WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - Algorithms Are Destroying Our Brains & Democracy + California’s Redistricting Fight Heats Up + Top 5 States That Could Elect An Independent Senator 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:07.360 Hello, They're happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:12.040 The Chuck Podcast. Today's is somewhat a thematic day most Wednesdays. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:13.920 I'm trying to be in the habit of doing a 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:15.560 little bit of updating of what I'm seeing on the 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.320 campaign trail, and frankly, my campaign notebook has been overflowing 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:26.639 with things. Look and I'm going to be honest. This 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:31.040 has been I always say when people use that phrase, 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:32.600 I use it as a crutch. I'm gonna be honest 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.440 as if I'm not being honest before. I'm trying to 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.440 cure myself of using that crutch. But what I'm trying 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.000 to say is is that I'm letting you in on 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.239 sort of some personal feelings that I normally don't like 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.320 to share, and that is I just feel rotten about 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.960 the state of the country. I'm not sleeping very well 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:54.480 about it. And because i don't see a path out 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:59.240 of this right now, I'm long term optimistic, and I'm 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.440 still going to be alone term optimistic. We've gone through 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.680 a lot of bad things in this country and gotten 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.840 out better each time. Each time we have formed a 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.200 more perfect union, whether it was the scourge of slavery, 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.479 whether it has been then giving civil rights and Jim Crow, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.760 whether it has been the internment of the Japanese, whether 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.600 it was prohibition. The point is is that we've gone down. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.920 We've had a lot of the Red scare, which I'm 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.440 bringing that up for a reason because I think we 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.840 might be seeing a fervor, particularly on the right, that 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:43.760 wants to try to essentially stain an entire political party 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:50.680 with an ideological belief that I don't think the country shares, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.760 but one side of the aisle shares. I mean, the 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:00.120 initial what folks around the president have been promising when 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.720 it comes to retribution, going after the left, sort of 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.760 being blind to the violent outbursts that have taken place 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.040 that people have, you know, violence and murders that have 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.080 been done in the name of a far right ideology. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.400 The fact of the matter is we have got a 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:23.280 poisonous information ecosystem that can radicalize somebody on the left 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.919 or somebody on the right to do bad things. Our 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:32.720 system is rigged towards it. I spend my sub stack 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.040 this week talking about this, and I know I've brought 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.320 it up here before. In some ways, it's you know, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.160 some of you may be listening and going, oh, there's 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.680 Chuck on his soapbox about big tech. But the fact 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.760 of the matter is, we know we have two problems. Right. 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.520 We all know this is a problem, which is social 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:55.880 media has completely screwed up our information ecosystem, and the 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.560 tech companies, for some reason are getting no blame and 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.560 not being held accountable for this their algorithms, and they're look, 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.560 it's the efficiency of technologies. And I say this with 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:11.320 sort of without sort of animus in this point. Right, technology, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.720 every time you know, we advance, you know, it creates 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.640 an efficiency. And when it came to sharing information, we 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.240 created an efficiency that it turns out is actually bad 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:25.720 for public discourse and it's bad for democracies. And what 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.079 is that efficiency. It's the efficiency of getting information, of 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.320 boiling it down to the one thing that matters. It's 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.520 the efficiency of being able to eliminate people that you 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:41.400 don't want to hear from. It's the efficiency of only 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.520 being able to see like minded people. And so that 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.920 may make sense if you're a quilter and you just 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.880 want information about quilting, or if you're a baseball card 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:57.240 dealer and you just want information about trading baseball cards. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.240 But it's when it's on politics and you're only getting 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.400 one side and these algorithms. You know, I don't want 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.600 to sit here. I will. I've been trying to sort 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.400 of right. I want to turn down the temperature too. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.560 I want big tech to participate in this. But I 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.760 do believe the second an algorithm is created to curate 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.560 how I see information that has made these companies publishers. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:23.960 And once you're a publisher, you should be held accountable 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:29.200 for how the information you're curating is being used and manipulated. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.200 But ultimately it's going to take some leadership from Washington 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.080 to do this. And you know, I look at what's 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.599 happening in the state legislatures at the moment. Over the 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:45.800 last two years, particularly post COVID, state legislatures have been 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.039 passing have been very aggressive on two things. And it 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.480 hasn't matter whether it's a red state or a blue state. 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.520 They've all been passing essentially the same laws, which is 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.400 a tougher age verification to try to limit the exposure 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.200 kids are getting to pronoc graphy and it is And 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.200 guess what, the fact that the pornographers are complaining about 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:10.160 this shows you that the just forcing age verification, which 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:11.880 you have to do if you want to buy booze 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.800 you're underage, or cigarettes or anything other vice you want 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.080 to participate in. And you know, we've never the Internet's 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:22.719 always been very loosey goosey on identification and forcing a 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.440 tougher standard there. And we're suddenly seeing, oh, so you 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:31.600 can put in some guard rails here that can do 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:36.640 a better job of protecting young people from this extreme pornography. 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.680 And the other thing that has been passing in state 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.880 legislatures all over the country, whether it's in a red 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.839 state or a blue state, is getting rid of cell 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.480 phones and classrooms. Right. Private schools had been doing it earlier, Right, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.680 the public schools are now following suit. Look there, and 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.000 I think we've discussed this before. I mean, I am 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.840 empathetic to divorce parents who need to have want need 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:04.560 to make sure they have access to their kid during 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.560 the school day. But there are ways to do this, right, 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.400 you put you know, you can look at your phone 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.440 in between classes. You can have it in your backpack, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.680 in your locker, you can have it in a in 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.880 a pad, but you don't have it while you're learning. 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.200 You take one hundred percent attention to your teacher one 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:24.239 hundred percent attention to what you're to what you're doing. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.080 And maybe it's our friend Spencer Cox and Uteh likes 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.160 to say, you know, maybe touch grass every now and then, 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:35.479 which is a kid touching grass is pretty important? But 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.880 when you think about it, we're so worried about what 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.400 social media and the and the tech companies are doing 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.800 to our kids that we're trying to do something about it. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.120 Guess what if it's toxic for our kids, it means 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:53.760 it's toxic for us too, isn't it. And so look, 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:58.120 I'm a free speech absolutist. I am. I do think 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.560 bad speech is fixed with good speech. But amplification is 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:07.560 not free speech. Right, dialing up and dialing down what 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.880 you see and what you hear, that's not free speech. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:15.120 That's curative speech, right, that's a campaign's that's that's something 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.280 that that and it should be up to the user. 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.920 If I want to curate my feed a certain way, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.200 it should be in my hands. I don't need the 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.920 tech companies suggesting what I should be looking at a 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.760 for you tab like our friends at X do, which 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.440 is just nothing, but you know, it thinks it knows 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.160 my interests. But it will always be the most incendiary 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:39.160 thing about a topic I care about, even when it 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.880 comes to Miami Hurricane football, Green Bay Packer football, or 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.840 Washington Nationals baseball, let alone the various political things. You know, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.200 attacks on the media, sometimes personal attacks on me. They 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.880 make sure it shows up in the for you tab. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.520 What does that accomplish? I didn't ask for this. In fact, 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.520 I've gone out of my way to mute the idiots, 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.920 and yet it's still you know, these things still show up. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.600 So you know, we we we are in that sense, 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.200 we're powerless on this. And then you have the two 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.720 parties who have been very reticent to write. You know, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.280 they talk a big game. Individual members talk a big 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.600 game about regulating big tech, but they don't end up 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.320 doing it. And part of the problem is I just 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:25.040 was talking to a former US senator and you know, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:26.840 you'll you'll figure it out in a couple of weeks 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:28.720 when you when you see the interview that pops up 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:30.600 in a and when I when I do it. But 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.800 I was talking to a US senator who said to me, ah, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.000 he said in passing that you know they you know, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.160 I think we have to do something about tech. And 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:46.320 he said within two Within an hour he had he 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:51.760 suddenly had Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey calling him to like, 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:53.840 are you sure? What are you talking about? What are 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.800 you concerned about? With what tech is doing? Tech, the 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.880 big tech companies have really just sat your raided Washington 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:05.440 with money left and right. They've hired up all sorts 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:09.520 of strategists and former staffers left and right. It is 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.240 frankly standard practice for a powerful industry. Okay, this is 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.920 no different than big oil in the eighties and things 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:21.800 like that. And so what you've seen is kid glove treatment. Right. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:26.199 We haven't had anything on maybe repealing Section two thirty. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.280 We haven't had anything remotely close to trying to have 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:34.880 a digital bill of rights that protects our data, right 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.520 rather than allows so many other entities to own and 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.199 buy and sell our data. And you know they've done 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:44.920 a good job with that. And so what you have 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.920 now is twenty years of elected officials who don't know 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.920 how to attain power without the tech tools, right, So 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.360 that makes them hesitant. I mean, look, I'm not going 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.560 to be labor point. I want the president to rise 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:07.360 above his partisan instincts and meet this moment the way 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.319 it needs to be met the way George Bush met 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.719 nine to eleven, the way Barack Obama did Charleston, the 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:16.360 way Bill Clinton handled Oklahoma City. We haven't gotten that 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.880 from him yet. If anything, he views it, he's done. 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.200 What about ism? You know, when he was questioned on 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:30.760 Fox about extremists on the right, he essentially rationalized their extremism, saying, well, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.000 they care about they're upset about crime, I think, is 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:39.280 what he said. And when you see these leading partisan 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.880 politicians saying that they're going to investigate the left, that's 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.840 red scare stuff, right. That's what happened in the fifties, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.520 and it was an ugly It was an ugly period 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:56.960 in Washington where guilt by association was the coin of 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:01.160 the realm. And that seems to be what's happening here 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.640 is that you have a lot of folks here that 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.400 see an opportunity right for political exploitation. But here's the 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:12.280 other thing. If you attained power in this polarized era, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.080 you don't want it to change, do you. You don't 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.000 want to go back to an era that might be 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.840 a bit more unifying, a bit more bipartisan. By partisanship 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.040 is not good for Donald Trump. Right by partisanship hasn't 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.679 been you know, partisanship has been you know, the Democrats 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:33.800 arguably have done better because of reactionary partisanship with Trump. 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.880 You know, their brand has been problematic now arguably going 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.439 back to the Hillary Clinton nomination, but their success has 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:46.760 been due to polarization. Trump's ability to get a second 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.559 term was due to polarization. And so you know, when 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.400 you're sort of stuck, you know, the only way you 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.640 know how to win is this way. Then the incentives 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.839 are all. You know, our incentive structures are broken. And 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.760 you've heard me use that phrase before. You've heard a 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.840 lot of people say this. Okay, so how do we 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:05.000 create better incentive structures? Well, the only way I think, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.800 which then fits the theme where I have today, which 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.520 is the rise of the independence. The fastest growing political 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.000 party in America is no party right. People are registering 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.040 are you know if they were registered? A lot of 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.600 former Republicans registered is independent because they don't like Trump. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.000 You now have a lot of former Democrats registering is 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.240 independent because they don't like what's happened to the Democratic 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.240 brand under Biden Harris, and you're starting to see that. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:34.400 We're seeing gen Z is sort of on the on 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.400 the age front, you're seeing a lot more of registered independence. 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.400 And you know, I always love I always love to 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.360 go around. I mean, and we're up to I think 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.920 half the states where non party or no party or 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.439 registered independence outnumber at least one of the two major parties. 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.559 And I believe it's in ten states where independents actually 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:59.199 outnumber both major parties. So there's a huge constituency out 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:04.360 there who don't like what's happened to the two parties. Now, look, 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.680 I am I am done sitting here making the do 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:09.959 I think in a perfect world, I think we should 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.319 be a four party system. I think it would actually 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:14.880 provide some relief, would force coalition politics. But I'm not 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.880 going to go down that rabbit hole today because I do. 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:23.240 I want to stick to topic here. What the two parties 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.760 need is a time out, right, they both need to 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.840 lose at the same time, or they both need to 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.480 be punished, essentially in order to force an inward Look, 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.880 you know, I railed on Monday about the fact that 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.880 there is zero incentive to call out your own party. 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:41.800 If anything, if you call out your own party for 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.080 bad behavior, you're seen as a trader not as somebody 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:46.719 looking out for the best interests of the country or 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.480 the party. And if you're going to sort of get 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:58.480 them out of their partisan rabbit holes, they're going to 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:00.880 have to be set back at the same time or 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.600 be under threat. And we've had an example of two 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.679 independent presidential candidacies that didn't win, Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Purot, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.520 but effectively forced both parties to reform themselves and forced, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.000 you know, forced an issue. You know, I look at 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:23.080 a guy like Spencer Cox and he's decidedly on MAGA. Okay, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.760 in a in the pre Trump world, Spencer Cox would 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.320 be already identified as a rising star in the Republican Party. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.720 He has no chance right in the Maga Republican Party. 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.480 But his voice and how in his north Star about 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.240 what the tech companies have done to us and how 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.840 this has happened. I kind of think because he he's 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:47.600 a little bit younger than I am. He's in his forties, 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.480 so's he's a millennial governor, and I think he's in 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.520 some ways more digital native and under in his better 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:59.080 he's just more conversant at explaining the harm. Right. It 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:04.080 did interview with this this older senator and they've identified 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.560 the harm, but they're not very conversant in explaining the harm. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.920 You know, Donald Trump doesn't really you know, he's not 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.760 as conversant and couldn't explain it if he chose to. Right, 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.120 that's just just in some ways he's he's he's just 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.720 demographically out of touch. But it feels like we're in 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.840 a moment that if we're going to force the two 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.440 parties to sort of wait a minute, we've got to 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.720 put the country first every now and then they have 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.480 to be punished for their ways. And if the public 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:40.160 wants to just like they're exhausted from this, it may 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.680 be that that you need a third party scare. And 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:50.400 whether it's a third party scare, can you know every 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.280 every political party needs needs a check on itself, right, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.480 the whole point of checks and balances are good whether 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.000 you're organizing a government or you're organizing policy, you're organizing 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.560 a political party. You know, you a political party doesn't 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.960 needs to have a check on its potential ideological excesses. 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.560 There's nobody checking the maga wing of the party anymore. 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.960 There was a lot of checks in the first term, 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.680 there's not many checks this term. And we've seen fewer checks. 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:19.680 You know, you had, you had your Joe Mansions and 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.360 cinemas that were kind of the centrist check on the 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.240 Democrats before they're both gone, and there really isn't a 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.040 lot of space. I guess John Fetterman has suddenly sort 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.040 of kind of adopted that role, but I don't think 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.480 he has I don't think he has really the credibility 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.720 yet to be that check with the middle of the 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.440 road voter. Right. I think some on the right love 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.320 what he's doing, but but I think only for owning 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.640 the Lib's purposes, right, this whole trolley, this whole trolley mindset. 0:16:50.800 --> 0:17:00.720 So that's what's frustrating is that we do of a problem. 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:04.159 We're going to have a part of it. Looks like 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.320 partisans on the right want to just try to harass 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.000 the left in under the name of trying to you know, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:17.639 root out political violence, but without it all sort of 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:24.199 accepting the premise that hey, it's it's sadly a bipartisan affair, 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.680 and that basically it's the Internet that radicalizes folks and 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:30.960 it doesn't matter whether they come from stage left or 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.919 stage right. The one thing that we haven't that we 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.480 have in common here is the Internet has has been, 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.600 has been what's radicalized them. And if we're not going 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.119 to confront this problem this way right now, it is 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.480 going to get worse. Okay, if you ratchet up a 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.160 radical view of what you think the other side is doing, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.520 I promise you the other side is going to respond 0:17:54.320 --> 0:18:00.280 in a radical way, right and radicalism, reactionary radicalism. And 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.840 here we are right and this is this escalatory polarization 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.280 that we've been experiencing. I mean, you know, it's we've 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.639 seen it in the US Senate with the absurdity of 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.359 how we've destroyed the judiciary branch. And make no mistake, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.960 we've destroyed the judiciary branch with this, with this partisan 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.679 gamesmanship in the Senate. And there's always this attempt to well, 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.639 but they started it. It doesn't matter which side I 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:26.840 of the alight talking about. But they started it. The 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.040 right will scream foror the left will scream, will scream 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:33.320 about Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Mark Garland. The fact is 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:40.720 they they both chose punishing the other side without thinking 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.359 about what it would do the judiciary itself. Right, we 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.200 turned the judiciary into the freaking House of Representatives where 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.520 a whole bunch of fifty percent plus one judges are 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.480 out there, So you either have super liberal or super maga. 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.879 There is there is no you have sixty sixty five votes, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.040 you would have this sort of moderate temperaments, you know, 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.359 which is really what our politics could use. I'm not 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.879 suggesting we all ideologically have to move to the center. 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.399 You know where I stand. I'm an incrementalist, but what 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.280 we need is moderate temperament to lead us. When you're 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.000 trying to lead three hundred and fifty million people, a 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:22.880 moderate temperament goes a long way. And our most successful 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:28.560 presidents have been of moderate temperaments, regardless of how you know. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:36.520 Reagan and Obama pretty mainstream liberal Democrat, mainstream conservative Democrat, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:43.760 almost identical temperaments, and in many ways they had I'm 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.080 sure there's some of you out there that have been 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.200 voting long enough where you voted for both of them 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:54.800 almost as much because of their temperament. You know, it's 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.240 a huge factor with my vote. I want to know 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.840 how this person's going to handle a crisis. I want 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:01.679 to know how this person's going to handle you know, 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:04.760 I certainly have issues, and there are you know, there 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.080 are there are veto there are candidates, there are issues 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.000 that I might veto at candidate on because the issue 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.480 matters to me that much. But for the most part, 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.040 I'm a character and temperament guy, and we could use 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.239 a moderate temperament. But we have a we have an 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.320 information ecosystem and a political and a political system that 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:30.200 punishes moderation, not in ideology, which it does do that too, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:38.440 but even punishes it in style. I think it's what 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.440 we would prefer as a body politic, but the way 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.720 our information ecosystem works, it seems to it seems to 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:55.560 almost force us into the exact opposite persona. There's a 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.639 reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.480 reason Morgan and Morgan is a Maria because largest injury 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.320 law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:07.600 twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.720 It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.800 just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.960 Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.160 in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.679 which was a staggering forty times the amount that the 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.000 insurance company originally offered that original offer six hundred and 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.000 fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.240 thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.720 the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people. 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:38.520 If you're injured, you need a lawyer, You need somebody 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:41.080 to get your back. Check out for Thepeople dot com 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:46.280 Slash podcast, or dial pound Law Pound five to nine 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.960 law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:51.879 are not the same, So check out Morgan and Morgan. 0:21:51.920 --> 0:22:00.800 Their fee is free unless they win. Just a few 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.040 interesting updates on the campaign trail that you might have missed. 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.399 We have the redistricting wars obviously, and one of the 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.359 questions is going to be, you know, the big the 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.399 big campaign fight on the ballot is going to be 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:16.560 in California where essentially the maps are going to be 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.199 on the ballot for this Novembers election up or down. 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.280 You have a huge amount of money. There are now 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.960 three different entities essentially trying to stop this remap. You 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.639 have Charlie Munger Junior, who is the son of Charlie 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.440 Munger longtime business partner to Warren Buffett back in the day. 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.480 He's really been a political lately. He used to be 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:40.400 a big Republican donor. I don't think he's a big 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:46.520 trumpy is not as trumpy as some other Republicans. But 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:49.960 he was a big supporter of the original redistricting commissions 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:51.320 that are out there, so he wants to defend what 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.560 he did. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he's going to campaign, but interestingly, 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:58.800 it sounds like he's agreed to sort of not be 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.560 the face of any of the movements. He's chosen not 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:04.399 to work directly with Munger's group, he doesn't plan to 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.600 work with Kevin McCarthy's group. He does seem to be 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.119 focused on on keeping his independence. I think he doesn't 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.639 want to look like he seems to be trying to 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:16.960 find a way he wants to be. He wants to 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:24.000 be pro reform, but not necessarily looking like he's help 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.520 I don't think he wants to use the Republicans to 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:30.160 help him get that message across. I think he's trying 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:32.719 to have it. But that's a real challenge if you're 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:34.760 Gavin Newsom and the Democrats who are trying to get 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.119 this referendum pass and that you have sort of you 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.760 now have three different entities that are all trying to 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:44.000 spend money to get those in different ways. Right, You're 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:46.359 going to have now Arnold who is going to not 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:49.280 associate himself with the Republican groups but sort of be 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.240 talking straight to the independence you got. Charlie Munger's put 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:54.200 a ton of money in there, Kevin McCarthy's got a 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:59.760 hundred million to spend. We'll see. It's my understanding and 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:05.359 focus groups that the surprising thing to my sources who 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.160 I've been talking to about this are is how engaged 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:12.040 voters are in California about it. They're pretty well educated, 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.240 they get it, and those that believe they can get 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:18.359 this map passed think that this is not a bank shot. 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:23.080 That it is important to these voters if you want 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.399 to get them to approve this map, they really have 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:30.560 to believe it's temporary, and they have if they don't 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.920