You could be forgiven for thinking this week’s Democratic debates were straight out of an old Monty Python sketch, which prompted Steve to ring up Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, “Lucretia,” for a full-tilt boogie rant-fest about what ought to be the two main “Freeport questions”* that could unravel the Democratic Party between now and election day next year. Are we really going to bring back busing? And how many genders are there? Maybe we can have a new federal commission to answer that question, alongside the proposed federal commission to study reparations.
But wait! There’s more! Steve shares a little bit of inside info on foreign policy from a key Trump insider, and we get in some licks about traffic, large trucks, California’s ongoing follies, raising a “German” German shepherd, and what’s on the grill for July 4.
P.S. Listeners who go all the way to the very end will be treated to a short ghost track that underscores the central theme of this episode.
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*P.S. Perhaps I ought to explain what the “Freeport question” refers to, for people who have forgotten (or never properly learned) their 19th century U.S. history. This is the question Lincoln posed to Sen. Stephen Douglas in their debate at Freeport, Illinois, in 1858: “Can the people of a Territory in any lawful way, against the wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a State constitution?”
Douglas answered “Yes,” and thereby split the Democratic Party in half in 1860, thus assuring Lincoln’s election. Southern Democrats were insisting on a federal “slave code” that would allow them to take their slaves into any territory as a matter of fundamental right. When Douglas, the front runner, refused to modify his position, the Democratic Convention in Charleston broke up, and Democrats ended up with two candidates for president that year, like the Republicans in 1912.
Hence, the idea that two “Freeport questions” could shatter Democrats next year, and run as follows: “How many genders are there?”, and “Sen. Harris—do you think we should bring back busing to achieve more racial integration?”
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