WEBVTT 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:29.270 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, November 15th, 2025. 00:00:29.850 --> 00:00:33.530 It's 1946, UTC, as we're starting to record today. 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:39.130 I'm Sam Minter, and we did hope to have Yvonne Bowe back today, 00:00:39.130 --> 00:00:43.230 but he let me know a few days ago that he's still recovering. 00:00:43.230 --> 00:00:44.890 He's still not feeling great. 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:53.070 Specifically, he can't sit for too long at a single stretch as he recovers from his surgery. 00:00:53.570 --> 00:00:57.070 So he's, he, he bowed out for another week and I asked for volunteers. 00:00:57.510 --> 00:01:00.490 And so we have Todd again, Todd 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:04.250 joined us. What was it? A couple of months ago, a few months ago. Yeah. 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:04.770 I don't know. 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:12.230 I have a list somewhere. It was back in May. Yeah. 00:01:12.230 --> 00:01:15.790 I was thinking April or May. It was tariff season when I joined. 00:01:16.370 --> 00:01:20.850 Yeah. And so we, we talked about tariffs and all that, but Todd has volunteered to be with us again. 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:25.510 As usual, when I have a guest, the guest controls the agenda. 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:29.610 So I'm going to turn it over for Todd in a bit and we'll just have, 00:01:29.770 --> 00:01:33.150 you know, have a conversation about whatever Todd wants to talk about. 00:01:33.430 --> 00:01:40.210 And then hopefully next week, Yvonne will feel good enough to actually join 00:01:40.210 --> 00:01:42.390 us on the show again. So here we go. 00:01:42.810 --> 00:01:46.950 Yeah. I'm so intrigued now, though, because I don't know the nature of his surgery 00:01:46.950 --> 00:01:48.510 and we don't need to talk about it now. 00:01:48.510 --> 00:01:55.250 Well, he's talked about it on the show, so it's okay. He had a hernia. Ah, okay. So. 00:01:55.830 --> 00:02:00.930 So if he cannot sit for long periods, does that mean he has to stand and walk 00:02:00.930 --> 00:02:04.690 around or does that mean he has to lay down? I'm just, I'm curious if I ever need to have this stuff. 00:02:04.690 --> 00:02:07.950 You know, I haven't asked all those details. He's been actively participating 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:09.390 in our curmudgeon's core Slack. 00:02:09.650 --> 00:02:14.710 So he's obviously not like completely like knocked out, unable to do anything. 00:02:15.210 --> 00:02:19.370 I think it's just, he said he couldn't sit for long periods of time. 00:02:19.370 --> 00:02:20.470 So i think. 00:02:20.470 --> 00:02:24.330 It's probably more like he can sit he can sit for a while but then he has to 00:02:24.330 --> 00:02:26.830 get up and move around and do stuff i i don't think. 00:02:26.830 --> 00:02:27.210 He's like. 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:32.930 Bedridden but you know yeah but clearly it's uncomfortable if he. 00:02:32.930 --> 00:02:33.510 Stays in the. 00:02:33.510 --> 00:02:38.550 Same position for too long and so you know these podcasts are usually like two 00:02:38.550 --> 00:02:42.030 hours long or so and you know we could have done a short one i could have been 00:02:42.030 --> 00:02:44.110 like yvonne we can do 15 minutes it's cool. 00:02:44.110 --> 00:02:45.830 But uh but. 00:02:45.830 --> 00:02:48.810 Yeah he was like dad out the you know i'm out so. 00:02:48.810 --> 00:02:53.430 Well that's too bad but it means we. 00:02:53.430 --> 00:02:55.490 It means we get you todd and. 00:02:55.490 --> 00:02:57.230 You know so so. 00:02:57.230 --> 00:02:58.670 What did you want to talk about today todd. 00:02:58.670 --> 00:03:04.030 I i had a few things on my mind that i wrote to you and we just go in the order 00:03:04.030 --> 00:03:10.130 that i put them in my stream of consciousness email curious because you've you 00:03:10.130 --> 00:03:15.050 as long as i've known you even though we've been out of regular contact for decades, 00:03:16.730 --> 00:03:22.410 you seem like a real wonk paying attention to political data and results and 00:03:22.410 --> 00:03:26.990 polling and things like that and i don't i rely on people like you to give me 00:03:26.990 --> 00:03:28.830 the big picture of the analysis so forth, 00:03:29.910 --> 00:03:35.370 very encouraged by the voting results in pennsylvania where i live and even 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:39.210 in the county west moreland county where i live which is you know pennsylvania 00:03:39.210 --> 00:03:45.670 has become a purple state the last few elections and my county has been a red 00:03:45.670 --> 00:03:48.410 county for even longer than that. 00:03:49.010 --> 00:03:51.990 But we we saw encouraging results i think 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:54.870 here locally and certainly statewide the statewide 00:03:54.870 --> 00:03:58.170 results were national news you 00:03:58.170 --> 00:04:01.610 know that we at pennsylvania has a strange way 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:04.790 of electing supreme court judges they 00:04:04.790 --> 00:04:07.770 they get elected and then 10 years later there's 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:11.490 a vote on whether to retain them okay yep 00:04:11.490 --> 00:04:15.950 no judge has ever been no 00:04:15.950 --> 00:04:18.770 judge has ever not been retained they may elect to 00:04:18.770 --> 00:04:22.790 retire you know step down whatever so the 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:26.070 people were worried because there was a lot of pack money 00:04:26.070 --> 00:04:28.950 coming into the state to vote no on 00:04:28.950 --> 00:04:32.850 retention but they wound up winning with something like 69 70 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:35.790 of the vote and then like here locally 00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:38.810 i am in in my red county in my red 00:04:38.810 --> 00:04:41.970 town and school district a democrat won one 00:04:41.970 --> 00:04:45.490 of the school board positions that's not going to make national news 00:04:45.490 --> 00:04:49.130 but it's unusual you know and 00:04:49.130 --> 00:04:52.370 and i gotta say that our school board is not controversial right we don't have 00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:57.130 people out trying to push religious instruction there's no strong pushes to 00:04:57.130 --> 00:05:02.270 ban books or things like that they they're mostly republicans but mostly you 00:05:02.270 --> 00:05:08.510 know good old fashioned Republicans and not the sort of MAGA brand that you see too frequently now. 00:05:09.050 --> 00:05:13.290 And like one of the little towns here, Jeanette has been solid Republican. 00:05:13.290 --> 00:05:16.810 One of these old manufacturing towns in decline for decades, 00:05:16.990 --> 00:05:21.390 elected a Democrat mayor for the first time in a while as well. 00:05:21.630 --> 00:05:27.010 So this is, this is my, you know, local and Pennsylvania view of. 00:05:27.590 --> 00:05:33.450 I'm going on faith, Sam, that you're more aware of nationwide data or maybe 00:05:33.450 --> 00:05:35.330 other examples like mine. 00:05:35.490 --> 00:05:38.870 How did it look two weeks ago? 00:05:39.330 --> 00:05:42.810 It looked very good for the Democrats. That's the one-line summary. 00:05:42.990 --> 00:05:45.650 But let me give you some more examples. 00:05:46.230 --> 00:05:49.430 There's a person, the account name is Tanneel. 00:05:49.710 --> 00:05:52.450 They are even more of a wonk than I am. 00:05:52.450 --> 00:06:00.310 They have all kinds of tracking that they do for a website called BOLTS, 00:06:00.390 --> 00:06:05.530 B-O-L-T-S, that tracks all kinds of local races and stuff all across the country. 00:06:05.890 --> 00:06:12.890 And so they posted a multi-part summary of the results that night. 00:06:13.030 --> 00:06:17.910 And this was as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, so the day after the election day. 00:06:17.990 --> 00:06:21.110 And I'll read these to you in a second. I'll also mention real quick, 00:06:21.330 --> 00:06:26.970 before I forget, last week we didn't really talk about the election results 00:06:26.970 --> 00:06:31.990 on the show because we had guests on last week, too, and they chose other topics. 00:06:32.590 --> 00:06:38.650 But I will mention that this last week and next week, actually, 00:06:38.890 --> 00:06:44.770 I was a guest on another podcast called UMSUR, which I've mentioned on the show a few times. 00:06:44.770 --> 00:06:50.410 And in both of those episodes, one that's out right now and one that'll be out 00:06:50.410 --> 00:06:53.770 this coming week, they released on Wednesdays. 00:06:54.190 --> 00:06:59.370 I did talk about the local elections with the two hosts of that show. 00:06:59.550 --> 00:07:04.170 So I encourage folks to also tune in to UMSUR and check that out. 00:07:04.570 --> 00:07:07.810 Okay, in the meantime, here is Tanneel's summary. 00:07:08.070 --> 00:07:12.790 And this is somewhat long, but I think the length actually makes the point. 00:07:13.250 --> 00:07:17.250 Okay, so let me start. California's Proposition 50 wins. 00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:21.910 Virginia Democrats flip governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. 00:07:22.650 --> 00:07:28.710 Democrats defend New Jersey governor. Democrats gain legislative seats in Virginia and New Jersey. 00:07:29.090 --> 00:07:32.330 Democrats win New Jersey and Virginia trifectas. 00:07:32.890 --> 00:07:37.570 Momdani wins in New York. Pennsylvania Democrats win state Supreme Court. 00:07:38.170 --> 00:07:40.610 Maine anti-male voting measure loses. 00:07:41.390 --> 00:07:44.730 Georgia Democrats flip two statewide offices. 00:07:45.830 --> 00:07:52.230 Coloradoans fund free school meals. Larry Krasner and Bragg win DA races. 00:07:52.230 --> 00:07:55.350 I'm not sure where those are because I don't remember the names. 00:07:56.070 --> 00:08:02.370 Seattle GOP prosecutor down big. Democrats flip Connecticut towns such as Bristol, 00:08:02.630 --> 00:08:04.350 Milford, New Britain, and Stratford. 00:08:04.870 --> 00:08:07.170 Charlotte approves a transit tax. 00:08:07.890 --> 00:08:09.610 J.D. Vance's half-brother loses. 00:08:10.510 --> 00:08:18.470 Conservatives lose seats on large school boards in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Colorado. 00:08:19.330 --> 00:08:23.790 Mississippi Democrats break the GOP's Senate supermajority. 00:08:24.190 --> 00:08:27.450 Minnesota Democrats successfully defend the state Senate. 00:08:27.910 --> 00:08:31.970 Democrats hold tough legislative districts in New York and Washington, 00:08:32.230 --> 00:08:33.970 miss out on a New Hampshire flip. 00:08:34.710 --> 00:08:38.370 Pennsylvania Democrats win two open statewide judge seats. 00:08:38.910 --> 00:08:44.030 Pennsylvania Democrats flip Erie County Executive, Bucks County DA, and Sheriff. 00:08:44.850 --> 00:08:48.910 Pennsylvania Democrats defend county executives in Lehigh and Northampton. 00:08:49.550 --> 00:08:58.950 Democrats flip boards of New York, Onondaga, and Dutchess counties, 00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:02.190 a first in decades, and Pennsylvania's Luzerne County. 00:09:02.870 --> 00:09:07.710 Progressives may flip the Aurora Council and keep the Spokane Council. 00:09:08.150 --> 00:09:13.410 Only Republican on the Orlando Council loses. Democrats sweep Tucson. 00:09:14.030 --> 00:09:20.070 Large bond tax measures for infrastructure housing approved in Columbus, Denver, and Knoxville. 00:09:20.930 --> 00:09:25.570 Minnesota Mayor Jacob Fry re-elected. Mary Sheffield wins Detroit Mayor. 00:09:26.170 --> 00:09:31.610 GOP holds Columbia and Manchester Mayor. This says Seattle Mayor unknown, 00:09:31.650 --> 00:09:36.290 but since Election Day, the more progressive candidate has actually won in Seattle. 00:09:36.850 --> 00:09:43.470 Albuquerque and Jersey City runoffs. New York City housing measures pass. Proposition 6 does not. 00:09:43.790 --> 00:09:47.270 And that's his long list. And then you can click through to his website and 00:09:47.270 --> 00:09:52.630 get even more. But it's win after win after win after win for the Democrats. 00:09:52.890 --> 00:09:58.350 And it's in some of these, the Democrats were expected to win, 00:09:58.550 --> 00:10:03.490 but they won by larger margins than were expected as well. 00:10:03.490 --> 00:10:10.750 So all in all, a very big, successful win for the Democrats that day, 00:10:11.210 --> 00:10:13.110 bigger than expected in most places. 00:10:13.350 --> 00:10:17.150 And of course, you know, the tea leaf reading is, well, what does this mean 00:10:17.150 --> 00:10:20.470 for midterms next year or even the presidency in 2028? 00:10:21.110 --> 00:10:22.630 And, you know, 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:30.360 The real answer is, who knows? Lots can happen in a year, let alone in three years. 00:10:31.900 --> 00:10:36.260 But it's much better than the other way, as far as Democrats are concerned, for sure. 00:10:37.060 --> 00:10:40.800 And it definitely shows that as 00:10:40.800 --> 00:10:46.700 of right now, if you look into some of the additional reporting on this, 00:10:47.420 --> 00:10:53.460 there's a lot where Democrats are just fired up right now and Republicans are not. 00:10:54.120 --> 00:11:01.060 And so a lot of this may simply be Democrats bothering to turn out and Republicans not. 00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:06.740 A part of it may also be sort of the squishy folks in the middle who were voting 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:12.280 Republican last year deciding that, you know, hey, this hasn't turned out quite 00:11:12.280 --> 00:11:14.920 the way I expected it to, so maybe I'll flip. 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:17.640 And so there's some combination of those effects. 00:11:18.340 --> 00:11:25.840 But, you know, So you're not wrong. Your examples in Pennsylvania were not isolated to Pennsylvania. 00:11:26.260 --> 00:11:32.100 This was nationwide and moves in the Democratic direction all over the country. 00:11:32.660 --> 00:11:39.680 I am not surprised by some of the things that you read. And you said that yourself already. 00:11:39.920 --> 00:11:44.200 It's interesting. You live in Seattle. The more progressive candidate won in 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:50.540 Seattle, was it sort of like a Bernie Sanders running against Tim Kaine kind 00:11:50.540 --> 00:11:54.420 of race? Was it that sort of race or was it a genuine Democrat versus Republican? 00:11:54.860 --> 00:11:59.940 It was a centrist Democrat versus a progressive Democrat. 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:04.520 Yeah, interesting. And, you know, Mom Donnie, I know there was the, 00:12:04.620 --> 00:12:10.640 how am I forgetting the former governor inserting himself as an independent candidate? 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:18.480 Cuomo Cuomo yeah I don't know how I forgot that name Cuomo but, 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:29.560 Mondani, maybe also surprising, but not terribly surprising that Cuomo, 00:12:29.820 --> 00:12:33.720 I don't know if Cuomo thought he was actually going to win or if he was just 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:38.460 trying to give it to the Republican and to steal votes and give it to the Republican out of Spagano. 00:12:38.680 --> 00:12:43.040 Honestly, I thought he was, I thought he thinks, thought he was going to win. 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:47.940 I thought he jumped in wanting this and figured he would actually run away with 00:12:47.940 --> 00:12:50.600 it and was surprised when that didn't happen. 00:12:51.230 --> 00:12:54.590 Yeah, because I think he has that kind of ego. And I thought, 00:12:54.790 --> 00:12:58.710 I think that as well, he thought, you know, well, of course, 00:12:58.890 --> 00:13:02.230 nobody's going to vote for this like crazy socialist over me. 00:13:02.670 --> 00:13:06.930 You know, I think if anything, he thought Adams was the competition that we 00:13:06.930 --> 00:13:10.430 would have to worry about. And that just turned out not to be the case. 00:13:11.050 --> 00:13:16.570 And uh new york fairly resoundingly rejected 00:13:16.570 --> 00:13:19.430 hey you know forget about 00:13:19.430 --> 00:13:22.790 you know there are a lot of things that have been said positive about 00:13:22.790 --> 00:13:25.830 mamdani and his policies and his attitude and 00:13:25.830 --> 00:13:28.630 his social media skills and all that kind of stuff i mean there 00:13:28.630 --> 00:13:31.390 have been negative things said about his policies as well just to 00:13:31.390 --> 00:13:34.310 be clear but yeah but i think there's a 00:13:34.310 --> 00:13:37.850 key element here i mean adams was 00:13:37.850 --> 00:13:41.310 corrupt and on the take and you know 00:13:41.310 --> 00:13:44.130 he was taking bribes and the only reason the 00:13:44.130 --> 00:13:47.070 charges were dropped was because he made a deal with trump 00:13:47.070 --> 00:13:52.850 to help trump you know and and get the charges dropped and meanwhile you've 00:13:52.850 --> 00:13:58.410 got cuomo who you had a whole bunch of sexual harassment issues which is why 00:13:58.410 --> 00:14:02.830 he was chased out of the governorship but also there was a lot of malfeasance 00:14:02.830 --> 00:14:05.670 related to covid that people uncovered. 00:14:06.090 --> 00:14:12.710 During that time period, he was doing things that arguably resulted in additional 00:14:12.710 --> 00:14:14.250 deaths that should not have happened otherwise. 00:14:14.350 --> 00:14:20.030 There's questions about how he dealt with long-term care, housing for the elderly, 00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:23.170 and the rules that were associated with those, and all kinds of other things. 00:14:23.310 --> 00:14:27.770 People were very unhappy with him. That's why he is not governor anymore. 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:35.130 So, I mean, if anything I mean I was discouraged by how well he was actually 00:14:35.130 --> 00:14:41.110 doing but encouraged by the fact that he in fact lost I mean both Adams and 00:14:41.110 --> 00:14:43.990 Cuomo should have been like. 00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:48.670 Disqualified on the face of it. Like, if you didn't like Mandami, fine. 00:14:48.850 --> 00:14:52.030 Maybe there's somebody else out there. But these two in particular, 00:14:52.030 --> 00:14:56.190 you know, absolutely deserve to be ridden out of town on a rail. 00:14:57.290 --> 00:15:04.090 They, they are accused, certainly, and probably guilty, right? 00:15:04.490 --> 00:15:04.610 Yeah. 00:15:05.030 --> 00:15:07.230 Innocent until proven guilty and benefit of the doubt and everything else. 00:15:07.370 --> 00:15:12.450 But if they were just ordinary private citizens who did these things in a private 00:15:12.450 --> 00:15:16.570 employer, they'd be gone and probably criminally charged. 00:15:17.150 --> 00:15:17.250 Yeah. 00:15:17.930 --> 00:15:21.270 So, yeah, I agree with you. That should be disqualifying. And I didn't mean 00:15:21.270 --> 00:15:24.510 to go down the New York City rabbit hole, but I'm fascinated by your take because 00:15:24.510 --> 00:15:28.210 I know that you pay closer attention to these political details than I do. 00:15:29.190 --> 00:15:32.010 What I was going to say is, okay, a lot of these are unsurprising. 00:15:32.330 --> 00:15:35.970 Seattle mayor, New York City mayor, some Democrat was going to win New York City. 00:15:36.270 --> 00:15:39.970 But some of the other results that you ran down that I was not aware of, 00:15:40.170 --> 00:15:43.630 Erie County, Pennsylvania, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Luzerne County, 00:15:43.950 --> 00:15:46.250 Pennsylvania, and Onondaga, I think you were trying to say. 00:15:46.490 --> 00:15:49.850 Onondaga, one of the Finger Lake, it's one of the Finger Lake counties in New York. 00:15:51.070 --> 00:15:56.370 D's are rural or like small town, you know, I mean, Erie, there is a city of 00:15:56.370 --> 00:15:58.070 Erie, but that's a pretty. 00:15:58.390 --> 00:16:00.610 It's not a big countywide. 00:16:00.790 --> 00:16:07.390 Yeah. Countywide. They're, they're red. These kinds of things from a Democrat 00:16:07.390 --> 00:16:09.590 point of view are pretty encouraging. 00:16:09.590 --> 00:16:15.770 And yeah, I also wonder, does this momentum carry through you validated one 00:16:15.770 --> 00:16:18.950 other thing that I was wondering was part of this kind of a matter of. 00:16:18.950 --> 00:16:24.570 Turnout and that the Democrats are just far more fired up right now than Republicans, 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:27.790 that you and I are old enough to remember the Tea Party movement. 00:16:28.050 --> 00:16:33.850 This feels like a liberal sort of Tea Party movement right now. 00:16:34.030 --> 00:16:37.890 I have gone to several, not everyone, but I've gone to several of the protests 00:16:37.890 --> 00:16:39.490 this year at our county courthouse. 00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:45.530 First one I went to was admittedly on a weekday on one of the coldest days of 00:16:45.530 --> 00:16:50.930 last winter in February. So I was out at the street corner with maybe a dozen people. 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:56.810 The last one I went to, the second No Kings rally that I went to maybe a month ago by now, 00:16:57.270 --> 00:17:02.690 over 3,000 people by most accounts, which is like three times bigger than the, 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:05.410 oh, what was the first big one this year? It wasn't a No Kings, 00:17:05.550 --> 00:17:06.930 it was Hands Off, I think. 00:17:07.310 --> 00:17:10.490 The one theme was Hands Off maybe back in April or May or so. 00:17:10.550 --> 00:17:14.450 That one got about 1,000. the first no kings got about 2 000 this one got about 00:17:14.450 --> 00:17:20.070 3 000 in my county right from those humble beginnings of a dozen people freezing 00:17:20.070 --> 00:17:22.370 and shivering on the street corner in february that. 00:17:23.040 --> 00:17:29.000 It takes a lot to get people out to protest like that for a couple of hours. 00:17:29.180 --> 00:17:32.700 Even if it's on a Saturday, even if the weather is nice, it takes a lot. 00:17:32.840 --> 00:17:36.040 Cause like I got kids, they, they have things to do. Right. 00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:40.900 So are people who don't agree with me politically? 00:17:41.100 --> 00:17:43.500 We'll look at that and say it was only 3000 people. There's whatever, 00:17:43.820 --> 00:17:47.740 hundreds of thousands of people in our County. That's such a small percentage. Yeah. 00:17:48.060 --> 00:17:52.740 But the fact that people are willing to come out and make signs and put on costumes 00:17:52.740 --> 00:17:59.700 and, and, and, and peacefully express their concerns and their position for 00:17:59.700 --> 00:18:02.560 a couple of hours, I think is pretty meaningful. 00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:05.280 I said the same thing about these tea party protests. I'm like, 00:18:05.360 --> 00:18:08.080 these guys look ridiculous. They're out on the corner. They're dressed in their costumes. 00:18:08.300 --> 00:18:12.100 There's, you know, a few dozen or a few hundred of them, but look what happened. 00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:18.860 Like that was, that was wave that impacted the remainder of Obama's first and 00:18:18.860 --> 00:18:20.500 second term, as I recall. Right. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:25.020 It swung in the middle of his first term, and then I don't think Democrats ever 00:18:25.020 --> 00:18:29.020 got back majority of both houses again after that. Am I remembering that wrong? 00:18:29.500 --> 00:18:30.860 No, no, no. I... 00:18:33.370 --> 00:18:36.650 I'm not sure of the specifics about when Congress did what, et cetera, 00:18:36.870 --> 00:18:38.330 but I think you're right. 00:18:38.510 --> 00:18:44.910 But I think to the larger point that how these things can change the tone and 00:18:44.910 --> 00:18:46.210 what's going on are important. 00:18:46.430 --> 00:18:50.070 A few weeks back when Emily guest hosted on the show with me, 00:18:50.250 --> 00:18:56.570 we had a little bit of a conversation about whether there's a group that's out 00:18:56.570 --> 00:19:01.930 there saying protests like No Kings are meaningless because they don't make 00:19:01.930 --> 00:19:08.570 a specific list of demands that have to be met that would actually result in change. 00:19:09.390 --> 00:19:12.690 And instead, it's sort of performative because it's just a bunch of people going 00:19:12.690 --> 00:19:18.210 out and making themselves feel better by going and having a rally and shaking 00:19:18.210 --> 00:19:22.750 their signs or whatever. But it doesn't really do anything. It doesn't really change anything. 00:19:22.910 --> 00:19:26.390 And I think that's misguided because 00:19:26.390 --> 00:19:31.190 while you certainly can have the situation where you have, you have, 00:19:31.870 --> 00:19:37.550 political actions with demands and a, you know, you're, you're trying to get 00:19:37.550 --> 00:19:39.390 somebody to give in and give you something. 00:19:39.850 --> 00:19:44.030 First of all, you know, and I mentioned on the show when we, 00:19:44.130 --> 00:19:48.130 when I talked about this, the more specific you get with demands, the higher, 00:19:48.390 --> 00:19:51.550 harder it is to get people to join you because there will always be somebody 00:19:51.550 --> 00:19:56.190 who disagrees with, you know, you have five demands and they like four of them, 00:19:56.270 --> 00:19:58.790 but the fifth one, oh no, that's, that's no good. 00:19:59.130 --> 00:20:04.390 And you're getting very specific. The No Kings was a very high level. 00:20:05.290 --> 00:20:08.170 You know, hey, democracy is good. 00:20:08.250 --> 00:20:13.490 We're unhappy with the things that are happening that are diminishing democracy 00:20:13.490 --> 00:20:15.170 and diminishing the rule of law. 00:20:15.490 --> 00:20:18.110 That's what it was very high level. 00:20:18.450 --> 00:20:23.190 That's all it was. And it is so I mentioned that time as well that, 00:20:23.390 --> 00:20:29.070 you know, hey, at our local No Kings rally, the League of Women Voters sent somebody to speak. 00:20:29.510 --> 00:20:34.910 They are notoriously neutral, but they were able to speak for this because it 00:20:34.910 --> 00:20:39.070 was just promoting democracy. It wasn't an anti-Trump rally per se. 00:20:39.270 --> 00:20:46.230 It wasn't about any specific policy. It was just, hey, we're worried that democracy 00:20:46.230 --> 00:20:47.810 and the rule of law are threatened. 00:20:48.510 --> 00:20:53.090 And you do get, and even without those specific demands, like, 00:20:53.170 --> 00:20:58.390 look, if you made specific demands of the Trump administration through this 00:20:58.390 --> 00:21:02.090 kind of protests, they're just going to dig in further. 00:21:02.350 --> 00:21:05.570 They're not about to give in to those demands and say, oh, no, 00:21:05.790 --> 00:21:07.510 a few million people protested. 00:21:09.310 --> 00:21:16.550 Let's stop ICE detentions. No, not even remotely. Even if the protests got like 00:21:16.550 --> 00:21:20.950 10 times bigger than they were, they still wouldn't do that. 00:21:21.110 --> 00:21:24.090 If anything, they'd be like, oh, man, we've got riots on the streets. 00:21:24.210 --> 00:21:26.090 We need to shoot them all, you know. 00:21:27.350 --> 00:21:33.910 So, but I think the protests of this sort still have a significant purpose. 00:21:34.030 --> 00:21:37.650 They do let people know that they're not alone. 00:21:38.050 --> 00:21:45.210 They show the magnitude of the people who disagree. they show even to the people 00:21:45.210 --> 00:21:47.670 who like, let's say you're a MAGA person. 00:21:48.420 --> 00:21:53.700 You may see the numbers on the other side in a way that you haven't before. 00:21:55.020 --> 00:21:59.180 And because it's scattered all over the country, it's not just in a rally in D.C. 00:21:59.620 --> 00:22:04.660 You know, the standard thing is like, you know, Fox News barely covered the No Kings rally. 00:22:04.920 --> 00:22:06.860 Even other major media like the 00:22:06.860 --> 00:22:10.820 New York Times famously didn't had just a small note on the front page. 00:22:11.040 --> 00:22:15.680 Like and the rest of the front page was other stuff, you know, things like that. 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:20.920 But if, because they're scattered all over the country and even small towns, 00:22:21.180 --> 00:22:27.080 even small red towns had, had these rallies, you know, just then, 00:22:27.260 --> 00:22:30.500 then just the MAGA folks driving by like, see, oh, 00:22:31.120 --> 00:22:34.280 there are people around me that actually think this way. 00:22:34.280 --> 00:22:38.240 Because I've heard lots of reports, not just reports, 00:22:38.420 --> 00:22:44.760 anecdotal stuff, but the whole thing about our information environment right 00:22:44.760 --> 00:22:50.400 now and how things are separated geographically is that if you drop somebody 00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:55.620 in the middle of a rural red area, they very likely... 00:22:56.500 --> 00:22:59.960 Think, nope, this, this liberal stuff isn't real. 00:23:00.120 --> 00:23:04.740 Like nobody I know thinks that way, you know, because they just aren't exposed 00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:07.020 to it because they're isolated from it. 00:23:07.140 --> 00:23:11.340 They only are around people like them. And, and honestly, there's a little bit 00:23:11.340 --> 00:23:13.160 of that in the other direction too. 00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:17.920 I mean, if you're, if you're in a heavy blue area, you're not going to run into 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:21.140 somebody wearing their mega hat all that often, you know? 00:23:21.260 --> 00:23:26.800 And so just the, but the visibility lets you know It's out there and which it 00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:30.240 affects the tone of the conversation anyway. 00:23:30.520 --> 00:23:36.000 It affects the realm of what's possible. And yes, it affects enthusiasm for 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:41.100 elections when they come about because realistically, short of like some violent 00:23:41.100 --> 00:23:44.180 revolution or something, that's what you got. 00:23:44.540 --> 00:23:48.700 You've got a situation right now where nationally the Democrats lost everything 00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:52.080 and there's not much they can actually do. 00:23:52.080 --> 00:23:57.180 I mean, we maybe I don't know if the end of the shutdown is one of your topics 00:23:57.180 --> 00:24:02.740 or not, but like, you know, absent like things like that, there's very little 00:24:02.740 --> 00:24:06.800 they can actually do until they win elections again. 00:24:07.300 --> 00:24:11.520 And so between now and then, yeah, most of it is performative. 00:24:11.660 --> 00:24:13.200 Yeah, most of it is messaging. 00:24:13.380 --> 00:24:18.400 Most of it is like, how do you get through to the general public what it is 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:21.960 you would like to be doing if you could do something so that when there's an 00:24:21.960 --> 00:24:26.600 election, you might win, as opposed to like folks saying, well, 00:24:26.940 --> 00:24:31.340 the rally was useless because it accomplished nothing. Trump didn't change any policies, you know? 00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:40.260 Well, it's all true. It is performative. It does make people feel good while they're there. 00:24:40.600 --> 00:24:46.200 It's a good feeling to be among like-minded people to realize that you're not alone. 00:24:46.220 --> 00:24:50.160 I'm repeating a lot of the stuff that you already said. It's all true. 00:24:50.340 --> 00:24:58.940 And also, I'm encouraged because it's representative of a larger amount of dissatisfaction 00:24:58.940 --> 00:25:01.140 with the federal government at the moment. 00:25:01.140 --> 00:25:08.500 And again, this is not data, this is anecdotal, but there was a surprising and 00:25:08.500 --> 00:25:12.620 really good feeling of being out there at a major intersection in the county 00:25:12.620 --> 00:25:14.920 seat, you know, Greensburg, Westmoreland County, 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:21.000 many, many more people drove by honking and waving in support than, 00:25:21.360 --> 00:25:24.320 you know, cause you're going to, you're going to get the jeers and the laughter 00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:28.260 and you, you know, you lost and, and that kind of stuff. 00:25:29.030 --> 00:25:35.570 Fine. But I'm amazed at how many supporters there actually were driving by, 00:25:35.710 --> 00:25:41.670 which tells me that there's people maybe who, if they were available or if they were aware, 00:25:41.930 --> 00:25:44.410 would have like, you know, maybe we would have had another thousand people up 00:25:44.410 --> 00:25:48.830 there on the courthouse plaza if people were aware. 00:25:49.130 --> 00:25:54.370 And to me, it's just a representation of the broader dissatisfaction right now. 00:25:54.530 --> 00:25:56.450 And it certainly showed up at the polls. 00:25:56.810 --> 00:25:59.730 So two of, yes, shutdown was one of my topics, but I wanted to get your point 00:25:59.730 --> 00:26:03.610 of view on a couple of other things related to, related to all of this. 00:26:03.710 --> 00:26:11.190 One is I, I think I have heard accurately that turnout in general and among 00:26:11.190 --> 00:26:14.610 Democrats in particular was encouragingly high this year. 00:26:14.710 --> 00:26:20.110 I think democratic voters are notoriously absent in off year elections. 00:26:20.390 --> 00:26:24.250 The biggest example of this. And I think, yes, there's evidence of that across the board. 00:26:24.430 --> 00:26:29.070 But the biggest example was actually the redistricting proposition in California. 00:26:29.390 --> 00:26:32.270 Cause that was the only thing on the ballot. 00:26:32.590 --> 00:26:36.890 There were no candidates running. There was no presidential race, 00:26:37.030 --> 00:26:39.050 no governor's race, no nothing. 00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:41.870 It was, there's nothing on a local level. 00:26:42.130 --> 00:26:49.310 No, the, the, the really, the, the only reason there was an election in California. 00:26:49.310 --> 00:26:53.810 And please, if you're out there and there were actually some local races, please correct me. 00:26:53.990 --> 00:27:00.150 But my understanding is the only reason this was happening was the redistricting measure. That's it. 00:27:00.790 --> 00:27:08.450 And they had incredibly high turnout for that. And it won by much larger measure, 00:27:09.350 --> 00:27:12.410 margin than was expected it was expected to 00:27:12.410 --> 00:27:15.530 win so much so that both sides stopped 00:27:15.530 --> 00:27:18.970 advertising about it several weeks before the election yeah 00:27:18.970 --> 00:27:21.730 they they were both like it's a waste of money we know what's 00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:24.630 going to happen but the margin was still greater than 00:27:24.630 --> 00:27:28.150 anybody anticipated i think it won by like 60 60 00:27:28.150 --> 00:27:33.070 40 or something and so yeah the 00:27:33.070 --> 00:27:36.690 the democratic enthusiasm is out there right now and whereas 00:27:36.690 --> 00:27:40.150 it does seem like republican 00:27:40.150 --> 00:27:43.070 turnout is depressed right now and i 00:27:43.070 --> 00:27:47.890 think that aligns with you know if you look at you know trump approval ratings 00:27:47.890 --> 00:27:53.530 but other but other things as well like right track wrong track you know republicans 00:27:53.530 --> 00:27:56.870 of course are much more likely to approve of what trump trump is doing than 00:27:56.870 --> 00:28:01.050 democrats but it's not not even the same universe However, 00:28:01.770 --> 00:28:03.570 even that number is dropping. 00:28:05.370 --> 00:28:11.610 It's still high among Republicans, but it's dropping and it's continued on a downtrend. 00:28:11.930 --> 00:28:17.890 And I think what you have basically, and again, anecdotal, you hear all these 00:28:17.890 --> 00:28:23.330 things about Republicans who are like, okay, but this isn't quite what I wanted. 00:28:23.330 --> 00:28:28.870 You know, I wanted them to, like, round up the illegal immigrant criminals, 00:28:29.530 --> 00:28:36.310 not the grandmother who cleans houses, you know, or, you know, 00:28:36.330 --> 00:28:39.530 and I didn't want him to, like, tear down the White House, you know, 00:28:39.670 --> 00:28:43.370 and what's up with all these tariffs that we talked about before? 00:28:43.510 --> 00:28:48.010 Why are prices going up? He promised to make prices go down, you know, et cetera. 00:28:48.750 --> 00:28:48.950 Yeah. 00:28:50.850 --> 00:28:54.550 And to be clear, there's still lots of there's still lots of people out there 00:28:54.550 --> 00:28:58.710 who double down on everything. And like Trump's wonderful. All this is good. 00:28:59.170 --> 00:29:03.070 Anything where anything you hear about it being negative is actually liberal lies. 00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:07.390 There are plenty of those people out there still, too. But the numbers are going down. 00:29:07.990 --> 00:29:12.850 Yeah. Yeah. So the last thing I'm wondering about the elections is. 00:29:13.540 --> 00:29:24.740 Because, you know, I've become very skeptical of Democrats' ability to win on 00:29:24.740 --> 00:29:27.760 a platform rather than opposition, right? 00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:35.860 I think Biden won in 2020, probably more for the opposition to Trump's first 00:29:35.860 --> 00:29:39.680 term than for Biden's awesome campaign. 00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:40.340 Absolutely. 00:29:40.640 --> 00:29:45.900 I think whether he would have run for re-election or what became the Harris 00:29:45.900 --> 00:29:54.720 campaign, you know, sort of abandoned their platform and focused on, we're not Trump. 00:29:55.760 --> 00:30:02.500 And that wasn't, people were so unhappy about inflation in particular. 00:30:02.700 --> 00:30:02.920 Mm-hmm. 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:08.940 That, you know, it wasn't strong enough. Like, well, Trump's going to come in and fix everything. 00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:13.500 Well, sure enough, you know, inflation's been stubbornly not high, right? 00:30:13.560 --> 00:30:16.320 It's not like, you know, 9% or whatever it was a few years ago, 00:30:16.340 --> 00:30:21.240 but it hasn't gone below two like the Fed says they want it to be and they cut rates anyway. 00:30:21.840 --> 00:30:25.280 But people are noticing it at the grocery store. It's unavoidable. 00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:28.960 For crying out loud, there's some energy bar that my brother-in-law asks us 00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:31.440 to buy because we have a Costco membership and he doesn't. 00:30:31.500 --> 00:30:37.240 This is just my little anecdotal snapshot of, these things used to be like $21 a box. 00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:41.500 Now they're $28.50 just since like April. 00:30:41.740 --> 00:30:45.960 Now that's not representative of everything at the grocery store, but you know, you see it. 00:30:46.040 --> 00:30:49.640 People are talking about the, you know, I forget which publication put out the 00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:52.360 price of a Thanksgiving meal this year versus last year. 00:30:52.420 --> 00:30:56.920 They say, Hey, look, the price of Thanksgiving meal from Walmart went down this year versus last year. 00:30:57.040 --> 00:31:00.140 It went down because they switched from name brand 00:31:00.140 --> 00:31:02.900 to generic brand and they went 00:31:02.900 --> 00:31:05.840 from having like 20 items in the shopping cart to 15 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:12.000 like that's why it went down it's not a apples to apples thing we're a carnivore 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:18.320 family price of meat is definitely up eggs somehow became a campaign issue right 00:31:18.320 --> 00:31:22.060 eggs are not as expensive as they were i think a year ago but they're not what 00:31:22.060 --> 00:31:25.800 they were four years ago either and on and on and on yet i think, 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:31.420 People who voted for Trump are feeling this shit and we can curse on this, right? 00:31:31.580 --> 00:31:32.340 Yeah. Oh yeah. 00:31:32.560 --> 00:31:32.740 Okay. 00:31:32.820 --> 00:31:33.420 Curse all the time. 00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:39.740 And so, yes, I did want to talk about the shutdown, and maybe this is a good 00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:46.880 segue into that, that inexplicably, Trump fought against SNAP benefits, right? 00:31:48.140 --> 00:31:52.340 I don't understand that. And I'm bringing this up because, 00:31:52.500 --> 00:31:57.660 again, where I live, and I think that Westmoreland County is representative 00:31:57.660 --> 00:32:02.420 of many rural or semi-suburban counties all over the country, 00:32:02.580 --> 00:32:03.760 whether it's a red or blue state. 00:32:03.760 --> 00:32:07.140 I think you find a lot of counties like mine, there's a lot of people I know 00:32:07.140 --> 00:32:10.980 voted for Trump because they had the campaign signs in their front yard and 00:32:10.980 --> 00:32:14.600 also are getting some kind of public assistance because they have the handicapped 00:32:14.600 --> 00:32:18.500 blackguard in their car or just because I happen to know something about. 00:32:18.620 --> 00:32:20.520 And like, I know they're definitely getting assistance. 00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:22.840 They're getting disability. They're probably on SNAP. 00:32:23.060 --> 00:32:29.420 They're probably getting Medicaid or some kind of Obamacare-type subsidies. 00:32:30.360 --> 00:32:36.460 He inexplicably went after SNAP, and Congress is going after ACA subsidies. 00:32:37.040 --> 00:32:42.700 I don't understand how that is a winning formula for the Republican Party in 00:32:42.700 --> 00:32:47.600 the midterms coming up next year because they rely on, 00:32:47.860 --> 00:32:51.920 you know, the reason that Pennsylvania is purple now instead of kind of reliably 00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:55.000 blue, which I think we were for maybe 15 or 20 years. 00:32:55.990 --> 00:33:00.090 Instead of being reliably blue, we're now purple because I think first Trump 00:33:00.090 --> 00:33:03.950 brought out a lot of people who ordinarily don't vote in every election or any election. 00:33:04.210 --> 00:33:10.310 And they happen to be those sort of voters who they feel like they can't get ahead. 00:33:10.530 --> 00:33:12.610 They blame the government. 00:33:13.450 --> 00:33:17.390 And Trump was speaking their language, right? It is the immigrants fault. 00:33:17.550 --> 00:33:21.610 It is the liberals fault. It is, you know, we've got to get closer to God and 00:33:21.610 --> 00:33:25.570 all these kind of things. He's appealing to these people who also rely on ACA 00:33:25.570 --> 00:33:27.850 subsidies and SNAP and probably other benefits as well. 00:33:28.410 --> 00:33:33.170 I can't imagine what the Republicans are thinking to go so hard after this stuff 00:33:33.170 --> 00:33:37.670 now, way harder than they did Trump's first term, and think that they're still 00:33:37.670 --> 00:33:39.750 going to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, 00:33:40.330 --> 00:33:44.890 Wisconsin, the states that have been flipping back and forth for the last 12 years. 00:33:45.670 --> 00:33:50.330 Am i am i missing something like today because i know the doomsday i'm sorry 00:33:50.330 --> 00:33:55.390 sam the doomsday predictions out there are well they're going to do a variety 00:33:55.390 --> 00:33:57.430 of things to suppress the vote. 00:33:58.350 --> 00:34:02.350 And they're going to win by cheating whether it's with the courts whether it's 00:34:02.350 --> 00:34:05.810 with poll watching whether it's in sending in the national guard and you know 00:34:05.810 --> 00:34:10.190 he i guess i guess he's trump allegedly sent i don't know law enforcement or 00:34:10.190 --> 00:34:13.650 national guard or something to poll watch in california in New Jersey. I never heard anything. 00:34:13.850 --> 00:34:18.730 I mean, I never heard anything from either side about that. It just seemed completely inconsequential. 00:34:18.890 --> 00:34:22.290 If it was some attempt at suppression, didn't work. 00:34:22.430 --> 00:34:26.630 Didn't even work enough to make the liberal news that comes across my social 00:34:26.630 --> 00:34:28.690 media feed, right? Just nothing. Nothing. 00:34:29.420 --> 00:34:33.820 How do they think they're going to win next year? And my answer to that question, 00:34:33.880 --> 00:34:36.620 because I'm so cynical about the Democrats, is, well, they're going to win because 00:34:36.620 --> 00:34:40.000 the Democrats will find a way to fuck this up because they won't have a coherent message. 00:34:40.120 --> 00:34:40.460 Yeah. 00:34:40.660 --> 00:34:44.640 And they won't be able to get aligned. And all of these swing voters who are 00:34:44.640 --> 00:34:49.580 out there open to persuasion right now, Democrats are just going to miss it. 00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:53.360 All right. I don't know if I really have a question or a statement or anything, 00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:54.800 Sam, but what do you think about all this? 00:34:54.800 --> 00:35:00.860 So, you know, and when we, we'll take a break before we properly talk about 00:35:00.860 --> 00:35:09.020 shutdown, but to answer your election related questions, because we're an election topic now, I think. 00:35:10.310 --> 00:35:16.270 What are the Republicans thinking? That's a good question, because there's different 00:35:16.270 --> 00:35:18.250 things at play right now, 00:35:18.410 --> 00:35:24.830 and you are starting to see cracks between the Republicans right now, 00:35:24.870 --> 00:35:29.970 because I think you've got several different kinds of things going. 00:35:29.970 --> 00:35:35.730 One is Donald Trump himself, who frankly is completely erratic, 00:35:35.990 --> 00:35:40.670 does not have a coherent set of ideologies or anything. 00:35:40.970 --> 00:35:44.090 He's just doing what he thinks will help him. 00:35:44.650 --> 00:35:52.250 And honestly, I think, you know, his mental facilities are declining rapidly at this point as well. 00:35:52.450 --> 00:35:56.890 So even then, he might not have a good idea even of what actually would help 00:35:56.890 --> 00:36:00.550 him. And so you've got him sort of just bouncing off the walls, 00:36:00.550 --> 00:36:04.290 doing whatever comes to mind that day. That's thing number one. 00:36:04.550 --> 00:36:11.590 Thing number two is you've got the Heritage Society Project 2026 plan where 00:36:11.590 --> 00:36:16.750 they've got like their wish list of anti-government, 00:36:16.850 --> 00:36:21.690 conservative social stuff that they've had for decades and decades and decades. 00:36:21.690 --> 00:36:28.170 And they are rushing to implement as much of it as they humanly can as fast as they can. 00:36:28.650 --> 00:36:35.150 And I think part of that is knowing damn well a lot of what they want to do is unpopular. 00:36:35.770 --> 00:36:43.550 And so they want to get it in place as fast as they can and ingrain it as much as they can. 00:36:43.550 --> 00:36:47.510 So it'll be really hard to undo even if the Democrats win again. 00:36:47.510 --> 00:36:51.970 You know, because, you know, I mean, just to take some examples, 00:36:52.130 --> 00:36:56.390 I mean, you know, they've shut down entire agencies and entire programs. 00:36:56.650 --> 00:37:01.270 The international aid agency USAID, gone. 00:37:02.190 --> 00:37:05.850 Gone. Everything they have done has been raised to the ground. 00:37:05.870 --> 00:37:12.130 And if the Democrats came back in and wanted to restart it, it would not be an overnight thing. 00:37:12.170 --> 00:37:16.230 It would take them a long time to get that up and running and doing the things it was doing before. 00:37:16.630 --> 00:37:22.710 And the damage to its reputation, you may not be able to fix in any reasonable timeframe. 00:37:23.090 --> 00:37:25.710 People won't trust it anymore that trusted it before. 00:37:26.330 --> 00:37:30.970 Same with the CDC. They've absolutely gutted CDC from the top to the bottom. 00:37:31.590 --> 00:37:37.590 They've, you know, most of the, you know, the reputation is gone. 00:37:37.870 --> 00:37:41.170 Like, a lot of the prominent scientists are there have left. 00:37:41.470 --> 00:37:44.510 Those who are still there, you know, 00:37:44.670 --> 00:37:50.330 and, you know, a spouse of a friend of mine works there, or they were fired, 00:37:50.450 --> 00:37:54.430 but I think they might have actually gotten their job back now that with the 00:37:54.430 --> 00:37:58.090 deal that actually did end the shutdown. 00:37:58.090 --> 00:38:01.770 But anyway, they're hamstrung anyway. 00:38:02.030 --> 00:38:08.370 Even the good scientists who are still there are operating under constraints 00:38:08.370 --> 00:38:10.230 that make life very difficult. 00:38:11.100 --> 00:38:14.660 And make it and so like your reputationally 00:38:14.660 --> 00:38:17.820 your democrat gets in wants to restore the cdc 00:38:17.820 --> 00:38:21.220 again it doesn't it doesn't happen overnight i 00:38:21.220 --> 00:38:24.180 mean and it probably needed some reforms anyway it definitely needed some 00:38:24.180 --> 00:38:28.200 reforms anyway but raising it to the ground and destroying 00:38:28.200 --> 00:38:31.460 its reputation wasn't the right way to do so like that so 00:38:31.460 --> 00:38:34.720 let me finish answering your question and then we can discuss but like 00:38:34.720 --> 00:38:37.620 so you have the second group which is the heritage folks who 00:38:37.620 --> 00:38:41.400 really do have a specific ideological agenda and 00:38:41.400 --> 00:38:44.280 they also like they're going 00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:47.380 to want to do a few things to you know like the shenanigans the 00:38:47.380 --> 00:38:51.260 redistricting things to make it more likely that they'll win in the future but 00:38:51.260 --> 00:38:57.800 fundamentally i feel like they are making the gamble that if we make enough 00:38:57.800 --> 00:39:03.020 of these changes and make it hard enough to change it back then it's okay if 00:39:03.020 --> 00:39:04.360 the Democrats win next time. 00:39:04.540 --> 00:39:07.380 Because we've made changes that'll last decades. 00:39:08.260 --> 00:39:13.920 And then finally, the third group that is starting to wake up right now, 00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:21.280 are the Republicans who are in Congress and elsewhere who are pure opportunists and are just there. 00:39:21.660 --> 00:39:25.640 Like they don't really care about the ideological stuff, or maybe they have 00:39:25.640 --> 00:39:30.040 some vague thoughts there, but ultimately their main goal is to be in power 00:39:30.040 --> 00:39:31.920 and stay in power and to be able 00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:34.800 to hang out with the cool kids and have influence and stuff like that. 00:39:35.240 --> 00:39:41.660 And they are starting to see the shift because in the Republican party, 00:39:41.960 --> 00:39:49.180 the way to do that for the last X number of years was to be all in on Trump and to be all in on MAGA. 00:39:49.500 --> 00:39:54.400 But now when you start seeing policies actually have negative effects, 00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:58.880 they start peeling off because they're like, wait, wait, wait a second. 00:39:59.100 --> 00:40:02.820 This is wrong. And I guess there's a fourth group too, 00:40:03.140 --> 00:40:05.800 the ones who are all in on the 00:40:05.800 --> 00:40:08.700 conspiracy theories like you've got the 00:40:08.700 --> 00:40:12.940 marjorie taylor greens of the world who are now splitting with donald trump 00:40:12.940 --> 00:40:17.840 over the epstein stuff because they're like we thought donald trump was going 00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:21.980 to come in here and expose all the epstein stuff which of course we believed 00:40:21.980 --> 00:40:26.680 was just all like rich powerful democrats in the pedophile ring. 00:40:27.380 --> 00:40:32.680 And now it looks like Donald Trump himself is doing everything he can to avoid 00:40:32.680 --> 00:40:35.820 going in this direction. So what does that mean? 00:40:36.240 --> 00:40:40.120 It's like their minds are being blown because their whole worldview is being 00:40:40.120 --> 00:40:45.680 turned on its head because, oh, wait, maybe Trump was one of the bad guys after all. 00:40:45.680 --> 00:40:50.700 And so you've got these at least four different groups in the coalition who 00:40:50.700 --> 00:40:54.960 all have different motivations of what they're doing and whether or not they 00:40:54.960 --> 00:40:58.040 care about winning and what's important to them and what's not. 00:40:58.040 --> 00:41:04.480 And they had all been aligned directionally until fairly recently. 00:41:05.060 --> 00:41:13.920 Now, when we're seeing actual negative economic and other effects of Trump policies, 00:41:13.940 --> 00:41:19.300 and we're seeing the Epstein stuff, and we're seeing Trump's popularity plummeting, 00:41:19.580 --> 00:41:24.440 all of a sudden, the things that were holding these groups together are disappearing 00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:26.340 and they're starting to fray. 00:41:26.340 --> 00:41:32.260 And of course, with Trump, despite any random talk about running again, 00:41:32.500 --> 00:41:36.800 with Trump as a lame duck and clearly aging as well. 00:41:37.580 --> 00:41:44.260 Maybe, maybe, crossing my fingers, that this fraying of the Republican coalition 00:41:44.260 --> 00:41:48.300 actually becomes more real as we go forward. 00:41:48.300 --> 00:41:52.780 Like we've had false starts before going all the way back to the Access Hollywood 00:41:52.780 --> 00:41:55.440 tape during the the 2026, 00:41:55.940 --> 00:42:03.660 not 2026, 2016 campaign, where for a few moments, a whole bunch of Republicans 00:42:03.660 --> 00:42:05.580 abandoned Trump and then they came back. 00:42:05.580 --> 00:42:10.620 And then after January 6th, a whole bunch of Republicans abandoned him and then they came back. 00:42:10.800 --> 00:42:15.880 So we'll see. But it feels like this time is different because it's not about 00:42:15.880 --> 00:42:19.040 like one particular thing Donald Trump did. 00:42:19.380 --> 00:42:25.380 It's instead about the reasons all of these people had to be in this coalition. 00:42:26.100 --> 00:42:28.900 Some of those reasons are starting to be less true. 00:42:30.840 --> 00:42:34.200 One thought, and I know you want to take break, that just that you're reminding 00:42:34.200 --> 00:42:38.720 me to temper my enthusiasm and let's use CDC or Department of Education as a 00:42:38.720 --> 00:42:39.800 couple of examples, right? 00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:45.060 Let's imagine Democrats put together or, you know, whoever the equivalent is 00:42:45.060 --> 00:42:46.300 of the Heritage Foundation, right? 00:42:46.420 --> 00:42:52.940 Puts together their own project 2029, how to rapidly restore what's been deconstructed. 00:42:52.940 --> 00:42:59.660 If I'm a qualified person who worked for Department of Education or CDC and 00:42:59.660 --> 00:43:07.440 was terminated because of Doge or the budget or RFK Jr., whatever. 00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:15.580 Okay. In 2029, when Democratic White House and Congress comes to me and says, 00:43:15.740 --> 00:43:18.340 we are rapidly restoring the CDC and Department of Education. 00:43:18.340 --> 00:43:22.980 We need you to come back. If I'm that qualified person who got cut the first 00:43:22.980 --> 00:43:24.480 time, I'm thinking about longevity. 00:43:25.480 --> 00:43:29.380 How do I know you're not going to lose again in two years or four years and 00:43:29.380 --> 00:43:30.820 this is going to happen all over again? 00:43:31.040 --> 00:43:35.120 I think there's some lasting effect there that the qualified people who were 00:43:35.120 --> 00:43:36.600 very enthusiastic about public 00:43:36.600 --> 00:43:40.280 service until this year, they're going to leave and never come back. 00:43:40.440 --> 00:43:44.420 They're going to find some other way to pay their bills and to raise their families 00:43:44.420 --> 00:43:52.020 in the private sector or in some other less volatile part of government, 00:43:52.020 --> 00:43:55.000 you know, or if they're close enough to retirement, they're just going to hang it up. 00:43:55.480 --> 00:44:00.740 And I, so I do think he, this one lasting effect I worry about is that qualified 00:44:00.740 --> 00:44:04.640 people who until this year would have happily been in public service, 00:44:04.700 --> 00:44:09.300 regardless of who's sitting in the white house, they're going to think twice before they do it again. 00:44:09.540 --> 00:44:13.680 Or I'm sure there are many right now thinking twice, whether they even want to stay in it. 00:44:14.140 --> 00:44:19.120 You and I have a friend from college, from the old radio station works at the 00:44:19.120 --> 00:44:20.280 department of energy right now. 00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:24.580 I won't name him because I know he's very sensitive about speaking publicly 00:44:24.580 --> 00:44:29.820 about this, But yeah, he's pretty concerned, you know, understandably so. 00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:37.460 And his wife works for an agency that is, I think also, they both are luckily in branches, 00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:46.300 departments, agencies that are, I think, far west of a political hot flashpoint, you know. 00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:46.560 Right. 00:44:46.560 --> 00:44:52.860 But yeah, I, but they're also these, I, I, I don't, I don't know about the guy's 00:44:52.860 --> 00:44:56.860 wife, but you certainly would know the guy that I'm talking about who works for the DOE. 00:44:57.300 --> 00:45:02.100 This is the kind of highly qualified, experienced person. 00:45:02.740 --> 00:45:07.860 You don't want him to leave the DOE. You want him to stay there until he's ready to retire. 00:45:08.220 --> 00:45:11.360 And there's tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people like that 00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:12.420 in the government right now. 00:45:13.710 --> 00:45:16.290 If they haven't already been terminated, they're thinking twice about sticking 00:45:16.290 --> 00:45:17.230 with it, because who knows? 00:45:17.370 --> 00:45:20.350 You used to be able to count on this no matter which way the political winds 00:45:20.350 --> 00:45:21.910 were blowing, and suddenly you can't. 00:45:21.910 --> 00:45:26.290 It was one of the, you know, generally speaking, the trade-off for government 00:45:26.290 --> 00:45:33.030 jobs was you get paid less, but it's more secure, and you have a good pension in the end. 00:45:33.370 --> 00:45:35.470 And you get to provide public service. 00:45:35.910 --> 00:45:39.890 You know, that was the trade-off. And you've destroyed that trade-off. 00:45:40.510 --> 00:45:43.570 Yeah. All right. I think you wanted to take a break. 00:45:43.710 --> 00:45:48.450 So I figure we've had all the election stuff. Let's take a break. 00:45:48.590 --> 00:45:50.290 And when we come back, we can talk. 00:45:50.590 --> 00:45:53.950 You'd mentioned government shutdown specifically. So let's talk about the shutdown 00:45:53.950 --> 00:45:56.130 and the end of the shutdown. 00:45:56.590 --> 00:45:58.270 Back after this. 00:46:04.570 --> 00:46:12.690 AlexMZilla.com By Alex and Dad Gaming videos and more From Alex Elementary School 00:46:12.690 --> 00:46:16.350 by Day YouTube by Night AlexMZilla.com, 00:46:18.210 --> 00:46:30.210 AlexMZilla is A-L-E-X-M-X-E-L-A And .com is period and then C O M, 00:46:34.490 --> 00:46:35.290 Okay. 00:46:35.310 --> 00:46:38.690 We are back. So the government shutdown ended. 00:46:39.790 --> 00:46:46.670 And a lot of folks were upset about this on the Democratic side. 00:46:46.910 --> 00:46:53.130 Basically saying, and just to be clear, the way that it ended is eight Democratic, 00:46:54.590 --> 00:46:59.570 senators defected and said, you know, okay, we'll make a deal with the Republicans. 00:47:00.540 --> 00:47:07.500 The deal has been criticized as basically being nothing, but it did have a couple of things in it. 00:47:07.700 --> 00:47:15.540 So the biggest one that actually had a real effect was apparently undoing some 00:47:15.540 --> 00:47:21.180 of the reductions in force that happened during the shutdown. 00:47:21.540 --> 00:47:26.020 So famously, the shutdown not only sent people home because the government was 00:47:26.020 --> 00:47:29.700 shut down, but they also just started firing a bunch of people while they were 00:47:29.700 --> 00:47:31.960 at it, saying, you know, we don't need you for the shutdown, 00:47:32.420 --> 00:47:35.960 but you know, don't come back even after the shutdown's over. 00:47:37.200 --> 00:47:44.160 Some of that was undone. So, so awesome. A few people were rehired that were otherwise fired. 00:47:44.420 --> 00:47:49.980 There was also a moratorium on more reduction in forces until January, 00:47:50.580 --> 00:47:51.340 until the end of January. 00:47:51.480 --> 00:47:56.500 So that's not that long, but, and basically also just to put this out there 00:47:56.500 --> 00:48:03.360 too, this deal was to kick the can down the road 90 days until January. 00:48:04.680 --> 00:48:10.140 It was not a permanent like, hey, we've solved everything, we've got a budget, we've got whatever. 00:48:10.540 --> 00:48:13.840 It's just another kick the can down the road. So we're going to repeat all this 00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:15.860 drama again come January. 00:48:16.680 --> 00:48:21.920 And so there was the moratorium on more riffs that was restoring some of those 00:48:21.920 --> 00:48:25.000 people who were laid off. 00:48:25.240 --> 00:48:34.320 And then there was a promise by the Republicans to have a vote on the Obamacare subsidies. 00:48:35.220 --> 00:48:41.840 So, importantly here, this was not a promise to do anything about the Obamacare subsidies. 00:48:42.140 --> 00:48:48.100 This was not a promise that such a vote would pass. This was just a promise to have a vote. 00:48:48.520 --> 00:48:55.780 And in all likelihood, such a vote would fail, you know, because you'd need 00:48:55.780 --> 00:49:00.920 a whole bunch of Republicans deciding to support it, which there are a few who've 00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:02.920 sounded squishy, but probably not enough. 00:49:03.720 --> 00:49:07.300 And even if it did pass, Donald Trump might veto it. 00:49:07.540 --> 00:49:15.260 So what most of the Democrats were pushing for was we don't reopen the government 00:49:15.260 --> 00:49:21.200 unless those Obamacare subsidy changes are part of the reopening of government. 00:49:21.620 --> 00:49:27.300 We do it now. Not a promise of a vote sometime in the future that we'll probably 00:49:27.300 --> 00:49:29.780 lose, but we do it right now. 00:49:29.800 --> 00:49:33.760 And they did not get that. But yeah, go ahead. Then we can talk more. 00:49:34.600 --> 00:49:38.880 The promise of the vote, that's the condition that I was more aware of. 00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:43.860 I actually, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't realize there were additional permanent 00:49:43.860 --> 00:49:45.820 terminations during the shutdown. 00:49:46.060 --> 00:49:49.160 I knew that there were obviously furloughs or people working without pay. 00:49:49.420 --> 00:49:52.660 I didn't know about permanent termination. That's unfortunate. 00:49:52.940 --> 00:49:56.400 So I'm glad that, you know, one of the conditions was to bring some back. 00:49:57.500 --> 00:50:00.320 The one that I think got a lot more media attention was the second. 00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:03.500 The promise to have a vote on ACA. First of all, 00:50:04.580 --> 00:50:08.140 What if Republican leadership just decides, you know what, never mind, 00:50:08.260 --> 00:50:10.640 we changed our mind. We're not going to have that vote after all. 00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:11.760 Nothing you can do about it. 00:50:11.760 --> 00:50:11.940 What do you do? 00:50:12.160 --> 00:50:12.900 What happens? 00:50:13.220 --> 00:50:16.640 Right. So that's a very flimsy promise. 00:50:17.540 --> 00:50:23.560 The only benefit I could see by having the vote, the only benefit to Democrats 00:50:23.560 --> 00:50:28.020 is next September, October campaign season. 00:50:28.020 --> 00:50:33.340 You have all of these Republicans on record voting against health care, 00:50:33.560 --> 00:50:39.560 health insurance subsidies that people by September, October next year will have been feeling. 00:50:39.800 --> 00:50:44.000 Because, you know, I'm fortunate. I worked for a private employer who's covering 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:46.980 a substantial amount of my medical insurance premiums. 00:50:47.560 --> 00:50:52.340 And I think the company's doing well enough. I don't have to worry about anything going away. 00:50:52.640 --> 00:50:55.740 Right. But there's a lot of people that rely on those subsidies. 00:50:55.740 --> 00:50:59.860 And I, and you hear these, I see these, see and hear these alarming figures 00:50:59.860 --> 00:51:04.520 of people's monthly premiums are going to double or triple. 00:51:04.680 --> 00:51:10.620 They're going to go up by, you know, low, low four figures, which if you need 00:51:10.620 --> 00:51:13.400 the subsidies in the first place is probably untenable. 00:51:13.540 --> 00:51:16.980 So there's that fear that, well, people are going to just go off of health insurance 00:51:16.980 --> 00:51:23.880 now and roll the dice by September, October next year. I think that's going 00:51:23.880 --> 00:51:24.940 to have a political impact. 00:51:25.160 --> 00:51:29.540 And perhaps the only benefit to Democrats, which is unfortunately at millions 00:51:29.540 --> 00:51:33.960 of people's expense, is we're going to get these vulnerable Republicans on the 00:51:33.960 --> 00:51:35.640 record as having voting against that. 00:51:35.800 --> 00:51:38.920 And in September, whenever you say, hey, your health insurance used to cost 00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:40.400 you $500, now it's $2,000. 00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:46.020 Here's the thing. You had that anyway. The increases are because of the big, 00:51:46.100 --> 00:51:49.700 beautiful bill that passed earlier this year. What the Democrats were trying 00:51:49.700 --> 00:51:54.580 to do was to get them to undo those changes, but they voted through those changes already. 00:51:54.740 --> 00:51:58.660 You already have them on record for this along with other things. 00:51:58.880 --> 00:52:01.420 And, you know, you, you sort of, what, what. 00:52:02.310 --> 00:52:06.690 The people who are trying to spin this as good, as, you know, 00:52:06.990 --> 00:52:12.150 okay, ending the shutdown was good, was, first of all, we got our, 00:52:12.390 --> 00:52:14.470 quote unquote, we got our message across. 00:52:14.730 --> 00:52:17.650 We shut down the government for longer than it's ever been shut down before, 00:52:17.650 --> 00:52:23.710 and we talked about health care, and more people are aware of the ACA thing than were before. 00:52:24.030 --> 00:52:29.410 We got the message across. And meanwhile, by the way, the shutdown was starting to hurt. 00:52:29.410 --> 00:52:32.730 The airline travel specifically, 00:52:33.510 --> 00:52:36.950 lots but not all, 00:52:37.130 --> 00:52:44.550 the defecting senators, a good fraction of them were in places that rely on 00:52:44.550 --> 00:52:54.510 tourism and airline travel to get there or had airline industry stuff in their 00:52:54.510 --> 00:52:55.950 states or things like that. 00:52:55.950 --> 00:52:59.190 A lot of them got lots of money from that industry. 00:53:00.090 --> 00:53:04.250 So there were some of that also, by the way, is carefully coordinated. 00:53:04.410 --> 00:53:08.430 Those eight, none of them are up next election cycle. 00:53:10.050 --> 00:53:13.530 Some of them are retiring outright. Some of them just have a long time till 00:53:13.530 --> 00:53:15.310 their next election, et cetera. 00:53:15.470 --> 00:53:19.150 That was very much intentional, leading people to speculate that even though 00:53:19.150 --> 00:53:21.870 Schumer was officially against this deal. 00:53:22.130 --> 00:53:27.570 Maybe he orchestrated it behind the scenes to sort of enable it to happen because 00:53:27.570 --> 00:53:29.750 the shutdown was starting to get painful. 00:53:30.130 --> 00:53:36.810 And one of the things that, you know, an argument that's been had is do the 00:53:36.810 --> 00:53:41.710 Democrats just throw their hands up and say Republicans are in charge, 00:53:41.930 --> 00:53:44.430 let them do all the damage they can? 00:53:44.910 --> 00:53:54.230 Because then the voters will see how bad this is and revert or do the Democrats 00:53:54.230 --> 00:53:57.890 actually try to make deals to make things better? 00:53:58.940 --> 00:54:03.460 Now, in the position they're in, they can't make many, many deals anyway. 00:54:03.700 --> 00:54:10.460 But, you know, do they stop the Republicans in some way, shape or form from 00:54:10.460 --> 00:54:12.680 the worst possible results of their action? 00:54:12.860 --> 00:54:15.520 Or do they give them face saving ways out? 00:54:15.700 --> 00:54:21.320 Like, like in this case, do you let them reopen the government or do you just, 00:54:21.460 --> 00:54:27.880 you know, say we, we, we, we, we said we would reopen under these conditions and that's it. 00:54:27.880 --> 00:54:32.580 But it can stay closed all the way through to the next elections if it needs to, you know? 00:54:32.820 --> 00:54:40.220 And I think part of what, you know, and I think, and also thrown into this mix, 00:54:40.340 --> 00:54:43.960 by the way, is that the House was staying closed until the government reopened. 00:54:44.260 --> 00:54:48.120 Speaker Johnson made that clear, which was also holding up the Epstein stuff, 00:54:48.120 --> 00:54:50.020 and maybe they wanted to get on with that as well. 00:54:51.600 --> 00:54:58.580 But, you know, I feel like, you know, the Democrats want to say, 00:54:58.840 --> 00:55:02.240 we care about the people. 00:55:02.460 --> 00:55:07.680 And so, of course, we're going to try to fight against the Republicans' worst stuff. 00:55:08.700 --> 00:55:11.780 But ultimately in the end you know 00:55:11.780 --> 00:55:18.340 voters don't pay attention to the back and forth and details of you know this 00:55:18.340 --> 00:55:22.120 week versus that week negotiation on the shutdown and who gave up this or who 00:55:22.120 --> 00:55:27.560 gave up that you know in the end they're gonna start paying attention right 00:55:27.560 --> 00:55:30.900 before election day and for a vast for a, 00:55:31.570 --> 00:55:37.110 very significant chunk of voters, the entire decision is going to be, 00:55:37.250 --> 00:55:41.530 do I like how my life personally is going right now? 00:55:42.290 --> 00:55:46.210 If it's yes, then whoever's in office can stay. 00:55:46.470 --> 00:55:50.550 If it's no, then vote the bums out. 00:55:50.850 --> 00:55:56.690 Now, that's not necessarily a majority of people, but it's a key group of people in the middle. 00:55:57.050 --> 00:56:00.430 The majority on both sides are 00:56:00.430 --> 00:56:03.690 probably people who are going to vote party line no matter what happens. 00:56:03.970 --> 00:56:07.270 Yeah. There's the people who will always vote Republican and people who will 00:56:07.270 --> 00:56:08.850 always vote Democrat no matter what. 00:56:09.030 --> 00:56:14.690 And on the two edges, those stay the same. But this, this squishy group in the 00:56:14.690 --> 00:56:19.170 middle who votes based on, oh my God, the price of eggs are up. 00:56:19.190 --> 00:56:22.190 So I'm going to vote against the guy in charge. 00:56:22.950 --> 00:56:25.610 And the thought process doesn't go further than 00:56:25.610 --> 00:56:28.670 that when things are close anyway which they 00:56:28.670 --> 00:56:31.770 have been for the last decade or so um yeah 00:56:31.770 --> 00:56:34.970 then those people make the difference and you 00:56:34.970 --> 00:56:37.610 know and and so in the 00:56:37.610 --> 00:56:42.290 end i don't know if all this back and forth matters what matter and so like 00:56:42.290 --> 00:56:46.990 is the best thing for the democrats actually to let the republicans do all the 00:56:46.990 --> 00:56:52.970 damage they want to do probably and if if democrats were in a position to stop 00:56:52.970 --> 00:56:55.530 some of it, I could at least see the moral argument of like, 00:56:55.650 --> 00:56:59.070 we can't hurt people on purpose if we can stop the Republicans we need to. 00:56:59.330 --> 00:57:04.250 But the reality is right now they can't really stop the Republicans. So it is what it is. 00:57:05.280 --> 00:57:09.680 As a recently converted registered Democrat, because I was registered libertarian 00:57:09.680 --> 00:57:14.220 for almost 30 years, and I don't want to get into that. 00:57:14.360 --> 00:57:20.120 It really made sense to me in the 90s. It has made less and less and less sense over the years. 00:57:20.360 --> 00:57:23.640 I also went through my libertarian phase. I was never registered, 00:57:23.660 --> 00:57:25.780 but I voted libertarian a few times. 00:57:25.780 --> 00:57:35.220 So I, I was, I was always libertarian far more for their positions on social issues than fiscal. 00:57:35.560 --> 00:57:45.400 Well, I think that the federal government certainly has crept rightward over the last 30 years. 00:57:45.540 --> 00:57:49.020 The one place where it's crept leftward are the social issues, 00:57:49.320 --> 00:57:53.860 marijuana, gay marriage, women's rights. These things are far more acceptable 00:57:53.860 --> 00:57:56.420 now than they were in the 90s. 00:57:56.560 --> 00:57:58.620 I think that's where we've seen more leftward creep. 00:57:58.720 --> 00:58:06.620 That's still true, but this is a conversation I had, and I've brought this up on the show before. 00:58:06.620 --> 00:58:12.040 I was having a conversation with a younger, a friend of my son's, 00:58:12.100 --> 00:58:15.440 so his age, teenager now, but the conversation was several years ago, actually. 00:58:15.720 --> 00:58:21.780 And they were talking about how bad things were now along those lines. 00:58:22.140 --> 00:58:26.300 Specifically referring to lgbtq issues and 00:58:26.300 --> 00:58:29.160 and i said no no they really were much worse in 00:58:29.160 --> 00:58:32.440 the 80s and 90s than they are today but then 00:58:32.440 --> 00:58:38.160 after the conversation after the conversation and i never circled back to to 00:58:38.160 --> 00:58:44.020 to talk to this person again but on this topic but after the conversation i 00:58:44.020 --> 00:58:48.100 realized that the key difference was not the absolute level of where we are 00:58:48.100 --> 00:58:50.320 but the direction in which we're going. 00:58:50.640 --> 00:58:55.080 And so, yes, I think you're probably right that we are still better off now 00:58:55.080 --> 00:58:57.560 than we were, say, in the 80s. However... 00:58:58.610 --> 00:59:06.110 Starting around, I don't know, pick a year, 2017, the trend has gone in the opposite direction. 00:59:06.570 --> 00:59:11.110 So we peaked and it's been getting worse now for nearly a decade. 00:59:11.790 --> 00:59:14.890 And I have to realize and correct myself. 00:59:15.070 --> 00:59:19.930 Yes, there are significant steps backward, certainly in a couple of instances. 00:59:19.930 --> 00:59:23.070 And in one case, you know, up until this year, 00:59:24.500 --> 00:59:32.440 there were legal, abundant options for minors who were transitioning. 00:59:32.980 --> 00:59:33.460 Yes. 00:59:33.960 --> 00:59:36.100 You know, and those are gone. 00:59:36.420 --> 00:59:41.680 And also, don't leave out the going the other direction on abortion as well. 00:59:42.480 --> 00:59:42.960 Yeah. 00:59:46.520 --> 00:59:49.340 I don't know how to say this without sounding like a jerk. 00:59:49.520 --> 00:59:53.080 First of all, I'm not a woman. I never have to deal. I've never had nor never 00:59:53.080 --> 00:59:55.140 will have to deal with becoming pregnant. 00:59:56.360 --> 01:00:01.220 There are options for unwanted pregnancies. 01:00:01.600 --> 01:00:07.920 If prophylactics don't work, you know, there is not yet nationwide abortion ban, right? 01:00:08.460 --> 01:00:17.720 There's options. There's no option for a 16 year old who was born with male 01:00:17.720 --> 01:00:19.600 genitalia, but who is a girl. 01:00:19.600 --> 01:00:25.620 There's no good options for those people other than jumping through hoops finding 01:00:25.620 --> 01:00:29.560 specialists spending private money because insurance and hospital networks won't 01:00:29.560 --> 01:00:32.320 touch it anymore like that's it. 01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:35.200 Well and you're you're absolutely right 01:00:35.200 --> 01:00:41.560 but i'll also i'll just say this is another thing where it is now significantly 01:00:41.560 --> 01:00:49.240 different state to state you know for both abortion and trans rights and expand 01:00:49.240 --> 01:00:52.680 out further to social, I mean, other social issues. 01:00:52.820 --> 01:00:54.820 And I mean, some people say, well, that's good. 01:00:54.960 --> 01:01:01.180 That's federalism at work that, you know, but right now we really are in a place 01:01:01.180 --> 01:01:09.940 where for all of these social issues and I'll say civil rights issues, 01:01:11.940 --> 01:01:19.920 It is remarkably different depending on if you're in Washington state or Mississippi or Pennsylvania. 01:01:20.280 --> 01:01:25.860 You know, it's in entirely different worlds in terms of how so many things are handled. 01:01:26.720 --> 01:01:32.040 And, you know, and look, I'm all for federalism in all kinds of different areas. 01:01:32.200 --> 01:01:34.520 It's good to experiment with different policies in different places. 01:01:35.260 --> 01:01:40.460 But I start feeling like that's not the right way to go when you're talking 01:01:40.460 --> 01:01:42.180 about like civil rights. 01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:44.040 Yes, agreed. 01:01:46.100 --> 01:01:49.100 Just like the last time I was on the show, I'm realizing that we've taken a 01:01:49.100 --> 01:01:52.100 much longer tangent off of my original topic than I meant to. 01:01:52.160 --> 01:01:52.440 It's fine. 01:01:52.940 --> 01:01:57.480 I keep notes, so I want to try to get back to what I was, the direction I meant to go. 01:01:57.700 --> 01:01:58.100 Yes. 01:01:58.640 --> 01:02:01.320 But before I do that, correct me if I'm wrong, Um, 01:02:02.460 --> 01:02:06.700 wasn't during the first Trump administration or sometime in the last 10 years, 01:02:06.880 --> 01:02:12.540 didn't the Supreme court roll back some civil rights act protections specifically 01:02:12.540 --> 01:02:15.300 on voting in Southern states. Am I remembering that correctly? 01:02:16.280 --> 01:02:21.620 Look, yes, there have been lots of rollbacks, you know, on the, 01:02:21.780 --> 01:02:28.340 on the, on the voters rights act, the Supreme court took major bites out of it a few years ago. 01:02:28.340 --> 01:02:33.140 There is currently a case pending that potentially, and everybody expects, 01:02:33.440 --> 01:02:38.100 will probably strip all the rest of the power out of the VRA once they rule 01:02:38.100 --> 01:02:40.500 on it in a few months. So, yeah. 01:02:41.020 --> 01:02:41.900 But the reason... 01:02:43.170 --> 01:02:50.830 The reason I asked is the redistricting in Texas, would that have been allowed 01:02:50.830 --> 01:02:55.370 before the Voting Rights Act started getting peeled back? 01:02:55.810 --> 01:02:56.990 Oh, almost certainly not. 01:02:57.170 --> 01:02:57.810 Would that have stood? 01:02:57.950 --> 01:02:59.230 No, no. No. 01:02:59.470 --> 01:03:04.050 Yeah. And for that matter, I'm not sure if the California redistricting would have stood either. 01:03:04.490 --> 01:03:09.730 It's notable yet unsurprising that the DOJ is only going after California for 01:03:09.730 --> 01:03:13.070 their redistricting, which was put to a statewide vote. 01:03:13.170 --> 01:03:18.110 And not the other states, Texas, I think Missouri, maybe there's Ohio, 01:03:18.410 --> 01:03:20.730 a couple others who have done or are trying to do. 01:03:20.870 --> 01:03:24.230 You don't hear the DOJ going after them. It's just California, 01:03:24.250 --> 01:03:29.390 which is unsurprising, but I think notable for its obvious political motivation. 01:03:29.570 --> 01:03:35.670 The direction I actually wanted to go before we got into LGBT issues is, 01:03:35.950 --> 01:03:39.550 you know, I changed my voter registration because at least now I can choose. 01:03:39.550 --> 01:03:43.230 If I'm going to vote Democrat every time I live in Pennsylvania. 01:03:43.490 --> 01:03:44.650 You can help you're not registered. 01:03:45.370 --> 01:03:50.330 Exactly. I can't vote in the primaries, you know, unless there's something else 01:03:50.330 --> 01:03:54.770 on the ballot besides picking the candidates, you know, somewhat, 01:03:54.770 --> 01:03:58.790 I'm never going to vote for a Republican. I can't imagine that changing in the rest of my life. 01:03:58.810 --> 01:04:02.710 So I might as well just join that party and at least be able to participate 01:04:02.710 --> 01:04:07.150 in other, you know, in the springtime rather than just in November. 01:04:08.320 --> 01:04:14.080 So what you were mentioning maybe 10 minutes ago by now of maybe some Democrats 01:04:14.080 --> 01:04:16.020 are taking a look at this and deciding, 01:04:16.180 --> 01:04:19.820 let's let the Republicans fuck everything up. My words, not yours. 01:04:20.740 --> 01:04:23.920 And we'll run on that November next year. 01:04:24.040 --> 01:04:28.880 That worked in 2020 and it lasted two years. 01:04:29.140 --> 01:04:34.480 It is not sustainable. So maybe it'll work in the midterms next year and maybe 01:04:34.480 --> 01:04:37.820 it'll even work in 2028, but it is not sustainable. 01:04:38.500 --> 01:04:43.780 Well, and also more generally, and I think that, you know, the tendency that 01:04:43.780 --> 01:04:46.820 I mentioned before of people who just vote for how are things going? 01:04:47.080 --> 01:04:50.760 If they're good, leave the people in. If they're bad, throw the bums out. 01:04:51.660 --> 01:04:56.920 Results in, you know, just this whipsaw back and forth because, 01:04:57.920 --> 01:05:01.720 you know, okay, let's say everybody's unhappy with the Republicans and votes 01:05:01.720 --> 01:05:03.580 Democrats in. Well, guess what? 01:05:03.700 --> 01:05:07.360 The Democrats can't fix everything in two years or four years anyway. 01:05:07.800 --> 01:05:12.380 So people will still be unhappy. And then they put the Republicans back in because 01:05:12.380 --> 01:05:14.760 now the Democrats failed to fix it. 01:05:15.820 --> 01:05:21.720 They can only slow the damage by taking back the House and the Senate. 01:05:22.020 --> 01:05:26.280 They can't really affect anything until and if they win the White House again. 01:05:26.780 --> 01:05:28.460 And that's the part I'm worried about. 01:05:28.460 --> 01:05:33.340 And even then they're limited because you still have the Supreme Court and you 01:05:33.340 --> 01:05:35.840 still have the filibuster potentially, unless they get rid of that, 01:05:35.940 --> 01:05:36.720 which they probably won't. 01:05:37.260 --> 01:05:45.700 And, you know, so, yeah, our system is intentionally designed to try to slow down rapid change. 01:05:45.900 --> 01:05:51.000 Now, what Trump has figured out how to do is to bust through all those barriers 01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:52.660 and say, I'm going to do it anyway. 01:05:52.980 --> 01:05:55.820 Just stop it. And nobody's stopping it. 01:05:56.520 --> 01:06:00.660 And the question is, and this is dangerous in its own way, like, 01:06:00.780 --> 01:06:06.460 do the Democrats come in and say, well, we're going to do the same damn thing. Screw all the rules. 01:06:07.140 --> 01:06:10.800 We're just going to do things and try to make them stop us. And if the Supreme 01:06:10.800 --> 01:06:13.800 Court says no, we'll say screw you and we'll do whatever. 01:06:14.060 --> 01:06:19.700 And then you basically, you've eliminated all the checks and balances that were 01:06:19.700 --> 01:06:22.260 actually good about the American system. 01:06:23.240 --> 01:06:27.220 And you have a dangerous situation on both sides at that point. 01:06:27.720 --> 01:06:33.340 Or, I mean, and I think this is kind of what Biden's mindset when he came in 01:06:33.340 --> 01:06:36.860 was we have to restore normalcy. 01:06:37.080 --> 01:06:40.640 We have to go back to doing things the way we used to do them. 01:06:41.240 --> 01:06:47.560 And he did that to some degree. And he got much more done than anybody thought 01:06:47.560 --> 01:06:50.660 he would do with that approach, frankly. 01:06:51.620 --> 01:06:58.140 But in the end, because he sort of refused to recognize that the world had changed, 01:06:58.460 --> 01:07:01.780 he left all the doors open for Trump coming back. 01:07:02.780 --> 01:07:06.360 I, I, the, the, my 01:07:06.360 --> 01:07:14.220 pipe dream or fantasy or whatever is we wind up at 2028 with some sort of democratic 01:07:14.220 --> 01:07:21.500 benevolent dictator who will come in and by the similar means as Trump undo 01:07:21.500 --> 01:07:26.020 all the damage and then quickly pivot to Congress to say, 01:07:26.220 --> 01:07:31.300 let's memorialize this into law that it doesn't happen so easily ever again. 01:07:31.300 --> 01:07:35.480 I'm not sure that there's a better way to do it than that. 01:07:35.680 --> 01:07:40.620 And then, you know, that makes me nervous because as much as I favor most Democrat 01:07:40.620 --> 01:07:46.380 policies these days, I am equally, that's not true, not equally. 01:07:46.620 --> 01:07:52.920 I am still a bit uncomfortable with a Democrat having authoritarian desires 01:07:52.920 --> 01:07:56.400 as well. Anyone having authoritarian desires. 01:07:56.620 --> 01:07:59.200 Like it's not the way it was ever supposed to work. 01:07:59.200 --> 01:08:02.900 It's so hard to give up power once it's been taken. 01:08:04.000 --> 01:08:08.580 It has happened in history, but it's relatively rare. And oftentimes it takes 01:08:08.580 --> 01:08:11.840 something, you know, it really is something like, 01:08:12.340 --> 01:08:16.700 okay, we rip apart the Constitution and start over, you know, 01:08:16.860 --> 01:08:21.200 kind of event in order for that to happen, which, you know, has its own dangers. 01:08:22.140 --> 01:08:27.440 Sure. One other note that I made, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes ago is about dealmaking. 01:08:27.680 --> 01:08:28.020 Yes. 01:08:28.020 --> 01:08:31.780 The democrats another reason 01:08:31.780 --> 01:08:37.800 that makes me cynical about the party i and i don't know i don't know whether 01:08:37.800 --> 01:08:48.240 this is my own uninformed bias or if this is demonstrably true my hunch about democrats is that. 01:08:49.200 --> 01:08:53.580 Always willing to compromise when over the last 20, 30 years, 01:08:53.660 --> 01:08:58.140 Republicans have become less and less and less willing to compromise. 01:08:58.340 --> 01:09:03.200 So this latest shutdown, the end of the shutdown deal, I think is the latest example. 01:09:03.360 --> 01:09:06.280 You'll see the memes on social media. 01:09:06.420 --> 01:09:10.340 People will say, how come everyone says this is a Trump-GOP shutdown? 01:09:10.340 --> 01:09:15.300 Why then did it require eight Democratic senators to vote to end it. 01:09:15.660 --> 01:09:20.180 Well, when the government was threatening shutdown during, 01:09:20.960 --> 01:09:25.160 I did shut down during Clinton's, one of Clinton's terms, as I recall now, 01:09:25.320 --> 01:09:27.260 but like Obama and Biden, 01:09:27.600 --> 01:09:33.200 like they were able to head it off or make it last a lot less in duration because 01:09:33.200 --> 01:09:39.700 the Democrats were willing to make deals to say, okay, we don't want this to go on and either do you. 01:09:39.840 --> 01:09:43.880 So we're going to concede some things as a deal to get past the filibuster and 01:09:43.880 --> 01:09:45.940 reopen that. And the Republicans didn't. 01:09:46.080 --> 01:09:48.760 And I don't think they ever will in the foreseeable future. 01:09:49.680 --> 01:09:55.300 So there's no good options, man, because the longer the shutdown would have 01:09:55.300 --> 01:09:57.580 gone on, the more painful it would have been for everyone. 01:09:57.680 --> 01:10:01.360 And I certainly understand the political optics of. 01:10:02.370 --> 01:10:08.830 And flights getting canceled or severely delayed because of shortages in the 01:10:08.830 --> 01:10:13.810 air traffic control system, I understand that that is political damaging for a lot of people. 01:10:13.810 --> 01:10:18.190 Well, as you pointed out, these senators who voted to end the shutdown clearly 01:10:18.190 --> 01:10:20.530 appear to be hand. I wasn't aware of this until you pointed it out. 01:10:20.630 --> 01:10:24.050 But yes, of course, handpicked the vote because they're not facing reelection 01:10:24.050 --> 01:10:29.770 next year and or they're in states that are particularly vulnerable to the most 01:10:29.770 --> 01:10:32.990 damaging aspects of a lingering shutdown. 01:10:33.470 --> 01:10:37.490 But man, they didn't get shit in return for those votes. 01:10:37.690 --> 01:10:41.670 And also, it was just coming off that big election when we talked about. 01:10:41.770 --> 01:10:41.850 Yes. 01:10:41.930 --> 01:10:45.190 The Democrats had momentum. And thank you. 01:10:45.350 --> 01:10:49.550 And all of the polls about the shutdown were that people were blaming the Republicans 01:10:49.550 --> 01:10:50.910 a lot more than the Democrats. 01:10:51.450 --> 01:10:54.690 And you could see the Republicans starting to get nervous. 01:10:54.910 --> 01:10:58.430 You are starting to hear reports of certain Republicans being like, 01:10:58.530 --> 01:11:01.050 OK, maybe we should give them this ACA thing. 01:11:01.370 --> 01:11:06.250 You know, just a handful, just a little bit, just hints. But that was starting to happen. 01:11:06.650 --> 01:11:10.090 You had Donald Trump starting to talk about maybe we should just get rid of 01:11:10.090 --> 01:11:13.370 the filibuster to deal with this, you know, which. 01:11:13.810 --> 01:11:18.470 You know, we've talked on this show before on multiple times about the pros 01:11:18.470 --> 01:11:22.550 and cons of getting rid of the filibuster, but do a lot of, this would give 01:11:22.550 --> 01:11:24.530 a way to let the Republicans do that. 01:11:24.730 --> 01:11:28.110 And then the Democrats can take the benefits of it later, potentially. 01:11:28.350 --> 01:11:29.730 Again, there's debates on that. 01:11:30.110 --> 01:11:36.130 But the bottom line was the Republicans were starting to clearly get nervous 01:11:36.130 --> 01:11:41.490 about the political effects that they were getting because of the shutdown. 01:11:41.490 --> 01:11:45.770 And at that exact moment, that's when these eight Democrats decided, 01:11:45.930 --> 01:11:47.950 okay, now's the time to cave. 01:11:48.450 --> 01:11:52.250 Like, you know, even if you accept the possibility that, okay, 01:11:52.410 --> 01:11:56.710 eventually somebody would cave and do something and blah, blah, blah. 01:11:57.540 --> 01:12:03.540 You had this happen at the exact moment where everything was going the Democrats' 01:12:03.860 --> 01:12:07.080 way in terms of both the elections and the shutdown politics. 01:12:07.340 --> 01:12:10.040 So the timing seemed particularly bad. 01:12:10.480 --> 01:12:15.520 Like, if you'd let it go another month, maybe the Democrats could have actually 01:12:15.520 --> 01:12:17.460 extracted more, you know? 01:12:18.180 --> 01:12:24.980 Yeah well as long as the sentiment remained you know majority people blaming gop for the shutdown, 01:12:26.580 --> 01:12:30.000 then look my daughter's away at college right now and is supposed to fly home 01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:33.180 for thanksgiving but all right i'll just go up and get her if her flight gets 01:12:33.180 --> 01:12:37.260 canceled right but that would that would really ruin a lot of people's holiday 01:12:37.260 --> 01:12:40.360 which is a huge family event across the country right, 01:12:42.440 --> 01:12:46.920 Let the Republicans take the blame for that kind of social disruption. 01:12:47.100 --> 01:12:49.660 Because man, people are still talking. 01:12:50.280 --> 01:12:54.080 The social media discussion that I would see about the Supreme Court justice 01:12:54.080 --> 01:12:59.660 retention here in Pennsylvania, a lot of it was still around COVID lockdowns five years ago. 01:13:00.120 --> 01:13:04.320 There's a small minority of people still holding on to that because they couldn't 01:13:04.320 --> 01:13:09.040 get a haircut or, you know, they couldn't sit at the bar whenever things started to reopen. 01:13:09.040 --> 01:13:13.300 Or it's and right yeah people are like they weren't following the science and 01:13:13.300 --> 01:13:17.820 that's cherry picking right we were policymakers were erring on the side of 01:13:17.820 --> 01:13:18.940 caution because no one knew, 01:13:19.460 --> 01:13:22.820 how the fuck to deal with covid all we knew is that it spread really quickly 01:13:22.820 --> 01:13:25.100 and it killed old people that's all we knew. 01:13:25.100 --> 01:13:28.100 Well and and a key element at the beginning parts 01:13:28.100 --> 01:13:31.660 and and people also i can't i'm 01:13:31.660 --> 01:13:35.700 dumbfounded every time people talk about like early 01:13:35.700 --> 01:13:38.920 covid restrictions and blame them on biden when trump 01:13:38.920 --> 01:13:42.040 was president yeah but but 01:13:42.040 --> 01:13:45.040 but despite that like we also 01:13:45.040 --> 01:13:47.800 we didn't have workable treatments yet we 01:13:47.800 --> 01:13:53.040 didn't have a vaccine yet we didn't have this we didn't have that so and and 01:13:53.040 --> 01:13:57.340 we didn't have good information yet because we were so yes we were we were erring 01:13:57.340 --> 01:14:02.420 on the side of being cautious but also even with perfect knowledge that we have 01:14:02.420 --> 01:14:05.080 today but we even now the knowledge isn't perfect, obviously, 01:14:05.240 --> 01:14:07.660 but even with the better knowledge we have today, 01:14:07.960 --> 01:14:11.400 you know, a lot of those restrictions probably should have been in place. 01:14:11.640 --> 01:14:17.020 They may even have needed to be more stringent than they were or better targeted. 01:14:17.160 --> 01:14:19.920 Some of the things we did were just wrong that we now know. 01:14:20.320 --> 01:14:24.320 Like the quality of masks really does matter. We really should have been talking 01:14:24.320 --> 01:14:27.460 about N95s from the beginning and not these like surgical masks and stuff. 01:14:27.760 --> 01:14:34.100 And it really was truly airborne. So when people put like these plastic barriers 01:14:34.100 --> 01:14:37.840 in between people, that did nothing and in some cases made it worse. 01:14:37.880 --> 01:14:40.940 But we were operating under the best information we had at the time. 01:14:41.420 --> 01:14:45.620 I think best information and even sometimes just reasonable guessing. 01:14:45.860 --> 01:14:49.140 Like, I think if I put up a barrier, that'll reduce transmission. 01:14:49.160 --> 01:14:53.140 I think if I put something over my face, I clear. Yes. And 95. 01:14:53.520 --> 01:14:57.120 Okay. But surgical must be better than just everyone. 01:14:57.240 --> 01:14:57.740 Yes, it was. 01:14:57.980 --> 01:14:58.440 Wide open. 01:14:59.100 --> 01:15:03.100 Flat out. The better the mask, the better. Something is better than nothing. 01:15:03.940 --> 01:15:07.200 Even, even putting your shirt over your mouth is better than nothing. 01:15:07.200 --> 01:15:10.140 But like it but the quality mattered 01:15:10.140 --> 01:15:13.080 a lot to how effective it was and and also 01:15:13.080 --> 01:15:16.700 like i hate to get back into the covet stuff but also a lot of at a certain 01:15:16.700 --> 01:15:24.020 level it protected it it took like an n95 to protect you from other people but 01:15:24.020 --> 01:15:28.700 lower quality masks would protect other people from you unfortunately nobody 01:15:28.700 --> 01:15:31.820 cared about protecting other people from you yeah. 01:15:31.820 --> 01:15:36.140 Well i i i clearly looked at it both ways, right? 01:15:36.240 --> 01:15:40.360 I don't want to catch it, and if I have it, I don't want to give it to anybody 01:15:40.360 --> 01:15:42.760 else. But a lot of people did not feel that way. 01:15:42.980 --> 01:15:46.320 The key being that people were contagious before they would know they had it. Sure. 01:15:46.520 --> 01:15:46.760 Yes. 01:15:47.320 --> 01:15:52.960 Anyway. But your point, getting back to that, is that people still hold grudges 01:15:52.960 --> 01:15:54.480 about those things from years ago. 01:15:54.780 --> 01:15:59.020 Exactly. If the polling would have held and a majority of people blamed the 01:15:59.020 --> 01:16:02.820 GOP for the shutdown and that ruined Thanksgiving for a million families, 01:16:02.980 --> 01:16:05.500 they would fucking remember that next year. So, 01:16:06.450 --> 01:16:12.010 I'm not advocating for, you know, extending the longest government shutdown 01:16:12.010 --> 01:16:16.430 in history by another month plus, but it would have sent a message. 01:16:17.110 --> 01:16:20.770 Probably, I don't know, we'll never know, but maybe a stronger message than, 01:16:21.090 --> 01:16:24.670 okay, let's end out the safest eight Republican or the safest eight senators 01:16:24.670 --> 01:16:29.110 to seven or eight, whatever the number was, Sam, to wrap it up. 01:16:29.930 --> 01:16:33.530 Okay. That's the whole reason, by the way, I'm glad you circled back. 01:16:33.530 --> 01:16:38.230 The whole reason I wanted to talk about shutdown today is the Democrats had 01:16:38.230 --> 01:16:41.490 that momentum and a week later just threw it out the window. 01:16:41.730 --> 01:16:43.810 Like, okay, there, we don't need it. 01:16:45.530 --> 01:16:48.530 Yeah, I mean, it seemed like such malpractice. 01:16:49.190 --> 01:16:52.850 I mean, I have read a few things of people arguing the opposite case, 01:16:52.990 --> 01:16:55.510 why now this was the time. I just haven't been convinced. 01:16:55.870 --> 01:17:03.570 No, I'm also not convinced. It's they're, they're, they're playing by the old rules. 01:17:03.810 --> 01:17:09.890 This is, it's, I don't know. I can't, the sport I follow most closely is the NFL, right? 01:17:10.130 --> 01:17:12.350 So I don't know. I don't know if you follow pro football at all. 01:17:12.750 --> 01:17:19.170 Okay. Well, a couple of years ago, they changed the rules for kickoffs to reduce injuries, right? 01:17:19.230 --> 01:17:22.730 So they don't have 22 people running towards one another full speed. 01:17:23.050 --> 01:17:28.010 They changed the rules to, yeah, to make that one play less exciting, 01:17:28.010 --> 01:17:33.910 but like you're not Hopefully you're, you're not sending as many men to an early 01:17:33.910 --> 01:17:36.390 grave because of repeated head injury. Right. 01:17:36.570 --> 01:17:36.670 Right. 01:17:37.950 --> 01:17:42.850 Okay. Those rules changed a couple of years ago. You can't kick off the old way anymore. 01:17:42.870 --> 01:17:48.830 And the Democrats are still trying to run towards each other at full speed when 01:17:48.830 --> 01:17:51.950 like, that's not the way you do it. That's not the rule anymore. 01:17:52.770 --> 01:17:56.290 Now that I'm saying it out loud, Sam, I regret my choice. This is a horrible 01:17:56.290 --> 01:18:02.950 metaphor, but like the rules have changed and Democrats are playing by the old 01:18:02.950 --> 01:18:06.010 rules. I don't mean the rules that are institutionalized into law. 01:18:06.230 --> 01:18:09.650 I mean, like the traditions, the customary way of governing the country. 01:18:10.170 --> 01:18:13.130 Trump threw it out the window the first time. Biden tried to bring it back. 01:18:14.330 --> 01:18:17.990 Trump threw it back harder and faster the second time around. 01:18:18.150 --> 01:18:19.370 It's like those days are gone. 01:18:19.750 --> 01:18:24.230 They need to be more cutthroat. And the final thing, this is just more about 01:18:24.230 --> 01:18:31.550 me than about issues, but the big thing that did it for me to switch from libertarian to Democrat. 01:18:31.550 --> 01:18:34.550 And the reason more and more that I've been voting Democrat, 01:18:34.770 --> 01:18:39.110 like I have nothing against billionaires whatsoever. I would love to be a billionaire. 01:18:39.350 --> 01:18:40.210 I would love to too. 01:18:40.710 --> 01:18:45.870 Yes. I don't think I have the combination of skills and motivation and luck 01:18:45.870 --> 01:18:49.550 to become a billionaire at this point in my life. 01:18:49.770 --> 01:18:50.130 Yeah. 01:18:50.870 --> 01:18:57.710 Fine. I have nothing against people becoming billionaires. But the trouble I have now is, 01:18:59.070 --> 01:19:03.810 one party way more than the other willing to capitulate to a very small number 01:19:03.810 --> 01:19:09.630 of extremely wealthy people to get exactly what they want, to hoard more wealth 01:19:09.630 --> 01:19:12.710 that they will never, ever live long enough to spend. 01:19:12.950 --> 01:19:17.090 They could spend as much as they can and give it to their heirs for the next 01:19:17.090 --> 01:19:20.370 three generations, and there'd still be a billion dollars left in 200 years. 01:19:20.810 --> 01:19:27.990 And yet, their political approach is to dismantle social programs that benefit 01:19:27.990 --> 01:19:31.470 the greater good, which in my opinion, benefit everybody. 01:19:31.470 --> 01:19:35.810 Because if people are not worried about paying the rent, about feeding the families, 01:19:36.010 --> 01:19:38.830 about keeping the lights on and keeping the house warm, if they're not worried 01:19:38.830 --> 01:19:42.230 about any of that, you're taking away the desperation that leads to crime. 01:19:42.470 --> 01:19:42.950 Right. 01:19:43.410 --> 01:19:48.190 Well, the Republicans run on crime way more than the Democrats do, 01:19:48.370 --> 01:19:52.290 but their solution is more policing, right? More brute force. 01:19:52.790 --> 01:19:57.870 You want crime to come down, take away people's incentive of to do crime in the first place. 01:19:58.310 --> 01:20:01.710 I'm not naive, Sam, that's never going to eliminate crime, but there's a lot 01:20:01.710 --> 01:20:04.670 of crime that happens because people are at the end of the road. 01:20:04.870 --> 01:20:08.910 They're like, I need something to eat. I need somewhere to live. 01:20:10.530 --> 01:20:14.050 So I can't find a job or I can't hold onto a job or, you know, 01:20:14.230 --> 01:20:18.470 because of some physical or mental illness they're incapable of and they resort to. 01:20:19.630 --> 01:20:23.170 Crimes and they wind up addicted and who knows what else. So, 01:20:23.550 --> 01:20:29.310 all right, let's give the least among us, take away that desperation and that 01:20:29.310 --> 01:20:31.210 need, and let's set a bare minimum. 01:20:31.350 --> 01:20:33.610 The country is never going to let you starve. 01:20:33.770 --> 01:20:35.730 We're never going to let you go bankrupt because of medical bills. 01:20:35.830 --> 01:20:40.870 We're never going to let you freeze in the wintertime or die of heat stroke 01:20:40.870 --> 01:20:42.910 in the summertime. Let's set that floor. 01:20:43.790 --> 01:20:46.550 Crime will go down and stay down. There's only one 01:20:46.550 --> 01:20:49.210 party advocating for that and very poorly by the 01:20:49.210 --> 01:20:52.310 way as well i i i 01:20:52.310 --> 01:20:56.090 until recently i was a believer that you need those kind of centrist democrats 01:20:56.090 --> 01:21:01.230 you need a like a bill clinton al gore kind of democrat and i really don't believe 01:21:01.230 --> 01:21:06.070 that so much anymore and it's partly because you see people like mom donnie 01:21:06.070 --> 01:21:10.130 and aoc and still bernie sanders today resonating, 01:21:10.920 --> 01:21:15.480 I wonder what would have happened if Sanders won the primary instead of Clinton 01:21:15.480 --> 01:21:19.560 in 2016. He was appealing to a lot of the same people that Trump was. 01:21:19.760 --> 01:21:23.620 So I was doing the election analysis back then too. 01:21:24.040 --> 01:21:29.180 And, you know, in all the matchups where they were, you know, 01:21:29.400 --> 01:21:35.440 looking at Sanders versus Trump and comparing it to Clinton versus Trump, 01:21:36.380 --> 01:21:39.740 Clinton did do better in the end against Donald Trump. 01:21:39.740 --> 01:21:39.920 Is that so? 01:21:40.260 --> 01:21:44.980 Okay. You know, and so I remember looking through that primary process because, 01:21:45.000 --> 01:21:49.280 you know, Sanders kept making the argument that I'll do better against Trump, 01:21:49.360 --> 01:21:51.280 but the polling just did not back that up. 01:21:51.800 --> 01:21:55.860 Clinton did do better than Sanders in those head to head matchups with Trump 01:21:55.860 --> 01:21:57.380 in all the critical states. 01:21:58.320 --> 01:22:04.640 Now, that's not to say that the dynamics of it might not have changed after he got the nomination. 01:22:04.940 --> 01:22:11.300 It might have. But it's really hard to judge those counterfactuals. 01:22:11.400 --> 01:22:16.400 What is true along the lines that you said is there were a lot of Sanders support, 01:22:16.540 --> 01:22:23.920 and I shouldn't say a lot, there were enough that they were measurable and made 01:22:23.920 --> 01:22:25.440 a difference in the final result. 01:22:25.440 --> 01:22:31.500 There were a bunch of Sanders supporters who either went over to Trump directly 01:22:31.500 --> 01:22:37.420 for the general election because they were like, I hate Hillary so much, 01:22:37.420 --> 01:22:38.980 I'm going to vote for Trump instead. 01:22:39.420 --> 01:22:43.480 And there were a bunch of Sanders supporters who just stayed home and didn't 01:22:43.480 --> 01:22:44.600 vote in the general election. 01:22:45.440 --> 01:22:49.060 And I forget the exact numbers, but those two groups together, 01:22:49.280 --> 01:22:55.780 Sanders supporters who stayed home and Sanders supporters who went for Trump, they added up to it. 01:22:56.840 --> 01:23:02.540 A small but significant percentage. I remember, I remember, and I interviewed 01:23:02.540 --> 01:23:07.960 on this show, I attended the 2016 Washington State Democratic Convention. 01:23:08.460 --> 01:23:14.280 And one of the people I talked to there was a Sanders delegate to the state 01:23:14.280 --> 01:23:20.460 convention, who after all the proceedings were over, like a bunch of us went 01:23:20.460 --> 01:23:21.780 to dinner and he was at that dinner. 01:23:22.020 --> 01:23:25.820 And I've told the show on the, I've told this story on the show before, 01:23:25.920 --> 01:23:27.020 but not for many years now. 01:23:28.200 --> 01:23:31.860 He, he got out of, we were at dinner after the convention. 01:23:32.440 --> 01:23:37.660 Sanders had definitively lost. Clinton had gotten like the, the delegates from 01:23:37.660 --> 01:23:39.740 Washington state. This was not a surprise. 01:23:39.960 --> 01:23:42.740 Everybody knew this well in advance of the state convention. 01:23:43.560 --> 01:23:47.160 He opened his backpack, pulled out a MAGA hat and put it on his head. 01:23:47.480 --> 01:23:49.880 Well, since she lost, here we go. 01:23:50.720 --> 01:23:53.020 And I'm like, what the hell, dude? 01:23:53.600 --> 01:23:53.780 Yeah. 01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:58.820 Like, you know, completely different from a policy point of view, 01:23:58.960 --> 01:24:05.380 but somewhat similar attitude of like, we got to break the system kind of stuff. 01:24:06.220 --> 01:24:11.460 But I think to your point, though, like I also was always like, 01:24:11.740 --> 01:24:14.100 you know, hey, the centrists are the way to go. 01:24:14.500 --> 01:24:18.880 The centrists know how to compromise. We can get like moderate support. 01:24:19.100 --> 01:24:22.560 We can win that way. and anyway incremental change 01:24:22.560 --> 01:24:25.380 is usually better than dramatic change anyway because 01:24:25.380 --> 01:24:28.660 you get backlash to the dramatic change and all kinds 01:24:28.660 --> 01:24:31.560 of things get broken and you're more likely to screw things up 01:24:31.560 --> 01:24:34.860 with the dramatic change because you can accidentally do 01:24:34.860 --> 01:24:38.400 something and have all kinds of unintended consequences and so I was very much 01:24:38.400 --> 01:24:43.300 on like go for the moderates do gradual incremental change and let's just keep 01:24:43.300 --> 01:24:49.560 making things better over time but right now and you know and I'd always said, 01:24:49.660 --> 01:24:51.640 some of the progressive goals, 01:24:51.800 --> 01:24:53.740 hey, those are good goals in the long term, 01:24:53.920 --> 01:24:56.920 but trying to jump straight to that would be a disaster. 01:24:57.840 --> 01:25:01.780 But now at this point, I'm like, look, I'm looking at where the energy is. 01:25:01.880 --> 01:25:07.000 I'm looking at where people seem to have some fight in them. 01:25:07.640 --> 01:25:11.820 And it's not the centrists. The centrists 01:25:11.820 --> 01:25:16.860 are just like, look like they're directionless, look like they are, 01:25:17.580 --> 01:25:20.880 you know, even if they got in power, like you said, they, at best, 01:25:21.020 --> 01:25:25.040 they'd be trying to restore us to where we were a few years ago and probably 01:25:25.040 --> 01:25:26.640 do a half-assed job at that. 01:25:27.140 --> 01:25:30.200 And I'm being more and more convinced that, like. 01:25:31.200 --> 01:25:36.200 The folks who want to make more radical changes, even if they don't succeed 01:25:36.200 --> 01:25:40.740 in making the changes as radical as they would like to be, are more likely to 01:25:40.740 --> 01:25:42.640 get directionally correct results. 01:25:43.140 --> 01:25:43.700 Yeah. 01:25:44.940 --> 01:25:51.260 If they can get into power. I mean, and I am not ideologically bound on any of this. 01:25:51.400 --> 01:25:56.620 I am willing to see, like in the Sanders-Clinton example I just gave, 01:25:56.860 --> 01:26:09.420 if you show me 2028 polls that show your centrist type person who's trying to 01:26:09.420 --> 01:26:10.940 appeal to the middle and blah, 01:26:11.060 --> 01:26:16.280 blah, blah is actually got a better shot at winning against whoever the Republican 01:26:16.280 --> 01:26:23.280 nominee is than someone who I feel that I personally resonate more with their attitude and policies. 01:26:24.190 --> 01:26:27.710 I want to, I've said this like show after show for the last few weeks, 01:26:27.710 --> 01:26:30.490 I want to win more than I want to be right. 01:26:30.870 --> 01:26:35.690 And if evidence shows me that, you know, the approach that I prefer is not the 01:26:35.690 --> 01:26:37.770 winning approach, I'm going to change my mind. 01:26:37.770 --> 01:26:41.230 Yeah i i i agree with 01:26:41.230 --> 01:26:44.270 you with the caveat that i've 01:26:44.270 --> 01:26:49.910 come to realize opposition lasts for one election cycle yeah and i'm i mean 01:26:49.910 --> 01:26:54.510 like a two-year you know from presidential to midterms like opposition will 01:26:54.510 --> 01:27:00.930 get you two years if you don't have an appealing policy that you follow through 01:27:00.930 --> 01:27:03.470 and execute well and this is. 01:27:03.470 --> 01:27:06.970 And this is part of the problem too yeah i agree with you completely. 01:27:07.170 --> 01:27:08.970 You need to have a positive agenda as well. 01:27:09.390 --> 01:27:13.990 Uh, I've said on the show over and over again, you also have to have, 01:27:14.010 --> 01:27:17.790 have strong opinions and defend them is my view. 01:27:18.150 --> 01:27:23.670 Like you can't just shy away from immigration or LGBTQ issues because you think 01:27:23.670 --> 01:27:25.370 something might be unpopular. 01:27:25.550 --> 01:27:30.690 You have to like, you have to work on, you know, convince people that you are 01:27:30.690 --> 01:27:34.530 right and the other folks are wrong, you know, and do that strongly. 01:27:34.890 --> 01:27:39.070 But, and again, if I'm proved wrong by polls, I will change that view. 01:27:39.550 --> 01:27:43.470 But, you know, the thing is, even if you get into power, 01:27:43.890 --> 01:27:46.730 there are institutional obstacles, things like the filibuster, 01:27:46.930 --> 01:27:53.050 things like the courts, where even if you come in fully intending to pass your 01:27:53.050 --> 01:27:55.630 agenda, you may be blocked. 01:27:55.730 --> 01:28:00.290 And so that's where we come into, do you go full Donald Trump mode with, 01:28:00.410 --> 01:28:06.010 screw the way you're supposed to do it, I'm just going to do things and make them stop me. So... 01:28:07.090 --> 01:28:10.390 I think we've about exhausted this topic. Let's take a quick break. 01:28:10.690 --> 01:28:15.310 And when we come back, we'll pick one more thing to talk about through the end. Here we go. 01:28:15.810 --> 01:28:22.250 You're supposed to say do, do, do. Do, do, do. Alex Emzela! 01:28:23.930 --> 01:28:27.810 Alex Emzela is awesome. Its videos are fun. 01:28:28.230 --> 01:28:34.590 And today, once again, we have one of our most loyal subscribers here to tell 01:28:34.590 --> 01:28:36.230 you how awesome Alex Emzela is. 01:28:36.230 --> 01:28:39.450 I'd say on a rate from one to ten alex 01:28:39.450 --> 01:28:42.810 emsla is awesome at i don't 01:28:42.810 --> 01:28:46.130 know 37 82 he's pretty 01:28:46.130 --> 01:28:49.170 radical his videos are phenomenal they're 01:28:49.170 --> 01:28:55.910 full of creativity and they're so funny and exciting to watch wow what happened 01:28:55.910 --> 01:29:02.950 to your voice then amy was that dad pretending to be you because the audio was 01:29:02.950 --> 01:29:07.430 distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to? 01:29:07.930 --> 01:29:11.550 Yes. Good job on remembering, Dad. 01:29:12.230 --> 01:29:13.850 Do, do, do! 01:29:15.150 --> 01:29:21.410 Okay, we are back. So, Todd, did you have a third topic in mind? If not, I got a list. 01:29:23.370 --> 01:29:29.910 It's sort of a combination of topics, but I just wanted to add one more button 01:29:29.910 --> 01:29:32.150 on the last topic we were discussing. 01:29:32.470 --> 01:29:35.850 I listen to a podcast called The Dollop. Are you aware of it? 01:29:35.910 --> 01:29:39.930 The Dollop. No, I am not. I'm going to look it up while you talk. 01:29:40.490 --> 01:29:42.230 There are a billion podcasts. 01:29:42.710 --> 01:29:46.230 I have something to say about that before the end, too. So go ahead. 01:29:46.350 --> 01:29:50.230 Okay. This is, I call these book report podcasts. 01:29:50.470 --> 01:29:56.530 The, this is one of those podcasts where the host reads kind of a historical 01:29:56.530 --> 01:30:02.310 summary that he's done after research and he and his comedian friend sort of, 01:30:03.030 --> 01:30:05.490 have fun joking about it as they go through. 01:30:05.690 --> 01:30:10.210 These are very progressive liberal leaning comedians who host the dollop. 01:30:10.350 --> 01:30:14.050 They did one in the last month or so, a two parter, maybe a three parter. 01:30:14.050 --> 01:30:15.770 Dave anthony and gareth reynolds. 01:30:15.770 --> 01:30:17.170 Yes okay. 01:30:17.170 --> 01:30:21.190 I have the right one there are actually several podcasts with dollop in the name but. 01:30:21.190 --> 01:30:23.970 Really that's the right one yeah yeah this yeah this 01:30:23.970 --> 01:30:27.350 is dave anthony gareth reynolds they did a multi-part episode 01:30:27.350 --> 01:30:34.110 maybe two or three-parter about bill clinton a month or so ago and it is it 01:30:34.110 --> 01:30:39.770 was eye-opening because i remember all of this stuff happening because like 01:30:39.770 --> 01:30:43.990 the first election i voted in was bill clinton 1992 that's the 01:30:44.050 --> 01:30:48.270 That's the first presidential election after I turned 18. 01:30:49.610 --> 01:30:53.730 You and I were at Carnegie Mellon. I drove home with my buddy because I never 01:30:53.730 --> 01:30:58.030 changed my registration to whatever district that is in Oakland. 01:30:58.030 --> 01:31:00.990 I drove home to Beaver County to vote that day. 01:31:01.980 --> 01:31:07.400 And so I was an adult through the eight-year Bill Clinton two terms. 01:31:07.760 --> 01:31:11.280 I had forgotten all of this stuff. Whenever you sort of put it in historical 01:31:11.280 --> 01:31:15.140 context, the way these guys were summarizing it, Clinton was, 01:31:15.620 --> 01:31:20.000 and like I remember his presidency, but they were going back to his early political 01:31:20.000 --> 01:31:23.000 days and governorship and other failed campaigns. 01:31:23.240 --> 01:31:28.720 His entire career was triangulation. He was never a liberal. 01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:33.660 He was never a liberal. He would try to read whatever way the political winds 01:31:33.660 --> 01:31:36.960 were blowing, and that became his stump. 01:31:37.380 --> 01:31:42.180 And that's how he tried to win, and that became his policy. And it's how he 01:31:42.180 --> 01:31:43.920 wound up working together with— And nevertheless. 01:31:43.920 --> 01:31:50.180 He was painted as the most liberal, socialist, communist that could ever possibly exist. 01:31:50.480 --> 01:31:54.960 Yeah. Well, and this is a different topic maybe for if I come on a third time someday. 01:31:54.960 --> 01:32:02.140 The perception versus reality of what is actually leftist politics in the United 01:32:02.140 --> 01:32:07.680 States, we've never really given it a chance, certainly not in the White House. 01:32:07.860 --> 01:32:11.120 I think, okay, let me take that back. I don't know, FDR, perhaps. 01:32:11.560 --> 01:32:13.520 We haven't given it a chance in my lifetime. 01:32:14.620 --> 01:32:19.600 And everything that FDR achieved, the Republicans have been hell-bent on undoing 01:32:19.600 --> 01:32:22.880 all of it for the last 60, 70 years. So, different topic. 01:32:23.160 --> 01:32:27.160 I didn't mean to get on this whole thing. If you needed to summarize the Republican 01:32:27.160 --> 01:32:31.020 agenda, it is undo the New Deal. 01:32:31.260 --> 01:32:35.320 Well, undo the New Deal and undo the civil rights movement. 01:32:35.720 --> 01:32:41.720 Yeah. Yeah. So I'm bringing that up just because Bill Clinton was perhaps the 01:32:41.720 --> 01:32:45.340 most successful Democrat socialist of my lifetime. 01:32:46.040 --> 01:32:48.980 I'm sorry, socialist. I said socialist. That's a centrist. 01:32:49.240 --> 01:32:49.680 Yes. 01:32:49.920 --> 01:32:53.200 The most successful Democrat centrist of my lifetime. 01:32:54.770 --> 01:32:57.530 In the end, it didn't help us. You know, 01:32:57.790 --> 01:33:05.270 I think that his administration capitulated and retreated for most of his eight 01:33:05.270 --> 01:33:11.310 years to a point that it's going to take twice as long to ever recover. 01:33:11.330 --> 01:33:15.930 You know, and like I said before, I think socially we've made a lot of gains in that. 01:33:16.470 --> 01:33:20.330 You're right to point out that I'm not thinking about the last five or 10 years 01:33:20.330 --> 01:33:24.270 of maybe regression on some gay rights issues and other things. 01:33:24.570 --> 01:33:31.270 But in that, there's much better social policy today, I think, than in the 80s and 90s. 01:33:31.430 --> 01:33:37.270 But he's a good example of what's made me more supportive of more progressive 01:33:37.270 --> 01:33:43.490 Democrats today is we've done this at the expense of blue-collar working people. 01:33:44.470 --> 01:33:49.650 And for different reasons, well, for some similar reasons and for some different 01:33:49.650 --> 01:33:53.970 reasons, That's why Sanders was appealing to a lot of the same people as Trump. 01:33:54.070 --> 01:33:57.050 And the only other button I wanted to put on that is like, sometimes small numbers 01:33:57.050 --> 01:34:00.230 are insignificant and sometimes small numbers really fucking matter. 01:34:00.590 --> 01:34:04.010 What was it? Like 50,000 votes spread across Pennsylvania, Michigan, 01:34:04.170 --> 01:34:07.790 Wisconsin. That was the difference between Clinton winning and Trump winning. 01:34:08.470 --> 01:34:08.690 Yes. 01:34:09.050 --> 01:34:12.730 Sometimes small numbers really matter. And that's a case where they really matter. 01:34:12.730 --> 01:34:17.470 So, like, if Bernie wasn't polling as well as Clinton in the aggregate, 01:34:17.650 --> 01:34:22.270 but he was polling better in a handful of counties in Pennsylvania and Michigan 01:34:22.270 --> 01:34:26.570 and Wisconsin, that's all the Democrats needed to beat Trump in 2016. 01:34:27.050 --> 01:34:27.450 Right. 01:34:27.710 --> 01:34:31.070 We'll never know. The last topic I wanted to talk about, because this is what 01:34:31.070 --> 01:34:34.290 we were talking about the first time I was here, was tariffs. 01:34:35.250 --> 01:34:39.330 And part of it is, if you want to hear, I can share a little bit of what I've 01:34:39.330 --> 01:34:42.710 been experiencing in my professional life for the last several months. 01:34:42.730 --> 01:34:45.470 But part of it is I really just don't know. 01:34:46.290 --> 01:34:49.230 And I don't know whether you know or whether Yvonne would have known if he were 01:34:49.230 --> 01:34:50.590 here today. I don't know. 01:34:52.190 --> 01:34:55.730 Don't know what the quantifiable effects have been so far. I know what the effects 01:34:55.730 --> 01:34:57.550 have been in my industry. So I'll start there. 01:34:57.890 --> 01:35:01.430 I sell equipment for utility scale solar power. These are the giant, 01:35:01.450 --> 01:35:08.370 you know, 2000, 5000 acre projects that you see more and more all over the country. 01:35:08.490 --> 01:35:12.190 They started out, they were very common in the Southwest and California and 01:35:12.190 --> 01:35:15.010 then in Texas, but you can build these everywhere. 01:35:15.010 --> 01:35:19.610 Now copper aluminum semiconductors 01:35:19.610 --> 01:35:22.690 a lot of things that impact my industry and many other industries 01:35:22.690 --> 01:35:25.690 as well they're way up this year 01:35:25.690 --> 01:35:28.610 and i think some of that is just commodities pricing that's 01:35:28.610 --> 01:35:31.190 going to happen anyway but i think it's very telling that if you look at the 01:35:31.190 --> 01:35:35.710 cost curves for those commodities the spike started happening this spring spring 01:35:35.710 --> 01:35:41.050 of this year and hasn't come back down the one that baffles me is steel steel's 01:35:41.050 --> 01:35:45.950 kind of where it was a year ago maybe even a little bit lower despite obvious, 01:35:46.090 --> 01:35:48.070 well-publicized steel tariffs. 01:35:48.330 --> 01:35:51.530 I don't know what to make of that. I also don't know what the global steel industry looks like. 01:35:51.630 --> 01:35:55.350 Perhaps there's enough capacity in the United States to meet demand that the 01:35:55.350 --> 01:35:56.730 tariffs have had less of an effect. 01:35:56.730 --> 01:36:02.450 But I know part of the effect on aluminum and copper has been, 01:36:02.690 --> 01:36:06.370 oh, well, we're shielded from competition, so American producers can afford 01:36:06.370 --> 01:36:07.890 to raise their prices now. And they did. 01:36:08.760 --> 01:36:14.300 But semiconductors is a different story. Almost nobody makes semiconductors in the U.S. at all. 01:36:14.580 --> 01:36:18.600 Certainly not the consumer-grade stuff that goes into everything that you and 01:36:18.600 --> 01:36:20.880 I are talking to each other on right now. 01:36:20.920 --> 01:36:24.480 I don't think any of this comes from the U.S. It's all coming from South Korea, 01:36:24.600 --> 01:36:26.360 Taiwan, China, somewhere else. 01:36:26.780 --> 01:36:29.220 And you start to see these media reports. 01:36:29.740 --> 01:36:33.920 I might have wrote this to you in email that people are estimating the average, 01:36:33.920 --> 01:36:38.740 I don't know if it's the average family the average taxpayer is going to pay 01:36:38.740 --> 01:36:46.720 somewhere between like $2,000, $3,000 more since the tariffs began through the end of next year. 01:36:46.820 --> 01:36:49.680 That's sort of the extrapolation if tariffs don't change. 01:36:49.820 --> 01:36:54.960 That's how much it's been affecting consumer products and groceries and whatever 01:36:54.960 --> 01:36:56.840 else goes into these kind of calculations. 01:36:57.060 --> 01:36:59.920 But man, I am treading water because this is not my area of expertise. 01:37:00.200 --> 01:37:03.060 And when I'm consuming news media, this is not where I spend 01:37:03.060 --> 01:37:06.300 a lot of time examining data i know the anecdotes 01:37:06.300 --> 01:37:09.240 that are getting reported so i could like yeah in my industry yes it 01:37:09.240 --> 01:37:11.940 has made things more expensive and it's made some 01:37:11.940 --> 01:37:16.500 projects delay or cancel because they no longer pencil out there's no longer 01:37:16.500 --> 01:37:22.220 a predictable positive return on investment for the investors and so it's cheaper 01:37:22.220 --> 01:37:27.020 for them to fold up and cancel rather than to try to make it work thankfully 01:37:27.020 --> 01:37:29.800 in my industry utility scale solar power, 01:37:30.520 --> 01:37:35.680 Tariffs and even Big Beautiful Bill have been mostly inconsequential. 01:37:36.020 --> 01:37:36.520 Okay. 01:37:37.260 --> 01:37:41.820 And so, like tariffs, but also I want to talk about the tax credits that have 01:37:41.820 --> 01:37:46.600 helped renewable energy grow so rapidly for the last 20 years. 01:37:46.980 --> 01:37:50.740 Trump pitched this as a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act. 01:37:50.940 --> 01:37:54.520 But that's not what it was. The Inflation Reduction Act added some additional 01:37:54.520 --> 01:37:58.900 incentives to establish apprenticeship programs. 01:37:58.900 --> 01:38:03.600 If you're a contractor building renewable energy projects, it set incentives, 01:38:03.960 --> 01:38:11.160 tax credit type incentives to reshore manufacturing for all the capital equipment 01:38:11.160 --> 01:38:15.400 and components that would go into wind and battery and solar manufacturing. 01:38:15.400 --> 01:38:17.240 Those, by the way, haven't been touched. 01:38:17.440 --> 01:38:24.080 If you are manufacturing inverters or solar panels or the racking, 01:38:24.360 --> 01:38:27.900 like what my company makes, you still have those tax credits today. 01:38:28.020 --> 01:38:30.400 They were untouched and unchanged by the big, beautiful bill. 01:38:30.920 --> 01:38:34.480 But it wasn't a repeal of the IRA. It was a repeal of all of the investment 01:38:34.480 --> 01:38:38.300 tax credits that go back to George W. Bush administration. These have been in 01:38:38.300 --> 01:38:41.960 place for 20 or more than 20 years, and they're all going away. 01:38:42.380 --> 01:38:47.920 I am grateful, personally, for my ability to make a living and for everyone 01:38:47.920 --> 01:38:49.300 in my part of the industry. 01:38:49.420 --> 01:38:55.420 I'm grateful that Trump didn't try to do this in 2017 because the industry wasn't 01:38:55.420 --> 01:38:59.820 ready for the tax credit repeal back then. But I think we are now. 01:39:00.400 --> 01:39:05.480 Um, and I can see it by the sustained demand for the stuff that we sell. 01:39:06.500 --> 01:39:11.940 Beyond the safe harbor deadlines of the end of this year and then also July 01:39:11.940 --> 01:39:14.840 4th next year, which we can get into the details of that if you're curious. 01:39:15.020 --> 01:39:22.500 But just, you know, after that, developers start losing the ability to recognize 01:39:22.500 --> 01:39:27.740 those investment tax credits that have been around mostly since George W. Bush. 01:39:27.900 --> 01:39:32.740 The one additional investment tax credit that the Inflation Reduction Act added 01:39:32.740 --> 01:39:38.040 was if you could demonstrate that you crossed minimum threshold of providing 01:39:38.040 --> 01:39:40.140 domestic content to build your project, 01:39:40.360 --> 01:39:45.840 you would get a bonus 10% investment tax credit in addition to the 30% that 01:39:45.840 --> 01:39:47.520 has been in place for like 20 years. 01:39:48.160 --> 01:39:48.180 Okay. 01:39:48.540 --> 01:39:54.500 Trump repealed all of it. Not just the 10 that came from the IRA, repealed all of it. 01:39:54.800 --> 01:40:00.300 So after July 4th next year, if you haven't demonstrated substantial construction 01:40:00.300 --> 01:40:06.220 work on a project, then you have to fund that project without tax credits. 01:40:06.420 --> 01:40:11.740 And I'm happy to report that many developers are still asking us to quote projects 01:40:11.740 --> 01:40:17.720 that won't be safe Harvard, meaning the industry is now ready to finance and 01:40:17.720 --> 01:40:20.460 build and commission and generate power. 01:40:20.720 --> 01:40:21.800 Without the incentive. 01:40:21.840 --> 01:40:25.720 You know, looking out a decade, without these tax credits. 01:40:26.040 --> 01:40:29.280 So, you know, the cynic would, and maybe I'm among them, the cynic would say, 01:40:29.360 --> 01:40:31.360 well, you know, why do you keep getting them? 01:40:31.420 --> 01:40:34.720 But you keep getting them for the same reason that every business everywhere 01:40:34.720 --> 01:40:38.000 claims tax credits because they're available, right? 01:40:38.160 --> 01:40:40.780 That's why. But this wouldn't have worked, 01:40:41.540 --> 01:40:44.620 in 2017 because today even with 01:40:44.620 --> 01:40:47.520 tariffs even in the united states with our labor market you can 01:40:47.520 --> 01:40:50.280 build new solar power generation for about a dollar 01:40:50.280 --> 01:40:54.580 a watt you couldn't do that in 2017 it was probably i don't know three or four 01:40:54.580 --> 01:40:58.220 dollars a watt and that doesn't sound like a big deal but you know if you want 01:40:58.220 --> 01:41:03.640 to build a 500 megawatt the 500 million watt project there's a huge difference 01:41:03.640 --> 01:41:09.880 between half a billion and two billion dollars like one of those is not financially viable. 01:41:10.640 --> 01:41:15.920 So now, today, it is. I mean, economies of scale and efficiencies of the equipment 01:41:15.920 --> 01:41:21.000 and cost reductions that have come from, yes, economies of scale, 01:41:21.120 --> 01:41:23.500 but also just greater efficiency in manufacturing and construction. 01:41:23.720 --> 01:41:27.520 Yeah, my industry, thank goodness, is ready for all of this, 01:41:27.560 --> 01:41:31.480 but the tariffs are baffling to me because I know the effect that they have 01:41:31.480 --> 01:41:36.400 had to our bank account and to my industry, but I don't know. 01:41:36.720 --> 01:41:39.820 There's a lot of preamble to what i wanted to ask and talk about sam 01:41:39.820 --> 01:41:42.880 is like are you paying closer attention to the broader 01:41:42.880 --> 01:41:45.580 data than i am and like what what have been the 01:41:45.580 --> 01:41:49.400 real effect is it hasn't i have to admit hasn't been as catastrophic as i was 01:41:49.400 --> 01:41:53.880 afraid it was going to be when i was here in may but also we he rolled back 01:41:53.880 --> 01:41:58.820 right taco the taco acronym trump always chickens out came from trump deciding 01:41:58.820 --> 01:42:05.400 i'm going to roll back these ridiculous tariffs that i announced in april so i think so first. 01:42:05.400 --> 01:42:09.360 Of all a caveat, Ivan would be able to speak better to this than I am. 01:42:09.860 --> 01:42:13.360 So maybe we can ask him to talk a little bit about tariffs again next week. 01:42:13.780 --> 01:42:17.780 But from things that, from my understanding, 01:42:18.410 --> 01:42:23.350 First of all, like the total amount that it would affect the average family 01:42:23.350 --> 01:42:26.370 number that you gave, you said like $2,000 to $3,000. 01:42:26.690 --> 01:42:29.890 The most recent I've heard is actually a little bit under $2,000. 01:42:29.990 --> 01:42:32.610 But here's the thing. This number has kept changing. 01:42:32.850 --> 01:42:39.570 And I've heard different numbers from different people because the uncertainty is so huge, right? 01:42:39.810 --> 01:42:44.650 Because they have kept changing. I mean, I don't think a single week has gone 01:42:44.650 --> 01:42:51.450 by since the big tariff announcement where there haven't been adjustments and changes to tariffs, 01:42:51.870 --> 01:42:56.890 sometimes fairly significant ones for one country or another or global or whatever. 01:42:56.890 --> 01:43:00.170 And so it's still changing all the time. 01:43:00.310 --> 01:43:03.430 So that makes it really hard to assess that. 01:43:03.630 --> 01:43:08.090 In terms of what's actually happened so far and what people are feeling, 01:43:08.390 --> 01:43:13.770 my understanding is that in the commercial areas, lots of companies. 01:43:14.310 --> 01:43:21.430 First of all, stocked up on inventory to try to get all loaded up before the tariffs hit. 01:43:21.430 --> 01:43:24.650 And so there was that that slowly tapered down 01:43:24.650 --> 01:43:28.330 but also lots of companies are trying 01:43:28.330 --> 01:43:31.310 at least initially to eat 01:43:31.310 --> 01:43:34.010 some of the tariffs themselves and take it out of their 01:43:34.010 --> 01:43:40.550 profit margins to avoid hitting the end customer and there's a question of how 01:43:40.550 --> 01:43:45.030 long that will last right like part of that is just like we're not going to 01:43:45.030 --> 01:43:50.530 double the cost of product x overnight but maybe we'll ramp at 10 percent now 01:43:50.530 --> 01:43:53.930 and another 10 percent in a few months and another 10 percent in a few months, 01:43:54.070 --> 01:43:58.610 and eventually we'll get to recouping the whole cost of the tariff. 01:43:58.890 --> 01:44:05.410 Or maybe we'll, to some degree, accept a slightly smaller profit margin for a while. 01:44:05.990 --> 01:44:09.370 Maybe that's not forever, but maybe we'll accept that for a bit. 01:44:09.490 --> 01:44:13.810 So basically, there have been a bunch of these things that have helped cushion 01:44:13.810 --> 01:44:18.390 the sort of consumer level impact of a lot of these things. 01:44:18.960 --> 01:44:28.240 Having said that, if you look at specific products, you are seeing high impacts in specific areas. 01:44:28.760 --> 01:44:34.100 One that Yvonne has mentioned on the show more than a few times is the price 01:44:34.100 --> 01:44:39.020 of the bag of coffee he usually gets, which is some premium brand that he gets, 01:44:39.120 --> 01:44:43.060 of course, of beans, has like doubled. 01:44:43.670 --> 01:44:46.730 Since the beginning of the year that's a significant 01:44:46.730 --> 01:44:50.030 change for that product now it's 01:44:50.030 --> 01:44:54.070 not the most expensive product in the world like you know i don't know the actual 01:44:54.070 --> 01:44:57.910 numbers but it's like you know 20 bucks instead of 10 bucks or something which 01:44:57.910 --> 01:45:04.910 adds up over time but it's not quite the same as you know your your rent or 01:45:04.910 --> 01:45:08.710 mortgage doubling right in terms of how it affects your life. 01:45:08.990 --> 01:45:14.070 There are some other areas I under, I believe toys have, have been increasing 01:45:14.070 --> 01:45:17.770 fairly dramatically there, but it's very spotty. 01:45:17.830 --> 01:45:21.890 It's like on a product by product basis, has it been affected and how much? 01:45:22.210 --> 01:45:27.490 Um, so, you know, and so people talked about how they have seen effects at the 01:45:27.490 --> 01:45:31.710 grocery stores, but that's also impacted of, you know, well, 01:45:32.010 --> 01:45:35.310 but what about like eggs are 01:45:35.310 --> 01:45:38.070 still down from their all-time high even though 01:45:38.070 --> 01:45:41.130 they're up from their low right their recent low yeah 01:45:41.130 --> 01:45:43.930 and so people remember the high price and 01:45:43.930 --> 01:45:46.730 compare to that uh for eggs specifically on 01:45:46.730 --> 01:45:49.470 the other hand i believe beef is up you know 01:45:49.470 --> 01:45:52.510 so it really is like it differs on 01:45:52.510 --> 01:45:55.850 the product differs based on how much the industry has 01:45:55.850 --> 01:45:59.510 the ability to buffer in the first place also people 01:45:59.510 --> 01:46:03.610 are are sort of hedging and trying to average over time because because they 01:46:03.610 --> 01:46:09.970 have kept changing and you don't know what's going on you know you try to you 01:46:09.970 --> 01:46:15.030 know do what you have to do but not more because it could change next week you 01:46:15.030 --> 01:46:19.410 know and so this is another one of those things where i think you're right like. 01:46:20.420 --> 01:46:25.560 And I believe when I was on, when you were on last, but I've mentioned other 01:46:25.560 --> 01:46:31.880 times, there's this thing of, you know, the anchor effect they talk about in psychology. 01:46:32.200 --> 01:46:36.140 People, when these first started coming aboard, everybody was talking about 01:46:36.140 --> 01:46:37.280 the worst case scenario. 01:46:37.700 --> 01:46:44.580 What happens if Donald Trump imposes these crazy high tariffs and keeps them on forever? 01:46:44.580 --> 01:46:51.580 And so people talked about these massive scenarios where you'd have empty shelves 01:46:51.580 --> 01:46:55.760 and the prices of the things you could get would be double and it would be like 01:46:55.760 --> 01:46:57.900 catastrophic across the board. 01:46:58.080 --> 01:47:00.200 Well, the worst case scenario has not happened. 01:47:00.420 --> 01:47:03.400 You do have taco over and over and over again. 01:47:03.580 --> 01:47:07.260 And you have the tariffs are actually more like Swiss cheese. 01:47:07.440 --> 01:47:12.200 We talked about from the beginning, like, don't look at the raw level that's 01:47:12.200 --> 01:47:15.060 being advertised. Look at the exceptions that get put in place, 01:47:15.060 --> 01:47:21.000 because Donald Trump is also out here handing out exceptions for companies that give him favors. 01:47:21.340 --> 01:47:25.800 You know, famously, like, you know, Apple gave him that little crystal thing 01:47:25.800 --> 01:47:32.640 and a promise of more manufacturing in the U.S. 01:47:32.800 --> 01:47:36.020 That they had probably planned anyway, but he promised a bunch of stuff. 01:47:36.120 --> 01:47:39.660 And so they got some exceptions. So iPhone prices have not doubled. 01:47:40.420 --> 01:47:46.380 You know, as, as one example. And so it's, there's this Swiss cheese effect 01:47:46.380 --> 01:47:49.020 that every, every individual product is different. 01:47:49.180 --> 01:47:52.220 Sometimes within a product category, some companies are different than other 01:47:52.220 --> 01:47:55.100 companies because one got an exception and one did not. 01:47:55.360 --> 01:48:00.380 And so what's actually happened is a lot less than the worst case, 01:48:00.560 --> 01:48:02.700 but it's still not nothing. 01:48:02.900 --> 01:48:08.160 I mean, like 2000 bucks a month average for everybody is still, 01:48:08.400 --> 01:48:11.840 you know, that that's going to hurt a bunch of people. 01:48:12.200 --> 01:48:14.880 And the more time goes on, the more they're going to feel it. 01:48:15.560 --> 01:48:19.580 And yes, it's not as bad as it could have been. 01:48:20.120 --> 01:48:24.400 And so maybe, you know, a bunch of people are like, well, you know, 01:48:24.620 --> 01:48:27.720 they said it was going to be this and that didn't happen. Well, they're right. 01:48:27.980 --> 01:48:31.800 You know, the worst case scenario didn't happen. But that's not to say that 01:48:31.800 --> 01:48:38.400 what is actually going on isn't still bad and isn't unnecessary damage that 01:48:38.400 --> 01:48:41.280 could have been avoided outright, you know? 01:48:41.600 --> 01:48:46.940 And so I think part of the messaging case on it, I mean, again, 01:48:47.040 --> 01:48:50.060 going back to everybody doing the thumbs up, thumbs down based on how they're 01:48:50.060 --> 01:48:53.660 doing personally, you know, when we get to the election, we're going to see 01:48:53.660 --> 01:48:56.520 how people are feeling, you know, do they feel bad or not? 01:48:57.180 --> 01:48:58.680 Yeah. I, you know, 01:48:59.800 --> 01:49:03.640 I'm clear about where I stand politically. I'm also glad that, 01:49:04.020 --> 01:49:08.400 and I often say Trump whenever it's sort of Trump in collaboration with Congress. 01:49:08.640 --> 01:49:09.000 Right. 01:49:09.400 --> 01:49:14.360 In this case, you could say Trump. I am glad Trump didn't wreck the economy 01:49:14.360 --> 01:49:19.540 with his reckless, in my opinion, horribly misguided tariff policy. 01:49:19.580 --> 01:49:22.700 And I don't think it's overstatement to say horribly misguided. 01:49:22.700 --> 01:49:28.100 He was imposing blanket tariffs on any import from any country. 01:49:29.020 --> 01:49:36.600 And, okay, if the purpose of tariffs is to give protection to domestic manufacturing, 01:49:36.720 --> 01:49:41.220 then why the hell would you tariff coffee at all? You can't grow coffee here. 01:49:41.400 --> 01:49:44.860 Why would you tariff pineapples or diamonds? 01:49:45.260 --> 01:49:49.940 You know, stuff that you just can't grow or dig up here. The other, 01:49:50.100 --> 01:49:54.220 the one example that I recall, and I have to admit what you said earlier, 01:49:54.320 --> 01:49:55.780 the tariff policy keeps changing. 01:49:55.960 --> 01:49:59.100 So I'm not sure if this is true today, but it was true over the summer. 01:49:59.460 --> 01:50:06.480 It was more affordable to buy a car imported from Europe or Asia that was assembled 01:50:06.480 --> 01:50:10.300 there than a car that was assembled in the United States. 01:50:10.300 --> 01:50:13.840 Because, yes, we're not tariffing cars assembled in the United States, 01:50:13.900 --> 01:50:18.480 but we're tariffing the parts that are coming from Canada or Mexico or Asia or Europe. 01:50:18.860 --> 01:50:23.740 And that made the American-made cars more expensive than just buy a fucking 01:50:23.740 --> 01:50:25.180 Volkswagen or buy a Subaru. 01:50:25.640 --> 01:50:32.180 And what's the benefit of a tariff policy that winds up hurting the American 01:50:32.180 --> 01:50:35.160 manufacturing that you're allegedly protecting? 01:50:35.200 --> 01:50:38.900 I don't know if that got fixed or rebalanced or what, But I'm like, 01:50:39.000 --> 01:50:43.080 that kind of shit doesn't make sense. And it also doesn't get reported. 01:50:44.680 --> 01:50:49.180 So, and, you know, not everyone is buying a car every year. So they may never 01:50:49.180 --> 01:50:51.980 notice that impact. Or even if you're buying a car this year, 01:50:52.100 --> 01:50:55.560 the last time you bought a car, it might have been three or five or 10 years ago. 01:50:55.920 --> 01:50:56.280 Right. 01:50:56.400 --> 01:50:58.540 You don't have any basis of comparison, you know. 01:50:59.910 --> 01:51:05.650 Yeah, I guess it could have been worse. It wasn't. Part of it was taco. 01:51:06.110 --> 01:51:11.270 Part of it was, like you say, companies, including my previous and current employer, 01:51:11.570 --> 01:51:16.690 deciding to absorb as much of that as we could and still be a profitable business. 01:51:19.030 --> 01:51:24.730 My last company really relied on nearly 100% Chinese supply chain. 01:51:24.730 --> 01:51:29.470 And we were not able to pivot quickly enough when those tariffs went from 20 01:51:29.470 --> 01:51:32.690 to 40 to 65 to 145 or wherever they landed. 01:51:33.270 --> 01:51:40.270 We just quit importing until things changed, you know, which caused a loss of 01:51:40.270 --> 01:51:44.690 business and a lot of disruption for some of our customers. But I don't know. 01:51:44.990 --> 01:51:50.030 The other choice was, you know, sell at a loss or ask our customers to spend 01:51:50.030 --> 01:51:52.730 more. Like neither one of those are very appealing to either party. 01:51:53.650 --> 01:51:59.930 I don't mean political party I mean either party in that transaction I am finally 01:51:59.930 --> 01:52:03.810 after two and a half two hours starting to lose my train of thought Sam but 01:52:03.810 --> 01:52:08.010 yeah I had tariff on the agenda because I'm like okay let's follow that thread 01:52:08.010 --> 01:52:09.470 from the first time I was on the show, 01:52:10.970 --> 01:52:14.490 sounds good well I'm running out of steam man maybe we should go to your list. 01:52:15.430 --> 01:52:20.230 Well we can start to wrap it up we've been going long enough I will mention 01:52:20.230 --> 01:52:23.630 before I start the close up the show stuff. Um, 01:52:24.470 --> 01:52:29.710 The one story we did not talk about significantly are the latest Epstein things, 01:52:29.710 --> 01:52:32.650 which started to move again after government reopened. 01:52:32.750 --> 01:52:37.330 And I guess that's one possible Democratic rationale for let's go ahead and 01:52:37.330 --> 01:52:39.910 get reopened is to break that logjam. 01:52:40.130 --> 01:52:44.430 We may talk about it next week. I'm not going to talk about it extensively now, 01:52:44.530 --> 01:52:52.610 other than to say there's been a lot of news this week with the discharge petition 01:52:52.610 --> 01:52:56.710 getting enough signatures and a vote scheduled for next week. 01:52:57.450 --> 01:53:03.130 And meanwhile, the House Democrats released a handful of emails they'd gotten 01:53:03.130 --> 01:53:04.470 from the Epstein estate. 01:53:04.590 --> 01:53:08.250 And in response to that, the Republicans said, those are cherry-picked. 01:53:08.410 --> 01:53:13.570 Here's 20,000 of those emails that you can go look at, see more context. 01:53:13.790 --> 01:53:18.330 And people have been pouring through those emails and finding all kinds of interesting 01:53:18.330 --> 01:53:22.530 stuff, not just in what the Democrats released, but in the 20,000 the Republicans released. 01:53:23.170 --> 01:53:26.750 And, you know, and it all looks bad. 01:53:27.850 --> 01:53:34.430 I mean, which is to be expected from, you know, anything coming out of Epstein, 01:53:34.750 --> 01:53:39.290 but it's specifically a lot of it looks bad for Trump and he seems to be freaking out. 01:53:39.470 --> 01:53:44.470 And, And, you know, the Republicans who voted for the discharge petition, 01:53:44.790 --> 01:53:47.810 he pressured them really hard to rescind that and take it off. 01:53:47.890 --> 01:53:49.490 And they seem to have just doubled down. 01:53:49.970 --> 01:53:56.290 He's fighting with several of them. And anyway, that thing seems to be heating up. 01:53:56.290 --> 01:54:03.390 We'll have more on that with the vote on the law to sort of compel release of 01:54:03.390 --> 01:54:05.030 more documents next week. 01:54:05.210 --> 01:54:08.110 Even if it passes the House, of course, it has to go through to the Senate. 01:54:08.270 --> 01:54:12.790 It potentially has to survive a veto, all kinds of stuff. So this will play 01:54:12.790 --> 01:54:14.370 out over a long time. But it's... 01:54:15.380 --> 01:54:19.920 You know, it's looking messier and messier and messier for Donald Trump. 01:54:20.180 --> 01:54:24.860 I will have to mention of all of the things, the one that's getting the most 01:54:24.860 --> 01:54:27.040 traction in social media in 01:54:27.040 --> 01:54:34.120 the last 24 hours is the one email where Epstein's brother asks Epstein. 01:54:34.440 --> 01:54:36.200 Have you heard this, Todd? 01:54:36.600 --> 01:54:38.160 I think I know where you're going. 01:54:38.160 --> 01:54:44.920 Yes. Okay. Epstein's brother asks Epstein if he thinks that Vladimir Putin has 01:54:44.920 --> 01:54:52.740 copies of the pictures and video of Donald Trump giving Bill Clinton a blowjob. 01:54:53.280 --> 01:54:57.160 Now, it actually says Bubba, but everyone knows who Bubba is, 01:54:57.340 --> 01:55:04.300 right? You know, now I am not even immediately thinking that this is real. 01:55:04.480 --> 01:55:07.720 Like it could have been a joke. Like if you look at the context of the emails, 01:55:07.760 --> 01:55:09.980 it could easily have been a joke. I agree. 01:55:10.820 --> 01:55:16.700 But it's still hilarious. People are making jokes about it. People are making memes about it. 01:55:17.120 --> 01:55:21.280 People are saying that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump should be asked about it. 01:55:21.780 --> 01:55:25.100 People are saying that whether it's true or not, Bill Clinton should just come 01:55:25.100 --> 01:55:27.380 out and say it is true because that would be funny. 01:55:27.460 --> 01:55:31.260 And you know you know, 01:55:32.690 --> 01:55:38.790 This was on my mind. I didn't want to bring it up. I was going to maybe bring it up in a more vague way. 01:55:38.910 --> 01:55:44.990 But since you broke the seal, it's ironic to me that the thing that might be 01:55:44.990 --> 01:55:50.270 the most politically damaging to Trump of all of the nonsense that he's been 01:55:50.270 --> 01:55:54.590 caught doing and supporters have forgiven him or look the other way. 01:55:54.590 --> 01:55:59.030 The one thing might be this consensual 01:55:59.030 --> 01:56:02.050 adult activity yes in in 01:56:02.050 --> 01:56:05.790 a sea of pedophilia right they because 01:56:05.790 --> 01:56:08.710 you could see some you could see some talking heads starting to 01:56:08.710 --> 01:56:11.690 raise the the concept of well 01:56:11.690 --> 01:56:14.590 you know 15's almost 18 they girls look 01:56:14.590 --> 01:56:17.490 older now yes you know 15's barely legal 01:56:17.490 --> 01:56:20.470 megan kelly said 15's barely legal which it fucking 01:56:20.470 --> 01:56:23.750 is not i have a 16 year old it is 01:56:23.750 --> 01:56:26.850 not barely legal it's way off 01:56:26.850 --> 01:56:30.070 and everyone knows that right but like people are 01:56:30.070 --> 01:56:34.810 jumping to his defense but i think there's a lot more people who will not forgive 01:56:34.810 --> 01:56:42.490 him for number one a perceived perceptibly gay sex act and number two giving 01:56:42.490 --> 01:56:47.150 pleasure to bill clinton of all people that's the thing that. 01:56:47.870 --> 01:56:53.970 It will be forgiven the least that you did gay stuff to make Bill feel good. 01:56:54.070 --> 01:56:57.370 It's like a double whammy that he's never going to win MAGA back, 01:56:57.550 --> 01:56:59.250 if it's true. And I agree with you. 01:56:59.430 --> 01:57:03.370 The context of that email, so you can kind of dissect it, ironically, 01:57:03.530 --> 01:57:06.770 the way that Bill Clinton may have on the stand once upon a time. 01:57:07.010 --> 01:57:14.910 The way it's written is not, oh, I wonder if Vladimir Putin has a photo of Trump 01:57:14.910 --> 01:57:17.490 blowing Bubba. Does he have the photo? 01:57:17.870 --> 01:57:18.270 Right. 01:57:18.670 --> 01:57:23.850 There's a difference between a photo and the photo. The photo suggests to me 01:57:23.850 --> 01:57:25.750 that there is such a photo. 01:57:26.010 --> 01:57:30.730 And then it raises the other questions of like all of these creeps, you know, 01:57:31.530 --> 01:57:37.770 taking advantage of these poor girls that Epstein rounded up for them must have 01:57:37.770 --> 01:57:42.530 known that this is illegal and amoral and awful. 01:57:42.530 --> 01:57:47.450 And you never want people to find out about how do they ever consent to photography or videography? 01:57:47.630 --> 01:57:53.850 Well, it makes me think that they didn't consent. And this is Epstein's way of carrying favor. 01:57:53.970 --> 01:57:58.330 That's been the rumor all along, is that he had hidden cameras everywhere and 01:57:58.330 --> 01:58:01.490 basically was compiling blackmail on all of these people. 01:58:01.830 --> 01:58:07.110 And that was the whole deal. And some people add to that, oh, 01:58:07.230 --> 01:58:10.590 and he was sharing those pictures with foreign intelligence services. 01:58:10.590 --> 01:58:15.750 There hasn't been evidence of any of this publicly but that's the speculation, 01:58:16.690 --> 01:58:23.730 and yeah and the the whole thing is donald trump is just the way he is behaving 01:58:23.730 --> 01:58:29.570 is not the way you behave if everything is innocuous if everything is innocuous 01:58:29.570 --> 01:58:35.850 and you're innocent you say go ahead and release it all you'll see there's nothing there he he. 01:58:35.850 --> 01:58:40.870 Never misses an opportunity to respond to a reporter, even if it's just some 01:58:40.870 --> 01:58:46.370 stream of consciousness bullshit that he's making up on his feet that, you know, isn't true, 01:58:47.410 --> 01:58:51.770 He's running away from microphones lately, which is uncharacteristic for him. 01:58:53.670 --> 01:59:00.050 And I know I could see that. I feel that I'm smiling. This is not fun, right? 01:59:00.470 --> 01:59:03.870 It's the underlying acts here are horrific. 01:59:04.890 --> 01:59:06.890 They are. They are horrific. 01:59:07.270 --> 01:59:10.310 Not necessarily the consensual Bill Clinton one, to be clear. 01:59:10.550 --> 01:59:13.830 If they decided to do that, it is consensual. Fine. 01:59:14.110 --> 01:59:17.870 Fine. Good on them. No, but the underage women. 01:59:17.890 --> 01:59:21.710 What I'm worried about, Sam, is because the context of, yeah, 01:59:21.930 --> 01:59:25.570 if that's real and if they consented to do that, they probably consented to 01:59:25.570 --> 01:59:31.470 do it in a room with one or two children who were not there consensually. 01:59:32.650 --> 01:59:34.410 So that's the that's the part. 01:59:34.410 --> 01:59:40.290 Of it and another part of this that was made clear to me by some of the survivor's 01:59:40.290 --> 01:59:44.930 statements a few weeks ago is that in addition to people who actually, 01:59:45.550 --> 01:59:54.170 participated per se there are most likely hundreds of people who were present 01:59:54.170 --> 01:59:57.310 and knew what was happening and did nothing. 01:59:58.070 --> 02:00:03.210 Yeah. They were there for the networking and the food and the drink and maybe 02:00:03.210 --> 02:00:09.030 also actual consensual sex among actual legal adults. 02:00:09.710 --> 02:00:10.970 Maybe they were there for all that. 02:00:11.030 --> 02:00:12.090 But they knew there were children there. 02:00:12.250 --> 02:00:16.990 They knew there were children there. But in some of these cases that have been 02:00:16.990 --> 02:00:21.350 reported, there was more detail on the Matt Gates one, which is entirely different 02:00:21.350 --> 02:00:23.710 and did not involve him or whatever. 02:00:23.890 --> 02:00:29.390 But the situation there was he was having sex with the underage girl in a room 02:00:29.830 --> 02:00:31.070 in the middle of the party. 02:00:31.590 --> 02:00:34.830 Like everybody was all around him. It wasn't like they went off to a bedroom. 02:00:35.010 --> 02:00:37.090 They were right there in the middle doing it. 02:00:37.290 --> 02:00:38.490 So there were like dozens of 02:00:38.490 --> 02:00:42.590 witnesses, you know, of exactly what was happening. You know, it's just, 02:00:43.490 --> 02:00:50.990 It's just Donald Trump's reaction is just oozing guilt everywhere. 02:00:52.190 --> 02:00:58.870 These things, even, I think this, honestly, I would be surprised if he wasn't 02:00:58.870 --> 02:01:03.990 actually involved in the activities with underage girls. 02:01:04.290 --> 02:01:10.670 I mean, there's been enough circulating that points in that direction circumstantially 02:01:10.670 --> 02:01:13.250 that it would not be surprising in the slightest. 02:01:14.730 --> 02:01:21.130 But even if he didn't, I think it's absolutely clear. He knew in detail what was happening. 02:01:21.510 --> 02:01:25.790 Oh, there's, there's been so much smoke around this fire over the years. 02:01:25.930 --> 02:01:29.290 He's talked about, you know, his friend, Jeffrey Epstein likes him young. 02:01:29.830 --> 02:01:34.350 He, he's on record talking about the Miss teen universe or whatever, 02:01:34.610 --> 02:01:36.730 whatever underage beauty pageant that he bought. 02:01:36.810 --> 02:01:38.950 He's like, but you know, the nice thing about that is I can just, 02:01:39.230 --> 02:01:42.230 I, it's my pageant. I own it. So I can just walk right into the dressing room. 02:01:42.390 --> 02:01:42.790 Yep. 02:01:43.850 --> 02:01:46.650 Dude dude's a creep and it's getting harder 02:01:46.650 --> 02:01:49.730 and harder to ignore that even 02:01:49.730 --> 02:01:52.530 if you're a supporter you know so yeah i 02:01:52.530 --> 02:01:55.430 wouldn't be surprised either but you know he deserves his i don't 02:01:55.430 --> 02:01:58.590 know i don't want to call it a day in court literally but i mean if there's 02:01:58.590 --> 02:02:03.830 a lot of raw data coming out right now like the blowjob email right we we don't 02:02:03.830 --> 02:02:09.230 know what's real what's corroborated what's provable and so forth but 20 000 02:02:09.230 --> 02:02:15.450 emails is a pretty big set of data and i wonder what kind of patterns and trends 02:02:15.450 --> 02:02:17.590 and collaboration you're going to find in all of that what. 02:02:17.590 --> 02:02:20.350 They're talking about eventually releasing like. 02:02:20.350 --> 02:02:21.330 Sure this. 02:02:21.330 --> 02:02:26.670 This is from epstein's estate handing stuff over to a subpoena this is not even 02:02:26.670 --> 02:02:30.150 the doj investigation stuff not even. 02:02:30.150 --> 02:02:32.090 And they have lots. 02:02:32.090 --> 02:02:32.570 Of other stuff. 02:02:33.360 --> 02:02:36.900 It is unfortunate that he's going to be brought down by such a horrible, 02:02:37.120 --> 02:02:42.400 if, if he's brought down by anything, it's going to be this horrible thing that hurt so many girls. 02:02:43.120 --> 02:02:47.480 And he's not going to be brought down by like the 200 other shitty things that 02:02:47.480 --> 02:02:48.900 he did to make the country worse. 02:02:49.440 --> 02:02:52.540 Right. That sucks. Yes, it does. 02:02:52.780 --> 02:02:58.820 Okay. Let's wrap it up. So first of all, I, as usual, go to curmudgeons-corner.com. 02:02:59.020 --> 02:03:03.560 You can find our transcripts. You can find all the ways to contact us. 02:03:03.960 --> 02:03:08.120 As of a few weeks ago, you can now actually buy one of these curmudgeons corner 02:03:08.120 --> 02:03:13.940 mugs directly without having to join our Patreon and all that stuff. 02:03:14.100 --> 02:03:17.620 And of course, we do have the link to our Patreon where you can give us money at various levels. 02:03:18.020 --> 02:03:21.460 We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. 02:03:21.580 --> 02:03:24.340 We will send you that mug, all of that kind of stuff. 02:03:24.620 --> 02:03:29.420 It's fun. And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you 02:03:29.420 --> 02:03:33.040 to our Curmudgeons Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners 02:03:33.040 --> 02:03:37.500 are hanging out, chatting, sharing links, doing all that kind of stuff all week long. 02:03:37.760 --> 02:03:40.500 It's a lot of fun. The more the merrier. Join in. 02:03:41.640 --> 02:03:46.220 And yeah, so I usually at this point, or Yvonne usually gives a highlight from 02:03:46.220 --> 02:03:47.360 the Curmudgeons Corner Slack. 02:03:47.900 --> 02:03:51.060 Todd, I don't think you're in there very often, so I won't ask you for that. 02:03:51.600 --> 02:03:55.140 But I will- It's been months. Yeah. It's been months. Yeah. It's okay. 02:03:55.260 --> 02:03:58.900 We've got some folks who are in every day, multiple times a day. 02:03:59.080 --> 02:04:03.320 We've got a few folks who check in, like, maybe weekly. We've got a few folks 02:04:03.320 --> 02:04:06.420 who checked in once years ago and have never been back. 02:04:06.600 --> 02:04:10.240 You know, we've got all kinds. But the more the merrier. It's a lot of fun in there. 02:04:10.540 --> 02:04:14.520 But I will mention something that one of my own things I mentioned, 02:04:15.020 --> 02:04:19.980 which is, as I've mentioned on the show the last couple weeks, I was laid off. 02:04:20.300 --> 02:04:23.480 I am in that unemployed period. 02:04:24.600 --> 02:04:28.080 And I haven't seriously started job hunting yet. 02:04:28.260 --> 02:04:32.680 I'm trying to sort of relax and do some of my own things for a little while. 02:04:32.800 --> 02:04:37.600 They gave me enough of a severance plan so I have a little bit of runway before... 02:04:38.780 --> 02:04:43.680 You know, before I have no choice. Um, but so I've been working on some of my 02:04:43.680 --> 02:04:47.220 personal projects and none of them are yet at the, 02:04:47.500 --> 02:04:51.660 okay, I want to show this to everybody in the universe, but I'll give a preview 02:04:51.660 --> 02:04:54.820 again to some of you here on the podcast. 02:04:55.160 --> 02:04:58.160 This last week, I actually, one of the things I had been doing, 02:04:58.300 --> 02:05:02.940 by the way, is like, I'd been sort of, I'd work on one thing for a few hours, 02:05:03.060 --> 02:05:05.640 then another thing for a few hours, then another thing for a few hours, 02:05:05.640 --> 02:05:10.100 sort of just to spread my time out over a bunch of things I want to get done. 02:05:10.360 --> 02:05:14.680 Some of them like, you know, projects that I'll be able to show or talk about 02:05:14.680 --> 02:05:17.760 here. Some of them just like things around the house or whatever. 02:05:18.980 --> 02:05:25.300 But last weekend, I decided to let myself actually concentrate on one thing 02:05:25.300 --> 02:05:28.840 and actually make some forward progress, which was a lot of fun. 02:05:29.280 --> 02:05:34.440 You know, you feel a lot more satisfaction if you work at something for like 02:05:34.440 --> 02:05:40.120 a whole day or two and actually see visible progress, as opposed to you work 02:05:40.120 --> 02:05:41.100 an hour and then you stop, 02:05:41.280 --> 02:05:43.660 and then you work an hour and then you stop, and progress is very, 02:05:43.780 --> 02:05:45.400 very slow over the course of weeks. 02:05:45.920 --> 02:05:52.020 So one of my projects, Todd mentioned earlier in the show how many billions 02:05:52.020 --> 02:05:53.660 of podcasts there are out there. 02:05:54.100 --> 02:05:57.640 One of my projects is for podcast discovery. 02:05:58.020 --> 02:06:01.360 My basic thesis is that they're like 02:06:01.360 --> 02:06:04.300 dozens and dozens of places 02:06:04.300 --> 02:06:06.940 where you can go and see like what the 02:06:06.940 --> 02:06:10.020 popular podcasts are you know almost every 02:06:10.020 --> 02:06:13.820 podcast player has an add new podcast and you can go into a directory and see 02:06:13.820 --> 02:06:18.060 like top 100 lists and a whole bunch of different categories and whatever there 02:06:18.060 --> 02:06:23.660 there's no shortage of that but i've i've been thinking about the long tail 02:06:23.660 --> 02:06:28.000 of podcasts because this podcast is the long tail of podcasts we're never going 02:06:28.000 --> 02:06:29.700 to show up in a top 100 list. 02:06:30.520 --> 02:06:35.540 So I've been working on something where the basic idea is you put in some filters 02:06:35.540 --> 02:06:37.880 about what kind of podcasts that you're looking for, 02:06:38.060 --> 02:06:45.640 and then it shows you a actually completely random sample of podcasts that meet that criteria. 02:06:45.900 --> 02:06:48.660 So you can sort of surf the long tail. 02:06:49.300 --> 02:06:54.180 And within that, I've got mechanisms for you to sample the podcast too. 02:06:54.360 --> 02:07:00.120 So like if you just hit play on a podcast these days, 90% of podcasts start with an ad. 02:07:00.700 --> 02:07:05.260 And or and even the podcast that don't start with an ad may start with like 02:07:05.260 --> 02:07:09.820 five minutes of introductory nonsense that is not necessarily the best sample. 02:07:10.000 --> 02:07:15.900 So I've got like buttons that will sample, take a random first year randomly 02:07:15.900 --> 02:07:19.060 sampling podcasts in the in the filters you give. 02:07:19.200 --> 02:07:22.800 Plus, I've got a mechanism to just I want a quick sample. 02:07:22.940 --> 02:07:28.960 It'll pick a random segment from that podcast to play so that you may you may 02:07:28.960 --> 02:07:33.140 miss those ads. or you may get unlucky and you'll hit that ad depending on how 02:07:33.140 --> 02:07:34.120 many they have. I don't know. 02:07:35.040 --> 02:07:39.260 Anyway, I'm not done with this thing. And I've also got a feature that will 02:07:39.260 --> 02:07:42.680 let you, you've picked your 10 random podcasts or whatever. 02:07:42.960 --> 02:07:46.320 Now I want to hear a sample of each of them and let you sequentially go through 02:07:46.320 --> 02:07:48.120 and do a minute of each or whatever. 02:07:48.560 --> 02:07:52.480 And I've got a way to like indicate that, hey, I like this one. 02:07:52.580 --> 02:07:53.940 I want to be able to come back to it later. 02:07:54.720 --> 02:07:57.920 Anyway, I've only built about half of the functionality I want to build and 02:07:57.920 --> 02:08:02.820 it's a little flaky still. There's some bugs and it may go down at a random 02:08:02.820 --> 02:08:05.300 moment if I decide to work on it again and break something. 02:08:05.580 --> 02:08:07.580 But anyway, I'm, yeah, 02:08:08.060 --> 02:08:13.900 To you, as a preview for Curmudgeons Corner listeners, please check it out. 02:08:14.120 --> 02:08:20.460 It's at jukepotter.com, J-U-K-E-P-O-D-D-E-R.com. 02:08:21.240 --> 02:08:24.240 And check it out, play with the features, send me feedback. 02:08:24.980 --> 02:08:29.400 The address for feedback, well, you can send it to Curmudge Corner. 02:08:29.600 --> 02:08:33.320 I think I set up a feedback address for this specifically too, 02:08:33.520 --> 02:08:38.080 but I don't remember. So, you know, feedback at curmudgeons-corner.com will get me. 02:08:38.320 --> 02:08:43.320 And tell me what you think. Tell me if you like it, features you would like added. 02:08:43.620 --> 02:08:46.960 Like I said, I'm only halfway through my feature list that I want to add to this thing. 02:08:47.280 --> 02:08:51.100 If you hate it, tell me that too. Be nice, though. Don't be too cruel. 02:08:51.540 --> 02:08:57.720 Tell me if you'd use it or not. Anyway, it's one of my projects that I've been 02:08:57.720 --> 02:09:02.020 thinking about for years, but I actually have time to do something with in this 02:09:02.020 --> 02:09:04.880 short interval before I start hunting for real jobs again. 02:09:05.340 --> 02:09:08.380 And so, yeah, so check it out, please. 02:09:09.080 --> 02:09:13.980 And also the other one that is not as far along, but is more complicated when 02:09:13.980 --> 02:09:18.180 I get to it is something I call Robin Letter. It's robinletter.com. 02:09:18.520 --> 02:09:23.140 It's an alternative to social media to keep in touch with people that are not 02:09:23.140 --> 02:09:27.000 the folks you keep in touch with every day, but maybe you still want to know 02:09:27.000 --> 02:09:28.260 what's going on in their lives. 02:09:28.480 --> 02:09:33.140 Like, I don't know, cousins or, you know, old folks you knew from college or whatever. 02:09:34.220 --> 02:09:38.500 All that's there right now in public is a brochure page, but I've also been working on that. 02:09:38.640 --> 02:09:40.400 I'm building the stuff to create 02:09:40.400 --> 02:09:43.400 accounts and all that kind of stuff right now, and I'll be doing more. 02:09:44.060 --> 02:09:49.360 So anyway, those are my two side projects that have gotten the most traction so far. 02:09:49.460 --> 02:09:52.700 I've got some others that are not as far along as these two, 02:09:52.860 --> 02:09:56.900 but take a look at both, and if you're interested, like them, 02:09:57.180 --> 02:09:59.940 give me feedback. I'd love to hear more. So yeah. 02:10:00.080 --> 02:10:01.080 Can I just tell you quickly, 02:10:01.850 --> 02:10:07.650 Sorry, Sam. First, the Robin letter is very appealing because the whole reason 02:10:07.650 --> 02:10:13.770 I still use Facebook is this is how I know what old friends and family are up to, 02:10:14.010 --> 02:10:17.150 you know, and I hate it. 02:10:17.790 --> 02:10:18.350 Right. 02:10:18.450 --> 02:10:21.050 I want a Facebook alternative. I haven't found a good one. 02:10:21.810 --> 02:10:24.670 That's the that's the inspiration for this is all the big social 02:10:24.670 --> 02:10:28.430 media uh sites end up being about like clout 02:10:28.430 --> 02:10:31.570 chasing and you wanting to get lots of followers and posting things 02:10:31.570 --> 02:10:36.250 that get seen by lots and lots of people the whole idea about robin letter is 02:10:36.250 --> 02:10:40.010 let's get back to you i want to keep keep up with what my family's up to or 02:10:40.010 --> 02:10:46.990 my friends and and it's at robinletter.com so and i all all All that's there 02:10:46.990 --> 02:10:49.150 right now is a brochure description of the idea, 02:10:49.510 --> 02:10:53.530 but also a link to email me if you want to be on the list for me to contact 02:10:53.530 --> 02:10:55.890 when I'm ready for beta users. 02:10:56.610 --> 02:10:59.430 That's awesome. I'm going to do that. I'm going to share this with friends and 02:10:59.430 --> 02:11:02.470 family. You could be the next Mark Zuckerberg. 02:11:02.650 --> 02:11:07.590 Who knows? You know, that would be awesome. We did say earlier, 02:11:07.590 --> 02:11:09.410 I wouldn't mind being a billionaire. 02:11:10.170 --> 02:11:13.150 Somehow, I don't think this is going to do that. But, you know, 02:11:13.310 --> 02:11:17.910 I figure right now, this is my best shot at trying some of these ideas. 02:11:18.150 --> 02:11:23.550 Like, before I run out of cash and I'm like, okay, I need a regular day job 02:11:23.550 --> 02:11:27.570 again, I can explore some of these ideas and try building some stuff. 02:11:27.730 --> 02:11:33.190 And I'll be honest, the, you know, AI assistance for coding makes a difference here. 02:11:33.330 --> 02:11:38.770 Like, I've been like, you know, I started messing with computers when I was 02:11:38.770 --> 02:11:44.490 like seven, eight years old. and I've hacked together random stuff my entire 02:11:44.490 --> 02:11:47.710 life, but I've never been a professional. 02:11:48.150 --> 02:11:52.510 I don't know all the latest and greatest new technologies. I don't care to know 02:11:52.510 --> 02:11:57.630 all the latest and greatest technologies. That's not what excites me, but with, 02:11:58.340 --> 02:12:07.520 quote-unquote vibe coding, as they're calling it, I can whip up some requirements and have the AI. 02:12:07.660 --> 02:12:10.980 I'm using Cursor for this, by the way, as my AI assistant. 02:12:12.440 --> 02:12:19.680 It can whip up a prototype, put some things together, and it gets me like 80% of the way there. 02:12:19.880 --> 02:12:23.600 And then there are usually all kinds of bugs and problems, and it looks bad, 02:12:23.700 --> 02:12:25.120 and sometimes it does stupid things. 02:12:25.160 --> 02:12:28.400 But then I iterate, and it gets better over 02:12:28.400 --> 02:12:31.220 time and you know so like this juke 02:12:31.220 --> 02:12:34.000 powder i i have mentioned it on the show again but this 02:12:34.000 --> 02:12:36.840 is the first time i'm saying everybody come look at it because this 02:12:36.840 --> 02:12:40.140 is the first time it's sort of reached the point where you can 02:12:40.140 --> 02:12:43.140 actually at least do something useful with it like it 02:12:43.140 --> 02:12:46.040 doesn't have all the features i want but like you could 02:12:46.040 --> 02:12:48.980 actually use this to find new podcasts that you've never 02:12:48.980 --> 02:12:53.020 heard of before that might be interesting now the problem with the long tail 02:12:53.020 --> 02:12:56.740 is also there's lots of crap in the long tail so you might have to hit refresh 02:12:56.740 --> 02:13:02.800 a few times before you find something that you like but i i think it's useful 02:13:02.800 --> 02:13:06.540 to be able to explore and i i am thinking about doing something like this for 02:13:06.540 --> 02:13:08.360 books too it's just not as far along. 02:13:09.360 --> 02:13:17.840 It kind of replicates the experience of going into an old-fashioned dusty old used bookstore, 02:13:18.630 --> 02:13:28.010 Where instead of going to a Barnes and Noble or an online retailer, I still shall not name, 02:13:28.210 --> 02:13:33.670 where all the bestsellers are pushed at you and things that are specifically 02:13:33.670 --> 02:13:35.610 recommended for you might be pushed at you. 02:13:35.790 --> 02:13:38.850 But instead, you're just going down the aisles and you say, oh, 02:13:39.170 --> 02:13:40.670 I feel like a mystery book. 02:13:40.910 --> 02:13:46.510 And you see all kinds of old mystery books that may or may not have been popular. 02:13:46.510 --> 02:13:49.750 And you pick something up that looks interesting. That's the idea here. 02:13:50.150 --> 02:13:55.910 So anyway, and Robin Letter, I've been feeling the social media has gone past 02:13:55.910 --> 02:13:57.970 keeping up with your friends for a long time. 02:13:58.210 --> 02:14:01.050 Like I first had the idea for Robin Letter more than 10 years ago, 02:14:01.070 --> 02:14:03.790 but now I actually have some time to try to actually build something. 02:14:04.190 --> 02:14:08.090 Oh yeah. Juke Potter, I just want to say is appealing also. 02:14:08.610 --> 02:14:15.570 And it's funny, you and I met because we participated in the college radio station, 02:14:15.570 --> 02:14:20.250 which sort of specialized and prided itself on playing the long tail of music. 02:14:20.850 --> 02:14:21.010 Right. 02:14:22.010 --> 02:14:25.490 I'm sure you remember the days that there would be, I don't know how much you 02:14:25.490 --> 02:14:28.410 were playing music versus just you and Yvonne doing your show. 02:14:28.410 --> 02:14:33.030 I played music only the bare minimum required to get my license and I was doing 02:14:33.030 --> 02:14:34.690 public affairs and news back then too. 02:14:34.910 --> 02:14:35.130 Yeah. 02:14:36.230 --> 02:14:41.050 But when I did do music, when I did do music, I used a random number generator 02:14:41.050 --> 02:14:43.790 to pick a room in the station, to pick a shelf in the station, 02:14:43.970 --> 02:14:47.730 and to pick a record for the station and to pick a track on the record. 02:14:48.110 --> 02:14:53.790 And so I used this random method even back then when I did play music on WRCT Pittsburgh. 02:14:54.560 --> 02:14:57.700 Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's going from the long tail of music. 02:14:57.840 --> 02:15:03.800 That's how I know you to, I am kind of stuck in a rut of the same universe of podcasts. 02:15:03.860 --> 02:15:07.460 And whenever I discover a new podcast, it's probably because I heard a guest 02:15:07.460 --> 02:15:09.500 on one of the other podcasts mention it. 02:15:09.880 --> 02:15:11.680 And like, oh, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go try that out. 02:15:11.780 --> 02:15:14.020 And over the, you're like, you know, I'll get tired of one and they'll fall 02:15:14.020 --> 02:15:15.480 out of my feet and the other one will come in. 02:15:15.860 --> 02:15:18.920 But it's like, I'm, I'm in the same kind of universe and it's, 02:15:19.020 --> 02:15:22.120 I listen to podcasts for entertainment i want to laugh so i listen to stuff 02:15:22.120 --> 02:15:25.860 mostly by comedians or comedy writers i 02:15:25.860 --> 02:15:28.460 could use a dose of something else so i'm gonna 02:15:28.460 --> 02:15:31.300 check this out too man because there's something i 02:15:31.300 --> 02:15:36.840 there's there's gonna be something out there appealing so that's cool man these 02:15:36.840 --> 02:15:39.980 are cool projects that you i don't want to say you get to work on sam because 02:15:39.980 --> 02:15:45.000 you get to work on you know at the expense of continuing employment but that's 02:15:45.000 --> 02:15:49.100 cool all right i didn't mean to drag this longer than you want It's okay. Yeah. 02:15:49.640 --> 02:15:51.800 I'm pretty excited about both of those things. I get to promo my projects. 02:15:52.640 --> 02:15:52.760 Yeah. 02:15:53.200 --> 02:15:58.260 Nice. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Todd, for filling in. We really appreciate 02:15:58.260 --> 02:16:00.580 it. Good to have you again. It was fun. 02:16:00.960 --> 02:16:06.280 So everybody, have a great week. Hopefully, Yvonne will be back next time. 02:16:06.640 --> 02:16:10.640 Stay safe. Have a good time. Not too good a time. All the stuff I usually say. 02:16:11.080 --> 02:16:15.320 And we'll talk to you next time. Here comes the music. 02:16:46.460 --> 02:16:49.200 Okay. Thank you again, Todd. Really appreciate it. 02:16:49.740 --> 02:16:50.200 Yeah, my pleasure. 02:16:50.760 --> 02:16:55.740 I'm going to hit stop in a couple seconds. And so we'll talk to you later. 02:16:56.440 --> 02:16:58.640 Thanks, man. See you next time.