to the rakish chris or was that was are too much voter shaming in the selection go ahead yet there was and in fact it seems to me that the Democratic Party learned nothing from Hillary Clintons basket of the portables its like the basket of the corals on steroids and in fact if as spencer said these are the things that the Democratic Party are for they havent articulated i mean it just has been a bunch of blah blah blah a bunch of quote a shame its been all of those strings and as a result of that the shooting themselves in the proverbial. Ok and then i know they were going to go to a short break and after that short break and you know discussion on the election state. If you can say someone if you have a small and direct means same thing that you can then say there are thousands of other lives well my response is that the way we should think about that is just is that just as theres a child in a store experiment right there in front of you in this burning building you can say well also just thousands of children around the world millions of children and the world you could potentially state it way its lightweight in the situation of being facing a burning building just all the time. Sputnik 5 has the world. Just like its namesake the original. The forest cruft to leave. Orbit the world. Many questions remain unanswered. The authorities are confident enough to go forward with mass production. Very. Pleased. To. Receive. Interest early in their requests. But see. All right this is happening all the way go on the reaction has been exactly the same as it was way back. The world reaction is made of green cheese. But. Its. Plus a list for the future if. Welcome back to crossfire where all things are considered on Peter Lavelle to remind you were talking about the ongoing counting of ballots in the election. Ok lets go back to cram in los angeles ok lets talk about this face off here i mean why would you want to. A trial in my opinion. In 2016 ran as a populist but he governed as a jet jeb bush ok or mitt romney essentially thats what he did ok now on the campaign trail he reverts to his populist. Rhetoric here why he wants to face up here i can see how a moderate democrat can win against a populist on the right ok its a its a mismatch here it and it doesnt create a real choice again if the the the democrats got a little bit more aggressive and id say you know early you know per se here but then if you get much more of a of a choice youre saying that nothing fundamentally will change in the middle of the pandemic in the worst economic turndown since the Great Depression how is it a winning message go ahead where its not i mean thats just the very its not a winning message i mean this is just you know weve got fracking with science or bracket without science and not taking into account you know spencer brought up the fracking jobs while you know oklahoma and texas have record earthquakes as a result the bracketing and you have people with contaminated water who would gladly go get a job working in the green industry and i guess what i do not agree that joe biden one disappearance where when you have people to judge a shadow where its youve got double. Digit exit poll wins for Bernie Sanders and then somehow joe biden wins all in in precincts that use the touch screen voting which has been proven since 2006 to be hackable the un itself said the its not it doesnt it reeks of a rigged election so youve got all of these populist policies people can relate to medicare for all i need Free Health Care i need 15. 00 an hour i needs an unmitigated fan to write. A lot of people do of course those are those are populist issues truck ran on a populist platform and in 2016 hes backed off the populism a little in this campaign but real populism especially when you have people in food lines waiting for food because of this pandemic you have people going how my going to pay for anything you have all industries wiped out and joe biden says now is not the time for a revolution thats right revolutions always happen where everybodys bad never things taken care of bats what revolutions happen so this running in their whole campaign hey they had republicans in the Democratic Convention joe biden has said that hes probably going to have republicans they went after suburban republicans rather than all of the people that have been abandoned the 100000000 people that dont vote because they feel like nice to utterly corrupt parties that are both for war and banking and for Profit Health care and prisons and on down the line dont represent them at all and you watch the debates and theres only blake these handful of issues that theyre different and had you ran an actual populous progressive they would have crushed trump and you could have gone after his actual selling out of his own campaign as one point i trillion dollar try to play a prank or and he did get a touch of that when biden announced his. America 1st you know Economic Policy and even they tried to be an inspiration was they were a bit upset about it to say that were stealing one of our arms well i mean that heart is in play for anyone that wants to use it ok unfortunately even trump didnt do it here spencer to answer some of those. Things that we just heard from graham because again you know in this nothing will fundamentally change and then you read in the wall street journal that a potential biting ministration will have republicans in the cabinet ok i mean when its when its absolutely saying i mean it and nothing will fundamentally change when half the country is looking for what kind of message is that and why would anyone think it would be a winning message well you know one of the tests of an argument is could you make exactly the opposite assertions with equal passion and you could but in both cases you have to be able to actually back it up with information and link that with logic to connect a valid argument i just disagree with that whole analysis biden did run on a pandemic platform for example he said he is going to Pay Attention to the science and the Obama Administration left that science in a detailed plan for the trumpet ministration and the reason weve had among the very worst deaths per capita rates in the world out of 168. 00 nations tracked by Johns Hopkins is because trump ignored the science thats a pretty clear message on it and it in trying to any effective use in the in the compilation hospitals in new york is that trumps all these are anecdotes that come out but again you have to look at what the actual data says and you just cant argue with the data our performance on the pandemic is terrible its and its obvious why its terrible and this is when biden was going to be awesome to me and pretty clear distinction is this campaign about coded that was certainly one of them because when you have a life or death issue you know youve got a pretty much addressed the question of how are you going to protect americans thats the president s responsibility number one closely related to that is the economy which is usually up there its usually its basically security and the economy are the top 2 issues and thats what we see with covais down the economy so i think biden has had a strong message and again let me remind everybody. Its still much more likely that bidens going to win this election in the middle of this. And now that said i agree it should not be close in terms of this story about throwing the primaries in favor of biden that also is in my book and. This is a case in point i would say of people on the left not actually exercising empathy towards the people theyre trying to talk to and instead telling them what they should believe or what they should think biden won largely because of the black people of South Carolina not because of some shadowy d. N. C. Conspiracy its a tremendous act of disrespect to the stalwarts of the Democratic Party and the Africanamerican Community led by jim cliburn to say that this was some conspiracy when its just clearly that is not what happened how do you explain all of a good hurricane allen well you know i dont really know you can always find a Conspiracy Theory that will explain anything or you can look at a preponderance of the data and it kind of how do you explain it not even if i am telling black people that they had any role in this its not a conspiracy to make that claim or supposition that iraq obama made a few confident calls that night theres no evidence that he heard or send out i mean i tell you how imminent already did and look im i know some of the people involved they dont act like they dont do that stuff and again you have to dismiss the the Africanamerican Community of South Carolina and many other states and when the evidence is staring you in the face that they made a difference so youre saying hold on spencer youre saying that the u. N. Discounted africanamerican votes when they said this had all the earmarks of a rigged election they did not and you have to you have to actually have evidence again you can come up with a conspiracy that will explain anything but you have to have evidence to back it up and if youve got you know clear documented evidence that gives you a perfect explanation for what happened versus putting dots together the dont really connect the dont actually have solid evidence ill take the former ok well you know did that one of the explain why he was brought up in the 1st part of the program here is identity politics and woe is them in all of that. Ram is something working here because again it seems to me that there is such a realignment i mean im going to say the forbidden words are in this election that nobody likes to use and its about class its about class and the democrats dont like that they used to and these 2 women on it ok and they have left that lane wide open and the trying to send a terrible job with it but didnt lift it to him and i think if he wins it could be because of that ahead graham yeah well americans are in class warfare but were divided distracted and afraid thanks to you know the oligarchy that run the the media and these 2 utterly corrupt parties and does just any time someone says here is evidence that youre automatically called a conspiracy theorist as part of the class warfare that were in and its its theyre realizing through all that george boyd protester had people of all ethnicities in the streets protesting together and then they had to kind of keep it divided and be woke ism isnt working they just m. S. N. B. C. Last week interviewed 3 black women at the end of it land and all 3 of them are like im not voting for biden and they just assume we were going to vote for tom love or not because you know she put 100000 black men behind bars as attorney general joe biden wrote in 1994 crime bill these are actual facts that people are like hey we want real Justice Reform and people that get money from the private prison industry in the democratic and Republican Party they dont they dont speak to us. You know spencer when it was asked both of you i mean there is there is fear. That there could be violence if trump is to prevail here and again its where early hours into this this could be a couple days i mean it depending on what goes on in pennsylvania but theres been talk of that are you worried about that spencer that theres going to be violence in the streets and looting i mean its been the year of of mostly peaceful protests what do you what are you concerned about. I am somewhat worried and just before i get into that i would like to point to i think its 93 percent africanamerican support for democrats again you just run into numbers here. So i think that theres not going to be the total breakdown of society like we can see in other countries where you have mass scale rioting in the streets or a military coup or anything like that however a great deal of damage can be done by a relatively small number of people as terrorists have shown all over the world and one of the under covered stories i mean there are journalists covering up at the administration is doing everything it can to downplay it and develop a much more sexy counter narrative is that by far domestic terrorism is committed by right wing White Supremacists in this country and any other form of domestic terrorism is dwarfed by comparison to the ones that didnt all of the looting during the summer because these are small group of so even there we run into numbers our study was recently done i think again it was the number was Something Like 93 percent of those protests were peaceful and where there were violent incidents they were often initiated by other people counter protesters or in some cases Law Enforcement this is also a case where this theres this pervasive problem on the left of thinking you know whats good for people whether thats people on the left talking to Trump Supporters and i agree that is a problem it comes down even to word choice and not realizing that you come across as kind of severe even when you dont. Intend to just play word choice also with the with the protests in black neighborhoods very often what happens is you have the people who live in the neighborhood and what they want is better policing but then you have people from outside the Community Coming in saying we want no police or we want to tear down society and how the anarchist revolution or whatever it is and theyre just parachuting in and they can get to go home at night but they leave a Violent Police and you have to live in that point we agree on that when youre running out of time and im really glad spencer that youre willing to criticize the. Professional clowns ok because i think thats whats not going to the democrats you know last 20 seconds got you grant burnett. Well you know theres no Real Opposition Party in this country and we need one you know in other countries theres 4 or 5 riving parties an opposition we have 2 parties that are pretty well in line with wall street with Big Pharmaceutical Companies with the military Industrial Complex and they do their dear separate on a couple issues so we really need an Opposition Party and its a great more choice or i want to thank spencer and graham you want to thank our viewers for watching as your are easy next time remember. The world is driven by a dream shaped by one person. Who dares thinks. We dare to ask. You. If. Youre not. Donald trump cries foul filing a lawsuit to halt the vote counting in michigan and pennsylvania and demanding a recount in wisconsin joe biden meanwhile is confident hes creeping ever closer towards the white house but no after a long night of county its clear that we would do no states to reach 270. 00 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. The fallout from a knife edge election could potentially. Drag on for days or even longer with neither side willing to concede. So will be going to the Us Supreme Court we want to all voting just. So youre prepared for any efforts republicans make in any court and youve the