Episode 289 Scott Adams: Checking in With You on the Vote Count

Date: 2018-11-07 | Duration: 9:50

Topics

Lots of blue on CNN

Transcript

Bump bump boom boom boom. Hey everybody, you’re probably watching the election just like I am. I thought I’d check in with you, see how everybody’s feeling. Hey Frank, or Dave, wig wag witzy—why is everybody with strange names coming in here? Justin, hey Rich.

Media Versions of Reality

I don’t know if you’re having this experience, but I’m watching CNN and, on CNN anyway, pretty much all of the primary races they’re showing are Democrats in the lead. Now, of course, it’s far too early to know anything, but I switched from Fox News and I swear I thought on Fox News they kept showing Republicans in the lead. Then you go to CNN and they’re only showing Democrats in the lead. So, I think it would be fair to say that they’re both showing their version of reality.

The Prediction: No Results Tonight

Does anybody have a revised guess of what’s happening? I’m going to stick with my entertaining prediction that we will not have a result tonight, meaning that the result will be so close and there will be a few races that are in dispute that we won’t actually know at the end of the night who won. That’s my fun prediction because everybody else is predicting one side or the other is going to win, so I thought I’d make the most unusual prediction.

We may not be drinking the tears of our enemies; we may be drinking our own tears today—or some of you will. But I like to give you my good news version.

The Dog That Caught the Car

Here’s what I think is likely to happen: If we imagine that the Democrats win the House, they’re going to be like the dog that chased the car. The dog has to figure out what happens when you catch the car; what are you going to do?

If the Democrats win the House but let’s say not the Senate—which seems to be where the experts are landing—I think that the President will be in better shape, not worse. I think he’ll be able to get through the Congress the stuff that he needs Congress for, and he will be able to bank the stuff that he didn’t need Congress for.

In other words, he’ll still be fine on his Supreme Court. He’ll still be fine on North Korea. He’ll still be fine on negotiating trade deals. He’s going to be fine on Iran, the Middle East, and all of the big stuff that he doesn’t need Congress for that much.

The Benefit of a Divided Government

The things that he has been weak on up to this point were almost entirely because he had a Republican majority, and it made the other side look like a bunch of losers if they rolled over on any of the domestic stuff. Domestic stuff being anything from healthcare to infrastructure to prison reform, that sort of thing. Maybe even something about weed, who knows? I’m not sure you need Congress for that.

My guess is that a Democratic victory tonight, if it happens, would be the best thing that ever happened to this President. Once they have a little bit of power, they can’t really just be the obstacle party. That’s something you can do when you don’t have power, but once you have a little power, you’ve got a little responsibility.

Legislating vs. Investigating

I think that they may do a little less investigating than you’re worried about and a little more legislating. Everybody’s going to be a little bit unhappy with the results. The Democrats and the Republicans will not be entirely happy about infrastructure, not entirely happy about whatever happens with healthcare, etc., but we might move forward.

I think that there’s a reason for optimism. Trump will probably get some more Supreme Court picks no matter what. I don’t think that Trump could have succeeded on healthcare or infrastructure, or maybe even prison reform and a few other things, unless he was working with Democrats. They’re going to put themselves in a position where they kind of have to work with him and he kind of has to work with them, which is your best possible situation.

So, I would not be too sad. As I said before, if Democrats win, if they take the House, the appropriate response is: “Good work, well fought. You put in the time, we put in the effort, apparently the strategy was good. Good work.” That’s the system we’re in. Tim Kaine just won; I think that was expected. Didn’t that work for Reagan? Well, it worked for Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton managed to triangulate, and we may be on the dawn of something really, really good here. But we’ll see.

The Resilience of the Republic

I wouldn’t panic about any of this. What I’m seeing is a system that’s a few hundred years old—our Constitution, our Republic—and it’s working really well. Think about it: our system was designed hundreds of years ago before anybody had an idea that there would ever be a computer or a cell phone or anything like that, and the system is still working. It’s working really well. In fact, we have the highest citizen engagement of all time. We do have a President Trump who’s promised to take down the rhetoric a little bit. We’ll see; maybe he will, maybe he won’t, but he’s made that statement anyway.

Immigration Reform

Immigration is going to be a tough sell, but I feel as though nothing can happen good with immigration unless both sides are in on it. I think that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’m taking the high road so much as the realistic road. Realistically, if you don’t have both sides in the decisions for the domestic stuff, you just don’t get decisions. So, we might be in a stronger position after tonight. We’ll see. A little too hard to know for sure.

Am I calling it for the Democrats? No, I’m not calling it yet. My prediction had been for a tie at the end of the night, and then no prediction about which way the tie falls when it’s all over. I’m not going to bet my reputation on a tie, but it’s a fun prediction and we’ll see how it goes.

Republican Turnout and “Win Bigly”

I’ve got CNN on right now; trailing by almost 13,500 votes and it’s looking all blue. I’m seeing a lot of blue on the CNN map, but we’ll see if there’s a surprise toward the end.

The predictions that I did have are as follows: I predicted back in January that the Republicans would do a lot better than people thought, and that seems to be true. Secondly, I predicted that the Republican turnout would be jaw-dropping. I think that will be true as well. So, that was as far as I could go on predictions.

“What’s Scott gonna do once they realize he’s a hack?” Well, you sound like someone who has not read Win Bigly. If you were to educate yourself a little bit, you might understand what’s going on. Take a chance.

Too close to call. All right, I’m going to be checking in with all of you a few times tonight. It’s going to be exciting tonight, and I’ll check in with you later. Bye for now.