Speaker 1: I respect Moudang too much, okay, and I don't to
Speaker 1: bring Moodang into the thirty six chambers. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Moudang is a child. Jack Wudang is ready does not
Speaker 1: know about you know.
Speaker 2: Well, my wu tang is for the children exactly.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what you're kind of arguing for it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, is that what you meant?
Speaker 2: You meant that this is a good mixture because Moudang
Speaker 2: is a child in wu Tang is for the.
Speaker 1: For the children. Yeah. Okay, Hey, hippo's in the front.
Speaker 1: Let's just stiple hippos on.
Speaker 3: The left, braction the deck, Hello the Internet, and welcome
Speaker 3: to season three sixty two, Episode two of dir Daily.
Speaker 1: Production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: This is a podcast we take a deep dive into
Speaker 2: American share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, October twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. You know what that means. Halloween's coming
Speaker 2: up and nothing else, nothing else, nothing happening exactly one
Speaker 2: week from this Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Nothing going on the road, nothing else. Put on your
Speaker 1: squid game costumes and go about your day. People. It's
Speaker 1: National Oatmeal Day, though for those that are concerned, National
Speaker 1: Hermit Day, and also National cat day. Just nice and easy,
Speaker 1: nothing else happening. Celebrate those things.
Speaker 2: Also that are good for your health. Oatmeal hermits. We've
Speaker 2: heard a hermit and then cutting yourself completely off from
Speaker 2: human contact all good?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that what they're saying when they refer to a hermit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just as it recognizes the hermit in all
Speaker 1: of us, I guess, which means maybe are you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes capacity to be introverted rather than being like and
Speaker 1: swearing off everything that the modern world has to offer
Speaker 1: in the service of living in cave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or just you know, not interacting with people and
Speaker 2: using uber eats and only interacting with people over social
Speaker 2: media also.
Speaker 1: Really good, I'm told how very good for us.
Speaker 2: Anyways, My name is Jack O'Brien aka Moo Dang clan
Speaker 2: ain't nothing to fuck with.
Speaker 1: Moodang clan ain't nothing to fuck with.
Speaker 2: Move Dang clan ain't nothing to fuck with. Move dan
Speaker 2: clan ain't nothing to fuck with.
Speaker 1: There's no place to hode.
Speaker 4: Once I stepped inside the zoo bahad prepare for the move.
Speaker 4: Dang oh maang I slang and bang surf cunt like
Speaker 4: move dang that one wore to see a Strange Wang.
Speaker 1: On the disc board. Did it? Yeah, I did it,
Speaker 1: I did it.
Speaker 5: I had to ask.
Speaker 2: First of all, I thought maybe I missed you guys
Speaker 2: talking about being parts of the Moo Moodang clan, yeah
Speaker 2: when I was out last week.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyways, I'm throwing to be joined as always by my
Speaker 2: co host mister Miles Gres Miles Gray.
Speaker 6: Because you're gonna go to the Elon store and you
Speaker 6: gonna give him all your money. Then he'll say what
Speaker 6: he wants you to hear, to tell you it's cool.
Speaker 6: You just don't believe it. Bail out of Elon's car.
Speaker 6: Bail out or die tonight because those funky cars are
Speaker 6: killing walking people and nothing will ever be oh right.
Speaker 1: Shout out to real big fish.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Snarkyla on the discord because my my
Speaker 2: love of sky is always there lying torment, awaiting a
Speaker 2: moment to just, you know, blowout, like the volcanic ashes
Speaker 2: of whatever name, whatever volcano you want to volcano djore,
Speaker 2: So thank you for that. I just I wanted was devastating.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Mount, I didn't. I'm not familiar with that song.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 2: God just from your vocal performance.
Speaker 1: So you don't know that song?
Speaker 2: I bet west Coard full instrumentation. Maybe I was pretty
Speaker 2: I was singing it pretty good, dude. Yeah no, you
Speaker 2: I mean either that song or you don't. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so you don't because that was I guess I fucked up, man.
Speaker 2: I guess my childhood was misspent. And this is the
Speaker 2: first time I'm figuring.
Speaker 1: Trenches of ska. Yeah yeah, like me, Yeah, Miles.
Speaker 2: We are thrilled to be joined by the head of
Speaker 2: represent US, a good government group that does work around
Speaker 2: anti corruption, changing voting laws, just general trying to fix democracy.
Speaker 1: Stuff for Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, if that's what you want to do with your time,
Speaker 2: I guess you know what we saying. If it ain't broke,
Speaker 2: don't fix it. But you know, I guess he's got ideas.
Speaker 2: So welcome to your show.
Speaker 1: It's Josh.
Speaker 2: Hey, Josh, what a great entire My voice cracked on, Josh,
Speaker 2: but you are defectually welcome, Josh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, good to see you, guys. I'm sorry I
Speaker 5: didn't bring a song. I didn't know I was supposed
Speaker 5: to bring a song.
Speaker 1: It's okay, okay, that's how we started set. That's level
Speaker 1: setting energetically. So now you come you're coming in in
Speaker 1: a deficit and now energy is up here. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah you got you got a lot of josh you guys.
Speaker 1: It was like it was inspiring, It was inspired. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, nothing else happening this week. What are you gonna
Speaker 1: do for Halloween? Yeah, let's just talk about moodang, just.
Speaker 5: Talk only about Halloween.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe a little a little
Speaker 1: bit we can, but we have to if we have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, were you're in Massachusetts and you said that you
Speaker 2: are familiar with some Wu tang saying Wu tang yard
Speaker 2: signs that I wasn't aware of.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, presidents are temporary, Wu tang is forever.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: So don't vote, right, Is that basically what we're saying.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure that's the message.
Speaker 1: Yeah right.
Speaker 5: I think it's like the American version of keep calming
Speaker 5: care right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Oh it's wild because I'm seeing versions that
Speaker 1: are definitely done in the Maga style, which I guess
Speaker 1: makes sense that you some people would have like a
Speaker 1: visceral reaction to that font and be like and they're
Speaker 1: like oh good, yeah, yeah, yeah, good to.
Speaker 2: I feel like that that trick is not that fun.
Speaker 2: Like when somebody has a mega hat that like doesn't
Speaker 2: actually say mega, it says.
Speaker 1: Like, made you look dude, Yeah, the major look guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah Yeah, all right, Josh, We're thrilled to have you here.
Speaker 2: We are going to talk about some things that ail
Speaker 2: our democracy for again for some reason, like unfamiliar with
Speaker 2: any reason this would be topical in any way.
Speaker 1: But before we.
Speaker 2: Get to that, we do like to ask our guests,
Speaker 2: what is something from your search history that's revealing about.
Speaker 1: Who you are?
Speaker 5: Okay, so who I am? I don't know about you guys,
Speaker 5: but like sometimes I feel like I have to be
Speaker 5: right about things. I know, it's a rarety, it's not
Speaker 5: couldn't be me, but let's let's proceed. So maybe one
Speaker 5: of these people who's guilty of like getting into it
Speaker 5: with somebody debating, debating, debating, and they be like, fine,
Speaker 5: let's just google it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah right.
Speaker 5: The most recent one was I used the term fungible
Speaker 5: in a sentence and I was talking to my mom
Speaker 5: my moms buying a house, and we were talking about
Speaker 5: how money is fungible and.
Speaker 2: Like capable of turning into a mushroom fungible.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh I thought those are the psilocybin based
Speaker 1: kids lunch packs that oscar fungible. Yeah, fungibles. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: send your eight year old on an existential trip with fungibles. Wait,
Speaker 1: so that means I only know what I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean I know it in terms of
Speaker 1: a non fungible token, because that's where my money's at
Speaker 1: in NFTs mushroom tokens. Yeah no, no, just just just
Speaker 1: really cool stuff with like Wu Tang albums as an NFT.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm upside down.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that's exactly right. Like that's what the term means.
Speaker 5: It's like you can non fungible means you can't swap
Speaker 5: it for anything else. Fungible just means two things that
Speaker 5: can be swapped. When my mom was looking at me
Speaker 5: like I had two heads using the term fungible, and
Speaker 5: I was like, Mom, I know, I know what this
Speaker 5: word means. I just learned it a few years ago
Speaker 5: from another friend, and so I googled it and I
Speaker 5: was correct, and I nailed it, and I just nailed
Speaker 5: the definition. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's a good feeling. Yeah, that is impressive.
Speaker 2: You know what fungible meant.
Speaker 5: Only because a friend who works in finance told me
Speaker 5: a few years Yeah, tell me what this word means.
Speaker 1: That you Jack for all that, Yeah, for other people
Speaker 1: you know that work in finance. Jack, I'm surprised you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't have fungibility on the brain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do again, because I take a lot of mushrooms.
Speaker 5: Just stopped it. Stopped it fun.
Speaker 2: I'm a fun guy. My six year old's favorite joke
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 5: That's one of the best.
Speaker 2: Because I'm a fun guy.
Speaker 5: I have that on T shirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. What is something that you
Speaker 2: think is underrated?
Speaker 5: Huh? This will make people not understand who I true am.
Speaker 5: But the tater tots at Burger King Okay, I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm like an organic food guy, farm grown, eat healthy
Speaker 5: all the time. Tater tots at Burger King are They're
Speaker 5: only available in the morning. They're like the breakfast food
Speaker 5: and yeah, just they're underrated. I don't know what else
Speaker 5: to say. Like they're so crispy on the outside and
Speaker 5: fluffy on the inside. Get yourself some.
Speaker 1: Miles.
Speaker 2: I told you if he brought up, how did they? Okay,
Speaker 2: So when we're talking tots. Are they They're just like
Speaker 2: little guys.
Speaker 1: Right, Like are they little discs?
Speaker 5: They're like little ye little Yeah, they're little tots. But
Speaker 5: the thing is, we all spend all of our time
Speaker 5: talking about French fries, right the French far wars, doing
Speaker 5: all the different pastors. Personally, I'm like handcut fries or nothing, right,
Speaker 5: like it has to be fresh handcut fries. But something
Speaker 5: about BK tater tots, they're just like they're perfect. They're
Speaker 5: like perfect, They're perfect.
Speaker 2: I'd say I spend seventy percent of my time talking
Speaker 2: about French fries. But I'm a pretty well rounded individual,
Speaker 2: so I talked about other stuff thirty percent. I guess
Speaker 2: my kids dad, but I've never had these. How do
Speaker 2: they compare to the McDonald's hash.
Speaker 1: Brown Those are floppy? I'm gonna say that right now.
Speaker 2: McDonald's hash browns are floppy. I get a lot of flop.
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I like a floppy fried thing. But
Speaker 2: there they could be more. I mean they're not as,
Speaker 2: they're not as consistent. I was worst case scenario. I'd
Speaker 2: say they're fly. They can be crispy, like they can
Speaker 2: get a nice crisped up like just anything you rub
Speaker 2: them on turns translucent.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like the Simpsons episode where Homer had to
Speaker 1: gain all the weight.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and that they rubbed it on the wall
Speaker 2: and then see a bird crash into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, don't they sell me out when I'm stealing Simpson's jokes. Sorry,
Speaker 2: I feel like everyone who likes the Simpsons loves that
Speaker 2: picture that moment. Yeah yeah, probably picturing that moment too.
Speaker 1: Wait, so what is it? Yeah? What is it about it?
Speaker 5: It's like they're so they do the greasy thing, for sure, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: for sure. But you get a little bag of just
Speaker 5: these perfect little I'm showing with my hands. People can't
Speaker 5: say it, but it's like a perfect little golden nugget
Speaker 5: and the outside is so hard and crispy, and as
Speaker 5: soon as you crunch it, the inside is just fluff.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 5: It's like a nyuki wrapped in crunch.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 5: I mean I'm telling you that I'm not overselling this there.
Speaker 1: I just there's not a Burger King near me. I
Speaker 1: feel like our burger kings on the way out like
Speaker 1: a feeling. Yeah, yeah, thank you. The burger King's still
Speaker 1: king headlining. Yeah exactly, But okay, now now I'm on
Speaker 1: the look for that.
Speaker 5: Like before ten thirty or something. I know, I know
Speaker 5: it's I'm.
Speaker 1: Never up before ten thirty.
Speaker 2: I feel like we should pick ten foods that are
Speaker 2: you know, mass produced chain restaurant foods, and then like
Speaker 2: praying food like culinary reviewers, and like just bring them
Speaker 2: before that, like put BK tater Tots before. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: some high end food reviewer and just like see what
Speaker 2: they actually think. You know, Yeah, they're gonna be all
Speaker 2: They're gonna all be high flaluting about it.
Speaker 1: They don't know about the real ship.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I think the Burger King Tot would
Speaker 5: hold up in any five star restaurant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder like if there are.
Speaker 5: No look you asked for something under rated.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, this is perfect because it's a total blind
Speaker 1: spot when it comes.
Speaker 2: To b K, like just completely out of context. I
Speaker 2: feel like the perfect bloomin onion or you know whatever
Speaker 2: the chili rip off of that is could wow the
Speaker 2: right person, Like presentationally, it's impressive. Sure, sure, sure it's
Speaker 2: I feel I feel like sometimes when when I'm eating
Speaker 2: at Chili's or out back, I feel like I'm having
Speaker 2: fine cuisine or I like to pretend I am what is, Josh,
Speaker 2: something you think is overrated?
Speaker 5: I'm all tired of tough guys, like the tough guy routine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, came to the right show, Josh.
Speaker 5: I've been thinking about this for a long like a
Speaker 5: long time. I'm forty six now, and it's taken me
Speaker 5: many many years to realize that, Like, you actually don't
Speaker 5: have to be an asshole to get ahead in life.
Speaker 5: And the more successful people I meet who are just
Speaker 5: like wonderful individuals taking care of the people around them,
Speaker 5: being great leaders. I just I keep meeting people who
Speaker 5: are that personality type and they're hugely successful, right, and
Speaker 5: they're not like crushing other people to get.
Speaker 1: There, right.
Speaker 5: I just I'm all about it. I think it's overrated
Speaker 5: to play the tough guy routine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I feel like also too, Like
Speaker 1: in entertainment a lot of the time too, Like on
Speaker 1: a production level, the people who have that sort of
Speaker 1: like ethos or they're like I'm easy to work with,
Speaker 1: I support other people I work with, like I'm not toxic,
Speaker 1: typically do very well. Also, like you, I feel like
Speaker 1: people should strive for one of those things where you go,
Speaker 1: oh them, they're the nice. They're the best fucking person
Speaker 1: I've ever met. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I love working with that person. Oh my god, it's
Speaker 5: so good. Yeah, why would you not want to be that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, versus like the other thing. It's like he made
Speaker 1: me carry a ten gallon water jug above my head
Speaker 1: for forty minutes because I missed. I misquoted the Simpsons
Speaker 1: in front of him, and immediately he.
Speaker 2: Threw a phone at me, and then when he missed,
Speaker 2: he had another phone hand pity also threw at me.
Speaker 2: Is that bezos? I think that was silver? Isn't that
Speaker 2: someone's Yeah, someone's act someone that actual?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Through is this like a no no, I cry for help?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I'm just checking.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know, just ain't nothing broke here, ain't nothing
Speaker 2: to fix. I think this criticism of tough guys is overrated.
Speaker 2: You want to know what's over ray?
Speaker 1: Oh we got a tough guy over here? Oh right?
Speaker 2: You. I think it's overrated to get things done, get
Speaker 2: the most e Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a generational thing though? Too? Like
Speaker 1: I feel like because in my working experience, I've worked
Speaker 1: for these like tough guy, asshole type people who like
Speaker 1: somehow really making rows to the tops. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: not all, but like I mean like sort of in
Speaker 1: that sense where the experiences we have like coming up,
Speaker 1: we sort of that evolves us into the way we
Speaker 1: treat people as we sort of move ahead in our
Speaker 1: own careers. And I feel like, just generally speaking there,
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of workplaces do have a
Speaker 1: shift where people are a little more like, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: worked with some pretty fucked up people, so now I
Speaker 1: just want to make sure that I have like a
Speaker 1: more chill, nice environment for everyone I work with, because
Speaker 1: that's typically how people do a better job, rather than
Speaker 1: being like totally stressed out all the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean that's what every new expert who's been
Speaker 5: studying this stuff for their whole lifetime finds. What I've seen, though,
Speaker 5: is the narratives that are around about like who's the
Speaker 5: most successful people and what are the models? And how
Speaker 5: do you make a ton of money? Sure, it's it's
Speaker 5: typically not like, do you know who the CEO of
Speaker 5: Target Corporation is?
Speaker 1: Right right?
Speaker 5: Like that's an incredibly successful business. I don't know their
Speaker 5: name offhand. They're not making themselves famous by writing books
Speaker 5: and being all flashy and saying crazy things on the Internet.
Speaker 5: They're just running the business, taking care of their employees,
Speaker 5: doing a good job. Yeah, and like, those are the
Speaker 5: stories that I think would be interesting to hear, rather
Speaker 5: than the sort of tough guy hero narrative, you know,
Speaker 5: which is also like clearly people are successful with that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I once dispatched a puppy because
Speaker 1: it was so unruly. And now I'm not actually going
Speaker 1: to be vice president.
Speaker 2: Although instead of keeping that is a dark secret that
Speaker 2: I never tell anybody but a therapist who I really trust,
Speaker 2: I'm going to put it in my memoir so that
Speaker 2: people think I'm a good leader.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It's a Christynome reference for listeners who don't who aren't
Speaker 2: up on Christian Nome I do. It does feel like
Speaker 2: the because I hear this about Amazon, for instance, people
Speaker 2: who work at Amazon like grow own people crying in
Speaker 2: the office. He's so dope to work there, tears of
Speaker 2: joy because of and not like lucky.
Speaker 1: So I'm not talking about the people who.
Speaker 2: Are like on have bracelets that monitor their pulse and
Speaker 2: like won't allow them to go to the bathroom. Like
Speaker 2: at the executive level, you hear about things being difficult.
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs apparently very difficult to work for. So it's
Speaker 2: feels like there's a lot of like the bad is
Speaker 2: still is still out there and I do yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, probably too right.
Speaker 1: It's just like, yeah, I think it's just the easiest way.
Speaker 1: Most people just think I can motivate people by screaming
Speaker 1: at them or threatening their lively. Yeah, like and that
Speaker 1: is the easiest way. It's not effective, but sure you
Speaker 1: could be like, oh if you don't like that's what
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs would do is like make this fucking thing
Speaker 1: this small. They're like that's physically impossible. They're like, then
Speaker 1: I will fire you until I find the people that
Speaker 1: can like Okay, well, moment one moment and I.
Speaker 7: Mean when they pulled it off right, yeah exactly. They
Speaker 7: didn't pull it off right, So you're like that didn't work.
Speaker 7: Whereas the other part that takes a little bit of
Speaker 7: like nuance and understanding human emotion and emotional intelligence is like,
Speaker 7: how can I motivate people in a way that isn't
Speaker 7: just like a fucking.
Speaker 1: Put you to the sword you want to die? And
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, yeah, maybe that's not the best verson.
Speaker 2: I worked for one of those who is like super
Speaker 2: tough guy over email only, and like you'd be in
Speaker 2: the next room over from him and he would send
Speaker 2: the wildest, meanest ship and then you just walk into
Speaker 2: his office and be like, Hey, read your last email,
Speaker 2: and you'd be.
Speaker 1: Like, Hey, what's up.
Speaker 5: How's it going?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, you know, And that's how you knew he was
Speaker 2: tough and a good leader.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because he was a key solid head games though,
Speaker 5: right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you sent that anyways, you know, water under the bridge?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, anyway, protect your fucking neck, loser. What
Speaker 1: was that? Nothing? Nothing, a great day.
Speaker 2: It's almost like what I also wonder how much of
Speaker 2: it is people getting to the top by acting that way,
Speaker 2: and how much of it is once you get to
Speaker 2: the top end accountability is removed you start acting that way.
Speaker 5: That's a great question. I was thinking about this in
Speaker 5: terms of like just tying back to the Wu Tang
Speaker 5: jokes earlier. I was thinking about this in terms of
Speaker 5: the like nineteen twenty year olds that were coming up
Speaker 5: in early hip hop when I was a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like they're all grown men with babies, and like you
Speaker 5: see Snoop on TV at the Olympics having the best
Speaker 5: time ever and then you go back and listen to
Speaker 5: his albums from when he was nineteen years old, which.
Speaker 1: Was on trial for murder. I remember as.
Speaker 5: Right, But like that was a path and they all
Speaker 5: got off of it once they got their success because
Speaker 5: they were like, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 5: So I don't know, I don't know what the answer
Speaker 5: is with that, but it's definitely it's definitely been on
Speaker 5: my mind, right, Like that was a crazy life they
Speaker 5: were living.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the kind of gentle person you see before you today.
Speaker 2: And mister Miles Gray once.
Speaker 1: Come on, come.
Speaker 2: On, choked, choke somebody out for leaving Anger.
Speaker 1: They thought it was They thought they were tough for
Speaker 1: leaving Anger, the Anger Management movie. They thought they were tough.
Speaker 2: And so my parents were My parents marriage was exploding
Speaker 2: upon re entry before my very teenage eyes.
Speaker 1: So I didn't have the best emotional outlets. I'm a
Speaker 1: different man now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm just saying this is an underdog tail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is. I turned it around, folks, I
Speaker 1: turned it around. Yep. I do love that.
Speaker 2: You said, Oh, so you're a tough guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know you excuse.
Speaker 2: Him of thinking he was tough for leaving the movie
Speaker 2: Anger Management early.
Speaker 1: That he didn't like a movie wrong with I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just I mean, he's.
Speaker 2: Still pretty mad at him for leaving the movie early.
Speaker 2: To be honest, Josh, you asked the right question. That
Speaker 2: is the right follow up question. Wait, so what's wrong
Speaker 2: with Anger Management?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just I just I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I just that is disrespect.
Speaker 5: This feels like this is like the the meta thing
Speaker 5: about this story is that it was anchor management exactly.
Speaker 5: Has never seen the movie?
Speaker 1: Ever seen it? I won't because it's just what if
Speaker 1: it's like bad? And I'm just sobbing, like what And
Speaker 1: this is the moment in which I too would have
Speaker 1: locked out at the theater. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back
Speaker 2: and we will talk about finance reform in politics and
Speaker 2: what's all those money doing in there.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back and we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back, and all right, so we want to talk
Speaker 2: about how money operates in politics these days, in particular
Speaker 2: with we did just remember over the break that the
Speaker 2: elections coming that was the thing. Besides Halloween, there is
Speaker 2: a presidential and many other elections coming up.
Speaker 1: Voting in a week. Are you going to vote, dude?
Speaker 2: I mean I I think I've proudly said that I'm undecided,
Speaker 2: still making up my mind. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: I want to get out there, but I guess I will.
Speaker 2: It seems seems pretty grim out there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you gotta vote, guys.
Speaker 2: Man Josh said, all right, come, all right now, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we are kidding. I I do just find it funny
Speaker 2: the idea that there are still people who are undecided.
Speaker 5: It's really wild, right it is.
Speaker 1: I think people who are willing or unwilling to reveal
Speaker 1: their terrible biases to a certain Maybe.
Speaker 5: They just really like public opinion polls, and so there, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm undecided.
Speaker 2: And the New York Times will obliged. They will fly
Speaker 2: to your house, throw you a viewing party for the
Speaker 2: late debate, and then ask you, huh so tough choice
Speaker 2: between and to have the person be like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: still didn't hear enough. I'm not sure what what you
Speaker 2: didn't hear enough racism? But there is Trump to be
Speaker 2: all right, But so one of the goals of this episode.
Speaker 2: I've heard so many billionaires getting involved in this race.
Speaker 2: I really want to like Schoolhouse Rock. This shit like
Speaker 2: help us understand how one million dollars in billionaire's bank account,
Speaker 2: or let's go one hundred million dollars make it more
Speaker 2: realistic in a billionaire's bank account goes from numbers in
Speaker 2: account to us not having more effective plans to address
Speaker 2: climate you know, like.
Speaker 1: What, how exactly is that working? Right? Because most people,
Speaker 1: the most of us, we hear like, oh, this bill
Speaker 1: like they're getting in the race to the tune of
Speaker 1: X million dollars, and I think most people like it
Speaker 1: sort of stops just like okay, so that'll be used
Speaker 1: for like ads, probably because airtime is expensive, but it
Speaker 1: it manifests in a myriad of other ways. So how
Speaker 1: how should we how does it manifest in those other ways?
Speaker 1: Aside from obviously, I think the most visible stuff are
Speaker 1: like the ads that you.
Speaker 5: See right and the ads. So let's just back up
Speaker 5: to like what they're actually trying to do, which is
Speaker 5: convince people to vote one way, one way or the
Speaker 5: other for one candidate or another. That's ultimately what the
Speaker 5: race is about. And the way that that gets done
Speaker 5: is ads tell you the story, but also flyers getting
Speaker 5: mailed to your house, people knocking on your door, ads
Speaker 5: that chase you around the internet. Content that gets created,
Speaker 5: I don't know if you get a fundraising emails and
Speaker 5: emails on your phone, all that text messaging, all of
Speaker 5: that costs money, right, Like that's all right now, it's
Speaker 5: me too, I'm blowing up. Biden texted me last night.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have one from maybe Nancy Pelosi. It's I
Speaker 1: feel like that, thanks Siri, Yeah, maybe.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, let's it's just like, let's go through
Speaker 5: the how it actually works, right, So who's running those ads?
Speaker 5: Who's paying for all that stuff? You've got the DNC
Speaker 5: and the RNC, the Democratic Committee and the Republican Committee
Speaker 5: that are supporting the candidates. You have the candidates campaigns themselves,
Speaker 5: so like Harris has a campaign, Trump has a campaign.
Speaker 5: And then there's all these things we call independent expenditures,
Speaker 5: which are people in groups who are organizing outside the
Speaker 5: party apparatus to spend money on campaigns, and those are
Speaker 5: known as political action committees or packs. And so you
Speaker 5: can have a pack, or then there's a super pack,
Speaker 5: which is basically the same thing with no spending limits
Speaker 5: at all. It's just a different denomination. And the only
Speaker 5: thing with super packs is they're supposed to be totally
Speaker 5: separate from the campaign. But like, if you've got a
Speaker 5: pack called the Maga pack, we all know who they're supporting.
Speaker 5: There's no actual separation, right right, And so these people
Speaker 5: are raising and spending tons of money and then running
Speaker 5: their own ads and doing their own mailers and their
Speaker 5: own door knocks to get out support for that.
Speaker 2: Candidate mega pack is Donald Trump. I just googled that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I just wanted to.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you checked it out. Are you an undecided voter?
Speaker 2: So I'm a low information undecided voter.
Speaker 1: I should clarified that, I think. Dude, Mac Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe not this one. Oh that's him. That's Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew it.
Speaker 2: I knew I Like, I just had to google to
Speaker 2: make sure.
Speaker 1: But so this all fits, I think, because like we
Speaker 1: also hear about like dark money spending, Like there's all
Speaker 1: this dark money that goes into our elections and things
Speaker 1: like that, a lot most of it in the form
Speaker 1: of like you know, nonprofits that have like opaque donor lists.
Speaker 1: So you're like, I think I know who's I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I actually don't know, but there's they have
Speaker 1: a lot of money. What is like you know, I
Speaker 1: think looking at them, not even just this race specifically,
Speaker 1: just generally, I think we've we've gone from like Obama
Speaker 1: and eight sort of being like, oh, you know, public
Speaker 1: public funds might be good to be like who am
Speaker 1: I kidding?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 1: These like you're gonna get destroyed if you're not taking
Speaker 1: like this like huge, these huge sums of money from
Speaker 1: outside groups. What's been kind of like evolution, I know,
Speaker 1: like obviously Citizens United is a is a Supreme Court
Speaker 1: decision we talk about a lot because it's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: you the corporation have the same rights as a person
Speaker 1: to spend as much money on a race. But what
Speaker 1: what's kind of like we're was it ever in a
Speaker 1: good space or does is it truly that? I feel
Speaker 1: like since my time in politics that was really like
Speaker 1: when it just went completely bonkers when you know you're
Speaker 1: ordained by the highest court in the land to be like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: just let it rip with your dollars however you want.
Speaker 2: And you said that those two are not unrelated, you
Speaker 2: being in politics and things just going from bonkers.
Speaker 1: I think you said off, Mike, I was smoking on
Speaker 1: that super pack.
Speaker 2: Yeah you were loud of loud, yeah, yeah, I did
Speaker 2: turn my hat backwards and skateboard into frame to say, yeah.
Speaker 1: Force pierced your own ear. Yeah, that's cool, that's good.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, gosh, But actual question.
Speaker 5: Let's just talk about how much it really is. We're
Speaker 5: talking about five point one billion dollars this year, be
Speaker 5: a billion with a B going into these super packs
Speaker 5: getting spent on the elections. And you kind of lost
Speaker 5: me with the.
Speaker 2: Has it ever has it ever been good or less bad?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, right, like it's just been different bad. If
Speaker 5: you go way back in American history, right, like we
Speaker 5: all know the stories of the smoke filled rooms and
Speaker 5: like and that's yeah, that's how politics used to happen.
Speaker 5: And then yeah, that's exactly smoke filled rooms twenty twelve
Speaker 5: Citizens United happens. And it takes us from the era
Speaker 5: of packs. So people being able to get together and
Speaker 5: spend some money on politics with regulation saying there's a
Speaker 5: limit to how much you can spend. So they just
Speaker 5: ripped the roof right off of it, so it became
Speaker 5: unlimited and all billions and billions of dollars start flowing in.
Speaker 5: And the problem is we the American people can't see
Speaker 5: where candidates are getting their funding from so like it
Speaker 5: could be coming from overseas, it could be coming from
Speaker 5: people with bad intentions. We know a lot of it
Speaker 5: comes from a big industry here in the US that's
Speaker 5: trying to stop regulation from moving, and so they create
Speaker 5: these big packs and they basically like let's say I
Speaker 5: was a lobbyist and I was like, hey, Myles, I
Speaker 5: know you're running for office, and I think it's great
Speaker 5: that you do. But I've got one hundred million dollars
Speaker 5: in a pack. Great, And I know you got this
Speaker 5: candidate Jack who's running against you, who might be a
Speaker 5: little bit you know, you might be a little bit
Speaker 5: cooler with what we need to have done. And so
Speaker 5: what do you hundred million smoking?
Speaker 1: Oh dude, I love whatever you're doing.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 1: I love crypto, I love gasoline, I love plastics, microplastics.
Speaker 1: So dude, i'm your guy. I'm your guy.
Speaker 2: What about an NFT made of fossil fuels. I'm just saying, like, no,
Speaker 2: but you said the Supreme Court ripped the roof right
Speaker 2: off of it. That actually sounded really cool, but it's
Speaker 2: bad what they did. Yeah, ripping the roof right off
Speaker 2: Because I do that sometimes to a party and when
Speaker 2: I do it, it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I bet it is. Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you're not taking American democracy down with you.
Speaker 5: Oh let's just go back. That was twenty twelve, right,
Speaker 5: and we say, okay, forget it. There's no more rules
Speaker 5: about money in politics. And since then, we've seen the
Speaker 5: two parties move further and further apart, which means that
Speaker 5: big money has more control over these two parties that
Speaker 5: run everything. We've seen the American people get more and
Speaker 5: more disillusioned with the political system, like we all just
Speaker 5: kind of take for granted. Now they're like, oh, the
Speaker 5: whole thing is bought, Like it's all bought, sold and
Speaker 5: paid for, and so like they're never going to do
Speaker 5: anything for me. And then we see studies from major
Speaker 5: universities that actually underscore the same point, which is like, yep,
Speaker 5: the political system doesn't work for you regular Americans. And
Speaker 5: I think if you tie a line back to twenty twelve,
Speaker 5: from twenty twelve to January sixth of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: you kind of think, like, well, if people are that
Speaker 5: disconnected and that angry and that correct that the whole
Speaker 5: thing has been bought and sold, it's no surprise, they're
Speaker 5: going to show up being really angry at the Capitol,
Speaker 5: Like we've turned it into a breeding ground for that
Speaker 5: kind of behavior.
Speaker 1: Right, because it's all like it feels, it's like an illusion.
Speaker 1: People are like, but I thought, this is I'm my
Speaker 1: the outcomes I'm looking for will be achieved through this
Speaker 1: quote unquote political process. But all I'm seeing is like
Speaker 1: an exacerbation of all the things that make my life
Speaker 1: more difficult. And the people that are being enriched look
Speaker 1: nothing like I will. My life looks nothing like the
Speaker 1: way theirs look. Yeah, and I feel like that just
Speaker 1: turns into apathy or anger or whatever. And more and
Speaker 1: more people just you know, I think we all understand
Speaker 1: it is Uh, it's frustrating to see that, but absolutely
Speaker 1: think there's no rules.
Speaker 5: The people that have the money to make a hundred
Speaker 5: million dollar donations, they are doing just fine. They've been
Speaker 5: doing just fine since twenty twelve. They're getting more and
Speaker 5: more and more share of the economy going to them,
Speaker 5: and meanwhile regular Americans are getting completely left behind. And
Speaker 5: right now, neither party is stepping up to fix it.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a clear difference between the parties. Obviously,
Speaker 5: we were joking around before, but like clear difference in
Speaker 5: the two parties, and nobody seems to have the balls
Speaker 5: to act, actually step up and deal with the problems
Speaker 5: with the political system when they're in power. Otherwise you know,
Speaker 5: maybe like maybe Obama would have done it when he
Speaker 5: had power in both houses in the first term, but
Speaker 5: like they didn't get done.
Speaker 1: Because the other part is like the FEC. Also, it's
Speaker 1: I remember at that time when Obama was in office,
Speaker 1: like there was a chance to maybe put more competent
Speaker 1: or people who are more dedicated to enforcing campaigns finance laws,
Speaker 1: like as commissioners at that FC, and that just kind
Speaker 1: of came and went, and yeah, that's where you kind
Speaker 1: of I think, and that's where it becomes easier to
Speaker 1: see like, well, what are the differences because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like they're all sort of both
Speaker 1: both parties are beholden to playing this sort of game
Speaker 1: of like, well, I also have to answer to like
Speaker 1: corporate benefactors, which we've now just kind of we're taking
Speaker 1: the mask off.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what's going on. They it's all about money.
Speaker 2: They have the money. What am I going to do?
Speaker 1: Swear off that money?
Speaker 2: And they completely blown out like in an ad war
Speaker 2: or something because I just don't have the funds to compete.
Speaker 2: And it's yeah, now we're at this place where we're
Speaker 2: I guess at.
Speaker 1: The bottom already. Can we get more bottom? We can
Speaker 1: always get more of the bottom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we can go Bottomer, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the signal is no longer like the idea of
Speaker 2: a democracy is signal goes from people to the politicians
Speaker 2: or the institutions that can actually do something about the
Speaker 2: will of the people. And that stopped happening like kind
Speaker 2: of completely in the.
Speaker 5: Last Yeah, I don't want you guys to get like
Speaker 5: totally blown up on the internet. So we're going to
Speaker 5: talk about the democracy versus republic thing before say we're
Speaker 5: not a democracy, we're a republic. We are a republic
Speaker 5: that is also a democracy, and it's just worth saying that.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, yes, what you said, Like, we're supposed
Speaker 5: to be able to vote for representatives in our republic
Speaker 5: who're supposed to do the will of the people, but
Speaker 5: they don't. They do the will of special interests and
Speaker 5: the people that are funding those super PACs and the
Speaker 5: people that are funding their campaigns that's who they have
Speaker 5: to work for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if you think about it, like the
Speaker 2: the body politics and metaphor of like a body the
Speaker 2: signal not getting from the eyes to the brain that
Speaker 2: moves things, because like that would be a disorder, that
Speaker 2: person would be in trouble or they would be really
Speaker 2: high off that lab pack.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm just I'm picturing somebody like involuntarily punching
Speaker 5: themselves in the face. Yeah, yeah, it feels like the
Speaker 5: metaphor you're going for it, Yes.
Speaker 2: Exactly, because they're that super peck of lab Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you said something in our last conversation that kind of
Speaker 2: put a lot of this into perspective. Just when I
Speaker 2: hear dark money, I never really thought about the fact
Speaker 2: it's only dark to us, like we don't know where
Speaker 2: the money comes from. But the politicians know that. That's
Speaker 2: just like so like they have to do the extra
Speaker 2: work to keep us from knowing who is funding their campaigns.
Speaker 2: That's just totally so inherently sinister.
Speaker 5: You know, if you think about the motivations of somebody
Speaker 5: who's giving a hundred million dollar donation, it might be
Speaker 5: because they have a worldview and they really want to
Speaker 5: support it like it might be just totally all good, right,
Speaker 5: Like I want to see war rights for this group
Speaker 5: or that group, and I'm just gonna give a ton
Speaker 5: of money to support it. The other scenario is that
Speaker 5: they're piling up all this money and they're making a
Speaker 5: phone call to a political consultant or to a politician
Speaker 5: and saying, hey, I got this giant pile of money
Speaker 5: that's about to go to either you or your opponent,
Speaker 5: and we're going to make sure that if you don't
Speaker 5: support the thing I care about, then you're going to.
Speaker 1: Lose, right.
Speaker 5: And it's that that's so sinister, right, And it's exactly
Speaker 5: what's happening with with all this stuff. It's it's folks
Speaker 5: who are spending shit tons of money to make sure
Speaker 5: that they have political power that is over the power
Speaker 5: of the voters. It's terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like, what are some examples that people
Speaker 1: that kind of go over people's heads and how like
Speaker 1: I think most people are like, yeah, they put money
Speaker 1: behind a candidate and then this person they get to office,
Speaker 1: they're able to find a way to make sure that
Speaker 1: that donation didn't go completely unheard, that that results in
Speaker 1: legislation that's favorable to them. I think that's like one
Speaker 1: easy way to think about it, But like, what are
Speaker 1: some other ways that, you know, just just to kind
Speaker 1: of for people to fully understand outside of just sort
Speaker 1: of like these very easy to understand examples, Like what
Speaker 1: are the more nuanced ways that this is completely completely
Speaker 1: like perverting the process.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So in twenty fourteen, Princeton and Northeastern University did
Speaker 5: a study together and they looked at eighteen hundred public
Speaker 5: opinion polls over the course of twenty years to find
Speaker 5: out whether or not the laws that Congress pass actually
Speaker 5: represent the will of the people. And when they plotted
Speaker 5: all of their data for average American income earners, they
Speaker 5: found that when zero percent of average Americans want something,
Speaker 5: there's about a thirty percent chance that Congress is going
Speaker 5: to pass that law about that thing. And they also
Speaker 5: found that if one hundred percent of Americans want something,
Speaker 5: there's a thirty percent chance that Congress is going to
Speaker 5: do it. That's the key takeaways. Yeah, it's like it's
Speaker 5: not good, No, it's not great. No matter what the
Speaker 5: American people want, there's about a third percent chance that
Speaker 5: Congress passes a law. In other words, we have near
Speaker 5: zero statistically near zero impact on public policy. We the
Speaker 5: American people. They ran the same data for special interests
Speaker 5: and wealthy donors and all of that, and they found
Speaker 5: that those groups actually do have influence. And then when
Speaker 5: you think about it practically, like there's all sorts of
Speaker 5: issues that Americans really do agree on that are just
Speaker 5: like common sense solutions to stuff that we care about,
Speaker 5: whether it's whether it's background checks or abortion or like,
Speaker 5: there's lots of really difficult issues that Americans want solutions on,
Speaker 5: right but the only way that we end up talking
Speaker 5: about it is it's this incredibly wild, divisive way. And
Speaker 5: that goes right back to the It goes right back
Speaker 5: to the money in politics, because they have so much
Speaker 5: more power when we're all talking about the extremes rather
Speaker 5: than common sense solutions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, were there were just a there's been some moments
Speaker 2: in the Biden administration where it felt like he was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I want to Jeck, but like I just my hands
Speaker 2: are tied, where it felt like he wasn't talking specifically
Speaker 2: about Congress.
Speaker 1: But it was like if they said he wasn't talking
Speaker 1: specifically to me, Jack to.
Speaker 2: Me, I know, I know that was confusing but Jack
Speaker 2: and Mac and I feel like that is kind of
Speaker 2: what he's referring, like when you're a politician, like you're
Speaker 2: stepping into this system where you are beholden to these
Speaker 2: like massive moneyed interest groups and you know, the stuff
Speaker 2: that he was able to get passed, for instance, with
Speaker 2: regards to like pushing back on just tech monopolies and
Speaker 2: the power of the tech industry. I was reading this
Speaker 2: New Yorker profile of like billionaires who are donating to
Speaker 2: Trump's campaign, and like it's there are some of these
Speaker 2: traditionally Democrat donors who like switched over because they're like, well,
Speaker 2: we just can't live like what Biden has done in
Speaker 2: this administration is like unconscionable as just like he's like
Speaker 2: trying to regulate, you know, completely unregulated tech power. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it just it feels like like it's pretty clear how
Speaker 2: it works. I guess we just don't hear the specifics
Speaker 2: of it, like on a day to day basis. It
Speaker 2: feels like it's one of those things that like in
Speaker 2: the mainstream media, they won't just be like, yeah, now
Speaker 2: all that money's going to Trump. Because there was pushback
Speaker 2: against like tech oligarchs in during the Biden administration, you know.
Speaker 5: Totally the first time ever. This year, the crypto industry
Speaker 5: is the largest super pac industry. Like their crypto companies
Speaker 5: are giving more to politics than any other group, two
Speaker 5: hundred and four million dollars going into the campaign, right,
Speaker 5: and uh yeah, yeah, it goes back to the same thing.
Speaker 5: It's like they don't sure, I guess they don't want
Speaker 5: to be regulated, but like, isn't it the government's job
Speaker 5: to do what's in the best interest of all the
Speaker 5: people and not just like those that have already made
Speaker 5: a ton of money off the system that we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so well, and I think because that's like
Speaker 1: all roads lead to well, it's it's just the the
Speaker 1: just obscene influence of money that creates this sort of
Speaker 1: like legislative gridlock too, like to a you know, a
Speaker 1: much more extreme extent, because like to your point, whenever
Speaker 1: people are like E when politics like, well it's not
Speaker 1: that easy, what they're saying is like, well, in this game,
Speaker 1: if I step out of line, that special interest group
Speaker 1: they come in and they primary me and put someone
Speaker 1: else up to race in the race against me that
Speaker 1: will be much better funded than me, and then I
Speaker 1: will lose my seat, and because I want to be
Speaker 1: the most popular person in my state, I have to
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to stay in office. And so
Speaker 1: it's really not so much about what you want, but
Speaker 1: like half of making it seem like I'm acting out
Speaker 1: the will of the voter in my constituents and the
Speaker 1: other half making sure I damn sure do not cross
Speaker 1: these donors, because that's really that that's that's who causes
Speaker 1: the most damage because they they can actually influence the
Speaker 1: voters more than the voters can influence me.
Speaker 5: And look, if you want to get anything done, you
Speaker 5: have to be in power right right, And the only
Speaker 5: way to stay empower is to fundraise. The New York
Speaker 5: Times did this awesome expos recently where they interviewed a
Speaker 5: bunch of members of Congress who are on their way out,
Speaker 5: so they're retiring this year or whatever, and one of
Speaker 5: them talked about, in order to get a bill put forward,
Speaker 5: you have to be on a committee, right otherwise you
Speaker 5: can't even move a bill. And in order to be
Speaker 5: on the committee, you have to hit your fundraising goals
Speaker 5: for the quarter, which is some ridiculous amount two hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty thousand dollars or something. But in order to
Speaker 5: be the person who decides whether or not the bill
Speaker 5: makes it to the floor of Congress, you have to
Speaker 5: be the chair of that committee, which is an even
Speaker 5: higher fundraising goal. And so when we talk about like
Speaker 5: the system is designed to stop good people from getting
Speaker 5: good things done, it's that kind of thing. It's like, right,
Speaker 5: no matter how well intentioned you are, you're gonna have
Speaker 5: to go fundraised from special interest in order to get
Speaker 5: anything done.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: And if that's who you have to fundraise from, and
Speaker 5: then you cross them, you're cutting off your source of power. Right,
Speaker 5: and we fix this problem, it's just gonna keep getting worse.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a fix. No, it sounds like we're fucked.
Speaker 2: I think the episode's over a well, okay, so I
Speaker 2: we we just cut there. Josh told us that there
Speaker 2: might actually be a solution. So we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 2: We're gonna come back and we're gonna hear what what
Speaker 2: could possibly be done about the way this system operates.
Speaker 5: Will be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We we talked a lot about the difficulty that we
Speaker 2: have as Americans imagining things any like having a political
Speaker 2: imagination for a different future, like I can't. I was
Speaker 2: alive for when and McCain Fine Gold was a thing
Speaker 2: and people were like, oh, that's a good bill. That
Speaker 2: kind of made John like it is one of the
Speaker 2: things that made John McCain's name, because he like made
Speaker 2: campaign finance reform a big sort of bipartisan issue of
Speaker 2: like getting money out and even I now like looking
Speaker 2: at the way things currently operate as we have this
Speaker 2: like presidential election where fucking Elon Musk is like one
Speaker 2: of the main players, Like, it's hard for me to
Speaker 2: even imagine like how we back out of this, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: I think the first thing is you got to remember
Speaker 5: that the folks who founded this country weren't given permission
Speaker 5: by anyone else, right, Like, the founders of the country
Speaker 5: were some young folks with a vision who wanted to
Speaker 5: see things differently than they were, and they had a
Speaker 5: whole entire revolution about it. So it's deeply embedded in
Speaker 5: our history that we change the system to make it
Speaker 5: work better. And what that could mean now is changing
Speaker 5: the rules of the system so that if you're a
Speaker 5: lobbyist for instance, maybe you can't bundle millions of dollars
Speaker 5: to give to a politician to ask them to pass
Speaker 5: a law anymore. That's a thing that we could pass today.
Speaker 5: You could pass laws to end jerrymandering today, so that
Speaker 5: you don't have politicians drawing their own voting districts, you
Speaker 5: have voters drawing voting districts so that they're fair and equal.
Speaker 5: All of these things would help put power back in
Speaker 5: the hands of the people. And when we talk about
Speaker 5: like what are the reforms that would actually change the system,
Speaker 5: it doesn't need to be through the federal government where
Speaker 5: everything is totally stuck. We can do it state by
Speaker 5: state because elections are run in the states, not federally
Speaker 5: according to the Constitution. And if you go state by
Speaker 5: state and pass laws making it putting campaign finance limits
Speaker 5: in place, making it so lobbyists can't give guests to politicians,
Speaker 5: so that ethics and transparency are baked into the law,
Speaker 5: you really move the needle. And then if you really
Speaker 5: want to fix things, you implement public funding systems for elections,
Speaker 5: which means that the funding for elections comes out of
Speaker 5: tax payer dollars instead of coming from super packs and billionaires.
Speaker 5: Anybody can run for office by talking to their neighbors,
Speaker 5: by making a strong case, and by qualifying to get
Speaker 5: to get public funding. And that's totally affordable. It would
Speaker 5: cost something like one percent or point sorry, point one
Speaker 5: percent of the military budget, the military budgetal one point
Speaker 5: one percent. We could have clean elections across the entire.
Speaker 1: And that's seventy trillion dollars point one percent of the
Speaker 1: military budget. Right, that's it's ridiculous, no, right, because that's
Speaker 1: also too it also means that there's a level playing field.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, if everyone is using the same these
Speaker 1: these same sort of fixed funds, you can't then be
Speaker 1: like and then I can call in a strategic airstrike
Speaker 1: from a pack to then like take me over the edge.
Speaker 1: It's like no, no, no, this is this is the budget.
Speaker 1: This is what you get. Now make it work based
Speaker 1: on your you know, the merits of your candidacy.
Speaker 5: Right, not instead of whether or not you're you know,
Speaker 5: best buddies with some billionaire who you went to Princeton with. Right,
Speaker 5: that's yeah, it's like level playing field. Or you can
Speaker 5: consider it like free market capitalism, where nobody has a
Speaker 5: true leg up and it's actually the best ideas when
Speaker 5: and who's going to do the most for the people
Speaker 5: and who can get the most popular support, and then
Speaker 5: they get into office and they actually have an incentive
Speaker 5: to do the things they said they were going to
Speaker 5: do instead of getting into office and then fundraising more.
Speaker 2: Right, and being beholden to people who paid for them
Speaker 2: to get into.
Speaker 5: Office one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and surely these common sense solutions you're
Speaker 2: talking about, but like, did you take those from science
Speaker 2: fiction books? You're certainly stealing those, not from other real
Speaker 2: countries or our own history, right, those are just made
Speaker 2: up solutions that you dream made them ups.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean I also dreamed up one hundred
Speaker 5: and eighty victories in the last twelve years for the
Speaker 5: groups of people that have been working on passing these
Speaker 5: laws across the country. And so, like all kidding aside,
Speaker 5: this year, there are twenty one ballot initiatives across the
Speaker 5: country that are designed to make government work better for
Speaker 5: the people. And so in states across the country, people
Speaker 5: are going to be voting on some of these reforms.
Speaker 5: And this is exactly the kind of thing I was
Speaker 5: talking about before, where like you get it on the ballot,
Speaker 5: you get it organized, you get it on the ballot,
Speaker 5: and you win, and then you've changed the laws in
Speaker 5: your state. And when you have enough people organized and
Speaker 5: willing to fight for it, we can change this stuff
Speaker 5: and we can win.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's really important, like an important point
Speaker 1: because I think we look at the the broader consequences
Speaker 1: of money in politics. You're like, you just can't get
Speaker 1: anything done. The rich control everything, which yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker 1: But rather than thinking that there is this like this
Speaker 1: other bill or something we have to pass federally, it's
Speaker 1: like all of the pressure of their influence sort of
Speaker 1: leans on the idea that it is legal to do this.
Speaker 1: So the best weapon against that is just to kick
Speaker 1: that leg out, which is to say you aren't able
Speaker 1: to spend unlimited sums of money. It's very it's we're
Speaker 1: cleaning this whole thing up, and very quickly that influence
Speaker 1: wanes because if you have no other weight, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe they'll be clever and they'll be like, hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta you want some NFTs on the side because I
Speaker 1: can't give you money or whatever. But either way that
Speaker 1: we and just address a huge, huge pain point in
Speaker 1: the system. Which is this one specific thing. And to
Speaker 1: your point, it's not something we need to wait for,
Speaker 1: like for a federal election to decide or a presidential
Speaker 1: election decide. This is the person that can help do
Speaker 1: away with it all. It's like, if we're an organized
Speaker 1: enough at the state level, this is a much more
Speaker 1: effective way to really take to take that sort of
Speaker 1: that that you know, this, uh, this, what's the word
Speaker 1: I'm looking for, this pestilence off of the table.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to use the word pestilence because it's.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite magic the gathering cards. Pestilence. Z.
Speaker 1: How are those ballot initiatives performing.
Speaker 5: We'll see on November fifth, they are there.
Speaker 1: You're not riding the polar coaster.
Speaker 5: You know, the polar coaster. I've never heard that before. Like,
Speaker 5: we know if they're super popular with voters, super popular
Speaker 5: with voters. When you talk to voters about what these
Speaker 5: things do, even like ranked choice voting, open primaries, fixing, jerrymandering,
Speaker 5: voters love it. It's just a question of whether or
Speaker 5: not we can get enough information into their hands to
Speaker 5: make these choices. And then on the money and politics stuff,
Speaker 5: It's like these ballot initiatives usually win with huge margins,
Speaker 5: and so all the money in politics related ones, I'm
Speaker 5: not worried about it at all. Some of the others
Speaker 5: will be tighter, but like it's democracy, it's messy. Sometimes
Speaker 5: you have to go to bad a couple of times
Speaker 5: before you win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is the I a home run every time? Go
Speaker 2: ahead months.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, like, I know, like you know,
Speaker 1: for probably people that listen to this show, it's really
Speaker 1: easy to be like, yeah, no, shit, we don't want,
Speaker 1: you know, corporations and billionaires to have like you know,
Speaker 1: just unlimited influence through their money on political races. And
Speaker 1: I know, like sometimes when you hear conservatives talk about
Speaker 1: like the billionaire boogeyman as like George Soros or some
Speaker 1: nonsense like that, But it's also interesting to know that,
Speaker 1: like it does have real bipartisan support, so they're not
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're nessarily looking at the same
Speaker 1: way to be like, yeah, look at all the power
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has. But there I think, but some people
Speaker 1: are able to relate that their own pain and suffering
Speaker 1: is somehow connected to the billionaire class too.
Speaker 5: Totally, and like it's not just that the solutions are bipartisan.
Speaker 5: It's the problem is bipartisan. Two right, there's no there's
Speaker 5: no question that candidates on both sides are beholden to
Speaker 5: packs and super PACs in the billionaire class and special interests.
Speaker 5: I will underscore I don't think this is a both
Speaker 5: sides kind of thing, where like both sides are equally
Speaker 5: bad and both sides are doing exactly the same thing
Speaker 5: about it. I think it's clear that like voters should
Speaker 5: be able to make a decision about who's going to
Speaker 5: do the right thing for democracy, so to speak. Right now,
Speaker 5: without me getting into any specific candidates, there's some pretty
Speaker 5: clear differences there, but.
Speaker 2: It would be helpful if you could just give me
Speaker 2: the answer because I'm still no.
Speaker 5: I think you got it.
Speaker 2: I think it's Wu tang Jack Wu tang is for
Speaker 2: the children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, write it in.
Speaker 5: But like if you look at the top ten super donors,
Speaker 5: they come from both sides of the aisle. Sure like
Speaker 5: our friends over at Open Secrets did this. They follow
Speaker 5: it all the time. We did a big study with
Speaker 5: them this year. The money is coming from both sides
Speaker 5: to buy influence on both sides. That is true. It
Speaker 5: is also true that voters on both sides understand the
Speaker 5: problem and want it fixed, Like, of course we do.
Speaker 5: We just we know that we want it fixed. I
Speaker 5: think where it falls off is that people don't often
Speaker 5: believe that it's fixable, which is just a myth that
Speaker 5: we have to get over, and then we get stuck
Speaker 5: in this part is in battle where conservatives are like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, changing the rules. We should leave things
Speaker 5: the way they are, it's tradition, and liberals are like,
Speaker 5: throw the whole thing out, like let's start over. Let's
Speaker 5: like we have to get common sense about it, and
Speaker 5: it's really easy to do, like if you actually look
Speaker 5: at the policies that we're talking about moving here, if
Speaker 5: you're a lobbyist, you shouldn't be able to give donations
Speaker 5: to a politician. That's common sense. And so it's just
Speaker 5: about being you were joking around about like low education voters.
Speaker 5: If we could all just be a little bit more educated,
Speaker 5: like read the ballot packet when it comes home, take
Speaker 5: a little time, learn about what you're voting on, and
Speaker 5: get it done. I think there's a much better chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess my and I and I do think.
Speaker 1: I just want to say on the record, I think
Speaker 1: the corporate influence is bad, but what happens to the
Speaker 1: entire lobbying industry if oh, I know, and all the
Speaker 1: people that lose their job, I mean, they're going to
Speaker 1: have to go to some other kind of consulting gig
Speaker 1: on the Capitol Hill. And I'm just worried about those people.
Speaker 1: And I'm worried about them, and I just, you know,
Speaker 1: what their constituency that I come from, K Street. I
Speaker 1: come from K Street and I want to let them
Speaker 1: know I'm still thinking about your baby.
Speaker 5: That's good. I feel like maybe what the lobbyist state
Speaker 5: is a lobbyist to help them protect their interests.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that sounds like a trillion dollar industry.
Speaker 1: Does that exist? Oh my god. I think I just
Speaker 1: set you guys up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Lobby the last episode of the show, being Lobbyist for
Speaker 2: the lobbying and lobby for y'all.
Speaker 5: Friends of ours made a great video a few years ago.
Speaker 5: It's exactly. It's like these poor, sad sack lobbyists that
Speaker 5: nobody is looking out for. And it's got like Sarah
Speaker 5: macglachlin music in the background. You know, it's like, adopt
Speaker 5: a lobbyist kind of thing right, Like, they're like, I
Speaker 5: had to fly commercial to Davos this year. You know
Speaker 5: how humiliating that is. Exactly I had to fly through Frankfurt. Okay,
Speaker 5: oh my god, I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 5: I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Just before you go, another danger that comes up in
Speaker 2: your work, it's foreign influences.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about just what the fact.
Speaker 2: That foreign influences are are able to participate in American democracy? Like,
Speaker 2: what are the theoretical or even real problems.
Speaker 8: That we've seen as a result of that. Yeah, let's
Speaker 8: start with the theoretical. Let's just say that you had
Speaker 8: a super pack, and because it was a superpack and
Speaker 8: you had unlimited secret dark money where nobody could really
Speaker 8: see where it was coming from or where it was going.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's on the up and up to me.
Speaker 5: But yeah, sounds good to you. But that's because you're
Speaker 5: obviously a Russian plant. Thanks clearly, Yeah, there'd be nothing
Speaker 5: stopping you from taking international money. And so when we
Speaker 5: look at where these super PACs get their funding from,
Speaker 5: of course some of it's going to be foreign, Like
Speaker 5: there's no rules saying that it can't be it's just
Speaker 5: unlimited money and it comes from wherever, and there's no
Speaker 5: trace ability. Like that's in and of itself a problem,
Speaker 5: and then we get into the real practical things. This
Speaker 5: is actually one of the solutions. The state of Maine
Speaker 5: this past year passed a law saying that any corporate
Speaker 5: entity that was more than I think it's five percent
Speaker 5: foreign owned was no longer allowed to make any contributions
Speaker 5: to candidates or ballot initiatives in the state of Maine.
Speaker 5: So they passed this law, and as a result, the
Speaker 5: next cycle, there was eighty percent less money going into
Speaker 5: ballot initiatives in Maine. And when we looked at why,
Speaker 5: it's because Maine had a ballot initiative that was about
Speaker 5: main citizens' ability to choose how they make their electricity,
Speaker 5: like home rule over electricity, and all of the outside
Speaker 5: money that had been coming in was of course coming
Speaker 5: in from multinational oil and gas companies that wanted to
Speaker 5: use main as they passed through for pipelines, and so
Speaker 5: it just it's like exactly the problem, right, Like you
Speaker 5: want citizens to not have all that foreign influence but
Speaker 5: instead be able to just vote. They're conscious of whether
Speaker 5: or not they think something's a good idea without folks
Speaker 5: from Canada or Russia or wherever trying to sway our elections.
Speaker 2: And also it feels like that will pull better to
Speaker 2: be like you can't have foreign corporations, you know, like
Speaker 2: we don't like to board. Yeah yeah, at least at
Speaker 2: starting point, you know, like get a foothold, and then
Speaker 2: people see, oh shit, that like changed the way this
Speaker 2: election runs. Set up a bunch of American shell companies.
Speaker 5: I guess I don't think you have to be like
Speaker 5: xenophobic to think that it's bad for foreign governments to
Speaker 5: be meddling in our elections, right right, Like that's just
Speaker 5: that goes down to like the sovereignty of a nation.
Speaker 5: We need to be able to protect our own elections
Speaker 5: and run them our way without foreign influence running ads
Speaker 5: telling us who to vote for in our state, our
Speaker 5: own country. That's sketchy.
Speaker 2: I get it, I got it, man. So Canada is
Speaker 2: what is the main problem? I think we can all agree.
Speaker 5: I think so yeah mostly Trudeau, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's Trudeau. That's Trudeau and that though
Speaker 1: sorry sorry I had to it was right there like.
Speaker 2: That one, Joshlyn, such a pleasure having you on the
Speaker 2: daily zeitgeist? Where can people find you? Follow you find
Speaker 2: out more about what you guys are doing.
Speaker 5: So you can find represent us at www dot represent
Speaker 5: dot us. We're on all the social media. Is that
Speaker 5: at represent us and you can find me at at
Speaker 5: Joshua g.
Speaker 2: Lynn, should I have called the organization represent dot us
Speaker 2: instead of represent us?
Speaker 5: That's a great question. No, No, we're called represent us,
Speaker 5: but the U r L is represent.
Speaker 1: Dot In a panic, he was texting me the whole
Speaker 1: time and the rest you do.
Speaker 5: Not hear anything I said this whole time.
Speaker 1: Jo, Yeah, that was sick, dude. You see, like down
Speaker 1: with the Super Bowl and all that.
Speaker 6: Man, I.
Speaker 1: Know, shadowy Green Bay Packers, dude, man, Big Brett Farm
Speaker 1: fans over here. So yeah, anyways.
Speaker 2: Great, And Josh, is there a work of media that
Speaker 2: you've been enjoying?
Speaker 5: Is there a work of media that I've been into?
Speaker 1: Yeah, tweet?
Speaker 2: You know something on so she needs yeh as we
Speaker 2: call it you and I.
Speaker 5: Is there something I've been enjoying lately? I don't know.
Speaker 5: I consume a lot of media, but my my thing
Speaker 5: is like I'm always trying to figure out if I
Speaker 5: can write a tweet that will go viral and they
Speaker 5: never do. Oh so, yeah, but here's what, Like, there's
Speaker 5: one that I wrote recently that I thought was pretty clever.
Speaker 5: Can I read it out loud?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 5: Yeah. Whenever I'm worried that I'm not paying enough attention
Speaker 5: to the details, I remember that X also known as Twitter,
Speaker 5: still uses Twitter blue on all their buttons, which I
Speaker 5: just don't understand, Like, get rid of that, and that
Speaker 5: Google hasn't updated the buttons when you go to save
Speaker 5: your Gmail settings, there's still these like nineteen nineties buttons. Yeah,
Speaker 5: every time I see that, I'm like, how are these
Speaker 5: massive companies with like super talking about tough guys Like, yeah,
Speaker 5: where's the where's the macho tough guys saying like hey
Speaker 5: go fix that button or you're fired. Nobody's doing it.
Speaker 1: The tough guys are gone, They're gone.
Speaker 5: It's a good reminder.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where have all the tough gangs?
Speaker 1: Gang? Let's help that. Let's let's get that viral. Let's
Speaker 1: get that one viral. Where have all the tough guys? Go?
Speaker 1: Is what I just said.
Speaker 2: That's how the English language works, miles. Where can people
Speaker 2: find you as their working media? You've been in Twitter
Speaker 2: Instagram at Miles of Gray. If you like the NBA,
Speaker 2: Jack and I talked that on the basketball podcast Miles.
Speaker 1: And Jack on Moosty's an official NBA product.
Speaker 2: Also, if you want to hear me talk about ninety
Speaker 2: day Fiance, I do that on four to twenty Day Fiance. U.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of things that I like. One
Speaker 1: is apparently there's a Jimmy John sandwich that's just a
Speaker 1: gigantic pickle as the bread. It looks it's a Halloween
Speaker 1: and tell me this. I don't know, it can't be real,
Speaker 1: but anyway, but the quote tweet is from Autumn at
Speaker 1: Fall Sunday that just saying this is some of y'all
Speaker 1: thinking you get bread whole time you in a pickle.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's right there. That's poetry. And then another one
Speaker 2: at Cerial Burrito tweeted, God never seen San Francisco this
Speaker 2: bad spider webs completely covering entire businesses, skeletons just strewn
Speaker 2: about sidewalks in every neighborhood. Things have to change. I mean, truly,
Speaker 2: could be a Fox News like, how have they not
Speaker 2: done that yet? Zombies walking the street? I do just
Speaker 2: want to shout out super producer Victor, who was silent
Speaker 2: throughout the entirety of this episode, talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: the ways that our democracy is being torn down around us,
Speaker 2: brick by brick, and then show that Jimmy John's pickle
Speaker 2: sandwich entered the chat to say, what the fuck.
Speaker 1: What the fuck not the all kinds of other stuff
Speaker 1: about outside spending. No, no, no, what the fuck are they doing?
Speaker 1: Jimmy yeah or John?
Speaker 2: All right, Victor, we see where your parties are a
Speaker 2: right places. Yeah, in the right places. Emo Normy tweeted
Speaker 2: Hawk boo ah spook on that thing. Haha, just a
Speaker 2: little something I came up with. Happy Halloween guy.
Speaker 1: Welcome man.
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're
Speaker 2: at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook
Speaker 2: fan page and a website, Daily zeikes dot com, where
Speaker 2: we post our episodes and our footnote link off to
Speaker 2: the information that we talked about in today's episode, as
Speaker 2: well as a song that we think you might enjoy, Miles,
Speaker 2: is there a song that we think people might enjoy?
Speaker 1: Yes, man, just the our artistic evolution of the artist
Speaker 1: McGee mk dot g ee really like the last album
Speaker 1: that he put out, it was called two Star and
Speaker 1: the Dream Police. And he has a new single that
Speaker 1: just came out last week called Rockman and it's really
Speaker 1: dope if you like like his the guitar pedals he's
Speaker 1: using is really cool. Like he has his very own
Speaker 1: unique sound. But this track kind of reminds me it's
Speaker 1: sort of like put the Police, not the blaw Enforcement,
Speaker 1: like the sting Band, with like the harmonies and just
Speaker 1: like kind of the vocal melodies and stuff. So if
Speaker 1: you're a fan of the sting Led Police, you'll probably
Speaker 1: like this track called Rockman by Nicky And this is
Speaker 1: some modern stuff and it's good, So put this in
Speaker 1: your speakers and enjoy. All right, We will.
Speaker 2: Link off to that in the foot note. For today
Speaker 2: is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from My
Speaker 2: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio ap Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows. That is gonna do
Speaker 2: it for us this morning, back this afternoon though, to
Speaker 2: tell you what is trending, and we'll touch y' all.
Speaker 1: Then bye bye,