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Cross Word
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Welcome to Crossword , where we dive into fascinating interviews with authors exploring history, politics, culture, and art. Join us as we uncover intriguing insights and stories that shape our understanding of today’s world and its rich tapestry of ideas. Whether you're passionate about exploring the cultural impact of art or understanding how history influences our political landscape, each episode promises to enrich your perspective and inspire thoughtful reflection. Subscribe now to join our community of curious minds committed to exploring the diverse realms of human experience and knowledge.
Cross Word
Decoding Election Season Chaos
Join us for a lively and insightful episode as we explore the theatrical nature of the current election season. With our special guest, Tony Kennett from the Daily Signal, we dissect how figures like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are transforming the political landscape with their unconventional approaches. Witness how Trump's social media dynamism has turned political engagement into a spectacle, reminiscent of a national comedy. We reflect on how Obama's initial social media strategies paved the way, but Trump's style has undoubtedly painted a new picture in the world of political engagement.
Our conversation takes you into the heart of a shifting media landscape, where traditional strongholds like the Rust Belt are now fertile ground for new political alliances. The Trump campaign has ingeniously tapped into this transition, reshaping conservative identity with a rebellious flair. Amidst the fast-paced news cycle, we explore the role of podcasts as sanctuaries for deeper reflection and analysis. Delve into the intriguing possibility that this might be the last time mainstream media dominates election narratives, as podcasts and new media forms foster more authentic connections with audiences.
Finally, we unravel the chaotic undercurrents of political decision-making, where backroom deals and reactive strategies are more common than perceived master plans. We share bold predictions about a Trump victory and a Republican Senate majority, assessing how electoral integrity concerns might play out. Tony Kennett provides a fascinating look at the world of live streaming and broadcasting, underscoring the power of staying informed and active. This episode blends political satire, media insights, and engaging discussions to keep you both entertained and enlightened during this extraordinary election season.
Welcome to Crossword, where cultural clues lead to the truth of the word. And my name is Michelle McAloon, and we have a first. Today we have a radio star. His name is Tony Kennett, he is investigative columnist with the Daily Signal and he's a radio host at WIBC in Indianapolis. Welcome, Tony.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Michelle. I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 1:Good, let's talk about. What should we talk about? Oh yeah, an election. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean, it is just kind of one of the many thousands of things going on right now, but yeah, it's kind of captured a few people's attention.
Speaker 1:Attention. It's taking all the air out of the robe. I think this will be seen as one of the most truly bizarre election seasons in the history of election seasons. Not only the United States, maybe even the world. We start early on with conviction of Donald Trump to him ending up riding around in a garbage truck with his yellow safety vest on. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic. I mean, you know we talked a little bit before about just kind of the general tenor of what everyone is feeling right now, and I feel as though you were being told to be really concerned and fearful and oh no, and the decorum and the pearl clutching. To be completely honest, what I see. The average american views this as more akin to kind of a comedy being written on the national scale, and there is an element of it's funny. We have reached a point of absurdity in our society. You which societies reach when they hit a point of technological ease and not a lot of wars for a long time, no hardship, and so we're seeing the natural results of that, but we're just seeing it at a level that is more intimate than it has ever been before and because of that, I mean it's just everyone's dialed up to 11.
Speaker 2:And the people that are taking it way too seriously. I've told people that listen to the show, just kick back and laugh and enjoy it. I mean, yeah, there are serious aspects, but my goodness to see Kamala Harris tell everyone that she worked at McDonald's because she thought that would impress people, which, again, it really should not matter. But you know she wanted to be one of the normal people, and then Donald Trump to take her word on it and after it was proven that she was very likely fibbing about said previous career experience, the dude goes and works the fryer at McDonald's for an afternoon. I mean, this man is worth billions of dollars and the man is just chilling out at a Pennsylvania McDonald's Fantastic, I love it.
Speaker 1:He is for all his faults, not a perfect human's. This is fantastic. I love it. He is, for all his faults, not a perfect human being. He is a comedian and he's also. I think his political sense is borders on genius of how to read the political room and to seize political opportunities for better or for worse, but he actually has has, and he has really shown this throughout this election season.
Speaker 2:I would say that he's shown incredible entertainer acumen. This one of the reasons that people like him is because he's an entertainer. He's not specifically your kind of traditional class politician who's worried about micro poll numbers. And he admitted this. Finally, I say admitted he wasn't trying to hide it and he admitted this. And finally, I say admitted he wasn't trying to hide it, but he said this outright when he was on Rogan recently, which I don't listen to, rogan and I really don't listen to Trump rallies.
Speaker 2:But I listened to this three hour interview end to end and I one of the things that struck me was Trump saying that he thinks a lot of the polls and a lot of the political traditionalism in our country at least, in how we look at elections and how we look at seething the micro moment of individual demographic data A, b, c and D he sees it as a load of BS, for lack of well, to use his term and just abbreviate it. So he responds to things that an entertainer does as a comedian who's working the crowd. He looks at the faces in the crowd and that's something that struck me. The last time I was at a rally of his was in Clinton Township, north of Michigan. He made eye contact with me, some nobody journalist, in the back of the room like six times. The man was reading faces and what can I tell you? That is a very, very powerful skill in this field.
Speaker 1:It really is. He's also and I don't think people talk about this enough he was one of the first politicians to actually seize the new social media and he did that when he was on Twitter on his first campaign and he really did run his campaign through Twitter and I think he's one that has been able to get this more than a Kamala, more than a Biden this kind of traditional way of campaigning. I think he has changed the tenor of campaigning simply by his execution of social media and he has absolutely been the pioneer of it. Again, we can debate all day long as to whether that is good or bad trend, but I believe he has done that.
Speaker 2:I would say that I'm not necessarily sure that he's pioneered the social media sphere. As far as political campaigning, I'm afraid I would probably have to give that torch to Obama. But as far as just general use of social media and not making it feel like some type of sterilized, lysol-scented surrogate, which is what a lot of political campaigns social media, you give it to the college intern and say, hey, kid, make me look funny on social medias and then it doesn't look real because that's not the real person. Donald Trump's like give me my phone, I'm going to tweet out everything at once. And it works because, again, it's authentic. And is it always advisable? No, because sometimes you should really shut your mouth, but when the authenticity is needed, there is no one better suited than a guy who has been authentic since day one.
Speaker 1:He really has and that, like I said, that authenticity has kind of shown us who he is. So one of the brilliant things I think he did do was he brought young men into this election cycle, or at least the discussion of young men into this election cycle, or at least the discussion of young men into this election cycle and through talking to people like Theo Vaughn and talking on the Joe Rogan podcast, of appealing to young men and this election cycle, I think, brought out that vulnerability now in the United States, that issue where men are feeling a little bit excluded from modern society.
Speaker 2:So I think that this is kind of a hybrid. I wouldn't say anomaly, but this is kind of a hybrid. It's come together from several sources into kind of one channel. So in one point, yes, you do have millennial young men, gen Z young men who haven't really been reached out to, because all of the millennial and Gen Z marketing from political angle has basically been an extension of kind of Robin D'Angelo's white guilt framework and that basically we need to lecture you for being, quote unquote, on the top of the pyramid. And so if you're a young man, especially if you're a young man who presents or is phenotypically white, then you need to apologize and step aside. You need to be more feminine, you need to be more submissive and all this other stuff that doesn't appeal. Also, never laugh again, ever, because it's according to that MSNBC article, laughing is very white supremacist, very terrible stuff. So that's part of it.
Speaker 2:The other part of it is that the Democrats have completely, completely abandoned their base, which used to be Rust Belt, industrial Belt, white slash, assorted 90s labor men. Democrats we're talking the guys who were immigrants from 30, 40 different countries, who were part of this Rust Belt conglomerate in the industrial base of the United States who were traditionally union workers right and now what we've seen is a complete abandonment, for similar reasons, by the Democratic Party. And so you've had this entire chunk and I mean a sizable piece of the pie, like family diner on Sunday-sized piece of the pie that has been completely just left out in the rain to rot and molder. And the trump campaign came along and said no, you're, you're coming with us and so you also run. You're in an equal benefit here. You run the benefit of of a demographic for the taking. You run another benefit of. It is the rebellious thing to be a conservative now, which is just wild. I mean, it's just wild.
Speaker 2:It really is. Yeah, I mean the punks can be like, oh, I'm fighting the system, man, and it's like, no, I'm sorry, but there are 800 people who look like you in every single commercial talking about how great it is that they have the lifestyle that you do. It's rebellious to be on the other side. All of those, I would almost say in the way that a gardener kind of maintains plants while they're growing, I would say, if it can be cultivated properly, it can be a very sizable, very strong voting block in the future. I'm not quite sure we're going to see it in this election to the degree that you know it's being advertised, but in the future, in the next 10, 12 years probably.
Speaker 1:You know that's interesting. You said that there was a Wall Street Journal article that came out, I think yesterday or day before yesterday, and it was basically about what is happening with the white older vote, how they originally came out supporting Harris, but by and large, they and these are the people that vote, these are the people that vote consistently they are going towards Trump now. So it's going to be real interesting to see who by like Mitt Romney's binder full of women.
Speaker 2:Was the entire story for the whole campaign. Howard Dean, acting like one line he said on stage that sounded a little bit to his campaign was dead. I mean, now we've got Trump, has survived two, possibly three presidential assassination attempts. We've had chaos. I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you. As a guy who's very much trying to work on getting daily news out to the audience on the syndication network every single day by 7 pm. I am certainly not short of content to provide people, but the news cycles are so short I feel like I'm almost stretched to my limit of how I can actually boil down, assess and give everyone kind of the quick details without cutting any information out, because the news cycle is going at 120 miles an hour. I've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 1:I talked to Tyler O'Neill yesterday or day before yesterday about. You know people like you, the podcasters out there. I think what they're doing is slowing down the news cycle or slowing down the analysis of the news cycle, which is a good thing. It's not the 24-hour scroll. They're taking issues and they're having to think and to analyze and to put it out. So and you're a radio host, so you're you're in that more energetic news cycle where the podcasters now and the podcasters have really and I'm not just tooting my own horn, but the podcasters have really taken this election cycle and taken issues and kind of slowed down and be able to talk through them in the way that the media legacy has not been able to.
Speaker 2:You might find this interesting and I'm not sure if I'll get in trouble for sharing this, but I think it's too cool to not share. So I was part of a rather biggity-wiggity kind of meeting in the upper echelons of my organization discussing how we wanted a certain exit polls questions to be worded. We talked about what voters should be asked as they're heading out. This is a very major pollster. This will absolutely influence how we discuss politics over the next couple of years, based on how this poll is going out to voters. And one question that was not on there that I insisted and I argued for about two, three, four minutes that we absolutely include this question exactly as I worded it Some of my former teacher arguing skills coming through, but I said we need a question that asks, through this election cycle, what was the primary category of media that you received your news from?
Speaker 2:Was it podcasters? Was it radio and TV? And if it was, was it like network affiliate local TV, like the numbered stations, or was it cable news or was it online publications? If it's an online publication, what kind was it? Because that kind of a question is going to help answer the question that a lot are answering, or that a lot are asking right now, which is is this the last election cycle in which the mainstream media, meaning the affiliates in the newspapers, basically control of the narrative, and I'd say that's kind of remarkably possible? Now, for me, I'm exactly halfway between both worlds. The reason that it's called the Tony Kinnick cast and I hate the name of the show, but I didn't get to pick it.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's equal parts broadcast and podcast. It is a quick news roundup of the day with a very sarcastic Hoosier analysis that we can go long into a podcast if we need to. I actually take the interview and just say no-transcript.
Speaker 1:And in that relationship they come to trust you. They like what they hear, they trust what you hear. You're not pulling wool over their eyes, and I think that's what the podcasters, the small radio stations, the independent journalists out there that you know, the substacks and even X, able to do is they're able to form a relationship. It's also one about trust, and I think what has happened is the media legacy, whether it's the newspapers, whether it's Jeff Bezos or Los Angeles Times, whether it's Fox News, whether it's you know whoever is out there. I think a lot of people feel betrayed by what they have seen and heard, because what they're seeing and hearing is not what they're seeing and hearing in real life.
Speaker 2:You know that's a good point. For a long time we were sold on the brand. The idea was that this brand would have some kind of credibility, right, because it either had money behind it, it had some kind of established credibility via its time in the public eye, and so when someone would go to write or to broadcast behind that brand, the brand was the important thing. And you saw this in the early stages of social media. What were the biggest accounts? Well, it was the New York Times, it was Fox News, it was CNN, it was and so on. And then you reached a point where there were individuals in that publication, in that old media empire that would embarrass the publication. The New York Times writer that would be caught lying, jennifer Rubin enough said sorry.
Speaker 2:Washington Post you can list all these individuals who completely sold their credibility down the river and then that tarnished the brand. And so what we're seeing now is an era of personality driven media and, yeah, there's a free market aspect to it where everyone can you know, see who they listen to and, if you like it, you stick around, you listen, you develop trust over time. But there's also a micro sense of accountability as well, whereas that, if I get caught doing something stupid, the brand that I'm with doesn't suffer as much. But the stakes for me as an individual are far higher, because there are fewer people who, in a corporatist HR sense, are going to run out and do kind of PR damage control. It's a high risk game, but it definitely has a huge reward at the same time.
Speaker 1:Sure, I think it's called social responsibility, and maybe that's where you know what. Back to the individual, and you know what. We are a country of individuals. We just are and we were founded like that and that is who we are. So I do think actually, the news has corrected itself. There's some things that didn't get covered in this election that I, as a voter, and I think many other people, would have wished they had seen, and one of this was the switch out of Kamala. I mean why that wasn't bigger news. That first thing I don't know how that was constitutional. The second thing is I mean that was a perversion of the democratic process. What if we had had a robust democratic primary? I think there would be a much different conversation in the country now, instead of people calling each other garbage or fascist or whatever you want to say out there. We really missed a really important step, and I'm surprised that more people haven't railed up against that.
Speaker 2:So the funny thing about this issue that some people really do not want to discuss is that technically and legally, at least in most states, what the Democrats did is totally fine, and the reason that I say that is because I say fine legally, not fine morally Right, ok, meaning the parties are just are shams. I mean the fact the Republican Party could, at its whim, pull Donald Trump out today, other than if you, if you forget the having to be on the ballot by this day and time was, if the Republicans wanted to take Trump out today and make a different Republican candidate, they absolutely could do so. The Democrats could tomorrow. It really means nothing. There is no legal structure that governs how the Democrats or the Republicans or the Libertarians or the Green Party choose their candidate.
Speaker 2:Be like a considered thing. The state parties would just decide collectively who would be the representative to appear in their slot on the ballot, and so the Democrats, you know, cooing away Biden. It's kind of funny because legally they can do that. Now, since it's become more of an established procedure that we do this whole primary process, it's become kind of pseudo legal to have and hold to a primary, at least as far as the delegates are concerned. There really is a poor foundation for that, because we are not a kind of structural republic through our parties. We're a structural republic through the means of the republic itself.
Speaker 1:So right, the states Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So I'm not. I'm not sure that this will hold for another couple of decades or so, but it was funny that the Democrats, by doing this, especially after preaching about how democratic they were, then went out and did the most undemocratic thing possible, screwing over all of these. And I remember, you know, tom Steyer and others, and RFK, even individuals like Cornel West, who ran out and said, yeah, I'm running for president for the Democratic side of the aisle, and were then turned down because, oh well, the Democratic Party, we already have our candidate, and there is an element of oligarchical bureaucracy at the head of a party which is allowed to say no, this is our candidate, we are blackballing other candidates, and you may not like the terminology. Do they have the right to do so? Yes, is it hypocritical? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:But one of the reasons that it's not covered is it's kind of a Roberts rules of order thing. Well, yeah, the rules are set up this way, and if you don't like it and I don't like it either then maybe we should change that particular system for future elections or, you know, maybe there needs to be new generations of leadership at the top of parties. But I think that though I also wish it would have been covered more. And I'm sorry, I don't mean to belabor this question at all. I just think that it's a really it's a different dynamic than we give it credit for, because, yeah, parties are allowed to be corrupt. Like they're informal organizations, they don't matter. Like if the democratic party came out tomorrow and said you know, tony Kennan needs to be arrested, I don't care, more than I would care that the local Girl Scout chapter or PTA said that I needed to be arrested. Like they, they mean nothing.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I guess it's, you know, the smoky back room, it just it kind of. It kind of goes against, I think, our democratic sense, our sense of fairness, and maybe we don't have, I don't know it, just there's something icky about it.
Speaker 2:Yes, not a sense of democratic fairness. I don't think that democratic fairness is is. I think that's a word. The word democratic being applied in this particular election is very Soviet to me because, like all of a sudden, we started using very soft-sounding adjectives to apply to things that we basically take out of the civics textbook and we just slap them onto things. I would say that what's really scummy about this is that it's a very where the sausage is made kind of situation. It's a backroom deal, right.
Speaker 1:It is a backroom deal.
Speaker 2:The Democrats were stuck choosing Kamala, so they ended up trying to progressive their way around into making her palatable, and it didn't work. I mean, it's just corrupt. And the fact of the matter is, people don't like corruption, people don't like a lack of transparency, people don't like backroom deals, right, you know. That's why people like the kind of restaurants where the food's made out in the open.
Speaker 1:I mean you get to see it right there in front of you instead of brought out and you're told well, no, this is just mystery meat, right. Yeah, I tell you, the timing of it was suspect, the timing of the original debate, the choosing and I'm not a conspiracy theory person, but if you look back on it, a lot of it seems very coincidental or planned of the early debate of deciding that Biden was not capable of running. There's something dark about it that doesn't meet the light of transparency.
Speaker 2:I'm not pushing back on this as though. Could this have been planned? Absolutely. I think that there is a much more realistic and time-tested answer.
Speaker 2:People are stupid. They are. Every single person on this planet, you and I included, are, by nature, flying by the seat of our pants. We're all making it up as we go, and, as much as we would really love to believe that the person that is one tier above me knows what they're doing all the time, and they have it all put together and they're all doing everything they can. And then, way up the chain, oh, they've got to be like, not just playing checkers, they got to be playing chess like 10 moves, right, yeah, and all this?
Speaker 2:The fact of the matter is, according to documents that we have from the inside of the campaign, there's been an attitude of panic this entire election because they made the stupid decision of just crossing their fingers and saying, yeah, I Biden will probably hold out. Yeah, maybe, and even if he doesn't, he said he was going to be a transitional candidate, and then Biden went no, I'm staying. And so then they had to keep him because he's the president Right All of the backroom, pelosi and Obama. Pelosi and Obama couldn't just snap their fingers and get him out of the White House. Legally he's the president of the United States. They had to threaten and cajole him under the auspices of the 25th Amendment after there was proof.
Speaker 2:But do I think that, like all, the debate was planned to be at this time? I mean, I think that there might have been a staffer that chose the earlier date because that was a thought on their back line. But do I think that was like a brilliant, masterminded move way into the future? No, I think it's more likely that when you start playing things by ear and then you start to panic, stupid decisions compound, and they compound quickly. My evidence for this would be all of human history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. You know what the Delta Force they always say the only easy day is yesterday, preach, which I think is a great saying, and you're right, maybe that's the ultimate is that there really wasn't a plan, that they really were just. There was no plan, they were just reacting. That should be comforting to you.
Speaker 2:That should be comforting to everyone, because we're in an age where, I mean, you get into this point where you think that the conspirators have conspirators and again can people make bad plans and do bad things behind closed doors Absolutely some of the stupidest things that they believe, has crafted some of the things that he's accused of crafting, but is, at the same time, a blithering idiot who makes open mistakes that even his party's like man. I really wish you wouldn't have done that. You can't have it both ways. It's like the Trump is an evil secret genius plotting the handmaid's tale, but he's also like a goober who can't tie his shoes. Like I can't really have it both ways.
Speaker 1:I think you're absolutely right about that and actually that is a point of optimism, that we really are human and we really are just trying to figure out the next move. I think that's absolutely correct. Two more questions Is there going to be and you talked a little bit about on one of your shows a last minute stumble? Do you think this garbage comment was a last minute stumble?
Speaker 2:Yes, but not for the reason that everyone has said that it's a last minute stumble. Do you think this garbage comment was a last minute stumble? Yes, but not, for the reason that everyone has said that it's a last minute stumble. So a lot of people are trying to say this is like the Hillary Clinton deplorables comment. No, the reason this comment is fantastic is because if this election has voters going to the voting booth thinking about Donald Trump, thinking about how he tweets, thinking about what he says, he's going to lose. If this election has people going to the voting booth thinking about giggles, the clown president, vice president and her aged, older boss and the awful administration that they have presided over, then they are going to lose and Trump is going to win. The reason that I say the garbage comment is imperative in the last few days of this election is in a point the first shining moment for the Harris campaign a weak one, a very weak ray of light the Tony the insult comedian who said the Puerto Rico thing. That is not anywhere nearly as bad as it was made out to be. But in that moment there was a small chance where maybe a couple thousand voters could have been influenced to say you're right. This is the bad Trump thing. Bad, bad Trump. Ok, I'm going to go vote against Trump.
Speaker 2:Right at that time, biden comes out and what does he do? He turns the attention back on himself. Harris and Walls. Now they have to spend their last week of the election on the defensive. That's the problem. Everything that's being asked right now. What is it? Are you afraid of Donald Trump? No, it's. Do you stand with the comment made by President Biden? They've asked it to Walls, they've asked it to Harris and they're dodging the question. They've asked it to Walls, they've asked it to Harris and they're dodging the question, which means they're going to keep getting it. When you're playing defense, you are losing. What's Trump doing? He's riding around in a garbage truck with his name on the side of it, having a blast, and he's making fun of how the vest makes him look at the rally, saying well, I wasn't going to wear it. My team said that it makes me look thinner.
Speaker 1:I know he's enjoying himself, I know that.
Speaker 2:And that really is the catch. If Trump had to spend the last week of the election on the defensive saying I would never say that. And usually when Trump gets in the defensive, he starts to compromise a little bit and he starts to say I would never say that. And also, I think we should make Puerto Rico a state like. Trump could very well have done that in the last week of the election. He's done that with the abortion issue. He's done with the education issue. He's done that regard to the economic issues. You get him on the defensive and he will think I just need to like maneuver to get a little more ground. He's done this a couple of times, but that's not what happened, because Joe Biden got out there and called half the country garbage and the media acted like the media. Now Harris and Walls are on the defensive and everything that they tried to bring forward has been completely shredded. So what this did was it kept the momentum gaining for Trump and it continued to reduce any active momentum potential for Harrison Walls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great summary. What do you think? How do you think this election is going to go? Do you think there's going to be tomfoolery? I tell you, I've been really heartened by watching X and people, people's eyes are all over this. They are just, I mean, cameras and pictures, and you know, ballot pictures. So what? How do you think this is going to go?
Speaker 2:So my prediction at the moment is 312 Trump with a 54 Republican Senate majority. At least that's the outcome and on those lines I think that my wildcard prediction is that if Virginia, if there's any state that can flip unexpectedly, it's Virginia, and whether or not it's Republicans or Democrats who take the state, it'll be within 12,000 votes. But that's kind of the general numeric prediction. As to what you asked, which is do I think there's going to be tomfoolery and shenanigans and the other accoutrement that come with today's day and age in electoral surveillance, I don't know. And the reason I say I don't know is a prediction is because everyone around me appears extremely certain that there's going to be X number of certain that there's going to be X number of fraud, there's going to be X number of safety and that they know how the Democrats are going to do it. People are going to go in and refresh the bios of the machines and all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:I have a hard time with that because it seems a little bit like crying wolf. Now let me explain. I don't mean crying wolf like it's not happening, little bit like crying wolf. Now let me explain. I don't mean crying wolf like it's not happening. And they're crying wolf. What I mean is every little bit of electoral, not shadiness, the appearance of shadiness something just doesn't quite look right is immediately going to be treated as a five alarm fire, and that means that you run a risk If the fire department is flooded with calls. You run a risk. If the fire department is flooded with calls, you run a risk of an actual fire getting through. And so that's a concern of mine, because I don't want to see, for example, the Colorado election board who's already dealing with the secretary of state, who's just the absolute mixture of stupid and evil. I will give her that, while they're busy already putting out that fire a mixture of stupid and evil I will give her that, while they're busy already putting out that fire.
Speaker 2:If you're in an election thing and you don't know quite how your local election laws work, because the problem with independent journalism if there is one, is that a lot of people are out there reporting on a story and their argument for why something should be a certain way is well, because I feel that way, it's kind of, in a way, it's almost like a little bit of Karenism taken to the next level, and this comes on the left and the right. And I worry about that, not because I don't want people to be vigilant. I absolutely do see something, say something, but I don't want there to be 80 calls into the 911. And then one of those 80 is actually a very serious case of election fraud and it slips through because we're investigating. Janet said that she heard someone say they were going to Right yeah, nonsense, right, right, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I hope there's enough lawyers standing by on both sides to kind of dispute this thing.
Speaker 2:I hope that's usually more optimistic than everybody is on that. I mean, could I be wrong Absolutely? Will I be wrong Probably optimistic than everybody is on that? I mean, could I be wrong Absolutely? Will I be wrong, probably. But do I think that the election is going to be called November 6th, the day after by 1 pm.
Speaker 1:Yes, I kind of think that too, tony, and I just think there's so many eyes on it and there's so much pressure on it and, and you know what, this, when we're on November 30th, when we still don't know who the president is, we're wrong. Okay, we're wrong, but I'm hoping that I tell you it would be so good for us. I sit here in Europe and I can tell you we need a smooth election. We are leaders of the world, whether we want to be or not. Europe has watched our elections very, very closely. They don't know what to make of it. They don't know how to interpret us. The same way, we really don't know how to interpret European elections for the most part. But we're different because we are leaders of the world and I really hope we can do a little smooth transition of democracy. That would help everybody around the world at this point and it would show our strength. So I'm hoping for a good outcome here. So, tony, have you voted yet?
Speaker 2:I have.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, very good, and you're voting in the state of Indiana, right?
Speaker 2:That is correct, the greatest state in the whole union. Wife and I went to go early vote, got our ballots cast and knew who we were voting for, all the way down to the school board candidates. I am a little sad because there used to be a tradition in this country where, after your ballot was cast, the poll worker would then say Mr Last Name has voted. And it makes me sad that we don't do that anymore, because there should be a little more pomp and circumstance to the voting process.
Speaker 1:I wish there was. I just think we've gotten too big and too hard to govern. We're more and more hard to govern and so maybe this is our way of being able to have a smooth election. It's much more widespread, much more longer, so more people can vote, and what they're saying now is they expect record turnout and we need people to vote and people part of the process. One of the things when I went back to the States people are engaged, they are talking, they love to talk. There was no animosity when I said who are you voting for? I'm voting for Kamala. Who are you voting for? I'm voting for Trump. There was no animosity. People are willing to talk. They want to tell you who they're voting for. Everybody had I vote stickers on. That is an American miracle by any standard in the world. No one else does something like that. We're leading the world and I think that's a good thing, tony, any last words of wisdom?
Speaker 2:I would just say that that comes down to perhaps a reinvigoration of the role of the sovereign citizen and the active citizen in the Roman sense, that it's not just a resident You're not, it's not just a privilege that you have that you're entitled to. It comes with responsibilities and active engagement, and I hope there's a lot more of that in the future, because a republic can only be preserved it is, it is not carried through of its own nature.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm I'm hoping men like you, women like you, who are on the Daily Signal, who are doing this day in and day out and getting information out and doing analysis, are part of that process, and I really think you guys are, you're smart, you're young and you're pushing forward and I think that's great. So, tony, hopefully we talk after the election. See what our predictions are. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I sound pretty good. You should tune into our six, seven hours, I think, of election coverage live. I'm going to be on the air for seven hours and in a lot of pain, I'm sure. But hey, we're going to do our best. I will be glued, I will be absolutely glued to the radio.
Speaker 1:So good. And where can we find you? Where can listeners find you?
Speaker 2:You can find the live streams. You can actually see my bouncing goofy Midwestern dad smile every evening on 7 pm over at the Daily Signal on YouTube. That's just the easiest place to find us and that's where we'll be streaming live from. Obviously, there's radio and TV stations you could tune into, but just tune in on YouTube. Get in the conversation.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Okay, tony, thank you very much. Thank you, michelle. Thanks for having me. You've been listening to Crossword, where cultural clues lead to the truth of the word, and I am your host, michelle McElhoun. We've been talking to Tony Kennett of the Daily Signal. We've been talking to Tony Kennett of the Daily Signal. You can find me at bookcluescom, or Michelle McElhune1 on X or Michelle McElhune1 on Truth Social. Go out and vote, keep listening.
Speaker 2:Thank you, god bless ¶¶ ¶¶ guitar solo ¶¶, ¶¶, ¶¶. I'm feeling strong now. I'm feeling strong now. I'm feeling strong now, ¶¶, ¶¶, bye.