March 26, 2024 • 62 mins
Discover what happens when political allegiances turn into tribal warfare in our society, with insights from historian and political analyst Mike Anderson. As we navigate through the murky waters of political tribalism, Mike, with his IT acumen and passion for history, helps us understand the corrosive effects it has on our democracy and social fabric. Together, we examine the importance of bridging divides and engaging in critical thinking, rather than blind loyalty to political factions.
We tackle the tough conversations around our political differences and how they can lead to social progress. Language plays a pivotal role in debates such as gun safety, with the potential to unite or divide us. We consider how our political leanings shape our relationships and delve into the psychology and genetics that mold our political orientations. Understanding this delicate balance between change and stability is key, and we explore how education and collaboration can guide us toward solutions that transcend our current political impasse. Join us as we encourage a deeper intellectual engagement in politics for the betterment of our nation.
If you like reading about history, debating politics, delving into what makes people "tick," or just want to understand how civilization has gotten to this point, you'll enjoy these books by Michael Anderson.
The Progressive Gene, How Genetics Influences the Morality of the Left
Tribalism: The Curse of 21st Century America
The Conservative Gene, How Genetics Shape the Complex Morality of Conservatives
For conflict resolution, read: Holding the Calm by Hesha Abrams
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, regardless of political affiliation.
I think we all would agree orat least I hope that we all
would agree that some politicalidentification and engagement is
normal in a democratic society.
But excessive tribalism, that'snot normal and it can have
several negative consequences.
(00:20):
I had the opportunity to speakwith Mike Anderson, who is a
historian and a politicalanalyst.
He focuses on contemporaryAmerican politics and its
problems.
Among those problems is theissue of political tribalism
individuals to align themselveswith a particular political
group or ideology and thenengage in behaviors that
(00:47):
prioritize the interests oftheir group over the common good
.
Now why is this a problem?
Why would this be a problem?
We all have our team right.
Well, the problem is it doeslead to increased polarization
within our society.
When individuals become overlyattached to their political
(01:08):
tribe, they tend to view thoseoutside of their group as
adversaries rather than fellowcitizens, enemies rather than
colleagues, enforcesconfirmation bias, and it
encourages individuals to seekout information and opinions
that align with theirpre-existing beliefs, while
(01:29):
dismissing contradictoryevidence.
Tribalism also fostershostility and incivility in
public discourse, and if youhave known me for some time, or
if you've followed me for sometime, you know that I absolutely
abhor that.
Incivility in public discourseis not something that I take
(01:49):
lightly, and I don't care if youdisagree with what someone else
is saying.
I don't care if you're offendedby their speech.
Reacting by trying to preventan alternate viewpoint from
being expressed, by shoutingthem down or even sometimes
through violent means, thatwholeheartedly undermines the
(02:10):
fabric of civil society.
Tribalism erodes trust.
It erodes trust in institutionslike our government, our
schools, the media, our judicialsystem and when we have an
eroded trust in thoseinstitutions, it weakens the
(02:31):
foundation of our democracy andthe rule of law.
And ultimately, whenindividuals prioritize loyalty
to their tribe over objectiveanalysis, critical thinking,
evidence-based decision-makingand policy-making, our society
suffers the consequences.
(02:52):
We can and we should engage inconstructive dialogue with those
who hold different politicalviews from ourselves.
This is the basis for mydiscussion with Mike in this
week's episode and I hope youenjoy it.
(03:14):
Welcome to the Communication24-7 podcast, where we
communicate about how wecommunicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong, so y'all know season four.
(03:36):
I've decided I want to narrowthe focus.
Of course, we always talk aboutcommunication topics, but we're
in an election year and it's abig election year.
Super Tuesday was just a coupleof days ago and I don't know if
we'll get into that in thisconversation, but it is one of
the most important topics of theday.
(03:57):
We have all kinds of thingsthat we can talk about that
related to elections andpolitics and government and all
of those things the divisionthat exists within our society
and the connection between thatand media.
We have a whole host of thingsthat we are talking about this
season.
(04:18):
Today.
I am so incredibly excited tobe able to introduce my next
guest, because this is going tobe a topic I think all of us
will have plenty of opinions.
Let's see who are we talking totoday on the show.
Well, mike, he has been writingabout politics since 2005, so
(04:38):
he does have a historicalperspective to this, which I'm
really excited to be able topick his brain about that as
well.
His focus is political morality, which, on his bio, is
described as the beliefs peoplehave about how government should
be run and yeah, I know we havea lot of opinions about how we
(05:04):
think government should be run.
Specifically, I want to talk tohim about the idea of America
being in a tribalist state.
So how is tribalism having anegative impact on our democracy
?
So, mike, thank you so much foragreeing to be on the show
(05:27):
agreeing to let me pick yourbrain.
And yeah, I'm just excited forthis conversation we're going to
have.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Before we dive into the several different topics
that we're going to get intotoday, would you mind just
taking a few moments tointroduce yourself to the
listeners?
What's your background?
How did you get to where youare today with writing about
politics?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I am a career IT guy.
I mean I have an undergraduatedegree in engineering and a PhD
in computer science, so I'vespent a long career in IT.
But I've always been veryinterested in history.
I've read a lot of history andso that it's intrigued me,
because I've always felt like ifyou look at history you can
(06:16):
learn about the present.
And I have a blog, actually,and the subtitle on the blog is
history has already happened.
The present has alreadyhappened, because if you look
back at history, you can see thesame things happening over and
over again.
So I started writing again.
(06:37):
Having the time in my life totransition, to get some space to
do some writing was in, youknow, 2003 or 4, and I started
writing about history.
And then I actually wrote anovel about the Roman Republic.
I got very interested inancient history because I was
intrigued with the connectionbetween it and the present day,
(07:00):
because I think the averagecitizen thinks well, the Romans
and the Greeks were barbariansand their society was
unsophisticated and crude andall that which is not true.
I mean it's basically, if theRomans would have had mass
production, their society wouldhave been a pretty good
facsimile to ours today.
(07:22):
In fact, mass productionstarted here probably in 1820 or
something.
So you could say that the RomanRepublic was equal to, maybe,
the United States up to thatpoint.
But the sort of epiphany for mewas I always had this question
about why are the left and rightso different?
(07:42):
Why is there no agreement onthe direction of politics?
And it came together when Iread Jonathan Haidt's book I
don't know if you ever heard ofit the Righteous Mind yes,
published in 2012.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Excellent book.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And it was a tremendous experience for me
because Haidt was the first oneto define the behavioral
differences between the left andright in a way that makes sense
, so that stimulated me to startmy books.
Took a couple of years to getthat going, but I published the
first book, the Progressive Gene, in 2017.
(08:22):
And basically what that's aboutis a genetic basis for left
behavior and why the leftbehaves the way it does.
And, of course, I plan to writea companion book called the
Conservative Gene after that.
But in the middle of the Trumpadministration, I got into this
tribalism thing, so I threw abook on tribalism in between,
(08:44):
published that in 2019,tribalism the Curse of 21st
Century America.
Then I went back to theconservative gene, published
that in 21.
Basically, the psychology ofconservatives and why they
behave the way they do.
The fourth book came out lastSeptember September 28th.
It's called Twilight of theAmerican Experiment.
(09:05):
Without Moral Balance, ourRepublic Will Fall, and it's
really about the imbalance inthe communication systems here
the fact that the left reallycontrols higher education,
traditional media and socialmedia and how that gives a
one-sided impression to thepublic about facts in our lives
(09:28):
and the news, and I'm arguingfor a better balance.
There needs to be more of aneven balance in information
transfer to the public so thepublic can make more objective
decisions about what's right andwrong.
So and let me also, I thinkit's appropriate to talk about
my own personal politicalbeliefs, because I don't want
(09:50):
people trying to guess where Istand and, depending on where I
stand, shutting the podcast off.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know they will.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I'm a conservative genetically, which
is different from being aRepublican.
So I mean we can't talk about,if you want, the genetic basis
for these behaviors, but I'm aconservative genetically, so I
tend to embrace the status quo,or at least a slower move into
(10:22):
the future than others do.
Politically I'm a moderate.
I do not.
I'm sort of anti-ideology,because I think ideologies are
traps.
And with the tribalism we'restuck in ideological traps now
where we have one group on theextreme left, one group on the
extreme right.
(10:43):
That are the ideologues andit's shocking to understand that
in each of those groups it'sabout 8 million people.
So there are 16 million peoplecompletely controlling the
government and the narrative ofthe operation of our country,
which is wrong.
And part of the reason theycontrol that is because they are
(11:05):
more vocal than non-ideologues,for example, independents, who
don't really there's noideological focus that they get
excited about.
They believe things on bothsides, so they're neutral.
So they're neutral.
But unfortunately the mediatrumpets the extreme views
(11:28):
because it really prefocused andscripted to create an
impression on us.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's not just reading the news.
It's coloring the news, whichis a negative.
So much to get into with whatyou have just described over the
past couple of minutes, and Ido appreciate that you took the
time to explain the differencesbetween how you view yourself
genetically as a conservative,versus what does that mean?
Versus being a Republican.
(12:22):
I am also conservative.
I've been a registeredRepublican since I can remember
(12:53):
and I've always felt more justdescribing the division that is
happening.
I very much think it's soimportant to surround yourself
with people who do notnecessarily share the exact same
beliefs that you have, becauseyou don't know where your own
blind spots are.
And I think that's what kindsof names online.
(13:23):
Of course, the premier nicknamethat some people have called me
is Rhino.
Because of that whole, like youwere talking about, the very
loud small percentage who getsall of the attention, and it
seems to be augmented on socialmedia as well as through even
just legacy media to an extent,because it's getting the clicks,
(13:46):
it's getting the advertising,it's getting the attention.
How do you make sure that, whenyou're doing your research,
that you are mitigating your ownbias in that way?
Because I think that's achallenge for all of us,
especially when we're very clearabout you know, I know what my
beliefs are all of us,especially when we're very clear
(14:06):
about you know.
I know what my beliefs are.
How do you mitigate?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
that when you're doing the research for all of
these books that you've written?
Great question.
First of all, I'm an academicbecause I have a PhD, so I'm
academically trained to doresearch that is fact-based.
That's number one and I owe myresponsibility to my readers and
people that hear my views topresent both sides.
(14:30):
You know I talk about sometimesas an engineer.
You know I have the personalityof an engineer because I'm left
brain driven to practicalsolutions.
What engineers do is designthings that work, and we don't
like designing things that don'twork.
So I don't care which politicalside dumb ideas come from,
(14:53):
they're still dumb ideas.
I believe in the government hasto function for the good of the
American people and if thereare obstacles to its function,
those are not good.
Those obstacles need to try toovercome that genetic basis.
Clearly there's a problem?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Clearly we have a problem and everybody is just
kind of digging in.
It feels like, okay, we've dugthis hole and instead of trying
to get ourself out of it, we'rejust going to dig in even
further.
How do we overcome thetendencies that we have to go
toward the left or the right?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Great question.
That's kind of the last chapterof my tribalism book talking
about that.
Are you familiar withorganizations, grassroots
organizations, that arespringing up now to deal with
tribalism, for example BraverAngels?
Are you?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, okay.
In the last chapter of mytribalism book I talked about
three ways to end tribalism.
The first way I don't want tosee happen, which is something
like 9-11, because if there'sany event that threatens all
Americans, we would cometogether in a minute, you know,
(16:27):
like Pearl Harbor, for example,because it's us against them,
and at that point tribalismwould seem inconsequential
compared to whatever mighthappen.
Now.
I thought COVID was going to bethe answer, because when COVID
started this is perfect becausewe'll come together as a nation
(16:51):
to treat this disease anderadicate it and we'll be fine
Didn't happen because tribalismwas already running and the
COVID pandemic became tribal, itbecame political.
And so that's what reallystarted the red state, blue
(17:12):
state thing, because blue stateswere more aggressive on
shutdowns than red states.
And part of that is thepersonalities involved, because
conservatives tend to be.
They adhere to freedom morethan people on the left.
Freedom is a big thing, yeah,so conservatives will not allow
(17:34):
themselves to be controlled byothers to the extent that they
think their lives are stifled.
So you know, that's why the redstates came out more quickly
than the blue states did.
But again, it was stillpolitical and unfortunately the
government was weaponized.
(17:55):
Both the CBC and the HHSdepartments were politically
weaponized and a lot ofunfortunate results came from
that.
But putting that aside for aminute.
So my other two ideas about theend of tribalism are one
everybody quits doing it becauseof fatigue, and that is a
(18:18):
possibility.
I use the example in all thepodcasts I'm on about how
tribalism has divided families.
I can't tell you how thepodcasts I'm on about how
tribalism has divided families.
I can't tell you how manypeople I've talked about.
Uncle Fred doesn't come atThanksgiving anymore because
he's a Trump supporter.
That is appalling to me becauseI've studied enough psychology
(18:38):
and in my writings about moralcapital, that's one of my main
themes in writing.
The important groups in humansociety that keep humans
together family, local community, your neighbors, your moral
community, like your religionand patriotism those are all
(18:59):
tightening effects on humanbehavior.
Family is the tightest.
Nothing is as important as yourfamily, your siblings, your
children, whoever.
And to imagine that familiesbreak up because one or more
members have a politicaldifference in point of view
astounds me.
I mean I don't know what thatsays.
(19:22):
Whether the psychology of theecho chamber is more attractive
than the family I, you know it'shard to explain.
So whether the fatigue thingsets in or not.
(19:42):
But zeitgeist is kind of thechange over time in the belief
system of a culture, and ittends to run every 10 or 20
years and then peters out andthen something, either
internally or externally,changes the culture.
Don't know if that will happen.
(20:04):
The most likely thing I thinkthat may happen is a grassroots
effort to stop it.
I don't think the politicianswant to stop it because they use
it to their advantage.
So we can't expect andpoliticians only represent what
the people believe anyway.
They don't have independentthoughts.
(20:26):
They do whatever they have todo to be elected.
So we're going to have to do itourselves.
And the way and you asked aboutadvice, the way I think of it is
you have to get people on theleft and people on the right
together, ones who are willingto get together, because some
aren't willing to even do that.
I think they resist thatbecause they really don't know
(20:51):
why they're in the tribe.
They're in Because if you knowwhy, then it would seem like you
want to talk about it andvalidate it.
Right, so you know theirvalidation is lacking.
But we need to get peopletogether, like in the case of
Braver Angels to accomplish twothings.
Number one, you have tounderstand that the people on
(21:13):
the other side are still goodpeople.
They're evil or Nazis orfascists or whatever they are,
and you have to talk to peopleto understand they're not.
And the second thing is anexchange of points of view about
politics, because both sideshave good points in their
(21:36):
political beliefs.
They're not entirely irrational.
So if you sit down and talkabout gun control, for example,
use me as a case.
I believe that some of thethings that the left wants
implemented are sound.
I mean, there's no reason in mymind why a mentally ill person
(21:58):
should be able to buy a gun.
That's laid out.
Now.
I argue that all the things theleft wants to do, if
implemented, I'd love it if wecould wave a magic wand,
implement them, because we wouldsee that they don't fix the
problem.
The problem is much deeper thansome laws and of course the NRA
(22:21):
argues that if you put allthese laws in, you're really
hamstringing legitimate gunowners who are honest and
law-abiding.
So anyway, but if you can getpeople together to talk about
their points of view, I thinkeach side would find out there
are some valid points on theother side and maybe bring the
(22:44):
temperature of the discussiondown as a result.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Let's take a time out for some recommended reading.
Check out the book Tribalismthe Curse of 21st Century
America by my guest, mikeAnderson, where he analyzes the
current tribal state in theUnited States.
Mike explores several factorsthat have contributed to the
issue of tribalism, includingthe left's search for a new
ideology after the failure ofsocialism, the emergence of
(23:13):
postmodernism as a philosophicalsystem, the erosion of moral
traditions and the polarizationof politics.
In this book, he argues thatthese forces, acting together,
create instability anduncertainty in our political
system.
Tribalism the curse of 21stcentury America will not only
teach you about tribalism, whatit is, where it came from and
(23:35):
where it's going, but alsoexplores possible ways to defeat
tribalism and why getting theAmerican public to talk again is
vital.
Get your copy today atcommunication247.com slash
podcast.
That's wwwcommunication247.comforward slash podcast.
Those are some excellent pointsand a couple of things I wanted
(24:01):
to add to that.
I was a media analyst for anumber of years, analyst for a
number of years, and thedivision that has been occurring
for some time that's beingdriven by a lot of the
narratives that exist within themedia, both on the
hyper-partisan left as well asthe hyper-partisan right.
(24:23):
When people ask how can theybelieve that when you were
talking about COVID and howCOVID ended up being politicized
despite the fact that everybodyneeded to be concerned about
what was happening, the way itwas playing out through the
different types of mediahardcore far left-leaning person
(24:52):
or a hardcore far right-leaningperson you were reading two
completely different narrativesof what was going on during
COVID.
If you were to really focus onthe hyper-partisan left-leaning
media, there was a highprobability that you were going
to read an article that wasfocusing on raw numbers, the
millions of people that havedied or the millions of people
who have gotten sick, and thisis why we need to be concerned
(25:14):
about this.
And then in the hyper-partisanright-leaning media, it was that
the probability of you readingthose raw numbers, that the
whole numbers, it was going tobe minimal.
It was all about yeah, andthere's a 90 something percent
survival rate, and within thisage group, there is a 98 percent
(25:35):
survival rate among children.
And so when the question is,how can you even look at it that
way?
How can you believe it?
Why are you thinking that way?
Well, look at what you'rereading.
If you're not expanding whatyou're looking at and then
having those conversations, likeyou were just saying with
others who are reading thingsthat come across.
(25:56):
You know, the narrative isdifferent from what you're
reading.
Of course, you're going to lookat it from two completely
different points of view andyou're going to have two
completely differentunderstandings of what is
actually going on, and somewherein the middle of all, that is
what the actual truth is.
What are the facts?
(26:16):
And it is possible both arecorrect.
Yeah, millions of people weredying and, yes, it had a very
high survival rate.
That was a case where it ispossible, two things can be true
at the same time.
What are we ignoring, though,at our own peril?
You know, that was justsomething that I realized as a
media analyst.
(26:37):
It was really interesting tosee how the data would be used
in order to continue thatnarrative on the both sides, and
you mentioned gun control.
I agree, I think the vastmajority of conservatives like
myself.
You know, I'm a gun owner and Ibelieve in responsible gun
(26:58):
ownership and I'm a hugeproponent of gun safety.
And I'm willing to bet if thelanguage, if the language was
changed just slightly andinstead of saying gun control,
which the conservatives, youknow, the hackles get up because
now you're talking aboutcontrol.
But if you were to reframe it,okay, let's focus on gun safety.
(27:20):
This is really at the core ofthe issue.
I think a lot moreconservatives would be open to
having that conversation,because responsible gun owners
know why gun safety is soimportant.
Those are just a couple ofobservations that I've had, you
know, just with the language andthen the data, that would be
(27:43):
the focus of these differentarticles that I would read.
You know, throughout the courseof several months, whenever
these topics, you know, they getkind of brought up again and
it's a hot flash and then itkind of goes underground again
every few months.
It's just interesting from thatperspective how language, and
(28:06):
then how the language focuseswhat you're going to pay
attention to, has a profoundimpact on on your perception and
how you go about talking aboutthese things and who you agree
to talk about them with Right.
A third thing that you made methink of when you were talking
(28:27):
about you know, families are nowunwilling to speak to one
another just because of theirpolitical beliefs.
It's actually starting beforethe family now.
I mean even within datingcircles.
I've seen so many people outthere that are like liberal need
not apply, right, conservativeneed not apply.
(28:47):
I'm not even interested ingoing out on a date with you
because I already know thatwe're not going to get along.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I heard a poll or read a poll on that recently,
and there's certainly theextreme ideologues when they see
the political party of theperson who pops up, cancel.
But then a large majority saythat their political orientation
is maybe priority number fiveor six for me, because if you
(29:18):
can't prioritize nice person,friendly, affectionate, good
family above that, then you'vegot problems.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Let me take a minute, if you don't mind, and talk
about the differences betweenleft and right, because there's
the genetic basis for it.
You know, as I told you, I'vewritten about I don't know how
much psychology you've had, butthere's a the standard method of
evaluating the differences inpersonalities is called the big
(29:50):
five.
Have you heard of the big five?
Okay so, and those arebehavioral traits that are that
you can catalog for anindividual and, you know, put
them in a box based on theirratings and it kind of shows,
you know, extrovert versusintrovert.
And those are the generallyaccepted personality traits that
(30:12):
describe an individual.
But there's also the politicalmorality side, which Jonathan
Haidt brought out, and basicallythe differences between left
and right have existed for100,000 years.
This isn't a new thing.
In fact their brains aredifferent and what happened was
(30:33):
it's a behavioral spectrum thatappeared to help man adapt to
heterogeneous environments.
And basically people on theleft are more open to change and
they like things that are new,and so in an environment where
(30:54):
there was a food shortage, theyhad a particular motivation and
skill to go out and find food,whereas the people on the right
are more circumspect.
Rather than openness, theirprimary personality trait is
conscientiousness, and so theyprefer to well, they're better
(31:19):
at, in a large food supply andecosystem, managing the food
supply that was there versusfinding new.
So you can imagine how foodsupply that was there versus
finding new.
So you can imagine how peoplecould work together.
Now, obviously, the extremesare at the ends and there are
people in the middle that shareboth points of view.
But the fact that there areextremes provide motivation in
(31:41):
one case or another to how thetribe should operate.
So and I mentioned this brainthing parts of the brain that
you would expect to highlightconservatism are more advanced
in conservatives than they arein liberals, and I'm talking
about the amygdala, and I don'tknow if you've ever heard of it,
(32:03):
but that's the part of thebrain that controls fight versus
flight, and conservatives aremore cautious, which is part of
the reason why they preferstatus quo.
They're more circumspect.
People on the left are part oftheir brain that enjoys complex
decision-making.
(32:23):
They like having differentdecisions to make or different
options, and they enjoy that.
They like traveling more thanconservatives do.
They like things that are new.
So these are things that aregenetic.
You know they're not 100%genetic, obviously, maybe half
genetic and part behavioral, butthere are real differences
(32:45):
between them.
So, in order to stop tribalism,each side has to understand
what's different about the otherside, and so what we see most
obviously across our society isthe left wanting to move too
fast and the right wanting toslow down the pace.
(33:06):
Because Biden got elected as amoderate and, to many people's
surprise, he turned into aprogressive.
Yeah, and I don't know whetherit's a deal he made or just his
inclination, his age, but he'spushed the left narrative way to
the left, which is alarming tothe right because it's moving
(33:27):
too fast.
For example, the world's goingto end in 2035 unless we're off
fossil fuels.
I mean, let's get some logicalthinking behind that instead of
you know, the sky is fallingattitude.
So there's this constant thing.
It's always been there with theand conservatives don't mind
(33:51):
change.
I think that's definitely true.
They just they want tounderstand the reasons behind
the pace for change, right?
So and that's part andconservatives should understand
the right.
I mean, if I use the example ofmy book, if the ancient tribe
would have been all progressives, they probably all would have
(34:11):
been killed because they tooktoo many risks, whereas if they
were all conservative, theywould never go hunting and
starve to death.
Right, that's the point ofhaving a spectrum of I call it
political morality because it'syour belief about how a
government should operate as yousaid.
You know, progressives andliberals believe in equality.
(34:35):
That's their number one driverout of Height's research.
So they're driven to create aenvironment or a political
system of equality as part oftheir.
That's their political morality.
People on the right accept thefact that human society can be
(34:57):
hierarchical.
They don't believe in equalityper se because they believe that
individuals have differentcapabilities and humans fall
into a hierarchical organization.
You know, once it gets above 10or 20 people, because people
have different skills anddifferent aptitudes and those
(35:19):
are complementary.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, I think that's such an important point, you
know, and again it goes back tothe language.
You know, as a conservative, Iknow I very much believe in
equality of opportunity, right,everybody should have the
opportunity.
If that's what you want to do,you go do it.
That's what you want to study,that's what you want to create,
that's what, whatever it is, youshould have those opportunities
(35:44):
.
The equality of opportunity.
I think where we start gettinginto those disagreements is when
the left is talking aboutequality of outcomes and I think
, as a conservative, we're verymuch like.
But that's impossible Because,like you said, we all have
different strengths, differentabilities, different desires.
You know, I know I tend to bemore of a workaholic compared to
(36:06):
some other people that I know,and so that's going to naturally
have an impact on the outcomes.
You know we're going to havedifferent outcomes for that
reason, and so I think if wewere able to have conversations
like this across the board, alot of light bulbs would be able
to go off and then recognizeyou know, we we do need to have
(36:29):
these differences.
I mean, you're right, we we doneed to be able to be creative
and have new ideas, and we needto expand.
We need, we need progress.
That's exactly how we've beenable to move forward throughout
history.
At the same time, we also needsomeone who's able to pump the
brakes a little bit and say okay, hold on, wait a minute.
(36:51):
Let's think about this for asecond.
Is that a good idea?
Is that really a good idea?
Let's think about this the prosand cons and weigh this out a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm going to tell you something I think is very
profound and it didn't come fromme, but I'm working on my fifth
book now, which is going tocome out this fall, and the
title of the book is America'sCounterfeit Democracy, basically
, where I'm going to take theposition or do take the position
that the country is actuallycontrolled by a power elite
(37:23):
alliance between wealthyfamilies and corporations,
basically and you can, you knowI'm arguing back and forth in
the book, but part of the bookis talking about the definition
of a democracy, the history ofdemocracies, do we really have a
democracy?
Et cetera.
But there's an academic namedRobert Dahl who wrote the
(37:45):
definitive book on the historyof democracy.
He's a very well-respectedprofessor.
I think this book came out in1987.
But he talks about veryprofoundly the issue of what
kind of laws can you put in ademocracy as far as equality
(38:08):
goes?
And the point of that is, ifyou can't define something, you
can't put it in a democracy.
And so if you're going to saythings like every person
deserves to have the same goodsor the same funds, or the same
(38:31):
goods or the same funds or thesame not opportunity but outcome
, you have to be able to definewhat that is.
Problem is, you can't do it,because who's going to decide
what equality is for you,jennifer?
Is it some bureaucrat, is it apolitician, is it you or is it
somebody else?
Is it you or is it somebodyelse?
And the fact that there is noway for an individual group of
(38:53):
individuals to define happinessfor a large group, because the
needs of the group vary.
You can't enshrine that inpolitics or law.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I want to follow that up with a question.
This is something that we heara lot.
You hear the term democracy andthen within conservative
circles you'll hear well, we'renot a democracy, we're a
republic.
Would you mind taking a momentand just talking about even that
differentiation, right therewithin conservative, the
(39:30):
conservative circle, of ourbeliefs, of what it means to
have a democracy versus whatdoes it mean to have a republic?
And I don't know if you havelot Particular differentiation
very deeply, but where is thatcoming from?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Okay.
So the history is that theGreeks invented democracy.
We all know that Democracy is aGreek word, demo is a Greek
tribe, so democracy is anorganization of tribes.
Basically, the Greek democracywas profoundly public oriented.
(40:14):
I mean the assembly, people'sassembly.
The people went and listened tothe debate and voted themselves
.
They didn't haverepresentatives.
So the Greek democracy couldnot function in the modern world
because the nation state is toolarge.
You couldn't have peopletrekking all the way to
(40:34):
Washington to vote.
But so the Greek democracy wasbasically extending rights to
the public that gives themcontrol over the function of
government, to the public thatgives them control over the
function of government.
The Roman Republic then was thelater, you know, started a
(40:54):
couple hundred years later.
Republic is Latin for respublic means thing of the people
, meaning the government can be.
The public has input to thegovernment.
And the Roman experience isinteresting because when Rome
started out it was basicallypatrician tribes controlling
(41:15):
everything.
The Senate and the entiregovernment was patricians.
There were three tribes and ifyou weren't a patrician in one
of those three tribes, you werea plebeian.
So there was this line ofdemarcation between the
citizenship.
So the Roman Republic started in509, when they expelled their
(41:36):
last king because they had kingsbefore that.
And pretty early in the processthe plebeians started to
agitate against the patriciansfor rights and over a 200-year
period, to their credit, theSenate and the patricians
(41:57):
seceded rights to the people.
They gave them the right toassemble, so they controlled the
assembly and gradually gavethem the right to be elected to
important public offices all ofthem so they became relative
equals.
So but the difference between arepublic and a democracy is
(42:21):
kind of complicated and nuanced.
Basically, both allow thepeople some rights, whereas a
republic means basically agovernment without a king, if
you want to be technical.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
But with people's rights, so there isn't that much
difference between them.
I mean, you can define, as I'vesaid, the difference between
Rome and Greece, but they'rebasically governments that
people can control through theirrights, and the Enlightenment
(43:22):
was the middle of theEnlightenment period where this
started to begin.
So classic liberalism basicallyis the people have rights and
the people can vote and holdelective office, basically.
But it's sort of like based oncapitalism and they viewed
(43:44):
government as applying orproviding key services but
staying out of the people's way.
And you see that in ourConstitution, because all the
rights in the Constitution arenegative rights.
Thou shalt not infringe on thepeople, Right?
Okay, so the Constitution doesnot mention democracy, nor does
(44:08):
the Declaration of Independence,because in the founders' view
we were not a democracy.
They felt that way because theyrejected the Greek system as
impossible to implement and sothey admired the Roman system as
the example from antiquity.
During the constitutionaldebates there were Romans used
(44:33):
as an example.
I mean, the Roman councils wasthe supreme magistrate executive
, there were two and they hadveto rights over each other, so
they had two presidents,basically, and the founders
debated whether we should havetwo presidents, like the Romans
did, and they rejected that.
But the point is that theystarted from the idea of the
(44:57):
Roman model, not the Greek model, in designing the Constitution.
So when America started it wasvery Republican versus
Democratic.
To vote you had to own property, which is what the Roman
Republic was like.
You served in the army andcould vote if you owned property
(45:20):
.
It was like you served in thearmy and could vote if you owned
property.
So it wasn't until 1850 thatthe suffrage was expanded to
non-property owners.
Then it took all the way till1920 till women were admitted to
the vote.
So the modern democracydefinition has come to mean
people's ability to hold officeand near your universal suffrage
(45:42):
, Because you couldn't reallycall America in the beginning a
democracy.
I hope I answered your question.
The definitions of both arenuanced.
It was the founder's intent tocreate a republic and not a
democracy.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
The founders intent to create a republic and not a
democracy, and we were veryRepublican in the beginning and
have become more like ademocracy, since, you know, it
takes a thousand people to builda building and just one
malcontent with a stick ofdynamite to ruin it all.
(46:23):
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(47:04):
Yeah, it's almost like when yousee those arguments that are
happening and most of the timeit's online like everything else
, somebody just wants to pick afight online and the whole
argument, you know.
Are we a democracy versus arewe a republic?
Are we just at this point, atthis point in time, are they
(47:27):
just arguing semantics at thispoint?
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Like yes, yeah, yeah, I mean another example of is
liberalism.
So I described classicliberalism, which is the start
of democracies during theEnlightenment.
Then we have New Dealliberalism, which is the modern
welfare state of the DemocraticParty.
That's New Deal liberalism, ormodern liberalism.
And then we have libertarianism, which is another variation,
(47:56):
which basically harks back toclassic liberalism and desires a
minimal government.
So if you talk to a libertarian, they'll say I want government
to do as little as possible andstay out of my life.
Then there's neoliberalism.
I mean, these words get veryconfused if you aren't familiar
(48:16):
with using them.
Aren't familiar with using them, and neoliberals are, and this
came out of the 1960s.
Neoliberals favor turning thewhole society into a capitalist
state, that everything should bedriven by capitalism and every
organization and institution insociety should be built on a
(48:38):
capitalist model.
So like colleges should runlike a corporation Right, and I
think that's overdone andexcessive because that, well,
that has led to globalism, whichis a natural thing to happen
because corporations go global.
But then there's this wholelike the globalists will control
(48:59):
the world thing and destroy thenation state, which is not a
good thing, because we don'tvote for those people.
That's right.
So we don't want peoplecontrolling us that we can't
control.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Right, yeah, you know , bringing up neoliberalism and
then the New Deal, you know side, then the New Deal, you know
side, and one of the things thatI think has gotten
progressively worse, I thinkespecially over maybe the last
15, 20 years.
We talk about liberalism and wetalk about conservatism, but
(49:35):
even within those groups, if youwill, those larger groups it
seems like there have been evenmore divisions within those
groups.
So it's almost like tribalismwithin the tribalism, if you
will.
Sure what are you seeing as themajor divisions that are
(49:57):
occurring within the two majorsides left and right?
There seems to be something youknow.
For example, we're in themiddle of the primaries, right,
super Tuesday was just a coupleof days ago and even within
conservative circles they're inconversations.
(50:19):
I know so many conservatives whowere absolutely adamant about
not voting for Donald Trump.
They were hardcore Nikki Haleyfans and you know they're like
we're tired of the circus andall of this stuff.
We're going to vote for NikkiHaley.
And it seemed to be when you,when you listen to people that
(50:41):
was, it was almost like OK,there's a possibility that there
could, something is going tohappen here.
And then, when you watch theprimaries unfold, overwhelmingly
, that is not what happened.
And then you have the Trumpsupporters and Trump himself
saying look, if you supportNikki Haley, I'm going to kick
you out of the GOP, right, youcan't be a member of the GOP
(51:04):
anymore.
And now it's okay, it's Trump.
Now you know.
We all need to get together inthis.
We all need to be together inthis.
What have you been observingacross the political spectrum in
terms of what it means to beconservative?
What does it mean to be liberaland how is that playing out?
(51:24):
Like the internal tribalismthat's occurring?
Speaker 2 (51:30):
One of the famous Chinese philosophers said may we
live in interesting times whichyou probably heard.
I don't know if it gets moreinteresting than this.
I don't know if it gets moreinteresting than this Because
Trump changes the wholenarrative.
I mean, you've got people whoare violently resistant to what
the left's been doing, in otherwords, being more radical.
(51:52):
So it doesn't matter who runs,as long as we beat them in their
mind.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, we beat them in their mind.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Yeah, trump is a populist and he's a artifact of
disinfit, unhappy Americans,middle class, lower middle-class
men who have no representation.
So you, you don't get somebodylike Trump If you have people,
(52:21):
if everyone is represented bysome political side right so,
and I you know I was saying in arecent podcast, I wish I had a
time machine I could fastforward to 28, because all this
would be done yeah.
Biden be gone, trump be gone,and we could like start over.
But you don't know how much ofthe anger of the left is against
(52:42):
Trump versus the Republicans.
I mean, how do you call him afascist when you know 76 million
Americans are going to vote forhim?
Are they fascists too?
I mean that's kind of illogical.
But back to the constituencies.
The left has always been a bigtent.
(53:02):
I mean, the left startsbasically with people have
liberal views that don't vote,and then there are welfare state
lefties, and then there aresocialists, and then I'm moving
farther to the left and you havecommunists and Marxists way on
the left, communists andMarxists way on the left.
So there are people on the leftwho strongly feel they want to
(53:26):
overturn the democracy, theywant to be a socialist state.
So they're a minority of theleft.
But they're there.
So there's always they're theextreme equality people, because
they believe that a capitaliststate is fundamentally unfair.
But and as I mentioned before,the left is driven by equality.
(53:49):
So that's kind of theirideology and they embrace
socialism because it producesequality theoretically.
On the right, republicans don'thave an ideology per se, because
you can't say an ideology isthe status quo and we value
traditions.
That's a behavior, not anideology.
(54:12):
But the Republicans now arestuck.
They're factionalized inbetween basically flexible
Republicans and inflexibleRepublicans.
The Congressional Caucus, whichhas a lot of libertarians in it
and I get their point they seewhat the national debt is and
(54:36):
how bad it's getting and how thecountry is going to be
bankrupted bad it's getting andhow the country is going to be
bankrupted and they will notcompromise on the passage of
laws that drive us towardbankruptcy.
But unfortunately it's a smallgroup that impacts how the whole
Republican Party votes, so itcontributes to the inability of
(55:00):
government to function.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Right, where do you see all of this heading?
No-transcript, where do youthink we're heading?
(55:25):
I mean, like you, I would loveto be able to fast forward and
just let's just have this behindus.
But it's really interesting.
I have no idea what to expect.
What's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
I can give you some guidance.
I think if, if history will beour guide.
Yeah, we've been tribal twicebefore.
The first time was the CivilWar.
Obviously, what we're goingthrough is nothing compared to
that, because that costs sixhundred thousand American lives,
north versus South, and ofcourse, the basic cause was the
(56:02):
North's effort, in the South'smind, to destroy its economy
because its economy was based onslavery and slavery was wrong.
So that's the Civil War.
Now, after the Civil War,during the reparations period
not reparations, reconstructionperiod we became tribal again,
(56:26):
and I just I wrote an articleabout this.
It was during the Gilded Age,and how we became tribal was
everybody's excited about theCivil War ending and anxious to
participate as voters, and soalmost everybody voted.
But quickly the voting processbecame corrupted because these
(56:48):
machines developed, like you'veheard about Tammany Hall in New
York, for example but everylarge city had a machine for the
Republicans and machine for theDemocrats, who engage in
corrupt voting practices.
When you voted, you got handeda ballot by either Republican or
Democrat supporter it didn'tcome from a third party and you
(57:11):
were told how to vote and youmight get beat up if you voted
wrong, or you got free drinks ata bar if you voted the way of
the individual who was buyingthe drinks.
So voting was corrupt.
Politics was corrupt becausethere was a spoil system in
Washington.
So people got elected and theyhad to give all their friends
(57:32):
jobs there, all that.
So it was totally corrupt.
Basically murder, robbery orassault and battery on voters
and all that stuff.
How that ended was two importantthings, and I give the
progressive movement credit forthis because they were the prime
mover.
(57:52):
We had to fix elections and wefixed elections number one by
starting the secret ballot,which happened in 1883.
And so if no one could see howyou voted, no one could beat you
up for voting wrong.
But the process of voting wasintellectualized.
Groups and organizationsstarted up that talked about
(58:16):
politics and different issuesand all that stuff politics and
different issues and all thatstuff.
The parties become centralized,so they became controllable
from above instead of beinglocally driven, and the corrupt
spoil system in Washington wasreplaced by the civil service.
So it took about 20 to 30 yearsto fix that whole thing and it
(58:40):
was done by intellectualizingbasically, which could be a
factor here.
It's going to take educatedpeople to say that there are
logical solutions to ourproblems.
So let's get started at workingtogether to accomplish that.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
Hopefully we'll be able to get the logical people
in place to be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Yeah, it's definitely a challenge, Mike.
This has been such a wonderfulconversation.
I know I have learned so muchfrom you and I've gained so much
from having this conversation.
I know the listeners have aswell.
Is there anything that we didnot have a chance for you to
(59:26):
talk about, that has been onyour mind and you just wanted to
make sure?
Hey, before we go, I have justthis one thing I want to make
sure that that I let thelisteners know about.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Not, not really.
I think we beat it up prettygood.
I want you to direct them to myauthor site maybe you're going
to post that or somethingmikeanderson'sbookscom.
So my books are there.
You can buy them from there.
There are podcasts there, um,and eventually I'll have yours
up there.
Have this one there becauseI've enjoyed it.
Um, and I have a blog too.
(01:00:00):
So, and I'm on, I just startedon Substack, so I'm writing, you
know, newsletters there aboutpolitics.
It's called American Politicsfrom the Middle or from a
neutral position.
So I'm taking both viewsbecause, again, I mean, if I'm
going to be an ideologue andwrite that way, that's not going
(01:00:22):
to help our country moveforward.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
So yeah, that it definitely would contribute to
the opposite we have.
We have enough of that right.
We absolutely have enough ofthat, mike.
Thank you so much again forbeing on the show, for sharing
your wisdom and some of thatinformation.
I think we're all going to be,we're all going to mull this
(01:00:46):
over for a little while, becauseit is definitely something
that's impacting all of us andit's an important conversation
to have.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Maybe we should, maybe you should do this again
in October.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
I would love to do this again in October and then
maybe even after the electionwe'll probably have to have a
third one.
So I definitely would love toplan for that October for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
We really didn't get into the campaigning and all
that stuff, which is a whole.
I mean you could spend a wholepodcast on that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
So absolutely yeah.
So much to talk about.
All right, everyone.
I hope you enjoyed listening tothis conversation.
I know I enjoyed having theconversation with Mike.
One thing that I hope you gotout of it is just be willing to
have those conversations withpeople who may not necessarily
(01:01:32):
agree with you politically.
Maybe they don't align witheverything that you believe in,
and that's okay.
With everything that youbelieve in, and that's okay.
Have the conversations.
If you believe in what youbelieve, then you should not be
afraid to have thoseconversations.
But how else are you gonnamitigate your own bias and how
else are you going to be able tolearn from others' perspectives
(01:01:54):
?
So let's keep the conversationgoing.
All right, you all have awonderful rest of your day and
we'll see you in the nextepisode.
Bye, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
(01:02:16):
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
social media or leave a ratingand a review.
You know, regardless of political affiliation.
I think we all would agree orat least I hope that we all
would agree that some politicalidentification and engagement is
normal in a democratic society.
But excessive tribalism, that'snot normal and it can have
several negative consequences.
(00:20):
I had the opportunity to speakwith Mike Anderson, who is a
historian and a politicalanalyst.
He focuses on contemporaryAmerican politics and its
problems.
Among those problems is theissue of political tribalism
individuals to align themselveswith a particular political
group or ideology and thenengage in behaviors that
(00:47):
prioritize the interests oftheir group over the common good
.
Now why is this a problem?
Why would this be a problem?
We all have our team right.
Well, the problem is it doeslead to increased polarization
within our society.
When individuals become overlyattached to their political
(01:08):
tribe, they tend to view thoseoutside of their group as
adversaries rather than fellowcitizens, enemies rather than
colleagues, enforcesconfirmation bias, and it
encourages individuals to seekout information and opinions
that align with theirpre-existing beliefs, while
(01:29):
dismissing contradictoryevidence.
Tribalism also fostershostility and incivility in
public discourse, and if youhave known me for some time, or
if you've followed me for sometime, you know that I absolutely
abhor that.
Incivility in public discourseis not something that I take
(01:49):
lightly, and I don't care if youdisagree with what someone else
is saying.
I don't care if you're offendedby their speech.
Reacting by trying to preventan alternate viewpoint from
being expressed, by shoutingthem down or even sometimes
through violent means, thatwholeheartedly undermines the
(02:10):
fabric of civil society.
Tribalism erodes trust.
It erodes trust in institutionslike our government, our
schools, the media, our judicialsystem and when we have an
eroded trust in thoseinstitutions, it weakens the
(02:31):
foundation of our democracy andthe rule of law.
And ultimately, whenindividuals prioritize loyalty
to their tribe over objectiveanalysis, critical thinking,
evidence-based decision-makingand policy-making, our society
suffers the consequences.
(02:52):
We can and we should engage inconstructive dialogue with those
who hold different politicalviews from ourselves.
This is the basis for mydiscussion with Mike in this
week's episode and I hope youenjoy it.
(03:14):
Welcome to the Communication24-7 podcast, where we
communicate about how wecommunicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong, so y'all know season four.
(03:36):
I've decided I want to narrowthe focus.
Of course, we always talk aboutcommunication topics, but we're
in an election year and it's abig election year.
Super Tuesday was just a coupleof days ago and I don't know if
we'll get into that in thisconversation, but it is one of
the most important topics of theday.
(03:57):
We have all kinds of thingsthat we can talk about that
related to elections andpolitics and government and all
of those things the divisionthat exists within our society
and the connection between thatand media.
We have a whole host of thingsthat we are talking about this
season.
(04:18):
Today.
I am so incredibly excited tobe able to introduce my next
guest, because this is going tobe a topic I think all of us
will have plenty of opinions.
Let's see who are we talking totoday on the show.
Well, mike, he has been writingabout politics since 2005, so
(04:38):
he does have a historicalperspective to this, which I'm
really excited to be able topick his brain about that as
well.
His focus is political morality, which, on his bio, is
described as the beliefs peoplehave about how government should
be run and yeah, I know we havea lot of opinions about how we
(05:04):
think government should be run.
Specifically, I want to talk tohim about the idea of America
being in a tribalist state.
So how is tribalism having anegative impact on our democracy
?
So, mike, thank you so much foragreeing to be on the show
(05:27):
agreeing to let me pick yourbrain.
And yeah, I'm just excited forthis conversation we're going to
have.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Thank you very much for inviting me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Before we dive into the several different topics
that we're going to get intotoday, would you mind just
taking a few moments tointroduce yourself to the
listeners?
What's your background?
How did you get to where youare today with writing about
politics?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I am a career IT guy.
I mean I have an undergraduatedegree in engineering and a PhD
in computer science, so I'vespent a long career in IT.
But I've always been veryinterested in history.
I've read a lot of history andso that it's intrigued me,
because I've always felt like ifyou look at history you can
(06:16):
learn about the present.
And I have a blog, actually,and the subtitle on the blog is
history has already happened.
The present has alreadyhappened, because if you look
back at history, you can see thesame things happening over and
over again.
So I started writing again.
(06:37):
Having the time in my life totransition, to get some space to
do some writing was in, youknow, 2003 or 4, and I started
writing about history.
And then I actually wrote anovel about the Roman Republic.
I got very interested inancient history because I was
intrigued with the connectionbetween it and the present day,
(07:00):
because I think the averagecitizen thinks well, the Romans
and the Greeks were barbariansand their society was
unsophisticated and crude andall that which is not true.
I mean it's basically, if theRomans would have had mass
production, their society wouldhave been a pretty good
facsimile to ours today.
(07:22):
In fact, mass productionstarted here probably in 1820 or
something.
So you could say that the RomanRepublic was equal to, maybe,
the United States up to thatpoint.
But the sort of epiphany for mewas I always had this question
about why are the left and rightso different?
(07:42):
Why is there no agreement onthe direction of politics?
And it came together when Iread Jonathan Haidt's book I
don't know if you ever heard ofit the Righteous Mind yes,
published in 2012.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Excellent book.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And it was a tremendous experience for me
because Haidt was the first oneto define the behavioral
differences between the left andright in a way that makes sense
, so that stimulated me to startmy books.
Took a couple of years to getthat going, but I published the
first book, the Progressive Gene, in 2017.
(08:22):
And basically what that's aboutis a genetic basis for left
behavior and why the leftbehaves the way it does.
And, of course, I plan to writea companion book called the
Conservative Gene after that.
But in the middle of the Trumpadministration, I got into this
tribalism thing, so I threw abook on tribalism in between,
(08:44):
published that in 2019,tribalism the Curse of 21st
Century America.
Then I went back to theconservative gene, published
that in 21.
Basically, the psychology ofconservatives and why they
behave the way they do.
The fourth book came out lastSeptember September 28th.
It's called Twilight of theAmerican Experiment.
(09:05):
Without Moral Balance, ourRepublic Will Fall, and it's
really about the imbalance inthe communication systems here
the fact that the left reallycontrols higher education,
traditional media and socialmedia and how that gives a
one-sided impression to thepublic about facts in our lives
(09:28):
and the news, and I'm arguingfor a better balance.
There needs to be more of aneven balance in information
transfer to the public so thepublic can make more objective
decisions about what's right andwrong.
So and let me also, I thinkit's appropriate to talk about
my own personal politicalbeliefs, because I don't want
(09:50):
people trying to guess where Istand and, depending on where I
stand, shutting the podcast off.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know they will.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I'm a conservative genetically, which
is different from being aRepublican.
So I mean we can't talk about,if you want, the genetic basis
for these behaviors, but I'm aconservative genetically, so I
tend to embrace the status quo,or at least a slower move into
(10:22):
the future than others do.
Politically I'm a moderate.
I do not.
I'm sort of anti-ideology,because I think ideologies are
traps.
And with the tribalism we'restuck in ideological traps now
where we have one group on theextreme left, one group on the
extreme right.
(10:43):
That are the ideologues andit's shocking to understand that
in each of those groups it'sabout 8 million people.
So there are 16 million peoplecompletely controlling the
government and the narrative ofthe operation of our country,
which is wrong.
And part of the reason theycontrol that is because they are
(11:05):
more vocal than non-ideologues,for example, independents, who
don't really there's noideological focus that they get
excited about.
They believe things on bothsides, so they're neutral.
So they're neutral.
But unfortunately the mediatrumpets the extreme views
(11:28):
because it really prefocused andscripted to create an
impression on us.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's not just reading the news.
It's coloring the news, whichis a negative.
So much to get into with whatyou have just described over the
past couple of minutes, and Ido appreciate that you took the
time to explain the differencesbetween how you view yourself
genetically as a conservative,versus what does that mean?
Versus being a Republican.
(12:22):
I am also conservative.
I've been a registeredRepublican since I can remember
(12:53):
and I've always felt more justdescribing the division that is
happening.
I very much think it's soimportant to surround yourself
with people who do notnecessarily share the exact same
beliefs that you have, becauseyou don't know where your own
blind spots are.
And I think that's what kindsof names online.
(13:23):
Of course, the premier nicknamethat some people have called me
is Rhino.
Because of that whole, like youwere talking about, the very
loud small percentage who getsall of the attention, and it
seems to be augmented on socialmedia as well as through even
just legacy media to an extent,because it's getting the clicks,
(13:46):
it's getting the advertising,it's getting the attention.
How do you make sure that, whenyou're doing your research,
that you are mitigating your ownbias in that way?
Because I think that's achallenge for all of us,
especially when we're very clearabout you know, I know what my
beliefs are all of us,especially when we're very clear
(14:06):
about you know.
I know what my beliefs are.
How do you mitigate?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
that when you're doing the research for all of
these books that you've written?
Great question.
First of all, I'm an academicbecause I have a PhD, so I'm
academically trained to doresearch that is fact-based.
That's number one and I owe myresponsibility to my readers and
people that hear my views topresent both sides.
(14:30):
You know I talk about sometimesas an engineer.
You know I have the personalityof an engineer because I'm left
brain driven to practicalsolutions.
What engineers do is designthings that work, and we don't
like designing things that don'twork.
So I don't care which politicalside dumb ideas come from,
(14:53):
they're still dumb ideas.
I believe in the government hasto function for the good of the
American people and if thereare obstacles to its function,
those are not good.
Those obstacles need to try toovercome that genetic basis.
Clearly there's a problem?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Clearly we have a problem and everybody is just
kind of digging in.
It feels like, okay, we've dugthis hole and instead of trying
to get ourself out of it, we'rejust going to dig in even
further.
How do we overcome thetendencies that we have to go
toward the left or the right?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Great question.
That's kind of the last chapterof my tribalism book talking
about that.
Are you familiar withorganizations, grassroots
organizations, that arespringing up now to deal with
tribalism, for example BraverAngels?
Are you?
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, okay.
In the last chapter of mytribalism book I talked about
three ways to end tribalism.
The first way I don't want tosee happen, which is something
like 9-11, because if there'sany event that threatens all
Americans, we would cometogether in a minute, you know,
(16:27):
like Pearl Harbor, for example,because it's us against them,
and at that point tribalismwould seem inconsequential
compared to whatever mighthappen.
Now.
I thought COVID was going to bethe answer, because when COVID
started this is perfect becausewe'll come together as a nation
(16:51):
to treat this disease anderadicate it and we'll be fine
Didn't happen because tribalismwas already running and the
COVID pandemic became tribal, itbecame political.
And so that's what reallystarted the red state, blue
(17:12):
state thing, because blue stateswere more aggressive on
shutdowns than red states.
And part of that is thepersonalities involved, because
conservatives tend to be.
They adhere to freedom morethan people on the left.
Freedom is a big thing, yeah,so conservatives will not allow
(17:34):
themselves to be controlled byothers to the extent that they
think their lives are stifled.
So you know, that's why the redstates came out more quickly
than the blue states did.
But again, it was stillpolitical and unfortunately the
government was weaponized.
(17:55):
Both the CBC and the HHSdepartments were politically
weaponized and a lot ofunfortunate results came from
that.
But putting that aside for aminute.
So my other two ideas about theend of tribalism are one
everybody quits doing it becauseof fatigue, and that is a
(18:18):
possibility.
I use the example in all thepodcasts I'm on about how
tribalism has divided families.
I can't tell you how thepodcasts I'm on about how
tribalism has divided families.
I can't tell you how manypeople I've talked about.
Uncle Fred doesn't come atThanksgiving anymore because
he's a Trump supporter.
That is appalling to me becauseI've studied enough psychology
(18:38):
and in my writings about moralcapital, that's one of my main
themes in writing.
The important groups in humansociety that keep humans
together family, local community, your neighbors, your moral
community, like your religionand patriotism those are all
(18:59):
tightening effects on humanbehavior.
Family is the tightest.
Nothing is as important as yourfamily, your siblings, your
children, whoever.
And to imagine that familiesbreak up because one or more
members have a politicaldifference in point of view
astounds me.
I mean I don't know what thatsays.
(19:22):
Whether the psychology of theecho chamber is more attractive
than the family I, you know it'shard to explain.
So whether the fatigue thingsets in or not.
(19:42):
But zeitgeist is kind of thechange over time in the belief
system of a culture, and ittends to run every 10 or 20
years and then peters out andthen something, either
internally or externally,changes the culture.
Don't know if that will happen.
(20:04):
The most likely thing I thinkthat may happen is a grassroots
effort to stop it.
I don't think the politicianswant to stop it because they use
it to their advantage.
So we can't expect andpoliticians only represent what
the people believe anyway.
They don't have independentthoughts.
(20:26):
They do whatever they have todo to be elected.
So we're going to have to do itourselves.
And the way and you asked aboutadvice, the way I think of it is
you have to get people on theleft and people on the right
together, ones who are willingto get together, because some
aren't willing to even do that.
I think they resist thatbecause they really don't know
(20:51):
why they're in the tribe.
They're in Because if you knowwhy, then it would seem like you
want to talk about it andvalidate it.
Right, so you know theirvalidation is lacking.
But we need to get peopletogether, like in the case of
Braver Angels to accomplish twothings.
Number one, you have tounderstand that the people on
(21:13):
the other side are still goodpeople.
They're evil or Nazis orfascists or whatever they are,
and you have to talk to peopleto understand they're not.
And the second thing is anexchange of points of view about
politics, because both sideshave good points in their
(21:36):
political beliefs.
They're not entirely irrational.
So if you sit down and talkabout gun control, for example,
use me as a case.
I believe that some of thethings that the left wants
implemented are sound.
I mean, there's no reason in mymind why a mentally ill person
(21:58):
should be able to buy a gun.
That's laid out.
Now.
I argue that all the things theleft wants to do, if
implemented, I'd love it if wecould wave a magic wand,
implement them, because we wouldsee that they don't fix the
problem.
The problem is much deeper thansome laws and of course the NRA
(22:21):
argues that if you put allthese laws in, you're really
hamstringing legitimate gunowners who are honest and
law-abiding.
So anyway, but if you can getpeople together to talk about
their points of view, I thinkeach side would find out there
are some valid points on theother side and maybe bring the
(22:44):
temperature of the discussiondown as a result.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Let's take a time out for some recommended reading.
Check out the book Tribalismthe Curse of 21st Century
America by my guest, mikeAnderson, where he analyzes the
current tribal state in theUnited States.
Mike explores several factorsthat have contributed to the
issue of tribalism, includingthe left's search for a new
ideology after the failure ofsocialism, the emergence of
(23:13):
postmodernism as a philosophicalsystem, the erosion of moral
traditions and the polarizationof politics.
In this book, he argues thatthese forces, acting together,
create instability anduncertainty in our political
system.
Tribalism the curse of 21stcentury America will not only
teach you about tribalism, whatit is, where it came from and
(23:35):
where it's going, but alsoexplores possible ways to defeat
tribalism and why getting theAmerican public to talk again is
vital.
Get your copy today atcommunication247.com slash
podcast.
That's wwwcommunication247.comforward slash podcast.
Those are some excellent pointsand a couple of things I wanted
(24:01):
to add to that.
I was a media analyst for anumber of years, analyst for a
number of years, and thedivision that has been occurring
for some time that's beingdriven by a lot of the
narratives that exist within themedia, both on the
hyper-partisan left as well asthe hyper-partisan right.
(24:23):
When people ask how can theybelieve that when you were
talking about COVID and howCOVID ended up being politicized
despite the fact that everybodyneeded to be concerned about
what was happening, the way itwas playing out through the
different types of mediahardcore far left-leaning person
(24:52):
or a hardcore far right-leaningperson you were reading two
completely different narrativesof what was going on during
COVID.
If you were to really focus onthe hyper-partisan left-leaning
media, there was a highprobability that you were going
to read an article that wasfocusing on raw numbers, the
millions of people that havedied or the millions of people
who have gotten sick, and thisis why we need to be concerned
(25:14):
about this.
And then in the hyper-partisanright-leaning media, it was that
the probability of you readingthose raw numbers, that the
whole numbers, it was going tobe minimal.
It was all about yeah, andthere's a 90 something percent
survival rate, and within thisage group, there is a 98 percent
(25:35):
survival rate among children.
And so when the question is,how can you even look at it that
way?
How can you believe it?
Why are you thinking that way?
Well, look at what you'rereading.
If you're not expanding whatyou're looking at and then
having those conversations, likeyou were just saying with
others who are reading thingsthat come across.
(25:56):
You know, the narrative isdifferent from what you're
reading.
Of course, you're going to lookat it from two completely
different points of view andyou're going to have two
completely differentunderstandings of what is
actually going on, and somewherein the middle of all, that is
what the actual truth is.
What are the facts?
(26:16):
And it is possible both arecorrect.
Yeah, millions of people weredying and, yes, it had a very
high survival rate.
That was a case where it ispossible, two things can be true
at the same time.
What are we ignoring, though,at our own peril?
You know, that was justsomething that I realized as a
media analyst.
(26:37):
It was really interesting tosee how the data would be used
in order to continue thatnarrative on the both sides, and
you mentioned gun control.
I agree, I think the vastmajority of conservatives like
myself.
You know, I'm a gun owner and Ibelieve in responsible gun
(26:58):
ownership and I'm a hugeproponent of gun safety.
And I'm willing to bet if thelanguage, if the language was
changed just slightly andinstead of saying gun control,
which the conservatives, youknow, the hackles get up because
now you're talking aboutcontrol.
But if you were to reframe it,okay, let's focus on gun safety.
(27:20):
This is really at the core ofthe issue.
I think a lot moreconservatives would be open to
having that conversation,because responsible gun owners
know why gun safety is soimportant.
Those are just a couple ofobservations that I've had, you
know, just with the language andthen the data, that would be
(27:43):
the focus of these differentarticles that I would read.
You know, throughout the courseof several months, whenever
these topics, you know, they getkind of brought up again and
it's a hot flash and then itkind of goes underground again
every few months.
It's just interesting from thatperspective how language, and
(28:06):
then how the language focuseswhat you're going to pay
attention to, has a profoundimpact on on your perception and
how you go about talking aboutthese things and who you agree
to talk about them with Right.
A third thing that you made methink of when you were talking
(28:27):
about you know, families are nowunwilling to speak to one
another just because of theirpolitical beliefs.
It's actually starting beforethe family now.
I mean even within datingcircles.
I've seen so many people outthere that are like liberal need
not apply, right, conservativeneed not apply.
(28:47):
I'm not even interested ingoing out on a date with you
because I already know thatwe're not going to get along.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I heard a poll or read a poll on that recently,
and there's certainly theextreme ideologues when they see
the political party of theperson who pops up, cancel.
But then a large majority saythat their political orientation
is maybe priority number fiveor six for me, because if you
(29:18):
can't prioritize nice person,friendly, affectionate, good
family above that, then you'vegot problems.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Let me take a minute, if you don't mind, and talk
about the differences betweenleft and right, because there's
the genetic basis for it.
You know, as I told you, I'vewritten about I don't know how
much psychology you've had, butthere's a the standard method of
evaluating the differences inpersonalities is called the big
(29:50):
five.
Have you heard of the big five?
Okay so, and those arebehavioral traits that are that
you can catalog for anindividual and, you know, put
them in a box based on theirratings and it kind of shows,
you know, extrovert versusintrovert.
And those are the generallyaccepted personality traits that
(30:12):
describe an individual.
But there's also the politicalmorality side, which Jonathan
Haidt brought out, and basicallythe differences between left
and right have existed for100,000 years.
This isn't a new thing.
In fact their brains aredifferent and what happened was
(30:33):
it's a behavioral spectrum thatappeared to help man adapt to
heterogeneous environments.
And basically people on theleft are more open to change and
they like things that are new,and so in an environment where
(30:54):
there was a food shortage, theyhad a particular motivation and
skill to go out and find food,whereas the people on the right
are more circumspect.
Rather than openness, theirprimary personality trait is
conscientiousness, and so theyprefer to well, they're better
(31:19):
at, in a large food supply andecosystem, managing the food
supply that was there versusfinding new.
So you can imagine how foodsupply that was there versus
finding new.
So you can imagine how peoplecould work together.
Now, obviously, the extremesare at the ends and there are
people in the middle that shareboth points of view.
But the fact that there areextremes provide motivation in
(31:41):
one case or another to how thetribe should operate.
So and I mentioned this brainthing parts of the brain that
you would expect to highlightconservatism are more advanced
in conservatives than they arein liberals, and I'm talking
about the amygdala, and I don'tknow if you've ever heard of it,
(32:03):
but that's the part of thebrain that controls fight versus
flight, and conservatives aremore cautious, which is part of
the reason why they preferstatus quo.
They're more circumspect.
People on the left are part oftheir brain that enjoys complex
decision-making.
(32:23):
They like having differentdecisions to make or different
options, and they enjoy that.
They like traveling more thanconservatives do.
They like things that are new.
So these are things that aregenetic.
You know they're not 100%genetic, obviously, maybe half
genetic and part behavioral, butthere are real differences
(32:45):
between them.
So, in order to stop tribalism,each side has to understand
what's different about the otherside, and so what we see most
obviously across our society isthe left wanting to move too
fast and the right wanting toslow down the pace.
(33:06):
Because Biden got elected as amoderate and, to many people's
surprise, he turned into aprogressive.
Yeah, and I don't know whetherit's a deal he made or just his
inclination, his age, but he'spushed the left narrative way to
the left, which is alarming tothe right because it's moving
(33:27):
too fast.
For example, the world's goingto end in 2035 unless we're off
fossil fuels.
I mean, let's get some logicalthinking behind that instead of
you know, the sky is fallingattitude.
So there's this constant thing.
It's always been there with theand conservatives don't mind
(33:51):
change.
I think that's definitely true.
They just they want tounderstand the reasons behind
the pace for change, right?
So and that's part andconservatives should understand
the right.
I mean, if I use the example ofmy book, if the ancient tribe
would have been all progressives, they probably all would have
(34:11):
been killed because they tooktoo many risks, whereas if they
were all conservative, theywould never go hunting and
starve to death.
Right, that's the point ofhaving a spectrum of I call it
political morality because it'syour belief about how a
government should operate as yousaid.
You know, progressives andliberals believe in equality.
(34:35):
That's their number one driverout of Height's research.
So they're driven to create aenvironment or a political
system of equality as part oftheir.
That's their political morality.
People on the right accept thefact that human society can be
(34:57):
hierarchical.
They don't believe in equalityper se because they believe that
individuals have differentcapabilities and humans fall
into a hierarchical organization.
You know, once it gets above 10or 20 people, because people
have different skills anddifferent aptitudes and those
(35:19):
are complementary.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, I think that's such an important point, you
know, and again it goes back tothe language.
You know, as a conservative, Iknow I very much believe in
equality of opportunity, right,everybody should have the
opportunity.
If that's what you want to do,you go do it.
That's what you want to study,that's what you want to create,
that's what, whatever it is, youshould have those opportunities
(35:44):
.
The equality of opportunity.
I think where we start gettinginto those disagreements is when
the left is talking aboutequality of outcomes and I think
, as a conservative, we're verymuch like.
But that's impossible Because,like you said, we all have
different strengths, differentabilities, different desires.
You know, I know I tend to bemore of a workaholic compared to
(36:06):
some other people that I know,and so that's going to naturally
have an impact on the outcomes.
You know we're going to havedifferent outcomes for that
reason, and so I think if wewere able to have conversations
like this across the board, alot of light bulbs would be able
to go off and then recognizeyou know, we we do need to have
(36:29):
these differences.
I mean, you're right, we we doneed to be able to be creative
and have new ideas, and we needto expand.
We need, we need progress.
That's exactly how we've beenable to move forward throughout
history.
At the same time, we also needsomeone who's able to pump the
brakes a little bit and say okay, hold on, wait a minute.
(36:51):
Let's think about this for asecond.
Is that a good idea?
Is that really a good idea?
Let's think about this the prosand cons and weigh this out a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I'm going to tell you something I think is very
profound and it didn't come fromme, but I'm working on my fifth
book now, which is going tocome out this fall, and the
title of the book is America'sCounterfeit Democracy, basically
, where I'm going to take theposition or do take the position
that the country is actuallycontrolled by a power elite
(37:23):
alliance between wealthyfamilies and corporations,
basically and you can, you knowI'm arguing back and forth in
the book, but part of the bookis talking about the definition
of a democracy, the history ofdemocracies, do we really have a
democracy?
Et cetera.
But there's an academic namedRobert Dahl who wrote the
(37:45):
definitive book on the historyof democracy.
He's a very well-respectedprofessor.
I think this book came out in1987.
But he talks about veryprofoundly the issue of what
kind of laws can you put in ademocracy as far as equality
(38:08):
goes?
And the point of that is, ifyou can't define something, you
can't put it in a democracy.
And so if you're going to saythings like every person
deserves to have the same goodsor the same funds, or the same
(38:31):
goods or the same funds or thesame not opportunity but outcome
, you have to be able to definewhat that is.
Problem is, you can't do it,because who's going to decide
what equality is for you,jennifer?
Is it some bureaucrat, is it apolitician, is it you or is it
somebody else?
Is it you or is it somebodyelse?
And the fact that there is noway for an individual group of
(38:53):
individuals to define happinessfor a large group, because the
needs of the group vary.
You can't enshrine that inpolitics or law.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I want to follow that up with a question.
This is something that we heara lot.
You hear the term democracy andthen within conservative
circles you'll hear well, we'renot a democracy, we're a
republic.
Would you mind taking a momentand just talking about even that
differentiation, right therewithin conservative, the
(39:30):
conservative circle, of ourbeliefs, of what it means to
have a democracy versus whatdoes it mean to have a republic?
And I don't know if you havelot Particular differentiation
very deeply, but where is thatcoming from?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Okay.
So the history is that theGreeks invented democracy.
We all know that Democracy is aGreek word, demo is a Greek
tribe, so democracy is anorganization of tribes.
Basically, the Greek democracywas profoundly public oriented.
(40:14):
I mean the assembly, people'sassembly.
The people went and listened tothe debate and voted themselves
.
They didn't haverepresentatives.
So the Greek democracy couldnot function in the modern world
because the nation state is toolarge.
You couldn't have peopletrekking all the way to
(40:34):
Washington to vote.
But so the Greek democracy wasbasically extending rights to
the public that gives themcontrol over the function of
government, to the public thatgives them control over the
function of government.
The Roman Republic then was thelater, you know, started a
(40:54):
couple hundred years later.
Republic is Latin for respublic means thing of the people
, meaning the government can be.
The public has input to thegovernment.
And the Roman experience isinteresting because when Rome
started out it was basicallypatrician tribes controlling
(41:15):
everything.
The Senate and the entiregovernment was patricians.
There were three tribes and ifyou weren't a patrician in one
of those three tribes, you werea plebeian.
So there was this line ofdemarcation between the
citizenship.
So the Roman Republic started in509, when they expelled their
(41:36):
last king because they had kingsbefore that.
And pretty early in the processthe plebeians started to
agitate against the patriciansfor rights and over a 200-year
period, to their credit, theSenate and the patricians
(41:57):
seceded rights to the people.
They gave them the right toassemble, so they controlled the
assembly and gradually gavethem the right to be elected to
important public offices all ofthem so they became relative
equals.
So but the difference between arepublic and a democracy is
(42:21):
kind of complicated and nuanced.
Basically, both allow thepeople some rights, whereas a
republic means basically agovernment without a king, if
you want to be technical.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
But with people's rights, so there isn't that much
difference between them.
I mean, you can define, as I'vesaid, the difference between
Rome and Greece, but they'rebasically governments that
people can control through theirrights, and the Enlightenment
(43:22):
was the middle of theEnlightenment period where this
started to begin.
So classic liberalism basicallyis the people have rights and
the people can vote and holdelective office, basically.
But it's sort of like based oncapitalism and they viewed
(43:44):
government as applying orproviding key services but
staying out of the people's way.
And you see that in ourConstitution, because all the
rights in the Constitution arenegative rights.
Thou shalt not infringe on thepeople, Right?
Okay, so the Constitution doesnot mention democracy, nor does
(44:08):
the Declaration of Independence,because in the founders' view
we were not a democracy.
They felt that way because theyrejected the Greek system as
impossible to implement and sothey admired the Roman system as
the example from antiquity.
During the constitutionaldebates there were Romans used
(44:33):
as an example.
I mean, the Roman councils wasthe supreme magistrate executive
, there were two and they hadveto rights over each other, so
they had two presidents,basically, and the founders
debated whether we should havetwo presidents, like the Romans
did, and they rejected that.
But the point is that theystarted from the idea of the
(44:57):
Roman model, not the Greek model, in designing the Constitution.
So when America started it wasvery Republican versus
Democratic.
To vote you had to own property, which is what the Roman
Republic was like.
You served in the army andcould vote if you owned property
(45:20):
.
It was like you served in thearmy and could vote if you owned
property.
So it wasn't until 1850 thatthe suffrage was expanded to
non-property owners.
Then it took all the way till1920 till women were admitted to
the vote.
So the modern democracydefinition has come to mean
people's ability to hold officeand near your universal suffrage
(45:42):
, Because you couldn't reallycall America in the beginning a
democracy.
I hope I answered your question.
The definitions of both arenuanced.
It was the founder's intent tocreate a republic and not a
democracy.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
The founders intent to create a republic and not a
democracy, and we were veryRepublican in the beginning and
have become more like ademocracy, since, you know, it
takes a thousand people to builda building and just one
malcontent with a stick ofdynamite to ruin it all.
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(47:04):
Yeah, it's almost like when yousee those arguments that are
happening and most of the timeit's online like everything else
, somebody just wants to pick afight online and the whole
argument, you know.
Are we a democracy versus arewe a republic?
Are we just at this point, atthis point in time, are they
(47:27):
just arguing semantics at thispoint?
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Like yes, yeah, yeah, I mean another example of is
liberalism.
So I described classicliberalism, which is the start
of democracies during theEnlightenment.
Then we have New Dealliberalism, which is the modern
welfare state of the DemocraticParty.
That's New Deal liberalism, ormodern liberalism.
And then we have libertarianism, which is another variation,
(47:56):
which basically harks back toclassic liberalism and desires a
minimal government.
So if you talk to a libertarian, they'll say I want government
to do as little as possible andstay out of my life.
Then there's neoliberalism.
I mean, these words get veryconfused if you aren't familiar
(48:16):
with using them.
Aren't familiar with using them, and neoliberals are, and this
came out of the 1960s.
Neoliberals favor turning thewhole society into a capitalist
state, that everything should bedriven by capitalism and every
organization and institution insociety should be built on a
(48:38):
capitalist model.
So like colleges should runlike a corporation Right, and I
think that's overdone andexcessive because that, well,
that has led to globalism, whichis a natural thing to happen
because corporations go global.
But then there's this wholelike the globalists will control
(48:59):
the world thing and destroy thenation state, which is not a
good thing, because we don'tvote for those people.
That's right.
So we don't want peoplecontrolling us that we can't
control.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
Right, yeah, you know , bringing up neoliberalism and
then the New Deal, you know side, then the New Deal, you know
side, and one of the things thatI think has gotten
progressively worse, I thinkespecially over maybe the last
15, 20 years.
We talk about liberalism and wetalk about conservatism, but
(49:35):
even within those groups, if youwill, those larger groups it
seems like there have been evenmore divisions within those
groups.
So it's almost like tribalismwithin the tribalism, if you
will.
Sure what are you seeing as themajor divisions that are
(49:57):
occurring within the two majorsides left and right?
There seems to be something youknow.
For example, we're in themiddle of the primaries, right,
super Tuesday was just a coupleof days ago and even within
conservative circles they're inconversations.
(50:19):
I know so many conservatives whowere absolutely adamant about
not voting for Donald Trump.
They were hardcore Nikki Haleyfans and you know they're like
we're tired of the circus andall of this stuff.
We're going to vote for NikkiHaley.
And it seemed to be when you,when you listen to people that
(50:41):
was, it was almost like OK,there's a possibility that there
could, something is going tohappen here.
And then, when you watch theprimaries unfold, overwhelmingly
, that is not what happened.
And then you have the Trumpsupporters and Trump himself
saying look, if you supportNikki Haley, I'm going to kick
you out of the GOP, right, youcan't be a member of the GOP
(51:04):
anymore.
And now it's okay, it's Trump.
Now you know.
We all need to get together inthis.
We all need to be together inthis.
What have you been observingacross the political spectrum in
terms of what it means to beconservative?
What does it mean to be liberaland how is that playing out?
(51:24):
Like the internal tribalismthat's occurring?
Speaker 2 (51:30):
One of the famous Chinese philosophers said may we
live in interesting times whichyou probably heard.
I don't know if it gets moreinteresting than this.
I don't know if it gets moreinteresting than this Because
Trump changes the wholenarrative.
I mean, you've got people whoare violently resistant to what
the left's been doing, in otherwords, being more radical.
(51:52):
So it doesn't matter who runs,as long as we beat them in their
mind.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Yeah, we beat them in their mind.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Yeah, trump is a populist and he's a artifact of
disinfit, unhappy Americans,middle class, lower middle-class
men who have no representation.
So you, you don't get somebodylike Trump If you have people,
(52:21):
if everyone is represented bysome political side right so,
and I you know I was saying in arecent podcast, I wish I had a
time machine I could fastforward to 28, because all this
would be done yeah.
Biden be gone, trump be gone,and we could like start over.
But you don't know how much ofthe anger of the left is against
(52:42):
Trump versus the Republicans.
I mean, how do you call him afascist when you know 76 million
Americans are going to vote forhim?
Are they fascists too?
I mean that's kind of illogical.
But back to the constituencies.
The left has always been a bigtent.
(53:02):
I mean, the left startsbasically with people have
liberal views that don't vote,and then there are welfare state
lefties, and then there aresocialists, and then I'm moving
farther to the left and you havecommunists and Marxists way on
the left, communists andMarxists way on the left.
So there are people on the leftwho strongly feel they want to
(53:26):
overturn the democracy, theywant to be a socialist state.
So they're a minority of theleft.
But they're there.
So there's always they're theextreme equality people, because
they believe that a capitaliststate is fundamentally unfair.
But and as I mentioned before,the left is driven by equality.
(53:49):
So that's kind of theirideology and they embrace
socialism because it producesequality theoretically.
On the right, republicans don'thave an ideology per se, because
you can't say an ideology isthe status quo and we value
traditions.
That's a behavior, not anideology.
(54:12):
But the Republicans now arestuck.
They're factionalized inbetween basically flexible
Republicans and inflexibleRepublicans.
The Congressional Caucus, whichhas a lot of libertarians in it
and I get their point they seewhat the national debt is and
(54:36):
how bad it's getting and how thecountry is going to be
bankrupted bad it's getting andhow the country is going to be
bankrupted and they will notcompromise on the passage of
laws that drive us towardbankruptcy.
But unfortunately it's a smallgroup that impacts how the whole
Republican Party votes, so itcontributes to the inability of
(55:00):
government to function.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Right, where do you see all of this heading?
No-transcript, where do youthink we're heading?
(55:25):
I mean, like you, I would loveto be able to fast forward and
just let's just have this behindus.
But it's really interesting.
I have no idea what to expect.
What's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
I can give you some guidance.
I think if, if history will beour guide.
Yeah, we've been tribal twicebefore.
The first time was the CivilWar.
Obviously, what we're goingthrough is nothing compared to
that, because that costs sixhundred thousand American lives,
north versus South, and ofcourse, the basic cause was the
(56:02):
North's effort, in the South'smind, to destroy its economy
because its economy was based onslavery and slavery was wrong.
So that's the Civil War.
Now, after the Civil War,during the reparations period
not reparations, reconstructionperiod we became tribal again,
(56:26):
and I just I wrote an articleabout this.
It was during the Gilded Age,and how we became tribal was
everybody's excited about theCivil War ending and anxious to
participate as voters, and soalmost everybody voted.
But quickly the voting processbecame corrupted because these
(56:48):
machines developed, like you'veheard about Tammany Hall in New
York, for example but everylarge city had a machine for the
Republicans and machine for theDemocrats, who engage in
corrupt voting practices.
When you voted, you got handeda ballot by either Republican or
Democrat supporter it didn'tcome from a third party and you
(57:11):
were told how to vote and youmight get beat up if you voted
wrong, or you got free drinks ata bar if you voted the way of
the individual who was buyingthe drinks.
So voting was corrupt.
Politics was corrupt becausethere was a spoil system in
Washington.
So people got elected and theyhad to give all their friends
(57:32):
jobs there, all that.
So it was totally corrupt.
Basically murder, robbery orassault and battery on voters
and all that stuff.
How that ended was two importantthings, and I give the
progressive movement credit forthis because they were the prime
mover.
(57:52):
We had to fix elections and wefixed elections number one by
starting the secret ballot,which happened in 1883.
And so if no one could see howyou voted, no one could beat you
up for voting wrong.
But the process of voting wasintellectualized.
Groups and organizationsstarted up that talked about
(58:16):
politics and different issuesand all that stuff politics and
different issues and all thatstuff.
The parties become centralized,so they became controllable
from above instead of beinglocally driven, and the corrupt
spoil system in Washington wasreplaced by the civil service.
So it took about 20 to 30 yearsto fix that whole thing and it
(58:40):
was done by intellectualizingbasically, which could be a
factor here.
It's going to take educatedpeople to say that there are
logical solutions to ourproblems.
So let's get started at workingtogether to accomplish that.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
Hopefully we'll be able to get the logical people
in place to be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Yeah, it's definitely a challenge, Mike.
This has been such a wonderfulconversation.
I know I have learned so muchfrom you and I've gained so much
from having this conversation.
I know the listeners have aswell.
Is there anything that we didnot have a chance for you to
(59:26):
talk about, that has been onyour mind and you just wanted to
make sure?
Hey, before we go, I have justthis one thing I want to make
sure that that I let thelisteners know about.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Not, not really.
I think we beat it up prettygood.
I want you to direct them to myauthor site maybe you're going
to post that or somethingmikeanderson'sbookscom.
So my books are there.
You can buy them from there.
There are podcasts there, um,and eventually I'll have yours
up there.
Have this one there becauseI've enjoyed it.
Um, and I have a blog too.
(01:00:00):
So, and I'm on, I just startedon Substack, so I'm writing, you
know, newsletters there aboutpolitics.
It's called American Politicsfrom the Middle or from a
neutral position.
So I'm taking both viewsbecause, again, I mean, if I'm
going to be an ideologue andwrite that way, that's not going
(01:00:22):
to help our country moveforward.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
So yeah, that it definitely would contribute to
the opposite we have.
We have enough of that right.
We absolutely have enough ofthat, mike.
Thank you so much again forbeing on the show, for sharing
your wisdom and some of thatinformation.
I think we're all going to be,we're all going to mull this
(01:00:46):
over for a little while, becauseit is definitely something
that's impacting all of us andit's an important conversation
to have.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Maybe we should, maybe you should do this again
in October.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
I would love to do this again in October and then
maybe even after the electionwe'll probably have to have a
third one.
So I definitely would love toplan for that October for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
We really didn't get into the campaigning and all
that stuff, which is a whole.
I mean you could spend a wholepodcast on that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
So absolutely yeah.
So much to talk about.
All right, everyone.
I hope you enjoyed listening tothis conversation.
I know I enjoyed having theconversation with Mike.
One thing that I hope you gotout of it is just be willing to
have those conversations withpeople who may not necessarily
(01:01:32):
agree with you politically.
Maybe they don't align witheverything that you believe in,
and that's okay.
With everything that youbelieve in, and that's okay.
Have the conversations.
If you believe in what youbelieve, then you should not be
afraid to have thoseconversations.
But how else are you gonnamitigate your own bias and how
else are you going to be able tolearn from others' perspectives
(01:01:54):
?
So let's keep the conversationgoing.
All right, you all have awonderful rest of your day and
we'll see you in the nextepisode.
Bye, thanks for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
(01:02:16):
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
social media or leave a ratingand a review.
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