Full Episode - U.S. Is Drifting Toward Competitive Authoritarianism + How To Fix America’s Broken Political System - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:52):
episode of the Chuck Podcast. We are ticking ever so
closer to the holiday break first night of Hanukkah, ten
days to Christmas, the New sixteen days to New Year's Eve,
and of course when I'm counting down five days until

(02:13):
the University of Miami's debut in the college football Playoff,
I've got a pretty good I've got a pretty sort
of robust show today that's going to hit a bunch
of topics. A fascinating and an incredibly important study by
some from some folks from the Council on Foreign Affairs

(02:36):
about the state of the United States and its democracy.
It's extraordinarily important read. I'm going to pass on the
highlights in a minute. Fascinating new poll from the Searchlight
Institute on corruption and more and portantly, it's not about
the concern about political corruption. It's about what voters believe
is corrupt versus sometimes what lawmakers view as corrupt. Here's

(03:01):
a hint it let's just say that they don't share
the same definition of what is political corruption these days.
The interview today is with Nick Troyana. He is a
founder and runs an organization called Unit America. They've been
He also wrote a book called The Primary Problem, meaning

(03:21):
it is the primaries, a partisan primaries that are at
his thesis, that are at the root of our polarization,
the root of pretty much, probably seventy percent of our problems,
particularly our problems and our inability to get things done.
We talk about a lot about various small the democratic

(03:42):
reforms that could be necessary, would be necessary. He's somebody
that tried to run as an independent and saw all
of the barriers to entry for third party third parties
and independents. And part of the goal I think of
United America is just simply to open up the democracy
to everybody. Right now, this democracy is not open to everybody.

(04:03):
When it comes to competition for political parties or ideas.
There is a major barrier to entry. And it's not financial,
it is structural, and that is the heart of that conversation.
It is Monday, which means we're going to hop into
the time machine, and I'm just going to give you
one hint at what I'm going to be talking about

(04:24):
in the time machine monorail, monorail, monorail. How many of
you will figure out what I'm going to talk about
based on that hint? Guess what. I won't actually find
out the answer to that, but I thought that would
be a fun little clue. We'll do some ask Chuck
and I have a few thoughts on the state of

(04:44):
college athletics, given what happened what we're watching at the
University of Michigan. But I'm going to start with the
news out of Australia. It's pretty painful first Ia Hanka
around the world that this is what all of us
had to wake up to on Sunday morning here in

(05:06):
the United States and what the world is grappling with,
and that is just yet another reminder that anti Semitism
is at an ugly level globally right now. Look, this
is anti Semitism is not new. We've gone through fits

(05:28):
and starts. Anybody who's Jewish knows the history. We know
the history of this quite well, the rise and falls
of attempts eradicating Jews, blaming Jews for financial problems, blaming
Jews for cultural problems. We are the smallest of the
major religions. We are the smallest of groups that there are.

(05:51):
It's amazing how much power so many people try to
attribute to us, and we're not even three percent of
the world's population. Obviously, what we've been you know, there's
a lot of people that are looking at this and
immediately trying to make a political argument, to make the

(06:12):
case that it's the left that is supercharging antisemitism or
the right that is supercharging antisemitism. I will remind you
all once again, I have only experienced it in stereo.
All right, before twenty fifteen, I experienced very little anti semitism,
if any at all. I think I shared a story

(06:34):
with you an old friend of mine. We were talking
about this one time, and sort of right right when
the rise of sort of it was those of us
in the press that were starting to feel at first,
and then it sort of broke open out into the mainstream.
But in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, you can say it
was coincidental with the timing of the rise of Donald Trump,

(06:57):
or if that is what sort of essentially lifted up
the pretext on all of this. But essentially the rise
of the populace left with Bernie Sanders and the rise
of the populist right with Donald Trump has given a
permission slip to anti semits to either to either use
it to promote a left wing ideology or use it

(07:19):
to promote a right wing ideology. Here's what I will say.
If you're using anti semitism to try to promote the
left or the right, you're obviously doing it wrong and
you're not very small d democratic and you certainly don't
believe in freedom, that's for sure, freedom of anything, let
alone freedom of religion on that front. But I remember

(07:41):
talking with this old friend of mine and we were
talking about how our mothers would tell us these stories
about anti about their butt, their anti Semitic experiences in
grade school and high school. My mother's second generation in America.
I believe his parents were first generation, and you know,

(08:05):
they would tell us these stories, and my friend and
I would sit there and go, you know, my mother
would tell these stories about you know, kids in her
high school looking for her horns or asking about her tale.
And you know, he would say that, you know his
mother would you share similar things? And we would just
look at them like they were strange beings. That's this
can't be the case. What do you tell? You know,

(08:25):
I didn't dec I didn't want to say I was
dismissing mother. But you know, you think, well, maybe our
parents are exaggerating a little bit, you know, maybe, And
I'll tell you ten years later, All right, eleven years now,
we're almost we're getting close to the eleventh year of
sort of this what has been a consistent uptick, really
really you can. I do believe the line of demarcation

(08:46):
is June twenty fifteen. But you can see this uptick
and it is this is not something that either side
if we're going to try to make this always a
two way fight between whose fault is it is that
the left is of the right. This is collective and
there's a lot of there's a lot of blame to

(09:06):
go around, but I think the one that's sing singularly
singular for blame and most important is social media. In this,
we've always had to anti semis. We've always had a
hate in the world. Okay, just it's just a fact.
We've always had small minded people who have wanted to
blame an ethnicity or a religious sect for their for

(09:29):
their own personal problems. That's in it, and that is
that is not new. Sometimes these sick people end up
leaders of countries see Hitler, Comma Adolph. Sometimes these sick
leaders end up leaders of political movements. And then there's
always this what about is that comes along with with

(09:52):
folks that are trying to defend their side from charges
of anti Semitism, And it'll be like, yeah, but you know, yeah,
but this disselected leader of Israel's bad about X, Y
and Z. That doesn't justify hate on little kids celebrating
Hanukah in Australia. There's nothing that justifies that. So I

(10:16):
don't want to hear the Abbots and I ignore. And
I'll tell you this the beauty of social media and
stories like this is it becomes self selecting. You see
the people that immediately want to point fingers and say, aha,
it's the left, A hats the right, And I'm like, aha,
it's somebody that doesn't have a mirror in their own frickin' house.
But I want to put the emphasis on the distinguishing

(10:39):
characteristic here of this era of anti Semitism, and that
is social media.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I put my.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
I want to align myself with some remarks that Spencer Cox,
the Governor of Utah, Republican governor of Utah said last week.
And it wasn't on a specific thing, wasn't specifically about
anti Semitism, but it was more about the toxicity, the
toxic culture, the increase in violence that we've seen in politics.

(11:10):
And what's interesting is my friend Jonathan martin Wright wrote
in Politico this week. The following comment received the loudest
applause he did a joint form with Josh Shapiro on
this issue Spencer Cox and Josh Shapiro in conversation with
my friend Savannah Guthrie, And the loudest applause at the
form was when he said the following, If you want
to be angry at someone, be angry at the social

(11:31):
media companies. These are the wealthiest and most powerful companies
in the history of the world, and their profiting off
of destroying our kids and destroying our country. And the
amplification the algorithms, the fact that fellow crazy anti semites
can find other fellow crazy anti semites online and think, oh,

(11:52):
I'm not the only one that thinks this, And the
minute you think you're not the only one, that you're
not alone. It's somehow rationalized. Is it makes you feel better?
It makes you think, oh, and then when you set
up an ecosystem and a bubble that sort of is
self reinforcing, you think you're the mainstream. Everybody thinks their
own media diet is a mainstream diet, right. It is

(12:16):
the inability of so many people to put their feet
in other people's shoes and other people's media filters. In fact,
I think there's been some experiments. I really would like
to see people sort of spend a day in a
media filter of somebody else, and you do these various

(12:36):
media filters just you know, I look at it as
an academic exercise to try to understand the electorate. As
you guys know, I have been referring to myself as
a political anthropologist, meaning that that is constantly what I'm
ultimately always trying to figure out is what is why
are we in this place? And if you're trying to

(12:57):
figure out why, you have to understand the various political
tribes in America. Some of these tribes overlap. People are
members of multiple tribes, sometimes remember of only one. But
ultimately that's why I say I'm a political anthropologist. I'm
trying to figure out how do these tribes align? Hey,
gress what I know, I'm in my own tribe. I
just try my best to roll down the window in

(13:18):
my bubble and see what's going on outside of my bubble.
But you have to It is hard to do it.
You have to intentionally do it. You have to have
the crazy ass Twitter feed that I have. That I
promise you most people at America probably don't because I
do try very hard to get the normies and the
extremes because I want to understand what the conversation that

(13:40):
is going on. Trust me, I'm sure some of you
go some of you listening to me wouldn't even know
who Candice Owens is. And by the way, God bless you,
I'd love not to know who this woman is. But
there are people, there's an entire community on the right
that is consumed with trying to extricate this crazy woman

(14:00):
from the mainstream of the MAGA world because of her
just outlandish conspiracy theories. I can't tell if she's mentally
ill or just simply a shameless grifter, or perhaps the
two of the two go hand in hand. But there
are plenty of people in mainstream America. I'm sure if
I said the words Candice owned, my mother and my

(14:22):
brother in law, my sister in law, who all are
pretty pretty smart about this, would be like, who the
hell is that? And I wouldn't blame them. But that's
because this is the world that we've all constructed. But
it's the world that social media has gone out of
their way to construct. And this is why, you know,
I look at this rise of anti Semitism, and I
look the fact that this was not a lone nut right,

(14:44):
but there appears to be some coordination down there in Australia.
I do I can't, you know, I know that ultimately
individuals are to blame, not a computer, not an algorithm,
but these tech platfor to amplify, and you know, you know,
I think they have a responsibility to make sure that

(15:09):
what they're doing is not putting more people in harm's way,
and their amplification, their algorithms, are doing just that, they
deserve no protection on Section two thirty, the part of
the law that supposedly says, hey, we're just you know,
we're not doing the minute they put an algorithm on
these things, the minute they amplify, the minute they allow
for the connection. Look, our First Amendment guarantees free speech.

(15:32):
It doesn't guarantee if bullhorn, It doesn't guarantee a right
to be the loudest voice in the room. It just
simply guarantees that you have a right to free speech.
So you have a right to be a hateful anti
semi okay, but you don't have the right to have
your extreme, hateful and hurtful political views be the dominant

(15:57):
piece of conversation and be mainstreamed in to America. No, because,
by the way, we don't want it mainstream, and the
tech companies do not have to protect you and do
not have to amplify your speech. In fact, they can
dial it down. In fact, there's plenty of academic studies
that show if you dial down hateful content, you're not

(16:17):
getting rid of it, you're just prioritizing it less than
these algorithms. It's shocking how much turning that temperature down
actually helps the conversation. So it's troubling, but I really,
you know, you look at the situation we're in, and

(16:40):
there's no doubt we have bad leaders around the world
that are exploiting hate and anger to try to make
a political argument. You have people on both sides of
the aisle attempting to weaponize anger at Israel or anger
at the economy and trying to somehow connect that to

(17:02):
Jewish folks. The left does it with bb at times.
The right does it with George Soros. I mean George Soros.
There is no greater victim, there's no greater victim of
anti Semitic mythology, uh and gross mischaracterizations than George Soros.
And I don't know where he gets to go to

(17:23):
get his reputation back considering the character assassinations that have
taken place through the prism of his faith. There's there's
no no, no doubt in my mind on that front.
But ultimately, why do we have more collective conversation about this?
Why is there more collective talk about this? Why is there,
frankly more insecurity for many Jewish Jewish people around the world.

(17:48):
Why do we feel so less secure today than we
ever have before. I think we can thank social media.
I think the tech companies have not only not gotten
the focus of this, they've not taken responsibility, but I
think they need They need to be the focal point.
Which brings me to that column that my friend Jonathan

(18:09):
Martin wrote, which he says, you know, perhaps Spencer Cox
needs to be the anti tech candidate. Somebody needs to
take it to the tech community. Right, the tech community
has brought us a lot of positives. Okay, there's a
ton of positives, and there's a ton of tools that
have been invented that have helped me create a better

(18:30):
communications system with you guys. Right, There's no doubt there's
plenty of upsides from the tech community, but what they
have done with social media, And this is why I
don't think the public is going to be supportive at
all of this light touch, non regulatory process that the
President's trying to do an artificial intelligence. The same industry,

(18:52):
the same industry that gave us social media without regulation,
now wants to give us artificial intelligence without regulation. Considering
how well social media went, how the hell are we
doing this right? This is the most illogical thing you
could come up with. I can't believe the President is

(19:14):
doing this. I think this is you want to talk
about convincing more mainstream Americans to go get a pitch
for it and start sharpening up, sharpening that sucker up.
It is just crazy that we don't want to put
any guardrails on the growth and expansion of the AI industry.
It is absolute insanity. Okay, if you think social media

(19:41):
created more toxicity in our culture and more violence in
our culture thanks to the lack of regulation, what do
you think is going to happen with artificial intelligence if
we don't have some attempt at making sure there are
constant guardrails being erected as we build this super highway.
It is something that I think I've talked about this before.

(20:05):
I think it is politically absolutely going to be frankly
an easy thing to exploit potentially. And you know, that's
why the tech community is really making a mistake here
that they are not grasping just in what kind of
precarious position that they're in. And maybe they think we

(20:26):
don't need America and if America shuts us down, we'll
just go somewhere else where we will be treated with
lot we can just buy our way into a policy
that we want. And obviously, right now we have a
situation where they can get whatever the hell they want
from this administration if they just write a check. And
that's disturbing, but that's why we still have a competitive democracy,

(20:49):
although I'm going to get to that in a minute,
where the voters can sort of have a say in this,
because right now we have zero say in what social
media has done to us, and we don't seem to
have the collective will. It's growing. I mean, look, I
think it's a huge start that you've got. I mean, look,

(21:11):
Australia is trying to ban social media for people under
the age of sixteen. Spencer Cock made Cox made this
mention that we wait to hand the keys to a
car to a kid until sixteen, Yet we give them
an algorithmic driven phone at twelve. You know, perhaps we
can give them a phone at twelve with no social
media on it. Right, maybe it's flip phones from twelve

(21:33):
to sixteen, because plenty of parents want to have some
access to their kids and all that. I think that
that's a legitimate concern. But you know, we can essentially say,
you know, no, just you can't have a you know,
because I don't know how else you're going to be
able to monitor this. But if you actually just make
the device itself against the law for somebody under the

(21:58):
age of sixteen to have, that might be a start.
It is the one area where we're starting to see
some bipartisan consensus, which is about access to screens and
social media for people under sixteen. And we've decided this
is a problem. Well, guess what do you think that
our minds are only fragile from sixteen and younger, or

(22:20):
that we've got these fragile minds that are much older too,
and that social media warps those warps those over the
age of sixteen almost as badly as they could warp
those under the age of twelve. One other point on
the social media front, Jonathan mentioned an interesting new report
that noted about. It was a poll about the mano sphere,

(22:43):
if you will, what do men want? And it revealed
that a majority of males sampled in that survey said
social media feeds have gotten a lot more extreme. I mean,
most of this is thanks to Elon Musk and his
insanity and what he's done to Ax and taking away
all guardrails on acts, and of course every other social
media company followed because they didn't want to get left behind.
But what's interesting is that men themselves revealed in this

(23:06):
poll that most controversial content reaches the men who are
online the most, especially younger men, white men, black men,
Hispanic men across the board. And we're seeing a more
radical youth thanks to warped social media algorithms. So when
we see this rise of hate, we see this rise
of violence, and we're looking, you know, the easy thing

(23:29):
is to try to point left, point right, point at Israel,
point Gaza, point a Hamas, point of protesters. People want
to point it. A whole bunch of figures, except for
the culprit that is in charge of the information ecosystem
that destroyed the information ecosystem. And trust me, I'm aware
of the irony that I am speaking to you in
that ecosystem, and hopefully it gets to you it doesn't

(23:50):
get shut down by the algorithms of these big tech companies.
But they're the culprits here. They've created this environment that
has made it a lot easier for these hateful, awful,
mentally ill people to find comfort in their bubbles because
it looks like they're not alone and that they're somehow namestream.

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quickly to my Newsphere interview this week because some alarming

(26:03):
new facts that I had not seen anywhere else from
Mark Warner. He's the vice chair of the Senate Intel Committee.
Mark Warner has seen the second He has seen the
video of both the September second second strike on those
survivors from the first strike of the boats off the
coast of Venezuela, and he revealed two facts that I

(26:26):
had not seen anywhere. Fact number one is that the
time that elapsed between the first strike and the second
strike was somewhere between thirty and forty minutes because of
cloud cover, so thirty to forty minutes, and then the
clouds come up, and then apparently what is revealed, according
to Senator Warner, was not fully clothed survivors clinging to

(26:50):
their life, and then the second strike. Let's just say
this is what look He believes that if Americans see
this video, they will be appalled. There will be and
there's a reason why the Pentagon is fighting the release
of this video. There is no defense. There apparently is
going to be no defense of what this video looks like.

(27:11):
This is appalling, and there are probably going to be
concerns that there are people that might have legal jeopardy here.
But realistically, I don't know where you get the legal
jeopardy when the president will likely just pardon anybody that
is investigated. But there's a reason people are fighting very

(27:33):
hard not to release this second video because if what
is what Warner described to me a delayed thirty to
forty minutes and they were not fully clothed, Essentially, just
put yourself for the situation. Your boat explode, You're alive,
you're swimming, You're clinging to the remnants of a boat

(27:57):
in order to stay afloat not drown. Half your clothes
are gone, been blown off. Maybe you're just sort of
trying to use it, and we decide to use the
second shot. No wonder there are questions why the phrase
war crime is being tossed around although we're not at war,

(28:18):
because you know, as many a person has pointed out,
the question is whether there is not whether this second
strike was legal, but we still have real doubts about
whether the first strike is legal. And it is worth
noting that earlier this week, earlier last week, Trump offered
a veiled threat at Colombia because the president of Colombia

(28:41):
has been critical of this, saying that he might not
be out of the crosshairs. And then the President has
said that they might target some of these folks on land.
Whose land is it? Venezuela is a Colombia. Where's this headed?
And again there is no Senator Warner could not give

(29:03):
me the authority that that he could not explain very
well the authority that the White House was using that
they claimed these strikes were legal. I mean, they've cited
an authority. It's not the for if you're wondering what
Senator Warner said, it is not the am au m

(29:24):
F that was passed by Congress that that allowed for
the invasion of Iraq, but and which has been used,
which was used by Obama as justification for strikes, and
I believe Yemen and some other places. So that is
not there. So we still don't have a clear picture
of the legal authority the White House is claiming to

(29:47):
go after these folks. But he has threatened land strikes
without asking for any authority from Congress and additional authority
from Congress, nor has he made his case to the
American public. And by the way, the decision to essentially
commandeer an oil tanker rather than just blow it up,
although blowing up an oil tanker would have been catastrophic,

(30:10):
essentially starting a fire on the Pacific Ocean potentially or
the Caribbean Sea, depending on where they were hitting this tanker.
But if we can board a tanker, we could have
boarded these boats. And I think the decision not to
attack that tanker and simply to just commandeer it under
totally undermines the rationale and justification of the strikes themselves.

(30:34):
Why there is no good explanation for why we're not
just essentially stopping these boats, grabbing these people and getting
some intelligence so that we can actually learn something. And
I want to just keep one thing in mind here,
just one more thing in mind, which is the president's
political standing is not great. He has had a terrible month.

(30:58):
He had a terrible Friday, excuse me, Thursday last week
when his retribution campaign. You know, basically he's the Emperor
with no clothes as far as Indiana Republicans are concerned.
Grand Juries in Virginia are not. Might might want to
indict at Ham Sandwich, but they won't indict Leticia James
when he's not feeling, when he feels as if things

(31:20):
are going bad, that's just when he might do crazier
stuff and might attempt crazier stuff to either change the
subject or change the picture. One more thing before I
get to an important essay that I think you guys
have to make note of the president. It is notable
to me that the President did an interview with the
Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and the most fascinating

(31:43):
aspect of it was his tone change. He essentially is
admitting that he's going to lose the mid terms. He said,
you know, he basically said, we're going to try our
best to win. We'll see what happens. We should win,
but you know, statistically it's very tough to win. Yeah,
I know, it doesn't make So it's the beginning of
the excuse making. It's the beginning of the his way

(32:05):
of admitting this economy, that the public doesn't like this economy.
This was the interview saying, Oh, it's going to take time,
my investments haven't gone through. It will happen. Just be patient,
and as he said, hopefully it happens before the election.
But it's notable, right he went from this is a
hoax two weeks ago to at least in this interview

(32:27):
with the Wall Street Journal sort of accepting the premise. Yes,
we realized the public doesn't feel it or see it yet,
but they will, But they will, he promises, He swears.
These are these stages. It's we should call it stages
of political it's not quite political grief. But it's sort
of like, you know, first there's a dial right, then
there's you know, somehow you're argumentative. Then there's a form

(32:51):
of acceptance. He's getting into the form of acceptance, but
he's not accepting the premise that his policies are a problem.
He's just simply saying his policies haven't kicked in yet,
And that says he's no different than any other president
trying to defend a bad economy. No, no, no, no, my
policies haven't kicked in yet. It's always my policies haven't
kicked in yet. I'm dealing with the predecessor's policies. So
in that sense, it's a familiar pattern. Perhaps the best

(33:13):
part of that Wall Street Journal interview was the fact
that you know, he's doing the interview with the Wall
Street Turnal reporters, but he's taking calls and doing all
sorts of stuff at the same time, right, And here's
the I'm going to read directly from the article. At
one point, the President, sitting at the resolute desk with
a glittering Christmas tree at its side, asked an aid
to show him the latest market data. He took calls
from friends and allies multiple times during the interview, including

(33:35):
from Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, who joined by speakerphone to
discuss the administration's plans for Washington, d C. Area public
golf courses. That is right, the President seems to not
be worried about the price of groceries as much as
he's worried about the designs and who's in charge of
redesigning Washington d C's three public golf courses, Rock Creek Park,

(33:59):
Haines Pointston. I mean, if you're trying to hand Democrats
easier fodder to say, you know, he promised this, to focus,
laser focus on this, this and this, and instead he
cares about building a ballroom, changing the name of the
Kennedy Center, singing ymca UH, and redesigning Washington DC's golf courses,

(34:27):
all of course extraordinarily important priorities to bringing down the
costs of electricity and groceries in your home. Anyway, just
uh not not the smartest politician, but Donald Trump's never
been the smartest about messaging in that front. But that
brings me to I think a very important essay from

(34:47):
a quarterly journal. I'm a politically like I say, I'm
a want to be political scientist, I call myself a
political anthropologist. That means I actually read political science quarterlies.
And there's an extra jordinarily important one that's out this week.
It's an essay in Foreign Affairs, which is the flagship
journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. This isn't a

(35:09):
partisan outlet, it's not a resistance blog. It's the magazine
where American presidents, Secretary of States, national security advisors have
gone for generations debate how the world works and how
the United States role it should be. So three of
the most respected democracy scholars in the world from Harvard

(35:30):
Toronto and the Council on Foreign Relations, Steven Levitzky, Luke
and Way and Daniel Ziblat. They're not cable pundits. They're
not people you're going to see in the round tables
of Sunday shows. They're not political activists. They're simply political
sciences who spent their career studying how democracies erode around
the world, how they fail, and occasionally how they recover. Well,

(35:54):
they have an essay called with about out competitive Authoritarianism,
and in fact this is what they write, and this
is why I took it very seriously. This was not
something I read, no offense to my friends at the Bulwark.
It's not something I read in the Bullwark. Not something
you're going to see it here in pod Save of
America certainly, now you might. I doubt you'll hear this

(36:16):
from my friend Eric Ericson either. But here's this essay.
In twenty twenty five, the United States ceased to be
a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or
even Argentina are democracies. Okay, they're just making a classification.
And then comes the line. The game, however, is far
from up. They're not saying all is lost. Okay. It

(36:39):
is an important essay because they deal with this tension
of yes we have had erosion and no, this isn't permanent. Okay.
So they argue that Donald Trump's second term the United
States crossed a definitional line into something political scientists call
competitive authoritarianism. Here's how they define it a system in

(37:01):
which parties compete in elections, but incumbents routinely abuse their
power to punish critics untilt the playing field against their opposition.
So elections still happen, but perhaps you threaten lawmakers to
redraw the maps to make more favorable elections. Opposition parties
still exist, but perhaps you raise the threshold for petition
signatures to get on a referendum, or you change the

(37:23):
dates and stuff see Missouri. But the referee is no
longer neutral, right, and the House rules keep changing. And importantly,
they're not saying this might happen, because it's already happened
in this country. A year ago, this group predicted that
this would be Trump's trajectory, that he'd weaponized state institutions
the way elected autocrats have done in Hungry, Turkey, Venezuela,

(37:43):
and India. And those are the four most important examples
to follow here, because Venezuela obviously the helm election the
leader loss, and he wouldn't leave Turkey, Hungary and India
have are what are considered faiish elections. But we'll find
out when the ruling party loses one day just how

(38:03):
fair they are. But they write this indeed, the Trump
administration has done exactly that. But here's what the authors say.
They didn't anticipate. What's surprised even then wasn't the speed,
but it was the scope. And they write, this, one
form of authoritarian behavior that we did not anticipate a
year ago was the Trump administration's routine subversion of the
law and even the US Constitution. Well, we've seen that
with the strikes, with that as well. I mean, there

(38:24):
is very little, very little doubt here that this is
not yet not constitutional. The question is whether they'll even
try to give some congressional authority on that. So let
me outline a few more things that they write here,

(38:46):
weaponizing the state. They call it the blueprint. Every competitive
authoritarian regime follows a familiar playbook. Purge, then pack, so
removing professional civil servants who see their job as the law,
and replace them with loyalists who see their job as
the leader. Just look at the FBI. That's exactly what
they document happening inside the Justice Department, the FBI, and
other key agencies. When officials resisted, they were just simply removed.

(39:08):
We've seen US attorneys, deputy US attorneys just summarily fired
when replacements were chosen, they weren't selected for experience, but
for loyalty, including, as the author's note, Trump's own personal
lawyers installed as senior Justice Department officials. It's just right
out of, right, out of sort of. There's a fun

(39:29):
parody about authoritarianism called Moon over Parador with Richard Dreyfus.
I do to write that what seemed like parody is
now real. Right, And then even when prosecutions don't lead
to convictions, the authors explain why that doesn't matter. Such
investigations themselves are the powerful form of harassment, right, making
Adam Shift hire a lawyer, making Letitia James deal with this,

(39:51):
making James Comy deal with this, legal fees, time, reputational damage,
career disrupt eruption. The punishment is often the process itself.
They don't care if they ca convictions. They just want
them constantly made to be, you know, unhireable, don't get
them on corporate boards, make them seem as if they're
controversial figures. Then of course you got to follow the money.

(40:13):
Because this is what's happened with their next move, going
after civil society. How's the Trump administration done this? They've
ordered investigations into Act Blue, the primary arm of the
Democratic Party, Open Society Foundations, the George Soros founded organization.
The Wall Street Journal reported that that there are plans
to target Democratic donors through the IRS. That's right out

(40:34):
of the competitive authoritarian handbook that these political scientists know.
Then there's the pressure campaign against the media. Trump sue
the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The
FCC opened silly investigations into ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Comcast,
which owns NBC. We've seen the FCC chair act like
a thug in threatening Jimmy Kimmel, Disney and NBC. It

(40:59):
is it is, and what makes this so dangerous and
so effective is is not just what happened, but because
of what didn't happen. In fact, our authors are arguing
that the most insidious change isn't the repression, it's been
the self censorship. They point that outlets i've become realigning
and pull back, like the Washington Post, like the editorial
page is kind of a clown show. Now it is

(41:20):
just outside of George Well, there's not a readable columnist
left in that place. It is just a joke. The
editorial page itself is sort of. It's like they have
one thing they do every time if there's some economic controversy,
they write some convoluted editorial attacking Elizabeth Warren. I guess
that makes Chef Bezos feel better, but it has nothing

(41:41):
to do with the point itself or any of the
actual rational debate that's gone on. You've had the teen
Vogue has sort of gotten rid of their political coverage.
CBS clearly just has a new owner and they just
wiped out, you know, brought in virtue signaling new editors
to run thing. We've seen Disney cave in, We've seen

(42:02):
plenty of again, all of these legacy media, these corporate owned,
shareholder driven media organizations that all fall under Donald Trump's
potential influence due to government regulation, they've all capitulated, which
is why frankly, we're doing so well here at the podcast,
So in some ways, thank you, But unfortunately, this is

(42:23):
why we've all gone down this independent road. Because if
you want to be honest and if you want to
tell the truth, you're gonna have to find a different
outlet because you're not gonna be able to do it
at the Washington Post. You're not gonna be able to
do it at the major legacy TV networks that are left.
I'm not saying individuals aren't trying, but collectively they're not
even giving the chance. And here's the other thing. Here's

(42:45):
the part we don't know. What makes self censorship so
insidious is that it is virtually impossible to ascertain its
full impact. So wrote these authors, right, we can see
a firing, we can see a cancelation. What we can't
see are the stories that are never pitched, the investigations
that get quietly abandoned, or the headlines that are softened
out of fear, or the questions that don't get asked

(43:07):
on camera because executives in New York tell their correspondence
please don't do it. Because our corporate overlords are afraid
of blowback from the president that is happening. You can
guess where that's coming from. That's how democracies hollow out.
And this is where the essay draws a crucial historical line.

(43:29):
America has had its stark chapters Jim Crow read Scare,
Japanese Internment, McCarthys, and Nixon. But the authors also argue
that after Watergate, the overt authoritarian abuse largely disappeared. Since
nineteen seventy four, no democratic or Republican administration had systematically
politicized law enforcement or targeted political rivals the way Donald
Trump is doing. George W. Bush his Justice Department investigative

(43:52):
Republicans and Democrats. Barack Obama appointed James Comey, a Republican,
to be the head of the FBI. Joe Biden kept
Christopher Ray as head of the FBI and a pointee
of Donald Trump. Mind you, Merrick Garland bent over backwards
as Attorney General, sometimes to a fault, to avoid the
appearance of political interference. So the conclusion is fun in

(44:15):
each of those critical areas that Trump administration stands alone
in its authoritarianism. Now, none of this is inevitable. And
here's where the essay shifts from diagnosis to prognosis. He says,
the US still has advantages that most competitive authoritarian regimes
do not. There's still an independent judiciary. There's still a
professional military, though Pete hagg Seth is trying to erode it.

(44:36):
There's still strong federalism. I mean, look at the way
Ron DeSantis is pushed back on the AI issue in
the AI moratorium that Trump is done. There's still a
vibrant civil society. Helloo, and there's a unified opposition party.
And Trump himself lacks the single most important asset the
author's note for authoritarian consolidation overwhelming popularity. Successful autocrats often

(44:58):
rule with approval ratings over eight. Trump is stuck in
the low forties. And it's actually trending downward that matters.
So that brings us to what they argue is the
greatest danger of them all. The greatest danger is not repression,
but demobilization. It's not tanks, it's not mass arrests, its
acceptance and resignation. It's people deciding not to run, not

(45:20):
to donate, not to sue, not to vote. And then
this line, which is really the thesis of the piece,
The outcome of this struggle remains open. It will turn
less than the strength of the authoritarian government than on
whether enough citizens act as though their efforts still matter,
because for now they still do. So there you go, Levitzky,
Way and Ziblat. They aren't telling Americans to panic, They're
just telling you what is okay. This is what has

(45:43):
happened to America the first year of Trump's second term.
We have slipped into something called competitive authoritarianism. He is
trying to create an authoritarian regime. There is democracy still,
there is still competition, okay. And our future is not
set in stone or the cement is still wet. Okay.
They're warning against two equally dangerous instincts, complacency and fatalism.

(46:06):
The future is going to be unstable, okay. Neither full
democracy nor entrenched dictatorship is going to happen. It's going
to be a struggle. This is going to be a fight.
The next elections may be fought in theory over policy differences,
but they're really going to be about the larger issue
of what kind of system are we choosing to live under?
And that danger isn't that democracy disappears overnight. It's the

(46:28):
dangers people stop believing that they can defend it. So
please go read this piece. It's extraordinarily important. It's well argued,
it is you know, evidence based, it is data driven.
Is it is not just alarmist cable commentary. And that's

(46:51):
the most important thing. And it comes from a place
in the Council on Foreign Relations where important ideas sort
of get launched for debate, and this is one that
more and more mainstream Americans need to understand what is
happening and what it's taking place. All Right, I've gone
on a little bit longer with my first half monologue

(47:11):
here before than I have, But in some ways that
goes right into the need for open primaries, the need
to structure our politics so that we have more voices
that have a shot here, not fewer voices. The manipulation
of our political system sort of begins with this attempt

(47:32):
at picking who your voters are, if you will, and
that is a huge problem. So we'll sneak in a
break and when we come back, we're going to talk
to Nick Troiano ahead of United America on how we
make this democracy great again. Do you hate hangovers? We'll
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for thirty percent off. Joining me now to talk a
little bit about reforming are the infrastructure of the democracy.

(49:17):
It's somebody I've had conversations with before. Somebody I've known
a long time, Nick Triano. He's the executive director of
Unite America, the organization that brought ranked choice voting to
the state of Alaska in particular, had been fighting to
get essentially to get rid of partisan primaries, whatever form

(49:38):
that can be done. If it's ranked choice voting, it's
ranked choice voting simply getting rid of the need for
party registration, then it's getting rid of the need for that.
But it has been the through line of Nick's work.
But I know that he's essentially been in this game.
He look he ran for Congress as an independent, he's

(49:58):
and he realized these bare to entry were extraordinarily high.
You know, if you're not a far left or a
far right person, is there a home for you in
American politics? Is there a home for you in primaries?
And I think Nick has been devoting himself to trying
to find that place for those of us that aren't

(50:18):
stuck in the wings. And he joins me, now, Nick,
good to see you.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Good to see you.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Check. So let's start with sort of your this is
United America, what are we up ten years.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Coming up on ten years running the organization, and we're
not more united than I then we started. However, we're
still working on it.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
So look, the let's start with ranked choice voting, because
I think the first time you and I had a conversation,
there was a lot of there's a lot of bullishness,
a lot of excitement about the idea. It kind of
worked right pretty It seemed like it worked the way
it was supposed to work in Alaska, it worked the

(51:03):
way many people were hoping it would work. In New
York City in twenty twenty one, you know, the main
experiment has been less successful because of the decision that
main lawmakers made to to only have this somehow count
for federal not for state, which is just a head scratcher.
And frankly, I find the whole New York City set

(51:24):
up so the Democrats use rank choice voting, but that
trust me, there are a lot of voters who wanted
rank choice voting, I think during the general election. But
I know you know this, over the last four or
five years, I feel like there's been a movement against it,
even people that were supportive going it's hard to explain.
You and I've had this conversation I've always said it,

(51:46):
you know, hey, as somebody who has walked people through
election nights and talks about, you know, vote dumps and
things like that, explaining ranked choice voting getting it out
of the black box is very difficult. So that's a
long lined up. Where are you on this? Where's United
America on rank choice voting? And is this a method

(52:09):
that you still think is the answer?

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Well, I in you in America are focused on solving
what we call the primary problem, which is the role
that party primaries play in exacerbating our divisions, in increasing
dysfunction and government because they incentivize candidates and elected officials
to play to the base of both parties in order
to win the only elections that really matter these days,
which is not the November election when most people vote,

(52:33):
but the primaries when the candidates are nominated, because most
districts and states right now lean so heavily one way
or another. So that's the problem, in our view, low
turnout party primaries dictating the outcomes of most elections before
most Americans can even vote. The solution set for what
we can do to solve that problem is varied, and

(52:54):
when we talk about solutions to the primary problem. It
could look like opening up primary so that all voters
can participate, including independent voters that are currently locked out
of primaries in sixteen states. It can look like getting
rid of party primaries and replacing it with all candidate primaries,
so there's a single ballot in the primary, everyone gets

(53:14):
to vote for whomever they want, and the top finishers
go to the general election. There's a system that's called
top two that's used in California and Washington for example,
or what Alaska adopt it in twenty twenty, which is
a top four system. And when you advance four candidates
from the primary to the general election, you want to

(53:35):
ensure that one of them wins with majority support, not
just plurality. And there are two ways of accomplishing that.
One is you can hold a runoff election if no
one gets over fifty percent, or the other is you
can have an instant runoff where people rank their candidates
according to preference, and if no one gets a majority,
there's a process of elimination using voters' backup choices. That's

(53:57):
what ranked choice voting refers to specifically, which is the
part of the reform in a top four primary, that
is focused on ensuring a majority winner. Ranked choice voting
is used in other circumstances, and in our view, it's
most powerful when it's combined with a reform to the
primary system. So Alaska's reform is a top four primary

(54:17):
reform plus ranked choice voting in the general election. And
other places like New York City or Maine are what
we would think of as partial reforms because they only
have ranked choice voting and they don't really have any
other kinds of reforms to the primary system that could
improve governing incentives by widening the electorate.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Let's talk about the mechanics of ranked choice voting, because
I think that's been the stumbling block. Can you is
there any way to make this feel more transparent where
you feel like you can see the You know, I
have not come up with one, but I'm curious if

(54:58):
if you have, or you know of other folks who tried.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Well, there's two parts to the ranked choice voting process.
There is the part where voters show up to the
voting booth or get their ballot in the mail and
they fill out their ballot. And that part is simple,
which is you have the option of ranking your candidates
or you can just vote for your favorite, and in
all of our exit polling, we found that eighty plus
percent of voters say that they find this simple to do,

(55:23):
and that number goes up over time as people get
used to it. The second part is how the votes
are tabulated, and that is done by election administrators. They
have a range of options for how they do it,
and some jurisdictions in the country, particularly those that have
been using it for a decade or more, have found
ways that this can be an instantaneous process and it

(55:44):
could be fully transparent, which is to say, they release
the cast vote records so that there is a way
that anyone can audit the results. There is a way
to make sure that there's results delivered on election night,
and there's ways of displaying the results that make it
intuitive for people to understand exactly what happens at each
round of the tabulation. So the charge sometimes that it's

(56:06):
a complicated or confusing system is really used by opponents
to say, you know, let's not change the way that
the elections are currently working, because the current way works
for them. It works for the two major parties, it
works for the incumbent politicians. They're afraid of change. But
you know, election reforms like the ones we champion have

(56:26):
been used successfully in America and abroad for many years,
and it's a necessary part of what it's going to
take to foster a more functional and representative government.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Look, I am, I am. If we could get if
we could go to a top four I fully believe
we should be a top four democracy. I'd love to
see that in our presidential race, you know where, and
then and that I wouldn't do rank choice. I think
the country suit there's a runoff, then the top two

(56:57):
face off, we have one more debate, like there's a runoff,
right Like it feels like that that is that we
you know, we wouldn't have a big drop in turn
you know, the concern and when we got rid of
general election runoffs, the concern is always, well, you're not
going to have a good turnout. Well that's not true anymore.
I mean, my god, I look at the special election
in Tennessee earlier this during the earlier part of December,

(57:20):
and for a special election in December. Uh, you know,
there were something like one hundred and fifty thousand total votes.
I mean, that's impressive for that. I mean, I think
the engagement with the democracy. And you know, I think
there's a I think there's a commentary about our country

(57:40):
that our electric gets engaged when when they when they
think they feel it slipping away. But you know, it
turns out that apathy was a sign of stability. But
it is, so I don't mind that. What but if
we had thirty states holding runoffs but the other two
and he didn't, then I could see that that would

(58:01):
be an issue.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Well, runoffs get a bad rap for some good reasons,
including that they have been used historically in ways.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
To diss It was about denying black representation in the South. Right,
that's why why did we have Southern runoffs? Every Southern
state had runoffs for one reason, and one reason only,
to prevent black people from winning elections.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Right, And two things can be true, which is that
there are systems that have runoffs today that don't necessarily
have that negative impact that you actually do see turnout
increase in the runoff. That is the case in Louisiana,
for example, in their governor's races. Louisiana has a very
interesting election system where there is effectively no primary, there

(58:42):
is a general election. Everyone gets to be on the ballot.
They're kind of top two, right, just like Washington, and
if no one gets majority, there's a runoff, and so
in that case, the top two finishers advance, or if
someone gets a majority of the vote, it's a one
and done election. And by the way, it's simpler for
election administrators, it's simpler for voters, and it's better for
democracy because the election that matters is the one in

(59:04):
which most people are already voting, and so you get
a more representative outcome and there's not this initial primary
filter where only ten percent of voters, who are usually
on the most extreme fringes of the political spectrum are
deciding you know, election outcomes. And so this will sound
wonky and maybe mechanical to people, but it has an
impact on public policy because when you look at Louisiana,

(59:27):
it's one of the only Deep South. It is the
only Deep South state that's expanded medicaid, for example, and
was one of the first states to really lean into
charter school reform. And when you think about the purpose
of government and is it representing people, in Louisiana, more
citizens have access to healthcare and too education than a
lot of other peer states. And the reason for that

(59:48):
is they have a more functional political system with leaders
who are intended and focused on solving problems rather than
just these partisan squabbles every day, and so performing our
elections improve and center, but ultimately in per his governance
so that we can solve problems that matter to people.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Of course, I think Bill Cassidy wishes that they would
have kept the old system, but now they're going to
go to a primary system, which certainly complicates his path
to renomination. Let's talk about where you're active on the
playing field here. What's the status in Alaska, what's the
status in Nevada. I know, those are two places that

(01:00:25):
you've been active. And where else are you guys active
in trying to expand access to primaries.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
So Alaska is a great success story for primary reform
because after the state adopted it through the ballot initiative
process in twenty twenty, it's now gone through two election
cycles where more voters than ever before have been able
to cast what we call a meaningful ballot, you know,
which is a ballot in election that's truly competitive in
which of their vote matters. And what that resulted in

(01:00:55):
Chuck is the State House and the state Senate now
have bipartisan governing majorities. It's not just one party that's
in charge. There's a coalition of members Democrats, Republicans, and
independents by the way, that are working together to address
the problems important to the state, most recently overriding a
governor's veto to increase education funding. And so Alaska has

(01:01:16):
been a success story of how better elections result in
better governance, and it's produced a backlash from those who
used to be in power and liked elections when it
only represented a handful of people, and so they've been
trying to repeal this system. They were unsuccessful in that.
Last year, a majority of voters in Alaska voted to
defend the system, and opponents are going to likely try

(01:01:38):
again next year. And I suspect that support for the
system is going to continue to grow over time, not
just because people in theory like the concept of the
freedom to vote for whomever they want, but now they're
getting real and better results from the system that they
voted in a few years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Did you think you were going to have to fight
multiple election years in Alaska to keep the system in place.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I don't think it's a surprise that every action has
an equal opposite reaction. There's the forces of trying to
make government better fighting against the forces that are trying
to protect the status quo. I think that the period
of defense is most important in the immediate years after
the adoption of reform, but that it gets better over
time because the new incumbents, there are those elected under

(01:02:24):
this system who actually like it and want to defend it.
And so it's not the legislature that's trying to repeal it, right,
it's a small faction of partisan activists that are.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
The other perception problem rank choice voting has, and I
say it's a perception problem because it obviously depends on
where you sit, is that it appears to have benefited
the center left more than it has benefited anybody on
the right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Well, I think the challenge that we saw in twenty
twenty two was that the candidates who were running the
two Republicans were late to adopt their campaign strategy to
this new system. So instead of telling voters vote for
me first and the other Republican second, they ran against
the system that the voters just adopted. And so without

(01:03:12):
that adoption of a new strategy to build broad coalitions.
A moderate Democrat, Mary Potola, you know, was able to
win that US House race. By the way, a couple
of years later, voters voted differently and the Republican now
represents that US House seat. So I do think that
there's this transition period in which the parties and the

(01:03:32):
politicians have to get smarter in how they campaign under
the new rules of the system, rather than campaigning under
what the old rules used to be.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
So that's Alaska. So you're likely having a is it
the same ball on initiative that the opponents are putting
up or are they rewarded.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
It they actually expanded what they're trying to repeal to
include repealing dark money disclosure requirements that were originally passed
in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Oh wow, that actually helps your cause. People don't like
dark money.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
People don't like dark money, and they don't like party primaries,
and they don't like plurality winners and elections, and so
opponents are trying to do something unpopular for the sake
of protecting, you know, what was their own political power.
And I'm confident that, you know, the system will continue
to endure and be a proof of concept that other
states could you know, potentially replicate. And that's what we

(01:04:24):
did see in last year's elections. You know, multiple other
states pursued ballot initiatives for an Alaska style kind of system,
and while none passed, three states came within three percentage
points of passing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
In a pretty to be honest, though, five years ago,
I thought all of those were going to get pass easily.
You know, I remember when we were first talking, and
you know, you're like, yeah, we got to do Nevada twice.
You were pretty you had you were kind of bullish
about Missouri, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, And it
did seem as if the opponents got savvier in pushing

(01:05:04):
back at you guys in Nevada and elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Well, what we're up against is the two party do
optly that wants to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Protect actually working with each other this one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
Right, It was the Democrats that spent over fifteen million
dollars against this in Alaska and Republicans who spent over
seven million in Montana to try and fight it, and
they would sort of weaponize the issue and say like, actually,
these reforms are about the stocking horse for the other party. Well,
they both can't be right when they're saying that, and
so we have work to do to build more early

(01:05:37):
and durable support among voters for these policies. We don't
need to convince anyone that our political system is broken.
What we do need to do is educate voters about
the benefits of these systems and why it is worth
a change. And as you know, the threshold of getting
a voter to vote yes on an initiative is much
harder than getting them to vote no, because you have
to kind of prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.

(01:05:59):
And I think that's the that's the task that you know,
we've signed up for and we're going to continue to
work on because the status quo is unacceptable and it's
leading us in a direction in which we're seeing our
politics unravel, you know, even further.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
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were in your shoes, I'd actually think that this is

(01:07:19):
about as opportunistic of a period of a year as
you can have. And when you think about the re
redistricting orders, it is taking you know, the issue of
political party manipulation and putting it right in the voter's face, right,
so you know, I throw that in there, you throw
in that the electorate that you're likely to get in

(01:07:42):
a midterm environment. Is an electorate that's going to be
more open to changes in the primary system. I think
the electric you would get in a mega induced environment.
I think we I think you know where I'm going there.
So what states do you expect to be on the
ballot in trying to do primary reform and is and
let me know and differentiate whether it'll be the top

(01:08:04):
four or it's just open primaries, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
There is a lot of activity happening in the movement
to reform our politics. There is litigation happening to open
close primaries in states like Maryland or Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I'm convinced there's an equal protection argument on this. I
do not the idea that that there is a poll
tax against me as an independent voter, and you're telling
me that the only way I could participate in a
taxpayer funded election is I have to join a private club.
I believe that's a poll tax. I don't see how

(01:08:41):
that's constitutional.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
It's certainly not in our belief under many state constitutions
that have even more protection for voter rights than maybe
the federal constitution. And so there's work happening on that
there's work happening in legislatures to at least open the
primaries to all voters. We saw earlier this year in
New Mexico, after a multi year campaign, there was a

(01:09:03):
bipartisan bill that passed to allow unaffiliated voters to start
to participate in party primaries starting next year, over three
hundred and thirty thousand of them. And then, of course
there is the ballot initiative pathway, and there's at least
two states where local groups are pursuing the top two
all candidate primary initiative. And that's in both Massachusetts and Oklahoma,

(01:09:25):
two very different states politically, but what they have in
common is that all of their congressional seats are decided
in the party primaries, and in Oklahoma those are closed
to unaffiliated voters. And so those are two states I
think to be watching for. And to your point, the
environment has never been more ripe because our political system
has never been more dysfunctional. We just emerged from the

(01:09:47):
longest government shutdown that we've seen in history, motivated by
in this case, democratic leaders who just want to fight.
I mean, that's what this has become. I mean the
of the year. The Oxford Dictionary new word is rage bait.
That's reflective of where our politics is. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
I'm still trying to understand how the word of the
year is two words.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
But that's a good question. But that's reflective of our politics,
which is it's about playing to the base. It's about
demonstrating the fight, not about solving problems. And that's why
this primary problem, the incentives, is behind so much of
the dysfunction that we see our inability to solve problems.
Another issue we can look at is immigration. As you know, Chuck,

(01:10:29):
a decade ago, there was a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform
bill that passed the Senate, it goes to the House.
Why does it fail? Well, the House majority leader was
primaried out of office that summer because he was open
to some compromise on this issue. And then here we
are a decade of pendulum politics. We had, you know,
effectively open borders under the Bided administration, and now we

(01:10:51):
have ice raids with even American citizens being snatched off
the streets under President Trump. People don't want these extra
dream policies that we've been seeing of late. They want
these issues to be addressed in a sensible way. That's
not going to happen until we change the incentives of
our political system.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
You and I go back, I think almost two decades now,
our mutual mentor the late Doug Bailey, and you know
you've been in this, You've been in this what I
call radical centrism, you know, movement for some time. I
use that phrase. I'm going to be a bit self
referential and name drop here. Bono called me a radical

(01:11:36):
centrist one time at a salon dinner that we were
at together, and I said, are you I'm going to
take it as a compliment. He says, Okay, he wasn't.
He goes, it's sort of a compliment. He goes, there's
sometimes that I wish you would take up this cause here,
this cause there. And I always say, I'm not a centrist.
I'm an incrementalist, meaning late are some things I'm on

(01:11:58):
the left and some things I'm on the right. But
I know that the only way to make change in
america's one step at a time. And I don't think
you try to do big things. You try to do
baby steps and eventually you get your hockey stick moment.
Why do you think it's been so hard to galvanize
the frustrated center in America.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Well, first I would, I would. I was also say
on this topic of what, you know, what is the
ideology of this movement that wants to make politics better?
I think centrism comes short in describing it because it
really is not about living in what many people view
as a mushy middle.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
It is about No, it's not about just everything's a compromise.
It's just that it's that's that's not what it is.
That's why I always say no, no, no, I'm an incrementalist.
You know, I empathize with your idea on here, let's
try with let's try one step.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, it's about also people that want to find common
grounds and no matter where you are in the political spectrum,
you can work with others to see what you have
in common to actually get something done. And that's how
the biggest, most durable change that we've seen as a
country work. When we look at the landmark pieces of
legislation that have passed the Congress, whether that was civil

(01:13:14):
rights or social security, or medicare or welfare reform and
a balanced budget, these things were votes of a majority
of both parties doing it together and to be sustainable,
not what we're seeing today. The promise of primary reform
is that for every state that adopts it, it effectively
liberates both senators and the representatives from those states from

(01:13:36):
being beholden to the base to being representative of the whole.
And so you don't need to win in all fifty states.
If we can abolish party primaries in ten states, that's
twenty US senators. It's a fifth of the Senate that
actually can have more leaders who are willing to work
with each other on issues of national importance. That's never
been more important for the country. When I think about

(01:13:58):
where we're at right now facing the rise of artificial intelligence.
Whether we get this right in terms of setting the
right rules for the road, having the right over set
in place, making the right investments, that's going to be
hugely consequential for our economy and national security in our society.
And if we don't have a representative Congress that can

(01:14:18):
do that, other countries will, or the corporations themselves will,
and we're all going to be worse off for it.
So whether we have a Congress that works affects us all,
and the reason why it doesn't today is not just
because of this partisan paralysis. It's because without competitive elections,
we wind up getting career politicians who stay in office
for way too long. We have a quarter of the

(01:14:40):
Congress that's over the retirement age, over a third of
the sentence above age seventy. It's how we get congressional
hearings where they're asking about tik tak instead of TikTok.
And these aren't the folks that we needed making the
decisions that are to affect maybe the biggest transformation our
economy and society, you know, going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
The biggest difficult I have. And I'll just speak for myself,
and I'm curious where you're where you are on this
what I'm about to bring up, which is I am
I am easily persuaded in the reform movement, right, I
think there's a lot of I'm I look at the

(01:15:21):
last sort of crisis moments in American history, and each
one of them came with serious periods of reform. You know,
after the Civil War, during the basically after the Gilded Age,
and the and the and the robber barons right after,
you know, during and after FDR, and you know, both

(01:15:42):
for good and for bad, right like when when, And
so I'm optimistic that we're about to hit one of
those periods that we know, look, we've got to do
something about the pardon power. We've got to do something.
You know, it's clear the Constitution is going to have
to deal with campaign finance issues because you can't do
it legislatively. And we've got to deal with age limits. Right,
I'm all for this age issue, but they're only you

(01:16:04):
have to do it in the Constitution. So the point
is is that I can be I'm almost like a
squirrel with this. I'm like, oh, I like that reform.
Oh yeah, I want to do this. There's a lot
of I've been you you go to these gatherings too.
I get invited to many of these sort of gatherings,
whether it's a fledgling third party movement, fledgling reform movement,

(01:16:26):
you know, those advocating a constitutional convention, the folks at
the Forward Party. You've got the World Open Primaries, which
is another organization that's working in a similar fashion. I
know there's a loose connectivity between these groups, right you guys,
you know, you're all rowing in the same direction, but
everybody has their own sort of lane in their own thing,

(01:16:49):
and maybe it's you already are biased that you have
got to start. Do you think you feel like there
is an order to the reform that's necessary here, that
you know, before we get to we've got to do why,
and before we get to why, we got to do z.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Well, I think two things are true. One is, we
have a beautiful system of federalism in our country, and
we can do this in an experimental way at the
state level. I mean, and that is the way that
these reforms have gotten done in the past and will today,
which is states can change these rules without an Act
of Congress or a constitutional amendment, and by virtue of

(01:17:25):
building momentum around reform, it will put more pressure on
Congress and potentially create an environment in which constitutional change
is possible. So I think the state by state route
is both a strategy and an opportunity to try different things.
And the second thing is I and we did not
start with primary reform as being our north star. We

(01:17:46):
got there through examining what sits at the center of
both what is most viable and could be most impactful.
And I do think that abolishing party primaries is the
biggest possible change that we can make right now that
can open the window for other potential changes down the road,

(01:18:08):
particularly changes that will require legislatures to do something, because
for them to do something on this issue, they need
to be more representative of the population who supports these
reforms than they are today. So I both support an
experimental approach to this and we support primary reform for
a very particular reason, which I do think it is
the most solvable problem right now.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Well, and that's the key, which is what's a problem
you could solve first? And I think there's no doubt
about that. This feels like a you know again, I
called myself an incrementalist. This is an incremental step that
could actually, you know, open the door to a whole
bunch more of ideas. Do you find yourself frustrated that

(01:18:50):
other reform minded folks don't see this as the core problem?

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
I think I was frustrated in year one when more,
you know, or year two, when we're back at the
same table and arguing no this one, no this one,
and realize, like we're thirty people in the room, there's
three hundred and fifty million people out there. Those are
the folks that we need to be kind of talking to.
And so my orientation changed, like this is a positive
sum approach to a movement. You know, when you look
at the environmental movement or other movements, there's not just

(01:19:17):
one policy that they're behind. It's a diversified approach, including
what could be done on the state or federal level.
And so it doesn't frustrate me that there are multiple
potential pathways to making our democracy better. The thing that's
frustrating to me is around apathy or defense of the
status quo, because can anyone look around today and say, oh, no,

(01:19:40):
this is actually fine and we're moving in an okayed direction.
If you can't, then choose something, choose one of these
things to be for and get behind it, because I
don't think the path that we're on, you know, is sustainable.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
What's been You know, there's a lot of statistics that
show that the the youngest voting generation is not registering
D or R. The registering is I or no party affiliation.
So in theory, this should be the core of the
activists that you're able to recruit to make this change.

(01:20:16):
Are you making some inroads? Is this something that can
be turned into a something that's galvanizable with the college crowd.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
I do believe that. And what we saw last year
was that the number one predictor for voters that would
support election reform at the ballot was not by party affiliation,
It was really by age. Younger voters disproportionately in favor
of changes to a political system they've only known has
been broken. An older voter is sort of more hesitant
around any potential changes to a system they've known the

(01:20:47):
same way while all of their lives. And that's good news,
because young voters become all voters and just a question
of time. And so I think time is a really
important lever here when you look back as your reference
before or to the progressive era, when we got major
reforms down the women won the right to vote, the
direct election of the Senate, banning of corporate campaign contributions,

(01:21:10):
income tax, the big party primaries.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
People don't realize the income tax amendment was important because
it also helped create the property tax structure in America,
which is, you know how we fund so many local services.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
And that didn't happen in just a couple of years.
That was a thirty year period of time. And so
when I think about, oh, Alaska won this transformational reform
four years ago. It suggests to me we're at the
beginning of a very exciting decade plus era of reform
in reaction to you know, historic levels of polarization and partisanship.

(01:21:46):
The country knows is just not working for them right now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
You know, we've sort of danced around this issue, but
the biggest opponent to everything you're trying to do is
the duopoly, and it's you know, the Democrats in party,
in the Republican Party doesn't really work together on anything
other than this right, which is sort of protecting their
status at the ballot. You can sometimes win over local

(01:22:15):
members of a party or local party organizations if they're
in a state where they've been marginalized. But I imagine donors
are hard to come by because a donor usually is
a partisan right. They usually are passionate about something. Is

(01:22:35):
it hard to find people passionate in the very wealthy
space about reform.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
But unit in America over the years is built across
partisan community. Now over one hundred and twenty what we
call political philanthropists, and many of them have not traditionally
been partisan donors, investing in politics for a partisan outcome.
That's fine. But there's been a lot a lot of
people who have come into this movement because their interest

(01:23:05):
is not trying to elect or oppose one political party
or another. It's about people who have been philanthropically mind
who care about an issue, that knows we're not going
to make progress on that issue, but for government being
able to be functional and representative of the electorate. So
I would say it's a different profile oftentimes of a
donor that gets involved in this space, and from across

(01:23:29):
the political spectrum as well. It's really interesting in this work,
not just at our team or board level, but also
in the donor community of people that may not agree
a lot on particular candidates or particular policies, but we
do agree that government should represent a true majority of Americans.
And then let's have the argument once we have a
government that can represent us.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
I know you said in a few states where there's
not a referendum option that you're trying to work in
the state legislature, obviously you have to go with the
lowest common denominator. Stuff is it? Is it simply allowing
independence in primaries? That's about the about the best you
can hope for in convincing a legislature to do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Something in the near term. I do think that legislatories
will take more time to bring along to more ambitious reforms.
But let's remember that California adopted its all candidate primary
system by legislative referral, so some states legislators might be
willing to at least put it on the ballot. It
takes leadership, though Governor Schwarzenegger was instrumental, you know, in

(01:24:34):
that campaign. And when I look at incoming governors like
an Abigail Spanberger who serves in you know, have one term,
there's in Virginia. Maybe this is something that schol champion
is part of her legacy there to say this will
be good for the commonwealth out into the future. Let's
get this done. I think when we have executive leadership
that leans into the issue, legislatures may be more likely

(01:24:57):
to follow.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Look, I mean, I'm just ecstatic that is a Virginia voter.
I don't have to register by party, and I at
least get a choice what primary, you know, and I
always just find the competitive primary and I vote in it.
So I you know, Virginia is a place where where
you feel like no matter where what your ideological stripe
is you at least have some say in the conversation.

(01:25:28):
But Virginia may also repeal a constitutional amendment on redistricting
reform in a couple of months, and California just did it.
And I look at what happened there. There was real
momentum on redistricting reform just four or five years ago.
And I would bet frankly that movement had more momentum
than your movement. Did.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
We were part of that, actually, yeah for.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
Me, but it had a and and it's amazing how
that flipped that quickly. Are you at all I mean,
are you at all demoralized at how people who are
reformers are going? Yeah? But on this, I mean I
just have struggled, you know. And I've had this debate

(01:26:10):
with friends out in California. I said, look, I just
don't understand why if disenfranchising voters in Texas is bad,
why is the answer disenfranchising voters in California.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
I'm with you. I think fighting fire with fire means
everything just burns down. So it was not in favor
of what California.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Is a good expression.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
However, a fair way the instinct which is that I
get it, I get it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
And I also think it's important to bring it back
to why it's happening When Texas redistricted, when Missouri followed suit,
and now there's pressure in Indiana. It's because the president
right now is weaponizing the primary system to get it done.
When he goes sweeps into a state, it is get this,
find me five more seats, or I'm going to primary

(01:26:55):
you in your next election. So I think it's important
we connect the dots to the political incentives piece, which
is how primaries can be weaponized not just to push
people to the extremes, but to push them to do
undemocratic things to consolidate power. The opposite is true as well,
or the other side of the coin, which is that
if we didn't have party primaries, this challenge of safe

(01:27:18):
districts or districts that are heavily lapside would matter less
check because there would be more competition in the general
election if we advanced more than two candidates rather than
what it is you know right now. And so I
think the answer to go ahead and create a partisan primaries. Right,
go ahead and create a partisan plus twenty district in California.

(01:27:40):
At least there'll be a top two in the same
party and then they fight over you know, you know,
left versus center. I mean, I always thought Berman Sherman
was the first one of these, and it was Howard
Berman and Brad Sherman. They got redistricted into the same
thing together and they both advanced to the they were
in the top to and so.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
It was a D on D general election. And I
remember the dividing issue was actually tart at the time,
and one of them had been you know, voted against it,
one of them voted for it. And then essentially they
were wooing the third of Republicans that were in their district. Right,
they were both Democrats, and there was a third of
Republicans that were the swing voter. And I thought, boy,

(01:28:22):
that could really if we could have that system everywhere where,
at any point in time, even if you're in the minority,
your vote could be the swing vote. You get to
decide do I want, you know, do I want a
libertarian conservative or do I want a evangelical conservative? Right,

(01:28:44):
if that's the two choices, well, I you know, it
may not like either, but I have a preference of
which I want less, you know exactly, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
You think about it. The midterm elections that we're going
to go into in ninety percent of the districts, these
elections are over before people show up in November, and
their vote, if they cast, it really doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
We're one hundred and ten million, you know, I think
we'll get one hundred and ten million midterm voters. Maybe
one hundred and fifteen. It's turnout. It's been amazing in
the Trump era again.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
Maybe there'll be thirty five congressional seats decided by ten
points or less out of four hundred and thirty five maybe, right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
So that's tens of millions of people, you know, who
is A vote effectively does not matter. It's impooring people vote,
but on participation without competition does not result in representation.
If we want your vote to matter, you have to
have a choice that is real. And so the idea
that in red districts you get to choose what kind

(01:29:47):
of Republican you want, during blue districts, what kind of
Democrat you want in the general election, is much better
than showing up to an election that's already been you know, decided.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
You know, it's funny. I grew up growing up in Miami,
up in the seventies and eighties, and I remember my
dad was a Republican Conservative, but he was a registered Democrat,
and I remember asking him, I said, why are you
Originally he says, well, there's no Republicans down here because
at the time the South, this was back in the seventies,
every politician in the South, everybody was a Democrat, but

(01:30:18):
half the Democrats were really Republicans. But all the local offices,
he said, if I want to have to say in
local primaries, you know I got to vote. So in
some ways, conservatives, older conservatives in the South have actually
been participating in primaries this way for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
I mean, it all boils down to the idea that
every American should have the freedom to vote fro whenever
they want and every taxpayer funded election period. Right seventy
eighty percent of voters, regardless of party, believe in that.
In addition, though to the attacks on redistricting, what we're
also seeing in nine states right now is attempts by

(01:30:56):
legislators to close the primaries and actually start to register
voters by party in order to do so. That is
extremely unpopular. I mean, we just released a poll today
from Republican polster in Texas that found two thirds of
Republican primary voters support the current system. They like to
have the freedom to vote. They don't like the idea
of government overreach and starting to have to register publicly

(01:31:18):
what party you're from. So these attempts are driven by insiders,
driven by extreme factions. What they're trying to do is unpopular,
and that's one of the reasons why you Know in
America is working hard in these states to defend the
current system from going backwards. And what we have found
is that our allies in this in many cases are
Republican legislative leaders who know that not only is this

(01:31:41):
bad for America, it's bad for their party. When the
largest and fastest growing part of the electorate are those
that don't belong to either party, How can you expect
to win those voters over if you're kicking them out
of the process in which you're choosing your candidates. And
so it really is, you know, courageous Republican leaders in
many of these states that are standing up to forces

(01:32:01):
within their own party that want to close elections to
create more pure ideological purity that might wind up costing
them elections.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
Is there a good privacy argument. I mean, you know,
I don't want to have to join one of these
two clubs. Don't make me join a club. I want
the privacy of keeping my you know, I may lean
one way or the other, but I'd prefer the government
and anybody that checks my voter registration to just see
I'm a registered voter period. I don't think you should

(01:32:31):
know my politics. Now. You may learn it over time,
but I don't want to have to identify. I mean,
it's sort of a strange thing that government is making
people do this in a quote unquote democracy percent.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
I mean, we adopted the secret ballot a century ago
to give people privacy over their right to vote. In
many states, however, we force people to register publicly with
a political party. Go in some database, I can see
what party you belong too. In many states don't have
this system today, and that's what those those states are

(01:33:06):
trying to change. And I agree with you that it's
an invasion of privacy, particularly in an era of politics
in which one's party affiliation can be used against them.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
No, it gets weaponized culturally, it can be weaponized at
your job, it can do this. I mean, you know
the local part well, the local Democratic Party here in
Arlington County if you want to participate in some of
the county primaries, because Virginia, each county can sort of
party can decide how they want to do it. So
they don't have party primaries, they don't have taxpayer fund

(01:33:35):
of primaries, but they do have their own party primary
and you have to sign a pledge if you want
to participate in it, and I just won't do that.
I know the pledge is meaningless, but I kind of feel,
you know, but I don't think they have the right
to ask that right now. It is a privately funded
election that they run, so okay, it's a private organization.

(01:33:56):
They can have that say. So I just don't particip in.
I won't justicipad in because there're sometimes the Republicans have
gone off and on about doing the same thing where
they make you sign an oath because there isn't a
there isn't party registration in this state. So let me
shift in our last few minutes here to the other

(01:34:18):
areas of reform to focus on. So I agree with you.
I think primaries number one are sort of easy to
communicate to people that it's a problem, right, it's a
we're polarized. Hey, it's this primary issue. People get it,
So I'm with you. I think it is the good
first reform to focus on what's next. What's two, three,

(01:34:38):
and four in your head? I think it's a good question.
I think we need to do something on campaign finance.
It's a salient issue for most voters. They don't like
the idea of special interests or wealthy interests having disproportionate
say in our political system. That will likely require a
constitutional amendment. There's something the other number two when you

(01:35:00):
ask people what's wrong with politics today ones money in politics.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
The next is career politicians. And I think there is
something to do with age limits and term limits to
make sure that we have a Congress that can reasonably
turn over with time and remain both nimble to the
issues of the day, you know, and representative of people. Again,
those may require amendments, so those are harder, you know, lifts.

(01:35:24):
I'm also frankly interested in what may not be a
reform that requires a change in law or state constitutions.
But how do we think about other ways we do
democracy outside of an electoral context, And there's a growing
movement around deliberative democracy. And citizen assemblies, which are essentially
randomly assembled groups of citizens that can deliberate on issues

(01:35:48):
and make recommendations to government. I think they're interesting ways
where they can actually be integrated into the government, like.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
A jury pool, but instead of for deciding somebody's guilt
or innocence. Okay, Arlington County is going to do a
random jury of one hundred citizens because we want to
decide whether we want to put bike lanes.

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
Everywhere, right, yeah, I mean, and this goes back to
Athenian democracy. I mean, this is not a new idea.
This is actually how democracy was done in the very
early days, and.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
The idea it's what Datokville loved about our democracy. It
was how local it was and how engaged we were
at the township level.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
And I think it's gonna be even more important as
our information ecosystem is transformed and in many ways polluted
and distorted by artificial intelligence. How do we protect the
spaces in which democracy can be done.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
So mean, this intrigues me is who's trying this? Any
community out there trying this?

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
There are local communities in fact here in Montrose, Colorado
and for Collins have done citizen assemblies there have been.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
How does it work? Give me an example of how
the citizen assembly work. Poor columns especially.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
People will approach in different ways. The sort of ideal
way is a process of what they call sortition, which
is random selection of citizens. They are incentivized for participation,
like compensated for their time, but they might meet a
few times on a weekend over the course of a
few weeks. They're presented with information and arguments from different

(01:37:23):
perspectives on an issue, and then they deliberate in a
facilitated way together to render a particular you know, recommendation
or perspective that then say, goes to the city council
and so binding. No, although it could be set up
in a binding way, but right now many of the
ones that are being done are advisory, you know in nature.

(01:37:46):
I think there are interesting ways in which may be
integrated into the citizen initiative process itself. We can use
CITIS assemblies to determine what gets to go to the ballot.
I mean, it's just it's an improvement in what direct
democracy you know, can look like. So I'd say like
over the next decade plus, there's going to be needs
to reimagine what democracy looks like. I mean, we're coming

(01:38:07):
up on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary as a country.
We've gotten here. I think by continuing to look at
and innovate and improve the way that we can self
govern and we need to be responsive to the times.
And so whether it's these election reforms or citizen assemblies,
the idea is that we need to keep democracy fresh
to keep it working.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
I'll tell you I would. I would. I've always thought
about this, and you know, I joke that if you
live in the state of New Hampshire for more than
ten years, you're going to end up in the state
legislature at some point when you have a four hundred
members state House. But I used to think, what if
that were just a four hundred random people that were
selected to be in the you know, and then you

(01:38:51):
brought them together just like you would a jury, and Okay,
this is the legislature. We're going to compensate you for
your time. You're the citizen legislature for the leg Any. Look,
if you feel like any, you vet them, maybe you
know certain people can't serve, and you know whatever, you
can come up with some criteria, but compulsory representation is

(01:39:12):
something that I've actually been curious about, where you basically, Okay, yeah,
once every twenty years, I got to sit on the
city council, you know, once every twenty twenty years, I
got to do six months. I got to do six
weeks at the state capitol. You know. I think we

(01:39:33):
would get better. I think we would certainly get outcomes
that were more reflective of the population.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
I mean, if you put in a poll right now
and ask most Americans, would you rather keep the five
hundred and thirty five leaders we currently have in Congress
or do a lottery and try out something new for
a couple of years. I'd be interested in how to
come back. But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot
of people would be open to trying something a bit new.
And this model, like you said, it is not a
foreign concept. Juries make life or death decisions. Surely they

(01:40:05):
are also capable of informing what our marginal tax rate
could be.

Speaker 1 (01:40:10):
Now you look at it, it feels like there are
a couple of rural states that would be more open
to trying this first, you know, And it could be
interesting whether it's a you could see easily see one
of the new England states being open to this concept.
I mean, the New Hampshire State House can be such
a pain in the ass with how many specials, you know,

(01:40:30):
we have foreigner members. There's always somebody who's you know,
can't do it, or can't go or this or that.
If you told me they transition to something like this
in twenty years would shock me.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
By the way. The pathway that many of these reforms
take at the state level is through the initiative process,
where citizens get to decide this and shape their own
government directly, and that process needs to be protected. It
is under attack in many states right now by legislatures
that are trying to increase the threshold of what it

(01:41:03):
takes to pass the ballot initiative to make it harder
to qualify. So I think everyone who cares about democracy,
and especially in the reform movement, ought to be working
together to make sure that we protect and improve the
citizen initiative process. There will be initiatives on the ballot
next November that will both attempt to make things worse
that we need to defeat, and a couple of states

(01:41:25):
actually innovating with constitutional protections of the initiative process so
that legislatures can't undo them in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
I scared Jack dan Forth on the idea of a
constitutional convention. He fears it that you know that, you
know it implies that we're scrapping the Constitution. And he's like,
I love our constitution, we just need to amend it.
And I'm like, well, it's a gathering to basically consider amendments,
is what I'm what I'm advocating, But not everybody is.

(01:41:53):
There's always when when you throw the idea out there,
it's more folks on the left who are skeptical of
it these days than folks the right. And in fact,
at Clinton won in ninety six, I think it was
Greg Abbott at the time as governor of Texas was
basically wanting to to lead a movement of states to
call for a constitutional convention. And you know, had Clinton

(01:42:15):
one in sixteen, that might have been what the right
would have focused on. It might have been an interesting exercise.
But you think it would Is that a fool's errand
in your mind? Or is it something that whose time
might might be now?

Speaker 2 (01:42:32):
I think the time was before now for a convention
to re examine some of the not principles of our
constitutional design are checks and balances our separation powers. But
the structures, I mean, whether you believe there ought to
be an electoral college or not, no one can argue
that it's functioning in the way the founders designed it.

(01:42:55):
So what does it look like to improve and modernize it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:57):
That Well, I got a simple solution to that. Double
the size. Go back to increasing the size of the
House every ten years, and then your electoral college and
your popular vote will no longer I mean right now
every four years, the likelihood of a split decision between
the electoral college and the popular vote is more likely,
not less likely, because we have not expanded the numerator

(01:43:23):
of the electoral vote of the electoral college. And if
we double the size of the House, I promise you
nobody'd be complaining about the electoral college.

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
As you know, what people fear about a convention? Is
it the runaway convention? Will they do something to radically
But we're skipped. But those critics forget there's a ratification process. Whatever.
The practician comes up quite high.

Speaker 1 (01:43:46):
Yes, right, you don't fear the voter.

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
Yeah, I don't think we should fear it. I think
we need to treat it seriously. Be cautious and smart
about it and embrace it as a tool the founders
gave us to sure that we can continue to endure
as a representative republic for centuries to come.

Speaker 1 (01:44:07):
Why isn't someone trying to be the leader in convening this.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
I think that there's this sort of psychological barrier about
whether constitutional change is possible. It's been what thirty years
since the last amendment, you know past, But I think
pressure is going to build, especially because of how if
power continues to consolidate in the way that it does,
if the initiative process deteriorates, then the other levers we

(01:44:33):
have to make change become harder, and I think people
may view this other pathways becoming increasingly necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
Yeah, it's been I just feel like that the I
think that there's agreement with this, but in some ways
you have to have a leader right to galvanize people
to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
Well, your next project, Chuck.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Oh man, We've all got a lot of projects. Right.
Let me get you on this. You ran for office
once before, you still have the itch.

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Not under today's party primary system. I can tell you that.

Speaker 1 (01:45:08):
No, you live in Colorado, it's the least partisan or
the least primary impact. I mean, certainly primaries have some
certainly or but it's less so, right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
Yeah, Although I think Colorado is heading in the direction
of many other places where the primary sism is causing
our state to become a lot more partisan. It's one
of the states that we can tine to work on
for form. But we'll say having had the experience of
running for office early on was good in being grounded
and how voters actually think about democracy and elections, not
just an academic perspective on this. And I feel grateful

(01:45:42):
to be in a role right now to make the
biggest impact I can that can impact how people who
runs and how they govern and at scale.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
You ran as an independent, So let me get you
out of here actually on this topic, which is what
do you think Mike Duggan is running into right now?
Running is independent in Michigan? That he expect that you
would have been able to tell him how he asked
you that, Oh yeah, this is how many voters view
third party candidates are independent.

Speaker 2 (01:46:10):
Yeah, be wary of the early polls that show voters
would like the idea of an independent.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
And looks really good at first, doesn't it exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:46:18):
But I think the most important thing for any independent
is to achieve escape velocity, which is to say, you
have to be able to prove that you are viable
before voters really start paying attention and ask if you
are and that happens well before election day. So unlike
the traditional playbook where you spend most of your resources
in the last ninety days, you know your November election

(01:46:39):
is actually months earlier because you have to be interesting
that you can be a.

Speaker 1 (01:46:44):
What does that look like being showing up in the
conventional places that other candidates do? Is it money? What
is it that you think? And I know this is
a bit subjective, but generally, what do you think that
voters are looking for to decide, oh, you're legitimate.

Speaker 2 (01:47:03):
I think in the past, the houristic would be like
traditional media coverage, the press taking you seriously when you
get a debetia are you as the what are you
pulling at? But today I think that's changing because the
metric that probably matters most in our politics is attention.
Are you getting attention? Am I hearing from you? Are
you breaking through? I think that works in the favor
of independent candidates the extent that there are a fewer

(01:47:23):
gatekeepers that are saying, whether you're credible or not, but
you can reach voters directly in a more democratized way
than ever has been the case. I'm hoping that we
might see a couple of these candidates actually break through
what has been that glass ceiling and then show that
it's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
Nick Treada, you always give me a little more. Hope
your your glasses have full on this.

Speaker 2 (01:47:46):
Reform movement, aren't you yntinue to stick there? There's no
other choice, so let's get it done.

Speaker 1 (01:47:52):
Right, There's only forward, right, there's there's my friends at
a certain third party like to say, you know, we
only have one choice. You have to move forward. Thank you,
Jo great stock with me. Well, I hope you enjoyed

(01:48:12):
that conversation. Look, I don't care where you are, left,
right or center. It doesn't make sense for our our
our democracy to somehow lock people out of our You know,
we don't know where we live, We don't know whether
we're going to have a Republican in charge or a
Democratic Democrat in charge. We should have us say and

(01:48:33):
who gets into these general elections across the board. It
is odd to me that we have just accepted this
premise that you have to join a private organization in
order to participate in many states in a taxpayer funded election.
We need some We need some better lawyering out there
on this front, all right, We need some better lawyering, because,

(01:48:55):
trust me, there's a lot of equal protection arguments that
I think should be made on this front. All right,
it's time to jump into the time machine. We're going
to go back to December seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, a

(01:49:16):
young Chuck Todd was a senior in high school. In
case you were wondering what I was doing, December seventeenth,
nineteen eighty nine, it was the debut of an animated
series for adults called The Simpsons. And who knew what

(01:49:36):
kind of impact is? I would argue, bigger than Saturday
Night Live, Bigger than Meet the Press, right, sort of
the launch Sunday Affairs conversations, right in some ways before
it was the first place you ever had back and
forth on politics in a first radio and televised arena.

(01:49:56):
We had Saturday Night Live sort of the king of parody,
and then there the Simpsons. And in some ways the
Simpsons are probably is important of a participant into the
changing ways that we satirized politics than any other program
that has been launched in the last in the history

(01:50:16):
of television. So that's the subject of my time machine
history lesson of the Day. How the Simpsons rewired politics,
media and animation. And it all started December seventeen, nineteen
eighty nine. It was a Christmas special. I remember it
was a short on The Tracy Omens Show back in
the day, but this Christmas special aired on Fox and

(01:50:38):
it looked loud, rough and kind of disposable. Right, thirty
five years later, that cartoon hasn't just outlasted its peers,
it's outlasted entire media eras Right. The Simpsons didn't just
mock American politics, that's easy. What they did is they
reshaped Americans understand power, persuasion, and performance, and in the

(01:50:58):
process they what animation itself can be. And what I
loved about what the Simpsons did is they did it look.
Was there a social socially liberal lean to the show, sure,
but it was not necessarily a liberal show or a
conservative show. In many ways, really mocked process and it

(01:51:20):
was really good at surfacing hypocrisy and surfacing the absurdity
of the professionalization of politics, and in fact one of
the early ways they did it. And I want to
pop through a few shows that I think where they
really were brilliant and what they did. And when you
watch these shows today, you're think, oh, I've seen this
in other places, But at the time, nobody had ever

(01:51:41):
done this before. So Burns for Governor. When Moni Burns
ran for governor, the Simpsons showcased in the pop culture
area that something that we political reporters already knew, we
political junkies already knew that campaigns were a business. The
episode two cars in every garage and three eyes on
every fish, burn earns he doesn't just run for governor

(01:52:02):
because he believes in anything. He runs because regulation threatens him.
That's why he decides he wants to run for office.
The telling moment isn't the mutant fish. It's when Burns
instructs Smithers to assemble a campaign operation the way a
CEO would assemble a management team. And so for the
wider world, they understood, give me a pollster, a media handler,
speech writer, an image consultant, and the episode showcase that

(01:52:25):
Burns understood something essential. Campaigns aren't moral arguments. They're simply
logistical ones. Now he loses not because voters rejected his policies,
but because he fails to convincingly perform as a relatable figure. Right,
he won't eat the fish. It's a lesson that campaigns
still learn relearn every cycle. Another episode that I thought

(01:52:45):
did a good job at sort of mocking government and
politics the monorail episode and the use of Broadway to
explain infrastructure failure. The episode Marge versus the Monoail endures
because it understands persuasion better than most policy memos do.
The episode is a deliberate homage to the music band
Monorel Monreel. Sorry Lyle Lanley is Harold Hill selling civic

(01:53:06):
fantasy through charming song. Well, the Monorail isn't about transportation,
it was simply about identity. Springfield doesn't choose the mono
rail because it's efficient. I don't think they really needed one.
They choose it because it made them feel important. That's
how it was sold to them. In some ways, what
it was mocking were all the smaller cities that were
getting talked into debt financing arenas and other sort of

(01:53:28):
supposedly public arenas or entertainment complexes or concert halls, but
they were really about just helping a private entity make money.
The episode's genius, in some ways was showing that democracy
can be overwhelmed by spectacle, not ignorance, and mister and
mister Lisa goes to Washington. It remained one of the

(01:53:49):
smarter portrayals of civic education that we've had on television.
Lisa's faith in democracy is shaken, but it's not destroyed.
The system works barely because exposure still has power. Sometimes
the episode frequently is cited an academic work, believe it
or not, because it models critical citizenship skepticism without disengagement.
It goes back to the essay I had at the

(01:54:10):
beginning of this episode, right, don't give up. Even when
you think the system is rigged and it's messy and
it's ugly, there are still ways that you can make
the system work. Then, of course, there was sideshow Bob
Roberts good homage to that mockumentary back in the day.
That show went further side show Bob riggs an election,
it's revealed and he wins. Anyway, sound familiar. Episode predicts

(01:54:35):
scandal fatigue, the idea that information alone no longer guarantees accountability. Unfortunately,
that was something that I think when people watched it
at the time. Oh no, that wouldn't really happen. Let's
just say the episode has aged uncomfortably well. Trash of
the Titans populism, deferred costs, or moral hatcher. Trash of

(01:54:55):
the Titans is local politics done brutally right. Homer runs
for Senate Commissioner, promising more services, less effort, and no responsibility.
His slogan, can't someone else do it? It isn't laziness,
it is actually resentment. Once elected, Homer delivers exactly what
he promised, and the system collapses under the weight of
deferred costs. Right, the most revealing moment isn't the failure,

(01:55:18):
it's the response. Springfield exports its garbage to another town.
The episode captures a timeless political truth. When costs are
delayed or displaced, accountability totally evaporates. Look, it was. One
thing about The Simpsons is after a while their success
at mocking actually made it where politicians wanted to be

(01:55:43):
seen as on the side of the Simpsons, that on
the side of the reasonable people, that they weren't the
crazy runs. And you've had all sorts of people who
have participate let their voice. Barack Obama, I think Joe
Biden did once Outdore Rush Limbaugh, did I believe you've
had The George hw Bush episode when he moves across

(01:56:05):
the street from Homer is really well done and it
is almost, in some ways an homage hw Bush. So
it is. It was proof and certainly plenty of media
figures participated over the years Springfield became a legitimate public square. Then,
of course there's the impact that the Simpsons had on
what we all watched today. Right. I know, I'm a

(01:56:26):
fan of a lot of adult animation these days, and
we have the Simpsons to thank, right, think about it,
Before the Simpsons animation in America simply meant kids. After
the Simpsons animation meant tone and not age, right, And
what we all figured out was it was easier to
see an animated figure tell us an uncomfortable truth that
a real person telling us an uncomfortable truth. Right. Without

(01:56:49):
the Simpsons, we wouldn't have had King of the Hill,
South Park, Family, Guy, Futurama, Archer, BoJack, Horseman, Rick and Morty.
I know I'm leaving a bunch out. You want to
tell me your favorite you want to tell me what
you think the Simpsons did to impact political culture. I'd
love to hear from you. And then, of course, there's
one of my favorite homages to the Simpsons. Two thousand

(01:57:10):
and two, South Park aired an entire episode that might
be the most honest tribute of them all. It was
called Simpsons Did It. And the premise was simple. Every
idea of the South Park writers were trying to come
up with had already been done by the Simpsons. And
the whole punchline of the episode is over and over
again character shout out Simpsons did It. It wasn't being
a mockery, it was simply acknowledgment. It was clear our

(01:57:32):
friends at South Park probably had writer's block that week,
and it may be why they went to decide to
just stick to parroting in the moment stuff on that front.
But that episode captured something every creator understands. The Simpsons
didn't just open the door. They mapped the room right
and they and they allowed so many other creators to
come in and have their own version of this in

(01:57:54):
their own take an entire generation of writers to find
the boundaries of what animated storytelling could do politically, culturally,
and emotionally. So the Simpsons still kicking. They didn't just
survive history, They've explained it. They taught audiences how to
spot performative leadership, civic spectacle, deferred accountability, media driven politics,

(01:58:17):
and they did it while teaching animation how to grow up.
So that's why the show still matters. And somewhere creator
is still pitching an idea, only to hear a familiar
voice in the room say, Simpsons did it? All right,
let's get into a little ask Chuck, Ask Chuck. We're
going to do. Here's my promise to you. Some of

(01:58:38):
you probably been wondering, Hey, I threw a question in
here a while ago. How come you haven't dealt with it?
I thought it was a pretty good question. Well, I'm
going to have an entire episode where I'm just answering
questions and trying to play catch up a little bit.
That'll happen in a couple of weeks. And yes, if
you want to chalk it up to oh, it's the holidays,

(01:58:58):
but yes, okay, it's going to be new content. I
promise it is not. It is not me just trying
to well, it is me trying to have a couple
of days off. I'm not going to lie about that,
but it will be timely and it will be useful,
I promise. But let me get in here. Get three
or four questions in the here. First one comes from
Tiffany and she writes, did Adam Schiff hurt or help

(01:59:19):
Mandela Barnes by endorsing him for Wisconsin Governor? I live
in Wisconsin. I have voted Republican until twenty eighteen. I
think there are a lot of people like me politically
in Wisconsin. I don't know that anyone in Wisconsin will
appreciate endorsement from California. Also, recent history shows that big
endorsements from the Republican Party fail in Wisconsin. It seems
a little out of touch for the Democrats to do
big endorsements like this, thoughts, thank you Tiffany well Tifically,
There's one simple reason why an Adam why a Mandela

(01:59:43):
Barnes would consider an Adam Schiff endorsement meaningful or helpful
to him, and that is that Adam Schiff has one
of the most lucrative emailress of fundraising lists in the country. One,
he's from the largest state, particularly the largest liberal state,
in California. Two by being the face of impeachment, he

(02:00:07):
build a massive donor list, then being attacked by Donald
Trump constantly has only served to make that donor list
more active, more viable. So you are right. I don't
think anybody, any Wisconsin voter is going to be moved
by the endorsement. And if Mandela Barnes actually puts uses
Adam Shift's endorsement and paid media, he'd be a fool.

(02:00:31):
No offense to Adam Shift. But I don't think any
make cares. I think you're absolutely right. But if you're
wondering why why does this endorsement mean something to Mandela
Barnes to Ching to Ching to Ching to Jing. It
is access to that email list, That's what it is.
And Adam Shift probably only only president Presidential nominees probably

(02:00:56):
have bigger and more interesting level like Kamala Harris's list
that she controls was going to be a good one,
but Adam Shift is probably the single best left leaning
fundraising list in America. That is not that for somebody
who never ran for president. He's just all the ingredients
are there, the impeachment, the attacks from Trump's and being

(02:01:17):
from California, you throw all that in there. That was
why Mandela Barnes wanted that endorsement, and why the endorsement
matters to him. It is not intended to try to
persuade you, and in fact, it sounds like that that
stuff might actually dissuade you. And I think in some
ways some of these endorse I don't think. I don't
think endorsements matter unless they bring you something else. And

(02:01:38):
in this case, what he's looking for is just access
to grassroots dollars, and Adam Shift probably has the single
best fundraising list there is. Alright, let me go to
next question comes from Max w Hey, Chuck and Chris
ah Hey, Solissa, you're not answering your mail bag, so
I'm gonna have to answer your leftovers here. Max w. Rights,
I posted this as a comment for Chris Silia's mail

(02:01:59):
bag already, but I want to suggest again what I
think is a great wager. Oh on the Aggies versus
Kane's matchup, loser shaves his head. Why are we doing this?
No shaving of heads or goatee's or anything like this,
But okay, let me listen, he goes. It's don monetary
demonstrates actual commitment to the schools you both support. I've
made a few loser shaves bets in my day, and
I'll be honest, I've never felt more invested in a result.

(02:02:20):
Maybe Reginald could handle the Clippers well if you know,
you know, but you'd better get them to him before
he hits the Johnny Walker blue things. I will I have.
I'm one time let Tapper, Jake Tapper talk me into
a This was back Philly's Dodgers Serica twenty thirteen, twenty
twelve NLCS, maybe twenty fourteen NLCS. I'm just trying to

(02:02:43):
remember when the Dodgers were, you know, still hadn't quite
gotten broken through. They were still still you know, thinking,
you know, they were still believing Matt Kemp was the
best player they could sign. Right. They weren't quite the
Dodgers yet. They hadn't been big the juggernaut that they
had become. And the Phillies were pretty good juggernaut that

(02:03:04):
team that was the sort of the last gasp of
Ryan Howard in that crowd. And Tapper wanted to create
some social media fun and he wanted to make it
he was going to grow and I was going to
shave one. I never agreed to the bet, but he
tried to social media bully me about it anyway, So

(02:03:26):
no I I lost and made a nice sizeable contribution
to the charity of his choice. Look now, I will
say this, I'm probably more comfortable trying to shave my
head now that I would have been ten years ago,
because as you could see, it is thinning, and maybe

(02:03:47):
you know, my only fear is if I totally do it,
what happens if it, even this doesn't come back, right
the fear us middle aged men have about what what
if it doesn't come back? I was watching a basketball
game over the weekend. The GWA Revolutionaries were in the
in the Orange Bowl, this Orange Bowl tournament down in

(02:04:08):
Fort Lauderdale. We were playing GW was playing Florida. I
think they hung held pretty well, they'd hit their free throws.
They might have won that game. I think it was
a pretty good test that you know, GW, I think
is a mid major that may make a strong case
to get into the NCAA tournament. But the other game

(02:04:28):
was UMass versus Florida State. And UMass is coached by
a Miami native named Frank Martin. He was the guy
that took South Carolina. Well he's gone full head shave,
and he looks great. I mean, kudos to him. I
would not have thought that he would have done the
c ball thing very well. He does it well. He
looks good, just as menacing. I'd still be afraid of
him coaching a team on the other side, but it

(02:04:52):
looked like there's nothing that will grow back, you know.
So that's my fear of playing the head shave game.
We'll see. I'd say that I think solicit fears he
can't grow beer. We'll see. I'll ask him about this
on our next episode. All right. Next question comes from
Andre from Los Angeles An. He writes, Hey, Chuck, why
is it that when someone announces a run for office,

(02:05:13):
the first focus is always on who their donors are
and whether these donors will approve It feels like candidates
are vetted by donors, consultants, and party brass long before
they ever reached voters, which makes them seem into authentic.
Voters want real, opinionated leaders who feel genuine, not prepackaged
for donor approval. Why has the donor class become the
priority over the general public? Andre la go bruins hashtag UCLA. Well,

(02:05:36):
because of how expensive campaigns have become I'm not saying
that's a good answer, in just telling you it is
the answer, And there is a perception of viability has
to do with access to money, whether you have it yourself,
you have the donor. You know, it's sort of this
dovetails pretty well with the question about Adam Schiff. Look,

(02:05:57):
there's no doubt we have made money in politics. The
fact that there is no regulation of money in politics,
right we have essentially have unregulated money in politics. They're okay,
so you have to follow a couple, You have to
jump a very small hurdle or two to maybe spend
money that raised a certain way on these few logistics
things for a campaign. But then you spend money over

(02:06:19):
here there is no we have. This is why I'm
a huge fan of a constitutional you know, we need
a constitutional amendment to deal with this. We're going to
have to. I think there's some common sense campaign finance
regulations that people could agree on. I think the idea
of keeping corporations out of politics makes a hell of

(02:06:39):
a lot sense. Figuring out how to have complete transparency,
I mean, anonymous donors dark money are terrible. We basically
have one or two people that are representing somewhere between
thirty and thirty percent of all money spent is probably
among a group of people that's less than ten. That
is an out of democracy, right, That is a plutocracy

(02:07:02):
or an oligarchy, if I to borrow some language that
are out there. I hate saying oligarchy because it sounds
like I'm taking a political side, but we have the
fact of the matter is the richer you are, the
more access you have to political leaders hard stop. And
that's a maybe that's never going to change, but we

(02:07:25):
could put some more transparency and some more limits on
how that works. But I'm not saying it should be
this way. But you're asking why does this happen? Because
viability goes through money. Now, the good news is the
Internet has been a bit of a leveler there. Act
Blue and When Red both have found a way to

(02:07:46):
take to allow at least grassroots donors to power candidacies.
And you can now do that, right Marjorie Taylor Green
can do it. AOC can do it, and they've figured
out how to tap into that. So the power of
the small donor is not totally in fact, in some
ways small donor because of the collective nature of it

(02:08:09):
have become a more powerful as powerful of an entity
at times that some of these corporate super PACs can be. So.
But look, we do this in this case, the system
has broken. We have unregulated amount of money. I'm sort
of a Nascar person in this respect. Let's go full transparency.
But you have to actually identify your major donors, if

(02:08:31):
you if you made every person have to spell out
the names of donors who have given them, say more
than one hundred thousand dollars or more, I promise you
they'd never take a donation more than nine nine and
ninety nine dollars, right, whatever threshold we create, you know,
like I'm all for you want to have unlimited funding

(02:08:52):
in your elections, fine, but anybody that gives you more
than ninety nine hundred dollars, you have to name them
in every single app and you've got to where their
logos on your paraphernalia, if you will. Right, That's what
I mean by the nascarization of it. I think that
if as long as people know who's behind things, then

(02:09:15):
at least you're giving the voters a fighting chance to
make their decision. All right, I'm mistaking one more question here,
So I can say that at least knock out four today.
This one comes from Sean McElroy Byfield, Massachusetts, and he writes, Hey, Chuck,
why is it that corporations going to absorb tariff costs
for months but push back immediately when asked to raise wages?
After COVID, we saw quick inflation tied to wage increases,

(02:09:38):
but terif related price hikes seem delayed. I've read that
Costco expects TARI free funds, that is, offering credit now
to investors to soften consumer impacts while boosting future profits. Curiously,
if you've heard more about that, any thoughts on the
disconnect between political focus and stagnant worker incomes. Well, look,
I think on the tariff, the reason some of this
is you had a lot of companies stockpile right. You know,

(02:10:01):
Trump made it clear what he was going to do
with this tariff, So you did have plenty of company
stockpile inventory where you could. Right you couldn't do it
in food, in fresh food and produce and things like that,
but you could stock up on certain goods in your
and essentially warehouse them. And a place like Costco is

(02:10:22):
something that has the has the ability to do that
and so I think that's why they could quote unquote
absorb some of it early because they had still had
a majority of their inventory out there that they had
purchased without having to pay, without having to deal with
extra tariffs. But look, you're you know, why do corporations

(02:10:44):
constantly look for ways to show that they're saving money? Right?
That might be another way that you asked that question, right,
They constantly It's why why are companies not hiring at
the moment? They all want to see how many jobs
can they replace with AI. They're not going to they
know they can't replace all jobs with A, but they
want to know which ones they can, and before they
replace anybody, they want to try to see if they

(02:11:05):
can replace them of AI corp. A publicly traded companies
simply have a fudiciary responsibility for their shareholders, and their
shareholders only reward cost efficiencies. That is, that is not
good for rising you know, for the hopes of rising wages,
and it is certainly makes stockpiling expensive inventory difficult as

(02:11:28):
well if you're going to load them up with tariff.
So you know, this is why what Trump has done
to this economy, that the rise of tariff costs also
in it inadvertently end up costing working class people a
chance at a raise. Right, If goods were cheaper, more
people might buy them, and you might need more people

(02:11:50):
to actually delve out that inventory. So you know, this
is why this tariff policy of the presidents is so
bad for the economy. It just simply shrinks our GDP
shrinks in a way that that will just hurt everything.
Fewer people buy items, which means you'll have fewer employees,

(02:12:10):
fewer wage, fewer people gaining a wage as it is,
and fewer people getting higher wages. Bottom line is, tariffs
are bad for everybody. There is no good that comes
from these tariffs. Hard stop. I don't know how many
thousands of different ways we can put that before we

(02:12:38):
go a little A few things in college football, and
and look, I don't want to. I got a few
emails about the mess in Michigan. And what's uncomfortable about
the mess in Michigan is Sharon Moore and some in
what happened there is is this uncomfortable truth there seem
to be you know, in the world of college sports

(02:13:01):
right now, if you win, your behavior will get They'll
find a way to bury your behavior, overlook it, or
just suspend you a game or two, slap you on
the wrist. But as long as you produce a national title,
Jim Harbaugh, nothing is going to go wrong. But when
things don't go well, then and and and maybe your
offense isn't going well, then suddenly people have decided that

(02:13:25):
your morals or ethics are a problem. And we don't
know the full story in Michigan, but let's just say
I haven't I know enough people in the sports industry world,
in the world of agents. This is not rank speculation.
You know, there was a there was a concerted effort
that that more had to go, but they needed a reason,

(02:13:46):
in a rationale, and they didn't want to spend on
the buyout. Now that doesn't excuse his behavior, and he
and I you know, for the life of me, you know,
to me, if you're if you're going to sleep with
an employee at a public institution, you're consequences any institution,
and you know, you get caught, you're going to live
with the consequences. And this has been a very expensive

(02:14:06):
consequence for him on that front. But we need to
learn a lot more about when was this first known, how,
what would this and when when did this investigation happen?
Why was it cleared once? Right? Sounds like there was
no they had no cooperating evidence, and then suddenly they did.

(02:14:26):
Why did this person suddenly provide evidence to the school
when they did? And why didn't they do it before?
How is it that it conveniently happened after signing day? Anyway,
the point is is that the corruption of college sports, right,
we know, it's there's a there's a It is a mess.
It is ugly, it is scandalous, and even an elite
institution like the University of Michigan is not immune from this.

(02:14:49):
But the problem is, we have no entity who's going
to investigate the University of Michigan. Do the NC DOUBA
have any credibility to do this? Will they even listen
to the NC double A? Right? When when Michigan was
sign stealing, you know they yeah, okay, they suspended somebody,
they find somebody. But last I checked, the University of
Michigan won a national title miraculously after they've suddenly figured

(02:15:11):
out sign stealing seemed to improve. You know, Jim Harbaugh
was having a hard time winning nine or ten games.
Then suddenly they started sign stealing and everything got better.
So it's a I'm singling out Michigan here because I
think Michigan is you know, this is sort of like, boy,
how many how much rotten fish is in this program
on these different things. But it's really this is not

(02:15:33):
about Michigan. This is about the entire sport, right, you know,
I love it. I love college football. You guys know this.
I ache for all this paid me. Look, University of Miami,
We've been through this. We've had our own bad apples
do some things in the past, don't get me wrong,
So I'm not gonna you know, this is not a
case we all the entire world of college football lives

(02:15:55):
in not just a glasshouse. I would call it water
for crystal houses, if you will, right, And there's our
broken windows everywhere. But you know, ultimately the problem is
the conferences have too much power, and we need you
need a singular commissioner of college football, a singular commissioner
of college basketball, a singular commissioner of sort of the

(02:16:21):
for profits sports. Right. We probably have to separate it
out a little bit, if you will. But this the
amount of influence that agents and boosters now have over
and above academic leaders or institutional leaders, athletic directors, you
name it. You know the athletic directors are not in

(02:16:41):
charge in most of these places. It's the person that
runs the outside nil and raises the hundreds of the
tens of millions of dollars. At these major college institutions
need to make payroll. They're in charge. The football coaches
do not work for the university residence. The football coaches

(02:17:02):
work for the entity that has promised to give the
most money. I saw that. I saw that at my
beloved institution, right some major donors were willing to give
more money if a certain person was hired as coach.
That's been true of a lot of institutions. So it

(02:17:22):
is the system is broken. It is messed up. Perhaps
you write rules that maybe allow for this in some form,
but you've got to have an accepted, shared set of rules,
and right now we really don't have any. It is
only media reports that at best create the opportunity for

(02:17:43):
shame to kick in. But this is you know, there's
the specifics themselves of what happened at Michigan, and then
there's the So there really needs to be an investigation
of how the initial investigation happened and how new evidence
popped up. That's all I'm going to say here. Okay,
I I am, I've got I've got plenty of interesting

(02:18:10):
sources that have that have told me some interesting things
about this situation. But the reason it needs to be
rooted out because it's this is again, Michigan is just
an example of what is a larger, more broken and
uh and I don't think any of us would be
comfortable finding out what our favorite schools were doing. I

(02:18:32):
think there would be I imagine there's not a major
college football program in America that does things that would
make every single alum prout, every single fan proud. And
it is I hate. I hate having to defend the
system at times as a fan because I still love it.
It's still I think college football because of the unpredictability

(02:18:55):
of what kids. There's still kids, they're still growing up,
they're still learning. There's that unpredictability. There's the passion of
fan bases, which other than the Steelers and the Packers,
there's really no you know, maybe Eagles and Cowboys too,
but there's really the pro fan bases are not like
college fan bases. They're just different hanging out with drunk

(02:19:16):
twenty year olds is better to watch than hanging out
with drunk fifty year olds too, right, if you're at
an NFL game versus a college game. But ultimately, we're
going to have to have Congress step in. They're going
to have to give an antitrust exemption in some form
because they're going to have to create We can't have
small d democratic tools attempting to govern college sports. You're

(02:19:38):
going to need a commissioner AKA some sort of almost
authoritarian type of situation, chairman of the board, board of
directors CEO, that sort of thing, with some accountability because
this is embarrassing the sport all the time, and there's
too much money at stake, and we have that much
money at stake, you're gonna have lawsuit, You're gonna have

(02:19:58):
people being live and all of that stuff. So you
kind of need a structure and some sort of rule
of law to govern college sports. That is fair, all right.
I will stop with my rant there, but I felt like,
as much as I want to celebrate, and I've got
a lot I'm going to celebrate on the later this week,
I will share with you my favorite pathways for Miami

(02:20:20):
and the different storylines on different potential matchups that they
can have in the college football playoff. Let's just say, boy,
for Miami's own reputational sake, they better win one. They
better win one, and we'll go from there. All right,
I've gone on a bit now. This is a pretty

(02:20:41):
thick Monday episode. We did some dark, some light, and
everything in between. I really appreciate you listening. Our growth
has been amazing. I know part of the why independent
media is growing because you've lost so much trust in
what's happened with the intimidated corporate owned media, which is sad.

(02:21:01):
I have a lot of good friends over there who
are fighting a good fight, but the institutions are just
trying to trying to prevent them from doing the work
that they want to do, which is a huge disappointment.
But guess what, there are always alternatives, including right here.
So thank you for listening. I appreciate it, and I'll
see in forty eight hours.

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Full Episode - U.S. Is Drifting Toward Competitive Authoritarianism + How To Fix America’s Broken Political System

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Full Episode - U.S. Is Drifting Toward Competitive Authoritarianism + How To Fix America’s Broken Political System