Saagar Enjeti: belief

Transcript context

…I’ll give them the micro and the macro. So my favorite example is Robert Caro, who I’ve probably talked about him a lot. God bless you, Robert. I hope you lived to write your last book because we really need that from you. But Robert came to Texas. He only intended on writing three books about Lyndon Johnson. He’s currently completed four and he is on his fifth, and it’s taken over 40 years to write those. And one of the reasons is he just kept uncovering so much stuff. And one of them is book two, Means of Ascent. He never intended to write it, but as he began to investigate Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 Senate election, he realizes in real time how rigged and stolen it was. And so I often tell people, “What if I told you that we lived in the most secure election period in modern history?” They wouldn’t believe it. But if you read through that shit, I’m talking about bags of cash, millions of dollars, literal stuffed ballot boxes. It’s great to be back here in Texas because I always think about that place down in Zapata and Starr County. I’m talking like basically Mexico, where these dons were in power in the 1940s. They would literally stuff the ballot boxes with the rolls, and they wouldn’t even allow people to come and vote. They just check marked it all for you based upon the amount that you paid. Means of Ascent is the painstaking detail of exactly how Lyndon Johnson stole the 1948 Senate election. And nothing like that, as far as I know, is still happening. Macro, we can talk about the 1876 election. Rutherford B. Hayes, one of the closest elections in modern history. It was one of those that got kicked with the House of Representatives. That was an insane, insane time. The corrupt bargain that was struck to basically end reconstruction and federal occupation of the South. And of course, the amount of wheeling and dealing that happened inside of that was absolutely bonkers and nuts. That was what an actual stolen election looks like, just so people know. So on a micro and a macro, yeah, that’s what it really looks like. And so look, I understand where people are coming from. Also, let’s do, what? 1960? That was pretty wild. In 1960, there was all those allegations about Illinois going for Kennedy. If you look at the actual vote totals of Kennedy-Nixon, wow. I mean, it’s such an insanely close presidential election. And even though the electoral college victory looks a little bit differently, Nixon would openly talk about. He’s like, “Oh, old Joe Kennedy rigged Illinois for his boy.” And he’d be like, “And we didn’t even have a chance in Texas with Lyndon pulling.” Like, Lyndon stuffing the ballot boxes down there. And this is open on the… Joe Kennedy rigged Illinois for his boy.” And he’d be like, “And we didn’t even have a chance in Texas with Lyndon pulling.” Like, Lyndon stuffing the ballot boxes down there. And this is open on the… They openly admit this stuff. They talk about it. So actually, there’s a funny story. LBJ lost, I think, his 1941 Senate primary. And it’s because that his opponent, Pappy O’Daniel, actually outstole Lyndon. So they were both corrupt, but Pappy O’Daniel stuffed the ballot box in the fifth day of the seven days to count the votes. And FDR loved LBJ. And it’s interesting, right? FDR recognized Johnson’s. His talent. And he goes, “Lyndon? You know in New York, we sit on the ballot boxes until we count them.” Because he’s admitting that he participated in a lot of this stuff. So, this high-level chicanery of stolen elections is actually an American pastime that we luckily have moved on from. And quite a lot of people do not know the exact intricate details of how wild it was back in the day. Yeah, it’s actually one of the things. It’s harder to pull off a bunch of bullshit with all these cameras everywhere now.…

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