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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is progressive talk show host Tom Hartman,

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Speaker 1: who reaches seven million people a week. Tom, so great

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Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. Great to be here

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Speaker 1: with you, Bob, Thank you for inviting me. Okay, you

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Speaker 1: talk to people all over the country every day, and

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Speaker 1: you even reach some foreign countries with your program. What's

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Speaker 1: the temperature of the country. Wow, that's a tough one.

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Speaker 1: I think that there's a uh, it's it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a confluence or a mixture of great dread and great hope.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm seeing um and you know, given this is uh,

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Speaker 1: my biased perspective on things, but it certainly seems to

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Speaker 1: me that the GOP and the conservatives in the country

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Speaker 1: are doubling down on basically fear and and you know,

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Speaker 1: fear of other fear of immigrants, fear of black people,

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Speaker 1: fear of gay people, etcetera. UM, and and hate that

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Speaker 1: that is so often associated with fear at the same time,

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Speaker 1: and trying to block democrats from having any successes legislatively.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, we have, for the first time

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Speaker 1: in my lifetime, or at least not not in my lifetime,

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Speaker 1: but at least in the last forty years, we have

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Speaker 1: a president who is openly rejecting neoliberalism, and I think

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Speaker 1: that's a huge and important thing. Um that President Biden

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Speaker 1: is is calling out trickle down economics or economics, whatever

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Speaker 1: you wanna call it, and the damage that it's done,

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Speaker 1: the fifty fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the

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Speaker 1: middle last to the top one over the last forty years,

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Speaker 1: the loss of sixty factories overseas. I mean, you know, so,

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Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of hope that things can

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Speaker 1: be done to put this country back together. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: it's a it's an extraordinary time, uh, you know, a

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Speaker 1: time of great conflict and great potential. Okay, what we

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Speaker 1: learned in two sixteen is I hate you words use

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Speaker 1: the word elite because it's now become a pejorative. But

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Speaker 1: the elite news media, the New York Times, the Polsters

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Speaker 1: were completely out of touch with the sentiment of the country.

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Speaker 1: And in addition, people tend to live in their own bubbles.

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Speaker 1: Someone like you talks to people from both sides. So

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Speaker 1: the question becomes are the Republicans those on the right

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Speaker 1: just more vocal or how strong are their numbers. I

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Speaker 1: think that the the the hardcore uh conservatives within the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party are are probably a relatively small percent of

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Speaker 1: our population. What they have going for them that the

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Speaker 1: Democrats don't have is that over the last forty fifty years,

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Speaker 1: they have built out a massive media infrastructure. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: Ruper Murdock and Fox News. Of course, you've got a

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Speaker 1: billionaire with a billion dollar, multibillion dollar company that reaches

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Speaker 1: millions and millions of people every day. Um, you've got

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Speaker 1: fifteen hundred right wing radio stations in the country. There

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Speaker 1: are now some three hundred Spanish language right wing radio

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Speaker 1: stations in the country doing Spanish language versions of Rush

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Speaker 1: Limbaugh as it were. Um. There are literally thousands of

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Speaker 1: conservative publications on the internet, in many cases hundreds of

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Speaker 1: them each coming from you know, single companies and individuals.

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Speaker 1: Um A. You know. The simple fact is, if if

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Speaker 1: you're a billionaire and you're interested in not paying taxes

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Speaker 1: and you want to you know, hang onto your wealth

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Speaker 1: and all that sort of thing, and you and you

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Speaker 1: don't your company to be facing consumer regulations or environmental regulations, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, going to the right or supporting the Republican

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Speaker 1: Party you're supporting this kind of stuff makes sense, it's

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Speaker 1: an investment. Um. And so there's uh, you know, and

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Speaker 1: and going back to the early days of Charles and

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Speaker 1: David Coke, there has become this really large network of

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Speaker 1: right wing funders for things that that amplify these voices.

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Speaker 1: So I think that the the appearance of right wing

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Speaker 1: is um as it were, in the United States is

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Speaker 1: probably larger than the actual existence of it among average people. UM.

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Speaker 1: But that's not to diminish its impact on our politics

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Speaker 1: or on our nation. Um. On the left wing. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a whole kind of different thing. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of billionaires out there who

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Speaker 1: are saying, yeah, tax me moore um. And although there

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Speaker 1: are a few, and God bless them, but you know

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Speaker 1: that's my sense of Okay. So, and I hear from

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Speaker 1: these people all the time to say we have the guns.

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Speaker 1: Just wait. Yeah. So the question becomes and really it's

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Speaker 1: centered around Trump over we can say that he tapped

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Speaker 1: into something in America. Is this something we must fear

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Speaker 1: not only a vocal right, but an active right. Trump

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Speaker 1: said last week that, uh, if he is penalized legally,

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Speaker 1: you better watch out as people are gonna be angry.

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Speaker 1: Is that a paper tiger? Is that real? I think

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Speaker 1: it's both. Um, there's you know, a small number of

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Speaker 1: people who have a large number of guns. Um, when

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Speaker 1: you start looking at people on two or three more

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Speaker 1: more than two or three guns, the number becomes very small.

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Speaker 1: But the number of guns some of them on is

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Speaker 1: you know, like, uh, I get it that there has

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Speaker 1: been a stirring of the militia movement over the last

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Speaker 1: a few decades. When Tim they blew up in Oklahoma City,

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Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a call to arms to

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Speaker 1: these folks. He was running off the Turner Diary, which

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Speaker 1: continues to inspire that movement. The Turner Diaries is a

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Speaker 1: book in which a patriot blows up the federal building.

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Speaker 1: In this case, I believe it was the FBI building

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Speaker 1: in the book, as I recall, it's been a couple

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Speaker 1: of decades since I read it. And in response to that,

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Speaker 1: the government clamps down on gun ownership and on the

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Speaker 1: right wing movement. And in response to that, the good

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Speaker 1: white patriots rise up and and and there's a civil war,

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Speaker 1: and they kill all the black people and all the

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Speaker 1: Jews and you know, everybody that the right likes to

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Speaker 1: hate on. And in the end, you know that it's

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Speaker 1: now a white Christian country and they're standing there in

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Speaker 1: the in the in the in the blood and the Mud.

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Speaker 1: But they've rescued their nation and that and campus Saints,

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Speaker 1: this French book you have become the Bibles of this movement. Um.

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Speaker 1: Like I said, Tim McVeigh thought everybody was going to

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Speaker 1: jump in behind him. He badly miscalculated the time. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, for the next decade the militia movement really

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Speaker 1: took a hit because it was associated with Tim McVeagh. So, um,

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Speaker 1: then you know, after nine eleven it started, they started

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Speaker 1: getting their mojo back. There was a common enemy, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, Muslims and brown people and foreigners, and uh,

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Speaker 1: that was a huge opportunity for the white racist, the

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Speaker 1: white supremacists to jump in and say, now we're the

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Speaker 1: ones who will save America, where the patriots will take

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Speaker 1: care of this. We're going to arm ourselves. And the

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Speaker 1: Bush administration kind of looked the other way, even though

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Speaker 1: their FBI came up with this extraordinary report in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight on the right wing hate movement in the

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Speaker 1: United States and how dangerous it was becoming when that

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Speaker 1: report was issued in the first months of the Obama administration,

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Speaker 1: you recall by the FBI after they had issued during

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Speaker 1: the last year the Bush administration a similar report on

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Speaker 1: left wing through the Dangers of the left wing Extremism.

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Speaker 1: But when the one on the right wing extremism came out,

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Speaker 1: it's so inflamed the right and the Republican Party that

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Speaker 1: Obama pulled the report. Um so we've been kind of

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Speaker 1: flying in the dark, and I think it's just in

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Speaker 1: you know, basically since January six that the government you know,

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Speaker 1: certainly during the during the Trump years, there was no

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Speaker 1: support for anybody in the government who would be seriously

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Speaker 1: looking into this. The FBI had backed off, and uh so,

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Speaker 1: I think it's just really been the last year and

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Speaker 1: a half that our federal government is starting to take

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Speaker 1: seriously this this threat to America. Whether it's the kind

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Speaker 1: of threat that we should all be worried about, or

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Speaker 1: whether it's just the kind of threat that people like

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Speaker 1: you and I in the media, politicians, people the high

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Speaker 1: profile people need to worry about. I don't honestly know.

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Speaker 1: In the last the last killing in the media was

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Speaker 1: the America's number one progressive talk show house back in

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Speaker 1: the eighties. I believe it was Allen Burg, you know,

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Speaker 1: who was gunned down by a couple of skinheads in

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Speaker 1: the parking lot of his radio station in Denver. As

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Speaker 1: I recall, they made a movie about it called Talk Radio.

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Speaker 1: Whether you know that kind of stochastic terrorism is going

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Speaker 1: to happen again, I think that that's what Trump is

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Speaker 1: trying to encourage his calls to arms. I'm certainly hearing

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Speaker 1: a lot of rhetoric that sounds not just from Trump,

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Speaker 1: but particularly from Trump, that sounds like an open encouragement

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Speaker 1: of stochastic terrorism, of lone wolf terrorism. Um. But whether

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Speaker 1: it's going to materialize, and I mean obviously it already

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Speaker 1: is in many areas in many places, Whether it's going

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Speaker 1: to materialize in a way that you might call a

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Speaker 1: civil war, that you might call a you know, a

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Speaker 1: civil disturbance, I still think it's a very open question.

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Speaker 1: But Okay, So, since there's been an ongoing analysis of

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Speaker 1: who really is making up the Republican Party, let me

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Speaker 1: go a little bit further. Yes, rich people who don't

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Speaker 1: want to pay taxes have historically been Republicans, not all

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Speaker 1: of them, but a great number of them. But at

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Speaker 1: first when Trump won, there was the belief that it

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Speaker 1: was the dispossessed and the disadvantage who had moved to

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Speaker 1: Republican Party from Democratic Party. Then the word came out, no, really,

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Speaker 1: it was people with money, and the analysis of January

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Speaker 1: six was no, these were middle and upper middle class people.

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Speaker 1: They had means. Then we have St. Louis, the people

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Speaker 1: with the guns on their on their porch during the march.

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Speaker 1: Needless to say, they were notorious litigants, but they were

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Speaker 1: also upper middle class. Who is really in control? Is

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Speaker 1: this a lower class movement or a middle upper class movement?

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Speaker 1: By movement you're talking about the GOP are you talking

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Speaker 1: about Yeah, well, you know there's the like you said,

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Speaker 1: the natural constituents of the very the more midley rich,

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Speaker 1: as I refer to them, um, you know, who want

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Speaker 1: to just stuff their money bens um who I think

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Speaker 1: you know, some of whom are probably suffering from the

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Speaker 1: mental illness O c D, A variety of O c

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Speaker 1: D that's called hoarding syndrome. You know, had had they

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Speaker 1: not been born um generally white and upper middle class

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Speaker 1: or even wealthy, uh, they might be living in an

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Speaker 1: apartment that's Florida ceiling newspapers and tin cans. Um, so

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Speaker 1: you've got that constituency. The Republican Party has done a

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Speaker 1: good job over the last forty years since Reagan, um

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Speaker 1: of branding itself Reagan, you know, on his horse and

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Speaker 1: all that sort of thing. Really Um, the you know,

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Speaker 1: bringing in Nascar and and and these kinds of of

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Speaker 1: totems almost for the Republican Party. Um, you know that

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Speaker 1: was that was the Democratic Party's brand in the fifties,

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Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, I would argue, Um, so you've got

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Speaker 1: a lot of kind of Joe six pack types across

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Speaker 1: the country. Part of that, I think is also the

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Speaker 1: fact that in most states in the United States there

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Speaker 1: literally is not a single radio station carrying progressive talk radio.

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Speaker 1: You have to get it off serious six and and

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Speaker 1: yet there is not a single part of the United

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Speaker 1: States where there's not at least one and typically two

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Speaker 1: or more radio stations carrying right wing talk radio. So

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Speaker 1: there's this is some hobby horse of mine for years,

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Speaker 1: and it sounds self interested, but um, it's really not that.

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Speaker 1: I think the Democratic Party has ignored this media disparity

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Speaker 1: for years to their disadvantage. And you know, when we

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Speaker 1: were on air, America Are America was carried on on

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Speaker 1: fifty four Clear Channel stations, and then Mitt Romney's company

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Speaker 1: took over Clear Channel, and suddenly Clear Channels ations of

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Speaker 1: dropping their America left and right until to the point

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Speaker 1: where America couldn't sustain itself any longer. UM. You know,

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Speaker 1: so there's that UM I mentioned earlier. Now there's these

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Speaker 1: Spanish language right wing stations there. There there's an aggressive outreach.

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Speaker 1: Ralph Reed's group, Americans for Faith and Freedom I think

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Speaker 1: it's called UM just today announced that they're spending over

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Speaker 1: fifty million dollars reaching out to Hispanics, specifically on the

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Speaker 1: issues of hating on gay people and on abortion because

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Speaker 1: so many Hispanics are Catholic that that's a natural topic

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Speaker 1: for them to flip them Republican. So uh. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, I think on the on the Democratic side,

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Speaker 1: you're seeing you know, the growth of both Union movement,

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Speaker 1: you know, among young people, people under thirty, there's a

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Speaker 1: huge take up of the Democrats. But but it seems

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Speaker 1: to me like the Republican movement UM does not largely

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Speaker 1: clue the people we were talking about a moment ago.

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Speaker 1: You know, the militia movement types. Um, although you know

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Speaker 1: Trump is embracing them, I'm not sure that most other

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Speaker 1: Republicans are. I'm not sure if that's if that was

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Speaker 1: what you were asking, Bob. I think that I think

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Speaker 1: that ultimately covered enough. Let me go to the next topic.

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Speaker 1: You happen to mention Reagan. You and me live through

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Speaker 1: that era, and there was a conscious effort by the

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Speaker 1: Republicans to lionize him, canonize, rename everything he is God.

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Speaker 1: Now recently we've seen something, you know, it's nowhere near

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Speaker 1: the size of the effort to do the same thing

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Speaker 1: with Obama. And there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with Obama,

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Speaker 1: and he got the A C A past. But this

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Speaker 1: was a guy who was trying to compromise with a

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Speaker 1: party that did not want to compromise. And I think

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Speaker 1: that some Democrats are lost in the pass. What is

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Speaker 1: your view about the Obama administration in those years. Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, with regard to the Legacy project, the

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Speaker 1: Reagan Legacy Project was well funded. I mean, you know

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Speaker 1: a number of very very wealthy people stepped up. Their

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Speaker 1: goal was to have a building named after Reagan or

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Speaker 1: a statue made to him in every county in the

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Speaker 1: United States, uh, Andy, in every country in the world.

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Speaker 1: And they've met that goal. Um from re rate you know,

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Speaker 1: renaming Washington's National Airport to you know, putting statutes and

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Speaker 1: all of the place, renaming buildings, um to the best

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Speaker 1: finaledge is not something comparable around Obama. There there may

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Speaker 1: be an effort to promote him as a as a

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Speaker 1: great president or something like that, but I'm sorry, we've

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Speaker 1: got f fifteen or firty fives or whatever they know.

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Speaker 1: But there's been a lot of that going on. These

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Speaker 1: military jets have really picked up in the last a

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Speaker 1: few months. I have a feeling that has something to

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Speaker 1: do with what's going on overseas. In any case, UM,

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Speaker 1: my sense of the Obama presidency was that he was

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Speaker 1: um so sensitive to being called the angry black man

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Speaker 1: that he was very averse to any kind of conflict.

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Speaker 1: And as a consequence of that, you know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of things that should have been called out never did

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Speaker 1: get called out. And like you said, you know, he

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Speaker 1: was constantly trying to compromise with Republicans. Um. He also

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Speaker 1: was unwilling to to reverse or call out neoliberalism, and

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Speaker 1: you know, which I think was a great tragedy because

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Speaker 1: I think certainly by the time that he was re

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Speaker 1: elected in America was getting very close to this tipping

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Speaker 1: point where uh, we were ready as a society after

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Speaker 1: after almost forty years of the Reagan experiment, of the

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Speaker 1: neoliberal experiment, to reject it. And and frankly, I think

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Speaker 1: that's what put one of the things, along with the

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Speaker 1: little help from Russia to put Trump at the White

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Speaker 1: House in was that he explicitly campaigned against neo liberalism.

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Speaker 1: Trump's Trump was lying through his teeth on most of

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Speaker 1: these things, you know, saying he was going to raise

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Speaker 1: taxes so much that he'd get a nose bleeding his

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Speaker 1: friends who refused to talk to him. That he was

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Speaker 1: going to bring back union labor, that he was going

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Speaker 1: to have a healthcare program that gave everybody in the

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Speaker 1: country better healthcare than they've got right now for free

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Speaker 1: or for very little costs. That he was going to

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Speaker 1: make college affordable again, That he was going to help

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Speaker 1: support union activity. That he was going to bring back

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Speaker 1: our jobs to overseas. Every single one of those things

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Speaker 1: were absolute wise, but people bought them in. And you know,

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Speaker 1: because Trump basically appropriated much of Bernie Sanders message. Had

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Speaker 1: Obama done that four or eight years earlier, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if he would have had success or if the

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Speaker 1: country wasn't quite cooked enough. You know, I hadn't seen

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Speaker 1: the results of liberalism enough to to go along with

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Speaker 1: the repudiation of it. And uh, and the issue of race,

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Speaker 1: you know, complicated. A tremendous President Obama. I think he's

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Speaker 1: a good person, a good and decent man, and I

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Speaker 1: have a tremendous respect for him. Um. You know, I

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Speaker 1: was there at his inauguration, in fact, just about fifty

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Speaker 1: feet away from him when he was sworn in. It

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Speaker 1: was a great honor, and uh, you know, visited the

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Speaker 1: White House afterwards. But I really think that Joe Biden

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Speaker 1: is going to be the guy who goes down in

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Speaker 1: history as the as the person who finally turned us

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Speaker 1: away from the direction we've been going in the last

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Speaker 1: forty years. Okay, for the uninformed, can you give us

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Speaker 1: a brief definition of neoliberals. Yeah, neoliberalism. First of all,

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Speaker 1: the word liberal is means a different thing in Europe

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Speaker 1: than it does in the United States. Here in the

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Speaker 1: United States, it means what we might call progressive in Europe.

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Speaker 1: Liberal means what you might call conservative here or even

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Speaker 1: libertarian neil or liberal economics in Europe is leslie ferrets.

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Speaker 1: You know, hands off government, hands off, low taxes, no regulation,

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Speaker 1: no labor unions, no no, basically no government support of

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Speaker 1: anything other than you know, the courts, the army and

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Speaker 1: the police. And so in the in the forties, a

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Speaker 1: group of economists, including one American Milton Friedman, led by

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Speaker 1: ludrig O Nisus and Frederick Hayak, got together in Switzerland

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Speaker 1: and thought, you know, they were trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: how to how to harden the democracies of Europe and

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Speaker 1: the United States all around the world, but particularly the

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Speaker 1: democracies of Europe, so that they would never again either

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Speaker 1: flip communists like Russia had done with the Soviet Union,

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Speaker 1: or flip uh fascists like Germany, Italy and Spain had done.

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Speaker 1: And being economists, they kind of fulfilled the old Abe

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Speaker 1: Maslow quote. You know, he said the famously said that

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Speaker 1: when the only tool you have as a hammer, every

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Speaker 1: problem in the world looks like a nail. Um. They

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Speaker 1: figured that economics would solve all things, and so they

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Speaker 1: came up with this idea of the new liberalism, the

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Speaker 1: neo liberalism, and basically here are the major bullet points

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Speaker 1: for it. Number one, that the market should be the

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Speaker 1: ultimate decider of basically everything. That is a billion decisions

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Speaker 1: being made in the marketplace every moment of every day.

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Speaker 1: As we're speaking right now, Bob, there's probably a thousand

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Speaker 1: people who are trying to decide which brand of orange

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Speaker 1: juice to buy. All those all that data, all that activity,

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Speaker 1: UM is something that is so far beyond the ability

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Speaker 1: of any politician or bureaucrat to understand or have or

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Speaker 1: know that they could. You can never you can never

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Speaker 1: replicate it. So therefore the market has the wisdom and

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Speaker 1: the market should be making the decisions number one. Number two,

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Speaker 1: because of that, a government regulation, which is an interference

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Speaker 1: in the marketplace, should be absolutely minimized to the point

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Speaker 1: of virtual irrelevance. UM. Deregulation is a massive part of neoliberalism.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons that Reagan tried to gut the

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Speaker 1: Environmental Protection Agency by putting Neo Corsus just mother in

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Speaker 1: charge of it. I mean, she ended up in a

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Speaker 1: terrible scandal I think involved bribery or something like that. UM.

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Speaker 1: But you know going after that. Another is that labor

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Speaker 1: unions are an interference in the marketplace, inappropriate interference in

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Speaker 1: the marketplace, and therefore labor unions should be basically turned

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Speaker 1: into social clubs. Another is that corporations should be able

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Speaker 1: to seek the cheapest labor anywhere in the world rather

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Speaker 1: than just anywhere in the country, and therefore we should

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Speaker 1: not have national borders when it comes to the ability

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Speaker 1: of corporations to do that sort of thing, which is

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Speaker 1: generally known as free trade, so called free trade. Another

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Speaker 1: is the social safety net programs, medicare, social security, unemployment benefits,

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Speaker 1: that these are all interferences in the free market and

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Speaker 1: distortions of the free market, and therefore we should do

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Speaker 1: away with the social safety net. Another is that any

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Speaker 1: any function the government is doing outside of the military,

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Speaker 1: and even the military and police functions and court functions,

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Speaker 1: even those should be privatized the extent they can, which

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Speaker 1: is why today half of our defense budget goes to

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Speaker 1: private corporations. Privatize everything you can. Another is that monopolies

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Speaker 1: uh in business and that massive wealth inequality are actually

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Speaker 1: symptoms of an economy that's working the way it should.

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Speaker 1: They are signs that those who have made it through

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Speaker 1: the Darwinian process in the marketplace and proven their worth,

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Speaker 1: their brilliance, their competence, are succeeding. They should be congratulated.

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Speaker 1: And then the corollary to that is that taxes should

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Speaker 1: be very very low on those who are the winners,

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Speaker 1: the ones who have succeeded. And this is why today

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Speaker 1: the average billionaire in America is paying about three percent

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Speaker 1: income taxes, and you know, by half of your major

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Speaker 1: corporations in America paying nothing in taxes. These are all

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Speaker 1: the symptoms of forty years of Reagan and neoliberalism he

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Speaker 1: adopted that they started selling in the fifties. The major

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Speaker 1: sales person in the United States is Milton Friedman Um.

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Speaker 1: And Reagan was the guy in eighty one who basically

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Speaker 1: said we're going to reject Kanzie economics, Adams Smith economics,

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Speaker 1: and uh and we're going to go with with Milton

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Speaker 1: Freeman's neoliberalism. Okay, let's focus on one specific element, which

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Speaker 1: is globalization. Certainly under Clinton, that train left the station.

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Speaker 1: So what do we know. There's been proven time and

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Speaker 1: again that Americans are cheap. Okay, they'll buy the ticket

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Speaker 1: on Spirit airlines with no perks, and they'll run to

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Speaker 1: gain on the plane and they'll fight to put the

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Speaker 1: stuff on the top, and then they'll bitch about it.

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Speaker 1: Or certainly there are add ons with concert tickets, and

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Speaker 1: stub Hub experimented with a final price as opposed to

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Speaker 1: putting all these add ons at the end, and they

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Speaker 1: lost business. So the question becomes, you know, there's so

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Speaker 1: many items. Remember this first with VCRs, VCR was a

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Speaker 1: thousand dollar item, and then not long before their ultimate obsolescence,

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Speaker 1: there were less than a hundred dollars. So if you

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Speaker 1: tell people, you know, if you do all this manufacturing

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Speaker 1: in America, yes, that would solve theoretically if pay was

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Speaker 1: high enough the income status of those people working there,

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Speaker 1: we create jobs. But is the public willing to pay

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Speaker 1: that much more money for their products in order to

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Speaker 1: build local business. Well, it depends on you to find

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Speaker 1: that much more. I mean, you and I are both

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Speaker 1: old enough to remember what America was like before we

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Speaker 1: had neoliberal trade policies, and you know, Walworth was full

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Speaker 1: of cheap stuff. I remember in the early nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: we've moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and there was a brand

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Speaker 1: new Walmart down the street. And there was a giant

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Speaker 1: banner on it made in the USA. That was Sam

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Speaker 1: Walton's big selling point, and it was filled with cheap

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Speaker 1: junk that was made here in America. Labor is not

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Speaker 1: that much of the cost of most manufactured goods. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, it might add to three, four or five,

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Speaker 1: maybe as much as six or seven percent to the

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Speaker 1: cost of or be the you know, percent of the

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Speaker 1: costs of things. But but labor is typically not and

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Speaker 1: and and the costs are complying with environmental regulations is

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Speaker 1: not that great. The bottom line is that corporations, by

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Speaker 1: manufacturing over offshore or overseas and you know, using two

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Speaker 1: dollar an hour labor labor or whatever it may be

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Speaker 1: instead of fifteen or twenty or thirty an hour labor

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Speaker 1: here in the United States, have been able to massively

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Speaker 1: inflate their profits. But there's you know, I don't believe

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Speaker 1: that bringing manufacturing home is necessarily going to make American

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Speaker 1: enterprise is uncompetitive, although I do agree with Alexander Hamilton

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Speaker 1: that the way to and with the Chinese, that the

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Speaker 1: way to do that is and with the South Koreans

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Speaker 1: and the Japanese and the Europeans, is that the way

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Speaker 1: to do that is with a tariff based um global

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Speaker 1: trade system. You know, Alexander Hamilton's eleven point plan was brilliant.

430
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: It built America. It was abandoned, uh, you know the

431
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: nighties and and and you said, you know Clinton, with Clinton,

432
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: that train left the station. I think it's important to

433
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 1: note that it was Reagan who was advocating free trade

434
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: from the get go, because it's part of the neoliberal agenda.

435
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: It was under Reagan that the Gentel Agreement on Tariffs

436
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: and Trade was negotiated. I believe, um they produced the

437
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: gap that led to the World Trade Organization. It was

438
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: under the Reagan Bush administration. Ultimately, the George W. Or

439
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: hw Bush administration finished the negotiations, the negotiated NAFTA. That

440
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: was not Bill Clinton's invention. That was George Herbert Walker Bush. Um.

441
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: Clinton just signed on for it. And and in large part,

442
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: I think, frankly, he had no choice. I mean that

443
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: was that was the point at which the Democratic Party

444
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: had been defunded by Reagan's destruction of labor unions in

445
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: the United States. And so you know, there is an

446
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: interesting history there that we can get into if you want, Bob.

447
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: It's kind of a discursion, but um her digression. Let's

448
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: just stay on Clinton for a second. Did Clinton had

449
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: he no choice but to undercut the social safety ned

450
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: or was that just a choice he made for political advantage?

451
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: I think both really step back a little bit. In

452
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventies six, the Supreme Court, in the Buckley decisions, said,

453
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: for the first time in the history of the United

454
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,159
Speaker 1: States or any developed country, that if billionaires want to

455
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: owned politicians want to give politicians enough money that basically

456
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: those politicians are beholding to them, and those politicians vote

457
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: for things that the billionaires want, or even introduced legislation

458
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: on behalf of them. That's no longer called corruption or bribery.

459
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: That's now called free speech. And that money is no

460
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: longer considered to be money. Money is now considered to

461
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: be a form of speech. That was a radical decision.

462
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: Two years later, in a decision written by Louis Powell himself,

463
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 1: the first National Bank versus Frank Billatte decision, the Supreme

464
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 1: Court said that that also applied to corporations. So when

465
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: that happened, the Democratic Party was fat and happy. They were,

466
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, a third of America was unionized. Roughly the

467
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: unions were washing cash and they were the major funders

468
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. The Republicans not so much. So

469
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 1: the Republicans just jumped into that with both feet, and

470
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan floated into the White House on a tsunami

471
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: of oil industry and and and other big, big corporate money,

472
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: but particularly the fossil field industry. He then took an

473
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: axe to the unions and over the next twelve years

474
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 1: cut unionization in the United States so much that in

475
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: ninety two when Clinton was looking at running for president,

476
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: and al From writes about this in his book You

477
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: Know where he talks about him going down to Arkansas

478
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: and hooking up with Bill Clinton saying, let's let's figure

479
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: this out. When he was going to run for president.

480
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: There just wasn't enough money from the unions to support

481
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So basically Clinton, you know, the

482
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: Democratic Party was at a crossroads. The Internet was not around,

483
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 1: at least not the way it is today, so they

484
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: couldn't raise money on the internet. Direct mail would never

485
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: have worked to raise enough money to run for president.

486
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: So the Democrats decided at that point, okay, you know,

487
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: the unions aren't here for us like they used to

488
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: be we'll start taking money from corporations. We'll just do

489
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: it from the clean corporations. We'll get in bed with

490
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: banks and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, and we'll leave

491
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,959
Speaker 1: the steel and the chemicals and the and the oil

492
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: companies to the Republicans. And you know, as part of that,

493
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: basically this whole new Democrat movement. The third way that

494
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: Clinton and al from came up with was that the

495
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: Democrats would embrace neoliberalism, they just make it a slightly

496
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: friendlier and neoliberalism than the Republicans were embracing. And so

497
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: you know, Clinton just also was promoting the that list

498
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: of tenants of neoliberalism that I gave to you earlier,

499
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: and obviously one of them is is dial back the

500
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: social safety net. He wasn't willing to kill it altogether.

501
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: He five year term limited essentially, which produced an explosion

502
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: in childhood poverty down the road. Uh. And but he did,

503
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: as as you point out, you know, declare, this is

504
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: the end of welfare as we know it, and this

505
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: is the end of the era big government. And you know,

506
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: these were the neoliberal statements. I think that at the

507
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: time Clinton believed that maybe neoliberalism actually wasn't. Maybe it

508
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: would work. You know, it really had only been tested

509
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: in Chile's Pinochet Pinochet's Chili, and that was you know,

510
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: everybody said, well, that's an aberration. The guys that dictator.

511
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: Of course, he's going to kill people to get his

512
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: thing going. So it was still unknown. Okay. Steve Jobs

513
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: famously had the distortion reality field such that he got

514
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: you to listen to him. You could see no other

515
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: way in your particular case, even someone who follows these

516
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: topics very quick closely. You have a very convincing way

517
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: of making the argument, illustrating it with points from history,

518
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: from points from books. Why is there no equivalent politician?

519
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: It certainly isn't. Schumer Pelosi is a little bit better.

520
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: AOC has been somewhat ostracized. Bernie's Bernie has been great

521
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: in terms of getting the message out, whereas on the

522
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: Republican side, whether they're saying truth or falsehood, they have

523
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: a whole narrative that we just don't hear. On the left, Yeah,

524
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 1: Sheldon white House actually is doing a great job of

525
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: exposing a lot of the structure on the right. But

526
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:38,239
Speaker 1: I think that the whether this is the point you're

527
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: trying to make Bob or whether you're just awakening this

528
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: in me. I think that storytelling is the key to

529
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: the whole thing we are as human beings, We are

530
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: story machines. We love stories. We learned through stories. The

531
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: way the culture has been transmitted in human society's for

532
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand years, as long as we've been on

533
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: this planet has largely been through stories. And before writing,

534
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: oral traditions were entirely story based. Um. You you go

535
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: back and look at some of the old Native American stories, like,

536
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 1: you know, the one from the Abenaki that I learned

537
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: when I was in her mad about you know, a

538
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: little boy who went out the woods and was going

539
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: to solve all the world's problems with a magic stick

540
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: and he ends up, you know, having an interaction with

541
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: a skunk. And there's all. It's a whole long story,

542
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to go through it right now,

543
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: but the bottom line was that built into that story

544
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: was the idea that you must always know where you are,

545
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: how not to get lost, how to know directions, how

546
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: to you know what to do if you get sprayed

547
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: by a skunk. Um, I mean, there's just like all

548
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: these cultural stories built into it. And we have these,

549
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: you know, we've been passing them down for for a

550
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: long long time. The little boy who cried wolf that

551
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: you know, the little boy who I identified, the King

552
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: with no clothes. Um, these are the ways that we learned.

553
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: These are you know, story is just so important and

554
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: your Republicans have been pretty good at telling stories for

555
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: years and donk ats frankly, I think the need to

556
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: get better at it. Um. I tell a lot of

557
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: stories in my books on my show. UM, I think

558
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: that it's an important way. Anytime you can wrap a

559
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: lesson or a point in an example which is a story, um,

560
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: and and and expand that to the point that you

561
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: know it can be there's some ability to identify it.

562
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: I think you're going to do a better job of

563
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: communicating that, but not just communicating, and communicating in a

564
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: way that it will be remembered. Because people remember stories,

565
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: they very rarely remember data and details. Okay, what do

566
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: we know? The ratings for twenty four hour news channels

567
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: on cable are insanely low, despite all the publicity about them,

568
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: Network TV News, Appointment News, Although they're appealing to a

569
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: very elderly audience, although that audience does tend to vote

570
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: at a higher percentage rate than those who are younger.

571
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: So prior to the Internet, there was this incredible power

572
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: most noted although I've been forever most noticeably harnessed by

573
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh. What is the power of talk radio today?

574
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: Less versus TV, but visa the the Internet. Well, on

575
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: the Internet, talk radio has been largely reinvented as podcasts,

576
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, this is the space that

577
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: you're that you're living in, and I think it's very powerful.

578
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: I think podcasts have become a major piece of our

579
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: of our cultural fabric in one of the ways that

580
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:40,839
Speaker 1: people people will get a lot of information and learn

581
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Talk radio itself, Uh, you know,

582
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: don't get me started. Um Limbaugh was was a genius.

583
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: I mean he was brilliant at doing talk radio. Michael

584
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: Savage is brilliant at doing talk radio. There's a there's

585
00:34:57,560 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: a there's a couple of people out there who are

586
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: Glenn batt is very good at doing talk radio, brilliant.

587
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 1: And they're all storytellers. That's what they do. They tell stories.

588
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: And when we started our show back in two thousand three,

589
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: we we spent a lot of time. I mean, you know,

590
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:16,760
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of hours listening to all the talk radio,

591
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: all the right wing talk radio we could find it,

592
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: and trying to break down, you know, every hour, what

593
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: are these people doing? How are they doing? And what

594
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: are they do? And and there's actually a formula to it,

595
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and it's a it's a it's

596
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: a fascinating one. Um, but I'm not seeing I'm seeing

597
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: less and less good competent talk radio being done, both

598
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: on the right and the left, frankly, and more and

599
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: more because talk radio is such an interactive environment. It's

600
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: such a you know, I'm talking to you, it's like

601
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: a phone call. It's it's it's not. You know, television

602
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: is this cold medium. And Marshall McLuhan wrote about this,

603
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: Television is cold medium. It's like you're you're looking at

604
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: somebody's picture window. You know, you're it's warrior is in Essentially,

605
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: radio is not. Radio is a very hot medium. It's

606
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,280
Speaker 1: right here, it's right in your ear. It's it's it's

607
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: it's I'm, you know, one person having a communication with another.

608
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 1: When I go on the air, i am I always

609
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 1: imagine I'm only talking to one person. That person changes

610
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 1: from minute to minute, you know, and call her to caller.

611
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: But I'm only ever talking to one person, and increasingly

612
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hearing you know, people on the right talk

613
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: radio hosts who are just you know, doing polemics and

614
00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: talking points, people on the left who are doing the

615
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: same or just doing the interview radio, which is not

616
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: talk radio. Interviews were great on podcasts, um, which is

617
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: a slightly different medium, but we talk radio. I think

618
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: that the the basic tenets of the medium which were

619
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: developed in the nineteen thirties by father Kauflin originally, and

620
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: that Limbaugh reinvented for the eighties after you know, the

621
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: death of Alan Berg, who kept him going through the

622
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:00,919
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. UM, those those talents of talk radio

623
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: are still very powerful. And if you do it well,

624
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 1: and you and you tell stories and you talk to individuals,

625
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: you can build a fairly powerful medium. And like I said,

626
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: i'd right wing talk station talk stations all across the

627
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: country and some very effective talk hosts on the right. Um,

628
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: don't don't underestimate the power of this to influence American politics. Okay,

629
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: let's take a snapshot today though, because Tesla's if I

630
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: haven't right, come without a M receivers. Although AM may

631
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 1: go away and everybody be on FM, but we have

632
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: a younger generation who wants everything on demand. And I

633
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,800
Speaker 1: know in your case you have all your product on demand.

634
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: But it's talking specifically about radio. Is this a growing

635
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 1: or shrinking market? Does it have to be reinvented to

636
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: beyond demand or is it just old people listening to

637
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: real time talk radio? Well? I think that, you know,

638
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: radio has historically been a listen to it in the

639
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:10,240
Speaker 1: car medium, and uh, an awful lot of talk radio

640
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: is moving off AM stations and onto FM stations, by

641
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: the way, Um, just you know, it's just happen. I

642
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: probably half the stations I'm on our FM stations and

643
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 1: and the same as happening, you know, even in the heartland.

644
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: Although uh, you know, most people in Wyoming are not

645
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: driving tests driving Ford pickup trucks and they've got AM radios,

646
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: I guarantee it. So I don't know if that answers

647
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: your question or if I mean speaking you know, if

648
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:42,240
Speaker 1: we look talk about music, which is inherently short form,

649
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,919
Speaker 1: and the days of DJ's telling long stories, creating theater,

650
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: the minor long gone. There are occasional exception. Okay, younger

651
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 1: generations statistically do not listen to terrestrial radio. They're used

652
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: to getting what they want on demand, and there are

653
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: a lot of advertisements. Is this a dying medium? And

654
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: if you have a voice, you ultimately have to segue

655
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: whether it be the podcast or some other means of

656
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: distribution on demand or is the marketplace irrelevant w R

657
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: to M ref M, is it still strong? And is

658
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: it only strong with older people or young people adopting

659
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: Those are all great questions, and I would, uh, first

660
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: of all, referring to Michael Harrison, who publishes Talkers magazine,

661
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 1: who's probably could cite chapter in verse and statistics right

662
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: at the top of his head. I don't have that,

663
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: but my sense of it is that talk radio took

664
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,280
Speaker 1: a big hit with the advent of podcasts in the internet.

665
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 1: UM Limbaugh came out with his Rush Limbo dot com

666
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: website and his Limbaugh podcast. UM, I'd have to go

667
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: back and look. I don't recall when, but you know,

668
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: at least a decade decade and a half ago, um

669
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: and figured that out. And I think most people who

670
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:01,919
Speaker 1: have any of an audience on talk radio or doing

671
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, certainly I do, UM so

672
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 1: that you can hit multiple markets. But I think you're

673
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: I think you're right that that radio has diminished as

674
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: a market overall. UM. That said, I've you know, our

675
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: our our audience, I think over the last few over

676
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 1: the last decades, certainly has been fairly stable, if not

677
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: grown significantly. UM. So you know where the industry is going.

678
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but uh and and I think that

679
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:39,400
Speaker 1: you know when you're looking at UM, I think demographically

680
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: that slicing and dicing of it is really important that

681
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,479
Speaker 1: that if you're looking at rural areas, radio is still

682
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: very very strong. If you're looking at urban areas and

683
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 1: suburban areas, probably radio is a much smaller factor outside

684
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: of the commute, outside of rush hour, and even there

685
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: you're seeing podcast. Take a take a good white out

686
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: of radio. Okay, let's talk about you specifically. Your distribution

687
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: is almost incomprehensible. You're on commercial stations, you're on serious

688
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: x M, you're on public stations. What is going on? Well,

689
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 1: when we started the show back in two thousand three,

690
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: we were on a little network that was owned by

691
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: the U a W. At the time was called uh

692
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: I e America Radio Network and we were on twenty

693
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: seven stations and Serious X down or a Serious at

694
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: that time, Serious Next Time we're competitors. And as they

695
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: that network went away after a couple of years. But

696
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: as the show grew, UM, we wanted to add the

697
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: ability of people to expand the ability of people to

698
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: hear the show, and so UM I think probably around

699
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: two thousand six or two thousand seven, UM, we started

700
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: offering the show to nonprofit station, community radio stations, community

701
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:07,439
Speaker 1: TV stations, UM, uh NPR stations, whatever, you know, any

702
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 1: any nonprofit station who wants that. We bought a second

703
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: automation system for our studio so that we could have

704
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: a clean stream that didn't have any commercials in it.

705
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: We insert, UM, you know, nonprofit compliant content where the

706
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: commercials are so I at the top of the hour,

707
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: I do a book report for example, just read an

708
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: excerpt from somebody's book. Um, and while the commercials are

709
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: playing on the commercial side, and you know, we got

710
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,240
Speaker 1: pretty good pick up. We got syndicated through the pacifica network,

711
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: which is substantial. It's got hundreds of affiliates. Were on

712
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: the Pacific Audio Ports. So that we're available to any

713
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: any Pacific station. UM. Then, as podcasts started picking up,

714
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: and this was maybe a decade ago, UM, we added

715
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: a staff person to chop the show up and put

716
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: it up as a podcast and and got on Apple

717
00:42:55,480 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: Podcasts and other podcast platforms. UM. About maybe fifteen years ago,

718
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when um, the CEO of Free Speech

719
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: TV dropped by my studio to talk to me about

720
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: something completely unrelated and it was about a nonprofit that

721
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: he wanted me to be on the board of and

722
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: we had to talking and he said, uh, you know,

723
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: why don't we try stick in a webcam you know,

724
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: here in your studio and putting it on TV and

725
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 1: see what happens. And at that time, free Speech TV

726
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: only had one live show, which was Democracy Now with

727
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: Amy Goodman. Everything else was, um, you know, documentaries, and

728
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: it was a fairly small audience. And so we stuck

729
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 1: a webcam at my studio and suddenly caught an audience,

730
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: a TV audience, And then you know, free Speech TV

731
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: started growing and they added Randy Rhodes's show, and they

732
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: end and Stephanie Miller's show, and they added you know,

733
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,879
Speaker 1: a bunch of other programs and so and the TV

734
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: network has grown and it's now on you know, Roku,

735
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:00,919
Speaker 1: and it's on Hulu and it's on TV and it's

736
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: got its own web presence and it's ondish and it's

737
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 1: undirect and you know all satellite receivers and uh so

738
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 1: it's just it's just been you know, Bob, over the

739
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: over the over the nineteen years we've been doing this.

740
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 1: It's like every time it seems like, hey, there's a

741
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 1: market we should be in. You know, American Forces Radio

742
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: was looking for a balance to Rush Limbo because they

743
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: were getting complaints from soldiers who didn't want to hear

744
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: just right wing radio. And so you know, they carry

745
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: an hour right wing programming. They carry an hour on

746
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: my show and have for I don't know, well over

747
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: a decade um. So it's like, you know, you look

748
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: for opportunities and you know, it's it's a it's a business.

749
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: I'm running a small business. Okay, so let's a business.

750
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: Their economics of the business. What are your personal economics?

751
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: I mean, you know someplaces, you know, it's fascinating if

752
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 1: people listen to on a commercial station, they'll hear ads.

753
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: But if they listen to the streams after the fact,

754
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: certainly on public stations they won't hear at So what

755
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: are the economics of the business. Well, it's it's uh,

756
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 1: it's it's operating on a whole bunch of different levels. Obviously,

757
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: on the commercial side, you know, we make money selling advertising. Um,

758
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: that's probably half of our total revenue of how we guess.

759
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,839
Speaker 1: On the nonprofit side, uh, with regarded free speech TV,

760
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: we we get a small percentage of the fundraising that

761
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 1: they do on our show that I do with the

762
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: pictures that I do for them. UM, so that's not

763
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: a loss to us that that you know. In fact,

764
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,280
Speaker 1: we've got a full time video guy now that covers

765
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: you know that that covers so that we can provide

766
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: them with a television quality product. Um. With our podcasts,

767
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: we sell advertising on the podcast that's a revenue source.

768
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 1: Are nonprodud. The only area that we don't directly monetize

769
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: our the Pacific or radio stations because there's really no

770
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: way to monetize them outside of doing fundraising. And for those,

771
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: we've got a Patreon channel where you can get the

772
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,520
Speaker 1: station to get the show and uh, you know, we've

773
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: got enough donors through Patreon and we explicitly say right

774
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: on it that this is this supports our ability to

775
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: deliver this show to our nonprofits radio stations, the Pacific

776
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 1: radio stations, and the revenue from Patreon covers those expenses

777
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: and a little more actually, which is great. So you

778
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: know we're able to pay our employees well and do

779
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: a good program. We're not you know, I'm not rolling

780
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: my money been here, but I'm not complaining. How many

781
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: Patreon subscribers do you have and how many people on

782
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: your payroll? I don't know how many Patreon subscribers we have.

783
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,720
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. My my webmaster handles that, and I haven't

784
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: frankly even looked at the Patreon page probably two years. Um,

785
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: it's probably a couple of thousand. I just don't know.

786
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: Um with regard to uh or it might be over

787
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: a thousand. Frankly, I shouldn't even throw numbers out because

788
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: I'm so disconnected from that. Um. What was the other question?

789
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,359
Speaker 1: How many employees? Oh? We have? I have three full

790
00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: time employees who uh Sean who produces the show and

791
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: does runs the Audioboardinate who does the video production, and

792
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 1: me Um. I have a part time employee another producer

793
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: who works on guests and putting stuff up. We have

794
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,319
Speaker 1: a couple of people who work force part time down

795
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: in Texas who cut the show up for the podcast.

796
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: I've got a web master in Tennessee who does the

797
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: technical end of the of the of this. Uh you

798
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: know that that we pay every month. We've got a

799
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: webmaster in London who is an old friend. He's worked

800
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 1: with me for over thirty years now. We used to

801
00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: run forms and compy Serve together. Nigel Peacock who handles

802
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: all the content of our web and runs Tom Hartin

803
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,920
Speaker 1: dot com and hartminer Court dot com. I've got a

804
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: person who publishes our daily newsletter, which has a list

805
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: of every story that I talked about on the air.

806
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: It's free, it's advertising supported. It's over at Tom Hartman

807
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,919
Speaker 1: dot com. That's so. She lives in the UK. Also

808
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: she used to work with us and compu Serve and

809
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: and uh. And I've got an engineer who you know

810
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: who I pay. Um. All those people are basically part

811
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 1: time or or kind of a piece work kind of thing.

812
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: I'll early or whatever. But so that's that's our stuff.

813
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: It's been well established that most people are living in

814
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: silos today. Certainly the New York Times become a pejorative.

815
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: Even though the right tends to get all their basic

816
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: news from the New York Times. Tend the New York Times,

817
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: they won't read it, So everybody is listening to their

818
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: people will only read the New York Times. Do you

819
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: feel that you're preaching to the converted at this point

820
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: you've been doing in a long time or do you

821
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: see it as job? Do you ever feel like you're

822
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: banging your head against the wall. What's your personal viewpoint? Well, all,

823
00:48:56,280 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: welcome to our business right, but uh, no, I know

824
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: that UM largely on certainly on the Pacific stations, I'm

825
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: preaching to the convertaive, I'm talking to people who have

826
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:14,760
Speaker 1: I've looked for a left wing outlet and are listening

827
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 1: to it. On Serious ex M, it's a very different animal.

828
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,320
Speaker 1: I mean, you know there are there are two or

829
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 1: three conservative channels on Serious XM, and there's one liberal

830
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:27,760
Speaker 1: channel and uh and then the Urban View, which largely

831
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: serves as an African American audience, which tends to be

832
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: more progressive. But UM, people are channel flipping on Serious

833
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: ex M and I get a lot of conservative callers there,

834
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 1: and it's been fascinating over the years how many of

835
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: them have stuck to me, have stuck to the show,

836
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: and some of them are still calling in and arguing

837
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 1: with me, which I love. My my favorite thing in

838
00:49:48,680 --> 00:49:53,879
Speaker 1: the whole world is debating conservatives. And uh, it's getting

839
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: harder and harder because increasingly the high profile conservatives are

840
00:49:57,239 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: no longer come on my program. They used to all

841
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: the time. You know, I get even more and and uh,

842
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 1: you know John Bolton and all these guys on the

843
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,879
Speaker 1: you know, the last five seven years, they just won't

844
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 1: do it because they've got such a great echo chamber

845
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,279
Speaker 1: of their own. You know, why bother trying to go

846
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: beyond that? UM on our terrestro radio stations, the AM stations,

847
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit of both, although it tends

848
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: to be more of a of a progressive audience. And

849
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: on the podcast, I'm assuming that I'm talking to people

850
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,280
Speaker 1: who are more aligned with me, but I'm not really certain.

851
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: It's not a medium that gives you that much feedback. UM. So,

852
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 1: can you change somebody's mind? Or do you believe you're

853
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: changing anybody's mind? I I think I'm doing a couple

854
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: of things. Um. Number one, I'm providing people with validation.

855
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: You know, you know you're not crazy. Um, here you

856
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 1: know I agree with your worldview, and here let me

857
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: give you some some details to fill that. So number one,

858
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people tune into my show

859
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: and to any podcast or radio show, but it's political

860
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: looking for validation of their world Um. The second is

861
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: I think I'm giving people ammunition to win what I

862
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 1: call the article or wars. Um. You know, they've got

863
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:08,359
Speaker 1: the guy who sits next to them at work, who

864
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,919
Speaker 1: listens to Limba all day, who wants to debate where

865
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: they've got you crazy Uncle Ralph who comes to the

866
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner and can't stop talking about politics. And they

867
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:17,879
Speaker 1: want to have you know, the one liners to shut

868
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 1: them down, or they want to have the deeper understanding

869
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: of the issues so they can get into a meaningful

870
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: discussion with people, and and I try to provide that, um.

871
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: And then probably number three would be that you know,

872
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,320
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to change people's minds. And I put that

873
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: at number three. I mean I would put it at

874
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: number one if I thought enough people who aren't progressives

875
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: who are listening to me. But I put it at

876
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: number three simply because you know, most of the conservatives

877
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 1: who listened to my show do so by accident, you know,

878
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: like I said, the channel flipping um and uh so

879
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: you know, the opportunities to change minds are much more limited. Okay,

880
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: you say you love arguing with conservatives, what do you

881
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 1: love about it? I find that debate is and and

882
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: and you know, let me just say right up front.

883
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: I I my favorite activity in high school was debate

884
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:16,320
Speaker 1: class after the extracurricular debate um and and part of

885
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: that is my dad. My dad was a historian. He

886
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: wanted to be a history professor. I came along and

887
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: he had to drop out of college and ended up

888
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 1: working in a tool and die shop his whole life.

889
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: But he had twenty thousand books in Spaceman and most

890
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:29,800
Speaker 1: of them probably a third and more history books. He

891
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: was a complete history junkie. And my and he was

892
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: a Republican. Told the day he died. In fact, when

893
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:38,399
Speaker 1: he died, I was sitting with him in his living room.

894
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 1: And as he died and and and I looked at

895
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: over across him and there were these his two favorite

896
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: pictures on the wall, me shaking hands with Pope John Paul.

897
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: The second and George W. Bush on the deck of

898
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under a mission accomplished banner. Um.

899
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 1: My dad and I when I was a teenager, fifteen, sixteen,

900
00:52:58,040 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. First of all, when I was fourteen,

901
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: we went door to door for Barry Goldwater. Well, I

902
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: guess I was thirteen in nineteen sixty four. Um. And uh,

903
00:53:08,719 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 1: my dad never left that world, you know, I did.

904
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 1: By the time I was sixteen, I had become an

905
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:17,879
Speaker 1: anti war hippie and a liberal. UM. And my dad

906
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 1: and I used to get in these knockdown, dragged, knocked down,

907
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: drag out arguments when I was sixteen and seventeen. UM.

908
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:28,360
Speaker 1: And through that because we both loved each other and

909
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:33,879
Speaker 1: we're both well informed people who don't take debate lightly. UM.

910
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: Through that we learned, both of us, and my dad

911
00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:39,839
Speaker 1: taught me this, and we used to watch the Joe

912
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 1: Pine Show together. We used to watch Fire in Line

913
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: together with William F. Buckley. Um. We learned how to

914
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: have debates where there was not blood on the floor

915
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 1: when we were done, you know, debates that you could

916
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: walk away from and shake hands. And it's a it's

917
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: almost an art form as much as a skill as

918
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:03,839
Speaker 1: much as a science, and I've been able to bring

919
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 1: that to my show, and I think fairly uniquely. I

920
00:54:06,719 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: don't think that there's a lot of liberals out there

921
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:10,840
Speaker 1: who who go out of their way to try to

922
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 1: debate conservatives. I mean, it was the hallmark of my show,

923
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 1: probably for the first ten years of the show. Three

924
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:17,799
Speaker 1: days a week, I'd have conservatives on and we'd get

925
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,879
Speaker 1: into long, long form debates. I probably said it's gotten

926
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 1: much much more difficult to get anybody who is wanting

927
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: to come on the program anylonger. But um, I just

928
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: I love it. I you know, part of it probably

929
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 1: echoes back to my childhood with my dad. Um. But

930
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:39,640
Speaker 1: I do think that if you want people to understand issues,

931
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: spectators to understand issues, listeners to understand issues, one of

932
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:49,320
Speaker 1: the best ways to highlight issues is to have a debate,

933
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 1: to have both sides present everything they can bring, all

934
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: their ammunition to the table, present all their arguments and

935
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: all the history for their arguments, and and then you know,

936
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:02,839
Speaker 1: the let the audience decide who won the debate. I'm

937
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: not so interested in whether I win or lose. My

938
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 1: My interest is in informing people educating people and and

939
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:12,399
Speaker 1: you know, not that I'm some high flute educator here,

940
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:15,360
Speaker 1: but that's my goal. My goal is for people to

941
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: walk away from listening to a debate that I've had

942
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 1: or an argument, whether it's with a caller, which happens

943
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:23,800
Speaker 1: more and more of these days, as opposed to guests,

944
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:29,279
Speaker 1: sadly or a guest you know, with more information, um

945
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: so that they can then you know, bring that into

946
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: their lives in a way that's useful. Okay. When we

947
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: were growing up in the sixties and seventies, the issues

948
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 1: were really debated. Whereas Trump we can see with the

949
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: Latitia's filing just the other day, he's just lying, lying

950
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: and lying, and the people who are aligning with them

951
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: are lying. So what are you doing a debate If

952
00:55:55,920 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 1: the person is just telling untruths, you call them out

953
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 1: just to say, I'm sorry, that's bs, you know, back

954
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 1: that up, give me, give me, give me something to

955
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:10,000
Speaker 1: to to to, you know, to believe that what you're

956
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: saying is true, because it doesn't make sense to me.

957
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: That's pretty straightforward. But okay, so let's go back. The

958
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 1: problem is that the people who rely onlines, you know,

959
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: the Trump's, they will not engage in it, They will

960
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: not participate. I mean, you know, Trump goes out of

961
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: his way to have any any protesters removed and beating up.

962
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: It's like it's the antithesis of debate. Okay, but let's

963
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 1: say we're in that uh classic situation you referenced earlier.

964
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: It's a family dinner, it's Thanksgiving, You're gonna be around

965
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: each other a few hours. What do you tell your

966
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: listener how to debate and engage that uncle. Now, for

967
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,759
Speaker 1: years and a lot of people say no politics on Thanksgiving,

968
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: but certainly there are people go there anyway. So assuming

969
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 1: someone from your audience is encountering that situation, what would

970
00:56:57,040 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: you tell him? I would tell him that family is

971
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: more important than than politics, and that and that love

972
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: is more important than winning an argument. Um that. Uh,

973
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:14,480
Speaker 1: you know, when I debate politics with neighbors or with family,

974
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,920
Speaker 1: because people are constantly trying to bait me. Basically, Um,

975
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: I'll make my point, I'll make it gently, and uh

976
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: if they go on a rant trying to knock down

977
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: my point, and it's a b S rant or whatever,

978
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: or it's a rant that I don't think has much

979
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,800
Speaker 1: of validity, rather than humiliating them by pointing that out

980
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: or embarrassing them, I'll just say, you know, I guess

981
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,120
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this, and

982
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:45,240
Speaker 1: you know, from time to time I'll even do that

983
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:49,160
Speaker 1: on the air. Again, I'm trying to to to role

984
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: models for people as well as I can. Okay, my experiences,

985
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 1: no one will change their viewpoint during the debate, but

986
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: they might go home and think about it and change

987
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 1: their opinion. As you said, the majority of your listeners

988
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: lean left. But if you had the experience with anybody's

989
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 1: debated on the year, whether it be a politician or

990
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: someone who calls in where they you connect with them later.

991
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 1: So who you know, I've really thought that, you know,

992
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: maybe you're right. I have a handful of regular callers,

993
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: probably a dozen or two who over the last a

994
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: couple of years. Uh, three of them I can think of,

995
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 1: just in the last three or four months who called

996
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: in because they were listening to right wing radio on

997
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 1: Serious ex M. In most cases, one of them was

998
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 1: on our Chicago affiliate and um, you know, looking for

999
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 1: right wing stuff, they found my show. Um, they found

1000
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: it interesting. They called me up to argue with me. Um,

1001
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: you know, I had debates with them that were respectful.

1002
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 1: I mean, occasionally somebody will just be so offensive that

1003
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: you just slapped them down, but generally not And um,

1004
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,840
Speaker 1: and now they call the show regularly. A number of them,

1005
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 1: i'd say, all but one of them no longer call

1006
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:10,160
Speaker 1: themselves conservatives or Republicans. I've you know, I've seen them change,

1007
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 1: and I'd like to think that it's because the information

1008
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: that I'm presenting is actually factual. I will not go

1009
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 1: into a debate unless I really know what I'm talking about.

1010
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 1: I'm not going to present information. I mean, maybe this

1011
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: is the author in me. You know, I get editors

1012
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: who are you know, your line editor goes through your book,

1013
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:30,680
Speaker 1: and you know, every single point I make, I have

1014
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 1: to back it up or the publisher will not put

1015
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 1: it out. And and uh so you get pretty rigorous

1016
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: about those things. Um. But you know, I I will

1017
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:46,480
Speaker 1: hope that they are becoming regular listeners and are changing

1018
00:59:46,520 --> 00:59:50,440
Speaker 1: their politics, not just because I'm very persuasive, but because

1019
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: I've actually marshaled truth or what they've perceived is truth. Okay,

1020
00:59:56,120 --> 01:00:00,360
Speaker 1: let's talk about party affiliation. There's certainly die in the world.

1021
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:04,800
Speaker 1: Democrats died in the world Republicans. But I have found,

1022
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: certainly since the rise of the right wing, that the

1023
01:00:10,400 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who call themselves independent are really Republicans.

1024
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: They just don't want to be in the debate. What

1025
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,959
Speaker 1: has your experience been, It's been the same as yours, Bob.

1026
01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:25,720
Speaker 1: Of the people who calling to my show and say,

1027
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 1: I'm in the parade, I just vote for the person.

1028
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:30,959
Speaker 1: I don't vote for the party. I don't damn about

1029
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:36,240
Speaker 1: the Republican partyment, but them damn immigrants and yeah, yeah, absolutely,

1030
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 1: they're they're bashful Republicans. Yeah the when was the last

1031
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: time you voted for Democrat? And they go, they can't

1032
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: think of one. You've led quite a peripatetic life and career.

1033
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 1: How did you end up in talk radio and staying

1034
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: with talk radio, because if you look at your career,

1035
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: you tend to jump, you know, from advertising, therapy to

1036
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:03,560
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm I'm a probably because

1037
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: I'm an a d h D person, I said. I

1038
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: wrote a couple of books about it. Actually, I have

1039
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 1: been a serial entrepreneur throughout my life, I Louise, I

1040
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: have started a number of businesses, five of them that

1041
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 1: were you know, consequential and did fairly well. And uh

1042
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 1: because back when we were first married, uh, we were

1043
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: reading the novels of John D. McDonald's at the Travis

1044
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:29,720
Speaker 1: McGee Novels, and you know, his whole thing was, I'm

1045
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: not going to wait until I retire to enjoy my life.

1046
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to take my retirement while i'm young in

1047
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: pieces and so are. The agreement that we had and

1048
01:01:36,480 --> 01:01:39,200
Speaker 1: we got married was that, you know, every five years

1049
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:41,800
Speaker 1: or so, we would take a year off and and

1050
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:44,480
Speaker 1: explore the world. And you know, thank god, we've been

1051
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 1: able to do that. We build a business up, we

1052
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 1: sell it off, we live off that for a year

1053
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 1: and there's enough left over to start another business. And

1054
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, we did that up until ninety seven. And

1055
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:57,480
Speaker 1: in ninety seven I sold an ad agency in Atlanta,

1056
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 1: and Louise and I had built and on a seven

1057
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: year buy out and so we had a real cushion,

1058
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: you know, a seven year cushing plus some retirement funds.

1059
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:10,440
Speaker 1: And I figured that's a bit. You know, I'm retired now,

1060
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:13,919
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write books and just have a good time.

1061
01:02:14,880 --> 01:02:19,919
Speaker 1: And then George Bush became president, and by two thousand three,

1062
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 1: I was convinced that he represented a threat to our democracy.

1063
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 1: That his policies, you know, his his going after Iraq

1064
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan, on inappropriately unnecessarily lying US into the war

1065
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Um, torturing people, Um, you know, just breaking

1066
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,960
Speaker 1: American law. Just it just maybe nuts. And so I

1067
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 1: wrote this piece. I wrote this article in the in

1068
01:02:43,760 --> 01:02:46,960
Speaker 1: early either late two thousand two or early two thousand three,

1069
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: and published it on Common Dreams. I had started publishing

1070
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,480
Speaker 1: op eds on Common Dreams starting around two thousand and one.

1071
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: Common Dreams is a well known progressive website, common Dreams

1072
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 1: dot org. And um, you know these these short op

1073
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:01,320
Speaker 1: eds rants as it were. And in two thousand three

1074
01:03:01,320 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 1: I wrote one called talking back to talk radio and

1075
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: it was about how you know half the country is democratic,

1076
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,120
Speaker 1: half the country's republican, all of the radio stations are republican.

1077
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:19,920
Speaker 1: Why is nobody programming uh democratic radio? And um uh

1078
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 1: showing you need to drop me who were venture capitalists

1079
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:25,440
Speaker 1: in Chicago called me up and said, hey, uh, this

1080
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 1: is an idea. This is great. We would like to

1081
01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 1: use your article as the initial business plan for a

1082
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:33,960
Speaker 1: new radio network that we want to call our America

1083
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 1: Radio can you come out to Chicago and talk to us. Well,

1084
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: a little bit slower because a lot of people say

1085
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: it just happened. Just to be clear, you just published

1086
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 1: one article, someone tracks you down, that's it. You were

1087
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 1: not putting out feelers. You did not say in the article,

1088
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: I want to be in the radio game. Just somebody

1089
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: called you out of the blues. That the way it

1090
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: really went down that act. Actually, yes, Now in the article,

1091
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 1: I did point out when I was young, I did radio.

1092
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:03,840
Speaker 1: I I when I was sixteen, I was you know,

1093
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: I started in radio at sixteen in commercial radio on

1094
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 1: w I t L on Lance and I was a

1095
01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 1: DJ at a country Western DJ for a couple of years.

1096
01:04:10,240 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 1: I did rock and roll, I monster around a few

1097
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:14,760
Speaker 1: radio stations. I ended up doing news back at w

1098
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 1: I t L for seven years until and so I knew,

1099
01:04:20,320 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: I know radio, I knew the business. I know how

1100
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:25,120
Speaker 1: it works. And I said that in the yard, and

1101
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 1: uh so, you know, it wasn't like I was just

1102
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: some guy who wrote a piece. I mean, there was

1103
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: some credibility there. But anyhow, they came to me and

1104
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:34,440
Speaker 1: they you know, and I flew out to Chicago and

1105
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: I told him that I had some problems with their

1106
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:40,919
Speaker 1: business plan, and uh, but they were looking for proof

1107
01:04:40,960 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 1: of concept. So Louise and I called the all fourteen

1108
01:04:46,880 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: or so of the radio stations in Vermont. We were

1109
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:52,080
Speaker 1: living in Mont period at the time, and said, uh,

1110
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:54,480
Speaker 1: you know, wait, wait just one second. As someone who

1111
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:57,320
Speaker 1: went to college Vermont, spent a lot of time in Vermont,

1112
01:04:57,840 --> 01:05:05,560
Speaker 1: why Montpulier, we just wanted to live there. Those are

1113
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 1: Mont Peelier is its own backwater in Vermont. It's the

1114
01:05:10,960 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 1: capital city. You know, it's in the north. You know

1115
01:05:15,720 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 1: what you you just I mean mont Pelier. If you

1116
01:05:18,560 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 1: think about living Vermont, that would not be the first

1117
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 1: place most people would choose. Well, actually, we first moved

1118
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 1: we bought an old B and B in Northfield, way

1119
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 1: back in the woods, had a half mile long driveway

1120
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 1: up the side of a mountain. There was dirt road. Um.

1121
01:05:33,200 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: And then we sold that after a couple of years

1122
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: and moved into into into town in aunt Pelier because

1123
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: we were just missing, you know, being able to walk

1124
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:42,280
Speaker 1: to a restaurant or something. And the winners they are

1125
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:45,600
Speaker 1: pretty pretty brutal. But anyhow, so we called, you know,

1126
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:47,959
Speaker 1: all the radio stations in Vermont and we we found

1127
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 1: this one station in Burlington that where the guy said, yeah,

1128
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:52,400
Speaker 1: I'll give you. I'll give you two hours on a

1129
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: Saturday morning if you want to do a test runt

1130
01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: on progressive talk radio. I mean, that was my pitch.

1131
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:57,919
Speaker 1: I you know, I'd like to I'd like to prove,

1132
01:05:58,080 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 1: you know, this proof of concept and if it works,

1133
01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:01,560
Speaker 1: you know, you can carry the show. And if it doesn't,

1134
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:04,560
Speaker 1: you know, nothing ventured, nothing gains. You can still adds

1135
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:06,120
Speaker 1: on the show and maybe I can get your audience

1136
01:06:06,200 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: for you. And so he put us on. Bob written

1137
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:13,040
Speaker 1: his last name. He put us on after the after

1138
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:15,640
Speaker 1: the swap meet. So about half the calls I'd get

1139
01:06:15,720 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: were you know, is that John Dear three twenty still available? Um?

1140
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:25,640
Speaker 1: But it was good practice and uh and ed Asner

1141
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 1: was kind enough. We had a mutual friend and uh.

1142
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 1: In fact, he blurbed my book on healthcare a little

1143
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 1: while ago, um before he died. Um. Ed Asner did

1144
01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:39,840
Speaker 1: an interview with me and we took that and some

1145
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: of my rants and we sent it off to that

1146
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: network that I was telling you, I America Radio Network,

1147
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: and they picked up the show. And that was when

1148
01:06:45,640 --> 01:06:47,600
Speaker 1: we went from being this little tiny thing on this

1149
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,600
Speaker 1: one station in Burlington, Vermont that had probably thirty five

1150
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:54,080
Speaker 1: people listening, who half of whom were piste off at

1151
01:06:54,120 --> 01:06:57,080
Speaker 1: the swap Meeat wasn't still on to actually be in

1152
01:06:57,120 --> 01:06:59,480
Speaker 1: a radio show. It took Air America a couple of

1153
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:02,000
Speaker 1: years to get their act together and get their network going.

1154
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: And during that period of time, I was just building

1155
01:07:05,240 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 1: my show. So that's you know, and it started. It

1156
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,800
Speaker 1: wasn't we we funded the entire thing ourselves for the

1157
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 1: first four years. We didn't. We didn't break even until

1158
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:19,560
Speaker 1: about the third or fourth year, um and and and

1159
01:07:19,960 --> 01:07:21,640
Speaker 1: you know, over the years we've made that money back,

1160
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:24,640
Speaker 1: but that was coming out of our retirement money and

1161
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:27,760
Speaker 1: or what was intended to be our retirement money, because

1162
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:30,520
Speaker 1: I thought it myself was retired and I didn't expect

1163
01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: it to last more than four or five years at

1164
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:34,480
Speaker 1: the very most. I you know, I was just trying

1165
01:07:34,520 --> 01:07:37,040
Speaker 1: to prove that it was possible to do if you

1166
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:40,720
Speaker 1: follow the rules of talk radio, and they're not complicated,

1167
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,160
Speaker 1: and they've been around since the nineteen thirties. If you

1168
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:45,440
Speaker 1: follow the rules of talk radio, you can be just

1169
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:48,240
Speaker 1: as successful as a Democrat as you can as a Republican.

1170
01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:51,920
Speaker 1: Given there's enough radio stations to carry you. And that's

1171
01:07:51,960 --> 01:07:54,320
Speaker 1: the big kicker right now, is that the big networks.

1172
01:07:54,760 --> 01:07:56,959
Speaker 1: I had I said at the office of the United

1173
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:59,760
Speaker 1: States senator with the billionaire owner of one of the

1174
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:05,520
Speaker 1: big three radio station conglomerates, you know, the owner of

1175
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:10,320
Speaker 1: about nine d radio stations, and the senators said, you know,

1176
01:08:10,840 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: why don't you put some progressive radio on your stations.

1177
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:16,120
Speaker 1: You've got three stations that are carrying right wing radio.

1178
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:19,040
Speaker 1: And the guy said, uh. And I've never seen a

1179
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:22,400
Speaker 1: senator literally had their mouth fall open. And when somebody

1180
01:08:22,400 --> 01:08:25,200
Speaker 1: says the guy says, I'm never gonna put anybody on there.

1181
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:28,519
Speaker 1: I wants to raise my taxes, just like It's just

1182
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 1: that simple. And yeah, So you know, we've got a

1183
01:08:33,439 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 1: we've got a structural problem in terms of progressive or

1184
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 1: democratic talk radio. But there's no there's no question that

1185
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:45,280
Speaker 1: you can successfully do progressive talk radio. I've been doing

1186
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:57,080
Speaker 1: it for nineteen years and I'm making money. Okay. If

1187
01:08:57,760 --> 01:09:02,280
Speaker 1: one looks at your website and follows through, you're doing

1188
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:07,000
Speaker 1: three hours of radio a day, You're writing opinion columns,

1189
01:09:07,040 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: you're writing books. What is your schedule such that you

1190
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:15,519
Speaker 1: can accomplish all that well and let me have the

1191
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:19,080
Speaker 1: pandemic has helped. Um. My schedule is Louise and I

1192
01:09:19,120 --> 01:09:22,000
Speaker 1: get up at five thirty in the morning and we

1193
01:09:22,160 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 1: put together that day's show between five thirty and roughly seven. Um.

1194
01:09:27,720 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 1: You know, uh, Sean may have booked a guest, if

1195
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:32,080
Speaker 1: we've got a guest, and you know, we'll do the

1196
01:09:32,120 --> 01:09:34,040
Speaker 1: research on that. But basically we're going, you know, we

1197
01:09:34,160 --> 01:09:36,519
Speaker 1: just will read ten or twenty news sites and come

1198
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,200
Speaker 1: up with what are the what are going to be

1199
01:09:38,280 --> 01:09:42,000
Speaker 1: the main themes for each hour and you know, what

1200
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:45,120
Speaker 1: are we going to talk about? And I, you know,

1201
01:09:45,400 --> 01:09:47,000
Speaker 1: I go into the studio and we go on the

1202
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:49,360
Speaker 1: air at nine. This is all Pacific time. We go

1203
01:09:49,439 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 1: on the air at nine and we're on until noon. Um,

1204
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:54,640
Speaker 1: you know. For the next half hour, I do you know,

1205
01:09:54,880 --> 01:09:57,800
Speaker 1: I'll read ads for sponsors and just do whatever needs

1206
01:09:57,840 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 1: to be done, you know, to to clean up the

1207
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: the business. And then I leave the studio. Sean and

1208
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:06,240
Speaker 1: Nates stay there and Nate produces all of our stuff

1209
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 1: for YouTube and everything, and Sean puts together stuff for

1210
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:12,840
Speaker 1: the podcast. I come home and from one until five

1211
01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:14,920
Speaker 1: every day I write my bed that we published at

1212
01:10:14,960 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: heart and report every morning. Um and uh. And then

1213
01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:23,160
Speaker 1: my I write books on weekends, Um, all day, all

1214
01:10:23,200 --> 01:10:25,639
Speaker 1: day Saturday, all day Sunday. Uh. You know, I'll take

1215
01:10:25,640 --> 01:10:28,000
Speaker 1: a break for meals or to visit a family and

1216
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:31,599
Speaker 1: things like that. Um and and you know I've written.

1217
01:10:31,760 --> 01:10:35,000
Speaker 1: I've been writing all my life, and I've been writing

1218
01:10:35,040 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: for publications since the mid nineties, and so I'm pretty

1219
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:43,080
Speaker 1: good at it, and it, you know, it works. I've

1220
01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:45,560
Speaker 1: been I've been these this new series of books, the

1221
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:47,719
Speaker 1: Hidden History series. The new one is the Hidden History

1222
01:10:47,720 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 1: of Neoliberalism. There are thirty five th word books, that's

1223
01:10:50,800 --> 01:10:53,759
Speaker 1: half the size of a normal book, and so banging

1224
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:55,400
Speaker 1: one of those out of every six months is kind

1225
01:10:55,400 --> 01:10:58,920
Speaker 1: of the equivalent of writing one real book, one major book,

1226
01:10:59,160 --> 01:11:01,920
Speaker 1: you know, a nine hundred thousand word book a year,

1227
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:05,160
Speaker 1: which is what I used to write, and I've always

1228
01:11:05,200 --> 01:11:06,800
Speaker 1: been able to produce one a year kind of in

1229
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:09,840
Speaker 1: my spirit time. Okay, you talk about writing your O

1230
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 1: bed from one to five? Hey, how much is that

1231
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: as research? And I consider research just reading the news.

1232
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:20,840
Speaker 1: You know, you might also ultimately go to check facts

1233
01:11:20,920 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 1: or to find certain information out. And to what degree

1234
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:28,720
Speaker 1: is it a chore to write every day or every

1235
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:30,559
Speaker 1: day you say, you know, I got a formula, get

1236
01:11:30,640 --> 01:11:32,960
Speaker 1: myself in the right mindset, and I can just bang

1237
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:37,720
Speaker 1: it out, you know, I I have to. This is

1238
01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:39,880
Speaker 1: kind of one of our our rules of life for

1239
01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:41,600
Speaker 1: for my wife and I is that you know, we

1240
01:11:41,680 --> 01:11:44,200
Speaker 1: do what we love doing, and when we stop loving

1241
01:11:44,280 --> 01:11:47,920
Speaker 1: doing it, we don't do it. It's just um and

1242
01:11:48,240 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 1: and so it's the same way with the writing. I mean,

1243
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 1: I've got to write about stuff that I really am

1244
01:11:52,439 --> 01:11:55,080
Speaker 1: inflamed about, that I really care about. And I think

1245
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:58,559
Speaker 1: that that's you know, just wise anyway, because otherwise you're

1246
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:01,880
Speaker 1: not going to produce something that lights anybody else, you know.

1247
01:12:02,640 --> 01:12:04,719
Speaker 1: So when I come home, Louise and I have lunch,

1248
01:12:04,920 --> 01:12:08,840
Speaker 1: you know, typically a twelve thirty and um, and then

1249
01:12:08,880 --> 01:12:12,240
Speaker 1: I come up here to write at one and you know,

1250
01:12:12,320 --> 01:12:14,599
Speaker 1: our job during that thirty minutes just to figure out

1251
01:12:14,640 --> 01:12:16,160
Speaker 1: what the topic is going to be for my op

1252
01:12:16,280 --> 01:12:19,719
Speaker 1: ed that day. We have a little uh web based

1253
01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:22,760
Speaker 1: uh wiki page on which we keep all of our

1254
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:25,880
Speaker 1: ideas for future op eds, and we still see articles

1255
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:28,479
Speaker 1: and stick come on there, We'll have a conversation and

1256
01:12:28,560 --> 01:12:32,000
Speaker 1: we'll stick that on there, you know, on our smartphones, um,

1257
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:34,000
Speaker 1: And so we'll refer to that page and we'll look

1258
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:35,680
Speaker 1: it over, and we'll look over the news because we've

1259
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:38,760
Speaker 1: been doing that all day with the show, and figure out,

1260
01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:40,840
Speaker 1: you know, what's the rent today going to be about.

1261
01:12:41,200 --> 01:12:43,840
Speaker 1: And then I come upstairs and typically the first hour

1262
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:46,799
Speaker 1: or so before I start right, you know, I'll outline

1263
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:49,320
Speaker 1: my piece, what are the major points I'm gonna make,

1264
01:12:49,360 --> 01:12:51,200
Speaker 1: and then I know what I need to know to

1265
01:12:51,360 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 1: back up the points that I'm going to make. And so,

1266
01:12:53,800 --> 01:12:57,080
Speaker 1: you know, from one to two, basically I'm doing research, um,

1267
01:12:57,240 --> 01:12:59,519
Speaker 1: you know, bouncing around the Internet or looking through books

1268
01:12:59,560 --> 01:13:02,320
Speaker 1: that I've got or whatever whatever sources I need to find.

1269
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:05,519
Speaker 1: And sometimes that takes two hours. Sometimes it only takes

1270
01:13:05,560 --> 01:13:07,280
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. It depends on the topic. There are a

1271
01:13:07,320 --> 01:13:09,160
Speaker 1: lot of topics that I can write literally off the

1272
01:13:09,200 --> 01:13:11,280
Speaker 1: top of my head. There are others where I really

1273
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:12,640
Speaker 1: have to do a lot of research. I did a

1274
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 1: piece three or four weeks ago about how militious are

1275
01:13:16,479 --> 01:13:19,519
Speaker 1: illegal at every state and the Union and have been since,

1276
01:13:19,880 --> 01:13:24,040
Speaker 1: uh you know, the eighteen eighties, and nobody's enforcing those

1277
01:13:24,120 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: laws and private militias, and that took probably three hours

1278
01:13:29,160 --> 01:13:32,120
Speaker 1: of research and that day I was writing until six o'clock.

1279
01:13:32,200 --> 01:13:36,000
Speaker 1: I missed Chris As show. So oh and then you

1280
01:13:36,080 --> 01:13:37,800
Speaker 1: know the rest of the day, you know, after after

1281
01:13:37,880 --> 01:13:40,160
Speaker 1: I get done writing, I go downstairs. Louise usually has

1282
01:13:40,160 --> 01:13:43,439
Speaker 1: dinner ready at five, and we'll watch chriss As on MSNBC,

1283
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 1: and then you know, Alex or Rachel after that, and

1284
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:49,320
Speaker 1: then we knock off. We go upstairs and we'll watch

1285
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:53,800
Speaker 1: some show on you know, Netflix or something, or or read,

1286
01:13:54,720 --> 01:13:58,280
Speaker 1: uh you know, or or visit people and uh, you know,

1287
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,800
Speaker 1: it's just you know, I turned off my phone. I'm sorry,

1288
01:14:01,800 --> 01:14:03,320
Speaker 1: I didn't turn off my watch. I don't know how

1289
01:14:03,360 --> 01:14:08,360
Speaker 1: to do that. Um, so that's our day. Any uh

1290
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:14,120
Speaker 1: specific Netflix or other streaming show you're hot on. Uh,

1291
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:16,720
Speaker 1: we just finished watching The Sopranos, because there's you know,

1292
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 1: the old Sopranos, which you never saw because we didn't

1293
01:14:18,840 --> 01:14:21,080
Speaker 1: have a TV back then in the in the late nineties,

1294
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:25,040
Speaker 1: um in early two thousand's, and and because I guess

1295
01:14:25,040 --> 01:14:27,080
Speaker 1: there's a sequel coming out that we were curious about.

1296
01:14:27,160 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: But you know, I've got a list of this on

1297
01:14:29,320 --> 01:14:33,920
Speaker 1: my phone here that I can my binge watching. In

1298
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:36,519
Speaker 1: the last year and a half, or two years. We've

1299
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:41,400
Speaker 1: watched the Sopranos, Silent Witness, mcguyber FBI One, n C

1300
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:45,640
Speaker 1: I s I, Yellowstone, Snow Piercer, Monk, Yellowstone, Hawaii five O,

1301
01:14:45,720 --> 01:14:48,920
Speaker 1: the Original, Uh, Colombo, McMillan and wife. We went back

1302
01:14:48,960 --> 01:14:51,639
Speaker 1: and watch those. Um what we do in the Shadows,

1303
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:55,559
Speaker 1: Person of Interest, Bones, Secession, Silent Witness, Good Fight, Billions,

1304
01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:59,080
Speaker 1: Father Brown, Death in Paradise, The Finder, C s I, Miami.

1305
01:14:59,280 --> 01:15:02,559
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of Game of Thrones, Outlander Killing Eve,

1306
01:15:03,120 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 1: Magic City, Dot Martin, Blacklist. Yea, we get an idea

1307
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:11,800
Speaker 1: of your taste. Going back to books, Although you get

1308
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:16,200
Speaker 1: a certain amount of publicity, except for the huge bestsellers,

1309
01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:21,840
Speaker 1: historically books sell very few copies. What is your experience been?

1310
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:24,640
Speaker 1: Is more of a labor of love? What's the motivation?

1311
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:33,559
Speaker 1: I uh, that's a really good question. Bob I ernest

1312
01:15:33,600 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 1: him anyway once said, ah that I don't remember the

1313
01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:40,720
Speaker 1: exact quote. It's been so many years since I even

1314
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:44,439
Speaker 1: thought about it, but he once said, basically, UM, as

1315
01:15:44,479 --> 01:15:48,240
Speaker 1: an author, you gained a certain little bit, tiny little

1316
01:15:48,240 --> 01:15:54,639
Speaker 1: bit of immortality. UM. Sometimes I think about my writing

1317
01:15:54,840 --> 01:15:59,320
Speaker 1: as the stuff I hope my grandchildren will discover. They

1318
01:15:59,360 --> 01:16:02,479
Speaker 1: probably won't, but you know, I mean I used to.

1319
01:16:03,760 --> 01:16:05,880
Speaker 1: After my dad died, I discovered some of the letters

1320
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:07,679
Speaker 1: that he wrote home when he was in the army

1321
01:16:07,800 --> 01:16:11,599
Speaker 1: during World War Two, and it just tore me up,

1322
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:14,120
Speaker 1: and I realized how much I had lost. I wish

1323
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: I had had those kind of insights into my grandparents

1324
01:16:16,479 --> 01:16:19,679
Speaker 1: and even great grandparents. So, you know, in a way,

1325
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:23,680
Speaker 1: I think I'm I'm writing for posterity, as it were.

1326
01:16:23,800 --> 01:16:25,680
Speaker 1: In a way, I've got things that I want to

1327
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:29,280
Speaker 1: say that I think are important, and writing a book

1328
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:31,960
Speaker 1: is a great way to do that. Um. You know,

1329
01:16:32,080 --> 01:16:34,559
Speaker 1: it's it's provided me with some income over the years.

1330
01:16:35,600 --> 01:16:38,120
Speaker 1: A couple of books have done very very well. Um.

1331
01:16:38,479 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a couple of books that have

1332
01:16:39,720 --> 01:16:42,360
Speaker 1: been print for literally decades. One of them is in

1333
01:16:42,439 --> 01:16:46,040
Speaker 1: print in nineteen different languages. Um. You know, it's sold

1334
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:50,120
Speaker 1: a lot of copies. Um. So, uh, you know, it's

1335
01:16:50,160 --> 01:16:51,960
Speaker 1: something I like to do. It's something I'm good at.

1336
01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:54,120
Speaker 1: My mother was an English major at m s U.

1337
01:16:55,040 --> 01:16:58,120
Speaker 1: And she was a frustrated writer. She tried to write

1338
01:16:58,160 --> 01:17:00,839
Speaker 1: children's books when I was young and kind of modeled

1339
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 1: for me the self discipline of writing and um and

1340
01:17:05,479 --> 01:17:07,400
Speaker 1: I often think of her, you know, sometimes I think

1341
01:17:07,560 --> 01:17:11,240
Speaker 1: I'm writing to her, um so and and In fact,

1342
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:14,600
Speaker 1: my parents gave me a portable typewriter when I was

1343
01:17:14,640 --> 01:17:18,679
Speaker 1: ten years old, and my dad, when I was thirteen,

1344
01:17:19,439 --> 01:17:23,400
Speaker 1: first year of junior high school, demanded that I take

1345
01:17:23,400 --> 01:17:26,240
Speaker 1: a typing class because my typing was so atrocious. And

1346
01:17:26,520 --> 01:17:29,200
Speaker 1: I was in this class with like twenty eight girls

1347
01:17:29,280 --> 01:17:33,880
Speaker 1: in me, which was just humiliating, embarrassing. Um you know

1348
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:39,880
Speaker 1: it was, and but it was the best skill I

1349
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:42,200
Speaker 1: ever learned. I'm so grateful that my father forced me

1350
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,840
Speaker 1: to do that. So now I'm much more effective. You know,

1351
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:48,160
Speaker 1: I can write, I can type really fast, and I

1352
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:51,280
Speaker 1: can write better. But I just love doing it. I

1353
01:17:51,960 --> 01:17:55,600
Speaker 1: really love writing, just like I love doing radio. I

1354
01:17:55,680 --> 01:17:58,439
Speaker 1: had the same experience with typing. I mean, especially computers

1355
01:17:58,520 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: came in knowing how to type some believable So in

1356
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:06,840
Speaker 1: our conversation you've mentioned it asner, You've talked about politicians.

1357
01:18:07,640 --> 01:18:12,920
Speaker 1: Are you okay? In Los Angeles? It's a world of networking.

1358
01:18:14,080 --> 01:18:19,439
Speaker 1: Traditional fiction authors tend to be isolated. Where do you sit?

1359
01:18:19,680 --> 01:18:23,160
Speaker 1: Do you like the incoming people track you down? Or

1360
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:26,200
Speaker 1: do you go out of your way? To have relationships

1361
01:18:26,720 --> 01:18:30,760
Speaker 1: with Ed Asner, You famously have a relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.

1362
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:36,200
Speaker 1: With politicians, where do you sit on that. I'm an

1363
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:38,920
Speaker 1: odd duck, although I think that I'm probably the norm

1364
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:42,360
Speaker 1: for radio, but I'm definitely the exception for television, and

1365
01:18:42,479 --> 01:18:47,080
Speaker 1: that is that I'm an introvert. I'm basically a shy person.

1366
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:51,120
Speaker 1: I don't speak up. I'm intimidated by crowds. I get

1367
01:18:51,160 --> 01:18:56,240
Speaker 1: panic attacks in in cocktail parties. I hate cocktail parties. Um,

1368
01:18:56,439 --> 01:18:58,000
Speaker 1: you know, you put me in a room with thirty people,

1369
01:18:58,080 --> 01:18:59,920
Speaker 1: I can't deal with it. Put me out of stay

1370
01:19:00,080 --> 01:19:02,320
Speaker 1: in front of five thousand people. I have no problem.

1371
01:19:02,479 --> 01:19:05,320
Speaker 1: I can do that well. I have learned how to

1372
01:19:05,479 --> 01:19:08,760
Speaker 1: pretend to be an extrovert. Um, But if I've got

1373
01:19:08,840 --> 01:19:10,400
Speaker 1: to make small talk, I don't know how to do it.

1374
01:19:10,720 --> 01:19:12,200
Speaker 1: We went to an h O A meeting here in

1375
01:19:12,240 --> 01:19:14,040
Speaker 1: the neighborhood where I live a couple of nights ago,

1376
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: and I basically ran out of there as soon as

1377
01:19:16,360 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 1: it was over. And I'm on one of the committees.

1378
01:19:18,240 --> 01:19:21,040
Speaker 1: I should have stuck around and played politician. I can't

1379
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:23,519
Speaker 1: do that. I make a lousy politician. I don't know

1380
01:19:23,640 --> 01:19:26,519
Speaker 1: how to shake hands with people and and and do that.

1381
01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:30,960
Speaker 1: It frightens me and intimidates me. So and I think

1382
01:19:31,040 --> 01:19:33,160
Speaker 1: that that's common in radio. I got to know Larry

1383
01:19:33,240 --> 01:19:35,880
Speaker 1: King before he died, and he was another, you know,

1384
01:19:36,000 --> 01:19:38,840
Speaker 1: in an introvert who knew how to pretend he was

1385
01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:42,640
Speaker 1: an extrovert. And I've heard that Russia Limbaugh was like that.

1386
01:19:42,840 --> 01:19:45,200
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that Michael Savage is like that.

1387
01:19:45,560 --> 01:19:47,920
Speaker 1: I don't know him, but I know we have friends

1388
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:52,040
Speaker 1: in common. Um. So, my my social circle is really

1389
01:19:52,120 --> 01:19:55,679
Speaker 1: quite small, and I have never tried to network with anybody,

1390
01:19:55,840 --> 01:19:57,880
Speaker 1: you know, to advance my show or my books or

1391
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:00,639
Speaker 1: anything else. The friendships that I've made over the years

1392
01:20:01,240 --> 01:20:03,600
Speaker 1: that might appear to the high profile, you know, like

1393
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 1: Ed Asner or Leo DiCaprio or whatnot, Um, we're kind

1394
01:20:08,439 --> 01:20:11,559
Speaker 1: of accidental things that that. You know, Leo read one

1395
01:20:11,600 --> 01:20:13,160
Speaker 1: of my books and his mother reached out to me,

1396
01:20:13,240 --> 01:20:17,040
Speaker 1: for example, and uh, you know, I invited him on

1397
01:20:17,120 --> 01:20:19,240
Speaker 1: my show and and and we just kind of hit

1398
01:20:19,320 --> 01:20:21,800
Speaker 1: it off, just the two of us, you know. So

1399
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:26,479
Speaker 1: I'm probably to my detriment that I'm that incompetent in

1400
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:29,479
Speaker 1: that area of being, you know, the gland handing networker.

1401
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:33,599
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ed or Leo. You have a moment

1402
01:20:33,880 --> 01:20:36,840
Speaker 1: of connection. They're doing the show where there's a project.

1403
01:20:37,720 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 1: Do you have any social contact beyond maybe once a year?

1404
01:20:42,280 --> 01:20:46,240
Speaker 1: How you doing? That's that's largely it. I mean, you know,

1405
01:20:46,360 --> 01:20:51,040
Speaker 1: Leo and I have worked together on I think six projects,

1406
01:20:51,760 --> 01:20:56,479
Speaker 1: three three or four short little ten fifteen minute uh

1407
01:20:57,160 --> 01:21:00,960
Speaker 1: YouTube videos that live, you know, little movies that on YouTube,

1408
01:21:01,520 --> 01:21:06,960
Speaker 1: and three or four larger longer you know, full length.

1409
01:21:08,320 --> 01:21:12,360
Speaker 1: These are all about climate change, um. And so you know,

1410
01:21:12,400 --> 01:21:14,240
Speaker 1: when you collaborate on those things, you get to know

1411
01:21:14,320 --> 01:21:17,479
Speaker 1: people a little bit better. UM. But mostly it's you know,

1412
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:19,479
Speaker 1: if I'm in town, hey, how are you. I've become

1413
01:21:19,600 --> 01:21:23,080
Speaker 1: very close friends with his father. I think of George

1414
01:21:23,120 --> 01:21:27,400
Speaker 1: DiCaprio is one of probably my ten best friends, you know,

1415
01:21:27,479 --> 01:21:30,000
Speaker 1: in the world. And you know, like I said, my

1416
01:21:30,080 --> 01:21:34,240
Speaker 1: social circuit was very small. George and I talked regularly, UM,

1417
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:38,519
Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with Leonardo UM, just because

1418
01:21:38,640 --> 01:21:42,439
Speaker 1: you know, we we have We're kind of really similar

1419
01:21:42,479 --> 01:21:45,280
Speaker 1: people in a lot of ways, and I just you know,

1420
01:21:45,640 --> 01:21:48,519
Speaker 1: sometimes you just strike it off with people, and you know,

1421
01:21:48,600 --> 01:21:51,519
Speaker 1: with Ed um when he was married to Cindy. You know,

1422
01:21:51,600 --> 01:21:53,519
Speaker 1: we used to get together when I come to Los Angeles,

1423
01:21:53,720 --> 01:21:56,599
Speaker 1: you know, for business whatever I had to do. Um,

1424
01:21:56,720 --> 01:21:58,960
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't think we've probably had dinners

1425
01:21:59,000 --> 01:22:02,240
Speaker 1: together more than I don't know, ten or fifteen times.

1426
01:22:03,080 --> 01:22:05,960
Speaker 1: But you know, we keep in touch. You know, there's

1427
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:08,240
Speaker 1: a few other people who are real high profile. I'm

1428
01:22:08,240 --> 01:22:10,760
Speaker 1: not big into name dropping, but you know that I

1429
01:22:10,920 --> 01:22:13,280
Speaker 1: that I stay in touch with largely because they reach

1430
01:22:13,320 --> 01:22:16,520
Speaker 1: out to me from time to time. How about politicians,

1431
01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:21,439
Speaker 1: same story, Yeah, yeah, I mean Bernie was on my

1432
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:26,400
Speaker 1: show every Friday for eleven years, and uh, you know

1433
01:22:26,479 --> 01:22:29,000
Speaker 1: I got to know him well as a consequence of that,

1434
01:22:29,040 --> 01:22:31,839
Speaker 1: but we were never social friends. Bernie is all about business,

1435
01:22:32,000 --> 01:22:35,160
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, and God blessing for it's I think

1436
01:22:35,240 --> 01:22:39,559
Speaker 1: it makes him effective right now. Ro'canna and Mark pokaner

1437
01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:43,000
Speaker 1: on my show regularly. They you know, we have conversations

1438
01:22:43,000 --> 01:22:45,280
Speaker 1: and email from time to time, but you know we're

1439
01:22:45,280 --> 01:22:47,800
Speaker 1: not I'm not networking with them or nor are they

1440
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:51,840
Speaker 1: with me. I don't think. Um, we're all about the mission,

1441
01:22:51,880 --> 01:22:57,200
Speaker 1: as it were. Okay, so you do your show very frequently.

1442
01:22:57,680 --> 01:23:01,920
Speaker 1: You know who your audience is. Anybody who's in doing

1443
01:23:02,080 --> 01:23:06,639
Speaker 1: a performance that frequently tends to know what their audience wants.

1444
01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:10,240
Speaker 1: To what degree or you beholden, which I know is

1445
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:13,519
Speaker 1: a strong word to your audience, or to what degree

1446
01:23:13,600 --> 01:23:15,920
Speaker 1: do you say, Man, it's my show. I'm gonna do

1447
01:23:16,000 --> 01:23:19,240
Speaker 1: whatever I want. Where do you sit there going this

1448
01:23:19,439 --> 01:23:21,840
Speaker 1: maybe a little much from my audience or and then

1449
01:23:21,920 --> 01:23:24,639
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna want to hear this. Are you talking

1450
01:23:24,680 --> 01:23:27,880
Speaker 1: in terms of topics or are you talking in terms

1451
01:23:28,000 --> 01:23:34,679
Speaker 1: of you know, styles slash uh production. I'm talking topics.

1452
01:23:35,439 --> 01:23:39,720
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well you have I mean, you know, the

1453
01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:43,680
Speaker 1: basic rule of any any kind of media is never

1454
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:47,600
Speaker 1: violate your audiences expectations, or if you do, do so

1455
01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:50,800
Speaker 1: in a way that is ultimately satisfied with them. So

1456
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:54,080
Speaker 1: i'd say in that regard, you know, I'm i'm largely

1457
01:23:54,360 --> 01:23:57,879
Speaker 1: you know nine well over holding to my audience inasmuch

1458
01:23:57,960 --> 01:24:00,519
Speaker 1: as if I lose my audience, I'd have a show.

1459
01:24:01,680 --> 01:24:08,840
Speaker 1: Um that said, my audience is largely ah, thinking the

1460
01:24:08,920 --> 01:24:10,920
Speaker 1: same way I am. They're just looking to me for

1461
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:21,360
Speaker 1: data and entertainment, presumably, um and uh yeah, I mean

1462
01:24:21,400 --> 01:24:24,360
Speaker 1: there are times that I'll bring topics up. For example,

1463
01:24:24,479 --> 01:24:30,040
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fascinated by spirituality. I was really into spirituality

1464
01:24:30,080 --> 01:24:34,280
Speaker 1: when I was young. Um. I took acid when I

1465
01:24:34,400 --> 01:24:37,160
Speaker 1: was fifteen, and it changed my life. I mean it

1466
01:24:37,280 --> 01:24:41,160
Speaker 1: just And I got real into into this one particular

1467
01:24:41,320 --> 01:24:44,320
Speaker 1: church in my later teenage years in early twenties, and

1468
01:24:45,160 --> 01:24:51,040
Speaker 1: even got ordained in that church. I I just you know,

1469
01:24:51,080 --> 01:24:57,280
Speaker 1: I was into the esoteric philosophers, into um kind of

1470
01:24:57,600 --> 01:25:01,000
Speaker 1: New age stuff. I went through a aread of meditation,

1471
01:25:01,080 --> 01:25:04,599
Speaker 1: transcemental meditation. I still meditate, you know, I although now

1472
01:25:04,680 --> 01:25:10,519
Speaker 1: I use a uh near feedback headband to meditate. Um.

1473
01:25:11,439 --> 01:25:13,360
Speaker 1: But it's a big deal for me. It's a big topic.

1474
01:25:13,400 --> 01:25:15,559
Speaker 1: It's a big part of my life. I literally pray

1475
01:25:15,640 --> 01:25:19,160
Speaker 1: every morning. And you know, occasionally I'll go off and

1476
01:25:19,320 --> 01:25:22,800
Speaker 1: ran about that on the air, and in particular on

1477
01:25:22,920 --> 01:25:27,680
Speaker 1: my affection for Jesus's words in Matthew, you know, the

1478
01:25:27,800 --> 01:25:29,560
Speaker 1: parable of the sheets and the goats and the and

1479
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:33,400
Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount and uh. And I love

1480
01:25:33,479 --> 01:25:35,840
Speaker 1: it when, particularly when some conservative will call in and

1481
01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:41,479
Speaker 1: try to promote their vision of Christianity has been consistent

1482
01:25:41,600 --> 01:25:44,840
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump or something like that. And and I

1483
01:25:44,920 --> 01:25:47,080
Speaker 1: can I've read the Bible four times cover to cover

1484
01:25:47,200 --> 01:25:50,280
Speaker 1: I did it, frankly, as a way of getting to sleep.

1485
01:25:50,320 --> 01:25:52,360
Speaker 1: I've always had trouble sleeping my whole life. And I

1486
01:25:53,439 --> 01:25:56,000
Speaker 1: if you got these through the Bible in a year Bibles,

1487
01:25:56,040 --> 01:25:58,920
Speaker 1: you know where it's predivided into three sixty five slices

1488
01:25:59,640 --> 01:26:02,160
Speaker 1: and you read one every night. And I found that

1489
01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:03,680
Speaker 1: they just put me to sleep. I mean, you know,

1490
01:26:03,760 --> 01:26:06,960
Speaker 1: it's it's just perfect for me. It unwinds me. And

1491
01:26:07,040 --> 01:26:08,720
Speaker 1: so for four years in a row back in the

1492
01:26:08,920 --> 01:26:10,880
Speaker 1: in the in the eighties and the early eighties, I

1493
01:26:11,160 --> 01:26:14,000
Speaker 1: read the Bible cover to cover, so I can I

1494
01:26:14,080 --> 01:26:18,920
Speaker 1: can argue those things pretty effectively. Um. So you know

1495
01:26:19,120 --> 01:26:23,360
Speaker 1: that's not progressive talk radio at all, although I think

1496
01:26:23,439 --> 01:26:27,439
Speaker 1: Jesus was the original progressive so arguably it is, I suppose. Um.

1497
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:29,519
Speaker 1: You know, I don't talk very much about my drug

1498
01:26:29,600 --> 01:26:32,000
Speaker 1: experiences as a young person on the air, although I

1499
01:26:32,040 --> 01:26:34,800
Speaker 1: acknowledge them. I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I think,

1500
01:26:35,080 --> 01:26:37,400
Speaker 1: you know, it was a good thing for me. Um,

1501
01:26:37,640 --> 01:26:40,120
Speaker 1: but I'm not recommending it to anybody else who's certainly

1502
01:26:40,160 --> 01:26:44,200
Speaker 1: the age I was done. Um. So you know, I

1503
01:26:44,680 --> 01:26:46,760
Speaker 1: guess my answer is kind of wishy washing your bob.

1504
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:51,280
Speaker 1: But um, but I think that you have to keep

1505
01:26:51,320 --> 01:26:54,760
Speaker 1: your audience in mind. Certainly, it's not just you know,

1506
01:26:54,880 --> 01:26:56,760
Speaker 1: this isn't I don't have a radio show just so

1507
01:26:56,840 --> 01:26:58,960
Speaker 1: I can, you know, yell into the into the void.

1508
01:27:06,640 --> 01:27:09,080
Speaker 1: Let's go back to some of the issues. Let's talk

1509
01:27:09,160 --> 01:27:13,360
Speaker 1: about the war in Ukraine. Needless to say, many people

1510
01:27:13,479 --> 01:27:17,599
Speaker 1: thought that uh Putin in Russia would just run right

1511
01:27:17,680 --> 01:27:22,760
Speaker 1: over your Ukraine. That did not happen, however, And these

1512
01:27:22,840 --> 01:27:26,200
Speaker 1: scenes change every day, so it'll be a week before

1513
01:27:26,280 --> 01:27:29,599
Speaker 1: people will hear this, and you never know something major

1514
01:27:29,800 --> 01:27:34,679
Speaker 1: could happen. But I mean, is like Putin literally losing power.

1515
01:27:34,840 --> 01:27:37,280
Speaker 1: We saw how these things happen overnight, and there have

1516
01:27:37,360 --> 01:27:40,640
Speaker 1: been all these protests and he's conscripting people now. But

1517
01:27:42,479 --> 01:27:48,439
Speaker 1: Putin historically doesn't want to lose face. So relevant of

1518
01:27:48,720 --> 01:27:56,600
Speaker 1: Ukraine's cap capabilities and successes, one might say Putin is

1519
01:27:56,680 --> 01:27:59,400
Speaker 1: never gonna tuck his tail between his legs and say,

1520
01:27:59,479 --> 01:28:04,439
Speaker 1: I love, how does this play out? I don't know.

1521
01:28:04,680 --> 01:28:07,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very concerned about this. My my sense

1522
01:28:07,200 --> 01:28:11,240
Speaker 1: of it is that Putin, very much like every other

1523
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:18,360
Speaker 1: dictator run who runs on narcissism um, knows that if

1524
01:28:18,439 --> 01:28:21,040
Speaker 1: he loses or if he's seen as being weak. Basically,

1525
01:28:21,120 --> 01:28:23,120
Speaker 1: the thing that keeps him in power is that everybody's

1526
01:28:23,120 --> 01:28:25,759
Speaker 1: afraid of him, and that he's and that he's perceived

1527
01:28:25,760 --> 01:28:30,200
Speaker 1: as being essentially infallible. Um. This was the engine on

1528
01:28:30,240 --> 01:28:34,120
Speaker 1: which Mussolini ran, Hitler, ran Franco ran To, Terita ran

1529
01:28:34,560 --> 01:28:37,200
Speaker 1: are Towan is running right now. Um. I mean this,

1530
01:28:37,520 --> 01:28:40,640
Speaker 1: this is the dictator's playbook. Is You've got to have

1531
01:28:40,840 --> 01:28:42,680
Speaker 1: people afraid of you. You know, they can love you

1532
01:28:43,360 --> 01:28:45,640
Speaker 1: and respect you, but fearing you is the most important thing.

1533
01:28:46,200 --> 01:28:48,040
Speaker 1: And people only fear you if they see you as

1534
01:28:48,160 --> 01:28:53,880
Speaker 1: essentially omnipotent or or you know, unbeatable and so Putin

1535
01:28:53,960 --> 01:28:59,080
Speaker 1: I think has already passed the point where the image

1536
01:28:59,120 --> 01:29:04,320
Speaker 1: of him as as this uh invincible man on horseback,

1537
01:29:04,560 --> 01:29:08,680
Speaker 1: bear chested, has been shattered. And I don't think he's

1538
01:29:08,680 --> 01:29:12,439
Speaker 1: going to recover from this, whether his own government, you know,

1539
01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:15,920
Speaker 1: whether he's going to face a palace coup, whether he's

1540
01:29:15,960 --> 01:29:18,080
Speaker 1: going to decide okay, it's time to check out and

1541
01:29:18,120 --> 01:29:20,400
Speaker 1: I'm just going to retire to my datcha with by

1542
01:29:20,520 --> 01:29:24,960
Speaker 1: mistress and had a billion dollars, or whether something you know,

1543
01:29:25,080 --> 01:29:27,479
Speaker 1: far more terrible is going to happen to him, or

1544
01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:30,479
Speaker 1: whether he's gonna like Hitler did in his last days.

1545
01:29:30,520 --> 01:29:32,200
Speaker 1: I wrote an not bet about this. Actually a couple

1546
01:29:32,240 --> 01:29:35,920
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. Um a good friend of mine, a

1547
01:29:36,000 --> 01:29:38,439
Speaker 1: dear friend of mine, armand Lehman Arman and I m

1548
01:29:38,920 --> 01:29:41,040
Speaker 1: back when Louis and I own an ad agency. I

1549
01:29:41,360 --> 01:29:44,479
Speaker 1: used to travel the world teaching advertising and marketing in

1550
01:29:44,640 --> 01:29:48,200
Speaker 1: the travel industry, and Armand was doing that. We both

1551
01:29:48,280 --> 01:29:52,360
Speaker 1: worked with the same company. And uh, you know, we've

1552
01:29:52,520 --> 01:29:55,040
Speaker 1: probably been to twenty countries together and spent a lot

1553
01:29:55,080 --> 01:29:58,280
Speaker 1: of time on airplanes and hotels. And one day and

1554
01:29:58,439 --> 01:30:02,960
Speaker 1: Arman had this German accident. And he's about fifteen years

1555
01:30:03,000 --> 01:30:06,479
Speaker 1: older than me. And one day Armand uh It took

1556
01:30:06,520 --> 01:30:09,280
Speaker 1: me aside and said, I'm I think I'm thinking about

1557
01:30:09,320 --> 01:30:11,360
Speaker 1: it writing a book about my experience as a young person,

1558
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:12,639
Speaker 1: and I wanted to tell you about it. I haven't

1559
01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:15,200
Speaker 1: talked to anybody about it, So what is it? And

1560
01:30:15,240 --> 01:30:17,760
Speaker 1: he said, well, when I was sixteen years old, I

1561
01:30:17,920 --> 01:30:22,519
Speaker 1: was drafted into the Hitler Youth and it was and

1562
01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:25,640
Speaker 1: I was the courier who hand delivered the note to

1563
01:30:25,680 --> 01:30:29,080
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler that the war was lost. If you've seen

1564
01:30:29,120 --> 01:30:31,160
Speaker 1: the movie Downfall, that little kid who comes in, a

1565
01:30:31,200 --> 01:30:32,800
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kid who hand that was my friend

1566
01:30:32,920 --> 01:30:38,200
Speaker 1: Armand and and and and that began a whole brand

1567
01:30:38,240 --> 01:30:42,280
Speaker 1: new kind of conversation between arm and. Armand wrote his book.

1568
01:30:42,320 --> 01:30:44,240
Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon right now. It's called

1569
01:30:44,280 --> 01:30:49,160
Speaker 1: In Hitler's Bunker. And Armand has now passed away. But

1570
01:30:49,840 --> 01:30:53,280
Speaker 1: m Armand told me those stories of the Hitler's final days,

1571
01:30:53,479 --> 01:30:56,280
Speaker 1: and that Hitler in the you know, when it became

1572
01:30:56,360 --> 01:30:58,320
Speaker 1: evident to him that he was losing maybe a few

1573
01:30:58,400 --> 01:31:01,560
Speaker 1: weeks or a few months out, he actually welcomed the

1574
01:31:01,640 --> 01:31:04,599
Speaker 1: Allied destruction of Germany. He felt that the German people

1575
01:31:04,640 --> 01:31:07,120
Speaker 1: had let him down. He at that point he hated

1576
01:31:07,160 --> 01:31:09,799
Speaker 1: the German people because they had failed him. He hated

1577
01:31:09,840 --> 01:31:12,880
Speaker 1: the German army because they had failed him. He had

1578
01:31:13,040 --> 01:31:16,760
Speaker 1: ordered his army to blow up Berlin. You know, at

1579
01:31:16,800 --> 01:31:19,760
Speaker 1: least a cording to army. I mean, I haven't checked

1580
01:31:19,800 --> 01:31:22,240
Speaker 1: this with history, although years you know, we lived in

1581
01:31:22,280 --> 01:31:24,439
Speaker 1: Germany for a year in the eighties, and I've read

1582
01:31:25,160 --> 01:31:27,160
Speaker 1: the Assurer's book The Rise and Fall the Third Reich.

1583
01:31:27,200 --> 01:31:30,360
Speaker 1: I just don't remember the details of that. But um,

1584
01:31:31,640 --> 01:31:35,240
Speaker 1: I'm concerned that Putin might have that same mentality of

1585
01:31:35,439 --> 01:31:37,479
Speaker 1: I'm going down in flames and I'm going to take

1586
01:31:37,560 --> 01:31:39,640
Speaker 1: somebody with me. You know, this is this is what

1587
01:31:39,800 --> 01:31:41,519
Speaker 1: you see with these people who go out and kill

1588
01:31:41,600 --> 01:31:43,519
Speaker 1: ten people and then commit suicide. I'm going to go

1589
01:31:43,600 --> 01:31:46,920
Speaker 1: out and blaze of glory. Um. You know the kid

1590
01:31:47,000 --> 01:31:49,760
Speaker 1: in Newtown. It's the same mentality. It's this, it's this

1591
01:31:50,040 --> 01:31:55,160
Speaker 1: deep psychopathic narcissism. And if Putin decides that he's going

1592
01:31:55,200 --> 01:31:57,120
Speaker 1: to go down in flames and bring a whole lot

1593
01:31:57,120 --> 01:31:59,600
Speaker 1: of people with him, that might mean nuclear war. And

1594
01:31:59,680 --> 01:32:01,960
Speaker 1: that's the thing that makes that wakes me up at night.

1595
01:32:02,040 --> 01:32:06,840
Speaker 1: That's the thing that concerns me the most. Okay, recently

1596
01:32:07,280 --> 01:32:12,160
Speaker 1: there have been elections and the right made as they

1597
01:32:12,640 --> 01:32:15,680
Speaker 1: used the term populus, which many people used to think

1598
01:32:15,760 --> 01:32:17,800
Speaker 1: was a left term. It is now certainly a right

1599
01:32:17,840 --> 01:32:22,400
Speaker 1: wing term. In Sweden, they've made progress. In Italy they

1600
01:32:22,520 --> 01:32:25,960
Speaker 1: made progress. They're threatening in France. Certainly, we have our

1601
01:32:26,000 --> 01:32:30,840
Speaker 1: own situation in America. What do you think explains this?

1602
01:32:32,120 --> 01:32:34,160
Speaker 1: And are we going to come out the other side?

1603
01:32:34,280 --> 01:32:40,080
Speaker 1: Never mind Orbon and Hungary, but what's happening here? Well,

1604
01:32:40,120 --> 01:32:43,240
Speaker 1: I think actually Orbon and Hungry is instructive because Orbon

1605
01:32:43,520 --> 01:32:46,200
Speaker 1: built his political empire. I was in Hungary the the

1606
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:50,320
Speaker 1: year that Orbon came to power. Um Orbon built his

1607
01:32:50,400 --> 01:32:54,280
Speaker 1: political empire on trashing brown Skian immigrants coming to Hungary.

1608
01:32:54,880 --> 01:32:58,479
Speaker 1: His slogan was, you know, build the wall, make Hungary

1609
01:32:58,560 --> 01:33:00,960
Speaker 1: great again, and a campaign down building a wall on

1610
01:33:01,000 --> 01:33:03,000
Speaker 1: the southern border to keep up the Syrian refugees. And

1611
01:33:03,080 --> 01:33:05,200
Speaker 1: by the way, he did, he built that wall and

1612
01:33:05,280 --> 01:33:09,880
Speaker 1: it's heavily militarized right now. So uh, I think you

1613
01:33:09,960 --> 01:33:13,920
Speaker 1: know the like for example, about Sweden, most people don't realize. Um,

1614
01:33:14,439 --> 01:33:17,479
Speaker 1: just day before yesterday there were three bombings in Sweden.

1615
01:33:18,439 --> 01:33:21,280
Speaker 1: That's there have been more than five hundred bombings now

1616
01:33:21,479 --> 01:33:23,880
Speaker 1: in Sweden in the last in the last five years.

1617
01:33:24,520 --> 01:33:28,200
Speaker 1: It is a crisis in Sweden. And almost and and

1618
01:33:28,479 --> 01:33:31,160
Speaker 1: and shooting. Sweden now has more shootings than any other

1619
01:33:31,200 --> 01:33:33,920
Speaker 1: country in Europe. And almost all of this is coming

1620
01:33:34,040 --> 01:33:37,599
Speaker 1: out of the immigrant community that was welcomed when when

1621
01:33:37,880 --> 01:33:41,720
Speaker 1: you know, the Arab spring happened and then you know, uh,

1622
01:33:42,240 --> 01:33:45,320
Speaker 1: what's his name, bushsher Al Assad was you know, well,

1623
01:33:45,320 --> 01:33:48,840
Speaker 1: actually what started the whole thing was climate change drove

1624
01:33:48,880 --> 01:33:51,720
Speaker 1: all these farmers off their land in northern Syria. They

1625
01:33:51,760 --> 01:33:55,680
Speaker 1: came into Damascus, started demanding food, assad started shooting at them.

1626
01:33:55,880 --> 01:33:57,640
Speaker 1: Suddenly you've got a civil war, and now you've got

1627
01:33:57,680 --> 01:34:01,360
Speaker 1: this refugee crisis going into Europe. The ability of a

1628
01:34:01,520 --> 01:34:06,360
Speaker 1: society to absorb people who are not recognizable by other

1629
01:34:06,439 --> 01:34:09,120
Speaker 1: people in that society, either because of how they look,

1630
01:34:09,360 --> 01:34:11,760
Speaker 1: or how they speak, or or how they how they

1631
01:34:11,920 --> 01:34:15,920
Speaker 1: dress and live is limited. I mean, there's been a

1632
01:34:16,080 --> 01:34:18,639
Speaker 1: lot of good research on this. You know, a society

1633
01:34:18,680 --> 01:34:21,679
Speaker 1: can absorb one or two percent a year of people

1634
01:34:21,720 --> 01:34:25,200
Speaker 1: who are quote not part of the society and integrate

1635
01:34:25,280 --> 01:34:28,000
Speaker 1: them into the society. But when you start absorbing three,

1636
01:34:28,160 --> 01:34:31,760
Speaker 1: four or five, the society starts to reject that that

1637
01:34:31,920 --> 01:34:35,160
Speaker 1: you get this backlash, and that backlash takes the form

1638
01:34:35,200 --> 01:34:38,080
Speaker 1: of what looks like racism, and in many cases it

1639
01:34:38,240 --> 01:34:41,160
Speaker 1: is it's just playing all avert racism or xenophobia. But

1640
01:34:41,520 --> 01:34:43,400
Speaker 1: you know, it might not have been there had there

1641
01:34:43,479 --> 01:34:45,400
Speaker 1: not been or it might not have been taking that

1642
01:34:45,560 --> 01:34:49,519
Speaker 1: form had there not been that that influx of new people.

1643
01:34:50,400 --> 01:34:54,120
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we're any in close to

1644
01:34:54,280 --> 01:34:57,120
Speaker 1: those kinds of threshold numbers here in the United States

1645
01:34:57,160 --> 01:35:00,280
Speaker 1: of refugees and migrants. But Fox News and the right

1646
01:35:00,360 --> 01:35:02,680
Speaker 1: are doing their best to try to convince people that

1647
01:35:02,800 --> 01:35:05,920
Speaker 1: were at that point. You know, there's a caravan coming right.

1648
01:35:06,000 --> 01:35:10,479
Speaker 1: Every election, every two years, there's a border crisis because

1649
01:35:10,560 --> 01:35:12,600
Speaker 1: it will stir up you know, fear and hate, and

1650
01:35:12,720 --> 01:35:15,120
Speaker 1: fear and hate are great motivators to get people to

1651
01:35:15,200 --> 01:35:19,000
Speaker 1: the to the to the polls. So I think that

1652
01:35:19,120 --> 01:35:23,760
Speaker 1: there is um a crisis that has to do with

1653
01:35:23,920 --> 01:35:28,760
Speaker 1: this issue, this immigration issue um or the refugee issue.

1654
01:35:28,800 --> 01:35:30,040
Speaker 1: I think it's going to get a hell of a

1655
01:35:30,120 --> 01:35:33,879
Speaker 1: lot worse over the next five years as climate change continues.

1656
01:35:33,880 --> 01:35:36,360
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing Guatemalan refugees on our southern border

1657
01:35:36,439 --> 01:35:39,519
Speaker 1: because you know, a measurable and significant percentage of that

1658
01:35:39,600 --> 01:35:42,360
Speaker 1: country has desertified in the last decade, has turned in

1659
01:35:42,680 --> 01:35:46,120
Speaker 1: from farmland into desert because of climate change, and people

1660
01:35:46,160 --> 01:35:48,439
Speaker 1: are being pushed off subsistence farms and there's no place

1661
01:35:48,479 --> 01:35:49,720
Speaker 1: to go, and they go into the cities, and the

1662
01:35:49,760 --> 01:35:51,599
Speaker 1: gangs just you know, make mins need out of them,

1663
01:35:51,920 --> 01:35:53,600
Speaker 1: and so they flee to the United States or they

1664
01:35:53,640 --> 01:35:56,479
Speaker 1: flee into Mexico. Mexico is dealing with a huge influx

1665
01:35:56,560 --> 01:36:01,280
Speaker 1: of crisis level influx of migrants from Central America. So

1666
01:36:02,920 --> 01:36:04,680
Speaker 1: I think that this is this is going to be

1667
01:36:05,080 --> 01:36:08,559
Speaker 1: a longstanding issue, in a longstanding crisis. I don't see

1668
01:36:08,600 --> 01:36:12,720
Speaker 1: any easy solutions to it. It fractures societies, and it

1669
01:36:13,479 --> 01:36:17,800
Speaker 1: plays into right wing narratives and stimulates because it frightens people,

1670
01:36:18,400 --> 01:36:22,880
Speaker 1: it stimulates uh, you know, right wing political movements which

1671
01:36:22,920 --> 01:36:27,200
Speaker 1: are typically based on fear or on hate and uh

1672
01:36:27,760 --> 01:36:30,200
Speaker 1: and and very often hands victories to right wing movements

1673
01:36:30,200 --> 01:36:36,840
Speaker 1: as it just didn't sweep. Okay, the Republicans are all

1674
01:36:36,960 --> 01:36:39,840
Speaker 1: on the same page. They line up. We certainly have

1675
01:36:40,000 --> 01:36:43,120
Speaker 1: seen this with Trump. People said Trump was the worst

1676
01:36:43,240 --> 01:36:46,720
Speaker 1: and then cow tow to him. Democrats they say, it's

1677
01:36:46,760 --> 01:36:53,560
Speaker 1: a big tent. So we have a president who is

1678
01:36:53,720 --> 01:36:59,479
Speaker 1: essentially eighty okay, uh, not even a boomer pre boomer.

1679
01:37:00,000 --> 01:37:03,479
Speaker 1: And on the other extreme we have someone like AOC. Now,

1680
01:37:03,560 --> 01:37:06,240
Speaker 1: of course we have to look at AOC is elected

1681
01:37:06,280 --> 01:37:09,519
Speaker 1: as a representative in a district in the state of

1682
01:37:09,640 --> 01:37:13,439
Speaker 1: New York. But she is very verbal and vocal. In

1683
01:37:13,560 --> 01:37:17,559
Speaker 1: the last major election cycle, she said, if you leave

1684
01:37:17,640 --> 01:37:21,719
Speaker 1: me in control, I know how to deal with the Internet.

1685
01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:26,800
Speaker 1: I know how to stimulate the younger generations to vote. Now,

1686
01:37:26,920 --> 01:37:30,960
Speaker 1: not all the examples were in her favor. What do

1687
01:37:31,080 --> 01:37:34,320
Speaker 1: you tell because we have traditional Democrats, as I mentioned earlier,

1688
01:37:34,439 --> 01:37:37,880
Speaker 1: Schumer and Pelosi, who are trying to go to the center,

1689
01:37:37,960 --> 01:37:41,880
Speaker 1: and the narrative created wherever is you must run to

1690
01:37:41,960 --> 01:37:45,479
Speaker 1: the center. Never mind, the center is further right than

1691
01:37:45,560 --> 01:37:50,559
Speaker 1: it's been in our lifetimes. But do we follow AOC

1692
01:37:51,040 --> 01:37:53,120
Speaker 1: is it about the youth? Do we move to the

1693
01:37:53,240 --> 01:37:57,799
Speaker 1: center or what are your thoughts? I think it's important

1694
01:37:57,840 --> 01:38:01,040
Speaker 1: to do both. I think that we have to acknowledge

1695
01:38:01,200 --> 01:38:04,400
Speaker 1: that there are people in what might be called the

1696
01:38:04,439 --> 01:38:09,880
Speaker 1: middle who are concerned about crime, who are dealing with homelessness.

1697
01:38:09,920 --> 01:38:12,040
Speaker 1: I mean, we're certainly we've got this problem here in

1698
01:38:12,080 --> 01:38:16,040
Speaker 1: Portland right now, and it's it's radicalizing the city. Um,

1699
01:38:16,520 --> 01:38:19,719
Speaker 1: the homeless crisis and which has become now a crime crisis.

1700
01:38:20,760 --> 01:38:22,400
Speaker 1: I've even seen it. You know, we had homeless people

1701
01:38:22,400 --> 01:38:27,000
Speaker 1: try to break into our house. Um, this is something

1702
01:38:27,120 --> 01:38:29,560
Speaker 1: that you can't deal with with slogans. You've got to

1703
01:38:29,600 --> 01:38:34,240
Speaker 1: deal with policy. And and that policy isn't oh, you

1704
01:38:34,320 --> 01:38:37,439
Speaker 1: know you poor people were going to uh, We're gonna

1705
01:38:37,520 --> 01:38:42,080
Speaker 1: let you do whatever you want. Um, which could be

1706
01:38:42,400 --> 01:38:45,280
Speaker 1: perceived by some people as kind of a right wing position.

1707
01:38:45,320 --> 01:38:48,280
Speaker 1: I think it's a little more pragmatic. Um. And I'm

1708
01:38:48,320 --> 01:38:52,000
Speaker 1: not offering specific policy instructions here other than to say,

1709
01:38:52,120 --> 01:38:54,800
Speaker 1: it's just you can't have people camping on the streets

1710
01:38:54,840 --> 01:38:57,400
Speaker 1: of cities. UM. So we've got to come up with

1711
01:38:57,479 --> 01:38:59,800
Speaker 1: something better than that. But there are people out there,

1712
01:39:00,200 --> 01:39:03,800
Speaker 1: oh no, no, almost rights, right, And I agree almost

1713
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:06,080
Speaker 1: people should have rights, but not to camp in the

1714
01:39:06,160 --> 01:39:09,479
Speaker 1: city or in the streets of the city, and and

1715
01:39:09,760 --> 01:39:14,800
Speaker 1: and crap them on the curb. So you know, that's

1716
01:39:14,920 --> 01:39:17,720
Speaker 1: that's about as far right as I But you know,

1717
01:39:17,800 --> 01:39:21,000
Speaker 1: we have to acknowledge that, um, and and that you know,

1718
01:39:21,479 --> 01:39:23,479
Speaker 1: there are those kinds of concerns. And then on the

1719
01:39:23,560 --> 01:39:26,720
Speaker 1: other h on, you know, on the left, I think

1720
01:39:26,800 --> 01:39:32,760
Speaker 1: that um, you know, issues of civil rights and women's rights,

1721
01:39:32,960 --> 01:39:36,519
Speaker 1: human rights, I think right across the board. Uh, I

1722
01:39:36,600 --> 01:39:42,120
Speaker 1: think broadly speaking, often these are winning subjects. The Republicans

1723
01:39:42,160 --> 01:39:45,759
Speaker 1: have found little niches that they can amplify into great

1724
01:39:45,800 --> 01:39:49,880
Speaker 1: big things. Um. You know, so called critical race theory um,

1725
01:39:50,640 --> 01:39:54,000
Speaker 1: which just got blown all out of proportion. Um. The

1726
01:39:54,240 --> 01:39:57,560
Speaker 1: very very small number of trans kids who want to

1727
01:39:57,680 --> 01:40:01,720
Speaker 1: compete in girls sports, trans you know, trans girls who

1728
01:40:01,760 --> 01:40:05,160
Speaker 1: want to compete in girls sports. Um, that they're exploiting.

1729
01:40:06,080 --> 01:40:11,719
Speaker 1: And I would not argue that the Democratic Party should

1730
01:40:11,720 --> 01:40:14,519
Speaker 1: put those issues front and center. They still need to

1731
01:40:14,520 --> 01:40:18,000
Speaker 1: stand up for the rights of those people. But you know,

1732
01:40:18,080 --> 01:40:20,280
Speaker 1: the Republicans are going to be campaigning on those things,

1733
01:40:20,400 --> 01:40:21,840
Speaker 1: so you know, we have to figure out how to

1734
01:40:21,880 --> 01:40:26,080
Speaker 1: deal with that. I don't see easy answers, Bob. I.

1735
01:40:26,160 --> 01:40:31,759
Speaker 1: I think that Alexander Cassio Cortez is is her generations Bernie,

1736
01:40:32,479 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 1: and she's going to go a long, long way, and

1737
01:40:34,320 --> 01:40:36,080
Speaker 1: she's got a lot of good people with her, you know,

1738
01:40:36,160 --> 01:40:39,400
Speaker 1: the other members of Congress squad um. But there's others

1739
01:40:39,400 --> 01:40:43,080
Speaker 1: in addition to that. But you know, there's also you know,

1740
01:40:43,160 --> 01:40:45,360
Speaker 1: you've got Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and some you know,

1741
01:40:45,479 --> 01:40:48,760
Speaker 1: some very older people, people their sixties and seventies who

1742
01:40:49,000 --> 01:40:50,920
Speaker 1: also have, you know, things to say and things to

1743
01:40:50,960 --> 01:40:55,400
Speaker 1: contribute to the conversation that are not inconsistent or incompatible. UM.

1744
01:40:56,600 --> 01:40:59,120
Speaker 1: I'm very pleased that the Democratic Party seems to be

1745
01:40:59,200 --> 01:41:03,719
Speaker 1: coalescing around basically four issues around abortion, guns, the environment,

1746
01:41:04,200 --> 01:41:07,040
Speaker 1: and the threat to democracy that the Republican Party represents.

1747
01:41:07,560 --> 01:41:10,559
Speaker 1: I think those are winning issues that from the far

1748
01:41:10,760 --> 01:41:14,080
Speaker 1: left within the Democratic Party to the to the neoliberal

1749
01:41:14,240 --> 01:41:17,360
Speaker 1: right within the Democratic Party. The Josh Gottheimer's and the

1750
01:41:17,439 --> 01:41:22,200
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Um, there's a there's an agreement, a spectrum

1751
01:41:22,200 --> 01:41:27,120
Speaker 1: of agreement, and and that's a good thing. Okay. I'm

1752
01:41:27,160 --> 01:41:32,040
Speaker 1: someone who voting absolutely every election, although I've had some

1753
01:41:32,280 --> 01:41:36,719
Speaker 1: hope with recent events. Certainly we have this Kennon decision

1754
01:41:36,800 --> 01:41:39,479
Speaker 1: that was just overturned by an appeals court. Two of

1755
01:41:39,520 --> 01:41:44,320
Speaker 1: the judge were Trump appointees. But we know the Supreme Court.

1756
01:41:44,880 --> 01:41:48,840
Speaker 1: I'll make it very mild leans, right, So what do

1757
01:41:49,000 --> 01:41:53,840
Speaker 1: we know? The Republicans are willing to do things. It's

1758
01:41:53,920 --> 01:41:58,000
Speaker 1: so far the Democrats have not. So if you undermine

1759
01:41:58,040 --> 01:42:04,240
Speaker 1: the system, it is hard to succeed. Why should I

1760
01:42:04,360 --> 01:42:06,920
Speaker 1: have hope? You know, we talked about this little bit,

1761
01:42:06,920 --> 01:42:10,560
Speaker 1: you know. You know, I look at this. The electoral

1762
01:42:10,760 --> 01:42:14,639
Speaker 1: power is balanced to the advantage of right. The Senate

1763
01:42:14,800 --> 01:42:18,560
Speaker 1: is balanced to the advantage of right. Never mind jerrymandery,

1764
01:42:18,560 --> 01:42:20,679
Speaker 1: and I want to go deep into that. Look what's

1765
01:42:20,680 --> 01:42:26,400
Speaker 1: happening in North Carolina. Look at the ultimate arbiter is biased,

1766
01:42:27,439 --> 01:42:32,439
Speaker 1: you know. And all I hear from politicians is vote, vote, vote,

1767
01:42:33,280 --> 01:42:36,240
Speaker 1: And it's hard for me to get excited about that.

1768
01:42:36,560 --> 01:42:38,679
Speaker 1: You know, I just don't see it that way. That's enough.

1769
01:42:40,320 --> 01:42:43,560
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where your question is. My question is

1770
01:42:43,640 --> 01:42:46,360
Speaker 1: to those of us who've been in the system for

1771
01:42:46,439 --> 01:42:51,120
Speaker 1: a long time and the young people, how do we

1772
01:42:51,240 --> 01:42:57,439
Speaker 1: have hope that there's gonna be systemic change? Oh? Yeah, well,

1773
01:42:57,560 --> 01:43:00,599
Speaker 1: I I am hopeful that the Democrats. I I thought

1774
01:43:00,640 --> 01:43:03,640
Speaker 1: that the Chuck Schumer should have blown up the filibuster

1775
01:43:03,760 --> 01:43:06,040
Speaker 1: on day one. There's been so much good legislation that

1776
01:43:06,120 --> 01:43:09,000
Speaker 1: came out of the House that could have passed the Senate. Um,

1777
01:43:10,720 --> 01:43:13,040
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has been a big disappointment in many ways.

1778
01:43:13,240 --> 01:43:15,720
Speaker 1: Now that said, he's running the Senate and I'm not.

1779
01:43:16,479 --> 01:43:19,240
Speaker 1: And I'm willing to assume that he knows things I

1780
01:43:19,320 --> 01:43:26,120
Speaker 1: don't know. But UM, I'll leave it at that. UM.

1781
01:43:28,439 --> 01:43:30,840
Speaker 1: I think that you either have faith in democracy or

1782
01:43:30,920 --> 01:43:33,400
Speaker 1: you don't. You either believe that in the end, the

1783
01:43:33,439 --> 01:43:36,439
Speaker 1: good guys you're gonna win, or you don't. And I'm

1784
01:43:36,600 --> 01:43:38,800
Speaker 1: just not willing, and I have never been willing in

1785
01:43:38,920 --> 01:43:42,479
Speaker 1: my life to embrace the level of cynicism necessary to

1786
01:43:42,600 --> 01:43:45,479
Speaker 1: say screw it. You know, we're doomed. It's not going

1787
01:43:45,520 --> 01:43:50,040
Speaker 1: to work. Um. I I realized that the Democratic Party

1788
01:43:50,120 --> 01:43:52,800
Speaker 1: moves slower than I would like. Um. You know I've

1789
01:43:52,840 --> 01:43:56,120
Speaker 1: been banging on their doors since uh two thousand three,

1790
01:43:56,160 --> 01:43:59,640
Speaker 1: on the radio and in print since the nineties. UM,

1791
01:44:00,720 --> 01:44:04,120
Speaker 1: railing about it. I used to, you know, beat up

1792
01:44:04,120 --> 01:44:06,920
Speaker 1: Harry Read on there all the time, make jokes about how,

1793
01:44:07,479 --> 01:44:10,640
Speaker 1: you know, they should steal Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is

1794
01:44:10,680 --> 01:44:13,800
Speaker 1: when Schwartzenerger was governor of California. How somebody should stand

1795
01:44:13,840 --> 01:44:19,280
Speaker 1: outside his house, you know every month when the testosterone

1796
01:44:19,320 --> 01:44:23,160
Speaker 1: mail delivery arrives and steal it and go shoot up

1797
01:44:23,200 --> 01:44:24,960
Speaker 1: Harry Read with it. You know, come on, Harry, get

1798
01:44:25,000 --> 01:44:27,920
Speaker 1: a spine, you know, fight back. Um. He was always

1799
01:44:27,960 --> 01:44:30,880
Speaker 1: so nice and so friendly and oh, we can't do that,

1800
01:44:31,200 --> 01:44:34,600
Speaker 1: and that would be too far. Um. Yeah, he was

1801
01:44:34,640 --> 01:44:37,439
Speaker 1: a good man in retrospect. And you know, I don't

1802
01:44:37,439 --> 01:44:42,040
Speaker 1: want to speak ill of the dead, but um, the

1803
01:44:42,160 --> 01:44:45,960
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has, all throughout my lifetime, has always been

1804
01:44:46,000 --> 01:44:48,479
Speaker 1: the party that says we're going to do things the

1805
01:44:48,600 --> 01:44:51,639
Speaker 1: right way, We're going to do things the appropriate way.

1806
01:44:51,720 --> 01:44:55,439
Speaker 1: We're going to do things, UM carefully and and and

1807
01:44:55,560 --> 01:44:58,600
Speaker 1: in so many cases slowly, to make sure that the

1808
01:44:58,720 --> 01:45:00,760
Speaker 1: outcome is strong and all it and that there's a

1809
01:45:00,840 --> 01:45:03,519
Speaker 1: consensus around this. We're not just going to grab power

1810
01:45:03,840 --> 01:45:07,080
Speaker 1: for the sake of power. The Republican Party is pursuing

1811
01:45:07,160 --> 01:45:09,320
Speaker 1: that ladder, grab power for the sake of power and

1812
01:45:09,400 --> 01:45:13,280
Speaker 1: get whatever you can done quickly. And now they've overreached,

1813
01:45:13,640 --> 01:45:16,160
Speaker 1: you know, particularly with abortion, but I think they've overreached

1814
01:45:16,600 --> 01:45:19,320
Speaker 1: frankly with neoliberalism as well over the last forty years,

1815
01:45:19,400 --> 01:45:23,080
Speaker 1: although Democrats have their fingerprints all over that too, and

1816
01:45:23,880 --> 01:45:25,880
Speaker 1: um and I think it's going to blow up in

1817
01:45:25,920 --> 01:45:28,679
Speaker 1: their face. I don't know if it's going to blow

1818
01:45:28,720 --> 01:45:30,800
Speaker 1: up in their face in this election or over the

1819
01:45:30,920 --> 01:45:34,479
Speaker 1: next few years. But I really think that the era

1820
01:45:34,880 --> 01:45:39,519
Speaker 1: of Republican dominance of American politics, or more appropriately to

1821
01:45:39,560 --> 01:45:43,760
Speaker 1: say conservative dominance and now neo fascist or as Biden

1822
01:45:43,840 --> 01:45:46,519
Speaker 1: was say, semi fascist dominance of our of our politics.

1823
01:45:47,040 --> 01:45:49,479
Speaker 1: I really think that's over. I think there's something to

1824
01:45:49,560 --> 01:45:51,960
Speaker 1: be said for you know, Stanley church In's notion of

1825
01:45:52,080 --> 01:45:56,400
Speaker 1: these forty year cycles within the context of Strausson House

1826
01:45:56,520 --> 01:45:59,439
Speaker 1: eighty year cycles in politics, and I think that we're

1827
01:45:59,479 --> 01:46:01,880
Speaker 1: at the end of a forty year conservative cycle and

1828
01:46:02,320 --> 01:46:08,519
Speaker 1: we're going into our beginning a far more progressive cycle. Okay,

1829
01:46:09,000 --> 01:46:12,160
Speaker 1: Biden gets an office, first six ten months are great.

1830
01:46:13,040 --> 01:46:17,160
Speaker 1: Then the works are gummed up and the approval ratings

1831
01:46:17,240 --> 01:46:21,320
Speaker 1: go down, and his whole party does not rally around him.

1832
01:46:21,360 --> 01:46:23,920
Speaker 1: The right has been on this program from the beginning.

1833
01:46:24,080 --> 01:46:27,840
Speaker 1: He's old, he's senile, all this other stuff. The left

1834
01:46:28,040 --> 01:46:33,480
Speaker 1: was silent. And now two years later, Biden has some victories,

1835
01:46:33,960 --> 01:46:37,000
Speaker 1: his numbers are going up, but the people in Washington

1836
01:46:37,160 --> 01:46:40,840
Speaker 1: are still not supporting him vocally. What do you think

1837
01:46:41,000 --> 01:46:44,040
Speaker 1: is happening here? I've been hearing a fair amount of

1838
01:46:44,080 --> 01:46:48,040
Speaker 1: support for Biden, you know, recently, particularly going into the election.

1839
01:46:48,479 --> 01:46:50,800
Speaker 1: Maybe some of its pro forma, but but I think,

1840
01:46:51,120 --> 01:46:54,960
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of it is it's Sincere Um. Yeah,

1841
01:46:55,080 --> 01:46:58,120
Speaker 1: when he when he couldn't Yeah, you know, I think

1842
01:46:58,400 --> 01:47:00,080
Speaker 1: I was piste off about this. I think at the

1843
01:47:00,120 --> 01:47:04,560
Speaker 1: Democrats were when he couldn't get um Joe Mansion and

1844
01:47:05,040 --> 01:47:08,840
Speaker 1: Kristen Cinema to go along with freaking voting rights for

1845
01:47:08,960 --> 01:47:13,439
Speaker 1: God's sake. Um, you know, at that point, I just

1846
01:47:13,479 --> 01:47:16,639
Speaker 1: can't imagine Lyndon Johnson doing that as president or as

1847
01:47:16,960 --> 01:47:19,679
Speaker 1: as in Chuck Schumer's position as leader of the Senate,

1848
01:47:19,720 --> 01:47:22,360
Speaker 1: the Democrats in the Senate. I mean, you know, Lynnon

1849
01:47:22,439 --> 01:47:25,519
Speaker 1: Johnson would have gone in there and and picked picked

1850
01:47:25,920 --> 01:47:28,960
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion up by the by the throat and slammed

1851
01:47:29,000 --> 01:47:31,479
Speaker 1: him up against the wall and said, okay, buddy, here's

1852
01:47:31,520 --> 01:47:33,000
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do for me, And here's what I'm

1853
01:47:33,000 --> 01:47:35,760
Speaker 1: gonna do for you, and no, and advanced. You know

1854
01:47:35,880 --> 01:47:37,400
Speaker 1: what he was gonna what he was. You know, you're

1855
01:47:37,400 --> 01:47:40,080
Speaker 1: gonna get a bridge named after you and a brand

1856
01:47:40,120 --> 01:47:43,479
Speaker 1: new power plant, and you're gonna give me this goddamn bill.

1857
01:47:43,600 --> 01:47:45,720
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that That's what Lyndon Johnson would

1858
01:47:45,720 --> 01:47:50,439
Speaker 1: have done. And and Frankly, that's what Franklin Roosevelt. And uh,

1859
01:47:50,560 --> 01:47:52,439
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of us who would very

1860
01:47:52,520 --> 01:47:55,120
Speaker 1: much like Joe Biden like that and a Chuck Schumer

1861
01:47:55,240 --> 01:47:56,760
Speaker 1: like that, but that's not how these guys are whired.

1862
01:47:57,400 --> 01:48:01,080
Speaker 1: So you know, we've got what we've got. I guess, okay,

1863
01:48:01,160 --> 01:48:05,160
Speaker 1: let's talk about Newsom. I live in California. I've certainly

1864
01:48:05,320 --> 01:48:08,680
Speaker 1: met him. Thought he was an empty suit. I mean,

1865
01:48:08,760 --> 01:48:11,639
Speaker 1: I you know, like my grandmother would be fine if

1866
01:48:11,800 --> 01:48:15,400
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was president forever. I felt that Jerry Brown could

1867
01:48:15,479 --> 01:48:17,639
Speaker 1: run the state forever, but needle to say the law

1868
01:48:17,760 --> 01:48:21,960
Speaker 1: does not allow him to. However, Ever, since the incident

1869
01:48:22,080 --> 01:48:25,760
Speaker 1: during uh lockdown when he went to the restaurant and

1870
01:48:25,800 --> 01:48:29,600
Speaker 1: a couple of other faux paws, he has become very aggressive,

1871
01:48:29,800 --> 01:48:33,120
Speaker 1: not only in his own state but with deciantis, etcetera.

1872
01:48:34,280 --> 01:48:36,519
Speaker 1: This is sort of a three part question or as

1873
01:48:36,560 --> 01:48:39,720
Speaker 1: many parts I'm gonna whip out here. Is Biden gonna run?

1874
01:48:40,560 --> 01:48:44,240
Speaker 1: Could Newsom win? And his Newsom the of the candidate.

1875
01:48:46,520 --> 01:48:50,080
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the Biden is not going to run just

1876
01:48:50,200 --> 01:48:53,600
Speaker 1: because of his age. O. Wait, so that's but that

1877
01:48:53,800 --> 01:48:56,559
Speaker 1: is your belief that he's not going to run. That's

1878
01:48:56,640 --> 01:48:59,240
Speaker 1: my belief. I mean, I don't talk about it much

1879
01:48:59,280 --> 01:49:02,360
Speaker 1: on the air because I know that once a president,

1880
01:49:03,400 --> 01:49:05,479
Speaker 1: once it's clear that the president is not going to run,

1881
01:49:05,520 --> 01:49:08,639
Speaker 1: he starts losing power and becomes lame duck. And that's

1882
01:49:08,680 --> 01:49:10,960
Speaker 1: why Biden's not going to acknowledge that. But I'd be

1883
01:49:11,040 --> 01:49:14,599
Speaker 1: surprised if he runs again. And I think his age

1884
01:49:14,600 --> 01:49:19,080
Speaker 1: would be a a problem for him if he runs again. Um,

1885
01:49:19,360 --> 01:49:22,560
Speaker 1: with regard to Newsom, I you know, whether he is

1886
01:49:22,960 --> 01:49:27,160
Speaker 1: the kind of Justin Trudeau, of of of the United States,

1887
01:49:27,520 --> 01:49:30,479
Speaker 1: because there's been a lot of comparisons there. Um. You know,

1888
01:49:30,560 --> 01:49:32,400
Speaker 1: time will tell I don't live in California, so I

1889
01:49:32,400 --> 01:49:35,040
Speaker 1: don't know him as well as you know I know,

1890
01:49:35,160 --> 01:49:38,080
Speaker 1: for example, politicians in Oregon. And I'm not talking about

1891
01:49:38,120 --> 01:49:40,120
Speaker 1: personally knowing, but just you know in the in my

1892
01:49:40,280 --> 01:49:44,400
Speaker 1: newspaper every day. Um. But the thing that I Knewsom

1893
01:49:44,439 --> 01:49:47,840
Speaker 1: has figured out, which I think is brilliant. Uh. And

1894
01:49:48,040 --> 01:49:51,080
Speaker 1: and it's you know, something that most good politicians know

1895
01:49:52,120 --> 01:49:56,920
Speaker 1: is that it is a lesson that I learned when

1896
01:49:57,000 --> 01:50:00,240
Speaker 1: I wanted to write novels. I've written probably seven or

1897
01:50:00,280 --> 01:50:02,240
Speaker 1: eight now was two and more published. They're just terrible.

1898
01:50:02,240 --> 01:50:06,880
Speaker 1: I'm a lousy fiction writer. But um, I attended a

1899
01:50:06,920 --> 01:50:10,479
Speaker 1: workshop in Hawaii back in the seventies on how to

1900
01:50:10,520 --> 01:50:14,360
Speaker 1: write novels. And this this famous New York Times bestselling

1901
01:50:14,400 --> 01:50:19,240
Speaker 1: novelist got up and he said, your hero is not

1902
01:50:19,479 --> 01:50:22,320
Speaker 1: the most important character in your book. Your hero is

1903
01:50:22,360 --> 01:50:23,920
Speaker 1: not where you need to spend most of the time.

1904
01:50:24,040 --> 01:50:26,200
Speaker 1: And this is the biggest mistake that people make, is

1905
01:50:26,240 --> 01:50:28,960
Speaker 1: spending all their time on their hero. He said, Uh,

1906
01:50:29,800 --> 01:50:32,400
Speaker 1: your hero is only as good as your anti hero.

1907
01:50:33,360 --> 01:50:36,120
Speaker 1: You're good guy can only be as good as your

1908
01:50:36,160 --> 01:50:38,360
Speaker 1: bad guy, and the goodness of your good guy is

1909
01:50:38,520 --> 01:50:42,720
Speaker 1: literally defined by your bad guy. Clarice, you know, in

1910
01:50:42,760 --> 01:50:45,720
Speaker 1: the FBI would have been just another FBI agent if

1911
01:50:45,760 --> 01:50:49,120
Speaker 1: it wasn't for Hannibal lector Superman would have just been

1912
01:50:49,160 --> 01:50:51,960
Speaker 1: a guy who stops robberies at the seven eleven, if

1913
01:50:52,000 --> 01:50:55,599
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the Joker, or you know, you filling

1914
01:50:55,640 --> 01:50:59,519
Speaker 1: the the anti anti hero. So the you know, and

1915
01:50:59,600 --> 01:51:02,479
Speaker 1: this this is true in storytelling, but it's also true

1916
01:51:02,520 --> 01:51:05,720
Speaker 1: in politics that you know, you can only be as

1917
01:51:05,760 --> 01:51:09,880
Speaker 1: good as your opponent is evil. And so I think,

1918
01:51:10,160 --> 01:51:12,639
Speaker 1: you know, if Newsom has picked out the most evil

1919
01:51:12,720 --> 01:51:16,160
Speaker 1: Republican out there who actually has a chance of playing

1920
01:51:16,200 --> 01:51:18,280
Speaker 1: in the political game for some time, I think Trump

1921
01:51:18,439 --> 01:51:21,519
Speaker 1: is out of the picture now, and that's de Santis,

1922
01:51:22,120 --> 01:51:25,240
Speaker 1: and I think that that's a proper evaluation. And then

1923
01:51:25,360 --> 01:51:27,479
Speaker 1: has decided, Okay, I'm going to pick a fight with

1924
01:51:27,560 --> 01:51:31,479
Speaker 1: this guy, and I'm gonna I'm gonna beat him because

1925
01:51:32,040 --> 01:51:34,160
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use him as my foil to

1926
01:51:34,280 --> 01:51:38,920
Speaker 1: demonstrate my goodness against his evil. Then I think that's

1927
01:51:39,000 --> 01:51:42,920
Speaker 1: brilliant politics, and I encourage him to do more of it. Okay,

1928
01:51:43,000 --> 01:51:48,280
Speaker 1: to Sciantis, just siantis evidences his education. He seems to

1929
01:51:48,640 --> 01:51:51,840
Speaker 1: be thinking about what he's doing, as opposed to even

1930
01:51:51,920 --> 01:51:55,240
Speaker 1: somebody like Ted Cruz has elite degrees but is not

1931
01:51:55,439 --> 01:51:59,240
Speaker 1: in touch with reality. Everybody who deals with on the

1932
01:51:59,320 --> 01:52:03,080
Speaker 1: inside said, he's not unlikable, as you did. If you

1933
01:52:03,200 --> 01:52:07,679
Speaker 1: take Trump off the table, is the Santis a viable

1934
01:52:07,760 --> 01:52:14,280
Speaker 1: winning candidate in urans? I think it's possible. I don't

1935
01:52:15,960 --> 01:52:17,680
Speaker 1: you know. Again, I don't live in Florida, but you know,

1936
01:52:17,760 --> 01:52:20,880
Speaker 1: I've certainly been observing to Santis a lot lately. My

1937
01:52:21,040 --> 01:52:23,600
Speaker 1: understanding is that he's a little bit of a of

1938
01:52:23,760 --> 01:52:28,439
Speaker 1: a kind of an aspect kind of character that you know,

1939
01:52:29,080 --> 01:52:32,360
Speaker 1: he doesn't pick up social cues very effectively. He's not

1940
01:52:32,600 --> 01:52:36,880
Speaker 1: socially very competent. Um, he's brilliant. He lives in his head.

1941
01:52:37,080 --> 01:52:40,120
Speaker 1: He's got a super high i q. Um and that

1942
01:52:41,240 --> 01:52:44,439
Speaker 1: therefore he's not doing what he's doing out of a

1943
01:52:44,560 --> 01:52:47,200
Speaker 1: fire in his belly. That he's doing what he's doing

1944
01:52:47,280 --> 01:52:54,920
Speaker 1: out of carefully constructed calculation. And UM, I'm not sure

1945
01:52:54,960 --> 01:52:56,800
Speaker 1: how far that can take you. I I think it

1946
01:52:56,840 --> 01:52:59,200
Speaker 1: will get you someplace, but I'm not sure how long

1947
01:52:59,240 --> 01:53:02,800
Speaker 1: it will last. Um. Trump did a really good job

1948
01:53:02,880 --> 01:53:07,360
Speaker 1: of adopting or or holding you know, his racist rants

1949
01:53:07,400 --> 01:53:11,519
Speaker 1: and stuff about immigrants and things like that, black people, etcetera. Um,

1950
01:53:11,760 --> 01:53:14,160
Speaker 1: he had the fire in the belly. Bernie Sanders has

1951
01:53:14,200 --> 01:53:17,599
Speaker 1: the fire in the belly. Um. Gavin Newsom, I'm assuming

1952
01:53:17,680 --> 01:53:19,680
Speaker 1: has the fire in the belly. He certainly seems like it.

1953
01:53:19,760 --> 01:53:21,880
Speaker 1: Although like I said, I haven't been paying a lot

1954
01:53:21,920 --> 01:53:26,600
Speaker 1: of attention to him until the last year. Um, So

1955
01:53:26,920 --> 01:53:30,120
Speaker 1: you know, whether to Santus it's just a cipher, you know,

1956
01:53:30,240 --> 01:53:34,640
Speaker 1: whether he is just the the robot du jour. I mean.

1957
01:53:34,680 --> 01:53:36,000
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is that a lot of the

1958
01:53:36,120 --> 01:53:39,439
Speaker 1: right wing policy positions, outside of the ones on race

1959
01:53:39,479 --> 01:53:41,880
Speaker 1: and immigration, which are both really a whole about race,

1960
01:53:43,160 --> 01:53:45,640
Speaker 1: Outside of the racist fire in the belly stuff on

1961
01:53:45,720 --> 01:53:48,479
Speaker 1: the right, most of their policy positions don't make any

1962
01:53:48,520 --> 01:53:50,800
Speaker 1: sense or are so unpopular they don't want to talk about,

1963
01:53:51,479 --> 01:53:55,240
Speaker 1: you know, ending abortion, more tax cuts for billionaires, more

1964
01:53:55,320 --> 01:54:00,360
Speaker 1: deregulation of industry, more air air pollution from from fossil fuel. Um.

1965
01:54:00,720 --> 01:54:05,560
Speaker 1: You know, they literally don't make sense. On top of

1966
01:54:05,680 --> 01:54:10,479
Speaker 1: being unpopular, and so you know, the fire in the

1967
01:54:10,520 --> 01:54:13,280
Speaker 1: belly races and stuff sells really well, and you know,

1968
01:54:13,320 --> 01:54:16,040
Speaker 1: ever since Richard Nixon declared a Southern strategy, that's been

1969
01:54:16,080 --> 01:54:20,720
Speaker 1: the go to place for the gop um and and

1970
01:54:20,880 --> 01:54:24,000
Speaker 1: that'll carry you a long long way. Um Whether to

1971
01:54:24,080 --> 01:54:26,439
Speaker 1: Satis is doing this because he really feels that or

1972
01:54:26,479 --> 01:54:28,240
Speaker 1: because he just thinks that's what he has to do,

1973
01:54:28,439 --> 01:54:29,960
Speaker 1: that's what he has to say, and hey, you know,

1974
01:54:30,000 --> 01:54:33,120
Speaker 1: we'll pick up some immigrants and brownskin people in Texas

1975
01:54:33,200 --> 01:54:37,200
Speaker 1: and send them to Martha's vineyard. Uh. I don't know,

1976
01:54:37,320 --> 01:54:39,440
Speaker 1: but my sense of it is that he's running a script,

1977
01:54:39,600 --> 01:54:42,320
Speaker 1: that he's that he's that he's running a program, as

1978
01:54:42,400 --> 01:54:45,280
Speaker 1: it were, and that I think is a is a

1979
01:54:45,320 --> 01:54:54,360
Speaker 1: weakness of fallibility and a vulnerability. And I guess we'll

1980
01:54:54,400 --> 01:54:56,720
Speaker 1: have to wait and see if if my my analysis

1981
01:54:56,840 --> 01:55:00,360
Speaker 1: is right. Okay, let's talk about Trump. Trump's in trouble

1982
01:55:00,400 --> 01:55:04,200
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Trump is in trouble about the classified documents

1983
01:55:04,240 --> 01:55:10,160
Speaker 1: a maral Lago. There's January six. It's civil uh information

1984
01:55:10,240 --> 01:55:14,480
Speaker 1: which is quite damning that was released by New York

1985
01:55:14,600 --> 01:55:20,600
Speaker 1: just recently. But that's not criminal. Is he indicted criminally?

1986
01:55:21,760 --> 01:55:24,720
Speaker 1: Will he be convicted? Will he ever serve a day

1987
01:55:24,800 --> 01:55:28,280
Speaker 1: in jail? And what will be the result of all

1988
01:55:28,360 --> 01:55:33,000
Speaker 1: those things come true, I think the answers are yes, yes, no,

1989
01:55:33,160 --> 01:55:38,840
Speaker 1: and nothing. Um. I do believe that Donald Trump will

1990
01:55:38,840 --> 01:55:43,240
Speaker 1: be indicted criminally. I do believe that he will be convicted. UM.

1991
01:55:43,800 --> 01:55:47,400
Speaker 1: And I would be very surprised if he goes to jail. Um.

1992
01:55:47,640 --> 01:55:51,200
Speaker 1: We have a real reluctance in this country to send

1993
01:55:51,520 --> 01:55:55,120
Speaker 1: wealthy or powerful people to prison. It happens very rarely.

1994
01:55:55,280 --> 01:55:58,400
Speaker 1: And when it does happen, um, you know, like Martha Stewart,

1995
01:55:58,440 --> 01:56:01,880
Speaker 1: who was not all that powerful or that rich. Um,

1996
01:56:02,080 --> 01:56:04,240
Speaker 1: it tends to happen way down on the food chain

1997
01:56:04,480 --> 01:56:11,040
Speaker 1: of rich and of wealth and power. And so frankly,

1998
01:56:11,080 --> 01:56:15,040
Speaker 1: I I think Trump is just going to fade into obscurity. UM.

1999
01:56:15,840 --> 01:56:18,760
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I I think that, you know,

2000
01:56:19,000 --> 01:56:23,040
Speaker 1: the jig is up. Okay, so we have the primary

2001
01:56:23,240 --> 01:56:27,320
Speaker 1: with you know, primaries are long off, but starting in

2002
01:56:27,360 --> 01:56:36,480
Speaker 1: the spring, people start to run, and many prognosticators, many educated, say,

2003
01:56:36,800 --> 01:56:39,880
Speaker 1: if he runs, he gets the nomination. You do not

2004
01:56:40,040 --> 01:56:47,920
Speaker 1: agree with that, Trump, Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't. I don't.

2005
01:56:48,200 --> 01:56:52,520
Speaker 1: I don't think that. Well, let me let me recalibrate

2006
01:56:52,600 --> 01:56:56,240
Speaker 1: that answer. If he was running in a Republican primary,

2007
01:56:56,520 --> 01:57:02,919
Speaker 1: that where the entire Republican Party be on just the rabid, fanatic, racist,

2008
01:57:03,480 --> 01:57:07,720
Speaker 1: neo fascist base was voting. I think that, you know,

2009
01:57:07,920 --> 01:57:10,560
Speaker 1: there are a couple of politicians to Santa's at the

2010
01:57:10,560 --> 01:57:11,960
Speaker 1: top that list who could give him a run for

2011
01:57:12,000 --> 01:57:13,920
Speaker 1: his money. I think to Santa's can still give him

2012
01:57:13,920 --> 01:57:17,920
Speaker 1: a run for his money. Um. The way that are

2013
01:57:18,360 --> 01:57:20,920
Speaker 1: the way that our primary system is set up. Um.

2014
01:57:21,800 --> 01:57:24,960
Speaker 1: And you know, particularly given the primary elections typically don't

2015
01:57:25,040 --> 01:57:28,520
Speaker 1: happen in the in a in a in an environment

2016
01:57:28,560 --> 01:57:33,240
Speaker 1: where anything else of consequences on the ballot. Uh. Thus

2017
01:57:33,360 --> 01:57:36,320
Speaker 1: only the real true believers and the the hardcore fanatics

2018
01:57:36,360 --> 01:57:41,960
Speaker 1: show up. Works the Trump's benefit. But I would be

2019
01:57:42,160 --> 01:57:48,120
Speaker 1: astonished if he runs. I think that, um, he's he

2020
01:57:48,200 --> 01:57:50,480
Speaker 1: would have to in order to comply. I mean, this

2021
01:57:50,560 --> 01:57:52,520
Speaker 1: guy is raised a half a billion dollars since he

2022
01:57:52,640 --> 01:57:55,800
Speaker 1: left office. He's got all these routes who are just

2023
01:57:55,920 --> 01:57:59,480
Speaker 1: throwing money at him, um, many of them, probably most

2024
01:57:59,560 --> 01:58:03,720
Speaker 1: of them really, and he's just draining their banks, bank accounts.

2025
01:58:03,800 --> 01:58:07,200
Speaker 1: It's the most successful, profitable grift he's probably ever run

2026
01:58:07,280 --> 01:58:10,160
Speaker 1: in his entire life. And he would have to stop

2027
01:58:10,240 --> 01:58:12,160
Speaker 1: doing that if he runs for president. He would have to.

2028
01:58:12,320 --> 01:58:13,840
Speaker 1: He would have to clean up his act. He'd had

2029
01:58:13,840 --> 01:58:16,080
Speaker 1: to start being accountable to the federal to the Federal

2030
01:58:16,120 --> 01:58:19,400
Speaker 1: Elections Commission. Um, you know, there are rules, there are laws,

2031
01:58:19,480 --> 01:58:22,040
Speaker 1: there are things you have to comply with. He got

2032
01:58:22,080 --> 01:58:24,760
Speaker 1: away with not complying with them last time, in large

2033
01:58:24,800 --> 01:58:28,440
Speaker 1: part because nobody took him seriously. The Obama administration wasn't

2034
01:58:28,760 --> 01:58:34,160
Speaker 1: prosecuting him for his FEC violations. Early and then throughout

2035
01:58:34,160 --> 01:58:38,720
Speaker 1: his presidency, he basically controlled, you know, the government, and

2036
01:58:38,880 --> 01:58:41,200
Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission has three Republicans on it that

2037
01:58:41,240 --> 01:58:43,240
Speaker 1: are so hardcore that they just, you know, they just

2038
01:58:43,440 --> 01:58:47,560
Speaker 1: froze the FEC throughout that four years, they were incapable

2039
01:58:47,600 --> 01:58:51,000
Speaker 1: of doing anything. And I'm not sure to what extent

2040
01:58:51,080 --> 01:58:56,680
Speaker 1: that that's still the case. But um, you know, I

2041
01:58:56,800 --> 01:58:58,640
Speaker 1: I just don't think he's willing to give up his

2042
01:58:58,680 --> 01:59:00,160
Speaker 1: grift to run for president. I think he's going to

2043
01:59:00,200 --> 01:59:02,560
Speaker 1: continue to talk about it because it gets him money.

2044
01:59:03,560 --> 01:59:06,680
Speaker 1: But I think that that that by by the end

2045
01:59:06,720 --> 01:59:12,880
Speaker 1: of next year, and certainly by by early uh, we

2046
01:59:12,960 --> 01:59:15,840
Speaker 1: will know whether my analysis is right. But I just

2047
01:59:15,920 --> 01:59:19,360
Speaker 1: don't think that he's going to be the guy. Okay,

2048
01:59:19,480 --> 01:59:26,800
Speaker 1: Nate Silver famously called the election accurately. Since then, despite

2049
01:59:26,880 --> 01:59:31,080
Speaker 1: their protestations, the polls have been wildly inaccurate. Someone will say, well,

2050
01:59:31,560 --> 01:59:34,440
Speaker 1: it was in the margin of error even though Biden

2051
01:59:34,520 --> 01:59:38,320
Speaker 1: one there was stronger support for Trump than the polls said.

2052
01:59:38,760 --> 01:59:41,520
Speaker 1: We've been listening to this canard that the party in

2053
01:59:41,640 --> 01:59:46,160
Speaker 1: power always loses seats in Congress in the mid term.

2054
01:59:46,640 --> 01:59:50,160
Speaker 1: Yet we have the a portion. Now they're saying, well,

2055
01:59:50,680 --> 01:59:53,040
Speaker 1: you know, the polls are accurate. What is you were

2056
01:59:53,280 --> 01:59:58,520
Speaker 1: feeling about the mid term elections, primarily in the House

2057
01:59:58,600 --> 02:00:01,240
Speaker 1: and Senate. My sense of it is that it's going

2058
02:00:01,320 --> 02:00:03,960
Speaker 1: to be a Democratic blowout, in large part because of

2059
02:00:04,720 --> 02:00:06,640
Speaker 1: because of abortion, and because of a large number of

2060
02:00:06,680 --> 02:00:08,440
Speaker 1: women and young people who are signing up to vote

2061
02:00:08,520 --> 02:00:12,200
Speaker 1: right now. Um, with the head of polls, you know,

2062
02:00:12,280 --> 02:00:15,360
Speaker 1: I know that polls had faced a real challenge. Um.

2063
02:00:15,600 --> 02:00:18,280
Speaker 1: You know, my phone, I have it just set so

2064
02:00:18,400 --> 02:00:20,760
Speaker 1: that if somebody calls, it's not my contact, it just

2065
02:00:20,800 --> 02:00:23,160
Speaker 1: doesn't ring. I mean, you know, it's getting harder and

2066
02:00:23,200 --> 02:00:27,720
Speaker 1: harder for pollsters to do their business and uh and

2067
02:00:27,960 --> 02:00:32,400
Speaker 1: and find you know, a genuinely representative cross section. And

2068
02:00:33,640 --> 02:00:36,320
Speaker 1: so you know, I get it that they're they're kind

2069
02:00:36,320 --> 02:00:40,760
Speaker 1: of in a crisis. But my but you know, no

2070
02:00:41,000 --> 02:00:43,280
Speaker 1: analyst for polse But but I do think that the

2071
02:00:43,320 --> 02:00:45,960
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to do really well as fall knock

2072
02:00:46,000 --> 02:00:49,680
Speaker 1: good and finally, and you know, it's amazing power of

2073
02:00:49,760 --> 02:00:54,600
Speaker 1: one person who challenges the legitimacy of the presidential election.

2074
02:00:55,040 --> 02:00:59,680
Speaker 1: There's been all these voters suppression laws and you know,

2075
02:01:00,040 --> 02:01:02,120
Speaker 1: taking away the rights of the people as we don't

2076
02:01:02,120 --> 02:01:06,960
Speaker 1: have to delineate them one by one, but not every Republican.

2077
02:01:07,000 --> 02:01:08,920
Speaker 1: There was a story in the New York Times two

2078
02:01:09,040 --> 02:01:11,480
Speaker 1: days ago. It was a little confusing. They said these

2079
02:01:11,560 --> 02:01:15,360
Speaker 1: Republicans would not guarantee they would accept the results, although

2080
02:01:15,520 --> 02:01:21,600
Speaker 1: some literally just didn't respond. What do you anticipate happens

2081
02:01:22,400 --> 02:01:26,640
Speaker 1: when Republicans lose in this cycle? Well, they walk away

2082
02:01:26,760 --> 02:01:31,160
Speaker 1: like the Democrats did historically did in Virginia last cycle.

2083
02:01:32,040 --> 02:01:36,960
Speaker 1: Or is this become a big war. Well, we've seen

2084
02:01:37,040 --> 02:01:40,840
Speaker 1: several candidates now that are doing the sort of loser routine. Um,

2085
02:01:41,840 --> 02:01:43,720
Speaker 1: you know, I would expect more of that, But I

2086
02:01:43,760 --> 02:01:45,880
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to be consequential, Bob, I you

2087
02:01:45,920 --> 02:01:50,360
Speaker 1: know the problem. I think it's going to be more

2088
02:01:51,280 --> 02:01:55,040
Speaker 1: with the election officials who are who are coming in office.

2089
02:01:55,280 --> 02:01:57,960
Speaker 1: Who are clear partisans, and they're basically saying, if our

2090
02:01:58,000 --> 02:02:00,400
Speaker 1: party doesn't win, then there was cheating in we're gonna

2091
02:02:00,520 --> 02:02:04,760
Speaker 1: we're gonna refuse to validate the election. I'm I'm far

2092
02:02:04,840 --> 02:02:08,920
Speaker 1: more concerned about UM, you know, the Secretary of State

2093
02:02:08,960 --> 02:02:12,640
Speaker 1: of Arizona or the local election officials in the various

2094
02:02:12,680 --> 02:02:16,080
Speaker 1: counties than I am about Carry Lake, you know, pouting

2095
02:02:16,160 --> 02:02:20,920
Speaker 1: if she loses the election. So, assuming that those fears,

2096
02:02:21,400 --> 02:02:24,040
Speaker 1: do you think if those fears are real, well, will

2097
02:02:24,120 --> 02:02:29,160
Speaker 1: those fears activate and become consequential. I think it's possible.

2098
02:02:29,320 --> 02:02:31,640
Speaker 1: I think it's very possible. I don't think it's going

2099
02:02:31,720 --> 02:02:34,320
Speaker 1: to be a national crisis. I think it's going to

2100
02:02:34,400 --> 02:02:38,000
Speaker 1: be hyperlocal. I suspect it's going to happen and probably

2101
02:02:38,080 --> 02:02:43,360
Speaker 1: four or five states and maybe more. UM and Uh,

2102
02:02:43,640 --> 02:02:45,400
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of pushback, and I think

2103
02:02:45,440 --> 02:02:47,600
Speaker 1: ultimately it's going to work to their disadvantage in a

2104
02:02:47,680 --> 02:02:50,440
Speaker 1: big way, much like the Dodd's decision. It's going to

2105
02:02:50,520 --> 02:02:54,440
Speaker 1: be you know, the visible overreach, the clear sort of

2106
02:02:54,520 --> 02:03:00,360
Speaker 1: losersm UM is over time going to harm them and

2107
02:03:01,240 --> 02:03:03,560
Speaker 1: tarnish their brand rather than help them. I mean, you know,

2108
02:03:03,840 --> 02:03:06,040
Speaker 1: they'll do well with their true believers, their small base

2109
02:03:06,080 --> 02:03:09,800
Speaker 1: of true believers. But uh that basis I believe shrinking

2110
02:03:09,880 --> 02:03:13,080
Speaker 1: right now rather than growing. Tom. I want to thank

2111
02:03:13,160 --> 02:03:15,880
Speaker 1: you for taking the time. You've certainly made me think

2112
02:03:16,480 --> 02:03:19,120
Speaker 1: and we're aligned politically and great to hear who you

2113
02:03:19,240 --> 02:03:22,720
Speaker 1: are underneath the surface. I know you have to write

2114
02:03:22,800 --> 02:03:26,280
Speaker 1: your opinion piece. You have another radio show tomorrow, so

2115
02:03:26,680 --> 02:03:28,560
Speaker 1: thanks again for taking the time to talk to me

2116
02:03:28,640 --> 02:03:31,400
Speaker 1: in my audience. Bob. It's been a pleasure and and

2117
02:03:32,800 --> 02:03:36,560
Speaker 1: it's rare that that I'm interviewed by somebody who has

2118
02:03:36,640 --> 02:03:40,400
Speaker 1: the insights, the thoughtfulness and the depth that you have.

2119
02:03:40,680 --> 02:03:42,960
Speaker 1: And I've enjoyed it. I hope it's useful for the

2120
02:03:43,000 --> 02:03:46,160
Speaker 1: people who listen to thank you. I'm sure it will be.

2121
02:03:46,680 --> 02:03:49,440
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left sets