WEBVTT 00:00:00.530 --> 00:00:04.050 Let's do this and then I gotta go. Here we go. Intro. Intro music. 00:00:06.270 --> 00:00:07.310 We'll be back. 00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:29.710 Welcome to Curmudgeons Corner for Saturday, October 18th, 2025, 00:00:30.290 --> 00:00:35.350 just after 1730 UTC. I am Sam Minter. We have no Ivan. 00:00:35.850 --> 00:00:39.970 Once again, he let me know at last minute that he couldn't make it. 00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:41.610 Well, not really last minute. 00:00:41.870 --> 00:00:44.970 Like we were going to record Saturday morning. He let me know Friday morning. 00:00:45.210 --> 00:00:49.650 I sent out one of my emails asking if anybody could do anything Friday night 00:00:49.650 --> 00:00:50.710 once I got home from work. 00:00:51.010 --> 00:00:54.530 And I did get one response. Todd responded. 00:00:55.530 --> 00:00:59.370 But Todd said, hey, dude, Saturday is No Kings Day. 00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:03.850 No Kings 2. I'm going to be doing that. I can't record then. 00:01:04.070 --> 00:01:10.010 And of course, my plan was to record here in the morning and do No Kings in the afternoon. 00:01:10.170 --> 00:01:14.570 But for East Coast folks, like Todd is, Todd, it would conflict. 00:01:14.990 --> 00:01:20.950 And of course, I fully support this because I am indeed about to leave for that right now. 00:01:21.110 --> 00:01:23.670 My wife is probably anxious that 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:26.770 we should have left already because she's trying to get to an earlier one. 00:01:27.270 --> 00:01:32.570 Not, I, I, I was thinking about a 1 PM one does apparently 11 PM one in a different place. 00:01:32.690 --> 00:01:35.370 We want to get to both of them. So we are going to go do that. 00:01:35.490 --> 00:01:41.650 And so I am doing the thing where I stake this podcast in the right Sunday to Saturday week. 00:01:42.310 --> 00:01:48.370 And then we go from there. I, and I will record more later. I will record my 00:01:48.370 --> 00:01:49.870 impressions of the no Kings thing. 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:54.470 And we'll do all that in the next segment of this. 00:01:54.630 --> 00:01:57.510 And I'll probably do some movies as I usually do 00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:00.370 and that that'll be the show that's the 00:02:00.370 --> 00:02:03.150 plan uh but i gotta get out of here i do have to say 00:02:03.150 --> 00:02:08.830 one thing though i i need to rag on yvonne just a little bit before i go which 00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:13.770 is the thing that he forgot until the last minute for the reason why he couldn't 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:20.810 do saturday was his anniversary you're not supposed to forget that dude it's your anniversary and. 00:02:21.570 --> 00:02:25.990 Anyway, he remembered in time. He prepared, presumably, whatever he was going 00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:29.590 to do with his wife for his anniversary. 00:02:30.110 --> 00:02:35.210 I conveniently scheduled my anniversary for January 1st. It's New Year's Day, 00:02:35.250 --> 00:02:37.550 so it's a lot harder to forget. 00:02:37.710 --> 00:02:41.770 Otherwise, I'd probably forget. I forget my own birthday all the time. 00:02:41.810 --> 00:02:48.690 I struggle to remember birthdays of loved ones, you know, but I can remember January 1st. 00:02:49.870 --> 00:02:52.590 Anyway let's do a break and then i'm out of here 00:02:52.590 --> 00:02:59.410 and we will we will finish more later so here we go break the breaky break break 00:02:59.410 --> 00:03:03.230 break break i know it's really quick and early and blah blah blah i don't have 00:03:03.230 --> 00:03:06.650 time to do the full intro this is just to make sure i've started the podcast 00:03:06.650 --> 00:03:10.010 in the right week because i don't know exactly when i'll get back to do the 00:03:10.010 --> 00:03:12.570 next part here you go guys You're. 00:03:12.570 --> 00:03:18.590 Supposed to say doo doo doo. Doo doo doo! Alex Emsala! 00:03:20.050 --> 00:03:24.030 Alex Emsala is awesome. Its videos are fun. 00:03:24.470 --> 00:03:30.810 And today, once again, we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell 00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:32.450 you how awesome Alex Emsala is. 00:03:33.430 --> 00:03:40.910 I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Emsala is awesome at, I don't know, 37? 87, 82. 00:03:41.490 --> 00:03:46.390 He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity. 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.610 And they're so funny and exciting to watch. 00:03:51.110 --> 00:03:57.030 Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that dad pretending to be you 00:03:57.030 --> 00:04:03.550 because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? 00:04:04.170 --> 00:04:09.990 Yes! Good job on remembering, dad. Do, do, do! 00:04:11.190 --> 00:04:17.450 Okay, well, I am back. As I mentioned in a little intro, I did the No Kings 00:04:17.450 --> 00:04:19.410 thing, and we can talk about that a little bit. 00:04:19.690 --> 00:04:25.910 But while I was there, I bumped into someone and somehow acquired a co-host. 00:04:26.150 --> 00:04:33.470 So let me introduce Emily Wicks, who is a co-host of the Um Sir podcast that 00:04:33.470 --> 00:04:36.430 I mentioned on the show a couple weeks ago. Welcome, Emily. 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:42.910 Hello. Welcome to be here. Welcome to be here. I'm used to welcoming people. I'm excited to be here. 00:04:43.810 --> 00:04:49.190 Awesome. Yeah. And so, yeah, I bumped into her at the No Kings thing, 00:04:49.190 --> 00:04:53.650 and then we started chatting on Facebook Messenger, and here she is. 00:04:54.090 --> 00:04:58.810 So we're going to do the rest of the show. And we've talked a little bit about 00:04:58.810 --> 00:05:02.410 what we're going to talk about, but as usual for this show, we're going to just wing it. 00:05:02.910 --> 00:05:10.710 I want to start by saying I was in preparation, knowing you would be here. 00:05:10.870 --> 00:05:15.330 I made a point of listening to the beginning of your last episode for your show 00:05:15.330 --> 00:05:17.430 of UMSUR, which came out on Wednesday. 00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:20.710 And you spent the first few minutes talking about Yvonne and I. 00:05:21.130 --> 00:05:27.930 So thank you very much for the shout outs. I enjoyed your commentary on the 00:05:27.930 --> 00:05:30.350 episode we did where we mentioned you. So. 00:05:31.150 --> 00:05:34.910 Yeah, it's fun to go back and forth on that. We've I've really been enjoying 00:05:34.910 --> 00:05:38.970 listening. It does feel like you are our older brothers, our smarter, 00:05:39.330 --> 00:05:40.730 more wise, older brothers. 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:51.780 And I definitely identify with Yvonne because he loves to chat and he needs 00:05:51.780 --> 00:05:54.860 to be reined in like Sammy needs to rein me in a lot. 00:05:55.060 --> 00:06:04.600 So I'm excited to have another Sam, but very much the same type of, you know, vibe as Sammy. 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:09.300 Absolutely yeah and so we'll we'll we'll 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:12.020 we'll talk about some of the newsy stuff and some other stuff and 00:06:12.020 --> 00:06:14.920 maybe podcasting stuff this we are 00:06:14.920 --> 00:06:17.820 going to do sort of what yvonne and i usually do we're going to have this sort 00:06:17.820 --> 00:06:22.140 of lighter looser segment and talk about a couple movies and things like that 00:06:22.140 --> 00:06:28.700 first and and then we'll take a break and then we'll do more news stuff including 00:06:28.700 --> 00:06:32.140 no kings and anything else that we want to talk about from the last week. 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:38.520 So I have a couple movies on my agenda. I know you'd mentioned perhaps having 00:06:38.520 --> 00:06:41.300 a couple that you'd seen recently that you wanted to talk about. 00:06:41.400 --> 00:06:43.740 How do you want to start? Should I do one of mine or do you want to go? 00:06:43.820 --> 00:06:50.260 Two of yours. I love it. I actually, like, when you did the update last week 00:06:50.260 --> 00:06:52.960 and I was like, oh, if I don't know the movie, it's going to be hard. 00:06:52.960 --> 00:06:57.460 But I got really into what you shared. So I love hearing about your movies and 00:06:57.460 --> 00:07:02.580 just wanting to watch. So, yeah, you start with yours and then it'll probably prompt me to watch him. 00:07:03.860 --> 00:07:10.200 Okay. Well, let's see here. I had, of course, had prepped by bringing up the Wikipedia pages. 00:07:10.400 --> 00:07:15.700 So the first stop, and, you know, I know those of you who listen a lot know 00:07:15.700 --> 00:07:22.280 this already, but I am way behind in talking about movies on this thing. 00:07:22.460 --> 00:07:24.440 You have so many movies on that list. It was overwhelming. 00:07:24.900 --> 00:07:27.080 Yeah. I mean, like, you know, 00:07:27.900 --> 00:07:32.540 I always had a hard time. Like, so first of all, the way this started on here, 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:39.720 I used to like post like little mini movie reviews when I watched movies on my blog. 00:07:40.380 --> 00:07:44.440 I have not posted anything on that blog in years now. 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:49.340 And at some point I decided, hey, you know, I can just talk about this on the podcast. 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:52.980 Sometimes, you know, we need a little something to mix up. Like we're talking 00:07:52.980 --> 00:07:57.160 about Donald Trump. We're talking about horrible world events. 00:07:57.160 --> 00:08:00.820 It's, you know, let's throw a little bit in that's like a little bit lighter. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.640 Let's talk about some movies. And so I started doing that. And, 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:09.580 you know, I have this very systematic regimented way of watching movies, 00:08:09.580 --> 00:08:13.740 which isn't necessarily the best way to do it. But, you know, it's me. 00:08:14.500 --> 00:08:17.360 And so I have this list to get through and go. 00:08:17.580 --> 00:08:22.920 And I never did a great job at keeping up because it turns out the rate at which 00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:27.500 I'm watching these and almost exclusively, I watch these with my son, 00:08:27.520 --> 00:08:29.780 Alex, the two of us sit together and watch the movies. 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:32.920 It's one of the things we do together along with some TV shows, 00:08:32.920 --> 00:08:38.080 but it turns out we typically get to more, one, more than one movie a week. 00:08:38.400 --> 00:08:44.720 So if I do one movie a week, we never catch up and the list just grows on the 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:48.240 podcast. And I'm, I'm already like the one I'm going to talk about next. 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:51.840 I watched January 7th. I barely remember watching the movie, 00:08:52.100 --> 00:08:56.740 you know, so it's not as good. like if I, if I reviewed it, like a couple of 00:08:56.740 --> 00:08:59.860 days after I watched it, it would be fresh in my memory and all that, but no. 00:09:00.160 --> 00:09:02.580 And then we had that like, 00:09:03.310 --> 00:09:09.810 Hollywood strike. And we decided not to review any movies while the strike was on. 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:14.290 So I fell much, much further behind, you know. 00:09:14.390 --> 00:09:16.850 So you had the solidarity and solidarity. 00:09:17.330 --> 00:09:22.890 And, you know, I mean, most of the movies on this list are old movies anyway, 00:09:23.210 --> 00:09:25.350 but still, still, it was the point of it, you know? 00:09:25.570 --> 00:09:30.250 So anyway, one of the things that my son and I have been doing, 00:09:30.370 --> 00:09:35.830 we have a variety of different ways we pick movies, but one of the things we've been doing is I started, 00:09:36.710 --> 00:09:47.670 the American Film Institute put out a list in 1998 of 100 Years 100 Movies. 00:09:48.210 --> 00:09:52.790 It's basically the first 100 years of movies, they put out a list of what they 00:09:52.790 --> 00:09:57.290 thought was the best 100 movies of all time of those first 100 years. 00:09:57.450 --> 00:10:04.950 Obviously, nothing past 1998 was in this list, but I started going through this list in 1998. 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:10.020 And roughly 1998. I might have had a slight delay at him. 00:10:10.400 --> 00:10:15.140 But anyway, we're working our way up the list. I started at number 100. 00:10:15.380 --> 00:10:20.860 Obviously, my son Alex didn't exist in 1998, but he started joining me at a certain age. 00:10:21.400 --> 00:10:26.420 Anyway, today's the first movie I'm going to mention is number 13 on that list. 00:10:28.260 --> 00:10:32.720 And full disclosure, in the time since January, we did finish. 00:10:32.920 --> 00:10:37.440 We got to number one. And we started, AFI put out a revised version of the list 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.580 in 2007. So we've started at number 100 on the 2007 list. 00:10:42.060 --> 00:10:46.900 Where last night we actually started 99 and are halfway through it. 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:48.180 We'll finish it today. Anyway. 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:52.760 Is number one supposed to be their best? Yes. 00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:55.000 Number one is their best of all time. 00:10:55.180 --> 00:10:57.080 Okay. It's not just 100 thrown out there. 00:10:57.360 --> 00:10:58.700 No, they are ordered. 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:01.920 I mean, Citizen Kane is on that list, right? 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:03.760 Citizen Kane is number one. 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:04.840 Oh, goodness. 00:11:07.460 --> 00:11:12.640 And, you know, I've got a few weeks till I get to it. We did watch Citizen Kane. 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:16.540 It was actually, I mentioned this on the show already, even without reviewing it. 00:11:16.740 --> 00:11:22.900 By pure coincidence, like when we got to number one on the list, 00:11:23.280 --> 00:11:25.460 I happened to be flipping through TikTok. 00:11:25.660 --> 00:11:29.400 The next movie to watch was going to be Citizen Kane. And I was flipping through 00:11:29.400 --> 00:11:34.340 TikTok and saw someone mentioning that for one day only, Citizen Kane would 00:11:34.340 --> 00:11:36.640 be in the theaters that day. 00:11:37.020 --> 00:11:37.600 Oh, wow. 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:39.300 So we went to see it in the theaters. 00:11:39.700 --> 00:11:44.820 I bet that would be better. I watched it in a video productions class in Niagara. 00:11:45.080 --> 00:11:48.980 And they're like, this is the greatest movie of all time. And I'm like, nah. 00:11:50.160 --> 00:11:50.680 Yeah, I mean. 00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:56.700 What it was. I get that it was big for the time. But it's hard for me to watch. 00:11:57.680 --> 00:11:58.120 We, we, 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.720 I I'm happy to talk about citizen Kane for a minute, even though it's out of 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:04.280 order, I'll eventually get to it in order. 00:12:04.540 --> 00:12:06.220 Yeah. Like, yeah. 00:12:07.140 --> 00:12:10.380 I mean, and the, here's one thing too, like, you know, 00:12:11.150 --> 00:12:17.890 I actually knew absolutely nothing about the plot of Citizen Kane except two 00:12:17.890 --> 00:12:19.350 things before I watched it. 00:12:19.810 --> 00:12:26.170 One was that it was based on William Randolph Hearst or whatever, 00:12:26.630 --> 00:12:30.070 the historical journalist, newspaper guy, whatever. 00:12:30.270 --> 00:12:32.990 It was sort of roughly a take on him. 00:12:33.230 --> 00:12:36.130 And two, I knew what Rosebud was. 00:12:36.810 --> 00:12:40.890 That's all I knew about the stupid thing, and I knew that. And it's like, 00:12:41.290 --> 00:12:47.030 I felt like it wouldn't have felt better if I hadn't had that spoiler. I don't know. 00:12:47.210 --> 00:12:54.430 I felt like I saw, I recognized that you mentioned taking it and watching it 00:12:54.430 --> 00:12:55.670 in filmmaking class or whatever. 00:12:55.830 --> 00:12:59.190 I guess one of the things it's known for is it like pioneered a whole bunch 00:12:59.190 --> 00:13:06.910 of techniques, directorial techniques, camera angles, ways of doing shots, things like that. 00:13:06.910 --> 00:13:11.110 And I guess for, yeah, okay, it pioneered a bunch of those stuff. 00:13:11.390 --> 00:13:17.970 I guess my bottom line take on it, my usual thing, I would give it a thumb sideways. 00:13:18.310 --> 00:13:24.230 It was okay. It was a fine movie. I was somewhat entertained by it. 00:13:24.410 --> 00:13:29.210 It has that sort of style of the time that it's a little bit stylized rather 00:13:29.210 --> 00:13:34.370 than realistic, but that's okay. Do I think it deserved number one? No. 00:13:34.910 --> 00:13:35.770 No. I agree. 00:13:36.170 --> 00:13:41.990 And they kept it at number one in their 2007 re-ranking, too. And no, I don't think so. 00:13:42.450 --> 00:13:48.130 I mean, fine. I certainly wouldn't say it's a bad movie. 00:13:48.530 --> 00:13:51.990 But does it deserve number one of all time? 00:13:52.190 --> 00:13:56.830 I don't think so. Like, number two in the 1998 was Casablanca. 00:13:57.030 --> 00:13:58.850 I'd put Casablanca above it. 00:13:59.110 --> 00:14:00.370 Oh, me too. Absolutely. 00:14:00.370 --> 00:14:05.610 I actually really liked Casablanca. Citizen Kane was sort of, 00:14:06.680 --> 00:14:07.000 Okay. 00:14:07.960 --> 00:14:12.360 Yeah. I mean, I think nobody wants to take it off the list just because it was 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:16.280 a, you know, pioneer type movie, essentially, doing all that, 00:14:16.280 --> 00:14:17.940 you know, technical stuff. 00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:22.540 But I wouldn't say that the screenplay is definitely very good, 00:14:22.560 --> 00:14:26.660 but I feel like you have to kind of take all of that into account, right? 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:30.100 Right. Yeah. It just... 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:32.420 Yeah. It doesn't hold up. 00:14:32.580 --> 00:14:38.500 It's a meh at best. You can recognize it as pioneering and good for its time 00:14:38.500 --> 00:14:42.420 and all that kind of stuff. And you can see like the grand scale of it and all 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:46.280 this kind of stuff without necessarily saying it's the best movie of all time. 00:14:46.680 --> 00:14:51.560 Yeah, exactly. It needs to be removed from the list. Sorry. Hot take from Emily. 00:14:51.780 --> 00:14:53.500 It needs to be removed from the list. 00:14:53.620 --> 00:14:55.720 At the very least, not number one. 00:14:56.020 --> 00:14:56.380 Okay. 00:14:56.540 --> 00:14:58.500 Put it in the 80s or something. 00:14:58.500 --> 00:14:59.960 Yeah, 100. 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:08.160 Anyway, the one I was actually on this time, we watched number 13 on the 1998 00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:12.420 list, which dropped to 36 in the 2007 list. 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:14.380 But Bridge on the River, why? 00:15:15.660 --> 00:15:21.860 From 1957, as I usually do, I'll read the first couple paragraphs of the Wikipedia 00:15:21.860 --> 00:15:24.320 summary for anybody who doesn't know the movie. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:30.520 In February 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war led by Colonel Nicholson 00:15:30.520 --> 00:15:32.760 arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:38.300 United States Navy Commander Shears describes the horrific conditions to Nicholson, 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:42.800 who forbids any escape attempts because they had been ordered to surrender by 00:15:42.800 --> 00:15:43.700 their own headquarters. 00:15:44.260 --> 00:15:49.180 Colonel Saito, the camp commandant, informs the prisoners the camp needs no 00:15:49.180 --> 00:15:53.180 fences because the surrounding jungle makes escape impossible and that they 00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:57.100 will be used as labor to construct a bridge over the River Kwai for the railway 00:15:57.100 --> 00:15:58.880 connecting Thailand and Burma. 00:15:59.340 --> 00:16:03.620 Nicholson objects, citing the Geneva Convention exempting officers from manual labor. 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:06.980 Saito threatens to have the officers shot, but Major Clipton, 00:16:07.100 --> 00:16:10.140 the British medical officer, warns him there are too many witnesses. 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:13.960 The officers are left standing in the intense heat until evening when Saito 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:15.340 confines them to a punishment hunt. 00:16:16.410 --> 00:16:20.070 Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box. Shears becomes the only survivor 00:16:20.070 --> 00:16:26.010 of an escape attempt and recuperates in British Ceylon after being tended to by Thai civilians. 00:16:26.250 --> 00:16:31.670 The movie continues. It has things going on in the camp, what's going on with 00:16:31.670 --> 00:16:33.910 the bridge, what's going on with the rescue attempt, 00:16:34.170 --> 00:16:40.430 what's going on with how this all interacts with the rest of the war, 00:16:40.570 --> 00:16:43.110 blah, blah, blah. First of all, have you seen this movie? 00:16:43.570 --> 00:16:48.850 I have not. I almost watched it yesterday. but I just could get through one. 00:16:50.630 --> 00:16:56.710 Yeah, no, no, quite all right. I can definitely see why this was on the list. 00:16:58.310 --> 00:17:05.650 It's got, a big part of it is sort of how the officer that they talked about, 00:17:06.670 --> 00:17:11.390 spoilers, I mean, it's a 1957 movie, sorry, spoilers, if you're concerned, move ahead. 00:17:13.190 --> 00:17:18.430 He actually starts building the bridge for them And he gets so invested in the 00:17:18.430 --> 00:17:24.090 bridge, he actually cares more about that than anything else. 00:17:24.350 --> 00:17:30.530 Even though he's theoretically being forced to build the bridge under duress 00:17:30.530 --> 00:17:36.550 as a prisoner of war in an effort that's going to help the enemy. He ends up really... 00:17:37.540 --> 00:17:40.940 All he cares about is building the best bridge he possibly can, 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:45.140 because it's like, you know, if he's going to do it, he's going to do it right 00:17:45.140 --> 00:17:46.540 and all of this kind of stuff. 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:51.280 And then, you know, tension comes in when, of course, the British actually want 00:17:51.280 --> 00:17:53.420 to destroy the bridge that he's building. 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:59.280 And and then, you know, things happen. I'm not I'm not sure it's number 13, 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:01.100 but this was it was a good movie. 00:18:01.300 --> 00:18:06.600 I'll give it a thumbs up. It definitely, you know, is a movie of its time. 00:18:06.600 --> 00:18:11.820 You can tell it's a 1950s movie in terms of the styling and the pacing and all this kind of stuff. 00:18:12.680 --> 00:18:17.080 But worth watching. I liked it. And of course, it's got that the song they whistle. 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:21.660 Do do do do do do do do do. Oh, yeah. 00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:28.760 And like it only happens, you know, at the one moment where it's really a part of what's going on. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.360 But it's it's it's an iconic bit. 00:18:31.780 --> 00:18:35.300 And so, yeah, thumbs up. I don't have a lot more to say about it. 00:18:35.300 --> 00:18:37.960 Like I said, I saw it in January, so it's not fresh in my mind, 00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:43.440 but I do remember it as being worth the watch. 00:18:43.600 --> 00:18:46.060 It is, how long is this thing? 00:18:46.940 --> 00:18:49.580 161 minutes, so it is a fairly long movie. 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:56.000 When Alex and I watch these things, even shorter movies, we typically watch 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:58.760 half and then watch the other half the next day. 00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:03.000 It's just easier for time, but certainly on longer movies we do that. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.240 But sometimes we even split them into three or four parts. 00:19:05.380 --> 00:19:09.540 I don't remember how, how long, how many we split this into, 00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:15.240 but yeah, I have, you know, it's one thing when you're sitting in the theater, 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:19.240 even then, like I, I get annoyed at the long movies. 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:23.860 Like, you know, I don't want to get to the end of the movie desperate to use 00:19:23.860 --> 00:19:28.260 the bathroom, you know, especially when you've had the big movie theater drinks 00:19:28.260 --> 00:19:30.520 and all this kind of stuff, you know, 00:19:31.560 --> 00:19:35.100 Watching at home does alleviate that because you can pause whenever you want. 00:19:35.240 --> 00:19:38.420 You can get a snack. You can split it over two or three days, you know, whatever. 00:19:39.020 --> 00:19:44.840 And that's useful for the long movies. And I'm glad for this kind of movie, I was able to do that. 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:49.880 What's kind of crazy for me is that i i'm not much of a movie watcher anymore 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:54.120 but i can watch i don't know what it is it's like i can't sit through a movie 00:19:54.120 --> 00:20:01.080 but i could sit through two hour long three hour long television shows i don't 00:20:01.080 --> 00:20:02.820 get it i don't understand well they. 00:20:02.820 --> 00:20:08.580 Have that pacing where it's sort of like you stop there's a moment that is a natural pause point i. 00:20:08.580 --> 00:20:09.060 Guess that. 00:20:09.060 --> 00:20:13.920 Lets you reset i guess both both for like taking breaks like i said but also 00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:17.600 just even if you're watching straight through, it's sort of a mental reset. 00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:21.720 I mean, I guess it depends on the show. Some have like cliffhangers that roll 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:24.560 right into the next episode, but yeah. 00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:29.040 Yeah. I just think there's more character development in television shows. I don't know what it is. 00:20:30.800 --> 00:20:36.300 So, you know, since, since you brought up TV before, before we get to like the 00:20:36.300 --> 00:20:39.860 next movie, is there something you're watching right now that you really like? 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:44.040 I, I usually talk about, I talk about TV shows on the, on the show too, 00:20:44.220 --> 00:20:49.280 but only when I've completely finished all existing episodes. Oh, okay. 00:20:50.040 --> 00:20:54.020 So I've got a number of TV shows that we're on our way through, 00:20:54.060 --> 00:20:58.320 but I don't talk about them sort of episode by episode, season by season. 00:20:58.360 --> 00:21:01.520 But what are some things that you're enjoying right now? 00:21:01.800 --> 00:21:05.260 And I'll add them to my list if I don't have them already as things to potentially watch. 00:21:05.280 --> 00:21:08.080 Well, if you haven't seen Outlander, have you watched Outlander? 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:14.240 I have not. I think I've heard of it. Is that the one with the woman who goes back in time? 00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:21.100 Yes. The woman in the 1940s goes back 200 years. okay. years to the 16th century, Scotland. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:29.080 My wife, Brandy, who you also know, I know she used to read the books that this is based on. 00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:33.060 She's probably watched the TV show too. I don't know. 00:21:33.740 --> 00:21:39.360 So I knew a little bit about the outline and the plot, but I've never watched it. 00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:42.080 So good? The TV show is good? 00:21:42.220 --> 00:21:47.520 Oh, it is my absolute favorite. They also just came out with a prequel show, 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:49.460 Blood of My Blood, on Starz. 00:21:49.580 --> 00:21:52.860 So yeah, the whole thing's on Starz. It is on Netflix, but they don't have the 00:21:52.860 --> 00:21:57.300 complete series on Netflix. I think they don't have the last. 00:21:57.560 --> 00:22:00.780 I don't know, with the writer's strike too, there was a lot of issues with them 00:22:00.780 --> 00:22:05.360 halting production. So I think the seventh season has been broken up. 00:22:05.460 --> 00:22:09.660 And this last season is coming out in the new year, I believe. 00:22:09.700 --> 00:22:14.440 So I've been recently re-watching the episodes because I love it. 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:18.240 And now watching Blood of My Blood, which is the prequel, you catch a lot of 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:20.780 the things and the little Easter eggs that they add in there. 00:22:21.020 --> 00:22:28.420 But I thought that the last episode of the seventh season was episode eight, where he's, 00:22:29.050 --> 00:22:33.750 It's called Written in My Own Heart's Blood. That was, I think one of the books is called that too. 00:22:34.470 --> 00:22:39.570 And I was, as I was rewatching it, I saw that there was another episode. 00:22:40.150 --> 00:22:43.810 Sammy and I had thought that the episode eight was the last one. 00:22:43.990 --> 00:22:47.870 And there was like a whole nother episode, which was weird because I had read 00:22:47.870 --> 00:22:51.330 the book and I knew all of the parts that happened in the book. 00:22:52.330 --> 00:22:55.790 And it's, they also go, it's kind of weird because the way that you can write 00:22:55.790 --> 00:22:59.550 a book is very different than how you can tell the story in a show. 00:22:59.830 --> 00:23:04.030 You know, it's chapter by chapter versus, you know, the people are actually 00:23:04.030 --> 00:23:08.970 in different time periods across like the last season. So they're in a variety 00:23:08.970 --> 00:23:13.230 of different areas and a different time periods and places across the world. 00:23:13.350 --> 00:23:17.930 So whether it was Scotland or the United States, but right now it's on basically 00:23:17.930 --> 00:23:21.850 the Revolutionary War and, you know, 00:23:22.150 --> 00:23:28.390 nearing 1776 and they're involved with George Washington. He makes an appearance in it. 00:23:28.870 --> 00:23:31.930 The Marquis, how do I say his name? Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:33.900 Lafayette, right? 00:23:34.340 --> 00:23:35.360 Oh, Lafayette. Lafayette, yes. 00:23:35.740 --> 00:23:41.620 So it's just, I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but I absolutely love it 00:23:41.620 --> 00:23:44.380 in terms of the historical context and what happened. 00:23:44.560 --> 00:23:49.720 And it's interesting to see the relationship because in Scotland, 00:23:49.740 --> 00:23:53.500 the Scots and the British have such a tumultuous history. 00:23:53.500 --> 00:23:59.740 They basically ended the way of life for Scots when they had the war, Culloden. 00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:02.420 That was I think at the season three where they 00:24:02.420 --> 00:24:05.020 had the battle of Culloden and now you know 00:24:05.020 --> 00:24:07.960 they ended up in America and now they're fighting again against the 00:24:07.960 --> 00:24:12.760 British and the woman who Claire who's the main character in it she is British 00:24:12.760 --> 00:24:19.680 she was a war nurse in the 1940s and so they call her Sassenach which is you 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:24.440 know I guess a mean term for someone that's out a British woman maybe or just 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:27.860 someone that's outside of Scotland and that's Outlander too. 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:32.320 But I just highly recommend it. I'm always shocked when someone says that they 00:24:32.320 --> 00:24:37.080 haven't watched it because it is, I mean, it's up there to me with Game of Thrones, 00:24:37.080 --> 00:24:41.040 more realistic and, you know, historical context and putting, 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.420 I love putting history in context because I think it makes it more understandable 00:24:45.420 --> 00:24:50.020 than just reading in a history book, you know, or, and books, but the books are great. 00:24:50.500 --> 00:24:53.820 And I always think about, could I go back in time? 00:24:54.700 --> 00:25:00.740 You know, I mean, Claire being in the 40s didn't have the benefits of that we have or the benefits. 00:25:00.860 --> 00:25:04.760 I don't know if social media is a benefit, but most of the time I would be like, 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:08.500 I need Google, you know, half the time. 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:12.440 There's a point where she asks, like, where's your health department? 00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:15.160 And everybody's like, what the heck is that? Yeah. 00:25:15.840 --> 00:25:23.540 I mean, people, people romanticize various portions of the past all the time. And, you know, 00:25:24.250 --> 00:25:29.910 It's so problematic in so many ways if you actually start thinking about it. The past was horrible. 00:25:30.330 --> 00:25:35.170 People were wiping their butt with corn cobs. Do you want to wipe your butt with a corn cob? 00:25:36.450 --> 00:25:45.230 Yeah, no. I mean, first, start off, if you're not a privileged white male, you're screwed. 00:25:45.510 --> 00:25:55.670 But even beyond that, I've seen people do the comparison. that even if you took 00:25:55.670 --> 00:25:58.670 the richest person in the world, 00:25:59.610 --> 00:26:04.910 Their standard of living in terms of, you know, health care, 00:26:05.650 --> 00:26:11.230 you know, nutrition, even what their luxuries are, are like, 00:26:11.550 --> 00:26:16.130 you know, an average middle class person probably has them down cold. 00:26:16.130 --> 00:26:16.850 Yeah. 00:26:17.090 --> 00:26:22.070 Like, you know, you would probably if you actually had to compare, 00:26:22.410 --> 00:26:29.710 you would probably prefer your standard middle class life with your job and 00:26:29.710 --> 00:26:37.270 your car and your Internet, your phone to to being like the king of a country 500 years ago. 00:26:37.270 --> 00:26:42.770 Yeah you know i mean unless you are really just super into like the power and 00:26:42.770 --> 00:26:48.110 the sadism and whatever you know okay you know maybe you get off on that but 00:26:48.110 --> 00:26:54.450 otherwise yeah no it's it was miserable you know i mean. 00:26:54.450 --> 00:26:59.090 They make the sex scenes like you know so hot but you're like no they're disgusting 00:26:59.090 --> 00:27:02.950 like they are not showering everyone stinks. 00:27:02.950 --> 00:27:05.350 I've been inspired to. 00:27:05.350 --> 00:27:11.790 Make one about going back in time in Seattle, like before or after the fire, the great Seattle fire. 00:27:12.130 --> 00:27:20.170 And I just can't even imagine if somebody from 2025 were to go back in time and, and survive. 00:27:20.470 --> 00:27:25.230 And the funny thing is I, I always justified Claire going back in time. 00:27:25.390 --> 00:27:27.670 I'm like, she was an intelligent doctor. 00:27:27.890 --> 00:27:31.610 You'd think that she'd be accused of being a witch. She was like three or four 00:27:31.610 --> 00:27:34.190 times in the show and almost killed for it. 00:27:34.330 --> 00:27:38.810 But there's multiple times on a rewatch where I'm like, oh, she would have been dead. 00:27:39.230 --> 00:27:45.050 Like if she, she would have been dead. What she just said, she would have been, yeah, gone. 00:27:45.270 --> 00:27:50.530 Like she talked back so much that even then they would have been like, no. 00:27:51.410 --> 00:27:54.990 Another historical thing people have talked about, especially for the upper 00:27:54.990 --> 00:27:59.110 classes, but like before the advent of clean water, 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.980 People just drank alcohol all the time. So they were just constantly drunk. 00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:05.680 Yeah. 00:28:05.820 --> 00:28:10.780 You know, and like you can probably explain a decent amount of human history 00:28:10.780 --> 00:28:13.260 by the fact that everybody involved was drunk. 00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:21.200 Exactly. Well, I mean, you can explain now because Pete Hegseth is probably drunk all the time, too. 00:28:22.120 --> 00:28:25.660 Hey, hey, he promised he would not drink anymore. 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:26.600 Oh, OK. 00:28:27.060 --> 00:28:27.540 Yeah. 00:28:28.100 --> 00:28:28.540 Sure. 00:28:29.180 --> 00:28:29.700 Yeah. 00:28:31.180 --> 00:28:33.180 And I'm not going to smoke weed anymore. 00:28:36.440 --> 00:28:41.640 Oh, goodness. Well, I also watched All the King's Men, the 1999 version, 00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.300 which I imagine is very different. 00:28:45.560 --> 00:28:47.540 You said you watched all of them, right? So I was like. 00:28:47.620 --> 00:28:49.340 Oh, shoot. No, no, I watched none of them. 00:28:49.500 --> 00:28:51.580 Oh, you've not? Oh, okay. Oh. 00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:55.660 So I added them all to my list when you sent them to me. 00:28:56.100 --> 00:28:57.020 You answered them? 00:28:57.820 --> 00:29:02.580 And well, you know, what I do is like the list is long enough at this point. 00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:07.760 The things I want to watch that I long ago stopped checking when I add new things. 00:29:07.760 --> 00:29:11.740 I figure if it comes up more than once, it just makes it more like because I 00:29:11.740 --> 00:29:14.220 pick randomly from the list when I pick new things to watch. 00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:17.040 It just makes it more likely it comes up if it comes up more. 00:29:17.240 --> 00:29:24.100 So you watch the 1999 version. So I'm just reading the very beginning here. 00:29:24.700 --> 00:29:29.240 All the King's Men is a British World War I television drama by the BBC. 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.960 First broadcast in 1999. Film derives its title from a line in the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. 00:29:37.220 --> 00:29:38.320 Oh, I didn't know that. 00:29:38.580 --> 00:29:42.760 And is based on a 1992 book called The Vanished Battalion. 00:29:43.540 --> 00:29:48.200 Okay. Tell me about it. I know nothing. I know nothing other than what I just read. 00:29:48.740 --> 00:29:54.640 Yeah. So very different than the one that's like in 2006 with Kate Winslet and Sean Penn. 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.260 That was the one that I was thinking because I was like, oh, 00:29:57.360 --> 00:30:00.620 let's watch something like All the King's Men, which is it sounds like. 00:30:00.740 --> 00:30:03.420 Is it basically a remake of the same thing or just share a title? 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:10.220 They're all very different. There's one that there's the 2006 one that you had mentioned. 00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:14.060 And then there's another one that was like in the 50s, I think, 00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:16.260 that came out. This one's completely different. 00:30:16.520 --> 00:30:20.480 It's actually really positive. I think the other ones are really about corrupt politicians. 00:30:20.920 --> 00:30:25.840 And this one is about George V, their company in Sandringham. 00:30:26.040 --> 00:30:28.600 They send, you know, these are all people that, 00:30:29.170 --> 00:30:33.970 worked for the royal family, essentially. And so some of the higher-ups were 00:30:33.970 --> 00:30:35.930 generals that went to fight. 00:30:36.130 --> 00:30:40.710 And this is when we, in World War I, when we invaded the Ottoman Empire. 00:30:41.530 --> 00:30:45.750 And, you know, they go there. It's awful circumstances. 00:30:46.670 --> 00:30:50.590 It's really sad. And it does show the horrors of war, I think, 00:30:50.750 --> 00:30:55.730 even more so than I've seen in a lot of things, really how bad it is. 00:30:55.830 --> 00:31:01.130 And it's upsetting in the beginning to see all of these people so excited to go to war. 00:31:01.250 --> 00:31:05.550 And there's even a 14-year-old that's like, I enlisted and I went. 00:31:05.650 --> 00:31:07.370 I don't know how he ended up getting to go. 00:31:07.870 --> 00:31:16.490 But there's a story in it where when they ran into the battlefield and this 00:31:16.490 --> 00:31:20.090 cloud comes over them and then everyone just disappears. 00:31:20.430 --> 00:31:26.350 But what really did end up happening is that all of them were shot and killed and shot in the head. 00:31:26.530 --> 00:31:31.690 They found the bodies. But I don't think anyone will admit to the fact that that's what happened. 00:31:31.890 --> 00:31:36.750 They make up this magical thing that they all just disappeared over this cloud 00:31:36.750 --> 00:31:41.310 and no one could be found. But it turns out that they did end up finding them. 00:31:41.870 --> 00:31:46.430 But even still, when you look up the stories about it, they will never confirm 00:31:46.430 --> 00:31:49.050 and say that that happened. They just disappeared. 00:31:49.450 --> 00:31:53.050 So it was really sad. And I think this 00:31:53.050 --> 00:31:58.490 one puts the king and the monarch in a really positive light essentially and 00:31:58.490 --> 00:32:02.610 you know shows that they you know had their bath water at you know you know 00:32:02.610 --> 00:32:06.630 two inches and stuff like that all the sacrifices that the royal family was 00:32:06.630 --> 00:32:12.750 making to you know for the war efforts but i i think it's really interesting too that we. 00:32:13.470 --> 00:32:18.750 In this time, we invaded, you know, and so when they were doing like recon later 00:32:18.750 --> 00:32:23.010 and trying to figure out what happened to people, the U.S. 00:32:23.150 --> 00:32:26.970 Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire to Turkey was like, remember, 00:32:27.170 --> 00:32:30.390 you invaded us, but they didn't want to take any prisoners. 00:32:30.390 --> 00:32:35.830 And that was shocking for the UK government and the British because they were 00:32:35.830 --> 00:32:37.930 like, you are required to take prisoners. And they're like, no, 00:32:38.030 --> 00:32:42.670 we're not, you know, but they were going on their land and in an attempt to 00:32:42.670 --> 00:32:45.210 for oil, essentially. It was a stupid trip. 00:32:45.770 --> 00:32:49.830 Why have that? And it makes me think about why are we invading other countries? 00:32:50.110 --> 00:32:54.710 Let's just use our military to protect ourselves and to protect what we have. 00:32:54.850 --> 00:32:59.490 It was really sad. And it was pretty, pretty grotesque. I think I had to close 00:32:59.490 --> 00:33:00.570 my eyes a couple of times. 00:33:01.010 --> 00:33:06.290 You know, people were at the end just killing themselves, knowing it was the end. 00:33:06.710 --> 00:33:11.130 Right. It was rough. Yeah. Sorry, I went on and on about it. But it was a good movie. 00:33:11.290 --> 00:33:13.990 Very different than what I thought I was going to watch, which was about corrupt 00:33:13.990 --> 00:33:16.650 politicians, which would really tie into our next conversation. 00:33:16.750 --> 00:33:20.010 Which is what the other ones, the other ones with the same title have that thing. 00:33:20.030 --> 00:33:22.670 And I'm really excited to watch those two for other reasons. 00:33:23.310 --> 00:33:29.490 But it's yeah I had no idea about this missing company and their connection 00:33:29.490 --> 00:33:34.110 to the royal family and it was it was really good it was good I mean it was 00:33:34.110 --> 00:33:39.330 also I'm not really keen on 1990 movies don't really like. 00:33:40.430 --> 00:33:44.890 And not only 1990s British made-for-TV movies. 00:33:45.030 --> 00:33:49.030 Yes, yes. But, you know, I love the BBC. They always deliver. 00:33:49.590 --> 00:33:55.030 Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of good quality stuff coming out of there still. 00:33:55.650 --> 00:33:58.910 I definitely needed captions, and I definitely needed to look things up, 00:33:58.950 --> 00:34:01.890 though, too, because I didn't— I like to understand what people are talking 00:34:01.890 --> 00:34:04.970 about and the references that are being made. So it makes. 00:34:04.970 --> 00:34:07.990 It— So this was a watch a little bit, pause, look things up, 00:34:08.130 --> 00:34:10.010 watch a little bit more, pause, look things up. 00:34:10.410 --> 00:34:10.670 Yeah. 00:34:10.930 --> 00:34:13.310 Okay. Yeah. We always watch with captions on. 00:34:13.490 --> 00:34:14.430 Oh, you have to. 00:34:14.710 --> 00:34:19.130 You have to. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. Occasionally, 00:34:19.250 --> 00:34:23.250 there are a few shows that we'll put on every once in a while where, 00:34:23.470 --> 00:34:26.490 for whatever reason, the captions are messed up. 00:34:26.870 --> 00:34:27.550 Oh, yeah. 00:34:28.370 --> 00:34:33.830 They're not synced with what's going on on the screen or various other problems. 00:34:33.830 --> 00:34:37.030 It doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen occasionally. 00:34:37.410 --> 00:34:42.650 And in those cases, we turn off the captions because it's one thing when they 00:34:42.650 --> 00:34:44.770 actually match what's happening on the screen. 00:34:45.110 --> 00:34:48.050 When it's like completely unrelated, almost, it's like, no, 00:34:50.910 --> 00:34:52.850 but yeah, no, captions have to be on. 00:34:53.150 --> 00:34:56.710 Yeah. Well, and I'm deaf in my right ear. So I like hearing wise. 00:34:56.910 --> 00:34:59.950 I really need that. But when I'm watching Outlander, for instance, 00:35:00.350 --> 00:35:05.150 I mean, I can barely understand what they're, you know, the Scottish accent is like, what? 00:35:05.390 --> 00:35:09.830 I had to tell when we were in London, I met a guy from Scotland and he was talking 00:35:09.830 --> 00:35:13.390 to me and I had to have him repeat it like four times. I was like, 00:35:13.490 --> 00:35:16.050 I need captions for you. Like I need for Jamie. 00:35:17.670 --> 00:35:19.150 I was like, I'm so sorry. 00:35:22.600 --> 00:35:29.280 That's what's hard too yeah good movie i yeah thumbs up probably won't watch it again but glad i did. 00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:32.460 That's definitely a class of movie that good 00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:35.760 movie will never watch again like you know 00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:39.460 or you know some sometimes like we'll we'll 00:35:39.460 --> 00:35:42.840 watch again many many years from now like there's 00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.740 there's the things that are fun and you don't mind re-watching they're the ones 00:35:46.740 --> 00:35:51.880 that are like okay that was incredibly awesome but it was so emotionally draining 00:35:51.880 --> 00:35:57.420 and so affecting it's going to be at least 20 years before i even consider watching 00:35:57.420 --> 00:35:59.820 that thing again yeah so we. 00:35:59.820 --> 00:36:04.960 Should watch all the oscars movies i've always wanted to do that i. 00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:05.560 Had a. 00:36:05.560 --> 00:36:08.300 Friend who would do oscar night parties but. 00:36:08.300 --> 00:36:08.980 Right can. 00:36:08.980 --> 00:36:12.480 Be so hard to get to all the movies and i think it was last year or the year 00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:16.700 before, I got to one, which was Saltburn. Did you ever watch that one? 00:36:16.740 --> 00:36:17.880 I have not seen Saltburn. 00:36:18.080 --> 00:36:18.280 Not for children. 00:36:18.680 --> 00:36:19.480 Adding it to the list. 00:36:19.640 --> 00:36:25.460 Definitely not for children. No, I mean, I am not, I am not better off for watching 00:36:25.460 --> 00:36:27.960 Saltburn. It was a fascinating movie though. 00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:31.880 But that, and it's, it's always like that. 00:36:32.220 --> 00:36:36.260 Okay. Since you brought it up, give just like a minute or two about Saltburn 00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:37.920 and then we'll take our break and move on to news. 00:36:38.020 --> 00:36:41.220 Oh no, we don't need to talk about it. I think that anyone who's watched salt 00:36:41.220 --> 00:36:44.520 burn can, can attest to that. 00:36:47.560 --> 00:36:50.800 Okay. Then that, that, that is fascinating. That is intriguing. 00:36:51.540 --> 00:36:55.960 It's like, okay, what, what could possibly cause that reaction? Okay. 00:36:56.040 --> 00:36:59.320 I'm nervous for you to watch it. I'm nervous for anyone to watch it. 00:37:01.640 --> 00:37:02.600 It did not win. 00:37:02.980 --> 00:37:09.300 It did not win. It did not win. I'm only the first sentence from, 00:37:09.420 --> 00:37:12.260 it's a black comedy thriller film. 00:37:12.660 --> 00:37:17.620 I don't know if I would put comedy, but definitely black and definitely a thriller. 00:37:18.200 --> 00:37:18.720 Okay. 00:37:19.240 --> 00:37:25.940 Yeah. There's just a lot of really uncomfortable sex moments. Okay. 00:37:26.540 --> 00:37:31.560 And I, yeah, and I can't explain them without, you'll have to watch. 00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:35.540 So be especially sure to watch this with my 16-year-old son. 00:37:35.660 --> 00:37:37.200 Oh, yeah, absolutely. No. 00:37:39.560 --> 00:37:43.080 To be like you with your sarcasm, that's hard to tell. 00:37:44.600 --> 00:37:53.660 For the most part, we haven't pulled any punches on movies that have come up. 00:37:54.960 --> 00:37:59.260 Our determination is if he wants to self-censor himself out of it, 00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:02.580 he can decide to leave, but I'm not going to make him leave. 00:38:02.580 --> 00:38:03.220 Yeah. 00:38:03.460 --> 00:38:12.300 However, having said that, we have yet to have one come up that is really so 00:38:12.300 --> 00:38:18.260 far over the line that like I'm, you know, completely squirming. 00:38:18.520 --> 00:38:20.860 I mean, we've we've had movies with sex scenes. 00:38:21.080 --> 00:38:21.260 Yeah. 00:38:21.460 --> 00:38:27.400 We've had movies with lots of violence. You know, he he squirms most at swear words. 00:38:27.560 --> 00:38:33.600 He does not like swear words. like he still has an issue with that but it doesn't 00:38:33.600 --> 00:38:35.940 stop him watching them he just sort of like, 00:38:37.160 --> 00:38:39.880 cringes when there's swearing and so occasionally we've had 00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:42.780 movies that are like you know three f 00:38:42.780 --> 00:38:46.100 words a minute for two hours right or whatever and he's 00:38:46.100 --> 00:38:51.640 just like but you know he he's he's twitching and sort of like clearly like 00:38:51.640 --> 00:38:57.080 at some point it seems like a little performative like are you really that bothered 00:38:57.080 --> 00:39:00.580 because if you were really that bothered you would leave the room you would 00:39:00.580 --> 00:39:02.840 not watch but but he might not. 00:39:02.840 --> 00:39:04.400 Want to listen to our podcast then. 00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:12.560 Yeah no he he he has been very clear about his low opinion of this podcast yeah 00:39:12.560 --> 00:39:15.760 oh of yours of ours yeah oh. 00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:17.320 Oh i of mine he would be. 00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:21.340 No not of yours not of yours like i don't think he's listening to yours i. 00:39:21.340 --> 00:39:25.700 Love the self-deprecation and like playing you know all of his hate for the 00:39:25.700 --> 00:39:31.240 podcast it actually made me want to support you guys even. 00:39:31.240 --> 00:39:36.620 More oh you you heard the you heard the the break where he talks about how he 00:39:36.620 --> 00:39:38.440 hates the podcast yeah no. 00:39:38.440 --> 00:39:39.840 Don't help them. 00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:40.420 Don't, 00:39:42.490 --> 00:39:47.530 yes yes i love that break he recorded that that was like recorded when he was 00:39:47.530 --> 00:39:52.510 like eight years old or something so like years and years ago but i still love that break, 00:39:53.770 --> 00:40:00.590 okay speaking of breaks we will now take one okay the luck of the dice has you 00:40:00.590 --> 00:40:06.670 know i i don't want to like self-deprecate too much on this one but this is 00:40:06.670 --> 00:40:10.390 one of our apple dream series which are for a couple of years. 00:40:10.830 --> 00:40:14.450 And this was also prompted by my son, Alex. He made me like, 00:40:15.050 --> 00:40:18.690 whenever I had a dream and woke up in the middle of the night and remember it, 00:40:18.790 --> 00:40:20.750 he made me record it onto my phone. 00:40:21.210 --> 00:40:24.550 And so this is Apple dream 46. 00:40:24.750 --> 00:40:30.470 And I apologize in advance because most of these are at least somewhat amusing. 00:40:30.710 --> 00:40:31.850 I think this one's kind of boring. 00:40:32.890 --> 00:40:36.990 And it's about four minutes long. At least I think it's boring. 00:40:37.130 --> 00:40:42.410 Maybe you'll be amused. I don't know. But I'm going to play this This is Apple 00:40:42.410 --> 00:40:47.390 Dream 46 Which was probably recorded I don't know, three or four years ago At this point, 00:40:48.890 --> 00:40:53.550 We'll play this And we'll be back And talk about newsy stuff. 00:40:55.750 --> 00:41:01.910 I was sitting in this tent thing with Brandy, and there were other people there. 00:41:02.490 --> 00:41:05.190 But then two new people walked in. 00:41:06.090 --> 00:41:09.610 One of them was apparently a producer of Doctor Who. 00:41:10.230 --> 00:41:15.390 And then I realized that next to Brandy was John Nathan Turner, 00:41:15.610 --> 00:41:18.970 who was a producer of Doctor Who decades ago. 00:41:19.930 --> 00:41:26.790 And, yeah. And then I realized another person who was sort of walking up was 00:41:26.790 --> 00:41:28.490 the person who played the fourth Doctor, 00:41:28.810 --> 00:41:36.410 but much older, but not looking like he does in real life right now. This is Tom Baker. 00:41:36.910 --> 00:41:43.750 But instead sort of looking sort of big and overweight and roly-poly, 00:41:43.930 --> 00:41:46.450 which is not what he looks like in real life. 00:41:48.670 --> 00:41:55.730 And so, and him and, I guess him and John Natan Turner in real life didn't get 00:41:55.730 --> 00:41:58.790 along that well, at least in certain parts of time. 00:42:00.030 --> 00:42:03.870 And, oh, and by the way, this tent was sort of off to the side of a playground. 00:42:04.090 --> 00:42:07.270 There was a playground over there and there were kids who were playing and stuff like that. 00:42:07.690 --> 00:42:11.510 And we're sort of like, hmm, what's going on here? 00:42:14.170 --> 00:42:21.570 Once John Nathan-Turner and the current producer, although it wasn't actually, like, Russell T. 00:42:21.670 --> 00:42:24.570 Davies, the guy who just got, like, appointed to that again, 00:42:24.890 --> 00:42:27.970 I don't know, is some random guy. 00:42:28.170 --> 00:42:33.050 But anyway, they got up there and they had, like, papers in their hand on a 00:42:33.050 --> 00:42:37.750 clipboard, and they motioned for Tom Baker to come over. 00:42:37.750 --> 00:42:47.950 And Tom Baker actually came over and they were showing him this stuff and he's like and. 00:42:50.130 --> 00:42:55.470 Then he sees that sort of Brandy and I and one other person off to his side 00:42:55.470 --> 00:42:58.290 I don't know who they were were sort of carefully, 00:42:58.950 --> 00:43:04.930 just sort of frozen and saying should we be here for whatever is happening here 00:43:04.930 --> 00:43:08.010 is this like secret stuff that we shouldn't be hearing. 00:43:08.450 --> 00:43:14.790 And then Tom Baker looks to Brandy and says, I'll tell you, because I trust 00:43:14.790 --> 00:43:16.250 you because of the other night. 00:43:16.450 --> 00:43:25.030 And then he points to me, too, and says, And you, you were wearing the T-shirt 00:43:25.030 --> 00:43:29.490 with Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. 00:43:29.770 --> 00:43:32.670 And so I trust you, too. 00:43:32.670 --> 00:43:35.630 Too and because we were wondering like 00:43:35.630 --> 00:43:38.870 is he secretly returning to the show again is 00:43:38.870 --> 00:43:42.010 there some special cameo is this a script 00:43:42.010 --> 00:43:45.270 he's got what is going on here and 00:43:45.270 --> 00:43:47.990 why is he talking to these people and why is he doing 00:43:47.990 --> 00:43:51.030 it at a playground in wherever we 00:43:51.030 --> 00:43:58.050 were and so and then he's like telling him you know i'll tell you this thing 00:43:58.050 --> 00:44:06.830 and i think he said was like either gonna be like the best thing ever or everyone's 00:44:06.830 --> 00:44:09.170 gonna hate it and then i woke up. 00:44:11.010 --> 00:44:14.450 And that's it. That was you? That was me. 00:44:14.650 --> 00:44:16.190 That does not sound like you. 00:44:16.310 --> 00:44:19.650 That was me in the middle of the night, having woken up for a dream, 00:44:19.970 --> 00:44:22.710 opening my phone and putting what I remembered. 00:44:23.110 --> 00:44:29.030 And like, you know, that one sort of just rambled and didn't really have anything 00:44:29.030 --> 00:44:31.130 much happening or much of a point. 00:44:31.370 --> 00:44:38.350 Like often in these, like there's one that my son really likes where bears are chasing our dogs. 00:44:38.930 --> 00:44:44.030 There's ones where I'm driving a car, dodging tornadoes. 00:44:44.510 --> 00:44:49.630 There's one with a flying bus. You know, there are a whole bunch of ones that 00:44:49.630 --> 00:44:53.490 are actually like someone and there and there's some where I just do like stupid 00:44:53.490 --> 00:44:55.610 stuff that Yvonne laughs at or whatever. 00:44:56.090 --> 00:45:01.270 This one's just sort of like, oh, I don't know. 00:45:01.470 --> 00:45:04.530 I met these people and then I woke up. 00:45:04.730 --> 00:45:07.830 Sounds like me when I'm trying to tell my husband my dreams. 00:45:07.830 --> 00:45:12.290 Like I you know you think you got it and then you're trying to explain it and 00:45:12.290 --> 00:45:13.530 it's just not going to work out. 00:45:13.530 --> 00:45:16.310 And this is another thing which by the way got so 00:45:16.310 --> 00:45:19.090 far behind on like I I did this for like 00:45:19.090 --> 00:45:22.250 a couple years recording all of these on my phone and 00:45:22.250 --> 00:45:24.930 to with the intention they were supposed to 00:45:24.930 --> 00:45:28.790 be all posted to TikTok and the first 72 are 00:45:28.790 --> 00:45:31.890 indeed posted to TikTok and then after 00:45:31.890 --> 00:45:34.750 that like I just fell so far behind I've probably got 00:45:34.750 --> 00:45:38.290 like another another 70 probably recorded 00:45:38.290 --> 00:45:41.870 on my phone that have never been posted anywhere yet 00:45:41.870 --> 00:45:44.710 and maybe someday I'll get to them maybe someday I 00:45:44.710 --> 00:45:50.310 won't and and and so I basically stopped recording them although every once 00:45:50.310 --> 00:45:57.010 in a while like once every I don't know couple months I'll have one where I 00:45:57.010 --> 00:46:00.030 wake up and I was like okay that was actually kind of interesting and i record 00:46:00.030 --> 00:46:03.850 it and send it to him anyway and we'll see i don't know i. 00:46:03.850 --> 00:46:09.390 Think it's so important to save all of this stuff too i mean i have maybe like 00:46:09.390 --> 00:46:13.650 unwarranted fears about you know everything being lost. 00:46:13.650 --> 00:46:14.570 Um in. 00:46:14.570 --> 00:46:15.550 The internet and. 00:46:15.550 --> 00:46:17.910 So i constantly put. 00:46:18.520 --> 00:46:23.280 What me and Sammy record on external hard drives. 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:28.800 And that comes from like reading or the book Wool or watching the movies or 00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:33.800 the show Silo, which basically no one has access to anything and they're all 00:46:33.800 --> 00:46:36.280 like blind to everything. Yeah. Are you adding that to your list too? 00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:41.380 Yeah. I mean, I, I, I know they are, I know Wool and Silo are already, 00:46:41.640 --> 00:46:44.000 I know I have them already, but I'm adding them again. 00:46:45.340 --> 00:46:46.980 Um, yeah. 00:46:46.980 --> 00:46:51.020 But yeah, the fear is I just want this stuff to somewhere exist, 00:46:51.220 --> 00:46:56.040 even if it's, you know, stupid to other people. 00:46:56.320 --> 00:47:02.900 Well, my sister calls me a data hoarder for that. 00:47:03.060 --> 00:47:04.820 I mean, frankly, I'm a hoarder for everything. 00:47:05.240 --> 00:47:08.680 For those of you watching on video, you can see what it looks like behind me. 00:47:09.300 --> 00:47:13.160 But yeah, no, I'm absolutely a hoarder. It is a problem. 00:47:13.580 --> 00:47:16.240 Brandy and I are trying to work through it and deal with it. 00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:19.660 But we just never have time. So things are building up and it's a disaster. 00:47:19.980 --> 00:47:26.060 But like data specifically also, like from a very young age, 00:47:26.240 --> 00:47:34.840 I started like trying to make sure stuff I was doing was captured and not lost. 00:47:35.160 --> 00:47:40.980 And so, yeah, I have, I have boxes in, in my garage of elementary school homework. 00:47:41.760 --> 00:47:47.480 You know, that I still have, I have piles of papers stacked all around me. 00:47:47.580 --> 00:47:51.440 I have, I have mentioned on the show before, but not in a long time. 00:47:51.660 --> 00:47:57.360 Like in the, when I left college, there was not a good mechanism for me, 00:47:57.500 --> 00:48:00.280 for me to electronically store email. 00:48:00.640 --> 00:48:06.820 So I printed out years of college email that reflected like, 00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:08.560 this is my history through college. 00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:13.840 You know, this is like my back and forth with friends and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:48:14.320 --> 00:48:21.820 And so again, somewhere in my garage are probably around the order of eight 00:48:21.820 --> 00:48:26.400 large boxes that are full of printed out email from college, 00:48:26.560 --> 00:48:27.580 you know, things like that. 00:48:27.800 --> 00:48:28.900 You're like Hillary Clinton. 00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:33.600 Exactly. Somebody will get me for this stuff one day. 00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:38.580 Like they'll find that incriminating email from my, you know, 00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:41.800 senior year of college that just looks awful. 00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:45.480 And by the way, there are definitely incriminating emails from my senior year 00:48:45.480 --> 00:48:50.360 of college that have me doing things that I am utterly ashamed of today and 00:48:50.360 --> 00:48:56.160 admitting to them on paper, you know, but you know, it's there, you know. 00:48:56.340 --> 00:49:02.220 My college, I started my freshman year, the year Facebook started. 00:49:02.700 --> 00:49:06.680 So yeah, The things that we put on Facebook, 00:49:09.160 --> 00:49:15.160 I did. Yeah, I've had to remove a lot just for other people, not because I wanted to. 00:49:16.140 --> 00:49:20.260 But I'm I own my stuff, you know, we own our shit, you know, 00:49:20.360 --> 00:49:23.620 and I said that I was like, you know, when I ran for office, 00:49:23.620 --> 00:49:26.740 and when I served, I was like, I'm accountable to myself. 00:49:26.940 --> 00:49:31.740 And that's completely fine. Like, we're not all perfect. And I'm a better person 00:49:31.740 --> 00:49:35.080 today as a result of other people and my experiences. 00:49:35.480 --> 00:49:39.760 And, you know, we're always learning and growing like, but Yeah, no, absolutely. 00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:45.920 I mean, it's a lot better than sort of, you can't, I don't know, 00:49:46.100 --> 00:49:49.420 like you can't just pretend it didn't exist or didn't happen. 00:49:49.600 --> 00:49:51.600 Now, at the same time, you know, 00:49:51.680 --> 00:49:54.960 I can tell you there were things I did in college I'm embarrassed about. 00:49:55.160 --> 00:49:59.400 I'm probably not just going to come out and tell you what they are right now, 00:49:59.460 --> 00:50:02.160 this very second. You know, I'm not. 00:50:02.300 --> 00:50:06.120 But if somebody confronted with me with them, I'd be like, yeah, 00:50:06.840 --> 00:50:08.780 that happened. I'm sorry. 00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:13.940 I'm embarrassed about things I did last week. You know, I'm embarrassed about 00:50:13.940 --> 00:50:16.460 saying welcome, excited to be here. 00:50:18.820 --> 00:50:22.600 Yeah, no, I mean, yes, absolutely. Yeah. 00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:28.700 But in the end, you have to own them. It does no good to like try to deny them 00:50:28.700 --> 00:50:34.820 or pretend it was, you know, I mean, I guess for some things you can plead the, 00:50:35.080 --> 00:50:40.580 you know, I was young and stupid, but even there it's like, yeah, okay, but. 00:50:41.090 --> 00:50:46.910 If you're young and stupid at 20, you're still old enough to know better, you know? And so. 00:50:47.230 --> 00:50:49.130 So is Donald Trump. And. 00:50:49.410 --> 00:50:49.830 Yes. 00:50:50.190 --> 00:50:51.350 In his 70s. 00:50:51.670 --> 00:50:55.970 So before we get into pure news stuff, I was reminded you mentioned right before 00:50:55.970 --> 00:51:00.630 the break that listening to my son say how much he hated the podcast prompted 00:51:00.630 --> 00:51:02.930 you to contribute. So I do want to. 00:51:03.250 --> 00:51:09.170 You became a patron on our site. And so rather than delay it to some other time, 00:51:09.410 --> 00:51:12.170 let me give you your proper rewards. 00:51:13.270 --> 00:51:17.890 So number one is just we will mention you and thank you on the show. So thank you. 00:51:18.310 --> 00:51:21.470 Thank you, Emily Wicks, for becoming a patron. 00:51:22.090 --> 00:51:25.930 Second, at the level you've gotten to, at which we give to anybody who asks. 00:51:26.090 --> 00:51:30.090 But also, you were invited to our Commudgeons Corner Slack and have logged in 00:51:30.090 --> 00:51:33.070 at least once and said hi. So thank you for that. 00:51:33.070 --> 00:51:36.970 Oh, I read all the stories. I was I was following everybody's comments. So. 00:51:38.430 --> 00:51:43.130 Oh, excellent. Yeah, we've got we've probably only got like four or five people 00:51:43.130 --> 00:51:44.770 who are like in there every day. 00:51:45.050 --> 00:51:49.290 And then probably another four or five who like chime in like once every month 00:51:49.290 --> 00:51:51.470 or so who seem to be lurkers. 00:51:51.650 --> 00:51:57.350 And then we've got a few more people who logged in once and haven't really logged in again. 00:51:57.650 --> 00:51:59.830 You know, but, you know, whatever. That's fine. 00:52:00.130 --> 00:52:03.510 People have their their different levels. But we have fun there. 00:52:04.070 --> 00:52:07.590 And then we've had a few people who are regulars for a long time and then sort 00:52:07.590 --> 00:52:09.030 of dropped off, and that's okay too. 00:52:09.450 --> 00:52:15.830 Well, I was holding off on getting Slack again because I have WhatsApp, 00:52:16.110 --> 00:52:22.010 Discord, Signal, every single way that someone can get a hold of me, I feel. 00:52:22.470 --> 00:52:27.310 But when the podcast network invited me to a Slack, I was like, 00:52:27.370 --> 00:52:30.170 oh, I'll get in. And so I'm in now. 00:52:30.550 --> 00:52:32.390 Yeah, and you know- 00:52:33.120 --> 00:52:36.940 Someone reminded me the other day, too, like, you know, Slack, 00:52:37.320 --> 00:52:41.340 if you look at the ownership of Slack, it's, like, people who you might not 00:52:41.340 --> 00:52:44.720 necessarily like if you go up the chain and, like, whatever. 00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:48.920 But I'm, like, you can't avoid that. Yeah. 00:52:49.080 --> 00:52:52.280 I'm sorry. Like if you, if you, 00:52:52.420 --> 00:52:57.840 you have to pick and choose your boycotts over like people you don't like being 00:52:57.840 --> 00:53:04.540 like partial owners of some whatever, or even like major owners. 00:53:04.540 --> 00:53:13.600 I mean, you know, if you boycotted everything where anybody involved was problematic, 00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:15.680 you couldn't do anything. 00:53:16.200 --> 00:53:20.420 You'd be sitting at home doing nothing. And so you have to pick and choose. 00:53:20.580 --> 00:53:23.700 And I mean, there are occasional things I will avoid. 00:53:24.160 --> 00:53:27.480 And, you know, the person who reminded me about Slack the other day, 00:53:27.560 --> 00:53:29.960 I'm like, well, what, is Discord better? 00:53:30.460 --> 00:53:30.940 Yeah. 00:53:31.300 --> 00:53:34.460 Yeah. I don't know that it is. you 00:53:34.460 --> 00:53:37.520 know all of these things have one 00:53:37.520 --> 00:53:40.660 issue or another or whatever so you know 00:53:40.660 --> 00:53:43.480 yeah we we picked slack years and years 00:53:43.480 --> 00:53:46.320 ago for whatever reasons that made it 00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:49.160 attractive at the time probably it's what you could 00:53:49.160 --> 00:53:55.160 get for the free tier stuff like that and and you know moving would be a pain 00:53:55.160 --> 00:53:59.420 anyway so welcome to the slack as well and then finally at the level you have 00:53:59.420 --> 00:54:06.480 contributed to our patreon we get to ring a bell in your honor so here's a bell, 00:54:10.700 --> 00:54:13.540 thank you for joining our patreon, 00:54:14.510 --> 00:54:20.470 and and and also for actually co-hosting you also get a mug oh yes i'm so. 00:54:20.470 --> 00:54:21.590 Excited for the mug too. 00:54:21.590 --> 00:54:23.030 I'm gonna not. 00:54:23.030 --> 00:54:24.930 That we did compare all of our mugs. 00:54:24.930 --> 00:54:29.890 Yes the yeah lots of people have too many mugs but you know and and you showed 00:54:29.890 --> 00:54:34.850 me like she sent me a picture of where she has her mugs and it's very full uh 00:54:34.850 --> 00:54:39.150 but you know we'll we'll get get you a mug anyway and anyways that's really. 00:54:39.150 --> 00:54:44.790 Why i left the legislature, I didn't need any more mugs. Every year they give you a mug. 00:54:45.650 --> 00:54:50.310 So actually, like we didn't do this at the beginning when I when I first introduced you by name. 00:54:50.450 --> 00:54:54.030 Do you want to give like two minutes on like who you are and what your history 00:54:54.030 --> 00:54:57.950 is and plug your podcast a few more times, you know, and then we can move on? 00:54:58.410 --> 00:55:04.850 Yeah. So I grew up in Snohomish County, born and raised in Marysville, 00:55:04.950 --> 00:55:07.310 Washington. I live in Everett, Washington now. 00:55:07.670 --> 00:55:12.890 I worked at a few public affairs firms. I got really lucky in 2008 and got a 00:55:12.890 --> 00:55:16.290 job in the middle of a recession, paid absolutely nothing. 00:55:16.590 --> 00:55:23.490 I worked on Governor Inslee's 2012 campaign for governor, which really took off my whole career. 00:55:23.750 --> 00:55:29.830 When I came back to live in Snohomish County after connecting with my spouse, 00:55:29.850 --> 00:55:33.730 who we reconnected at our 10-year reunion. I ended up working at the Marysville 00:55:33.730 --> 00:55:35.950 School District in communications for a while. 00:55:36.270 --> 00:55:41.510 And during the pandemic, one of our state senators retired and there was an 00:55:41.510 --> 00:55:44.090 opening for a spot in the state legislature. 00:55:44.470 --> 00:55:49.170 Ended up being a House seat. Senator June Robinson took the Senate seat and 00:55:49.170 --> 00:55:50.170 there was an opening there. 00:55:50.430 --> 00:55:54.970 And so I went for the appointment process and I won and then ran that year, 00:55:55.310 --> 00:56:00.710 served for two years in the state legislature, had enough at that point. It was really hard. 00:56:00.870 --> 00:56:06.030 You know, I think your partner can attest to the difficulty of that experience. 00:56:06.150 --> 00:56:10.990 And she knows the experience of going through the appointment process, which is tricky too. 00:56:11.270 --> 00:56:16.150 And I think that was even harder than running a full-on campaign in some ways. 00:56:16.550 --> 00:56:21.910 And then after that, decided to start a podcast. I've always loved kind of acting. 00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:27.190 And I mean, the same thing with you. My friends and I used to make time capsules 00:56:27.190 --> 00:56:31.850 and record ourselves on tapes and put them in there. And I still have those as well. 00:56:31.990 --> 00:56:36.210 And I'm also the executive director of the Washington Institute for a Democratic Future. 00:56:36.470 --> 00:56:41.690 We recruit 32 fellows every year to go across the state, learn about civics 00:56:41.690 --> 00:56:46.750 and meet all of their delegation. We get to go to D.C. They meet their delegation there. 00:56:46.850 --> 00:56:50.710 We get to meet with all the Democratic members. They really respect us. 00:56:50.870 --> 00:56:54.370 We go on extended learning trips this year. We're going to Arizona, 00:56:54.710 --> 00:56:56.790 hopefully pending the government shutdown. 00:56:57.110 --> 00:57:00.870 But I really love being in that space. I did the program in 2013, 00:57:00.870 --> 00:57:06.490 and it was just really meaningful for me and the opportunities to network with folks. 00:57:06.490 --> 00:57:11.030 So putting that out there for any 21 to 39 year olds who are interested, 00:57:11.030 --> 00:57:14.650 we really try to get a diverse set of people from across the state. 00:57:14.930 --> 00:57:21.410 It's heavily, those who heavily apply or apply heavily are from King County and sometimes Seattle. 00:57:21.650 --> 00:57:25.910 So having people from Snohomish County, Spokane County is also really great. 00:57:26.050 --> 00:57:29.910 So that was my little drop on that. And then the UMSUR podcast I did with my 00:57:29.910 --> 00:57:33.350 neighbor, Sammy, it was, I started out on my own, but you know, 00:57:33.470 --> 00:57:36.410 the Sammy was a guest one time and I go, why don't we just do this together? 00:57:36.410 --> 00:57:39.810 Cause I need a partner in crime. And, you know, she comes to the. 00:57:40.400 --> 00:57:43.320 To the podcast, you know, as like, I don't know, I want to, she'll, 00:57:43.380 --> 00:57:46.960 she'll call herself a lay person, but it's always, it was always nice to talk 00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:51.520 to her about what she's hearing, you know, not someone not deep in the politics, 00:57:51.780 --> 00:57:53.760 like not deep in that space. 00:57:54.180 --> 00:57:58.040 And so to, to hear her perspective and then to provide the insight that I know, 00:57:58.200 --> 00:57:59.700 um, and share that with others is really fun. 00:57:59.840 --> 00:58:02.440 So where it's a, it's been a work in progress. I know that you, 00:58:02.580 --> 00:58:04.640 how long have you and Yvonne been doing this? 00:58:04.740 --> 00:58:09.720 We started in 2000, June, 2007. That's awesome. Yeah. 00:58:09.840 --> 00:58:13.080 You're an inspiration too to just you know to keep going and 00:58:13.080 --> 00:58:17.740 no i mean we're so impressed with you guys and and yeah it's really given us 00:58:17.740 --> 00:58:23.580 like a new like a you know a little bit more oomph to our work and love it and 00:58:23.580 --> 00:58:27.780 i have so many ideas for us so i can't wait to talk like offline about ways 00:58:27.780 --> 00:58:33.060 that we can promote our podcast in the snohomish county podcast network so excellent should be fun. 00:58:33.060 --> 00:58:34.240 You know i'm i'm, 00:58:35.340 --> 00:58:39.240 I'm very interested to hear what you have to say and figure out what we can 00:58:39.240 --> 00:58:40.360 do together. It should be fun. 00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:48.940 And yeah, very cool. So let me start with, as we dive into the newsier parts 00:58:48.940 --> 00:58:52.980 of things, we bumped into each other at No Kings yesterday. 00:58:53.440 --> 00:58:57.980 I heard someone say it was actually the third one, but this was the second one. 00:58:58.160 --> 00:59:00.520 I think the first one was labeled differently. 00:59:00.900 --> 00:59:04.540 It wasn't labeled No Kings. It was just No Kings, not New Kings. 00:59:05.620 --> 00:59:11.780 Wrong, wrong direction. No, but the first one was labeled something else and was a lot smaller. 00:59:11.920 --> 00:59:15.660 And they really got their speed with the first one back in June, 00:59:15.780 --> 00:59:18.280 the No Kings one. And now we've had the second one. 00:59:19.820 --> 00:59:26.480 What were your thoughts over? Brandy and I showed our faces at three of them yesterday. 00:59:27.060 --> 00:59:30.620 We sort of did. She was thinking about four, but we sort of ran out of steam. 00:59:30.620 --> 00:59:36.180 But we went to Monroe, Snohomish, and then Everett. 00:59:36.340 --> 00:59:39.660 Everett's where I ran into you. Just a quick report on those. 00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:44.560 Monroe and Snohomish, they didn't have rallies. They just had sort of people 00:59:44.560 --> 00:59:48.500 with their signs lining the streets at a designated location. 00:59:49.260 --> 00:59:52.160 Both of those, I'd say, had rallies. 00:59:53.250 --> 00:59:58.470 On the order of 500-ish people, so it was not bad. It was a good turnout. 00:59:59.070 --> 01:00:04.470 Snohomish felt like more people because it was crowded into a smaller area, 01:00:04.470 --> 01:00:06.630 whereas it was more spread out in Monroe. 01:00:06.890 --> 01:00:10.930 But I think if you actually counted, it would be about the same size of people 01:00:10.930 --> 01:00:12.810 in terms of number of people. 01:00:13.970 --> 01:00:17.990 And they were doing the signs. There were people in the inflatable costumes. 01:00:18.490 --> 01:00:21.370 There were people honking as they drove by. Lots of excitement there. 01:00:21.370 --> 01:00:23.830 And then Everett was the big one we went to. 01:00:24.170 --> 01:00:28.150 Like, obviously, you know, Seattle, New York, L.A. 01:00:28.290 --> 01:00:32.910 All had, you know, many more people than a place like Everett, Washington would have. 01:00:33.250 --> 01:00:38.630 But Everett seemed to have, I saw one estimate as around 4,000, 01:00:38.830 --> 01:00:41.870 but then it grew after that. So I'd say probably close. 01:00:41.990 --> 01:00:45.990 If the 4,000 was correct at the time I saw someone say that, 01:00:46.430 --> 01:00:51.150 then it was probably 5,000 by the time it was over because it grew after that. People kept arriving. 01:00:52.830 --> 01:01:00.070 And what were your thoughts, both of this one and also how it compared to June and what's going on? 01:01:00.150 --> 01:01:02.430 I know you were taking video. 01:01:02.950 --> 01:01:07.750 Yeah, I got some video. I always love bringing that, getting the signs and getting 01:01:07.750 --> 01:01:08.770 the cheers and everything. 01:01:09.230 --> 01:01:15.750 You know, I think I will say that I am somebody, and probably since the first 01:01:15.750 --> 01:01:22.470 women's march that I participated in in 2017, after he was elected to his first term. 01:01:23.010 --> 01:01:27.750 You know, that was, I remember feeling so good at that event. And I, 01:01:28.240 --> 01:01:31.140 almost like the way that they're telling you not to feel now. 01:01:31.420 --> 01:01:34.360 Right. Like, so I'm a little skeptical. 01:01:35.020 --> 01:01:38.600 Wait, go into that more. What are they telling you not to feel right now? 01:01:39.080 --> 01:01:45.620 Well, I mean, OK, so I think we you know, a lot of things that I see and I'm a little bit of a, 01:01:46.700 --> 01:01:51.980 rally skeptic skeptic, you know, because, you know, Ijeoma Alou, 01:01:52.200 --> 01:01:54.100 who's a wonderful writer from our area. 01:01:54.400 --> 01:01:59.400 After the first No Kings protest, she put out a post by The Conscious Citizen 01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:03.460 about how every successful protest movement has six core pillars. 01:02:03.640 --> 01:02:06.340 And if we have these, then we maximize our chance to win. 01:02:06.740 --> 01:02:09.500 One is clear, non-negotiable demands. 01:02:10.140 --> 01:02:15.620 Escalating pressure is number two. Three, non-cooperation. Four, narrative control. 01:02:16.260 --> 01:02:20.100 Five is safety and security. Six is long-term support and infrastructure but 01:02:20.100 --> 01:02:24.500 if you dive deep into some of those things like the no kings protest is misses. 01:02:24.500 --> 01:02:25.180 A lot of those. 01:02:25.180 --> 01:02:28.280 It misses a lot of it and and she even mentions like 01:02:28.280 --> 01:02:32.640 in the end to like where's this one hold on on here i just think what it was 01:02:32.640 --> 01:02:36.400 was i say she i'm not sure if she wrote this or someone else did and she just 01:02:36.400 --> 01:02:41.700 posted it are the organizer are the organizers building power with other grassroots 01:02:41.700 --> 01:02:46.420 organizations or encouraging investment into the democrat party True collective 01:02:46.420 --> 01:02:47.600 power comes from the people, 01:02:47.860 --> 01:02:50.920 not Republican or Democratic parties, who have both failed us. 01:02:51.360 --> 01:02:55.980 Effective movements should seek to build power structures away from what created the current problem. 01:02:56.140 --> 01:03:00.280 So the positive power building is collaboration with mutual aid groups, 01:03:00.420 --> 01:03:04.440 sharing alternatives and other collectives, promoting skill building and volunteering 01:03:04.440 --> 01:03:09.200 opportunities, providing leftist education, provide viable next steps for protesters. 01:03:09.200 --> 01:03:14.440 The power illusion is not having next steps for protesters, avoiding organizing 01:03:14.440 --> 01:03:18.640 with existing leftist groups, encouraging investment into the Democratic Party. 01:03:20.520 --> 01:03:22.180 And I go ahead. 01:03:22.600 --> 01:03:29.740 No, I'd say the first thing I'd say is like, I definitely agree that. 01:03:30.610 --> 01:03:38.950 If you're looking for sort of immediate change or action, a lot of the six points make sense. 01:03:39.130 --> 01:03:42.930 You know, you need the clear demands. You need the whatever. 01:03:43.670 --> 01:03:50.810 But I feel like that misinterprets what this is trying to do right now. 01:03:52.390 --> 01:03:57.230 The main thing I got, and I'll be honest, I felt this more in June than I did 01:03:57.230 --> 01:04:01.450 this time. But maybe that's just because of the way I personally interacted 01:04:01.450 --> 01:04:03.910 and I was sort of in and out more this time. 01:04:04.250 --> 01:04:10.830 But I think the biggest thing that I get out of this is not a, 01:04:11.070 --> 01:04:16.230 we're going to organize and take actions XYZ that will make a difference in 01:04:16.230 --> 01:04:17.690 the next six months or something. 01:04:17.690 --> 01:04:27.930 Because I think it's more recognizing you're not alone in a period of darkness 01:04:27.930 --> 01:04:34.870 where everybody sort of recognizes that the darkness is going to last a while. 01:04:34.870 --> 01:04:44.950 And we are in a defensive position where you're trying to minimize damage and 01:04:44.950 --> 01:04:50.470 protect yourselves as much as possible to sort of get through it. 01:04:50.530 --> 01:04:54.850 And then the pieces will be picked up afterwards. 01:04:55.130 --> 01:05:00.690 Like, I don't think because like, realistically, what is the alternative right now? 01:05:00.990 --> 01:05:01.470 Yeah. 01:05:01.470 --> 01:05:07.470 You know, are you really going to like, you know, and I have heard some people 01:05:07.470 --> 01:05:11.470 advocate like, oh, it's time for an actual revolution. 01:05:11.610 --> 01:05:18.830 Let's do a violent like overthrow of the government or let's actually do secession 01:05:18.830 --> 01:05:20.790 and have some states try to leave. 01:05:21.170 --> 01:05:26.450 Or, you know, let's let's do a military. Hopefully the military does a coup or whatever. 01:05:26.770 --> 01:05:29.550 My take on a lot of those things is. 01:05:30.800 --> 01:05:34.560 If you look at other places where those things have happened, 01:05:34.900 --> 01:05:37.040 you would not wish for them. 01:05:37.400 --> 01:05:37.840 Yeah. 01:05:38.200 --> 01:05:44.740 Because they, the amount, there's sort of an accelerationist tendency that says, 01:05:44.880 --> 01:05:47.580 and they actually call them accelerationists, and they're accelerationists on 01:05:47.580 --> 01:05:48.740 both the left and the right, 01:05:48.960 --> 01:05:54.420 where they're, you know, it all has to be burnt to the ground and we have to start over. 01:05:54.600 --> 01:06:03.160 So the sooner that happens, the better. But the problem is when you cross that 01:06:03.160 --> 01:06:09.580 Rubicon into those kinds of rapid change, 01:06:09.860 --> 01:06:17.480 the typical result is a generation or two of complete chaos, lots of people dying, 01:06:17.840 --> 01:06:22.900 the situation getting much worse before it gets better. And I'm not sure. 01:06:23.300 --> 01:06:26.880 I mean, the alternative is not great either. Like, you know, 01:06:27.480 --> 01:06:31.360 wait for the end of the Trump administration and hope that, you know, 01:06:31.520 --> 01:06:36.020 not enough damage has been done that you can do some sort of recovery afterwards. 01:06:36.020 --> 01:06:44.360 Hope hope that he dies and Vance isn't worse you know or or whatever like we're 01:06:44.360 --> 01:06:53.180 in a dark scenario right now but I feel like the the situations that really try to. 01:06:54.870 --> 01:07:01.870 Super rapid change risk making it worse as, as bad as things are, 01:07:01.990 --> 01:07:03.030 they risk making it worse. 01:07:03.210 --> 01:07:09.770 Now, even be beside that point though, I guess there's, you could have, 01:07:09.970 --> 01:07:12.410 you know, the specific set of demands 01:07:12.410 --> 01:07:16.930 that, okay, we want the Donald Trump administration to shut down ice. 01:07:17.870 --> 01:07:22.690 The Trump administration is not going to shut down ice. Maybe at some point 01:07:22.690 --> 01:07:26.650 in the future, if you do get it, Democrats back or something, 01:07:26.990 --> 01:07:32.170 you could get them to, but you're never going to get the Trump administration to do that. 01:07:32.330 --> 01:07:35.610 Like, regardless, like if, if you, you know, if you get the, 01:07:35.610 --> 01:07:39.330 the millions of people in the street demanding it, you know, 01:07:39.410 --> 01:07:43.650 they're far more likely to crack down on the million people in the street than 01:07:43.650 --> 01:07:46.110 to give into the demands. 01:07:46.310 --> 01:07:49.890 I mean, it's just the nature of the, the beast we have right now. 01:07:50.230 --> 01:07:55.250 So I don't know. I feel like, I think it's worthy in and of itself, 01:07:55.490 --> 01:07:59.170 like it would be great if these demonstrations could get more done. 01:07:59.630 --> 01:08:03.330 And, you know, I've also been skeptical of demonstrations all along, 01:08:03.470 --> 01:08:09.370 but I remember, especially at the first one of these, just coming out of it 01:08:09.370 --> 01:08:13.550 with a lot of positive feelings just from, oh my God, 01:08:13.950 --> 01:08:16.670 there's so many people driving by and honking. 01:08:16.850 --> 01:08:19.990 There's so many people waving their signs. 01:08:20.290 --> 01:08:24.830 And you get pictures from all around the country where even in the reddest parts 01:08:24.830 --> 01:08:29.750 of America, there are people coming out and doing this in places where you have to be brave to do so. 01:08:31.110 --> 01:08:36.870 And I know warm and fuzzies are warm and fuzzies. 01:08:36.990 --> 01:08:41.370 They're not necessarily making the change that you want, but I think they're still important. 01:08:42.160 --> 01:08:45.040 I think they're really important for community. Absolutely. 01:08:45.300 --> 01:08:48.680 And especially I feel like there was a lot of people at this last one that are 01:08:48.680 --> 01:08:53.720 coming into this newly coming in to to this that were that this. 01:08:53.720 --> 01:08:55.640 Was significantly bigger than last June. 01:08:55.800 --> 01:08:56.220 It was. 01:08:56.320 --> 01:08:57.880 And June was already big. 01:08:58.140 --> 01:09:03.220 Well, they said it was like, I don't know, they said upward like five million to eight point two. 01:09:03.400 --> 01:09:06.120 Right. But like last night I read that it was seven million, 01:09:06.260 --> 01:09:09.020 which was two million more than they had before. 01:09:09.020 --> 01:09:16.740 Yeah, on that, just the $7 million was the official estimate put out by the organizers. 01:09:17.820 --> 01:09:25.860 The best independent measurement of that that I've seen is from G. 01:09:26.060 --> 01:09:31.400 Elliott Morris. He used to be with The Economist, and he's now independent. 01:09:31.880 --> 01:09:38.540 But his estimate, having compiled spreadsheets from all kinds of volunteers, 01:09:38.780 --> 01:09:44.340 pictures from everywhere, their median estimate at this point is 5.2. 01:09:44.480 --> 01:09:45.600 So that's their best estimate. 01:09:45.760 --> 01:09:48.000 But it could be as high as 8.2. 01:09:48.200 --> 01:09:51.420 There's a lot of uncertainty in estimating crowds like this. 01:09:51.420 --> 01:09:58.120 So his take on the official $7 million estimate is that it's probably a little 01:09:58.120 --> 01:10:01.380 bit optimistic, but it's within the realm of possibility. 01:10:01.380 --> 01:10:12.580 And even if you're at the lower end, at 5.2, it's still likely the largest single-day 01:10:12.580 --> 01:10:15.740 protest event since 1970, at least. 01:10:15.740 --> 01:10:21.720 Yeah. I mean, it's and and I think, you know, with the clear non-negotiable 01:10:21.720 --> 01:10:25.840 demands and those pieces, it's really hard to do that when they're literally 01:10:25.840 --> 01:10:30.360 upending everything. So it's like, you know, everybody's coming with their ideas. 01:10:30.540 --> 01:10:33.100 It's really hard to have one demand. Also, it's. 01:10:35.400 --> 01:10:40.160 Pick any demand you want. It ends up being divisive and send some of the people away. 01:10:40.820 --> 01:10:40.940 Yeah. 01:10:41.160 --> 01:10:49.660 You know, like the idea of No Kings specifically is they're making a broad statement, 01:10:50.420 --> 01:10:54.820 about the value of democracy and the value of rule of law. 01:10:55.340 --> 01:10:58.340 And that's something that you can get lots of people behind. 01:10:58.340 --> 01:11:02.680 If you make it a very specific demand about a specific policy, 01:11:02.680 --> 01:11:05.800 you're going to be shedding supporters left and right. 01:11:06.100 --> 01:11:14.680 Like the whole idea is like, what is the broad coalition that you can make against 01:11:14.680 --> 01:11:16.560 the trend of things that's going on? 01:11:16.660 --> 01:11:20.300 One thing that my wife, Randy pointed out and a number of other people, 01:11:21.100 --> 01:11:26.580 then nodded their heads along, is at the Everett event, there was a speaker 01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:28.340 from the League of Women Voters. 01:11:28.600 --> 01:11:34.140 The League of Women Voters, for those who aren't aware, are notoriously neutral. 01:11:34.600 --> 01:11:35.060 Yes. 01:11:35.320 --> 01:11:41.000 Their whole thing is they are a nonpartisan organization. They organize, 01:11:41.000 --> 01:11:43.000 like, debates between candidates. 01:11:43.200 --> 01:11:50.060 They organize voter registration drives. But they are meticulously neutral. 01:11:50.060 --> 01:11:54.120 I mean, they've got nonprofit status that requires that. 01:11:54.260 --> 01:11:58.820 But even aside that, their whole philosophy is we don't take sides. 01:11:59.160 --> 01:12:07.800 They spoke at this event because this was not a specific anti-administration thing. 01:12:07.940 --> 01:12:11.500 This was not a pro-Democrat, anti-Republican event. 01:12:11.620 --> 01:12:17.320 It was a pro-democracy event. And so even somebody like the League of Women 01:12:17.320 --> 01:12:22.240 Voters could get behind this and have a speaker there and that kind of stuff. 01:12:22.520 --> 01:12:26.780 Whereas, you know, if you made it a very specific, 01:12:26.980 --> 01:12:30.900 let's say, you know, an anti-ICE demonstration that was like, 01:12:31.060 --> 01:12:35.920 we have to stop the, you know, we have to stop the abuses of ICE. 01:12:35.920 --> 01:12:37.560 We need to stop deporting people. 01:12:37.740 --> 01:12:42.560 We need to reform our immigration laws and do X, Y, Z, amnesty for people who've 01:12:42.560 --> 01:12:43.540 been here a while, blah, blah, blah. 01:12:44.650 --> 01:12:50.450 You would not get anywhere near the size that you got with No Kings as it is. 01:12:50.990 --> 01:12:54.230 I'd like to think you would because I agree with all those things, 01:12:54.230 --> 01:12:58.430 but the reality is you would lose a bunch of people who could get behind No 01:12:58.430 --> 01:13:02.230 Kings but couldn't get behind all of the specifics of detailed proposals. 01:13:02.730 --> 01:13:09.210 Yeah. Well, you know, just going back to like being at that first Women's March and, 01:13:09.490 --> 01:13:13.710 you know, I guess I'm kind of tired and I'm of the mind, and I hate to say this, 01:13:13.790 --> 01:13:17.330 and I understand that if there was violent protests, you know, 01:13:17.470 --> 01:13:22.330 that wouldn't serve anything as either. But I do think that something needs to break. 01:13:22.510 --> 01:13:26.310 And I do think that part of the problem, which is what Ijeoma always talks about, too, 01:13:26.710 --> 01:13:31.890 which I myself have a hard time, like, really, I would say, personally, 01:13:32.070 --> 01:13:38.130 actually committing to it on a full scale, because capitalism is just so ingrained in everything. 01:13:38.130 --> 01:13:41.230 And it's either like you survive right now or you don't, you know, 01:13:41.350 --> 01:13:43.030 because you have to live in this space. 01:13:43.130 --> 01:13:46.990 Like we're talking about Slack and the fact that you have to you're just going to use it. 01:13:47.330 --> 01:13:51.150 I was, you know, people were talking about boycotting Costco for not having 01:13:51.150 --> 01:13:52.030 Plan B and Mifepristone. 01:13:52.850 --> 01:13:56.110 But it's like the reality is, is that people just aren't going to do that. 01:13:56.290 --> 01:13:59.330 I mean, you already have a hard enough time, like getting your basic needs, 01:13:59.530 --> 01:14:03.590 you know, without going on Amazon. And, you know, you try your best to do that. 01:14:03.650 --> 01:14:07.470 But I truly do believe that something needs to break. And I am at a point, 01:14:07.770 --> 01:14:11.730 you know, you can put this out there, but I'm like, if we're not burning something 01:14:11.730 --> 01:14:14.770 down at this point, like, I'm not really sure what we're doing. 01:14:14.770 --> 01:14:18.470 And I hate, I hate admitting that. I don't hate admitting that, but... 01:14:19.280 --> 01:14:23.840 I just get tired. And I think that's another reason that I couldn't do the legislature 01:14:23.840 --> 01:14:30.560 anymore, too, because I felt so restricted in that space by everything else that I said, 01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:35.580 I need to be someone who's poking people from the outside and have that freedom 01:14:35.580 --> 01:14:39.480 to do it and be the supporter where I can and do all of that stuff. 01:14:39.480 --> 01:14:44.740 But I I one thing that I really appreciated about the protest or about the rally 01:14:44.740 --> 01:14:48.060 was that because it wasn't a protest. 01:14:48.440 --> 01:14:53.440 I mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, it wasn't it was community building. Absolutely. 01:14:54.580 --> 01:14:58.260 But the no one gave a shit about their signs. 01:14:58.840 --> 01:15:02.440 And I mean, like design wise, which I loved. There was I mean, 01:15:02.760 --> 01:15:05.740 that's what I appreciated. It was like, you know. 01:15:06.000 --> 01:15:08.940 Like people would throw together whatever that they could do quickly. 01:15:08.940 --> 01:15:12.320 They make a statement without worrying like, oh, does it have to look perfect? 01:15:12.560 --> 01:15:15.500 Yeah, there was that the perfectionism on that was gone. 01:15:15.800 --> 01:15:19.100 Nobody cared. I did not see any like perfect signs. I love that. 01:15:19.200 --> 01:15:21.620 Like, why spend your time on that? That is just a waste. 01:15:23.020 --> 01:15:28.940 I will tell you that I was there purely to hand out cards for the Washington 01:15:28.940 --> 01:15:30.540 Institute for a Democratic Future. 01:15:31.000 --> 01:15:34.160 And I wanted to do that because I wanted to make sure that we're doing that 01:15:34.160 --> 01:15:37.320 part that's long term support and infrastructure, that we're getting people 01:15:37.320 --> 01:15:41.960 involved and that we We are, you know, doing that education and bringing people 01:15:41.960 --> 01:15:43.780 to the table and talking about the different groups. 01:15:43.920 --> 01:15:47.800 I signed up for the Democratic Socialist newsletter, you know, 01:15:47.960 --> 01:15:52.560 and grabbed a few things from their table so that I could use that and speak 01:15:52.560 --> 01:15:56.540 to like the big tent that we have, you know, in the Democratic Party. 01:15:57.020 --> 01:16:02.280 And then the thing that makes me laugh and because and I'm going to take credit for this too. 01:16:02.960 --> 01:16:07.140 Bob Ferguson was there. I talked to one of the organizers earlier, Governor Bob Ferguson. 01:16:07.140 --> 01:16:08.940 Washington for anybody who's not familiar with the name. 01:16:09.640 --> 01:16:09.720 What? 01:16:10.500 --> 01:16:14.540 I was just telling people who aren't in Washington state, that's our governor. 01:16:14.980 --> 01:16:19.000 Yeah, yeah. Our governor, Bob Ferguson, was there. The amount of... 01:16:19.480 --> 01:16:23.760 Time he has been spending in Snohomish County is almost like, 01:16:23.940 --> 01:16:26.460 why are you so obsessed with us? I'm not really sure. 01:16:26.640 --> 01:16:30.480 And I'm going to say it's because Sammy and I have been dragging him through the news. 01:16:30.560 --> 01:16:34.300 But I saw an organizer when I was there that I've known for a while. 01:16:34.460 --> 01:16:36.300 And actually, I was with your spouse. 01:16:37.140 --> 01:16:40.520 And she's like, we have a special surprise. A special surprise is coming. 01:16:40.600 --> 01:16:41.580 I'm like, oh, what could it be? 01:16:41.700 --> 01:16:46.920 And I had left before the speeches started to go and sign wave on Broadway for a while. 01:16:47.340 --> 01:16:55.780 And I was like, oh, it was Governor Ferguson coming again. He came to the gala 01:16:55.780 --> 01:16:59.960 that we had a couple, maybe like a month ago, the Snohomish County Democrats gala. 01:17:00.340 --> 01:17:05.600 And there was no need for our attorney general, our treasurer, 01:17:05.900 --> 01:17:07.860 our state treasurer, and him to be there. 01:17:07.880 --> 01:17:10.780 And his speech was exactly the same, I think, from what I've seen. 01:17:10.940 --> 01:17:13.980 But it makes me laugh that he I'm just curious 01:17:13.980 --> 01:17:17.140 what the what the you know so much time in 01:17:17.140 --> 01:17:22.100 Snohomish County and why and probably because Seattleites dislike him even more 01:17:22.100 --> 01:17:29.620 right now for his unwillingness and side note for people the Cascade PBS did 01:17:29.620 --> 01:17:34.840 a three-episode podcast called Ferguson versus everyone, 01:17:35.120 --> 01:17:38.020 which he did not comment on. 01:17:38.160 --> 01:17:45.660 But they interviewed Rep. Corey, who was Republican in the statehouse, the minority leader. 01:17:45.860 --> 01:17:51.480 And then the next episode, they interviewed Senator Jamie Peterson, Democratic leader. 01:17:51.680 --> 01:17:56.980 And then they interviewed media in the third episode, which was Jerry Kornfield 01:17:56.980 --> 01:18:00.580 from the Washington Standard, Axios, and just how he hasn't. 01:18:01.390 --> 01:18:06.290 He won't talk to the media. He doesn't have the relationship that other past 01:18:06.290 --> 01:18:09.350 governors have had with the media and how interesting it is. 01:18:09.450 --> 01:18:15.230 So it's been pretty fascinating to watch that happen. And I'm really curious 01:18:15.230 --> 01:18:18.590 why he's there. But I mean, I live... 01:18:18.590 --> 01:18:22.490 Most people wouldn't complain if the governor was giving them more attention. 01:18:23.110 --> 01:18:25.850 Lots of people complain that they don't get enough. I'm not complaining. 01:18:26.110 --> 01:18:31.930 I'm just like, what's your angle here, buddy? Like, I mean, and for him to like, 01:18:32.430 --> 01:18:36.510 you know, I think my our biggest complaint, though, too, my biggest complaint 01:18:36.510 --> 01:18:41.930 is that he cut eight million dollars from the state budget, along with the this 01:18:41.930 --> 01:18:47.090 with our legislators for Planned Parenthood and abortion resources. 01:18:47.090 --> 01:18:56.150 And then basically made us eat the shit by then moving money from the health 01:18:56.150 --> 01:19:01.030 care account to backfill what the Supreme Court decision had done, 01:19:01.190 --> 01:19:04.650 which was, you know, end funding to Planned Parenthood and other abortion related 01:19:04.650 --> 01:19:06.970 services and health care related services. 01:19:06.970 --> 01:19:12.450 And then, you know, Planned Parenthood and all of these other groups had to be like, yay, thank you. 01:19:12.530 --> 01:19:17.830 But after you've just taken the money away and then he uses that as his, 01:19:18.050 --> 01:19:22.330 look what I've done. He literally brought it up at the Snohomish County Dems Gala. 01:19:22.530 --> 01:19:26.090 And I was sitting there being like, do not say that. Do not use that as you're 01:19:26.090 --> 01:19:29.970 like, look what I've done. And he did it. And I was like, how dare you? 01:19:30.390 --> 01:19:34.050 I just, I can't, I can't stand that. And we need. 01:19:34.820 --> 01:19:37.700 I think we're going to, and for those who don't know in Washington, 01:19:37.700 --> 01:19:40.360 we have really regressive taxes here. 01:19:40.560 --> 01:19:43.860 So nobody likes taxes already, but when they're super regressive and they're 01:19:43.860 --> 01:19:48.380 not progressive taxes like income tax that can actually go after people with 01:19:48.380 --> 01:19:52.400 money and not inequitably harm people that do not have money, 01:19:52.540 --> 01:19:56.560 I think it's going to end up creating a lot of problems for our state in the 01:19:56.560 --> 01:20:01.920 future and harms this bubble of this progressive bubble that we have here and 01:20:01.920 --> 01:20:04.720 this democratic bubble that we have here and the wins that we've had. 01:20:04.720 --> 01:20:07.100 So it's like, it's very concerning to me. 01:20:07.220 --> 01:20:12.160 Like the Institute for a Democratic Future came about in the 1997 when we had 01:20:12.160 --> 01:20:16.740 a red wave in Washington to make sure that we had people coming into the space 01:20:16.740 --> 01:20:17.900 and could build an ecosystem. 01:20:18.260 --> 01:20:22.480 And I think that that threatens like that threatens democratic policies. 01:20:22.660 --> 01:20:23.620 It threatens good governance. 01:20:23.900 --> 01:20:28.320 And I don't want to see that happen. So, you know, the result was that we ended 01:20:28.320 --> 01:20:31.340 up passing more harmful regressive taxes. 01:20:31.600 --> 01:20:35.420 And I don't think that's good for Democrats. And I don't think that that that's 01:20:35.420 --> 01:20:36.840 good for Washington overall. 01:20:37.100 --> 01:20:42.260 So it's been really interesting to see. I was not I was always a Bob Ferguson 01:20:42.260 --> 01:20:44.800 skeptic, but it's just continues. 01:20:44.960 --> 01:20:48.160 Sorry, I went on a tangent, but I think it's really funny that he showed up. I can't. 01:20:48.640 --> 01:20:53.780 Yeah, no, that and I know like I know from talking to my wife that they were 01:20:53.780 --> 01:20:58.640 under last session all kinds of constraints that were really tough. 01:20:59.260 --> 01:21:04.560 Like there were no good choices. It was picking between the bad choices. 01:21:05.100 --> 01:21:09.780 And I know there was a lot of frustration that Governor Ferguson was making 01:21:09.780 --> 01:21:14.860 the wrong choices in terms of like, yeah, yeah, you have a whole bunch of bad 01:21:14.860 --> 01:21:16.680 options, but you don't have to pick the worst one. 01:21:16.900 --> 01:21:23.380 You know, I know you can tell all of our legislators get a little defensive, 01:21:23.380 --> 01:21:24.980 you know, But I know what it's like. 01:21:25.140 --> 01:21:28.180 You're you know, you're one of many. You're one of one hundred and forty nine, 01:21:28.320 --> 01:21:33.160 you know, and when the governor tells you that he's going to veto everything, 01:21:33.160 --> 01:21:36.560 you're like, what do we do with that? You know, what do we do with that? 01:21:37.330 --> 01:21:39.390 But no one's hanging with them. 01:21:40.570 --> 01:21:44.230 So getting back to the marches or the no king stuff for a second, 01:21:44.570 --> 01:21:49.770 you had mentioned in passing sort of like actually making these violent, 01:21:49.970 --> 01:21:51.790 burning things down probably wouldn't help. 01:21:52.230 --> 01:21:55.650 I'd say one of the things that has stood out and one of those, 01:21:56.410 --> 01:22:01.750 starting with Portland, but also with all of these on the no king that I've 01:22:01.750 --> 01:22:06.690 seen nationwide at this point is the distinct... 01:22:07.330 --> 01:22:13.470 Well, look, the bottom line, the Trump administration has been looking for an 01:22:13.470 --> 01:22:16.010 excuse to escalate from the beginning. 01:22:16.530 --> 01:22:21.350 Like when they are putting troops into Portland or troops into Chicago or whatever, 01:22:21.750 --> 01:22:29.850 it is almost palpable how they hope there ends up being violence and they can 01:22:29.850 --> 01:22:32.230 use that as the excuse for a crackdown. 01:22:32.230 --> 01:22:35.470 And instead people are 01:22:35.470 --> 01:22:38.930 showing up in their inflatable animal costumes dancing and 01:22:38.930 --> 01:22:42.690 singing and just being ridiculous which 01:22:42.690 --> 01:22:46.410 in turn makes them look ridiculous because 01:22:46.410 --> 01:22:52.750 they are they you've got all these armed people standing around with big big 01:22:52.750 --> 01:22:59.270 guns facing off against inflatable frogs and chickens and such and they just 01:22:59.270 --> 01:23:05.370 look stupid and i think this is one of the keys actually that you know. 01:23:06.710 --> 01:23:09.270 People have been listening straight through the election know I've said this 01:23:09.270 --> 01:23:10.770 over and over again and are sick of it. 01:23:11.010 --> 01:23:18.210 But like, I feel like the one point where the Harris campaign was really, 01:23:18.910 --> 01:23:25.650 hitting all cylinders and working its best, and it also lines up with when they 01:23:25.650 --> 01:23:28.490 were doing the best in the polling in my election graphs analysis, 01:23:28.790 --> 01:23:33.070 was when they were mocking relentlessly. 01:23:33.790 --> 01:23:36.630 And this started with walls but they 01:23:36.630 --> 01:23:39.470 were doing it more generally their social media team was doing 01:23:39.470 --> 01:23:44.910 it harris even participated a little bit herself they were mocking relentlessly 01:23:44.910 --> 01:23:52.410 and that is something that all the way back to 2015 when trump first decided 01:23:52.410 --> 01:23:57.130 he was going to run for president has had you know. 01:23:58.170 --> 01:24:05.070 Has hit the hardest and like, and it fits with his narcissistic personality disorder too. 01:24:05.410 --> 01:24:11.190 Like if you treat them as a threat that gives them energy and there's no question, 01:24:11.310 --> 01:24:16.710 Trump is a threat, but when you treat them that way and where you act scared 01:24:16.710 --> 01:24:18.050 and when you say they're, 01:24:18.190 --> 01:24:23.390 you know, they're, they're going to destroy the Republic, they're super consequential. 01:24:23.650 --> 01:24:28.250 This is the end of democracy, blah, blah, blah. That only gives them energy 01:24:28.250 --> 01:24:29.970 and makes them seem strong. 01:24:30.990 --> 01:24:37.150 But when you mock them and belittle them, A, it really gets under their skins 01:24:37.150 --> 01:24:40.650 and they tend to react in ways that makes them look even worse. 01:24:41.090 --> 01:24:47.450 And two, it takes away their power and makes them look silly. 01:24:47.450 --> 01:24:52.170 And the people who are sort of marginal in terms of their ability, 01:24:52.450 --> 01:24:54.250 you know, how much they're attracted to them. 01:24:54.410 --> 01:24:57.570 They like the strength. They like the certainty. 01:24:57.850 --> 01:25:01.890 They like that kind of thing. And you can argue about whether that's really 01:25:01.890 --> 01:25:06.130 something people should be attracted to in politicians, but they are lots of 01:25:06.130 --> 01:25:12.230 people are, and this pierces that. And I, I, I. 01:25:13.360 --> 01:25:17.360 I get so mad thinking about the Harris campaign when they pivoted away from 01:25:17.360 --> 01:25:22.460 the mocking and pivoted hard into they're a threat. 01:25:22.500 --> 01:25:24.900 You have to vote for us because they're a threat. 01:25:25.220 --> 01:25:30.640 And immediately the polls started dropping. I mean, the mocking works. 01:25:30.880 --> 01:25:36.520 And so I am I like the fact that one of the things, you know, 01:25:36.660 --> 01:25:38.420 like I said, it spread from Portland. 01:25:38.420 --> 01:25:42.080 The inflatable costumes were everywhere 01:25:42.080 --> 01:25:47.980 at these things yesterday all over the country so many costumes um there there 01:25:47.980 --> 01:25:52.500 i've seen that there are people who have been set up in the bigger cities who 01:25:52.500 --> 01:25:57.180 are just they're taking donations of the inflatable costumes they're taking 01:25:57.180 --> 01:26:01.820 monetary donations they're just buying costumes and have i'm. 01:26:01.820 --> 01:26:03.540 Getting to the inflatable costume market. 01:26:03.540 --> 01:26:08.720 And have racks of them to give out for free for people who want the inflatable 01:26:08.720 --> 01:26:14.100 costumes i saw a tiktok from somebody who's an employee at a spirit halloween who's like, 01:26:15.640 --> 01:26:20.480 they're just they're buying us out of everything we have you know yeah and. 01:26:20.480 --> 01:26:24.900 I saw a tiktok that called it you know tactical frivolity and it's been used 01:26:24.900 --> 01:26:29.460 over time you know the mocking is important i mean what gavin newsom and his 01:26:29.460 --> 01:26:35.020 and i say not gavin newsom i'm talking about his team and much smarter people than Gavin Newsom. 01:26:35.020 --> 01:26:35.680 Are doing. 01:26:36.260 --> 01:26:40.000 I mean, it does work and it does make people mad. And I noticed that too. 01:26:40.180 --> 01:26:43.300 Like, you know, I used to, you know, people would go out, trolls, 01:26:43.540 --> 01:26:46.720 you know, they used to affect me, but I don't let that affect me anymore. 01:26:46.820 --> 01:26:50.460 I'm like, my own party can be mean to me all the time. So go ahead. 01:26:50.480 --> 01:26:52.560 And it does, it drives people nuts. 01:26:52.780 --> 01:26:56.240 So when, you know, Sammy and I have the audacity to like write something, 01:26:56.580 --> 01:27:01.460 you know, online that, you know, people will, I either ignore it or I just hammer 01:27:01.460 --> 01:27:02.960 down even harder. Right. 01:27:03.260 --> 01:27:05.940 You know, like, yeah, keep going. Let it go. Doesn't hurt me. 01:27:06.040 --> 01:27:07.480 And it drives people nuts. 01:27:07.640 --> 01:27:10.460 And we, you know, you see that everywhere. I used to do that to friends. 01:27:10.460 --> 01:27:14.320 Like, when I was younger, like, I had a friend who... 01:27:14.960 --> 01:27:19.040 And I'll laugh about this, but, you know, she started dating a guy that I was 01:27:19.040 --> 01:27:21.700 dating behind my back and all that stuff. And I just was like, 01:27:21.860 --> 01:27:23.660 oh, yeah, you know, I'm fine. 01:27:23.940 --> 01:27:27.960 Like, whatever. Well, it's OK. You know, and she just got so mad that I didn't 01:27:27.960 --> 01:27:32.920 respond, you know, that I wouldn't be mad at her, that I just wouldn't go after it. 01:27:33.000 --> 01:27:36.260 And to this day, she's like, oh, that made me so angry. And I'm like, 01:27:36.340 --> 01:27:37.820 yep, I knew what I was doing. 01:27:39.280 --> 01:27:42.920 And i think here like this 01:27:42.920 --> 01:27:46.140 is this is also the i i 01:27:46.140 --> 01:27:49.320 think you know for there again you 01:27:49.320 --> 01:27:54.180 started with some legitimate criticisms of like the no kings approach i think 01:27:54.180 --> 01:28:01.560 the power of the no kings approach is that you show you show the large numbers 01:28:01.560 --> 01:28:08.160 you show the disdain like because the vibe of this is not fear. 01:28:08.480 --> 01:28:11.980 The vibe of this is not respect. 01:28:12.580 --> 01:28:16.600 This is all about mocking and disdain. 01:28:17.320 --> 01:28:23.400 And we are not giving like, if you look at Donald Trump and his sort of psychological profile, 01:28:23.820 --> 01:28:29.500 you know, and, and, you know, people have done these like armchair psychoanalysis stuff, 01:28:29.600 --> 01:28:38.980 but But it really seems like his entire life is about craving mainstream respect and, 01:28:39.630 --> 01:28:44.810 And even as fucking president of the United States, he cannot get it. 01:28:45.710 --> 01:28:48.270 You know, and that drives him nuts. 01:28:48.730 --> 01:28:53.630 And I'm not saying that the purpose of demonstrations like this should be to 01:28:53.630 --> 01:28:58.490 piss off Donald Trump that no, but it doesn't hurt. 01:28:58.630 --> 01:29:06.870 And I think like, if you are going to be, I know there's a lot of advice in terms of like, you know, 01:29:07.510 --> 01:29:12.390 let's produce a positive vision and, oh, let's concentrate on, 01:29:12.470 --> 01:29:16.290 you know, meat and potato kitchen issues and all this kind of stuff. 01:29:16.510 --> 01:29:24.130 And some of that is valid, but I think it is very important as well to sort 01:29:24.130 --> 01:29:27.590 of pierce the mystique of the strong, 01:29:27.790 --> 01:29:34.510 powerful leader and instead be, like to use Walls' term, they're weird. 01:29:35.150 --> 01:29:40.870 They're a bunch of weirdo freaks who are obsessed about things that no healthy 01:29:40.870 --> 01:29:48.850 person should be obsessed about and pierce that veil, make them unattractive in that way. 01:29:49.150 --> 01:29:53.570 And at the same time, you can talk policy. I disagree with the ones who are 01:29:53.570 --> 01:29:55.150 just like, it's the economy, stupid. 01:29:55.310 --> 01:29:57.950 Only talk about the economy. Only talk about inflation or whatever, 01:29:57.950 --> 01:30:02.930 because I feel strongly that, you know, 01:30:03.070 --> 01:30:07.710 we should not be throwing vulnerable populations under the bus in order to try 01:30:07.710 --> 01:30:12.510 to win a mythical median voter who's probably not going to support you anyway. 01:30:12.910 --> 01:30:14.810 And instead, like... 01:30:15.550 --> 01:30:26.170 People sense inauthenticity from a mile away and people sense your conviction. 01:30:26.430 --> 01:30:34.610 Like, even if they don't fully agree with you, they respect if you have convictions and stick to them. 01:30:34.610 --> 01:30:40.990 And I feel that's like, when I'm looking around for like, who do I want to be 01:30:40.990 --> 01:30:47.730 leading over the next few years on the non-Trump, non-Republican side? 01:30:47.730 --> 01:30:56.190 Like, I want somebody who's unafraid to stand up for what they believe in and 01:30:56.190 --> 01:31:01.710 goes strongly for it and isn't like reading the polls and trying to compromise 01:31:01.710 --> 01:31:06.510 and trying to win over that medium voter by adjusting their positions wherever. 01:31:07.030 --> 01:31:14.570 And so I find myself, like, being, like, you know, historically, 01:31:14.910 --> 01:31:21.810 like, you know, the AOCs of the world I have disagreed with on lots of things policy-wise. 01:31:22.890 --> 01:31:26.750 Mamdani in New York as well, those kinds of things. I probably am not as far 01:31:26.750 --> 01:31:28.430 left as they are on a bunch of positions. 01:31:29.490 --> 01:31:32.510 But you get that feeling of, like... 01:31:33.980 --> 01:31:38.500 They really believe something and they're going after it and they're not adjusting 01:31:38.500 --> 01:31:41.760 what they're saying based on what they think will win. 01:31:42.320 --> 01:31:45.300 And that, that gains a lot of respect. 01:31:46.060 --> 01:31:52.860 And, you know, whereas some others, you know, like Newsom, okay, 01:31:53.000 --> 01:31:55.920 he did some good clap back at Donald Trump. 01:31:56.080 --> 01:31:59.460 And I actually enjoyed like some of what you said, like is probably actually 01:31:59.460 --> 01:32:05.840 his social media team, not I even saw some interviews where he explicitly acknowledged, 01:32:06.040 --> 01:32:09.040 like, I wasn't sure about some of this stuff, but they said do it, 01:32:09.060 --> 01:32:11.100 and it seems to be working, you know. 01:32:12.580 --> 01:32:18.220 But at the same time, on actual positions, he's not that great. 01:32:18.220 --> 01:32:21.560 And he's and he's waffled on all kinds of things. 01:32:21.720 --> 01:32:24.400 And he's been like, oh, let's let's move. 01:32:25.000 --> 01:32:29.420 Let's say this thing about trans issues, because like that's a divisive issue. 01:32:29.420 --> 01:32:33.220 And I can get like people to to support me. 01:32:33.460 --> 01:32:37.240 And, you know, where where where are the people who really care about that issue going to go? 01:32:37.320 --> 01:32:40.660 They're not going to vote for the Republicans. So I can throw them away and 01:32:40.660 --> 01:32:43.160 worry about getting the person who's wishy washy on that issue. 01:32:43.340 --> 01:32:45.200 That's not the right way to go. The right way. 01:32:45.200 --> 01:32:48.820 The idea of us moving to the center just pulls us further right. 01:32:49.080 --> 01:32:52.820 It pulls us further backwards. You know, that's not a good excuse. 01:32:53.060 --> 01:32:57.960 And it's also not believable. I mean, you certainly do have some middle of the 01:32:57.960 --> 01:33:00.320 road politicians who actually believe that. 01:33:00.600 --> 01:33:07.460 But for the most part, the sense that comes out of the politicians who seem 01:33:07.460 --> 01:33:14.020 to be trying to hold that space and trying to go after the middle is that they're pandering. 01:33:14.700 --> 01:33:21.000 And, you know, you have to come from a position of, 01:33:21.180 --> 01:33:27.060 no, no, no, I believe this and I'm going to convince you that I'm right, 01:33:27.060 --> 01:33:32.020 or at least convince you that you should respect my beliefs on this. 01:33:32.680 --> 01:33:38.920 Not, oh, oh, oh, wait, like, this is pulling sort of wishy-washy, 01:33:39.080 --> 01:33:41.740 so like, I'll make sure my position is wishy-washy too. 01:33:41.740 --> 01:33:48.040 And also what's really frustrating about that is you see some of these politicians 01:33:48.040 --> 01:33:54.740 who are trying to grab that center space who are actually going against issues 01:33:54.740 --> 01:33:56.480 that actually do poll at 60, 01:33:56.620 --> 01:33:58.680 70, 80 percent approval. 01:33:59.200 --> 01:34:06.000 And they still are like, oh, well, I won't support that because it's viewed 01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:09.880 as radical. Well, have a spine. I don't know. Sorry. 01:34:10.920 --> 01:34:12.620 Sorry, I ranted for a while. Your turn. 01:34:12.640 --> 01:34:15.420 No, I love it. Hey, you're the Yvonne. I love it. 01:34:17.060 --> 01:34:20.260 I love you, Yvonne. I absolutely do. Can I share? 01:34:21.100 --> 01:34:25.940 I had a friend that posted this chart. 01:34:27.600 --> 01:34:29.680 What do you call those? Oh, my God, I'm embarrassed. 01:34:30.300 --> 01:34:30.540 Flow chart? 01:34:30.560 --> 01:34:31.320 The circuit charts. 01:34:31.560 --> 01:34:33.940 Oh, pie chart. Oh, Venn diagram. 01:34:34.160 --> 01:34:37.900 Venn diagram. There you go. So it has conservatives at the top. 01:34:38.160 --> 01:34:42.160 Yes. And then it has leftists on the left, and then it has liberals on the right. 01:34:42.280 --> 01:34:45.480 And it says, and it's like for people that need to understand this. 01:34:45.480 --> 01:34:50.160 And in the middle, conservatives can't tell leftists and liberals apart. 01:34:50.440 --> 01:34:56.240 And underneath there, there's likes guns, hates leftists, likes capitalism. 01:34:56.800 --> 01:35:00.360 Leftists don't bother telling conservatives and liberals apart. 01:35:00.840 --> 01:35:05.720 Also, likes guns is like the crossover, hates leftists, hates Trump. 01:35:06.020 --> 01:35:10.060 And then liberals think leftists and conservatives are equally bad. 01:35:10.180 --> 01:35:13.160 And they're likes capitalism, hate leftists, and hates Trump. 01:35:13.160 --> 01:35:15.620 Like it was it's a I'll share it with you. 01:35:15.840 --> 01:35:20.680 I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but yeah, we don't like leftists don't bother telling. 01:35:21.400 --> 01:35:27.140 Well, and this actually is something that like I I have been following this 01:35:27.140 --> 01:35:32.480 sort of I'm going to call it a change in nomenclature because like I'm old here. 01:35:33.160 --> 01:35:33.940 It is. 01:35:34.120 --> 01:35:41.120 You know, because this usage of the terms is actually relatively new to me. 01:35:41.420 --> 01:35:46.800 Right. It is. It's new. It's hard. And I mean, like, the... The... 01:35:48.250 --> 01:35:51.590 I don't want to fall right into don't distinguish between left and liberal, 01:35:51.790 --> 01:35:57.670 but like they used to be synonyms, you know, at one point they were cinnamon, 01:35:57.850 --> 01:36:01.990 synonyms, cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon toast crunch. 01:36:02.370 --> 01:36:04.930 I couldn't even remember what a Venn diagram was. 01:36:05.210 --> 01:36:09.310 But no, like there, there was, there were certainly things that were left of 01:36:09.310 --> 01:36:12.990 liberal, like the socialists are left of liberal, the communists are left of 01:36:12.990 --> 01:36:15.970 liberal, et cetera. But liberal was left. 01:36:16.210 --> 01:36:23.630 And so I think this, it does reflect that there are certainly some things like 01:36:23.630 --> 01:36:28.170 starting with the Clinton administration had this triangulation strategy where 01:36:28.170 --> 01:36:32.230 they intentionally did move to the center a little bit in order to win. 01:36:32.230 --> 01:36:40.930 And so there is a more nuanced breakdown that you can make sort of dividing 01:36:40.930 --> 01:36:46.870 up the non-right-wing part of the spectrum into bits. 01:36:46.870 --> 01:36:48.650 And you always have like, you know, 01:36:48.730 --> 01:36:53.190 I've seen diagrams going back decades comparing like sort of the U.S. 01:36:53.370 --> 01:36:57.930 Political spectrum to the international political spectrum, where the Democrats 01:36:57.930 --> 01:37:02.610 that were determined, you know, viewed to be the left in the U.S. 01:37:02.990 --> 01:37:07.730 Were in the center internationally. And the entire U.S. 01:37:08.090 --> 01:37:11.690 Political spectrum was off to the right, you know. 01:37:11.870 --> 01:37:15.110 So you definitely see that. 01:37:15.270 --> 01:37:23.550 But I think some of the distinctions that are being made, I don't know, I feel like. 01:37:24.580 --> 01:37:29.340 What's the right way to put this? I think certainly you've got your mainstream 01:37:29.340 --> 01:37:35.920 Democrats who absolutely are acting like they see those further left to them 01:37:35.920 --> 01:37:38.620 as an enemy just as much as the right. 01:37:38.920 --> 01:37:42.520 And I think that's problematic that they do that. 01:37:42.760 --> 01:37:50.560 I also see the folks that are further left that see, you know, 01:37:51.440 --> 01:37:57.840 I go back to the people who are like, you know, Harris versus Trump is picking, 01:37:58.160 --> 01:38:01.940 you know, the best of two evils, and I'm not going to make that choice. 01:38:02.500 --> 01:38:09.140 And I'm either not going to vote, or I'm, you know, going to vote, do some protest vote. 01:38:09.920 --> 01:38:16.520 That's not helpful either. You know, there's a reality of what our system looks like. 01:38:16.520 --> 01:38:22.520 And, you know, if you are further left than Biden and Harris, 01:38:23.060 --> 01:38:30.140 your best chance of getting policies that you like was still to support Biden and Harris. 01:38:31.080 --> 01:38:37.080 And, you know, I remember when I was young and stupid, like, 01:38:37.280 --> 01:38:42.840 you know, telling a friend of mine, like I was at the time I was defending the 01:38:42.840 --> 01:38:44.860 idea of voting for a libertarian action. 01:38:45.820 --> 01:38:46.820 You're one of those. 01:38:47.120 --> 01:38:52.540 I was one of those. I have moved on. But, you know, and saying you don't get 01:38:52.540 --> 01:38:54.140 bonus points for picking the winner. 01:38:54.520 --> 01:38:59.120 You know, vote for the person who you like the best, who you're most aligned 01:38:59.120 --> 01:39:02.300 with, even if it's somebody who's not going to win at all. 01:39:02.460 --> 01:39:05.860 That's the argument I made, like, in my 20s. 01:39:06.240 --> 01:39:09.300 And I will happily say now I was wrong. 01:39:10.270 --> 01:39:15.690 You know, there is a, in certain circumstances, you can get away with that. 01:39:16.170 --> 01:39:21.150 Like, you know, given the way our system works, if you're not in a swing state, 01:39:21.370 --> 01:39:24.230 you can do your little protest votes and it's not going to hurt anybody. 01:39:24.470 --> 01:39:27.990 Like here in Washington state, it was clear the Democrat was going to win. 01:39:28.150 --> 01:39:29.650 You can do your protest vote, whatever. 01:39:29.850 --> 01:39:33.890 It does affect the popular vote, which, you know, is not how we pick like presidents, 01:39:34.470 --> 01:39:37.470 but it is, it matters to bragging rights. 01:39:37.730 --> 01:39:40.810 Like Donald Trump won the popular vote this time. you know? 01:39:41.850 --> 01:39:46.890 And, but the way our system works is structured so that, 01:39:47.850 --> 01:39:50.930 It really is a two party system. You really are. 01:39:51.110 --> 01:39:56.570 And you by sitting on the sidelines, by not voting, by voting for protest candidates, 01:39:56.570 --> 01:40:03.790 if you are in a place that has a competitive race, that can throw the election 01:40:03.790 --> 01:40:05.930 to somebody you like less. 01:40:06.810 --> 01:40:11.290 And for those who think that way, they should be advocating for rank choice voting. 01:40:11.590 --> 01:40:15.630 Like it's it should so much be issue based at this point. 01:40:15.670 --> 01:40:19.990 We should be doing that. because you don't think anyone knows what they are anymore. 01:40:20.270 --> 01:40:23.990 Yeah, I mean, I actually, I like rank choice voting. 01:40:24.210 --> 01:40:28.950 I like various forms of instant primaries and runoffs. I actually like how Washington 01:40:28.950 --> 01:40:33.430 State has the jungle primary with all the parties together in the first round 01:40:33.430 --> 01:40:35.530 of primary. I like a lot of those things. 01:40:35.710 --> 01:40:40.330 And voting reforms at the national level are very, very hard and certainly in 01:40:40.330 --> 01:40:41.770 this environment are not going to happen. 01:40:42.170 --> 01:40:46.450 And so, yeah, I would get rid of the Electoral College, even though I run a 01:40:46.450 --> 01:40:49.830 website that would not exist without an electoral college and I have a lot of 01:40:49.830 --> 01:40:50.830 fun with every four years. 01:40:51.190 --> 01:40:58.150 But I'd get rid of the electoral college. I would reform the Senate in a variety of ways or get rid of it. 01:40:58.270 --> 01:41:01.130 I would increase the size of the House. I would do all kinds of stuff. 01:41:01.630 --> 01:41:06.230 I like ranked choice voting wherever it appears. There's all kinds of things 01:41:06.230 --> 01:41:08.190 that you could potentially do. 01:41:08.550 --> 01:41:10.770 But in the absence of those things, 01:41:11.460 --> 01:41:14.480 Yes, advocate for all those things. In the absence of those things, 01:41:14.620 --> 01:41:18.160 you have to make decisions that make sense in the system you actually have. 01:41:19.240 --> 01:41:22.220 100%. Well, and I mean, the reality is you have a legislature. 01:41:22.380 --> 01:41:26.300 I was trying to show my husband, too, and we went to the governor's ball like 01:41:26.300 --> 01:41:29.740 eight years ago or whatever, or more than that. 01:41:30.040 --> 01:41:35.520 What was eight years ago? I said the structure of the building is literally 01:41:35.520 --> 01:41:37.120 created for two parties. 01:41:37.340 --> 01:41:40.420 Like there's no place for that other person to go. 01:41:40.840 --> 01:41:46.820 That's why they say the independent who caucuses with the Democrats or caucuses 01:41:46.820 --> 01:41:50.360 with the Republicans, because there's really nowhere else for you to go. 01:41:50.520 --> 01:41:56.180 And that's not great. But I do think we're in the midst of a real change in our parties. 01:41:56.540 --> 01:42:00.320 I mean, it's going to be a slow process, but I do think we are experiencing 01:42:00.320 --> 01:42:03.780 that where our parties are going to look extremely different. 01:42:04.120 --> 01:42:06.960 I had a friend who is a political consultant and he 01:42:06.960 --> 01:42:11.200 did a survey and surprisingly more 01:42:11.200 --> 01:42:14.200 people in that survey like progressive was a like what 01:42:14.200 --> 01:42:21.760 where do you fall and progressive was on the the same line as liberal and I 01:42:21.760 --> 01:42:25.320 was like what do people think is different about that though necessarily like 01:42:25.320 --> 01:42:29.580 I just I was like I don't even know I know what I think but I don't know what 01:42:29.580 --> 01:42:32.300 other people think too when they're responding to that question. 01:42:32.320 --> 01:42:34.800 Because sometimes when the. 01:42:36.120 --> 01:42:39.420 Republican Party is calling, you know, this the stupid libs, 01:42:39.580 --> 01:42:42.700 you know, some people don't even want to be associated with that terminology, 01:42:42.700 --> 01:42:48.720 whereas there's a lot of like moderate Democrats, I feel. And I say I'm moderate is too nice. 01:42:48.860 --> 01:42:53.580 I think it's stupid. But there's a lot of Democrats that do still think that they're liberal. 01:42:53.580 --> 01:42:57.640 Well, yeah, no, there was, I 01:42:57.640 --> 01:43:03.960 remember on this show, like in the sort of excitement of the Obama years, 01:43:04.220 --> 01:43:11.420 talking about looking forward to the time when the Republican Party would inevitably 01:43:11.420 --> 01:43:14.420 die off based on demographic techniques. 01:43:14.420 --> 01:43:19.220 And the Democratic Party could split up and we could have our new two parties 01:43:19.220 --> 01:43:21.420 would essentially be, you know, 01:43:21.760 --> 01:43:25.640 well, at that time, I would have said the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton 01:43:25.640 --> 01:43:30.920 wings of the Democratic Party would become the two major parties and the Republicans would die off. 01:43:31.280 --> 01:43:38.940 Instead, of course, we have had, you know, the backlash to Obama that strengthened 01:43:38.940 --> 01:43:41.620 the right and gave us Donald Trump. 01:43:42.610 --> 01:43:48.410 Do I feel like eventually, inevitably, that will lose out? 01:43:48.810 --> 01:43:53.990 Yes. But unfortunately, my view of eventually has moved from, 01:43:53.990 --> 01:43:57.910 you know, the foreseeable future to, 01:43:58.290 --> 01:44:04.510 you know, maybe my grandkids will live to see it, you know, because generally 01:44:04.510 --> 01:44:07.430 speaking, when we've had this kind of backlash, 01:44:08.070 --> 01:44:11.870 you know, you don't recover it for it for 50 years. 01:44:11.870 --> 01:44:12.750 Yeah. 01:44:12.750 --> 01:44:18.310 You know, it takes a long time just to get back to where you were, 01:44:18.610 --> 01:44:21.610 let alone make future progress on top of that. 01:44:22.130 --> 01:44:25.010 And, you know, and it's a big fight. 01:44:25.350 --> 01:44:32.510 And would I rather have lived in a world where, you know, I mean, 01:44:32.650 --> 01:44:36.710 it would have taken a hair of a difference for Hillary Clinton to have won. 01:44:37.190 --> 01:44:41.850 Now, I've said before, my prediction was if Hillary Clinton had won, 01:44:41.870 --> 01:44:45.410 one, she probably would have been a one-term president because you don't usually 01:44:45.410 --> 01:44:48.270 get more than three, a single party in a row. 01:44:48.490 --> 01:44:50.250 But I don't think what you would 01:44:50.250 --> 01:44:53.230 have gotten after Hillary Clinton would still have been Donald Trump. 01:44:53.990 --> 01:44:59.190 There might've been a chance for an old school Republican being next instead. 01:44:59.530 --> 01:45:02.590 And for you to hang on to that a little while longer, maybe not, 01:45:02.810 --> 01:45:05.890 you know, there was a huge backlash to a black president. 01:45:06.050 --> 01:45:09.730 There probably would have been an even worse one for a woman president. Who knows? 01:45:11.370 --> 01:45:16.550 That's why I was so scared when, I mean, because obviously I was a Hillary supporter at the time. 01:45:16.610 --> 01:45:20.430 I wanted to see the first female president and I was a Kamala supporter, 01:45:20.470 --> 01:45:23.010 but I even, I wrote a blog like you. 01:45:23.110 --> 01:45:29.370 I haven't written in my blog for a long time, but my fear around Kamala jumping 01:45:29.370 --> 01:45:32.310 into that because they basically just threw the, 01:45:36.280 --> 01:45:40.580 Biden was running. And we've been running the same campaign that they've been 01:45:40.580 --> 01:45:44.760 running since Obama and that worked in 2008, but it's not going to work today. 01:45:45.080 --> 01:45:50.300 And so it's, it was hard to see that happen. And I knew she wasn't going to. 01:45:50.740 --> 01:45:56.280 I think, you know, I've said before on the show, and Yvonne has disagreed with 01:45:56.280 --> 01:46:01.900 me sometimes where we were in September, she had a good shot. 01:46:01.900 --> 01:46:05.200 The the the mocking was 01:46:05.200 --> 01:46:09.020 working she had momentum and then 01:46:09.020 --> 01:46:16.080 they made some strategic changes in direction and it was it deteriorated from 01:46:16.080 --> 01:46:23.280 then on out and and by by the time we got to election day the odds that i had 01:46:23.280 --> 01:46:26.700 on election graphs were roughly a two-thirds chance of trump winning and 01:46:26.820 --> 01:46:30.080 one-third chance of her winning, and we got what we got, you know? 01:46:30.680 --> 01:46:35.840 Yeah. I think where she lost it, I mean, I watched in a room when we were watching 01:46:35.840 --> 01:46:40.960 her acceptance of the Democratic nomination at the DNC, and when she brought 01:46:40.960 --> 01:46:45.060 up Gaza and Israel, I was like, we're fucked. 01:46:45.380 --> 01:46:50.640 Like, that, because I don't know why they included that. I don't know why. 01:46:50.940 --> 01:46:56.920 I mean, yeah, even— I saw people go, like, cringe or just get angry in a room. 01:46:56.920 --> 01:47:04.900 I mean, this is an area where the entire Democratic leadership has been well 01:47:04.900 --> 01:47:10.060 behind the Democratic voters in terms of their shift, 01:47:10.320 --> 01:47:12.160 in terms of thoughts on issues. 01:47:12.770 --> 01:47:15.550 Israel, the Palestinians, et cetera. 01:47:16.510 --> 01:47:18.870 And Joe Biden couldn't keep up 01:47:18.870 --> 01:47:25.170 and Harris wasn't willing to make distance between her and Biden on that. 01:47:25.330 --> 01:47:29.530 I'm not sure. Like if given her own druthers completely, she might have, 01:47:29.670 --> 01:47:34.190 I don't know, but she's under the circumstances. She wasn't willing. 01:47:34.370 --> 01:47:37.910 She felt like she had to do that. She felt like, and look, there were, 01:47:37.910 --> 01:47:38.870 there are trade-offs here. 01:47:39.610 --> 01:47:43.530 And we talked on this show about it a number of times. 01:47:43.790 --> 01:47:50.330 If Harris had come out full-throated, or Biden before, with a, 01:47:50.530 --> 01:47:54.650 Israel, you've gone too far, you need to stop, you know, whatever, 01:47:54.990 --> 01:47:57.810 and just been full-throated in terms of that, 01:47:58.310 --> 01:48:01.670 would she gain more people than she lost? 01:48:01.670 --> 01:48:09.710 I think that's actually an open question, but it would appear honest and straightforward. 01:48:09.710 --> 01:48:14.490 Like I was saying earlier, like have a position and really own it. 01:48:15.630 --> 01:48:22.550 What they tried to do was keep the standard pro-Israel position, 01:48:22.970 --> 01:48:28.970 say a few things about the Palestinian plight, but don't make any changes on it. 01:48:28.970 --> 01:48:37.250 It sort of gave the impression of someone who very consciously was trying to 01:48:37.250 --> 01:48:44.590 weigh the polls and try to figure out the right answer that would let them keep 01:48:44.590 --> 01:48:47.850 some of the never Trump Republicans, 01:48:47.850 --> 01:48:50.030 but not, you know, 01:48:50.790 --> 01:48:56.930 not lose them too much on the other side and was really banging on the people 01:48:56.930 --> 01:48:58.710 who really have the strong line. 01:48:58.970 --> 01:49:05.430 Position on the left aren't have nowhere else to go so we you know all of that 01:49:05.430 --> 01:49:08.990 and and it just doesn't work and and you know, 01:49:09.610 --> 01:49:14.570 Even staying completely silent would have been better, although that wouldn't be good either. 01:49:14.770 --> 01:49:19.970 That wouldn't be good either, but it would have been better than the approach they took. 01:49:20.230 --> 01:49:22.310 But at least that's my opinion. 01:49:23.870 --> 01:49:29.810 Maybe they did have detailed polling that if Harris had gone there, 01:49:29.990 --> 01:49:32.310 it would have lost her an additional 2% to 3%. 01:49:32.310 --> 01:49:38.210 But I think you can't make decisions that way. You can't make decisions by trying 01:49:38.210 --> 01:49:41.810 to craft your position to the current public opinion. 01:49:42.070 --> 01:49:49.050 The way you win is you stake out a position and you defend it vigorously. 01:49:49.270 --> 01:49:50.770 People respect that. 01:49:51.310 --> 01:49:54.530 Yeah. We needed that authenticity, not going to the polls. 01:49:54.690 --> 01:49:59.590 I think, you know, people say that on the, you know, mega side all the time. 01:49:59.770 --> 01:50:02.390 They're like, oh, I don't know. He's just authentic, you know, 01:50:02.430 --> 01:50:03.710 but I do think that that is. 01:50:03.710 --> 01:50:08.150 And of course, like that's so misguided. He says what he means. No, he lies all the time. 01:50:08.510 --> 01:50:13.550 Yeah, exactly. But he does say the racist things that he means. Yes, yes. 01:50:13.990 --> 01:50:18.630 Well, and that's what they really mean. That's what they, he's not afraid to 01:50:18.630 --> 01:50:21.270 be racist. That's what they really mean. Lots of. 01:50:21.270 --> 01:50:24.330 But I, you know, I have some friends that are like on the conservative side 01:50:24.330 --> 01:50:29.370 that I, and I say, you know, that it shocks me sometimes that they're there. 01:50:29.370 --> 01:50:34.050 But, you know, as a legislator, oftentimes they told me and things that I, 01:50:34.130 --> 01:50:37.510 you know, got crap for a lot from my own party or from, you know, 01:50:37.650 --> 01:50:40.370 my other people. But they said, you said what you you. 01:50:41.160 --> 01:50:44.420 Mean and you held to that and and and 01:50:44.420 --> 01:50:47.440 they said that that mattered to me and that and and so i always have 01:50:47.440 --> 01:50:50.580 said like the authenticity piece and you 01:50:50.580 --> 01:50:54.100 don't have to meet everyone's needs but people do appreciate that 01:50:54.100 --> 01:50:59.280 you you know have an opinion stand up for it so i feel like yeah they were never 01:50:59.280 --> 01:51:03.740 i think for the harris campaign and for you know the biden i'm gonna call them 01:51:03.740 --> 01:51:08.140 the same thing because there was no way to change what that looked like they 01:51:08.140 --> 01:51:11.240 they should have stayed silent if they because they weren't going to go the 01:51:11.240 --> 01:51:12.620 other way. They just weren't going to do that. 01:51:12.760 --> 01:51:14.920 And I've seen the Charlie. 01:51:15.240 --> 01:51:16.920 Sorry, my dog is making weird noises. 01:51:17.360 --> 01:51:21.200 And I feel that's the kind of thing where, honestly, if we had had a Harris 01:51:21.200 --> 01:51:25.520 administration and she was actually president and could move out from Joe Biden's 01:51:25.520 --> 01:51:28.300 shadow, like during the campaign, she was like, no daylight, 01:51:28.580 --> 01:51:30.800 no daylight, because Biden was pressuring her. 01:51:30.960 --> 01:51:34.720 No daylight, no daylight. And for whatever reason, she decided submitting to 01:51:34.720 --> 01:51:38.300 that was the thing she had to do. I think if she actually become president, 01:51:38.320 --> 01:51:44.200 she probably would have moved on that issue, but she didn't feel like she could during the campaign. 01:51:44.340 --> 01:51:50.420 Yeah, I think she felt very stuck in that space. And I think it was a group 01:51:50.420 --> 01:51:51.780 of people that were running campaigns. 01:51:52.240 --> 01:51:57.200 And no offense to all of these wonderful people. But I often listen to the crooked 01:51:57.200 --> 01:52:01.240 media folks, too, which are all like former Biden folks, or sorry, 01:52:01.400 --> 01:52:05.380 former Obama folks. And sometimes I have to, 01:52:06.140 --> 01:52:09.780 I have to just put, I push back in my head because I like, I don't actually 01:52:09.780 --> 01:52:14.200 go out on a limb and tell them, but I'm like, every, so much of what you say 01:52:14.200 --> 01:52:15.840 is just so rooted in this. 01:52:15.940 --> 01:52:18.820 And I think, you know, to go back to everything, the problem is, 01:52:18.840 --> 01:52:22.540 is that we're in this system and the system has to break. 01:52:22.720 --> 01:52:30.280 And that's why I say like, I, I, it does need to break because what does it look like in 2028? 01:52:30.620 --> 01:52:33.880 You know, when we, okay, we've got Donald Trump out. 01:52:34.020 --> 01:52:36.740 I don't think anyone's going to be happy. I think part of the reason that we're 01:52:36.740 --> 01:52:41.760 here is that the capitulation and all of that stuff, even when Democrats were 01:52:41.760 --> 01:52:45.280 in charge, that they the system has let so many people down. Right. 01:52:45.820 --> 01:52:54.140 And one thing I one thing I saw someone is probably on TikTok give a summary of was if you look at. 01:52:54.970 --> 01:53:00.590 Democratic societies that have had authoritarian backsliding and then start 01:53:00.590 --> 01:53:05.930 to recover from it, there are a number of options, and he laid out four or five 01:53:05.930 --> 01:53:07.290 of them that I'm not going to remember. 01:53:07.290 --> 01:53:13.930 However, the most common by far is that you sort of get back to something with 01:53:13.930 --> 01:53:15.650 a lot of the trappings of democracy. 01:53:15.650 --> 01:53:21.630 But in fact, the opposition party that takes over again actually takes advantage 01:53:21.630 --> 01:53:24.490 of the additional authoritarianism that was given to them. 01:53:24.670 --> 01:53:29.670 And so you don't get back to where you were before. That just doesn't happen. 01:53:30.790 --> 01:53:37.870 One of the rarest outcomes, but the one that in the end leads to the most positive 01:53:37.870 --> 01:53:43.350 results, is when you actually end up essentially scrapping the system. 01:53:43.390 --> 01:53:49.210 You write a new constitution, you start a new government with new rules that 01:53:49.210 --> 01:53:56.390 explicitly fixes the problems that led to the authoritarian backsliding in the first place. 01:53:56.390 --> 01:54:04.890 But they pointed out that that is very rare, and what it requires is a highly unified, 01:54:05.470 --> 01:54:12.310 highly organized, pro-democracy opposition who is committed to those principles 01:54:12.310 --> 01:54:17.550 above and beyond any conflicts they have amongst themselves, 01:54:17.610 --> 01:54:19.350 which we don't have right now. 01:54:19.350 --> 01:54:24.890 We don't. No. And it's it's what needs to happen, I think, because I just think 01:54:24.890 --> 01:54:27.990 we're just going to repeat this over and over again. 01:54:28.130 --> 01:54:30.210 I, you know, I. 01:54:31.150 --> 01:54:37.810 Yeah. And like I said earlier in the podcast, we're in a dark time and I feel 01:54:37.810 --> 01:54:40.170 like we have to do everything we can to fight it. 01:54:40.270 --> 01:54:41.670 But unfortunately, it's going 01:54:41.670 --> 01:54:44.990 to get worse before it gets better and it's going to last a long time. 01:54:45.110 --> 01:54:48.590 Yeah. How long do you think? Oh, go ahead. Finish, finish. 01:54:48.590 --> 01:54:55.290 I would love to say, you know, Democrats win in 2026, start doing some, 01:54:55.330 --> 01:54:57.270 you know, investigations and stuff. 01:54:57.410 --> 01:55:03.110 Democrats win in 2028. And whoever becomes president aggressively reforms, 01:55:03.690 --> 01:55:08.210 like, you know, expands the Supreme Court, adds in new states, 01:55:08.470 --> 01:55:10.090 does whatever is necessary, 01:55:10.750 --> 01:55:16.570 passes laws to not, you know, to undo gerrymandering and blah, 01:55:16.690 --> 01:55:17.590 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 01:55:20.350 --> 01:55:23.830 I want that to happen. I feel like it's unlikely. 01:55:24.570 --> 01:55:28.070 I feel like it's more likely that, like I said, 01:55:28.490 --> 01:55:33.290 with this kind of backsliding, when it happened after Reconstruction, after the Civil War, 01:55:33.490 --> 01:55:39.670 we essentially had 50 to 80 years before we had the Civil Rights Movement of 01:55:39.670 --> 01:55:45.390 the 1960s get us back to somewhat where we were right after Reconstruction. And, 01:55:47.510 --> 01:55:53.170 I've said many times before on here as well, I prefer to be pessimistic and 01:55:53.170 --> 01:55:58.550 then get surprised by things that happen that are good than to be optimistic 01:55:58.550 --> 01:56:00.790 and then be constantly disappointed. 01:56:01.090 --> 01:56:06.570 So I take the pessimistic view. I think we're in for a generation or two of darkness. 01:56:07.610 --> 01:56:11.670 And it looks like the trends are worldwide, not just the U.S., 01:56:11.670 --> 01:56:16.710 where, you know, things are going to be pretty grim until they get better. 01:56:16.930 --> 01:56:21.410 Now, to be clear on pretty grim, even in authoritarian societies, 01:56:21.730 --> 01:56:26.470 the vast majority of people go about their daily lives and don't notice anything, 01:56:26.690 --> 01:56:28.450 you know, and don't care. 01:56:29.210 --> 01:56:36.470 But the vulnerable populations suffer mightily during those periods, 01:56:36.470 --> 01:56:42.350 and even the people who are going about their lives aren't doing as well as they could otherwise. 01:56:42.350 --> 01:56:47.630 And but yeah i'm pessimistic but i hope i am wrong. 01:56:47.630 --> 01:56:50.070 I know what's your take and then we need. 01:56:50.070 --> 01:56:50.510 To wrap up. 01:56:50.510 --> 01:56:55.650 Oh i'm exactly with you like with you i'm i think people call me wixana like 01:56:55.650 --> 01:57:04.410 the pollyanna thing like i'm there i i have like a i'm an optimistic person in the face of. 01:57:05.680 --> 01:57:11.040 Badness. Like I know it's there and I'm just like, yep, I'm doing fine because I have to be. 01:57:11.260 --> 01:57:14.960 And I mean, I'm constantly sitting there being like, I'm not going to complain 01:57:14.960 --> 01:57:16.180 here in the United States. 01:57:16.180 --> 01:57:19.040 I will complain, but I'm not going to complain on the big scheme of things because 01:57:19.040 --> 01:57:24.280 I'm not trying to spend my day trying to find food for my kids and potentially 01:57:24.280 --> 01:57:26.460 be shot trying to get soup. 01:57:26.920 --> 01:57:32.580 So I'm an optimist in that sense, but I'm with you. 01:57:33.080 --> 01:57:37.260 I don't think it's ever really been that good. And for us to sit and pretend 01:57:37.260 --> 01:57:42.400 as if everything, you know, we will get to a point where it's better like soon 01:57:42.400 --> 01:57:45.860 or that an election is going to change, you know, the system. 01:57:46.160 --> 01:57:50.000 I don't think that's going to happen. The election is not going to change the system. 01:57:50.440 --> 01:57:53.240 We have to change the system and that's going to take a lot longer. 01:57:53.300 --> 01:57:56.180 And hopefully we can find people that can slowly move us into, 01:57:57.020 --> 01:58:00.740 like you said, a better place through our democracy and strengthen that. 01:58:00.960 --> 01:58:03.840 So, yeah, We didn't get to anything else, but I am curious. 01:58:03.940 --> 01:58:09.900 Do you think the government shutdown is going to be over soon? Because me either. 01:58:10.140 --> 01:58:14.660 Someone said, we're going on a trip, you know, November 13th to Arizona for 01:58:14.660 --> 01:58:18.000 the Institute for a Democratic Future. And I'm like, I don't even know if we'll make it there. 01:58:18.240 --> 01:58:22.900 And someone's like, oh, it'll be over by then. And I'm like, I don't think so. Yeah. 01:58:22.900 --> 01:58:26.120 I don't think it'll be over, but I think you'll probably be able to make your 01:58:26.120 --> 01:58:27.620 trip just fine. They will. 01:58:28.020 --> 01:58:35.120 I think the things that need to stay open for day to day stuff will stay open. 01:58:35.420 --> 01:58:40.120 You know, like, you know, I made my trip to Toronto. It was only a few days into the shutdown. 01:58:40.180 --> 01:58:43.900 But if anything, it was smoother than my last international trip. 01:58:44.020 --> 01:58:45.720 Yeah, I heard you say that. Yeah, it sounded good. 01:58:46.040 --> 01:58:46.200 Yeah. 01:58:47.140 --> 01:58:53.200 And I think things will start to deteriorate over time and people will start to feel it. 01:58:53.520 --> 01:58:59.780 But I, I think that Trump's approach, I think I said this a couple of shows ago, 01:59:00.060 --> 01:59:06.420 will be sold to selectively reopen the things that are causing pain, 01:59:06.420 --> 01:59:11.160 even if he does not actually have the legal authority to do so. 01:59:12.360 --> 01:59:16.000 And do that like he does with everything else is who's going to stop me. 01:59:16.760 --> 01:59:20.360 Like he already announced he's like paying the military. 01:59:21.340 --> 01:59:23.840 He has no legal authority to pay the military. 01:59:24.080 --> 01:59:25.120 It's like, okay. 01:59:25.380 --> 01:59:30.400 He's going to either. And he's going to anyway. He announced some other program 01:59:30.400 --> 01:59:33.820 that he was going to keep running by reusing tariff money. 01:59:34.040 --> 01:59:37.540 He has no legal authority to do that either. He's going to anyway. 01:59:38.300 --> 01:59:40.640 And, you know, this is one of 01:59:40.640 --> 01:59:45.220 those things that puts the folks like the Democrats in a Catch-22 as well. 01:59:45.220 --> 01:59:49.200 Like, you know, not that the courts are fast on any of these things, 01:59:49.300 --> 01:59:54.760 but like if if they go to court saying, no, you can't pay the military, that doesn't look good. 01:59:55.200 --> 02:00:00.240 No, no. You can't keep this critical program open because you don't have the legal authority. 02:00:00.240 --> 02:00:07.200 One of the things that I characterize the whole pro-democracy take during the 02:00:07.200 --> 02:00:13.500 campaign is fundamentally for most people that boils down to you're arguing 02:00:13.500 --> 02:00:15.720 about esoteric process issues. 02:00:16.000 --> 02:00:20.640 You're arguing about are you following the right procedure to do whatever. 02:00:20.720 --> 02:00:24.080 We don't care about the right procedure. We care about the result. 02:00:25.050 --> 02:00:29.070 Now, I'm one who thinks having the right procedure actually matters quite a bit. 02:00:29.270 --> 02:00:33.750 But for the most part, that is an argument that does not win people over. 02:00:34.250 --> 02:00:37.330 Most people only care about the results. So I think Donald Trump is going to 02:00:37.330 --> 02:00:40.750 do like, he's going to keep as much shut as he can. He's going to use the opportunity 02:00:40.750 --> 02:00:42.690 to continue to shut down more things. 02:00:43.070 --> 02:00:48.430 But for any particular thing that starts becoming painful, that he starts getting 02:00:48.430 --> 02:00:50.490 flack over, he'll just reopen it. 02:00:50.730 --> 02:00:51.190 Yeah. 02:00:51.410 --> 02:00:54.150 Whether or not he has the legal authority to do it. You know? 02:00:54.410 --> 02:00:58.270 Exactly. Well, and I'm glad that Democrats are holding out. I mean, 02:00:58.410 --> 02:01:01.010 they should for the ACA subsidies. 02:01:01.290 --> 02:01:03.750 They absolutely should. We're like definitely at a catch 22. 02:01:04.010 --> 02:01:06.970 And Lisa Murkowski, you know, she even said she understands. 02:01:07.010 --> 02:01:09.150 She's a Republican from Alaska. 02:01:09.470 --> 02:01:13.850 She's like, why would we trust that when you, you know, our budget director 02:01:13.850 --> 02:01:16.330 is just going to cut things anyways or do whatever the heck you want? 02:01:16.510 --> 02:01:20.370 So like what reason do we have to trust that? 02:01:20.370 --> 02:01:24.870 And for the moment, the politics on both sides favors keeping it shut. 02:01:25.470 --> 02:01:29.510 Like, yeah, you know, it's better for the Republicans to keep it shut. 02:01:29.650 --> 02:01:32.590 It's better for the Democrats to keep it shut. And as long as that's true, 02:01:32.790 --> 02:01:33.890 it's not going to reopen. 02:01:34.110 --> 02:01:38.430 I mean, people have pointed out that the they could use the nuclear option in 02:01:38.430 --> 02:01:41.810 the Senate and reopen it tomorrow with Republican votes only if they wanted to. 02:01:43.470 --> 02:01:46.450 But there's not a political incentive for them to do so. 02:01:47.430 --> 02:01:48.990 So anyway, yeah, for sure. 02:01:48.990 --> 02:01:50.190 We should wrap up. 02:01:50.190 --> 02:01:51.910 We got through so much news. 02:01:52.270 --> 02:01:54.350 I promised you you'd be done by now, but... 02:01:55.080 --> 02:01:55.460 Okay. 02:01:55.540 --> 02:01:57.720 Well, that was my bad. I had to bring up more. 02:01:57.980 --> 02:02:03.040 That's okay. That's okay. Let's wrap it up. I'll say the things I usually say at the end. 02:02:03.200 --> 02:02:07.020 Go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find all the ways to contact us. 02:02:07.120 --> 02:02:10.580 Oh, do you want to give any social media contacts for you? Anything? 02:02:11.200 --> 02:02:15.380 Oh, yeah. Well, the UMSUR podcast. We're on Instagram, TikTok, 02:02:15.380 --> 02:02:17.540 and that's it because we don't need to be anywhere else. 02:02:18.200 --> 02:02:21.280 And the podcast itself, find it in any podcast player you like. 02:02:21.280 --> 02:02:24.660 Any podcast player, we're at Transistor where you can find everything. 02:02:25.900 --> 02:02:29.560 Search for UMSUR in your podcast player of choice. You'll find it. 02:02:29.900 --> 02:02:31.480 Google it. You'll find it right away. 02:02:32.680 --> 02:02:37.840 And it's a lot of fun. I've listened to the last few episodes and a smattering 02:02:37.840 --> 02:02:40.680 earlier than that. I was going to ask you about that. 02:02:40.940 --> 02:02:46.260 On a recent podcast that I listened on the plane flight back from Toronto a 02:02:46.260 --> 02:02:50.520 couple weeks ago, Emily mentioned that she actually lost some business at her 02:02:50.520 --> 02:02:52.600 business because of the Charlie Kirk stuff. 02:02:52.840 --> 02:02:56.420 That was very interesting. Go back and listen to her episode on that because 02:02:56.420 --> 02:02:57.960 I didn't get a chance to ask about it here. 02:02:58.700 --> 02:03:01.920 And like I said, in the most recent episode that's out right now, 02:03:02.140 --> 02:03:05.400 she talked about us at the beginning. Her and Sammy talked about us. 02:03:06.820 --> 02:03:10.340 Sometimes I get things wrong, so I'll have to do some corrections, 02:03:10.340 --> 02:03:13.320 but I'm an armchair expert. 02:03:13.660 --> 02:03:20.480 Your main theme in the current episode was the RFK autism stuff, right? 02:03:20.620 --> 02:03:20.820 Yeah. 02:03:20.820 --> 02:03:23.820 Which is definitely an area of interest. 02:03:24.340 --> 02:03:29.140 You know, Yvonne, myself, both of our kids are all on the spectrum. 02:03:29.580 --> 02:03:32.900 And so a topic of interest, check them out. 02:03:33.160 --> 02:03:36.840 Okay. For us, conventions-corner.com, you can find our old episodes, 02:03:37.020 --> 02:03:39.620 our archives, our transcripts, all the ways to contact us. 02:03:39.820 --> 02:03:43.320 A link to our Patreon, which Emily just joined. Thank you very much. 02:03:43.540 --> 02:03:46.900 As mentioned at various levels, we'll mention you on the show. 02:03:47.120 --> 02:03:47.940 We'll ring the bell. 02:03:47.940 --> 02:03:52.400 We will send you a postcard or we will send you a mug, all of that kind of stuff. 02:03:52.640 --> 02:03:54.680 Very importantly, at $2 a month or more. 02:03:55.020 --> 02:03:59.300 Or if you just ask us nicely, we will invite you to the Curmudgeons Corner Slack, 02:03:59.500 --> 02:04:04.460 where Yvonne and I and a bunch of our listeners and now Emily are hanging out 02:04:04.460 --> 02:04:08.600 and sharing links, talking about the news, talking about other stuff. 02:04:08.860 --> 02:04:12.820 It's a lot of fun. Emily, you mentioned you'd actually checked out recent links. 02:04:12.980 --> 02:04:16.180 Do you have one you want to highlight that you saw on there that we haven't talked about? 02:04:16.660 --> 02:04:22.200 Oh, I loved the story about... Hold on, I pulled it up. Sorry, 02:04:22.300 --> 02:04:24.620 hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The Walmart story. 02:04:25.200 --> 02:04:25.700 The witch? 02:04:26.440 --> 02:04:28.080 No, the Walmart story. 02:04:28.380 --> 02:04:28.520 Oh, Walmart. 02:04:28.680 --> 02:04:32.500 Walmart is, yeah, and the commentary, I think it was Yvonne that commented, 02:04:32.800 --> 02:04:35.820 oh, surprise, paying people more actually is good for business. 02:04:36.720 --> 02:04:42.040 Yeah, the story basically talked about how even though Walmart was once known 02:04:42.040 --> 02:04:44.920 for being really stingy with everything, 02:04:44.920 --> 02:04:51.360 they have started to improve and have for a few years now in terms of how they're 02:04:51.360 --> 02:04:52.280 treating their employees, 02:04:52.540 --> 02:04:56.160 what they do, et cetera, et cetera, and it's actually working out pretty well for them. 02:04:56.440 --> 02:04:58.500 Yeah. But I still won't be shopping there. 02:04:58.740 --> 02:05:04.180 Thank you. You know, I never got into the Walmart vibe. 02:05:04.400 --> 02:05:07.720 For a while, when Brandy and I lived in Florida, it was the closest place to 02:05:07.720 --> 02:05:09.380 us and they were open 24 hours. 02:05:09.600 --> 02:05:12.480 And we did go there on a fairly regular basis. 02:05:13.360 --> 02:05:19.540 And then, you know, no, but I never liked it. I never, you know, enjoyed the vibe there. 02:05:20.280 --> 02:05:23.800 But I have gone in the past. I'm just trying to be more thoughtful about where 02:05:23.800 --> 02:05:26.440 I spend my money, you know, like I can't boycott everything, 02:05:26.660 --> 02:05:33.880 but I'm trying really hard to, you know, either shop local or, you know, thrift store. 02:05:34.340 --> 02:05:35.080 Be thoughtful about it. 02:05:35.160 --> 02:05:37.780 Yeah. Just be thoughtful, like thinking about my purchases and like, 02:05:37.900 --> 02:05:40.760 what's the best option here? So that's what I encourage people to do. 02:05:41.060 --> 02:05:46.720 Yeah. I admit I have not yet gotten to the point where I think that deeply. 02:05:48.960 --> 02:05:53.060 I'm all about the convenience, you know, like, yeah. 02:05:54.220 --> 02:05:57.420 I think I'm lucky though that I don't have children. You know, 02:05:57.580 --> 02:06:01.320 I say that because I don't have to make those same decisions. You. 02:06:05.530 --> 02:06:09.070 Okay. Well, with that, let's wrap it up. 02:06:10.010 --> 02:06:14.730 And thanks everybody for listening. And hopefully Yvonne will be back next week. 02:06:14.910 --> 02:06:20.470 I'd mentioned before you joined Emily, the thing he forgot until the last moment 02:06:20.470 --> 02:06:27.090 that he realized he couldn't make the time we had agreed to talk was his anniversary. 02:06:27.510 --> 02:06:28.710 Oh my gosh. 02:06:31.310 --> 02:06:32.210 That's fabulous. 02:06:32.330 --> 02:06:36.930 He's like, I knew I had some reason that I couldn't do it. But anyway, so. 02:06:36.930 --> 02:06:40.270 It's got to be hard. It's hard enough for Sammy and I in the same time zone 02:06:40.270 --> 02:06:43.190 to schedule things together. So I don't know how you do it. 02:06:46.110 --> 02:06:49.250 Anyway, that's it. Hey, everybody, stay safe. Have a good week. 02:06:49.450 --> 02:06:51.950 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Have fun, but not too much fun. 02:06:52.150 --> 02:06:54.990 All the stuff I usually say. Goodbye. 02:06:55.610 --> 02:06:57.130 Thanks for having me, Sam. Bye. 02:06:57.570 --> 02:06:58.870 Thank you. Here we go. 02:07:29.600 --> 02:07:32.560 Okay, that's it. That was a lot of fun. I'm going to hit the stop button. 02:07:32.580 --> 02:07:36.980 Once I do, wait till it says it's 100% uploaded before you close the window or anything. 02:07:38.160 --> 02:07:40.040 It's really fun. I hope I was okay. 02:07:40.320 --> 02:07:45.480 Oh, no, you were great. This was a lot of fun. Did you actually see the email 02:07:45.480 --> 02:07:47.640 I sent out about needing a co-host before? 02:07:47.760 --> 02:07:50.840 Because it gets put in people's junk a lot. 02:07:51.180 --> 02:07:55.200 Oh, weird. Okay, I'll find it. Yeah, because I was going to, yeah, I didn't get it. 02:07:55.200 --> 02:08:00.000 I sent out an email Friday night to like everybody I usually ask for co-hosts. 02:08:00.000 --> 02:08:00.360 Oh. 02:08:01.260 --> 02:08:07.580 And I sent it from my Apple email address instead of my personal email address 02:08:07.580 --> 02:08:12.020 because I've noticed like sometimes like my personal address ends up being people 02:08:12.020 --> 02:08:15.540 spam because it's my own domain I've had for like 20 plus years. 02:08:15.760 --> 02:08:19.500 Yeah, where did that Ables Me come from? Because I always question that with 02:08:19.500 --> 02:08:21.820 Brandy ever since I've – what is that? 02:08:21.820 --> 02:08:27.160 That is Samuel scrambled up in a way that I made up in sixth grade with a B added. 02:08:28.000 --> 02:08:32.580 And cause it's, it's every other letter of Samuel. So you, 02:08:33.650 --> 02:08:40.090 A-U-L-S-M-E, and then I go through and add consonants or vowels as needed to 02:08:40.090 --> 02:08:41.590 make it more pronounceable in English. 02:08:41.750 --> 02:08:45.830 So it would be owl-smeh, but it becomes ab-l-smeh. 02:08:45.950 --> 02:08:49.810 I made that transformation up in sixth grade. There's a mathematical function 02:08:49.810 --> 02:08:54.050 related to it that I did lots of analysis on in high school related to if you 02:08:54.050 --> 02:08:57.070 take that and do it over and over and over again, how long does it take to get 02:08:57.070 --> 02:09:00.430 back to the original and various patterns that show up in that, 02:09:00.530 --> 02:09:03.370 depending on the length of the word you're taking through the permutation. 02:09:03.570 --> 02:09:07.270 Anyway, it's something I made up in sixth grade and I've used for things like 02:09:07.270 --> 02:09:11.030 screen names and everything like that ever since. That's where that comes from. 02:09:11.210 --> 02:09:11.910 Oh, I love it. 02:09:12.850 --> 02:09:18.690 But yeah, no. But yeah, like even the mail sent, I noticed it showed up in my own spam. 02:09:18.910 --> 02:09:21.730 Like I copied myself on the email and it showed up in my own spam. 02:09:22.130 --> 02:09:25.730 So I think the like three or four paragraphs that I send that are like, 02:09:25.910 --> 02:09:27.510 you know, hey, I need a co-host, 02:09:27.710 --> 02:09:33.430 blah, blah, blah, or just, you know for some reason like getting flagged as 02:09:33.430 --> 02:09:37.530 spam by some people so i think like most people i send the email to might not 02:09:37.530 --> 02:09:39.750 be getting it i do get responses no i. 02:09:39.750 --> 02:09:42.730 Got it i got it i just have been really bad at. 02:09:42.730 --> 02:09:45.050 My it's. 02:09:45.050 --> 02:09:48.150 Been a busy week it's been a busy year it's been a busy night. 02:09:48.890 --> 02:09:57.590 No no that that's okay cool cool okay i'll let you go okay hitting stop now all right.