WEBVTT - Chuck’s Commentary - A Deeply Fractured & Dangerous Moment For America + Why George Washington’s Farewell Address Resonates Today 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:08.840 Hello, They're Happy Monday. It is September fifteenth, with another 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:14.400 episode of the Chuck Podcast. I'll be honest, the last 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.480 five days have been quite difficult when just thinking about 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.560 American politics, thinking about the country, thinking about whether we're 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:28.200 going to bring ourselves together. Each day when I was 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.720 looking for a glimmer of hope, I rarely found one. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:37.200 I mean there's even in the one person who seems 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.120 to be meeting the moment, the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox. 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:44.920 Even his comments today were sort of demoralizing. Understandably so, 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.800 because I don't disagree with anything he has said at 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:52.080 this point, and in fact believe he is the leader 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:57.880 at the moment. But when trying to figure out in 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.959 some ways, it's easy to understand how we got here, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.360 there's so many forces against unity in this country. Right, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.920 there's so many forces for division. Right, there's there's you know, 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.160 it's almost like the system is rigged towards division. Right. 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.759 Our system is not rigged for unity. It is right now, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.280 rigged towards division in how it works. And I think 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.680 that's why it feels as if boy, there's I mean, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.160 it's clear that we don't have the president we need 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.080 in the moment to meet this moment. I've been trying to. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.560 I've been hopeful, right, I think you give as much 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.120 grace as you can. Maybe more people will get to him, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.959 maybe he will see that this is something that he 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:50.280 cannot just use to exploit politically. But let's be honest. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.200 That hope is fading. And you can call me naive, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.480 but I would have done it and said it the 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:02.640 same way before, because only we only have one president 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.080 at a time, and you know, hope springs eternal that 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:10.000 that he'll see the light, but he is. He is 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:14.760 clearly blind on this one. Let me give you a 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.160 quick little rundown of how I'm going to attack the 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:18.959 episode today. We're going to talk a little bit more 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.360 about where I think this is going short term versus 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:27.120 long term, how and what to watch for in the 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.520 two political parties here and how they handle this moment. 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.919 I've got my It's Monday. We do every week. I'm 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.120 going to give you sort of a history lesson based 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.560 on something that happened in history. This week. It is 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.600 between September fifteenth and September twenty first, So I'll give 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.800 you just a clue. It'll be I will tell you 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.440 what our moment in history, and then the dive we're 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.360 going to do. But as I said, are this day, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.880 this week in history moment? I'll just give you a 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.799 small clue. We're going to go back to September nineteenth, 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.720 seventeen ninety six. The real history junkies in my feed 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.960 here probably have an idea of what event I will 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.000 be doing a deep dive on, but I want to 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.040 keep a little bit of suspense until we'll do it 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.360 after the interview. For those of you that listen to 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.760 the entire the entire episode in one download, of course, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.720 we do split it up into a couple of downloads 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:25.880 if you want to have the interview on its own 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.560 and all of my work separately on its own. I'll 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:31.440 also do a little bit of what I learned this 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:39.160 week in my obsession of college football. In short, I'm 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.280 trying to figure out how is it that both my 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:48.840 football teams seem to be playing so well, so methodically 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:54.480 well that it is, and just out physically, just physically 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.040 better than every team that they play right now. It is. 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.800 It is both exciting me and scaring me. I'm waiting 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.000 for the other shoe to drop on one of my 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.120 teams if not both. But let me just say I 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.120 am enjoying this moment. It's great to be a Miami 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.160 Hurricane and it's great to be a Green Bay Packer 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:15.880 fan in this current in this current time. But as 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.719 much as I would love to continue compartmentalizing as I 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:23.000 did yesterday and Saturday with football to try to not 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.520 think about our current state of politics, I can't help 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.240 but keep coming back to that and when thinking about 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.880 where to begin, you know, I had my new Sphere 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.560 show last night, and for that episode and I talked 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.120 to an expert on political violence and an expert on 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.839 sort of how do you you know is there such 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.680 thing as is prevention in the political violence space? You know, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.800 can interventions work? And the professor from American University is 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.680 someone that believes it. Believes that it can, and that 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.200 there's data to back it up, that there is ways 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:59.839 to mitigate the risk of violence down the road. But 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:06.560 it does take It takes will, right, and that's ultimately 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.040 I think the question I have is do we have 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.600 the will? Do we have the guts to do what 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.680 it takes to bring ourselves together when we're attacked by 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.719 outsiders like we were in nine to eleven. But we 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:27.120 unified pretty quickly, and we stayed fairly united for good 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:32.400 twelve to eighteen months. And even when we started dividing, 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.240 we didn't divide about the attack. We divided about the response, right. 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:41.800 We thought about the wars. But we did it politically, right, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.600 We did it the way you're supposed to do it. 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:47.960 But every time we had a chance to remember nine 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.680 to eleven, even in the harshest presidential election years, the 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.320 two candidates at least in sixteen attended the same event, right, 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:03.479 So we have we have tempted to sort of grasp 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.000 at that unifying moment. And the fact is, anytime we've 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.280 been attacked from the outside, it has unified us as 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.400 a country. Our most you know, unifying period of American 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.560 history was during the Cold War because we had an 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.960 existential threat. And I think you've heard some of you 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.840 have heard my thesis quite a bit that I am 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.160 somewhat concerned that actually the only thing that unites us 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:30.480 are existential threats from the outside. We have threats from 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.200 the inside, and they only divide us. And that's what 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.360 it feels like today that all these threats that we're 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:43.719 dealing with right now are dividing us. Look, there is 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.840 some data here to back this up. In just the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.599 first six months of this year, Okay, according to the 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.560 there's some folks at the University of Maryland who tracked 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:58.240 this very well, very methodically, in a healthy academic setting. 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.680 America has endured nearly a one hundred and fifty politically 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.880 motivated attacks in the first six months of this year. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.560 It's almost double. So it doesn't count the Charlie Cook 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:14.680 Charlie Kirk murder. It's almost double the number in the 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.480 same period last year. We've had twenty one people killed. Okay, 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.000 since January. That included what happened in New Year's Eve 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:29.680 in New Orleans when you had that radical radical extremists 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:36.680 attack Bourbon Street. We had a pro Palestinian activists killed 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.800 two Israeli embassy employees in Washington. We had eleven armed 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:46.760 militant storm Texas immigration ice facility. Earlier this year, we 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.680 had a gunman obsessed with COVID conspiracies spring gunfire at 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:56.720 CDC's headquarters in Atlanta, killed a police officer. Minnesota. Christian 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:02.200 nationalists went door to door trying to murder Democratic lawmakers 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:07.240 and successfully did one and her husband wounding another. And 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.440 of course now we've had the killing of Charlie Kirk 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.160 in broad daylight on a college campus and a place 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:17.120 that as a parent of two college kids that you know, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.160 we want college to be in a place. I know 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.120 what I to not put words in other people's mouths. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:24.640 I'm going to tell you what I want college to 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.920 be and what college has been for me. It's about 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:32.960 exposing yourself to different people, different ideas, different ideologies, different experiences, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.080 different everything. And it's about learning, right. But the only 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:38.800 way to learn is you need to be exposed to 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:44.200 good ideas and bad ideas. But the exposure is important. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:50.960 Trying to hide from ideas, even ones that you don't 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:56.760 agree with, doesn't do anything to help a situation. Hiding 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.319 ideas only can make things worse. But the fact is 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.440 where we are living in a tinder box right now. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.720 So we're at a fork in the row. And I 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.880 said that the other day, and you know, the hope 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:12.319 is that is, you know, when are we going to 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.439 have enough is enough? Moment? We've been We've had ten 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:23.559 years of this intense political division where it is where 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.599 awful rhetoric has turned into physical violence. I want to 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:36.040 quote Spencer Cox, who said on an appearance at NBC 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.720 on Sunday, he said, and I think he's right. Social 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.760 media has played a direct role in every single assassination 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.040 and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.520 five or six years. I don't think I disagree with that. 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.440 And that's been you know, another thing that's been a 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:57.280 bit frustrating in what we've watched so far in the 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.680 reaction is that, again, outside of the govern or of Utah, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.079 outside of Governor Cox, nobody's tried to meet this moment. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:08.400 Nobody's tried to look at this as an American first. 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.120 There are way too many people responding as a partisan first, 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:17.200 doing some yah butts. What do I mean by a yabbot? Well, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:22.840 there was an example of one, and it was by 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:29.760 a reporter and it was Charlie Gasparino, and I want 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.640 to quote him, and he said, because he's proud of 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.840 his point, he retweeted his point. He said, what he 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.240 said on Fox is what he believes that there are 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.199 violent loons on the right and the left, but a 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.120 certain type of violent rhetoric is totally accepted as morally 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.360 righteous on the left and the cultural institution that dominates. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.200 So this is where I want to and that would 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.439 include the university as well as most of the mainstream Meredia, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.080 and that's where I want to stop right there. I 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.280 believe he believes this. I don't believe he's making up 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.560 this mindset. I can tell you. I don't believe what 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.840 he says is true. That's not from my observation and 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:14.920 this idea, and I've seen it, you know where no, no, no, Yes, 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.920 we have some loans on our side, but they're they 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.720 don't They're not representative of us, but your loon, the 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:27.319 loons on the other side are representative of everybody out there. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:34.520 And this is the problem. You know. I would say, 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.760 give yourself a test on this, because I've been doing 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.440 it with myself all weekend. Like you know, I'm I'm 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:46.880 pretty convinced. I know how we got here, and I 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:54.720 know that my definitive belief is not going to be 0:11:54.720 --> 0:12:02.280 shared by everybody, but I'm sure that so a piece 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.200 of what I believe would be shared by a lot 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.240 of people. And that's sort of how you become I mean, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.280 this is what politics is about. Politics isn't about I'm 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.880 right and you're wrong. Politics is about here are my ideas, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.000 here's your ideas. Are they compatible? And if they're at 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:23.240 all compatible, is there a middle ground? And elections decide, Hey, 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.480 does the middle ground? Fifty to fifty is the middle ground? 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.760 Sixty forty is the middle ground? Seventy thirty right? Right? 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.840 Elections are a tug of war in some ways about 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.800 where the middle is. But it's still supposed to be 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:44.840 somewhere in the middle on this stuff. And so I 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.520 think that is the the problem that we have is 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:56.079 that we're stuck. When you believe you're you're when you 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:02.240 when your beliefs are righteous in your head, then no 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:09.079 counter factual is going to convince you of you can't 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:14.599 compromise on sort of righteous beliefs, right, And so it 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:20.680 becomes where there's just almost no You can't even put 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.040 yourself in the shoes of somebody who disagrees with you. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.000 I imagine today that there are some on the left 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.880 who now understand a little bit better what folks on 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:40.319 the right have called said about cancel culture. That expressing 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.760 one's opinion, as vile as it may be to you, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:51.480 is simply that person's opinion. And is it enough if 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.040 it's nothing that is illegal and it hasn't incited anybody 0:13:55.080 --> 0:14:00.160 to do anything violent or illegal, should it cost them 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:08.920 their livelihoods. And so, you know, we so badly want 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.720 a virtue signal during any given moment, right whatever the 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.080 moment is. Whether it was virtue signaling right after George 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.959 Floyd and what happened to him, you saw a lot 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.680 of it virtue signaling right after we've seen with Charlie Kirk, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:36.240 rather than sort of figuring out, how do I take 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.920 my idea in solving this problem? And I broaden the 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.920 appeal of that argument that I can persuade somebody who 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.560 mostly disagrees with my point of view to at least 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.600 not just acknowledge that my point of view's fair, rational, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.000 but maybe there's something to it, rather than being so 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.480 convinced that you're right and your political opponent is wrong 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.840 that there's nothing to be learned from them on this 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:12.440 one iota. And I know that anybody here can practice 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.240 what about is that the minute somebody? I mean, you know, 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.320 we're going through it now, right and and I've got 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.040 to catch myself. I mean, I see so many one 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:28.440 sided conversations about violence right right now on the right 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.880 not acknowledging what happened at the CDC, or what happened 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.320 to those Minnesota lawmakers, or or somehow marginalizing those events 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.440 that they have nothing to do with this, when frankly, 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.560 they all have to do with this. It's all we have. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:48.880 We have we have we have created this information ecosystem. Uh. 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.200 And I'm going to quote Mike Johnson on this, who 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:59.880 I thought said something that was worth quoting here. Uh 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.080 when he said this, people have to stop framing simple 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:08.680 policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:13.280 You can't call the other side fascists or enemies of 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.480 the state and not understand that there are some deranged 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.600 people in our society who will take that as cues 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.760 to act. I know some of you are going to 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.840 be like Mike Johnson practices both ciderisms by using fascists 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.200 and enemies of the state, right, the language that each 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:32.800 side is using these days to try to dehumanize and 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:40.960 de americanize somebody who has an opposing political view. But 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.600 good for him, because he's exactly right. We have gotten it. 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.720 And the thing is is that when we're in person, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.520 we don't speak or behave this way. It's why so 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.960 many of the elected officials I talk to will say, oh, no, 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.760 it's not that bad up here, when you know, there 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.240 are a couple of people who are bad actors who 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.200 go out there to just be grifters. Right, they're just 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.600 playing to the algorithms, playing to the to the to 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.879 the influenced peddlers. Who are you know, these these folks 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:15.639 that that obsess with how much traffic that they get, 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:21.560 and all of this play to the algorithms. For the 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:26.840 most part, when these elected ds and elected ours get together, 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:30.960 they they don't speak in vile language to each other, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.359 with the very rare exception of a couple. For the 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.480 most part, they interact with each other the way you 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.720 enact with average people at the grocery store, at the 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:46.480 post office. Right, you don't behave like an asshole. Well 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.439 ninety five percent of us don't want to behave like 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.760 an asshole in public. So I don't know why we 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.520 do this online. And then of course we have the 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:04.040 entire I mean, what's of all the frustrating aspects of 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.720 the political response to the last five days, the lack 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:14.159 of focus and accountability on the on, on the UH, on, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:19.240 the information warpers of our time, the big tech companies 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:24.960 and their algorithms who systematically surface information that gets you 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.600 angry so that you stand on a platform and you keep, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.119 you know, giving them the ability to sell ads based 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:41.120 on your rage. They're the problem. They're destroying the information ecosystem. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.600 They're the issue. I mean, what Elon Musk has done 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:53.080 to ask, Mark Zuckerberg's done to Facebook, with the Chinese 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:57.280 Communist Party has done with TikTok or who the hell 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.919 else runs it. It's amazing on certain days what it 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:12.240 emphasizes and what it doesn't. So we know, I don't 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:13.960 know if we do know. Actually I sit there. We 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.560 know that we're better in person than we are online, 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:21.240 but you know, it's hard to I think we all know. 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.320 When we're not online, we're a little bit better, and 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.800 when we're too much online, we're a little bit worse. 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.879 There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.040 there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.880 law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.120 twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.280 It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.360 just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.480 Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.720 in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.080 which was a staggering forty times minds the amount that 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.440 the insurance company originally offered. That original offer six hundred 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.359 and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.480 fifty thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.240 across the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people. 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.040 If you're injured, you need a lawyer. You need somebody 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.640 to get your back. Check out for the People dot com, 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.840 Slash podcast or Dow Pound law Pound five two nine 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.520 law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.399 are not the same, So check out Morgan and Morgan. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:37.560 Their fee is free unless they win. I'm not sure 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.520 things will get super better in the short term. I 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:50.280 think you have you have too many folks invested. We've 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:52.960 already seen some. I mean it looks to me like 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.040 President Trump and Stephen Miller in particular, view this as 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:02.760 a moment to exploit for political gain. That is dangerous 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:10.000 and that risks. You know, each side justifies their radicalization 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.680 based on the other side. I mean Donald Trump did 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:16.520 it the other day when he was asked directly on 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.760 Fox and Friends. Hey, we got there's some fringe people, 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.560 extremists on the right, and he said yeah. But he yeah, 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.879 butted it right, He said, but our extremists care about 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.439 law and or they're upset because of crime issues. He 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.000 just sort of manufactured some rationale. But again, he was 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.639 looking for a reason not to accept any piece of 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:42.879 this that somehow he has any responsibility here whatsoever or 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.399 has been a contributor to the violent climate that we 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:52.720 all live right now in America. And when you don't 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:58.480 have a leader who even if he doesn't believe he's 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.119 as big of a contributor as others believe he is, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:06.159 but if he doesn't have the ability to sort of 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.760 I don't know. He claims to be a Christian, so 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:21.440 at least admitgift send because he has on this issue 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.680 he's not tried to bring people together, and he doesn't 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.680 and he's never pretended he was planning on doing it. 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.240 You know, he says unity would be nice, by right, 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.120 He doesn't know any other way. The politics of division 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.600 have been extraordinarily successful. And this is what is very 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.520 frustrating is that those that have power right now may 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:48.000 believe they've got political power because of the politics of division, 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.920 that the politics of division has been good politics for them, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.920 even if it's been unhealthy for the country. And that's 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:58.760 where we have to get. We have to change the 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:07.879 incentive structures. It's been fun to look up all sorts 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:15.359 of new quotes that people have been throwing out there, 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.800 and there's a Milton Friedman quote that I wanted to 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:25.359 share that sort of fits. I think that fits this 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:31.000 moment right now, and that is this issue of incentives. Right, 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:35.200 do you know our elected officials? Does it matter whether 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:37.959 they're good or bad? Or does it matter more if 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:41.480 the incentives are good or bad. Here's how Milton Friedman argued. 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:43.520 He says, what is important is not the particular person 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:46.160 who is elected president or the party he belongs to. 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.040 I have often said we shall not correct the state 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.920 of affairs by electing the right people. We've tried that 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.639 the right people before they're elected become the wrong people 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.400 after they're elected. We've all seen that. Right, the important 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.000 thing is to make it politically profitable for the wrong 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:09.240 people to do the right thing. If it is not 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:12.440 politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:17.040 the right people will not do the right thing ever 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:23.400 or either excuse me. Look, I think our own experiences 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:27.800 prove this our incentive structure. If there was a reward 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:32.960 structure in our politics that punished dividers and rewarded uniters, 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:37.760 we would have two parties fighting to say, no, we 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:42.119 represent we are the better unifying vision for America. We 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:45.000 do not have two parties competing for a unifying vision 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:49.400 of America. We have two parties competing that says their 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:53.840 vision is wrong, their vision is wrong, any part of 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:58.840 it is un American. Sort of, we do two things 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:03.480 to each other. We dehumanize and we de americanize, and 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:06.600 they're kind of the same thing. But in our political debate, 0:25:07.400 --> 0:25:12.280 if you can make somebody seem on American, it gives 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:14.960 you makes you look. I have used the phrase, hey, 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:16.920 that's you know, and I will say that's on American, 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:19.920 and I mean it from a defense of the constitution 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:24.399 of what I believe the American way is. But I 0:25:24.480 --> 0:25:28.160 acknowledge that maybe the person I'm criticizing believes what they're 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:31.199 doing is in the what they think is in the 0:25:31.200 --> 0:25:36.840 best interests of America. But the fact is we do 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:40.760 have a we do have this issue of a messed 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:44.040 up incentive system, and in fact, we don't have you know, 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:46.080 we we have sort of a couple of problems. One 0:25:46.160 --> 0:25:49.840 is we have two parties who are not comfortable policing 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.880 their own sides. And the thing is is that we are. 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:57.960 We never want the other side policing our side. Who 0:25:58.000 --> 0:25:59.560 the hell do you think you are? You don't get 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:01.879 you know, it's like you don't get to criticize a 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:04.000 family member if you're not a member of my family. 0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:06.520 I get to criticize a family member that is a 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:08.639 member of my family, right you know, we know that. 0:26:08.760 --> 0:26:11.439 You know, Hey, that's you don't do that. We're a 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:15.760 united front as a family. If we've got disagreements, we're 0:26:15.760 --> 0:26:20.000 going to express them ourselves. But that also means policing 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:24.760 your side, and we don't police right now. There is 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:29.080 a fear of policing your own side because it quote 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.160 gives the other side of victory. Don't do that, then 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:38.960 you're acknowledging that the criticism was correct. So you've got 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:42.760 a lot of muted Democrats and muted Republicans about the 0:26:42.840 --> 0:26:48.199 excesses of their political basis. Because there's fear right, the 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:52.399 information ecosystem rewards the extremes. The extremes are controlling the 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:57.280 political narratives of both parties more so than ever, because 0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:02.800 if you at all try to strike a moderate tone, 0:27:02.960 --> 0:27:07.760 you know, you're enabling the other side, you're enabling corporate interests, 0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:10.320 or you're enabling the other side in some form or another. 0:27:14.359 --> 0:27:18.000 And it has led a lot of what I think 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:19.720 it goes to the Milton Friedman quote. There's a lot 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:21.440 of good people who are not doing the right thing 0:27:22.320 --> 0:27:26.119 in this moment because there is no incentive to do 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.320 the right thing. And if the right thing is to 0:27:29.359 --> 0:27:31.800 speak out, the right thing is to vote against a 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:34.240 certain cabinet official here or there. The right thing is 0:27:34.280 --> 0:27:38.280 to say, you know, not endorse somebody, not vote for somebody, 0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:42.600 make it clear why. But there's this fear right, the 0:27:42.640 --> 0:27:46.800 incentive is not there, and so we have to change. 0:27:48.080 --> 0:27:53.119