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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Galaine Maxwell has been moved to

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Speaker 1: a minimum security prison camp in Texas.

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Speaker 2: We have such a great jow for you today.

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Speaker 1: Politico's Zach Stanton stops by to talk about Donald Trump's

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Speaker 1: job number crisis. Then we'll talk to Tulane's Brian Edwards

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Speaker 1: about the American Century.

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Speaker 3: But first we have the news, Mollie, mister Epstein, his

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Speaker 3: files have many reductions and whose name do you think

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Speaker 3: they reducted in them?

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump?

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Speaker 1: So here's Jason Leopold, who's a really good reporter and

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Speaker 1: who is sort of the master of FOYA.

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Speaker 2: FOYA is the Freedom of Information Act.

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Speaker 1: If you feel out forms the right way, you can

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Speaker 1: get these FOYA files sent to you because you have

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Speaker 1: this freedom of information until Trump takes it away, which

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Speaker 1: seems inevitable at this point. Jason is a journalist at Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: Now he foiled some of the files around the Ebstein

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Speaker 1: files because I don't think he was able to get that.

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Speaker 1: But while we have labored to provide the public with

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Speaker 1: maximum information regarding Epstein in the statement read, it is

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Speaker 1: a determination of the Department and justin that no further

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Speaker 1: disclosure would be warranted. So the FBI has redacted Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump's name, along with the names of other prominent public figures,

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Speaker 1: from references in the Epstein files. Three people familiar with

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Speaker 1: the matter told Bloomberg's Jason Leopold, so internal directives instructed

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Speaker 1: a thousand FBI agents to flag any mention of Trump

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Speaker 1: during a March review of the roughly one hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: pages of records. People familiar with the process told Bloomberg, So,

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Speaker 1: think about this.

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Speaker 2: So you'll have.

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Speaker 1: People in the FBI telling a journalist that people sat

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Speaker 1: down with a hundred thousand pages of records, and I'm

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Speaker 1: sure there was more than that, because we know there

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Speaker 1: were videos, there were photographs, and went through and looked

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Speaker 1: for the name of Donald Trump to redact it. Redacting

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Speaker 1: is when you take when you blacken a name so

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Speaker 1: that people can't see it.

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Speaker 2: It's meant to protect the privacy.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the victims might have their

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Speaker 1: names were redacted, or to protect national security. I wonder

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Speaker 1: what national security redacting Donald Trump's name from the Epstein

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Speaker 1: files protects.

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Speaker 2: This is just a crazy story.

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Speaker 1: FBI agents were directed to search all documents associated with

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Speaker 1: the Epstein case and determine which could be released. This

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Speaker 1: is just such a crazy story. FBI personnel were said

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Speaker 1: to have identified numerous references to Trump and other high

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Speaker 1: profile people, with the names then redacted by feuer officers

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Speaker 1: because they were private citizens at the time.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so redacting names. It's just so suspicious, right, So.

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Speaker 4: It feels like a pedophile cabal cover up. I feel

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Speaker 4: like I'm cue not all of a sudden, yes, it's crazy.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's just like if you were trying to cover

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Speaker 1: something up, this would be the way to do it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: This is also one of those things though that we

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Speaker 4: all assumed would happen, but you can't say it out

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Speaker 4: loud till it actually happens.

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Speaker 5: We're all like, this is the next step.

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Speaker 2: So this is the next step. Here we are, and

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Speaker 2: there we go.

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Speaker 5: Let's talk about some other nice, nice fuckery.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like this whole intro is just

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Speaker 4: a big, long moment of fuckery, because these judges got

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Speaker 4: together to talk about the horrors they've experienced since ruling

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Speaker 4: against Trump, and you know, it was so disheartening to

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Speaker 4: read this because we have to discuss it. But also

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Speaker 4: when we discuss this, it also makes me feel like, well,

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Speaker 4: now judges are going to hear how bad their lives

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Speaker 4: are going to be if they rule against them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, but we have to talk about it

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Speaker 1: because it's really important. So these judges are facing just

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Speaker 1: their lives are becoming nightmares. And you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: reason why these Republicans are such cowards, right that they're

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Speaker 1: just letting Trump do whatever they want because they're scared,

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Speaker 1: and so are judges, and so are all of us.

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Speaker 2: Were all scared. It's really scary. That's what it is.

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Speaker 1: Man. That's where we are in America right now. Federal

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Speaker 1: judges worry. The judiciary is at stake. I'm aware. US

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Speaker 1: District Judge John McConnell, who blocked Trump's federal aid freeze

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Speaker 1: earlier this year, said his court has received four or

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Speaker 1: five hundred file threatening voicemails. We're going to come for him,

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Speaker 1: said one voicemail. You know what, motherfucker, your ass is

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Speaker 1: going to be in prison. I mean, look, Trump encouraged this.

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Speaker 1: This is not surprising. They receive these pizza deliveries their

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Speaker 1: home address, indicating they've been docked. Sometimes they put in

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Speaker 1: the last the pizza gets sent to them by the

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Speaker 1: name of poor district Judge Esther Sallas's son who was

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Speaker 1: killed in twenty twenty. This guy, Robert Lasnik said he

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Speaker 1: was sent pizza's est has been amazing going on television.

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Speaker 1: I was on Nicole's show with her. I mean, these

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Speaker 1: people are putting their lives on the line to protect

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Speaker 1: our democracy, to protect.

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Speaker 2: The rule of law.

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Speaker 1: And you know, then we have all these billionaires who

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Speaker 1: who are too scared to even say anything.

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Speaker 2: So here we are.

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Speaker 4: So another really stupid news, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

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Speaker 4: is going to shut down, which is going to mean

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Speaker 4: very big things for PBS and NPR and also Donald

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Speaker 4: Trump's jobs numbers.

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Speaker 5: Wait, this is a lot of people who are going

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Speaker 5: to be out a point.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Despite the efforts of Americans who called, voted, and petitioned

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Speaker 1: Congress to preserve federal funding, we are now facing the

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Speaker 1: difficult reality of closing our operations, so public broadcasting. I

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Speaker 1: think there'll be some public broadcasting that'll still exist. By

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Speaker 1: the way, it is one point one billion dollars in

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Speaker 1: federal funding. This is like how much it's going to cost.

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Speaker 1: I mean slightly more than how much It's going to

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Speaker 1: cost to fix up Donald Trump's new plane. Yeah, just

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Speaker 1: a fucking rounding error. But the point is not that

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Speaker 1: it's about money. The point is that it's about control.

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Speaker 5: So m it's silencing reporting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and silencing reporting.

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Speaker 1: So hard to think of something worse than this, But

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Speaker 1: here we are, ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: Just a complete fucking shit show.

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Speaker 5: Somali.

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Speaker 4: We now have a report from Yale Budget Lab about

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Speaker 4: Trump's tariffs, which I'm We've starting to become convinced shouldn't

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Speaker 4: call teriffs, we should call his robbing of the American

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Speaker 4: people to give to the rich. It's going to cost

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Speaker 4: us all at least twenty four hundred dollars a year

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Speaker 4: for the average home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations to all of us. Trump's tariffs are terrible,

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Speaker 1: They're inflationary, their attacks on the consumer. It will cost

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Speaker 1: twenty four hundred dollars per household the tariff rates combined

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Speaker 1: with surprisingly weak jobs report for Friday morning, it's the

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Speaker 1: latest that American household space and much more deep difficult.

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Speaker 1: We went from the envy of the world to very

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Speaker 1: much not just complete disaster.

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Speaker 4: Personally, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, though,

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Speaker 4: I livid at the Democratic establishment for not messaging this more.

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing, if you want to like get in

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Speaker 1: the weeds here, we have no mainstream media anymore. So

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Speaker 1: you have a group of people who are Democratic electeds

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Speaker 1: who are now tasked with transmitting what's happening. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm happy to blame them for a lot of stuff,

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Speaker 1: because there's been mistakes have been made again and again

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Speaker 1: and again on multiple levels, in multiple different ways. But

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Speaker 1: I'm just not I don't you know, it's like an

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Speaker 1: impossible situation. I don't know how you make up for

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Speaker 1: the shortfall of people now getting their news from Charlie Kirk.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you do that.

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Speaker 4: I think that's going on podcasts and making tiktoks about it.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think Zoron is the ouprint is that

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Speaker 4: he has an issue that he thinks is important, he

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Speaker 4: makes an engaging video on it, and that's how information

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Speaker 4: is delivered.

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Speaker 2: Now It's not quite so simple, but yes.

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Speaker 1: Zach Stanton is the deputy editor of Playbook and a

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Speaker 1: contributor to Political Magazine.

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Speaker 2: Zack Stanton, welcome my pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: Luckily we have waited until after the Friday news dump

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Speaker 1: to go through all of the sewage I think we

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Speaker 1: start with Trump didn't like the jobs reports, so he

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Speaker 1: fired the statistician.

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Speaker 6: Yes, he has fired the person in charge of jobs

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Speaker 6: numbers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, entirely because the

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Speaker 6: jobs numbers were downgraded for previous months and they came

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Speaker 6: in much weaker than expected for July. They always come

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Speaker 6: out the first Friday of every month, we get the

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Speaker 6: previous month's numbers.

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Speaker 7: He didn't like the numbers.

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Speaker 6: He had advanced notice of them, and so despite his

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Speaker 6: claim that he just now found out about this, he

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Speaker 6: had some advance warning. It's of a piece of certainly

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Speaker 6: an ongoing politicization of the civil service, and of more

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Speaker 6: broadly a sort of a purge that is taking place

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Speaker 6: across pretty much everything that the federal government has its

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Speaker 6: tendrils on, ranging from the Smithsonian, where we saw this

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Speaker 6: week the sort of censoring of the impeachment exhibit. He

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Speaker 6: didn't like it exactly. He didn't like it. Where this ends,

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Speaker 6: it's hard to know. But it's also bizarre to me,

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Speaker 6: just on a pure messaging or narrative level, in that

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Speaker 6: you know, with the job numbers, and with recent economic moves,

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Speaker 6: he had had sort of a good negative news cycle

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Speaker 6: for Jerome Powell for the first time, and he immediately

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Speaker 6: steps on it by doing something like this.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, the only thing Trump can do at

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Speaker 1: this moment is bring the conversation back to Jeffrey Epstein.

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Speaker 1: I think that is his only smart play I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about. Her name is Erica mcer as, a

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Speaker 1: Commissioner on Labor and Statistics MCAR. She was voted bipartisan,

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Speaker 1: voting eighty six yes, is including Vice President Jade Events.

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Speaker 6: Including Vice President Jadie Vance. But you know, it's it's

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Speaker 6: in keeping with pretty much what we've seen from Vance,

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Speaker 6: but also more broadly senate Republicans ever since Trump has

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Speaker 6: re emerged as the center of the national conversation that

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Speaker 6: really any ideological preferences that people have, or any sort

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Speaker 6: of independent views of their own all gets subsumed by Trump.

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Speaker 6: That he is sort of the yes or no, up

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Speaker 6: or down question that defines our politics, or at least

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Speaker 6: defines what it means to be a Republican. We've seen

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Speaker 6: that this week, not only with things like this, but

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Speaker 6: you know, we're now seeing like Republican Senate candidates do

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Speaker 6: pro tiff ads, which is kind of a stunning development

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Speaker 6: that I wouldn't have expected, you know, a year ago,

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Speaker 6: at this time.

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Speaker 7: Necessarily, it's just simply.

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Speaker 6: A matter of whether or not Donald Trump is in

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Speaker 6: favor of something, and that becomes sort of a litmus test,

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Speaker 6: and all else flows from it.

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Speaker 1: So he can fire the head of the Bureau of

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Speaker 1: Labor Statistics. I'm going to get really nerdy with you

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Speaker 1: here for a minute, because I was reading about the

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Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor and Statistics. And as much as Trump

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Speaker 1: is wrong to fire people who displease him, the reason

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Speaker 1: why a lot of times these numbers are revised is

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Speaker 1: because they don't get necessarily accurate measure And what needs

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Speaker 1: to happen is people need to respond to surveys in

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Speaker 1: order to get surveyed information, and so in fact, the

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Speaker 1: surveys are getting a little bit less accurate because people

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Speaker 1: do not trust the.

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Speaker 2: Government as much.

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Speaker 1: So as much as Trump is absolutely, are all numbers woke?

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Speaker 1: Maybe yes, it does speak to a larger problem with

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Speaker 1: trust and institutions and trust in the federal government.

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Speaker 7: Absolutely.

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Speaker 6: And the irony of it, of course, is that people

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Speaker 6: will trust numbers even less now if they don't have

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Speaker 6: any reason to believe that they're independently, verifiable or based

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Speaker 6: in reality. It all just gets stuck in this general

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Speaker 6: mud of seeming like it's all politics. And I think

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Speaker 6: that's one of the challenges here, is that there are

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Speaker 6: certain voters who are just cynical about it all and

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Speaker 6: think that all politicians lie and don't necessarily differentiate between

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Speaker 6: little eyes and consequential ones. And so it's difficult to

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Speaker 6: know whether or not this is going to resonate with

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Speaker 6: voters in the way that it should. But it's hard

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Speaker 6: to imagine too many voters getting that worked up about

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Speaker 6: the Bureau of Labor statistics. But it's like a canary

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Speaker 6: in the coal mine in some sense.

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Speaker 1: Well, and also, if you want to lower inflation, which

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Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear that Donald Trump wants to lower inflation,

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Speaker 1: but if you do want to make things cheaper, which

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Speaker 1: if you were to say Donald Trump had been given

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Speaker 1: a mandate in any way, shape or form, it would

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Speaker 1: be to make things cheaper. Yes, you would want your

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Speaker 1: government to be trusted, you would want your debt to

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Speaker 1: be good, you would want your currency to be the

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Speaker 1: standard and not to experience dollar flight, which seems like

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Speaker 1: he's just at every point setting himself up for a

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Speaker 1: world in which the dollar stops being the reserve currency

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Speaker 1: and our debt becomes so expensive to service. He just

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Speaker 1: feels right now like we are on the sort of

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Speaker 1: edge of catastrophe.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, you know in a way that that's how it's

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Speaker 6: held for a while now. But it does feel, you know, certainly,

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Speaker 6: with the economy in particular, that we're on some sort

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Speaker 6: of precipice of no longer being you know, the big

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Speaker 6: dog on the block.

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Speaker 7: I guess you know that we're.

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Speaker 6: No longer the ones that are sort of running the show,

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Speaker 6: and that with the dollar getting weaker, which Trump sees

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Speaker 6: is in many ways a good thing because it can

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Speaker 6: boost exports. But between that and the size of the

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Speaker 6: federal debt, there are any number of fronts on which

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Speaker 6: it just feels like we're being squeezed and it's hard

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Speaker 6: to know how to get out of that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, and it's a real question. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the political calculus. The house has been

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Speaker 1: sent home by Mike Johnson a few days early.

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Speaker 2: That was last week's drama. The Gang of Five has

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Speaker 2: this plan. The rule is it called the rule of five,

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Speaker 2: the Game of four five whatever.

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Speaker 1: We're not into accuracy here, the Rule of five, the

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Speaker 1: Gang of four, that crew they are going to release

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Speaker 1: the Epstein files discuss.

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Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's again it's hard to know how

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Speaker 6: this exactly plays out.

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Speaker 7: There is a reality that I.

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Speaker 6: Think every Republican is facing right now, which is that

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Speaker 6: back home in their districts for all of August, the

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Speaker 6: House doesn't come back till September. Second, I think it

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Speaker 6: is and between economic news, which is its own thing

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Speaker 6: where they're not going to differentiate themselves from Trump and Epstein,

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Speaker 6: which is now set to really dominate the conversation for

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Speaker 6: the next couple of weeks because it has this strange

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Speaker 6: lasting power in a way that very few stories have

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Speaker 6: been able to break through and sort of remain center

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Speaker 6: stage in the Trump era. You have this pressure that

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Speaker 6: they're facing. It's not necessarily something we for Playbook talk

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Speaker 6: to a Republican strategist who said that it's not necessarily

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Speaker 6: that it's the thing that most voters will care about,

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Speaker 6: but it is the thing that the loudest voters will

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Speaker 6: care about. And so when you go to a town

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Speaker 6: hall Forum or something like that. It is the type

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Speaker 6: of thing they're going to be pressed on, you know,

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Speaker 6: they're going to look for opportunities here to show some

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Speaker 6: if not independence, then some responsiveness to what voters want.

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Speaker 6: And the thing with this issue, compared to so many

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Speaker 6: other criticisms of Donald Trump, is that Epstein Files is

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Speaker 6: like really easy to understand. It's like it's very digestible

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Speaker 6: in a way that like, if I'm talking about the

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Speaker 6: Bureau of Labor Statistics firing, I have to explain it,

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Speaker 6: like there's so much backstory there, whereas Epstein is like easy,

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Speaker 6: you know, it's just a snap of the fingers. You

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Speaker 6: can understand what's at stake and what the moving parts are.

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Speaker 6: And so I think it resonates with folks. So we'll

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Speaker 6: see how that actually comes through to fruition.

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Speaker 8: The Ploomberg story about the foyer, where Jason Leopold sees

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Speaker 8: that they have had all of these people in the

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Speaker 8: FBI redact Trump's name from the files.

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Speaker 2: That feels like another two days on the story.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, these things just sort of snowball with this story

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Speaker 6: in particular, it's just sort of this smoke that stays

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Speaker 6: in the air and it's like you have a smoky

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Speaker 6: room with a fan, but the fan doesn't suck the

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Speaker 6: air out, it just circulates. And that's kind of what

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Speaker 6: they're stuck in. And you know the thing with Trump

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Speaker 6: is that he's thrown so many things against the wall

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Speaker 6: here to try and see what will stick, to try

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Speaker 6: and change the conversation in some way, and maybe the

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Speaker 6: conversation will change and people will talk about the Bureau

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Speaker 6: of Labor statistics are something else, terriffs, but none of

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Speaker 6: it seems to really be erasing this from people's consciousness.

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Speaker 1: My favorite part was said, the White House says this

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Speaker 1: story is.

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Speaker 2: Over, and I was like, I know you want the

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Speaker 2: story to be over, but you don't get to say it.

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Speaker 1: And it's like it is an interesting moment because Trump

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Speaker 1: has been so good at bifurcating reality and creating a

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Speaker 1: base that trusts him more than they trust anything else,

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Speaker 1: right their own families. But there's something about this story

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Speaker 1: that gets to the core. I have this theory that

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Speaker 1: Trump is a coastal elitist, the way that I am right,

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Speaker 1: but I'm much poorer than he is. The point here

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Speaker 1: is he's a coastal elitist. Right always grew up with

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Speaker 1: wealth power, friends with all of the Jeffrey Epstein people, right,

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Speaker 1: the fanciest people, the people who is now his administration

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Speaker 1: is trying to you know, academics, literati, you know, the

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Speaker 1: members of the mainstream media, the people who he is

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Speaker 1: now targeting.

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Speaker 2: Those are the people that he grew up with.

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Speaker 1: So my question is is it that the base remembers

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Speaker 1: that he is actually not one of them?

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Speaker 2: That is there there's some little bit.

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Speaker 1: Of this story that is like, oh, actually he's he's

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Speaker 1: actually in the intelligence for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 1: then you know, he is a member of the glitarati.

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Speaker 1: He can't drain the swamp because he's in the swamp.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I think that for some people, being

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Speaker 6: of the swamp, for lack of a better way of

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Speaker 6: putting it, is kind of an asset. Like, you know,

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Speaker 6: there's this idea that he understands this world, which is

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Speaker 6: why he's uniquely able to be immune to its charms

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Speaker 6: or something like that, and so he's going to fight

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Speaker 6: for us against them. And this is something that's been

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Speaker 6: part of his brand for quite some time. You know,

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Speaker 6: I remember years ago I read I came across a

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Speaker 6: New York magazine story from I want to say two

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Speaker 6: thousand and four, two thousand and five that was basically

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Speaker 6: this giant feature piece in New York Magazine advocating for

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Speaker 6: New York City to become its own nation. And you know,

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Speaker 6: it's a little bit of a modest idea type approach,

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Speaker 6: but the very tail end of the story of the

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Speaker 6: article is suggesting, you know, that we will need someone

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Speaker 6: who is able to speak New York Keys but also

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Speaker 6: resonates with read America, how about Donald Trump? And it

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Speaker 6: was like Trump was able to be seen as relatable

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Speaker 6: to a lot of people and in a similar way,

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Speaker 6: though it's very different and I'm not at all comparing

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Speaker 6: them in a broad sense, but it's reminiscent of like

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Speaker 6: Richard Nixon always having the sort of chip on his

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Speaker 6: shoulder at like not being at the cool kids table.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 6: In Nixon's case, he tried to join this nice fraternity

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Speaker 6: in college and was denied, and so he started his

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Speaker 6: own competing fraternity that was called, I think was the

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Speaker 6: Orthogonians or something like that, the idea being that they

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Speaker 6: were all like right angles, they were all squares, and

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Speaker 6: so he found that he was able to gain power

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Speaker 6: and influence on campus by really playing to people's insecurities

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Speaker 6: about being left out and not being in the inside crowd.

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Speaker 6: And for Donald Trump, there's been sort of a similar

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Speaker 6: dynamic in many ways where he is part of this

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Speaker 6: crowd and really seeks its approval. But there's always part

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Speaker 6: of him that's going to be, you know, the kid

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Speaker 6: from Queens who is struggling to break through in Manhattan

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Speaker 6: and trying to get the approval of those folks. And

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Speaker 6: that's part of the reason why he's so solicitous, even

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Speaker 6: as he hates The New York Times is very obsessed

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Speaker 6: with you know, how they cover him all of us

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Speaker 6: like validation. It's a very human thing for Donald Trump.

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Speaker 6: It's something that is a through line that carries through

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Speaker 6: decades of his public life.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me about the redistricting. Besides Trump firing the

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Speaker 1: head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the redistricting is

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Speaker 1: a big deal. Talk me through what you think of

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Speaker 1: it as a sort of play and does it work?

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Speaker 1: And also, like you know, there's so many parts of

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Speaker 1: this story like it's an anti democratic, it's this is that,

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Speaker 1: But I also wonder and.

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Speaker 2: I want you to talk us through it.

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Speaker 1: Like people who turn out for Trump don't necessarily turn

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Speaker 1: out for random R And so the idea that you're

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Speaker 1: going to so if you if you redistrict all these

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Speaker 1: seats in Texas to our plus one or our plus four.

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Speaker 2: You know Trump won it by nine. So talk us

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Speaker 2: through that exactly.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: So in Texas, just for those who haven't heard about it,

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Speaker 6: Texas is undergoing a redistricting at Trump's behest to create

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Speaker 6: essentially five new Republican US House seats. This is in

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Speaker 6: order to pad the overall nationwide US House majority that

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Speaker 6: Republicans have, and it's doing so really against the wishes

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Speaker 6: of a lot of Republican incumbents in Texas who are

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Speaker 6: mindful of not wanting to imperil the advantage of their incumbency.

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Speaker 6: And what I mean by that is that in order

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Speaker 6: to create five new Republican districts, you need to dilute

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Speaker 6: the number of Republicans in the existing districts. And so,

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Speaker 6: in a wave election, if it works out well for Democrats,

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Speaker 6: and it generally tends to be that midterms do work

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Speaker 6: out well for the party that not in power, in

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Speaker 6: a wave election, you potentially could have a good year

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Speaker 6: for Democrats in a place like Texas. But you know,

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Speaker 6: the Republican calculus, as you note, is really based on

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Speaker 6: this idea that Trump voters are Republican voters, and I

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Speaker 6: don't necessarily see evidence that that's entirely the case. You know,

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Speaker 6: Democrats in recent cycles have performed exceptionally well in low

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Speaker 6: turnout elections. This is true of special elections, it's true

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Speaker 6: of midterms. You know, it's very different than it was

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Speaker 6: decades ago, when Republicans were the ones that dominated in

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Speaker 6: low turnout elections.

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Speaker 7: Democrats do now.

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Speaker 6: And so if you're looking at the midterms in twenty

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Speaker 6: twenty six, and you're looking at, you know, an election

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Speaker 6: where Trump is not going to be on the ballot,

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Speaker 6: and so a lot of the low propensity voters are

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Speaker 6: either not going to vote, or you know, there is

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Speaker 6: this idea that a lot of voters have that Trump

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Speaker 6: is like you know, has had all these different positions

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Speaker 6: over the years, and so he's not doctrinaire, and so

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Speaker 6: he's different, He's not like the other Republicans. You know,

441
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 6: this is a way that some people think about it.

442
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 6: Given all of that, you know, it's hard to know

443
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,959
Speaker 6: whether this calculus that they've made is it all going

444
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 6: to work out for them? But what Texas is doing

445
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 6: is sort of setting off this arms race for redistricting nationwide,

446
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 6: where you have other red states also at Trump's behest

447
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:12,919
Speaker 6: Trump in the White House, pressuring them to try and

448
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 6: do similar mid cycle redistricting, which is very unusual. You

449
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 6: only have redistricting once every ten years in normal circumstance.

450
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 6: But they're looking at doing it in Ohio where JD.

451
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,600
Speaker 6: Vances is sort of inveighing on Republicans there to try

452
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 6: and do something and potentially take out someone like a

453
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,960
Speaker 6: Marci Capito type in the Toledo area. They're talking about

454
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 6: doing it in Florida, where Governor DeSantis is even talking

455
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 6: about trying to pay for a census before twenty thirty.

456
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:40,120
Speaker 7: God love them and.

457
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 6: The idea that you know there too they can maybe

458
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 6: squeeze out a couple more Republican House seats. And meanwhile

459
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 6: in California you have sort of this response that's happening

460
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 6: from Governor Gavin Newsom who notes that there are still

461
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 6: I think nine Republicans in the congressional delegation not for

462
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 6: a law. Yeah, and so like there is an easy

463
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 6: scenario in which you can draw these maps. But the

464
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 6: problem that you have in California is a problem that

465
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 6: you have in a lot of Blue states, which is

466
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 6: that many Blue states have sort of unilaterally disarmed themselves

467
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,879
Speaker 6: in this fight by passing nonpartisan redistricting commissions, this idea

468
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 6: being that district shouldn't be drawn by politicians, they should

469
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 6: be drawn in a nonpartisan, in a fair way. And

470
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 6: in California, voters enacted this years ago. And what Newson

471
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 6: would have to do, and what he's talking about doing

472
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 6: is going before voters this year and basically saying, yeah,

473
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 6: doing this kind of he says, as a one time thing.

474
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:37,120
Speaker 6: But you know, once you open Pandora's box, you can't

475
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 6: really close it again, and so it's hard to know.

476
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,159
Speaker 6: It just seems like this is a spiral that is

477
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 6: hard to stop once it starts. Once one state redistricts

478
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 6: another one who's going to follow a suit, and it

479
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 6: just goes on and on.

480
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 2: We're at a time but on the scale of how

481
00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 2: fucked we are.

482
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: One being like a constitution, normal constitutional democracy, ten being

483
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: uh huh, where do you think we are here?

484
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 7: That's a good question.

485
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 6: I mean, it would depend on the day and probably

486
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 6: depend on how much sleep I've got.

487
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,639
Speaker 7: But you know, but maybe a six and a half.

488
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 6: We'll go six six, six and a half is good.

489
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 7: That's good.

490
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 2: A solid six.

491
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 1: Closing PBS got us to six and a half, I

492
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: think exactly, Yes, Zack Stanton, will you please come back anytime?

493
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 7: Happy to be here.

494
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: Brian Edwards is the dean of the School of Liberal

495
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: Arts at Too Late. Welcome to Fast Politics, Brian Edwards.

496
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 9: It is so great to be here as someone who's

497
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 9: been enjoying listening to your show for a long time.

498
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: As we say, we do this with Pete Siegel from

499
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: Wait Waite, you're a longtime listener, first time caller. I

500
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: really wanted to talk to you about this idea of

501
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: after the American century, like that there was a moment

502
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, after sort of right at the

503
00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: tail end of World War Two, when a mayor was

504
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: we were the sort of the center of the.

505
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 2: World, and perhaps we are not anymore.

506
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: So this is an idea brought on by a book

507
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: you've written a while ago that really did breakthrough from

508
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 1: the academic world to the cultural world. So I mean,

509
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: obviously those two things are the same, but talk to

510
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: us about what that means.

511
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 9: Well, the idea of the American century is really, as

512
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 9: you said, influential in the second half or a little

513
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 9: bit the last sixty years of the century. And the

514
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 9: question of when it ends as interesting. Henry Luce Winter

515
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:42,959
Speaker 9: of nineteen forty one, months before Pearl Harbor, publishes this

516
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 9: massively influential editorial in which he argues that although the

517
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 9: United States wasn't yet in the war, we already were kind.

518
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 7: Of in the war to a certain extent.

519
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 9: It's a very interesting argument, and that really that the

520
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 9: world was about to become a century ruled by America,

521
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 9: American culture, and he lays out this idea of what

522
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 9: we would come to call soft power, that the United

523
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 9: States was going to be really the leader of a

524
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 9: certain way of imagining the world that would follow World

525
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 9: War Two. I mean, this is still when it comes out,

526
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 9: not only is the war happening, but it's still a

527
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 9: world dominated in many ways by British and French imperialism, colonialism.

528
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 9: I mean, this idea that never said on the British Empire.

529
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 9: That was still the world that we were living in,

530
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 9: and the United States did not have whether or not geopolitically, it.

531
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 7: Was in that moment of his sentence, it hadn't.

532
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 9: We hadn't come to terms with ourselves as leaders in

533
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 9: that way. So what I love about the argument, and

534
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 9: what's so fascinating about it is he says in this

535
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 9: long essay that things like American slang and music and

536
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:57,880
Speaker 9: culture would have a political purpose or have a political

537
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,360
Speaker 9: efficacy and make the world one that would be American.

538
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 9: And of course he's right to a certain extent. I mean,

539
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 9: and one of the really interesting things about US power

540
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 9: post World War two is that as the colonial empires

541
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 9: of Europe, of Britain and France in particular, start to

542
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 9: fall apart in the wake of World War Two, the

543
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 9: US doesn't take on the mantle in the same way,

544
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 9: but we do nonetheless become the global superpower, and American

545
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 9: culture is incredibly efficient in setting the stage for that.

546
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 7: How long does that last? As a question does it end?

547
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:32,199
Speaker 7: And when would it end?

548
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 9: That's really been on my mind for a really long time,

549
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 9: and in part because I spent a lot of time

550
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 9: outside the United States looking at HOW and talking to

551
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 9: folks at HOW and studying how American popular culture, movies,

552
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 9: digital culture, music culture, then social media culture, shopping malls,

553
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 9: architecture cut starts to be copied around the.

554
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 7: World in sometimes really surprising ways.

555
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,239
Speaker 2: So tell me when this period sort of starts and

556
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: when it ends.

557
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 7: I would say it starts during World War two. I

558
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 7: mean I do.

559
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 9: I'll follow Loose himself and say that his naming of

560
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 9: the American Century is at a key moment because there's

561
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 9: this internal debate politically about getting involved in the war.

562
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 9: And if you look backwards. Even though, of course when

563
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 9: when when Y two K was we thought and nicknaming

564
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 9: the end of the twentieth century.

565
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:21,479
Speaker 7: I remember it.

566
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 9: At the time, we probably had on our coffee tables,

567
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 9: you know, these big books the American Century. President Clinton

568
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 9: was referring to kind of, you know, the end of

569
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 9: this century. We started to name it backwards one hundred years,

570
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 9: but really it was the conditions for the American Century

571
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 9: were post war, and you know, and what's interesting too,

572
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 9: is how the Europeans, especially the French and Western Europeans,

573
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 9: felt a bit of anxiety about the rise of American

574
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 9: soft power.

575
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 7: The French used to call it.

576
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 9: In the fifties and sixties coca colin, coca colonization, Coca colonization.

577
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 7: I guess this idea. I mean it's great.

578
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: You know.

579
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 9: Then in Europe, you know, in the eighties and nineties

580
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 9: when popular music was taking over the radios sum European countries.

581
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 9: I think Spain it limited the number of American songs

582
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 9: that even could be played per hour because the culture

583
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 9: was so you know, charismatic. Of course, the second half

584
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 9: of the twenty century really is a very dominant time.

585
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 9: As Hollywood starts to you know, continue to grow, and

586
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 9: movie theaters around the world are just filled with American cinema.

587
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 9: The culture kind of pendulum shifts. Does it end, you know,

588
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 9: with nine to eleven? And this is a question we

589
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 9: can say, when does it end? I don't think it

590
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 9: ends right.

591
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 8: The soft power I want to talk about solf power.

592
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: The soft power that has been has been given up

593
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: by Marco Rubio and Trump and Trump two point zero.

594
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: So what does it mean to give up soft power

595
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: in a global sense?

596
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 7: Well, what is soft power?

597
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 9: Soft power is something that kind of operates on another wavelength,

598
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 9: that's doing work for a nation without trying to do work.

599
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 9: It's doing work for a nation without even being on

600
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 9: this same side of the political hard so called hard power.

601
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 9: You might have Hollywood films and Hollywood filmmakers at different

602
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 9: moments a critical of military actions by the US and

603
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 9: still be effective at making it possible for the United

604
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 9: States to act in certain ways.

605
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 7: I'll give you an example.

606
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 9: You know, I was spending a lot of time in

607
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 9: the first decade of this century writing a book, writing

608
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,479
Speaker 9: this book called After the American Century, and shuttling back

609
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 9: and forth between Morocco, Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon. And at

610
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 9: the time the movie Babbel was incredibly popular in the

611
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 9: United States, and euraut To the director, was very critical

612
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 9: of the so called War on Terror. But this film

613
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 9: was just incredibly resisted, very strongly by folks in Muslim

614
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 9: majority countries as being very hostile to them. So it

615
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 9: didn't it doesn't even necessarily matter what the explicit politics

616
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 9: of American culture makers might be to to kind of

617
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 9: help pave the you know, pave the way for for

618
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 9: hard power to operate, and so that could happen in

619
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 9: a lot of places.

620
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 7: I mean, and it's very abstract.

621
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could talk about this idea after history,

622
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: because it strikes me and I really like Francis, but

623
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: talk about calling balls and strikes a little early I

624
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: wonder if you could sort of talk about it and

625
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: sort of get us to where we are right now.

626
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,719
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, of course, you know the idea of the

627
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 9: end of history that Francis Fukuyama proposes. You know, the

628
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 9: nineteen nineties is a really interesting decade because it looks

629
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 9: like for a moment, or for an extended moment of

630
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 9: the nineties, that with the apparent fall of the Soviet Union,

631
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 9: that we had won, that there was an economic and

632
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 9: cultural system that won. And so there's a number of

633
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 9: people who are claiming kind of victory and that what

634
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 9: would come next. I mean, this is why the nineties

635
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 9: are really interesting. Of course, you know, conflicts continue through

636
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 9: the nineties. There was not the end of history, and

637
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 9: what's really brewing, particularly in the part of the world

638
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 9: that I was living in and spending a lot of

639
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 9: time in North Africa, in the Middle East, there is

640
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 9: a whole lot of reconfigurations happening between the end of

641
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 9: the Iran Iraq War and nine to eleven. Really in

642
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 9: nineties are a very fraught period obviously in the Balkans

643
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 9: as well. So this calling you said, calling the calling

644
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 9: the count a little bit too early for sure, as

645
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 9: if the Cold War, the terms of engagement were between

646
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 9: two economic systems, and we had won.

647
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 7: Clearly was not the case. Something else was happening.

648
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 9: But the other thing that's happening that I think is

649
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 9: really important to thinking about soft power and really important

650
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 9: to thinking about the.

651
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 7: Present moment is the digital revolution.

652
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 9: Because Henry Lewis, after all, was the was the head

653
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 9: of Time magazine, head of Time Life, Right, he was

654
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:49,719
Speaker 9: really a publisher in what I would call the analog age.

655
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 9: You know, we're reading his publications in Life magazine, Hollywood

656
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 9: pictures are being carried around in canisters. The radio and

657
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 9: television operated in a tremendously different way than they do today,

658
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 9: needless to say. And it was an analog logic for

659
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 9: how people would engage with American soft power, right. I

660
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 9: call it like broadcasting logic of broadcasting. Remember the RCA

661
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 9: Victor kind of logo, where there's this dog listening to

662
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 9: a kind of the trub the ear of a record player.

663
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,760
Speaker 9: Like that was this idea that America would give culture

664
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 9: and the rest of the world would listen and take

665
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 9: it all in and not have anything to say about it.

666
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 9: The digital revolution makes clear that that that's not the

667
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,919
Speaker 9: way culture operates. People can listen, they can talk back,

668
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 9: they can engage back. Now, this is quite obvious to

669
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 9: anybody now, because we're used to commenting, we're used to sharing,

670
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 9: we're used to being all of us actors in making

671
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 9: culture happen. And that's a tremendous difference that the twenty

672
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 9: first century starts to bring in, and it therefore changes

673
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 9: how soft power operates. People engage with American cultural products.

674
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 9: The products themselves become things like Twitter and Facebook and

675
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 9: eventually Instagram.

676
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 7: And I remember being, you know, in.

677
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 9: Egypt before the Talkerer uprisings, the Middle East uprisings two

678
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 9: thousand and nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven, and talking to

679
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 9: young Egyptians and they're like, how can we have a voice.

680
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 9: This was right before everybody with a smartphone could have

681
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 9: a voice. And in fact, the Middle East uprisings of

682
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 9: that period were incredibly propelled by millions and millions of

683
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 9: people now being able to communicate with each other in

684
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 9: ways that they hadn't been able to before.

685
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 7: So it's really important what.

686
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 9: We think about soft power, and we think about Henry

687
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 9: Loos and this idea of an American century to think

688
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 9: about how culture moves through the world, how all of

689
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 9: us engage with it. I mean, here we are in

690
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 9: a podcast right forms that just didn't exist in this

691
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 9: earlier moment, and it changes absolutely everything about politics. To me,

692
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 9: that is incredibly important to talk about at this moment,

693
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 9: especially because of the relationship of this presidency and this

694
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 9: president with things like reality television, with social media being

695
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 9: quite a genius at it actually being very able to

696
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 9: use the prevailing technologies. You know, they use to say that,

697
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 9: you know, when you look at every presidential campaign, you know,

698
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 9: you decide who the winner is. I always have thought

699
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 9: that whoever was able to best use the then prevailing

700
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 9: entertainment technology, whether it was Kennedy against Nixon and the

701
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 9: television debates, or those who could use the Internet at

702
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 9: different moments, you know, would be the winner. And I

703
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 9: think that to really understand how soft powered American hard

704
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 9: power now are in tension with each other, you have

705
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 9: to think about the president and the presidency in relationship

706
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 9: to those media technologies, including reality television, which is in

707
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 9: a lot of ways what we feel like we're watching

708
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 9: even while we're watching global politics.

709
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 7: That's not incidental in my opinion.

710
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:43,320
Speaker 2: Now we're just going to go into therapy.

711
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,760
Speaker 1: For me, one of the things that makes me really

712
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: anxious is this sort of post truth society, This sort

713
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: of idea that we are in America where there are

714
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: two sets of facts.

715
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 2: That our president is on Earth to a.

716
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 1: Lot of his people on Earth too, some of us

717
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 1: are on Earth one make me feel better about that

718
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: we're in this bifurcated reality.

719
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 2: There's an Earth one on Earth two.

720
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 1: A certain percentage of Americans are occupying Earth too. We're

721
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,399
Speaker 1: in a country where truth is not universally agreed upon.

722
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:17,240
Speaker 9: Discuss well, I mean this idea of the filter bubble,

723
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 9: I guess is what some people used to call it,

724
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 9: That the media that we most of us get is

725
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 9: curated for us by algorithms that we ourselves have something

726
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 9: to do with creating, is of course, really worries for

727
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 9: all of us who believe in having public discourse and

728
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 9: having real and open conversation debate around the things that

729
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 9: matter which our country are politics and so on, and

730
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 9: so the idea that we can't find ways to bridge

731
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 9: those gaps, whether it's made literal by like the idea

732
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 9: of the political aisle, or in metaphor, I guess, by

733
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 9: your idea of Earth one or Earth two, or this

734
00:37:57,200 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 9: idea of the filter bubble, that we can't break through

735
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 9: it that just like you know that that's really worrisome.

736
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 9: I mean, I get really patriotic at this moment as

737
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 9: I say, my kids think I'm the most patriotic member

738
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 9: of our family, and I think, you know, I start

739
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 9: going back to the founders of the United States that

740
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 9: we need a civic discourse to have a successful democracy,

741
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 9: and then bring it to the present with how is

742
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 9: it that we engage with ideas and news and information.

743
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 9: So your idea of Earth's too Yeah, that's really worrisome,

744
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,959
Speaker 9: this idea that we can't hear. I mean, I hope

745
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:27,919
Speaker 9: I'm not the only I know. Lots of us try

746
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 9: to consume media from a lot of different perspectives. It's

747
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 9: a great thought experiment. If someone listening doesn't do it themselves.

748
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 9: Something that you care a lot about, go see how

749
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 9: it's being reported in a completely different venue than than

750
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 9: your own political persuasion, and it is.

751
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 7: It's as if it's a different reality.

752
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: Sometimes it does strike me that it seems like social

753
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: media is growing, mainstream media is shrinking, reporting is suffering,

754
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: AI is poised to go to zero, right, they will

755
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 1: no longer link to reporting. They will just you know,

756
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:03,319
Speaker 1: your AI butler will go and get your facts. And

757
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:05,800
Speaker 1: maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong. I mean, doesn't

758
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,320
Speaker 1: this seem like we're heading towards a catastrophe?

759
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 9: Well, where's my optimism in all that? I mean my optimism.

760
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:15,239
Speaker 9: I am optimistic in this sense. And by the way,

761
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,919
Speaker 9: sitting standing here in New Orleans in August, where it's

762
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 9: an immensely hotter and more humid than wherever you are

763
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 9: right now, is I can still be optimistic here. My

764
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 9: optimism is that there are so many more avenues and

765
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 9: venues for journalists and people with opinions and ideas to

766
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 9: enter into the discourse that that in itself is a

767
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 9: good thing.

768
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 7: It's super risky.

769
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 9: Because the algorithms are fed, you know, or tend to be,

770
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 9: as much as we understand, fed by emotional responses and

771
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 9: self perpetuating filter bubbles, as I said, and so we

772
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 9: got to figure out ways to get outside of them.

773
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 7: And AI the way you described it.

774
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 9: You know, as as it curates and as it brings

775
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 9: things together, seems to limit even further. So that's a

776
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 9: pessimics experience. But my optimism is that there's more and

777
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 9: more ways for folks to enter into the discourse. That's

778
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 9: I do believe in the discourse. I know it's one

779
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 9: of your favorite words.

780
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 2: Do you think that's enough.

781
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 7: We have to be active in our engagement with it.

782
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: At least twenty five percent of the country, including much

783
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: of the federal government, has a sort of fact free

784
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 1: vision of what the future can be, right, and you

785
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: have a percentage of the country that's completely disengaged right

786
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: from any sense of what's happening. It just strikes me

787
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: that it's an unsustainable pottern.

788
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 9: You know, as an educator, I see college students coming

789
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 9: to us who want to break free of that, who

790
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 9: are anxious about certainly anxious, and often have ideas about

791
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 9: how we can break free of that and looking for

792
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 9: other venues. And one thing that's true about the ways

793
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 9: in which digital media intersects with culture is endlessly creative

794
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 9: and finding new places for us in ways for us

795
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 9: to engage. The rise of substack, the rise of podcasts,

796
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 9: the rise of different ways that work outside of the

797
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 9: kind of corporate media culture that could otherwise be very stifling.

798
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 9: I mean, that's the interesting. Yeah, we're talking about now

799
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 9: we're talking about the media. But that's the interesting tension

800
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 9: as people who again young people.

801
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 7: As an educator, I always.

802
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 9: Say you have to be an optimist if you're an educator,

803
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,320
Speaker 9: because the folks who are in front of you always

804
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 9: coming into college are coming next, are going to be

805
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 9: the ones who are pretty soon going to be running

806
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:31,959
Speaker 9: the show.

807
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 7: And they are right now.

808
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 9: My sense for the last few years is really frustrated

809
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 9: at what they've inherited. They've frustrated by cancel culture. They're

810
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 9: certainly frustrated by political culture. And their creativity is something

811
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 9: that we're trying to mold.

812
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 7: Or help or facilitate.

813
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 9: So that's the incredible novelty and creativity that we keep

814
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 9: seeing in the realm of culture and in the realm

815
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 9: of how journalism and discourse kind of intersect with it.

816
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 9: But I mean, the other thing that we were talking

817
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 9: about before around the American Century relates to that, right,

818
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 9: because one of the things that the intersection of the

819
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 9: American century logic, let's go back, like now get a

820
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 9: little bit more contemporary, go back to post nine to

821
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 9: eleven world when we get into this long war on terror, right,

822
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 9: which also consumes our culture becomes our form of this

823
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 9: twenty year war. That's also our form of entertainment and

824
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 9: television dramas. And we're obsessed with this war against an emotion, right,

825
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 9: a war named against an emotion, not named against an

826
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 9: actual antagonist. It's everywhere, It's everywhere, and you can't find it.

827
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 5: Right.

828
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 9: That's very existential for all of us for the last

829
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 9: two decades, and really, in some ways COVID kind of

830
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 9: distracts us from that and wipes out that sensation that

831
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 9: was really prevailing. But during all that time, and of

832
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 9: course American culture of soft power continues, it is still

833
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,839
Speaker 9: incredibly popular. I mean again, I've just been on four

834
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 9: continents this summer. I've just been trapped doing a lot

835
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 9: of travel, talking to a lot of folks in South America,

836
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 9: Southeast Asia, Western Europe, Latin America and Singapore and so on.

837
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 9: And you still see everywhere American culture is still very popular.

838
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:06,359
Speaker 9: It's not the only popular thing, but there's this disassociation

839
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 9: of our politics with the popularity of our culture. American

840
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 9: language that you know, English language, but really from American

841
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,880
Speaker 9: culture is of course more and more dominant around the world.

842
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 7: But it doesn't work the way it did.

843
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 9: Under Henry Lus's American Century model, you could love the

844
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 9: culture and get very and hate the politics, will be

845
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 9: resistant to the politics. And that wasn't how it was

846
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 9: supposed to go. Under the American Century line. You're supposed

847
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 9: to see in American music and Hollywood and jazz and

848
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 9: abstract expressionism in the twentieth century, that this was a

849
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,439
Speaker 9: culture of freedom and everybody wanted freedom after it all.

850
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 9: But now the thing that really is worrisome in a

851
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 9: sense is that that is that equation is falling apart.

852
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 7: Higher education is a part of the two.

853
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 9: I mean, part of the soft power of the United

854
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 9: States is that American higher educa educated is, you know,

855
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 9: as a model that folks really admired around the world.

856
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 9: Most of the great universities, by every ranking were located

857
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 9: in the United States, I mean, you know, with some

858
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 9: notable important exceptions, and even when people didn't aspire to

859
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 9: come study in the United States, they were around the

860
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 9: world copying the model, whether it was the seminar room,

861
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 9: whether it was the idea of the campus, or the

862
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 9: liberal arts. Kind of general curriculum was being sometimes with

863
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 9: the help of American universities in the Middle East and

864
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 9: the Gulf and around the world and other times just

865
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 9: autonomously by different countries Like that was a model that

866
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 9: people really really respected American science and science and technology

867
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 9: the same thing.

868
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 7: Right, We've been that kind of soft power too.

869
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:39,399
Speaker 2: Brian Edwards, thank you, thank you, thank you.

870
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 7: Well, it's great chatting Litiamali. I really appreciate the chance

871
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 7: a moment.

872
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 4: Jesse Cannon Molly, do you report from Senator Richard Blumenthal

873
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 4: of Connecticut has an interesting conclusion, which those wasted twenty

874
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:01,439
Speaker 4: one point seven billion in just six months.

875
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 1: Fraud, waste and abuse, maybe not fraud, but certainly waste

876
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: and absolute abuse.

877
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 2: Elon mus Department of Government was.

878
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: Expensive, but luckily he's a billionaire, so he could just

879
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 1: give that money. Wasting government funds, making a series of mistake.

880
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,720
Speaker 1: You know, like half the country, half the federal government

881
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: is being paid to not work at this moment, not

882
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: quite half, but a lot of federal employees.

883
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 2: They wasted twenty one billion dollars. Yeah, they suck.

884
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,960
Speaker 1: I mean you could have seen that when it was happening, right,

885
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: the Deferbred resignation program where they paid all these people

886
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:39,879
Speaker 1: not to work fourteen point eight billion. Because all these

887
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 1: people are not are being paid not to work, six

888
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 1: point one billion spent on one hundred thousand plus workers

889
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: placed an administrative leave pending separation. And then also you're

890
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: going to eventually have to retrain the people you're going

891
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: to have to rehire, and that's going to be a

892
00:45:55,239 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: disaster too. I mean, this is so incredibly wait a ball,

893
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: let's real talk. A lot of stupid crap has happened

894
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: in the last six months, but this is the stupidest

895
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 1: and the crappiest.

896
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 2: Quote me.

897
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

898
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

899
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

900
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

901
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.

902
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.