Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Interview Only w/ Mayor David Holt - Defending Pluralism At A Time Of Polarization

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Interview Only w/ Mayor David Holt - Defending Pluralism At A Time Of Polarization · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. Well. Joining me again for
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Speaker 1: a return to my friend, the Mayor of Oklahoma City,
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Speaker 1: David Holt. David and I are both GW guys. We're
1:55
Speaker 1: both kind of basketball junkies, and I know he's not
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Speaker 1: busy here in the month of June, so we have
2:01
Speaker 1: something to talk about, right, mister marril.
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Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
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Speaker 3: It's it's still a little bit of a morning period
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Speaker 3: in Oklahoma City after our defeat in the Western Conference Finals.
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Speaker 3: But I am, I am. The pain is assuaged a
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Speaker 3: bit by our championship last year. I'll certainly be milking
2:17
Speaker 3: those memories for a long time.
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Speaker 1: You know. I am curious, you know, going you know,
2:24
Speaker 1: for a second championship and sort of like you know,
2:27
Speaker 1: you guys are all geared up and then and then
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Speaker 1: it just doesn't happen like that Game seven happens. I mean,
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Speaker 1: was the city and like morning for a couple of days?
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Speaker 1: How did it was? It? Was it that bad? I
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Speaker 1: know the way I would feel when one of my teams,
2:39
Speaker 1: like you get it hurts more when you get close.
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Speaker 2: Sure, and when you hurt. Yeah, And as you know,
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Speaker 2: when you win.
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Speaker 3: Game five and a two two series, like it's like
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Speaker 3: eighties enough teams win the series. So you did get
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Speaker 3: a sense of like after game five, like okay, we
2:55
Speaker 3: took care of business, like we are on track, you know,
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Speaker 3: so it's a roller cut.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, losing game seven was.
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Speaker 3: Said, I would say, you know, the actual circumstances of
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Speaker 3: the game, for those who watched the Spurs really took it.
3:09
Speaker 3: I mean, they had so many insane made shots in
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Speaker 3: that fourth quarter. You know, it's it kind of minimized
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Speaker 3: the woo it coulda should as you know, like I
3:18
Speaker 3: can tell you, like there was a part where we
3:20
Speaker 3: missed for free throws in a row and I wish
3:21
Speaker 3: I'd had those back. That kind of stuff, you know,
3:23
Speaker 3: that kind of haunts you. But man, when they hit
3:26
Speaker 3: and they did some of that as we talk, this
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Speaker 3: is after game three of the Knicks, and you know,
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Speaker 3: they had some of those same some of that same
3:32
Speaker 3: fourth quarter shot making. When they do that kind of thing,
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Speaker 3: it does make you feel like, man, they earned it
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Speaker 3: at least, you know.
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Speaker 1: But no, it was.
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Speaker 3: It was definitely sad around here. Still kind of is.
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Speaker 3: But again we're still basking in the glow.
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Speaker 2: Of last year. So that's that helps.
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Speaker 1: Look, it does feel like we're about to be like
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Speaker 1: the Western Conferences is going to be dominated by Oklahoma
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Speaker 1: City and San Antonio. I mean, are you ready for
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Speaker 1: this city rivalry?
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Speaker 2: Right?
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Speaker 1: I mean I sort of I love both cities. They're
3:57
Speaker 1: kind of, you guys, are both sort of on the
3:58
Speaker 1: rise cities, right, not cities that are sort of trying
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Speaker 1: to remake themselves or reor you know, these are just
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Speaker 1: cities that continue to sort of grow and get bigger
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Speaker 1: and still get treated like small markets. And you're like,
4:10
Speaker 1: wait a minute, they're not very small markets.
4:14
Speaker 2: Right, I mean all true.
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Speaker 3: You know, first of all, we've had, especially last year
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Speaker 3: when we were playing the Pace, there's all this small
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Speaker 3: market conversation, and I sort of had to remind people.
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Speaker 3: I actually created a talking point the Commissioner Silver started
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Speaker 3: using and citing me, and he would because I said, like,
4:29
Speaker 3: we're only a small market in the context of the NBA,
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Speaker 3: and the NBA is only the thirty largest or you know,
4:35
Speaker 3: twenty eight largest markets in the United States, but like
4:38
Speaker 3: ninety percent of people don't live in any of those
4:43
Speaker 3: cities that have an NBA team, you know, And so
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Speaker 3: just remember that when you talk about large and small markets,
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Speaker 3: you have sort of artificially shrunk the universe of consideration.
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Speaker 3: So yes, absolutely, San Antonio and Oklahoma City two big cities.
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Speaker 3: A lot going on in both. Of course, by the way,
4:59
Speaker 3: both of us us through in the process. We've already
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Speaker 3: broke ground on our new arena. We have a billion
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Speaker 3: dollar arena that's coming. So that's going to be another
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Speaker 3: step forward for us. Yeah, and Antonio is I think
5:08
Speaker 3: putting the finishing touches on their whole arena deal. But
5:11
Speaker 3: they're going to be making grounds soon. So yeah, it's
5:14
Speaker 3: it's it's gonna be fun. And like you said, because
5:16
Speaker 3: of the youth, because of the youth of the teams,
5:19
Speaker 3: because of the contracts that have already been signed. I mean,
5:22
Speaker 3: both squads appear to be kind of set for the
5:25
Speaker 3: next five years.
5:26
Speaker 1: As the tops stay healthy in the West, right, it's
5:29
Speaker 1: that that hamstring of mister Williams just stay healthy. Yes, yes, look,
5:34
Speaker 1: you're you're you're on here. Though for something a little
5:36
Speaker 1: bit different. You and I have this, you know, sort
5:39
Speaker 1: of on and off again text chain about just trying
5:41
Speaker 1: to we're both unhappy with our political system and what
5:46
Speaker 1: are different ways to come at it rather than coming
5:49
Speaker 1: at it from from from a hard partisan area. And
5:52
Speaker 1: you gave a you gave one of those speeches where
5:56
Speaker 1: you really worked on the speech. And I say this
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Speaker 1: with no disrespect to other speeches, but some speeches as
6:00
Speaker 1: are boilerplate, you know, because you're opening something or you're
6:04
Speaker 1: dedicating something. But in this case, you're receiving a public
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Speaker 1: policy award. From the Howard Baker School at the University
6:09
Speaker 1: of Tennessee, and you decided to do had something to say,
6:14
Speaker 1: and used your speech to talk about a topic that
6:17
Speaker 1: we really don't teach, which is arguably at the core
6:22
Speaker 1: of the American idea, pluralism. Explain.
6:27
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it seems in this current political environment we
6:32
Speaker 3: have a lot of folks in the public dialogue who
6:36
Speaker 3: kind of act like you can exterminate different views like
6:39
Speaker 3: that somehow their view is eventually going to become the
6:45
Speaker 3: homogeneous view of the United States.
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Speaker 2: And that was not.
6:48
Speaker 3: Actually, First of all, that's highly impractical and impossible absent
6:53
Speaker 3: for horrific political violence, which of course is something that
6:57
Speaker 3: we sometimes feel like we're on the edge of, something
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Speaker 3: that has happened in human history. But this whole American
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Speaker 3: experiment was based on the idea of avoiding that by
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Speaker 3: accepting pluralism. Pluralism is maybe too much of a political
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Speaker 3: science word, but I kind of think, we.
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Speaker 1: Know you and I were talking about we probably need
7:16
Speaker 1: to come up with a better term for the marketers
7:18
Speaker 1: on this. Pluralism is at the core of how Americans
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Speaker 1: should view this country. But yeah, and.
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Speaker 3: Pluralism is the idea that we aren't going to all agree.
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Speaker 3: We're going to have a lot of different perspectives, and
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Speaker 3: that's okay, and we're going to move forward. We're going
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Speaker 3: to basically use the democratic processes that were created two
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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty years ago to take all of those
7:41
Speaker 3: different views and come up with a compromise. And it's
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Speaker 3: not going to be perfect for anyone. Really, I kind
7:49
Speaker 3: of think that the American experiment is designed to produce
7:52
Speaker 3: results that are good enough for everybody, just good enough,
7:55
Speaker 3: and maybe that's not inspiring to some people at the extremes,
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Speaker 3: but like, that's what democracy produces, is good enough results
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Speaker 3: that seventy percent of us in the middle can live with.
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Speaker 3: And then we move forward with recognizing that a little
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Speaker 3: bit of our viewpoint is reflected in the outcome, the
8:11
Speaker 3: outcome is indeed itself pluralistic, and then we move on
8:16
Speaker 3: to the next debate. But we also we just fundamentally
8:19
Speaker 3: accept that we're never going to exterminate differing views. We're
8:23
Speaker 3: never going to permanently defeat differing views. We're going to
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Speaker 3: find a way to bring all of those views together
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Speaker 3: in a compromise, a pragmatic solution, and then we move on.
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Speaker 1: Look, you used to construction in your speech that I
8:37
Speaker 1: often use. I said, I like to remind people all
8:39
Speaker 1: the time, why did humanity invent politics? Because we had
8:43
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to settle disputes without violence.
8:46
Speaker 1: We got tired of all disputes, whether it's about was
8:50
Speaker 1: about borders or resources, you name it. And sort of
8:53
Speaker 1: the beginning of humanity, everything ultimately was decided by who
8:56
Speaker 1: was bigger back, you know, and essentially a violent confrontation
9:01
Speaker 1: decided who got this piece of land, who got access
9:04
Speaker 1: to this natural resource. And then we got tired of
9:07
Speaker 1: that and we said, you know, maybe there's a way
9:08
Speaker 1: to do this without killing each other.
9:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that was the great gift of two
9:12
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty years ago that the founders of this
9:14
Speaker 3: country gave us. Was a pretty good process, perhaps the
9:18
Speaker 3: best ever created to avoid violence.
9:21
Speaker 2: And even still we've had a civil war.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I acknowledge that we've had other moments of violence.
9:27
Speaker 3: It's almost impossible to completely overcome it, but we have
9:29
Speaker 3: come pretty darn close relative to human history, and we
9:32
Speaker 3: are an outlier. It's very fragile, like the default position
9:36
Speaker 3: for human civilization has been to live in a constant
9:40
Speaker 3: state of.
9:41
Speaker 2: Violence and chaos.
9:43
Speaker 3: Right, And most people on this planet today live at
9:46
Speaker 3: least in some sort of authoritarian government. Like this choice
9:50
Speaker 3: that we have here to both individually and collectively make
9:54
Speaker 3: democratic decisions for our future is an outlier, and the
9:58
Speaker 3: relative piece that we enjoy within our country is an outlier,
10:02
Speaker 3: and we should be very protective of it, and we
10:04
Speaker 3: should be very proud of it, and we should be
10:06
Speaker 3: very intentional in cultivating it and not continually, as I
10:10
Speaker 3: feel like we currently are in our political discourse, sort
10:12
Speaker 3: of eroding it and drawing us closer to what the
10:16
Speaker 3: way that most humans have lived, which is not a good.
10:18
Speaker 2: Way to live.
10:20
Speaker 1: You know, One of the ways you like to promote
10:22
Speaker 1: mayors is you remind people that most mayors are elected
10:26
Speaker 1: in essentially nonpartisan elections, non partisan primaries. You don't identify
10:32
Speaker 1: your party. ID doesn't mean people don't know which way
10:35
Speaker 1: you lean. Oh yeah, I'm a little more conservative, a
10:37
Speaker 1: little more liberal, but that it's done that way because
10:40
Speaker 1: essentially it is and that that type that system produces
10:48
Speaker 1: more pragmatic mayors, right when you because it's sort of
10:51
Speaker 1: it's self reinforcing on the pragmatism, right, you're trying to
10:55
Speaker 1: find what is the consensus, say sixty percent, sixty to
10:59
Speaker 1: seventy percent on an issue. Not necessarily you're trying to win.
11:02
Speaker 1: You'd love to win six percent of the electorate, but
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Speaker 1: that's unreasonable. But if you can get a sixty percent
11:05
Speaker 1: consensus on hey, maybe property taxes should be raised over here,
11:10
Speaker 1: that's a sixty percent Maybe it isn't you know that
11:12
Speaker 1: sort of thing, but is our So the question is
11:18
Speaker 1: are we polarized or is our system designed to polarize?
11:21
Speaker 1: And do we need to start repairing the structure of
11:25
Speaker 1: our democracy to it actually enhance pluralism's ability to thrive.
11:32
Speaker 1: I want, I'm starting to wonder if our system actually
11:35
Speaker 1: makes it harder.
11:36
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely wonder, No more, Chuck, It absolutely does. And
11:41
Speaker 3: it is the system that most elections operate under. Her
11:45
Speaker 3: but for whatever historic reasons. And I should probably research
11:48
Speaker 3: sy some day to better understand kind of how this
11:51
Speaker 3: trend developed. But most mayors are not elected in the
11:54
Speaker 3: system that elects governors and senators and presidents.
11:58
Speaker 2: So and I it to you that.
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Speaker 3: Oklahoma City is a really interesting case study for this
12:03
Speaker 3: because our politics pretty much mirror the country. Trump won
12:09
Speaker 3: this county forty nine, forty eight, twenty twenty, and twenty
12:12
Speaker 3: twenty four.
12:12
Speaker 2: So it's basically, but.
12:13
Speaker 1: There is a weird let me, I want to there's
12:15
Speaker 1: always been this weird difference in Oklahoma that goes against
12:19
Speaker 1: the grain of almost every other state, which is the
12:21
Speaker 1: more urban areas. You know, for the longest time, back
12:24
Speaker 1: in the day, urban areas were republican and the rural
12:27
Speaker 1: areas were democratic. And that was true even as late
12:31
Speaker 1: as the nineties, right.
12:32
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, yeah, that was like the Civil War Coalition
12:36
Speaker 3: still in place, right, and.
12:37
Speaker 1: Oklahoma is one of the last places that it existed.
12:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally, and that was that, Yeah, you're absolutely right,
12:44
Speaker 3: Like we were more republican in the cities, more democratic
12:46
Speaker 3: in the rural areas, and they were kind of Dixie.
12:49
Speaker 1: Crafts, right, so very inverted in that sense. And I
12:52
Speaker 1: guess now you could say it's in some ways right,
12:55
Speaker 1: it's more reverted to the mean of the rest of
12:58
Speaker 1: the country. Yeah, more culturally conservative.
13:02
Speaker 2: Cable news has sort of nationalized everything.
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Speaker 3: It's very difficult, if not impossible, to be an Oklahoma
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Speaker 3: Democrat now, like it was still twenty years ago.
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Speaker 1: Right, to be different, I had Brad Carson on recently,
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Speaker 1: and that's that varyant, and it's like, yeah, it is difficult.
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Speaker 1: It is difficult to different differentiate these days.
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Speaker 2: Perfect example. Yeah, so here in Oklahoma City, the.
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Speaker 3: County, the city is pretty purple, basically like the country
13:28
Speaker 3: as a whole. The ethnic demographics are almost perfectly mirror
13:32
Speaker 3: than that the nation. And so you'd say, well, I
13:35
Speaker 3: guess your politics then would be just as divisive and
13:38
Speaker 3: polarized and split fifty to fifty as everything else. You
13:42
Speaker 3: said that it's hard for a candidate to get sixty percent, Well,
13:45
Speaker 3: I've been elected in three elections as mayor. I got
13:47
Speaker 3: seventy eight, sixty and eighty six percent. It's not easy,
13:51
Speaker 3: and it's because I face an electorate through a system
13:56
Speaker 3: you just described when I go to the ballot as mayor,
13:59
Speaker 3: and it's true it's I'm partisan. I actually think that's
14:02
Speaker 3: the least consequential factor because people know I was a
14:05
Speaker 3: Republican state senator. I served in the George W. Bush
14:08
Speaker 3: White House. Like people know I'm a Republican. It's not
14:11
Speaker 3: a secret just because it's not on the ballot. It's
14:13
Speaker 3: still really well known. But what matters to me, I
14:16
Speaker 3: think is that everybody gets the same ballot. Every eligible
14:21
Speaker 3: voter in Oklahoma City gets the same ballot. They have
14:23
Speaker 3: the same pool of candidates, which means that you know,
14:26
Speaker 3: all the candidates have to face all of the voters,
14:29
Speaker 3: and all of the voters get to see all.
14:30
Speaker 2: Of the candidates.
14:31
Speaker 3: And so it's a completely different incentive structure than the
14:34
Speaker 3: closed partisan primary process that elects most everybody else.
14:38
Speaker 2: And so I'm doing.
14:39
Speaker 3: Politics the way I feel like it was done for
14:41
Speaker 3: a couple hundred years. I'm looking at the entire electorate
14:43
Speaker 3: and I'm saying, where's like, where's the sweet spot? Right,
14:47
Speaker 3: Where's that seventy percent of people in the middle that
14:50
Speaker 3: I can build a coalition from. They might be registered Republicans, Democrats,
14:54
Speaker 3: and independents, and I might be easier to sell to
14:57
Speaker 3: some other than others, but like it's all part of
15:00
Speaker 3: my pool.
15:01
Speaker 2: I can work with this. I can build a coalition
15:03
Speaker 2: from there.
15:04
Speaker 3: And that's what mayors generally do, and it's it's why
15:07
Speaker 3: I think we get things done. I mean, we kind
15:09
Speaker 3: of have to get things done, you know, like the
15:11
Speaker 3: services we provide are necessary for human survival, so like
15:14
Speaker 3: we better be able to work get everybody in the
15:17
Speaker 3: community to work together for outcomes. But really the electoral
15:21
Speaker 3: system it simply lends itself to. That last thirty years
15:25
Speaker 3: is that we've passed a whole bunch of major tax
15:27
Speaker 3: initiatives investing in our city, whether it's quality life infrastructure
15:31
Speaker 3: or core infrastructure. My initiative's gotten seventy two percent, seventy
15:34
Speaker 3: one percent, and eighty five percent, you know, and I
15:38
Speaker 3: look at that, and I think that's what you can do.
15:41
Speaker 2: You know.
15:42
Speaker 3: There's this view that like, there's no way you could
15:43
Speaker 3: ever get seventy percent of Americans to agree on something.
15:46
Speaker 3: Actually you can't if you just have an electoral system.
15:48
Speaker 3: It sort of incentivizes candidates and leaders like me to
15:51
Speaker 3: do that.
15:52
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, let's be honest. If you had to
15:54
Speaker 1: just start the process of becoming mayor of Oklahoma City
15:57
Speaker 1: by first winning a faction, first winning of the endorsement
16:03
Speaker 1: of just a core group of of of your voters,
16:07
Speaker 1: and maybe it would have been Republicans in this case,
16:09
Speaker 1: but any any sort of faction, you're you're already not
16:13
Speaker 1: starting in your seventy percent. Maybe some of those people
16:16
Speaker 1: will be in your seventy but not all of them.
16:20
Speaker 1: And there's gonna be somebody in that thirty that is,
16:23
Speaker 1: you know, that just wants they want their point of
16:26
Speaker 1: view represented, and if they don't get it represented, they're
16:28
Speaker 1: going to veto you, right.
16:30
Speaker 3: And as you know, like I mean, we've had close
16:32
Speaker 3: partis in primaries for a long time in this country.
16:35
Speaker 3: It's just that in the last twenty years, it seems
16:38
Speaker 3: that that first gatekeeping function has gotten so much more extreme.
16:43
Speaker 3: You know, there used to be, of course in politics,
16:45
Speaker 3: this pivot, the pivot to the general you.
16:47
Speaker 2: Know, okay, yeah, you had to sort of go to
16:49
Speaker 2: the right or the left.
16:50
Speaker 1: You know, I blame micro targeting for that. You know,
16:53
Speaker 1: when we were when we were blissfully ignorant about undecided voters.
17:00
Speaker 1: And this goes back as right before four. I would
17:03
Speaker 1: say four was the election that changed. Before two thousand
17:08
Speaker 1: and four, we didn't assume. We assumed the undecided voter
17:12
Speaker 1: was somehow somewhere in the center, it was kind of
17:15
Speaker 1: a moderate, and in order to appeal to them in
17:18
Speaker 1: October of your general election, you had to come across
17:21
Speaker 1: as somebody who would be willing to work across the ops.
17:23
Speaker 1: And literally everybody ended with the same theme in their ad.
17:27
Speaker 1: I worked with if you're a Republican Ted Kennedy, if
17:30
Speaker 1: you were a Democrat, Ronald Reagan, right like you would
17:32
Speaker 1: name drop somebody prominent from the other side of the aisle,
17:36
Speaker 1: because we all assumed. And then what happened. We found
17:39
Speaker 1: out these people aren't moderates, these undecided are actually have
17:43
Speaker 1: all sorts of and then they became selectively targeted and
17:47
Speaker 1: there went consensus campaigning. I mean, it's one of those
17:50
Speaker 1: things where the more information we got, it actually it
17:56
Speaker 1: hurt the larger cause of how used to work.
17:59
Speaker 2: Yeah the theory, Yeah, well whatever the causes.
18:02
Speaker 3: I mean, now people running and here's the case study. Right,
18:06
Speaker 3: So I just ran for reelection just a few months ago,
18:09
Speaker 3: and my TV ads were about the growth of the
18:11
Speaker 3: city and the growth of the economy and our delivery
18:14
Speaker 3: of course services, like the things you would expect you
18:17
Speaker 3: historically would expect somebody to run on. Simultaneously, we have
18:22
Speaker 3: a governor's race in Oklahoma right now, and we've got,
18:25
Speaker 3: you know, at least four funded candidates running TV commercials
18:29
Speaker 3: and all Republicans. I mean, so the makeup of the
18:32
Speaker 3: state a little different than the makeup of the city.
18:35
Speaker 3: So it's it's widely perceived with good cause, that the
18:38
Speaker 3: Republican primary is going to elect the next governor of Oklahoma.
18:43
Speaker 3: You know, if you were to ask all Oklahoma's like,
18:45
Speaker 3: what are the top issues? I am highly confident that
18:49
Speaker 3: the bread and butter issues that you and I would
18:52
Speaker 3: would hope they would answer would be that the top
18:53
Speaker 3: of the list education and healthcare, in the economy, and
18:57
Speaker 3: infrastructure and public safety and so on. That is not
19:01
Speaker 3: the messaging out of these four funded campaigns. It's it's
19:05
Speaker 3: trans kids, it's Muslims, it's China.
19:08
Speaker 2: It's these very strange things, right.
19:12
Speaker 1: That they're probably never going to show up on the
19:15
Speaker 1: to do list of the next government, right. I mean,
19:18
Speaker 1: but they they are.
19:19
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that these candidates are acting
19:21
Speaker 3: irrationally because these are the things that their polling tells them.
19:26
Speaker 1: The market that they have to compete in is telling
19:30
Speaker 1: them these issues matter.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:32
Speaker 3: I mean, here's a classic anecdotal example.
19:35
Speaker 2: There was recently a debate.
19:38
Speaker 3: Hosted by the Oklahoma Republican Party for the Oklahoma Governor's candidates,
19:42
Speaker 3: and the chairman started out and that the one thing
19:44
Speaker 3: she had to say about the chairwoman, the one thing
19:47
Speaker 3: she had to say about how great Oklahoma is is
19:49
Speaker 3: that she can carry a gun without a permit, And
19:52
Speaker 3: I thought, I mean, I couldn't even think, like how
19:54
Speaker 3: many things I'd have to get through bragging on my
19:57
Speaker 3: state before I would get to that item that for her,
19:59
Speaker 3: it was dea finitional, you know, and it just shows
20:01
Speaker 3: her and listen, her vote should count to right, their
20:04
Speaker 3: voices should count too, but not disproportionately. So and that's
20:07
Speaker 3: the problem is, like fifteen percent of people in Oklahoma
20:10
Speaker 3: are about to choose our governor, and they'll deliver this
20:15
Speaker 3: candidate who has passed these kind of bizarre litmus tests,
20:18
Speaker 3: you know, for this gatekeeping group. Then they will deliver
20:22
Speaker 3: them to the general election, and the voters will just
20:25
Speaker 3: reflexively vote for the Republican, probably by a sixty to
20:29
Speaker 3: forty margin. And and of course we have a runoff,
20:33
Speaker 3: so like that happens in August. So the primary is
20:35
Speaker 3: coming up in June, the runoffs in August. So I
20:37
Speaker 3: mean we're talking about at that point, you were getting
20:40
Speaker 3: down to such a small group of people making this decision.
20:43
Speaker 3: They have they have unorthodox views, extreme views, they have
20:47
Speaker 3: you know, they believe in extreme tactics. Obviously, they're very
20:49
Speaker 3: loyal to President Trump, which you know, even though the
20:52
Speaker 3: president's still probably above water in Oklahoma, he certainly has
20:56
Speaker 3: more than his fair share of detractors here. But you
20:57
Speaker 3: would never know that watching these watching these campaign has
21:01
Speaker 3: because it is one hundred percent support among the group
21:03
Speaker 3: that will make this decision. This is not healthy for democracy.
21:07
Speaker 3: There cannot be this much disconnect between the large they
21:11
Speaker 3: be electorate at large and the outcomes that are produced
21:14
Speaker 3: in the end. And right now, that's the problem because
21:17
Speaker 3: fifteen percent of people are making the decisions for all
21:19
Speaker 3: of us and these in these statewide races.
21:25
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Speaker 1: you're in Louisiana. Look, you you are as good of
23:48
Speaker 1: an advocate for open primaries as anybody I can find.
23:51
Speaker 1: And I've even you know, I often like to use
23:53
Speaker 1: an example of I watch. I've seen former mayors serve
23:59
Speaker 1: in Congress who got there under this system of primaries,
24:04
Speaker 1: but when they were mayor, they got there in an
24:06
Speaker 1: all party primary, and they literally have been two different
24:08
Speaker 1: political individuals. And it is because of the voters they
24:12
Speaker 1: have to serve that they believe they have to serve
24:15
Speaker 1: in order to satisfy the contract that they saw, you
24:18
Speaker 1: know that you unofficially signed. And by the way, in
24:22
Speaker 1: defense of the person I'm thinking of here is as
24:26
Speaker 1: you just said, it's a very rational way to behave
24:29
Speaker 1: right the system is. So it goes back to this,
24:32
Speaker 1: do you teach can you teach pluralism or do you
24:36
Speaker 1: have to experience living in a diverse place for you
24:42
Speaker 1: to truly understand why it's necessary? And I asked this
24:47
Speaker 1: because increasingly we are self sorting, so we all live
24:53
Speaker 1: you know, I know, I grew up on a street
24:57
Speaker 1: that had that was very by part of and that
25:00
Speaker 1: does not exist anymore. That just people live in the
25:03
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that they're culturally comfortable with, and their cultural comforts
25:07
Speaker 1: now align with your political parties.
25:10
Speaker 3: I mean this is this is true to a degree,
25:13
Speaker 3: but it's like I think sometimes this sort of winner
25:17
Speaker 3: take all mentality, this idea that I'm going to exterminate
25:20
Speaker 3: the other side, causes us to have blinders to the
25:23
Speaker 3: reality that people with different views live amongst us, even
25:26
Speaker 3: in places that seem overwhelmingly one way or the other.
25:30
Speaker 1: I mean, right, well, lost age is a good example.
25:33
Speaker 1: I love this. So look, you know, Donald Trump, I think,
25:37
Speaker 1: only got about twenty five thirty percent of the vote
25:40
Speaker 1: right in LA County, but he still got more raw
25:42
Speaker 1: vote in LA County than like eight states combined. Right,
25:45
Speaker 1: that's a lot of people that support Donald Trump that
25:49
Speaker 1: live in LA County. And yes, they're in the thirty percent,
25:52
Speaker 1: not the seventy percent.
25:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean and still, I mean a group
25:56
Speaker 3: of four people, a group of four friends, a group
25:59
Speaker 3: of four family men, right, is statistically likely in LA
26:02
Speaker 3: County to have at least one person who voted for
26:04
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And so you're you walk forward because of
26:09
Speaker 3: majority rule with this mentality of nobody likes Donald Trump
26:12
Speaker 3: in LA County, well, one out of every four people does.
26:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that that's not enough to win
26:17
Speaker 3: an election, but it's it's something that should be respected
26:20
Speaker 3: in the democratic process. It's it's a viewpoint that has
26:23
Speaker 3: some weight to it. And even here in Oklahoma, it's like, yeah,
26:26
Speaker 3: we always talk about Donald Trump got sixty five percent. Well,
26:29
Speaker 3: that means that a third of the people voted for
26:32
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, like like.
26:35
Speaker 1: Maybe made thousands and thousands of people in Oklahoma. Right,
26:38
Speaker 1: this is it like sub like arcane two percent minority.
26:42
Speaker 3: Course, Right, So it's like it's it's if it's one
26:45
Speaker 3: out of three or one out of four, it's probably
26:47
Speaker 3: somebody in your workplace, is somebody in your family. Right,
26:50
Speaker 3: And that's why I think, like, to your point, I
26:53
Speaker 3: think you've got to reck for it. Maybe the first
26:55
Speaker 3: SIP is to recognize that pluralism is in your house.
26:58
Speaker 1: Pluralism is the proms in your house. Be careful, and.
27:05
Speaker 3: We need to like and we need to embrace that
27:06
Speaker 3: again and stop you, yeah, stop trying to make it worse,
27:09
Speaker 3: you know, and stop trying to divide. Let's let's face
27:13
Speaker 3: the reality that we all have different views and let's
27:16
Speaker 3: talk about them responsibly.
27:17
Speaker 1: One of the ways that I try to make myself
27:20
Speaker 1: feel better about the current era we're in is I'm like, look,
27:22
Speaker 1: whatever you think of Donald Trump, his election and behavior
27:26
Speaker 1: has provided our institutions an MRI. We've had an MRI
27:33
Speaker 1: for democracy, an MRI for our infrastructure of the democracy,
27:38
Speaker 1: an MRI. And what norms ought to be codified? You know? Right,
27:42
Speaker 1: where should we erect to guard? Right? It's like finding
27:44
Speaker 1: out you build this great new road we might need
27:47
Speaker 1: a guardrail over here, we might need a traffic light
27:49
Speaker 1: over here. We didn't know that when we built it,
27:52
Speaker 1: because you didn't know where were the congestions going to be,
27:55
Speaker 1: where was the development going to come from. So I
27:58
Speaker 1: choose to look at the Trump Air as this incredible
28:01
Speaker 1: MRI that is providing us all an opportunity to see
28:04
Speaker 1: what works and what doesn't. So in that's spirit, what
28:10
Speaker 1: do you see this era that's gonna that you think, Okay,
28:14
Speaker 1: let's take this chicken ass and turn it into chicken salad.
28:18
Speaker 3: Well, okay, great, And by the way, I love your
28:20
Speaker 3: road analogy, especially as the mayor, but it also yeah,
28:22
Speaker 3: I could work that for a while. I mean, we
28:24
Speaker 3: don't build rokens for the perfect drivers. We build them
28:28
Speaker 3: for bad drivers and drug drivers. And you know that's
28:31
Speaker 3: why we have guardrails. Literally, right, you're a great driver,
28:34
Speaker 3: you wouldn't need a guardrail. So, you know, I think
28:37
Speaker 3: that you raise a good point. It's this era has
28:43
Speaker 3: been one where people like me and people like you
28:45
Speaker 3: are spending a great deal of time talking about the
28:48
Speaker 3: democratic experiment and you know what it means, and just
28:52
Speaker 3: having the kind of talk that we just had for
28:54
Speaker 3: the last thirty minutes. In a different era, we would
28:55
Speaker 3: have spent this thirty minutes talking about been policy issues,
28:59
Speaker 3: you know, But instead we're talking about that.
29:00
Speaker 1: As we should, I mean, in development and dealing with AI,
29:03
Speaker 1: which I'm sure in some ways we're glad not to
29:05
Speaker 1: have a conversation about AI data centers, but anyway, go ahead.
29:08
Speaker 3: But we're instead we're talking about foundational principles. But if
29:12
Speaker 3: out of this we as a society, we as a country,
29:16
Speaker 3: more intentionally choose to reinvigorate and recommit to the American experiment,
29:21
Speaker 3: then it will have been ultimately kind of a successful
29:24
Speaker 3: time in our country's history, because certainly we've spent a
29:27
Speaker 3: lot of time in our country's history taking this American
29:30
Speaker 3: experiment for granted. It just like worked, and we just
29:33
Speaker 3: felt like that's this, and this the way all humans
29:35
Speaker 3: organize themselves, and of course, as we've discussed, no, they
29:38
Speaker 3: definitely don't.
29:38
Speaker 2: We're very unique and lucky.
29:41
Speaker 3: So you know, if we're forced to make an intentional
29:44
Speaker 3: choice out of this, and then we choose the right path,
29:46
Speaker 3: that's great. Obviously, we many of us fear that things
29:50
Speaker 3: could go a different direction, but I think to stop
29:52
Speaker 3: to avoid that I'd say that the assessment that I
29:56
Speaker 3: have that you asked for, you know, what is the
29:58
Speaker 3: action we can take out of all this. I mean
30:01
Speaker 3: not to believe in the point, but we have got
30:02
Speaker 3: to get away from closed parties and primaries. We've got
30:05
Speaker 3: to get away from a small subset of the elector
30:08
Speaker 3: and I mean a very small I really think I
30:10
Speaker 3: use this number a lot.
30:11
Speaker 2: I still believe in it. I say it's fifteen percent at.
30:13
Speaker 3: The right, fifteen percent at the left, seventy percent of
30:17
Speaker 3: people the middle who aren't definitely don't agree on everything,
30:20
Speaker 3: but like can compromise, like learn how to do that
30:22
Speaker 3: in kindergarten, like are willing to work together.
30:25
Speaker 2: And again I feel like in Oklahoma City we've proven.
30:27
Speaker 1: That except the premise that we're not all going to
30:29
Speaker 1: ever agree, and like, right, that's all, Like that's like
30:33
Speaker 1: and if you can get seventy percent to accept the premise,
30:36
Speaker 1: then you can at least move on.
30:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so so we've got to change.
30:39
Speaker 3: We've got to actually make reforms in our processes. And
30:43
Speaker 3: it's a state by state thing. That's why it's so hard,
30:46
Speaker 3: you know, but that's federalism. Like we got to make
30:48
Speaker 3: process changes in fifty states, not all fifty, but like
30:51
Speaker 3: a lot of these states, to get us back to
30:54
Speaker 3: where more people are a part of all of the
30:57
Speaker 3: decisions in an election process. And you know, that will
31:01
Speaker 3: get us back to where people like me are able
31:06
Speaker 3: to get elected.
31:07
Speaker 2: And that's what the country needs.
31:09
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be me, but the country needs
31:11
Speaker 3: people like me who are actually trying to bring people
31:14
Speaker 3: together and are trying to find that pragmatic compromise.
31:18
Speaker 1: The biggest challenge in opening up primaries the two political
31:22
Speaker 1: parties themselves. Right, in every state, one is more against
31:26
Speaker 1: the idea than the other, and it's usually the party
31:28
Speaker 1: that has got the most political power in said state.
31:32
Speaker 1: We see this with the efforts that United America has
31:37
Speaker 1: done with trying to put an incidant runoff voting or
31:39
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting. I say incidant runoff. Jared Golden, who's
31:43
Speaker 1: read the retiring member of Congress from Maine. He loves
31:47
Speaker 1: the concept of rank choice voting, He goes, but the
31:50
Speaker 1: name sucks because we've got to call it instant runoff,
31:53
Speaker 1: the rank choice. It just doesn't you know, And that
31:56
Speaker 1: I think there is some argument that it is hard
31:59
Speaker 1: to to visualize how the ranked choice system works, but
32:03
Speaker 1: the larger concept of instant runoff or a runoff I
32:06
Speaker 1: think is something people agree on. But how do you
32:10
Speaker 1: talk party because the parties can stop this, and the
32:14
Speaker 1: parties don't want more voters in their pool. And it
32:21
Speaker 1: seems that that if you're going to get this, if
32:24
Speaker 1: you don't have a referendum process, in states that you do,
32:28
Speaker 1: you have a reasonable shot at making this work. But
32:31
Speaker 1: in states without it, you're still going to It's really
32:33
Speaker 1: hard to get people to buck their party leadership because
32:37
Speaker 1: the party leadership fears essentially losing their own standing if
32:42
Speaker 1: they open up primaries totally.
32:45
Speaker 3: And I don't really have a viable path forward if
32:48
Speaker 3: you don't have a referendum process In Oklahoma we do.
32:52
Speaker 1: Is it direct or do you have to go through
32:55
Speaker 1: the legislature like you know.
32:57
Speaker 3: I mean, you need no involvement from the legislature. The
33:00
Speaker 3: governor calls the election date, but he's compelled to if
33:03
Speaker 3: you get the signatures.
33:05
Speaker 2: And so there was a group, it.
33:06
Speaker 3: Was funded, It worked for weeks and weeks to get
33:09
Speaker 3: the signatures. Earlier this year it fell short. There's a
33:12
Speaker 3: pending lawsuit. I mean, you know it's going to be
33:14
Speaker 3: one of these kind of multi year efforts if it's
33:16
Speaker 3: successful at all. So it has to have a lot
33:19
Speaker 3: of passion and some resources behind it. But it's possible.
33:22
Speaker 3: It's legally doable in Oklahoma. I recognize not every state
33:26
Speaker 3: even has that opportunity, and you know, they'll be the
33:30
Speaker 3: last ones, you know, but maybe it'll be a different
33:32
Speaker 3: errand by that point forty states have adopted it and
33:35
Speaker 3: last ten will recognize that the ground has shifted.
33:38
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, it's.
33:42
Speaker 1: You know, take this state of Oklahoma, what do you guys,
33:44
Speaker 1: arguably fifty percent Republican, thirty thirty percent d twenty percent
33:50
Speaker 1: ind it's always something these days, something like that, right.
33:53
Speaker 1: I think in Massachusetts, if you went on voting, it
33:56
Speaker 1: would be about the other way with fifty percent D Yes.
33:59
Speaker 1: Technically there are more dependence registered in Massachusetts than either
34:02
Speaker 1: two parties. But I bring that up because in Massachusetts
34:04
Speaker 1: they do have a ballot measure that's they're about going
34:08
Speaker 1: to a top two because in this very blue state
34:13
Speaker 1: they have all these members of the state legislature go
34:16
Speaker 1: on a post in the general election, and wouldn't it
34:19
Speaker 1: be better to see two flavors of Republicans in Oklahoma,
34:23
Speaker 1: for instance, for governor, or two flavors of Democrats in
34:26
Speaker 1: Massachusetts on the November ballot and let the minority, you know,
34:31
Speaker 1: let the one third of Democrats in Oklahoma or the
34:35
Speaker 1: one third of Republicans in Massachusetts. Yeah, they're the swing boat. Okay,
34:41
Speaker 1: they should be the swing boat. Yeah, that's that makes sense.
34:45
Speaker 1: That's how it plays out. It's this would your process
34:48
Speaker 1: should not flip seats or flip states like that. That's
34:51
Speaker 1: a bad process. And that's what that's what the party
34:53
Speaker 1: leaders think is going to happen with rank choice voting.
34:56
Speaker 1: And it's just like, look, you didn't like that Alaska
34:59
Speaker 1: turned out to be as red of a state as
35:01
Speaker 1: you thought it was, Like that's really what right?
35:03
Speaker 2: You know?
35:03
Speaker 1: It turned out like the Alaska is a more purple
35:07
Speaker 1: than it is red. And by the way, if you've
35:09
Speaker 1: ever spent time up there, you'd get it, you.
35:11
Speaker 3: Know, because as we just discussed, every state, even California,
35:16
Speaker 3: one in four people are Republicans. Even in Oklahoma one
35:18
Speaker 3: and three people are Democrats. So nothing is actually as
35:21
Speaker 3: red or blue as its reputation. It's everything's got a
35:24
Speaker 3: purple influence. If you let everybody vote, which is good
35:28
Speaker 3: ultimately for pragmatic outcomes. And so yeah, in these blue
35:32
Speaker 3: states are probably gonna end up with in most cases,
35:34
Speaker 3: in most top two results with two Democrats, but may
35:37
Speaker 3: probably one farther to the left, one more in the middle,
35:40
Speaker 3: and then the Republicans will actually in many ways decide.
35:43
Speaker 2: Who the winner is.
35:45
Speaker 3: They will and they all align with the person more
35:47
Speaker 3: in the middle, and you'll get a more pragmatic governance
35:49
Speaker 3: out of that. I mean La Mayor right, like, Okay,
35:52
Speaker 3: now that the only Republican Canada has fallen the third
35:56
Speaker 3: the Republican voters in La County are probably going to
36:00
Speaker 3: if they they may, they may sit it out completely frustration.
36:04
Speaker 1: Look the experience in California when when there's been two
36:08
Speaker 1: people of the same party meeting in November, you do
36:11
Speaker 1: have a significant drop off that there's a significant undervote.
36:14
Speaker 1: But whether it's congressional race or cerwide.
36:17
Speaker 3: But those who want to have the influence can have it.
36:20
Speaker 3: And you know, Republicans probably going to begrudgingly vote for
36:23
Speaker 3: mayor Bass over somebody who's more as aligned with the
36:26
Speaker 3: DSA right, so and like, so they have influence and no,
36:30
Speaker 3: I mean you're not gonna. There's no process that should
36:32
Speaker 3: elect a Republican mayor in a city that's seventy five
36:34
Speaker 3: percent democratic, right, Like, that shouldn't be what the process does,
36:38
Speaker 3: that should be what the voters do. But but this
36:41
Speaker 3: actually gives the process that California has because they have
36:44
Speaker 3: a top two now, it gives Republicans way more influence
36:48
Speaker 3: than they would otherwise have, you know, in these questions,
36:51
Speaker 3: in these major questions.
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38:59
Speaker 1: when we are having this discussion about your speech and
39:01
Speaker 1: you you came at it straight about politics, and you
39:04
Speaker 1: pointed me out to something the Bush Center had put
39:07
Speaker 1: out about pluralism and what was interesting about their report,
39:10
Speaker 1: And frankly, everything the Bush Center has been doing, they
39:13
Speaker 1: really stay away from politics. I know people might think
39:16
Speaker 1: Presidential Library steers away from politics, Yes, particularly this one.
39:21
Speaker 1: I mean I think they totally know they don't. They're not.
39:23
Speaker 1: They don't want anybody to think there's subtexting, you know,
39:27
Speaker 1: the current administration, even though maybe they are, but they're
39:31
Speaker 1: not going to do it. They're not going to stick
39:33
Speaker 1: a finger in the eye of the administration, right, They're not.
39:35
Speaker 1: They're not trying to have that. And it struck me
39:40
Speaker 1: reading that report that this gets back to this discussion
39:43
Speaker 1: of do we know how to teach civics and let
39:46
Speaker 1: me get let me, let me throw this make may
39:49
Speaker 1: You may think this comes from an odd way of
39:51
Speaker 1: getting at this conversation, but I'm very concerned about the
39:54
Speaker 1: voucherizing of our of our school system in this respect.
39:59
Speaker 1: Is that our public education system because of its mere existence,
40:06
Speaker 1: and it's in there's a lot of imperfections about it.
40:09
Speaker 1: I'm well aware of some of all of the challenges,
40:12
Speaker 1: but it's a remarkable system in that it was about
40:17
Speaker 1: as egalitarian of a thing the government did is and
40:20
Speaker 1: you know, outside the military, right, the military might be
40:22
Speaker 1: the most egalitarian institution that the government's in charge of,
40:26
Speaker 1: but the public school system was because hey, you still
40:29
Speaker 1: educated people, whether they were poor or rich. They might
40:32
Speaker 1: and these people might be in the same class, They're
40:35
Speaker 1: not going to be in the same class, right, nobody's
40:38
Speaker 1: in the same classes anymore. And my concern is that
40:42
Speaker 1: in the in the I'm all for parents should have choice.
40:45
Speaker 1: I made a choice on my kids. All I'm not
40:47
Speaker 1: going to sit here now, but I am concerned that
40:51
Speaker 1: that is the unintended consequence of that is that you
40:56
Speaker 1: don't get taught pluralism if you end up getting educated
41:00
Speaker 1: in a monoculture.
41:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, now, I mean that is I and I've been
41:05
Speaker 3: a supporter of school choice through the year, so I certainly.
41:08
Speaker 1: Still practice it. So I'm not going to sit here
41:10
Speaker 1: and criticize it. I worry, but I'm not going to
41:14
Speaker 1: tell you that I don't worry about the larger unintentional outpeople.
41:17
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a it's a major unintended consequence.
41:20
Speaker 3: I went to a public high school and you had
41:23
Speaker 3: a broad spectrum of socioeconomics.
41:25
Speaker 1: And how good was that for you? Because I did
41:27
Speaker 1: the same thing. I went to a All I have
41:29
Speaker 1: to say to you about growing up in Miami is
41:31
Speaker 1: I went to high school that was a third or
41:32
Speaker 1: third of third And by me just saying that, if
41:34
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I don't say anything else. And
41:37
Speaker 1: in different communities it might be the same thing, but
41:40
Speaker 1: the makeup of your third or third or third was
41:42
Speaker 1: slightly different, you know. But either way, Look, I'm not
41:46
Speaker 1: saying we all didn't self segregate at times like many
41:49
Speaker 1: a high school cafeteria does. Yeah, but there were many
41:53
Speaker 1: opportunities where we didn't.
41:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look at and you and I went to
41:58
Speaker 2: a top sixty you know in d C.
42:01
Speaker 3: Out of our public revolutionaries go revs and h Yeah,
42:06
Speaker 3: and it set us up for life to have that
42:08
Speaker 3: diversity in our in our life. But diversity of thought,
42:11
Speaker 3: diversity of ethnicity, diversity of you know, socioeconomic status. Yeah,
42:17
Speaker 3: I mean, if it may not be salvageable to have
42:21
Speaker 3: that happening in public schools, you know, with the with
42:24
Speaker 3: the current trend lines of school choice and really just
42:27
Speaker 3: the explosion of private education. I mean that would have
42:30
Speaker 3: been private education in Oklahoma City when I grew up.
42:33
Speaker 2: That was a very very small subset of the city.
42:36
Speaker 1: How big is it now? I mean, you know, I mean, it.
42:38
Speaker 3: Just feels like there's just an explosion of all these
42:40
Speaker 3: different kinds of private schools, you know, like like and
42:42
Speaker 3: not like for people that are rich like.
42:45
Speaker 2: It used to be.
42:45
Speaker 1: Right. No, it's all sorts of right, and they're like
42:47
Speaker 1: various identity groups, and it's not always the identity groups
42:50
Speaker 1: you think. I'm thinking there's different philosophies that how to
42:54
Speaker 1: teach right, you know, of those things.
42:56
Speaker 2: So maybe it's that.
42:57
Speaker 3: We have to be creative and trying to figure out, well,
43:00
Speaker 3: what are the other ways we can have some kind
43:02
Speaker 3: of diverse exposure to each other and force those experiences.
43:07
Speaker 2: I don't know, I do think.
43:09
Speaker 3: I mean, what you're describing is a societal ill that
43:13
Speaker 3: we need to talk about, and it certainly isn't. It's
43:15
Speaker 3: only compounded by the electoral system, which further segregates us.
43:19
Speaker 2: Yet again, it's just another example of it. But yeah,
43:22
Speaker 2: I mean.
43:23
Speaker 1: We know it, and I don't know. I mean, like,
43:25
Speaker 1: do you do you build institutions for this? I mean,
43:28
Speaker 1: you know, I I'm in the middle of putting together
43:32
Speaker 1: a potential introductory class for incoming freshmen for USC for
43:38
Speaker 1: a DC program, and I said, well, why don't we
43:40
Speaker 1: teach the Constitution? Because I don't think they're taught the
43:43
Speaker 1: Constitution in high school. Trust me, I've noticed.
43:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, well absolutely, I mean the problem is, for whatever reason,
43:52
Speaker 3: civics was people always say civics isn't taught in this country.
43:55
Speaker 3: I like, well they're I mean I think every high school. Yeah,
43:58
Speaker 3: but we we it's somebody.
44:00
Speaker 1: Well, let me throw a theory at you that somebody
44:02
Speaker 1: wrote me, wrote into me. And I thought, of course,
44:05
Speaker 1: this is the problem you want to talk about. You know,
44:09
Speaker 1: the pile of stuff in the pile of law of
44:12
Speaker 1: unintended consequences right always is like through the through the moon.
44:15
Speaker 1: It's so big, but no child left behind. Emphasized testing
44:23
Speaker 1: and testing. You know, Look, testing is one of those
44:26
Speaker 1: things that well, if you don't have testing, how else
44:29
Speaker 1: are you going to find out whether people have learned stuff?
44:32
Speaker 1: But I understand that you don't want to be teaching
44:34
Speaker 1: to the test, Well what did what did we care
44:37
Speaker 1: about in that fifteen year period where no child left
44:39
Speaker 1: behind was kind of sort of dictating how we how
44:43
Speaker 1: we manage the education system. We were really just worried
44:46
Speaker 1: about math and English. You know what, there aren't a
44:49
Speaker 1: lot of tests for social studies, so there wasn't you
44:54
Speaker 1: couldn't be There is not a if you didn't hit
44:58
Speaker 1: a certain reading score, or you weren't going to be passed.
45:01
Speaker 1: If you didn't hit a certain math score, you weren't
45:03
Speaker 1: going to be passed. We didn't create that social studies score,
45:08
Speaker 1: right that it didn't And so I thought, boy, you're
45:12
Speaker 1: right that before when we started teaching to the to
45:16
Speaker 1: these assessment tests, and because we didn't make Civics and
45:21
Speaker 1: social studies and history part of the core assessment that
45:26
Speaker 1: essentially this was one of those it's benign neglect, right,
45:31
Speaker 1: It wasn't intentional, It's just that everybody had to prioritize
45:35
Speaker 1: succeeding with the tests. So guess what, the best teachers
45:38
Speaker 1: stopped teaching social studies and went back to teaching English
45:42
Speaker 1: and math. Yeah, what do you think of that? Thesis.
45:44
Speaker 3: No, I mean, of course you get you you will
45:46
Speaker 3: do better at whatever you measure and whatever you test.
45:49
Speaker 3: And we weren't testing that because it was viewed as
45:52
Speaker 3: it's not necessary for a career.
45:54
Speaker 2: I guess, right, unless you're.
45:55
Speaker 1: Going to We sort of thought that and was like, actually,
45:58
Speaker 1: it turns out it is.
46:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's necessary for the survival of the ecosystem that
46:05
Speaker 3: is going to allow for all these careers. I mean,
46:07
Speaker 3: you know, I always say that every human, every you know,
46:11
Speaker 3: country to date had same act, same human bodies, same
46:15
Speaker 3: access to the same resources. Why is it that America
46:18
Speaker 3: unleashed you know, innovation like no country or society before us.
46:23
Speaker 2: Why did we put people on the moon?
46:25
Speaker 3: It's the it's this system we created that allowed for
46:29
Speaker 3: peace and safety and predictability and the rule of law
46:34
Speaker 3: and democratic choice, all of the things that make up
46:37
Speaker 3: the American experiment is necessary for us to be able
46:40
Speaker 3: to use those mass skills and those science skills and
46:42
Speaker 3: all those other things.
46:43
Speaker 2: So yeah, we got to get that down first.
46:45
Speaker 1: No, I mean, look, I just don't think a free
46:47
Speaker 1: market works without a democracy, and a democracy doesn't really
46:51
Speaker 1: work without a free market. I mean, I think that's
46:54
Speaker 1: what we discovered right, M hyeah, absolutely no, yeah in
46:59
Speaker 1: that sense. Let me get you out of here on this,
47:02
Speaker 1: because I actually sort of made a passing reference that
47:06
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to ask, but I wanted to bring
47:08
Speaker 1: up something. I had an interview with John Tester earlier
47:11
Speaker 1: this week is going to be on part of new Sphere,
47:14
Speaker 1: and he issued an interesting warning to his fellow Democrats.
47:17
Speaker 1: He said, just because these data centers are unpopular and
47:21
Speaker 1: it's good politics to beat them up, doesn't mean you
47:26
Speaker 1: don't want to be supportive of figuring out the future here,
47:30
Speaker 1: like you know there was He had this fear and
47:33
Speaker 1: that this is the real to me, the real art
47:37
Speaker 1: of being an elected official. It is being responsive to
47:42
Speaker 1: concerns of your constituents, but being able to have the
47:47
Speaker 1: temperament to understand, I understand what you don't like at
47:50
Speaker 1: the moment. We can't just say no. What we can
47:54
Speaker 1: do is put these guard rails or do this. You
48:00
Speaker 1: think you have an electorate that's ready for a nuanced
48:02
Speaker 1: conversation about these AI data centers and what Yes, it
48:06
Speaker 1: takes up water, yes, it takes up these things. But hey,
48:10
Speaker 1: this is what progress. There is always going to be
48:12
Speaker 1: some sacrifice with progress, and we can't just shut the
48:15
Speaker 1: door on it.
48:17
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so you're I mean you're making is the
48:19
Speaker 3: classic tension. You're you're articulating the classic tension between the
48:23
Speaker 3: greater good and nimbiism essentially. And let me take a
48:28
Speaker 3: different type of land use as an example of where
48:31
Speaker 3: where a person in my position has to think about
48:34
Speaker 3: the greater good and has to explain that to my residence.
48:38
Speaker 3: If we needed to place a landfill or a trash
48:42
Speaker 3: transfer facility or something like that that's relatively undesirable, or
48:47
Speaker 3: jail whatever, something that's pretty pretty necessary for the operations
48:50
Speaker 3: of a city, but it's nevertheless not something you like
48:53
Speaker 3: to live nearby. You know, that certainly puts an obligation
48:57
Speaker 3: on me because this is clearly directly related.
49:01
Speaker 2: To the function I'm trying to serve for you.
49:03
Speaker 3: I've got to figure out how to place that thing,
49:06
Speaker 3: and I may have to vote over the objections of
49:08
Speaker 3: a room full of really angry people. I think what
49:11
Speaker 3: you're asking on AI is a little more challenging because
49:14
Speaker 3: it's like, that's not actually a function of city government
49:16
Speaker 3: to make sure that the world has advancements in artificial
49:21
Speaker 3: intelligence technology right, Like, so I've got to really look,
49:25
Speaker 3: I've got to think I've got to you know, that's
49:26
Speaker 3: almost conceptualizing it, like the placing of a military base
49:29
Speaker 3: or something, although we don't actually get to say.
49:32
Speaker 2: No to military base is because of the supremacy clause. Right.
49:35
Speaker 3: So it may be that what you're what you're saying
49:38
Speaker 3: there is going to have to require federal intervention because
49:41
Speaker 3: I don't know that local officials are really going to
49:44
Speaker 3: be able to center that type of societal need over nimbiasm,
49:50
Speaker 3: because you're just going to.
49:51
Speaker 1: Get voted out if you go again to the NIMBI
49:53
Speaker 1: craft and the next people are going to be even
49:56
Speaker 1: more anti Nimbi than the first people.
49:59
Speaker 3: Or a demand that the builders really do something for
50:02
Speaker 3: the community, I mean just basically pay off the community,
50:05
Speaker 3: like like here is you know, here's all the fields
50:08
Speaker 3: we're gonna build, or here's the you know, the library
50:10
Speaker 3: we're going to build, or here's just some straight cash
50:13
Speaker 3: to hire some firefighters. I mean whatever. I mean, it
50:15
Speaker 3: just it's going to put you know, they're going to
50:17
Speaker 3: have to like buy their way I think into success
50:21
Speaker 3: and some of these land used decisions, or they'll just
50:22
Speaker 3: end up putting them. You know, they'll they'll get more
50:25
Speaker 3: skilled and understanding jurisdictions, and maybe they'll put them out
50:28
Speaker 3: in rural areas where they don't have to sit in
50:30
Speaker 3: front of a marin council. You know. I mean, like,
50:31
Speaker 3: who knows where this will develop, but it's very organic
50:34
Speaker 3: right now. And just so you know, in our city,
50:35
Speaker 3: we actually just issued a moratorium till the end of
50:38
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six so we can try to figure it out.
50:40
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's you know, it's funny here. We
50:42
Speaker 1: were just talking about our lack of consensus and we're
50:45
Speaker 1: not very good at pluralism. Well, hey, there is one
50:47
Speaker 1: issue that does seem to night everybody right now that
50:50
Speaker 1: has been skepticism about AI.
50:52
Speaker 2: Just I thought you're going to say nimbism, but.
50:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, what membism too. I mean, it's all part of it,
50:57
Speaker 1: and it's all wrapped up in together. But boy, this
50:59
Speaker 1: data sent thing has taken on a life of its own,
51:02
Speaker 1: and there is no there is there is it is
51:07
Speaker 1: put It is normally the type of thing where if
51:10
Speaker 1: you want to be hey, we want to we want
51:12
Speaker 1: to bring these new technology companies into our into our region,
51:16
Speaker 1: and this is good for us in like ninety percent
51:19
Speaker 1: of the time that would have been good politics, not
51:22
Speaker 1: right now. You know.
51:23
Speaker 3: Now, I think we'll figure it out. It's a class,
51:26
Speaker 3: it's just a new issue. Its ultimately these things settle out,
51:29
Speaker 3: you know. But it is it has definitely come fast,
51:33
Speaker 3: and it's come with a lot of significance and a
51:35
Speaker 3: lot of national debate. We'll figure it out. They'll become
51:38
Speaker 3: norms soon enough, I think. But yeah, we're definitely right
51:41
Speaker 3: in the middle of it right now.
51:44
Speaker 1: Before I let you go, is there an issue we're
51:45
Speaker 1: missing right now in Washington that you think is a
51:48
Speaker 1: bit more on fire in the in your neck of
51:51
Speaker 1: the woods, that you ought to get a little more attention,
51:54
Speaker 1: you know.
51:54
Speaker 3: I I, Well, it's happening in Washington, and it's happening
51:57
Speaker 3: in my neck of the woods. I don't think there's
51:59
Speaker 3: enough ugh, national media attention on housing and the legislation
52:05
Speaker 3: that has moved, you know, in the House and the
52:07
Speaker 3: Senate in Congress.
52:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's bipartisan, it's got like, yeah.
52:14
Speaker 3: It's got you know, there's a really nice speech the
52:16
Speaker 3: Congressman Flood of Nebraska gave and he was presenting the
52:21
Speaker 3: House bill just a few weeks ago, and he talked
52:23
Speaker 3: about the I saw it because he talked about the
52:25
Speaker 3: Conference of Mayors, He talked about working with his Democratic colleague,
52:28
Speaker 3: Congressman Cleaver. It was like the throwback that I've been
52:33
Speaker 3: that I've been desperate for. It was really nice, and
52:36
Speaker 3: that this has been very bipartisan. You know, Tim Scott
52:39
Speaker 3: and Elizabeth Warren in the Senate flood and Cleaver, Waters
52:43
Speaker 3: and Hill.
52:44
Speaker 1: What does it unlock for you? You know, forget this bill
52:48
Speaker 1: gets passed, what does it do for you in Oklahoma City?
52:51
Speaker 1: Just so that people.
52:52
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's one of those classic Washington bills.
52:55
Speaker 3: It's got like one thousand things in it, right, like
52:57
Speaker 3: a lot of different programs and and but it definitely
52:59
Speaker 3: gives us more tools we still have. I mean, we
53:02
Speaker 3: in the developers of Oklahoma City still carry the greatest
53:05
Speaker 3: burden on this issue. But this this is the first
53:09
Speaker 3: congressional action of this significance on housing in decades, and
53:12
Speaker 3: so we absolutely welcome it. But it is it's not
53:15
Speaker 3: a panacea. I mean, we still got to do our
53:17
Speaker 3: part part here. But I think housing is the number
53:20
Speaker 3: one issue. And again, maybe to bring it full circle,
53:24
Speaker 3: as we conclude it's like, you know, like that's the
53:26
Speaker 3: kind of issue that should be leading the candidate commercials
53:29
Speaker 3: all across the country, and instead we're talking about Muslims
53:32
Speaker 3: and trans kids.
53:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, which which doesn't feel like a priority. David Holt,
53:39
Speaker 1: mayor of Oklahoma City, It's appreciate you, h.
53:43
Speaker 2: I can't.
53:44
Speaker 1: Look, it's not every day that a mayor is going
53:47
Speaker 1: to give a speech about pluralism, you know, And that's
53:51
Speaker 1: what made it to me a tad more significant. So
53:54
Speaker 1: I you know, this is the type of leading that
53:57
Speaker 1: you just don't see, and I understand why. Look, Spencer
54:00
Speaker 1: Cox is trying right. You do have certain people that
54:03
Speaker 1: are trying to and there's another part of me that says, look,
54:07
Speaker 1: as soon as this administration is in the history books,
54:10
Speaker 1: maybe the air will clear a little bit on this.
54:13
Speaker 1: I don't know, but we've been saying that for a while.
54:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, thank you for highlighting it, Scheck.
54:18
Speaker 3: And by the way, for anybody who's interested, google David
54:21
Speaker 3: hole Tower Baker Award speech and you know you'll find
54:24
Speaker 3: the text. And I would love for people to read
54:26
Speaker 3: it and continue to think about these foundational issues that
54:29
Speaker 3: are really dictating all the other policy outcomes.
54:31
Speaker 2: That were so frustrated by this.
54:33
Speaker 1: Trust me. This wasn't a speech defending how Shay Gildris
54:37
Speaker 1: Alexander plays basketball and stopping.
54:41
Speaker 2: Another podcast for another day.
54:43
Speaker 1: Exactly all right, David, good to see, but thanks Jarn.
54:52
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