March 1, 2025 • 16 mins
In our newest Brogressive EXCLUSIVE interview, we got to sit down with authors William Cooper and Michael McKinley about their newest cyber-political thriller, "A Quiet Life". A Quiet Life centers on a dystopian political future where a tech mogul has become President of the United States and an innocent couple is dragged to the forefront of a global conflict. Check it out here as our newest exclusive episode!
A Quiet Life can be purchased where ever books are sold and at the links below.
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781648210334/a-quiet-life/
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Quiet-Life-Audiobook/B0DQLZP63W
https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Life-Novel-William-Cooper/dp/1648210333/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Today on our newest episode of Progressive, I am joined again
by author William Cooper, who generously held a giveaway of
his book How America Works and Why It Does, and is co-author of
a new political cyber thriller, A Quiet Life, Michael McKinley,
Michael, and will give us insights into its relevance in
today's world. All right, well, so Michael,
William, welcome to the show. Obviously, we're here to talk
about you guys newest novel, A Quiet Life.
(00:29):
I was going through the synopsisand of course, you sent me the
audio rendition of it, which I got to say, love the audio book
version. I'm a big fan of just going for
walks and like playing things when I take the dog out.
But obviously his novel seems tobe kind of pressing billionaire
tech president who cracks down on the border and harasses a
couple. Tell me a little bit about it.
Go ahead, Michael. Well, it was Will's idea and
(00:53):
Will and I hooked up with it. It was 2 1/2 years ago, Max.
So we were letting our imaginations grow and, and they
collided with reality, which wasnot our intention, but you know,
it's what happened. And so, yeah, we imagine this
tech bro president who's in trouble with the law, who's
(01:14):
looking for a reason to get out of trouble with the law in a
climate that is harsh towards immigrants, you know, and all
the rest of it. So that's that's the background
of this couple who are become enemies of the state through a
very simple action. I gotta say it's, it's really
kind of funny to me, like thinking just, I mean really
like two years ago, you know, you think like, I mean, I don't,
(01:35):
I don't even miss her. Like, oh, all that's happened,
you know, tech billionaire president crackdown on the
border. I'm like, Are you sure you're
not like a clairvoyant and you know, something like that?
Yeah, I know. I'll check the Mega 1,000,000
tonight, like in if I can transfer that clairvoyance that
will and I've got no, I mean we're just, you know,
spitballing really about what's the worst that could happen this
(01:57):
couple right and then kaboom. Speak, speak of the devil, and
so will we've had you on the show before for some of our, you
know, our original like more political thoughts.
But what are your thoughts on how the book is aged?
I mean, given that, I mean we'rekind of living in exactly what
you guys described. It aged really well.
I mean, I, I make lots of predictions that fall very flat
(02:18):
and are wrong. I've written some columns that I
wish I could delete from the Internet given how wrong they
were, for example. And certainly my wife reminds me
of many things I say. But the, the book Michael and I
wrote, I mean, there were a lot of the raw material was there 2
1/2 years ago. But, you know, we did not know
it was going to come this strong, this hard, you know,
(02:41):
quite so accurately. One example too, and, and with
books, you write them, they don't actually hit the shelves
for quite a while. But in 2022, I believe we came
up with the idea of, of the social media message called a
truth. And that's in the book where the
(03:04):
the tech billionaire president issues these truths.
And that was before true social when we when we came up with
that idea and and that was before the.
There was the. Actual truths, that's what
they're called. So in the big picture sense,
things have played out the way the way we thought, and we even
got some of these details verbatim exactly the way they've
come out. But the book was published after
(03:26):
True Social, so people probably think that we were just copying
that, but it was actually something we came up with.
So it's been fun. It's been fun to watch and and
not so fun to watch in other ways.
Yeah. Very true.
I was going to say, I mean, I guess it's got to be kind of
hard thinking like, oh, you're you sit down, you make a book on
let's make like a dystopian future novel.
And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, it's, it's two years
(03:47):
later and everything's come true.
I'm like God damn it. Yeah.
I was going to say, you guys hadmentioned you looked a lot to
Iran for inspiration, not obviously the, you know, cover
art. So talk to me a little bit about
that. I mean, I truly, I don't know
too much about Iran, but obviously a country governed by
harsh theocrats that control thepopulation.
How was that like a factor in to, you know, formulating your
(04:09):
novel and how was that a factor in looking at us today?
If I may, will the the the incident involving a young woman
who'd been beaten for wearing her hijab incorrectly had
recently happened and she died. And so there was a big social
uprising in Iran, which to two things that I'd experienced 1
(04:29):
was I had a conversation with a British Air Force pilot who'd
served in Iraq. And he said, I said, what's the
thing that scared you most? And he said Iran because they
were very well defended. The people wanted to be Western,
but they were run by this harsh theocracy.
But they would defend their territory.
And he hoped never to get shot down there.
Just about the time Will and I were starting the book, I was in
Iraq. And I was in northern Iraq on
(04:52):
another gig. And I met with an Iranian
general, a Kurdish general, who told me his desire to go back to
Iran thought the time was right to bring democracy to the
country. So those two things kind of
combined together on our narrative that Iran was a
misunderstood place with all kinds of culture and
(05:13):
sophistication and desire to be more democratic.
That was being Hanford from being lost by its theocratic
rulers. And so we wanted to take a
misunderstood place that wasn't too much in the fictional cosmos
except as a villain, and make itmore.
Interesting. And so will do you have any
thoughts on well thoughts on that, but any thoughts on how
you kind of tackle that from that angle too?
(05:34):
Yeah, I think Michael summed it up really well.
I'll add a slivers on top of what he said, which is that as
readers will quickly learn in the book, there's a cyber
hacking dimension to to the story, which which is also
obviously very connected to today's times and Iran is very
(05:58):
well known in cybersecurity circles for being progressive
hacker. So I want to kind of pivot a
little bit. And so, you know, you had talked
a lot about, you know, the theocracy and the control
aspect. I want to harken in on the tech
component. You know, you mentioned the tech
billionaire president. What was the foundation for
that? I mean, like, were you looking
towards the future, seeing Musk getting increasingly involved in
(06:20):
politics? Like what, what prompted you to
think, hey, like maybe a tech billionaire?
Was it just general, you know, Idon't know, I, I really, what
would have prompted that? And two years ago, you know.
I have a really simple answer for you, Max.
I was thinking of who could be the most villainous person we
could create and that guy, the the Tesla guy came to mind
immediately. That's funny.
(06:41):
It's interesting to see like howit's just always changed over
time. I I think a lot about that and I
don't know whether you're familiar with is it Walter
Isaacson? Is that my son that right with
his his biography? And it always kind of shocks me
for the most rich and powerful man on the planet with such a
unique psychological state. I don't know if that's the nice
(07:02):
way to say it, but he's an interesting guy to say the
least. Yeah, I was going to say Seth
Abramson's biography is very good as well.
And so is this stuff on Sub Stack about about the real Tesla
guy. And he manufactured his own
reality that so many people believe is true, and it's not.
Right, the whole like oh, like I'm a self-made like like that
(07:24):
thing. And of course, the whole, you
know, and it makes sense. I mean, I'm going to be honest.
Like, I mean, if I had, you know, 400, I don't know, billion
dollars to my name, I'd be telling people like, Oh yeah,
no, I like, I saved a bus full of burning kids.
Like I, you know, I single handedly stop climate change,
but I can't can't knock for thatone.
I would do the same anyway. So harking me back into like,
you're not. So you talk a lot about the
(07:44):
billionaire president. What about him makes him this
villainous character? I mean, I of course, again, I
see the premise of how he will be in, you know, what he can do.
But what in particular drove youto make him this villainous
character? And what about him is so good?
You know, give us a little insight into the character
itself. Sure.
Go ahead. Well, and it's also good to
remember, Max, that we were justhad just come out of four years
(08:05):
of a Trump presidency and had been informed by a lot of things
we thought we'd never see, You know, And so when we were
conceiving of this villainous character, we thought, well,
what if, what if somebody worse came back as president now that
we'd already established the theground line, you know,
borderline. And that also influenced how we
created the villain. You know, I was going to say, I
(08:27):
mean, that sounds an awful lot like that post, Like, oh, like
he's gone now. Like, oh, that's we're OK.
And what could have been worse, right?
You know, what could be a worse 2016?
If, what if, what if it wasn't just like, you know what a very
wealthy guy decided to destroy Iraq.
What if it was a wealthy guy with the power to influence
millions of people, right? Right.
It's always kind of harrowing. You know, it's one of those
things you think you're like theauto president, like he's he's
(08:50):
bullying members of Congress, he's shooting down bills just as
he feels like it. He's going through every agency
and dictating foreign policy because of what?
And, and you know, and somethingthat always kind of breaks my
brain with, I think we'll, we'll, we'll stick with calling
him test the guy. I think that's a good one to not
get myself shadow banned but. But.
Something that always breaks my brain is, is, you know, for a
(09:11):
guy who I mean, look, we can always deny of how intelligent
is he? Whether is he just average?
Is he this? And and you know, a lot of
people love to discredit how smart he is, right?
They love to make him sound likehe's stupid or he's super smart.
And it's like it's one of those things where regardless, he is
still one of the most wealthy men on the planet Earth.
And to deny that there is some sort of level of skill in
(09:32):
certain things in certain aspects is untruthful.
But why and what drives a personto think, you know what, I have
a successful EV company. I'm one of the, you know, again,
whether the meat, not the weather, but the image himself
that he built is, is fake. Why not just stick with it?
Why not just allow people to think, Hey, you're this cool
illustrious billionaire who wants to go to Mars.
Like, why not stick with that? Hey, this guy's like seriously,
(09:53):
Bruce Wayne or something like stick with that.
So why are you delving your fistinto destroying the federal
government? You know what?
What broke your brain that you decide I'm going to stay up
every night on ketamine and argue on Twitter with a guy
named cat turd? You know, it's just breaks my
brain. But anyways.
And so in your novel, I mean, like, are there any sort of
allegories with that? So it was what they need to have
more once you had seemingly enough, you know, and what would
(10:17):
drive you. Right.
No, I think psychological, I guess that's exactly kind of
what I'm looking for is like that psychological Dr. behind
President Davis. We're talking a little bit more
about your characters. So in the vein of obviously
you've mentioned President Davis, the villain, but you
mentioned the young couple that's being prosecuted,
persecuted. I'm sure I'm getting that right,
but they're the ones that are the targets of the story, right?
(10:40):
And so this young couple, tell me a little bit more about what
went behind them. What is the psychology of who
they are? Was there any sort of self
insert or like real life analogous person you had in mind
for these this couple? I think that we wanted to
imagine a couple who wanted quiet life.
I mean, literally, what would anordinary American couple look
(11:00):
like who live in the middle of the country, not on the, you
know, the coasts are not in the north or South, but in the
middle who just wanted to live, get on with their lives and not
do any damage and damage comes to them.
So in imagining that, we had to,I think, ship away anything that
we wanted to inform with our ownexperiences living on both sides
(11:20):
of the country, and just dial into what they might be feeling
and thinking as catastrophe comes down hard upon them for
something the husband is allegedto have done in the course of
his daily war, and then renders them both enemies of the state.
So anything but a quiet life wasthe result of you.
Know you will you have anything comment on that I could see like
(11:41):
your camera was like lighting up.
I'm going to say I love that I mean I was I you know, really
like think of that elevator pitch of a quiet life right.
You know, it's just truly normalpeople, right?
People who want to go mind theirown business, don't have care in
the world. They're not, you know, San
Francisco tech elites. They're not New York City
fashion runway models. They're just people trusting the
spotlight of a like, yeah, no, it's great.
Well, and it's like, it's one ofthose things I think is becoming
(12:03):
increasingly relevant given that, you know, the Doge team
and the Musk team are going through and going fast and
breaking things. I mean, the more civil servants,
you know, we have lots of veterans and just truly just
civil servants. I mean, they're not special
people. They're people who want to live
their life. They want to make sure people
get their Social Security check.They're not interested in
dumping the world. They're not interested in being
famous. They're interested in doing
(12:23):
good, honest work and how their livelihoods are being destroyed
because some reason Musk thinks we're going to save money by
cutting one of the most minor expenses in the entire budget.
But and. One of the other interesting
things about that guy, since yesterday when they made the
demand they'd send in the five things you've done last week by
e-mail to me by midnight on Monday.
(12:45):
One of the she's told its workers they didn't have to
comply with that, but their lastline was If you do comply with
it, be aware that your e-mail will be read by malign foreign
actors. I did see that.
I want to say that was Health and Human Services right under
RFK. And I was like, I I'm sorry,
maligned foreign. Foreign what, Like, I'm sorry.
What do you mean by that? Yeah, like I'm sorry.
(13:06):
Do you want to share with us who's the maligned foreign
actors? Like that might be nice to not
that anyone sound secret to anyone, but it is kind of
jarring. I mean, I think, you know, I
think where we were six months ago, four months ago.
And I'm like, oh, so now every time I open the news, it's like,
oh, maybe maybe another agency destroyed today.
Like who knows, maybe we stoppedsome other program or who knows,
Like you never know what's coming.
(13:27):
And every single time it's something that it makes you feel
like you're living in like an Idiocracy.
Is that, is that the movie a little before my time, but like
an Idiocracy, just the dumbest things imaginable.
I was looking at today the PEPFAR freeze.
I'm sure you both know, you know, PEPFAR, the HIV AIDS
treatment for Africa, we sponsormillions of lives, saves
(13:49):
millions of lives, lives saved for nothing.
I mean, it's, it's just such a cheap program and how could you
not? And now it's like, I think we
are estimating 25,000 preventable lives have been lost
just because we don't want to fund anymore.
But in that same man, I also want to pivot and send this with
the elevator pitch. Like what would be your take of
the elevator pitch of this of this story?
I think it would be two people who want a quiet life get a very
(14:13):
noisy life due to a mistake thatwas made by one of them.
That wasn't a mistake, but that becomes something that they have
to prove was a mistake to save their lives.
Because one of the things that also happens to them is they get
locked up in prisons, private prisons owned by the president.
(14:34):
When we look at the exploitationof so-called illegal people to
Guantanamo Bay, that great success story in Cuba, you know,
to the I mean, Eric Prince pitched the government on how he
could help with private camps, the house, the migrants they
wanted to deport. That's what happens to Michael
and Pound. They get put in prison and
they're released if they can prove they're if they can or
(14:57):
maybe they're being trail prove who else is guilty.
You don't know. So that's a longer elevator
pitch than than it's a big building.
Let's say, you know, it's like how how they get caught up in
this, how you can become an enemy of the state very quickly
in which he lives. It's great.
I mean, it sounds like it's timely, it's relevant.
And I got to say, I love the theclairvoyance that you wrote
(15:18):
something two years ago and yet somehow, well, don't love the
fact that it's all becoming real, but I like that you guys
made it real, you know, Hey, I don't know whether it's which
way the, you know, direction goes for this logic, but.
We can work on the SQL Max, you know, and that'll be another
couple years down the road. So we can be clever weight about
that and it's peaceful and lightand and all the mess has been
(15:39):
cleaned up. You know, so now that as young
persons, you know, that's that'swhat I'd like to hear.
I'm like, I'd much rather be a quiet life, right?
Yeah. But in that way.
So where can we find a quiet life?
What services are you guys available on?
Obviously I saw you have Audibleaudiobook format, but where can
we find your book? All the usual suspects.
Usual suspects. Barnes and Noble, Waterstones in
the UK, Apple Books everywhere that they sell books, we are
(16:01):
there. Like to hear it?
We'll go ahead and tag those down below.
Anyways, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up here.
Michael will, thank you so much for your time today.
Is there anything you'd like to leave the audience with?
We hope that you are having quiet lives in the chaos that
surrounds us and quiet lives from the my of resistance to the
chaos that surrounds us because that's what I'm doing here in
the People's Republic of Brooklyn.
(16:24):
Awesome. Why?
Thanks so much. Thanks Max.
Today on our newest episode of Progressive, I am joined again
by author William Cooper, who generously held a giveaway of
his book How America Works and Why It Does, and is co-author of
a new political cyber thriller, A Quiet Life, Michael McKinley,
Michael, and will give us insights into its relevance in
today's world. All right, well, so Michael,
William, welcome to the show. Obviously, we're here to talk
about you guys newest novel, A Quiet Life.
(00:29):
I was going through the synopsisand of course, you sent me the
audio rendition of it, which I got to say, love the audio book
version. I'm a big fan of just going for
walks and like playing things when I take the dog out.
But obviously his novel seems tobe kind of pressing billionaire
tech president who cracks down on the border and harasses a
couple. Tell me a little bit about it.
Go ahead, Michael. Well, it was Will's idea and
(00:53):
Will and I hooked up with it. It was 2 1/2 years ago, Max.
So we were letting our imaginations grow and, and they
collided with reality, which wasnot our intention, but you know,
it's what happened. And so, yeah, we imagine this
tech bro president who's in trouble with the law, who's
(01:14):
looking for a reason to get out of trouble with the law in a
climate that is harsh towards immigrants, you know, and all
the rest of it. So that's that's the background
of this couple who are become enemies of the state through a
very simple action. I gotta say it's, it's really
kind of funny to me, like thinking just, I mean really
like two years ago, you know, you think like, I mean, I don't,
(01:35):
I don't even miss her. Like, oh, all that's happened,
you know, tech billionaire president crackdown on the
border. I'm like, Are you sure you're
not like a clairvoyant and you know, something like that?
Yeah, I know. I'll check the Mega 1,000,000
tonight, like in if I can transfer that clairvoyance that
will and I've got no, I mean we're just, you know,
spitballing really about what's the worst that could happen this
(01:57):
couple right and then kaboom. Speak, speak of the devil, and
so will we've had you on the show before for some of our, you
know, our original like more political thoughts.
But what are your thoughts on how the book is aged?
I mean, given that, I mean we'rekind of living in exactly what
you guys described. It aged really well.
I mean, I, I make lots of predictions that fall very flat
(02:18):
and are wrong. I've written some columns that I
wish I could delete from the Internet given how wrong they
were, for example. And certainly my wife reminds me
of many things I say. But the, the book Michael and I
wrote, I mean, there were a lot of the raw material was there 2
1/2 years ago. But, you know, we did not know
it was going to come this strong, this hard, you know,
(02:41):
quite so accurately. One example too, and, and with
books, you write them, they don't actually hit the shelves
for quite a while. But in 2022, I believe we came
up with the idea of, of the social media message called a
truth. And that's in the book where the
(03:04):
the tech billionaire president issues these truths.
And that was before true social when we when we came up with
that idea and and that was before the.
There was the. Actual truths, that's what
they're called. So in the big picture sense,
things have played out the way the way we thought, and we even
got some of these details verbatim exactly the way they've
come out. But the book was published after
(03:26):
True Social, so people probably think that we were just copying
that, but it was actually something we came up with.
So it's been fun. It's been fun to watch and and
not so fun to watch in other ways.
Yeah. Very true.
I was going to say, I mean, I guess it's got to be kind of
hard thinking like, oh, you're you sit down, you make a book on
let's make like a dystopian future novel.
And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, it's, it's two years
(03:47):
later and everything's come true.
I'm like God damn it. Yeah.
I was going to say, you guys hadmentioned you looked a lot to
Iran for inspiration, not obviously the, you know, cover
art. So talk to me a little bit about
that. I mean, I truly, I don't know
too much about Iran, but obviously a country governed by
harsh theocrats that control thepopulation.
How was that like a factor in to, you know, formulating your
(04:09):
novel and how was that a factor in looking at us today?
If I may, will the the the incident involving a young woman
who'd been beaten for wearing her hijab incorrectly had
recently happened and she died. And so there was a big social
uprising in Iran, which to two things that I'd experienced 1
(04:29):
was I had a conversation with a British Air Force pilot who'd
served in Iraq. And he said, I said, what's the
thing that scared you most? And he said Iran because they
were very well defended. The people wanted to be Western,
but they were run by this harsh theocracy.
But they would defend their territory.
And he hoped never to get shot down there.
Just about the time Will and I were starting the book, I was in
Iraq. And I was in northern Iraq on
(04:52):
another gig. And I met with an Iranian
general, a Kurdish general, who told me his desire to go back to
Iran thought the time was right to bring democracy to the
country. So those two things kind of
combined together on our narrative that Iran was a
misunderstood place with all kinds of culture and
(05:13):
sophistication and desire to be more democratic.
That was being Hanford from being lost by its theocratic
rulers. And so we wanted to take a
misunderstood place that wasn't too much in the fictional cosmos
except as a villain, and make itmore.
Interesting. And so will do you have any
thoughts on well thoughts on that, but any thoughts on how
you kind of tackle that from that angle too?
(05:34):
Yeah, I think Michael summed it up really well.
I'll add a slivers on top of what he said, which is that as
readers will quickly learn in the book, there's a cyber
hacking dimension to to the story, which which is also
obviously very connected to today's times and Iran is very
(05:58):
well known in cybersecurity circles for being progressive
hacker. So I want to kind of pivot a
little bit. And so, you know, you had talked
a lot about, you know, the theocracy and the control
aspect. I want to harken in on the tech
component. You know, you mentioned the tech
billionaire president. What was the foundation for
that? I mean, like, were you looking
towards the future, seeing Musk getting increasingly involved in
(06:20):
politics? Like what, what prompted you to
think, hey, like maybe a tech billionaire?
Was it just general, you know, Idon't know, I, I really, what
would have prompted that? And two years ago, you know.
I have a really simple answer for you, Max.
I was thinking of who could be the most villainous person we
could create and that guy, the the Tesla guy came to mind
immediately. That's funny.
(06:41):
It's interesting to see like howit's just always changed over
time. I I think a lot about that and I
don't know whether you're familiar with is it Walter
Isaacson? Is that my son that right with
his his biography? And it always kind of shocks me
for the most rich and powerful man on the planet with such a
unique psychological state. I don't know if that's the nice
(07:02):
way to say it, but he's an interesting guy to say the
least. Yeah, I was going to say Seth
Abramson's biography is very good as well.
And so is this stuff on Sub Stack about about the real Tesla
guy. And he manufactured his own
reality that so many people believe is true, and it's not.
Right, the whole like oh, like I'm a self-made like like that
(07:24):
thing. And of course, the whole, you
know, and it makes sense. I mean, I'm going to be honest.
Like, I mean, if I had, you know, 400, I don't know, billion
dollars to my name, I'd be telling people like, Oh yeah,
no, I like, I saved a bus full of burning kids.
Like I, you know, I single handedly stop climate change,
but I can't can't knock for thatone.
I would do the same anyway. So harking me back into like,
you're not. So you talk a lot about the
(07:44):
billionaire president. What about him makes him this
villainous character? I mean, I of course, again, I
see the premise of how he will be in, you know, what he can do.
But what in particular drove youto make him this villainous
character? And what about him is so good?
You know, give us a little insight into the character
itself. Sure.
Go ahead. Well, and it's also good to
remember, Max, that we were justhad just come out of four years
(08:05):
of a Trump presidency and had been informed by a lot of things
we thought we'd never see, You know, And so when we were
conceiving of this villainous character, we thought, well,
what if, what if somebody worse came back as president now that
we'd already established the theground line, you know,
borderline. And that also influenced how we
created the villain. You know, I was going to say, I
(08:27):
mean, that sounds an awful lot like that post, Like, oh, like
he's gone now. Like, oh, that's we're OK.
And what could have been worse, right?
You know, what could be a worse 2016?
If, what if, what if it wasn't just like, you know what a very
wealthy guy decided to destroy Iraq.
What if it was a wealthy guy with the power to influence
millions of people, right? Right.
It's always kind of harrowing. You know, it's one of those
things you think you're like theauto president, like he's he's
(08:50):
bullying members of Congress, he's shooting down bills just as
he feels like it. He's going through every agency
and dictating foreign policy because of what?
And, and you know, and somethingthat always kind of breaks my
brain with, I think we'll, we'll, we'll stick with calling
him test the guy. I think that's a good one to not
get myself shadow banned but. But.
Something that always breaks my brain is, is, you know, for a
(09:11):
guy who I mean, look, we can always deny of how intelligent
is he? Whether is he just average?
Is he this? And and you know, a lot of
people love to discredit how smart he is, right?
They love to make him sound likehe's stupid or he's super smart.
And it's like it's one of those things where regardless, he is
still one of the most wealthy men on the planet Earth.
And to deny that there is some sort of level of skill in
(09:32):
certain things in certain aspects is untruthful.
But why and what drives a personto think, you know what, I have
a successful EV company. I'm one of the, you know, again,
whether the meat, not the weather, but the image himself
that he built is, is fake. Why not just stick with it?
Why not just allow people to think, Hey, you're this cool
illustrious billionaire who wants to go to Mars.
Like, why not stick with that? Hey, this guy's like seriously,
(09:53):
Bruce Wayne or something like stick with that.
So why are you delving your fistinto destroying the federal
government? You know what?
What broke your brain that you decide I'm going to stay up
every night on ketamine and argue on Twitter with a guy
named cat turd? You know, it's just breaks my
brain. But anyways.
And so in your novel, I mean, like, are there any sort of
allegories with that? So it was what they need to have
more once you had seemingly enough, you know, and what would
(10:17):
drive you. Right.
No, I think psychological, I guess that's exactly kind of
what I'm looking for is like that psychological Dr. behind
President Davis. We're talking a little bit more
about your characters. So in the vein of obviously
you've mentioned President Davis, the villain, but you
mentioned the young couple that's being prosecuted,
persecuted. I'm sure I'm getting that right,
but they're the ones that are the targets of the story, right?
(10:40):
And so this young couple, tell me a little bit more about what
went behind them. What is the psychology of who
they are? Was there any sort of self
insert or like real life analogous person you had in mind
for these this couple? I think that we wanted to
imagine a couple who wanted quiet life.
I mean, literally, what would anordinary American couple look
(11:00):
like who live in the middle of the country, not on the, you
know, the coasts are not in the north or South, but in the
middle who just wanted to live, get on with their lives and not
do any damage and damage comes to them.
So in imagining that, we had to,I think, ship away anything that
we wanted to inform with our ownexperiences living on both sides
(11:20):
of the country, and just dial into what they might be feeling
and thinking as catastrophe comes down hard upon them for
something the husband is allegedto have done in the course of
his daily war, and then renders them both enemies of the state.
So anything but a quiet life wasthe result of you.
Know you will you have anything comment on that I could see like
(11:41):
your camera was like lighting up.
I'm going to say I love that I mean I was I you know, really
like think of that elevator pitch of a quiet life right.
You know, it's just truly normalpeople, right?
People who want to go mind theirown business, don't have care in
the world. They're not, you know, San
Francisco tech elites. They're not New York City
fashion runway models. They're just people trusting the
spotlight of a like, yeah, no, it's great.
Well, and it's like, it's one ofthose things I think is becoming
(12:03):
increasingly relevant given that, you know, the Doge team
and the Musk team are going through and going fast and
breaking things. I mean, the more civil servants,
you know, we have lots of veterans and just truly just
civil servants. I mean, they're not special
people. They're people who want to live
their life. They want to make sure people
get their Social Security check.They're not interested in
dumping the world. They're not interested in being
famous. They're interested in doing
(12:23):
good, honest work and how their livelihoods are being destroyed
because some reason Musk thinks we're going to save money by
cutting one of the most minor expenses in the entire budget.
But and. One of the other interesting
things about that guy, since yesterday when they made the
demand they'd send in the five things you've done last week by
e-mail to me by midnight on Monday.
(12:45):
One of the she's told its workers they didn't have to
comply with that, but their lastline was If you do comply with
it, be aware that your e-mail will be read by malign foreign
actors. I did see that.
I want to say that was Health and Human Services right under
RFK. And I was like, I I'm sorry,
maligned foreign. Foreign what, Like, I'm sorry.
What do you mean by that? Yeah, like I'm sorry.
(13:06):
Do you want to share with us who's the maligned foreign
actors? Like that might be nice to not
that anyone sound secret to anyone, but it is kind of
jarring. I mean, I think, you know, I
think where we were six months ago, four months ago.
And I'm like, oh, so now every time I open the news, it's like,
oh, maybe maybe another agency destroyed today.
Like who knows, maybe we stoppedsome other program or who knows,
Like you never know what's coming.
(13:27):
And every single time it's something that it makes you feel
like you're living in like an Idiocracy.
Is that, is that the movie a little before my time, but like
an Idiocracy, just the dumbest things imaginable.
I was looking at today the PEPFAR freeze.
I'm sure you both know, you know, PEPFAR, the HIV AIDS
treatment for Africa, we sponsormillions of lives, saves
(13:49):
millions of lives, lives saved for nothing.
I mean, it's, it's just such a cheap program and how could you
not? And now it's like, I think we
are estimating 25,000 preventable lives have been lost
just because we don't want to fund anymore.
But in that same man, I also want to pivot and send this with
the elevator pitch. Like what would be your take of
the elevator pitch of this of this story?
I think it would be two people who want a quiet life get a very
(14:13):
noisy life due to a mistake thatwas made by one of them.
That wasn't a mistake, but that becomes something that they have
to prove was a mistake to save their lives.
Because one of the things that also happens to them is they get
locked up in prisons, private prisons owned by the president.
(14:34):
When we look at the exploitationof so-called illegal people to
Guantanamo Bay, that great success story in Cuba, you know,
to the I mean, Eric Prince pitched the government on how he
could help with private camps, the house, the migrants they
wanted to deport. That's what happens to Michael
and Pound. They get put in prison and
they're released if they can prove they're if they can or
(14:57):
maybe they're being trail prove who else is guilty.
You don't know. So that's a longer elevator
pitch than than it's a big building.
Let's say, you know, it's like how how they get caught up in
this, how you can become an enemy of the state very quickly
in which he lives. It's great.
I mean, it sounds like it's timely, it's relevant.
And I got to say, I love the theclairvoyance that you wrote
(15:18):
something two years ago and yet somehow, well, don't love the
fact that it's all becoming real, but I like that you guys
made it real, you know, Hey, I don't know whether it's which
way the, you know, direction goes for this logic, but.
We can work on the SQL Max, you know, and that'll be another
couple years down the road. So we can be clever weight about
that and it's peaceful and lightand and all the mess has been
(15:39):
cleaned up. You know, so now that as young
persons, you know, that's that'swhat I'd like to hear.
I'm like, I'd much rather be a quiet life, right?
Yeah. But in that way.
So where can we find a quiet life?
What services are you guys available on?
Obviously I saw you have Audibleaudiobook format, but where can
we find your book? All the usual suspects.
Usual suspects. Barnes and Noble, Waterstones in
the UK, Apple Books everywhere that they sell books, we are
(16:01):
there. Like to hear it?
We'll go ahead and tag those down below.
Anyways, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up here.
Michael will, thank you so much for your time today.
Is there anything you'd like to leave the audience with?
We hope that you are having quiet lives in the chaos that
surrounds us and quiet lives from the my of resistance to the
chaos that surrounds us because that's what I'm doing here in
the People's Republic of Brooklyn.
(16:24):
Awesome. Why?
Thanks so much. Thanks Max.
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