Speaker 1: One nation under the great divide in American politics shows
Speaker 1: no sign of closing. We are going to fight like
Speaker 1: hell against the tyrannical Democrats. Republicans in Congress are spreading
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, denying reality, and poisoning the well of our
Speaker 1: percent of Republicans and Democrats agreed that the country would
Speaker 1: be better off if large numbers of the opposing party
Speaker 1: just die. Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing,
Speaker 1: the gap between what companies say they stand for and
Speaker 1: what they actually do, and what they would need to
Speaker 1: change to practice what they preach. I'm your host, Time Montague,
Speaker 1: and I've spent over a decade helping companies define what
Speaker 1: they stand for, their purpose and then help them to
Speaker 1: use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at a lot of organizations today, they're still a pretty
Speaker 1: wide gap between word and deed. That gap has a name.
Speaker 1: We call it bullshit. But, and this is important, we
Speaker 1: believe that bullshit is a treatable disease. So when the
Speaker 1: BS detector lights up, we're going to explore things that
Speaker 1: a company should do to fix it. Today we're examining
Speaker 1: one of the biggest and most powerful organizations in the world,
Speaker 1: and it became big and powerful, at least in part
Speaker 1: because of a great story and an aspirational purpose. I'm talking,
Speaker 1: of course, about the United States of America. It's tough
Speaker 1: to pin down a succinct purpose statement for America. Is
Speaker 1: it in the Declaration of Independence or in the Constitution?
Speaker 1: Is it in a president's speech or on a coin.
Speaker 1: Elements of America's purpose can be found in all of
Speaker 1: these artifacts. But to me, there's one thing that truly
Speaker 1: captures the spirit of this country's purpose the best. Let's
Speaker 1: call it the American Dream, which goes something like this,
Speaker 1: no matter who you are or where you come from,
Speaker 1: if you live here, work hard, and generally operate as
Speaker 1: a good citizen, there is no end to how far
Speaker 1: you can go. America is a true meritocracy, a land
Speaker 1: of opportunity that is open to all. But is this
Speaker 1: even true? Is our current polarization assign that the dream
Speaker 1: is just a bunch of bullshit? Get out your BS
Speaker 1: detector and join me and special guest Andrew Yang on
Speaker 1: a quest to find out. As we prepped this episode,
Speaker 1: it became clear that even as a tight knit podcasting team,
Speaker 1: we had differing opinions about the whole idea of the
Speaker 1: American Dream, and so we hit the record button on ourselves.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, um so, when I say the
Speaker 1: words the American Dream to both of you, like, what
Speaker 1: what do those words mean to you? I just felt
Speaker 1: like a struggle with the term because I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: here if it weren't for my Jamaican parents coming from
Speaker 1: their native country and trying to find a better life
Speaker 1: for their family here in America, having access to jobs
Speaker 1: and medical care that they might not have had in Jamaica.
Speaker 1: So I'm definitely thankful that I'm able to be a
Speaker 1: first generation American. That's MICHAELA Read, a producer on Calling BS.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel like to call it a dream
Speaker 1: makes it sounds better than what it is. Everyone should
Speaker 1: have access to housing like that shouldn't necessarily be a dream.
Speaker 1: It should be a requirement. Everyone should have the ability
Speaker 1: if they're sick, to go to a hospital and have
Speaker 1: the right amount of care for their illnesses, regardless of
Speaker 1: their income. Yeah, that makes sense. The story I thought
Speaker 1: I saw unfolding in America previously was people who wanted
Speaker 1: to improve their lot in life decided to leave their
Speaker 1: home country a totally non trivial decision and come here
Speaker 1: and use that motivation to advance themselves on their own cause.
Speaker 1: And what I was taught in school was this was
Speaker 1: the strength of America, the fact that motivated people came
Speaker 1: because we opened that door. We became a country of
Speaker 1: motivated people. We benefited from that, and we fed off
Speaker 1: one another energy and created something exceptional. So I'm a
Speaker 1: more nuanced person than to say that I blanketly don't
Speaker 1: agree that nothing good has ever come out of people
Speaker 1: coming here from other countries. And that's basil super producer
Speaker 1: and researcher. It's complicated, but I do think that there's
Speaker 1: a reason that people want to be here. Who knows
Speaker 1: why they're doing it. Are they doing it because they're
Speaker 1: fed the idea of an American dream? Or is it
Speaker 1: like because it's it's really dire and and it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how bad it is here, right, Yeah, I'm just thinking, like,
Speaker 1: maybe America just has really good marketing. America does have
Speaker 1: really good marketing, and that's because it tells an irresistible story.
Speaker 1: From revolution to independence, from freedom to wild financial success.
Speaker 1: The American legend has been undeniably inspiring and on this show,
Speaker 1: we explore how well organizations actually honor the narrative they're
Speaker 1: crafting for themselves. So the question is do we still
Speaker 1: believe that story and how much of that story has
Speaker 1: been conveniently left out in order to keep the brand strong.
Speaker 1: I think that we became a successful country and like
Speaker 1: the powerhouse of the economy of globally, you know, through
Speaker 1: exploiting workers of all kinds, and that goes back to
Speaker 1: like children and women and people of color. So for me,
Speaker 1: when we talk about America being great, I don't think
Speaker 1: it was ever really. Yeah, I mean I definitely feel
Speaker 1: I guess some elements of bitterness when talking about American
Speaker 1: what it was founded upon, like mass genocide of indigenous
Speaker 1: peoples and how it was built upon the backs of
Speaker 1: enslaved people. It's just difficult to think of a country
Speaker 1: that is viewed as something that is a place for opportunity,
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that they're providing aren't exactly accessible to
Speaker 1: all Americans. Yeah, I hear that both of those perspectives.
Speaker 1: I guess it raises some questions for me, Like you know,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, and again mine is a perspective of privilege,
Speaker 1: but there is some good to have set up in
Speaker 1: view a country that is supposed to be and certainly
Speaker 1: has not been in every case, but it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a meritocracy, and we did open a door for
Speaker 1: people to come here and make their own way, rise
Speaker 1: to the level of their own abilities, and so there's
Speaker 1: got to be some value to that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's the truth. I think even if people did come
Speaker 1: from worse off countries, they came here as immigrants and
Speaker 1: lived in tenements and just made the rich richer. That's frustrating,
Speaker 1: you know. It's not like they just came here and
Speaker 1: like we're like middle class. You know, someone who grew
Speaker 1: up in poverty. When we talk about things like people
Speaker 1: not be able to make a living wage, or like
Speaker 1: some people being shocked by how we've responded to COVID
Speaker 1: as a country doesn't shock me as someone who couldn't
Speaker 1: get health care, growing up as a trans person who
Speaker 1: can't get trans healthcare, you know, in an accessible way.
Speaker 1: So for me, like I've seen the this this isn't new.
Speaker 1: This conversation got me really curious. There are so many
Speaker 1: ways to interpret the American dream. How many Americans still
Speaker 1: believe that the country has a higher purpose. Is the
Speaker 1: dream still worth believing in? Or is it dying? To
Speaker 1: try and understand all of this, the team decided to
Speaker 1: fan out and speak with a wide variety of Americans,
Speaker 1: some of them in our own families, and we asked
Speaker 1: them for their definitions of the American dream. First up,
Speaker 1: Basil's brother in law, Jonathan Craig, a pool technician in
Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. American Dream. M hm. So you
Speaker 1: come from a third world country as they come from Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: You don't speak of Lake English. You got your whole
Speaker 1: family here with you. You come here and pretty much
Speaker 1: you can be whatever you know and do whatever you
Speaker 1: want and sky Athalna. Here you can get a good education.
Speaker 1: We got a good American system, you know, as far
Speaker 1: as helping people get on their feet, you know, programs
Speaker 1: for school. And you come here from anywhere and you
Speaker 1: can get the help you need and shoot just like
Speaker 1: you a guy down the road. They come from Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 1: didn't speak hardly in English three or four years ago.
Speaker 1: Now they got freaking four or five stores. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the American dream right there. You come here and
Speaker 1: then make a living, raised a family. The American dream
Speaker 1: you can achieve whatever you set out to do. Because
Speaker 1: I'm Jamaican, it meant that I could be here and
Speaker 1: opportunities would be available, not so much for myself, but
Speaker 1: for my children. That's Michaelis grandmother, Yvonne Clark, a former
Speaker 1: law secretary in New York. And I am so proud
Speaker 1: to be an American and for them to be Americans
Speaker 1: and for the avenues for growth it has afforded them.
Speaker 1: And one of Yvan's children is Michaela's aunt and Dream Clark,
Speaker 1: a public school teacher in North Carolina. But the American
Speaker 1: dream is a pursuit of happiness, and really that's what
Speaker 1: so many Americans want to do. For so many, the
Speaker 1: American dream is about the pursuit of happiness and opportunity.
Speaker 1: But as entrepreneur, cultural critic Queens New York resident and
Speaker 1: first generation Korean American J. K. Cho points out, there's
Speaker 1: a dark side to that pursuit. I feel like when
Speaker 1: people say American dream is often associated with abundance, right
Speaker 1: buying the necessary ship in Bolke, Like you know, we
Speaker 1: have a hundred pairs of sneakers at home, Like when
Speaker 1: we're never going to run that much Black Friday holiday shopping.
Speaker 1: It's a flawed narrative that's like too often perpetrated by
Speaker 1: the imperialistic American agenda. This concept of consumerism is interweaved
Speaker 1: with the American dream, and it's also connected with democracy,
Speaker 1: this thought of freedom of choice. But in reality, we
Speaker 1: really live in like a politocracy, government controled by those
Speaker 1: with a lot of wealth, which is continuously part of
Speaker 1: this pipeline that essentially served those in upper economic realms
Speaker 1: with our labor meager wages, which we used to buy
Speaker 1: more ship, watch more content to entertainers. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really believe in this concept of an American dream,
Speaker 1: per se. I believe in American survival. For some Americans,
Speaker 1: the tough part of survival is economic. But for my
Speaker 1: next guest, survival means holding onto an entire way of
Speaker 1: life despite centuries of systemic oppression. What to the words
Speaker 1: the American dream mean to you? For me? Those words
Speaker 1: as a mama response to ta we means? Is a
Speaker 1: Stanford educated attorney who leads Thunder Valley, an indigenous not
Speaker 1: for profit organization that advocates for the liberation of Lakota people.
Speaker 1: She is the only person we spoke to who doesn't
Speaker 1: identify as an American. I am from the Ogala La
Speaker 1: Kota and cistertan Wapatan Da Kota people nations, and we
Speaker 1: are a part of the Ocheti shakoe Um larger nation
Speaker 1: and currently reside in what is now called South Dakota,
Speaker 1: where the original caretakers and stewards of this land long
Speaker 1: before Columbus lost his way and inflicted years of European
Speaker 1: genocide upon the people of this land. And so that
Speaker 1: is a trauma response for a lot of Indigenous people
Speaker 1: and other communities of color because of the the colonization
Speaker 1: and the genocide that was associated with the development of
Speaker 1: this land base into what is now called the United
Speaker 1: States of America. The conversation with tatewe really brought home
Speaker 1: the terrible price that millions of people have paid to
Speaker 1: create the country that we live in today. How you
Speaker 1: feel about the American dream really depends on your vantage
Speaker 1: point and the version of American history that you've been taught.
Speaker 1: So many people have sacrificed for this country against their will,
Speaker 1: while others volunteer their lives to defend it. Next is
Speaker 1: Adrian Bonnenberger, a writer and veteran who served two tours
Speaker 1: of duty in Afghanistan. One of the extraordinary things of
Speaker 1: America and the American Dream, I think, is that you
Speaker 1: can come to America from anywhere on Earth. You can
Speaker 1: start a business, you can get a job somewhere, and
Speaker 1: you will be the author of your own destiny. And
Speaker 1: I think that far more than um, you know, the
Speaker 1: ability to to get rich or whatever some people say
Speaker 1: the American dream is, is actually what makes America a
Speaker 1: place that people look to a place where they can
Speaker 1: live um with dignity. And you get your American citizenship,
Speaker 1: You've got that passport in your hand. Only a real
Speaker 1: jerk is going to say you're not a real American.
Speaker 1: To me, the American dream means equal opportunity. That's David Sefabian,
Speaker 1: the current General counsel for the American Conservative Union, who
Speaker 1: has also held senior positions in the Bush White House.
Speaker 1: The ability for folks to follow their passion to work
Speaker 1: hard to achieve success, regardless of how you define success.
Speaker 1: Having a system that not only makes it possible but
Speaker 1: encourages individual success, I think is what I would view
Speaker 1: the pathway to the American Dream. And Penelope super nine
Speaker 1: what would you say America's purpose actually is shoo, comes
Speaker 1: here and be yourself. Do you think America is actually
Speaker 1: achieving this? Uh? Sometimes no, because they are treating people differently,
Speaker 1: like gay people, by people, um and like Indian Americans,
Speaker 1: black people and other people like that. Why do you
Speaker 1: think that is because they think that they're since they're different,
Speaker 1: that they could just treat them different. How do you
Speaker 1: How does that make you feel? That makes me feel sad?
Speaker 1: Is it because you love LGBT people and black people? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't care if they're any condition people. Yeah, they're rude.
Speaker 1: I don't want them. I'm with Penelope, I don't like
Speaker 1: rude people either. Nearly all of the people that I
Speaker 1: spoke with identified as either Democrat or Republican. I'll leave
Speaker 1: it to your imagination to decide who is who. But
Speaker 1: no matter their affiliation, there seemed to be a common
Speaker 1: understanding of what the American dream was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The difference in perspective stemmed from whether we're actually living
Speaker 1: up to it or not. America's bs score a conversation
Speaker 1: with Andrew Yang and an exploration into why we're so polarized.
Speaker 1: Right after this, before you head to the break. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear what you think about the show. Maybe
Speaker 1: you were inspired to take action, maybe you disagree with
Speaker 1: today's bullshit rating. Either way, we want to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Leave us a message at two one two five oh
Speaker 1: five to Zo five, or send a voice memo to
Speaker 1: CBS podcast at co collective dot com. You might even
Speaker 1: be featured on an upcoming episode. It is a joke
Speaker 1: when Republicans say that the urgency around this bill, the
Speaker 1: only folk of the ads is that what they wanted.
Speaker 1: Opublican doesn't want you to know. Media the welcome back
Speaker 1: on this unique episode of calling Bullshit. We've applied the
Speaker 1: idea of an organization's purpose to an entire nation, the
Speaker 1: United States of America, and for the sake of this experiment,
Speaker 1: we've identified the American Dream as that purpose. Now we
Speaker 1: continue these conversations by exploring America's mission, in other words,
Speaker 1: the steps that we can take as citizens and governing
Speaker 1: bodies to actually put the purpose into practice, and debating
Speaker 1: how or even if Americans can achieve this dream amidst
Speaker 1: so much division. Here's school teacher Andrean Clark opportunity for all.
Speaker 1: That's America's mission statement that's I think what the founding
Speaker 1: fathers wanted, And if they wanted it any other way,
Speaker 1: they would have said equality for white men who own
Speaker 1: land and freedom for specific people. But they had a
Speaker 1: bigger dream, and they're bigger dream was equality and opportunity
Speaker 1: and freedom for all these systems in this country was
Speaker 1: not built for people that look like me, sound like me,
Speaker 1: or grew up like me. Once again, the leader of
Speaker 1: Thunder Valley to tay we means you hear that it's
Speaker 1: a land of opportunity, but you have to really question
Speaker 1: for who. From my perspective as an Indigenous woman, the
Speaker 1: mission state of America is really exclusionary and genocidal, harmful.
Speaker 1: What could America be doing better to live its mission?
Speaker 1: In other words, if you were going to change some
Speaker 1: things about the country, what would you change? I would
Speaker 1: change its mission? You have to you have to start
Speaker 1: at those rotten roots. The seeds of this country are
Speaker 1: rotten because of the these you know, initial ideologies and
Speaker 1: beliefs about the people that did not look like white
Speaker 1: men that were already here, and our view about what
Speaker 1: it meant to be inhabitants and occupants of this land.
Speaker 1: Army veteran Adrian Bonnenberger. I would say our mission has
Speaker 1: been to expand that definition of citizen and citizenship as
Speaker 1: being something that's dependent on the individual's willingness to take
Speaker 1: part in community and not defined based on something that
Speaker 1: one of their ancestors did eight hundred years ago. It
Speaker 1: shouldn't be defined based on religion, it shouldn't be defined
Speaker 1: based on race, it shouldn't be defined based on class.
Speaker 1: It was a revolutionary idea. We we we had to,
Speaker 1: you know, stage a revolution over it, uh towards Washington,
Speaker 1: when people said you ought to be king, he said,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm doing here. You know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be president and you're going to keep electing. So
Speaker 1: it's a process that is both durative and also it's
Speaker 1: a process that requires people to buy into it actively.
Speaker 1: And if you buy into it actively, then that's your
Speaker 1: stake and you own a piece of it, and nobody
Speaker 1: can tell you different. I think America's mission statement is
Speaker 1: to be a beacon of freedom to the world. General
Speaker 1: Counsel for the American Conservative Union David sa Fabian and
Speaker 1: I personally view the American model, the American experiment as
Speaker 1: something that I know so many millions of other people
Speaker 1: see and go, That's where I want to be, That's
Speaker 1: what I want for my family. So I think our
Speaker 1: mission is not just too continue the concept of American exceptionalism,
Speaker 1: but to make sure that we continue with American exceptionalism
Speaker 1: as a way to show the path to other governments,
Speaker 1: other countries, other cultures. How do you think about the
Speaker 1: polarization that's going on in the country right now. I
Speaker 1: things coming out of the left and the right that
Speaker 1: just nauseate me, to be honest, and there is very
Speaker 1: little open communication and honest communication between the sides. I
Speaker 1: think what we've come to as a point where we
Speaker 1: are both so convinced of our righteousness that we have
Speaker 1: to condemn people that have opposing points of view. There
Speaker 1: is some sense that there was kind of an original
Speaker 1: sin in America and that that sin keeps coming back,
Speaker 1: you know, like once it's in you, it it's really
Speaker 1: hard to to get it out. How do you think
Speaker 1: about that? I guess, you know, you really hit it
Speaker 1: when you called it original sin, And this is the
Speaker 1: first time I've really thought about it in this context
Speaker 1: or this frame. So I think that our past is
Speaker 1: something we all have to recognize but to carry it
Speaker 1: forward and say we are somehow less of an exceptional
Speaker 1: nation and truly believe America is exceptional. Um to carry
Speaker 1: it forward as a scarlet, a scarlet s for slavery
Speaker 1: tattooed on our collective foreheads is neither going to fix
Speaker 1: any problem, nor does it reflect reality that we are
Speaker 1: a generous country. We are by and large a kind
Speaker 1: and welcoming country, and we are the one that should
Speaker 1: be the beacon of the world. So right now, I
Speaker 1: think we're in a crisis, in a moment of self
Speaker 1: realization or self actualization for America. What does America really
Speaker 1: stand for? Are we free to pursue our own happiness
Speaker 1: and not harm others? Are we still living up to
Speaker 1: the ideals of the Constitution, which is freedom, opportunity, and equality?
Speaker 1: And I would say not. I think we're on the
Speaker 1: threat right now. There's a group of people who have
Speaker 1: been misled thirty years about America just being for white,
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon Protestants, and they are afraid of the demographic
Speaker 1: shift that is going on there. Are really terrified that
Speaker 1: they won't be able to pursue happiness again, won't be
Speaker 1: able to have their freedom door somehow they're opportunities being
Speaker 1: curtailed because the demographics of America shifting to be more brown.
Speaker 1: Everything's race related now, I mean it. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a serious thing Pool technician Jonathan Craig, you know, police
Speaker 1: brutality all that. You know, it's crappy that properly does
Speaker 1: happened to black people, more African Americans, more than does most.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you ain't nothing. And then then needs
Speaker 1: to go with defund the police. Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to go that rat, well just let's just abolish to
Speaker 1: hold them system and everything. No police, no, none of that.
Speaker 1: And then we'll see whe're at in a year from
Speaker 1: now and see if you want to go to bring
Speaker 1: the baby. But we've definitely gotten away from our core
Speaker 1: principles I believe. I mean, just as far as like
Speaker 1: to say, you know, everybody created equal. I mean even
Speaker 1: you know women, I mean they still get you know,
Speaker 1: it's not as bad as I'm sure it was, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty or forty years ago. But I mean that that
Speaker 1: could get a little better too. But uh, I mean
Speaker 1: it's I regret to say that at the current moment,
Speaker 1: I think the the experiment is is in danger. It's
Speaker 1: in danger mostly because of complacency. We've become victims of
Speaker 1: our own success and our own privilege. And I think
Speaker 1: this is this, more than anything, is going to ruin us.
Speaker 1: Entrepreneur j Cho, So what would I change about America?
Speaker 1: Like stop pushing American military might to control resources and
Speaker 1: have you know, young people died for old people's selfish agendas,
Speaker 1: you know, hoologize to the indivigenous people and respect nature,
Speaker 1: all of that ship, you know, Like I would change
Speaker 1: all of that, But I think the root of it
Speaker 1: all really comes from being willing to try to learn
Speaker 1: more about people that might not look like you. And
Speaker 1: I think that America is a social experiment that can
Speaker 1: progress towards them because, like, how many societies do you
Speaker 1: know where an Asian kid growing up on hip hop
Speaker 1: and queens could naturally flow and have friends from all
Speaker 1: parts of the world, eat each other's food, make love
Speaker 1: with each other, and you know, eventually have kids and
Speaker 1: build families and basically create a whole new paradigm of
Speaker 1: what a community could look like. Because I reflect on
Speaker 1: what I've learned in these conversations, it occurs to me
Speaker 1: that over the past several decades, we've become two nations.
Speaker 1: One nation actively pushing for us to remember and to reconcile,
Speaker 1: to acknowledge some of the flaws and mistakes in our
Speaker 1: history and to address them, and a second nation that
Speaker 1: fears the future and wants things to return to the
Speaker 1: way it always was, to return to a time of forgetting.
Speaker 1: Maybe the way forward here is to remember something else.
Speaker 1: America has never feared the future and has never feared change.
Speaker 1: In fact, the founders knew we'd need to change and
Speaker 1: adapt to new and unforeseen circumstances. That's what the Constitution
Speaker 1: and the Amendments are for. As long as we respect
Speaker 1: one another, actively participate, and have the ability to agree
Speaker 1: to disagree civilly and respectfully, that America will find its way.
Speaker 1: Andreane Clark says it best America is for all people
Speaker 1: if you believe in those ideals of freedom for all,
Speaker 1: opportunities for all, and harm none, And that is possible.
Speaker 1: And I'm extremely patriotic. I say, uh, the Pledge of
Speaker 1: allegiance at schools and some of my students wonder why
Speaker 1: when opportunities aren't there for them, And I say, well,
Speaker 1: then you've got to grab the bull by the horn.
Speaker 1: And wrestle with it and make it work for you.
Speaker 1: If you believe in those ideals of freedom for all,
Speaker 1: be an American and be a good citizen, which means
Speaker 1: to participate and not let a certain segment of society
Speaker 1: take it from you or destroy it because they don't
Speaker 1: want to share in the dream of pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: or equality. And so governments must work for the greater good,
Speaker 1: for the greatest many, for the greatest pursuit. Folks, it's
Speaker 1: time to make the call. Is the American dream still real?
Speaker 1: Is America a place where all people are created equal,
Speaker 1: a place that welcomes people from all walks of life
Speaker 1: with open arms and opens the door to whatever future
Speaker 1: they want to create. Or has America itself become a bullshitter?
Speaker 1: Based on what I've heard today, I think we have
Speaker 1: to call bs. But remember, bullshit is a treatable disease,
Speaker 1: and so after the diagnosis, we always discuss a cure.
Speaker 1: America is a place that reinvents itself, and the Framers
Speaker 1: were wise enough to leave us with the tools we
Speaker 1: need to drive that reinvention. I think it's also worth
Speaker 1: remembering we've come back from worse places before this after
Speaker 1: the break, we'll hear some concrete solutions from a special guest,
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang. Stick with us, Welcome back. We've decided that
Speaker 1: there is a gap between the dream that America is
Speaker 1: selling and the actions that America is taking. So we're
Speaker 1: calling BS. But on this show, we believe BS is
Speaker 1: a treatable condition. So next, we're gonna talk about some
Speaker 1: potential cures with someone who has firsthand experience participating in
Speaker 1: our political system, Andrew Yang. You might know him as
Speaker 1: the person who introduced the country to universal basic income
Speaker 1: back in the last presidential Democratic primary. Running for office
Speaker 1: gave Andrew a critical vantage point to see what's wrong
Speaker 1: with a major part of our system, and he has
Speaker 1: some fascinating ideas to fix it. No matter where you
Speaker 1: fall on the political spectrum, I think you'll find his
Speaker 1: perspective as interesting as I did. Hey, Andrew, welcome to
Speaker 1: UH calling Bullshit, and thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us today. We really appreciate it, no problem, my friend,
Speaker 1: happy to be here. So you recently made two exciting
Speaker 1: announcements a new book, Forward and a new political party,
Speaker 1: the Forward Party, And we're going to get into those
Speaker 1: in just a second. But before we get into that.
Speaker 1: I want to continue down the path that I've been
Speaker 1: on for this episode, which is to try to figure
Speaker 1: out whether America is living up to its mission at
Speaker 1: the moment. So I've asked a handful of Americans to
Speaker 1: answer three questions, and I want to start the interview
Speaker 1: by asking you the same questions. The first one is
Speaker 1: what to the words the American Dream mean to you?
Speaker 1: I'm the child of immigrants myself, so the American dream
Speaker 1: is that you can come here and build a life,
Speaker 1: and your children will have opportunities greater than the opportunities
Speaker 1: that you've had, that each generation is going to do
Speaker 1: better than the one before. Second question, what would you
Speaker 1: say America's mission in statement or purpose? Statement? Actually is
Speaker 1: the first things that came to mind for me are life, liberty,
Speaker 1: and the pursuit of happiness. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: in the charter. Yeah, no, I think that's right. And
Speaker 1: and then the third question is how are we doing
Speaker 1: at living up to that mission right now? I believe
Speaker 1: we are doing very very poorly. If you stack up
Speaker 1: the United States relative to other countries, we are approximately
Speaker 1: twenty eight across measurements of education, mortality, equity, freedom, of expression,
Speaker 1: life expectancy with a down arrow like and declining, and
Speaker 1: that I believe is driving a lot of the anger
Speaker 1: and frustration where our quality of life is sinking into
Speaker 1: the mud. And then if you look up and say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's happening in terms of measures to correct this, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's really very little. Yeah, the statistics are are shocking.
Speaker 1: So yeah, let's let's get into the book Forward, which,
Speaker 1: among other things, really lays out the rationale for a
Speaker 1: third political party. What what inspired you to write this book?
Speaker 1: I ran for president, and after I came up the trail,
Speaker 1: I tried to figure out what the heck guy has
Speaker 1: been through and what I've learned. So I wrote down
Speaker 1: not just my own experiences, but also trying to pin
Speaker 1: down why we feel so stuck and why polarization is
Speaker 1: getting worse, and why it doesn't seem like big solutions
Speaker 1: are imminent. And I concluded that our system is working
Speaker 1: exactly as it's designed. It's just not designed to succeed.
Speaker 1: It's in many ways it's designed for polarization and stasis
Speaker 1: and increasing frustration, which at a national scale will result
Speaker 1: eventually in unrest and political violence, which we're already seeing
Speaker 1: so in that environment, I thought, well, someone needs to
Speaker 1: do something to try and moderate the polarization and change
Speaker 1: the incentives. And I ound a genuine solution where Alaska
Speaker 1: adopted open primaries and ranked Troy's voting last year, which,
Speaker 1: among other things, freed up Senator Lisa Murkowski to be
Speaker 1: the only Republican senator to impeach Donald Trump. So, realizing
Speaker 1: that there's actually a structural fix too, uh these incentives
Speaker 1: and are increasing polarization, I then thought, well, we should
Speaker 1: definitely do that. And if you're going to support ballad
Speaker 1: initiatives in red and blue states around the country, it
Speaker 1: certainly is, in my mind, almost impossible to do so
Speaker 1: as a member of one party or another, because then
Speaker 1: obviously if you showed up to UH a state where
Speaker 1: it was governed by the other party, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're problem. They're playing into their hands in
Speaker 1: a way. So I want to talk. I want to,
Speaker 1: you know, for for the listeners, sort of ease into
Speaker 1: it a little bit and say, um, you know, there
Speaker 1: were some stunning statistics about economic inequality. You know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of the roots of this polarization in the book,
Speaker 1: And I wondered if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about those. One of the things you said, for instance,
Speaker 1: is we're in the midst of the most extreme winner
Speaker 1: take all economy in the history of the world. The
Speaker 1: bottom eight percent of Americans own only eight percent of
Speaker 1: the stock market, and the bottom owned zero. What are
Speaker 1: some other data points that you would consider to be
Speaker 1: the sources of this polarization. Well, one thing I've seen
Speaker 1: very consistently is that mindset of scarcity ends up impeding
Speaker 1: your executive functioning by a measurable degree. One study had
Speaker 1: it at thirteen i Q points, so that's one standard deviation. Um.
Speaker 1: The simplest way to think about it is that if
Speaker 1: I put you in a situation where you're not sure
Speaker 1: how you're gonna pay next month's rent, uh, it doesn't
Speaker 1: just stress you out. It consumes your bandwidth to a
Speaker 1: point where you're more susceptible to bad ideas, You're more
Speaker 1: susceptible to negative impulses. And so we're doing that to
Speaker 1: a bulk of the American population at this point. I
Speaker 1: had dinner with a friend yesterday who said that what
Speaker 1: he figured out was that used to think about problems
Speaker 1: among the bottom of Americans and now he's realized that
Speaker 1: he had it in reverse. It's actually the bottom eight
Speaker 1: percent of Americans that are in tough straits. And there
Speaker 1: is a pattern where if you eliminate a middle class
Speaker 1: of a country, it becomes much more susceptible to, for example,
Speaker 1: authoritarian impulses. So this has been happening by the numbers
Speaker 1: for two to three generations in the United States, right,
Speaker 1: And as you just said, it has this huge blast
Speaker 1: radius on our culture. You know, unbelievable levels of anxiety
Speaker 1: and depression and epidemic of suicide and drug overdoses out
Speaker 1: there in the world. So this sense of slipping behind
Speaker 1: that to your friends point of Americans at some level
Speaker 1: are experiencing has led us to this sense of kind
Speaker 1: of impending doom, which partially is creating this polarization. You
Speaker 1: talk about the concept of political stress as well, and
Speaker 1: this was an eye opener for me. You you reference
Speaker 1: a study that compares the level of animosity between the
Speaker 1: left and the right just before the Civil War and today,
Speaker 1: and I found that to be pretty disturbing. We should
Speaker 1: be disturbed and tie one of the messages I'm trying
Speaker 1: to convey to people is that everything is on the
Speaker 1: table in America now and by that what I generally
Speaker 1: mean the bad stuff, like whatever kind of dark dystopian
Speaker 1: scenario you can conjure, it's on the table. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this political stress index is measured by a scholar named
Speaker 1: Peter Urchin and his colleague. He goes through various variables
Speaker 1: mapping out the levels of political stress and different historical
Speaker 1: time periods. And we are apparently right now at Civil
Speaker 1: war levels of political stress by his measurements, which you
Speaker 1: can probably see and feel. I mean, right now, forty
Speaker 1: two of partisans regard their political opponents as evil or
Speaker 1: their mortal enemies. Uh. And that lead to again unimaginable
Speaker 1: scenarios becoming real. And we saw an example of this
Speaker 1: on January six, right exactly. And you point out that
Speaker 1: this is particularly dangerous simply because so many people in
Speaker 1: America are armed, like to the teeth three million firearms,
Speaker 1: most heavily armed society in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: Lest listeners think that this is all doom and gloom,
Speaker 1: or that the book was all about doom and gloom,
Speaker 1: that is far from the case. It bristles with new
Speaker 1: ideas to attack these problems. Too many actually to go
Speaker 1: into today. But I want to get to the main
Speaker 1: set of ideas that you have for solving this. You're
Speaker 1: proposing a new political party, the Forward Party. What are
Speaker 1: you trying to accomplish? The Forward Party is a popular
Speaker 1: movement that consists of registered Democrats, independents, and registered Republicans
Speaker 1: who want our system to work better. And what we're
Speaker 1: trying to do is improve the incentives and enable genuinely
Speaker 1: resilient to my oocracy moving forward. So I just want
Speaker 1: to go back to first principles for a second. If
Speaker 1: you look at the U s Constitution, there's nothing about
Speaker 1: a political party anywhere. It turns out the founding fathers
Speaker 1: were quite anti partisan. John Adams said, the biggest nightmare
Speaker 1: would be if you had two parties just clashing all
Speaker 1: the time. And and and I know it's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that if you're trying to avoid authoritarianism,
Speaker 1: duopoly is one of the worst types of structure as
Speaker 1: you could erect, because then you have a one party.
Speaker 1: Let's say it succumbs to bad leadership, and then everyone's
Speaker 1: political and seidim sort of followed that leader, and they
Speaker 1: can cast the other one side as the as the
Speaker 1: you know the worst of two evils, and then you
Speaker 1: have virtually no institutional safeguards. Um, if you look around
Speaker 1: the world, the UK has five parties, Germany has seven parties,
Speaker 1: Sweden has eight parties, Netherlands has eight teen parties. And
Speaker 1: so in that system, if you have a party sucome
Speaker 1: to bad leadership, then it's a problem. But it's not
Speaker 1: an existential threat. Is not authoritarians. It's like, oh, that
Speaker 1: party has a real lack of at the helm, Like,
Speaker 1: let's just wait for them to figure that that out.
Speaker 1: But a do apply is actually uniquely vulnerable. It's very
Speaker 1: very poorly designed. And and so what the Forward Party
Speaker 1: is trying to do is one reduced polarization by installing
Speaker 1: mechanisms of open primaries matrois voting, and to give rise
Speaker 1: to a genuinely multipolar system where not about us the
Speaker 1: third party. I hope there are five or seven or
Speaker 1: nine parties, because that would just be a much more resilient,
Speaker 1: dynamic system that would be resistant to authoritarianism to a
Speaker 1: much higher degree. Right, like a lot of regular Americans,
Speaker 1: I don't really understand how the party system works or
Speaker 1: why it is the way it is today. People have
Speaker 1: tried to start new parties in the past. Why has
Speaker 1: that not worked to date and why will this one work? Oh?
Speaker 1: Thank you, ty, this is a very good question. So
Speaker 1: our current version of this duopoly has been up and
Speaker 1: running for let's call it a hundred fifty years, give
Speaker 1: or take. And so the political parties just kind of
Speaker 1: came up and made their own rules and then debeat
Speaker 1: it up. We're like, okay, we're gonna have just you
Speaker 1: and us, and then if there is another party that emerges,
Speaker 1: d apply. Makes it very, very difficult. And part of
Speaker 1: it is the voting system, but it's also ballot access,
Speaker 1: it's access to resources. So the single biggest change really
Speaker 1: needs to be open primaries and ranked choice voting because
Speaker 1: in a closed party primary system you really have next
Speaker 1: to no chance. I can use New York City as
Speaker 1: an example. So there's a Democratic Party primary and it's
Speaker 1: closed and Democrats out number Republicans in this environment something
Speaker 1: like five to one. So the Democratic primaries where all
Speaker 1: the real action is or the decision making is um
Speaker 1: and that's the norm. So it does turn out that
Speaker 1: there are there's an independent running from air, there's a
Speaker 1: libertarian running mayor that that probably like all these people,
Speaker 1: but their their chances are next to nothing. So if
Speaker 1: you had open primaries and rank choices voting, then people
Speaker 1: can make their own case to everybody. Um. And then
Speaker 1: even if you'd still have Democrats win, because of the numbers,
Speaker 1: they would be much more likely to integrate aspects of
Speaker 1: other people's platform. You'd have different candidates emerge, and some
Speaker 1: of them would actually, in my opinion, not just influence policy,
Speaker 1: but some of them might pull up sets and win. UM.
Speaker 1: So a lot of it's a mechanics problem where if
Speaker 1: in the absence of open primaries and rank choice voting,
Speaker 1: it would be very, very difficult for any third party
Speaker 1: to emerge. And if you look at the numbers right now,
Speaker 1: six of Americans want a third party sixty percent. Thing
Speaker 1: both sides are out of touch. Independence out number Democrats
Speaker 1: or Republicans by almost two to one. So if you
Speaker 1: look at those numbers, there's a massive void to be filled,
Speaker 1: a massive vacuum. But the reason why the vacuum is
Speaker 1: so big is because the two parties have made it
Speaker 1: almost impossible for a third party to meaningfully emerge. You know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of circular, so you have to have a
Speaker 1: mechanism switch in the primary system understood and rank choice
Speaker 1: voting and open primaries, as I understand it, are kind
Speaker 1: of two great tastes that go great together. Could you
Speaker 1: unpack those a little bit for listeners, just explain how
Speaker 1: those two things work. Right now, Congress has a national
Speaker 1: approval rating of but the re election rate for individual
Speaker 1: members is you're almost assured of getting your job back
Speaker 1: if you want your job back, which most of them do.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's just crazy, that's in't that's unbelievable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So then you look at the structures and say, how
Speaker 1: is this possible? And it turns out that three of
Speaker 1: the seats are safely democratic or safely Republican. If you
Speaker 1: get to the general you win. And so the entire
Speaker 1: name of the game for these three percent of representatives
Speaker 1: is just to avoid getting primaried. So how do you
Speaker 1: avoid getting primaried. You have to remain ideologically pure. You
Speaker 1: can't compromise is with the other side. If you do
Speaker 1: reach across the island compromise, you're more likely to get
Speaker 1: a challenger. So these incentives then push people into their
Speaker 1: corners and say working together is wrong and evil. So
Speaker 1: that's the system in part because if I am a
Speaker 1: member of Congress, I'm not taking my case to the
Speaker 1: general public. I'm taking my case to the ten or
Speaker 1: twenty most extreme voters in my district who are going
Speaker 1: to vote in the primary, either on the Republican side
Speaker 1: or the Democratic side. So the first step is to say, look,
Speaker 1: how about we have open primaries where anyone can vote
Speaker 1: uh when you're up a reelection, and that way immediately,
Speaker 1: instead of just having to appeal to the seventeen percent
Speaker 1: most extreme voters, you have to appeal to the general public,
Speaker 1: which would be an enormous moderating influence. Now, the mechanics
Speaker 1: of it are such that if you had open primaries
Speaker 1: without rank choice voting, then a scenario could occur where
Speaker 1: you have two Republicans and one Democrat, or two Democrats
Speaker 1: and Republican and you kind of cannabalize each other's votes.
Speaker 1: And that's the spoiler effect that everyone gets so upset about.
Speaker 1: So if you have ranked choice voting, then it eliminates
Speaker 1: a spoiler effect. You can vote for multiple candidates. If
Speaker 1: your top choice doesn't go through, then your vote flows
Speaker 1: through to the second person until someone gets a majority.
Speaker 1: Like you said, there to taste that taste great together,
Speaker 1: where if you have open primaries and ranked choice voting,
Speaker 1: they're actually both kind of moderating impulses because to succeed
Speaker 1: in a ranked choice voting field, you have to get
Speaker 1: a majority of people to at least be okay with you,
Speaker 1: and that tends to reward the coalition builders and punish
Speaker 1: the extremes. Yeah, incredibly important. So one of the other
Speaker 1: um planks I guess of this party is something that
Speaker 1: you term human centered capitalism. That's a topic that is
Speaker 1: near and dear to my heart. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: trying to throw capitalism out, we're just trying to evolve it.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about you know, the way that you
Speaker 1: think about that. Right now, you have these economic indicators
Speaker 1: that are GDP and stock market prices, and they're going
Speaker 1: been up even as more people are sinking into the dirt.
Speaker 1: So what I believe we should do is take our
Speaker 1: human well being and look at it the same way
Speaker 1: we do stock market prices and say, Okay, how are
Speaker 1: the kids doing, you know, how how are people doing,
Speaker 1: how are communities doing? And then if you saw that,
Speaker 1: you would see we're doing very poorly. And then you'd
Speaker 1: look up to our leaders and say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: still bad this year, Like, maybe you should focus on
Speaker 1: on how we're doing as opposed to um, you know,
Speaker 1: scoring political points. And so as someone who's run organizations,
Speaker 1: if you have the wrong measurements, you'll head in a
Speaker 1: very specific direction, right, And and so that is that
Speaker 1: leads to that that question you've you've long maintained that
Speaker 1: GDP is absolutely the wrong thing to be measuring. What
Speaker 1: should we be measuring. We should be measuring our health,
Speaker 1: our mental health, our kids ability to learn, our environmental
Speaker 1: quality are affordability and access to healthcare and education. And
Speaker 1: when I went around the country and I asked people
Speaker 1: about how they're feeling and doing, I mean it's pretty
Speaker 1: tough for for a lot of folks. Anxiety, depression, deaths
Speaker 1: of despair, or substance abuse. I mean, like those are
Speaker 1: the things they're seeing more and more. Right, One of
Speaker 1: the other ideas that jumped out to me beyond universal
Speaker 1: basic income, which obviously you got this into the national conversation,
Speaker 1: and it does appear to be slowly gaining traction, particularly
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. For instance, you also bring in the
Speaker 1: idea of grace and tolerance. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you say on the on the Forward Party website is
Speaker 1: most parties need an enemy. Our enemy is those who
Speaker 1: would cast our fellow Americans as enemies and as an
Speaker 1: existential threat. And I just wondered if you could talk
Speaker 1: more about that, because that that seems like the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to do. In a way, it's the softest language,
Speaker 1: grace and tolerance, but it's it's the thing that seemed
Speaker 1: to be most important, is to just stop demonizing each other.
Speaker 1: Grace and and tolerance, to me, is what's missing in
Speaker 1: American political life, and part because our incentives are all
Speaker 1: around getting people upset and angry. Where if I want
Speaker 1: to raise money for a cause, I'll talk about, hey,
Speaker 1: these people are trying to take away this. These people
Speaker 1: are wrong, immoral, and we need money to fight them,
Speaker 1: and that that's typically more successful than Look, they're human
Speaker 1: beings like us, they're Americans. You know, we we disagree,
Speaker 1: but let's try and find common ground. But you need
Speaker 1: a positive, unifying voice and force in American politics to
Speaker 1: try and tamp down the polarization that's just getting worse
Speaker 1: and worse. And part again, because all the incentives are
Speaker 1: driving us into corners where we'll attack the other side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean on this topic of grace and tolerance, some
Speaker 1: would say that, you know, in quote, the other side,
Speaker 1: no matter which side we're talking about, is so far
Speaker 1: gone that they're irredeemable. What do you say to folks
Speaker 1: who feel that way? I think if you feel that way,
Speaker 1: you really need to get down and talk to folks
Speaker 1: who might represent the tribe or group you're thinking of.
Speaker 1: Seventy five million people voted for Donald Trump. Like trying
Speaker 1: to categorize seventy million in one ideological bucket, or like
Speaker 1: having certain attitudes I think is impossible, really, you know,
Speaker 1: and like I have family members who voted for Trump,
Speaker 1: and so you could take any group of people and
Speaker 1: as long as you start humanizing them, you realize that
Speaker 1: we're being played and said against each other. One of
Speaker 1: the big lessons I learned and I tried to present
Speaker 1: in my book is that all politics is now tribal um.
Speaker 1: You think it's about policy, it's not. The correlation between
Speaker 1: what someone does politically or the way they identify and
Speaker 1: what they think about policy is actually very low. It's
Speaker 1: point to five according to one study. So in that context,
Speaker 1: you think Okay, it turns out we agree on let's
Speaker 1: call it lower drug prices or maybe even basic income. Now, um,
Speaker 1: so what is it we're disagreeing about? And we're disagreeing
Speaker 1: because we've been tribalized and trained to feel like the
Speaker 1: other tribe has lost it? Now. Are there dark and
Speaker 1: unsavory elements, uh, and extremes in any large group? Yes,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to characterize like a massive group
Speaker 1: or in this case literally tens of millions of people
Speaker 1: are half the country in a way that really erases
Speaker 1: their humanity. And that's what I think we're in danger
Speaker 1: of doing. Yeah. Some would argue that grace and tolerance
Speaker 1: have always been scarce in America, basically depending on who
Speaker 1: you are. And you opened by talking about the fact
Speaker 1: that you're a child of immigrants, Immigrants, people of color,
Speaker 1: indigenous people haven't experienced a lot of grace and tolerance
Speaker 1: from the beginning. What would you say to them? Well,
Speaker 1: what I would say is that, Uh, this country has
Speaker 1: a promise and this country he has not lived up
Speaker 1: to its promise in many, many historical circumstances. And there
Speaker 1: is an unfairness to ask someone who has been put
Speaker 1: in that position to embrace grace in tolerance if it
Speaker 1: has not been shown to you. But that is our
Speaker 1: better bet really in my view. You know, and because
Speaker 1: it's more difficult or even unfair, it does not make
Speaker 1: it any less necessary or powerful and actually makes it
Speaker 1: more powerful in my opinion. Yeah, and the alternative is unthinkable.
Speaker 1: So the alternative is going to lead us to ruin,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that's going to lead us where
Speaker 1: we want to go. I mean that that leads me
Speaker 1: to another question I had, which is, you know, you
Speaker 1: launched on October fourth, so it's still pretty recent, but
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the reaction so far? The
Speaker 1: action has been tremendous, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: most encouraged by is that groups of independent voters and
Speaker 1: third parties have actually already reached out to the Forward
Speaker 1: Party to say, hey, let's make common cause and work
Speaker 1: together because they see that this is something that everyone
Speaker 1: who wants to modernize the duopoly should be behind. I
Speaker 1: think if you're you know, like a partisan, you should
Speaker 1: behind this too, because you're like, look like the system
Speaker 1: is just really really vulnerable. You know, this is not
Speaker 1: very smart. Right, So in terms of you and and
Speaker 1: your plans. You know, you've You've run for president, You've
Speaker 1: run for the the mayor of New York. Are you
Speaker 1: going to run again in the future? Do you? Or
Speaker 1: do you feel like you Your job is to concentrate
Speaker 1: on coalition building and get this party off the ground.
Speaker 1: I'm determined to try to lighten up this polarization that's
Speaker 1: really threatening to destroy us. And so that means these
Speaker 1: balt initiatives, elevating like minded candidates. He'll be endorsing candidates
Speaker 1: and campaigning for them. So that's where my attention is.
Speaker 1: Is this democracy reform package, this structural incentive fix. It's
Speaker 1: gonna keep me very busy for the time being, but
Speaker 1: I'm fired up about it. I don't know what my
Speaker 1: future holds in terms of my running for office as
Speaker 1: a candidate, genuinely, you know, like I'm not playing coy,
Speaker 1: Like I really don't know what that looks like. Awesome, Andrew,
Speaker 1: last question, I asked this of every guest on the show.
Speaker 1: You know, our thesis is that we're trying to point
Speaker 1: out companies or organizations or countries in this case where
Speaker 1: there maybe a delta between the mission and the current
Speaker 1: state of affairs. And we've created a scale. We call
Speaker 1: it the bullshit scale. So zero is the best scores
Speaker 1: zero bullshit. There is no delta between word indeed, and
Speaker 1: one hundred is total total. So in on that scale,
Speaker 1: if our mission is life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness,
Speaker 1: how are we doing right now? Wow, that it's tough
Speaker 1: to throw a number on this. What what what I've
Speaker 1: said in my book and what I feel and believe
Speaker 1: is that right now we're not going to come close
Speaker 1: to full feeling the promise of America because our system
Speaker 1: is not set up for success. So if you were
Speaker 1: to say to me, hey, like, how are we doing
Speaker 1: on the BS meter? Unfortunately, the BS meter is going
Speaker 1: off when it comes to the United States and it's
Speaker 1: ability of fulfilled probs. It's one reason why we're all
Speaker 1: feeling like we're in deep trouble. I mean, like the
Speaker 1: promises not being fulfilled by a long shot. And so
Speaker 1: that that's what we have to change, and it's going
Speaker 1: to require very significant systemic change like that. This is
Speaker 1: not like an incremental type situation, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: We can all feel that. That's like the energy and
Speaker 1: the anger is building up, it's it's hitting in very
Speaker 1: very nasty directions, and so we need to try and
Speaker 1: get that BS meter closer to zero as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: But right now it's it's running into the danger zone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have to agree, unfortunately. But the future is
Speaker 1: a big place and you're going to play a big
Speaker 1: part in it. So I wanna thank you for being
Speaker 1: here today. Andrew's been great talking with you, and I
Speaker 1: really wish you the best for the Forward Party. Thank you,
Speaker 1: TI really grateful and again everyone listening to this. At
Speaker 1: this point, everything is on the table, so we might
Speaker 1: as well make good stuff on the table as well
Speaker 1: as bad stuff. So let's get some more good stuff
Speaker 1: on the table. Amen. Brother. One of the emerging themes
Speaker 1: of this season is purpose led organizations that have lost
Speaker 1: their way for one reason or another. America is one
Speaker 1: of them. To find our way back, we have to
Speaker 1: rejuvenate our shared purpose because a shared purpose is the
Speaker 1: glue that holds people together. That's true for companies and
Speaker 1: it's true for countries too. Making sure that you have
Speaker 1: a great purpose and that you are living that purpose
Speaker 1: is a way to make sure that the glue remains strong,
Speaker 1: and it makes organizations of all sizes, resilient over the
Speaker 1: long haul. I'd like to end the show it today
Speaker 1: by giving America an official Bullshit score based a lot
Speaker 1: I've heard today. I'm giving America a sixty two. That's
Speaker 1: pretty high, and I'm sure we all want to see
Speaker 1: it come down. To weigh in with your own score,
Speaker 1: or to leave us an audio message with your take
Speaker 1: on this episode that could be played in our season
Speaker 1: wrap up, visit our website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll also track America's behavior over time to see if
Speaker 1: we can bring that score down, and you'll also be
Speaker 1: able to see where America ranks on BS compared to
Speaker 1: the other companies and organizations we feature on the show.
Speaker 1: And if you're running a purpose led organization or you're
Speaker 1: thinking of beginning the journey of transformation to become one,
Speaker 1: here are three things you should take away from this episode. One,
Speaker 1: A powerful and unique purpose can give you a major
Speaker 1: advantage over your competitors by helping you attract more time, haunted,
Speaker 1: and more motivated people. There is no better example of
Speaker 1: that than America. Our purpose, when it was first expressed
Speaker 1: over two years ago, attracted so much motivated talent that
Speaker 1: we quickly moved to a leadership position in the world. Two,
Speaker 1: A great purpose invites people to not only join, but
Speaker 1: also to participate. A smart question to ask yourself is
Speaker 1: how can people actively participate in helping us to achieve
Speaker 1: our purpose? In America's case, Andrew Yang talked about some
Speaker 1: great ideas today for making our system easier to participate
Speaker 1: in open primaries and rank choice voting. And Three, a
Speaker 1: great purpose is only as good as the actions you
Speaker 1: take to make it real. In America's case, no matter
Speaker 1: how many times we say we're the land of opportunity
Speaker 1: and that all of us are created equal, if we
Speaker 1: don't make those things true for more people through action,
Speaker 1: they'll lose faith. A lot of us already have. Your
Speaker 1: purpose will undoubtedly be different than America's, as will the
Speaker 1: actions you'll need to take to make it real. Just
Speaker 1: remember doing is believing. I'd like to thank everyone who
Speaker 1: joined us today, Adrian Bonnenberger, Andrean Clark, Yvan Clark, Jonathan Craig,
Speaker 1: Jaki cho Today we means, MICHAELA. Read, David Safabian, Basil Soaper,
Speaker 1: Penelope Soaper, and Andrew Yang. Find out more about our
Speaker 1: guests today, including their social handles on our website Calling
Speaker 1: Bullshit Podcast dot com and check out Andrew's latest book,
Speaker 1: Forwards on the future of our democracy. If you have
Speaker 1: ideas for companies organizations we should consider for future episodes,
Speaker 1: you can submit them on the site too, And if
Speaker 1: we made you feel like pledging allegiance today, subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Calling Bullshit Podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And thanks
Speaker 1: to our production team Hannah Beale, Amanda Ginsburg, Andy Kim
Speaker 1: d s Moss, Hailey Pascalites, MICHAELA. Reid, Parker Silzer, Basil
Speaker 1: Soaper and me John Zulu. Calling Bullshit was created by
Speaker 1: co Collective and is hosted by Me Time onto you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening before you go, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what you think about the show. Maybe you were inspired
Speaker 1: to take action. Maybe you' disagree with today's bullshit rating.
Speaker 1: Either way, we want to hear about it. Leave us
Speaker 1: a message at two one two five oh five zero five,
Speaker 1: or send a voice memo to CBS podcast at co
Speaker 1: Collective dot com. You might even be featured on an
Speaker 1: upcoming episode.