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Does Your Vote Actually Matter? Gerrymandering Exposed (Full) · Solving America's Problems

• 0:00
  Welcome to Solving America’s Problems — where Jerremy and Dave just learned
• 0:04
  that in most congressional districts, the November election is already
• 0:07
  decided before a single vote gets cast.
• 0:11
  Reed Bauman laid it out plain: once a partisan locks the
• 0:15
  primary in a gerrymandered seat, the general is a formality.
• 0:20
  No one’s competing for the moderate in the middle — because that voter’s
• 0:23
  been surgically carved out of the map.
• 0:26
  Jerremy admitted his own first ballot was basically random clicks on seventy-five
• 0:30
  races he’d never heard of, while Dave stared at bond measures designed to
• 0:34
  make refusal feel like hating puppies.
• 0:38
  And Reed dropped the hardest fact of the night — districts are now drawn
• 0:42
  with census precision so exact that extremists win by default, leaving the
• 0:47
  rest of America with representatives who never have to compromise…
• 0:52
  Dave D. C Conley.
• 0:54
  There's thousands and thousands of people all over the United States
• 0:58
  that are eager to learn what we're talking about in this episode.
• 1:02
  In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we take on the forces
• 1:05
  shaping not just who wins elections, but how our choices are boxed in before
• 1:10
  ballots are even cast gerrymander.
• 1:12
  Districts lock in extremes over competition, leaving us on the sidelines
• 1:16
  and wondering if voices even matter.
• 1:19
  Our guest, Reed Bauman joins us with the perspective of an everyday voter
• 1:22
  whose first ballot in a Georgia firehouse back in 2008 for John
• 1:26
  McCain against Barack Obama was both a rite of passage and a glimpse of the
• 1:30
  frustrations baked into the system.
• 1:33
  From rickety booths, long lines and vague ballot measures to the larger machinery
• 1:37
  that decides outcomes before election day.
• 1:39
  Reid helps us trace how individual votes connect to a systemic failure and where
• 1:44
  reform could restore real representation.
• 1:46
  And that's this week on solving America's problems.
• 1:49
  Unpacking gerrymandering, how polarization steel solutions with Reid Bauman.
• 1:54
  I've got an interesting stat for everyone.
• 1:56
  65%, only 65% of Americans, which is 154 million people voted last
• 2:05
  year, which believe it or not, is the third highest turnout in decades.
• 2:11
  But those same Americans, if they trusted the system to count their
• 2:16
  votes, only 59% of those people say yes.
• 2:21
  We've built the largest voting system of any democracy on the
• 2:24
  planet while simultaneously making it the most confusing.
• 2:30
  Every state and territory has different rules.
• 2:33
  21 states expanded access, 10 Titan security, and somehow we're more
• 2:39
  anxious about democracy than ever.
• 2:41
  My name is Jerremy Alexander Newsom.
• 2:43
  My co-host is Dave Conley, and this is Solving America's problems.
• 2:47
  Today we're hearing from Reed B. On what it's really like to step into the booth.
• 2:54
  Reid,
• 2:55
  thanks for being here, man.
• 2:57
  anytime?
• 2:59
  It's gonna be exciting conversation just to go back and forth and
• 3:02
  just share what we're doing.
• 3:04
  But this is a fun first question, Reid.
• 3:06
  Paint us a picture, man.
• 3:07
  What's the very first memory you have of voting?
• 3:11
  And then I want to hear from my boy, Dave, and I'll share mine.
• 3:14
  I grew up pretty electorally involved.
• 3:19
  But my first election was 2008, John McCain versus Barack Obama.
• 3:25
  And,
• 3:26
  it was in my hometown, like fire station voting booth, and I
• 3:30
  walked in and cast my ballot for
• 3:32
  John McCain.
• 3:34
  That was my first memory.
• 3:36
  Voting.
• 3:37
  Nice.
• 3:38
  Nice.
• 3:39
  In a fire in a firehouse
• 3:41
  station.
• 3:42
  I love it.
• 3:43
  What about you, Dave?
• 3:44
  Georgia.
• 3:46
  Oh let's see.
• 3:47
  It was
• 3:47
  1917
• 3:49
  and,
• 3:50
  not quite the it was it was Bill Clinton against George Bush.
• 3:56
  And my first memory, and this is this was the same for years
• 4:00
  because it was exactly the same.
• 4:02
  I grew up in Northern Virginia and I went to everybody goes to this high school
• 4:05
  that's nearby, and it's the only high school that covers that, that part of the
• 4:09
  county and the lines were out the door.
• 4:12
  Now I think what was great about it was, and again, I, it's probably
• 4:18
  the exact same as it is today.
• 4:20
  You're in this line, it's a little bit cold outside because it's
• 4:23
  the fall in Northern Virginia.
• 4:25
  And you wait and you wait and you get inside a gymnasium that has like those
• 4:29
  crazy bright lights and this very old lady comes up and hands you a ballot
• 4:35
  and you then you have to wait in line again and you go to these funny booths
• 4:39
  that, they clearly just set up, right?
• 4:42
  They just unfolded it, it's like this rickety table.
• 4:46
  And it has these dividers on the left and the right.
• 4:48
  I think they were paper or plastic.
• 4:50
  And you get there and you you fill out these bubbles and then inevitably somebody
• 4:54
  around you goes, ah, I messed up my thing.
• 4:56
  And so then they have to go and they have to shred the ballot.
• 4:59
  Little old lady comes back up to you, hands you the ballot,
• 5:02
  and then you go and do it again.
• 5:03
  You fill out the bubbles.
• 5:04
  then you hand in the bubble, it goes into this machine, it
• 5:08
  looks like a giant shredder.
• 5:09
  It goes ZZ and that's it.
• 5:11
  They hand and then they stamp you, like they, they give you the I voted sticker so
• 5:15
  you can show everybody at work that, hey, I voted, and then it was out the door.
• 5:19
  They, the only thing that really sticks with me not necessarily like
• 5:22
  voting for the president or any of that is all the things that I
• 5:26
  didn't know was gonna be on there.
• 5:27
  Particularly like all the crap that the county puts on there because
• 5:32
  they refuse to do their job.
• 5:33
  Like they, they will, they, they don't want to actually balance
• 5:37
  the budget of this giant county, Fairfax County, it's monster, right?
• 5:42
  They want to make you vote for extra money.
• 5:46
  So they'll put these bond initiatives on there and they'll always
• 5:49
  make it like the craziest thing.
• 5:51
  They'll be like.
• 5:52
  Do you wanna feed orphans and protect puppies and have
• 5:57
  your schools open next year?
• 5:59
  Vote for this a hundred million dollar budget, right?
• 6:02
  This bond.
• 6:03
  And I'm like, of course everybody wants to vote for that, but that's not the point.
• 6:06
  They refuse to do the rest of the budgeting.
• 6:09
  And so like they, they'll put the like craziest thing that you say,
• 6:12
  of course I wanna vote for this.
• 6:14
  And that's what always sticks with me is that my county didn't
• 6:16
  want to really do its job.
• 6:18
  So they'll take care of everything that, that is actually controversial
• 6:21
  and put like the least controversial thing that everybody has to vote
• 6:24
  for on the bond initiatives.
• 6:26
  That's, that was my first memory of voting.
• 6:29
  What about you?
• 6:30
  I like it.
• 6:31
  Maya's weird man, because probably a little bit of a blend
• 6:34
  maybe between both of yours.
• 6:35
  But so as growing up a Jo's Witness, one of their doctrines
• 6:39
  is that you don't vote, right?
• 6:41
  Because they don't want you to be any part of this world or this system as
• 6:45
  I say in air quotes for our listeners.
• 6:48
  And so I was in that religion mentally and physically until I
• 6:52
  was 24, which is only 13 years ago.
• 6:56
  So my very first vote cast was Obama versus MIT Romney.
• 7:03
  And I voted for Mitt Romney, although I knew Obama was gonna win.
• 7:08
  And when I walked in, it was a middle school, so I had to
• 7:14
  Google where the heck do I vote?
• 7:16
  I remember doing that, like, where do I vote?
• 7:19
  And like it was like, put in your zip code, it will tell you where to go.
• 7:21
  And I put on my zip code and I was like, there's no way I
• 7:23
  go to a middle school library.
• 7:26
  And sure enough, and they're like, make sure you bring your id.
• 7:28
  And this was in Tennessee at the time Nashville.
• 7:32
  And I'm trying to think of what the school was Reed, but it was somewhere
• 7:36
  out in Bellevue, some random middle school in Bellevue, in a library.
• 7:41
  And I went into this library and to your point, Dave, I went in there and
• 7:45
  I thought I would go to something and just put in my vote for president.
• 7:50
  that was it.
• 7:50
  Here's the president.
• 7:51
  Boom.
• 7:52
  You pick.
• 7:52
  Nope, there's 75 things I voted for and I had no clue what any of them were.
• 7:56
  I was like I felt like so stupid.
• 7:58
  I just started clicking buttons 'cause they were all mandatory, and
• 8:01
  I just was clicking people's names.
• 8:04
  I was like, I'll pick some s and I'll pick some Ds.
• 8:07
  I like, I'll let me give like half and half.
• 8:09
  Dunno who this person is.
• 8:10
  Dunno what this is.
• 8:11
  Should have looked that up.
• 8:12
  Should have researched that.
• 8:13
  Didn't know any of it.
• 8:14
  Filled out this horrible voting forum.
• 8:15
  I'm positive I voted for something terrible.
• 8:18
  Some.
• 8:18
  So someone that's actually been a fear of mine, someone's gonna pull up that voting
• 8:22
  history and go, Jerremy iss a neo-Nazi.
• 8:24
  Like he voted, you won't believe what he voted for in 2012.
• 8:29
  And yeah man I just filled out this random thing and, or sorry.
• 8:33
  Yeah it was just ultimately one of those situations where I
• 8:36
  got my sticker and that was it.
• 8:38
  But afterwards, man, I researched so much about who and what and all the
• 8:42
  things and just started becoming a little bit more inclined into the political
• 8:45
  sphere as I started stepping out of that particular religious belief into the
• 8:49
  fact that I am okay to be a part of this world and all that kinda good stuff.
• 8:53
  And so I will say, going up to that voting booth, I did not feel empowered.
• 8:59
  I felt uninformed.
• 9:02
  I wouldn't say frustrated for sure, but I would certainly say that I didn't
• 9:07
  really think what I was doing mattered.
• 9:10
  Ultimately, I was just excited to do it, 'cause I'd never done it before.
• 9:14
  Reid, lemme throw this question to you.
• 9:16
  If 59% of Americans say they actually trust the count, what's your gut reaction
• 9:24
  to that number and what's your opinion on, does your vote actually matter?
• 9:28
  Reid?
• 9:29
  As to whether your vote matters it's an aggregate, it's
• 9:32
  like a hive mind type thing.
• 9:34
  So individually, are you gonna swing an election?
• 9:37
  Almost guaranteed that you won't but your vote.
• 9:41
  That doesn't mean your vote doesn't count, as far as 59% of people I would
• 9:45
  be interested in historically, what number of people have trusted the system?
• 9:49
  I
• 9:49
  would make a pretty confident assumption that number is higher than it used
• 9:54
  to be.
• 9:55
  People have distrust in the system has gone up as a result of
• 10:01
  certain political forces basically benefiting them to sow distrust
• 10:07
  amongst the populist of the system.
• 10:10
  So I think
• 10:11
  that's probably a result of a lot of political action and rhetoric.
• 10:15
  Yeah.
• 10:17
  Yeah, I feel like 59% is pretty high for
• 10:19
  sure.
• 10:20
  So you, you mentioned in your vote, did you have to show ID at all when
• 10:26
  you went to your firehouse station?
• 10:29
  I don't remember, to be honest with you.
• 10:31
  I have no recollection of that.
• 10:32
  I don't
• 10:33
  think Georgia had a voter ID law at the time, so probably not.
• 10:37
  What's your general take on that?
• 10:38
  Should we like have some type of verification, registration
• 10:43
  for voting.
• 10:45
  I think it's a prickly issue.
• 10:46
  You can't come right out and say that you're against voter ID because that
• 10:50
  is a political, it's a toxic statement because if you're against voter id,
• 10:57
  then you must be for voter fraud.
• 10:59
  But I think as I read through the research that you guys have done, and you need
• 11:04
  to lay the groundwork to basically, dig into the studies and everything, but
• 11:08
  there's a lot of evidence that doesn't really have an impact on elections.
• 11:13
  So I think what it amounts to is probably more of a waste of state
• 11:18
  funds than anything to pass to have voter ID laws and stuff like that.
• 11:23
  And it's a show of election security more than it is actual
• 11:27
  election security because, who's committing fraud in the elections?
• 11:33
  Illegal immigrants or people like that who are coming, are they coming
• 11:37
  here to commit social engineering fraud and go steal elections?
• 11:42
  The amount of kind of collaboration and expertise that would require.
• 11:47
  Just is not really there for, and plus the potential punishment if they're caught,
• 11:55
  which it's not hard to be caught because elections are secured by census data.
• 12:00
  And backing up with people's addresses so that there is one vote
• 12:04
  per person even without voter ID
• 12:06
  laws.
• 12:07
  That answer the
• 12:08
  Yeah, it totally does.
• 12:09
  It made me make a note because I was thinking about all of the people
• 12:13
  who've been actually convicted of voter fraud, and it's almost
• 12:18
  exclusively politicians, political operators, working for politicians.
• 12:23
  So I think I'm on the side that all politicians
• 12:26
  need to
• 12:26
  show their ID before they vote.
• 12:28
  Those are the people who would have a motive to commit fraud.
• 12:32
  If I'm one person and my vote is gonna be one of millions, what incentive is
• 12:37
  there for me to try to commit fraud just so I can cast my one vote that
• 12:41
  probably
• 12:41
  wouldn't want swing an election, to go to prison.
• 12:45
  So, what you're saying and what I hear you saying is
• 12:49
  the voter challenge is much higher up the chain than an individual I a
• 12:53
  person having or not having an id.
• 12:56
  Yeah,
• 12:57
  I like it.
• 12:59
  I
• 12:59
  like
• 12:59
  it.
• 12:59
  about right.
• 13:00
  Yeah.
• 13:01
  Okay.
• 13:02
  I was gonna say earlier, how funny would it be if they
• 13:04
  were like
• 13:05
  This initiative passed by one vote and it was Jerremy Newsom.
• 13:09
  Yeah, In 2012, this dude.
• 13:12
  You're like, what did I vote for?
• 13:14
  Yeah.
• 13:16
  That's a good point.
• 13:16
  But David and I in the last episode, which you haven't heard
• 13:18
  yet 'cause we just recorded it.
• 13:20
  But to your point, one of my thoughts and theories was.
• 13:24
  It would probably be pretty easy to require a voter id if every
• 13:31
  state was like, Hey, listen, you gotta bring a license.
• 13:33
  Pretty straightforward.
• 13:35
  Some verification form.
• 13:36
  It wouldn't be very hard, I don't think, to implement it.
• 13:40
  Mostly because I just went, I told Dave the story.
• 13:43
  I went to a gym and I couldn't get into the gym without a physical license,
• 13:46
  like a, like it was a lifetime fitness.
• 13:49
  They're like, you can't work out here.
• 13:51
  You obviously, even though I had a picture of my id, it didn't have the physical id.
• 13:55
  So nah, sorry man, you can't do this.
• 13:57
  And it was just a comical situation.
• 13:59
  I'm like, all right if they can do it, I'm sure there's probably a few other
• 14:02
  places that could just implement a relatively easy policy to make sure, but
• 14:07
  to your point, even if you had every.
• 14:12
  and I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but we did
• 14:14
  just have a very long discussion on immigration and illegal immigration.
• 14:18
  But every single individual that did, if they colluded somehow to together,
• 14:23
  they'd have to all go to probably the same state and all vote illegally
• 14:28
  simultaneously for there to be any type of swing or massive decision.
• 14:32
  And then to your also point, if they did that and they and everyone pulled that
• 14:36
  off what actual change would they make?
• 14:39
  So if the challenge is a lot higher, Dave or Reed, where do we think it lays?
• 14:46
  Is it in the electoral college?
• 14:48
  Is it somewhere different?
• 14:50
  Is there something else that we should be looking at?
• 14:52
  I have a thought on that, but as to what you just said, with the
• 14:56
  illegal I immigrants all moving to one state and voting one way, that,
• 14:59
  that would be very obvious, that
• 15:01
  was occurring
• 15:02
  Of course.
• 15:03
  data, like looking at the data and stuff like
• 15:05
  that.
• 15:06
  So it wouldn't, you can catch that
• 15:07
  stuff by just going through the data and making sure it matches reality, which
• 15:12
  is something that political scientists do, and that's part of the reason why
• 15:16
  it's over the head of a lot of the general public and that it's, they
• 15:20
  don't trust political scientists or they don't understand, the things like that.
• 15:24
  But the issue that I think is most important when it comes to
• 15:27
  voting is gerrymandering 100%.
• 15:31
  Because districts are gerrymandered so that they're not competitive and.
• 15:37
  You have essentially like in a very heavily gerrymandered, let's
• 15:41
  say red district, a congressional candidate needs to win the primary.
• 15:46
  If they win the primary, they will win the general election.
• 15:49
  It's basically a slam dunk, already known outcome.
• 15:52
  And therefore we're competing for the primary and therefore there's
• 15:57
  no incentive to nominate a person who can win over moderate voters.
• 16:04
  You're only looking for someone who can win over the hard ideological
• 16:08
  voters on one side or the other which contributes to more polarized politics.
• 16:16
  If we have districts across the board where people have to compete for
• 16:20
  moderate voters, we wouldn't have as polarized of a political system.
• 16:25
  We would have politicians who can work across the aisle with the other side
• 16:29
  because most Americans are actually not hard ideologues on one side or the other.
• 16:36
  Most people fall in the middle, and that's the re part of the reason why those
• 16:40
  people feel like they're not represented because most of them live in a district
• 16:44
  that's gerrymandered, so that someone who is ideological on one side or the
• 16:50
  other will always win their district.
• 16:53
  And
• 16:54
  therefore you have no one that you really like to vote for.
• 16:57
  No one's really competing for your vote.
• 16:59
  So could you, So Jerremy and I have been trying to do this.
• 17:03
  Can you steal, man, the other side of this?
• 17:06
  What's good about gerrymandering?
• 17:08
  If anything?
• 17:08
  Can you think of anything like, ah,
• 17:10
  I mean for the higher up political people who wanna win, it's great.
• 17:14
  yeah, that's it.
• 17:14
  Gerrymandering, gerrymandering helps us win.
• 17:17
  We barter with the other side.
• 17:19
  We'll rig these
• 17:22
  districts so that we can win and you can rig the other districts.
• 17:26
  But it's not, that's not really the way that it is.
• 17:29
  For, I don't know if they're having those conversations like in higher up
• 17:32
  rooms that we don't get to know about.
• 17:35
  I doubt it because I think it's a zero sum game.
• 17:40
  We're trying to win as many seats as we can
• 17:43
  and basically disenfranchise the other side because that's what it is.
• 17:46
  It's anti-democratic.
• 17:48
  Fascinating.
• 17:49
  Love that term.
• 17:50
  So here's a fun one
• 17:50
  for you, Dave, right?
• 17:52
  Gerrymandering.
• 17:54
  It was a coin coined term from Massachusetts governor in 1812.
• 18:01
  Your third birthday.
• 18:03
  I'm just kidding.
• 18:03
  bunch of old jokes today.
• 18:04
  Just a joke.
• 18:05
  Governor.
• 18:07
  Elbridge, Jerry noted that one of the districts looked
• 18:11
  like a mythical salamander.
• 18:15
  And so I think that's probably when it, but 18, 12, a little
• 18:20
  bit ago, like a couple days ago, but that's when he noticed it.
• 18:24
  That's when the phrase gets coined.
• 18:27
  So you can only, that's just a couple of years before the nation gets founded.
• 18:32
  17 seven.
• 18:33
  It's not that,
• 18:35
  by a guy named Jerry?
• 18:37
  so they just coined it Exactly that.
• 18:39
  That's just when it gets coined.
• 18:40
  So it's been around
• 18:41
  It was coined by some political cartoonists because it was, they called
• 18:46
  it a gerrymander,
• 18:48
  the district, because it looked like a,
• 18:50
  yeah.
• 18:51
  Oh, because it looked like a salad, ma. Okay.
• 18:54
  Yeah I'm following it.
• 18:55
  A
• 18:55
  mythical salamander.
• 18:57
  Yeah.
• 18:57
  It's really interesting.
• 18:58
  Yeah.
• 18:59
  But I think you use a very interesting term that does come up a lot,
• 19:03
  Reed, which is disenfranchise.
• 19:05
  And I would like to hear a little bit more about that because if a group of
• 19:10
  individuals feels disenfranchised, do you think they have the, or do they currently
• 19:15
  have the ability to determine where this mythical salamander boundary begins?
• 19:23
  Should they even vote if they see themselves in this really weirdly
• 19:28
  shaped, dis voting district where they're like, listen my voice
• 19:32
  literally will not matter at all.
• 19:34
  I shouldn't even show up and turn out.
• 19:37
  I think they should because it's a protest vote, at that point.
• 19:40
  But you still need to cast your vote because that's the only
• 19:44
  lever that you have to pull.
• 19:46
  But I can understand why people wouldn't at the same time.
• 19:49
  Yeah.
• 19:51
  Yeah.
• 19:51
  absolutely.
• 19:52
  So if it's been around essentially since the entire formation of our country,
• 19:55
  more or less, how do we get rid of it?
• 19:58
  Is it something that we should get rid of?
• 19:59
  Is it even get
• 20:00
  Ridable?
• 20:01
  that is a really good question.
• 20:04
  I think it would require it would require an interest in both sides
• 20:09
  to have some kind of fair District Amendment or bill that they would pass.
• 20:15
  Because if both, if one side or the other sees an advantage that they can
• 20:21
  have in the current system, they're not gonna want to pass an amendment.
• 20:24
  It makes perfect logical sense to us why Congress people should not
• 20:28
  be allowed to trade stocks, right?
• 20:31
  But they're not passing an amendment banning themselves
• 20:35
  from trading stocks anytime soon.
• 20:38
  And I think Gerrymandering's kind of the same, the same thing.
• 20:41
  So I, I don't know if I don't know how realistically it would get fixed
• 20:46
  maybe the Supreme Court but you would, the Supreme Court only decides on
• 20:52
  cases, so they don't really, they wouldn't really have a a role to play
• 20:58
  in that.
• 20:59
  If the system right now, this is in the public discourse because we have
• 21:03
  Texas and California and Illinois all threatening to gerrymander their states.
• 21:08
  Basically because of Texas being the number one actor.
• 21:14
  If every state gerrymanders themselves to maximize congressional
• 21:18
  districts, the Republicans will win.
• 21:21
  They'll win more states and basically have an unassailable majority in the house.
• 21:25
  And then I don't see them turning around and passing a fair
• 21:28
  district act after they've won
• 21:30
  the baton,
• 21:32
  So what do you think?
• 21:34
  I, no, it's right.
• 21:37
  It's been a it's been happening for a very long time.
• 21:40
  My random thought that I was having a discussion with Dave about was, at what
• 21:47
  point does someone to some level of power say, don't we already have lines
• 21:53
  drawn that are called counties like.
• 21:59
  We, that should be the congressional I'm so confused on how we get the
• 22:03
  squiggles of where some random interest gets created by whoever's draw.
• 22:09
  I wanna know who's drawing the lines.
• 22:11
  Who's that person specifically the political scientist that connects
• 22:15
  with the person that has the data, that has all the information that
• 22:18
  goes, Hey, this is where Dave lives.
• 22:20
  You want Dave's vote?
• 22:21
  We gotta circle building 13 A in this random redrawing of this district line.
• 22:27
  But to your point and to, and my thought process is like, we
• 22:31
  already have these lines drawn.
• 22:33
  We already have very discernible lines of where counties begin, where cities begin,
• 22:40
  where townships begin and we continue.
• 22:43
  And it happens all the time.
• 22:45
  Like the that's the thing about the redrawing, like you said earlier, like
• 22:48
  Illinois and other states are like, Hey, Texas is doing it right now.
• 22:50
  This could, this happens frequently as new people move.
• 22:54
  As interest changes, income changes, as the economy changes and people move
• 23:01
  different states and different places, these lines continue to get redrawn.
• 23:04
  This is not something that happens every 15 years, something happens almost
• 23:08
  every 15 months, which is really wild.
• 23:11
  So we do need, I believe, someone of a higher interest of a higher power,
• 23:17
  of a bigger importance to really just come down with some type of law.
• 23:21
  And yeah, to your point, maybe present a federal case with the Supreme Court
• 23:25
  to say, listen, we need to change these gerrymandering tactics and these
• 23:29
  laws, because this is just almost
• 23:32
  unfair.
• 23:34
  It's like whoever has the
• 23:34
  There would need to be a lawsuit.
• 23:37
  And
• 23:37
  the problem is that it's legal, so
• 23:39
  there's not gonna be a lawsuit because you have to allege a violation of
• 23:43
  some law.
• 23:44
  So it's, I, and the stated reason for it is to accurately
• 23:50
  reflect the voter base, right?
• 23:53
  The stated reason for redrawing the districts.
• 23:56
  The real reason is to, I guess in some cases that is the real reason,
• 24:02
  but it has the effect of drawing districts that are gerrymandered.
• 24:08
  But they become, they're more scientific the more detailed
• 24:11
  the census gets and everything.
• 24:12
  Like back in the day with Edward Jerry the governor, it was a rough human
• 24:18
  process of drawing districts, you knew roughly how people voted in different
• 24:23
  places, but how accurate was their census compared to what we have now?
• 24:26
  When we can break down to finite details, how many households and
• 24:30
  how many immigrants and ethnic makeups of all these different areas,
• 24:34
  that's what helps them be able to gerrymander to such a scientific level.
• 24:39
  And that makes
• 24:39
  it more insidious today than it was in the past.
• 24:44
  Yeah.
• 24:45
  Yeah, totally.
• 24:46
  So if you're designing or redesigning one part of voting from registration
• 24:51
  to ballots to, changing gerrymandering, what would you change first.
• 25:01
  I would change
• 25:02
  gerrymandering first.
• 25:04
  That's it.
• 25:04
  That's the biggest thing for you.
• 25:05
  Okay.
• 25:06
  So if that goes away, do you feel everything becomes a lot more fair?
• 25:11
  Everything becomes a lot more.
• 25:13
  Predictable might not be the word, but let's just say democratic, that goes away.
• 25:17
  Things are a lot more reasonable.
• 25:19
  I think that's the end.
• 25:21
  That's the goal.
• 25:22
  I think if politicians have to compete for centrist in their districts because
• 25:29
  the districts are more competitive, then we're gonna end up with more
• 25:33
  pragmatic people who are able to actually negotiate with the other side.
• 25:39
  And aren't just hotheaded partisans.
• 25:43
  And then that will
• 25:45
  give us, that would give us a more functioning government
• 25:48
  than what we have now.
• 25:50
  Dave, what about you man?
• 25:51
  If you had to if there's a perfect system that exists,
• 25:55
  what do you think it would look like?
• 25:56
  It's definitely taken the politicians out of this, right?
• 26:00
  Yeah.
• 26:00
  Gerrymandering's like really high on that list, and I don't
• 26:03
  hear anybody ever talk about it.
• 26:04
  I was just looking at.
• 26:06
  My district and I was actually pretty impressed.
• 26:09
  I live in a red state and it's pretty firmly red and in Florida, and I'm
• 26:16
  actually surprised my, my voting district is just round, it's just, it's like
• 26:20
  somebody drew a circle and I'm like, okay.
• 26:22
  I don't know what the rest of it looks like, but I'm like, I'm, that,
• 26:25
  that seems it, it on the surface
• 26:27
  take a circle.
• 26:28
  yeah, it looks it looks okay.
• 26:30
  Yeah, gerrymandering's like high on that list I'd like more people to vote
• 26:34
  and certainly that it's easier to vote.
• 26:38
  I loved your idea in our first episode on this, which is yeah we live in counties
• 26:42
  and so just if you have, if you live in a populous county, then yeah, you, your five
• 26:48
  representatives represent that county.
• 26:50
  If you live in a sparse county, a rural county, then.
• 26:54
  One representative might represent like three or four counties.
• 26:57
  I'm like, okay, that makes, that makes a lot of sense to me.
• 26:59
  That's yeah, I think that's spot on.
• 27:01
  And then, making it easier to vote.
• 27:04
  I'm fine with the IDs and stuff.
• 27:05
  I'm actually okay with mail-in balloting ballots too, because, we
• 27:09
  have armed forces overseas that, that do that all the time, so Yeah.
• 27:14
  Yeah.
• 27:14
  More people, more engaged.
• 27:17
  I, the one that I'm clearly probably standalone on this is that, we only have
• 27:23
  438 representatives for Congress and then another a hundred in the Senate,
• 27:29
  and that was capped a long time ago.
• 27:32
  I think we should have a lot more representatives, and I think
• 27:34
  that would also drive some more diverse voices, rather than.
• 27:40
  4 38, then maybe we have 600.
• 27:43
  And that means that each representative represents fewer people because our
• 27:47
  population has grown and it's gonna keep
• 27:49
  I, it's always like the will of the people is, is the wi is the will of the people.
• 27:55
  Are the will.
• 27:55
  Yeah.
• 27:56
  Is the will of the people being representative right now represented
• 28:00
  Right now, it doesn't feel that way.
• 28:02
  So yeah.
• 28:03
  More diversity for lack of a better term.
• 28:05
  And more people like focused on the issues that we all do care about.
• 28:10
  Like what, when was the last time we talked about healthcare?
• 28:13
  That's like the number one thing for people, or the economy,
• 28:16
  like the number two thing.
• 28:17
  It's all kitchen table issues.
• 28:19
  instead we're talking about tariffs.
• 28:21
  Oh my God, if I hear that one more time, I'm gonna lose my mind.
• 28:24
  yeah.
• 28:25
  Reid, tell me a little bit more about your general take on some countries will
• 28:31
  actually fine people for not voting.
• 28:36
  Do you think mandatory voting could actually work in the
• 28:39
  US?
• 28:41
  It's like you're talking about, earlier you mentioned the people
• 28:45
  voter participation and stuff like that and voter ID laws.
• 28:48
  One of the bars to that is, is it, I didn't actually know that voting
• 28:54
  is not a right in the Constitution.
• 28:56
  But one of the things that ties into is do you consider voting a right.
• 29:02
  Do you consider something like requiring an ID to be an unnecessary bar?
• 29:08
  'Cause it could be like a socioeconomic even if it is a small barrier, it
• 29:13
  could be a barrier to people to voting.
• 29:16
  But is I think that the right to vote or the right to abstain
• 29:20
  from voting is basically as important as the right to not vote.
• 29:23
  So I don't really think mandatory
• 29:26
  voting would hold up in this country.
• 29:29
  You have the freedom, right?
• 29:31
  We're all
• 29:31
  about freedom.
• 29:32
  So you should have the freedom to not vote if you don't want to, and how
• 29:37
  would you implement mandatory voting?
• 29:40
  Just everybody vote from their phones
• 29:42
  on
• 29:42
  Snapchat or
• 29:44
  Yep, it's, that's right.
• 29:46
  And Snapchat overnight rallies 3%.
• 29:49
  It's, a, I don't think, to your point, making almost anything mandatory in
• 29:55
  this country would ever actually work.
• 29:57
  If you have to do something tell a bunch of Americans, they gotta do something,
• 30:00
  they're like that's not gonna work.
• 30:01
  What if it was like you at least gotta show up or you gotta, pull
• 30:05
  up your phone, like our utopia.
• 30:07
  Pull up and pull up your phone and cast your vote.
• 30:09
  Even if it, the vote is, I'm not voting right.
• 30:12
  Like at least you voted.
• 30:13
  You voted for none of the above.
• 30:15
  No.
• 30:16
  Good take.
• 30:17
  that Dave.
• 30:19
  I like that Dave.
• 30:20
  'Cause that, yeah, that's my utopia.
• 30:21
  Like in a random way is again, there, there has to be some technological
• 30:28
  capacity where we make that pretty ingrained using Biologistics u using
• 30:36
  some type of fingerprint scan, using some type of face scan, using something
• 30:41
  where you at least have that capacity.
• 30:42
  Again, maybe it doesn't start with everybody, but maybe it starts
• 30:44
  with people that want to do it.
• 30:46
  I think more people have phones than they have IDs in the country,
• 30:49
  so that'd be, fascinating.
• 30:51
  But to, to your point, Dave.
• 30:53
  Yeah.
• 30:54
  If they said, Hey, listen, everyone has to vote.
• 30:56
  Your vote can be, I don't care that, and that's a button.
• 31:00
  You click the button, all is good.
• 31:02
  You can leave.
• 31:04
  Don't have to tell us what you actually think.
• 31:06
  I think the participation.
• 31:09
  One I fully believe, and I think it'd be fun to see like the
• 31:13
  percentages of voting and how it has shifted and transformed over time.
• 31:21
  When I did my intro right, 65% of people that voted and that was the
• 31:27
  third largest ever seems radically low,
• 31:33
  Yeah,
• 31:34
  right?
• 31:34
  Like you would, I would think like in the 18 hundreds, 1865, like a
• 31:37
  hundred percent of people are voting like, what else are they doing,
• 31:41
  right?
• 31:41
  A lot fewer people could
• 31:43
  vote.
• 31:43
  Like it
• 31:43
  yeah.
• 31:44
  Is
• 31:44
  White people,
• 31:45
  or is that,
• 31:46
  White, guys.
• 31:47
  It was about it, right?
• 31:49
  YY well, exactly.
• 31:50
  Yeah.
• 31:50
  So that's the only people that can vote.
• 31:52
  So all the people that can vote, it's I guess from a population
• 31:55
  standpoint.
• 31:56
  actually one of the huge reforms of Andrew Jackson.
• 32:00
  And he was a, he was the original Democrat.
• 32:03
  He I don't know if he passed it, but during his time was landholding males.
• 32:10
  You could, now you just had to be a white male.
• 32:12
  They dropped the requirement to own land.
• 32:14
  So that was
• 32:16
  really Open the floodgates for voters voter turnout,
• 32:20
  Open the flood gaze.
• 32:21
  Come on down.
• 32:23
  Yeah.
• 32:24
  and you gotta think of his support.
• 32:27
  I would imagine he probably benefited a lot from allowing non
• 32:32
  landholding white males to vote.
• 32:36
  Otherwise, he prob probably wouldn't have
• 32:38
  been, the Jacksonian Democrat that he was.
• 32:43
  Yeah.
• 32:44
  Hey so let's say we added tech to this, right?
• 32:47
  Let's say you could vote from your phone you buy stuff on your phone.
• 32:50
  You do a lot of you trade on your phone like you move money.
• 32:54
  Like some of the most important things in your life, you, you do on your
• 32:57
  phone or in front of your computer.
• 32:59
  Do you think, could we do that safely?
• 33:03
  Reid, you're an eng, you're an engineer.
• 33:05
  yeah.
• 33:05
  What do you think Reid?
• 33:06
  Oh, I'm not an engineer.
• 33:08
  No, I, but if you bank on your phone, you can probably vote on your phone.
• 33:12
  Yeah.
• 33:13
  Because sure it has, there's holes in it.
• 33:18
  But people, like you said, people trust their whole life
• 33:22
  savings with doing it electronically, not?
• 33:25
  But I also get like a notification it seems like once a month of
• 33:28
  being like, Hey, your stuff's been compromised on Pinterest or whatever.
• 33:33
  Yeah, I mean there, there's tech that can do it.
• 33:35
  Or at some point, in my opinion, it, it could, it can or could definitely be done.
• 33:40
  We could figure it out.
• 33:41
  We could figure out how to become more tech savvy with voting.
• 33:44
  I think that would increase the capacity to vote.
• 33:47
  I do think we should find ways to make voting relatively
• 33:50
  easier, safer, more trackable.
• 33:52
  When I, say more trackable.
• 33:53
  I just mean like, to, to Reid's point, like the census of just, hey.
• 33:58
  It's really, really easy to do this.
• 34:00
  It's not that hard family fill out this, sign up for this, do this thing.
• 34:04
  I, I still find mail-in voting very archaic.
• 34:08
  And I think that if one were to do that again, it should just be something
• 34:12
  where it's maybe you have to go through a couple more verification steps.
• 34:17
  That's all.
• 34:19
  Instead of one, which is just like you show an ID and you take a vote, like just
• 34:23
  a couple of, just two or three more steps.
• 34:27
  Ultimately, because there are still tons and tons of people who are not voting.
• 34:32
  That's really the thought process.
• 34:34
  So in your general circle, Reid, the people that you just talked
• 34:37
  to or hear about from your day to day, why do you feel or hear or see
• 34:43
  people that do not vote presently?
• 34:45
  Like what's their big hangup
• 34:47
  for it?
• 34:48
  I think most people in my circle do vote.
• 34:51
  It's probably a higher turnout than the general public.
• 34:56
  But I think the hangout.
• 34:59
  Four people is just civic literacy, really just knowing when an election
• 35:04
  is, a lot of people like the midterms are coming up next year and everybody
• 35:08
  knows the midterms are a very, it's a low turnout election cycle because
• 35:13
  people don't know there's an election.
• 35:14
  The people know when there's presidential election because how could you not?
• 35:21
  But people don't really know when, if there's not a president up for
• 35:24
  election, they're not really aware
• 35:26
  that there is
• 35:28
  an election at all.
• 35:30
  So it's just basic education
• 35:32
  Really.
• 35:33
  What What about you Jerremy?
• 35:35
  And like you said the
• 35:36
  highest turn election in history was in 2020, and that was during COVID.
• 35:39
  So it was the center of the news cycle and it, the election itself,
• 35:44
  COVID was the primary issue.
• 35:47
  So that was the one election where everybody.
• 35:51
  At least knew that there was an election.
• 35:53
  Everybody had an opinion on it.
• 35:54
  So it was the most involved election, I think, I believe that
• 35:58
  2008 was the previous record holder.
• 36:03
  because Barack Obama, another big historical election,
• 36:06
  Yeah.
• 36:06
  you
• 36:06
  just
• 36:07
  had the, the financial crisis and Bush was getting out of office, so
• 36:10
  you had multiple people running.
• 36:12
  Yeah I think Dave, for me, just thinking through man, I. The
• 36:21
  way I see it, people not voting.
• 36:24
  Our boy Reid nailed it.
• 36:25
  He said, my favorite word it is education.
• 36:29
  And again, back to just basic school, I looked over my son Gabriel's 15,
• 36:35
  15-year-old high school homework last night when I got home at 10
• 36:40
  o'clock from traveling all day.
• 36:41
  Just glazed over it.
• 36:43
  Just garbage.
• 36:45
  Garbage.
• 36:46
  Just garbage.
• 36:47
  The things like the, he's, they, so world history is a map of Europe.
• 36:55
  Cool.
• 36:55
  That's cool I guess.
• 36:56
  Sure.
• 36:57
  All right.
• 36:57
  Thumbs up to map of Europe and then math parallelograms just random geometry
• 37:05
  shapes and like how to graph them.
• 37:07
  Things of that nature.
• 37:08
  And just a bunch of other, just so I'm looking at this, thinking to myself,
• 37:13
  knowing that we have this discussion coming up, I wonder if any class
• 37:19
  in his school is teaching the high schoolers about the midterm elections.
• 37:24
  I wonder if there's any class where it's like, Hey, this is
• 37:28
  what a midterm election is.
• 37:31
  Here is like I, I get it that certain schools have American government.
• 37:35
  I realize that, but that's a very, not only few and far in between,
• 37:39
  but it's also something that's gonna be taught very uniquely, very
• 37:42
  interestingly, probably very polarizing.
• 37:44
  And also just it's uninformed on the general public of the general
• 37:49
  public is lost on what's happening.
• 37:51
  Remember, I am at the time, 26, 27, 28, going into a middle school.
• 37:59
  Library casting votes for things I have no clue about.
• 38:04
  And I'm pretty well informed on just the general world at
• 38:06
  the time, for the most part.
• 38:08
  And I don't know very much about anything about who, what, who I'm voting for,
• 38:13
  what I'm voting for, the purposes behind.
• 38:15
  I'm voting.
• 38:15
  There's just not a lot of information.
• 38:19
  And so I think what would also be relevant to Reed's Point is just some,
• 38:25
  obviously Google has incredible access, but I just don't feel like the general
• 38:29
  public would agree that there's a really beautiful system of open information and
• 38:34
  education about what voting, who voting, where, voting, why all the information.
• 38:39
  A lot of the topics, a lot of the people.
• 38:41
  Huh.
• 38:42
  just feel like that's the main point.
• 38:43
  Obviously most of my people vote as well, but the people that don't
• 38:45
  vote in general, I think it's just 'cause of lack of education.
• 38:48
  They just don't know.
• 38:49
  So did you all have like civics classes and social study
• 38:52
  classes and history classes?
• 38:55
  Like I'm your son's 15, right?
• 38:57
  Like I, I had all those things I remember real clearly that my
• 39:01
  teacher brought in sample ballots and we'd actually go through it.
• 39:05
  It'd be like, okay, how does this work?
• 39:06
  And so did you have those classes?
• 39:09
  never once.
• 39:10
  Not me personally.
• 39:12
  Reed.
• 39:13
  I don't really remember if we had anything specifically like that.
• 39:18
  I think the high school level history and civics is severely lacking.
• 39:25
  And I took AP classes in high school, and then I minored in history in college, so
• 39:31
  I don't really have a. Normal experience.
• 39:34
  Like I think I, I received more history education than most people do.
• 39:39
  But I just had a thought while you were talking Jerremy about what would be a
• 39:43
  great idea for a government high school class or a government civics class.
• 39:48
  You could divide the class up, even have them hold a mock election and
• 39:52
  choose was like, let's say five or six.
• 39:54
  Let's say there's 25 people in the class.
• 39:56
  Choose five or six people that are gonna be the government and the other
• 39:59
  people are gonna be the people, right?
• 40:02
  And the government, they have to war game.
• 40:05
  Things are gonna do, like we gotta fund a war against so
• 40:09
  and so we need to raise money.
• 40:10
  We're gonna sell bonds.
• 40:11
  We gotta have this much interest rate.
• 40:13
  Our people are producing this much money with the economy.
• 40:16
  We're gonna have to recruit five of you to be soldiers.
• 40:19
  So we're gonna send you off to war.
• 40:20
  Let's say two of you die, and we, all right, we're running outta money.
• 40:24
  We gotta sell more bonds, oh we gotta pay off our debts.
• 40:27
  We're gonna print more money.
• 40:28
  And you could create like a real world scenario that would give kids a much, a
• 40:33
  better understanding of the way that the government works and the way the policy
• 40:37
  and the economy interact with each other.
• 40:40
  Much better than what you get with the education system the way it is right now.
• 40:44
  Because I don't think I knew what a bond was until I was probably 30.
• 40:51
  Yeah.
• 40:52
  Yeah.
• 40:52
  that word all the time, but
• 40:54
  you don't know what it, you don't really know what it is.
• 40:56
  No clue.
• 40:57
  No clue.
• 40:58
  And
• 40:58
  I
• 40:58
  think in you
• 40:59
  mentioned it really well, man you said the word high school a few
• 41:01
  times, so did I, but I think that's probably the time for it, right?
• 41:04
  Like I don't think you need to be berating.
• 41:07
  You can talk very basic election principles and some history stuff
• 41:10
  in middle school, but I think high school is the time for it because
• 41:13
  when you turn 18 in this country, you have the ability to vote, not the
• 41:16
  right, as we mentioned a couple times.
• 41:18
  It's weird, but alright, that's fine.
• 41:20
  But yeah, you turn 18 man, boom.
• 41:23
  Now you can vote.
• 41:24
  And to your point, man, you don't remember that?
• 41:29
  'cause I don't think it happened homie.
• 41:31
  We don't remember 'cause it didn't really occur.
• 41:34
  Wait.
• 41:34
  didn't really have tons and tons of information.
• 41:36
  Again, just the real world thing.
• 41:39
  The applications that impact this country.
• 41:42
  Taxes.
• 41:44
  We didn't learn how to fill out taxes.
• 41:46
  We didn't learn what taxes.
• 41:47
  We don't know anything about taxes.
• 41:48
  When you exit high school, for the majority of all people that go through
• 41:52
  high school, you do not learn properly.
• 41:55
  What are taxes?
• 41:57
  Why do you pay them?
• 41:59
  How much are you paying?
• 42:00
  And how can you legally pay less?
• 42:04
  You're not taught these things.
• 42:05
  Every single person on earth is a subject to learning a better education.
• 42:10
  And here in the US I think that just some of these basic life
• 42:14
  principles just get way overlooked.
• 42:16
  And we don't spend any, again if my son Gabriel wants to become, which
• 42:20
  I know he doesn't an architect, some type of engineer, a chemist.
• 42:26
  He can start learning some of the things he's learning right now in high school.
• 42:28
  Otherwise they should be burning into his brain.
• 42:31
  How elections work, how money works, how income works, how
• 42:35
  budgeting works, how taxes work.
• 42:37
  Again, yes, parents should and can teach that and my kids are gonna
• 42:41
  be fine, but for every other kid in the world, I think it's just really
• 42:45
  crucial that they learn this stuff and it's really just openly not taught.
• 42:49
  And so I think that'd be fantastic, man, that, that game,
• 42:52
  the gamification of it, right?
• 42:54
  Frequently doing that often where people know and they just pour into themselves
• 42:59
  and just get really in, ingrained into it.
• 43:02
  I, I you guys are blowing my mind.
• 43:03
  I'm not that much older than you all, but I did I did learn all of that.
• 43:09
  Like we had Model un, we had government debates.
• 43:13
  We I, we didn't learn about taxes, but definitely about
• 43:17
  banking and how money works.
• 43:18
  I learned that in grade school, so I, I'm like, what?
• 43:23
  What took up all that time?
• 43:24
  What did they get rid of?
• 43:26
  What did they
• 43:26
  add in order
• 43:27
  to get rid of all
• 43:27
  that?
• 43:29
  We had, I remember learning about the gold standard, 1898, the guy that
• 43:34
  campaigned against against fiat currency.
• 43:38
  'cause he was a big gold guy.
• 43:40
  But we, it wasn't really they didn't really explain I don't feel like
• 43:45
  I really learned how a fiat system worked coming out of high school.
• 43:50
  Like you, you knew a little bit of details.
• 43:51
  Like we got off the gold standard, we started the Federal Reserve in 1913,
• 43:57
  and I, we didn't really get off the gold standard until Nixon, I think.
• 44:00
  But you don't really know what that means.
• 44:04
  You don't really know the basis for how the economy works.
• 44:07
  You just, you have these kind of vague details in your head,
• 44:12
  like what's the gold standard?
• 44:14
  What are we on now as opposed to the gold standard?
• 44:18
  Yeah, it is it is quite fascinating, the things that we learn, the
• 44:21
  things that we study, the things they put a lot of importance on.
• 44:24
  I met Dave with most of my most of Gabe's teachers.
• 44:28
  And I remember the English teacher, just asking her like,
• 44:31
  Hey books you guys are reading.
• 44:33
  And she's I got these three books.
• 44:34
  I just gotta get we gotta get through 'em.
• 44:37
  I'm like who's dictating these books?
• 44:38
  She's I'm, from the higher ups I gotta, we gotta get through this, these books.
• 44:44
  And like it is just like this information that gets taught.
• 44:46
  Yeah, exactly.
• 44:47
  It is, man.
• 44:48
  It's wild.
• 44:48
  But I think that there's just such a fun and unique and cool topic
• 44:51
  because I do think, and again, my, I think my general consensus leads
• 44:57
  towards voting should be easier.
• 45:00
  It should be safer, and should be more informed.
• 45:03
  And I think if those, when I say safer, just safer in the sense that it's
• 45:07
  available, it's easy, it's accessible.
• 45:10
  People know it, people are aware of it, and it's not something that's
• 45:14
  extremely easily manipulated, like what's happening right now.
• 45:20
  And I think that's pretty, pretty straightforward, right?
• 45:23
  Don't manipulate elections.
• 45:24
  Let's have a, let's actually hear what the general population believe and
• 45:30
  think on average what is the consensus
• 45:34
  Oh
• 45:34
  and find,
• 45:35
  I got another one to throw in there for you.
• 45:38
  Oh, hit me, dude.
• 45:39
  What What we got.
• 45:40
  You can't run for anything until 90 days before the election.
• 45:45
  There's already people like lining up to run for president three years from now.
• 45:50
  I'm like, oh, enough of this.
• 45:51
  No, I don't want to hear anything until 90 days before or else you're disqualified.
• 45:56
  No ads,
• 45:57
  no nothing.
• 45:58
  I think compressing it into a tight window like that.
• 46:02
  Wouldn't really serve the purpose of having a more educated voter pool.
• 46:09
  I get what you're saying about, it's ridiculous how it basically never
• 46:13
  ends, but that's, you need these ideas to marinate in order to have any
• 46:18
  kind of filtering down to the general
• 46:21
  population.
• 46:22
  And even then, I don't, there's not a whole lot of filtering down happening.
• 46:27
  Fair.
• 46:27
  I also think it's more noise than signal,
• 46:30
  yeah.
• 46:30
  When do you
• 46:31
  guys think about the people who
• 46:33
  are very supportive of voter ID laws?
• 46:36
  How would they
• 46:36
  feel about mandatory voting?
• 46:39
  they I think the majority of 'em will be very pro mandatory voting.
• 46:42
  'cause then it was like, listen, you have to vote.
• 46:44
  And when you have to vote, you have to show an id.
• 46:46
  Simple as that.
• 46:48
  I think that would be their I, don't know.
• 46:50
  I think that'd probably be their stance.
• 46:51
  I wouldn't, I don't think I'd ever sign off on mandatory
• 46:53
  voting, at least in this country.
• 46:54
  But again, man, I think it could be a relatively simplistic approach
• 46:59
  where it's not that extreme.
• 47:01
  Like you don't have to have a passport, you don't have to have a driver's license.
• 47:04
  Like you can get a id.
• 47:07
  Essentially for free.
• 47:09
  I believe just like I am a human being that lives in this
• 47:12
  country and I'm a citizen.
• 47:13
  I think that Id doesn't cost very much.
• 47:15
  Especially if you live in cities that have incredible transportation, right?
• 47:19
  Like big cities, New York City, you don't need a driver's license, right?
• 47:23
  And if you don't have a passport, that's fine, but library
• 47:26
  card, like, what can you get?
• 47:28
  Like
• 47:28
  costco card.
• 47:29
  Yeah.
• 47:29
  Yeah.
• 47:30
  What can you actually get?
• 47:31
  That's pretty easy.
• 47:32
  That's pretty simple.
• 47:32
  And I think that there could be tons of places if they said, Hey, listen,
• 47:36
  you have to have a voter, ID got it.
• 47:38
  Every CVS, every Walgreens, every Walmart, every Kroger, every place
• 47:42
  that you walk into every library, they have a free, go ahead and take
• 47:48
  this picture and we'll give you an id.
• 47:50
  That wouldn't
• 47:50
  be that
• 47:50
  difficult.
• 47:52
  What do you think about, do you
• 47:54
  think that AI is going to revolutionize the democratic process or
• 47:59
  our government
• 48:00
  Ooh.
• 48:01
  How dramatically do you think that's gonna change
• 48:04
  Oh, that's fun.
• 48:06
  That's a great question.
• 48:07
  I love it, Reid.
• 48:08
  Thank you, man.
• 48:10
  Man, it's what's wild?
• 48:11
  And in addition to that, I will answer that question so we
• 48:13
  can just pontificate over it.
• 48:15
  But when does a robot get into like Congress, right?
• 48:19
  When does you start taking away certain humans and you
• 48:22
  start putting in actual robots?
• 48:25
  Ai?
• 48:26
  I think for a real integration, a real integration into like American
• 48:32
  politics, this will be a crazy take, but I think it's 50 years away.
• 48:36
  And the reason I say that, the reason I say that is because
• 48:39
  government is very slow.
• 48:41
  They're very slow to make changes.
• 48:44
  They're very slow to take a adaptations that take away their
• 48:47
  control, their speed, right?
• 48:49
  'cause they want things to go slow.
• 48:51
  That's why they, that's why there are no term limits in certain organizations
• 48:55
  where they get to sit back and just coast in Vermont for 20 plus years and
• 48:59
  just do the same thing over and over.
• 49:01
  AI is gonna be a massive game changer for, I think, earlier in the political stage.
• 49:07
  And I think that'll be, again, discerning information on voting,
• 49:13
  asking the AI certain questions.
• 49:15
  Like right now, you can type in chat pt, Chachi, pt, almost any amendment
• 49:21
  form topic question that's on a ballot.
• 49:25
  And you'll get an answer.
• 49:26
  Now.
• 49:27
  The answer is gonna pull from Reddit mostly Pinterest boards, Google.
• 49:33
  Facebook, a few other places, is the learning language model.
• 49:36
  The LLM is gonna, right now, cha t Rock, a few others.
• 49:39
  It's just gonna pull from what's currently available, right?
• 49:41
  The current pull of information the back and forth conversations that are
• 49:44
  happening with people and individuals.
• 49:46
  But saying all that to say it should, if anything, make a lot
• 49:50
  of these applications and a lot of the certain processes a lot easier.
• 49:53
  And I think AI done correctly, robotics done correctly.
• 50:00
  The speed and the speed of the internet and the applications done a adequately
• 50:04
  creates a post abundance world.
• 50:08
  A world where we start stepping away from scarcity.
• 50:12
  And people have so much more time to create.
• 50:15
  They have so much more time to think.
• 50:17
  They have so much more time to deliberate because we have machines,
• 50:19
  we have robots, we have AI that's doing a lot of our manual labor for us.
• 50:24
  And we have the ability as humans to go and reconnect to.
• 50:28
  To actually build and to scale and to deliberate.
• 50:31
  And I think that absolutely does exist in the political realm.
• 50:34
  Me and Dave's perfect world is individuals start caring a lot about
• 50:40
  going to Washington, DC They care a lot about becoming incredible politicians.
• 50:44
  So it's instead of becoming a movie star or a YouTuber, or you wanna go to the
• 50:49
  NFL or a professional soccer player, you want to become a congressman or woman.
• 50:56
  You want to go to the Senate, you wanna become a representative.
• 50:58
  You want to be president, placing the nation's brightest.
• 51:03
  Most excited, most enthused and positive individuals that are well-spoken and
• 51:07
  charismatic and caring and kind and empathetic, placing them in government
• 51:12
  because now they have time and they have income and they have ideas.
• 51:15
  They can be assimilated very quickly and easily and efficiently because of ai.
• 51:18
  I think that would be a fun, fun future.
• 51:20
  But again, that's my world.
• 51:21
  There's a lot of other more negative biases and approaches of ai, but
• 51:25
  that's my rosy colored glasses view.
• 51:27
  What do you think,
• 51:27
  Reed?
• 51:29
  You're talking about 50 years away.
• 51:31
  But we I think all you really need to do is tweak the
• 51:35
  algorithm to influence outcomes.
• 51:39
  Facebook already, what was that?
• 51:41
  Cambridge Analytica stuff.
• 51:43
  Didn, they influence
• 51:44
  the outcome of an election
• 51:46
  by
• 51:46
  tweaking their algorithm.
• 51:47
  I don't know, but I would
• 51:49
  have to.
• 51:50
  I'm not really sure if I'm spot on that, but, and what if you
• 51:55
  have a super intelligent AI just manipulating what everybody sees?
• 52:00
  That, that's all you really need to.
• 52:02
  And then the AI can determine what outcome it wants or
• 52:08
  what outcome it.
• 52:09
  The
• 52:09
  people who own it wants to happen, and that will happen
• 52:13
  But if it's an but
• 52:14
  enough.
• 52:15
  Exactly.
• 52:16
  But if it's intelligent, would it be able to, would it be able to give us the
• 52:20
  best candidate, right?
• 52:22
  Would could it pull cream from the crops, could it give us an
• 52:26
  algorithmic view of who is the best?
• 52:28
  Right now, again, I don't think that AI is actually intelligent.
• 52:32
  That's my, again, current belief, right?
• 52:34
  It's not artificial intelligence presently.
• 52:37
  It is there, there are some applications that are becoming
• 52:40
  smarter and I think obviously the curve will happen very fast, right?
• 52:43
  Five, six years.
• 52:44
  It'll become more and more intelligent.
• 52:46
  Right now it's just more uniquely regurgitating what's already on Google.
• 52:50
  But to your point, yeah, man, in the future, AI actually does sit back and
• 52:56
  goes, how can I give Dave and Reid and Jerremy this very specific bias in a
• 53:01
  way that they're going to assimilate it the way that I want them to so
• 53:07
  that I can be their overlord possible?
• 53:09
  Right?
• 53:10
  You start talking then Matrix and Terminator.
• 53:11
  But again, I think that if that happens, that's pretty far away and
• 53:14
  there is a tipping point where that could occur and and hopefully we have
• 53:17
  minds in the right place that are smart enough so that doesn't happen.
• 53:21
  So this is
• 53:22
  What do you think,
• 53:22
  yeah, this is a great question.
• 53:24
  I
• 53:24
  is, man.
• 53:24
  It's a good one.
• 53:26
  I think it's going to, the tipping point's going to be whether or not people
• 53:31
  think that the technology is working.
• 53:35
  For you or to you,
• 53:39
  Because I think a lot of the AI and how it's, coming up is very manipulative.
• 53:44
  It's trying to basically separate you from your money at light speed.
• 53:50
  And so as this sort of gets into the social space my niece is in HR for like
• 53:56
  law firms and she's, she was telling, we were talking last week and she noticed
• 54:01
  something really interesting because she's on the second half of her twenties and
• 54:05
  she's talking about who's coming in, like their first classes, the recent hires.
• 54:12
  And she said, they're so online, they like stare at your they can't
• 54:17
  hold a conversation like, like they're staring at their feet and
• 54:20
  you almost have to text them while you're standing in front of them.
• 54:24
  But Then she's saying that the generation before them, maybe the teens, maybe
• 54:29
  not your teen Jerremy, but maybe teen and earlier, they're far less online.
• 54:35
  They're very selective about what technology are because they've seen
• 54:40
  what it does to, later generations.
• 54:43
  I'm wondering, the, again, back to the noise versus signal, if people
• 54:48
  are perceiving that technology is happening to them, that we might
• 54:52
  create more Luddites that aren't as connected, that aren't in the swamp.
• 54:58
  I've been offline for the last two, three weeks from social
• 55:01
  media and my mood's improved.
• 55:04
  So I am, I'm curious if there's gonna be like a rebellion of the humans
• 55:09
  against the AI and how that's gonna go.
• 55:12
  I, I. I think it's gonna it's definitely gonna change our culture
• 55:15
  and it's gonna change our politics.
• 55:17
  It's gonna change everything that we do, and I'm really curious how humans are
• 55:22
  going to react to it more than anything
• 55:23
  else.
• 55:25
  As you gaze thoughtfully out the window.
• 55:28
  Yeah.
• 55:29
  For as long as I can.
• 55:30
  I was, to that
• 55:31
  point I was looking earlier about when you were talking about high school
• 55:35
  education and stuff, there was some.
• 55:37
  I've read some studies or some surveys about Gen Z and asking Gen Z,
• 55:42
  polling Gen Z about different things.
• 55:44
  And it seems like Gen Z has an alarmingly level of lack of education
• 55:51
  on a lot of things, like a high percentage of Gen Z doubts that we
• 55:55
  landed on the moon, for example.
• 55:57
  And other things like that.
• 55:58
  So I don't know what direction it's gonna go, is people being too online just
• 56:04
  exposes them to too many TikTok videos.
• 56:08
  We didn't land on the moon because the camera angles and the,
• 56:11
  there's no stars in the background
• 56:13
  or, and they're not
• 56:14
  presented with the refutation to those arguments.
• 56:17
  That's really the
• 56:18
  Like you can take a telescope and just look at it
• 56:21
  and
• 56:21
  see.
• 56:22
  you can get a really good telescope and literally, visually look at
• 56:25
  what
• 56:25
  everyone's talking about.
• 56:26
  That's on the moon right
• 56:27
  now.
• 56:28
  You can see the flags,
• 56:30
  you can see them.
• 56:30
  we'll just wait till we go back to the moon and the rovers are there.
• 56:33
  But of course then it'll be they flew up there, there was
• 56:36
  a secret mission back in 2023
• 56:38
  and
• 56:38
  they planted the rovers.
• 56:41
  That's right.
• 56:42
  Moon in 1969.
• 56:43
  Dave, That's it, man.
• 56:44
  Solving America's Problems.
• 56:45
  Conspiracy Theory edition.
• 56:47
  I in.
• 56:48
  be very fun.
• 56:48
  Yeah, I'm in.
• 56:49
  But yeah, to, to your point, Reid man, like that is, it's the, we're always
• 56:52
  gonna go circle back on education.
• 56:54
  That's kinda like my main number one platform focus in general is I really
• 56:59
  do think and feel and know that this country needs a huge shift in education.
• 57:06
  What we're taught, how we're taught, where we're taught, why we
• 57:09
  are taught, because there's, Dave mentioned the population is increased,
• 57:15
  so we need more representatives.
• 57:17
  That's one of the most obvious changes, but obviously technology, like the
• 57:22
  speed at which things have moved and shifted, and the way that most
• 57:26
  teachers and most schools right now are handling the technology shift.
• 57:29
  It's just giving a kid a, a Chromebook and saying, Hey, now do everything that
• 57:34
  you're doing, but just on this computer.
• 57:36
  And they're not, we're not teaching our children how to interact with technology,
• 57:42
  how to interact with other humans, how to interact and really the internal shifts
• 57:48
  and the biometric updates that need to happen in order for our species to
• 57:53
  evolve adequately is just not occurring because the technology is just increasing
• 57:57
  at such a rapid pace and rapid speed.
• 58:00
  So we'd need big changes there.
• 58:02
  And for you to ask that question about ai, man, there's gonna be so
• 58:06
  many really fascinating, extremely unique topics on it, because.
• 58:11
  The one that I think we glossed over or you glossed over, I glossed over is the
• 58:17
  Cambridge Analytica aspect to all of it.
• 58:19
  And when I say Cambridge Analytica, what I mean is the ability for
• 58:22
  Facebook, apple, and Google, right?
• 58:26
  The CEOs, the decision makers to go, I don't believe that people should
• 58:32
  see the information about this.
• 58:34
  I'm just gonna make sure they don't
• 58:36
  Yeah.
• 58:36
  Yeah.
• 58:36
  Yeah.
• 58:37
  it.
• 58:37
  It really isn't that hard for them to pull that off, and it's gonna be very difficult
• 58:42
  for individuals to figure it out and to understand what it is and how it is.
• 58:46
  Like it's pretty simple for them to flip a switch and just no one see that person
• 58:51
  anymore.
• 58:51
  That
• 58:51
  is
• 58:52
  Okay.
• 58:53
  Yeah.
• 58:54
  Not all that hard is
• 58:55
  actually an understatement.
• 58:56
  I think
• 58:56
  It's mindboggling, mindbogglingly easy, and I think there's an incentive for them.
• 59:04
  Facebook actively censors political data.
• 59:07
  Facebook does not.
• 59:09
  If you post a political post, which I do often less people will see that than if
• 59:14
  you post a picture of your car and you say, I got, I just went to the car wash.
• 59:20
  More people will see that than they will if you post something about
• 59:23
  politics, because Facebook knows that politics is polarizing, and so
• 59:28
  they make sure that less people see those posts, which I actually do not
• 59:32
  think is good because I think people should be engaging in political.
• 59:37
  Discussion and political arguments.
• 59:39
  I think it's good for people.
• 59:40
  I think it's good for society, and I happen to really enjoy political
• 59:46
  arguments and discussions, but I know that most people don't,
• 59:50
  most people see it as just people
• 59:53
  see it as
• 59:54
  advers adversarial,
• 59:55
  And just intrinsically adversarial.
• 59:57
  And so therefore
• 59:58
  it is one thing you're not supposed to talk about,
• 1:00:00
  right?
• 1:00:01
  Like societally, sex, religion, money, politics, don't have
• 1:00:06
  conversations about those things.
• 1:00:09
  And I'm over here what else
• 1:00:11
  spins the world around?
• 1:00:13
  Like
• 1:00:14
  I know.
• 1:00:14
  Those are
• 1:00:14
  the things I want to talk about let's talk about religion.
• 1:00:18
  Let's talk about politics.
• 1:00:20
  yep.
• 1:00:21
  Agreed.
• 1:00:22
  Agreed, because those are just fun topics and to your point, we can, and
• 1:00:25
  have we can give visible audio audible examples of how individuals, and we're
• 1:00:32
  doing it right now can just have an open conversation about something where three
• 1:00:35
  people can either agree or disagree and they can just have a conversation and
• 1:00:40
  they can have discussions and they can learn from each other as we have today.
• 1:00:44
  One other thing I would like to learn from you, re before we start wrapping
• 1:00:47
  up is earlier at the very beginning you mentioned that you grew up with
• 1:00:52
  a little bit more, I think you used the word electoral information.
• 1:00:56
  Just give us a quick, like two minute background.
• 1:00:58
  Why or what shaped you to have more of an interest in politics.
• 1:01:07
  When I was eight years old, my dad ran for state senate in Georgia and so we
• 1:01:13
  were, that summer when I was eight years old, 1998, we were on the road going
• 1:01:17
  to every state fair in our district.
• 1:01:19
  And dad was campaigning.
• 1:01:21
  So I had this idea that he was campaigning.
• 1:01:23
  I knew what was going on, but you didn't really understand like at the granular
• 1:01:27
  level, it's oh yeah, my dad's running for state senate and he's gonna win.
• 1:01:32
  But so we were going to campaign events and I got to meet, people
• 1:01:37
  like I met Roy Barnes at this one.
• 1:01:40
  Fair.
• 1:01:41
  'cause I think he was campaigning, he was the governor of Georgia in the nineties.
• 1:01:45
  He was campaigning as well even though he was on the other side.
• 1:01:49
  So I just had this, like passion for politics from an early age.
• 1:01:53
  'cause I really, it was really fun, when I was eight years old and we were
• 1:01:56
  going, and I was listening to my dad talk to all these people and try to
• 1:01:59
  convince them to vote for him instead of the other candidate who was a Democrat.
• 1:02:04
  And he ran as a Republican in a rural Georgia district.
• 1:02:08
  And it's been really interesting to see that evolve over the years
• 1:02:11
  because he lost that election and it was a really close election.
• 1:02:15
  And it was, rural kind of Appalachian areas were historic Democrat strongholds
• 1:02:22
  going back to, the Dixiecrats and Strom Thurmond and stuff like that.
• 1:02:27
  They were, it was like that type of voter.
• 1:02:29
  So even though, Nixon really changed the map in the seventies, it didn't
• 1:02:37
  really fully materialize until.
• 1:02:40
  The two thousands, and now it's a lot different than it was then because
• 1:02:45
  those, that district would absolutely never be won by a Democrat, even
• 1:02:49
  though it was won by a democrat
• 1:02:52
  25 years ago.
• 1:02:54
  So that's been really interesting to watch.
• 1:02:56
  And,
• 1:02:56
  I just have been passionate about it basically ever
• 1:02:59
  since I was eight years old.
• 1:03:00
  Just the political process,
• 1:03:01
  yeah.
• 1:03:03
  That's awesome, man.
• 1:03:04
  That's really cool.
• 1:03:05
  Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  So it's, so what I heard you say then, is it just starts from as most good education
• 1:03:11
  does, it's gonna start in the homes.
• 1:03:12
  It's gonna start with parents caring, it's gonna start with individuals, just
• 1:03:15
  our moms and dads pouring into us, right?
• 1:03:18
  For every single person who's listening, you might not think that
• 1:03:23
  your 8-year-old cares about politics, and obviously they're not gonna
• 1:03:27
  be denate voters at eight, but.
• 1:03:31
  Our children will care about anything that we tell them they should care
• 1:03:35
  about, and they will begin to understand the importance and relevance of
• 1:03:40
  anything that we as parents also feel is relevant and important.
• 1:03:45
  To wrap up Reid.
• 1:03:48
  If you had 60 seconds on a nationally ranked podcast and you wanted to
• 1:03:57
  give your one line to fix voting in this country, what would you say?
• 1:04:03
  I'm gonna go back to my hobby horse, which is gerrymandering.
• 1:04:06
  I would tell people that if we elect people who are strong partisans, they're
• 1:04:12
  not gonna be able to work with people on the other side because they're strong.
• 1:04:16
  Partisan tilt prevents them from being incentivized to work across the aisle.
• 1:04:22
  If we like people who are problem solvers.
• 1:04:25
  who are more moderate and can work across the aisle, then we're gonna
• 1:04:28
  have a functioning government.
• 1:04:31
  And the only way to have a functioning government is to have competitive
• 1:04:34
  districts up and down the board.
• 1:04:37
  And like you said, having more representatives is potentially
• 1:04:41
  one way to achieve that.
• 1:04:42
  But having competitive districts is also another way to achieve that.
• 1:04:46
  These strong partisans that just contribute to more bipolar
• 1:04:50
  polarization in the political process are not solving problems.
• 1:04:55
  Look at how hard it is for Congress to do anything now.
• 1:05:01
  They're not it's not the way it was even 20 years ago.
• 1:05:04
  Congress was much more functioning than it is now.
• 1:05:08
  And I think that problem really goes back to
• 1:05:11
  the polarization A but the polarization, which is enabled by the gerrymandering.
• 1:05:18
  I love it.
• 1:05:19
  Beautiful.
• 1:05:19
  Take Reid.
• 1:05:20
  Thank you for sharing your time with us today.
• 1:05:23
  Thanks for pouring into all of our listeners with your unique skill sets,
• 1:05:28
  topics, questions, conversations.
• 1:05:30
  Dave, thank you so much as well for being here and for all of
• 1:05:35
  our
• 1:05:35
  listeners.
• 1:05:36
  Oh,
• 1:05:36
  re do you have something else to say.
• 1:05:38
  Oh I got a question for you are, so you're planning
• 1:05:40
  on running for president in 2032.
• 1:05:43
  Yes, sir.
• 1:05:44
  Are you how do you feel about a potentially another Newsome
• 1:05:48
  being president right before you?
• 1:05:50
  I would give the chance of that happening to be very small and
• 1:05:53
  I would love to run against
• 1:05:54
  Governor
• 1:05:54
  Newsom.
• 1:05:56
  It'd be an honor
• 1:05:56
  to
• 1:05:57
  you're right.
• 1:05:58
  I think you're right.
• 1:05:59
  I think his chances are very small, but it's ironic
• 1:06:03
  that
• 1:06:03
  he
• 1:06:03
  It is ironic.
• 1:06:05
  Yeah, it
• 1:06:05
  is ironic.
• 1:06:06
  he
• 1:06:06
  doesn't have the
• 1:06:07
  and if he were to get elected in 2028.
• 1:06:10
  that
• 1:06:10
  could, that could present an issue.
• 1:06:13
  'cause there'll be all these theories that you're like his cousin or something,
• 1:06:16
  it's a very valid point.
• 1:06:18
  Yeah.
• 1:06:18
  And we have to be technically related somehow, although he doesn't
• 1:06:21
  share the e on my last name, I'm sure that's a quick little family
• 1:06:25
  fix at some stage in the backlogs.
• 1:06:27
  But yeah, man, ultimately it'd be an honor for me to share the
• 1:06:30
  stage with anyone that really cares about creating a better America.
• 1:06:33
  And I think having certain topics and situations addressed for me is really
• 1:06:40
  focusing primarily on education.
• 1:06:42
  I think fixing that, I believe, fixing that.
• 1:06:44
  I know fixing that will give this country actually what it needs.
• 1:06:48
  versus always just creating this, you mentioned it a
• 1:06:51
  million times, polarization.
• 1:06:52
  This bifurcation, this diversification that's happening right now where
• 1:06:55
  we're splitting sides versus saying The biggest problem is this country
• 1:07:00
  is less smart than we used to be.
• 1:07:02
  We are more unhealthy than ever and the way to fix a lot of these
• 1:07:08
  components almost every single time when we really drill down into a big
• 1:07:13
  topic that is a thorn in the side of America, we are deciding and coming
• 1:07:18
  up with more and more relevancy to.
• 1:07:21
  We need to change education.
• 1:07:22
  We need to educate the populace better and in almost every way imaginable, but for
• 1:07:28
  sure, regarding what this country is, what it stands for, and why it stands for it.
• 1:07:34
  So to our listeners, thank you for tuning in.
• 1:07:37
  Thank you for being here.
• 1:07:38
  Thank you for sharing.
• 1:07:39
  Thank you for tagging us on X and also Instagram, and we look forward
• 1:07:44
  to continually serving you in future episodes of solving America's problems.
• 1:07:51
  Okay, so what did you learn?
• 1:07:53
  What did you learn on this one?
• 1:07:55
  What did I learn on this one?
• 1:07:57
  A lot of fun topics, man.
• 1:07:58
  Very circular in this conversation, which was nice.
• 1:08:01
  Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  Discussing everything from ai.
• 1:08:06
  To the degeneration of education again in this country showing up once more in
• 1:08:13
  another topic, in another conversation.
• 1:08:16
  I did learn and I think probably relearned my disdain for gerrymandering.
• 1:08:22
  I think a few other people share it which is fun.
• 1:08:25
  That's the big one for me, man, to also it's just so strange and odd that
• 1:08:31
  eventually and ultimately someone with enough power and insight and wisdom
• 1:08:35
  and also a motive can just go, Yeah.
• 1:08:38
  I want my election to be this way.
• 1:08:40
  And they just boop, take a sharpie out and make sure that happens is
• 1:08:45
  pretty bonkers to me to use your word.
• 1:08:48
  I think that one is, again, it's not illegal.
• 1:08:51
  It's not really a topic.
• 1:08:52
  It's not really something that people are discussing or having conversations about.
• 1:08:56
  Really.
• 1:08:56
  Ultimately, I think you even said it there's not tons of people talking
• 1:08:58
  about gerrymandering needs to go away.
• 1:09:01
  We are now, we are discussing that presently in this podcast,
• 1:09:05
  not only in this episode, but future episodes about voting.
• 1:09:07
  I did love hearing and learning that Reed, a, a gentleman like
• 1:09:12
  myself let's label us a millennial.
• 1:09:14
  Cares, has cared for a while has enjoyed it.
• 1:09:19
  And I did also hear certain, conversation topics about his background in school and
• 1:09:26
  how, and the higher education, getting his minor in history and things of
• 1:09:31
  that nature is really where he started sprouting the wings of the additional and
• 1:09:38
  continued education that he currently has and feels that other people need to have
• 1:09:43
  especially as it relates to this topic.
• 1:09:46
  What about you big man?
• 1:09:47
  What you got for me?
• 1:09:49
  What'd you walk away with?
• 1:09:50
  I gerrymandering is so funny, right?
• 1:09:53
  Because it's totally obvious that I am gonna dig deep.
• 1:09:57
  I'm gonna see if I can find anybody who's yeah, I'm pro gerrymandering.
• 1:10:01
  Other than a politician.
• 1:10:02
  yeah.
• 1:10:02
  Somebody besides yeah, more gerrymandering.
• 1:10:05
  Bring it on.
• 1:10:06
  It's the best.
• 1:10:08
  here's the thing, I, it's not a part of the conversation because
• 1:10:12
  I think everybody looks at it and be like, okay, that's not fair.
• 1:10:15
  And that, that totally goes against the grain of everyone, and we're not talking
• 1:10:20
  about it because we are pretty simple when it comes to what is important to us.
• 1:10:25
  It's it is the kitchen table issues, it's safety, it's wealth,
• 1:10:29
  it's education, it's health.
• 1:10:32
  It's not international trade, it's not foreign policy.
• 1:10:36
  It's the what's in it for me at least what is going to help me provide for
• 1:10:41
  my family, have a family, or at least leave the world a slightly better place.
• 1:10:48
  And gerrymandering's not on that list, but it affects every single one of those.
• 1:10:53
  So I think if we can tie, if we can tie gerrymandering to, hey, this is what's
• 1:11:00
  affecting you, underneath it, right?
• 1:11:03
  This is the meta issue.
• 1:11:04
  The reason we're not talking about your safety, your wealth, your education,
• 1:11:10
  the health of you and your family, or leaving the world slightly better
• 1:11:15
  is because you're not represented.
• 1:11:18
  It's,
• 1:11:18
  It is like your representation won't listen to you because they don't have to.
• 1:11:23
  That's.
• 1:11:24
  Besides that, AI and that social media, how AI is trained and search engines
• 1:11:31
  are bias, will affect probably the election of your local dog catcher.
• 1:11:36
  That's terrifying.
• 1:11:37
  So I think that's what I learned.
• 1:11:40
  A little spooky, right?
• 1:11:41
  Crazy.
• 1:11:43
  Yeah.
• 1:11:43
  definitely Crazy.
• 1:11:45
  Love it.
• 1:11:45
  Awesome.
• 1:11:46
  Dave.
• 1:11:46
  Man, we're gonna continue to dive into the topic.
• 1:11:48
  It's gonna be so much fun For all of our listeners, make sure you
• 1:11:51
  throw us that five star review.
• 1:11:54
  We are the best of the best, what we're doing and how we're doing it.
• 1:11:57
  We are unique, we are different, and we really are diving down
• 1:12:01
  into a lot of these problems.
• 1:12:02
  We are collecting so much great data and we over time are gonna
• 1:12:06
  continue to solve America's problems.