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Welcome to the commentary magazine Daily Podcast today is Friday, October 16th, 2020. I am excited to inform you that commentary magazine has closed its November issue, our 75th anniversary issue packed with fantastic stuff.

Articles about commentary history by Matt Contnetti and Joseph Epstein. We have articles by Josh Moravczyk and John Tobin on the cult of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Barton Swame on the problem with American elites. Terry Teachout on Carrie Grant. So much good stuff. It will be up online in the next couple of days. Our 75th anniversary issue. We are really proud of it. I am John Pajor. It is the editor of commentary with me as always. Executive editor, A Greenwald Hyabe.

Hi John. Senior writer Christine Rosen, Hy Christine. And in Los Angeles today because he will be appearing on real time with Bill Marr, associate editor Noah Rothman, Hi Noah from my palatial sweet and Beverly Hills.

I am very excited. Noah actually took a plane. I haven't been on a plane since December. Something like that. The longest I have not been on a plane in 40 years.

If you have very low expectations of the experience, it meets your expectations. Excellent. So, Chris Laskin and I did have a service puppy next to me too.

Oh, a service puppy. That is there's nothing better. There's nothing better. But you're supposedly not supposed to pet a service puppy. You let me. Don't they always have signed on them that say don't touch the dog. Don't talk to the dog. Like they're trying to train the dog.

I don't know. It's like a drug dog. It was a drug dog. This is just emotional support animal. There's nothing. Okay. So, of course, there were the two competing town halls last night.

Biden with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Trump with Savannah Guthrie on NBC. Trump was treated as a hostile witness. And Biden was of course treated with kid gloves.

And it's a war shock test. If you like Trump, you thought he did great. And that's a man I got through. He was unfair. And if you like Biden, you say boy, he's nice and empathetic and willing to say things that Trump would never say. Like, well, look, if I lose, it probably means I was a lousy candidate, which is kind of an impressive thing for a politician to say in some fashion or other.

The only news as far as I can tell was that Trump asked about the QAnon conspiracy theory. First said he didn't know anything about it. And then said he, he, he, they don't like pedophilia. Neither does he. So that seems like a good thing.

So he does know something about it. Having said he knew nothing about it.

Which is bad. But the best part about that was he had, it was in the same breath with which he sort of extricated himself from the white supremacist stuff.

You know, he asked about why do you hesitate to to renounce white supremacist. And he goes, I always, I've been, I always denounce white supremacist. I've been saying that forever.

But you know, those QAnon guys, they're onto something. Yeah, you know, they, they, they really don't like pedophilia.

So that wasn't good as a practical matter. It wasn't a good answer unless he believes. And in fact, we have a really great piece in the November issue of commentary by Rob Long about the, about the box office success of the QAnon conspiracy theory believed in by millions.

The sort of thing that Hollywood actually, you know, went to town with in the 1970s. These broad conspiracy theories about government at the highest reaches doing terrible things.

And that basically if QAnon were an opening weekend at the box office, it would make about 63 million dollars.

So I mean, maybe, maybe there is something weirdly sensible in him dog whistling to the QAnon followers and hoping that maybe they'll turn out to vote for him.

That's a pretty horrifying thing to think, but nonetheless knowing Trump could think that and what's more not only could he think that.

But there is reason to believe, as I've been saying since, you know, 2015, 2016 that Trump's shooting off like a rocket when he got into the race in 2015 is because he had spent years in the thickets of conspiracy theory right wing radio and television building up a fan base with Alex Jones with the WWE with all kinds of radio station.

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