Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome
Speaker 1: to a very special Work in Progress, friends. One of
Speaker 1: the people I have the biggest brain crush on the
Speaker 1: world is on the podcast today. And honestly, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to keep it chill. We are joined by none
Speaker 1: other than Timothy Snyder. Timothy is a Yale historian and
Speaker 1: one of the world's leading experts on authoritarianism, democracy, and
Speaker 1: the forces that shape whether societies remain free. He is
Speaker 1: the person who is my go-to for information on what
Speaker 1: it looks like to understand how democracies can slowly fall
Speaker 1: apart and also how we can save them. He really
Speaker 1: asks us to inspect what it means when a system
Speaker 1: doesn't collapse all at once, but begins being chipped away
Speaker 1: at through fear, exhaustion, silence, and the choices that people
Speaker 1: make or avoid making along the way. He spent his
Speaker 1: whole career studying this stuff, you guys. and is simply
Speaker 1: one of the smartest people in the world on the topic.
Speaker 1: He understands how countries lose democratic freedoms and how ordinary
Speaker 1: people like us fight to reclaim them. He gave us
Speaker 1: a guide to recognize the warning signs of decline in
Speaker 1: his international bestseller, On Tyranny, 20 Lessons from the 20th Century.
Speaker 1: It is a quick read, I promise you. The book
Speaker 1: is literally small enough to fit in your back pocket.
Speaker 1: It is prophetic and terrifying and strangely empowering and something
Speaker 1: that I return to often. I did admit to him
Speaker 1: in this interview that I bought 10 copies and started
Speaker 1: leaving them in people's houses during parties, like just, you know,
Speaker 1: on the back of the toilet, in the living room, wherever.
Speaker 1: It's a really good party trick. His latest book on
Speaker 1: freedom really helps us explore how we can get it back.
Speaker 1: because he knows enough to give us not just warnings
Speaker 1: about one leader who suddenly takes freedom away. He shows
Speaker 1: us how historically the relationships between leaders who seek more
Speaker 1: power and a society that, whether through fear, exhaustion, apathy,
Speaker 1: or loyalty, gradually allows that power to grow into something
Speaker 1: that's dangerous for all of us. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: What all this means is that the story of democracy
Speaker 1: is not only about what those in power do, It's
Speaker 1: about what us citizens choose to do or not. He
Speaker 1: has so much wisdom to share about this moment in
Speaker 1: America and around the world, what history can teach us,
Speaker 1: what we should be watching for, and most importantly, what
Speaker 1: each of us can do next. And if you're feeling
Speaker 1: like me, you want a little bit of direction right now.
Speaker 1: You want to know where you can be the most helpful.
Speaker 1: And Timothy Snyder, he's got ideas. So let's dive in
Speaker 1: with one of the coolest professors in the world. I
Speaker 1: had to bust out my pocket sized on tyranny that
Speaker 1: I literally take everywhere with me. And I've, after the
Speaker 1: last election, I ordered 10 more of them and I
Speaker 1: would just leave them at people's houses during parties.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That, that's how it's all happened. Things like that,
Speaker 2: like Christmas gifts, parties where it's like, it's a, it's
Speaker 2: a party favor, you know, that's how it's been like
Speaker 2: people buying 10 or a hundred or whatever and sharing them.
Speaker 2: That's how I started it. I mean, when I, the
Speaker 2: book came out, nobody heard of it and I was
Speaker 2: literally walking around with a backpack like full of it
Speaker 2: and just kind of giving it to people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's so very cool. Well, I'm, I'm
Speaker 1: a longtime fan and a democracy nerd and just so
Speaker 1: elated to have you on the show. Thank you for coming. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Very glad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And how are things in Toronto? How are you doing
Speaker 1: up there?
Speaker 2: Oh, Toronto's good. I mean, I was just, I've been
Speaker 2: in Europe and I just flew back a couple of
Speaker 2: days ago for my daughter's softball tournaments. Yeah. So things
Speaker 2: in Toronto seem fine. I mean, weirdly hot, like everywhere.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Toronto's in general a great place to live.
Speaker 2: I was at a Jays game last night with some
Speaker 2: friends and they won two to one. And as I
Speaker 2: was walking out, some random guy in the crowd just said, I.
Speaker 1: F * * * ing love Toronto.
Speaker 2: Have I ever heard anybody say that in a U.S.
Speaker 1: City?
Speaker 2: Just out of the clear blue sky. Like, I love
Speaker 2: the city that I'm in. It is a really good city.
Speaker 1: I'm glad Toronto is lovely now. I'm curious if we
Speaker 1: go back in time to Dayton, Ohio, back in 1978,
Speaker 1: where might we find Timothy as a kid on a
Speaker 1: random Saturday? Yeah. Were you out playing softball like your
Speaker 1: daughter does now? Or were you in the library studying history?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to try to make my answer to
Speaker 2: your next question sound less corny than this one.
Speaker 1: I like a little bit of corny.
Speaker 2: So I, yeah, I mean, as a kid, I played baseball,
Speaker 2: and I played soccer. And I was very serious about baseball.
Speaker 2: And I played in the backyards with my friends. And
Speaker 2: then when I had time to myself, I would like,
Speaker 2: stand by the side of the house and just throw
Speaker 2: the ball off the side of the house and catch
Speaker 2: it hundreds of times. Um, which meant that I was
Speaker 2: often in the neighbor's flower garden, um, which he was
Speaker 2: a little bit upset about understandably, but yeah, on a
Speaker 2: Saturday afternoon playing baseball, very likely, but yeah, also the library,
Speaker 2: we had a strong, um, uh, where I grew up
Speaker 2: in Centerville, which is a suburb of Dayton in the
Speaker 2: Southwest side. We, um, we, We had a very strong
Speaker 2: township library and then another one was built when I
Speaker 2: was a little bit older. And I did spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time hanging out there and reading books. And
Speaker 2: there was like a summer reading club where they had
Speaker 2: made you make a list of the books that you read.
Speaker 2: And the more books you read, the bigger your chances
Speaker 2: of winning something in a lottery. And I found that
Speaker 2: very exciting. So I read absurd numbers of books in
Speaker 2: the summertime in the hopes of winning these little prizes
Speaker 2: and stuff. Yeah, so both of those things were very
Speaker 2: much part of my life in the 70s as a kid.
Speaker 1: Very cool. When did your fascination with history start?
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. I mean, I tell people
Speaker 2: that I'm an American, I'm a historian, but I'm not
Speaker 2: an American historian. Only later in life did I come
Speaker 2: around to trying to figure out U.S. history. I started
Speaker 2: out as an economics and philosophy and political science major,
Speaker 2: and I ended up as a history major with political science, too.
Speaker 2: And it was because I loved history and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: And then I thought I was going to be a diplomat.
Speaker 2: So like life is all about the things that you
Speaker 2: don't do that you think you're going to do when
Speaker 2: you end up doing something else. Right. But I mean,
Speaker 2: maybe your life has been much more straightforward, but I
Speaker 2: doubt it.
Speaker 1: Definitely not.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I thought so that I still thought I
Speaker 2: was going to be a diplomat and I was just
Speaker 2: going to do I was able to go to the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom to study history. But I thought I'm going
Speaker 2: to do this for a few years and I'm going
Speaker 2: to be a diplomat.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And while I was studying history in the UK, I
Speaker 2: still loved it. And it was the early 80s. And
Speaker 2: I could be among the people, sorry, early 90s. And
Speaker 2: I could be among the people who were the first
Speaker 2: to read certain files in certain archives in post-communist Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2: I felt like I could figure things out that hadn't
Speaker 2: been figured out before. And it was a very exciting moment,
Speaker 2: the early 90s, where things were changing on a historical scale.
Speaker 2: And I was making new friends and I was free.
Speaker 2: And that was really when I came to see that
Speaker 2: history was the thing that I could do. And I
Speaker 2: had a funny conversation with my advisor. It was a terrific,
Speaker 2: horrific historian and journalist called Timothy Gardinash at which he,
Speaker 2: and it was like, it was literally a walk around
Speaker 2: a park. I mean, around a lake. It was just
Speaker 2: the most, the most serene, calm English scene one could
Speaker 2: imagine in which he told me, he probably phrased it
Speaker 2: even more elegantly, but he said to me like, Tim,
Speaker 2: I believe you have a unique historical gift that, by
Speaker 2: which he meant that I really wasn't as good at
Speaker 2: the other stuff as I thought I was, right? I
Speaker 2: should be a historian. But by that time, like it
Speaker 2: had already dawned on me that I really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed finding things out, going against the grain,
Speaker 2: reading what you weren't supposed to read, understanding the things
Speaker 2: that were obscure at the time. And also from, I
Speaker 2: was studying with East European historians who themselves were often
Speaker 2: dissidents or in some way involved in politics. And so
Speaker 2: I took for granted this, That being a historian also
Speaker 2: gave you leverage on talking about everyday life.
Speaker 1: And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. What's fascinating
Speaker 1: to see in the world right now is these big
Speaker 1: you know, approximate hundred year patterns repeating themselves. The warnings
Speaker 1: of historians like yourself seeming not to be taken so seriously.
Speaker 1: And then you see repeated, you know, speeches that are
Speaker 1: filled with talking points that are being given by the
Speaker 1: current presidential administration that mirror the Third Reich narrative. you know,
Speaker 1: you see rising fascism around the world. It's so kind of,
Speaker 1: it's alarming to me in the present, but it's particularly
Speaker 1: scary that in the age of information, we're allowing these
Speaker 1: things to be essentially copy-pasted. And I'm really curious, as
Speaker 1: a person who's able to see the umbrella over all
Speaker 1: of this the way you do, are there things that
Speaker 1: maybe not things, historical patterns that you think are most
Speaker 1: important for people to understand today? Is, is there, is
Speaker 1: there a thread or three that you would suggest people
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of all this begin to pull?
Speaker 2: It's a great question. I'm, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm pausing
Speaker 2: over the hundred year idea because there's really something to that.
Speaker 2: There was, um, There was a globalization crisis at the
Speaker 2: end of the 19th and the early 20th century, just
Speaker 2: like there was a globalization crisis at the end of
Speaker 2: the 20th and the 21st. And reactions were similar to think, okay, well,
Speaker 2: the globalization didn't work out the way we wanted. Everything's
Speaker 2: not harmonious. What should we do? And then the response
Speaker 2: being to turn against immigrants, to divide people into us
Speaker 2: and to them. to think in terms of conspiracies and
Speaker 2: so on. So in a very broad way, that is
Speaker 2: one example that if you have globalization and attach high
Speaker 2: hopes to it, the next likely step is some kind
Speaker 2: of globalization crisis. And then how do you react to that?
Speaker 2: How do you get by it? Going back even further,
Speaker 2: 2,500 years or so, there's the debate about democracy. So
Speaker 2: the Greeks knew that democracy was hard. I mean, some
Speaker 2: of them were for, some were against, but everyone agreed
Speaker 2: that it was hard. And that is a deep historical lesson,
Speaker 2: which I think we ought not to forget because we
Speaker 2: tell ourselves stories about how history works that aren't true.
Speaker 2: We say like, well, you know, the trend is always
Speaker 2: towards justice or the economy is going to bring us
Speaker 2: towards freedom or, you know, the founding fathers left us
Speaker 2: a legacy. We tell ourselves stories about how history is
Speaker 2: going to bring us things, but history is not going
Speaker 2: to bring us democracy. I mean, it might bring us
Speaker 2: better and worse moments for democracy, but it's not going
Speaker 2: to bring us democracy. You can only get democracy if
Speaker 2: you actually want it. If you say like this, in
Speaker 2: this moment in history, I am going to try to
Speaker 2: sink my fingers into what's happening and change it. Because
Speaker 2: democracy is about the people ruling. And so you have
Speaker 2: to want to rule. You have to want to be
Speaker 2: in power. You have to say, okay, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take a little tiny bit of a risk. So that's
Speaker 2: a deep one. And then just then jumping back up
Speaker 2: to the present, the history of the last 30, five
Speaker 2: years or so since the end of communism teaches a lesson,
Speaker 2: which is worth noticing, which is that the modern technology,
Speaker 2: the information age that you're talking about also enables regimes
Speaker 2: and organized cliques of wealthy people to arrange reality in
Speaker 2: a way that makes authoritarianism, the slide to authoritarianism happened
Speaker 2: very quickly, which took place in Russia. It took place
Speaker 2: in Hungary, but yeah, The last 35 years also teaches
Speaker 2: that these shifts away from democracy can be stopped and
Speaker 2: they can be reversed. If you have a big coalition,
Speaker 2: if people are willing to take risks, if people are
Speaker 2: willing to work with others with whom they don't agree
Speaker 2: on every single issue, right? If people are willing to
Speaker 2: make politics personal again and go local and so on,
Speaker 2: that you can actually stop and you can actually turn
Speaker 2: the tide back. So those are three examples of how
Speaker 2: I think about history.
Speaker 1: I love that. And the last one makes me feel
Speaker 1: hopeful because it's hard to look at the news every
Speaker 1: day and not just feel like everything is metaphorically and
Speaker 1: in certain geographies literally on fire. And the idea that
Speaker 1: there are... you know, stopgaps, the idea that if you
Speaker 1: get invested locally, the idea that if you begin to
Speaker 1: talk to your neighbors makes me feel hopeful. I am
Speaker 1: curious on something, you know, in the last election cycle,
Speaker 1: I heard a sort of post-mortem that I thought was
Speaker 1: very astute that said, we're going to continue to have
Speaker 1: these problems when a lot of us on the left,
Speaker 1: we have to we're 90% voters. Like we can agree
Speaker 1: on 90% of the issues, but if there's 10% we
Speaker 1: don't agree on with a candidate, a lot of people
Speaker 1: won't vote for them. And that on the right, as
Speaker 1: long as people agree with 10% of what the candidate says,
Speaker 1: they'll vote for them. And, you know, it's how you
Speaker 1: get single issue voters on, you know, reproductive justice or
Speaker 1: reproductive restriction. It's why, you know, you saw people agree with,
Speaker 1: you know, nearly or virtually every one of Vice President
Speaker 1: Harris's domestic policy suggestions, but not with her on foreign policy.
Speaker 1: And you had all these people who didn't vote. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think as an expert, how do
Speaker 1: you think we as a voting populace need to readjust
Speaker 1: our expectations or recalibrate how we make these decisions so
Speaker 1: that less people are voting against their interests and also
Speaker 1: less people fall for this kind of false ideology of
Speaker 1: political figures in the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'm going to start the answer by jumping
Speaker 2: forward in time to after you've already won the election,
Speaker 2: because there's some structural stuff that goes in here because,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't expect an electorate just on its
Speaker 2: own to deal with a propaganda apparatus organized by the
Speaker 2: center of the federal government.
Speaker 1: Which is what we currently have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And we can't expect an electorate on its
Speaker 2: own to deal with the, you know, algorithmically driven hypnotic
Speaker 2: worlds of propaganda of social media, right? It's not fair
Speaker 2: to put people in that position, basically, right? Like we've
Speaker 2: Like if somebody materialized into existence today and they're thrown
Speaker 2: into the world today, they're faced with this hugely unjust
Speaker 2: and wildly inaccurate presentation of the way things are, right?
Speaker 2: And that's not their fault. They didn't make it. That's
Speaker 2: just the way it is. So, I mean, their information
Speaker 2: habits could be better or could be worse. But if
Speaker 2: you have power, that's something you have to change. You
Speaker 2: have to regulate social media. You have to refund public education.
Speaker 2: You have to divert some of the profits from social
Speaker 2: media towards local journalism. You have to create a world
Speaker 2: of factuality where people have a chance. You have to
Speaker 2: give them a chance, right? I mean, I think it's
Speaker 2: almost literally like food and water and air where individuals
Speaker 2: can't produce them for themselves. We don't expect the person
Speaker 2: standing next to you on the subway to produce their
Speaker 2: own water, right? And likewise, we can't expect them to
Speaker 2: produce their own factuality. We have to work together to
Speaker 2: create an environment in which there is more factuality. When
Speaker 2: we've done that, then we can move on to persuading
Speaker 2: and talking about people's interests. But I think our main
Speaker 2: problem is that we have to have a breakthrough where
Speaker 2: we can actually do that thing. So a lot of
Speaker 2: it is structural and it will come after, I think,
Speaker 2: the right people are in power. Where things are now,
Speaker 2: just a couple more remarks. I mean, I, I, I'm
Speaker 2: of the school of thought that you can't really go back.
Speaker 2: Like there isn't a, like there's no status quo ante now,
Speaker 2: you know, the house has been burned down, but the
Speaker 2: nice thing about, I mean, it's, but the good thing
Speaker 2: about that is that you can start again. So there
Speaker 2: are a lot of policy areas like taxing wealthy people,
Speaker 2: or healthcare or where we just need to start again,
Speaker 2: where things are just so ridiculously bad that we just
Speaker 2: have to start again. And social media is another example, AI,
Speaker 2: where we have to start again, where the parameters of
Speaker 2: the conversation are just wrong and we need to start again.
Speaker 2: And the fact that things are so bad gives us
Speaker 2: a chance to do that. Then we lose that chance
Speaker 2: though when we pretend it isn't there. And which is
Speaker 2: where a lot of people on the moderate side of Democrats,
Speaker 2: maybe are like pretending that we can go back to
Speaker 2: Biden or we can go back to Obama or Clinton
Speaker 2: or whatever. And with all due respect to those people,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot to respect about them, you can
Speaker 2: never go back in time. But also, and this is
Speaker 2: the hard truth, that world led us to this world.
Speaker 2: You know, so there were things that were wrong about
Speaker 2: that world, which made this world possible. And so it's
Speaker 2: not just about correcting the Trump era. It's about correcting
Speaker 2: things that went wrong, you know, going at least back
Speaker 2: to the 1980s and probably further back.
Speaker 1: Than that.
Speaker 2: And then the one final thing I would add about
Speaker 2: folks on the left, which is a kindred remark to
Speaker 2: yours is that sure, you know, 90% voters, but we
Speaker 2: spend a lot, we sometimes spend 90% of our energy
Speaker 2: disagreeing with each other. Like there's a, there's a, like
Speaker 2: there's a, there's an addiction in some parts of the
Speaker 2: left anyway. And people also get provoked online into doing
Speaker 2: this to caring a lot about being right. Like I,
Speaker 2: I'm right about everything and you have to be right.
Speaker 2: about the same things that i'm right about in exactly
Speaker 2: the same way and like if i find find one
Speaker 2: little thing you know that i'm more radical than you
Speaker 2: and like and then and then like forget it right
Speaker 2: so we have that pride has to be swallowed because
Speaker 2: the only if you're truly radical you don't mind being
Speaker 2: in a coalition because you believe that your radical ideas
Speaker 2: are correct and they'll win out in the end but
Speaker 2: what people can't do is be purists and say well
Speaker 2: they don't agree with me about You know, national health
Speaker 2: insurance or they don't agree with me about Gaza or
Speaker 2: they don't agree with about Ukraine. They don't agree with
Speaker 2: one thing. And therefore, like, I'm out. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to not agree. That's how you like. That's the will
Speaker 2: to lose, which I'm afraid we do have on our side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do really feel that. I feel that we've
Speaker 1: lost the ability to understand that, metaphorically, let's say everybody
Speaker 1: has a list of 10 priorities. Not everybody's 10 are
Speaker 1: going to be in the same order, and that has
Speaker 1: to be okay. You know, we... It's like... we're debating
Speaker 1: what order our priorities sit in on said list while
Speaker 1: they're literally fleecing the government, you know, and they've launched
Speaker 1: a paramilitary force and we're backsliding into, you know, becoming
Speaker 1: a country that looks more like Russia than America. You
Speaker 1: warned about a lot of these things when you published
Speaker 1: on Tyranny. I have my copy here, like a real,
Speaker 1: like the real true fangirl that I am in February
Speaker 1: of 2017. And one of the things I love about
Speaker 1: the book, frankly, for people at home who can't see it,
Speaker 1: it's tiny and it's adorable. Also, the typeface is great.
Speaker 1: And as a person who appreciates design, whomever did this
Speaker 1: with you did an excellent job. What I like about
Speaker 1: it is that you clearly have so much deep knowledge.
Speaker 1: But in this book, you gave us 20 lessons that
Speaker 1: are really structured like a citizen's checklist. They move from
Speaker 1: the personal to the civic and they truly, they feel
Speaker 1: digestible and they don't feel like so many of the
Speaker 1: conversations I think about the current political landscape, which can
Speaker 1: feel so big and so overwhelming. This is something each
Speaker 1: of us can understand and do. I'm curious, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I have to have a
Speaker 1: crystal ball to figure out why a year after 2016
Speaker 1: might've felt like the time to put this checklist out there.
Speaker 1: Reading it now, it feels eerily prophetic because we're halfway
Speaker 1: through the Tyranny Playbook. How do you feel about it,
Speaker 1: you know, 10 years since publication? Is it something you
Speaker 1: want people to revisit? Do you think the denial of
Speaker 1: what's in here is part of the reasons we're in
Speaker 1: this mess?
Speaker 2: The way I feel about it is that I'm happy
Speaker 2: that it's helped people do things. Like you were saying
Speaker 2: at the very beginning, it's... It's a book that's just
Speaker 2: meant to enable people to do things. It's a book
Speaker 2: which is meant to help people translate the anxiety and
Speaker 2: the worry or even the hopelessness and the despair into action.
Speaker 2: That's what it's meant to do. And I wrote it
Speaker 2: for Americans. I mean, I wrote the list right after
Speaker 2: Trump won the first time. And then I fleshed out
Speaker 2: the list real quick and and Tim Dugan, who was
Speaker 2: then my editor, and the good people at Crown Books
Speaker 2: were able to put it out in a few weeks,
Speaker 2: which is kind of extraordinary. But I did it because
Speaker 2: I thought Americans are going to think that this can't
Speaker 2: happen here, which is true. That's what Americans think. And
Speaker 2: if you think it can't happen here, then when it happens,
Speaker 2: you don't recognize that it's happening because you've already decided
Speaker 2: that it isn't it. And I thought Americans were going
Speaker 2: to say, well, We have special institutions that are going
Speaker 2: to save us. No, they aren't on their own. You know,
Speaker 2: you have to take their side. So I was trying
Speaker 2: to head off certain American reactions to Trump and, and,
Speaker 2: and take, you know, cause either people are afraid or
Speaker 2: they normalize or both. And I was trying to prevent that,
Speaker 2: but not just tell people they're wrong, but to give
Speaker 2: people a way to act. And what you said earlier
Speaker 2: is so important. It's, it's not on each of us
Speaker 2: to do everything. it's just on each of us to
Speaker 2: do something. And if each of us does something, it
Speaker 2: really will be okay. Like we're a long way from
Speaker 2: each of us doing something, but if each of us
Speaker 2: does something, it really is going to be okay. Especially
Speaker 2: if each of us does something with other people and
Speaker 2: in a regular way. So I feel good about the
Speaker 2: book because it's helped other people do things, not only
Speaker 2: in this country, but it turned out strangely all around
Speaker 2: the world, including countries where I learned things like Ukraine
Speaker 2: and Poland and places where I draw on experience, it
Speaker 2: turned out to be useful in those countries too. So
Speaker 2: that's been really gratifying. And it's, it's, yeah, it's been
Speaker 2: really gratifying. So, and people keep reading it. That's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like people keep discovering it. You know, you said like
Speaker 2: every day I hear from people who have just discovered
Speaker 2: it for the first time. Like I wrote it yesterday
Speaker 2: and that makes me happy too, because if it still
Speaker 2: sounds fresh, that that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I really think that it is. And I
Speaker 1: think every lesson in the book can be applied to
Speaker 1: everyday life and work and community, I am curious because
Speaker 1: one of the first instructions is do not obey in advance,
Speaker 1: which is so important. You know, you've seen news organizations
Speaker 1: and Apple and Meta, they bent the knee in advance,
Speaker 1: which tells a tyrant that they're going to get their
Speaker 1: way just based on a threat. For most of us,
Speaker 1: Or perhaps most of our neighbors who, to your point,
Speaker 1: might have believed for a long time, oh, it can't
Speaker 1: happen here. You know, America could never become an authoritarian country.
Speaker 1: As authoritarianism is seeping into every single piece of our life,
Speaker 1: how do you help people wake up to what's already happened,
Speaker 1: that it is happening here, so they understand not to obey,
Speaker 1: so they know how to take these lessons and begin
Speaker 1: them immediately if they haven't already. You know, that's one
Speaker 1: of the things I wonder about is how do you
Speaker 1: help people see what's really happening when it's a lot
Speaker 1: safer as a human to be in denial?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really, really well-formed question because it seems
Speaker 2: safer to be in denial. And maybe it is for
Speaker 2: a while. And then it's a lot less safe.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden.
Speaker 2: It's a lot less safe because of the world you've
Speaker 2: helped create, you know, by... the things that are going
Speaker 2: on around you. In the book, the device was to
Speaker 2: look at moments that people were familiar with or somewhat
Speaker 2: familiar with maybe like Nazi Germany or the Stalinist Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and say, oh, well, this is how it worked there.
Speaker 2: And maybe you'll find just the slightest resemblance in something
Speaker 2: that you might see over here without telling people that
Speaker 2: it's the same, but just noting certain tactics like, taking
Speaker 2: advantage of terrorism. It's a completely predictable gambit, not just
Speaker 2: from those regimes, but for all authoritarian regimes, real or
Speaker 2: fake terrorism. It's something which happens. And then taking advantage
Speaker 2: of the language around terrorism, calling people extremists or calling
Speaker 2: people terrorists, it's very familiar behavior in other places. And
Speaker 2: if you know it's familiar from other places, then maybe
Speaker 2: when you hear it in your own country, you'll hear
Speaker 2: the significance of it. As well, and you won't normalize it.
Speaker 2: So using other experiences in time and places is one way.
Speaker 2: And another way is just to try to, you know,
Speaker 2: to catch when people are, there are moments when people
Speaker 2: recognize that something's wrong, but they don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: And the key is getting people to act because once
Speaker 2: you start acting, then you start understanding differently as well. Right.
Speaker 2: And so like the tyranny, I'm trying to give people
Speaker 2: little things you can do, like, okay, pick an institution
Speaker 2: and support it, or just take a cause and donate
Speaker 2: a little bit of money to it. Support journalism, like
Speaker 2: just do one little thing, because as soon as you
Speaker 2: do one little thing, then your position in the world changes,
Speaker 2: like your angle on everything changes, and you see things
Speaker 2: in a different way. And you may see more, that's
Speaker 2: you may see more that's frightening, but you will certainly
Speaker 2: see more that's hopeful. Because when you're doing something, then
Speaker 2: you realize, okay, I have a little power to change things.
Speaker 2: And then you meet other people who are changing things too.
Speaker 2: And then the whole emotional geometry of the thing alters.
Speaker 2: So that's part of it. You just can't really do knowledge.
Speaker 2: I mean, more and more I think about this. You
Speaker 2: can't really do knowledge without action. I do give lectures
Speaker 2: and I do try to teach people what's happening. And
Speaker 2: I just had a whole course called Hitler and Stalin Today.
Speaker 2: which was released this summer. It's been released to the
Speaker 2: public for free. And so I do like try to
Speaker 2: teach directly, but as my organizer self says, the moment
Speaker 2: you start to do things is the moment you start
Speaker 2: to understand things better. And so the key moment is
Speaker 2: to like persuade people to actually do a little thing.
Speaker 1: Right. And now for our sponsors. That feels like the
Speaker 1: energy in the latest book and on freedom. You gave
Speaker 1: us the guidebook and on tyranny for what a dangerous
Speaker 1: society looks like and ways to survive it. And on freedom,
Speaker 1: you ask, what does a genuinely free society look like?
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, two years since that publication, what does
Speaker 1: a genuine... freedom look like in the world today?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was a hard book to write because those
Speaker 2: are hard questions to answer. I believe there are right
Speaker 2: answers to those questions. I don't think it's just a
Speaker 2: matter of opinion. I think the idea of freedom is
Speaker 2: very close to what we are as creatures. I think freedom,
Speaker 2: contrary to what maybe most Americans would think, it sits
Speaker 2: very close to empathy and it sits very close to love.
Speaker 2: So to be free requires you to have the assistance
Speaker 2: of other people, right? You have to have, you know,
Speaker 2: parents or people who love you or friends. And then
Speaker 2: from there, you have to have institutions, you have to
Speaker 2: have schools, you have to have things around you that
Speaker 2: support you, that do all those things like, you know,
Speaker 2: that Like we were talking about before, you can't make
Speaker 2: your own factuality. You can't make your own water. Like
Speaker 2: there have to be institutions which start from empathy and
Speaker 2: love and then move out to providing for your ability
Speaker 2: to learn and your ability to be in the world.
Speaker 2: Because despite what we think, none of us does this alone, right?
Speaker 2: None of us built the sidewalks. None of us built
Speaker 2: the roads. None of us built the universities. None of
Speaker 2: us built the schools. This was all done together. And
Speaker 2: it's important for me to think of those structures as
Speaker 2: part of freedom. that freedom is generational work that we
Speaker 2: do together. So if we build a healthcare system, then
Speaker 2: we're all less worried and we're all more free. But
Speaker 2: you can't build a healthcare system and I can't build
Speaker 2: a healthcare system. A country can do it. However, other
Speaker 2: countries do it. The country I'm in right now has
Speaker 2: done it. And as a result, I'm sorry to say
Speaker 2: Canadians in a very important respect are more free than Americans.
Speaker 2: If you're not worried about paying your doctor's bill, you
Speaker 2: are a lot more free. If you know you can
Speaker 2: walk into the hospital when you're sick, you're just a
Speaker 2: lot more free than if you can't. And so these
Speaker 2: things we do together, like schools, they make us more free.
Speaker 2: And so freedom, it starts from recognizing that we can't
Speaker 2: be free as individuals unless we do things together as people.
Speaker 2: But it sits closer to empathy and love than that
Speaker 2: because freedom, like in order to be a free person,
Speaker 2: you have to understand yourself. You have to understand yourself.
Speaker 2: You have to be able to listen to other people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I have to be able to listen to you. Right.
Speaker 2: And you have to listen to me because there are
Speaker 2: things that I see about you that you don't see
Speaker 2: and things that you see about me that I don't see.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And that's just true. It's just true of the world.
Speaker 2: It's the way we are. But and so if I'm
Speaker 2: going to be a free person, I have to understand myself.
Speaker 2: If I'm a victim of my own illusions, I'm not free.
Speaker 2: And only other people can help me with that, which
Speaker 2: means I have to listen to them, which means I
Speaker 2: have to recognize them as other people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That recognizing you as a person. Everyone else is a person.
Speaker 2: It's a step towards me being free. Can't do without it.
Speaker 1: Why do you think our relationship with what generations have
Speaker 1: built collaboratively is so fractured right now? It seems like
Speaker 1: people don't even realize that, you know, a streetlight or
Speaker 1: a sidewalk is technically given their definition today. Ooh, scary. Socialism.
Speaker 1: It's like, those are your tax dollars at work, guys.
Speaker 1: Come on. And it's become like a boogeyman. And I
Speaker 1: don't get it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay. I'm not sure I got a good one for that,
Speaker 2: but I mean, at the level of humans, one of
Speaker 2: our basic flaws is our incredible capacity to take things
Speaker 2: for granted. So I think of like an alien species
Speaker 2: that were looking at us and trying to list the
Speaker 2: things that are weird about us. That would be one
Speaker 2: of them. Like we really take things for granted. We like,
Speaker 2: like something can be new and wonderful one day and
Speaker 2: the next day it's just part of the landscape, right?
Speaker 2: Streetlights are an example. It didn't used to be streetlights
Speaker 2: is pretty recent thing. Um, you know, 100, 120, 130
Speaker 2: years or so. But that, you know, take for granted
Speaker 2: that their streetlights, take for granted their roads. We take
Speaker 2: for granted these things exist, but humans had to build them.
Speaker 2: People organizing and thinking and very often struggling against those
Speaker 2: who had wealth and who thought that they could do
Speaker 2: all this on their own. So yeah, I mean, part
Speaker 2: of it is just this human tragic weakness of taking
Speaker 2: stuff for granted. I think another part of it now
Speaker 2: is that people spend so much time online, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to push this point too far, but the
Speaker 2: world that's built online doesn't require all the stuff you're
Speaker 2: talking about. I mean, it does deeply, right? Like it
Speaker 2: does huge, huge amounts, uses huge amounts of electricity and
Speaker 2: water and so on at some level, but you go,
Speaker 2: you know, you're the, the, the online world can suggest
Speaker 2: to you that maybe this, you know, this out here
Speaker 2: is not, doesn't require all that much work when in
Speaker 2: fact it does. I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, not to, not to found like
Speaker 2: a sound like a, you know, I was going to
Speaker 2: say paleolithic, but like not to sound super conservative, but
Speaker 2: if you never have actually taken part in constructing anything,
Speaker 2: then the notion of goodwill yourself seems it's abstract and
Speaker 2: therefore it's possible. It's like totally, it's totally impossible. But
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it, honestly, going back to
Speaker 2: what you're saying is a scam. Like a lot of
Speaker 2: it's just a scam. The people who have everything can reap,
Speaker 2: you know, what can reproduce all this stuff for themselves.
Speaker 2: So they think they can, And therefore, they like for
Speaker 2: all of us to believe that it's not necessary. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it's just as simple as that, right?
Speaker 1: And when.
Speaker 2: They do that, they make us more isolated, more lonely,
Speaker 2: and less capable of organizing, less capable of seeing the
Speaker 2: point of organizing. So I think some of it is
Speaker 2: just as simple as that. It's like it's their interest.
Speaker 2: It's going to be the natural interest of people who
Speaker 2: have everything already to suggest that the rest of us
Speaker 2: should have nothing.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Well, and to your point, it's not only
Speaker 1: do humans have a tendency to take things for granted,
Speaker 1: our lizard brains want to hoard resources because we think
Speaker 1: we're never going to survive despite living in a modern world.
Speaker 1: And the only reason people aren't surviving is because the
Speaker 1: people at the top aren't sharing or paying into the
Speaker 1: system in the ways they should. I'm curious, when you
Speaker 1: think about it like that, at least when I start
Speaker 1: reflecting on those points, I start to feel a bit
Speaker 1: overwhelmed because the problems feel really large. And you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: what history has to teach us about how much power
Speaker 1: ordinary people actually have, how if everyone gets involved in something,
Speaker 1: you do something in your municipality, you know, you, you
Speaker 1: make one issue, your issue, you can change things. I'm
Speaker 1: curious how you tailor that point or, or through that
Speaker 1: point would offer advice to listeners about the approaching midterms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, thanks for bringing it to a point like that.
Speaker 2: And it does, it does actually connect, right? Because government
Speaker 2: is a government's actually a good thing. Yeah. Government's actually
Speaker 2: a good thing. If you've, if you've ever seen the alternative,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the, the, the, the wasteland of
Speaker 2: oligarchy is just much worse than a government and a
Speaker 2: government that's functional and is orderly and, and works according
Speaker 2: to the rule of law is just actually a very
Speaker 2: good thing. And social democracy is, and roads and streetlights
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, it's really so much better than
Speaker 2: the alternative. And it's sad watching those things decay, but
Speaker 2: it's important to know that they can all be built.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what government is for. And having the
Speaker 2: kind of government that we have now is a big
Speaker 2: advance in human history. And anybody who's telling you you
Speaker 2: don't need government or the government can be thrown away
Speaker 2: or the government's in the way of your freedom automatically
Speaker 2: is One should be very suspicious of that because we
Speaker 2: all need good government, but we all need some government.
Speaker 2: And the people who want to break government are the
Speaker 2: people who want to remake it, but for themselves, with themselves.
Speaker 2: And I'm connecting this to the midterms just because if
Speaker 2: we're going to get back to some kind of notion
Speaker 2: of government for the people, of the people, by the people,
Speaker 2: it's going to have to start with a pretty dramatic
Speaker 2: event in November. And It's up to us to make
Speaker 2: it seem dramatic because I believe the Democrats are going
Speaker 2: to win by a lot. There's a lot to be
Speaker 2: said about this. There will be stunts. There will be moments.
Speaker 2: Trump's going to try to frighten us with something or another.
Speaker 2: It won't be fair. It'll be an uphill climb, all
Speaker 2: of that. But I do think the Democrats are going
Speaker 2: to win by a lot. And the question is, first,
Speaker 2: how to make sure they do, which is to vote, organize,
Speaker 2: support candidates with your money if you can, with your
Speaker 2: time if you can. to find races that are close
Speaker 2: in your state or in other states, to adopt, to
Speaker 2: support organizations that are working for electoral fairness, all of that.
Speaker 2: And it does make a difference. Like the crucial thing
Speaker 2: is to know that it does make a difference because yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, it's uphill. Like I'm just back from a run.
Speaker 2: I hope that doesn't show on your show, but like,
Speaker 2: I'm just back from running. Like sometimes you're running uphill, right?
Speaker 2: But you can get up the hill. Like it's a hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's a real thing, but you can get up
Speaker 2: the hill and competitive authoritarian. That's the technical term for
Speaker 2: where we are. Competitive authoritarian elections are like that, like
Speaker 2: you're going uphill, but you can get up the hill.
Speaker 2: You just have to know it's a hill and know
Speaker 2: what you have to do to get up the hill.
Speaker 2: So we have to kind of pull the Democrats along.
Speaker 2: We being people who march and organize and who want
Speaker 2: a lot from the future. We being labor unions. We
Speaker 2: being other organizations. We being a big coalition, which includes
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, but which isn't just the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: So we cannot, I mean, and I say this with
Speaker 2: love towards them, but you can't count on the Democrats
Speaker 2: to save you. They have to win, but they have
Speaker 2: to be pulled along to winning. And then they have
Speaker 2: to know when they've won. that they won for a purpose.
Speaker 2: And the purpose was to start transformation, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah. We'll be back in just a minute, but here's
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors. I try to give advice
Speaker 1: to young people, especially, you know, about political engagement. Cause
Speaker 1: people will say to me sometimes, you know, you're, Like
Speaker 1: you make movies and TV shows. Why do you care
Speaker 1: so much about politics? Because this is the very fabric
Speaker 1: of our society. And I understand it might sound like
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass, but actually I think it's
Speaker 1: a privilege. You get someone elected and then you got
Speaker 1: to hold them accountable. They have to hear from you.
Speaker 1: They have to know what you want. Because our government
Speaker 1: only works if we... work it. And I think if
Speaker 1: we start to think about government more in the sense
Speaker 1: of it being a verb, It has to be worked.
Speaker 1: It has to be active. And for a very long time,
Speaker 1: it's really been left to the people, to your point,
Speaker 1: who have figured out how to get in it and
Speaker 1: use it as a taking machine instead of as a
Speaker 1: societal good machine. And we have to take that power
Speaker 1: back now. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I mean, that is connected to money and that
Speaker 2: is connected to what one has to do before, during,
Speaker 2: and after these elections, right? The Democrats have to be
Speaker 2: the party which says, hey, we're going to drain the
Speaker 2: money from elections.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We got to overturn Citizens United. We
Speaker 1: have to make elections fair and equal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, because it's like the super like the idea
Speaker 2: that the like the founding fathers for all their flaws
Speaker 2: woke up in the morning and said, you know, a
Speaker 2: thing that would be really great would be a super PAC.
Speaker 2: You know, like these are these are things which we've
Speaker 2: contorted ourselves into somehow thinking that this has something to
Speaker 2: do with freedom of speech or whatever. But it isn't.
Speaker 2: And you don't have any amount of common sense will
Speaker 2: tell you that if you want to have an election,
Speaker 2: you have to keep the money away from it. And
Speaker 2: the Greeks knew that everybody knows that. Like that's like
Speaker 2: that's been just common currency, basic political knowledge. You know,
Speaker 2: since there's been politics, you have to keep the money
Speaker 2: out of it. And the Democrats have to be that
Speaker 2: party because people think that the whole system is corrupt
Speaker 2: and they're right. And they may think now correctly that
Speaker 2: Trump is more corrupt. But if the Democrats don't find
Speaker 2: a way to make themselves stand out on this issue,
Speaker 2: because you can't just say, oh, yeah, Trump was very
Speaker 2: bad and we're not that bad. You know, it can't
Speaker 2: be like that. We're going to clear this all out.
Speaker 2: And that starts with the elections. But it also includes
Speaker 2: prosecuting people who have made money illicitly in the first
Speaker 2: part of the Trump administration. A rule of law is
Speaker 2: not a thing which walks down the street on its own,
Speaker 2: you know, in overalls and a straw cap. Like the
Speaker 2: rule of law is something that you make. You have
Speaker 2: to make the rule of law by performing it, by
Speaker 2: doing it. So the Democrats have to do those things afterwards,
Speaker 2: but they're not going to do them unless it's made
Speaker 2: clear to them that this is why they won. Right.
Speaker 2: That the anger of the people has to turn into legislation.
Speaker 2: Turn into investigations. And the thing is, if we could
Speaker 2: get the money out of politics, a lot of the
Speaker 2: other stuff would then actually kind of solve itself. Yes.
Speaker 2: Because most people want better schools. Most people want better
Speaker 2: health care. Most people want better roads. Most people want
Speaker 2: the rich to pay taxes and so on and so on.
Speaker 2: If you get the money out, then the whole balance
Speaker 2: changes and good things start to.
Speaker 1: Get voted on. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think so
Speaker 1: many people probably feel the way I do in this moment.
Speaker 1: They're like, they're listening to this. They're listening to your points.
Speaker 1: They're nodding their heads. They're feeling like, yes, that's got
Speaker 1: to be the way forward. For folks whose next feeling
Speaker 1: though is, but what do I do today? Where do
Speaker 1: I start? What are the first steps sort of universally
Speaker 1: that you would suggest for listeners? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: I mean, in the broad sense, it's the first lesson
Speaker 2: of the book, which is in a way what we've
Speaker 2: been doing the whole conversation, the first lesson, don't obey
Speaker 2: in advance, which means know who you are and what
Speaker 2: you care about. Because don't be the normal that they
Speaker 2: want you to be. Be the normal that's normal for you.
Speaker 2: And that's the first step. And from that, everything else follows.
Speaker 2: Being able to say, okay, this is not normal. This
Speaker 2: is not okay. My normal, my sense of what's just,
Speaker 2: what's right, what's beautiful, what's fair, I'm going to stick
Speaker 2: to that. And from there, you know, then once you
Speaker 2: can do that, a lot of other things aren't so hard.
Speaker 2: And what I want to stress is that it's not, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, as we were saying before, it's not a
Speaker 2: superhero movie. Like it's really not about realizing you have
Speaker 2: superpowers and you can fly and like, then you could like,
Speaker 2: you know, get yourself in superhero pose and like beat.
Speaker 2: That's not what it's about. That's actually a disempowering fantasy
Speaker 2: that we have. It's really about doing something where you
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, something, where you can do it regularly,
Speaker 2: where you meet new people. That's pretty much it. If
Speaker 2: you can meet those three criteria, you've got it. And
Speaker 2: it doesn't even have to be directly political. If it's
Speaker 2: cleaning up the park or if it's serving on the
Speaker 2: library committee, it doesn't really have to be directly political.
Speaker 2: It just has to involve getting out there in a
Speaker 2: sense that you're feeling a little bit awkward and you're
Speaker 2: making the world a little bit of a better place.
Speaker 2: Like that, if we all do that, it really is
Speaker 2: going to be okay. Feeling a little bit awkward, meeting
Speaker 2: new people, making the world a little bit better. That'll
Speaker 2: do it. That will really do the trick. Because for
Speaker 2: some of us, that will mean a lot. For some
Speaker 2: of us, it'll mean maybe a little bit less. But
Speaker 2: if we all do that little thing, that will do it.
Speaker 2: And the reason I think that is that There's a
Speaker 2: mood shift thing that happens, which is that when you
Speaker 2: do the little things with other people, then you realize
Speaker 2: I can do something. And then from that little something,
Speaker 2: maybe there's another little something or maybe there's a bigger something.
Speaker 2: But it's the little something that makes you feel better
Speaker 2: and gives you some new friends. It's that little something,
Speaker 2: which is just the gate to everything else.
Speaker 1: I love that. And you're right. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: feel so insurmountable. It can just be the next right step. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's the thing. That's exactly it. It's a big country.
Speaker 2: It's a big world. There are hundreds of millions of us.
Speaker 1: And if.
Speaker 2: Many of us, it doesn't have to be, but many
Speaker 2: of us do a little something, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1: I'm curious for you personally. Obviously, you've had a big
Speaker 1: life shift. You've moved to Toronto. You've taken on this
Speaker 1: new professorship. It's a big... change in a life that
Speaker 1: you had built, whether it's geographic or professional or personal.
Speaker 1: I just wonder what right now feels like your work
Speaker 1: in progress just for Tim. Hmm.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so I've, I really enjoy being here.
Speaker 2: Like I, but it's not maybe as much of a
Speaker 2: change as it might seem because I work on other countries.
Speaker 2: And so I spent years abroad and I, you know,
Speaker 2: partly raised my kids in other countries and, and I
Speaker 2: know other languages. And so the whole, my whole adult life,
Speaker 2: I've been living in various places. So the shift to Canada,
Speaker 2: like it wasn't being, it was, I, it's interesting, but
Speaker 2: it's interesting. Like living in another country is interesting. And
Speaker 2: by the way, it is maybe important for Americans to
Speaker 2: realize that Canada really is a very different country. Like
Speaker 2: Canadians are, Canadians are pretty good at like camouflaging when
Speaker 2: they need to, but, um, But Canada is a very
Speaker 2: different place. And like being in, you know, like being
Speaker 2: in Norway or Switzerland or whatever, you know, like being
Speaker 2: in Korea or Japan, you can learn things from other countries. Well, actually,
Speaker 2: you know, if the Canadians can have health care, why
Speaker 2: can't we have health care, right?
Speaker 1: I agree with that.
Speaker 2: Publish, you know, long articles in newspapers. Why can't we
Speaker 2: still have long articles? They can have public media. Why
Speaker 2: can't we have public media? You know, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of helpful in that way. It helps me keep the
Speaker 2: volume down. Because I go to the U.S. all the
Speaker 2: time and I go to Ukraine pretty frequently. And like
Speaker 2: I'm going to the places that are important to me
Speaker 2: in terms of this democracy work. And it's loud, like
Speaker 2: in different ways. Like in Ukraine, it's kind of literally loud.
Speaker 2: And in the U.S., it's like the level of emotion
Speaker 2: and like the ubiquity of media is loud. And it's
Speaker 2: not quite so loud up here. And that helps me
Speaker 2: sometimes to focus more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But it's been, I mean, for me, it's been good.
Speaker 2: I really, I, I, I loved Yale and I, and
Speaker 2: I liked being in new Haven. Um, and there was like,
Speaker 2: there was nothing pushing me away from that place really.
Speaker 2: And I, but I, I'm, I'm really happy being in
Speaker 2: this big city and I'm in Toronto and I'm very
Speaker 2: happy at having the perspective that, that I've got here.
Speaker 2: But like, you know, you started this with a personal
Speaker 2: question and like, honestly, I, I wanted to go to
Speaker 2: more baseball games and the stadium is right downtown. And
Speaker 2: like going back to public services and freedom, I can
Speaker 2: get on the subway, which I did last night with
Speaker 2: a buddy. Like I can get on the subway and
Speaker 2: I can go to a game, you know, and that
Speaker 2: is actually something which is really terrific.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so wonderful. Yeah. My lovely co-star Lauren Hawley
Speaker 1: is the world's biggest Jays fan. So I hope the
Speaker 1: two of you get to meet at a game at
Speaker 1: some point. Yeah, it's so fun.