Mickey D. – Politicians, Plato's Cave, Service, and Podcasting - STAG

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
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(00:24):
Thanks for your support. Now here's the interview.
Real quick, what do I call you? Tyler.
Tyler's fine. Tyler, great.
Yeah, I'm glad you asked. You know, there's a funny story
about that that's like it. It took like 12 or 13 episodes,
maybe 15 episodes before anyone asked me.
So basically it took because howmany times I record episodes,

(00:47):
like over a span of time. It's like it took a couple of
months before anyone actually asked me my name.
It was really, really. Odd.
No one really cared, which I wasfine with, right?
Because. That's too funny.
It's it's just bizarre that no one would care who they're

(01:07):
talking to, right? And right.
I mean I have my my thoughts about why that is but.
Well, I'd be curious. I mean, as long as we're
recording, I don't know if you want to include this or not, but
why do you think that is? People are self absorbed.
They're unaware. Most people are self absorbed,
unaware and don't pay attention to their surroundings and are

(01:30):
very selfish, just generally speaking.
And I don't even say that disparagingly, right?
Like it's I'm just saying that as an observation, right?
I'm just, I'm not not judging, just reporting.
And so, yeah, people, people as much as they even even the act
of charity and or giving and or of being of service to others is

(01:52):
kind of like in service to self.And despite the underlying,
underlying transactional nature that seems to permeate all
things that we do, Yep, the everything else is kind of
everyone's Larping, right? Everyone's just making it up.
Yeah, it's just costumes and andand performance, right.
And the I. Kind of want to, yeah, I kind of

(02:13):
want to agree with you and yeah,Milgram, Milgram, go ahead.
Yeah, those those, those are a great example of of like, you
know, the the lab coat and the authority, right.
And but we kind of do that on a more social interactive level
where, you know, people in our proximity, if they were in the
right costume, we treat them a certain way, right.

(02:36):
And I think just most of the time people wear their costume
plus a crown. And then they think that, you
know, that's OK to go out in theworld.
And, and it's like if people aren't causing any harm or
anything, like, it's, it's one thing, right?
And like, we're just asleep at the wheel and, you know, acting
like NPCS and that's a thing. But.
Yeah. So that's that's a short version

(02:57):
of that. I, I tend to agree to some small
degree, but I also tend to thinkthat if you're, if you're
communicating right, it does. You do find folks who can truly
be selfless and and do things out of a pure heart of service
as opposed to just following some sort of heteronormative
script that they all, you know choose to follow whenever they

(03:17):
wake up every morning. Yeah.
I mean, I, I want to believe that that that version of that,
it's the latest because that's how I used to like feed the
world. And but the more interactions I
have actually, the more interactions I've had with with
interviewing people actually just generally speaking has kind
of shifted me to maybe I didn't have it correct, maybe or maybe

(03:40):
just my perspective shifted. Yeah, I don't know.
Right. A little of both maybe yeah,
yeah, a little of maybe. I tend to think, though, that,
you know, we, we it's hard to break out of that, that that
series of expectations because you you're in school, you have
all those pressures. You're you see your parents
doing their stuff to get by on aday-to-day basis.
And, and it's hard to think outside of those boundaries

(04:02):
until you get some sense of the world and what it means to live
away from those constraints. And, and you know, there's,
there's a day when you realize, oh, I and some people may never
make that realization, right? But there's a day when you
realize, oh, I don't have to have 2 1/2 kids or a car in the
garage and a job in the corporate sector may actually
kill me if I do this for too long.
You know, it takes a while for people to realize that that what

(04:25):
level of bullshit they're willing to put up with in life
just because they thought they had to.
But that's a topic for another conversation, I'm sure.
Right. Well, I mean, that's the, that's
the fight, the Fight Club of it.All, right?
You're going to do a job you hate to buy, you know, to buy
things that you don't like, to impress people that you don't
like or whatever it is right, You buy things that you don't

(04:46):
want to impress people that you don't like.
Or I remember that exactly played out, but well, I mean it.
It's fascinating that you say that the the environmental like
effects of and, or influence that a person indoors or
exhibits or absorbs. And to me it's the reason like

(05:10):
my, my, my perspective has shifted on.
It is like, because it just seems that like we're all kind
of in a Plato's cave of it all. And then when you like, emerge
out of Plato's cave and you manage to escape and you you
kind of just bask in the sunlight of the spirit and

(05:31):
whatever, and it's like. But the reward?
Is actually just another Plato'scave.
And so, yeah. And so to me really it's like,
and I think I wrote this somewhere in like some paper or
something, like a legit researchpaper I had done a while ago.
And it was like, you're talking about how basically Plato's cave

(05:51):
has become this fractal thing, right?
And it's just like it's just constantly, it's a recursive
thing, almost even. It's just it's the spiral of of
Plato's cave that just kind of expands their or Fibonacci like
spiral that just goes into Infinity.
So you're just kind of in this, you know, step ladder to, you
know, the end of time of just one Plato's cave to the next.

(06:15):
I look at it as something a little different.
I love your, your construction of that illustration, by the
way, the whole idea that it's cave after cave after cave,
which is, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
The way I look at it is, is thaton a case by case basis for
perceptions, right? So you can, you can, you know,
The Cave is 1 perception and youcan, you can shine a light on a

(06:36):
perception. And once you get beyond that,
and then it's time to go to the next cave and just find that you
know that the next perception isactually legit or not.
Oh, interesting. So like, yeah, like flavors of
perception. Sure, Absolutely.
That way you don't. That way you don't regard the
thing as an endless series of deceptions, right?
It's just, it's just, oh, you'reliving your life.
And sometimes what I'm seeing onThe Cave wall is OK, and I could

(07:00):
be OK with that. But sometimes it's good to have
my perception challenged. And when I get out of The Cave,
I realize, oh, I can discard that perception.
I know where that cave is. I'll live my life.
And then all of a sudden you realize the next cave that you
found is also filled with its own sets of perceptions that may
or may not need correcting. So that's that's another way I.

(07:21):
Interesting. So, so you're coming at it from
a place of you don't have to take it wholesale.
You can. You can just be the observer.
Gotcha, that's an interesting take.
I, I, I guess I come at it from like a when you, when you enter
the next realm, you don't know that you're in Plato's cave
until you start seeing the flickering like puppeteer the

(07:42):
puppeteers in light and the flickering and like you realize
all that's an illusion. You're like, oh, I got tricked
again, Tyler again. How do you normally start your
podcast? Yeah, let's do that right.
Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, we're going to get,
we're going to. Get lost in Plato's cave here.
Yeah. All right, Mickey, let's do it.

(08:04):
Let's, let's, let's start this off how we always start this off
20 minutes in. Can you please let the audience
know who you are, where you camefrom and and what what events or
life circumstances or what have you have transpired to put you
here in this moment? Oh goodness.
Let's see. I live in Atlanta, GA.

(08:26):
My name is Mickey. I work for a major governmental
entity here for whom I manage their website and do a little
bit of other project management kinds of roles.
When I'm not doing that, I have three podcasts that I try to
push along in some measure. One of them is called the
nonprofit Snap Cast. The others are called The Thing
About Cars and the Inclusion Catalyst.

(08:50):
When I'm not doing that, I have a board game that I'm trying to
to finish prototyping and get published.
There's always other projects onmy desk because I have horribly
undiagnosed ADD and my office looks like a mad scientist just
sort of went nuts in it. And I'm told myself I was not
going to take on any additional responsibilities until I crossed

(09:12):
a few things off my To Do List. And of course that's a lie
because now I've got a list accumulating for 2026.
So. So what else can I tell you,
Tyler? There's a lot of interesting
things there to just, you know, get going off of let's let's
tackle the podcast really quick.Sure.
So you you said you have 3 and they're all seem distinctly

(09:35):
different. Yeah, vastly different.
The nonprofit Snapcast is the one I think is the got the best
following, considering it's sucha niche publication.
It's all about nonprofit management.
It's all about helping nonprofitprofessionals do their jobs
better, more efficiently. So I'm talking to all kinds of
people, mostly consultants, but other nonprofit execs who have

(09:58):
things to share about what made their lives great or in some
cases, what made their nonprofitlives not so great in an effort
to fix things. So, so that's the nonprofit one.
It's all about management. The other one is the Thing about
cars, which I we need to start recording again.
I'm looking at putting together our 2026 season.
I would love to figure out how to do the Thing about cars as a

(10:19):
television show, but I have no time.
I have no time to shoot an edit video, so if that's.
Very time consuming. Very time consuming.
So if a miracle would need to happen to make that feasible, I
think. And then the third thing is, is
called the inclusion catalyst. Been doing that one for years on
and off. And it surprises me that there's
still an audience for it given given how infrequently I

(10:41):
published those episodes. But, but keeping that on deck is
sort of my effort to give the current political administration
the finger, because it's all about political justice.
It's all about leveling the playing field for people and
just letting people live their lives.
And but anyway, that's also probably a whole episode by
itself right there. But those are the three podcasts

(11:04):
that I do on a regular basis somewhat.
Yeah, it's very interesting. What?
What's what got you started withthis?
This last political one, How long?
Like which one was your first podcast?
The first one was the nonprofit SNAP Cast the The Nonprofit 1.
OK. And then which one came after
that? Then we started to do, once I
figured out how to make all my mistakes in the nonprofit

(11:24):
Snapcast 1, then I picked up thea couple friends and we started
to do the the thing about cars very fun.
And yeah, exactly. And just to keep it fun, that's,
you know, just just a bunch of friends around the microphone BS
ING about cars for 40 minutes ata time.
That's the, that's the basic formula for that show.
And, and we have a blast, by theway, I'm looking forward to

(11:45):
putting together the next season.
The, the inclusion catalyst cameabout a year afterwards when I
realized that there were conversations that we needed to
be having. There was a, a space for a
headline there to talk about these things that the general
public at the time didn't reallyknow about in terms of, you
know, I, I, the, the, what's referred to as the, the school

(12:07):
to prison pipeline for, for black students.
I I didn't realize how much of an issue that really was until.
We said it's a real thing. It's a huge thing and it's,
it's, it's, it's, it's, it's bad.
It's very, very bad. So, you know, our first episode
started with that many years agoand we just started to, you
know, delve into a different issues of not only diversity,

(12:28):
equity and inclusion, but issuesrelated to social justice,
environmental justice, and, and not just from the point of view
of being a liberal. I don't, I think that applying a
political term to it is wrong. I think, you know, the effort
there is to not be political. I think the effort is to simply
be human and to talk about, you know, going back to the Plato's
cave thing, part of being able to describe the what you're

(12:50):
seeing on the wall also includeshaving the right vocabulary for
it and right. And so being able to discuss
these issues in a way that a lotof the rest of the world would
would probably dismiss it for sounding liberal.
My intent is not to be liberal. My intent is to thorough.
So I hope that answers your question.
No, it really does. It's a, an interesting

(13:14):
undertaking there and the I actually appreciate the
perspective to not label something and with a, you know,
he's throwing, you know, a liberal or conservative, you
know, label on there just for the sake of doing it, because
there's AI think that there, there used to be an appetite for
having a conversation to say, Hey, what do we think about this

(13:34):
as people, you know, no matter what side of the aisle you're
on. And then, and it's turned into
such a tribal thing. And, and what's interesting
about that, that tribal perspective is that it's not
even most people aren't even having a tribal perspective with
their own opinions based on the parameters that are put on them

(13:57):
from their political seat. It's it's still, it's more
borrowed knowledge. They're waiting for the script
to be handed down to the, to the, to the actors and right.
And then they're just kind of pumping out this narrative and
it's like they're just reading off of, you know, a script or a
prompt or a, or some, some, you know, social media key or
something, right? It's not, it's borrowed
knowledge just being regurgitated out there into the

(14:19):
world and, you know, and it's fascinating.
So I appreciate that other approach there.
You know, that vocabulary is good for opening doors and the
the wrong vocabulary will also get people to close their doors,
at which point you don't really have a conversation.
So, you know, my, like I said, my intent is to simply be
thorough and, and, and try to leave the door open for a

(14:41):
conversation. That's, I think that's what we
all, we all strive to do as podcasters.
I could be wrong about that, butyeah.
Yeah. I mean, you know, somebody who
has like my expertise really is in communication.
Like that's my background and like, you know, I forget one of
the biggest lessons I've learnedI had to relearn in the last
like month here outside of the podcasting world is know your

(15:04):
audience, right? That's like the number one rule
of communication. And so it sounds like what
you're talking about there is knowing your audience, right?
And, and that's particularly important and particularly
tricky in a landscape that constantly shifts, right?
And so the appetite for for the audience, and it depends on how
you capture and who you're capturing as your audience.
And and how they're manifesting even and that seems to have a

(15:30):
level of volatility that wasn't.So maybe we'll even say 10 years
ago, five years ago, it really just like ramped up.
Arguably, probably 2011 is probably really where it
shifted, but that's a longer conversation.
Yeah, I was going to ask, why doyou think 2011?

(15:50):
Why is that date sticking in your mind?
That was. The Occupy Wall Street movement
and all of that, that was aroundthat time, right?
And that's right. And that was really, it had been
happening before, but I think that was the moment where social

(16:11):
media was viewed largely, it waslargely observed as something
that could be weaponized, right?And so, and even even if the
layman or common user is not using it with the intention to
weaponize it, the it's kind of there now, right?
So it that it's kind of out in the open, it's kind of there,

(16:36):
it's exposed. And so it's kind of baked into
the way that people kind of, I mean, the, the the fundamental
algorithm is already baked in tomanipulate people.
And so it seemed like people just kind of saw behind the
curtain. I was like, oh, that's the game
we're playing. And some people forget that you
know it's happening, but others don't.

(16:56):
And then there's like the subconscious knowing of it
happening still, and Despite that you're participating.
Yep. And so right.
So it's kind of like being in the mob, right?
It's like, well, you think you're doing the right thing and
right, so we're in rational perspective, right?
And rational agents being rational based on their
rationalities and their game. And so it's like, you know, I'm
not saying that Vladimir Putin'scorrect, but from if you're

(17:18):
Vladimir Putin, you are correct.And it's like, well, how could
you be correct? Because that man is like a
monster and like, you know, there's all these atrocities and
he's doing terrible things and say yes, but from his
perspective, he's he's doing thejust right thing, right?
And so you kind of have that within the social media and I
think the around Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Arab Spring.

(17:42):
And all that like that. That's.
Kind of where that really the the facade wasn't like it was,
it was an illusion anymore. I think people will kind of like
woke up to it and it just kind of got embedded as part of the
game as it like everyone knew that that element existed in the
game and now everyone had accessto that tool, right?
The same way that like AI unfolded, right.

(18:04):
So if you think about like a communication mechanism or a
something that could become abstract to kinetic in
communication, right, AI is a great example of that where you
know it, it was like a thing that people talked about and
then it's like, oh, it's a real thing.
We can use it and it just gets implemented and it becomes like

(18:25):
very culturally relevant and no one kind of questions that now.
Now you don't really have. You have jobs are like, yeah,
let's use AI right before it's like we're not doing that.
Yep, I, I look at these advancesin technology and I'm
remembering that quote is I think it was Einstein.
Maybe I'm misattributing that, but it would the quote is our
capacity for technology has exceeded our capacity for

(18:47):
humanity. And humanity to me also includes
all the little elements of conduct because we have to
relearn our conduct around how to use these different tools.
You know, humanity changes the way we speak to each other,
changes the way we make a livingalso then has to change and
people are resistant to change. So on the one hand, we have this

(19:08):
drive to use technology and on the other hand, we don't want to
change ourselves around the use of that technology.
And I think that makes for some tension.
But again, you know, I, I, I don't know what I could sit here
and observe these things all day.
I don't know that there any solutions in those observations
though. Right.
And that's the other part of that, right?

(19:28):
That people have conversations about what they're observing or
what they're perceiving. And those in themselves are not
actually solutions to the wider problem, which is a particularly
tricky 1, despite the fact that it might emerge as an illusion
that it's a really simple problem to fix.
Exactly. That's exactly right.
And as somebody in government, I'm sure that you you understand
that all too well. You know, it's weird.

(19:52):
Government has also given me a different perspectives on
people. And you can, you can do
everything you can in your powerto try to make a civilian's life
easier or better. And your efforts may still find
no traction at all with certain people.
And I don't think there's any getting around that.
It's just the way life is. Right, which OK, I, I, I really

(20:14):
want to pull on that thread because that's something that I
personally deal with on a daily basis.
And, but I want to ask you before we get there is how, what
kind of drove you into government?
How did you get there? What?
What was that like? You know, after yeah, I, I the.
The short answer is I have no idea.
It landed by accident. Well, no, not really by

(20:36):
accident. It was kind of by design.
And yet the path was also never really defined.
So my, my career journey has wound into and out of the
corporate world, into and out ofthe nonprofit world.
And I'm like, you know what? I keep doing these things.
They're and I was set with this,this realization that, you know

(20:58):
what we look for. I think by and large, and I
could be wrong and like we said,everybody's different.
Everyone looks at their cave wall differently, but I think by
and large, people want some sortof stability.
And especially in a capitalisticsociety like ours.
I would love to be able to come home and not have to worry about
if my company is going to lay meoff during the next cycle, you

(21:20):
know, and, and, and, and, you know, should I then be able to
earmark some money to go on vacation for or something?
Or am I going to lose my job andI'm going to screw myself
because I took my vacation and now I'd have nothing left in my
reserves? So I think that those questions
related to stability are kind ofwhat pushed me towards the
government world. There's a little bit more

(21:40):
stability in working government and, and, and to me, the whole
public sector job was this nice blend of doing something for
people and doing something for money, right.
So I'm at least in a position where I can serve people with,
in my case, knowledge and credentials and, and yet I'm

(22:01):
still getting paid for it, whichis very nice.
So it became that nice meshing of of OK, I do get a paycheck,
but I am definitely doing something which is hurting,
which is not hurting, helping people and not hurting anybody.
And I know that there are folks out there who are looking at
government as something that they should really distrust or
is full of inefficiencies or actually does hurt people.

(22:22):
From where? From where I sit.
And I'll just, I'll just tell you, I work for the Secretary of
State. You know, the Secretary of State
here in Georgia has a huge job. They have several different
business units, everything from elections to licensing to
corporate business registrationsand some other stuff,
cemeteries, charities, things like that, finance, securities,

(22:43):
they monitor a bunch of stuff and and it's all done with the
effort of keeping the average Georgian citizens safe.
I can tell you this that there'snothing happening behind the
scenes that would lead me to believe otherwise.
So, so I love the job. I love the people that I get to
work with and, and, and, and that what to me again, it
fulfilled that need of helping people that the nonprofit world

(23:06):
used to afford me along with thepaycheck that the, the not quite
the paycheck that I was used to,but at least it's a solid
paycheck that it comes with somestability and I don't have to
really worry. I don't have the same level of
fear regarding layoffs that I used to have when working the
corporate sector. Yeah, I mean, that's
understandable. And that's interesting that you

(23:27):
you're getting the same. I never actually thought about
government being kind of like inthe realm of nonprofit.
Yeah, it's it's all. About you're helping people,
yeah right. Yeah, you're, you're actually
being of service and and. You know, I'm sorry Tyler, but

(23:49):
at least the work that I get to do is all about service.
I don't have to worry about campaigning.
I don't have to worry about making people promises.
The legislative agenda is not onmy desk.
So those are those are elements of government work that I'm sure
the rest of the world might get up in arms about with regard to
trust and who listens to whom. But from where I stand, I just

(24:09):
get to serve people. And sometimes that's affected by
legislation and most of the timeit's not.
Most of the time the stuff that crosses our desk is really just
intended to make people's lives easier and safer.
So you know, the the ability to make sure that a, I don't know,
a Barber or a cosmetologist is properly educated and trained
before they pick up a pair of scissors and work on somebody'd

(24:30):
hair. That's it seems small, but but
you know, to the people that they don't give communicable
diseases to, that's pretty big. Right, right.
And it's like, you know, I live in Nevada and here I, I would
argue that it is like over regulated when it comes to
licensing. And it's, it's to a degree that

(24:52):
it's just, it's just too much that it's causing bottlenecks in
the system. And I think that there's a wider
problem that the, the, the historical underlying fabric
that governs this state, which is gambling and gaming has too
much of a stronghold on, on, on many of the processes here that
won't allow this state to grow into what it wants to morph

(25:16):
into. And I, I think that this place
might be a little bit different than most places, but I, to your
point of, you know, having proper licensure, I, I can see
how, you know, somebody who I'm somebody I grew up with like
very little money and, you know,trying to, you know, scrounge
you up. I mean, I was just talking to a

(25:36):
gentleman who's trying to get a job and I, you know, I gave him
80 bucks to, you know, you know,get into the union because he
didn't have the money, right. And it's like, you know, things
like these like, like those examples where you know, a
license plus a business, you know, a state license for your,
your trade or whatever it is. And then having like a business
license. And then all of these things

(25:58):
just to get your foot into the door to get started as somebody
who's just trying to, I don't know, cut hair, right, Take a
Barber seat or something. It's like these some some of
those things can be massive hurdles to people or for people.
But then there is the other sideof that argument, right?
Where there I know that there are resources out there for

(26:18):
people to accomplish those things with little to no money.
And then you know, like grants and and scholarships and stuff
like that. And sometimes the the governing
bodies of those will just provide those even from my
understanding in most places, not all places.
But then there is the, the public health aspect of those

(26:38):
things, right? And the public safety aspect of
those things that, you know, most people don't keep that data
kind of like at the forefront oftheir day-to-day, right?
And there's, so there's this actual underlying scary world
that just kind of exists withoutanybody's permission and, and
most people don't even know. And then people like you have a
kind of access to that kind of information.

(26:59):
You're like, hey, wait a minute,we have to do this because it
actually makes people safer. And so you, you do what's best
for the whole and not the individual.
And the individual suffers the brunt of it, you know, And I
think that's important to highlight.
Yeah, thank you. I think so.
And and but you just made me aware of something that that
person may look at that cosmetology or that Barber
license as being an impediment to living.

(27:21):
You may be right about that. And I don't I don't know where
to draw the line because it is gatekeeping to a certain degree.
You know, we do ask that person to, to jump through various
hurdles to prove that they know what they're doing and can keep
people safe. And, and along with that comes,
I don't know, some fees for processing and getting their
license done. It, it is gatekeeping, but I, I
just don't know how to get around that in order to keep, in

(27:44):
order to keep people safe. You know, I, I have libertarian
friends who are probably anarchist enough to say take
away all of that and just let the free market solve those
problems. And if you come home with
ringworm, then you know, not to go see that person again.
And yeah, I don't think that's the right answer.
Yeah, you know, and I'm, I'm pretty open minded about like
solutions and I, I don't think that's either like the right

(28:05):
answer either. And it's just kind of like, I'm,
I'm, I don't know where I stand these days, really in, I don't
like mean to get all like sometimes I'm, I, I'm more
option than anything. And it's just like, but that's
not really the reality. And I, I am somebody who really
cares about service work and being of service to your
community and being involved. And unfortunately it's, it's,

(28:27):
you're just not going to make any like all people happy,
right? And, and it's, it's seemingly
like no good deed goes unpunished.
And like, you know, you got to crack a few eggs to make an
omelette and, and this kind of thing.
And it's like, and so to your point from earlier, it's like
you can lead all even when all the things are correct, you can
only lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
And so not everyone is going to win off of, you know, the

(28:50):
efforts that you put forward. And it's like, and as somebody
who goes into, you know, helpingothers, how do you contend with
that on the other side of being in government, right?
Where you, you know that your efforts at the end of the day
were the best that you could do.And they were all in place to do
the best job that you can put forward that would help the most

(29:11):
people possible. And, and there's still some
people who aren't going to be served by that effort and
because of their own choosing. How does that make you feel as
somebody who's in your position?It's, it's thankfully that
doesn't happen that often. Or if it does happen, it's not
really brought to my attention that often.
But that's also why I continue to volunteer in other various

(29:33):
causes to try to help people that the government can't.
And so, you know, those people might need job training that
might need something a little more fundamental.
Maybe the thing that keeps them from achieving their dreams is a
mental illness or, I don't know,some other level of access.
And so that's that's a little bit of what's behind the
Inclusion Catalyst podcast and that's very much what's behind

(29:56):
some of the volunteering that I try to stay active with around
town. Very awesome.
How long have you been in your position?
With the Secretary of State not quite five years.
OK, you've been in the government for longer than that,
though. Nope, that's strictly speaking.
That's been it. I've sort of been government
adjacent for a while, but but interms of getting a paycheck that

(30:19):
was derived from the public sector, that's it, almost five
years. Why do you think like I'm I'm
not somebody who who gets tin foil about government.
I largely am in the opposite view of most of that, right?
And most people get really like,if for the some of the reasons
we were just talking about, theyget really sketched out about

(30:40):
government. I mean, historically, government
distrust, right, is just like, or government trust is like in
the gutter and it's still declining and people have a hard
time trusting government media and in other big institutions.
And, and there's people outside of that or in those camps also
within that, that have a more conspiratorial view of

(31:05):
government. And it's kind of like, you know,
you know, people making these plans and like, and I just don't
view it that way. And I view it more of like, you
know, sometimes shit just happens.
And I feel like most people are doing the best that they can.
And yes, there there may be a handful of bad eggs, but or bad

(31:27):
apples. And it's like, but I mean,
that's anywhere. And you just kind of like suss
those out and get them out right.
But. For the most part, I think that,
yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, I think most people are just trying to do the best they
can and and don't really, they're not like, you know, I
don't know, gym down the street,like no one's after gym down the

(31:48):
street for no reason at all. Trying to make his life really
horrible based on some policy, right.
And it's and I think that there's a disconnect there for
some reason, that one that everyone in government is
actually just human beings doingthe best they can.
And they are they also make mistakes.
And sometimes, sometimes the conspiracy emerges out of

(32:08):
incompetence. And so I usually attribute more
and no offense because this is any, any position, any job and
things that go wrong are usually, you know, something
that slipped through the cracks or, or like incompetence or
sometimes other things, right? And, and then there's like,
sometimes there's just things that happen that are outside of
people's control and people justdon't know how to, they're not

(32:33):
prepared enough to deal with them.
And so it looks like, you know, something was conspiring to
unfold and, you know. Yeah, I, I, I'm thinking of a
couple different things. My family's from II has a famous
rivalry with Pakistan, right? And so I would ask my mom about

(32:56):
that. She grew up in the country.
Of course I did not. And I asked her, I'm like,
what's up with the whole Hindu, Muslim thing?
What was that all about? And she's a person who
witnessed, you know, the whole partition thing take place.
And her answer was much more simpler and matter of fact than
I thought it was going to be. She says that, by and large,
people just want to live their lives.

(33:17):
And in the village where she grew up, Hindu families took
care of Muslim kids and vice versa.
And people just wanted to put food on their tables and get
along with their neighbors. And she looks at me and she says
everything else is politics and I'm like, OK, so I internalize
that. And I and I combined that now
with a statement I'm looking at with my seat, where I sit as an

(33:38):
employee of a government entity that there are you that you
Tyler are absolutely right. People just want to do their
jobs, especially civil servants and government employees.
We just want to do our jobs. And, and in even where I sit in,
in the Secretary of State's office, which has really high
visibility, the office does and has come under a lot of Flack

(34:00):
during the last couple of election cycles for, for, for
playing games. Although I must tell you
nothing's happened and the, the court has agreed with us with
the elections. But even where I said folks just
want to do their jobs, folks behind the scenes just want to
get along with each other and just want to do their jobs.
And so we go back to the other statement that I was alluding

(34:21):
to, which is I think they're almost two different
governments. And I hate to say it because
it's wrong. It's all one big government, but
I think that there are people who seek power and, and, and
seek a headline. And then there are the rest of
us that just want to live. And, and so there the, the, the,
the statement is, and I think itwas attributed to Mark Twain.

(34:45):
Anybody who really deserve or anybody who really craves power
should probably be the last person to get it.
Right. No, I agree.
Yeah. And so that has something to do
with with what I'm trying to getat here is that there are folks
in the government that everyone hears about.
And, and you know, that craving of power, that craving of the

(35:05):
headline is what engenders distrust.
You know, there's no humility init.
You can tell these people aren'treally listening to their
constituents. You know, it's just, it's just
the wrong way to build trust andand trust as a cornerstone of
civilized living. If you don't have trust, you
have nothing. So I think that that the people

(35:26):
that we end up electing have forgotten what trust and
building trust is really all about.
And what they're, what they're doing instead is that they're
being poor showman's, poor, poorshowman's.
Is that correct grammar? I don't know.
They're, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're
putting on an act that people are either buying into or not.
And, and that has nothing to do with what happens behind the

(35:47):
scenes in terms of taking a law and making it applicable to
people on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, there are extremes of
that. You know, like legislation does
change things. We know that ICE is a firm
example of that. Legislation has made it possible
for those people to do their terrible actions.
And that is totally an act of government which engenders
distrust. So I'm, I'm a little bit off,

(36:09):
but you know, for the everyday life thing that we get to live,
I think that, you know, showmanship has nothing to do
with it. Yeah, it seems to be like
they're they're I never really signed up for the idea.
I, I, I know that the the 2 government idea brings in kind
of this connotation or this underlying mythos or something,

(36:32):
right? And I I and but I never that
that populist movement that has seemed to kind of take over
again. It seems to have injected a
level of to your, to what you said that the showmanship,
right? The and so there's this like
magic show of politics that's kind of happening, right, with
all these illusions and sleight of hand and, and things that are

(36:56):
just kind of unfolding in front of us.
And it's, it's amusing. So people keep clapping, right?
And, and I mean, not for all of us, right?
For some people it's actually really devastating and changes
the course of their lives and isextremely negatively impacting
their lives. Right to your example of ice and

(37:18):
and so it's. We have it's.
Interesting, because, yeah, I used to think that, you know,
government was, I never, I neverhad one thought about it one way
or the other, but it, I always thought it was just people who
just wore suits and then did a job and like helped everyone
kind of get along, right. And like everyone hated them
because, you know, the, the man wants its money.

(37:39):
And like, that was it. I didn't think it was anything
more nefarious than that. And it's like, well, but like
somebody's got to like build theroads, like we'll build our own
roads. And it's like, no, you won't,
no, you won't, right, because, because it's like you can all go
out to like lunch or something. And it's like no one's, no one's
volunteering to pay the tab, right?
It's. Me or or.
And it's like it's hard enough to get anybody to just cooperate

(38:02):
in any situation. And getting people to cooperate
and communicate is one of the toughest things in the world.
And it's the, it's like it's themost required.
It's the, it's the thing that ismost required in order to
accomplish some of the most difficult things we need to
accomplish. And I, and I want to ask you
like, because I don't, you're probably older than I am.
And, and so did you, did you seekind of like a shift in

(38:25):
disconnect maybe maybe between the 90s and before Trump kind of
came into office? Like as far as pull like
political education consumption or or civil, civil education or
engagement consumption, anythinglike that.

(38:47):
Not in terms of civil education consumption, consumption or
anything like that. I think that there was AI think,
I think I'm not well educated enough to really confidently
describe what I saw and and and yet I'm going to tell you what I
saw. And what I saw was simply social

(39:08):
media changing the way that people interacted with each
other. And and I also saw Obama get
elected and I think that really put a certain kind of
punctuation on racial relations in this country.
I heard a lot of people saying in the beginning that Obama made
a statement to the effect of that this ends racial tension in

(39:31):
this country. And in fact, he said exactly the
opposite. There was a clip of him
somewhere that I've never been able to find, but I saw it with
my own eyes. Someone asked him that, you know
what, what about racial tensionsin this country?
And Obama specifically said, oh,I think they just got a lot
worse. And meaning his election just
made things a lot worse. And, and I think he was right.
I think that that sort of angered a lot of people that Oh

(39:54):
my God, there's a non white person wearing a tan suit.
And that combined with social media, which lends itself to a
certain amount of narcissism, that's where the shift really
started to become apparent. I'm reminded of ACB radio.
So yes, I'm aging myself that way.

(40:14):
I think, I think we, I don't know how far apart in age we
are, but CB radios Once Upon a time in the 70s were actually
kind of useful. And you know, truckers
notoriously use them. They were in movies.
And then CB radios became cheap and freely event, not freely,
but cheaply available and freelyusable.
And you would turn on your radioand it would just be full of a
bunch of chatter and gibberish and nothing.

(40:37):
People weren't really talking toeach other, they were just
screaming into their microphonesbecause they could, because they
had one. I think to some degree social
media is the same. People are saying things because
they can, but not because they have anything really useful to
contribute. And so so that's lends itself to
a certain narcissism that the F the effect of social media is

(40:58):
saying is listening to people pick up the microphone and
saying, look at me, this is whatI have to say.
When reality is, who the hell are they?
They've got nothing. And and the the thing that's
playing out in an open field where lives are being affected,
I think that those guys are taking advantage of that.
And Obama was perhaps arguably, I know people are going to yell
when I say this. I, I think Obama was the last

(41:20):
person to really have some immunity from that, where he
just wanted to get in the seat and do a good job.
And I, and I say that because Obama was more like a Republican
than many Democrats and many Republicans want to admit.
And and that's again is another story for another day, but.
I mean, I there's some some parallels with Trump, if I'm

(41:43):
going to be completely honest here.
That. I see with Obama to Trump like
and, and any Democrat listening is going to be like having a
meltdown about that right and right.
And and and there's some people who just will not see because
they can't they can't unseat thename plates, right?
They can't seem the name tags. And you know, it's interesting

(42:07):
about the the racial comment that you make there.
There's still this lingering battle in the in.
What is the the racial battle between if if Obama or the idea
about Obama making it worse or creating.
Less division and, and how that played out and you can literally

(42:29):
show people the, the, the clip of him saying that and they
would still say that America gotmore racist because Obama got
into office. And so like meaning like they
like both, both or both sides are agreeing on that.
They just they don't agree on how it transpired, right.
So some will say it's Obama's fault and some will say that it

(42:50):
already existed and Obama just highlighted it right.
And then so like in both the things are true, it's just they
like people are so worried abouthow how the truth is written
down versus just kind of tackling the underlying issue
because no matter which way thatyou paint that it's the same
issue. Yeah, and I agree.
I. Don't know how like it's like

(43:10):
it's like trying to catch a capture a ripple right in a in a
pond on on one side and saying that it's different because it's
the other one is is manifesting on on the opposite side.
It's like but it's coming from the same spot.
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly.
That's an excellent analogy. I love that.
Yeah. Yeah, I, I, you know, I, I don't

(43:31):
know where to move forward from this though, because you, I, I,
I think that you have to have conversations with people.
But I also think that people areunwilling to listen to each
other anymore, or they've forgotten how perhaps.
Right. I think one thing you
highlighted there that I was trying to get to there, it just
slipped my mind was the the the the social media interaction,

(43:53):
right. And so IA lot of my my kind of
understanding of like where the nonsense started was around 2007
to 2011 and and Ford like that. That was kind of the period, but
really it was like O 9 to O eleven 2011 and then, but you're

(44:15):
highlighting how social media has basically been this like new
iteration of of the CB radio. And I remember that like when I
was a kid playing with those andit's just like it was a bunch of
nonsense. And there was like there was
like party chat kind of like radio students, like signals
that you would go on as people just like chatting about

(44:36):
nonsense. And then there's people chatting
about like different things. It's like these little like
social clubs, right? Like it was kind of like how
clubhouse brief. I don't know if Clubhouse is
still around that app. Oh, I remember that.
Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of like that.
And they even had like telephoneversions of that.
And and so it never occurred to me that what in social media has

(44:59):
is done, is it allowed the mechanism for noise to kind of
just increase, right. So we've increased the volume of
noise and and that's where all this nonsense of chatter that
kind of injects itself into the public sphere and the public
conversation, it doesn't seem tolend itself to.
What may be the underlying? You know, objective truth and so
people can't hear it. And maybe because I, I, one of

(45:22):
the biggest things that I'm, I'mperceiving is, and this is
probably where it came from to your point about it being a, a
thing that's being more detrimental to the conversation
than, than than letting itself to the good is I remember
moments from the time I became 18 and maybe even before that,
right before. One thing that I was looking

(45:45):
really forward to when I returned, became an adult was
like being able to vote and be able to participate into the, in
the civil, my civil duty, right?Like my civic duty to this
country to, to, you know, be a part of it and engage and cast
my, my ballot and do all of that.
And, and most people don't really have a, a kind of, I
guess an aspiration to, you know, be able to do that unless

(46:09):
you're from a different country,which is, you know, a lot of
people want to participate in this country.
But from that moment on, I remember there being like less
and less dialogue or understanding.
And I, there's always been a lack of political education or
civil political engagement, right?
And, and that education like space, and it just seems like it

(46:35):
dwindled over time. And so now that when I have
conversations about how politicsworks and how government works,
you can literally just ask a person, well, like, can you
explain to me that thing that you're arguing to me about and
how it works? And they don't know how the
construct of the institution works.
And they will, they will die. They'll, they'll die on that
hill for whatever, right, whatever argument they're

(46:55):
placing, right. And the elections is probably a
great example of that, right? It just even even on a state
level, right? They can't, most people don't,
most laymen. I'm not saying all people that
there's a good majority of the loud ones that are causing noise
in, in the, in the spaces that we're talking about that don't
understand that there's, there'sdifferent elections, right?

(47:19):
That there's a state election, there's a city election, and
there there's like, you know, national elections.
And they're all different. People are, are, are, I mean, I
think that they, the, the rise of Trump has given a little more
attention to local and midterm elections.
But this goes back to something that I call the culture of
convenience. People don't want to vote unless

(47:39):
it's convenient. People don't want to have to
think about politics unless it'sconvenient.
So, you know, they'll come out for the big game.
They'll come out for the presidential stuff.
But the midterms and the other stuff, you know how how many
times have have I been to the the polls?
Have you been to the polls, Tyler, where you know who's
running for president, you mightknow who's running for governor.
But all the other seats underneath that you know nothing

(48:01):
about those people, maybe their names you've never even heard
before. And that's what I see in my
polls. It's like, OK, it's just
inconvenient to get involved in that level.
And yet, and yet the fabric of society exists within those
lesser known positions than the bigger ones.
Just the bigger guys have big deeper pockets and therefore
they get more of the headline. But knowing who my regional

(48:21):
judge is, knowing who my City Council members are, right that
that has way more of an impact on my day-to-day life than the
president does at this point. So.
You're right. And, and I guess that's my
point, right, because I'm somebody who does care about
those things and, and I'm kind of an odd duck in that way.
I will, I will go look at these people and see their track work
and where they were at and what they did and all the stuff.

(48:43):
And I'll be like, but it's, it'sadmittedly even I who care about
these things on local, on the local front.
It's like they, it's so time consuming to go research all of
these people and, you know, comparing contrast and, and make
lists or, you know, create my own narrative about what I'm
choosing and how that's going toimpact me and then do it again

(49:05):
every two years. Like it's crazy.
It's absolutely crazy. Yeah, absolutely crazy.
I I, I I've had ideas to try to help educate people about that,
and none of them really stick. I I say controversial things
like tax day and voting day should be in the same week.
And by the way, the entire week should be a holiday.
That's that's a pretty cool idea, actually.

(49:28):
You know, dedicated to service if you're not doing research and
if you're not putting together your taxes.
So 1 you have keen awareness of your taxes during the same week
when you're going to go vote, instead of having those two
dates as far apart from each other as they can possibly get.
That's pretty awesome. United States Service Week.
Everyone's got paid. Exactly, and and you know you

(49:48):
have your paid holiday because it's all about civic duty.
Right. Do your taxes, do your voting,
get educated, go out and sweep somebody's lawn or, you know,
serve in a food kitchen or something.
Well, and then you know something interesting about what
you're saying there is like this.
This is, I think what I was trying to highlight and my
brains all jumbled today, but the the the.

(50:09):
Symbolic. Yeah, the symbolic meaning
behind something like that, right?
Some when you, when you create something like a, a, a United
States civil service week, right, that's paid, you're
telling, you're telling younger generations and people in your
country who are participating. Hey, we care about our civic

(50:30):
duties and we want you to participate.
And, and it's not that we just want you to participate.
We want your neighbors to participate.
We want you to engage your neighbors.
We want you to engage this country.
We want you to, you know, feel important and, and kind of like
have an opportunity to really make a difference in your life
because it's important. And it's so important that we're

(50:53):
giving everyone the opportunity to take the time to do it
because it means something, right?
But that's not what we have now.No, in fact, we have a drive to
split all that up. You know, they don't want us to
build communities. They don't want Coalition's to
form. That's again, probably in a
whole nother podcasts worth of discussion, but but you know,
Western society, and by western I mean primarily the US, but

(51:14):
Western society drives towards individualism because it's
easier to create consumers that way, right?
You know, and and whereas other countries love the whole
multicultural, sorry, not multicultural, multi
generational approach to life. And it's just that those guys
spend less because, you know, they don't have to furnish every

(51:34):
single house, they don't have tofill every single refrigerator,
etcetera, etcetera. Again, that's a whole topic for
another another podcast, I think, right?
So you you mentioned since we'rekind of like in the realm of
participation and misinformationand distorted views when it
comes to, you know, the general public and, and, and government

(51:58):
and that relationship you came in probably around the time the
election stuff was happening. Is that correct?
You mean this most recent election?
No. Yeah.
Oh, you mean oh, you mean the I I came in just.
With all all the nonsense in Georgia was happening.
Yeah, I came in on the tail end of that.

(52:20):
OK. So did you.
That was all that was happening within the Secretary of State's
office just before I got there. Yeah, this ties into I, I don't
really want to pick on that whole thing too much because
it's like, you know, being a dead horse at this point.
But sure, it's more I mostly want to understand and kind of

(52:41):
highlight what we've been talking about with the just a
lack of general understanding ofhow maybe institutions work or
something. What is it that did you, did you
feel a certain like vibe or shift kind of in your duties or
kind of in the base? I know that maybe you were new
at that at that point, but did you maybe see like, man,

(53:02):
something, something feels like there's some kind of like, I
don't know, something else happening in the in externally
or in the periphery or somethinglike did you?
Yeah, go ahead. That's a very good question.
I, I did not by and large, again, I think most people
behind the scenes just want to do their jobs and, and, and, and

(53:26):
I can tell you that everyone I interacted with on a daily
basis, coming all the way down from the secretary himself,
approach the job with nothing other than integrity in mind.
And I'm, and I'm not paid to saythat this is my, this is my
honest observation. Everyone there simply wanted to
do a good job and, and, and, andto do a job that was, that was

(53:48):
beyond reproach, right? We.
We didn't. So I guess my question was more
like in the realm of like you're, you're sitting here
doing a job, Everyone's sitting here doing a job.
And it's it's this, this question keeps kind of getting
like hammered down. And it's like, what is going on?
Like did everyone's mind break? Like what is happening where
everyone's doing their job, Everyone's saying what's
happening, right. Because the courts.

(54:09):
Pulled on this. Right.
And so I think that's kind of where I want to get to it's.
Where? As somebody who was in in the
government body that basically had this idea just constantly

(54:33):
knocking, like how do you even contend?
Somebody, somebody, it was like asking me like, hey, what's the
truth? I'm like, this is the truth.
And they're like, well, I don't believe you.
And it's like, well, you can look at all of this and they're
like, OK, great. I still don't believe you.
How does that make you feel as somebody who's on the inside of
that? A little bit frustrated.

(54:55):
OK. But but only because I think
that the, the, the, the human dynamics that led to that
frustration existed within me oraround me before I actually
landed in the office itself. And I'm a nobody when it comes
to that office. I, I, I get the information I

(55:16):
presented. I help wrangle things, I help
tell the story. I make sure the website is up to
date. I am I'm, I'm one of the lowest
people on that Secretary of State totem pole.
So, so, so watching the frustration unfold amongst my
superiors and myself, I share the frustration.
You know, you're, you're a person in the job who just wants
to do the best thing you can do.And yet there are folks out

(55:36):
there who still have a madness about them, say that that leads
to a certain level of distrust that that makes you think that
that those of people are going off the deep end with their
conspiracy theories. These are these are observations
that I would make as an individual that I that, that I
had those perceptions of them before I even got approached by

(56:00):
the Secretary of State's office to work for them.
I'm still not sure I'm answeringyour question.
No, you are OK, because that's that's kind of like the I want
to, I want to create kind of an avatar of that because that,
that's that, that the person whowho exists in like the

(56:22):
conspiracy realm and he won't take the truth for what it is,
even if it's like, you know, measured and put in their face
and like that is kind of a nuisance that plagues.
And I, I just don't the mind virus thing is just so played
out right now that I don't even want to it just it seems like,

(56:42):
but it does feel that way. It feels like there's this, this
idea that's just so and deeply embedded into some people's
minds that won't allow them to see a world that exists.
It's Plato's cave, right? And so like, and, and so they're
shackled so hard. And then you, you're showing,
hey, like the truth is actually outside.

(57:03):
And the thing that you're seeingis just some guy, you know,
putting images and broadcasting him in front of you and you
think it's reality. It's not.
And, and they're just getting really angry because they they
don't, they can't tell that you were actually trying to help.
And and so I guess it's, it's just I've never really talked to
anybody who had to deal with maybe those kind of people or

(57:24):
from the outside and then, you know.
You. Highlight a very interesting
thing that kind of draws from the, the CB radio analogy that
you used earlier. And so it just seems like even
with social media, the, the, there's like a noise blitz
that's happening that's in like really just permeating all our

(57:45):
communications in general, right.
And so it's like some almost like a Tower of Babel situation
where it's just like everyone istalking, but like no one can
understand each other. And it's like we're, even though
we're speaking the same language, we're like, we're,
we're like talking past each other.
And we're not everyone kind of wants the same thing, you know,

(58:05):
as, as the other example that you gave right, where people
just want to live and be left alone and like, you know, be
happy. And, and I mean, and it's like
we can't just get on the same page.
And in what you're describing also is I think that's something
that falls. I, I guess people who care will

(58:27):
understand that, you know, there's levels to these things
and there's people that, you know, are on the outside or just
trying to like get a point across and, and don't understand
and take the time to understand that systems have their own
systems and institutions have their own systems.
And everyone's got like there's a process that in government
particularly is usually under resourced and understaffed and

(58:49):
especially locally. And so when you have, you know,
even the mechanisms to, you know, hear everybody out that
they can be overloaded and burdensome and they do take time
to sift through. And so it did because it doesn't
happen right now and it doesn't get solved right now doesn't
mean that no one cares and it's not happening.
Right, exactly. Again, it's that, it's that

(59:10):
narcissism of, you know, you have a voice, you must use it.
You must see results immediately.
When in fact, and especially when it comes to government
work, my father, who was a federal employee for many, many
years, he as an internal person would complain about the snail's
pace of bureaucracy. And that's just life.
That's just the way it is. Right and.
There's just no getting where around that.

(59:32):
Right. I actually recently talked to
somebody about that. And, and this is kind of also in
the same realm of where I'm kindof heading to is the, the
general lack of how understanding of how government
works, right? I hear things all the time about
like our politicians being incompetent or that they're not
qualified and like all of this stuff.
And I hear from all kinds of people and it's like, we'll take

(59:54):
like Congress, for instance, right?
Or like, or senators. And it's like, well, these these
Congress people, we'll just do, we'll stick with like the lower
house, we'll say Congress. You know, they, they're just,
they're just, you know, I don't know, dumb or something, or I
don't like their politics or whatever.
And it's like, but like, that's kind of the point that like it's

(01:00:14):
set up so that like you and I can be a congressperson, right?
Our neighbor can be a congressperson.
It's it they're elected individuals who are going to go
out there and represent, you know, our collective view on
something and just cast a balloton that.
And whatever happens in the in the collective of Congress is,
is effectively the will of the people and the voice of the

(01:00:36):
people. And, and that gets, you know,
further pushed down the chain there.
And for some reason people don'tview politicians as
representatives. They view them as like this
elite class, which is really bizarre that because I don't
remember that being a thing likepre Obama really.

(01:00:56):
Oh, I think it was definitely inplace, but I think that the I
think that politicians being theruling elite have been that way
for a long, long time. But I when did, when did those
politicians, politicians stop listening to their constituents?
That's the question that I don'tthink any of us know how to
answer. At least I don't know how to
answer that. You know, it's listening is the

(01:01:20):
is the part people? What do people crave?
People want to put food on theirtables.
They want to get along with their neighbors for the most
part, and they want to feel likethey're being heard and
appreciated. Yeah, some.
Yeah, somewhere in there is likea politician doesn't really.
I mean, the town halls that we've seen over the last 10
months, 11 months, those guys aren't listening.

(01:01:42):
There's huge amounts of frustrations that are landing on
politicians desks these days that they're not even
acknowledging and and I don't know how to fix that.
You know how? Do you, I, I guess there's I, I
do recall like the, you know, the mythos of like politicians
being like the elite class and like, and that sort of thing.
But I, I just don't remember them actually being put on a

(01:02:03):
pedestal as something that was not attainable or from, from
like a I just, I, I don't know. I don't know what.
I think maybe it was after 911 or something and it shifted.
I, I have no idea. I just remember it being like,
people could be politicians. People knew that politicians did

(01:02:25):
exist in this like elite circle that involved, you know, certain
things and then, but also it, but it was still grounded.
Now I don't know what it is. It seems like now it's just not
grounded anymore. And it just very much like
politicians are like some alien race that come down from and
like in, in our just like the overlords of of the country.
And it's like, when did that shift?

(01:02:47):
I I don't know even if I'm even correct on that.
It's gone off the rails. Yeah.
I don't know. I I think we're going to have to
get together again, Tyler, and talk about this some other day.
Yeah. Fair enough.
I mean, yeah, when did it? When did it go off the rails?
I don't know. There are all kinds of people
who are pointing at very different pieces of history to

(01:03:11):
describe when it actually went off the rails.
I, I, I think it actually started to go off the rails
during the 70s. Well, no, I, I maybe and maybe
there's things we can point to there, but I think that Bush
senior, I think what it went off.
Iran Contras. Yeah, around, around Contra and
then when Bush senior said no more taxes and then ended up

(01:03:32):
implementing a tax and all his own party people, you know,
railed him just for, for, for putting up a new tax, even
though he said he wouldn't. And there was a legitimately
good governmental idea as to whythat tax had to be put in place.
And all of his people are like all of his fellow Republicans
are like, no, you said no new taxes.

(01:03:54):
We don't like you anymore. And and I think that's when
something started to really split.
And I think that the, that Obamaas president punctuated that,
not only with race issues, but well, I'm just going to say it.
I'm just going to say it. I think Obama punctuated that
combining race plus politics. At that point, people were no

(01:04:15):
longer interested in being rational.
They they just wanted what they wanted because they wanted it.
I don't know, I need to think about this some more so.
Yeah, no, I just, I hate reducing people to like you just
emotionally reactive, like, you know, NPC's asleep at the wheel

(01:04:37):
just kind of but like it's, I don't know if if it's just some
arrogant part of me who that doesn't want to see some broader
picture or can't see it or but like it.
I'm increasingly feeling like it, like that's the case, that
most people just are that way. And I don't know, I don't
remember it being that way. And so it's frustrating to me

(01:05:00):
because like, wait a minute, like I'm not a particularly
intelligent person and, and I, you know, I can't possibly care
about every single thing, but I try to, you know, engage my
world and my environment with some level of, you know,
importance and understanding andreverence and, and service and,
and I try to educate myself on topics things as much as
possible, even, you know, even if it's a little.

(01:05:22):
And it just seems like no one, not no one, but a lot of people
don't. It's all self-interest stuff.
Yeah, as long as I feel good, I don't really care what's
happening. Yeah, You know, I and I, I, I'm
hearing you. I, I think you are first of all,
a very intelligent person. And I think it's easy to get
caught between those two places of wanting to be selfless and

(01:05:43):
then needing to be completely selfish sort of demands a little
bit of selfishness. If you don't take care of
yourself, you take, you can't take care of your others, that
kind of thing. But but oh, gosh, what was that?
You just reminded me of something and now it's gone.
I'm getting old, Tyler. I don't know what to do about
that, but it happens. It happens.

(01:06:07):
It'll come back to me probably at 4:00 in the morning, but
it'll come back to me. But yeah, so selfish.
And we're going to have to edit that.
It's fine. I, I brain fart on here all the
time. It just happens and there's so
many things, especially like interesting topics kind of come

(01:06:27):
up and it's just like you can make so many correlations and
parallels. It's it like, you know, it just
kind of happens and you just gotto move on from it and it comes
back sometimes, you know? Yep.
Well, I mean, if there is an opportunity to do this again
with you Tyler, I would happily take it.
This has been a fantastic conversation.
Yeah, no problem. I just before we head out here,

(01:06:48):
I just want to ask you, yeah, wefor sure can schedule something
in later there. I just want to as somebody who's
in a in a very unique position that I, that most people aren't,
right, You have access and kind of eyes on things that most

(01:07:09):
people don't and you can only speak to your section of the
world there. Do you think that there is some
kind of issue with young men happening, or is it made-up?
Yeah. Like the, you know, like there's
this kind of narrative that's been kind of unfolding that, you
know, men are kind of struggling, young men are
struggling and men in general are struggling and they're

(01:07:30):
falling behind and all this. Do you see that at all?
Not from where? Not from any professional
perspective, but from just a social observational
perspective. I would trace that back to World
War 2. Believe it or not, I think that
there was a time frame when we actually sent a lot of our young
men to death. And as a result, new young men

(01:07:54):
don't have the same kind of social backing for what it means
to be masculine that those men may have had.
And there's, I think, a much larger case, a much larger
academic case to be examined that stems back to World War 2
from from the lack of men that returned from the war to raise

(01:08:15):
new young men. And.
And then and then combine that with the modern day look of, you
know, what is masculinity? And you first of all, you have a
bunch of men who are frustrated because they've been sort of
disenfranchised by a number of different population.
And I'm not saying that those populations are bad.
Certainly we need to take a lookat feminism.

(01:08:36):
Certainly we need to take a lookat different degrees of
violence, but but this, what I'mabout to say, has more to do
with the being emotional reactionary people than it does
with being men. I think men have the
disadvantage of having an easieraccess to aggression than most

(01:08:56):
other people do. And, and that could just be
hormonal. I don't know.
But the thing I was reminded of earlier that I couldn't remember
was I think we are reactionary people.
I don't know if men are being lost in that wash.

(01:09:17):
You know, where are the role models when you have the
conservative world looking down upon people like Mr. Rogers or
Bob Ross or Steve Irwin? You know, I actually heard a
conservative news pundit say Mr.Rogers was an evil person.
Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, how can you say that?
You know, all he ever wanted wasto make sure he had a good

(01:09:38):
neighborhood. That was literally in his
tagline. Right.
And you know, So what what is a man?
How are we modelling manhood to men?
I think I think that could you know, I think that maybe men do
feel lost, but I don't I don't know.
Again, I I'm in this position where I'm not sure I'm answering
your question, but. No, I think I think it's fair
because I always come back down to like the emotional

(01:09:59):
adolescence or the inability to contend with our emotional
expressions. Just generally speaking, I think
the, the question of manhood is a silly one because it's, it's
like, it's like the idea of Kairos that it shifts over time
and it means something differentbased on the like contemporary
moment, right? So the contemporary moment
shapes what that means. And on some level the the

(01:10:21):
Hobbesian mind of mine says the perspective of mine, or even
like in that world says the realist ideal would say that the
ones who aren't making it shouldn't be making it anyways.
Yes. Right, because the ones for for
everyone that's not making it, there is one that is and and

(01:10:43):
they're just quiet, right. And so it's like.
Where are they? Right, but I do generally see a
maybe it's just social media highlighting this, right?
I do generally see that most menhave entered this pacifist kind
of space in the world and other in I it's I don't even think

(01:11:03):
it's just men, right? I think it's generally speaking,
there's a general a, a massive lack of courage.
In the world. Courage towards towards that
which is right and just, even ifit's not in your best interest
to do right. There's no more Joan of Arcs out
there. There's no more like just super
courageous people who are doing the right thing because it's the

(01:11:26):
right thing to do and right. They'll they'll tell you which
sword you should be falling on, but they won't fall in the sword
themselves. I think the conservative right
has those people, you know, theyhave their Charlie Kirk's.
I don't think the. Left has those people because
the left also wants everybody, all their heroes to be perfect.
You know, they they look at someone like Mother Teresa who?

(01:11:48):
Did You Know? Remarkably incredible things,
but was also said some remarkably controversial thing.
Right. And I I think though, that
people forget that their heroes are also human.
Right. And yeah, you know, they.
Yeah, and to your point about World World War 2 is the, the
way that we treated people who, the men who did come back,

(01:12:09):
right. Because if no one knows the
story about the bonus March, we we screwed a lot of people who,
who, who went out and served this country and, and when they
came back and, and did the job we asked them to do without
question. So there's that too.
Yep, exactly. I'm going to go do some research
on that now because I think thatthat my knowledge needs a little

(01:12:29):
more fleshing out. Oh yeah, I'll send you an
awesome PBS link. They did pretty good story on
it. Mickey, do you?
Is there anything during this interview that I didn't ask you
that you wish I did ask you? No, I thought this has been
fantastic is in terms of allowing a, a conversation to
unfold naturally. This has been a really great 1.
So, so thank you for that. And, and I'm serious, if if

(01:12:52):
there is an opportunity to revisit, I would I would happily
join you with the microphone again.
Yeah, 100%. We start to talk about ice.
We never even got there. Oh, we never even got there.
That's right. Is there anything you'd like to
share with the audience? Any, any information on your
podcast or anything that they can, any place they can find you
or you'd like to connect with you on?
Yeah, absolutely. Please find me on LinkedIn.

(01:13:12):
That's Mickey. Last name is Decide.
That's D, as in David Esai. Folks are free to connect with
me on LinkedIn. I am looking for help trying to
figure out how to get a podcast like The Thing About Cars into a
television program that doesn't require me to edit videos for
YouTube. If anyone knows how to help with

(01:13:34):
that I would love to talk to them about that, or at least
talking to producers who may have some advice to that fact.
But oh, we didn't talk about theboard game.
We didn't talk about this book thing that I'm working on so all
a day in the life of the ADD brain go have to mention that
some other time but. Yeah, no, we can do that for

(01:13:55):
sure. And I think that could be its
own thing when I actually have plenty of knowledge on that side
of things too. So we can we can explore that.
Yeah. Cool.
Mickey, I appreciate all of yourtime and I appreciate the
service you're doing. And thank you for just spending
this time in such short notice with me.
And I wish you the best of luck on your journey ahead, Sir.

(01:14:16):
Likewise, Tyler, it's been a pleasure and I will certainly be
looking forward to the next time.
Thank you very much.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mickey D. – Politicians, Plato's Cave, Service, and Podcasting