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Interview Only w/ Dmitri Mehlhorn - Wargaming An American Coup · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todd cast is brought to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you by Chapter. Now, almost everything you hear about Medicare
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: is somebody quietly trying to steer you somewhere. And you're
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: skeptical of that, as you should be. I get it.
• 0:14
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• 0:28
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  Speaker 1: I'm a bit distrustful these days myself. That's the whole
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to tell you about Chapter. They're independent
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  Speaker 1: it's across the board is what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 1: even after you've done this. So look, I get it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's all sorts of space. You see a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people are throwing themselves in this healthcare space.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: What I like about these chapter folks, I've spent time
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with them. This is a very transparent organization. It is
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Medicare and all of its affiliated stuff can be very confusing.
• 1:53
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• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and less confusing. OK, so look, take the skepticism you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: already have in all of this, point it at your
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  Speaker 1: own plan for 20 minutes. It's free. There's no pressure.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And then call chapter today at 980-734-4200. So about six
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: months ago, I think I shared with you guys on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this podcast, and I will make you remember this if
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I can, participating in a simulation. I didn't get into
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a full amount of the details of other people that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: participated in the simulation, but about how, if you thought
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: about sort of how the the Trump administration, if the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: motivation was there, might try to hijack the system. And
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  Speaker 1: I guess the best way to describe this simulation was
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it was three groups. Essentially, the Trump team was represented
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: by something called the nationalists. And then there was the institutionalists,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: which were not necessarily the blue team. That was more
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of the sort of, think of it as if Bush
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and Obama, that those forces got together, or the Romney-Obama
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: forces as sort of one entity. And then there was
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the money people, essentially. And it was, I think I've
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: said I was in a situation where the nationalists just
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: sort of dominated the situation. Well, this simulation was put
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on by my guest that I have joining us today,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Dimitri Malhorn. He has got a book out talking about
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: everything he's been learning about this. It's part of something
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: called the Atoll Society. And what this has been about
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is trying to help elected officials and other institutions figure
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: out what happens if we have another January 6th? What
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: happens if somebody attempts and what are the vulnerabilities baked
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: into the system, baked into the constitution? And it's an eye-opening, event.
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  Speaker 1: Like I said, I did it about six months ago.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: There was a part of me that said, well, maybe
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we're exaggerating things. And then there was a part of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: me that realized, yeah, but you can see how vulnerable
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: these institutions are. So without further ado, let me bring
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: in my friend, Dimitri. Dimitri, it's nice to see you.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: It's great to see you again.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So let me give you a second here to fill
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  Speaker 1: in the blanks of how, you know, I have, and
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I said this before, trying to explain what this was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and the simulation and all of this. It's, you know,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: no different than when you hear about the military having
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a tabletop exercise about what would happen if the Iranians
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: shut the Strait of Hormuz or what would happen if
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the Chinese created a an embargo on Taiwan or a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: blockade on Taiwan, what would happen next? And so in
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: some ways, it's just that, a tabletop exercise on that front,
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  Speaker 1: but put it in your words. How do you tell people?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: How do you describe it to folks?
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Actually, the way you describe it is pretty spot on.
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  Speaker 2: It may be that we're taking the dark view, but
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: just in case those dark assumptions prove true, it's useful
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: to sort of game it out. So my group was
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: one of the groups that supported some of the tabletop
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: exercises in 2020 that tried to game out how the
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Trump administration might try to keep power.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And this was before January 6th.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And it never happened.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Clearly our work was not sufficient because, you know, January
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: 6th did happen. But yeah, before January 6th, we sponsored
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: a bunch of exercises designed to figure out how we
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: would respond if a regime tried to stay in office
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: after losing an election. And so this simulation is a
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: similar kind of a simulation. Imagine that there's a group,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: much like MAGA is today, that is sour on democracy
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: and does not particularly seem to respect the rule of
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: law that's been understood. How might they try to keep
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: power and enrich themselves even if they lose a presidential election?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And how might the institutionalists and the capitalists respond? And
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: as you said, when we play this game a bunch
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: of times, the nationalists win a lot of the time,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: not all the time, but about a third of the
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: time you have the nationalists keep office and consolidate their power,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: even having lost a presidential election.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: The scenario I participated in last, I think it was,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I want to say it was April, the space-time continuum
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: these days with me. But what was interesting about it
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is we were in real time, meaning here we are.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So you're laying out, how do you use the midterms?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The ultimate goal is staying in, is making sure your
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: side wins, whatever winning was. For the capitalists, it was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: about increasing their wealth. For the institutionalists, it was about
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: making sure they won a free and fair election. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: for the nationalists, it was about staying in power regardless,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: whether it was free and fair or not free and fair.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: We can have all that. And how the midterms would
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: be used to get to January 6th. And I will
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: tell you, there were two things. And again, we're in
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Chatham House rules. There were two things in the simulation
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: that I participated in that ended up being used three
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: or four months later. One was the nationalists trying to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: pump up progressives, trying to help the furthest left candidates
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: in primaries. And we saw exactly that within two months
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of what we were working on. And then the other
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: was using federal lands to help the capitalists with data centers.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, Donald Trump has floated the idea of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: using some federal lands on this front. Look, I'm sure
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: we're not outliers here. This has been throughout this. I mean,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: walk me through how many times you've seen something in
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a simulation only to see it actually used in the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: campaign playbook a few months or weeks later.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: It happens, I mean, all the time, honestly. Before the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Venezuelan decapitation, someone in the game proposed that. Before the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: murders in Minnesota, someone in the game proposed something similar.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: So unfortunately, the dark assumptions about what nationalists might do
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and the people who play the nationalists doing that has
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: frequently happened. It is very commonly the case that the
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: nationalists are just more capable of offering specific carrots and
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: sticks to companies, whereas the institutionalists tend to just offer
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: kind of a general pablum. And so if you're an
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: individual capitalist, well, I've got the nationalists who promise to
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: give me a bunch of money or particular things that
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I need. And I also, if I'm a company, I
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: also know that the nationalists, if I anger them, they're
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: going to come after me directly with the Department of
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Justice or with the FTC. They're going to make my
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: life harder personally as the head of a company. Whereas
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: the institutionalists, they're probably just going to regulate me and
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: tax me more. And so it is a common theme
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: that the nationalists are very good at picking off individual capitalists.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And you absolutely see that happening here in the US
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: with a lot of people who are business leaders who
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: originally were very much in favor of the constitution and
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: kind of horrified by Trump. A lot of them have
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: come on side. You know?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Have you ever done this simulation with folks who are
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: truly sympathetic to the nationalist cause?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: No. We've done it with some people who were Trump voters.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And some people who were sort of Trump, even Trump
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: supporters for narrow issues like deregulation in health care or
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: support for Israel or whatever. But we've not had any
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: sort of MAGA true believers play.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Is that been intentional or is it just sort of
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: where where there's interest in this or what would you
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: would you be curious to see? You know how that
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: would work.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe I should be. Unfortunately, I think I
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: know how it will work. I've spent a lot of
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: last 10 years really understanding how MAGA works. It's actually
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: very predictable because it's the same playbook that Vladimir Putin
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: had in Russia, that Viktor Orban had in Hungary, that
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Hugo Chavez had in Venezuela. There's a fairly predictable set
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: of actions that they take And part of our theory
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: in hosting these games is that the MAGA people already
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: know how to play this game. It's everybody else who
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: needs a little bit of a wake-up call. But I guess,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: you know, if there was some good reason to include
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: some MAGA people, I guess we could.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I only ask, it's sort of one of those where,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: here would be my one concern about the simulation exercise. That...
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: The that those that play the role of the nationalists
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: assume the most aggressive stance.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: In some ways, it you've seen it. You know, the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: one I participated in, there certainly was a was a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: desire to watch that. Do you worry that it is
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: or do you think that's actually healthy that you usually
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: have a very aggressive set of players on the nationalists
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: behalf because it's the worst case scenario?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I got to be honest, usually it's the reverse.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: The institutionalists win a lot more often than I predicted.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: We've run this game probably for about 400 people now.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And usually the nationalists are very, very soft. Interesting.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Because they're made up of folks that just can't, well,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I can't do that or nobody. They wouldn't do that.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And it's like, look, I come from, we have the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: person that, one of the people that helped, I think,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: bring you along to the group I participated in. He
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: is the one that planted a line in my head forever.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: And he said, you know, the biggest issue we have
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: is failure of imagination.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: And certainly, you know, that was the attitude I know
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I went in with. It was sort of like clear
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: your mind of what everything you think, you know, and just,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know. But I think the fatal flaw, and this
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: is why it surprises me when you say the institutionalists
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: win more often, is that institutionalists don't like to break
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: norms or laws. And in order to win this game,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you've got to break norms and laws.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, one of the things about the norm
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: thing is particularly important. And one of the ways that
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: we try to think about this game is to, you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: everybody who's playing these games has lived in America our
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: whole lives. So our whole lives, we've been in a
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: specific framework where the rule of law was supported. That
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: is very unusual historically, and it's very unusual around the world.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: And so what we try to do is we try
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: to help people live in a world that is more
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: like other authoritarian nations, where an authoritarian or authoritarian-leaning leader
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: tries to stay in power after an election. And in
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: order to basically to prevent the authoritarian from prevailing, The
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: rest of civil society has to credibly deter them from
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: keeping office. I think this is a very realistic scenario.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I think it's a realistic scenario that on November 15th
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: of 2028, both halves of America will think that they won.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: And if that happens, this is not like the year
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: 2000 where there was an agreed upon legitimate path.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: To decide to figure it out, right?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: There's no, if the Democrat prevails according to everything we
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: used to believe, like the news organizations and civil society
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: and institutional international monitors, And the Republican president is seen
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: as prevailing by the right-wing media ecosystem that talks about
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: urban fraud and Chinese manipulation or whatever. Those two points
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: of view cannot be reconciled. And so in that situation,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: you have a situation where civil society has to really
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: demand that that the winner be seated. And that demand
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: has to be associated with things that are norm breaking,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: like a willingness to engage in a civil strike or
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: economic pressure or counter mobilization in ways that the Democrats
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: have not really done in the United States.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's interesting, just in the experience I had,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: shock and awe mattered. And I guess the question Do
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you think January 6th was the right amount of shock
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to get institutionalists in a headspace where they may have
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to violate a norm or two? And I have to say,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I sit there and I utter this, and I worry
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: about crossing that line.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. For sure. Well, let me actually go
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: back to something you'd said before about the MAGA people
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: elevating progressives. It's not so much that they're elevating progressives.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: You know, if someone's a little bit more liberal or
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: a little bit more interventionist on antitrust or whatever, it's
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: not that they're elevating the Elizabeth Warrens of the world.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: They're elevating Chevalier in New York. They're elevating particular... kinds
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: of Democrats and saying that that is what the Democratic
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Party is. So that's what sets up this conflict is
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: that if you think about the true believers of January
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: 6th and why they were there, they genuinely believed that
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: their country was being taken from them illegitimately by people
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: that they thought would destroy America. So The question in
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: terms of norms and values, there are tools in the
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: United States, in the Constitution even, and in the United
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: States history that can be sufficient to demand that the
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: winner of the election wins. But I don't think that
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the institutionalists learned what they needed to learn but from
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: January 6, 2021. In general, people think that was a
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: strange one-off and couldn't happen again. And ultimately, it failed.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: But the nationalists have had eight years to prepare to
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: do it better. So will there be devices that prevent
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: people from being armed when they come into the Capitol?
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Will there be more people? And the only way to
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: address that is to have a mass civil society movement,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: which has to be broadly based. It has to include capitalists.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: It has to include people who believe in the Second Amendment.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: It has to include young people at scale. And those
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: are the kinds of movements internationally, if you look at
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: examples like Serbia or Czechoslovakia or Chile or the Philippines,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: where actually civil society was able to successfully demand that
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the winner be seated. All of those examples are cross-sectional
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: civil movements. And by the way, if you cross the
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: next set of boundaries and it becomes violent, that's a failure.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: That's Syria 2011. That doesn't work. So the game is
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: designed to encourage people to understand ways that actually work
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: in saving the country that you want to save without
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: going too far in either direction, without being too soft
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: to the nationalists, and also without ripping the country apart.
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  Speaker 1: looks blatantly against the Constitution, but instead will be handing
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: people what they believe is a legal path that they
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: don't that there is a. I mean, and you could
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: see it actually at January 6th.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: They wanted they didn't they weren't saying overturn the election.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: They were saying challenge the results.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: They wanted they were going to use the system within.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things among those that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: worry about this, that they don't fully appreciate. I'm going
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: to name a name here, Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller believes
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: he can use existing law in the Constitution to get
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: what he wants here, and that that will be the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: path because they're going to want to hand a judge
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: some big leaf of legitimacy.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I agree with you, and it's not just Stephen Miller.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: It's the entire– infrastructure of tech overlords and Steve Bannon
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: and Peter Thiel and Jaden Vance, all these people believe
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: that democracy is bad. They really do. They don't want democracy.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: They prefer, you know, kind of a.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Illiberal. They really like the hungry model, really. I mean,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: sort of like a little bit of democracy, you know,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: on the local level, but not for the big stuff.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the way that they'll move the Overton
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: window on the law is very aggressive. So the White
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: House Counsel's Office is an assistant attorney general that basically
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: describes what they think the Constitution means. And they have
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: been incredibly aggressive under Trump in taking interpretations of the
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Constitution that had previously been unheard of. And so, for example.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Well, they're doing one now with executive privilege for private citizens.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: They created an OLC memo, which is one of these
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: weird loopholes in basically delaying a judicial ruling.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Office of Legal Counsel, the OLC, they have been–
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: super aggressive on this stuff. And by the way, the
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Trump versus United States decision in 2024 essentially held that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: the president cannot be held criminally responsible for anything he
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: does in the scope of his office. That was never
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the understanding before. That would have been considered absurd. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: yet that is now the law of the land. So
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: you're right that they will want the veneer of legality.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Let's just not be too hopeful about that veneer of legality.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: They can push and stretch it in a number of ways.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: And I'll give you one example if you're interested. We,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you know, the institutionalists, Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, passed
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: a law called the Electoral Count Reform Act, which was
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: designed to tie up the glitches in the law that
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: made January 6th possible by saying, you know, what it
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: says is only the governors can hand a slate to
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Congress and the vice president has no authority to reject
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: a slate. There is a fringe legal movement And by fringe,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I mean MAGA, so who knows how soon it becomes mainstream,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: which is that the Electoral Count Reform Act is unconstitutional
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: because the 12th Amendment has a different way of saying
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the role of the vice president. And so if you're
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: really aggressive about that interpretation of the 12th Amendment, then
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you could say, well, maybe J.D. Vance does have the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: ability to throw out electors, at which point maybe you
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: can say, say legitimately that there weren't enough votes. You
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: didn't get to 270, at which point the election gets
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: thrown to the House of Representatives. And the House of Representatives,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: as you know, in that situation, they don't vote as
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: a Congress. They get one vote per state. And the
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: total number of states that support MAGA is higher than
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: the total number of states that don't. So that gives
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: you that set of steps is one example, and there
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: are others. of ways that they can stretch the meaning
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: of the law to give themselves the fig leaf while
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: still keeping power, having lost the election.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Describe the guts of the game. It's an, I know
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you use AI to help with the, you know, creating
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the scenario and feeding, okay, if this, then that type of,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: but walk people through the guts of this. How did
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you build this simulation?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very important for people who kind of wonk
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: out a little bit on how artificial intelligence works. It
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: is very important that you just don't set artificial intelligence
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: loose because it's very sloppy, it's very messy, it hallucinates
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of things. It may be the smartest thing ever,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: but it's not infinitely smart and it makes mistakes. So
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: the game itself is what programmers say sometimes it's on rails.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: So there's a set of outcomes, and there's a set
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: of specific things that are evaluated, measures for the legitimacy
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: of the regime, the cohesion of the regime, the state
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: of the stock market, the state of inflation. There's a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: set of several hundred variables that are tracked. And then
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the decisions that the teams make are then routed into
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: that set of variables, and that creates a new game state.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And then AI uses that new game state to say
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: what the news would sound like. So as a team,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: you make a series, you come together and it's 2026,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: and you make a series of moves. The game engine
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: then calculates that in a highly constrained reasoning engine. And
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: the reasoning engine is built around these international models that
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I mentioned. So there are models where civil society is
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: effective at enforcing an election. I've already gone through some
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: of those. But there are plenty of examples where the
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: autocratic regime just stays in power. Venezuela, Belarus, many, many
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: other examples. And there are examples where there's a fracture
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: in the Civil War as well. And so those historical
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: examples go into the game engine. And so as a player,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: what happens is You and your team make some moves.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: You submit your moves with how much money you spent
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: or what you did. That goes into the game engine,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: and then it rolls forward the calendar about 13 months.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So you make a bunch of moves in September of 2026,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: and then suddenly you're getting a news drop that describes
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the state of the world in October of 2027, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: then November in 2028, just after a contested election, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: then December of 2029, when the dust has settled. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: that's kind of how the game works, if that makes sense.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And what I look, I had somebody on about
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a month ago where we who wrote in Lawfare about
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the vulnerabilities of the midterms. And just to reinforce here,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you are this is simply a 2020 exercise with the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: midterms as a vehicle.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Right. Yes, although the midterms can be an important vehicle.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: If you're on the MAGA team, you want to use
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the midterms to build muscles, to build the narrative of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: urban fraud, to get people used to the idea of
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: challenging election. Mostly, I think it's unlikely that... that they
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: will use all their guns on the midterm because Mr.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Trump does not really care about Republicans. He and his
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: care about themselves. So I think they want to use
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: the midterms to practice so that they will be more
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: effective at keeping power in 2028, 2029. What does practice
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: look like?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: What do you think that looks like?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: It looks like experimenting with messing up the mails with
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the United States Postal Service. It looks like experimenting and
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: driving the narrative of urban fraud and Chinese manipulation so
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: that their base is worked up about Democrats cheating and
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: stealing the election. It looks like practicing things like setting
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: a norm that it's okay to have federal agents near
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: polling places. So that combination of getting the bureaucracy in place,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: getting federal agents used to the idea of being in
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: polling places and getting citizens used to that idea, getting
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: citizens used to the idea that even an overwhelming Democratic win,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: which might happen this time, still can't be trusted because
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: they believe in the narrative of urban fraud and Chinese manipulation.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And it also means making sure that the electorate understands
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Democrats as being represented by people like the extreme democratic
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: socialists like DAC. So those are the things that could
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: be good practice so that they can try to keep
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: power in.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: 2028, 2029. The two vulnerabilities that the Lawfare reporter sort
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of pointed out, one was the Lange certifications. delayed certifications. Look,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I think there's a landmine sitting out there right now.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: It's Missouri. And if the margin in the house is close,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a big margin, it's harder to use one state for manipulation.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: If the margin's close, like we're just staring at now,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: then one state can matter here a lot. Missouri's putting
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: themselves in a situation where I think that you can't
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: see that delegation, especially if they go forward with elections
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: featuring nominees that the courts said was an invalid map.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And yet they're going to try to use these nominees anyway,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: which I just, I'm at my wits end that that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: looks like the path we're going to head down because
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: it It seems to me an easy way to invalidate
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: these elections. And I hate to see if we go
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: down the path of an invalidated election, even for legitimate reasons,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: just feels like that opens the door to something. What
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: other midterm manipulations do you think people ought to look
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: out for that might be test runs in your head?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you're absolutely right that if it's a
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: close election, the Republican speaker has a lot of leeway
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: to just refuse to seat delegations. I think you're also
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: right that Missouri is a classic example. But there are
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: some examples in California because they count late. I mean,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: there's really enormous discretion. I think if it's a big
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: election where civil society understand that Democrats won by 20 seats,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: it's going to be very hard for them to do that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But if it's close, I agree with you. That's one
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: of the big things. The second thing in the midterms
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: that people are really worried about is ballot intimidation and
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: federal agents deterring people from voting. I'm less concerned about
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: that in the short term, because the first time you
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: do something like that, there's actually a little bit of
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: a backlash effect. So you might actually get more people
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: to vote against you than otherwise might have because, you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: there's a push.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think he's I think what he's done with
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the Postal Service already is going to change some voting
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: patterns on the Democratic side. But it isn't going to
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: limit the turnout on the Democratic side, like, you know.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I joke, I mean, you could change your
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: polling location the day before and Democrats are going to
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: find it. Everything he's doing probably harms his own people
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: more than it will harm the other side.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, completely. Yeah. I mean, part of this is why
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: I think that the midterms are not the ballgame for
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: these kinds of electoral shenanigans. I think the midterms are
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: the setup for the real ballgame. And the reason I
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: think it's the real ballgame, the executive branch is extremely powerful.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: And it's only become much more powerful over the last
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: few decades. And under Trump, it's become insanely powerful. They
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: issue pardons all the time. That means Congress cannot subpoena
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: and cannot investigate. They put in acting officials so that
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: deprives the Senate of its power over appointments. And they
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: move budget items around, limiting the Democrats' power of the
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: purse if they were to take the House. So this
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: executive branch is extremely, extremely powerful. And everything that they're doing,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: like they've decapitated, like they've taken out a bunch of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: four-star generals from the Department of Defense, They've completely replaced
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the senior leadership of the Departments of Justice and State.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: All of that makes sense in a context where the ballgame—
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: is to keep power in 2029, because then things can
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: keep going. So that's why I think that that's the
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: key ballgame. Obviously, if you don't want that to happen,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: you have to win in November of 2028. The bigger
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the margin of victory, the better. But you also have
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: to be prepared for making sure that in the next
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: 75 days, civil society is firmly united around the idea
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: that the winner should be seated.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: The premise of your book Is it lessons from this?
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: How would you describe it?
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: The premise of the book is to try to think
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: through how the Enlightenment era survives in some of these
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: darker cases. So in the book itself, the specific scenario,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: and I'm not predicting this, I'm just taking it as
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: a for instance, is that in 2029, America fractures. And
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: so red America becomes focused on the extractive industries. and
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: even more theocratic and even more tightly aligned with Venezuela
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: and Russia. And so it becomes kind of an extractive block,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: maybe including Alberta and Canada. And then the rule of
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: law states, the blue states, they form an alliance with
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Canada and perhaps with Costa Rica. And that coalition becomes
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a constitutional alliance. And then you now have a global
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: struggle between the extractive authoritarian states and the rule of
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: law states. In this struggle, the rule of law states
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: have real advantages. They're more innovative, they have a better,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: more reliable base of knowledge, but the authoritarian states also
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: have an advantage, which is they can move very fast.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: In the scenario that I just outlined, if the United
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: States executive branch is no longer subject to the peaceful
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: transfer of power, then you're talking about the United States, Russia,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: and China that are now functionally authoritarian. So the authoritarians
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: control something like 85% of the world's military power. And
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: so my book, Archipelago of Light, coming out October 6th,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: my book is about if that happens, how does the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: rule of law survive? How do diverse communities use artificial
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: intelligence to actually find new ways of organizing society? And
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: it's really about authoritarianism and artificial intelligence together what's the
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: way through that the enlightenment.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Survives so it's not dystopian is what you're trying to
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: say it.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Is not dystopian it is it is not a summer
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: read uh but it ends hopefully.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You know in listening to that scenario the election of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: a democratic governor in texas really is quite the quite
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the shot in the organizational arm of the nationalists is
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: it not 100 a big big you are counting on
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: texas being a part of that coalition in your fracture
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and the fact that it looks to me like texas
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: is at least at a minimum is more interested in
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: being a battleground state and look gonna start looking a
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: little bit more like ohio and a little bit less
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: like uh oklahoma.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah if texas flips blue That makes it much, much
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: harder for the MAGA movement to keep power if they
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: lose the election.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Having Texas in a Democratic governor's hands is a bigger
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: deal for 2028 than you think any other governor in
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the country?
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Than any other governor that's plausibly up for grabs. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: let me give you a specific example of why. States
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: have state militias by law. This is not the National Guard.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: They have state militias. So in states like New York
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: and California, these militias are used to fight cybercrime. In
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: states like Texas and Florida, they are combining forces to
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: do live fire exercises in the field to police the border.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: So the red states are very much gearing up for
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: kinetic warfare internally. Doesn't mean they're going to do it,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: but they're definitely preparing. And Texas is, in many ways,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: one of the richest and most powerful red states. And
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: if all of those gun owners and all of that
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: military power is suddenly on the side of the rule
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: of law, that changes the dynamics greatly.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what an added sort of... stake to
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: throw on the, to really screw up my metaphors here,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to throw on the Barbie there when it comes to
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: that Texas governor's race, which is, you know, I think
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it's already a fascinating race for where, you know, when
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee is using a January 6 rally goer
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: as an endorsee, you know that this, the dynamics of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: this race are unique.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. Although you had a guest on not
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: that long ago, Scaramucci, who kind of mentioned the institutional
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: power of the Republican Party. The Democrats are going to
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: have to win by a lot to get Greg Abbott
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: out of there, but it's possible.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. You think a half a percentage point win
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: by the Democrat won't be enough to get Greg Abbott
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: out of there?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a half a percentage point win would
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: be enough. The question is more on the other side
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: of the equation. Is there a half a point win?
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Just the lines in the urban areas are so long
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: in Texas because of what they've done to consolidate voting centers.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: There's all kinds of that stuff that they can do.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: And look, even if you're a really committed midterm Democrat, eventually,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: if the lines are long enough, you got other things
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: So- That's interesting. You just see that just the way
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: they've made it harder for Houston, Dallas, San Antonio to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: vote versus the rural parts is potentially a big advantage.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Although I think part of the Republican Party's problems in
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Texas right now is how voters feel in rural areas
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: about schools and about what's been happening, right? Like it's a–
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: it is– I mean, it's possible that we're watching democracy
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: save itself.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I know. Right.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Like, I mean, meaning like this is this is why
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I still have faith. Like eventually voters, they don't figure
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: it out on your timeline or my timeline, but they
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: figure it out. The question is, do they have enough
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: room and enough space? And is our system going to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: let them?
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, there is a global conflict
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: between two different aspects of human society. Like it's us.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: We're the ones who choose authoritarianism. We're the ones who
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: choose the rule of law. And that fight is very,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: very close. And when the fight's close, that's more reason
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: to be involved, right? Yeah.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: What'd you learn from Hungary? And what should the institutionalists, right?
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Which is, you know, that's what I said. When I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: say institutional, you're very careful not to assume party in this.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: You know, what should the, you know, the sort of
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the Romney wing, right? Of the Republican Party, Romney-Cheney wing
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: of the Republican Party and the institutionalists on the Democratic side.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: And I do think there are some who are not
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: such institutionalists on the Democratic side. Like people need to
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: understand that. The horseshoe is real here and they could
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: be touching. What did you learn from Hungary and what
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: do you hope the institutionalists have learned from Hungary?
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Well, Hungary is a very important lesson for how to
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: win in 2028. So Magyar is, I mean, my view,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: I think similar to yours, is that the Democrats need
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: a unity figure. There's a single issue. The issue is
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: take power away from those people. That's the issue that
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Magyar won on, is that team is corrupt and bad,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and we have to take power. Magyar was not talking
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: about defund the police. He was not talking about wealth taxes.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: He was not talking about any of that other stuff.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It was one issue, which is to take power away
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: from those guys. That's important for winning the election. Unfortunately,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think Hungary gives you very good lessons at
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: all about how to enforce the victory because Hungary is
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: a part of the European Union. So I also think
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: the same is true of Giorgio Maloney in Italy. Victor
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Orban and Giorgio Maloney absolutely were authoritarians, but they were
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: in a system where there was so much money, the
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: European Union subsidies and everything else, so much money at
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: stake that the coalition around them would not have stood
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: for them to try to keep power after having lost
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: because it would have been just too expensive. That is
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: also indirectly a lesson for the United States. People have
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: to understand that supporting the regime and staying in power,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: even if they've lost, that would be expensive because there
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: will be a general strike or tax withholding or a
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: tax strike. or tax, like if, you know, one thing
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: that we've talked about is if every citizen who believes
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: in the rule of law makes a public declaration that
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: if the constitution has been violated, then that means the
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: 16th amendment is no longer valid, which is the one
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: that authorizes income taxes. That creates a credible deterrent. Things
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: like that need to happen where if the winner is
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: not seated, is not inaugurated on January 20th, then there
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: are real consequences for the people around the regime.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: How much of damage, let's say, let's assume Team Trump
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: wants to find a way to stay in power in 28, right?
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: This is the presumption of the simulation. They're overseeing a
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: very unpopular economy. And, you know, I was just talking
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: with my producer earlier, and I said, you know, there's
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: not a revolution that's happened that doesn't happen, that basically
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: it's usually because people are frustrated by the cost of things.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: That ultimately, and that in an odd way, the worse
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the economy, the better we should feel about the inability
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of Trump to stay in power. Am I being naive?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: No, I think, well, when I was a consultant in
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: the business world, we used to refer to something as
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: directionally correct. So directionally correct. The question is, is it
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: far enough? And it is definitely the case that economic
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: dissatisfaction can swell the ranks of the movement that is
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: trying to house the incumbent. The problem is, there are
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a couple problems though. One problem is that people tend
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: to really anchor on direction. So if you remember, Ronald
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Reagan was very unpopular in 1982. But by the time
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: things felt like they were getting better, he rolled to
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: a re-election victory. So it's the direction of change that
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: will matter. And a lot of the cost of living
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: issues are self-inflicted. There are specific reasons why the Trump
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: team is using tariffs very heavily, and there are specific
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: reasons why they're continuing to engage in Iran, those could change.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: And you could have an economy that is starting to recover.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing. The second thing is that The Democrats,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: if I'm right, that the Democrats have lost most of
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: their power, meaning they can't, you know, their power of subpoena,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: their power of budget, their power of appointments, that these
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: are all now limited because of the way in which
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Trump is managing the executive branch. Then all the Democrats
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: have left is their power to set the agenda. with
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: their committee chairs and with their investigations. And if the
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Democrats mess that up, then they provide a really good
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: foil for Trump and MAGA to say that the problems
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: are with the Democratic Party. The reason you're feeling this
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: pain is because the Democrats are getting in the way
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: of the things that will help you. And that is
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: definitely something that Democrats are capable of, is messing that up.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: So those are the two things that I worry about
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: a little bit in terms of the economy.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: One of the other things that I always push back
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: on in this idea that we could fracture as states
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: is how we're geographically divided, but not along state lines,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: along urban, suburban, rural lines. And Milwaukee and the suburbs
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and Madison would be on perhaps team institution. And the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: rest of Wisconsin might be on team nationalists. You'd see
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: these divides all over. We just described Texas, right? Dallas County,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Harris County, Bexar County, Travis County. Those counties are all blue.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of the rural counties would be red. There isn't,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and because we're not as regional as we
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: once were, right? We're in this, is that a, is
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that security? Should I take that as some comfort that
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: it's actually harder for us to fracture physically because we're
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: kind of– even though we've self-sorted, we're with– but we
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: are sort of convoluted in every rural area is red,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: but it's in all 50 states. Every urban area is blue,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: but it's in all 50 states.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: So a couple of things that you said, one thing
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I just want to underscore, the relationship between population density
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: and two-way voting is the most important relationship in American politics.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: It is more important than race, than gender, than education.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: If you do a X-Y grid where along one axis
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: you have population density and along the other axis you
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: have two-way voting, it is a line. It is a
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: line that varies very little from 2008 to 12. So
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: it's very important. And you're right, that does make it
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: harder to fracture. The other thing that makes it harder
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to fracture is that it is really difficult to separate
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: these kinds of close-knit economic arrangements. So both of those
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: are good points.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll be honest, Dimitri, I think that watching
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the fact that China cares more about Europe and North
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: America as a consumer market, they chose not to help
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: create an energy recession from the Iran war, right? Because
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: they didn't buy the oil they normally buy. They went
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: ahead and used their strategic reserve. And it was, for
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: those that argue that an interconnected world on our economy
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: actually minimizes the chances of war, you know, the less
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: free trade you have, the more chances for war. I mean,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: is that what we're in the middle of witnessing at
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the moment?
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: It certainly could be. It's very hard to draw lines
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: through these kinds of examples because they're all so specific.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: What I would just say is that the international order
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: today is very similar to the international order as it
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: was prior to World War I.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: No, I'm with you there. It's scary. It's very scary
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: when you see the similarities.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: And there was a lot of free trade prior to
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: World War I. So, you know, and people said.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: We were pretty tariff. We were pretty tariff. We were.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yes. Smooth hauling.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: United States.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: And so forth. Triggered it. But look at what the
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: United States is doing now. Yeah. It's a modern and
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: smooth holly, and you're forming these blocks. And the other
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: thing that is a source of some concern is Brexit happened.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: There are examples that were previously considered real. Russia invaded Ukraine. physically.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: There's these examples that maybe a decade or two ago
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: would have seemed fantastical that are happening now. So I
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: think you're right that the scattering of human beings, rural
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: and urban across states, and the interconnection of the global
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: world through trade, both of those, I think, are good
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: and potentially help us against the threats that we face.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: But I don't think they're rock solid reliable. History suggests otherwise.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: As long as human beings are involved, right? Nothing's worse.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: fully reliable. Let me land the plane this way. I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: know some lessons I took away from the exercise and what, frankly,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: constitutional reforms are needed. I think, frankly, more than anything else,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: there's certainly plenty of rules changes I'd love to see
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in how the House operates, how the Senate operates. And ultimately,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: no constitutional change is going to matter if Congress doesn't
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: understand that it's Article I in our Constitution. But given
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: everything you've watched and witnessed, are there three or four
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: constitutional reforms that you think are necessary to limit the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: ability of your simulation to be so successful by the nationalists?
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: So– I actually believe that the prior era of, you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: there are people like Bruce Ackerman on the left and
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Mike Ludig on the right who say that the prior
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: constitutional order is now gone. And we're in this interregnum
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: period because the way that the right understands the constitution
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: is so radically different from the way that the Constitution
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: used to be understood by institutionalists that we kind of
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: have to go one of two directions. Some of the
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: reforms that I used to be opposed to, I actually
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: think are now critical. That includes expanding the number of
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices to have one for every circuit. It
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: is only with that sort of a thing that you
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: can potentially overturn Trump versus the United States, which I
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: think is just a foundational issue. Trump versus the United States,
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I think, is a foundational rewriting of American constitutional law.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: And you've got to get back to a system where
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: the chief executive is subject to the law. You can't
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: have otherwise. There are other reforms that I think would
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: be really good.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, the.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Classic mix, ranked choice voting, nonpartisan redistricting. You can even
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: have mandatory voting as a way of giving everybody a stake.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: I think those are all realistic reforms, but at the
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: very top, I think that the, yeah, there's gotta be
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: much more power in the hands of Congress. And if
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: I may say one other thing, People on the left,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: for as long as we've been alive, have been hostile
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: to certain parts of the Constitution. They've been hostile to
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: the free assembly cause of the First Amendment because it
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: was used to justify segregation. They have been hostile to
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: the Second Amendment for guns. They've been hostile to the
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Ninth and Tenth for federalism. And it is going to
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: be very, very important for those on the left to
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: understand that those constitutional tools were designed to limit central power.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: And they're going to be very, very important in a
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: world where central power is occasionally held by, you know,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: essentially these authoritarians.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the irony is to watch the right
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: wing of our country be so enamored with centralized power,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: when for all of my adult life until this moment,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the right was the biggest advocate against centralization, right? They
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: were the biggest, you know, for And you could say
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the motivation goes back to segregation and it goes back
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: to states' rights. But the basic principle, I thought it
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: was a principle. That's all. I think a lot of
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: us thought that has to be a principle, right?
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: The biggest mistake that I made in 10 years of
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: trying to fight against Trump's reelection was I assumed a
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: larger percentage of Republicans meant what they said. By the way,
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: the Republicans who didn't mean what they said are heroes.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, who did mean what they said have become heroes.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: They have stood up. My book launch is on October 6th.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: And I'll be in conversation with my friend Sarah Longwell,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: who is, I think, a leader in this movement, and
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: my friend Rick Wilson, these people who had been Republicans
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: who say, like, actually, what I really cared about is
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: the things I said I cared about. And therefore, when
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party is no longer those things, I'm no
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: longer Republican. That's going to be a critical constituency to
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: win in 28 and to actually have a peaceful transfer
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: of power in 29.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: If there is a flaw in your concerns, it sounds
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: like it is the fact that the, that there could
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: be infighting among sort of the institutionalists over what to
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: focus on. I mean, you know, I mean, I think
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: we know if, if the, if the stakes were truly
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: people saw what the stakes were, I actually don't think
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: this would be as big of a problem. The concern
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: I have is, and I count myself as somebody that
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: vacillates between these two sides of, Is this really about
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: to happen? Or do you need to meet people where
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: they are first? And that's the other thing. How do
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you go about doing it? Do you go about focused
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: on the concern about this? Or do you instead, hey,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: help people make ends meet. And if you help people
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: make ends meet, they're going to trust the institution again.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I... I mean, look, I have a strong point
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: of view about this, which is that it has to
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: be a single issue. So people on the left will
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: sometimes say, everybody's got to be involved. We've got to
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: bring everybody in. And I think that math is fundamentally unrealistic.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: If you bring in Chevalier and platform her, you're going
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: to be losing people on the other side. You know,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: it has to be, you know, the bottom part of
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: the horseshoe. It has to be a, that's what the
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: example of Hungary proves. It has to be a coalition
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: of people who say, we can disagree about everything else,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: but the winner of the election needs to be seated.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: That's the kind of movement that, that can actually ensure
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: the peaceful transfer of power. And then there becomes a debate, like,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: you know, how do you get enough of the former
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Republicans and the capitalists and the gun owners while also
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: keeping enough of the kind of white-hot activism of the
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: progressive left? You know, you gotta find that balance.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I have to say that I'm not convinced that this
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: current Democratic Party I don't think the two major parties
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: are ever vehicles for reform. And if you look at
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: our history, it's taken an outside effort, right? Either a
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: brand new political party, the Republicans, a Teddy Roosevelt who
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: left a party, right? Who got us the constitutional reforms,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: arguably that were necessary in that moment to sort of
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: to rebalance labor and corporations. Ross Perot in his own way, right?
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Had success. You know, the... The problem with ever getting
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: a political party to do reform is they don't wanna
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: give up power. When they have the power to do it,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: they're more concerned about keeping power than they are saving
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: the Republic. I'll just be frank.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually agree with you. I'm not sure that
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: the Democrats can't do it, but if I look at
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: the list of things that need to be done, the
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: electoral coalition that you need to build, the will to
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: do things like give up, term limits. I don't know
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: if it's the right answer, but it could be a
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: part of the package. If I think through the list
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: of things that need to be done to win the
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: election in 2028, to make sure that the election is
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: enforced in 2029, and then to reform the institutions to
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: establish a new American republic that works, very hard for
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: me to see those things emerging out of the Democratic
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Party as it is right now. Now, one thing I'll
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: say as a just a flag of potential hope, is
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: that the presidential nominee has a lot of power to
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: reshape the party. We saw that in the Republican side
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: with Trump. And so it's not impossible to imagine a
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Democratic nominee emerging who could rise above and champion those
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: sort of things. But, you know, who knows at this point?
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: You're still going to, that nominee is still going to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: answer to the voters they think got them there. Yes,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: it depends a lot on- What the makeup of that
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: coalition looks like.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: 100%. The Democratic Party is still the Democratic Party, and
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: they are still the ones who are going to choose
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: the nominee, so. Yeah.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: What's your level of alarmism versus vigilance? Where do you
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: put yourself?
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: I have historically been very alarmist. And the reason is
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: that when- You feel better at all?
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Because of what happened in Hungary? Did that help change
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: your mindset at all?
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: No, because that was just an electoral victory. And that's
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: not the thing that I'm most worried about. When I
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: started working against Trump in 2017, I had a bunch
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: of very dark assumptions that I put down in writing
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: about how bad things could go. And mostly I was
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: on the most alarmist side of the rooms that I
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: was in. And mostly those things came to pass. including
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: some version of January 6th. So on the other hand,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: I thought that America today would be much darker. I
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: thought somebody like Jim Comey would be dead by now.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: And so the courts have resisted in ways that I
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: didn't predict. And we're still in the game.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Do you have a theory as to how that happened?
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Is it that- I mean, what's your theory as to
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: why the worst impulses haven't happened there? Because when it
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: comes to Sarah Brennan or Comey or something like that.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I had thought that MAGA was going to
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: follow the direction of Vladimir Putin because I had thought
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: that the Trump regime was essentially taking their playbook from Putin.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: And Putin was very, very thuggish. He would kill people.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: He would arrest people, etc., What has happened is that
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: the Trump regime has been less thuggish than I thought,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: but more rapacious. And I think they're just making too
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: much money. So the amount of money that they're making
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: is so vast that they decided, what the heck? Why
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: don't we stand down away from the protests in Minnesota
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: and make sure that our ICE agents, masked federal agents,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: only kill civilians on American soil when there are no
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: cameras around? It's a worthwhile trade-off. I can move ICE around.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: I can still build up ICE's capacities. But I don't
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: need to have the direct confrontation. And so taking out
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: a Jim Comey, that just makes it hard to rake
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: in my billions. But if that theory is right, if
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: it is just a matter of thuggishness versus rapaciousness, the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: key date is January 2029. Because on that day, if
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: the institutionalists take power, then suddenly all that criming becomes
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: illegal and they can't keep crime. Even if they pardon everybody,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: they can't pardon people from future crimes. And that whole
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: regime has gotten used to making money by doing things
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: that have been previously considered illegal. So things have been
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: better than I feared.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: I comfort myself by always saying Trump's too lazy to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: be an authoritarian.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Could be. Could be.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: But you've got to be willing to. I mean, I
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: just look at January 6th. I look at that day
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and he didn't have the guts to fire the acting
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: attorney general. He didn't have the guts to fire the defense,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the acting defense secretary, which and it was all within
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: his power. He could have pushed this envelope and he
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: chose not to. Because one of the things that's the
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: hallmark of him is that he always wants somebody else
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: to do the dirty work. He doesn't like to actually write.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: He's the irony to the guy who fired people on
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: TV is he doesn't like to fire anybody.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you may be right. There are many. The reason
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: why I'm less hopeful about that is if you look
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: historically at Mussolini or Hitler or even the later years
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: of Robert Mugabe, everybody who interacted with them thought they
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: were clowns. Right.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: You're right.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: And yet, as Charlie Sykes sometimes says, a clown with
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: a flamethrower still has a flamethrower. And Donald Trump will
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: be eight years further into his malignant narcissism, into his aging,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: his senescence, eight years further into having this regime around
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: him that is preparing. You remember, for January 6th, he
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: cobbled together some losers in a couple of months. Now
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: he's got eight years of bringing together a full team.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe. It's just hard to know.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, as Peter Thiel observed, he goes, they're quite loyal.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: They're not competent, but they're quite loyal. I don't know
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: if you caught those comments.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: I did. Peter Thiel and I happened to be in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: school together in college, and he's kind of always been
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: like this.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: He's not as liberal Democrat as he's small, meaning small L,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: small D, not ideological.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: No, I think he genuinely believes that women's suffrage is wrong.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: And that democracy is wrong. He has this statement that
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: democracy and freedom are not compatible. And he doesn't mean
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: your freedom when he says that.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: It's his freedom.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: No, I. Let me let me put anybody very close
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: to him. Do you find them? Are you more concerned
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: about them? I mean, I'll just state it. Vice President
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Vance is very close with Peter Thiel. Do you think
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: that's a relationship that scares you more than Donald Trump?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Yes, maybe. I mean, the relationships that
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: scare me the most, probably in order, are Vladimir Putin
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: and then the Peter Thiel crowd. But they're both very scary.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: How do you sleep? How do you make yourself feel better?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I will tell you this. My wife always says, hey,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: you got to give people a little bit of hope.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: What's the hope that you give people?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, everything that you've said, like the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: bits of hope that you've said, I've pushed back on
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: all of them, but all of them are directionally correct.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: This is a close thing. I could imagine a unifying figure,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: and I don't, you know, just to make one up,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: imagine a John Ossoff.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: I'm for Captain America, General Donahue. If your nickname is
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Captain America. Yeah. No, I'd like to, I'd like, I
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: have no idea whether he is ready to be president
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: of the United States. But a forced out four-star general
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: whose nickname was Captain America, I'd at least like to try.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: 100%, or I'm forgetting the name of the admiral right now, McRaven.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Bill McRaven, yeah.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: For sure. I'm just throwing a name out there. Someone
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: who's unifying and centrist and a good speaker and kind
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: of invokes, like imagine that Joe Biden was 30 years
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: younger and he ran the Soul of America campaign.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Same campaign, right, yeah.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: That kind of a campaign, if you win by... four
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: or five points, you get a slingshot effect where it's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: very hard for the regime to keep power. And there's
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: an enormous amount of motivation to fix the problems and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: create what I would consider a new American republic. that
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: is more robust. And I think that's the problem is
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: that the official future that we all had is wide open.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Things that we thought were impossible are now possible. And
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: that's very scary on one side. But on the other side,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: if hope prevails, that could be very exciting. And I
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: also take great comfort in the way Canada is positioning
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: themselves in the way, you know, there are parts of
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: the global alliance for freedom that are beginning to realize
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: they need to stand up. And that's a good sign.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Dimitri, I did not know what to expect when I participated.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And it's one of the things, one of the most
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: important things I've participated in in the last year. The
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: work you're doing, how can people, is there a way
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: for people to participate or how... Because I know I'm
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: going to have some listeners going, I'd like to try this.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: How does it work? Is there an online portion? I
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: know in some ways it works better, frankly, as a
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: role-playing game.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have done some Zoom versions, some online versions.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: We haven't yet scaled to the place where it's easy.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: But for example, we've had students and high school teachers,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: law school students play the game virtually.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: And where can they find you if they wanted to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: do that? Some high school civics teacher who I've got
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: a few that I'm sort of pen pals with over
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: the years. They want to contact, how do they do it?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: How would they come find, get your help?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: So my book page, and if you go to www.truthsurvives.com,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: you can get to my book page, and you can
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: contact me through that. The organization, the philanthropy that I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: run that sponsors these games is called the Atoll Society,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: and there's a contact form there. So I'm not that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: hard to reach if you want to learn anything. um
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: how to how to play this game or you want
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: to run it yourself.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Look i think it's what i would love to see
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of high school civics teachers um and intro
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: political science uh professors um think about this because it's
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: just a terrific way to get folks to get frankly
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: smarter about the constitution the rules that do exist and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: how it works and you know even even simply as
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: a way to educate the less knowledgeable about our system.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: It can be a terrific teaching.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm very grateful for your feedback. And just to
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: build on it, it's very hard to get out of
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: this day, this week, this month, this life that I've
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: lived to date. And these simulations allow you to at
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: least briefly inhabit a different set of assumptions that are
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: maybe more historically grounded and less narrow, just in case
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: they're true.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: Dimitri, congrats on the book. October 6th, we'll be looking
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: for it. And I have a feeling I'll get quite
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: a few podcast listeners checking it in. So thank you.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Good to see you.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: Good to see you.