October 22, 2025 • 45 mins
Over the weekend, some 5 million people across the United States marched in ‘No Kings’ protests. Nate and Maria sit down to talk about why this matters, the psychology of protests, and how Democratic strategists can build on the momentum going forward.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And I'm made Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Today on the.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Show, we're going to be talking about a series of
protests that took place across the country this weekend, the
no Kings protests. So we'll be talking about kind of
what that means, the game, theory of it, the broader implications,
whether we think this is a good strategy, all sorts
of Risky Business. E takes on the protests, including why
(00:56):
I'm scared of crowds. But before we get into all
of that night, there was some news over the weekend
that the louver was robbed and within seven minutes a
team of robbers was able to get into the second
floor window and steal some priceless jewelry. They got in,
they got out. By the way, this was nine thirty
(01:17):
in the morning, right, Like, this wasn't late at night,
just completely brazen daytime robbery.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Why would you accepting it then?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I mean the French that with the French, I mean
they're barely even woke up. They're having their third cup
of coffee and their fifth cigarette, right, so they're just
getting started.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I mean yeah, I think nine thirty am they are
still getting started. And yeah, the robbers they took a
truck mounted ladder and then they gained access to the
second floor, which was the Apollo Gallery, and so they
were able to get some of the French Crown jewels
that dated back to Napoleon, and eight of nine items
remain unaccounted for. They dropped one.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Which was really weird. They dropped a crowd. I was like, wait,
you know, how do you get a break?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I don't think so. I was like, how do you
drop it? Like was your tote back wrong? Like what
did something rip?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Were you using plastic bags?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Are they going to sell you them? eBay? Where are
they going to sell them?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh apparently actually they dropped two items and not not
actually one item, So yeah, I have no idea. What
do you do with crown jewels? I mean I guess
one of the things you can do is take the
jewels off, right, like somehow like break it apart and
from priceless relic make it into just black market jewelry.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
It seems like not very economical, right, Like I don't
have people seal duels that are not crown jewels, and
like like who would buy would like, uh, maybe Trump
would buy it?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, the Crown of m
PROSEUSIONI is the is the item that was identified the
other one we don't know. By the way, that piece
has three and fifty four diamonds and fifty six emeralds.
That's insane. It was slightly damaged. It was slightly damaged,
but it didn't completely break Okay. Also, like what the
(03:11):
hell love like their security, Like I think this is
the museum with the most number of robberies like that
in the twentieth and twenty first century that I know
of the Mona Lisa was stolen, right, Like that should
be the one thing that like you're really really guarding
really well, and they've had other break ins throughout history
of Like, come on, French people, French security.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Like, get your shit together. What's going on?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
If they just do things in their own way. I
admire the French, I admire the friend.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I listen, I admire the French. I admire the robbers here.
And I'm so sorry tourists who you know, we're leaving
your tour of the Mona Lisa to the last day.
You know, you were planning to go on a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
You were really.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Excited, and then the museum ended up being closed because
you know, some royal jewels were stolen. But this is,
you know, talk about risky business. That's I think that
your question, Nate, like I laughed at it, but like,
what in the world are you.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Going to do with it?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Is a really pertinent question because this is a huge risk, right,
like you are actually like if you're getting if you
get caught, like that's seems like those consequences are going
to be pretty dire. So you probably need to have
a really good plan in place for what you're going
to do and how you're going to profit from this heist.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And a lot of.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
People don't think that far ahead and don't realize that
a lot of stolen artifacts are really hard to move,
right so unless maybe they have a buyer already, like
maybe there's like somewhere an Elon Musk type figure. And
I mean that in terms of like the amount of
money that you have who is willing to pay you know,
millions and millions of dollars for these specific crown jewels.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
If you if you buy stolen property. Isn't that like
some felony or misscenario at least?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, I don't know the rules in France, but yes,
absolutely and will we'll uh, there will definitely be Interpol
on the case. And yes, there's definitely there are safeguards
in place against buying them, but I'm assuming that the
person who would purchase them would also do it completely
you know, off the grid like some there are the blockchain,
the blotching. Yes, all right, this this episode brought to you,
(05:14):
this heist brought to you by bit Quiet Watching. But yeah,
it's a it is a hilarious I mean not hilarious,
but it is a funny bit of news. And maybe Nate,
So we're recording this on Monday, October twentieth. Maybe by
the time it airs on Wednesday, the thiefs will have
been caught and that will be like a huge win
(05:35):
for French police. But it took a long time for
the Mona Lisa to be recovered when it was stolen,
and I'm from Boston, I obviously remember like the Isabella
Stuart Gardner Museum heist, which was huge those none of
those works of art have been recovered, so it can
take a really long time from moment of theft to
(05:57):
actually recovering, and that moment of time could be never.
So let's see what happens this time day. If you
were going to rob a museum, purely hypothetically, what would
you steal? Like, is there an item in a museum
somewhere that you're like, man, I really just want this
at home.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
No, because I would get caught.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'll get caught.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I would go to like the little cafe when they
have the jaded barista and take like, you know whatever
five hundred bucks said. Yeah, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't
want to deprive uh people of the opportunity to see art.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I've always found it like a little.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Bit strange to have like a really valuable piece of
art in your private collection and we collect art like
but nothing super Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Totally I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And I hate, you know, I hate when there are
people who buy some like truly beautiful painting and then
refuse to load it out, and like, I understand their
insurance considerations, et cetera, et cetera, but come on, Like,
if the Goggenheims could lend out their entire collection, like
you can. You can make it work. And you know,
I totally get wanting to live with a beautiful piece
(06:59):
of art in your home, but you also like, you
can't protect it and take care of it the same
way a museum can. And I think there's a there's
definitely a case to be made that sure, you can
have it, but like lend it out, let people see it.
Share the beauty, right, share the beauty with the world.
And by the way, talking about risk, during the Palisade
(07:20):
fires earlier this year, some absolutely irreplaceable works of art
were destroyed, right Because you could be a billionaire with
a gorgeous Pacific Highway house in Malibu or wherever, and
your house.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Goes up in flames and that's it unless you're the.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Getty.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The Getty was fine. The Getty has an incredibly sophisticated
anti fire protection system, but most normal houses do not.
So some works of art were really uh gone forever now.
And that's a risk that you take when you have
something like that in your home.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Or in the louver.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I guess the risk you take is that it's going
to get stolen at some point. So yeah, no, I
actually I agree with that. I don't think I wouldn't
steal anything either, because I really do think that these
art is to be shared right as art is something
that makes us all uniquely human and it's such a
(08:25):
beautiful thing for all of us to share in common.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I'm going to do some high risk crimes. I
can think of a lot more fun positively the high
risk crimes.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Maria, I totally, yeah, absolutely like what Nate, hypothetically speaking,
we'll take this, we'll take this off the podcast well
more more for our pushkin plus subscribers.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What would want crime?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, so our would be criminal spree, Nate is short
lived because we've decided that we're not going to steal
anything from the art museum, but we will retain the
optionality of doing something that's going to be lower risk
and higher reward. On that note, let's talk about the
(09:13):
No King's protests that happened over the weekend. Nate, did
you participate?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
No, A, It's not my vibe.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Although I'm sympathetic to change the protesters and b I
in certain ways, I do take myself seriously as a journalist,
and I think if I went, it would be appropriate
to cover them more arms length and not to participate
but you know, we can talk about that or not.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Did you, Maria.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I did not for various reasons, but the biggest one
of which is I can't deal with crowds, like I
hate events where there no, I really can't, Like I
get really clustrophobic and really anxious.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And I know, I look, you are both.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
We both live I know, in New York City and
Las Vegas, which I maybe I mean not in the world,
but there's.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
A very different so there's so there's a very different
mentality when you're in a huge crowd of people protesting
versus like, you know, on a commute. And just to
just to give you an example, so this Saturday, which
is when the protests were happening, I went to Grand Central,
where I never go. I hate Grand Central, but I
(10:21):
went because it really Yeah, Grand Central's nice, it's beautiful,
but I just, oh, I don't like any of the
like I don't like going to train stations like and
if I go there, it's for travel, but like Grand Central,
I never have to use like for whatever reason, you know,
I never travel out of Grand Central anyway. So I
went there specifically to see the Dear New York exhibition
(10:44):
from Humans of New York that was closing this weekend.
It was two weeks during which Grand Central all of
the advertising was taken off and it was completely taken
over by the humans of New York Photography. And they
also had a Steinway piano which was donated that was
in the middle of the hall, and they had Juilliard
musicians play during the day and some other cameos. Anyway,
(11:08):
so this was a big thing and I wanted to
see it, and I ended up leaving very quickly because
going the day before it closed was not a good idea.
And it was so ridiculously crowded and there were so
many people that I couldn't appreciate the photography and the
art and all of these things, because not only could
I not see anything, but I was being jostled from
every single side, and I was like, you know what,
(11:29):
it's not I'm getting out of here. Like I actually
started feeling, you know, this sense of claustrophobia and anxiety.
So I don't do well in situations where there are
too many people near me. I hate crowded subways.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Night.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Whenever I see one that's too crowded and I have
to get on, I'm like oh, man, I suddenly envision
the worst case scenario, which is that we get stuck, right,
that we get stuck in between stations, and I'm on
this ridiculously crowded subway car and I have been something
I don't know. I just really I have no idea.
I just really do not like crowds. It's something that like,
(12:05):
I get very anxious over. So no, I did not
go to that protest, and I'm not a protest person.
But the underlying question was kind of was there for
a reason, which is that if we think about protests
in a broader sense, there's a very strong kind of
(12:25):
game theoretic reason why protests are powerful, and that has
nothing to do with like, oh, you're in a crowd,
but everything to do with signaling. Right, So a protest,
there's I didn't not go because I don't think it's
not worth it. I didn't go because just personally, I,
like I said, I hate crowds. But I do think
(12:48):
it's worth it for the simple reason that there's coordination
issues and kind of there's power in sending a very
strong signal that people can then look at to say, oh,
I'm not the only one who feels this way, there
are lots of people who feel this way. And now
I know, right now that I know that there is
all of this support out there for something that I
(13:11):
believe that is not always visible because when you're online
kind of in you know, Twitter or whatever it is,
you see a very specific subset of opinions. You're in
a very specific bubble. But protests throughout history, when people
go out in public, it's a signaling mechanism, right, and
it's then a coordination mechanism where you can actually point
(13:35):
to it and say, Okay, look, you know, here's a
group of people who hold certain views, and that can
be incredibly powerful for future momentum and future decision making.
By the way, it's even more powerful when we're talking
about truly authoritarian regimes countries where there's very little communication
(13:56):
between people. We're not there yet in the United States,
but it's powerful even in a democratic society.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Look, these process had a very large scale. They happened
in hundreds of cities. I'm always a little bit skeptical
of crowd sized estimates, which tend to be overestimates, but
several million, I think it's safe to say, which makes
it quite high on a list of like all time
one day protests at least. I mean, look, as you
(14:26):
get a larger size of crowd, then these things tend
to become a little bit more amorphous, right, And you
can see various critiques like, Okay, maybe the protests are
a little bit cringe and considering who we're dealing with, right,
we're dealing with like kind of like mostly boomery, good
(14:47):
government democrat types. Yeah, they're a little cringe, right, And
like the message just when you can critique, I mean,
you know.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Does no kings quite makes sense?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I'm not sure the idea is Trump is a king
so much as an authoritarian.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Those aren't quite the same thing exactly, But.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
It kind of doesn't matter because like what you're trying
to do is a demonstrate that, like, you know, yes,
we don't have elections all that often, and yes, last
time we had an election, Trump one narrowly, but there
are a lot of us number one, you know, a
conservative reminder to like the the media and things like that.
(15:28):
I mean, Trump is not that popular in the polls.
He's not popular in the polls. He's not that unpopular either, right,
but like you know, these things can be a spectacle
in part and attract attention, that is, if anything like
a little bit outsize relative to the number of people participating, right,
because they're physical, they're outside there. In some cases do
(15:49):
you seem to be rather gentle minded, but they can
be like confrontational.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
If you look at the number of students of the people.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Participating in the pro Palestinian protests over the past year
and a half, those are not I'm being honest, those
are not particularly large protests.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
If you'd look look at the numbers for that. It's
not like Kings or something like that.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Right, However, they still got a ton of media coverage
shipped the narrative. I'm not sure whether they shifted the
narrative in the direction of protesters wanted they, but they
have they have a big effect potentially, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
For sure. And I do think that the narrative is
also something that's that's quite important. So I mentioned before
kind of the signaling mechanism, which is on an individual
level I think important to then coordinate action further down
the line. But also framing the narrative is, especially in
(16:48):
the modern age, something that is really important in an
intentionally divided economy. Right, it to not in the past
where everyone watched one single TV show, right, or one
single news channel, and there was kind of this collective
(17:09):
knowledge of like, oh, these are the things that are
in the news, et cetera, et cetera. These days, it's
very fragmented, right, There's a very fragmented media landscape, and
so many different things are vuying for our attention on
any given basis. And the Trump administration has shown itself
to be much better than a lot of democratic operatives,
(17:32):
to be perfectly honest at capturing attention and creating a narrative,
right and creating something that makes it feel like it's
this inevitable all American force, and something like the No
King's protest is a really interesting moment that can potentially
shape the narrative of weight.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You know, we have.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Protesters in the heart of Red Texas and all of
these different areas, and they've all come out, and they've
all coordinated, and it's a pretty significant number of people,
and so it's a I think it's a way of
creating a counter narrative to a lot of what we
see online.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
This might lead us Nate to kind of a broader
consideration of you know, what matters, right when you're trying
to kind of craft this craft a narrative that actually
changes minds and changes action, because one of the critiques
one can have of things like protest is, well, you're
not actually doing anything right. You're not voting, you're not lobbying,
you're not changing legislation, you're not reaching out to your
(18:51):
congress people like, you're not doing anything like that. But
on the other hand, you're doing something because you're sending
a signal to the government. You know that these are
the things that matter here where people who feel this
way live, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let
me let me just let me just stop there and
get your thoughts on this and on because of your thoughts,
your thoughts more broadly kind of about the effectives of
(19:14):
certain tactics versus other when you're trying to shape a
narrative that with the ultimate goal, because presumably this is
the ultimate goal of change, right, of actually affecting real
change in the government, in government policies and in what
happens in the country going forward.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah, look, I mean compared to other things, I say,
protesting is relatively effective. I mean, like I you know,
protesting is higher effort than voting, and voting is samously
questionably rational. I suppose if you live in the state
like New York, you have your you can voting about it.
But like, as you don't New York, you're voting.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Voting kind of.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
As a.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Symbolic act does a specific act is a protest almost
and not necessarily is like I'm actually influence the election result, right. Yeah, Look,
part of it is I don't like the people that
kind of talk about like setting the narrative very often
are very good about setting.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I think that's very true.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And you know, a critique the Democrats strategy on the shutdown,
right because like it's like it's like too narrow and
like it's not you know, I don't know, right, And
it's like you have to focus on healthcare, right, But
their question is not about healthcare. If you look at
like Google searches for healthcare, people are not particularly focused
(20:37):
on that. It's not what they're I mean, they care
about healthcare, it's like not what their heart is into.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So have us kind of like.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Amorphous outpouring of peaceful anti Trump sentiment. That's kind of
more not normy. I'm sure that people there are watching
what then was NBC and reading lotless substacks, right, but like,
but to have this kind of.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
More normy vibe, I think you.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Worthwhile, right, and you know it's trobably more effective than
they shut down, which agin I think it's how and
thank for Democrats very much at all. You know, so
I do not think you know, people in Blue Sky
can quote me on this. I do not think that
we are on like the doorstep to authoritarianism. I think
(21:25):
I think America has I think it's the over simplication, right,
I think America has a lot of robust checks and
balances which are being substantially fraid. I think we might
be in like the ante room before the doorstep, though, right,
ye and gef there are actions such as like Trump
(21:47):
trying to make it difficult for people to vote in
twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight for example. Right,
I mean you can imagine open defiance to leave the
White House after his term is over, open defiance of
a Supreme Court order. You know, one thing that I'll
hear from is you'll see you'll hear your kind of
democratic activists types kind of say, like, look, I realized
(22:10):
that if you're kind of like leading your life, then
things might seem pretty normal unless you're an immigrant or
unless you's these other you know, a student, unless it's
other sugar categories. And like in some sense and some
since Trump has been smart about that, right, Like he's
been smart about like the world doesn't feel like it's
(22:31):
in chaos if you live in in New York, right,
And I even think that, like, you know, there are
things like the ice raids and National Guard deployments in
different cities and things like that, right, and if you're
very politically aware of these will seem a whole right,
But like I don't think they're noticeable for ordinary people either, right,
(22:53):
Like I was in Chicago for a talk the you know,
the we can There are a bunch of ice actions
there on the South side of Chicago, and like I
actually had a bunch of like political conversations there. I mean,
I have friends there who are interested in politics, and
they woud talk where we talking abouts and stuff like that,
and like it didn't really come up, right, not because
of what they think about Politicia unaware of it though,
(23:14):
because like you know, I think there's this gap between
the way that political insiders and political message crafts people
who are very online experience politics and the way that
ordinary people do. I mean talking about a protests that
has mass numbers millions, millions, you're bridging that gap like
(23:35):
a little bit, right, because you know what percent of
people watch MSNBC, Box and New CNN. It's like one
percent of the country like watching them on the given day.
It's like quite small, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Yeah, it's really small and if anything, probably you know
political surveys or bioteople who participate, right, and so yeah,
like you know, the number of MSNBC viewers and the
demo was in like the low to mid six digits
usually meaning eighteen to forty nine or how they define that, right.
You know a lot of older people who are just
kind of watching TV and maybe not doing that much else.
(24:11):
But yeah, people kind of miss these scale things and
like and the number one problem that like political strategies,
most polical strategists have is like they think exactly the
opposite from how from how the normies do, right, and
you know, a more narrow protest, right, like you know,
(24:31):
I would take again the GOSPAP protests as something that
have like relatively fear both, right, and they spin out
on the things and there's messing that might be dumb
in whatever health, right, But like you know, on a university,
we want the university to bess these investments and changes
policy and this and that, right, you know. And those
(24:52):
are pretty narrowly targeted protests, but smaller in scale. This
is amorphous. I mean things like Occupy Wall Street, which
was not particularly large protests, right, but like where the
Tea Party is an example on the Republican conservative side
a little bit more right, that's a little bit i'morphous.
And amorphosis can be good because like you want different
(25:17):
people to be able to interpret it in different ways,
and you know, the overall sentiment is clear enough Trump
babert aboutthoritarrying rule or monarchical rule. I'll give them a
credit of paths on the imprecise metaphor.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
What do you think is more effective having a protest
that has very clear stated goals or ones that are
expressing these broader sentiments, Because I don't know what your
perception of Occupy Wall Street's ultimate effectiveness was. Mine was
that not much ended up changing. It was also Occupy
(25:53):
Wall Street. By the way, it was on a much
smaller scale than what we're talking about with No Kings.
But what's your sense of Like if you were trying
to be like, Okay, you know, I want people to
be aware of all of these I want draw attention
to all of these excesses happening that people might not
be aware of unless they're very like politically tied in.
(26:16):
I want them to be aware of, you know, tipping
points in kind of the legal structure, et cetera, et cetera,
that some of these checks are you know, yes, so
far democracy is holding. We do have robust checks and balances,
but we are in the ante room, as you said,
as you phrased it, and like some of these things
are really being strained, and a lot of people don't
(26:38):
seem to be aware of that. Like if you were
organizing a protest, would it look like the No Kings
protest broadly speaking? Broadly speaking, like let's as you say,
you know, let's ignore the semantics, Like would it be
kind of more amorphous like general sentiment, like please work
with us legislators and like let's try to figure out
a strategy to counter this, or would you say you
(27:01):
know what before we do this protest, like, let's think
of three big goals and like have everyone have posters
with those you know, with those goals, et cetera, et cetera,
and like actually try to do something that is more
targeted but still broad. I don't know that I have
a clear answer to that, so I'm curious whether you do.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, look, I don't know if I'm the extra don
protests here. By the way, I think I could buy
Wall Street. We punched someone above its weight, like a
kind of introducer at least popularized the praise. We're the
ninety nine percent than the one percent, and like that's true.
That's a means for many years, fourteen years later, whatever
it is is pretty powerful potentially.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, look, it's so funny. I totally forgot that that
came from Occupy Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Look, I think you have different issues here. What is
that Although Trump is unpopular, he's not enormously unpopular. He
won election twice, including just you know, not quite a
year ago, and the critiques.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Of him are kind of disparate.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Right, people don't like, you know, some people are to
chinking about the economy, which I think might be a
more appropriate such a per focus in part because like
it is no whole day to day A little bit
more people are concerned about immigration or authoritarism, they are
long standing concerns about climate change and.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Whatever else.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
People think he's the racist, naphobic, sexist, people think he's corrupt.
I'm not. I'm not unendorsing any of these ideas, by
the way, right, But like Trump has always given people
so many such a large attack surface to term is
different ways in that like it actually kind of renders
itself toward it ineffective, right, And so like, on the
one hand, it might seem like the way to attack
(28:45):
that is to focus on one particular avenue, right, However
a is at the right avenue and be like I
think Karen Tula, that might that might work less well,
right because like remember one again, all the total anti
Trump democratic energy, they're trying to make a shutdown about healthcare.
If you read the newsletters, read the sub sex of
little Subtext or blue Sky whatever else, right, maybe one
(29:07):
or two percent of the messages are about healthcare from
like not the actual base, but like the activist online
part of the base, right, And so like, you know,
you're kind of losing people there a little bit. Number two,
Trump is very very good at like changing the subject
or redirecting attention. Right, So if he ever has a weakness,
he's like it's so the metaphor of like Trump being
(29:30):
a ship that you have different kind of which to attack, right,
Like it doesn't quite work because it can fight back
in different ways. Right, yeah, so you know, yeah, maybe
having this kind of like more amorphous kind of gathering
of energy.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
You know what I don't know of having I been
a protests, right, you know, the most important thing is
probably are you gathering.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Lists of people who can become politically organized in in
different ways? And importantly for me, you know, can you
have these that are outside the offices of the kind
of capital D democratic party? Right?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I think the cretic parties.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Often have healthy at like the local and state level,
But like I to a Frisch approximation, think that like
every person in afficition of power and their Credit Party
should be fired, right, Like I think the party is lost.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
No, I mean seriously, like the the Credit Party is
like lost, Like you know, it lost an election to
Trump twice.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Right. Renominating Joe Biden was a good idea all the
leaders are too fucking old, like anybody over the age
of fifty in a leadership position, Let's let's have a
generational goodbye, right, and if you're the age of fifty,
their credit party, I think should well. I think, you know,
Democrats goals may be better off if those people were
were you know, replaced. Do you want to take a
(30:53):
couple of mulligans or exceptional right, But like, you know,
so they have like you know, so, yeah, I'm not
so sure that it's so far from what I indoors
I can the vibe is not mine. It feels a
little cringe to me. But like the cringe is okay,
creates happens when you have mass support for something, right,
it's inherently a little cringe. If you go like a
(31:15):
NFL game, the NFL is the most popular sport, cringe.
I love football, Right, they're a little bit cringe. Parades
are fucking cringe at right, Holidays are cringe. I mean,
all these things that are really popular are like, you know,
so watch American Idol. American Idol is cringe. Like popular
things are cringe for you.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Oh man, don't get me started on parades. I used
to live right next to the Halloween rad and.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh yeah, and New York.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Canceled because of that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's what happened.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So so I had lived in the West Village for
my like my all of my New York existence, you know,
that's where I moved when I just moved from, uh
from Boston and just loved the area and stayed there.
And so every single year I saw, you know, the
havoc that happened with the with the Halloween parade, and
(32:08):
knew that like basically on Halloween, I had to just
stay in my apartment and like don't do anything that
crosses Seventh Avenue. And then one day decide I saw
like there was a restaurant I really wanted to go to,
and like finally saw reservation pop up, and I was
like yay and took it. And of course the reservation
popped up because it was on the other side of
(32:30):
Seventh Avenue.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Walter Day. It really if you haven't experienced, it's very
hard to like but go up to like a roof
tower and like finally to the streets and their guests.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah exactly exactly. It's it's horrifying and we'll be back
right after this. You know, it's interesting to talk about
(33:07):
this and to and to talk about like the importance
of general lives because if you and I, when you
and I talked about, you know, the best way to
organize a little less than a year ago, Nate and
we were talking about, you know, what's what can democrats do?
We decided collectively that they needed to focus on a
few issues. And when we were talking about how do
(33:29):
they win, right before Trump got elected, we were saying, Okay,
you know, your messaging should be focused on a few
issues where you can actually get votes, where people are
passionate about this, because the Trump campaign was much more
effective at that and we were saying, you know, I
remember you talking about immigration and saying, hey, Democrats, like
immigration's not your issue, Like stop talking about that instead,
(33:49):
like let's try to focus on on things that like
healthcare right that could actually be much more effective. Then
we were talking, you know, with the shutdown, et cetera,
that we should really be focusing on, like let's focus
on tariffs, Like let's let's do something focused when we're
talking about inside the government, and yet our advice for
people kind of outside the government seems to be to
(34:11):
have more of that vibe type of approach where you have,
as you say, cringe but we don't have to call
them crinch. But when you have these large scale events
that just show a general state of malaise, displeasure and
opens the opens the conversation up for policymakers to kind
(34:33):
of act in different ways as opposed to like pinpointing
one specific thing.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, let's the other thing is like, if you're a
political operative, then ironically you have like often a very
short term time horizon, right. You know, you have a
job where you get up and were the office of
eight thirty every every Monday. Maybe it's a romantic snacing
of it, right, but like, but you know you have
particular goals you have for that day, that week. That
news cycle right in the media is the same way, right,
(35:01):
we have to we have to you know, some weeks, Maria,
we have eight things people to talk about, right, some
weeks it's a well struggle, right, but you kind of
even the ow and something to come talking to point
and so like you know, yeah, it should be more
long term focus. Right. We still have more than a
year until the midterm elections, even we have more than
three years until the presidential election. And so yeah, you know, look,
(35:24):
the direct Party has always been that historically they're kind
of like this collection of different interest groups, right that
Democrats were collection of young people and union workers and
people of color and college professors.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And like you know, gay people and other people who.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Are you know, you know, ex communists, and like a
whole monthly crew of different types of folks that like
don't necessarily have that much interest in common but might
be marginalizing some ways, kind of like when you get
it intellectuals, right, you know what the Democratic Party is now,
it's a little bit less clear, Right, It's lost some
(36:06):
support from every one of those groups except the point
he headed intellectuals basically, right, it's loss of kiss among
Hispanic and Asian Americans. It's some sport among black Democrats.
It's also live support among like working class union worker
type of Democrats. Right, it's also sport young people pecularly
young men. Right. So, well, you know, you still don't
(36:28):
have a lot of people who have their hat quote
unquote issues with the environment or LGBT do plus rights,
or over healthcare or or economics and authority. Right, and
like when do you say, oh, let's focus on this
one issue. Well, the other groups you're really upset, right,
(36:48):
and they'll say, my issue is a matter of existential importance.
There's with called special pleading, right, It's like very hard
to like have you know, who gets to pick and
choose what issues we prioritize and so like have seffy
amorphous and it's project cussures, Like ambiguity is okay, you
can be yeah, absolutely USU on your paper, the better.
(37:11):
I'm like, it seems kind of weird, right, but I
was pretty good at being optimizing for intiguity.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, I'm not surprised, and I'm surprised, but no.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I actually think that you just made a really important point,
which is that you know this also having a protest
that's like the no King's protest unites people right as
opposed to feel having people feel like they're left out,
Like this is not my protest, this is everyone's protest.
This is like uniting on the absolute highest level issue.
We believe in our democracy and we want to preserve it.
(37:45):
Because if you think about kind of the psychology of
in groups and out groups, right, we are very good
at forming in groups and out groups based on anything, right,
almost almost immediately, but we're also very good at unifying
when you can actually kind of get a bigger issue
that focuses on commonalities as opposed to divisions. And so
(38:06):
I think that's something like a No King's protest test
did a really good job of actually tapping into that
element of psychology right on a high level, Like let's
put our differences aside. Right, let's put aside whether like
who we are and what to us is the existential issue,
and how we feel about you know, all of these
(38:28):
different people and all of these different policies, and instead
let's focus on one thing, Like, let's we believe in America.
We believe in democracy. We want to preserve this thing
that the country was founded on. And I think that's
why the No Kings like, even though not quite right,
while symbolically it actually helps kind of get to that unification.
(38:49):
It helps to harken back to a moment in history
when America was united, right where it didn't matter what
political party you were, it didn't matter, nothing mattered other
than that we were fighting against the British and we
wanted to be free.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah. Look, I mean this is a problem that you
have in very online communities. Maybe more of the left
and the right currently reasons explaining the moment. But like
the notion of online combat on Twitter, blue Sky, Facebook, whatever,
et cetera. Right, the notion of dunking on people achieving
kind of social superiority. Right, I tat the people competing
(39:24):
for hierarchy to tear down a hierarchy to regain putting
in the hierarchy themselves. Right, And by definition it's kind
of it's kind of exclusionary. Right. Republicans do lots of
that too, they are fortunate enough to have this kind
of And again I'm not a super lib Right, I'm
gonna say this in a way that believe is like
(39:47):
a correct arms like fritigue, but like there is a
substantial like personality cult around Trump that helps keep Republicans
united with all types of long term cosmus to the country. Right,
But like Democrats have no equivalent of right, So they're
both exclusionary at least people kind of like the blue
sky types and and leaderless really bad, you know what
(40:11):
I mean. It's like, we have a great idea, but
we don't want you. You will while you're participating unless
you agree with us in all these issues. Right, So
the rep and inclusivity is is very important.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I think that that's a key issue that Democrats have
been ignoring for too long and that they really really
need to focus on, which is that it's okay, right,
shades of gray are okay, and we want to include you,
even if you don't check all of these boxes for
kind of what the perfect liberal mind thinks on all
of these issues, you know, what's in vogue on all
(40:46):
of these things. I think that the Republicans have actually
been much much better at including people in the party
and saying, ah, fine, like you don't believe in that,
but like, at least you you believe in Trump, you
believe in this, Like, come on in. And I do
think that the Democratic establishment has actually been very quick
to I don't want to say like cancel, but to
(41:06):
cancel their own right to say, well, like sure you're
you're a Democrat, but you said something I don't like
about this issue, and.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So or to dismiss while groups of voters.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
You know, Hillary Clinton made the thing to mislike deplorable
comment in twenty sixteen, I guess it was, which is
saying like, yeah, you know, half of.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Not all voters, half of Trump.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Voters are irredeemable racist massaging that's deficerate and half are
redeemable and a little bit misguided, right, which I think
is actually probably might be about right is a kind
of empirical statement, right, is a piece.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Of political analysis.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But like as a politician.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah, and like and the fact is that like you
never know where you find like this is a big
kind of you know, people mistake, like the group tendency
with the marginal pingdomcity right in any group. Sure, and
I've tried to mathematically model this and like, but I
won't get into the details.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Now, in any group, there are always marginal voters, right.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
You know the fact that Trump would like go to
the Bronx and say, I'm going to do a rally
among the black community of South Bronx And if you
look at the details, and a lot of people are
not black and or not from the South Bronx or
the bronxiul. Right, But like the fact that he's saying
I would like to have your vote, right, Like, I
don't think Democrats do the same thing. Right. They don't
go and say to evangelical white church and say, you
(42:29):
know what, you're as rationals you might want to hope
for Democrats, right, maybe you kind of implicitly do it,
and like who are on the center left are regarded
as enemies by the far left and often vice versa,
and so like it. It's you know, getting out of
that mentality is essential.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
It's absolutely crucial, and I think, you know, the No
King's protests is a really good step in that direction.
So yeah, the main kind of takeaways here are like,
coordination is important, and signaling is important at kind of
understanding all of that from a game theory standpoint is important,
but also inclusivity is important and trying to frame things
(43:08):
in broad terms where you can actually unite people and
focus on uniting as opposed to dividing and nitpicking and
like you know saying oh, well you belong, but you
really don't. You're not our perfect archetype of who we want.
That it's really important to think in those types of terms.
And the third thing that we haven't talked about as much,
but we have mentioned is like people just don't think
(43:30):
long term, Like if I don't do something right now,
the Democratic Party is just going to implode. Like if
I don't if I don't do this, then these are
the long term consequences, and you don't think, well, like,
if I don't speak out now, then there might be
nothing to speak out, nothing left to speak out for
in a few years. So I think that thinking more
long term and long term strategy is very important. I
(43:53):
don't necessarily endorse Nate, you know, acting everyone over fifty
fifty seems awfully young, but still I you know, I
think that what you were the spirit of that that
we do need kind of a little bit. We do
need some young blood is fair because we do need
to be thinking about the future, and people who are
(44:14):
eighty years old are not the future because they're going
to be dead in the long term that we're talking about,
absent the singularity.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
I'm with that maybe we can retreat from the antie
room to the foyer, before the anti room, before the
doorway to borg caredism.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
By me Nate Silver. The show was a Cool production
of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by
Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia, Jean Kott,
and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our executive producer
is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, but once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in, MHM.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And I'm made Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Today on the.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Show, we're going to be talking about a series of
protests that took place across the country this weekend, the
no Kings protests. So we'll be talking about kind of
what that means, the game, theory of it, the broader implications,
whether we think this is a good strategy, all sorts
of Risky Business. E takes on the protests, including why
(00:56):
I'm scared of crowds. But before we get into all
of that night, there was some news over the weekend
that the louver was robbed and within seven minutes a
team of robbers was able to get into the second
floor window and steal some priceless jewelry. They got in,
they got out. By the way, this was nine thirty
(01:17):
in the morning, right, Like, this wasn't late at night,
just completely brazen daytime robbery.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Why would you accepting it then?
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I mean the French that with the French, I mean
they're barely even woke up. They're having their third cup
of coffee and their fifth cigarette, right, so they're just
getting started.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I mean yeah, I think nine thirty am they are
still getting started. And yeah, the robbers they took a
truck mounted ladder and then they gained access to the
second floor, which was the Apollo Gallery, and so they
were able to get some of the French Crown jewels
that dated back to Napoleon, and eight of nine items
remain unaccounted for. They dropped one.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Which was really weird. They dropped a crowd. I was like, wait,
you know, how do you get a break?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I don't think so. I was like, how do you
drop it? Like was your tote back wrong? Like what
did something rip?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Were you using plastic bags?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
What's going on here?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Are they going to sell you them? eBay? Where are
they going to sell them?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh apparently actually they dropped two items and not not
actually one item, So yeah, I have no idea. What
do you do with crown jewels? I mean I guess
one of the things you can do is take the
jewels off, right, like somehow like break it apart and
from priceless relic make it into just black market jewelry.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
It seems like not very economical, right, Like I don't
have people seal duels that are not crown jewels, and
like like who would buy would like, uh, maybe Trump
would buy it?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, the Crown of m
PROSEUSIONI is the is the item that was identified the
other one we don't know. By the way, that piece
has three and fifty four diamonds and fifty six emeralds.
That's insane. It was slightly damaged. It was slightly damaged,
but it didn't completely break Okay. Also, like what the
(03:11):
hell love like their security, Like I think this is
the museum with the most number of robberies like that
in the twentieth and twenty first century that I know
of the Mona Lisa was stolen, right, Like that should
be the one thing that like you're really really guarding
really well, and they've had other break ins throughout history
of Like, come on, French people, French security.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Like, get your shit together. What's going on?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
If they just do things in their own way. I
admire the French, I admire the friend.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I listen, I admire the French. I admire the robbers here.
And I'm so sorry tourists who you know, we're leaving
your tour of the Mona Lisa to the last day.
You know, you were planning to go on a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
You were really.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Excited, and then the museum ended up being closed because
you know, some royal jewels were stolen. But this is,
you know, talk about risky business. That's I think that
your question, Nate, like I laughed at it, but like,
what in the world are you.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Going to do with it?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Is a really pertinent question because this is a huge risk, right,
like you are actually like if you're getting if you
get caught, like that's seems like those consequences are going
to be pretty dire. So you probably need to have
a really good plan in place for what you're going
to do and how you're going to profit from this heist.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And a lot of.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
People don't think that far ahead and don't realize that
a lot of stolen artifacts are really hard to move,
right so unless maybe they have a buyer already, like
maybe there's like somewhere an Elon Musk type figure. And
I mean that in terms of like the amount of
money that you have who is willing to pay you know,
millions and millions of dollars for these specific crown jewels.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
If you if you buy stolen property. Isn't that like
some felony or misscenario at least?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, I don't know the rules in France, but yes,
absolutely and will we'll uh, there will definitely be Interpol
on the case. And yes, there's definitely there are safeguards
in place against buying them, but I'm assuming that the
person who would purchase them would also do it completely
you know, off the grid like some there are the blockchain,
the blotching. Yes, all right, this this episode brought to you,
(05:14):
this heist brought to you by bit Quiet Watching. But yeah,
it's a it is a hilarious I mean not hilarious,
but it is a funny bit of news. And maybe Nate,
So we're recording this on Monday, October twentieth. Maybe by
the time it airs on Wednesday, the thiefs will have
been caught and that will be like a huge win
(05:35):
for French police. But it took a long time for
the Mona Lisa to be recovered when it was stolen,
and I'm from Boston, I obviously remember like the Isabella
Stuart Gardner Museum heist, which was huge those none of
those works of art have been recovered, so it can
take a really long time from moment of theft to
(05:57):
actually recovering, and that moment of time could be never.
So let's see what happens this time day. If you
were going to rob a museum, purely hypothetically, what would
you steal? Like, is there an item in a museum
somewhere that you're like, man, I really just want this
at home.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
No, because I would get caught.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'll get caught.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I would go to like the little cafe when they
have the jaded barista and take like, you know whatever
five hundred bucks said. Yeah, I wouldn't like, I wouldn't
want to deprive uh people of the opportunity to see art.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I've always found it like a little.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Bit strange to have like a really valuable piece of
art in your private collection and we collect art like
but nothing super Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Totally I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And I hate, you know, I hate when there are
people who buy some like truly beautiful painting and then
refuse to load it out, and like, I understand their
insurance considerations, et cetera, et cetera, but come on, Like,
if the Goggenheims could lend out their entire collection, like
you can. You can make it work. And you know,
I totally get wanting to live with a beautiful piece
(06:59):
of art in your home, but you also like, you
can't protect it and take care of it the same
way a museum can. And I think there's a there's
definitely a case to be made that sure, you can
have it, but like lend it out, let people see it.
Share the beauty, right, share the beauty with the world.
And by the way, talking about risk, during the Palisade
(07:20):
fires earlier this year, some absolutely irreplaceable works of art
were destroyed, right Because you could be a billionaire with
a gorgeous Pacific Highway house in Malibu or wherever, and
your house.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Goes up in flames and that's it unless you're the.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Getty.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The Getty was fine. The Getty has an incredibly sophisticated
anti fire protection system, but most normal houses do not.
So some works of art were really uh gone forever now.
And that's a risk that you take when you have
something like that in your home.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Or in the louver.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
I guess the risk you take is that it's going
to get stolen at some point. So yeah, no, I
actually I agree with that. I don't think I wouldn't
steal anything either, because I really do think that these
art is to be shared right as art is something
that makes us all uniquely human and it's such a
(08:25):
beautiful thing for all of us to share in common.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I'm going to do some high risk crimes. I
can think of a lot more fun positively the high
risk crimes.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Maria, I totally, yeah, absolutely like what Nate, hypothetically speaking,
we'll take this, we'll take this off the podcast well
more more for our pushkin plus subscribers.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
What would want crime?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, so our would be criminal spree, Nate is short
lived because we've decided that we're not going to steal
anything from the art museum, but we will retain the
optionality of doing something that's going to be lower risk
and higher reward. On that note, let's talk about the
(09:13):
No King's protests that happened over the weekend. Nate, did
you participate?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
No, A, It's not my vibe.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Although I'm sympathetic to change the protesters and b I
in certain ways, I do take myself seriously as a journalist,
and I think if I went, it would be appropriate
to cover them more arms length and not to participate
but you know, we can talk about that or not.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Did you, Maria.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I did not for various reasons, but the biggest one
of which is I can't deal with crowds, like I
hate events where there no, I really can't, Like I
get really clustrophobic and really anxious.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And I know, I look, you are both.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
We both live I know, in New York City and
Las Vegas, which I maybe I mean not in the world,
but there's.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
A very different so there's so there's a very different
mentality when you're in a huge crowd of people protesting
versus like, you know, on a commute. And just to
just to give you an example, so this Saturday, which
is when the protests were happening, I went to Grand Central,
where I never go. I hate Grand Central, but I
(10:21):
went because it really Yeah, Grand Central's nice, it's beautiful,
but I just, oh, I don't like any of the
like I don't like going to train stations like and
if I go there, it's for travel, but like Grand Central,
I never have to use like for whatever reason, you know,
I never travel out of Grand Central anyway. So I
went there specifically to see the Dear New York exhibition
(10:44):
from Humans of New York that was closing this weekend.
It was two weeks during which Grand Central all of
the advertising was taken off and it was completely taken
over by the humans of New York Photography. And they
also had a Steinway piano which was donated that was
in the middle of the hall, and they had Juilliard
musicians play during the day and some other cameos. Anyway,
(11:08):
so this was a big thing and I wanted to
see it, and I ended up leaving very quickly because
going the day before it closed was not a good idea.
And it was so ridiculously crowded and there were so
many people that I couldn't appreciate the photography and the
art and all of these things, because not only could
I not see anything, but I was being jostled from
every single side, and I was like, you know what,
(11:29):
it's not I'm getting out of here. Like I actually
started feeling, you know, this sense of claustrophobia and anxiety.
So I don't do well in situations where there are
too many people near me. I hate crowded subways.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Night.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Whenever I see one that's too crowded and I have
to get on, I'm like oh, man, I suddenly envision
the worst case scenario, which is that we get stuck, right,
that we get stuck in between stations, and I'm on
this ridiculously crowded subway car and I have been something
I don't know. I just really I have no idea.
I just really do not like crowds. It's something that like,
(12:05):
I get very anxious over. So no, I did not
go to that protest, and I'm not a protest person.
But the underlying question was kind of was there for
a reason, which is that if we think about protests
in a broader sense, there's a very strong kind of
(12:25):
game theoretic reason why protests are powerful, and that has
nothing to do with like, oh, you're in a crowd,
but everything to do with signaling. Right, So a protest,
there's I didn't not go because I don't think it's
not worth it. I didn't go because just personally, I,
like I said, I hate crowds. But I do think
(12:48):
it's worth it for the simple reason that there's coordination
issues and kind of there's power in sending a very
strong signal that people can then look at to say, oh,
I'm not the only one who feels this way, there
are lots of people who feel this way. And now
I know, right now that I know that there is
all of this support out there for something that I
(13:11):
believe that is not always visible because when you're online
kind of in you know, Twitter or whatever it is,
you see a very specific subset of opinions. You're in
a very specific bubble. But protests throughout history, when people
go out in public, it's a signaling mechanism, right, and
it's then a coordination mechanism where you can actually point
(13:35):
to it and say, Okay, look, you know, here's a
group of people who hold certain views, and that can
be incredibly powerful for future momentum and future decision making.
By the way, it's even more powerful when we're talking
about truly authoritarian regimes countries where there's very little communication
(13:56):
between people. We're not there yet in the United States,
but it's powerful even in a democratic society.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Look, these process had a very large scale. They happened
in hundreds of cities. I'm always a little bit skeptical
of crowd sized estimates, which tend to be overestimates, but
several million, I think it's safe to say, which makes
it quite high on a list of like all time
one day protests at least. I mean, look, as you
(14:26):
get a larger size of crowd, then these things tend
to become a little bit more amorphous, right, And you
can see various critiques like, Okay, maybe the protests are
a little bit cringe and considering who we're dealing with, right,
we're dealing with like kind of like mostly boomery, good
(14:47):
government democrat types. Yeah, they're a little cringe, right, And
like the message just when you can critique, I mean,
you know.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Does no kings quite makes sense?
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I'm not sure the idea is Trump is a king
so much as an authoritarian.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Those aren't quite the same thing exactly, But.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
It kind of doesn't matter because like what you're trying
to do is a demonstrate that, like, you know, yes,
we don't have elections all that often, and yes, last
time we had an election, Trump one narrowly, but there
are a lot of us number one, you know, a
conservative reminder to like the the media and things like that.
(15:28):
I mean, Trump is not that popular in the polls.
He's not popular in the polls. He's not that unpopular either, right,
but like you know, these things can be a spectacle
in part and attract attention, that is, if anything like
a little bit outsize relative to the number of people participating, right,
because they're physical, they're outside there. In some cases do
(15:49):
you seem to be rather gentle minded, but they can
be like confrontational.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
If you look at the number of students of the people.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Participating in the pro Palestinian protests over the past year
and a half, those are not I'm being honest, those
are not particularly large protests.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
If you'd look look at the numbers for that. It's
not like Kings or something like that.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Right, However, they still got a ton of media coverage
shipped the narrative. I'm not sure whether they shifted the
narrative in the direction of protesters wanted they, but they
have they have a big effect potentially, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
For sure. And I do think that the narrative is
also something that's that's quite important. So I mentioned before
kind of the signaling mechanism, which is on an individual
level I think important to then coordinate action further down
the line. But also framing the narrative is, especially in
(16:48):
the modern age, something that is really important in an
intentionally divided economy. Right, it to not in the past
where everyone watched one single TV show, right, or one
single news channel, and there was kind of this collective
(17:09):
knowledge of like, oh, these are the things that are
in the news, et cetera, et cetera. These days, it's
very fragmented, right, There's a very fragmented media landscape, and
so many different things are vuying for our attention on
any given basis. And the Trump administration has shown itself
to be much better than a lot of democratic operatives,
(17:32):
to be perfectly honest at capturing attention and creating a narrative,
right and creating something that makes it feel like it's
this inevitable all American force, and something like the No
King's protest is a really interesting moment that can potentially
shape the narrative of weight.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You know, we have.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Protesters in the heart of Red Texas and all of
these different areas, and they've all come out, and they've
all coordinated, and it's a pretty significant number of people,
and so it's a I think it's a way of
creating a counter narrative to a lot of what we
see online.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
This might lead us Nate to kind of a broader
consideration of you know, what matters, right when you're trying
to kind of craft this craft a narrative that actually
changes minds and changes action, because one of the critiques
one can have of things like protest is, well, you're
not actually doing anything right. You're not voting, you're not lobbying,
you're not changing legislation, you're not reaching out to your
(18:51):
congress people like, you're not doing anything like that. But
on the other hand, you're doing something because you're sending
a signal to the government. You know that these are
the things that matter here where people who feel this
way live, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So let
me let me just let me just stop there and
get your thoughts on this and on because of your thoughts,
your thoughts more broadly kind of about the effectives of
(19:14):
certain tactics versus other when you're trying to shape a
narrative that with the ultimate goal, because presumably this is
the ultimate goal of change, right, of actually affecting real
change in the government, in government policies and in what
happens in the country going forward.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yeah, look, I mean compared to other things, I say,
protesting is relatively effective. I mean, like I you know,
protesting is higher effort than voting, and voting is samously
questionably rational. I suppose if you live in the state
like New York, you have your you can voting about it.
But like, as you don't New York, you're voting.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Voting kind of.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
As a.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
Symbolic act does a specific act is a protest almost
and not necessarily is like I'm actually influence the election result, right. Yeah, Look,
part of it is I don't like the people that
kind of talk about like setting the narrative very often
are very good about setting.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
I think that's very true.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And you know, a critique the Democrats strategy on the shutdown,
right because like it's like it's like too narrow and
like it's not you know, I don't know, right, And
it's like you have to focus on healthcare, right, But
their question is not about healthcare. If you look at
like Google searches for healthcare, people are not particularly focused
(20:37):
on that. It's not what they're I mean, they care
about healthcare, it's like not what their heart is into.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
So have us kind of like.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
Amorphous outpouring of peaceful anti Trump sentiment. That's kind of
more not normy. I'm sure that people there are watching
what then was NBC and reading lotless substacks, right, but like,
but to have this kind of.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
More normy vibe, I think you.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Worthwhile, right, and you know it's trobably more effective than
they shut down, which agin I think it's how and
thank for Democrats very much at all. You know, so
I do not think you know, people in Blue Sky
can quote me on this. I do not think that
we are on like the doorstep to authoritarianism. I think
(21:25):
I think America has I think it's the over simplication, right,
I think America has a lot of robust checks and
balances which are being substantially fraid. I think we might
be in like the ante room before the doorstep, though, right,
ye and gef there are actions such as like Trump
(21:47):
trying to make it difficult for people to vote in
twenty twenty six or twenty twenty eight for example. Right,
I mean you can imagine open defiance to leave the
White House after his term is over, open defiance of
a Supreme Court order. You know, one thing that I'll
hear from is you'll see you'll hear your kind of
democratic activists types kind of say, like, look, I realized
(22:10):
that if you're kind of like leading your life, then
things might seem pretty normal unless you're an immigrant or
unless you's these other you know, a student, unless it's
other sugar categories. And like in some sense and some
since Trump has been smart about that, right, Like he's
been smart about like the world doesn't feel like it's
(22:31):
in chaos if you live in in New York, right,
And I even think that, like, you know, there are
things like the ice raids and National Guard deployments in
different cities and things like that, right, and if you're
very politically aware of these will seem a whole right,
But like I don't think they're noticeable for ordinary people either, right,
(22:53):
Like I was in Chicago for a talk the you know,
the we can There are a bunch of ice actions
there on the South side of Chicago, and like I
actually had a bunch of like political conversations there. I mean,
I have friends there who are interested in politics, and
they woud talk where we talking abouts and stuff like that,
and like it didn't really come up, right, not because
of what they think about Politicia unaware of it though,
(23:14):
because like you know, I think there's this gap between
the way that political insiders and political message crafts people
who are very online experience politics and the way that
ordinary people do. I mean talking about a protests that
has mass numbers millions, millions, you're bridging that gap like
(23:35):
a little bit, right, because you know what percent of
people watch MSNBC, Box and New CNN. It's like one
percent of the country like watching them on the given day.
It's like quite small, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Yeah, it's really small and if anything, probably you know
political surveys or bioteople who participate, right, and so yeah,
like you know, the number of MSNBC viewers and the
demo was in like the low to mid six digits
usually meaning eighteen to forty nine or how they define that, right.
You know a lot of older people who are just
kind of watching TV and maybe not doing that much else.
(24:11):
But yeah, people kind of miss these scale things and
like and the number one problem that like political strategies,
most polical strategists have is like they think exactly the
opposite from how from how the normies do, right, and
you know, a more narrow protest, right, like you know,
(24:31):
I would take again the GOSPAP protests as something that
have like relatively fear both, right, and they spin out
on the things and there's messing that might be dumb
in whatever health, right, But like you know, on a university,
we want the university to bess these investments and changes
policy and this and that, right, you know. And those
(24:52):
are pretty narrowly targeted protests, but smaller in scale. This
is amorphous. I mean things like Occupy Wall Street, which
was not particularly large protests, right, but like where the
Tea Party is an example on the Republican conservative side
a little bit more right, that's a little bit i'morphous.
And amorphosis can be good because like you want different
(25:17):
people to be able to interpret it in different ways,
and you know, the overall sentiment is clear enough Trump
babert aboutthoritarrying rule or monarchical rule. I'll give them a
credit of paths on the imprecise metaphor.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
What do you think is more effective having a protest
that has very clear stated goals or ones that are
expressing these broader sentiments, Because I don't know what your
perception of Occupy Wall Street's ultimate effectiveness was. Mine was
that not much ended up changing. It was also Occupy
(25:53):
Wall Street. By the way, it was on a much
smaller scale than what we're talking about with No Kings.
But what's your sense of Like if you were trying
to be like, Okay, you know, I want people to
be aware of all of these I want draw attention
to all of these excesses happening that people might not
be aware of unless they're very like politically tied in.
(26:16):
I want them to be aware of, you know, tipping
points in kind of the legal structure, et cetera, et cetera,
that some of these checks are you know, yes, so
far democracy is holding. We do have robust checks and balances,
but we are in the ante room, as you said,
as you phrased it, and like some of these things
are really being strained, and a lot of people don't
(26:38):
seem to be aware of that. Like if you were
organizing a protest, would it look like the No Kings
protest broadly speaking? Broadly speaking, like let's as you say,
you know, let's ignore the semantics, Like would it be
kind of more amorphous like general sentiment, like please work
with us legislators and like let's try to figure out
a strategy to counter this, or would you say you
(27:01):
know what before we do this protest, like, let's think
of three big goals and like have everyone have posters
with those you know, with those goals, et cetera, et cetera,
and like actually try to do something that is more
targeted but still broad. I don't know that I have
a clear answer to that, so I'm curious whether you do.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, look, I don't know if I'm the extra don
protests here. By the way, I think I could buy
Wall Street. We punched someone above its weight, like a
kind of introducer at least popularized the praise. We're the
ninety nine percent than the one percent, and like that's true.
That's a means for many years, fourteen years later, whatever
it is is pretty powerful potentially.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, look, it's so funny. I totally forgot that that
came from Occupy Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Look, I think you have different issues here. What is
that Although Trump is unpopular, he's not enormously unpopular. He
won election twice, including just you know, not quite a
year ago, and the critiques.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Of him are kind of disparate.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
Right, people don't like, you know, some people are to
chinking about the economy, which I think might be a
more appropriate such a per focus in part because like
it is no whole day to day A little bit
more people are concerned about immigration or authoritarism, they are
long standing concerns about climate change and.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Whatever else.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
People think he's the racist, naphobic, sexist, people think he's corrupt.
I'm not. I'm not unendorsing any of these ideas, by
the way, right, But like Trump has always given people
so many such a large attack surface to term is
different ways in that like it actually kind of renders
itself toward it ineffective, right, And so like, on the
one hand, it might seem like the way to attack
(28:45):
that is to focus on one particular avenue, right, However
a is at the right avenue and be like I
think Karen Tula, that might that might work less well,
right because like remember one again, all the total anti
Trump democratic energy, they're trying to make a shutdown about healthcare.
If you read the newsletters, read the sub sex of
little Subtext or blue Sky whatever else, right, maybe one
(29:07):
or two percent of the messages are about healthcare from
like not the actual base, but like the activist online
part of the base, right, And so like, you know,
you're kind of losing people there a little bit. Number two,
Trump is very very good at like changing the subject
or redirecting attention. Right, So if he ever has a weakness,
he's like it's so the metaphor of like Trump being
(29:30):
a ship that you have different kind of which to attack, right,
Like it doesn't quite work because it can fight back
in different ways. Right, yeah, so you know, yeah, maybe
having this kind of like more amorphous kind of gathering
of energy.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
You know what I don't know of having I been
a protests, right, you know, the most important thing is
probably are you gathering.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Lists of people who can become politically organized in in
different ways? And importantly for me, you know, can you
have these that are outside the offices of the kind
of capital D democratic party? Right?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I think the cretic parties.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Often have healthy at like the local and state level,
But like I to a Frisch approximation, think that like
every person in afficition of power and their Credit Party
should be fired, right, Like I think the party is lost.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
No, I mean seriously, like the the Credit Party is
like lost, Like you know, it lost an election to
Trump twice.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Right. Renominating Joe Biden was a good idea all the
leaders are too fucking old, like anybody over the age
of fifty in a leadership position, Let's let's have a
generational goodbye, right, and if you're the age of fifty,
their credit party, I think should well. I think, you know,
Democrats goals may be better off if those people were
were you know, replaced. Do you want to take a
(30:53):
couple of mulligans or exceptional right, But like, you know,
so they have like you know, so, yeah, I'm not
so sure that it's so far from what I indoors
I can the vibe is not mine. It feels a
little cringe to me. But like the cringe is okay,
creates happens when you have mass support for something, right,
it's inherently a little cringe. If you go like a
(31:15):
NFL game, the NFL is the most popular sport, cringe.
I love football, Right, they're a little bit cringe. Parades
are fucking cringe at right, Holidays are cringe. I mean,
all these things that are really popular are like, you know,
so watch American Idol. American Idol is cringe. Like popular
things are cringe for you.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Oh man, don't get me started on parades. I used
to live right next to the Halloween rad and.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Uh yeah, and New York.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Canceled because of that.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
That's what happened.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So so I had lived in the West Village for
my like my all of my New York existence, you know,
that's where I moved when I just moved from, uh
from Boston and just loved the area and stayed there.
And so every single year I saw, you know, the
havoc that happened with the with the Halloween parade, and
(32:08):
knew that like basically on Halloween, I had to just
stay in my apartment and like don't do anything that
crosses Seventh Avenue. And then one day decide I saw
like there was a restaurant I really wanted to go to,
and like finally saw reservation pop up, and I was
like yay and took it. And of course the reservation
popped up because it was on the other side of
(32:30):
Seventh Avenue.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Walter Day. It really if you haven't experienced, it's very
hard to like but go up to like a roof
tower and like finally to the streets and their guests.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah exactly exactly. It's it's horrifying and we'll be back
right after this. You know, it's interesting to talk about
(33:07):
this and to and to talk about like the importance
of general lives because if you and I, when you
and I talked about, you know, the best way to
organize a little less than a year ago, Nate and
we were talking about, you know, what's what can democrats do?
We decided collectively that they needed to focus on a
few issues. And when we were talking about how do
(33:29):
they win, right before Trump got elected, we were saying, Okay,
you know, your messaging should be focused on a few
issues where you can actually get votes, where people are
passionate about this, because the Trump campaign was much more
effective at that and we were saying, you know, I
remember you talking about immigration and saying, hey, Democrats, like
immigration's not your issue, Like stop talking about that instead,
(33:49):
like let's try to focus on on things that like
healthcare right that could actually be much more effective. Then
we were talking, you know, with the shutdown, et cetera,
that we should really be focusing on, like let's focus
on tariffs, Like let's let's do something focused when we're
talking about inside the government, and yet our advice for
people kind of outside the government seems to be to
(34:11):
have more of that vibe type of approach where you have,
as you say, cringe but we don't have to call
them crinch. But when you have these large scale events
that just show a general state of malaise, displeasure and
opens the opens the conversation up for policymakers to kind
(34:33):
of act in different ways as opposed to like pinpointing
one specific thing.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
Yeah, let's the other thing is like, if you're a
political operative, then ironically you have like often a very
short term time horizon, right. You know, you have a
job where you get up and were the office of
eight thirty every every Monday. Maybe it's a romantic snacing
of it, right, but like, but you know you have
particular goals you have for that day, that week. That
news cycle right in the media is the same way, right,
(35:01):
we have to we have to you know, some weeks, Maria,
we have eight things people to talk about, right, some
weeks it's a well struggle, right, but you kind of
even the ow and something to come talking to point
and so like you know, yeah, it should be more
long term focus. Right. We still have more than a
year until the midterm elections, even we have more than
three years until the presidential election. And so yeah, you know, look,
(35:24):
the direct Party has always been that historically they're kind
of like this collection of different interest groups, right that
Democrats were collection of young people and union workers and
people of color and college professors.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And like you know, gay people and other people who.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Are you know, you know, ex communists, and like a
whole monthly crew of different types of folks that like
don't necessarily have that much interest in common but might
be marginalizing some ways, kind of like when you get
it intellectuals, right, you know what the Democratic Party is now,
it's a little bit less clear, Right, It's lost some
(36:06):
support from every one of those groups except the point
he headed intellectuals basically, right, it's loss of kiss among
Hispanic and Asian Americans. It's some sport among black Democrats.
It's also live support among like working class union worker
type of Democrats. Right, it's also sport young people pecularly
young men. Right. So, well, you know, you still don't
(36:28):
have a lot of people who have their hat quote
unquote issues with the environment or LGBT do plus rights,
or over healthcare or or economics and authority. Right, and
like when do you say, oh, let's focus on this
one issue. Well, the other groups you're really upset, right,
(36:48):
and they'll say, my issue is a matter of existential importance.
There's with called special pleading, right, It's like very hard
to like have you know, who gets to pick and
choose what issues we prioritize and so like have seffy
amorphous and it's project cussures, Like ambiguity is okay, you
can be yeah, absolutely USU on your paper, the better.
(37:11):
I'm like, it seems kind of weird, right, but I
was pretty good at being optimizing for intiguity.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, I'm not surprised, and I'm surprised, but no.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I actually think that you just made a really important point,
which is that you know this also having a protest
that's like the no King's protest unites people right as
opposed to feel having people feel like they're left out,
Like this is not my protest, this is everyone's protest.
This is like uniting on the absolute highest level issue.
We believe in our democracy and we want to preserve it.
(37:45):
Because if you think about kind of the psychology of
in groups and out groups, right, we are very good
at forming in groups and out groups based on anything, right,
almost almost immediately, but we're also very good at unifying
when you can actually kind of get a bigger issue
that focuses on commonalities as opposed to divisions. And so
(38:06):
I think that's something like a No King's protest test
did a really good job of actually tapping into that
element of psychology right on a high level, Like let's
put our differences aside. Right, let's put aside whether like
who we are and what to us is the existential issue,
and how we feel about you know, all of these
(38:28):
different people and all of these different policies, and instead
let's focus on one thing, Like, let's we believe in America.
We believe in democracy. We want to preserve this thing
that the country was founded on. And I think that's
why the No Kings like, even though not quite right,
while symbolically it actually helps kind of get to that unification.
(38:49):
It helps to harken back to a moment in history
when America was united, right where it didn't matter what
political party you were, it didn't matter, nothing mattered other
than that we were fighting against the British and we
wanted to be free.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah. Look, I mean this is a problem that you
have in very online communities. Maybe more of the left
and the right currently reasons explaining the moment. But like
the notion of online combat on Twitter, blue Sky, Facebook, whatever,
et cetera. Right, the notion of dunking on people achieving
kind of social superiority. Right, I tat the people competing
(39:24):
for hierarchy to tear down a hierarchy to regain putting
in the hierarchy themselves. Right, And by definition it's kind
of it's kind of exclusionary. Right. Republicans do lots of
that too, they are fortunate enough to have this kind
of And again I'm not a super lib Right, I'm
gonna say this in a way that believe is like
(39:47):
a correct arms like fritigue, but like there is a
substantial like personality cult around Trump that helps keep Republicans
united with all types of long term cosmus to the country. Right,
But like Democrats have no equivalent of right, So they're
both exclusionary at least people kind of like the blue
sky types and and leaderless really bad, you know what
(40:11):
I mean. It's like, we have a great idea, but
we don't want you. You will while you're participating unless
you agree with us in all these issues. Right, So
the rep and inclusivity is is very important.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
I think that that's a key issue that Democrats have
been ignoring for too long and that they really really
need to focus on, which is that it's okay, right,
shades of gray are okay, and we want to include you,
even if you don't check all of these boxes for
kind of what the perfect liberal mind thinks on all
of these issues, you know, what's in vogue on all
(40:46):
of these things. I think that the Republicans have actually
been much much better at including people in the party
and saying, ah, fine, like you don't believe in that,
but like, at least you you believe in Trump, you
believe in this, Like, come on in. And I do
think that the Democratic establishment has actually been very quick
to I don't want to say like cancel, but to
(41:06):
cancel their own right to say, well, like sure you're
you're a Democrat, but you said something I don't like
about this issue, and.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
So or to dismiss while groups of voters.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
You know, Hillary Clinton made the thing to mislike deplorable
comment in twenty sixteen, I guess it was, which is
saying like, yeah, you know, half of.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Not all voters, half of Trump.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Voters are irredeemable racist massaging that's deficerate and half are
redeemable and a little bit misguided, right, which I think
is actually probably might be about right is a kind
of empirical statement, right, is a piece.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Of political analysis.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
But like as a politician.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Yeah, and like and the fact is that like you
never know where you find like this is a big
kind of you know, people mistake, like the group tendency
with the marginal pingdomcity right in any group. Sure, and
I've tried to mathematically model this and like, but I
won't get into the details.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Now, in any group, there are always marginal voters, right.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
You know the fact that Trump would like go to
the Bronx and say, I'm going to do a rally
among the black community of South Bronx And if you
look at the details, and a lot of people are
not black and or not from the South Bronx or
the bronxiul. Right, But like the fact that he's saying
I would like to have your vote, right, Like, I
don't think Democrats do the same thing. Right. They don't
go and say to evangelical white church and say, you
(42:29):
know what, you're as rationals you might want to hope
for Democrats, right, maybe you kind of implicitly do it,
and like who are on the center left are regarded
as enemies by the far left and often vice versa,
and so like it. It's you know, getting out of
that mentality is essential.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
It's absolutely crucial, and I think, you know, the No
King's protests is a really good step in that direction.
So yeah, the main kind of takeaways here are like,
coordination is important, and signaling is important at kind of
understanding all of that from a game theory standpoint is important,
but also inclusivity is important and trying to frame things
(43:08):
in broad terms where you can actually unite people and
focus on uniting as opposed to dividing and nitpicking and
like you know saying oh, well you belong, but you
really don't. You're not our perfect archetype of who we want.
That it's really important to think in those types of terms.
And the third thing that we haven't talked about as much,
but we have mentioned is like people just don't think
(43:30):
long term, Like if I don't do something right now,
the Democratic Party is just going to implode. Like if
I don't if I don't do this, then these are
the long term consequences, and you don't think, well, like,
if I don't speak out now, then there might be
nothing to speak out, nothing left to speak out for
in a few years. So I think that thinking more
long term and long term strategy is very important. I
(43:53):
don't necessarily endorse Nate, you know, acting everyone over fifty
fifty seems awfully young, but still I you know, I
think that what you were the spirit of that that
we do need kind of a little bit. We do
need some young blood is fair because we do need
to be thinking about the future, and people who are
(44:14):
eighty years old are not the future because they're going
to be dead in the long term that we're talking about,
absent the singularity.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
I'm with that maybe we can retreat from the antie
room to the foyer, before the anti room, before the
doorway to borg caredism.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
By me Nate Silver. The show was a Cool production
of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by
Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia, Jean Kott,
and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our executive producer
is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, but once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in, MHM.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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