WEBVTT - Critchley on New Book

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<v Speaker 1>This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer from Bloomberg Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Our next guest is an award winning journalistic communications consultant

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<v Speaker 1>who has worked for both A Barack Obama's presidential campaigns.

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<v Speaker 1>He's a guest speaker at Stanford n YU. He's also

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<v Speaker 1>a digital media producer who has worked with the likes

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<v Speaker 1>of David Bowie, Moby Santana, Britney Spears, and a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of others. Spencer Critchley is managing partner at the marketing

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<v Speaker 1>agency Boots Road Group. He's got to do book out.

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<v Speaker 1>It's entitled Patriots of Two Nations, Why Trump Was Inevitable

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<v Speaker 1>and What Happens next. Spencer joins us on the phone

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<v Speaker 1>in Monterey, California on this election day. Spencer, nice to

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<v Speaker 1>have you here with us. Oh, it's great to be

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<v Speaker 1>with you. Thank you. So I want to be smart

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<v Speaker 1>here without getting to political and pointing figures, because I

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<v Speaker 1>feel like there's enough divisiveness and anger within our country

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<v Speaker 1>right now. Um, and I don't want to point fingers

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<v Speaker 1>at a candidate or another. But your book, what I

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<v Speaker 1>like about it is you look at history and I

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<v Speaker 1>read something that you wrote, UM about it, about you

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<v Speaker 1>understood kind of what happens and what's kind of happening

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<v Speaker 1>in our nation right now, that this has been coming

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<v Speaker 1>since the founding. America is two nations occupying the same

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<v Speaker 1>land but seeing everything very differently, even including truth itself.

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<v Speaker 1>Talk to us about that. I feel like that's a

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<v Speaker 1>great topic and we could probably discuss it for hours. Yes,

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<v Speaker 1>I know, I certainly could go on for hours. It's

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<v Speaker 1>an occupational but yeah, like like many people, I was

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<v Speaker 1>stunned when Donald Trump won. I was helping out with

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<v Speaker 1>the Hillary Clinton campaign that year, and I've been thinking

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<v Speaker 1>about it ever since, and I started researching it and

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<v Speaker 1>it did take me all the way back to the

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<v Speaker 1>founding of the country. And I agree with you. I

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<v Speaker 1>think we make a mistake if we blame, say Donald Trump,

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<v Speaker 1>for example, for the division that we see in the

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<v Speaker 1>country right now. Um, I think he's a manifestation of

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<v Speaker 1>a division that goes back to the founding. And ultimately,

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<v Speaker 1>what I found was, while our founding uh fathers created

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<v Speaker 1>the United States as the first civic nation based on

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<v Speaker 1>Enlightenment reason, meaning you're not an American because of your

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<v Speaker 1>ethnic identities, it's because you agree to support the Constitution

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<v Speaker 1>and the laws of the United States, which is a free,

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<v Speaker 1>rational choice, and that was the first country in history

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<v Speaker 1>to be like that. There was a counter Enlightenment resistance

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<v Speaker 1>to that idea, and it wasn't just people being reactionary.

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<v Speaker 1>There were people who said, yes, reason is important, but

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<v Speaker 1>reason isn't enough. We also need to have faith and

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<v Speaker 1>tradition and culture. For some of them it was race

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<v Speaker 1>and art. And those people resisted the idea of a

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<v Speaker 1>rationally dominated world, and we see that down to the

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<v Speaker 1>present day. A lot of the loyalty to President Trump

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<v Speaker 1>is really a counter Enlightenment phenomenon. I would argue it's

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<v Speaker 1>people who like him because of the patriotism and the

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<v Speaker 1>preservation of traditional values and even loyalty to what they

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<v Speaker 1>see as a strong leader. Well, it's interesting too that

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<v Speaker 1>you kind of get into and again, like, I don't

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<v Speaker 1>want to get political or point fingers or anybody, but

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<v Speaker 1>our world we were going to have candidates like a

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<v Speaker 1>Donald Trump. And I'm assuming you mean it could be

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<v Speaker 1>on either side of the aisle, the political aisle. Yes,

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<v Speaker 1>it's it's more likely on the right because conservatism tends

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<v Speaker 1>to be more of a counter Enlightenment tradition. Although you

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<v Speaker 1>have to be careful about over generalizing that way. And

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<v Speaker 1>in fact, everybody UH tends to thinking both the Enlightenment

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<v Speaker 1>and counter Enlightenment mode. Basically everybody who liked art, music, tradition,

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<v Speaker 1>culture is thinking in a counter Enlightenment mode. But going

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<v Speaker 1>back to say Edmund Burke, one of the founders of

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<v Speaker 1>modern conservatism, he was a counter Enlightenment figure who was

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<v Speaker 1>horrified by the French Revolution, which he saw as an

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<v Speaker 1>example of Enlightenment rationalism gone insane. And I think he

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<v Speaker 1>was right about that. There is a risk so we

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<v Speaker 1>could see this on the left. We have seen less

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<v Speaker 1>wing demagogues. It can show up either way. And and

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<v Speaker 1>the left, as I point out in the book, has

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<v Speaker 1>its own kind of counter Enlightenment tendencies, although it tends

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<v Speaker 1>to lean more it's it's dominated more by Enlightenment rationalism.

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<v Speaker 1>There are sort of mystical counter Enlightenment features on the

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<v Speaker 1>left as well, including with Karl Marx, who in some

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<v Speaker 1>ways was kind of a mystical thinker. Well, you know

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<v Speaker 1>what's interesting too, And we had an earlier conversation on

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<v Speaker 1>our broadcast UM talking about the digitization and use of

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<v Speaker 1>digital and technologies within cities, and that basically the idea

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<v Speaker 1>that technology and its own doesn't necessarily have the power

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<v Speaker 1>of the efficacy unless you have a strong leader behind

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<v Speaker 1>it to figure out how to use it right and

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<v Speaker 1>and help it so that it creates a better society

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<v Speaker 1>and more equal society. And the same thing with kind

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<v Speaker 1>of what you're talking about is that it feels like

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<v Speaker 1>we have on both parties. Really you know, a group

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<v Speaker 1>of citizens that are looking for strong leadership. That's true.

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<v Speaker 1>And although the faith in an individual tends to be

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<v Speaker 1>more of a conservative counter Enlightenment tendency. But I'll tell

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<v Speaker 1>you one thing that you hit on there is one

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<v Speaker 1>of the risks with people on eyeside of this divide,

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<v Speaker 1>the liberal side is the rise of technocracy and and

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<v Speaker 1>too much faith in technocratic solutions, whether it's actually technology

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<v Speaker 1>or bureaucracy, or faith in processes as opposed to preserving

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<v Speaker 1>a sense of humanity at the core of it. And

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<v Speaker 1>this is this kind of gets to the heart of

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<v Speaker 1>the counter Enlightenment objection to hyper rationality. On the Enlightenment side, Um,

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<v Speaker 1>if you think about uh Nazi Germany would be one

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<v Speaker 1>of the worst cases of the counter Enlightenment god mad

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<v Speaker 1>because that was sort of an extreme malignant form of

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<v Speaker 1>romanticism with an extreme degree of faith in a charismatic leader.

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<v Speaker 1>Opposing that you get equally horrible results with the Soviet Union,

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<v Speaker 1>which is the Enlightenment god mad, just as the French

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<v Speaker 1>Revolution was, where it's way too much faith in systems

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<v Speaker 1>and the science taken to the extreme. And as I

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<v Speaker 1>end up arguing in the book, you know, you you

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<v Speaker 1>should not really choose one or the other. It's in

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<v Speaker 1>order to really function well in the world, have a

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<v Speaker 1>full life, and maintain a civilization. Frankly, you need to

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<v Speaker 1>integrate both modes of thought. The trouble is, we've seen

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<v Speaker 1>a widening gap between them in recent years, and uh,

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<v Speaker 1>some folks operating in bad faith, I would argue, are

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<v Speaker 1>exploiting that gap for their own advantage. Well, I feel

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<v Speaker 1>like gaps in general, right, you know, as a result

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<v Speaker 1>of COVID nineteen, as a result of what happened to Minneapolis,

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<v Speaker 1>and then subsequent you know, cases of racism that we've seen,

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<v Speaker 1>you know, and maybe because it's all in front of

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<v Speaker 1>us big time, because we've all been home and we've

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<v Speaker 1>had the time to kind of see it front and center.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, there are a lot of gaps within our

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<v Speaker 1>society and whether you know, whatever you want to call it.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, you you talk about this great divide in general,

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<v Speaker 1>and then we also say, you know, until we kind

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<v Speaker 1>of figure this out and we connect it, we've kind

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<v Speaker 1>of not finished creating the United States. I think is

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<v Speaker 1>a big idea, but I think an important one to

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<v Speaker 1>think about, and just unfortunately a big idea only has

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<v Speaker 1>a minute laughter or so. Well. I appreciate, I mean,

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<v Speaker 1>I really appreciate the attention you've given it, and you

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<v Speaker 1>appreciate that you've read the book and really thought about

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<v Speaker 1>what it means, and I think you know you've got

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<v Speaker 1>it right. Um. There's it's hard to see this from

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<v Speaker 1>either side of the divide, and it really required integrating

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<v Speaker 1>both world views to fully understand it. And the less

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<v Speaker 1>sometimes people tend to see everything in terms of economics, um,

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<v Speaker 1>and on the right, sometimes they see everything in terms

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<v Speaker 1>of culture and identity. Uh. And you see crossovers even there.

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<v Speaker 1>But you really have to see the big picture to

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<v Speaker 1>understand it's not one thing that caused this division. It's complicated,

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<v Speaker 1>it's smart, um, and it's a I just love the

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<v Speaker 1>provocative idea. Spencer, Thank you so much. His book, Spencer

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<v Speaker 1>critically Patriots of Two Nations, Why Trump was inevitable and

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<v Speaker 1>what happens next.