Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
Speaker 2: I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3: And I'm made Silver.
Speaker 1: Today on the.
Speaker 2: Show, we're going to be talking about a series of
Speaker 2: protests that took place across the country this weekend, the
Speaker 2: no Kings protests. So we'll be talking about kind of
Speaker 2: what that means, the game, theory of it, the broader implications,
Speaker 2: whether we think this is a good strategy, all sorts
Speaker 2: of Risky Business. E takes on the protests, including why
Speaker 2: I'm scared of crowds. But before we get into all
Speaker 2: of that night, there was some news over the weekend
Speaker 2: that the louver was robbed and within seven minutes a
Speaker 2: team of robbers was able to get into the second
Speaker 2: floor window and steal some priceless jewelry. They got in,
Speaker 2: they got out. By the way, this was nine thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning, right, Like, this wasn't late at night,
Speaker 2: just completely brazen daytime robbery.
Speaker 3: Why would you accepting it then?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 4: I mean the French that with the French, I mean
Speaker 4: they're barely even woke up. They're having their third cup
Speaker 4: of coffee and their fifth cigarette, right, so they're just
Speaker 4: getting started.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I think nine thirty am they are
Speaker 2: still getting started. And yeah, the robbers they took a
Speaker 2: truck mounted ladder and then they gained access to the
Speaker 2: second floor, which was the Apollo Gallery, and so they
Speaker 2: were able to get some of the French Crown jewels
Speaker 2: that dated back to Napoleon, and eight of nine items
Speaker 2: remain unaccounted for. They dropped one.
Speaker 1: Which was really weird. They dropped a crowd. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you get a break?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I was like, how do you
Speaker 2: drop it? Like was your tote back wrong? Like what
Speaker 2: did something rip?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Were you using plastic bags?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: What's going on here?
Speaker 3: Are they going to sell you them? eBay? Where are
Speaker 3: they going to sell them?
Speaker 1: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Oh apparently actually they dropped two items and not not
Speaker 2: actually one item, So yeah, I have no idea. What
Speaker 2: do you do with crown jewels? I mean I guess
Speaker 2: one of the things you can do is take the
Speaker 2: jewels off, right, like somehow like break it apart and
Speaker 2: from priceless relic make it into just black market jewelry.
Speaker 4: It seems like not very economical, right, Like I don't
Speaker 4: have people seal duels that are not crown jewels, and
Speaker 4: like like who would buy would like, uh, maybe Trump
Speaker 4: would buy it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, the Crown of m
Speaker 2: PROSEUSIONI is the is the item that was identified the
Speaker 2: other one we don't know. By the way, that piece
Speaker 2: has three and fifty four diamonds and fifty six emeralds.
Speaker 2: That's insane. It was slightly damaged. It was slightly damaged,
Speaker 2: but it didn't completely break Okay. Also, like what the
Speaker 2: hell love like their security, Like I think this is
Speaker 2: the museum with the most number of robberies like that
Speaker 2: in the twentieth and twenty first century that I know
Speaker 2: of the Mona Lisa was stolen, right, Like that should
Speaker 2: be the one thing that like you're really really guarding
Speaker 2: really well, and they've had other break ins throughout history
Speaker 2: of Like, come on, French people, French security.
Speaker 1: Like, get your shit together. What's going on?
Speaker 3: If they just do things in their own way. I
Speaker 3: admire the French, I admire the friend.
Speaker 2: I listen, I admire the French. I admire the robbers here.
Speaker 2: And I'm so sorry tourists who you know, we're leaving
Speaker 2: your tour of the Mona Lisa to the last day.
Speaker 2: You know, you were planning to go on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: You were really.
Speaker 2: Excited, and then the museum ended up being closed because
Speaker 2: you know, some royal jewels were stolen. But this is,
Speaker 2: you know, talk about risky business. That's I think that
Speaker 2: your question, Nate, like I laughed at it, but like,
Speaker 2: what in the world are you.
Speaker 1: Going to do with it?
Speaker 2: Is a really pertinent question because this is a huge risk, right,
Speaker 2: like you are actually like if you're getting if you
Speaker 2: get caught, like that's seems like those consequences are going
Speaker 2: to be pretty dire. So you probably need to have
Speaker 2: a really good plan in place for what you're going
Speaker 2: to do and how you're going to profit from this heist.
Speaker 1: And a lot of.
Speaker 2: People don't think that far ahead and don't realize that
Speaker 2: a lot of stolen artifacts are really hard to move,
Speaker 2: right so unless maybe they have a buyer already, like
Speaker 2: maybe there's like somewhere an Elon Musk type figure. And
Speaker 2: I mean that in terms of like the amount of
Speaker 2: money that you have who is willing to pay you know,
Speaker 2: millions and millions of dollars for these specific crown jewels.
Speaker 4: If you if you buy stolen property. Isn't that like
Speaker 4: some felony or misscenario at least?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know the rules in France, but yes,
Speaker 2: absolutely and will we'll uh, there will definitely be Interpol
Speaker 2: on the case. And yes, there's definitely there are safeguards
Speaker 2: in place against buying them, but I'm assuming that the
Speaker 2: person who would purchase them would also do it completely
Speaker 2: you know, off the grid like some there are the blockchain,
Speaker 2: the blotching. Yes, all right, this this episode brought to you,
Speaker 2: this heist brought to you by bit Quiet Watching. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a it is a hilarious I mean not hilarious,
Speaker 2: but it is a funny bit of news. And maybe Nate,
Speaker 2: So we're recording this on Monday, October twentieth. Maybe by
Speaker 2: the time it airs on Wednesday, the thiefs will have
Speaker 2: been caught and that will be like a huge win
Speaker 2: for French police. But it took a long time for
Speaker 2: the Mona Lisa to be recovered when it was stolen,
Speaker 2: and I'm from Boston, I obviously remember like the Isabella
Speaker 2: Stuart Gardner Museum heist, which was huge those none of
Speaker 2: those works of art have been recovered, so it can
Speaker 2: take a really long time from moment of theft to
Speaker 2: actually recovering, and that moment of time could be never.
Speaker 2: So let's see what happens this time day. If you
Speaker 2: were going to rob a museum, purely hypothetically, what would
Speaker 2: you steal? Like, is there an item in a museum
Speaker 2: somewhere that you're like, man, I really just want this
Speaker 2: at home.
Speaker 3: No, because I would get caught.
Speaker 1: I'll get caught.
Speaker 4: I would go to like the little cafe when they
Speaker 4: have the jaded barista and take like, you know whatever
Speaker 4: five hundred bucks said. Yeah, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: want to deprive uh people of the opportunity to see art.
Speaker 3: I've always found it like a little.
Speaker 4: Bit strange to have like a really valuable piece of
Speaker 4: art in your private collection and we collect art like
Speaker 4: but nothing super Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Totally I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2: And I hate, you know, I hate when there are
Speaker 2: people who buy some like truly beautiful painting and then
Speaker 2: refuse to load it out, and like, I understand their
Speaker 2: insurance considerations, et cetera, et cetera, but come on, Like,
Speaker 2: if the Goggenheims could lend out their entire collection, like
Speaker 2: you can. You can make it work. And you know,
Speaker 2: I totally get wanting to live with a beautiful piece
Speaker 2: of art in your home, but you also like, you
Speaker 2: can't protect it and take care of it the same
Speaker 2: way a museum can. And I think there's a there's
Speaker 2: definitely a case to be made that sure, you can
Speaker 2: have it, but like lend it out, let people see it.
Speaker 2: Share the beauty, right, share the beauty with the world.
Speaker 2: And by the way, talking about risk, during the Palisade
Speaker 2: fires earlier this year, some absolutely irreplaceable works of art
Speaker 2: were destroyed, right Because you could be a billionaire with
Speaker 2: a gorgeous Pacific Highway house in Malibu or wherever, and
Speaker 2: your house.
Speaker 1: Goes up in flames and that's it unless you're the.
Speaker 4: Getty.
Speaker 2: The Getty was fine. The Getty has an incredibly sophisticated
Speaker 2: anti fire protection system, but most normal houses do not.
Speaker 2: So some works of art were really uh gone forever now.
Speaker 2: And that's a risk that you take when you have
Speaker 2: something like that in your home.
Speaker 1: Or in the louver.
Speaker 2: I guess the risk you take is that it's going
Speaker 2: to get stolen at some point. So yeah, no, I
Speaker 2: actually I agree with that. I don't think I wouldn't
Speaker 2: steal anything either, because I really do think that these
Speaker 2: art is to be shared right as art is something
Speaker 2: that makes us all uniquely human and it's such a
Speaker 2: beautiful thing for all of us to share in common.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to do some high risk crimes. I
Speaker 3: can think of a lot more fun positively the high
Speaker 3: risk crimes.
Speaker 2: Maria, I totally, yeah, absolutely like what Nate, hypothetically speaking,
Speaker 2: we'll take this, we'll take this off the podcast well
Speaker 2: more more for our pushkin plus subscribers.
Speaker 3: What would want crime?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so our would be criminal spree, Nate is short
Speaker 2: lived because we've decided that we're not going to steal
Speaker 2: anything from the art museum, but we will retain the
Speaker 2: optionality of doing something that's going to be lower risk
Speaker 2: and higher reward. On that note, let's talk about the
Speaker 2: No King's protests that happened over the weekend. Nate, did
Speaker 2: you participate?
Speaker 3: No, A, It's not my vibe.
Speaker 4: Although I'm sympathetic to change the protesters and b I
Speaker 4: in certain ways, I do take myself seriously as a journalist,
Speaker 4: and I think if I went, it would be appropriate
Speaker 4: to cover them more arms length and not to participate
Speaker 4: but you know, we can talk about that or not.
Speaker 3: Did you, Maria.
Speaker 2: I did not for various reasons, but the biggest one
Speaker 2: of which is I can't deal with crowds, like I
Speaker 2: hate events where there no, I really can't, Like I
Speaker 2: get really clustrophobic and really anxious.
Speaker 1: And I know, I look, you are both.
Speaker 4: We both live I know, in New York City and
Speaker 4: Las Vegas, which I maybe I mean not in the world,
Speaker 4: but there's.
Speaker 2: A very different so there's so there's a very different
Speaker 2: mentality when you're in a huge crowd of people protesting
Speaker 2: versus like, you know, on a commute. And just to
Speaker 2: just to give you an example, so this Saturday, which
Speaker 2: is when the protests were happening, I went to Grand Central,
Speaker 2: where I never go. I hate Grand Central, but I
Speaker 2: went because it really Yeah, Grand Central's nice, it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: but I just, oh, I don't like any of the
Speaker 2: like I don't like going to train stations like and
Speaker 2: if I go there, it's for travel, but like Grand Central,
Speaker 2: I never have to use like for whatever reason, you know,
Speaker 2: I never travel out of Grand Central anyway. So I
Speaker 2: went there specifically to see the Dear New York exhibition
Speaker 2: from Humans of New York that was closing this weekend.
Speaker 2: It was two weeks during which Grand Central all of
Speaker 2: the advertising was taken off and it was completely taken
Speaker 2: over by the humans of New York Photography. And they
Speaker 2: also had a Steinway piano which was donated that was
Speaker 2: in the middle of the hall, and they had Juilliard
Speaker 2: musicians play during the day and some other cameos. Anyway,
Speaker 2: so this was a big thing and I wanted to
Speaker 2: see it, and I ended up leaving very quickly because
Speaker 2: going the day before it closed was not a good idea.
Speaker 2: And it was so ridiculously crowded and there were so
Speaker 2: many people that I couldn't appreciate the photography and the
Speaker 2: art and all of these things, because not only could
Speaker 2: I not see anything, but I was being jostled from
Speaker 2: every single side, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: it's not I'm getting out of here. Like I actually
Speaker 2: started feeling, you know, this sense of claustrophobia and anxiety.
Speaker 2: So I don't do well in situations where there are
Speaker 2: too many people near me. I hate crowded subways.
Speaker 1: Night.
Speaker 2: Whenever I see one that's too crowded and I have
Speaker 2: to get on, I'm like oh, man, I suddenly envision
Speaker 2: the worst case scenario, which is that we get stuck, right,
Speaker 2: that we get stuck in between stations, and I'm on
Speaker 2: this ridiculously crowded subway car and I have been something
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just really I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I just really do not like crowds. It's something that like,
Speaker 2: I get very anxious over. So no, I did not
Speaker 2: go to that protest, and I'm not a protest person.
Speaker 2: But the underlying question was kind of was there for
Speaker 2: a reason, which is that if we think about protests
Speaker 2: in a broader sense, there's a very strong kind of
Speaker 2: game theoretic reason why protests are powerful, and that has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with like, oh, you're in a crowd,
Speaker 2: but everything to do with signaling. Right, So a protest,
Speaker 2: there's I didn't not go because I don't think it's
Speaker 2: not worth it. I didn't go because just personally, I,
Speaker 2: like I said, I hate crowds. But I do think
Speaker 2: it's worth it for the simple reason that there's coordination
Speaker 2: issues and kind of there's power in sending a very
Speaker 2: strong signal that people can then look at to say, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not the only one who feels this way, there
Speaker 2: are lots of people who feel this way. And now
Speaker 2: I know, right now that I know that there is
Speaker 2: all of this support out there for something that I
Speaker 2: believe that is not always visible because when you're online
Speaker 2: kind of in you know, Twitter or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: you see a very specific subset of opinions. You're in
Speaker 2: a very specific bubble. But protests throughout history, when people
Speaker 2: go out in public, it's a signaling mechanism, right, and
Speaker 2: it's then a coordination mechanism where you can actually point
Speaker 2: to it and say, Okay, look, you know, here's a
Speaker 2: group of people who hold certain views, and that can
Speaker 2: be incredibly powerful for future momentum and future decision making.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's even more powerful when we're talking
Speaker 2: about truly authoritarian regimes countries where there's very little communication
Speaker 2: between people. We're not there yet in the United States,
Speaker 2: but it's powerful even in a democratic society.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, these process had a very large scale. They happened
Speaker 4: in hundreds of cities. I'm always a little bit skeptical
Speaker 4: of crowd sized estimates, which tend to be overestimates, but
Speaker 4: several million, I think it's safe to say, which makes
Speaker 4: it quite high on a list of like all time
Speaker 4: one day protests at least. I mean, look, as you
Speaker 4: get a larger size of crowd, then these things tend
Speaker 4: to become a little bit more amorphous, right, And you
Speaker 4: can see various critiques like, Okay, maybe the protests are
Speaker 4: a little bit cringe and considering who we're dealing with, right,
Speaker 4: we're dealing with like kind of like mostly boomery, good
Speaker 4: government democrat types. Yeah, they're a little cringe, right, And
Speaker 4: like the message just when you can critique, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Does no kings quite makes sense?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure the idea is Trump is a king
Speaker 4: so much as an authoritarian.
Speaker 3: Those aren't quite the same thing exactly, But.
Speaker 4: It kind of doesn't matter because like what you're trying
Speaker 4: to do is a demonstrate that, like, you know, yes,
Speaker 4: we don't have elections all that often, and yes, last
Speaker 4: time we had an election, Trump one narrowly, but there
Speaker 4: are a lot of us number one, you know, a
Speaker 4: conservative reminder to like the the media and things like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, Trump is not that popular in the polls.
Speaker 4: He's not popular in the polls. He's not that unpopular either, right,
Speaker 4: but like you know, these things can be a spectacle
Speaker 4: in part and attract attention, that is, if anything like
Speaker 4: a little bit outsize relative to the number of people participating, right,
Speaker 4: because they're physical, they're outside there. In some cases do
Speaker 4: you seem to be rather gentle minded, but they can
Speaker 4: be like confrontational.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If you look at the number of students of the people.
Speaker 4: Participating in the pro Palestinian protests over the past year
Speaker 4: and a half, those are not I'm being honest, those
Speaker 4: are not particularly large protests.
Speaker 3: If you'd look look at the numbers for that. It's
Speaker 3: not like Kings or something like that.
Speaker 4: Right, However, they still got a ton of media coverage
Speaker 4: shipped the narrative. I'm not sure whether they shifted the
Speaker 4: narrative in the direction of protesters wanted they, but they
Speaker 4: have they have a big effect potentially, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure. And I do think that the narrative is
Speaker 2: also something that's that's quite important. So I mentioned before
Speaker 2: kind of the signaling mechanism, which is on an individual
Speaker 2: level I think important to then coordinate action further down
Speaker 2: the line. But also framing the narrative is, especially in
Speaker 2: the modern age, something that is really important in an
Speaker 2: intentionally divided economy. Right, it to not in the past
Speaker 2: where everyone watched one single TV show, right, or one
Speaker 2: single news channel, and there was kind of this collective
Speaker 2: knowledge of like, oh, these are the things that are
Speaker 2: in the news, et cetera, et cetera. These days, it's
Speaker 2: very fragmented, right, There's a very fragmented media landscape, and
Speaker 2: so many different things are vuying for our attention on
Speaker 2: any given basis. And the Trump administration has shown itself
Speaker 2: to be much better than a lot of democratic operatives,
Speaker 2: to be perfectly honest at capturing attention and creating a narrative,
Speaker 2: right and creating something that makes it feel like it's
Speaker 2: this inevitable all American force, and something like the No
Speaker 2: King's protest is a really interesting moment that can potentially
Speaker 2: shape the narrative of weight.
Speaker 1: You know, we have.
Speaker 2: Protesters in the heart of Red Texas and all of
Speaker 2: these different areas, and they've all come out, and they've
Speaker 2: all coordinated, and it's a pretty significant number of people,
Speaker 2: and so it's a I think it's a way of
Speaker 2: creating a counter narrative to a lot of what we
Speaker 2: see online.
Speaker 3: And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2: This might lead us Nate to kind of a broader
Speaker 2: consideration of you know, what matters, right when you're trying
Speaker 2: to kind of craft this craft a narrative that actually
Speaker 2: changes minds and changes action, because one of the critiques
Speaker 2: one can have of things like protest is, well, you're
Speaker 2: not actually doing anything right. You're not voting, you're not lobbying,
Speaker 2: you're not changing legislation, you're not reaching out to your
Speaker 2: congress people like, you're not doing anything like that. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, you're doing something because you're sending
Speaker 2: a signal to the government. You know that these are
Speaker 2: the things that matter here where people who feel this
Speaker 2: way live, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let
Speaker 2: me let me just let me just stop there and
Speaker 2: get your thoughts on this and on because of your thoughts,
Speaker 2: your thoughts more broadly kind of about the effectives of
Speaker 2: certain tactics versus other when you're trying to shape a
Speaker 2: narrative that with the ultimate goal, because presumably this is
Speaker 2: the ultimate goal of change, right, of actually affecting real
Speaker 2: change in the government, in government policies and in what
Speaker 2: happens in the country going forward.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I mean compared to other things, I say,
Speaker 4: protesting is relatively effective. I mean, like I you know,
Speaker 4: protesting is higher effort than voting, and voting is samously
Speaker 4: questionably rational. I suppose if you live in the state
Speaker 4: like New York, you have your you can voting about it.
Speaker 4: But like, as you don't New York, you're voting.
Speaker 3: Voting kind of.
Speaker 1: As a.
Speaker 4: Symbolic act does a specific act is a protest almost
Speaker 4: and not necessarily is like I'm actually influence the election result, right. Yeah, Look,
Speaker 4: part of it is I don't like the people that
Speaker 4: kind of talk about like setting the narrative very often
Speaker 4: are very good about setting.
Speaker 1: I think that's very true.
Speaker 4: And you know, a critique the Democrats strategy on the shutdown,
Speaker 4: right because like it's like it's like too narrow and
Speaker 4: like it's not you know, I don't know, right, And
Speaker 4: it's like you have to focus on healthcare, right, But
Speaker 4: their question is not about healthcare. If you look at
Speaker 4: like Google searches for healthcare, people are not particularly focused
Speaker 4: on that. It's not what they're I mean, they care
Speaker 4: about healthcare, it's like not what their heart is into.
Speaker 3: So have us kind of like.
Speaker 4: Amorphous outpouring of peaceful anti Trump sentiment. That's kind of
Speaker 4: more not normy. I'm sure that people there are watching
Speaker 4: what then was NBC and reading lotless substacks, right, but like,
Speaker 4: but to have this kind of.
Speaker 3: More normy vibe, I think you.
Speaker 4: Worthwhile, right, and you know it's trobably more effective than
Speaker 4: they shut down, which agin I think it's how and
Speaker 4: thank for Democrats very much at all. You know, so
Speaker 4: I do not think you know, people in Blue Sky
Speaker 4: can quote me on this. I do not think that
Speaker 4: we are on like the doorstep to authoritarianism. I think
Speaker 4: I think America has I think it's the over simplication, right,
Speaker 4: I think America has a lot of robust checks and
Speaker 4: balances which are being substantially fraid. I think we might
Speaker 4: be in like the ante room before the doorstep, though, right,
Speaker 4: ye and gef there are actions such as like Trump
Speaker 4: trying to make it difficult for people to vote in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight for example. Right,
Speaker 4: I mean you can imagine open defiance to leave the
Speaker 4: White House after his term is over, open defiance of
Speaker 4: a Supreme Court order. You know, one thing that I'll
Speaker 4: hear from is you'll see you'll hear your kind of
Speaker 4: democratic activists types kind of say, like, look, I realized
Speaker 4: that if you're kind of like leading your life, then
Speaker 4: things might seem pretty normal unless you're an immigrant or
Speaker 4: unless you's these other you know, a student, unless it's
Speaker 4: other sugar categories. And like in some sense and some
Speaker 4: since Trump has been smart about that, right, Like he's
Speaker 4: been smart about like the world doesn't feel like it's
Speaker 4: in chaos if you live in in New York, right,
Speaker 4: And I even think that, like, you know, there are
Speaker 4: things like the ice raids and National Guard deployments in
Speaker 4: different cities and things like that, right, and if you're
Speaker 4: very politically aware of these will seem a whole right,
Speaker 4: But like I don't think they're noticeable for ordinary people either, right,
Speaker 4: Like I was in Chicago for a talk the you know,
Speaker 4: the we can There are a bunch of ice actions
Speaker 4: there on the South side of Chicago, and like I
Speaker 4: actually had a bunch of like political conversations there. I mean,
Speaker 4: I have friends there who are interested in politics, and
Speaker 4: they woud talk where we talking abouts and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and like it didn't really come up, right, not because
Speaker 4: of what they think about Politicia unaware of it though,
Speaker 4: because like you know, I think there's this gap between
Speaker 4: the way that political insiders and political message crafts people
Speaker 4: who are very online experience politics and the way that
Speaker 4: ordinary people do. I mean talking about a protests that
Speaker 4: has mass numbers millions, millions, you're bridging that gap like
Speaker 4: a little bit, right, because you know what percent of
Speaker 4: people watch MSNBC, Box and New CNN. It's like one
Speaker 4: percent of the country like watching them on the given day.
Speaker 4: It's like quite small, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really small and if anything, probably you know
Speaker 4: political surveys or bioteople who participate, right, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: like you know, the number of MSNBC viewers and the
Speaker 4: demo was in like the low to mid six digits
Speaker 4: usually meaning eighteen to forty nine or how they define that, right.
Speaker 4: You know a lot of older people who are just
Speaker 4: kind of watching TV and maybe not doing that much else.
Speaker 4: But yeah, people kind of miss these scale things and
Speaker 4: like and the number one problem that like political strategies,
Speaker 4: most polical strategists have is like they think exactly the
Speaker 4: opposite from how from how the normies do, right, and
Speaker 4: you know, a more narrow protest, right, like you know,
Speaker 4: I would take again the GOSPAP protests as something that
Speaker 4: have like relatively fear both, right, and they spin out
Speaker 4: on the things and there's messing that might be dumb
Speaker 4: in whatever health, right, But like you know, on a university,
Speaker 4: we want the university to bess these investments and changes
Speaker 4: policy and this and that, right, you know. And those
Speaker 4: are pretty narrowly targeted protests, but smaller in scale. This
Speaker 4: is amorphous. I mean things like Occupy Wall Street, which
Speaker 4: was not particularly large protests, right, but like where the
Speaker 4: Tea Party is an example on the Republican conservative side
Speaker 4: a little bit more right, that's a little bit i'morphous.
Speaker 4: And amorphosis can be good because like you want different
Speaker 4: people to be able to interpret it in different ways,
Speaker 4: and you know, the overall sentiment is clear enough Trump
Speaker 4: babert aboutthoritarrying rule or monarchical rule. I'll give them a
Speaker 4: credit of paths on the imprecise metaphor.
Speaker 2: What do you think is more effective having a protest
Speaker 2: that has very clear stated goals or ones that are
Speaker 2: expressing these broader sentiments, Because I don't know what your
Speaker 2: perception of Occupy Wall Street's ultimate effectiveness was. Mine was
Speaker 2: that not much ended up changing. It was also Occupy
Speaker 2: Wall Street. By the way, it was on a much
Speaker 2: smaller scale than what we're talking about with No Kings.
Speaker 2: But what's your sense of Like if you were trying
Speaker 2: to be like, Okay, you know, I want people to
Speaker 2: be aware of all of these I want draw attention
Speaker 2: to all of these excesses happening that people might not
Speaker 2: be aware of unless they're very like politically tied in.
Speaker 2: I want them to be aware of, you know, tipping
Speaker 2: points in kind of the legal structure, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 2: that some of these checks are you know, yes, so
Speaker 2: far democracy is holding. We do have robust checks and balances,
Speaker 2: but we are in the ante room, as you said,
Speaker 2: as you phrased it, and like some of these things
Speaker 2: are really being strained, and a lot of people don't
Speaker 2: seem to be aware of that. Like if you were
Speaker 2: organizing a protest, would it look like the No Kings
Speaker 2: protest broadly speaking? Broadly speaking, like let's as you say,
Speaker 2: you know, let's ignore the semantics, Like would it be
Speaker 2: kind of more amorphous like general sentiment, like please work
Speaker 2: with us legislators and like let's try to figure out
Speaker 2: a strategy to counter this, or would you say you
Speaker 2: know what before we do this protest, like, let's think
Speaker 2: of three big goals and like have everyone have posters
Speaker 2: with those you know, with those goals, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and like actually try to do something that is more
Speaker 2: targeted but still broad. I don't know that I have
Speaker 2: a clear answer to that, so I'm curious whether you do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I don't know if I'm the extra don
Speaker 4: protests here. By the way, I think I could buy
Speaker 4: Wall Street. We punched someone above its weight, like a
Speaker 4: kind of introducer at least popularized the praise. We're the
Speaker 4: ninety nine percent than the one percent, and like that's true.
Speaker 4: That's a means for many years, fourteen years later, whatever
Speaker 4: it is is pretty powerful potentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's so funny. I totally forgot that that
Speaker 2: came from Occupy Wall Street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: Look, I think you have different issues here. What is
Speaker 4: that Although Trump is unpopular, he's not enormously unpopular. He
Speaker 4: won election twice, including just you know, not quite a
Speaker 4: year ago, and the critiques.
Speaker 3: Of him are kind of disparate.
Speaker 4: Right, people don't like, you know, some people are to
Speaker 4: chinking about the economy, which I think might be a
Speaker 4: more appropriate such a per focus in part because like
Speaker 4: it is no whole day to day A little bit
Speaker 4: more people are concerned about immigration or authoritarism, they are
Speaker 4: long standing concerns about climate change and.
Speaker 3: Whatever else.
Speaker 4: People think he's the racist, naphobic, sexist, people think he's corrupt.
Speaker 4: I'm not. I'm not unendorsing any of these ideas, by
Speaker 4: the way, right, But like Trump has always given people
Speaker 4: so many such a large attack surface to term is
Speaker 4: different ways in that like it actually kind of renders
Speaker 4: itself toward it ineffective, right, And so like, on the
Speaker 4: one hand, it might seem like the way to attack
Speaker 4: that is to focus on one particular avenue, right, However
Speaker 4: a is at the right avenue and be like I
Speaker 4: think Karen Tula, that might that might work less well,
Speaker 4: right because like remember one again, all the total anti
Speaker 4: Trump democratic energy, they're trying to make a shutdown about healthcare.
Speaker 4: If you read the newsletters, read the sub sex of
Speaker 4: little Subtext or blue Sky whatever else, right, maybe one
Speaker 4: or two percent of the messages are about healthcare from
Speaker 4: like not the actual base, but like the activist online
Speaker 4: part of the base, right, And so like, you know,
Speaker 4: you're kind of losing people there a little bit. Number two,
Speaker 4: Trump is very very good at like changing the subject
Speaker 4: or redirecting attention. Right, So if he ever has a weakness,
Speaker 4: he's like it's so the metaphor of like Trump being
Speaker 4: a ship that you have different kind of which to attack, right,
Speaker 4: Like it doesn't quite work because it can fight back
Speaker 4: in different ways. Right, yeah, so you know, yeah, maybe
Speaker 4: having this kind of like more amorphous kind of gathering
Speaker 4: of energy.
Speaker 3: You know what I don't know of having I been
Speaker 3: a protests, right, you know, the most important thing is
Speaker 3: probably are you gathering.
Speaker 4: Lists of people who can become politically organized in in
Speaker 4: different ways? And importantly for me, you know, can you
Speaker 4: have these that are outside the offices of the kind
Speaker 4: of capital D democratic party? Right?
Speaker 3: I think the cretic parties.
Speaker 4: Often have healthy at like the local and state level,
Speaker 4: But like I to a Frisch approximation, think that like
Speaker 4: every person in afficition of power and their Credit Party
Speaker 4: should be fired, right, Like I think the party is lost.
Speaker 3: No, I mean seriously, like the the Credit Party is
Speaker 3: like lost, Like you know, it lost an election to
Speaker 3: Trump twice.
Speaker 4: Right. Renominating Joe Biden was a good idea all the
Speaker 4: leaders are too fucking old, like anybody over the age
Speaker 4: of fifty in a leadership position, Let's let's have a
Speaker 4: generational goodbye, right, and if you're the age of fifty,
Speaker 4: their credit party, I think should well. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: Democrats goals may be better off if those people were
Speaker 4: were you know, replaced. Do you want to take a
Speaker 4: couple of mulligans or exceptional right, But like, you know,
Speaker 4: so they have like you know, so, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 4: so sure that it's so far from what I indoors
Speaker 4: I can the vibe is not mine. It feels a
Speaker 4: little cringe to me. But like the cringe is okay,
Speaker 4: creates happens when you have mass support for something, right,
Speaker 4: it's inherently a little cringe. If you go like a
Speaker 4: NFL game, the NFL is the most popular sport, cringe.
Speaker 4: I love football, Right, they're a little bit cringe. Parades
Speaker 4: are fucking cringe at right, Holidays are cringe. I mean,
Speaker 4: all these things that are really popular are like, you know,
Speaker 4: so watch American Idol. American Idol is cringe. Like popular
Speaker 4: things are cringe for you.
Speaker 2: Oh man, don't get me started on parades. I used
Speaker 2: to live right next to the Halloween rad and.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and New York.
Speaker 3: Canceled because of that.
Speaker 1: That's what happened.
Speaker 2: So so I had lived in the West Village for
Speaker 2: my like my all of my New York existence, you know,
Speaker 2: that's where I moved when I just moved from, uh
Speaker 2: from Boston and just loved the area and stayed there.
Speaker 2: And so every single year I saw, you know, the
Speaker 2: havoc that happened with the with the Halloween parade, and
Speaker 2: knew that like basically on Halloween, I had to just
Speaker 2: stay in my apartment and like don't do anything that
Speaker 2: crosses Seventh Avenue. And then one day decide I saw
Speaker 2: like there was a restaurant I really wanted to go to,
Speaker 2: and like finally saw reservation pop up, and I was
Speaker 2: like yay and took it. And of course the reservation
Speaker 2: popped up because it was on the other side of
Speaker 2: Seventh Avenue.
Speaker 3: Walter Day. It really if you haven't experienced, it's very
Speaker 3: hard to like but go up to like a roof
Speaker 3: tower and like finally to the streets and their guests.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly exactly. It's it's horrifying and we'll be back
Speaker 2: right after this. You know, it's interesting to talk about
Speaker 2: this and to and to talk about like the importance
Speaker 2: of general lives because if you and I, when you
Speaker 2: and I talked about, you know, the best way to
Speaker 2: organize a little less than a year ago, Nate and
Speaker 2: we were talking about, you know, what's what can democrats do?
Speaker 2: We decided collectively that they needed to focus on a
Speaker 2: few issues. And when we were talking about how do
Speaker 2: they win, right before Trump got elected, we were saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: you know, your messaging should be focused on a few
Speaker 2: issues where you can actually get votes, where people are
Speaker 2: passionate about this, because the Trump campaign was much more
Speaker 2: effective at that and we were saying, you know, I
Speaker 2: remember you talking about immigration and saying, hey, Democrats, like
Speaker 2: immigration's not your issue, Like stop talking about that instead,
Speaker 2: like let's try to focus on on things that like
Speaker 2: healthcare right that could actually be much more effective. Then
Speaker 2: we were talking, you know, with the shutdown, et cetera,
Speaker 2: that we should really be focusing on, like let's focus
Speaker 2: on tariffs, Like let's let's do something focused when we're
Speaker 2: talking about inside the government, and yet our advice for
Speaker 2: people kind of outside the government seems to be to
Speaker 2: have more of that vibe type of approach where you have,
Speaker 2: as you say, cringe but we don't have to call
Speaker 2: them crinch. But when you have these large scale events
Speaker 2: that just show a general state of malaise, displeasure and
Speaker 2: opens the opens the conversation up for policymakers to kind
Speaker 2: of act in different ways as opposed to like pinpointing
Speaker 2: one specific thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's the other thing is like, if you're a
Speaker 4: political operative, then ironically you have like often a very
Speaker 4: short term time horizon, right. You know, you have a
Speaker 4: job where you get up and were the office of
Speaker 4: eight thirty every every Monday. Maybe it's a romantic snacing
Speaker 4: of it, right, but like, but you know you have
Speaker 4: particular goals you have for that day, that week. That
Speaker 4: news cycle right in the media is the same way, right,
Speaker 4: we have to we have to you know, some weeks, Maria,
Speaker 4: we have eight things people to talk about, right, some
Speaker 4: weeks it's a well struggle, right, but you kind of
Speaker 4: even the ow and something to come talking to point
Speaker 4: and so like you know, yeah, it should be more
Speaker 4: long term focus. Right. We still have more than a
Speaker 4: year until the midterm elections, even we have more than
Speaker 4: three years until the presidential election. And so yeah, you know, look,
Speaker 4: the direct Party has always been that historically they're kind
Speaker 4: of like this collection of different interest groups, right that
Speaker 4: Democrats were collection of young people and union workers and
Speaker 4: people of color and college professors.
Speaker 3: And like you know, gay people and other people who.
Speaker 4: Are you know, you know, ex communists, and like a
Speaker 4: whole monthly crew of different types of folks that like
Speaker 4: don't necessarily have that much interest in common but might
Speaker 4: be marginalizing some ways, kind of like when you get
Speaker 4: it intellectuals, right, you know what the Democratic Party is now,
Speaker 4: it's a little bit less clear, Right, It's lost some
Speaker 4: support from every one of those groups except the point
Speaker 4: he headed intellectuals basically, right, it's loss of kiss among
Speaker 4: Hispanic and Asian Americans. It's some sport among black Democrats.
Speaker 4: It's also live support among like working class union worker
Speaker 4: type of Democrats. Right, it's also sport young people pecularly
Speaker 4: young men. Right. So, well, you know, you still don't
Speaker 4: have a lot of people who have their hat quote
Speaker 4: unquote issues with the environment or LGBT do plus rights,
Speaker 4: or over healthcare or or economics and authority. Right, and
Speaker 4: like when do you say, oh, let's focus on this
Speaker 4: one issue. Well, the other groups you're really upset, right,
Speaker 4: and they'll say, my issue is a matter of existential importance.
Speaker 4: There's with called special pleading, right, It's like very hard
Speaker 4: to like have you know, who gets to pick and
Speaker 4: choose what issues we prioritize and so like have seffy
Speaker 4: amorphous and it's project cussures, Like ambiguity is okay, you
Speaker 4: can be yeah, absolutely USU on your paper, the better.
Speaker 4: I'm like, it seems kind of weird, right, but I
Speaker 4: was pretty good at being optimizing for intiguity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not surprised, and I'm surprised, but no.
Speaker 2: I actually think that you just made a really important point,
Speaker 2: which is that you know this also having a protest
Speaker 2: that's like the no King's protest unites people right as
Speaker 2: opposed to feel having people feel like they're left out,
Speaker 2: Like this is not my protest, this is everyone's protest.
Speaker 2: This is like uniting on the absolute highest level issue.
Speaker 2: We believe in our democracy and we want to preserve it.
Speaker 2: Because if you think about kind of the psychology of
Speaker 2: in groups and out groups, right, we are very good
Speaker 2: at forming in groups and out groups based on anything, right,
Speaker 2: almost almost immediately, but we're also very good at unifying
Speaker 2: when you can actually kind of get a bigger issue
Speaker 2: that focuses on commonalities as opposed to divisions. And so
Speaker 2: I think that's something like a No King's protest test
Speaker 2: did a really good job of actually tapping into that
Speaker 2: element of psychology right on a high level, Like let's
Speaker 2: put our differences aside. Right, let's put aside whether like
Speaker 2: who we are and what to us is the existential issue,
Speaker 2: and how we feel about you know, all of these
Speaker 2: different people and all of these different policies, and instead
Speaker 2: let's focus on one thing, Like, let's we believe in America.
Speaker 2: We believe in democracy. We want to preserve this thing
Speaker 2: that the country was founded on. And I think that's
Speaker 2: why the No Kings like, even though not quite right,
Speaker 2: while symbolically it actually helps kind of get to that unification.
Speaker 2: It helps to harken back to a moment in history
Speaker 2: when America was united, right where it didn't matter what
Speaker 2: political party you were, it didn't matter, nothing mattered other
Speaker 2: than that we were fighting against the British and we
Speaker 2: wanted to be free.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, I mean this is a problem that you
Speaker 4: have in very online communities. Maybe more of the left
Speaker 4: and the right currently reasons explaining the moment. But like
Speaker 4: the notion of online combat on Twitter, blue Sky, Facebook, whatever,
Speaker 4: et cetera. Right, the notion of dunking on people achieving
Speaker 4: kind of social superiority. Right, I tat the people competing
Speaker 4: for hierarchy to tear down a hierarchy to regain putting
Speaker 4: in the hierarchy themselves. Right, And by definition it's kind
Speaker 4: of it's kind of exclusionary. Right. Republicans do lots of
Speaker 4: that too, they are fortunate enough to have this kind
Speaker 4: of And again I'm not a super lib Right, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say this in a way that believe is like
Speaker 4: a correct arms like fritigue, but like there is a
Speaker 4: substantial like personality cult around Trump that helps keep Republicans
Speaker 4: united with all types of long term cosmus to the country. Right,
Speaker 4: But like Democrats have no equivalent of right, So they're
Speaker 4: both exclusionary at least people kind of like the blue
Speaker 4: sky types and and leaderless really bad, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. It's like, we have a great idea, but
Speaker 4: we don't want you. You will while you're participating unless
Speaker 4: you agree with us in all these issues. Right, So
Speaker 4: the rep and inclusivity is is very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that that's a key issue that Democrats have
Speaker 2: been ignoring for too long and that they really really
Speaker 2: need to focus on, which is that it's okay, right,
Speaker 2: shades of gray are okay, and we want to include you,
Speaker 2: even if you don't check all of these boxes for
Speaker 2: kind of what the perfect liberal mind thinks on all
Speaker 2: of these issues, you know, what's in vogue on all
Speaker 2: of these things. I think that the Republicans have actually
Speaker 2: been much much better at including people in the party
Speaker 2: and saying, ah, fine, like you don't believe in that,
Speaker 2: but like, at least you you believe in Trump, you
Speaker 2: believe in this, Like, come on in. And I do
Speaker 2: think that the Democratic establishment has actually been very quick
Speaker 2: to I don't want to say like cancel, but to
Speaker 2: cancel their own right to say, well, like sure you're
Speaker 2: you're a Democrat, but you said something I don't like
Speaker 2: about this issue, and.
Speaker 3: So or to dismiss while groups of voters.
Speaker 4: You know, Hillary Clinton made the thing to mislike deplorable
Speaker 4: comment in twenty sixteen, I guess it was, which is
Speaker 4: saying like, yeah, you know, half of.
Speaker 3: Not all voters, half of Trump.
Speaker 4: Voters are irredeemable racist massaging that's deficerate and half are
Speaker 4: redeemable and a little bit misguided, right, which I think
Speaker 4: is actually probably might be about right is a kind
Speaker 4: of empirical statement, right, is a piece.
Speaker 3: Of political analysis.
Speaker 1: But like as a politician.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like and the fact is that like you
Speaker 4: never know where you find like this is a big
Speaker 4: kind of you know, people mistake, like the group tendency
Speaker 4: with the marginal pingdomcity right in any group. Sure, and
Speaker 4: I've tried to mathematically model this and like, but I
Speaker 4: won't get into the details.
Speaker 3: Now, in any group, there are always marginal voters, right.
Speaker 4: You know the fact that Trump would like go to
Speaker 4: the Bronx and say, I'm going to do a rally
Speaker 4: among the black community of South Bronx And if you
Speaker 4: look at the details, and a lot of people are
Speaker 4: not black and or not from the South Bronx or
Speaker 4: the bronxiul. Right, But like the fact that he's saying
Speaker 4: I would like to have your vote, right, Like, I
Speaker 4: don't think Democrats do the same thing. Right. They don't
Speaker 4: go and say to evangelical white church and say, you
Speaker 4: know what, you're as rationals you might want to hope
Speaker 4: for Democrats, right, maybe you kind of implicitly do it,
Speaker 4: and like who are on the center left are regarded
Speaker 4: as enemies by the far left and often vice versa,
Speaker 4: and so like it. It's you know, getting out of
Speaker 4: that mentality is essential.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely crucial, and I think, you know, the No
Speaker 2: King's protests is a really good step in that direction.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the main kind of takeaways here are like,
Speaker 2: coordination is important, and signaling is important at kind of
Speaker 2: understanding all of that from a game theory standpoint is important,
Speaker 2: but also inclusivity is important and trying to frame things
Speaker 2: in broad terms where you can actually unite people and
Speaker 2: focus on uniting as opposed to dividing and nitpicking and
Speaker 2: like you know saying oh, well you belong, but you
Speaker 2: really don't. You're not our perfect archetype of who we want.
Speaker 2: That it's really important to think in those types of terms.
Speaker 2: And the third thing that we haven't talked about as much,
Speaker 2: but we have mentioned is like people just don't think
Speaker 2: long term, Like if I don't do something right now,
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party is just going to implode. Like if
Speaker 2: I don't if I don't do this, then these are
Speaker 2: the long term consequences, and you don't think, well, like,
Speaker 2: if I don't speak out now, then there might be
Speaker 2: nothing to speak out, nothing left to speak out for
Speaker 2: in a few years. So I think that thinking more
Speaker 2: long term and long term strategy is very important. I
Speaker 2: don't necessarily endorse Nate, you know, acting everyone over fifty
Speaker 2: fifty seems awfully young, but still I you know, I
Speaker 2: think that what you were the spirit of that that
Speaker 2: we do need kind of a little bit. We do
Speaker 2: need some young blood is fair because we do need
Speaker 2: to be thinking about the future, and people who are
Speaker 2: eighty years old are not the future because they're going
Speaker 2: to be dead in the long term that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: absent the singularity.
Speaker 4: I'm with that maybe we can retreat from the antie
Speaker 4: room to the foyer, before the anti room, before the
Speaker 4: doorway to borg caredism.
Speaker 2: Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
Speaker 2: out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Speaker 2: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 5: By me Nate Silver. The show was a Cool production
Speaker 5: of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by
Speaker 5: Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia, Jean Kott,
Speaker 5: and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our executive producer
Speaker 5: is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
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