March 18, 2025 • 53 mins
Republican political consultant Mike Madrid joins host Eloy Ortiz-Oakley to examine the seismic shifts occurring in American democracy through the unique lens of Latino voter behavior. As co-founder of the Lincoln Project and author of "The Latino Century," Madrid brings data-driven insights that challenge conventional wisdom about minority voting patterns. The conversation delves deep into how Latino voters—now America's largest minority voting bloc—are transforming the political landscape. Madrid reveals compelling evidence that Latinos aren't becoming more conservative but more populist, rejecting both major parties at unprecedented rates. "The Republican Party is winning Latino votes despite their best efforts, not because of them," Madrid explains, detailing how economic concerns consistently outweigh identity politics for this diverse demographic. His analysis of multi-generational shifts within Latino communities offers a fascinating window into America's changing electorate. The discussion takes a particularly thought-provoking turn when examining higher education's precarious position in today's populist moment. Madrid argues that colleges and universities have become deeply vulnerable by institutionalizing ideological frameworks without demonstrating clear economic returns. "The cash-on-cash return on investment of higher education in the digital age isn't really bearing out," he notes, explaining how the college degree has become America's most significant political dividing line—more so than income or geography. Madrid's insights offer essential guidance for higher education leaders navigating these turbulent times. He challenges institutions to strip down to fundamentals and rebuild for a digital age where information flows horizontally rather than through traditional hierarchies. For anyone seeking to understand the forces reshaping American democracy and higher education's place within it, this episode provides illuminating perspectives that transcend conventional political categories.
https://www.amazon.com/Latino-Century-Americas-Transforming-Democracy/dp/1668015269
eloy@4leggedmedia.com
www.4leggedmedia.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz-Oakley and welcome back to
the Rant Podcast, the podcastwhere we pull back the curtain
and break down the people, thepolicies and the politics of our
higher education system.
In this episode, I continue myconversations about navigating
the next four years,particularly the impacts on
higher education, the workforceand the various policies and
(00:34):
programs that support learnersthroughout the country.
I get to sit down with MikeMadrid, a good friend and
colleague.
Mike is a political consultant,a Republican political
consultant.
He is also the co-founder ofthe Lincoln Project and is an
author.
His new book is called theLatino Century how America's
(00:59):
Largest Minority is TransformingDemocracy.
Minority is transformingdemocracy and I'm going to talk
to Mike about how democracy isbeing transformed today and what
insights we can learn from hisresearch into Latino voters.
What are Latino working classvoters thinking and saying about
(01:20):
what's going on in this country, and how can we in higher
education, in the post-secondaryeducation marketplace, learn
from those insights?
While Mike is a politicalconsultant, he understands
what's going on withworking-class families.
I consider Mike the expert whenit comes to better
(01:40):
understanding Latino voters inthis country and, as many of you
know, just saying that wordLatino voters means a lot of
different things to a lot ofdifferent people.
Here in California, it couldmean Mexican-American voters
first generation, secondgeneration Mexican-American
voters as opposed to the EastCoast, where it could be Puerto
Rican voters or Cuban voters,and Mike has a keen way of
(02:04):
boiling that all down to howit's affecting their attitudes
about what's going on in thiscountry.
So Mike is going to join metoday to talk more about that,
to talk about our democracy, totalk about what's going on with
the chaos in Washington DC andwhat we, as leaders in higher
education, should be on thelookout for.
(02:24):
What can we learn about thedialogue that's happening in
this country?
So, before I jump into thatinterview, I do want to take a
moment to just reflect on thelast.
I don't know what.
It's been just about 90 dayssince this year started.
For some, it feels like thisyear has taken forever, no doubt
(02:45):
, regardless of where you're at,on the left or the right or
somewhere in between.
There's been a lot going on inthis country and in the world,
and let me spend a little bit oftime focused on higher
education.
One of our listeners recentlyleft me a message asking me to
answer the question.
Left me a message asking me toanswer the question what's going
on with the Department ofEducation?
(03:06):
So, Al J, I want to take thistime to respond to your question
.
I've said a lot on this podcastabout the Department of
Education and there is no doubtthat the Department of Education
, department of Labor,department of Commerce, any of
the agencies that are part ofthe federal government
(03:26):
bureaucracy that touch andsupport and interact with higher
education in this countryshould be reviewed, should be
streamlined in higher education.
I can certainly attest to thefact that there is too much
(03:47):
bureaucracy and that theregulation does not always make
sense to everyday working classfamilies throughout this country
.
We have overcomplicated ourhigher education system and so
I'm all for reviewing,dismantling, rethinking how the
Department of Education does itswork and why it exists.
(04:08):
I am not one of those peoplethat thinks that somebody should
come in with a chainsaw andjust eliminate the Department of
Education.
I think that's wrongheaded.
I think it's reckless.
A lot of institutions, a lot ofpeople, a lot of states all of
our states rely on a healthyfederal government and for our
(04:29):
Department of Education to beable to support the educational
pursuits of learners throughoutthis country.
Now there's a whole part of theDepartment of Education that is
focused on K-12 education.
I'm not going to get into that,but I will say that the federal
government's role in highereducation has become critically
(04:50):
important, whether you'retalking about access to Title V,
federal student aid, thesupport that every low and
moderate-income learner getsfrom the federal government to
be able to afford the cost ofeducation, and moderate income
learner gets from the federalgovernment to be able to afford
the cost of education.
Now, I would agree that thefederal government has sometimes
(05:14):
fueled the increased cost ofeducation throughout this
country, but the federalgovernment does have a role in
supporting learning, insupporting the pursuit of higher
learning for Americans of allbackgrounds.
So to just say that you'regoing to eliminate that, I think
, is wrong-headed.
Now, are there ways tostreamline the Department of
(05:35):
Education?
Yes, is the federal student aidprocess too complicated?
Yes, does it need morestreamlining?
Yes, is the cost of educationtoo high?
Yes, and I think most Americansfeel that, which is why they
feel this angst.
But I do not believe theDepartment of Education should
(05:57):
just go away and leave thepieces there on the table for
other people to figure out howwe're going to reconstruct the
work that it does, because thework that it does isn't going
away.
Managing some of these programsthat Congress put into place to
make America more competitivecannot go away.
(06:18):
So what does this mean goingforward?
To me, it means finding peopleon both sides of the aisle to
come together to work onsolutions that improve the
functioning of our government.
Okay, only those people thatdon't need government are the
ones claiming that it should beeliminated.
But everyday Americansthroughout this country rely on
(06:42):
well-meaning, efficientgovernment.
Rely on well-meaning, efficientgovernment and, to the extent
that we can make the Departmentof Education more efficient by
making it focus on things thatmatter to states, things that
matter to learners and I thinkthere is a way forward there.
Certainly, the bipartisanpolicy centers, efforts to
create the Commission on theAmerican Workforce, are working
(07:05):
on solutions.
So I don't dismiss everythingthat's been said about the
Department of Education.
I could argue all day long thatthis whole DOJA effort is more
theater than reality.
But hopefully, hopefully, therewill be people on both sides of
the aisle that can come togetherto come up with common sense
(07:28):
solutions that help moreAmericans of all backgrounds
gain the skills and competenciesthey need in order to better
participate in the economy oftoday and the economy that AI is
transforming, going forward andif you listen to this podcast,
you know that I've had manyguests who've come up with many
(07:50):
solutions, whether it's the workthat they're doing, the
practices that they aresupporting, the transparency
that they're fighting for all ofthose issues, this is the time
for them to come together tocreate a better Department of
Education, a better Departmentof Labor and a better Department
of Commerce that together workto ensure that we have the most
(08:13):
talented workforce and the mostresilient workforce and that
it's working for working classfamilies.
All right, I will jump off myrant, jump off my soapbox.
All right, I will jump off myrant, jump off my soapbox and
with that, please enjoy myconversation with my good friend
, mike Madrid.
Mike, welcome to the RantPodcast.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's great to be with you again.
I've done it before.
It's been a while, but alwaysgreat.
If you ask me back, it means itmust have gone okay the first
time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It went okay the first time.
It's going to even better thesecond time.
So thanks for visiting with us.
I know you've got a lot goingon, a lot going on in your world
.
A lot going on in politicsthese days, yeah, and your world
involves the politics of voters.
Let's start with your career.
So you've spent much of yourcareer digging into data,
(09:06):
digging into voter data, yeah,and you've become, as far as I'm
concerned, the expert in Latinovoter data and what it's
telling us as a society, whatit's telling candidates for
office office.
You've also been critical aboutthe messaging, particularly
(09:28):
whether it's on the Republicanside, the Democrat side and how
you feel Latino voters have sortof been left behind in this
conversation.
That's right, you recently wrotea book called the Latino
Century.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
The Latino Century, how America's Largest Minority
is Transforming Democracy.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's good news for me and my kids.
We're looking forward totransforming democracy In the
current political environment.
I mean, we're sitting here, youknow, nearly 100 days into the
administration, nearly 100 daysinto the chaos machine, the
administration, the 100 daysinto the chaos machine.
How are you feeling aboutpolitics right now and what do
(10:11):
you see going forward is goingto be the role of Latino voters
in statewide elections, incongressional elections coming
up?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's a big question.
I'm going to just say broadly,at the national level, I think
this is a dark moment.
I think that's fair to say,because so many of the basic
foundational assumptions thatwe've made about America are
being challenged and it seemsand feels like there's a growing
part of the American population, certainly the electorate, that
(10:42):
is moving in a directionopposite of what we have
historically known and believedAmerica to be the respect for
constitutional law, the normsthat have kind of guided us,
these guardrails you hear a lotabout.
But in many ways I believe thatwhat is happening again at the
very highest levels, thetectonic plates of politics,
(11:04):
what is happening is we aretransforming into a new type of
hybrid democracy that has to bereconstituted for this digital
age, that we're in the oldchecks and balance system, which
I think I'm not saying we needto throw it out, but what I am
saying is it was perfectlycrafted for the industrial age,
when all of our humaninstitutions were hierarchical
(11:26):
and where everything was topdown, including the government
that we built, and that doesn'twork in the age of information,
in this internet era, in thisdigital age, when information
flows are horizontal and unlesswe adapt our institutions, which
are basically those things weagree on as society to to say
this are what facts are.
(11:47):
This is the institutiondesigned to help us with our
health and information andgovernment services.
Unless we're able to rethinkthose for this new age, I think
the future will be very, verychaotic.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I thought about in your book the Latino Century,
about the Latino voting block.
If you can say that I mean itis Latinos, made up of different
ethnicities, differentbackgrounds, different
geographies in America.
Yeah, you and I come from asimilar geography
Mexican-American households.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Dodger fans.
Dodger fans of course.
Those doyers.
I thought that was the onlyfans that Mejiano supported, but
I guess there's a couple othersout there.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
There are other teams out there, but you talk a lot
about how the messaging has sortof missed the mark with that
voting block.
What do you think Latino votersare looking for in?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
messaging from a candidate.
What are they?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
looking for for themselves.
Looking for in messaging from acandidate what are they looking
?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
for for themselves, for their families, for their
children, going forward.
So the data on this has beenvery, very clear for 30 years.
It's economics, and I'll talkabout that specifically, but a
lot of people might say, well,duh, but the political construct
that we've allowed to developin this country, for very good
reasons, casts this need to havenon-white voters and white
(13:11):
voters being in bipolaropposites with one another.
That's important because thathas restricted both sides of the
aisle from speaking to amulti-ethnic working class issue
about the economy.
And as long as we have hadthese notions of what a minority
(13:32):
voter is meaning reallyessentially what we mean by that
is the non-white then thatestablishes a primacy of race
and ethnicity for those votersthrough which they view the
world, race and ethnicity forthose voters through which they
view the world, and the data forLatinos on that has really
never borne that out to be true,but it's so deeply etched in
(13:53):
our DNA as a country because ofour black and white history,
because of our original sin ofslavery, because of the
institutions that we built andthe policy solutions that we've
addressed to both perpetuate andameliorate that black-white
paradigm.
We've always thrown non-whitepeople into this bucket of
non-white people and just callthem minorities or people of
(14:14):
color.
The term Latino is hardly auseful term because of that
diversity.
The term people of color istruly not useful because of the
experiences and how differentthey are.
It's a long way of saying thethrough line between all of the
latino diasporas cubans,venezuelans, puerto ricans,
mexican americans is the bluecollar economic through line.
(14:38):
It is becoming and replacingethnic labels and ethnic
prioritization for these votersand for our families and the way
we perceive the world.
Once we understand that thatblue-collar ethic as Latinos are
the fastest-growing segment ofthe blue-collar worker and the
fastest-growing segment of theRepublican Party, we start to, I
think, understand why we'reseeing voting behavior moving to
(15:01):
the right, but also thispopulist anti-establishment
sentiment that is really thedefining feature, much more than
a movement towards conservatism.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Let me dive into your last point, because I think
that's an interesting point.
There's this anti-establishmentmovement versus.
Are these voters moving to theright or anywhere else?
Correct?
These voters moving to theright or anywhere else?
Correct?
Based on this last presidentialelection, a lot of people were
(15:31):
expressing concern or joy thattheir message carried Latino
voters to the right.
Do you see that they weremoving to the right because of
the political messaging or werethey moving toward the new
president?
Because of something elsebecause of this
(15:52):
anti-establishment movement.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That's a great question and I think it's a
foundational question.
There's very little evidence,almost no evidence, that Latinos
are becoming more conservative.
There's overwhelming evidencethat Latinos are becoming more
populist, more conservative.
There's overwhelming evidencethat Latinos are becoming more
populist, and what I mean bythat is we are the fastest
growing segment of the no partypreference decline to state
movement.
We are leaving both partiesfaster than any other group.
(16:15):
Our voting behavior ismanifesting in that by leaving
the Democratic Party, and again,not for ideological reasons,
but the Democratic Party hashistorically been at such a high
bar for Latinos the only placeto kind of come is down right,
and so in many ways theRepublican Party is winning
Latino votes, despite their bestefforts.
Not because of them and thisanti-establishment sentiment
(16:40):
interestingly most acutely inour politics Latinos have a
higher level of trust andconfidence in most social
institutions broadly.
The one exception, twoexceptions the Republican and
Democratic Party, and the reasonis because neither party has
been speaking to our concerns, Iwould argue, for decades now.
It manifested as low voterturnout, which has been plaguing
(17:02):
us for decades in places likeCalifornia.
Voter turnout which has beenplaguing us for decades in
places like California, wherethe Republican Party was never
an option, but the DemocraticParty wasn't speaking to or
addressing concerns.
And that's not Mike Madridsaying that, that's the data
saying that.
And now what you're seeing isthe anti-Republican sentiment
that was really endemic in theLatino vote for the past 30
years is gone.
(17:22):
Vote for the past 30 years.
It's gone.
And once that is gone, oncethat sentiment is gone, it opens
up a whole new era ofopportunities for Latino voters,
who are very populist, tolisten to the populist party
which is the Republican Party atthis moment.
It's not the conservative party, it's not the traditional jobs,
taxes, free trade, you knowstrong foreign policy.
(17:47):
It's protectionist, it'sisolationist, it's very um
anti-establishment.
It's drained the swamp.
There's a reason why berniesanders did as well as he did
with latinos and donald trump isdoing as well is the
anti-establishment sentiment isreally pervasive in the
community now in in your bookand, by the way, I really
enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It really resonated with me.
Now I think you're a thirdgeneration Mexican-American a
second generation, yeah.
But the changes that you seehappening in and I'll just focus
on the Mexican-Americancommunity, I'm sure it's similar
to other second, thirdgeneration Latino communities is
the way that second and thirdgeneration voters feel versus
(18:34):
how their parents who may havebeen that first generation.
That certainly manifesteditself, certainly when I was
growing up.
Ronald Reagan captured theimagination of a lot of
Mexican-Americans in mycommunity.
I wound up voting that direction.
I joined the army because ofhim.
(18:55):
It's a very different dynamictoday.
How do you see the evolutionhappening?
Over time now that there are somany young Latinos in America
and they're second, third, somefourth generation, yeah, and
that's really important.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What you're getting at and again this is the crux of
the book is the reason whyLatino voters, latino voting
patterns, are shifting isbecause Latino voters themselves
are shifting.
Latino voting patterns areshifting is because Latino
voters themselves are shifting.
The explosion of the Latinovoters and we've just passed
African Americans, passed blackvoters in 2020.
The numbers are going to startgrowing exponentially now.
(19:37):
In the voter rolls nationwide,80% of it is US born and now, as
I'm studying this stuff, in my50s, when I was studying this in
my 20s, there was no fourthgeneration cohort big enough to
study.
Now we can look at fourthgeneration Latinos and say what
do fourth generation Latinoshave in common with third and
second and first recentlynaturalized?
And what we've realized isthey're tectonically different.
(19:59):
They're massively different.
Different, and that you knowit's kind of commonsensical now,
but the the presupposition, thepremise of both major parties
up until two years ago was thatnon-white voters vote like
non-white voters, as a block.
Because of the only examplewe've had, which is black voters
for 250 years that have votedas a block, or at least 150
(20:20):
years after the after suffrageand, you know, the civil war,
black voters have voted 75 8080%as a true bloc.
Latinos have never met thosemetrics and now, as we're at
47-53, I mean, even as somebodywho's been studying this, I
never thought we'd be at almost50-50.
And I would argue Trump is notbringing Latinos into the
(20:42):
Republican Party.
He's actually restrictingfurther growth.
Candidates in California likeSteve Garvey, outperformed
Donald Trump In every Houseswing district.
Republicans did better thanTrump nationwide.
So there's over.
Ron DeSantis, greg Abbott, allthese governors of of these
(21:04):
states that are doing well withlatino voters have either met or
exceeded where donald trump'snumbers were.
All of those just mountains ofevidence saying if donald trump
had not been the nominee, if ithad been like a nicki haley type
candidate, right thenrepublicans would have won the
hispanic vote, the latino vote,which again is, is tectonic, but
it reminds.
It reminds us.
We're not witnessing apolitical moment, we're
witnessing a demographictransformation.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right.
How do you see religion playinginto this?
So many Latino immigrantscertainly Mexican-American
immigrants first, secondgeneration came here as
Catholics and that was a bigpart of the way that families
thought they voted.
That seems to be changing a lotmore today.
(21:50):
Is there a split based onreligion, or do you think the
economic issues continue tooverwhelm any of the underlying
issues of religion?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, that's a great question, and in many ways, the
answer to that latter part ofyour question is no different
than everybody else.
If you're a practicingfaith-based person, regardless
of what your faith base is,you're much more likely to vote
for Republicans, including beingJewish or a Protestant or a
Catholic.
If you're going every Sunday orSaturday to services and you're
(22:24):
observant, your politics arenaturally more conservative.
But let's talk about religionas part of the Latino culture.
Your politics are naturallymore conservative, but let's
talk about religion as part ofthe Latino culture.
In 1980, when I was eight ornine years old, 80% of Latinos
in this country were Catholic.
Now that number's under 50%.
That's how fast the decline ofCatholicism has happened, and
(22:47):
there has been an increase inevangelical movements,
particularly amongst the firstgeneration, but not exclusively.
It's pretty broad, but and thisis really important for every
one Latino that leavesCatholicism and becomes an
evangelical or Protestant toleave religion altogether.
So Latinos in their spiritualtrajectory are starting to
(23:13):
resemble the overall electoratealso, and so in many ways, while
assimilation is benefitingRepublicans on economic issues,
it is also benefiting Democratson cultural issues.
So where we used to be thiskind of nominally or marginally
pro-life constituency 25 yearsago.
We are now strongly apro-choice community because of
the explosion of us born latinasprimarily, but latinos also as
(23:37):
well.
So we are becoming lessfaith-based, but where we are
maintaining those levels, it isa much more conservative,
orthodox, republican-ish type ofreligion so let's, so let's
switch tracks a little bit.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You've sort of laid out what's going on in the
Latino voter bloc, the changesthat we've seen happening a lot
we can see in, certainly, thelast election and the election
before that coming into thislast one, the last election and
the election before that cominginto this last one, the audience
that.
I talked to is primarily highereducation, leaders, policymakers
(24:17):
, and higher education right nowis really struggling with a
somewhat of an identity crisis.
A lot of people questioning theinstitution as a whole, the
leadership, the valueproposition, and now you've got
an administration who isdefinitely seeing an opportunity
(24:42):
to dismantle the framework thatwe have lived with for a couple
hundred years.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
A lot of it relates to how the public thinks about
the value that they're gettingfrom their college or university
and the concern about the cost.
In my day job at CollegeFutures, we publish a lot of
studies in California andnationwide about how people feel
(25:10):
about higher education and timeand time again when they
express their number one concern, it's cost.
And although they have concernsabout the institutions, they
still believe that their sonsand daughters need to go get
some sort of higher education.
So there's still this beliefthat they want their sons and
(25:31):
daughters to have greateropportunity, but more and more
they are questioning the valueof a higher education.
And so how should highereducation leaders think about
talking to underservedcommunities?
And I say that broadly becausewhether it's a poor, rural white
community, whether it's anAfrican American community, a
(25:54):
Latino community, low andmoderate income families are
really struggling with this,with their belief in higher
education.
How would you recommend, basedon what you're seeing from voter
sentiment, what would yourrecommendation be to leaders
about how to speak toprospective students and their
(26:15):
families?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
This is a great question, as always, I will say
this At a time, at this verypopulist moment in American
history.
Perhaps the institution that Ithink is the most vulnerable,
exposed and enabled to makeadjustments is the academy.
(26:37):
I think higher education hasvery, very particularly unique
problems, which is going to makeit vulnerable because of its
inability to adjust, and what Imean by that is in the intro.
You said you know changing thenorms and the structures of what
we've lived with for 250 years.
I'm not too sure that's right.
I would say since thepost-World War II era, the way
(27:01):
we have viewed the idea, as JohnHenry Newman would say, the
idea of a university and thepurpose of higher education
really changed in the post-WorldWar II era.
As we reached the Americancentury and we started to
industrialize at a much moremodern, faster pace than the
rest of the world, the focus ofhigher education became about a
(27:22):
return on investment.
Prior to that it was, you know,learning to learn and
philosophizing and becoming abetter human and a true,
classically liberal artseducation well, and it was only
for a very few very select,elite few, overwhelmingly men,
white men, of course.
but when we did make thoseadjustments, we again focused
(27:44):
and started to focus, and I'mnot saying right or wrong.
I'm saying we started to focuson the return on investment,
which is kind of where we'rereally heading now, and this is
now with that long Mike Madridwindup.
This is the particular problemthat higher education faces.
The cash on cash return oninvestment of a higher education
in the digital age isn't reallybearing out.
(28:04):
But and this is very importanttoo the single largest
demarcation point in thiscountry is whether or not you
have a college degree, and whenI was a younger political
consultant, that used to beincome.
But those are not the same.
And the mistake that I think alot of people are making is that
(28:25):
, well, we're just talking aboutcollege educated people,
meaning we're higher educationpeople.
That is not true.
The political decision-makingthat is happening is based off
of what happens to an individualwhen they have the benefit of a
higher education, which is achanging cultural and life
(28:45):
perception of their humanity.
It is not based off of whetheror not you're earning more or
less.
Let me give you a real-lifeexample.
It is not based off of whetheror not you're earning more or
less.
So let me give you a real lifeexample.
It is far more likely that youwill be progressive or on the
left if you go to college andbecome a teacher making $55,000
or $60,000 a year than if youare a high school graduate who
is a contractor who makes$120,000 a year.
(29:07):
You're much more likely to be aRepublican.
So, even though you're makingmore right as a republican, it's
the differential is the collegedegree is what makes the
difference, and it's why you'rehearing the american right
actively saying don't go tocollege, do not go to college.
And the reason is because whatis manifesting on the right and
(29:27):
there is some truth to thiscollege is really a lot of what
university and higher educationare about now is changing those
perceptions of cultural norms,prioritizing that as opposed to
getting a return on theinvestment of going to get a
degree and developing a skillthat you can monetize.
Does that make sense?
(29:47):
Yeah, and as the party'scoalitions change, as the
republicans become more workingclass, their messaging is
valorizing that return oninvestment and not going to go
get a woke mind virus on ahigher education campus, like
literally, that's the languagethat they'll use.
What we're hearing from thehigher education community in
(30:09):
response is well, we're kind ofthe gatekeepers to enlightenment
and in many ways, yeah, youwill, in the long run, get more
money if you get a collegedegree.
We don't exactly know that inthe digital age yet there hasn't
been a long-term run atearnings capacity.
It suggests that there probablyis, is, but certainly not for a
while.
(30:30):
And the second is again, thischanged political perspective
has become a truly definingfeature of the politics of this
voter.
And in a country where only 40percent of americans have a
college degree, voters, right,you're already naturally
speaking to a minority, anyway,a pretty considerable minority.
(30:52):
And so higher education is isgoing to continue to keep
talking to itself, reassertingits own bias and unable to
communicate to the broaderaudience that it needs to in
order to allow belief in its ownsystem.
Belief in its own system,belief in its own value, both
economically, morally,spiritually however you want to
define it and certainlypolitically.
(31:14):
These are becoming reallylimiting and rather than, I
think, expanding that messaging,the likelihood of it
contracting is far, far greater.
Right, which is why it willbecome a point of attack very
soon.
Right, federal funding we'regoing to get into everything
from Title IX on sports to howmuch money we're giving the UC
system, based off of researchdollars that it's incredibly
(31:36):
reliant on, if it continues topractice or teach these
ideologies that are not givingus a return on investment but
are pushing a Marxist agenda, orwhatever the right wing says
that it is, and the academy isnot going to.
The academy is going to dig inand fight on that.
You have entire professors anddepartments built on that.
They're not just going to belike, okay, I'll go do something
(31:58):
else with my whatever degree.
They're going to dig in andfight and they're going to lose
that fight in the court ofpublic opinion.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Well, you know, I have this conversation a lot.
I used to have thisconversation a lot.
I used to have thisconversation a lot with our
former governor, jerry Brown,who, interestingly enough, never
liked the notion of DEI.
So my conversation with himwould usually go Governor DEI
(32:26):
isn't in my mind, isn't anacademic issue, it isn't a
philosophical issue, it is aneconomic issue.
I need, when I was chancellor,our colleges to ensure that they
are reaching a broad basemembers in their community,
(32:46):
which naturally, in California,means that they're going to be
diverse, that they're providingequal footing, giving them
opportunity and making sure thatthey're inclusive.
Now, those three words havebeen hijacked over time.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And I would agree that in many cases there's been
sort of an echo chamberconversation going on campus
about those three words andwe've lost the notion that we
need to continue to show thepublic what kind of return on
investment they're getting fromthe education that their sons
(33:24):
and daughters and neighbors andcousins and aunts and uncles are
getting on a college campus.
Colleges and universitiesshould be open to a variety of
thought.
They should question ourhistory.
That doesn't make usun-American.
That makes us more educated,yes, but we fell into the trap
(33:48):
of only highlighting that pieceand gave the loudest microphones
to individuals on campuses,whether they be student groups,
outside groups, faculty groups,who just wanted to go back and
forth on this question of DEI orfind everything that's wrong
with the way that we think aboutthings and pick on that.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, you didn't just fall into the trap.
I don't mean you.
Higher education didn't justfall into the trap.
It institutionalized that rightand it incentivized that as an
end unto itself.
You're saying something reallyimportant, which is there's got
to be a market-based solution tothis.
Every company, every majorcompany in America, should be
(34:32):
looking at an increasinglydiverse consumer base,
increasingly diverse workforce,increasingly diverse leadership.
Not because it's the morallyright things do.
Because there's money, it'sgood business.
And if history is a guide, oncethe market forces change to
accommodate that, social changefollows very quickly.
(34:53):
A couple of examples well,everything from martin luther
king's boycott right in the 60s,let's shut down the buses.
Once there's a marketimperative and we show you the
market, you're going to comeback and use the bus, right, if
not, we'll walk one.
Two gay marriage once unitedairlines, which had a hub in san
francisco, started saying we'regoing to have domestic
partnership benefits.
(35:13):
I don't care what the law says,these are our employees, we're
going to protect them.
Everything in corporate americachanged and hasn't come back.
Dave roberts, from the dodgersduring the george floyd, you
know, after the george floydmurder, says I'm not going to
atlanta to manage the all-starteam.
So what do they do?
Mlb is like we got a bigproblem.
Our employees are saying, no,they moved it to Denver at the
(35:37):
drop of a hat.
That's what moves these things.
It's not going to be theend-all, be-all of the
curriculum that we're trying toteach.
Does that make sense?
Right, and because it has beenso calcified and structured in
the academy, you can't justextricate it or change it next
semester.
People's entire careers anddoctorate work and research work
(36:00):
has been predicated on goingdown these roads and becoming
teachers and and and researchassistants and and and
furthering on their careers inthe academy.
You can't reform that.
You can't.
And that was like I said.
It wasn't just falling into thetrap, it was institutionalizing
it.
And so when those attacks comeand they will from the federal
(36:20):
government the only people thatare going to be defending those
people will be the people in theivory tower.
I don't mean that disparagingly,maybe it is, apologize if it is
, but they will be isolatedwhere people are going.
Why are we teaching that?
Why are?
What is the value of that?
There's a course of study, andnot just because you need to
have go to college step to bemore prepared economically
(36:41):
although you should.
But are we really teaching theidea of the university?
Are we teaching people to learnor are we teaching them a new
history or a yeah, a history?
It doesn't mean that it isn'tcomplimentary.
I think it is.
It is an accurate history, itis an accurate perspective, but
(37:02):
at what point are we doing thatto the detriment of getting a
degree for the society thatwe've created economically?
And that's where it's happeningis.
We're graduating students thatdo have a different perspective
of the world, but they're notable to work in the economy that
we're providing, and so, yeah,you end up with tons of I'm not
saying this is the only reason,but there's a lot of student
(37:23):
debt with the inability to get ajob in the economy that we have
, and so then you've got ahopeless generation.
That's kind of like I, andagain, I'm not saying that I'm
oversimplifying.
There's a lot of reasons as towhy there's college debt, but
that is no doubt one of them iswe're not graduating a whole lot
of people that are getting jobsimmediately with that return on
investment.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, no, and I think this is where leaders in higher
education, whether they're oncampuses or in system offices
this is the conversation I thinkthey need to be having is
asking the question about howhave we positioned ourselves?
How do we defend what is mostimportant about a university or
(38:01):
college campus?
But think about how we've sortof created our own target on our
back.
Yeah, our own target on ourback.
Yeah, you know we've gotten sowrapped up in is the right
nomenclature?
Latinx Is the rightnomenclature, bipoc Is the right
nomenclature, and only peoplein the small circle of the
(38:26):
academy engage and understandthat conversation.
I get why they're having it.
Yeah, I do too.
They want to give voice todifferent perspectives and
different people.
But at the end of the day Imean in your book you talk about
the different names that youknow we've been called and
growing up myself, I could neverunderstand who I was.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Was I Mexican-American, was I Chicano?
Was.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
I Latino.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Whatever Exactly?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And it's confusing.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It is confusing and I do understand and I respect the
whole process of all of thatand I frankly enjoy the
intellectual discussion of it,but we're literally creating new
languages for people who don'tmatch that experience.
And when you're that farremoved, you need to take some
self-inventory in saying whatare we doing other than having
these discussions amongstacademics?
(39:18):
Because we're not solving theworld's problems.
In fact, we're getting furtherremoved from them, and I'm not
suggesting that solving theworld's problems is what the job
of the academy is either.
There's some virtue and,frankly, being in an ivory tower
because it does lead todifferent.
You know schools of thought andI appreciate all of that, but
what I will say is we have sofocused on it, we have so lost a
(39:42):
sense of priority in all of ourinstitutions, that the revolt
that we're seeing in Americanpolitics today is really that
this populist sentiment I'vebeen talking about is a revolt
against institutions.
And so people will say, mike,how can that be when the
broligarics and these high-techbillionaires are working with
(40:03):
poor people and working classpeople Like, how does that
coalition work?
To me it's very easilyexplainable.
It's a revolt against theprofessional class.
It's against the people thatactually run these institutions
which are less and less relevant, which exist to perpetuate
themselves, to get more and moremoney, more and more credential
degrees, more and more tenure,more and more whatever it is to
(40:25):
protect yourself, to keep doingthings that aren't the job of a
plumber who's got to go andactually fix a leak, like
there's actual, real, real worldvalue to that immediately.
Now right, everybody needs aplumber, and this plumber
doesn't get the benefit ofsaying you know, I've got a
system that I can rig, where Idon't have to go, kind of do
that, and then it's a crass term, rigging the system, but but
(40:48):
not really.
And that's definitely thesentiment of the working class.
They don't begrudge the wealthywe never have in this country,
but what we do begrudge is thepeople that are perpetuating a
system that they believe isrigged to their own advantage or
to be self-perpetuating to noends.
And that's what most of ourinstitutions have become,
(41:08):
especially the academy.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So, mike, you've spent a lot of time thinking
about this.
When higher education leadersthink about how to deal with
different communities, what isin your mind?
What is the mega community?
If I'm a higher ed leader andI'm having to confront more and
(41:31):
more people who considerthemselves to be part of the
MAGA movement, whether on campusstudents, faculty community
members how do you explain that,and what should people know
about how to communicate?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I think the one common thread of kind of the
MAGA movement is understandingthat it is defined not by what
it's for but by what it'sagainst.
And in a time when, again, weare literally, as a species,
communicating and processinginformation differently than we
ever have before, ourcommunication channels are much
(42:08):
more horizontal.
When we used to get the expertsat the national institute of
health or, you know, the popefrom the church or the president
of united states top down, wenow have a million different
experts that you can choose fromright your experts yeah, we've.
That has never been the case inhuman history.
All of our species, since wecrawled out of the cave and the
(42:29):
guy with the biggest club.
We all follow this strongleader, all of our institutions,
from the monarchy to you nameit the corporation.
It's all top down.
We are now learning as aspecies to learn horizontally
the world, because krugman wouldsay the world is flat, right
and it's now just hitting thelast of our institutions.
(42:49):
And as that happens, we have torecognize that ultimately, maga
is animated by that push.
They may not articulate it thatway, but basically what they're
saying is I'm against theinstitutions, whichever it is
that I feel is somehow notallowed me to be all that.
I can be right.
And that may be the collegeuniversity system, because it's
(43:10):
just producing a bunch of wokepeople.
Maybe I didn't go to college,maybe I did.
I got a bunch of debt.
I don't care about it.
Maybe it's the job market,because it's just producing a
bunch of woke people.
Maybe I didn't go to college,maybe I did and I got a bunch of
debt and I don't care about it.
Maybe it's the job market,because it's terrible because
people are outsourcing to otherplaces and other countries.
Maybe it's the media, becausewhat CNN is saying is not the
same thing as what the DailyStormer whatever the hell it is
you're listening to says.
All of these things are areaction to a breaking down and
(43:32):
siloing, and we believe, really,what has become a cultural
value in Silicon Valley, whichis disruption for disruption's
sake, and in that disruption,what I think we're going to
learn in very short order isthere's a value to social
institutions, and that value,first and foremost, is a common
agreement on whatever it is,however unjust they are and may
(43:53):
be.
I'm not saying that they don'tneed to be fixed, they do.
But as a human species, as apolitical not in the republican
democratic, but in the in thehuman need to interact with one
another species, as a politicalanimal, human beings need to
have common sets of agreement.
This is the way.
Red means stop, green means golike.
We have to agree on some basicthings, right.
(44:16):
And so when we're talking tothis increasing MAGA movement,
we have to understand that itultimately emanates from this
loss of confidence and this deepand growing belief that the
more hierarchical theinstitution, the more damaging
and, frankly, more threateningit is to my life, and it's not
particular to MAGA.
This is the language you hearfrom Elizabeth Warren, bernie
(44:40):
Sanders.
It's the populist elements ofthe left where they say if you
put the adjective big in frontof everything, it's
automatically evil.
Big plastic, big oil, big banksit's this libertarian movement.
It's this populist left BernieSanders movement.
It's Donald Trump.
Libertarian movement.
It's this populist left BernieSanders movement, it's Donald
Trump.
(45:00):
And so what's happening is theDemocrats have de facto become
the defenders of institutionsbroadly at a time when they're
becoming indefensible.
So if you're in California andthese fires go up suddenly,
we're really talking about waterconveyance system and the
mismanagement of that.
We're talking about the Deltasmelt.
We're talking about CEQA.
We're talking about the CoastalCommission.
We're talking about everythingexcept for what is really going
(45:21):
on, and it's getting.
You can feel this palpablesentiment amongst Californians
going.
These institutions are sobroken, so deeply, so broadly,
that we can't keep homelesspeople off the street.
We can't stop megafires fromcoming through.
We can't stop the EmploymentDevelopment Department from
being ripped off by $800 billionand not knowing where it's
(45:41):
going.
We can't stop an $11 billionhigh-speed rail train to nowhere
Like.
Our priorities are completelyout of whack and the Democrats
find themselves defending all ofthese things when, candidly, a
lot of these are just notdefensible.
And so what's going to happenthrough this process, through
this?
In many ways, it's like aprairie fire that burns off all
(46:03):
of this brush.
It's going to strip us down tothe basics of what is important
USAID do we really need aDepartment of Education?
And we just do it with blockgrants?
I'm not an advocate for whatTrump's doing.
You know who I am.
You know my story.
I burned down my careerfighting this guy.
I think this is a very bad,dark moment, but I'm also not
(46:25):
fooling myself to say this isn'thappening for a reason.
There's a growing sentiment forit for a reason, and unless we
pay attention and understand, itwill consume us.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Right?
No, I mean, I think those of uswho identify as Democrats and
who have worked in highereducation, we all know, we all
know we've complained about theDepartment of Education for
years.
There are things there, thereare things in many institutions,
that year after year we askourselves why do we do things
this way?
So and I get that we're in amoment where it just seems like
(47:00):
everything's threatened.
So we want to defend it Correctand I'm not saying that we
shouldn't defend it Correct.
But as we're defending it, weshould also be looking to see
how we can really change whatneeds to be changed.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Let's look for the opportunities in this really
scary time because they arethere, by the way and when the
political reality does comecrashing down and it will.
Economically, we're alreadyseeing prices starting to rise.
We're seeing the world orderdissolving when we're
threatening military action inPanama and Greenland and NATO is
dissolving, there is going tobe an emergent need, a human
(47:35):
need, it's not even an Americanneed a human need to start
saying wait a second, we needthese things to work and when
they do, the opportunity isthere to say let me, in my role
in this institution, strip thisdown to the basic elements.
What should we be talking about?
This may offend people, but isChicano studies as important as
(47:56):
electrical engineering?
And I I say that specificallyfor a reason.
These chicano professors havebeen fighting me all the time,
saying no, this is about raceand ethnicity.
I'm like no, it's about theeconomy, and I think history has
proven me right.
The democrats hired a bunch ofacademics to do their polling
and that's where you got latinx.
That's where you get this.
These, these messages, thesepolitical messages that are not
(48:17):
speaking to blue collar workingclass people right.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, well, it was interesting to me is watching
the oval office scene where elonmusk explaining what he was
doing and he said something thatwas really intriguing to me.
He said we are becoming abureaucracy, not a democracy,
and I had to step back and thinkto somebody like Elon Musk, he
(48:42):
doesn't need the bureaucracy,he's well taken care of, but
that bureaucracy serves a lot ofpeople and you need a
bureaucracy to have a healthydemocracy.
I agree we may have gone toofar, but I hope people take
notice while we're tearing allthis stuff down.
(49:03):
It's really about what do wekeep, how do we make it better
and how do we ensure that it isserving the people that it needs
to serve?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
and if we do that, I think we're going to be okay.
The problem is and again, I'mnot justifying this at all I've
fought against this.
I've been very public, as manyor more than most Americans,
about what's going on.
But we have a civil service fora reason.
We have a bureaucracy, for areason.
You don't want government runlike a startup.
You want it protected fromthose sentiments.
(49:36):
It's not a startup, it's notallowed to fail and you just
create another LLC, anothergovernment, try again.
And that is the ethic of thetechnocrat, the technologists,
the Thiels, the Musks, thosefolks, and I get that.
I disagree with it as a way ofrunning a government, running a
(49:59):
government, but I alsounderstand it, because
institutions have proven overhistory they are extremely
incapable of reformingthemselves.
And so that's your last pointis really important what can we
literally not do without?
What are the critical,essential features?
And that may give us the toolsto understand how to build
institutions for the digital age, not for the industrial age.
(50:21):
And that's where the academy isgoing to have to do some really
tough decision making, becausea lot of what it's doing is not
built for this age.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, it was built to resist change.
That was intentionally builtthat way for many good reasons,
but we're in a moment now wherethings are changing so fast that
it's going to have to relearnhow it responds.
Let me ask you one lastquestion as we begin to wrap up
what's next for Mike Maduro?
(50:52):
What are you looking forward todoing now that?
You are off the presidentialcampaign trail.
What are you looking forward to?
What does the next year?
Speaker 2 (51:06):
hold for you.
It's a great question, thismany, many months long look at
where I can be most effective inhelping what is emerging from
this era of what I call thegreat transformation.
I write on my sub stack.
If anybody follows on sub stack, I write on these topics weekly
.
We are entering the digital age.
(51:27):
We are transforming ourinstitutions.
Some are collapsing, some areemerging, some are transforming.
What occurred to me was, in anage of horizontal information
flows, when lies move fasterthan facts, the only thing that
matters at this moment is story,the narrative, and so I'm
(51:50):
working a lot more onstorytelling right now, and what
that means is I'm working on ahistorical novel that talks
about.
The story is actually about thefamily rivalry between the
Cuervos and the Salsas thatcreated the tequila industry,
because I want to tell Mexicanhistory in a way that is not
about gangbangers, drug dealersand undocumented immigrants.
(52:14):
I want to talk about theentrepreneurs, the titans of
industry, the captains ofindustry and the human stories
that created the largest spiritsempire in the world.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Well, that'll be an interesting read.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Hopefully I can come back on the rant and talk about
it.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
All right.
Well, Mike, I know you've got alot going on.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for launching intosome of these questions.
We really appreciate it.
I think it gives our listenerssomething to think about as they
begin to think about howthey're going to react over the
next several years and how tolead their institutions through
(52:52):
this period of uncertainty.
All right, well, well, thanksfor joining us everybody.
You've been listening to myconversation with mike madrid.
He's an author, he's apolitical consultant.
Soon he'll be writing his nextbook, yeah, but in the meantime,
check out the latino century.
I'll make sure and putinformation on how to get a hold
of the book in the descriptionsection of this podcast.
(53:13):
If you're watching us onYouTube, hit subscribe, continue
to follow us, and if you'relistening to us on audio,
continue to follow us on yourfavorite podcast platform.
Thanks for joining us everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
We'll see you soon, thank you.
Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz-Oakley and welcome back to
the Rant Podcast, the podcastwhere we pull back the curtain
and break down the people, thepolicies and the politics of our
higher education system.
In this episode, I continue myconversations about navigating
the next four years,particularly the impacts on
higher education, the workforceand the various policies and
(00:34):
programs that support learnersthroughout the country.
I get to sit down with MikeMadrid, a good friend and
colleague.
Mike is a political consultant,a Republican political
consultant.
He is also the co-founder ofthe Lincoln Project and is an
author.
His new book is called theLatino Century how America's
(00:59):
Largest Minority is TransformingDemocracy.
Minority is transformingdemocracy and I'm going to talk
to Mike about how democracy isbeing transformed today and what
insights we can learn from hisresearch into Latino voters.
What are Latino working classvoters thinking and saying about
(01:20):
what's going on in this country, and how can we in higher
education, in the post-secondaryeducation marketplace, learn
from those insights?
While Mike is a politicalconsultant, he understands
what's going on withworking-class families.
I consider Mike the expert whenit comes to better
(01:40):
understanding Latino voters inthis country and, as many of you
know, just saying that wordLatino voters means a lot of
different things to a lot ofdifferent people.
Here in California, it couldmean Mexican-American voters
first generation, secondgeneration Mexican-American
voters as opposed to the EastCoast, where it could be Puerto
Rican voters or Cuban voters,and Mike has a keen way of
(02:04):
boiling that all down to howit's affecting their attitudes
about what's going on in thiscountry.
So Mike is going to join metoday to talk more about that,
to talk about our democracy, totalk about what's going on with
the chaos in Washington DC andwhat we, as leaders in higher
education, should be on thelookout for.
(02:24):
What can we learn about thedialogue that's happening in
this country?
So, before I jump into thatinterview, I do want to take a
moment to just reflect on thelast.
I don't know what.
It's been just about 90 dayssince this year started.
For some, it feels like thisyear has taken forever, no doubt
(02:45):
, regardless of where you're at,on the left or the right or
somewhere in between.
There's been a lot going on inthis country and in the world,
and let me spend a little bit oftime focused on higher
education.
One of our listeners recentlyleft me a message asking me to
answer the question.
Left me a message asking me toanswer the question what's going
on with the Department ofEducation?
(03:06):
So, Al J, I want to take thistime to respond to your question
.
I've said a lot on this podcastabout the Department of
Education and there is no doubtthat the Department of Education
, department of Labor,department of Commerce, any of
the agencies that are part ofthe federal government
(03:26):
bureaucracy that touch andsupport and interact with higher
education in this countryshould be reviewed, should be
streamlined in higher education.
I can certainly attest to thefact that there is too much
(03:47):
bureaucracy and that theregulation does not always make
sense to everyday working classfamilies throughout this country
.
We have overcomplicated ourhigher education system and so
I'm all for reviewing,dismantling, rethinking how the
Department of Education does itswork and why it exists.
(04:08):
I am not one of those peoplethat thinks that somebody should
come in with a chainsaw andjust eliminate the Department of
Education.
I think that's wrongheaded.
I think it's reckless.
A lot of institutions, a lot ofpeople, a lot of states all of
our states rely on a healthyfederal government and for our
(04:29):
Department of Education to beable to support the educational
pursuits of learners throughoutthis country.
Now there's a whole part of theDepartment of Education that is
focused on K-12 education.
I'm not going to get into that,but I will say that the federal
government's role in highereducation has become critically
(04:50):
important, whether you'retalking about access to Title V,
federal student aid, thesupport that every low and
moderate-income learner getsfrom the federal government to
be able to afford the cost ofeducation, and moderate income
learner gets from the federalgovernment to be able to afford
the cost of education.
Now, I would agree that thefederal government has sometimes
(05:14):
fueled the increased cost ofeducation throughout this
country, but the federalgovernment does have a role in
supporting learning, insupporting the pursuit of higher
learning for Americans of allbackgrounds.
So to just say that you'regoing to eliminate that, I think
, is wrong-headed.
Now, are there ways tostreamline the Department of
(05:35):
Education?
Yes, is the federal student aidprocess too complicated?
Yes, does it need morestreamlining?
Yes, is the cost of educationtoo high?
Yes, and I think most Americansfeel that, which is why they
feel this angst.
But I do not believe theDepartment of Education should
(05:57):
just go away and leave thepieces there on the table for
other people to figure out howwe're going to reconstruct the
work that it does, because thework that it does isn't going
away.
Managing some of these programsthat Congress put into place to
make America more competitivecannot go away.
(06:18):
So what does this mean goingforward?
To me, it means finding peopleon both sides of the aisle to
come together to work onsolutions that improve the
functioning of our government.
Okay, only those people thatdon't need government are the
ones claiming that it should beeliminated.
But everyday Americansthroughout this country rely on
(06:42):
well-meaning, efficientgovernment.
Rely on well-meaning, efficientgovernment and, to the extent
that we can make the Departmentof Education more efficient by
making it focus on things thatmatter to states, things that
matter to learners and I thinkthere is a way forward there.
Certainly, the bipartisanpolicy centers, efforts to
create the Commission on theAmerican Workforce, are working
(07:05):
on solutions.
So I don't dismiss everythingthat's been said about the
Department of Education.
I could argue all day long thatthis whole DOJA effort is more
theater than reality.
But hopefully, hopefully, therewill be people on both sides of
the aisle that can come togetherto come up with common sense
(07:28):
solutions that help moreAmericans of all backgrounds
gain the skills and competenciesthey need in order to better
participate in the economy oftoday and the economy that AI is
transforming, going forward andif you listen to this podcast,
you know that I've had manyguests who've come up with many
(07:50):
solutions, whether it's the workthat they're doing, the
practices that they aresupporting, the transparency
that they're fighting for all ofthose issues, this is the time
for them to come together tocreate a better Department of
Education, a better Departmentof Labor and a better Department
of Commerce that together workto ensure that we have the most
(08:13):
talented workforce and the mostresilient workforce and that
it's working for working classfamilies.
All right, I will jump off myrant, jump off my soapbox.
All right, I will jump off myrant, jump off my soapbox and
with that, please enjoy myconversation with my good friend
, mike Madrid.
Mike, welcome to the RantPodcast.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's great to be with you again.
I've done it before.
It's been a while, but alwaysgreat.
If you ask me back, it means itmust have gone okay the first
time.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It went okay the first time.
It's going to even better thesecond time.
So thanks for visiting with us.
I know you've got a lot goingon, a lot going on in your world
.
A lot going on in politicsthese days, yeah, and your world
involves the politics of voters.
Let's start with your career.
So you've spent much of yourcareer digging into data,
(09:06):
digging into voter data, yeah,and you've become, as far as I'm
concerned, the expert in Latinovoter data and what it's
telling us as a society, whatit's telling candidates for
office office.
You've also been critical aboutthe messaging, particularly
(09:28):
whether it's on the Republicanside, the Democrat side and how
you feel Latino voters have sortof been left behind in this
conversation.
That's right, you recently wrotea book called the Latino
Century.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
The Latino Century, how America's Largest Minority
is Transforming Democracy.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's good news for me and my kids.
We're looking forward totransforming democracy In the
current political environment.
I mean, we're sitting here, youknow, nearly 100 days into the
administration, nearly 100 daysinto the chaos machine, the
administration, the 100 daysinto the chaos machine.
How are you feeling aboutpolitics right now and what do
(10:11):
you see going forward is goingto be the role of Latino voters
in statewide elections, incongressional elections coming
up?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's a big question.
I'm going to just say broadly,at the national level, I think
this is a dark moment.
I think that's fair to say,because so many of the basic
foundational assumptions thatwe've made about America are
being challenged and it seemsand feels like there's a growing
part of the American population, certainly the electorate, that
(10:42):
is moving in a directionopposite of what we have
historically known and believedAmerica to be the respect for
constitutional law, the normsthat have kind of guided us,
these guardrails you hear a lotabout.
But in many ways I believe thatwhat is happening again at the
very highest levels, thetectonic plates of politics,
(11:04):
what is happening is we aretransforming into a new type of
hybrid democracy that has to bereconstituted for this digital
age, that we're in the oldchecks and balance system, which
I think I'm not saying we needto throw it out, but what I am
saying is it was perfectlycrafted for the industrial age,
when all of our humaninstitutions were hierarchical
(11:26):
and where everything was topdown, including the government
that we built, and that doesn'twork in the age of information,
in this internet era, in thisdigital age, when information
flows are horizontal and unlesswe adapt our institutions, which
are basically those things weagree on as society to to say
this are what facts are.
(11:47):
This is the institutiondesigned to help us with our
health and information andgovernment services.
Unless we're able to rethinkthose for this new age, I think
the future will be very, verychaotic.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I thought about in your book the Latino Century,
about the Latino voting block.
If you can say that I mean itis Latinos, made up of different
ethnicities, differentbackgrounds, different
geographies in America.
Yeah, you and I come from asimilar geography
Mexican-American households.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Dodger fans.
Dodger fans of course.
Those doyers.
I thought that was the onlyfans that Mejiano supported, but
I guess there's a couple othersout there.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
There are other teams out there, but you talk a lot
about how the messaging has sortof missed the mark with that
voting block.
What do you think Latino votersare looking for in?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
messaging from a candidate.
What are they?
Speaker 1 (12:45):
looking for for themselves.
Looking for in messaging from acandidate what are they looking
?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
for for themselves, for their families, for their
children, going forward.
So the data on this has beenvery, very clear for 30 years.
It's economics, and I'll talkabout that specifically, but a
lot of people might say, well,duh, but the political construct
that we've allowed to developin this country, for very good
reasons, casts this need to havenon-white voters and white
(13:11):
voters being in bipolaropposites with one another.
That's important because thathas restricted both sides of the
aisle from speaking to amulti-ethnic working class issue
about the economy.
And as long as we have hadthese notions of what a minority
(13:32):
voter is meaning reallyessentially what we mean by that
is the non-white then thatestablishes a primacy of race
and ethnicity for those votersthrough which they view the
world, race and ethnicity forthose voters through which they
view the world, and the data forLatinos on that has really
never borne that out to be true,but it's so deeply etched in
(13:53):
our DNA as a country because ofour black and white history,
because of our original sin ofslavery, because of the
institutions that we built andthe policy solutions that we've
addressed to both perpetuate andameliorate that black-white
paradigm.
We've always thrown non-whitepeople into this bucket of
non-white people and just callthem minorities or people of
(14:14):
color.
The term Latino is hardly auseful term because of that
diversity.
The term people of color istruly not useful because of the
experiences and how differentthey are.
It's a long way of saying thethrough line between all of the
latino diasporas cubans,venezuelans, puerto ricans,
mexican americans is the bluecollar economic through line.
(14:38):
It is becoming and replacingethnic labels and ethnic
prioritization for these votersand for our families and the way
we perceive the world.
Once we understand that thatblue-collar ethic as Latinos are
the fastest-growing segment ofthe blue-collar worker and the
fastest-growing segment of theRepublican Party, we start to, I
think, understand why we'reseeing voting behavior moving to
(15:01):
the right, but also thispopulist anti-establishment
sentiment that is really thedefining feature, much more than
a movement towards conservatism.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Let me dive into your last point, because I think
that's an interesting point.
There's this anti-establishmentmovement versus.
Are these voters moving to theright or anywhere else?
Correct?
These voters moving to theright or anywhere else?
Correct?
Based on this last presidentialelection, a lot of people were
(15:31):
expressing concern or joy thattheir message carried Latino
voters to the right.
Do you see that they weremoving to the right because of
the political messaging or werethey moving toward the new
president?
Because of something elsebecause of this
(15:52):
anti-establishment movement.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
That's a great question and I think it's a
foundational question.
There's very little evidence,almost no evidence, that Latinos
are becoming more conservative.
There's overwhelming evidencethat Latinos are becoming more
populist, more conservative.
There's overwhelming evidencethat Latinos are becoming more
populist, and what I mean bythat is we are the fastest
growing segment of the no partypreference decline to state
movement.
We are leaving both partiesfaster than any other group.
(16:15):
Our voting behavior ismanifesting in that by leaving
the Democratic Party, and again,not for ideological reasons,
but the Democratic Party hashistorically been at such a high
bar for Latinos the only placeto kind of come is down right,
and so in many ways theRepublican Party is winning
Latino votes, despite their bestefforts.
Not because of them and thisanti-establishment sentiment
(16:40):
interestingly most acutely inour politics Latinos have a
higher level of trust andconfidence in most social
institutions broadly.
The one exception, twoexceptions the Republican and
Democratic Party, and the reasonis because neither party has
been speaking to our concerns, Iwould argue, for decades now.
It manifested as low voterturnout, which has been plaguing
(17:02):
us for decades in places likeCalifornia.
Voter turnout which has beenplaguing us for decades in
places like California, wherethe Republican Party was never
an option, but the DemocraticParty wasn't speaking to or
addressing concerns.
And that's not Mike Madridsaying that, that's the data
saying that.
And now what you're seeing isthe anti-Republican sentiment
that was really endemic in theLatino vote for the past 30
years is gone.
(17:22):
Vote for the past 30 years.
It's gone.
And once that is gone, oncethat sentiment is gone, it opens
up a whole new era ofopportunities for Latino voters,
who are very populist, tolisten to the populist party
which is the Republican Party atthis moment.
It's not the conservative party, it's not the traditional jobs,
taxes, free trade, you knowstrong foreign policy.
(17:47):
It's protectionist, it'sisolationist, it's very um
anti-establishment.
It's drained the swamp.
There's a reason why berniesanders did as well as he did
with latinos and donald trump isdoing as well is the
anti-establishment sentiment isreally pervasive in the
community now in in your bookand, by the way, I really
enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It really resonated with me.
Now I think you're a thirdgeneration Mexican-American a
second generation, yeah.
But the changes that you seehappening in and I'll just focus
on the Mexican-Americancommunity, I'm sure it's similar
to other second, thirdgeneration Latino communities is
the way that second and thirdgeneration voters feel versus
(18:34):
how their parents who may havebeen that first generation.
That certainly manifesteditself, certainly when I was
growing up.
Ronald Reagan captured theimagination of a lot of
Mexican-Americans in mycommunity.
I wound up voting that direction.
I joined the army because ofhim.
(18:55):
It's a very different dynamictoday.
How do you see the evolutionhappening?
Over time now that there are somany young Latinos in America
and they're second, third, somefourth generation, yeah, and
that's really important.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What you're getting at and again this is the crux of
the book is the reason whyLatino voters, latino voting
patterns, are shifting isbecause Latino voters themselves
are shifting.
Latino voting patterns areshifting is because Latino
voters themselves are shifting.
The explosion of the Latinovoters and we've just passed
African Americans, passed blackvoters in 2020.
The numbers are going to startgrowing exponentially now.
(19:37):
In the voter rolls nationwide,80% of it is US born and now, as
I'm studying this stuff, in my50s, when I was studying this in
my 20s, there was no fourthgeneration cohort big enough to
study.
Now we can look at fourthgeneration Latinos and say what
do fourth generation Latinoshave in common with third and
second and first recentlynaturalized?
And what we've realized isthey're tectonically different.
(19:59):
They're massively different.
Different, and that you knowit's kind of commonsensical now,
but the the presupposition, thepremise of both major parties
up until two years ago was thatnon-white voters vote like
non-white voters, as a block.
Because of the only examplewe've had, which is black voters
for 250 years that have votedas a block, or at least 150
(20:20):
years after the after suffrageand, you know, the civil war,
black voters have voted 75 8080%as a true bloc.
Latinos have never met thosemetrics and now, as we're at
47-53, I mean, even as somebodywho's been studying this, I
never thought we'd be at almost50-50.
And I would argue Trump is notbringing Latinos into the
(20:42):
Republican Party.
He's actually restrictingfurther growth.
Candidates in California likeSteve Garvey, outperformed
Donald Trump In every Houseswing district.
Republicans did better thanTrump nationwide.
So there's over.
Ron DeSantis, greg Abbott, allthese governors of of these
(21:04):
states that are doing well withlatino voters have either met or
exceeded where donald trump'snumbers were.
All of those just mountains ofevidence saying if donald trump
had not been the nominee, if ithad been like a nicki haley type
candidate, right thenrepublicans would have won the
hispanic vote, the latino vote,which again is, is tectonic, but
it reminds.
It reminds us.
We're not witnessing apolitical moment, we're
witnessing a demographictransformation.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Right.
How do you see religion playinginto this?
So many Latino immigrantscertainly Mexican-American
immigrants first, secondgeneration came here as
Catholics and that was a bigpart of the way that families
thought they voted.
That seems to be changing a lotmore today.
(21:50):
Is there a split based onreligion, or do you think the
economic issues continue tooverwhelm any of the underlying
issues of religion?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Well, that's a great question, and in many ways, the
answer to that latter part ofyour question is no different
than everybody else.
If you're a practicingfaith-based person, regardless
of what your faith base is,you're much more likely to vote
for Republicans, including beingJewish or a Protestant or a
Catholic.
If you're going every Sunday orSaturday to services and you're
(22:24):
observant, your politics arenaturally more conservative.
But let's talk about religionas part of the Latino culture.
Your politics are naturallymore conservative, but let's
talk about religion as part ofthe Latino culture.
In 1980, when I was eight ornine years old, 80% of Latinos
in this country were Catholic.
Now that number's under 50%.
That's how fast the decline ofCatholicism has happened, and
(22:47):
there has been an increase inevangelical movements,
particularly amongst the firstgeneration, but not exclusively.
It's pretty broad, but and thisis really important for every
one Latino that leavesCatholicism and becomes an
evangelical or Protestant toleave religion altogether.
So Latinos in their spiritualtrajectory are starting to
(23:13):
resemble the overall electoratealso, and so in many ways, while
assimilation is benefitingRepublicans on economic issues,
it is also benefiting Democratson cultural issues.
So where we used to be thiskind of nominally or marginally
pro-life constituency 25 yearsago.
We are now strongly apro-choice community because of
the explosion of us born latinasprimarily, but latinos also as
(23:37):
well.
So we are becoming lessfaith-based, but where we are
maintaining those levels, it isa much more conservative,
orthodox, republican-ish type ofreligion so let's, so let's
switch tracks a little bit.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You've sort of laid out what's going on in the
Latino voter bloc, the changesthat we've seen happening a lot
we can see in, certainly, thelast election and the election
before that coming into thislast one, the last election and
the election before that cominginto this last one, the audience
that.
I talked to is primarily highereducation, leaders, policymakers
(24:17):
, and higher education right nowis really struggling with a
somewhat of an identity crisis.
A lot of people questioning theinstitution as a whole, the
leadership, the valueproposition, and now you've got
an administration who isdefinitely seeing an opportunity
(24:42):
to dismantle the framework thatwe have lived with for a couple
hundred years.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
A lot of it relates to how the public thinks about
the value that they're gettingfrom their college or university
and the concern about the cost.
In my day job at CollegeFutures, we publish a lot of
studies in California andnationwide about how people feel
(25:10):
about higher education and timeand time again when they
express their number one concern, it's cost.
And although they have concernsabout the institutions, they
still believe that their sonsand daughters need to go get
some sort of higher education.
So there's still this beliefthat they want their sons and
(25:31):
daughters to have greateropportunity, but more and more
they are questioning the valueof a higher education.
And so how should highereducation leaders think about
talking to underservedcommunities?
And I say that broadly becausewhether it's a poor, rural white
community, whether it's anAfrican American community, a
(25:54):
Latino community, low andmoderate income families are
really struggling with this,with their belief in higher
education.
How would you recommend, basedon what you're seeing from voter
sentiment, what would yourrecommendation be to leaders
about how to speak toprospective students and their
(26:15):
families?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
This is a great question, as always, I will say
this At a time, at this verypopulist moment in American
history.
Perhaps the institution that Ithink is the most vulnerable,
exposed and enabled to makeadjustments is the academy.
(26:37):
I think higher education hasvery, very particularly unique
problems, which is going to makeit vulnerable because of its
inability to adjust, and what Imean by that is in the intro.
You said you know changing thenorms and the structures of what
we've lived with for 250 years.
I'm not too sure that's right.
I would say since thepost-World War II era, the way
(27:01):
we have viewed the idea, as JohnHenry Newman would say, the
idea of a university and thepurpose of higher education
really changed in the post-WorldWar II era.
As we reached the Americancentury and we started to
industrialize at a much moremodern, faster pace than the
rest of the world, the focus ofhigher education became about a
(27:22):
return on investment.
Prior to that it was, you know,learning to learn and
philosophizing and becoming abetter human and a true,
classically liberal artseducation well, and it was only
for a very few very select,elite few, overwhelmingly men,
white men, of course.
but when we did make thoseadjustments, we again focused
(27:44):
and started to focus, and I'mnot saying right or wrong.
I'm saying we started to focuson the return on investment,
which is kind of where we'rereally heading now, and this is
now with that long Mike Madridwindup.
This is the particular problemthat higher education faces.
The cash on cash return oninvestment of a higher education
in the digital age isn't reallybearing out.
(28:04):
But and this is very importanttoo the single largest
demarcation point in thiscountry is whether or not you
have a college degree, and whenI was a younger political
consultant, that used to beincome.
But those are not the same.
And the mistake that I think alot of people are making is that
(28:25):
, well, we're just talking aboutcollege educated people,
meaning we're higher educationpeople.
That is not true.
The political decision-makingthat is happening is based off
of what happens to an individualwhen they have the benefit of a
higher education, which is achanging cultural and life
(28:45):
perception of their humanity.
It is not based off of whetheror not you're earning more or
less.
Let me give you a real-lifeexample.
It is not based off of whetheror not you're earning more or
less.
So let me give you a real lifeexample.
It is far more likely that youwill be progressive or on the
left if you go to college andbecome a teacher making $55,000
or $60,000 a year than if youare a high school graduate who
is a contractor who makes$120,000 a year.
(29:07):
You're much more likely to be aRepublican.
So, even though you're makingmore right as a republican, it's
the differential is the collegedegree is what makes the
difference, and it's why you'rehearing the american right
actively saying don't go tocollege, do not go to college.
And the reason is because whatis manifesting on the right and
(29:27):
there is some truth to thiscollege is really a lot of what
university and higher educationare about now is changing those
perceptions of cultural norms,prioritizing that as opposed to
getting a return on theinvestment of going to get a
degree and developing a skillthat you can monetize.
Does that make sense?
(29:47):
Yeah, and as the party'scoalitions change, as the
republicans become more workingclass, their messaging is
valorizing that return oninvestment and not going to go
get a woke mind virus on ahigher education campus, like
literally, that's the languagethat they'll use.
What we're hearing from thehigher education community in
(30:09):
response is well, we're kind ofthe gatekeepers to enlightenment
and in many ways, yeah, youwill, in the long run, get more
money if you get a collegedegree.
We don't exactly know that inthe digital age yet there hasn't
been a long-term run atearnings capacity.
It suggests that there probablyis, is, but certainly not for a
while.
(30:30):
And the second is again, thischanged political perspective
has become a truly definingfeature of the politics of this
voter.
And in a country where only 40percent of americans have a
college degree, voters, right,you're already naturally
speaking to a minority, anyway,a pretty considerable minority.
(30:52):
And so higher education is isgoing to continue to keep
talking to itself, reassertingits own bias and unable to
communicate to the broaderaudience that it needs to in
order to allow belief in its ownsystem.
Belief in its own system,belief in its own value, both
economically, morally,spiritually however you want to
define it and certainlypolitically.
(31:14):
These are becoming reallylimiting and rather than, I
think, expanding that messaging,the likelihood of it
contracting is far, far greater.
Right, which is why it willbecome a point of attack very
soon.
Right, federal funding we'regoing to get into everything
from Title IX on sports to howmuch money we're giving the UC
system, based off of researchdollars that it's incredibly
(31:36):
reliant on, if it continues topractice or teach these
ideologies that are not givingus a return on investment but
are pushing a Marxist agenda, orwhatever the right wing says
that it is, and the academy isnot going to.
The academy is going to dig inand fight on that.
You have entire professors anddepartments built on that.
They're not just going to belike, okay, I'll go do something
(31:58):
else with my whatever degree.
They're going to dig in andfight and they're going to lose
that fight in the court ofpublic opinion.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Well, you know, I have this conversation a lot.
I used to have thisconversation a lot.
I used to have thisconversation a lot with our
former governor, jerry Brown,who, interestingly enough, never
liked the notion of DEI.
So my conversation with himwould usually go Governor DEI
(32:26):
isn't in my mind, isn't anacademic issue, it isn't a
philosophical issue, it is aneconomic issue.
I need, when I was chancellor,our colleges to ensure that they
are reaching a broad basemembers in their community,
(32:46):
which naturally, in California,means that they're going to be
diverse, that they're providingequal footing, giving them
opportunity and making sure thatthey're inclusive.
Now, those three words havebeen hijacked over time.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
And I would agree that in many cases there's been
sort of an echo chamberconversation going on campus
about those three words andwe've lost the notion that we
need to continue to show thepublic what kind of return on
investment they're getting fromthe education that their sons
(33:24):
and daughters and neighbors andcousins and aunts and uncles are
getting on a college campus.
Colleges and universitiesshould be open to a variety of
thought.
They should question ourhistory.
That doesn't make usun-American.
That makes us more educated,yes, but we fell into the trap
(33:48):
of only highlighting that pieceand gave the loudest microphones
to individuals on campuses,whether they be student groups,
outside groups, faculty groups,who just wanted to go back and
forth on this question of DEI orfind everything that's wrong
with the way that we think aboutthings and pick on that.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah, you didn't just fall into the trap.
I don't mean you.
Higher education didn't justfall into the trap.
It institutionalized that rightand it incentivized that as an
end unto itself.
You're saying something reallyimportant, which is there's got
to be a market-based solution tothis.
Every company, every majorcompany in America, should be
(34:32):
looking at an increasinglydiverse consumer base,
increasingly diverse workforce,increasingly diverse leadership.
Not because it's the morallyright things do.
Because there's money, it'sgood business.
And if history is a guide, oncethe market forces change to
accommodate that, social changefollows very quickly.
(34:53):
A couple of examples well,everything from martin luther
king's boycott right in the 60s,let's shut down the buses.
Once there's a marketimperative and we show you the
market, you're going to comeback and use the bus, right, if
not, we'll walk one.
Two gay marriage once unitedairlines, which had a hub in san
francisco, started saying we'regoing to have domestic
partnership benefits.
(35:13):
I don't care what the law says,these are our employees, we're
going to protect them.
Everything in corporate americachanged and hasn't come back.
Dave roberts, from the dodgersduring the george floyd, you
know, after the george floydmurder, says I'm not going to
atlanta to manage the all-starteam.
So what do they do?
Mlb is like we got a bigproblem.
Our employees are saying, no,they moved it to Denver at the
(35:37):
drop of a hat.
That's what moves these things.
It's not going to be theend-all, be-all of the
curriculum that we're trying toteach.
Does that make sense?
Right, and because it has beenso calcified and structured in
the academy, you can't justextricate it or change it next
semester.
People's entire careers anddoctorate work and research work
(36:00):
has been predicated on goingdown these roads and becoming
teachers and and and researchassistants and and and
furthering on their careers inthe academy.
You can't reform that.
You can't.
And that was like I said.
It wasn't just falling into thetrap, it was institutionalizing
it.
And so when those attacks comeand they will from the federal
(36:20):
government the only people thatare going to be defending those
people will be the people in theivory tower.
I don't mean that disparagingly,maybe it is, apologize if it is
, but they will be isolatedwhere people are going.
Why are we teaching that?
Why are?
What is the value of that?
There's a course of study, andnot just because you need to
have go to college step to bemore prepared economically
(36:41):
although you should.
But are we really teaching theidea of the university?
Are we teaching people to learnor are we teaching them a new
history or a yeah, a history?
It doesn't mean that it isn'tcomplimentary.
I think it is.
It is an accurate history, itis an accurate perspective, but
(37:02):
at what point are we doing thatto the detriment of getting a
degree for the society thatwe've created economically?
And that's where it's happeningis.
We're graduating students thatdo have a different perspective
of the world, but they're notable to work in the economy that
we're providing, and so, yeah,you end up with tons of I'm not
saying this is the only reason,but there's a lot of student
(37:23):
debt with the inability to get ajob in the economy that we have
, and so then you've got ahopeless generation.
That's kind of like I, andagain, I'm not saying that I'm
oversimplifying.
There's a lot of reasons as towhy there's college debt, but
that is no doubt one of them iswe're not graduating a whole lot
of people that are getting jobsimmediately with that return on
investment.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, no, and I think this is where leaders in higher
education, whether they're oncampuses or in system offices
this is the conversation I thinkthey need to be having is
asking the question about howhave we positioned ourselves?
How do we defend what is mostimportant about a university or
(38:01):
college campus?
But think about how we've sortof created our own target on our
back.
Yeah, our own target on ourback.
Yeah, you know we've gotten sowrapped up in is the right
nomenclature?
Latinx Is the rightnomenclature, bipoc Is the right
nomenclature, and only peoplein the small circle of the
(38:26):
academy engage and understandthat conversation.
I get why they're having it.
Yeah, I do too.
They want to give voice todifferent perspectives and
different people.
But at the end of the day Imean in your book you talk about
the different names that youknow we've been called and
growing up myself, I could neverunderstand who I was.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Was I Mexican-American, was I Chicano?
Was.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
I Latino.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Whatever Exactly?
Speaker 1 (38:55):
And it's confusing.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It is confusing and I do understand and I respect the
whole process of all of thatand I frankly enjoy the
intellectual discussion of it,but we're literally creating new
languages for people who don'tmatch that experience.
And when you're that farremoved, you need to take some
self-inventory in saying whatare we doing other than having
these discussions amongstacademics?
(39:18):
Because we're not solving theworld's problems.
In fact, we're getting furtherremoved from them, and I'm not
suggesting that solving theworld's problems is what the job
of the academy is either.
There's some virtue and,frankly, being in an ivory tower
because it does lead todifferent.
You know schools of thought andI appreciate all of that, but
what I will say is we have sofocused on it, we have so lost a
(39:42):
sense of priority in all of ourinstitutions, that the revolt
that we're seeing in Americanpolitics today is really that
this populist sentiment I'vebeen talking about is a revolt
against institutions.
And so people will say, mike,how can that be when the
broligarics and these high-techbillionaires are working with
(40:03):
poor people and working classpeople Like, how does that
coalition work?
To me it's very easilyexplainable.
It's a revolt against theprofessional class.
It's against the people thatactually run these institutions
which are less and less relevant, which exist to perpetuate
themselves, to get more and moremoney, more and more credential
degrees, more and more tenure,more and more whatever it is to
(40:25):
protect yourself, to keep doingthings that aren't the job of a
plumber who's got to go andactually fix a leak, like
there's actual, real, real worldvalue to that immediately.
Now right, everybody needs aplumber, and this plumber
doesn't get the benefit ofsaying you know, I've got a
system that I can rig, where Idon't have to go, kind of do
that, and then it's a crass term, rigging the system, but but
(40:48):
not really.
And that's definitely thesentiment of the working class.
They don't begrudge the wealthywe never have in this country,
but what we do begrudge is thepeople that are perpetuating a
system that they believe isrigged to their own advantage or
to be self-perpetuating to noends.
And that's what most of ourinstitutions have become,
(41:08):
especially the academy.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So, mike, you've spent a lot of time thinking
about this.
When higher education leadersthink about how to deal with
different communities, what isin your mind?
What is the mega community?
If I'm a higher ed leader andI'm having to confront more and
(41:31):
more people who considerthemselves to be part of the
MAGA movement, whether on campusstudents, faculty community
members how do you explain that,and what should people know
about how to communicate?
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I think the one common thread of kind of the
MAGA movement is understandingthat it is defined not by what
it's for but by what it'sagainst.
And in a time when, again, weare literally, as a species,
communicating and processinginformation differently than we
ever have before, ourcommunication channels are much
(42:08):
more horizontal.
When we used to get the expertsat the national institute of
health or, you know, the popefrom the church or the president
of united states top down, wenow have a million different
experts that you can choose fromright your experts yeah, we've.
That has never been the case inhuman history.
All of our species, since wecrawled out of the cave and the
(42:29):
guy with the biggest club.
We all follow this strongleader, all of our institutions,
from the monarchy to you nameit the corporation.
It's all top down.
We are now learning as aspecies to learn horizontally
the world, because krugman wouldsay the world is flat, right
and it's now just hitting thelast of our institutions.
(42:49):
And as that happens, we have torecognize that ultimately, maga
is animated by that push.
They may not articulate it thatway, but basically what they're
saying is I'm against theinstitutions, whichever it is
that I feel is somehow notallowed me to be all that.
I can be right.
And that may be the collegeuniversity system, because it's
(43:10):
just producing a bunch of wokepeople.
Maybe I didn't go to college,maybe I did.
I got a bunch of debt.
I don't care about it.
Maybe it's the job market,because it's just producing a
bunch of woke people.
Maybe I didn't go to college,maybe I did and I got a bunch of
debt and I don't care about it.
Maybe it's the job market,because it's terrible because
people are outsourcing to otherplaces and other countries.
Maybe it's the media, becausewhat CNN is saying is not the
same thing as what the DailyStormer whatever the hell it is
you're listening to says.
All of these things are areaction to a breaking down and
(43:32):
siloing, and we believe, really,what has become a cultural
value in Silicon Valley, whichis disruption for disruption's
sake, and in that disruption,what I think we're going to
learn in very short order isthere's a value to social
institutions, and that value,first and foremost, is a common
agreement on whatever it is,however unjust they are and may
(43:53):
be.
I'm not saying that they don'tneed to be fixed, they do.
But as a human species, as apolitical not in the republican
democratic, but in the in thehuman need to interact with one
another species, as a politicalanimal, human beings need to
have common sets of agreement.
This is the way.
Red means stop, green means golike.
We have to agree on some basicthings, right.
(44:16):
And so when we're talking tothis increasing MAGA movement,
we have to understand that itultimately emanates from this
loss of confidence and this deepand growing belief that the
more hierarchical theinstitution, the more damaging
and, frankly, more threateningit is to my life, and it's not
particular to MAGA.
This is the language you hearfrom Elizabeth Warren, bernie
(44:40):
Sanders.
It's the populist elements ofthe left where they say if you
put the adjective big in frontof everything, it's
automatically evil.
Big plastic, big oil, big banksit's this libertarian movement.
It's this populist left BernieSanders movement.
It's Donald Trump.
Libertarian movement.
It's this populist left BernieSanders movement, it's Donald
Trump.
(45:00):
And so what's happening is theDemocrats have de facto become
the defenders of institutionsbroadly at a time when they're
becoming indefensible.
So if you're in California andthese fires go up suddenly,
we're really talking about waterconveyance system and the
mismanagement of that.
We're talking about the Deltasmelt.
We're talking about CEQA.
We're talking about the CoastalCommission.
We're talking about everythingexcept for what is really going
(45:21):
on, and it's getting.
You can feel this palpablesentiment amongst Californians
going.
These institutions are sobroken, so deeply, so broadly,
that we can't keep homelesspeople off the street.
We can't stop megafires fromcoming through.
We can't stop the EmploymentDevelopment Department from
being ripped off by $800 billionand not knowing where it's
(45:41):
going.
We can't stop an $11 billionhigh-speed rail train to nowhere
Like.
Our priorities are completelyout of whack and the Democrats
find themselves defending all ofthese things when, candidly, a
lot of these are just notdefensible.
And so what's going to happenthrough this process, through
this?
In many ways, it's like aprairie fire that burns off all
(46:03):
of this brush.
It's going to strip us down tothe basics of what is important
USAID do we really need aDepartment of Education?
And we just do it with blockgrants?
I'm not an advocate for whatTrump's doing.
You know who I am.
You know my story.
I burned down my careerfighting this guy.
I think this is a very bad,dark moment, but I'm also not
(46:25):
fooling myself to say this isn'thappening for a reason.
There's a growing sentiment forit for a reason, and unless we
pay attention and understand, itwill consume us.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Right?
No, I mean, I think those of uswho identify as Democrats and
who have worked in highereducation, we all know, we all
know we've complained about theDepartment of Education for
years.
There are things there, thereare things in many institutions,
that year after year we askourselves why do we do things
this way?
So and I get that we're in amoment where it just seems like
(47:00):
everything's threatened.
So we want to defend it Correctand I'm not saying that we
shouldn't defend it Correct.
But as we're defending it, weshould also be looking to see
how we can really change whatneeds to be changed.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Let's look for the opportunities in this really
scary time because they arethere, by the way and when the
political reality does comecrashing down and it will.
Economically, we're alreadyseeing prices starting to rise.
We're seeing the world orderdissolving when we're
threatening military action inPanama and Greenland and NATO is
dissolving, there is going tobe an emergent need, a human
(47:35):
need, it's not even an Americanneed a human need to start
saying wait a second, we needthese things to work and when
they do, the opportunity isthere to say let me, in my role
in this institution, strip thisdown to the basic elements.
What should we be talking about?
This may offend people, but isChicano studies as important as
(47:56):
electrical engineering?
And I I say that specificallyfor a reason.
These chicano professors havebeen fighting me all the time,
saying no, this is about raceand ethnicity.
I'm like no, it's about theeconomy, and I think history has
proven me right.
The democrats hired a bunch ofacademics to do their polling
and that's where you got latinx.
That's where you get this.
These, these messages, thesepolitical messages that are not
(48:17):
speaking to blue collar workingclass people right.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, well, it was interesting to me is watching
the oval office scene where elonmusk explaining what he was
doing and he said something thatwas really intriguing to me.
He said we are becoming abureaucracy, not a democracy,
and I had to step back and thinkto somebody like Elon Musk, he
(48:42):
doesn't need the bureaucracy,he's well taken care of, but
that bureaucracy serves a lot ofpeople and you need a
bureaucracy to have a healthydemocracy.
I agree we may have gone toofar, but I hope people take
notice while we're tearing allthis stuff down.
(49:03):
It's really about what do wekeep, how do we make it better
and how do we ensure that it isserving the people that it needs
to serve?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
and if we do that, I think we're going to be okay.
The problem is and again, I'mnot justifying this at all I've
fought against this.
I've been very public, as manyor more than most Americans,
about what's going on.
But we have a civil service fora reason.
We have a bureaucracy, for areason.
You don't want government runlike a startup.
You want it protected fromthose sentiments.
(49:36):
It's not a startup, it's notallowed to fail and you just
create another LLC, anothergovernment, try again.
And that is the ethic of thetechnocrat, the technologists,
the Thiels, the Musks, thosefolks, and I get that.
I disagree with it as a way ofrunning a government, running a
(49:59):
government, but I alsounderstand it, because
institutions have proven overhistory they are extremely
incapable of reformingthemselves.
And so that's your last pointis really important what can we
literally not do without?
What are the critical,essential features?
And that may give us the toolsto understand how to build
institutions for the digital age, not for the industrial age.
(50:21):
And that's where the academy isgoing to have to do some really
tough decision making, becausea lot of what it's doing is not
built for this age.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, it was built to resist change.
That was intentionally builtthat way for many good reasons,
but we're in a moment now wherethings are changing so fast that
it's going to have to relearnhow it responds.
Let me ask you one lastquestion as we begin to wrap up
what's next for Mike Maduro?
(50:52):
What are you looking forward todoing now that?
You are off the presidentialcampaign trail.
What are you looking forward to?
What does the next year?
Speaker 2 (51:06):
hold for you.
It's a great question, thismany, many months long look at
where I can be most effective inhelping what is emerging from
this era of what I call thegreat transformation.
I write on my sub stack.
If anybody follows on sub stack, I write on these topics weekly
.
We are entering the digital age.
(51:27):
We are transforming ourinstitutions.
Some are collapsing, some areemerging, some are transforming.
What occurred to me was, in anage of horizontal information
flows, when lies move fasterthan facts, the only thing that
matters at this moment is story,the narrative, and so I'm
(51:50):
working a lot more onstorytelling right now, and what
that means is I'm working on ahistorical novel that talks
about.
The story is actually about thefamily rivalry between the
Cuervos and the Salsas thatcreated the tequila industry,
because I want to tell Mexicanhistory in a way that is not
about gangbangers, drug dealersand undocumented immigrants.
(52:14):
I want to talk about theentrepreneurs, the titans of
industry, the captains ofindustry and the human stories
that created the largest spiritsempire in the world.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Well, that'll be an interesting read.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
Hopefully I can come back on the rant and talk about
it.
Speaker 1 (52:29):
All right.
Well, Mike, I know you've got alot going on.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for launching intosome of these questions.
We really appreciate it.
I think it gives our listenerssomething to think about as they
begin to think about howthey're going to react over the
next several years and how tolead their institutions through
(52:52):
this period of uncertainty.
All right, well, well, thanksfor joining us everybody.
You've been listening to myconversation with mike madrid.
He's an author, he's apolitical consultant.
Soon he'll be writing his nextbook, yeah, but in the meantime,
check out the latino century.
I'll make sure and putinformation on how to get a hold
of the book in the descriptionsection of this podcast.
(53:13):
If you're watching us onYouTube, hit subscribe, continue
to follow us, and if you'relistening to us on audio,
continue to follow us on yourfavorite podcast platform.
Thanks for joining us everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
We'll see you soon, thank you.
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