Epstein, Conspiracy Theories, and Why Not Everyone Should Vote

0:00Irreverent news talk, opinion, satire, and speculation. It's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards, and I could talk your ear off about Donald Trump and the Epstein files for an hour. But I'm not going to do that because even though so much has happened on that front over the last 72 hours, we haven't really learned anything new yet. So it's difficult for me to get excited about this until we see some real results. Don't tell me any more about those labor pains. Show me the baby already or I'm not interested. Our biggest fear right now should be that Pam Bondi is about to come out in a few days with another set of white binders filled with nothing but already public information again.

0:36And we're going to end up right back where we started earlier this year with handfuls of nothing. Either that or Donald Trump is going to try to pin this all on the Democrats and liberals by redacting anybody or anything that looks Republican or conservative. We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. I don't think he's quite smart enough to let some conservatives get swallowed up in this, if only to keep up appearances of, you know, unbiased justice. But it's still pure speculation in every direction, nothing but empty calories. I make fun of the conspiracy right because it's a big problem in America, but also because their game is rather weak to begin with.

1:13Because my conspiracy mind, however, is much more advanced after spending three decades as a responsible practitioner of conspiracy theories. I've even given myself an honorary doctorate in conspiracy studies at the Edwards Institute of Higher Learning if you want to see my credentials. All that is to say that I can't help but wonder why Donald Trump and Elon Musk are still buddy-buddy, especially considering the fact that Elon Musk was the one to start this entire Epstein thing up again to begin with when he posted that Trump was on the list back in June of just this year. I know it seems like it was a year ago already, but this is easily the biggest scandal of the year and Elon Musk is responsible for this.

1:54And he and Trump are supposed to be sworn enemies right now. I mean, when you consider how much of a headache that Elon has caused Trump over this Epstein thing. Easily the biggest political pain in the ass for Donald Trump in his entire lifetime. Yet, as we saw at Charlie Kirk's funeral, and we saw just yesterday with Elon Musk in attendance at the White House greeting the Saudi prince, Trump and Elon are clearly still very much on good terms, albeit muted compared to how the bromance was playing out in public previously. What I'm saying is that there's at least the appearance that Elon Musk made that tweet back in June about Trump being on the Epstein list as a favor to Donald Trump.

2:35What? Now, I know it sounds completely crazy because it probably is. But how else do you explain the fact that they're still playing footsie when they cross paths like this? Now, it could be said that Trump is so one dimensional that he will always forgive and forget as long as you, you know, resume the position of kissing his backside. Kissing my ass. I mean, just look at some of the things that Marco Rubio has said about Trump in the past just to name one figure. There is no way we are going to allow a con artist to take over the conservative movement and Donald Trump is a con artist. So what do you think a Trump government would look like, Senator?

3:06It would be chaos. Now Rubio is Trump's secretary of state. But what if this isn't like that? What if the Epstein scandal was a Trump design distraction all along and Elon was just taking orders to drop that bombshell to distract us all from something else. Oh, dot conspiracy dot black dot helicopters. Because if Donald Trump knows that he's not on the list, you can start to see how this entire scandal could, in theory, act as a noise machine for the president. Whenever the kitchen gets too hot for Trump, or he's catching too much heat from regulators, Trump pulls the Epstein fire alarm to clear the room so he can get back to whatever nefarious activities that he and his cronies are up to.

3:46Come on, he'd have to be a really stable genius to pull that off. And I don't see any signs that he's intellectually diabolical enough to play a hand like that. But it's fun to imagine these scenarios, and I think it's kind of important, because conspiracy theories, like it or not, are important and powerful, also, and they need to be used responsibly just like any other tool. Conspiracy theories are kind of like fire. They can help you see, they might even be able to keep you warm, but they can also burn your house down and get people killed if not respected for what they are. How about a wine tasting metaphor instead?

4:18I love a dry cab myself. The conspiracy theories are also kind of like a wine tasting. Sure, you can drink every single sample if you want, but you're going to be flat on your ass by noon, and if you're a professional, you should know better. Because there's a big difference between entertaining a thought and believing it. And if you're the kind of person who listens to people like me talk about these kind of things, it's probably not a big problem for you. That doesn't mean this isn't a massive problem for a lot of young politically active types who clearly don't know the difference between entertaining a thought and consuming it.

4:49What do we do with young people like this? Kids who were raised by the internet and video games, often without a father figure at home. Though that seems to matter less and less these days, as men act more like women, and women act more like men. Did I just say that out loud? Yes, I did. But I'll save that angle for another show. Because right now, we're talking about the byproducts of children who were raised from birth by consumer electronics. Young voting age individuals with zero social skills, hooked on weed and vapes, often wrapped in chemical straitjackets in the form of antidepressant medications that compound their problems.

5:21They're angry at the outside world for becoming as ugly as it has become. They see the adults are all acting like children and that society itself is on the verge of collapse. They're very angry about what that means for their future. And in that sense, I would have to say that I sympathize with them to some degree, because I'm upset also about how the next 30 to 40 years of my life on this planet is starting to look also. This is what gets us back to our commonality here in America, and for the greater part, the rest of the Western world. We're talking about millions of angry, disenfranchised young people who are beginning to vote without even the slightest clue about American history or politics outside of what they see and hear on TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.

5:59How do we get through to them? I'm not entirely sure that we can, because a decade or two of non-stop propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and weaponized conspiracy theories can play some pretty awful tricks on the minds of even the most intellectually sound folks out there. We are all susceptible to propaganda. But this inevitability kind of brings me to one of my more controversial beliefs that should be taken as a prototype and for entertainment purposes only. Just entertain this thought, please do not eat it. Just taste, do not drink, look but do not touch. But the idea is that not everybody should be allowed to vote, maybe.

6:33Probably. I'm not quite sure just yet, but I think there is something to it. Because every two years we hear this repetitive and loud call to action, sometimes even demanding that we get more people out to vote. And it only takes me about five minutes in traffic anywhere USA to realize that this is a giant mistake, probably. No, I don't believe that everybody in the United States should be voting. And I think it's time to put a permit system in place that weeds out the total idiots and those who otherwise do not care about the direction of the country outside of their limited grasp on how our system works.

7:06Somebody who doesn't know their congressman, for example, shouldn't be allowed to vote. Somebody who can't tell you the three branches of government probably should not be allowed to vote. Somebody who can't name at least three of the founding fathers, for example, should not be allowed to vote. We're talking about basic schoolhouse rock kind of stuff. We can even make it multiple choice and provide a guidebook that will practically give you the answers for all I care. We just want proof that you can actually do it. I'd even go so far as to say that you can cheat if you want, because at least that shows some initiative.

7:39I'm only talking about weeding out the lowest common denominator from voting on things that they know nothing about who are only there to vote Republican or Democrat without a thought in their pretty little heads about who or what they're voting for. And there should be a small fee, a miniature token, a symbolic gesture that you are interested and invested in the future of your country. Something like five bucks every four years. That's your voter registration. And you can use that money to pay for the administration costs of regulating our voting system. Republicans might actually get on board with an idea like this, because yes, you would also be required to show identification in order to register to vote.

8:12I know you're so oppressed, aren't you? Democrats, I'm sure, would never go for it because like everything else, they'll just say it's racist, you know? Don't you folks realize yet that when you make everything racist, nothing is racist? And that's why idiots like Nick Fuentes, our favorite Mexican white supremacist, become so popular. When you start treating everybody like racists, don't be surprised when racists start crawling out of the woodwork to fill that role accordingly. But requiring a small fee and a very, very basic civics test would upset and weed out a lot of the right people also.

8:42Just think of all those knee-jerk reactions that would keep people from participating out of sheer anger. Do we want this block of unstable folks making decisions for the rest of us anyway? Hell no, I sure don't. No, if regulating voter rights weeds out all the Karens, it's just another reason I'm all for it. No offense to anybody named Karen out there in this day and age. That's gotta be rough. Also, when I say Karen, I'm talking about men too, because since I practice colorblind and genderblind, all insults can and will be applied to both sexes and across the LGBTQIA plus spectrum equally because I'm an equal opportunity offender.

9:18But I don't mean to pin this directly on young people only. The silent generation is still voting for some reason between the ages of roughly 79 and 92. It might just be time to retire from politics, grandpa, which might include voting also, depending on your specific case. I mean, if you're too old to drive a car, should you be voting for the rest of us? Should somebody with Alzheimer's be voting for that matter? I'm just asking because I am genuinely curious. That in this show is nothing more than a thought experiment. But what about baby boomers roughly 60 to 78 years old right now? A few of them on the high end might be nearing their expiration dates mentally.

9:54And hey, it's happening to all of us. Maybe a voting permit system could help us alleviate some of those discrepancies. If every four years somebody can't answer the basic questions, then perhaps their cognitive skills don't quite meet our requirements to vote. Nothing personal, it's just quality control. Generation X, we're the 45 to 60 year olds. And there's nothing quite wrong with us just yet, don't worry. Half of us will be so offended that we're required to get a permit before we can vote that we won't even participate, but the other half won't even care either way. And I'm not sure what the millennials or Zoomers would have to say about it, but that doesn't matter anyway either, because don't worry, a voting permit system is never going to happen well.

10:31I mean, it's highly unlikely, but it would encourage a more informed electorate and reduce knee-jerk personality-driven voting. It filters out uninterested and disengaged voters. It signals that voting is a responsibility and not an inherent right. Internet panic, viral disinformation, and fake scandals would have a lot less power over people who pass a civics baseline. I'm sure the critics would say that it resembles too much of the Jim Crow literacy tests and that even$5 every four years would disproportionately impact poor and younger voters. I'm sure though claim that asking the name three founding fathers is also somehow racist and that the uninformed still have a right to representation.

11:09The human first approach, I think, kind of flips all of that entire critique on its head. Because the point isn't to keep anybody out, it's to lift everybody up to the same baseline of shared reality. Because a simple civics checkpoint treats every voter the same regardless of race, gender, class, or tribe. It says that we're all equal enough to be expected to understand the system that we're steering together. It's not about exclusion. It's about building a healthier democracy where every ballot comes from a mind that is engaged, present, and operating from the same foundational knowledge, not from panic, propaganda, or personality worship.

11:46I realize that this is probably highly offensive to my liberal friends, so to you I would say just relax. This is only a what-if situation meant for entertainment purposes only. And while I do personally happen to believe that there could be some merit in this and that not everyone should be encouraged to vote, you don't have to agree with me either, because these are just ideas. Maybe not the greatest ideas, but definitely not the worst. We can do better. We just need some fresh ideas. That's all I've got for today. And until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time.

12:18Bye. And we say bye bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of the Trust Project.