Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing that it is possible to be both populist, conservative as well as maintaining stability in Thailand all at the same time notwithstanding the fact there seem to be those out there who find this just impossible. 

I'm really kind of dismayed by the attitude in certain sectors of especially the media complex if you will, about basically the turning point that I think Thailand has come to here in the past couple of weeks where I think we have put a lot of past animosities truly behind us and certain aspects of what I can only describe as newer movements are reconciling themselves with the establishment here in such a way that I think we could move forward into a country that we see prosperous, democratically representative Democracy if you will - Parliamentary Democracy here in Thailand - and also maintaining those traditions and institutions which have made Thailand so great and strong through these years, especially when it comes to protecting Thai sovereignty which has to be zealously guarded at all costs, if for no other reason than as history has borne out, there are many interests around the world internationally, that would like to undermine that, to take advantage of Thailand for a variety of different reasons and in a variety of different ways, as I have discussed many times on this channel in the past especially recently. That said, the reason for the thumbnail I will get to in a minute, and I'll explain that when I get to a different part of the excerpt in the article we are going to touch on. 

Before I get into that, as I have noted in other videos, we do get into deep dive analysis regarding local politics, regional politics, geopolitics and then issues pertaining to things like banking, taxes, immigration: how all of this stuff touches on expat land here in Thailand. My thoughts on where we are moving forward, especially out here in Southeast Asia, especially with regard to the rise of the so-called BRICS countries and the changes that we are seeing throughout the West. I get into all of that in long-form format on our paid news service. If you are interested in that, you can email us, [email protected]; you can get on the email list for those videos. Also while I am talking my book, it's worth pointing out, my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. It is called Pancake Palace. As the name implies it is breakfast anytime, but some people have sent me emails and said, "so is all you serve is breakfast?" No, we have American Diner style food as well. I was kind of going for a name not dissimilar to Waffle House back in the States, and for those who are aware of Waffle House, it doesn't just serve breakfast. There are other things that Waffle House serves, but it is a primarily, I will admit it is kind of primarily a breakfast place but it is a diner; it serves other types of food, that was kind of my mindset when I was thinking of Pancake Palace. We have and I'll put some photos up here, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls as well as in my opinion, best buffalo wings in Thailand. Come check us out; links are in the description below for our address or to find us, get us on Grab and come on over. We would be happy to see you. 

That said, let me jump into this, and why am I talking about how it is possible to be populist, conservative and stable. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: The Winds of Change. "Ms. Paetongtarn's downfall provides conservatives with an unexpected opening. First, it allows conservative parties to frame themselves as defenders of constitutionalism and stability." Well I have got to be honest here. The last two years, we actually came in to the last two years economically with a pretty stable thing going, and on top of it, we had a new cash crop effectively in the form of Cannabis as well as a new draw to the tourism sector that quite honestly this prior Government seemed intent on torpedoing for reasons I can't understand and they didn't even have any real legal mandate to do it. There was no law promulgated through Parliament; it was just a "because we say so" kind of thinking. And again I called it arbitrary and capricious. I still think that's what that was, and I am very optimistic that we will see a lot of that sort of turn around moving forward. Meanwhile, economically things were on a pretty good beat, but then what did this last Government want to come in and do? First of all, they wanted to put Thailand into a tremendous amount of new debt in order to usher in what? The Digital Wallet. Digital totalitarian tokens that could track and trace all of our transactions here in Thailand, and on top of that could be turned on and off at will; they could dictate to you what you could buy with them, and they could also set a perimeter in which you could buy things with it. This was one of the grand plans of the prior government coming in, that they tried to put that on us. Which, as I said at the time, we did not need to go into a bunch of new debt under those circumstances. The economy was not in the turmoil that that Party was trying to convey it as, because they were trying to use that as a pretext for their Digital Wallet. Then, they cuddled up to the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and what have we now got? All kinds of onerous issues with banking that seriously in my opinion is possibly going to undermine the confidence in the Thai Banking System, and maybe even having been at the behest of undue economic influencers, excuse me, undue foreign influence, who at the very least want Thailand pulled under the yoke of this totalitarian banking set up, and maybe even want to just completely undermine Thailand's Banking System and economy akin to the 1997 situation. 

So I'm really kind of hesitant to say that it's disingenuous of the conservatives that they are in favour of stability, okay. I think we all want stability. What we don't want is totalitarian tokens as our money, financed by a debt that we all have to pay off, at the behest of the OECD or the WEF. How reasonable is that? Is that what anyone wanted when this Government came in in 2023? I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I didn't see anybody running on any of those platforms. That said, quoting further: "By portraying Ms. Paetongtarn's removal as a necessary corrective against alleged populist overreach," - what? When was it ever framed as that? The issue was she was removed from Office for an inappropriate phone call with Hun Sen which that gets to my whole, the thing having to do with the thumbnail here which I will get to in a moment but "populist overreach"? What? That had nothing to do with it. That wasn't what this thing was over; that wasn't why she was removed. Anybody that listened to that call or read the transcripts, I mean there were serious issues there, and it didn't have anything to do with populism. It had to do with the Prime Minister telling some other guy in some other country, "oh we'll open the borders at your whim; oh yeah, the guy that has been tasked with defending our borders, he is an adversary, or an opponent!" Populist overreach? Come on. Quoting further: "They can appeal to middle-class voters in Bangkok, and the provincial Elites who remain wary of Thaksinite influence." I think we are all pretty wary of Thaksinite influence after the last 2 years, if I may say so. The guy came in; we were all hoping for a reconciliation. It was a round table, but somebody's ego didn't want to allow that and so here we are. Quoting further: "Second, with Pheu Thai weakened, conservatives can reposition themselves as the steady alternative to both populist excess and progressive radicalism." Well one, "radical" denotes fundamentalism which progressivism is moving away from conservative fundamentals, so that terminology of progressive radicalism is kind of a misnomer. That being said, going back to the title, it is possible to be populace and conservative and stable all at the same time.

I love how the term populist has been hijacked, especially we saw this in the American political narrative starting with Trump's first term. By the way, for those who are interested, go look up a Party in America called the Populist Party. It was actually founded in my native Kansas okay. And the Populist Party, basically their tenets were they didn't like "big anything", that's how I look at it. They didn't like big government, and they didn't like big corporations. What used to be called the Money Trust or the Trust, like the Oil Trust, the Oil Barons. They weren't in favour of either, because they knew big corporatism and big government all it did was trample on the little guy; it wasn't left or right. It was just the notion that, "hey we are middle class, or we may be in the lower echelons of the socioeconomic strata. It doesn't mean that we get cast aside; we still have a voice." And oftentimes, those voices here in Thailand, voice conservative sort of thinking and yet that just always gets cast aside by the media complex as if that is like somehow not legitimately populist, okay. It's possible to be populist and conservative; it's possible to want to conserve those traditions in your country that have worked and also that that idea could be popular at the same time. If anything, the last few weeks and months have shown, most Thais just want Thailand to be Thailand, not to be something else, not to be changed, not to progress. What are we progressing toward? Because usually when you come to the end game of people explaining, "well what are we progressing towards?" It's oftentimes some kind of hyper-socialist, hyper-communistic agenda. Let's be clear about that when you get in and study this terminology. What is it Lenin said? "We shall win through slogans." Again, the point I'm trying to make is they are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to be populist and conservative at the same time, and it is also possible to hey, be stable amongst all of those things. It is almost as if there is something out there in the media ether that wants Thailand to be unstable. Why? Who is that good for? Nobody. Now that said, and more getting to the point I brought up a moment ago regarding the thumbnail, quote: "Politics is now set to reenter a cycle of polarization." Well first, who made that conclusion? If anything, I think things are healing here. We are seeing the sort of conservative establishment coming together with the new generation of voters out there to kind of come to a consensus about what everybody can agree on so we can make some forward progress. If anything, I think the opposite of polarization is happening in Thailand.

Quoting further: "On one side, Pheu Thai supporters view Ms. Paetongtarn's fall from grace as an injustice that continues a long-standing pattern of elitist interference against the Shinawatra family." Again, going to the thumbnail. It's a great scene; I'll put a link in the description below so you can get the context. It's from the movie Starsky and Hutch, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson are in that playing Starsky and Hutch and there is this great scene where Hutch is sitting there talking to the Police Captain and he says, "oh I was investigating a case." He says, "you were robbing a bookie. This is the sixth bookie you've robbed this month. You haven't made any arrests; you haven't even filed a report." This whole notion of, "oh it's a pattern of elitist interference." The Shinawatras? The billionaires? They are being interfered with by what? Other Elites? Huh? Meanwhile, "fall from grace was an injustice." I don't know. Do an opinion poll of any Thai on the street. The Constitutional Court's ruling on her conduct with regard to that phone call, I don't know that you are going to find a majority, in fact I think it's going to be far from a majority you will ever find among Thais that felt like it was anything akin to an injustice. Now they might not like it from a political standpoint depending on the political persuasion of the person you'd be interviewing, but again I go back to that Starsky and Hutch thing: you didn't make an arrest; you didn't even make a report. Like what are you talking about? Elitist interference and it's an injustice! Come on. Quoting further: "On the other side, conservatives feel emboldened to reassert dominance, interpreting the Court's ruling as a mandate to push back against populism." Again, who said conservatives are trying to push back against populism? Where is that conclusion being drawn from? And why are they mutually exclusive? It's possible for a large number of people in Thailand - so “popular” idea - to be conservative ideals in Thailand. Again this false dialectic, this false exclusion or mutual exclusion, I find disingenuous. 

That said, it remains to be seen how all of this stuff is going to play out and we are certainly going to be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.