WEBVTT - The Returns: A Conversation with Jill Lepore 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:23.035 Pushkin. I feel like we got to start with the 0:00:23.675 --> 0:00:26.995 Archive intro. Do you want to do it? 0:00:27.075 --> 0:00:32.955 What do you imagine? Imagine a place in our world 0:00:33.275 --> 0:00:37.635 where the known things go a quarridor of time bookshelves 0:00:38.235 --> 0:00:44.795 lined with old ballots, political campaign posters, and television ads. 0:00:45.595 --> 0:00:50.115 Step over a threshold to the Electoral College as if 0:00:50.115 --> 0:00:55.435 it were an actual place, a university of knowledge about 0:00:55.475 --> 0:00:57.955 the past of American politics, at. 0:00:57.795 --> 0:01:04.635 Place many people hate. Not actually surprisingly, application numbers are 0:01:04.675 --> 0:01:09.995 dropping this year. It's a very staid old college. 0:01:10.915 --> 0:01:14.835 It used to be held in such high esteem electoral call. Yeah, 0:01:14.875 --> 0:01:17.275 and now it's ratings have fallen. 0:01:17.515 --> 0:01:21.915 Yeah. Well, we're here to talk about the twenty twenty 0:01:21.915 --> 0:01:24.355 four election in the context of history, but also in 0:01:24.395 --> 0:01:26.955 the context of these three Last Archive episodes we've brought 0:01:26.995 --> 0:01:30.915 back from the archives. But I thought maybe to start, 0:01:31.115 --> 0:01:33.995 we could talk about how the Last Archive was kind 0:01:34.035 --> 0:01:36.795 of born out of an election. It kind of came 0:01:36.875 --> 0:01:40.835 from the twenty sixteen election and the panic over fake news, 0:01:40.915 --> 0:01:45.315 alternative facts, the kind of Trump era epistemological crisis. And 0:01:46.075 --> 0:01:50.435 I guess now that we're eight years past that moment, 0:01:51.435 --> 0:01:53.675 those concerns you had when you started the show, like 0:01:53.675 --> 0:01:55.835 what do you think about them now? Like, how do 0:01:55.875 --> 0:01:57.595 they fit into this election cycle? 0:01:58.275 --> 0:02:01.555 H Yeah, So when we came up with the idea 0:02:01.635 --> 0:02:05.315 you and I for the last archive, it drew a 0:02:05.355 --> 0:02:07.755 lot from a course that I'd been teaching at the 0:02:07.755 --> 0:02:10.955 Harvard Law School on the history of evidence that looked 0:02:10.955 --> 0:02:18.235 at changing ideas and standards of proof in history, the law, science, 0:02:18.235 --> 0:02:21.075 and journalism since the Middle Ages, of the kind of 0:02:21.115 --> 0:02:24.115 invention of trial by jury and the what historians call 0:02:24.155 --> 0:02:28.875 the cult of the fact, And that course maybe itself 0:02:28.995 --> 0:02:32.355 kind of came out of the the sort of two 0:02:32.435 --> 0:02:38.835 thousand and five Stephen Colbert coining of truthiness and the 0:02:38.995 --> 0:02:41.395 kind of panic in the first decade of the twenty 0:02:41.435 --> 0:02:48.555 first century and the aftermath of the non existent weapons 0:02:48.595 --> 0:02:53.235 of mass destruction, and the idea that was pursued that 0:02:53.315 --> 0:02:58.635 somehow truth had died if the Second Push administration was 0:02:58.915 --> 0:03:03.275 willing to present to the American people essentially fabricated evidence 0:03:03.475 --> 0:03:06.955 to call for a war. But like any historian watching that, 0:03:07.435 --> 0:03:10.595 did you not read the Pentagon papers? What part of 0:03:10.635 --> 0:03:14.755 how the Vietnam War was also a war that depended 0:03:14.795 --> 0:03:20.395 on wholesale misrepresentation of conditions in the other on other 0:03:20.435 --> 0:03:23.435 parts of the world to the American people. So the 0:03:23.515 --> 0:03:27.915 class was an attempt to kind of historicize a panic, 0:03:28.515 --> 0:03:30.435 and then the podcast was. 0:03:30.435 --> 0:03:33.875 Like, wait, the panic is even greater, and it's not. 0:03:33.795 --> 0:03:35.915 Like it's a misplaced panic, right, Like there are all 0:03:35.955 --> 0:03:40.475 kinds of reasons to think about the kind of crisis 0:03:40.515 --> 0:03:43.835 of truth. The last archive was kind of an attempt 0:03:43.955 --> 0:03:46.755 to say, well, here's a way to calm down. Not 0:03:46.835 --> 0:03:49.515 that it's comforting, but like, let's try to historicize this 0:03:49.675 --> 0:03:51.835 and have fun thinking about the history of some of 0:03:51.875 --> 0:03:53.995 these ideas over the course of a century, at least, 0:03:54.035 --> 0:03:57.395 not looking back five centuries or six centuries, but just 0:03:57.435 --> 0:04:00.995 looking in the last one hundred years of American life. 0:04:01.395 --> 0:04:04.035 What has been the kind of trajectory of our shared 0:04:04.075 --> 0:04:10.355 ideas about evidence and proof and truth. And I remember, 0:04:10.395 --> 0:04:12.915 like our big commitment was we didn't want to go 0:04:12.955 --> 0:04:15.315 after the usual suspects, Like we didn't want to have 0:04:15.915 --> 0:04:20.715 a podcast that attempted to prosecute Mark Zuckerberg or Trump 0:04:20.915 --> 0:04:27.115 ultimately prosecute. Yeah, I'd much rather prosecute Mark zucker work. Yeah, 0:04:27.155 --> 0:04:30.195 what was the third big postmodernism? 0:04:30.435 --> 0:04:31.195 I've also got to. 0:04:31.155 --> 0:04:33.355 Mention y yeah, yeah, yeah, So we didn't do the 0:04:33.395 --> 0:04:35.675 best job steering clear of our easy. 0:04:35.675 --> 0:04:38.595 Villains, but still, I mean, they are kind of mentioned 0:04:38.595 --> 0:04:40.195 on the side, but I do think it amounts to 0:04:40.235 --> 0:04:42.275 a more textra portrait of the thing. 0:04:42.955 --> 0:04:44.355 Yeah, I hope so. Well. 0:04:44.435 --> 0:04:46.275 One thing I was thinking about when I was listening 0:04:46.315 --> 0:04:50.555 back to Project X, it's like all about polling and forecasting, 0:04:50.995 --> 0:04:53.235 and I feel like if the Trump era is kind 0:04:53.235 --> 0:04:56.515 of like the mainstreaming of the panic about truthiness and 0:04:56.555 --> 0:05:00.875 the epistemological crisis. One of the first experiences of that 0:05:01.035 --> 0:05:03.155 for people, I think, was like, how could the polls 0:05:03.195 --> 0:05:06.195 be so wrong? That was like the same moment as Brexit. 0:05:06.515 --> 0:05:09.115 It's like, oh, we miscalled Brexit. You really miscalled the 0:05:09.115 --> 0:05:11.875 twenty sixteen election and the like. There was you know, 0:05:11.915 --> 0:05:14.355 that Princeton professor who was so certain that it would 0:05:14.355 --> 0:05:16.035 be a Clinton victory that he was like, I'll eat 0:05:16.075 --> 0:05:18.155 an insect on television and then you'll eat a cricket 0:05:18.195 --> 0:05:21.435 on CNM. It was like that everybody was eating crickets. 0:05:21.515 --> 0:05:25.035 Basically post twenty sixteen, a panic I now feel has 0:05:25.035 --> 0:05:27.595 sort of vanished, Like you still hear this kind of 0:05:27.595 --> 0:05:30.315 like oh well, like maybe Trump vhoters just don't answer polls. 0:05:30.435 --> 0:05:32.115 But when we don't really know. We might be still 0:05:32.155 --> 0:05:36.715 under representing his support. But Project X feels like a 0:05:36.795 --> 0:05:39.635 kind of early history of some of that. We can 0:05:39.675 --> 0:05:42.155 predict the future with these new machines. We don't even 0:05:42.155 --> 0:05:45.035 really need to run the election anymore. And I was 0:05:45.075 --> 0:05:49.035 wondering if you could contextualize our poll crisis if it 0:05:49.115 --> 0:05:52.195 still exists in that historical context, like what is the 0:05:52.235 --> 0:05:53.795 promise of polling originally? 0:05:53.955 --> 0:05:58.635 Yeah, I remember that in the twenty fifteen primary season. 0:05:59.115 --> 0:06:01.875 For the twenty sixteen election, I did a lot of 0:06:01.915 --> 0:06:04.155 reporting for The New Yorker, which I don't, you know, 0:06:04.515 --> 0:06:08.635 often just do researched pieces from archives. And I had said, 0:06:08.635 --> 0:06:09.755 you know, I really want to kind of go out 0:06:09.835 --> 0:06:13.035 and repreests. So I went to, you know, rallies in 0:06:13.075 --> 0:06:15.435 New Hampshire during the New Hampshire primary, and I ended 0:06:15.515 --> 0:06:17.915 up going to both conventions. And one of the things 0:06:17.955 --> 0:06:19.595 I did is I went to one of the debates 0:06:20.235 --> 0:06:23.995 and I remember there going into I think it was 0:06:24.035 --> 0:06:26.995 like a CNN media tent or something. I mean it's 0:06:27.035 --> 0:06:29.435 like a jed. Those places like a circus, like with 0:06:29.475 --> 0:06:33.755 all the kind of outbuildings that are popped up, and 0:06:33.835 --> 0:06:36.395 they were doing kind of live polling through the whole 0:06:36.395 --> 0:06:39.835 debate sort of moment by moment, and it was like, wait, 0:06:39.875 --> 0:06:42.635 this is everything that is wrong with our political culture 0:06:42.635 --> 0:06:46.635 and life. Like it was a like a Piranha like 0:06:46.875 --> 0:06:50.075 frenzy on the America. That's what you think? What do 0:06:50.115 --> 0:06:50.315 you think? 0:06:52.435 --> 0:06:53.835 You know, I'm gonna eat your own head. 0:06:54.115 --> 0:06:56.315 Like it was just it was it was just so 0:06:56.715 --> 0:07:00.155 mannic and crazy and fruitless, and was. 0:07:00.315 --> 0:07:03.155 Just people with like dials like well yeah, I don't 0:07:03.195 --> 0:07:03.475 know like. 0:07:03.435 --> 0:07:05.395 What methods they were using. Was like a kind of 0:07:05.555 --> 0:07:09.635 like instapule web calling thing, and like it just defied 0:07:09.635 --> 0:07:13.635 it possible scientific method around public opinion surveying, which is 0:07:13.635 --> 0:07:16.875 a legitimate social science that has, you know, real standards 0:07:16.875 --> 0:07:21.515 of evidence. And it was completely unhinged. And I wrote 0:07:21.515 --> 0:07:24.835 a piece that year called Politics and the New Machine 0:07:24.875 --> 0:07:28.515 that was about how data science is replacing polling because 0:07:28.595 --> 0:07:31.355 you couldn't just call landlines. People don't have landlines. The 0:07:31.395 --> 0:07:35.035 people own landlines don't represent most of the population. You know, 0:07:35.075 --> 0:07:38.475 they tend to be really older, moral whiter. Like it's 0:07:38.515 --> 0:07:40.435 just not you can't get a good sample of the 0:07:40.475 --> 0:07:42.715 electric if you ever get a hold of like a 0:07:42.755 --> 0:07:45.955 young Hispanic man on a landline. You have to wait 0:07:45.995 --> 0:07:49.475 that person's opinion like seven thousand times because that person 0:07:49.515 --> 0:07:54.435 has to represent like all young male Hispanics, whereas you know, 0:07:54.475 --> 0:07:57.795 you talk to an old white woman, it's just her, 0:07:57.915 --> 0:08:00.115 like she just represents one person. So it's just a 0:08:00.155 --> 0:08:04.435 real field of distortion. So I wrote a piece about 0:08:04.475 --> 0:08:09.115 that because I just was really surprised at the incongruity 0:08:09.115 --> 0:08:12.395 of it all that the worst polling got, like the 0:08:12.475 --> 0:08:15.915 less reliable polling seemed to be getting, the more our 0:08:15.955 --> 0:08:19.035 political arrangements were dependent on it. So that was the 0:08:19.115 --> 0:08:23.395 year that for the first time when Fox News they 0:08:23.395 --> 0:08:27.835 hosted the first of the GOP primary debates, where they 0:08:27.955 --> 0:08:31.075 used polling an average of I think four polls to 0:08:31.155 --> 0:08:34.315 decide who would stand where, and they had try to 0:08:35.075 --> 0:08:37.555 stand in the middle. And it was really early on, 0:08:37.715 --> 0:08:40.435 and there had been very little coverage of anything, but 0:08:40.475 --> 0:08:42.555 Trump's name was better known. He's a guy who had 0:08:42.595 --> 0:08:46.715 add like a television show for years, and a lot 0:08:46.715 --> 0:08:49.555 of the most reputable polling agencies I think you know, 0:08:49.675 --> 0:08:53.475 Gallop and Pew and NBC, Wall Street Journal refused to participate. 0:08:53.515 --> 0:08:57.915 They're like, you can't use our national polls that are 0:08:57.995 --> 0:09:01.475 like two hundred and ninety days before the election to 0:09:01.595 --> 0:09:04.075 determine who gets the most because where you stand on 0:09:04.075 --> 0:09:06.315 the stage determines how many questions you get and how 0:09:06.395 --> 0:09:08.355 much camera coverage you get. So you're just propping up 0:09:08.395 --> 0:09:10.995 a candidate. You know, you're just deciding what would get 0:09:11.075 --> 0:09:15.435 you the best audience. It's like one poll driving another poll. Right. 0:09:15.475 --> 0:09:17.275 That's around when I was working on this piece, and 0:09:17.315 --> 0:09:19.835 you know, the reputable polling people are like, yeah, this 0:09:19.915 --> 0:09:23.555 is unconscionable, like, and then the polling organizations that did 0:09:23.635 --> 0:09:26.275 participate in that had the least reliable polls, right, Like 0:09:26.315 --> 0:09:30.915 there were the you know, least principled ones. But so 0:09:31.395 --> 0:09:33.115 I know, it's like a trendy thing to talk about 0:09:33.115 --> 0:09:35.315 the Overton window, but you do really kind of see 0:09:35.715 --> 0:09:38.355 even with the history of polling, right, polling's not gotten 0:09:38.395 --> 0:09:42.355 better since then, and it's only made our politics messier 0:09:43.035 --> 0:09:48.795 and lousier. So I don't know, I mean to go 0:09:48.795 --> 0:09:50.555 back to your question of historicizing it. One of the 0:09:50.635 --> 0:09:53.795 things that's different about say, in nineteen forty eight, when 0:09:53.835 --> 0:09:57.715 famously Gallop predicted that Dewey would win and then the 0:09:57.795 --> 0:10:00.555 Chicago Tribune Prince Dewey beats Truman and then you see 0:10:00.555 --> 0:10:02.315 that this is a photograph of Truman holding up the 0:10:02.355 --> 0:10:07.635 paper with this giant you know, grin polling really righted 0:10:07.715 --> 0:10:10.755 itself from that. There was a big invest mitigation. The 0:10:11.075 --> 0:10:14.755 I think his social sciences counsel did an investigation. Gallup 0:10:14.795 --> 0:10:18.875 investigated itself. You know, there was a kind of reckoning 0:10:18.915 --> 0:10:23.555 with that because there were still in place institutional guardrails 0:10:23.875 --> 0:10:29.035 against like a real failure. But even that, even that, 0:10:29.155 --> 0:10:31.395 like if you look at the history of that, Gallup 0:10:31.435 --> 0:10:34.475 had said, So Gallup, George Gallup, who's not an academic, 0:10:34.515 --> 0:10:36.995 but he opens this organization called the American Public Opinion 0:10:36.995 --> 0:10:39.635 Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, so that it can 0:10:40.035 --> 0:10:42.275 so that people will think it's part of Princeton University. 0:10:42.315 --> 0:10:46.115 So his address is Princeton. It's very canny. I mean, 0:10:46.115 --> 0:10:51.875 he has guys a piece. Yeah, it is a town, 0:10:52.595 --> 0:10:54.515 so listen not you know, he had a PhD. Like 0:10:54.555 --> 0:10:57.275 the guy was a real quantitative social scientist. But he's 0:10:57.395 --> 0:11:00.275 trying to sort of cloak his endeavor in the venew 0:11:00.315 --> 0:11:04.195 year of academic legitimacy when really he's a syndicated newspaper column. 0:11:04.195 --> 0:11:06.475 It's like that's what he's kind of churning out, but 0:11:07.275 --> 0:11:09.795 in order to get newspapers to pick up his column 0:11:10.155 --> 0:11:11.995 because the people like, who cares what you say? Like 0:11:12.035 --> 0:11:13.795 with the American people believe about that, Like we have 0:11:13.835 --> 0:11:15.395 reporters to go out on the street and they talk 0:11:15.435 --> 0:11:17.995 to people in pubs and they go to pta meetings. 0:11:17.995 --> 0:11:20.075 We have like man on the street stories all the time. 0:11:20.075 --> 0:11:22.955 We know it are the people in our town, in 0:11:22.995 --> 0:11:25.395 our city, whatever our newspaper is. We know what they're 0:11:25.715 --> 0:11:28.035 reporting on, what they believe. We have reporters to do 0:11:28.155 --> 0:11:30.075 that work. Why would we take your calum or like 0:11:30.515 --> 0:11:33.075 you had, you know, you called people on telephone. How 0:11:33.075 --> 0:11:36.075 many people have phones? It's nuts. So he did this 0:11:36.155 --> 0:11:38.195 big gimmicky thing, which is he said that, you know what, 0:11:38.715 --> 0:11:42.235 our opinion research is so good that we can ask 0:11:42.275 --> 0:11:43.835 people who they're going to vote for and we will 0:11:43.835 --> 0:11:47.835 successfully predict the next president. And that's when they started 0:11:47.835 --> 0:11:49.835 doing it. And he said all the time, like this 0:11:49.835 --> 0:11:52.555 would be a really dangerous thing to do if we 0:11:52.555 --> 0:11:57.755 were doing this in order to guide candidates or you know, 0:11:57.875 --> 0:12:01.475 drive funding of candidates. So this is just to demonstrate 0:12:01.555 --> 0:12:06.395 that our public opinion research is sound. But then it 0:12:06.435 --> 0:12:08.955 was such a big hit. People love that horse race 0:12:08.995 --> 0:12:12.115 stuff that it kind of took on its own life. 0:12:12.155 --> 0:12:14.675 So it kind of then came to a crescendo of 0:12:14.715 --> 0:12:18.195 a crisis in nineteen forty eight, when like his whole 0:12:18.635 --> 0:12:22.195 business model had then become like no, no, no, no, My 0:12:22.355 --> 0:12:24.875 election predictions that were were making money, like that's how 0:12:24.875 --> 0:12:28.355 we're gaining subscribers from my syndicated column. But then so 0:12:28.395 --> 0:12:31.395 you kind of see a kind of writing of that ship. 0:12:32.235 --> 0:12:36.355 But then this guy Lindsay Rodgers writes this book right 0:12:36.395 --> 0:12:38.955 after that, or it comes out, you know, right after that, 0:12:39.155 --> 0:12:40.915 and he was like, I don't care whether the polling 0:12:40.955 --> 0:12:43.715 is accurate, interaccurate. It's bad for democracy. It's not how 0:12:43.715 --> 0:12:47.155 our democracy is supposed to work. And I it was 0:12:47.195 --> 0:12:50.555 surprising to me to discover how every critique that this 0:12:50.595 --> 0:12:53.835 political theorist Lindsay Rodgers offered in this book called The 0:12:53.835 --> 0:12:58.555 Pollsters in nineteen forty eight really still applies. And it's 0:12:58.635 --> 0:13:03.995 just it's a business model that's extremely successful, and there's 0:13:04.075 --> 0:13:06.595 not really a way you can say. And every generation 0:13:06.795 --> 0:13:09.635 has its you know grouch like me who comes along 0:13:09.635 --> 0:13:11.635 and says, wait, this stuff's actually really bad for our 0:13:11.675 --> 0:13:17.755 political culture. But it's like, well, white sugar is really bad, 0:13:17.755 --> 0:13:20.355 but all the food in the supermarket is laced with it. 0:13:20.395 --> 0:13:23.035 Like it's not going to be like saying that sugar's 0:13:23.075 --> 0:13:24.715 not so great for you. It's not going to stop it. 0:13:24.955 --> 0:13:27.715 Yeah, it's funny because there was did you listen to 0:13:27.715 --> 0:13:30.715 the Nate Cone interview recently where he talks about finding 0:13:30.715 --> 0:13:33.075 a historical precedent for the twenty twenty four election, and 0:13:33.115 --> 0:13:35.715 the one he finds is nineteen forty eight because Truman 0:13:35.835 --> 0:13:39.275 suffered from high inflation, high prices and had actually successfully 0:13:39.275 --> 0:13:41.315 managed them and the lead up to the election. But 0:13:41.355 --> 0:13:43.635 the thing that's like not mentioned in his account is 0:13:43.635 --> 0:13:47.435 that after nineteen forty eight there's a huge crisis. It's funny, 0:13:47.475 --> 0:13:49.435 and then that ties into the Project XT thing where 0:13:49.475 --> 0:13:52.115 it's like the reason they don't share the UNIVAC prediction 0:13:52.635 --> 0:13:55.475 is because they're like, poles were so oft in forty eight, 0:13:55.515 --> 0:13:57.795 we can't come out with this landslide prediction early in 0:13:57.795 --> 0:14:00.955 the evening because it's just who knows. But I guess, 0:14:00.995 --> 0:14:04.075 like from the episode perspective, I mean, you talk about 0:14:04.075 --> 0:14:07.795 responsible polling, people who understand what the limitations of polling 0:14:07.835 --> 0:14:11.835 actually are, what the appropriate use of it is. It 0:14:11.875 --> 0:14:16.595 seems like it's a media demand or like a voter demand. 0:14:16.675 --> 0:14:18.475 People want to know how things are going to turn out, 0:14:18.555 --> 0:14:20.235 or even like a Wall Street demand, people want to 0:14:20.275 --> 0:14:22.675 be able to project forward. Like there's already all this 0:14:22.715 --> 0:14:24.915 attention given to predicting the next election because it's going 0:14:24.955 --> 0:14:26.795 to bear on how the markets do. It has a 0:14:26.795 --> 0:14:29.795 lot to do with futures in an economic sense and 0:14:29.875 --> 0:14:33.755 also in a kind of like entertainment sense. But in 0:14:34.635 --> 0:14:37.595 the Project X version of this has all of those things. 0:14:37.635 --> 0:14:40.235 It's got the sort of like we're making a show 0:14:40.475 --> 0:14:43.675 out of projections, but it also has the behind the 0:14:43.715 --> 0:14:47.115 scenes blurring of the line between how the campaign is 0:14:47.155 --> 0:14:50.595 being run, which is Rosser Reeves making the ad spots 0:14:50.675 --> 0:14:53.635 based on the gallop polling about what are people most 0:14:53.675 --> 0:14:56.075 concerned with, you know, like Miami gets after me about 0:14:56.115 --> 0:14:59.355 high prices. The Dwight Eisenhower thing. Is that the moment 0:14:59.355 --> 0:15:02.275 that those things really come together, or is it like 0:15:02.395 --> 0:15:04.875 the thirties campaigns inc moment. 0:15:04.715 --> 0:15:08.635 Or well, I think the nineteen fifty two story remains 0:15:08.715 --> 0:15:13.075 deeply resonant because it's kind of the superbolification of election night. So, 0:15:13.515 --> 0:15:15.675 you know, when we talk to Archanoi and his work. 0:15:15.795 --> 0:15:18.595 You know, he kind of relays these tremendously interesting stories 0:15:18.635 --> 0:15:23.035 about early technologies of reporting results, like yeah, we'll have 0:15:23.075 --> 0:15:25.435 the New York Times building the you know, the the 0:15:25.515 --> 0:15:27.475 will light up red if it's going this way and 0:15:27.515 --> 0:15:30.395 green if it's going that way. They have this like yeah, 0:15:30.475 --> 0:15:33.515 like we'll blink, you know, we'll blink fast if the 0:15:33.635 --> 0:15:38.195 Democrats are ahead, and like just crazy, like it's lighthouses 0:15:38.235 --> 0:15:40.515 and it's no one really knows and they're kind of 0:15:40.515 --> 0:15:42.195 out in the street. Only in the city. Maybe you 0:15:42.235 --> 0:15:45.235 would get like any kind of updates. But in nineteen 0:15:45.275 --> 0:15:49.155 fifty two they do all this elaborate setting up of cables, right, 0:15:49.195 --> 0:15:51.795 Like they have the studio and that's got all these 0:15:51.795 --> 0:15:54.515 reports going on, and they have this map, and you know, 0:15:54.595 --> 0:15:56.915 Kronkite's gonna go to the map, and then they have 0:15:56.995 --> 0:15:59.315 the guy with the UNIVAC, the fake UNIVAC, and then 0:15:59.315 --> 0:16:02.955 there's also the real UNIVAC, and they have people are 0:16:02.955 --> 0:16:05.555 calling in with precinct results and they're trying to do tabulation, 0:16:05.675 --> 0:16:09.075 and they have punch cards and and it's a whole 0:16:10.155 --> 0:16:13.355 sort of fun circus to watch, and the clock is 0:16:13.355 --> 0:16:15.195 in the background and we'll have new results at the 0:16:15.195 --> 0:16:18.475 top of the hour, and they're trying desperately to make 0:16:18.515 --> 0:16:21.355 people watch television instead of listen to the radio. And 0:16:21.395 --> 0:16:23.835 there's very little to report. They're just not going to 0:16:23.915 --> 0:16:25.755 have the results into the morning, but they're trying to 0:16:25.835 --> 0:16:28.675 you know what we call must watch television, right, and 0:16:28.715 --> 0:16:31.155 they're really pretty successful. People are like, well, this is fun. 0:16:31.195 --> 0:16:32.595 I mean, if what else are you gonna do? It's 0:16:32.595 --> 0:16:35.355 like a Tuesday night in the vent it's very cold 0:16:35.355 --> 0:16:38.195 outside much of the country, Like it's you know, it's 0:16:38.235 --> 0:16:40.755 a civic lesson for your kids. It is pretty interesting, 0:16:40.755 --> 0:16:43.355 Like what are all these machines the TV's and brand new? 0:16:43.715 --> 0:16:46.235 It's exciting that you even have one. And oh, it's 0:16:46.275 --> 0:16:48.195 like it's like you're in the war room at the 0:16:48.195 --> 0:16:50.555 White House, Like it's like you're part of a campaign. 0:16:50.715 --> 0:16:54.795 You're wrapped into the drama of it all and there's 0:16:55.075 --> 0:16:59.475 really nothing else quite like it. And it's really successful 0:16:59.475 --> 0:17:03.915 for them, their Project X. And then there's a kind 0:17:03.955 --> 0:17:08.075 of a level raising, like you have to up your 0:17:08.075 --> 0:17:09.675 game every four years. You have to come up with 0:17:09.675 --> 0:17:10.915 a more exciting election. 0:17:11.195 --> 0:17:13.595 We have to invent both flits there, yeah, coman. 0:17:13.515 --> 0:17:16.515 So like you know, and if then I write about 0:17:16.515 --> 0:17:20.035 when the cinematics company is hired to go do election 0:17:20.635 --> 0:17:25.915 prediction uh in nineteen sixty by CBS, and it's just mayhem. 0:17:26.115 --> 0:17:28.835 No one knows how to program the mainframes. There's all 0:17:28.835 --> 0:17:30.995 these women trying to type in you know, who are 0:17:31.035 --> 0:17:33.195 the computers trying to type in the results that are 0:17:33.195 --> 0:17:35.635 coming in by phone, and people are falling down tripping 0:17:35.675 --> 0:17:38.275 over the cables and it's a comedy of hers. But yeah, 0:17:38.275 --> 0:17:43.395 it's still great television. And it also obscures, you know, 0:17:43.515 --> 0:17:46.155 the reality of like knocking on doors and driving people 0:17:46.195 --> 0:17:48.635 to the polls and what election day is really about. 0:17:49.195 --> 0:17:52.435 That's why I'm making the case that that's nineteen fifty 0:17:52.435 --> 0:17:55.195 two Project X is more resonant than ever before. Is 0:17:55.235 --> 0:17:58.075 because what happened in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty. In 0:17:58.075 --> 0:18:02.955 twenty twenty, remember it was the pandemic. Most people did 0:18:02.995 --> 0:18:04.355 not want to go to the polls and wait in 0:18:04.355 --> 0:18:08.115 those lines or go indoors. And you know, the best 0:18:08.195 --> 0:18:11.675 news organizations said every once in a while, like Orson 0:18:11.715 --> 0:18:13.475 Welles saying in nineteen thirty eight at War of the 0:18:13.475 --> 0:18:17.035 World's weally this is not real, you know, and they 0:18:17.035 --> 0:18:19.275 would say, like we won't really know the results tonight 0:18:19.435 --> 0:18:21.995 because mail in ballots and absentee ballots are not going 0:18:22.035 --> 0:18:23.955 to be counted over to the next few days. And 0:18:24.435 --> 0:18:27.755 right now really looks like, you know, Republicans are winning 0:18:27.795 --> 0:18:30.395 all over the country and Trump's going to win enough 0:18:30.435 --> 0:18:34.395 electoral votes. But this is a red mirage. It's you know, 0:18:34.475 --> 0:18:37.075 most people expect this to change in the coming days 0:18:37.155 --> 0:18:40.675 or even weeks as the late coming votes are counted. 0:18:41.435 --> 0:18:44.475 But you know, they said that, look maybe once every 0:18:44.475 --> 0:18:48.035 two hours. And meanwhile, except for the like thirty seconds 0:18:48.075 --> 0:18:51.875 every two hours that they're pointing out that their results 0:18:51.915 --> 0:18:55.915 are completely useless and meaningless, like really truly meaningless, the 0:18:55.955 --> 0:18:59.675 most meaningless Election night results probably ever in American history. 0:19:01.075 --> 0:19:04.355 They're selling the whole thing to keep their audience is 0:19:04.395 --> 0:19:06.435 if they have to watch second by second because the 0:19:06.435 --> 0:19:08.275 election is about to be called, and then they start 0:19:08.275 --> 0:19:11.795 calling it. And so, I mean, this is where like 0:19:12.235 --> 0:19:14.395 one can exert a lot of sympathy for Americans to 0:19:14.395 --> 0:19:17.315 believe the election was stolen because they watched that coverage 0:19:17.875 --> 0:19:20.995 and look, we watched, you know, we watched though John 0:19:21.075 --> 0:19:23.395 King he had the panels and the thing flipped and 0:19:23.435 --> 0:19:25.475 then the color turned and then we looked like this 0:19:25.555 --> 0:19:28.035 state was going this way in Arizona, in Michigan, Pennsylvania. 0:19:28.915 --> 0:19:31.755 And then you know, I went to bed and then 0:19:31.755 --> 0:19:34.355 they're like no, we no, no, no no, And then they've 0:19:34.355 --> 0:19:37.595 called it for Biden, No that was stolen. Like I'm like, 0:19:38.275 --> 0:19:41.915 I know, it's just an incredible amount of perfidy in 0:19:42.035 --> 0:19:44.035 terms of the planning up to the election, that Trump 0:19:44.115 --> 0:19:46.675 knew he was going to lose, that his supporters expected, 0:19:46.835 --> 0:19:49.275 you know, his inside like team knew he was going 0:19:49.315 --> 0:19:51.795 to lose, and they came up with these cockamamie plans 0:19:52.675 --> 0:19:57.755 to pursue a contest of the results they knew in advance. Like, 0:19:58.395 --> 0:20:01.475 I don't mean to diminish the nefariousness of their planning, 0:20:01.595 --> 0:20:05.635 but in terms of well people being willing to believe it, 0:20:05.675 --> 0:20:07.555 when he said the election was stolen. 0:20:07.635 --> 0:20:09.635 No one is ever held. 0:20:09.955 --> 0:20:12.795 I'm not talking about the pollsters, but the television producers 0:20:12.835 --> 0:20:16.675 accountable for what happened that night, you know, why not 0:20:16.755 --> 0:20:18.795 say and you don't even hear this now. And there's 0:20:18.795 --> 0:20:20.635 a ton of mail and we would expect a lot 0:20:20.675 --> 0:20:23.915 of mail in voting in November. We would also, I 0:20:23.915 --> 0:20:26.275 think expect really low turnouts in a lot of places 0:20:26.275 --> 0:20:28.235 that I have and I couldn't really would be really 0:20:28.275 --> 0:20:33.115 hard to account for with your polling results. And we 0:20:33.155 --> 0:20:35.195 are not going to hear an election night people saying 0:20:35.195 --> 0:20:38.955 we've decided tonight that we are gonna re examine the 0:20:38.995 --> 0:20:41.795 results of the twenty twenty election and investigate our own 0:20:41.835 --> 0:20:45.155 coverage as a public service to the American voter, and 0:20:45.275 --> 0:20:48.355 explain one the ways in which we as a news 0:20:48.435 --> 0:20:51.635 organization contributed to the chaos and American political life over 0:20:51.635 --> 0:20:53.795 the last four years. We'll be getting back to you 0:20:53.835 --> 0:20:57.875 tomorrow night. We'll have full coverage of amended election results, 0:20:58.115 --> 0:21:00.715 but for tonight, we're going to set that aside and 0:21:00.755 --> 0:21:04.635 we're going to do what we think is right. Maybe 0:21:04.635 --> 0:21:07.515 that would be bad television. I think that'd be awesome television. 0:21:08.035 --> 0:21:13.995 But I think that reckoning and accountability is genuinely required. 0:21:14.275 --> 0:21:17.995 Like I just can't even picture like Jake Tapper or whoever, like, 0:21:18.035 --> 0:21:19.955 and I don't know, these are the best people, right, 0:21:20.075 --> 0:21:23.115 like saying we really screwed up, like we are in 0:21:23.155 --> 0:21:27.395 big part responsible. It's just much easier to do something different. 0:21:27.715 --> 0:21:30.035 Yeah, I mean, they're working within the framework that's established 0:21:30.035 --> 0:21:32.315 in fifty two, which is received and can't be changed, 0:21:32.355 --> 0:21:34.755 so they're not going to question it. I totally buy 0:21:34.995 --> 0:21:39.435 that the election night coverage contributed to this, but it 0:21:39.435 --> 0:21:42.915 does seem to me like over the last decade, you 0:21:42.955 --> 0:21:46.915 have so many crazy lies that are just convenient lies 0:21:46.915 --> 0:21:49.275 that people just like take up and believe just because. 0:21:49.915 --> 0:21:52.035