January 31, 2025 • 37 mins
In this compelling episode, the panel engages in a nuanced discussion on authoritarianism, exploring its historical context and current manifestations. To begin the panel introduces themselves and the roots of their political beliefs. Tane discusses her upbringing in Yugoslavia where she experienced totalitarianism and, later, populism. Patty shares her roots as an Army brat, later joining the Army, and finally getting here MBA as a professional. For Joanie, her beliefs start and end with self-respect, respect for her family, and respect for others.
The conversation extends to the potential benefits of socialism, with panelists sharing insights on how socialist policies have positively impacted education and social welfare systems in various countries. By drawing on personal experiences and historical examples, the episode underscores the complex relationship between government control and individual freedoms. The guests reflect on the delicate balance required to ensure that governance supports the common good without infringing on personal liberties. This episode not only educates listeners on the risks of authoritarianism but also presents a balanced view of how different types of government can contribute to societal well-being when implemented with careful consideration of democratic principles.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, listeners, we're back breaking bread here in Napa.
(00:10):
A lot of my listeners, you all know that what I'm trying to do here is that this divisiveness
in our society right now is just at all time highs, and it's causing a lot of turmoil,
particularly between and amongst families and friends at holiday dinners, and it's really
(00:34):
a rampant issue in our society, this heightened anger and resentment at our fellow Americans,
which I do not really think is all that healthy for us as a society, since we are facing a
number of huge global problems that we all need to pull together as an American have
(01:02):
to focus that energy on solving some of these problems.
So with that, we try to talk to everybody.
We want to talk to if you're a Republican, if you're a MAGA, if you're an independent,
vegetarian, Democrat, far left, whatever your walk is, and if you don't even want to label
(01:23):
yourself, that's fine too.
We just want respectful dialogue communication here so that we can all get along and solve
some of these huge problems that our country and world are facing.
So what I like to do is bring a little of that civility back, and that's what the point
of the podcast is.
(01:44):
So please keep that in mind, be respectful even if you disagree.
A lot of you know I had an experience, this was a month ago or two months ago, with a
family member, it caught me off guard, I overreacted, I was just, I love my cousin to death, we
(02:12):
grew up together, he's like a brother practically.
And he didn't sound like his normal self and just was really kind of cranky, irritated,
and I'm like, what's going on?
What's going on?
So he just belted out all this wokeism and real men and masculinity, toxic men, and I'm
(02:33):
like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where is this coming from?
That's not what I, that was not the point of the asking how you're feeling here.
And just went really in a rage.
And then before I could comment, I really wanted to understand what he meant by that
in terms of wokeism, because I don't know what I think of wokeism, I think enlightened,
(02:55):
but it seemed like a very negative perspective anyway.
So I was asking him, can you please, you know, talk about what you mean by that?
And it just got, he just went in his corner and just went off crazy and said, I voted
for Trump and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that wasn't what I expected.
(03:16):
And it just went south from there.
Anyway, so we did reel it in and just calm down.
My aunt, thank God, she was there.
She pulled the phone away from me and all is good.
And we ended what we love each other and that's the bottom line there.
But I didn't like the way I reacted.
So I like to ask my guests if they're experiencing any of this dissension amongst their friends
(03:40):
and family and how do you handle it?
Do you go to your corner?
Do you try to understand where they're coming from?
So any nuggets, if you got anything to share, if you don't, that's fine too.
But I really, you know, this is part of the whole experience of this podcast and why I'm
doing it.
So Tani, with that, is there, do you have anything to share with that?
(04:01):
And your experience, your family, friends with this divisive behavior and how you manage
that or not?
That's fine too.
We're here to share.
Okay.
May I go a little bit into history?
Sure.
Whatever you want to go.
Before the Second World War, in my hometown, which used to be a republic of the Brunig,
(04:26):
we had a different attitude toward politics.
Even as a child, I was always reminded by my parents that there are three things you
don't discuss.
One is gatherings.
One is politics because you respect everybody's points of view.
(04:48):
The other one is you don't ask students about their grades.
And the third one is ladies' grades, ladies' age.
You don't discuss age.
And salaries.
Before the Second World War, there were a number of different parties in Dubrovnik.
(05:13):
And the politics were discussed during the city council hours.
And in the evening, all these people would get together for dinners.
The wives would arrange this.
They would know, they respected each other.
Even during dinners, you don't discuss politics because everybody is entitled for their own
(05:39):
opinion.
And there was time allotted for discussing politics where you could do something about
it, not just be nasty about it.
So I kind of grew up like that.
Not kind of, but really, sticking to these rules.
(05:59):
And then when I was a child, things changed.
And we had a totalitarian government in Yugoslavia with the president, Marshal Tito.
Well, it was good and it was bad because a lot of arguments and hostilities are among
(06:23):
friends and family are based upon religion, political views, basically that.
And there was none of that because there was only one capital P party.
(06:44):
So there's nothing to discuss.
And if you had a different opinion, you were better off not talking about it because you
might wind up in jail.
You know, totalitarianism.
And then populism became in present day Croatia.
(07:11):
There's more and more talk about populism.
Populism is, these days, understood as something, for the most part, understood as something
negative.
However, it can't be positive too.
And we have seen that throughout history.
(07:33):
Well, the main thing about populism, historically I would say, everybody comes up with Mao,
with Hitler, with Mussolini and such.
And of course, that's negative.
But they were also like in old Greece, you know, antique Greece.
(07:57):
And so populism, there was indeed representing the popular opinion about something and there
was not negative.
So that these days, the more I read, the more I see that populism is taken as a negative
thing.
(08:17):
But if we think about cases where it was good thing, that you do listen to people, that
you do understand their issues, problems, wishes and needs, it can be a positive thing.
And we can have representatives who do represent people's needs and take them to the US Congress
(08:47):
or whatever.
So that's about more or less what, from my background, from my view and background.
Excellent.
Listeners, we have a new guest here joining us.
Patty Painter is with us.
Patty, can you please give a little background, just introduce yourself real quick and then
(09:10):
comment on this family, the issue that I teed up.
Sure.
It's Painton.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Yeah, no, I grew up in Northern Virginia.
Mostly, I was an Army brat, so I moved around a lot and saw a lot of different places, a
lot of different people.
And then I was in the Army myself, so continued that trend of traveling and meeting different
(09:34):
people, being in different situations, having to adjust.
And in all honesty, I think what it did mostly was teach, instill in me this concept of flexibility
and understanding that everybody's got a different point of view and they come from
different backgrounds.
They experience different things in life and substantiate a lot of their views.
(10:01):
And so I was in the Army, then I got, when I got out after 11 years, I worked for GE
Capital and then I got my MBA and then worked in the finance industry for a while.
And so then my family kind of moved out here to California and I was laid off in the recession
(10:25):
when I was working on the East Coast and then decided to rejoin my family after having been
away from them for so long, both in the Army and with the finance world.
And so regarding families and friends and political discussions, to me, kind of like
what Tani said, I think politics has taken over more in the sentiment of religion more
(10:52):
recently.
In other words, it's something that's embedded in our every facet of life.
When I was growing up, I knew that there were Republicans and Democrats and you had
your blue dog Democrats.
And people talked about it, but it was never anything that was internalized.
It was more just an issue-based discussion, not so much a personality discussion.
(11:15):
I remember talking about the Kennedys, I remember talking about Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and
then I remember going on to Ford and Carter.
And I just remember these as background conversations in my childhood.
And now all of a sudden it seems to be the at the forefront of everything, which I think
(11:36):
it's taken over as people's, for lack of a better word, religion.
And I kind of wonder why is that?
Is that because religion is dying in this world and we don't have that to focus on?
And so therefore we probably spend more time focusing on the world around us and the events
that take place and what people say and how they say it.
(11:58):
And not so much about what's at the soul of the matter, which is what's best for the people
and what does it take to do what's best for the people.
Not so much what's said or how they say it or who says it and who reports it and who
gets the facts and who doesn't get the facts.
It's got to be more a soul-searching issue to you decide what's important in life.
(12:22):
And then based on that is what you pursue.
So when you're talking to people like for example next month's Thanksgiving, right,
and that's always the forum where these issues come up.
Quite frankly, I prefer that they don't come up because I like my turkey and I don't like
to get indigestion.
But then invariably pop up as an issue.
(12:44):
And so my approach is kind of this.
I have to admit at our dinner table there's not a lot of disagreement when it comes to
politics.
I come from a very conservative background, Catholic.
So we have some pretty strong foundational values that we tend to pursue as a family.
(13:07):
But don't get me wrong.
We have our issues within the conservative discussion that cause points of consternation.
So but to answer the question as to how do you approach that.
To me, I don't take it, I don't treat it like religion.
It's important to me because I have my value system and this, that, and the other.
But I also understand that other people have their value system and that they're motivated
(13:31):
by different things.
So I kind of put it in this category, this is a great discussion or a great topic for
discussion but it's not something I'm going to turn around and be emotional about and
turn against you as my family member or my friend.
I often think if these kinds of conversations are what's breaking up friendships, I really
(13:52):
question the strength of the friendship.
Because is that what we've lost sight of?
Have we lost sight of loyalty?
Have we lost sight of dedication to each other?
If something, just a subject matter can cause a family member to turn against each other
or two friends not to be friends anymore, I don't, what's going on here?
(14:16):
It shouldn't be that easy to lose a friend if it's truly a friend in the first place.
So I kind of, that's where I keep it on that plateau where don't get me wrong, we get emotional,
we get into arguments and they flare up.
But at the end of the day, you got to come back to your, you know, to reality and say,
okay, what's important?
Is this worth losing a friend or befriending a, or estranging a family member?
(14:43):
No, it's not.
It's just something that's going on in the world and you've got to know that the value
of your opinion is encompassed in your vote.
And so that's the bottom line right there.
We can talk about it all day long, but what's really going to come out is how the vote shows
up.
So that's kind of how I do it.
But that's how you deal with it.
That's how I deal with it.
(15:03):
I try not to put it into the vein of, I don't like you anymore.
I got to dissolve you.
I get the emotion out of it.
I get the emotion out of it.
I keep it on a factual basis and have that conversation.
And, you know, there's not a conversation that I get into or an argument for that matter
where I don't walk away smarter than when I walked into it.
So I always appreciate that and I take it for what it's worth.
(15:24):
Well, very well put.
Thank you for that.
There's a lot to unpack.
It already got me thinking about a couple other topics.
I love this whole religion, how religion plays into this populism.
But we'll shelf that for another time, but there's a lot there on that one.
Joni, how about you?
Any comments on family and friends feuding over politics these days?
(15:49):
What's your experience?
I'll be very brief.
I'm going to go back to a simple word, respect.
Self-respect.
Respect for others.
Something that's learned very early on in life.
If you have self-respect, then you're capable of having respect for others, whether it's
a discussion about politics, the environment, how to raise your child, who you're going
(16:13):
to put on a field to play that day if you're a coach, whatever.
You have to see the big picture before you are able to respect and sit back and intelligently
consume someone else's thought process.
You don't have to agree with it.
That's part of being respectful.
I would hope that I've raised my three sons that way.
(16:37):
We've never gotten to a disagreement over something very serious over dinner, usually
over what we're going to have for dessert.
Great, great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for your comments on that that makes me feel better, that there is hope.
We could work through this.
Never give up hope.
(16:58):
Never give up hope.
I love that exactly.
We're going to move on to the meat of our topic here, which is authoritarianism slash
populism.
You guys can just, what it means to you, I know we've got a historian here who can really
take us back into history and show us there's a lot to be learned from history.
(17:22):
Let's just put it that way and need to be reminded of it sometimes.
Just to level set this discussion, I did some research on it from the Foreign Affairs Institute.
They had some statistics, Washington think tank.
I'm going to go around real quick.
No thought here.
Just give me your thoughts on that.
(17:42):
What percentage of the world today would you say is ran by some sort of authoritarian slash
dictator versus a democracy?
What percentage would you say is authoritarianism governments in this world today?
It's hard to tell.
(18:04):
Take a guess, your best guess.
If we are talking about how many countries or how many people.
Percentage, just percentage.
Give me a percentage.
Percentage of the world population.
Autoritarian, totally terrible, I'd say less than it was 40, 50 years ago, but more pronounced.
(18:29):
Give me a percentage.
I would say maybe 80%.
I'd say 70, about in the 70 round.
I'm going to go with 25.
71% of today's governments are held up by authoritarian dictators, some form of dictatorship.
(18:51):
Is it the governments or the population?
The governments.
Sorry about that.
I was astounded that it was that high.
Again, a lot to unpack there, but I just wanted to set this conversation of just to think
about and have my listeners think about that, what the world is and where we are in the
(19:14):
world is a democratic government here and how we are really a big factor in the 29% of democracies
that are out there and what's happening.
It's been on a steady growth.
That's where we're at today.
(19:36):
Tony, since you have a lot of history, share with us what your thoughts are on.
You can comment on that number, but you came out at 80%.
Obviously, you have some experience and know a little bit about that.
If you can maybe share some of your thoughts from your background and your experience in
life and with dictators and authoritarianism, what's your thoughts on that?
(20:04):
It's kind of interesting that we make generalizations.
People like to generalize.
Usually when I was brought up under communist and the bad word for us kids, it's called
(20:26):
not at home, was capitalists.
Capitalists are exploiting people.
They make money on account of somebody who is killing himself to work and can barely
survive on the income.
Then when I came here, it was during the Cold War and it was the same thing.
(20:52):
Since one of the languages I was teaching was Russian.
Again, there was a question by some government people even that I know why in the world would
I teach Russian.
My answer was if nothing else, it's to know your enemy.
(21:16):
Because in the East Bloc, in those days, a lot of people, a majority of people spoke
English, understood English.
Then I came here and if you remember the Olympic Games, they were supposed to take
place in Moscow and the document was participation rules, etc.
(21:43):
Was in Russian.
There was close to impossible to find anybody here who could translate this highly technical
language into English.
Then to go back to what I said earlier, here, communism, first of all, was confused with
(22:08):
socialism.
We take Scandinavian countries and Austria, very strong socialist parties in France, Italy,
Germany.
It's one thing, it's not communism.
It is social services in a way.
(22:34):
Social security.
Social security.
Well, it is important for people to feel that one day they will at least be able to buy
bread and butter.
You cannot throw out the baby with the birth water.
(22:59):
During communism, I can quote a couple of things which were outstanding, such as the
educational system.
I have a lot of friends who went, a lot of women too, which when I came here, it was
like my babysitter.
My kids' babysitter, medical doctor, a woman, no trust in women doctors.
(23:25):
Well, in Europe, the surgeons, dentists, etc., architects, they were all, not all, but prevailingly
women because men died during the war, Second World War.
I couldn't understand why would they want to be, let's say, a nurse, a woman, be a nurse,
(23:50):
not a doctor.
I mean, you're just as capable as a man.
But it's in their conscience that for women, it's enough to be a nurse, but men can be
a surgeon.
Anyhow, it was a kind of different attitude.
(24:11):
So wait, let's just unpack that real quick.
So what you're saying is that when you grew up during communism in your country, the women
had the higher positions because of the war, because the men were off at war and defending
the country.
And then you're saying when you came to America and you've seen women can't.
(24:32):
I'm not sure about how to say it.
Your experience.
Okay, that's fine.
That's fair.
Fair point.
I thought it was like 200 years behind.
So is it fair to say that your point is that not that communism is better or worse or social.
I mean, you're unpacking that and you're going really deep into that particular, you know,
(24:57):
the nuances between the different types of systems in there.
So there's pros and cons is what is what is kind of what your point is.
Well, I left because of the system.
And so I'm glad I did, but I'm also glad that I had first hand experience, especially with
(25:23):
educational system.
When I came here and you check the National Health Institute, a lot of people from medical
schools in Eastern Europe were working there.
Their knowledge was recommending them.
(25:44):
So there was so there's positives to be had from that is what your point is.
But ultimately you moved to America.
I know, you know, your husband obviously was a military and he was an American and everything,
but it gave you the opportunity to have lived in two different types of society.
So interesting, very interesting perspective.
(26:06):
And I'm glad I came here.
But you know, when I have people say, well, it's communist idea.
It's it.
Well, take education and that I think is the basis of tomorrow's society.
Good education, objective.
So excellent so much for me.
(26:28):
All right.
Patty, what about you?
Something come to mind on the topic?
I know it's a large broad topic and obviously she zoomed in on her background and what her
thoughts are.
What what brings what comes to mind for you that you'd like to share with with the listeners?
Well when I was in the Army, I was.
(26:48):
Thanks to Tony, I had learned a lot of Russian language and I was very intrigued by it.
So that when I was in the Army, I was training to be what they call a foreign area officer
with a focus on Eastern Central Europe and Russia.
And they sent me to the language institute in Monterey to learn Russian, more Russian.
(27:10):
And it was interesting because the language institute Monterey had a big Russian program.
So the Taney's point where there weren't people that they didn't have enough people who could
speak Russian in this country to translate the Olympic documents.
One place that did was the defense language institute for and also the language Institute
(27:31):
for the State Department, who had a who both have had a very extensive Russian language
program because because the Cold War was going on and Soviets were known as our enemy
during the Cold War.
So I learned a lot from that and a lot that read a lot of books on the Soviet Army and
(27:53):
whatnot, and I have to say, while I never lived the life in a communist country or had
to was was exposed to that.
I can certainly tell as an American when my freedoms and my when that those types of
governments when those the essence of that government infringes on my freedom as American,
(28:19):
it's almost a visceral response.
It's not even.
It doesn't even go through my head.
I can feel in my bones when somebody is is pushing the limit on invading my personal
freedom of freedoms.
Yeah.
So.
So while I I appreciate capitalism, I think capitalism was what got this country that
(28:42):
and rugged individualism.
And but there's a balance.
There's a need for taking care of those who are not capable of taking care of themselves
and so we have a duty as a society to do that from an authoritarianism standpoint.
It's going to be incumbent on the people of those countries to determine whether or not
(29:05):
they want to pursue their freedoms.
And I only think it's the influence of the democratic countries in this world that if
those if that's where these these populations want to be, then they, you know, they've got
to be able to rise up and and realize that and do what they need to do to change the
government as I think it was Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, one of them said the
(29:28):
people deserve the government they get.
So it's on the people to make the difference, not and not and realize that the government
is the people.
It's not a bunch of oligarchs or, you know, dictators.
It's it's it's what they want.
And they've got and it takes a lot of courage and intestinal fortitude to be able to turn
(29:52):
that around.
And like I said, once you've been spoiled by freedom, you know it when it doesn't exist
immediately.
You feel it the second and I just hope we as a country appreciate that and protect it,
do whatever we have to protect it.
As far as the education system is concerned, I do have an issue.
(30:12):
It's amazing to me how the socialist or the communist countries have always had a much
higher appreciation and focus on the quality of education.
I think that in this country needs a lot of we should look at that.
We should really look at that and see why these countries, why they're so heads and
tails ahead of us from an education and more and more so the lower levels of education,
(30:37):
maybe not so much the university level, but from the kindergarten to 12th grade, you know,
what are we doing?
Why aren't we getting the results that these other countries are getting like China?
A lot of the European countries Scandinavia.
I mean, these people come out of school.
They're they're well beyond us after a university education, you know.
(30:58):
So I think there's a lot to be said for looking at those forms of education and what it is
they're doing that we're not doing.
Yeah, I completely agree with you on that.
I think that after the Second World War, the education has become even more important
because people had lost all their financial, I mean, real estate, all their material things.
(31:27):
And the only thing that you could take, nobody could take away from you is your education.
So you could live anywhere, but if you are well educated, you'll find some kind of job.
And I remember for us when we were kids and my family lost just about everything.
(31:48):
The only thing that my parents emphasized was education.
And that was a general idea in communist countries.
Yeah.
I mean, if you go to Silicon Valley, the majority of all those programmers are either they're
either a Chinese, Asian or Indian.
(32:11):
And what does that say about us?
And you got to point to education and our public education system.
That is a whole other topic that we're really going to dive into.
That's wonderful.
But that's, you know, we're starting the conversation here.
Joni, I want to give you a few minutes over there as an educator, you were an educator
your whole professional life.
(32:31):
I'm sure you have a few things to say about it and as it relates to the topic of authoritarianism.
Because I think, honestly, I think there's a large part of the population that doesn't
even know what, if you ask them what authoritarianism, you'd probably get all kind of different
(32:52):
definitions of it.
So anyway, Joni, what are you thinking over there?
Tana and Patty both touched on the educational system past and present.
For me, I think the most important thing is the preservation of our civil liberties.
I mean, every night when I go to bed, I pray that my civil liberties are going to be there
(33:14):
for me in the morning, as well as my children and my grandchildren.
Being able to live in a country where the, I feel like the government protects me, but
it's not controlling me yet is very important.
So short and sweet on that civil liberties.
(33:36):
But you set a mouthful.
It might have been short and sweet, but it was definitely a mouthful.
You can open that suitcase up tie when I head back East.
It's all yours, baby.
I'm going to unpack that, we're kind of running out of time.
I know we had a couple other topics, but this is such a huge topic.
We could easily spend a whole hour on it.
(33:58):
Any final closing thoughts going into this election?
Because there might be some personal freedoms on the line here.
It's a big vote for everybody.
Any closing comments?
I'm sure we're all voters.
Somebody said they already voted here.
That's right.
Okay.
Yep.
It's in, it's been counted.
All right.
(34:19):
I'll go first because Tana got to go first all morning.
Not competitive.
No, not a bit.
Regardless of which candidate wins the election, we need to support and honor the position
as a president of the United States.
The office of the presidency.
The office of the presidency is what is most important.
(34:42):
Absolutely.
I'm going to agree more with you.
Tana, final words.
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
Yeah.
The definition of the president, the office of the president of the United States.
Something to do with peaceful transfer of powers perhaps?
Absolutely.
(35:03):
Just agree to disagree.
I mean, we're so far apart right now that I think we've really lost sight of taking
care of humanity.
I think one of the issues is that some people lose sight of is we're almost perfectly split
(35:23):
as a country, 50-50.
So whoever wins, there's going to be 50% of the country that does not agree with it,
no matter how you slice it.
So that's an overwhelming power that has to be respectful of the presidency for four
years.
And I think respect means respecting the position.
(35:47):
I mean, when I was in the Army, you had to salute the commander in chief no matter who
he was, no matter who she was.
And I often found myself in a position of struggle of saying, okay, I really don't agree
with anything this person's doing.
Why am I raising my salute?
But at the end of the day, yeah, you did it because you had to do it.
(36:10):
And I could get a lot of trouble if I didn't do it.
But it was always a mental struggle.
It was a struggle, but agreeing and respecting aren't the same thing.
Very true.
Very true.
Tony, you have a final thought here?
Well, I think the citizens have to question everything, especially who is going to sit
(36:40):
in the Oval Office.
We have had problems in Europe with Hitler.
He held that position, and people were not questioning it.
And we know what happened.
So for as long as we are free to question and never stop doing it, we'll be all right.
(37:03):
There you go.
Well put there.
Well put.
All right.
Well, I think that's a wrap.
We certainly took on a big topic here.
And thank you all.
I'd like to thank my first time podcasters here.
Shout out.
Clap that hand there.
Thank you so much.
Wow, you said it.
Thank you.
All right, listeners, we're back breaking bread here in Napa.
(00:10):
A lot of my listeners, you all know that what I'm trying to do here is that this divisiveness
in our society right now is just at all time highs, and it's causing a lot of turmoil,
particularly between and amongst families and friends at holiday dinners, and it's really
(00:34):
a rampant issue in our society, this heightened anger and resentment at our fellow Americans,
which I do not really think is all that healthy for us as a society, since we are facing a
number of huge global problems that we all need to pull together as an American have
(01:02):
to focus that energy on solving some of these problems.
So with that, we try to talk to everybody.
We want to talk to if you're a Republican, if you're a MAGA, if you're an independent,
vegetarian, Democrat, far left, whatever your walk is, and if you don't even want to label
(01:23):
yourself, that's fine too.
We just want respectful dialogue communication here so that we can all get along and solve
some of these huge problems that our country and world are facing.
So what I like to do is bring a little of that civility back, and that's what the point
of the podcast is.
(01:44):
So please keep that in mind, be respectful even if you disagree.
A lot of you know I had an experience, this was a month ago or two months ago, with a
family member, it caught me off guard, I overreacted, I was just, I love my cousin to death, we
(02:12):
grew up together, he's like a brother practically.
And he didn't sound like his normal self and just was really kind of cranky, irritated,
and I'm like, what's going on?
What's going on?
So he just belted out all this wokeism and real men and masculinity, toxic men, and I'm
(02:33):
like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where is this coming from?
That's not what I, that was not the point of the asking how you're feeling here.
And just went really in a rage.
And then before I could comment, I really wanted to understand what he meant by that
in terms of wokeism, because I don't know what I think of wokeism, I think enlightened,
(02:55):
but it seemed like a very negative perspective anyway.
So I was asking him, can you please, you know, talk about what you mean by that?
And it just got, he just went in his corner and just went off crazy and said, I voted
for Trump and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, that wasn't what I expected.
(03:16):
And it just went south from there.
Anyway, so we did reel it in and just calm down.
My aunt, thank God, she was there.
She pulled the phone away from me and all is good.
And we ended what we love each other and that's the bottom line there.
But I didn't like the way I reacted.
So I like to ask my guests if they're experiencing any of this dissension amongst their friends
(03:40):
and family and how do you handle it?
Do you go to your corner?
Do you try to understand where they're coming from?
So any nuggets, if you got anything to share, if you don't, that's fine too.
But I really, you know, this is part of the whole experience of this podcast and why I'm
doing it.
So Tani, with that, is there, do you have anything to share with that?
(04:01):
And your experience, your family, friends with this divisive behavior and how you manage
that or not?
That's fine too.
We're here to share.
Okay.
May I go a little bit into history?
Sure.
Whatever you want to go.
Before the Second World War, in my hometown, which used to be a republic of the Brunig,
(04:26):
we had a different attitude toward politics.
Even as a child, I was always reminded by my parents that there are three things you
don't discuss.
One is gatherings.
One is politics because you respect everybody's points of view.
(04:48):
The other one is you don't ask students about their grades.
And the third one is ladies' grades, ladies' age.
You don't discuss age.
And salaries.
Before the Second World War, there were a number of different parties in Dubrovnik.
(05:13):
And the politics were discussed during the city council hours.
And in the evening, all these people would get together for dinners.
The wives would arrange this.
They would know, they respected each other.
Even during dinners, you don't discuss politics because everybody is entitled for their own
(05:39):
opinion.
And there was time allotted for discussing politics where you could do something about
it, not just be nasty about it.
So I kind of grew up like that.
Not kind of, but really, sticking to these rules.
(05:59):
And then when I was a child, things changed.
And we had a totalitarian government in Yugoslavia with the president, Marshal Tito.
Well, it was good and it was bad because a lot of arguments and hostilities are among
(06:23):
friends and family are based upon religion, political views, basically that.
And there was none of that because there was only one capital P party.
(06:44):
So there's nothing to discuss.
And if you had a different opinion, you were better off not talking about it because you
might wind up in jail.
You know, totalitarianism.
And then populism became in present day Croatia.
(07:11):
There's more and more talk about populism.
Populism is, these days, understood as something, for the most part, understood as something
negative.
However, it can't be positive too.
And we have seen that throughout history.
(07:33):
Well, the main thing about populism, historically I would say, everybody comes up with Mao,
with Hitler, with Mussolini and such.
And of course, that's negative.
But they were also like in old Greece, you know, antique Greece.
(07:57):
And so populism, there was indeed representing the popular opinion about something and there
was not negative.
So that these days, the more I read, the more I see that populism is taken as a negative
thing.
(08:17):
But if we think about cases where it was good thing, that you do listen to people, that
you do understand their issues, problems, wishes and needs, it can be a positive thing.
And we can have representatives who do represent people's needs and take them to the US Congress
(08:47):
or whatever.
So that's about more or less what, from my background, from my view and background.
Excellent.
Listeners, we have a new guest here joining us.
Patty Painter is with us.
Patty, can you please give a little background, just introduce yourself real quick and then
(09:10):
comment on this family, the issue that I teed up.
Sure.
It's Painton.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Yeah, no, I grew up in Northern Virginia.
Mostly, I was an Army brat, so I moved around a lot and saw a lot of different places, a
lot of different people.
And then I was in the Army myself, so continued that trend of traveling and meeting different
(09:34):
people, being in different situations, having to adjust.
And in all honesty, I think what it did mostly was teach, instill in me this concept of flexibility
and understanding that everybody's got a different point of view and they come from
different backgrounds.
They experience different things in life and substantiate a lot of their views.
(10:01):
And so I was in the Army, then I got, when I got out after 11 years, I worked for GE
Capital and then I got my MBA and then worked in the finance industry for a while.
And so then my family kind of moved out here to California and I was laid off in the recession
(10:25):
when I was working on the East Coast and then decided to rejoin my family after having been
away from them for so long, both in the Army and with the finance world.
And so regarding families and friends and political discussions, to me, kind of like
what Tani said, I think politics has taken over more in the sentiment of religion more
(10:52):
recently.
In other words, it's something that's embedded in our every facet of life.
When I was growing up, I knew that there were Republicans and Democrats and you had
your blue dog Democrats.
And people talked about it, but it was never anything that was internalized.
It was more just an issue-based discussion, not so much a personality discussion.
(11:15):
I remember talking about the Kennedys, I remember talking about Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and
then I remember going on to Ford and Carter.
And I just remember these as background conversations in my childhood.
And now all of a sudden it seems to be the at the forefront of everything, which I think
(11:36):
it's taken over as people's, for lack of a better word, religion.
And I kind of wonder why is that?
Is that because religion is dying in this world and we don't have that to focus on?
And so therefore we probably spend more time focusing on the world around us and the events
that take place and what people say and how they say it.
(11:58):
And not so much about what's at the soul of the matter, which is what's best for the people
and what does it take to do what's best for the people.
Not so much what's said or how they say it or who says it and who reports it and who
gets the facts and who doesn't get the facts.
It's got to be more a soul-searching issue to you decide what's important in life.
(12:22):
And then based on that is what you pursue.
So when you're talking to people like for example next month's Thanksgiving, right,
and that's always the forum where these issues come up.
Quite frankly, I prefer that they don't come up because I like my turkey and I don't like
to get indigestion.
But then invariably pop up as an issue.
(12:44):
And so my approach is kind of this.
I have to admit at our dinner table there's not a lot of disagreement when it comes to
politics.
I come from a very conservative background, Catholic.
So we have some pretty strong foundational values that we tend to pursue as a family.
(13:07):
But don't get me wrong.
We have our issues within the conservative discussion that cause points of consternation.
So but to answer the question as to how do you approach that.
To me, I don't take it, I don't treat it like religion.
It's important to me because I have my value system and this, that, and the other.
But I also understand that other people have their value system and that they're motivated
(13:31):
by different things.
So I kind of put it in this category, this is a great discussion or a great topic for
discussion but it's not something I'm going to turn around and be emotional about and
turn against you as my family member or my friend.
I often think if these kinds of conversations are what's breaking up friendships, I really
(13:52):
question the strength of the friendship.
Because is that what we've lost sight of?
Have we lost sight of loyalty?
Have we lost sight of dedication to each other?
If something, just a subject matter can cause a family member to turn against each other
or two friends not to be friends anymore, I don't, what's going on here?
(14:16):
It shouldn't be that easy to lose a friend if it's truly a friend in the first place.
So I kind of, that's where I keep it on that plateau where don't get me wrong, we get emotional,
we get into arguments and they flare up.
But at the end of the day, you got to come back to your, you know, to reality and say,
okay, what's important?
Is this worth losing a friend or befriending a, or estranging a family member?
(14:43):
No, it's not.
It's just something that's going on in the world and you've got to know that the value
of your opinion is encompassed in your vote.
And so that's the bottom line right there.
We can talk about it all day long, but what's really going to come out is how the vote shows
up.
So that's kind of how I do it.
But that's how you deal with it.
That's how I deal with it.
(15:03):
I try not to put it into the vein of, I don't like you anymore.
I got to dissolve you.
I get the emotion out of it.
I get the emotion out of it.
I keep it on a factual basis and have that conversation.
And, you know, there's not a conversation that I get into or an argument for that matter
where I don't walk away smarter than when I walked into it.
So I always appreciate that and I take it for what it's worth.
(15:24):
Well, very well put.
Thank you for that.
There's a lot to unpack.
It already got me thinking about a couple other topics.
I love this whole religion, how religion plays into this populism.
But we'll shelf that for another time, but there's a lot there on that one.
Joni, how about you?
Any comments on family and friends feuding over politics these days?
(15:49):
What's your experience?
I'll be very brief.
I'm going to go back to a simple word, respect.
Self-respect.
Respect for others.
Something that's learned very early on in life.
If you have self-respect, then you're capable of having respect for others, whether it's
a discussion about politics, the environment, how to raise your child, who you're going
(16:13):
to put on a field to play that day if you're a coach, whatever.
You have to see the big picture before you are able to respect and sit back and intelligently
consume someone else's thought process.
You don't have to agree with it.
That's part of being respectful.
I would hope that I've raised my three sons that way.
(16:37):
We've never gotten to a disagreement over something very serious over dinner, usually
over what we're going to have for dessert.
Great, great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you all for your comments on that that makes me feel better, that there is hope.
We could work through this.
Never give up hope.
(16:58):
Never give up hope.
I love that exactly.
We're going to move on to the meat of our topic here, which is authoritarianism slash
populism.
You guys can just, what it means to you, I know we've got a historian here who can really
take us back into history and show us there's a lot to be learned from history.
(17:22):
Let's just put it that way and need to be reminded of it sometimes.
Just to level set this discussion, I did some research on it from the Foreign Affairs Institute.
They had some statistics, Washington think tank.
I'm going to go around real quick.
No thought here.
Just give me your thoughts on that.
(17:42):
What percentage of the world today would you say is ran by some sort of authoritarian slash
dictator versus a democracy?
What percentage would you say is authoritarianism governments in this world today?
It's hard to tell.
(18:04):
Take a guess, your best guess.
If we are talking about how many countries or how many people.
Percentage, just percentage.
Give me a percentage.
Percentage of the world population.
Autoritarian, totally terrible, I'd say less than it was 40, 50 years ago, but more pronounced.
(18:29):
Give me a percentage.
I would say maybe 80%.
I'd say 70, about in the 70 round.
I'm going to go with 25.
71% of today's governments are held up by authoritarian dictators, some form of dictatorship.
(18:51):
Is it the governments or the population?
The governments.
Sorry about that.
I was astounded that it was that high.
Again, a lot to unpack there, but I just wanted to set this conversation of just to think
about and have my listeners think about that, what the world is and where we are in the
(19:14):
world is a democratic government here and how we are really a big factor in the 29% of democracies
that are out there and what's happening.
It's been on a steady growth.
That's where we're at today.
(19:36):
Tony, since you have a lot of history, share with us what your thoughts are on.
You can comment on that number, but you came out at 80%.
Obviously, you have some experience and know a little bit about that.
If you can maybe share some of your thoughts from your background and your experience in
life and with dictators and authoritarianism, what's your thoughts on that?
(20:04):
It's kind of interesting that we make generalizations.
People like to generalize.
Usually when I was brought up under communist and the bad word for us kids, it's called
(20:26):
not at home, was capitalists.
Capitalists are exploiting people.
They make money on account of somebody who is killing himself to work and can barely
survive on the income.
Then when I came here, it was during the Cold War and it was the same thing.
(20:52):
Since one of the languages I was teaching was Russian.
Again, there was a question by some government people even that I know why in the world would
I teach Russian.
My answer was if nothing else, it's to know your enemy.
(21:16):
Because in the East Bloc, in those days, a lot of people, a majority of people spoke
English, understood English.
Then I came here and if you remember the Olympic Games, they were supposed to take
place in Moscow and the document was participation rules, etc.
(21:43):
Was in Russian.
There was close to impossible to find anybody here who could translate this highly technical
language into English.
Then to go back to what I said earlier, here, communism, first of all, was confused with
(22:08):
socialism.
We take Scandinavian countries and Austria, very strong socialist parties in France, Italy,
Germany.
It's one thing, it's not communism.
It is social services in a way.
(22:34):
Social security.
Social security.
Well, it is important for people to feel that one day they will at least be able to buy
bread and butter.
You cannot throw out the baby with the birth water.
(22:59):
During communism, I can quote a couple of things which were outstanding, such as the
educational system.
I have a lot of friends who went, a lot of women too, which when I came here, it was
like my babysitter.
My kids' babysitter, medical doctor, a woman, no trust in women doctors.
(23:25):
Well, in Europe, the surgeons, dentists, etc., architects, they were all, not all, but prevailingly
women because men died during the war, Second World War.
I couldn't understand why would they want to be, let's say, a nurse, a woman, be a nurse,
(23:50):
not a doctor.
I mean, you're just as capable as a man.
But it's in their conscience that for women, it's enough to be a nurse, but men can be
a surgeon.
Anyhow, it was a kind of different attitude.
(24:11):
So wait, let's just unpack that real quick.
So what you're saying is that when you grew up during communism in your country, the women
had the higher positions because of the war, because the men were off at war and defending
the country.
And then you're saying when you came to America and you've seen women can't.
(24:32):
I'm not sure about how to say it.
Your experience.
Okay, that's fine.
That's fair.
Fair point.
I thought it was like 200 years behind.
So is it fair to say that your point is that not that communism is better or worse or social.
I mean, you're unpacking that and you're going really deep into that particular, you know,
(24:57):
the nuances between the different types of systems in there.
So there's pros and cons is what is what is kind of what your point is.
Well, I left because of the system.
And so I'm glad I did, but I'm also glad that I had first hand experience, especially with
(25:23):
educational system.
When I came here and you check the National Health Institute, a lot of people from medical
schools in Eastern Europe were working there.
Their knowledge was recommending them.
(25:44):
So there was so there's positives to be had from that is what your point is.
But ultimately you moved to America.
I know, you know, your husband obviously was a military and he was an American and everything,
but it gave you the opportunity to have lived in two different types of society.
So interesting, very interesting perspective.
(26:06):
And I'm glad I came here.
But you know, when I have people say, well, it's communist idea.
It's it.
Well, take education and that I think is the basis of tomorrow's society.
Good education, objective.
So excellent so much for me.
(26:28):
All right.
Patty, what about you?
Something come to mind on the topic?
I know it's a large broad topic and obviously she zoomed in on her background and what her
thoughts are.
What what brings what comes to mind for you that you'd like to share with with the listeners?
Well when I was in the Army, I was.
(26:48):
Thanks to Tony, I had learned a lot of Russian language and I was very intrigued by it.
So that when I was in the Army, I was training to be what they call a foreign area officer
with a focus on Eastern Central Europe and Russia.
And they sent me to the language institute in Monterey to learn Russian, more Russian.
(27:10):
And it was interesting because the language institute Monterey had a big Russian program.
So the Taney's point where there weren't people that they didn't have enough people who could
speak Russian in this country to translate the Olympic documents.
One place that did was the defense language institute for and also the language Institute
(27:31):
for the State Department, who had a who both have had a very extensive Russian language
program because because the Cold War was going on and Soviets were known as our enemy
during the Cold War.
So I learned a lot from that and a lot that read a lot of books on the Soviet Army and
(27:53):
whatnot, and I have to say, while I never lived the life in a communist country or had
to was was exposed to that.
I can certainly tell as an American when my freedoms and my when that those types of
governments when those the essence of that government infringes on my freedom as American,
(28:19):
it's almost a visceral response.
It's not even.
It doesn't even go through my head.
I can feel in my bones when somebody is is pushing the limit on invading my personal
freedom of freedoms.
Yeah.
So.
So while I I appreciate capitalism, I think capitalism was what got this country that
(28:42):
and rugged individualism.
And but there's a balance.
There's a need for taking care of those who are not capable of taking care of themselves
and so we have a duty as a society to do that from an authoritarianism standpoint.
It's going to be incumbent on the people of those countries to determine whether or not
(29:05):
they want to pursue their freedoms.
And I only think it's the influence of the democratic countries in this world that if
those if that's where these these populations want to be, then they, you know, they've got
to be able to rise up and and realize that and do what they need to do to change the
government as I think it was Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, one of them said the
(29:28):
people deserve the government they get.
So it's on the people to make the difference, not and not and realize that the government
is the people.
It's not a bunch of oligarchs or, you know, dictators.
It's it's it's what they want.
And they've got and it takes a lot of courage and intestinal fortitude to be able to turn
(29:52):
that around.
And like I said, once you've been spoiled by freedom, you know it when it doesn't exist
immediately.
You feel it the second and I just hope we as a country appreciate that and protect it,
do whatever we have to protect it.
As far as the education system is concerned, I do have an issue.
(30:12):
It's amazing to me how the socialist or the communist countries have always had a much
higher appreciation and focus on the quality of education.
I think that in this country needs a lot of we should look at that.
We should really look at that and see why these countries, why they're so heads and
tails ahead of us from an education and more and more so the lower levels of education,
(30:37):
maybe not so much the university level, but from the kindergarten to 12th grade, you know,
what are we doing?
Why aren't we getting the results that these other countries are getting like China?
A lot of the European countries Scandinavia.
I mean, these people come out of school.
They're they're well beyond us after a university education, you know.
(30:58):
So I think there's a lot to be said for looking at those forms of education and what it is
they're doing that we're not doing.
Yeah, I completely agree with you on that.
I think that after the Second World War, the education has become even more important
because people had lost all their financial, I mean, real estate, all their material things.
(31:27):
And the only thing that you could take, nobody could take away from you is your education.
So you could live anywhere, but if you are well educated, you'll find some kind of job.
And I remember for us when we were kids and my family lost just about everything.
(31:48):
The only thing that my parents emphasized was education.
And that was a general idea in communist countries.
Yeah.
I mean, if you go to Silicon Valley, the majority of all those programmers are either they're
either a Chinese, Asian or Indian.
(32:11):
And what does that say about us?
And you got to point to education and our public education system.
That is a whole other topic that we're really going to dive into.
That's wonderful.
But that's, you know, we're starting the conversation here.
Joni, I want to give you a few minutes over there as an educator, you were an educator
your whole professional life.
(32:31):
I'm sure you have a few things to say about it and as it relates to the topic of authoritarianism.
Because I think, honestly, I think there's a large part of the population that doesn't
even know what, if you ask them what authoritarianism, you'd probably get all kind of different
(32:52):
definitions of it.
So anyway, Joni, what are you thinking over there?
Tana and Patty both touched on the educational system past and present.
For me, I think the most important thing is the preservation of our civil liberties.
I mean, every night when I go to bed, I pray that my civil liberties are going to be there
(33:14):
for me in the morning, as well as my children and my grandchildren.
Being able to live in a country where the, I feel like the government protects me, but
it's not controlling me yet is very important.
So short and sweet on that civil liberties.
(33:36):
But you set a mouthful.
It might have been short and sweet, but it was definitely a mouthful.
You can open that suitcase up tie when I head back East.
It's all yours, baby.
I'm going to unpack that, we're kind of running out of time.
I know we had a couple other topics, but this is such a huge topic.
We could easily spend a whole hour on it.
(33:58):
Any final closing thoughts going into this election?
Because there might be some personal freedoms on the line here.
It's a big vote for everybody.
Any closing comments?
I'm sure we're all voters.
Somebody said they already voted here.
That's right.
Okay.
Yep.
It's in, it's been counted.
All right.
(34:19):
I'll go first because Tana got to go first all morning.
Not competitive.
No, not a bit.
Regardless of which candidate wins the election, we need to support and honor the position
as a president of the United States.
The office of the presidency.
The office of the presidency is what is most important.
(34:42):
Absolutely.
I'm going to agree more with you.
Tana, final words.
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
Yeah.
The definition of the president, the office of the president of the United States.
Something to do with peaceful transfer of powers perhaps?
Absolutely.
(35:03):
Just agree to disagree.
I mean, we're so far apart right now that I think we've really lost sight of taking
care of humanity.
I think one of the issues is that some people lose sight of is we're almost perfectly split
(35:23):
as a country, 50-50.
So whoever wins, there's going to be 50% of the country that does not agree with it,
no matter how you slice it.
So that's an overwhelming power that has to be respectful of the presidency for four
years.
And I think respect means respecting the position.
(35:47):
I mean, when I was in the Army, you had to salute the commander in chief no matter who
he was, no matter who she was.
And I often found myself in a position of struggle of saying, okay, I really don't agree
with anything this person's doing.
Why am I raising my salute?
But at the end of the day, yeah, you did it because you had to do it.
(36:10):
And I could get a lot of trouble if I didn't do it.
But it was always a mental struggle.
It was a struggle, but agreeing and respecting aren't the same thing.
Very true.
Very true.
Tony, you have a final thought here?
Well, I think the citizens have to question everything, especially who is going to sit
(36:40):
in the Oval Office.
We have had problems in Europe with Hitler.
He held that position, and people were not questioning it.
And we know what happened.
So for as long as we are free to question and never stop doing it, we'll be all right.
(37:03):
There you go.
Well put there.
Well put.
All right.
Well, I think that's a wrap.
We certainly took on a big topic here.
And thank you all.
I'd like to thank my first time podcasters here.
Shout out.
Clap that hand there.
Thank you so much.
Wow, you said it.
Thank you.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!