The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 138 ｜ Why Would a Lefty Talk to Glenn Beck？｜ Monica Guzman

00:00:00.000 A lot of people talk about bridging the political divide, but actually doing something about it is

00:00:05.880 a different story. Journalists especially are bad about it. They whine about political division,

00:00:11.980 even though they're one of the biggest causes of it, in my opinion. As a journalist and a thinker,

00:00:18.580 today's guest is the exception. She takes a unique approach, curiosity, honest questioning.

00:00:26.780 She wants to reclaim curiosity. Now, she's a former Neiman Fellow, host of Northwest Newsmakers.

00:00:34.520 She's from Seattle. I mean, it would sound like we have something in common there, but it pretty much

00:00:41.060 stops there. We disagree probably on most things, except what we're going to talk about today.

00:00:49.840 And I think that's the most important thing we can talk about. She's the digital director of

00:00:55.200 Storytelling at Braver Angels. That's a grassroots organization dedicated to bridging the partisan

00:01:00.580 divide. A lot of people talk about that, but how do you actually do it and keep your principles?

00:01:08.100 She does tell stories in her new book. I never thought of it that way. She tells the stories

00:01:14.300 that Americans need to hear. She also came highly recommended by a friend and network regular,

00:01:20.080 Bridget Phetasy. So I know she will be great. It's a fascinating conversation where two people

00:01:28.880 that don't see eye to eye on most things, can they find their way to each other? Please welcome

00:01:35.560 Monica Guzman. Let me talk to you about abortion. Without arguing about it, there are things we can do

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00:03:28.060 preborn.com slash Glenn. Hi, Monica. Hi, Glenn. How are you? I'm very good. We're both

00:03:48.200 from Seattle, or at least you live in Seattle now. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. And a lot of the

00:03:56.640 things that you talk about in your book are just the way I was raised and the way it used to be. And

00:04:04.240 I don't know why it's not like that anymore. So why don't we start with the election 2016. This is how

00:04:15.300 you open the book. And I think it's a great way to describe where we are. Yeah, the election 2016 in

00:04:22.740 Seattle, a very blue place politically. I remember the day after the city fell dead. Lots of folks were

00:04:30.700 completely shocked and stunned almost outside of ourselves. And pretty soon after that, I would go to

00:04:39.820 events in Seattle, you know, networking events, get togethers, what have you. And I would hear people

00:04:44.840 talk about the latest thing that really scared them about Trump being president about some headline,

00:04:52.380 something that was just ah, and inevitably, the conversation would wind its way to who's to blame.

00:05:00.560 And it's people who voted for Trump. Now, my parents are Mexican immigrants who voted for Trump. I am

00:05:10.120 also a Mexican immigrant, we became citizens in the year 2000. And, whoa, boy, we've had a roller coaster

00:05:15.740 of time together where we've gotten to talk about our differences. But whenever I heard this, at the

00:05:22.360 events I was in, you know, people being scared, people thinking, these people who voted for Trump

00:05:28.520 must be, must be awful people, I felt personally implicated. And I thought, but, but they're not

00:05:36.040 y'all, y'all don't know, my parents are not these things. They're not. And, and if we could, if we could

00:05:42.760 talk to each other, past the fears we have, maybe the anxiety we're feeling, maybe it wouldn't be placed

00:05:50.340 on our fellow Americans, maybe there'd be some other way that we could think about it.

00:05:54.200 And so I wanted to download all of that to them. But of course, I couldn't, right? It's just a quick

00:06:00.040 conversation. So what I would sit there and hope for is, well, what I would do is I would say,

00:06:04.940 I'd find a moment, I, you know, I'd find a moment to say, well, my parents are Mexican immigrants who

00:06:11.200 voted for Trump. And I sort of called it like my unintentional party trick, because conversation

00:06:16.360 would just stop. Because it's obviously surprising. And people would look at me. And my heart would

00:06:23.300 start to beat, right? Because I'm thinking, what are they thinking? Are they looking at me with

00:06:26.940 suspicion? You know, are we going to change the subject? But a lot of times I would sit and ask,

00:06:33.200 would somebody ask me why? Would somebody get curious about why they voted for Trump?

00:06:39.320 That's what I would hope for. How often did that happen?

00:06:43.200 I would say, honestly, maybe like 70% of the time.

00:06:47.980 Good.

00:06:48.180 Not too bad. Now, but did it always happen in that big open conversation? No. Sometimes it would be

00:06:54.700 someone would find me later and say, hey, by the way, you said your parents voted for Trump? I,

00:07:00.340 why? How? What happened? And my parents are awesome enough that they've given me leave to represent,

00:07:07.440 you know, a little bit of their story as I can. And so I would give them some of their reasons and

00:07:11.720 they'd go, oh, okay. Okay. You know? Yeah. And, and it felt almost like an obligation because in

00:07:19.180 Seattle, I know a lot of people who don't know anyone really who voted for Trump, anyone close

00:07:25.460 to them. So I almost felt like I was representing, you know, somebody they did not know. And I could be

00:07:30.900 the reason that they would question their own assumptions.

00:07:33.360 In New York, liberals assume everybody in the room is like them. In Texas, conservatives assume

00:07:41.060 everybody in the room is like them. And we don't, there is no discovery. There is no,

00:07:49.380 there's no questioning. There's no room for any kind of diversity. I mean, we're having diversity

00:07:58.380 shoved down our throat when it doesn't really even mean diversity because we don't embrace diversity

00:08:05.540 of the most important kind thought. Yeah. There's a, there's a thinker, Ibu Patel, um, who, who says

00:08:13.760 something that, that gave me sort of an aha moment, what I call an, I never thought of it that way

00:08:18.200 moment. Um, and I watched him give a talk about this and he said, it's not just the diversity you like.

00:08:24.740 Yes. It's not just the diversity you like. And, and at that time I was feeling, you know, the sense

00:08:32.700 of, man, we, we do talk about diversity in this society, rightly so. We, we've got to be mixing

00:08:38.260 it up to make sure that we, that our perspectives stay rich and combined and that we are a society,

00:08:44.320 you know, that disagrees, that figures it out, that negotiates. But that means that, that does mean

00:08:50.260 that if we are this afraid of people who disagree with us, I don't, I, if I play that out in my head,

00:08:57.620 I don't know how that leads us to a good place. So here's, maybe you can help me figure a few

00:09:02.740 things out. Um, it, it kills me that both sides are afraid of fascism, but they don't recognize the

00:09:09.660 fascist in their own side. You know, I've heard, I've heard so many conservatives who are like,

00:09:16.040 we just got to get rid of these people. And you're like, what do you mean get rid of these?

00:09:20.260 What does that mean exactly? You know what I mean? Um, or, uh, we just, we all love the constitution,

00:09:26.260 but we got to do what we got to do. No, we don't have to do that. That's a wrong stance. So I hear

00:09:32.760 that, but I also, uh, I mean, you know, we, we had a good number of one party that said jail people

00:09:41.800 that disagreed on, uh, the COVID vaccine, uh, jail people, if you disagree on the global warming,

00:09:49.900 uh, solutions. I mean, we've had some really fascistic things. ESG is a fascistic, uh, idea

00:09:57.960 that's coming, I think from the business world. Um, why, why do we fail to see the fascism on,

00:10:06.320 on both sides? Well, I look at that a different way because that label fascist carries a lot of

00:10:16.660 power. And when I talk about curiosity, I'm talking about curiosity also about the labels that we

00:10:23.200 affix to things. So to describe something as fascist, to describe something as racist,

00:10:27.760 to describe something as whatever you want, colors it a certain way where then our society is so

00:10:34.240 polarized that you almost signal the people you should be for this or against this.

00:10:38.860 So one thing I would say is just like caution about those labels, because I mean, you know,

00:10:45.220 I think that there's a lot of ways that we can describe different things. Is fascist the best

00:10:49.880 label? I don't know. But wait, wait, wait for a second. Um, you know, Mitt Romney, when he was

00:10:56.380 running as a Republican, the Democrats said he is the devil himself. He's just horrible, horrible,

00:11:00.980 horrible. No, he's not. No, he's not. You know? Um, and that happens over and over and over again.

00:11:08.660 And so fascism has lost its meaning, but when you are talking about comply or else agree or else,

00:11:18.620 that is fascism. And we do have that on our doorstep.

00:11:23.560 Hmm. I do think that we, the way, the way I frame it for myself is yes, we have reached this

00:11:31.240 point where we believe we have to draw really clear, bold lines and put some people on the

00:11:36.900 other side of that line and, and just say, just say, this is intolerable. The, the problem is there's

00:11:44.120 a lot of social science research that's telling us that we are grossly exaggerating the views on our

00:11:49.180 other side. Correct. And when we exaggerate them and then believe the exaggerations, guess what?

00:11:54.540 We're not living in reality. So we're just not. So I, uh, you know, I, I travel the country. I assume

00:12:02.040 you travel the country. The country is not as divided as it is seen. Okay. Um, it's just not. Um, however,

00:12:11.280 um, I think the problem is as an immigrant, you, you might recognize this more than, than others.

00:12:19.700 Um, our unum has been lost from many one and E pluribus unum, our unum, what brought people to

00:12:30.500 America in the first place was the constitution. I'm sorry, the bill of rights that you have certain

00:12:38.980 God-given rights that no government or anybody else can change. And we always had that in common,

00:12:45.440 but we don't have that in common anymore. So when, when we're talking about issues, and I mean,

00:12:52.580 I have, I have conservative friends who tell me, yeah, well, you know, the, the fourth amendment,

00:13:00.080 you know, we've got to do the things. No, no. You either believe in the bill of rights or you don't.

00:13:06.260 And we don't have an America. If we don't have the bill of rights, we're not talking about

00:13:13.500 actual rights. We're deciding whether you have a right to speak because I disagree with you

00:13:20.380 or if, if I should be shut up because I disagree with so-and-so, neither of us should be shut up.

00:13:27.500 Isn't that our common ground that we should be seeking?

00:13:34.940 I think so. But I would add this, uh, the, you know, the complications of it, of course,

00:13:41.480 is how is the anxiety in the world right now? I'm sure you feel it. I feel it. People feel it in

00:13:47.580 their families. We're, we're not inviting people to Thanksgiving anymore. You know, we're breaking up

00:13:52.560 relationships with people who give our lives meaning over the anxiety that we feel about

00:13:57.840 the time we're in and the high stakes of so many of our policies, especially when our political

00:14:04.440 identity, you know, it's, it's who we are for, for a lot of people. It's really become who we are.

00:14:09.900 So when someone disagrees with our opinion, it, it feels like they are invalidating us, you know?

00:14:16.600 So, so I want to be, uh, I want to acknowledge that because in, in a climate of fear, you know,

00:14:23.380 when we're afraid we seek certainty and certainty is the arch villain of curiosity. Amen.

00:14:30.360 So, so once you, right. But, but, but again, it's like, I understand why people go to certainty

00:14:36.040 because when we're afraid, we can't just be sitting back going, I don't know. Let me ask a lot of

00:14:40.000 questions. No, you can't wonder about what, about something you think is out to get you.

00:14:44.340 You're going to want to run away. You're going to want to shut them out.

00:14:47.980 But that's the, that's the animal man. If we're going to survive, we have to be able to fight the

00:14:54.840 animal man to be able to say, look, um, yeah, there are scary things out there, but are you scary?

00:15:04.220 Are you scary? Um, you know, I, I have tried for years to have conversations with people on the left

00:15:12.480 and you can't get it. And if anyone comes on my show, I mean, you'll see the wrath of everybody,

00:15:19.760 um, uh, for, for, how can you possibly talk to that guy? Um, it's, I hear that we get nowhere.

00:15:28.520 We get nowhere if we can't talk to each other because you, we may, we may leave disagreeing on

00:15:34.980 really important things. However, we at least understand one another and see the other as

00:15:42.100 having a right to exist and to speak and to be my neighbor. Right. Right. And, and I'll, I'll point

00:15:50.200 this out. You know, you said I've had people, I've had tried to have conversations on the left. They

00:15:54.560 won't do it. And I would say that's a lot of certainty. So I talk about in the book,

00:15:58.920 uh, it's a lot of trying over years, but it is getting better. But, but, but think of it this

00:16:04.600 way, right? I talk in the book about the conditions for a curious conversation. And one of the most

00:16:08.300 important is something I call containment, you know, on your show, this is a public platform

00:16:13.640 with a lot of people listening, the less contained a conversation to the people actually participating

00:16:18.720 in it, the less honest and open people feel they can be. And the more they'll be tempted to

00:16:23.680 perform their views, you know, rather than actually put them out there and vulnerably explore

00:16:28.480 with someone else. So you, you, you bring in a lot of conditions that get in the way of

00:16:33.460 people really being honest and, and that's just human nature. Right. So, so I talk about,

00:16:39.340 you know, conversations on social media. Yeah. It might be really tough to really get somewhere,

00:16:45.140 especially if you have an invisible audience of who knows how many people who are seeing your

00:16:50.960 Twitter thread or your Facebook page. Like we almost never stop and think how weird it is.

00:16:55.900 That's so much about, of our opinion exchange happens on platforms where we don't know who's

00:17:01.620 listening or what they think about it. And that's weird, but we've made it normal. So it's the one

00:17:07.800 on one conversations where no one's tempted to perform. There's no one else around. You really

00:17:12.760 can say, you know, I just want to understand this is confounding. Can we talk about it? That's where,

00:17:19.400 that's where the likelihood is highest. So, um, I, I, I completely agree with you. Um, the only reason,

00:17:27.360 uh, the only reason I feel some urgency on this, um, is, uh, because this has been going on for a long

00:17:36.040 time and I, I'm a student of history and what was really interesting to me about 2006, um, I started

00:17:45.000 seeing this kind of trend towards, towards this and maybe 2004 even. And, uh, as I was doing some

00:17:54.960 research on some other things and spent some time researching the Holocaust, et cetera, et cetera,

00:18:00.580 the thing that I noticed in all those who saved Jews was about 80% of them said, well, this is my Jew.

00:18:10.140 This, this is, I know these people. So they didn't say all Jews are fine. They said, no, I know this one.

00:18:19.520 And so this one, this group, um, and that's a very big difference between what's what we're doing to a

00:18:29.280 group of people is wrong. And, and I worry that our private conversations, cause we all know somebody

00:18:37.120 that voted differently. And we say, well, no, they're my parents. I know them cause they're my

00:18:42.640 parents. Um, but that doesn't, that doesn't save the world. You know what I mean? It doesn't,

00:18:50.360 it's a beginning. So how do we, it is a beginning. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. I think that it's a practice.

00:18:56.380 This is a practice. Uh, at this point, you know, I, I work at a nonprofit called braver angels,

00:19:01.700 which is the largest cross partisan nonprofit working to depolarize America. I've talked to a

00:19:07.320 lot. I'm liberal. I've talked with a lot of conservatives, a lot of libertarians. And the

00:19:11.720 more that I do it, the easier it gets, the more that I do it, the less that the assuming part of

00:19:19.320 my mind gets away with allowing me to make blanket conclusions about a bunch of people. I don't know.

00:19:25.720 Yeah. Because every person surprises me. So after long enough of that, I go, well,

00:19:33.700 what the heck am I doing? Making blanket assumptions about groups of people? I don't know.

00:19:36.960 Right. Especially at a time like this. Now, you know, one could argue at a time that isn't so wound up,

00:19:44.180 you know, where, where all these institutions seem to be driving us apart. Maybe we'd have a

00:19:49.960 healthier, discursive ecosystem. And, and, and this wouldn't be, our divisions wouldn't be so blinding,

00:19:56.280 right? But right now our divisions are blinding. And so I say, we have to counteract them. We have

00:20:01.160 to proactively counteract them. Um, to your point, it's true. I mean, what, what you said about,

00:20:05.640 you know, my Jew or my supporter is, is well taken. And it, and it really, um, it, it, it speaks to

00:20:13.240 the fact that relationships are so powerful and that's where I, that's where I go. My goodness,

00:20:19.260 the pandemic really, really time like this, we had to literally be afraid of being with each other

00:20:27.060 because it would literally maybe kill us. Oh, you could not have created a worse. No. And you created

00:20:35.020 paranoia that still is here. I mean, it's, it's, it was the worst thing that could have happened.

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00:21:37.100 life.com slash back. You know, I, I, I saw your work, um, with your, um, better angels or braver

00:21:46.440 angels. Um, and, uh, I, I want to know when we come together. Um, cause I, I saw one instance where,

00:21:59.180 uh, the, one of the founders said, you know, we just need to compromise. And I think there's a lot of

00:22:05.520 people really honestly on both sides that say, no, I won't compromise. Um, and there's, there's

00:22:14.260 reasonable compromise. And then there's, um, unreasonable. And I don't know what the different,

00:22:21.040 I mean, I know what I'm, I refuse to compromise on. And that are, those are the principles outlined

00:22:27.580 in the bill of rights. I'll compromise on everything else. I mean, let's talk about it.

00:22:33.020 But those things, when you go in against the individual and say, any individual doesn't have

00:22:41.680 these rights for any reason, no, but everything else is up for discussion. So go ahead. Yeah.

00:22:50.700 Do you think that that's the, the question that comes to mind when you say that is, do you think

00:22:54.700 that that's the perception of, of, cause, cause I, let me, let me step back. I think that, that,

00:23:01.900 that if each of us were to be really honest about, I'm willing to have conversations about all these

00:23:06.360 things, but not these little things over here, not little, but that they're big, but they're here.

00:23:10.520 Yeah. Um, if we all were honest about each other, we would recognize that, oh, wow, there's actually

00:23:16.500 a lot on the table that we can talk about. Yeah. But the perception is the opposite. The perception

00:23:21.680 is that no one wants to compromise about anything. And it's not, it's just not true. Correct. Um,

00:23:27.760 but, but wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, but, but compromising on principles is a problem.

00:23:35.740 Yeah. Okay. I hear, yeah, I hear that. I think, I think that's right. Um, I, I have a chapter in the

00:23:40.800 book about values. One of the phrases that I hear a lot when people say, I can't have, I cannot talk to

00:23:48.700 people if they're on the left, I cannot talk to people on the right and vice versa is they don't

00:23:52.540 share my values. They don't share my values and therefore I'm done. I got nothing. I can't,

00:23:58.280 I can't open up to them. But here, but, but here's the thing. Um, we do share our values. We just stack

00:24:06.760 them in a different order for different issues. And that, when I realized that it changed the game for me

00:24:15.660 because, because it gets easy to think, for example, that a lot of our fellow Americans are

00:24:24.980 against freedom. But when you really stop and think about that for a moment, who's against freedom?

00:24:32.200 Nobody's against freedom. It's just that maybe in the case of the COVID vaccine, some people have,

00:24:38.580 you know, lots of people have a value that comes ahead of liberty that they think is really important

00:24:44.820 and leads them to support vaccine mandates, for example. Right. Um, and in the case of,

00:24:50.500 I don't know, abortion, right. You've got, you've got the, the, the life. I mean, we all like, yes,

00:24:56.380 of course we all have a value for respecting life, but we also have a value for respecting, uh, you know,

00:25:02.040 somebody's, uh, right to thrive and live the way they want to freely. So, so it's wicked issues,

00:25:08.180 put values into tension, you know, and it's tempting to think, well, if we just did this,

00:25:14.900 I'd be happy. Well, that's great, but you're just one person and we're millions of people. It's,

00:25:21.000 we, we have to, the only way that we can figure out the best balance in our policy to, to, to negotiate

00:25:27.820 how our values come into tension is if we talk to each other. So if we say, I won't talk to them

00:25:33.400 because they don't endorse my principles, even that it's like, are you sure? Are we sure?

00:25:40.340 Well, let's, can we take those two? Let's have a discussion on those two things. Um, because, um,

00:25:46.340 but first of all, both of those are extraordinarily difficult. I mean, these are, you know, especially

00:25:53.420 abortion. There is, I have three daughters. I, I mean, I, my daughter is raped or has a, uh, you know,

00:26:02.640 whatever I am. I, I, the last thing I want her to do is to go through something that is traumatizing

00:26:12.200 her over and over and over again. So I don't want to judge anyone in any situation. However,

00:26:20.420 I have to look at life and define life. And I might define that differently than you,

00:26:27.780 but I should not be condemned for, for defining that. And you shouldn't be condemned if you're

00:26:36.820 willing to say, yes, I know it's life, but okay. Then you have an honest conversation and we can say,

00:26:45.340 we just disagree on this. And you know, I have no problem if California wants to do what they want

00:26:52.220 to do, but don't force Texas to do something. You know what I mean? If you're living in a group of

00:26:58.820 people that's that they're, they're, they're, they're, their ideas match, that's totally fine.

00:27:05.560 In my opinion. Um, uh, but we can't, we can't have that conversation because we're either baby killers

00:27:16.420 or we're evil conservatives that don't care about women. Neither one of those are true.

00:27:23.020 Exactly. Exactly. And yet the loudest voices are the ones, you know, I don't just want to say,

00:27:30.020 you know, on the extremes. No, the loudest voices are, are the folks who care the most and for whom

00:27:36.000 the alternative is to what they want is just not acceptable. You know, so people will stop at nothing

00:27:42.260 the more that they care. And that's good. That's good for our democracy. It is great.

00:27:47.540 What's bad is when it's not balanced out by enough of us who are able to, to, to bridge,

00:27:54.160 to build the bridge, to have the conversations instead, what we're seeing, Oh, and this, I don't

00:27:58.800 know if this disturbs you as much as it disturbs me, but there's been some recent reporting about

00:28:02.780 how our blue zip codes are getting bluer and our red zip codes are getting redder. And why?

00:28:07.640 Because we, we don't want to be uncomfortable in our lives. We want to live in places that we think

00:28:12.240 accept us. And the more that we draw lines against other people and make people feel like they can't

00:28:16.440 be themselves when they disagree politically with their community, guess what? Yeah. We're dividing

00:28:20.720 ourselves. Yeah. And that's human nature and that's human nature. Yeah. It is. Um, yeah,

00:28:26.300 but that's because we have, um, we have gone through, uh, 15 years of, of, um, being told that we are one

00:28:38.800 thing when we are not, and no one is actually talking about the truth. And, you know, you just

00:28:45.260 brought up the extremes on, on each side. There are extremes on the, uh, the right. I, because I look

00:28:54.520 at, I don't look at right and left like Europe does. I would say they're on the left, but the fascists

00:29:00.980 on the, the very, you know, the white supremacist fascist Nazis, um, I don't want anything to do

00:29:07.660 with them. And I think that there are the anarchists and the, I'm going to burn the city

00:29:12.920 of Portland down to the ground on the left. And I don't think, I don't think any more than maybe 10 or

00:29:19.660 maybe, maybe 15% of the nation relates to those people. Not even, not even that. I hope not. Right.

00:29:28.900 I mean, I don't think so. I think I'm being generous, but yeah, it's those people that, um,

00:29:35.880 we're made to look like you're made to look like. Right. And it doesn't seem that there's anyone in

00:29:41.720 the press that cares to do anything about that. Oh yeah. And being in the press, I, I know I,

00:29:48.640 I completely empathize with that. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up because, because here's

00:29:52.820 the thing is like, what happens in the world matters. Our perception and interpretation of

00:29:58.620 what happens in the world matters more. So what we have done is we've taken the stories of that

00:30:05.680 small extreme minority that is most scary, and we've blown it up in our heads to take up a lot more

00:30:11.600 space than they deserve. And we do this on both sides. And then that becomes our reality. That becomes

00:30:17.940 what, what actually motivates our behaviors. And of course the media, you know, the, you know,

00:30:22.900 this, right. The media reflects the public. It has to, it reflects the public's perceptions and

00:30:28.920 perspectives. Now, you know, having been for many years, a journalist who takes very seriously,

00:30:33.800 the discipline of fact that, that exists at the core of responsible journalism. I know lots of

00:30:40.420 journalists who absolutely want to change this. They are fighting against some incentives

00:30:46.620 in the economics of media that just, the wall is so thick. I mean, my goodness, right? So, so I think

00:30:54.800 about that sometimes that if you pluck, if you pluck a particular journalist, right, if you just go

00:30:58.980 one by one and you ask them, do you enjoy these divided times? Do you love how the media is

00:31:04.700 contributing to this polarization, the way we feel each other? None of them like it, right? And yet it,

00:31:10.660 it, but the system remains and the same with politicians. I've interviewed members of Congress

00:31:15.000 who one-on-one will tell me, I can't even govern this. This is terrible, you know, but there they are

00:31:21.660 in Congress playing the game.

00:31:23.880 But doesn't that, doesn't that go back to where we started though? That's an individual thing. I mean, I,

00:31:30.340 the, the right makes fun of me for this and I stand by it. Um, my people in my own company say,

00:31:37.240 oh, those were the years of the Glenn's apology tour. And that's when I was willing to go back to

00:31:43.400 people and say, look, I will admit this, this, and this poorly handled, stupidly phrased or wrong.

00:31:53.580 I'll admit those things, but that's what we have to do on both sides. And no one was willing to pick

00:32:03.240 up that challenge because the, because the, um, the, the consequences were too grave.

00:32:12.720 Yeah. It's humility. Oh man. Right. The, the, the association between humility and weakness

00:32:18.980 is so strong when the stakes are so high. And when we've set up this binary and each side thinks,

00:32:25.400 you know, you've probably seen the polls, right? Each side thought that if the other side won,

00:32:28.920 it would be like the end of the nation. I get an incredibly high number of people thought that,

00:32:33.000 right. So, so yeah, it, humility is a, is a difficult thing, is a difficult thing to take

00:32:42.100 on individually, particularly again, if, if it's public, if it's not contained, you know,

00:32:48.180 we all want to belong. And what if we're on social media and something somebody says actually

00:32:53.000 makes us think different. We're not going to admit it. Oh no. Because you know, my sister or my friend

00:32:57.820 might see, right. But, but, but we, we, we, we have this belief that if we veer away, if we begin

00:33:05.960 to explore on our convictions, then we've lost any convictions, then we're done. And we don't know who

00:33:11.780 we are anymore. We don't know where we belong. We have to be, we have to be part of the side where

00:33:15.780 we're accepted and, and, and veering away from that is just too scary. And what I would say is why,

00:33:21.000 why is that so scary? Right. Especially, quite honestly, you become very frightening to a lot

00:33:28.380 of people when you don't care, you know, you don't care about the consequences of this group

00:33:38.380 of people not liking you anymore. Well, we won't be your friends. Well, then you shouldn't have been

00:33:43.300 my friends in the first place. I'm sorry. I was your friend. If that's what you thought

00:33:47.180 that we all had to think alike to be friends. Yeah. Yeah. But, but let's be honest, you know,

00:33:54.100 that, that takes courage. Cause again, it's like, there's nothing more primitive and essential to the

00:33:59.060 human experience than feeling connected. And like, we belong to a group. And when we lose that,

00:34:04.880 I've talked to folks who have changed their minds in enormous ways, really taken big swings,

00:34:10.740 lost their communities. It can be so painful. I think in your experience, you've experienced some of

00:34:16.540 that. It's like, it can be so painful when people look at you and think, Oh no, are they betraying

00:34:22.520 something? Are they betraying their values by talking to the other side? Are they betraying

00:34:26.100 their values by getting humble or exploring perspective? You know, what I would say is I,

00:34:30.440 when, when we're so divided that we're blinded, we're betraying our values when we don't get curious

00:34:35.720 and humble. That's what we're doing because we're, we're actually allowing false perceptions to,

00:34:42.960 to become effective reality. If you have been to the supermarket lately and you've tried to buy

00:34:48.980 any kind of meat, we are at an all time high for meat and seafood and cooking at home and grilling

00:34:56.400 at home used to be the way to save money, but prices are up nearly 20%. And even that is going to seem

00:35:03.260 like the quaint old days. I'm a rancher myself. And, uh, I know ranchers that are just, they're

00:35:11.260 fighting for you to keep their farms alive, fighting and, and, and nickel and diming everything.

00:35:18.260 Cause it's so hard to be a farmer, hard to be a rancher. Well, I would like to introduce you to

00:35:24.920 good ranchers. This is a company that delivers delicious American meat to your door. Here's the

00:35:32.080 thing. The amount of imported beef has gone up just like inflation, but if you want 100% quality

00:35:38.820 American meat at a great price, good ranchers has you covered right now. You can get $30 off. They're

00:35:45.380 already low prices. Plus free shipping by visiting good ranchers.com slash Glenn do a one-time order

00:35:52.600 or subscribe and save an additional $25 on each box. Plus when you subscribe, your price will never go

00:35:59.960 up for the life of your subscription. You can't lock your grocery store price in like that. Can you

00:36:06.720 inflation proof your meals now with good ranchers. And if you don't buy, you know, meat in the house,

00:36:17.020 tell the person who does check them out. Good ranchers.com slash Glenn.

00:36:22.640 What's amazing to me is if you are true to what you believe, most people, I don't know if they know

00:36:29.660 what they believe, but if you're true to what you believe, um, like for instance, I really thought

00:36:36.100 Donald Trump was going to be an absolute nightmare, not for all the things he was a nightmare on all the

00:36:42.420 things that we all thought, you know, the Twitter and all of that stuff. Yep. That's who you was a,

00:36:47.640 you know, it was a circus. We got that, but I didn't think he would move the embassy to Israel,

00:36:54.020 which I find very important. I didn't think he'd do a lot of the things that he did. Um, and I was

00:37:01.000 dead set against him, but I said on the air, if he does these things, I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong.

00:37:07.380 So I betrayed people in my audience. They will say, you know, Oh, you went this way. And then halfway

00:37:15.660 through when I thought, okay, I like his policies. You know what I mean? Uh, I have to admit I was

00:37:24.200 wrong about this, this, and this, and that was a betrayal again. So if you really know what you

00:37:29.780 believe and you're honest, you will constantly betray other people who never change their mind

00:37:37.160 about anything or never take in new information. It's that's what it's all about. New information.

00:37:44.400 Yeah. Yeah. Cause we get afraid that we'll lose ourselves. I think that's one of the ultimate

00:37:50.440 fears everyone carries is, is there something about who I am that is so inextricably tied to

00:37:56.060 what I believe today that I will not be accepted if, if I let some of those, if I let some air

00:38:03.780 pass in between those beliefs. How did you come up with that? You're the only person I've ever,

00:38:09.380 cause I've said that I'm an alcoholic and the scariest thing in recovery is, is getting out of

00:38:19.160 your own pain and problems because that's what you've become. And so if you lose all that, is there

00:38:28.500 anything left inside? Is there anything? And it's terrifying. I've never heard anybody else say that.

00:38:36.340 Where did you come up with that? Where did you, how'd you find that?

00:38:40.960 What a great question. I mean, I don't know. That's the honest answer. I don't know. I don't know. I,

00:38:51.220 I, um, for me, it's about, it's about the identific, it's about the conflation of a person with an

00:38:58.640 opinion and how that keeps us from seeing the person at all. Um, you know, I talk about how,

00:39:05.120 uh, the internet is a non place that makes us into non people. If you go to social media, a lot of times

00:39:10.320 you'll see people put at the same level of their name, their cause. Yeah. When we wear, we wear our

00:39:19.900 opinions as us. Yeah. We literally dress in that, you know, what that does to our ability to think

00:39:27.660 really at all. Sometimes to, to think for ourselves, to be able to open up to other perspectives.

00:39:33.240 It, it, it, it is. I think it's, it's honestly that I was a tech columnist for many years. So now

00:39:37.580 I'm realizing, I think it was that, I think it was watching the discourse in social media. I got on

00:39:43.500 social media very early when it was so novel and everyone thought it was going to save the world and

00:39:49.120 everyone was going to connect. You remember that? Yeah. And it was, you know, I wrote columns back

00:39:53.420 then about how great it was. And then human nature eventually populated those platforms the way it

00:39:59.680 populates everything else. And we ended up making it more about performance and, and, and, and, and

00:40:05.860 signaling and belonging and creating groups, beautiful things, beautiful things, except, except at a time

00:40:11.240 of high anxiety. So, so more and more, I see people do the thing where they identify themselves so

00:40:17.160 closely with an idea that, that it's almost just like putting up a wall immediately that I am this

00:40:24.320 opinion. And then we all start to think that we are our opinions, that that's all we are instead of

00:40:29.340 which, which keeps us from getting curious about where people came from, you know, asking where

00:40:33.940 someone's come from, the path they walk to their views is one of those powerful ways to understand

00:40:39.260 where they are. And, and I talk in the book a lot about that is ask about people's paths. We often get

00:40:44.700 stuck in the opinion showdown, my opinion versus your opinion. And that's the only conversation we

00:40:49.080 can have, but, and most people can't defend their opinion very well.

00:40:56.240 Sure. That may be true. I don't know.

00:40:59.000 I have found that a lot of people don't, you can't go very deep when you start. And that's the other

00:41:05.160 thing about it. Just asking questions. When you start asking questions, a lot of times things fall

00:41:10.500 apart because they haven't, you know, your opinion is on this subject is also connected to all of

00:41:18.580 these other things that you know and believe. So how is that working? Yes. And what that means is

00:41:24.480 that we often don't, uh, we often hold an opinion that we didn't actually do all that much deliberative

00:41:31.120 work to apply that. It just came as a bundle. Correct. It's like the bundle packet. Correct.

00:41:36.040 Just bought the bundle. Right. And, and there it is. And I've heard that from a lot of folks actually

00:41:39.940 who will tell me, especially after doing some kind of brave rangers workshop is a couple of folks

00:41:43.640 have told me, you know, it helped me realize that I haven't really thought about my opinions all that

00:41:48.460 much. Yeah, they haven't. We let people like a little, yeah. We let people like me give you an

00:41:55.440 opinion. I've always said, do, do your own homework. You don't own anything except for the things that

00:42:04.380 you've done your own work to discover. I, I have done my work. So I know these things are be are true

00:42:11.860 to me until new information comes along, but you can't live off of what I've discovered. You have

00:42:20.720 to discover it. And I think people make the excuse that, well, I'm busy and they, and they are busy,

00:42:27.140 but there is nothing more important than some of the things that we're talking about right now.

00:42:31.780 Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and yeah, we are busy because that's the other thing. The social media

00:42:37.220 ethic that's really permeated how we communicate in my view also seems to promote this idea that we

00:42:43.360 all need to have an opinion about everything. And that's, there's a lot going on in the world,

00:42:48.940 you know? So, so there's got to be some limit to that. Yeah. So, so people do feel this pressure

00:42:57.600 that's like, well, I haven't had time to look into this, that, or the other thing, but I'm feeling

00:43:01.540 this pressure to have an opinion. And so fine, I'll put, I'll throw up a meme. I'll put something up.

00:43:06.720 I'll, I'll make my, I'll stake my claim, you know, because I'm being pushed to, or I feel pressured

00:43:13.080 to, but I wasn't able to get there myself, you know, but I, but I think about how we don't see with

00:43:18.740 our eyes, we see with our whole biographies, because this, this ethic of opinion also makes

00:43:24.420 us think somewhat absurdly that in the course of one conversation or one meme or one thread,

00:43:31.460 we should be able to change someone else's mind. That this reason that I'm holding in my hand,

00:43:36.380 this reason that, that worked magic on me, well, all I have to do is give it to you and it will

00:43:42.120 work the same magic on you. And when it doesn't, I'm befuddled. But actually it's like, we each have

00:43:49.040 roots going all the way down through our whole lives. Everything we've experienced, everything

00:43:53.560 we've seen, there's no way for someone else to immediately access all that. And there shouldn't

00:43:58.680 be, by the way. So we, we arrive at our opinions. If we're honest, we arrive at them. You know, it's not

00:44:05.940 like we can just choose to change them on a dime. Do you think that comes from, uh, the wanting to

00:44:15.980 win or, you know, um, one of the things I have a problem with Christianity, um, is the idea of I've

00:44:25.260 got to get you into the waters of baptism. No, I don't need to do, I don't need to do that. And you're

00:44:31.380 not going to do that until you are prepared to do that. Here's what I want to do. I want to be your

00:44:36.600 friend. I want to love you for who you are, how you are. Um, and you might notice things that are

00:44:44.120 different in me. And then you will ask, why do you have this, whatever? And if it, if it happens to be

00:44:51.980 because of my faith, then I will tell you that. And then you choose that. That's the only way we try

00:44:57.960 to win. We try, I've got to be friends with this person so I can get them to believe X, Y, and Z.

00:45:05.160 That's the worst thing you can do. The worst thing you can do.

00:45:09.820 Yeah. That, and that is probably one of the hardest things about,

00:45:13.080 about breaking some of these habits that we are in. Um, it, it is, I say in the book, uh, at one point

00:45:23.680 that even though I asked people, even though I told people in Seattle, well, my parents are Mexican

00:45:30.400 immigrants who voted for Trump. I love them dearly. I see them every weekend. And I would wait to see

00:45:34.100 if someone asked why, what I had a lot of a harder time telling them is, is not just that I knew some

00:45:40.280 of their reasons, but that I understood them. And that if I had been them, I would have voted for

00:45:45.560 Trump too. That was the level of understanding I had reached. But I knew that if I had, if I said

00:45:52.500 that, Oh man, I was just, I was just very afraid of what, what people's reactions would be to that.

00:45:58.520 And so I'd hold back, but, but there is a kind of, to accept a person, you don't have to agree with

00:46:05.900 them. You know, don't have to agree with them. Um, to have a relationship with a person, you don't

00:46:12.600 have to agree with them. Now, if your disagreement is something that you feel goes so against your

00:46:18.500 constitution that you can't stomach being around them. I understand. I understand that, you know,

00:46:23.920 but I would say, keep questioning your certainty about them. Um, you know, but, but, but, but this

00:46:31.880 is an individual journey for everybody. There's no formula that works the same. There's someone I have

00:46:37.160 in mind who reached out to me having never really met before, but sent me an email that, uh, their son

00:46:45.960 had just told them that they didn't want him seeing his grandkids anymore. Um, he was, he was liberal.

00:46:54.940 His son was conservative. Uh, they lived in a very conservative town and I, I talked to this person

00:47:01.020 and, and one of the things that, uh, that this, this person hadn't realized was that, uh, he was

00:47:07.420 really the only liberal in his son's life. And, and at that moment, you know, he, he thought maybe

00:47:15.260 what, maybe what his son, uh, you know, the resentment and suspicion that his son is aiming at him has more

00:47:25.300 to do with the resentment and suspicion. He's aiming at the whole group, everything he deems threatening on

00:47:30.120 the left and putting it on one person. Uh, and so that, that helped him feel a little bit better,

00:47:35.940 but, but the relationship is still pretty strained. Um, he actually emailed me again,

00:47:41.680 not that long ago, you know, things had gotten better. He was able to, to go to the grandkids

00:47:46.380 sports games and things like that at school, but then it got bad again. I mean, I've heard stories

00:47:51.340 like this a lot. Um, and it, it puts, it's very challenging for people. It's, it's really,

00:47:57.360 really hard. So let me ask you, how do you feel about what happened in Canada with the truckers?

00:48:05.140 Oh, uh, what part, um, that they went, they protested by most accounts. Um, they were peaceful,

00:48:16.340 uh, and they had an emergency order. Uh, they lost their trucks, their farms, et cetera, et cetera.

00:48:24.660 Yeah. And bank accounts were frozen at one point. Oh yeah. And they still are. They still are.

00:48:30.680 Yeah. I mean, let me tell you, I'm, I'm here in Washington, DC yesterday. I went with my parents

00:48:36.380 to the Smithsonian museum of American history. Yeah. And there's a beautiful, it, it like,

00:48:42.760 I was like crying at a couple of things. I was very sentimental about it, but there's a beautiful

00:48:46.780 exhibit about democracy and, um, a section of a bit about protests and about the importance of that in

00:48:54.220 American history that, yeah, that, that even at times of, of extraordinary suspicion, you know,

00:49:00.480 the ability to go out and disrupt, disrupt each other in order to be seen is, is such an important

00:49:10.640 part of our democracy and different groups have employed a different ways. Sometimes it's more

00:49:15.520 reckless. Sometimes it's entirely wrapped in, in an ethic of nonviolence, you know, thank you,

00:49:20.660 Martin Luther King. Um, but, but it's such an important part of our thing. So, so I will say

00:49:26.240 I, I personally, this is what I'm thinking now. I could always change my mind, but, but I personally

00:49:31.600 was very concerned about, I was very concerned about the reaction to, to the, to the protest and

00:49:39.500 the truckers. So how do you, so how do we, because I, I mean, I, I mean, I've met with people

00:49:47.820 who marched in BLM. I mean, there was a shooting here, uh, in, uh, Dallas and a shooting brings real

00:49:54.940 clarity to everybody who is there and it broke down all barriers and we had an ability to talk.

00:50:00.420 And, you know, there, there are some real issues in America on, on everything, but if we can't,

00:50:06.680 if we can't express ourself and we have a, you know, nobody believes anything anymore. And I think

00:50:13.520 that's partly because of government and media shutting people up and shutting them down. You

00:50:21.580 buy conspiracy theories when nothing makes sense and you can't talk about it. Um, so the role of the

00:50:30.820 media not being a call the balls and the strikes, what I do is different. I am a, I'm a commentator.

00:50:40.840 I'm not a news source. I'm a commentator that, that there is a real role for call the balls and

00:50:49.060 the strikes and hold people accountable. But it doesn't seem anybody in journalism is willing to

00:50:54.760 do that. I, the way I see it. Okay. I think, I think people in journalism, a lot of them are wrestling

00:51:02.000 with values put into tension and absolutely. I mean, journalism has for so long been like,

00:51:08.900 of course, free speech, of course. I mean, gosh, aren't we, first of all, so grateful that we live

00:51:13.640 in the United States of America and not Russia or where I come from, Mexico. Good luck being a

00:51:18.360 journalist there and feeling like you can tell the truth, right? No, we, we have an extraordinary

00:51:23.280 tradition of journalism. And, and what I'll say is this, I don't know a single journalist, you know,

00:51:28.460 even those who really come down, you know, maybe more on, on the side of, oh my gosh, we've got to

00:51:33.280 regulate. This is crazy. Even they are doing it because they love America and they're afraid

00:51:39.980 that something has cut down to the bone. And that if we don't act, I think a lot of people are acting

00:51:47.480 out of this fear that if we don't act to, to, to, to stop certain things from being,

00:51:54.820 I don't know, from spreading, you know, like the ideas that misinformation, whatever you want to call

00:52:00.000 it, the ideas that misinformation is, is like a virus in and of itself, that it infects, if you

00:52:05.260 give it air, you know, and then we'll all come crashing down. That's the fear. And so I think

00:52:10.400 people are acting out of that fear, but not because they don't respect the value of expression.

00:52:14.680 Right. But that is like people saying, I love the constitution, but we have to do what we have to do.

00:52:19.920 No, you can't, you can't, you can't, you have to put a fire out with water. And if you are willing to

00:52:28.200 say, uh, lies on either side, if you're willing to lie to cover up or to distort your, you're part of

00:52:39.560 the problem because there's that will, that will only lead to more destruction and more distrust.

00:52:46.640 Won't it?

00:52:47.460 That's right. That's right. But, but again, it's like a lot of people are justifying not being truthful

00:52:52.500 because they think it's ultimately, it's like the ends justify the means. We're protecting

00:52:57.100 our democracy. And I would agree. I, I don't want to live in a culture that, that takes that as its

00:53:02.980 MO going forward. I would rather build a curious culture that isn't so afraid of other people and

00:53:09.720 is open to hearing. Look, if like, let's say I'm having a conversation with someone who really,

00:53:16.440 really, really, at least as far as what I know, has drawn a false conclusion, like call it whatever

00:53:21.640 you want, you know, something conspiratorial, just false. Even then, even then we think we have to

00:53:28.120 stay at the level of what's true. No, you can go and have a conversation about the level of what's

00:53:32.880 meaningful because how do I put this? I think false stories spread because, because there's something

00:53:41.980 in them that speaks to what's true for people because they might acknowledge your concern because

00:53:49.260 they might, you know, so, so the facts may be bogus. It's a Hitler trick or a, or a Stalin trick.

00:53:55.220 Speak, put the little bit of truth in and wrap it in that. Yeah. Yeah. It's propaganda 101. Yes.

00:54:03.660 The only way to defeat it is for people to listen to each other's concerns, not be turned off,

00:54:11.240 not be scared away by the fact that people have drawn false or even awful conclusions. I mean,

00:54:16.460 obviously it's scary. Obviously this is very difficult, obviously. And for some people more

00:54:21.320 than others, but when we dismiss the whole person because of a false conclusion that they've drawn,

00:54:27.780 we, we, we miss the opportunity to hear the true concerns, the real experiences, the paths that they've

00:54:36.180 walked. These are paths of our fellow Americans. There's no fake news there. You know, like these are

00:54:43.200 our experiences. Let's see them. Let's ask each other. Why does this resonate with you? Oh,

00:54:49.680 it's because of this. I kept that, that I can relate to. There's not been a single conversation

00:54:55.340 I've had with someone who I think has drawn a dubious conclusion where I did not find truth

00:54:59.420 in their story, where I did not find something relatable and common. So, so it's really about people,

00:55:07.960 you know, we're all about opinions. No, this is about people and we can't stop seeing each other.

00:55:14.660 We can't no matter what. And so, yeah, I, I let's, let's get ourselves back to a place where we can

00:55:20.760 speak to each other again. We're going to have to build some trust to do that so that the fear goes

00:55:26.020 down. How do you do that when you don't have a system of politics, social media, media,

00:55:37.220 anything that is a cultural force? How do you, how do you do that? I mean, it's one thing to be

00:55:46.580 courageous. People are courageous. They really are. They want to be good. They want to come

00:55:51.820 together. They don't, they are tired of hating everybody. They hate it. They're done with it.

00:55:58.420 But you don't feel as if you're validated at all. If you're on the right, that's the way you feel.

00:56:09.880 I'm, there's no validation at all for me being a reasonable individual that doesn't want to

00:56:17.480 overthrow the government that doesn't want everybody dead that, you know, there's no expectation.

00:56:23.500 It feels it's the expectation is you're bad. You're a Christian. So you want to just, you know,

00:56:31.720 burn crosses or what, how do we break that?

00:56:37.260 Yeah. I, you're right to point out one of the biggest disadvantages we have is a lack of shared

00:56:44.180 identity. You know, we don't, we don't have something, what it means to be an American is,

00:56:49.560 is, is, is in a really interesting debate right now. It's existential. Okay. And that,

00:56:54.340 that's going to work itself out. We're not gonna be able to force that. That's going to have to

00:56:58.320 emerge. So what I say is the way we do that is to work within our own lives and within our own

00:57:03.980 relationships. You said earlier, all of us know someone, all of us know someone. Now, when I,

00:57:09.940 when I talk about this, I often get people who say on both sides, wait a second, you know,

00:57:16.520 you want me to talk to somebody who, you know, is, is the absolute, you want me to talk to a Nazi

00:57:22.360 tomorrow? No, do not have to talk to a Nazi tomorrow. No one said that. It's just that this

00:57:28.940 is so scary that we go straight to the worst case scenario and argue that let's not argue that.

00:57:33.900 No, that's not even, no, that's dumb. Don't do that. But, but look at your own life. And if there

00:57:40.400 is someone that you have felt more distant from that, you have put distance or they've put distance

00:57:45.420 from you, can you, can you take one step closer to them? And, and the book, you know, my book has a

00:57:51.900 lot of practical tips on this, but yeah, but, but I think something that's very powerful is, you know,

00:57:59.220 to get from the level of opinion to the level of experience and say, instead of why do you believe

00:58:04.420 what you believe? Ask people, how did you come to believe what you believe? Ask them to tell you a

00:58:10.680 story. And that's very unthreatening. So long as, you know, you're not. So let's play this.

00:58:17.160 Let's play this. Let's just play this scenario out, um, with me and I'm not going to give you,

00:58:22.760 you know, answers. I just want to see, let's say I'm an uncle that you haven't seen in a long time.

00:58:28.180 And, you know, I voted for Trump and you know, I just hate them liberals. Talk to me.

00:58:36.260 Yeah. Yeah. Um, let's say, are we in person? Sure. Yeah. We're like this. We're just,

00:58:42.380 just like this. Yeah. Great. So let's say that we're in person in a, yeah. In a place where there's

00:58:47.800 time. It's not like you're on the way out the door. I wouldn't bring anything up then. Yeah. Right.

00:58:51.920 Um, yeah. So certain conditions are in place. Great. Uh, Hey, uh, uncle Glenn, do you have a minute?

00:58:58.960 Sure. Yeah. Um, so I've, I've never gotten the chance to ask you about something that I've been,

00:59:05.380 I've been pretty curious about, uh, you know, I know that you voted for Trump and, you know,

00:59:13.020 that has at times been a very confounding choice for me. Do you have, um, I really just kind of want

00:59:18.700 to hear more from you about what, yeah. About just what's behind that. Do you, do you have a minute

00:59:25.020 to talk or we can chat later? What do you think? So Monica, uh, as your uncle, I would love to have

00:59:31.520 that talk. If you're honestly curious, but if you're only having this conversation to change my

00:59:39.180 mind, it's a, it's not a good conversation to have, but if you're honestly curious, I'd like to

00:59:45.400 know how you arrived at things. Totally. But why don't we do? Yeah. I just, I just want to ask you

00:59:51.900 about you first. Totally don't want to change your mind. Um, that's, that's not a thing for me. So

00:59:57.240 yeah, cool. Let's do it. Okay. You know, and then get a little cup of coffee, get a little cup of

01:00:03.840 tea. Uh, how many people do you think, how many people are you? Cause I've had this conversation

01:00:09.160 with family members. Um, you know, and my family knows what I do for a living and they, you know,

01:00:15.480 they, they know I'm, I'm pretty good at, you know, never get into an argument with a talk show host.

01:00:22.340 They're pretty good. Uh, especially if there's a commercial right around the corner, they'll win.

01:00:27.760 Um, but, um, I've had this conversation and we have come to great understandings. How many people

01:00:36.980 though will respond on either side? Yeah. I'm, if you're honest, if you're trying to make a point or

01:00:46.540 win, I'm, I don't want to have that conversation. It doesn't work. It absolutely doesn't work. And

01:00:51.760 the other thing is, you know, to go back to our scenario, if that's the first thing I've said to

01:00:55.260 you in three years, maybe not great. Right. Right. Like, but you could start it with, you could start

01:01:03.060 it with, I miss you and I don't like this distance. And I, I, I don't know how, you know, my father said

01:01:11.560 to me once, uh, I was about 30 years old and, uh, I said, dad, I don't know how to be your son. I, I want,

01:01:22.280 I want to have a good relationship with you, but I don't know how to be your son. And he said, wow.

01:01:30.760 Well, let me be honest with you. I don't know how to be your dad, but if you will sit through the

01:01:38.880 uncomfortable moments when I don't know what to say to you and you don't know what to say to me,

01:01:44.360 we will find our way to each other. And it was the greatest gift of my life. And, um,

01:01:54.860 it's just, it's hard. It is, it is, but, but, but you can almost turn that around and say,

01:02:00.840 it's so much easier because, well, it's worth it, but it's also so much easier because there's

01:02:05.220 already a relationship there. I mean, family is an extraordinary, powerful thing, right? Like

01:02:09.860 people are born into families and they are different people, ideologically different people,

01:02:15.140 you know, and you don't know what you're going to get. And so here you are, but you have these

01:02:19.560 preexisting relationships. And at a time when in America, again, we're, we're drawing apart

01:02:24.760 so much. It's like our family relationships where we can still connect across difference. And we have

01:02:30.860 that baseline of, of love, frankly, it's, it's powerful. So yeah, I mean, coming up to somebody

01:02:38.220 and saying, I, I, I don't know. I feel like maybe we're not connecting. I don't know. I, I felt,

01:02:44.480 I, I have felt distant from you. And I think I know a little bit why, you know, I don't know

01:02:50.320 what's going on with you, but if you've got time, like, can we, can we talk about it? I do. I miss

01:02:55.300 you. I miss you. And I don't want you to feel like, like I'm not thinking about you. Um,

01:03:03.360 that would be a great phone call. Wouldn't that be amazing? And people do do it. And that's what

01:03:09.040 gives me hope. By the way, I hear a lot of stories of people who do it. We just don't share these

01:03:13.120 stories. We share the stories about how everything's on fire. We don't share the stories

01:03:18.360 about people, people waking up on people. Yeah. People talking to each other. It is happening.

01:03:26.820 We are tired of this. We really are. And there's just no one, no matter what they believe, there's

01:03:33.380 no one who likes this, you know, not really. Have you, have you noticed and, and maybe you

01:03:39.940 can tell it from another side. Um, but I have noticed that, uh, I have so many, I've called

01:03:48.440 them for years, strange bedfellows. I have friendships with people, a lot of friendships

01:03:54.320 with people who are supposed to hate me or maybe have hated me in the past and have then

01:04:01.640 had some experience in their life where they've gone, okay, my side is kind of going crazy and I

01:04:12.000 don't like that, but I don't like your side either. But then they start talking because they have no one

01:04:19.560 in their life. They start talking and you'll, you're like, welcome home. You know, not every time,

01:04:27.680 but welcome home. There's, there's so much we have in common. Why have we let this divide us?

01:04:33.640 Are you seeing this? It's so true. Yes. Yes, I am. And, and, and again, it's just, it's a difficult

01:04:39.200 thing to share and do publicly. So we're not seeing it on those big platforms. We're not seeing it there

01:04:45.060 as much. And then we're thinking it's not happening. It's happening. It's happening. We don't even know

01:04:49.720 how to talk about it. Uh, but yeah, and, and I've, I've developed a lot of friendships with people

01:04:54.400 all over, uh, the divide. I've, I've learned, I knew nothing really about libertarians until just

01:04:59.260 a couple of years ago. Fascinating, fascinating kind of thinking. Uh, yeah, it's, it's, um, and it

01:05:06.740 feels like it's complicated everything more, right? Which may seem like, uh, oh man, now you're probably

01:05:12.820 worried about it more now. Now you just don't know what to think. No, it's the opposite. It's the

01:05:17.520 opposite by seeing that something is a lot more complicated than I initially thought and understanding

01:05:21.740 that other people have completely different paths to that different things that, that is at stake for

01:05:26.640 them. It, it makes me realize we can do this, but doesn't that, does it, does it, does it make the

01:05:34.000 American idea, not what we're doing, but the idea of America make more sense because the original idea,

01:05:44.320 not that we've ever really mastered this, but the idea is you do what you want. You believe what you

01:05:51.320 want. We just have these few things that are huge. And, uh, we, we, and, and these are the things that

01:05:57.680 no government can tell man to do or not do. And that's it. And then you want to be a libertarian.

01:06:05.540 You want to, you know, you know, make sure that nobody in your family is wearing their skirt above

01:06:12.160 their ankles and you, you want to put a pin in your nose. I don't really care. I don't really care.

01:06:18.720 Doesn't it make it the American idea of these people can find their way to each other and live

01:06:27.640 next to each other. If they're not telling each other what they have to do and believe.

01:06:33.160 Yeah. I mean, I think that's a powerful idea. Um, but of course, like where that meets its limit is

01:06:38.420 that none of us are going to, none of us enjoy living in an America where we don't feel,

01:06:43.500 I don't know, you know, secure, um, when we think something is a threat and we think the threat is,

01:06:49.040 is our neighbors. That's not, you know, that's where things get complicated there. Um,

01:06:54.100 but that changes if we start, that changes in two ways. It's true. If we don't have the same

01:07:01.780 principles anymore. And I mean, the big ones, the big print, the bill of rights, if we don't believe

01:07:07.080 that a government should not spy on you, you know, and be able to take you to jail and not charge you

01:07:15.800 or whatever. And that justice isn't blind, you know, that you don't have a right to free speech,

01:07:21.940 those kinds of things. If we don't believe those things anymore, then I don't think we have any,

01:07:27.500 we have to come up with new things to unite on. But if we have those things, we're fine.

01:07:32.940 Yeah. And I think that's fair, but I would say this, it's like, it's too easy to say,

01:07:38.020 here's my interpretation of the bill of rights. And obviously the bill of rights is quite clear.

01:07:41.580 Yeah. Anyway, you know, here, here's how I see the bill of rights. Yeah. You sir have gone way off

01:07:47.880 on this thing. And so we're not even going to talk that I think is actually dangerous because give me

01:07:52.240 an example. Cause I, the only one that I think is not clear is the second amendment. I mean, you can argue,

01:07:56.640 I think it's very clear, but you could argue about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I'm not,

01:08:02.940 I'm not speaking from a place of, you know, wanting to, I'm not hugely on one side of the

01:08:07.300 other. Yeah. That's fine. But really, really where I'm speaking from is that I think we just have to

01:08:12.400 be open to the challenges of each moment. Yes. And I do think that right now in American history

01:08:17.300 is an extraordinarily challenging time. And it is only natural for us to question,

01:08:22.600 to at least re-examine, I shouldn't say question. Well, maybe I did, but re-examine our founding

01:08:28.480 principles to, to ask ourselves, what did we assume we meant by this? Do we need to,

01:08:33.040 what's going on? So that's the only thing that I think needs to happen. And if some of us say

01:08:39.400 what you're doing is already beyond the pale, I don't even want to talk to you. I think that

01:08:42.540 that's actually dangerous. So even, even about the bill of rights, right. Because again,

01:08:46.380 it's values put into tension, right? So it's free speech versus security, a longstanding debate,

01:08:51.520 where America has come on one side of the other many times before. Yeah. And we'll continue to do

01:08:56.480 it. So Monica, I think we actually really agree on this. As long as we're having an honest

01:09:02.940 conversation, you know, calling one side, calling people that are saying, I want the bill of rights.

01:09:11.260 That's what America is. And the other side saying these radicals, no, no, no, you've become the

01:09:18.860 and, and you can think as radical thought as you want, but let's just have that conversation.

01:09:24.820 Look, I don't think these things work. The world is changing. So, okay, let's have that conversation

01:09:33.240 and decide, you know, that's why I really wanted Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz to run because I really

01:09:40.880 wanted to see Bernie is very clear. This is what I believe. At least he used to be very clear.

01:09:47.440 This is what I believe. Ted Cruz was very clear. This is what I believe. Great. Let's have a sit

01:09:54.100 down, not a political game show. And let's actually talk about it. We have such a big game show.

01:10:04.360 Yeah. It just, it's killing us. And it's, it's, it's actually killing us. And you being a tech person,

01:10:10.580 you know, the debate that we should be having is what is life? What, what, what is the role of a,

01:10:23.900 a machine that will think it's life? What is the meaning of life? Because if I can download you into

01:10:33.060 a machine, I don't, and I think that's life, then I, why would I fight cancer? These huge,

01:10:41.540 crazy ideas are coming. Should I be able to rearrange the genetic code? So I have a super baby

01:10:50.360 that's around the corner. And if we can't, that's going to be decided for us while we're arguing

01:10:56.820 about this stuff. Really, we've got to talk. That's the thing. Yeah. It's like, we, we've got

01:11:05.400 to talk. We, we, we think that we just think the enemy is what it isn't. It we've, we've got to see

01:11:12.860 that for me, the real enemy is the reality distortion fields all around us, making us more scared than we

01:11:18.140 need to be of each other. We don't need to be that scared of each other. Thank you so much. God bless

01:11:24.360 you. Thank you. Thank you. This was really fun. Really fun. Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate

01:11:36.360 and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.

01:11:54.360 you

The Glenn Beck Program - March 19, 2022

Ep 138 ｜ Why Would a Lefty Talk to Glenn Beck？｜ Monica Guzman ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

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