While all eyes were on Congress this week, the Republican presidential primary continued to unfold across the country. I’ve found that primary a little bizarre and a little boring – especially the last debate. With Trump ahead by 40 or 50 points it seems like the race is already over. But I’ve been wrong before.
To bring in some outside perspective, today’s guest is Taylor Svehlak – a friend of the show. Taylor is a gun rights advocate and an old school conservative, though a classical liberal in the tradition of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Taylor and I discuss the recent GOP debate, the state of the race, Ukraine, what the general election might look like and the main issues on voters minds this election.
Speaking as someone who’s very much on the left, I always think it’s fun to discuss politics with people outside my own bubble – so very much appreciate Taylor coming back on the show and sharing is perspectives.
As always please remember to like, subscribe and share the show
Taylor's Twitter
@Taysway2A
Show Info
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Twitter
@KevinAMaley
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Email
ZipcodeZeroPodcast@gmail.com
-----
Music
Urban Deer Hunt: https://linktr.ee/urbandeerhunt
While all eyes were on Congress this week, the Republican presidential primary continued to unfold across the country. I’ve found that primary a little bizarre and a little boring – especially the last debate. With Trump ahead by 40 or 50 points it seems like the race is already over. But I’ve been wrong before.
To bring in some outside perspective, today’s guest is Taylor Svehlak – a friend of the show. Taylor is a gun rights advocate and an old school conservative, though a classical liberal in the tradition of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Taylor and I discuss the recent GOP debate, the state of the race, Ukraine, what the general election might look like and the main issues on voters minds this election.
Speaking as someone who’s very much on the left, I always think it’s fun to discuss politics with people outside my own bubble – so very much appreciate Taylor coming back on the show and sharing is perspectives.
As always please remember to like, subscribe and share the show
Taylor's Twitter
@Taysway2A
Show Info
-----
Twitter
@KevinAMaley
-----
Email
ZipcodeZeroPodcast@gmail.com
-----
Music
Urban Deer Hunt: https://linktr.ee/urbandeerhunt
The State of Republican Politics
Kevin Maley: [00:00:00] Welcome to Zipcode Zero. While all eyes were on Congress this week, the Republican presidential primary continued to unfold across the country. I've personally found that primary a little bizarre and a little boring, especially the last debate with Trump ahead by 40 or 50 points. It seems like the race might already be over.
Kevin Maley: But I have been wrong about Trump before. So to bring in some outside perspective, today's guest is Taylor Swalock, a friend of the show. Taylor is a gun rights advocate and an old school conservative, though a bit of a classical liberal in the tradition of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. Taylor and I discussed the recent GOP debate, the state of the race, what the general election might look like, and some of the main issues on voters minds this election.
Kevin Maley: Speaking as someone who's very much on the left, I always think it's fun to discuss politics with people outside [00:01:00] my own bubble. So very much appreciate Taylor coming back on the show and sharing his perspectives. As always, please remember to hit like, subscribe, and share the show. Enjoy.
Kevin Maley: Did you happen to watch the debate ?
Taylor Svehlak: I did, I I made it a point, or I have made it a point this election cycle to stay as far out of the like, horse race stuff as possible. But I finally gave in and broke down and watched this one. And it wasn't as painful as I had expected it to be. I think if the current, at least if the polls are to believe, to be believed I think if the current frontrunner front runner were there, that would be a different case.
Taylor Svehlak: But,
Kevin Maley: Did you like anyone on stage?
Taylor Svehlak: Like that's a hard, hard definition to come up with. But yeah, I, I was surprised by[00:02:00] Ramis Swami. I realize that I firmly believe he's just Andrew Yang for the Democrat or for the Republicans. But I thought Ron did a good job. I thought he did a good job of knowing when to attack and then also knowing when to be like, when to essentially tell the moderators, Hey, we're not gonna bicker amongst ourselves. I thought that was kind of impressive for him. I understand why he is doing it, and he wants to make himself look like the clear choice for front runner. But then outside of them, I loved poor Bergham. I loved his responses to a lot of the questions. I just, I feel bad for the guy 'cause he, he needs to understand, he has no, no chance in hell at this point.
Kevin Maley: I can't remember anything he said on the debate stage.
Taylor Svehlak: he, he had a ton of really smart answers, none of which got any amount of like, audience energy or excitement. And they were all very It's almost like someone asked him like a yes or no question, and, and he answered like, yes, [00:03:00] and then was done. That's not really what happened, but like he, he just had very like, correct and non-emotional answers and that's, that's not what a debate's for these days or ever really.
Kevin Maley: Would you? Would you have gone to the debate if you were Trump?
Taylor Svehlak: No he's got nothing to win. Going to the debate, in my opinion. If he just, if he could somehow just have an amazing performance and he could like guarantee that he'd do really well, sure. But he, he would know showing up that Everyone on that stage outside of like, Nikki Haley is just gonna be coming for blood and they're gonna target it right at him. And I don't think he's got anything to gain by going to the debate. And in fact, if you look at polling numbers everywhere outside of some of the like early Iowa polling shows that like not going to debate's, not hurting him either. So
Kevin Maley: Yeah, he is up by 40 or 50 points in the primary,
Kevin Maley: so there's virtually no point in him going. Are there any issues besides firearms that [00:04:00] you're looking for the candidates to talk about on the debate stage?
Kevin Maley: I.
Taylor Svehlak: Definitely. I just to be totally candid with the audience, I am absolutely and will admit it all day long, a single issue voter on firearms. But yeah, there are definitely some other stuff. There are definitely some other things that I was paying really close attention to. I'm very much curious how every candidate is going to tackle. E s G issues. I think that could be very interesting. I also recognize that I'm probably not the best conservative in, in that respect, in that I don't think most conservatives even know what E S G is. I think they just think that's woke and they kind of end it there. I I like to think that I. And then I'm curious about some of the deeper aspects of that and how various candidates are going to combat or at least address E S G and the excise impact that e s G investing in particular has on things like[00:05:00] freedom to choose, you know, market alternatives online censorship, stuff like that. Another issue was I was very interested in seeing how the candidates tackle trans issues and LGBTQ plus stuff because I think that's gonna be one of those things that really separates the men from the boys. Not to use a politically incorrect phrase I think that the more Hesitant candidates that won't really stand a chance of winning. Not that any of them do really. I, I think they'll not even talk about it. I think some of the other candidates, like I, one of the things that I respect about Ron was he's absolutely willing to go to battle on that sort of stuff. And vivid too in that respect. I think their willingness to talk on it says more about Them as a candidate, then their actual plan. I think most Republicans right now would just avoid talking about it all together because the Republican party for the past 30 years has been, it's kind of been a [00:06:00] NeoCon tradition to say, Hey, let us go bomb some brown people, steal some oil and cut taxes and you can do whatever you want. Domestically, we don't give a shit and I just really I think it means a lot when a a new, new conservative, if you will, is willing to go up and say, no, look, I don't care if you call me a insert, you know, expletive here. I'm going to talk on these issues and I'm gonna have a stance. And if you don't like it, then don't vote for me.
Taylor Svehlak: That's fine. So that's another thing I was looking out for. And then outside of that,
Kevin Maley: I feel like they all sorry. Go ahead.
Taylor Svehlak: And then the only other thing I was gonna add was immigration, not because I necessarily think that I have a great plan for it but because I'd, I, I'm interested, genuinely interested in hearing what everyone else's plans are for immigration. 'cause it's such a sticky issue at this point. I live in Texas. I'm the only person in my neighborhood that speaks English as a first language. Half of my family are Hispanic, Latino, like It's an interesting issue and especially in my neck of the woods, it's one of those [00:07:00] ones where everyone kind of accepts there's not a good answer, like we just gotta figure something out. So,
Kevin Maley: Yeah, I feel like on . Is interesting you said online censorship, because I feel like that is a big issue that has been coming up. There's actually a Supreme Court case that I think they're hearing in October that has to do with the ability of state governments to basically throw people off social media if they don't like their accounts.
Kevin Maley: Or maybe it's about, I, I could be getting that wrong. Maybe it's about social media companies. Doing it on their own under the guise of content moderation. I think it gets back to when they threw Trump off Twitter and I, I have noticed that's become kind of an issue where the Democrats are pretty big on what they call content moderation, which I think goes way too far.
Kevin Maley: And the Republicans are pushing more for, I think, just the guise of free speech [00:08:00] on the, the immigration issue. So you said you don't think there's a, a good solution for it. There was this article that I was reading, an op-ed by free Zakaria in the Washington Post. He was talking about this idea of suspending our asylum laws because I think the majority of immigrants that come across the border, Claim asylum, which they're legally allowed to do.
Kevin Maley: I
Kevin Maley: think they cross the border illegally, but then they claim asylum and then they get a court date in like two years and they're allowed to go into the country.
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah.
Kevin Maley: Do you think, I mean, is that a possible solution that you think could help? 'cause it seems like an abuse of the asylum situation is something that is at least incentivizing a lot of people to come across the
Kevin Maley: border.
Taylor Svehlak: I, I think it absolutely does incentivize people to come over. The issue at hand is, number one, I don't think getting rid of our asylum laws [00:09:00] would be morally or ethically the solution We want to. Go through with I think amending them
Kevin Maley: Well just suspending them.
Taylor Svehlak: more sense. See? Hmm. That's another one where I, I think we could tighten them significantly without completely suspending them.
Taylor Svehlak: And it would probably have pretty much the same impact. I think the main issue here is whether we have the asylum laws in place or not. 11,000 people are coming over every day, and whether even if none of those 11,000 get a court date, You're not going to catch and deport 11,000 people times 365 days.
Taylor Svehlak: Like, that's, that's simply not gonna happen. It's an issue that is so incredibly huge that I don't think we have even even, you know, you go back to like the gang of eight days and I don't think there's been a, a proposed solution that would genuinely change things enough. To like solve the problem.[00:10:00] I think we need to start thinking in such a, a, a substantially more holistic way. And I also think one of the questions that was posed during debate was, you know, essentially a few years back there was the idea floated of Pass a citizenship and you know, did I think it was Governor Christie in particular? Did Governor Christie would he still support that now? And Christie's answer, this is one of the few Christie answers that I was actually like, oh yeah, no, that actually kinda makes sense. Was it doesn't matter now. Like it's, that was at a point where we were seeing. On the hottest days, 3000 people we're at 11,000 people per day now. And now that, that as a bargaining chip in the process of like getting immigration reform passed is completely off the table. It's not even yeah, it has to be thought of in the context of the overall solution, but that's not gonna fix the problem either.
Taylor Svehlak: Now. Like it, it's too far gone. Essentially, we've we've let the grass fire, you know, go [00:11:00] up into the forest.
Kevin Maley: Why do you think the Democrats are not really touching the issue of immigration? I was looking at polling, it's the number three issue in a recent Harris poll that voters care about, number one, and number two are inflation in the economy, which you could argue is the same thing in a sense. So it could be the number two issue.
Kevin Maley: And to your point, there's 11,000 people coming a day. I think we're on a record for almost 3 million border crossings this year. Or maybe it's the next fiscal year. 'cause I think they record those in the government fiscal years. It's an issue that , I thought it was clever of, governor Abbott and to send migrants to New York and DC and Chicago and Blue Cities.
Kevin Maley: That I think it's a little. Fucked up in some ways, but it definitely caught the attention, like in New York, they are against having more migrants come in. Like
Kevin Maley: Eric [00:12:00] Adams said, we're all filled up. It's costing them billions of dollars. Same thing in cities across the country. And I was recently looking at this interview that Bernie Sanders did in 2015 where he was asked about immigration and allowing sort of a better, more free flow.
Kevin Maley: Of immigration, he was against it. And this old sort of classic working class left perspective that it hurts working class communities. And he said Open borders are a Koch brothers dream 'cause it's just cheap labor. And it, there used to be an issue on the left and then it somehow just stopped becoming issue.
Kevin Maley: And now if you talk about it, it's just you're accused of racism or xenophobia. If you raise an issue of the border, what do you, as an outsider to the left, what do you think happened to the Democratic party where they shifted that quickly to they, they won't even talk about it now?
Taylor Svehlak: I, I think you nailed on the head the nail. [00:13:00] I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the Republican party has gotten so, you know, def to accusations of racism. That like, we don't care anymore. You're gonna call us racist no matter what. You're gonna call us sexist, you're gonna call us whatever. I think that the Democratic Party, however, like that word, still has a lot of pull. And if you are, say, you know, here's like the far most progressive leftist in Congress and here's the most like red state Democrat. If you're dead here in the middle and you support immigration reform, you're still gonna be called a racist by both of those people. And now at this point, like Republicans are so tired of it that we'll be like, yeah, no, we'll call you racist too.
Taylor Svehlak: Why the fuck not? Like, it's not gonna you're gonna call us one. I think among Republicans, like we don't care anymore if that the, the term racist has very, unfortunately, by the way, lost all pool that it once had because it gets thrown around so easily. And I think because of that, anyone that would [00:14:00] support immigration reform on the left now feels like, oh man, I, we can't, because immigration, like reforming immigration would be racist unless it's essentially an open borders policy. And I, I will say that I think that there are a few progressive progressives who have said, okay, well then we'll do an open Borders policy, which I guess would technically be immigration reform. I, I think it would be insane. And obviously they'll never, never actually pass that way, but I think that's kind of to blame for Democrats not having a real answer. Another thing that I think is kind of interesting here is the fact that you're exactly right, like that used to be a pretty big staple. In especially like labor voters playbook is, you know, hey, migrants come in and they'll take substantially cheaper wages and the jobs automatically go to them. And my libertarian friends would actually be like, yeah, no, cool. We love that. That's great.
Kevin Maley: Yeah, exactly.
Taylor Svehlak: in, [00:15:00] in recent times, when you look at the way that especially on social issues, Hispanic and Latino families tend to vote. It's getting a lot more red and it's doing it way faster. And along with that, you're also seeing these like first generation, second generation, third generation families voting for stricter border control. And I think that Democrats come across as almost paternalistic when they say, oh, well you don't know what you're talking about. And it's like, well, My family came here illegally. Yes. I I absolutely do. I,
Taylor Svehlak: I
Kevin Maley: Yeah, in Trump, in, in 2020, Trump increased his share the vote with Hispanic voters,
Kevin Maley: which I think shocked a lot of people, and black voters
Kevin Maley: actually.
Taylor Svehlak: and that blew people's minds. And I think there's a lot to, there's so many I. So many nuances to that, but part of it absolutely is border issues. I have an uncle, he is obviously not like genetically my uncle[00:16:00] but I've grown up around him. He'll be here in like an hour and a half to like work on his horses. And he just got his green card five or six years ago. And he was super proud of it and super excited. He ended up spending like, I think he said, around $36,000 in way pre covid money to finally go through everything. And he's a border hawk despite the fact that he was brought over here when he was six years old. Illegally. He's a massive border hawk. All of his family are border hawks. It's kind of funny when you think about it, but voters are complicated and I think that too often, too often, neither party really wants to understand that, especially in the context of an overall paradigm shift of, you know, that your average blue voter thinks this and your average red voter thinks this.
Taylor Svehlak: And I, I think that we're the way that the parties. Coexist with each other has changed so much recently that having this idea of what a [00:17:00] Republican voter believes and then looking at what one believed five years ago is completely unhelpful. It's maybe
Taylor Svehlak: a
Kevin Maley: also think,
Taylor Svehlak: and that's it.
Kevin Maley: I think both parties are heavily influenced by the donor class and the donor class on the democratic side I think is a bit more liberal on immigration and border issues than the rank and file voter. And then I think you have similar, not exact, but similar dynamics on the, the republican side.
Kevin Maley: Just circling back to the, the debate, final question on that. Do you have any predictions for who's gonna come out on top and potentially be the last man standing against Trump or woman?
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah, I think if you look at polling and you look at polling performance, I think that you're probably, you're gonna have two, two scenarios. Either they all drop in in the last like two weeks in order to hopefully let [00:18:00] Ron have a shot at beating Trump, or basically everyone stays on and we all know exactly what happens. Trump obviously wins and then Trump loses and
Kevin Maley: You think Trump will lose the general election?
Taylor Svehlak: I do maybe he won't,
Kevin Maley: He's up by a couple points. I saw two recent polls. It's very early, obviously, but in two polls in a row, he was up on Biden.
Taylor Svehlak: I, I think that given the recent trending the recent trends in like ballot draw boxes, especially the states that Republicans would have to win, are becoming rapidly unwinnable in a, for a federal race. And I, a lot
Kevin Maley: You think fraud issues.
Taylor Svehlak: I wouldn't even call them fraud issues per se. But I think that when you allow ballot harvesting and one party doesn't, and the other party, one party does it and the other party doesn't, the party that does it will win. And this is actually, this is another place [00:19:00] where I really respect DeSantis. Trump tried to hit him about a month or two ago on, oh, well, you're gonna, you've already committed to doing ballot harvesting if you're the nominee.
Taylor Svehlak: And DeSantis essentially replied was like, yeah. Absolutely. Like as long as even this is, despite the fact that Ron signed a bill in Florida making ballot harvesting illegal. And his response was, yeah, it's a, a tactic that is incredibly effective. I don't agree with it, but if my, if the other team's gonna use it, then I'm act absolutely gonna utilize it too.
Taylor Svehlak: 'cause it's the only way essentially like we have to fight fire with fire was, was his philosophy and I think he was completely right on it.
Kevin Maley: And ballot harvesting is when someone goes around collecting your vote from your house, right?
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah.
Kevin Maley: Like you get the ballot mailed to you, and then
Kevin Maley: someone will come and say, hello, I'm here to collect your vote.
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah. So when Covid occurred, a number of states [00:20:00] passed bills essentially, meaning saying everyone receives a ballot that's on a, on a voter roll. Like if you're on a voter roll, we'll send you a ballot to your house. You don't opt in for it, you don't have to register to do it, blah, blah, blah. Now you have to be registered in order to submit it and for it to be counted. Absolutely. But the idea from Team read is essentially, well, if you're not gonna put the effort in to do this, this, this, and this, it, it's obvious. The goal here is to make it to where someone with zero buy-in basically to the democratic process is still having their vote, counting counted despite not putting in any of the effort to actually vote.
Taylor Svehlak: It's almost like there are a lot of things in America that you can own as long as you just do the paperwork basically. And Republicans have traditionally believed that. Voting should kind of be the same way anyone should be able to vote as long as they're willing to put buy-in into the democratic process. Now the problem is, is you know, back in the twenties, thirties, forties, that was in the form of like a poll tax or a, you know, [00:21:00] literacy test or any of these other like super duper racist things. Well, now the idea is basically just. Republicans wanna say, Hey, we want everyone to vote, but we want everyone to understand the value of voting and put a real investment into the Democratic, into their democratic future. And if they're not gonna do that, then do we really want their vote? And I don't wanna put words in the, the mouths of Republicans as a broader party, but that's kind of how I've always read it from the party.
Kevin Maley: a very generous interpretation of
Kevin Maley: Republican intentions.
Taylor Svehlak: It, it absolutely is. But ballot harvesting essentially cuts most of that effort out.
Taylor Svehlak: You know, if we just mail everyone a ballot, that all, literally all they've gotta do is like, fill in a bubble and then drop it at a central location in town. Or better yet, have a campaign volunteer come by, collect them. A one. The benefit to having a campaign volunteer doing it is for [00:22:00] especially your less informed voters, having a campaign volunteer knock on your door and say, Hey, did you vote for so and so? And if you say yes, they take your ballot. And if you say no, they take your ballot and they throw in the trash. Again,
Kevin Maley: there's not a lot of evidence of, I should say. I'm not a big fan
Kevin Maley: of the practice, but,
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah, admittedly, you sound like a conspiracy theorist when you, when you say that, that happens. But the, the fact
Kevin Maley: I would guess,
Taylor Svehlak: question exists is, I would argue an issue, and again, if, if you're not gonna fight ballot harvesting by ballot harvesting, you're not gonna win. At least not in the states that'll allow it.
Kevin Maley: yeah, I would. I don't, I, again, I don't know too much on it, but I've done campaign volunteering before and I would guess they. I, I don't think it's impossible, but I'm a little skeptical of the idea that they go up asking people who they voted
Kevin Maley: for,
Taylor Svehlak: yeah. You're not
Taylor Svehlak: allowed
Kevin Maley: I think they, but they probably have a ton of micro data on.
Kevin Maley: Here's [00:23:00] Taylor. He's voted in the last 20 different elections. We know he's a registered Republican. His social media indicates that he's very pro-gun. I bet that. He's voting Republican, so let's make sure we go to his house.
Kevin Maley: And then next door to him is someone who's very left wing. Maybe we don't go to her house,
Kevin Maley: so I don't think they even need to ask.
Kevin Maley: I think there's enough data on most people that you can probably ascertain that based on that data. One, it's kind of shifting topics. One other issue I, I wanted to delve into with you is the war in Ukraine. Last night, the the government didn't shut down because they passed a continuing resolution, but out Ukraine funding, which had been holding up the continuing resolution in the house.
Kevin Maley: And we were at a point to quote a Republican congressman, I forget who it was that said it, but we almost shut down the US government over the issue of funding a, a foreign [00:24:00] government. It seems like a majority of the. I think that the House Republican caucus has turned on Ukraine, or, or at least is voicing a lot of skepticism on Ukraine on the democratic side, you don't see that at all.
Kevin Maley: It's pretty uniform. does that surprise you at all, that the kind of restraint, and I don't know the, I don't wanna call it anti-war, but the. I'll just go back to the word, the restraint on military action. Military aid is most prevalent on the Republican side instead of the democratic side.
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah. Yes and no. I, I actually see the current I see Republicans in the house as pretty pretty good mirror of your average. You know, if you take every Republican voter and, and you know, put them up on a pedestal. I think [00:25:00] it's a good mix of neocons who didn't get the memo that like you guys are out as well as
Taylor Svehlak: people
Kevin Maley: they're all Democrats now. The neocons.
Taylor Svehlak: I, and, and I've, I used to argue with a former coworker all the time. It wasn't really arguing. I would just say like, you know, the, the biggest victory that the neocons ever point to is Trump losing. And he would laugh. It was actually, it was Carter and he agreed with me. But yeah, it's, it's a hundred percent.
Taylor Svehlak: It's, it's been so interesting to see the, it's one of the reasons why when I was younger one of the things that I actually respected about the Democratic Party is it's skepticism towards the war in the Middle East. And moreover, it's skepticism toward the military industrial complex as a whole. Unfortunately that's just not really there anymore. And it seems like it just was a switch that got flipped. I think Republican opposition to faraway wars is like a really long-term shift in [00:26:00] how the party works. I think it's been building for 20 years. Democrats suddenly supporting everything in Ukraine seemed to happen, like in the span of like a year and a half. I remember when Ukraine was first invaded and
Kevin Maley: In 2014
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah.
Kevin Maley: or in 2020
Taylor Svehlak: In 2014 and the only people talking about it were like the McCains of the world. And Democrats just didn't even really reference it at all, reference it at all for the most part. And then it just seemed like overnight, all of a sudden it's like the Talking Points memo went out and, and all the Democrats were like, no, we support Ukraine now.
Taylor Svehlak: Boeing is great. We love them. One of my favorite anecdotes about this tying it back into E S G. The company that owns Smith and Wesson it's, I forget their name right now, unfortunately. It's a, but it's like venture outdoors. And they're a fairly large holding company. They own one or two different firearms and ammy man ammo manufacturers a few camping supply companies, stuff like that. Their e s G [00:27:00] scores were, I mean, terrible, absolutely terrible, because they, they made firearms and then Ukraine kicked off. Then about four months into the US sending arms to Ukraine, all of a sudden the way that they're, that particular E s G framework was being calculated was changed because, oh, well, yeah, you make guns, but you're sending them to Ukraine. So maybe your e s G score should actually be a little higher. And it bumped it up and sure enough, they saw a little stock bump from it from investors that three years or three months prior were like, oh, you're making weapons of war. They were now saying, well, you're making weapons of war. And it's just like the most wild, you know, 180 degree turn that I've ever seen an entire party take outside of an actual like, Hot war that a country's involved in.
Taylor Svehlak: Like, it's, it's been crazy. And I actually think that that kind of speaks to, [00:28:00] I, I think the change in supporting international involvement on the right is gonna be a lot more long term because the transition to being more opposed to international involvement has taken longer to come about. Whereas on the left, I, I do think this is gonna be kind of a single issue thing.
Taylor Svehlak: I don't, I don't think that the Democratic Party will from now on support military interventionism and we'll be able to point to Ukraine as the first time we did that. I don't think that's gonna be the case. I think Ukraine is just kind of this one weird anomaly that for whatever reason the Democratic Party is just like really fixated on, and we'll see
Kevin Maley: I don't know if I agree with that. I, I, I think there is a strong interventionist tinge in the Democratic party. But it's sort of under the guise of humanitarian intervention. Like if they dress it up in the language of the Democratic party values [00:29:00] and liberal values, then they, it seems to be okay with it.
Kevin Maley: I mean, it was under Clinton that the US bombed Kosovo.
Kevin Maley: It was actually nato
Taylor Svehlak: say, so the nineties Kosovo kind of situation, which is by the way, gonna
Taylor Svehlak: pop off again here in the next few.
Kevin Maley: Yeah. The Serbian troops are massing on the border, and interestingly enough, it was NATO that attacked Serbia to peel off Kosovo, which I think the Russians have pointed to before, that, you know, they're nervous about NATO expansion, and it's a bit hypocritical of the United States to say that you can't peel off a region that's ethnically different from a state.
Kevin Maley: When the US had done that in Kosovo,
Kevin Maley: but There was a lot of Democrats that supported the, the war in Iraq, Joe Biden
Kevin Maley: among them, John Kerry, among them, Hillary Clinton, among them under Obama. We again, through NATO, attacked Libya and just kind of left it in wreckage.
Kevin Maley: And I, I, and there's, you know, intervention going on all over Africa [00:30:00] and that sort of thing.
Kevin Maley: So I think there . There is an interventionist tinge, and then you also have all the neoconservatives who have joined the Democratic party and been fully embraced. So Bill, crystal, and all of them are kind of welcomed in wholeheartedly. I feel like we might see more of this in the future, but it depends on how Ukraine goes, which doesn't look like it's going well.
Kevin Maley: Have you followed any of the the on the ground developments with the counter offensive?
Taylor Svehlak: I was and then it stalled as heavily as it has. And it seems like all the news that comes out now is just kind of hopium on the part of the Ukrainians or propaganda on the side of the Russians. It's, I've been saying for the past six or seven years that the global Global zeitgeist. The global state of affairs looks really curiously similar to like right pre-World War I economically and in terms of like all these super complex[00:31:00] treaties and alliances and trade partnerships and stuff like that. And I think that if you look at the current war in Ukraine it's incredibly similar to how a lot of wars leading up to World War I ended up kind of fizzling into. Almost like static trench warfare where everyone is dying and nobody's getting anything out of it.
Kevin Maley: So in that analogy, I guess China would be Germany, Imperial Kaiser, Germany, kind of rising up onto the scene.
Kevin Maley: What is your.
Taylor Svehlak: probably the best way to look at it. Unless you want to, unless you wanna switch sides and say, you know, the Americans are, are Germany. I'm not saying that at all. But depending upon
Kevin Maley: Well, I would look at it more
Taylor Svehlak: sitting on.
Kevin Maley: if it's like a pre-World War I thing. Then the US is already the established power, the way the British were, the established power, at least,
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah.
Kevin Maley: you know, Navely. And then the Germans were rising up because they'd just become a unified state and. Yada, yada, yada. What is, what is your take on [00:32:00] China?
Kevin Maley: Because there, that seems to be a big issue on the Republican side, and I know you're not an official Republican, but just on the conservative side, there seems to be obsession with China. They're kind of the new enemy. There's lots of, you know, talk about Taiwan and how we need to defend Taiwan.
Kevin Maley: There's also that in the Democratic side as well. I think Nancy Pelosi was pretty provocative when she flew to Taiwan. Do you share the concern that a lot of people on the Republican party have on the rise of China?
Taylor Svehlak: So I definitely do, I don't share their willingness to necessarily intervene, and I also don't share their skepticism for necessarily the same reasons. So a lot of issues with China are. Based on more broader, like global power, ver like who's gonna be the, the heman essentially. And my skepticism towards China is, isn't even remotely baked into that.
Taylor Svehlak: I don't [00:33:00] think China has any desire to be a mil, like the military world leader. They never have China, even in the days of Mao. Loves their paper tiger strategy, and it's, it's done them so, so well over the past 80 years.
Kevin Maley: The paper tiger Strategy?
Kevin Maley: To look like a paper tiger.
Taylor Svehlak: essentially the way that Mao the, the best example I can point to is when Mao developed nukes he had the capacity to just like pump 'em out if he wanted. He built like 30 and then just kind of sat on 'em and he would like ship 'em across the country. Just to like look like, oh yeah, there's all these nukes all over the place. But the c i a rather quickly found out that like, dude, they're sending like the same five or six nukes around the country to like all these different bases.
Taylor Svehlak: Like why are they doing this? And then at the same time, they also got intelligence that showed like, no, they are live nukes. Like why do they keep moving the same ones? And it became revealed a few years after that the Mao even said it in a, in an address. [00:34:00] He was like, no, our, our goal is to Be a paper tiger.
Taylor Svehlak: Like, we don't need to invest all of this money on having the most effective military in the world. When people know essentially they can't come in and take our dirt anyways just, just not give them a reason to fight with us and everything will be fine. And that's been an incredibly effective strategy for China.
Taylor Svehlak: Thus far. I'm, I see no reason to oppose China on a military like on a military power basis my issue with China personally comes more from their cybersecurity flagrant as well as some of the broader impacts they have to the world of trade. I'm not opposed to there being, to their involvement in the global trade. Conundrum overall my issue comes more at their willingness to manipulate global trade because they're in a prime [00:35:00] spot to do it and they've got power to do it, and they're willing to do it. Just as we, we have been in the past few years, that's where the Heman status really comes in, in my opinion when it comes to China is they don't wanna be the world's largest military power.
Taylor Svehlak: They wanna be the lar world's largest economic power. And that's a state a a status that I don't think America can really afford to, to give them. We don't want to become, you know, Britain circa 1960. I know a lot of conservatives are basically pointing fingers and saying like, yeah, no, that's what we're going towards.
Taylor Svehlak: Like we're gonna be these like, just like this, these delusional Britts that are convinced that they still have this global empire and they're, they're, they're the ones really in charge of global trade when everyone else in the world knows that's not the case. And I, for what it's worth, I actually think conservatives that say that are, are completely correct.
Taylor Svehlak: I think that we're very rapidly pushing in that direction. Now the, the race, in my opinion that China is [00:36:00] currently running is how long can we live with this like, supply side economy before it essentially burns us down. It's, it's like taking steroids. Like steroids are. Amazing for your body until they're not, and then you die. Or like amphetamines or any other like performance enhancing anything like yeah, it's, it's great until it stops being great and then it kills you. And I think that the most effective strategy for fighting China on the trade front is essentially, I. Give them the rope to hang themselves, like give, make sure that they keep pumping this demand side economy or supply side economy with so much juice that it just becomes untenable.
Taylor Svehlak: And I think that we're getting rapidly, we're really rapidly getting close to that point. The problem then becomes, well, what happens when they do collapse? Because we also are all relying on, on their consumption as well as their supply of basically everything we use.
Kevin Maley: Would you support additional tariffs or maintaining the existing tariffs We have.
Taylor Svehlak: That's another hard one. I, [00:37:00] I'm a firm believer in tariffs that need to be like a one for one thing. I, I would, I don't support tariffs in general, but you know, if one country's gonna have a tariff, X percent on Y good, then inevitably like it, it would make no sense if your country didn't also have a tariff for. A percent on be good. Like, and I think the Trump administration found this out the hard way when they tried to do the, I think it was the Canadian Steel imports or the
Taylor Svehlak: Canadian Lumber Imports or whatever. We tried to limit Canadian steel imports and Canada was like, whoa, okay, well we're gonna do the same for American Lumber or whatever. And that's always what happens with, with, with tariffs in my opinion. Like no one ever really wins. It's just sort of a tit for tat situation. If everyone, it's prisoner Thelma, if everyone would just like talk to each other and be like, look, we know what the end result is gonna be. Let's all just like sit in neutral here, then there wouldn't be a problem. But I, I don't think politicians, I think politicians think that [00:38:00] they can game game theory and they've never been able to in the history of mankind. But you, you can't tell 'em anything.
Kevin Maley: What would you do to kind of reshape the country? Politically, if you're able to, like what would be a conservative utopia for you if you became a dictator and you could kind of restructure things in this country? I know obviously we talked about some of the issues, but w would you get rid of regulatory agencies like the F D A and the E P A and the F T C?
Kevin Maley: The F A A.
Taylor Svehlak: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretend I'm like the world's most stereotypical conservative here and, and get outside of my, my, specific issues. That's probably where I would start is I would start with all of the three layer agencies. The first one would actually probably be the i r s, and then from the I R s I would go to pretty [00:39:00] much everything, Homeland, even. I would do the A T F obviously department of Health, department of Bed, all of these massive bureaucratic organizations. And then instead of pulling a vi I would take that funding and I would figure out, you know, what's the best way to essentially return this to the states and let them administer solutions that make a lot more sense for their particular areas. I think a great example of this is education funding on the East Coast. Weirdly enough, one of the things that Democrats have really struggled with in terms of charter schools versus public schools is schools in like the Maryland area, especially around like Baltimore, because they're these charter schools that are like majority black students and democratic voters that are very in support of these charter schools. Because it's understood that, and if I remember right, west Wing even had an episode on it in the early two thousands. At the end of the day, the charter schools [00:40:00] worked because they were much more tailored to the students that were in them. I think that a lot of states need to have the flexibility to educate and empower students in ways that make sense for them, but don't necessarily make sense for other. States and I think you can kind of copy and paste that philosophy to a lot of issues, including like healthcare funding, environmental issues, even and a bunch of other stuff.
Kevin Maley: Well, just to push back on a, a couple of those, so take environmental issues. What if you have a factory that is polluting into a river? That goes from New Hampshire to Massachusetts. For example, in New Hampshire, they say we don't wanna have any environmental protections 'cause this is our issue. But the river, with all the mercury in it
Kevin Maley: is flowing into Massachusetts and contaminating their drinking water.
Kevin Maley: Wouldn't you need a more that like a, a federal [00:41:00] government
Kevin Maley: to regulate that as opposed to the state issues?
Taylor Svehlak: Some sort of, at minimum interstate tribunal sit situation. I, I don't actually support completely destroying all of these agencies. I wanna point that out first and foremost because I do think that there are those issues that like you, well, I don't think the average conservative supports completely getting rid of them. I think that the average cons, conservative, conservative, does support gutting them to. Vastly limit their purview and what they would call overreach. But no, I, yeah, there are gonna be situations that, you know, happen in one state, but affect, you know, either one other state or even like 49 other states or you know, a foreign government even, and all these other issues.
Taylor Svehlak: And in situations like that, obviously there would be some form of larger frameworks, some part, some larger organization it would have sovereignty over those particular issues and be able to like work, work issues out.
Kevin Maley: Why are conservatives so, so against the [00:42:00] I R S? That's one thing that I don't fully understand because there's also a traditional conservative issue of wanting to balance the budget, or at least not have large deficits. I don't think that's always worked out in practice. Almost never has, but a stronger i R S.
Kevin Maley: It's not like they're making up tax laws, they're enforcing the tax laws that exist. I think most of the tax evasion is . Rich people if they're just collecting money to fund the government and a looser, weaker i r s means less money going to government. I know the preference for conservatives is a smaller government general and shrinking the state, but do you do that by allowing people to evade their taxes?
Taylor Svehlak: I think conservatives 10 years ago wanted to limit the size and scope of government via legislative wins and policy wins. I think that they've lost every single fight they ever picked. I, [00:43:00] I don't think they succeeded a single time. And increasingly you're seeing a younger generations of conservatives understand that they won't win that fight and they never like, under any circumstances. So instead we're gonna see, well then let's just cut off their funding and let's let them atrophy. At their own pace. I don't think that's necessarily the best solution. I would love to have the policy wins or the legislative wins, but we're not gonna win. And if we're not gonna win, I mean, if we're not gonna win fighting fair, why fight fair?
Taylor Svehlak: Like we're, we're not just gonna say, oh man, we failed to limit the size and scope of government through congress and through state governments. I guess we just can't ever limit it. Instead we're gonna say, okay, well then how can we limit it? And if it's by defunding these various agencies, then that's what we're gonna do. You're seeing this rapidly pick up steam when it comes to i r s funding and another, I'll go back to my. [00:44:00] And then it's gun knowledge. There's currently a really big issue of defunding the A T F. In fact, I think it was Representative Clyde pushed for a number of a t f bills that specifically had the intent of defunding the A T F. Not because we want the a t F to like work on a stricter budget, but because we want the a t F to wither away and die
Kevin Maley: then why not have a bill to repeal the, like, just get rid of the A T F.
Taylor Svehlak: because it won't pass. even if, even if
Taylor Svehlak: Republicans just had, I mean, a death grip on the House, Senate and White House, like it still would never pass.
Kevin Maley: why do you think it would not pass? If Republicans have a majority and there's a majority willing to defund the A T F, why would they not vote to just get rid of the A T F or drastically reduce it in power?
Kevin Maley: I mean, it's the same effect[00:45:00]
Kevin Maley: when you're taking the the vote.
Taylor Svehlak: and it's a lot
Kevin Maley: Is it
Taylor Svehlak: way
Taylor Svehlak: too.
Kevin Maley: Yeah, is it just a concern of public opinion?
Taylor Svehlak: No it's leadership. It's the same reason that I would argue the majority of Republicans don't want us to be involved in Ukraine, but Kevin McCarthy does.
Kevin Maley: So you then, why are they electing Kevin McCarthy as their their leader? I actually, he might not last long. I don't know if you saw
Taylor Svehlak: I, I hope.
Kevin Maley: gonna do a motion to vacate this week, he said.
Taylor Svehlak: I hope that he doesn't. I am
Taylor Svehlak: a firm believer that one of the, one of the what's the word I'm looking for here, sort of distorted reflections of the Republican Party and Democratic Party is Democrats tend to do a much better job at electing leaders that are good Democrats. Republicans do a miserable job of electing Republicans who are good Republicans. If you put Kevin [00:46:00] McCarthy on a scorecard of what the average conservative wants, he would be considered like ultra moderate. Republicans don't like that. If you put, we'll use Nancy Pelosi, but you put Nancy Pelosi on a scorecard of what the average Democrat wants. Yeah, she'd be considered moderate, but I don't think she'd be considered nearly as moderate of a Democrat as Kevin McCarthy is considered a re moderate Republican. If that makes sense. And I think that a lot of that is social issues that neocons still just don't want to touch. Ron Paul was a great example of this as was Bayner before him. Bayner and Paul, neither of them wanted to really pass legislation on social issues as much as they wanted to talk about it, maybe fundraise on a little bit and, and then make sure to pass some T cuts.
Kevin Maley: That seems to be the biggest
Kevin Maley: priority,
Taylor Svehlak: Exactly.
Kevin Maley: so, Just with a couple minutes left, I wanted to circle back to the, the horse race stuff [00:47:00] next year. D Donald Trump is under four indictments currently. I think 91 counts. I think a lot of them are bullshit, but I don't think they're all bullshit. What do you think happens if Donald Trump is found guilty and then
Kevin Maley: Put in jail. Do you think he could, he could still win? Well, actually I should backtrack that a little. 'cause I know you said you don't think he could win, say vice president or say Joe Biden is not president next year for let's say health reasons, and Kamala Harris is the vice president. Does Trump beat her if he's in jail?
Taylor Svehlak: I'm not gonna make an official guess on this one because every time I've ever done that involving Trump, I've been wrong on both sides of the, the, the, the coin. You know, when I thought he was gonna lose, he won. And when I thought he would win, he'd lost. So I think Trump being, Trump would love to be put in a literal prison cell. [00:48:00] That would be the, he would relish that opportunity.
Kevin Maley: He is a germophobe though.
Taylor Svehlak: there. Yeah. much like myself, I don't, I don't blame him on that one. There's a reason he showed up for that mugshot in, in exquisite hair and makeup. I guarantee you he practiced that smug like, Look for hours in front of a mirror, and I don't blame him.
Taylor Svehlak: I would've done the same thing. He knows the, the power of that image of him being in a jail cell. He knows the power that that would have. And he thinks whether he's right or not that that would actually help his election chances. Maybe it does. I, I'm not gonna say it, it, it won't because I didn't think he would get elected in the first place.
Taylor Svehlak: I know a lot of people that have sort of moved on from Trump in the past. Two or three years because they think that he just whines about old stuff that's not important anymore, and they've moved on to candidates like us Vivid and R D S [00:49:00] usually. I think Trump being in a prison cell would have a heck of an impact on those.
Taylor Svehlak: In part, those voters in particular, I think they would immediately. Go back to, to supporting Trump be more as a way to protest the government than because they actually want Trump to be the leader. Consider it a, a, a protest vote for a candidate that could theoretically actually win.
Kevin Maley: What do you think would happen? Say Biden is still president and alive next year. It's a very close election, which it probably will be. Biden barely pulls off a victory and you know, it comes down to he wins in Michigan by 10,000 votes. And there's some shady stuff that people have claimed. And Trump rejects the election results.
Kevin Maley: What
Kevin Maley: do you think happens then? . I mean, do you think it'll just be a bunch of people protesting and then it's fine because Biden's the [00:50:00] incumbent and has control of the government already? Or do you think we'll see mayhem in the
Taylor Svehlak: I don't, I don't think we'll see mayhem. I think that it would basically be just what you said. There'd be a lot of protests. People would be angry. Your, your rhon DeSantis would come outta the woodwork saying, look, we told you this is what would happen. Meanwhile,
Kevin Maley: be thrilled. I.
Taylor Svehlak: Democrats, if they were smart, could pardon Trump and maybe avoid, you know, a red wave the next cycle. But who knows? But yeah, I,
Taylor Svehlak: I don't think we would see mayhem across the country like Trump obviously what you call it opposed the results in whenever. Sorry,
Taylor Svehlak: I have a cold right now if you can't tell. Yeah, in 2020. It's some, something about being on your show. I get sick before I go on your show every time. The two times
Kevin Maley: Hopefully it's not covid.
Taylor Svehlak: It's not, we, we checked like three or four times at this point, but no, I, you know, he, he objected to the results [00:51:00] in 2020 and nothing really happened. I mean, yeah, some spicy boomers like kicked in the doors of Congress, but like in the grand scheme of things, Spicy boomers kicking in the doors of Congress is not what I would consider a genuine threat to democracy. I think we would see basically that again.
Kevin Maley: I agree. right, Taylor, we are up on time. I appreciate you coming back on the show. I think it'll be an interesting year next year. So would love to have you back on as these political developments continue to play out. I. Thank you for, for joining again and being the first repeat guest on zip code zero
Taylor Svehlak: Yeah, man, I am completely honored to do so. I look forward to coming back and talking about how I, I was wrong and predicting literally everything.
Kevin Maley: We'll see.
[00:52:00]