Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Steps podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today Sarah Kenjo, who is not only a
Speaker 1: writer in the PhD Nea for Apology, but the guru
Speaker 1: when it comes to the political world, especially from the
Speaker 1: view in the heartland, from the gen X millennial borderline. Sarah,
Speaker 1: good to have you here. Oh, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me on. So let me be clear here,
Speaker 1: because things change every day that we're doing this Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the nineteen of May. But what's the viewpoint of the
Speaker 1: coronavirus from your location right now? I mean allegedly from
Speaker 1: my location. We don't have a high amount of cases,
Speaker 1: and we've opened up the state, but they're not really
Speaker 1: testing people. So people are kind of just, you know,
Speaker 1: stumbling in the dark and hoping to not get infected.
Speaker 1: But we're certainly not in as bad a position as
Speaker 1: New York or l A or San Francisco, are these
Speaker 1: big cities. Well, since in your new bestseller, Hiding in
Speaker 1: Plain Site, you drilled down into the politics of Missouri,
Speaker 1: now should I be saying Missouri or Missouri Missouri? I'm
Speaker 1: in the Missouri part, trying to drive an hour south,
Speaker 1: I'll be in Missouri okay, uh, the governor and the
Speaker 1: legislature presently of what political party, oh, Republican, and our
Speaker 1: governor is a non elected governor who replaced the previous
Speaker 1: governor who had been tying up a woman in his basement,
Speaker 1: photographing or a half naked embezzling funds, committing fraud, and
Speaker 1: doing other stuff. So you know that this guy is
Speaker 1: just more of a run of the mill Mike Pence
Speaker 1: Aclyte type GOP guy. Well, you know, living on the
Speaker 1: West Coast and tuning into national media on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: like the New York Times, Washington Posting Walls Rejournal. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's the news cycle, but it doesn't seem that there's
Speaker 1: been a whole hell of a lot of news about
Speaker 1: the scandal and the governorship in Missouri. Now I'm in
Speaker 1: there briefly, was in eighteen, you know, the first time
Speaker 1: he got arrested. Second time, it kind of you know, faded. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean I thought it was a big deal, not
Speaker 1: just as a resident of Missouri, but because I think
Speaker 1: of Missouri as a microcosm for the US, which I
Speaker 1: write about in Hiding in Plain Sight, but also the
Speaker 1: governor Eric Righten's as a microcosm for what could happen
Speaker 1: for Trump because he had just, you know, brazenly committed
Speaker 1: a series of crimes. Everyone wanted him gone, his own
Speaker 1: party wanted him gone because of the intensity of the corruption,
Speaker 1: and he was just refusing to leave. And eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: they did manage to get rid of him. And it's
Speaker 1: really something when someone is too corrupt for the Missouri
Speaker 1: goop um and and he left. However, I don't think
Speaker 1: that will necessarily be the case with Trump, but I
Speaker 1: saw it as kind of like a test run of
Speaker 1: abusive power and criminal impunity. Okay, well, let's just start
Speaker 1: with your state. What degree is jerrymandering a factor. It's
Speaker 1: a huge factor. I mean, I think that's true with
Speaker 1: almost any Republican state. But even more than jerrymandering, dar
Speaker 1: money is a factor. We have the highest amount of
Speaker 1: dark money, and we are both you know, pretty expert.
Speaker 1: Not all my audiences please explain dark money. Dark money
Speaker 1: is just money that gets poured into a campaign where
Speaker 1: you don't know the source. You don't know where it's
Speaker 1: coming from, so you don't know what kind of special
Speaker 1: interests or individuals are deciding to back this particular candidate.
Speaker 1: And after citizens United Supreme Court ruling in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten, they basically decided there weren't going to be
Speaker 1: limits on dark money, and until that point, states had
Speaker 1: decided it individually. Missouri was particularly corrupt, to the point
Speaker 1: that they said, you know, in Missouri, there's not even
Speaker 1: such a thing as quid pro quote corruption because it's
Speaker 1: so rampant. So we were kind of, you know, the
Speaker 1: bell weather ahead of the curve on that one. UM.
Speaker 1: And that's really what's infested our politics on a national levels.
Speaker 1: It's not just that that politicians can be bought. We
Speaker 1: don't know who's buying them. We don't know who's behind
Speaker 1: find Uh. You know those billions of dollars. Well, since
Speaker 1: you're an expert, the average person would say, wait, can't
Speaker 1: people and companies only donate a limited amount? Can you
Speaker 1: explain a little bit further, especially in Missouri, who is
Speaker 1: raising these funds and how they're being dispersed. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are certain big players. Um, you know, the the
Speaker 1: guy in Missouri probably heard heard of Rex Sinkfeld. But
Speaker 1: you know, you see this um with other mega donors
Speaker 1: throughout the US. UM. You know, there's ways of circumventing
Speaker 1: these laws. There are loopholes, there are limitations, Um, if
Speaker 1: you're an individual as to how much you can donate,
Speaker 1: but you can form packs, you could form you know,
Speaker 1: other kind of corporate bodies in order to get that
Speaker 1: money flowing. And so that's been a problem nationwide and
Speaker 1: they tried to clean it up in Missouri. They actually
Speaker 1: the citizens of Missouri passed an initiative called Clean Missouri
Speaker 1: that was supposed to get rid of jerrymandering, dark money,
Speaker 1: all these other obstacles to democ grassy. Unfortunately, the legislature
Speaker 1: is right now trying to strike it down. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a trending hashtag You're called dirty Missouri, and you
Speaker 1: know that's what that's what we are. We're dirty Missouri. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the dark money coming into Missouri, does it tend
Speaker 1: to be state money or national money? Well, it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell, in part because it is dark money. UM,
Speaker 1: I do think that, you know, there is a high
Speaker 1: conglomeration of state interests. There are people in particular from
Speaker 1: outside St. Louis that are interested in buying up properties
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, managing the politics of St. Louis. I've
Speaker 1: noticed that the national GOP kind of uses Missouri UM
Speaker 1: as an experiment, like as a Petri dish for their operations.
Speaker 1: This was true with Ted Cruz before it was true
Speaker 1: with Trump. You saw Cambridge Analytica, you know, which is
Speaker 1: that big company um, you know, located in the UK
Speaker 1: and involved in Brexit that was doing data mining, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, targeted ads, propaganda so forth. They were involved
Speaker 1: in Missouri experimenting in Missouri. UM. And we've also just
Speaker 1: been kind of, uh, you know, a litmus test for
Speaker 1: the country. You have every kind of political um extreme here,
Speaker 1: you know, from extreme left across the spectrum to extreme right.
Speaker 1: It's where Phillis Schlafley was from. It's where the Tea
Speaker 1: Party emerged. It's also where the Ferguson movement emerged. UM.
Speaker 1: So you really get a bit of everything. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of political actors and donors see it
Speaker 1: as an opportune place to experiment. Think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: how is this going to play out on a national level, Like,
Speaker 1: let's see what happens in Missouri, the state that barely
Speaker 1: gets covered, where people won't really notice if we get
Speaker 1: up to something dirty. Let's go back to Cambridge and
Speaker 1: political from my for a moment on the Michael Lewis podcast,
Speaker 1: the guy was in charge of Cambridge Analytica said it
Speaker 1: didn't work, that the profiling didn't work. What's your view
Speaker 1: point on that? I mean, did did he say what?
Speaker 1: It didn't work? At the In terms of targeting, I
Speaker 1: think it's hard to tell. I don't think that there's
Speaker 1: been a qualitative study, like in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: looking at people's social media profiles, trying to guess their tastes,
Speaker 1: trying to guide them to a particular candidate. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it might have worked, it might not have,
Speaker 1: but to my knowledge, there hasn't really been a study
Speaker 1: of it. You know, I looked at a lot of
Speaker 1: those uh you know, Russia backed propaganda groups, although it's
Speaker 1: not solely Russia, um that was doing things like this
Speaker 1: as we know, it was actors from the US, the
Speaker 1: UK and so forth. Um, And you know, it did
Speaker 1: seem to persuade some I did think that it's influence
Speaker 1: in terms of like political advertising was overstated. I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things at play in the
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election that helped sway it. But when people
Speaker 1: talk about foreign influence, they often focused on bots and
Speaker 1: troll farms and the kind of things associated with Cambridge Analytica.
Speaker 1: There's a British journalist, UM Carol called Wallader who's studied
Speaker 1: it in detail. Um, and whistleblowers that have come forward,
Speaker 1: and I really worry about that that company, and one's
Speaker 1: like it is privacy is the fact that they've assembled
Speaker 1: this giant database full of identifying details that can be sold,
Speaker 1: that can be used by different actors for different means.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know what the future of that
Speaker 1: information is going to be, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: put their data on the internet unknowing that this would
Speaker 1: be its ultimate destination. And I do think that that's
Speaker 1: a violation of our privacy. Let's go back to Missouri.
Speaker 1: Uh So at the present time, uh, what's the makeup
Speaker 1: of the legislature, right versus left, Republican versus Democrat. It's
Speaker 1: almost entirely Republican. Uh In terms of the main positions
Speaker 1: in the legislature that are filled. There's one the state auditor,
Speaker 1: and she's running for governor against our current Republican governor
Speaker 1: and she's the sole Democrat that's in power. And that
Speaker 1: was not the case when I moved here. That was
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six, it was pretty even.
Speaker 1: You know, it's fifty fifty. We had to democratic, uh,
Speaker 1: a democratic governor Democratic senator with Clara mccaskell. There's this
Speaker 1: belief that Missouri has always been a you know, quote
Speaker 1: deep red state. Uh, that's not true. But I also
Speaker 1: just don't think any state is red or blue. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, as I said in the book, that every
Speaker 1: state is purple. It's purple like a bruce. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a state that's dealing with its own pain, its
Speaker 1: own problems. Um. And it's a lot more complex than
Speaker 1: the media LA is out. And I think because the
Speaker 1: national media has now become conglomerated in just a few cities,
Speaker 1: like in you know, New York, l A, uh, sometimes Chicago,
Speaker 1: I guess for the Midwest, it's had this kind of
Speaker 1: unrealistic portrayal of how states relate to each other and
Speaker 1: how politics play out within states where it's really a
Speaker 1: big mix. Um. And it's not so easy to type
Speaker 1: cast anybody California or Missouri. Now in some of these
Speaker 1: gerrymandered states, I believe, like in Wisconsin, in terms of
Speaker 1: sheer numbers, the Democrats are victorious, but in terms of
Speaker 1: the elections because of jerrymandering. The Republican's rule. Is that
Speaker 1: a similar situation in Missouri. Yeah, although the the issue
Speaker 1: with Wisconsin that worries me a lot is voter disenfranchisement
Speaker 1: because after the partial repeal of the v r A,
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act in two thousand thirteen, there were
Speaker 1: new ID laws. And back in twos sixteen you add
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin election for the presidency, where you know, Trump
Speaker 1: won that state by about thirty thousand votes I think,
Speaker 1: and over two hundred voters were turned away because they
Speaker 1: were told they didn't have the prerequisite identification. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of question as to that, as to
Speaker 1: whether that was legitimate, and as to whether these voter
Speaker 1: ID laws, um you know, are keeping people from voting.
Speaker 1: You know, it's clear that they are. Missouri has since
Speaker 1: passed a law, um you know, requiring voter I D
Speaker 1: that can result in people being turned away. But at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, I'm worried about coronavirus, I'm worried
Speaker 1: about whether there's going to be an election. I'm worried
Speaker 1: about whether we'll be able to safely vote. So a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff is h is up in the air,
Speaker 1: I think for everybody, but certainly for us. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: just stay with the safely vote. Certainly here in California. Uh,
Speaker 1: whatever elections we have will be by mail. Do we
Speaker 1: anticipate that will be a fifty state situation or not.
Speaker 1: I think it should be. I think for public safety,
Speaker 1: it should be by mail and it should be easy
Speaker 1: to do. We just finally in Missouri how to ruling
Speaker 1: that you'll be able to vote by mail as long
Speaker 1: as you have some sort of medical rationale, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, including if you fall into the category of
Speaker 1: seven year older you're a high risk person for coronavirus.
Speaker 1: The rest of us, I think, need to go see
Speaker 1: an auditor if we want to vote, um, you know,
Speaker 1: via mail, which I think is ridiculous. I mean, people
Speaker 1: are not going to put the time and effort into that,
Speaker 1: and it's a risky disease. You know, we don't know
Speaker 1: what the hell it does. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: ultimate effect is. And you shouldn't be asking people, I
Speaker 1: think too, you know, potentially put their life on the
Speaker 1: line to go vote. It should be simple. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: Oregon and other states have been doing voting by mail
Speaker 1: for a while. But this is why the GOP wants
Speaker 1: to shut down the post office. That was one of
Speaker 1: the first things they announced had to go in March, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in in their new little budgetary cuts. And
Speaker 1: that's a you know, the movement of an aspiring autocrat.
Speaker 1: That's the move of a party that does not want
Speaker 1: free and fair elections. Now, like you, I grew up
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, but I'm obviously older than you. But the
Speaker 1: first thing I remember Trump doing was saving Wollman Rink, Okay,
Speaker 1: and he got out a lot of press. And I
Speaker 1: was under the impression that the guy was smart. Certainly
Speaker 1: I no longer have that impression now that he is president.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to the post Office, in these
Speaker 1: other uh plans, do you think he's aware? Do you
Speaker 1: think it comes from him who is generating this behavior now,
Speaker 1: not something that has to do with bureaucracy, not something
Speaker 1: that has to do with all the little details. You know,
Speaker 1: what Trump wants is a guaranteed win. You know, he
Speaker 1: had said that before. Like people tend to not realize it,
Speaker 1: but Trump ran or nearly ran for president five times,
Speaker 1: almost ran in a d A in ninety six, he
Speaker 1: ran in two thousand, he ran two thousand twelve, if
Speaker 1: he ran in two thousand sixteen, he had set for
Speaker 1: about thirty years that he would only run and not
Speaker 1: drop out early if the win was predetermined. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know how literally you want to take that, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but basically that's what he cares about. He
Speaker 1: cares about winning, about power, about money, about immunity from prosecution.
Speaker 1: He's not thinking about the organization of our bureaucracy. I
Speaker 1: don't think he necessarily knows the law except for the
Speaker 1: extent that he needs to break it to accomplish what
Speaker 1: he wants. And as president, he can break the law
Speaker 1: by rewriting it, having his lackeys like Bill Barr rewrite it.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of how he operates. And he's always
Speaker 1: surrounded himself with people who are a lot smarter and
Speaker 1: savvier at handling these details, especially legal details, whether Roy
Speaker 1: Khon or Michael Cohen, or Bill Barr or Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 1: You know, those are the ones that work it out.
Speaker 1: He just has his own self interest, and you know,
Speaker 1: that's primarily what what he's there, you know, to accomplish. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to twenties sixteen since you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: uh needle to say nately Silver called the previous election
Speaker 1: and it he did a little bit of a maya culpa,
Speaker 1: but then he kind of explained, well, really the polls
Speaker 1: were right, okay, and certainly the New York Times missed it.
Speaker 1: This was before Bezos had brought the Washington poster injected
Speaker 1: a lot of money, so it wasn't of the profile
Speaker 1: it had now, needless say, the Wall Street journals on
Speaker 1: the other side of the fence. What are the reasons?
Speaker 1: And one of the primary reasons you believe Trump was
Speaker 1: victorious in Um, well, I had anticipated he was going
Speaker 1: to win, uh you know, and there are a number
Speaker 1: of reasons for that. I mean, one was he did
Speaker 1: have a base of support. People refused to recognize that
Speaker 1: that base existed for a long time. They treated it
Speaker 1: like a joke. They treated his candidacy like entertainment. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw him as an American demagogue, and as time
Speaker 1: went on, I saw him as having, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: similar style to the kind of dictators that I had
Speaker 1: studied in the former Soviet Union for most of my career.
Speaker 1: And you know, for those who don't know my degree
Speaker 1: in anthropology, UM you know, I spent that studying uz Pakistan.
Speaker 1: I sent that studying some of the most brutal dictators
Speaker 1: and flamboyant dictators in the world, and Trump reminded me
Speaker 1: of them. Then I realized that this was not a
Speaker 1: metaphorical connection. You know, Trump was literally connected to the
Speaker 1: former Soviet Union through his financial dealings, through his hiring
Speaker 1: of Paul Manafort, who had worked for the Kremlin, as
Speaker 1: his campaign manager. And I realized Russia had a real
Speaker 1: investment in Trump winning, which you know, people in government
Speaker 1: also realized. What they didn't seem to realize is that
Speaker 1: they could pull this off. That they were not stupid people.
Speaker 1: These are skilled operatives with the long history of you know,
Speaker 1: these kind of designs. And I think, um, that combined
Speaker 1: with I mean, it was a perfect storm of a
Speaker 1: lot of things. You know, there were flaws in the
Speaker 1: Clinton campaign. I think people underestimated, you know, how widely
Speaker 1: she was disliked. Um. But yeah, you know, the polls
Speaker 1: were wrong. I never really trust polls. I don't trust
Speaker 1: polls now. I think polls are used to construct narratives
Speaker 1: by people who are savvy at manipulating the media. They're
Speaker 1: used to tell people that things are popular even when
Speaker 1: they're not. And from that, you know, actual popularity grows
Speaker 1: because people feel like it's acceptable to like this thing.
Speaker 1: It's acceptable to like Trump, to like a white supremacist,
Speaker 1: to like a big etcetera, etcetera. It opens, uh you
Speaker 1: know that that Overton window, and then our country gets
Speaker 1: defonstrated through it. But uh yeah, anyway, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to get back. I want to get Okay, we have
Speaker 1: endless debates. It looks like Warren's leader. People start to vote,
Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders is doing extremely well and Biden is
Speaker 1: doing poorly. Needless to say, going back to the d
Speaker 1: n C is clueless and out of touch with their constituents.
Speaker 1: But as a voracious reader of the New York Times,
Speaker 1: in the Washington Post as well as the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: it seemed to me there was a concerted campaign in
Speaker 1: the media to make sure that Bernie did not win. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then it seemed to me there was a plot
Speaker 1: has too many negative connotations, but there was a decision, Okay,
Speaker 1: Bernie is doing so well that we're gonna get all
Speaker 1: the other candidates to drop out. Well, only have Biden
Speaker 1: South Carolina, and we'll give it to him. What's your
Speaker 1: viewpoint on what happened with Bernie? Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: I do think that there was a plan, um that
Speaker 1: there was, you know, a concerted action from more centrist
Speaker 1: Democrats to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination. And I
Speaker 1: think there is a move in the media against both
Speaker 1: Bernie and Warren. You know, there would be polls for examples,
Speaker 1: is a use of them? Is something other than a
Speaker 1: actual measuring tool where they'd say, who are you going
Speaker 1: to vote for? They would just leave her out, you know,
Speaker 1: they're trying to make her candidacy vanish. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Biden won South Carolina. You know, I think
Speaker 1: he won it legitimately. But after that it was like
Speaker 1: centrist vultron assembled, where you had all the other candidates
Speaker 1: dropping out at once and throwing their support to Biden.
Speaker 1: And that's what secured the nomination for Biden on Super Tuesday.
Speaker 1: And what concerns me, you know, isn't so much. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're there are things that concerned me beyond
Speaker 1: just Biden being the candidate. But the Democrats, you know,
Speaker 1: don't seem to feel obligated to recognize the widespread support
Speaker 1: people have for the policies um that are endorsed by
Speaker 1: Sanders and Warren, especially economically, even though coronavirus is happening.
Speaker 1: I think Biden might be more receptive to these policies.
Speaker 1: I don't think the d n C is and I
Speaker 1: think that the leaders ship of the Democratic Party, people
Speaker 1: like Pelosi and Schumer, have been incredibly timid and bad
Speaker 1: at fighting Trump, at realizing that they're up against an autocrat,
Speaker 1: they're up against a mafia state. They have not been
Speaker 1: you know, taking them on with the urgency that's necessary.
Speaker 1: And so all of that makes me worry because I
Speaker 1: do at least feel that Bernie and certainly Warren recognize
Speaker 1: that we're in a crisis and that's going to be
Speaker 1: very difficult to get us out of that, economically, politically,
Speaker 1: and in every other respect. Let's go back to needless
Speaker 1: to say, the New York Times it was weird. You know,
Speaker 1: they had that meter on the front page of the
Speaker 1: paper and online, and literally, as I'm watching the results,
Speaker 1: you watch the meter go in the other direction. Then
Speaker 1: became an era of self flagellation, okay, which the left
Speaker 1: wing narrative at this point in time is twofold. They
Speaker 1: say it's white nationalism, and then they say, let's look
Speaker 1: at the numbers. In reality, the upper middle class were
Speaker 1: the voting for Trump. My question is to what degree
Speaker 1: is globalization an issue? Now? One of the problems I
Speaker 1: have with globalization is that every says, yeah, bring the
Speaker 1: jobs back home, but they don't want to pay two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for a flat screen. Okay, And I believe
Speaker 1: globalization is inevitable without going down that path, my point
Speaker 1: being that one thing is clear. We did not take
Speaker 1: care of the people who lost during globalization. So the
Speaker 1: fact that people were screwed by globalization, to what degree
Speaker 1: them wanting to put a spanner in the works was
Speaker 1: a factor in Trump's victory. I think it was a
Speaker 1: factor in just a general sense of disillusionment that you
Speaker 1: see across the political spectrum, and it was there before.
Speaker 1: I think that Trump is very good into tapping into that.
Speaker 1: You know, he's like a vulture that praise on people's pain.
Speaker 1: And I remember that. I remember during the campaign. Um,
Speaker 1: I think at that point, you know, my has been
Speaker 1: had been out of work for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: or he was actually working multiple minimum wage jobs. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, struggling to get by take care of the kids.
Speaker 1: And Trump comes along and announces that there's actually forty
Speaker 1: five percent unemployment, you know, under Obama, and all the
Speaker 1: pundits start laughing and they're like, my god, what an idiot, Like,
Speaker 1: who's going to believe that? And I was like, you know, consciously,
Speaker 1: of course, like I know that that's not true. I
Speaker 1: know that it's not you know, technically after the country
Speaker 1: is unemployed, but it felt like that was the case
Speaker 1: because people are struggling, because people can't pay their bills,
Speaker 1: because they're working gig jobs, they're you know, working these
Speaker 1: side hustles, and they can't get by. Trump in reality,
Speaker 1: you know, couldn't give a shift if people survive. He's
Speaker 1: not looking out for their welfare, but he's at least
Speaker 1: aware of that suffering and how he could exploit it.
Speaker 1: On the other end, you know, you had Bernie who
Speaker 1: also recognized it and did have ideas and how to
Speaker 1: fix it. And then you had Hillary who gradually began
Speaker 1: to recognize that everybody was not so happy un or
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, especially younger people economically, uh, and she
Speaker 1: began to kind of you know, turn her campaign in
Speaker 1: that direction and ultimately did so, which I thought was
Speaker 1: a good move on her part, But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a mess. And I think people are worried
Speaker 1: not just about globalization, but about automation and with coronavirus.
Speaker 1: I'm very worried about that because there are all these
Speaker 1: jobs that I think people will say, for safety reasons
Speaker 1: need to be replaced by, you know, robots, basically any
Speaker 1: kind of like cashier position something like that. I don't
Speaker 1: know where all those people who need those jobs to
Speaker 1: survive economically are going to go if that kind of
Speaker 1: decision is made, because I don't feel like like anyone
Speaker 1: in the government is really looking out for them. Another
Speaker 1: criticism of the left is that it is too is
Speaker 1: become an elite like the traditional Republican and doesn't care
Speaker 1: and has contempt for lower economic people. The other thing being,
Speaker 1: when I grew up, there was not this level of
Speaker 1: income inequality in the fifties and sixties and up into
Speaker 1: the mid seventies, certainly, but if you were rich, uh,
Speaker 1: you had inherited the money. Where is today? Most of
Speaker 1: the very wealthy people earn the money, and they worked
Speaker 1: very hard to earn the money, but they've got no
Speaker 1: time for the people hooked on I'm talking about people
Speaker 1: on the left. Forget the people on the right. They
Speaker 1: got no time. For the people on opioids, they got
Speaker 1: no time. And I think those people recognize that contempt.
Speaker 1: I I think that's true. I mean I recognize that contempt.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been the subject of that contempt. You know,
Speaker 1: despite having a good education, um and whatnot. You know,
Speaker 1: it's frustrating, like they they seem to want to be idolized.
Speaker 1: There's this cult of personality thing that's been forming. I
Speaker 1: think Trump made it a lot worse because he really
Speaker 1: does want natural cult to surround him. But you know,
Speaker 1: when I makeicisms of people like Pelosi or Schumer, I
Speaker 1: get bombarded um with you know, how dare you critique
Speaker 1: our our side or critique this or that. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's literally why they're there, Like this is a representative government.
Speaker 1: These are public servants. They're supposed to be doing their job.
Speaker 1: I'm not hurling at hominem comments. I'm not saying anything
Speaker 1: that's you know, honestly all that harsh. I'm saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you're screwing up at your job, and you're jeopardizing my
Speaker 1: life and my country's future as a result of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's there's a timidity there. I think that
Speaker 1: people have stopped expecting uh, public servants, expecting elected officials
Speaker 1: to do their jobs competently, to represent them, to stand
Speaker 1: up with people who don't have much, you know, are
Speaker 1: just struggling to survive. They they've lost that, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for people younger than me, they've never even
Speaker 1: seen it an action in their lives. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why Warren's campaign fell almost shocking to me, because she
Speaker 1: was addressing those issues and she had these very detailed
Speaker 1: plans and I could see how they would be carried
Speaker 1: out in action, and I'm like, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost overwhelming to read all that. And
Speaker 1: of course, um, you know, she didn't win, and that's
Speaker 1: that's too bad, because I think she would have been
Speaker 1: a great president. But um, it's a it's a very
Speaker 1: frustrating thing because I do think they care about their donors. Uh,
Speaker 1: they are in their bubble um and they're not you know,
Speaker 1: on the ground even aware of what's happening to ordinary Americans. Okay,
Speaker 1: as someone who follows is closely certainly not a scientific expert.
Speaker 1: As I was describing him my shrink, it's just raw insanity. Okay,
Speaker 1: But yesterday, and Lord only knows what will happen before
Speaker 1: these airs, it truly took another leap. Okay, with Friday,
Speaker 1: we had the firing of the inspector, which was insane.
Speaker 1: But Trump taking the chlora queen, I mean put that
Speaker 1: in context for the rest of us. Oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like the second time he's told Americans to
Speaker 1: take a potentially dangerous such a substance to cure coronavirus.
Speaker 1: The first time around it was drink bleach. So I
Speaker 1: guess there's been a you know, an improvement. Honestly, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I usually don't buy the whole it's a
Speaker 1: distraction thing from Trump because I think it's important to
Speaker 1: examine everything. It's important to look at what he's doing
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and it's important to look at, you know,
Speaker 1: what kind of propaganda narrative he puts forward. But as
Speaker 1: I say in the book, he tries to hide crime
Speaker 1: with scandal. And so while I would look at, you know, one,
Speaker 1: the irresponsibility of recommending a drug that could potentially kill you,
Speaker 1: there's that there's probably a short term kind of profit
Speaker 1: margin for him, since he seems to have investment in
Speaker 1: the company that produces a drug. But I'm more worried
Speaker 1: about the complete chaos and the apathy toward Americans suffering
Speaker 1: an American death demonstrated by this administration. Because as people
Speaker 1: are panicked, as people are going through the worst economic
Speaker 1: crisis of our lives, as they're wondering if they're going
Speaker 1: to get this you know, fatal disease that that many
Speaker 1: don't understand how it works. Uh, they're capitalizing on that.
Speaker 1: They're wording medical equipment, They're making the situation worse. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, that is a way
Speaker 1: that Trump has personally behaved his whole life. You know,
Speaker 1: when nine eleven happened, his gut reaction was, now my
Speaker 1: buildings look taller during any financial crisis two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: he was like, this is fantastic. Now people like me
Speaker 1: can make more money. You know, he's a disaster capitalist.
Speaker 1: He's a corporate raider. He was trained, you know by
Speaker 1: New York Wall Street corporate raiders like Carl Icon to
Speaker 1: carry out this kind of uh, you know, loot and redistribute,
Speaker 1: destroy this, and then you know, sell it off for parts.
Speaker 1: That's what he wants to do to the United States,
Speaker 1: and I think he does not want us looking at that.
Speaker 1: He'd rather have us you know, talking about his irresponsible
Speaker 1: snake oil peddling than about the fact that he's you know,
Speaker 1: looting the country essentially and also not helping Americans, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, during a massive public health crisis. But in
Speaker 1: this particular time, he is actually doing just like he's
Speaker 1: not wearing a mask, he's actually taking the drug. Even
Speaker 1: Neil Cavudo, I'm sure they're slapping him today, came out
Speaker 1: against it. Uh. You know, if the Russian goal is
Speaker 1: just to create chaos so people tune out, does because
Speaker 1: this speaks to row credibilities just insanity? Okay, So does
Speaker 1: this just demonstrate how the government has no credibility? Does
Speaker 1: this actually work for him? Does it make people detach?
Speaker 1: I don't know what exactly he's trying to accomplish with
Speaker 1: the I don't even how to pronounce the hydraulic queen um.
Speaker 1: You know. I do think that it's somewhat of a
Speaker 1: distraction thing because there are very serious things, you know,
Speaker 1: going on in the government, both with economically but also
Speaker 1: things Pompeio is getting up to bars, getting up to
Speaker 1: I don't think that the intent is just to cause chaos.
Speaker 1: There is something weird about Trump, um, which is that
Speaker 1: he's a lifelong germophobe. You know. You could read articles
Speaker 1: about him going back about over three decades saying how
Speaker 1: he compulsively washes his hands, he won't shake hands, he's
Speaker 1: terrified of getting a terrible virus. In one article, it's
Speaker 1: even named as coronavirus. There's an article from seventeen, i think,
Speaker 1: in Politico called the pure Le Presidency, and it's about
Speaker 1: he forced everyone around him to use perel to keep
Speaker 1: off germs. Suddenly an actual pandemic emerges, a very contagious one,
Speaker 1: and he's running around shaking everyone's hand, sharing microphones, you know,
Speaker 1: disobeying all these rules, refusing to wear a mask. It's
Speaker 1: very weird because he's acting like he's immune or that
Speaker 1: at the least someone has told him that he is
Speaker 1: immune to this virus, despite being in a target demographic
Speaker 1: of men over seventy years old, you know, very very
Speaker 1: likely to get it and to be severely affected. So
Speaker 1: I have found that strange from the moment I heard
Speaker 1: about the virus back in January, and it only gets
Speaker 1: weirder when he's recommending this drug that doctors and scientists
Speaker 1: say doesn't actually work as a treatment. So I don't
Speaker 1: know whether he believes it, or whether they're something else
Speaker 1: going on or or what um. But I do think
Speaker 1: the entire medical situation with him is bizarre. Well, certainly
Speaker 1: this drug can have negative consequences speaking to the heart.
Speaker 1: But from my viewpoint, the right defines the debate and
Speaker 1: the left reacts, why do you believe that is? And
Speaker 1: could there be a u turn such at the left
Speaker 1: defines a debate. It's a very frustrating thing. There's a
Speaker 1: tendency in the life to just not speak bluntly about
Speaker 1: any of this. You know, they won't call lie a
Speaker 1: lie or a crime a crime. It shouldn't be easy,
Speaker 1: I mean, it shouldn't be difficult to criticize Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: You know, it gives you a lot of material to
Speaker 1: work with. I think some of the hesitancy comes from
Speaker 1: this both sides style of journalism that's been, you know,
Speaker 1: very popular over the last twenty years, where Trump is like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want a new hurricane, and they're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: will it work? Will it not? You know, instead of
Speaker 1: just addressing the issue as a a sign of a
Speaker 1: great threat now national security. We see that's not just
Speaker 1: with Trump, but things like climate change, and it causes
Speaker 1: incredible damage when people refuse to acknowledge a blatant threat.
Speaker 1: I think that this elitism in the media is one
Speaker 1: of the causes of this. I think that the media
Speaker 1: and our political culture and these overlapping circles have become,
Speaker 1: you know, dominated by people from very wealthy backgrounds, from
Speaker 1: you know, sort of very very narrow geographic focus. There
Speaker 1: have been all these credentials now required, all these prerequisites
Speaker 1: to get your foot in the door, and that means
Speaker 1: that they're reluctant to report on each other. Honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: they want to keep this illusion going. They don't want
Speaker 1: to out people like Ivanka and Jared as grifters when
Speaker 1: those are their sources. And they're just thinking of things like,
Speaker 1: you know, access and prestige and reputation and of themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not thinking about the country. They're not
Speaker 1: thinking about how does this affect ordinary Americans. They're thinking
Speaker 1: about their selves and their insular little world. And that
Speaker 1: applies to the Trump camp and to the people working
Speaker 1: at Fox News and it applies to people working at
Speaker 1: the New York Times and other allegedly liberal outlets. It's
Speaker 1: just a failure to value truth, to value honesty, um,
Speaker 1: and to just you know, tell people what's actually going on,
Speaker 1: and you know, tell it like it is. I went
Speaker 1: to the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles a year ago,
Speaker 1: and I was stunned that they had the reprints of
Speaker 1: all the papers, that the information was there and no
Speaker 1: one acted. Now, we can certainly talk about degree quantity
Speaker 1: and whether they avoid certain nooks and crannies, but there
Speaker 1: is a lot of information that has been printed. Now.
Speaker 1: Although one of the critics said when Trump got elected
Speaker 1: that the uh on NPR that the press should take
Speaker 1: a viewpoint, which they haven't. Okay, you say something fascinating
Speaker 1: as time I heard anybody else say this, that we
Speaker 1: all have a feeling as we're living our regular lots,
Speaker 1: that there's somebody out there, there's somebody who's going to
Speaker 1: take care of it. And you say there isn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what can be done about truly blowing the whistle
Speaker 1: on this all insanity in our country? Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: very frustrating thing. You know. I think the scariest part
Speaker 1: of my book is the fact that there's like thirty
Speaker 1: pages of end notes from all the other reporting that
Speaker 1: has been done on all these massive crimes being carried
Speaker 1: out by Trump and other members of this administration. You know,
Speaker 1: as is in the title, it's in plain sight, and
Speaker 1: it's the failure to act that's been very frustrating. Everyone
Speaker 1: thinks somebody else is going to swoop in and save us,
Speaker 1: or they think, Okay, you know, if this is really
Speaker 1: so bad, if this is really so dangerous, people would
Speaker 1: be behaving differently. They'd be acting with urgency, they'd be
Speaker 1: speaking out strongly. But they don't um and that's unfortunately,
Speaker 1: very typical when a democracy transitions into an autocracy. That's
Speaker 1: why newspapers of the nineteen thirties, you know, leading up
Speaker 1: to the time of Hitler's domination, World War two, the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: you will see similar styles of articles. You'll see puff
Speaker 1: pieces on Hitler and on the Third Reich that resemble
Speaker 1: the kind written about the Trump administration, where people just
Speaker 1: refuse to see what's right in front of them. They
Speaker 1: refused to see cruelty or evil or to acknowledge it
Speaker 1: as such. They're they're afraid of being seemed as alarmist
Speaker 1: or as hysterical. But I think that you really need
Speaker 1: to error on the side of caution here, especially because
Speaker 1: there is such a historical precedent for this. And I
Speaker 1: don't just mean Nazi Germany, but you know, looking at Milosovich,
Speaker 1: at put In, at anybody who's risen to power, the
Speaker 1: path is very similar to Trump. It's easy to predict.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the dictator's playbook, and we're watching it
Speaker 1: play out in a kind of American pop culture infotainment
Speaker 1: kind of way, you know, a tabloid kind of way
Speaker 1: that I think people don't recognize it because they think
Speaker 1: autocracy means like tanks appear on the street. They don't
Speaker 1: understand that a very American root autocracy is to have
Speaker 1: a reality TV star inhabiting the White House and deceiving
Speaker 1: people and you know, using is considerable media spin and
Speaker 1: propaganda skills to get this horrific agenda accomplished. Let's one
Speaker 1: thing we know about Trump, as I stated previously, he's
Speaker 1: really not that intelligent. However, the Republicans in Congress and
Speaker 1: pretty much are a few, you know, never Trump people,
Speaker 1: but they don't have that much traction. So these people
Speaker 1: look at the impeachment et cetera. They all line up
Speaker 1: behind Trump. Let's just say, for this sacred to me discussion,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump gets hit by a car tonight dies,
Speaker 1: what will perpetuate the autocracy? I think that well, Trump's
Speaker 1: skill always is to keep it in the family, and
Speaker 1: the fact that Jared and Ivanka are in the White
Speaker 1: House should have been just a giant red flag that
Speaker 1: this is an aspiring autocrat. This is a colectocrat, you know,
Speaker 1: who need to keep the money flowing through the family.
Speaker 1: The cryme flowing through the family. That's what he wants.
Speaker 1: I don't think that the GOP as a whole is
Speaker 1: that enamored of them, but they'll certainly try to take power. Technically,
Speaker 1: I guess the reigns of power will go to Mike Pence.
Speaker 1: But I think the Republicans have seen Trump as a
Speaker 1: vehicle for desires that they've had and have been honing
Speaker 1: for decades. You know, he didn't come out of nowhere
Speaker 1: like on one hand, you have you know, the foreign
Speaker 1: aspect of this, where not just Russia, but Russia, Israel,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, all of these different countries realized that Trump
Speaker 1: has no baseline loyalty to the United States, and so
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to get him to do things that
Speaker 1: are damaging to the United States and beneficial to them.
Speaker 1: The Republicans see it as a way where, you know,
Speaker 1: as I think, as Grover Norquist said, you can drown
Speaker 1: government in a bathtub. That that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1: They want to have this libertarian or ultra libertarian agenda
Speaker 1: where you just basically don't have government, you dismantle it.
Speaker 1: It's everybody for them selves. You let the poor suffer
Speaker 1: and starve. There's a you know, white supremacist aspect to it.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty blatant. Um. You're seeing all of that
Speaker 1: play out with the coronavirus, by the way, because it
Speaker 1: is disproportionately black and Native American communities getting hit by it.
Speaker 1: And if that weren't the case, um, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they would be more assertive at combating it, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily because I don't think that the Trump administration cares
Speaker 1: about poor white people either. Um. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: genocidal quality to it. So if he were gone, the
Speaker 1: same tendencies would continue because so many people have managed
Speaker 1: to you know, pack the courts purge agencies, get money,
Speaker 1: get power, violate, and then rewrite the rules. They're not
Speaker 1: going to give up that opportunity. They're going to hang
Speaker 1: on to that power, you know, with all they've got. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to you. You're from Connecticut. And for
Speaker 1: those people who well, first of all, it's on Wikipedia whatever,
Speaker 1: and you're forty two. So for forty one, there's some
Speaker 1: stuff in that Wikipedia page where I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: old mind, now I'll be forty two later in the year. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'm from Meridan, Connecticut. They got that part right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know most of it, most of it's correct. Fit
Speaker 1: I didn't got the authority here on it. So how
Speaker 1: many kids in your family? I have a younger sister,
Speaker 1: younger sister, what's her life look like. She lives in Texas,
Speaker 1: she's married. Uh, you know, she's got two kids of
Speaker 1: her own. Uh you know right now. I mean her
Speaker 1: her life is just taking care of the kids who
Speaker 1: are home from school because we're living through a pandemic.
Speaker 1: So okay, so your parents, how many generations was your
Speaker 1: family in America? Uh? My great grandparents were the ones
Speaker 1: who came from Poland. From Poland on both sides. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Poland and you know, a couple other Eastern European countries
Speaker 1: thrown in, but mostly Poland. So how did your parents
Speaker 1: meet in Meriden? Like everyone's from Meridin. I'm the one
Speaker 1: who left. You know, my grandparents also grew up in Meridin.
Speaker 1: Before that, I think, you know, the great grandparents lived
Speaker 1: in New Britain, you know New Britsky, um in the
Speaker 1: Middletown and you know, places near Meridan. So that was
Speaker 1: those the big adventurers going from there to Meridan. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not the most adventurous family. Like I was sort
Speaker 1: of the odd one out and that you know, I
Speaker 1: liked to travel. Uh, you know, I like to move around.
Speaker 1: I was much more of a restless person. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, my parents met each other in middle school. Uh,
Speaker 1: started dating in high school. And I've been together for like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, fifty years. And people are like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the secret to your marriage? My mom says like
Speaker 1: inertia and propinquity or something. It's not not so romantic,
Speaker 1: but you know they are together. So and what did
Speaker 1: they do for a living. My mom was an English
Speaker 1: teacher at the one of the public schools in Meridin,
Speaker 1: and my dad was first the corporation council for Meridin,
Speaker 1: like the city attorney kind of, and then late in
Speaker 1: life became the city manager for Meridin, like before his retirement.
Speaker 1: He kind of he went in to fill in for somebody.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is long after I left home, so
Speaker 1: I don't completely know happened, and then ended up just
Speaker 1: stay there for about eight years until he was hired.
Speaker 1: So he is an attorney, yeah, yeah, yeah, well he
Speaker 1: has a law degree, but he ended up going into
Speaker 1: city management. I have a law degree to it. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm not practicing. Oh yeah, the year in the
Speaker 1: music industry. I'd be glad to tell you my story,
Speaker 1: But I grew up at first of all, I grew
Speaker 1: up in a completely different era where everybody wanted their
Speaker 1: kid to be a lawyer or a doctor. I know people.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a friend of mine. He's got
Speaker 1: a friend who I know pretty well myself was a
Speaker 1: doctor and he said his sixties. Now, when he first
Speaker 1: got out a medical school, he was making two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty grand. Today he's making two hundred and forty grand. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it used to be your upper class and not
Speaker 1: to tell you know, they're certainly surgeons of making a
Speaker 1: million dollars a year. That's not my point. But your
Speaker 1: parents wanted you to work hard to make sure that
Speaker 1: you know, you could feed yourself, do things, etcetera. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: what they were unaware of they had hard lives through
Speaker 1: during the Depression. We grew up in the sixties, which
Speaker 1: was all about you know, the uh. The Army stole
Speaker 1: our slogan, you know, be all you can be, okay,
Speaker 1: And my mother is a real cultural vulture. So after college,
Speaker 1: I was a starving freestyle skier and I got the
Speaker 1: world's worst case of mononucleosis. And I went to law
Speaker 1: school and I would have dropped up, but I used
Speaker 1: to tell people all the time it was the worst
Speaker 1: year in the history of skiing in Utah, which no
Speaker 1: one knew until two thousand eleven and twelve. It was
Speaker 1: also bad, and they had the statistics. So I went
Speaker 1: through law school. If I go through law school, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take the bar and pass it. Otherwise you know
Speaker 1: why I burned three years. But I never had an
Speaker 1: intention of practice law. I did a little bit, remember
Speaker 1: going to court once because my boss had o c
Speaker 1: D and couldn't drive on the freeway, and I got
Speaker 1: the temporary ruling overturns and I said, I never have
Speaker 1: to go again. But I always wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the music business. And this is important only because music
Speaker 1: drove the culture in the sixties and seventies. And there's
Speaker 1: one canard which drives me crazy. Is that okay, and
Speaker 1: this isn't all fields. Everything is the same. You're just
Speaker 1: too old. You don't get it. Music is a big business,
Speaker 1: but it is not the driver of the culture the
Speaker 1: way it was in the sixties and seventies. I say
Speaker 1: the same thing about tech, and they're starting to be
Speaker 1: a turn from to tech. Was everything drove the culture.
Speaker 1: I don't hear people dropping out saying, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write an app today. Okay, but I think
Speaker 1: there's a backlash against tech. But people are invested in
Speaker 1: the past. But you're growing up in the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: You go to public school. Did you fit in? Were
Speaker 1: you popular? Were you No? No? I was like like
Speaker 1: a nerd with an attitude problem. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: think the worst of all worlds, right, you know, grades wise,
Speaker 1: I did fine, But you know, I was bored. I
Speaker 1: was restless. Uh you know, I was a big music fan.
Speaker 1: I was like big Guns and Roses fan. I heard
Speaker 1: you were I heard you were a metal head. Oh
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. I mean it was funny because today, um,
Speaker 1: Alex Skolnik from Test of It was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: saw that you were in the Pop Upsets letter. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna be on the show.
Speaker 1: And he's like, that's great. Yeah. He interviewed me too.
Speaker 1: And you know, Decibel wrote a profile on me, and
Speaker 1: that's fine. I like all kinds of music. It's not
Speaker 1: just metal. You know, my tastes are pretty broad. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a piano player and a guitar
Speaker 1: player and you know, not that great musician. But I
Speaker 1: always loved music, Um, and it was important to me,
Speaker 1: and I think even back then, music drove the culture. Certainly,
Speaker 1: MTV drove the culture for my generation, and it was
Speaker 1: very weird to me when they stopped playing videos and
Speaker 1: when FM radio kind of ceased to have meaning. And
Speaker 1: I was in college during Napster, so obviously I enjoyed
Speaker 1: that you know, Napster free ride experience, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: music and journalists and began to overlap quite a bit
Speaker 1: because everyone was expected to work for exposure and everybody
Speaker 1: was getting you know, their content you know, kind of
Speaker 1: stolen or you know, was having difficulty finding opportunities in
Speaker 1: their fields. And I think that that created a culture
Speaker 1: of conformity. And I don't think that that's the whole culture,
Speaker 1: but the sort of people who rise to the top
Speaker 1: a lot of the times are the people who will embrace, uh,
Speaker 1: you know what a shrinking industry demands of you, which
Speaker 1: doesn't always produce, you know, the highest quality, or it
Speaker 1: doesn't allow a lot of space for unconventional people to
Speaker 1: be able to financially survive. And so I just look
Speaker 1: at the sixties and seventies where there's all this you know,
Speaker 1: political turmoil, you know, a pretty horrible time politically, but
Speaker 1: at least there was music and you know in movies,
Speaker 1: like a great, great pop culture. So I get kind
Speaker 1: of jels of that, you know. I was looking at
Speaker 1: like the Watergate Watergate hearings and thinking about the albums
Speaker 1: that came out in those years, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: like what incredible comfort in that time. Whereas I mean
Speaker 1: I do like, you know, bands that are out now
Speaker 1: I'm not completely dismissive of it by any means, but
Speaker 1: it isn't that driving force. There isn't that that feeling
Speaker 1: of being part of something bigger, you know, something that
Speaker 1: that like gets your soul, I think, and maybe the
Speaker 1: way there was back then. What's your favorite guns and Roses? Long?
Speaker 1: Oh god, that's so hard to pick because I think
Speaker 1: of Appetite is kind of its own thing, and then
Speaker 1: you know, there I have. I have, like everybody have
Speaker 1: a mix tape of the Illusion albums combined, right, I
Speaker 1: can't read of some of the lesser tracks. Um gosh,
Speaker 1: you know that's uh. I mean it goes by my
Speaker 1: sometimes Rocket Queens sometimes it's so easy. Sometimes you could
Speaker 1: be mine. But also I don't know. I like Rocket
Speaker 1: Queen because it goes through the whole, like through all
Speaker 1: the emotions. You know that that you can experience that
Speaker 1: that the band puts forward, you know, where they have
Speaker 1: that coda and they go out like that. I just
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting constructed song. Well, I think Appetite
Speaker 1: is certainly the best piece of work they did. My
Speaker 1: favorite would be Paradise City and it's a great video. Whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm a big busy fan and Dustin Bones and use
Speaker 1: your illusion one which begs the question did you go
Speaker 1: to see the reunion tour? Of course, like, oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was so excited. Well, first of all, I've had
Speaker 1: this feeling it basically since Trump won, Like am I
Speaker 1: living in a simulation? Or you know, it's is this
Speaker 1: the apocalypse? And I'm in purgatory? And then when G
Speaker 1: and R not only reunited but then went to Place St. Louis,
Speaker 1: whereas you probably know, they were banned, uh, you know
Speaker 1: because of the riverport right, I got tickets immediately, and
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, like Trump is gonna install full fascism
Speaker 1: before I get to see G and R. But that
Speaker 1: didn't happen, and so I saw them in July seventeen.
Speaker 1: Then I saw them over the summer, uh, Louder than life.
Speaker 1: And then one of the weirder things that happened is
Speaker 1: that Duff read my first book. He read The View
Speaker 1: from fly Over Country and really liked it, uh, and
Speaker 1: it helped inspire you know, his his album that he
Speaker 1: put out last year. And so that for me, I
Speaker 1: mean if you had asked me when I was twelve,
Speaker 1: like what would my dream be, it would be like
Speaker 1: seeing G and R writing a bestselling book inspiring gen R.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you can't really top that. But then
Speaker 1: someone would have had to say to me, like, well, also,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is going to be the president and he's
Speaker 1: going to be a dictator, Like will you make this
Speaker 1: right now? I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to dictatorship. But it was kind of
Speaker 1: like I kind of five peaked now, like there's nowhere
Speaker 1: to go but down from care. But traditionally, you know,
Speaker 1: in nineteen nine, when led Zeppelin one came out, that
Speaker 1: was considered heavy metal and Black Sabbath was too far
Speaker 1: out there. But certainly now more metal is its own genre.
Speaker 1: But even back then, people listen to that as anger
Speaker 1: at society. They felt misunderstood, and they could turn it
Speaker 1: up and create their own world. Would that be an
Speaker 1: apt description of you? Oh yeah, I mean I'm angry
Speaker 1: all the time, and I'm not apologetic about it. Like
Speaker 1: I think there's plenty to be angry over, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's there's an impulse just as a woman,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be angry, etcetera, etcetera. You know,
Speaker 1: people say you're shrill, you're whining whatever. But I think
Speaker 1: it's broader than that. I think everyone is kind of
Speaker 1: conditioned to not be angry, to not complain. Uh And
Speaker 1: you know, in my first book, and if you're from
Speaker 1: five our country, I have an essay called and defend
Speaker 1: pense of complaining. And I think that anger, in many ways,
Speaker 1: it's a form of compassion. You know, It's it's looking
Speaker 1: out for other people. It's being angry on their behalf.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm off I'm also angry on my own behalf.
Speaker 1: But when I write, you know, I tried to think
Speaker 1: of other people, think of our society, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and as what's happening to it. But you know, I
Speaker 1: mean with with heavy melo, you'll get a variety of songs,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of them are more overtly political,
Speaker 1: you know, lyrically, and a lot of them just capture
Speaker 1: and emotion. And I'm in it for both, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in it for the feeling that it conjures, even
Speaker 1: if the lyrics have absolutely nothing to do, you know,
Speaker 1: with anything that's that's happening. But there's also I think,
Speaker 1: you know, great songs like I think Civil War by
Speaker 1: guns and Roses, for example, is a great song in
Speaker 1: that genre. To what degree in your inbox or your
Speaker 1: incoming do you hear that you're too negative? Um? It
Speaker 1: depends from the people who agree with me. They think
Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing just fine. Um. I I used to
Speaker 1: get it more in the beginning of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much negative. It was you know, pessimistic,
Speaker 1: doom and gloom. And I'm like, look, you know I
Speaker 1: I spent my career studying authoritarian states. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be right. I mean that was something I think
Speaker 1: people failed to grasp, is that I wanted to be
Speaker 1: wrong about everything. I wanted to be wrong about all
Speaker 1: my predictions because you know, I'm a mom, Like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm raising my own children in this society I'm living here.
Speaker 1: You know, I want my country to be a democracy.
Speaker 1: I want it to be free. Uh. And I saw
Speaker 1: basically a mafia state forming and it it paralleled both
Speaker 1: directly and you know in terms of how you know,
Speaker 1: governance was formed the really awful states that I had
Speaker 1: been studying and that you know, I had worked with
Speaker 1: exiles and dissidence from. And I never took freedom of
Speaker 1: speech for granted. I never took free media for granted,
Speaker 1: and I've always been worried that those things would go away.
Speaker 1: And I think people who weren't as familiar with world
Speaker 1: history or contemporary dictatorships, they just get thinking, well, this
Speaker 1: can't happen here, So why is she, you know, going
Speaker 1: on and on about that, like as if it was
Speaker 1: like a stick or something. But it wasn't. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a warning. And I wanted the warning to
Speaker 1: be heated, and I wanted officials to intervene, and I
Speaker 1: wanted them to make me wrong, and they didn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, people have sat back and let this happen,
Speaker 1: you know, knowing full well what it is, or occasionally um,
Speaker 1: you know, sticking their heads in the sand. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you know, comforting themselves with denial. And I don't fall
Speaker 1: ordinary people for not fully understanding what's happening, because I
Speaker 1: think that they've been lied to quite a bit. I
Speaker 1: do fall our officials, whether you know, Mueller, Pelosi, Comy,
Speaker 1: anyone who could have you know, enforced accountability but chose
Speaker 1: to look the other way. So you gotta Sarah Lawrence,
Speaker 1: how's that experience? Sarah Lawrence in the late nineties. I
Speaker 1: mean it was weird. It was fine. It was a
Speaker 1: school that had small classes, a lot of emphasis on writing,
Speaker 1: very little emphasis on math. You know, w it's a
Speaker 1: very bad at So I was glad for that. Um
Speaker 1: I kind of did my own thing. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a weird thing because you you definitely have that class
Speaker 1: dynamic where like I was just do and stuff like
Speaker 1: renting a video and eating Chinese food in my dorm
Speaker 1: room and that would be like a big Friday night
Speaker 1: out for me. But a lot of really rich kids
Speaker 1: go to that school, and you know, they'd be doing
Speaker 1: all these expensive drugs or partying in New York City
Speaker 1: or so forth. It was an interesting time to have
Speaker 1: access to New York City. You know, it was about
Speaker 1: a half hour forty five minutes away, and I got familiar, um,
Speaker 1: you know with New York tabloid culture, you know, to
Speaker 1: some degree. I always was like, as you know, if
Speaker 1: you grew up in Connecticut, you get a lot of
Speaker 1: New York media pumped into your home, and so you
Speaker 1: get to learn about people like Donald Trump from your
Speaker 1: early childhood. But I started reading you know, The Post,
Speaker 1: the Daily News, the Times, kind of absorbing that and
Speaker 1: then after college, you know, I moved there. I moved
Speaker 1: to New York for three years um, in part because
Speaker 1: I gained familiarity with it through going through Sarah Lace,
Speaker 1: going to Sarah Lawrence. How did you pay for Sarah Lawrence?
Speaker 1: Mixture of scholarships, my parents helping me in loans. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you go to New York and you worked the
Speaker 1: graveyard shift at the Daily News. Other than living in
Speaker 1: New York and anything good about doing that, other than
Speaker 1: meeting your husband there? Yeah, I mean my husband was
Speaker 1: a co worker. That was good. I mean it was
Speaker 1: my first, like real job, my first like I'm out
Speaker 1: of college and I have a job job, not like
Speaker 1: I work at the mall as a cashier kind of job,
Speaker 1: you know, over the summer um. So it was an
Speaker 1: educational experience, you know. It was just at that point
Speaker 1: grateful I was able to pay my bills because I
Speaker 1: was worried about that. I was there at a very
Speaker 1: tumultuous time, you know. I was there for the two
Speaker 1: thousand presidential election, and then of course I was there
Speaker 1: for nine eleven UM and that that was a horrific
Speaker 1: time to live in New York City, you know, And
Speaker 1: it was a traumatic experience, And on one hand, I
Speaker 1: was glad to be at a newspaper because I felt
Speaker 1: like at least we were contributing something. And at that point, um,
Speaker 1: you know, as I described in the book, they made
Speaker 1: the decision to make the website a completely different animal
Speaker 1: than it had been before nine eleven, where instead of
Speaker 1: just being a replica of the print version, you had
Speaker 1: breaking news person ended live on the site. And so
Speaker 1: that was to be part of that change, which you know,
Speaker 1: in retrospect is a very big historic change for media.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just the daily news. It was you know,
Speaker 1: basically every newspaper and magazine was making this decision. UM
Speaker 1: to witness that was something, but no one ever figured
Speaker 1: out what to do economically, um, how to monetize it.
Speaker 1: After nine eleven, there are a lot of layoffs, you know,
Speaker 1: in in my division, and I eventually, you know, I
Speaker 1: left New York UM in two thousand three because it
Speaker 1: had gotten incredibly expensive. Uh, there were no raises in sight.
Speaker 1: I was always worried that I I too would be
Speaker 1: laid off, and I also just felt constricted, kind of
Speaker 1: like I I want to go deeper on these subjects.
Speaker 1: I want to do more writing. There isn't a path
Speaker 1: for me here, There isn't probably a place for me here. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, at this point, I was only twenty four
Speaker 1: years old, so it's kind of like I've got time
Speaker 1: to change my mind, you know. Okay, so you have
Speaker 1: your boyfriend, then I don't know if you're married at
Speaker 1: that point in time. We quit and then got married
Speaker 1: and invited our co workers. They came so and then
Speaker 1: you both went were uh. We left, uh, and we
Speaker 1: taught English for a year in Turkey. And before that
Speaker 1: we did a little bit of traveling. I had been
Speaker 1: freelancing on the side at the daily News and saving
Speaker 1: up my money, like kind of unbelievably, I wrote for
Speaker 1: like a few fashion magazines and neck then they paid well,
Speaker 1: and you know that's why I did it. They were
Speaker 1: being like a buck fifty word. So I sacked away
Speaker 1: about ten thousand bucks. Uh. And then you know, we
Speaker 1: went on a honeymoon and then I got jobs teaching
Speaker 1: English in Istanbuwl and while we lived in Instan Bowl,
Speaker 1: you know, we traveled around. We went to Bulgaria, Romania,
Speaker 1: we went across Turkey, went to Georgia, um, Armenia. You know,
Speaker 1: I just kind of thought that this is the time
Speaker 1: before I have children, like I want to see as
Speaker 1: much of the world as I can. Um. And I
Speaker 1: had never left the country until I was twenty. When
Speaker 1: I was at Sarah Lawrence, I did a semester in
Speaker 1: Vienna and I love to travel. You know, I miss
Speaker 1: it a lot right now. Um, my kids have never
Speaker 1: been outside the country, and I always dreamed of being
Speaker 1: able to to have them have those experiences. You know,
Speaker 1: since my family was so unadventurous with me, I wanted
Speaker 1: to give them that. So the coronavirus, it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to think of the future. It makes me sad,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that was an interesting point in my life. Eventually, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we ran out of money and I had
Speaker 1: applied for a master's program UM in Central Asian Studies
Speaker 1: at Indiana University and so Central Asian, uh the stands
Speaker 1: the former Soviet Union Central Asian countries, and I was
Speaker 1: studying uz Pakistan. And I had a Foreign Language Area
Speaker 1: Studies fellowship to to do that, which was very good
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to pay for it. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we we wanted out in New York at
Speaker 1: that point. Honestly, we didn't really know what we were
Speaker 1: doing and what did um he just looked for whatever
Speaker 1: job you could find and ended up, you know, working
Speaker 1: in marketing. He had been a journalist with me at
Speaker 1: the Daily News, like on the website division. But like
Speaker 1: journalism died in our lifetime. Like you know, basically we
Speaker 1: our goal is to pay the bills. Our goals did
Speaker 1: not have debt. That's the goal of a lot of
Speaker 1: people of my generation. You know, your dreams don't necessarily
Speaker 1: go beyond that. And uh, you know lately, I mean
Speaker 1: until recently, he was supporting my dreams. Um or there
Speaker 1: weren't even dreams, my best reactions to difficult circumstances that
Speaker 1: I was engaged in, uh, and just trying to keep
Speaker 1: us afloat. Okay, So the master's degree takes how long?
Speaker 1: Two years? Two years? And during that time do you
Speaker 1: go back to Central Asia? Well, I tried. I was
Speaker 1: supposed to go to Uzbekistan. I had a you know,
Speaker 1: a scholarship and a ticket and everything. And then in
Speaker 1: May two thousand five, there is a massacre in Uzbekistan,
Speaker 1: um you know, Tienamen Square style by the state, by
Speaker 1: the military on a group of protesters that had assembled
Speaker 1: in a city called Andi John and they massacred eight
Speaker 1: hundred people. UM and so that men. Of course, I
Speaker 1: was not going to go to Uzbekistan at that time,
Speaker 1: and the country closed itself to westerners. And then at
Speaker 1: that point I started to study the massacre from abroad
Speaker 1: because I was very upset, you know, that it had
Speaker 1: happened just as a human rights crisis, but also what
Speaker 1: it had done is sent all these people from Uzbekistan,
Speaker 1: all these journalists, all these witnesses, into exile. And at
Speaker 1: that point blogging was new. It was basically banned in Newzbekistan,
Speaker 1: but they were in exile, so they were able to
Speaker 1: put online their recollections of what happened. And through that
Speaker 1: and through other documents that I was able to procure,
Speaker 1: I wrote papers debunking the uzbek government's version of what
Speaker 1: happened in newz Pekistan, where they were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't do it, they weren't responsible, They invented a
Speaker 1: fake Islamic terrorist group and blamed them. I was able
Speaker 1: to debunk that. Um, that paper was used by the
Speaker 1: United Nations. Uh, you know, I'm glad I wrote it,
Speaker 1: But it meant, of course that I was never going
Speaker 1: to go to Uzbekistan, and I was never going to
Speaker 1: probably be allowed into a lot of other countries. So
Speaker 1: I shifted my focus onto digital media, into how digital
Speaker 1: media was challenging autocracies and whether it would ultimately end up,
Speaker 1: you know, making a more democratic political culture. The answer
Speaker 1: to that is no, the opposite happened. You know, autocracies
Speaker 1: and dictatorships influenced uh democratic political cultures and infiltrated them,
Speaker 1: in part using the Internet. So unfortunately, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what I started to identify as a trend when
Speaker 1: I began you know the next phase of my life,
Speaker 1: which was getting my PhD at Washington University. That's what
Speaker 1: I was studying was politics, the Internet, dictatorships, Central Asia.
Speaker 1: And my conclusions were, you know that we're in free
Speaker 1: a rough road because technology could so easily be manipulated
Speaker 1: by state powers, and people refuse to acknowledge that possibility.
Speaker 1: They always thought democracy somehow just sustains itself. What made
Speaker 1: you decide to get a PhD? Uh? Mostly because they
Speaker 1: were offering me like a five year, you know, continuous
Speaker 1: amount of money, and I at that point I wanted
Speaker 1: to have a family. Um, you know, I was twenty seven,
Speaker 1: I had started working as a research assistant for an
Speaker 1: anthropologist at Indiana University, and I realized that all that writing, uh,
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do at the daily news, where
Speaker 1: you could write longer articles, you could choose very interesting
Speaker 1: but more esoteric subjects, you know, is Pekistan is not
Speaker 1: exactly like a popularity winner. Um. You know that I
Speaker 1: would have the freedom to do that and to do
Speaker 1: the kind of research I liked, and so I applied.
Speaker 1: Uh was you offered me, you know, basically a full
Speaker 1: ride guaranteed for six years, um, you know, with health
Speaker 1: insurance and benefits and free tuition and the whole thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And my sister in law lives here in St. Louis,
Speaker 1: you know, with her kids, and we liked the idea
Speaker 1: of having her own children near family. Um. And so
Speaker 1: that seemed like a good plan. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was a good plan. We we moved here. I did
Speaker 1: have kids while I was in graduate school. I got,
Speaker 1: you know, pregnant right off the bat, as soon as
Speaker 1: that fellowship check arrived. Um. And and it went fine.
Speaker 1: You know, I graduated actually before my classmates. Um. But then,
Speaker 1: of course, the the economy collapsed while I was getting
Speaker 1: that PhD, and there were no jobs once I finished it,
Speaker 1: So that was its own little obstacle. So your plan
Speaker 1: was to be an academic. I mean at that point
Speaker 1: in life, you know, I had witnessed the two thousand
Speaker 1: one economic collapse, nine eleven, um, you know, just a
Speaker 1: lot of changes that gave me very little faith on
Speaker 1: anything sustaining. So in my head, I always have multiple plans,
Speaker 1: you know, and I still in that way. I don't
Speaker 1: assume things are going to work out, as have a
Speaker 1: backup plan. So I thought, Okay, either I'll go into journalism,
Speaker 1: or I'll go into academia, or I'll work for an
Speaker 1: NGO UM, or I'll do something where hopefully it's interesting
Speaker 1: and challenging and creative work and I could provide for
Speaker 1: my family and have time with my children. Um and
Speaker 1: so it was really just sort of seeing what was
Speaker 1: out there. But yeah, I thought academia sounded good. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I I stayed home with my kids. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to pay for daycare, and also just I
Speaker 1: like kids, you know, I liked staying home with mine
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, if an academia I got summers off,
Speaker 1: you know, that's good. Like the kids will be home
Speaker 1: to will be home together. There's those sorts of concerns
Speaker 1: a lot of the time that um guided my career.
Speaker 1: You know. It wasn't lofty dreams. It was how do
Speaker 1: I make this work? Like what corners can I cut?
Speaker 1: Like how do I get creative satisfaction and just survive economically? Um?
Speaker 1: And you know I figured out ways to do that.
Speaker 1: But it's been tough because it's been a tough twenty years.
Speaker 1: You know, today is actually the twentieth anniversary of my
Speaker 1: college graduation. And I was saying to my mom this morning,
Speaker 1: that means it's been twenty years of people telling me
Speaker 1: that the economy is eventually going to work itself out,
Speaker 1: Like I'm still waiting. It's now been half my life. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know I wasn't necessary expecting things to
Speaker 1: go well. I know, I wasn't expecting, you know, Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: post of celebrity apprentice to be the aspiring dictator of
Speaker 1: my country. But uh, you know I definitely didn't see
Speaker 1: a smooth road ahead for myself. Okay, so what year
Speaker 1: do you get your PhD? Well, technically I finished it
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, late two thousand eleven, I defended
Speaker 1: my dissertation, received the actual degree in two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: Um And I was a little sneaky. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be I had had a baby in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be home with him. Uh and
Speaker 1: I had a fellowship and national fellowship, I had one.
Speaker 1: So I basically kind of was a stay at home
Speaker 1: mom for spring semester and then picked up my degree.
Speaker 1: But actually during that time I began writing again. UM.
Speaker 1: I began freelancing in early two thousand twelve for outlets
Speaker 1: who were interested in my work on Central Asia, and
Speaker 1: then expanding to write about the United States and about
Speaker 1: economic decline, collapse of institutions, politics, areas that I hadn't
Speaker 1: really written about. Um it wrote about academia itself. I
Speaker 1: wrote about it as an exploitative industry, which of course
Speaker 1: burnt all my bridges uh in academia, But I mean whatever,
Speaker 1: um And I just felt like there's a need to
Speaker 1: be honest about this. I felt like I was in
Speaker 1: a game that people like me, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: win it. I would have better a lot um and
Speaker 1: certainly more personal satisfaction, you know, from the perspective of
Speaker 1: valuing integrity and honesty by exposing these exploitative practices and
Speaker 1: these corrupt systems, then trying to participate in them and
Speaker 1: trying to be part of it. Like part of that
Speaker 1: is I'm not good at doing that. I'm not good at,
Speaker 1: you know, faking it and sucking up and doing all
Speaker 1: those things you're supposed to do. But I also felt
Speaker 1: like this is a systemic problem, and it is it's
Speaker 1: hurting our world, like the it's depriving the world of
Speaker 1: talent and knowledge and good people because all of the
Speaker 1: opportunities are being hearded by elites that have this pay
Speaker 1: to play system where you basically have to pay to
Speaker 1: apply for jobs, or you have to do unpaid internships,
Speaker 1: or you have to do very low paid jobs and
Speaker 1: expensive cities. I felt like it was all rigged, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, I wanted to blow the whistle
Speaker 1: on it. I felt at that point, honestly, I had
Speaker 1: very little to lose. Okay, so in this era, after eleven,
Speaker 1: you start writing, is your husband the main breadwinner at
Speaker 1: that point? Yeah? Yeah, well he us. But I still
Speaker 1: had my I got a fellowship from wash you. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a lot, it was about twenty dollars. But
Speaker 1: when the but when the fellowship ends and you have
Speaker 1: your degree and you don't go into academia before your
Speaker 1: first book is published, how lucrative is your writing career?
Speaker 1: Not not that lucrative. Probably. I mean I wasn't working
Speaker 1: full time because I had two little kids, and so
Speaker 1: I was, you know, spending a lot of times taking
Speaker 1: care of them. It's probably making like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: between twenty five and thirty five thousand a year, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure in California sounds very low. In Missouri for
Speaker 1: a mom, staying at home is not that bad, you know,
Speaker 1: combined with my husband's salary, because our rent and all
Speaker 1: our expensives are a lot cheaper. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I was always kind of hoping that i'd be
Speaker 1: offered some sort of you know, better paying position. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was more than I had been
Speaker 1: making in grad school, for one. And uh. What I
Speaker 1: realized though, was that any kind of position I was
Speaker 1: ineligible for because I refused to move to New York
Speaker 1: or to San Francisco or wherever jobs are based with
Speaker 1: a family, because I could never afford that, you know, here,
Speaker 1: I could buy a house you know there I could
Speaker 1: live in a closet and pay like three thousand dollars
Speaker 1: or something, and you do own a house. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you in the bank own a house. Okay, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Tell me the story of fly Over Country, how you
Speaker 1: get a deal, how that comes out in the reaction
Speaker 1: there too, Well, that was just that was a fluke.
Speaker 1: I mean basically, in two thousand and twelve, I started
Speaker 1: writing for Al Jazeera on pretty much a weekly basis,
Speaker 1: writing essays. And when I left, I I quit Al
Speaker 1: Jazeera in because they were launching Al Jazeera America, um,
Speaker 1: and they basically just wanted like hot takes, and uh,
Speaker 1: I had a new editor. My editor quit and protest.
Speaker 1: Other people quittin protests, and so eventually I did too.
Speaker 1: And my readers were like, I wish all your essays
Speaker 1: were in one place, and I said, okay, And so
Speaker 1: you know, I put them together myself, um, in a book,
Speaker 1: you know, I called if You for fly Over Country.
Speaker 1: I wrote a little introduction and I published it Kindle.
Speaker 1: It was a self published book and it was surprisingly successful.
Speaker 1: And at this point I had had agents from the
Speaker 1: publishing world approaching me, you know, wanting to know if
Speaker 1: I wanted to write a book, um, and I had
Speaker 1: proposed that, actually, I had proposed an essay collection because
Speaker 1: I knew there was demand for it. They basically said,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no one would want that. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: no one understands really what you're talking about. You know,
Speaker 1: you're too gloomy. Things aren't that bad? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, these are viral essays for a reason, like
Speaker 1: they're they're resonating with people. And so then I was
Speaker 1: just sort of like, well, screw these New York people
Speaker 1: aren't gonna understand what I'm talking about anyway. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go about my life. Um. I ended up covering
Speaker 1: Ferguson from that point on because published the book. What
Speaker 1: gains notice for the book, because usually a book doesn't
Speaker 1: get any notice unless the author works it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I I mean I promoted it on Twitter, and at
Speaker 1: that point, I had, you know, fairly substantial following. I
Speaker 1: think I self published in and I had maybe forty
Speaker 1: or fifty thousand people. I mean at this when of
Speaker 1: half a million people. So it's changed quite a bit. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, Then with that book, what happened was the election.
Speaker 1: And so when the election happened. And I had been
Speaker 1: writing about the election all year. I covered it for
Speaker 1: the Globe and Mail in Canada and for other publications,
Speaker 1: and I made lots of predictions that people thought were crazy,
Speaker 1: but they all came true. And so suddenly everyone was
Speaker 1: looking at like, well, what else did she write? And
Speaker 1: you know what, what does she study? And they all
Speaker 1: wanted this book because the book does describe a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that Trump exploited. Economic devastation, political paranoia,
Speaker 1: hyper partisanship, you know, all these these essays about different
Speaker 1: facets of American decline. It became very, very popular at
Speaker 1: the end of twenties sixteen, and um, you know, as
Speaker 1: you've mentioned in your newsletter, Hillary Clinton was quoting it. Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities were quoting it. Still still self
Speaker 1: published it. I was still self published. So then what happens.
Speaker 1: And at that point I had an agent I actually liked.
Speaker 1: It's this guy who's in Canada who liked me, you
Speaker 1: know back when uh like, he didn't like me for
Speaker 1: like am I popular or not? He liked the quality
Speaker 1: of my work. So I trusted him because he liked
Speaker 1: me when I wasn't all that well known and he's
Speaker 1: still my agent now. So all these publishing houses are
Speaker 1: coming to me and they all want to republish View
Speaker 1: from fly Over Country, and I'm thinking no, like, I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna let you republish it, because this is my
Speaker 1: book and I wrote it myself, and I'm worried that
Speaker 1: you're gonna take my words and you're gonna twist them
Speaker 1: or you're gonna cut things out. And this went on
Speaker 1: and on, Um, and I kept refusing offers until finally
Speaker 1: the Hillary thing happened, and then we got you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of interest after that, and I just said, yes, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll let you buy the rights to this,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're paying me in advance as a standard,
Speaker 1: and I wrote you know, some new material for the
Speaker 1: book as well, and the introduction and the conclusion. But
Speaker 1: I'm not changing a word of these essays because they're
Speaker 1: quoted all over the place, and they're also emblematic of
Speaker 1: the time in which they're written, you know, they capture
Speaker 1: that moment between Um and so I somewhat reluctantly agreed
Speaker 1: to you know, have a flat iron. McMillan published a
Speaker 1: paperback version. Uh, you know, there was demand for that
Speaker 1: lot of people. They don't like reading things on kindle.
Speaker 1: They want a print version. And I understood that, and
Speaker 1: I thought, all right, you know, why the hell not.
Speaker 1: And to my great surprise, it became a best seller.
Speaker 1: And I just did not think that would happen, because
Speaker 1: I mean, really, this is the third go round for
Speaker 1: this essay collection. You know, first there online, then it
Speaker 1: was a kindle book, then it's a print books. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: no one's going to really buy this, like, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that flat. I thought that either, Like it
Speaker 1: was understocked everywhere, you know, people were trying to get
Speaker 1: copies of it and could and they had to they
Speaker 1: had to print more. But I landed on the New
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller list, and so then they made me,
Speaker 1: you know, another offer for for my next book, um,
Speaker 1: which again I was a little bit reluctant because of
Speaker 1: the chaos that we live in, you know, because of
Speaker 1: these times, like how do you write about politics knowing
Speaker 1: that your work won't be published for a whole year,
Speaker 1: you know, when so much changes every day. As I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'll write a history. I'll write a history of the
Speaker 1: last forty years and of all the things that have
Speaker 1: transpired that people refused to cover because that will always
Speaker 1: be necessary and that will be to some degree current. Although,
Speaker 1: as I explained in the book A Challenges, there were
Speaker 1: new revelations of that history coming hard and fast throughout
Speaker 1: nineteen when I was writing it, so that it was
Speaker 1: challenging in its own right. But yeah, yeah, that's you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: when when you self published the book, were you making
Speaker 1: any money selling it? Oh? Yeah, yeah, with Amazon, you
Speaker 1: get you keep like se well my question did didn't
Speaker 1: add up to a decent pile of money. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't have lived off it, but it certainly made
Speaker 1: a you know, it was good. It helped me out.
Speaker 1: I mean, especially during the time, like as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: there's like a sixteen month period where my husband had
Speaker 1: been laid off, you know, as part of a mass
Speaker 1: layoff at his company, was looking for jobs. We were
Speaker 1: very close to the poverty line. So every little bit helped,
Speaker 1: you know, like little sums of money like a hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars, like they would make a huge difference
Speaker 1: for us, and so um. But yeah, like in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: after the election, suddenly the book brought in quite a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And you know that was, you know,
Speaker 1: by my standards, quite a lot of money. That was
Speaker 1: when reasons I was reluctant because I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this is lucrative for me. I want to
Speaker 1: hold onto this because what if it doesn't sell anything?
Speaker 1: Like what if this advance isn't worth it? So and
Speaker 1: and so forth. Um, you know, ultimately I think I
Speaker 1: made the right decision by by letting them put the
Speaker 1: print one out, But yeah, you know it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it had a lot more to do with creative control.
Speaker 1: Like I wanted those essays meant something to me, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to hold onto them, and I I honestly
Speaker 1: I didn't trust uh, you know, somebody else managing my
Speaker 1: material that had already been read and was quoted and appreciated.
Speaker 1: So I thought it would be better. Though. So you
Speaker 1: have that book, and you have the subsequent book that
Speaker 1: came out about six weeks ago, Hiding in Plane Site.
Speaker 1: You if someone were to research you, You're constantly on
Speaker 1: TV shows, You're constantly being here and there is because
Speaker 1: the reason I bring this up is in your book
Speaker 1: Hiding in Plane Site, you talk about someone who's a
Speaker 1: well known pundit and is essentially broke it. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: you're not paid for these appearances or nothing significant. Have
Speaker 1: they led to any other economic opportunities? No, I mean
Speaker 1: I started my own podcast with a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: um Andrea Chalupa, who's also an expert on the former
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and we started our podcast, Gasola Nation in
Speaker 1: and I think just the fact that at this point
Speaker 1: I was relatively well known, especially for you know what
Speaker 1: the podcast is on, just corruption and autocracy, and she
Speaker 1: was too. That became an an unsuspected hit. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we we've done very well with that show and so,
Speaker 1: but that again was an opportunity I created myself. It
Speaker 1: was like self publishing the book, where I'm not working
Speaker 1: for anybody but me on my own boss. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the interviews I do, it's to get information
Speaker 1: out to the public. Like I feel like the media
Speaker 1: is not covering a lot of very vital topics having
Speaker 1: to do with organized crying, with state corruption, with rising fascism,
Speaker 1: and so when I get my little minute on MSNBC
Speaker 1: or whatever, I try to pack a lot of information
Speaker 1: in there because I know it's the only one I'll
Speaker 1: get and I feel like, you know, you kind of
Speaker 1: need to to cut through the crap um and tell
Speaker 1: Americans what's going on. And I'm by no means saying
Speaker 1: I'm the only person who knows what's going on, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, I guess the way I talk
Speaker 1: is distinct from the way a lot of pundits choose
Speaker 1: to present themselves. And I'm not interested in, you know,
Speaker 1: being an MSNBC contributor or anything like that. That's like
Speaker 1: not the kind of job I'd want to do. Although
Speaker 1: I guess nowadays you can just do it from your
Speaker 1: house and maybe it's more feeling. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: that wasn't my goal. My goal is to just kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, get the word out there, um, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes it's it's fun to do that,
Speaker 1: you know. I I write to communicate, and so I
Speaker 1: like it when my words are heard, and I like
Speaker 1: hearing from my readers, and you know, I like having
Speaker 1: interesting discussions. Okay, I think it's in no direction home.
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan says they asked him what he wants and
Speaker 1: he won't tell them because his dreams are so big.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to ask you and in your mind,
Speaker 1: what do you want to have happened for yourself? I
Speaker 1: mean for myself. I want this country to remain a democracy.
Speaker 1: I wanted to rain free. I want to have enough
Speaker 1: financial stability to you know, travel around and raise my
Speaker 1: kids and show them in and I, you know, I'm worried.
Speaker 1: It's more of what I don't want. That that's what
Speaker 1: looms largest in my mind, unfortunately, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: terrible thing to live through life that way, but I
Speaker 1: feel like it's pragmatic. You know, things have changed in
Speaker 1: a very dire way over the course of my adult life,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm constantly, you know, battling these things,
Speaker 1: you know, like I have to be hyper vigilant. I
Speaker 1: have to fight them off. And so if I were
Speaker 1: to just have anything, it honestly wouldn't be that much.
Speaker 1: I just want my creative freedom, my ability to speak
Speaker 1: my mind, a baseline level of income that that keeps
Speaker 1: me comfortable. But I don't care that much about you know,
Speaker 1: material stuff or prestige to what degreed? Do you care
Speaker 1: about the breath of your wisdom reaching the public, which
Speaker 1: is not a monetary thing. If people read it, you know,
Speaker 1: that matters to me. Because you know, I'm especially because
Speaker 1: I'm trying to send out a warning about things that
Speaker 1: are happening, you know, to our government that in in
Speaker 1: our country that I don't think everyone is aware of.
Speaker 1: You know, that matters to me. And obviously as a writer,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a great feeling to connect with my audience.
Speaker 1: And I'm very grateful you know when people say that
Speaker 1: they understand something or they're you know, moved by what
Speaker 1: I wrote, or any kind of emotional reaction. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's true for everyone, So that's important to me. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, But the whole sort of I don't even know,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know what the sort of thing I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be striving for for publishing is. You know,
Speaker 1: people will bring up like awards or prizes and like
Speaker 1: I don't know what they are. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: seen this whole rigamarole from academia. Like in academia, I
Speaker 1: want a ton of prizes and awards and it didn't
Speaker 1: mean jack ship. I mean unless unless it gave me
Speaker 1: some money, you know, so that I could get by.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't matter. Like I just want to put
Speaker 1: work out that I'm satisfied it that I think is
Speaker 1: actually high quality and good, which is not an easy thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I do a lot of rewriting. I do
Speaker 1: a lot of harsh editing of my own work. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's a matter of meeting those
Speaker 1: challenges and also just trying to you know, keep up
Speaker 1: with what's happening politically. Uh. And you know, get the
Speaker 1: word out to to as many people as I can
Speaker 1: so Uh. In one of your podcasts, you say you're
Speaker 1: not worried about your reputation. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 1: I don't worry about what, you know, sort of fancy
Speaker 1: people like people in powerful positions what they think of me. Um.
Speaker 1: And I in some respects at this point, have the
Speaker 1: luxury of doing that because I do run my own podcast,
Speaker 1: and you know, as a writer, I'm kind of an
Speaker 1: autonomous unit writing a book. I mean, I do have
Speaker 1: to deal with the publishing company and the lawyers and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and that's not always pleasant. But you know, I essentially
Speaker 1: am in a unique position where I could do what
Speaker 1: I want. I'm not trying to climb some kind of ladder.
Speaker 1: I think the ladder doesn't go anywhere. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: also of no interest to me, like, and I get invited.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy sounds so obnoxious. But when I
Speaker 1: get a vited to like a lot of these conferences
Speaker 1: that people had in the pre pandemic era, you know,
Speaker 1: I was uncomfortable. I didn't like the fanciness of it,
Speaker 1: the expense of it, the superficiality of it. I sometimes
Speaker 1: would meet really great people, people I genuinely respect, and
Speaker 1: that's always a good thing, but I don't know that
Speaker 1: the whole world, it's not for me. Um And so yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go macro. Tell us about Putin, the man, Russia,
Speaker 1: the country and their plan and interference in the United
Speaker 1: States and other world affairs. Yeah, well, Putin has basically
Speaker 1: been plotting the revenge of the Soviet Union ever since
Speaker 1: he was elected UM in New Year's even And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, what we're seeing on a global scale is
Speaker 1: the influence of not just Putin in the Kremlin, but
Speaker 1: of Putin and it's uh, you know, oligarch and mafia
Speaker 1: kind of tri part um, you know, conglomeration where they
Speaker 1: want autocracy, where they're involved in money laundry, where they
Speaker 1: see things like NATO and the EU and these international
Speaker 1: bodies as obstacles to their own goals, you know, and
Speaker 1: their goals. Putin's goals are the same as any dictator.
Speaker 1: So he wants money, he wants power, he wants territory,
Speaker 1: which we've seen with Crimea. He has openly said, you know,
Speaker 1: he wants to bring the Soviet Union back together. He
Speaker 1: said that the dissolution of it was the great tragedy
Speaker 1: of his life. And he sees people like Trump as
Speaker 1: useful vehicles for this goal. And you know, the book
Speaker 1: lays out how Trump has both had political ambition in
Speaker 1: the United States UM and with the Republican Party with
Speaker 1: operatives like Roger Stone for over thirty years, and has
Speaker 1: been hooked up to the Kremlin and to especially the
Speaker 1: Russian mafia for over thirty years because there who bailed
Speaker 1: him out after his bankruptcies when nobody else, you know,
Speaker 1: would would invest in him. The Russians made an investment
Speaker 1: in Donald Trump and it paid off very well for them.
Speaker 1: And I should specify that by I shouldn't say Russians.
Speaker 1: It's Aligarcs from the former Soviet Union and mobsters from
Speaker 1: the former Soviet Union. And they're not always from Russia
Speaker 1: the country. They're not always you know, ethnically Russian. There
Speaker 1: are people who profited off the dissolution of the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union themselves, you know, which is honestly, that's the model
Speaker 1: that I think they want for the United States. They
Speaker 1: wanted to be weak, they wanted to fall apart, and
Speaker 1: then they want to make money, taking resources, taking over businesses,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. You talk a lot
Speaker 1: in the book about a transnational crime syndicate, and you
Speaker 1: say in the US, the Italian mafia has been replaced
Speaker 1: by the Russian mafia. I don't think the average even
Speaker 1: though you quote sources in the government warning about this,
Speaker 1: I don't believe the average American is aware of this.
Speaker 1: How bad is it? It's it's very bad, especially because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of this kind of happened legally
Speaker 1: in a way. Uh. You know, the border between white
Speaker 1: collar crime and organized crime really began to blur in
Speaker 1: the nine nineties, and one of the hot spots for
Speaker 1: this was of course New York City, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: with deregulation on Wall Street. And then what happened was,
Speaker 1: you know, you had Juliani in the nineteen eighties basically
Speaker 1: cracking down on the Italian mafia weakening them. And then
Speaker 1: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, where people from
Speaker 1: that region were able to travel, including its top criminals,
Speaker 1: they set up shop in New York City. Some of
Speaker 1: them had already been doing that in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: They were living in Trump Tower. You know. Trump Tower
Speaker 1: is basically functioning as a dorm for the Russian mafia.
Speaker 1: And they began to move their dirty money in and
Speaker 1: out of all these New York properties, including others owned
Speaker 1: by Donald Trump, and they gained quite a foothold. And
Speaker 1: some of them, you know, went and worked on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: They worked for these big firms, and that that's what
Speaker 1: I mean by that line being very much blurred. And
Speaker 1: I think there is a tendency in the United States
Speaker 1: to be very forgiving of these figures. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, poor Russians. You know, they were a communists
Speaker 1: and now they're just having trouble figuring out this capitalist thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, these are seasoned criminals. They understand high
Speaker 1: finance very well, they understand organized crime very well, and
Speaker 1: they are duping you. You are thinking that they're playing dumb,
Speaker 1: but they're actually very intelligent. And honestly, I don't think
Speaker 1: Trump is particularly intelligent, but I think he's intelligent at
Speaker 1: playing dumb as well. He pretends to be a lot
Speaker 1: stupider than he is because he is smart when it
Speaker 1: comes to crime. He knows exactly the amount he needs
Speaker 1: to know, and he knows how to function within a
Speaker 1: criminal organization. But yeah, the Russian mafia took over where
Speaker 1: the Italian mafia left off, and they're still very active.
Speaker 1: You know, It's true, not just in New York, but
Speaker 1: in most major cities. Miami is another hot spot, Southern
Speaker 1: Florida in general. Uh, And no one cracked on on them.
Speaker 1: There was a crackdown in the late nineties, but once
Speaker 1: nine eleven happened, all those resources at the FBI that
Speaker 1: we're looking into Russian organized crime, UH turned to you know,
Speaker 1: Islamic terrorism, preventing future attacks and so forth, and they
Speaker 1: forgot about them. But they were still working, and they
Speaker 1: realized that one of the wisest things they could do
Speaker 1: to keep their illegal operations going was to infiltrate government
Speaker 1: and infiltrate institutions and make those institutions work for them.
Speaker 1: And so you have, you know, things like the former
Speaker 1: directors of the FBI in the nineties, Lewis Free, William
Speaker 1: Sessions going on to work for the Russian mafia, as
Speaker 1: you know, consultants working for various firms. It's it's frightening, um,
Speaker 1: And it's frightening to me that people don't talk about
Speaker 1: it more because it is a profound national security threat.
Speaker 1: Mueller himself in two thousand and eleven wrote a speech
Speaker 1: about what a security threat this was to Western democracy,
Speaker 1: how incredibly dangerous these people are, and now they're in
Speaker 1: the White House. Okay, so we covered a little bit
Speaker 1: of sixteen in Russia interference with the election, but certainly
Speaker 1: the you from this side of the pond, looking at
Speaker 1: the government, etcetera, to what degree is it a factor?
Speaker 1: To what degree was it bungled by either Mueller, Pelosi,
Speaker 1: Shoe or what happened? What and what should have happened?
Speaker 1: They all really screwed up. Like I was getting incredibly
Speaker 1: worried in the months leading up to November twenty six
Speaker 1: because I saw clearly what was happening, like when Trump
Speaker 1: asked Russia to get him Hillary Clinton's emails at a
Speaker 1: press conference and then nothing was done after that. Um,
Speaker 1: I was like, they're they're not going to do anything
Speaker 1: about this. They're going to let this happen. And I
Speaker 1: knew that, at least for you know, the Kremlin. The
Speaker 1: ambition was to turn the US into something like a
Speaker 1: a proxy state of Russia. And I knew that for um,
Speaker 1: you know, these organized criminal bodies, this is going to
Speaker 1: be a windfall. And I still don't understand the dereliction
Speaker 1: of duty in the Obama administration because they were warned,
Speaker 1: you know, um, they knew that Russia was after them.
Speaker 1: They had hacked by that time, the State Department, the
Speaker 1: d o D, the d n C, the r n Z.
Speaker 1: They had hacked like every governmental body. And then we
Speaker 1: found out in twenty eight that Russia had infiltrated the
Speaker 1: treasury and twenty I mean you found out in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen that they had infiltrated the treasury. In the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: for reasons I still don't fully comprehend, did very little
Speaker 1: about this, and I don't think they necessarily welcomed it
Speaker 1: or approved of it. But they didn't stop it, and
Speaker 1: they didn't take it seriously, and the FBI did nothing
Speaker 1: to stop it either. Harry Reid, when he was sentate
Speaker 1: minority leader, sent a letter to James Comby in the
Speaker 1: summer of sixteen, saying you have to warn the American
Speaker 1: public about Russia and the election because they're planning to
Speaker 1: falsify the official results. And so when I saw that letter,
Speaker 1: which was an open letter, I was like, my God,
Speaker 1: Like for the Senate Minority leader to say that, that's
Speaker 1: an incredible statement. Why is no one in the press
Speaker 1: covering this or very few people, like why is this
Speaker 1: not on television? Why aren't we looking at this in
Speaker 1: the context of Trump's long relationship with the Russian mafia
Speaker 1: or Paul Manafort, who at that point, you know, had
Speaker 1: been working as a oligarch lackey for various Kremlin affiliated actors, Like,
Speaker 1: there were so many connections to look at. You know,
Speaker 1: there was also Wicki Weeks in its connection to Russia,
Speaker 1: and no one was doing anything. And I realized in October, like,
Speaker 1: they're just gonna let this happen. They're gonna just let
Speaker 1: him win. And then I don't know what the hell
Speaker 1: is going to happen to America, but it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be good. And then that's been the pattern since you know, Mueller,
Speaker 1: blewett Um. I think possibly intentionally, the Democrats have been
Speaker 1: incredibly timid. The Republicans are complicit. So yeah, you know
Speaker 1: when I say I don't think anyone's gonna save us,
Speaker 1: it's because I've seen all the people who were in
Speaker 1: a position to make a meaningful difference to protect us,
Speaker 1: they all refused to do so. Um And you know,
Speaker 1: I know that there are threats involved in bribes and blackmail,
Speaker 1: but you know, we're all we're all taking a risk here,
Speaker 1: Like I take a risk here just talking about this.
Speaker 1: So I kind of look at them with all of
Speaker 1: their private security and all their money and all their influence,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, come on, like, do the bare minimum
Speaker 1: for your country here, Like, I really don't understand how
Speaker 1: you think this is going to end up, because it's
Speaker 1: not gonna end up well for you in the end. Either,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna end up well for any of us. Oh,
Speaker 1: your book Hiding in Plain Site is very well documented. Okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of people they dash off a book, its theories, whatever,
Speaker 1: But you literally linking two things. People said, Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: why did no one pick up on these stories which
Speaker 1: you covered a little bit? And do you believe now
Speaker 1: that you delineated these things there will be a move
Speaker 1: on them. I don't know, because you know, there have
Speaker 1: been other best selling books kind of either on the
Speaker 1: subject You're related to it by David K. Johnston, Michael
Speaker 1: Malcolm Nance, Craig Unger on the Russian mafia aspect. You know,
Speaker 1: they they've laid this out and there's certainly been a
Speaker 1: lot of documentation of Trump's corruption and barkins Trump confesses
Speaker 1: to it all the time, like you don't have to
Speaker 1: look that hard, you know, he goes on Lester Hole
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I committed obstruction and justice. And
Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump Jr. Tweets out his emails that
Speaker 1: are very damning. So no one has acted on this
Speaker 1: even though it's in the public light. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my book Hiding in Plain Site has has been very popular.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, it is a best seller on
Speaker 1: multiple lists. Uh. You know, I didn't notice though that
Speaker 1: you know, no one not no one would review it,
Speaker 1: but the standard places that would review a book put
Speaker 1: out by McMillan that's the best seller, Like the Times,
Speaker 1: with Watching and Post, they're not going near this thing
Speaker 1: because I think it's still taboo. And you know, the
Speaker 1: same thing is kind of true sometimes with television, people
Speaker 1: are very afraid of the subject. Like a natural place
Speaker 1: for all of these things that are in my book
Speaker 1: to be discussed was the impeachment hearings because it directly
Speaker 1: reflected what happened in you know, they tried to make
Speaker 1: about twenty nineteen and about Ukraine, but the background that
Speaker 1: was in Russia and Trump's long relationship with the Kremlin
Speaker 1: and the relationship of people in his circle like Giuliani,
Speaker 1: Roger stone mana for etcetera to the Kremlin, and of
Speaker 1: course the Muller Report. If they aren't going to do
Speaker 1: it an impeachment, it's hard for me to imagine them
Speaker 1: doing it now. And I hope that I am adding
Speaker 1: pressure or at least I'm educating, you know, average Americans
Speaker 1: on what the government should be telling them. Like I've
Speaker 1: had people write to me and they're like, this is
Speaker 1: what I thought at the Mueller Report would be like
Speaker 1: like this is the kind of information that I've been
Speaker 1: looking for, And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's been
Speaker 1: out there. Like I'm standing on the shoulders if many
Speaker 1: other people who have tried to tell this story, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm good, I think at weaving these things together
Speaker 1: because they can be very complicated. But a lot of
Speaker 1: folks have been trying to get this out and officials
Speaker 1: have just refused to act on the information. Now, not
Speaker 1: only did Trump beat impeachment, he is systematically getting rid
Speaker 1: of people who are not loyalists, who are not only
Speaker 1: you know what he calls not only elected whatever or
Speaker 1: not not only part of his cabinet, but people who
Speaker 1: were part of the bureaucracy what he calls the deep state.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna let him get away with this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't if I were if I were in charge,
Speaker 1: but I'm not. Um, you know, it's frustrating to me
Speaker 1: because there they act shocked every time this happens. Like
Speaker 1: I see these officials, senators, congressmen, what have you on
Speaker 1: Twitter and they're like, oh my god, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that they just fired the ethics investigator?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, like where you've been? And I
Speaker 1: think that their tactic there is to feign shock, because
Speaker 1: if you are not shocked, then you have to enforce accountability.
Speaker 1: And if everything is a continual surprise to you, then
Speaker 1: no one is going to expect you to actually do
Speaker 1: your job. But I do expect them um to do
Speaker 1: their jobs, and I wonder what's going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: You know, as I said, I do have I have
Speaker 1: sympathy for our representatives because they're dealing with a mafia state.
Speaker 1: You know, these are very dangerous people. During the Impatient hearings,
Speaker 1: they admitted that Trump essentially ordered a hit on Marie Ivanovitch,
Speaker 1: the U S Ambassador Ukraine. The others who testified, Fiona Hill,
Speaker 1: Alexander Vinman. They had to have private security at the
Speaker 1: hearings for Manaphor and for Roger Stone. The judges were threatened,
Speaker 1: the jury was threatened, and there have been so many
Speaker 1: unexplained deaths, sudden deaths and murders. You know, if people
Speaker 1: like Jamalka shogi um throughout this administration. So yes, I
Speaker 1: that there are risks, but I don't think that you
Speaker 1: should get involved in politics and you know, run for
Speaker 1: office if you're not willing to take these people on.
Speaker 1: And there are exceptions to this. You know, there are
Speaker 1: people in government who have tried to take this on.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Warren has been very outspoken about corruption.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Adam Schiff, I've had some criticisms
Speaker 1: of him, But I think he was good during impeachment,
Speaker 1: and I think he wanted to say more. I often
Speaker 1: sensed that tendency from these officials. They want to tell
Speaker 1: Americans the whole story. They want to be able to
Speaker 1: talk about the things that I talked about in my
Speaker 1: book and that others have talked about in their books.
Speaker 1: And it's astounding to me that since we all kind
Speaker 1: of know it, you know, it's out there now, that
Speaker 1: they still won't go down that road. And I'm not
Speaker 1: completely sure it's holding them back, whether it's greed, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's donors, donor money um that influences they're thinking threats, blackmail.
Speaker 1: But at this point, it's like we have a you know,
Speaker 1: a surreal, sort of lopsided sense of reality. We're on
Speaker 1: one hand, they're acting like everything is normal. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna have a reg year old election in November, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're not going to talk about this mafia stuff.
Speaker 1: And then you see Trump just overtly acting like a
Speaker 1: mob boss, you know, shaking people down, like what he
Speaker 1: did to the governors, what he did to different states
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, where it's like you do what I say,
Speaker 1: or you don't get medical equipment. It's like, good God,
Speaker 1: how much clearer does it have to be that this
Speaker 1: is the mindset and that this is the behavior, and
Speaker 1: how dangerous this is to ordinary people, to sick people,
Speaker 1: to victims of this um and they still just they
Speaker 1: won't call it like it is. They won't call him
Speaker 1: a criminal. Uh. And then now there's a sort of
Speaker 1: agenda going on to try to flip this script to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, no, you know, it's really Biden that's
Speaker 1: the big threat. Biden's the criminal, and the media once
Speaker 1: again is falling into the scene trap that they did
Speaker 1: in Okay, you're other than Bill Maher, You're the only
Speaker 1: public figure I'm aware of. That said, even if he loses,
Speaker 1: Trump won't leave. Could he amplify that place? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: felt that way since because once an autocrat gets into power,
Speaker 1: and that is what Trump wants to be, they it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to get them out because they'll rewrite rules,
Speaker 1: they'll pack courts, they'll purge agencies, they put the conditions
Speaker 1: in place to make not leaving much easier. And he
Speaker 1: also violates norms. You know, we've seemed countlessly over the
Speaker 1: last four years. How much American democracy and its stability
Speaker 1: rests on norms and expectations of behavior that he has
Speaker 1: fine breaking because he has no sense of shame and
Speaker 1: he has no sense of you know, this is the
Speaker 1: way that things need to be done. This is the
Speaker 1: precedent for this sort of you know time. So if
Speaker 1: he loses a selection, if by some miracle we have
Speaker 1: a free and fair election Biden wins, he's just gonna
Speaker 1: say it's I legitimate. He's gonna say it's rigged, or
Speaker 1: he's gonna say, you know, the country can't afford to
Speaker 1: change right now because of coronavirus or whatever. And he
Speaker 1: won't go. And I think, you know, Michael cohen Um
Speaker 1: during his hearing in early twenty nineteen, he said the
Speaker 1: same thing, that Trump is refusing to go. And now
Speaker 1: we're hearing Kushner saying, oh, I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: going to be an election, and so yes, everyone should
Speaker 1: be very prepared for the possibility that he won't leave,
Speaker 1: and if it gets to the point where they're actually
Speaker 1: trying to take him out of power, that there will
Speaker 1: be violence on the streets of this country from his supporters.
Speaker 1: But I don't even think it's so much from his
Speaker 1: voters as from fanatics that have associated themselves with him, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, attached themselves to him, using him as a
Speaker 1: vehicle for their own causes, looking for violence. I think
Speaker 1: we're going to have a very very difficult time between
Speaker 1: November and January. At the least, you know, if the
Speaker 1: Democrat were to lose outright for getting you know, jerrymandering
Speaker 1: and voter suppression whatever, it's it's much easier process for Trump.
Speaker 1: But if a Democrat were to win, if you were
Speaker 1: advising Biden appears to be the candidate, Uh, if you
Speaker 1: were advising Biden and the d n C, what would
Speaker 1: you tell them to do in terms of protecting election
Speaker 1: security or just in general in general? Well, I would
Speaker 1: tell him right now he needs to come out with
Speaker 1: a coalition. Like it cannot be just about Biden. Like
Speaker 1: Trump is a he has a personality cold and I
Speaker 1: think it would be effective for the Democrats if they
Speaker 1: presented themselves as a group, you know, including others who
Speaker 1: ran for president, people like Warren Sanders, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: even the ones they didn't like quite as much, like
Speaker 1: Buddha judge, you know, to to present themselves as we
Speaker 1: are a group, we are public servants. We are creating
Speaker 1: policy for you, we are serving you. And I think others,
Speaker 1: you know that would be useful here, maybe Stacy Abrams
Speaker 1: because she does understand election integrity, Alexandria, Alexandria Acossio Cortes Um,
Speaker 1: they should do that. He should announce his VP choice,
Speaker 1: he should announce his cabinet, and then they need to
Speaker 1: work very much on election integrity. And now we have
Speaker 1: coronavirus um, so I think they need to move to
Speaker 1: voting by mail. They need to lock that down. It
Speaker 1: can't be something we're debating in September October, like gee,
Speaker 1: am I gonna cast my vote? Like they need to
Speaker 1: have that settled now so that Trump can't do legitimize it.
Speaker 1: And also just some people can vote without risking their lives.
Speaker 1: And then there's the other problems of you know, voter
Speaker 1: ID laws being abused for an interference, hackable machines for
Speaker 1: those who are voting electronically, like they should have been
Speaker 1: on top of this stuff years ago. But you know,
Speaker 1: I I think that even though they weren't, there's no
Speaker 1: time like the president, so I would include I would
Speaker 1: encourage them to be transparent with the American public, be like,
Speaker 1: this is what's happening, this is the problem, this is
Speaker 1: how we're gonna fix it. None of this little behind
Speaker 1: the scenes meetings, none of this like we're too good
Speaker 1: to talk to her own constituents kind of attitude, Like
Speaker 1: just talk straight, and I think people would be appreciative
Speaker 1: of that. Okay, what about terror read irrelevant of whether
Speaker 1: it happened or not. The Republicans do have a good
Speaker 1: point that the Democrats squeezed out everybody if there was
Speaker 1: a hint, you know, Al Frankin, who was a great
Speaker 1: senator or whatever. So what's your viewpoint on this? How
Speaker 1: should he the left handle the problem that the right
Speaker 1: is very unified for the left to win, it's a
Speaker 1: big tent. But because of political correctness and all kinds
Speaker 1: of subgroups, they end up causing their own problems, which
Speaker 1: ali and they're people, never mind the people on the
Speaker 1: other side. Yeah, I mean with terror read, you know,
Speaker 1: she's a person, and I hate every time this happens.
Speaker 1: I hate having to see a woman, having to see
Speaker 1: a person being used as a political pawn and this
Speaker 1: sort of like what about is um and back and forth,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I do think with Trump as I
Speaker 1: lay out in the book, we have an extreme problem
Speaker 1: of sexual abuse, sexual assault connections to people like Epstein.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean, though, that what Biden did is not
Speaker 1: a problem, and there is a pattern of sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: and I think that he needs to be upfront about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I am not completely convinced by Tara
Speaker 1: Reid's story. I'm also not unconvinced by it, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to attack her like I hate that. You know,
Speaker 1: we're in this position where we have to evaluate, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, another person who's put her whole life on
Speaker 1: the line by being in the public eye. Um, But
Speaker 1: I think that he needs to be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: straightforward and not defensive and you know, talk about his
Speaker 1: own behavior. I mean, I think, I mean, in a way,
Speaker 1: it's like I say, honestly, is honesty is the best policy,
Speaker 1: knowing full well that the GOP always exploits it. But
Speaker 1: I don't see a way out of this. I think admitting, um,
Speaker 1: you know, personal or institutional failures can actually be helpful
Speaker 1: when you have a population that is so disillusion from
Speaker 1: the barrage of lies and propaganda. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people fell for Trump because they fell for this
Speaker 1: illusion of authenticity. They thought that he was being honest,
Speaker 1: even if he was being awful. They thought it was
Speaker 1: some sort of awful honesty, which is not you know,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a chronic liar. But I think that
Speaker 1: that just uh as a stance is a way to go.
Speaker 1: Who should be the vice presidential candidate and who will be?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like he's going to make
Speaker 1: a bad decision. I mean, I think he's gonna pick
Speaker 1: like Biden Junior type. A lot of people talking about Warren,
Speaker 1: you know, who was my preferred candidate to as VP. UM.
Speaker 1: I would be content with that, but I basically like,
Speaker 1: I want Warren to be like the Dick Cheney of
Speaker 1: this whole administration, Like I want her plans implemented. I
Speaker 1: want her behind the scenes calling the shots. One thing
Speaker 1: that's very unusual about Biden is that he is so elderly,
Speaker 1: and he's spoken about how he might not be there
Speaker 1: for a second term. So whoever he picks as a
Speaker 1: VP is potentially, uh, you know, the next presidential candidate,
Speaker 1: and we may be going through all this again in
Speaker 1: four years. Honestly, if we're lucky, we'll be going through
Speaker 1: this again with having had a democratic um administration. But
Speaker 1: I think that she's very knowledgeable and at the least
Speaker 1: her plans should be implemented. I'm worried that, as usual,
Speaker 1: the d N C um in the powers that we
Speaker 1: are not going to recognize the need for someone, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, who understands the severity of the corruption that
Speaker 1: we've experienced, the severity the economic crisis that has plans
Speaker 1: to fix it. Uh. They often don't seem to recognize
Speaker 1: the need to be inclusive in that respect. Like I
Speaker 1: don't like how they're dismissing not just Warren, but Sanders
Speaker 1: and and his voters as well, because especially during coronavirus,
Speaker 1: when you have you know, unemployment hovering around twenty five
Speaker 1: per cent, you know, you need people who understand what
Speaker 1: it's like to live through poverty and how difficult it
Speaker 1: was to get by even before this crisis came along.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, that's why I want to coalition.
Speaker 1: I want as many like good minds out there as
Speaker 1: possible and as little ego as possible. Like I'm sick
Speaker 1: of these political personality colts. I think they're weird, first
Speaker 1: of all, Like, why are you getting like this over
Speaker 1: a politician of all people. But they're also just damaging.
Speaker 1: They're damaging the democracy. Going a little inside baseball. Is
Speaker 1: Warren the nonstarter because Massachusetts presently have as a Republican
Speaker 1: governor who most probably would uh pick a Republican to
Speaker 1: fill Warren's seat. I think if they're looking at at
Speaker 1: it that way, then they're nuts. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think the Democrats are going to get
Speaker 1: the Senate anyway, So you're like placing a weird bet.
Speaker 1: But you need the top people to be in this
Speaker 1: cabinet in some way to make these big decisions because
Speaker 1: whoever wins this thing, like if it's you know, assuming
Speaker 1: it's fight, and all he's going to be doing is
Speaker 1: digging us out of the hell hole that we are
Speaker 1: in because of Trump. You know, where you have entire
Speaker 1: departments that have been dismantled, Like we don't have a
Speaker 1: State Department. We have a zillion acting uh you know,
Speaker 1: secretaries of this, secretaries of that. We have a gutted
Speaker 1: and purged FBI. We have intelligence that's been compromised, like
Speaker 1: we've had idiots like Jared Krishner going around selling state
Speaker 1: secrets like the ramifications of what they've done are going
Speaker 1: to be there for the rest of my life. Like
Speaker 1: I don't expect to ever see this stuff resolved. And
Speaker 1: we have things like climate change, we have these existential
Speaker 1: threats hovering abous. We need the top people, and I
Speaker 1: think that Warren would be better in uh the government,
Speaker 1: whether as VP or treasurer or something. Then in the Senate. Um,
Speaker 1: I think in the Senate they need like attack dog types.
Speaker 1: I honestly think you know, Sanders is usable in that regard.
Speaker 1: In the Senate, they need somebody who will tell Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell to go uh. I don't know if I could
Speaker 1: swear on your show to to fund himself. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, they need to time to get
Speaker 1: lost and that they're not gonna put up with his
Speaker 1: ship anymore. Like they need, uh, they need to get
Speaker 1: in the ring for the Republican Party. They need a long,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of kind of rant and just somebody
Speaker 1: to take them down. But when it comes to like
Speaker 1: the top people, when it comes to the cabinet, they
Speaker 1: need the finest minds and they need the best plans
Speaker 1: because we are in for such a terrible uh four
Speaker 1: years even in the best of circumstances. And I've got
Speaker 1: no illusions about that. Let's just assume for the sake
Speaker 1: of argument, Biden does win. What happens with all the
Speaker 1: Trump constituents. We saw that Trump wanted to open the
Speaker 1: country for economic reasons. He got all these crazy people
Speaker 1: to protest in uh front of governors, in front of
Speaker 1: the state houses, even though statistically more people wanted to
Speaker 1: stay home. So if a Democrat, i e. Biden, wins
Speaker 1: the presidency, I don't anticipate all the Trump supporters gonna
Speaker 1: roll over. No, And I think it's less the Trump
Speaker 1: voters or supporters than this very fanatical base. And I
Speaker 1: was reading an article the other day about how, you know,
Speaker 1: these little protests like open up Michigan, Liberate this libery
Speaker 1: that have spread the virus. But in the article it
Speaker 1: was about how it's basically the same band of like
Speaker 1: a few hundred people moving from state to state having
Speaker 1: these protests. These protests are heavily AstroTurf. Like I don't
Speaker 1: doubt that there are people who are genuine you know,
Speaker 1: there are people joining in that genuinely they want stuff open.
Speaker 1: They're very upset, and I understand that to some degree,
Speaker 1: but a lot of this is fake. Uh and uh,
Speaker 1: I think that that's kind of true of the Trump base.
Speaker 1: It's the base is very small. The voters are are
Speaker 1: larger group than the base, but the base can be
Speaker 1: riled up to violence. I worry about the q and
Speaker 1: on phenomenon, where we really seem to have a like
Speaker 1: a religious cult forming, not quite around Trump, but about
Speaker 1: ideas of uh, you know, kind of what's a big plan, uh,
Speaker 1: mythical character. I mean, all of these are signs of
Speaker 1: like a collapsing society where institutions have completely filled the public.
Speaker 1: So I don't completely blame them, but I think that
Speaker 1: they could some of them can be spurred to violence.
Speaker 1: I think some of Trump's other followers they're already looking
Speaker 1: for violence. I remember in sixteen when I was covering
Speaker 1: the election. You know, here in Missouri, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that thought, you know, Trump would win,
Speaker 1: but he'd be robbed, like Hillary would just take over
Speaker 1: and she'd be the president and Trump would be able
Speaker 1: to get an office. And they were ready for civil war.
Speaker 1: They had bought all these guns, all these weapons, and
Speaker 1: what people don't understand, I think is that this is
Speaker 1: expensive like they made an investment in civil war and
Speaker 1: then they didn't get to have one, and all of
Speaker 1: those weapons have just been sitting in their homes and
Speaker 1: they've been waiting for the opportunity. And you know, Trump
Speaker 1: encourages this. He encourages violence, and so do the people
Speaker 1: in his camp, and he has a great propaganda apparatus,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: get dangerous. I think if Biden wins, it's dangerous. And
Speaker 1: even if he wins, I think it'll be like sixteen
Speaker 1: when hate crimes went through the roof. I think he'll
Speaker 1: exalt in it and I'll see you as a mandate
Speaker 1: for state sanctioned brutality, and he'll get up a notch um,
Speaker 1: you know, as soon as that happens, And you know
Speaker 1: I do fear for that. Let's, just for the sake
Speaker 1: of argument, say that Trump outright wins. Another four years
Speaker 1: go by, then what happens. I don't think that will
Speaker 1: be a democracy anymore. I'm not sure that, you know,
Speaker 1: like the conversation you and I are having now, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that will be possible. I feel like
Speaker 1: there will be an attempt to regulate speech and regulate
Speaker 1: the media. And it's not going to be some sort
Speaker 1: of rewriting the First Amendment, UM, making new laws. It
Speaker 1: will be through excessive LiTi gaiation. It will be through
Speaker 1: control of social media, of the architecture of the Internet.
Speaker 1: It will basically be through severing connections of people, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so that we're able to have straightforward conversations
Speaker 1: and share information. I worry about digital archives. I worry
Speaker 1: about history being rewritten. I mean, one reason I was
Speaker 1: willing to write a print book is I wanted it
Speaker 1: in print, like I wanted an analog version of my
Speaker 1: work preserved, because I don't know what the digital future
Speaker 1: will hold. And I you know, I'm I'm predicting a
Speaker 1: somewhat based on what Trump and his cohorts say, but
Speaker 1: also on the path that's been taken in Hungary, in Russia, UM,
Speaker 1: in Turkey and other countries that were uh, you know,
Speaker 1: democratic to some extent, just as as recently as five
Speaker 1: years ago and are now autocracies where journalists and intellectuals
Speaker 1: and opposition leaders are locked up. I see that as
Speaker 1: a possible path here. UM. And we are different, you know,
Speaker 1: We've had a long history of you know democratic traditions,
Speaker 1: but you know, autocracy moves fast. And the people who
Speaker 1: always say it can't happen here, um, they tend to
Speaker 1: be the ones that it happens to. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that we're adequately prepared. And again, you know, I
Speaker 1: hope I'm wrong. Um, And then of course I have
Speaker 1: to you know, throw the wrench into this, which is coronavirus.
Speaker 1: Like we're responding to a pandemic in the midst of
Speaker 1: this that makes everything very hard to predict, especially with
Speaker 1: the economic devastation. You know that it that it's created. Okay,
Speaker 1: how important is privacy an issue? And where should the
Speaker 1: line be? According to you? I I think it's very important.
Speaker 1: It's another reason I like Warren as I feel like
Speaker 1: she addressed this. I worry about privacy, uh, in conjunction
Speaker 1: with monopolies, with these extremely powerful social media companies that
Speaker 1: have access to our information and that don't share with
Speaker 1: us how that information is being used, how it's being gathered.
Speaker 1: I worry about, um, you know, how kids are growing
Speaker 1: up with this, Like that's been a challenge as a parent, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, what do I allow them to do? What
Speaker 1: kind of information is there? And they always think I'm nuts.
Speaker 1: You know, like when my daughter wanted to have a
Speaker 1: TikTok account and I said, you know, to her and
Speaker 1: to her friends who are over, no, you guys cannot
Speaker 1: go on TikTok because you know that your information is
Speaker 1: going to go to the Chinese government. And they're looking
Speaker 1: at me like I'm like Dale Gribble on King of
Speaker 1: the Hill, like you know, it's crazy conspiracy theory, mom,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, I'm serious, Like the Chinese on
Speaker 1: TikTok and whatever you put on there, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: they're going to use it, but you know, they will
Speaker 1: technically own your image, they will own your content. And
Speaker 1: that's true not just with China, but with UM, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously with American companies and with all these international uh
Speaker 1: you know, corporations as well. It's very risky. I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're going to do. But I look at
Speaker 1: that states like China, you know, which is a surveillance state,
Speaker 1: which is doing stuff with facial idea, UM you know,
Speaker 1: which is uh having things like a social credit system,
Speaker 1: and I wonder how inspired America is going to be
Speaker 1: by those ideas and whether they're going to try to
Speaker 1: implement something like that, and that will get used to
Speaker 1: being tracked. We won't have the expectation of privacy anymore.
Speaker 1: I've already watched that happen. I think over the last
Speaker 1: ten years, the expectation of privacy has really kind of
Speaker 1: slipped away. Um, people don't demand it. They're now used
Speaker 1: to having their photo all over the place because people
Speaker 1: have digital cameras and that makes it so much easier.
Speaker 1: And um, I mean it's a tough thing. I don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of people living so that they inhabit
Speaker 1: a persona. And I'm hoping that the younger generation, the
Speaker 1: one that's just sort of used to this, maybe they
Speaker 1: just don't give a ship. Maybe they won't be constantly
Speaker 1: grooming themselves to please others online. Maybe they'll just feel
Speaker 1: like they can be themselves and if someone doesn't like it,
Speaker 1: then too bad. Like I hope that that's the attitude
Speaker 1: they take, because I've watched my generation could toward itself
Speaker 1: into trying to fit some sort of image, you know,
Speaker 1: for social media, for the public eye. Like we've all
Speaker 1: been forced to be micro celebrities. And I don't think that,
Speaker 1: you know, anyone really wanted that, so if we look
Speaker 1: at the world at large, the thought was with the
Speaker 1: fall of the Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: that the world would turn to democracy. That's one of
Speaker 1: the rationalizations for the abortion in a ran Okay, if
Speaker 1: you predict the world at large, is democracy a dying dream?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's a dream it's worth fighting for.
Speaker 1: Like that's, you know, one of those things I don't
Speaker 1: give up on. I want a democratic system. It's deeply
Speaker 1: important to me, and so you know, I'll fight till
Speaker 1: the bitter end. And I think that many others will too.
Speaker 1: I do think that a lot of countries that people
Speaker 1: thought would remain democratic have turned quite quickly, um, you know,
Speaker 1: towards authoritarianism. And that includes the ones that you know,
Speaker 1: we're dominated by the Soviet Union, places like Poland, um
Speaker 1: or Hungry that you know, had a hard fought freedom
Speaker 1: in nine and onward and then now have reverted, you know,
Speaker 1: to this new kind of authoritarian rule. It's easier to
Speaker 1: happen than you think. I think that whatever will get
Speaker 1: it's not gonna look like a replica of the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union or of Nazi Germany. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: new thing. And I do think it is going to
Speaker 1: have this big digital surveillance component. But I think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, democracy literally translates to the power of the people,
Speaker 1: and I hope that everyone remembers that. I hope they
Speaker 1: remember that they, as Americans, are entitled to that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not optional. Public servants exist to serve us, They
Speaker 1: exist to uphold the Constitution, and it should not be
Speaker 1: something that they can pick or choose to do. They
Speaker 1: have to do it. Um. And I think that expectation
Speaker 1: stations have been lowered in part because Congress has so
Speaker 1: completely failed us. But those expectations, uh, you know, those
Speaker 1: demands need to be constant, even if they're not being met. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to expect more of them, and
Speaker 1: we need to be prepared for a long fight ourselves.
Speaker 1: You've also said, and I may be getting it a
Speaker 1: little bit wrong, that you don't have hope. And it's
Speaker 1: not about hope. No, I mean, I don't have hope.
Speaker 1: I don't have hopelessness. It's just not the way that
Speaker 1: I look at the world. I mean, I guess I
Speaker 1: think of hope is like sitting around and waiting for
Speaker 1: something to change, or just sort of like wishing. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe I have faith, you know, I have conviction, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: I know what kind of governmental system I support, and
Speaker 1: I know what my values are, and I know what
Speaker 1: my morals are, and I know how I feel when
Speaker 1: I see people flavorrantly violating them. Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'll fight, but uh, I just I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: hard for me when people are like, what's going to
Speaker 1: happen next? Or do you feel you know, optimistic or pessimistic.
Speaker 1: That's not the way I view it. I feel like
Speaker 1: when everything's collapsing, and I like everything's kind of been
Speaker 1: collapsing my whole adult life, then you cling to your principles,
Speaker 1: you know, you cling to your conscience because you can
Speaker 1: control that. Like I can't control, you know, who's gonna
Speaker 1: win in November, at least unilaterally. And I can't control
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to the economy. But I can
Speaker 1: control how I treat other people. And I can control,
Speaker 1: you know, what my participation in this kind of you
Speaker 1: know world is going to be, and how I try
Speaker 1: to leverage you know, what little power advantages I've accumulated,
Speaker 1: you know, That's what I try to do with my
Speaker 1: writing and with my podcast. That's my choice. And so
Speaker 1: I would encourage people to think of it that way
Speaker 1: because then you you have a little more control over
Speaker 1: the situation. You know, you can't control the situation, but
Speaker 1: you can control your your part in it. And you're
Speaker 1: not just sitting around, you know, hoping that some sort
Speaker 1: of savior will intervene. Sir, your revelation and a beacon.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised. The nature of being a writer is
Speaker 1: you don't really know what people think about your writing.
Speaker 1: And I wrote about you, and I was stunned the
Speaker 1: amount of feedback I got. People who are not only
Speaker 1: aware of you, but passionately aware of you. I mean,
Speaker 1: you click boxes that people didn't even think existed, one
Speaker 1: being in the Midwest, being of this demo, having a
Speaker 1: pH d in an era where education and intelligence are
Speaker 1: far from primary. So I thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to speak to my audience. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me on. It's the pleasure
Speaker 1: talking with you. Until next time. This is Bob left
Speaker 1: Sets