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Rage Against the Party Machine · Politics Between Us

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: The Democratic Party,
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: the establishment wing of the Democratic Party has lost to Donald Trump twice
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: through a combination of incompetence and being more interested in infighting
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: with its left wing than an actually trying to beat back the tide of pseudo fascism
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: in America.
• 0:17
  [music]
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to feel like political conversations have completely broken down.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Everything feels urgent, binary, and loud, but I don't think it has to be that way.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Politics gets a lot more interesting and a lot less toxic when we actually listen
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: to each other,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: hold space for different points of view,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: and stay in relationship with the hard stuff.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Alison Bea, and for the last 25 years, I've been working in law and politics in Maine.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Luca DeAngelis.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in my twenties.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I live in New York city, but I grew up in Maine.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And to be honest,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of the time I'm pretty disillusioned with politics,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: but Alison is the person I keep talking to anyways.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: We've been having these messy,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: honest conversations since I interned for her I'm thrilled to be here.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thrilled to be here.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're really excited.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Tyler, it's great to see you.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the pleasure of talking with you a number of times.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're really grateful that you're here with us on Politics Between Us.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So here we go.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, Tyler, I have been reading for you in many publications since before we met.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you really, you don't pick a lane, my friend.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're like everywhere, right?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: You talk about a lot of different things.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that you do talk a lot about is politics.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's obviously something we care a lot about.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So before we talk about what's happening in American politics, I'm super curious.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get involved in politics?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or let me say, do you have actually a first political memory?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's a really good question.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I do have a first political memory.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: Political in a small p, democratic in a small d sense.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: I am a very serious fisherman and have been since I was very young.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was a member of different fishing clubs in central Pennsylvania,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: which is where I grew up,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: including one that was very active on the Susquehanna River.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: There were all sorts of fishing tournaments for smallmouth bass in particular on
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: the Susquehanna River.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: the bass at a certain point in it would have been the 2010s,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: late 2000s began coming down with sores and infections, etc.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously the fishermen were very concerned about this,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: but also the people in the city of Harrisburg,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: which borders the river,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: were also really concerned and it emerged that Part of the problem was that
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: the small mouth were being impacted by pharmaceutical runoff,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: basically, at least allegedly.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it was the first moment where I saw people of both like different races,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: but different political persuasions.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Most of the fishermen I was interacting with were conservative folks.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of them were white.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: Many of the people in the city of Harrisburg were neither white nor conservative,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: but everyone was really agitated about this issue
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: because it impacted something they cared about,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: which is the river that their kids play in or you fish in, etc.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: And the way it was being impacted by Basically industry.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so, yeah,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's probably my earliest, um,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: political memory in which I was, uh,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: a participant rather than a,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: uh, you know, an observer, uh, watching it unfold on the, on the television.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: But, but yeah, that's probably, probably the
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: earliest one.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: How did you participate in that?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: There were town hall meetings and, and all sorts of, yeah.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Community activities,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: trying to, um,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: get to the bottom of what was going on,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: why it was going on and put a stop to, um, the issue.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes in politics we play different roles.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Were you the person who liked to get up and talk?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Were you the person who was doing research?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: What was your personality?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I am, and I'm sure this will not surprise you, I am a talker.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: I have no qualms about sharing my opinion on matters various and sundry.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: You and Allison both.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: What is it like you can talk the paint off the wall?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother used to say I could talk the paint off the wall.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, if you want to be clear, she said I could argue the paint off the wall.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, even better.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: Good, good.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But they're related.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of paint in my house.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: in these moments, were you successful?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Were you actually able to shift the narrative?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Did it end up leaving you the sense that politics could be changed, or was it more frustration?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: I would say it was mostly frustrating in terms of trying to resolve the issue,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: but it was interesting in that it was a window into seeing the ways that a topic
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: that might be superficially coded be a liberal kind of topic in
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: an environmental issue.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Nonetheless,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: depending on how you frame it,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: it can bring in different kinds of people with different sorts of politics around
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: a shared cause.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I found it Inspiring would be too grand,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: but I found it at least certainly intriguing and as exhibiting what it looks like
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: to build coalitions around issues that a lot of people care about,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: but for very different kinds of reasons and coming
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: from very different political stances.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: You really have a through line to your current work in this.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: We've asked this question of a number of people at this point and You're still a fisherman.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: You still write about environmental issues.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: You still write about unorthodox coalitions.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting to see How much of a through line there is to this early memory for you.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let's jump in, though,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: to talk about what Alison and I really want to get at with you,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: which is,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: so we spent all of season one of Politics Between Us talking about
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: the main senate primary between Graham Plattner and Janet Mills before it kind
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: of spontaneously combusted this summer.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted to kind of start season two of this by debriefing a little bit
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: because you've also really closely You covered this race.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: You spoke to Graham Platner a number of times.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So just like, how are you processing this?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like when it kind of all imploded, how did you feel?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: It did feel by the end, like it was a long time coming.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think the last month to six weeks,
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: it became harder to imagine It wasn't clear what the final blow was going to be,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: but it became increasingly hard to imagine him being on the ballot in November,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: because of the nature of the attacks against him and the increasing credibility
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: of some of the people bringing accusations.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: But it also felt,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think, look,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: setting aside,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be clear,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: I take very seriously the allegations against Plattner,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: and I found the various parties basically believable,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: and I thought it made sense for him to step down and that it was the right decision.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right choice.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: But at the same time,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: it's also not it's hard not to feel like the main public was disenfranchised in
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: a way where a lot of people mobilized to vote for this one person who represented
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: a certain kind of politics and then A week before there's a chance to get him off
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: the ballot,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: basically, all this stuff comes up and it comes out for very understandable reasons.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: But at the same time,
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: the practical effect of that is all the people who voted
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: for one candidate essentially lost their say.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: And yes,
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: he was replaced by another candidate,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: Troy Jackson,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: who is broadly consonant with his political project,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: more or less,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: another one of these sort of Bernie Sanders aligned populist politicians.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: But it just seems.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: This did feel to me like a main was a mirror image of some of
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: the broader issues we've seen with the Democratic Party,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: where often it does feel like there is a dearth of small D democracy,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: where for various reasons, things tend to.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: Again and again go out of the hands of voters.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: We saw this with Joe Biden being replaced by Harris in a way
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: that was pretty anti-democratic at worst and undemocratic is probably
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: the most charitable thing you could say about it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: And this felt a bit like that, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: Where here we are yet again in another circumstance where
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: because there was not really a healthy primary, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because the DNC and the DSCC in particular and Chuck Schumer Through a lot
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: of support and money behind their preferred candidate
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: before main voters really even had a chance to think about who they'd like to see on
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: the ballot.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: That race ended up boiling down to a very old politician
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: that wasn't terribly popular versus this untested upstart politician
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: whose background wasn't very thoroughly vetted, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: And like the Biden fiasco, it felt like a...
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: The unraveling felt like a symptom of broader systemic dysfunction within the party.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: And Troy Jackson seems like a good candidate, seems like somebody people are energized by.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I don't know.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: The whole thing just felt grimy in every direction, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely for someone who,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: as I said,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: feels disillusioned with politics sometimes,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that it definitely To be so excited about the idea of someone
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: with more transformational kind of politics to have that kind of collapse,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: even when you kind of knew it had to,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: was still, for me, like something of a giant disappointment.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting because you talked about,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: maybe with the, I'm going to get it wrong, smallmouth bass experience, right?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you might not have been inspired, but you did feel some connection.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: and I've heard you speak and write about this,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: that there was a way that that candidacy inspired folks that we hadn't seen inspired
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: about politics.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious how...
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is how Luca always teases me about.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always like, so how did that feel?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And not in our heads,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: but I do actually think oftentimes politicians is how they make us feel,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: whether they make us feel seen,
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: which I think is huge, whether they feel like they resonate with us.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that was something, I mean,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: you met with him in person,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: and I certainly am curious about how you are Feeling about that loss.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we understand the many, many problems of his candidacy.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: The first time I met him right after he announced,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: and there was something very, very special or different in him.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think something that has been retroactively kind of erased in
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: the national media discourse around Graham Plattner is a kind
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: of consensus has emerged in the media,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: particularly sort of moderate corners of the media,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: which is that,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: oh, the people of Maine were hoodwinked by this fraudster and blah, blah, blah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I actually find that really grotesque.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I also think offensive.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it also ignores Plattner,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think, as anyone who went to one of his events would say, was wildly talented.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I think arguably the most talented Democratic candidate we have seen maybe since Obama.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: He was extraordinarily gifted rhetorically.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: I saw him once recite multiple paragraphs for like four minutes of
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: a Thomas Paine quote from memory.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Extremely smart guy.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was in town halls where he was asked very granular questions about matters of policy.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he could answer with substance and cite relevant pieces of legislature.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: And he's really, really impressive as a candidate.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there has been an effort to portray him as this sort of Dumb,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: fake oysterman who swindled all of these equally dumb Maine voters.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's just completely incorrect.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that is something that is really missing from the sort
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: of national retrospective on what happened with Plattner.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I will just say,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: I've talked to a lot of Maine voters who feel like,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: and I appreciate where they're coming from.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, the allegations against him seemed credible.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, they were disqualifying.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, it made sense for him to step down.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: But that is kind of beside the point,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: because it was very obvious that the Democratic establishment and wings of
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: the media class did not want him to be the candidate and were going
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: to continue looking for whatever they could find until they found
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: a sufficient pretext to To kill his candidacy.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people felt that way.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of voters in particular felt that way.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was actually somewhat disturbed by the number of main voters I spoke to.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: Sober, normal,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: suburban Democrats,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: not fire-breathing leftists, who when I And to be clear, I don't believe that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have that conspiratorial read.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think he was credibly accused and had to go.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: But like I said, my, the feeling clearly was, um,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: There was a lot of throwing things at the wall to see what stuck with him
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: because they didn't like his politics.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: And because Graham Plattner represents the will of the Democratic voters,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: not just in Maine, but nationally, if you look at his issues.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: His positions on foreign policy in the Middle East,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: his positions on Medicare for All,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: his positions on any number of issues are wildly popular with the Democratic Party,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: voters.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it is the establishment that is out of touch with that party, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so it did just feel like the latest instance of a Democratic Party
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: that has little interest in representing the wills or belief of the people
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: who ostensibly vote for its politicians.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: I want to go back a little bit to this idea that you're talking about.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so interested that you've been talking to main voters and they've been latching
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: on to this idea that the media, the Democratic National Committee, are the enemies.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: One thing that Allison and I really liked about Plattner's campaign at
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: the beginning was that he It was kind of combining this idea of community
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: and belonging with and dignity with this idea of economic populism.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: But as we noticed,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: we don't agree on everything,
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: but we noticed that as the campaign went along,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: his tone seemed to get angrier and angrier.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: He had more enemies.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: The media was definitely one of the enemies.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, quasi-apology video was very much attacking the media.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something you also tracked throughout his campaign?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: And does that worry you as a kind of strain in these politics?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes and no.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: I definitely agreed with he became angrier as his candidacy went along,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: even when it was going very well.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think he seemed to me like an angry guy.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes that anger was targeted in directions that I think were positive and
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: then other times less so.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have a lot of sympathy for Plattner,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: the man at this point,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: both because the nature of the allegations against him, but also because...
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think he certainly told me things when I interviewed him originally
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: that are now very clear that they were not true.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I know a lot of people and other journalists who also interviewed him
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: and felt like they were lied to,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: and lied to in a way that was out of,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: that went beyond the standard issue ways that politicians often lie to reporters,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: That was like a bridge further than that.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't have a great deal of sympathy for him in particular, but I would note that...
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: We are watching something bordering on smear campaigns against basically any left candidate.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: but this idea of what the role of anger is is really tricky because I think Luke
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: and I may come at it a little differently.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm less comfortable with it than he might be.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I do feel that people are hungry for connection.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if we go too far in a common enemy,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that it can organize people,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: but it does not actually build the connective tissue that I think
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: that actually has broken in communities.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is interesting, Mamdani, Luca, I can say you voted for Mamdani, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: You went on Mamdani outing you on your vote.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's pretty clear.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's pretty clear.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Most of my public state.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it is interesting to watch how he,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: even when he is angry, he is smiling and how does that allow?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I am curious, I mean,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: from your perspective,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: regardless of Plattner,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: where do you think we should be using anger in democratic politics?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I am very pro-anger, if I'm being honest, I think.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Look, if you were a Democrat,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: the establishment wing of the Democratic Party has lost to Donald Trump twice
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: through a combination of incompetence and being more interested in infighting
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: with its left wing than in actually trying to beat back the tide of pseudo-fascism
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: in America.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: At this very moment right now,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: the Democratic Party is spending infinitely more time Talking about the DSA
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: and leftists than they are talking about a sitting president who is prosecuting
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: a wildly unpopular overseas war.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: The establishment wing of the Democratic Party has talked more about Hassan Piker
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: in recent weeks than they have about the literal war we are in
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: that is killing civilians overseas,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_03: jeopardizing American servicemen and putting gas at $4 a gallon.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: And when I look at that, right,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: as somebody who is concerned about rising authoritarianism in America,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: and I see that the ostensible leaders of the resistance party is more interested
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: in yelling about a YouTube streamer,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: who I find more or less unpleasant,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_03: but fundamentally a YouTube streamer, Then they are in talking about a literal war.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think anger is the right response.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact,
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think there has been far too much kumbaya in Democratic Party politics where
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: during the Biden slowly unfold.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: And we're going to beat Trump.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: That ended on a debate stage in Atlanta where Biden's brain leaked out of his ears.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think anger is good.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think the voter base is very, very angry.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think Democrats and Democratic voters have been too nice for too long.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think in particular,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: they have been too nice and too trusting about the leadership of their party,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: who is, I think by any metric, wildly incompetent.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: Completely out of touch with the people who vote for them and put them in office
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: and actively disdainful of anything approaching democracy.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, I just think anger, look, we've tried emotions other than anger.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: That has not been especially successful.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's a lot to be angry at.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of the voting public is done giving the Democratic Party
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: the benefit of the doubt.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of people feel like they've given, you know, fool me once, shame on you.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Fool me twice, shame on me.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this is a voting public that is very upset about yet another Trump administration.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: And they feel like they were fooled twice by people who said, no, we're competent.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: We know how to beat this guy and failed.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And again,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: just to reiterate,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Have not only failed,
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: but in the wake of their failure,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: seem more interested in fighting with people on the internet and leftists and
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: the DSA,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: an organization which I'll note has 100,000 members,
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: it's not exactly a big or powerful organization,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: than they are actually trying
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: to stymie anything this Republican administration is doing.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm pro-anger is my summary.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm...
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm more, I think, tolerant of anger than Allison.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm kind of interested because I am all fine for the left,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: the Democratic voters base to be very angry.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Don't know if I always feel like that's the most effective strategy for
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: the politicians themselves on the left.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because as you know,
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Bambani has been very effective at gaining popularity and then being kind of like,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: he has Kathy Hochul on his side a little bit because she kind of has to be
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: because he's so popular.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that does seem a little bit more effective to me sometimes to kind of
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: sneak in a little bit.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and also who gets to be angry?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Women don't get to be angry.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let's put that out.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, and if Zoran was angry, he would be cast as the screaming Muslim guy, right?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Obama, these are old things that people learned.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obama could never lose his cool.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I can even feel it right now.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I can get a little feisty.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, don't fucking tell me.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know who only some people get to get angry.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I also know that you're talking about the voters and sort of their anger.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is totally, I'm sorry, but my brain just comes to the place.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing about I don't know why I'm going back there,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: but I was thinking about you talking about Plattner in the town halls.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: One of my biggest frustrations with the coverage of Plattner or just
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: the way people cover voters was, You know, people are hungry for information.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: People want to know our history.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: He would talk about the labor movement.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: He would talk, you know, he would talk for 40 minutes.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody left.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: This idea that voters just want to be to have a tweet and they just want to vibe,
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think undersells and just is underappreciates American voters.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like people want to.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Be engaged intellectually around core issues.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't have to agree, but they do want to engage.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I- Also they want community from
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: those places.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just, yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not stupid.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a common confusion.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: Many voters are uneducated and I don't even,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: I don't necessarily mean having or not having a college degree.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're not, they're not, Politics heads, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_03: They are not reading the newspaper every morning.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: They're not plugged in because they're busy and they are working and they have kids
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: and whatever.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: But there's a difference between being uneducated and unintelligent.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And voters are not dumb.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: And they know,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: for example,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: I remember being incensed when Bernie Sanders was talking about the oligarchy tour.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you had all of these talking heads saying, voters don't know what oligarchy is.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, really?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's your, you know, or private equity.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like I saw someone complaining, oh, Plattner's constantly talking about private equity.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: They don't know what that is.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: The number of people I've talked to in Maine,
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: working people without college degrees,
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: who sweep floors at a hospital and they know that hospital was bought
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: by private equity.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: They know who's screwing them.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: Again, voters may be uneducated and they may not be following every last twist of
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: the news cycle,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: but they have a basic sense of what is fair and what is not,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: who is, pardon me, but screwing them and who is not.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you're absolutely right about they're hungry for information, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: And this idea,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: and I don't know where it comes from other than media smugness,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: but this idea that people aren't interested in substance, I think is wildly wrong.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I think To just finish the point,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: something that was really striking to me when I would go
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: to Plattner events is you would have very educated voters who he was doing better
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: with,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: it should be noted,
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: than non-college educated voters,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: but who are not left-leaning people per se,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: but who would say things like, he seems serious.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: Janet Mills doesn't seem serious, right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: She's not talking about any issues.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: She's just He's grandstanding, but he seems serious.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like he has ideas about things and,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: and I think that's part of all of this too,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: is that I, look,
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's an increasing tolerance for left-wing views among
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: the Democratic voter base.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the reason the DSA is so successful is not because
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: a significant percentage of the Democratic voter base has favorable views
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: of socialism, although that is true.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's because some of those candidates seem like they're trying, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like they have ideas and they Aren't going to talk to you like you're an idiot
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: and are going to articulate what's going wrong in your life and provide
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: an explanation for it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: it just does not feel like the center is doing that or interested in doing that
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: and they think people are dumb and that they don't need or want information.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess this is what I'll take in my defense of non-anger.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where it comes back to me because I think there's part of
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: the reason Luke and I wanted to sort of have these conversations more
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: in public is we don't agree a lot of the time, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: We sort of have to wrestle with ideas,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: but we think politics is actually really important and we want people to check in
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: and we want them to stay in.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that You know,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: that the anger can make people,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: I talk to a lot of people who are like, I just can't deal.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is just, I can't watch anymore.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I hear for the anger,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: but I also,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it's what you're saying is, I want us to connect with the injustice.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to connect with the unfairness.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I want it to be in a place that people don't feel shouted down.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that may be something about my age and my identity, that I'm like more comfortable in that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you want politics to hold Like a whole range of emotions.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it can hold anger, but it also holds lots of other things.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's a nice way of saying it.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's why I think Mamdani is so effective.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: He holds a pretty wide range of emotions.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's not an angry guy, and I
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: think that
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: works.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, you started talking about socialism, which is kind of where we want to go next.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Which is,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: to pivot a little bit,
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: it seems like one of the things Platner was really effective
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: at was engaging young voters, especially on college campuses in Maine.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: We certainly noticed some energy around that.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Many of those college campuses in Maine are quite elite, and I happen to go to one.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: You worked at one.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: This made me think of your recent Atlantic piece,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: which is delightfully titled, Why Do Rich Kids Love Socialism?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just walk us through a little bit,
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: give us a spark note summary of what you're arguing in that piece?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there have been a number of criticisms of both left organizers
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: and left political candidates on the basis of their background, basically.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: The most recent firestorm was kicked off by this guy named Gustavo Gordillo,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_03: who was He is a co-chair of the New York City wing of the Democratic Socialists
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: of America.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: A journalist,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: I believe with the Jewish Insider,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: discovered that he was living in a $1.5 million Brooklyn row home purchased
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: by his dad and that he had claimed to be a union electrician,
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: which is – As far as I understand,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: true, but perhaps overstated because he didn't finish his apprenticeship.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was kind of claiming these working class bona fides that depending
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_03: on how charitable you want to be, were perhaps overstated.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_03: And people pounce on this, right?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's a great story.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Rich kid socialist living in a $1.5 million Brooklyn Brownstone while talking
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: about Che Guevara or whatever.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: But I think...
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: I think that criticism of like, oh,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: this guy's a hypocrite misses the much more interesting question,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: which is that,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: okay, but like, you know, this was a criticism of Plattner too, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: Was that, okay, his dad, his grandfather was a famous architect.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: His dad was a lawyer.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: He went to Hotchkiss in private schools and this guy's just cosplaying as an oyster farmer.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: The oysters get sold to his mom's restaurant, whatever.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: Mamdani, same thing.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: His parents own a big compound in Uganda.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: His mom's a Hollywood person, et cetera, right?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: So we've seen this attack over and over of folks on the left
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: who are prominent attacking them for their background, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Aren't you a hypocrite to be a socialist and also to basically be a rich kid or former rich kid?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: And the point I was trying to make in the article was that many people
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: in these positions are In industries,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_03: like if you look at the makeup of the Democratic Socialists of America,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: like if you look at their demographic makeup,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: there's overwhelmingly people in middle and upper middle class,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: they're not exclusively middle and upper middle class,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: but like knowledge worker industries or what gets called
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: the professional managerial class, right?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_03: These are teachers, these are nurses, these are people who work in tech.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think something like 10% of DSA members work in tech, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: So these are not janitors.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: These are not bricklayers for the most part.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think about 4% of them hold blue-collar jobs.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: And again,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: there's one way of looking at that,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: which is to say, oh, the DSA is a den of hypocrites.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's all of these people in professional class laptop jobs pretending to agitate for
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: the blue-collar folks when they themselves are rich
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: or rich-adjacent white-collar types.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And to me,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: the interesting question is, okay,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: but why are people in this demographic group that is somewhat privileged gravitating
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: towards socialism?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the explanation is that these are all people in industries
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: that are being casualized, gigified, hollowed out and rendered.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: They're precarious.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Tech workers may superficially make a lot of money,
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: but many of them are living in places that are so expensive that even
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: if they're making $300,000,
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: they are living paycheck to paycheck because Bay Area home prices are so high.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or these are people who are nurses They're making ostensibly good money,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: but their hospital was bought by private equity, right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it's making everything about their jobs and their lives worse, right?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: Or they're college professors who are either themselves off the tenure track
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: or their friends are off the tenure track,
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: and they are seeing firsthand that, okay,
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm working for this really rich college,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: but I'm not getting paid a living wage,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: and I don't have security year in and year out, right?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: So of course those people don't think super highly of capitalism.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: And in many ways, they are on the front lines.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't mean that in terms of suffering,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: but I mean in terms of actually seeing how the sausage is made.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: If you work at McDonald's,
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: you can imagine that someone somewhere in a class above you is doing well
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: and is happy.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: My cousin works for tech and he makes a really good salary and whatever
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: and you know it's maybe it's my fault I'm at McDonald's or maybe you know
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: if I get my degree and go back to college maybe I too will send that class letter,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: but if you are in one of these jobs that puts you in direct contact with
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: the machine work of the American economy,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: with our elite institutions, or with our most prestigious companies.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you see how that, one, you are not doing that well, actually.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: You're in this position of constant precarity.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: And two,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: you see how the sausage is made,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: and you realize these aren't companies,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: and these aren't good people who are leading this whole shebang, right?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Of course you're going to get alienated from it, right?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, to me, my joke is sort of that, you know...
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: When somebody at the sausage making factory is a vegetarian, we don't say they're a hypocrite.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: We say, I don't want to eat that fucking sausage, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: But when the people who are at the capitalism factories,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: which is what the professional class is, right?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's what tech workers are.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, I don't know about this.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: This seems pretty bad.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Why is it that our gut reaction is, oh,
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: these hypocrites rather than What does it say about our economic system that
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: the people who are ostensibly benefiting from it and working
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: in its most prestigious sectors are disgusted by it?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: And that, to me, is a more interesting question.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: One thing that's kind of hard for maybe a more interesting question
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: that I would love you to help me answer is I,
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: at least the media,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: would portray that kind of real working class people who like work in a factory
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: or like are electricians would maybe have resentment for this
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Professional managerial class, my friends, these East Coast elites.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you build solidarity between those groups?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would say a couple things.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: So the first observation I would have is that I think the privilege of
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: the professional class is a double-edged sword politically.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: It can be bad for all the reasons that people point out.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_03: These are people who are entitled.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: They feel entitled because they've done everything right,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: and they were sold this idea that if you go to a good college,
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: you work really hard in high school,
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: you pick a sensible major that's not basket weaving,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: no shade to basket weaving,
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: you will get a good job, and then you'll have a life like your parents had.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: And they are mad because they're entitled and because they're privileged.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: They are mad that this isn't working out for them.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: These are people who believed in meritocracy,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: who believed in meritocracy,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: That the system is fair and they're finding out that it's not.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: And poor people know it's not fair, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: They have more of a tragic sensibility where they know it's rigged
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: and they know it's not fair and they don't have hope and that's why they don't vote,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: But paradoxically,
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: the privilege and the entitlement and the spoiledness,
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: if you want to put it that way,
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: which can be negative, right,
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: in all the ways we're familiar with,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I also think it's very politically mobilizing because these people are like,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: This is not how my life was supposed to go, and I will not stand for it.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that energy,
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: even if whatever,
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_03: you want to call it spoiled or privileged or whatever and say,
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: you guys are doing better than these other people.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Why are you so angry?
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's politically very powerful.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: Now, in terms of solidarity building,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think what is happening is that we are moving to a place where even 10 years ago,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people in the professional class Saw themselves intuitively,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: even if they wouldn't articulate it this way out loud,
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: as more culturally similar to a billionaire than to a McDonald's worker, right?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because they probably have more to talk about with Jeff Bezos than they do
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: with somebody who And I think what we've seen over the last 10 years is that as all
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: of these once prestigious corners of the economy, particularly tech,
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: The workers are proletarianized.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: They're realizing, oh,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a lot more like the McDonald's worker,
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: even though I make $300,000 a year, than I am like Jeff Bezos.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: My interests are not aligned with the millionaires and billionaires.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: My interests are aligned with the working class.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: Now,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: the problem is I think sometimes that slips into a certain kind of cosplaying about,
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: and particularly among politicians, right,
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: where it's like,
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: Graham Plattner,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: rather than be honest about who he is,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: which is like, just say who you are, just say.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: Look, my parents were college educated people who moved
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: to Maine like many college educated people who moved to Maine because it's
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_03: a great place to raise kids and it's a beautiful state.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: But I did not do as well as my parents and my dad had to help me buy a house.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that is a story I think a lot of you can identify with.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of saying that we had this like.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Jen Oysterman, and I wear Carhartt, and I like guns, and blah, blah, blah.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: All of which was basically true, but the framing of it just felt disingenuous.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess what I'm trying to get at is I do think,
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: in terms of your question about how do you build solidarity,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think that has to start with honesty about where are places of common ground,
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: but then also...
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: Understanding that, yes,
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: there are important differences between a tech worker and a McDonald's worker,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: but there are also really important similarities that can really be built on top of.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then the last thing I would say about solidarity building is at some point,
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: the professional class is going to have to take the cultural views of
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_03: the working class more seriously.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: And the wager I see unfolding right now on the American left is that you can do
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: the economic populism,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: which people like,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then voters and working class voters will suck up the fact that they don't agree
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: with you on whatever certain social and cultural issues.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I really don't think that's true, actually.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I really think some look, if you want to be a party that includes the working class.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just paternalistically give them economic policies that will help them.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: You also have to take seriously that they have a different worldview than you.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: They have different beliefs about social and cultural issues,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: and you need to be willing to take those seriously,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: and that doesn't mean Moderate on every single one of them.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think it means creating space within liberal organizations,
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: institutions,
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: and within the Democratic Party for like, yeah,
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: there are going to be some working class Catholics who do not support abortion,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that doesn't mean the Democratic Party should be anti-abortion,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: but it does mean you need to find ways to talk about that issue
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: that allow those people to be in the tent.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it does mean that, yes,
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: there are going to be some working class people in Maine who really like guns,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: they like some of your economic policy platforms,
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: but You need to think in more compromising terms if you want those voters,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: many of whom are single-issue voters on the Second Amendment.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: You need to be willing to take those issues seriously and think about,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: where am I willing to compromise?
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: And that part of the solidarity building,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: the willingness, again,
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: not to just bend the knee on every cultural issue,
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: but to actually entertain seriously and with an open mind the cultural views of
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: the working class, I think that has to be part of bridge building.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the part that seems like people don't want to do.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's interesting.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: We had Faz Shakir on our first season.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Faz was Bernie's campaign manager.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I also worked with him at the ACLU.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, great.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: So he sat in lots of different places.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I think his view was more akin to that.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: If the economic issues are dealt with,
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: you can then get to the second conversation of this is why I believe this.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is why I believe that.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't think he would say that you're sort of paternalistic,
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: but I think he'd say there's more room.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I was interested, and again, we won't know because Plattner stepped out.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I got a little bit of a lost track of mine.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: But what I was thinking is,
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: and you can see I just sat up because I'm like, oh, right,
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: that's the problem for me, right,
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: is that I hear that,
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I, of course, because Lucas knows, I want everyone to come into the tent.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: So often,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: historically, Tyler,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: the people that get kicked out of the tent when we decide that we're going
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: to be more moderate are the people who have the least amount of power.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's hard.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, where do we hold that tension?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if I may push back, I'm going to push back.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you may, please do.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course you are, Tyler.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: I actually think that is a talking point that I actually think is really wrong.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_03: If you look at who has the most, sorry.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: Not just wrong, really wrong.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like if you look at,
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: so this gets like,
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: this is something I think a lot about as a black guy,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm interested in the, The role that black voters play within the Democratic Party.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: And progressives talk about black voters as they're this mystical force for progress
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: within the Democratic Party.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: They are the most socially conservative block of the Democratic Party by a considerable margin.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: They have more conservative views on abortion.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: They have more conservative views on LGBTQ issues.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: They have more conservative views on a range of things.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's easy to say, oh,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_03: when we talk about moderation,
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_03: it's the most marginalized who are going to be impacted by moderating on culture.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: There are issues for which that is true.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: Immigration, for example.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: There are communities obviously that will be impacted by moderating on immigration
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: who are very vulnerable.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: But there are other ways in which Yeah, no,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: there are actually a lot of poor working class black brown voters in
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: the Democratic Party who do not have especially progressive views on a bunch
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: of social issues and they're religious and they are basically ignored
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: or treated like Neanderthals who,
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: if you want your welfare,
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: you just got to suck up the fact that this party is organized around a host
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: of issues that are basically antithetical to your moral worldview.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so, I mean, I don't think it's completely wrong what you're saying.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: I agree with you.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's true in both directions, right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: I agree.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not not true.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's probably the biggest problem for me with politics is that we just lump people.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: We just lump everybody.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think Gloria Steinem died today, right?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do think about sort of that's my experience as a woman coming up in law and what –
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: What I did or didn't face.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I can see that and I can see how compromises are made
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: and women's issues get thrown, you know, thrown aside.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Gender is a huge issue.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and to suggest that all women are experiencing differently
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: or every every woman has a certain position because they are a woman is offensive.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we don't allow for the multiplicity of our ideas within identities.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we do a lot of lumping, which I think.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I still will say,
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it sounds like we can sort of like moderately agree
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: that there are There are costs to moderating.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also costs to not moderating.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess I would like a political world where we have the more nuanced conversation.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Please don't make assumptions.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about how this plays out in your community, in your experience.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it just making room?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Those are actually different to me.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think Graham Plattner at his most effective,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: there's one town hall where he tells the crowd to stop booing this woman who gets up
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: and says something about anti-immigration policies.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: And he tells the crowd to stop booing.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not like he's necessarily moderating his own view.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: He's just telling the crowd not to boo her, which to me isn't moderating.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's just making space.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we've talked a lot about the sort of larger social issues,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: socialism, politics, all this stuff.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Maine.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's interesting to me that,
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know, every national media story covered Maine for forever.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a little bit more crickets.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we still have some really important races.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Senate race is still happening.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Troy Jackson's the candidate against Susan Collins.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have governor's race.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have an independent Republican and a Democrat.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you think is going to happen?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Give us your prediction.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: Who's going to happen?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I just think the fundamentals for the Republicans are so bad.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I really think there has been actually,
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: in a way that we haven't reckoned with nationally,
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: a real crack up of the MAGA coalition.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: I know a lot of three-time Trump voters who are disgusted with Donald Trump.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: Largely driven by the Iran War, but also other things as well.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: And the corruption in some cases, which just is an order of magnitude worse than Trump won.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: Gas is $4 a gallon still in Maine.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think the fundamentals for the Republican Party are so bad and
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: the Democratic voter base is so energized and the Republican voter base is
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: so deflated that I really have a very hard time imagining,
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: barring significant scandal or black swan type events,
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: Anything other than a rather thorough or at least,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: you know, a Democratic sweep of the main midterms.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: I just don't see,
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: at least with the governor and the Senate race,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: it just, yeah,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: it just really feels like there's so much headwind behind the Democrats right now,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: especially when you have in the Senate race,
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: Jackson,
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: who seems to have You know,
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: a tradition as a state senator of doing well in red areas.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think he has some actual working class Appeal and traction that Plattner did not.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was just objectively true
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: that Plattner's voter base was college-educated Democrats on the coast.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think Jackson brings in a different group of people.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's still going to get those college-educated coastal voters
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: who will be excited by the Bernie endorsement and these other sorts of things
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: that also excited them about Plattner.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: But I also think he's...
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: will not be as alarming.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's going to be harder to be alarmist about Jackson than it would and was
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: to be about Plattner, right?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_03: The Republican strategy for the Senate primary and for,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: when they were facing Plattner was to gin up all these fears about socialism
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: and he made these comments about communism and his Reddit history and blah,
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I just... Jackson is...
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: Jackson's weakness is that he's not a wildly charismatic guy, right?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: And his strength, I think, in a way is that he's not a wildly charismatic guy.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: It is going to be hard to portray him as this pink Okami firebrand, right?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: He's...
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: Union logger who did wildcat strikes in the 1990s and has
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: a pretty considerable accent
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: and is not like this is not some communist coastal progressive that they can't play
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: that card with him in the way that they can't credibly at least.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just don't see what moves they have.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think he has a really good shot.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one thing is I think we're really going to see a Gen Z shift back to the Democrats.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Mm hmm.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's clear.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: That was the big narrative after the presidential election is that Gen Z was going
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: to be Republican.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that's going to, I think we're going to see a pretty big shift.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I just think it goes into some of that conversation
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: about how younger people are feeling about politics, right?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: And their politicians and socialism, because they're also saying the system is not working.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, if you think about hard work as, um, A transaction, right?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: The point of working hard is that there's a transactional element to it,
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: at least when we're talking about working hard at work rather than
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: at whatever your pastimes or hobbies or whatever it may be.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that transaction is broken down and I think Gen Z,
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: In ways that one can certainly criticize,
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: but then in other ways that are actually getting at something real is that,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: well, what is the incentive structure for me here, actually?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: Work hard for the sake of working hard when there's the whole basic transaction
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: that is supposed to transmute hard work into social mobility has collapsed?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: No thank you, right?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I think that's part of it, right?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think there was that hidden transaction that was going on all the time
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_03: that operated as a set of background assumptions about what happens
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: when you work hard.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think those background assumptions are prevailing in
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: the younger generations for very understandable reasons.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe there's been an But I think there's, yeah, I'm basically sympathetic to that, right?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why work hard at college?
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: Why, if there's like no,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: the job market has collapsed and I have no realistic prospect of owning a home,
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: Why would I not punch the clock at five rather than staying till six and
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: then go hang out with my friends, right?
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: There's something rational to that, actually.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: We will wrap this conversation up.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's interesting to your point, Tyler,
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: about you've written,
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: very persuasively about the power of work As giving communities a sense of value
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: and actually that it is that sometimes
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: the democratic policies actually don't support the kind of communities you want,
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: People are not looking for just a government benefit.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking to be like a working member of the community.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so you see how all of these things start working together to break up the system, right?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: That the system isn't working.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why work hard or why kill yourself working when you're not even going
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: to be guaranteed a paycheck or you're going to be sold to a private equity firm
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: and consolidated?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: All of those things.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Then you look and you say- Or you work for a company whose entire goal is not
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: to make a good product, but to make a product that's acquired.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: There are all parts of tech.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: I have friends who work in tech.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: Where they're working at companies where they know their product is bad.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: And the goal isn't to make it better.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: It is just to make it good enough that it gets enough of the market share that
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: a bigger company buys it to kill it, right?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: So there are all these sectors of the American economy where you are working at
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: a company,
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: the goal of which is not to make anything good or worthwhile or something
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_03: that helps anybody, but it's simply to be acquired.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: I was even talking to a friend who knows a bunch of roofers who works
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: in construction and There's all these roofers now who are starting roofing companies
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_03: where they're making these dirt cheap roofs with the goal simply being bought
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_03: by private equity.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because if they sell enough roofs in a given calendar year,
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_03: then a private equity will just come crush them and acquire them so
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: that they can get that market share back.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you have on top of all these people who don't feel like There's
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: the transaction,
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_03: the hard work transactions working out when you also have these people
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: who feel like I'm working at a fake job that doesn't make anything good or important
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: and that isn't even trying to,
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: in fact, but is trying to get bought by some awful megacorporation.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like of course people don't want to do that, right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_03: And this is what data centers are about too.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like people keep trying,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_03: like all these interesting conversations about like why is data center such
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: a hot button issue?
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_03: But I think they almost all get it wrong,
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_03: which is that they're like,
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_03: Why won't voters accept these things that are going to increase their tax revenue
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: or give them good public schools or whatever?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, it doesn't matter if these things were going to make unicorns.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: It is that these people who are not from here are going to do whatever they want.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: And override all of your elected officials and get around every zoning law there is.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: And you have no agency, right?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't matter if they're good for you or not.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody likes feeling like they have no say over what their town looks like
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: or their landscape looks like.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: And not to mention the incessant droning humming sound, right?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so something we talk a lot about on the podcast I co-host is proxy issues, right?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: That there are these issues that seem to be about one thing,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_03: but they're about another thing, right?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: The question of Israel and Democratic Party politics is not about the Middle East.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's about lobbying and whether money should be able to impact elections and
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: whether organizations like AIPAC should be able to sway,
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: whether an organization should be able to spend $30 million to impact
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: a Kentucky Senate race or congressional race, for example, right?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_03: That's not about the Middle East.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's about democracy and corruption, right?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: And the data center thing is the same thing.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: It is not about the technology.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's not about AI.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_03: It is about agency and whether people have any agency at all over where they live
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_03: and what it looks like.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's the piece of a lot of these national debates that we're missing
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: when we're like,
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_03: oh, this is a foreign policy question or, oh, this is a technology question.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, no, this is an agency question.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: And people feel like This is one of the ways in which they don't have agency, right?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway, yeah.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, this is a perfect way to wrap up.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what I'm hearing from our conversation is, one is anger's okay, right?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: That voters have a lot of- Very pro-anger.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're pro-anger, but- Not only okay, but good.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, good anger.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: That actually, people are disconnected.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: They need more agency, right?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that people should embrace their own,
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: the sort of like,
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: That you don't have to be working class to have a working class agenda.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: All these good things.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's like, so all of this.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I want to come back to,
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I talked to you in front of like 200 college students about a year and a half ago.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you said to them, we were already talking about the presidential in 28.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you said very definitively,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: the person who's going to be the Democratic candidate hasn't even appeared yet.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to know, based on where you think voters are now, has that candidate appeared?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: If so, who it is, and if it isn't, do you
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: know who you think it will be?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't even know if it will be a politician, to be honest with you.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: I just think there are...
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a basic fundamental problem where, look,
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_03: maybe it'll be AOC, maybe,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_03: but I think one of the issues is that many of the popular Democratic politicians do
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: in fact just have a lot of baggage and
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_03: a wishy-washy history around particular issues that I think is not going to be
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: so easily shed.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I also think they're just not angry enough.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think they're also not willing to Buck the party in the way that is necessary, right?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: So at least on the Democratic side of things,
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_03: I really just think it's still going to be an outside candidate.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's going to be somebody whose name we have not heard yet,
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: either somebody like Obama,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: who kind of comes out of nowhere over the next two years,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_03: or somebody like Jon Stewart or an outside somebody, for better or worse, right?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe that's worse.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's worse that it might not be a politician.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_03: But I think people are really disgusted.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think nobody trusts either political party at all.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's a real shot that somebody comes from way outside of the system
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: and is able to credibly say, I had nothing to do with this mess, right?
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's part of the problem, right?
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we haven't talked about Joe Biden much because of the Donald Trump stuff.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: When it's Democratic primary season in 2028, we will be talking about Joe Biden.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_03: We will be talking about the fact that the Democratic Party overlooked the fact
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_03: that there was a senile president in the White House for two years.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone lied and abetted it as we became involved in two overseas wars
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: that were very expensive, both in human costs and economic costs.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_03: It is truly – it's so easy to forget because every day in Trump's America is such a nightmare.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_03: But it is truly one of the biggest political scandals in American history
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: that we had a sitting president who was very obviously senile.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: And parts of the – if you believe the reporting,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: parts of his administration were basically run by a cabal of senior administrators.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: That is actually shocking.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of the people like AOC supported Biden even post-debate.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's going to be a lot of uncomfortable questions that come up.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_03: For anybody who is close to that administration.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so for a whole bunch of different reasons,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_03: I just think it's probably going to be a candidate that comes from far outside.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you said just one last thing.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's fascinating.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: And Jon Stewart would be interesting.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not condoning a Jon Stewart comedian presidency.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just saying.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: I just know that would work with my father.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: There'd be certain demographics.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: But anyways, you said no one is angry enough.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: And do you think it's that they are angry enough?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because Alison is always telling me it's not about the policies.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's how the politician makes you feel.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: And do you think it's that the politician isn't angry enough?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: They have to be able to absorb the anger of the electorate.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think they have to be able to absorb the anger of the electorate, for sure.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I think they have to be able to simultaneously offer a hopeful message.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think Americans are optimistic by nature, sometimes to default.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: But they also need to bring with them a righteous cleansing fire, right?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because people are really mad about...
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: Everything that has gone on,
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_03: it's worth noting that even as Donald Trump is the most unpopular president
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_03: in history, that has not made the Democratic Party more popular.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: People still hate the Democratic Party, even as they also hate Donald Trump.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: So it is not that people feel like they – and there's been some surveys and polling on this.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you look at Trump voters, a number of them don't regret their vote.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_03: They hate Donald Trump and they don't regret their vote because they believe
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_03: the alternative is even worse, right?
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: What do you do with those people?
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of them.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a lot of them who don't trust either party for very, very, very good reasons.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, so I do think you need some kind of optimism.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think Americans are optimistic.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I also think you need somebody I don't see anybody who's going to be honest
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: about the many faults of the Democratic Party, how we got into the place we're in.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not sure that there is somebody within the Democratic Party currently
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_03: who was not either part of the decision making or close to it that have resulted
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: in these crises or that wasn't kind of quietly letting it happen.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah,
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_03: I just I continue to think I just I don't see any viable candidate in
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_03: the Democratic Party.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_03: The Democratic Party at the moment,
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_03: which, and I think it will be, there'll be a lot of wind in the Democratic sails.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's going to be somebody who runs as a liberal,
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: as a kind of critic of the Democratic Party within the Democratic Party,
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: which is what Plattner was doing, right?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_03: Before his implosion, right?
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody in that mold, I think.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm fascinated that as soon as you said righteous cleansing anger,
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, I like that one.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: That one works for me.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was thinking, okay, so that makes me think that it should just be Michelle Obama.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: If you get Michelle Obama to run.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: I will say,
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_03: I do feel like strongly,
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_03: I've said this a number of times,
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_03: it always makes people mad because she has no responsibility to do anything.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_03: But she could have beaten Trump, right?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I do think it is a stain on her legacy and I do judge a bit,
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just be honest, that she didn't try to run.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_03: I just think she probably could have won and she didn't want to do it.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: And at a certain point,
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_03: Do we not expect our great leaders to take up moral burdens when they are unpleasant
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: and when they don't want to do them?
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the fact that the Obamas Look,
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: the Obamas are charming,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_03: but they have done nothing in the Trump presidency except golf,
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: basically, and hang out at Martha's Vineyard.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of disappointing.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_03: There's a case to be made that there's been more moral leadership from George Bush,
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_03: of all people,
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_03: in the Trump era than the Obamas,
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_03: Basically pop up to,
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: curate a podcast playlist every couple, like once a summer, and that's about it.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a hot take that we could go down a whole nother hour for that.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to have to leave it there, Tyler.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or we'll be going into the Labor Day weekend.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you might have squandered our chance to be on that.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sorry.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: I ruined the Michelle Obama.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if we're going to be on there now.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're not going to make the playlist.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be nursing this wound for a while.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can end this way, talking about Michelle that way.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: Especially on the day we lost Gloria.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think you went a step too far with me today.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it is okay.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: From great people, great things are expected.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there we are.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: And with that, Tyler, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's been fun.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Tyler.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's been awesome.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, anytime.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, guys.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Our disclaimer,
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am a faculty member at Colby College and Luca works there too,
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: but the views expressed here are entirely our own.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: This show is a personal project and is not produced or endorsed by the college.