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Gerrymandering: How to Stifle Democracy · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Jerrymander. Yeah,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: that's right, our pet salamander, Jerrymander, And this is stuff
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: you should Know. That was a dad joke right out
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of the gate man. Apparently that's all I've got these days,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: or dad jokes. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess not,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: which is really just a way of saying middle aged
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: dude jokes. Sure, sure, because I think our senses of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: humor decline, we get less funny. Look at Jim gaff again,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: but we think we're funnier, right, hot pockets. Actually, I
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: tease Jim, I I love your work. Oh are your pals? No? Okay, no,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: but I do of his work. I'm just a fan. Yeah. Um, like,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: like absolutely zero, there's zero not to like about Jim
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: gaff Agan. Um, you know my buddy Jim. I say
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: he's um, he's sort of pals with him. He says
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: he's a good guy. I like, there's no way he's not.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: You know, like, you just you can't you can't, you
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: can't make up that level of like coolness and niceness
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and approachability, affability, even maybe gaffability. He just went, that's genius.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna trade Marty totally as if he listens to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: this show. So here we're diving into politics, which we
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: keep saying, like, let's not do that because it's political.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: But this is very newsy and not everyone understands jerrymandering,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and I think it's this file this under p s
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a because it's a big deal and it stinks and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: it's been going on for a long time. Yeah, it was.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely one of those people who didn't understand it.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Like I knew, yeah, I had to do with drawing
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: maps and you could draw them so that they're unfair,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and I never thought, well, how do you do that?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And I found out thanks to researching this episode, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: apparently it's gotten way way worse in recent years. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to understand gerrymandering, though, you have to understand a little
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: bit about the House of Representatives. One of the two
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: houses of Congress, one's the Senate. One is the House
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of Representatives, and Webster's defines right, Yeah, so the deal
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: of the House is is that the founding fathers um
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: invented the House or established let's say the House to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: be a much more sort of of the moment reactive, fair,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: ultra democratic group of uh governing body, and that it's
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: only every two years. And the idea was to have
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of turnover and have them really uh you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: because there's four five of them, have them really uh
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: really tied to their constituents, right, So it's just a
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: super fair way for things that really matter to you
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  Speaker 1: on a smaller level are heard as opposed to the Senate,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: which is you know, far far fewer, right. And there
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: are a couple of ways that they did this. One,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: like you said, elections are held every two years. All
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Congress people are up for re election every two years,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and they're they're elected directly by the people they represent.
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  Speaker 1: And when they started, I think there was sixty five
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: seats in the House of Representatives, and by twelve I
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: think it was up to four d and thirty five.
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  Speaker 1: And they added seats because they established the House of
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Representatives to to represent a set proportion of um population population,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So each congress person represents one chunk of America from
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: their state, right. So the larger and large America grew
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the more and more congress people you needed, and then
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: finally in nineteen twelve, they said, uh, we can't do
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the same more. We're just gonna if you have too
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: many congress people, they're going to Um, you're not gonna
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: be able to do anything. It's just going to be
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: too many. Right, So they kept it at four and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: thirty five. And that does something. It's it it means
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that if you have a state that keeps growing, because
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: it's not like America stopped growing in population in nineteen twelve,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So as your population keeps growing, that means that as
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  Speaker 1: one state keeps growing proportionately speaking, that means another state
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  Speaker 1: is smaller, whether people move from that state to the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: other larger state or the other larger state just by
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: contrast attractive more people. That means that the smaller state
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  Speaker 1: or the one that didn't grow as much, is going
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  Speaker 1: to actually lose congressional seats, and that the bigger seats
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: or the bigger state, the one that's growing, will actually
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: gain congressional seats. Because again, a congress person represents a
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  Speaker 1: set amount of American public from their home state, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: right now it's about seven I think the average is
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred and eleven thousand people is how many people
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a congress person represents in the US today. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: they did this through what's called the Reapportionment Act, of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: which basically set up all right, here's an automatic system.
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  Speaker 1: Now every ten years, we do a census, and they
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  Speaker 1: will just redistribute and allocate seats according to that census
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: every ten years. And like you said, if you're growing,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: we're gonna nip some away from the places that aren't
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  Speaker 1: growing or shrinking. And it was, you know, it seemed
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  Speaker 1: like a pretty fair way to redistribute and allocate these uh,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: these seats. It is. It's extremely fair. And so as
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  Speaker 1: a result, you've got like Montana that the whole state
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: has one congressional district that represents about a million people,
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  Speaker 1: whereas New York State has, which is a third of
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  Speaker 1: the size of Montana, has twenty seven congress congressional districts
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  Speaker 1: and hence seats in Congress. Right, it's a very fair system.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the problem when the Census Bureau figures out all
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: these figures and they say, well, this state actually should
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: get two new congress people, and you know, this state
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  Speaker 1: should lose one and another state loses one. Um, they
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: have to redraw the maps of the state to show
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  Speaker 1: what these new districts are because population is shifted every
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: over the ten years since the last census, so you
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: have to update the maps to make sure that they
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: each congress person is representing roughly the same number of
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: people and so everybody is accounted for. Again makes sense, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: But the problem came in when they were very vague
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: as far as the rules for drawing these boundaries. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: It says something like geographically can geographically contiguous, compact in shape,
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  Speaker 1: roughly equal in population. All these things are subjective, so
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  Speaker 1: when partisan politics become involved, the people that redraw these maps,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it seems, can't help themselves but be like, hey, if
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: we move over ten blocks this way, and like a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: couple of miles that way, and shape it like this,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: which looks really weird, but hey, that's okay because these
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: rules are vague, then we you know, even though there
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: may be a majority of one party, we could still
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: win if we draw this thing the right way, right. Like.
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  Speaker 1: The big problem with this whole process for apportioning the
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  Speaker 1: House of Representative seats is that they left in each
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  Speaker 1: state the dominant political party who happened to be in
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  Speaker 1: power at the time when the maps need to be redrawn,
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  Speaker 1: it was left up to them. There's no federal oversight,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: there's no there's no oversight whatsoever. And the whole premise
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of it was, well, okay, um, the voters will see
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  Speaker 1: what they're doing and will vote those guys out. The
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: problem is, if you control the congressional maps, you can
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: draw them in such a way that even the voters
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: can't vote you out. And this is jerrymandering. And this
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: is the current state of politics right now and has
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: been for a very long time. Actually, we've been jerrymandering
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: for a while, but again, like I said, supposedly it's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: gotten way worse in the last decade. Yeah, all right,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a little worked up already. Yep, you've got a Interestingly,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you're crying blood. I'm trying not to, but it's not helping.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a little break and maybe let's
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: jump back and talk history, if that's right with you.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I would love that, Chuck, and then we will go
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: back forward in time to study the current mess that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: we're in right after this. Sorry, huh, all right, we're
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in the way back machine. Yeah, it's Virginia ratifies. It's
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: ratifies the Constitution of the US. And former Governor Patrick
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Henry convinces his state legislators to redraw the fifth Congressional
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: District to force his foe, James Madison, to run against
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: James Monroe, because he figured he could easily win. It
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: backfired on him. Madison came out on top. But this
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: kind of kick started at the onset of our founding
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in our country in the Constitution, the process of jerrymandering,
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  Speaker 1: even though at that point it wasn't quite known as
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  Speaker 1: jerrymandering yet, No, it wasn't. It was known as jerrymandering
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  Speaker 1: after I think eight the eighteen twenties, I believe, and
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  Speaker 1: the governor of Massachusetts Elbridge Jerry eighteen twelve, Um Elbridge Jerry,
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  Speaker 1: who was he was the governor of Massachusetts, right correct?
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  Speaker 1: He um came up with a map that he drew
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  Speaker 1: to help keep his party, the Democrat Republicans, I think,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: which is beyond confusing, right but Um, he drew a
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  Speaker 1: map that was just abhorrent. It was just so clearly
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: partisan and drawn just to keep his his party in
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  Speaker 1: power in Massachusetts. But I think the Boston Gazette published
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  Speaker 1: a picture of this map and proclaimed that it looked
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: like a salamander, and so they said, this isn't a salamander,
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  Speaker 1: this is a jerrymander, which is a million times worse
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  Speaker 1: because it's politically toxic and a lizard. I love that
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: little tidbit, but that's where the name came from. Yeah,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: it had never had any idea, but that's where jerrymandering
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  Speaker 1: came from. Not a pretty word, but it definitely rolls
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: off the tongue like a um oil. So it grew
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to be a very common practice and very blatant, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Congress at one point early on in two tried to
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  Speaker 1: get it under control with that Apportionment Act that I
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: talked about um and that said, you know those vague
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: things like let's draw these thing as contiguous and compact
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  Speaker 1: as possible. But it just apparently no one, I guess.
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  Speaker 1: The rules were so vague and outlined in such a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: nebulous manner that there was no way to enforce it,
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  Speaker 1: such that at one point they carved out two separate
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: states North and South Dakota. Uh the Republican can controlled
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Congress so they could get more seats in the Senate Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: at the time, if you were a state, you had
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: three electoral College votes, don't matter your size or anything
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  Speaker 1: like that. And the Dakota territories were Republican leaning, so
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the Republicans said, hey, you guys, welcome to the Union.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, we're going to carve you into
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  Speaker 1: two states. So now we have six electoral votes rather
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: than just the three if you were one big state. Yeah,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: pretty clever, pretty sky says. So. Um. One thing that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: this article, I think this is a Patrick Kiger article,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's smart to point out is that this
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  Speaker 1: is not just a Republican technique. This has been done
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  Speaker 1: throughout history by both the parties UM, both the two
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: main parties, the Democrats and Republicans apparently also the Democratic
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Republicans and UM two to the same effect, which is,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: we're drawing these maps to make sure that you guys
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: don't have a fighting chance in the next congressional elections. Right.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I did some digging though, because I was curious about
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: these days, like who, um It's interesting because you can
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: say who is worse with jerry mandering, or more correctly,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: maybe who was better at jerry mandering as far as
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: getting it pushed through more, and every political science and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: mathematician will tell you that, uh, across the board sort
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of Republicans are are either better at it or doing
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: it way more or that the the recent elections over
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the last I think like three or so have have
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  Speaker 1: favored the GOP in ways that they ended up with
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: something like twenty extra seats that they wouldn't have otherwise
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: had had the maps not been jerrymandered. Yeah. And then
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in some of these I think Maryland was one case
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  Speaker 1: where even though it was at Maryland where the Democrats
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  Speaker 1: held like a majority, yet they the maps are drawn
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: in such a way that they would have to get
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: like an eight to ten point Oh I'm sorry this Wisconsin. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Wisconsin an eight to ten point victory in order to
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: overcome those jerrymandering maps. Yeah, which is it's just not
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  Speaker 1: going to happen because Wisconsin is pretty close to being
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: um down the middle. And that's actually a really good
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: example of the modern jerrymandering that's going on. Like Patrick
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Group points out, when you think of jerryman doing this
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, you think of like guys like in
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a back room smoking cigars and like like poking each
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: other in the chest say and this this is my district,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and you can have this one that kind of thing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: But this is actually like they're very specialized political consultants
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: who go around the country after each census and help
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: states draw their maps. Um, and they're there. They do
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: so with like really sophisticated software that has like block
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: level census data, so like just like by the block,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the people who live on a block, they can carve
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it out like that so that they can more accurately
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: create these maps. And then when they create these maps,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: they can create dozens as many as you want. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: when they when they use them as a model, they
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: can feed them into their their computers and run a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: simulation of future elections based on this map. It's and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: then they can this is why it's gotten so bad.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And then they can and um, just take this block out.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: What happens if we take this blackout and put this
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one in instead, And now all of a sudden, oh well,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: we'll win for the next ten years. And they have
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: this this map. And the reason that I started talking
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: about this apparently Wisconsin has a map that's in effect
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: right now that is so well done that even if
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the the Democrats get fifty of the vote statewide, the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Republicans would still control sixty seats in the in the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: state Assembly, that they would not lose any seats whatsoever
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: even if the Democrats got the vote. Yeah. And um,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the one kind of um, the one thing where it
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: kind of stings them, even though there haven't been any
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: real repercussions yet, is that one political scientist said, it's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: getting so sophisticated though, and they're drawing these maps in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: such a weird way that you can then go back
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and look and say, this is clearly an outlier because
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: this thing looks like a uh, sidewinder rattlesnake across the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: state and that is neither contiguous or compact. And it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: just so obvious what's going on, because you're using these
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: computer programs to just distort these maps to your favor. Uh.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And this is where I just get so burned up
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: on both sides because it's it just completely subverts the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: process in place, which is you were supposed to be
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: able to vote for the person that represents you in
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that vote count. I'm glad you said that, man, because
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. This is not like lip service, like
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: both sides to it. So we're mad about it now
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: like this is this is genuinely like neither side of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this should be doing this. This is a inherent flaw
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: in the political system that back in the day, when
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: things were different, we could get along with it. It
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: was a stumbling block. It was kind of kind of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: hamstrung the democratic process some Now with a couple of things, Uh,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: it has gone into hyperdrive, like so many things have,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: like like normal political weirdness put through certain filters, like
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: incredibly powerful computer programs that just hyper tailor things like this.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: That's a big problem. The other problem is the the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: polarization of politics to a degree that it hasn't been
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: for well over a century or so. That has made
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: jerrymandering all the worse because before you could jerrymander all
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you want, and but there were such things as moderate
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Democrats and moderate Republicans and if it was a reasonable
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: piece of legislation, they would cross the aisle to vote
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: for it. They would break ranks. That does not exist anymore.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: If you're a moderate ten within the last ten years,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: wealthy interests basically carved you out. They created um, they
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: created upstart political parties to run against you in the primaries,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: so you would lose your seat or your national convention
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: would collude with their favorite candidate against you. There's no
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: middle any longer. So the fact that they're the current
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: political power, whoever is in charge of that state can
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: jerrymander makes it all the worse because it just makes
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: those divisions even deeper because the parties get what they
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: want one way or the other. There's no middle ground anymore.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So jerrymandering has become a real real problem in the century. Well, yeah,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and it's just the other thing that burns me up
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: is is it's just a a smack in the face
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of the average citizen. Yeah, it's done behind closed doors
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: with zero thought to geez, what is this country supposed
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to be about? And it's just it just really burns
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: me up. There was a report last year by the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Brennan Center for Justice, and this just really kind of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: shows exactly what's going on. It's not like we needed
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: this proof, but almost all jerrymander districts in this country
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: are in seven states Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Texas,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: in Virginia and Texas aside, what are those other states
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: have in common? With one another. I don't know. They're
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the swing states. Oh yeah, yeah, so the swing states
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: have been lost as a result of jerrymandering. Huh yeah.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Those those those seven states are where these jerryman did
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: jerrymander districts are happening, and they're all swing states. It's
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: just like it's little. It's literally they're going in and targeting.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: How can we rig this thing as much as possible? Right,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: It's just it's disgusting. Plus also, the next time you
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: hear a politician um talk about the founding fathers and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: what they wanted in their view of everything like this,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: this runs so far afoul of what the framers of
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the Constitution we're looking for when they found when they
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: established the House of Representatives. It's it's mind boggling, like
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: they're probably generating usable energy through the spinning in their
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: graves that's going on right now. Because they created the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: House of Representative Representatives so that there would be, like
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: you said, Chuck, turnover every couple of years that they
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: were the pulse of the people there. They were elected
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: directly by the people. They were meant to be the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: voice of the people at any given time. And the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: fact that jerrymandering has has been allowed to go on
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like this has means that there are safe seats now
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: states where you can reasonably expect the party and maybe
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: even a single politician to hold onto for a decade
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: or more, which is not how it was supposed to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: be in the House. No, and I saw that these
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: days in the US and in UM congressional races, maybe
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a hundred of the four hundred and thirty five seats
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: are actually competitive races. The rest have been so firmly
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: made safe through jerrymandering over the years that they're not
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: even competitive anymore, either that one candidate or there one
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: party is going to control that that district. Alright, I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: see another trick of blood coming out of your eye
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: this one. So let's take another break and we're gonna
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: get come back and start up with the two main
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: mayor jerrymandering techniques right after this. See good shock. Al Right,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: So I promised talk of techniques. Um, you hear jerrymandering
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and redrawing maps. There are a couple of ways that
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you can do this. Uh, They're called cracking and packing.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Cracking is when you when you scatter the political supporters
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: across a lot of different districts so that they just
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: never get a majority in any of them. Like, let
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: me just snake it this way for a mile, then
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: back down here, and we pretty much know that they're
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: not going to get a majority and we're gonna win.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: The other one's called packing, and that's when they jam
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: everyone into just a few districts and essentially just say, fine,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: we're gonna lose those districts, but we're gonna win overwhelmingly
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: everywhere else the majority of the other districts, so we're
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: gonna be fine. Right, And cracking and packing to sound
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like a political consultant came up with those to explain
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: it to legislators, and they probably thought it was like
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the most clever you know, get it, it rhymes even, right.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing with that, right, you can you
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: can use those techniques in a couple of different ways.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But but with the advent of those same computer programs
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: that that can crack people or pack people more efficiently
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: into all different maps or whatever, you can use the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: same ones to kind of expose that kind of thing, right,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And so you can actually with those same computers, I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: think you were saying, you can use to to suppose
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff and that that political scientists you mentioned, um,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: not George Nicholas Stephanopolis. I looked, I don't think they're related. Well,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, um, but the but Nicholas Stephanopolis
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: came up with that efficiency um percentage. And so what
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you do, Chuck, is you let's say that we have
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and here's the part where I confuse everybody. You're ready, Yeah,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I was waiting on this. Okay, good. So let's say
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that you have five districts, and you have ten people
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in a district, and there's just two parties. I'm already lost.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So I know I've got, I've got I'm gonna start over.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I just scratched out the old stuff starting a new.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: When you pack a district, meaning you take basically a
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: huge chunk of the other party supporters and put them
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: into one or two districts, what you're doing is, like
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: you said, you're giving up those districts. You know you're
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: gonna lose them. But as long as there's only a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: couple in the larger scheme of things, as far as
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Congress is concerned, you're actually coming out on top because
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to win more because you've packed all of
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the opposition into just a couple of districts, right, So
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: in any one of those districts, you have some wasted votes.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: You have your people's wasted votes, because you're gonna have
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: some people who live in that district and their votes
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: cannot possibly change the outcome of those districts elections, so
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: their votes are literally what they call wasted votes. You
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: also have some of that the oppositions people's votes, because
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: all they need is the majority of the vote or
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the most votes and they're gonna win. But whatever goes
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: over that, that's wasted votes too. So there's a bunch
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of wasted votes in there. And then similarly with cracking,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: when you dilute the other parties voters and you pack
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: them in with your people, but you have way more
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: people they're us are wasted, and you've got some people
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: whose votes are wasted either. So if you take all
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the wasted votes in a state and you put them together,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: subtract them from one another, and then divide that by
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a hundred, you've got what's called this efficiency percentage, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: it's actually a usable number that when you look at
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it shows you very clearly which party is favorite, it's
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a negative or a positive percentage, and it will show
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you whose favorite. And they're they're trying to come up
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: with a rule of thumb now that says that anything
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: over a seven percent efficiency percentage is is basically undemocratic
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and should be outlawed. That wasn't too confusing, was it okay?
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Not at all? Here's something that isn't confusing at all.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Prison jerrymandering. This is mind blowing that this is allowed. Uh,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: certain states have counted prison populations as part of these
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: efforts to redraw these districts. Even though prisoners cannot vote,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: they're not eligible to vote. So there's a ward in
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Iowa that has fourteen hundred residents, hundred of whom are prisoners,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and that counts. And only a few a few states
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: so far have have ruled this unconstitutional. The rest are
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: just playing ball, right, And by doing that, you give
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: those hundred that can vote a way more power because
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you're actually their their vote is the opposite diluted. It's
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: concentrated by the addition of the non voting block. Yeah,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and again, all this is happening because from the beginning,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: political political parties are in charge of doing this and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: The only thing that's going to stop this is uh,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: because I would think any sensible, reasonably intelligent American would
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: say this is bad for democracy, no matter which party
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: is doing it. And the only way to possibly break
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: this up is to have nonpartisan commissions in charge of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: redrawing these maps. Yeah, and supposedly they tried that in Canada.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I guess they had rampant jerry wandering and in the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: sixties they said, we're done. Your political parties can't be
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: trusted with this anywhere, because Chuck, it's as simple as that.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: There's no reason to put it any other way. Neither
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of the political parties can be trusted with this very
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: very important task. It's just that's they've just proved it,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: both of them, over and over again. And in Canada
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in the sixties they finally just came out and said
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: it and put their foot down and they created a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: nonpartisan unelected commission who's in charge of drawing all the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: maps for all the districts in the whole country. Yeah,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and they've tried it, uh. So far in six states California, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Jersey,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and Hawaii have passed over control h two commissions uh,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and these these maps don't even need approval, final approval
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: from governors or state legislators. But apparently even they're like
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: these people are appointed by somebody, so it's it's even
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: hard to clean it up then, And they've shown that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: so far, like in California, I mean, it hasn't swung
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: any elections, it has made some of them closer, So
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: maybe it's working a little bit. It sounds like it
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: that I think that point is worth making. Yeah, what
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: did the elections that historically we're not closer closer? Yeah,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: like like Darryl Lisa used to get like sixtent of
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the vote, that's what he got in two thousand ten,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and once they instituted these nonpartisan commission maps in two sixteen,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: he got just he got he got a margin of
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: less than one percent, so like he had a twelve
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: percent drop in votes once they change these maps. That's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: significant to me. Yeah, So maybe it hasn't swung an
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: election in California yet, but that could be a sign
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that if we continue to do this, it could work. Right,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: But you would think chuck, Okay, so if this is
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: just such obvious like anti constitutional, anti democracy skull dug
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: ree of course the super fream court is going to
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: have something to say about this, right. Yeah. That's that's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: where it's gotten really weird this year, is that there's
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a case gil versus Whitford, uh that I believe was
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: that didn't the Supreme Court just say they're not even
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: gonna hear it? Yeah? They actually kicked it back down
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to the lower courts on a technicality, saying that the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: people involved hadn't shown that they have standing because they
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: hadn't been directly harmed by it. And they said, you
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: go prove that your vote was actually wasted because of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a jerrymandered map, which actually wouldn't be that hard to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: do these days. Um, and and let another lower coote
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: rule on it, and maybe we'll we'll hear it next time.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But they've been punting on it. Yeah, I mean, and
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that's the way our political system works. I'm not saying
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: subvert that, but it seems like at some point we
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: as a nation that should be able to come together
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, kind of like money and dark money
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and stuff like, can we just clean this up? But
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: here's the thing, Chuck, if you got jerrymander maps, even
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: if everybody turns against the dominant political party. You have
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to have like six of the vote, a massive votered
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: voter turnout with like six of the vote voting against
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: you to actually overwhelm the jerrymandering that that that these
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: these maps producer, that the um the political tenacity that
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: these jerrymandered maps produced, and you just don't have that,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and what you could do it with that. But it's
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: it's it's just as as the current political reality is,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: it's just not gonna happen. And so as long as
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: they're allowed to to keep these maps, whoever's in power
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: whenever they redraw the maps actually gets to hang onto it. Yeah,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And this is just another example of like feeling powerless
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: because the stuff is being decided among very few people
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: in these U closed door sessions and they I'm sure
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: they all think they're very clever and how they're uh
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of the system, like right in front of
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: our stupid faces. And then and the Supreme Court to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: not swinging in. On the one hand, it's like come on,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, a lot of times we
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: don't really want necessarily activist justices. It depends on the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: topic probably or the issue and how you feel about it,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: but there there. They have a long history of saying
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: that's political, that's not constitutional. You guys, go handle it yourself.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: But one thing I saw as an explanation for why
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is yet to get involved is because
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: there's no UH standard for what constitutes a a congressional
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: or a state district map. There's no standard that the
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court can look at and say this is the standard.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: This doesn't live up to that standard. Therefore we're going
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: to rule this way. So that's why they haven't done that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But they tend more often than not to uphold maps.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Very very infrequently do they overrule them. And there was
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: like a whole space of maps from Texas, North Carolina, Maryland,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and Wisconsin that they basically said, yep, they're fine whatever.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And Texas they demonstrated that these jerrymandered maps had been
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: used to dilute the voting power of Hispanics who live
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in Texas and are the majority of Texas. Now they
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the maps have been drawn specifically with the purpose of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: of diluting their voting power, which goes in against the
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act of nine. That's one thing they say, like,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you can't mess with minorities voting rights, and for a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: long time they said, well that includes jerrymandering. Well, Neil
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas are both um starting the I guess. Uh.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: In this most recent one from I think Texas, they
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: added on their own opinions saying, we don't think the
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Voting Right at Rights Act actually prohibits that. And I
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: think racial jerrymandering is totally fine under the law, which
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: is a big problem. Yeah, and then go back and
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and then that act. Yeah, you could do that, but
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: then again you have to overcome the jerrymander right exactly. Man,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: it's a what do eat? What's the snake that eats
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and stale? What's that called? The Burrows District of Maryland
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: probably is what you call. It's what it looks like.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Oh it's depressing. Huh. Yeah. There's there's one more thing too.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: This has been used actually to the opposite effect. Who
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I think during the first Bush administration they were really
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: big on drawing maps that um that were called affirmative gerrymandering,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: which made sure that majority minority, meaning that areas where
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: most of the people who lived there were minorities, uh,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that they had very very strong voting power that it was.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: They went out of their way to reflect it, and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: they actually overreached in that way too, and and sometimes
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the courts would throw those out. But um, it's it's
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: gone both ways for sure throughout history. But it just
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: needs to stop entirely because people aren't able to actually
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: vote or be represented in Congress like they should be.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You got anything else? Now? I see the blood has
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: crusted up nicely from my eyes near. You settled down,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: worked up in this one too, you were, And I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: was glad. I was glad. Everybody should be worked up
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: about this one. Everybody. Yep. Uh. If you want to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: know more about jerrymandering, we'll look up this article on
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: how stuff works. It's pretty good. Since I said it's
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: pretty good, it's time for listener, mate, I'm gonna call this. Uh.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: This is a very sad one, but I'm trying to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: get the word out to a to a listener. Here
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: for a listener, Um, guys. After a six year battle,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: my father passed away last week from a m l
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• 34:48
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• 34:52
  Speaker 1: ultimately failed, his remission gave him two more years would
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: be relatively healthy life where he was able to meet
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the absolute apple of his I and my new baby daughter.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Uh sorsha, Oh congratulations, love that name. She will be
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: one year old July one, which is kind of right
• 35:10
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• 35:13
  Speaker 1: time with my other two kids, Gavin and Grayson doing
• 35:16
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  Speaker 1: which is being a grandfather. Hoping maybe you guys can
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  Speaker 1: give a shout out to the be The Match Bone
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  Speaker 1: Chris and uh row back to Chris. Very sorry to
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  Speaker 1: organization to check out. Yeah, thanks for telling everybody, Chris
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a good one. I'm going to check
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: that out myself. Yep, me too. If you want to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: let us know about something that we and everybody who
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: listens to this podcast can do to make the world
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a better place, we really really want to know about it.
• 36:11
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• 36:14
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• 36:17
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• 36:21
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• 36:23
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• 36:31
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