Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
Speaker 2: Next question.
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys, I have a confession to make. I
Speaker 1: have a real thing for Frank Brunie. He's gay, though,
Speaker 1: so don't worry. He has been a prominent journalist for
Speaker 1: over three decades, twenty five of those at the New
Speaker 1: York Times. It was such a huge treat to sit
Speaker 1: down with him at the Temple Emmanuel Striker Center earlier
Speaker 1: this month to talk about his new book. It's called
Speaker 1: The Age of Grievance. Gosh, that title really rings true
Speaker 1: right now. Don't you think it seems like whatever we're
Speaker 1: talking about politics, or the latest movie release or what
Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian was wearing to the met Ball, somebody somewhere
Speaker 1: is going to be upset about it and have their
Speaker 1: knickers in a twist. I think it's important to point
Speaker 1: out that historically, grievance has actually fueled some really important
Speaker 1: social movements, like the Revolutionary War and the Civil rights movement.
Speaker 1: That's when grievance actually has led to something positive. But today,
Speaker 1: Frank argues, this constant bitching is having a very corrosive
Speaker 1: effect not only on public discourse, but who we are
Speaker 1: as a country. Here's our conversation. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I was told the audience noticed we had real chemistry.
Speaker 1: Hashtag just saying hi everyone, good evening. We've got a
Speaker 1: nice crowd this evening. Thank you all so much for coming.
Speaker 1: I am thrilled to be able to be in conversation
Speaker 1: with Frank BRUNEI don't tell anyone, but I have a
Speaker 1: big crush on Frank. There are a lot of Frank
Speaker 1: Brune groupies among my friends. And I couldn't be more
Speaker 1: excited to talk about your new book called The Age
Speaker 1: of Grievance, Frank, and it explores so many of the
Speaker 1: ideas I have been thinking about as I consume media
Speaker 1: and am still a part of media. And I think
Speaker 1: you've really captured the complicated moment we're in in our culture.
Speaker 1: You write the American soundtrack has become a cacophony of
Speaker 1: competing complaints. Nice alliteration, by the way, and.
Speaker 2: I go, I go a little bit of literation crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm just warning you, yeah, no, yeah, my literation is triggering.
Speaker 2: Don't read the book.
Speaker 1: I think this might qualify for the love of sentences
Speaker 1: in your newsletter, Frank. If anyone gets Frank's newsletter. That's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts where people write in and
Speaker 1: say when something's been particularly well written. And I love
Speaker 1: reading those in addition to all your insights, But did
Speaker 1: you have a tipping point? Did a light bulb go out,
Speaker 1: Frank when you thought I am going to write about
Speaker 1: this current moment and the fact that we do have
Speaker 1: a cacophony of competing complaints.
Speaker 2: You say that it's like a tongue twister in your
Speaker 2: picked at it. First of all, thank you very much
Speaker 2: for I'm delighted to be here with you, and I
Speaker 2: want to thank everyone at Temple Emmanuel. This community is extraordinary,
Speaker 2: and this is like the fourth or fifth book I
Speaker 2: think I've launched or talked about here. So thank you
Speaker 2: for always being so welcoming. It means the world to me.
Speaker 1: Give yourselves a round of applause.
Speaker 2: I think it was a more gradual thing, and I
Speaker 2: have to give some credit. I think my editor, Ben
Speaker 2: Lunan is in the audience, and the book was actually
Speaker 2: his idea. He had been thinking about this himself. He'd
Speaker 2: been reading things I'd written, and he was sort of
Speaker 2: I think he could speak for himself, but he was
Speaker 2: tying things together and saying, hey, you know, as I
Speaker 2: read you, as I think about stuff, you know, don't
Speaker 2: you think we're living in an age of grievance? And
Speaker 2: what would you think about a book on that? And
Speaker 2: I said, well, let's make sure we're on the same page,
Speaker 2: and so I wrote down some thoughts than we were.
Speaker 2: I've just been noticing for a while I think trump
Speaker 2: selection was a reflection of this, and then it became
Speaker 2: an accelerant of this that our public debate to me
Speaker 2: seemed to be changing and being degraded in a way
Speaker 2: that was new and disturbing in the context of my
Speaker 2: adult lifetime. You know, we've always had polarization, we've always
Speaker 2: had partisanship, but I feel that the temperature of our discussions,
Speaker 2: the combativeness of them, the lack of productivity to them,
Speaker 2: is it a kind of nator And I really wanted
Speaker 2: to spend some time thinking and writing about why that
Speaker 2: may have come to be, what it's costing us. I
Speaker 2: think the parts of the book that mean the most
Speaker 2: to me are the reflections on what we're losing out,
Speaker 2: on what we're doing to ourselves by constantly being in
Speaker 2: these postures of agrievement, and then how we might pivot
Speaker 2: beyond it.
Speaker 1: Did you have any trepidation at all tackling this issue,
Speaker 1: because it seems no matter what you say, things are
Speaker 1: even misconstrued, misrepresented, weaponized. I've had that happen to me personally,
Speaker 1: and I was curious if that was a little frightening
Speaker 1: for you, right to wade into these waters.
Speaker 2: I'm frightened as I sit here tonight.
Speaker 1: Well, isn't that a product and what you're talking?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm frightened every time I file a newsletter, you know,
Speaker 2: I just kind of put the finishing touches on tomorrow's
Speaker 2: newsletter today, and I'm frightened when I hit sand I'm
Speaker 2: frightened every time I'm at the keyboard. I'm frightened when
Speaker 2: I'm speaking in a classroom full of students, even though
Speaker 2: I've had a terrific experience at Duke University. And we
Speaker 2: can talk more about that, because I do think a
Speaker 2: lot of the coverage of campuses right now dabbles too
Speaker 2: much in broad generalization and caricature. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: really scary time. And to go back to students, I mean,
Speaker 2: I've had students tell me and it's so upsetting given
Speaker 2: what an education is supposed to be about in the
Speaker 2: phase of life. Thren, I've had them tell me like,
Speaker 2: it takes a while in a given class and a
Speaker 2: given semester to feel comfortable saying what's on their mind
Speaker 2: because they're so worried that they'll fumble through their words,
Speaker 2: they'll say something they didn't mean to say, somebody will
Speaker 2: take it the wrong way, and the next thing they know,
Speaker 2: I mean to use the vernacular, they're canceled, right right.
Speaker 2: That's a real thing. It's a real fear. And sure
Speaker 2: I worry about it too, but we have to just
Speaker 2: we have to have these discussions. I will do my
Speaker 2: fumbling best to say what I mean. Some people will
Speaker 2: disagree with me, some people will agree with me, and
Speaker 2: you know, that's just the nature of the game.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that we're not only you know,
Speaker 1: participating in grievance culture and we'll talk about that more
Speaker 1: in a moment, but also in binary thinking. To me,
Speaker 1: this idea of dialectical thinking, yes, and has become increasingly
Speaker 1: rare in any kind of discourse, looking at nuanced looking
Speaker 1: at complicated topics, kind of seeing different sides of the issue.
Speaker 1: How do you associate that with grievance.
Speaker 2: Frank, Well, I think we're living in an era where
Speaker 2: and we'll go back to students for a second, because
Speaker 2: I think they're emblematic in this sense where people feel
Speaker 2: anytime something happens, they have to take aside, they have
Speaker 2: to stake their position, and then they have to cling
Speaker 2: to it and defend it. And then, because of the
Speaker 2: nature of the internet right now, because of social media,
Speaker 2: as soon as you have chosen your side, taken your position,
Speaker 2: you begin to filter all the information coming to you
Speaker 2: in a way that validates the decision you've made. And
Speaker 2: it's the quintessence of closed mindedness, right, It's the antithesis
Speaker 2: of genuine inquiry, and it means that nobody ever gets
Speaker 2: to say some really important phrases. It's complicated. Most things
Speaker 2: are complicated. I'm just not sure. I'm still figuring this out.
Speaker 2: Those I think are really virtuous things to say, but
Speaker 2: we're living in an age when those are seen as
Speaker 2: signs of moral and intellectual weakness. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think people are increasingly penalized for not
Speaker 1: taking a position on these issues. When you think about grievance,
Speaker 1: how would you describe grievance?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the way I think about it, in
Speaker 2: the way I describe it, And well, I mean a
Speaker 2: grievance obviously is a complaint. It is it is, Well,
Speaker 2: it's a complaint, right, I mean grievance, And the word
Speaker 2: didn't used to have such negative connotations. If you go back,
Speaker 2: it's in the First Amendment the word grievance is. But
Speaker 2: if you think about when you see the word grievance
Speaker 2: these days, and if you kind of did your own
Speaker 2: little survey on Google when you went home tonight, you
Speaker 2: would find almost always grievance is used in a negative,
Speaker 2: negative context, with negative connotations. And that's because there are
Speaker 2: so many complaints out there, and the legitimate are mixed
Speaker 2: with the illegitimate.
Speaker 1: Because you do write the grievance can be an instrument
Speaker 1: for really positive social change.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean the fight for civil rights that was
Speaker 2: founded on a grievance. We're a nation born of grievance, right.
Speaker 2: But in this moment in time, I feel like so
Speaker 2: many people are complaining about so much at such a
Speaker 2: pitch that what requires attention, what is urgent, and what
Speaker 2: is righteous gets jumbled together with all the other stuff,
Speaker 2: and it's just a kind of din I think of
Speaker 2: grievance in today's culture, in today's world, people they're opening
Speaker 2: the opening part of their political engagement when they go
Speaker 2: into the public square. It's with a position of how
Speaker 2: have I been wronged? Who has wronged me? What am
Speaker 2: I owed? And how do I get back at them?
Speaker 2: Look at our look at our current political campaigns. Pretty
Speaker 2: much at any level, most candidates spend more time telling
Speaker 2: you how awful the alternative is and how you have
Speaker 2: to elect them, you know, as a bulwark against that.
Speaker 2: We're telling you how hard they're going to fight the
Speaker 2: fight against those evil people on the other side. I mean,
Speaker 2: of course, the epitome of this is Donald Trump literally
Speaker 2: saying verbatim when he rolled out his current reelection campaign
Speaker 2: or election campaign, I am your retribution. Vote for me
Speaker 2: as a way of getting back at your enemies. What
Speaker 2: happened to the idealism in politics right well?
Speaker 1: What did happen to the idealism of politics right now?
Speaker 2: Yielded to an age of grievance.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your book, your previous book, because I
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting juxtaposition to this one. You write
Speaker 1: in the Beauty of Dusk about your experience losing your
Speaker 1: sight in one eye and facing the possibility of losing
Speaker 1: your site in the other eye, by the way, I
Speaker 1: asked Frank, and his vision has stabilized, which is really
Speaker 1: good news. So let's keep our fingers crossed for that.
Speaker 1: But this happened after you suffered a stroke, and you
Speaker 1: say that that experience presented a very clear choice for you.
Speaker 1: You could either focus on what you had lost or
Speaker 1: focus on what remained. So how did that and your
Speaker 1: experience actually inform the writing of this book.
Speaker 2: It informed it in the sense that and I think
Speaker 2: I say this in the book that one of the
Speaker 2: things I realized on a personal level was that stewing
Speaker 2: over and constantly measuring your misfortunes is no way to
Speaker 2: get to contentment. And I think that that personal realization
Speaker 2: applies in the public realm too. That doesn't mean you
Speaker 2: accept conditions in the world that are hideously injust and
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that when you are being genuinely wronged
Speaker 2: and you might be able to find recourse, that you
Speaker 2: just shrug your shoulders and say, no, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to think about that. But it does mean that you
Speaker 2: put things in perspective and you don't get carried away.
Speaker 2: And I had to. I had to realize that in
Speaker 2: a certain sense in my personal life when I lost
Speaker 2: certain abilities and began to struggle with certain things because
Speaker 2: of my compromised eyesight. And I think maybe that did
Speaker 2: give me, if you'll forgive the vision related words, a
Speaker 2: different view of public life as well.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because you write about how a
Speaker 1: lot of readers found hope and solace in your story,
Speaker 1: and others found cruelty and actually tried to shame you
Speaker 1: for your reaction to your circumstances. Can you talk about.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, this wasn't the majority reaction at all, but
Speaker 2: I got more than a few emails, communications of various
Speaker 2: kinds that said, what you're doing and talking about your
Speaker 2: positive adjustment and how you made the most of this
Speaker 2: is cruel because some of us have anxieties, depressions, you know,
Speaker 2: a kind of mental health where we can't make that adjustment,
Speaker 2: and you're taunting us, and you're holding something up that's
Speaker 2: impossible to us. Now, there's some truth or legitimacy in
Speaker 2: that if you just kind of say buck up, everything
Speaker 2: will be better, you are belittling the sorts of mental
Speaker 2: health challenges that some people deal with, but to me
Speaker 2: it also epitomized this desire to find fault and logic complaint.
Speaker 2: I was just a man who'd had a stroke, who'd
Speaker 2: been told that for the rest of his life he
Speaker 2: would live with the twenty percent chance of going blind,
Speaker 2: and I was trying to describe my own psychological and
Speaker 2: spiritual journey in a way that I hoped would be
Speaker 2: instructive and inspiring to most of the people who read
Speaker 2: about it. And it just seems to me, you have
Speaker 2: to you have to make a decision to take issue
Speaker 2: with that, and you have to be determined to see
Speaker 2: the dark side of everything. And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of us live our political lives that way.
Speaker 1: Historically, I think the idea of victimhood is completely anathetical
Speaker 1: to the idea many conservatives have of themselves as being
Speaker 1: defined by personal responsibility, a stiff upper lip, and traditional values,
Speaker 1: which you were alluding to lately. Though you feel that
Speaker 1: grievance quote transcends partisan affiliation. Talk about this idea and
Speaker 1: how grievance has become universal because you do state that,
Speaker 1: and then you really cite a lot of right wing
Speaker 1: grievance folks you know, the people who are plotting against
Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer, Carrie Lake, you talk about Ron DeSantis, you
Speaker 1: talk about Marjorie Taylor Green. So can you talk about
Speaker 1: how this kind of covers the entire political spectrum, because
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people see it more on
Speaker 1: one side than the other.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because you just alluded to the way
Speaker 2: we used to look at in the past or whatever.
Speaker 2: But if you go back to the late eighties in
Speaker 2: the early nineties, and I did, and I went back
Speaker 2: and down magazine covers and all that, it's astonishing how
Speaker 2: similar the conversation feels to today when it comes to
Speaker 2: wokeness right. I was just somewhere else today and someone
Speaker 2: played a clip of Robert Bork from back in those days,
Speaker 2: and he was talking about the left and its radical egalitarianism,
Speaker 2: and I realized, that's just more syllables to say wokeness. Right.
Speaker 2: But at that point in time time, Robert Bork, other
Speaker 2: people on the right, they saw this as a phenomenon
Speaker 2: of the left. They thought this was just the multiculturalists
Speaker 2: at universities. Charlie Sykes, a very prominent conservative commentator, brilliant writer,
Speaker 2: and a never Trumper.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean yeah, right.
Speaker 2: He wrote a book that came out in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: two or nineteen ninety three, I forget the exact year,
Speaker 2: and it was called A Nation of Victims, and it
Speaker 2: was someone on the right side of the political spectrum
Speaker 2: mocking this behavior on the left, mocking frivolous lawsuits, mocking
Speaker 2: you know, glossaries of words you shouldn't use, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I interviewed him for the book and he's quoted in it,
Speaker 2: and he said, what was so interesting between then and
Speaker 2: now is all of this sort of victim mentality and
Speaker 2: woe is me, and this is what you owe me
Speaker 2: that the right used to mock the left for is
Speaker 2: the quintessence of the MAGA movement. Right. It's what January
Speaker 2: sixth was in part about.
Speaker 1: Are you saying there snowflakes? Are you saying they're snowflakes?
Speaker 2: I'm saying they're a damn blizzard.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Frank will address some criticism he
Speaker 1: received from his own newspaper. If you want to get
Speaker 1: smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and
Speaker 1: fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign
Speaker 1: up for our daily newsletter Wake Up Call by going
Speaker 1: to Katiecuric dot com. There are still those who insist,
Speaker 1: Frank and I'm sure you've read this review, or maybe
Speaker 1: you haven't, that you had a partisan agenda with this book.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a short excerpt from the Recent Times.
Speaker 1: Thank you, bye, Lionel Schreiber, and let you respond to it,
Speaker 1: says Nevertheless, since Bruni has made his political views public
Speaker 1: for years, he's assuming the role of neutral arbiter, maybe
Speaker 1: a better word, as referee, seems like an artifice. The
Speaker 1: Age of Grievance is appealingly moderate in tone, positively beseeching
Speaker 1: in fact, but also unabashedly partisan. The book is pitched
Speaker 1: at the so called classical liberal who believes the progressive
Speaker 1: left sometimes goes too far, but that the real danger
Speaker 1: to the country's well being comes from the trumpy and right.
Speaker 2: I think the gravest. I don't think the book is partisan.
Speaker 2: Am I constitutionally and by nature essentially a center left person? Yes,
Speaker 2: so obviously I can't write as much as I try
Speaker 2: to see things in the most open minded way. We
Speaker 2: all have our tropisms, our leanings, and I'm sure I
Speaker 2: have my own. I think the book is very even handed,
Speaker 2: but it's even handed without indulging in false equivalences, and
Speaker 2: they kind of fascle both siderism. I think this is
Speaker 2: a very difficult subject to talk and write about because
Speaker 2: there is a grievance mentality, a corrosive grievance mentality, that
Speaker 2: exists on the right and left both that exists, as
Speaker 2: you said, across the political spectrum. Don't think that's the
Speaker 2: same as saying the threat of it is equivalent on
Speaker 2: the right and the left. Where do we have, by
Speaker 2: far more organized political violence on the right, who came
Speaker 2: up with a plot luckily foiled to kidnap a governor
Speaker 2: Gretchen Whitmer the right? Where do you see paramilitary groups
Speaker 2: the right? Where do we have pervasive, profound election denialism?
Speaker 2: We have that much more so on the right. Yes,
Speaker 2: you can find some of these things or analogs to
Speaker 2: them on the left, But I was just some of those.
Speaker 2: I was just calling things as I saw them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me to describe some of those analogs on
Speaker 1: the left that you would say that this is the
Speaker 1: manifestation of grievances by liberals.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I don't know if it's a grievance
Speaker 2: per se. But if we're talking about being totally fair,
Speaker 2: one of the I don't actually read many reviews just
Speaker 2: because I'm an extraordinarily thin skinned person and the way
Speaker 2: I manage my psychological health is not to look at
Speaker 2: my Twitter. I'm sorry X mentions not to look at
Speaker 2: any of that.
Speaker 1: That's very wise.
Speaker 2: But like three or four people emailed me about that,
Speaker 2: and I thought, shit, I've got to read it just
Speaker 2: so I can intelligently respond. I thought, I thought Lionel Shriver,
Speaker 2: whom I don't know, and they try to give reviews
Speaker 2: to people who don't know you, I thought she made
Speaker 2: a really really legitimate complaint about me not making any
Speaker 2: mention of the violence associated with the George Floyd protest
Speaker 2: with you know, after the George Floyd murder and all
Speaker 2: of that. I think I probably didn't mention it because
Speaker 2: it didn't feel organized and sustained to me in the
Speaker 2: same way as you know paramilitary groups on the right.
Speaker 2: But it is an example of people taking their complaints
Speaker 2: their grievances to extreme and extremely dangerous length. So that's
Speaker 2: something you see on the left, you also see on
Speaker 2: the left. You know, the MAGA movement. It's all about
Speaker 2: the government is oppressing me. All of these condescending elites
Speaker 2: in places like the Upper East Side of Manhattan don't
Speaker 2: care about my life, you know, et cetera. But on
Speaker 2: the left, I mean, you see people applying the prisms
Speaker 2: of racism, of sex, of homophobia to situations where that
Speaker 2: prism is absolutely appropriate and to situations where it's not appropriate.
Speaker 2: And you see people defining them themselves by minority groups
Speaker 2: are in categories, and it's all about how wrong they've
Speaker 2: been by the world. So yeah, you see that on
Speaker 2: both sides for sure.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about go ahead, can.
Speaker 2: I Actually I want to just because I want to
Speaker 2: make clear what I'm talking about in terms of this
Speaker 2: indiscriminate application of prisms and lenses. And it's an example
Speaker 2: I use in the book, but I don't think it's
Speaker 2: the only one. So when Britney Griner was jailed in Russia,
Speaker 2: horrifying situation and you know, languished there for months, I
Speaker 2: saw a commentary on the left. I saw columns written,
Speaker 2: you know, by people on the left that she was
Speaker 2: being forgotten and stranded and no one cared, and the
Speaker 2: government didn't care because she was a black, lesbian woman.
Speaker 2: We heard more about Britney Griner as a political prisoner
Speaker 2: than any other political prisoner I can remember in the
Speaker 2: last decade now, and we should have been hearing a
Speaker 2: lot about her, because that was a horrifying situation and
Speaker 2: she did not deserve, by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 2: to be there, and we had to get her out.
Speaker 2: But this notion that she was languishing or that she
Speaker 2: was somehow getting inadequate attention because of racism, sexism, and
Speaker 2: homophobia is ridiculous. And the problem is when you make
Speaker 2: those claims in situations where they're patently ridiculous, you undermine
Speaker 2: your credibility. When you need to make those claims and
Speaker 2: situations where it's urgent, you actually do a disservice to
Speaker 2: your cause rather than a service to it. And we
Speaker 2: live in this era where there are all sorts of
Speaker 2: right and left, both grievance entrepreneurs who go out there
Speaker 2: and just say the same thing regardless of circumstances and
Speaker 2: end up giving the people who disagree with them a
Speaker 2: reason to tune out and pay no attention.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to you about social media in
Speaker 1: a moment, but first the impact that Trump presidency and
Speaker 1: now election efforts are having on this. You say that
Speaker 1: this age of grievance actually predates Donald Trump. We saw
Speaker 1: seedlings of it in Sarah Palin. And by the way,
Speaker 1: you're welcome, right, I mean, so.
Speaker 2: You conducted one of history's great interviews. You know, thank you?
Speaker 2: Do you can I ask you a question?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, as long as we've known each other, do you
Speaker 2: remember that particular interview?
Speaker 1: Well, I, oh, we have largerieree second of it. I
Speaker 1: remember one of her campaign aides reported to me later
Speaker 1: by my producer emailing or texting someone and said, this
Speaker 1: is a fucking disaster. I didn't realize that at the time, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I thought that I would actually be blamed for it.
Speaker 1: And that's why I almost kept, you know, a very
Speaker 1: sort of straight faced affect, and I never sort of
Speaker 1: looked at her oddly or I didn't do the Amy
Speaker 1: Puehller thing. I don't know why she blanked so much.
Speaker 1: I don't think I blinked that much in interviews, but
Speaker 1: I didn't think. I didn't really think it was going
Speaker 1: to have an impact because I thought people were so
Speaker 1: deeply entrenched in their affection or dislike of her. It
Speaker 1: wasn't going to change any minds. But I think what
Speaker 1: it did it took the great center and thought, and
Speaker 1: I think people thought, is she really ready to be
Speaker 1: to become president of the United States? And I think
Speaker 1: that interest. Yeah, I think that interview showed that she
Speaker 1: was honestly over her head in terms of kind of policy,
Speaker 1: her understanding of policy. But is that the first time Frank,
Speaker 1: you saw this, this environment or this atmosphere of green
Speaker 1: events and anger and anti elitism and anti expertise, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure historically we've seen it a lot, right, Yeah, No, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's probably gone in waves historically. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: first time, but I think things began to crescendo, just.
Speaker 1: Like the Tea Party too, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: With the Tea Party, a lot of what happened in
Speaker 2: and after two thousand and eight I think was a
Speaker 2: really pivotal moment, and the Tea Party was part of it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean she at the end of the day, most
Speaker 2: Americans didn't support her. Most Americans were frightened by the
Speaker 2: idea of her and the presidency. But to those people
Speaker 2: to whom she had appeal, her supporters, they did come
Speaker 2: to see her, and she's even seen in retrospect as
Speaker 2: one of the first kind of examples of how cruel
Speaker 2: the elite, condescending people on the coast could be to
Speaker 2: someone who maybe didn't have their level of erudition, who
Speaker 2: maybe couldn't, you know, riffle through all the proper nouns
Speaker 2: that they could, but who was a good person, And
Speaker 2: maybe there's a grain of truth in that. I do
Speaker 2: think if we're all to do some sort of public
Speaker 2: soul searching, one thing we should think about is when
Speaker 2: we disagree with people politically, how often do we speak
Speaker 2: and act in a way in which we're looking down
Speaker 2: our noses at them, Because that is not an effective
Speaker 2: strategy to getting them to kind of maybe see and
Speaker 2: entertain our side. It's an effective strategy for just driving
Speaker 2: people apart.
Speaker 1: I think that's so interesting because I think one question
Speaker 1: that I kind of regret asking her was there was
Speaker 1: a lot made of the fact that she had never
Speaker 1: traveled outside the country and that she didn't have a
Speaker 1: passport or something until she was much older. If I
Speaker 1: don't remember the exact details, but I remember asking her
Speaker 1: about that and she said, you know, we couldn't really
Speaker 1: afford to take trips outside the country. You know, I
Speaker 1: had to work all the time. And I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a really kind of shitty question to ask somebody,
Speaker 1: because she had a very legitimate reason, And to me,
Speaker 1: that was an example of this sort of dismissive snobbery
Speaker 1: that I think sometimes infects the media. And I was
Speaker 1: sort of in retrospect embarrassed that I asked her that question.
Speaker 2: And what's fascinating right now is Trump has so defintely
Speaker 2: exploited that and yet he's a creature of the establishment.
Speaker 2: He's as elite as it gets, and I think it's
Speaker 2: some of the craziest political sorcery I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Well, please help us understand that, because you know, he has.
Speaker 2: To understand he has a goal, he has a he has.
Speaker 1: A golden toilet seat, right, and I mean, how how
Speaker 1: does he mix that grievance with is it? Is it
Speaker 1: mixed with aspiration? Help us understand, Frank, please, because.
Speaker 2: I know I'm I'm throwing I'm thrown off because after
Speaker 2: you said golden toilet seat, you said how does he
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh my god, where's this question going
Speaker 2: to go? You know, so I'm a little rattled. You
Speaker 2: have to give me a moment. Yeah, you know where
Speaker 2: we live in such a tribal time that that, my
Speaker 2: guess is if they paused and think thought about it more.
Speaker 2: A lot of his supporters realize he's not exactly the
Speaker 2: perfect symbol for the way they feel they've been treated,
Speaker 2: but he is so emphatic and so consistent at telling
Speaker 2: them I'm going to get back at the people you hate.
Speaker 2: I'm going to hate them bigger and with more consequence
Speaker 2: than you do. And that's that whole I am your retribution.
Speaker 2: And he's been consistent about that. He's been for a
Speaker 2: man who's not always disciplined, he's been disciplined about that,
Speaker 2: and he has seen how well it works. There's a
Speaker 2: lot about Donald Trump that does not feel very smart,
Speaker 2: but he is very smart about noticing what's working for him.
Speaker 2: And he has the advantage over some other politicians because well,
Speaker 2: politicians as a breed, I know this is going to
Speaker 2: come as a shock, are egotists and tend to be
Speaker 2: very self focused. I've met few who make every decision
Speaker 2: one hundred percent solely about what is good for them.
Speaker 2: And if you do that, there's a great, great competitive
Speaker 2: advantage in being as shameless as Donald Trump is.
Speaker 1: At some point, will there be grievance overload? I mean,
Speaker 1: how much can this engagement through enragement, anger and stoking
Speaker 1: people's you know, circumstances and sort of this anger, channeling
Speaker 1: this anger through him sort of the perfect vessel. At
Speaker 1: some point will that get old? Frank?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we've seen signs, you know, sporadic, intermittent,
Speaker 2: not like a straight line, signs of it getting old already.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're kind of looking for some reassurance
Speaker 2: and some hope, let's look at what happened in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty Democratic primary, right, Joe Biden was not the
Speaker 2: most grievance animated candidate in the Democratic field. Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: in fact, in a field that was kind of that
Speaker 2: showed the party moving left, where Joe Biden was among
Speaker 2: the most moderate candidates in that field. He was the
Speaker 2: one who kind of spoke in the most measured and
Speaker 2: inspirational tone of a lot of them, and he won
Speaker 2: the nomination. And that was partly about people just kind
Speaker 2: of making the bet that he would have the best
Speaker 2: chance against Trump. And this is about defeating Trump. But
Speaker 2: I think it also said something about what people were
Speaker 2: responding to Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders much much bigger flame
Speaker 2: throwers and other people in that field, and Joe Biden prevailed.
Speaker 2: And I think it's in part because there are a
Speaker 2: decent number of Americans who are tired of the volume
Speaker 2: and the vitriol of it all and will respond when
Speaker 2: given a choice to a candidate who seems to be
Speaker 2: turning the temperature down rather than turning the temperature up.
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Then, I was going to say, how are you feeling
Speaker 1: about twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling terrified. And I also feel like this is
Speaker 2: an election everyone kind of wants to say around the
Speaker 2: kitchen table on a stage like this, Okay, what's going
Speaker 2: to happen? What's the best bet? I don't think there's
Speaker 2: a way to make a bet. I think this is
Speaker 2: one of those elections because of so many variables. Trump's
Speaker 2: criminal trial current one the ones around the bend, Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's age. I think there are variables and things are
Speaker 2: going to happen, maybe a number of things between now
Speaker 2: and December that I think could really change the arc
Speaker 2: of this contest. In a way, we cannot look like
Speaker 2: predict right now.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that he's I'm not just the
Speaker 1: grievance candidate, but the candidate of retribution. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if anyone read the Time magazine cover story he
Speaker 1: did a recent interview talking about his plans for his
Speaker 1: vision for the future, and there's some pretty scary stuff
Speaker 1: in there about upending sort of the government. And when
Speaker 1: he was asked why so many people with whom he worked,
Speaker 1: his cabinet officials, etc. Weren't supporting him, he said, I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have let them go on their own terms. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't let them resign. Next time, I'm going to fire
Speaker 1: a lot more people. I mean, it sounds like.
Speaker 2: That would have made them more kindly disposed to him. Now,
Speaker 2: who knows, but I think what he really wishes is
Speaker 2: he'd made them all sign NDA's that's what he really.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe, but why doesn't that seem to resonate or
Speaker 1: does that seem to be an extension of grievance, That
Speaker 1: grievance ideally will lead to retribution, so people can get
Speaker 1: some kind of outcome for their grievances.
Speaker 2: It's an extension. I mean, he's feeding on people's angers.
Speaker 2: People are in thrall to their own anger. I quote
Speaker 2: a Yale psychiatrist in the book about how your mind
Speaker 2: on grievance looks a lot like your mind on drugs.
Speaker 2: It's very exhilarating. It kind of gets the heart going faster.
Speaker 2: The problem is like a drug. The ultimate outcome is
Speaker 2: not any good. But yeah, I mean, he's been pretty
Speaker 2: clear when you read that Time magazine interview. Even before
Speaker 2: the Time Magazine interview, he's been kind of clear about
Speaker 2: the kind of administration he wants to have. There still
Speaker 2: may be safeguards and pushbacks that would not allow him
Speaker 2: to have that kind of administration if he were re elected.
Speaker 2: But if he gets reelected and he gets his way,
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody this time around can say, gee,
Speaker 2: I had no idea. I thought it was all theater.
Speaker 2: I didn't think he was serious. This time around, we've
Speaker 2: been warned.
Speaker 1: After the break. Are we doomed to a future of
Speaker 1: more and more outrage journalism. Let's talk about the impact
Speaker 1: social media has on feeding the grievance industrial complex, if
Speaker 1: you will. Kara Swisher talks about engagement through enragement, and
Speaker 1: it seems as if that the media has to participate
Speaker 1: in this sort of deal with the devil. That anger
Speaker 1: makes people gravitate to more stories. If you're trashing someone
Speaker 1: or if the headline is emanating some kind of anger grievance,
Speaker 1: it's much more appealing for people. So talk about how
Speaker 1: social media has exacerbated this, Well.
Speaker 2: It's exacerbated in the way you just just identified what
Speaker 2: makes something rise to the top. In social media, it
Speaker 2: gets reactions as something that is impassioned, fervent, furious, and
Speaker 2: so that just kind of gets multiplied. I would we
Speaker 2: need to pull back. Social media is a kind of
Speaker 2: subgroup or whatever of the Internet, right, and in this
Speaker 2: Internet age, and you know this, you're in media, and
Speaker 2: you have a media company and all of that, there
Speaker 2: are there's such a there's such an infinite buffet of
Speaker 2: options available to those of us who are consuming information,
Speaker 2: consuming news, that we go out there in a way
Speaker 2: we couldn't in the past. I mean, when I was
Speaker 2: growing up, if you want to watch TV news at night,
Speaker 2: your choices were ABC, NBCCBS and maybe depending on where
Speaker 2: you lived, PBS, and and they were all working under
Speaker 2: the fairness doctrine, So there were restraints on how political
Speaker 2: they could be, certainly how screechy they could be, and
Speaker 2: they didn't fill that much airtime. You couldn't sit there
Speaker 2: for hours listening to pundit after pundit tell you how
Speaker 2: awful Donald Trump is, or conversely tell you what a
Speaker 2: nightmare Kamala Harris is. Right now, we all get to
Speaker 2: walk up to this buffet choose exactly what we want,
Speaker 2: and no two people have the same diet, So no
Speaker 2: two people are having their discussions or their disagreements based
Speaker 2: on the same set of information. That is such an
Speaker 2: extraordinary powerful engine for division. And I don't know how
Speaker 2: we deal with that, but that is something that we
Speaker 2: have only been dealing with for the past two decades
Speaker 2: and has a lot to do with why this country
Speaker 2: is in such a dysfunctional place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people are creating their own ecosystems and echo chambers,
Speaker 1: and as another friend of Mineset, they're getting affirmation, not information.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, and they become more certain of
Speaker 2: their viewpoint rather than more elastic. They become less interested
Speaker 2: in contrary opinions because they've been so assured that there's
Speaker 2: this correct or. Just as in cities, and I see
Speaker 2: this all the time, like I talk to students, how
Speaker 2: have you set up your social media feed? Like where
Speaker 2: are you getting your news? And I'm using them in
Speaker 2: a representative sense in this A lot of them feel
Speaker 2: like they're deeply engaged and deeply informed because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff they're consuming. But then when you ask
Speaker 2: them to pause and look at what it is, it's
Speaker 2: either all broccoli, or it's all roast chicken, or it's
Speaker 2: all hot fudge. Sundays, they've gone up to that buffet
Speaker 2: and they've filled their plate, but it's all with the
Speaker 2: same thing in a way they don't always realize. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the things we absolutely have to
Speaker 2: do is look at the conversations we're having with children,
Speaker 2: you know, at school age, but also at the kitchen table,
Speaker 2: because I have found that if you kind of say them, well,
Speaker 2: what's your goal in being an informed person? And their
Speaker 2: goal isn't to be as monochromatically informed as they are.
Speaker 2: It just kind of happens that way, right They human
Speaker 2: nature has them gravitating to the things that make sense
Speaker 2: to them. The algorithms then kick in and give them
Speaker 2: more of that, and you know, they're busy with a
Speaker 2: thousand things in their life, and before they know it,
Speaker 2: they're living in this very, very sordid, narrow silo. But
Speaker 2: they never really intended to be there. And so we
Speaker 2: have to have a constant conversation about who are you
Speaker 2: trying to be? What kind of informed citizen do you
Speaker 2: want to be? And does your behavior do your consumption
Speaker 2: habits align with that?
Speaker 1: That's true, And I know my husband and I try
Speaker 1: to turn to Fox when we're watching just to see
Speaker 1: what different sides are saying about an issue, because I
Speaker 1: want to understand how it's being framed by various organizations.
Speaker 1: And similarly, I try to read different points of view
Speaker 1: when I can. But disinformation and AI is going to
Speaker 1: make this even tougher, Frank, Not only are we going
Speaker 1: to have to try to have a varied point of
Speaker 1: view or various sources in terms of the information we're getting,
Speaker 1: but we're going to have to go the extra mile
Speaker 1: to determine if it's even true.
Speaker 2: Yeah's and that's another conversation we have to be having
Speaker 2: constantly with young people. We have to talk about. I mean,
Speaker 2: the buzz phrase is media literacy, but it's an important
Speaker 2: thing and I think it's creeping up on us, and
Speaker 2: we just need to be very conscious of it and
Speaker 2: kind of build it into education and instruction.
Speaker 1: Maybe that can be your next book.
Speaker 2: I'm sick.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe not.
Speaker 2: I want to write. I want to write my next
Speaker 2: book about my dog. That's really.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Supreme Court because it's interesting you
Speaker 1: talk about how the Supreme Court has even fallen prey
Speaker 1: to this grievance culture. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, I mean it kind of blew my mind
Speaker 2: because I mean, if you're thinking of people who have
Speaker 2: a privileged perch and have a reason to kind of
Speaker 2: float above it all you think in the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: and in fact, I mean it was never entirely true.
Speaker 2: But our image of them, our stereotype is these are people.
Speaker 2: They get appointed for life, they wear those black robes.
Speaker 2: They they, among all of us, can kind of float
Speaker 2: above the most base emotions. And I was blown away
Speaker 2: after they overturned Roe v. Wade, a decision written by
Speaker 2: Justice Alito. He had to know, you know, what a
Speaker 2: cultural shock that would be, and he had to know
Speaker 2: how upsetting that would be to many people. And that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it should influence what he does. His job
Speaker 2: is to kind of follow what he thinks is right.
Speaker 2: So I'm not taking issue with the decision in the
Speaker 2: comment about I'm about to make. But he subsequently kind
Speaker 2: of went out on the speaking circuit, was it? You know,
Speaker 2: kind of black tie dinners and gab like speeches where
Speaker 2: he talked like, you wouldn't believe how mean people are
Speaker 2: being to all of us the way they talk about us.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? I mean that, Hey, that's part
Speaker 2: of your job, but b what did you think was
Speaker 2: going to happen? And a Supreme Court justice singing a
Speaker 2: song of woe is me? If even someone like that
Speaker 2: is asking you to pity him or her as a
Speaker 2: kind of victim of mean behavior, then this sort of
Speaker 2: victim mentality has really kind of spread much, much, too
Speaker 2: wide and far.
Speaker 1: You also cite Clarence Thomas in your book and talk
Speaker 1: about him. Did someone say something and talk about him
Speaker 1: in his books?
Speaker 2: His fan section over there?
Speaker 1: How does he personify this age of grievance?
Speaker 2: Well, his appearance in the book is more in terms
Speaker 2: of his wife, Jenny. And if you go back and
Speaker 2: you read the text messages that Jenny Thomas was sending
Speaker 2: the Trump White House between November twenty twenty and January sixth,
Speaker 2: twenty two, twenty one. I mean, first of all, it's
Speaker 2: like all caps, it's exclamation points. When did we enter
Speaker 2: this era where passion amounts to putting ten exclamation points
Speaker 2: at the end of a sentence and capitalizing every other word,
Speaker 2: which Donald Trump does. But if you look at the
Speaker 2: tone of it, she seems to have genuinely convinced herself
Speaker 2: that the country is being stolen from her. Ginny Thomas,
Speaker 2: Supreme victim.
Speaker 1: Why is this happening? Frank No, I mean, why is
Speaker 1: all of this? Why are we in the midst of
Speaker 1: an age of grievance? Tell me about all the forces
Speaker 1: that are kind of colluding to create this environment.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't take about all the forces because I
Speaker 2: noticed the clock. We're moving on and that would be
Speaker 2: like till midnight. But we've talked about are kind of
Speaker 2: broken information ecosystem. That's an enormous part of it. I mean,
Speaker 2: the political tribalism run amuck is another part of it.
Speaker 2: But something we haven't talked about. The I also think
Speaker 2: is really important is what I call the new American pessimism.
Speaker 2: It has never been the case that we were as
Speaker 2: expansively optimistic a country, as mythology has it. But I
Speaker 2: think we were always a fundamentally optimistic country. You know,
Speaker 2: in the legend and the reality of Ronald Reagan's political
Speaker 2: assent in his political reign was you know, mourning in America,
Speaker 2: the shining city on the hill. And you know, for
Speaker 2: a while after Reagan, the truism among political strategists was
Speaker 2: that the optimistic candidate one the one who says to you,
Speaker 2: things are going to get better. Now it's almost flipped.
Speaker 2: And if you look at I'll give you one example.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of numbers in the book about
Speaker 2: you know, surveys when you ask people do you think
Speaker 2: your children will do better than you did? That used
Speaker 2: to it used to be a no brainer that a
Speaker 2: majority of Americans would say yes. No longer, but I
Speaker 2: mean a really good example is, for decades now, Gallup,
Speaker 2: several times a year has been asking Americans are you
Speaker 2: generally satisfied with the direction of the country or with
Speaker 2: life in America? But I forget exactly how they word it,
Speaker 2: And up until two thousand and four, more often than
Speaker 2: not that number would be the generally satisfied number would
Speaker 2: be above fifty percent, But it would go like this,
Speaker 2: below fifty percent, back above fifty percent. Since twenty four,
Speaker 2: twenty years running. Now it is never crested fifty percent.
Speaker 2: It is most frequently in the twenties, thirties, or low forties.
Speaker 2: It went down to I think eleven percent after the
Speaker 2: January sixth riots, But twenty years running, we cannot get
Speaker 2: to even a fifty point one percent majority of Americans
Speaker 2: saying they're generally satisfied with life in this country. When
Speaker 2: that happens, it's an enormous political problem because if you
Speaker 2: no longer have any faith or belief that the pie
Speaker 2: is expanding, you have a much different relationship to your
Speaker 2: piece of it. You are much more possessive of it,
Speaker 2: protective of it. You see yourself as in competition with
Speaker 2: your fellow American rather than in collaboration with them. You
Speaker 2: believe that somebody else winning means that you're losing, That
Speaker 2: it's a zero sum game, and that creates an entirely
Speaker 2: different civic environment than what is the ideal one.
Speaker 1: But are there legitimate reasons for that pessimism? Frank, are
Speaker 1: there reasons that people are not feeling satisfied?
Speaker 2: Sure, there are legitimate reasons, but it becomes a self
Speaker 2: fulfilling prophecy. And there are also reasons for optimism. I mean,
Speaker 2: we seem to be trying our hardest to fuck it up,
Speaker 2: but we live in a wonderful country. No we do.
Speaker 2: I mean we are, you know. And Barack Obama said
Speaker 2: it very eloquently in a second term. I think it
Speaker 2: was in a speech in Hannover, Germany, if I remember,
Speaker 2: it's in the book. But you know, he was nearing
Speaker 2: the end of his presidency, so he was less frequently
Speaker 2: trying to do what all politicians try to do and
Speaker 2: score political points, and in a kind of reflective moment,
Speaker 2: he said, you know, we have a lot of problems,
Speaker 2: and we spend a lot of time just doing about
Speaker 2: them and sometimes screaming about them. But if you could choose,
Speaker 2: if you had to choose to be alive at any
Speaker 2: point in history and at any place in history, you
Speaker 2: would do no better than right now being an America
Speaker 2: can in the United States of America. And that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean we should be complacent, and it doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: we don't have hideous injustices, and it doesn't mean we
Speaker 2: turn a blind eye to them. But it has to
Speaker 2: be part of our awareness and conversation. Otherwise we're not
Speaker 2: living in truth, and we're dooming ourselves to the future
Speaker 2: we don't want by believing in so little, by by
Speaker 2: having so little optimism and having so little faith in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 1: There was one statistic that you share in the book
Speaker 1: by Gene Twangy, who I know, who I've interviewed several times.
Speaker 1: She's what would you say as social social psychologists?
Speaker 2: Yeah, sort of an expert on young people and their
Speaker 2: interactions with technology.
Speaker 1: Right, and generational shifts and how different generations see the world.
Speaker 1: She told you that when asked whether they believe that
Speaker 1: the founders of the United States are better described as
Speaker 1: heroes or as villains, forty percent of gen Z respondents
Speaker 1: said villains.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: How do you make sense of that finding?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's easy to make sense that finding.
Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time in schools these days
Speaker 2: talking about the racism, the sexism, et cetera of the
Speaker 2: founding fathers, and all of that is true, and to
Speaker 2: a certain extent, it's appropriate, and it's a good idea.
Speaker 2: But to a certain extent is the important phrase there.
Speaker 2: They were living in a different time and if we
Speaker 2: apply the moral yardsticks of today to you know, two
Speaker 2: hundred three hundred years ago. You know, it's just not
Speaker 2: the right way to measure things. But I just think
Speaker 2: it's a problem when you feel that darkly about your
Speaker 2: own country. I just don't think it's a smart strategy.
Speaker 2: And what she talked about when she cited that statistic
Speaker 2: in the interview I did with her for the book,
Speaker 2: she talked about how starkly that contrast with what baby
Speaker 2: boomers say, and it's part of a of a yawning
Speaker 2: generational divide.
Speaker 1: Right now, I feel like heroes or villains, there should
Speaker 1: be some middle word right, right, blowed, right, blawed, but
Speaker 1: not villains.
Speaker 2: No, And we need to be kind of measured and
Speaker 2: balanced in the attention we pay. And another person who's
Speaker 2: interviewed at some length in the book is Representative Rocanna,
Speaker 2: who's a Democrat in Congress who represents the Silicon Valley,
Speaker 2: and he said he's constantly like in meetings with other
Speaker 2: Democrats saying, how come when we go on TV none
Speaker 2: of us ever say anything positive about the country. Why
Speaker 2: are we always talking about all the ways in which
Speaker 2: the country is failing. We need to talk about that,
Speaker 2: but to talk only about that is to create a
Speaker 2: kind of psychology and darkness in people that comes back
Speaker 2: at us in all the scrievance.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't enrage people, and it doesn't make them
Speaker 1: feel this visceral anger that keeps them connected to the
Speaker 1: media they're consuming. Nobody wants to read nice stories, Frank,
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 2: I do, and you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: us in the media we find ourselves writing one nice
Speaker 2: story and then reverting to another kind of story less
Speaker 2: we lose our entire audience, right, which is not a
Speaker 2: great way, but at least we occasionally do the nice stories.
Speaker 2: I do think we have to try harder, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it is at brief economic sacrifice in the media to
Speaker 2: write more stories that give people solutions rather than just
Speaker 2: an inventory of the problems. There's a lot of kind
Speaker 2: of good research coming out about news avoidance, and you
Speaker 2: are right, the people who stay with the news tend
Speaker 2: to click on the things that are angriest, you know,
Speaker 2: and most upsetting. But there are also all these people
Speaker 2: who have left the news entirely because they can't take
Speaker 2: it anymore.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of grievance on college campuses these days,
Speaker 1: and that's hitting very noticed. Are you doing news avoidance rank?
Speaker 1: And I'm curious what you think about what is unfolding
Speaker 1: and how it fits in to the thesis of your book.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's not every college campus, and
Speaker 2: even on the college campuses where it's happening, it's not
Speaker 2: the majority of students. And I do worry that a
Speaker 2: lot of Americans don't understand that because one of the
Speaker 2: things I've seen happen with the campus protest story over
Speaker 2: the last couple of months, weeks and days is various
Speaker 2: outside political actors. And I don't mean the outside agitators
Speaker 2: occupying buildings, that there's those people too, but I mean
Speaker 2: various outside actors, people in congress, people in public life,
Speaker 2: take their larger rivalries, their larger battles, and they impose
Speaker 2: them on this and say this illustrates my point in X,
Speaker 2: Y or Z way, and they make it much bigger
Speaker 2: than it has to be, and I think they inflame it.
Speaker 2: And that's the main thing that I'm noticing and taking
Speaker 2: away from it, which is, yes, it is about a
Speaker 2: very particular thing. It is about the Israel Hamas war
Speaker 2: and things that are going on in the Middle East. Yes,
Speaker 2: it is very much in a tradition of student protest,
Speaker 2: and that is something in and of itself, but it
Speaker 2: also I think reflects and is fed by a habit
Speaker 2: in this country among people in public life that people
Speaker 2: are supposed to model how we should behave to take
Speaker 2: every situation and turn it up to the highest temperature possible,
Speaker 2: to bring it to full boil for whatever their political
Speaker 2: purposes are. And I think we're seeing some of that
Speaker 2: play out on campuses too, or encourage what's going on.
Speaker 1: The book is the Age of Grievance. Frank Bruney, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Thank you much, Thanks everyone, Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a
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