Luke Ford

01:00 Senator Fetterman gets it: Trump Throws DC Establishment Into Turmoil With Matt Gaetz Pick For Attorney General, with Ruthless, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pj-k6VKBY
11:00 Mark Halperin: We’ve never had a president like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZbfQTAr_6Y
14:00 I’m pleasantly surprised by how the election has changed the world around me for the good
Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSxIHrhw5Eo
24:00 Franklin Foer: Why the Gaetz Announcement Is Already Destroying the Government, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trumps-cabinet-announcements-have-broken-government/680656/
42:00 Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence Terrifies the Establishment, w/ Ruthless Podcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpyKHb4ABuc
46:30 The New York Times will publish longer better profiles of these Trump nominees than anyone else
48:00 New York Times chastened by the election
55:30 Matt Gaetz is friendly with AOC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSxIHrhw5Eo
59:45 Commentary: I forgot about the volume of news when Trump is president
1:02:00 Elliott Blatt joins the show to discuss making American healthy again
1:07:00 Elliott hates corn syrup, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_syrup
1:18:00 Why did America become morally flabby?
1:37:00 New Amsterdam, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam_(2018_TV_series)

01:00 Glenn: Do you want to win more often by including people in your coalition who are prone to conspiracy theories and right-wing cultural causes? https://substack.com/@statesofexception/note/c-76869717
02:00 Joe Rogan As The Median Voter, https://substack.com/home/post/p-151525457
04:00 Video: I’m 51, never married, no kids and the reasons why., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_C7qgExFQM
14:40 Hunger games at Mar Lago as Trump staffs his new administration, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rlQXoZxfo
21:45 I wanted Elbridge Colby, a restrainer, as Trump’s National Security Advisor, https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1855675378637090883
23:00 X: It’s kind of funny that The Atlantic’s position is both “Trump is Hitler” and “we want him to wage more wars.”
25:40 Neocon Trump? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWYPEkf-ClE
34:20 Will Neocons Take Over Trump’s New Administration?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwSHBWfchUM
41:00 Will Trump’s election unleash Bibi? https://nonzero.substack.com/p/will-trumps-election-unleash-bibi
46:40 Trump & the Jews
52:00 Trump nominates Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/us/politics/pete-hegseth-defense-secretary-trump.html
56:00 Trump & the economy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rlQXoZxfo
59:50 Why are Democrats better at raising money online?
1:01:50 Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agencies, https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/
1:03:30 Why does society have to bend to accommodate the sensibilities of people who choose to become trans?
1:06:10 The argument that Trump’s immigration policy is more humane than Biden’s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3GzAvqn0DU
1:11:20 Who will Trump pick as his AG?
1:12:30 Democratic congressman Seth Moulton speaks out against men playing in girls’ sports
1:14:30 Musa Al-Gharbi: Democrats must stop shaming voters, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAi8ZvyveD8
1:16:00 A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives, https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/a-graveyard-of-bad-election-narratives
1:21:00 SMH: Yes, it’s a cliche, but an overseas holiday unlocked a New Me, https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/yes-it-s-a-cliche-but-an-overseas-holiday-unlocked-a-new-me-20241030-p5kmp7.html
1:23:00 Kip joins to discuss the plasticity of reality
1:42:00 We can count on people to follow their interests and their hero systems, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=157462

01:00 I love Trump’s appointments on immigration – Tom Homan, Stephen Miller
02:00 If you harass someone at his home, you are risking your life, this woman harassing NF got away easy.
05:30 Gingrich: “Trump Is in an Unusual Position of Moral Authority Inside the Republican Party”
10:00 MK: Trump’s New Badass “Border Czar” Previews the Immigration Policy to Come, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI4BpoawE2w
13:00 FEMA withheld help from people with Trump signs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECfvbhI6Do0&t=3935s
17:20 Israel wants to eliminate Hamas
24:00 I Can’t Believe That Neo-Con Max Boot Published The Definitive Reagan Biography, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=157841
25:00 America Rejects Bob Woodward’s Advice About Trump & Biden, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=157846
26:00 My Biggest Fears About The New Trump Term, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=157848
32:00 Richard Hanania talks to Richard Spencer, https://www.richardhanania.com/p/staring-into-the-abyss-of-maga
37:00 Some people don’t want a woman president, https://www.richardhanania.com/p/this-is-maga-country
40:30 Physiognomy is destiny
42:40 The happiest man on earth – JD Vance
44:00 It’s the institutions, stupid, https://outsidethebeltway.com/its-the-institutions-stupid/
50:30 Elliott Blatt joins the show
58:00 Nick Fuentes is confronted by a Jewish pro-Palestine activist & he pepper sprays her & pushes her down his stairs, and grabs her phone
1:03:00 The Decline And Fall Of Michael Fumento, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=53087
1:06:00 The dangers of the e-personality, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=121464
1:10:00 Kamala’s campaign paid influencers and celebs millions of dollars, https://nypost.com/2024/11/09/media/harris-campaign-reportedly-spent-6-figures-on-call-her-daddy-podcast-with-episode-failing-to-break-1m-views/
1:23:45 The source of the problem: what people fail to understand about mental illness, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhoDnp2qA24
1:26:20 When the Torah scholar is seduced by a young widow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDyrt9HaW5Q
1:48:20 Things They Don’t Tell You About Living Alone as An Old Man!, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E8xy_79wrs
1:53:00 UN ambassador matters for people who love words, otherwise little significance or importance
1:53:50 Kip joins to discuss melancholy, living alone
2:08:00 I’m a rocket man
2:13:30 YT: I’m 51, never married, no kids and the reasons why., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_C7qgExFQM

I like Trump but I recognize that he is deeply flawed. The world around us is more complex than we can possibly understand, and America over the next four years will enter situations where the instincts of Donald Trump and the Republicans are not well suited to mastering events (such as Covid).

Here are my fears about the new Trump administration: That it will be characterized by incompetence, corruption and carelessness. I fear that Trump is not particularly good at running things and that he is not much interested in governing.

Dave Karpf overstates his case: “This is, effectively, the end of the regulatory state. Elon and the tech billionaires got what they wanted. All the (non-military) three-letter agencies will be hollowed out. The SEC and FTC won’t have the capacity to monitor financial crimes. The DOJ, EPA, HHS, etc will be run by political appointees whose sole charge is to reward Trump allies and punish Trump critics… The tech billionaires are going to start behaving like courtiers… There will be a parade of corruption and incompetence scandals.”

I support Trump replacing veteran civil servants with his own people but I fear Trump will too often value loyalty over competence. Don Moynihan writes:

Trump will reinstate Schedule F, the Executive Order that will allow him to reclassify federal civil servants to be political appointee, and then to fire them. Trump cares intensely about controlling both his own appointees and the bureaucracy, demanding loyalty from them, and being able to dismiss them when that loyalty is not shown. His disdain for the administrative state is both deep and personal, not abstract or rhetorical…

The number of Schedule F appointees will be proportionally higher in agencies that are viewed as liberal leaning (think HHS, Education, regulatory agencies), and lower in agencies viewed as more conservative (e.g. Customs and Border Patrol)…

I expect that a second Trump term will enable him to achieve more of his goals, even as I also think this will result in worse public services. For example, expect a general gutting of regulation.

Trump appears to enjoy the chaos and has little interest in governing…

Trump will bring a new era of corruption to government, which will largely go unpunished. A feature of Trump’s Presidency is that he has not abided by norms to reduce conflicts of interest between his public and private roles. He has more business interests than he had in his first term (notably in social media and crypto) that foreign governments can use to curry his favor, or threaten his net worth. He will not set aside those interests.

The potential for corruption goes beyond Trump and can take different forms.

Trump will engage in a mass pardon of people who broke the law to serve him, including those who attacked Congress on January 6.

A huge proportion of federal money goes through the contracting process. The chances that a lot of federal dollars will now go to Trump supporters has increased.

Musk faces regulatory oversight of his businesses from the federal government, and benefits from federal contracts. Giving Musk, in turn, oversight of those agencies as an efficiency czar generates even bigger conflicts of interest than those of Trump. It may be that Musk loses interest in this role, but even having some sort of advisory role allows him to pick up the phone and make suggestions about which regulator should be fired. Other major donors are in the same position.

All of this, featuring quid-pro-quo exchange of money, influence and power, or clear conflicts of interest, satisfies what most people understand to be corruption.

We will see a decline in competence. We will see an increase in turnover in federal agencies…

If you think those employees are incompetent, that is good news. But that is largely not going to the case, and a lot of institutional memory will walk out the door. It will also be harder to attract new hires to replace those leaving, at least among those with an intrinsic desire to serve the public. With an outflow of institutional memory, and difficulty in attracting talented new employees, the human capital skills of the government will decline.

We will see a decline in the quality of public services…

As the public observes failures, such as declining quality of services, or public health, or workplace safety, or the environment, they may be persuaded that competence and expertise matter.

If I were to recommend one book that best explains my fears about the next Trump administration, it would be The Fifth Risk (2018) by Michael Lewis. The New York Times said:

He has chosen to apotheosize three obscure government agencies — the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Commerce. In “The Fifth Risk,” his heroes are federal bureaucrats.

Why these departments? Well, they are enormous data collection and analysis factories. And Donald Trump either doesn’t care about them or understand what they do, or doesn’t like what he imagines he understands, and has sent minions intent on crippling their work. Lewis believes that essential government functions like protecting nuclear waste (Department of Energy), food safety and feeding the poor (Agriculture) and predicting the weather (Commerce) are under threat. Early on, he introduces us to John MacWilliams — a classic Lewis character — a former investment banker with expertise in the energy sector who is cajoled by Barack Obama’s splendid energy secretary Ernest Moniz to go to work for the government. “Everything was acronyms,” MacWilliams recalls. “I understood 20 to 30 percent of what people were talking about.” But the people were impressive. “There were physicists everywhere. Guys whose ties don’t match their suits. Passive nerds. Guys who build bridges.” And they certainly weren’t in it for the money.

MacWilliams’s job at the D.O.E. was risk assessment. Lewis is a risk assessment junkie — whether it’s the risk of investing in ballplayers (“Moneyball”) or mortgage-backed securities (“The Big Short”). At the D.O.E., the risks are potentially cataclysmic — preventing dirty bombs from exploding at the Super Bowl, tracking nuclear weapons so they don’t get lost or damaged (they’re called “Broken Arrows”), preventing plutonium waste at the government’s facility in Hanford, Wash., from leaking into the Columbia River. Lewis asks MacWilliams to list the top five risks. The first four are predictable: Broken Arrows. North Korea. Iran (that is, maintaining the agreement that prevents Iran from building a nuclear bomb). Protecting the electric grid from cyberterrorism. But the fifth, most important risk is a stunner: “program management.” Hence, the title of this book.

Lewis defines it this way: “The risk a society runs when it falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions. … ‘Program management’ is the existential threat that you never really even imagine as a risk. … It is the innovation that never occurs and the knowledge that is never created, because you have ceased to lay the groundwork for it. It is what you never learned that might have saved you.”