Best of Program ｜ Guests： Vicki Barbolak, David French & Charles Duhigg ｜ 12⧸20⧸18
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
173.29651
Summary
Vickie Barbalock joins the show to talk about the President's new ban on bumping stocks and how anger can get out of control quickly. Also, a conversation with Charles Duhigg on anger and how quickly it can become a problem.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
On the podcast today, we've got a couple of things.
00:00:02.520
We started a little rocky, a little rocky with bump stocks being outlawed by the President of the United States.
00:00:13.360
Then we took a happy turn, and we had a guest in.
00:00:23.900
Yeah, and she's a 61-year-old woman who was aging out of comedy until she was discovered or rediscovered on America's Got Talent.
00:00:38.300
Also, I think an interesting conversation with Charles Duhigg on anger and how anger can get out of control quickly, all on today's podcast.
00:00:53.900
You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:01:08.560
Not going to be a good day for Donald Trump fans.
00:01:15.040
Yesterday, the President, by decree, outlawed bump stocks.
00:01:23.260
Okay, first of all, let's not set a precedent of taking away anything to do with guns through presidential decree.
00:01:33.680
We would be apoplectic if anyone else, even if George Bush would have done it, let alone Barack Obama, we would be apoplectic.
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I don't know anybody who uses them or why you would want them.
00:01:51.200
You can do the same thing with a rubber band or your belt loop.
00:02:02.280
And for this president to come out and just, at a time when people are not talking about this.
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I mean, we just gave away something that I don't care that you could have given away as a compromise later in Congress.
00:02:21.420
You're telling me you couldn't get a bump stock ban through Congress with Democrats?
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And again, I think it's completely unconstitutional.
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First of all, we should set the baseline there.
00:02:36.580
This is obviously an infringement on your ability to bear arms.
00:02:45.820
It's tied to another law that is unconstitutional, which is these three different statutes that come out against machine guns and automatic weapons, which I completely think are unconstitutional as well.
00:02:55.700
So, but even if you go beyond that, let's just say we live in this world, we're in a progressive world where we don't necessarily follow the Constitution all that closely, and we do the things that just have to be done, and that's the world we're living.
00:03:07.360
Even if you're in that world, you've got to pass a law.
00:03:11.980
You can't have the president just making up distinctions on, well, we don't like that thing.
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Again, in the legal statute of what a machine gun is, is the very clear language that a bump stock is not included.
00:03:26.220
Very specifically, it says, any weapon which shoots is designed to shoot or can be readily restored to shoot automatically more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger.
00:03:39.440
So, in other words, you pull the trigger back and you hold it.
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And if you think, well, but I think that's similar to a bump stock, that's great.
00:03:50.660
Then pass a law against a bump stock if you don't like them.
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I'll still argue that it's unconstitutional, but at least it makes some sense.
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I said this to the Democrats and they didn't listen.
00:04:02.340
Don't go down this path, Democrats, because someday Barack Obama is going to be gone.
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And you're going to so disenfranchise people and make people angry and set this precedent that someone else that you really don't like is going to use those same things against you.
00:04:30.140
You can't have the precedent of a president just saying, you know what, and something else I want to ban.
00:04:40.100
The next Democrat president who wants to ban, whether it's magazines at a certain capacity, anything they want to pick apart from your ability to bear arms, they will cite this bump stock ban and say, look, the president, a Republican president.
00:05:00.140
And we didn't say anything because I don't want to defend bump stocks.
00:05:05.320
I don't know anybody who does care about bump stocks.
00:05:07.800
But it's those battles that you don't care about that become the most important.
00:05:13.540
I mean, there was a battle in the Supreme Court that, you know, this is relatively recent history, about marijuana in which someone, they basically fought the Commerce Clause when it came to marijuana.
00:05:27.480
And it was a case in the 2000s that, you know, because it was marijuana, I don't think any conservative was, like, into thinking about it.
00:05:35.260
And it was not a big issue on talk radio at the time or anything.
00:05:38.860
But that was, like, probably one of the best opportunities to reverse the ridiculous nonsense the government has used with the Commerce Clause over a very long period of time to restrict the way or to get their tentacles into business.
00:05:54.500
The Commerce Clause is a really good example of that.
00:05:57.240
I don't remember the farmer's name, but the court case that happened under FDR, nobody paid attention to.
00:06:05.580
Nobody cared because it just involved a farmer and his wheat.
00:06:12.700
But that's why Washington is in all of our businesses, because of that one move that no one cared.
00:06:31.080
We had all of the syllables, just all in the wrong order.
00:06:34.380
Okay, so that was the Attorney General against the, against a farmer.
00:06:44.860
Uh, and, uh, because of that, the guy who grew his wheat on his farm, he never sold it.
00:06:53.100
It was just for him and his family and his livestock.
00:07:01.380
And, more importantly, you are going to be feeding your family and your livestock with wheat not purchased.
00:07:10.960
So, that wheat that you would have purchased if you weren't a wheat farmer, that might affect the price of wheat coming into your state or leaving your state.
00:07:37.940
Can you imagine, well, you don't have to, imagine when President Obama just said, you know what?
00:08:02.960
The Pentagon found out yesterday, through Twitter, that we were going to be pulling out of Syria.
00:08:10.280
This is causing all kinds of problems with our allies.
00:08:21.260
Because, it is just given the Middle East to Iran.
00:08:25.320
And, by the way, Russia is saying it on their official social media accounts.
00:08:30.180
Their official spokespeople are saying what a wonderful move it is.
00:08:32.660
The idea that, you know, we're trying to act as if this is bad for them in some way is ridiculous.
00:08:40.580
Last, yesterday, last night, everybody was saying they were in bed with Trump.
00:08:52.060
There's a thing that happens, I think, with big executives where, and you've even expressed this frustration at times, Glenn, where, like, you have an idea and you really want to do it.
00:09:02.880
And everyone kind of keeps telling you you can't do it.
00:09:07.060
And you haven't changed your mind, but you're ceding a little bit of authority to your advisors, the experts around you.
00:09:13.240
And you, but eventually you hit that point where you're like, I want it done and I'm doing it.
00:09:18.560
And it seems like Trump hit that point on several things this week.
00:09:25.440
But this, the same sort of thing happened with tariffs, I think.
00:09:28.020
He had a lot of people around him telling him don't do the tariffs thing.
00:09:30.380
And then one day he was just like, it's happening and it kind of came out on Twitter.
00:09:33.320
It seems to be the way that he makes those decisions.
00:09:35.240
Now, with the bump stock thing, it's not his right because the Constitution prohibits him doing what he did.
00:09:41.700
However, in most of these situations, it is his right.
00:09:44.060
I mean, he can pull out troops from Syria if he wants to pull out troops from Syria.
00:09:47.220
And, you know, look, his entire life has been a guy who's, he didn't want the Iraq war in the first place, mostly.
00:09:54.060
He kind of supported it early on, but he switched on it pretty quickly.
00:09:57.020
He, you know, has opposed most of the wars throughout history.
00:10:00.660
And I think his coming in, he said he wanted to get the troops home.
00:10:03.860
It's relatively consistent with where he's been.
00:10:07.160
However, the way he's doing it is, I think, what's shocking here to a lot of the people in the military.
00:10:12.160
And again, we're just letting the Kurds down again.
00:10:21.680
But we also stopped with Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which has big, big ramifications that no one is telling the American people.
00:10:37.180
If Saudi Arabia falls, you hand the entire region to Iran, to Iran.
00:10:56.840
I mean, we are all on the edge and anything that adds chaos is bad.
00:11:04.280
The the Democrats just doing all kinds of investigation and just trying to drag his butt through an impeachment on trumped up charges.
00:11:54.360
And I'm certainly not going to make Mexico pay for it.
00:12:06.600
We have to have something that is reliable and predictable and something we can all gather around and say, yes, I trust this.
00:12:21.700
And don't say, well, it's better than this or that.
00:12:29.400
And when it comes to people saying that he's going to be impeached, I don't know if he's going to or not.
00:12:39.460
Ann Coulter came out and said yesterday he's going to be he's not going to make it to the end of his term.
00:12:49.020
President Pence is steady, very conservative and rock solid.
00:12:56.140
Do you have the audio of George Bush and why he did TARP?
00:13:20.680
And remember, he said I had to violate the free market system.
00:13:23.560
Had to abandon the free market system to save it.
00:13:31.920
Hank came in with Bernanke, with Geithner, started talking to the president about we're going to need some legislative authority.
00:13:43.920
We needed to put capital into the banking system.
00:13:45.820
But Hank's concern about capital injections was that it would look like the government was nationalizing or taking over the banking system.
00:14:00.560
That's why it was called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the TARP.
00:14:04.380
About halfway through the conversation, the president interrupted Hank and directed a question at Ben.
00:14:15.320
And Bernanke said, you know, it looks that way.
00:14:25.680
And what I cared about was people that would be hurting.
00:14:38.220
And I just could envision what a Great Depression would mean.
00:14:42.300
If it's bad now, imagine how bad it would really get.
00:14:47.720
As we left that meeting, the president turned to us and said, if this is Hoover or Roosevelt, for damn sure I'm going to be Roosevelt.
00:14:56.860
I just want you to put that in perspective because we are headed for the effects now.
00:15:06.960
And the world is feeling, is already feeling it.
00:15:13.620
Our president is going to be in the same situation.
00:15:16.360
Are you going to be Roosevelt or are you going to be Hoover?
00:15:18.720
Are you going to abide by the principles that we have?
00:15:22.200
Or are you going to fundamentally change us for, you know, compassionate reasons or whatever?
00:15:29.440
It's going to be an extraordinarily difficult choice.
00:15:35.060
We must stand for the Bill of Rights right now.
00:15:45.140
Those things must be unchangeable and defended and never weakened, especially over the next five years.
00:15:58.900
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:16:08.460
If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes.
00:16:11.740
And while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show.
00:16:20.000
But my son came to me with YouTube and said, Dad, you have to see this woman.
00:16:35.660
And she came out on stage and I don't remember who it was, Naomi Campbell or somebody said,
00:16:53.740
And she, you came back, I think, two times after that?
00:16:57.980
I think there was, you know, I think there was like four more shows till the last final.
00:17:02.440
And you are now going back for the Champions Show.
00:17:11.400
So you, now like you really, you, you are from California.
00:17:19.280
And you kind of found yourself in a place to where you were too old for your own club.
00:17:24.500
I mean, I didn't start till I was like nearly 40.
00:17:31.780
I probably would have that because I am an idiot.
00:17:33.600
But I mean, and so, you know, I was, I was having a great time doing it.
00:17:38.020
But when I would go, no matter what would happen to me, like e-television would say
00:17:41.840
I'm in the next breakthrough from the comedy store.
00:17:43.660
I would go to these agents in Hollywood and they go, well, we, we, you're too fat.
00:17:49.200
You're too, we, there's nothing we can do for you.
00:17:51.640
And so, and so, I mean, I, I just, I just kept hoping something would happen.
00:17:55.720
But I just, you know, I see Steve Martin said, you get so good, they can't ignore you.
00:18:09.960
And the people it brought to me, it just, then Hollywood had to come around.
00:18:19.780
But without trying to be politically incorrect, you are just so natural.
00:18:24.800
You just feel like somebody that everybody knows.
00:18:28.140
I've, you know, that's fun about what I'm doing is I am like meat and potatoes comedy.
00:18:34.200
I'm a Midwestern, Miss Mitzi, the owner of the comedy store, she goes, Vicki, are you from
00:18:40.680
And I said, no, but my parents, my mother is from Iowa.
00:18:50.580
You know, but I've never lived in the Midwest, but that is, that is, I think, who I am in the
00:18:56.620
Yeah, my dad played for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:19:00.540
I just wanted you to know what the daughter of an NFL football player looks like, because
00:19:08.220
And so he had, you know, he'd been hit around a lot, you know, leather helmet time for him,
00:19:13.540
And so, as I grew up, he was daffy and daffy and daffier, but he was just lots of fun.
00:19:19.540
And, you know, he, he was just a great dad, but he was totally daffy.
00:19:25.280
So where do you get this, from your dad or from your mom?
00:19:30.280
I think, you know, I just, I was also a little fat little kid.
00:19:44.520
So, so my, so my life was a child that was bullied and I would make the fat jokes first.
00:19:50.820
I learned that in my whole life that anything good happened to me came because I could make
00:19:57.840
I worked for my parents at their carpet store for 20 years and I didn't care if people bought
00:20:01.860
carpet for me, but if they didn't laugh at my joke, I was devastated.
00:20:05.420
So, I mean, it was all, I've always been about making people laugh.
00:20:08.200
And it, it, it, the stuff in your, the stuff in your act, for instance, you know, you never
00:20:18.960
A lot of the other moms, they would sit around and drink all day, but I was disciplined because
00:20:25.760
I would always, I always waited until the kids get home from school.
00:20:29.820
That's, you know, sometimes I call in a fake dental appointment, you know, when I'm
00:20:36.880
And, and, and when you, when you took your kids on field trips.
00:20:43.440
My mother, you know, that came from the last generation.
00:20:45.500
I think of women that party 24 seven, you know, and I got kids and I'm thinking party,
00:20:50.800
I didn't know my mom and her friends always, always brought flasks on field trips.
00:20:54.820
I mean, I'm like, I'm going to get on a bus sober with first graders.
00:21:00.520
So I go on my daughter's first field trip and I take out my flask and it is, it's not
00:21:05.980
You know, it's a very pretty, it's a little two ounce or.
00:21:09.060
How loaded could you get off of two ounces anyway?
00:21:11.740
But I take it out and I take a little flat, you know, sip and all the other moms on the
00:21:18.240
They're like, you know, she's got a flask, she's got a flask, you know, and I'm like,
00:21:33.420
How much, how much is, how much is, for instance, do you watch, uh, uh, the Marvelous
00:21:41.900
I think it's one of the most brilliant shows ever.
00:21:45.800
I, I, are you Sophie, uh, um, the, the Sophie character, put that on your plate.
00:21:53.460
That is completely, are we going to find out you're living in a mansion?
00:21:59.600
If I keep going, I'm going to buy a triple Y, you know, that's pretty much, you know,
00:22:04.300
and the thing about the drinking alone, that was my mother.
00:22:07.160
Every day I came home from school, my mother would sit there with her decks, deck of cards
00:22:11.680
between her legs, her mu mu one inside out with a large amount of safety pins here in
00:22:15.560
case 30 people needed a safety pin on every given day.
00:22:23.120
And she, you know, we'd come home and the first beer would open, boom, when we'd walk
00:22:32.380
I started when I started standup telling that story that audiences got worried for me that
00:22:37.660
I had this terrible childhood with a crazy alcoholic mother.
00:22:41.500
My mother was a blast and she was, it wasn't like that.
00:22:44.360
And so I took that story of my mother and I put it on me.
00:22:52.280
But, um, it's, but so everything in my, everything that I, that I talk about is coming from a truth
00:23:00.580
You know, and you, but you do live in a beautiful trailer.
00:23:05.860
I've waited five years to buy the second best trailer in my trailer park.
00:23:09.320
And I would like look at their trash can for like five years.
00:23:15.660
And then one day the trash was empty and I called the trailer park realtor, Les.
00:23:23.520
I started AGT at the same time as trying to get this dream trailer.
00:23:36.500
The old trailer part of the, I call that part of the park, the ghetto.
00:23:41.680
I don't talk to anyone below the lake, which is actually a drainage ditch made to look like
00:23:46.280
a lake, but I don't speak to those people anymore.
00:23:52.880
They can look up on the hill and be inspired by what you've done.
00:23:57.820
So, um, you know, if you sold your high class, top of the hill trailer park, uh, you know,
00:24:09.860
trailer there in California, you could probably live in a 20,000 square foot home here in Texas.
00:24:16.460
You know, I love, you know, I always had a dream seven years ago, my friend, uh, Brett
00:24:21.280
Frank, who lives in Denton, he saw me in Hollywood, flew me out here for his birthday party in
00:24:28.740
He and I took my promo pack over here to the Dallas improv seven years ago, asked him if
00:24:40.620
I, something mystical and romantic and ever since that night, and you know, Denton was
00:24:47.080
I would love to have a place on a lake or a trailer.
00:24:49.940
I would, you know, it'd have to be, I don't have to be a trailer.
00:24:59.100
See in this part of the country though, you're the first to be sucked up.
00:25:03.940
In this part of the country, I'm going to take it back.
00:25:05.720
I'm going to have to do, I'm going to have to get, I'm going to have to face it.
00:25:12.420
Part of your trailer is underground that you go for safety.
00:25:18.220
She is the winner of America's Got Talent top 10.
00:25:22.580
She is now going to be in the Champions edition on NBC.
00:25:33.120
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:25:46.060
David Frenchon, we wanted to talk a little bit about being deplatformed in social media
00:25:50.260
and what it says about us, et cetera, et cetera.
00:25:52.980
But he was, he's a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
00:25:58.080
And so I wanted to get his opinion, because he has written a lot about ISIS over the years
00:26:03.680
as well, his opinion on us pulling out of Syria and what this, what this means.
00:26:24.820
It's stunning in part because just days ago, the administration had reaffirmed its commitment
00:26:31.740
to our Kurdish allies and to completing the mission of destroying ISIS.
00:26:36.560
And people have to understand when you talk about ISIS, there's the caliphate, their attempt
00:26:42.220
to create a nation state that has been largely, the caliphate has been largely wiped out.
00:26:46.540
But ISIS, the terrorist organization, still exists.
00:26:49.820
And to put this into perspective, in 2011, when Obama wrongly pulled out of Iraq, this
00:26:55.200
is something that, that conservatives were deeply concerned about when he did it.
00:26:59.840
And when he wrongly left Iraq, there were only about 700 members of Al Qaeda in Iraq left
00:27:07.460
The best estimate of the remaining strength of ISIS in Iraq and Syria is between 20 and 30,000.
00:27:14.720
And so to say that it's done, that the job is done, is just not factually correct.
00:27:23.660
I mean, when the regime collapsed in Germany, we didn't stop.
00:27:30.040
We went looking for those that were called werewolves, self-described werewolves, that
00:27:35.340
were the Nazi believers that went back into the communities and were not going to let this
00:27:44.760
Well, you know, this would be about like declaring the end of the Afghan war right after the Taliban
00:27:52.280
fell, even though we knew, we knew that Al Qaeda was still out there.
00:27:58.140
Yeah, the capital cities of the caliphate have fallen.
00:28:01.840
And that's been, and Trump deserves a lot of credit for continuing that military campaign
00:28:06.400
and stepping up that military campaign that began under Obama.
00:28:09.560
But now to pull out before that job is done, and then to make it worse, the people, there
00:28:16.860
are three entities most likely to gain, three enemies of the U.S. that are most likely to
00:28:27.280
This is something that we're going to strengthen our enemies.
00:28:34.240
This is this had been one of the most successful American military interventions since 9-11.
00:28:40.660
I mean, we had with very light casualties by comparison to other American military interventions,
00:28:47.940
toppled the heart of the caliphate, empowered Kurdish allies, held the line against Russia and
00:28:53.640
Iran, and put ISIS in headlong retreat, and before it's all done, you just leave, and you
00:29:09.380
Well, we have to crawl into the mind of Donald Trump.
00:29:11.780
I mean, I think part of, you know, from the beginning, he has expressed deep skepticism about
00:29:19.500
America's military actions, involvement overseas.
00:29:23.400
He has been talked out of on multiple occasions, headlong and precipitous retreats in Afghanistan,
00:29:33.000
You just get the feeling that it's what he wants to do, and that he's been repeatedly talked
00:29:45.000
Let's talk about something that I think, David, the conservatives and all Americans should
00:29:50.620
be very concerned about right now, but I'm going to really be focusing on it in 2019,
00:29:56.680
and that is the silencing of voices and social media.
00:30:02.920
You wrote an article, Social Media Idealism Collides with Human Nature.
00:30:15.320
So, essentially, what I'm talking about there is the frustration that the social media companies
00:30:21.400
are now feeling with how their platforms are used, and they're clumsy and sometimes censorious
00:30:31.080
attempts to bring their platforms in alignment with their vision.
00:30:34.660
And so, what they imagined was, you know, they're going to create these platforms that
00:30:39.040
are going to bring the world together and, not just bring the world together, but and
00:30:47.540
That, you know, you have these Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, executives, almost all of
00:30:52.980
them uniformly progressive, who believe that these platforms would accomplish progressive
00:30:59.960
But it turns out when you create a platform, when you create a true marketplace of ideas,
00:31:04.420
you also empower a lot of voices you don't like and a lot of voices you disagree with.
00:31:10.580
And particularly on Facebook, it's very interesting.
00:31:13.160
If you look at the top publishers on Facebook in the political context, time and again, it's
00:31:20.420
And that's not what Zuckerberg built Facebook for.
00:31:25.420
And they have and they've done everything they can to hurt those platforms and to hurt the
00:31:31.800
traffic trying to I mean, for me, I have what, 3.2 million Facebook likes and fans and followers.
00:31:42.060
And I they want me to pay to be able to reach the people who said I want the stuff from him.
00:31:50.540
I mean, they're doing everything they can to limit the voice.
00:31:55.760
You know, the in the problem is they they want they want two things.
00:32:00.640
They want they want it all and they can't have it all.
00:32:02.840
So what they want is to reach every person in the world.
00:32:06.180
And then they also want to spread and inculcate a particular set of values.
00:32:11.100
Well, if you make your platform a a value transmission device, you're going to limit
00:32:18.960
And so they keep on trying to square that circle.
00:32:21.340
They keep trying to say, well, we want everybody on there, but we really, truly only want a
00:32:30.360
But they flail around often trying to have both or at least limiting, trying their best
00:32:35.400
to limit the spread of ideas that they dislike.
00:32:40.200
It creates an, you know, almost an unbearable amount of tension because on the one hand,
00:32:44.280
you have conservatives saying, hey, you know, treat us equally.
00:32:52.180
And then you have progressives who happen to be, you know, in their peer group, essentially
00:33:03.580
And you and you, I think you also have a third group of of people that are both sides
00:33:10.620
that look at these really hideous things from anti-Semites or whatever.
00:33:17.500
And and say, you got to get rid of you got to get rid of them.
00:33:21.680
But the the correct answer is I can't get rid of anybody.
00:33:29.100
Well, yeah, the correct I think, and I've been long arguing this, that the correct way
00:33:33.220
to look at this is to not try to reinvent the wheel, but take America's 200 plus years
00:33:39.480
of experience with the First Amendment and apply it to these social media companies, not
00:33:46.380
And I don't I don't want Congress saying you have to apply First Amendment principles.
00:33:50.180
But I say Twitter and Facebook voluntarily applying First Amendment principles and core
00:33:56.640
to the First Amendment jurisprudence is the idea of viewpoint neutrality.
00:34:01.160
In other words, if we're a platform, the rule, whatever rules we put in place, they're
00:34:08.900
We're not going to privilege a point of view and suppress another point of view.
00:34:12.620
We're going to we're going to create a marketplace of ideas.
00:34:16.180
And I think that that's the way through this wilderness.
00:34:19.080
But because they have not done that and because they have put their thumb on the scales, you
00:34:25.200
know, sometimes to get rid of really, truly bad people, no question.
00:34:28.840
But because they have put their thumb on the scales, they're opening themselves to endless
00:34:35.120
Because those double standards are very, very real.
00:34:38.000
And it I'm trying to decide Facebook, Google, you know, all social media and these and
00:34:47.480
these big platforms, YouTube, are they are they creating a hostile civilization?
00:34:57.100
Are they just empowering that hostile position or are they just revealing who we really are?
00:35:08.780
So I don't think people are in people are people.
00:35:13.360
But what what Facebook has been able to do, what YouTube has been able to do is essentially
00:35:18.800
take all of the flaws of human beings, all of and often all the virtues of human beings
00:35:25.140
as well, but all of the flaws of human beings and put them right in our face all the time
00:35:30.860
so that if, you know, let's say you have neighbors who live five doors down who have
00:35:36.540
bad ideas about politics, you might not ever encounter them pre Facebook, pre Twitter.
00:35:42.980
But now everybody's bad ideas and by bad ideas, the ones you don't like are thrown in your
00:35:48.680
face constantly all the time on these platforms.
00:35:51.260
And I think what it does is it sort of takes our natural emotional reaction to being exposed
00:35:57.060
to things we don't like, makes it relentless, and then sort of over time turns it up to,
00:36:03.720
And and it's it's the only way to really escape it is to turn off social media entirely.
00:36:10.980
But then you get that sort of nagging feeling that what am I missing?
00:36:14.680
Am I missing these developments with my grandkids?
00:36:17.500
Am I missing these developments with my friends on the West Coast?
00:36:23.100
And then there it is again, all of the things that you dislike.
00:36:26.460
And it's and and I think it just takes who we actually are and just throws it in our face
00:36:35.180
It's a great point, because I mean, think about the holidays come around, like whatever,
00:36:37.660
you know, if you have a holiday party that you go to once a year and you know, a couple
00:36:41.240
people there that you don't like are going to be there and you sort of dread it for like
00:36:45.340
weeks going into that party, we are exposing ourselves to like six or seven hours of that
00:36:50.840
party every day where everyone we don't like is always talking to us.
00:37:00.340
If you look at some of the charts of anxiety and depression, especially amongst younger people
00:37:06.260
in the country, the rates of anxiety and depression, they started to really spike around the time
00:37:17.060
It's what's on the phone and what's on the phone is social media.
00:37:20.040
And you can even see a sharp rise and political hatred that is tied to a couple of specific
00:37:26.580
core correlates with a couple of specific events.
00:37:29.420
And one of them is widespread adaptation of the smartphone.
00:37:32.520
And so, you know, these that when you when you feel like you cannot avoid or that this
00:37:39.120
good thing that you like also carries with it this kind of poison pill in the middle of
00:37:43.480
it that that plays on your insecurities, that plays on your emotions, that touches sometimes
00:37:57.480
Social media idealism collides with human nature.
00:38:16.360
A couple of weeks ago, I I read a great article from Charles Duhigg, and he's the author of
00:38:26.240
And it was the articles about how we're all angry and we're all outraged.
00:38:31.880
And and what struck me as so interesting is he quoted a study that came out in the 1970s
00:38:40.520
of a guy who was doing an anger study and found out that there's there's good anger and bad
00:38:48.500
And when anger gets out of control, it just burns everything down.
00:38:53.680
And we are now into that what I would call addicted to anger, addicted to hate, addicted
00:39:02.400
And how do we pull that back and still recognize that there are things that people should be
00:39:09.360
angry about, that, you know, that we're not angry for invalid reasons, per se.
00:39:17.360
We just don't have a control of our anger anymore.
00:39:20.860
And we're not doing anything positive about it.
00:39:31.560
So first of all, tell everybody about the study that happened in the 1970s and what what
00:39:38.720
So a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst sent a survey to everyone living in
00:39:46.580
And he asked this basic question, well, think of the last time you were angry and tell me
00:39:55.480
And he found that dozens, hundreds of people actually responded to this thing.
00:39:59.720
And what they did is they described when the last time they had become furious and what
00:40:04.940
And what he expected, the academic, was that they would say, look, I'm really sorry I got
00:40:17.020
People said that when they got angry, when they shouted at the person who was driving
00:40:23.000
That not only did it feel good to be able to communicate what was bothering them, but
00:40:29.180
That all of a sudden they started taking their concerns seriously and they would sit down and
00:40:34.680
And this is actually what we know about anger, that for the most part, when anger is expressed
00:40:39.760
interpersonally from one person to another, it actually helps tamp down tensions rather
00:40:45.720
than exacerbate them because it's this very dense form of communication.
00:40:49.280
It forces us to listen to each other and to try and come to some type of resolution, a catharsis
00:40:55.600
of what's bothering someone in the first place.
00:40:57.880
So then how has this cycle turned into this where it is only increasing anger?
00:41:09.640
You can see people screaming at each other and they are not listening.
00:41:15.280
And there's a couple of problems going on right now.
00:41:18.120
The first is that when you think about anger nowadays, so much of it is expressed online
00:41:23.280
or it's expressed on the screen, right, over a news station.
00:41:28.340
And as a result, the people who are the focus of that anger, they're not listening.
00:41:35.180
And their reaction is to punch back rather than to take seriously what the person is saying.
00:41:41.740
Another part of the problem is that in the last 20 years, there's been this huge group
00:41:47.260
of professionals, the outrage merchants who exist now to fan the flames of this anger.
00:42:03.580
One political professional told me that the way you win campaigns now is through fear and
00:42:08.920
anger, because that's the surest thing to get people into the voting booth.
00:42:12.700
But the third thing that's happened is that anger only works when you think it's going
00:42:18.160
When people stop believing that the system is functioning well, that it's working for
00:42:22.400
them, then that anger actually becomes this desire for revenge.
00:42:26.360
You're not interested in having the other side hear what you have to say.
00:42:29.740
You're interested in beating them, being victorious over them, vanquishing them.
00:42:35.680
And when that happens, anger is no longer a productive, healthy force in our lives.
00:42:39.940
It becomes something that that despoils, that corrupts and and corones.
00:42:50.460
And a lot of people, when they talk about this, they look at politics right now, right?
00:42:53.800
They say they look at, you know, whether you're you're a supporter or not at the White House.
00:42:58.540
And they say the president fans the flames of anger.
00:43:01.340
But it's it's a mistake to say that we're angry right now just because of who's occupying
00:43:06.840
This is something that has been building for the last 15 years.
00:43:10.600
And we were is someone who uses that anger effectively.
00:43:16.720
So this is I just I love this article, Charles, because I thought you just nailed it.
00:43:22.320
But it is, you know, I say to people all the time, you know, there was a time of people
00:43:31.640
Imagine a world where Glenn Beck is hit by a bus or a falling safe right now.
00:43:38.640
Donald Trump, Barack Obama, they're killed by a bus.
00:43:52.300
And and when when he leaves office, somebody else is going to be doing it.
00:44:04.520
Well, I think a big part of it is is two things.
00:44:06.960
First of all, to recognize the reason why people are so angry right now is that they feel
00:44:10.900
like the systems in there that surround them have stopped working.
00:44:15.080
The psychologists and sociologists refer to this as procedural justice.
00:44:19.820
We don't feel the need to take justice into our own hands when we feel like our courts
00:44:24.120
are working well, our economy is working well, our elections are working well.
00:44:27.880
But, you know, ever since the financial crisis, there are wide swaths of this nation who saw
00:44:33.180
banks got bailed out and they didn't have any relief from homeowners.
00:44:37.400
For on the left, you have folks who saw an election occur where their candidate won the
00:44:44.640
That undermines your faith in these institutions like the economy and our democracy.
00:44:50.020
And as a result, that makes people angry, but also makes them feel powerless.
00:44:53.220
So, Charles, I was I was anger won't accomplish it.
00:44:55.780
I was so afraid this morning because I was reading some articles about Harvey Weinstein that they
00:45:03.060
thought it was going to they were going to dismiss the charges today and not take him to court.
00:45:08.520
And I thought, if that happens, what do what do so many people in America now say there is
00:45:20.080
And the fact that after the financial crisis and no one from Wall Street really went to jail,
00:45:25.060
right, it feels it feels completely infuriating and it makes you feel powerless.
00:45:30.220
And what do you do when you're angry and powerless?
00:45:34.580
You start cheering for the guy who seems to say, you know, the system is rigged.
00:45:38.960
We just need to burn it all down that we need to drain the swamp.
00:45:42.480
It's not surprising what's going on in Washington, D.C. right now, because the the preconditions
00:45:51.860
And the first thing we do is we reinvigorate those institutions.
00:45:55.800
We make sure that the courts hold people like Harvey Weinstein and Wall Street accountable.
00:46:00.540
We make sure that democracy isn't being undermined by foreign actors or by a system that seems
00:46:10.720
There's a really interesting experiment that was done in Israel where they were able to take
00:46:14.160
some of the angriest people and make them more tolerant by essentially holding up a
00:46:18.840
mirror to them and showing them what you're saying is so extremist.
00:46:25.740
That is right now Facebook and Twitter for many of us.
00:46:30.900
And if they say crazy things, stop following them.
00:46:34.840
We have to take responsibility for managing our own anger.
00:46:37.700
And we have to set an example for our kids and our siblings and our spouses.
00:46:42.060
We have to become the less angry change we hope to see in this nation.
00:46:47.180
I applaud you for this article and the way you handled it, because nowhere in the article
00:46:53.000
did I see you take on one side without, in the very next paragraph, taking on the other
00:46:57.700
Um, and I thought that was, I thought that was, um, really good and healthy because that's
00:47:04.420
not, that's not what we're getting on either side.
00:47:07.800
We're not getting people saying here it is over on the right.
00:47:16.660
You know, some of the commentary on Twitter about this article is people saying, why do
00:47:20.840
you keep on letting the Republicans off the hook?
00:47:22.800
Or why do you keep on letting the Democrats off the hook?
00:47:24.860
But the truth of the matter is, you know, this politics of anger, it was perfected by
00:47:33.280
President Obama, President Obama's motto, change we can believe in, was a really subtle
00:47:40.540
It's saying change, not like all those other people who lied to you.
00:47:44.280
And obviously, President Trump uses anger very, very effectively.
00:47:52.440
This is not a problem that gets solved by blaming one side.
00:47:55.880
It's a problem that gets solved by people coming together and saying, and I've used
00:48:06.540
It's the people who come together and say, look, we understand that compromise is part of
00:48:13.200
We just want to find people who are willing to speak to each other civilly, because we
00:48:17.440
know that's where the best compromises come from.
00:48:19.400
And radicalism and fanaticism, it has never done this nation well, whether it comes from
00:48:25.120
the left or the right, it never ends up being in a good place.
00:48:30.160
I was struck by your part on Cesar Chavez on trying to put the anger back into the bottle,
00:48:43.400
You know, people think that Gandhi went on to a hunger strike, you know, to stop the injustice.
00:48:48.880
No, he was trying to put anger back into the bottle of his own supporters.
00:49:01.340
Do you see the leaders that are willing to self-destruct for, to help put the anger back
00:49:12.860
I think that there are leaders like that right now.
00:49:15.800
I think that they're, I think that they're out of favor, frankly.
00:49:19.260
So I think that they are making some self-sacrifices and we tend not to appreciate them for those
00:49:26.480
I mean, just look at the number of people who have retired from the Republican Party and
00:49:32.920
I think a lot of those people are folks who said, look, either I want to take a stand,
00:49:36.860
like Jeff Flake, right, who, whether you disagree or agree with him, he clearly was
00:49:41.620
saying, I want to speak out when I don't have to.
00:49:44.480
Or there's other folks like Paul Ryan, who I think has said, look, I'm just not willing
00:49:48.680
to participate in this, what I need to become in order to succeed.
00:49:54.240
But the truth of the matter is that when you're dealing with an angry group, they tend to not
00:50:01.060
I mean, that's why it's called a sacrifice, right?
00:50:02.680
Even Cesar Chavez or Gandhi at the time, they came under intense criticism for the actions
00:50:09.500
they took to try and tamp down on the anger of their followers.
00:50:13.640
It's only in retrospect, oftentimes, that we see it as a selfless act.
00:50:17.960
And I guess to your point, I think one of the things we could do right now, and look,
00:50:21.700
there's plenty of people listening who disagree deeply with Paul Ryan or with Jeff Flake or
00:50:27.380
with others on the left who have stepped down from office rather than in order to sort of
00:50:33.140
sacrifice their career for something bigger than themselves.
00:50:36.060
I think whether you agree or disagree with him, we ought to have a space in our vocabulary
00:50:40.460
to say, I respect that these are public servants.
00:50:43.520
I respect that these are people who've spent their lives trying to help others.
00:50:47.480
And even though I disagree with them, I respect that they are at least stepping down or sacrificing
00:50:53.780
for something that they think will make the world a better place.
00:50:57.400
And though I disagree with them, I am going to respect that act.
00:51:02.580
We are so jaded and so not trusting of people's motives that it's hard to get there.
00:51:21.360
And the article is worth, is really worth your time.
00:51:24.880
He does, I think he's probably on the left because I always think everybody is on the left.
00:51:34.660
But when you read his article, he takes both sides on really hard.
00:51:39.580
And you may not agree with, you know, his political philosophy, although I didn't see it there.
00:51:46.600
You should listen to the research that he's pointing out and the history, the marks of history