[Music]
CENK: As Charles Barkley once famously said, the Republicans lost their minds.
That's when he stopped being a Republican, that's when I stopped being a Republican.
[Music]
My politics in some ways tremendously transform and in some interesting ways, pretty much
where it used to be.
So let me explain.
I used to be a Republican, so that trips people out because now I'm considered, y'know, probably
by Washington a very serious progressive, seriously to the left of President Obama that's
for sure.
Now so how did that happen?
Well, I was a liberal Republican in the Northeast.
I grew up in New Jersey and back then, I know it's hard to remember this, but Republicans
were not crazy.
They were perfectly reasonable people who believed in small government, we don't overregulation,
less taxes.
Now, here's what people forget, back when I was growing up, the highest marginal tax
rate was 70%.
So is 70% too high?
Yes.
Is 35% too low?
Yes.
Reasonable people should understand that.
It's an easy concept, but both sides are stuck in quicksand.
Democrats say higher taxes, but especially Republicans.
Lower, lower!
Never low enough!
The question isn't how—whether taxes should be cut or increased, the question is where
is the proper level of taxes that you get the maximum amount of benefit for society.
Right?
So that's point number one.
Point number two is that I thought they were going to balance the budget.
Well, it turns out they didn't.
Reagan increased the deficit by 188%.
Bush increased the deficit I think in the 80% range.
And so and who balanced the budget?
The Democrats did, so and who was for smaller government?
Actually Clinton/Gore was.
So I looked at the evidence and I thought, well I guess those guys care more about the
stuff that I care about.
And then, as Charles Barkley once famously said, the Republicans lost their minds and
that's when he stopped being a Republican, that's when I stopped being a Republican.
I thought that they were in favor of balanced budgets and smaller government, but it turned
out that wasn't true.
They never balanced the budget and not only that, they're not even in favor of smaller
government.
If you think about it, pro-life position is gigantic government.
That's government saying I'm gonna tell you exactly what you're going to do with your
body, and then you go down the list.
Smoking pot.
Nope.
I'm gonna tell you what you can and can't put into your body.
Y'know, contraception.
As long as they are intruding into your private life, they love big government.
So once you realize the gigantic hypocrisy of the current day Republican party—not
of conservative principled positions, but of the Republican party, it's just really
really hard to stay in that party.
[Music]
The original conservative position is to not have military adventurism and bring our army
to all different shores.
It's to stay at home, protect the homeland, etc. so if you're a conservative, you should
think, okay, how can I decrease spending and I'm not gonna just take it out of y'know the
middle class and the poor, not just defense spending but also the thing you should be
most upset about it crony capitalism which they mention from time to time, but unfortunately
they've been massively diverted on that.
Right now, you get 4 billion dollars a year at a bare minimum in oil subsidies.
Now why are we giving subsidies to the most profitable companies in the world?
That is anti-free market.
It is not a conservative position.
Why don't we give subsidies to farmers, why don't we give subsidies to all these different
companies.
I mean the bailouts of the banks were horrendous.
That is the most anti-conservative thing you can imagine brought to you by Republicans
which to them should be maddening.
If you're a real conservative.
If you're a real conservative and you're fiscally conservative and you wanna balance the budget,
from time to time you have to increase revenue depending on your context, so—and Reagan
brought down taxes because in his context, the 70% bracket was way too high, but he also
raised taxes 11 different times in his term because he thought, y'know what, the budget
is getting out of control.
Which it was, that's why he raised them that times.
But the political spectrum in Washington DC has moved massively to the right, so the point
not only that Ronald Reagan could not get elected in a Republican primary today, I think
he would have no chance in being elected in a democratic primary.
They'd say oh that guy gave amnesty to illegal immigrants, which he did, right?
First of all, your immediately eliminated from a democratic primary let alone a Republican
one.
He negotiated with terrorists, he gave arms to Iran.
You go down the list.
He ran from Lebanon.
Okay, he is the exact opposite of what the Republicans claim they want in a president
today while they hoist up this ghost of Reagan as a magical mythical conservative figure.
[Music]
D-d-don't go anywhere!
My next video is about to start.
Watch.
Should you subscribe to THNKR?
Of course!