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I&I - Chaos versus centrism · A New Angle

0:00
SPEAKER_03: Hey folks, just a quick note.
0:02
SPEAKER_03: The episode you're about to hear includes discussion of political violence.
0:07
SPEAKER_03: This conversation was recorded prior to the assassination attempt on former President Trump.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: This is A New Angle, a show about cool people doing awesome things in and around Montana.
0:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Justin Angle.
0:30
SPEAKER_03: This show is supported by First Security Bank,
0:33
SPEAKER_03: Blackfoot Communications and the University of Montana College of Business.
0:38
SPEAKER_03: Hey folks, welcome back and thanks for tuning in.
0:41
SPEAKER_03: Today is our July edition of Incentives and Instincts,
0:44
SPEAKER_03: a recurring series in which I speak with economist and friend Bryce Ward about some
0:48
SPEAKER_03: of the broader challenges facing our society.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: Bryce, thanks for joining me.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Happy to be here as always.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: So a few months ago,
0:55
SPEAKER_03: we talked about a concerning rise in the need for chaos,
1:00
SPEAKER_03: and that rise seems unrelated to political ideology.
1:04
SPEAKER_03: At the same time, though, there's been a rise in sort of a productive form of centrism in Washington.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: A few things are actually getting done, it seems.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: So today we're going to try to square those two things.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: But before we get into it, let's redefine the need for chaos.
1:20
SPEAKER_03: What is it and what do we know about it?
1:24
SPEAKER_02: Need for chaos is basically a mentality where for some reason I'm disaffected with
1:32
SPEAKER_02: the system and I want to burn it all down.
1:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're sort of proclivity to be in favor of burning down the system.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: And it's not partisan.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: It's not just, oh, like, I don't like the people who are in power.
1:49
SPEAKER_03: And there's a status component to it,
1:50
SPEAKER_03: too,
1:51
SPEAKER_03: is my understanding that your interest is in throwing out the system and through
1:56
SPEAKER_03: some unknown mechanism that will result in you achieving some higher status on the
2:01
SPEAKER_03: other side.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not very well thought through.
2:03
SPEAKER_02: Right.
2:05
SPEAKER_03: The disposition is not well thought through.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: It's one thing to be like,
2:08
SPEAKER_02: oh,
2:08
SPEAKER_02: yes,
2:08
SPEAKER_02: we're going to create chaos,
2:10
SPEAKER_02: and I have a plan in place to secure higher status.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: That's frequently the subject of movies.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: You think that you're going to be in control,
2:20
SPEAKER_02: but the control is still with the person who has control,
2:23
SPEAKER_02: and you may or may not end up as the winner.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Hey, we'll just win.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, the system is bad.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm impressed by it.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: So if we tear it down, I will be better.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: This is a construct that sort of is emerging as something new and its antecedents
2:39
SPEAKER_03: are not well understood yet.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: An emerging candidate for a strong antecedent is this concept of social marginalization.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: Something is happening in your life that makes you feel marginalized.
2:50
SPEAKER_03: And so as a result, you're bracing against the system.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing about need for chaos is it's not let me build something to
3:03
SPEAKER_02: steer the system in a way that leaves me better off.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: It's let's destroy the system and hope that whatever emerges from the ashes makes me better off.
3:16
SPEAKER_03: Right.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: And this is especially concerning because need for chaos is strongly associated
3:23
SPEAKER_03: with support for forms of political violence.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: A paper that came out recently found that partisanship,
3:31
SPEAKER_02: strong partisanship,
3:32
SPEAKER_02: is actually not that strongly related with support for political violence,
3:37
SPEAKER_02: whereas need for chaos is.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
3:39
SPEAKER_03: so we should draw that out because a lot of the way we're presented with the state
3:44
SPEAKER_03: of affairs in our media environment is we're told that we're tremendously polarized
3:49
SPEAKER_03: and we have a media ecosystem that is polarized and that reinforces the polarization.
3:54
SPEAKER_03: And then we're told that this polarization is contributing to instability and the
3:59
SPEAKER_03: potential for violence in our society.
4:02
SPEAKER_03: Yet the research doesn't support that to the degree it's presented.
4:08
SPEAKER_03: What is maybe a stronger driver of the potential for political violence is this
4:13
SPEAKER_03: category of people that are endorsing the need for chaos.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that seems to be what research is finding.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: And,
4:19
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:20
SPEAKER_02: look,
4:21
SPEAKER_02: in spite of the fact that we've been horrendously polarized for coming up on 30 years,
4:27
SPEAKER_02: we actually haven't seen a lot of political violence.
4:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it certainly seems like there have been times in our history that have been more violent.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: That's for sure.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: There is violence.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And some of that violence has political undertones.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: So I don't want to say that people...
4:50
SPEAKER_02: There's certainly been various events that you can say are linked to various...
4:57
SPEAKER_02: political thoughts,
4:59
SPEAKER_02: but it kind of feels like it's a lot more need for chaos than just rank partisanship.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not a period of no violence, but the last time a president got shot was 1980.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: The last time a president got killed was 1960.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: It was every 20 years up until that.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, from Lincoln on, it was literally every 20 years.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: And then you think of, you know, 68 with with King being assassinated and Malcolm actually thereafter.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, political assassinations have not been prevalent in recent years.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
5:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
5:36
SPEAKER_02: certainly there were other extremely violent,
5:39
SPEAKER_02: you know,
5:39
SPEAKER_02: political demonstrations that were turned and turned violent.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:43
SPEAKER_03: So you've got this emerging sensibility.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: Then you've got the sort of storytelling around it.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: Storytelling is often portrayed through a political lens.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: And then you've got this sort of emergence of kind of a neo-populism,
6:02
SPEAKER_03: as journalist David Leonhardt describes it.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: And what we're getting to there is like we're living through this time where in
6:09
SPEAKER_03: recent years,
6:09
SPEAKER_03: it seems like
6:11
SPEAKER_03: Washington is actually coming to agreement on a few things.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: Skepticism of immigration, the notion that big business doesn't have our interests at heart.
6:23
SPEAKER_03: Some sort of traditionally populist ideas are kind of forming new coalitions in
6:28
SPEAKER_03: Washington across party lines with characters you might not expect.
6:34
SPEAKER_03: Describe what you see going on there.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: There have been some significant bipartisan legislation in the last few years,
6:43
SPEAKER_02: although a lot of that was COVID driven.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: But even since,
6:47
SPEAKER_02: you know,
6:47
SPEAKER_02: infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act were at least nominally bipartisan,
6:53
SPEAKER_02: there seems to be some agreement on that TikTok is bad.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: There is some degree of agreement on changing the way we trade with China, although
7:07
SPEAKER_02: I think there's agreement that that's a problem and there's agreement that it's a priority.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure there's agreement on policy.
7:15
SPEAKER_03: Which in some ways,
7:16
SPEAKER_03: that's a normal process to have an agreement across the parties that,
7:20
SPEAKER_03: hey,
7:21
SPEAKER_03: this is a problem.
7:22
SPEAKER_03: It's a problem we should act on.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: And then a debate about how to act on it.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a normal process.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: You know, and it's to the extent that this is different.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: So for a lot of the past few decades,
7:35
SPEAKER_02: there hasn't even been agreement on the problems.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I talk about three P's, right?
7:41
SPEAKER_02: Problem priority policy.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: And when you see political disagreement, sometimes the disagreement is at the problem level.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: This isn't a problem.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: No, this is a problem.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: That's a pretty big impasse to get past.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: But we can try and marshal evidence.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, this is.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: And we do see movement on that, right?
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Like the opioid crisis, right?
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Like there was eventually we got to the point of widespread agreement
8:05
SPEAKER_02: This is a problem.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: That's what's happening with the border.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: OK, yeah, this is a problem.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Trade, particularly trade with China.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there seems to be some agreement that this is a problem.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: TikTok doesn't seem ideal to have state controlled trade.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: social media platform is being controlled by a potentially adversary state.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, problem.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: And then the next question would be the priority.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, where does this fall in the ranking of things that we're trying?
8:37
SPEAKER_02: We have limited bandwidth to address things,
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SPEAKER_02: and does it rise to the level of,
8:41
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: we're going to actually try and address it?
8:43
SPEAKER_02: These seem to be priorities.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: The problems are big enough.
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SPEAKER_02: They are evident to enough people that they have become priorities.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: And then now we're into the details.
8:52
SPEAKER_03: And we should just press on priority for a moment.
8:55
SPEAKER_03: There is often agreement on priority.
8:58
SPEAKER_03: There's disagreement.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's sort of how the parties separate themselves in many ways.
9:03
SPEAKER_03: But but the the there are also market forces for these policymakers to have disagreement on priority.
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SPEAKER_03: They have disagreement on problem, too.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: We've sort of seen with immigration,
9:16
SPEAKER_03: for example,
9:17
SPEAKER_03: right,
9:17
SPEAKER_03: like sometimes for on the right,
9:20
SPEAKER_03: it was more useful for Republicans to have immigration as of as an issue going into
9:25
SPEAKER_03: an election cycle.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: than it was to actually work to solve the problem because it was in their electoral
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SPEAKER_03: advantage to have that remain as an issue they could campaign on.
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SPEAKER_02: we think this is a problem and we think it's a priority to deal with,
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SPEAKER_02: but we don't want to deal with it because of politics,
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SPEAKER_02: which I guess is the fourth P.
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SPEAKER_02: This isn't just,
9:45
SPEAKER_02: oh,
9:45
SPEAKER_02: this is a problem,
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SPEAKER_02: it's a priority,
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SPEAKER_02: this is our policy.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: That all gets viewed or colored through the lens of politics of,
9:53
SPEAKER_02: well,
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SPEAKER_02: if we do this,
9:55
SPEAKER_02: is that going to be good for us politically or not?
9:59
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I mean, there's definitely been
10:02
SPEAKER_02: or there appear to be moments that the parties decide,
10:07
SPEAKER_02: even though we think this is a problem,
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SPEAKER_02: we're okay with the policy,
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SPEAKER_02: we won't make it a priority because of politics.
10:16
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
10:16
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: A lot of Ps in there.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: A lot of Ps.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: So come together with priorities and then policy?
10:25
SPEAKER_02: As a problem, this is something we should do about.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Now we start hammering out policy.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's what we want the process to be.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: Every once in a while,
10:35
SPEAKER_02: things become potentially self-evident enough and then politically feasible enough
10:41
SPEAKER_02: that you can get alignment.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: There's been some shift in either who the people are or what the perception of
10:47
SPEAKER_02: The size of the problem and how much of a priority is that there's people now saying,
10:52
SPEAKER_02: hey,
10:53
SPEAKER_02: let's work together on policy and get the politics done.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, I mean, that I'm not sure how much of a change this is, though.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you look at major legislation, it's not like we haven't seen more of it.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can expect about 10 per Congress.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: How many of those are bipartisan or not depends on whether or not one party has control.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: If one party has control, suddenly things become not bipartisan because they don't need to be bipartisan.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: It's an intercoalition fight.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: You fight.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: It's the Affordable Care Act.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: We figure out what we can do as a coalition.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: They at least tried to make it bipartisan for political reasons.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: That was made impossible.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: And so it becomes a single party thing, right?
11:38
SPEAKER_02: And that happens when you see that in the data,
11:41
SPEAKER_02: when one party has control,
11:43
SPEAKER_02: like you see less bipartisan legislation.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: But we still pass legislation every Congress.
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Now, the 60s and 70s were much more productive, but the coalitions were weird.
11:54
SPEAKER_02: I certainly am willing to buy the notion that there's this neopopulism.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: aspect that neoliberalism is on the outs,
12:04
SPEAKER_02: this notion that just let markets do their thing and freedom and prosperity will
12:11
SPEAKER_02: exist everywhere.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: While that might be true,
12:16
SPEAKER_02: we've given it a long run and it didn't turn out that if we just opened up trade
12:21
SPEAKER_02: with China that it would become a liberal Western society.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: So now you're seeing some backlash to that and then that creates
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Different views of what problems are,
12:32
SPEAKER_02: different views of what priorities are,
12:34
SPEAKER_02: different views of what the right policies are.
12:36
SPEAKER_03: So when we think about this rise of the need for chaos and this sort of shift
12:42
SPEAKER_03: toward neopopulism coupled with some actual problem solving,
12:48
SPEAKER_03: are those two forces in opposition or do you see a positive connection between the
12:54
SPEAKER_03: two forces?
12:55
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure that the productivity in Congress is necessarily being driven as a
13:02
SPEAKER_02: response to people's need for chaos.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not sure that people's need for chaos responds to what Congress does.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Another paper came out recently which found that there's almost no election
13:15
SPEAKER_02: relationship to good governance.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Like,
13:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
13:19
SPEAKER_02: passing policies,
13:20
SPEAKER_02: implementing policies that are popular does not get you rewarded at the ballot box.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Because we've made politics entertainment, and I don't think that the people that are
13:31
SPEAKER_02: deep in the weeds of need for chaos are closely following the machinations of
13:37
SPEAKER_02: whether the system works or not.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
13:39
SPEAKER_03: although there's probably a relationship in the sense that there are policies that
13:45
SPEAKER_03: contribute to social marginalization for various folks,
13:49
SPEAKER_03: and that could therefore drive need for chaos.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: They are related, but maybe in the immediate sort of mindset of the actor, not as much.
14:04
SPEAKER_03: We'll be back to my conversation with Bryce Ward after this short break.
14:11
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14:14
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14:15
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14:18
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14:42
SPEAKER_00: This is Meg Oliver, CBS News correspondent, and you're listening to A New Angle.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to A New Angle.
14:51
SPEAKER_03: I'm here with Bryce Ward discussing the rise in both the need for chaos as well as collaboration.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: The question we have to ask is, A, are there always going to be socially marginalized people?
15:05
SPEAKER_02: to the extent that our policies are addressing social marginalization,
15:09
SPEAKER_02: is it reducing the scale or is it just shifting who is marginalized?
15:15
SPEAKER_03: Just moving that class of folks around.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, and the other thing, which I think...
15:22
SPEAKER_02: plays into this.
15:23
SPEAKER_02: And again, this is the problem where we don't have the long-term data, right?
15:26
SPEAKER_02: This is a new concept.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: It's only been measured recently, right?
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: 2023 paper introduced the construct.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:32
SPEAKER_02: So we don't have the ability to be like,
15:33
SPEAKER_02: oh,
15:34
SPEAKER_02: this is how many people are in the need for chaos camp over time.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: And this is what causes it to shift or doesn't shift and whatever it might be.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
15:44
SPEAKER_02: my concern is that we've talked a lot about social media and the internet
15:47
SPEAKER_02: environment and how the media environment has changed.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: I feel like some of those changes, I think they amplify seed and create need for chaos.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I don't think it has much, it may not have anything to do with actual policy.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: A lot of this is I marinate in this negative media environment
16:12
SPEAKER_02: And the only response that makes me feel is that these people are all bad and that
16:18
SPEAKER_02: they're evil and that the system should go away.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: But again, I don't know that.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: Because like.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: I can remember my friends' dads in high school who were like, ah, the system is terrible.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: It's all just corrupt.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: I knew those people.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: This is where it's difficult, right?
16:34
SPEAKER_02: Without some sort of long-term time series to be like,
16:38
SPEAKER_02: well,
16:39
SPEAKER_02: okay,
16:40
SPEAKER_02: it seems not ideal to have 15 million people in the United States who would fall
16:48
SPEAKER_02: into this need for chaos camp.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: to have them exist in a world where they can all connect and communicate with each
16:56
SPEAKER_02: other and,
16:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:59
SPEAKER_02: recruit more and create more gravity.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: So it seems like it's a problem, right?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And yes,
17:07
SPEAKER_02: it would be lovely to be like,
17:09
SPEAKER_02: oh,
17:09
SPEAKER_02: well,
17:09
SPEAKER_02: this is,
17:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
17:10
SPEAKER_02: these economic conditions make it go away or this level of support for the
17:16
SPEAKER_02: government makes it go away or whatever it is so that we could move the needle.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, we'll get this now going forward.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, ideally, we'd be sitting there going, oh, yeah, 1968 was a high period of need for chaos.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: And then these things happened and it went away.
17:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, or whatever it is.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: And so now we're sitting there kind of in this.
17:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
17:35
SPEAKER_02: maybe like if we can convince people that Washington is highly functional,
17:40
SPEAKER_02: then the need for chaos will go away.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: Presumably.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're in a shifting landscape.
17:45
SPEAKER_03: Landscape's always shifting, but you go through, you know, larger waves of it.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: And we're at this time where there are different incentives facing our leaders.
17:55
SPEAKER_03: There's certainly a category of politicians,
17:58
SPEAKER_03: and we've talked about it on this show before,
18:01
SPEAKER_03: that are kind of catering to different audiences,
18:05
SPEAKER_03: right?
18:05
SPEAKER_03: The Matt Gaetz's and Marjorie Taylor Greene's and even AOC to a certain degree are
18:11
SPEAKER_03: perhaps cultivating the need for chaos in the sense that they're arguing the
18:15
SPEAKER_03: system's not working and it's not working for you and the system is corrupt.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: And then you've got folks that are not interested in playing the social media game
18:26
SPEAKER_03: or the talking head game on cable TV to the same extent and are maybe more
18:31
SPEAKER_03: interested in actually trying to go to Washington to solve problems.
18:36
SPEAKER_03: And they're appealing to a different constituency, perhaps.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: In an ideal world,
18:41
SPEAKER_02: that second group would be who we all would agree,
18:45
SPEAKER_02: oh,
18:45
SPEAKER_02: let's just find people who agree with us that these are the problems,
18:51
SPEAKER_02: who understand that we'll make these our priorities and we'll implement this type
18:55
SPEAKER_02: of policy.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm not convinced that that's what's happened in a lot of elections recently from,
19:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
19:05
SPEAKER_02: at all levels of government.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:07
SPEAKER_02: I do feel like our current media system actually wants us to select politicians who
19:14
SPEAKER_02: might be higher on the need for chaos scale.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: It does seem like there is an interest in covering extremism,
19:21
SPEAKER_03: both from the media and from the scholarship or the political scientists who are
19:25
SPEAKER_03: covering it.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: This is all part of the same thing, right, which is we are animals who evolved in certain ways.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: And our evolutionary programming says pay attention to things that are problems.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: So if you can create a scary problem, I will pay attention to it.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: And attention is currency in the way that we do everything, right?
19:51
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: More than ever.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: If you're an academic, attention is good.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Attention means that people know who I am and they'll pay attention to what I say.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: Same thing happens in the media.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: So as long as we have not figured out how to –
20:08
SPEAKER_02: hack our programming so that we're not chasing whatever scary thing is being told
20:14
SPEAKER_02: to us,
20:15
SPEAKER_02: we haven't been able to arrest ourselves out of that cycle because we're programmed
20:21
SPEAKER_02: that way.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: Well,
20:22
SPEAKER_03: not only are we programmed that way,
20:24
SPEAKER_03: the technology driving media is sort of creating a positive feedback loop around it.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: No longer are there the classifieds in newspapers that provide us
20:36
SPEAKER_03: pretty much neutral source of revenue.
20:39
SPEAKER_03: Right now, our systems are such that they make more money if they hold our attention for longer.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: And the way they do that, they figured it out, is to enrage us more.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: That's where I think this amplification of need for chaos,
20:50
SPEAKER_02: why I'm concerned that we may be in an artificially high share of the population
20:58
SPEAKER_02: who is endorsing need for chaos and maybe not even paying attention to or
21:05
SPEAKER_02: acknowledging the
21:08
SPEAKER_02: The fact that sometimes Washington really does identify problems and try and solve
21:11
SPEAKER_02: them in ways that are popular.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: You mentioned this a couple of months ago that you think our current political
21:18
SPEAKER_03: parties are made up of coalitions that seem to want to break up.
21:25
SPEAKER_03: So this could also be a reshuffling and a competition among our elected officials for an emergent
21:37
SPEAKER_03: constituency that is yet to sort of form a political coalition.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: But they've recognized that,
21:44
SPEAKER_03: hey,
21:44
SPEAKER_03: these problems appear to be nonpartisan in their importance to Americans.
21:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, we're going to compete for figuring out how to solve them.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: If you want the system to persist, that's the ideal way of doing it, right?
21:57
SPEAKER_02: You kind of keep banging your head against the wall with these established coalitions.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: You say, we're not getting anywhere.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: And then let's go find problems that aren't coded into obviously one camp or the other.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: And let's see if we can, oh, well, yeah, the child tax credit.
22:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:20
SPEAKER_02: Left and right can agree that supporting families is good.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: That's something that, you know, again, oh, we have problems with families without enough money?
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: We have a problem with too few families.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: Great.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: Let's try and solve those problems.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Left and right, I think, agree on that.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: And it was a priority.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: We got at least a temporary version of it in 2021.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Now we're like, oh, wow, that really did work.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: I saw papers this week.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: Parents' mental health was substantially improved.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Kids' outcomes are better.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: And now they passed the house.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: It's just...
23:01
SPEAKER_02: bogged down in the priorities of the Senate.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: But like, you know, there's at least some prioritization of it.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: And there's some,
23:07
SPEAKER_02: again,
23:07
SPEAKER_02: while there's lots of disagreement on policy details,
23:10
SPEAKER_02: there's a solution just sitting there for a coalition to come and form around it.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: It's not a coincidence that it's external forces that are the other thing that seem
23:20
SPEAKER_02: to be driving a lot of this,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: right?
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hmm, China.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should be worried about China.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
23:28
SPEAKER_02: oh,
23:29
SPEAKER_02: okay,
23:29
SPEAKER_02: well,
23:30
SPEAKER_02: the easiest thing to get a group of actors to agree upon is that somebody outside
23:34
SPEAKER_02: of the circle is bad.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, introduce an external threat, and you've got to form some unity.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, yeah, China and Russia and North Korea and Iran, they're all making these moves together.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we should maybe be concerned about it.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: And so those types of things create opportunity to reshuffle coalitions.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: And I know that there's others out there.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Housing.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: doesn't code, there are NIMBYs on both sides and there are YIMBYs on both sides.
24:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, energy abundance, the abundance agenda doesn't have to be coded into one party or the other.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Now there's going to be winners and losers and trade-offs.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: And that then makes, you know, creates then the opportunities for coalitions to break apart, reform.
24:20
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, next thing you know, you're basically those people that you used to call the evil devils.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: They're now your coalitions.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you guys were focused off on these issues.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: great,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: we're going to now fight about X and Y instead of the old things that we've been
24:36
SPEAKER_02: fighting about for however long we've been fighting with the
24:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's always little shifts in coalition, election to election.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: That's why you don't have the same people winning all the time.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: There hasn't been short-run big shifts.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: There have been long-run shifts in coalition, right?
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Like the shift of affluent, educated people from Republicans to Democrats, right?
24:56
SPEAKER_02: And you're seeing some shift at the working class in the other direction.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: So there are shifts underway,
25:01
SPEAKER_02: which then is why it's like,
25:02
SPEAKER_02: oh,
25:03
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
25:03
SPEAKER_02: these coalitions are somewhat fragile.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: But in that opportunity of...
25:09
SPEAKER_02: if there is actual fragility,
25:10
SPEAKER_02: if we can keep that fragility from getting snuffed out in some way,
25:15
SPEAKER_02: there is an opportunity that,
25:16
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
25:17
SPEAKER_02: that you'll see whatever the new populist moment maybe.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
25:22
SPEAKER_03: Who knows?
25:22
SPEAKER_03: And who knows if it's proactive or reactive?
25:25
SPEAKER_03: Really?
25:25
SPEAKER_03: We don't quite know, right?
25:27
SPEAKER_03: Are these people responding to the incentive that,
25:29
SPEAKER_03: oh,
25:30
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
25:30
SPEAKER_03: maybe we should address the fact that people have lost faith in what we do and they
25:35
SPEAKER_03: want to throw us all out.
25:37
SPEAKER_03: Maybe we should figure out how to solve a problem.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Or maybe they're going to solve these problems and then people are going to feel like, oh.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, maybe these people can do their jobs.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: The concerning thing is the media environment doesn't work in a way that allows me
25:55
SPEAKER_02: to fairly assess the functionality of the system because the incentives are all for
26:03
SPEAKER_02: everybody to tell me that the system doesn't work.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: The only time that I hear about the system functioning is when you talk to legislators.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: Because they'll be like, oh, yeah, we all get along.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And there's some that we don't like.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: But for the most part, we can work together.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: We can figure things out.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: Like and I can't remember, but the Montana legislature passed hundreds of bills the last session.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: And they will do so again next winter.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: And not all of those will just be partisan ram throughs.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: So,
26:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:41
SPEAKER_02: but the problem is,
26:42
SPEAKER_02: is that we don't exist in a world that is very clear that,
26:45
SPEAKER_02: oh,
26:45
SPEAKER_02: these are the problems,
26:46
SPEAKER_02: these are the priorities,
26:47
SPEAKER_02: these are the policies,
26:48
SPEAKER_02: and these are where these politicians differ on those things.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: It's very much like, oh, I'm just going to keep you with an identity and a tribe and
26:56
SPEAKER_02: What I would love to see is if we had some objective ranking of these are the problems,
27:01
SPEAKER_02: these are the priorities,
27:02
SPEAKER_02: and these are the trade offs that voters want.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: And then I went back and I looked at that list of bills that got passed.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: Did we address the big problems with the right priorities, with the policies that people support?
27:17
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying they didn't.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying I don't feel like I know that.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: I know that some of the reporters have done some really cool things,
27:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:25
SPEAKER_02: tracking bills and trying to do some big picture look backs.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know the first piece, right?
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Like I know what I think is important,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: but I would love to know at the national level,
27:37
SPEAKER_02: the local level,
27:38
SPEAKER_02: the state level,
27:40
SPEAKER_02: what are the big problems that people want addressed?
27:42
SPEAKER_02: And I'm guessing if I got a hundred random Montanans in a room,
27:48
SPEAKER_02: some very clear themes about things that they're worried about would emerge.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: And I don't feel like those themes are necessarily the main things that get addressed.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: And that's where there's a little bit of maybe a breakdown in this system.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: That seems like a good place to land it, Bryce.
28:04
SPEAKER_03: As always, thank you.
28:07
SPEAKER_03: And we'll see you next time.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: All right.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Preston.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
28:11
SPEAKER_03: So now we'll turn our attention to our listener question for the month.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: It comes from Rita Collins of Eureka, Montana.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: My name is Rita Collins and I live in Eureka, Montana.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: A question I have is about mental health services in rural Montana.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: I will say in my part of the state,
28:30
SPEAKER_01: these services are mostly non-existent,
28:33
SPEAKER_01: especially for individuals with limited income.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Why is this happening and what can be done to improve the situation?
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
28:43
SPEAKER_03: Okay, thanks, Rita, for the question.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: Bryce, you've studied this quite a bit.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: You worked with the Rural Institute and other sort of healthcare inquiries that you've done.
28:52
SPEAKER_03: What are your thoughts for Rita?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the fundamental issue in rural health care is just scale.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: If you don't have enough people in a particular location to generate enough income
29:06
SPEAKER_02: for a provider,
29:06
SPEAKER_02: you don't get providers unless some entity intervenes to subsidize that provider.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: So whether that's a government or a nonprofit or somebody that says –
29:17
SPEAKER_02: hey, let's provide this missing service in this place.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: But,
29:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
29:23
SPEAKER_02: the fundamental issue with rural health care is just that the people are spread out
29:29
SPEAKER_02: and they'll drive to some collection point if they're having a heart attack.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: It's harder.
29:36
SPEAKER_03: But the economics behind building a new hospital in Eureka don't make a lot of sense.
29:43
SPEAKER_03: No, and that's- So you need subsidy to do that.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and rural hospitals- That's all the time we have for this episode.
29:49
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SPEAKER_03: A New Angle is recorded at Studio 49, a generous gift from UM alums Michelle and Lauren Hansen.
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30:26
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