Vox founder Matthew Iglesias joins Alex to discuss his new book, One Billion Americans, and why he thinks we should all be better at being kinder to one another. Alex also talks about his new memoir, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: How to Build a Better America, which is out now.
00:00:00.000I don't know if I've ever told you this, but the working title for this podcast was Dangerous Conversations.
00:00:06.740And it started out with the idea that I'd find 10 or 12 people that I really, really wanted to talk to and kind of a tongue-in-cheek, playful jab at the growing hatred for civil discourse.
00:00:22.400Because I know a lot of people that I really disagree with, that I really respect.
00:00:25.700That was over two years ago, and the hatred for civil discourse has mutated into something that we're not even supposed to laugh at anymore.
00:00:36.600All the reason more to have dangerous conversations, like the one that you're going to hear.
00:00:41.980This conversation probably would have been different two years ago, but I feel like our country is at such a crossroads with people who are actively calling for the destruction of America.
00:00:57.200That, in retrospect, I might have failed in this podcast, because I'm very open-minded and open-minded with his book.
00:01:15.720And I found so many places we could connect on.
00:01:18.600But I don't think I necessarily made him feel as comfortable as I should have.
00:01:25.440The motivation for this podcast was to connect with people who we're not supposed to connect with.
00:01:31.160The more unlikely the pair, the better.
00:01:34.040To have illuminating conversations with fascinating people.
00:06:16.260I mean, I wanted to write a book that I thought, you know, people would agree with at least part of sort of from all points on the political spectrum.
00:06:24.940But I think it's I think where we connect and I want to concentrate on that, where we connect on this, I think, is a bigger solution than even what you were going for.
00:06:36.520I mean, you're the book is one billion Americans, the case for thinking bigger.
00:08:05.880We need to do something bigger, you know, and there's nothing wrong with it.
00:08:10.580It's good that we're having that conversation after sort of 20 years of wishful thinking.
00:08:15.220So I don't like the fact that we've gotten into a place that China is leading us in 5G.
00:08:22.260And my my solution for the last 15 years has not been more government involvement or or more regulation on China.
00:08:33.440It's what are we doing to make ourselves the most competitive?
00:08:38.140We we have to have the the desire to to be the most competitive and to put the best product out with the least amount of interference from from the political side.
00:08:52.140I mean, whoever controls 5G is going to have an entrance to a pipeline of almost every piece of information the world could ever use for national security.
00:09:21.060And I think this is one of the things that I think you're sincere, but you are someone who is from the middle left.
00:09:35.600And you've you've in reading your work, it doesn't seem like you understand that there are a lot of people on the left that do have a problem with us being number two or number five or number one hundred.
00:09:50.520And they we have we're constantly being told that America is evil, is racist, should be destroyed.
00:09:59.840And that's caused us a lot of problems of being able to do anything, because, quite frankly, I think a lot of people have lost faith that this is the place for the greatest opportunity in the world.
00:10:12.500You know, I mean, yes, this is a patriotic book, right?
00:10:20.980And, you know, some people on the left, I got a I got a very harsh review from a left wing guy in the New Republic, because basically his point of view was like, why is this guy out here saying America should stay number one?
00:10:31.820You know, like, let's let's throw America in the trash.
00:10:35.360And I think it's not most people on the left.
00:10:37.840You know, you look at a Joe Biden campaign event.
00:10:40.260He's up there with the little flag, same as anybody else, because this is a patriotic country, you know, and most people on it on the left or on the right, like they're for that.
00:10:48.620Something, you know, I write about in the book a fair amount is immigration, right?
00:10:52.560Which is something that, you know, most people on the left are supportive of.
00:10:56.980But I want people who agree with me about that to think about the meaning of immigration, right?
00:11:02.520It is true that America has had problems with race and racism in its history and in its present day.
00:11:08.500But what's also true is that millions of people from around the world would like to come here.
00:12:23.220He's a symptom of of not listening to people who love their country, you know, are worried about the culture of the country, worried about the Constitution.
00:12:36.980We've we put the Constitution in the rearview mirror a long time ago.
00:12:41.200And then both Republicans and Democrats have been part of that.
00:12:45.600But we're worried about the loss of things.
00:12:48.080And so what happens with immigration is you have wild open borders, which after September 11th, we all should have we all should know that's just stupid.
00:12:58.980You just don't have the Wild West and anyone can come in.
00:13:02.720But you also have lost the idea of merit.
00:13:07.800I think every conservative that I know has no problem with people coming in if if they are going to come in and work and they want to, you know, better their lives, which is almost every immigrant I have seen from, you know, Mexico, Latin America.
00:13:25.380They work far harder than most Americans, especially American kids.
00:13:53.980And, you know, I mean, I think as with anything, right, I think I've been doing some different shows with different conservatives and some of them say, oh, if only all the liberals, you know, like had flags on their books like you do.
00:14:22.660I have some quibbles with the details.
00:14:24.820But, you know, right now, whether you can get a visa has to do with do you have close relatives living in the United States and how many other people from your country have come here?
00:15:41.940We should think about who comes and why.
00:15:43.300Before you make more statements, let's let's address these as we go.
00:15:47.560Not everybody is a rapist or a burglar or whatever.
00:15:52.000I think if I were on the and I've said this many times to my audience, if I were on the other side, we have to look at this from their side.
00:15:59.600If I'm in a place where I can't grow, my kids can't grow.
00:16:05.200There's no opportunity. And I've got a drug lord moving into town.
00:16:09.160I'm going to the United States, especially if they're like, oh, you know what?
00:16:13.380Come on in. Don't worry about it. I'm rolling the dice.
00:16:16.740OK, it's our fault because we don't take it seriously because I would absolutely do exactly what they do.
00:16:25.080However, when it comes to culture, it's not about, you know, are we going to have more Mexican restaurants or whatever?
00:16:32.860It's about becoming something that we're not.
00:16:36.740So when people come here, it is a disadvantage for them not to speak English.
00:16:42.820It's also a disadvantage and why my kids take Spanish in school.
00:16:47.140It's a disadvantage to only speak English.
00:16:49.880But if you're coming here to be able to say, I want to be a part of this without shedding who you are and what you brought, but melt into this.
00:17:03.160You're still holding up the principles, not the flag.
00:17:08.520By the way, you don't have a flag on it.
00:17:10.220It's just red, white and blue, but not not the flag, not that jingoistic crap.
00:17:15.260I hate that stuff because it obscures the principles, the principles that made us different.
00:17:23.580And if you hold up those principles, that's, I think, what most people are worried about, the deep change.
00:17:30.940Yeah, and this is what we should do, right?
00:17:34.360I mean, we should think about how can we address that, right?
00:17:37.700Not just say, oh, I'm afraid or say, oh, no, you're a racist if you're concerned about this and have people get defensive and argue and argue and argue.
00:17:47.520We should think about what we can do, right?
00:17:49.600My grandmother used to tell me she was born here, but, you know, her parents were immigrants, Yiddish speaking.
00:17:56.740She grew up, you know, not English speaking in her household.
00:17:59.320And they had programs at that time to sort of teach kids.
00:18:03.800This is how we're going to do things in America, you know, and it was everything from English classes starting at a young age.
00:18:09.840You would never get liberals to do that.
00:21:20.760And obviously, most people there don't speak English, but lots and lots of young people are there learning English just because it's the language of international business.
00:21:28.380Now, if you say to people, look, if you want a visa to come to the United States, if you're young, if you learn English, if you get a college degree, we're going to make it possible for you to come here.
00:21:41.480In the 2013 immigration bill, right, it was a bipartisan bill, stuff the Republicans wanted to get in there, a lot of money for border security stuff and stuff for English classes, right?
00:21:51.080So if you want to become a citizen here, you need to learn.
00:21:54.940You need to learn your constitution, learn your founding principles.
00:22:00.800You know, you want to talk about the 1619 Project.
00:22:02.800I mean, I think there's some good articles in that package, but I agree with you, right?
00:22:08.500You know, I think I'm sure there are some good articles, but when you say there are more Imagineers on the left than Disney has ever produced.
00:22:18.560Let's stop reimagining our history and start actually dealing with real history because then we can deal with problems.
00:22:53.640And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
00:22:55.560You know, like, it's fine to, like, build up a culture that says, you know, we these are the best ideals of America about equality and other things like that and tell a story about sort of fulfilling the American dream.
00:23:08.220That's how Barack Obama always talked.
00:23:10.260That's how people who want to win elections, frankly, talk.
00:23:13.080It's, you know, I'm a journalist, right?
00:23:15.580Sometimes we tell uncomfortable truths about things.
00:23:18.780Sometimes heroes, you know, there's really some mud on their shoes and there's a role to be played for exposing that.
00:26:27.420I remember I think remember watching you talking about Woodrow Wilson 10, 12 years ago before before you were you were canceling him before it was cool.
00:27:06.000History has some more complexity to it than that.
00:27:08.400But, you know, so my book, right, this, I think, is very much in line with that.
00:27:13.140Like, I want to appeal to some of the best moments in American history and the way in which this country was built up over time deliberately.
00:28:27.840Eisenhower said in his farewell address is what the problems are right now between Washington's farewell address and Eisenhower's farewell address.
00:28:37.580I think we would solve 90 percent of the problems we we got too big for our boots.
00:28:46.500We we went from, you know, France doesn't give people presence like the Statue of Liberty, especially to an arrogant group of people.
00:28:57.900And we became arrogant in all of our foreign policy, saying we're going to give this to you.
00:29:12.340And you have to earn that on your own.
00:29:15.280You have to be in the place to where you can earn that and we could help you.
00:29:19.500But we became so arrogant that beating our chest, telling everyone, look how great we are, that, of course, the rest of the world has a problem with us because we say, look how great we are.
00:30:09.900There was this great report that PEN America did, and it came out after my book was all done.
00:30:14.800So I can now only talk about it on podcasts.
00:30:17.020But they were looking at how People's Republic censors influence Hollywood movies, that it used to be, well, they would make changes to the China release.
00:31:44.160And that's the world that we are headed for, right?
00:31:47.780There was this hope that economic integration between the United States and China would spread our values to their shores, that they would want to use the Internet.
00:32:06.360And we now know that's completely wrong, right?
00:32:08.480It's an incredibly powerful tool of authoritarian surveillance domestically.
00:32:13.060And it's created a situation where when our companies depend on that market, they export their values to us.
00:32:21.520And we should be armed about that, right?
00:32:23.560It's why population matters and why, you know, the size of the families that we have and the number of immigrants we take in, not tripling the population tomorrow, but planning for growth, right?
00:32:35.440Planning for success is going to be crucial to maintaining freedom, to maintaining the stuff.
00:32:40.800Liberals and conservatives, like, we disagree about all kinds of things.
00:32:44.220But there's nobody, left or right, who thinks you shouldn't be able to say a tweet that the Chinese government doesn't like, right?
00:34:56.600But one reason why that works, right, is that the U.S. market is a big deal.
00:35:02.000So, doing things that appeal to American customers makes sense.
00:35:06.420And that scale, right, that weight between the United States and China is going to be not the only, but one of the drivers in the calculus that businesses from all over the world, whether it's America, whether it's Sweden, whether it's Korea, what they make.
00:35:21.540And, you know, I don't think we can afford to be so blasé about it, as we have been.
00:35:27.000The Trump administration is taking some good steps now on Xinjiang, on sanctions.
00:36:22.920And I think that most Americans on both sides are hungry for that.
00:36:28.240But they don't see it on a reasonable horizon.
00:36:35.820You know, I mean, do you see, do you, do you, when, when I say, oh, that uplifting politician that's going to get past all this, does one pop to your mind on any side?
00:37:08.940And that's, that's the, that's the reason why we're having this conversation is because I don't believe we are that far apart.
00:37:17.720We are, we disagree on a lot of things, but we're not that far apart that you and I couldn't live next door to each other and have perfectly great relationship and have each other over without, you know, being in each other's face.
00:37:32.300At least I think, because as I have said before, and I think you would agree, look, can you give me nine out of the 10 bill of rights?
00:37:53.480But it's the, it's the, the rub is, is that the extremes have been, have been grinding us down to where we don't believe we're not fighting for anything real.
00:38:08.760I mean, I, I want to fight for the constitution and the rights of all men to be equal, all men, and we're not fighting for those things.
00:38:18.060Well, you know, I mean, look, it's, it's, it's hard to know, you know, social media has been good for, for me and my career.
00:38:25.620It's been good for a lot of people over the years, but it does encourage extremist voices, extreme ideas, right?
00:39:54.880There's no Republicans living here in the circle.
00:39:57.060And, you know, that's too bad because when you deal with your neighbors, right, you talk to them about stuff like, how can we clean the trash up in the playground?
00:40:07.680What are we going to do about these potholes, right?
00:40:09.780Practical things where people work together, not ideological things, not things that inspire people to scream.
00:40:15.860And it's an educational experience across certain kinds of divides.
00:40:20.160But there's an important divide that, like, it doesn't exist in this neighborhood.
00:40:43.100You know, it's good to spend time out there.
00:40:44.820You get to know different people, people who have their preconceptions about me and where we live.
00:40:50.760I've got my own preconceptions about them and where they live.
00:40:53.420But there's no substitute for that kind of practical experience of dealing with people on a social level, dealing with people on a personal level, rather than just sort of politics all the time.
00:41:04.800Yeah, and we don't get that often enough.
00:41:09.020I mean, I feel that I am not as sharp intellectually living in Texas as I was when I was in Manhattan.
00:41:18.500And the only reason why I was ground every day, no matter where I went, man, I had to be razor sharp because I wasn't exactly popular there.
00:41:29.300And here in Texas, while it is more balanced than people might think, especially in the Dallas Fort Worth area where I am.
00:43:44.500Let's build some express lanes on the roads.
00:43:47.280Right. Let's let's get a train in the big, dense coastal cities and let's get some more people into the wide open spaces in the middle of the country.
00:43:56.100If we could go to the moon, like we can handle traffic jams because the population density we're talking about, even with a billion people, that's a lot of people.
00:44:04.280But we'd still be about half as dense as Germany, maybe a third as dense as the UK.
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00:48:41.960But, you know, one of the things you saw when Trump was out on the campaign trail and people responded to him is that most communities were not feeling the benefits of that kind of thing.
00:48:52.060And now that he's been president, I think he's given voice to a lot of people's concerns, but he hasn't really solved them, right?
00:49:15.420There's more we can do on a tangible level rather than a symbolic level to have an inclusive country.
00:49:21.740And we see now, you know, so many African-Americans feel that they're not cut in, right?
00:49:26.680And some of the policy ideas that come out of the Black Lives Matter world, you know, defunding police, I'm 100% against.
00:49:33.880And I don't think that's what most people want.
00:49:35.900I don't think it really addresses those concerns.
00:49:38.220At the same time, you have incredibly high poverty rates.
00:49:40.940You have people who are saying, but look, we don't have broadband internet in my neighborhood, right?
00:49:45.420And I hear that in inner city neighborhoods, and I hear it in rural neighborhoods.
00:49:49.100Very, a lot of cultural distance between those people, but a similar issue, right?
00:49:53.540And like, is our government doing what it takes to get everybody like hooked in and loaded on to the American dream and American possibility?
00:50:03.880And instead of being angry, right, and giving expression to that anger and saying who to blame for this, we ought to try to fix it so people can be satisfied.
00:50:16.420I agree with you, but I don't know if you can in today's political world, who is incentivized to fix it?
00:50:25.000I mean, I'd love to tie all their salaries to bonuses.
00:50:29.100The country does well on these metrics.
00:50:38.080And, you know, all of us get together and figure out the metrics because all they're doing now is they're measuring success on if the R's or the D's are elected and how long they can stay and how much money they can make for themselves.
00:50:53.600Um, I see very, I mean, there are, they are there in on both sides that really do want to make a difference, but that's not Washington.
00:51:03.280So how do you, how do you empower the country to do it without having to regulate it, to do it because it's the right thing to do?
00:51:16.140Everyone in Washington is so frustrated and like, maybe not everyone, but so many people I speak to.
00:56:41.960There are there is a problem in America where.
00:56:48.080And Jonathan Haidt talks about this, but our language is so different now that the way we express ourselves sometimes just set the other side off.
00:56:59.760And we have to have patience and listen to one another.
00:57:03.640I am in complete agreement that a billion Americans would be a great goal, that more legal immigration would be really good to be able to find the people who know why they want to live here or what's wrong with the place that they're currently living at.
00:57:27.820And why this is such an advantage, I think it would be a game changer for us, but it would require us to not only look at the problems, but also then pick yourself back up and say, OK.
00:57:42.740But look at the assets we have and let's learn from our mistakes and let's just go out and win.
00:57:52.360Just go out and win one for all of mankind, quite honestly.