Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is progressive talk show host Tom Hartman,
Speaker 1: who reaches seven million people a week. Tom, so great
Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. Great to be here
Speaker 1: with you, Bob, Thank you for inviting me. Okay, you
Speaker 1: talk to people all over the country every day, and
Speaker 1: you even reach some foreign countries with your program. What's
Speaker 1: the temperature of the country. Wow, that's a tough one.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a uh, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: a confluence or a mixture of great dread and great hope.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm seeing um and you know, given this is uh,
Speaker 1: my biased perspective on things, but it certainly seems to
Speaker 1: me that the GOP and the conservatives in the country
Speaker 1: are doubling down on basically fear and and you know,
Speaker 1: fear of other fear of immigrants, fear of black people,
Speaker 1: fear of gay people, etcetera. UM, and and hate that
Speaker 1: that is so often associated with fear at the same time,
Speaker 1: and trying to block democrats from having any successes legislatively.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have, for the first time
Speaker 1: in my lifetime, or at least not not in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: but at least in the last forty years, we have
Speaker 1: a president who is openly rejecting neoliberalism, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a huge and important thing. Um that President Biden
Speaker 1: is is calling out trickle down economics or economics, whatever
Speaker 1: you wanna call it, and the damage that it's done,
Speaker 1: the fifty fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the
Speaker 1: middle last to the top one over the last forty years,
Speaker 1: the loss of sixty factories overseas. I mean, you know, so,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of hope that things can
Speaker 1: be done to put this country back together. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's an extraordinary time, uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: time of great conflict and great potential. Okay, what we
Speaker 1: learned in two sixteen is I hate you words use
Speaker 1: the word elite because it's now become a pejorative. But
Speaker 1: the elite news media, the New York Times, the Polsters
Speaker 1: were completely out of touch with the sentiment of the country.
Speaker 1: And in addition, people tend to live in their own bubbles.
Speaker 1: Someone like you talks to people from both sides. So
Speaker 1: the question becomes are the Republicans those on the right
Speaker 1: just more vocal or how strong are their numbers. I
Speaker 1: think that the the the hardcore uh conservatives within the
Speaker 1: Republican Party are are probably a relatively small percent of
Speaker 1: our population. What they have going for them that the
Speaker 1: Democrats don't have is that over the last forty fifty years,
Speaker 1: they have built out a massive media infrastructure. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: Ruper Murdock and Fox News. Of course, you've got a
Speaker 1: billionaire with a billion dollar, multibillion dollar company that reaches
Speaker 1: millions and millions of people every day. Um, you've got
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred right wing radio stations in the country. There
Speaker 1: are now some three hundred Spanish language right wing radio
Speaker 1: stations in the country doing Spanish language versions of Rush
Speaker 1: Limbaugh as it were. Um. There are literally thousands of
Speaker 1: conservative publications on the internet, in many cases hundreds of
Speaker 1: them each coming from you know, single companies and individuals.
Speaker 1: Um A. You know. The simple fact is, if if
Speaker 1: you're a billionaire and you're interested in not paying taxes
Speaker 1: and you want to you know, hang onto your wealth
Speaker 1: and all that sort of thing, and you and you
Speaker 1: don't your company to be facing consumer regulations or environmental regulations, um,
Speaker 1: you know, going to the right or supporting the Republican
Speaker 1: Party you're supporting this kind of stuff makes sense, it's
Speaker 1: an investment. Um. And so there's uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: and going back to the early days of Charles and
Speaker 1: David Coke, there has become this really large network of
Speaker 1: right wing funders for things that that amplify these voices.
Speaker 1: So I think that the the appearance of right wing
Speaker 1: is um as it were, in the United States is
Speaker 1: probably larger than the actual existence of it among average people. UM.
Speaker 1: But that's not to diminish its impact on our politics
Speaker 1: or on our nation. Um. On the left wing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a whole kind of different thing. It's you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of billionaires out there who
Speaker 1: are saying, yeah, tax me moore um. And although there
Speaker 1: are a few, and God bless them, but you know
Speaker 1: that's my sense of Okay. So, and I hear from
Speaker 1: these people all the time to say we have the guns.
Speaker 1: Just wait. Yeah. So the question becomes and really it's
Speaker 1: centered around Trump over we can say that he tapped
Speaker 1: into something in America. Is this something we must fear
Speaker 1: not only a vocal right, but an active right. Trump
Speaker 1: said last week that, uh, if he is penalized legally,
Speaker 1: you better watch out as people are gonna be angry.
Speaker 1: Is that a paper tiger? Is that real? I think
Speaker 1: it's both. Um, there's you know, a small number of
Speaker 1: people who have a large number of guns. Um, when
Speaker 1: you start looking at people on two or three more
Speaker 1: more than two or three guns, the number becomes very small.
Speaker 1: But the number of guns some of them on is
Speaker 1: you know, like, uh, I get it that there has
Speaker 1: been a stirring of the militia movement over the last
Speaker 1: a few decades. When Tim they blew up in Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a call to arms to
Speaker 1: these folks. He was running off the Turner Diary, which
Speaker 1: continues to inspire that movement. The Turner Diaries is a
Speaker 1: book in which a patriot blows up the federal building.
Speaker 1: In this case, I believe it was the FBI building
Speaker 1: in the book, as I recall, it's been a couple
Speaker 1: of decades since I read it. And in response to that,
Speaker 1: the government clamps down on gun ownership and on the
Speaker 1: right wing movement. And in response to that, the good
Speaker 1: white patriots rise up and and and there's a civil war,
Speaker 1: and they kill all the black people and all the
Speaker 1: Jews and you know, everybody that the right likes to
Speaker 1: hate on. And in the end, you know that it's
Speaker 1: now a white Christian country and they're standing there in
Speaker 1: the in the in the in the blood and the Mud.
Speaker 1: But they've rescued their nation and that and campus Saints,
Speaker 1: this French book you have become the Bibles of this movement. Um.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Tim McVeigh thought everybody was going to
Speaker 1: jump in behind him. He badly miscalculated the time. And
Speaker 1: in fact, for the next decade the militia movement really
Speaker 1: took a hit because it was associated with Tim McVeagh. So, um,
Speaker 1: then you know, after nine eleven it started, they started
Speaker 1: getting their mojo back. There was a common enemy, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Muslims and brown people and foreigners, and uh,
Speaker 1: that was a huge opportunity for the white racist, the
Speaker 1: white supremacists to jump in and say, now we're the
Speaker 1: ones who will save America, where the patriots will take
Speaker 1: care of this. We're going to arm ourselves. And the
Speaker 1: Bush administration kind of looked the other way, even though
Speaker 1: their FBI came up with this extraordinary report in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight on the right wing hate movement in the
Speaker 1: United States and how dangerous it was becoming when that
Speaker 1: report was issued in the first months of the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: you recall by the FBI after they had issued during
Speaker 1: the last year the Bush administration a similar report on
Speaker 1: left wing through the Dangers of the left wing Extremism.
Speaker 1: But when the one on the right wing extremism came out,
Speaker 1: it's so inflamed the right and the Republican Party that
Speaker 1: Obama pulled the report. Um so we've been kind of
Speaker 1: flying in the dark, and I think it's just in
Speaker 1: you know, basically since January six that the government you know,
Speaker 1: certainly during the during the Trump years, there was no
Speaker 1: support for anybody in the government who would be seriously
Speaker 1: looking into this. The FBI had backed off, and uh so,
Speaker 1: I think it's just really been the last year and
Speaker 1: a half that our federal government is starting to take
Speaker 1: seriously this this threat to America. Whether it's the kind
Speaker 1: of threat that we should all be worried about, or
Speaker 1: whether it's just the kind of threat that people like
Speaker 1: you and I in the media, politicians, people the high
Speaker 1: profile people need to worry about. I don't honestly know.
Speaker 1: In the last the last killing in the media was
Speaker 1: the America's number one progressive talk show house back in
Speaker 1: the eighties. I believe it was Allen Burg, you know,
Speaker 1: who was gunned down by a couple of skinheads in
Speaker 1: the parking lot of his radio station in Denver. As
Speaker 1: I recall, they made a movie about it called Talk Radio.
Speaker 1: Whether you know that kind of stochastic terrorism is going
Speaker 1: to happen again, I think that that's what Trump is
Speaker 1: trying to encourage his calls to arms. I'm certainly hearing
Speaker 1: a lot of rhetoric that sounds not just from Trump,
Speaker 1: but particularly from Trump, that sounds like an open encouragement
Speaker 1: of stochastic terrorism, of lone wolf terrorism. Um. But whether
Speaker 1: it's going to materialize, and I mean obviously it already
Speaker 1: is in many areas in many places, Whether it's going
Speaker 1: to materialize in a way that you might call a
Speaker 1: civil war, that you might call a you know, a
Speaker 1: civil disturbance, I still think it's a very open question.
Speaker 1: But Okay, So, since there's been an ongoing analysis of
Speaker 1: who really is making up the Republican Party, let me
Speaker 1: go a little bit further. Yes, rich people who don't
Speaker 1: want to pay taxes have historically been Republicans, not all
Speaker 1: of them, but a great number of them. But at
Speaker 1: first when Trump won, there was the belief that it
Speaker 1: was the dispossessed and the disadvantage who had moved to
Speaker 1: Republican Party from Democratic Party. Then the word came out, no, really,
Speaker 1: it was people with money, and the analysis of January
Speaker 1: six was no, these were middle and upper middle class people.
Speaker 1: They had means. Then we have St. Louis, the people
Speaker 1: with the guns on their on their porch during the march.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, they were notorious litigants, but they were
Speaker 1: also upper middle class. Who is really in control? Is
Speaker 1: this a lower class movement or a middle upper class movement?
Speaker 1: By movement you're talking about the GOP are you talking
Speaker 1: about Yeah, well, you know there's the like you said,
Speaker 1: the natural constituents of the very the more midley rich,
Speaker 1: as I refer to them, um, you know, who want
Speaker 1: to just stuff their money bens um who I think
Speaker 1: you know, some of whom are probably suffering from the
Speaker 1: mental illness O c D, A variety of O c
Speaker 1: D that's called hoarding syndrome. You know, had had they
Speaker 1: not been born um generally white and upper middle class
Speaker 1: or even wealthy, uh, they might be living in an
Speaker 1: apartment that's Florida ceiling newspapers and tin cans. Um, so
Speaker 1: you've got that constituency. The Republican Party has done a
Speaker 1: good job over the last forty years since Reagan, um
Speaker 1: of branding itself Reagan, you know, on his horse and
Speaker 1: all that sort of thing. Really Um, the you know,
Speaker 1: bringing in Nascar and and and these kinds of of
Speaker 1: totems almost for the Republican Party. Um, you know that
Speaker 1: was that was the Democratic Party's brand in the fifties,
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, I would argue, Um, so you've got
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of Joe six pack types across
Speaker 1: the country. Part of that, I think is also the
Speaker 1: fact that in most states in the United States there
Speaker 1: literally is not a single radio station carrying progressive talk radio.
Speaker 1: You have to get it off serious six and and
Speaker 1: yet there is not a single part of the United
Speaker 1: States where there's not at least one and typically two
Speaker 1: or more radio stations carrying right wing talk radio. So
Speaker 1: there's this is some hobby horse of mine for years,
Speaker 1: and it sounds self interested, but um, it's really not that.
Speaker 1: I think the Democratic Party has ignored this media disparity
Speaker 1: for years to their disadvantage. And you know, when we
Speaker 1: were on air, America Are America was carried on on
Speaker 1: fifty four Clear Channel stations, and then Mitt Romney's company
Speaker 1: took over Clear Channel, and suddenly Clear Channels ations of
Speaker 1: dropping their America left and right until to the point
Speaker 1: where America couldn't sustain itself any longer. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: so there's that UM I mentioned earlier. Now there's these
Speaker 1: Spanish language right wing stations there. There there's an aggressive outreach.
Speaker 1: Ralph Reed's group, Americans for Faith and Freedom I think
Speaker 1: it's called UM just today announced that they're spending over
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars reaching out to Hispanics, specifically on the
Speaker 1: issues of hating on gay people and on abortion because
Speaker 1: so many Hispanics are Catholic that that's a natural topic
Speaker 1: for them to flip them Republican. So uh. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I think on the on the Democratic side,
Speaker 1: you're seeing you know, the growth of both Union movement,
Speaker 1: you know, among young people, people under thirty, there's a
Speaker 1: huge take up of the Democrats. But but it seems
Speaker 1: to me like the Republican movement UM does not largely
Speaker 1: clue the people we were talking about a moment ago.
Speaker 1: You know, the militia movement types. Um, although you know
Speaker 1: Trump is embracing them, I'm not sure that most other
Speaker 1: Republicans are. I'm not sure if that's if that was
Speaker 1: what you were asking, Bob. I think that I think
Speaker 1: that ultimately covered enough. Let me go to the next topic.
Speaker 1: You happen to mention Reagan. You and me live through
Speaker 1: that era, and there was a conscious effort by the
Speaker 1: Republicans to lionize him, canonize, rename everything he is God.
Speaker 1: Now recently we've seen something, you know, it's nowhere near
Speaker 1: the size of the effort to do the same thing
Speaker 1: with Obama. And there's certainly nothing inherently wrong with Obama,
Speaker 1: and he got the A C A past. But this
Speaker 1: was a guy who was trying to compromise with a
Speaker 1: party that did not want to compromise. And I think
Speaker 1: that some Democrats are lost in the pass. What is
Speaker 1: your view about the Obama administration in those years. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, with regard to the Legacy project, the
Speaker 1: Reagan Legacy Project was well funded. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: a number of very very wealthy people stepped up. Their
Speaker 1: goal was to have a building named after Reagan or
Speaker 1: a statue made to him in every county in the
Speaker 1: United States, uh, Andy, in every country in the world.
Speaker 1: And they've met that goal. Um from re rate you know,
Speaker 1: renaming Washington's National Airport to you know, putting statutes and
Speaker 1: all of the place, renaming buildings, um to the best
Speaker 1: finaledge is not something comparable around Obama. There there may
Speaker 1: be an effort to promote him as a as a
Speaker 1: great president or something like that, but I'm sorry, we've
Speaker 1: got f fifteen or firty fives or whatever they know.
Speaker 1: But there's been a lot of that going on. These
Speaker 1: military jets have really picked up in the last a
Speaker 1: few months. I have a feeling that has something to
Speaker 1: do with what's going on overseas. In any case, UM,
Speaker 1: my sense of the Obama presidency was that he was
Speaker 1: um so sensitive to being called the angry black man
Speaker 1: that he was very averse to any kind of conflict.
Speaker 1: And as a consequence of that, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of things that should have been called out never did
Speaker 1: get called out. And like you said, you know, he
Speaker 1: was constantly trying to compromise with Republicans. Um. He also
Speaker 1: was unwilling to to reverse or call out neoliberalism, and
Speaker 1: you know, which I think was a great tragedy because
Speaker 1: I think certainly by the time that he was re
Speaker 1: elected in America was getting very close to this tipping
Speaker 1: point where uh, we were ready as a society after
Speaker 1: after almost forty years of the Reagan experiment, of the
Speaker 1: neoliberal experiment, to reject it. And and frankly, I think
Speaker 1: that's what put one of the things, along with the
Speaker 1: little help from Russia to put Trump at the White
Speaker 1: House in was that he explicitly campaigned against neo liberalism.
Speaker 1: Trump's Trump was lying through his teeth on most of
Speaker 1: these things, you know, saying he was going to raise
Speaker 1: taxes so much that he'd get a nose bleeding his
Speaker 1: friends who refused to talk to him. That he was
Speaker 1: going to bring back union labor, that he was going
Speaker 1: to have a healthcare program that gave everybody in the
Speaker 1: country better healthcare than they've got right now for free
Speaker 1: or for very little costs. That he was going to
Speaker 1: make college affordable again, That he was going to help
Speaker 1: support union activity. That he was going to bring back
Speaker 1: our jobs to overseas. Every single one of those things
Speaker 1: were absolute wise, but people bought them in. And you know,
Speaker 1: because Trump basically appropriated much of Bernie Sanders message. Had
Speaker 1: Obama done that four or eight years earlier, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he would have had success or if the
Speaker 1: country wasn't quite cooked enough. You know, I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: the results of liberalism enough to to go along with
Speaker 1: the repudiation of it. And uh, and the issue of race,
Speaker 1: you know, complicated. A tremendous President Obama. I think he's
Speaker 1: a good person, a good and decent man, and I
Speaker 1: have a tremendous respect for him. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: was there at his inauguration, in fact, just about fifty
Speaker 1: feet away from him when he was sworn in. It
Speaker 1: was a great honor, and uh, you know, visited the
Speaker 1: White House afterwards. But I really think that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is going to be the guy who goes down in
Speaker 1: history as the as the person who finally turned us
Speaker 1: away from the direction we've been going in the last
Speaker 1: forty years. Okay, for the uninformed, can you give us
Speaker 1: a brief definition of neoliberals. Yeah, neoliberalism. First of all,
Speaker 1: the word liberal is means a different thing in Europe
Speaker 1: than it does in the United States. Here in the
Speaker 1: United States, it means what we might call progressive in Europe.
Speaker 1: Liberal means what you might call conservative here or even
Speaker 1: libertarian neil or liberal economics in Europe is leslie ferrets.
Speaker 1: You know, hands off government, hands off, low taxes, no regulation,
Speaker 1: no labor unions, no no, basically no government support of
Speaker 1: anything other than you know, the courts, the army and
Speaker 1: the police. And so in the in the forties, a
Speaker 1: group of economists, including one American Milton Friedman, led by
Speaker 1: ludrig O Nisus and Frederick Hayak, got together in Switzerland
Speaker 1: and thought, you know, they were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to how to harden the democracies of Europe and
Speaker 1: the United States all around the world, but particularly the
Speaker 1: democracies of Europe, so that they would never again either
Speaker 1: flip communists like Russia had done with the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: or flip uh fascists like Germany, Italy and Spain had done.
Speaker 1: And being economists, they kind of fulfilled the old Abe
Speaker 1: Maslow quote. You know, he said the famously said that
Speaker 1: when the only tool you have as a hammer, every
Speaker 1: problem in the world looks like a nail. Um. They
Speaker 1: figured that economics would solve all things, and so they
Speaker 1: came up with this idea of the new liberalism, the
Speaker 1: neo liberalism, and basically here are the major bullet points
Speaker 1: for it. Number one, that the market should be the
Speaker 1: ultimate decider of basically everything. That is a billion decisions
Speaker 1: being made in the marketplace every moment of every day.
Speaker 1: As we're speaking right now, Bob, there's probably a thousand
Speaker 1: people who are trying to decide which brand of orange
Speaker 1: juice to buy. All those all that data, all that activity,
Speaker 1: UM is something that is so far beyond the ability
Speaker 1: of any politician or bureaucrat to understand or have or
Speaker 1: know that they could. You can never you can never
Speaker 1: replicate it. So therefore the market has the wisdom and
Speaker 1: the market should be making the decisions number one. Number two,
Speaker 1: because of that, a government regulation, which is an interference
Speaker 1: in the marketplace, should be absolutely minimized to the point
Speaker 1: of virtual irrelevance. UM. Deregulation is a massive part of neoliberalism.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that Reagan tried to gut the
Speaker 1: Environmental Protection Agency by putting Neo Corsus just mother in
Speaker 1: charge of it. I mean, she ended up in a
Speaker 1: terrible scandal I think involved bribery or something like that. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know going after that. Another is that labor
Speaker 1: unions are an interference in the marketplace, inappropriate interference in
Speaker 1: the marketplace, and therefore labor unions should be basically turned
Speaker 1: into social clubs. Another is that corporations should be able
Speaker 1: to seek the cheapest labor anywhere in the world rather
Speaker 1: than just anywhere in the country, and therefore we should
Speaker 1: not have national borders when it comes to the ability
Speaker 1: of corporations to do that sort of thing, which is
Speaker 1: generally known as free trade, so called free trade. Another
Speaker 1: is the social safety net programs, medicare, social security, unemployment benefits,
Speaker 1: that these are all interferences in the free market and
Speaker 1: distortions of the free market, and therefore we should do
Speaker 1: away with the social safety net. Another is that any
Speaker 1: any function the government is doing outside of the military,
Speaker 1: and even the military and police functions and court functions,
Speaker 1: even those should be privatized the extent they can, which
Speaker 1: is why today half of our defense budget goes to
Speaker 1: private corporations. Privatize everything you can. Another is that monopolies
Speaker 1: uh in business and that massive wealth inequality are actually
Speaker 1: symptoms of an economy that's working the way it should.
Speaker 1: They are signs that those who have made it through
Speaker 1: the Darwinian process in the marketplace and proven their worth,
Speaker 1: their brilliance, their competence, are succeeding. They should be congratulated.
Speaker 1: And then the corollary to that is that taxes should
Speaker 1: be very very low on those who are the winners,
Speaker 1: the ones who have succeeded. And this is why today
Speaker 1: the average billionaire in America is paying about three percent
Speaker 1: income taxes, and you know, by half of your major
Speaker 1: corporations in America paying nothing in taxes. These are all
Speaker 1: the symptoms of forty years of Reagan and neoliberalism he
Speaker 1: adopted that they started selling in the fifties. The major
Speaker 1: sales person in the United States is Milton Friedman Um.
Speaker 1: And Reagan was the guy in eighty one who basically
Speaker 1: said we're going to reject Kanzie economics, Adams Smith economics,
Speaker 1: and uh and we're going to go with with Milton
Speaker 1: Freeman's neoliberalism. Okay, let's focus on one specific element, which
Speaker 1: is globalization. Certainly under Clinton, that train left the station.
Speaker 1: So what do we know. There's been proven time and
Speaker 1: again that Americans are cheap. Okay, they'll buy the ticket
Speaker 1: on Spirit airlines with no perks, and they'll run to
Speaker 1: gain on the plane and they'll fight to put the
Speaker 1: stuff on the top, and then they'll bitch about it.
Speaker 1: Or certainly there are add ons with concert tickets, and
Speaker 1: stub Hub experimented with a final price as opposed to
Speaker 1: putting all these add ons at the end, and they
Speaker 1: lost business. So the question becomes, you know, there's so
Speaker 1: many items. Remember this first with VCRs, VCR was a
Speaker 1: thousand dollar item, and then not long before their ultimate obsolescence,
Speaker 1: there were less than a hundred dollars. So if you
Speaker 1: tell people, you know, if you do all this manufacturing
Speaker 1: in America, yes, that would solve theoretically if pay was
Speaker 1: high enough the income status of those people working there,
Speaker 1: we create jobs. But is the public willing to pay
Speaker 1: that much more money for their products in order to
Speaker 1: build local business. Well, it depends on you to find
Speaker 1: that much more. I mean, you and I are both
Speaker 1: old enough to remember what America was like before we
Speaker 1: had neoliberal trade policies, and you know, Walworth was full
Speaker 1: of cheap stuff. I remember in the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: we've moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and there was a brand
Speaker 1: new Walmart down the street. And there was a giant
Speaker 1: banner on it made in the USA. That was Sam
Speaker 1: Walton's big selling point, and it was filled with cheap
Speaker 1: junk that was made here in America. Labor is not
Speaker 1: that much of the cost of most manufactured goods. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it might add to three, four or five,
Speaker 1: maybe as much as six or seven percent to the
Speaker 1: cost of or be the you know, percent of the
Speaker 1: costs of things. But but labor is typically not and
Speaker 1: and and the costs are complying with environmental regulations is
Speaker 1: not that great. The bottom line is that corporations, by
Speaker 1: manufacturing over offshore or overseas and you know, using two
Speaker 1: dollar an hour labor labor or whatever it may be
Speaker 1: instead of fifteen or twenty or thirty an hour labor
Speaker 1: here in the United States, have been able to massively
Speaker 1: inflate their profits. But there's you know, I don't believe
Speaker 1: that bringing manufacturing home is necessarily going to make American
Speaker 1: enterprise is uncompetitive, although I do agree with Alexander Hamilton
Speaker 1: that the way to and with the Chinese, that the
Speaker 1: way to do that is and with the South Koreans
Speaker 1: and the Japanese and the Europeans, is that the way
Speaker 1: to do that is with a tariff based um global
Speaker 1: trade system. You know, Alexander Hamilton's eleven point plan was brilliant.
Speaker 1: It built America. It was abandoned, uh, you know the
Speaker 1: nighties and and and you said, you know Clinton, with Clinton,
Speaker 1: that train left the station. I think it's important to
Speaker 1: note that it was Reagan who was advocating free trade
Speaker 1: from the get go, because it's part of the neoliberal agenda.
Speaker 1: It was under Reagan that the Gentel Agreement on Tariffs
Speaker 1: and Trade was negotiated. I believe, um they produced the
Speaker 1: gap that led to the World Trade Organization. It was
Speaker 1: under the Reagan Bush administration. Ultimately, the George W. Or
Speaker 1: hw Bush administration finished the negotiations, the negotiated NAFTA. That
Speaker 1: was not Bill Clinton's invention. That was George Herbert Walker Bush. Um.
Speaker 1: Clinton just signed on for it. And and in large part,
Speaker 1: I think, frankly, he had no choice. I mean that
Speaker 1: was that was the point at which the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: had been defunded by Reagan's destruction of labor unions in
Speaker 1: the United States. And so you know, there is an
Speaker 1: interesting history there that we can get into if you want, Bob.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a discursion, but um her digression. Let's
Speaker 1: just stay on Clinton for a second. Did Clinton had
Speaker 1: he no choice but to undercut the social safety ned
Speaker 1: or was that just a choice he made for political advantage?
Speaker 1: I think both really step back a little bit. In
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventies six, the Supreme Court, in the Buckley decisions, said,
Speaker 1: for the first time in the history of the United
Speaker 1: States or any developed country, that if billionaires want to
Speaker 1: owned politicians want to give politicians enough money that basically
Speaker 1: those politicians are beholding to them, and those politicians vote
Speaker 1: for things that the billionaires want, or even introduced legislation
Speaker 1: on behalf of them. That's no longer called corruption or bribery.
Speaker 1: That's now called free speech. And that money is no
Speaker 1: longer considered to be money. Money is now considered to
Speaker 1: be a form of speech. That was a radical decision.
Speaker 1: Two years later, in a decision written by Louis Powell himself,
Speaker 1: the first National Bank versus Frank Billatte decision, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court said that that also applied to corporations. So when
Speaker 1: that happened, the Democratic Party was fat and happy. They were,
Speaker 1: you know, a third of America was unionized. Roughly the
Speaker 1: unions were washing cash and they were the major funders
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. The Republicans not so much. So
Speaker 1: the Republicans just jumped into that with both feet, and
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan floated into the White House on a tsunami
Speaker 1: of oil industry and and and other big, big corporate money,
Speaker 1: but particularly the fossil field industry. He then took an
Speaker 1: axe to the unions and over the next twelve years
Speaker 1: cut unionization in the United States so much that in
Speaker 1: ninety two when Clinton was looking at running for president,
Speaker 1: and al From writes about this in his book You
Speaker 1: Know where he talks about him going down to Arkansas
Speaker 1: and hooking up with Bill Clinton saying, let's let's figure
Speaker 1: this out. When he was going to run for president.
Speaker 1: There just wasn't enough money from the unions to support
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So basically Clinton, you know, the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party was at a crossroads. The Internet was not around,
Speaker 1: at least not the way it is today, so they
Speaker 1: couldn't raise money on the internet. Direct mail would never
Speaker 1: have worked to raise enough money to run for president.
Speaker 1: So the Democrats decided at that point, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: the unions aren't here for us like they used to
Speaker 1: be we'll start taking money from corporations. We'll just do
Speaker 1: it from the clean corporations. We'll get in bed with
Speaker 1: banks and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, and we'll leave
Speaker 1: the steel and the chemicals and the and the oil
Speaker 1: companies to the Republicans. And you know, as part of that,
Speaker 1: basically this whole new Democrat movement. The third way that
Speaker 1: Clinton and al from came up with was that the
Speaker 1: Democrats would embrace neoliberalism, they just make it a slightly
Speaker 1: friendlier and neoliberalism than the Republicans were embracing. And so
Speaker 1: you know, Clinton just also was promoting the that list
Speaker 1: of tenants of neoliberalism that I gave to you earlier,
Speaker 1: and obviously one of them is is dial back the
Speaker 1: social safety net. He wasn't willing to kill it altogether.
Speaker 1: He five year term limited essentially, which produced an explosion
Speaker 1: in childhood poverty down the road. Uh. And but he did,
Speaker 1: as as you point out, you know, declare, this is
Speaker 1: the end of welfare as we know it, and this
Speaker 1: is the end of the era big government. And you know,
Speaker 1: these were the neoliberal statements. I think that at the
Speaker 1: time Clinton believed that maybe neoliberalism actually wasn't. Maybe it
Speaker 1: would work. You know, it really had only been tested
Speaker 1: in Chile's Pinochet Pinochet's Chili, and that was you know,
Speaker 1: everybody said, well, that's an aberration. The guys that dictator.
Speaker 1: Of course, he's going to kill people to get his
Speaker 1: thing going. So it was still unknown. Okay. Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: famously had the distortion reality field such that he got
Speaker 1: you to listen to him. You could see no other
Speaker 1: way in your particular case, even someone who follows these
Speaker 1: topics very quick closely. You have a very convincing way
Speaker 1: of making the argument, illustrating it with points from history,
Speaker 1: from points from books. Why is there no equivalent politician?
Speaker 1: It certainly isn't. Schumer Pelosi is a little bit better.
Speaker 1: AOC has been somewhat ostracized. Bernie's Bernie has been great
Speaker 1: in terms of getting the message out, whereas on the
Speaker 1: Republican side, whether they're saying truth or falsehood, they have
Speaker 1: a whole narrative that we just don't hear. On the left, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sheldon white House actually is doing a great job of
Speaker 1: exposing a lot of the structure on the right. But
Speaker 1: I think that the whether this is the point you're
Speaker 1: trying to make Bob or whether you're just awakening this
Speaker 1: in me. I think that storytelling is the key to
Speaker 1: the whole thing we are as human beings, We are
Speaker 1: story machines. We love stories. We learned through stories. The
Speaker 1: way the culture has been transmitted in human society's for
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand years, as long as we've been on
Speaker 1: this planet has largely been through stories. And before writing,
Speaker 1: oral traditions were entirely story based. Um. You you go
Speaker 1: back and look at some of the old Native American stories, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the one from the Abenaki that I learned
Speaker 1: when I was in her mad about you know, a
Speaker 1: little boy who went out the woods and was going
Speaker 1: to solve all the world's problems with a magic stick
Speaker 1: and he ends up, you know, having an interaction with
Speaker 1: a skunk. And there's all. It's a whole long story,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to go through it right now,
Speaker 1: but the bottom line was that built into that story
Speaker 1: was the idea that you must always know where you are,
Speaker 1: how not to get lost, how to know directions, how
Speaker 1: to you know what to do if you get sprayed
Speaker 1: by a skunk. Um, I mean, there's just like all
Speaker 1: these cultural stories built into it. And we have these,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been passing them down for for a
Speaker 1: long long time. The little boy who cried wolf that
Speaker 1: you know, the little boy who I identified, the King
Speaker 1: with no clothes. Um, these are the ways that we learned.
Speaker 1: These are you know, story is just so important and
Speaker 1: your Republicans have been pretty good at telling stories for
Speaker 1: years and donk ats frankly, I think the need to
Speaker 1: get better at it. Um. I tell a lot of
Speaker 1: stories in my books on my show. UM, I think
Speaker 1: that it's an important way. Anytime you can wrap a
Speaker 1: lesson or a point in an example which is a story, um,
Speaker 1: and and and expand that to the point that you
Speaker 1: know it can be there's some ability to identify it.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to do a better job of
Speaker 1: communicating that, but not just communicating, and communicating in a
Speaker 1: way that it will be remembered. Because people remember stories,
Speaker 1: they very rarely remember data and details. Okay, what do
Speaker 1: we know? The ratings for twenty four hour news channels
Speaker 1: on cable are insanely low, despite all the publicity about them,
Speaker 1: Network TV News, Appointment News, Although they're appealing to a
Speaker 1: very elderly audience, although that audience does tend to vote
Speaker 1: at a higher percentage rate than those who are younger.
Speaker 1: So prior to the Internet, there was this incredible power
Speaker 1: most noted although I've been forever most noticeably harnessed by
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh. What is the power of talk radio today?
Speaker 1: Less versus TV, but visa the the Internet. Well, on
Speaker 1: the Internet, talk radio has been largely reinvented as podcasts,
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, this is the space that
Speaker 1: you're that you're living in, and I think it's very powerful.
Speaker 1: I think podcasts have become a major piece of our
Speaker 1: of our cultural fabric in one of the ways that
Speaker 1: people people will get a lot of information and learn
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Talk radio itself, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: don't get me started. Um Limbaugh was was a genius.
Speaker 1: I mean he was brilliant at doing talk radio. Michael
Speaker 1: Savage is brilliant at doing talk radio. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a there's a couple of people out there who are
Speaker 1: Glenn batt is very good at doing talk radio, brilliant.
Speaker 1: And they're all storytellers. That's what they do. They tell stories.
Speaker 1: And when we started our show back in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: we we spent a lot of time. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of hours listening to all the talk radio,
Speaker 1: all the right wing talk radio we could find it,
Speaker 1: and trying to break down, you know, every hour, what
Speaker 1: are these people doing? How are they doing? And what
Speaker 1: are they do? And and there's actually a formula to it,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating one. Um, but I'm not seeing I'm seeing
Speaker 1: less and less good competent talk radio being done, both
Speaker 1: on the right and the left, frankly, and more and
Speaker 1: more because talk radio is such an interactive environment. It's
Speaker 1: such a you know, I'm talking to you, it's like
Speaker 1: a phone call. It's it's it's not. You know, television
Speaker 1: is this cold medium. And Marshall McLuhan wrote about this,
Speaker 1: Television is cold medium. It's like you're you're looking at
Speaker 1: somebody's picture window. You know, you're it's warrior is in Essentially,
Speaker 1: radio is not. Radio is a very hot medium. It's
Speaker 1: right here, it's right in your ear. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's I'm, you know, one person having a communication with another.
Speaker 1: When I go on the air, i am I always
Speaker 1: imagine I'm only talking to one person. That person changes
Speaker 1: from minute to minute, you know, and call her to caller.
Speaker 1: But I'm only ever talking to one person, and increasingly
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hearing you know, people on the right talk
Speaker 1: radio hosts who are just you know, doing polemics and
Speaker 1: talking points, people on the left who are doing the
Speaker 1: same or just doing the interview radio, which is not
Speaker 1: talk radio. Interviews were great on podcasts, um, which is
Speaker 1: a slightly different medium, but we talk radio. I think
Speaker 1: that the the basic tenets of the medium which were
Speaker 1: developed in the nineteen thirties by father Kauflin originally, and
Speaker 1: that Limbaugh reinvented for the eighties after you know, the
Speaker 1: death of Alan Berg, who kept him going through the
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. UM, those those talents of talk radio
Speaker 1: are still very powerful. And if you do it well,
Speaker 1: and you and you tell stories and you talk to individuals,
Speaker 1: you can build a fairly powerful medium. And like I said,
Speaker 1: i'd right wing talk station talk stations all across the
Speaker 1: country and some very effective talk hosts on the right. Um,
Speaker 1: don't don't underestimate the power of this to influence American politics. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a snapshot today though, because Tesla's if I
Speaker 1: haven't right, come without a M receivers. Although AM may
Speaker 1: go away and everybody be on FM, but we have
Speaker 1: a younger generation who wants everything on demand. And I
Speaker 1: know in your case you have all your product on demand.
Speaker 1: But it's talking specifically about radio. Is this a growing
Speaker 1: or shrinking market? Does it have to be reinvented to
Speaker 1: beyond demand or is it just old people listening to
Speaker 1: real time talk radio? Well? I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: radio has historically been a listen to it in the
Speaker 1: car medium, and uh, an awful lot of talk radio
Speaker 1: is moving off AM stations and onto FM stations, by
Speaker 1: the way, Um, just you know, it's just happen. I
Speaker 1: probably half the stations I'm on our FM stations and
Speaker 1: and the same as happening, you know, even in the heartland.
Speaker 1: Although uh, you know, most people in Wyoming are not
Speaker 1: driving tests driving Ford pickup trucks and they've got AM radios,
Speaker 1: I guarantee it. So I don't know if that answers
Speaker 1: your question or if I mean speaking you know, if
Speaker 1: we look talk about music, which is inherently short form,
Speaker 1: and the days of DJ's telling long stories, creating theater,
Speaker 1: the minor long gone. There are occasional exception. Okay, younger
Speaker 1: generations statistically do not listen to terrestrial radio. They're used
Speaker 1: to getting what they want on demand, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of advertisements. Is this a dying medium? And
Speaker 1: if you have a voice, you ultimately have to segue
Speaker 1: whether it be the podcast or some other means of
Speaker 1: distribution on demand or is the marketplace irrelevant w R
Speaker 1: to M ref M, is it still strong? And is
Speaker 1: it only strong with older people or young people adopting
Speaker 1: Those are all great questions, and I would, uh, first
Speaker 1: of all, referring to Michael Harrison, who publishes Talkers magazine,
Speaker 1: who's probably could cite chapter in verse and statistics right
Speaker 1: at the top of his head. I don't have that,
Speaker 1: but my sense of it is that talk radio took
Speaker 1: a big hit with the advent of podcasts in the internet.
Speaker 1: UM Limbaugh came out with his Rush Limbo dot com
Speaker 1: website and his Limbaugh podcast. UM, I'd have to go
Speaker 1: back and look. I don't recall when, but you know,
Speaker 1: at least a decade decade and a half ago, um
Speaker 1: and figured that out. And I think most people who
Speaker 1: have any of an audience on talk radio or doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, certainly I do, UM so
Speaker 1: that you can hit multiple markets. But I think you're
Speaker 1: I think you're right that that radio has diminished as
Speaker 1: a market overall. UM. That said, I've you know, our
Speaker 1: our our audience, I think over the last few over
Speaker 1: the last decades, certainly has been fairly stable, if not
Speaker 1: grown significantly. UM. So you know where the industry is going.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but uh and and I think that
Speaker 1: you know when you're looking at UM, I think demographically
Speaker 1: that slicing and dicing of it is really important that
Speaker 1: that if you're looking at rural areas, radio is still
Speaker 1: very very strong. If you're looking at urban areas and
Speaker 1: suburban areas, probably radio is a much smaller factor outside
Speaker 1: of the commute, outside of rush hour, and even there
Speaker 1: you're seeing podcast. Take a take a good white out
Speaker 1: of radio. Okay, let's talk about you specifically. Your distribution
Speaker 1: is almost incomprehensible. You're on commercial stations, you're on serious
Speaker 1: x M, you're on public stations. What is going on? Well,
Speaker 1: when we started the show back in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: we were on a little network that was owned by
Speaker 1: the U a W. At the time was called uh
Speaker 1: I e America Radio Network and we were on twenty
Speaker 1: seven stations and Serious X down or a Serious at
Speaker 1: that time, Serious Next Time we're competitors. And as they
Speaker 1: that network went away after a couple of years. But
Speaker 1: as the show grew, UM, we wanted to add the
Speaker 1: ability of people to expand the ability of people to
Speaker 1: hear the show, and so UM I think probably around
Speaker 1: two thousand six or two thousand seven, UM, we started
Speaker 1: offering the show to nonprofit station, community radio stations, community
Speaker 1: TV stations, UM, uh NPR stations, whatever, you know, any
Speaker 1: any nonprofit station who wants that. We bought a second
Speaker 1: automation system for our studio so that we could have
Speaker 1: a clean stream that didn't have any commercials in it.
Speaker 1: We insert, UM, you know, nonprofit compliant content where the
Speaker 1: commercials are so I at the top of the hour,
Speaker 1: I do a book report for example, just read an
Speaker 1: excerpt from somebody's book. Um, and while the commercials are
Speaker 1: playing on the commercial side, and you know, we got
Speaker 1: pretty good pick up. We got syndicated through the pacifica network,
Speaker 1: which is substantial. It's got hundreds of affiliates. Were on
Speaker 1: the Pacific Audio Ports. So that we're available to any
Speaker 1: any Pacific station. UM. Then, as podcasts started picking up,
Speaker 1: and this was maybe a decade ago, UM, we added
Speaker 1: a staff person to chop the show up and put
Speaker 1: it up as a podcast and and got on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts and other podcast platforms. UM. About maybe fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when um, the CEO of Free Speech
Speaker 1: TV dropped by my studio to talk to me about
Speaker 1: something completely unrelated and it was about a nonprofit that
Speaker 1: he wanted me to be on the board of and
Speaker 1: we had to talking and he said, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't we try stick in a webcam you know,
Speaker 1: here in your studio and putting it on TV and
Speaker 1: see what happens. And at that time, free Speech TV
Speaker 1: only had one live show, which was Democracy Now with
Speaker 1: Amy Goodman. Everything else was, um, you know, documentaries, and
Speaker 1: it was a fairly small audience. And so we stuck
Speaker 1: a webcam at my studio and suddenly caught an audience,
Speaker 1: a TV audience, And then you know, free Speech TV
Speaker 1: started growing and they added Randy Rhodes's show, and they
Speaker 1: end and Stephanie Miller's show, and they added you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of other programs and so and the TV
Speaker 1: network has grown and it's now on you know, Roku,
Speaker 1: and it's on Hulu and it's on TV and it's
Speaker 1: got its own web presence and it's ondish and it's
Speaker 1: undirect and you know all satellite receivers and uh so
Speaker 1: it's just it's just been you know, Bob, over the
Speaker 1: over the over the nineteen years we've been doing this.
Speaker 1: It's like every time it seems like, hey, there's a
Speaker 1: market we should be in. You know, American Forces Radio
Speaker 1: was looking for a balance to Rush Limbo because they
Speaker 1: were getting complaints from soldiers who didn't want to hear
Speaker 1: just right wing radio. And so you know, they carry
Speaker 1: an hour right wing programming. They carry an hour on
Speaker 1: my show and have for I don't know, well over
Speaker 1: a decade um. So it's like, you know, you look
Speaker 1: for opportunities and you know, it's it's a it's a business.
Speaker 1: I'm running a small business. Okay, so let's a business.
Speaker 1: Their economics of the business. What are your personal economics?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know someplaces, you know, it's fascinating if
Speaker 1: people listen to on a commercial station, they'll hear ads.
Speaker 1: But if they listen to the streams after the fact,
Speaker 1: certainly on public stations they won't hear at So what
Speaker 1: are the economics of the business. Well, it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's operating on a whole bunch of different levels. Obviously,
Speaker 1: on the commercial side, you know, we make money selling advertising. Um,
Speaker 1: that's probably half of our total revenue of how we guess.
Speaker 1: On the nonprofit side, uh, with regarded free speech TV,
Speaker 1: we we get a small percentage of the fundraising that
Speaker 1: they do on our show that I do with the
Speaker 1: pictures that I do for them. UM, so that's not
Speaker 1: a loss to us that that you know. In fact,
Speaker 1: we've got a full time video guy now that covers
Speaker 1: you know that that covers so that we can provide
Speaker 1: them with a television quality product. Um. With our podcasts,
Speaker 1: we sell advertising on the podcast that's a revenue source.
Speaker 1: Are nonprodud. The only area that we don't directly monetize
Speaker 1: our the Pacific or radio stations because there's really no
Speaker 1: way to monetize them outside of doing fundraising. And for those,
Speaker 1: we've got a Patreon channel where you can get the
Speaker 1: station to get the show and uh, you know, we've
Speaker 1: got enough donors through Patreon and we explicitly say right
Speaker 1: on it that this is this supports our ability to
Speaker 1: deliver this show to our nonprofits radio stations, the Pacific
Speaker 1: radio stations, and the revenue from Patreon covers those expenses
Speaker 1: and a little more actually, which is great. So you
Speaker 1: know we're able to pay our employees well and do
Speaker 1: a good program. We're not you know, I'm not rolling
Speaker 1: my money been here, but I'm not complaining. How many
Speaker 1: Patreon subscribers do you have and how many people on
Speaker 1: your payroll? I don't know how many Patreon subscribers we have.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. My my webmaster handles that, and I haven't
Speaker 1: frankly even looked at the Patreon page probably two years. Um,
Speaker 1: it's probably a couple of thousand. I just don't know.
Speaker 1: Um with regard to uh or it might be over
Speaker 1: a thousand. Frankly, I shouldn't even throw numbers out because
Speaker 1: I'm so disconnected from that. Um. What was the other question?
Speaker 1: How many employees? Oh? We have? I have three full
Speaker 1: time employees who uh Sean who produces the show and
Speaker 1: does runs the Audioboardinate who does the video production, and
Speaker 1: me Um. I have a part time employee another producer
Speaker 1: who works on guests and putting stuff up. We have
Speaker 1: a couple of people who work force part time down
Speaker 1: in Texas who cut the show up for the podcast.
Speaker 1: I've got a web master in Tennessee who does the
Speaker 1: technical end of the of the of this. Uh you
Speaker 1: know that that we pay every month. We've got a
Speaker 1: webmaster in London who is an old friend. He's worked
Speaker 1: with me for over thirty years now. We used to
Speaker 1: run forms and compy Serve together. Nigel Peacock who handles
Speaker 1: all the content of our web and runs Tom Hartin
Speaker 1: dot com and hartminer Court dot com. I've got a
Speaker 1: person who publishes our daily newsletter, which has a list
Speaker 1: of every story that I talked about on the air.
Speaker 1: It's free, it's advertising supported. It's over at Tom Hartman
Speaker 1: dot com. That's so. She lives in the UK. Also
Speaker 1: she used to work with us and compu Serve and
Speaker 1: and uh. And I've got an engineer who you know
Speaker 1: who I pay. Um. All those people are basically part
Speaker 1: time or or kind of a piece work kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I'll early or whatever. But so that's that's our stuff.
Speaker 1: It's been well established that most people are living in
Speaker 1: silos today. Certainly the New York Times become a pejorative.
Speaker 1: Even though the right tends to get all their basic
Speaker 1: news from the New York Times. Tend the New York Times,
Speaker 1: they won't read it, So everybody is listening to their
Speaker 1: people will only read the New York Times. Do you
Speaker 1: feel that you're preaching to the converted at this point
Speaker 1: you've been doing in a long time or do you
Speaker 1: see it as job? Do you ever feel like you're
Speaker 1: banging your head against the wall. What's your personal viewpoint? Well, all,
Speaker 1: welcome to our business right, but uh, no, I know
Speaker 1: that UM largely on certainly on the Pacific stations, I'm
Speaker 1: preaching to the convertaive, I'm talking to people who have
Speaker 1: I've looked for a left wing outlet and are listening
Speaker 1: to it. On Serious ex M, it's a very different animal.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know there are there are two or
Speaker 1: three conservative channels on Serious XM, and there's one liberal
Speaker 1: channel and uh and then the Urban View, which largely
Speaker 1: serves as an African American audience, which tends to be
Speaker 1: more progressive. But UM, people are channel flipping on Serious
Speaker 1: ex M and I get a lot of conservative callers there,
Speaker 1: and it's been fascinating over the years how many of
Speaker 1: them have stuck to me, have stuck to the show,
Speaker 1: and some of them are still calling in and arguing
Speaker 1: with me, which I love. My my favorite thing in
Speaker 1: the whole world is debating conservatives. And uh, it's getting
Speaker 1: harder and harder because increasingly the high profile conservatives are
Speaker 1: no longer come on my program. They used to all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, I get even more and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know John Bolton and all these guys on the
Speaker 1: you know, the last five seven years, they just won't
Speaker 1: do it because they've got such a great echo chamber
Speaker 1: of their own. You know, why bother trying to go
Speaker 1: beyond that? UM on our terrestro radio stations, the AM stations,
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit of both, although it tends
Speaker 1: to be more of a of a progressive audience. And
Speaker 1: on the podcast, I'm assuming that I'm talking to people
Speaker 1: who are more aligned with me, but I'm not really certain.
Speaker 1: It's not a medium that gives you that much feedback. UM. So,
Speaker 1: can you change somebody's mind? Or do you believe you're
Speaker 1: changing anybody's mind? I I think I'm doing a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Um. Number one, I'm providing people with validation.
Speaker 1: You know, you know you're not crazy. Um, here you
Speaker 1: know I agree with your worldview, and here let me
Speaker 1: give you some some details to fill that. So number one,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people tune into my show
Speaker 1: and to any podcast or radio show, but it's political
Speaker 1: looking for validation of their world Um. The second is
Speaker 1: I think I'm giving people ammunition to win what I
Speaker 1: call the article or wars. Um. You know, they've got
Speaker 1: the guy who sits next to them at work, who
Speaker 1: listens to Limba all day, who wants to debate where
Speaker 1: they've got you crazy Uncle Ralph who comes to the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner and can't stop talking about politics. And they
Speaker 1: want to have you know, the one liners to shut
Speaker 1: them down, or they want to have the deeper understanding
Speaker 1: of the issues so they can get into a meaningful
Speaker 1: discussion with people, and and I try to provide that, um.
Speaker 1: And then probably number three would be that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to change people's minds. And I put that
Speaker 1: at number three. I mean I would put it at
Speaker 1: number one if I thought enough people who aren't progressives
Speaker 1: who are listening to me. But I put it at
Speaker 1: number three simply because you know, most of the conservatives
Speaker 1: who listened to my show do so by accident, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, the channel flipping um and uh so
Speaker 1: you know, the opportunities to change minds are much more limited. Okay,
Speaker 1: you say you love arguing with conservatives, what do you
Speaker 1: love about it? I find that debate is and and
Speaker 1: and you know, let me just say right up front.
Speaker 1: I I my favorite activity in high school was debate
Speaker 1: class after the extracurricular debate um and and part of
Speaker 1: that is my dad. My dad was a historian. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be a history professor. I came along and
Speaker 1: he had to drop out of college and ended up
Speaker 1: working in a tool and die shop his whole life.
Speaker 1: But he had twenty thousand books in Spaceman and most
Speaker 1: of them probably a third and more history books. He
Speaker 1: was a complete history junkie. And my and he was
Speaker 1: a Republican. Told the day he died. In fact, when
Speaker 1: he died, I was sitting with him in his living room.
Speaker 1: And as he died and and and I looked at
Speaker 1: over across him and there were these his two favorite
Speaker 1: pictures on the wall, me shaking hands with Pope John Paul.
Speaker 1: The second and George W. Bush on the deck of
Speaker 1: the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under a mission accomplished banner. Um.
Speaker 1: My dad and I when I was a teenager, fifteen, sixteen,
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. First of all, when I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: we went door to door for Barry Goldwater. Well, I
Speaker 1: guess I was thirteen in nineteen sixty four. Um. And uh,
Speaker 1: my dad never left that world, you know, I did.
Speaker 1: By the time I was sixteen, I had become an
Speaker 1: anti war hippie and a liberal. UM. And my dad
Speaker 1: and I used to get in these knockdown, dragged, knocked down,
Speaker 1: drag out arguments when I was sixteen and seventeen. UM.
Speaker 1: And through that because we both loved each other and
Speaker 1: we're both well informed people who don't take debate lightly. UM.
Speaker 1: Through that we learned, both of us, and my dad
Speaker 1: taught me this, and we used to watch the Joe
Speaker 1: Pine Show together. We used to watch Fire in Line
Speaker 1: together with William F. Buckley. Um. We learned how to
Speaker 1: have debates where there was not blood on the floor
Speaker 1: when we were done, you know, debates that you could
Speaker 1: walk away from and shake hands. And it's a it's
Speaker 1: almost an art form as much as a skill as
Speaker 1: much as a science, and I've been able to bring
Speaker 1: that to my show, and I think fairly uniquely. I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's a lot of liberals out there
Speaker 1: who who go out of their way to try to
Speaker 1: debate conservatives. I mean, it was the hallmark of my show,
Speaker 1: probably for the first ten years of the show. Three
Speaker 1: days a week, I'd have conservatives on and we'd get
Speaker 1: into long, long form debates. I probably said it's gotten
Speaker 1: much much more difficult to get anybody who is wanting
Speaker 1: to come on the program anylonger. But um, I just
Speaker 1: I love it. I you know, part of it probably
Speaker 1: echoes back to my childhood with my dad. Um. But
Speaker 1: I do think that if you want people to understand issues,
Speaker 1: spectators to understand issues, listeners to understand issues, one of
Speaker 1: the best ways to highlight issues is to have a debate,
Speaker 1: to have both sides present everything they can bring, all
Speaker 1: their ammunition to the table, present all their arguments and
Speaker 1: all the history for their arguments, and and then you know,
Speaker 1: the let the audience decide who won the debate. I'm
Speaker 1: not so interested in whether I win or lose. My
Speaker 1: My interest is in informing people educating people and and
Speaker 1: you know, not that I'm some high flute educator here,
Speaker 1: but that's my goal. My goal is for people to
Speaker 1: walk away from listening to a debate that I've had
Speaker 1: or an argument, whether it's with a caller, which happens
Speaker 1: more and more of these days, as opposed to guests,
Speaker 1: sadly or a guest you know, with more information, um
Speaker 1: so that they can then you know, bring that into
Speaker 1: their lives in a way that's useful. Okay. When we
Speaker 1: were growing up in the sixties and seventies, the issues
Speaker 1: were really debated. Whereas Trump we can see with the
Speaker 1: Latitia's filing just the other day, he's just lying, lying
Speaker 1: and lying, and the people who are aligning with them
Speaker 1: are lying. So what are you doing a debate If
Speaker 1: the person is just telling untruths, you call them out
Speaker 1: just to say, I'm sorry, that's bs, you know, back
Speaker 1: that up, give me, give me, give me something to
Speaker 1: to to to, you know, to believe that what you're
Speaker 1: saying is true, because it doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: That's pretty straightforward. But okay, so let's go back. The
Speaker 1: problem is that the people who rely onlines, you know,
Speaker 1: the Trump's, they will not engage in it, They will
Speaker 1: not participate. I mean, you know, Trump goes out of
Speaker 1: his way to have any any protesters removed and beating up.
Speaker 1: It's like it's the antithesis of debate. Okay, but let's
Speaker 1: say we're in that uh classic situation you referenced earlier.
Speaker 1: It's a family dinner, it's Thanksgiving, You're gonna be around
Speaker 1: each other a few hours. What do you tell your
Speaker 1: listener how to debate and engage that uncle. Now, for
Speaker 1: years and a lot of people say no politics on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: but certainly there are people go there anyway. So assuming
Speaker 1: someone from your audience is encountering that situation, what would
Speaker 1: you tell him? I would tell him that family is
Speaker 1: more important than than politics, and that and that love
Speaker 1: is more important than winning an argument. Um that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when I debate politics with neighbors or with family,
Speaker 1: because people are constantly trying to bait me. Basically, Um,
Speaker 1: I'll make my point, I'll make it gently, and uh
Speaker 1: if they go on a rant trying to knock down
Speaker 1: my point, and it's a b S rant or whatever,
Speaker 1: or it's a rant that I don't think has much
Speaker 1: of validity, rather than humiliating them by pointing that out
Speaker 1: or embarrassing them, I'll just say, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this, and
Speaker 1: you know, from time to time I'll even do that
Speaker 1: on the air. Again, I'm trying to to to role
Speaker 1: models for people as well as I can. Okay, my experiences,
Speaker 1: no one will change their viewpoint during the debate, but
Speaker 1: they might go home and think about it and change
Speaker 1: their opinion. As you said, the majority of your listeners
Speaker 1: lean left. But if you had the experience with anybody's
Speaker 1: debated on the year, whether it be a politician or
Speaker 1: someone who calls in where they you connect with them later.
Speaker 1: So who you know, I've really thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you're right. I have a handful of regular callers,
Speaker 1: probably a dozen or two who over the last a
Speaker 1: couple of years. Uh, three of them I can think of,
Speaker 1: just in the last three or four months who called
Speaker 1: in because they were listening to right wing radio on
Speaker 1: Serious ex M. In most cases, one of them was
Speaker 1: on our Chicago affiliate and um, you know, looking for
Speaker 1: right wing stuff, they found my show. Um, they found
Speaker 1: it interesting. They called me up to argue with me. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I had debates with them that were respectful.
Speaker 1: I mean, occasionally somebody will just be so offensive that
Speaker 1: you just slapped them down, but generally not And um,
Speaker 1: and now they call the show regularly. A number of them,
Speaker 1: i'd say, all but one of them no longer call
Speaker 1: themselves conservatives or Republicans. I've you know, I've seen them change,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to think that it's because the information
Speaker 1: that I'm presenting is actually factual. I will not go
Speaker 1: into a debate unless I really know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to present information. I mean, maybe this
Speaker 1: is the author in me. You know, I get editors
Speaker 1: who are you know, your line editor goes through your book,
Speaker 1: and you know, every single point I make, I have
Speaker 1: to back it up or the publisher will not put
Speaker 1: it out. And and uh so you get pretty rigorous
Speaker 1: about those things. Um. But you know, I I will
Speaker 1: hope that they are becoming regular listeners and are changing
Speaker 1: their politics, not just because I'm very persuasive, but because
Speaker 1: I've actually marshaled truth or what they've perceived is truth. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about party affiliation. There's certainly die in the world.
Speaker 1: Democrats died in the world Republicans. But I have found,
Speaker 1: certainly since the rise of the right wing, that the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who call themselves independent are really Republicans.
Speaker 1: They just don't want to be in the debate. What
Speaker 1: has your experience been, It's been the same as yours, Bob.
Speaker 1: Of the people who calling to my show and say,
Speaker 1: I'm in the parade, I just vote for the person.
Speaker 1: I don't vote for the party. I don't damn about
Speaker 1: the Republican partyment, but them damn immigrants and yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: they're they're bashful Republicans. Yeah the when was the last
Speaker 1: time you voted for Democrat? And they go, they can't
Speaker 1: think of one. You've led quite a peripatetic life and career.
Speaker 1: How did you end up in talk radio and staying
Speaker 1: with talk radio, because if you look at your career,
Speaker 1: you tend to jump, you know, from advertising, therapy to
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm I'm a probably because
Speaker 1: I'm an a d h D person, I said. I
Speaker 1: wrote a couple of books about it. Actually, I have
Speaker 1: been a serial entrepreneur throughout my life, I Louise, I
Speaker 1: have started a number of businesses, five of them that
Speaker 1: were you know, consequential and did fairly well. And uh
Speaker 1: because back when we were first married, uh, we were
Speaker 1: reading the novels of John D. McDonald's at the Travis
Speaker 1: McGee Novels, and you know, his whole thing was, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to wait until I retire to enjoy my life.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take my retirement while i'm young in
Speaker 1: pieces and so are. The agreement that we had and
Speaker 1: we got married was that, you know, every five years
Speaker 1: or so, we would take a year off and and
Speaker 1: explore the world. And you know, thank god, we've been
Speaker 1: able to do that. We build a business up, we
Speaker 1: sell it off, we live off that for a year
Speaker 1: and there's enough left over to start another business. And
Speaker 1: you know, we did that up until ninety seven. And
Speaker 1: in ninety seven I sold an ad agency in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: and Louise and I had built and on a seven
Speaker 1: year buy out and so we had a real cushion,
Speaker 1: you know, a seven year cushing plus some retirement funds.
Speaker 1: And I figured that's a bit. You know, I'm retired now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write books and just have a good time.
Speaker 1: And then George Bush became president, and by two thousand three,
Speaker 1: I was convinced that he represented a threat to our democracy.
Speaker 1: That his policies, you know, his his going after Iraq
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan, on inappropriately unnecessarily lying US into the war
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Um, torturing people, Um, you know, just breaking
Speaker 1: American law. Just it just maybe nuts. And so I
Speaker 1: wrote this piece. I wrote this article in the in
Speaker 1: early either late two thousand two or early two thousand three,
Speaker 1: and published it on Common Dreams. I had started publishing
Speaker 1: op eds on Common Dreams starting around two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: Common Dreams is a well known progressive website, common Dreams
Speaker 1: dot org. And um, you know these these short op
Speaker 1: eds rants as it were. And in two thousand three
Speaker 1: I wrote one called talking back to talk radio and
Speaker 1: it was about how you know half the country is democratic,
Speaker 1: half the country's republican, all of the radio stations are republican.
Speaker 1: Why is nobody programming uh democratic radio? And um uh
Speaker 1: showing you need to drop me who were venture capitalists
Speaker 1: in Chicago called me up and said, hey, uh, this
Speaker 1: is an idea. This is great. We would like to
Speaker 1: use your article as the initial business plan for a
Speaker 1: new radio network that we want to call our America
Speaker 1: Radio can you come out to Chicago and talk to us. Well,
Speaker 1: a little bit slower because a lot of people say
Speaker 1: it just happened. Just to be clear, you just published
Speaker 1: one article, someone tracks you down, that's it. You were
Speaker 1: not putting out feelers. You did not say in the article,
Speaker 1: I want to be in the radio game. Just somebody
Speaker 1: called you out of the blues. That the way it
Speaker 1: really went down that act. Actually, yes, Now in the article,
Speaker 1: I did point out when I was young, I did radio.
Speaker 1: I I when I was sixteen, I was you know,
Speaker 1: I started in radio at sixteen in commercial radio on
Speaker 1: w I t L on Lance and I was a
Speaker 1: DJ at a country Western DJ for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I did rock and roll, I monster around a few
Speaker 1: radio stations. I ended up doing news back at w
Speaker 1: I t L for seven years until and so I knew,
Speaker 1: I know radio, I knew the business. I know how
Speaker 1: it works. And I said that in the yard, and
Speaker 1: uh so, you know, it wasn't like I was just
Speaker 1: some guy who wrote a piece. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: some credibility there. But anyhow, they came to me and
Speaker 1: they you know, and I flew out to Chicago and
Speaker 1: I told him that I had some problems with their
Speaker 1: business plan, and uh, but they were looking for proof
Speaker 1: of concept. So Louise and I called the all fourteen
Speaker 1: or so of the radio stations in Vermont. We were
Speaker 1: living in Mont period at the time, and said, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, wait, wait just one second. As someone who
Speaker 1: went to college Vermont, spent a lot of time in Vermont,
Speaker 1: why Montpulier, we just wanted to live there. Those are
Speaker 1: Mont Peelier is its own backwater in Vermont. It's the
Speaker 1: capital city. You know, it's in the north. You know
Speaker 1: what you you just I mean mont Pelier. If you
Speaker 1: think about living Vermont, that would not be the first
Speaker 1: place most people would choose. Well, actually, we first moved
Speaker 1: we bought an old B and B in Northfield, way
Speaker 1: back in the woods, had a half mile long driveway
Speaker 1: up the side of a mountain. There was dirt road. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we sold that after a couple of years
Speaker 1: and moved into into into town in aunt Pelier because
Speaker 1: we were just missing, you know, being able to walk
Speaker 1: to a restaurant or something. And the winners they are
Speaker 1: pretty pretty brutal. But anyhow, so we called, you know,
Speaker 1: all the radio stations in Vermont and we we found
Speaker 1: this one station in Burlington that where the guy said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll give you. I'll give you two hours on a
Speaker 1: Saturday morning if you want to do a test runt
Speaker 1: on progressive talk radio. I mean, that was my pitch.
Speaker 1: I you know, I'd like to I'd like to prove,
Speaker 1: you know, this proof of concept and if it works,
Speaker 1: you know, you can carry the show. And if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing ventured, nothing gains. You can still adds
Speaker 1: on the show and maybe I can get your audience
Speaker 1: for you. And so he put us on. Bob written
Speaker 1: his last name. He put us on after the after
Speaker 1: the swap meet. So about half the calls I'd get
Speaker 1: were you know, is that John Dear three twenty still available? Um?
Speaker 1: But it was good practice and uh and ed Asner
Speaker 1: was kind enough. We had a mutual friend and uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, he blurbed my book on healthcare a little
Speaker 1: while ago, um before he died. Um. Ed Asner did
Speaker 1: an interview with me and we took that and some
Speaker 1: of my rants and we sent it off to that
Speaker 1: network that I was telling you, I America Radio Network,
Speaker 1: and they picked up the show. And that was when
Speaker 1: we went from being this little tiny thing on this
Speaker 1: one station in Burlington, Vermont that had probably thirty five
Speaker 1: people listening, who half of whom were piste off at
Speaker 1: the swap Meeat wasn't still on to actually be in
Speaker 1: a radio show. It took Air America a couple of
Speaker 1: years to get their act together and get their network going.
Speaker 1: And during that period of time, I was just building
Speaker 1: my show. So that's you know, and it started. It
Speaker 1: wasn't we we funded the entire thing ourselves for the
Speaker 1: first four years. We didn't. We didn't break even until
Speaker 1: about the third or fourth year, um and and and
Speaker 1: you know, over the years we've made that money back,
Speaker 1: but that was coming out of our retirement money and
Speaker 1: or what was intended to be our retirement money, because
Speaker 1: I thought it myself was retired and I didn't expect
Speaker 1: it to last more than four or five years at
Speaker 1: the very most. I you know, I was just trying
Speaker 1: to prove that it was possible to do if you
Speaker 1: follow the rules of talk radio, and they're not complicated,
Speaker 1: and they've been around since the nineteen thirties. If you
Speaker 1: follow the rules of talk radio, you can be just
Speaker 1: as successful as a Democrat as you can as a Republican.
Speaker 1: Given there's enough radio stations to carry you. And that's
Speaker 1: the big kicker right now, is that the big networks.
Speaker 1: I had I said at the office of the United
Speaker 1: States senator with the billionaire owner of one of the
Speaker 1: big three radio station conglomerates, you know, the owner of
Speaker 1: about nine d radio stations, and the senators said, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't you put some progressive radio on your stations.
Speaker 1: You've got three stations that are carrying right wing radio.
Speaker 1: And the guy said, uh. And I've never seen a
Speaker 1: senator literally had their mouth fall open. And when somebody
Speaker 1: says the guy says, I'm never gonna put anybody on there.
Speaker 1: I wants to raise my taxes, just like It's just
Speaker 1: that simple. And yeah, So you know, we've got a
Speaker 1: we've got a structural problem in terms of progressive or
Speaker 1: democratic talk radio. But there's no there's no question that
Speaker 1: you can successfully do progressive talk radio. I've been doing
Speaker 1: it for nineteen years and I'm making money. Okay. If
Speaker 1: one looks at your website and follows through, you're doing
Speaker 1: three hours of radio a day, You're writing opinion columns,
Speaker 1: you're writing books. What is your schedule such that you
Speaker 1: can accomplish all that well and let me have the
Speaker 1: pandemic has helped. Um. My schedule is Louise and I
Speaker 1: get up at five thirty in the morning and we
Speaker 1: put together that day's show between five thirty and roughly seven. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, Sean may have booked a guest, if
Speaker 1: we've got a guest, and you know, we'll do the
Speaker 1: research on that. But basically we're going, you know, we
Speaker 1: just will read ten or twenty news sites and come
Speaker 1: up with what are the what are going to be
Speaker 1: the main themes for each hour and you know, what
Speaker 1: are we going to talk about? And I, you know,
Speaker 1: I go into the studio and we go on the
Speaker 1: air at nine. This is all Pacific time. We go
Speaker 1: on the air at nine and we're on until noon. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. For the next half hour, I do you know,
Speaker 1: I'll read ads for sponsors and just do whatever needs
Speaker 1: to be done, you know, to to clean up the
Speaker 1: the business. And then I leave the studio. Sean and
Speaker 1: Nates stay there and Nate produces all of our stuff
Speaker 1: for YouTube and everything, and Sean puts together stuff for
Speaker 1: the podcast. I come home and from one until five
Speaker 1: every day I write my bed that we published at
Speaker 1: heart and report every morning. Um and uh. And then
Speaker 1: my I write books on weekends, Um, all day, all
Speaker 1: day Saturday, all day Sunday. Uh. You know, I'll take
Speaker 1: a break for meals or to visit a family and
Speaker 1: things like that. Um and and you know I've written.
Speaker 1: I've been writing all my life, and I've been writing
Speaker 1: for publications since the mid nineties, and so I'm pretty
Speaker 1: good at it, and it, you know, it works. I've
Speaker 1: been I've been these this new series of books, the
Speaker 1: Hidden History series. The new one is the Hidden History
Speaker 1: of Neoliberalism. There are thirty five th word books, that's
Speaker 1: half the size of a normal book, and so banging
Speaker 1: one of those out of every six months is kind
Speaker 1: of the equivalent of writing one real book, one major book,
Speaker 1: you know, a nine hundred thousand word book a year,
Speaker 1: which is what I used to write, and I've always
Speaker 1: been able to produce one a year kind of in
Speaker 1: my spirit time. Okay, you talk about writing your O
Speaker 1: bed from one to five? Hey, how much is that
Speaker 1: as research? And I consider research just reading the news.
Speaker 1: You know, you might also ultimately go to check facts
Speaker 1: or to find certain information out. And to what degree
Speaker 1: is it a chore to write every day or every
Speaker 1: day you say, you know, I got a formula, get
Speaker 1: myself in the right mindset, and I can just bang
Speaker 1: it out, you know, I I have to. This is
Speaker 1: kind of one of our our rules of life for
Speaker 1: for my wife and I is that you know, we
Speaker 1: do what we love doing, and when we stop loving
Speaker 1: doing it, we don't do it. It's just um and
Speaker 1: and so it's the same way with the writing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got to write about stuff that I really am
Speaker 1: inflamed about, that I really care about. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's you know, just wise anyway, because otherwise you're
Speaker 1: not going to produce something that lights anybody else, you know.
Speaker 1: So when I come home, Louise and I have lunch,
Speaker 1: you know, typically a twelve thirty and um, and then
Speaker 1: I come up here to write at one and you know,
Speaker 1: our job during that thirty minutes just to figure out
Speaker 1: what the topic is going to be for my op
Speaker 1: ed that day. We have a little uh web based
Speaker 1: uh wiki page on which we keep all of our
Speaker 1: ideas for future op eds, and we still see articles
Speaker 1: and stick come on there, We'll have a conversation and
Speaker 1: we'll stick that on there, you know, on our smartphones, um,
Speaker 1: And so we'll refer to that page and we'll look
Speaker 1: it over, and we'll look over the news because we've
Speaker 1: been doing that all day with the show, and figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the rent today going to be about.
Speaker 1: And then I come upstairs and typically the first hour
Speaker 1: or so before I start right, you know, I'll outline
Speaker 1: my piece, what are the major points I'm gonna make,
Speaker 1: and then I know what I need to know to
Speaker 1: back up the points that I'm going to make. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, from one to two, basically I'm doing research, um,
Speaker 1: you know, bouncing around the Internet or looking through books
Speaker 1: that I've got or whatever whatever sources I need to find.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that takes two hours. Sometimes it only takes
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. It depends on the topic. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of topics that I can write literally off the
Speaker 1: top of my head. There are others where I really
Speaker 1: have to do a lot of research. I did a
Speaker 1: piece three or four weeks ago about how militious are
Speaker 1: illegal at every state and the Union and have been since,
Speaker 1: uh you know, the eighteen eighties, and nobody's enforcing those
Speaker 1: laws and private militias, and that took probably three hours
Speaker 1: of research and that day I was writing until six o'clock.
Speaker 1: I missed Chris As show. So oh and then you
Speaker 1: know the rest of the day, you know, after after
Speaker 1: I get done writing, I go downstairs. Louise usually has
Speaker 1: dinner ready at five, and we'll watch chriss As on MSNBC,
Speaker 1: and then you know, Alex or Rachel after that, and
Speaker 1: then we knock off. We go upstairs and we'll watch
Speaker 1: some show on you know, Netflix or something, or or read,
Speaker 1: uh you know, or or visit people and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, I turned off my phone. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't turn off my watch. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to do that. Um, so that's our day. Any uh
Speaker 1: specific Netflix or other streaming show you're hot on. Uh,
Speaker 1: we just finished watching The Sopranos, because there's you know,
Speaker 1: the old Sopranos, which you never saw because we didn't
Speaker 1: have a TV back then in the in the late nineties,
Speaker 1: um in early two thousand's, and and because I guess
Speaker 1: there's a sequel coming out that we were curious about.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've got a list of this on
Speaker 1: my phone here that I can my binge watching. In
Speaker 1: the last year and a half, or two years. We've
Speaker 1: watched the Sopranos, Silent Witness, mcguyber FBI One, n C
Speaker 1: I s I, Yellowstone, Snow Piercer, Monk, Yellowstone, Hawaii five O,
Speaker 1: the Original, Uh, Colombo, McMillan and wife. We went back
Speaker 1: and watch those. Um what we do in the Shadows,
Speaker 1: Person of Interest, Bones, Secession, Silent Witness, Good Fight, Billions,
Speaker 1: Father Brown, Death in Paradise, The Finder, C s I, Miami.
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of Game of Thrones, Outlander Killing Eve,
Speaker 1: Magic City, Dot Martin, Blacklist. Yea, we get an idea
Speaker 1: of your taste. Going back to books, Although you get
Speaker 1: a certain amount of publicity, except for the huge bestsellers,
Speaker 1: historically books sell very few copies. What is your experience been?
Speaker 1: Is more of a labor of love? What's the motivation?
Speaker 1: I uh, that's a really good question. Bob I ernest
Speaker 1: him anyway once said, ah that I don't remember the
Speaker 1: exact quote. It's been so many years since I even
Speaker 1: thought about it, but he once said, basically, UM, as
Speaker 1: an author, you gained a certain little bit, tiny little
Speaker 1: bit of immortality. UM. Sometimes I think about my writing
Speaker 1: as the stuff I hope my grandchildren will discover. They
Speaker 1: probably won't, but you know, I mean I used to.
Speaker 1: After my dad died, I discovered some of the letters
Speaker 1: that he wrote home when he was in the army
Speaker 1: during World War Two, and it just tore me up,
Speaker 1: and I realized how much I had lost. I wish
Speaker 1: I had had those kind of insights into my grandparents
Speaker 1: and even great grandparents. So, you know, in a way,
Speaker 1: I think I'm I'm writing for posterity, as it were.
Speaker 1: In a way, I've got things that I want to
Speaker 1: say that I think are important, and writing a book
Speaker 1: is a great way to do that. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's provided me with some income over the years.
Speaker 1: A couple of books have done very very well. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a couple of books that have
Speaker 1: been print for literally decades. One of them is in
Speaker 1: print in nineteen different languages. Um. You know, it's sold
Speaker 1: a lot of copies. Um. So, uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: something I like to do. It's something I'm good at.
Speaker 1: My mother was an English major at m s U.
Speaker 1: And she was a frustrated writer. She tried to write
Speaker 1: children's books when I was young and kind of modeled
Speaker 1: for me the self discipline of writing and um and
Speaker 1: I often think of her, you know, sometimes I think
Speaker 1: I'm writing to her, um so and and In fact,
Speaker 1: my parents gave me a portable typewriter when I was
Speaker 1: ten years old, and my dad, when I was thirteen,
Speaker 1: first year of junior high school, demanded that I take
Speaker 1: a typing class because my typing was so atrocious. And
Speaker 1: I was in this class with like twenty eight girls
Speaker 1: in me, which was just humiliating, embarrassing. Um you know
Speaker 1: it was, and but it was the best skill I
Speaker 1: ever learned. I'm so grateful that my father forced me
Speaker 1: to do that. So now I'm much more effective. You know,
Speaker 1: I can write, I can type really fast, and I
Speaker 1: can write better. But I just love doing it. I
Speaker 1: really love writing, just like I love doing radio. I
Speaker 1: had the same experience with typing. I mean, especially computers
Speaker 1: came in knowing how to type some believable So in
Speaker 1: our conversation you've mentioned it asner, You've talked about politicians.
Speaker 1: Are you okay? In Los Angeles? It's a world of networking.
Speaker 1: Traditional fiction authors tend to be isolated. Where do you sit?
Speaker 1: Do you like the incoming people track you down? Or
Speaker 1: do you go out of your way? To have relationships
Speaker 1: with Ed Asner, You famously have a relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 1: With politicians, where do you sit on that. I'm an
Speaker 1: odd duck, although I think that I'm probably the norm
Speaker 1: for radio, but I'm definitely the exception for television, and
Speaker 1: that is that I'm an introvert. I'm basically a shy person.
Speaker 1: I don't speak up. I'm intimidated by crowds. I get
Speaker 1: panic attacks in in cocktail parties. I hate cocktail parties. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you put me in a room with thirty people,
Speaker 1: I can't deal with it. Put me out of stay
Speaker 1: in front of five thousand people. I have no problem.
Speaker 1: I can do that well. I have learned how to
Speaker 1: pretend to be an extrovert. Um, But if I've got
Speaker 1: to make small talk, I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1: We went to an h O A meeting here in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood where I live a couple of nights ago,
Speaker 1: and I basically ran out of there as soon as
Speaker 1: it was over. And I'm on one of the committees.
Speaker 1: I should have stuck around and played politician. I can't
Speaker 1: do that. I make a lousy politician. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to shake hands with people and and and do that.
Speaker 1: It frightens me and intimidates me. So and I think
Speaker 1: that that's common in radio. I got to know Larry
Speaker 1: King before he died, and he was another, you know,
Speaker 1: in an introvert who knew how to pretend he was
Speaker 1: an extrovert. And I've heard that Russia Limbaugh was like that.
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that Michael Savage is like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know him, but I know we have friends
Speaker 1: in common. Um. So, my my social circle is really
Speaker 1: quite small, and I have never tried to network with anybody,
Speaker 1: you know, to advance my show or my books or
Speaker 1: anything else. The friendships that I've made over the years
Speaker 1: that might appear to the high profile, you know, like
Speaker 1: Ed Asner or Leo DiCaprio or whatnot, Um, we're kind
Speaker 1: of accidental things that that. You know, Leo read one
Speaker 1: of my books and his mother reached out to me,
Speaker 1: for example, and uh, you know, I invited him on
Speaker 1: my show and and and we just kind of hit
Speaker 1: it off, just the two of us, you know. So
Speaker 1: I'm probably to my detriment that I'm that incompetent in
Speaker 1: that area of being, you know, the gland handing networker.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ed or Leo. You have a moment
Speaker 1: of connection. They're doing the show where there's a project.
Speaker 1: Do you have any social contact beyond maybe once a year?
Speaker 1: How you doing? That's that's largely it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Leo and I have worked together on I think six projects,
Speaker 1: three three or four short little ten fifteen minute uh
Speaker 1: YouTube videos that live, you know, little movies that on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and three or four larger longer you know, full length.
Speaker 1: These are all about climate change, um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: when you collaborate on those things, you get to know
Speaker 1: people a little bit better. UM. But mostly it's you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm in town, hey, how are you. I've become
Speaker 1: very close friends with his father. I think of George
Speaker 1: DiCaprio is one of probably my ten best friends, you know,
Speaker 1: in the world. And you know, like I said, my
Speaker 1: social circuit was very small. George and I talked regularly, UM,
Speaker 1: which has nothing to do with Leonardo UM, just because
Speaker 1: you know, we we have We're kind of really similar
Speaker 1: people in a lot of ways, and I just you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you just strike it off with people, and you know,
Speaker 1: with Ed um when he was married to Cindy. You know,
Speaker 1: we used to get together when I come to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: you know, for business whatever I had to do. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't think we've probably had dinners
Speaker 1: together more than I don't know, ten or fifteen times.
Speaker 1: But you know, we keep in touch. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a few other people who are real high profile. I'm
Speaker 1: not big into name dropping, but you know that I
Speaker 1: that I stay in touch with largely because they reach
Speaker 1: out to me from time to time. How about politicians,
Speaker 1: same story, Yeah, yeah, I mean Bernie was on my
Speaker 1: show every Friday for eleven years, and uh, you know
Speaker 1: I got to know him well as a consequence of that,
Speaker 1: but we were never social friends. Bernie is all about business,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, and God blessing for it's I think
Speaker 1: it makes him effective right now. Ro'canna and Mark pokaner
Speaker 1: on my show regularly. They you know, we have conversations
Speaker 1: and email from time to time, but you know we're
Speaker 1: not I'm not networking with them or nor are they
Speaker 1: with me. I don't think. Um, we're all about the mission,
Speaker 1: as it were. Okay, so you do your show very frequently.
Speaker 1: You know who your audience is. Anybody who's in doing
Speaker 1: a performance that frequently tends to know what their audience wants.
Speaker 1: To what degree or you beholden, which I know is
Speaker 1: a strong word to your audience, or to what degree
Speaker 1: do you say, Man, it's my show. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: whatever I want. Where do you sit there going this
Speaker 1: maybe a little much from my audience or and then
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna want to hear this. Are you talking
Speaker 1: in terms of topics or are you talking in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, styles slash uh production. I'm talking topics.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well you have I mean, you know, the
Speaker 1: basic rule of any any kind of media is never
Speaker 1: violate your audiences expectations, or if you do, do so
Speaker 1: in a way that is ultimately satisfied with them. So
Speaker 1: i'd say in that regard, you know, I'm i'm largely
Speaker 1: you know nine well over holding to my audience inasmuch
Speaker 1: as if I lose my audience, I'd have a show.
Speaker 1: Um that said, my audience is largely ah, thinking the
Speaker 1: same way I am. They're just looking to me for
Speaker 1: data and entertainment, presumably, um and uh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there are times that I'll bring topics up. For example,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fascinated by spirituality. I was really into spirituality
Speaker 1: when I was young. Um. I took acid when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, and it changed my life. I mean it
Speaker 1: just And I got real into into this one particular
Speaker 1: church in my later teenage years in early twenties, and
Speaker 1: even got ordained in that church. I I just you know,
Speaker 1: I was into the esoteric philosophers, into um kind of
Speaker 1: New age stuff. I went through a aread of meditation,
Speaker 1: transcemental meditation. I still meditate, you know, I although now
Speaker 1: I use a uh near feedback headband to meditate. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's a big deal for me. It's a big topic.
Speaker 1: It's a big part of my life. I literally pray
Speaker 1: every morning. And you know, occasionally I'll go off and
Speaker 1: ran about that on the air, and in particular on
Speaker 1: my affection for Jesus's words in Matthew, you know, the
Speaker 1: parable of the sheets and the goats and the and
Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount and uh. And I love
Speaker 1: it when, particularly when some conservative will call in and
Speaker 1: try to promote their vision of Christianity has been consistent
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump or something like that. And and I
Speaker 1: can I've read the Bible four times cover to cover
Speaker 1: I did it, frankly, as a way of getting to sleep.
Speaker 1: I've always had trouble sleeping my whole life. And I
Speaker 1: if you got these through the Bible in a year Bibles,
Speaker 1: you know where it's predivided into three sixty five slices
Speaker 1: and you read one every night. And I found that
Speaker 1: they just put me to sleep. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just perfect for me. It unwinds me. And
Speaker 1: so for four years in a row back in the
Speaker 1: in the in the eighties and the early eighties, I
Speaker 1: read the Bible cover to cover, so I can I
Speaker 1: can argue those things pretty effectively. Um. So you know
Speaker 1: that's not progressive talk radio at all, although I think
Speaker 1: Jesus was the original progressive so arguably it is, I suppose. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't talk very much about my drug
Speaker 1: experiences as a young person on the air, although I
Speaker 1: acknowledge them. I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a good thing for me. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm not recommending it to anybody else who's certainly
Speaker 1: the age I was done. Um. So you know, I
Speaker 1: guess my answer is kind of wishy washing your bob.
Speaker 1: But um, but I think that you have to keep
Speaker 1: your audience in mind. Certainly, it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't I don't have a radio show just so
Speaker 1: I can, you know, yell into the into the void.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to some of the issues. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about the war in Ukraine. Needless to say, many people
Speaker 1: thought that uh Putin in Russia would just run right
Speaker 1: over your Ukraine. That did not happen, however, And these
Speaker 1: scenes change every day, so it'll be a week before
Speaker 1: people will hear this, and you never know something major
Speaker 1: could happen. But I mean, is like Putin literally losing power.
Speaker 1: We saw how these things happen overnight, and there have
Speaker 1: been all these protests and he's conscripting people now. But
Speaker 1: Putin historically doesn't want to lose face. So relevant of
Speaker 1: Ukraine's cap capabilities and successes, one might say Putin is
Speaker 1: never gonna tuck his tail between his legs and say,
Speaker 1: I love, how does this play out? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very concerned about this. My my sense
Speaker 1: of it is that Putin, very much like every other
Speaker 1: dictator run who runs on narcissism um, knows that if
Speaker 1: he loses or if he's seen as being weak. Basically,
Speaker 1: the thing that keeps him in power is that everybody's
Speaker 1: afraid of him, and that he's and that he's perceived
Speaker 1: as being essentially infallible. Um. This was the engine on
Speaker 1: which Mussolini ran, Hitler, ran Franco ran To, Terita ran
Speaker 1: are Towan is running right now. Um. I mean this,
Speaker 1: this is the dictator's playbook. Is You've got to have
Speaker 1: people afraid of you. You know, they can love you
Speaker 1: and respect you, but fearing you is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And people only fear you if they see you as
Speaker 1: essentially omnipotent or or you know, unbeatable and so Putin
Speaker 1: I think has already passed the point where the image
Speaker 1: of him as as this uh invincible man on horseback,
Speaker 1: bear chested, has been shattered. And I don't think he's
Speaker 1: going to recover from this, whether his own government, you know,
Speaker 1: whether he's going to face a palace coup, whether he's
Speaker 1: going to decide okay, it's time to check out and
Speaker 1: I'm just going to retire to my datcha with by
Speaker 1: mistress and had a billion dollars, or whether something you know,
Speaker 1: far more terrible is going to happen to him, or
Speaker 1: whether he's gonna like Hitler did in his last days.
Speaker 1: I wrote an not bet about this. Actually a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. Um a good friend of mine, a
Speaker 1: dear friend of mine, armand Lehman Arman and I m
Speaker 1: back when Louis and I own an ad agency. I
Speaker 1: used to travel the world teaching advertising and marketing in
Speaker 1: the travel industry, and Armand was doing that. We both
Speaker 1: worked with the same company. And uh, you know, we've
Speaker 1: probably been to twenty countries together and spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on airplanes and hotels. And one day and
Speaker 1: Arman had this German accident. And he's about fifteen years
Speaker 1: older than me. And one day Armand uh It took
Speaker 1: me aside and said, I'm I think I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: it writing a book about my experience as a young person,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to tell you about it. I haven't
Speaker 1: talked to anybody about it, So what is it? And
Speaker 1: he said, well, when I was sixteen years old, I
Speaker 1: was drafted into the Hitler Youth and it was and
Speaker 1: I was the courier who hand delivered the note to
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler that the war was lost. If you've seen
Speaker 1: the movie Downfall, that little kid who comes in, a
Speaker 1: sixteen year old kid who hand that was my friend
Speaker 1: Armand and and and and that began a whole brand
Speaker 1: new kind of conversation between arm and. Armand wrote his book.
Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon right now. It's called
Speaker 1: In Hitler's Bunker. And Armand has now passed away. But
Speaker 1: m Armand told me those stories of the Hitler's final days,
Speaker 1: and that Hitler in the you know, when it became
Speaker 1: evident to him that he was losing maybe a few
Speaker 1: weeks or a few months out, he actually welcomed the
Speaker 1: Allied destruction of Germany. He felt that the German people
Speaker 1: had let him down. He at that point he hated
Speaker 1: the German people because they had failed him. He hated
Speaker 1: the German army because they had failed him. He had
Speaker 1: ordered his army to blow up Berlin. You know, at
Speaker 1: least a cording to army. I mean, I haven't checked
Speaker 1: this with history, although years you know, we lived in
Speaker 1: Germany for a year in the eighties, and I've read
Speaker 1: the Assurer's book The Rise and Fall the Third Reich.
Speaker 1: I just don't remember the details of that. But um,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned that Putin might have that same mentality of
Speaker 1: I'm going down in flames and I'm going to take
Speaker 1: somebody with me. You know, this is this is what
Speaker 1: you see with these people who go out and kill
Speaker 1: ten people and then commit suicide. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: out and blaze of glory. Um. You know the kid
Speaker 1: in Newtown. It's the same mentality. It's this, it's this
Speaker 1: deep psychopathic narcissism. And if Putin decides that he's going
Speaker 1: to go down in flames and bring a whole lot
Speaker 1: of people with him, that might mean nuclear war. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing that makes that wakes me up at night.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that concerns me the most. Okay, recently
Speaker 1: there have been elections and the right made as they
Speaker 1: used the term populus, which many people used to think
Speaker 1: was a left term. It is now certainly a right
Speaker 1: wing term. In Sweden, they've made progress. In Italy they
Speaker 1: made progress. They're threatening in France. Certainly, we have our
Speaker 1: own situation in America. What do you think explains this?
Speaker 1: And are we going to come out the other side?
Speaker 1: Never mind Orbon and Hungary, but what's happening here? Well,
Speaker 1: I think actually Orbon and Hungry is instructive because Orbon
Speaker 1: built his political empire. I was in Hungary the the
Speaker 1: year that Orbon came to power. Um Orbon built his
Speaker 1: political empire on trashing brown Skian immigrants coming to Hungary.
Speaker 1: His slogan was, you know, build the wall, make Hungary
Speaker 1: great again, and a campaign down building a wall on
Speaker 1: the southern border to keep up the Syrian refugees. And
Speaker 1: by the way, he did, he built that wall and
Speaker 1: it's heavily militarized right now. So uh, I think you
Speaker 1: know the like for example, about Sweden, most people don't realize. Um,
Speaker 1: just day before yesterday there were three bombings in Sweden.
Speaker 1: That's there have been more than five hundred bombings now
Speaker 1: in Sweden in the last in the last five years.
Speaker 1: It is a crisis in Sweden. And almost and and
Speaker 1: and shooting. Sweden now has more shootings than any other
Speaker 1: country in Europe. And almost all of this is coming
Speaker 1: out of the immigrant community that was welcomed when when
Speaker 1: you know, the Arab spring happened and then you know, uh,
Speaker 1: what's his name, bushsher Al Assad was you know, well,
Speaker 1: actually what started the whole thing was climate change drove
Speaker 1: all these farmers off their land in northern Syria. They
Speaker 1: came into Damascus, started demanding food, assad started shooting at them.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you've got a civil war, and now you've got
Speaker 1: this refugee crisis going into Europe. The ability of a
Speaker 1: society to absorb people who are not recognizable by other
Speaker 1: people in that society, either because of how they look,
Speaker 1: or how they speak, or or how they how they
Speaker 1: dress and live is limited. I mean, there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of good research on this. You know, a society
Speaker 1: can absorb one or two percent a year of people
Speaker 1: who are quote not part of the society and integrate
Speaker 1: them into the society. But when you start absorbing three,
Speaker 1: four or five, the society starts to reject that that
Speaker 1: you get this backlash, and that backlash takes the form
Speaker 1: of what looks like racism, and in many cases it
Speaker 1: is it's just playing all avert racism or xenophobia. But
Speaker 1: you know, it might not have been there had there
Speaker 1: not been or it might not have been taking that
Speaker 1: form had there not been that that influx of new people.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we're any in close to
Speaker 1: those kinds of threshold numbers here in the United States
Speaker 1: of refugees and migrants. But Fox News and the right
Speaker 1: are doing their best to try to convince people that
Speaker 1: were at that point. You know, there's a caravan coming right.
Speaker 1: Every election, every two years, there's a border crisis because
Speaker 1: it will stir up you know, fear and hate, and
Speaker 1: fear and hate are great motivators to get people to
Speaker 1: the to the to the polls. So I think that
Speaker 1: there is um a crisis that has to do with
Speaker 1: this issue, this immigration issue um or the refugee issue.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to get a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot worse over the next five years as climate change continues.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing Guatemalan refugees on our southern border
Speaker 1: because you know, a measurable and significant percentage of that
Speaker 1: country has desertified in the last decade, has turned in
Speaker 1: from farmland into desert because of climate change, and people
Speaker 1: are being pushed off subsistence farms and there's no place
Speaker 1: to go, and they go into the cities, and the
Speaker 1: gangs just you know, make mins need out of them,
Speaker 1: and so they flee to the United States or they
Speaker 1: flee into Mexico. Mexico is dealing with a huge influx
Speaker 1: of crisis level influx of migrants from Central America. So
Speaker 1: I think that this is this is going to be
Speaker 1: a longstanding issue, in a longstanding crisis. I don't see
Speaker 1: any easy solutions to it. It fractures societies, and it
Speaker 1: plays into right wing narratives and stimulates because it frightens people,
Speaker 1: it stimulates uh, you know, right wing political movements which
Speaker 1: are typically based on fear or on hate and uh
Speaker 1: and and very often hands victories to right wing movements
Speaker 1: as it just didn't sweep. Okay, the Republicans are all
Speaker 1: on the same page. They line up. We certainly have
Speaker 1: seen this with Trump. People said Trump was the worst
Speaker 1: and then cow tow to him. Democrats they say, it's
Speaker 1: a big tent. So we have a president who is
Speaker 1: essentially eighty okay, uh, not even a boomer pre boomer.
Speaker 1: And on the other extreme we have someone like AOC. Now,
Speaker 1: of course we have to look at AOC is elected
Speaker 1: as a representative in a district in the state of
Speaker 1: New York. But she is very verbal and vocal. In
Speaker 1: the last major election cycle, she said, if you leave
Speaker 1: me in control, I know how to deal with the Internet.
Speaker 1: I know how to stimulate the younger generations to vote. Now,
Speaker 1: not all the examples were in her favor. What do
Speaker 1: you tell because we have traditional Democrats, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Schumer and Pelosi, who are trying to go to the center,
Speaker 1: and the narrative created wherever is you must run to
Speaker 1: the center. Never mind, the center is further right than
Speaker 1: it's been in our lifetimes. But do we follow AOC
Speaker 1: is it about the youth? Do we move to the
Speaker 1: center or what are your thoughts? I think it's important
Speaker 1: to do both. I think that we have to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that there are people in what might be called the
Speaker 1: middle who are concerned about crime, who are dealing with homelessness.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're certainly we've got this problem here in
Speaker 1: Portland right now, and it's it's radicalizing the city. Um,
Speaker 1: the homeless crisis and which has become now a crime crisis.
Speaker 1: I've even seen it. You know, we had homeless people
Speaker 1: try to break into our house. Um, this is something
Speaker 1: that you can't deal with with slogans. You've got to
Speaker 1: deal with policy. And and that policy isn't oh, you
Speaker 1: know you poor people were going to uh, We're gonna
Speaker 1: let you do whatever you want. Um, which could be
Speaker 1: perceived by some people as kind of a right wing position.
Speaker 1: I think it's a little more pragmatic. Um. And I'm
Speaker 1: not offering specific policy instructions here other than to say,
Speaker 1: it's just you can't have people camping on the streets
Speaker 1: of cities. UM. So we've got to come up with
Speaker 1: something better than that. But there are people out there,
Speaker 1: oh no, no, almost rights, right, And I agree almost
Speaker 1: people should have rights, but not to camp in the
Speaker 1: city or in the streets of the city, and and
Speaker 1: and crap them on the curb. So you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's about as far right as I But you know,
Speaker 1: we have to acknowledge that, um, and and that you know,
Speaker 1: there are those kinds of concerns. And then on the
Speaker 1: other h on, you know, on the left, I think
Speaker 1: that um, you know, issues of civil rights and women's rights,
Speaker 1: human rights, I think right across the board. Uh, I
Speaker 1: think broadly speaking, often these are winning subjects. The Republicans
Speaker 1: have found little niches that they can amplify into great
Speaker 1: big things. Um. You know, so called critical race theory um,
Speaker 1: which just got blown all out of proportion. Um. The
Speaker 1: very very small number of trans kids who want to
Speaker 1: compete in girls sports, trans you know, trans girls who
Speaker 1: want to compete in girls sports. Um, that they're exploiting.
Speaker 1: And I would not argue that the Democratic Party should
Speaker 1: put those issues front and center. They still need to
Speaker 1: stand up for the rights of those people. But you know,
Speaker 1: the Republicans are going to be campaigning on those things,
Speaker 1: so you know, we have to figure out how to
Speaker 1: deal with that. I don't see easy answers, Bob. I.
Speaker 1: I think that Alexander Cassio Cortez is is her generations Bernie,
Speaker 1: and she's going to go a long, long way, and
Speaker 1: she's got a lot of good people with her, you know,
Speaker 1: the other members of Congress squad um. But there's others
Speaker 1: in addition to that. But you know, there's also you know,
Speaker 1: you've got Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and some you know,
Speaker 1: some very older people, people their sixties and seventies who
Speaker 1: also have, you know, things to say and things to
Speaker 1: contribute to the conversation that are not inconsistent or incompatible. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm very pleased that the Democratic Party seems to be
Speaker 1: coalescing around basically four issues around abortion, guns, the environment,
Speaker 1: and the threat to democracy that the Republican Party represents.
Speaker 1: I think those are winning issues that from the far
Speaker 1: left within the Democratic Party to the to the neoliberal
Speaker 1: right within the Democratic Party. The Josh Gottheimer's and the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. Um, there's a there's an agreement, a spectrum
Speaker 1: of agreement, and and that's a good thing. Okay. I'm
Speaker 1: someone who voting absolutely every election, although I've had some
Speaker 1: hope with recent events. Certainly we have this Kennon decision
Speaker 1: that was just overturned by an appeals court. Two of
Speaker 1: the judge were Trump appointees. But we know the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: I'll make it very mild leans, right, So what do
Speaker 1: we know? The Republicans are willing to do things. It's
Speaker 1: so far the Democrats have not. So if you undermine
Speaker 1: the system, it is hard to succeed. Why should I
Speaker 1: have hope? You know, we talked about this little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. You know, I look at this. The electoral
Speaker 1: power is balanced to the advantage of right. The Senate
Speaker 1: is balanced to the advantage of right. Never mind jerrymandery,
Speaker 1: and I want to go deep into that. Look what's
Speaker 1: happening in North Carolina. Look at the ultimate arbiter is biased,
Speaker 1: you know. And all I hear from politicians is vote, vote, vote,
Speaker 1: And it's hard for me to get excited about that.
Speaker 1: You know, I just don't see it that way. That's enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where your question is. My question is
Speaker 1: to those of us who've been in the system for
Speaker 1: a long time and the young people, how do we
Speaker 1: have hope that there's gonna be systemic change? Oh? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I I am hopeful that the Democrats. I I thought
Speaker 1: that the Chuck Schumer should have blown up the filibuster
Speaker 1: on day one. There's been so much good legislation that
Speaker 1: came out of the House that could have passed the Senate. Um,
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has been a big disappointment in many ways.
Speaker 1: Now that said, he's running the Senate and I'm not.
Speaker 1: And I'm willing to assume that he knows things I
Speaker 1: don't know. But UM, I'll leave it at that. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that you either have faith in democracy or
Speaker 1: you don't. You either believe that in the end, the
Speaker 1: good guys you're gonna win, or you don't. And I'm
Speaker 1: just not willing, and I have never been willing in
Speaker 1: my life to embrace the level of cynicism necessary to
Speaker 1: say screw it. You know, we're doomed. It's not going
Speaker 1: to work. Um. I I realized that the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: moves slower than I would like. Um. You know I've
Speaker 1: been banging on their doors since uh two thousand three,
Speaker 1: on the radio and in print since the nineties. UM,
Speaker 1: railing about it. I used to, you know, beat up
Speaker 1: Harry Read on there all the time, make jokes about how,
Speaker 1: you know, they should steal Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is
Speaker 1: when Schwartzenerger was governor of California. How somebody should stand
Speaker 1: outside his house, you know every month when the testosterone
Speaker 1: mail delivery arrives and steal it and go shoot up
Speaker 1: Harry Read with it. You know, come on, Harry, get
Speaker 1: a spine, you know, fight back. Um. He was always
Speaker 1: so nice and so friendly and oh, we can't do that,
Speaker 1: and that would be too far. Um. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a good man in retrospect. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to speak ill of the dead, but um, the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party has, all throughout my lifetime, has always been
Speaker 1: the party that says we're going to do things the
Speaker 1: right way, We're going to do things the appropriate way.
Speaker 1: We're going to do things, UM carefully and and and
Speaker 1: in so many cases slowly, to make sure that the
Speaker 1: outcome is strong and all it and that there's a
Speaker 1: consensus around this. We're not just going to grab power
Speaker 1: for the sake of power. The Republican Party is pursuing
Speaker 1: that ladder, grab power for the sake of power and
Speaker 1: get whatever you can done quickly. And now they've overreached,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly with abortion, but I think they've overreached
Speaker 1: frankly with neoliberalism as well over the last forty years,
Speaker 1: although Democrats have their fingerprints all over that too, and
Speaker 1: um and I think it's going to blow up in
Speaker 1: their face. I don't know if it's going to blow
Speaker 1: up in their face in this election or over the
Speaker 1: next few years. But I really think that the era
Speaker 1: of Republican dominance of American politics, or more appropriately to
Speaker 1: say conservative dominance and now neo fascist or as Biden
Speaker 1: was say, semi fascist dominance of our of our politics.
Speaker 1: I really think that's over. I think there's something to
Speaker 1: be said for you know, Stanley church In's notion of
Speaker 1: these forty year cycles within the context of Strausson House
Speaker 1: eighty year cycles in politics, and I think that we're
Speaker 1: at the end of a forty year conservative cycle and
Speaker 1: we're going into our beginning a far more progressive cycle. Okay,
Speaker 1: Biden gets an office, first six ten months are great.
Speaker 1: Then the works are gummed up and the approval ratings
Speaker 1: go down, and his whole party does not rally around him.
Speaker 1: The right has been on this program from the beginning.
Speaker 1: He's old, he's senile, all this other stuff. The left
Speaker 1: was silent. And now two years later, Biden has some victories,
Speaker 1: his numbers are going up, but the people in Washington
Speaker 1: are still not supporting him vocally. What do you think
Speaker 1: is happening here? I've been hearing a fair amount of
Speaker 1: support for Biden, you know, recently, particularly going into the election.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of its pro forma, but but I think,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of it is it's Sincere Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when he when he couldn't Yeah, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I was piste off about this. I think at the
Speaker 1: Democrats were when he couldn't get um Joe Mansion and
Speaker 1: Kristen Cinema to go along with freaking voting rights for
Speaker 1: God's sake. Um, you know, at that point, I just
Speaker 1: can't imagine Lyndon Johnson doing that as president or as
Speaker 1: as in Chuck Schumer's position as leader of the Senate,
Speaker 1: the Democrats in the Senate. I mean, you know, Lynnon
Speaker 1: Johnson would have gone in there and and picked picked
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion up by the by the throat and slammed
Speaker 1: him up against the wall and said, okay, buddy, here's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do for me, And here's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do for you, and no, and advanced. You know
Speaker 1: what he was gonna what he was. You know, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a bridge named after you and a brand
Speaker 1: new power plant, and you're gonna give me this goddamn bill.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that That's what Lyndon Johnson would
Speaker 1: have done. And and Frankly, that's what Franklin Roosevelt. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of us who would very
Speaker 1: much like Joe Biden like that and a Chuck Schumer
Speaker 1: like that, but that's not how these guys are whired.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've got what we've got. I guess, okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Newsom. I live in California. I've certainly
Speaker 1: met him. Thought he was an empty suit. I mean,
Speaker 1: I you know, like my grandmother would be fine if
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was president forever. I felt that Jerry Brown could
Speaker 1: run the state forever, but needle to say the law
Speaker 1: does not allow him to. However, Ever, since the incident
Speaker 1: during uh lockdown when he went to the restaurant and
Speaker 1: a couple of other faux paws, he has become very aggressive,
Speaker 1: not only in his own state but with deciantis, etcetera.
Speaker 1: This is sort of a three part question or as
Speaker 1: many parts I'm gonna whip out here. Is Biden gonna run?
Speaker 1: Could Newsom win? And his Newsom the of the candidate.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the Biden is not going to run just
Speaker 1: because of his age. O. Wait, so that's but that
Speaker 1: is your belief that he's not going to run. That's
Speaker 1: my belief. I mean, I don't talk about it much
Speaker 1: on the air because I know that once a president,
Speaker 1: once it's clear that the president is not going to run,
Speaker 1: he starts losing power and becomes lame duck. And that's
Speaker 1: why Biden's not going to acknowledge that. But I'd be
Speaker 1: surprised if he runs again. And I think his age
Speaker 1: would be a a problem for him if he runs again. Um,
Speaker 1: with regard to Newsom, I you know, whether he is
Speaker 1: the kind of Justin Trudeau, of of of the United States,
Speaker 1: because there's been a lot of comparisons there. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: time will tell I don't live in California, so I
Speaker 1: don't know him as well as you know I know,
Speaker 1: for example, politicians in Oregon. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: personally knowing, but just you know in the in my
Speaker 1: newspaper every day. Um. But the thing that I Knewsom
Speaker 1: has figured out, which I think is brilliant. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and it's you know, something that most good politicians know
Speaker 1: is that it is a lesson that I learned when
Speaker 1: I wanted to write novels. I've written probably seven or
Speaker 1: eight now was two and more published. They're just terrible.
Speaker 1: I'm a lousy fiction writer. But um, I attended a
Speaker 1: workshop in Hawaii back in the seventies on how to
Speaker 1: write novels. And this this famous New York Times bestselling
Speaker 1: novelist got up and he said, your hero is not
Speaker 1: the most important character in your book. Your hero is
Speaker 1: not where you need to spend most of the time.
Speaker 1: And this is the biggest mistake that people make, is
Speaker 1: spending all their time on their hero. He said, Uh,
Speaker 1: your hero is only as good as your anti hero.
Speaker 1: You're good guy can only be as good as your
Speaker 1: bad guy, and the goodness of your good guy is
Speaker 1: literally defined by your bad guy. Clarice, you know, in
Speaker 1: the FBI would have been just another FBI agent if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for Hannibal lector Superman would have just been
Speaker 1: a guy who stops robberies at the seven eleven, if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for the Joker, or you know, you filling
Speaker 1: the the anti anti hero. So the you know, and
Speaker 1: this this is true in storytelling, but it's also true
Speaker 1: in politics that you know, you can only be as
Speaker 1: good as your opponent is evil. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, if Newsom has picked out the most evil
Speaker 1: Republican out there who actually has a chance of playing
Speaker 1: in the political game for some time, I think Trump
Speaker 1: is out of the picture now, and that's de Santis,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's a proper evaluation. And then
Speaker 1: has decided, Okay, I'm going to pick a fight with
Speaker 1: this guy, and I'm gonna I'm gonna beat him because
Speaker 1: and I'm going to use him as my foil to
Speaker 1: demonstrate my goodness against his evil. Then I think that's
Speaker 1: brilliant politics, and I encourage him to do more of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: to Sciantis, just siantis evidences his education. He seems to
Speaker 1: be thinking about what he's doing, as opposed to even
Speaker 1: somebody like Ted Cruz has elite degrees but is not
Speaker 1: in touch with reality. Everybody who deals with on the
Speaker 1: inside said, he's not unlikable, as you did. If you
Speaker 1: take Trump off the table, is the Santis a viable
Speaker 1: winning candidate in urans? I think it's possible. I don't
Speaker 1: you know. Again, I don't live in Florida, but you know,
Speaker 1: I've certainly been observing to Santis a lot lately. My
Speaker 1: understanding is that he's a little bit of a of
Speaker 1: a kind of an aspect kind of character that you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't pick up social cues very effectively. He's not
Speaker 1: socially very competent. Um, he's brilliant. He lives in his head.
Speaker 1: He's got a super high i q. Um and that
Speaker 1: therefore he's not doing what he's doing out of a
Speaker 1: fire in his belly. That he's doing what he's doing
Speaker 1: out of carefully constructed calculation. And UM, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how far that can take you. I I think it
Speaker 1: will get you someplace, but I'm not sure how long
Speaker 1: it will last. Um. Trump did a really good job
Speaker 1: of adopting or or holding you know, his racist rants
Speaker 1: and stuff about immigrants and things like that, black people, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: he had the fire in the belly. Bernie Sanders has
Speaker 1: the fire in the belly. Um. Gavin Newsom, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: has the fire in the belly. He certainly seems like it.
Speaker 1: Although like I said, I haven't been paying a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to him until the last year. Um, So
Speaker 1: you know, whether to Santus it's just a cipher, you know,
Speaker 1: whether he is just the the robot du jour. I mean.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is that a lot of the
Speaker 1: right wing policy positions, outside of the ones on race
Speaker 1: and immigration, which are both really a whole about race,
Speaker 1: Outside of the racist fire in the belly stuff on
Speaker 1: the right, most of their policy positions don't make any
Speaker 1: sense or are so unpopular they don't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, ending abortion, more tax cuts for billionaires, more
Speaker 1: deregulation of industry, more air air pollution from from fossil fuel. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they literally don't make sense. On top of
Speaker 1: being unpopular, and so you know, the fire in the
Speaker 1: belly races and stuff sells really well, and you know,
Speaker 1: ever since Richard Nixon declared a Southern strategy, that's been
Speaker 1: the go to place for the gop um and and
Speaker 1: that'll carry you a long long way. Um Whether to
Speaker 1: Satis is doing this because he really feels that or
Speaker 1: because he just thinks that's what he has to do,
Speaker 1: that's what he has to say, and hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll pick up some immigrants and brownskin people in Texas
Speaker 1: and send them to Martha's vineyard. Uh. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but my sense of it is that he's running a script,
Speaker 1: that he's that he's that he's running a program, as
Speaker 1: it were, and that I think is a is a
Speaker 1: weakness of fallibility and a vulnerability. And I guess we'll
Speaker 1: have to wait and see if if my my analysis
Speaker 1: is right. Okay, let's talk about Trump. Trump's in trouble
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Trump is in trouble about the classified documents
Speaker 1: a maral Lago. There's January six. It's civil uh information
Speaker 1: which is quite damning that was released by New York
Speaker 1: just recently. But that's not criminal. Is he indicted criminally?
Speaker 1: Will he be convicted? Will he ever serve a day
Speaker 1: in jail? And what will be the result of all
Speaker 1: those things come true, I think the answers are yes, yes, no,
Speaker 1: and nothing. Um. I do believe that Donald Trump will
Speaker 1: be indicted criminally. I do believe that he will be convicted. UM.
Speaker 1: And I would be very surprised if he goes to jail. Um.
Speaker 1: We have a real reluctance in this country to send
Speaker 1: wealthy or powerful people to prison. It happens very rarely.
Speaker 1: And when it does happen, um, you know, like Martha Stewart,
Speaker 1: who was not all that powerful or that rich. Um,
Speaker 1: it tends to happen way down on the food chain
Speaker 1: of rich and of wealth and power. And so frankly,
Speaker 1: I I think Trump is just going to fade into obscurity. UM.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, but I I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the jig is up. Okay, so we have the primary
Speaker 1: with you know, primaries are long off, but starting in
Speaker 1: the spring, people start to run, and many prognosticators, many educated, say,
Speaker 1: if he runs, he gets the nomination. You do not
Speaker 1: agree with that, Trump, Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think that. Well, let me let me recalibrate
Speaker 1: that answer. If he was running in a Republican primary,
Speaker 1: that where the entire Republican Party be on just the rabid, fanatic, racist,
Speaker 1: neo fascist base was voting. I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of politicians to Santa's at the
Speaker 1: top that list who could give him a run for
Speaker 1: his money. I think to Santa's can still give him
Speaker 1: a run for his money. Um. The way that are
Speaker 1: the way that our primary system is set up. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, particularly given the primary elections typically don't
Speaker 1: happen in the in a in a in an environment
Speaker 1: where anything else of consequences on the ballot. Uh. Thus
Speaker 1: only the real true believers and the the hardcore fanatics
Speaker 1: show up. Works the Trump's benefit. But I would be
Speaker 1: astonished if he runs. I think that, um, he's he
Speaker 1: would have to in order to comply. I mean, this
Speaker 1: guy is raised a half a billion dollars since he
Speaker 1: left office. He's got all these routes who are just
Speaker 1: throwing money at him, um, many of them, probably most
Speaker 1: of them really, and he's just draining their banks, bank accounts.
Speaker 1: It's the most successful, profitable grift he's probably ever run
Speaker 1: in his entire life. And he would have to stop
Speaker 1: doing that if he runs for president. He would have to.
Speaker 1: He would have to clean up his act. He'd had
Speaker 1: to start being accountable to the federal to the Federal
Speaker 1: Elections Commission. Um, you know, there are rules, there are laws,
Speaker 1: there are things you have to comply with. He got
Speaker 1: away with not complying with them last time, in large
Speaker 1: part because nobody took him seriously. The Obama administration wasn't
Speaker 1: prosecuting him for his FEC violations. Early and then throughout
Speaker 1: his presidency, he basically controlled, you know, the government, and
Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission has three Republicans on it that
Speaker 1: are so hardcore that they just, you know, they just
Speaker 1: froze the FEC throughout that four years, they were incapable
Speaker 1: of doing anything. And I'm not sure to what extent
Speaker 1: that that's still the case. But um, you know, I
Speaker 1: I just don't think he's willing to give up his
Speaker 1: grift to run for president. I think he's going to
Speaker 1: continue to talk about it because it gets him money.
Speaker 1: But I think that that that by by the end
Speaker 1: of next year, and certainly by by early uh, we
Speaker 1: will know whether my analysis is right. But I just
Speaker 1: don't think that he's going to be the guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: Nate Silver famously called the election accurately. Since then, despite
Speaker 1: their protestations, the polls have been wildly inaccurate. Someone will say, well,
Speaker 1: it was in the margin of error even though Biden
Speaker 1: one there was stronger support for Trump than the polls said.
Speaker 1: We've been listening to this canard that the party in
Speaker 1: power always loses seats in Congress in the mid term.
Speaker 1: Yet we have the a portion. Now they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the polls are accurate. What is you were
Speaker 1: feeling about the mid term elections, primarily in the House
Speaker 1: and Senate. My sense of it is that it's going
Speaker 1: to be a Democratic blowout, in large part because of
Speaker 1: because of abortion, and because of a large number of
Speaker 1: women and young people who are signing up to vote
Speaker 1: right now. Um, with the head of polls, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that polls had faced a real challenge. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, my phone, I have it just set so
Speaker 1: that if somebody calls, it's not my contact, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't ring. I mean, you know, it's getting harder and
Speaker 1: harder for pollsters to do their business and uh and
Speaker 1: and find you know, a genuinely representative cross section. And
Speaker 1: so you know, I get it that they're they're kind
Speaker 1: of in a crisis. But my but you know, no
Speaker 1: analyst for polse But but I do think that the
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to do really well as fall knock
Speaker 1: good and finally, and you know, it's amazing power of
Speaker 1: one person who challenges the legitimacy of the presidential election.
Speaker 1: There's been all these voters suppression laws and you know,
Speaker 1: taking away the rights of the people as we don't
Speaker 1: have to delineate them one by one, but not every Republican.
Speaker 1: There was a story in the New York Times two
Speaker 1: days ago. It was a little confusing. They said these
Speaker 1: Republicans would not guarantee they would accept the results, although
Speaker 1: some literally just didn't respond. What do you anticipate happens
Speaker 1: when Republicans lose in this cycle? Well, they walk away
Speaker 1: like the Democrats did historically did in Virginia last cycle.
Speaker 1: Or is this become a big war. Well, we've seen
Speaker 1: several candidates now that are doing the sort of loser routine. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I would expect more of that, But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to be consequential, Bob, I you
Speaker 1: know the problem. I think it's going to be more
Speaker 1: with the election officials who are who are coming in office.
Speaker 1: Who are clear partisans, and they're basically saying, if our
Speaker 1: party doesn't win, then there was cheating in we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna refuse to validate the election. I'm I'm far
Speaker 1: more concerned about UM, you know, the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: of Arizona or the local election officials in the various
Speaker 1: counties than I am about Carry Lake, you know, pouting
Speaker 1: if she loses the election. So, assuming that those fears,
Speaker 1: do you think if those fears are real, well, will
Speaker 1: those fears activate and become consequential. I think it's possible.
Speaker 1: I think it's very possible. I don't think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a national crisis. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be hyperlocal. I suspect it's going to happen and probably
Speaker 1: four or five states and maybe more. UM and Uh,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of pushback, and I think
Speaker 1: ultimately it's going to work to their disadvantage in a
Speaker 1: big way, much like the Dodd's decision. It's going to
Speaker 1: be you know, the visible overreach, the clear sort of
Speaker 1: losersm UM is over time going to harm them and
Speaker 1: tarnish their brand rather than help them. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll do well with their true believers, their small base
Speaker 1: of true believers. But uh that basis I believe shrinking
Speaker 1: right now rather than growing. Tom. I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for taking the time. You've certainly made me think
Speaker 1: and we're aligned politically and great to hear who you
Speaker 1: are underneath the surface. I know you have to write
Speaker 1: your opinion piece. You have another radio show tomorrow, so
Speaker 1: thanks again for taking the time to talk to me
Speaker 1: in my audience. Bob. It's been a pleasure and and
Speaker 1: it's rare that that I'm interviewed by somebody who has
Speaker 1: the insights, the thoughtfulness and the depth that you have.
Speaker 1: And I've enjoyed it. I hope it's useful for the
Speaker 1: people who listen to thank you. I'm sure it will be.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left sets