Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Did The Left Create Trump?" with David Roth

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"Did The Left Create Trump?" with David Roth · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Is politics a bit boring for you at the moment, and do you experience that as a relief from the circus that it's sometimes been?
• 0:11
  Well, enjoy the respite, but let's not be lulled into thinking there's consensus where there's not.
• 0:20
  Someone once told me there's a saying in 12-step addiction programs that while you're in recovery, your addiction is working out and getting stronger in preparation for when you eventually slip up.
• 0:31
  And I feel a bit that way about the forces of chaos, of populism, of authoritarianism and misinformation.
• 0:40
  They're getting stronger while we are coasting along going, oh, actually things seem sort of okay right now.
• 0:49
  That's not supposed to be a downer. It's supposed to be an exhortation for us to continue to aspire to have the sorts of conversations that will yield the best possible future for all of us.
• 0:59
  And that's what today's show is about, about understanding what's going on while the waters are calm, about the conversations we need to not relax into ceasing to have.
• 1:09
  Gee, that was a lot negative, wasn't it? We need to not not have. We need to have. There you go. That's the person to.
• 1:17
  Just because the waters are momentarily calm, doesn't mean we should let our guard down. And whatever grievances gave rise to things like Donald Trump and Brexit and nationalism and authoritarianism and the world over, still need to be addressed.
• 1:28
  Even if to do so is sometimes unpleasant, sometimes confronting and often, yes, I went there. I'm comfortable.
• 1:36
  Today on the show, it's one of those rare occasions where I read an article or two by someone I've never heard of and go, oh my goodness, this person is so brilliant, I have to get them on the blower.
• 1:56
  Now, this one was recorded, funnily enough, before the US election. And David Roth, my guest today, had written a couple of articles about Donald Trump. I wanted to interview him to understand his thinking about populism, Donald Trump's brain and what the future, what the next four years would hold, even if Donald Trump lost the election.
• 2:19
  And I've been sitting on it because I just haven't felt that it's quite the right time for us to analyze or psychoanalyze who Donald Trump is in the first hundred days of the Biden administration.
• 2:30
  I wanted to give it a bit of breathing room and who wants to go back and get their hands dirty meddling around in the gray matter of a man whose personality is so noxious.
• 2:39
  But it's time. It's time now because it's time to understand what Donald Trump represented and what the people who follow him are currently thinking about the Biden administration and are currently thinking about the medium to long term future of the United States.
• 2:56
  David Roth is a sports writer. He was the co-author of the Wall Street Journal's sports blog. And then he was a senior editor at Dead Spin. He resigned along with a large portion of Dead Spin's staff at the end of 2019. This was a huge shockwave through American media because they were basically dissatisfied with the fact that they had been told to stick to writing about sports, even though his political commentary was often what people came to the website to read.
• 3:23
  So he went off and created his own thing, de facto media, which he's now the co-owner of. And his insights about Donald Trump are both useful because they're true and also useful because they disagree with them in some ways. And you'll hear in this conversation that we have big disagreements about the nature of workness and the relevance of cancel culture and things like that.
• 3:42
  But I wanted to bring you this conversation. It is understandably out of date by now. We didn't even know whether or not Donald Trump was going to be winning the election.
• 3:49
  But all of the things that we're talking about are much bigger themes that have endured not only between the recording of this last October and today, but will continue to be relevant for many years to come. I hope you enjoy as much as I did this conversation with David Roth.
• 4:13
  Basically, I left New York and then the Christmas opened and I've been the butterfly flew away from New York City and the whole life cycle of the, you know, the foreigner in New York had been accomplished.
• 4:22
  I gotta say, man, your timing was impeccable.
• 4:24
  It really worked out pretty good. I mean, I know obviously you guys have had a rough go of it this year too, but yeah, it's been nothing like it though.
• 4:31
  It's nothing. I mean, like I said, I felt almost bad after I just sent you that text message saying I was popping downstairs to get coffee because I was like, yeah, if you're in New York, that must sound weird.
• 4:41
  I mean, you can't stay there, but yeah, I was, I mean, NVS is not exactly the word, but part of it was like because you're up at seven in the morning to talk to me, like obviously there's not exactly winning in this scenario.
• 4:53
  It would be nice to be able to go downstairs and do that.
• 4:57
  My, my twins and after a year's old, so getting up before seven isn't really not a problem. That's just really nice.
• 5:03
  Yeah, for us not having kids, it's definitely different like being able to, like we had this, we finally got to see my sister this weekend, you know, like it's harder to do, but we got to do it.
• 5:13
  She's out in Queens.
• 5:14
  And, you know, we got there 10 in the morning and stuff and we're very much in need of coffee and they're like, oh, yeah, we had coffee like three hours ago, man.
• 5:22
  It's basically lunchtime to us.
• 5:24
  That's right. Yeah.
• 5:25
  Well, I mean, I work in radio and so when I look at some of the radio shifts at a lot of the radio stations in Australia, you know, they'll have like a 530 to sort of 8 AM breakfast shift, which is like a big powerful shift.
• 5:37
  They talk about how the 7 AM to 8 AM block is the most listened to hour of the day.
• 5:42
  And before I had kids, I was like, who? Who are these people? Who are these people who are up before ice?
• 5:48
  Like, I mean, you know, I'll get up at 9 AM having my coffee before 10 and then I just loved being a night out. So it is a shock to the system.
• 5:55
  Yeah, I think like that degree of like upending your life to do stuff.
• 5:59
  Like, you know, it's the same thing here with TV and radio and whatnot. It's just like, I can't imagine what kind of opportunity it would take for me to, you know, undo 40 years of just living irresponsibly in exactly the same way.
• 6:13
  Just suddenly be a guy's in like hair and makeup. It's six is.
• 6:16
  Yeah.
• 6:17
  Luckily, no one's offering.
• 6:18
  So, hey, someday I'm holding out of high play day.
• 6:21
  And I mean, even just even just like light night television, you know, I used to watch Letterman every night.
• 6:26
  And now I'm like, when does when did Letterman start? Maybe like 10 or 9 30 or something?
• 6:30
  11 35. Oh my goodness. I mean, I mean, I had that.
• 6:34
  Yeah, I was a big Conan O'Brien watcher in high school. And that was like, you know, the weirdest in the same way that I was drawn to Letterman because it was like the beats were in all these different places that I hadn't incurred, you know, like encountered before.
• 6:46
  And with Conan, it was very similar. But like, I think that that actually impacted my studies in a way.
• 6:52
  Like, obviously my laziness was like the biggest factor in my grades.
• 6:57
  But like that show started at 12.35 a.m.
• 7:00
  And I would at least watch through like the first, you know, sort of celebrity guest and go to bed at, you know, whatever.
• 7:05
  Yeah.
• 7:06
  What's the scene?
• 7:07
  Like, which is not like conducive to getting to school on time or performing at a high level there?
• 7:13
  No, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Conan was doing the same thing. I think 10 years later that Letterman had been doing.
• 7:19
  But I, you know, when I was sort of 14, Letterman was the was the God.
• 7:24
  And so funny.
• 7:26
  You know, I still remember the first time that I saw his stuff. I was probably like high school age.
• 7:31
  But it was just like, there was something about like the long pauses.
• 7:36
  And like, just in general, the way that he was kind of like milking the awkwardness of the moment as if he was in control of it.
• 7:44
  Like, as somebody who felt awkward, you know, at times, and also, you know, wanted to be funny.
• 7:49
  The idea of like leaning into the weirdness and still to this scenario.
• 7:54
  And then like somehow taking the the guide hand on it and like knowing what you're doing.
• 7:59
  Was you don't want to see inspiring exactly because he was still sitting behind a desk being like, Paul, have you heard about this?
• 8:05
  Like it wasn't. No, I was inspiring to me. It was profound to me.
• 8:08
  It was. I think you put your finger on exactly that the right balance or the paradox of what made Letterman and and other greats.
• 8:17
  Great. I mean, I think Carson had a bit of this as well.
• 8:19
  Excuse me, of seeming of allowing things to get right up to the edge of being awkward.
• 8:25
  But knowing exactly when to pull them back so that you've got a combination of someone who's an outsider and an insider who is a fish out of water, but also a master of their space.
• 8:34
  Yeah, it's funny, you know, because like I think of when I, you know, with comedy, there's an element of it when it doesn't work that can feel not oppressive, but like really confrontational and kind of an annoying way.
• 8:47
  Like as if somebody's just sort of like grabbing you by the lapels and shouting jokes into your face.
• 8:51
  And there's something about the that type of command, like a softer and a little bit more, like sort of a different type of mastery as opposed to just like wowing you with their virtuosity.
• 9:04
  But like, you know, managing the scenario without seeming to dominate it is really like, I don't know, it's hard to do.
• 9:12
  I mean, I think there was something, there was another component to Letterman that you're reminding me of, which was his kind of missanthropy, his sort of his general distaste for everything, his obvious condescension towards the celebrities he had.
• 9:27
  He just, I think also that appealed to my Australianness a bit that, you know, a lot of American content can smell to cynical Australian ears and eyes a little bit Tweet and overly optimistic and kind of cheesy.
• 9:41
  You know, Fallon is the perfect exemplar of this kind of annoying happy like I'm just having a great time. Let's all just get along.
• 9:50
  There was something selling dark about laughs at every, you know, whatever, you know, like the story from the set.
• 9:56
  That's right. And now that's gotten ramped up by the YouTubeification and the viralification of everything. But, you know, when you used to have to actually sit down and watch Letterman make a celebrity squirm and you could see how dark his soul was, it was great.
• 10:10
  It was great. It was great. Yeah. And you know that that that also worked as well for somebody who didn't grow up in New Jersey.
• 10:16
  Yeah. No.
• 10:17
  For other people who are slightly a little bit pissed off.
• 10:21
  That's right. I mean, he was the hero of everyone who wasn't the cool kid in class.
• 10:26
  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely like a whatever. It's something kind of whatever. It's hard because he wound up being kind of a turd of a guy.
• 10:35
  And so it feels strange to talk about the idea that he was like an influence on you as a as a person because like, I don't know, I think I'm a lot better husband than he is.
• 10:43
  Yeah. But yeah, whatever.
• 10:45
  If you believe you're not fucking your staff. So there's yes.
• 10:48
  That's true. I mean, I hardly even see anybody.
• 10:51
  That's right.
• 10:53
  Well, let's welcome back to the David Letterman analysis hour with David Roth and Josh Seps.
• 10:58
  We should probably pivot the conversation to you young David Roth being completely uninterested in American sports.
• 11:05
  You never crossed my path.
• 11:07
  And so now I've been reading you on Trump and thinking, well, why aren't you just a political writer?
• 11:12
  Because a lot of your analysis is extremely insightful and you have such a great way of putting together some of the bringing together some of the threads and strands of what's going on.
• 11:22
  So let's talk about his success, I guess, because people who are more sympathetic to him than you are will be thinking, well, it's all very well to say orange man bad.
• 11:31
  He thinks like a child. He has the same ideas as an eight year old.
• 11:35
  But he has been wildly successful in across real estate television and now politics.
• 11:41
  So to what do you attribute that?
• 11:43
  I mean, I think that to a certain extent, it's on the culture.
• 11:46
  I mean, I think that also though that like the things that are incurious about him and that kind of are unchanging that like the all of which can make you a success as a sort of a celebrity or as a public figure.
• 12:00
  The idea that like he always says things the same way.
• 12:03
  He generally says the same things. He's very consistent in, you know, not in terms of telling the truth, but in terms of not changing his mind or whatever that like you have something to hang your hat on there.
• 12:12
  And I think that that works better than like, I mean, if you were an artist, for instance, you'd want to see some sort of like creative reinvention.
• 12:20
  And that's a very like American tick among people that are famous for a long time.
• 12:24
  No, the way that like Madonna can't go three years without like completely reinventing herself.
• 12:29
  And she's like, now I'm a fucking dance hall reggae performer.
• 12:32
  And like that's me because it's like, you know, a picture of her that she puts, she looked like Billy Eilish.
• 12:37
  Like she's going through that phase now.
• 12:39
  I think she's really here or something.
• 12:41
  Yeah, she's got a lean into that huge pants.
• 12:43
  This is where it's all been heading.
• 12:45
  Like sort of like mumble wrapping something about.
• 12:49
  She still looks 22, which is Tom Cruise effects.
• 12:55
  I don't know who they, I don't know who they guy is in in the Hollywood Hills, but whoever he is is really good.
• 13:01
  It's funny every time I see like bad plastic surgery.
• 13:05
  Like there's a certain type of like famous person that I think gets plastic free.
• 13:09
  Even the Nicole Kidman 2012.
• 13:11
  Yeah, but they kind of get like taught and like cat like.
• 13:15
  And there's always I always feel like they're like signaling to you like I've had plastic surgery.
• 13:20
  And then there's like a whole other approach where these people are kind of are able to remain ageless.
• 13:25
  Either I guess like Rob Lowe's trick was always like get small treatments before you need them.
• 13:30
  Yeah, it's like famously is thing, but I don't know.
• 13:33
  Well, I think I think the difference is also just you know, probably 50 grand a session.
• 13:39
  Right.
• 13:40
  Yeah, I mean, I imagine like, you know, it's different if you're if you're making that TV syndication money or something like that.
• 13:46
  Yeah, it's simpler to choose to invest in your cheekbones.
• 13:49
  That's right.
• 13:50
  I'm far afield here.
• 13:52
  Did I, did I give you anything like an answer on the.
• 13:55
  Yeah, yeah, no, you did you did a bit by alluding to culture.
• 13:58
  But let's also talk a little bit about about economics because one of the things one of the points that you also make is that.
• 14:05
  You know, he Trump responds to challenges by his strategy is to quit and declare victory at the same time.
• 14:13
  And you say that because of how things work for rich people that mostly worked out for him.
• 14:18
  Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's an interesting observation about.
• 14:23
  Like I guess inequality in America that there's no way that a poor person would be able to be as incompetent managing, you know, their finances as he was managing his businesses.
• 14:33
  Yeah.
• 14:34
  And yet he's able to kind of coast through on Skype.
• 14:36
  Yeah, I mean, some of it is also that they could be exactly as unsuccessful as he's been, but they will live very differently.
• 14:44
  You know, that like this is a series of kind of like frantic lateral moves on his part and debt and whatever.
• 14:51
  But like, you know, options that are not available to people who, you know, bank at a place, but like an ATM in it, as opposed to with with all the docs.
• 15:00
  Right. Yeah, like in like whatever, some sort of a secret underground chamber where everybody sits around a table and gives you $100 million or whatever.
• 15:07
  I think that with Trump, it's the part of it that's kind of that I want to like sort of pull out here because I don't expect or hope that that many people in Australia are up on this element of American culture.
• 15:20
  Is that going back, you know, to before Trump became sort of famous or around the time when he was becoming famous.
• 15:27
  I mean, like the 70s and 80s that the tax code was radically reimagined such that rich people were paying far, far less than they traditionally had.
• 15:40
  And this gave them, you know, and then as this stuff sort of wound up being not just like enshrined into law in terms of the percentages that they were paying, but as like loopholes became sort of standardized and there was this whole industry of tax.
• 15:53
  It's the thin line between tax avoidance and tax evasion, but as that became like a bigger business that that class sort of.
• 16:02
  It wasn't necessarily that, you know, their investments were always worth more.
• 16:06
  It was that the share that they had to contribute to, you know, the public interest just was capped and then started to shrink.
• 16:15
  And so what he started with is more or less what he has, but like he never, for all the losing that he's done, there's no way that like, you know, any of it could really have not worked out for him.
• 16:28
  I also did see a statistic when he was starting his run that there was an investigation, which showed that like if you take the inheritance that he got from his dad and you just put it into a stock index fund, you'd have more than he's worth.
• 16:40
  Right. The basic like the dummy index fund that I have like my exactly that all of our separation retirement funds are in. Yeah.
• 16:48
  So he would have been better off not doing anything and it's funny because he did he got some stuff right he got stuff right early.
• 16:54
  I mean like his like Trump towers is garish and nobody in New York likes it very much, but like people live there, you know, like it makes money.
• 17:01
  And the television show made money and he made money off of that television show because he would endorse anything and because for a long time people were asking to do it.
• 17:10
  And apparently that saved him the New York Times investigation into his tax records, right suggests that he was really, really he would have been on the brink of an even more catastrophic bankruptcy than he had previous than the many, many bankruptcies that his companies had had in the past if he hadn't been blessed by.
• 17:28
  Who's the creator of the the apprentice?
• 17:30
  Mark Burnett. Mark Burnett coming along and going, yeah, have I got a deal for you? And then Trump shrewdly made sure that he had a partnership stake in the show.
• 17:38
  Yeah, he made a lot more of his producer fees and he did off his hosting fees. So there's then yeah, tip your cap, you know, I mean like the guy knows how to get his end in every deal.
• 17:48
  And that's like, you know, that's a, as traits go, I would say value neutral is a nice way to describe it, but it is like it is what it is. I mean like an obviously it worked out for him.
• 17:58
  The stuff that he's gotten wrong to me is more illustrative than what he's gotten right.
• 18:05
  You know, like the sort of the there's a story about him, I spent all this time trying to find it as I know it was in political and I couldn't dig it up.
• 18:13
  They they talked to some people that did accounting for him back in the early 90s when his personal situation was very bad financially.
• 18:23
  And they talked about, you know, we're in there, we're moving this around, we're trying to avoid, you know, getting before closed upon here and there and he would come into the office and just be like, I think we should buy an NBA team.
• 18:33
  What do you guys know? And they'd be like, well, you don't have any money, man. And also like that's a stupid idea.
• 18:39
  So I think probably not. But there was like that mentality.
• 18:43
  Like if people didn't say no to him, that was sort of like always what it was that he would just he would move on to some other thing, some other gambit and you know never seeming to sort of doubt himself.
• 18:54
  And again, there's like, this is Gatsby-ish, I guess like if you want to like try to connect it to archetypes, but it's also like it's innate.
• 19:04
  That's just how it is.
• 19:05
  Well, it's two things. It's Gatsby and it's also just a shark who swims around looking for things dumbly to consume right without really having a strategy about how the whole thing is going to work out.
• 19:16
  But it is interesting to then superimpose Gatsby on top and have this sort of very outward flourishy.
• 19:22
  I mean, this is the thing that's really interesting about him. Actually, I'm going to park this because I want to come back and talk about this archetype of the rich guy.
• 19:29
  Like I think one of the most insightful things about Trump was long before he had political open political aspirations.
• 19:36
  John Mulaney, the comic was doing bits about how Donald Trump is what a poor person thinks a rich person is.
• 19:42
  At this point, like Donald Trump is not just a rich man, like Donald Trump is almost like what a hobo imagines a rich man to be.
• 19:53
  Now, it's like years ago Trump was walking through an alley and he heard some guy just like, oh boy, oh boy.
• 20:01
  As soon as my number comes in, I'm going to put up tall buildings with my name on them.
• 20:08
  I'll have fine golden hair and a TV show where I fire people with my children.
• 20:18
  And Trump was like, that is how I will live my life. Thank you, hobo, for that life plan.
• 20:24
  I bet you and Donald Trump makes a decision he thinks to himself, what would a cartoon rich person do?
• 20:32
  A friend of mine describes it as being like a little kid's vision of what being rich is like in terms of like taking a limb, like going to McDonald's in a limousine or like wearing a suit to a baseball game.
• 20:44
  Those are like super theatrical and weird expressions.
• 20:48
  My toilet would be made of gold.
• 20:50
  Yeah, why?
• 20:51
  I'm fucking wants that.
• 20:53
  It's not like you'd have to really be in some truly forbidden mind realms to even come up with that.
• 21:00
  This is why he loves the Saudis.
• 21:02
  He doesn't like people who actually invest in real things.
• 21:08
  He likes people who invest in things that glitter a lot.
• 21:11
  Yeah.
• 21:12
  Like tufted set haze.
• 21:14
  That's right.
• 21:15
  Like gratuitous marble.
• 21:16
  I thought he thought that was like when he went to visit the British Royal family, there was a whole lot of that going on there.
• 21:23
  Like he really loved being in these corridors and formal affairs and all that stuff.
• 21:28
  And it was clear that that was like who he considered his peers.
• 21:31
  Not like Theresa May.
• 21:32
  No, that's right.
• 21:33
  Who was losing.
• 21:34
  Who lives in a house like number 10 Downing Street.
• 21:37
  It's just a terrace house.
• 21:38
  Come on.
• 21:39
  They're going to kick her out when she loses.
• 21:43
  Exactly.
• 21:44
  What have you lived in a giant castle full of shitty portraits and long hallways?
• 21:49
  And you know what?
• 21:50
  He probably thought Buckingham Palace was a little bit too subdued.
• 21:54
  Because it's not the, you know, the Brits don't do Saudi level bling.
• 21:57
  They're a little bit more on the state.
• 21:59
  It's a bit 19th century for Trump.
• 22:01
  Yeah.
• 22:02
  You got to ice those couches out.
• 22:03
  That's right.
• 22:04
  Exactly.
• 22:05
  No one's even sitting on these shades long.
• 22:07
  We need more of them.
• 22:08
  You said something interesting a moment ago, which is that for him to insert himself in
• 22:13
  the apprentice deal as a producer and extract as much money as he can from each deal is at best value neutral,
• 22:23
  which in your moral universe may be true.
• 22:27
  But it gives us an insight into Trump's moral universe.
• 22:30
  I think he thinks that's extremely morally.
• 22:33
  Yeah.
• 22:34
  That's how you know you're winning.
• 22:35
  Good.
• 22:37
  I mean, I don't think there is a difference between winners and good people and losers and bad people in Trump, you know, in Trump land.
• 22:45
  Like by definition, you're doing the right thing if you're succeeding because in this kind of Darwinist conception,
• 22:52
  you know, how could you be doing the wrong thing if you're winning?
• 22:56
  Right.
• 22:57
  And I think that that's like, again, you know, if you have a system of belief or like any sort of like moral type of compass,
• 23:05
  you would like look at that and be like, well, I think maybe we should unpack that a little bit.
• 23:11
  But if you don't, and if you're able to just identify which number is larger or which house is gaudier and be like, all right,
• 23:17
  well, that's the bigger one and the better one, then like, yeah, it does sort of like it explains a great deal.
• 23:22
  It just doesn't, this has been a challenge with Trump.
• 23:24
  I think all through since he started running for this office that is still, you know, for all of the disgrace
• 23:32
  that has been visited on it by so many different occupants, it's still something that especially the political media takes very seriously,
• 23:40
  that this is clearly the sort of thing that he's not a very complicated man.
• 23:45
  And so they have this idea, I think in their head still of like, why is he doing this?
• 23:50
  Like what's the strategic calculation?
• 23:52
  And like what is, you know, like what is the justification for this in his head?
• 23:57
  And I think that the answer more often than not is that he's doing it because he can and because he wants it.
• 24:03
  And that that's, you know, the reason why a lot of other people have done what they've done as president too.
• 24:09
  He just doesn't do the sort of the smoke screen effect that other people throw up around it where you make it, you describe it in euphemism.
• 24:19
  He doesn't do that.
• 24:20
  But isn't that part of what his supporters say we're missing about him that like every time people say, oh, Trump is awful.
• 24:28
  He's degrading the office.
• 24:30
  Trump supporters say he's just being open about doing what everybody else always does.
• 24:34
  Like a bummer was secretly degrading the office.
• 24:37
  Hillary was secretly degrading the office and doing deals with, you know, part of her Davos international globalist, Ali Tuar,
• 24:43
  pulling the strings behind the scenes and shoring up trade deals that screw the American worker for decades, all of which is partly true.
• 24:50
  Yeah.
• 24:51
  You know, he just comes out and he lives TFA instead of lying in smoke-filled rooms.
• 24:55
  So like, yeah, you know, I'll take that.
• 24:58
  Thank you.
• 24:59
  Yeah. I mean, it's hard to like, and that sort of thing.
• 25:01
  I mean, this is what makes him uniquely well suited to, especially I mean to running against Hillary who it's worth noting is like the most widely disliked public figure in the last.
• 25:12
  Three decades of American politics.
• 25:15
  I mean, she was candidate, David, but when she was secretary of state, her numbers were fairly high and I'm no fan of Hillary.
• 25:22
  I think she ran a terrible campaign and I've always regarded her as being a terrible, just a terrible politician.
• 25:29
  I mean, in terms of her political acumen, her, she has no radar for what is not going to seem phony and what isn't.
• 25:35
  But you like, sometimes the best people don't have that radar.
• 25:38
  It's very rare to find someone who both has, has finally tuned political instincts and also is a political, is a sort of policy wonk and also is going to be a good leader.
• 25:49
  I mean, these people are rare.
• 25:51
  Her husband had it, you know, Obama had it, Reagan had it, but it's.
• 25:56
  I think there's something about that with Clinton and Obama, though, I think this is important too, that like they did have it.
• 26:02
  There are both super talented communicators and politicians, but in order to get elected to a high office with the sort of policy views that they have and that approach, you really have to be that good.
• 26:16
  Because the approach itself doesn't really fundamentally offer that much beyond, to the average voter, beyond, you know, a certain theatrical presentation of a degrading status quo.
• 26:30
  To me, what approach doesn't offer that much, you mean their policy approach or their political right, because I think the presentation stuff is great, you know, like, and you, that's how Obama looked like a visionary and sounded like a visionary, but was not.
• 26:45
  And that Clinton, you know, was a pragmatist, I guess, in terms of the policy positions that he pursued, but like what that meant basically was accepting the half a loaf that an increasingly reactionary Republican party was offering it.
• 27:01
  And then, and then selling it to people with this incredible God-given talent that he had to communicate.
• 27:07
  But I think that like where that gets you down the line is that like if the policy outcomes that you're delivering are limited in terms of how much they're helping people in the way that liberal democratic policy outcomes have been in the US, you know, for the last, since the 90s, since Clinton.
• 27:27
  That like if that's not working for people and they're aware that it's not working because they see factories closing and they see things sort of generally sliding.
• 27:37
  Then you have to be really good because otherwise you can lose even to Trump, even to this kind of like.
• 27:45
  I'm curious and outwardly kind of silly character because he's like, you say all these good things and you don't actually do anything.
• 27:53
  I'm a bit torn by this argument, David, because the, you know, obviously what the Clinton, I tore Obama camp would respond to that would be we think it's better off being in power than having pure ideals that never get you elected.
• 28:08
  And we are getting elect, you know, there's what Obama would like to do if he were emperor.
• 28:13
  And then there's what Obama can do given the political constraints around him.
• 28:18
  And that's fair as far as it goes.
• 28:21
  And that if they pursued your recommendation and were more pure to their political ideals, then what you would end up with is what the Republican party finds itself, which is you create so much gridlock because you're so incapable of doing deals with the other side and getting anything done.
• 28:37
  That your party atrophies and you end up with some totally wild situation like Donald Trump, who in part is a consequence of political gridlock.
• 28:49
  I suppose Trump is a consequence of people hating Obama, but he's just as much a consequence of nothing getting done in Washington, which was a result of Mitch McConnell's ideological purity, which is closer to what you're saying Clinton and Obama should have.
• 29:02
  Well, I think that's it's mostly true. Here's the distinction that I would draw on that that the idea of like ideological purity is fine for me because I'm a sports writer and sometimes I get to write about things that make me upset in current affairs.
• 29:17
  But what I think the difference with this is that if you look at the mistakes that the mistakes, but the priorities that Clinton and Obama had during their times where they really did have unified government, you know, that was all of their party.
• 29:34
  That the idea of something like a card check, which was a union provision that would have made it easier for people to organize their workplaces, which Obama had two years to pass with a Senate that had a super like a filibuster proof majority and the House of Representatives, this between 2008 and 2010.
• 29:52
  That you can say that you should pass that because it's, you know, the right thing to do that, you know, it's an unfair balance and power in the workplaces between bosses and workers, and that's all true.
• 30:05
  But you could also say that unions are important to the success of democratic politics and also that organized people and organized workplaces do tend to vote, I mean, that these produce people who are politically engaged and more inclined to be Democrats than your like non-union shops.
• 30:25
  And you could say then that passing the card check would be like, yeah, ideologically pure if you care about it, but that punting on it and deciding not to do it is the sort of thing that you're doing because of a different sort of orthodoxy, which is the idea that like no one cares about this, unions are dying, we're not that party anymore, we're the party of the educated urban elite.
• 30:46
  And so that's the part of it where I think they're obviously it's easy for me to say that you should do the right thing.
• 30:55
  But I've lived here my whole life, like I know that's not how it works.
• 30:59
  And there's a sort of a fake pragmatism to democratic politics here that Republicans, as you said, I mean, I think you're absolutely right in terms of them having a commitment to ideologies that make it impossible for them to govern effectively over the long term.
• 31:20
  Democrats are about governing effectively. I think that the idea of that that should be thought of more ambitiously in terms of like is there not about consolidating power in the way that Republicans are and I think that there's a way that the politics that they profess and power itself getting it and keeping it can be made to work together.
• 31:44
  Don't quite square that in their own minds.
• 31:48
  Yeah, especially since like part of Donald Trump's appeal or the core of his appeal maybe was all of these guys are crooked and they're all betraying you behind the scenes and they're all beholden to moneyed interests.
• 31:59
  I'm the only guy who doesn't need who can't be paid off. I'm the only guy who, you know, of course Hillary Clinton came to my wedding.
• 32:07
  You know, she was sucking up to me. They all suck up to me because I'm the one with the money and they need me because they're because politicians are leeches and I'm not.
• 32:14
  So to some extent, yeah, that's true. I don't know about the card check thing because I'm not familiar with that.
• 32:19
  Oh, yeah, I mean, that's a policy thing. I guarantee that if I guarantee that if if you spoke to who was Obama's chief of staff, David.
• 32:29
  Oh, either Roman manual or David Axelrod or whatever it was about that they would say, yeah, sorry we didn't get to that in the two years that we had in the just two years that we had we had full control of the government.
• 32:42
  We were doing a little thing like the largest domestic policy reform in a generation which was reforming the health case at the entire health system.
• 32:51
  And that is what they've what they've said about it. And it's like to a certain extent, it makes sense. And then to another extent, it's like, well, you know, they're already compromising on that.
• 32:59
  Like do you want power or not? Like do you want to do are you willing to do the things that are like cynical and serve your interests electrically that the other guys are willing to do.
• 33:09
  I mean, aren't you sort of also pointing to like a crisis of the left generally, not just in the United States, but everywhere, which is that it's this alliance and all political parties have alliances between dissimilar people, but I feel like the the multiple bases of left wing politics are becoming less and less similar over time.
• 33:28
  And so it's like the part left wing parties everywhere have have one foot in one boat and another foot in another boat and the boats are drifting apart and they're going to end up falling in the river.
• 33:37
  And those two boats are respectively like blue collar formally unionized industrial workers. And then the other one is highly educated in a city elites who care a lot about, you know, cultural issues, but don't really give her stuff about, you know, the about poor people's pay.
• 33:56
  Yeah, I mean, I think that's true to a certain extent. I also think though that the there's a for Democrats, especially here that going back to when they got their asses handed to them by Reagan, that I think that they've been very afraid to talk about economics.
• 34:12
  In a way that is anything other than sort of coded to make sure that everybody is because the other, you know, sort of moving part in American politics is race and that Democrats have been the party of black and brown voters for, you know, going back to the Civil Rights Act.
• 34:32
  And that in that case, the way that Democrats have sort of responded to that was like they have taken that sort of base for granted to a certain extent.
• 34:41
  And then the way that they talk about economics now and you can see this even with Biden being like, you know, it's not a handout. They like to make sure that things are means tested to make sure that, you know, nobody is getting money from the government that they don't deserve.
• 34:53
  And all of that is like, you know, if you want to have that be a practical solution to something, then I suppose that's fine.
• 35:00
  But if you're using it as a political way to signal, I'm not taking your money and giving it to like poor people who are just going to spend it on, you know, drugs or whatever.
• 35:12
  Like, once you're signaling in that kind of defensive way, you're not selling anything, you're apologizing right off the bat.
• 35:19
  Yeah, that's true. And that's as much fun thing as anything.
• 35:22
  Yeah. And I think, but I think you're right in the assessment that there is this like leftists are not willing to be, or whatever, I mean, Democrats and leftists have nothing in common.
• 35:33
  Like parties like that, like a left liberal politics in countries like yours and mine are very much on the back foot always with stuff like this.
• 35:45
  I think in part, you know what I'm just noticing David is that you're sort of pointing to a lack of moral spine or moral conviction on the left in matters of economics, which is, which is mirrored by a corollary.
• 36:02
  Intense sense of moral conviction on cultural issues, so much moral conviction that it's actually putting everybody else off in the heartland, which is a funny thing like the left is now 100,000% self-righteously convinced that anybody who was, you know, opposed to gay marriage 10 years ago is a moral monster.
• 36:25
  But if you talk about economics, then as you say they start cravenly apologizing for the fact that they might want higher taxes instead of saying this is the right thing for us all to have to chip in a little bit more so that all of us can take care of each other and live better lives.
• 36:40
  I think that the identity politics knock on Democrats is fair as far as it goes. I think it also is exaggerated by the way that it's talked about in political media here.
• 36:52
  And then also, by the way, it's sort of performed online that I think that there is the idea that it's putting voters off or ever really just hasn't been born out as much of late that like I think that there it's always sort of a parodic version of it that you can point to.
• 37:08
  But that a lot of this stuff, you know, bush winning an election basically by demagoguing on the idea of gay marriage in 2004 that like that doesn't really hasn't been shown to work anymore.
• 37:21
  And so like Trump's attempts to do it with anti-trans stuff or to do it with sort of these ideas of this seething brown horde coming up on the southern border or whatever every time he's tried to do that stuff he's gotten his ass kicked.
• 37:35
  And I don't know if that's you can entirely chalk that up to, you know, inconsistent messaging or like incompetent politicking on his part.
• 37:44
  And I think that there is a sense where what public opinion is on stuff like that is a lot less well known than it seems like it would be from online.
• 37:56
  Yeah, totally does the problem is that I agree 100% that it's an online phenomenon and it's largely a social media phenomenon and it's largely a Twitter phenomenon.
• 38:05
  The problem is that that most candidates and all of their advisors are totally obsessed with Twitter and so they absorb all of that and you end up.
• 38:15
  Journalists and journalists are as well.
• 38:17
  So what ends up coming out are these sort of statements and platforms and platitudes that make a lot of suburban people just roll their eyes and go, so I'm not sure that you're I don't agree with you.
• 38:30
  Well, partly confuse them. Yeah, and partly make them feel that the candidate is not on their wavelength and is somehow lost off in the Bizarro world that they can't quite access.
• 38:41
  So it's not just I don't think I don't think you can look at the failure of the right to capitalize on jingoistic attacks on progressive workness as evidence that that progressive workness isn't doing a good job itself of alienating people who don't get it.
• 39:00
  Oh, yeah, but I think it's part of a you know a large loud chorus of alienating forces in the culture right now. Yeah, and I think that like to the extent that people don't the way that I always understood the gay marriage thing to have worked out here was that it was a sort of thing that seemed terribly foreign and.
• 39:19
  Like just like not something that is in your community, you know, not something that like that's like whatever people in San Francisco in New York City are doing that and like that's not me.
• 39:29
  I think that as it became the sort of thing where people realized that like yeah, you know gay people you know that there's gay people in your church there's gay people in your workplace whatever that like as that became like normal in the sense of just being like a part of regular life that I think that people started to accept it sort of differently.
• 39:48
  And I think that with a lot of the stuff I mean like the sort of outer boundaries of campus stuff is you know I've been on a college campus in my life like I'm sure that I did all kinds of strange shit that would have baffled my parents or whatever but it's like then I left and I had to go get a job and that's like how people sort of and you know that didn't mean I I turned my back on sort of values or whatever I just sort of was less concerned about you know whatever issues.
• 40:16
  Like on my mind enough to keep me from doing my homework but not on my mind enough to become like guiding signals in my life. Yeah, no, I mean I think the the college stuff can get totally over blown and Fox News will always find an opportunity to to report on some tiny isolated event at some progressive college and turn it into a national calamity.
• 40:38
  That doesn't mean that the ethos of of universities heading in a direction of of greater sensourousness greater moral panic greater kind of moral self certainty and finger wagging towards ideas that they don't agree with doesn't then suffuse itself into the outlooks of people who go on to run companies and media organizations.
• 41:03
  I mean you only have to look at the you know the the ruckians that have happened at the New York Times, the editorial page editor being fired similar upsets at Vox and places like that where there is a generation of younger reporters who believe that that any dissent from their interpretation of of moral justice on cultural issues is it is prima facie evidence of white supremacy and like fascism.
• 41:31
  And so it shouldn't be bridged and they're in it they're in a bit of a battle with old guard people who are kind of stuffy old free speeches who go well maybe everybody in the country who you know has has a right to articulate their opinions even if it's something you find pretty noxious that sort of the principle of democracy and that that is being somewhat swept away so without engaging in the Fox News hysteria.
• 41:52
  There's something there or am I misguided about that. I don't think you're entirely misguided but I don't agree with that assessment of the the Times for instance that I think that like what happened there.
• 42:02
  I think this idea that that speech is being chilled. I think is like the idea that James Bennett was was fired because like woke people in the newsroom.
• 42:13
  You know aboard his approach. I think like really lets him off the hook for having done an exceedingly bad and lazy job being the editor of their opinion section.
• 42:24
  The story that got people riled up was written by you know the Tom Cotton story.
• 42:29
  Yeah just explain to the listener who hasn't followed that what happened. Yes right who doesn't know who the junior senator from Arkansas is. That's right. I envy them so much.
• 42:40
  So this is a sitting senator wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times that was during the period of you know initially there was some rioting but it was just protests against sort of racist and impunity.
• 42:57
  And as these protests were happening cotton wrote a story that was like send in the army like put this down like basically up to the idea of like live ammo to get these protests out of the street.
• 43:13
  And this was a story that given that he was basically advocating occupying the city of New York with troops and that a lot of the people that work for the New York Times live in New York City and that they did not want this.
• 43:26
  I think that that at plus the fact that when the story came out it later was a result you know like a junior staffer assigned it based on a tweet that cotton had done Bennett himself that opinion page editor did not review the story hadn't read it.
• 43:40
  Didn't like seemingly to know anything about it.
• 43:44
  Like that it's your section you're not running that many stories you have to know like that's just you're not doing your job right now in terms of how like he got there I mean I think he hired some people that were provocateurs that annoyed other people just in terms of the way that they behaved.
• 44:00
  And there was a perception in that workplace that there was that they were able to get away with stuff because they were sort of like you know big ticket opinion provocateurs but I think that that's a very old thing at newspapers as I understand it you know like workplace favorites.
• 44:15
  You know if you've ever been in a workplace it's a very annoying thing to sort of encounter I don't think that that's the reason why.
• 44:21
  He lost sort of the confidence of that newsroom I think that it was that he didn't do his job right.
• 44:28
  I do think though that there's one bit that I want to point out though about the distinction that we're drawing here between this sort of like theatrical and performative online.
• 44:41
  You know I'm wokeness is such a corny term or whatever we need a new would yeah but if people know what I'm talking about there's a distinction to be drawn between that and the sort of media addiction like the weird way that for instance if you see Trump tweeting a lot about like people that were involved in the FBI investigation of his campaigns contacts with Russia people that ordinary folks don't know who they are.
• 45:09
  Peter Stroke Lisa Paige he tweets about him all the time these are C team people that because of the media universe that he is in are dominating his mind share.
• 45:19
  And that there's so basically like the way that the campaigns have broken down in terms of their general approach in this election is that Biden is very old and very not online.
• 45:30
  He's a very traditional type of Democrat in terms of his policies but he's also just like he's not a guy that seems as fixated on television or Twitter as Trump is.
• 45:40
  And so he doesn't find a guy who knows how to turn on the TV little launch Twitter.
• 45:45
  No that's like one of the big jokes about him in like you know the memes that you'll see sometimes is like Trump ranting about something and then Biden just saying how do you do PDF.
• 45:56
  And it's like you know funny not unfair or wrong either I don't think but that like so a lot of what the Republicans do is this like sort of very online like trolling and kind of like you know referencing things that if you're really like plugged into this like Fox News cinematic universe like you know all of this stuff you know all the people that are involved in the conspiracy against President Trump and all this shit.
• 46:21
  And so that rings bells to you but I think it's just as alienating to people who are not online in that way when they see the president just doing word salad where it's a bunch of names and a bunch of dates and conspiracies and what about Glenn Simpson has anyone ever accounted for Glenn Simpson and like I don't even know who these people are not.
• 46:39
  I don't know who Glenn Simpson is he was tweeting about him today it's all this is the same shit and like I know at the top line guys and that like it's part of my job to write about it.
• 46:48
  But in a lot of this stuff it's like if you were watching Fox News this morning you would have heard that name right but if you didn't watch it this morning then it's just the president saying a bunch of stuff.
• 46:59
  Yeah like it sounds like like we didn't start the fire every day in all caps on Twitter right which is I think as jarring an approach as like I mean it's just a different way of being sort of hyper online.
• 47:13
  And I think that yeah but Republicans but there's a yeah sorry finish that thought.
• 47:17
  No I was going to say that I think that like Republicans are not in the way that you can see in Democrats that attempt to sort of sometimes cater to a a performative online base.
• 47:29
  I think the Republicans do that too it's just that there's this presumptive idea that because they're the conservatives that this is somehow like the people that they're catering to by bringing up Glenn Simpson and his phone calls that those people are normal.
• 47:42
  Do you see what I'm saying exactly what you're saying but I think you're I think you're focusing unnecessarily much on the the bubble aspect of it of the being and it being inside a bubble and talking only to people who understand that bubble.
• 47:57
  And not the way that the that bubble chatter lands for people who aren't inside the bubble the way that the weird Trumpian Fox News conspiracy theorizing almost QAnon adjacent chatter lands for people who aren't inside it is all these is just crazy people talking about nonsense.
• 48:16
  Like but there's no moral valence to that the way that work bubble lands for everybody else is you are part of the white supremacist problem you are part of the issue you have to watch what you say you will sit down and raise your fist you have to be on our side it's just a very finger waggy thing to observe.
• 48:35
  If you're not already inside it so I think that's what I mean about it being alienating the heartland I'll have to take your word for it in that regard because I think that the like there are elements of it that I think can be caricatured very easily.
• 48:48
  And yet they're really and this is one of the very few things that I am authentically optimistic about in terms of the future of the country right now is that in a lot of small cities and small towns where you would not expect these kind of protests to happen.
• 49:03
  People were in the streets for weeks about you know racism and impunity in policing that this is not and in many of these communities this is like largely white communities and you can caricature that or you can say that this stuff is really not and I think you know and it's easily caricatured white people are incredibly easy to caricature.
• 49:23
  Well I mean I want more of that and I think that the work bubble impedes it.
• 49:29
  I think that to a certain extent it does I think also the like you have to look at the results I think that for me it's hard I've never been so I did some marching here when the protest for really happening and I attended a vigil or two but it's never really been my thing I think that there's a self consciousness that I just can't sort of switch off and so there's things where I'm going to do it.
• 49:52
  And so there's things where if somebody's leading a chant the thing you do is you participate in that chant but there is a part of me that is in my head to being like well this isn't 100% what I think this is maybe not on me to say and that that like if that is chilling speech then I guess I just don't necessarily find that to be that.
• 50:16
  Menacing a threat think that there's a there is a lot of speech in the US I think the main issue and I guess maybe this does go back to the bubble thing is sort of a lack of good faith maybe in terms of how that speech is directed and how it's used and I think also in terms of the capacity to sort of accept.
• 50:39
  What other people are saying as valid yeah that's right and I think that's a really good point it's about giving people a benefit of the doubt.
• 50:48
  And I guess I always expect that the right isn't going to give people a benefit of the doubt because they're right and so they're morally self-satisfied and smug.
• 50:58
  I just want the left and I was going to say ask I mean because I am broadly of the left that I want to ask to to remain the side that allows that is I suppose intellectually superior and actually more nuanced and sophisticated in our thinking and less dumbly chanting slogans and moralizing like.
• 51:18
  So I know what you mean I want more people marching and protesting things that are that are real I mean the you know the role that the behavior of American police forces to people from countries outside of the United States seems so outrageous.
• 51:36
  And the prevalence of guns in the United States seems so obviously something that is saying country would want to deal with that it's it's horrendous I mean and so that and yet that conversation I get I buy perceived as being partly subsumed by the race by the racist conversation so anytime.
• 51:57
  I see any time I see someone online who's trying to make the point about you know general police reform.
• 52:05
  They get accused of what about is him or trying to change the subject from the actual problem which is white supremacy that we live in a white supremacist society or you know if someone.
• 52:14
  Someone in the service of Wisconsin's is like hang on it. Why isn't 1776 the founding date of our country anymore. Why is it 16 19 there is likely as anything to get to get called a racist for you know you go away and study and do your homework and come back and figure out and you explain to me what you what you've learned.
• 52:32
  I would say that the that like there's not.
• 52:36
  And again like I don't know to what extent people are really having these conversations in spaces other than social media.
• 52:42
  I think it's only on social.
• 52:44
  Because only on social media.
• 52:45
  But again it then.
• 52:46
  And so I think it's maybe one of the people who are on social media end up running newsrooms or will will soon do so.
• 52:51
  Or can at least tell us the people who do run the newsrooms to resign.
• 52:55
  I will say the people that wind up running newsrooms for my experience are not people who post a lot.
• 53:00
  That there are people that are.
• 53:02
  It's just a generational thing. I mean the people of 30 now and they'll be 50 someday.
• 53:07
  They might be but I think that you know most people are.
• 53:10
  Make a political migration during those decades of their lives and I would say that like.
• 53:15
  People that it's not really very different than any other workplace you know that there are people who are.
• 53:22
  Super duper bomb thrower rhetoric types and those people tend to be infantry and then the people that wind up.
• 53:29
  And then the people that wind up getting promoted to top brass are people that are a little bit more astute.
• 53:36
  Or I would say astute but you know you could also say calculating in terms of how they present themselves.
• 53:41
  I don't think that there really are a lot of radicals running.
• 53:46
  You know websites or newspapers or magazines in large part because there aren't as many websites or newspapers or magazines anymore in the United States.
• 53:54
  But also because of the fact that I think that like that's just it's sorts by the position.
• 54:00
  You know that like whatever their sort of politics are that like once you are dealing with business development people and ownership and whatever.
• 54:07
  Like that these are those are facilitators that is a different sort of class of people.
• 54:12
  And I think in terms of how.
• 54:14
  I mean it's just like it's basic workplace stuff.
• 54:17
  Every place I've been.
• 54:19
  Yeah, yes.
• 54:20
  Obviously if you're going to rise to the level to a management level then you have to have some managerial competence which means you can't be a revolutionary.
• 54:28
  But I think that's asking too much of the of the case that I'm making.
• 54:32
  I'm simply making the case that there is a mindset in which people were inculcated prior to this century which was one of respecting diversity of opinion as the paramount value.
• 54:47
  Which is given way to a more sort of critical postmodern style of theorizing which is that everything is subjective.
• 54:55
  All we have are narratives and the world is about power struggles and power structures.
• 55:00
  So that and I can imagine you being a good manager and still holding that belief right so a slightly more sensorial and slightly less.
• 55:09
  And maybe that's a better world look at you know I'm I'm a free speaker at heart so I think that a gigantic roiling society full of lots of different voices saying lots of different things is is is optimal.
• 55:22
  Other people might say that that why would you needlessly have a society that chaotic and offensive when you could make sure that people are are on the same page about what we what we can all agree is good.
• 55:34
  I'm just a bit more in sympathy for the dissenter and I know that you object to the framing of it being more or less free speech but I think.
• 55:41
  You know either either a company is going to regard it as being acceptable to say that the United States is not irredeemably racist or it's not either a company is going to regard it as being acceptable to say that.
• 55:53
  That biological sex exists and is is not you know in a binary sense or is not and those are positions that are becoming increasingly equated with hate speech at least in the US.
• 56:05
  I think with heat speeches is tough because people don't necessarily get.
• 56:09
  Where hate speech is used or ever prosecuted here in the United States it's very narrow.
• 56:15
  Yeah I'm not completely let's just say that they're regarded as being claims that can make a workplace unsafe.
• 56:22
  See I don't think though that there's necessarily less it's a question of where those wind up I think that in terms of the volume of speech I don't think that we're necessarily seeing less.
• 56:33
  Of that sort of argument I think that it's a matter of how it's sorted and so that the idea of these opinions being.
• 56:41
  Maybe not even in conflict but the idea of there being a dynamic between the idea of like how does racism exist within the United States and how does America's history tell the story of racism through.
• 56:57
  You know our culture that there are there are ways of doing that better or worse but that the way that it works right now is that you have people saying one thing and then people saying no it's not and that those are running in parallel channels and not necessarily in engagement with each other.
• 57:15
  In terms of the 1619 thing the idea that this is like somehow an official attempt to.
• 57:22
  Change the founding date of the United States or whatever I mean it's a rhetorical device it's an idea it's a lead you know and in terms of that well you when you look at any of these.
• 57:33
  What the times has removed from from the 1619 project since it became controversial like if you follow the follow the links of Brett Stevens attack on it in his recent column it is interesting that so the original version did say like what if everything we'd learned about the
• 57:51
  America's founding date was wrong what if in fact it was bloody but in quite unequivocal like norm metaphorical terms and they've now rewritten it and it's not necessarily.
• 58:01
  To me though that's that's a writer's choice I mean to me that's not the idea of being like we have to you know everybody must learn this and agree with it I think it's it's making an argument.
• 58:12
  Yeah I mean the idea of finding it like I don't have a position on the 1619 project.
• 58:16
  But I mean my point my point is just how we respond to people who who haven't drunk the cool aid right whether or not we regard them as being our partner our partner citizens who are all on this journey together.
• 58:29
  Who will have an interesting perspective if they disagree with us or whether we regard them as being evidence of the of the system of oppression that we have to fight against and I think there's a little too much of the latter.
• 58:43
  I think that's true in some ways but I think that for the most part that hasn't been my experience in doing politics here to the extent that I've done it hasn't been my experience in organizing workplaces when I've done it that like from moment to moment.
• 58:58
  That like people's lives are much more diverse and involve many more compromises than they would you know online that basically or than they would in any sort of abstracted space because that's what it takes to get through the day is what it takes to get.
• 59:16
  And that's from you know not being an organized newsroom to being an organized room there might be somebody that you don't necessarily like working with but you have to be willing to fight for them and then and then fight for you.
• 59:27
  Even if you think that they're a pain in the ass and that that's like I think an experience that a lot of people have not necessarily in terms of organizing but just in terms of having to be a part of a team.
• 59:36
  And I think that the the force of atomization in American culture the thing that sort of pushes people apart and keeps them apart to me is not idealogical but structural in terms of the way that basically the way that our lives are governed by the economics in this country.
• 59:56
  And so I think that there is a sense in which like people can be strident or can be too quick to dismiss other people I think that that's true I think that there's a great.
• 1:00:09
  A amount of animus in this country just sort of directed in various different ways but then also just kind of a free floating cloud that like sits over the culture.
• 1:00:21
  Where people are very convinced that somebody is getting away with something that they themselves are not getting away with and that that's not necessarily a right wing or a left wing thing I think that everybody is aware that we are not getting what we pay for from our government.
• 1:00:37
  That we're not getting the stuff that we are set the constitution you know the high-minded ideals of the country do not from one moment to the next necessarily seem to apply to a lot of people they are they apply selectively.
• 1:00:52
  And I think that the anger that comes from that is natural and I think it's then a matter of like figuring out where to put it I think there's a lot of friendly fire just in general in the culture because of the fact that people are aware that they are at risk.
• 1:01:13
  And yeah I mean if you had to design a system that to to animate those grievances and to divide people social media would be the system you would come up with I mean you're reminding me of Andrew Moran says great have you read anti social by Andrew Moran's.
• 1:01:29
  Yeah I have I've not read the book I'm actually friends with Andrew Moran's he will tell him he is an absolute gem because I want to have him on this show because his book anti social is is.
• 1:01:40
  A tour to force of unpacking exactly how we got into into the sort of universe of the Trump bubble that you were talking about before and I mean New Yorker reporting has been great on it I have not read the book but I love this story so yeah it's great and it's this weird phenomenon where all of the I mean the algorithms are basically.
• 1:02:00
  I mean we all know this but they're rewarding engagement which means they're rewarding sexiness and clickiness and you know like ability and share ability which are all things have nothing to do with bringing us together as a species and figuring out.
• 1:02:12
  Our problems they're all things I would argue are the exact opposite yes that's right so I mean when I hear you I think you know our disagreement about.
• 1:02:19
  About workness is really telling because the conclusion that we can probably both agree with regardless of who has the correct perspective is if we all just got off line the problem would evaporate like regardless of who's right about it.
• 1:02:33
  Yeah I think also that a lot of it is that it's the problem exists online in a way that it can't or wouldn't exist in real life because when you're unless you are a damaged person.
• 1:02:46
  If you are engaging with someone whose life experiences very different from yours like at some point you have to realize that this is another real person and this is a real experience that they had and you learn something from it I think people do this every day.
• 1:02:58
  It's just hard when first of all when there are all of these sort of new identities and ideas that even since I was in college that I didn't encounter in a very liberal college space you know 20 years ago.
• 1:03:10
  That a lot of that it's jarring to be asked to think about things that you haven't thought about before or to reconsider you know behaviors or whatever that like all of that is true and yet I think that in actual human engagement you just do it.
• 1:03:26
  I think that online especially that like I think you're right about the way that the algorithm sort of work and that each social media site.
• 1:03:33
  It's algorithm somehow it works in a distinct perverse way that like Twitter incentivizes a sort of a like a performative and strident rhetorical approach that Facebook tends to silo people and therefore and they're like sort of close off other avenues of inquiry.
• 1:03:52
  I would say on both sides of the perspective although obviously it's worked much better for reactionary politics here and then the way that you two works is just that you take something that people might be curious about and then you're like well if you like this version of it here's one that's got 10% more of the thing you were curious about in it and here's one that's got 25% and here's one that's got 500% more and so if you start out with something that is you know basically like a good faith question that eventually you're going to stop getting
• 1:04:22
  good faith answers because of the fact that the algorithm favors answers that are just like louder in volume or that contain or you know of whatever substance it is they think keeps people.
• 1:04:34
  I mean bullshit is sexier than boring reality.
• 1:04:37
  It's easier. Yes I mean I think that this is again like the sort of if you want to bring it back to Trump that this is like something that he gets and has gotten in a sort of like an animal like part of his brain for as long as he's been famous.
• 1:04:51
  Which is basically that like sometimes you tell a lie because it's more interesting than the truth and that you keep on telling it because it's like you realize that people like it.
• 1:05:02
  I think that that's 100% the way that he works and I think that if he had been like in terms of like what politics tell me try it again in terms of what things he says repeatedly.
• 1:05:16
  It's the stuff that he notices gets pops when he does rallies. It's the same way that like a live musician might figure out that a song is working or not working and it like.
• 1:05:26
  Oh yeah he's a stand up comic in the sense that he wakes up material he sees what works and then and then he doubles down on those.
• 1:05:34
  And there's but there's a way in which that's also sort of a metonym for how social media makes discourse worse because is the people that he talks to are his base and he's trying and exclusively to his base.
• 1:05:46
  And so the stuff that he gives them that they I mean they're pretty devoted to him anyway.
• 1:05:51
  But that a lot of the stuff about immigration or whatever that like you could show him a poll that says this is a loser of an issue for you man.
• 1:05:59
  Like this is like people don't like it when you say stuff that is like overtly non coded racist shit about immigrants because that's like broadly not an opinion that Americans have.
• 1:06:10
  And he'll be like well I said it in Pensacola and I got a standing ovation so you tell me which is real.
• 1:06:15
  Like this poll or the fact that these people were cheering and chanting my name after I said it.
• 1:06:19
  And I think for him it's just again it's the same sort of thing it's an incentive in the direction of what produces the biggest pop in the crowd.
• 1:06:30
  And that's not you know a way to have like a reason sort of politics but then it's not it's not a reasoning decision it's a television decision.
• 1:06:40
  This brings me to something that you just said and which we can wrap on which you said earlier and in this episode which is you referred to the Fox News Cinematic Universe as if Fox News is like Marvel with a cast of characters and super villains and evil doers and heroes.
• 1:06:59
  Which is similar to the model of Trump that has him as an archetype is basically a professional wrestler where you know he's acting out a wrestling fantasy.
• 1:07:11
  I mean the fact that he literally used to be involved in professional wrestling and had this.
• 1:07:16
  He's in the WWE Hall of Fame.
• 1:07:18
  I mean it's amazing and so just but do you know the dynamic between him and the owner and he ended up shaving his head and like buying back the time for 20 or something.
• 1:07:29
  Can you take it like that to people who don't know it.
• 1:07:31
  I'll do my best I'm in a weird position with wrestling where I you know I haven't washed it since I was eight years old but I edit a lot of people that write about it.
• 1:07:39
  So I have a lot of course not just some secondhand knowledge of it but like secondhand opinions about wrestlers I've never watched.
• 1:07:46
  Which is you know talk about like sort of a 20th century where you don't actually have to engage with anything you can just inherit opinions from the people around you.
• 1:07:56
  Yeah it's like if you only read literary criticism.
• 1:07:59
  Like give us your sophisticated like New York Times book review version of Trump's wrestling storyline.
• 1:08:07
  So basically like he was a natural fit for that universe McMahon is Vince McMahon who is the the owner and sort of the also a character in the WWE which is the world former world wrestling Federation.
• 1:08:22
  That basically like is this kind of like swinging dick like boss man type who's got you know enemies and for a long time that was like a way that they would set up their heroes would be that these were guys that like Vince would try to stop them but they were too badass and then you know that's how you wind up with like the sort of universal fantasy of suplexing your boss.
• 1:08:45
  WWE just took the you know subtext right out of that and they were like no they're going to have stolen cold Steve Austin throw this guy on his ass and everybody's going to cheer and then he's going to drink a beer in the ring and that's that.
• 1:08:56
  So the boss of the wrestling Federation would enter the ring and get thrown around.
• 1:09:00
  Yes.
• 1:09:01
  Yeah he's been a character.
• 1:09:04
  Yes. And so Trump himself was kind of for a while was like a rival of McMahon's in in the storyline in real life of course their friends but you know it's like it's not real.
• 1:09:15
  But they're here and they sort of scripted it in in advance I mean because I think some people still think wrestling is like boxing or something where it's actually going on but it's this is a it's almost like a season season long story arc that's constructed right.
• 1:09:29
  And so this is yeah it's all scripted in the sense that like the the matches themselves are choreographed the other stuff is just you know it's dialogue or its ideas of sort of a structured improv or whatever you know in terms of who's talking with Trump the idea was that this was sort of a rival rich guy.
• 1:09:45
  And that he had his you know his guys that were working with him and McMahon at his guys were working with him.
• 1:09:51
  And that's why when like if Trump's guy pins Vince's guy then Trump gets to shave his head that it was basically that.
• 1:09:59
  But the thing that's interesting about this Trump has always sort of loved wrestling again because it was something that was getting big in the 80s when he was getting big and all of this stuff like basically all of this sort of cultural touchdones in his approach to the world
• 1:10:12
  are like frozen in amber from that era but he also like or whatever color you want to use to describe the amber is fun but right but the the stuff with what you were saying in terms of the reality versus fakeness of it.
• 1:10:29
  There's a story that has been told enough times that I have no choice but to believe it's true where in a storyline from the late 90s Vince McMahon appeared to get into a limousine but then exploded a rival had planted a bomb in it.
• 1:10:46
  And you know I don't know that I'm giving was spoiler alert here when I say that Vince McMahon was in fact fine and was not really blown up in the limousine.
• 1:10:54
  The reason this is worth mentioning is that apparently that night Trump called nickpans home and was like I saw what happened events.
• 1:11:03
  Yeah and his wife had to be like I'm going to get him yes that he basically believed that that something had really happened to Vince McMahon.
• 1:11:10
  But he's a performer in the same show that he was exploded in he wasn't in that storyline so he knows the what does he have goldfish he doesn't remember the like the fact that this is all scripted.
• 1:11:21
  Well yes I mean there is like it's bizarre as a triple H I believe is the rest of the told the story.
• 1:11:30
  And it's like he's told it enough times in the same way and I'll send you a link to the actual thing so you can help you know find the version of it that's more correct because this is speaking of goldfish brains.
• 1:11:40
  I mean this is like third generation of something I read in a blog post I was editing three years ago but there is that element of like it's theatrical but also you know like you really do take some bumps in the ring and stuff like that.
• 1:11:55
  And that clearly there is like a space there like a liminal space that has room for interpretation for him.
• 1:12:03
  So there's a analogy here to Trump's presidential career which is and I for this I thank Jay Shapiro who's a buddy of mine who has a great podcast called dilemma which is a high and philosophy podcast where he wrestles with with a big philosophical things and I saw him tweeting the other day about this storyline.
• 1:12:24
  And the idea was that after Trump's guy won and he shaved the head of the head of the wrestling federation and I think he then like bought it.
• 1:12:35
  I can't remember what the financial transaction was but I think he bought it back at twice the plate like you know he sold it to him and then bought it back at twice the price or something like that in one of the story lines.
• 1:12:44
  That Trump needs that to get out of the White House. He needs to shave the Democrats head and like sell and basically walk away victorious having you know having double his money metaphorically and.
• 1:13:00
  Oh yeah he can't admit defeat.
• 1:13:02
  That's right so how do you control up?
• 1:13:04
  He does like the story that gets told is that he would want to start his own sort of cable network you know or that you have like a sort of a right wing.
• 1:13:13
  And I think that there's something to that but there's also this long litany of business failures on his part things that he kind of half asses and you know or that he like sort of slaps his name on and then trust somebody else to run forums maybe you know unwisely.
• 1:13:29
  That suggests that I don't think that that would necessarily work.
• 1:13:32
  Now I think that that's it that might be what he tries to do because I think being on TV is extremely important to him.
• 1:13:38
  But I don't know like what else he necessarily wants now is sort of thought with running for president and you know even with getting a nomination that he was the dog that caught the car.
• 1:13:49
  That this is like what he wanted to do was like give himself a boost and make it look like you know he was sort of popular and successful and you know.
• 1:13:57
  And he did you know like he became president of the United States like there's not that is in the history books can't take it out.
• 1:14:04
  I don't know that he had much in mind necessarily beyond that and I think that if.
• 1:14:09
  If he had taken seriously a lot of the stuff that he ran on in terms of.
• 1:14:16
  Like in even like in terms of the stuff that I you know would find most.
• 1:14:23
  Unpleasant I mean he's basically governed as a conservative Republican like in the classic sort of American sense of like cutting taxes and cutting regulations and.
• 1:14:32
  You know like hitting some demagoguery points were needed if he had governed as something that the country's basically never had which is an overtly xenophobic Christian Democrat who.
• 1:14:43
  Did half of the like you know protects social security all the shit that he would sort of talk about you know expanding healthcare if he had done that I think he would be in a very different.
• 1:14:52
  For political position I just don't think he took it very seriously right and I think he was it's going on and he was talking about how he's going to rebuild America I mean imagine if he'd gotten into office.
• 1:15:02
  And you know had done a had struck a deal with the Democrats to invest a trillion dollars in American infrastructure with the truck name and blazing all over it and they would have gone along with it and that would have been a whole different alternative.
• 1:15:13
  Future but he's probably can he enough to understand that he doesn't know anything about policy and he didn't want to be the head of government he wanted to be the head of state.
• 1:15:21
  That's just that your system in that has the same person there you know I had a state in Australia is still the Queen of England so that shows you how much we care about the head of state you know the head of government is just a very prosaic thing it doesn't have all the glitz about it and he didn't want to be that.
• 1:15:35
  Yeah right because that's I think mostly the way that he at the parts of the presidency that he seems interested in you know beyond the stuff that like has to do with him and like what people are saying about him and whatever is the ceremonial stuff it's it's wearing a talks and shaking hands and meeting important people and.
• 1:15:53
  Being impressed with them and then being impressed with him that's like that's been his whole life that's what he does you know or at least what he's done the last couple of decades he's in the relationship business.
• 1:16:03
  Like most real estate developers and I think that that I don't know how necessarily how that translates I think as a figurehead for political network obviously he's got all of these people that are devoted to him you know tens of millions of people that hang on his every word and they're not going to go away if he's not the president.
• 1:16:20
  You know and so he'll keep doing his posts because they'll keep doing numbers and I think that's true but like he's not really advocating for anything more than like more Trump in the monitors I don't think he ever really has.
• 1:16:32
  Well David it's been a wonderful conversation about American sport and I thank you for your expertise.
• 1:16:38
  Happy to break down the NBA playoffs at any time man.
• 1:16:42
  Are you thinking of expanding this political remit given the response to your last few articles?
• 1:16:48
  Yeah I mean it's been it's something that I started doing basically is this is going to sound super perverse and while we're talking about silly woki language I started as a sort of a self care thing back in 2015 because it was so.
• 1:17:03
  Large in my mind that like I couldn't get my dumb baseball blogs out because I just had like this trump size occlusion in my brain that needed to be pushed out and I've done enough of it now that it's like part of the rhythm of what you know I've been writing about this stuff for years it's just a matter of trying to find a way.
• 1:17:23
  To balance it with stuff that doesn't make me feel bad you know that like it's it's hard like I mean I like writing about sports I like writing about you know movies and music and other things that make me happy and writing about politics especially because I don't really have any.
• 1:17:39
  I mean I have opinions as you now know I also don't have much no way of expertise as you have also probably noticed so it's just a matter of like trying to find a way to.
• 1:17:49
  Use it to make the other work better you know because I don't know I think just I think you're selling yourself short on the expertise because I don't think you need to be a detailed policy wonk to get I mean you're almost remind me of Hannah Thompson or or Matt Taibe or something where there's like a bigger.
• 1:18:05
  A bigger moral sort of perspective that you're able to bring to it and people can find that in the two most recent articles which brought David to my attention were entitled think of how easy it would have been for Donald Trump to not catch the coronavirus which was on October 2nd and another article called we're on to Cincinnati on October 12th I encourage everybody to read them and if people happen to be interested in this peculiar habit that you call sport where can they find you you're the co-host of a.
• 1:18:34
  Podcast called the distraction and that is that is only sort of about sports it's mostly about getting older and complaining about things so if you're worried that it's going to be too heavy on the NFL just know they're always going to be like why do they even make parsley yeah the.
• 1:18:54
  That's what I mean yeah but the um and then the website is defector and that's um it's a subscription website but it is not all sports stuff by any stretch I mean it's basically everybody that.
• 1:19:11
  When we left that's been you know like just sort of we wanted to work together and do something similar to what we did so there's.
• 1:19:18
  A lot of strange stuff about food if we've covered the Nobel Prize stuff really heavily for whatever reason it's basically whatever weird extra non-sports shit we're interested in we write about that to fantastic and that's your baby basically with the editor of the and the koana.
• 1:19:32
  Yeah yeah we're all co owners so it's a big like we're trying to start something sustainable and and run it as a cash flow business we're not trying to you know turn it into you know defector omnicorp media group LLC.
• 1:19:47
  Hey the fox new cinematic universe a white to you if you if you're successful and unscrupulous.
• 1:19:52
  I need to get myself some superhero branding stat at the very least like just do more squats or something do that and get some l's money get some real money without all the righty stuff just get the money okay yeah not right so much easier to enjoy it you don't know for sure you're going to hell.
• 1:20:08
  Thank you David great to talk to you thank you I appreciate it.
• 1:20:17
  you