WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - Money Is Destroying American Politics + Illinois Primary Was Ground Zero For Dark Money 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.240 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:04.800 by Incognate. You know, one of the things we talk 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.880 a lot about on this podcast is trust, who deserves 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.920 it and who doesn't. And lately I've been thinking about 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:14.200 how much of our personal information is just floating around online. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.920 I'm talking about phone numbers, home addresses, emails, even information 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.400 about your family, all sitting on websites you've probably never 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.720 heard of. In the scary part, that information can be 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.600 used by scammers and identity thieves to piece together enough 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.800 details to impersonate you, target you, or worse. 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Use the code you get a discal again, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.280 that's in cogni dot com slash chucktodcast and use the 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.520 code Chuck podcast to get sixty percent off and start 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:40.360 taking control of your personal data today. Trust me, I'm 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.440 constantly working on this for years myself, and here's an 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.919 opportunity for you to take matters into your own hands 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:54.400 as well. Hello thereon, Welcome to the Thursday edition of 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.800 the Chuck Podcast. I have today's going to be a 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.480 bit more domestic, a bit moreocused on that obviously. Look 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:06.080 that the most important story impacting American politics is and 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.400 will continue to be the Iran War until it is 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.560 not right because of the impact it has on our economy, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.079 the sort of symbolic impact it has on the economy 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:21.760 with gas prices, things like that, but the actual war itself, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.239 the conduct of this war will we end up escalating 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.760 all these questions securing the straight of horn moves. It 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:35.920 is going to continue to be essentially and I think 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.480 if you're like I said, it's similar I said yesterday. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:43.040 If you're a Republican running on the ballot in twenty 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.160 twenty six, you just wish this war would end in 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.160 some form or another, that you could turn the page 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.360 on this. But it isn't going to happen very quickly, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.200 very easily. This is going to continue to be I 0:02:55.240 --> 0:03:01.720 think the biggest story that will impact the larger sort 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.440 of perception of the direction of the country, and it 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.880 will certainly impact what is campaigned on. But at the 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.920 end of the day, whether the war was happening or not, 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.320 the issue of the economy and democracy issues would be 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.560 in some ways front and center. And my sub stack 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.640 theme this week is about how the only primary and 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.519 I think there's some important political follout from that that 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.959 I'll share with you in a few minutes. A huge 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.840 win for Juliana Stratton number one, but number two, and 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.960 maybe in the near term the bigger winner might be JB. Pritzker, 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.720 the governor of Illinois. I think those of us I'm 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.440 somebody who's you know, I wasn't sure. I didn't have 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.560 him in my top tier of twenty twenty eight ers. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:46.960 Let's just say, you know, I'm paying a lot more 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.800 respect than to him now, and I see him as 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.400 I think, you know, you're the governor you're able to 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.960 take on You're a billionaire governor, and you're able to 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:01.000 take on these huge super packs from the crypto industry 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.839 and from the tech and AI industries, and you're able 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:09.680 to win. Although in this case, I think it was 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:11.800 really more of the crypto folks that he was taking 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.440 on more than anybody else. It says something, and I 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.000 certainly have and I want to get to that in 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.400 a minute. But I want to tackle this issue of 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.200 money in politics because it's all kind of tied in 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:31.839 together a little bit. And let's just say, for years 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:35.960 I didn't spend a lot of time on the issue 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.240 of campaign finance and money and politics, not because I 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.919 didn't think it was a problem. I just never really 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.520 believed it would ever really become a big issue in 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.960 American politics. Even as you hear, as I'll hear plenty 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.680 of sort of you know, non professional in this space. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.599 I E. Voters, I E. Those that pay attention going, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:02.000 we've got to do something about money in politics, because 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.320 I was a skeptic when that there was any reform 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:11.120 that was even possible, that there was no curbing of money, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.320 and it wasn't because I thought the system was healthy, 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.000 quite the opposite. I just assumed the problem was unbeatable. 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.599 It was too adaptive, it was too clever, if you will, 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.400 And I had this working assumption. I used to do 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.000 this all the time. I'd quote Jeff Goldbloom's character in 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.839 Jurassic Park when the old man reassures the scientists that 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.560 he brings to show off his dinosaurs. Oh no, no, no, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.279 they're not going to pro create. I've been able to 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.240 manipulate their DNA so that they can't pro create. And 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.479 Goldblum's characters, you know, he's the guy who I guess 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.560 promotes chaos theory and mathematics, and he basically says life 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.320 finds a way and he turns out to be right. Well, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.280 I've always felt that way about money in politics, right, 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.400 Money always finds a way. You try public financing, it 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.919 gets outgrown, you try to cap contribution. Well, then you 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.280 get bundling, which sort of a work around every reform 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.400 in in my adult lifetime, in franctly, my entire lifetime 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:12.320 has been has been turned against itself. Right, you ban 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.799 soft money from the major parties, then that money moves 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.280 outside the parties and you say, have less of an 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.240 opportunity to keep control of your of your party. Mcain 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.520 fine Gold was supposed to clean things up, and instead 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.839 it helped create the modern superPAC system that is absolutely 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.760 destructive to the political campaign system as we know it. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.800 Every single reform I've seen tried created a workaround that 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.800 became made the problem worse. So you get to the 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.560 point you're like, well, just go find your you know. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.919 And you saw there was no neither party would ever 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.240 have a permanent advantage on money, you know, because that's 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.320 the way markets work, right, When one one side's up, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.599 the other side finds it finds disgruntled rich people to 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.480 help them, right, And and so there was an uneasy 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:02.479 balance that you would see in this, and so you thought, well, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.920 at least it's fair, it's ugly, it's gross, but at 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:15.560 least it's balanced between the two parties over time. So 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:16.760 it was going to be messy, it was going to 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:22.200 be imperfect, but ultimately it was probably unfixable, especially once 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.960 the courts decided that money was speech, so then you 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:26.720 had to have a constitutional moment, and what the hell 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.120 would that constitutional moment look like? But I do think 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.360 we missed something along the way, because when we pushed 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.920 big donors out of the parties, this was a I 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.840 think this, you know, I have you know, McCain fine gold. 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.960 And there were plenty of detractors of McCain fine gold 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.640 because they just simply wanted more big money in politics. 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.080 But there were other detractors of McCain fine gold who 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.680 worried it would weaken them two political parties. And I 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.080 think those folks have proven to be right. And let 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.480 me explain, we didn't just move money when we got 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.400 rid of money big money checks being written to political 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.920 parties directly, he actually removed one of the only guard 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.960 rails in vetting candidates that we had. When you take 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.240 the parties out of the candidate vetting business, and you 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.520 do this when you no longer allow them to have 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:16.080 the financial resources to help candidates win, then you had 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.720 real consequences to what kinds of candidates would suddenly pop 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.280 up for all of their flaws, And there were plenty 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:26.600 with the party organizations. They did serve a kind as 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.320 kind of a filter. Wasn't a perfect filter and wasn't 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.640 always a fair filter, but they would ask basic questions 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.960 like is this person stable? Do they have good judgment? 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.800 Can they handle power? Can they handle stress? Sometimes just 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.920 the basic vetting process and an HR department would have 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.400 And because that's where you had to get your resources 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.959 and your money, you as the candidate sort of where 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:53.920 you kind of you had to apply to the parties, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:58.319 if you will, unofficially, and the parties had a stake 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.240 in the long term health of the coalition and they 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.199 couldn't just get behind somebody that could win now if 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.320 they thought that person's reputation could end up harming the 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.240 overall reputation of the party itself. But now well, that 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.319 function has been entirely outsourced, and it's been outsourced to 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:20.600 donor networks, to ideological entrepreneurs, to outside groups, and those 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.640 actors aren't asking the same questions that leaders of the 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.400 two actual political parties used to ask of their candidates. 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.959 They don't ask is this person fit? They're asking can 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:36.000 this person win? And will this person be useful, useful 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:40.240 to fund, useful to protect useful to stop something. They 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.560 have their own incentive. They're looking for somebody that aligns 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.280 with them on a specific issue, specific topic of issue focus. Right, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:53.160 So that then Trump's character it, Trump's ethics, Trump's morals, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:59.360 and Trump branding. Right. It's a completely different screening mechanism 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.640 and it produces a completely different kind of politics. Then 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.600 you lay around Citizens United, and now the system isn't 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:12.240 just adaptive, it's protected. Political spending becomes speech, and suddenly 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.560 meaningful restrictions are almost impossible without a constitutional fight. So 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:18.120 for a long time I thought this is it, this 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.200 is the system, until recently that is because something has changed. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:28.320 Are there's always a tipping point, right, there's always, you know, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.320 everything in moderation, But eventually you're not moderating your habits. 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.000 You've tipped. So let me give you a moment where 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.320 I clicked for me. And I keep coming back to 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:39.520 this and I bring it up in a lot of 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.520 my appearances now and I'm going to continue to do so. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.880 When Chuck Schumer reportedly told fellow Democratic senators to ease 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.040 up on their opposition to the crypto industry, not because 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.800 they changed their minds and they saw that crypto was 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.439 going to be this incredible. Maybe this would be a 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.720 helpful tool in the financial sector. But because of the 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.080 political firepower of a singular super called fair shake, these 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.160 were huge players in Illinois, and by the way, they 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:05.920 get their ass kecked in Illinois, they did not have 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.200 a good night. For what it's worth, But think about that, 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.800 elected officials being told to soften their positions on a 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.080 specific issue because an industry simply has too much money 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.959 to challenge them. That's not influence, that's not persuasion, that's coersion. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:26.880 It's policy extortion. And once you see that clearly, then 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.079 all the stuff starts to look differently because what we're 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.640 dealing with now is not just a lot of money 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.840 in politics. It is something bigger. It's the shift from 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:42.959 candidate centered politics to donor centered politics. And this is 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.000 what was so crystal clear about all of the Illinois 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.120 primaries that happened earlier this week. And it wasn't just 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:50.640 in the Senate race. It was also in these house 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.280 races where every single candidate came with a descriptor that 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.240 said the fairshake back candidate, the AI back candidate, the 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.200 A packed back candidate, this back candidate. Right, it was 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.320 never just about the candidate, even in Juliana Stratton's case, 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.240 who didn't have one big industry behind her, she had 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:12.920 a big billionaire governor behind her. She was Governor Pritzker's candidate, right, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.600 But it was not about the candidates. It was about 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:20.760 their supporters, about the donors. So now there was a 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.160 specific reason why Illinois became kind of ground zero for 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.960 this moment. Right. It's a very blue state, and they 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.920 had a bunch of elderly members of Congress who finally 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.880 decided to retire, the big one being Dick Durbin. Right, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.280 you got elected in ninety six. You know, by the way, 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:36.959 for what it's worth, I think if you were elected 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.439 to office in the twentieth century, you probably shouldn't be 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.240 seeking reelection in twenty six. And if you do, don't 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.640 be surprised if you get primaried and you have a problem. 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.320 But I digress. So Dick Durbin retires, there's an open seat, 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.679 deep blue state, which means the primary becomes the election 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.199 and it's not just an election for six years. Dick 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.760 Derbin got elected in ninety six and was there for 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:02.680 thirty years, worked his way up in the leadership number 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.439 two in leadership. So this is a very I mean, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.520 that's what you're investing in. You're not just investing in 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.040 one six year term. You're potentially investing in one of 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.920 the next leaders of the United States Senate over a generation. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:21.240 So if you're you've got interest before Congress, this is 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:26.319 a valuable asset to acquire, i e. Having a senator 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.920 that may feel beholden to your industry. So if you're 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.160 that interest group and you think you can influence this primary, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.520 you may be buying influence for a generation. So what 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.040 did voters get? Though? They didn't get a traditional campaign, 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.120 They didn't get a real debate between the candidates. You know, 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.120 in fact, if you didn't have one of these things yet, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.439 it was really hard for the candidates. I never felt 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:49.959 like I got to know the candidates. I only knew 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.280 them through their donors and through who their supporters were. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.679 And it turned into a proxy war. Right. You had 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.480 crypto money, AI money, a pack link money, billionaire money, 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.760 governor money front group, shell acts, you name it. By 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.240 the end of it, voters knew what these interests wanted, perhaps, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:07.720 but that they really know what kind of candidate they 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.840 were getting. Now, I think in Stratton. She found a 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.640 way to break through, interestingly enough, because she went viral 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.880 with an ad that didn't air on mainstream television because 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.040 you'd had to bleep it out too much. But it 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:20.760 was the F Trump at and if you haven't seen it, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.320 I encourage you to go see it. During our livestream, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.240 we aired a vision of it, but it's just a 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.640 whole bunch of voters saying F Trump, and then Stratton says, 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.920 I'm not saying it, but it was her way of 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.680 basically virtue signaling, Hey, she's going to be a fighter. 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.520 She wants to punch the bully in the nose. And 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.680 I think it mattered. It also mattered that the governor, 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.240 I think is popular with rank and filed Democrats because 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.680 he's been fighting Trump and he's been you know what, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.640 Gavin Newsom has gotten a lot more credit for arguably 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.880 Pritzker's been doing before. Newsom thought it was a cool 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:53.800 way to do. But we still had something odd take 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:58.480 place this week in Illinois in that voters again I think, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:03.680 ended up having to to select candidates based on what 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.160 third party groups create. The character of third party groups 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.640 were created by them, So they were watching messages written 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:12.640 by people who may never actually have been on the 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.280 ballot and will never be on the ballot. And here's 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:18.960 the part that should bother everyone. These outside groups, they 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.320 often don't even campaign on the issue they actually care about. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.760 A crypto group may never mention Crypto, an AI group 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.800 may never mention AI entirely. An Israel focused group may 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.800 decide that's too politically complicated to lead with. So what 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.240 do they do. They find another issue, immigration, crime, corruption, ideology, 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.400 and they use that as the delivery system. So voters 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.360 think they're watching one debate when they're actually being moved 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.760 onto another. And that's not persuasion. That becomes misdirection, right, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.640 And the candidates don't really feel accountable to it because 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.200 in some ways they can't control these outside groups, and 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.840 the outside groups have no accountability because none of us 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:55.800 know who their donors are in time to cover it 0:15:55.800 --> 0:16:04.640 before the election. Having good life insurance is incredibly important. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.600 I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.440 father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.280 leave us in the best shape. My mother, single mother, 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.920 now widow, myself sixteen trying to figure out how am 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.479 I going to pay for college? And lo and behold. 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.520 My dad had one life insurance policy that we found 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.560 wasn't a lot, but it was important at the time, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.920 and it's why I was able to go to college. 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.960 Little did he know how important that would be in 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.720 that moment. Well guess what. That's why I am here 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.480 to tell you about Etho's life. They can provide you 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.720 with peace of mind knowing your family is protected even 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.600 if the worst comes to pass. Ethos is an online 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.360 platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy, all 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.320 designed to protect your family's future in minutes, not months. 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.720 There's no complicated process, and it's one hundred percent online. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.720 There's no medical exam require you just answer a few 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.080 health questions online. You can get a quote in as 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.160 little as ten minutes, and you can get same day 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.159 coverage without ever leaving your home. You can get up 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.680 to three million dollars in coverage, and some policies start 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:11.639 as low as two dollars a day that would be 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.440 billed monthly. As of March twenty twenty five, Business Insider 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.920 named Ethos the number one no medical exam instant life 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:23.600 insurance provider. So protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.240 Get your free quotedt Ethos dot com slash chuck. So 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:32.679 again that's Ethos dot com slash chuck. Application times may 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.520 vary and the rates themselves may vary as well, but 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.520 trust me, life insurance is something you should really think 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:44.600 about it, especially if you've got a growing family. So 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.919 as a candidate, you weirdly kind of stuck because you 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.120 can't coordinate with the groups, and so they get pulled 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.919 into campaigns they didn't design. They just sort of participate 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.399 into a campaign that was created by an outside group 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.040 on terrain. They didn't choose answering for messages. They didn't right, 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.399 So the whole idea of independent spending becomes part of 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.119 the problem. And this is where the loss of party 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.000 control I think matters a lot, because parties used to 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.360 have to think about the entire electorate, the whole coalition, 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.280 long term consequences. Now we didn't just decentralize money, we 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.800 decentralized responsibility, and we hollowed out the institutions that had 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.440 to care about more than one donor's obsession, which brings 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.840 us to the core problem inanimity. If you want to 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.080 vote in secret, you should. The secret ballot is sacred. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.280 That's a fundamental right. But if you want to spend 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:40.720 millions influencing everyone else's vote, sorry, you don't deserve secrecy. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.520 You need to put your name on it immediately, not 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.680 on some tax reform through a LLC six months later, 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.080 in real time, in plain English. No shell companies, no 0:18:54.200 --> 0:19:02.600 front groups, no hiding three layers deep, stand by your money. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.400 In fact, let me make it simple, take a page 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.600 from NASCAR. If you want to spend big money in politics, 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.840 but the donor on the hood every ad, every mail, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:15.119 or every digital buy, because that's the tradeoff. Influence comes 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.760 with visibility. You want to have influence, everybody needs to 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.280 know it with her democracy. It's on the ballot and 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:23.200 it needs to be put on the ballot now. Even 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.200 if that doesn't solve the whole problem, because the deeper 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:29.040 issue is what this system does to candidates. It doesn't 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:33.040 just reward certain positions, it punishes others. So candidates learn, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.160 They learn what fights are too expensive, like crypto apparently, 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.320 so they soften, they go quiet, they delay, or they 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.760 stand down entirely not because they've been persuaded, but because 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.399 they understand the cost that comes with dissent, which in 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.679 some ways is what they crypto. I mean, this is 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.119 what they've done. They've amassed such a financial juggernaut and 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:56.720 fair shape that they just want to intimidate politicians into 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:05.520 legalizing what is a questionable what many people find questionable 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:10.680 in its usefulness. But once that happens, the problem isn't 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.879 just money in politics. It's that money is defining the 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.560 boundaries of politics. What can be said, what can't be said, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.800 what gets debated, what gets avoided. And here's the thing, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.920 this is no longer just a left wing complaint. I'm 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.480 now hearing it from Republicans, free market conservatives, people with 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.480 their own scars from dark money, starting to say this 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.679 out loud. And that's new. And this is why I 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:34.760 think why we might have hit a tipping point where 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.920 maybe the public is ready to do something about it, 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.560 and maybe the politicians are going to grow a spine 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.760 and do something about it, because the scale here is undeniable. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.400 Not that long ago, billionaire money was a rounding error. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.639 I'm not kidding. I mean you've seen it. It was barely 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:53.080 one percent of campaign money came from billionaires pre Citizens United. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.200 Now it's approaching one out of every five dollars spent 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:01.359 on federal campaigns comes from a billionaire. We are moving 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:09.400 towards something new, but it looks like institutionalized billionaire politics, right, 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.119 a political gilded age. Now, to be clear, this doesn't 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.199 mean every candidate backed by wealthy interest is corrupt. American 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:21.880 politics has always had patrons, but the structure of it matters, right, 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:23.920 And the structure we have now encourages voters to believe 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:28.119 candidates are simply stand ins for their donors, and that 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.480 perception alone is what is so corrosive, and it creates 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.280 a barrier to entry that should worry all of us. 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.919 We got rid of poll taxes for a reason. You 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.760 can't charge people for access to a constitutional right. But 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.960 we've built something similar on the candidate side. A system 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.480 we're running for office seriously requires access to wealth, patrons 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:55.360 or donor networks. That's a shadow tax on a candidacy. Now, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.800 candidates will tell you fairly that they didn't write these rules, 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.159 and they're right, they didn't. Can be rational for the 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.800 participants and still be unacceptable for the public, and this 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.840 is where we're at. The reforms aren't mysterious, real time disclosure, 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:14.600 no anonymous money, clear donor identification. Maybe some structural fixes 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.720 like runoffs or ranked choice voting won't fix everything, but 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:20.040 it will store one basic idea that voters should know 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.040 who is trying to persuade them and why, because in 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:25.280 many cases it's not the candidates that are trying to 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:30.680 persuade voters anymore. It's some anonymous donor who's funding that candidate. 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.680 So the danger now isn't that money influences outcomes. It's 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:42.760 that it defines the menu of choices itself, like you 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:45.600 don't even know there's an alternative because it doesn't have 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:49.240 the funding to present itself on your menu of options before. 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.600 It's like what happens in Iran? Right? You know, yes, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.080 it's a democracy, but the regime decides who gets to 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:58.240 be on the ballot. So is it really a choice 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:00.800 in anybody that is, you know, any presential candidate that's 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:03.920 calling for actual, small de democratic reform, they somehow don't 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.440 make the ballot. That's essentially what we're seeing here, donors 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.080 deciding who's viable, who's not, what's debated, and what gets dropped. 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:17.359 That's how democracy gets reshaped into a kleptocracy quietly before 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:19.639 a single vote has even cast. And that's why this 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:23.560 has finally potentially become a voting issue, not because reform 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:25.399