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Speaker 1: that code. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of the Chuck Podcast. We are ticking ever so
Speaker 1: closer to the holiday break first night of Hanukkah, ten
Speaker 1: days to Christmas, the New sixteen days to New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: and of course when I'm counting down five days until
Speaker 1: the University of Miami's debut in the college football Playoff,
Speaker 1: I've got a pretty good I've got a pretty sort
Speaker 1: of robust show today that's going to hit a bunch
Speaker 1: of topics. A fascinating and an incredibly important study by
Speaker 1: some from some folks from the Council on Foreign Affairs
Speaker 1: about the state of the United States and its democracy.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinarily important read. I'm going to pass on the
Speaker 1: highlights in a minute. Fascinating new poll from the Searchlight
Speaker 1: Institute on corruption and more and portantly, it's not about
Speaker 1: the concern about political corruption. It's about what voters believe
Speaker 1: is corrupt versus sometimes what lawmakers view as corrupt. Here's
Speaker 1: a hint it let's just say that they don't share
Speaker 1: the same definition of what is political corruption these days.
Speaker 1: The interview today is with Nick Troyana. He is a
Speaker 1: founder and runs an organization called Unit America. They've been
Speaker 1: He also wrote a book called The Primary Problem, meaning
Speaker 1: it is the primaries, a partisan primaries that are at
Speaker 1: his thesis, that are at the root of our polarization,
Speaker 1: the root of pretty much, probably seventy percent of our problems,
Speaker 1: particularly our problems and our inability to get things done.
Speaker 1: We talk about a lot about various small the democratic
Speaker 1: reforms that could be necessary, would be necessary. He's somebody
Speaker 1: that tried to run as an independent and saw all
Speaker 1: of the barriers to entry for third party third parties
Speaker 1: and independents. And part of the goal I think of
Speaker 1: United America is just simply to open up the democracy
Speaker 1: to everybody. Right now, this democracy is not open to everybody.
Speaker 1: When it comes to competition for political parties or ideas.
Speaker 1: There is a major barrier to entry. And it's not financial,
Speaker 1: it is structural, and that is the heart of that conversation.
Speaker 1: It is Monday, which means we're going to hop into
Speaker 1: the time machine, and I'm just going to give you
Speaker 1: one hint at what I'm going to be talking about
Speaker 1: in the time machine monorail, monorail, monorail. How many of
Speaker 1: you will figure out what I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: based on that hint? Guess what. I won't actually find
Speaker 1: out the answer to that, but I thought that would
Speaker 1: be a fun little clue. We'll do some ask Chuck
Speaker 1: and I have a few thoughts on the state of
Speaker 1: college athletics, given what happened what we're watching at the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan. But I'm going to start with the
Speaker 1: news out of Australia. It's pretty painful first Ia Hanka
Speaker 1: around the world that this is what all of us
Speaker 1: had to wake up to on Sunday morning here in
Speaker 1: the United States and what the world is grappling with,
Speaker 1: and that is just yet another reminder that anti Semitism
Speaker 1: is at an ugly level globally right now. Look, this
Speaker 1: is anti Semitism is not new. We've gone through fits
Speaker 1: and starts. Anybody who's Jewish knows the history. We know
Speaker 1: the history of this quite well, the rise and falls
Speaker 1: of attempts eradicating Jews, blaming Jews for financial problems, blaming
Speaker 1: Jews for cultural problems. We are the smallest of the
Speaker 1: major religions. We are the smallest of groups that there are.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how much power so many people try to
Speaker 1: attribute to us, and we're not even three percent of
Speaker 1: the world's population. Obviously, what we've been you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are looking at this and
Speaker 1: immediately trying to make a political argument, to make the
Speaker 1: case that it's the left that is supercharging antisemitism or
Speaker 1: the right that is supercharging antisemitism. I will remind you
Speaker 1: all once again, I have only experienced it in stereo.
Speaker 1: All right, before twenty fifteen, I experienced very little anti semitism,
Speaker 1: if any at all. I think I shared a story
Speaker 1: with you an old friend of mine. We were talking
Speaker 1: about this one time, and sort of right right when
Speaker 1: the rise of sort of it was those of us
Speaker 1: in the press that were starting to feel at first,
Speaker 1: and then it sort of broke open out into the mainstream.
Speaker 1: But in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, you can say it
Speaker 1: was coincidental with the timing of the rise of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: or if that is what sort of essentially lifted up
Speaker 1: the pretext on all of this. But essentially the rise
Speaker 1: of the populace left with Bernie Sanders and the rise
Speaker 1: of the populist right with Donald Trump has given a
Speaker 1: permission slip to anti semits to either to either use
Speaker 1: it to promote a left wing ideology or use it
Speaker 1: to promote a right wing ideology. Here's what I will say.
Speaker 1: If you're using anti semitism to try to promote the
Speaker 1: left or the right, you're obviously doing it wrong and
Speaker 1: you're not very small d democratic and you certainly don't
Speaker 1: believe in freedom, that's for sure, freedom of anything, let
Speaker 1: alone freedom of religion on that front. But I remember
Speaker 1: talking with this old friend of mine and we were
Speaker 1: talking about how our mothers would tell us these stories
Speaker 1: about anti about their butt, their anti Semitic experiences in
Speaker 1: grade school and high school. My mother's second generation in America.
Speaker 1: I believe his parents were first generation, and you know,
Speaker 1: they would tell us these stories, and my friend and
Speaker 1: I would sit there and go, you know, my mother
Speaker 1: would tell these stories about you know, kids in her
Speaker 1: high school looking for her horns or asking about her tale.
Speaker 1: And you know, he would say that, you know his
Speaker 1: mother would you share similar things? And we would just
Speaker 1: look at them like they were strange beings. That's this
Speaker 1: can't be the case. What do you tell? You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't dec I didn't want to say I was
Speaker 1: dismissing mother. But you know, you think, well, maybe our
Speaker 1: parents are exaggerating a little bit, you know, maybe, And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you ten years later, All right, eleven years now,
Speaker 1: we're almost we're getting close to the eleventh year of
Speaker 1: sort of this what has been a consistent uptick, really
Speaker 1: really you can. I do believe the line of demarcation
Speaker 1: is June twenty fifteen. But you can see this uptick
Speaker 1: and it is this is not something that either side
Speaker 1: if we're going to try to make this always a
Speaker 1: two way fight between whose fault is it is that
Speaker 1: the left is of the right. This is collective and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of there's a lot of blame to
Speaker 1: go around, but I think the one that's sing singularly
Speaker 1: singular for blame and most important is social media. In this,
Speaker 1: we've always had to anti semis. We've always had a
Speaker 1: hate in the world. Okay, just it's just a fact.
Speaker 1: We've always had small minded people who have wanted to
Speaker 1: blame an ethnicity or a religious sect for their for
Speaker 1: their own personal problems. That's in it, and that is
Speaker 1: that is not new. Sometimes these sick people end up
Speaker 1: leaders of countries see Hitler, Comma Adolph. Sometimes these sick
Speaker 1: leaders end up leaders of political movements. And then there's
Speaker 1: always this what about is that comes along with with
Speaker 1: folks that are trying to defend their side from charges
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism, And it'll be like, yeah, but you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this disselected leader of Israel's bad about X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z. That doesn't justify hate on little kids celebrating
Speaker 1: Hanukah in Australia. There's nothing that justifies that. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear the Abbots and I ignore. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this the beauty of social media and
Speaker 1: stories like this is it becomes self selecting. You see
Speaker 1: the people that immediately want to point fingers and say, aha,
Speaker 1: it's the left, A hats the right, And I'm like, aha,
Speaker 1: it's somebody that doesn't have a mirror in their own frickin' house.
Speaker 1: But I want to put the emphasis on the distinguishing
Speaker 1: characteristic here of this era of anti Semitism, and that
Speaker 1: is social media.
Speaker 2: I put my.
Speaker 1: I want to align myself with some remarks that Spencer Cox,
Speaker 1: the Governor of Utah, Republican governor of Utah said last week.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't on a specific thing, wasn't specifically about
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, but it was more about the toxicity, the
Speaker 1: toxic culture, the increase in violence that we've seen in politics.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is my friend Jonathan martin Wright wrote
Speaker 1: in Politico this week. The following comment received the loudest
Speaker 1: applause he did a joint form with Josh Shapiro on
Speaker 1: this issue Spencer Cox and Josh Shapiro in conversation with
Speaker 1: my friend Savannah Guthrie, And the loudest applause at the
Speaker 1: form was when he said the following, If you want
Speaker 1: to be angry at someone, be angry at the social
Speaker 1: media companies. These are the wealthiest and most powerful companies
Speaker 1: in the history of the world, and their profiting off
Speaker 1: of destroying our kids and destroying our country. And the
Speaker 1: amplification the algorithms, the fact that fellow crazy anti semites
Speaker 1: can find other fellow crazy anti semites online and think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not the only one that thinks this, And the
Speaker 1: minute you think you're not the only one, that you're
Speaker 1: not alone. It's somehow rationalized. Is it makes you feel better?
Speaker 1: It makes you think, oh, and then when you set
Speaker 1: up an ecosystem and a bubble that sort of is
Speaker 1: self reinforcing, you think you're the mainstream. Everybody thinks their
Speaker 1: own media diet is a mainstream diet, right. It is
Speaker 1: the inability of so many people to put their feet
Speaker 1: in other people's shoes and other people's media filters. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think there's been some experiments. I really would like
Speaker 1: to see people sort of spend a day in a
Speaker 1: media filter of somebody else, and you do these various
Speaker 1: media filters just you know, I look at it as
Speaker 1: an academic exercise to try to understand the electorate. As
Speaker 1: you guys know, I have been referring to myself as
Speaker 1: a political anthropologist, meaning that that is constantly what I'm
Speaker 1: ultimately always trying to figure out is what is why
Speaker 1: are we in this place? And if you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why, you have to understand the various political
Speaker 1: tribes in America. Some of these tribes overlap. People are
Speaker 1: members of multiple tribes, sometimes remember of only one. But
Speaker 1: ultimately that's why I say I'm a political anthropologist. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how do these tribes align? Hey,
Speaker 1: gress what I know, I'm in my own tribe. I
Speaker 1: just try my best to roll down the window in
Speaker 1: my bubble and see what's going on outside of my bubble.
Speaker 1: But you have to It is hard to do it.
Speaker 1: You have to intentionally do it. You have to have
Speaker 1: the crazy ass Twitter feed that I have. That I
Speaker 1: promise you most people at America probably don't because I
Speaker 1: do try very hard to get the normies and the
Speaker 1: extremes because I want to understand what the conversation that
Speaker 1: is going on. Trust me, I'm sure some of you
Speaker 1: go some of you listening to me wouldn't even know
Speaker 1: who Candice Owens is. And by the way, God bless you,
Speaker 1: I'd love not to know who this woman is. But
Speaker 1: there are people, there's an entire community on the right
Speaker 1: that is consumed with trying to extricate this crazy woman
Speaker 1: from the mainstream of the MAGA world because of her
Speaker 1: just outlandish conspiracy theories. I can't tell if she's mentally
Speaker 1: ill or just simply a shameless grifter, or perhaps the
Speaker 1: two of the two go hand in hand. But there
Speaker 1: are plenty of people in mainstream America. I'm sure if
Speaker 1: I said the words Candice owned, my mother and my
Speaker 1: brother in law, my sister in law, who all are
Speaker 1: pretty pretty smart about this, would be like, who the
Speaker 1: hell is that? And I wouldn't blame them. But that's
Speaker 1: because this is the world that we've all constructed. But
Speaker 1: it's the world that social media has gone out of
Speaker 1: their way to construct. And this is why, you know,
Speaker 1: I look at this rise of anti Semitism, and I
Speaker 1: look the fact that this was not a lone nut right,
Speaker 1: but there appears to be some coordination down there in Australia.
Speaker 1: I do I can't, you know, I know that ultimately
Speaker 1: individuals are to blame, not a computer, not an algorithm,
Speaker 1: but these tech platfor to amplify, and you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I think they have a responsibility to make sure that
Speaker 1: what they're doing is not putting more people in harm's way,
Speaker 1: and their amplification, their algorithms, are doing just that, they
Speaker 1: deserve no protection on Section two thirty, the part of
Speaker 1: the law that supposedly says, hey, we're just you know,
Speaker 1: we're not doing the minute they put an algorithm on
Speaker 1: these things, the minute they amplify, the minute they allow
Speaker 1: for the connection. Look, our First Amendment guarantees free speech.
Speaker 1: It doesn't guarantee if bullhorn, It doesn't guarantee a right
Speaker 1: to be the loudest voice in the room. It just
Speaker 1: simply guarantees that you have a right to free speech.
Speaker 1: So you have a right to be a hateful anti
Speaker 1: semi okay, but you don't have the right to have
Speaker 1: your extreme, hateful and hurtful political views be the dominant
Speaker 1: piece of conversation and be mainstreamed in to America. No, because,
Speaker 1: by the way, we don't want it mainstream, and the
Speaker 1: tech companies do not have to protect you and do
Speaker 1: not have to amplify your speech. In fact, they can
Speaker 1: dial it down. In fact, there's plenty of academic studies
Speaker 1: that show if you dial down hateful content, you're not
Speaker 1: getting rid of it, you're just prioritizing it less than
Speaker 1: these algorithms. It's shocking how much turning that temperature down
Speaker 1: actually helps the conversation. So it's troubling, but I really,
Speaker 1: you know, you look at the situation we're in, and
Speaker 1: there's no doubt we have bad leaders around the world
Speaker 1: that are exploiting hate and anger to try to make
Speaker 1: a political argument. You have people on both sides of
Speaker 1: the aisle attempting to weaponize anger at Israel or anger
Speaker 1: at the economy and trying to somehow connect that to
Speaker 1: Jewish folks. The left does it with bb at times.
Speaker 1: The right does it with George Soros. I mean George Soros.
Speaker 1: There is no greater victim, there's no greater victim of
Speaker 1: anti Semitic mythology, uh and gross mischaracterizations than George Soros.
Speaker 1: And I don't know where he gets to go to
Speaker 1: get his reputation back considering the character assassinations that have
Speaker 1: taken place through the prism of his faith. There's there's
Speaker 1: no no, no doubt in my mind on that front.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, why do we have more collective conversation about this?
Speaker 1: Why is there more collective talk about this? Why is there,
Speaker 1: frankly more insecurity for many Jewish Jewish people around the world.
Speaker 1: Why do we feel so less secure today than we
Speaker 1: ever have before. I think we can thank social media.
Speaker 1: I think the tech companies have not only not gotten
Speaker 1: the focus of this, they've not taken responsibility, but I
Speaker 1: think they need They need to be the focal point.
Speaker 1: Which brings me to that column that my friend Jonathan
Speaker 1: Martin wrote, which he says, you know, perhaps Spencer Cox
Speaker 1: needs to be the anti tech candidate. Somebody needs to
Speaker 1: take it to the tech community. Right, the tech community
Speaker 1: has brought us a lot of positives. Okay, there's a
Speaker 1: ton of positives, and there's a ton of tools that
Speaker 1: have been invented that have helped me create a better
Speaker 1: communications system with you guys. Right, There's no doubt there's
Speaker 1: plenty of upsides from the tech community, but what they
Speaker 1: have done with social media, And this is why I
Speaker 1: don't think the public is going to be supportive at
Speaker 1: all of this light touch, non regulatory process that the
Speaker 1: President's trying to do an artificial intelligence. The same industry,
Speaker 1: the same industry that gave us social media without regulation,
Speaker 1: now wants to give us artificial intelligence without regulation. Considering
Speaker 1: how well social media went, how the hell are we
Speaker 1: doing this right? This is the most illogical thing you
Speaker 1: could come up with. I can't believe the President is
Speaker 1: doing this. I think this is you want to talk
Speaker 1: about convincing more mainstream Americans to go get a pitch
Speaker 1: for it and start sharpening up, sharpening that sucker up.
Speaker 1: It is just crazy that we don't want to put
Speaker 1: any guardrails on the growth and expansion of the AI industry.
Speaker 1: It is absolute insanity. Okay, if you think social media
Speaker 1: created more toxicity in our culture and more violence in
Speaker 1: our culture thanks to the lack of regulation, what do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen with artificial intelligence if
Speaker 1: we don't have some attempt at making sure there are
Speaker 1: constant guardrails being erected as we build this super highway.
Speaker 1: It is something that I think I've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: I think it is politically absolutely going to be frankly
Speaker 1: an easy thing to exploit potentially. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: why the tech community is really making a mistake here
Speaker 1: that they are not grasping just in what kind of
Speaker 1: precarious position that they're in. And maybe they think we
Speaker 1: don't need America and if America shuts us down, we'll
Speaker 1: just go somewhere else where we will be treated with
Speaker 1: lot we can just buy our way into a policy
Speaker 1: that we want. And obviously, right now we have a
Speaker 1: situation where they can get whatever the hell they want
Speaker 1: from this administration if they just write a check. And
Speaker 1: that's disturbing, but that's why we still have a competitive democracy,
Speaker 1: although I'm going to get to that in a minute,
Speaker 1: where the voters can sort of have a say in this,
Speaker 1: because right now we have zero say in what social
Speaker 1: media has done to us, and we don't seem to
Speaker 1: have the collective will. It's growing. I mean, look, I
Speaker 1: think it's a huge start that you've got. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: Australia is trying to ban social media for people under
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen. Spencer Cock made Cox made this
Speaker 1: mention that we wait to hand the keys to a
Speaker 1: car to a kid until sixteen, Yet we give them
Speaker 1: an algorithmic driven phone at twelve. You know, perhaps we
Speaker 1: can give them a phone at twelve with no social
Speaker 1: media on it. Right, maybe it's flip phones from twelve
Speaker 1: to sixteen, because plenty of parents want to have some
Speaker 1: access to their kids and all that. I think that
Speaker 1: that's a legitimate concern. But you know, we can essentially say,
Speaker 1: you know, no, just you can't have a you know,
Speaker 1: because I don't know how else you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to monitor this. But if you actually just make
Speaker 1: the device itself against the law for somebody under the
Speaker 1: age of sixteen to have, that might be a start.
Speaker 1: It is the one area where we're starting to see
Speaker 1: some bipartisan consensus, which is about access to screens and
Speaker 1: social media for people under sixteen. And we've decided this
Speaker 1: is a problem. Well, guess what do you think that
Speaker 1: our minds are only fragile from sixteen and younger, or
Speaker 1: that we've got these fragile minds that are much older too,
Speaker 1: and that social media warps those warps those over the
Speaker 1: age of sixteen almost as badly as they could warp
Speaker 1: those under the age of twelve. One other point on
Speaker 1: the social media front, Jonathan mentioned an interesting new report
Speaker 1: that noted about. It was a poll about the mano sphere,
Speaker 1: if you will, what do men want? And it revealed
Speaker 1: that a majority of males sampled in that survey said
Speaker 1: social media feeds have gotten a lot more extreme. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of this is thanks to Elon Musk and his
Speaker 1: insanity and what he's done to Ax and taking away
Speaker 1: all guardrails on acts, and of course every other social
Speaker 1: media company followed because they didn't want to get left behind.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is that men themselves revealed in this
Speaker 1: poll that most controversial content reaches the men who are
Speaker 1: online the most, especially younger men, white men, black men,
Speaker 1: Hispanic men across the board. And we're seeing a more
Speaker 1: radical youth thanks to warped social media algorithms. So when
Speaker 1: we see this rise of hate, we see this rise
Speaker 1: of violence, and we're looking, you know, the easy thing
Speaker 1: is to try to point left, point right, point at Israel,
Speaker 1: point Gaza, point a Hamas, point of protesters. People want
Speaker 1: to point it. A whole bunch of figures, except for
Speaker 1: the culprit that is in charge of the information ecosystem
Speaker 1: that destroyed the information ecosystem. And trust me, I'm aware
Speaker 1: of the irony that I am speaking to you in
Speaker 1: that ecosystem, and hopefully it gets to you it doesn't
Speaker 1: get shut down by the algorithms of these big tech companies.
Speaker 1: But they're the culprits here. They've created this environment that
Speaker 1: has made it a lot easier for these hateful, awful,
Speaker 1: mentally ill people to find comfort in their bubbles because
Speaker 1: it looks like they're not alone and that they're somehow namestream.
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Speaker 1: life insurance is something you should really think about, especially
Speaker 1: if you've got a growing family. I want to pivot
Speaker 1: quickly to my Newsphere interview this week because some alarming
Speaker 1: new facts that I had not seen anywhere else from
Speaker 1: Mark Warner. He's the vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee.
Speaker 1: Mark Warner has seen the second He has seen the
Speaker 1: video of both the September second second strike on those
Speaker 1: survivors from the first strike of the boats off the
Speaker 1: coast of Venezuela, and he revealed two facts that I
Speaker 1: had not seen anywhere. Fact number one is that the
Speaker 1: time that elapsed between the first strike and the second
Speaker 1: strike was somewhere between thirty and forty minutes because of
Speaker 1: cloud cover, so thirty to forty minutes, and then the
Speaker 1: clouds come up, and then apparently what is revealed, according
Speaker 1: to Senator Warner, was not fully clothed survivors clinging to
Speaker 1: their life, and then the second strike. Let's just say
Speaker 1: this is what look He believes that if Americans see
Speaker 1: this video, they will be appalled. There will be and
Speaker 1: there's a reason why the Pentagon is fighting the release
Speaker 1: of this video. There is no defense. There apparently is
Speaker 1: going to be no defense of what this video looks like.
Speaker 1: This is appalling, and there are probably going to be
Speaker 1: concerns that there are people that might have legal jeopardy here.
Speaker 1: But realistically, I don't know where you get the legal
Speaker 1: jeopardy when the president will likely just pardon anybody that
Speaker 1: is investigated. But there's a reason people are fighting very
Speaker 1: hard not to release this second video because if what
Speaker 1: is what Warner described to me a delayed thirty to
Speaker 1: forty minutes and they were not fully clothed, Essentially, just
Speaker 1: put yourself for the situation. Your boat explode, You're alive,
Speaker 1: you're swimming, You're clinging to the remnants of a boat
Speaker 1: in order to stay afloat not drown. Half your clothes
Speaker 1: are gone, been blown off. Maybe you're just sort of
Speaker 1: trying to use it, and we decide to use the
Speaker 1: second shot. No wonder there are questions why the phrase
Speaker 1: war crime is being tossed around although we're not at war,
Speaker 1: because you know, as many a person has pointed out,
Speaker 1: the question is whether there is not whether this second
Speaker 1: strike was legal, but we still have real doubts about
Speaker 1: whether the first strike is legal. And it is worth
Speaker 1: noting that earlier this week, earlier last week, Trump offered
Speaker 1: a veiled threat at Colombia because the president of Colombia
Speaker 1: has been critical of this, saying that he might not
Speaker 1: be out of the crosshairs. And then the President has
Speaker 1: said that they might target some of these folks on land.
Speaker 1: Whose land is it? Venezuela is a Colombia. Where's this headed?
Speaker 1: And again there is no Senator Warner could not give
Speaker 1: me the authority that that he could not explain very
Speaker 1: well the authority that the White House was using that
Speaker 1: they claimed these strikes were legal. I mean, they've cited
Speaker 1: an authority. It's not the for if you're wondering what
Speaker 1: Senator Warner said, it is not the am au m
Speaker 1: F that was passed by Congress that that allowed for
Speaker 1: the invasion of Iraq, but and which has been used,
Speaker 1: which was used by Obama as justification for strikes, and
Speaker 1: I believe Yemen and some other places. So that is
Speaker 1: not there. So we still don't have a clear picture
Speaker 1: of the legal authority the White House is claiming to
Speaker 1: go after these folks. But he has threatened land strikes
Speaker 1: without asking for any authority from Congress and additional authority
Speaker 1: from Congress, nor has he made his case to the
Speaker 1: American public. And by the way, the decision to essentially
Speaker 1: commandeer an oil tanker rather than just blow it up,
Speaker 1: although blowing up an oil tanker would have been catastrophic,
Speaker 1: essentially starting a fire on the Pacific Ocean potentially or
Speaker 1: the Caribbean Sea, depending on where they were hitting this tanker.
Speaker 1: But if we can board a tanker, we could have
Speaker 1: boarded these boats. And I think the decision not to
Speaker 1: attack that tanker and simply to just commandeer it under
Speaker 1: totally undermines the rationale and justification of the strikes themselves.
Speaker 1: Why there is no good explanation for why we're not
Speaker 1: just essentially stopping these boats, grabbing these people and getting
Speaker 1: some intelligence so that we can actually learn something. And
Speaker 1: I want to just keep one thing in mind here,
Speaker 1: just one more thing in mind, which is the president's
Speaker 1: political standing is not great. He has had a terrible month.
Speaker 1: He had a terrible Friday, excuse me, Thursday last week
Speaker 1: when his retribution campaign. You know, basically he's the Emperor
Speaker 1: with no clothes as far as Indiana Republicans are concerned.
Speaker 1: Grand Juries in Virginia are not. Might might want to
Speaker 1: indict at Ham Sandwich, but they won't indict Leticia James
Speaker 1: when he's not feeling, when he feels as if things
Speaker 1: are going bad, that's just when he might do crazier
Speaker 1: stuff and might attempt crazier stuff to either change the
Speaker 1: subject or change the picture. One more thing before I
Speaker 1: get to an important essay that I think you guys
Speaker 1: have to make note of the president. It is notable
Speaker 1: to me that the President did an interview with the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and the most fascinating
Speaker 1: aspect of it was his tone change. He essentially is
Speaker 1: admitting that he's going to lose the mid terms. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, he basically said, we're going to try our
Speaker 1: best to win. We'll see what happens. We should win,
Speaker 1: but you know, statistically it's very tough to win. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it doesn't make So it's the beginning of
Speaker 1: the excuse making. It's the beginning of the his way
Speaker 1: of admitting this economy, that the public doesn't like this economy.
Speaker 1: This was the interview saying, Oh, it's going to take time,
Speaker 1: my investments haven't gone through. It will happen. Just be patient,
Speaker 1: and as he said, hopefully it happens before the election.
Speaker 1: But it's notable, right he went from this is a
Speaker 1: hoax two weeks ago to at least in this interview
Speaker 1: with the Wall Street Journal sort of accepting the premise. Yes,
Speaker 1: we realized the public doesn't feel it or see it yet,
Speaker 1: but they will, But they will, he promises, He swears.
Speaker 1: These are these stages. It's we should call it stages
Speaker 1: of political it's not quite political grief. But it's sort
Speaker 1: of like, you know, first there's a dial right, then
Speaker 1: there's you know, somehow you're argumentative. Then there's a form
Speaker 1: of acceptance. He's getting into the form of acceptance, but
Speaker 1: he's not accepting the premise that his policies are a problem.
Speaker 1: He's just simply saying his policies haven't kicked in yet,
Speaker 1: And that says he's no different than any other president
Speaker 1: trying to defend a bad economy. No, no, no, no, my
Speaker 1: policies haven't kicked in yet. It's always my policies haven't
Speaker 1: kicked in yet. I'm dealing with the predecessor's policies. So
Speaker 1: in that sense, it's a familiar pattern. Perhaps the best
Speaker 1: part of that Wall Street Journal interview was the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, he's doing the interview with the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Turnal reporters, but he's taking calls and doing all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff at the same time, right, And here's
Speaker 1: the I'm going to read directly from the article. At
Speaker 1: one point, the President, sitting at the resolute desk with
Speaker 1: a glittering Christmas tree at its side, asked an aid
Speaker 1: to show him the latest market data. He took calls
Speaker 1: from friends and allies multiple times during the interview, including
Speaker 1: from Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, who joined by speakerphone to
Speaker 1: discuss the administration's plans for Washington, d C. Area public
Speaker 1: golf courses. That is right, the President seems to not
Speaker 1: be worried about the price of groceries as much as
Speaker 1: he's worried about the designs and who's in charge of
Speaker 1: redesigning Washington d C's three public golf courses, Rock Creek Park,
Speaker 1: Haines Pointston. I mean, if you're trying to hand Democrats
Speaker 1: easier fodder to say, you know, he promised this, to focus,
Speaker 1: laser focus on this, this and this, and instead he
Speaker 1: cares about building a ballroom, changing the name of the
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center, singing ymca UH, and redesigning Washington DC's golf courses,
Speaker 1: all of course extraordinarily important priorities to bringing down the
Speaker 1: costs of electricity and groceries in your home. Anyway, just
Speaker 1: uh not not the smartest politician, but Donald Trump's never
Speaker 1: been the smartest about messaging in that front. But that
Speaker 1: brings me to I think a very important essay from
Speaker 1: a quarterly journal. I'm a politically like I say, I'm
Speaker 1: a want to be political scientist, I call myself a
Speaker 1: political anthropologist. That means I actually read political science quarterlies.
Speaker 1: And there's an extra jordinarily important one that's out this week.
Speaker 1: It's an essay in Foreign Affairs, which is the flagship
Speaker 1: journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. This isn't a
Speaker 1: partisan outlet, it's not a resistance blog. It's the magazine
Speaker 1: where American presidents, Secretary of States, national security advisors have
Speaker 1: gone for generations debate how the world works and how
Speaker 1: the United States role it should be. So three of
Speaker 1: the most respected democracy scholars in the world from Harvard
Speaker 1: Toronto and the Council on Foreign Relations, Steven Levitzky, Luke
Speaker 1: and Way and Daniel Ziblat. They're not cable pundits. They're
Speaker 1: not people you're going to see in the round tables
Speaker 1: of Sunday shows. They're not political activists. They're simply political
Speaker 1: sciences who spent their career studying how democracies erode around
Speaker 1: the world, how they fail, and occasionally how they recover. Well,
Speaker 1: they have an essay called with about out competitive Authoritarianism,
Speaker 1: and in fact this is what they write, and this
Speaker 1: is why I took it very seriously. This was not
Speaker 1: something I read, no offense to my friends at the Bulwark.
Speaker 1: It's not something I read in the Bullwark. Not something
Speaker 1: you're going to see it here in pod Save of
Speaker 1: America certainly, now you might. I doubt you'll hear this
Speaker 1: from my friend Eric Ericson either. But here's this essay.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, the United States ceased to be
Speaker 1: a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or
Speaker 1: even Argentina are democracies. Okay, they're just making a classification.
Speaker 1: And then comes the line. The game, however, is far
Speaker 1: from up. They're not saying all is lost. Okay. It
Speaker 1: is an important essay because they deal with this tension
Speaker 1: of yes we have had erosion and no, this isn't permanent. Okay.
Speaker 1: So they argue that Donald Trump's second term the United
Speaker 1: States crossed a definitional line into something political scientists call
Speaker 1: competitive authoritarianism. Here's how they define it a system in
Speaker 1: which parties compete in elections, but incumbents routinely abuse their
Speaker 1: power to punish critics untilt the playing field against their opposition.
Speaker 1: So elections still happen, but perhaps you threaten lawmakers to
Speaker 1: redraw the maps to make more favorable elections. Opposition parties
Speaker 1: still exist, but perhaps you raise the threshold for petition
Speaker 1: signatures to get on a referendum, or you change the
Speaker 1: dates and stuff see Missouri. But the referee is no
Speaker 1: longer neutral, right, and the House rules keep changing. And importantly,
Speaker 1: they're not saying this might happen, because it's already happened
Speaker 1: in this country. A year ago, this group predicted that
Speaker 1: this would be Trump's trajectory, that he'd weaponized state institutions
Speaker 1: the way elected autocrats have done in Hungry, Turkey, Venezuela,
Speaker 1: and India. And those are the four most important examples
Speaker 1: to follow here, because Venezuela obviously the helm election the
Speaker 1: leader loss, and he wouldn't leave Turkey, Hungary and India
Speaker 1: have are what are considered faiish elections. But we'll find
Speaker 1: out when the ruling party loses one day just how
Speaker 1: fair they are. But they write this indeed, the Trump
Speaker 1: administration has done exactly that. But here's what the authors say.
Speaker 1: They didn't anticipate. What's surprised even then wasn't the speed,
Speaker 1: but it was the scope. And they write, this, one
Speaker 1: form of authoritarian behavior that we did not anticipate a
Speaker 1: year ago was the Trump administration's routine subversion of the
Speaker 1: law and even the US Constitution. Well, we've seen that
Speaker 1: with the strikes, with that as well. I mean, there
Speaker 1: is very little, very little doubt here that this is
Speaker 1: not yet not constitutional. The question is whether they'll even
Speaker 1: try to give some congressional authority on that. So let
Speaker 1: me outline a few more things that they write here,
Speaker 1: weaponizing the state. They call it the blueprint. Every competitive
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime follows a familiar playbook. Purge, then pack, so
Speaker 1: removing professional civil servants who see their job as the law,
Speaker 1: and replace them with loyalists who see their job as
Speaker 1: the leader. Just look at the FBI. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: they document happening inside the Justice Department, the FBI, and
Speaker 1: other key agencies. When officials resisted, they were just simply removed.
Speaker 1: We've seen US attorneys, deputy US attorneys just summarily fired
Speaker 1: when replacements were chosen, they weren't selected for experience, but
Speaker 1: for loyalty, including, as the author's note, Trump's own personal
Speaker 1: lawyers installed as senior Justice Department officials. It's just right
Speaker 1: out of, right, out of sort of. There's a fun
Speaker 1: parody about authoritarianism called Moon over Parador with Richard Dreyfus.
Speaker 1: I do to write that what seemed like parody is
Speaker 1: now real. Right, And then even when prosecutions don't lead
Speaker 1: to convictions, the authors explain why that doesn't matter. Such
Speaker 1: investigations themselves are the powerful form of harassment, right, making
Speaker 1: Adam Shift hire a lawyer, making Letitia James deal with this,
Speaker 1: making James Comy deal with this, legal fees, time, reputational damage,
Speaker 1: career disrupt eruption. The punishment is often the process itself.
Speaker 1: They don't care if they ca convictions. They just want
Speaker 1: them constantly made to be, you know, unhireable, don't get
Speaker 1: them on corporate boards, make them seem as if they're
Speaker 1: controversial figures. Then of course you got to follow the money.
Speaker 1: Because this is what's happened with their next move, going
Speaker 1: after civil society. How's the Trump administration done this? They've
Speaker 1: ordered investigations into Act Blue, the primary arm of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party, Open Society Foundations, the George Soros founded organization.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal reported that that there are plans
Speaker 1: to target Democratic donors through the IRS. That's right out
Speaker 1: of the competitive authoritarian handbook that these political scientists know.
Speaker 1: Then there's the pressure campaign against the media. Trump sue
Speaker 1: the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The
Speaker 1: FCC opened silly investigations into ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Comcast,
Speaker 1: which owns NBC. We've seen the FCC chair act like
Speaker 1: a thug in threatening Jimmy Kimmel, Disney and NBC. It
Speaker 1: is it is, and what makes this so dangerous and
Speaker 1: so effective is is not just what happened, but because
Speaker 1: of what didn't happen. In fact, our authors are arguing
Speaker 1: that the most insidious change isn't the repression, it's been
Speaker 1: the self censorship. They point that outlets i've become realigning
Speaker 1: and pull back, like the Washington Post, like the editorial
Speaker 1: page is kind of a clown show. Now it is
Speaker 1: just outside of George Well, there's not a readable columnist
Speaker 1: left in that place. It is just a joke. The
Speaker 1: editorial page itself is sort of. It's like they have
Speaker 1: one thing they do every time if there's some economic controversy,
Speaker 1: they write some convoluted editorial attacking Elizabeth Warren. I guess
Speaker 1: that makes Chef Bezos feel better, but it has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the point itself or any of the
Speaker 1: actual rational debate that's gone on. You've had the teen
Speaker 1: Vogue has sort of gotten rid of their political coverage.
Speaker 1: CBS clearly just has a new owner and they just
Speaker 1: wiped out, you know, brought in virtue signaling new editors
Speaker 1: to run thing. We've seen Disney cave in, We've seen
Speaker 1: plenty of again, all of these legacy media, these corporate owned,
Speaker 1: shareholder driven media organizations that all fall under Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: potential influence due to government regulation, they've all capitulated, which
Speaker 1: is why frankly, we're doing so well here at the podcast,
Speaker 1: So in some ways, thank you, But unfortunately, this is
Speaker 1: why we've all gone down this independent road. Because if
Speaker 1: you want to be honest and if you want to
Speaker 1: tell the truth, you're gonna have to find a different
Speaker 1: outlet because you're not gonna be able to do it
Speaker 1: at the Washington Post. You're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: do it at the major legacy TV networks that are left.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying individuals aren't trying, but collectively they're not
Speaker 1: even giving the chance. And here's the other thing. Here's
Speaker 1: the part we don't know. What makes self censorship so
Speaker 1: insidious is that it is virtually impossible to ascertain its
Speaker 1: full impact. So wrote these authors, right, we can see
Speaker 1: a firing, we can see a cancelation. What we can't
Speaker 1: see are the stories that are never pitched, the investigations
Speaker 1: that get quietly abandoned, or the headlines that are softened
Speaker 1: out of fear, or the questions that don't get asked
Speaker 1: on camera because executives in New York tell their correspondence
Speaker 1: please don't do it. Because our corporate overlords are afraid
Speaker 1: of blowback from the president that is happening. You can
Speaker 1: guess where that's coming from. That's how democracies hollow out.
Speaker 1: And this is where the essay draws a crucial historical line.
Speaker 1: America has had its stark chapters Jim Crow read Scare,
Speaker 1: Japanese Internment, McCarthys, and Nixon. But the authors also argue
Speaker 1: that after Watergate, the overt authoritarian abuse largely disappeared. Since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, no democratic or Republican administration had systematically
Speaker 1: politicized law enforcement or targeted political rivals the way Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is doing. George W. Bush his Justice Department investigative
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats. Barack Obama appointed James Comey, a Republican,
Speaker 1: to be the head of the FBI. Joe Biden kept
Speaker 1: Christopher Ray as head of the FBI and a pointee
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. Mind you, Merrick Garland bent over backwards
Speaker 1: as Attorney General, sometimes to a fault, to avoid the
Speaker 1: appearance of political interference. So the conclusion is fun in
Speaker 1: each of those critical areas that Trump administration stands alone
Speaker 1: in its authoritarianism. Now, none of this is inevitable. And
Speaker 1: here's where the essay shifts from diagnosis to prognosis. He says,
Speaker 1: the US still has advantages that most competitive authoritarian regimes
Speaker 1: do not. There's still an independent judiciary. There's still a
Speaker 1: professional military, though Pete hagg Seth is trying to erode it.
Speaker 1: There's still strong federalism. I mean, look at the way
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis is pushed back on the AI issue in
Speaker 1: the AI moratorium that Trump is done. There's still a
Speaker 1: vibrant civil society. Helloo, and there's a unified opposition party.
Speaker 1: And Trump himself lacks the single most important asset the
Speaker 1: author's note for authoritarian consolidation overwhelming popularity. Successful autocrats often
Speaker 1: rule with approval ratings over eight. Trump is stuck in
Speaker 1: the low forties. And it's actually trending downward that matters.
Speaker 1: So that brings us to what they argue is the
Speaker 1: greatest danger of them all. The greatest danger is not repression,
Speaker 1: but demobilization. It's not tanks, it's not mass arrests, its
Speaker 1: acceptance and resignation. It's people deciding not to run, not
Speaker 1: to donate, not to sue, not to vote. And then
Speaker 1: this line, which is really the thesis of the piece,
Speaker 1: The outcome of this struggle remains open. It will turn
Speaker 1: less than the strength of the authoritarian government than on
Speaker 1: whether enough citizens act as though their efforts still matter,
Speaker 1: because for now they still do. So there you go, Levitzky,
Speaker 1: Way and Ziblat. They aren't telling Americans to panic, They're
Speaker 1: just telling you what is okay. This is what has
Speaker 1: happened to America the first year of Trump's second term.
Speaker 1: We have slipped into something called competitive authoritarianism. He is
Speaker 1: trying to create an authoritarian regime. There is democracy still,
Speaker 1: there is still competition, okay. And our future is not
Speaker 1: set in stone or the cement is still wet. Okay.
Speaker 1: They're warning against two equally dangerous instincts, complacency and fatalism.
Speaker 1: The future is going to be unstable, okay. Neither full
Speaker 1: democracy nor entrenched dictatorship is going to happen. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a struggle. This is going to be a fight.
Speaker 1: The next elections may be fought in theory over policy differences,
Speaker 1: but they're really going to be about the larger issue
Speaker 1: of what kind of system are we choosing to live under?
Speaker 1: And that danger isn't that democracy disappears overnight. It's the
Speaker 1: dangers people stop believing that they can defend it. So
Speaker 1: please go read this piece. It's extraordinarily important. It's well argued,
Speaker 1: it is you know, evidence based, it is data driven.
Speaker 1: Is it is not just alarmist cable commentary. And that's
Speaker 1: the most important thing. And it comes from a place
Speaker 1: in the Council on Foreign Relations where important ideas sort
Speaker 1: of get launched for debate, and this is one that
Speaker 1: more and more mainstream Americans need to understand what is
Speaker 1: happening and what it's taking place. All Right, I've gone
Speaker 1: on a little bit longer with my first half monologue
Speaker 1: here before than I have, But in some ways that
Speaker 1: goes right into the need for open primaries, the need
Speaker 1: to structure our politics so that we have more voices
Speaker 1: that have a shot here, not fewer voices. The manipulation
Speaker 1: of our political system sort of begins with this attempt
Speaker 1: at picking who your voters are, if you will, and
Speaker 1: that is a huge problem. So we'll sneak in a
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: to Nick Troiano ahead of United America on how we
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Speaker 1: for thirty percent off. Joining me now to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about reforming are the infrastructure of the democracy.
Speaker 1: It's somebody I've had conversations with before. Somebody I've known
Speaker 1: a long time, Nick Triano. He's the executive director of
Speaker 1: Unite America, the organization that brought ranked choice voting to
Speaker 1: the state of Alaska in particular, had been fighting to
Speaker 1: get essentially to get rid of partisan primaries, whatever form
Speaker 1: that can be done. If it's ranked choice voting, it's
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting simply getting rid of the need for
Speaker 1: party registration, then it's getting rid of the need for that.
Speaker 1: But it has been the through line of Nick's work.
Speaker 1: But I know that he's essentially been in this game.
Speaker 1: He look he ran for Congress as an independent, he's
Speaker 1: and he realized these bare to entry were extraordinarily high.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're not a far left or a
Speaker 1: far right person, is there a home for you in
Speaker 1: American politics? Is there a home for you in primaries?
Speaker 1: And I think Nick has been devoting himself to trying
Speaker 1: to find that place for those of us that aren't
Speaker 1: stuck in the wings. And he joins me, now, Nick,
Speaker 1: good to see you.
Speaker 2: Good to see you.
Speaker 1: Check. So let's start with sort of your this is
Speaker 1: United America, what are we up ten years.
Speaker 2: Coming up on ten years running the organization, and we're
Speaker 2: not more united than I then we started. However, we're
Speaker 2: still working on it.
Speaker 1: So look, the let's start with ranked choice voting, because
Speaker 1: I think the first time you and I had a conversation,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of there's a lot of bullishness,
Speaker 1: a lot of excitement about the idea. It kind of
Speaker 1: worked right pretty It seemed like it worked the way
Speaker 1: it was supposed to work in Alaska, it worked the
Speaker 1: way many people were hoping it would work. In New
Speaker 1: York City in twenty twenty one, you know, the main
Speaker 1: experiment has been less successful because of the decision that
Speaker 1: main lawmakers made to to only have this somehow count
Speaker 1: for federal not for state, which is just a head scratcher.
Speaker 1: And frankly, I find the whole New York City set
Speaker 1: up so the Democrats use rank choice voting, but that
Speaker 1: trust me, there are a lot of voters who wanted
Speaker 1: rank choice voting, I think during the general election. But
Speaker 1: I know you know this, over the last four or
Speaker 1: five years, I feel like there's been a movement against it,
Speaker 1: even people that were supportive going it's hard to explain.
Speaker 1: You and I've had this conversation I've always said it,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, as somebody who has walked people through
Speaker 1: election nights and talks about, you know, vote dumps and
Speaker 1: things like that, explaining ranked choice voting getting it out
Speaker 1: of the black box is very difficult. So that's a
Speaker 1: long lined up. Where are you on this? Where's United
Speaker 1: America on rank choice voting? And is this a method
Speaker 1: that you still think is the answer?
Speaker 2: Well, I in you in America are focused on solving
Speaker 2: what we call the primary problem, which is the role
Speaker 2: that party primaries play in exacerbating our divisions, in increasing
Speaker 2: dysfunction and government because they incentivize candidates and elected officials
Speaker 2: to play to the base of both parties in order
Speaker 2: to win the only elections that really matter these days,
Speaker 2: which is not the November election when most people vote,
Speaker 2: but the primaries when the candidates are nominated, because most
Speaker 2: districts and states right now lean so heavily one way
Speaker 2: or another. So that's the problem, in our view, low
Speaker 2: turnout party primaries dictating the outcomes of most elections before
Speaker 2: most Americans can even vote. The solution set for what
Speaker 2: we can do to solve that problem is varied, and
Speaker 2: when we talk about solutions to the primary problem. It
Speaker 2: could look like opening up primary so that all voters
Speaker 2: can participate, including independent voters that are currently locked out
Speaker 2: of primaries in sixteen states. It can look like getting
Speaker 2: rid of party primaries and replacing it with all candidate primaries,
Speaker 2: so there's a single ballot in the primary, everyone gets
Speaker 2: to vote for whomever they want, and the top finishers
Speaker 2: go to the general election. There's a system that's called
Speaker 2: top two that's used in California and Washington for example,
Speaker 2: or what Alaska adopt it in twenty twenty, which is
Speaker 2: a top four system. And when you advance four candidates
Speaker 2: from the primary to the general election, you want to
Speaker 2: ensure that one of them wins with majority support, not
Speaker 2: just plurality. And there are two ways of accomplishing that.
Speaker 2: One is you can hold a runoff election if no
Speaker 2: one gets over fifty percent, or the other is you
Speaker 2: can have an instant runoff where people rank their candidates
Speaker 2: according to preference, and if no one gets a majority,
Speaker 2: there's a process of elimination using voters' backup choices. That's
Speaker 2: what ranked choice voting refers to specifically, which is the
Speaker 2: part of the reform in a top four primary, that
Speaker 2: is focused on ensuring a majority winner. Ranked choice voting
Speaker 2: is used in other circumstances, and in our view, it's
Speaker 2: most powerful when it's combined with a reform to the
Speaker 2: primary system. So Alaska's reform is a top four primary
Speaker 2: reform plus ranked choice voting in the general election. And
Speaker 2: other places like New York City or Maine are what
Speaker 2: we would think of as partial reforms because they only
Speaker 2: have ranked choice voting and they don't really have any
Speaker 2: other kinds of reforms to the primary system that could
Speaker 2: improve governing incentives by widening the electorate.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the mechanics of ranked choice voting, because
Speaker 1: I think that's been the stumbling block. Can you is
Speaker 1: there any way to make this feel more transparent where
Speaker 1: you feel like you can see the You know, I
Speaker 1: have not come up with one, but I'm curious if
Speaker 1: if you have, or you know of other folks who tried.
Speaker 2: Well, there's two parts to the ranked choice voting process.
Speaker 2: There is the part where voters show up to the
Speaker 2: voting booth or get their ballot in the mail and
Speaker 2: they fill out their ballot. And that part is simple,
Speaker 2: which is you have the option of ranking your candidates
Speaker 2: or you can just vote for your favorite, and in
Speaker 2: all of our exit polling, we found that eighty plus
Speaker 2: percent of voters say that they find this simple to do,
Speaker 2: and that number goes up over time as people get
Speaker 2: used to it. The second part is how the votes
Speaker 2: are tabulated, and that is done by election administrators. They
Speaker 2: have a range of options for how they do it,
Speaker 2: and some jurisdictions in the country, particularly those that have
Speaker 2: been using it for a decade or more, have found
Speaker 2: ways that this can be an instantaneous process and it
Speaker 2: could be fully transparent, which is to say, they release
Speaker 2: the cast vote records so that there is a way
Speaker 2: that anyone can audit the results. There is a way
Speaker 2: to make sure that there's results delivered on election night,
Speaker 2: and there's ways of displaying the results that make it
Speaker 2: intuitive for people to understand exactly what happens at each
Speaker 2: round of the tabulation. So the charge sometimes that it's
Speaker 2: a complicated or confusing system is really used by opponents
Speaker 2: to say, you know, let's not change the way that
Speaker 2: the elections are currently working, because the current way works
Speaker 2: for them. It works for the two major parties, it
Speaker 2: works for the incumbent politicians. They're afraid of change. But
Speaker 2: you know, election reforms like the ones we champion have
Speaker 2: been used successfully in America and abroad for many years,
Speaker 2: and it's a necessary part of what it's going to
Speaker 2: take to foster a more functional and representative government.
Speaker 1: Look, I am, I am. If we could get if
Speaker 1: we could go to a top four I fully believe
Speaker 1: we should be a top four democracy. I'd love to
Speaker 1: see that in our presidential race, you know where, and
Speaker 1: then and that I wouldn't do rank choice. I think
Speaker 1: the country suit there's a runoff, then the top two
Speaker 1: face off, we have one more debate, like there's a runoff,
Speaker 1: right Like it feels like that that is that we
Speaker 1: you know, we wouldn't have a big drop in turn
Speaker 1: you know, the concern and when we got rid of
Speaker 1: general election runoffs, the concern is always, well, you're not
Speaker 1: going to have a good turnout. Well that's not true anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, I look at the special election
Speaker 1: in Tennessee earlier this during the earlier part of December,
Speaker 1: and for a special election in December. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there were something like one hundred and fifty thousand total votes.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's impressive for that. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: the engagement with the democracy. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: there's a I think there's a commentary about our country
Speaker 1: that our electric gets engaged when when they when they
Speaker 1: think they feel it slipping away. But you know, it
Speaker 1: turns out that apathy was a sign of stability. But
Speaker 1: it is, so I don't mind that. What but if
Speaker 1: we had thirty states holding runoffs but the other two
Speaker 1: and he didn't, then I could see that that would
Speaker 1: be an issue.
Speaker 2: Well, runoffs get a bad rap for some good reasons,
Speaker 2: including that they have been used historically in ways.
Speaker 1: To diss It was about denying black representation in the South. Right,
Speaker 1: that's why why did we have Southern runoffs? Every Southern
Speaker 1: state had runoffs for one reason, and one reason only,
Speaker 1: to prevent black people from winning elections.
Speaker 2: Right, And two things can be true, which is that
Speaker 2: there are systems that have runoffs today that don't necessarily
Speaker 2: have that negative impact that you actually do see turnout
Speaker 2: increase in the runoff. That is the case in Louisiana,
Speaker 2: for example, in their governor's races. Louisiana has a very
Speaker 2: interesting election system where there is effectively no primary, there
Speaker 2: is a general election. Everyone gets to be on the ballot.
Speaker 2: They're kind of top two, right, just like Washington, and
Speaker 2: if no one gets majority, there's a runoff, and so
Speaker 2: in that case, the top two finishers advance, or if
Speaker 2: someone gets a majority of the vote, it's a one
Speaker 2: and done election. And by the way, it's simpler for
Speaker 2: election administrators, it's simpler for voters, and it's better for
Speaker 2: democracy because the election that matters is the one in
Speaker 2: which most people are already voting, and so you get
Speaker 2: a more representative outcome and there's not this initial primary
Speaker 2: filter where only ten percent of voters, who are usually
Speaker 2: on the most extreme fringes of the political spectrum are
Speaker 2: deciding you know, election outcomes. And so this will sound
Speaker 2: wonky and maybe mechanical to people, but it has an
Speaker 2: impact on public policy because when you look at Louisiana,
Speaker 2: it's one of the only Deep South. It is the
Speaker 2: only Deep South state that's expanded medicaid, for example, and
Speaker 2: was one of the first states to really lean into
Speaker 2: charter school reform. And when you think about the purpose
Speaker 2: of government and is it representing people, in Louisiana, more
Speaker 2: citizens have access to healthcare and too education than a
Speaker 2: lot of other peer states. And the reason for that
Speaker 2: is they have a more functional political system with leaders
Speaker 2: who are intended and focused on solving problems rather than
Speaker 2: just these partisan squabbles every day, and so performing our
Speaker 2: elections improve and center, but ultimately in per his governance
Speaker 2: so that we can solve problems that matter to people.
Speaker 1: Of course, I think Bill Cassidy wishes that they would
Speaker 1: have kept the old system, but now they're going to
Speaker 1: go to a primary system, which certainly complicates his path
Speaker 1: to renomination. Let's talk about where you're active on the
Speaker 1: playing field here. What's the status in Alaska, what's the
Speaker 1: status in Nevada. I know, those are two places that
Speaker 1: you've been active. And where else are you guys active
Speaker 1: in trying to expand access to primaries.
Speaker 2: So Alaska is a great success story for primary reform
Speaker 2: because after the state adopted it through the ballot initiative
Speaker 2: process in twenty twenty, it's now gone through two election
Speaker 2: cycles where more voters than ever before have been able
Speaker 2: to cast what we call a meaningful ballot, you know,
Speaker 2: which is a ballot in election that's truly competitive in
Speaker 2: which of their vote matters. And what that resulted in
Speaker 2: Chuck is the State House and the state Senate now
Speaker 2: have bipartisan governing majorities. It's not just one party that's
Speaker 2: in charge. There's a coalition of members Democrats, Republicans, and
Speaker 2: independents by the way, that are working together to address
Speaker 2: the problems important to the state, most recently overriding a
Speaker 2: governor's veto to increase education funding. And so Alaska has
Speaker 2: been a success story of how better elections result in
Speaker 2: better governance, and it's produced a backlash from those who
Speaker 2: used to be in power and liked elections when it
Speaker 2: only represented a handful of people, and so they've been
Speaker 2: trying to repeal this system. They were unsuccessful in that.
Speaker 2: Last year, a majority of voters in Alaska voted to
Speaker 2: defend the system, and opponents are going to likely try
Speaker 2: again next year. And I suspect that support for the
Speaker 2: system is going to continue to grow over time, not
Speaker 2: just because people in theory like the concept of the
Speaker 2: freedom to vote for whomever they want, but now they're
Speaker 2: getting real and better results from the system that they
Speaker 2: voted in a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Did you think you were going to have to fight
Speaker 1: multiple election years in Alaska to keep the system in place.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a surprise that every action has
Speaker 2: an equal opposite reaction. There's the forces of trying to
Speaker 2: make government better fighting against the forces that are trying
Speaker 2: to protect the status quo. I think that the period
Speaker 2: of defense is most important in the immediate years after
Speaker 2: the adoption of reform, but that it gets better over
Speaker 2: time because the new incumbents, there are those elected under
Speaker 2: this system who actually like it and want to defend it.
Speaker 2: And so it's not the legislature that's trying to repeal it, right,
Speaker 2: it's a small faction of partisan activists that are.
Speaker 1: The other perception problem rank choice voting has, and I
Speaker 1: say it's a perception problem because it obviously depends on
Speaker 1: where you sit, is that it appears to have benefited
Speaker 1: the center left more than it has benefited anybody on
Speaker 1: the right.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the challenge that we saw in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two was that the candidates who were running the
Speaker 2: two Republicans were late to adopt their campaign strategy to
Speaker 2: this new system. So instead of telling voters vote for
Speaker 2: me first and the other Republican second, they ran against
Speaker 2: the system that the voters just adopted. And so without
Speaker 2: that adoption of a new strategy to build broad coalitions.
Speaker 2: A moderate Democrat, Mary Potola, you know, was able to
Speaker 2: win that US House race. By the way, a couple
Speaker 2: of years later, voters voted differently and the Republican now
Speaker 2: represents that US House seat. So I do think that
Speaker 2: there's this transition period in which the parties and the
Speaker 2: politicians have to get smarter in how they campaign under
Speaker 2: the new rules of the system, rather than campaigning under
Speaker 2: what the old rules used to be.
Speaker 1: So that's Alaska. So you're likely having a is it
Speaker 1: the same ball on initiative that the opponents are putting
Speaker 1: up or are they rewarded.
Speaker 2: It they actually expanded what they're trying to repeal to
Speaker 2: include repealing dark money disclosure requirements that were originally passed
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that actually helps your cause. People don't like
Speaker 1: dark money.
Speaker 2: People don't like dark money, and they don't like party primaries,
Speaker 2: and they don't like plurality winners and elections, and so
Speaker 2: opponents are trying to do something unpopular for the sake
Speaker 2: of protecting, you know, what was their own political power.
Speaker 2: And I'm confident that, you know, the system will continue
Speaker 2: to endure and be a proof of concept that other
Speaker 2: states could you know, potentially replicate. And that's what we
Speaker 2: did see in last year's elections. You know, multiple other
Speaker 2: states pursued ballot initiatives for an Alaska style kind of system,
Speaker 2: and while none passed, three states came within three percentage
Speaker 2: points of passing.
Speaker 1: In a pretty to be honest, though, five years ago,
Speaker 1: I thought all of those were going to get pass easily.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember when we were first talking, and
Speaker 1: you know, you're like, yeah, we got to do Nevada twice.
Speaker 1: You were pretty you had you were kind of bullish
Speaker 1: about Missouri, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, And it
Speaker 1: did seem as if the opponents got savvier in pushing
Speaker 1: back at you guys in Nevada and elsewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, what we're up against is the two party do
Speaker 2: optly that wants to.
Speaker 1: Protect actually working with each other this one.
Speaker 2: Right, It was the Democrats that spent over fifteen million
Speaker 2: dollars against this in Alaska and Republicans who spent over
Speaker 2: seven million in Montana to try and fight it, and
Speaker 2: they would sort of weaponize the issue and say like, actually,
Speaker 2: these reforms are about the stocking horse for the other party. Well,
Speaker 2: they both can't be right when they're saying that, and
Speaker 2: so we have work to do to build more early
Speaker 2: and durable support among voters for these policies. We don't
Speaker 2: need to convince anyone that our political system is broken.
Speaker 2: What we do need to do is educate voters about
Speaker 2: the benefits of these systems and why it is worth
Speaker 2: a change. And as you know, the threshold of getting
Speaker 2: a voter to vote yes on an initiative is much
Speaker 2: harder than getting them to vote no, because you have
Speaker 2: to kind of prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the that's the task that you know,
Speaker 2: we've signed up for and we're going to continue to
Speaker 2: work on because the status quo is unacceptable and it's
Speaker 2: leading us in a direction in which we're seeing our
Speaker 2: politics unravel, you know, even further.
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Speaker 1: Their fee is free unless they win. So if I
Speaker 1: were in your shoes, I'd actually think that this is
Speaker 1: about as opportunistic of a period of a year as
Speaker 1: you can have. And when you think about the re
Speaker 1: redistricting orders, it is taking you know, the issue of
Speaker 1: political party manipulation and putting it right in the voter's face, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, I throw that in there, you throw
Speaker 1: in that the electorate that you're likely to get in
Speaker 1: a midterm environment. Is an electorate that's going to be
Speaker 1: more open to changes in the primary system. I think
Speaker 1: the electric you would get in a mega induced environment.
Speaker 1: I think we I think you know where I'm going there.
Speaker 1: So what states do you expect to be on the
Speaker 1: ballot in trying to do primary reform and is and
Speaker 1: let me know and differentiate whether it'll be the top
Speaker 1: four or it's just open primaries, et cetera.
Speaker 2: There is a lot of activity happening in the movement
Speaker 2: to reform our politics. There is litigation happening to open
Speaker 2: close primaries in states like Maryland or Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: I'm convinced there's an equal protection argument on this. I
Speaker 1: do not the idea that that there is a poll
Speaker 1: tax against me as an independent voter, and you're telling
Speaker 1: me that the only way I could participate in a
Speaker 1: taxpayer funded election is I have to join a private club.
Speaker 1: I believe that's a poll tax. I don't see how
Speaker 1: that's constitutional.
Speaker 2: It's certainly not in our belief under many state constitutions
Speaker 2: that have even more protection for voter rights than maybe
Speaker 2: the federal constitution. And so there's work happening on that
Speaker 2: there's work happening in legislatures to at least open the
Speaker 2: primaries to all voters. We saw earlier this year in
Speaker 2: New Mexico, after a multi year campaign, there was a
Speaker 2: bipartisan bill that passed to allow unaffiliated voters to start
Speaker 2: to participate in party primaries starting next year, over three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty thousand of them. And then, of course
Speaker 2: there is the ballot initiative pathway, and there's at least
Speaker 2: two states where local groups are pursuing the top two
Speaker 2: all candidate primary initiative. And that's in both Massachusetts and Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: two very different states politically, but what they have in
Speaker 2: common is that all of their congressional seats are decided
Speaker 2: in the party primaries, and in Oklahoma those are closed
Speaker 2: to unaffiliated voters. And so those are two states I
Speaker 2: think to be watching for. And to your point, the
Speaker 2: environment has never been more ripe because our political system
Speaker 2: has never been more dysfunctional. We just emerged from the
Speaker 2: longest government shutdown that we've seen in history, motivated by
Speaker 2: in this case, democratic leaders who just want to fight.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what this has become. I mean the
Speaker 2: of the year. The Oxford Dictionary new word is rage bait.
Speaker 2: That's reflective of where our politics is. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to understand how the word of the
Speaker 1: year is two words.
Speaker 2: But that's a good question. But that's reflective of our politics,
Speaker 2: which is it's about playing to the base. It's about
Speaker 2: demonstrating the fight, not about solving problems. And that's why
Speaker 2: this primary problem, the incentives, is behind so much of
Speaker 2: the dysfunction that we see our inability to solve problems.
Speaker 2: Another issue we can look at is immigration. As you know, Chuck,
Speaker 2: a decade ago, there was a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform
Speaker 2: bill that passed the Senate, it goes to the House.
Speaker 2: Why does it fail? Well, the House majority leader was
Speaker 2: primaried out of office that summer because he was open
Speaker 2: to some compromise on this issue. And then here we
Speaker 2: are a decade of pendulum politics. We had, you know,
Speaker 2: effectively open borders under the Bided administration, and now we
Speaker 2: have ice raids with even American citizens being snatched off
Speaker 2: the streets under President Trump. People don't want these extra
Speaker 2: dream policies that we've been seeing of late. They want
Speaker 2: these issues to be addressed in a sensible way. That's
Speaker 2: not going to happen until we change the incentives of
Speaker 2: our political system.
Speaker 1: You and I go back, I think almost two decades now,
Speaker 1: our mutual mentor the late Doug Bailey, and you know
Speaker 1: you've been in this, You've been in this what I
Speaker 1: call radical centrism, you know, movement for some time. I
Speaker 1: use that phrase. I'm going to be a bit self
Speaker 1: referential and name drop here. Bono called me a radical
Speaker 1: centrist one time at a salon dinner that we were
Speaker 1: at together, and I said, are you I'm going to
Speaker 1: take it as a compliment. He says, Okay, he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He goes, it's sort of a compliment. He goes, there's
Speaker 1: sometimes that I wish you would take up this cause here,
Speaker 1: this cause there. And I always say, I'm not a centrist.
Speaker 1: I'm an incrementalist, meaning late are some things I'm on
Speaker 1: the left and some things I'm on the right. But
Speaker 1: I know that the only way to make change in
Speaker 1: america's one step at a time. And I don't think
Speaker 1: you try to do big things. You try to do
Speaker 1: baby steps and eventually you get your hockey stick moment.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it's been so hard to galvanize
Speaker 1: the frustrated center in America.
Speaker 2: Well, first I would, I would. I was also say
Speaker 2: on this topic of what, you know, what is the
Speaker 2: ideology of this movement that wants to make politics better?
Speaker 2: I think centrism comes short in describing it because it
Speaker 2: really is not about living in what many people view
Speaker 2: as a mushy middle.
Speaker 1: It is about No, it's not about just everything's a compromise.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's that's that's not what it is.
Speaker 1: That's why I always say no, no, no, I'm an incrementalist.
Speaker 1: You know, I empathize with your idea on here, let's
Speaker 1: try with let's try one step.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about also people that want to find common
Speaker 2: grounds and no matter where you are in the political spectrum,
Speaker 2: you can work with others to see what you have
Speaker 2: in common to actually get something done. And that's how
Speaker 2: the biggest, most durable change that we've seen as a
Speaker 2: country work. When we look at the landmark pieces of
Speaker 2: legislation that have passed the Congress, whether that was civil
Speaker 2: rights or social security, or medicare or welfare reform and
Speaker 2: a balanced budget, these things were votes of a majority
Speaker 2: of both parties doing it together and to be sustainable,
Speaker 2: not what we're seeing today. The promise of primary reform
Speaker 2: is that for every state that adopts it, it effectively
Speaker 2: liberates both senators and the representatives from those states from
Speaker 2: being beholden to the base to being representative of the whole.
Speaker 2: And so you don't need to win in all fifty states.
Speaker 2: If we can abolish party primaries in ten states, that's
Speaker 2: twenty US senators. It's a fifth of the Senate that
Speaker 2: actually can have more leaders who are willing to work
Speaker 2: with each other on issues of national importance. That's never
Speaker 2: been more important for the country. When I think about
Speaker 2: where we're at right now facing the rise of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: Whether we get this right in terms of setting the
Speaker 2: right rules for the road, having the right over set
Speaker 2: in place, making the right investments, that's going to be
Speaker 2: hugely consequential for our economy and national security in our society.
Speaker 2: And if we don't have a representative Congress that can
Speaker 2: do that, other countries will, or the corporations themselves will,
Speaker 2: and we're all going to be worse off for it.
Speaker 2: So whether we have a Congress that works affects us all,
Speaker 2: and the reason why it doesn't today is not just
Speaker 2: because of this partisan paralysis. It's because without competitive elections,
Speaker 2: we wind up getting career politicians who stay in office
Speaker 2: for way too long. We have a quarter of the
Speaker 2: Congress that's over the retirement age, over a third of
Speaker 2: the sentence above age seventy. It's how we get congressional
Speaker 2: hearings where they're asking about tik tak instead of TikTok.
Speaker 2: And these aren't the folks that we needed making the
Speaker 2: decisions that are to affect maybe the biggest transformation our
Speaker 2: economy and society, you know, going forward.
Speaker 1: The biggest difficult I have. And I'll just speak for myself,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious where you're where you are on this
Speaker 1: what I'm about to bring up, which is I am
Speaker 1: I am easily persuaded in the reform movement, right, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of I'm I look at the
Speaker 1: last sort of crisis moments in American history, and each
Speaker 1: one of them came with serious periods of reform. You know,
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, during the basically after the Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: and the and the and the robber barons right after,
Speaker 1: you know, during and after FDR, and you know, both
Speaker 1: for good and for bad, right like when when, And
Speaker 1: so I'm optimistic that we're about to hit one of
Speaker 1: those periods that we know, look, we've got to do
Speaker 1: something about the pardon power. We've got to do something.
Speaker 1: You know, it's clear the Constitution is going to have
Speaker 1: to deal with campaign finance issues because you can't do
Speaker 1: it legislatively. And we've got to deal with age limits. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm all for this age issue, but they're only you
Speaker 1: have to do it in the Constitution. So the point
Speaker 1: is is that I can be I'm almost like a
Speaker 1: squirrel with this. I'm like, oh, I like that reform.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I want to do this. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of I've been you you go to these gatherings too.
Speaker 1: I get invited to many of these sort of gatherings,
Speaker 1: whether it's a fledgling third party movement, fledgling reform movement,
Speaker 1: you know, those advocating a constitutional convention, the folks at
Speaker 1: the Forward Party. You've got the World Open Primaries, which
Speaker 1: is another organization that's working in a similar fashion. I
Speaker 1: know there's a loose connectivity between these groups, right you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, you're all rowing in the same direction, but
Speaker 1: everybody has their own sort of lane in their own thing,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's you already are biased that you have
Speaker 1: got to start. Do you think you feel like there
Speaker 1: is an order to the reform that's necessary here, that
Speaker 1: you know, before we get to we've got to do why,
Speaker 1: and before we get to why, we got to do z.
Speaker 2: Well, I think two things are true. One is, we
Speaker 2: have a beautiful system of federalism in our country, and
Speaker 2: we can do this in an experimental way at the
Speaker 2: state level. I mean, and that is the way that
Speaker 2: these reforms have gotten done in the past and will today,
Speaker 2: which is states can change these rules without an Act
Speaker 2: of Congress or a constitutional amendment, and by virtue of
Speaker 2: building momentum around reform, it will put more pressure on
Speaker 2: Congress and potentially create an environment in which constitutional change
Speaker 2: is possible. So I think the state by state route
Speaker 2: is both a strategy and an opportunity to try different things.
Speaker 2: And the second thing is I and we did not
Speaker 2: start with primary reform as being our north star. We
Speaker 2: got there through examining what sits at the center of
Speaker 2: both what is most viable and could be most impactful.
Speaker 2: And I do think that abolishing party primaries is the
Speaker 2: biggest possible change that we can make right now that
Speaker 2: can open the window for other potential changes down the road,
Speaker 2: particularly changes that will require legislatures to do something, because
Speaker 2: for them to do something on this issue, they need
Speaker 2: to be more representative of the population who supports these
Speaker 2: reforms than they are today. So I both support an
Speaker 2: experimental approach to this and we support primary reform for
Speaker 2: a very particular reason, which I do think it is
Speaker 2: the most solvable problem right now.
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the key, which is what's a problem
Speaker 1: you could solve first? And I think there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. This feels like a you know again, I
Speaker 1: called myself an incrementalist. This is an incremental step that
Speaker 1: could actually, you know, open the door to a whole
Speaker 1: bunch more of ideas. Do you find yourself frustrated that
Speaker 1: other reform minded folks don't see this as the core problem?
Speaker 2: I think I was frustrated in year one when more,
Speaker 2: you know, or year two, when we're back at the
Speaker 2: same table and arguing no this one, no this one,
Speaker 2: and realize, like we're thirty people in the room, there's
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty million people out there. Those are
Speaker 2: the folks that we need to be kind of talking to.
Speaker 2: And so my orientation changed, like this is a positive
Speaker 2: sum approach to a movement. You know, when you look
Speaker 2: at the environmental movement or other movements, there's not just
Speaker 2: one policy that they're behind. It's a diversified approach, including
Speaker 2: what could be done on the state or federal level.
Speaker 2: And so it doesn't frustrate me that there are multiple
Speaker 2: potential pathways to making our democracy better. The thing that's
Speaker 2: frustrating to me is around apathy or defense of the
Speaker 2: status quo, because can anyone look around today and say, oh, no,
Speaker 2: this is actually fine and we're moving in an okayed direction.
Speaker 2: If you can't, then choose something, choose one of these
Speaker 2: things to be for and get behind it, because I
Speaker 2: don't think the path that we're on, you know, is sustainable.
Speaker 1: What's been You know, there's a lot of statistics that
Speaker 1: show that the the youngest voting generation is not registering
Speaker 1: D or R. The registering is I or no party affiliation.
Speaker 1: So in theory, this should be the core of the
Speaker 1: activists that you're able to recruit to make this change.
Speaker 1: Are you making some inroads? Is this something that can
Speaker 1: be turned into a something that's galvanizable with the college crowd.
Speaker 2: I do believe that. And what we saw last year
Speaker 2: was that the number one predictor for voters that would
Speaker 2: support election reform at the ballot was not by party affiliation,
Speaker 2: It was really by age. Younger voters disproportionately in favor
Speaker 2: of changes to a political system they've only known has
Speaker 2: been broken. An older voter is sort of more hesitant
Speaker 2: around any potential changes to a system they've known the
Speaker 2: same way while all of their lives. And that's good news,
Speaker 2: because young voters become all voters and just a question
Speaker 2: of time. And so I think time is a really
Speaker 2: important lever here when you look back as your reference
Speaker 2: before or to the progressive era, when we got major
Speaker 2: reforms down the women won the right to vote, the
Speaker 2: direct election of the Senate, banning of corporate campaign contributions,
Speaker 2: income tax, the big party primaries.
Speaker 1: People don't realize the income tax amendment was important because
Speaker 1: it also helped create the property tax structure in America,
Speaker 1: which is, you know how we fund so many local services.
Speaker 2: And that didn't happen in just a couple of years.
Speaker 2: That was a thirty year period of time. And so
Speaker 2: when I think about, oh, Alaska won this transformational reform
Speaker 2: four years ago. It suggests to me we're at the
Speaker 2: beginning of a very exciting decade plus era of reform
Speaker 2: in reaction to you know, historic levels of polarization and partisanship.
Speaker 2: The country knows is just not working for them right now.
Speaker 1: You know, we've sort of danced around this issue, but
Speaker 1: the biggest opponent to everything you're trying to do is
Speaker 1: the duopoly, and it's you know, the Democrats in party,
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party doesn't really work together on anything
Speaker 1: other than this right, which is sort of protecting their
Speaker 1: status at the ballot. You can sometimes win over local
Speaker 1: members of a party or local party organizations if they're
Speaker 1: in a state where they've been marginalized. But I imagine donors
Speaker 1: are hard to come by because a donor usually is
Speaker 1: a partisan right. They usually are passionate about something. Is
Speaker 1: it hard to find people passionate in the very wealthy
Speaker 1: space about reform.
Speaker 2: But unit in America over the years is built across
Speaker 2: partisan community. Now over one hundred and twenty what we
Speaker 2: call political philanthropists, and many of them have not traditionally
Speaker 2: been partisan donors, investing in politics for a partisan outcome.
Speaker 2: That's fine. But there's been a lot a lot of
Speaker 2: people who have come into this movement because their interest
Speaker 2: is not trying to elect or oppose one political party
Speaker 2: or another. It's about people who have been philanthropically mind
Speaker 2: who care about an issue, that knows we're not going
Speaker 2: to make progress on that issue, but for government being
Speaker 2: able to be functional and representative of the electorate. So
Speaker 2: I would say it's a different profile oftentimes of a
Speaker 2: donor that gets involved in this space, and from across
Speaker 2: the political spectrum as well. It's really interesting in this work,
Speaker 2: not just at our team or board level, but also
Speaker 2: in the donor community of people that may not agree
Speaker 2: a lot on particular candidates or particular policies, but we
Speaker 2: do agree that government should represent a true majority of Americans.
Speaker 2: And then let's have the argument once we have a
Speaker 2: government that can represent us.
Speaker 1: I know you said in a few states where there's
Speaker 1: not a referendum option that you're trying to work in
Speaker 1: the state legislature, obviously you have to go with the
Speaker 1: lowest common denominator. Stuff is it? Is it simply allowing
Speaker 1: independence in primaries? That's about the about the best you
Speaker 1: can hope for in convincing a legislature to do.
Speaker 2: Something in the near term. I do think that legislatories
Speaker 2: will take more time to bring along to more ambitious reforms.
Speaker 2: But let's remember that California adopted its all candidate primary
Speaker 2: system by legislative referral, so some states legislators might be
Speaker 2: willing to at least put it on the ballot. It
Speaker 2: takes leadership, though Governor Schwarzenegger was instrumental, you know, in
Speaker 2: that campaign. And when I look at incoming governors like
Speaker 2: an Abigail Spanberger who serves in you know, have one term,
Speaker 2: there's in Virginia. Maybe this is something that schol champion
Speaker 2: is part of her legacy there to say this will
Speaker 2: be good for the commonwealth out into the future. Let's
Speaker 2: get this done. I think when we have executive leadership
Speaker 2: that leans into the issue, legislatures may be more likely
Speaker 2: to follow.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean, I'm just ecstatic that is a Virginia voter.
Speaker 1: I don't have to register by party, and I at
Speaker 1: least get a choice what primary, you know, and I
Speaker 1: always just find the competitive primary and I vote in it.
Speaker 1: So I you know, Virginia is a place where where
Speaker 1: you feel like no matter where what your ideological stripe
Speaker 1: is you at least have some say in the conversation.
Speaker 1: But Virginia may also repeal a constitutional amendment on redistricting
Speaker 1: reform in a couple of months, and California just did it.
Speaker 1: And I look at what happened there. There was real
Speaker 1: momentum on redistricting reform just four or five years ago.
Speaker 1: And I would bet frankly that movement had more momentum
Speaker 1: than your movement. Did.
Speaker 2: We were part of that, actually, yeah for.
Speaker 1: Me, but it had a and and it's amazing how
Speaker 1: that flipped that quickly. Are you at all I mean,
Speaker 1: are you at all demoralized at how people who are
Speaker 1: reformers are going? Yeah? But on this, I mean I
Speaker 1: just have struggled, you know. And I've had this debate
Speaker 1: with friends out in California. I said, look, I just
Speaker 1: don't understand why if disenfranchising voters in Texas is bad,
Speaker 1: why is the answer disenfranchising voters in California.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. I think fighting fire with fire means
Speaker 2: everything just burns down. So it was not in favor
Speaker 2: of what California.
Speaker 1: Is a good expression.
Speaker 2: However, a fair way the instinct which is that I
Speaker 2: get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And I also think it's important to bring it back
Speaker 2: to why it's happening When Texas redistricted, when Missouri followed suit,
Speaker 2: and now there's pressure in Indiana. It's because the president
Speaker 2: right now is weaponizing the primary system to get it done.
Speaker 2: When he goes sweeps into a state, it is get this,
Speaker 2: find me five more seats, or I'm going to primary
Speaker 2: you in your next election. So I think it's important
Speaker 2: we connect the dots to the political incentives piece, which
Speaker 2: is how primaries can be weaponized not just to push
Speaker 2: people to the extremes, but to push them to do
Speaker 2: undemocratic things to consolidate power. The opposite is true as well,
Speaker 2: or the other side of the coin, which is that
Speaker 2: if we didn't have party primaries, this challenge of safe
Speaker 2: districts or districts that are heavily lapside would matter less
Speaker 2: check because there would be more competition in the general
Speaker 2: election if we advanced more than two candidates rather than
Speaker 2: what it is you know right now. And so I
Speaker 2: think the answer to go ahead and create a partisan primaries. Right,
Speaker 2: go ahead and create a partisan plus twenty district in California.
Speaker 2: At least there'll be a top two in the same
Speaker 2: party and then they fight over you know, you know,
Speaker 2: left versus center. I mean, I always thought Berman Sherman
Speaker 2: was the first one of these, and it was Howard
Speaker 2: Berman and Brad Sherman. They got redistricted into the same
Speaker 2: thing together and they both advanced to the they were
Speaker 2: in the top to and so.
Speaker 1: It was a D on D general election. And I
Speaker 1: remember the dividing issue was actually tart at the time,
Speaker 1: and one of them had been you know, voted against it,
Speaker 1: one of them voted for it. And then essentially they
Speaker 1: were wooing the third of Republicans that were in their district. Right,
Speaker 1: they were both Democrats, and there was a third of
Speaker 1: Republicans that were the swing voter. And I thought, boy,
Speaker 1: that could really if we could have that system everywhere where,
Speaker 1: at any point in time, even if you're in the minority,
Speaker 1: your vote could be the swing vote. You get to
Speaker 1: decide do I want, you know, do I want a
Speaker 1: libertarian conservative or do I want a evangelical conservative? Right,
Speaker 1: if that's the two choices, well, I you know, it
Speaker 1: may not like either, but I have a preference of
Speaker 1: which I want less, you know exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You think about it. The midterm elections that we're going
Speaker 2: to go into in ninety percent of the districts, these
Speaker 2: elections are over before people show up in November, and
Speaker 2: their vote, if they cast, it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: We're one hundred and ten million, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we'll get one hundred and ten million midterm voters. Maybe
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifteen. It's turnout. It's been amazing in
Speaker 1: the Trump era again.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Maybe there'll be thirty five congressional seats decided by ten
Speaker 1: points or less out of four hundred and thirty five maybe, right.
Speaker 2: So that's tens of millions of people, you know, who
Speaker 2: is A vote effectively does not matter. It's impooring people vote,
Speaker 2: but on participation without competition does not result in representation.
Speaker 2: If we want your vote to matter, you have to
Speaker 2: have a choice that is real. And so the idea
Speaker 2: that in red districts you get to choose what kind
Speaker 2: of Republican you want, during blue districts, what kind of
Speaker 2: Democrat you want in the general election, is much better
Speaker 2: than showing up to an election that's already been you know, decided.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I grew up growing up in Miami,
Speaker 1: up in the seventies and eighties, and I remember my
Speaker 1: dad was a Republican Conservative, but he was a registered Democrat,
Speaker 1: and I remember asking him, I said, why are you
Speaker 1: Originally he says, well, there's no Republicans down here because
Speaker 1: at the time the South, this was back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: every politician in the South, everybody was a Democrat, but
Speaker 1: half the Democrats were really Republicans. But all the local offices,
Speaker 1: he said, if I want to have to say in
Speaker 1: local primaries, you know I got to vote. So in
Speaker 1: some ways, conservatives, older conservatives in the South have actually
Speaker 1: been participating in primaries this way for a long time.
Speaker 2: I mean, it all boils down to the idea that
Speaker 2: every American should have the freedom to vote fro whenever
Speaker 2: they want and every taxpayer funded election period. Right seventy
Speaker 2: eighty percent of voters, regardless of party, believe in that.
Speaker 2: In addition, though to the attacks on redistricting, what we're
Speaker 2: also seeing in nine states right now is attempts by
Speaker 2: legislators to close the primaries and actually start to register
Speaker 2: voters by party in order to do so. That is
Speaker 2: extremely unpopular. I mean, we just released a poll today
Speaker 2: from Republican polster in Texas that found two thirds of
Speaker 2: Republican primary voters support the current system. They like to
Speaker 2: have the freedom to vote. They don't like the idea
Speaker 2: of government overreach and starting to have to register publicly
Speaker 2: what party you're from. So these attempts are driven by insiders,
Speaker 2: driven by extreme factions. What they're trying to do is unpopular,
Speaker 2: and that's one of the reasons why you Know in
Speaker 2: America is working hard in these states to defend the
Speaker 2: current system from going backwards. And what we have found
Speaker 2: is that our allies in this in many cases are
Speaker 2: Republican legislative leaders who know that not only is this
Speaker 2: bad for America, it's bad for their party. When the
Speaker 2: largest and fastest growing part of the electorate are those
Speaker 2: that don't belong to either party, How can you expect
Speaker 2: to win those voters over if you're kicking them out
Speaker 2: of the process in which you're choosing your candidates. And
Speaker 2: so it really is, you know, courageous Republican leaders in
Speaker 2: many of these states that are standing up to forces
Speaker 2: within their own party that want to close elections to
Speaker 2: create more pure ideological purity that might wind up costing
Speaker 2: them elections.
Speaker 1: Is there a good privacy argument. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to join one of these
Speaker 1: two clubs. Don't make me join a club. I want
Speaker 1: the privacy of keeping my you know, I may lean
Speaker 1: one way or the other, but I'd prefer the government
Speaker 1: and anybody that checks my voter registration to just see
Speaker 1: I'm a registered voter period. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: know my politics. Now. You may learn it over time,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to have to identify. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a strange thing that government is making
Speaker 1: people do this in a quote unquote democracy percent.
Speaker 2: I mean, we adopted the secret ballot a century ago
Speaker 2: to give people privacy over their right to vote. In
Speaker 2: many states, however, we force people to register publicly with
Speaker 2: a political party. Go in some database, I can see
Speaker 2: what party you belong too. In many states don't have
Speaker 2: this system today, and that's what those those states are
Speaker 2: trying to change. And I agree with you that it's
Speaker 2: an invasion of privacy, particularly in an era of politics
Speaker 2: in which one's party affiliation can be used against them.
Speaker 1: No, it gets weaponized culturally, it can be weaponized at
Speaker 1: your job, it can do this. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: the local part well, the local Democratic Party here in
Speaker 1: Arlington County if you want to participate in some of
Speaker 1: the county primaries, because Virginia, each county can sort of
Speaker 1: party can decide how they want to do it. So
Speaker 1: they don't have party primaries, they don't have taxpayer fund
Speaker 1: of primaries, but they do have their own party primary
Speaker 1: and you have to sign a pledge if you want
Speaker 1: to participate in it, and I just won't do that.
Speaker 1: I know the pledge is meaningless, but I kind of feel,
Speaker 1: you know, but I don't think they have the right
Speaker 1: to ask that right now. It is a privately funded
Speaker 1: election that they run, so okay, it's a private organization.
Speaker 1: They can have that say. So I just don't particip in.
Speaker 1: I won't justicipad in because there're sometimes the Republicans have
Speaker 1: gone off and on about doing the same thing where
Speaker 1: they make you sign an oath because there isn't a
Speaker 1: there isn't party registration in this state. So let me
Speaker 1: shift in our last few minutes here to the other
Speaker 1: areas of reform to focus on. So I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think primaries number one are sort of easy to
Speaker 1: communicate to people that it's a problem, right, it's a
Speaker 1: we're polarized. Hey, it's this primary issue. People get it,
Speaker 1: So I'm with you. I think it is the good
Speaker 1: first reform to focus on what's next. What's two, three,
Speaker 1: and four in your head? I think it's a good question.
Speaker 1: I think we need to do something on campaign finance.
Speaker 1: It's a salient issue for most voters. They don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of special interests or wealthy interests having disproportionate
Speaker 1: say in our political system. That will likely require a
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. There's something the other number two when you
Speaker 1: ask people what's wrong with politics today ones money in politics.
Speaker 2: The next is career politicians. And I think there is
Speaker 2: something to do with age limits and term limits to
Speaker 2: make sure that we have a Congress that can reasonably
Speaker 2: turn over with time and remain both nimble to the
Speaker 2: issues of the day, you know, and representative of people. Again,
Speaker 2: those may require amendments, so those are harder, you know, lifts.
Speaker 2: I'm also frankly interested in what may not be a
Speaker 2: reform that requires a change in law or state constitutions.
Speaker 2: But how do we think about other ways we do
Speaker 2: democracy outside of an electoral context, And there's a growing
Speaker 2: movement around deliberative democracy. And citizen assemblies, which are essentially
Speaker 2: randomly assembled groups of citizens that can deliberate on issues
Speaker 2: and make recommendations to government. I think they're interesting ways
Speaker 2: where they can actually be integrated into the government, like.
Speaker 1: A jury pool, but instead of for deciding somebody's guilt
Speaker 1: or innocence. Okay, Arlington County is going to do a
Speaker 1: random jury of one hundred citizens because we want to
Speaker 1: decide whether we want to put bike lanes.
Speaker 2: Everywhere, right, yeah, I mean, and this goes back to
Speaker 2: Athenian democracy. I mean, this is not a new idea.
Speaker 2: This is actually how democracy was done in the very
Speaker 2: early days, and.
Speaker 1: The idea it's what Datokville loved about our democracy. It
Speaker 1: was how local it was and how engaged we were
Speaker 1: at the township level.
Speaker 2: And I think it's gonna be even more important as
Speaker 2: our information ecosystem is transformed and in many ways polluted
Speaker 2: and distorted by artificial intelligence. How do we protect the
Speaker 2: spaces in which democracy can be done.
Speaker 1: So mean, this intrigues me is who's trying this? Any
Speaker 1: community out there trying this?
Speaker 2: There are local communities in fact here in Montrose, Colorado
Speaker 2: and for Collins have done citizen assemblies there have been.
Speaker 1: How does it work? Give me an example of how
Speaker 1: the citizen assembly work. Poor columns especially.
Speaker 2: People will approach in different ways. The sort of ideal
Speaker 2: way is a process of what they call sortition, which
Speaker 2: is random selection of citizens. They are incentivized for participation,
Speaker 2: like compensated for their time, but they might meet a
Speaker 2: few times on a weekend over the course of a
Speaker 2: few weeks. They're presented with information and arguments from different
Speaker 2: perspectives on an issue, and then they deliberate in a
Speaker 2: facilitated way together to render a particular you know, recommendation
Speaker 2: or perspective that then say, goes to the city council
Speaker 2: and so binding. No, although it could be set up
Speaker 2: in a binding way, but right now many of the
Speaker 2: ones that are being done are advisory, you know in nature.
Speaker 2: I think there are interesting ways in which may be
Speaker 2: integrated into the citizen initiative process itself. We can use
Speaker 2: CITIS assemblies to determine what gets to go to the ballot.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's an improvement in what direct
Speaker 2: democracy you know, can look like. So I'd say like
Speaker 2: over the next decade plus, there's going to be needs
Speaker 2: to reimagine what democracy looks like. I mean, we're coming
Speaker 2: up on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary as a country.
Speaker 2: We've gotten here. I think by continuing to look at
Speaker 2: and innovate and improve the way that we can self
Speaker 2: govern and we need to be responsive to the times.
Speaker 2: And so whether it's these election reforms or citizen assemblies,
Speaker 2: the idea is that we need to keep democracy fresh
Speaker 2: to keep it working.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I would. I would. I've always thought
Speaker 1: about this, and you know, I joke that if you
Speaker 1: live in the state of New Hampshire for more than
Speaker 1: ten years, you're going to end up in the state
Speaker 1: legislature at some point when you have a four hundred
Speaker 1: members state House. But I used to think, what if
Speaker 1: that were just a four hundred random people that were
Speaker 1: selected to be in the you know, and then you
Speaker 1: brought them together just like you would a jury, and Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the legislature. We're going to compensate you for
Speaker 1: your time. You're the citizen legislature for the leg Any. Look,
Speaker 1: if you feel like any, you vet them, maybe you
Speaker 1: know certain people can't serve, and you know whatever, you
Speaker 1: can come up with some criteria, but compulsory representation is
Speaker 1: something that I've actually been curious about, where you basically, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: once every twenty years, I got to sit on the
Speaker 1: city council, you know, once every twenty twenty years, I
Speaker 1: got to do six months. I got to do six
Speaker 1: weeks at the state capitol. You know. I think we
Speaker 1: would get better. I think we would certainly get outcomes
Speaker 1: that were more reflective of the population.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you put in a poll right now
Speaker 2: and ask most Americans, would you rather keep the five
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five leaders we currently have in Congress
Speaker 2: or do a lottery and try out something new for
Speaker 2: a couple of years. I'd be interested in how to
Speaker 2: come back. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot
Speaker 2: of people would be open to trying something a bit new.
Speaker 2: And this model, like you said, it is not a
Speaker 2: foreign concept. Juries make life or death decisions. Surely they
Speaker 2: are also capable of informing what our marginal tax rate
Speaker 2: could be.
Speaker 1: Now you look at it, it feels like there are
Speaker 1: a couple of rural states that would be more open
Speaker 1: to trying this first, you know, And it could be
Speaker 1: interesting whether it's a you could see easily see one
Speaker 1: of the new England states being open to this concept.
Speaker 1: I mean, the New Hampshire State House can be such
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass with how many specials, you know,
Speaker 1: we have foreigner members. There's always somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: can't do it, or can't go or this or that.
Speaker 1: If you told me they transition to something like this
Speaker 1: in twenty years would shock me.
Speaker 2: By the way. The pathway that many of these reforms
Speaker 2: take at the state level is through the initiative process,
Speaker 2: where citizens get to decide this and shape their own
Speaker 2: government directly, and that process needs to be protected. It
Speaker 2: is under attack in many states right now by legislatures
Speaker 2: that are trying to increase the threshold of what it
Speaker 2: takes to pass the ballot initiative to make it harder
Speaker 2: to qualify. So I think everyone who cares about democracy,
Speaker 2: and especially in the reform movement, ought to be working
Speaker 2: together to make sure that we protect and improve the
Speaker 2: citizen initiative process. There will be initiatives on the ballot
Speaker 2: next November that will both attempt to make things worse
Speaker 2: that we need to defeat, and a couple of states
Speaker 2: actually innovating with constitutional protections of the initiative process so
Speaker 2: that legislatures can't undo them in the future.
Speaker 1: I scared Jack dan Forth on the idea of a
Speaker 1: constitutional convention. He fears it that you know that, you
Speaker 1: know it implies that we're scrapping the Constitution. And he's like,
Speaker 1: I love our constitution, we just need to amend it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, it's a gathering to basically consider amendments,
Speaker 1: is what I'm what I'm advocating, But not everybody is.
Speaker 1: There's always when when you throw the idea out there,
Speaker 1: it's more folks on the left who are skeptical of
Speaker 1: it these days than folks the right. And in fact,
Speaker 1: at Clinton won in ninety six, I think it was
Speaker 1: Greg Abbott at the time as governor of Texas was
Speaker 1: basically wanting to to lead a movement of states to
Speaker 1: call for a constitutional convention. And you know, had Clinton
Speaker 1: one in sixteen, that might have been what the right
Speaker 1: would have focused on. It might have been an interesting exercise.
Speaker 1: But you think it would Is that a fool's errand
Speaker 1: in your mind? Or is it something that whose time
Speaker 1: might might be now?
Speaker 2: I think the time was before now for a convention
Speaker 2: to re examine some of the not principles of our
Speaker 2: constitutional design are checks and balances our separation powers. But
Speaker 2: the structures, I mean, whether you believe there ought to
Speaker 2: be an electoral college or not, no one can argue
Speaker 2: that it's functioning in the way the founders designed it.
Speaker 2: So what does it look like to improve and modernize it.
Speaker 1: That Well, I got a simple solution to that. Double
Speaker 1: the size. Go back to increasing the size of the
Speaker 1: House every ten years, and then your electoral college and
Speaker 1: your popular vote will no longer I mean right now
Speaker 1: every four years, the likelihood of a split decision between
Speaker 1: the electoral college and the popular vote is more likely,
Speaker 1: not less likely, because we have not expanded the numerator
Speaker 1: of the electoral vote of the electoral college. And if
Speaker 1: we double the size of the House, I promise you
Speaker 1: nobody'd be complaining about the electoral college.
Speaker 2: As you know, what people fear about a convention? Is
Speaker 2: it the runaway convention? Will they do something to radically
Speaker 2: But we're skipped. But those critics forget there's a ratification process. Whatever.
Speaker 2: The practician comes up quite high.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, you don't fear the voter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we should fear it. I think
Speaker 2: we need to treat it seriously. Be cautious and smart
Speaker 2: about it and embrace it as a tool the founders
Speaker 2: gave us to sure that we can continue to endure
Speaker 2: as a representative republic for centuries to come.
Speaker 1: Why isn't someone trying to be the leader in convening this.
Speaker 2: I think that there's this sort of psychological barrier about
Speaker 2: whether constitutional change is possible. It's been what thirty years
Speaker 2: since the last amendment, you know past, But I think
Speaker 2: pressure is going to build, especially because of how if
Speaker 2: power continues to consolidate in the way that it does,
Speaker 2: if the initiative process deteriorates, then the other levers we
Speaker 2: have to make change become harder, and I think people
Speaker 2: may view this other pathways becoming increasingly necessary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been I just feel like that the I
Speaker 1: think that there's agreement with this, but in some ways
Speaker 1: you have to have a leader right to galvanize people
Speaker 1: to get there.
Speaker 2: Well, your next project, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Oh man, We've all got a lot of projects. Right.
Speaker 1: Let me get you on this. You ran for office
Speaker 1: once before, you still have the itch.
Speaker 2: Not under today's party primary system. I can tell you that.
Speaker 1: No, you live in Colorado, it's the least partisan or
Speaker 1: the least primary impact. I mean, certainly primaries have some
Speaker 1: certainly or but it's less so, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Although I think Colorado is heading in the direction
Speaker 2: of many other places where the primary sism is causing
Speaker 2: our state to become a lot more partisan. It's one
Speaker 2: of the states that we can tine to work on
Speaker 2: for form. But we'll say having had the experience of
Speaker 2: running for office early on was good in being grounded
Speaker 2: and how voters actually think about democracy and elections, not
Speaker 2: just an academic perspective on this. And I feel grateful
Speaker 2: to be in a role right now to make the
Speaker 2: biggest impact I can that can impact how people who
Speaker 2: runs and how they govern and at scale.
Speaker 1: You ran as an independent, So let me get you
Speaker 1: out of here actually on this topic, which is what
Speaker 1: do you think Mike Duggan is running into right now?
Speaker 1: Running is independent in Michigan? That he expect that you
Speaker 1: would have been able to tell him how he asked
Speaker 1: you that, Oh yeah, this is how many voters view
Speaker 1: third party candidates are independent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, be wary of the early polls that show voters
Speaker 2: would like the idea of an independent.
Speaker 1: And looks really good at first, doesn't it exactly?
Speaker 2: But I think the most important thing for any independent
Speaker 2: is to achieve escape velocity, which is to say, you
Speaker 2: have to be able to prove that you are viable
Speaker 2: before voters really start paying attention and ask if you
Speaker 2: are and that happens well before election day. So unlike
Speaker 2: the traditional playbook where you spend most of your resources
Speaker 2: in the last ninety days, you know your November election
Speaker 2: is actually months earlier because you have to be interesting
Speaker 2: that you can be a.
Speaker 1: What does that look like being showing up in the
Speaker 1: conventional places that other candidates do? Is it money? What
Speaker 1: is it that you think? And I know this is
Speaker 1: a bit subjective, but generally, what do you think that
Speaker 1: voters are looking for to decide, oh, you're legitimate.
Speaker 2: I think in the past, the houristic would be like
Speaker 2: traditional media coverage, the press taking you seriously when you
Speaker 2: get a debetia are you as the what are you
Speaker 2: pulling at? But today I think that's changing because the
Speaker 2: metric that probably matters most in our politics is attention.
Speaker 2: Are you getting attention? Am I hearing from you? Are
Speaker 2: you breaking through? I think that works in the favor
Speaker 2: of independent candidates the extent that there are a fewer
Speaker 2: gatekeepers that are saying, whether you're credible or not, but
Speaker 2: you can reach voters directly in a more democratized way
Speaker 2: than ever has been the case. I'm hoping that we
Speaker 2: might see a couple of these candidates actually break through
Speaker 2: what has been that glass ceiling and then show that
Speaker 2: it's possible.
Speaker 1: Nick Treada, you always give me a little more. Hope
Speaker 1: your your glasses have full on this.
Speaker 2: Reform movement, aren't you yntinue to stick there? There's no
Speaker 2: other choice, so let's get it done.
Speaker 1: Right, There's only forward, right, there's there's my friends at
Speaker 1: a certain third party like to say, you know, we
Speaker 1: only have one choice. You have to move forward. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Jo great stock with me. Well, I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that conversation. Look, I don't care where you are, left,
Speaker 1: right or center. It doesn't make sense for our our
Speaker 1: our democracy to somehow lock people out of our You know,
Speaker 1: we don't know where we live, We don't know whether
Speaker 1: we're going to have a Republican in charge or a
Speaker 1: Democratic Democrat in charge. We should have us say and
Speaker 1: who gets into these general elections across the board. It
Speaker 1: is odd to me that we have just accepted this
Speaker 1: premise that you have to join a private organization in
Speaker 1: order to participate in many states in a taxpayer funded election.
Speaker 1: We need some We need some better lawyering out there
Speaker 1: on this front, all right, We need some better lawyering, because,
Speaker 1: trust me, there's a lot of equal protection arguments that
Speaker 1: I think should be made on this front. All right,
Speaker 1: it's time to jump into the time machine. We're going
Speaker 1: to go back to December seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, a
Speaker 1: young Chuck Todd was a senior in high school. In
Speaker 1: case you were wondering what I was doing, December seventeenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, it was the debut of an animated
Speaker 1: series for adults called The Simpsons. And who knew what
Speaker 1: kind of impact is? I would argue, bigger than Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live, Bigger than Meet the Press, right, sort of
Speaker 1: the launch Sunday Affairs conversations, right in some ways before
Speaker 1: it was the first place you ever had back and
Speaker 1: forth on politics in a first radio and televised arena.
Speaker 1: We had Saturday Night Live sort of the king of parody,
Speaker 1: and then there the Simpsons. And in some ways the
Speaker 1: Simpsons are probably is important of a participant into the
Speaker 1: changing ways that we satirized politics than any other program
Speaker 1: that has been launched in the last in the history
Speaker 1: of television. So that's the subject of my time machine
Speaker 1: history lesson of the Day. How the Simpsons rewired politics,
Speaker 1: media and animation. And it all started December seventeen, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine. It was a Christmas special. I remember it
Speaker 1: was a short on The Tracy Omens Show back in
Speaker 1: the day, but this Christmas special aired on Fox and
Speaker 1: it looked loud, rough and kind of disposable. Right, thirty
Speaker 1: five years later, that cartoon hasn't just outlasted its peers,
Speaker 1: it's outlasted entire media eras Right. The Simpsons didn't just
Speaker 1: mock American politics, that's easy. What they did is they
Speaker 1: reshaped Americans understand power, persuasion, and performance, and in the
Speaker 1: process they what animation itself can be. And what I
Speaker 1: loved about what the Simpsons did is they did it look.
Speaker 1: Was there a social socially liberal lean to the show, sure,
Speaker 1: but it was not necessarily a liberal show or a
Speaker 1: conservative show. In many ways, really mocked process and it
Speaker 1: was really good at surfacing hypocrisy and surfacing the absurdity
Speaker 1: of the professionalization of politics, and in fact one of
Speaker 1: the early ways they did it. And I want to
Speaker 1: pop through a few shows that I think where they
Speaker 1: really were brilliant and what they did. And when you
Speaker 1: watch these shows today, you're think, oh, I've seen this
Speaker 1: in other places, But at the time, nobody had ever
Speaker 1: done this before. So Burns for Governor. When Moni Burns
Speaker 1: ran for governor, the Simpsons showcased in the pop culture
Speaker 1: area that something that we political reporters already knew, we
Speaker 1: political junkies already knew that campaigns were a business. The
Speaker 1: episode two cars in every garage and three eyes on
Speaker 1: every fish, burn earns he doesn't just run for governor
Speaker 1: because he believes in anything. He runs because regulation threatens him.
Speaker 1: That's why he decides he wants to run for office.
Speaker 1: The telling moment isn't the mutant fish. It's when Burns
Speaker 1: instructs Smithers to assemble a campaign operation the way a
Speaker 1: CEO would assemble a management team. And so for the
Speaker 1: wider world, they understood, give me a pollster, a media handler,
Speaker 1: speech writer, an image consultant, and the episode showcase that
Speaker 1: Burns understood something essential. Campaigns aren't moral arguments. They're simply
Speaker 1: logistical ones. Now he loses not because voters rejected his policies,
Speaker 1: but because he fails to convincingly perform as a relatable figure. Right,
Speaker 1: he won't eat the fish. It's a lesson that campaigns
Speaker 1: still learn relearn every cycle. Another episode that I thought
Speaker 1: did a good job at sort of mocking government and
Speaker 1: politics the monorail episode and the use of Broadway to
Speaker 1: explain infrastructure failure. The episode Marge versus the Monoail endures
Speaker 1: because it understands persuasion better than most policy memos do.
Speaker 1: The episode is a deliberate homage to the music band
Speaker 1: Monorel Monreel. Sorry Lyle Lanley is Harold Hill selling civic
Speaker 1: fantasy through charming song. Well, the Monorail isn't about transportation,
Speaker 1: it was simply about identity. Springfield doesn't choose the mono
Speaker 1: rail because it's efficient. I don't think they really needed one.
Speaker 1: They choose it because it made them feel important. That's
Speaker 1: how it was sold to them. In some ways, what
Speaker 1: it was mocking were all the smaller cities that were
Speaker 1: getting talked into debt financing arenas and other sort of
Speaker 1: supposedly public arenas or entertainment complexes or concert halls, but
Speaker 1: they were really about just helping a private entity make money.
Speaker 1: The episode's genius, in some ways was showing that democracy
Speaker 1: can be overwhelmed by spectacle, not ignorance, and mister and
Speaker 1: mister Lisa goes to Washington. It remained one of the
Speaker 1: smarter portrayals of civic education that we've had on television.
Speaker 1: Lisa's faith in democracy is shaken, but it's not destroyed.
Speaker 1: The system works barely because exposure still has power. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the episode frequently is cited an academic work, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, because it models critical citizenship skepticism without disengagement.
Speaker 1: It goes back to the essay I had at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode, right, don't give up. Even when
Speaker 1: you think the system is rigged and it's messy and
Speaker 1: it's ugly, there are still ways that you can make
Speaker 1: the system work. Then, of course, there was sideshow Bob
Speaker 1: Roberts good homage to that mockumentary back in the day.
Speaker 1: That show went further side show Bob riggs an election,
Speaker 1: it's revealed and he wins. Anyway, sound familiar. Episode predicts
Speaker 1: scandal fatigue, the idea that information alone no longer guarantees accountability. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that was something that I think when people watched it
Speaker 1: at the time. Oh no, that wouldn't really happen. Let's
Speaker 1: just say the episode has aged uncomfortably well. Trash of
Speaker 1: the Titans populism, deferred costs, or moral hatcher. Trash of
Speaker 1: the Titans is local politics done brutally right. Homer runs
Speaker 1: for Senate Commissioner, promising more services, less effort, and no responsibility.
Speaker 1: His slogan, can't someone else do it? It isn't laziness,
Speaker 1: it is actually resentment. Once elected, Homer delivers exactly what
Speaker 1: he promised, and the system collapses under the weight of
Speaker 1: deferred costs. Right, the most revealing moment isn't the failure,
Speaker 1: it's the response. Springfield exports its garbage to another town.
Speaker 1: The episode captures a timeless political truth. When costs are
Speaker 1: delayed or displaced, accountability totally evaporates. Look, it was. One
Speaker 1: thing about The Simpsons is after a while their success
Speaker 1: at mocking actually made it where politicians wanted to be
Speaker 1: seen as on the side of the Simpsons, that on
Speaker 1: the side of the reasonable people, that they weren't the
Speaker 1: crazy runs. And you've had all sorts of people who
Speaker 1: have participate let their voice. Barack Obama, I think Joe
Speaker 1: Biden did once Outdore Rush Limbaugh, did I believe you've
Speaker 1: had The George hw Bush episode when he moves across
Speaker 1: the street from Homer is really well done and it
Speaker 1: is almost, in some ways an homage hw Bush. So
Speaker 1: it is. It was proof and certainly plenty of media
Speaker 1: figures participated over the years Springfield became a legitimate public square. Then,
Speaker 1: of course there's the impact that the Simpsons had on
Speaker 1: what we all watched today. Right. I know, I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of a lot of adult animation these days, and
Speaker 1: we have the Simpsons to thank, right, think about it,
Speaker 1: Before the Simpsons animation in America simply meant kids. After
Speaker 1: the Simpsons animation meant tone and not age, right, And
Speaker 1: what we all figured out was it was easier to
Speaker 1: see an animated figure tell us an uncomfortable truth that
Speaker 1: a real person telling us an uncomfortable truth. Right. Without
Speaker 1: the Simpsons, we wouldn't have had King of the Hill,
Speaker 1: South Park, Family, Guy, Futurama, Archer, BoJack, Horseman, Rick and Morty.
Speaker 1: I know I'm leaving a bunch out. You want to
Speaker 1: tell me your favorite you want to tell me what
Speaker 1: you think the Simpsons did to impact political culture. I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. And then, of course, there's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite homages to the Simpsons. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and two, South Park aired an entire episode that might
Speaker 1: be the most honest tribute of them all. It was
Speaker 1: called Simpsons Did It. And the premise was simple. Every
Speaker 1: idea of the South Park writers were trying to come
Speaker 1: up with had already been done by the Simpsons. And
Speaker 1: the whole punchline of the episode is over and over
Speaker 1: again character shout out Simpsons did It. It wasn't being
Speaker 1: a mockery, it was simply acknowledgment. It was clear our
Speaker 1: friends at South Park probably had writer's block that week,
Speaker 1: and it may be why they went to decide to
Speaker 1: just stick to parroting in the moment stuff on that front.
Speaker 1: But that episode captured something every creator understands. The Simpsons
Speaker 1: didn't just open the door. They mapped the room right
Speaker 1: and they and they allowed so many other creators to
Speaker 1: come in and have their own version of this in
Speaker 1: their own take an entire generation of writers to find
Speaker 1: the boundaries of what animated storytelling could do politically, culturally,
Speaker 1: and emotionally. So the Simpsons still kicking. They didn't just
Speaker 1: survive history, They've explained it. They taught audiences how to
Speaker 1: spot performative leadership, civic spectacle, deferred accountability, media driven politics,
Speaker 1: and they did it while teaching animation how to grow up.
Speaker 1: So that's why the show still matters. And somewhere creator
Speaker 1: is still pitching an idea, only to hear a familiar
Speaker 1: voice in the room say, Simpsons did it? All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into a little ask Chuck, Ask Chuck. We're
Speaker 1: going to do. Here's my promise to you. Some of
Speaker 1: you probably been wondering, Hey, I threw a question in
Speaker 1: here a while ago. How come you haven't dealt with it?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a pretty good question. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to have an entire episode where I'm just answering
Speaker 1: questions and trying to play catch up a little bit.
Speaker 1: That'll happen in a couple of weeks. And yes, if
Speaker 1: you want to chalk it up to oh, it's the holidays,
Speaker 1: but yes, okay, it's going to be new content. I
Speaker 1: promise it is not. It is not me just trying
Speaker 1: to well, it is me trying to have a couple
Speaker 1: of days off. I'm not going to lie about that,
Speaker 1: but it will be timely and it will be useful,
Speaker 1: I promise. But let me get in here. Get three
Speaker 1: or four questions in the here. First one comes from
Speaker 1: Tiffany and she writes, did Adam Schiff hurt or help
Speaker 1: Mandela Barnes by endorsing him for Wisconsin Governor? I live
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. I have voted Republican until twenty eighteen. I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of people like me politically
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. I don't know that anyone in Wisconsin will
Speaker 1: appreciate endorsement from California. Also, recent history shows that big
Speaker 1: endorsements from the Republican Party fail in Wisconsin. It seems
Speaker 1: a little out of touch for the Democrats to do
Speaker 1: big endorsements like this, thoughts, thank you Tiffany well Tifically,
Speaker 1: There's one simple reason why an Adam why a Mandela
Speaker 1: Barnes would consider an Adam Schiff endorsement meaningful or helpful
Speaker 1: to him, and that is that Adam Schiff has one
Speaker 1: of the most lucrative emailress of fundraising lists in the country. One,
Speaker 1: he's from the largest state, particularly the largest liberal state,
Speaker 1: in California. Two by being the face of impeachment, he
Speaker 1: build a massive donor list, then being attacked by Donald
Speaker 1: Trump constantly has only served to make that donor list
Speaker 1: more active, more viable. So you are right. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody, any Wisconsin voter is going to be moved
Speaker 1: by the endorsement. And if Mandela Barnes actually puts uses
Speaker 1: Adam Shift's endorsement and paid media, he'd be a fool.
Speaker 1: No offense to Adam Shift. But I don't think any
Speaker 1: make cares. I think you're absolutely right. But if you're
Speaker 1: wondering why why does this endorsement mean something to Mandela
Speaker 1: Barnes to Ching to Ching to Ching to Jing. It
Speaker 1: is access to that email list, That's what it is.
Speaker 1: And Adam Shift probably only only president Presidential nominees probably
Speaker 1: have bigger and more interesting level like Kamala Harris's list
Speaker 1: that she controls was going to be a good one,
Speaker 1: but Adam Shift is probably the single best left leaning
Speaker 1: fundraising list in America. That is not that for somebody
Speaker 1: who never ran for president. He's just all the ingredients
Speaker 1: are there, the impeachment, the attacks from Trump's and being
Speaker 1: from California, you throw all that in there. That was
Speaker 1: why Mandela Barnes wanted that endorsement, and why the endorsement
Speaker 1: matters to him. It is not intended to try to
Speaker 1: persuade you, and in fact, it sounds like that that
Speaker 1: stuff might actually dissuade you. And I think in some
Speaker 1: ways some of these endorse I don't think. I don't
Speaker 1: think endorsements matter unless they bring you something else. And
Speaker 1: in this case, what he's looking for is just access
Speaker 1: to grassroots dollars, and Adam Shift probably has the single
Speaker 1: best fundraising list there is. Alright, let me go to
Speaker 1: next question comes from Max w Hey, Chuck and Chris
Speaker 1: ah Hey, Solissa, you're not answering your mail bag, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to answer your leftovers here. Max w. Rights,
Speaker 1: I posted this as a comment for Chris Silia's mail
Speaker 1: bag already, but I want to suggest again what I
Speaker 1: think is a great wager. Oh on the Aggies versus
Speaker 1: Kane's matchup, loser shaves his head. Why are we doing this?
Speaker 1: No shaving of heads or goatee's or anything like this,
Speaker 1: But okay, let me listen, he goes. It's don monetary
Speaker 1: demonstrates actual commitment to the schools you both support. I've
Speaker 1: made a few loser shaves bets in my day, and
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I've never felt more invested in a result.
Speaker 1: Maybe Reginald could handle the Clippers well if you know,
Speaker 1: you know, but you'd better get them to him before
Speaker 1: he hits the Johnny Walker blue things. I will I have.
Speaker 1: I'm one time let Tapper, Jake Tapper talk me into
Speaker 1: a This was back Philly's Dodgers Serica twenty thirteen, twenty
Speaker 1: twelve NLCS, maybe twenty fourteen NLCS. I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: remember when the Dodgers were, you know, still hadn't quite
Speaker 1: gotten broken through. They were still still you know, thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, they were still believing Matt Kemp was the
Speaker 1: best player they could sign. Right. They weren't quite the
Speaker 1: Dodgers yet. They hadn't been big the juggernaut that they
Speaker 1: had become. And the Phillies were pretty good juggernaut that
Speaker 1: team that was the sort of the last gasp of
Speaker 1: Ryan Howard in that crowd. And Tapper wanted to create
Speaker 1: some social media fun and he wanted to make it
Speaker 1: he was going to grow and I was going to
Speaker 1: shave one. I never agreed to the bet, but he
Speaker 1: tried to social media bully me about it anyway, So
Speaker 1: no I I lost and made a nice sizeable contribution
Speaker 1: to the charity of his choice. Look now, I will
Speaker 1: say this, I'm probably more comfortable trying to shave my
Speaker 1: head now that I would have been ten years ago,
Speaker 1: because as you could see, it is thinning, and maybe
Speaker 1: you know, my only fear is if I totally do it,
Speaker 1: what happens if it, even this doesn't come back, right
Speaker 1: the fear us middle aged men have about what what
Speaker 1: if it doesn't come back? I was watching a basketball
Speaker 1: game over the weekend. The GWA Revolutionaries were in the
Speaker 1: in the Orange Bowl, this Orange Bowl tournament down in
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale. We were playing GW was playing Florida. I
Speaker 1: think they hung held pretty well, they'd hit their free throws.
Speaker 1: They might have won that game. I think it was
Speaker 1: a pretty good test that you know, GW, I think
Speaker 1: is a mid major that may make a strong case
Speaker 1: to get into the NCAA tournament. But the other game
Speaker 1: was UMass versus Florida State. And UMass is coached by
Speaker 1: a Miami native named Frank Martin. He was the guy
Speaker 1: that took South Carolina. Well he's gone full head shave,
Speaker 1: and he looks great. I mean, kudos to him. I
Speaker 1: would not have thought that he would have done the
Speaker 1: c ball thing very well. He does it well. He
Speaker 1: looks good, just as menacing. I'd still be afraid of
Speaker 1: him coaching a team on the other side, but it
Speaker 1: looked like there's nothing that will grow back, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's my fear of playing the head shave game.
Speaker 1: We'll see. I'd say that I think solicit fears he
Speaker 1: can't grow beer. We'll see. I'll ask him about this
Speaker 1: on our next episode. All right. Next question comes from
Speaker 1: Andre from Los Angeles An. He writes, Hey, Chuck, why
Speaker 1: is it that when someone announces a run for office,
Speaker 1: the first focus is always on who their donors are
Speaker 1: and whether these donors will approve It feels like candidates
Speaker 1: are vetted by donors, consultants, and party brass long before
Speaker 1: they ever reached voters, which makes them seem into authentic.
Speaker 1: Voters want real, opinionated leaders who feel genuine, not prepackaged
Speaker 1: for donor approval. Why has the donor class become the
Speaker 1: priority over the general public? Andre la go bruins hashtag UCLA. Well,
Speaker 1: because of how expensive campaigns have become I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's a good answer, in just telling you it is
Speaker 1: the answer, And there is a perception of viability has
Speaker 1: to do with access to money, whether you have it yourself,
Speaker 1: you have the donor. You know, it's sort of this
Speaker 1: dovetails pretty well with the question about Adam Schiff. Look,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt we have made money in politics. The
Speaker 1: fact that there is no regulation of money in politics,
Speaker 1: right we have essentially have unregulated money in politics. They're okay,
Speaker 1: so you have to follow a couple, You have to
Speaker 1: jump a very small hurdle or two to maybe spend
Speaker 1: money that raised a certain way on these few logistics
Speaker 1: things for a campaign. But then you spend money over
Speaker 1: here there is no we have. This is why I'm
Speaker 1: a huge fan of a constitutional you know, we need
Speaker 1: a constitutional amendment to deal with this. We're going to
Speaker 1: have to. I think there's some common sense campaign finance
Speaker 1: regulations that people could agree on. I think the idea
Speaker 1: of keeping corporations out of politics makes a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot sense. Figuring out how to have complete transparency,
Speaker 1: I mean, anonymous donors dark money are terrible. We basically
Speaker 1: have one or two people that are representing somewhere between
Speaker 1: thirty and thirty percent of all money spent is probably
Speaker 1: among a group of people that's less than ten. That
Speaker 1: is an out of democracy, right, That is a plutocracy
Speaker 1: or an oligarchy, if I to borrow some language that
Speaker 1: are out there. I hate saying oligarchy because it sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm taking a political side, but we have the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is the richer you are, the
Speaker 1: more access you have to political leaders hard stop. And
Speaker 1: that's a maybe that's never going to change, but we
Speaker 1: could put some more transparency and some more limits on
Speaker 1: how that works. But I'm not saying it should be
Speaker 1: this way. But you're asking why does this happen? Because
Speaker 1: viability goes through money. Now, the good news is the
Speaker 1: Internet has been a bit of a leveler there. Act
Speaker 1: Blue and When Red both have found a way to
Speaker 1: take to allow at least grassroots donors to power candidacies.
Speaker 1: And you can now do that, right Marjorie Taylor Green
Speaker 1: can do it. AOC can do it, and they've figured
Speaker 1: out how to tap into that. So the power of
Speaker 1: the small donor is not totally in fact, in some
Speaker 1: ways small donor because of the collective nature of it
Speaker 1: have become a more powerful as powerful of an entity
Speaker 1: at times that some of these corporate super PACs can be. So.
Speaker 1: But look, we do this in this case, the system
Speaker 1: has broken. We have unregulated amount of money. I'm sort
Speaker 1: of a Nascar person in this respect. Let's go full transparency.
Speaker 1: But you have to actually identify your major donors, if
Speaker 1: you if you made every person have to spell out
Speaker 1: the names of donors who have given them, say more
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand dollars or more, I promise you
Speaker 1: they'd never take a donation more than nine nine and
Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars, right, whatever threshold we create, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm all for you want to have unlimited funding
Speaker 1: in your elections, fine, but anybody that gives you more
Speaker 1: than ninety nine hundred dollars, you have to name them
Speaker 1: in every single app and you've got to where their
Speaker 1: logos on your paraphernalia, if you will. Right, That's what
Speaker 1: I mean by the nascarization of it. I think that
Speaker 1: if as long as people know who's behind things, then
Speaker 1: at least you're giving the voters a fighting chance to
Speaker 1: make their decision. All right, I'm mistaking one more question here,
Speaker 1: So I can say that at least knock out four today.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Sean McElroy Byfield, Massachusetts, and he writes, Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: why is it that corporations going to absorb tariff costs
Speaker 1: for months but push back immediately when asked to raise wages?
Speaker 1: After COVID, we saw quick inflation tied to wage increases,
Speaker 1: but terif related price hikes seem delayed. I've read that
Speaker 1: Costco expects TARI free funds, that is, offering credit now
Speaker 1: to investors to soften consumer impacts while boosting future profits. Curiously,
Speaker 1: if you've heard more about that, any thoughts on the
Speaker 1: disconnect between political focus and stagnant worker incomes. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think on the tariff, the reason some of this
Speaker 1: is you had a lot of companies stockpile right. You know,
Speaker 1: Trump made it clear what he was going to do
Speaker 1: with this tariff, So you did have plenty of company
Speaker 1: stockpile inventory where you could. Right you couldn't do it
Speaker 1: in food, in fresh food and produce and things like that,
Speaker 1: but you could stock up on certain goods in your
Speaker 1: and essentially warehouse them. And a place like Costco is
Speaker 1: something that has the has the ability to do that
Speaker 1: and so I think that's why they could quote unquote
Speaker 1: absorb some of it early because they had still had
Speaker 1: a majority of their inventory out there that they had
Speaker 1: purchased without having to pay, without having to deal with
Speaker 1: extra tariffs. But look, you're you know, why do corporations
Speaker 1: constantly look for ways to show that they're saving money? Right?
Speaker 1: That might be another way that you asked that question, right,
Speaker 1: They constantly It's why why are companies not hiring at
Speaker 1: the moment? They all want to see how many jobs
Speaker 1: can they replace with AI. They're not going to they
Speaker 1: know they can't replace all jobs with A, but they
Speaker 1: want to know which ones they can, and before they
Speaker 1: replace anybody, they want to try to see if they
Speaker 1: can replace them of AI corp. A publicly traded companies
Speaker 1: simply have a fudiciary responsibility for their shareholders, and their
Speaker 1: shareholders only reward cost efficiencies. That is, that is not
Speaker 1: good for rising you know, for the hopes of rising wages,
Speaker 1: and it is certainly makes stockpiling expensive inventory difficult as
Speaker 1: well if you're going to load them up with tariff.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is why what Trump has done
Speaker 1: to this economy, that the rise of tariff costs also
Speaker 1: in it inadvertently end up costing working class people a
Speaker 1: chance at a raise. Right, If goods were cheaper, more
Speaker 1: people might buy them, and you might need more people
Speaker 1: to actually delve out that inventory. So you know, this
Speaker 1: is why this tariff policy of the presidents is so
Speaker 1: bad for the economy. It just simply shrinks our GDP
Speaker 1: shrinks in a way that that will just hurt everything.
Speaker 1: Fewer people buy items, which means you'll have fewer employees,
Speaker 1: fewer wage, fewer people gaining a wage as it is,
Speaker 1: and fewer people getting higher wages. Bottom line is, tariffs
Speaker 1: are bad for everybody. There is no good that comes
Speaker 1: from these tariffs. Hard stop. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: thousands of different ways we can put that before we
Speaker 1: go a little A few things in college football, and
Speaker 1: and look, I don't want to. I got a few
Speaker 1: emails about the mess in Michigan. And what's uncomfortable about
Speaker 1: the mess in Michigan is Sharon Moore and some in
Speaker 1: what happened there is is this uncomfortable truth there seem
Speaker 1: to be you know, in the world of college sports
Speaker 1: right now, if you win, your behavior will get They'll
Speaker 1: find a way to bury your behavior, overlook it, or
Speaker 1: just suspend you a game or two, slap you on
Speaker 1: the wrist. But as long as you produce a national title,
Speaker 1: Jim Harbaugh, nothing is going to go wrong. But when
Speaker 1: things don't go well, then and and and maybe your
Speaker 1: offense isn't going well, then suddenly people have decided that
Speaker 1: your morals or ethics are a problem. And we don't
Speaker 1: know the full story in Michigan, but let's just say
Speaker 1: I haven't I know enough people in the sports industry world,
Speaker 1: in the world of agents. This is not rank speculation.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a there was a concerted effort
Speaker 1: that that more had to go, but they needed a reason,
Speaker 1: in a rationale, and they didn't want to spend on
Speaker 1: the buyout. Now that doesn't excuse his behavior, and he
Speaker 1: and I you know, for the life of me, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, if you're if you're going to sleep with
Speaker 1: an employee at a public institution, you're consequences any institution,
Speaker 1: and you know, you get caught, you're going to live
Speaker 1: with the consequences. And this has been a very expensive
Speaker 1: consequence for him on that front. But we need to
Speaker 1: learn a lot more about when was this first known, how,
Speaker 1: what would this and when when did this investigation happen?
Speaker 1: Why was it cleared once? Right? Sounds like there was
Speaker 1: no they had no cooperating evidence, and then suddenly they did.
Speaker 1: Why did this person suddenly provide evidence to the school
Speaker 1: when they did? And why didn't they do it before?
Speaker 1: How is it that it conveniently happened after signing day? Anyway,
Speaker 1: the point is is that the corruption of college sports, right,
Speaker 1: we know, it's there's a there's a It is a mess.
Speaker 1: It is ugly, it is scandalous, and even an elite
Speaker 1: institution like the University of Michigan is not immune from this.
Speaker 1: But the problem is, we have no entity who's going
Speaker 1: to investigate the University of Michigan. Do the NC DOUBA
Speaker 1: have any credibility to do this? Will they even listen
Speaker 1: to the NC double A? Right? When when Michigan was
Speaker 1: sign stealing, you know they yeah, okay, they suspended somebody,
Speaker 1: they find somebody. But last I checked, the University of
Speaker 1: Michigan won a national title miraculously after they've suddenly figured
Speaker 1: out sign stealing seemed to improve. You know, Jim Harbaugh
Speaker 1: was having a hard time winning nine or ten games.
Speaker 1: Then suddenly they started sign stealing and everything got better.
Speaker 1: So it's a I'm singling out Michigan here because I
Speaker 1: think Michigan is you know, this is sort of like, boy,
Speaker 1: how many how much rotten fish is in this program
Speaker 1: on these different things. But it's really this is not
Speaker 1: about Michigan. This is about the entire sport, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love college football. You guys know this.
Speaker 1: I ache for all this paid me. Look, University of Miami,
Speaker 1: We've been through this. We've had our own bad apples
Speaker 1: do some things in the past, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna you know, this is not a
Speaker 1: case we all the entire world of college football lives
Speaker 1: in not just a glasshouse. I would call it water
Speaker 1: for crystal houses, if you will, right, And there's our
Speaker 1: broken windows everywhere. But you know, ultimately the problem is
Speaker 1: the conferences have too much power, and we need you
Speaker 1: need a singular commissioner of college football, a singular commissioner
Speaker 1: of college basketball, a singular commissioner of sort of the
Speaker 1: for profits sports. Right. We probably have to separate it
Speaker 1: out a little bit, if you will. But this the
Speaker 1: amount of influence that agents and boosters now have over
Speaker 1: and above academic leaders or institutional leaders, athletic directors, you
Speaker 1: name it. You know the athletic directors are not in
Speaker 1: charge in most of these places. It's the person that
Speaker 1: runs the outside nil and raises the hundreds of the
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars. At these major college institutions
Speaker 1: need to make payroll. They're in charge. The football coaches
Speaker 1: do not work for the university residence. The football coaches
Speaker 1: work for the entity that has promised to give the
Speaker 1: most money. I saw that. I saw that at my
Speaker 1: beloved institution, right some major donors were willing to give
Speaker 1: more money if a certain person was hired as coach.
Speaker 1: That's been true of a lot of institutions. So it
Speaker 1: is the system is broken. It is messed up. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you write rules that maybe allow for this in some form,
Speaker 1: but you've got to have an accepted, shared set of rules,
Speaker 1: and right now we really don't have any. It is
Speaker 1: only media reports that at best create the opportunity for
Speaker 1: shame to kick in. But this is you know, there's
Speaker 1: the specifics themselves of what happened at Michigan, and then
Speaker 1: there's the So there really needs to be an investigation
Speaker 1: of how the initial investigation happened and how new evidence
Speaker 1: popped up. That's all I'm going to say here. Okay,
Speaker 1: I I am, I've got I've got plenty of interesting
Speaker 1: sources that have that have told me some interesting things
Speaker 1: about this situation. But the reason it needs to be
Speaker 1: rooted out because it's this is again, Michigan is just
Speaker 1: an example of what is a larger, more broken and
Speaker 1: uh and I don't think any of us would be
Speaker 1: comfortable finding out what our favorite schools were doing. I
Speaker 1: think there would be I imagine there's not a major
Speaker 1: college football program in America that does things that would
Speaker 1: make every single alum prout, every single fan proud. And
Speaker 1: it is I hate. I hate having to defend the
Speaker 1: system at times as a fan because I still love it.
Speaker 1: It's still I think college football because of the unpredictability
Speaker 1: of what kids. There's still kids, they're still growing up,
Speaker 1: they're still learning. There's that unpredictability. There's the passion of
Speaker 1: fan bases, which other than the Steelers and the Packers,
Speaker 1: there's really no you know, maybe Eagles and Cowboys too,
Speaker 1: but there's really the pro fan bases are not like
Speaker 1: college fan bases. They're just different hanging out with drunk
Speaker 1: twenty year olds is better to watch than hanging out
Speaker 1: with drunk fifty year olds too, right, if you're at
Speaker 1: an NFL game versus a college game. But ultimately, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to have Congress step in. They're going
Speaker 1: to have to give an antitrust exemption in some form
Speaker 1: because they're going to have to create We can't have
Speaker 1: small d democratic tools attempting to govern college sports. You're
Speaker 1: going to need a commissioner AKA some sort of almost
Speaker 1: authoritarian type of situation, chairman of the board, board of
Speaker 1: directors CEO, that sort of thing, with some accountability because
Speaker 1: this is embarrassing the sport all the time, and there's
Speaker 1: too much money at stake, and we have that much
Speaker 1: money at stake, you're gonna have lawsuit, You're gonna have
Speaker 1: people being live and all of that stuff. So you
Speaker 1: kind of need a structure and some sort of rule
Speaker 1: of law to govern college sports. That is fair, all right.
Speaker 1: I will stop with my rant there, but I felt like,
Speaker 1: as much as I want to celebrate, and I've got
Speaker 1: a lot I'm going to celebrate on the later this week,
Speaker 1: I will share with you my favorite pathways for Miami
Speaker 1: and the different storylines on different potential matchups that they
Speaker 1: can have in the college football playoff. Let's just say, boy,
Speaker 1: for Miami's own reputational sake, they better win one. They
Speaker 1: better win one, and we'll go from there. All right,
Speaker 1: I've gone on a bit now. This is a pretty
Speaker 1: thick Monday episode. We did some dark, some light, and
Speaker 1: everything in between. I really appreciate you listening. Our growth
Speaker 1: has been amazing. I know part of the why independent
Speaker 1: media is growing because you've lost so much trust in
Speaker 1: what's happened with the intimidated corporate owned media, which is sad.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of good friends over there who
Speaker 1: are fighting a good fight, but the institutions are just
Speaker 1: trying to trying to prevent them from doing the work
Speaker 1: that they want to do, which is a huge disappointment.
Speaker 1: But guess what, there are always alternatives, including right here.
Speaker 1: So thank you for listening. I appreciate it, and I'll
Speaker 1: see in forty eight hours.