Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Chuck’s Commentary - What If 9/11 Never Happened? + College Football Playoff Reaction

Transcript

Chuck’s Commentary - What If 9/11 Never Happened? + College Football Playoff Reaction · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you
0:02
Speaker 1: by Quints and I love me some Quints. New Year,
0:05
Speaker 1: colder days. This is the moment your winter wardrobe really
0:08
Speaker 1: has to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset, start
0:11
Speaker 1: with pieces truly made to last season after season. Quint
0:15
Speaker 1: springs together premium materials, thoughtful design, and enduring quality so
0:19
Speaker 1: you stay warm, look sharp, and fill your best all
0:21
Speaker 1: season long. Quins has everything you need men's Mongolian cashmere sweaters.
0:26
Speaker 1: I have one. I have to say, really into it.
0:29
Speaker 1: They have wool coats, leather, and swede outerwear that actually
0:32
Speaker 1: hold up to daily wear and still look good. Their
0:35
Speaker 1: outerwear is especially impressive. Think down jackets, woolf coats, and
0:39
Speaker 1: Italian leather outerwear that keep you warm when it's actually cold.
0:44
Speaker 1: Each piece made from premium materials, Quints delivers the same
0:47
Speaker 1: quality as luxury brands at a fraction of the price.
0:50
Speaker 1: The result is classic styles you'll love that hold up
0:53
Speaker 1: year after year. You know me, I love me my
0:56
Speaker 1: quarter zips. Quints has quite a few of them. They're great.
0:59
Speaker 1: They're both light and warm. There's nothing harder than business casual. Right,
1:04
Speaker 1: you get these things? What can I wear? What can
1:06
Speaker 1: you wear at the meeting? What do you wear? On
1:08
Speaker 1: a zoom? I have to say it's as if Quinn
1:10
Speaker 1: sort of says, hey, look, we've got the modern sort
1:12
Speaker 1: of working wardrobe ready for you, clothing that looks stylish,
1:16
Speaker 1: looks good, but is actually practical and isn't going to
1:20
Speaker 1: break the bank. So refresher winter wardrobe with Quints. Go
1:24
Speaker 1: to quints dot com slash chuck for free shipping on
1:27
Speaker 1: your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns.
1:30
Speaker 1: And it's also available in Canada. That's qui nce dot com,
1:34
Speaker 1: slash chuck, free shipping and three hundred and sixty five
1:38
Speaker 1: day returns quints dot com slash chuck. Hello there, Welcome
1:46
Speaker 1: to my I guess you could call it the third
1:50
Speaker 1: what If episode, although it was I gave you a
1:52
Speaker 1: two parter in the first what if of this holiday season,
1:56
Speaker 1: which was the twenty twenty what ifs. I knew, we
1:59
Speaker 1: knew there'd be a lot of them. Everybody wanted to
2:01
Speaker 1: go through them, and it was necessary, but it was
2:04
Speaker 1: a really healthy exercise. I hope you got I got
2:07
Speaker 1: a lot out of it, and you know, the big conclusion,
2:11
Speaker 1: as I said, before for me and I still am
2:13
Speaker 1: carrying this is just how much Biden's presidency essentially got
2:18
Speaker 1: completely changed in the post election environment, right and more so,
2:25
Speaker 1: you know, I think the initial motivation for doing the
2:28
Speaker 1: what if on twenty twenty was, you know, how different
2:31
Speaker 1: was would Trump two point zero b as a continuation
2:34
Speaker 1: of his first term versus with the And there's no
2:37
Speaker 1: doubt it is. There are a lot of large differences,
2:41
Speaker 1: and there certainly I think would be there would be
2:44
Speaker 1: less upheaval. I think that was the But I really think,
2:49
Speaker 1: I really think what turned out to be an underrated
2:51
Speaker 1: part of the what if it was doing the other
2:54
Speaker 1: what if, which is what if Trump had conceded gracefully?
2:58
Speaker 1: How much that would have ended the era of Trump
3:01
Speaker 1: right then? Because we know how those worlds plays in
3:05
Speaker 1: some ways. Trump's own personal instinct of his fear of
3:10
Speaker 1: being sort of eradicated from history or filed into the
3:14
Speaker 1: dustbin of history, you know, his need to not be
3:18
Speaker 1: erased is so great that he sort of almost singularly
3:22
Speaker 1: created a new timeline for himself. And it was very
3:26
Speaker 1: impactful both on the Biden presidency itself and of course
3:29
Speaker 1: Trump two point zero. So there's no doubt, you know,
3:32
Speaker 1: when you it's an interesting I think you look. There's
3:39
Speaker 1: no overrating Trump's initial victory in twenty sixteen. But in
3:43
Speaker 1: some ways the changes Trump is making to the presidency
3:49
Speaker 1: to our politics are more impactful, not because of his
3:53
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election but because of his twenty twenty loss
3:56
Speaker 1: and his behavior around it. Anyway, it is apascitating. So
4:00
Speaker 1: in that spirit, the other big what if that got
4:03
Speaker 1: a ton of requests sort of like even you know
4:07
Speaker 1: people would submit it, which was a what if nine
4:09
Speaker 1: to eleven hadn't happened? Meaning and really the more realistic
4:12
Speaker 1: version of this is what if we had stopped it?
4:14
Speaker 1: Which we were very close, right, we could have easily seen.
4:18
Speaker 1: You know, we learned a lot lesson about stove piping
4:21
Speaker 1: of intelligence, but you know, the bread crumbs were there
4:24
Speaker 1: if we were looking, if we knew to look for
4:25
Speaker 1: those bread crumbs, about the Saudi citizens going to fight
4:31
Speaker 1: schools and all of that. So and sure it looks
4:35
Speaker 1: easy to see. Oh that needle in that haystack was
4:38
Speaker 1: so easy to see. How did they miss it? Or
4:42
Speaker 1: it's possible maybe Bill Clinton gets bin laden when he
4:45
Speaker 1: takes the shot at him back in ninety eight during
4:48
Speaker 1: the middle of the Lewinski thing. So we're going to
4:51
Speaker 1: dive into that, because I do think what's interesting about
4:55
Speaker 1: nine to eleven was it's is that it you know,
5:01
Speaker 1: there was a phrase that got said all the time.
5:03
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven changed everything, and it did change a
5:06
Speaker 1: lot of things, And so I think it is hard
5:09
Speaker 1: to try to figure out the counterfactual of what would
5:13
Speaker 1: have happened without nine to eleven. What does Bush presidency
5:16
Speaker 1: look like with No. Nine to eleven? What does the
5:18
Speaker 1: Democratic Party look like with No. Nine to eleven? You know,
5:23
Speaker 1: and what does the media world look like with No.
5:26
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven? And I'm going to get to that
5:29
Speaker 1: in a few minutes. So look, to start out, I
5:39
Speaker 1: think it's a way to say this, nine to eleven
5:41
Speaker 1: didn't just change what we covered. It also changed how
5:44
Speaker 1: we consumed information, and in some ways, I think we're
5:49
Speaker 1: going to discover it accelerated sort of the attention, the
5:54
Speaker 1: the the importance of the intention economy, because you know
6:03
Speaker 1: what nine to eleven did to our psyche as a country, right,
6:06
Speaker 1: we always felt, you know, look, the only time we
6:09
Speaker 1: were attacked before then really was Pearl Harbor Hawhy wouldn't
6:13
Speaker 1: even a state when that happened. We've never been truly
6:17
Speaker 1: hit on the homeland, right on the continental United States. Yes,
6:22
Speaker 1: there had been a bomb, a bombing of the World
6:25
Speaker 1: Trade Center in eighteen ninety three, and we've certainly had
6:27
Speaker 1: our sheriff terrorist attacks and hijackings. We had the Oklahoma
6:31
Speaker 1: City bombing, which was domestic terrorism. So it's not as
6:34
Speaker 1: if we didn't have these things. But this was a
6:38
Speaker 1: what a form sort of a non state foreign power
6:42
Speaker 1: right in Al Qaeda, and it really rattled our psyche
6:47
Speaker 1: because it we were suddenly our vulnerabilities just showed up everywhere,
6:54
Speaker 1: and we realized how vulnerable we were to essentially asymmetric warfare,
6:59
Speaker 1: how vulnerable we could be to terrorism. I mean, I
7:02
Speaker 1: know my feeling on October one, two thousand and one,
7:06
Speaker 1: was that Washington, DC was going to feel like Tel
7:08
Speaker 1: Aviv in the eighties and nineties, where you just or
7:11
Speaker 1: even Berlin back then, you just sort of had to
7:13
Speaker 1: accept the premise that there were going to be more attacks.
7:17
Speaker 1: The most remarkable thing that happened post nine to eleven
7:21
Speaker 1: is what didn't happen post nine eleven, right, And the
7:25
Speaker 1: point was is that I think it was our own
7:27
Speaker 1: Why did we feel why did I feel that way?
7:29
Speaker 1: Why did we all feel like we were so vulnerable?
7:32
Speaker 1: Because that initial sense of oh my god, they turned
7:35
Speaker 1: our own systems against us, right the airline are you know,
7:39
Speaker 1: domestic airplanes something any of us could have been on.
7:43
Speaker 1: And so it really had a psychological impact on us
7:47
Speaker 1: as a society. So what happened we sort of we
7:50
Speaker 1: sort of clung to information. Right, It's what really turned
7:53
Speaker 1: the three news channels into twenty four hour Like, if
7:58
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, not all the channels programmed twenty four
8:01
Speaker 1: hours a day. After nine to eleven, there was an
8:03
Speaker 1: intensity to program twenty four hours a day. I was
8:06
Speaker 1: at the hotline at the time. We added publications. We
8:10
Speaker 1: called something we added something called Hotline World Extra because
8:14
Speaker 1: we were just all so consumed with this network of
8:17
Speaker 1: terrorists that we're just going to hobble societies all over
8:22
Speaker 1: the world. And we certainly, you know, all of us
8:25
Speaker 1: got a lesson in in extremism, in general religious extremism.
8:31
Speaker 1: So it was the point being is that we we
8:35
Speaker 1: really it changed, it changed our own psyche and I
8:40
Speaker 1: and that's so in doing this, what I've exercised, I'm
8:43
Speaker 1: going to do my best here. It is really hard.
8:48
Speaker 1: This turned out to be a much harder attempt at
8:50
Speaker 1: what I'm going to What I was trying to do
8:52
Speaker 1: is is it's my way of saying, like I said before,
8:55
Speaker 1: I'm there's gonna be a lot more questions asked than
8:57
Speaker 1: definitive takes. I'm gonna have some theories of directionally where
9:02
Speaker 1: we could have come. But I want that initial underscoring
9:08
Speaker 1: of just the real impact of nine to eleven was
9:11
Speaker 1: psychological on us, and in some ways a question that
9:17
Speaker 1: I want that I'm pursued throughout this what if exercise
9:21
Speaker 1: that I put together was how much of our information
9:25
Speaker 1: ecosystem problems of today began with both our desire for
9:35
Speaker 1: more information constantly frankly to make us feel better because
9:38
Speaker 1: we felt so unsafe and insecure. And when you do,
9:41
Speaker 1: you're just constantly seeking more information. Right if you've ever
9:44
Speaker 1: been prepared for a snowstorm or a hurricane, and you
9:48
Speaker 1: know a big storm is coming but you hadn't hit yet,
9:51
Speaker 1: and you're waiting, what do you do? You keep looking
9:53
Speaker 1: for more information. You want a more detailed forecast, more
9:56
Speaker 1: detailed what if scenario is basically because it's really your
10:00
Speaker 1: own survival instinct. It's human nature where the more information
10:03
Speaker 1: we have, the more we think in our own heads,
10:05
Speaker 1: we can plan for our survival in these things. So
10:08
Speaker 1: I cannot underscore how that is the through line for
10:13
Speaker 1: me that I think that this is, this is what
10:18
Speaker 1: what sort of really changes changes things because and there
10:23
Speaker 1: are some things that I don't think change at all,
10:26
Speaker 1: the dot com bubble, things like that. So let's start
10:29
Speaker 1: with the America of two thousand. That keeps breathing is
10:32
Speaker 1: probably the best way to put it. We're still so
10:36
Speaker 1: we're living in this post Cold War home. There is
10:40
Speaker 1: concern at this point it's early odts. There is there's
10:44
Speaker 1: been a transition in Russian leadership. Is this guy Putin
10:48
Speaker 1: going to be you know, a small D democrat or not?
10:54
Speaker 1: And the keeping Russia in the West was a priority
11:02
Speaker 1: before nine to eleven I think would have stayed a
11:05
Speaker 1: priority with Bush two under that scenario, I don't know
11:10
Speaker 1: whether it succeeds or not. Right, if Putin is who
11:13
Speaker 1: he is, which we now, if you know, you know,
11:17
Speaker 1: I don't know if anything in the relationship changes Putin. Right.
11:21
Speaker 1: The question I have is when does you know, by
11:26
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight Putin's invading Georgia, which in some
11:31
Speaker 1: ways was the precursor to Ukraine First Crime in twenty fourteen.
11:34
Speaker 1: In that, does that accelerate, does that get delayed? Does
11:41
Speaker 1: the you know, our focus on all things nine to
11:44
Speaker 1: eleven and Islamic terrorism and domestic security, which then took
11:49
Speaker 1: our eye off the ball a little bit of European security,
11:52
Speaker 1: of keeping Russia in the west, of sort of these
11:56
Speaker 1: fledgling Eastern European democracies. I think it's fair to say
12:01
Speaker 1: that that probably is the biggest you know that and
12:07
Speaker 1: bringing China along, right, because at this point everybody's very
12:11
Speaker 1: bullish on China. In early two thousand, late nineties, there
12:14
Speaker 1: wasn't a huge difference between Gore and Bush and that
12:18
Speaker 1: two thousand campaign on China. It was a little bit
12:21
Speaker 1: of rhetoric, but not too much. Essentially, both were were institutionalists.
12:26
Speaker 1: Both were believers that, hey, bringing economic opening, the opening
12:33
Speaker 1: the China economy will ultimately be good for democracy, good
12:37
Speaker 1: for freedom, et cetera. So there was a bipartisan consensus
12:43
Speaker 1: in China, which we now know we all got wrong. Right,
12:46
Speaker 1: There was this bipartisan consensus that China, that essentially we
12:49
Speaker 1: were going to be able to bring China along and
12:52
Speaker 1: eventually the communism Communist Party would break there because of
13:00
Speaker 1: middle class demands for the state, et cetera, et cetera.
13:03
Speaker 1: None of that has turned out to be true. China
13:06
Speaker 1: was able to somehow bring the country into a controlled
13:12
Speaker 1: market economy. It's not a free market, but it's a
13:15
Speaker 1: it is sort of they got into it right, and
13:20
Speaker 1: we let them in because of the desire to get
13:24
Speaker 1: American businesses into China. So I do think that we're
13:30
Speaker 1: sort of pursuing and it's much more front and center
13:33
Speaker 1: this bringing China along, you know, and maybe there's maybe
13:37
Speaker 1: there's more of that. I do think, by the way,
13:40
Speaker 1: George W. Bush's presidency was going to be much more
13:43
Speaker 1: focused on the Western hemisphere pre nine to eleven. Here
13:46
Speaker 1: was a guy, and we probably try to attempt some
13:49
Speaker 1: massive immigration reform sooner in the Bush presidency, easily that happens,
13:55
Speaker 1: I think in Bush one. In the first term. I
13:59
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a second, right, we don't know
14:01
Speaker 1: what the second term is over. It's probably over the
14:03
Speaker 1: economy in some form or another, because most elections are
14:10
Speaker 1: unless there is something essentially overwhelming the economic issue in America,
14:16
Speaker 1: which sometimes it's war in the war in Iraq nine eleven.
14:19
Speaker 1: Those are types of stories that do that. But I
14:25
Speaker 1: do think I go back to the information ecosystem. You know,
14:30
Speaker 1: nine to eleven happened nine months after the delayed two
14:34
Speaker 1: thousand election, and I do think that without nine to eleven,
14:42
Speaker 1: we're probably in a much more polarized political environment in Washington.
14:46
Speaker 1: We cannot forget that there's still a lot of Democrats
14:50
Speaker 1: who don't accept that Bush one Farnce Square. After nine
14:54
Speaker 1: to eleven, those you know that none of that became mainstream, right.
15:00
Speaker 1: Al Gore is a bigger figure inside the Democratic Party
15:04
Speaker 1: pre nine eleven than he is post nine to eleven.
15:08
Speaker 1: Probably means al Gore is more likely to be the nominee,
15:12
Speaker 1: you know, four, it's more likely without a nine to
15:15
Speaker 1: eleven he is a bit more front and center Democrats
15:17
Speaker 1: are a bit more, a bit less willing to work
15:22
Speaker 1: with Bush. There is and Bush has to make more
15:25
Speaker 1: effort to sort of get legitimacy. You know that that
15:32
Speaker 1: was you know his you know after look we we
15:35
Speaker 1: you know. The Bush presidency basically began on September eleventh,
15:40
Speaker 1: as far as history is concerned, but we forget this
15:44
Speaker 1: was this was a this was a presidency that was
15:47
Speaker 1: having to immediately make the case that it was legitimate.
15:52
Speaker 1: It was the first presidency we'd had in the modern
15:54
Speaker 1: era that won via the electoral college, not the popular vote.
15:58
Speaker 1: The recounts of Florida that the media was doing would
16:02
Speaker 1: have been extraordinarily more covered and consequential without nine to eleven.
16:06
Speaker 1: It took all about anywhere from nine to months to
16:08
Speaker 1: twelve months. Those things still happened, but there was almost
16:12
Speaker 1: like they looked more like political science experiments than they
16:15
Speaker 1: did mainstream news stories. Because I think again, so much,
16:19
Speaker 1: so much of the resources of the national news media
16:22
Speaker 1: was devoted more to covering nine to eleven. And then
16:25
Speaker 1: of course with the two wars with Iraq and Afghanistan
16:28
Speaker 1: and the focus on all that, So I think you
16:31
Speaker 1: have to you know, when you think about the political environment,
16:34
Speaker 1: we shouldn't lose side of that. But I keep coming
16:37
Speaker 1: back to the acceleration of the information ecosystem almost becoming
16:43
Speaker 1: wired into our brains. Right, we'd never had anything like
16:46
Speaker 1: the two thousand election, And you know, my old friend
16:50
Speaker 1: Lester Holt became sort of he got a nickname Old
16:52
Speaker 1: iron Pants, right because he was constantly able to go
16:59
Speaker 1: hours and hours without leaving the leaving the anchor table,
17:05
Speaker 1: no matter whatever. Nature was calling for him, and it was,
17:12
Speaker 1: you know, I believe we started the ticker, and then
17:14
Speaker 1: the tickers on cable news weren't ubiquitous. Then nine to
17:17
Speaker 1: eleven happens and they become ubiquitous, and it really, I
17:20
Speaker 1: think also accelerated. Not everybody had moved fully to the
17:26
Speaker 1: Internet to get their information and get news and information.
17:30
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven was a bit more of a trigger
17:31
Speaker 1: because you suddenly needed real time information. You didn't want
17:34
Speaker 1: to wait for the newspaper, you didn't want to wait
17:36
Speaker 1: for the evening news, so you did anything that was
17:39
Speaker 1: in the immediate. Cable news was immediate, and the Internet
17:42
Speaker 1: was immediate. So it I do think that one of
17:46
Speaker 1: the cultural impacts in nine to eleven that probably is
17:50
Speaker 1: delayed without nine to eleven happening is sort of is
17:57
Speaker 1: our full embrace the digitized information ecosystem. Was this eventually
18:02
Speaker 1: going to happen? Of course it was, but all of
18:05
Speaker 1: this suddenly there was more demand for immediate information. So
18:10
Speaker 1: what happened? Companies responded by creating more products to feed
18:15
Speaker 1: this demand for more information, and so we end up,
18:19
Speaker 1: you know, with social media beginning in twenty oh seven,
18:22
Speaker 1: in twenty oh eight, Does all that happen on the
18:25
Speaker 1: same timeline? Is it adopted as mainstream on the same timeline?
18:32
Speaker 1: My theory is that it is not. And I think
18:37
Speaker 1: this is one of the underrated parts of the impact
18:41
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven on us is that. So I
18:46
Speaker 1: think when you throw that in there, I think that's
18:49
Speaker 1: a pretty important differentiator and how our timeline changes. So
18:56
Speaker 1: then there are the things that you know, sort of
19:00
Speaker 1: we've all lived with, still live with, that wouldn't have happened, right,
19:03
Speaker 1: the emergency that never ends. So there's no Patriot Act,
19:06
Speaker 1: there's no Iraq war, there's no permanent sort of non state, right,
19:14
Speaker 1: we don't have this sort of congressionally authorized war against
19:21
Speaker 1: terrorists that are still being the sort of ambibiguously worded
19:30
Speaker 1: pieces of legislation are being used now to justify attacks
19:34
Speaker 1: in Iran, attacks in Venezuela. And so we don't have anything.
19:40
Speaker 1: We don't have the USA Patriot Act, we don't have
19:45
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security. So let's immediately realize this, right,
19:51
Speaker 1: Homeland Security. The idea of the Homeland Security Department had
19:54
Speaker 1: been partolating for a while among the sort of the
19:58
Speaker 1: there's a group of sort of good government infrastructure folks.
20:02
Speaker 1: And because you know, this was sort of a plan
20:05
Speaker 1: that had been sitting on the shelf, right, there was
20:07
Speaker 1: always some question why are there? You know, why is
20:09
Speaker 1: the Secret Service with Treasury? You know, yes, it started
20:13
Speaker 1: as sort of looking at counterfeit money, but it's bigger
20:15
Speaker 1: than that. Now, where's the Coast Guard? Should that be
20:18
Speaker 1: with the Pentagon? Should that be here? And so there
20:21
Speaker 1: was this idea of like, okay, should there be a
20:25
Speaker 1: some domestic security agencies, arguably including the FBI. But for
20:31
Speaker 1: whatever reason, we didn't put the FBI in here that
20:34
Speaker 1: you know, should be in this cabinet department. I will
20:41
Speaker 1: at some point do a time machine about you know,
20:43
Speaker 1: I I the entire creation of the Homeland Security Department
20:47
Speaker 1: was just a reminder of why, as much as I
20:50
Speaker 1: would love to see more government efficiency, it is sometimes
20:54
Speaker 1: impossible to make happen because of members of Congress refusing
20:58
Speaker 1: to give up a subcommittee a subcommittee influence on some
21:07
Speaker 1: dying agency that should go away, But because this person
21:10
Speaker 1: wants to gavel. They think it's an important government entity
21:14
Speaker 1: to keep alive. This episode of the Chuck Podcast is
21:19
Speaker 1: brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the
21:22
Speaker 1: first bake from frozen subscription box for sour dough breads,
21:27
Speaker 1: artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently
21:31
Speaker 1: baked in twenty five minutes or less. Unlike many store
21:34
Speaker 1: brought options, Wild Grain uses some simple ingredients you can
21:38
Speaker 1: pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be a
21:41
Speaker 1: lot easier on your belly little gut health there right,
21:44
Speaker 1: and richer in nutrients and oxidants. There's also no preservatives
21:48
Speaker 1: and no shortcuts. The Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable.
21:52
Speaker 1: In addition to their variety box, they have a gluten
21:54
Speaker 1: free box, a vegan box, and a new protein box.
21:58
Speaker 1: I will tell you I have done the gluten free box.
22:01
Speaker 1: I have done it a second time. I have also
22:04
Speaker 1: used the code, the todcast code. If you use the
22:07
Speaker 1: promo code podcast at check out, you get thirty dollars off.
22:11
Speaker 1: I've already used it as a gift to somebody else
22:14
Speaker 1: who loves this bread. It is hard to find good
22:17
Speaker 1: gluten free bread. It is fantastic. They give you step
22:20
Speaker 1: by step instructions. I really dig this. There is nothing
22:24
Speaker 1: like having an artesian bakery in your freezer to chase
22:27
Speaker 1: away the winter chill. Now is the best time to
22:30
Speaker 1: stay in and enjoy some comforting homemade meals with Wild Grain.
22:34
Speaker 1: I obviously highly recommend it. It is worth giving Wildgreen
22:38
Speaker 1: to try. Right now, Wild Grain is offering my listeners
22:40
Speaker 1: thirty dollars off your first box plus free croyissants for life.
22:45
Speaker 1: Come on when you go to wildgrain dot com slash
22:47
Speaker 1: podcast to start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off
22:51
Speaker 1: your first box and free croissants for life when you
22:54
Speaker 1: visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the
22:58
Speaker 1: promo code podcast at check out. This is a sponsor
23:01
Speaker 1: I absolutely embrace, so use that code. You know, the
23:08
Speaker 1: whole point of Homeland the Department of Homeland Security was
23:11
Speaker 1: sold as a way, Hey, we're going to create more efficiencies.
23:14
Speaker 1: This is going to put agencies, you know, border security
23:17
Speaker 1: should be in there, so igrant Now. I tell you
23:20
Speaker 1: what people didn't realize at the time is that that
23:22
Speaker 1: somehow that Homeland Security would simply become an immigration agency
23:26
Speaker 1: over time. But that is what it's been turned into. Essentially,
23:31
Speaker 1: it feels like that that is, and it could if
23:35
Speaker 1: you listened to my conversation with Jonathan Martin. In some
23:39
Speaker 1: ways the obsession of turning the Department Homeland Security almost
23:43
Speaker 1: into singularly a border enforcement department. When it drops the
23:49
Speaker 1: ball on a natural disaster with FEMA or drops the
23:52
Speaker 1: ball on some other issues with the Coastguard, is that
23:56
Speaker 1: going to cause? Is that going to cause Christy Nomes
23:58
Speaker 1: some problems perception problems if something bad happens on her watch,
24:04
Speaker 1: regardless of whether she was following orders or not. So
24:08
Speaker 1: I do think that was, you know, one of the
24:12
Speaker 1: and this and this is another sort of what if
24:16
Speaker 1: scenario here did Trump Trump's did Bush's endorsement? And the
24:22
Speaker 1: Republican member who was in charge of the House and
24:25
Speaker 1: the Senate. The Senate was divided. Democrats had a narrow
24:30
Speaker 1: majority thanks to a party switch for about until the
24:35
Speaker 1: twenty oh two mid terms, but Republicans had controlled the House,
24:39
Speaker 1: and obviously the White House is there. They became George W.
24:51
Speaker 1: Bush became synonymous with expanding government right. So it really
24:56
Speaker 1: was this beginning of redefining what is conservatives. And one
25:00
Speaker 1: could argue that the splintering of the Republican Party into
25:05
Speaker 1: this magafaction versus this business wing right. George W. Bush
25:09
Speaker 1: was very much right the avatar of the business wing
25:12
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, and so the embrace of China,
25:18
Speaker 1: the embrace of expansion of government power, I do think
25:24
Speaker 1: planted the seeds for what is now known as the
25:27
Speaker 1: Maga wing of the party. Right, these are the true
25:30
Speaker 1: you know. I think Marjorie Taylor Green really in some
25:33
Speaker 1: ways articulates this version of conservative better than anybody out there.
25:40
Speaker 1: She talks about being America first. Hey, no get out
25:42
Speaker 1: of other people's foreign wars, no foreign excursions. Right, that
25:47
Speaker 1: mindset the real sort of more Pat Buchanan isolationists view
25:51
Speaker 1: and sertain where Trump's instincts go. Right, I say, is
25:56
Speaker 1: instincts right. He's instinctively an isolationist but can't help himself
26:01
Speaker 1: and always wants to be in the middle of a
26:03
Speaker 1: deal here, a middle of a deal there. But we
26:06
Speaker 1: shouldn't underestimate that the birth of the Trump wing of
26:10
Speaker 1: the Republican Party, or the rebirth of it, right, it
26:14
Speaker 1: was a sort of a dormant wing of the party
26:17
Speaker 1: that the Republican support for these expansive government powers that
26:22
Speaker 1: came in in two thousand and two, two thousand and three,
26:25
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, the expansion of Department Onland Security TSA.
26:29
Speaker 1: I thought, imagine a Democrat advocating all of this, right,
26:33
Speaker 1: there'd be these protests allah from the right that we're
26:36
Speaker 1: seeing already with Zoon Mormondani. Right. And it was a
26:40
Speaker 1: Republican presidency that increased the surveillance state, a republican presidency
26:46
Speaker 1: that sort of concentrated more power in the executive branch. Right,
26:49
Speaker 1: So it is. I do think some of the seeds
26:54
Speaker 1: of the rise of MAGA are due to some of
27:00
Speaker 1: the responses to nine to eleven. And then of course
27:03
Speaker 1: there's the Iraq War itself, you know, and you know,
27:09
Speaker 1: this is not my first sort of version of doing
27:11
Speaker 1: various what ifs on that are nine to eleven related.
27:15
Speaker 1: I did a what if on if Gored become president
27:18
Speaker 1: in two thousand, how how do we politically respond to
27:23
Speaker 1: nine to eleven if if it were the ninth year
27:25
Speaker 1: of a democratic presidency when nine to eleven happens, rather
27:29
Speaker 1: than the first year of a republican presidency after eight
27:31
Speaker 1: years of a democratic presidency. I do think things would
27:35
Speaker 1: have been a bit more polarized and the response to
27:37
Speaker 1: nine to eleven had goreb been president than with Bush's president.
27:43
Speaker 1: But you know, all of it sort of we became.
27:47
Speaker 1: You know, when you think about the impact of nine
27:49
Speaker 1: to eleven on on our politics, I do think, like
27:52
Speaker 1: I said, Bush's support of a stronger, more robust, larger government,
27:59
Speaker 1: I do think inadvertently planted the seeds for the rise
28:02
Speaker 1: of Trump a little bit. And then I think when
28:06
Speaker 1: it comes to our obsession and consuming of news, it
28:10
Speaker 1: then inevitably led the cable news channels to one to
28:15
Speaker 1: have to Instead of being informational, they suddenly became affirmational, right,
28:19
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of the flag pin fights
28:22
Speaker 1: who was the most patriotic news channel and that was
28:25
Speaker 1: being used as a wedge right folks at Fox in particular,
28:29
Speaker 1: we're trying to use patriotism as a way to disqualify journalism.
28:33
Speaker 1: And it was the beginning of this sort of part
28:36
Speaker 1: one of what became a very polarized news information consumption market.
28:42
Speaker 1: But in some ways, because we were constantly clinging to
28:47
Speaker 1: these cable news channels for information, then it quickly morphed
28:51
Speaker 1: us into and morphed the cable news channels into being
28:56
Speaker 1: captured by their audience, so to you know, think of
29:01
Speaker 1: it this way. Right before nine to eleven, we thought
29:04
Speaker 1: of the news as sort of more informational things we
29:07
Speaker 1: needed to know, but it wasn't a priority. After nine
29:10
Speaker 1: to eleven, news became something you had to follow for
29:14
Speaker 1: your own survival, for vigilance, and in many ways, nine
29:21
Speaker 1: to eleven created an entire generation of news junkies, reinforced
29:25
Speaker 1: news junkiedom and where you constantly felt like you needed
29:30
Speaker 1: to have more and more information, so right, the breaking
29:35
Speaker 1: news alerts, the constant notifications on our phones, the tickers,
29:42
Speaker 1: and in some ways it also created impatience, right since
29:45
Speaker 1: information we were expecting information on our fingertips all the time,
29:48
Speaker 1: it sort of accelerated that aspect. Now, I again, I
29:54
Speaker 1: think all of these technologies don't It's not like the
29:58
Speaker 1: technologies don't happen. Our adoption of these new technologies or
30:02
Speaker 1: is what accelerates. And I think that that's where I
30:06
Speaker 1: would go, right, And now, you know, I think the
30:14
Speaker 1: question is where we always was this an inevitable result
30:17
Speaker 1: of once we sort of put all we put algorithms
30:22
Speaker 1: in deciding what news we saw on all this stuff
30:24
Speaker 1: that once these filters and this was going to happen anyway,
30:28
Speaker 1: or would gatekeeping still be strong, would be at least
30:33
Speaker 1: stronger today than it is. If we never have this
30:38
Speaker 1: desire or concern or need to constantly feel as informed
30:44
Speaker 1: as we absolutely felt like we had to have in
30:49
Speaker 1: post nine to eleven. Without nine to eleven, would there
30:55
Speaker 1: been a Would constant breaking news alerts have turned us off? Right?
30:59
Speaker 1: Would unverified speculation have sort of been like, oh, that
31:02
Speaker 1: belongs in the high end of AM radio? Would we
31:06
Speaker 1: be less tolerant of emotional framing of news? Right? Maybe?
31:17
Speaker 1: But I think there's a strong case to be made
31:19
Speaker 1: that while we, I think now look at social media
31:23
Speaker 1: as a result of smartphones, did nine to eleven actually
31:27
Speaker 1: train us to never look away and therefore accelerate the
31:33
Speaker 1: the creation of these social media platforms because we knew
31:37
Speaker 1: there was a demand. Right? In many ways, you don't
31:39
Speaker 1: create something unless you think there's a demand for it. So,
31:47
Speaker 1: if this means we don't have politics without a hyperintendent
31:52
Speaker 1: attentive culture, what does that look like? Right? Does this
31:56
Speaker 1: mean we'd never have a Donald Trump or a Barack Obama?
31:59
Speaker 1: That we saw to stick to the very I don't
32:06
Speaker 1: want to say convent. Yeah, I guess it's conventional. You
32:09
Speaker 1: know at the time, right, is a Barack Obama sort
32:14
Speaker 1: of convinced that he should be running for governor before
32:17
Speaker 1: he runs for president type of thing. Don't forget what
32:22
Speaker 1: powered Obama to the White House arguably was the fact
32:26
Speaker 1: that he came out early against the Iraq War before
32:28
Speaker 1: other mainstream Democrats did it, and there was a recording
32:31
Speaker 1: to prove it. Right, without it, does he ever win
32:34
Speaker 1: that nomination against Hillary Clinton? Anyway? And think about how
32:38
Speaker 1: much that how much that issue absolutely divided the Democratic
32:45
Speaker 1: Party and what happens without it. By the way, I
32:50
Speaker 1: don't think John Kerry's the nominee in two thousand and
32:51
Speaker 1: four without nine to eleven. Right, Democrats needed to have
32:54
Speaker 1: thought they needed to have a military veteran after what
32:57
Speaker 1: happened in O two. There was this whole after the
32:59
Speaker 1: who Max Cleland thing in two thousand and two, with
33:04
Speaker 1: the weaponization of the Department of Homeland Security as a
33:07
Speaker 1: wedge issue in those two thousand and two midterms, right,
33:09
Speaker 1: it really sort of made the idea of what Democrats
33:12
Speaker 1: need to find somebody with military service. That's what got Carrie,
33:15
Speaker 1: you know, sort of jump started his candidacy. You know,
33:20
Speaker 1: I think it's more likely we have Al Gore as
33:22
Speaker 1: nominee in two thousand and four because you're more likely
33:25
Speaker 1: to run again. Perhaps, you know, perhaps Hillary Clinton is
33:29
Speaker 1: not seen as this hawkish because there's nothing to be
33:31
Speaker 1: hawkish about, and then she's a more conventional potential candidate
33:38
Speaker 1: in twenty oh eight. Now do I think eventually in
33:42
Speaker 1: the same mindset, we the public would have been like,
33:46
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what's with the dynasties? We're not just
33:48
Speaker 1: trading Clinton for Bush for Clinton. You know, I still
33:51
Speaker 1: think that demand would have been there, but maybe it's
33:54
Speaker 1: not as powerful yet. Maybe it takes a one more
33:58
Speaker 1: term of Hillary of Clinton actually serving as president before
34:01
Speaker 1: it becomes a powerful political force on that front. So
34:08
Speaker 1: what things still happened that probably impact our politics back then?
34:12
Speaker 1: So essentially what replaces nine and eleven if it never happens,
34:17
Speaker 1: I think we still have a financial crisis because that
34:19
Speaker 1: was you know, the seeds of those were planted in
34:22
Speaker 1: the nineties, and you know, maybe it accelerates nine to
34:28
Speaker 1: eleven with all the extra spending that came may have
34:30
Speaker 1: propped up the economy for an extra couple of years.
34:34
Speaker 1: And therefore, remember there was sort of it was your
34:36
Speaker 1: patriotic duty to go shop it do you does that?
34:41
Speaker 1: Does all of this accelerate and maybe the financial collapse
34:44
Speaker 1: happens in four oh five rather than oh, seven oh eight, Right,
34:48
Speaker 1: that's possible. We still have tech discoveries, tech disruptions. The
34:53
Speaker 1: question is is the if there's not demand for information
34:57
Speaker 1: every second of the day, do some of these social
34:59
Speaker 1: media platforms take off as fast as they did and
35:04
Speaker 1: we're still going to have inequality? We were still going
35:06
Speaker 1: to have this. And I think the question is whether
35:13
Speaker 1: is just when it happens on how intense I look
35:17
Speaker 1: at nine to eleven, and I assume it delayed our
35:21
Speaker 1: inevitable sort of reckoning that was about. That was taking
35:25
Speaker 1: the unit party reckoning right, the whether it's the center
35:29
Speaker 1: left of the Democratic Party center right. But if you
35:31
Speaker 1: think about it, Bush, Clinton, the Bushes and the Clintons
35:35
Speaker 1: were really seen as between the forty yard line presidents.
35:39
Speaker 1: And they were also on foreign policy very much in
35:43
Speaker 1: uniparty and that and and in trade it was uniparty.
35:49
Speaker 1: You know, both Bush and Clinton were pro NAFTA Both
35:52
Speaker 1: Bush and Gore were pro NAFTA both, you know, so
35:55
Speaker 1: they were both bullish on China in some ways, both
35:58
Speaker 1: bullish un keep trying to bring Russia into the West.
36:01
Speaker 1: So the point is is that I do think that
36:05
Speaker 1: reckoning still takes place inside both parties. You still have
36:08
Speaker 1: a there's still likely I have to be a financial
36:13
Speaker 1: crisis that ends, that has a bailout. It all just depends.
36:17
Speaker 1: I've always and I've done this. What if, right, what
36:19
Speaker 1: if McCain had won the two thousand and eight presidency
36:21
Speaker 1: instead of Obama. Well, instead of the Tea Party being
36:24
Speaker 1: the driving force of the twenty ten midterms, I think
36:26
Speaker 1: it's Occupy Wall Street that's the driving force of the
36:28
Speaker 1: twenty ten midterms. Sort of that there's still that it's
36:32
Speaker 1: more of a because it would have been all Republicans
36:35
Speaker 1: making the decision. It would have been a Republican president
36:38
Speaker 1: spending tax dollars to bail out banks and all that.
36:41
Speaker 1: So it would have I think, just galvanized that. And
36:44
Speaker 1: you may have had Bernie's dream of his sort of
36:47
Speaker 1: urban rural coalition coming coming together much quicker and much
36:52
Speaker 1: faster than even now when we haven't seen it. So
36:59
Speaker 1: it's not as if any of these things don't happen.
37:03
Speaker 1: If the question is on what timeline, and the more
37:08
Speaker 1: I've gone through the what ifs on the things that
37:10
Speaker 1: happen that we're nine to eleven derivatives, and then the
37:13
Speaker 1: things that probably happen regardless of whether nine to eleven happens,
37:16
Speaker 1: like the financial crisis and the continuation of tech disruptions,
37:22
Speaker 1: I think it really is just about timing. And I
37:24
Speaker 1: think the biggest conclusion I come to is that our
37:29
Speaker 1: brief unity post nine to eleven essentially delayed everything that
37:33
Speaker 1: we've been dealing with now, So probably bring everything four
37:39
Speaker 1: years earlier. Right, But there's some open questions, right, is
37:44
Speaker 1: there ever? You know, does a Barack Obama still rise up? Is?
37:49
Speaker 1: You know? But if you don't have an Iraq war
37:51
Speaker 1: as a defining distinction between sort of the Obama wing
37:56
Speaker 1: and the Clinton wing, which in some ways now is
38:00
Speaker 1: kind of the Clinton wing and the Sanders wing, with
38:03
Speaker 1: Obama folks two thirds on the Clinton side of that argument,
38:07
Speaker 1: one third on the Sander side of that argument. You know,
38:12
Speaker 1: where where is that in its sort of formation? And
38:15
Speaker 1: all of that. I think those are small details, but
38:18
Speaker 1: the larger trend lines I'm assuming do continue. They just
38:24
Speaker 1: go in different Look, that doesn't mean that Saddam Mussein
38:28
Speaker 1: wasn't going to fall, and I think you still would
38:30
Speaker 1: have had his fall. There's probably still you know, my
38:33
Speaker 1: guess is Cheney's still kind of interested in finishing the
38:37
Speaker 1: job with with a rock, so that there we deal
38:40
Speaker 1: with the rock sort of the way we've been dealing
38:42
Speaker 1: with Iran. So you know, it's not as if there
38:45
Speaker 1: aren't the potential for some for some foreign policy uh
38:51
Speaker 1: involvement and maybe even involvement that becomes politically less popular
38:56
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. But it's it all obviously looks
38:59
Speaker 1: different and it's all consumed different. So ultimately the conclusion
39:05
Speaker 1: I've come to is at nine to eleven in some
39:08
Speaker 1: ways intensified and accelerated our information consuming culture, and at
39:18
Speaker 1: the same time it delayed are political reckonings that we're
39:24
Speaker 1: going to I think now it's there is that they
39:28
Speaker 1: were going to come do, and in some ways nine
39:30
Speaker 1: to eleven may have delayed them. All about a cycle, right,
39:35
Speaker 1: due to either you know, trying to pump money into
39:38
Speaker 1: the economy or into building up our defenses, which sort
39:41
Speaker 1: of artificially sort of you know, expanded when you're when
39:44
Speaker 1: you're expanding government as fast as they were, you're creating
39:46
Speaker 1: more jobs, you're throwing money into the system. It is
39:50
Speaker 1: sort of it is sort of propping up the you know,
39:52
Speaker 1: having some impact on the economy, so likely delayed the
39:58
Speaker 1: financial crisis a bit, so, you know, sort of it's
40:02
Speaker 1: sort of two things can be true at the same time.
40:05
Speaker 1: Right nine to eleven sort of conditioned us to become
40:08
Speaker 1: these information junkies that now in some ways we've allowed
40:12
Speaker 1: it to both consume us and destroy our information ecosystem.
40:15
Speaker 1: But at the same time it delayed the political reckonings
40:18
Speaker 1: that we're still in the middle of now, this political realignment,
40:22
Speaker 1: which arguably, you know, as I said, you can actually
40:25
Speaker 1: see the very first beginnings of this realignment with the
40:28
Speaker 1: Pap Buchanan challenge of George H. W. Bush in ninety two.
40:34
Speaker 1: It is it's still I still think you see what
40:39
Speaker 1: we're dealing with now, all of it. We may be
40:42
Speaker 1: on the other we have made me have already on
40:44
Speaker 1: the other side of it by then, and who knows,
40:47
Speaker 1: we may not have been as interested in celebrity candidates either,
40:52
Speaker 1: which sort of we came so ultimately without nine to eleven,
40:59
Speaker 1: you know, we'd still be the imperfect country that is America,
41:01
Speaker 1: but we might be a bit less frantic, right we
41:04
Speaker 1: might trust our institutions slightly more, or or we may
41:13
Speaker 1: feel the same way, you know, or we may just
41:15
Speaker 1: you know, we may have gotten through this era quicker,
41:21
Speaker 1: and right now we're still not done. I think we're
41:24
Speaker 1: still not through this current realignment that it's clear we're
41:28
Speaker 1: going through. That to me is as much a transition,
41:31
Speaker 1: because we're transitioning from an industrial based economy to a
41:33
Speaker 1: service globally a global service economy and its globalization, which
41:40
Speaker 1: was an inevitable force that began in the nineties and
41:44
Speaker 1: wasn't going to go away. And in some ways nine
41:47
Speaker 1: to eleven I think just had a huge impact on
41:50
Speaker 1: our psyche, had a huge impact on sort of the
41:55
Speaker 1: perception and role of government and the size of government.
42:00
Speaker 1: But some of these longer trends, it disrupted them for
42:04
Speaker 1: a few years, but it didn't erase them, and it
42:07
Speaker 1: didn't make them go away. So would love your reaction
42:13
Speaker 1: to this one, Like I said, just like I did
42:17
Speaker 1: promise with the other what if I would like to
42:21
Speaker 1: I'm happy to discuss other scenarios that are missing here
42:26
Speaker 1: that I didn't fully get through. I could have gone
42:28
Speaker 1: down a Donald RUMs rabbit rumsfeld rabbit hole. Rumsfeld was
42:31
Speaker 1: going to do some massive Pentagon restructuring before nine to eleven.
42:36
Speaker 1: I think we were going to shrink forces. I think
42:37
Speaker 1: the modernization to become a more nimble military was actually
42:41
Speaker 1: going to take place under a Rumsfeld. I remember a
42:47
Speaker 1: lot of legacy military folks didn't like what Rumsfeld was planning.
42:51
Speaker 1: But there were a lot of reformers, including people like
42:53
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, who were very got in the hole about
42:56
Speaker 1: Rumsfeld wanted to do at the Pentagon before nine to eleven.
43:00
Speaker 1: But then nine to eleven happens and all of those
43:01
Speaker 1: plans go away. So there's there's there. That's just one
43:05
Speaker 1: extra thing that that but between, you know, immigration, My
43:11
Speaker 1: guess is Bush in his first term tries to do immigration.
43:15
Speaker 1: Uh you know, that's the big lift he attempts without
43:19
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven that both his tax cut and
43:23
Speaker 1: his immigration reform. I don't know if he's any more successful,
43:27
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't though without the specter of
43:32
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, maybe there's a little less anger on
43:35
Speaker 1: the right that allows it to pass but I don't.
43:40
Speaker 1: But it probably does nothing to stop the current sort
43:46
Speaker 1: of current structure of where we are in the two
43:48
Speaker 1: parties when it comes to immigration right now in current skepticism.
43:53
Speaker 1: It just means we might have had at least a
43:56
Speaker 1: better set of asylum laws than we do at the moment.
44:00
Speaker 1: All right, look, this is the last What if I'm
44:05
Speaker 1: going to read you a few that I didn't do,
44:07
Speaker 1: and if you've got stronger feelings about them, make the
44:10
Speaker 1: case of why you think I should spend thirty to
44:13
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. Maybe I can turn a couple of
44:15
Speaker 1: them into podcast time machines. My favorite one, But I
44:19
Speaker 1: was so I didn't have enough. I wasn't as well
44:25
Speaker 1: educated about the issue that I. It was going to
44:29
Speaker 1: be a heavier lift for me. But this one was
44:31
Speaker 1: what if the Greco Turkish War had ended favorably for
44:34
Speaker 1: the Greeks, assuming it's survive World War two? What would
44:36
Speaker 1: the long term ramifications of a modern Greek state spanning
44:39
Speaker 1: southeastern Europe and much of western Anatolia be for regional
44:43
Speaker 1: and world affairs? Would religious tensions be better or worse
44:46
Speaker 1: than they are today? You know, this gets at to
44:48
Speaker 1: you know, what if we had You know, what if
44:50
Speaker 1: they're essentially the French and the Brits hadn't tried to
44:53
Speaker 1: create countries out of thin air after the fall of
44:56
Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire. So I think it's an interesting one.
45:01
Speaker 1: But like I said, I felt like I wasn't ready
45:03
Speaker 1: for this another idea that we looked at, but I couldn't.
45:10
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really have forty five minutes. What
45:12
Speaker 1: happened to pro boxing? As a kid? I remember watching
45:14
Speaker 1: boxing on Sundays with Dad. That tradition has gone. I
45:16
Speaker 1: feel the same as slowly happening in the NFL, and
45:18
Speaker 1: don't know what what if? To shape around that? Right?
45:22
Speaker 1: Maybe it's what if? What if? What if mister t
45:30
Speaker 1: never does the WWE and we start mixing boxing with
45:33
Speaker 1: entertainment and then mixed martial arts happens. I don't know,
45:38
Speaker 1: it's a it's interesting things. Here's another one. What if
45:41
Speaker 1: Princess Diana had lived, which you have continued reshaping the monarchy? Interesting?
45:46
Speaker 1: What if Nelson Mandela had never been imprisoned? Would the
45:49
Speaker 1: would apartheid have ended sooner? Oruld the anti apartype movement
45:53
Speaker 1: have actually lost a unifying symbol. That was an interesting one,
45:57
Speaker 1: and again I want to find a good historian to
46:01
Speaker 1: help me out on this one. Here was another fun
46:03
Speaker 1: one that we decided not to do. What if Steve
46:06
Speaker 1: Jobs hadn't been ousted from Apple in nineteen eighty five?
46:09
Speaker 1: Would the personal computing revolution have come sooner? Or would
46:12
Speaker 1: Apple have burned out before the iPhone era? But that's
46:14
Speaker 1: a fun what if that. I think the folks over
46:17
Speaker 1: at the Acquired podcast who have done this might be
46:20
Speaker 1: better suited for if that one. And here's another one
46:23
Speaker 1: that I actually do want to figure out how to
46:26
Speaker 1: do next year. What Malcolm X had lived? Would his
46:31
Speaker 1: partnership or rivalry with Martin Luther King Junior have redefined
46:36
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights movement second phase and the rise of
46:39
Speaker 1: black political power in the seventies. Essentially, if both MLK
46:43
Speaker 1: and Malcolm X had lived, would there have been a
46:48
Speaker 1: sort of faster rise in the seventies of black political power.
46:53
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thesis and one that I think is
46:55
Speaker 1: worth worth diving into. And then here's another one. What
47:01
Speaker 1: if Netflix had never pivoted to streaming? Do we still
47:03
Speaker 1: live in the era of binge culture? Or just cable
47:05
Speaker 1: survive longer? Boy? Those things that one I'm not one
47:08
Speaker 1: hundred percent sure of, and I don't think it would
47:10
Speaker 1: have carried a whole thing. But here's another one that
47:13
Speaker 1: I do want to dig into at some point, What
47:15
Speaker 1: if China had democratized in the nineties, how would the
47:17
Speaker 1: global balance of power look today? The only reason I
47:21
Speaker 1: didn't do this one, and it might be worth doing
47:23
Speaker 1: down the road, is I think the conclusion I would
47:27
Speaker 1: have come to if China had democratized in the nineties
47:29
Speaker 1: would have been like, yeah, China would have been Russia,
47:32
Speaker 1: and there'd have been an elected strong man that just
47:35
Speaker 1: sort of stayed strong man of that country that we
47:39
Speaker 1: probably see some combination of Modi in India meets Putin
47:44
Speaker 1: in Russia. That that's what the leadership of China would be.
47:48
Speaker 1: I think what we're I think the thing that I've
47:51
Speaker 1: come to the conclusion under the fall of the Soviet
47:53
Speaker 1: Union and why democracy has been sort of in fits
47:55
Speaker 1: and starts with in former Soviet republics, is just look
47:59
Speaker 1: at the story of democracies in any country. There are
48:02
Speaker 1: always a fits and starts, and they don't It's not
48:04
Speaker 1: a straight line. It does eventually get there, right, you know,
48:07
Speaker 1: but it you know, it took France a while, it
48:09
Speaker 1: took Germany a while. You know, they had a false start.
48:11
Speaker 1: The women are republican to fall once before they got it,
48:14
Speaker 1: and it took us. But from our you know, it
48:18
Speaker 1: took us from eighteen seventeen seventy six to nineteen sixty
48:22
Speaker 1: five until we gave everybody the right to vote, right,
48:24
Speaker 1: So you know it took us a while as well.
48:26
Speaker 1: So I do think some of these it's hard to
48:28
Speaker 1: do some of these what if I'm democracies around the world,
48:31
Speaker 1: because the history of democracy in all of these countries
48:35
Speaker 1: is never a straight line, right, There's sort of this circles,
48:38
Speaker 1: Like if China is a democracy by twenty fifty, tanam
48:41
Speaker 1: And Square is going to be seen as one of
48:43
Speaker 1: the early indicators that China wanted democracy. But if China
48:47
Speaker 1: doesn't get democracy by twenty fifty, Tienaman Square becomes less
48:50
Speaker 1: and less of irrelevant moment right in the history of China.
48:54
Speaker 1: Just something to be thinking about as you pitch your
48:57
Speaker 1: ideas to me. Well, given that I'm recording all of
49:08
Speaker 1: this on January tewod, it means I've now had two
49:11
Speaker 1: days to marinate in Miami's victory over the Ohio State University.
49:20
Speaker 1: It is. I think I told you at the start
49:22
Speaker 1: of this college football playoff that my fan expectations were
49:28
Speaker 1: we better win one. That would be embarrassing not to
49:31
Speaker 1: win one. I think we you know, I won't. I
49:35
Speaker 1: won't feel like the season successful if we're not in
49:37
Speaker 1: the semifinals. So we're in the semifinals. So I think
49:42
Speaker 1: that Miami's where we always should be, where we belong.
49:46
Speaker 1: And of course, now in this day and age, can
49:48
Speaker 1: you win two more? And let's just say that once
49:56
Speaker 1: you get this far, you get greedy and you say
49:59
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, you're only two games away, and let's
50:04
Speaker 1: get this done. I go back to Miami. It's so
50:10
Speaker 1: funny in this Miami of Miami Ohigo State game because
50:13
Speaker 1: Miami literally was Ohio State twenty o two in this game, right,
50:18
Speaker 1: It was sort of a you know, the announcers noted
50:22
Speaker 1: that the last time Miami was in a relevant game
50:24
Speaker 1: was that two thousand and three Fiesta Pole, which was
50:26
Speaker 1: for the two thousand and two season where the upstart
50:30
Speaker 1: was Ohio State. They were the former power trying desperately
50:35
Speaker 1: to get into the elite. Beating Miami was the way
50:39
Speaker 1: that they could get taken. Seriously, Miami was sort of
50:42
Speaker 1: part of the elite of the last you know, nearly
50:45
Speaker 1: twenty years. At that point, they had been on won
50:48
Speaker 1: five titles in eighteen years at the time, the best
50:51
Speaker 1: run really since the old Notre Dame Army Navy, you
50:55
Speaker 1: know era of the forties and fifties and the Bear
50:59
Speaker 1: Bryant era in Alabama, and it seemed like an era
51:02
Speaker 1: that nobody was ever going to top until a guy
51:05
Speaker 1: named Nick Saban showed up at Alabama a few years later.
51:08
Speaker 1: But that's how this game felt that Miami was the
51:14
Speaker 1: sort of the old, an old power that was looking
51:18
Speaker 1: to prove it was back, and it had to beat
51:21
Speaker 1: one of the current blue bloods, which happened to be
51:22
Speaker 1: Ohio State. So that's why symbolically I found that the
51:26
Speaker 1: Ohio State game was so much. This was extraordinarily important
51:30
Speaker 1: for Miami to win, to prove that it is back.
51:34
Speaker 1: Important for recruiting. Ohio State success over the last twenty
51:39
Speaker 1: years has been largely due to its success at recruiting
51:43
Speaker 1: in South Florida wide receivers more than anything else, and
51:47
Speaker 1: it's been a huge blow to Miami, Florida and Florida State,
51:51
Speaker 1: Ohio State's success in recruiting South Florida, specifically that one
51:57
Speaker 1: position group. It was important to win a game like
52:03
Speaker 1: that in order to win some recruiting wars that we'd
52:06
Speaker 1: been losing. Miami over the last twenty five years had
52:10
Speaker 1: lost recruiting wars to northern schools. We had dominated the
52:13
Speaker 1: recruiting wars against those northern powers back in the eighties
52:16
Speaker 1: and nineties, but in the odds we were not winning those.
52:20
Speaker 1: We won them at first and then started to lose
52:22
Speaker 1: them after Miami's run started to fade. So that's why
52:27
Speaker 1: I think symbolically it was an important victory. But now
52:31
Speaker 1: it's a very winnable right the road is there, and
52:35
Speaker 1: Miami has built essentially not to lose games badly, so
52:42
Speaker 1: it means they're going to be in every game. The
52:45
Speaker 1: defense is good enough to keep them in any game
52:47
Speaker 1: against any team. The question is whether the offense can
52:50
Speaker 1: score enough points to win said game. Now they just
52:54
Speaker 1: you know it is. They scored more points against US
52:59
Speaker 1: State than any team has done all season, including the
53:03
Speaker 1: number one team in the country, Indiana. So look, I
53:07
Speaker 1: think that there's certainly Miami has the talent to win
53:12
Speaker 1: two more games. If I think Miami's defense can slow
53:18
Speaker 1: down Old Missus offense, the question is is Miami's offense
53:22
Speaker 1: good enough to exploit some of the weaknesses on Old
53:25
Speaker 1: Missus defense. And that's a fair question to ask. I
53:29
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to it, but I'm feeling pretty bullish.
53:34
Speaker 1: I think I will fully admit I misread the psyche
53:39
Speaker 1: of the Ole miss players. I did think with the
53:41
Speaker 1: portal opening now and that that game against Georgia was
53:46
Speaker 1: going to be problematic. Now I think they're still going
53:50
Speaker 1: to have a distracted coaching staff, but the players seem
53:52
Speaker 1: to be in some ways using this as fuel, using
53:56
Speaker 1: this as energy. So there's a part of me worried
53:58
Speaker 1: that Miami is goodded is just simply another episode in
54:02
Speaker 1: this sports movie that is known as the team that
54:04
Speaker 1: loses its coach and wins the championship anyway, right, kind
54:09
Speaker 1: of like the Michigan basketball team Steve Fisher. Back in
54:14
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, I think it was when the head
54:20
Speaker 1: coach of Michigan's basketball team leaves before the start of
54:23
Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament. I becau his name was Bill Freeder.
54:25
Speaker 1: He went to Arizona State and Michigan was like, nope,
54:29
Speaker 1: you get out of here. They appoint the interim coach,
54:32
Speaker 1: Steve Fisher, and all he does is win the whole thing.
54:40
Speaker 1: On that one, I think that was the Glen Rice
54:41
Speaker 1: team if I'm not mistaken, but it was. That was
54:46
Speaker 1: at the time a pretty impressive run, one of the
54:50
Speaker 1: all timers at that one, And this feels very similar
54:54
Speaker 1: to that. So there's a part of me worried are
54:56
Speaker 1: we just a speed bump on the way to Old
54:58
Speaker 1: Miss documentary history here? Then again, if you're a documentarian,
55:02
Speaker 1: which story is better the rise of Indiana football or
55:06
Speaker 1: the resilience of Old Miss after Lane Kiffen leaves them
55:09
Speaker 1: at the altar? Right? Like, this a pretty good sports
55:12
Speaker 1: movie in either direction that you choose to go. Miami
55:15
Speaker 1: and Oregon in comparison, are just very conventional narratives. Although
55:19
Speaker 1: Miami versus Oregon is a fun little Mario Crysto bo Bowl,
55:23
Speaker 1: which would be fun. But that gets me to a
55:25
Speaker 1: few perception things that I want to get off the bat.
55:28
Speaker 1: First of all, I give Shannon Dawson, that Miami play caller,
55:31
Speaker 1: a lot of grief. This was the best game plan
55:35
Speaker 1: I have ever seen him put together. He answered, everything
55:40
Speaker 1: that I was upset about in the last game. You
55:42
Speaker 1: don't seem like a game plan for the defense you're facing.
55:45
Speaker 1: Look like we game plan for the defense we were facing.
55:49
Speaker 1: It feels like you didn't trust Carson Beck to make decisions.
55:52
Speaker 1: He trusted Carson Beck to make decisions. By the way,
55:55
Speaker 1: Carson Beck, he wears number eleven for Miami fans. It's
55:59
Speaker 1: the last guy to wear number eleven and do some
56:03
Speaker 1: incredible things with that jersey number. Was Ken Dorsey, the
56:09
Speaker 1: quarterback for the greatest college football team of all time,
56:11
Speaker 1: the two thousand and one Miami Hurricanes, and the quarterback
56:14
Speaker 1: who should not have been in the last in the
56:17
Speaker 1: last play of the game in that Ohio State game,
56:19
Speaker 1: he had been knocked out. Today's concussion protocol never would
56:25
Speaker 1: have let him back in, and Miami's backup quarterback probably
56:29
Speaker 1: should have been allowed to finish that game. And I
56:33
Speaker 1: still wonder to this day. I think Dorsey was still rattled.
56:36
Speaker 1: He shouldn't have been brought back in. But I'm still nitpicking, right,
56:39
Speaker 1: never mind the bad call. We tie that game. We
56:42
Speaker 1: should We were right there at the one yard line,
56:44
Speaker 1: we had two shots at it, But he was still
56:46
Speaker 1: he wasn't fully in that game on that front. But
56:51
Speaker 1: my point I'm back is Beck reminds me of all
56:54
Speaker 1: the good traits of cars of Ken Dorsey. Look, you're
56:58
Speaker 1: not ever saying I never said nobody, no Miami fan
57:02
Speaker 1: thought Ken Dorsey was going to be an NFL starting quarterback.
57:05
Speaker 1: You knew that. And yet he was the best quarterback
57:10
Speaker 1: Miami could have had guiding that team. He was a
57:12
Speaker 1: point guard quarterback. He knew how to get the ball
57:14
Speaker 1: in the hands of the people that needed to have
57:16
Speaker 1: it and what to do in the moment. And that's
57:19
Speaker 1: what it feels like Carson Beck has done. You know,
57:21
Speaker 1: There's all this and this gets into sort of a
57:24
Speaker 1: larger New Year's resolution that I think we all need
57:27
Speaker 1: to have, which is be careful of Internet perception. Painting
57:33
Speaker 1: a picture of somebody that you don't know anything about.
57:37
Speaker 1: There's this internet perception, right. I'll tell you a classic
57:41
Speaker 1: case of where this came in over the weekend. It's
57:43
Speaker 1: a great story in The Athletic about the new managing
57:46
Speaker 1: one of the late Jim Mercy's three daughters are collectively
57:50
Speaker 1: running the team, but one daughter is the managing partner.
57:54
Speaker 1: She's sort of the one that sits at the owner's meetings,
57:57
Speaker 1: and the Athletic did a whole profile of her. You know,
58:00
Speaker 1: I had first sort of noticed her when the Internet
58:04
Speaker 1: exploded with why is the owner on the sideline with
58:07
Speaker 1: a clipboard and a headset? And then I learned reading
58:10
Speaker 1: that article that she's been doing this for years. Just
58:13
Speaker 1: now people are noticing because now she's the general managing
58:16
Speaker 1: general partner of the team, not just her dad's just
58:19
Speaker 1: the daughter the owner. And after reading the piece, I thought, well,
58:24
Speaker 1: she's a terrific owner. She's exactly what an owner should
58:27
Speaker 1: be doing, which is to understand everything that goes in
58:31
Speaker 1: putting a team together so that you can help make
58:33
Speaker 1: good decisions. Anyway, the Internet perception of her was, you know,
58:39
Speaker 1: somehow right, the painting the picture of what she think?
58:42
Speaker 1: Who does she think she is being on the sideline
58:44
Speaker 1: type of thing. After reading the article, You're like, this
58:48
Speaker 1: is totally opposite of the perception being painted. This is
58:51
Speaker 1: happening a lot. You know, I look at how quickly
58:55
Speaker 1: the perception of Maroow Crystobaul is indebted. You know, he's
58:59
Speaker 1: had a couple of high profile questionable calls on when
59:05
Speaker 1: it comes to sort of clock management right. That Georgia
59:08
Speaker 1: Tech game for Miami fans is infamous. There's a couple
59:11
Speaker 1: of games that Oregon fans will remind you of when
59:13
Speaker 1: he was coach of Oregon. But you know what we
59:16
Speaker 1: forget why is in he Why is there's a reason
59:21
Speaker 1: he's at these major programs. He does know what he's doing. Okay,
59:25
Speaker 1: he made a couple of mistakes in moments where everybody's watching,
59:28
Speaker 1: and it can sort of create a perception. But guess
59:32
Speaker 1: what he also is doing is building a program. He
59:35
Speaker 1: does lean into his strength, which is identifying offensive line talent,
59:39
Speaker 1: and he's built the program and the image that he
59:42
Speaker 1: said he was going to do. Is he a little
59:45
Speaker 1: small c conservative when it comes to on the offensive
59:48
Speaker 1: side of the ball, for my tasted times, it is.
59:53
Speaker 1: But is it working well? Results, scoreboard, record, point out,
59:59
Speaker 1: all all of them. And if he ends up, you
1:00:02
Speaker 1: know he's already this idea that he can't win a
1:00:04
Speaker 1: big game. Well, does winning in the College Football Playoff
1:00:08
Speaker 1: at Kyle Field qualifies a big game? Does winning in
1:00:11
Speaker 1: the Cotton Bowl against the number two ranked team in
1:00:15
Speaker 1: the country considered a big game? And now if he
1:00:18
Speaker 1: loses to Ole Miss as a favorite. Are we going
1:00:20
Speaker 1: to say, Wow, Miami's terrible as a favorite, They're only
1:00:22
Speaker 1: good as an underdog. Well, that might be a you know,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: they're a small part of me nervous that Miami's the favorite. Now,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: when I liked being in this underdog role where we
1:00:32
Speaker 1: were the ace. The the sort of anti acc bias
1:00:36
Speaker 1: of every of betters and of the punditry on ESPN
1:00:39
Speaker 1: was we had all kicked in, you know now that
1:00:42
Speaker 1: we kicked the you know, because the win over Ohio
1:00:45
Speaker 1: State wasn't a fluke, right. We beat them up, We
1:00:49
Speaker 1: out physicaled them, and they thought they were going to
1:00:53
Speaker 1: out physical everybody else and they couldn't. Let's see what
1:00:57
Speaker 1: happens when we're matched up against you know, another SEC team.
1:01:03
Speaker 1: We'll see and we'll see if we can get past
1:01:05
Speaker 1: that and we and we end up against either Oregon
1:01:07
Speaker 1: or Indiana. But by the way, I uh, here's a
1:01:14
Speaker 1: question about the Indiana Alabama game. Indiana looked like Alabama,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: and Alabama looked like you know, Alabama reminded me of
1:01:24
Speaker 1: Miami two thousand and five. So Miami was still considered
1:01:29
Speaker 1: you know, it only been a couple of years removed
1:01:30
Speaker 1: from the National Title Game. They'd sort of only had
1:01:33
Speaker 1: one loss away from being in the three title game,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: and so there was just you know, they were still
1:01:38
Speaker 1: one of the powers, and we ended up facing off
1:01:42
Speaker 1: and in one of these disappointment matchups with LSU and
1:01:45
Speaker 1: the Peach Bowl and LSU boat raced US forty two
1:01:48
Speaker 1: to three. Players started in fighting amongst themselves. It was
1:01:52
Speaker 1: just a disaster. I think at that point Coker fired
1:01:56
Speaker 1: all of his assistants. Because Coker wasn't gonna get fired
1:01:58
Speaker 1: right away. He was being given, you know, some grace
1:02:01
Speaker 1: since he led the team to back to back championship games.
1:02:05
Speaker 1: But it was the beginning of the end. I fear
1:02:09
Speaker 1: this for Calin de bore with what happened. It wasn't
1:02:12
Speaker 1: that they lost to Indiana, it's how they lost. They
1:02:15
Speaker 1: just didn't look like they physically belonged on the field,
1:02:18
Speaker 1: and how did just like that's what happened when Miami.
1:02:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't that Miami lost, ale issue was how they lost.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: And let's just say that in two years of Kurt
1:02:28
Speaker 1: Signetti as the next head coach of the University of Alabama,
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I won't be surprised and I do not accept the
1:02:36
Speaker 1: premise that Signetti wouldn't take the job. But what I
1:02:40
Speaker 1: saw the Knicks. If you're looking for a Nick Saban
1:02:45
Speaker 1: like frankly, I gotta give crystaball credit. He looks. I mean,
1:02:51
Speaker 1: Miami didn't have a single accepted penalty. That's how that's
1:02:56
Speaker 1: Nick Saban esque. That was never Miami's reputation over the years.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: Now I got handed to those SEC officials. They were
1:03:02
Speaker 1: SEC officials doing the Miami Ohio state game. Boy did
1:03:04
Speaker 1: they let everybody play. There were a couple of hits
1:03:08
Speaker 1: that I swear Miami would have been flagged down if
1:03:10
Speaker 1: they were a CC officials. It just had been a given,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: and Miami doesn't get flagged. They sort of quote let
1:03:18
Speaker 1: him play. And if there was a baton passing moment,
1:03:21
Speaker 1: there's this video if you haven't seen it, that's going
1:03:23
Speaker 1: around Carnel Tait. It basically short arms a throw from
1:03:28
Speaker 1: saying because he was about to get hit, and it
1:03:31
Speaker 1: looked like he was afraid to get hit. And that
1:03:33
Speaker 1: was I remember when they showed the replay. I saw
1:03:35
Speaker 1: it and I even remarked in the room, huh, boy,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: look at how afraid they are of getting Hiti. Miami
1:03:44
Speaker 1: is certainly making them uncomfortable looking back. Boy, that's the
1:03:50
Speaker 1: that feels like the symbolic moment that the baton was
1:03:53
Speaker 1: passed back to Miami and here they come. Because I
1:03:57
Speaker 1: promise you this, this physicality that Miami's bringing back isn't
1:04:02
Speaker 1: a one year phenomenon. It's it's I think, going to
1:04:06
Speaker 1: be the DNA. It's certainly Mario Cristobal's DNA. So the
1:04:11
Speaker 1: question I have is will we will ask will the
1:04:14
Speaker 1: big time athletes still want to play in a small
1:04:17
Speaker 1: c conservative offense. That's the only concern I might have.
1:04:21
Speaker 1: But this day and age, winning Trump's everything, and if
1:04:24
Speaker 1: we're winning, people want to be a part of a
1:04:27
Speaker 1: winning culture. But anyway, just be careful of perceptions. Right,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: we sit here and we allow the Internet to fuel
1:04:36
Speaker 1: perceptions of certain individuals, certain people, certain resumes when and
1:04:43
Speaker 1: then when the when it doesn't, when when they don't
1:04:46
Speaker 1: play to the internet type, we think, oh, well, there
1:04:48
Speaker 1: must be something wrong with the other team. When you
1:04:50
Speaker 1: know it is we probably were over zealous in the
1:04:55
Speaker 1: characters in the caricature that was being created. Uh. I've
1:04:59
Speaker 1: participated in that over zealousness at times, and I've gotten
1:05:02
Speaker 1: because we as a fanatic fan short for fanatic. I've
1:05:07
Speaker 1: certainly had my strong opinions about how certain things went
1:05:10
Speaker 1: with Miami, but let's just say this is this is
1:05:13
Speaker 1: always what I expected, and this is what the Miami
1:05:16
Speaker 1: fan base is about, which is we expect to be
1:05:19
Speaker 1: contenders for national titles hard stop. Nothing else matters, and
1:05:23
Speaker 1: you can say, well, go win an ACC title. We've
1:05:25
Speaker 1: never cared about conference titles because we're still in I
1:05:28
Speaker 1: still view us as an independent who's been a mercenary
1:05:31
Speaker 1: for these conferences. We joined a conference because of the
1:05:33
Speaker 1: other sports. We never wanted to join conferences, but we
1:05:36
Speaker 1: did it out of scheduling purposes. It isn't a matter.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: It's what conference gives Miami the best shot at competing
1:05:42
Speaker 1: for a national title and or what system works, and
1:05:47
Speaker 1: so ultimately, if Miami is operating on the level that
1:05:54
Speaker 1: they're operating on this year for the foreseeable future, you know,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: as long as we're contending and win one out of
1:06:03
Speaker 1: every three or four, you're going to have a satisfied
1:06:08
Speaker 1: fan base. I'd like to think we won't lose it
1:06:11
Speaker 1: the way we're already seeing our friends at Ohio State
1:06:13
Speaker 1: lose it over Ryan Day I mean, what more does
1:06:17
Speaker 1: he have to do to keep his seat from warming
1:06:20
Speaker 1: up too much in the next year if he somehow
1:06:23
Speaker 1: loses another game or two before getting back to a
1:06:26
Speaker 1: title game. But look, we'll see, I am it is tough.
1:06:33
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me that I heard Rees Davis
1:06:37
Speaker 1: say this playoff rematches that take place in the playoffs
1:06:42
Speaker 1: from the regular season. The only time where the same
1:06:46
Speaker 1: team won twice was a miss over tu Lane this year,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: so every other rematch has gone the other way. Not
1:06:54
Speaker 1: the best omen And I do worry Indiana is getting
1:06:57
Speaker 1: so many flowers, excuse me, roses thrown their way right now?
1:07:02
Speaker 1: Is this just like Miami's getting a bunch of stuff
1:07:04
Speaker 1: thrown their way. I'm nervous about Miami being a favorite.
1:07:08
Speaker 1: If I were an Indiana fan, I'd be nervous about
1:07:11
Speaker 1: suddenly Indiana being such a heavy favorite. So we'll see.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: It's going to be. It's a fun final four. And
1:07:20
Speaker 1: how about the fact that all four cultural centers of
1:07:23
Speaker 1: America are represented. Miami is very much an East coast
1:07:26
Speaker 1: Northeast five school, oh Miss as deep south as you
1:07:30
Speaker 1: get Indiana, as midwest as you can get in Oregon,
1:07:34
Speaker 1: the west coast This is what makes the college foo
1:07:37
Speaker 1: ball so great, right, and the fact that the final
1:07:40
Speaker 1: four worked out this way despite the attempts of the
1:07:43
Speaker 1: conference conference commissioners to screw this up. Don't screw this up, guys.
1:07:51
Speaker 1: If we can produce a system, ultimately the conferences should
1:07:55
Speaker 1: be secondary. If this is going to be what our
1:07:58
Speaker 1: system is, and we should go from there, and we
1:08:01
Speaker 1: can improve scheduling and all of these things, but this
1:08:04
Speaker 1: result should ultimately be what we get every time, which
1:08:07
Speaker 1: is some geographic diversity and sort of spreading the wealth
1:08:14
Speaker 1: a little bit. And that's the dirty little secret about Nil. Right,
1:08:18
Speaker 1: Pre Nil, we only had a lot of Alabama, a
1:08:21
Speaker 1: lot of Clemson, a little bit of Georgia, and not
1:08:24
Speaker 1: much else. Right, what has Nil done? Look, there's still
1:08:27
Speaker 1: the haves and the have nots, but there's now more
1:08:29
Speaker 1: halves than we've ever had before. And isn't that. People
1:08:36
Speaker 1: in Bloomington, Indiana are pretty excited about this. People in Eugene,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: Oregon are pretty excited about this. People in Oxford, Mississippi
1:08:45
Speaker 1: are pretty excited about this. And yes, those of us
1:08:51
Speaker 1: in Miami and Coral Gables are extraordinary excited about this.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: So anyway, enjoy the next two games