WEBVTT - Jonathan Capehart & John Seabrook 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.719 today's best minds. We are on vacation, but that doesn't 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:12.640 mean we don't have a great show for you Today. 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.880 The New Yorker's own John Cebrook stops by to talk 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.440 about his new book, The Spinach King, The Rise and 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.160 Fall of an American Dynasty. But first we have MSNBC's 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.920 The Weekend anchor Jonathan k Part to talk about his 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.880 new book, Yet Here I Am Lessons from a Black 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.760 Man Search for Home. Welcome to Vast Politics, Jonathan cape. 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.120 Part, Hey, Molly, thank you for having me. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:42.920 I'm so excited to have you. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:44.360 I'm sorry, I'm a little horse. 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.120 Let's start with this book. I want to know sort 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.239 of how you decided to write this, what the way was, 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.160 And I want to know for my own ratification, how 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.720 scary it is to write about ourselves. 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.560 You know, during the Trump years, the first years in 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.640 twenty seventeen, as a way of escaping sort of the 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:05.720 mayhem of the first Trump years, I decided, you know what, 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.959 all these stories that I've had in my head about 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.240 my summers as a kid at my grandparents A's in 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.800 North Carolina. I need to write these down. They're very 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.840 vivid memories, very formative in terms of how I see 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.960 the world, how I see the country, how I view race, 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.520 and so I just wrote them down. They became the 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.560 shorthand was the down South chapter, all about going Jehovah's 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.280 witnessing with my grandmother and the people and who we 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.000 talked to and relatives, and I sent it around to friends. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.160 I sent it around to three specific people, April, Ryan, 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.640 Tammeron Hall, and Joy Read, and I asked, what do 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.920 you think of this? Each one individually said this is incredible. 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.080 Keep going, And so I kept going. I didn't have 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:55.000 a publisher or anything. I just wrote and would send 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.320 them and other people like, yeah, here's another story, here's 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.280 some more pages, and they just encourage me to keep going. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.760 And so when I got the book contract years later, 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.960 I had two particular books in mind that formed how 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.200 I would go about writing this very personal book. The 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.840 first one was by Katherine Graham, her By Autobiography, personal history. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.000 If anyone listening hasn't read it, you should pick it 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:28.560 up because it is raw, honest. Katherine Graham was the 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.200 most powerful woman in journalism in her time, and one 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.280 of the most powerful women in the country, and yet 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.880 in her book she talks about her fraught relationship with 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.799 her mother, She talks about her own insecurities being publisher 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.720 of The Washington Post. It was really when I read 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.120 it in the late nineties early two thousands, it was 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:53.480 incredibly refreshing to read something so powerful and honest from 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.840 someone so important. And then fast forward twenty years to 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.520 Charles Blow's memoir Fire Shut Up in My Bones and 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:07.520 again raw, honest, candid, introspective, and it was wonderful to 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:12.040 read because it put into perspective and context the passion 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.680 that fueled Charles's columns in the New York Times. And 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:18.919 so I thought, if I were to ever get a 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.919 book contract, that's the way I will write my book. 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.160 I will be raw, I will be honest about my 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.720 successes but also my failures, absolutely honest about my failures 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.240 and shortcomings. And when I got the contract, that's exactly 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.040 what I did. Oh and our mutual friend Richie Jackson, 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.160 when I really started writing, gave me the best piece 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:42.960 of advice because he had just finished writing Gay Like Me, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.760 and he said, Jonathan, put yourself on every page, be 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.920 sure to do that. That's what I did, so, with 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.480 Katherine Graham on one side, Charles Blow on the other side, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.400 and Richie Jackson sitting on my head, I went about 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.480 putting myself on every page so that when people read 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.920 the book, yet here I am, they will understand that 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.640 perhaps maybe the image they have of me all buttoned 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.880 up and looking rather nice and everything. You know. My 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.760 hope is that they will see that that's just their 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.440 image of me. It's not fully who I am. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.760 We both have written these very personal memoirs, and I 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.279 feel like one of the things that is sort of 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.200 the hallmark of the Trump administration is that they kind 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.320 of go after you for anything they can. I mean, 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.440 we've seen that. I think of like Eugene, they were, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.479 you know, trolling him for just any number of things 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.640 one of the things. And they've certainly told me endlessly. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.760 And I was always very careful about my public information 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.120 because of my mother. She had a stalker, and so 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.080 we were always very careful because we always knew that 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.680 guy was coming for us. But I just wonder, here 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.760 we are writing these very personal thinkes I am having 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.200 the same experience in some ways for me, is very scary. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.040 I did not grow up in the way that you did, 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:12.159 and so for you, safety and security is ever present. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.320 You know that wasn't my upbringing. So as you know 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.240 I'm writing this, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.000 about who am I going to help by being this honest? 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.040 And by that I mean, yes, I'm an outgay black man, 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:30.040 But there are pieces of my story and experience that 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.320 are universal. And my hope is when people read this 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.479 that they will see parts of themselves, pieces of themselves, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.159 or if they don't, an experience that I've got that 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.800 I've written about that maybe they're going through now or 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.240 they went through and it gets them to think about 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.640 it in a different way. That has been my goal 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.560 the other goal. One goal is here, get to know 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.400 me better, and the other goal is, Hey, through these 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.880 experiences I you will take to heart some of the 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.200 lessons that are you know, sprinkled throughout the book. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.719 It's funny because it's like the experience of being able 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.800 to be who you are in the world is pretty 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.040 new phenomenon. I mean, one hundred years ago, it wasn't that. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.279 Why for example, I talk about being sober all the 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:23.360 time because I want to destigmatize alcoholism. I want to say, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.480 you don't have to be ashamed. You can get sober, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.159 you can go to AI, nobody's judging you, and you 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.239 can have this amazing life. So I do wonder how 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.080 important it is for us just by the sheer facts 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.400 of being an out gay man, being someone who's an 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.800 alcoholic who got sober when they were teenager, Like, how 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.360 important that just that is in the world. 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.880 It's very important. I'll speak for myself, you know, I've 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.000 always wanted to be a journalist. Becoming an opinion writer. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.760 An opinion columnist was not, you know, in the life plan. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.919 But when I realized that this platform that I'd been given, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.240 when my editor said, hey, you should write columns, and 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.080 I started, you know, putting more and more of myself 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.360 in the columns, is when I started hearing from people. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.520 When I started hearing you know, hey, I never thought 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.560 of it that way, especially on matters of race. When 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.160 I started realizing that my audience was you know, heavily 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.600 African American, but it was also non people of color, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.080 and for many of them, I was their gateway. I 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.840 was there entree to understanding stuff that was happening. So 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.960 when Trayvon Martin was killed, and I wrote the column 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.440 that talked about the talk and the rules that I 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.760 was told, you know, don't run in public, definitely, don't 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:48.120 run with anything in your hands in public. All the 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.400 things that I do, the number of people I heard 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.200 from who said I never knew this. I had one 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.360 colleague at MSNBC come up to me in the weeks 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.119 after tears in her eye and he said, she said, 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:07.720 I never knew that those conversations were happening. She said 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.560 her son's best friend was black, and that he was 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.640 over their house all the time. She knew his parents 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.080 and everything, but she never knew that when he left 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:24.320 their home, the conversations that were happening. And so once 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.760 you understand that, the responsibility that comes with that. I 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.920 looked at that as Okay, I see people are looking 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:39.359 to me to guide them, and it's not my responsibility personally, 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.880 but professionally sure. And the more I hear from people 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.679 who say, you know, you helped me, the more you realize, Wow, 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.559 with this platform comes responsibility and so how am I 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.640 going to use that? And so I've been using it, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:09:00.880 putting it in service of helping move the dialogue, help 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.560 people I don't know, get beyond their pretty conceived notions 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:10.000 or their hard fast beliefs because they trust me. That's 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:11.240 the hope I. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:12.400 Have found for me. 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.320 That it's been a very destabilizing time in American life. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.080 You know, we have gone from backlash to backlash to backlash. 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:22.439 Have you found it destabilizing? 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.680 Destabilizing in the sense that the world as we knew 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:28.679 it has been completely. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.720 Upended again and again and again. 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.640 Right, and so the shock and trauma of twenty seventeen 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:40.000 now looks quaint compared to what we're going through. And 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.959 so you know, with his reelection, I knew right away 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:49.280 that I needed to protect my own inner piece, my 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:54.120 own sanity, And so you know, I don't. I mean, 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.480 I pay attention to the news and watch the news, 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.960 but I make sure that I have breaks, and I'm 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.640 make sure that by protecting my inner piece, I don't 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.640 burn myself out. Because of what I was saying before, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.280 there are lots of people who are looking to me, 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.680 looking to you, looking to many of our colleagues to 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.920 help guide them through this really tough time. 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.560 Yeah, I think that's right. When you're talking about this, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.520 I think so much about how we have I mean, 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:32.720 there's so much disruption, such short intervals. And I think 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.680 a lot about this interview I did with this tech 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.120 billionaire who I was interviewing, and I was like mad 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.040 at him because I think he's a bad guy pretending 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.600 to be a good guy. He was saying that the 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.960 level of disruption that has happened because of I mean, 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.880 I didn't grow up with the phone. We didn't have 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.600 phone that they're just this with, Like the world that 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:56.160 I grew. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:57.720 Up in is gone. You know. 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:02.520 I come from nineteen nineties magazine like everything that I 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.960 was taught to believe. I mean, it's so funny for 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:07.520 me to go back to writing a book because I 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.120 come from writing books, so that you know, I've seen 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:15.800 the magazine rule just appended in every different way. But 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.800 books are, in its own way, the same terrible business 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:20.719 that they've always been. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.800 I will, I will take your word for it, because 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.719 this is my first book, and it has been an 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:33.280 interesting process. Writing the book is actually what was fun. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.400 You know. I look at writing as you know, putting 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.000 together a jigsaw puzzle. Writing the column is a five 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.920 hundred piece puzzle. Writing this book was a ten thousand 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:50.760 piece puzzle of blue sky, green trees and sand and 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.439 trying to figure that out was fun. But then afterwards, 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.200 no one told me that I had to read more 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:00.120 than one you know, edited draft of the book. By 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.560 the time I read the fourth you know, final pass through, 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.400 I was like, God, damn it, I'm bored. So it's 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.680 going to read this book and then have to do that. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.760 It's the whole build up to lunch, and then there's 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.679 the lunch. I mean, you've been through this, not. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.400 For ten years, not for a long time, so I 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.560 mean it's a little bit different than it used to be, 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.200 and the fact that everything has changed, the fact that 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.400 the entire world has changed. But I do think when 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.280 you have to read, when you're reading the book again 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.280 and again, what I find for me that's hard is 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.920 and why I'm not a good editor of my own work, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.440 which is actually something that's important and it's good to 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.839 be good at, is because when I read things too 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.040 many times, I sort of fall in love with the 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.880 worst parts of it. You know, I love very flowery writing. 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.679 I'm obsessed with pros. I've gotten worse about that in 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.120 my older age, so especially in the world of AI, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.920 I just am so delighted when things are beautiful and 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.240 feel like Diddy and that even if they don't move 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.400 this story along, I don't give a fuck, which you know, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:06.240 it's not actually what anyone wants. I wonder if we 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:10.160 could talk for a minute about kind of staying sane 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.480 in a crazy world. And during the election, I was 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.160 on television at the very I was on for the 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:22.560 coveted three am to six Am spot. When I went 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.040 to go sit down at the desk, I saw Rachel 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.240 Matta and I sat to her like, oh my god, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.320 how the fuck are we going to survive this? And 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.760 she said, You're going to get up tomorrow morning. You're 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:36.679 going to go on Morning Joe, and you're going to 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.640 help these people because you know this idea that we're 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.360 going to get up there and just tell people the 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.360 news and help them get through it. Is that what 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:47.520 drives you? And how do you do it? 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.040 As you were asking that question, I was pulling out 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.080 my book because I know I have the perfect answer. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.000 You know, during Trump one, I was just trying to 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.880 cope with the torrent of news. I was reading David 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:06.239 Blight's Mammoth biography of Frederick Douglas, and in the introduction 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.960 there was this paragraph that was so sweeping in its 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.000 scope that it gave me perspective, the perspective I needed 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.520 to give me hope. I want to read it if 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.320 you don't mind. This is from David Blite. He's writing 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.600 about Frederick Douglas. He writes, the orator and writer lived 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.840 to see an interpret black emancipation, to work actively for 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.040 women's rights long before they were achieved, to realize the 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.240 civil rights triumphs and tragedies of reconstruction, and to witness 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.720 and contribute to America's economic and international expansion in the 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.120 Gilded Age. He lived to the age of lynching and 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.840 Jim Crow laws, when America collapsed into retreat from the 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:49.280 very victories and revolutions in race relations he helped to win, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.360 and I go on to write. What gave me hope, 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.800 in Blite's words, was the sweep of Douglas's life. A 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.320 man who was born a slave and escaped, who was 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.120 a celebrated orator against the sin of slavery and saw 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.640 the end of that evil institution. Douglas played a part 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.320 in the nation reaching toward its founding ideals during Reconstruction, 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.440 and then the great man lived long enough to see 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.400 all the gains he fought for the reverse by Congress, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.680 the courts, and the President during the terror of the 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.120 Jim Crow era. My story is proof that Douglas's fight 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.240 was not lost, that as bad as things are, they 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.040 won't stay that way. I am a descendant of slaves 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.760 whose parents were born and raised in the segregated Jim 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.520 Crow South. My cousins and I are the first generation 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.280 in our family who didn't have to pick cotton. My 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.360 story is the story of an only child, mama's boy, 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.400 who had dreams of being a journalist and no roadmap 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.800 for how to achieve them. I'm a black man who 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.640 writes for the Washington Post, anchors a show on MSNBC, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.720 and serves as a political analyst on PBS News Hour. 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.160 And I'm an out gay man who was able to 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.000 marry the man I love and have the ceremony officiated 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.160 by the Attorney General of the United States, who made 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.760 a key determination that made it possible. Think about that 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.120 the sweep of Douglas's life. What that showed me was 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.960 history happens in a cycle. We go in a cycle. 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:14.240 History is not linear. It whins, and for every step forward, 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.280 there might be three steps back. And so for me 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.840 to read those words about Frederick Douglas in that year 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:26.080 twenty seventeen, how could I not look at that and think, Wow, 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:31.080 I should remain hopeful. It put for me everything into perspective. 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:32.840 You know what I like in it too, what I 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.800 tell people, think of it as being on a really bad, 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:42.600 turbulent flight. It's uncomfortable, you hate it, You palms are sweaty, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.640 your heart's racing. You think you're gonna die, but you don't. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.160 You literally get through it. It is my hope that 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.960 as bad as these times are, as turbulent as these 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.280 times are, that we will get through it on the 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:01.160 other side. But no one should fool themselves into thinking 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.840 that it's not going to be rough. You know, it's 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.040 sort of like the pilot has already come on and said, 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.560 flight attendants and beverage service get back in your seats. 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:12.800 We're going to go. We're going through some rough air, 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.640 and the pilot doesn't tell you how long it's going 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:16.159 to last. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.520 Yeah, thank you, Thank you. 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:26.119 Jonathan Gabar, Thanks Molly. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.040 John Seabrook is a contributor to the New Yorker and 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.680 the author of The Spinach King, The Rise and Fall 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:37.080 of an American Dynasty. Welcome to Fast Politics. 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.160 John Seabrook, thank you Molly for having me on your show. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.880 We both have memoirs that are about to come out 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.800 and ergo, we must talk to each other. 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:49.040 It is the law. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.000 And also we must talk about your book, which comes out. 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:59.880 We have the exact same pub date. This it's kismett. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.359 You write for The New Yorker. I write for Baddy Fair. 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:03.760 It's all the Conday thing. 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.119 Yes, we both worked for the Conde Nast Empire. The 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.919 book is called The Spinach King. It's funny because when 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:11.760 we were talking about it, I said, what's your book called? 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.439 And you said The Spanish King? And I thought, oh, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.879 it doesn't make any sense. The Spinach King, the Rise 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.719 and Fall of an American Dynasty. It's funny because it's 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.560 like my family writers, but also a lot of like 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.680 herring merchants and people who didn't accumulate any wealth. Explain 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.800 to us sort of your family story and how you 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:33.280 got here. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.240 So yeah, the book is about my family who emigrated 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:42.760 to America in eighteen fifty nine. My great great grandfather 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.280 was that man. He was just a working class English guy. 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.040 The Industrial Revolution kind of forced out. He arrived in 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.680 New York in eighteen fifty nine with his two children 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.000 and his wife, and he ended up down in the 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.000 very southern part of New Jersey on a small farm. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.560 He didn't live that much longer, but his son, whose 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.440 name is Arthur, with my great grandfather. He was apprenticed 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.040 to a local farmer and learned the kind of high 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.280 end vegetable growing business, which there used to be a 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.879 lot of farms around New York that grew vegetables. People 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.880 needed them. As the city developed, they got pushed further out, 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:22.879 and by that time they were sort of you know, 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.640 out in Connecticut or New Jersey, but they supplied the 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.439 cities with you know, high end produce, kind of a 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.760 farm to table operation. Really, he had a small farm, 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.920 and my grandfather was born on that farm in eighteen 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.000 eighty one, and so he kind of came of age 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:44.200 in the Gilded Age, and his heroes were robber barons, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.159 you know, who did everything they could to make money 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.800 and disregarded the law at almost every turn they could 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.000 get away with. And he formed his idea of who 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.880 he wanted to be during that era and from those men. 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.399 And even though he was just a picky, you little 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.040 farmer down in South Jersey. You know, he had these 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.600 big ambitions and what he was going to do was 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:12.080 industrialize the vegetable growing and packaging business, you know, because 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.960 that was what he started with. Henry Ford was kind 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.639 of his role model. So he wanted to create a 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.360 factory that would produce vegetables on a very large scale, 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.760 and he managed to do that and eventually created a 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.600 frozen vegetable factory called Sebra Farms, which some of your 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.440 listeners actually may know. It was quite a popular brand 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.600 in the fifties and you can still find the frozen 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:41.680 Queen spinach in some places, even though my family doesn't 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.800 make anymore. So he became this kind of late Robber 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:49.960 Baron style industrialist, and because it was an agricultural business, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.960 it required thousands of workers, and over the twentieth century, 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.960 those workers were harder and harder to find because it 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.600 was farm work, so he had to look further and 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.320 further afield. So waves and waves of immigrants came down 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.040 to South Jersey and lived in a town that he built. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.919 It was like a pullman town. It was actually called Seabrook, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:13.680 and he owned all the housing. 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:15.240 So like Elon Musk. 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.440 If you wanted to make America great again and say 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.040 this is the America that we're thinking of, you couldn't 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.879 do better than look at Seabrook Farms as a model 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:26.480 for what that looks like. 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:26.960 It was. 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.240 It was run entirely by white Protestant men. Women had 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.119 no role in upper management, people of color were not 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:41.280 treated the same way as white people. There was corruption throughout, 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:45.359 and yet it was all sort of represented as this 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:50.240 kind of bootstrapping American dream, rags to riches kind of 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.800 story that became a big part of the brand, and 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.480 the brand story really became kind of who we all were. 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.439 You know, I was born in nineteen fifty nine, so 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.399 the business was kind of declining by that point. But 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:08.119 the brand and the story of how the Seabrooks became 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.560 who they were was all sort of manipulated for commercial reasons. 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:14.640 And I think if the family, if I said, one 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.800 reason why it all fell apart is that the family 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.000 and the brand became so confused that people didn't know 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.679 what whether their value was as a family member or 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.560 as kind of like a brand member. And it led 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:34.520 to enormous conflict between my father and his father and 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.080 Eventually it was a succession battle that brought the company 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.199 down and my father was disowned and we moved away 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.560 to another place. So it's the story of all of that. 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.600 And I would say, my just to one the thing 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.880 that I mean, many families maybe have a narrative somewhat 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.040 like that. But it's interesting in this case because my 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.960 father and my grandfather were born forty years apart. My 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:01.080 grandfather was sort of, you know, born in the age 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.320 of the Robber Bearents. My father came of age in 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:09.440 the New Deal era, and so his attitude toward workers' 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:15.560 rights and unionization and women in the workplace were formed 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.959 during the sort of birth of the liberal tradition that 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:21.480 we kind of grew up with, whereas my grandfather came 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.000