Better Place Project with Steve Norris
Better Place Project with Steve Norris
The Election: We Got What We Deserve!
Through a personal lens, I reflect on the recent challenges in my life, including a painful breakup and the loss of my mother, which prompted a necessary pause in podcast episodes. Despite this hiatus, your unwavering support has been a beacon of light, and I am thrilled to share that new and exciting projects are on the way, even if on an irregular schedule.
This episode tackles the turbulent landscape of last week's election, where the energy of collective consciousness played a pivotal role. We break down the Democrats' strategic blunders, such as the controversial handling of Joe Biden’s departure, and the pitfalls of identity politics that may have alienated potential voters. Kamala Harris's potential amidst these political missteps is examined, alongside the broader implications of policies perceived as extreme. The conversation is a call for honesty and adaptability in leadership and a critique of how political movements might better introspect and evolve.
This discussion doesn't shy away from the complexities of America's current political climate. I offer a critical lens on Donald Trump's character and actions, contrasting them with the grace exemplified by other political figures. Elon Musk's influence, especially post-Twitter acquisition, is scrutinized, highlighting the stark divisions within the nation. Through engaging narratives and thoughtful analysis, we underscore the power of collective consciousness, urging a shift towards love and kindness. By embracing small acts of unity, we can nurture a brighter future, filled with hope and transformation, for generations to come.
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Coming up on Better Place Project. The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance. This paradox was articulated by philosopher Karl Popper in the Open Society and Its Enemies from 1945, where he argued that a truly tolerant society must not tolerate those who promote intolerance. They could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices. We simply cannot let this happen. Make the world a better place. Make the world a better place.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, I'm Steve Norris. Welcome to Better Place Project, where each week, we shine a light on amazing humans from every corner of the planet who are doing extraordinary things to help make the world a better place, including sharing their knowledge with us on how we can be living healthier, happier, more purposeful lives. Hey everybody, well, it's been a minute Actually almost six months, I think since I've dropped an episode. So thank you all for the DMs and emails and texts asking where the hell are you, steve? You okay? Are you coming back? You okay, are you coming?
Speaker 3:back.
Speaker 1:And the answers are I've been all over, yes I'm okay and yes, I'm coming back, but under different terms. I'm dropping this episode about the election, but I don't anticipate I'll be doing any more for the next couple of months, so for the rest of the year. My God, I can't believe we're in the final stretches of 2024. This year has flown by, so where have I been? Well, back in the spring, I went through a really tough breakup with my on and off again partner of three and a half years, someone who I love and care about deeply, and, as my regular listeners know, I'm an open book and I share really personal details about my life on this podcast. However, my ex-partner is a really private person. So, out of respect for her, and we are both so grateful that our paths crossed At least I know I am and I know she is too, because she's told me that, and so that's all I have to say about that I will leave it there Now. This happened, as I mentioned, early spring, I guess, and I still had episode commitments when we broke it off, and or I had already recorded an interview or two as well as solo content, so I went ahead and published those episodes through, I believe, the end of May, the end of May, and then I just made the decision to take a couple months off, give myself a break, spend some time alone in nature, continue to reflect, continue to do shadow work, which I started immediately after the breakup and just really reflect on my life where I was at, where do I want to go, what type of relationship do I want in the future, etc. Those types of things. And then, on the afternoon or evening of July 2nd, I received some horrible news about my mom, her health, which she had been having some health issues for the previous couple of months, but she had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and I learned that the next day she was going to be put in home hospice care. So I booked the first flight out the next morning and, along with my siblings and my dad, and along with my siblings and my dad, took care of my mom until she passed, about two and a half weeks later, on July 18th. And I'm so grateful for the time that I had with my mom to say everything I wanted to say and more. And it was truly just one of the honors of my life to take care of her, to be with her and just give her and surround her with love that she had given me my whole life and now.
Speaker 1:I'm not ready to say much more about that right now, but rest assured at some point that right now, but rest assured at some point, I want to do an episode on grief and losing a loved one. Right now I'm still processing all of that, but certainly sometime next year I would love to share more with you all and bring on maybe a grief counselor or some sort of expert and we can all learn from it and hopefully it will be a value to someone else who has lost a parent or a loved one. So that's why I didn't launch season 12. Yep, we've actually done 11 seasons, but yeah, I was planning on doing that in July, like I had planned, but that's why that was postponed. So now next year well, at least for the foreseeable future, I won't be committing to weekly episodes, but rather just dropping an episode or a series of episodes when I feel compelled or motivated to feel compelled or motivated to. I've got some other important projects that I'll share with you in the future, but these are time-consuming projects that require my time and attention, and I intend to give this project both of those things, but thank you so much again, all of you for sticking with me and please go binge some past episodes. There's gold in so many of these episodes with world-class guests that have taught me so much about just living a healthier, happier and more spiritual life. It was interesting. I checked about an hour ago and we are still ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts worldwide, in spite of me not even dropping one minute of content for six months. That's pretty stinking cool. We had made it up to the top one and a half percent worldwide doing weekly episodes, so it's pretty awesome to see that there are still so many listeners out there consuming old episodes that I did three and a half years ago with my daughter Erin, and even episodes two years ago just 50 episodes back. So thank you. So, for even my long-term listeners, go back and flip through. There's so much great content there that's timeless, so go check it out.
Speaker 1:Now onto to the real meat of today's show. Last week's election. Where do I start? I'll start by saying Dime con quien andes y te dire quien eres, which is, tell me who you hang around with and I'll tell you who you are. Or, as we say in English, you are who you hang around with and I'll tell you who you are. Or, as we say in English, you are who you hang around with or, in this case, you are who you voted for. Now I will circle back to that a little bit later. In this episode, which I have titled, we Got what we Deserve.
Speaker 1:Now let me explain that. If you are a follower of the show, you know I preach about and I've had many spiritual leaders on this show who talk about manifestation, that our thoughts have energy, that we are responsible for everything that happens to us, that we are a part of a universal collective consciousness. So if you believe that, regardless of which candidate you wanted to be our president, you played a role in Trump being elected. Now, all of you Kamala supporters, I know and full disclosure. By the way, I voted for Kamala, but I'm sure many listening are saying hey, man, that's, that's bullshit. I pounded the streets, I knocked on doors for Kamala, I made phone calls, I I called out Trump on all his hate. I did everything in my power to not get him elected.
Speaker 1:So don't tell me that I'm a part of the problem that cause I didn't vote for Trump. I had nothing to do with that. In fact, I hate Trump. These are things a lot of my Democrat friends have said to me when I posed this question, and they'll literally say I hate Donald Trump. So I had nothing to do with him being elected, and what comes to my mind is the word hate.
Speaker 1:There is a lot of energy around the word hate and the emotion of hatred. What energy were you putting out there? Hate attracts hate, so I'm going to piss off a lot of people on both sides of the aisle with this little conversation here, but you know what? I think that's part of the reason why we are where we are at today. Too many of us are too worried about rocking the apple cart. We don't want to upset anyone with our views, so we tend to keep things in Well, not all of us, but a lot of us but look where that's really gotten us Now. I pride myself on attempting to look at things from both a spiritual perspective, but also through an analytical lens, through the lens of science. So while Democrats are now beginning to point fingers right and left about what went wrong and what happened, let's pause for a moment to talk about that Bottom line Democrats made some unforced errors in this election, and I really think they just kind of lost their compass, their common sense.
Speaker 1:Biden was clearly too old and should never have been the nominee this election. All the people around him working behind the scenes had to have known how bad this was, yet nothing was said until that disastrous debate made it painfully clear to the entire world this guy is not fit to do another term. But the fact that everyone waited too long maybe those closest to him waited too long to point out hey, you need to step down and waited till that debate. Come on, there had to be signs behind the scenes long before that debate that everybody ignored. Heck. George Clooney came out publicly and said guys, something's not right with the guy. He met him at a party, so right out of the chute. That's a mistake the Democrats made.
Speaker 1:In many ways, though, kamala, in my opinion, was brilliant. What she did in a matter of a hundred days or so truly was remarkable. But I would constantly hear from my friends on the right the go-to comment from Republicans was oh, she's incompetent. I heard that on every news program from every Republican, especially on Fox News. All my Republican friends would say that and it was just nonsense. Anybody who watched that debate saw that Kamala Harris completely eviscerated Trump in that debate and anybody who feels differently is fooling themselves. Just like Trump eviscerated Biden in that debate back on June 27th. It was so painfully obvious and here Biden was my pick and it was so obvious that he was not ready to be president. And in the Kamala Harris Trump debate it was so obvious that she was way more fit and way more competent than he was, and that's why Trump refused to do any more debates thereafter and even stopped doing interviews thereafter. She showed up for a 60 Minutes interview. He did not.
Speaker 1:But are there things to criticize with the Democrats and their approach? You betcha? For example, one thing that drove me nuts about Kamala Harris and with many politicians, to be honest on both sides is when they don't own, when they change their position on a particular issue. Take, for example, fracking. She clearly in the past was against fracking, but when it was brought up now that she says that, oh, I'm not going to fight it, I didn't during my presidency when it was brought up her evasive responses in interviews with regard to fracking were just unsettling at best, and I just don't understand why good leaders don't just say hey, you know what? Yeah, I did feel that way a couple of years ago, but when new information was presented to me, I kept an open mind and I thought you know what? Going forward, I think this is a better path. Good leaders will change their mind when new information is brought to their attention and not deny that it happened or not sugarcoat it. And on top of that, kamala could have turned around and fired back, and she never did. She could have said are you kidding me right now? Trump used to be a Democrat. He used to be pro-choice. I mean, she could have thrown that right back at him and she never did. So that was clearly a failure on her part.
Speaker 1:Some other things Identity politics Good Lord, democrats, you need to knock it off. The days of identity politics are long gone. Latinx Latinos hate it. Stop it. Only 3% of Latinos actually like that term and the Democrats lost a huge percentage of the Latin vote, and that played a huge role in Kamala losing the election. Next, half of 1% of American adults identify as transgender or non-binary.
Speaker 1:Now, democrats are absolutely on the right side of fighting for the rights and equality for trans people, but in my view. They took it way too far. Took it way too far. Allowing and fighting for trans women to compete at the highest level of sports just fails the common sense test all day long. It's simply not fair. Look, I'll 100% support anyone's right to identify with any gender you choose. It's your life. I feel the same way about who you want to marry. Marry who you want. That's where I think Democrats are on the right side of all these issues of freedoms and LBGTQ rights. But if you are biologically a male, you are statistically bigger and stronger than a human being that is biologically a female. That is a fact and it's simply not fair for you to compete with biologically female athletes. Come on, guys, it costs you an election and it just doesn't make sense. And the moment I knew that Kamala was in trouble was during game one of the World Series. At almost every stinking commercial break you saw, kamala is for they them.
Speaker 1:Trump is for you, while showing a very large trans woman athlete with her much smaller teammates which, by the way, how disgusting is that? For the Trump campaign to shame and exploit the trans community? Just sending more bigotry their way, all for political gain. But again, I knew it was over because I know these campaigns do focus groups and all that. That. That that commercial played throughout game one and then I saw it in game two and then in game three and then in game four. They kept playing it because it worked.
Speaker 1:So Democrats fighting for that radical position. They alienated so many Americans that they felt like that just isn't right and they thought if they vote for the Democratic Party, then they're voting for just radical left policies and I'm hoping the party will take a look at that. That said, my heart truly does go out to the trans community, in fact, to the entire LGBTQ plus community, as I'm really concerned that it could be a rough four years with this administration. Another big error by the Democrats was good Lord, and this is going back a few years now was good Lord, and this is going back a few years now. But the defund, the police campaign just an idiotic idea, an idiotic tagline or slogan. Everything about it is just ridiculous. I know very few people, very few Democrats, that actually wanted to defund the police. I mean, think about that. How moronic is that? But yet the Republicans grabbed onto it and it's been the radical left ever since Again just contributed to a handful of votes here, a handful of votes there, and it gave them all this disgusting fodder to put in their campaign ads. Lastly, biden did virtually nothing about the border crisis for two years until it was too late. And it was and is a border crisis. And, yes, there was a bill put together, bipartisan bill, that the Trump campaign shot down, a bill put together, bipartisan bill, that the Trump campaign shot down. And I feel like the Democrats also didn't do a good enough job of pointing out how the Republicans shot that down. They tried, but they didn't scream that loud enough in their campaigns and whatnot, and I feel that hurt them dramatically. Now, all of that said, let's take a look at the alternative to Kamala Harris. Again, I go back to Dime con quien andes y te de de quien eres.
Speaker 1:Now, I've spent a lot of time in Europe and back in 2016, I spent five months there on a sabbatical and this was leading up to the, of course, 2016 election and no matter what city I was in, whether I was in Paris or Berlin or Prague or Vienna, austria, the south of France, barcelona when people found out that I was an American, they would all want to talk politics and they would all ask surely your country won't elect a racist? In fact, they all remembered his claims that Obama was not a citizen and saying his birth certificate was fake and all that nonsense. And saying his birth certificate was fake and all that nonsense. But they would all say surely you're not going to elect that racist, loud, obnoxious reality TV star, are you? And I just kept hearing that. You know from their perspective, from a distance, they said he just strikes us as like the king of all assholes, literally. That expression I heard so much across Europe and I told him, of course, no, we'll never elect him. This is just a publicity stunt. He'll never be elected. And boy was I wrong.
Speaker 1:We elected him and, by the way, we knew then who he was. We knew before that election that, in fact, he bragged about sexually assaulting women. He admitted on tape and well, he didn't know he was being taped, but we heard it on tape and, as we found out later, he was actually found liable for sexual assault. We knew then that he had mocked a disabled person. We knew then that he thought john mccain a war hero who was a prisoner of war in vietnam and was offered release but refused to come home until all his men did. Trump said he wasn't a war hero because he got caught and he spent five years as a prisoner of war. Trump dodged the draft by getting a doctor to write him a note saying he had bone spurs on his foot. We knew then that he was a conspiracy theorist at best, a racist at worst, when he blabbered on for years about Obama's birth certificate. We knew then that his family was fined for not allowing African Americans in his apartment building, but we elected him anyway.
Speaker 1:Now I'll admit I'm human. On election day, I found myself just really being upset with American voters, with American voters, asking myself how can anyone possibly want this narcissistic, carnival-barking buffoon to be our president? But I've calmed down since and I know the huge majority of voters out there who voted for him are good, honest people who did what they felt was best for our country. I hold the most contempt for cowardly politicians who truly know who Donald Trump is, who have worked with him but put their appetite for power and their careers above the oath they made to their country.
Speaker 1:Here's a clip of what Republican Senator Ted Cruz knew about Trump. Now I ask that you really listen to this clip. It's a bit long, but I want you to hear the entire. Actually, it's not the entire thing, I cut off some of it. That's before, in fact, before what you're going to hear. He talks about that Donald Trump accused Ted Cruz's father of being a part of the John F Kennedy assassination. I mean just—but he rambled on about that, so I didn't want this thing to be like six minutes long, so I cut that out to give you some context. But listen to what Ted Cruz was saying eight years ago about Donald Trump.
Speaker 4:All across the country. I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook. His response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying and it's simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.
Speaker 4:The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist A narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen. Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes dude, what's your problem? Everything in Donald's world is about Donald and he combines being a pathological liar. And I say pathological because I actually think, donald, if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening all contradictory and he'd pass the lie detector test each time. Whatever lie he's telling, at that minute he believes it. But the man is utterly amoral. Let me finish this, please. The man is utterly amoral. Let me finish this, please. The man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him. It's why he went after Heidi directly and smeared my wife, attacked her Apparently she's not pretty enough for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4:I may be biased, but I think if he's making that allegation he's also legally blind. But Donald is a bully, you know. We just visited with fifth graders. Every one of us knew bullies in elementary school. Bullies don't come from strength, bullies come from weakness. School Bullies don't come from strength, bullies come from weakness. Bullies come from a deep, yawning cavern of insecurity. There is a reason Donald builds giant buildings and puts his name on them everywhere he goes. And I will say there are millions of people in this country who are angry. They're angry at Washington, they're angry at politicians who've lied to them. I understand that anger, I share that anger, and Donald is cynically exploiting that anger and he is lying to his supporters state of Texas.
Speaker 1:Now let's listen to a clip from Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, and he's going to tell us exactly how he feels about Donald Trump, or how he felt about Donald Trump in 2016.
Speaker 5:Well, I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a minute. I don't know who you are and I don't know why you like this guy. I think what you like about him. He appears to be strong when the rest of us are weak. He's a very successful businessman and he's going to make everything great. He's going to take all the problems of the world and put them in a box and make your life better. That's what he's selling. Here's what you're buying. He's a race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. I've been in the Air Force for 33 years. I retired this June.
Speaker 1:And for time purposes, I will skip to Lindsey Graham's final thought.
Speaker 5:And you know how you make America great again. Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.
Speaker 1:And let's jump to Senator Marco Rubio to get his thoughts on Trump in 2016.
Speaker 2:I asked people to join my effort at marcorubiocom so we can put a stop to this lunacy. We are not going to turn over the conservative movement to a con artist who is telling people one thing but has spent 40 years sticking it to working Americans and now claims to be their champion. The reason why Donald won't release his taxes is because he hasn't made nearly as much money as he claims he does. I mean, this is a guy that's taken Trump Airlines bankrupt, trump vodka Nobody wanted it. Trump mortgage was a disaster. Trump University was a fraud. I mean he's not as rich as he claims to be. Everybody in finance knows that and his taxes would expose that, and so I think that's why he doesn't.
Speaker 2:He came up with this excuse now of an audit. It's absurd. I mean this is unreal. I mean again, this guy is a con artist. I mean he's always making things up and no one holds him accountable for it. I mean you have a guy who's being sued right now for fraud for Trump University, and if I've had stories written about my driving record, you know that we had red light camera tickets. I had some guy go back and write in a story about how, when I was 18 years old, I got arrested or cited, I should say for drinking beer in a park after hours, and here's a guy who's being sued for fraud, for defrauding people. Here's a guy who had to pay a judgment for hiring Polish workers illegally to build Trump Towers, and he's being treated with kid gloves by many in the media in the hopes that he's the nominee. Some of them are biased. They'd love to see a liberal like Donald Trump take over the Republican Party, and others know he's easy to beat once he gets there.
Speaker 1:Then, when it became very clear that Trump was going to be the next president, they all scrambled to get in line and kissed his ring for the next four straight years, being enablers and defending him at every turn. They never had the courage to stand up to this man. Then, at the end of his term, after he lost the 2020 election, january 6th came. Trump tried to overthrow the government. His supporters, riled up by Trump's rigged election lie, stormed the Capitol building, threatened the lives of countless public servants and police officers, threatened to hang Vice President Mike Pence. And this was after Trump tweeted claims that Mike Pence should not accept the will of the people and not certify the vote, and after one of the most horrific days in modern history, the first time there had ever been a severe threat to our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power.
Speaker 1:Finally, after this egregious dereliction of duty, and it was so obvious to everyone that this man was unfit and was attempting a coup on our government, these politicians finally felt like they could stop defending the egregious behavior of Donald Trump, because now, in their minds, trump was toast politically, so there's no reason to kiss his ring and he's of no use to them any longer. Their jobs aren't on the line. Trump doesn't have the power over them anymore. So now they went back to telling the truth about Donald Trump. Here's Lindsey Graham on the Senate floor shortly after January 6th.
Speaker 6:Trump and I, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he's been a consequential president, but today, first thing, you'll see all I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I don't buy this. Enough's enough. We got to end it.
Speaker 1:And here's what the Senate minority leader, mitch McConnell, had to say about what happened that day.
Speaker 3:There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.
Speaker 1:But then in the following weeks, with Trump still being the leader of the Republican Party party, all or most of the Republicans began falling back in line yet again for fear that they'd lose their cherished seats. Now there were some exceptions to this. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were two of the most courageous Republicans who put country over party, and history will treat them kindly. After Trump was impeached a second time for this, mitch McConnell the dude you just heard saying a US president, donald Trump, was responsible for an attempted government insurrection, an attempt to overthrow the will of the American people, orchestrated a no vote and acquitted the twice impeached president. So, in a matter of about five weeks, as it became clear that even this wasn't going to take down Trump, they went from he's a dangerous, unfit, insurrectionist traitor to meh no big deal.
Speaker 1:Finding him guilty and I'm talking about the Senate here. The House impeached him, the Senate then votes on it. Impeached him, the Senate then votes on it. Had they found him guilty, he would have been ineligible to ever hold the office again. He would not have been able to run in this election, nor any other, for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1:But the lust for power overpowered their desire to fulfill their oath of office, to put the Constitution above party and all else. All these sycophants fell right back in line Greed for power, my job over my oath. And that's why we're here Now, back in 2016,. People could say, hey, trump won't be an authoritarian, he just speaks his mind. He said stupid stuff. He doesn't really want to be a dictator, but this time we know he is the only president in history who did not offer a peaceful transfer of power. He did the opposite, right. And since then he has been lying to the world, screaming falsely that the election was rigged and stolen, and setting the stage in case he lost again to rile up his supporters, leading to more violence.
Speaker 1:And here we are now interstage left, elon Musk, a man who I used to admire so much. Musk, a man who I used to admire so much. If you never saw his 60 Minutes interview back in 2012, where he talks about SpaceX, go Google it and watch it. He literally starts to cry when he talks about his passion for doing extraordinary things in the world. You watch this interview and how could you not love this guy Now, 12 years later, and billions actually a couple of hundred billion dollars richer, and he's become, like Trump, a race-baiting, conspiracy theory-loving troll. In fact, he's become such a troll on Twitter that he bought the platform, and now you could call him the king of trolls in what is now a cesspool of ultra right-wing sludge. The day he bought Twitter, I canceled both my personal and my Better Place Project accounts on Twitter in protest, and I encourage you to. It is a cesspool of right-wing hate on that platform now. So Musk has gone from being just a legendary man in the business world as an innovator has officially become a billionaire a-hole endorsing a fellow billionaire a-hole for president. He donated $100 million to the Trump campaign.
Speaker 1:So on one hand, we had Kamala Harris, who admittedly has many faults that we could discuss. Our other option in this election was a guy who tried to undermine our democracy, overthrow our government bragged about sexually assaulting women, then was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman. He's now a convicted felon for committing fraud against the American people. He's filed for bankruptcy six times. He's been fined millions of dollars for committing fraud against his customers with Trump University and others. He's been fined millions of dollars for committing fraud against his customers with Trump University and others. He mocked Nancy Pelosi's husband after he was attacked with a hammer in their home.
Speaker 1:I could go on and on. He literally simulated oral sex with a microphone just a week or so back. And all of that is somehow okay with America. Who are we and who have we become, if that's who we want as our leader? But I get it. Egg prices and stuff and all these Mexicans coming and raping our people and Haitians eating our cats and our dogs.
Speaker 1:We had an opportunity to vote for tolerance, for love. I'm not saying the other side was perfect no way but the vote for Kamala was at least a vote for decency. We could have chosen love, but we chose fear, fear that was thrown at us and rammed down our throats. Instead, we voted for the bully asshole. It's become cool in America to be a jerk, to be a bully, to demean people, to mock them, to laugh at them, to put them down. With this vote, we sealed it. We are officially the assholes of the world. America first, baby America first. Thank God, by the way, fdr didn't feel that way in the 40s, or we'd all probably be speaking German right now. But I accept it. America has spoken, and overwhelmingly so.
Speaker 1:Kamala conceded and congratulated Trump the other day. Now that's the difference between her and Donald Trump. She believes in the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of our democracy for almost two and a half centuries. That's what a leader does. Biden said the will of the people will always prevail. He's already invited Trump to the White House, which is a long-held tradition. The sore-losing Trump did not offer him that same respect and tradition four years ago. Biden is going to Trump's inauguration, when petulant child Trump refused to go to Biden's four years ago. That is the difference in the leadership and character between these two men.
Speaker 1:Trump has been saying that he'll pardon the January 6th rioters. He calls them patriots, hostages. Our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves. These are 1500 thugs who committed crimes against the United States and Trump wants to set them free. Let that sink in. Wants to set them free. Let that sink in, and what concerns me is, this time around for Trump.
Speaker 1:So many of the guardrails that were in place during his last administration have and are being removed. He's surrounding himself with more sycophants that will be loyal to him above their loyalty to their country, and his hand-picked Supreme Court has pretty much told him commit whatever crimes you want, pal, you're the president and you're immune as long as you're acting in the best interest of the country, as long as you're acting in the duties of a president, you're immune. He's given this guy carte blanche to pretty much do whatever he wants. This doesn't scare you, man. I've got my first grandchild on the way and this scares the shit out of me. I want my grandchild to grow up in a healthy democracy and pretty much any historian will tell you fuck. We're living by a thread here and I don't swear or cuss much and pretty much. In fact that might be the third or fourth time in 200 episodes I've dropped an F-bomb, but I've just noticed I'm actually swearing a lot on this episode, but I guess it feels warranted because of the severity of this situation. I'm just thankful that Harris didn't win a really close election.
Speaker 1:I can only imagine what would have happened in this country after Trump and his surrogates started screaming about election fraud. Elon Musk and Trump on election day just last week were screaming about voter fraud in Pennsylvania, but now that Trump has won, have you heard a peep from them about fixing this alleged voter fraud? Of course you haven't. It's only fraud when he loses. You see, the damage that he has done here simply cannot be discounted or understated. We have arguably the safest, most secure elections in the world and his spreading all these election lies over the last four years about election fraud so doubt among our people, and it has divided us like we very rarely have been, possibly since the Civil War, have we been this divided. And Trump supporters, you can rationalize this any way you want that the left is too radical, eggs are too much, gas is too much that Trump speaks the truth.
Speaker 1:He says what's on his mind. Well, you know what. So did the murderous cult leader, charles Manson. He spoke his mind too, and if you're too young to know who he is, google him. But we have put ourselves way out on a limb here and that terrifies me. But we have chosen him. Notice I keep saying we, even though I didn't vote for him. I played a role in this, and so did every other American, in fact, every other human on this planet.
Speaker 1:This shift is happening all over the world, in France and Germany. So many people are just struggling right now and looking for someone to blame, but we have to all take a collective deep breath and choose love and kindness towards one another. Let's please work towards being tolerant of each other. At the end of the day, we really do have far more in common with each other than we have differences. I'm going to pull a paragraph from Wikipedia about the paradox of tolerance, and it says the paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance. This paradox was articulated by philosopher Karl Popper in the Open Society and Its Enemies from 1945, where he argued that a truly tolerant society must not tolerate those who promote intolerance. Popper posited that if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices. We simply cannot let this happen.
Speaker 1:What remains unknown is how this all ends? Does our democracy unravel? Not unlike the fall of the Roman Empire, is this the beginning of the end? Could this be the end of our democracy? Perhaps not. Maybe I'm way overreacting, maybe many Americans are way overreacting, but we are fools if we do not at least consider this as a possible outcome here, as there are so many signs that this could be a possible outcome here. But this was more than a political contest reflection of our nation's soul, revealing the inner struggles and hopes and desires for all Americans. By understanding elections as spiritual events shaped by collective intention, we can begin to transform how we engage with democracy, politics and each other, politics and each other as America moves forward. My hope is that the lessons of this election can serve as a catalyst for spiritual awakening, encouraging a deeper understanding of the power of unity, intention and collective consciousness in shaping our shared future. I'm referring to a spiritual and metaphysical perspective on the American democratic process, suggesting that collective consciousness plays a crucial role in shaping political outcomes. It encourages us to reflect on how our own beliefs and energies contribute to the larger reality and invites a more holistic approach to understanding elections and any other national event for that matter.
Speaker 1:I know in my case, in my life, in order to move forward, I needed to hit rock bottom. I needed to learn some hard lessons, to go through deep doubt and despair, to go through my dark night of the soul. I needed to do that in order to come out the other side refreshed and transformed a new, wiser, better version of myself. Maybe we, just as a nation, need to hit rock bottom, go through our collective dark night of the soul and, regardless of what side you're on, you might be saying, no, this isn't a dark night for me, steve. I voted for Trump, yeah, but look how divided we still are. None of us want that. None of us want that. We want to come out the other end refreshed, a better version of ourselves, a kinder gentler, as George Bush Sr, I believe, said that a better version of ourselves. If we all believe we can get there. At the end of the day, we all deserve happiness and love in our society, both Kamala Harris supporters and Donald Trump supporters. We all deserve love and if we focus on that, we will get what we deserve.
Speaker 1:Special thanks to our producer, noah Existe, and editor, joe Tempogo. Our music was written and performed by Algian Importante. Thank you so much for listening. If this podcast brightened your day in any way, please share it with a friend who you think it might resonate with. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review, as that is the single best way to help the show and get the word out to more good humans. For behind the scenes info, please visit our website at betterplaceprojectorg, where you can even click on the microphone in the lower right hand corner and leave us a message, or just stop by to say hi, and you can follow us on Instagram at betterplaceproject, and you'll find me at Instagram at stevenorrisofficial. Look for small ways to be kind this week, and that will help make the world a better place. Make the world a better place. Make the world a better place. Make the world a better place. Make the world a better place.
