The Democratic Field

I like to try out new things once in a while, mostly because I’m still not sure what works best for this type of podcast. Writing is a different experience than speaking. What works for a blog post will not work for a podcast. The old saying in legacy media is that radio is a hot medium and television is a cool medium. That is, you need to be fierier on radio to keep an audience, while on television you need to be calmer. No one wants to see a madman ranting and raving in their living room, so you have to appear calm.

I suspect the same rules apply to new media. Within the podcast domain, some things will work better than others, because the media is more intimate. Most people consume this product by their lonesome. That’s why I try new things all the time. I’m figuring out what works in this format and what I like doing. This week, for example, I’m breaking from the normal format to run through all of the Democrat candidates. No breaks. It’s also a much more casual show than normal. These freaks are too weird to take them seriously.

That really is the thing that jumps out when you start looking at these people and their campaigns. None of them should be dog catcher in a small town. It’s ridiculous that any of them running for President. I suspect when the revolution comes, the reason will be that decent people simply got fed up pretending that this stuff is anything but an insult to the dignity of the people. The other thing is this is highly orchestrated. The system actively selects for these people. This freak show is what our rulers want to see.

To support my work, please contribute here.

This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below. I have been de-platformed by Spotify, because they feared I was poisoning the minds of their Millennial customers.

This Week’s Show

Contents

  • 00:00: Opening
  • Michael Bennet (Link)
  • Joe Biden (Link)
  • Cory Booker (Link) Gun grabbing, fighting racist tech
  • Pete Buttigieg (Link)
  • Julián Castro (Link)
  • John Delaney (Link)
  • Tulsi Gabbard (Link)
  • Kirsten Gillibrand (Link)
  • Kamala Harris (Link)
  • John Hickenlooper (Link)
  • Jay Inslee (Link)
  • Amy Klobuchar (Link)
  • Seth Moulton (Link)
  • Beto O’Rourke (Link)
  • Tim Ryan (Link)
  • Bernie Sanders (Link)
  • Eric Swalwell (Link)
  • Elizabeth Warren (Link)
  • Marianne Williamson (Link)
  • Andrew Yang (Link)
  • 57:00: Closing 

Direct DownloadThe iTunes PageGoogle Play LinkiHeart Radio, RSS Feed

Full Show On Spreaker

Full Show On YouTube

https://youtu.be/zxTzDe9-H9M

92 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Member
5 years ago

The nature of politics pretty much rules out anyone but the mentally unhinged and certified narcissists from running for office. There aren’t but a handful of people holding national office that I would trust to park my car or that I would want to spend any time with. Can you imagine having lunch with Mitt Romney or “Beto”?

Norskeguy
Norskeguy
Reply to  Arthur_Sido
5 years ago

I would love to have a few beers with Joe Biden just to hear his drunken Ted Kennedy stories

Yves Vannes
Yves Vannes
Member
Reply to  Arthur_Sido
5 years ago

Listening to the description of this years Democratic field reminded me of my youth on the farm wandering through a field of cow patties.

Drake
Drake
5 years ago

Gabbard is at least interesting because she seems like an old fashion lefty who actually thinks for herself occasionally. Kind of like Daniel Patrick Moynihan. That’s why the DNC machine will crush her.

Guest
Guest
5 years ago

I’m sticking with Kamala Harris for the win in 2020. I don’t believe Trump can pull off the trifecta of (WI, MI, PA) again so I don’t believe Democrats will have to resort to blatant election fraud. But if Trump does pull the trifecta the election will be decided by election fraud in Florida involving harvesting ballots for the newly-eligible felon voters.

Trump will be the last Republican President in the history of the Republic.

Mencken Libertarian
Mencken Libertarian
Reply to  Guest
5 years ago

But the loony left could split with a strong third party candidate. If the Greens ran some big name like Al Gore we could get another four years of the big steaming pile of puppy poo with the funky hairdo.

The green types absolutely adore Al Gore. But he’s not likely to get many votes from the vibrant if Harris gets the Demo nomination.

Vegetius
Vegetius
5 years ago

The 2020 election is not about Trump. It is about the splitting of the left coalition into two hostile camps. The otherwise excellent McFeels expressed the desirability of a Ron Paul challenge to Trump. This lapse into idiocy is the result of Trump’s betrayal. It is understandable, but nonetheless utterly wrong. I do not subscribe to accelerationist fantasies or the Leninist notion that the worse something looks, the better it actually is. Just as the Zionist tail must no longer wag the American dog in foreign policy, righteous hatred of the Enemy cannot be allowed to wag the identarian right… Read more »

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Vegetius
5 years ago

It took McFeels a long time to divorce Trump; FTN was still selling “4D Chess” throughout 2018.

I’ve come to the point of dismissing electoral politics altogether. From here on out I’m planning to elect the looniest Lefties imaginable and pour sand in the gears at every opportunity.

To care about voting implies the system is worth saving.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Vegetius
5 years ago

Other than a Scottish Joe Biden, what the fuck is a Mcfeels?

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  bilejones
5 years ago
ChrisZ
ChrisZ
Reply to  Vegetius
5 years ago

Interesting comment Vegetius. I’d be interested in reading more.

Shadowbass
Shadowbass
5 years ago

This was great, it was as if Newhart did political commentary. I really enjoy your podcasts. They are unique.

Tono Bungay
Tono Bungay
5 years ago

I do think it’s orchestrated, but I think these people are being chosen to intentionally have little chance against trump. Actually I took this idea from a guy whose name I don’t remember from the old VOR radio, but I believe incumbents are allowed a second term based on whether they please the zionists. Carter displeased the zionists, so there was a primary challenge and a strong republican candidate and carter got one term. Bush 1 displeased the Zionists by challenging the settlers, and possibly also for not going all the way on Iraq. He gets a powerful third party… Read more »

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Tono Bungay
5 years ago

That sounds far too cynical to be anything but true.

Tono Bungay
Tono Bungay
Reply to  bilejones
5 years ago

Right I would never have thought it so cut and dry, but maybe so.

Dutch
Dutch
5 years ago

OT but a very important item to read about “our thing” is in the (paywalled) WSJ today. If you subscribe, it is an opinion article by Joseph Sternberg, “Europe’s ‘Nationalism’ Turns Out to Be Local”. It is about how each major Euro country (UK, Germany, France, Italy) is actually fighting an internal political battle between the elitists of the cities and the rest of the more outlying parts of the country. Relevant for our situation in the US as well. That laundry list of Dem candidates represents the ones who want to jam us up with the arrogance of the… Read more »

Compsci
Compsci
5 years ago

Z-man, you’ve left out a possibility/motive when discussing the rather poor—but extensive—list of Dem presidential nomination seekers. Some of these folk are indeed delusional, but not all. I suspect most are sincerely running for…Vice President on the Dem ticket! If you add a judgement of the field with that criteria in mind, you get a different picture of the probabilities of each candidate’s success—albeit, I admit the discussion becomes more complex as it becomes multi variant. The game many are playing is not to win the nomination overall, but to demonstrate regional and demographic strengths that will complement the candidate… Read more »

Mencken Libertarian
Mencken Libertarian
Reply to  thezman
5 years ago

They’re all cynical, with the possible exception of Gabbard.

Rcocean
Rcocean
Reply to  thezman
5 years ago

Read Chris Christie’s book. He honestly thought he’d be POTUS in 2016, and was completely surprised when he got crushed in NH. He actually thought being a NJ Governor who could work with Obama was a PLUS. Henry Wallace thought he’d win in 1948 or get at least 25% of the vote. Most of these guys have egos the size of Texas, and think that if only they can get enough exposure and campaign money, everyone will see how wonderful they are and elect them.

Drake
Drake
5 years ago

You got Kirsten Gillibrand right. She is the perfect empty vessel which is filled up with the latest DNC talking points and whatever their money-men want her to say. She is an absolute moron who cannot utter a complete sentence once she’s off-script.

John Hume
John Hume
5 years ago

Yang took the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach and intellectualized it a bit. The way I think about it is he is a marriage of Silicon Valley ideals with Washington think-tank proposals (the kind of stuff that gets Nate Silver and Matt Yglesias all tingly inside).

And yes, give him credit for talking about some issues that matter, like automation, and also for mostly avoiding toxic identity politics. The problem is, his personal decency is not a winning characteristic among the Democratic primary crowd these days.

Moe Noname
Moe Noname
5 years ago

The thought police have shut down Chateau Heartiste. Z-Man: you need to get off WordPress immediately.

Felix_Krull
Member
Reply to  Moe Noname
5 years ago

Goddamn, yes. Must’ve happened in the last 30 minutes or so.

That’s what you get for depending on enemy infrastructure.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Moe Noname
5 years ago

Z-man isn’t on the WordPress site. He uses the WordPress software on an independent site. They can’t shut him down.

Carl B.
Carl B.
Reply to  Moe Noname
5 years ago

The fascist Left is coming for us.

King Tut
King Tut
Reply to  Moe Noname
5 years ago

TBH, I am amazed it took this long. I have been wondering for months how CH managed to stay on WP. I hope he has/has a private server back-up like our host.

Federalist
Federalist
Reply to  King Tut
5 years ago

If anyone finds CH again assuming that he can reemerge elsewhere, please let everyone know.

King Tut
King Tut
Reply to  Federalist
5 years ago

I will be searching for him. He has a gab account so I assume that he can and will post updates there.

Cerulean
Cerulean
5 years ago

“These freaks are too weird to take them seriously.”

— Czar Nicholas II

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
5 years ago

Very interesting. Grifter Shapiro ventures out of his bubble and gets his ass handed to him. I didn’t even consider those questions to be tough. He was thrown off his script and had a meltdown. Did he not know the culture of the BBC? Wow he looks bad, and nakedly inferior to an intellectual liberal. A punk with a glass jaw.

https://spectator.us/watch-ben-shapiro-tantrum-bbc/

Lorenzo
Lorenzo
Reply to  JR Wirth
5 years ago

Here’s the BBC link that starts earlier in the massacre than the one JR Wirth posted. Andrew Neil seemed to know where Shapiro’s self destruct button was, pressed it and stood by quietly while Shapiro blew himself up. It reminded me a little of Mencken’s description of Clarence Darrow eviscerating William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial. “By the end of the week he was simply a walking fever. Hour by hour he grew more bitter. What the Christian Scientists call malicious animal magnetism seemed to radiate from him like heat from a stove.” It took a few minutes instead… Read more »

Lorenzo
Lorenzo
Reply to  Lorenzo
5 years ago
Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Lorenzo
5 years ago

Remember that Bryan won that case, that Mencken was by no means an unbiased observer and that the case itself, and Inherit the Wind were cynical, progressive pro-evolution propaganda.

Rcocean
Rcocean
Reply to  Vizzini
5 years ago

No, Mencken was an extremely BIASED, unreliable observer. He hated Bryan all his life, was an outspoken atheist and Darwinist, and crouched all his reporting in extreme language. Pretty much everything written by liberals and whatever the hell Mencken was, about the Scopes Trial has been a lie from day one. Its amazing how its been misrepresented.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  JR Wirth
5 years ago

Wow, that was a rare on camera capture of a theme I think the just deplatformed Cheteau Heartiste would agree w me on; the jumpy, fragile and girlishly aggressive beta male ego. I graduated med school some years back. Later I discoved something quite remarkable. The ones who later, as they moved up the doctor ranks a little, got the famous ‘doctor’s ego’, are all the ‘soft-spoken nice guys.’ I do plenty of weird stuff, I dabble in applied math, martial arts, conservation and trips to the jungle. It’s the soft beta men who let a little title and promotion… Read more »

Whitney
Member
5 years ago

And Eric Cline’s book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed in the major cities all around the Mediterranean all the elite areas were just emptied out. There were fires and earthquakes but they didn’t find bones and there is speculation that the populace raised up and murdered them all.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Whitney
5 years ago

I’ve not read the book, but the collapse is widely discussed, and the commonly accepted explanation is sea born raiders, rather than an uprising of the population. Is this discussed and debunked in Cline’s book?

Whitney
Member
Reply to  Compsci
5 years ago

It is discussed . I wouldn’t say debunked but it’s discussed. The book is a great overview because the truth is we don’t know. Everybody has their pet idea but nobody really knows

Reziac
Reziac
Reply to  Whitney
5 years ago

Funny how the Bronze Age Collapse follows on one of those Little Ice Age periods.

Also, today the MP3 was not linked in the RSS feed.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
Reply to  Whitney
5 years ago

Dan Carlin did a very early episode of “Hardcore History” about the Bronze Age collapse. Re-listened today after reading this comment; good stuff.

I suspect there was some greater factor that weakened the Mediterranean World, allowing the Sea People to do what they did. Societies rot from the inside, then get kicked over.

Range Front Fault
Range Front Fault
Reply to  Whitney
5 years ago

Ruminations on 1177 BC: The “why” of the decline of that particular time period are MULTIPLE REASONS THAT OVERLAPPED. Life is messy. The Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean—the five centuries between 1700 and 1200 B.C.– 8 advanced societies were highly connected—Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Hittites, Cypriots, Minoans, and Mycenaeans. They grew to power over two millennia yet collapsed simultaneously over a few short decades. A series of cascading calamities in a highly interdependent world that linked these civilisations as trading partners led to a rapid collapse. There were invasions—the invading “sea people,” pushback military invasions in response, destabilisation and… Read more »

Stryker4570
Stryker4570
5 years ago

The field of Democrat candidates is a clown car full of crazy.

The Babe
The Babe
Member
5 years ago

Informative, funny. Increased cricket rations and more sunning rocks, LOL.

In fact it would also be interesting to do a mirror-image podcast of 20 “leading” [insert sardonic chuckle here] Republicans.

Jay Dee
Jay Dee
5 years ago

Julian Castro……..”…..promises to increase everyone’s cricket ration and install more sunning rocks around the Capital……….” (that’s @ 15:00 mark, folks.)

I just lost it. LOL =)

Z’s clever that way (in his writing too, of course)…..He’ll speak in a calm, measured, conversational manner which we are all accustomed, and when you are least expecting it……..he drops in a zinger!

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
5 years ago

Here we see again how cheap oligarchs might be hastening their own demise.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/globe-and-mail-buyouts-1.5129600?cmp=rss

Lord Thomson, owner of the Globe and Mail (Canuck NYT), has a net worth of tens of billions, and could easily continue these losses. Perhaps they are confident that AI will replace the population control exercised by journolist meatpuppets.

Whitney
Member
5 years ago

Point system is hilarious

Diversity Heretic
Member
5 years ago

John Hickenlooper left the office of governor of Colorado in January, to be succeeded by Jared Polis, an open homosexual. John is the son of former Iowa governor and four term U.S. senator Bourke Hickenlooper. I remember Bourke Hickenlooper from my youth and I don’t think that he’d be pleased with how his son turned out.

Guest
Guest
Reply to  thezman
5 years ago

He spoke as a moderate, but was hard left on everything except oil and gas. He was widely popular in Colorado and would have won another term, but he was term-limited.

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  Diversity Heretic
5 years ago

The Hickenlooper of Colorado seems unrelated to the Iowa Senator, perhaps distantly. J. Hick was born in Philadelphia, PA, and then moved to Colorado.

John Gilligan, the Governor of Ohio that saddled us with the income tax, was the father of Kathleen Sebelius who was Governor of Kansas and then HHS secretary. John would have been pleased with the devastation that she wrought.

Diversity Heretic
Member
Reply to  DeBeers Diamonds
5 years ago

It looks as if you’re right that there’s no direct relationship between John and Bourke Hickenlooper. I stand corrected.

Liberaldisdain
Liberaldisdain
5 years ago

Ron Paul supports Gabbard, really. Why does anyone listen to a so called “leader” that has done nothing but lose, at least on the national scene? I don’t get it. Time for the nursing home.

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  Liberaldisdain
5 years ago

Trump is unlikely to draw an uncucked primary challenger. In most cases your Senator or Rep is not going to draw a challenger either. So the most useful vote to cast for many of us is to register as a Dem and vote in their primary.

Rcocean
Rcocean
Reply to  Liberaldisdain
5 years ago

Ron Paul has always been a nut. Like almost all Libertarians. They seem incapable of dealing with reality. IRC, Paul was against a border fence because it could be used to “keep Americans from leaving the USA”.

Spirit_of_the_bayonet
Member
5 years ago

Went to see what’s new at Chateau Heartiste this afternoon. Found this…

https://heartiste.wordpress.com

Deplatformed by WordPress.

Felix_Krull
Member
Reply to  Spirit_of_the_bayonet
5 years ago

Here’s his latest page capture from the Wayback Machine

https://web.archive.org/web/20190510072818/https://heartiste.wordpress.com/

SidVic
SidVic
Member
5 years ago

It’s goddamn laughable that the links within this comment section are censored as we write. Who the hell do these people think they are? It is becoming very difficult to breathe the same air as these people.

Willie
Willie
5 years ago

Hey Z, Swalwell was on the city council of Dublin, CA

Member
5 years ago

You skipped over Tim Ryan.

King Tut
King Tut
5 years ago

I must say that Tulsi Gabbard is a fine looking filly, all things considered.

https://youtu.be/Wndkp11DNso

Tax Slave
Tax Slave
Reply to  King Tut
5 years ago

I want to seize O-Crazy-O Whoretez’s means of milk production.

Felix_Krull
Member
Reply to  Tax Slave
5 years ago

I suspect they’re already public property.

Monty James
5 years ago

I’m thinking there’s just a lot of lefty billionaire money floating around during the primary season, which could explain this unruly swarm of goofballs chasing after it. One does one’s fishing when the tide is in, as it were.

Sam Detente
Sam Detente
Member
5 years ago

Might be a silly question, but what is the origin of the dog catcher in a small town euphemism? My Finnish granddad used to say the same thing

Member
5 years ago

I don’t see the lizard in Julian Castro. He looks like a smiling Asian Sambo.

Whiskey
Whiskey
5 years ago

I’m wondering if Hillary has gunned up all these clowns. Aka dense pack nuke missile theory. All these clowns destroy each other end route to a Clinton restoration and Chelsea 2028? Hillary is canvassing NH.

Diversity Heretic
Member
Reply to  Whiskey
5 years ago

Interesting theory and Hillary might try even though I think her health has deteriorated from 2016 and it wasn’t good then. (She looks really bloated in the photos that I’ve seen;) My theory is that either Michelle Obama or Oprah Winfrey might emerge as a compromise unifying candidate if the primaries really can’t pick a winner. But my guess is still that Kamala Harris will be the nominee as the candidate with the most diversity Pokemon points. As Zman says, many of these candidates will be gone by September, even before the Iowa caucuses.

Corn
Corn
5 years ago

Great show. Laughed throughout the whole thing. Would have loved to hear your thoughts on Yang but the podcast cut off in the middle of the Williamson segment. That happen to anyone else or is my phone acting up?

Drake
Drake
5 years ago

Jay Inslee’s website picture looks almost exactly like Bill Kristol.

Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
5 years ago

I notice that most of the candidates websites are
candidates.name..dot.COM
Not dot.ORG or dot.INFO
dot.COM means “commercial” .. i.e. a business.
So, they’re not organizations fielding candidates, they’re business enterprises, selling something.
Hmmmm.

Compsci
Compsci
Reply to  Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
5 years ago

The “.com” is an arbitrary first choice. There really is no authority that prevents or rather regulates your choice of domains.

Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
Reply to  Compsci
5 years ago

Perhaps 30 years ago, when your only choices were
.gov .edu .mil and .com,
you’d have to pick one, .com was the only one that made sense.
There are more top-level domains available now.
Shouldn’t a candidate have an ORGanization behind him, rather than being nothing more than a business venture?
Or, his website offers up .INFOrmation about the candidate?

If nothing else, it indicates that their webmasters aren’t paying attention to small details.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
5 years ago

They could be honest and use .IL

50% of the funding of the dems, Don’t ever forget it.

DeBeers Diamonds
DeBeers Diamonds
Reply to  bilejones
5 years ago

The Dems enjoy a structural advantage in politics that comes from being 90% of the journolists and academics in this country.

The value of that is incalculable.

Reziac
Reziac
Reply to  Nunnya Bidnez, jr.
5 years ago

If you only type DOMAIN, most browsers default to DOMAIN.COM So anyone who wants to be found uses DOMAIN.COM, not any of the dozens of other TLDs. Using anything else (if you don’t have to) is frankly stupid from a marketing perspective, even if it’s more technically-correct. Further, it prevents domain squatting, since squatters know very well that only .COM have real value in terms of findability. So if you really want to be a DOMAIN.ORG, *first* buy DOMAIN.COM, and have it redirect to DOMAIN.ORG (Craigslist does this). Cuz otherwise, the moment some Big Name buys DOMAIN.NOTCOM, one of the… Read more »

Lee Zehrer
Lee Zehrer
5 years ago

Of course we had the founders like Washington and Jefferson but shortly after that and even before Lincoln the line of US presidents reminds me of the Roman empire’s after Augustus, Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian, everyone more corrupt than the previous one.

Member
5 years ago

Since my state (the Old North State aka God’s Country) is certain to nominate Trump, I plan to reregister as a Democrat to vote for Marianne Williamson.

I would certainly watch a presidential debate between Trump (the Art of the Deal) and an acolyte of “A Course in Miracles”. This would be the first time I have ever in my many, many years of suffering through presidential politics that I will have watched one of these clown shows.

America needs a real choice.

Reply to  Steve_in_Greensboro
5 years ago

And do good looking women get diversity points or lose them? Because that Williamson creature is hot. In kind of milfy way. At least compared to Stacy Abrams. Or anybody else in the Democrat party.

CAPT S
CAPT S
5 years ago

This was a fun analysis, but you should’ve given bonus “Matthew” points: i.e. which nominee might send the strongest thrill up the leg of Chris Matthews. I say +20 for Buttigieg. As the electoral season progresses I suggest a podcast that considers the stakes from the Deep State perspective. The Deep State plays the long game and they prefer a stooge in office – one whose every decision is easily anticipated or manipulated. Which of course means Trump is a great candidate (he’s easily anticipated), as are the whole field of Dems (all owned & manipulable). The most easily manipulated,… Read more »

Marko
Marko
5 years ago

You forgot about Mike Gravel

AnabolicState
AnabolicState
5 years ago

WordPress just deplatformed Chateau Heartiste. Website no longer available. I was aware Big Tech was purging badthinkers this week. Big Brother Tech will be here soon too i suspect. Its happening. Are you ready?

Felix_Krull
Member
5 years ago

OT, but I told you, you’d be hearing from Rasmus Paludan:

https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/free-men-vs-bug-men/

Member
Reply to  Felix_Krull
5 years ago

heartiste.wordpress.com is no longer available.

Diversity Heretic
Member
Reply to  nrer
5 years ago

I noticed that too. I hope Zman has a back up plan in the event the server police try to deplatform him.

Frank
Frank
5 years ago

I just tried to subscribe and it kept coming back as a credit card error.

Cloudswrest
Cloudswrest
5 years ago

Come on, Julian Castro doesn’t even come close to reptilian compared to James “snakehead” Carville!

Ripple
Ripple
5 years ago

The fudgepacking mayor’s last name is pronounced “Bootyjudge”.

Willie Brown’s former paramour’s first name is pronounced “KAH-mala.” Her mother is from Tamil Nadu, South India. Father is from Jamaica.

Our previous president’s father was from Kenya, not Nigeria.

Getting these pronunciations and facts correctly will make you sound more intelligent