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How political ideology helped hollow out America’s cities · Two Mikes on America Out Loud

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54321. Hey, welcome back. You're on
0:04
with two mics, Dr. Michael Scheuer, New York
0:06
Times bestselling author, and Colonel Mike. And we
0:09
welcome you back to another episode of the
0:13
two mics at TWOMiks.us
0:16
or toomics.com.
0:19
So
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we're going to bring back a guest who's
0:23
been with us since the days of radio.
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That could go back as far as Laurel
0:27
and Hardy in our mind, right? But uh
0:30
while we're there, just visit our website. Once
0:32
in a while, we put a blog up,
0:34
and once in a while, you may want
0:35
to visit a sponsor. And we're always looking
0:37
for a new sponsor. Uh and I I
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understand things are tight today. We maybe have
0:42
to set up, buy me a coffee or
0:45
whatever. But I think on this show today,
0:47
since I hear so much about the money
0:49
rolling in and out of Washington and in
0:52
and out of universities, and we're doing almost
0:54
600 shows, and I think we're six years
0:57
now into this, going on seven. And
1:01
we do have a Monday show called the
1:03
National Security Hour on
1:05
AmericaOutLab.news, which is where you can see this
1:08
show also, the two mics, but we're on
1:10
many other platforms. If Qatar Airlines is
1:13
listening, I want to say this. Since you're
1:16
the number one airline, we are looking at
1:18
airlines to be an advertiser. And we
1:22
understand you do a great job in investing
1:24
in the universities. Invest in free speech and
1:28
the First Amendment. Just go to our website,
1:31
send us an email. We'll have our attorney
1:33
contact you with the contract and we're ready
1:35
to roll. So with that, we want to
1:37
welcome back Aaron Wren, good friend. Aaron Wren
1:41
is out in the Midwest. Aaron, welcome back.
1:44
Thanks for having me on. I hope you
1:47
like that little promo because we're looking to
1:48
get Qatar Airlines. They have so much money.
1:51
Besides, why not have the best airline around
1:53
the globe, right? I mean, it's a it's
1:55
a good play. I know some other people
1:57
may not like it. There may be certain
1:59
parties, certain people. But, you know, hey,
2:03
since GM and Ford and Jeep and uh,
2:05
you know, BMW, nobody's coming to us and
2:07
saying, hey guys, we want you to do
2:09
an ad. I figure why not give it
2:11
a go? So, Aaron, you have uh just
2:13
give us a little background for the audience,
2:15
the new audience on America Out Loud who
2:17
may not know you from the two mics.
2:19
You know, we found you years ago when
2:21
you were at the Manhattan Institute, right? And
2:23
uh you have a substack now, correct? And
2:26
you have
2:27
you you're really good on the urban stuff.
2:30
And we used to have music that was
2:32
great to bring you in. We don't have
2:33
that anymore, even though we have a good
2:35
production crew. So tell us what you're writing
2:37
about lately. Go ahead. Yeah, well, I I
2:40
first got a comment on on the sponsorship
2:42
thing. You know, a lot of these big
2:44
companies, uh, they um you know they advertise
2:47
on left-wing media. Oh, yes, they do advertise
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on any media that's considered conservative, even some
2:54
of the companies that you know have a
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largely conservative audience. You think about the pickup
2:59
truck companies, for example. And you, you know,
3:01
I uh somebody on Twitter made a comment
3:03
about that. Like, why isn't Ford advertising on
3:06
the Blaze or something like that? And it's
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like, uh, yeah, it's a good point. Why
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aren't they? Yeah, it's uh it's interesting.
3:14
There does seem to be a uh course,
3:16
what happens uh and is
3:20
that if they advertise on your
3:23
show, then all of a sudden, you know,
3:26
some of the liberal media will start attacking
3:29
them. Oh, you're advertising with these extremists,
3:33
these radicals, these far-right people. Yes, and so
3:36
they attack the brand. And you know, that
3:39
happened to you know any number of conservatives.
3:42
They just go down your advertiser list that
3:44
you know, the a big media outlet called
3:46
to every advertiser, oh, we're just looking to
3:48
confirm if you're still advertising on such and
3:51
such a person's show. And that's how they,
3:55
in the guise of reporting, put a lot
3:57
of pressure on your advertisers to drop you.
4:00
And well, you know, you know, PBS has
4:03
uh the night, the nightly news hour, and
4:06
if you see how many sponsors and how
4:08
many foundations they get every night on the
4:11
on the six o'clock or whatever it is,
4:13
eight o'clock news, you'd be shocked. But you
4:15
know, I said it to somebody else on
4:17
our show uh probably about a month ago.
4:20
You know, you got that Lee Greenwood, which
4:22
is like the the mantra of the MAGA
4:25
or the right wing, proud to be an
4:27
American, you know? And if you're proud to
4:29
be an American, and like this is what's
4:31
great about being on AmericaOut Loud.news. We have
4:33
100% free speech, you know, First Amendment. They
4:36
don't edit, they don't say, hey guys, you
4:38
can't say this. You just can't curse, right?
4:41
But it's it's just like say whatever you
4:43
want, even though we don't agree with you.
4:45
And there's a lot of other shows that
4:46
probably don't agree with us on that network,
4:48
and probably a lot do, right? But if
4:50
you're proud to be an American, like you
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say, give you an example, Jeep. You know,
4:54
that's supposed to be the American image, right?
4:56
Driving a Jeep. Well, a couple years back,
4:58
I think it was the first Trump administration,
5:01
uh, the guy that was doing the song
5:02
or driving and doing a song was Bruce
5:04
Springsteen, who was anti-MAGA, right? And they
5:08
blew him out. The commercial lasted like two
5:10
weeks. They got rid of him. You know,
5:12
you have Chevy, you have Ford, you have
5:15
all these American brands, whether they're totally
5:18
American-made or not. And like you say, if
5:21
a lot of these guys, MAGA guys, the
5:23
guys that listen to our show, they may
5:25
be driving that product, they may be driving
5:27
a BMW, they may be driving a lot
5:29
of who was drinking Bud Light, and where
5:31
were they spending, and where were they spending
5:33
their advertising budget? Right. You know, it's like
5:37
uh yeah, you just gotta ask. And and
5:40
this is where uh, you know, it's very
5:42
asymmetrical, let's just say. But there's a lot
5:45
of big companies that sell, you know, very
5:48
heavily to uh you know
5:51
conservative people, their audience skews more conservative, and
5:54
then they just but they don't advertise in
5:56
any of the the places, so um,
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yeah.
6:02
I figure if you want to go all
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the way with with some money, right? Are
6:07
you there? Yeah, I'm here. If you want
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to go all the way with some money,
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and why not have you know the first
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we we have a lady that's on our
6:16
website? Um, she has like a very high-end
6:20
top quality men and women's clone, and
6:23
she's a military veteran, you know, it's
6:26
veteran-owned, and we we allow her to put
6:28
that up there, you know. And why not
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get top shelf? I mean, Qatar is number
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one. And if you're gonna advertise for an
6:36
L, I wouldn't, I mean, I wouldn't even
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ask United. I've took first class on United,
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uh, you know, East Coast, West Coast, and
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to me, that wasn't even first class. It
6:45
was like uh maybe business, you know what
6:48
I'm saying? Maybe business top end. You know,
6:50
it was nothing close, but the ticket was
6:52
okay, you know, it was what it is.
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So when you go on one of their
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flights, you know, globally, uh and they have
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them all over the globe. The problem is
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we have a portion of this country uh
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that likes their money, whether it's in a
7:07
university, whether it's in the the halls of
7:10
Congress, right? Or whether it's uh them
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donating to our enemies through foundations
7:17
we created, or some allies we may have
7:19
in the Middle East who say, use your
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money and make the problem that way and
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then go and blame them. But I don't
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want to look at it politically. I want
7:27
to look at it like, you know, we
7:30
have expenses, we have time, we have
7:33
uh website, whatever. You know, why not have
7:36
a nice airline? You know, we'll do a
7:38
nice commercial for them. Uh I do some
7:40
commercials for the AmericaOutloud.news uh network.
7:44
We have we have really nice sponsors on
7:46
there, and they like our shows on AmericaOutloud.news.
7:49
Michael, are you there? Yep. Oh, I I
7:52
didn't know if you were still there. I
7:53
didn't hear the noise. Okay, so anyway. I
7:56
never told you about myself. Maybe I'm set.
7:59
I never told you about myself, you know.
8:01
No, I want to hear you.
8:02
Maybe I'll just give you like quick 30
8:05
seconds, you know. Uh
8:07
you could go a minute and a half,
8:08
don't worry, guys. I uh
8:11
uh yeah, you know, I had about three
8:13
careers. I started off uh in management
8:16
consulting in Chicago, uh worked a long
8:19
time there doing technology work, and then I
8:22
did a pivot into uh urban uh
8:26
uh analysis and journalism. As you noted, I
8:29
was at the Manhattan Institute for several years,
8:31
and then um, you know, maybe uh a
8:34
little less than a decade ago, I started
8:38
writing a lot about uh men in Christianity.
8:41
I saw all these young men turning to
8:43
the manosphere, and they weren't turning to churches,
8:46
and so I wanted to help the church
8:48
be more competitive in reaching men, and that
8:50
just sort of grew into a broader uh
8:54
repertoire of cultural commentary. Uh, you know, it
8:57
really resonated with people, uh, and uh
9:00
particularly some of my work on the future
9:02
of evangelicalism and the future of religion. So
9:04
now I have a substack, AaronRen.com. Uh
9:07
mostly free content. And uh you can
9:11
sign up there and check it out. So
9:13
give us the last give us a synopsis
9:16
of the last two substacks.
9:20
Well, I you know, I think the one
9:22
that I I put up was um about
9:24
flock cameras. Uh that's been a source
9:27
of of controversy. And I what I really
9:31
found interesting about Flock is uh a
9:34
couple of things. Uh that
9:37
it like data centers, it's sort of scrambled
9:41
the political polarization a little bit. Uh people
9:44
on both the left and the right sort
9:46
of opposed flock cameras.
9:49
Uh, it's also something that now they oppose
9:52
them for very different reasons. So the left
9:55
doesn't like them because they just don't like
9:57
much law enforcement in general, I would say.
10:00
The you know, they're not like necessarily pro-policing
10:03
tools, uh, as a matter of course. But
10:05
then also there's been some reporting that the
10:07
uh Trump administration and ICE were using the
10:11
flock camera, uh, which are license plate readers.
10:14
Basically, they're cameras that read and record the
10:16
license plates of passing cars on the road.
10:20
And um
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they um,
10:23
you know, ICE has been using those uh
10:26
in their enforcement work, so they don't like
10:29
them. And then uh there was always like
10:31
a small group of libertarians that didn't like
10:33
these cameras on the right, but then the
10:35
right sort of embraced it too, which I
10:38
think is interesting because Trump, I think, has
10:40
been pretty pro-flocked camera, and
10:43
you know, ICE is very tied up with
10:45
his core agenda, which you know, people elected
10:47
him for, and yet his own kind of
10:49
people turned against him a little bit on
10:51
this. And what I think this kind of
10:52
shows is populism
10:56
is now what I call kind of a
10:58
chaotic mass. It's not necessarily
11:01
wedded to a consistent political position,
11:04
but it sort of attaches itself to certain
11:07
issues that get hot via social media,
11:10
uh, or maybe even originating with candidates who
11:13
would be, you know, you would say more
11:16
on the fringe, like uh Fishback in Florida,
11:19
who got like 10% of the vote. He
11:21
only got 10% of the vote in a
11:22
Republican primary for governor, but he made
11:25
anti-flock uh a centerpiece of his
11:28
campaign. And so even though his campaign didn't
11:31
do well, he uh, you know, that issue
11:34
sort of took over the country. And so
11:36
this happened, this came out of nowhere, sort
11:38
of like that anti data center. It came
11:40
out of nowhere, it blew up, it's really
11:43
put the uh political figures kind of back
11:45
on their heels trying to respond to it.
11:47
And I wouldn't be surprised if we see
11:49
more and more of these issues. Big issues
11:50
blow up, they cut across parties, sort
11:54
of rooted in sort of low trust of
11:56
institutions and government. Uh, you know, and so
11:59
I think that's kind of a new uh
12:01
a new phenomenon that we're seeing out there.
12:03
But you know, Erwin, if I had to
12:05
do a shirt, that's a great shirt. What
12:07
the flop, you know what I mean? Yeah,
12:08
yeah, yeah. Because we don't even know. We
12:10
don't the thing is, I don't know. Uh
12:12
it's been said in social media and in
12:16
the press that you know, these
12:19
reports are not just going to the police,
12:21
they're going to the FBI, they're going to
12:23
the different agencies, including foreign agencies,
12:26
but it's also something that, like everything else,
12:30
can be hacked. And if it can be
12:32
hacked, and that you know, you don't have
12:34
guaranteed security on it, it could be foreign
12:36
countries. And then if they have the license
12:38
plate, they have where you live. And if
12:40
they have where you live, they could tap
12:42
into. And it goes on and on and
12:43
on. And then you're going to get late-night
12:45
commercials, which are like LifeLock, you know, join
12:48
Lifelock. I I don't know. I'm sure but
12:50
by now Mike and you must have got
12:52
hacked. I've been hacked in medical systems, I've
12:55
been hacked in other things. I don't sign
12:57
up. I mean, you know, these medical
13:00
uh associations or whatever, these insurance companies
13:03
you're you're connected to, they all want you
13:06
to sign up and have that easy hey,
13:08
oh, we'll send you the appointment, we'll let
13:10
you know what this that is. And I
13:12
tell them, I don't want it because you
13:14
guys get hacked, and then you send me
13:17
a notice that you're going to get a
13:18
free subscription to Experian or somebody, you know,
13:22
to check your credit. Uh no, I don't
13:24
need that. Just don't don't let me be
13:26
on the web. Just give me a phone
13:28
call or send me a letter or whatever
13:29
you like, you know. That's the problem
13:32
technology. The reality is
13:36
your home address,
13:38
your license plate information, everything about
13:42
you is already for sale on the internet,
13:44
do commercial workers. Oh, yes. And yeah, it
13:47
might have been the New York Times. I
13:48
can't remember if it's the New York Times
13:49
or the Wall Street Journal, basically uh
13:53
did this expose where they were able to
13:56
buy data from a commercial entity,
13:59
cell phone data, that allowed them to
14:02
track movements of individuals inside the White
14:05
House. It's like we know exactly where people
14:09
are. And so, of course, your phone is
14:10
there, they've got this, they've got everything. And
14:14
uh the reality is we are surveilled. And
14:17
I know people try to make one of
14:19
the things that a lot of the anti-flock
14:21
people were trying to say is look, this
14:22
is a government thing. Where's everybody's ring cameras
14:25
private? But the truth is
14:28
the government wants ring data. When the government
14:31
wants data from a private company, it gets
14:33
it. And some of these platforms already have
14:37
back doors built in with the NSA and
14:39
all of that. In America, I think this
14:41
is one of the most important things to
14:42
understand. We don't have this clear and clean
14:45
distinction between public and private like people imagine
14:49
it. These big private entities are deeply
14:52
intertwined with the government, you know, which we
14:55
saw with the social media companies during the
14:57
Biden administration and all of that. And so
15:00
it's really
15:02
it's hard, hard to totally separate them. So
15:06
I get it that we don't like the
15:07
surveillance, but the truth is we are in
15:10
fact all being completely monitored
15:14
all of the time. And that's what
15:19
I was gonna say, that's why I think
15:22
uh
15:24
I think that background unease about the degree
15:27
of surveillance is part of why people kind
15:30
of get, you know, um caught up about
15:33
flock. It's sort of sort of like the
15:35
data centers, there's a there's kind of a
15:37
legitimate aspect of why people don't want
15:40
data centers in their community, but data centers
15:43
are also a metaphor for everyone's fears of
15:45
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exclusive offer. Grow smarter. There's a
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there's kind of a legitimate aspect of why
18:19
people don't want data centers in their community,
18:21
but data centers are also a metaphor for
18:23
everyone's fears of AI.
18:26
Yeah, it's it's it's there's you're both entirely
18:29
correct. It's uh increasingly a a uh
18:33
uh
18:34
national a national state that's completely
18:38
ready to be a fascist state.
18:41
It's a matter of who who uh turns
18:44
the key in the White House.
18:47
There's no reason for flock, there's no reason
18:49
for uh uh th those cameras that are
18:52
attached to uh
18:55
what is that called?
18:58
The highway, the highway lights.
19:01
You know, you you you get a ticket
19:03
from somebody and you gotta pay somebody in
19:05
dis in Arizona for it or some other
19:08
damn thing. Um and there's no recourse
19:11
to it. It's uh endless thing, and I
19:14
you know they've got all your medical uh
19:16
information that they want. They they have all
19:19
of your uh
19:21
uh employment information from the tax uh
19:24
venue. And it's uh it needs a
19:27
it needs a destruction. Uh the government needs
19:30
to be destructed in a very calm and
19:33
orderly way, but very, very much
19:36
destroyed.
19:38
Well, you know, Aaron, do you know there's
19:40
certain states, I'm sure you do because you
19:42
were doing the urban beat, there's certain states
19:44
that don't even allow just traffic cameras, you
19:47
know, red light cameras and stuff like that.
19:50
Yeah, so um, yeah, so I think there's
19:53
a big difference between, say, Flock and these
19:56
these red light cameras, because the red light
19:58
cameras uh and the speeding
20:01
cameras, those are primarily there to
20:04
make money. They're sort of enforcement
20:06
mechanisms for infractions
20:10
that aren't even really crimes, right? It's sort
20:13
of like a parking ticket or like a
20:15
ticket. So like uh they use them and
20:18
they they use them here in a construction
20:21
zone by me. Yes, uh, to to monitor
20:24
speed. And I think those are basically just
20:27
uh, you know, they're a form of automated,
20:29
automated enforcement. The flocks are different because
20:33
they don't actually uh enforce anything,
20:36
they're just recording the different
20:39
license plates and and cars that are
20:42
passing that then goes into a database that's
20:45
searchable. You know, I don't know whether or
20:49
not the uh speeding and red light cameras
20:52
are doing that or not. Whether they store
20:55
it, that's a good question. Uh I don't
20:57
think we know. I mean, I'll say this
21:00
is one of the things about like Flock,
21:01
and I'd probably put facial recognition in the
21:04
same category.
21:07
Until all this um
21:10
controversy, recent controversy, the police
21:13
really didn't talk about their use of these
21:15
technologies. Flock has been out there for a
21:18
while. This is not a new technology.
21:21
And my belief is that the police were
21:24
making heavy use of it to solve crimes
21:27
that they just didn't mention. And
21:30
uh because, you know, maybe maybe for
21:33
various reasons. Uh, you know, if you say
21:37
I solved it because of this camera, like
21:38
caught the guy's plate, that doesn't make you
21:40
sound super impressive. It's more impressive, it seems
21:43
like you did a lot of shoe leather
21:44
detective work. Yeah, right.
21:46
But now that um
21:49
uh now that there's been a lot of
21:53
controversy over flock, one of the things I've
21:55
noticed is more and more media uh items
21:58
now, the police are say basically telling you
22:01
how flock was used to solve crimes. And
22:04
I'm actually fairly fro pro-flock because
22:08
where I live, like it's like a must.
22:11
And again, if I were lived in a
22:12
rural area, I wouldn't want it. But where
22:14
I live in a suburban area that's right
22:17
next to a big central city, uh
22:20
these things are really helping us. So, you
22:22
know, there's been these South American gangs that
22:24
go around the country robbing upscale suburban
22:28
homes of like jewelry and bags and things
22:30
like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we
22:32
had uh just one of those hit uh
22:36
community next to me,
22:38
staked out a house, broke in, stole six
22:41
figures worth of stuff, flock camera nabbed them.
22:45
They were already in Ohio, they were gone.
22:46
These people are gonna be out of state
22:48
by the time the police get the notification
22:50
about what's happened. You will never catch these
22:53
guys without flock. And in Indianapolis over the
22:57
weekend, there was a hit-and-run driver
23:00
ran over uh and killed a nine-year-old
23:04
kid and injured a five-year-old kid, fled
23:07
the scene, they caught him with flock. Wouldn't
23:10
you know it? He's got an ice detainer
23:13
suggesting he's illegal. And again, you just
23:16
can't, it's used over and over and over
23:19
in all these cases to catch these people
23:22
very quickly. So I do think we have
23:24
to like reckon with the fact that this
23:26
is like one of the best law enforcement
23:29
tools you know ever. I it it is
23:32
amazing to me uh where I
23:35
live
23:37
people from come from out of our city
23:39
come in here and they'll commit a crime,
23:41
they're always caught. And it's I think Flock
23:44
has a lot to do with it. So
23:45
again, I think it depends on where you
23:46
live. If I lived in a rural area,
23:49
I wouldn't want them around. But living in
23:51
a suburban area in a major metro, I
23:54
think they're essential for uh catching these people.
23:57
You know, there may have been you may
23:59
have seen the the uh news about
24:03
this uh shooting at a homecoming
24:06
football game in suburban Minneapolis, Eden Prairie,
24:09
Minnesota, uh over the weekend. Oh,
24:12
yes, yes. Yeah, they had to empty the
24:14
stadium, and uh, you know, that's a very
24:17
upscale suburb of Minneapolis. Right. There's another one,
24:20
it's I can't know how you pronounce it,
24:22
it's either a Adina or Adina. Yeah, Adina.
24:26
And they have no clue. It's like a
24:29
bunch of people were shooting up a shooting
24:30
around a church, 50 shells found on the
24:32
ground, all that stuff. They have no clue
24:34
who did it. And so
24:37
you have these crimes occurring in like even
24:39
you know, what you think of a quote
24:41
unquote safe, wealthy areas. If you don't have
24:44
some of these tools, you're never gonna catch
24:46
these people. Oh, you thought ring camera, you
24:49
thought the ring camera would do it all.
24:51
And I'm just curious, you know, ring is
24:53
big all around the country, right? Yeah, ring
24:56
catches tons of people too. And you know,
24:58
it's so it's like, yeah, they they did
25:00
this, there's all the ring cameras, they got
25:03
everybody, so the police can get access to
25:04
the ring cameras too. So they can
25:08
get uh they they have ways of getting
25:10
access to the ring cameras, and um,
25:14
so that's part of it. It's like and
25:15
the ring cameras are actually storing video of
25:19
people, not just uh recording uh recording
25:22
stuff. So it's a brave new world. I
25:25
mean, I definitely don't feel
25:28
uh totally uh you know, totally
25:31
comfortable in it myself, but but I think
25:33
the reality is these things are here and
25:36
um
25:38
you know they're gonna be around, so we
25:39
might as well get the value out of
25:41
them. Uh you know, get the parts, get
25:44
the good parts of surveillance. If we're gonna
25:46
be surveillance, we'll see how it goes. We'll
25:48
see how it goes because you could drive
25:50
on these express you know easy pass lanes,
25:53
and they're snapping cameras every time you go
25:55
through, right? To see how much they're gonna
25:57
charge you. Yeah, in fact, we have easy
26:00
pass lanes, they're collected in different countries. We
26:03
don't even own the easy pass lanes, to
26:05
be honest with you. It's another company, another
26:07
country, right, Mike? They bought them in Virginia.
26:10
There's uh I think Australia owns one of
26:12
those. Australia's got yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I
26:14
mean, the thing with like that's a great
26:16
example. So it used to be there were
26:17
toll booths, and you had to throw, you
26:20
know, your change or your token into the
26:22
toll booth, and now it's what we call
26:25
open road tolling. So there's no more toll
26:27
booth, you just drive through, and you either
26:30
have easy pass transponder, and there's different versions
26:33
of this around the country because there's not
26:35
one national standard. You go through the
26:38
transponder and it it
26:41
debits your account, or if you don't
26:44
have a transponder, they photograph your license plate,
26:48
look you know, yeah. They send you they
26:49
send you the bill to and it's an
26:52
more expensive bill because of the collection cost,
26:54
and they want to encourage people to use
26:56
the easy pass transponder. But that's right,
26:59
and and they've caught uh there's been
27:02
high-profile cases where
27:05
people have been caught because of toll roads.
27:09
Uh yeah, there's that famous case down in
27:11
Florida, uh, you know, where the
27:15
uh the mother like hired like a hit
27:18
man to murder her, you know, uh, you
27:20
know, the ex strange wife. It's like crazy
27:23
stuff, right? And I can't remember the the
27:25
entire family there, but that was like one
27:26
of these, you know, huge, huge, huge crime
27:28
issues, and they finally caught the guy using
27:32
uh using the the toll road uh
27:35
data.
27:37
Yeah, it's just nuts. So what else is
27:39
going on? We got a few more minutes
27:41
here. We got a few more minutes. Let's
27:43
touch on something else real quick. Yeah, I
27:46
really think um, again, my other piece had
27:48
a big piece in City Journal uh called
27:50
something like uh America Needs a New Urban
27:53
Vision. And I talked about how since 2020
27:57
the models that had made cities so prosperous
27:59
in the 2010s had really started to fade.
28:03
You know, this sort of hipster creative class
28:06
model
28:08
where everybody wants, you know, the microbrew beers
28:10
and the artisanal coffee and the farm to
28:12
table restaurants and all that stuff, uh,
28:16
or the kind of global city where it's
28:18
like all this high-end business. Not that that's
28:20
totally gone away, but the
28:24
cities have sort of fallen on hard times
28:26
a little bit, and they've definitely lost a
28:28
step and are looking at um I
28:31
call it a lost decade. Most cities are
28:34
gonna take at least a decade to recover
28:37
from COVID. Uh
28:39
some some places are never gonna recover. And
28:41
I think we have to be honest that
28:43
like some of this is self-inflicted, you know,
28:45
the sort of downtown interest, the big corporate
28:49
players there, they all walk all in on
28:52
kind of remote work and lockdowns.
28:55
And they also kind of all went all
28:58
in on BLM and the sort of riots
29:01
that happened with that. And you know, in
29:04
most American cities, I'd say for like two
29:07
to three years from 2020 to 2022,
29:11
the central organizing principle of
29:13
institutional life in these cities was BLM.
29:16
Everything was about BLM. And
29:20
people, you know, with remote work, they wanted
29:22
like a home office, they move out to
29:24
the suburbs, they want space with these lockdowns.
29:26
The suburbs or new towns had less, you
29:29
know, less restrictive COVID policies. And
29:33
so there was a big exodus out of
29:35
cities. New York City's gonna be fine,
29:38
San Francisco's gonna be fine. You know,
29:42
there are gonna be these elite cities that
29:43
are gonna be fine. I'm not saying every
29:44
city's going down, but a lot of cities
29:46
are really struggling right now. Lots of empty
29:48
office space that'll probably never be reoccupied
29:51
by business. And
29:54
what I think the biggest problem
29:57
is is the total left-wing cultural
30:00
hegemony in these places
30:03
that basically make it clear that if you're
30:06
conservative, you're not really truly
30:09
welcome there. Um you know, where
30:13
I um where I live in the city,
30:15
nah, next to me, the big city, they
30:17
um there was an ice cream place, just
30:19
a random ice cream stand, and
30:22
somebody who owned 10% of the
30:26
business
30:28
posted something on Facebook about supporting
30:31
ice. And there was like a huge boycott
30:34
of this ice cream shop over that. And
30:38
again, the the point here is not that
30:40
there's people protesting or whatever, because you know,
30:42
it's free speech, you can do whatever you
30:44
want. It's that not a single person stands
30:46
up for them. So there's one newspaper columnist
30:49
who did defend them, but like where are
30:53
the major institutions, where are the major civic
30:56
leaders? They say nothing. You know, another one
30:58
just happened. Um, you know, Nashville's symphony
31:02
basically ran out of money, they had to
31:04
suspend their season. And
31:07
that's kind of embarrassing. But then Oracle, which
31:09
is moving its headquarters to Nashville, gave them
31:12
$10 million to basically
31:15
allow them to finish their season and move
31:17
on. Who gave the $10 million? I didn't
31:19
get that, Heron. Who gave it to them?
31:20
Oracle, Larry Ellison's code. Oh, he's got tons
31:23
of money, yeah. Yeah, and one of the
31:25
members of the Nashville Symphony posted
31:29
something on Facebook or
31:31
Instagram
31:33
saying Oracle gave us $10 million,
31:37
the season's back on. P.S. You should come
31:41
see us anyway. In other words, oh my
31:43
gosh, Oracle, Oracle's a trash company,
31:46
we hate them, but you know, they gave
31:49
us 10 million. So the idea that a
31:51
member of the symphony would feel confident trashing
31:55
this major benefactor that literally saved his phony
31:58
baloney job, and
32:01
nobody in town is going to criticize that.
32:04
And it's just like they're allowed to just
32:06
kind of run rampant through the cities. Yeah,
32:09
that was a bluehead. Why nobody wants to
32:11
come downtown? That was a bluehead. Let me
32:13
say something to you. If Nashville ran out
32:16
of money for their symphony, you got plenty
32:18
of, and you and I both know where
32:19
to cloud, and so does Mike. You got
32:22
plenty of country stars down there that would
32:24
have been just like a dinner coughing over
32:27
$10 million to keep it going. You know,
32:30
Nashville, you've been there for years. You've you've
32:32
been back and forth, and I I've been
32:34
there probably four times in my life. Um,
32:37
they're not short on money with everything that
32:39
goes down there. What happened in Nashville, it
32:42
be in my opinion, anyway, bro, uh it
32:45
became a magnet. People wanted to get out
32:48
of California or Texas or New York, and
32:51
and Nashville was the place. So you, you
32:54
know, you get what you pay for. It's
32:56
probably purple now. It's not what it was.
32:58
You know, you probably still got a good
33:00
area like Franklin right outside of there, which
33:03
it it always blew my mind why these
33:05
celebrities live in Nashville and they need a
33:07
weekend home in Franklin that looks like the
33:09
White House is so big, you know. But
33:12
anyway, it's a nice place. It's just you're
33:13
not going to do Nashville anymore. You're gonna
33:15
have to go to like places like Murphyborough
33:17
or whatever to uh to enjoy
33:20
Tennessee. You know, uh Nashville is one of
33:23
the reddest metro areas in the country. The
33:26
city is solid blue, and um,
33:30
you know, a lot of the growth, you
33:31
know, a lot of these businesses that people
33:34
say the businesses are moving to Nashville, if
33:37
you look at where they're locating, they're actually
33:39
locating in Franklin. And
33:42
there's this office retail corridor out there they
33:46
call Cool Springs, and uh,
33:49
you know, it's it's really going well. Uh
33:51
that whole area, Williamson County, is
33:55
one of the very few, you know, ultra
33:58
wealthy suburban areas that's like a you know
34:00
was kind of strong Trump country. And yeah,
34:04
you know, people, yeah, you want to go
34:05
out here, you build a big mansion, you
34:07
kind of live this uh sort of a
34:09
state lifestyle, and you know,
34:13
you can go into Nashville when you want
34:15
something, but the traffic's really bad, and who
34:18
wants to deal with the political dysfunction down
34:20
there? If you're a conservative person,
34:24
why would you want to expose yourself
34:27
to the hate mobs by getting involved in
34:30
anything to do with the city? Like it
34:34
it doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh,
34:36
maybe I'd like to volunteer to be on
34:38
the board of the symphony, donate some money,
34:40
help them get going again. But then you
34:42
realize I might just get attacked by the
34:45
symphony's own players.
34:48
Why would I want to do that? Kind
34:50
of thing. Did you see the story about
34:52
this big old red brick building that's been
34:54
there since the 1800s? I forgot what it
34:56
might have been a hardware store or something,
34:58
but you know, they hit this guy with
35:00
a bill which he could never pay, six
35:02
million dollars or something, you know, property property
35:05
tax. And, you know, they've been there forever,
35:08
probably since the Civil War. And then and
35:10
then they're like, how do we pay this?
35:12
We don't make that kind of money. You
35:14
know, it's it's in in the city of
35:16
Nashville. You see these stuff like, well, obviously
35:19
they want his building, you know what I
35:20
mean? They want to probably build some condos,
35:22
they want to do a Williamsburg, you know
35:24
what I'm saying? Just make it really ta-ta.
35:27
Like what how's Williamsburg doing? Do you hear
35:29
anything about that lately? You know, Williamsburg, I
35:32
just read that an Hermes store just opened
35:34
there. So, you know, it's like this is
35:37
what happens, you know. Uh, 20, 25 years
35:40
ago, Williamsburg was hip cool.
35:44
Uh, it was kind of epicenter of hipsterdom.
35:47
And then it sort of, you know, when
35:49
I left New York, you know, back in
35:52
2019, Williamsburg had already been
35:55
populated with the same exact chains that were
35:58
every in every other neighborhood. It was just
36:00
another kind of yuppie neighborhood. And now I
36:03
guess it sounds like the luxury brands are
36:05
moving in. So that's kind of what happens
36:07
is places, it's like the life cycle, you
36:10
know, of gentrification. Places get cool,
36:14
and everybody wants to come there because it's
36:16
cool, it's got artists, it's got unique local
36:20
businesses. Then the prices go through the roof,
36:23
nobody can afford to stay there anymore except
36:25
the big chains. And so the big chains
36:28
move in, more kind of rich people move
36:30
in. And let's be honest, like the people
36:33
who work, say in corporate finance or whatever,
36:36
uh, they're not like hip and cool. So
36:39
the coolness factor kind of goes away uh
36:42
because there aren't like uh you know, you
36:44
know, the art artistic types or the musicians
36:47
or the interesting cultural innovators, and
36:51
it becomes kind of stagnant, and then everybody
36:53
moves to Bushwick, you know, or Greenpoint. And
36:56
then they become, you know, so it's it's
36:57
a huge the problem is, you know, New
36:59
York's running out of cheap real estate wherever
37:02
you go. And uh that's an issue. But
37:04
that same thing is happening to Austin, Texas.
37:06
It's happening in Nashville, where a lot of
37:09
the the local flavor and a local uniqueness
37:12
that made it cool is basically
37:16
been replaced by the exact same glitzy stuff
37:18
you'll find anywhere else. I was staying, I
37:20
was actually there uh uh late
37:23
last week, and I was staying at a
37:26
hotel in the Gulch, which is this area
37:28
right down right by downtown, and I I
37:31
look outside my hotel and I'm like,
37:34
there's a berry's boot camp, and there's a
37:37
Van Leeu and ice cream, and I'm like,
37:41
uh, where am I? You know, it's like
37:44
it's all the same chains that you could
37:46
have gotten back in New York, you know,
37:47
a decade ago. And so it becomes a
37:50
it becomes a situation where like
37:53
these cities, I I do believe America's
37:56
cities have never been more commodified in a
37:59
sense than they are today. And it's you
38:02
can live anywhere and have the
38:05
same basic stuff.
38:10
And that's a huge challenge, I think, um
38:14
for people who want to differentiate themselves in
38:17
the market. I guess that's what I'd say.
38:19
Hey Aaron, you know, remember when when Williamsburg
38:22
went from old blue collar
38:25
um, you know, second, third generation
38:29
living there from uh I guess the turn
38:32
of the last last century. Um
38:36
they s when they started getting hip, what
38:38
was cool about Williamsburg was it like it
38:41
was like an early Soho warehouse kind of
38:43
thing. They were finding their way, but the
38:45
restaurants that came in, they basically created the
38:49
fusion. You know, all the restaurants that came
38:51
in, they had that fusion kind of menu.
38:53
They wanted to be hip Thai or hip
38:55
Chinese, you know what I mean? And it
38:57
had it had that kind of flair, and
38:59
it brought the hipsters in. And again, that
39:02
was when people started doing the remote work
39:04
before the big you know, re work at
39:07
home remote COVID. Anyway, we got to split
39:10
for a minute because we got another show
39:11
coming up. Mike, you want to say anything
39:13
here? No, I know I don't understand. Is
39:16
there no state law against federal law
39:19
against people contributing to a terrorist group like
39:22
uh Black Lives Matter?
39:26
Well we've watched them.
39:30
We've watched them burn down parts of cities.
39:33
It's really a movement more than an organization,
39:35
and there was a national BLM organization that
39:38
has gotten a lot of attention because of
39:41
the sort of uh profiteering that
39:44
it's alleged the you know the core people
39:47
uh engaged in ended up with very nice
39:50
houses and things like that. Uh so
39:53
what I'd say is um, you know, the
39:56
average person in a kind of urban leadership
39:58
position today, they won't say this publicly, but
40:01
their sort of view is we we overcorrect
40:04
it. Not that uh addressing racial
40:07
disparities or racial injustice was not an important
40:11
thing to be doing, however, it went a
40:14
little too far a little too far in
40:16
the way that it went about it.
40:19
Way too far.
40:21
Way thoughtless.
40:24
Well, Aaron,
40:26
we hope you have a good month. Uh
40:28
enjoy yourself in DC, District of Columb uh
40:31
of corruption. Stay safe. You know,
40:34
we do have great restaurants here now. Super,
40:37
you know, it's it's almost like Williamsburg hipster
40:39
in certain areas. But uh stay safe, keep
40:42
in touch, and keep writing.