Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Paul Taylor - Did The Boomers Really Ruin Everything?

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Interview Only w/ Paul Taylor - Did The Boomers Really Ruin Everything? · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. Well join me now. He's
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  Speaker 1: just a little further ahead of me and the resume,
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  Speaker 1: and in fact, basically about a half generation ahead of me,
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  Speaker 1: which is what makes this conversation we're about to have
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  Speaker 1: even better. It's Paul Taylor, legend very political reporter from
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  Speaker 1: the Washington Post, but has done a lot of things since,
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  Speaker 1: including with a new book, and I think if I
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  Speaker 1: just read you a title, you'll understand the premise, which
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  Speaker 1: is the title is this is Getting Old two Boomers
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  Speaker 1: and their generation at Dusk. It's a little bit memoir,
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  Speaker 1: but it's a little bit on this topic that you've
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  Speaker 1: probably heard me rant about, a little bit about the
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  Speaker 1: baby boomer generation in a variety of ways. And Paul,
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  Speaker 1: I think the best way to start this conversation is
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  Speaker 1: the following factor is that in nineteen ninety two, the
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  Speaker 1: voters of this country chose to elect somebody as president
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  Speaker 1: who was born in August of nineteen forty six. And
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  Speaker 1: then in two thousand, this country decided to elect a
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  Speaker 1: president that was born in July of nineteen forty six.
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  Speaker 1: And then in twenty sixteen, this country decided to elect
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  Speaker 1: a president, and then in twenty twenty four they decided
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  Speaker 1: elected president that was born in nineteen forty six. Just
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  Speaker 1: one month even before that one, we have had we're
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  Speaker 1: going to have twenty four of the last thirty two
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  Speaker 1: years of baby boomer presidents all born within ninety days
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  Speaker 1: of each other. How the hell did that happen?
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  Speaker 2: Great question, and I would just say, nothing like this
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  Speaker 2: has ever happened before in American history.
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  Speaker 3: So another way of saying you're right on Factoy is
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  Speaker 3: in the nine in the nine previous presidential elections we've had,
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  Speaker 3: Boomers have won eight of them.
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  Speaker 2: And the only election.
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  Speaker 3: That wasn't won by a Boomer was won by somebody
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  Speaker 3: older than a boomer, Joe Biden.
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  Speaker 2: So there's never.
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  Speaker 3: Been a generation that has had this kind of political
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  Speaker 3: hegemony for.
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  Speaker 2: This long, nor, I would argue, has there.
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  Speaker 3: Ever been a generation that has held so much sway
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  Speaker 3: over the economy and the culture as the Boomers now.
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  Speaker 2: Part of it is we're a huge generation.
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  Speaker 3: Famous, that's where we get our name, the baby boom,
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  Speaker 3: and we don't people know the history. I don't they
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  Speaker 3: need to dwell on it. So in addition to holding
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  Speaker 3: those high offices for this long And by the way,
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  Speaker 3: if you look at the US Senate today, sixty of
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  Speaker 3: the one hundred senators are boomers. And if you look
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  Speaker 3: and you know this, Chuck could see you know these
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  Speaker 3: numbers as well as anybody in the country. If you
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  Speaker 3: look at all presidential elections for the last four years
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  Speaker 3: since the early eighties, boomers have been the largest cohort
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  Speaker 3: in the election.
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  Speaker 2: I think this.
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  Speaker 3: Year will probably be the first time that we're finally
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  Speaker 3: overtaken not by your generation that unfortunately squeezed and diminished
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  Speaker 3: generation by the Boomers, but the millennials, who are also
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  Speaker 3: a pretty large generation. So this is an't historical none
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  Speaker 3: the effector has ever happened before. And the question I
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  Speaker 3: asked myself and a lot of people ask themselves, is
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  Speaker 3: what is it done to America? And here we are
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  Speaker 3: a month away, six weeks away from our two hundred
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  Speaker 3: and fiftieth birthday, and what allows the time to throw
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  Speaker 3: ourselves a birthday party? Because I'm a full generation older
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  Speaker 3: than you, and I have never and I'm an American
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  Speaker 3: chow from this and I'm an American patriot, and I
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  Speaker 3: you know, for all of our flaws, I think this
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  Speaker 3: is the greatest country in the world.
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  Speaker 2: But boy, we're in a dark place.
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  Speaker 3: And people like me and maybe listeners to your show
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  Speaker 3: will give a two word answer to why we're in
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  Speaker 3: such a dark place, and that two word answer would
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  Speaker 3: be Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 2: Now we can have that conversation or not have that conversation.
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  Speaker 3: What I would argue about Donald Trump is he is
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  Speaker 3: more symptom than cause he's certainly an accelerant of our troubles.
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  Speaker 3: But how did we get to a place where there
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  Speaker 3: was so much populist anger a foot in the land
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  Speaker 3: that half the country was willing to set aside. It's
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  Speaker 3: concerns about this man's character. And it's hard not to
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  Speaker 3: have concerns about this man's character because he touched some
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  Speaker 3: fairly deep marriage and some fairly deep senses of grievance.
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  Speaker 2: And there, I think you have to back.
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  Speaker 3: Up and take a look at what did my generation
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  Speaker 3: do with our long reign?
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  Speaker 2: And I would start.
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  Speaker 3: I would start with a story it's been told a
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  Speaker 3: bit of the last year or so.
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  Speaker 2: It touches me.
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  Speaker 3: In the mid nineteen fifties, the great cathedral of entertainment
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  Speaker 3: and the great symbol of America was Disneyland.
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  Speaker 2: Is The first Disneyland.
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  Speaker 3: Opened in in nineteen fifty five, and it captured the innocence,
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  Speaker 3: that charm, the sense of possibilities. Makes no difference who
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  Speaker 3: you are. Everyone when you wish upon a star, makes
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  Speaker 3: no difference.
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  Speaker 2: Who you are. Everyone's a vip.
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  Speaker 3: That was what Disneyland embodied today in Disneyland and its
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  Speaker 3: other theme parks, it makes a big difference who you
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  Speaker 3: are because if you.
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  Speaker 2: Want to avoid Disneyland's long lines.
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  Speaker 3: You just pay your way, you know, to the accelerated line.
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  Speaker 2: So there is a loss of sort of.
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  Speaker 3: The egalitarian culture that was very much a part of
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  Speaker 3: the America that I was born into, that I.
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  Speaker 2: Grew up in.
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  Speaker 3: One last another way of expressing that is our economy.
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  Speaker 3: We now have an economy where the typical CEO of
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  Speaker 3: a fortune five hundred company earns nearly three hundred times
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  Speaker 3: more than his.
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  Speaker 2: Or her typical employee sixty years ago.
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  Speaker 3: As I was growing up, that was that three hundred
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  Speaker 3: to one was twenty to one. Imagine all the ways
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  Speaker 3: that an economy has to change, that a culture has
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  Speaker 3: to change, that a set.
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  Speaker 2: Of norms have to change to get to.
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  Speaker 3: A place where we go from twenty to one income
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  Speaker 3: inequality to three hundred to one.
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  Speaker 2: And my generation facilitated that.
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  Speaker 3: We're not the only culprits, but we had the biggest
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  Speaker 3: hand in all of these changes. And now we're experiencing
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  Speaker 3: a populist reaction to it, and we have, in my view,
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  Speaker 3: you know, kind of a feral mad man leading that
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  Speaker 3: populist the reaction. I would like to believe he will
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  Speaker 3: push it too far. We both probably believe in cycles.
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  Speaker 3: And then I hope, well, there'll be a backlash to
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  Speaker 3: the backlash, but one we're deep into a backlash that
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  Speaker 3: that is a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Ombers have delivered to America.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's unpack a little bit. And I always try
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  Speaker 1: to I try to think, you know, I think about
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  Speaker 1: generations and they're definitely defined by the moment they come
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  Speaker 1: of age, right, for better or for worse. I came
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  Speaker 1: of age with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, I pivoted the foreign language I needed
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  Speaker 1: to learn. I was Spanish, Spanish, Spanish. And then I
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  Speaker 1: was like, oh, the Berlin Wall fell, and I freshman
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  Speaker 1: year in college, I said, I had learned German. It's
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  Speaker 1: probably going to be the language of finance. Whoops. Turned
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  Speaker 1: out it probably should have been Mandarin. But the point being,
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  Speaker 1: or even if you think the Gulf States are where finances,
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  Speaker 1: But the point was, that was my coming of age.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, it was also a pretty pro
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  Speaker 1: America version of coming of age. We were winning, right,
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  Speaker 1: it was freedom was on the march. Communism we did it.
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  Speaker 1: We won the Cold a War, right, We somehow survived this.
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  Speaker 1: They spent themselves into oblivion just before we did. I
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  Speaker 1: think about the boomers and when they turned eighteen, right, well,
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  Speaker 1: the boomers turned eighteen and arguably one of the most
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  Speaker 1: divisive times in the history of this country short of
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War? Right, when did the boomers turn eighteen? Nineteen,
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  Speaker 1: sixty three, sixty four, sixty five, sixty six?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: Holy cow? Yeah? So how much of that do you
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  Speaker 1: think impacts? Right? Because I believe, just like anything, right,
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  Speaker 1: your initial experience as an adult is more defining than
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  Speaker 1: you fully realize until later in life. And so that's
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  Speaker 1: do you think because the boomers came of age in
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  Speaker 1: this tumult in a polarized world, and the nineteen sixty
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  Speaker 1: five America was very polarized, sixty eight America even more so. Right,
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  Speaker 1: It's it's sort of what we look at. Should we
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  Speaker 1: look back and say it was inevitable that once they
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  Speaker 1: were the largest voting block, polarization was going to be
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  Speaker 1: here to stay?
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  Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I mean.
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  Speaker 3: It's a great setup for a question, and it is
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  Speaker 3: a great way to think about.
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  Speaker 1: It and wind up, that's for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And I thought about it in those very terms, and
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  Speaker 3: I'll I'll tell me about debunk it. Yeah, Yeah, So
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  Speaker 3: one important difference between the tumult then and the tumbult
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  Speaker 3: now I can express in pulling results. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: I spent a decade of my life pretending to be
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  Speaker 3: a full year with some of the smartest polls.
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  Speaker 1: Is that, by the way, one of the coolest things
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  Speaker 1: p was putting out one of my favorite projects that
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  Speaker 1: they put out. It's the time pography results come out
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  Speaker 1: this but I'm very excited anyway, go ahead.
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  Speaker 3: So there are questions that get at your underlying faith
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  Speaker 3: in core institutions and the system, and whether it's the government,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's a big business, and all the rest.
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  Speaker 2: And some of those questions were asked back in the
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  Speaker 2: sixties and they've been asked to this day.
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  Speaker 3: So you can do interesting comparisons and well throughout the sixties,
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  Speaker 3: throughout all the tumult that you described, assassinations, civil you know, riots,
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  Speaker 3: urban riots, the anti war protests, et cetera, et cetera,
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  Speaker 3: seventy more or less seventy five percent of public, including
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  Speaker 3: seventy five percent of boomers then teenagers or young adults, said, basically,
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  Speaker 3: the system is trying to do right by the American people.
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  Speaker 3: We know a lot of us hate hate their policies.
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  Speaker 3: We can't stand the war, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Civil righteous.
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  Speaker 1: What you're saying is they thought that the intentions were correct.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the under line system was good. The piano work
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  Speaker 3: that we had lads of piano players. Use any metaphor
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  Speaker 3: you want, but that described the coming of age worldview
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  Speaker 3: of my generation. The coming of a worldview of today's
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  Speaker 3: gen zers is it's all rig Certainly that's a worldview
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  Speaker 3: that Donald Trump and his supporters have embraced. So we're
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  Speaker 3: stuck now with a population old, too young that thinks
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  Speaker 3: it is all rig This is not a good situation. Now.
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  Speaker 3: Where I went full my generation, and one of the
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  Speaker 3: chapters in this book, I went to my fifty fifth.
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  Speaker 3: I went to Yale. I was a privileged I grew
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  Speaker 3: up middle class. But I you know, I described myself
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  Speaker 3: as a pale male Stanle and Yale, and I don't
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  Speaker 3: have anything to complain about it.
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  Speaker 2: In my life.
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  Speaker 3: You know, the system has been rigged in favor of
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  Speaker 3: guys like me my whole life.
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  Speaker 2: And I get that. I and my class.
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  Speaker 4: I graduate from Yale in nineteen seventy, so I was
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  Speaker 4: in college see and the heat of the late sixties
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  Speaker 4: and all the craziness that went with it, And I
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  Speaker 4: believe pretty passionately as most of my classmates did in
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  Speaker 4: the civil rights movement, in the in the movement for
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  Speaker 4: individual freedoms, in.
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  Speaker 2: Gay rights and women's rights.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is to me, this is
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  Speaker 3: the proudest part of the Boomer story. The most disappointing
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  Speaker 3: part of the Boomer story, in my view, is that
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  Speaker 3: looking back now with the advantage of hindsight, we did
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  Speaker 3: undermine confidence in a lot of institutions because we thought
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  Speaker 3: they weren't working well.
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  Speaker 2: But once we achieved our.
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  Speaker 3: Victories, what we failed to do, we failed to understand
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  Speaker 3: was really those institutions are guardians of the things that
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  Speaker 3: a society cares most about. They are the guardrails. They
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  Speaker 3: are the guardians. They instruct us for better and worse,
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  Speaker 3: and how we ought to live and how societies are operate.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, the boomers I went to college with,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: or at least that we were very, very Liverpool group.
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  Speaker 3: But we figured out that we needed to restore confidence
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  Speaker 3: and institutions.
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  Speaker 1: No, I hear that, but how many what percentage of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: boomers went to college? Yeah, that's that's the other thing, right,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Because you're now talking about a cohort. That is a
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  Speaker 1: smaller percentage of a smaller percentage. It's not just college.
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  Speaker 2: Well here's what I.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Feel like, college boomers, right, Like, that's a smaller subset.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: You're making another great point.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, back then probably, but you know, probably only about
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  Speaker 3: a quarter of boomers went to college and we're only
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: up to thirty thirty five percent now.
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  Speaker 2: So there was a big social class distinction within the boomers.
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  Speaker 2: When people read.
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  Speaker 3: About the sixties, they read about my end of the
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: boomer They read about the Flower Children, the Anniu War protesters,
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  Speaker 3: and all the rest, and we grabbed all the headline.
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  Speaker 3: We were Time, We were Time Magazine's Person of the Year,
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  Speaker 3: I think in nineteen sixty five, because the youth revolution
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: was making it self, fell both in the culture sex, drugs.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: And rock and roll, in the women's movement, in.
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  Speaker 3: The civil rights movement, and all the rest.
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  Speaker 5: But for every long haired you know, a flower child
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  Speaker 5: who was sitting in on the dean's office, there was
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: a buzz cut Boomer waiting through the pattings of Vietnam.
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  Speaker 3: So there has always been this class distinction within the
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: boomer generations.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: True of the matter is, here's a tough quiz for
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  Speaker 2: you, you may be one.
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  Speaker 3: Of the few guys who can get close to the
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: right answer. So Bloomers had this repudation of being very
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: liberal as they grew up. Boomers have now participated in
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: fourteen presidential elections. The first one we were old enough
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: to vote in was nineteen seventy two. The most recent
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: one was a year and a half two years ago.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Of those fourteen presidential elections, how many in how many
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: of them did the Democratic nominee, whoever he was, wain
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: a majority of the Boomer.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Vogue, I'm gonna guess one, and that it was Joe Biden.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you got you. You're the first person I've asked
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: this question too. They got the number right, you got
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: the guy along Biden was closed. Jimmy Carter was the
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: only one.
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  Speaker 3: And to be fair, Clinton got plurality, but but it
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: was a three way raise both times he ran, so
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  Speaker 3: we never got the regality.
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  Speaker 1: I thought Biden merely got it because you know the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: other underrated you know you and I are talking here
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: is if Boomers gave us Donald Trump. The irony is
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that boom The Trump's strongest generational demographic group is my generation.
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  Speaker 1: Not yours. It's generals.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and actually and actually, as you know, boom in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, he made his greatest gains among the young.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, right, the biggest.
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  Speaker 1: Difference, right, he won. His Boomer numbers were not great.
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  Speaker 2: They were still a majority, but they were not great,
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  Speaker 2: that's right. So so it's it's to me, it's not
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  Speaker 2: so well again, we have a societ that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you know, I'll give you another number that
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: really really a few as you know, normally does a
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: massive polling in this country.
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  Speaker 2: We Pew polled all over the world and periodically.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: We asked fascinating questions and you get these global comparisons.
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  Speaker 3: So six months eight months ago, they asked the question
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: in twenty five country, what would you say about most
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: of your fellow citizens? Are they most of them morally
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  Speaker 3: good or most of them morally bad. Of the twenty
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: five countries tested, the United States was the only one
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  Speaker 3: where a majority of respondents said most of my fellow
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  Speaker 3: citizens are morally bad.
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  Speaker 2: Countries as disparate are neighbors.
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: In Mexico, eighty.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Eight percent said most of my fellow citizens are morally good.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: And Canada, Canada are fifty first date, ninety two percent
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: said mostly morally good. Japan, India, UK, Germany, you name
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the country.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: by Quints. So summer always changes, certainly how I get dressed.
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• 20:07
  Speaker 1: code where certain generations more likely to say we were
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: morally bad versus morally good.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I think that one was across the board.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think there was a big generational cut on
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: that one, but it goes to this sense that you
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: know starting with the way we conduct our politics, which
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: sort of chokes on its own bile, and the public
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: square has just gotten so ugly. And again I go back,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: what are the roots of that? And I go back
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: to I think some of it is political. There's this
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: sense that we grow up with of entitlement. I mean,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: there was a triumphalism. You talked about it in nineteen eighty
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: nine with the follow of the Berlin Wall, but there
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: was actually a triumphalism as well in the fifties and sixties,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: coming out of the winning the most important war and
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: my view in human history, and saving the world from fascism,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: and the feeling and then this era of prosperity. The
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: rest of the world was on his heels. America was
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: an economic and political colossis. So we grow up with
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: a feeling, and our parents raised us with the feeling.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: You were spared the horrors of the Great Depression, you
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: were spared the horrors of the war it self, and
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: now it's all going to be great.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Is this where American exceptionalism really gets born and sort
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of mutates a little bit?
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: You think, yes, I.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Think American exceptionalism has taken form.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Really from the beginning.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: And I think the most extraordinary thing about American exceptionalism
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: back you go back to two hundred and fifty years,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: so you certainly go back to the Constitution and the
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: idea that we formed ourselves around the creed, around an idea,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: which is a belief that all men, or now we
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: would say all people are created people. We have never
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: lived up to that creed, and part of the tragedy
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and glory and drama of America isinct the distance between
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the beauty of that creed and the failure to reach it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: But we're the only country in the history that started
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: with that idea, and it's still the best idea we've
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: ever had, anybody's ever had.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: For a country.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: So I think it's taken different forms, and sometimes the patriotism,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: you know, turns in on itself and turns in on
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the world. But the other thing that that to me,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: is at the heart of American inceptionalism, and it's very
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: much a part of current debate we're in right now,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: is our openness to.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: People from Romario the world.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: We were started by people who left the place is
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: they wanted a better life, and two hundred and fifty
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: years later, we as a country have received something like
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: one hundred and ten million immigrants. There's no other country
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: in the world that has received more than twelve or.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Thirteen million immigrants. So even though there are.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Some countries today that have a higher share of immigrants
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: than we do, the incredible importance of the immigrant experience
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: to this country, whether we're receiving it with open arms
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: or we're having a backlash to it, and we've gone
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: through those cycles.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: And we're in the middle of one now. To me,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: that is as close to the heart and the idea.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It's the diversity that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Comes with that, the energy that comes with that, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: the challenges that come with that.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting about there are our story as
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a nation of immigrants, is how much actually our history
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: indicates we've been fighting that we've had that. It's to me,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it's the through line tension the entire two and out
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: of fifty years, which is we believe anybody can be
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: an American, and yet we're constantly arguing about who gets
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to be an American.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you're absolutely right, and you can.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: You can.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: You can go back to the know Nothings, you can
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: go back to the the KKK, you can go back
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: to moments in our history where the immigration just got
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: to be too much and you had very serious political
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: and economic backlashes.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And certainly the Trump era is the latest chapter in that.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: I withdraw a distinction between the modern era immigration, which
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: basically begins in the middle of that revolutionary nineteen sixties,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: when all the civil rights legislation was passing all the rest.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And we change. I mean, we did open the doors more.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: We opened the door.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: We had clubs them in the nineteen twenties and reacted,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and we did open them. I mean, the biggest change
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: we made an immigration policy in this country is in
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: the sixties, not in nineteen eighty six.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty five. And so we have so a brief
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: history and numbers up.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: You know, our entire history up to nineteen sixty five,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: America received about thirty two million immigrants over one hundred
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and fifty years.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Ninety percent of them were white Europeans.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, in the modern era, since opening reopening our doors,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: having closed them through much of the middle of the
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: twentieth century, in the last sixty years since nineteen sixty five,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: we've received seventy two million immigrants.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Nine to ten of whom are non white.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: So they mostly come from Latin America and Asia, with
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: a smattering of Africa and the Middle East, the Caribbean, etc.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: That is a big, big change, and it has.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Taken a racial tachestry that for most of our history
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: was black and white and turned it into a coat
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: of many colors. And it has produced a generation of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: young adults who are now many of them the children
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: of this wave of immigrants, the grandchildren now of this
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: wave of immigrants, who have a different you know, the
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: aspirational metaphor of our country for most of these centuries
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: of immigration was melting pot. That's what you may have
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: grown up with. What I grew up with, that the
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: beauty of America. People come from all over, we welcome
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: them with open or.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: We eventually all look alike and they.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Give up their old language, they give up their old ways,
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: and we're all Americans. And that is the genius today's young,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: don't you know. They don't aspire to them, but they
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: don't want everybody to be like everybody else. They celebrate
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: the beauty and the difference is a better metaphor for
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: them is mosaic.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Uh, It's mosaic. Racially it's mosaic in terms of their
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: general gender identity, and.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: There is no question that is a powerful and beautiful metaphor.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Where I worry about these kids, however, is they don't
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: seem to appreciate that a mosaic needs more than the is,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: more than the.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Sum of its beautiful pieces.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: The mosaic needs glue and and and what we don't
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: have what they don't have. And I think even some
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: older adults are losing is this and what is what
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: binds us together as a nation?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Well and the thing of that happened.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Let me get at one of to me your challenges,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I think in this argument, and I say this, when
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I say your challenges, I'm saying your generation's challenges in
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: this I think it's safe to say the following that
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the baby boomer's generation will be the last sort of
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: generation to experience America as a single culture. And I
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: think boomers still see America as a singular as sort
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of more of a single culture or certainly and what
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you describe at the mosaic, I totally agree with right,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And in some ways, Gen X, we are definitely got
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: more in common with boomers than we do with millennials.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: There's a sharp divide right. In fact, there's quite a
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: few millennials who have boomer parents, right because Gen X
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: waited so long to have kids. We're produced we you know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: we produced the mostly the the the gen Z, you know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: some some millennial younger Millennials, but mostly Gen Z. And
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I wonder if this that's a huge disconnect, that you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: have this one aging generation that is used to us
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: basically a monoculture, and we have that now gen Z
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and millennials together are more than half the electorate combined,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and they see an entirely different culture. I mean, doesn't
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that explain the culture clash?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: You know, it's an It's an intriguing way to look
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: at it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I'm going to have to confess to being kind of
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: a hopeless American chauvinish.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I do. I do think that.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I I share that, I share that with you, but God, I.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Hope my number but realist not to get too carried away.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I believe in American exceptionalism for reasons. We've talked about it,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: and I think that uh, nowhere in the world that
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I'm aware of, but I don't pretend to be.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: You know, we're a great world travel but the essence
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: of individual liberty.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Is just so powerful here, and it fuels our energy,
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: It fuels our culture, and fuels our fuels our economy.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: It can get teared away with itself.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: It can lead lead to these fractures that we're experiencing,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and can lead to this sort of capitalism on steroids.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: And we've gone through these periods before.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And they don't work out well, and we usually have
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: a reaction against them. Right now, it's a right wing reaction.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Maybe it'll turn into a left wing reaction.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: But I think.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Underlying all that the energy that comes from our creed.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: We're not a blood and soil nation. Most most nations
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: are blood and soil nations. We are a credal nation.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: It's the most powerful creed out there. So I don't
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: think that's going to disappear. And I what forms it takes.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: And if I told you that I think everything's gonna
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: be okay tomorrow, be kidding myself and you. I think
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: we got a long way to go. I think a
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: lot of damage has been done. But you know, I
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: mean I read about I read about this a little
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: bit in this book, and I you know, I during
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the years I was a political reporter David Broder, kind
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: of the Dean, you know, great institution, and it was
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: it was a privilege and a joy to be on
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: a political staff with him. And one of the things
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: he told us underlings was, you know, you're out there
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: on the campaign trail, you're on the campaign bus.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: You're in a bubble. Get yourself off the.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Bus, find a play, find a time, and just take
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: twenty four to forty eight hours and go find a
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: middle class, working class neighborhood somewhere. You know, it seems
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: like it's a it's a swing swing neighborhood in the
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: swing district, and just spend the day or.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Two knocking on doors and asking people what they think that.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And I did that for campaign after campaign, you know,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: in the mostly.
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: In the eighties and early nineties, and it left an
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: impression on me that I fold to this day, because
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: you you would, you know, I'd be standing outside and
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: knock and if somebody comes, and I'm on the other
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: side of the screen door, and I introduced myself, Paul Taylor.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going a reporter from the Washington Post, and we're.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Covering the Senate campaign governor's campaign and presidential primary, whatever
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: it was, and it is out there talking to folks about,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: you know, what they think about what's going on, and inevitably,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: the person not inevitably, but very often the person on the.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Other end of the side of the streams, buddy, you
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: come to the wrong playing. We don't give a crab
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: about politics. I mean you know, I mean, we don't
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: play any attention. It's all there, all about it.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: You're like, no, No, that's exactly what I want to hear. Right,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that's why.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: So if you have the skill, then you developed students
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: and get past that initial worker.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: That's fine, I get it.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's just talk about your community, what's going on
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: in your life. Well, you get that the initial resistance
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: and people want to tell their story. That's what keeps
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: people like you and being business right, that's right, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: and uh that those conversations led me to a pretty
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: good feeling about who Americans are.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: That are they are? They? Are they well informed on
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: me all the issues of the day. Often not? Are
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: they misimportant? Yes? Often are they?
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: Are?
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: They pragmatic people who just want to really solve problems
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: because they know it's in their interest to work with
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: other people.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Actually yes they are. That was the America. So I
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: think we are a good, indecent people.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I am appalled by the values represented not just not
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: just by Trump, but but to some degree by the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: whole political culture that has to react to Trump.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: And it's I seemed to be we we we hear.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: It is the journalists, it's the Democrats, it's Republicans, everybody
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: we go to have the same goddamn sinkhole, and it just.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: We chope out our own bile.
• 33:10
  Speaker 8: I still believe, however, that you you talk to most people,
• 33:14
  Speaker 8: and even if you think they're Trump crazy or they
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: think you know, you get yeah, past the first.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Beer and you talk stuff, You get somewhere.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: It's true you always do that.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: America is still there.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: And I think I think, you know, the old Marxist
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Lenin's Leonard is revolutionary. The worse it gets, the better
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: it gains, because the revolution is gonna come. I think
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: in terms of reacting to the way we conduct ourselves
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: as the people, I think people are just appalled by it,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: and they yearn for something. I would like to believe
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: it you should be on the progressive left. But but
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: I would like to believe that the next wave of politics,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: whether we see it in five months or in two years,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: is a reaction to the way we're doing our politics now.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: So there's another simple fact that I say about boomers
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that is literally a curiosity. Which is the biggest change
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that will happen when then the boomers age out of voting,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: is we will lose the last generation in America that
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: lived in segregated America. Yeah, And I think that is
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: more than just a symbolic thing that changes. I think
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that when the memory of segregation is no longer alive,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: that the memory is literally in history books and is
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: amongst the dead, I think that changes us a bit
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: on race. I'm not saying it's going to solve all
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of the problems, but I do think it means we
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: take another leap in the in the more perfect union direction,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: right that that sometimes you have to sort of oh,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean I think about this all the time,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Paul I was within you know, I started elementary school
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: public schools in nineteen seventy seven in Miami, Florida, and
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: i'd been just born seven years sooner, six years sooner,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I'd have been going probably busted or in a segregated
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you know, Miami was still a side always say I
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: was born in Miama, and I graduated high school in Miami.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was still it was a
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: southern city first, and that's a big thing. And yet
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that's only a couple of years different, right, I was
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: only a few years removed from when a majority of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the South still went to segregated schools, and that that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: will have a transformational impact on us. I'm just not sure,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: but I think it'll be one of those it's like
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh my god, an earthquake's not happening, you
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's something like that. It may
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: not be felt, it'll just be Oh, have you noticed
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: we're not as racially polarized anymore? Yeah, I think maybe
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I'm being Polyanna.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: No, I think you're right.
• 36:02
  Speaker 9: I think it's it's it's it's hard for anybody in
• 36:06
  Speaker 9: this in that conversation around race to take a step
• 36:11
  Speaker 9: back into the knowledge, holy shit, we've made a lot
• 36:14
  Speaker 9: of progress.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel that way because they're you.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Know, but boil it ain't it ain't right yet, and
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: it ain't right yet, but it is certainly better than
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it was right.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: And you can you can say the same thing about
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: women's right. You can say the same thing about gay rights.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: You can say the same thing about the same We're
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: all better, it is all better, and it.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Is still and isn't that?
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Isn't that the nature of change when it happens, it
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: happens too fast for some and not fast enough for others.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a there's a line.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: I caught it the books, you know, stuck between two worlds,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: you know, one day, the other powerless to be born.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: We we are moving towards something again, the likes of
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: which you know when when when I talked about the
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: diversity and the credle nation. We are en route to
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: becoming something that no nation in history has ever been,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: including our nation.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: We are en route to becoming a country in which
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: no single group, no single demographic group, is in the majority.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: And yet everyone in every group and it is multi racial,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: it is multi ethnic.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: And and at least we like to say that everyone
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: in every group has an you know, has an equal
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: shot in the economic opportunity and individual agency to be
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: whoever he or she wants to be, uh, you know,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: and and an economic opportunity that is a hard thing
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: to pull off.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: No nation has ever pulled it off.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: We are trying, and uh, I like you know, I
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: actually in that sense, I would put my money on
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: the rising generation of kids.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, and and but boy, it would be helped.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: They would help themselves.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: They would help themselves if they if they understood that
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: they are actually the latest embodiment of.
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: This except there they are who they are, and they're
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: living the lives they can lead because they're in a
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: country that has been trying to do this and get
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: this right for ee johndred and fifty years.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
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  Speaker 1: am a customer. So let's talk about the boomers versus
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: everybody else. Why did it take so long? Why why
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: has it taken so long to push boomers out of leadership?
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Boomers were very aggressive and pushing older people out of leadership. Yeah,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: you know, where did my where did I? Where did
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I go wrong? In Gen X? I always said, I
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: think we were too accommodating? Where did the millennials go wrong?
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: In some ways they look at they've just pushed us
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: out of the way. Well, if you're not going to
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: get them out, we're going to get them out. I mean,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: what's your.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you come to start with your numbers.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know that with the baby boom is
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: a demographically named generation and there's never been there's never
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: been a demographic blip like this. So you're starting in
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: nineteen forty six. World War two has just ended. We won,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: the genis come home. Hey, hey, hey, things are great.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: Let's make a lot of babies.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: And they made a lot of babies.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: So for those eighteen years, which is the general boundary
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: that people use, nineteen forty six to nineteen sixty four, the.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Typical woman in America had three babies before that. It
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: was two since then. And by the way, so it
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: started there was this specific start time. The end of
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: World War two, and by the way, there was a
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: pretty specific.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: End time, which was the introduction of the birth control pill,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: where the game easier not to have babies.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Then a long comes to the women's rights movements and
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: all sorts of.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Other changes, and it turned out a lot of women,
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: once they had their own economic agency, didn't necessarily want
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: to have kids orients many kids. We are now down
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: to about one point five one point six. I mean,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: birth rates are falling all over the world. It's probably
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the same.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Thing now we're going to need We're probably going to
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: need financial stimulus to incentivize childbirth.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Well, financial stimulus has never worked. People all over the
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: world have tried it. It doesn't get the job done.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Are you I'm just saying I think that's coming next. Well,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: here's the way we will here. Look, it's a way
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to I look at it this way. I think universal
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: childcare is something that you can that is I think
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: a benefit that young parents need and I think if
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: you want to be a working parent, you kind of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: need it. So if you're going to try to make
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: a baby boom happen, you better have the infrastructure available
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: for to handle a baby boom. And that's where I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: think is going to be the place to start.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, you can get it then into the whole argument.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: To go back to your initial question, why have the
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: boomers held power for so long?
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I think you start with your numbers. I mean, in
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: politics and in the economy's sheer numbers make a huge difference.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Now we get to this, Now we get to this
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: upside down the demographic chart.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: We had a lot of old people.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: People are living longer, and I'm right, Boom of Coburg
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: is the pig of the pion is now all drawing
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: source of security, which is going to run out of money.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: And we don't have enough workers to pay for the retiree.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: So that is a problem. There are probably there are
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: financial fixes that. Unfortunately, what we've done is we've we
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: push that problem down the road. So we boomers, and
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: this to me is the greatest civic sin that we
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: have committed.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: We're gonna go to the end getting our full benefits,
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: and our kids and our grandkids are paying regressive taxes
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: to pay for Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits that
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: they themselves won't have.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what it could happen is that there
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: could be a political revolution where they just text the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: shit out of Boom or wealth their Paul.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I would, I would, but they're not going to do
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: it because they won't do it.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: We know, the death tax is one of the most
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: brilliantly constructed frame political phrases of all time. You know.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: So, But to your question to your amusings about how
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: what would take to ignite another baby boom.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Let's bring another subject in.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: And I'm no expert on it, but like everybody else
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: fascinated by it, uh Ai, I mean, I mean, I mean,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: do we need more workers or or five years, ten
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: years down the road, or the robot's going to be
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: doing all the work any anyway. I mean, I think
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: we're in the cusp of that revolution that we barely understand.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: But it is moving at warp speed, uh and it's
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: gonna it will take us to places that I can
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: barely imagine. But I I, as someone who tends to
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: be a class half full guy, this one scares the ship.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Out of me quite frankly.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Uh. In partly just what it's what it may do
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: to human relationships is more and more young adults. You
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: read these stories of young adults who are pretty depressed,
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: pretty isolated, and they're not forming families, they're not having romances,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: They're getting fairly deeply attached to their favorite robot.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Are American boomers different from European boomers?
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of similarities. But I
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: think that that that that that self regard, the me
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: me meaning.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: It's all about me.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: I think that is a particularly American version of the
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: boomer experience. And again, I think it's reflective of the triumphalism,
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: uh of the America the fifties in which we were raised.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And you know, you're basically saying that the entire generation
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: was raised to be narcissistic.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, listen, first of all, let's let's strap
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: back generalizations about generations.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I know we are not. I used to joke with
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Brokaw all the time. You get to write about the
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: greatest generation, Can I write about yours calling it the
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: shittiest generation?
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Right? But but but but you know, look, you know,
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: not all Texans are alike, Not all New Yorkers are alike,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: not our friends are like. There as many differences within
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: as a crossing a monk. But yes, if you if
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: you look at the full cohort, and you and you
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: do the analysis, and I can do them with numbers
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: and survey results and all the rest.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: It is a fair generalization. We're not all narcissistic, but
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: our generation is and has been.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I said, I want to pivot a little bit
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: to if when people dig into your reporting career, you
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: know it is no you were you are? This is
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: one of those things, right, we all have. I always
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: joke we all have things that we've done in our
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: career at some point that will make it into our obituaries.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: You were the guy that asked Gary Hart if he
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: had committed adultery. Yeah, from that moment, the way Americans
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: processed character in politics has gone through all sorts of
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: different different ways that we've processed character in politics. And
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: when you've decided what is a moral sin and what
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: is it and all of that, Yeah, when you look
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: at Graham Platner, do you is there a straight line
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: between Gary Hart and Graham Platner? Is there a way?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: I mean? And look, I think the question you asked,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: here's what I always people ask, well, what's fair game? Well,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ultimately, do the American voter anything can be
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: fair game? Because every voter has a slightly different view
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: and I happen to think character matters a lot. Some
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: people think character matters some right, Like we all have
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: our different it's it's it's a secret ballot for a reason.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: But I'm curious your take, you know, from Gary Hart
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: to Grand Platinir, both from the press perspective, voter perspective,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and cultural perspective.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. You won't be surprised to
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: hear that. Yeah, I thought about that very thing. I have.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: My closest childhood friend is a main Air Lindsen, Maine.
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: He's a platinum supporter character character matters. But I think
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: you framed it exactly right. Every American has has his
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: or her right to determine what part of the character matters,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: and how do you make that judge, and how you
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: judge private personal behavior in terms of its impact on
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: public behavior.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: And what kind of steward you're going to be.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: You know, when when I think back about the Gary
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Hart episode, the thing that always I was always surprised
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: by them fully understood was why Hart even after his
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: peccadillo was exposed by the Miami Herald and then in
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: follow up reporting. Yeah, I asked the fairly aggressive set
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: of questions when he seemed to be denying that anything
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: untoward had happened, and I kind of hit him with
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: the adultery question, and that no question. That became a
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: very powerful moment, the more so because seven or eight
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: hours after I asked that question, he dropped out of
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the race. So it became okay, I guess at the moment,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: it was I guess we can't right. Yes, Well it's
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: it's now thirty or forty years later, and we've had
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: two pretty infamous adulterers in the office in Bill Clinton
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: and Donald Trump.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: So so that wasn't and that wasn't the right.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Take my sense then and my sense now thirty some
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: years almost forty years later was Heart had plenty of
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: room to acknowledge his imperfections, to say to his family,
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: to his supporters, to his country, Look, I'm not a
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: perfect man.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I screwed up. I made some mistakes. I'm gonna go
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: We know that. We know that speech. For whatever reason,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Heart couldn't bring himself to.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Go down defensive Heart, nobody had ever given that speech before.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, yeah, you know, that's a fair point.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: And I think then what we get you is we
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: are you know, that's still younger, that's still in an
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: age where character does become a lingchpin around where people
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: make their decisions about political figures, and that I think
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: has everythingthing to do with it. We were then about
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: two generations into the television era where politicians began to
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: present themselves as full human beings and appeal to themselves
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: So if they're putting their characters sort of front and.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: Center in their campaigns, the press and the public at large,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: I think is going to be curious about those any kids.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Uh, he didn't go that, He didn't go down that route.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Four years later, Bill Clinton hit with the Jennifer Flowers thing.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: You know, did did go down that route, and he
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: had a supportive wife and and on he went.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: So here we are now.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: With the with Graham Platner, who I'm he He has
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: made an effort to say I screwed up.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I was really messed up after I got back from Afghanistan.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not proud of the guy who that was.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: But I'm a better man today and we're gonna by
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: tonight will have some initial verdict as the how there
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: goes down.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of confidence in the common sense,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: in the American public on that I I don't. I
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: personally haven't followed closely enough to have a judgment. But Maine.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: The one thing I like about this situation is Maine
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: is kind of a big small town, you know, Maine.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: Everybody kind of knows everybody.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: And I think almost all maniers have had to kind
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: of mull over the Grand Platner story.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: And they've went a few months and now with the
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: latest round, so I have another four months and maybe
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I haven't and I don't. There's no there, you know.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: I think this is one of these things where there's
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: no right or wrong answer. I will I will go
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: with the American public on it, and then always get
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: it right. And again I think a dividay, I'm not
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: getting it right. I go back to Donald Trump. This
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: is not a man of good character. And he's never
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: made any particular ever to hide the fact that he's
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: not a man.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Of good character, and for.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: Reasons that I I still struggle to understand, quite frankly,
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: because I am such a fan of the American public.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Uh and uh, the power of his populist appeal has
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: been suched for a decade now or even all but
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: his rabbit supporters. Maybe his rabbit supporters don't don't see
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: the full Donald Trump. But then there are a lot
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: of people who get it with Donald Trump. There's something
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: off about this guy, and he's doesn't ever he's kind
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: of pathologically committed to not telling the truth. But there's
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: he's our guy, and and and we've been screwed over
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: by the system.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And yeah, the best, the best explanation, I I sort
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: of Simmaran is the public thinks it's the whole system
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: is corrupt, and he's at least honest about his corruption.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: It's about the best explanation I got.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one, But yeah, I would.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm saying.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: His his sense of grievance.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Some strange guy, you know, given given the advantages in
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: life that he was born into, he has an enormous
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: sense of grieving. And I'm saying the same thing you
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: it's the only authentic thing about him. He is really
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: pissed off at the system. And then his followers say, right, brother,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: we hear you. Yea.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Now they think he's really in it for them, And
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: you know, and I've got to breaking book with this
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: If they really think that well is What I always
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: say about Trump is he eventually alienates everybody around him.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know this because you know the words you've
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: never heard. Donald Trump hung out with his longtime friend
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: from college today, the guy he went he hung out
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: with in high school, his best friend from college, his
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: best friend he is he is no longer friends, long
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: term friends outside of Roger Stone. It's like literally the
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: only person that has that has made it through multiple
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: iterations of his life, which I think tells you that
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: he eventually, and I've done this research, his inner circle
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: almost universally turns over about every six years, whether it
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: was in business or in politics, because eventually he pushes
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: everybody away. Like eventually it's like I can't write the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: John Bolton's, the John Kelly. He's like, we've seen it politically,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Michael Cohen, like you name it, like it has it mattered, right,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Everybody always say the only thing is nobody's timing on
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: when they're when they're when Trump finally does it crosses
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: their line, and it's just not always at the same time.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: It's not an an exact or perfect comparison. But going
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: back to Gary Hart, to me, is a conundrum. I
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: never understood why didn't do a better job of trying
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: to survive?
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: He never and he and it never never. He was
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: he too was a loner, and that may explain it.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: So when the storm came, you need people to stand
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: beside you and said, you know, he's screwed up, but
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: he's our guy because he's for this, he's for that.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: And I uh, I don't know if you recall when
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: he announced for president the second time. The first time
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: he was an incumbent, he came close and didn't topple
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: Monde the second time, which is when he got into trouble.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: He's now he's the front runner and in a lrange
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: democratic class that included Joe Biden and others.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: And he did his announcement speech.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Not in the ballroom with Bunting and hundreds of devoted followers.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: He say he stood alone on a rock in the
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: in the Rocky mountains, and it was just and it
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: was he wanted to say something there, which is I'm
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: the man against the system, and he was.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: It was his own form of populist appeal.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I alone.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know it turns out in politics in
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: many realms of life. But politicians.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: You need true friends, you need people who were with
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: you the whole way, and politicians who don't have that,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: you know they're in trouble when trouble comes.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, it's true. Most of our successful presidents
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: have had this kitchen cabinet that you find out over
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: time has been with them for decades, you know. You know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Clinton had it, Reagan had it, the Bushes had it
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: in multiple generations. Obama had it, al Biden had it.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: The one guy that doesn't have it is Donald Trump.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: And yet he's got he's got a further base of support, the.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Likes of which you know we are Yeah, not in
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: our lifetime. Yeah. Hey, Paul, this was a terrific discussion.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you feel like you feel like your
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: fellow boomers are going to hate what they read?
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: No?
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, I've got a little pushback.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: The book is not entirely actually the book is that
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Marien is an amalgams.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: It's a part of it is just about getting old.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: It's a very personal story.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: And my wife and I've been married for fifty five years.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: We've known each other, wait for it, for seventy four years.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: We met as toddlers in an ad Amandack community in
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: upstate New York, where we're now living most of the year,
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: and watching our grandkids playing with grandkids.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: And kids we grew up with.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: So part of it is just a personal journey into
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: old age, and it comes for everybody, even even pale, male,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: stale and yale, privileged people like me get creaky knees
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: and my wife is having a terrible vision problem to
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I hope it's not a whini book. It's not meant
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: to be a whiny book, but it's meant to be old,
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: and you know, it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Gets a whole pass from getting old. And so it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: it's the small story of the two of us trying
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: to make our way through the adventures and misadventures, and
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: then the big.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Story of kind of a final scorecard of a generation
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: that started.
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: You know, I I.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: Do want to say that that our generation the spirit
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: of the Six Days, the spirit of let's make this
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: right for everybody, and let's include everybody. It's a truly
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: beautiful thing, and it it hasn't disappeared. That's always been
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: a part of the story. But there are doctor parts
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: of the story too, and there's a lot of massively
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: left through others to clean up.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Well, there's nothing like getting a little bit of memoir
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: for a guy who's who's got a foundational amount of
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: data flowing through his head from your years.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: I cannot love my friend.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, when we talk about data, I remember you
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: when when you were starting out, So don't talk to
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: me about data.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: You got it all up there.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Well, but that's what made this book enjoyable. Hey Paul,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: it's great to talk with you, great to catch up.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for doing
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: He