WEBVTT - Full Episode - U.S. Is Drifting Toward Competitive Authoritarianism +  How To Fix America’s Broken Political System 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.840 It's sponsorship time. But you know what, it's really great 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.040 when you get a sponsor that you already use. And 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.119 guess what. Quint's is something that in the Todd household 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:10.920 we already go to. Why do we go to Quint's 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.160 Because it's a place you go where you can get 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.680 some really nice clothes without the really expensive prices. And 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:18.840 one of the things I've been going through is I've 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.120 transitioned from being mister cot and ty guy to wanting 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.360 a little more casual but to look nice doing it. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.880 Is I've become mister quarter zip guy. 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But I've been quite impressed. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.560 In Hey, it's holiday season. It is impossible to shop 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.760 for us middle aged men. I know this well. Tell 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.480 your kids, tell your spouses, tell your partners. Try Quints. 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:14.760 Or if you're trying to figure out what to get 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.840 your adult child, what to get your mom or dad, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.240 I'm telling you you're gonna find something that is going 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.039 to be comfortable for them on Quints. So get your 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.160 wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quints. Don't wait. 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.440 Go to quints dot com slash chuck for free shipping 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:32.759 on your order and three hundred and sixty five day 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.800 returns now available in Canada as well. That's qui nce 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.320 dot com, slash chuck, free shipping and three hundred and 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:46.440 sixty five day returns quints dot com slash chuck. Use 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:52.840 that code. Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.480 episode of the Chuck Podcast. We are ticking ever so 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:01.720 closer to the holiday break first night of Hanukkah, ten 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:06.800 days to Christmas, the New sixteen days to New Year's Eve, 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.120 and of course when I'm counting down five days until 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.480 the University of Miami's debut in the college football Playoff, 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.920 I've got a pretty good I've got a pretty sort 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.760 of robust show today that's going to hit a bunch 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:32.160 of topics. A fascinating and an incredibly important study by 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.880 some from some folks from the Council on Foreign Affairs 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.560 about the state of the United States and its democracy. 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.600 It's extraordinarily important read. I'm going to pass on the 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.800 highlights in a minute. Fascinating new poll from the Searchlight 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.320 Institute on corruption and more and portantly, it's not about 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.960 the concern about political corruption. It's about what voters believe 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:01.160 is corrupt versus sometimes what lawmakers view as corrupt. Here's 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.680 a hint it let's just say that they don't share 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.160 the same definition of what is political corruption these days. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.560 The interview today is with Nick Troyana. He is a 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.359 founder and runs an organization called Unit America. They've been 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.520 He also wrote a book called The Primary Problem, meaning 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.640 it is the primaries, a partisan primaries that are at 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.399 his thesis, that are at the root of our polarization, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.960 the root of pretty much, probably seventy percent of our problems, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.760 particularly our problems and our inability to get things done. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.680 We talk about a lot about various small the democratic 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:45.840 reforms that could be necessary, would be necessary. He's somebody 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.920 that tried to run as an independent and saw all 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.360 of the barriers to entry for third party third parties 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.960 and independents. And part of the goal I think of 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.880 United America is just simply to open up the democracy 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.320 to everybody. Right now, this democracy is not open to everybody. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.440 When it comes to competition for political parties or ideas. 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.200 There is a major barrier to entry. And it's not financial, 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:15.400 it is structural, and that is the heart of that conversation. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.880 It is Monday, which means we're going to hop into 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.960 the time machine, and I'm just going to give you 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.080 one hint at what I'm going to be talking about 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:30.080 in the time machine monorail, monorail, monorail. How many of 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.080 you will figure out what I'm going to talk about 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:37.120 based on that hint? Guess what. I won't actually find 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:38.960 out the answer to that, but I thought that would 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.920 be a fun little clue. We'll do some ask Chuck 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:43.960 and I have a few thoughts on the state of 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.960 college athletics, given what happened what we're watching at the 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.120 University of Michigan. But I'm going to start with the 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:57.240 news out of Australia. It's pretty painful first Ia Hanka 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.160 around the world that this is what all of us 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.000 had to wake up to on Sunday morning here in 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.120 the United States and what the world is grappling with, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:16.120 and that is just yet another reminder that anti Semitism 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:24.280 is at an ugly level globally right now. Look, this 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.040 is anti Semitism is not new. We've gone through fits 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:32.200 and starts. Anybody who's Jewish knows the history. We know 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.240 the history of this quite well, the rise and falls 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:42.600 of attempts eradicating Jews, blaming Jews for financial problems, blaming 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.560 Jews for cultural problems. We are the smallest of the 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.920 major religions. We are the smallest of groups that there are. 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.880 It's amazing how much power so many people try to 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:59.040 attribute to us, and we're not even three percent of 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:04.479 the world's population. Obviously, what we've been you know, there's 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.880 a lot of people that are looking at this and 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:12.760 immediately trying to make a political argument, to make the 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:18.680 case that it's the left that is supercharging antisemitism or 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.120 the right that is supercharging antisemitism. I will remind you 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.160 all once again, I have only experienced it in stereo. 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.799 All right, before twenty fifteen, I experienced very little anti semitism, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.039 if any at all. I think I shared a story 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.119 with you an old friend of mine. We were talking 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.840 about this one time, and sort of right right when 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.760 the rise of sort of it was those of us 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.719 in the press that were starting to feel at first, 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.120 and then it sort of broke open out into the mainstream. 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.800 But in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, you can say it 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.719 was coincidental with the timing of the rise of Donald Trump, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:03.120 or if that is what sort of essentially lifted up 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.560 the pretext on all of this. But essentially the rise 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.039 of the populace left with Bernie Sanders and the rise 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.920 of the populist right with Donald Trump has given a 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:17.240 permission slip to anti semits to either to either use 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.960 it to promote a left wing ideology or use it 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.000 to promote a right wing ideology. Here's what I will say. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.120 If you're using anti semitism to try to promote the 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:29.040 left or the right, you're obviously doing it wrong and 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.840 you're not very small d democratic and you certainly don't 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.840 believe in freedom, that's for sure, freedom of anything, let 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:41.480 alone freedom of religion on that front. But I remember 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.800 talking with this old friend of mine and we were 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.520 talking about how our mothers would tell us these stories 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:55.600 about anti about their butt, their anti Semitic experiences in 0:07:55.640 --> 0:08:00.920 grade school and high school. My mother's second generation in America. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.040 I believe his parents were first generation, and you know, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.280 they would tell us these stories, and my friend and 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.040 I would sit there and go, you know, my mother 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:10.960 would tell these stories about you know, kids in her 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.240 high school looking for her horns or asking about her tale. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.680 And you know, he would say that, you know his 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.760 mother would you share similar things? And we would just 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.000 look at them like they were strange beings. That's this 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:24.680 can't be the case. What do you tell? You know, 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.440 I didn't dec I didn't want to say I was 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.920 dismissing mother. But you know, you think, well, maybe our 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.640 parents are exaggerating a little bit, you know, maybe, And 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.360 I'll tell you ten years later, All right, eleven years now, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.679 we're almost we're getting close to the eleventh year of 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.800 sort of this what has been a consistent uptick, really 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.480 really you can. I do believe the line of demarcation 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.880 is June twenty fifteen. But you can see this uptick 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:55.440 and it is this is not something that either side 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:57.240 if we're going to try to make this always a 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.520 two way fight between whose fault is it is that 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:04.440 the left is of the right. This is collective and 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.760 there's a lot of there's a lot of blame to 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.760 go around, but I think the one that's sing singularly 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.320 singular for blame and most important is social media. In this, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.839 we've always had to anti semis. We've always had a 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.800 hate in the world. Okay, just it's just a fact. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.880 We've always had small minded people who have wanted to 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:29.480 blame an ethnicity or a religious sect for their for 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.640 their own personal problems. That's in it, and that is 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:38.200 that is not new. Sometimes these sick people end up 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:44.280 leaders of countries see Hitler, Comma Adolph. Sometimes these sick 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:49.040 leaders end up leaders of political movements. And then there's 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.480 always this what about is that comes along with with 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.760 folks that are trying to defend their side from charges 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:02.040 of anti Semitism, And it'll be like, yeah, but you know, yeah, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.040 but this disselected leader of Israel's bad about X, Y 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.280 and Z. That doesn't justify hate on little kids celebrating 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:16.280 Hanukah in Australia. There's nothing that justifies that. So I 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.240 don't want to hear the Abbots and I ignore. And 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.920 I'll tell you this the beauty of social media and 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.560 stories like this is it becomes self selecting. You see 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.199 the people that immediately want to point fingers and say, aha, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.880 it's the left, A hats the right, And I'm like, aha, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.080 it's somebody that doesn't have a mirror in their own frickin' house. 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.120 But I want to put the emphasis on the distinguishing 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:44.880 characteristic here of this era of anti Semitism, and that 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:45.920 is social media. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:48.000 I put my. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.120 I want to align myself with some remarks that Spencer Cox, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.640 the Governor of Utah, Republican governor of Utah said last week. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.720 And it wasn't on a specific thing, wasn't specifically about 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.280 anti Semitism, but it was more about the toxicity, the 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:08.599 toxic culture, the increase in violence that we've seen in politics. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.520 And what's interesting is my friend Jonathan martin Wright wrote 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.320 in Politico this week. The following comment received the loudest 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.920 applause he did a joint form with Josh Shapiro on 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.960 this issue Spencer Cox and Josh Shapiro in conversation with 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:27.640 my friend Savannah Guthrie, And the loudest applause at the 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.880 form was when he said the following, If you want 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:31.800 to be angry at someone, be angry at the social 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:36.480 media companies. These are the wealthiest and most powerful companies 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.360 in the history of the world, and their profiting off 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.480 of destroying our kids and destroying our country. And the 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:47.480 amplification the algorithms, the fact that fellow crazy anti semites 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:51.920 can find other fellow crazy anti semites online and think, oh, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.520 I'm not the only one that thinks this, And the 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.560 minute you think you're not the only one, that you're 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:01.320 not alone. It's somehow rationalized. Is it makes you feel better? 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.480 It makes you think, oh, and then when you set 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.200 up an ecosystem and a bubble that sort of is 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:12.200 self reinforcing, you think you're the mainstream. Everybody thinks their 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:16.080 own media diet is a mainstream diet, right. It is 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.720 the inability of so many people to put their feet 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.160 in other people's shoes and other people's media filters. In fact, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.160 I think there's been some experiments. I really would like 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.520 to see people sort of spend a day in a 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.320 media filter of somebody else, and you do these various 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.040 media filters just you know, I look at it as 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.320 an academic exercise to try to understand the electorate. As 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.400 you guys know, I have been referring to myself as 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:51.760 a political anthropologist, meaning that that is constantly what I'm 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.360 ultimately always trying to figure out is what is why 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.800 are we in this place? And if you're trying to 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.480 figure out why, you have to understand the various political 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.040 tribes in America. Some of these tribes overlap. People are 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.600 members of multiple tribes, sometimes remember of only one. But 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.560 ultimately that's why I say I'm a political anthropologist. I'm 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.320 trying to figure out how do these tribes align? Hey, 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.840 gress what I know, I'm in my own tribe. I 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.760 just try my best to roll down the window in 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.360 my bubble and see what's going on outside of my bubble. 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.760 But you have to It is hard to do it. 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.240 You have to intentionally do it. You have to have 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.440 the crazy ass Twitter feed that I have. That I 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.800 promise you most people at America probably don't because I 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.080 do try very hard to get the normies and the 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.440 extremes because I want to understand what the conversation that 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:42.839 is going on. Trust me, I'm sure some of you 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.520 go some of you listening to me wouldn't even know 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.600 who Candice Owens is. And by the way, God bless you, 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:52.600 I'd love not to know who this woman is. But 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.040 there are people, there's an entire community on the right 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.480 that is consumed with trying to extricate this crazy woman 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.400 from the mainstream of the MAGA world because of her 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:09.559 just outlandish conspiracy theories. I can't tell if she's mentally 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.480 ill or just simply a shameless grifter, or perhaps the 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.440 two of the two go hand in hand. But there 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.080 are plenty of people in mainstream America. I'm sure if 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.360 I said the words Candice owned, my mother and my 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.000 brother in law, my sister in law, who all are 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.160 pretty pretty smart about this, would be like, who the 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.400 hell is that? And I wouldn't blame them. But that's 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.160 because this is the world that we've all constructed. But 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.680 it's the world that social media has gone out of 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.760 their way to construct. And this is why, you know, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.200 I look at this rise of anti Semitism, and I 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.840 look the fact that this was not a lone nut right, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.800 but there appears to be some coordination down there in Australia. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.440 I do I can't, you know, I know that ultimately 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.200 individuals are to blame, not a computer, not an algorithm, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:04.280 but these tech platfor to amplify, and you know, you know, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:09.120 I think they have a responsibility to make sure that 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.040 what they're doing is not putting more people in harm's way, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:18.000 and their amplification, their algorithms, are doing just that, they 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.080 deserve no protection on Section two thirty, the part of 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.320 the law that supposedly says, hey, we're just you know, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.080 we're not doing the minute they put an algorithm on 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.000 these things, the minute they amplify, the minute they allow 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.400 for the connection. Look, our First Amendment guarantees free speech. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:37.920 It doesn't guarantee if bullhorn, It doesn't guarantee a right 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:39.960 to be the loudest voice in the room. It just 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.160 simply guarantees that you have a right to free speech. 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.200 So you have a right to be a hateful anti 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:51.040 semi okay, but you don't have the right to have 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:57.320 your extreme, hateful and hurtful political views be the dominant 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:02.480 piece of conversation and be mainstreamed in to America. No, because, 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.000 by the way, we don't want it mainstream, and the 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.480 tech companies do not have to protect you and do 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.800 not have to amplify your speech. In fact, they can 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.520 dial it down. In fact, there's plenty of academic studies 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.880 that show if you dial down hateful content, you're not 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.280 getting rid of it, you're just prioritizing it less than 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:27.120 these algorithms. It's shocking how much turning that temperature down 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:35.800 actually helps the conversation. So it's troubling, but I really, 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.560 you know, you look at the situation we're in, and 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.080 there's no doubt we have bad leaders around the world 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.480 that are exploiting hate and anger to try to make 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.040 a political argument. You have people on both sides of 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:56.680 the aisle attempting to weaponize anger at Israel or anger 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:02.640 at the economy and trying to somehow connect that to 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.280 Jewish folks. The left does it with bb at times. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.439 The right does it with George Soros. I mean George Soros. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.439 There is no greater victim, there's no greater victim of 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:20.760 anti Semitic mythology, uh and gross mischaracterizations than George Soros. 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:23.159 And I don't know where he gets to go to 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.520 get his reputation back considering the character assassinations that have 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:31.040 taken place through the prism of his faith. There's there's 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.879 no no, no doubt in my mind on that front. 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.320 But ultimately, why do we have more collective conversation about this? 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.400 Why is there more collective talk about this? Why is there, 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:48.440 frankly more insecurity for many Jewish Jewish people around the world. 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.879 Why do we feel so less secure today than we 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.280 ever have before. I think we can thank social media. 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.600 I think the tech companies have not only not gotten 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.800 the focus of this, they've not taken responsibility, but I 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.240 think they need They need to be the focal point. 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.679 Which brings me to that column that my friend Jonathan 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.600 Martin wrote, which he says, you know, perhaps Spencer Cox 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.479 needs to be the anti tech candidate. Somebody needs to 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.400 take it to the tech community. Right, the tech community 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.639 has brought us a lot of positives. Okay, there's a 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.480 ton of positives, and there's a ton of tools that 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.399 have been invented that have helped me create a better 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.280 communications system with you guys. Right, There's no doubt there's 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.760 plenty of upsides from the tech community, but what they 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.639 have done with social media, And this is why I 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.960 don't think the public is going to be supportive at 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.879 all of this light touch, non regulatory process that the 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.840 President's trying to do an artificial intelligence. The same industry, 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.240 the same industry that gave us social media without regulation, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:02.280 now wants to give us artificial intelligence without regulation. Considering 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.000 how well social media went, how the hell are we 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:10.560 doing this right? This is the most illogical thing you 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.280 could come up with. I can't believe the President is 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.480 doing this. I think this is you want to talk 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:21.040 about convincing more mainstream Americans to go get a pitch 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:25.640 for it and start sharpening up, sharpening that sucker up. 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.560 It is just crazy that we don't want to put 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:34.000 any guardrails on the growth and expansion of the AI industry. 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:41.560 It is absolute insanity. Okay, if you think social media 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.280 created more toxicity in our culture and more violence in 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.359 our culture thanks to the lack of regulation, what do 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.080 you think is going to happen with artificial intelligence if 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.000 we don't have some attempt at making sure there are 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.200 constant guardrails being erected as we build this super highway. 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:05.560 It is something that I think I've talked about this before. 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:12.160 I think it is politically absolutely going to be frankly 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.480 an easy thing to exploit potentially. And you know, that's 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.200 why the tech community is really making a mistake here 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.679 that they are not grasping just in what kind of 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.240 precarious position that they're in. And maybe they think we 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.920 don't need America and if America shuts us down, we'll 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.920 just go somewhere else where we will be treated with 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.000 lot we can just buy our way into a policy 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.359 that we want. And obviously, right now we have a 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.800 situation where they can get whatever the hell they want 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.920 from this administration if they just write a check. And 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:49.120 that's disturbing, but that's why we still have a competitive democracy, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.760 although I'm going to get to that in a minute, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.280 where the voters can sort of have a say in this, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.600 because right now we have zero say in what social 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.320 media has done to us, and we don't seem to 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.480 have the collective will. It's growing. I mean, look, I 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.200 think it's a huge start that you've got. I mean, look, 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.000 Australia is trying to ban social media for people under 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:18.439 the age of sixteen. Spencer Cock made Cox made this 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.040 mention that we wait to hand the keys to a 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.000 car to a kid until sixteen, Yet we give them 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.359 an algorithmic driven phone at twelve. You know, perhaps we 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:30.280 can give them a phone at twelve with no social 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.800 media on it. Right, maybe it's flip phones from twelve 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.080 to sixteen, because plenty of parents want to have some 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.560 access to their kids and all that. I think that 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:44.880 that's a legitimate concern. But you know, we can essentially say, 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.960 you know, no, just you can't have a you know, 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:49.600 because I don't know how else you're going to be 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:51.960 able to monitor this. But if you actually just make 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:58.520 the device itself against the law for somebody under the 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.120 age of sixteen to have, that might be a start. 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.240 It is the one area where we're starting to see 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:09.439 some bipartisan consensus, which is about access to screens and 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.480 social media for people under sixteen. And we've decided this 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.360 is a problem. Well, guess what do you think that 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.919 our minds are only fragile from sixteen and younger, or 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.320 that we've got these fragile minds that are much older too, 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.600 and that social media warps those warps those over the 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.880 age of sixteen almost as badly as they could warp 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.399 those under the age of twelve. One other point on 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.879 the social media front, Jonathan mentioned an interesting new report 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:42.960 that noted about. It was a poll about the mano sphere, 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:45.639 if you will, what do men want? And it revealed 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.360 that a majority of males sampled in that survey said 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.520 social media feeds have gotten a lot more extreme. I mean, 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.280 most of this is thanks to Elon Musk and his 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.840 insanity and what he's done to Ax and taking away 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.240 all guardrails on acts, and of course every other social 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.520 media company followed because they didn't want to get left behind. 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.000 But what's interesting is that men themselves revealed in this 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.440 poll that most controversial content reaches the men who are 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.640 online the most, especially younger men, white men, black men, 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:17.400 Hispanic men across the board. And we're seeing a more 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:23.680 radical youth thanks to warped social media algorithms. So when 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:25.640 we see this rise of hate, we see this rise 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.200 of violence, and we're looking, you know, the easy thing 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:31.719 is to try to point left, point right, point at Israel, 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:34.800 point Gaza, point a Hamas, point of protesters. People want 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:37.800 to point it. A whole bunch of figures, except for 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.280 the culprit that is in charge of the information ecosystem 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.240 that destroyed the information ecosystem. And trust me, I'm aware 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:47.520 of the irony that I am speaking to you in 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.919 that ecosystem, and hopefully it gets to you it doesn't 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:54.200 get shut down by the algorithms of these big tech companies. 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.639 But they're the culprits here. They've created this environment that 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:01.040 has made it a lot easier for these hateful, awful, 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:07.800 mentally ill people to find comfort in their bubbles because 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:12.080 it looks like they're not alone and that they're somehow namestream. 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:20.000 Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.120 personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away. 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:25.520 We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:29.920 the best shape. My mother, single mother, now widow. Myself 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:31.800 sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:35.000 pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:38.240 one life insurance policy that we found. 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Application times may vary and 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:50.639 the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, 0:25:51.040 --> 0:25:54.000 life insurance is something you should really think about, especially 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:59.760 if you've got a growing family. I want to pivot 0:26:00.000 --> 0:26:03.399 quickly to my Newsphere interview this week because some alarming 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:06.600 new facts that I had not seen anywhere else from 0:26:06.640 --> 0:26:09.080 Mark Warner. He's the vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee. 0:26:09.160 --> 0:26:13.720 Mark Warner has seen the second He has seen the 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:19.639 video of both the September second second strike on those 0:26:19.840 --> 0:26:23.240 survivors from the first strike of the boats off the 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:26.000 coast of Venezuela, and he revealed two facts that I 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:29.320 had not seen anywhere. Fact number one is that the 0:26:29.440 --> 0:26:32.600 time that elapsed between the first strike and the second 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:36.280 strike was somewhere between thirty and forty minutes because of 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:39.600 cloud cover, so thirty to forty minutes, and then the 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:43.040 clouds come up, and then apparently what is revealed, according 0:26:43.160 --> 0:26:50.280 to Senator Warner, was not fully clothed survivors clinging to 0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:56.120 their life, and then the second strike. Let's just say 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:58.800 this is what look He believes that if Americans see 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:02.960 this video, they will be appalled. There will be and 0:27:03.000 --> 0:27:05.119 there's a reason why the Pentagon is fighting the release 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:08.879 of this video. There is no defense. There apparently is 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:10.879 going to be no defense of what this video looks like. 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:15.119 This is appalling, and there are probably going to be 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:19.640 concerns that there are people that might have legal jeopardy here. 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:22.560 But realistically, I don't know where you get the legal 0:27:22.600 --> 0:27:26.680 jeopardy when the president will likely just pardon anybody that 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:33.520 is investigated. But there's a reason people are fighting very 0:27:33.560 --> 0:27:36.639 hard not to release this second video because if what 0:27:36.920 --> 0:27:42.439 is what Warner described to me a delayed thirty to 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:48.040 forty minutes and they were not fully clothed, Essentially, just 0:27:48.520 --> 0:27:52.320 put yourself for the situation. Your boat explode, You're alive, 0:27:52.480 --> 0:27:57.160 you're swimming, You're clinging to the remnants of a boat 0:27:57.160 --> 0:28:02.440 in order to stay afloat not drown. Half your clothes 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:05.320 are gone, been blown off. Maybe you're just sort of 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:09.600 trying to use it, and we decide to use the 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:14.840 second shot. No wonder there are questions why the phrase 0:28:14.840 --> 0:28:17.440 war crime is being tossed around although we're not at war, 0:28:18.880 --> 0:28:23.640 because you know, as many a person has pointed out, 0:28:24.480 --> 0:28:27.679 the question is whether there is not whether this second 0:28:27.680 --> 0:28:31.000 strike was legal, but we still have real doubts about 0:28:31.000 --> 0:28:33.760 whether the first strike is legal. And it is worth 0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:38.440 noting that earlier this week, earlier last week, Trump offered 0:28:38.440 --> 0:28:41.640 a veiled threat at Colombia because the president of Colombia 0:28:41.680 --> 0:28:44.480 has been critical of this, saying that he might not 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:48.640 be out of the crosshairs. And then the President has 0:28:48.680 --> 0:28:52.280 said that they might target some of these folks on land. 0:28:53.240 --> 0:28:58.800 Whose land is it? Venezuela is a Colombia. Where's this headed? 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:03.320 And again there is no Senator Warner could not give 0:29:03.400 --> 0:29:10.160 me the authority that that he could not explain very 0:29:10.200 --> 0:29:14.120 well the authority that the White House was using that 0:29:14.240 --> 0:29:18.480 they claimed these strikes were legal. I mean, they've cited 0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:21.680 an authority. It's not the for if you're wondering what 0:29:21.720 --> 0:29:24.480 Senator Warner said, it is not the am au m 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:29.680 F that was passed by Congress that that allowed for 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:34.080 the invasion of Iraq, but and which has been used, 0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:37.320 which was used by Obama as justification for strikes, and 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:40.719 I believe Yemen and some other places. So that is 0:29:40.760 --> 0:29:43.880 not there. So we still don't have a clear picture 0:29:44.000 --> 0:29:47.840 of the legal authority the White House is claiming to 0:29:47.880 --> 0:29:52.160 go after these folks. But he has threatened land strikes 0:29:52.200 --> 0:29:55.880 without asking for any authority from Congress and additional authority 0:29:55.880 --> 0:29:57.640 from Congress, nor has he made his case to the 0:29:57.640 --> 0:30:03.520 American public. And by the way, the decision to essentially 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:06.080 commandeer an oil tanker rather than just blow it up, 0:30:06.120 --> 0:30:09.360 although blowing up an oil tanker would have been catastrophic, 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:15.080 essentially starting a fire on the Pacific Ocean potentially or 0:30:15.120 --> 0:30:18.320 the Caribbean Sea, depending on where they were hitting this tanker. 0:30:19.800 --> 0:30:22.040 But if we can board a tanker, we could have 0:30:22.120 --> 0:30:24.600 boarded these boats. And I think the decision not to 0:30:24.680 --> 0:30:28.920 attack that tanker and simply to just commandeer it under 0:30:29.440 --> 0:30:34.240 totally undermines the rationale and justification of the strikes themselves. 0:30:34.680 --> 0:30:37.560 Why there is no good explanation for why we're not 0:30:37.760 --> 0:30:44.480 just essentially stopping these boats, grabbing these people and getting 0:30:44.560 --> 0:30:47.800 some intelligence so that we can actually learn something. And 0:30:47.840 --> 0:30:50.720 I want to just keep one thing in mind here, 0:30:51.160 --> 0:30:53.720 just one more thing in mind, which is the president's 0:30:53.760 --> 0:30:57.800 political standing is not great. He has had a terrible month. 0:30:58.240 --> 0:31:01.760 He had a terrible Friday, excuse me, Thursday last week 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:06.080 when his retribution campaign. You know, basically he's the Emperor 0:31:06.080 --> 0:31:08.760 with no clothes as far as Indiana Republicans are concerned. 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:12.440 Grand Juries in Virginia are not. Might might want to 0:31:12.440 --> 0:31:15.120 indict at Ham Sandwich, but they won't indict Leticia James 0:31:17.400 --> 0:31:20.600 when he's not feeling, when he feels as if things 0:31:20.640 --> 0:31:24.400 are going bad, that's just when he might do crazier 0:31:24.480 --> 0:31:28.000 stuff and might attempt crazier stuff to either change the 0:31:28.040 --> 0:31:30.800 subject or change the picture. One more thing before I 0:31:30.840 --> 0:31:33.560 get to an important essay that I think you guys 0:31:33.680 --> 0:31:37.800 have to make note of the president. It is notable 0:31:37.800 --> 0:31:39.160 to me that the President did an interview with the 0:31:39.160 --> 0:31:43.080 Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and the most fascinating 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:47.160 aspect of it was his tone change. He essentially is 0:31:47.200 --> 0:31:50.400 admitting that he's going to lose the mid terms. He said, 0:31:51.120 --> 0:31:54.239 you know, he basically said, we're going to try our 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:56.560 best to win. We'll see what happens. We should win, 0:31:56.600 --> 0:31:59.200 but you know, statistically it's very tough to win. Yeah, 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:02.080 I know, it doesn't make So it's the beginning of 0:32:02.120 --> 0:32:05.280 the excuse making. It's the beginning of the his way 0:32:05.320 --> 0:32:08.520 of admitting this economy, that the public doesn't like this economy. 0:32:09.360 --> 0:32:11.760 This was the interview saying, Oh, it's going to take time, 0:32:11.880 --> 0:32:18.280 my investments haven't gone through. It will happen. Just be patient, 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:21.000 and as he said, hopefully it happens before the election. 0:32:21.800 --> 0:32:24.160 But it's notable, right he went from this is a 0:32:24.200 --> 0:32:27.640 hoax two weeks ago to at least in this interview 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:31.880 with the Wall Street Journal sort of accepting the premise. Yes, 0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:34.800 we realized the public doesn't feel it or see it yet, 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:37.280 but they will, But they will, he promises, He swears. 0:32:38.400 --> 0:32:41.160 These are these stages. It's we should call it stages 0:32:41.200 --> 0:32:43.400 of political it's not quite political grief. But it's sort 0:32:43.400 --> 0:32:45.719 of like, you know, first there's a dial right, then 0:32:45.760 --> 0:32:51.280 there's you know, somehow you're argumentative. Then there's a form 0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:54.000 of acceptance. He's getting into the form of acceptance, but 0:32:54.040 --> 0:32:56.680 he's not accepting the premise that his policies are a problem. 0:32:56.920 --> 0:32:59.360 He's just simply saying his policies haven't kicked in yet, 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:02.160 And that says he's no different than any other president 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:04.040 trying to defend a bad economy. No, no, no, no, my 0:33:04.080 --> 0:33:06.600 policies haven't kicked in yet. It's always my policies haven't 0:33:06.640 --> 0:33:10.440 kicked in yet. I'm dealing with the predecessor's policies. So 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:13.400 in that sense, it's a familiar pattern. Perhaps the best 0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:16.440 part of that Wall Street Journal interview was the fact 0:33:16.480 --> 0:33:18.320 that you know, he's doing the interview with the Wall 0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:21.080 Street Turnal reporters, but he's taking calls and doing all 0:33:21.080 --> 0:33:24.040 sorts of stuff at the same time, right, And here's 0:33:24.080 --> 0:33:26.080 the I'm going to read directly from the article. At 0:33:26.080 --> 0:33:28.080 one point, the President, sitting at the resolute desk with 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:30.360 a glittering Christmas tree at its side, asked an aid 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:32.480 to show him the latest market data. He took calls 0:33:32.480 --> 0:33:34.920 from friends and allies multiple times during the interview, including 0:33:35.000 --> 0:33:38.080 from Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, who joined by speakerphone to 0:33:38.120 --> 0:33:42.280 discuss the administration's plans for Washington, d C. Area public 0:33:42.280 --> 0:33:46.800 golf courses. That is right, the President seems to not 0:33:46.960 --> 0:33:50.400 be worried about the price of groceries as much as 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:54.160 he's worried about the designs and who's in charge of 0:33:54.200 --> 0:33:59.120 redesigning Washington d C's three public golf courses, Rock Creek Park, 0:33:59.160 --> 0:34:07.240 Haines Pointston. I mean, if you're trying to hand Democrats 0:34:07.320 --> 0:34:12.040 easier fodder to say, you know, he promised this, to focus, 0:34:12.400 --> 0:34:15.640 laser focus on this, this and this, and instead he 0:34:15.760 --> 0:34:18.719 cares about building a ballroom, changing the name of the 0:34:18.760 --> 0:34:27.440 Kennedy Center, singing ymca UH, and redesigning Washington DC's golf courses, 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:31.800 all of course extraordinarily important priorities to bringing down the 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:35.920 costs of electricity and groceries in your home. Anyway, just 0:34:36.120 --> 0:34:39.600 uh not not the smartest politician, but Donald Trump's never 0:34:39.600 --> 0:34:42.560 been the smartest about messaging in that front. But that 0:34:42.600 --> 0:34:47.320 brings me to I think a very important essay from 0:34:47.680 --> 0:34:50.880 a quarterly journal. I'm a politically like I say, I'm 0:34:50.920 --> 0:34:53.840 a want to be political scientist, I call myself a 0:34:53.840 --> 0:34:58.400 political anthropologist. That means I actually read political science quarterlies. 0:34:59.360 --> 0:35:02.600 And there's an extra jordinarily important one that's out this week. 0:35:03.160 --> 0:35:05.920 It's an essay in Foreign Affairs, which is the flagship 0:35:06.040 --> 0:35:09.000 journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. This isn't a 0:35:09.120 --> 0:35:14.080 partisan outlet, it's not a resistance blog. It's the magazine 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:17.960 where American presidents, Secretary of States, national security advisors have 0:35:18.000 --> 0:35:21.200 gone for generations debate how the world works and how 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:27.000 the United States role it should be. So three of 0:35:27.040 --> 0:35:30.320 the most respected democracy scholars in the world from Harvard 0:35:30.360 --> 0:35:33.839 Toronto and the Council on Foreign Relations, Steven Levitzky, Luke 0:35:33.880 --> 0:35:37.359 and Way and Daniel Ziblat. They're not cable pundits. They're 0:35:37.360 --> 0:35:38.960 not people you're going to see in the round tables 0:35:38.960 --> 0:35:42.200 of Sunday shows. They're not political activists. They're simply political 0:35:42.239 --> 0:35:46.320 sciences who spent their career studying how democracies erode around 0:35:46.320 --> 0:35:54.359 the world, how they fail, and occasionally how they recover. Well, 0:35:54.440 --> 0:36:02.360 they have an essay called with about out competitive Authoritarianism, 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:05.839 and in fact this is what they write, and this 0:36:05.880 --> 0:36:07.680 is why I took it very seriously. This was not 0:36:07.719 --> 0:36:09.840 something I read, no offense to my friends at the Bulwark. 0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:12.080 It's not something I read in the Bullwark. Not something 0:36:12.120 --> 0:36:13.360 you're going to see it here in pod Save of 0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:16.520 America certainly, now you might. I doubt you'll hear this 0:36:16.719 --> 0:36:21.279 from my friend Eric Ericson either. But here's this essay. 0:36:21.320 --> 0:36:23.360 In twenty twenty five, the United States ceased to be 0:36:23.440 --> 0:36:26.520 a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or 0:36:26.560 --> 0:36:31.759 even Argentina are democracies. Okay, they're just making a classification. 0:36:32.800 --> 0:36:34.719 And then comes the line. The game, however, is far 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:39.360 from up. They're not saying all is lost. Okay. It 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:42.760 is an important essay because they deal with this tension 0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:49.800 of yes we have had erosion and no, this isn't permanent. Okay. 0:36:50.000 --> 0:36:52.520 So they argue that Donald Trump's second term the United 0:36:52.560 --> 0:36:56.439 States crossed a definitional line into something political scientists call 0:36:56.840 --> 0:37:01.040 competitive authoritarianism. Here's how they define it a system in 0:37:01.080 --> 0:37:04.719 which parties compete in elections, but incumbents routinely abuse their 0:37:04.760 --> 0:37:08.560 power to punish critics untilt the playing field against their opposition. 0:37:08.840 --> 0:37:12.719 So elections still happen, but perhaps you threaten lawmakers to 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:16.640 redraw the maps to make more favorable elections. Opposition parties 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:20.160 still exist, but perhaps you raise the threshold for petition 0:37:20.280 --> 0:37:23.000 signatures to get on a referendum, or you change the 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:26.000 dates and stuff see Missouri. But the referee is no 0:37:26.080 --> 0:37:29.719 longer neutral, right, and the House rules keep changing. And importantly, 0:37:29.760 --> 0:37:33.279 they're not saying this might happen, because it's already happened 0:37:33.320 --> 0:37:36.200 in this country. A year ago, this group predicted that 0:37:36.440 --> 0:37:39.960 this would be Trump's trajectory, that he'd weaponized state institutions 0:37:40.360 --> 0:37:43.160 the way elected autocrats have done in Hungry, Turkey, Venezuela, 0:37:43.160 --> 0:37:46.120 and India. And those are the four most important examples 0:37:46.200 --> 0:37:50.840 to follow here, because Venezuela obviously the helm election the 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:54.760 leader loss, and he wouldn't leave Turkey, Hungary and India 0:37:55.040 --> 0:38:00.800 have are what are considered faiish elections. But we'll find 0:38:00.800 --> 0:38:03.600 out when the ruling party loses one day just how 0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:05.600 fair they are. But they write this indeed, the Trump 0:38:05.600 --> 0:38:08.440 administration has done exactly that. But here's what the authors say. 0:38:08.440 --> 0:38:11.720 They didn't anticipate. What's surprised even then wasn't the speed, 0:38:11.760 --> 0:38:14.160 but it was the scope. And they write, this, one 0:38:14.200 --> 0:38:16.520 form of authoritarian behavior that we did not anticipate a 0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:19.480 year ago was the Trump administration's routine subversion of the 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:23.120 law and even the US Constitution. Well, we've seen that 0:38:23.160 --> 0:38:24.759 with the strikes, with that as well. I mean, there 0:38:24.840 --> 0:38:30.279 is very little, very little doubt here that this is 0:38:30.800 --> 0:38:35.239 not yet not constitutional. The question is whether they'll even 0:38:35.360 --> 0:38:44.560 try to give some congressional authority on that. So let 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:46.520 me outline a few more things that they write here, 0:38:46.560 --> 0:38:48.920 weaponizing the state. They call it the blueprint. Every competitive 0:38:48.920 --> 0:38:53.080 authoritarian regime follows a familiar playbook. Purge, then pack, so 0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:57.399 removing professional civil servants who see their job as the law, 0:38:57.440 --> 0:38:59.440 and replace them with loyalists who see their job as 0:38:59.440 --> 0:39:02.600 the leader. Just look at the FBI. That's exactly what 0:39:02.640 --> 0:39:05.320 they document happening inside the Justice Department, the FBI, and 0:39:05.360 --> 0:39:08.880 other key agencies. When officials resisted, they were just simply removed. 0:39:08.920 --> 0:39:12.400 We've seen US attorneys, deputy US attorneys just summarily fired 0:39:13.239 --> 0:39:15.840 when replacements were chosen, they weren't selected for experience, but 0:39:15.920 --> 0:39:19.600 for loyalty, including, as the author's note, Trump's own personal 0:39:19.680 --> 0:39:24.920 lawyers installed as senior Justice Department officials. It's just right 0:39:24.960 --> 0:39:29.799 out of, right, out of sort of. There's a fun 0:39:29.840 --> 0:39:34.120 parody about authoritarianism called Moon over Parador with Richard Dreyfus. 0:39:34.800 --> 0:39:37.000 I do to write that what seemed like parody is 0:39:37.040 --> 0:39:40.359 now real. Right, And then even when prosecutions don't lead 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:43.239 to convictions, the authors explain why that doesn't matter. Such 0:39:43.280 --> 0:39:48.200 investigations themselves are the powerful form of harassment, right, making 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:50.920 Adam Shift hire a lawyer, making Letitia James deal with this, 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:54.560 making James Comy deal with this, legal fees, time, reputational damage, 0:39:54.719 --> 0:39:58.840 career disrupt eruption. The punishment is often the process itself. 0:39:59.160 --> 0:40:01.680 They don't care if they ca convictions. They just want 0:40:01.719 --> 0:40:06.480 them constantly made to be, you know, unhireable, don't get 0:40:06.480 --> 0:40:09.000 them on corporate boards, make them seem as if they're 0:40:09.000 --> 0:40:12.480 controversial figures. Then of course you got to follow the money. 0:40:13.040 --> 0:40:14.960 Because this is what's happened with their next move, going 0:40:15.000 --> 0:40:18.239 after civil society. How's the Trump administration done this? They've 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:22.200 ordered investigations into Act Blue, the primary arm of the 0:40:22.200 --> 0:40:27.719 Democratic Party, Open Society Foundations, the George Soros founded organization. 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:30.360 The Wall Street Journal reported that that there are plans 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:34.200 to target Democratic donors through the IRS. That's right out 0:40:34.239 --> 0:40:37.480 of the competitive authoritarian handbook that these political scientists know. 0:40:38.640 --> 0:40:40.879 Then there's the pressure campaign against the media. Trump sue 0:40:40.920 --> 0:40:42.640 the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:48.120 FCC opened silly investigations into ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Comcast, 0:40:48.120 --> 0:40:51.920 which owns NBC. We've seen the FCC chair act like 0:40:51.960 --> 0:40:59.080 a thug in threatening Jimmy Kimmel, Disney and NBC. It 0:40:59.440 --> 0:41:02.160 is it is, and what makes this so dangerous and 0:41:02.160 --> 0:41:05.040 so effective is is not just what happened, but because 0:41:05.040 --> 0:41:08.440 of what didn't happen. In fact, our authors are arguing 0:41:08.440 --> 0:41:11.120 that the most insidious change isn't the repression, it's been 0:41:11.120 --> 0:41:15.080 the self censorship. They point that outlets i've become realigning 0:41:15.120 --> 0:41:17.360 and pull back, like the Washington Post, like the editorial 0:41:17.360 --> 0:41:19.960 page is kind of a clown show. Now it is 0:41:20.239 --> 0:41:23.160 just outside of George Well, there's not a readable columnist 0:41:23.280 --> 0:41:27.640 left in that place. It is just a joke. The 0:41:27.760 --> 0:41:32.279 editorial page itself is sort of. It's like they have 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:35.600 one thing they do every time if there's some economic controversy, 0:41:35.600 --> 0:41:39.000 they write some convoluted editorial attacking Elizabeth Warren. I guess 0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:41.680 that makes Chef Bezos feel better, but it has nothing 0:41:41.719 --> 0:41:43.799 to do with the point itself or any of the 0:41:43.840 --> 0:41:47.080 actual rational debate that's gone on. You've had the teen 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:49.960 Vogue has sort of gotten rid of their political coverage. 0:41:49.960 --> 0:41:53.239 CBS clearly just has a new owner and they just 0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:57.720 wiped out, you know, brought in virtue signaling new editors 0:41:57.719 --> 0:42:01.320 to run thing. We've seen Disney cave in, We've seen 0:42:02.239 --> 0:42:06.040 plenty of again, all of these legacy media, these corporate owned, 0:42:06.560 --> 0:42:12.360 shareholder driven media organizations that all fall under Donald Trump's 0:42:12.400 --> 0:42:16.560 potential influence due to government regulation, they've all capitulated, which 0:42:16.640 --> 0:42:19.600 is why frankly, we're doing so well here at the podcast, 0:42:19.719 --> 0:42:23.719 So in some ways, thank you, But unfortunately, this is 0:42:23.719 --> 0:42:25.960 why we've all gone down this independent road. Because if 0:42:25.960 --> 0:42:27.400 you want to be honest and if you want to 0:42:27.440 --> 0:42:29.440 tell the truth, you're gonna have to find a different 0:42:29.440 --> 0:42:30.840 outlet because you're not gonna be able to do it 0:42:30.840 --> 0:42:33.040 at the Washington Post. You're not gonna be able to 0:42:33.040 --> 0:42:36.840 do it at the major legacy TV networks that are left. 0:42:36.920 --> 0:42:40.480 I'm not saying individuals aren't trying, but collectively they're not 0:42:40.600 --> 0:42:45.840 even giving the chance. And here's the other thing. Here's 0:42:45.920 --> 0:42:49.600 the part we don't know. What makes self censorship so 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:52.480 insidious is that it is virtually impossible to ascertain its 0:42:52.480 --> 0:42:56.120 full impact. So wrote these authors, right, we can see 0:42:56.120 --> 0:42:58.919 a firing, we can see a cancelation. What we can't 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:01.680 see are the stories that are never pitched, the investigations 0:43:01.680 --> 0:43:04.640 that get quietly abandoned, or the headlines that are softened 0:43:04.680 --> 0:43:07.240 out of fear, or the questions that don't get asked 0:43:07.239 --> 0:43:11.439 on camera because executives in New York tell their correspondence 0:43:11.520 --> 0:43:15.080 please don't do it. Because our corporate overlords are afraid 0:43:15.200 --> 0:43:21.080 of blowback from the president that is happening. You can 0:43:21.120 --> 0:43:27.000 guess where that's coming from. That's how democracies hollow out. 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:29.480 And this is where the essay draws a crucial historical line. 0:43:29.600 --> 0:43:32.320 America has had its stark chapters Jim Crow read Scare, 0:43:32.400 --> 0:43:36.760 Japanese Internment, McCarthys, and Nixon. But the authors also argue 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:41.879 that after Watergate, the overt authoritarian abuse largely disappeared. Since 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:45.560 nineteen seventy four, no democratic or Republican administration had systematically 0:43:45.600 --> 0:43:49.160 politicized law enforcement or targeted political rivals the way Donald 0:43:49.160 --> 0:43:52.719 Trump is doing. George W. Bush his Justice Department investigative 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:57.160 Republicans and Democrats. Barack Obama appointed James Comey, a Republican, 0:43:58.440 --> 0:44:01.680 to be the head of the FBI. Joe Biden kept 0:44:01.760 --> 0:44:04.080 Christopher Ray as head of the FBI and a pointee 0:44:04.120 --> 0:44:09.040 of Donald Trump. Mind you, Merrick Garland bent over backwards 0:44:09.080 --> 0:44:11.560 as Attorney General, sometimes to a fault, to avoid the 0:44:11.600 --> 0:44:15.800 appearance of political interference. So the conclusion is fun in 0:44:15.840 --> 0:44:18.600 each of those critical areas that Trump administration stands alone 0:44:18.680 --> 0:44:21.160 in its authoritarianism. Now, none of this is inevitable. And 0:44:21.200 --> 0:44:25.520 here's where the essay shifts from diagnosis to prognosis. He says, 0:44:25.560 --> 0:44:29.360 the US still has advantages that most competitive authoritarian regimes 0:44:29.360 --> 0:44:33.319 do not. There's still an independent judiciary. There's still a 0:44:33.320 --> 0:44:36.400 professional military, though Pete hagg Seth is trying to erode it. 0:44:36.680 --> 0:44:39.160 There's still strong federalism. I mean, look at the way 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:42.000 Ron DeSantis is pushed back on the AI issue in 0:44:42.040 --> 0:44:44.360 the AI moratorium that Trump is done. There's still a 0:44:44.440 --> 0:44:49.200 vibrant civil society. Helloo, and there's a unified opposition party. 0:44:49.960 --> 0:44:52.560 And Trump himself lacks the single most important asset the 0:44:52.600 --> 0:44:58.719 author's note for authoritarian consolidation overwhelming popularity. Successful autocrats often 0:44:58.800 --> 0:45:01.640 rule with approval ratings over eight. Trump is stuck in 0:45:01.680 --> 0:45:04.560 the low forties. And it's actually trending downward that matters. 0:45:05.200 --> 0:45:07.520 So that brings us to what they argue is the 0:45:07.520 --> 0:45:11.759 greatest danger of them all. The greatest danger is not repression, 0:45:11.800 --> 0:45:15.839 but demobilization. It's not tanks, it's not mass arrests, its 0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:20.080 acceptance and resignation. It's people deciding not to run, not 0:45:20.120 --> 0:45:22.560 to donate, not to sue, not to vote. And then 0:45:22.600 --> 0:45:24.520 this line, which is really the thesis of the piece, 0:45:24.800 --> 0:45:26.920 The outcome of this struggle remains open. It will turn 0:45:27.000 --> 0:45:29.239 less than the strength of the authoritarian government than on 0:45:29.320 --> 0:45:32.160 whether enough citizens act as though their efforts still matter, 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:37.000 because for now they still do. So there you go, Levitzky, 0:45:37.080 --> 0:45:40.000 Way and Ziblat. They aren't telling Americans to panic, They're 0:45:40.080 --> 0:45:43.520 just telling you what is okay. This is what has 0:45:43.560 --> 0:45:46.239 happened to America the first year of Trump's second term. 0:45:46.480 --> 0:45:49.840 We have slipped into something called competitive authoritarianism. He is 0:45:49.960 --> 0:45:53.759 trying to create an authoritarian regime. There is democracy still, 0:45:53.800 --> 0:45:57.600 there is still competition, okay. And our future is not 0:45:57.719 --> 0:46:01.280 set in stone or the cement is still wet. Okay. 0:46:01.320 --> 0:46:06.000 They're warning against two equally dangerous instincts, complacency and fatalism. 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:09.680 The future is going to be unstable, okay. Neither full 0:46:09.680 --> 0:46:12.120 democracy nor entrenched dictatorship is going to happen. It's going 0:46:12.160 --> 0:46:13.600 to be a struggle. This is going to be a fight. 0:46:14.280 --> 0:46:18.920 The next elections may be fought in theory over policy differences, 0:46:18.960 --> 0:46:21.680 but they're really going to be about the larger issue 0:46:21.680 --> 0:46:23.719 of what kind of system are we choosing to live under? 0:46:24.280 --> 0:46:28.759 And that danger isn't that democracy disappears overnight. It's the 0:46:28.880 --> 0:46:33.120 dangers people stop believing that they can defend it. So 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:38.720 please go read this piece. It's extraordinarily important. It's well argued, 0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:43.000 it is you know, evidence based, it is data driven. 0:46:43.800 --> 0:46:51.000 Is it is not just alarmist cable commentary. And that's 0:46:51.040 --> 0:46:53.640 the most important thing. And it comes from a place 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:57.879 in the Council on Foreign Relations where important ideas sort 0:46:57.920 --> 0:47:00.440 of get launched for debate, and this is one that 0:47:00.640 --> 0:47:06.480 more and more mainstream Americans need to understand what is 0:47:06.480 --> 0:47:08.920 happening and what it's taking place. All Right, I've gone 0:47:08.920 --> 0:47:11.800 on a little bit longer with my first half monologue 0:47:11.800 --> 0:47:14.759 here before than I have, But in some ways that 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:18.799 goes right into the need for open primaries, the need 0:47:18.840 --> 0:47:22.840 to structure our politics so that we have more voices 0:47:22.840 --> 0:47:27.160 that have a shot here, not fewer voices. The manipulation 0:47:27.440 --> 0:47:32.200 of our political system sort of begins with this attempt 0:47:32.200 --> 0:47:35.839 at picking who your voters are, if you will, and 0:47:35.880 --> 0:47:37.279 that is a huge problem. So we'll sneak in a 0:47:37.320 --> 0:47:39.160 break and when we come back, we're going to talk 0:47:39.160 --> 0:47:43.640 to Nick Troiano ahead of United America on how we 0:47:44.520 --> 0:47:51.120 make this democracy great again. Do you hate hangovers? We'll 0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:53.480 say goodbye to hangovers. Out of Office gives you the 0:47:53.520 --> 0:47:56.440 social buzz without the next day regret. They're best selling 0:47:56.440 --> 0:47:58.680 out of office companies. We're designed to provide a mild, 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:03.200 relaxing buzz mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. 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Don't 0:49:02.120 --> 0:49:06.440 forget that code. That's getsold dot Com promo code toodcast 0:49:06.560 --> 0:49:13.120 for thirty percent off. Joining me now to talk a 0:49:13.200 --> 0:49:17.360 little bit about reforming are the infrastructure of the democracy. 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:20.319 It's somebody I've had conversations with before. Somebody I've known 0:49:20.360 --> 0:49:22.759 a long time, Nick Triano. He's the executive director of 0:49:22.840 --> 0:49:29.880 Unite America, the organization that brought ranked choice voting to 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:32.960 the state of Alaska in particular, had been fighting to 0:49:33.080 --> 0:49:38.360 get essentially to get rid of partisan primaries, whatever form 0:49:38.600 --> 0:49:41.279 that can be done. If it's ranked choice voting, it's 0:49:41.360 --> 0:49:44.759 ranked choice voting simply getting rid of the need for 0:49:45.200 --> 0:49:47.719 party registration, then it's getting rid of the need for that. 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:50.879 But it has been the through line of Nick's work. 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:53.960 But I know that he's essentially been in this game. 0:49:54.040 --> 0:49:57.680 He look he ran for Congress as an independent, he's 0:49:58.680 --> 0:50:03.440 and he realized these bare to entry were extraordinarily high. 0:50:03.719 --> 0:50:06.520 You know, if you're not a far left or a 0:50:06.520 --> 0:50:08.880 far right person, is there a home for you in 0:50:08.920 --> 0:50:11.960 American politics? Is there a home for you in primaries? 0:50:12.800 --> 0:50:15.040 And I think Nick has been devoting himself to trying 0:50:15.040 --> 0:50:18.680 to find that place for those of us that aren't 0:50:18.920 --> 0:50:21.560 stuck in the wings. And he joins me, now, Nick, 0:50:21.600 --> 0:50:22.200 good to see you. 0:50:22.320 --> 0:50:22.800 Good to see you. 0:50:22.920 --> 0:50:27.000 Check. So let's start with sort of your this is 0:50:28.320 --> 0:50:31.239 United America, what are we up ten years. 0:50:31.760 --> 0:50:36.520 Coming up on ten years running the organization, and we're 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:39.960 not more united than I then we started. However, we're 0:50:39.960 --> 0:50:41.680 still working on it. 0:50:42.400 --> 0:50:46.640 So look, the let's start with ranked choice voting, because 0:50:46.960 --> 0:50:49.040 I think the first time you and I had a conversation, 0:50:49.160 --> 0:50:52.120 there was a lot of there's a lot of bullishness, 0:50:52.280 --> 0:50:55.799 a lot of excitement about the idea. It kind of 0:50:55.840 --> 0:50:58.960 worked right pretty It seemed like it worked the way 0:50:59.000 --> 0:51:03.000 it was supposed to work in Alaska, it worked the 0:51:03.040 --> 0:51:06.000 way many people were hoping it would work. In New 0:51:06.040 --> 0:51:11.239 York City in twenty twenty one, you know, the main 0:51:11.360 --> 0:51:15.160 experiment has been less successful because of the decision that 0:51:15.360 --> 0:51:19.000 main lawmakers made to to only have this somehow count 0:51:19.000 --> 0:51:22.160 for federal not for state, which is just a head scratcher. 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:24.239 And frankly, I find the whole New York City set 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:27.560 up so the Democrats use rank choice voting, but that 0:51:28.239 --> 0:51:29.799 trust me, there are a lot of voters who wanted 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:33.640 rank choice voting, I think during the general election. But 0:51:34.560 --> 0:51:36.200 I know you know this, over the last four or 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:38.799 five years, I feel like there's been a movement against it, 0:51:39.840 --> 0:51:43.400 even people that were supportive going it's hard to explain. 0:51:44.120 --> 0:51:46.360 You and I've had this conversation I've always said it, 0:51:46.400 --> 0:51:49.160 you know, hey, as somebody who has walked people through 0:51:49.200 --> 0:51:53.000 election nights and talks about, you know, vote dumps and 0:51:53.080 --> 0:51:56.920 things like that, explaining ranked choice voting getting it out 0:51:56.920 --> 0:52:01.120 of the black box is very difficult. So that's a 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:05.080 long lined up. Where are you on this? Where's United 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:09.120 America on rank choice voting? And is this a method 0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:10.760 that you still think is the answer? 0:52:11.640 --> 0:52:14.240 Well, I in you in America are focused on solving 0:52:14.239 --> 0:52:16.879 what we call the primary problem, which is the role 0:52:16.920 --> 0:52:21.200 that party primaries play in exacerbating our divisions, in increasing 0:52:21.239 --> 0:52:25.400 dysfunction and government because they incentivize candidates and elected officials 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:28.759 to play to the base of both parties in order 0:52:28.800 --> 0:52:31.160 to win the only elections that really matter these days, 0:52:31.200 --> 0:52:33.759 which is not the November election when most people vote, 0:52:33.760 --> 0:52:37.040 but the primaries when the candidates are nominated, because most 0:52:37.040 --> 0:52:39.799 districts and states right now lean so heavily one way 0:52:39.880 --> 0:52:42.719 or another. So that's the problem, in our view, low 0:52:42.760 --> 0:52:46.560 turnout party primaries dictating the outcomes of most elections before 0:52:46.600 --> 0:52:50.279 most Americans can even vote. The solution set for what 0:52:50.400 --> 0:52:54.239 we can do to solve that problem is varied, and 0:52:54.600 --> 0:52:57.759 when we talk about solutions to the primary problem. It 0:52:57.760 --> 0:53:01.440 could look like opening up primary so that all voters 0:53:01.480 --> 0:53:05.280 can participate, including independent voters that are currently locked out 0:53:05.440 --> 0:53:08.440 of primaries in sixteen states. It can look like getting 0:53:08.520 --> 0:53:12.080 rid of party primaries and replacing it with all candidate primaries, 0:53:12.080 --> 0:53:14.879 so there's a single ballot in the primary, everyone gets 0:53:14.920 --> 0:53:17.280 to vote for whomever they want, and the top finishers 0:53:17.320 --> 0:53:20.439 go to the general election. There's a system that's called 0:53:20.440 --> 0:53:24.040 top two that's used in California and Washington for example, 0:53:25.000 --> 0:53:28.719 or what Alaska adopt it in twenty twenty, which is 0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:32.680 a top four system. And when you advance four candidates 0:53:32.680 --> 0:53:35.560 from the primary to the general election, you want to 0:53:35.640 --> 0:53:38.680 ensure that one of them wins with majority support, not 0:53:38.800 --> 0:53:41.680 just plurality. And there are two ways of accomplishing that. 0:53:41.760 --> 0:53:44.000 One is you can hold a runoff election if no 0:53:44.040 --> 0:53:46.600 one gets over fifty percent, or the other is you 0:53:46.600 --> 0:53:49.640 can have an instant runoff where people rank their candidates 0:53:49.640 --> 0:53:52.080 according to preference, and if no one gets a majority, 0:53:52.640 --> 0:53:57.360 there's a process of elimination using voters' backup choices. That's 0:53:57.440 --> 0:54:00.520 what ranked choice voting refers to specifically, which is the 0:54:01.120 --> 0:54:04.120 part of the reform in a top four primary, that 0:54:04.200 --> 0:54:07.400 is focused on ensuring a majority winner. Ranked choice voting 0:54:07.440 --> 0:54:10.919 is used in other circumstances, and in our view, it's 0:54:11.040 --> 0:54:14.160 most powerful when it's combined with a reform to the 0:54:14.160 --> 0:54:17.880 primary system. So Alaska's reform is a top four primary 0:54:17.960 --> 0:54:20.799 reform plus ranked choice voting in the general election. And 0:54:20.920 --> 0:54:23.680 other places like New York City or Maine are what 0:54:23.719 --> 0:54:26.400 we would think of as partial reforms because they only 0:54:26.440 --> 0:54:29.200 have ranked choice voting and they don't really have any 0:54:29.320 --> 0:54:32.280 other kinds of reforms to the primary system that could 0:54:32.840 --> 0:54:35.600 improve governing incentives by widening the electorate. 0:54:37.680 --> 0:54:40.399 Let's talk about the mechanics of ranked choice voting, because 0:54:40.440 --> 0:54:46.120 I think that's been the stumbling block. Can you is 0:54:46.200 --> 0:54:48.960 there any way to make this feel more transparent where 0:54:49.000 --> 0:54:54.040 you feel like you can see the You know, I 0:54:54.120 --> 0:54:56.800 have not come up with one, but I'm curious if 0:54:58.160 --> 0:55:00.359 if you have, or you know of other folks who tried. 0:55:00.920 --> 0:55:04.960 Well, there's two parts to the ranked choice voting process. 0:55:05.000 --> 0:55:07.319 There is the part where voters show up to the 0:55:07.400 --> 0:55:09.719 voting booth or get their ballot in the mail and 0:55:09.760 --> 0:55:12.360 they fill out their ballot. And that part is simple, 0:55:12.680 --> 0:55:15.800 which is you have the option of ranking your candidates 0:55:15.880 --> 0:55:18.120 or you can just vote for your favorite, and in 0:55:18.160 --> 0:55:20.040 all of our exit polling, we found that eighty plus 0:55:20.040 --> 0:55:23.400 percent of voters say that they find this simple to do, 0:55:23.520 --> 0:55:26.799 and that number goes up over time as people get 0:55:26.880 --> 0:55:29.040 used to it. The second part is how the votes 0:55:29.040 --> 0:55:33.239 are tabulated, and that is done by election administrators. They 0:55:33.239 --> 0:55:35.120 have a range of options for how they do it, 0:55:35.440 --> 0:55:37.880 and some jurisdictions in the country, particularly those that have 0:55:37.880 --> 0:55:40.600 been using it for a decade or more, have found 0:55:40.600 --> 0:55:44.040 ways that this can be an instantaneous process and it 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:46.520 could be fully transparent, which is to say, they release 0:55:46.640 --> 0:55:49.640 the cast vote records so that there is a way 0:55:49.680 --> 0:55:53.440 that anyone can audit the results. There is a way 0:55:53.480 --> 0:55:56.399 to make sure that there's results delivered on election night, 0:55:56.760 --> 0:55:58.880 and there's ways of displaying the results that make it 0:55:58.880 --> 0:56:02.160 intuitive for people to understand exactly what happens at each 0:56:02.280 --> 0:56:06.239 round of the tabulation. So the charge sometimes that it's 0:56:06.280 --> 0:56:10.480 a complicated or confusing system is really used by opponents 0:56:10.480 --> 0:56:13.799 to say, you know, let's not change the way that 0:56:14.000 --> 0:56:17.320 the elections are currently working, because the current way works 0:56:17.360 --> 0:56:19.400 for them. It works for the two major parties, it 0:56:19.440 --> 0:56:22.960 works for the incumbent politicians. They're afraid of change. But 0:56:23.600 --> 0:56:26.440 you know, election reforms like the ones we champion have 0:56:26.520 --> 0:56:31.000 been used successfully in America and abroad for many years, 0:56:31.080 --> 0:56:33.040 and it's a necessary part of what it's going to 0:56:33.080 --> 0:56:35.640 take to foster a more functional and representative government. 0:56:36.560 --> 0:56:41.560 Look, I am, I am. If we could get if 0:56:41.560 --> 0:56:43.960 we could go to a top four I fully believe 0:56:44.000 --> 0:56:48.239 we should be a top four democracy. I'd love to 0:56:48.280 --> 0:56:50.799 see that in our presidential race, you know where, and 0:56:50.840 --> 0:56:53.359 then and that I wouldn't do rank choice. I think 0:56:53.440 --> 0:56:57.000 the country suit there's a runoff, then the top two 0:56:57.040 --> 0:56:59.960 face off, we have one more debate, like there's a runoff, 0:57:00.120 --> 0:57:02.960 right Like it feels like that that is that we 0:57:03.160 --> 0:57:05.560 you know, we wouldn't have a big drop in turn 0:57:05.640 --> 0:57:08.160 you know, the concern and when we got rid of 0:57:08.280 --> 0:57:10.560 general election runoffs, the concern is always, well, you're not 0:57:10.560 --> 0:57:13.280 going to have a good turnout. Well that's not true anymore. 0:57:13.719 --> 0:57:15.960 I mean, my god, I look at the special election 0:57:16.040 --> 0:57:20.000 in Tennessee earlier this during the earlier part of December, 0:57:20.040 --> 0:57:26.040 and for a special election in December. Uh, you know, 0:57:26.440 --> 0:57:29.160 there were something like one hundred and fifty thousand total votes. 0:57:29.200 --> 0:57:33.000 I mean, that's impressive for that. I mean, I think 0:57:33.320 --> 0:57:38.000 the engagement with the democracy. And you know, I think 0:57:38.040 --> 0:57:40.680 there's a I think there's a commentary about our country 0:57:40.680 --> 0:57:43.680 that our electric gets engaged when when they when they 0:57:43.680 --> 0:57:47.880 think they feel it slipping away. But you know, it 0:57:47.960 --> 0:57:51.560 turns out that apathy was a sign of stability. But 0:57:53.160 --> 0:57:57.280 it is, so I don't mind that. What but if 0:57:57.320 --> 0:57:59.960 we had thirty states holding runoffs but the other two 0:58:00.000 --> 0:58:01.480 and he didn't, then I could see that that would 0:58:01.480 --> 0:58:02.080 be an issue. 0:58:03.520 --> 0:58:06.320 Well, runoffs get a bad rap for some good reasons, 0:58:06.320 --> 0:58:09.560 including that they have been used historically in ways. 0:58:09.280 --> 0:58:12.880 To diss It was about denying black representation in the South. Right, 0:58:13.000 --> 0:58:16.240 that's why why did we have Southern runoffs? Every Southern 0:58:16.240 --> 0:58:18.840 state had runoffs for one reason, and one reason only, 0:58:19.160 --> 0:58:21.720 to prevent black people from winning elections. 0:58:21.880 --> 0:58:24.680 Right, And two things can be true, which is that 0:58:24.760 --> 0:58:28.680 there are systems that have runoffs today that don't necessarily 0:58:28.720 --> 0:58:32.360 have that negative impact that you actually do see turnout 0:58:32.640 --> 0:58:35.000 increase in the runoff. That is the case in Louisiana, 0:58:35.120 --> 0:58:38.640 for example, in their governor's races. Louisiana has a very 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:42.560 interesting election system where there is effectively no primary, there 0:58:42.600 --> 0:58:45.560 is a general election. Everyone gets to be on the ballot. 0:58:45.560 --> 0:58:48.040 They're kind of top two, right, just like Washington, and 0:58:48.040 --> 0:58:50.320 if no one gets majority, there's a runoff, and so 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:53.200 in that case, the top two finishers advance, or if 0:58:53.200 --> 0:58:55.440 someone gets a majority of the vote, it's a one 0:58:55.480 --> 0:58:57.640 and done election. And by the way, it's simpler for 0:58:57.680 --> 0:59:00.960 election administrators, it's simpler for voters, and it's better for 0:59:01.040 --> 0:59:04.760 democracy because the election that matters is the one in 0:59:04.800 --> 0:59:07.520 which most people are already voting, and so you get 0:59:07.560 --> 0:59:11.560 a more representative outcome and there's not this initial primary 0:59:11.600 --> 0:59:14.400 filter where only ten percent of voters, who are usually 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:17.040 on the most extreme fringes of the political spectrum are 0:59:17.040 --> 0:59:21.120 deciding you know, election outcomes. And so this will sound 0:59:21.160 --> 0:59:23.800 wonky and maybe mechanical to people, but it has an 0:59:23.840 --> 0:59:26.960 impact on public policy because when you look at Louisiana, 0:59:27.520 --> 0:59:30.360 it's one of the only Deep South. It is the 0:59:30.360 --> 0:59:34.200 only Deep South state that's expanded medicaid, for example, and 0:59:34.400 --> 0:59:36.200 was one of the first states to really lean into 0:59:36.280 --> 0:59:39.000 charter school reform. And when you think about the purpose 0:59:39.040 --> 0:59:42.720 of government and is it representing people, in Louisiana, more 0:59:42.760 --> 0:59:46.040 citizens have access to healthcare and too education than a 0:59:46.120 --> 0:59:48.360 lot of other peer states. And the reason for that 0:59:48.560 --> 0:59:52.120 is they have a more functional political system with leaders 0:59:52.120 --> 0:59:55.000 who are intended and focused on solving problems rather than 0:59:55.200 --> 0:59:58.720 just these partisan squabbles every day, and so performing our 0:59:58.760 --> 1:00:02.280 elections improve and center, but ultimately in per his governance 1:00:02.320 --> 1:00:04.200 so that we can solve problems that matter to people. 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:08.000 Of course, I think Bill Cassidy wishes that they would 1:00:08.080 --> 1:00:10.800 have kept the old system, but now they're going to 1:00:10.800 --> 1:00:15.280 go to a primary system, which certainly complicates his path 1:00:15.400 --> 1:00:19.040 to renomination. Let's talk about where you're active on the 1:00:19.360 --> 1:00:23.360 playing field here. What's the status in Alaska, what's the 1:00:23.400 --> 1:00:25.560 status in Nevada. I know, those are two places that 1:00:25.600 --> 1:00:27.800 you've been active. And where else are you guys active 1:00:27.840 --> 1:00:30.840 in trying to expand access to primaries. 1:00:31.120 --> 1:00:34.400 So Alaska is a great success story for primary reform 1:00:34.480 --> 1:00:37.480 because after the state adopted it through the ballot initiative 1:00:37.480 --> 1:00:40.680 process in twenty twenty, it's now gone through two election 1:00:40.800 --> 1:00:43.959 cycles where more voters than ever before have been able 1:00:44.000 --> 1:00:46.320 to cast what we call a meaningful ballot, you know, 1:00:46.360 --> 1:00:50.360 which is a ballot in election that's truly competitive in 1:00:50.360 --> 1:00:54.720 which of their vote matters. And what that resulted in 1:00:55.080 --> 1:00:58.480 Chuck is the State House and the state Senate now 1:00:58.480 --> 1:01:01.760 have bipartisan governing majorities. It's not just one party that's 1:01:01.800 --> 1:01:05.400 in charge. There's a coalition of members Democrats, Republicans, and 1:01:05.480 --> 1:01:08.680 independents by the way, that are working together to address 1:01:08.680 --> 1:01:12.120 the problems important to the state, most recently overriding a 1:01:12.160 --> 1:01:16.400 governor's veto to increase education funding. And so Alaska has 1:01:16.440 --> 1:01:19.040 been a success story of how better elections result in 1:01:19.120 --> 1:01:23.560 better governance, and it's produced a backlash from those who 1:01:23.680 --> 1:01:26.480 used to be in power and liked elections when it 1:01:26.520 --> 1:01:29.720 only represented a handful of people, and so they've been 1:01:29.760 --> 1:01:33.080 trying to repeal this system. They were unsuccessful in that. 1:01:33.200 --> 1:01:35.440 Last year, a majority of voters in Alaska voted to 1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:38.280 defend the system, and opponents are going to likely try 1:01:38.320 --> 1:01:41.800 again next year. And I suspect that support for the 1:01:41.840 --> 1:01:44.640 system is going to continue to grow over time, not 1:01:44.800 --> 1:01:47.360 just because people in theory like the concept of the 1:01:47.480 --> 1:01:49.640 freedom to vote for whomever they want, but now they're 1:01:49.640 --> 1:01:52.440 getting real and better results from the system that they 1:01:52.520 --> 1:01:53.760 voted in a few years ago. 1:01:55.120 --> 1:01:57.080 Did you think you were going to have to fight 1:01:57.280 --> 1:02:01.080 multiple election years in Alaska to keep the system in place. 1:02:01.920 --> 1:02:05.440 I don't think it's a surprise that every action has 1:02:05.440 --> 1:02:08.560 an equal opposite reaction. There's the forces of trying to 1:02:08.560 --> 1:02:11.600 make government better fighting against the forces that are trying 1:02:11.600 --> 1:02:15.040 to protect the status quo. I think that the period 1:02:15.080 --> 1:02:18.120 of defense is most important in the immediate years after 1:02:18.160 --> 1:02:21.360 the adoption of reform, but that it gets better over 1:02:21.400 --> 1:02:24.640 time because the new incumbents, there are those elected under 1:02:24.680 --> 1:02:27.160 this system who actually like it and want to defend it. 1:02:27.600 --> 1:02:30.480 And so it's not the legislature that's trying to repeal it, right, 1:02:30.520 --> 1:02:33.120 it's a small faction of partisan activists that are. 1:02:33.800 --> 1:02:38.480 The other perception problem rank choice voting has, and I 1:02:38.520 --> 1:02:41.040 say it's a perception problem because it obviously depends on 1:02:41.040 --> 1:02:45.160 where you sit, is that it appears to have benefited 1:02:45.160 --> 1:02:47.880 the center left more than it has benefited anybody on 1:02:47.920 --> 1:02:48.200 the right. 1:02:49.760 --> 1:02:52.560 Well, I think the challenge that we saw in twenty 1:02:52.600 --> 1:02:56.800 twenty two was that the candidates who were running the 1:02:56.840 --> 1:03:00.320 two Republicans were late to adopt their campaign strategy to 1:03:00.400 --> 1:03:03.120 this new system. So instead of telling voters vote for 1:03:03.200 --> 1:03:06.840 me first and the other Republican second, they ran against 1:03:06.840 --> 1:03:11.120 the system that the voters just adopted. And so without 1:03:12.120 --> 1:03:16.160 that adoption of a new strategy to build broad coalitions. 1:03:16.840 --> 1:03:19.280 A moderate Democrat, Mary Potola, you know, was able to 1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:22.240 win that US House race. By the way, a couple 1:03:22.280 --> 1:03:26.040 of years later, voters voted differently and the Republican now 1:03:26.360 --> 1:03:29.600 represents that US House seat. So I do think that 1:03:29.640 --> 1:03:32.160 there's this transition period in which the parties and the 1:03:32.200 --> 1:03:35.760 politicians have to get smarter in how they campaign under 1:03:35.800 --> 1:03:38.400 the new rules of the system, rather than campaigning under 1:03:38.440 --> 1:03:40.520 what the old rules used to be. 1:03:41.560 --> 1:03:44.880 So that's Alaska. So you're likely having a is it 1:03:44.920 --> 1:03:47.200 the same ball on initiative that the opponents are putting 1:03:47.280 --> 1:03:48.960 up or are they rewarded. 1:03:48.480 --> 1:03:51.840 It they actually expanded what they're trying to repeal to 1:03:51.960 --> 1:03:57.920 include repealing dark money disclosure requirements that were originally passed 1:03:57.920 --> 1:03:58.720 in twenty twenty. 1:03:58.800 --> 1:04:01.200 Oh wow, that actually helps your cause. People don't like 1:04:01.360 --> 1:04:01.960 dark money. 1:04:02.040 --> 1:04:05.080 People don't like dark money, and they don't like party primaries, 1:04:05.080 --> 1:04:08.080 and they don't like plurality winners and elections, and so 1:04:08.240 --> 1:04:12.000 opponents are trying to do something unpopular for the sake 1:04:12.080 --> 1:04:14.680 of protecting, you know, what was their own political power. 1:04:14.840 --> 1:04:18.400 And I'm confident that, you know, the system will continue 1:04:18.400 --> 1:04:21.240 to endure and be a proof of concept that other 1:04:21.320 --> 1:04:24.360 states could you know, potentially replicate. And that's what we 1:04:24.440 --> 1:04:27.840 did see in last year's elections. You know, multiple other 1:04:27.920 --> 1:04:32.760 states pursued ballot initiatives for an Alaska style kind of system, 1:04:33.440 --> 1:04:38.000 and while none passed, three states came within three percentage 1:04:38.000 --> 1:04:39.520 points of passing. 1:04:39.600 --> 1:04:41.600 In a pretty to be honest, though, five years ago, 1:04:41.680 --> 1:04:43.760 I thought all of those were going to get pass easily. 1:04:44.440 --> 1:04:46.240 You know, I remember when we were first talking, and 1:04:46.320 --> 1:04:48.520 you know, you're like, yeah, we got to do Nevada twice. 1:04:49.720 --> 1:04:51.560 You were pretty you had you were kind of bullish 1:04:51.560 --> 1:04:57.440 about Missouri, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, And it 1:04:57.520 --> 1:05:04.520 did seem as if the opponents got savvier in pushing 1:05:04.560 --> 1:05:07.600 back at you guys in Nevada and elsewhere. 1:05:07.920 --> 1:05:10.960 Well, what we're up against is the two party do 1:05:11.080 --> 1:05:12.000 optly that wants to. 1:05:11.920 --> 1:05:14.200 Protect actually working with each other this one. 1:05:14.280 --> 1:05:17.080 Right, It was the Democrats that spent over fifteen million 1:05:17.160 --> 1:05:20.080 dollars against this in Alaska and Republicans who spent over 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:24.600 seven million in Montana to try and fight it, and 1:05:25.200 --> 1:05:28.440 they would sort of weaponize the issue and say like, actually, 1:05:28.480 --> 1:05:31.160 these reforms are about the stocking horse for the other party. Well, 1:05:31.160 --> 1:05:34.200 they both can't be right when they're saying that, and 1:05:34.280 --> 1:05:37.120 so we have work to do to build more early 1:05:37.160 --> 1:05:40.080 and durable support among voters for these policies. We don't 1:05:40.120 --> 1:05:42.560 need to convince anyone that our political system is broken. 1:05:42.960 --> 1:05:46.160 What we do need to do is educate voters about 1:05:46.560 --> 1:05:49.000 the benefits of these systems and why it is worth 1:05:49.600 --> 1:05:52.320 a change. And as you know, the threshold of getting 1:05:52.440 --> 1:05:55.280 a voter to vote yes on an initiative is much 1:05:55.280 --> 1:05:56.920 harder than getting them to vote no, because you have 1:05:56.960 --> 1:05:59.320 to kind of prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. 1:05:59.840 --> 1:06:02.160 And I think that's the that's the task that you know, 1:06:02.320 --> 1:06:04.320 we've signed up for and we're going to continue to 1:06:04.360 --> 1:06:07.360 work on because the status quo is unacceptable and it's 1:06:07.440 --> 1:06:09.360 leading us in a direction in which we're seeing our 1:06:09.400 --> 1:06:11.360 politics unravel, you know, even further. 1:06:14.600 --> 1:06:17.680 There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like 1:06:17.720 --> 1:06:20.840 there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury 1:06:20.880 --> 1:06:23.640 law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered 1:06:23.760 --> 1:06:26.920 twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. 1:06:27.480 --> 1:06:31.040 It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, 1:06:31.320 --> 1:06:34.120 just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. 1:06:34.200 --> 1:06:37.280 Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact, 1:06:37.360 --> 1:06:40.480 in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, 1:06:40.960 --> 1:06:44.000 which was a staggering forty times the amount that the 1:06:44.040 --> 1:06:47.280 insurance company originally offered that original offer six hundred and 1:06:47.320 --> 1:06:50.360 fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty 1:06:50.360 --> 1:06:52.560 thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across 1:06:52.600 --> 1:06:55.040 the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people. 1:06:55.120 --> 1:06:57.840 If you're injured, you need a lawyer, you need somebody 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:00.320 to get your back. Check out for the People dot com, 1:07:00.440 --> 1:07:05.560 Slash podcast or now pound law, Pound five two nine 1:07:05.840 --> 1:07:09.280 law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms 1:07:09.320 --> 1:07:11.200 are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan. 1:07:11.280 --> 1:07:17.360 Their fee is free unless they win. So if I 1:07:17.400 --> 1:07:19.240 were in your shoes, I'd actually think that this is 1:07:19.400 --> 1:07:22.880 about as opportunistic of a period of a year as 1:07:22.880 --> 1:07:25.400 you can have. And when you think about the re 1:07:25.400 --> 1:07:30.160 redistricting orders, it is taking you know, the issue of 1:07:30.760 --> 1:07:34.160 political party manipulation and putting it right in the voter's face, right, 1:07:34.920 --> 1:07:37.840 so you know, I throw that in there, you throw 1:07:37.880 --> 1:07:42.120 in that the electorate that you're likely to get in 1:07:42.120 --> 1:07:44.360 a midterm environment. Is an electorate that's going to be 1:07:44.400 --> 1:07:47.080 more open to changes in the primary system. I think 1:07:47.120 --> 1:07:50.240 the electric you would get in a mega induced environment. 1:07:50.280 --> 1:07:52.640 I think we I think you know where I'm going there. 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:56.080 So what states do you expect to be on the 1:07:56.080 --> 1:08:01.640 ballot in trying to do primary reform and is and 1:08:01.920 --> 1:08:04.919 let me know and differentiate whether it'll be the top 1:08:04.960 --> 1:08:07.200 four or it's just open primaries, et cetera. 1:08:08.640 --> 1:08:11.760 There is a lot of activity happening in the movement 1:08:11.840 --> 1:08:15.920 to reform our politics. There is litigation happening to open 1:08:15.960 --> 1:08:19.760 close primaries in states like Maryland or Pennsylvania. 1:08:19.840 --> 1:08:22.400 I'm convinced there's an equal protection argument on this. I 1:08:22.479 --> 1:08:26.800 do not the idea that that there is a poll 1:08:26.920 --> 1:08:32.639 tax against me as an independent voter, and you're telling 1:08:32.680 --> 1:08:34.720 me that the only way I could participate in a 1:08:34.760 --> 1:08:37.679 taxpayer funded election is I have to join a private club. 1:08:38.920 --> 1:08:41.960 I believe that's a poll tax. I don't see how 1:08:41.960 --> 1:08:42.880 that's constitutional. 1:08:43.640 --> 1:08:48.720 It's certainly not in our belief under many state constitutions 1:08:48.720 --> 1:08:51.559 that have even more protection for voter rights than maybe 1:08:51.600 --> 1:08:54.800 the federal constitution. And so there's work happening on that 1:08:54.840 --> 1:08:58.400 there's work happening in legislatures to at least open the 1:08:58.439 --> 1:09:00.840 primaries to all voters. We saw earlier this year in 1:09:00.840 --> 1:09:03.960 New Mexico, after a multi year campaign, there was a 1:09:03.960 --> 1:09:08.280 bipartisan bill that passed to allow unaffiliated voters to start 1:09:08.280 --> 1:09:11.160 to participate in party primaries starting next year, over three 1:09:11.240 --> 1:09:13.880 hundred and thirty thousand of them. And then, of course 1:09:13.880 --> 1:09:16.840 there is the ballot initiative pathway, and there's at least 1:09:16.840 --> 1:09:21.000 two states where local groups are pursuing the top two 1:09:21.560 --> 1:09:25.440 all candidate primary initiative. And that's in both Massachusetts and Oklahoma, 1:09:25.840 --> 1:09:28.320 two very different states politically, but what they have in 1:09:28.360 --> 1:09:32.120 common is that all of their congressional seats are decided 1:09:32.240 --> 1:09:35.599 in the party primaries, and in Oklahoma those are closed 1:09:35.600 --> 1:09:38.559 to unaffiliated voters. And so those are two states I 1:09:38.560 --> 1:09:41.680 think to be watching for. And to your point, the 1:09:41.800 --> 1:09:44.960 environment has never been more ripe because our political system 1:09:45.000 --> 1:09:47.479 has never been more dysfunctional. We just emerged from the 1:09:47.560 --> 1:09:52.200 longest government shutdown that we've seen in history, motivated by 1:09:53.360 --> 1:09:57.280 in this case, democratic leaders who just want to fight. 1:09:57.360 --> 1:09:59.720 I mean, that's what this has become. I mean the 1:10:00.200 --> 1:10:02.800 of the year. The Oxford Dictionary new word is rage bait. 1:10:03.200 --> 1:10:05.280 That's reflective of where our politics is. Right. 1:10:06.120 --> 1:10:07.720 I'm still trying to understand how the word of the 1:10:07.800 --> 1:10:08.759 year is two words. 1:10:08.600 --> 1:10:12.839 But that's a good question. But that's reflective of our politics, 1:10:12.880 --> 1:10:15.280 which is it's about playing to the base. It's about 1:10:15.360 --> 1:10:19.639 demonstrating the fight, not about solving problems. And that's why 1:10:19.680 --> 1:10:22.760 this primary problem, the incentives, is behind so much of 1:10:22.800 --> 1:10:26.120 the dysfunction that we see our inability to solve problems. 1:10:26.160 --> 1:10:29.000 Another issue we can look at is immigration. As you know, Chuck, 1:10:29.040 --> 1:10:33.240 a decade ago, there was a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform 1:10:33.240 --> 1:10:35.759 bill that passed the Senate, it goes to the House. 1:10:36.120 --> 1:10:38.840 Why does it fail? Well, the House majority leader was 1:10:38.920 --> 1:10:42.320 primaried out of office that summer because he was open 1:10:42.360 --> 1:10:45.080 to some compromise on this issue. And then here we 1:10:45.120 --> 1:10:48.160 are a decade of pendulum politics. We had, you know, 1:10:48.160 --> 1:10:51.559 effectively open borders under the Bided administration, and now we 1:10:51.640 --> 1:10:55.680 have ice raids with even American citizens being snatched off 1:10:55.720 --> 1:10:59.960 the streets under President Trump. People don't want these extra 1:11:00.040 --> 1:11:03.800 dream policies that we've been seeing of late. They want 1:11:03.840 --> 1:11:07.679 these issues to be addressed in a sensible way. That's 1:11:07.720 --> 1:11:10.080 not going to happen until we change the incentives of 1:11:10.120 --> 1:11:13.120 our political system. 1:11:13.280 --> 1:11:15.360 You and I go back, I think almost two decades now, 1:11:15.760 --> 1:11:21.200 our mutual mentor the late Doug Bailey, and you know 1:11:21.240 --> 1:11:25.120 you've been in this, You've been in this what I 1:11:25.160 --> 1:11:29.000 call radical centrism, you know, movement for some time. I 1:11:29.360 --> 1:11:32.439 use that phrase. I'm going to be a bit self 1:11:32.439 --> 1:11:36.599 referential and name drop here. Bono called me a radical 1:11:36.640 --> 1:11:39.640 centrist one time at a salon dinner that we were 1:11:39.640 --> 1:11:42.960 at together, and I said, are you I'm going to 1:11:43.000 --> 1:11:46.479 take it as a compliment. He says, Okay, he wasn't. 1:11:46.520 --> 1:11:49.200 He goes, it's sort of a compliment. He goes, there's 1:11:49.240 --> 1:11:51.920 sometimes that I wish you would take up this cause here, 1:11:52.080 --> 1:11:54.559 this cause there. And I always say, I'm not a centrist. 1:11:54.560 --> 1:11:58.479 I'm an incrementalist, meaning late are some things I'm on 1:11:58.520 --> 1:12:00.760 the left and some things I'm on the right. But 1:12:00.880 --> 1:12:03.240 I know that the only way to make change in 1:12:03.240 --> 1:12:06.040 america's one step at a time. And I don't think 1:12:06.080 --> 1:12:07.640 you try to do big things. You try to do 1:12:08.479 --> 1:12:11.240 baby steps and eventually you get your hockey stick moment. 1:12:14.000 --> 1:12:17.120 Why do you think it's been so hard to galvanize 1:12:17.800 --> 1:12:21.400 the frustrated center in America. 1:12:22.560 --> 1:12:24.720 Well, first I would, I would. I was also say 1:12:24.720 --> 1:12:26.439 on this topic of what, you know, what is the 1:12:26.479 --> 1:12:29.400 ideology of this movement that wants to make politics better? 1:12:29.520 --> 1:12:33.479 I think centrism comes short in describing it because it 1:12:33.560 --> 1:12:36.640 really is not about living in what many people view 1:12:36.640 --> 1:12:37.759 as a mushy middle. 1:12:37.800 --> 1:12:40.320 It is about No, it's not about just everything's a compromise. 1:12:40.479 --> 1:12:44.120 It's just that it's that's that's not what it is. 1:12:44.160 --> 1:12:46.320 That's why I always say no, no, no, I'm an incrementalist. 1:12:46.960 --> 1:12:50.320 You know, I empathize with your idea on here, let's 1:12:50.360 --> 1:12:51.920 try with let's try one step. 1:12:52.439 --> 1:12:56.960 Yeah, it's about also people that want to find common 1:12:57.000 --> 1:12:59.520 grounds and no matter where you are in the political spectrum, 1:12:59.760 --> 1:13:02.360 you can work with others to see what you have 1:13:02.439 --> 1:13:05.000 in common to actually get something done. And that's how 1:13:05.080 --> 1:13:07.840 the biggest, most durable change that we've seen as a 1:13:07.880 --> 1:13:11.519 country work. When we look at the landmark pieces of 1:13:11.600 --> 1:13:14.840 legislation that have passed the Congress, whether that was civil 1:13:14.960 --> 1:13:18.479 rights or social security, or medicare or welfare reform and 1:13:18.520 --> 1:13:21.639 a balanced budget, these things were votes of a majority 1:13:21.680 --> 1:13:24.360 of both parties doing it together and to be sustainable, 1:13:24.920 --> 1:13:28.519 not what we're seeing today. The promise of primary reform 1:13:28.880 --> 1:13:32.480 is that for every state that adopts it, it effectively 1:13:32.520 --> 1:13:36.679 liberates both senators and the representatives from those states from 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:40.599 being beholden to the base to being representative of the whole. 1:13:41.240 --> 1:13:43.759 And so you don't need to win in all fifty states. 1:13:43.760 --> 1:13:47.080 If we can abolish party primaries in ten states, that's 1:13:47.160 --> 1:13:49.360 twenty US senators. It's a fifth of the Senate that 1:13:49.479 --> 1:13:52.840 actually can have more leaders who are willing to work 1:13:52.880 --> 1:13:56.519 with each other on issues of national importance. That's never 1:13:56.560 --> 1:13:58.439 been more important for the country. When I think about 1:13:58.479 --> 1:14:01.840 where we're at right now facing the rise of artificial intelligence. 1:14:02.600 --> 1:14:05.320 Whether we get this right in terms of setting the 1:14:05.360 --> 1:14:07.720 right rules for the road, having the right over set 1:14:07.800 --> 1:14:10.519 in place, making the right investments, that's going to be 1:14:10.640 --> 1:14:15.560 hugely consequential for our economy and national security in our society. 1:14:16.000 --> 1:14:18.920 And if we don't have a representative Congress that can 1:14:18.960 --> 1:14:22.160 do that, other countries will, or the corporations themselves will, 1:14:22.200 --> 1:14:24.479 and we're all going to be worse off for it. 1:14:24.880 --> 1:14:29.120 So whether we have a Congress that works affects us all, 1:14:29.680 --> 1:14:31.439 and the reason why it doesn't today is not just 1:14:31.520 --> 1:14:36.000 because of this partisan paralysis. It's because without competitive elections, 1:14:36.000 --> 1:14:38.360 we wind up getting career politicians who stay in office 1:14:38.360 --> 1:14:40.840 for way too long. We have a quarter of the 1:14:40.880 --> 1:14:43.760 Congress that's over the retirement age, over a third of 1:14:43.760 --> 1:14:46.200 the sentence above age seventy. It's how we get congressional 1:14:46.200 --> 1:14:49.080 hearings where they're asking about tik tak instead of TikTok. 1:14:49.640 --> 1:14:52.439 And these aren't the folks that we needed making the 1:14:52.479 --> 1:14:55.640 decisions that are to affect maybe the biggest transformation our 1:14:55.680 --> 1:14:58.599 economy and society, you know, going forward. 1:14:58.680 --> 1:15:03.800 The biggest difficult I have. And I'll just speak for myself, 1:15:03.920 --> 1:15:08.840 and I'm curious where you're where you are on this 1:15:09.320 --> 1:15:11.720 what I'm about to bring up, which is I am 1:15:12.840 --> 1:15:17.559 I am easily persuaded in the reform movement, right, I 1:15:17.600 --> 1:15:21.240 think there's a lot of I'm I look at the 1:15:21.320 --> 1:15:24.439 last sort of crisis moments in American history, and each 1:15:24.479 --> 1:15:30.080 one of them came with serious periods of reform. You know, 1:15:30.439 --> 1:15:34.800 after the Civil War, during the basically after the Gilded Age, 1:15:34.800 --> 1:15:39.040 and the and the and the robber barons right after, 1:15:39.160 --> 1:15:42.719 you know, during and after FDR, and you know, both 1:15:42.720 --> 1:15:45.919 for good and for bad, right like when when, And 1:15:46.200 --> 1:15:49.000 so I'm optimistic that we're about to hit one of 1:15:49.040 --> 1:15:51.400 those periods that we know, look, we've got to do 1:15:51.439 --> 1:15:54.040 something about the pardon power. We've got to do something. 1:15:54.200 --> 1:15:56.519 You know, it's clear the Constitution is going to have 1:15:56.520 --> 1:15:58.880 to deal with campaign finance issues because you can't do 1:15:58.920 --> 1:16:01.920 it legislatively. And we've got to deal with age limits. Right, 1:16:02.120 --> 1:16:04.680 I'm all for this age issue, but they're only you 1:16:04.800 --> 1:16:07.479 have to do it in the Constitution. So the point 1:16:07.520 --> 1:16:09.360 is is that I can be I'm almost like a 1:16:09.439 --> 1:16:12.000 squirrel with this. I'm like, oh, I like that reform. 1:16:12.040 --> 1:16:15.599 Oh yeah, I want to do this. There's a lot 1:16:15.640 --> 1:16:18.040 of I've been you you go to these gatherings too. 1:16:18.080 --> 1:16:21.200 I get invited to many of these sort of gatherings, 1:16:21.200 --> 1:16:25.799 whether it's a fledgling third party movement, fledgling reform movement, 1:16:26.200 --> 1:16:29.400 you know, those advocating a constitutional convention, the folks at 1:16:29.439 --> 1:16:33.000 the Forward Party. You've got the World Open Primaries, which 1:16:33.040 --> 1:16:37.720 is another organization that's working in a similar fashion. I 1:16:37.800 --> 1:16:41.479 know there's a loose connectivity between these groups, right you guys, 1:16:41.640 --> 1:16:44.360 you know, you're all rowing in the same direction, but 1:16:44.479 --> 1:16:47.679 everybody has their own sort of lane in their own thing, 1:16:49.920 --> 1:16:51.960 and maybe it's you already are biased that you have 1:16:52.000 --> 1:16:54.920 got to start. Do you think you feel like there 1:16:55.000 --> 1:16:58.200 is an order to the reform that's necessary here, that 1:16:58.320 --> 1:17:01.200 you know, before we get to we've got to do why, 1:17:01.280 --> 1:17:03.080 and before we get to why, we got to do z. 1:17:04.439 --> 1:17:06.920 Well, I think two things are true. One is, we 1:17:06.960 --> 1:17:10.800 have a beautiful system of federalism in our country, and 1:17:10.920 --> 1:17:12.800 we can do this in an experimental way at the 1:17:12.800 --> 1:17:15.080 state level. I mean, and that is the way that 1:17:15.640 --> 1:17:18.519 these reforms have gotten done in the past and will today, 1:17:18.560 --> 1:17:21.800 which is states can change these rules without an Act 1:17:21.840 --> 1:17:24.960 of Congress or a constitutional amendment, and by virtue of 1:17:25.000 --> 1:17:27.640 building momentum around reform, it will put more pressure on 1:17:27.680 --> 1:17:31.479 Congress and potentially create an environment in which constitutional change 1:17:31.520 --> 1:17:34.240 is possible. So I think the state by state route 1:17:34.240 --> 1:17:37.559 is both a strategy and an opportunity to try different things. 1:17:38.240 --> 1:17:42.400 And the second thing is I and we did not 1:17:42.640 --> 1:17:46.120 start with primary reform as being our north star. We 1:17:46.240 --> 1:17:51.400 got there through examining what sits at the center of 1:17:52.160 --> 1:17:55.400 both what is most viable and could be most impactful. 1:17:56.080 --> 1:18:00.080 And I do think that abolishing party primaries is the 1:18:00.120 --> 1:18:03.400 biggest possible change that we can make right now that 1:18:03.479 --> 1:18:07.479 can open the window for other potential changes down the road, 1:18:08.560 --> 1:18:12.280 particularly changes that will require legislatures to do something, because 1:18:12.760 --> 1:18:14.800 for them to do something on this issue, they need 1:18:14.840 --> 1:18:17.679 to be more representative of the population who supports these 1:18:17.680 --> 1:18:21.240 reforms than they are today. So I both support an 1:18:21.280 --> 1:18:24.519 experimental approach to this and we support primary reform for 1:18:24.560 --> 1:18:26.400 a very particular reason, which I do think it is 1:18:26.439 --> 1:18:28.400 the most solvable problem right now. 1:18:28.680 --> 1:18:30.920 Well, and that's the key, which is what's a problem 1:18:30.960 --> 1:18:34.519 you could solve first? And I think there's no doubt 1:18:34.520 --> 1:18:38.760 about that. This feels like a you know again, I 1:18:38.920 --> 1:18:41.640 called myself an incrementalist. This is an incremental step that 1:18:41.680 --> 1:18:45.040 could actually, you know, open the door to a whole 1:18:45.080 --> 1:18:50.040 bunch more of ideas. Do you find yourself frustrated that 1:18:50.560 --> 1:18:54.599 other reform minded folks don't see this as the core problem? 1:18:54.640 --> 1:18:56.840 I think I was frustrated in year one when more, 1:18:57.160 --> 1:18:58.760 you know, or year two, when we're back at the 1:18:58.760 --> 1:19:00.760 same table and arguing no this one, no this one, 1:19:00.800 --> 1:19:03.479 and realize, like we're thirty people in the room, there's 1:19:03.479 --> 1:19:06.000 three hundred and fifty million people out there. Those are 1:19:06.040 --> 1:19:08.280 the folks that we need to be kind of talking to. 1:19:08.439 --> 1:19:11.879 And so my orientation changed, like this is a positive 1:19:11.960 --> 1:19:14.559 sum approach to a movement. You know, when you look 1:19:14.560 --> 1:19:17.160 at the environmental movement or other movements, there's not just 1:19:17.200 --> 1:19:22.000 one policy that they're behind. It's a diversified approach, including 1:19:22.040 --> 1:19:23.639 what could be done on the state or federal level. 1:19:23.640 --> 1:19:28.360 And so it doesn't frustrate me that there are multiple 1:19:28.439 --> 1:19:32.200 potential pathways to making our democracy better. The thing that's 1:19:32.200 --> 1:19:36.760 frustrating to me is around apathy or defense of the 1:19:36.800 --> 1:19:40.760 status quo, because can anyone look around today and say, oh, no, 1:19:40.920 --> 1:19:44.040 this is actually fine and we're moving in an okayed direction. 1:19:44.640 --> 1:19:47.479 If you can't, then choose something, choose one of these 1:19:47.479 --> 1:19:50.760 things to be for and get behind it, because I 1:19:50.800 --> 1:19:53.520 don't think the path that we're on, you know, is sustainable. 1:19:54.360 --> 1:19:58.840 What's been You know, there's a lot of statistics that 1:19:58.880 --> 1:20:03.800 show that the the youngest voting generation is not registering 1:20:03.920 --> 1:20:06.920 D or R. The registering is I or no party affiliation. 1:20:07.760 --> 1:20:11.280 So in theory, this should be the core of the 1:20:11.320 --> 1:20:15.160 activists that you're able to recruit to make this change. 1:20:16.360 --> 1:20:18.880 Are you making some inroads? Is this something that can 1:20:18.960 --> 1:20:23.400 be turned into a something that's galvanizable with the college crowd. 1:20:24.640 --> 1:20:26.840 I do believe that. And what we saw last year 1:20:27.240 --> 1:20:30.880 was that the number one predictor for voters that would 1:20:30.920 --> 1:20:34.280 support election reform at the ballot was not by party affiliation, 1:20:34.320 --> 1:20:38.280 It was really by age. Younger voters disproportionately in favor 1:20:38.320 --> 1:20:41.280 of changes to a political system they've only known has 1:20:41.360 --> 1:20:44.120 been broken. An older voter is sort of more hesitant 1:20:44.160 --> 1:20:47.200 around any potential changes to a system they've known the 1:20:47.240 --> 1:20:51.000 same way while all of their lives. And that's good news, 1:20:51.040 --> 1:20:53.880 because young voters become all voters and just a question 1:20:53.920 --> 1:20:56.719 of time. And so I think time is a really 1:20:56.720 --> 1:20:59.719 important lever here when you look back as your reference 1:20:59.760 --> 1:21:03.400 before or to the progressive era, when we got major 1:21:03.479 --> 1:21:06.000 reforms down the women won the right to vote, the 1:21:06.000 --> 1:21:09.960 direct election of the Senate, banning of corporate campaign contributions, 1:21:10.120 --> 1:21:12.120 income tax, the big party primaries. 1:21:12.200 --> 1:21:15.840 People don't realize the income tax amendment was important because 1:21:15.880 --> 1:21:19.080 it also helped create the property tax structure in America, 1:21:19.120 --> 1:21:22.360 which is, you know how we fund so many local services. 1:21:22.680 --> 1:21:24.599 And that didn't happen in just a couple of years. 1:21:24.640 --> 1:21:27.519 That was a thirty year period of time. And so 1:21:27.640 --> 1:21:31.920 when I think about, oh, Alaska won this transformational reform 1:21:32.360 --> 1:21:34.760 four years ago. It suggests to me we're at the 1:21:34.800 --> 1:21:40.719 beginning of a very exciting decade plus era of reform 1:21:40.920 --> 1:21:46.200 in reaction to you know, historic levels of polarization and partisanship. 1:21:46.280 --> 1:21:49.080 The country knows is just not working for them right now. 1:21:51.760 --> 1:21:54.040 You know, we've sort of danced around this issue, but 1:21:54.080 --> 1:21:57.120 the biggest opponent to everything you're trying to do is 1:21:57.640 --> 1:22:01.120 the duopoly, and it's you know, the Democrats in party, 1:22:01.120 --> 1:22:03.639 in the Republican Party doesn't really work together on anything 1:22:03.680 --> 1:22:08.760 other than this right, which is sort of protecting their 1:22:08.800 --> 1:22:14.439 status at the ballot. You can sometimes win over local 1:22:15.439 --> 1:22:18.880 members of a party or local party organizations if they're 1:22:18.880 --> 1:22:26.960 in a state where they've been marginalized. But I imagine donors 1:22:27.160 --> 1:22:31.840 are hard to come by because a donor usually is 1:22:31.880 --> 1:22:35.880 a partisan right. They usually are passionate about something. Is 1:22:35.920 --> 1:22:40.360 it hard to find people passionate in the very wealthy 1:22:40.360 --> 1:22:41.320 space about reform. 1:22:42.920 --> 1:22:45.400 But unit in America over the years is built across 1:22:45.479 --> 1:22:49.320 partisan community. Now over one hundred and twenty what we 1:22:49.360 --> 1:22:53.400 call political philanthropists, and many of them have not traditionally 1:22:53.439 --> 1:22:57.479 been partisan donors, investing in politics for a partisan outcome. 1:22:58.040 --> 1:23:00.320 That's fine. But there's been a lot a lot of 1:23:00.360 --> 1:23:05.120 people who have come into this movement because their interest 1:23:05.200 --> 1:23:08.360 is not trying to elect or oppose one political party 1:23:08.400 --> 1:23:11.840 or another. It's about people who have been philanthropically mind 1:23:11.920 --> 1:23:13.920 who care about an issue, that knows we're not going 1:23:13.920 --> 1:23:17.760 to make progress on that issue, but for government being 1:23:17.800 --> 1:23:20.880 able to be functional and representative of the electorate. So 1:23:20.920 --> 1:23:23.640 I would say it's a different profile oftentimes of a 1:23:23.680 --> 1:23:29.040 donor that gets involved in this space, and from across 1:23:29.080 --> 1:23:32.320 the political spectrum as well. It's really interesting in this work, 1:23:32.400 --> 1:23:34.360 not just at our team or board level, but also 1:23:34.400 --> 1:23:36.759 in the donor community of people that may not agree 1:23:36.840 --> 1:23:39.960 a lot on particular candidates or particular policies, but we 1:23:40.080 --> 1:23:44.320 do agree that government should represent a true majority of Americans. 1:23:44.360 --> 1:23:47.720 And then let's have the argument once we have a 1:23:47.760 --> 1:23:49.560 government that can represent us. 1:23:51.000 --> 1:23:52.599 I know you said in a few states where there's 1:23:52.600 --> 1:23:55.160 not a referendum option that you're trying to work in 1:23:55.200 --> 1:23:58.400 the state legislature, obviously you have to go with the 1:23:58.439 --> 1:24:01.920 lowest common denominator. Stuff is it? Is it simply allowing 1:24:01.960 --> 1:24:06.800 independence in primaries? That's about the about the best you 1:24:06.800 --> 1:24:10.360 can hope for in convincing a legislature to do. 1:24:10.320 --> 1:24:15.600 Something in the near term. I do think that legislatories 1:24:15.640 --> 1:24:19.800 will take more time to bring along to more ambitious reforms. 1:24:19.800 --> 1:24:23.439 But let's remember that California adopted its all candidate primary 1:24:23.439 --> 1:24:27.840 system by legislative referral, so some states legislators might be 1:24:27.880 --> 1:24:30.120 willing to at least put it on the ballot. It 1:24:30.160 --> 1:24:34.559 takes leadership, though Governor Schwarzenegger was instrumental, you know, in 1:24:34.600 --> 1:24:37.400 that campaign. And when I look at incoming governors like 1:24:37.479 --> 1:24:41.000 an Abigail Spanberger who serves in you know, have one term, 1:24:41.439 --> 1:24:44.719 there's in Virginia. Maybe this is something that schol champion 1:24:44.840 --> 1:24:47.439 is part of her legacy there to say this will 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:50.040 be good for the commonwealth out into the future. Let's 1:24:50.080 --> 1:24:53.839 get this done. I think when we have executive leadership 1:24:53.840 --> 1:24:57.000 that leans into the issue, legislatures may be more likely 1:24:57.040 --> 1:24:57.479 to follow. 1:25:05.560 --> 1:25:08.680 Look, I mean, I'm just ecstatic that is a Virginia voter. 1:25:08.760 --> 1:25:10.320 I don't have to register by party, and I at 1:25:10.360 --> 1:25:12.519 least get a choice what primary, you know, and I 1:25:12.560 --> 1:25:14.880 always just find the competitive primary and I vote in it. 1:25:16.000 --> 1:25:19.040 So I you know, Virginia is a place where where 1:25:19.040 --> 1:25:23.960 you feel like no matter where what your ideological stripe 1:25:24.000 --> 1:25:27.000 is you at least have some say in the conversation. 1:25:28.400 --> 1:25:33.080 But Virginia may also repeal a constitutional amendment on redistricting 1:25:33.120 --> 1:25:36.519 reform in a couple of months, and California just did it. 1:25:37.160 --> 1:25:40.000 And I look at what happened there. There was real 1:25:40.080 --> 1:25:43.599 momentum on redistricting reform just four or five years ago. 1:25:43.640 --> 1:25:47.120 And I would bet frankly that movement had more momentum 1:25:47.120 --> 1:25:47.960 than your movement. Did. 1:25:48.240 --> 1:25:50.120 We were part of that, actually, yeah for. 1:25:50.160 --> 1:25:55.559 Me, but it had a and and it's amazing how 1:25:55.600 --> 1:25:59.519 that flipped that quickly. Are you at all I mean, 1:26:00.000 --> 1:26:03.920 are you at all demoralized at how people who are 1:26:04.000 --> 1:26:06.880 reformers are going? Yeah? But on this, I mean I 1:26:07.640 --> 1:26:10.559 just have struggled, you know. And I've had this debate 1:26:10.600 --> 1:26:13.360 with friends out in California. I said, look, I just 1:26:13.400 --> 1:26:17.599 don't understand why if disenfranchising voters in Texas is bad, 1:26:18.120 --> 1:26:21.240 why is the answer disenfranchising voters in California. 1:26:21.800 --> 1:26:24.599 I'm with you. I think fighting fire with fire means 1:26:24.720 --> 1:26:28.120 everything just burns down. So it was not in favor 1:26:28.160 --> 1:26:29.479 of what California. 1:26:28.960 --> 1:26:29.839 Is a good expression. 1:26:30.120 --> 1:26:33.080 However, a fair way the instinct which is that I 1:26:33.120 --> 1:26:34.320 get it, I get it. 1:26:34.560 --> 1:26:34.840 Yep. 1:26:35.280 --> 1:26:37.960 And I also think it's important to bring it back 1:26:38.000 --> 1:26:42.280 to why it's happening When Texas redistricted, when Missouri followed suit, 1:26:42.320 --> 1:26:45.960 and now there's pressure in Indiana. It's because the president 1:26:46.040 --> 1:26:49.160 right now is weaponizing the primary system to get it done. 1:26:49.160 --> 1:26:52.000 When he goes sweeps into a state, it is get this, 1:26:52.400 --> 1:26:55.400 find me five more seats, or I'm going to primary 1:26:55.479 --> 1:26:59.040 you in your next election. So I think it's important 1:26:59.080 --> 1:27:02.040 we connect the dots to the political incentives piece, which 1:27:02.080 --> 1:27:05.519 is how primaries can be weaponized not just to push 1:27:05.600 --> 1:27:07.639 people to the extremes, but to push them to do 1:27:07.840 --> 1:27:12.280 undemocratic things to consolidate power. The opposite is true as well, 1:27:12.360 --> 1:27:14.000 or the other side of the coin, which is that 1:27:14.080 --> 1:27:18.639 if we didn't have party primaries, this challenge of safe 1:27:18.680 --> 1:27:21.800 districts or districts that are heavily lapside would matter less 1:27:21.880 --> 1:27:25.320 check because there would be more competition in the general 1:27:25.400 --> 1:27:29.439 election if we advanced more than two candidates rather than 1:27:29.479 --> 1:27:31.400 what it is you know right now. And so I 1:27:31.439 --> 1:27:34.599 think the answer to go ahead and create a partisan primaries. Right, 1:27:34.640 --> 1:27:40.400 go ahead and create a partisan plus twenty district in California. 1:27:40.479 --> 1:27:42.519 At least there'll be a top two in the same 1:27:42.560 --> 1:27:45.000 party and then they fight over you know, you know, 1:27:45.120 --> 1:27:48.320 left versus center. I mean, I always thought Berman Sherman 1:27:48.479 --> 1:27:52.759 was the first one of these, and it was Howard 1:27:52.760 --> 1:27:56.360 Berman and Brad Sherman. They got redistricted into the same 1:27:56.400 --> 1:27:59.559 thing together and they both advanced to the they were 1:27:59.560 --> 1:28:00.599 in the top to and so. 1:28:00.560 --> 1:28:04.080 It was a D on D general election. And I 1:28:04.120 --> 1:28:08.839 remember the dividing issue was actually tart at the time, 1:28:09.760 --> 1:28:12.080 and one of them had been you know, voted against it, 1:28:12.160 --> 1:28:14.200 one of them voted for it. And then essentially they 1:28:14.240 --> 1:28:17.519 were wooing the third of Republicans that were in their district. Right, 1:28:17.520 --> 1:28:19.760 they were both Democrats, and there was a third of 1:28:19.840 --> 1:28:22.679 Republicans that were the swing voter. And I thought, boy, 1:28:22.520 --> 1:28:28.559 that could really if we could have that system everywhere where, 1:28:29.160 --> 1:28:31.960 at any point in time, even if you're in the minority, 1:28:32.120 --> 1:28:35.040 your vote could be the swing vote. You get to 1:28:35.080 --> 1:28:39.080 decide do I want, you know, do I want a 1:28:39.080 --> 1:28:43.960 libertarian conservative or do I want a evangelical conservative? Right, 1:28:44.040 --> 1:28:46.120 if that's the two choices, well, I you know, it 1:28:46.160 --> 1:28:47.960 may not like either, but I have a preference of 1:28:48.000 --> 1:28:52.000 which I want less, you know exactly, Yeah. 1:28:51.720 --> 1:28:54.720 You think about it. The midterm elections that we're going 1:28:54.760 --> 1:28:58.040 to go into in ninety percent of the districts, these 1:28:58.080 --> 1:29:01.680 elections are over before people show up in November, and 1:29:01.720 --> 1:29:04.400 their vote, if they cast, it really doesn't matter. 1:29:04.439 --> 1:29:06.800 We're one hundred and ten million, you know, I think 1:29:06.800 --> 1:29:08.920 we'll get one hundred and ten million midterm voters. Maybe 1:29:08.920 --> 1:29:11.559 one hundred and fifteen. It's turnout. It's been amazing in 1:29:11.600 --> 1:29:13.480 the Trump era again. 1:29:15.600 --> 1:29:16.080 And. 1:29:17.840 --> 1:29:21.880 Maybe there'll be thirty five congressional seats decided by ten 1:29:21.880 --> 1:29:26.000 points or less out of four hundred and thirty five maybe, right. 1:29:26.280 --> 1:29:28.960 So that's tens of millions of people, you know, who 1:29:29.080 --> 1:29:33.799 is A vote effectively does not matter. It's impooring people vote, 1:29:33.960 --> 1:29:39.480 but on participation without competition does not result in representation. 1:29:39.760 --> 1:29:41.360 If we want your vote to matter, you have to 1:29:41.400 --> 1:29:44.160 have a choice that is real. And so the idea 1:29:44.240 --> 1:29:47.679 that in red districts you get to choose what kind 1:29:47.720 --> 1:29:50.360 of Republican you want, during blue districts, what kind of 1:29:50.400 --> 1:29:53.080 Democrat you want in the general election, is much better 1:29:53.280 --> 1:29:56.479 than showing up to an election that's already been you know, decided. 1:29:58.000 --> 1:29:59.839 You know, it's funny. I grew up growing up in Miami, 1:30:00.120 --> 1:30:01.880 up in the seventies and eighties, and I remember my 1:30:02.560 --> 1:30:06.400 dad was a Republican Conservative, but he was a registered Democrat, 1:30:07.320 --> 1:30:08.960 and I remember asking him, I said, why are you 1:30:08.960 --> 1:30:11.800 Originally he says, well, there's no Republicans down here because 1:30:11.840 --> 1:30:13.679 at the time the South, this was back in the seventies, 1:30:14.040 --> 1:30:18.880 every politician in the South, everybody was a Democrat, but 1:30:18.960 --> 1:30:22.759 half the Democrats were really Republicans. But all the local offices, 1:30:22.800 --> 1:30:24.080 he said, if I want to have to say in 1:30:24.160 --> 1:30:27.960 local primaries, you know I got to vote. So in 1:30:28.000 --> 1:30:32.599 some ways, conservatives, older conservatives in the South have actually 1:30:32.640 --> 1:30:35.519 been participating in primaries this way for a long time. 1:30:36.200 --> 1:30:39.320 I mean, it all boils down to the idea that 1:30:39.400 --> 1:30:42.160 every American should have the freedom to vote fro whenever 1:30:42.200 --> 1:30:46.559 they want and every taxpayer funded election period. Right seventy 1:30:46.600 --> 1:30:49.840 eighty percent of voters, regardless of party, believe in that. 1:30:50.680 --> 1:30:53.639 In addition, though to the attacks on redistricting, what we're 1:30:53.640 --> 1:30:56.640 also seeing in nine states right now is attempts by 1:30:56.720 --> 1:31:00.679 legislators to close the primaries and actually start to register 1:31:00.840 --> 1:31:03.920 voters by party in order to do so. That is 1:31:04.000 --> 1:31:06.559 extremely unpopular. I mean, we just released a poll today 1:31:06.600 --> 1:31:09.920 from Republican polster in Texas that found two thirds of 1:31:09.960 --> 1:31:13.240 Republican primary voters support the current system. They like to 1:31:13.280 --> 1:31:15.439 have the freedom to vote. They don't like the idea 1:31:15.479 --> 1:31:18.360 of government overreach and starting to have to register publicly 1:31:18.360 --> 1:31:22.280 what party you're from. So these attempts are driven by insiders, 1:31:22.360 --> 1:31:26.360 driven by extreme factions. What they're trying to do is unpopular, 1:31:26.400 --> 1:31:28.360 and that's one of the reasons why you Know in 1:31:28.360 --> 1:31:30.519 America is working hard in these states to defend the 1:31:30.560 --> 1:31:34.120 current system from going backwards. And what we have found 1:31:34.240 --> 1:31:36.920 is that our allies in this in many cases are 1:31:37.560 --> 1:31:41.240 Republican legislative leaders who know that not only is this 1:31:41.280 --> 1:31:43.960 bad for America, it's bad for their party. When the 1:31:44.080 --> 1:31:47.559 largest and fastest growing part of the electorate are those 1:31:47.560 --> 1:31:50.080 that don't belong to either party, How can you expect 1:31:50.120 --> 1:31:52.439 to win those voters over if you're kicking them out 1:31:52.760 --> 1:31:55.320 of the process in which you're choosing your candidates. And 1:31:55.360 --> 1:31:59.320 so it really is, you know, courageous Republican leaders in 1:31:59.320 --> 1:32:01.439 many of these states that are standing up to forces 1:32:01.479 --> 1:32:04.880 within their own party that want to close elections to 1:32:04.920 --> 1:32:08.120 create more pure ideological purity that might wind up costing 1:32:08.160 --> 1:32:09.080 them elections. 1:32:09.560 --> 1:32:12.040 Is there a good privacy argument. I mean, you know, 1:32:12.120 --> 1:32:14.360 I don't want to have to join one of these 1:32:14.400 --> 1:32:17.040 two clubs. Don't make me join a club. I want 1:32:17.080 --> 1:32:21.120 the privacy of keeping my you know, I may lean 1:32:21.160 --> 1:32:23.960 one way or the other, but I'd prefer the government 1:32:24.120 --> 1:32:27.160 and anybody that checks my voter registration to just see 1:32:27.360 --> 1:32:31.000 I'm a registered voter period. I don't think you should 1:32:31.080 --> 1:32:33.320 know my politics. Now. You may learn it over time, 1:32:34.000 --> 1:32:37.120 but I don't want to have to identify. I mean, 1:32:37.160 --> 1:32:41.840 it's sort of a strange thing that government is making 1:32:41.920 --> 1:32:45.599 people do this in a quote unquote democracy percent. 1:32:45.680 --> 1:32:48.080 I mean, we adopted the secret ballot a century ago 1:32:48.160 --> 1:32:52.320 to give people privacy over their right to vote. In 1:32:52.400 --> 1:32:56.280 many states, however, we force people to register publicly with 1:32:56.280 --> 1:32:58.559 a political party. Go in some database, I can see 1:32:58.840 --> 1:33:02.439 what party you belong too. In many states don't have 1:33:02.520 --> 1:33:06.040 this system today, and that's what those those states are 1:33:06.040 --> 1:33:08.240 trying to change. And I agree with you that it's 1:33:08.240 --> 1:33:11.600 an invasion of privacy, particularly in an era of politics 1:33:11.600 --> 1:33:15.080 in which one's party affiliation can be used against them. 1:33:15.600 --> 1:33:18.320 No, it gets weaponized culturally, it can be weaponized at 1:33:18.320 --> 1:33:20.600 your job, it can do this. I mean, you know 1:33:20.680 --> 1:33:24.600 the local part well, the local Democratic Party here in 1:33:24.680 --> 1:33:27.200 Arlington County if you want to participate in some of 1:33:27.200 --> 1:33:30.840 the county primaries, because Virginia, each county can sort of 1:33:31.040 --> 1:33:32.519 party can decide how they want to do it. So 1:33:32.560 --> 1:33:35.639 they don't have party primaries, they don't have taxpayer fund 1:33:35.680 --> 1:33:37.719 of primaries, but they do have their own party primary 1:33:38.360 --> 1:33:40.040 and you have to sign a pledge if you want 1:33:40.040 --> 1:33:43.160 to participate in it, and I just won't do that. 1:33:43.360 --> 1:33:46.240 I know the pledge is meaningless, but I kind of feel, 1:33:46.520 --> 1:33:48.960 you know, but I don't think they have the right 1:33:49.000 --> 1:33:52.160 to ask that right now. It is a privately funded 1:33:52.240 --> 1:33:55.759 election that they run, so okay, it's a private organization. 1:33:56.360 --> 1:34:00.400 They can have that say. So I just don't particip in. 1:34:00.479 --> 1:34:03.840 I won't justicipad in because there're sometimes the Republicans have 1:34:03.880 --> 1:34:05.680 gone off and on about doing the same thing where 1:34:05.680 --> 1:34:08.120 they make you sign an oath because there isn't a 1:34:08.360 --> 1:34:12.880 there isn't party registration in this state. So let me 1:34:13.120 --> 1:34:17.439 shift in our last few minutes here to the other 1:34:18.640 --> 1:34:21.559 areas of reform to focus on. So I agree with you. 1:34:21.600 --> 1:34:25.360 I think primaries number one are sort of easy to 1:34:25.479 --> 1:34:28.400 communicate to people that it's a problem, right, it's a 1:34:28.479 --> 1:34:31.880 we're polarized. Hey, it's this primary issue. People get it, 1:34:31.920 --> 1:34:34.639 So I'm with you. I think it is the good 1:34:35.040 --> 1:34:38.760 first reform to focus on what's next. What's two, three, 1:34:38.840 --> 1:34:41.799 and four in your head? I think it's a good question. 1:34:42.439 --> 1:34:45.200 I think we need to do something on campaign finance. 1:34:45.400 --> 1:34:47.680 It's a salient issue for most voters. They don't like 1:34:47.720 --> 1:34:51.920 the idea of special interests or wealthy interests having disproportionate 1:34:52.000 --> 1:34:55.280 say in our political system. That will likely require a 1:34:55.320 --> 1:35:00.400 constitutional amendment. There's something the other number two when you 1:35:00.400 --> 1:35:03.960 ask people what's wrong with politics today ones money in politics. 1:35:03.960 --> 1:35:06.519 The next is career politicians. And I think there is 1:35:06.520 --> 1:35:08.720 something to do with age limits and term limits to 1:35:08.760 --> 1:35:12.640 make sure that we have a Congress that can reasonably 1:35:12.640 --> 1:35:16.439 turn over with time and remain both nimble to the 1:35:16.479 --> 1:35:20.880 issues of the day, you know, and representative of people. Again, 1:35:21.040 --> 1:35:24.719 those may require amendments, so those are harder, you know, lifts. 1:35:24.840 --> 1:35:29.160 I'm also frankly interested in what may not be a 1:35:29.280 --> 1:35:33.880 reform that requires a change in law or state constitutions. 1:35:33.920 --> 1:35:36.160 But how do we think about other ways we do 1:35:36.240 --> 1:35:39.599 democracy outside of an electoral context, And there's a growing 1:35:39.680 --> 1:35:44.160 movement around deliberative democracy. And citizen assemblies, which are essentially 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:48.679 randomly assembled groups of citizens that can deliberate on issues 1:35:48.720 --> 1:35:51.760 and make recommendations to government. I think they're interesting ways 1:35:51.800 --> 1:35:54.479 where they can actually be integrated into the government, like. 1:35:54.479 --> 1:35:57.559 A jury pool, but instead of for deciding somebody's guilt 1:35:57.600 --> 1:36:02.760 or innocence. Okay, Arlington County is going to do a 1:36:02.880 --> 1:36:06.200 random jury of one hundred citizens because we want to 1:36:06.240 --> 1:36:10.040 decide whether we want to put bike lanes. 1:36:09.840 --> 1:36:13.200 Everywhere, right, yeah, I mean, and this goes back to 1:36:13.680 --> 1:36:16.400 Athenian democracy. I mean, this is not a new idea. 1:36:16.479 --> 1:36:19.639 This is actually how democracy was done in the very 1:36:19.720 --> 1:36:21.200 early days, and. 1:36:21.600 --> 1:36:25.080 The idea it's what Datokville loved about our democracy. It 1:36:25.160 --> 1:36:27.559 was how local it was and how engaged we were 1:36:27.600 --> 1:36:28.719 at the township level. 1:36:29.840 --> 1:36:31.840 And I think it's gonna be even more important as 1:36:31.880 --> 1:36:36.360 our information ecosystem is transformed and in many ways polluted 1:36:36.360 --> 1:36:39.800 and distorted by artificial intelligence. How do we protect the 1:36:39.840 --> 1:36:41.960 spaces in which democracy can be done. 1:36:42.439 --> 1:36:47.479 So mean, this intrigues me is who's trying this? Any 1:36:47.479 --> 1:36:48.840 community out there trying this? 1:36:49.120 --> 1:36:52.080 There are local communities in fact here in Montrose, Colorado 1:36:52.760 --> 1:36:56.880 and for Collins have done citizen assemblies there have been. 1:36:56.960 --> 1:36:58.960 How does it work? Give me an example of how 1:36:58.960 --> 1:37:02.439 the citizen assembly work. Poor columns especially. 1:37:03.240 --> 1:37:06.719 People will approach in different ways. The sort of ideal 1:37:06.800 --> 1:37:09.439 way is a process of what they call sortition, which 1:37:09.479 --> 1:37:15.000 is random selection of citizens. They are incentivized for participation, 1:37:15.120 --> 1:37:17.479 like compensated for their time, but they might meet a 1:37:17.479 --> 1:37:19.479 few times on a weekend over the course of a 1:37:19.479 --> 1:37:23.320 few weeks. They're presented with information and arguments from different 1:37:23.360 --> 1:37:26.200 perspectives on an issue, and then they deliberate in a 1:37:26.200 --> 1:37:30.200 facilitated way together to render a particular you know, recommendation 1:37:30.600 --> 1:37:33.879 or perspective that then say, goes to the city council 1:37:34.760 --> 1:37:39.960 and so binding. No, although it could be set up 1:37:40.000 --> 1:37:41.880 in a binding way, but right now many of the 1:37:41.880 --> 1:37:44.960 ones that are being done are advisory, you know in nature. 1:37:46.120 --> 1:37:48.920 I think there are interesting ways in which may be 1:37:49.080 --> 1:37:52.680 integrated into the citizen initiative process itself. We can use 1:37:52.720 --> 1:37:54.840 CITIS assemblies to determine what gets to go to the ballot. 1:37:54.880 --> 1:37:57.599 I mean, it's just it's an improvement in what direct 1:37:57.600 --> 1:38:00.880 democracy you know, can look like. So I'd say like 1:38:01.160 --> 1:38:03.880 over the next decade plus, there's going to be needs 1:38:03.920 --> 1:38:07.160 to reimagine what democracy looks like. I mean, we're coming 1:38:07.200 --> 1:38:10.879 up on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary as a country. 1:38:11.160 --> 1:38:15.320 We've gotten here. I think by continuing to look at 1:38:15.360 --> 1:38:18.360 and innovate and improve the way that we can self 1:38:18.400 --> 1:38:20.799 govern and we need to be responsive to the times. 1:38:20.840 --> 1:38:24.360 And so whether it's these election reforms or citizen assemblies, 1:38:24.760 --> 1:38:27.080 the idea is that we need to keep democracy fresh 1:38:27.160 --> 1:38:27.920 to keep it working. 1:38:28.560 --> 1:38:32.360 I'll tell you I would. I would. I've always thought 1:38:32.360 --> 1:38:34.400 about this, and you know, I joke that if you 1:38:34.479 --> 1:38:36.439 live in the state of New Hampshire for more than 1:38:36.479 --> 1:38:38.000 ten years, you're going to end up in the state 1:38:38.080 --> 1:38:40.120 legislature at some point when you have a four hundred 1:38:40.120 --> 1:38:44.360 members state House. But I used to think, what if 1:38:44.479 --> 1:38:48.360 that were just a four hundred random people that were 1:38:48.400 --> 1:38:51.360 selected to be in the you know, and then you 1:38:51.400 --> 1:38:54.200 brought them together just like you would a jury, and Okay, 1:38:55.439 --> 1:38:57.519 this is the legislature. We're going to compensate you for 1:38:57.560 --> 1:39:01.160 your time. You're the citizen legislature for the leg Any. Look, 1:39:01.160 --> 1:39:03.320 if you feel like any, you vet them, maybe you 1:39:03.360 --> 1:39:06.320 know certain people can't serve, and you know whatever, you 1:39:06.320 --> 1:39:12.840 can come up with some criteria, but compulsory representation is 1:39:12.880 --> 1:39:19.080 something that I've actually been curious about, where you basically, Okay, yeah, 1:39:20.400 --> 1:39:22.360 once every twenty years, I got to sit on the 1:39:22.400 --> 1:39:25.720 city council, you know, once every twenty twenty years, I 1:39:25.760 --> 1:39:28.080 got to do six months. I got to do six 1:39:28.160 --> 1:39:33.600 weeks at the state capitol. You know. I think we 1:39:33.640 --> 1:39:36.800 would get better. I think we would certainly get outcomes 1:39:37.360 --> 1:39:40.480 that were more reflective of the population. 1:39:42.280 --> 1:39:43.960 I mean, if you put in a poll right now 1:39:44.000 --> 1:39:47.280 and ask most Americans, would you rather keep the five 1:39:47.360 --> 1:39:49.680 hundred and thirty five leaders we currently have in Congress 1:39:49.880 --> 1:39:52.640 or do a lottery and try out something new for 1:39:52.640 --> 1:39:54.120 a couple of years. I'd be interested in how to 1:39:54.120 --> 1:39:56.400 come back. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot 1:39:56.400 --> 1:39:58.760 of people would be open to trying something a bit new. 1:39:58.880 --> 1:40:00.519 And this model, like you said, it is not a 1:40:00.560 --> 1:40:05.000 foreign concept. Juries make life or death decisions. Surely they 1:40:05.000 --> 1:40:08.599 are also capable of informing what our marginal tax rate 1:40:08.760 --> 1:40:09.160 could be. 1:40:10.000 --> 1:40:12.559 Now you look at it, it feels like there are 1:40:12.600 --> 1:40:14.559 a couple of rural states that would be more open 1:40:14.600 --> 1:40:18.640 to trying this first, you know, And it could be 1:40:18.640 --> 1:40:22.200 interesting whether it's a you could see easily see one 1:40:22.240 --> 1:40:24.879 of the new England states being open to this concept. 1:40:24.880 --> 1:40:28.479 I mean, the New Hampshire State House can be such 1:40:28.520 --> 1:40:30.439 a pain in the ass with how many specials, you know, 1:40:30.479 --> 1:40:33.240 we have foreigner members. There's always somebody who's you know, 1:40:33.439 --> 1:40:35.720 can't do it, or can't go or this or that. 1:40:37.360 --> 1:40:39.880 If you told me they transition to something like this 1:40:39.960 --> 1:40:42.680 in twenty years would shock me. 1:40:43.160 --> 1:40:46.880 By the way. The pathway that many of these reforms 1:40:47.960 --> 1:40:50.759 take at the state level is through the initiative process, 1:40:50.760 --> 1:40:53.280 where citizens get to decide this and shape their own 1:40:53.320 --> 1:40:57.800 government directly, and that process needs to be protected. It 1:40:57.840 --> 1:41:00.760 is under attack in many states right now by legislatures 1:41:00.760 --> 1:41:03.240 that are trying to increase the threshold of what it 1:41:03.280 --> 1:41:05.360 takes to pass the ballot initiative to make it harder 1:41:05.360 --> 1:41:09.400 to qualify. So I think everyone who cares about democracy, 1:41:09.400 --> 1:41:12.400 and especially in the reform movement, ought to be working 1:41:12.400 --> 1:41:15.519 together to make sure that we protect and improve the 1:41:15.560 --> 1:41:19.000 citizen initiative process. There will be initiatives on the ballot 1:41:19.040 --> 1:41:22.920 next November that will both attempt to make things worse 1:41:23.200 --> 1:41:25.400 that we need to defeat, and a couple of states 1:41:25.400 --> 1:41:29.400 actually innovating with constitutional protections of the initiative process so 1:41:29.439 --> 1:41:31.599 that legislatures can't undo them in the future. 1:41:33.000 --> 1:41:35.200 I scared Jack dan Forth on the idea of a 1:41:35.200 --> 1:41:38.479 constitutional convention. He fears it that you know that, you 1:41:38.479 --> 1:41:41.280 know it implies that we're scrapping the Constitution. And he's like, 1:41:41.280 --> 1:41:43.400 I love our constitution, we just need to amend it. 1:41:43.439 --> 1:41:47.639 And I'm like, well, it's a gathering to basically consider amendments, 1:41:47.760 --> 1:41:52.880 is what I'm what I'm advocating, But not everybody is. 1:41:53.160 --> 1:41:55.880 There's always when when you throw the idea out there, 1:41:56.479 --> 1:41:58.640 it's more folks on the left who are skeptical of 1:41:58.680 --> 1:42:01.240 it these days than folks the right. And in fact, 1:42:01.240 --> 1:42:03.040 at Clinton won in ninety six, I think it was 1:42:03.080 --> 1:42:05.920 Greg Abbott at the time as governor of Texas was 1:42:06.439 --> 1:42:11.840 basically wanting to to lead a movement of states to 1:42:12.120 --> 1:42:15.400 call for a constitutional convention. And you know, had Clinton 1:42:15.439 --> 1:42:17.360 one in sixteen, that might have been what the right 1:42:17.400 --> 1:42:20.840 would have focused on. It might have been an interesting exercise. 1:42:20.880 --> 1:42:24.439 But you think it would Is that a fool's errand 1:42:24.479 --> 1:42:29.800 in your mind? Or is it something that whose time 1:42:29.880 --> 1:42:31.760 might might be now? 1:42:32.800 --> 1:42:36.839 I think the time was before now for a convention 1:42:37.040 --> 1:42:42.960 to re examine some of the not principles of our 1:42:43.160 --> 1:42:46.680 constitutional design are checks and balances our separation powers. But 1:42:47.080 --> 1:42:50.160 the structures, I mean, whether you believe there ought to 1:42:50.200 --> 1:42:52.679 be an electoral college or not, no one can argue 1:42:52.680 --> 1:42:54.920 that it's functioning in the way the founders designed it. 1:42:55.240 --> 1:42:57.400 So what does it look like to improve and modernize it. 1:42:57.439 --> 1:42:59.479 That Well, I got a simple solution to that. Double 1:42:59.520 --> 1:43:02.400 the size. Go back to increasing the size of the 1:43:02.439 --> 1:43:05.479 House every ten years, and then your electoral college and 1:43:05.520 --> 1:43:09.439 your popular vote will no longer I mean right now 1:43:09.760 --> 1:43:13.880 every four years, the likelihood of a split decision between 1:43:13.920 --> 1:43:17.360 the electoral college and the popular vote is more likely, 1:43:17.439 --> 1:43:21.120 not less likely, because we have not expanded the numerator 1:43:23.439 --> 1:43:26.840 of the electoral vote of the electoral college. And if 1:43:26.840 --> 1:43:30.200 we double the size of the House, I promise you 1:43:30.200 --> 1:43:32.080 nobody'd be complaining about the electoral college. 1:43:32.920 --> 1:43:35.960 As you know, what people fear about a convention? Is 1:43:36.000 --> 1:43:38.879 it the runaway convention? Will they do something to radically 1:43:39.479 --> 1:43:43.880 But we're skipped. But those critics forget there's a ratification process. Whatever. 1:43:43.880 --> 1:43:46.679 The practician comes up quite high. 1:43:46.840 --> 1:43:49.880 Yes, right, you don't fear the voter. 1:43:50.200 --> 1:43:52.040 Yeah, I don't think we should fear it. I think 1:43:52.040 --> 1:43:55.639 we need to treat it seriously. Be cautious and smart 1:43:55.640 --> 1:43:58.639 about it and embrace it as a tool the founders 1:43:58.840 --> 1:44:03.280 gave us to sure that we can continue to endure 1:44:03.280 --> 1:44:06.679 as a representative republic for centuries to come. 1:44:07.200 --> 1:44:10.120 Why isn't someone trying to be the leader in convening this. 1:44:11.920 --> 1:44:14.960 I think that there's this sort of psychological barrier about 1:44:14.960 --> 1:44:18.240 whether constitutional change is possible. It's been what thirty years 1:44:18.280 --> 1:44:21.519 since the last amendment, you know past, But I think 1:44:21.800 --> 1:44:27.320 pressure is going to build, especially because of how if 1:44:27.400 --> 1:44:29.960 power continues to consolidate in the way that it does, 1:44:30.000 --> 1:44:33.519 if the initiative process deteriorates, then the other levers we 1:44:33.600 --> 1:44:36.479 have to make change become harder, and I think people 1:44:36.880 --> 1:44:40.520 may view this other pathways becoming increasingly necessary. 1:44:41.439 --> 1:44:45.800 Yeah, it's been I just feel like that the I 1:44:45.840 --> 1:44:50.400 think that there's agreement with this, but in some ways 1:44:50.439 --> 1:44:52.519 you have to have a leader right to galvanize people 1:44:52.600 --> 1:44:53.840 to get there. 1:44:54.200 --> 1:44:56.519 Well, your next project, Chuck. 1:44:56.680 --> 1:44:58.680 Oh man, We've all got a lot of projects. Right. 1:44:59.479 --> 1:45:01.280 Let me get you on this. You ran for office 1:45:01.280 --> 1:45:03.840 once before, you still have the itch. 1:45:05.439 --> 1:45:08.479 Not under today's party primary system. I can tell you that. 1:45:08.439 --> 1:45:11.640 No, you live in Colorado, it's the least partisan or 1:45:11.680 --> 1:45:15.000 the least primary impact. I mean, certainly primaries have some 1:45:15.680 --> 1:45:18.519 certainly or but it's less so, right. 1:45:19.160 --> 1:45:22.200 Yeah, Although I think Colorado is heading in the direction 1:45:22.240 --> 1:45:24.519 of many other places where the primary sism is causing 1:45:24.520 --> 1:45:26.880 our state to become a lot more partisan. It's one 1:45:26.880 --> 1:45:28.200 of the states that we can tine to work on 1:45:28.280 --> 1:45:31.280 for form. But we'll say having had the experience of 1:45:31.400 --> 1:45:35.120 running for office early on was good in being grounded 1:45:35.200 --> 1:45:38.320 and how voters actually think about democracy and elections, not 1:45:38.960 --> 1:45:42.080 just an academic perspective on this. And I feel grateful 1:45:42.120 --> 1:45:43.560 to be in a role right now to make the 1:45:43.600 --> 1:45:46.880 biggest impact I can that can impact how people who 1:45:46.960 --> 1:45:49.759 runs and how they govern and at scale. 1:45:50.240 --> 1:45:52.160 You ran as an independent, So let me get you 1:45:52.160 --> 1:45:55.599 out of here actually on this topic, which is what 1:45:55.640 --> 1:45:57.840 do you think Mike Duggan is running into right now? 1:45:57.880 --> 1:46:02.280 Running is independent in Michigan? That he expect that you 1:46:02.280 --> 1:46:03.960 would have been able to tell him how he asked 1:46:04.000 --> 1:46:07.519 you that, Oh yeah, this is how many voters view 1:46:08.040 --> 1:46:09.559 third party candidates are independent. 1:46:10.160 --> 1:46:12.960 Yeah, be wary of the early polls that show voters 1:46:13.080 --> 1:46:16.000 would like the idea of an independent. 1:46:15.800 --> 1:46:18.320 And looks really good at first, doesn't it exactly? 1:46:18.360 --> 1:46:20.760 But I think the most important thing for any independent 1:46:20.960 --> 1:46:24.320 is to achieve escape velocity, which is to say, you 1:46:24.439 --> 1:46:26.799 have to be able to prove that you are viable 1:46:27.200 --> 1:46:29.760 before voters really start paying attention and ask if you 1:46:29.840 --> 1:46:33.559 are and that happens well before election day. So unlike 1:46:33.560 --> 1:46:36.280 the traditional playbook where you spend most of your resources 1:46:36.640 --> 1:46:39.759 in the last ninety days, you know your November election 1:46:39.920 --> 1:46:42.519 is actually months earlier because you have to be interesting 1:46:42.800 --> 1:46:43.720 that you can be a. 1:46:44.600 --> 1:46:47.200 What does that look like being showing up in the 1:46:47.320 --> 1:46:50.240 conventional places that other candidates do? Is it money? What 1:46:51.040 --> 1:46:56.320 is it that you think? And I know this is 1:46:56.360 --> 1:46:58.760 a bit subjective, but generally, what do you think that 1:46:58.840 --> 1:47:03.200 voters are looking for to decide, oh, you're legitimate. 1:47:03.560 --> 1:47:05.439 I think in the past, the houristic would be like 1:47:05.479 --> 1:47:08.920 traditional media coverage, the press taking you seriously when you 1:47:08.960 --> 1:47:10.760 get a debetia are you as the what are you 1:47:10.800 --> 1:47:14.000 pulling at? But today I think that's changing because the 1:47:14.040 --> 1:47:16.519 metric that probably matters most in our politics is attention. 1:47:16.760 --> 1:47:18.680 Are you getting attention? Am I hearing from you? Are 1:47:18.680 --> 1:47:21.400 you breaking through? I think that works in the favor 1:47:21.400 --> 1:47:23.719 of independent candidates the extent that there are a fewer 1:47:23.840 --> 1:47:27.200 gatekeepers that are saying, whether you're credible or not, but 1:47:27.280 --> 1:47:30.400 you can reach voters directly in a more democratized way 1:47:30.400 --> 1:47:32.360 than ever has been the case. I'm hoping that we 1:47:32.439 --> 1:47:35.760 might see a couple of these candidates actually break through 1:47:35.840 --> 1:47:38.720 what has been that glass ceiling and then show that 1:47:38.760 --> 1:47:39.439 it's possible. 1:47:41.320 --> 1:47:44.240 Nick Treada, you always give me a little more. Hope 1:47:44.400 --> 1:47:46.439 your your glasses have full on this. 1:47:46.400 --> 1:47:49.519 Reform movement, aren't you yntinue to stick there? There's no 1:47:49.560 --> 1:47:52.080 other choice, so let's get it done. 1:47:52.360 --> 1:47:56.200 Right, There's only forward, right, there's there's my friends at 1:47:56.439 --> 1:47:59.120 a certain third party like to say, you know, we 1:47:59.200 --> 1:48:01.920 only have one choice. You have to move forward. Thank you, 1:48:02.000 --> 1:48:12.479 Jo great stock with me. Well, I hope you enjoyed 1:48:12.479 --> 1:48:15.080 that conversation. Look, I don't care where you are, left, 1:48:15.120 --> 1:48:20.240 right or center. It doesn't make sense for our our 1:48:20.800 --> 1:48:25.479 our democracy to somehow lock people out of our You know, 1:48:25.840 --> 1:48:27.479 we don't know where we live, We don't know whether 1:48:27.520 --> 1:48:30.680 we're going to have a Republican in charge or a 1:48:30.720 --> 1:48:33.680 Democratic Democrat in charge. We should have us say and 1:48:33.720 --> 1:48:37.240 who gets into these general elections across the board. It 1:48:37.320 --> 1:48:40.800 is odd to me that we have just accepted this 1:48:40.920 --> 1:48:43.800 premise that you have to join a private organization in 1:48:43.880 --> 1:48:47.400 order to participate in many states in a taxpayer funded election. 1:48:49.479 --> 1:48:51.719 We need some We need some better lawyering out there 1:48:51.840 --> 1:48:54.960 on this front, all right, We need some better lawyering, because, 1:48:55.120 --> 1:48:57.840 trust me, there's a lot of equal protection arguments that 1:48:57.960 --> 1:49:01.160 I think should be made on this front. All right, 1:49:01.760 --> 1:49:11.599 it's time to jump into the time machine. We're going 1:49:11.640 --> 1:49:16.160 to go back to December seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, a 1:49:16.240 --> 1:49:19.920 young Chuck Todd was a senior in high school. In 1:49:19.920 --> 1:49:22.599 case you were wondering what I was doing, December seventeenth, 1:49:22.680 --> 1:49:29.240 nineteen eighty nine, it was the debut of an animated 1:49:29.520 --> 1:49:36.200 series for adults called The Simpsons. And who knew what 1:49:36.320 --> 1:49:39.360 kind of impact is? I would argue, bigger than Saturday 1:49:39.439 --> 1:49:44.120 Night Live, Bigger than Meet the Press, right, sort of 1:49:43.160 --> 1:49:49.080 the launch Sunday Affairs conversations, right in some ways before 1:49:49.400 --> 1:49:51.439 it was the first place you ever had back and 1:49:51.479 --> 1:49:56.000 forth on politics in a first radio and televised arena. 1:49:56.479 --> 1:49:58.920 We had Saturday Night Live sort of the king of parody, 1:49:59.439 --> 1:50:02.200 and then there the Simpsons. And in some ways the 1:50:02.240 --> 1:50:08.479 Simpsons are probably is important of a participant into the 1:50:08.680 --> 1:50:13.960 changing ways that we satirized politics than any other program 1:50:14.000 --> 1:50:16.920 that has been launched in the last in the history 1:50:16.960 --> 1:50:20.040 of television. So that's the subject of my time machine 1:50:21.960 --> 1:50:24.720 history lesson of the Day. How the Simpsons rewired politics, 1:50:24.760 --> 1:50:29.960 media and animation. And it all started December seventeen, nineteen 1:50:30.000 --> 1:50:32.880 eighty nine. It was a Christmas special. I remember it 1:50:32.960 --> 1:50:35.600 was a short on The Tracy Omens Show back in 1:50:35.640 --> 1:50:38.760 the day, but this Christmas special aired on Fox and 1:50:38.760 --> 1:50:41.679 it looked loud, rough and kind of disposable. Right, thirty 1:50:41.680 --> 1:50:45.439 five years later, that cartoon hasn't just outlasted its peers, 1:50:45.520 --> 1:50:49.880 it's outlasted entire media eras Right. The Simpsons didn't just 1:50:49.960 --> 1:50:54.599 mock American politics, that's easy. What they did is they 1:50:54.640 --> 1:50:58.760 reshaped Americans understand power, persuasion, and performance, and in the 1:50:58.800 --> 1:51:05.439 process they what animation itself can be. And what I 1:51:05.479 --> 1:51:07.880 loved about what the Simpsons did is they did it look. 1:51:08.520 --> 1:51:12.519 Was there a social socially liberal lean to the show, sure, 1:51:13.360 --> 1:51:16.680 but it was not necessarily a liberal show or a 1:51:16.720 --> 1:51:20.840 conservative show. In many ways, really mocked process and it 1:51:20.920 --> 1:51:26.480 was really good at surfacing hypocrisy and surfacing the absurdity 1:51:27.040 --> 1:51:30.040 of the professionalization of politics, and in fact one of 1:51:30.080 --> 1:51:31.680 the early ways they did it. And I want to 1:51:31.760 --> 1:51:33.920 pop through a few shows that I think where they 1:51:34.479 --> 1:51:36.960 really were brilliant and what they did. And when you 1:51:37.000 --> 1:51:38.760 watch these shows today, you're think, oh, I've seen this 1:51:38.800 --> 1:51:41.160 in other places, But at the time, nobody had ever 1:51:41.200 --> 1:51:44.280 done this before. So Burns for Governor. When Moni Burns 1:51:44.360 --> 1:51:49.719 ran for governor, the Simpsons showcased in the pop culture 1:51:49.760 --> 1:51:53.519 area that something that we political reporters already knew, we 1:51:53.560 --> 1:51:56.880 political junkies already knew that campaigns were a business. The 1:51:56.960 --> 1:51:59.120 episode two cars in every garage and three eyes on 1:51:59.160 --> 1:52:01.920 every fish, burn earns he doesn't just run for governor 1:52:02.120 --> 1:52:05.760 because he believes in anything. He runs because regulation threatens him. 1:52:05.800 --> 1:52:07.759 That's why he decides he wants to run for office. 1:52:07.840 --> 1:52:10.799 The telling moment isn't the mutant fish. It's when Burns 1:52:10.840 --> 1:52:14.240 instructs Smithers to assemble a campaign operation the way a 1:52:14.360 --> 1:52:18.160 CEO would assemble a management team. And so for the 1:52:18.160 --> 1:52:20.960 wider world, they understood, give me a pollster, a media handler, 1:52:20.960 --> 1:52:25.200 speech writer, an image consultant, and the episode showcase that 1:52:25.240 --> 1:52:29.599 Burns understood something essential. Campaigns aren't moral arguments. They're simply 1:52:29.640 --> 1:52:33.600 logistical ones. Now he loses not because voters rejected his policies, 1:52:33.720 --> 1:52:38.040 but because he fails to convincingly perform as a relatable figure. Right, 1:52:38.040 --> 1:52:41.839 he won't eat the fish. It's a lesson that campaigns 1:52:41.880 --> 1:52:45.639 still learn relearn every cycle. Another episode that I thought 1:52:45.640 --> 1:52:47.439 did a good job at sort of mocking government and 1:52:47.479 --> 1:52:50.960 politics the monorail episode and the use of Broadway to 1:52:51.040 --> 1:52:55.479 explain infrastructure failure. The episode Marge versus the Monoail endures 1:52:55.479 --> 1:52:58.519 because it understands persuasion better than most policy memos do. 1:52:58.880 --> 1:53:01.320 The episode is a deliberate homage to the music band 1:53:01.920 --> 1:53:06.360 Monorel Monreel. Sorry Lyle Lanley is Harold Hill selling civic 1:53:06.400 --> 1:53:09.960 fantasy through charming song. Well, the Monorail isn't about transportation, 1:53:10.280 --> 1:53:13.559 it was simply about identity. Springfield doesn't choose the mono 1:53:13.640 --> 1:53:16.240 rail because it's efficient. I don't think they really needed one. 1:53:16.400 --> 1:53:18.960 They choose it because it made them feel important. That's 1:53:19.000 --> 1:53:21.040 how it was sold to them. In some ways, what 1:53:21.120 --> 1:53:23.559 it was mocking were all the smaller cities that were 1:53:23.560 --> 1:53:27.840 getting talked into debt financing arenas and other sort of 1:53:28.960 --> 1:53:34.640 supposedly public arenas or entertainment complexes or concert halls, but 1:53:34.680 --> 1:53:37.880 they were really about just helping a private entity make money. 1:53:38.560 --> 1:53:41.240 The episode's genius, in some ways was showing that democracy 1:53:41.280 --> 1:53:46.760 can be overwhelmed by spectacle, not ignorance, and mister and 1:53:47.120 --> 1:53:49.720 mister Lisa goes to Washington. It remained one of the 1:53:49.720 --> 1:53:52.800 smarter portrayals of civic education that we've had on television. 1:53:53.040 --> 1:53:56.040 Lisa's faith in democracy is shaken, but it's not destroyed. 1:53:56.479 --> 1:54:02.160 The system works barely because exposure still has power. Sometimes 1:54:02.640 --> 1:54:05.120 the episode frequently is cited an academic work, believe it 1:54:05.200 --> 1:54:09.280 or not, because it models critical citizenship skepticism without disengagement. 1:54:09.320 --> 1:54:10.680 It goes back to the essay I had at the 1:54:10.720 --> 1:54:13.640 beginning of this episode, right, don't give up. Even when 1:54:13.720 --> 1:54:15.640 you think the system is rigged and it's messy and 1:54:15.680 --> 1:54:18.880 it's ugly, there are still ways that you can make 1:54:18.920 --> 1:54:22.200 the system work. Then, of course, there was sideshow Bob 1:54:22.280 --> 1:54:26.679 Roberts good homage to that mockumentary back in the day. 1:54:27.040 --> 1:54:29.719 That show went further side show Bob riggs an election, 1:54:30.120 --> 1:54:35.320 it's revealed and he wins. Anyway, sound familiar. Episode predicts 1:54:35.320 --> 1:54:42.240 scandal fatigue, the idea that information alone no longer guarantees accountability. Unfortunately, 1:54:42.400 --> 1:54:44.680 that was something that I think when people watched it 1:54:44.720 --> 1:54:48.080 at the time. Oh no, that wouldn't really happen. Let's 1:54:48.120 --> 1:54:52.080 just say the episode has aged uncomfortably well. Trash of 1:54:52.120 --> 1:54:55.800 the Titans populism, deferred costs, or moral hatcher. Trash of 1:54:55.800 --> 1:54:59.560 the Titans is local politics done brutally right. Homer runs 1:54:59.560 --> 1:55:04.520 for Senate Commissioner, promising more services, less effort, and no responsibility. 1:55:04.520 --> 1:55:08.960 His slogan, can't someone else do it? It isn't laziness, 1:55:09.040 --> 1:55:12.720 it is actually resentment. Once elected, Homer delivers exactly what 1:55:12.760 --> 1:55:15.240 he promised, and the system collapses under the weight of 1:55:15.240 --> 1:55:18.520 deferred costs. Right, the most revealing moment isn't the failure, 1:55:18.800 --> 1:55:22.560 it's the response. Springfield exports its garbage to another town. 1:55:23.560 --> 1:55:26.560 The episode captures a timeless political truth. When costs are 1:55:26.560 --> 1:55:33.760 delayed or displaced, accountability totally evaporates. Look, it was. One 1:55:33.760 --> 1:55:38.160 thing about The Simpsons is after a while their success 1:55:38.400 --> 1:55:43.160 at mocking actually made it where politicians wanted to be 1:55:43.240 --> 1:55:46.320 seen as on the side of the Simpsons, that on 1:55:46.440 --> 1:55:49.160 the side of the reasonable people, that they weren't the 1:55:49.200 --> 1:55:52.120 crazy runs. And you've had all sorts of people who 1:55:52.120 --> 1:55:56.920 have participate let their voice. Barack Obama, I think Joe 1:55:56.920 --> 1:56:01.080 Biden did once Outdore Rush Limbaugh, did I believe you've 1:56:01.120 --> 1:56:05.600 had The George hw Bush episode when he moves across 1:56:05.600 --> 1:56:08.760 the street from Homer is really well done and it 1:56:08.840 --> 1:56:12.680 is almost, in some ways an homage hw Bush. So 1:56:13.320 --> 1:56:16.760 it is. It was proof and certainly plenty of media 1:56:16.760 --> 1:56:21.080 figures participated over the years Springfield became a legitimate public square. Then, 1:56:21.120 --> 1:56:23.440 of course there's the impact that the Simpsons had on 1:56:23.520 --> 1:56:26.480 what we all watched today. Right. I know, I'm a 1:56:26.480 --> 1:56:29.560 fan of a lot of adult animation these days, and 1:56:29.680 --> 1:56:31.960 we have the Simpsons to thank, right, think about it, 1:56:32.000 --> 1:56:36.640 Before the Simpsons animation in America simply meant kids. After 1:56:36.680 --> 1:56:41.000 the Simpsons animation meant tone and not age, right, And 1:56:41.040 --> 1:56:43.280 what we all figured out was it was easier to 1:56:43.280 --> 1:56:45.920 see an animated figure tell us an uncomfortable truth that 1:56:46.040 --> 1:56:49.480 a real person telling us an uncomfortable truth. Right. Without 1:56:49.480 --> 1:56:51.160 the Simpsons, we wouldn't have had King of the Hill, 1:56:51.600 --> 1:56:57.680 South Park, Family, Guy, Futurama, Archer, BoJack, Horseman, Rick and Morty. 1:56:57.880 --> 1:56:59.840 I know I'm leaving a bunch out. You want to 1:56:59.840 --> 1:57:02.160 tell me your favorite you want to tell me what 1:57:02.240 --> 1:57:05.840 you think the Simpsons did to impact political culture. I'd 1:57:05.880 --> 1:57:07.800 love to hear from you. And then, of course, there's 1:57:07.800 --> 1:57:10.600 one of my favorite homages to the Simpsons. Two thousand 1:57:10.640 --> 1:57:13.720 and two, South Park aired an entire episode that might 1:57:13.760 --> 1:57:15.480 be the most honest tribute of them all. It was 1:57:15.480 --> 1:57:18.720 called Simpsons Did It. And the premise was simple. Every 1:57:18.720 --> 1:57:20.600 idea of the South Park writers were trying to come 1:57:20.680 --> 1:57:23.640 up with had already been done by the Simpsons. And 1:57:24.080 --> 1:57:26.360 the whole punchline of the episode is over and over 1:57:26.360 --> 1:57:29.360 again character shout out Simpsons did It. It wasn't being 1:57:29.400 --> 1:57:32.520 a mockery, it was simply acknowledgment. It was clear our 1:57:32.560 --> 1:57:34.680 friends at South Park probably had writer's block that week, 1:57:34.800 --> 1:57:36.800 and it may be why they went to decide to 1:57:36.840 --> 1:57:40.880 just stick to parroting in the moment stuff on that front. 1:57:41.040 --> 1:57:44.880 But that episode captured something every creator understands. The Simpsons 1:57:44.920 --> 1:57:49.000 didn't just open the door. They mapped the room right 1:57:49.080 --> 1:57:52.200 and they and they allowed so many other creators to 1:57:52.240 --> 1:57:54.480 come in and have their own version of this in 1:57:54.520 --> 1:57:57.880 their own take an entire generation of writers to find 1:57:57.880 --> 1:58:01.920 the boundaries of what animated storytelling could do politically, culturally, 1:58:02.320 --> 1:58:07.040 and emotionally. So the Simpsons still kicking. They didn't just 1:58:07.080 --> 1:58:11.440 survive history, They've explained it. They taught audiences how to 1:58:11.520 --> 1:58:17.560 spot performative leadership, civic spectacle, deferred accountability, media driven politics, 1:58:17.800 --> 1:58:19.920 and they did it while teaching animation how to grow up. 1:58:20.720 --> 1:58:23.640 So that's why the show still matters. And somewhere creator 1:58:23.680 --> 1:58:26.560 is still pitching an idea, only to hear a familiar 1:58:26.600 --> 1:58:29.560 voice in the room say, Simpsons did it? All right, 1:58:29.600 --> 1:58:36.200 let's get into a little ask Chuck, Ask Chuck. We're 1:58:36.240 --> 1:58:38.800 going to do. Here's my promise to you. Some of 1:58:38.800 --> 1:58:41.080 you probably been wondering, Hey, I threw a question in 1:58:41.080 --> 1:58:42.800 here a while ago. How come you haven't dealt with it? 1:58:42.840 --> 1:58:44.800 I thought it was a pretty good question. Well, I'm 1:58:44.800 --> 1:58:49.520 going to have an entire episode where I'm just answering 1:58:49.920 --> 1:58:52.840 questions and trying to play catch up a little bit. 1:58:52.880 --> 1:58:57.000 That'll happen in a couple of weeks. And yes, if 1:58:57.040 --> 1:58:58.919 you want to chalk it up to oh, it's the holidays, 1:58:58.960 --> 1:59:01.760 but yes, okay, it's going to be new content. I 1:59:01.840 --> 1:59:04.840 promise it is not. It is not me just trying 1:59:04.840 --> 1:59:07.680 to well, it is me trying to have a couple 1:59:07.680 --> 1:59:09.520 of days off. I'm not going to lie about that, 1:59:09.680 --> 1:59:12.200 but it will be timely and it will be useful, 1:59:12.280 --> 1:59:14.560 I promise. But let me get in here. Get three 1:59:14.640 --> 1:59:16.400 or four questions in the here. First one comes from 1:59:16.680 --> 1:59:19.400 Tiffany and she writes, did Adam Schiff hurt or help 1:59:19.440 --> 1:59:22.120 Mandela Barnes by endorsing him for Wisconsin Governor? I live 1:59:22.120 --> 1:59:24.480 in Wisconsin. I have voted Republican until twenty eighteen. I 1:59:24.480 --> 1:59:26.280 think there are a lot of people like me politically 1:59:26.320 --> 1:59:28.560 in Wisconsin. I don't know that anyone in Wisconsin will 1:59:28.560 --> 1:59:32.280 appreciate endorsement from California. Also, recent history shows that big 1:59:32.360 --> 1:59:34.840 endorsements from the Republican Party fail in Wisconsin. It seems 1:59:34.840 --> 1:59:36.320 a little out of touch for the Democrats to do 1:59:36.320 --> 1:59:39.240 big endorsements like this, thoughts, thank you Tiffany well Tifically, 1:59:39.280 --> 1:59:43.600 There's one simple reason why an Adam why a Mandela 1:59:43.640 --> 1:59:48.440 Barnes would consider an Adam Schiff endorsement meaningful or helpful 1:59:48.480 --> 1:59:50.840 to him, and that is that Adam Schiff has one 1:59:50.880 --> 2:00:00.760 of the most lucrative emailress of fundraising lists in the country. One, 2:00:00.800 --> 2:00:03.560 he's from the largest state, particularly the largest liberal state, 2:00:03.600 --> 2:00:07.680 in California. Two by being the face of impeachment, he 2:00:07.760 --> 2:00:12.320 build a massive donor list, then being attacked by Donald 2:00:12.320 --> 2:00:15.920 Trump constantly has only served to make that donor list 2:00:16.240 --> 2:00:20.480 more active, more viable. So you are right. I don't 2:00:20.520 --> 2:00:23.920 think anybody, any Wisconsin voter is going to be moved 2:00:23.920 --> 2:00:27.440 by the endorsement. And if Mandela Barnes actually puts uses 2:00:27.440 --> 2:00:30.440 Adam Shift's endorsement and paid media, he'd be a fool. 2:00:31.040 --> 2:00:32.680 No offense to Adam Shift. But I don't think any 2:00:32.680 --> 2:00:35.360 make cares. I think you're absolutely right. But if you're 2:00:35.400 --> 2:00:41.320 wondering why why does this endorsement mean something to Mandela 2:00:41.400 --> 2:00:44.160 Barnes to Ching to Ching to Ching to Jing. It 2:00:44.280 --> 2:00:47.640 is access to that email list, That's what it is. 2:00:49.000 --> 2:00:56.440 And Adam Shift probably only only president Presidential nominees probably 2:00:56.480 --> 2:00:59.760 have bigger and more interesting level like Kamala Harris's list 2:01:00.160 --> 2:01:01.840 that she controls was going to be a good one, 2:01:01.840 --> 2:01:06.560 but Adam Shift is probably the single best left leaning 2:01:06.760 --> 2:01:11.160 fundraising list in America. That is not that for somebody 2:01:11.200 --> 2:01:15.320 who never ran for president. He's just all the ingredients 2:01:15.320 --> 2:01:17.720 are there, the impeachment, the attacks from Trump's and being 2:01:17.720 --> 2:01:20.800 from California, you throw all that in there. That was 2:01:20.880 --> 2:01:25.640 why Mandela Barnes wanted that endorsement, and why the endorsement 2:01:25.720 --> 2:01:28.400 matters to him. It is not intended to try to 2:01:28.400 --> 2:01:30.560 persuade you, and in fact, it sounds like that that 2:01:30.600 --> 2:01:33.080 stuff might actually dissuade you. And I think in some 2:01:33.160 --> 2:01:35.640 ways some of these endorse I don't think. I don't 2:01:35.640 --> 2:01:38.400 think endorsements matter unless they bring you something else. And 2:01:38.440 --> 2:01:40.720 in this case, what he's looking for is just access 2:01:40.720 --> 2:01:44.080 to grassroots dollars, and Adam Shift probably has the single 2:01:44.160 --> 2:01:46.440 best fundraising list there is. Alright, let me go to 2:01:46.520 --> 2:01:49.200 next question comes from Max w Hey, Chuck and Chris 2:01:49.320 --> 2:01:52.840 ah Hey, Solissa, you're not answering your mail bag, so 2:01:52.880 --> 2:01:57.480 I'm gonna have to answer your leftovers here. Max w. Rights, 2:01:57.520 --> 2:01:59.400 I posted this as a comment for Chris Silia's mail 2:01:59.440 --> 2:02:01.080 bag already, but I want to suggest again what I 2:02:01.120 --> 2:02:04.000 think is a great wager. Oh on the Aggies versus 2:02:04.040 --> 2:02:07.280 Kane's matchup, loser shaves his head. Why are we doing this? 2:02:07.400 --> 2:02:09.920 No shaving of heads or goatee's or anything like this, 2:02:10.000 --> 2:02:13.080 But okay, let me listen, he goes. It's don monetary 2:02:13.120 --> 2:02:15.400 demonstrates actual commitment to the schools you both support. I've 2:02:15.440 --> 2:02:17.680 made a few loser shaves bets in my day, and 2:02:17.680 --> 2:02:20.160 I'll be honest, I've never felt more invested in a result. 2:02:20.400 --> 2:02:23.320 Maybe Reginald could handle the Clippers well if you know, 2:02:23.360 --> 2:02:25.960 you know, but you'd better get them to him before 2:02:26.080 --> 2:02:29.600 he hits the Johnny Walker blue things. I will I have. 2:02:30.240 --> 2:02:33.160 I'm one time let Tapper, Jake Tapper talk me into 2:02:33.200 --> 2:02:39.920 a This was back Philly's Dodgers Serica twenty thirteen, twenty 2:02:40.040 --> 2:02:43.800 twelve NLCS, maybe twenty fourteen NLCS. I'm just trying to 2:02:43.800 --> 2:02:47.120 remember when the Dodgers were, you know, still hadn't quite 2:02:47.360 --> 2:02:51.800 gotten broken through. They were still still you know, thinking, 2:02:52.400 --> 2:02:54.640 you know, they were still believing Matt Kemp was the 2:02:54.640 --> 2:02:56.960 best player they could sign. Right. They weren't quite the 2:02:57.000 --> 2:03:01.080 Dodgers yet. They hadn't been big the juggernaut that they 2:03:01.080 --> 2:03:04.040 had become. And the Phillies were pretty good juggernaut that 2:03:04.080 --> 2:03:07.320 team that was the sort of the last gasp of 2:03:07.400 --> 2:03:14.000 Ryan Howard in that crowd. And Tapper wanted to create 2:03:14.000 --> 2:03:17.040 some social media fun and he wanted to make it 2:03:17.280 --> 2:03:18.520 he was going to grow and I was going to 2:03:18.560 --> 2:03:21.720 shave one. I never agreed to the bet, but he 2:03:21.960 --> 2:03:26.040 tried to social media bully me about it anyway, So 2:03:26.200 --> 2:03:31.240 no I I lost and made a nice sizeable contribution 2:03:31.760 --> 2:03:37.440 to the charity of his choice. Look now, I will 2:03:37.480 --> 2:03:42.280 say this, I'm probably more comfortable trying to shave my 2:03:42.320 --> 2:03:43.960 head now that I would have been ten years ago, 2:03:44.000 --> 2:03:47.440 because as you could see, it is thinning, and maybe 2:03:47.840 --> 2:03:50.640 you know, my only fear is if I totally do it, 2:03:52.160 --> 2:03:54.920 what happens if it, even this doesn't come back, right 2:03:55.040 --> 2:03:58.680 the fear us middle aged men have about what what 2:03:58.760 --> 2:04:01.480 if it doesn't come back? I was watching a basketball 2:04:01.480 --> 2:04:05.200 game over the weekend. The GWA Revolutionaries were in the 2:04:05.360 --> 2:04:08.080 in the Orange Bowl, this Orange Bowl tournament down in 2:04:08.120 --> 2:04:12.480 Fort Lauderdale. We were playing GW was playing Florida. I 2:04:12.480 --> 2:04:15.920 think they hung held pretty well, they'd hit their free throws. 2:04:15.960 --> 2:04:18.040 They might have won that game. I think it was 2:04:18.360 --> 2:04:21.440 a pretty good test that you know, GW, I think 2:04:21.600 --> 2:04:25.080 is a mid major that may make a strong case 2:04:25.160 --> 2:04:28.640 to get into the NCAA tournament. But the other game 2:04:28.720 --> 2:04:31.760 was UMass versus Florida State. And UMass is coached by 2:04:31.800 --> 2:04:34.280 a Miami native named Frank Martin. He was the guy 2:04:34.280 --> 2:04:36.840 that took South Carolina. Well he's gone full head shave, 2:04:37.760 --> 2:04:40.080 and he looks great. I mean, kudos to him. I 2:04:40.080 --> 2:04:42.320 would not have thought that he would have done the 2:04:42.400 --> 2:04:44.800 c ball thing very well. He does it well. He 2:04:44.840 --> 2:04:47.720 looks good, just as menacing. I'd still be afraid of 2:04:48.680 --> 2:04:52.200 him coaching a team on the other side, but it 2:04:52.240 --> 2:04:54.560 looked like there's nothing that will grow back, you know. 2:04:54.800 --> 2:04:57.280 So that's my fear of playing the head shave game. 2:04:59.200 --> 2:05:03.280 We'll see. I'd say that I think solicit fears he 2:05:03.320 --> 2:05:06.000 can't grow beer. We'll see. I'll ask him about this 2:05:06.360 --> 2:05:08.320 on our next episode. All right. Next question comes from 2:05:08.680 --> 2:05:11.720 Andre from Los Angeles An. He writes, Hey, Chuck, why 2:05:11.760 --> 2:05:13.560 is it that when someone announces a run for office, 2:05:13.600 --> 2:05:15.920 the first focus is always on who their donors are 2:05:15.960 --> 2:05:18.800 and whether these donors will approve It feels like candidates 2:05:18.800 --> 2:05:21.400 are vetted by donors, consultants, and party brass long before 2:05:21.400 --> 2:05:24.000 they ever reached voters, which makes them seem into authentic. 2:05:24.080 --> 2:05:27.120 Voters want real, opinionated leaders who feel genuine, not prepackaged 2:05:27.120 --> 2:05:29.400 for donor approval. Why has the donor class become the 2:05:29.440 --> 2:05:36.240 priority over the general public? Andre la go bruins hashtag UCLA. Well, 2:05:36.280 --> 2:05:39.400 because of how expensive campaigns have become I'm not saying 2:05:39.640 --> 2:05:42.560 that's a good answer, in just telling you it is 2:05:42.640 --> 2:05:48.160 the answer, And there is a perception of viability has 2:05:48.200 --> 2:05:51.000 to do with access to money, whether you have it yourself, 2:05:51.040 --> 2:05:53.120 you have the donor. You know, it's sort of this 2:05:53.200 --> 2:05:57.320 dovetails pretty well with the question about Adam Schiff. Look, 2:05:57.400 --> 2:06:00.200 there's no doubt we have made money in politics. The 2:06:00.200 --> 2:06:02.400 fact that there is no regulation of money in politics, 2:06:02.480 --> 2:06:06.360 right we have essentially have unregulated money in politics. They're okay, 2:06:06.400 --> 2:06:08.040 so you have to follow a couple, You have to 2:06:08.120 --> 2:06:12.240 jump a very small hurdle or two to maybe spend 2:06:12.320 --> 2:06:16.200 money that raised a certain way on these few logistics 2:06:16.200 --> 2:06:19.640 things for a campaign. But then you spend money over 2:06:19.680 --> 2:06:23.120 here there is no we have. This is why I'm 2:06:23.160 --> 2:06:25.520 a huge fan of a constitutional you know, we need 2:06:25.520 --> 2:06:27.760 a constitutional amendment to deal with this. We're going to 2:06:27.840 --> 2:06:31.280 have to. I think there's some common sense campaign finance 2:06:32.520 --> 2:06:37.160 regulations that people could agree on. I think the idea 2:06:37.160 --> 2:06:39.880 of keeping corporations out of politics makes a hell of 2:06:39.880 --> 2:06:43.440 a lot sense. Figuring out how to have complete transparency, 2:06:43.480 --> 2:06:47.800 I mean, anonymous donors dark money are terrible. We basically 2:06:47.840 --> 2:06:51.680 have one or two people that are representing somewhere between 2:06:52.240 --> 2:06:55.520 thirty and thirty percent of all money spent is probably 2:06:55.640 --> 2:06:59.040 among a group of people that's less than ten. That 2:06:59.280 --> 2:07:02.760 is an out of democracy, right, That is a plutocracy 2:07:02.960 --> 2:07:05.640 or an oligarchy, if I to borrow some language that 2:07:05.640 --> 2:07:08.880 are out there. I hate saying oligarchy because it sounds 2:07:08.920 --> 2:07:11.720 like I'm taking a political side, but we have the 2:07:11.800 --> 2:07:14.680 fact of the matter is the richer you are, the 2:07:14.680 --> 2:07:21.840 more access you have to political leaders hard stop. And 2:07:21.880 --> 2:07:25.640 that's a maybe that's never going to change, but we 2:07:25.680 --> 2:07:29.400 could put some more transparency and some more limits on 2:07:29.560 --> 2:07:33.360 how that works. But I'm not saying it should be 2:07:33.400 --> 2:07:36.040 this way. But you're asking why does this happen? Because 2:07:36.160 --> 2:07:38.840 viability goes through money. Now, the good news is the 2:07:38.880 --> 2:07:42.680 Internet has been a bit of a leveler there. Act 2:07:42.760 --> 2:07:45.240 Blue and When Red both have found a way to 2:07:46.520 --> 2:07:51.000 take to allow at least grassroots donors to power candidacies. 2:07:52.840 --> 2:07:56.080 And you can now do that, right Marjorie Taylor Green 2:07:56.200 --> 2:07:59.800 can do it. AOC can do it, and they've figured 2:07:59.800 --> 2:08:02.200 out how to tap into that. So the power of 2:08:02.200 --> 2:08:05.440 the small donor is not totally in fact, in some 2:08:05.480 --> 2:08:09.040 ways small donor because of the collective nature of it 2:08:09.440 --> 2:08:13.200 have become a more powerful as powerful of an entity 2:08:13.240 --> 2:08:16.320 at times that some of these corporate super PACs can be. So. 2:08:17.400 --> 2:08:20.640 But look, we do this in this case, the system 2:08:20.640 --> 2:08:24.120 has broken. We have unregulated amount of money. I'm sort 2:08:24.120 --> 2:08:27.800 of a Nascar person in this respect. Let's go full transparency. 2:08:27.840 --> 2:08:31.640 But you have to actually identify your major donors, if 2:08:31.720 --> 2:08:35.880 you if you made every person have to spell out 2:08:36.040 --> 2:08:39.240 the names of donors who have given them, say more 2:08:39.240 --> 2:08:41.360 than one hundred thousand dollars or more, I promise you 2:08:41.360 --> 2:08:44.800 they'd never take a donation more than nine nine and 2:08:44.840 --> 2:08:49.120 ninety nine dollars, right, whatever threshold we create, you know, 2:08:50.040 --> 2:08:52.320 like I'm all for you want to have unlimited funding 2:08:52.320 --> 2:08:54.680 in your elections, fine, but anybody that gives you more 2:08:54.680 --> 2:08:58.080 than ninety nine hundred dollars, you have to name them 2:08:58.120 --> 2:09:00.880 in every single app and you've got to where their 2:09:01.000 --> 2:09:05.280 logos on your paraphernalia, if you will. Right, That's what 2:09:05.320 --> 2:09:10.240 I mean by the nascarization of it. I think that 2:09:10.360 --> 2:09:15.760 if as long as people know who's behind things, then 2:09:15.800 --> 2:09:18.360 at least you're giving the voters a fighting chance to 2:09:18.440 --> 2:09:23.080 make their decision. All right, I'm mistaking one more question here, 2:09:23.160 --> 2:09:25.760 So I can say that at least knock out four today. 2:09:25.800 --> 2:09:29.800 This one comes from Sean McElroy Byfield, Massachusetts, and he writes, Hey, Chuck, 2:09:30.040 --> 2:09:32.360 why is it that corporations going to absorb tariff costs 2:09:32.400 --> 2:09:35.240 for months but push back immediately when asked to raise wages? 2:09:35.560 --> 2:09:38.200 After COVID, we saw quick inflation tied to wage increases, 2:09:38.200 --> 2:09:41.160 but terif related price hikes seem delayed. I've read that 2:09:41.200 --> 2:09:43.760 Costco expects TARI free funds, that is, offering credit now 2:09:43.760 --> 2:09:47.560 to investors to soften consumer impacts while boosting future profits. Curiously, 2:09:47.560 --> 2:09:49.200 if you've heard more about that, any thoughts on the 2:09:49.240 --> 2:09:53.560 disconnect between political focus and stagnant worker incomes. Well, look, 2:09:53.600 --> 2:09:55.360 I think on the tariff, the reason some of this 2:09:55.520 --> 2:09:59.400 is you had a lot of companies stockpile right. You know, 2:10:01.000 --> 2:10:02.720 Trump made it clear what he was going to do 2:10:03.640 --> 2:10:06.280 with this tariff, So you did have plenty of company 2:10:06.360 --> 2:10:11.600 stockpile inventory where you could. Right you couldn't do it 2:10:11.640 --> 2:10:15.000 in food, in fresh food and produce and things like that, 2:10:15.360 --> 2:10:19.160 but you could stock up on certain goods in your 2:10:19.280 --> 2:10:22.160 and essentially warehouse them. And a place like Costco is 2:10:22.960 --> 2:10:25.920 something that has the has the ability to do that 2:10:26.840 --> 2:10:30.839 and so I think that's why they could quote unquote 2:10:30.920 --> 2:10:33.920 absorb some of it early because they had still had 2:10:33.960 --> 2:10:35.920 a majority of their inventory out there that they had 2:10:35.960 --> 2:10:39.680 purchased without having to pay, without having to deal with 2:10:39.720 --> 2:10:44.520 extra tariffs. But look, you're you know, why do corporations 2:10:44.520 --> 2:10:47.080 constantly look for ways to show that they're saving money? Right? 2:10:47.120 --> 2:10:49.120 That might be another way that you asked that question, right, 2:10:49.120 --> 2:10:53.160 They constantly It's why why are companies not hiring at 2:10:53.160 --> 2:10:55.720 the moment? They all want to see how many jobs 2:10:55.760 --> 2:10:58.360 can they replace with AI. They're not going to they 2:10:58.360 --> 2:11:00.960 know they can't replace all jobs with A, but they 2:11:01.040 --> 2:11:03.280 want to know which ones they can, and before they 2:11:03.320 --> 2:11:05.920 replace anybody, they want to try to see if they 2:11:05.960 --> 2:11:10.720 can replace them of AI corp. A publicly traded companies 2:11:11.120 --> 2:11:13.760 simply have a fudiciary responsibility for their shareholders, and their 2:11:13.760 --> 2:11:18.520 shareholders only reward cost efficiencies. That is, that is not 2:11:18.640 --> 2:11:21.520 good for rising you know, for the hopes of rising wages, 2:11:21.560 --> 2:11:28.280 and it is certainly makes stockpiling expensive inventory difficult as 2:11:28.320 --> 2:11:30.280 well if you're going to load them up with tariff. 2:11:30.360 --> 2:11:34.360 So you know, this is why what Trump has done 2:11:34.360 --> 2:11:37.080 to this economy, that the rise of tariff costs also 2:11:37.240 --> 2:11:44.360 in it inadvertently end up costing working class people a 2:11:44.440 --> 2:11:47.720 chance at a raise. Right, If goods were cheaper, more 2:11:47.720 --> 2:11:49.960 people might buy them, and you might need more people 2:11:50.000 --> 2:11:53.560 to actually delve out that inventory. So you know, this 2:11:53.720 --> 2:11:56.680 is why this tariff policy of the presidents is so 2:11:57.360 --> 2:12:00.480 bad for the economy. It just simply shrinks our GDP 2:12:01.120 --> 2:12:04.320 shrinks in a way that that will just hurt everything. 2:12:06.400 --> 2:12:10.600 Fewer people buy items, which means you'll have fewer employees, 2:12:10.760 --> 2:12:13.560 fewer wage, fewer people gaining a wage as it is, 2:12:13.600 --> 2:12:18.240 and fewer people getting higher wages. Bottom line is, tariffs 2:12:18.360 --> 2:12:21.800 are bad for everybody. There is no good that comes 2:12:21.840 --> 2:12:25.920 from these tariffs. Hard stop. I don't know how many 2:12:26.280 --> 2:12:38.720 thousands of different ways we can put that before we 2:12:38.760 --> 2:12:43.640 go a little A few things in college football, and 2:12:43.640 --> 2:12:45.240 and look, I don't want to. I got a few 2:12:45.440 --> 2:12:50.120 emails about the mess in Michigan. And what's uncomfortable about 2:12:50.160 --> 2:12:53.760 the mess in Michigan is Sharon Moore and some in 2:12:53.840 --> 2:12:57.920 what happened there is is this uncomfortable truth there seem 2:12:58.040 --> 2:13:01.720 to be you know, in the world of college sports 2:13:01.800 --> 2:13:06.360 right now, if you win, your behavior will get They'll 2:13:06.400 --> 2:13:09.160 find a way to bury your behavior, overlook it, or 2:13:09.320 --> 2:13:11.680 just suspend you a game or two, slap you on 2:13:11.720 --> 2:13:13.720 the wrist. But as long as you produce a national title, 2:13:13.800 --> 2:13:17.640 Jim Harbaugh, nothing is going to go wrong. But when 2:13:17.640 --> 2:13:21.360 things don't go well, then and and and maybe your 2:13:21.400 --> 2:13:25.640 offense isn't going well, then suddenly people have decided that 2:13:25.720 --> 2:13:29.200 your morals or ethics are a problem. And we don't 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:31.240 know the full story in Michigan, but let's just say 2:13:31.280 --> 2:13:34.240 I haven't I know enough people in the sports industry world, 2:13:34.400 --> 2:13:38.360 in the world of agents. This is not rank speculation. 2:13:40.160 --> 2:13:42.880 You know, there was a there was a concerted effort 2:13:42.920 --> 2:13:46.280 that that more had to go, but they needed a reason, 2:13:46.280 --> 2:13:48.040 in a rationale, and they didn't want to spend on 2:13:48.080 --> 2:13:51.720 the buyout. Now that doesn't excuse his behavior, and he 2:13:52.040 --> 2:13:54.160 and I you know, for the life of me, you know, 2:13:54.360 --> 2:13:57.640 to me, if you're if you're going to sleep with 2:13:57.720 --> 2:14:02.000 an employee at a public institution, you're consequences any institution, 2:14:02.200 --> 2:14:04.120 and you know, you get caught, you're going to live 2:14:04.120 --> 2:14:06.720 with the consequences. And this has been a very expensive 2:14:06.720 --> 2:14:11.440 consequence for him on that front. But we need to 2:14:11.520 --> 2:14:16.240 learn a lot more about when was this first known, how, 2:14:16.280 --> 2:14:19.080 what would this and when when did this investigation happen? 2:14:19.560 --> 2:14:23.160 Why was it cleared once? Right? Sounds like there was 2:14:23.240 --> 2:14:26.160 no they had no cooperating evidence, and then suddenly they did. 2:14:26.760 --> 2:14:29.720 Why did this person suddenly provide evidence to the school 2:14:29.720 --> 2:14:31.839 when they did? And why didn't they do it before? 2:14:32.200 --> 2:14:36.080 How is it that it conveniently happened after signing day? Anyway, 2:14:36.120 --> 2:14:39.240 the point is is that the corruption of college sports, right, 2:14:39.320 --> 2:14:42.440 we know, it's there's a there's a It is a mess. 2:14:42.840 --> 2:14:45.880 It is ugly, it is scandalous, and even an elite 2:14:45.920 --> 2:14:48.480 institution like the University of Michigan is not immune from this. 2:14:49.440 --> 2:14:52.000 But the problem is, we have no entity who's going 2:14:52.000 --> 2:14:54.520 to investigate the University of Michigan. Do the NC DOUBA 2:14:54.560 --> 2:14:57.480 have any credibility to do this? Will they even listen 2:14:57.560 --> 2:15:00.240 to the NC double A? Right? When when Michigan was 2:15:01.200 --> 2:15:04.320 sign stealing, you know they yeah, okay, they suspended somebody, 2:15:04.400 --> 2:15:07.040 they find somebody. But last I checked, the University of 2:15:07.040 --> 2:15:11.720 Michigan won a national title miraculously after they've suddenly figured 2:15:11.760 --> 2:15:15.000 out sign stealing seemed to improve. You know, Jim Harbaugh 2:15:15.080 --> 2:15:17.120 was having a hard time winning nine or ten games. 2:15:17.240 --> 2:15:19.720 Then suddenly they started sign stealing and everything got better. 2:15:21.440 --> 2:15:25.520 So it's a I'm singling out Michigan here because I 2:15:25.520 --> 2:15:28.040 think Michigan is you know, this is sort of like, boy, 2:15:28.280 --> 2:15:30.840 how many how much rotten fish is in this program 2:15:31.400 --> 2:15:33.520 on these different things. But it's really this is not 2:15:33.560 --> 2:15:36.600 about Michigan. This is about the entire sport, right, you know, 2:15:36.680 --> 2:15:39.360 I love it. I love college football. You guys know this. 2:15:40.640 --> 2:15:43.520 I ache for all this paid me. Look, University of Miami, 2:15:43.560 --> 2:15:46.200 We've been through this. We've had our own bad apples 2:15:47.600 --> 2:15:50.400 do some things in the past, don't get me wrong, 2:15:50.560 --> 2:15:52.240 So I'm not gonna you know, this is not a 2:15:52.320 --> 2:15:55.400 case we all the entire world of college football lives 2:15:55.640 --> 2:15:58.600 in not just a glasshouse. I would call it water 2:15:58.640 --> 2:16:02.520 for crystal houses, if you will, right, And there's our 2:16:02.560 --> 2:16:07.520 broken windows everywhere. But you know, ultimately the problem is 2:16:07.600 --> 2:16:11.080 the conferences have too much power, and we need you 2:16:11.160 --> 2:16:15.560 need a singular commissioner of college football, a singular commissioner 2:16:15.600 --> 2:16:21.120 of college basketball, a singular commissioner of sort of the 2:16:21.200 --> 2:16:24.120 for profits sports. Right. We probably have to separate it 2:16:24.160 --> 2:16:28.160 out a little bit, if you will. But this the 2:16:28.240 --> 2:16:34.080 amount of influence that agents and boosters now have over 2:16:34.120 --> 2:16:38.640 and above academic leaders or institutional leaders, athletic directors, you 2:16:38.720 --> 2:16:41.520 name it. You know the athletic directors are not in 2:16:41.600 --> 2:16:44.840 charge in most of these places. It's the person that 2:16:44.959 --> 2:16:48.840 runs the outside nil and raises the hundreds of the 2:16:49.440 --> 2:16:52.320 tens of millions of dollars. At these major college institutions 2:16:52.360 --> 2:16:58.200 need to make payroll. They're in charge. The football coaches 2:16:58.240 --> 2:17:01.960 do not work for the university residence. The football coaches 2:17:02.040 --> 2:17:06.000 work for the entity that has promised to give the 2:17:06.000 --> 2:17:10.000 most money. I saw that. I saw that at my 2:17:10.040 --> 2:17:13.200 beloved institution, right some major donors were willing to give 2:17:13.280 --> 2:17:15.920 more money if a certain person was hired as coach. 2:17:17.440 --> 2:17:22.880 That's been true of a lot of institutions. So it 2:17:22.959 --> 2:17:28.760 is the system is broken. It is messed up. Perhaps 2:17:28.840 --> 2:17:31.560 you write rules that maybe allow for this in some form, 2:17:31.640 --> 2:17:34.800 but you've got to have an accepted, shared set of rules, 2:17:34.800 --> 2:17:38.040 and right now we really don't have any. It is 2:17:39.920 --> 2:17:43.480 only media reports that at best create the opportunity for 2:17:43.520 --> 2:17:48.560 shame to kick in. But this is you know, there's 2:17:48.600 --> 2:17:52.360 the specifics themselves of what happened at Michigan, and then 2:17:52.440 --> 2:17:57.080 there's the So there really needs to be an investigation 2:17:57.160 --> 2:17:59.959 of how the initial investigation happened and how new evidence 2:18:00.080 --> 2:18:03.040 popped up. That's all I'm going to say here. Okay, 2:18:03.240 --> 2:18:08.520 I I am, I've got I've got plenty of interesting 2:18:10.080 --> 2:18:12.480 sources that have that have told me some interesting things 2:18:12.520 --> 2:18:15.039 about this situation. But the reason it needs to be 2:18:15.120 --> 2:18:18.360 rooted out because it's this is again, Michigan is just 2:18:19.680 --> 2:18:26.400 an example of what is a larger, more broken and 2:18:24.560 --> 2:18:28.120 uh and I don't think any of us would be 2:18:28.160 --> 2:18:32.560 comfortable finding out what our favorite schools were doing. I 2:18:32.560 --> 2:18:35.480 think there would be I imagine there's not a major 2:18:35.520 --> 2:18:38.880 college football program in America that does things that would 2:18:38.879 --> 2:18:43.800 make every single alum prout, every single fan proud. And 2:18:44.200 --> 2:18:48.160 it is I hate. I hate having to defend the 2:18:48.240 --> 2:18:50.920 system at times as a fan because I still love it. 2:18:50.920 --> 2:18:55.240 It's still I think college football because of the unpredictability 2:18:55.280 --> 2:18:58.280 of what kids. There's still kids, they're still growing up, 2:18:58.320 --> 2:19:01.800 they're still learning. There's that unpredictability. There's the passion of 2:19:01.840 --> 2:19:05.680 fan bases, which other than the Steelers and the Packers, 2:19:05.879 --> 2:19:09.280 there's really no you know, maybe Eagles and Cowboys too, 2:19:09.600 --> 2:19:12.600 but there's really the pro fan bases are not like 2:19:12.640 --> 2:19:16.960 college fan bases. They're just different hanging out with drunk 2:19:16.959 --> 2:19:19.320 twenty year olds is better to watch than hanging out 2:19:19.360 --> 2:19:21.720 with drunk fifty year olds too, right, if you're at 2:19:21.800 --> 2:19:28.120 an NFL game versus a college game. But ultimately, we're 2:19:28.120 --> 2:19:29.760 going to have to have Congress step in. They're going 2:19:29.840 --> 2:19:32.560 to have to give an antitrust exemption in some form 2:19:32.600 --> 2:19:35.120 because they're going to have to create We can't have 2:19:35.160 --> 2:19:38.400 small d democratic tools attempting to govern college sports. You're 2:19:38.440 --> 2:19:43.320 going to need a commissioner AKA some sort of almost 2:19:43.760 --> 2:19:48.440 authoritarian type of situation, chairman of the board, board of 2:19:48.480 --> 2:19:52.040 directors CEO, that sort of thing, with some accountability because 2:19:52.080 --> 2:19:55.400 this is embarrassing the sport all the time, and there's 2:19:55.440 --> 2:19:57.240 too much money at stake, and we have that much 2:19:57.240 --> 2:19:58.920 money at stake, you're gonna have lawsuit, You're gonna have 2:19:58.920 --> 2:20:01.120 people being live and all of that stuff. So you 2:20:01.240 --> 2:20:04.119 kind of need a structure and some sort of rule 2:20:04.160 --> 2:20:08.360 of law to govern college sports. That is fair, all right. 2:20:08.480 --> 2:20:10.800 I will stop with my rant there, but I felt like, 2:20:11.000 --> 2:20:13.040 as much as I want to celebrate, and I've got 2:20:13.080 --> 2:20:17.080 a lot I'm going to celebrate on the later this week, 2:20:17.120 --> 2:20:20.200 I will share with you my favorite pathways for Miami 2:20:20.480 --> 2:20:25.000 and the different storylines on different potential matchups that they 2:20:25.000 --> 2:20:28.119 can have in the college football playoff. Let's just say, boy, 2:20:28.160 --> 2:20:31.640 for Miami's own reputational sake, they better win one. They 2:20:31.720 --> 2:20:38.240 better win one, and we'll go from there. All right, 2:20:38.920 --> 2:20:41.600 I've gone on a bit now. This is a pretty 2:20:41.680 --> 2:20:44.760 thick Monday episode. We did some dark, some light, and 2:20:44.840 --> 2:20:48.080 everything in between. I really appreciate you listening. Our growth 2:20:48.120 --> 2:20:52.000 has been amazing. I know part of the why independent 2:20:52.040 --> 2:20:55.440 media is growing because you've lost so much trust in 2:20:55.879 --> 2:21:00.720 what's happened with the intimidated corporate owned media, which is sad. 2:21:01.720 --> 2:21:02.960 I have a lot of good friends over there who 2:21:03.000 --> 2:21:05.840 are fighting a good fight, but the institutions are just 2:21:05.920 --> 2:21:08.880 trying to trying to prevent them from doing the work 2:21:08.920 --> 2:21:11.600 that they want to do, which is a huge disappointment. 2:21:11.600 --> 2:21:15.440 But guess what, there are always alternatives, including right here. 2:21:15.520 --> 2:21:17.520 So thank you for listening. I appreciate it, and I'll 2:21:17.520 --> 2:21:18.520 see in forty eight hours.