Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Why The Sun Belt Could Realign American Politics + Imagining the Worst to Prevent It From Happening

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Full Episode - Why The Sun Belt Could Realign American Politics + Imagining the Worst to Prevent It From Happening · The Chuck ToddCast

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  Speaker 1: so use that code. Hello Aaron, Welcome to the Thursday
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Long weekend edition of the Chuck Podcast. I got a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: fun show today, a little We're gonna we're gonna take
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a we use my time machine to go back in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: time to do history history lessons on the Monday Podcast. Today,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go into the future a little bit, I guess.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Sir James Stavridi's former NATO Supreme Allied Commander at one
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  Speaker 1: point for the United States, and Elliot Ackerman. They're the
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  Speaker 1: co authors of a fictional series of sort of a
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  Speaker 1: you might call it a bit dystopian of what America
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  Speaker 1: could look like. They've written the third of a three
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  Speaker 1: book trilogy twenty thirty four was the first book, twenty
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  Speaker 1: fifty four is book two, and this most recent one
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  Speaker 1: that they're out with is twenty eighty four. It is
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  Speaker 1: the politics of today find its way into influencing what
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  Speaker 1: this future world looks like. In fact, he'll tell you
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  Speaker 1: in twenty eighty four Florida is its own republic, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: just to give you a little taste of where their
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  Speaker 1: head where their heads are at there. But I've known
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  Speaker 1: Elliotta Ackerman a little bit. His late father was one
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  Speaker 1: of the pioneers and big funders of a group that
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  Speaker 1: of today has its remnants of it is in the
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  Speaker 1: Forward Party, in these movements to try to sort of
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  Speaker 1: break up the duopoly of the two major parties. And
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  Speaker 1: so I've not known Elliott in his in his authorship
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  Speaker 1: life a little bit, but I knew him a little
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  Speaker 1: bit back then. Obviously, I worked with the Admiral Stavrit's
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  Speaker 1: back in the NBC days. He's now I think a
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  Speaker 1: contributor over at CNN, and and you know, he's got
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  Speaker 1: an interesting perspective about what's going on in the moment.
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  Speaker 1: We've got Cuba. He used to be the Southern Command
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  Speaker 1: he one time before he was Supreme ally commander, he
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  Speaker 1: was head of Southern Command, so he knows that stuff
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  Speaker 1: quite well, knows the capabilities there. So it's yes, we
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  Speaker 1: talk about their future, the future a little bit, but
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  Speaker 1: it is infused with what's happening today. And I know,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I think Jim Stavrites just gives it to you.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he's got his own opinions about where things should,
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  Speaker 1: how should be done, but he's very good at doing
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  Speaker 1: the uh, this is what it is, and then being
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  Speaker 1: able to explain this is what it should be, you know,
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  Speaker 1: sort of the goal of I always try to have
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  Speaker 1: on this show, which is, hey, look we cover we
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  Speaker 1: cover the issues as they are, and we're going to
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  Speaker 1: offer you an opportunity to talk about what they could be,
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  Speaker 1: what they should be, maybe what you think they should be.
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  Speaker 1: We also got going to take a bunch of little
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  Speaker 1: extra questions. Today, being the being Thursday, I want to
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  Speaker 1: spend a little more time talking to you. But I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to begin with a little bit more fallout from
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  Speaker 1: the from Texas, but I want to look at it
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  Speaker 1: from a wider perspective here, and the wider perspective is
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  Speaker 1: two to fit what's happening in Texas inside the Texas
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  Speaker 1: Republican Party. It's actually part of a pattern that we've
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  Speaker 1: seen in the Sun Belt, right. And I look at
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  Speaker 1: my my formative years learning American politics, digesting American politics,
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  Speaker 1: and now consuming American politics, and now trying to explain
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  Speaker 1: it and explain where we've been and where we're going,
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  Speaker 1: and the Sun Belt for a majority of my adulthood
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  Speaker 1: and really most of my lifetime, has been in a
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  Speaker 1: transition from Team Blue to Team right. Right. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the Southern states in the early seventies when I was born,
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  Speaker 1: were all Democratic, but there was always a conservative through
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  Speaker 1: line in there. You know, there was sort of populist
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  Speaker 1: on economic issues, but culturally a bit more conservative and
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  Speaker 1: certainly a bit more hawkish on military issues. So you know,
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  Speaker 1: if you think about today's Republicans as descendants of yesterday's
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  Speaker 1: conservative Democrats, that's the through line you would take there.
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  Speaker 1: And so for the lion's share of the seventies, eighties, nineties,
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  Speaker 1: even and really sort of peaking, I think I think
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  Speaker 1: we're going to say peaking somewhere around twenty ten, twenty twelve,
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  Speaker 1: the Sun Belt states have powered this Republican majority, right.
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  Speaker 1: The Republican majority in the House went through the sun
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  Speaker 1: Belt whenever they had the majority. The first time they
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  Speaker 1: got it ninety four, it went through the South. But
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  Speaker 1: each case, right, and it's been fairly reflective in its leadership. Right,
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  Speaker 1: You've had Southern Speakers of the House, New Gingrich, Mike Johnson,
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  Speaker 1: You've had plenty of sort of Southern Leaders of the House,
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  Speaker 1: Tom Delay, Dick Army. It has gone through the South,
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  Speaker 1: through the sun Belt over the last ten years, as
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  Speaker 1: the Midwest has so of continues to although we're starting
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  Speaker 1: to see population games for the first time back in
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  Speaker 1: Midwestern cities, we've been sort of there's been this sort
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  Speaker 1: of consistent come down, right, and this sort of gradual
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  Speaker 1: shift of the population from the North to the South.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, from much of the twentieth century and
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  Speaker 1: the first arguably the first say sixteen years of the
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  Speaker 1: twenty first century, the path to political power has gone
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  Speaker 1: through the Midwest, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, right gone
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  Speaker 1: that Essentially they've been the majority makers, majority makers in
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  Speaker 1: the Senate, majority makers, and that is now shifted. And
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  Speaker 1: now what we've seen, particularly since twenty sixteen, is that
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  Speaker 1: the path back particularly for Democrats, has not been to
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  Speaker 1: you know, it has been to hold their own in
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  Speaker 1: the Midwest. But when they have gotten majorities, it's because
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  Speaker 1: they have overperformed in the Sunbelt. We've seen it now
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  Speaker 1: Georgia and Arizona and I have been the big two
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  Speaker 1: sort of shifts where they went from red leaning to
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  Speaker 1: now very I think deep purple and structurally at the
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  Speaker 1: moment feel as if you'd rather be Team Blue than
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  Speaker 1: Team Red. And I'm going to discuss that in a minute.
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  Speaker 1: Right the states to me are would are more comfortably
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  Speaker 1: in the center right camp. But because the Republican Party
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  Speaker 1: in both of the states have shifted so far to
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  Speaker 1: the right, or the perception of them is so far
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  Speaker 1: to the right, and they've purged certain people, it is
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  Speaker 1: created some opportunities. And it's in this sort of rubric
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  Speaker 1: that I want to talk about sort of the challenge
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  Speaker 1: that both parties have at the moment, and ultimately, you know,
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  Speaker 1: signpost here that you know, the future of American politics
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  Speaker 1: is going to be decided in the Sunbelt. And what
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  Speaker 1: do I define as a Sunbelt. Nevada's in you know,
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  Speaker 1: to me, Las Vegas qualified, so Nevada Nevada's in the Sunbelt.
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  Speaker 1: It's Nevada, It's Arizona, it's New Mexico is a part
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  Speaker 1: of this. This is a state that is uh sneakily,
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  Speaker 1: sneakily more competitive if when you when you sort of
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  Speaker 1: look under the hood a little bit, potentially Texas, certainly, Georgia,
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  Speaker 1: North Carolina, and then you have sort of these states
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  Speaker 1: that that you know in the Midwest, it was your
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  Speaker 1: India and your South Dakota's in the South, it's your
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  Speaker 1: Mississippi's in your South Carolina's there. There's something happening there.
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  Speaker 1: The question is whether, uh, it is going to get
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  Speaker 1: turned into something so but it but it's it's kind
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  Speaker 1: of how I want to tackle today's conversation. So we're
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  Speaker 1: going to the and I think what we're watching here
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  Speaker 1: is a shift. And what we're se in Texas with
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  Speaker 1: the Republican Party in Texas is something that we've already
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  Speaker 1: seen take place in Florida, take place in Arizona, because
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  Speaker 1: you know where these states collectively reside. You know, would
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  Speaker 1: they prefer center right versus center left? If given the choice,
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  Speaker 1: would they prefer right? I think it's fair to say Florida,
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  Speaker 1: Texas Georgia, North Carolina, in Arizona, I think instinctively see
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  Speaker 1: them would probably plot themselves somewhere just to the right
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  Speaker 1: of the center lane in one form or another. Some
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  Speaker 1: of it would be for cultural reasons, but almost all
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  Speaker 1: of it would be for economic reasons. Right, you know,
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  Speaker 1: economic growth development in general has been a net positive
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  Speaker 1: for these states. So ultimately, for the large sort of
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  Speaker 1: chunk of voters that live between the thirty five yard
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  Speaker 1: lines on our political spectrum layered onto a football field,
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  Speaker 1: I think that's where they would put themselves. But the
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  Speaker 1: Trump brand has complicated things, Right, The Trump brand doesn't
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  Speaker 1: work in Georgia. The Trump brand doesn't work in Arizona.
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  Speaker 1: We've seen that that's put both parties over their skis,
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  Speaker 1: and in both states, whenever a Trump branded Republican has
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  Speaker 1: ended up a nominee, it's been a problem. We saw
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  Speaker 1: this in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, Right, it's been a problem.
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  Speaker 1: So the question is did we just see this happen
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  Speaker 1: in Texas? Is Ken Paxton the Mark Robinson moment? Here
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  Speaker 1: is Ken Paxton, the Kerry Lake moments? Right, is Ken Paxton,
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  Speaker 1: the herschel Walker moment. This feeling that you're like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is going too far. And the other question is
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  Speaker 1: do Democrats recognize that this moment is here and do
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  Speaker 1: they know how to adjust? But I do think that
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  Speaker 1: this is what is right now. The biggest thing that
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  Speaker 1: is changing sort of the political landscape in the South
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  Speaker 1: is what's happening inside Republican coalition. And I think you
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  Speaker 1: have to understand what it used to be, because what's
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  Speaker 1: happening in state after state in the Sunbelt is this
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  Speaker 1: The parts of the Republican Party that knew how to
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  Speaker 1: manage what were broad coalitions when they first grabbed power
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  Speaker 1: in the Sunbelt in the seventies and eighties are slowly
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  Speaker 1: being purged, marginalized, and overwhelmed by activist politics. Right success
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  Speaker 1: has made the Republican Party look inward and go further
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  Speaker 1: to the base. Now. The irony is many of the
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  Speaker 1: Republican governors and strategists who were actually the most successful
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  Speaker 1: politically in these states usually understood that governing restraint. They
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  Speaker 1: understood restraint. And I say this specific word here because
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  Speaker 1: it didn't mean they weren't conservative, it didn't mean they
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  Speaker 1: weren't disruptors, but they knew that there was a hey, no, no, no, no, No,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that's going to go too far and that's going to
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  Speaker 1: blow up the coalition. And for the most part, these
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  Speaker 1: governors were able to keep their activists at bay who
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: came after them. It wasn't through moderation, it was simply
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: through restraint. Brian Kemp has understood this, right, He's sort
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: of he's a conservative. No one's mistaken him for a rhino,
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  Speaker 1: but he sort of looks at it and says, I
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  Speaker 1: may believe this, but not a majority of my states.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go that far. Greg Abbott has
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  Speaker 1: been interesting to watch because he's not a trumpye, but
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  Speaker 1: he doesn't want Trumpers to know that he's not a Trumper.
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  Speaker 1: And he's managed this and i'd say the first couple
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  Speaker 1: of terms he's managed it better. In this coalition has
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  Speaker 1: been more of a Rick Perry, George W. Bush or
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  Speaker 1: a coalition conservative manager. He's been pushed lately, right, he's
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  Speaker 1: been pushed into more confrontational politics and he's now been
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  Speaker 1: part of his own purging of the party and his
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  Speaker 1: own primary. And the question is is he going over
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  Speaker 1: his skis? And we're going to find out in November
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  Speaker 1: there and then I would argue in Florida. First term,
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  Speaker 1: Dissantus understood that he had to manage the coalition more
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  Speaker 1: like jee Bush rather than doing what he has kind
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of let the legislature a little bit take over, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: then the instincts of the rest of the party has
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: shoved things to the right, more so in second term
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to Santis than in first term. And again. But these
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  Speaker 1: governors that sort of got restraint, It wasn't that they
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: were moderate. These are very conservative people. Their political skill
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: was understanding the coalition maintenance, right, because fast growing sunbelt
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: states are not ideologically uniform places. They're very complicated, they're messy,
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  Speaker 1: they're massive, suburban suburbanizing plate entities. They're economically diverse, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: they're culturally transitional, right, because you do have people with
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: different cultural mores that sort of all gravitate towards these
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: warm climates. You've got evangelical conservatives, business republicans, retirees, military families, libertarians,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: working class Hispanics, suburban professionals, exurban populists. It is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's other than sort of keep government in my you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: out of my life a little bit and keep my
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: taxes low. There's not a ton of other consistency. That's
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  Speaker 1: a coalition, it's not a movement. And for about fifteen years, right,
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  Speaker 1: I'd argue, from say nineteen ninety four to about twenty ten, okay,
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  Speaker 1: Republicans were extremely good at holding this coalition together. But
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: what happens is when dominant parties over time continue to win,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they start confusing their dominance, particularly their primary dominance, with
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  Speaker 1: general election durability and so, and the two things are
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: not the same thing. So I think what we're watching now,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: particularly in the Texas Republican Party, something we saw in
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the Arizona Republican Party and it's still happening today. It's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: coalition intoxic intoxication. Right where the activists are sort of
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: drunk on the power, the base begins to believe, we
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: don't need those other voters anymore, why do we need?
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  Speaker 1: You know, they sort of forget what it took to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: get fifty percent plus one to actually get power in
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  Speaker 1: the first place. And the minute the base of a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: party thinks it doesn't need these majority making voters, the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: ones that are more parts of a coalition than they
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: are believers in your movement, that's when parties start drifting
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and you start to see it state by state right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Florida is a good example. At the moment, the Florida
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Republican Party is basically purge most of its remaining mainstream
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: institutional wing right. We saw a big purging of it
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, right when Ron DeSantis came out of
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: nowhere just using Trump and essentially retired the Bush wing
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: of the party, Adam Putnam being that right. So the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Bush wing of the party died in Texas this past Tuesday.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: The bushwing of the Florida Republican Party died in twenty
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: eighteen with Ron DeSantis's dual victory, beating Putnam in the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: primary and carrying that over and winning there. Now, politically,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Florida obviously still leans Republican, but the party has become
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: so dominant internally that it's lost some of the ballast
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that kept it, I think strategically disciplined. Right. Jeb Bush
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: was a conservative, but he under but you know, living frankly,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: living his early adult years in Miami, he understood, hey,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: this is a diverse state, and there's you can't push
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: things too far, and that ballast is missing right now.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And so when there's no internal opposition in a party,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the loudest activists end up getting to set the emotional
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: tone of the party in Florida, I think is not
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: as far to the right as the Florida Republican Party
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: is behaving right now. We're going to find out whether
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that matters yet November, but it changes decision making. I think,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: like I said, Arizona's where we saw this happen first. Arizona.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: It's always been the case, right, John McCain's politics were
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: probably the north star generally of where where Arizona is
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: frankly still is. I think Mark Kelly is essentially a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: McCain Democrat, right, Mark Kelly was a former Republican. But
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the Arizona Republican Party, you know, and this was it
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: was sort of the first big sun Belt state that
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: it went, you know, it made very goldwater blush. It
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: went so far to the right at one point. And
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: they're still in this middle of the Civil War. We're
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: sitting in the governor's race Andy Biggs and David Schwikert.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Sweikert is more of a essentially a Republican that was
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: more familiar, more out of the mold of John McCain
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: or John Kyle versus Andy Biggs. Who's more of the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Trump wing of the party or in Arizona speak, you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: look not maybe not as boisterous and loud and as
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: conspiracy minded as Carrie Lake, but close certainly you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to offend her supporters and have benefited from
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: this big league as certain politicians might say, you know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Arizona's got the you know, got a Democratic governor and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: two Democratic senators. Is the state suddenly liberal or is
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: this the case of In each case, the Republican Party
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: essentially went its primary voters went too far to the
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: right right, and you see this backlash question. Now we
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: can say, do Democrats understand that? That's why they've got
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the clean state wide sweep and the near sweep of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: all state wide offices. I think they only lost treasurer
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. And that's the point. Arizona became
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: competitive because Republicans began testing how far ideological purification could
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: go in a state that was filled with a ton
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of suburban independence and transplanted voters from the Midwest right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And now we're seeing Georgia is in the middle of this.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Brian Kemp's political instincts are actually very differ front from
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of the activist energy that dominates parts of
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the state party. And we're going to see it Mike
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Collins versus Rick Jackson. You're going to see it with
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Derek Duh excuse me, Mike Collins versus Derek Dooley. You're
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: seeing it with Burt Jones versus Rick Jackson. Right, the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: pre Trump Party, Derek Dooley and Rick Jackson will be
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the two nominees and they probably both be slight favorites
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to win state wide. In Trump's purification of politics, neither
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: one of them is going to get out of their runoff,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and you're going to have an election denier in Burt Jones.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And I would remind you every election denier lost as
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a major nominee in Georgia in twenty twenty two, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the election deniers lost in Arizona in twenty twenty two,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it is it is, you know, the election denier lost
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina for governor. The question is do election
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: deniers get punished. We're going to find out in Texas Florida,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and we're going to you know, we are, like I said,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I think we already know what happens in Georgia. It's
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: gonna be an interesting test. You a former Atlanta mayor,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and just in general, Atlanta mayors are going to be
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: polarizing to the rest of the state that isn't Atlanta
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: versus potentially a Trump endorsmed election denier. But Kemp, you know,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: didn't govern this way and didn't do his politics this way.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He understood how to survive in suburban Atlanta while still
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: keeping the Republican based together coalition maintenance. That takes discipline,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: because once a party becomes entirely performative, once every issue
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: becomes a loyalty test, that's when you start bleeding exactly
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the voters you need in growing metro areas, which is
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the Sun Belt at the moment, right again, from coast
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to coast, from North Carolina to Arizona. This episode of
• 21:44
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  Speaker 1: FanDuel predicts. For me, Game six, I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: all the terms at FanDuel dot com. Slash predicts, slash Bonus,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Hyphen offer hyphen terms. In North Carolina, Republicans already found
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the line where voters said too much. Mark Robinson was
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: that line, and now the state is still competitive, it's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: still polarized, it's still structurally difficult for Democrats, but the
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Trump wing doesn't go as well there, and the Democrats
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: found somebody who also understands sort of left wing coalition
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: maintenance and understands that there is not a majority for
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: progressive politics in North Carolina. That at best you can
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: create a coalition that leans left. But what you see
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: overall is an electorate pushing back against ideological overreach. And
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we know every state will do this. This happens in
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: blue states when they go to start. I think this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: is what California is looking for a way to push
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: back on the leftward lurch. They're not ready to go
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: pull Republican, but they're looking for something. It's pretty clear,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and we'll see if the next governor understands this and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: knows how to find a heat vowve on that. Now,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Texas is the giant unresolved question hanging over all of this,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and that's where Paxton comes in. Up until John Cornyn's loss,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you could argue that Texas Republicans have had enough institutionalists,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: enough coalition managers like Greg Abbott to prevent a full
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: activist takeover. And yet then you get a guy like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Bo French, who's you know, within the Railroad Commission race,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: who's unabash it in his in his more ideological purification,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and wants to get rid of a Republican who he
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you know, who he says is too cozy with the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: energy industry. And you start to wonder if are they
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: going are they going to make the same mistakes that
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Georgia Republicans made in Arizona Republicans made, And is Greg
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Abbott going to be able to still manage this coalition
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: as well as he has he? You know, like I
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: said first, two terms. Abbot was really good at this.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: He is, you know, he's always looking over his right
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: shoulder more than he's looking over his left shoulder. And
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the question is is he look over his right shoulder
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: too much? We're going to find out in November. But
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: you can see the pressure building underneath him. And you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: know he he did his own version of purging of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the party with his with his voucher primary campaigns. But
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. The activist wing always once more right.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Both parties find this. They always want more. They want
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: more purity, they want more confrontation, they want more ideological virtue. Signally,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and eventually, every dominant coalition faces the same question, can
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it still govern broadly once the activists become convinced compromise
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: itself is a weakness. Now here's where Democrats enter this story,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: because the irony is I don't think it's that difficult
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the Democratic parties, the electoral math problem is easy to solve.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: What they have is a psychological problem because the path
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: itself is not complicated. If you're willing to accept what
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the path is. The opening is sitting right in front
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of them. Regain enough suburban moderates, hold enough working class
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: minority voters, avoid culturally alienating swing voters, and present stability
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: against ideological overreach. It's not complicated math. And you know this. This,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: this is the same exact ingredients that Bob Martinez used
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to become the first Republican governor in a generation of Florida.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It's what George W. Bush used to become the first
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: republic a sort of the first two term Republican governor
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: in Texas. I think ever, when he won reelection, it
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: is what Sonny Purdue did when he defeated Roy Barnes
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in Georgia. They understood it wasn't a movement, it was
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a coalition that was powered by a growing movement inside
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: their party. And I think that's going to be the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: challenge for Democrats. The hard part they're going to have
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: is convincing parts of the Democratic base to emotionally accept
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: what the coalition requires in order to win. That's the tension.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And I've been thinking about this reading some of the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: debates on the left at the moment. Especially there's this
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: new piece in the Atlantic by Jonathan Chade about the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: neo Brandician movements, named after a supposed quote that Brandi
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: said about monopolies. I say supposed because mister Chate couldn't
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: find the origin of it. But the argument that concentrated
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: corporate power and economic inequality basically is what has caused
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: all of our ills, our social ills, our cultural lills,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and our economic ills, and that dealing with it requires
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: a far more aggressive progressive response. Now, intellectually, a lot
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: of the critiques are persuasive. There's clearly monopoly power in
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: tech that we have to be wary of. But electorally
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the question has been a lot different because parts of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the progressive movement increasingly behave as though they've already won
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: this broader cultural argument. And if you think you've already
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: won the argument intellectually, compromise to build a bigger coalition
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: starts feeling unnecessary, even immoral. But the country still are
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: The country still behaves like a coalition country. We are
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: not a movement country, and that's the disconnect. We might
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: become one if you spend decades persuading, but we're not that. Historically,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: this is where parties often struggle the most. The hardest
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: part in politics usually isn't finding the path to victory.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Path to victory I can find it in almost any state.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: The path is often very obvious. The hardest part is
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: convincing your own party's most committed supporters to accept what
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the path actually requires, because every activist movement eventually reaches
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: a point where it says, we don't need those voters anymore.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: The corporatist Democrats. How often have you been hearing that
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: lately in some of these debates on the left. Okay,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you don't want them in your party. You don't have
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to have them in your party. If you don't want power,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do you want power?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Is the focus winning? And that's usually the moment when
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you start to just when you start to put a
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: a security gate in front of your party where you
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: decide where somebody has to have a secret code in
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: order to get in to be a member, rather than
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: you just opening the doors and being a party that
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: just believes. In addition, that's the moment parties begin losing
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: elections they should have won. Not to be clear, Republicans
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: are creating this opening all by themselves. They are losing
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: races that they should have won thanks to Donald Trump's
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: purging right, and the victories in Arizona and Georgia are
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: not because Democrats suddenly became brilliant strategists. It's because there
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: was an obvious path to take that the Republicans allowed
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: an opening, and you had smart candidates who pivoted. Whether
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: you're Raphael Warnock, John assaf Mark Kelly Ruben Diego, or
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you just didn't do you did no harm, like Katie Hopps,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the governor of Arizona. Now Republicans are many of these
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Sunbelt states are drifting into these ideological purification politics. The
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: question is whether Democrats are capable of accepting the kind
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: of broad, sometimes uncomfortable coalition politics required to capitalize on
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the opportunity that is staring them straight in the face Florida, Texas, Georgia.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I'd throw Alabama and even Mississippi in there. It's staring
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: them in the face. But the base of the party
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: has to accept that it is not a majority, even
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: inside its own coalition, and that is not what the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: activist base thinks. Just like and what happens when an
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: activist base thinks that all victories are their victories. You'd
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: get Ken Paxton as your Republican nominee for Senate. You
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: get Bert Jones as You're likely Republican nominee an election
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: denier for governors. So this is this is the this
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: is the warning and opportunity that the Democratic Party has.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: But right now, in some ways it's got the same
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: issues that the Sun Belt Republicans have, where it's loud,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: activist base is in charge, and it's chipping away at
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the very coalition that gave the Republicans power the first
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: time they got it in the Sun Belt in the
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: seventies and eighties and nineties. The opportunity for Democrats is
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to follow the same path. No, it is not ideologically pure.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Neither are the Sun Belt states. They're all messy coalitions.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: There is no and in fact, you know they're there.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And this is I think it's hardest to see in Texas,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: but none of these most of these states have fewer
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and fewer natives in it. It's just, you know, it's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: just like, you know, if the country is a nation
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: of immigrants, these states are a country of domestic immigrants.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you go through a college football weekend in
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: central Florida or the suburbs of Houston or the suburbs
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of Dallas, you'll see a lot of big ten flags.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: You'll see Ohio State and Michigan These are all people
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: that used to live in the swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and Iowa. And so I think that this is I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: think this is what's happening on the right, and we're
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: seeing they're all over their skis, and yes, I think
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: we all kind of see where this is headed unless
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party gets in its own way, which we
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: know is always quite possible. Ultimately, this is the irony
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: of a modern American politics. Both parties increasingly want movement politics,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: but the American electorate and increasingly these sunbell electorates reward
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: coalition politics. They're not ideologues, but the two parties are
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: trying to let the ideologues call the shots. Whichever party
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: remembers that first that the ideologues are wrong about this
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: will end up with the advantage going into twenty twenty eight.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I want to showcase one other thing. There's another piece
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: of data out there that actually reinforces this entire conversation
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: about coalition politics, activist pressure and why both parties are
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: struggling to understand the electorate they're trying to win back
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post, did I love open ended questions and polls,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So instead of asking the question of do you approve
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of Democrats approve of Republicans? They ask voters an open
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: ended question. Now, I will tell you at the end
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: there's more questions that I'd like than to ask open ended.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: But open ended means they let the voters say in
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: their own words why they disapprove. Right, So, what do
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: you actually dislike about each party? The answers are incredibly
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: revealing because they expose something we've been talking about a
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: long time on this podcast. The crisis isn't in American
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: politics isn't just ideological polarization. It's also coalition exhaustion. Americans
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: increasingly dislike both parties for completely different reasons, but the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: common thread is that voters think neither party fully understands
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: normal life in America, that they're sort of just out
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of the main the mainstream that we live, not the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: mainstream that the media says its mainstream, just our main
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: our lives, our normal, everyday lives. So the response is
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the Democratic response is fascinating because they split almost perfectly
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: into two competing critiques. One group thinks Democrats are too
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: culturally left, too focused on nietzschech issues. Two disconnected from
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: everyday concerns like cost, jobs, immigration, and basic social stability. Now,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: guess what most of those critics were not members did
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: not call themselves Democrats. They either called themselves Independence or Republicans.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: But the other huge group, it featured democrats themselves who
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: think the party is too weak, too passive, to cautious,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to unwilling to fight Trump aggressively enough. Right, and we know, right,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: this is the essential tension inside the party because those
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: two critiques. It all depends which critique are you hearing.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Louder right, It's very important to find out where the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: critiques are coming from. And that's what makes this this
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: research that the Post is doing very valuable and I'd
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: like to see more of it. I'd also like to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: know what do you like about the Democratic Party? What
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: do you like about the Republican Party. But that's that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: my friend Scott Clement, who who I think oversaw this
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: project over there at the Post. Hopefully he's a listener
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and hopefully he'll add this to it. But essentially you
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: see it, right, Independence are looking they'd like to vote
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: for an alternative to Trump, but they want a more
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: moderate Democratic party to vote for the other. Of course,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: the base of the Democratic Party sees trump perceived success,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: although I would argue he's unpopular. I don't know why
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: you think what he's done is successful, but I think
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: the base Democrats say, I want that, and he's strong
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and wrong, let's do it. It got himpower. And of
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: course that's exactly the psychological coalition problem I was just
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: talking about in the Sunbelt.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: The path is obvious, the math is easy. The hard
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: part is convincing the most activist members of the Democratic
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Party to follow the math equation. Emotionally, the party is
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: split between voters who want the escalation andoters who want confrontation. Frankly,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: that's the country itself, right, and it's not easy to
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: balance because Republicans have their own version of this contradiction.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: The biggest complaint about Republicans in this poll was Trump
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: or the party's loyalty to Trump.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: In fact, the Republican criticisms were just as fragmented. The
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: voters think Republican parties are too extreme, too conspiratorial, to performative,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: too angry, and to authoritarian. That's what many independents and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Democrats thought of Republicans. But then what did Republicans think
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: of Republicans? Well, that slice of Republican voters think the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: party isn't loyal enough to Trump, which gets back to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: this idea of coalition purification, because once a party becomes
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: centered around loyalty tests, every disagreement starts looking like betrayal,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: compromise looks like you're throwing in the town, and that
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: creates instability inside the coalition itself. One of the things
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I found most interesting about what the post piece surfaced
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: is how many criticisms of both parties weren't ideological at all.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Both parties had people who used words like corrupt, wishy washy, week,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: out of touch, and self interested. That was used in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: both sides. So the frustration isn't just about policy. It's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: about trust, competence, authenticity, strength. They're upset about the entire
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: political system. And I think that this is why the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: next successful sixty percent leader of this country, and what
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I mean by sixty percent not somebody who's going to
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: win sixty percent. Somebody is going to have the approval
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of sixty percent of their governing ability. The next sixty
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: percent president is going to be somebody who understands that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: we are entering an era where voters care less about
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: ideological purity, and more about whether this coalition feels emotionally stable,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: capable of governing, and responsive to what we believe is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the actual mainstream in America. And right now, neither party
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: fully prejects that party that wins on a given election
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: cycle wins because they're able to show that the other
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: party is even more out of touch than there and
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: that's right now the definition of winning. So because Democrats
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: are still struggling with the perception that they are culture
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: out of sync with parts of the country. Republicans still
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: struggle with the perception that they are governed by grievance,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: performance politics, and loyalty enforcement. And what makes this environment
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: so politically volatile is that there's a huge number of
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Americans who just feel politically homeless, which I'm assuming is
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a large chunk of this audience. It's not means, it
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're centrist. It just means you want a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: little bit. It's incrementalism, it's restraint, it's directional, it's not dogmatic.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: And that's the exhausted majority, exhausted by permanent escalation, exhausted
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: by performative outrage, exhausted by parties that increasingly speak to
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: their activists because frankly, they feel so weak. The activists
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: make them feel strong, but that's all they do, and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: they don't seem to understand how people live everyday life.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And that's the biggest opportunity. It's sitting there for somebody
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: to grab. There's this vast unrepresented majority in America that
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: neither that. The only time either party cares about them
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: is when the Republicans are running in a very blue state,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: like right now Steve Hilton is trying to speak to
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: those voters, or Democrats running in a very red state,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you know, like an Dan Osborne trying to talk to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: those voters. That's what I think voters are looking for.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: It's what I to this day believe they thought they
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: were getting in Joe Biden. They wanted a movement towards competence, stability,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and coalition maintenance. That's what they thought Biden was going
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to get him. And Biden's sudden governing to the left
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: rather than to the deal he but with voters is
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: why he became so unpopular so fast. Right, how you campaign,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: if it's different than how you govern, you will get
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: punished faster. And that's what happened to him. One thing
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: this Washington Post project showed, voters are not asking for
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: ideological perfection. They're looking for competence and stability. And look,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: they may incrementally think the left has more ideas worth experimenting,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: or the right has more ideas, but even when they
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: make the choice, they don't want a huge leap. They
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: want a baby step. Those that understand and keep power.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Those that don't either never get it or lose it.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: All right, with that, let's bring on my friends who
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: are writing about a dystopian future for the world, Jim
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Stavridi's and Elliott At. This episode of The Chuck Podcast
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  Speaker 1: and use the word toodcast that's getsol dot com promo
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: code podcast for thirty percent off. And yes, I too,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: am a customer. Sometimes when you're trying to figure out
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: the best way to talk about political reform. Writing fiction
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: can be the way to get people to sort of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: broaden how they think and realize that actually, this interesting
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: fictional piece of work is actually trying when it comes
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to do it using fiction to teach. My friend Jim
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: mister Rits, retired Admiral former NATO Supreme Ally Commander, has
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: been at the forefront of this and with his writing
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: partner in this one, Elliott Ackerman, they have a sequel now.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: They wrote sort of a futuristic, realistic, futuristic, semi dystopian
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: view of where the world could be in twenty thirty four.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: This is their sequel, twenty eighty four. Almost Viti's good
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: to see you, sir.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Good to see you, sir. And I think, as you
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: said in the run up there, this is not predictive fiction.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: Let's hope not. This is cautionary fiction.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: The idea is to engage the reader to understand how
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: difficult the future could be while we still have time
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: to reverse engineer it and avoid it.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Ellie, your motivation for getting involved with this and tell
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: me how you got in with the admiral.
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: Well, I think you know, Jim, touchdown, I think you know,
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: we believe that if you look at the great challenges
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: facing humanity in the twenty first century, which this series
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: of books addresses, whether it's you know, twenty thirty four,
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: which is pure level war. You know, twenty fifty four
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: was about artificial intelligence and domestic politics in the United States,
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: and that twenty eighty four deals with a climate crisis
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: and really the future of war. It's this idea that
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: if we can imagine these worst case outcomes, that's actually
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: the first step in avoiding them. And if you look
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: at the great national security failures that our country has
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: faced over the last I don't know, you know, fifty
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: to one hundred years, you know, so everything from Pearl
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: Harbor to nine to eleven to the pandemic, they've all
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: been failures of imagination. So if you want to prevent those,
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: you know, start imagining those outcomes so that you can
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: avoid them. And the second part of your question, the
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: way we hooked up is long story short. We're both
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: graduates of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: the Admiral was the dean. He and I knew each
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: other as alumni and and just sort of by way
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: of coincidence. We had a shared book editor at Penguin
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: Press who played who played matchmaker between the two of us.
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: So and I would say also our writing duo is
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: really in some ways of writing trio because we've had
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: the same editor for all of these books, Scott Moyers,
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: who's been a great steward of this series.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: That I think is the hardest part and co authoring
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I've done it is agreeing on a style. Nobody writes
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the same, you can certainly you know. And how difficult
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: was that at first? Or was it pretty easy the
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: whole time?
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: Or is that the work of the editor we divided
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: and conquered, if you will.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: I kind of developed this strategic remit this idea putting
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: these three novels together.
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: And then is was this one?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: By the way? Let me pot? Was this like? Were
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you like George Lucas here you outlined the entire arc. Yes,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and you just knew, okay, we're going to do this
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: one is book one, this one is book two, and
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: this is the three Okay?
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Absolutely?
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: And so fortunately my editor said, eh, Stevrid is here
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: a great guy.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: You've never written a novel. Why do you think you
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: know how to write? Fiction.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: And oh, by the way, I had this brilliant young novelist,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Elliott Ackerman. He had no idea I knew Elliott, and
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: I said, oh, Elliott ackerban Man, I'd love to learn
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: how to write fiction from him. So that's kind of
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: how it got going to answer the question style wise,
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: if I'm the strategic creator of the art and detailed outline,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: guy Elliott is the one who has his fingers on
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: the keyboard kind of writing that beautiful prose.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: But then it's very shared.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Then it just goes back and forth and back and
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: forth until we're both happy with the final product.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So I followed quite a few what I would call
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: economic optimists who call themselves futurists, and one of their
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: big complaints about fiction and about writing about the future
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and these sort of is that we all are more
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: dystopian than what the reality is. Do you accept that premise?
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: I do.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: And if you think of Malthusian predictions about the population
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: is going to hit a point where the planet can't
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: support it, none of that is coming true. It's kind
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: of the opposite. Actually, assume nations are going to be
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: competing for immigrants, I think, and at the end of
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the day. Yeah, you can't be too dystopian, nor should
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: you be so pollyannish. And so the idea is to
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: frame these challenges in a way that strikes a reader,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: is realistic and sort of puts pressure on solving the
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: problem why you can still do it.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about future of war because
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like wars, the war has changed and we
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: haven't realized it yet. When I say we, I am
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: talking about the United States, I think we know it.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: I think are certainly folks that the Pentagon are aware
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: of it. But I think it's dramatic. I mean, we're
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: already seeing it. I mean, what great power is it
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to asymmetric warfare at the moment?
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: Well, I think if you look at that, I mean
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: the history of war, right is a history of you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: technology is changing, one side having the upper hand, you know,
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: whether that's you all the way back to you know,
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: Alexander the Great and the Sarissa, which is basically just
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: a very long spear that he used to conquer all
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: of the known world to you know, the United States
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: and naval warfare, and the fact that we were the
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: first to sort of understand the primacy of the aircraft carrier.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: So there's constantly these you know, cycles of technology and
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: war changing, and the victor is really who can adapt
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: the most quickly. And I think what we're doing in
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: these books is we're trying to pose those questions, you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: how is war changing? You know, how can you be
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: like Gretzki and you're not going to.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Where the puck is or go to where the puck
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: is going.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: And that's one of the inspirations behind this series of
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: books is to try to get people to imagine what
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: the future is going.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Well, let me add one thought to that, Chuck. Your point,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: we're watching war change in front of us, and we're having.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: All these particularly Russian I think it really we're going
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to look back at.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: Ukraine is very pivotal in the art that Elliott just described.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: But I want to make a point using that war
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: in Ukraine. Sure, it's drones, it's artificial intelligence, it's high
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: tech materials, it's all that very advanced starship troopers kind
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: of thing. The war in Ukraine is also World War One.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: It's all quiet on the Western Front. It's blood, guts, trenches,
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: artillery tanks. Yeah, it's changing, but there's a certain terrible
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: brutality to war that I don't think is changing. We
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: need to be careful, we don't kind of gameplay our
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: world that thinking these are all videos. Somehow war is
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: still terrible and that's what we try to imagine in
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: these books.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that you're doing that, and I guess
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: and Elliott address you go ahead and addressed this question.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, because in some ways the books are dealing
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: with this is what happens when it feels as if
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you don't have to sacrifice a human being to conduct
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: a war.
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think like fundamentally war is a
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: human activity, right, because it is you know, it is
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: a It is a political act, right, I mean Klauswitz said, right,
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: politics wars politics by other means.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: So well, war, I heard somebody say something the other
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: day that, I, you know, war means you're terrible at diplomacy.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: That's another way to put it. And I would regmb
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: that too.
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: So you know, you get you a nation gets to
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: the point where it is trying to inflicted its will
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: on another nation. So it is always ultimately human beings
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: trying to inflict their will upon one another. Now there's
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: you know, layers of technology, you know, so we go
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: back to the days of Alexander that was literally at
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: the point of one human being, you know, doing it
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: with a spear face to face. I mean, now we
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: obviously have over the horizon weapons but do this, but
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: it's always the human influence in that chain, no matter
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: how exquisite or remote the technologies get. But we're also
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: you know, there's very interesting world questions going on right
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: now and some of these new defense technologies, I mean,
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: questions about where human should exist in the kill chain.
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: You know, should we have autonomous weapons that don't require
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: being human beings to give the final authority to you know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: to take life.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: And these are all really live questions right now.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: What do you presume in your arc, Jim, I want
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: to jump on that kill chain question.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm curious about. This is this, to
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: me is something I fear. This should be like the
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Geneva Conventions. We should all agree on this around the globe,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: and yet I don't think we will.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: I don't think we will.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: But I'm going to give you a counterintuitive, more controversial
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: view here. But I'll pose it to you in a
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: very personal way. Suppose your interac and you go to
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: collect water for your family because the pump pump isn't working.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: So you get five or six huge containers, You go
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: to a pump, you fill it up with water.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: Now you come back to your house.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: A predator is overhead, and a human in the kill
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: chain makes a decision that you're a terrorist based on
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: a variety of intel tips they've gotten. That human is tired,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: that human is young and inexperienced twenty three year old
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Air Force drone pilot, and that huge human in the
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: kill chain says he's a terrorist. I'm going to kill him,
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: And everything I just described you actually happened.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: This has happened. I was just going to say, you're
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: describing something that I've read about.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Recently, you have in Afghanistan.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: And so at the end of the day, if that
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: predator is up there with the missile trying to decide
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: if Jim Stavritez is a terrorist or a good human being,
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure I want an exhausted twenty three year
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: old making that call. I might want that AI, and
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's coming sooner than you might imagine. So,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: as Elliott says, at this point, these really are interesting questions,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm quite skeptical of people say, oh.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: I always want that human in the loop. I'm not
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: so sure.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Interesting, Kelly, you agree with that, I know you have any.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Of these systems, I think absolutely.
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think a lot of these systems are
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: going to wind up evolving into sort of dual use systems,
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: so they will enhance human judgment. I mean, one of
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: the one of the truisms that I'm jumping talk about,
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: I can talk about it my own military experience is
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: the experience of being in combat is being completely overwhelmed
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: by information and decisions and you're exhausted and everything coming
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: at you. So any tools you can provide a decision
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: maker on the battlefield to be able to make clearer,
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: safer decisions those you know, those tools are not positive.
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: But the implementation of these tools, you know, pose definitely certain,
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: you know, moral moral questions, and different societies will come
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: to different answers as to how they want to employ
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: these tools in the future. But I definitely think these
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: technologies can also be a great force of good.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is something we explore in twenty eighty four,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: not only at the tactical level, Chuck, but this also
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: has to occur at this strategic level. When you're making
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: that decision about whether to go to war or not,
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: AI can look at every conflict it's ever unfolded in
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: the history of mankind in a nano second and make
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: a probably better informed decision than Donald Trump is making
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: right now about going to war an Iran.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Who should Here's so, I'm going to confess to a
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: dystopian show that I found myself more consumed with than
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I ever imagined I would be. And it was called Fallout.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: And I have no idea whether either one of you
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: have seen it. Elliott, you might be familiar with it, yeah, yeah,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: And the premise of Fallout is in some ways basically
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the corporations are more powerful than the nation states, right,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: and the people behind And so you sit there and
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, that's not like, you know, it's science fiction,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: but it's not totally crazy, right. We already now have
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: companies that are more valuable than Bigger in some ways
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: GDP wise, than many a country. You know, how could
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: should we be and how do you deal with this
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: in your dystopian future of corporate You know, the because
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: this technology is not being developed by the government, it's
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: being developed by the private sector, who's in charge of it,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: who owns it? And therefore, you know, do you have
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: nation states that are essentially have to bow at the
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: altar of a corporation?
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: In twenty eighty four in the book, we kind of
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: explore that with a very large international finance firm that
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: has a great deal of influence and power. And I
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: think that's quite realistic, and that real static power is
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: dialing somewhat away from nation states and somewhat toward private
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: entities call them corporations, call them finance firms, call them
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: big conglomerates. But I think nations are going to continue
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: to hold firmly to two things, one of which is
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: the ability to apply extreme violence at large scale. And
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: I think nation states are going to ensure that these
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: corporations don't get that level of power. And that's a
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: longer conversation how that could occur. But then secondly, I
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: think nation states are going to maintain control of currencies
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: of actual dollars and y one in every Euro's Nation
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: states are not going to surrender those and that's why
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: cryptocurrency I think has a kind of a shelf life
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: that's going to diminish. I think nation states are going
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: to remain prevalent in those two areas.
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: I think just to Gem's point, I mean, sometimes we
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: lose sight of that. It's sort of because it's the
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: water that we swim in, but that you know, one
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: of the defining qualities of a nation state is that
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: it holds a monopoly on violence.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, until it doesn't right well that I mean.
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: That you as as a nation state, that's what de
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: fines you. You know, if I go out and you know,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: kill another citizen, I get in a lot of trouble
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: for it. If we as DESI we're going to war
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: and we're going to kill, we are allowed to do that.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: We have a monopoly on violence. That's sort of one
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: of the when the nation, when the modern nation state
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: was created, one of the powers that was given to
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: it was this monopoly on violence. That we're allowed to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: use violence as a nation state, and that's seen as legitimate.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: And so I think just this that's the Gem's point.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: You know, do will you see the influences we've seen
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: of corporations over nations, Yes, absolutely, And as technology becomes
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: more powerful, you know, the technology that is private will
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: have so over a nation state. But the nation state
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: remains the entity that holds a monopoly on violence.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: Let me cross those two streams, which is say, as
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: an example in history, British East India Company, Dutch East
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: India Company, these were mercantile entities that did raise in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: effect private military forces both at sea and ashore. All Ultimately,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: in both cases the nation state suppressed that and found
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: can't be two purveyors of violence in this same ecosystem.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: I think that's going to hold true for a while.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about you know, when you first came out
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: with twenty thirty four, it felt far away. We are
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: now eight years away. In theory, the next president will
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: be president when your fictional twenty thirty four becomes not fictional.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Now that we're closer, what do you think you're getting right?
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: And you what are you like thinks that the outcome
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: is still to be determined?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, I think for you know, each
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: of the books is obviously a little bit different. And
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: again there works a speculations. So I don't think ours
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: no no has ever been to you know, necessarily call
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: it right. But to say, listen, if you know, let's
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: not get these things. Let's not get these questions wrong
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: because we don't want the futures that we predict in
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: particularly in twenty three thirty four and in the other books.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: But I think one of the things that's been a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: lot of fun in writing these.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: Books is, you know, seeing the ideas that we're tinkering
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: with and experiment and experimenting when it start to sort
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: of manifest themselves. So I think in twenty eighty four,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: I'll say, you know, we've been working on this one
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: for a while, so I like to say to Jim,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: you know, we were talking about Greenland before it was cool.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: So it's sort of you know, fun as we were.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: In the later stages of this book and to see
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: you know, Greenland and the future of sort of these
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: these northern provinces, you know, is very much up for grabs.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: And in twenty eighty four, I mean, I don't think
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: this is a real spoiler, but you know, we talk
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: about the lush, verdant wine land that exists up in
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: Greenland and that they're making some of the best chardonnays
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: around in twenty eighty four because of climate change.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let me let me pick up on twenty thirty four.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: I think we have correct the ongoing tension between the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: US and China. The fundamentals are bad between these two countries.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: I think we get right a miscalculation that becomes a
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: spark to ignite the war that we hope we can
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: still avoid. One thing I think we got wrong in
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: twenty thirty four, which is not that far away. But
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: we did not bring artificial intelligence into it. It doesn't
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: play a role. I think that we missed by twenty
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: thirty four. I think AI is going to be deeply
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: embedded in all aspects of war.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the real world here. In this
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: most recent China trip that he had. You tell me,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: I can't remember last time a president was so hat
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: in hand on a trip to China.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: I couldn't agree with you more. I think President She
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: had a great summit.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, Yes, it ever was?
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I mean, let's be honest.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the title of the old Tom wolfbook, A Man
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: in full that's President She. He was definitely looked like,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: acted like mature the senior partner. That's how it felt
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I was.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I was sorry to see that.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: I think President Trump conversely, had a pretty bad summit
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: in the regard of how it played globally. Also, very
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: few deliverables. I think President Trump wanted to sell five
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: hundred and six hundred seven hundred Boeing jets, huge trade
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: deals on soybeans, beef.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen that.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe it'll still emerge, but I don't see it as
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: a very good summit for President Trump. And I'll tell
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: you who it was a terrible summit for terrible for Taiwan.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: Really brought the Taiwan question, not in a good way,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: onto the jet And so I came away from the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: summit thinking, no, not our finest hour, Elliett.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: How much what it? So? I participated in something recently
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: and I shared it with my audience. The Atolls Society
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: did a sort of a war game for politics, a
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: war game for a democracy, and there were three teams Nationalists, Capitalists, institutionalists,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and and I was curious because I was thinking, if
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: I were in your shoes, I'd probably want to participate
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: in quite a few sort of of of war games
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: to use it or simulations like this? Did you do that?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Is that helpful? And what simulations were in your head
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: as you were as you were writing this with Jim?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: I think you know the process of writing this together
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: as often, but you know, we both read very deeply.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: You know, we share a lot of books, we share
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: a lot of articles, and I think in that, you know,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: in that at we start plotting out, you know, the
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: direction these books are going to take, and then once
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: you start telling the story, the story itself starts posing
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: immediate questions to you. Like, for example, when we set
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: out to write twenty thirty four, I think the initial
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: premise was, you know, what would it look like if
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: the US and China went to war?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: And sort of almost like a guns of all.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: We started from that, here's the thesis if they go
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to war? What does that look like?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: And what's the new work.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: Backwards it's going to be? You know, we're like, okay,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: maybe it feels like like a Gulf of Tonkin type incidents,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: So what would that look like? And so you're asking
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: yourself these questions. There are immediate other questions that come down,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: so it probably wouldn't surprise you that very quickly, like okay,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: the US you know, suffers a surprising loss, and then
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: we're like, well what about nuclear weapons? Like of course,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: and like that question gets posed to us in twenty
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: thirty four and it comes up in that novel. But
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: it wasn't a question that we set out with, right,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: It's a question that just becomes obvious as you start
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: going down this sequential path of what will happen? I
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: mean and other questions because you know, you brought up
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: the politics. You know, a question was, you know, in
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: twenty thirty four, who's president?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: And in twenty thirty four we have an independent as president,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: the first endeprind in since George Washington in twenty fifty four.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: We imagine domestic politics in the US that the parties
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: have basically dissolved, and so you have a sort of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: extremist party called the Truthers against a more kind of
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: raventious independent party that we call the Dreamers. And by
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 5: the time you get to twenty eighty four, some of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: the political contours of the US have melted away. So
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: you know, Florida has broken off and become an independent republic,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: and some of the Pacific states are also broken away
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: from the United States. Now are we predicting that's what's
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: going to happen necessarily, But we're engaging in these types
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: of thought experiment. That's because what's so exciting about it is.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: When you do that, it leads you inevitably to these
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: follow on questions about what direction you know, not only
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: we're going with our domestic politics, but also where we're
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: going with geopolitics and military questions that think get put
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: on the table.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Really good at sort of identifying these forks in the road.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: So walk me through the next five years of the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: forks in the road we're going to have that you
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: think are going to make decisions about whether your novels
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: look more accurate or less accurate.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: The biggest fork in the road is actually not in
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: that great geopolitical, turbulent world. The biggest fork in the
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: road over the next five years is right here in
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: the United States of America.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: And there are two distinct forks in the road.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: One is will democracy continue to be our central organizing
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: political feature, democracy being defined as the legitimate will of
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: the majority of the people making decisions. I think that's
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: a question. The second internal fork in the road, and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: even more important, is can we pull together? Can we
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: overcome the big divisions in the nation. I think both
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: of those are questions that Elliot and I interrogated in
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: the middle book in this trilogy twenty fifty four, and
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: I think we're going to learn a.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: Lot about them over the next five years.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: It's going to be a very exciting time for brilliant
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: political analysts like Chuck Dodd to help us understand the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: answers to those two forks.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes Elliott, though, I worry that we can
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: be constrained by history, and it goes back to that
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: failure of imagination. So how do you both ground the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: work in history so that there's a logic for readers
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: like me versus, which is how we began our conversation
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: this failure of imagination issue that I have a friend
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: of mine who says this constantly about the Trump era
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: failure of imagination. He goes, that's the number one thing
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: he talks about all the time when it comes to
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: how why opponents keep keep whiffing on Trump.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I think it's sort of it it's it's.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: It's sort of that, you know, that classic idea that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 5: you have to hold to contradictory I had thoughts in
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: your mind at the same time and not go crazy.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: We can't be trapped by history, but we have to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: look to history to understand how human beings behave in
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: a whole host of situations. And I've written a lot
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: about war over my career, and I think one of
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: the things that's interesting about writing on war is that
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: it's this singular human activity that we have always engaged in,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: and you can you can see how patterns repeat. But
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: at the same time, you know, the only thing you
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: can truly hang your head on is that everything will change,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: and this idea that you know every you know that
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 5: that everything must change so that everything can stay the same.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: So I think we're we're.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: Always looking at, you know, human motivation, understanding the way
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: human beings consistently.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: Behave in war and paulics.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: While overlaying on that all of the things we know
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: are going to be different, fundamentally different away humanity has
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: never experienced before, everything from artificial intelligence to breakthroughs that
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 5: are going on right now in the enhancement of you know, biology,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: you know, the enhancements that we're seeing and the changes
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: in climate in warfare. So trying to take that sort
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: of deeply rooted understanding of history and human behavior and
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: merging it with new, unprecedented technologies and rankly turning that
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: into you know, a story that people want to read
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 5: that's character driven.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: At the center of all of these books.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: Are the characters, and many of those characters have through
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: lines that go from twenty thirty four all the way
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: to twenty eighty four, both them individually and their children
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: who appear in multiple books.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: What were your to both of you?
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: What were some.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Did you have any books that you read in the
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: past that attempted to do that served as pretty good
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: examples of what you were trying to do, or books
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: that you read to sort of help give you a
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: sense of, you know, how other authors have done this. Yes,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: what was your inspiration?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Very consciously, as we sort of mapped out the whole
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: project was Cold War fiction? And what I mean by
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: that is there were many brilliant books films in the
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: Cold War era that did help us imagine what the
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: terror and the horror of a global war.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: Would be like.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: Think Doctor Strangelove, on the Beach by Neville Shoot, the
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: Bedford Incident, Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy, Sir John Hackett,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: the Third World War. Those were very much in our
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: minds as cautionary fiction, and they succeeded. I think it
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: helped frightened the world that contributed to avoiding a nuclear confrontation.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: I always say the Cold War is the most important
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: war we ever didn't fight, and it is also a
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: singular victory for the West for our ideals, very very important,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: and I think part of that can be traced to
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: this idea of cautionary fiction.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: So there are a few books on my mind.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: And final thought Elliott's wonderful point about character. You know,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: you can write all the policy books in the world
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: about how awful it would be if there were a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: nuclear holocaust event. Read on the Beach by Nevill Shoot
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: about Australia as the last country left as a nuclear
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: cloud descends to the south, knowing they are all going
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: to die, how do they spend those final days. It's
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: an extraordinary cautionary tale, deeply moving novel that has.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: Always been very much in my mind writing these books.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: And how would you answer that, I mean, I agree,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: I mean all the books that Jim mentioned have certainly
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: been on our minds. I would also add, you know,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 5: sort of in terms of the scope of the trilogy.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 5: You know, books like you know orson Scott, Cards Enders,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: Game Speaker for the Debt, you know, the works of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: Isaaca as an off foundation, and these are not I mean,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: they're not really science fiction, although by twenty eighty four
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: sort of probing science fiction. But structurally, you know, how
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: do you tell a story over generations so that you think.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: There's a TV show on Netflix based on a book
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: The Three Body Problem, which is also one of these.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: Sort of that is a terrific trilogy, by the way.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: And I have so a friend of mine is a
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: huge advocate of it, and I keep he's been pushing
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: me to do that. But when you were talking to
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: both of you, I kept thinking, you know, one of
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: the movies that may have actually helped. We don't know
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: how much it helped, but I just think about the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: movie War Games, Yeah, and how it did catch it
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: got it went so mainstream. I have no idea whether
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I had an impact or not, but you kind of
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: hope it. It couldn't have hurt.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's one worth dusting off.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: Given well, I think it needs to be rebooted. I
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: cannot believe this is just I mean, in some ways
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: it was so ahead of its time. What happens if
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: a computer takes over our our military arsenal? Right, like Mike,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: my god, that turned to be way too precious. Elliott,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: you were about to say something.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: I was just going to say, I'm a huge fan
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: of that that movie too, Chuck, And we have a
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: tic tac toe reference in the books that is an
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 5: homage to Total Fantastic.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Look, I got a few minutes left, Jim, you did
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: Southern Command. I was speaking with somebody who's very aware
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: of sort of how the Cuban military works, and I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: was reminded that the tourist industry is controlled by the
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Cuban military, which is how they get their financing. This
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be Venezuela, is it.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: I don't think so.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: I think Team Trump thinks it is going to be
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: ven the Yeah, but boy, I'd be cautious there. The
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: people of Cuba have no living memory of democracy. The
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: people of Cuba have a deeply embedded, hardcore military that's
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: been trained by Russia for decades. China has been a
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: participant in it. It's going to be a very different
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: and tougher nut to crack than Venezuela. And I hope
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: we are wise enough not to leap in with military power.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: Having said all that, we say in the world of investing,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: the foremost expensive words are this time is different, and
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't rule out that this time is different for Cuba.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: And the wild card in it is the Cuban American
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: community in South Florida, which.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: You and I both know pretty well.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: They could be potentially very engaged here and I think
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: Marco Rubio is the avatar for that.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: So tough one to call. But no, it's not going
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: to be as well.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's my look. We know what the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: outcome is likely going to end up being, but this
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: isn't going to be Venezuela. And that's sort of what
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: I don't I think people have an expectation that this
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: is going to be They're going to snatch Raoul. You know,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: It'll be like taking one of those ninety year old Nazis,
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and you know we get to frog march
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: them and everything folds. That doesn't feel like it's going
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: to be technical. Yeah, and what about the island itself.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: I think the other thing I keep hearing is that,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: like you know, sometimes you buy a house that needs
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: to be rebuilt, but it has a good foundation. I
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: don't know if there's a foundation. I think it's a
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: I think this is almost like an abandoned island. You
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: got to start from scratch when it comes to infrastructure
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: and things like that.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 4: I couldn't agree with you more.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: I think what is.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: Underestimated is the scope of the problem here. This is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: not a fixer up or this is a demolition project,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: and you know it is not going to be easy.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: I think Venezuela, you can make the argument they have
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: so many resources with the oil, the gas, the gold,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: the rearers. Venezuela could be Dubai on the Caribbean. Cuba
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: not so much. And it's going to be expensive, hugely expensive.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: And if we walk in there and suddenly we get
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: rid of the regime and we have to then construct
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: a new Cuba could be wildly expensive.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure we thought through to the far into
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: the economics of it.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: And Elliott, since this is your you get into a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: lot of writing. Is this what do you want to
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: do next? After this? Oh?
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 5: I you know. I mean both Jim and I have
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 5: our own projects that we do independently. So I have
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: I have a book that came out last summer called
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 5: Sheep Dogs, which is a thriller. It's kind of a
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: heist novel, and so I'm working on the sequel of
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: that as well, and so and that's set up as
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 5: a be a TV series over at Apple.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: So I'm working hard on that.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: And that's pretty good. He get the hit the series
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: ready to go before finishing the for the second novel. Huh. Yeah,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: that's a great feel in that.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: And and I know Jim's got his projects coming out
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: that I'm sure we'll talk about, but I will I
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: will say, you know, we've been working together on this
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 5: since I think twenty eighteen, and it's and it's been
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: a lot of fun. So handing in and publishing the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: last book, at least for me, has been has been
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 5: bitter sweet.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: It's been a great ride.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: And I assume if somebody needs to read the first
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: two before they pick up twenty eighty four, right.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, absolutely not. They all are very independent.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 4: Of each other.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: But you're rewarded a bit if you've read the other
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: tu sure, okay, okay.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 4: True for many trilogies.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: I am just finishing up a two volume work of
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: historical fiction, Chuck. First one came out last fall, The
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: Restless Wave.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: It's a novel.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: You're back and you're going backwards, right, it's sort of
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: it with that, true.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: I am exactly, And there are many lessons from World
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: War Two that feel very very influential impression right now.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: And then the sequel to that novel, second volume think
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: Wins of War War. And remember the second one is
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: called The Turning Tide and it comes out in November,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: and those two I think have some potential for.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: Future cinematics. We'll see.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: There it is. Look at you, you're mister IP. You
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: got a lot of IP sitting out there, my friend,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: so do you, well, not as much as you, but
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: it is a you know how this world works these days, Elliott,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: you still want to play in the independent arena in politics.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: I don't think right now, though I'm an avid watcher,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: you know, and appreciate all the work that that you're
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 5: doing so as much.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: It's other people working, taking the work your dad did
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: and what you were part of and all that stuff, and.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: Predicting global wars and predicting DIMESTI.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: No, it is, but it's a bunch of patriots. So
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: you got to love that. Yes, at the end of
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: the day. Anyway, congratulations, I always learned something from you. Admiral.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you. It's good to see Kelly. It's good to
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: see you. It's been too long. Am check all right?
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: My friends.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: Ask Chuck.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna go a little lengthy here on questions.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I get a little extra time form today We're start
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: with John and he writes, Hey, I'm a regular listener
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: and really value the podcast. Thank you. I also appreciate
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: your concern about Democrats sinking to Republican tactics, but history
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: suggests taking the high road hasn't always worked. I saw
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: this firsthand as a congressional staffer during the Kingrich era
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: and in two thousand. How how do you think about
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: that trade off? Well, I mean, you know, there's there's
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: always a trade off to acquire power, and the question
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: is what are you willing to compromise?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: When? What morals or ethics are you willing to compromise in?
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Which ones? Aren't you? And you know there's a I
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: remember Carvel and Madeline when they came out with their
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: first book. It was called All's Fair and Love in
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Politics and Right. The implication is that there's nothing that's unfair,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: which means anything goes right, and that love and politics
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: are two things that where anything goes and outcome is
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: rewarded more than process. And there's always a line to this.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: The question is is so, let's the The issue that
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I have expressed the most concerned with is jerrymandering. And
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: the reason I have such a problem with it is
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: because it was the Democrats that wanted to be the
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: party of fairness and giving up. You know, if it's
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: still the right thing to do, why would you give
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: up fighting for And that's you know to me, that's
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: you know, look, every there has to be a test everywhere.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Take crypto, right. Chuck Schumer presented Senate Democrats with a
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: with a basically a coercive challenge earlier this year when
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, it's going to have to get
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: on board crypto. They're too financially powerful and our path
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: the majority is blocked by the crypto money. And if
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: you and so you have to decide how important is
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: that issue to you? Right? So, the problem with answering
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: your question is that you know something that I'm very
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: mindful of what I'm I might think something is a
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: principled stand that you will that is unrecoverable if you
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: compromise on it. And you may say subjective. You know,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: you know, once you get power you can do good.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: And the thing is we both could be right and
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: you just you know. I think that's the tough decision
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: in politics is knowing what stance do you believe and take?
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Is compromisable in which aren't? And ultimately right, that's it's
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: up to every politician. What's a line you won't cross?
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: As voters, I care about that. I want to know
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you know what line won't you cross? And you know
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump has tested his party in ways that their
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: party never thought they'd be tested on, asking them which
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: lines won't you cross?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: And you don't know. Sometimes you don't know what line
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: you won't cross until it's presented to you.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: And so.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: So I understand, you know there's trade offs. I think
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: ultimately you have to decide, you know, I try to
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: put myself you put putt put this in the other shoes.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: You know, do you ultimately want to be this party?
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: What is your north star? And if it violates your
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: north star, don't do it. If you think it is
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: a forgivable sin, then do it, right, I mean, it
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: is successful. You know, politics is not a pure process, right,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: Politics is something we invented in order to settle disputes
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: without violence. So the whole concept of politics is a
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: compromise of something. So I don't want to be so
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: dogmatic as to suggest you don't ever borrow a tactic
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: in order to win power, but I would just say
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: careful borrowing a tactic that becomes that undermines a core
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: quality or descriptor of what your movement was about. And
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: on gerrymandering, you know, I think I think that is
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: that if it really is the source of a huge
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: part of our ills, and I think we all believe this,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: then making it worse in order to hope. I mean, look, yes,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: there are studies that say, you know, sometimes people need
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: to see the extreme version of something to finally understand
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: why they don't want it. Now, maybe you can make
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: that argument to me that the you know, mutual assured
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: destruction on redistricting will eventually make everybody want to go
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: to fair districts. Boy, that feels like worse hopium than
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: the hopium I'm smoking. That says, wherever you can, you
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: fight for fair districts because that's the right thing to do.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: Dean from Long Island from l I and yep, Long Island.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: He says, Hey, if Democrats take the House and the
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: pushbury districting may ease, but if Republicans hold control, it
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: could intensify. Actually, I think it's going to intensify in
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: either direction because the margin is I think only I
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: think no matter what, the margin is either going to
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: be too thin for too close for comfort for Democrats,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: or they're going to succeed and overperform and then they're
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: going to under protect those new people. But anyway, beyond that,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: let me finish your question. Beyond that, the bigger issue
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: is the twenty thirty census and the shifting population trends.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: How do you see election results shaping jerrymandering and what
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: comes next? Thanks, Look, the big shift has to Actually
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: this is a well timed question because what the twenty
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: thirty census is going to cement is the shift of
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: political power from the north to the south, the expansion
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: of political power frankly from the east to the south
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: and west to an extent, it's really sort of the
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: inner West, right. California's kind of is going to lose
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: lose some congressional seats, but you're going to see Utah,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: I think in Colorado, Montana, sort of the inner West.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: I guess, if you will, the part of the West
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: that doesn't touch saltwater doing better, and certainly you're going
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: to see that expansion.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: In the South.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: To me, it should put a priority on where there's
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: more money spent on state legislative races in these population
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: growth states, more money spent on those governors races, more
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: attempts to do fair redistricting where it exists. Right, you
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: have that in Arizona, you have a form of it
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: attempted in Colorado. We'll see what happens in Utah. They
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: have different court cases. And then of course there's Texas
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: and Florida, and I think it is it is that
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: just the if both parties aren't worried about organizing every county,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: let alone every state in the Sunbelt, they're going to
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: be behind in the fight for power, because national political
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: power is going to go through the Sunbelt, and the
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: twenty thirty census, it's, you know, forget the big blue
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: wall in the Midwest. It is going to be North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: and probably you know, and then every once in a
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: while Florida and Texas may sneak into there, and every
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: once in a while New Mexico and say Mississippi could
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: sneak in there, but I think that's coming. But bottom line,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's what you know. There's that more political
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: organizing focus and investment, whether you're on the left or
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: the right, is it's going to be demanded to be
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: there in the South because the South and the Sun
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: Belt in particular is going to be the path to power.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from grand Fa, Minnesota by way of Iowa.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: Go hawks well right on. That means he might be
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: of one of those a lot of Vikings fans in Iowa,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: particularly in the Mason City area, and he goes. Long
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: time listeners love the podcast. Do you think presidential approval
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: ratings are overused or too limited, especially in such a
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: polarized environment where they rarely move outside of narrow range.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: Why is in political media developed more advanced metrics to
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: better capture performance or public sentiment. Actually, it's sitting there.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: You're highlighting a void that frankly I should be filling
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: and more should be filling. We've all figured out there's
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: a four part test on job approval. You should ask,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: we should not be asking approved disapprove. It's strongly somewhat
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: on each side. Do you strongly approve? Do you strongly disapprove?
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: Do you somewhat approved? Do you somewhat disapprove? It is
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: a different type of voter in each of those four categories.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Those move a little bit more. Right, The overall with
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: the shifts between strong and somewhat in either side of
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: the equation are what is the movement? Right, It's the
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: movement underneath the movement. The point is is that the
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: NBC News polls shifted to that or quite a while ago,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: but in the Trump air in particular, and even a
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: bit in the Obama era, we learned this that having
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: the four part job approval question allows you to do
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: would give you the quote unquote advanced metrics mindset right,
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: and we should it is more the trend line of
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: strong disapprove and strong approve tells you a lot more
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: than the combined numbers do. The combined numbers when you
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: combine to somewhat and the strong, just sort of dilutes
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: it all because a lot of times the somewhat approve
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: is you know, when somebody's growing unpopular, they're somewhat approved,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: is bigger than they're strong, and they're strong disapprove is
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: bigger than there's somewhat. When they become more popular, literally
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: those things start to reverse. So that's when you're asking
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: for quote unquote advanced metrics. There's still job approval is
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: still the best opening question to do, but if you're
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: not doing a four part ask, then you're not doing
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: it correctly and you won't find what you're looking for,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: which is some of that movement. So I think what
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: you're asking for is better reporting of job ratings. And
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: guess what I confess, I think we need to lean
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: in more on reporting the four categories rather than reporting
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: the combined two. So I would say this look. As
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: many of you know, I'm not a huge fan of
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: aggregating polling across methodologies. I'm not a huge fan of it.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: I know, Real clear politics A five point thirty eight.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: I think that they they both know that the somewhats
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: and the strongs give you better internal analysis to focus on.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: But they do all their charts with the basic approved disapprove.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: You probably ought to take a look at both the
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: economists you GOV poll they split it up and they
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: take a look at the intensity betther and and so
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: does Hugh and both of their sites I think do
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: a better job of focusing on essentially the four the
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: four categories, and you see the movement within the four
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: categories more and look strong strong disapprove has been growing,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: and that that's more of a sign than just seeing
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: the incremental increase in either side. And there's always the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: overall approval number doesn't change much, but the the makeup
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: between strong and somewhat is a little more volatile, and
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: I think it tells you more.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 5: And so that.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: If my friends at the aggregation world are listening, I
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: think enough pollsters are I figured out out the job approval.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: You're doing a disservice if you're not asking the four
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: part the four part question. If you're only doing the
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: two part question, aggregate the four parts. If you're going
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: to aggregate guys, I think you'd benefit from it. I
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: know not everybody's aggregating that well. Do those that do
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: guess what we should push everybody. It's a waste of
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: time to just ask it as a two part question.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: Next question comes from true Bill and he ends it
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: with go lions. All right. He goes, thank you for
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: your thoughtful analysis. Always appreciate your perspective as an eighty
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: one year old Vietnam Vet who grew up believing deeply
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: in this country and its ideals. I've been wondering where
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: those true believers are today, especially after a recent interview
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: with aj Purshuddy. Do you see a path forward for
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: people who still hold on to that belief and for
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: some sense of healing in our politics? You know, I
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: go back to something that is really sort of gnawed
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: at me, and it is this idea and God, I
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: think it was the conversation I had with Lamar Alexander
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: about no Child Left Behind and what the unintended consequence
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: of focusing on testing and how it essentially right. Everything
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: is an incentive structure, right, and sometimes you have an
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: unintended consequence. And so when you when you changed funding
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: bonuses to reflect improvements on reading and math test scores,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: then you had the best teachers being pulled from other
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: subjects focused there the testing was about that, and then
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: you end up de emphasizing over time subjects that are
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: not impacted, where your funding is not impacted by whether
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: your students score well or not. And I think, and
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: I'm probably truell I'm probably pulling exactly at the heartstrings
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: that you want me to pull out here. But I
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: think there's something to it, which is, if we choose
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: to teach Civics and say that you need a good
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: civics education before we deem you a high school graduate
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: or a college or somebody who's acceptable for college admission,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: I think that we'd have a better prepared citizenry for
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: our politics. Not saying it would automatically depolarize us, but
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: early awareness of that our system and that this country
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: is pretty diverse and pretty politically complicated, and understanding how
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: the system works and why it was designed to actually
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: be this filled with all these contradictory checks and balances.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: Because we didn't really have one ethnicity, we didn't have
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: one ideology that was that we decided to cement. You know,
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: we really did want to want to want to not
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: let let one ideology become the dominant uh guide here.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: And so I have I am stuck on this idea
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: that we by choosing to emphasize what we chose to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: emphasize when it came to deciding what completes and education
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: in the public school system, it didn't include civics or
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: social studies. And I'm glad that I grew up in
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: a house that just you know, thought that was as
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: important as English and math, also thought extracurricular activities, both
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: sports and music. In this case, I and more musical
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: talent than artistic talent. We're also part right of a whole,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: you know, that the you know, the whole wholeness type
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: of thing. So I'm I'm lucky that I grew up.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: You know, we didn't have we didn't have a lot,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: but I certainly had a I certainly my parents were
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: rich in promoting that even if we didn't have material God,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: And it is shocking to me how little civics gets
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: taught in all sorts of whether it's private school, public school.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: I've had my kids experience both, and it's been quite disappointing.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: And I realized how much I didn't get in school either.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: I got almost all of it at home, more of
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: it at home than I got at school. When it
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: came to civics, and it came to politics, and it
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: came to American history. And if you're wondering, where are
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: the true believers we deemphasized, I wonder, you know, love
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: of country is loving all of its contradictions and complications.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: And you know, I look at our complications. That's what
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: makes me a true believer. I think our system's amazing.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: I think we put together something. We gave ourselves a
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: toolbox to allow a whole bunch of people who shouldn't
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: agree with each other and anything to find some path.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: We have a process to find some path to majoritarian rule,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: not always feeling this majoritarian sometimes, And I think when
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: that gets out of whack, that's when you need to
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: realign as statives and make sure the majoritarianism is still
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: is still the backbone of what we're doing. But we
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: have a pretty good tool toolbox. But I worry that
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: we've spent fewer and fewer generations teaching. You know, It's like, imagine,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: imagine not teaching. I'm going to say, I'm gonna going
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: to be very sort of old. I'm gonna sound an
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: old school traditionalists, Matt. Imagine not teaching your kids the
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: difference between a flathead and a Philip screwdriver. And I
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: say this because you know what, it's one of those
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: things that over time you're glad you know the difference.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: When you grow up and you're on your own and
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: all this stuff right, and some things that you just
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: get taught that you're you don't realize you're getting taught
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: until till you need it. Well, we've stopped even explaining
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: the tools in the in the American democracy to our kids.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: We've stopped teaching it. I've I've been pitching a potential
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: opening class for USC that was asked to design it,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: to submit a potential introductory course for a Washington program
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: for incoming freshmen, And I said, how about just simply
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: the Constitution? Because the thing that I have noticed is
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: how much that the how much the students don't know
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: as much about the Constitution when they come into college. Now,
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: those that want to learn love it and really dive
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: into it and get to know it. But what if
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: that were a mandatory course for incoming freshmen at a university,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: particularly in a Washington program. Right now, it's set aside
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: for those that already have an interest in politics. But
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: shouldn't everybody learn this anyway? I have a feeling I'm
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: preaching to your to amil inquire to you, true Bill,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: But I assume being a Lions fan means you always
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: have some optimism somewhere. So God bless you and I'm
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: all for the lines doing well except when they're playing
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: my packers all right. Next question comes from Daniel T. Anderson,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. He goes, with all the controversy about around redistricting,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: would it makes sense to use a more scientific, data
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: driven method to remove the human element altogether, like drawing
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: districts based on population using geographic coordinates that something like
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: that realistically work? You know, it's funny, Daniel. I thought
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: that the twenty twenty and I wonder if COVID sort
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: of screwed this up, But I really thought that twenty
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: twenty one reapportionment was going to be the most egalitarian
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: one that we had because I thought, you know, you
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: and I can make maps now right. We don't need
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: you know, sophisticated technology. You know, all of the data
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: is available to any of us can make maps. And
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: I thought we would start to see competing maps. And
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: I thought we would start and there's a part of
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: me that wants to see more maps. Show me a
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: map that would be the most republican map. Show me
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: the most democratic maps, show me the most compact map.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: Show me, you know, I want to see the options,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: all the options, you know, rather than the option that
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: only fits my politics, right, and I think it's all there,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: and I you know, I was I was hopeful that
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: maybe if and look, my friends and partners at DDHQ
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: are building a terrific hub for political intelligence. And I
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: think that by twenty twenty thirty, I have a feeling
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to my friends over there are going to
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: build something that it's going to allow just for this,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: because I think people need to understand. The more the
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: public understands how this changes representation, how this changes political
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: power just based on who draws the maps. And then
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: maybe you just you know, and maybe what we're voting on.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: I'm with you, let's take you know, let's take the
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: human element out of it completely. But and say, you know, here,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: show me a map this way, show me map this way,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: show me map this way. Now you go to the
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: voters and say, would you prefer a map that leaned right?
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: Would you prefer a map that leaned left? Would you
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: prefer a map that was super fair? Like you almost
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: ask for the outcome that you want if you actually
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: can see all the choices. Anyway, I'm being a little
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: a little provocative here purposely because you know why can't
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: we use a data driven model? Please? There's so many
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: things we needed data that would be better if we
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: just well let the data speak for itself. I do
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: think over time, data will win the argument, but it's
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: a subjective persuasion there, you know. But I do think
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: people need to understand how you can take the same
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: map and create four or five six different type of
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: outcomes for political power based on, you know, what you
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: think the electorate wants. And sometimes I wonder should be
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: you know, what do the voters want in a given state.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: Do they want hard partisanship or do they want you know,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: I grew up with a father who lean right, who
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: thought I want to have I want to make sure
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: there is somebody that cares about South Florida in both parties,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: so that whoever's got power has some say about how
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: that power is enacted for our community, right. And I think,
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: you know, there's still voters who believe that, right. And
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: I think what's happened is the parties have been hijacked
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: by activists who don't believe the other parties should have
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: a say that. You know. It's that politics should be
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: completely zero sum, and if you lose, you get no
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: say versus you know, and that's what I think. The
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: American public sees politics in proportional terms. Yet our system,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: you know, doesn't really reward proportionality. You know, would we
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: be better off with proportionality politics so that you know,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: if if a state was twenty five percent you know,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: conservative and twenty five percent liberal, then their representatives would
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: be far left and far right half of them, and
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: then the other half would be somewhere in the middle.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I'm just saying that the
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: irony is that we're a country that essentially accepts the
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: outcome to look proportionality, even though maybe we go in
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: there with a zero sum attitude. But I'm not sure
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: about that, you know. I don't know whether I'm a
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: mainstream voter and that I kind of think that I
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: want to have a foot and all in both camp
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, I don't know
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: who's going to have power, and I want to make
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: sure my community is well represented. I'm still more of
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: that kind of old school sort of American voter and
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: that felt, you know, but I don't know whether that
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: was the norm or whether I was raised in a
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: household that was unique right. And I think what we all,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: what we all don't want to admit, is we think
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: we're the mainstream until we meet others and we wonder, wait,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: are they mainstream or are I mainstream?
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: But you know you're asking for data driven results. It
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: seems simple we have. It's never been easier to make
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: a map. And I think at a minimum, if we
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: started making more maps so people could see this is
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: a map that would be driven by maximizing Republicans, maximizing Democrats,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: maximizing geography, compactness, maximize you know, you go through the
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: various and you know which one is in the best
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: interest of this state. Just another another potential way to
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: handle this because again, banning gerrymandering is naive because one
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: person's gerrymander is another person's competitive district. And if you
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: want competition, you may have to jerrymander. So it's all
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: about what what is your priority? I personally would I
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: want I want the market to speak, so I would
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: prioritize competitiveness. But you know, take a take a place
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: like Wisconsin. Wisconsin from a statewide level is very evenly divided.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: The problem is most of most of the Democratic voters
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: are in one concentrated part of the state, in the
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: southeast part of the state. So if you just did
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: geographic it would sort of give an outsized advantage to
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: the Republicans. Right, So like, what is what is the
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: right way to balance it? Right? Right? And it all
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: depends on your own mode, right, If you're a partisan,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: you're trying to put it in a way that maximizes
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: your political leverage. At the end of the day, if
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: you just care about what's in the best interest in Wisconsin,
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: you might say, well, maybe we want competitiveness, maybe we
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: want this, you know. So that's why ultimately I prioritize competitiveness.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: But if you did that in Wisconsin, you'd have to jerrymander.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: You'd have to have districts that were kind of weird
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: in order to make sure you had a balance. And
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: so I think that's the I think that's the trade off.
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: So if you want true blue, you know, Milwaukee wants
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: to feel represented, fine, but the more representative feels it
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: may be speaking for less of the state. So just
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: an example, all right, last question mark from Ann Arbor Rights. Hey,
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about a few things you've discussed recently and
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: expanding the House. Do you think it's realistically achievable given
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: political incentives and public perception? What are your thoughts on
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: proportional voting as a potential solution to jerrymand I just
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: answered that first part, right, And on a lighter note,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: how does your current workload compare to your time at
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: Meet the Press? The good work mark for man Arbor? Well,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: I just talked a little bit about proportionality, right, I
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: think it it goes back to what what what do
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: a majority of your voters want? Right? Do they want
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: one party to have a political advantage or do they
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: want the market to decide this?
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: The free market of ideas, the free market of the democracy.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, like I said, I I would prioritize
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: competitiveness because I want you know, I want everybody's I
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: want every I want more voters with skin in the game.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want fewer voters with skin in a smaller game.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: I e. Primaries, right, I want more voters involved in
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: the general election, whatever that takes. And frankly, and that's
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: why I'm for all party primaries. I think we got
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: to get rid of you know, I'm fine if you
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: want to join a political party, but that shouldn't. And
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: you should tell us what your political party is. That's
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: fine too, if you want to sell us, you know,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: that's fine. But you know, if voters decide they want
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: a competition between two independents, two Democrats, two Republicans, whatever
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: it is, that let the voters decide to the final two.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: Final two ought to be. So on expanding the House,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to get a little bit
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: of legs because of what happened with the Voting Rights Act.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: I've had a you know, look, I think this is
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: an important answer. It's an act of Congress. It isn't.
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: This isn't a heavy lift. You don't need a constitutional amendment.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: This is just an act of Congress. If you're not
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: going to move to proportional representation, right, if you move
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: to proportional representation, you probably could keep it locked at
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: four thirty five, and you'd have a different way that
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: you would make up the states and make up the
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: delegations if you want. You know, now, the reason I'm
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: for expansion of the House is a I think it's
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: a lot easier to get folks to rally around something
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: that the founders intended, and the founders intended for the
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: House to expand with the population of the country, and
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: we stop. We have stopped doing that for literally ninety
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: seven years. That was ninety seven years ago that we
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: capped the House. It's been one hundred and six. You know,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: it's been over one hundred years since we last expanded
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: the House, and we expanded every single decade before nineteen twenty.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: You know, you would see that various identity groups would
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: have more representation in the House of Representatives, the People's
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: House if we expanded the House. And I think when
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: more groups realize this, you're going to see more calls
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: for this because I mean, I think it's the relief,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: it's the best relief valve to these gerrymander wars where
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: if we're going to turn state legislative races and the
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: governor's races into zero sum games, which is, if you
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: win fifty one percent of the vote, you're going to
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: get one hundred percent, you're going to get one hundred
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: percent of the rewards on remapping the state. And you know,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: up states turning left. So we're going to make all
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: the districts left and we're going to you know, all
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: of that. You know, first of all, majority parties will
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: keep chasing voters, and then you chase voters that won't
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: be there the next election, right, Texas Republic's are going
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: to find that out the hard way with Latinos in
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: the South. You know, they went chasing them thinking it
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: was going to help them with their remap and it
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: may end up blowing up into a dummy mander. So
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: I think the the shift, you know, the lack of
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: representation of African Americans in the South. If these gerrymanders
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: go through, these sort of Republican leaning jerrymanders, I think
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: it brings a whole new group of activists in the
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: uncapped the House world. And again, I think you can
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: find common cause between African American Democrats in the South
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: Conservatives in the North East, places like Massachusetts and Connecticut.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Those are states with thirty five to forty percent of
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: voters that lean right, that have no Republican representation at
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: all in Congress. But if you expanded the House and
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: those states too right, they would there would be more
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: opportunities and more likelihoods that you would have more of
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: your political diversity represented in the House of Representatives. And
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: that that was the intent, And I think the closer
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: we move the democracy to the people, the better off
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: we are, and the democracy is further away than it's been.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: And every every ten years that we choose not to
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: expand the house, this democracy becomes more perverted and less majoritarian.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: And that that's why this is. This is the first
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: among perhaps men any fixes, but this one has to
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: go through first before you can decide what others that
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: need that are necessary. As for workload, I have more control.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 3: Over my.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: Week and month, but I'm probably as busy, if not busier,
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: because I don't know how to say no. I went
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: from sort of six jobs that I you know, I
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: had sort of three or four different jobs within a
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: job at NBC, I probably have six or seven different projects,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: some of which intertwined and some don't. And so I
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: will tell you this. In the last three months, I
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: have felt like I'm always a little bit behind, which
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: is what I would describe my ten my nearly ten
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: years and meet the press, which I was always you know, Luckily,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd catch up every week because she still
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: had to put on a show. And whatever I felt
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: behind my I had to turn the page and keep moving.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: And I've gotten to that point in the last three months,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: which frankly probably makes me happy. I'm better off being
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit too busy than if I have a
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: little a little too much free time. Speaking of free time, though,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: it's time to go take some for myself and go
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: work on some of those other projects. So with that,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: I'll see in seventy two hours. Appreciate to listen, and
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: if you like what you hear, i'd love a five
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: star review and a little like and subscribe. Thanks very much,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: and we'll see you next time.