The Megyn Kelly Show - January 04, 2021


Amy Chua on the Climate on Campuses, Political Tribalism, and Being a "Tiger Mom" | Ep. 46


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 45 minutes

Words per Minute

201.11366

Word Count

21,201

Sentence Count

404

Misogynist Sentences

35

Hate Speech Sentences

53


Summary

Yale Law School professor Amy Chua joins me to talk about what it's like to be a conservative on the Yale campus, and her thoughts on how things have changed since the election of Donald Trump. She also talks about her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.


Transcript

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00:00:30.620 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:42.160 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
00:00:43.840 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:45.360 Today on the program, we've got Amy Chua.
00:00:48.720 You know who she is.
00:00:50.160 She is a professor.
00:00:52.100 She's the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School.
00:00:55.920 She's one of their most popular professors
00:00:57.760 for reasons that will become obvious to you.
00:01:00.280 She's married to another Yale professor.
00:01:02.900 And she's got two young daughters while they're in their 20s now
00:01:05.500 who are, one's a double Harvard person, one's a Harvard-Yale person.
00:01:08.500 So she's done pretty well in raising really smart kids.
00:01:11.740 She also happens to have written a couple of years ago
00:01:14.160 the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,
00:01:17.900 talking about the difference between her approach
00:01:21.000 and the approach of many Chinese moms.
00:01:23.000 And she says that that can include people who are not Chinese
00:01:25.520 and more Western parents who are more like,
00:01:27.900 protect little Johnny's feelings.
00:01:30.440 She's got really fun parenting thoughts
00:01:32.200 and she took a beating for some of them,
00:01:33.460 but she's really honest and owns who she is.
00:01:35.680 So you're going to like that piece of the conversation.
00:01:38.060 She also happens to have predicted Donald Trump's win.
00:01:41.680 She understands one thing that most people don't,
00:01:43.760 and that's tribes, tribalism.
00:01:45.940 She wrote a whole book on it
00:01:47.040 and has a very interesting view on
00:01:49.500 how we got to where we are as this country
00:01:51.440 and whether we're going to go more tribal
00:01:53.540 as things go on now that Trump is lost
00:01:56.440 and Biden's going to be sworn in.
00:01:58.360 So this is somebody who's at an elite university.
00:02:01.240 She's going to talk about the partisanship there,
00:02:03.080 what it's like to be a conservative on Yale campus.
00:02:06.000 Can you imagine?
00:02:06.960 She's got some thoughts on how things have changed
00:02:08.660 from just a few years ago,
00:02:09.820 and I think you're going to love her.
00:02:11.760 We'll get to her in one second.
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00:03:40.880 Amy Chua, how are you?
00:03:43.040 I'm great, Megan.
00:03:44.240 Thank you so much for having me.
00:03:46.040 I am delighted to be speaking with you.
00:03:48.760 I'm such a fan of yours.
00:03:50.780 I always have been ever since you came out
00:03:52.520 with Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
00:03:53.880 And I thought this is one brave woman.
00:03:56.860 I loved it because you were getting so much shit
00:03:58.640 and you were like, yeah, I don't care.
00:03:59.860 This is how I feel.
00:04:01.360 That's how it was on the outside.
00:04:02.820 But that's how it was on the outside.
00:04:05.400 But yes, that's basically me.
00:04:07.020 We met for the first time in person
00:04:09.280 when I was doing a profile on J.D. Vance
00:04:11.420 and I went to Yale Law School to talk to you
00:04:13.340 as the person who had encouraged him
00:04:15.360 as his professor to write that memoir.
00:04:17.980 And now we've become friends.
00:04:20.160 But I'm just so inspired by your toughness.
00:04:23.380 You are one tough M ever.
00:04:26.900 You are.
00:04:28.260 Coming from you, that means so much.
00:04:30.240 I mean, obviously, I'm a huge fan of yours
00:04:33.040 and I would say the same thing.
00:04:34.580 But yeah, it'll be fun to talk about this.
00:04:36.740 I don't even I don't even see myself that way.
00:04:39.300 But kind of looking back, it does seem like
00:04:41.820 yeah, it does seem like I'm still standing.
00:04:45.140 Yeah, exactly.
00:04:46.260 And you're just you know,
00:04:47.160 you're exactly what we need right now,
00:04:48.960 which is somebody who is unapologetic
00:04:50.540 for how she sees the world.
00:04:52.520 And and unless we get more Amy Chua's in the world,
00:04:55.860 we're going to lose these bizarre cultural battles
00:04:59.060 that I won't even say we're fighting.
00:05:01.240 It's more like rational people have surrendered out of fear.
00:05:04.520 We need to start fighting.
00:05:06.240 Yeah, it's starting.
00:05:07.240 People are starting to fight.
00:05:08.460 But we need more more numbers and more just toughness,
00:05:11.660 mental toughness in the world.
00:05:12.720 All right.
00:05:12.960 So before we get to all that,
00:05:14.200 because I definitely want to ask you
00:05:15.360 about Battle Helm of the Tiger Mother.
00:05:17.380 It's it's exactly the opposite of my own parenting style,
00:05:20.040 but it's it's my wannabe parenting style.
00:05:22.240 So you're going to help me.
00:05:23.140 OK, we'll get to that.
00:05:25.780 Let's start with tribalism.
00:05:27.500 You wrote a book in 2018 on tribalism
00:05:29.580 called Political Tribes, Group Instinct
00:05:31.860 and the Fate of Nations, which was prescient.
00:05:36.200 And it not only obviously we were in the middle
00:05:38.200 of the Trump administration then,
00:05:39.680 but it foresaw where things would go,
00:05:42.840 including the challenging of electoral results.
00:05:45.800 And like that here we are.
00:05:48.520 So you accurately diagnosed,
00:05:51.100 I think, what is happening to the United States right now,
00:05:54.320 right before he was elected during his term
00:05:56.660 and now in 2020.
00:05:58.460 And I want to talk to you about how we got here
00:06:00.500 and where we go from here,
00:06:01.680 because it doesn't sound too promising.
00:06:04.240 All right.
00:06:04.740 So your your theory is that a toxic mix
00:06:07.920 of identity politics and demographic transformation
00:06:11.320 is threatening our democracy.
00:06:14.140 So break that down.
00:06:15.480 Should we start with?
00:06:16.440 Well, where should we start?
00:06:17.360 Yeah, no, that's actually perfect.
00:06:18.560 So so you have it exactly right.
00:06:20.500 I mean, I'm proud that I did correctly predict
00:06:24.220 the Trump election, which is pretty amazing
00:06:27.280 because teaching at the most liberal college campus,
00:06:29.880 you know, everybody had the Hillary parties
00:06:32.660 all ready to go.
00:06:33.620 And I just knew that there was so much underground
00:06:35.780 that nobody was allowed to talk about
00:06:38.320 that they were going to get it wrong.
00:06:40.300 But yeah, that's kind of what I try to do
00:06:42.960 is be above the fray
00:06:44.940 and kind of to diagnose the problem.
00:06:47.920 Why are we at this moment
00:06:50.040 and seeing everything that we're seeing?
00:06:51.840 Because if you can't
00:06:53.000 if you don't know the causes of the problem,
00:06:55.220 then you can't solve it.
00:06:56.340 And yes, I think there are two big factors
00:06:59.600 that explain this
00:07:01.740 this kind of just hatred
00:07:03.720 that we have everywhere in this country.
00:07:06.020 And the first is
00:07:07.520 this massive demographic transformation
00:07:10.580 that we've seen in the last 50 years.
00:07:13.500 So basically, for most of the America
00:07:16.520 the United States 200 year history,
00:07:19.220 you know, the country was dominated economically
00:07:21.820 and politically and culturally by a white majority.
00:07:25.360 And we can debate what white meant
00:07:27.560 and that, you know, different people,
00:07:29.180 Canada's white at different times.
00:07:30.860 But that's basically the dynamic.
00:07:33.040 And when that happens,
00:07:34.820 when one group is so overwhelmingly dominant,
00:07:37.200 a lot of terrible things can happen
00:07:38.760 like slavery and oppression.
00:07:41.000 But that white majority can also afford
00:07:43.200 to be more generous and inclusive.
00:07:46.380 And that's actually what the white Protestants did
00:07:48.760 in the 50s and 60s and 70s
00:07:50.640 when they essentially voluntarily
00:07:53.000 opened up the Ivy League
00:07:54.320 to more African-Americans and minorities
00:07:57.080 because they just kind of felt
00:07:58.040 that was the right thing to do.
00:07:59.760 Right now, it's completely different
00:08:02.280 because for the first time in U.S. history,
00:08:05.520 whites are on the verge
00:08:06.720 of losing their majority status
00:08:09.180 at the national level.
00:08:11.820 The Census Bureau says it will happen around 2044.
00:08:15.340 You know, there's some debate
00:08:16.900 about what it will look like,
00:08:18.280 but it's already happened
00:08:19.320 in places like California and D.C.
00:08:22.180 and Texas and tons of big cities.
00:08:25.160 Non-Hispanic whites are no longer the majority.
00:08:28.480 And why is that important, Megan?
00:08:30.520 Because studies show
00:08:32.160 that it's when people feel threatened
00:08:35.060 that they retreat into tribalism.
00:08:36.940 And at this moment,
00:08:37.820 it's not just minorities who feel threatened.
00:08:40.720 Whites feel threatened.
00:08:42.800 It's not just Jews
00:08:45.120 and Muslim Americans who feel threatened,
00:08:47.600 but Christians feel threatened.
00:08:49.560 So, you know, with Donald Trump in the White House,
00:08:52.220 women feel threatened.
00:08:53.160 With the Me Too movement,
00:08:54.280 men feel threatened.
00:08:55.260 Latinos, Asians, straights, gays,
00:08:57.280 everybody at this moment feels threatened.
00:08:58.940 And again, it's when people feel threatened
00:09:01.980 that they retreat
00:09:02.900 into this kind of us versus them tribalism.
00:09:06.280 And that's why you're seeing this fracturing,
00:09:08.440 this splintering on both the right and the left.
00:09:11.880 I mean, if you look at the Democrats,
00:09:13.240 they're just far apart.
00:09:14.580 There's so many different pieces.
00:09:16.200 And same with the Republicans.
00:09:17.960 You know, there's barely a cohesive group
00:09:20.180 called the Republicans.
00:09:21.460 And that's partly because
00:09:23.120 of this massive demographic change.
00:09:24.860 So that's one big factor.
00:09:27.440 And before we get to number two,
00:09:28.940 so tribalism and, you know,
00:09:31.260 I think people understand a bit
00:09:33.040 that we feel more tribal.
00:09:34.420 We feel more dug into our respective groups than ever.
00:09:37.740 But in general, you talk about tribalism
00:09:40.120 and how it could potentially be a good thing,
00:09:42.380 but it could also be a bad thing.
00:09:44.460 And one of the reasons we do it
00:09:45.920 is because A, we're humans
00:09:47.620 and B, it feels good, right?
00:09:49.940 So just talk about before we get to number two
00:09:52.200 and the reason why we're becoming more tribal.
00:09:54.340 Why is tribalism such a thing for us as humans?
00:09:59.820 Well, so first of all, it's just in us.
00:10:02.000 We are biologically predisposed to be tribal,
00:10:05.020 just like fellow primates.
00:10:06.340 And you could obviously imagine
00:10:08.240 all the evolutionary reasons why,
00:10:10.320 you know, it was always better to have a family
00:10:12.680 and a group and a tribe
00:10:13.800 as opposed to being on your own.
00:10:16.640 And you just, you put it perfectly.
00:10:19.060 There's nothing inherently wrong with tribalism.
00:10:22.740 Families can be very tribal.
00:10:24.300 Well, I will be the first to admit
00:10:25.860 that I'm a very tribal person,
00:10:27.200 very loyal to my friends.
00:10:29.120 Sports is very tribal and it's fun.
00:10:31.760 The real problem is when tribalism
00:10:35.900 takes over a political system.
00:10:38.000 That's really the problem.
00:10:40.260 Because then policy and facts just don't matter.
00:10:44.420 You basically just,
00:10:45.500 you just want to cling to your side.
00:10:47.380 You see everything through your side's lens
00:10:49.760 and you want to take down the other side no matter what.
00:10:53.760 And you could see that, you know, all my friends,
00:10:55.600 I mean, Yale again is the most progressive place.
00:10:58.080 So for four years, all my friends are like,
00:11:00.540 oh my God, look at this scandal.
00:11:02.240 This is the end of Donald Trump, you know,
00:11:04.620 and you check out the polls, no change.
00:11:07.980 It's just, it's like people are dug in
00:11:10.240 and even the pandemic has been tribalized.
00:11:13.640 I mean, for me to figure out
00:11:14.740 whether a certain drug works,
00:11:16.140 I have to flip between Fox and MSNBC
00:11:18.400 to see what they're saying and, you know,
00:11:20.260 take an average.
00:11:21.140 But that's really where we are now,
00:11:23.240 where the danger is that
00:11:25.740 we can't talk to each other anymore.
00:11:27.840 You know, it's not just like Republicans or see,
00:11:32.180 it's not that people see, you know,
00:11:34.120 people who voted for the other side
00:11:35.700 as just, you know, people who are wrong
00:11:37.500 that they want to argue with.
00:11:39.040 We're in a situation now where we see people
00:11:41.080 who voted for the other side as enemies,
00:11:43.420 as evil murderers, you know,
00:11:45.720 people who harm people.
00:11:47.140 And that's really dangerous.
00:11:48.700 It's a recipe for civil war if we don't fix it,
00:11:50.860 if you view half the country as un-American.
00:11:54.780 So this is why when people say,
00:11:56.720 oh, you know, if Trump loses
00:11:58.900 or now that Trump's lost,
00:12:00.760 the country's going to go back to normal.
00:12:02.840 We're going to settle down.
00:12:04.920 I imagine you're thinking, no.
00:12:08.200 Yeah, crazy.
00:12:09.220 I mean, all the dynamics are still there.
00:12:11.100 And the reason I predicted that Trump would win
00:12:13.280 is because, I mean, while clearly his personality
00:12:16.620 had a lot to do with it,
00:12:18.640 you know, a bit like Hugo Chavez
00:12:20.540 in a totally different way,
00:12:22.180 you know, very effective.
00:12:24.960 But they were just conditions,
00:12:26.600 things that were already in the United States.
00:12:29.040 So, you know, that phenomenon
00:12:30.340 was just waiting to happen.
00:12:31.500 And those facts and conditions
00:12:33.960 are still existing today,
00:12:35.580 even with the change in leadership.
00:12:37.740 All right.
00:12:37.860 So we were primed for someone like Trump
00:12:40.200 to come along, number one,
00:12:41.920 because we're getting more tribal.
00:12:43.940 And the reasons are, number one,
00:12:45.360 this massive demographic transformation,
00:12:47.620 becoming a minority-majority country.
00:12:49.760 Everyone feels threatened.
00:12:51.360 The whites, I know in your book,
00:12:53.300 you cite the fact that 50-plus percent
00:12:55.280 of whites believe, quote,
00:12:56.960 whites have replaced blacks
00:12:58.820 as the primary victims of discrimination.
00:13:01.600 So we're all retreating
00:13:03.120 to our little mini-tribes
00:13:04.860 and not feeling very generous
00:13:07.640 toward other people.
00:13:08.820 But the other big reason you cite
00:13:10.540 is cosmopolitan elites,
00:13:14.140 the coastal rich people
00:13:16.900 who look down
00:13:19.280 on the working-class people of America.
00:13:22.500 Do I have it right?
00:13:23.580 You do have it right.
00:13:24.600 I'm so impressed, Megan.
00:13:25.740 And of course, this is the group
00:13:26.920 that, you know, we more or less belong to.
00:13:29.020 So I understand.
00:13:30.960 But yeah, just kind of backing up quickly
00:13:33.380 for most of my 25 years as a professor,
00:13:35.820 I've written about developing countries
00:13:37.420 and foreign policy.
00:13:38.600 And I always said,
00:13:39.700 the United States is so lucky
00:13:41.240 that we don't have this one terrible problem
00:13:43.320 that I called a market-dominant minority.
00:13:46.500 And this is this weird thing
00:13:48.100 where like in Indonesia,
00:13:49.700 you have like this 3% tiny Chinese minority.
00:13:53.720 So they're not Indonesian, right?
00:13:55.020 Like the 80 million people
00:13:56.840 are mostly Indonesian,
00:13:57.920 but there's this tiny 3% minority
00:14:00.220 that is ethnically Chinese.
00:14:02.160 And they're viewed as these arrogant people
00:14:04.380 that control everything.
00:14:05.860 And they talk their own way.
00:14:07.940 They marry their own people.
00:14:09.220 And they just look down
00:14:10.220 on all the poor people.
00:14:11.720 And what I wrote, you know, in 2000
00:14:13.940 is that when you have that kind of a dynamic,
00:14:16.600 when you have elections,
00:14:18.180 democratic elections,
00:14:19.440 you don't get what Americans always expect,
00:14:21.660 which is peace and prosperity.
00:14:23.160 But you get like demagogues coming in
00:14:25.800 and saying, vote for me.
00:14:26.980 It's all these people's fault.
00:14:28.520 They're not real Americans.
00:14:29.640 And you get scapegoating
00:14:31.520 and then you get this kind of populism.
00:14:34.060 And that's basically, you know,
00:14:35.760 for years we didn't have that
00:14:36.880 because we don't, you know,
00:14:37.920 we don't have a little minority
00:14:39.140 controlling the U.S. economy.
00:14:40.820 It's not true that Jews
00:14:42.280 control the U.S. economy.
00:14:44.240 They're disproportionately successful
00:14:45.740 as are, you know, Asian Americans,
00:14:48.260 but they don't control the economy.
00:14:49.800 But today for the first time,
00:14:51.860 because of something we'll get to,
00:14:54.220 I think the way our education system
00:14:55.740 is broken,
00:14:56.380 there's just so little mobility now.
00:14:59.840 And, you know, you have,
00:15:01.720 what we see is basically
00:15:02.880 this emergence of a group
00:15:04.680 that I call cosmopolitan elites.
00:15:07.020 They mostly live on the coast,
00:15:08.440 but also in cities like Atlanta
00:15:10.200 or Chicago
00:15:10.860 that are viewed
00:15:12.500 by the rest of this country
00:15:13.780 as these arrogant people
00:15:15.520 that care about the poor in Africa
00:15:18.420 more than they care about
00:15:19.380 the poor in Appalachia,
00:15:20.660 whom they disdain,
00:15:22.340 and who kind of go
00:15:23.340 to the same private schools
00:15:24.720 and use their own politically
00:15:26.080 correct vocabulary
00:15:27.080 and control Hollywood
00:15:28.800 and Wall Street
00:15:29.580 and Silicon Valley and D.C.
00:15:31.940 And I do see that the election
00:15:34.140 in 2016 followed this prediction
00:15:38.000 that I actually said.
00:15:39.560 I said, you're going to see
00:15:40.600 this backlash
00:15:41.320 against this little group.
00:15:43.520 And it's not ethnic or racial.
00:15:46.280 Like Barack Obama,
00:15:47.720 J.D. Vance wrote this,
00:15:48.700 is the classic,
00:15:50.060 is viewed actually
00:15:50.740 as the most cosmopolitan elite.
00:15:52.500 He sounds like a professor.
00:15:53.860 He dresses so elegantly.
00:15:56.700 He eats kale.
00:15:58.620 Right?
00:15:59.180 Healthy foods.
00:16:00.500 And so it's an identifiable group
00:16:03.940 that is viewed
00:16:05.040 as very, very kind of selfish
00:16:07.540 and scornful
00:16:08.540 of the rest of the country.
00:16:10.220 And I think part
00:16:11.280 of the 2016 election
00:16:12.400 was President Trump
00:16:14.980 tapped right into that
00:16:16.720 and said,
00:16:17.320 look, let's take back our country
00:16:18.720 for real Americans.
00:16:20.040 Let's make America great again.
00:16:21.360 And it's so,
00:16:23.320 it's not dependent on race,
00:16:25.240 you point out Barack Obama,
00:16:26.480 and it's not dependent on party
00:16:28.140 because I would say Mitt Romney
00:16:29.640 falls directly into this group.
00:16:31.720 You got it.
00:16:32.520 You got it.
00:16:33.100 Yes.
00:16:33.480 Actually, probably most people
00:16:34.840 that you and I know,
00:16:36.080 it's just by virtue
00:16:40.880 of the schools that we attend
00:16:42.540 and the fact that,
00:16:43.860 you know,
00:16:44.540 ethnic groups are often defined
00:16:46.160 by intermarriage.
00:16:47.200 So if you have two groups
00:16:48.660 like black and white Zimbabweans
00:16:50.660 that don't intermarry at all,
00:16:52.700 that's like an ethnic difference.
00:16:55.160 Like Chinese and Indonesians,
00:16:57.420 they don't really marry
00:16:58.920 because one is Muslim
00:16:59.880 and one is ethnic Chinese.
00:17:01.580 Well, the sort of whites have,
00:17:05.780 the difference between poor whites now,
00:17:08.480 you know, Appalachian whites,
00:17:09.840 rural,
00:17:10.700 essentially President Trump's base,
00:17:12.600 and coastal cosmopolitan whites,
00:17:14.900 that difference has hardened so much.
00:17:17.640 There was so little interaction
00:17:19.060 and so little intermarriage
00:17:20.500 between these two groups of whites
00:17:21.940 that it's basically
00:17:23.120 what social scientists
00:17:24.380 would call an ethnic divide.
00:17:26.120 I mean, there's that much difference.
00:17:27.300 It's much more normal for,
00:17:29.380 let's say,
00:17:30.120 a Caucasian who attended
00:17:31.820 Columbia Law School
00:17:33.420 or NYU Law School
00:17:34.660 to marry somebody
00:17:36.140 who's Nigerian-American
00:17:37.400 or South Asian
00:17:38.280 of a similar educational background
00:17:40.200 than it is for that white person
00:17:41.980 to marry another white person
00:17:43.720 from, say, rural Kentucky.
00:17:47.000 So why would they go
00:17:49.200 for a person like Trump
00:17:50.660 who is very wealthy,
00:17:53.420 flying around in helicopters,
00:17:54.780 has his name on buildings,
00:17:56.180 went to Wharton?
00:17:57.400 What is it about him specifically?
00:18:00.180 If you just look at Donald Trump
00:18:01.920 and why all of my friends
00:18:04.360 are cosmopolitan elite friends,
00:18:05.940 just despise him,
00:18:07.160 there you have your answer.
00:18:08.940 He actually kind of culturally
00:18:10.720 and sociologically
00:18:11.740 doesn't act like
00:18:13.320 a cosmopolitan elite.
00:18:14.720 The way he dresses people,
00:18:16.040 made fun of that red tide
00:18:17.380 that hung too low.
00:18:18.780 He eats McDonald's
00:18:20.120 and, you know,
00:18:20.680 these taco bowls
00:18:22.300 and he deliberately plays up
00:18:25.040 this political incorrectness.
00:18:26.740 You know, so,
00:18:27.180 so, you know, again,
00:18:28.280 a lot of liberals,
00:18:29.040 they're like,
00:18:29.460 oh my gosh,
00:18:30.200 he said this,
00:18:31.040 you know,
00:18:31.560 he's, that's sexist,
00:18:32.680 that's racist.
00:18:33.460 But what happened
00:18:34.360 is just a lot of people
00:18:35.580 in the middle of the country
00:18:36.840 said, wait a second,
00:18:37.960 that's kind of how I talk
00:18:39.200 and I'm always getting
00:18:40.300 called out now
00:18:41.060 for being racist or sexist.
00:18:42.480 I'm using the wrong word.
00:18:43.560 I relate to that.
00:18:45.000 You know,
00:18:45.160 and he liked
00:18:46.000 world WWE wrestling
00:18:48.300 and NASCAR.
00:18:49.720 These are things
00:18:50.260 that are anathema
00:18:51.240 to cosmopolitan elites.
00:18:52.700 So, you know,
00:18:53.420 even the way
00:18:54.320 in which he was rich,
00:18:55.640 you know,
00:18:56.080 displayed the gold
00:18:57.280 and Melania Trump
00:18:58.700 and it's, again,
00:19:00.200 cosmopolitan elites
00:19:01.020 don't realize
00:19:01.820 how kind of intolerant
00:19:04.360 and snobby we are.
00:19:05.980 Everyone's like,
00:19:06.500 oh, that's so gauche,
00:19:08.300 you know,
00:19:08.700 you know,
00:19:09.240 those colors that,
00:19:10.620 you know,
00:19:11.140 so I think culturally
00:19:13.040 he and he,
00:19:15.080 I think he cultivated this.
00:19:16.280 He's actually much more similar
00:19:17.760 to his base,
00:19:20.140 you know,
00:19:20.440 to blue collar workers,
00:19:21.700 the way he talks
00:19:22.520 and rambles on
00:19:24.020 and kind of locker room
00:19:25.940 and what he eats.
00:19:27.540 Yeah,
00:19:27.680 I think it really fits actually.
00:19:29.620 So they're,
00:19:29.960 they're the,
00:19:30.980 the masses
00:19:31.680 who we're talking about.
00:19:32.820 They're not anti-wealth.
00:19:34.900 They're,
00:19:35.080 they really are anti-elitism.
00:19:38.300 Completely.
00:19:39.080 And this is another
00:19:39.900 big irony.
00:19:42.140 I think,
00:19:43.600 I think we'll come to this,
00:19:44.620 but many of the people
00:19:46.220 I think most in favor
00:19:47.200 of socialism
00:19:48.140 that I know
00:19:49.420 actually come
00:19:50.380 from very privileged backgrounds.
00:19:51.760 They're,
00:19:52.180 they're living in their
00:19:53.260 hedge fund parents'
00:19:54.960 huge loft.
00:19:55.840 So they have time
00:19:56.900 to be advocating
00:19:58.140 for socialism.
00:19:58.860 with them.
00:20:00.320 So,
00:20:00.940 whereas a lot of
00:20:02.220 both working class people
00:20:03.880 where,
00:20:04.440 you know,
00:20:04.640 they want a fair shot.
00:20:05.820 I mean,
00:20:05.920 a lot of people
00:20:06.500 want more,
00:20:07.580 better redistribution,
00:20:09.020 but no,
00:20:09.560 they,
00:20:09.820 they want the American dream.
00:20:11.340 They,
00:20:11.880 they want the chance
00:20:12.940 to become like somebody
00:20:14.080 like Donald Trump.
00:20:16.140 And,
00:20:16.700 you know,
00:20:16.880 same with immigrants
00:20:17.780 and immigrants kids.
00:20:18.920 That's another,
00:20:19.840 I've had so many students
00:20:20.840 whisper to me,
00:20:21.700 you know,
00:20:22.240 on campus now,
00:20:23.300 I,
00:20:23.720 you know,
00:20:23.880 I had a Iraqi American student
00:20:25.480 whose dad lived
00:20:26.780 in a refugee camp
00:20:27.900 and she was fairly poor
00:20:29.000 and she would love
00:20:30.420 to be a partner
00:20:31.120 in a law firm
00:20:31.740 and go to Wall Street
00:20:32.560 or maybe become a judge.
00:20:34.140 And she's being told
00:20:35.220 by all her progressive friends,
00:20:37.260 no,
00:20:37.700 that's buying into the hierarchy.
00:20:39.260 That's too elitist.
00:20:40.500 You know,
00:20:40.700 you need to be protesting
00:20:41.820 and being an activist.
00:20:43.160 Oh my God.
00:20:43.640 I know.
00:20:44.320 And so she's whispering to me,
00:20:45.600 what am I going to do?
00:20:46.260 I always thought the way
00:20:47.280 to,
00:20:47.520 to change America
00:20:48.780 was if somebody like me,
00:20:50.160 you know,
00:20:50.800 somebody from a poor country
00:20:52.420 could rise
00:20:53.160 and actually be prominent
00:20:54.360 and influential
00:20:55.080 what am I going to do?
00:20:57.060 No,
00:20:57.360 go get yourself arrested.
00:20:58.600 That's the way it's done.
00:20:59.800 Be a Jane Fonda.
00:21:00.940 Get arrested
00:21:01.340 and make sure everybody
00:21:02.200 writes an article about it.
00:21:03.540 There's room for all types
00:21:04.820 is my point.
00:21:06.960 Well,
00:21:07.400 it's funny because,
00:21:08.000 you know,
00:21:08.220 when you see,
00:21:09.120 to your point,
00:21:10.120 the mugshots
00:21:11.020 of these people
00:21:12.220 who get arrested
00:21:12.840 at some of the protests
00:21:13.760 and riots
00:21:14.580 that we saw over the summer,
00:21:16.320 it's nine times out of 10
00:21:17.520 is white women
00:21:19.220 in their mid to young 20s
00:21:21.780 who come from
00:21:23.000 very privileged backgrounds.
00:21:24.020 And they look like
00:21:25.980 they're hot messes.
00:21:26.820 I mean,
00:21:26.980 half of them have like,
00:21:27.860 you know,
00:21:28.140 a black guy
00:21:29.320 or,
00:21:29.740 you know,
00:21:29.840 they look like
00:21:30.320 they've been on drugs.
00:21:31.040 I don't know
00:21:31.320 what the story is,
00:21:32.100 but it's almost never,
00:21:35.220 you certainly don't see,
00:21:36.420 you know,
00:21:36.700 a lot of black people
00:21:37.820 getting arrested.
00:21:38.380 It's these white,
00:21:40.000 educated,
00:21:41.540 rich liberals
00:21:42.180 because some people
00:21:43.240 will do a deep dive
00:21:44.140 on the background,
00:21:45.140 the economic background
00:21:45.980 of a lot of these women
00:21:46.760 and they do,
00:21:47.880 to a person,
00:21:49.020 come from rich backgrounds.
00:21:50.980 Yeah,
00:21:51.180 a lot of people
00:21:51.880 who have nine to fives,
00:21:53.360 kind of working class people
00:21:54.520 actually can't take off time.
00:21:55.960 They're going to be fired.
00:21:57.280 You know,
00:21:57.500 so there's actually
00:21:58.480 a sort of a simple
00:22:00.100 economic explanation for it.
00:22:03.360 But yeah,
00:22:04.360 it's,
00:22:04.660 it's,
00:22:05.120 there are a lot of ironies.
00:22:06.660 Well,
00:22:07.120 this is an interesting thought.
00:22:08.660 I,
00:22:09.120 we talk a lot about the media
00:22:10.260 on this,
00:22:10.980 on this podcast
00:22:11.680 and for obvious reasons,
00:22:13.500 but one of the things
00:22:14.920 that we haven't touched on
00:22:16.740 is their elitism.
00:22:18.760 You know,
00:22:18.940 their bias is right there
00:22:20.460 in our faces
00:22:21.220 and we know it
00:22:22.000 and we talk about
00:22:23.160 what happened to CNN
00:22:24.020 and how it's,
00:22:24.760 it's totally anti-Trump
00:22:25.780 and it's very biased
00:22:26.560 without disclosing it,
00:22:27.640 without owning it,
00:22:28.340 I should say.
00:22:29.980 But this is another strain.
00:22:32.140 You know,
00:22:32.400 one of the most viral clips
00:22:33.880 of the entire election season
00:22:35.320 was a segment hosted
00:22:36.780 by Don Lemon
00:22:37.880 with two pundits.
00:22:39.380 It was Rick Wilson
00:22:40.680 and Wajahat Ali
00:22:42.300 and they were
00:22:45.180 disdainful
00:22:47.240 of flyover country
00:22:48.860 of Trump voters.
00:22:50.220 They were making fun of them
00:22:51.740 with Southern accents.
00:22:53.840 Oh,
00:22:54.280 those Republicans
00:22:55.520 are sort of imitating them
00:22:58.000 going like,
00:22:58.440 oh,
00:22:58.600 you know,
00:22:58.960 Biden
00:22:59.440 and the Democrats
00:23:00.920 with their,
00:23:01.620 their maps
00:23:02.660 and their math
00:23:04.300 and they were hysterical
00:23:06.520 laughing
00:23:07.340 at the other side
00:23:09.120 of the country
00:23:09.460 who we now know
00:23:10.060 is almost split
00:23:10.880 right down the middle,
00:23:11.620 74 million people.
00:23:13.800 How big a factor
00:23:14.460 do you think that was
00:23:15.280 the continuation
00:23:15.900 of the deplorables attitude?
00:23:18.920 I think it's a big factor.
00:23:20.820 I mean,
00:23:21.140 I didn't see that clip,
00:23:22.460 but it's,
00:23:23.300 it's,
00:23:25.300 it's just,
00:23:25.980 it's actually just
00:23:26.580 such a poor political
00:23:28.240 and strategic move.
00:23:30.140 You know,
00:23:30.740 even if you're just,
00:23:31.720 forget about
00:23:32.180 just common decency
00:23:33.460 and,
00:23:33.900 and,
00:23:34.700 and just being more generous
00:23:36.120 towards fellow human beings.
00:23:37.520 But yeah,
00:23:38.320 I think it's a really,
00:23:39.860 you know,
00:23:40.460 we all know human nature.
00:23:41.600 Like,
00:23:41.840 you just have to think,
00:23:42.760 if you hear somebody
00:23:43.820 talking about you
00:23:44.760 like that,
00:23:45.640 how do you feel?
00:23:46.420 Do you feel like,
00:23:46.960 you know what,
00:23:47.200 I want to convert
00:23:47.840 and be on their side
00:23:49.280 or,
00:23:50.320 or,
00:23:50.580 and that's the danger
00:23:51.440 of tribalism.
00:23:52.240 You,
00:23:52.580 when you hear the way
00:23:54.100 people are talking about you,
00:23:55.560 you get angry inside
00:23:56.840 and it just,
00:23:57.920 everything spirals downwards.
00:24:00.160 More with Amy
00:24:00.940 in just one minute.
00:24:01.680 But first,
00:24:02.100 I want to talk to you
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00:25:54.760 This is actually
00:25:55.700 one of my problems
00:25:56.540 in these universities
00:25:57.940 who are kicking out
00:25:59.740 incoming freshmen
00:26:00.700 for some sin,
00:26:02.600 some loser
00:26:03.440 in the person's
00:26:04.400 social circle,
00:26:05.560 dug up
00:26:06.400 and forwarded on
00:26:07.780 to ruin their
00:26:08.620 academic careers
00:26:09.340 before they get
00:26:09.860 started on them,
00:26:11.040 you know,
00:26:11.200 because now we're
00:26:11.600 in that phase of life
00:26:12.560 where we're supposed
00:26:13.040 to rat out our neighbors
00:26:14.140 for any perceived
00:26:15.200 misstep on race,
00:26:17.140 on gender,
00:26:17.760 on identity,
00:26:18.880 all of this stuff.
00:26:19.820 So you have a young person
00:26:20.840 who made a mistake
00:26:21.460 when she was 14,
00:26:22.660 and it comes out
00:26:23.520 when she's 17 or 18
00:26:24.500 as she's about to go off
00:26:25.460 to some esteemed university,
00:26:27.400 and the universities
00:26:28.540 more and more
00:26:29.180 are pulling the admission
00:26:30.920 of these young kids.
00:26:32.220 what a loss
00:26:33.700 of a teachable moment
00:26:34.780 and exactly the opposite
00:26:36.680 is actually being taught,
00:26:37.860 which is what person
00:26:39.500 who loses their entire future
00:26:41.400 at a university
00:26:42.180 they worked hard to get into
00:26:43.220 because they're being told
00:26:44.900 they're a racist
00:26:45.680 because of some stupid comment
00:26:46.920 they said,
00:26:47.600 what person then says,
00:26:48.960 you know what,
00:26:49.300 I'm with you,
00:26:49.980 I'm genuinely on your side now,
00:26:51.600 I'm listening to you
00:26:52.480 and I want to be more like you
00:26:53.780 and listen more
00:26:54.560 and read what you want me to read,
00:26:56.080 totally open-minded to you.
00:26:57.420 No, exactly the opposite happens.
00:26:59.360 Exactly, I totally agree
00:27:01.540 and it's, I don't know,
00:27:02.900 I mean, it's, you know,
00:27:04.560 some of the most moving stories
00:27:06.340 that give me the most hope
00:27:07.720 for America
00:27:08.240 are about redemption.
00:27:10.140 I mean, that's what
00:27:10.480 we should be looking for.
00:27:12.080 There's this guy,
00:27:12.880 I can't remember his name,
00:27:13.680 his last name is Black,
00:27:14.780 I think,
00:27:15.080 and I think he's the
00:27:15.840 maybe like grandson
00:27:17.660 of the Grand Duke
00:27:19.300 Kuplex Klan person
00:27:20.780 or something like that
00:27:21.580 and he went through
00:27:22.940 this metamorphosis in college.
00:27:24.980 Basically, he went in
00:27:25.900 this rabid, you know,
00:27:27.880 neo-Nazi
00:27:28.720 and some roommate,
00:27:31.760 not knowing,
00:27:32.420 either invited him to Shabbat
00:27:33.760 and then he met a young woman.
00:27:36.020 Yes, I had him on my show at NBC.
00:27:37.860 I had both of these guys on my show.
00:27:39.780 Exactly, and that's what
00:27:40.640 we should be encouraging
00:27:41.480 and you're right
00:27:41.980 and you start rooting them out
00:27:43.380 and also,
00:27:44.500 anybody who has children,
00:27:46.880 you know, this is a,
00:27:47.840 this is just,
00:27:48.400 this, I actually think
00:27:49.060 it's not sustainable
00:27:49.800 because at a certain point,
00:27:51.300 at a certain point,
00:27:52.940 everybody's going to look
00:27:53.740 at their own kids
00:27:54.560 and realize,
00:27:55.220 oops, is it over now?
00:27:56.820 He did this stupid thing
00:27:57.920 at 13, is it over?
00:27:59.220 And there's got to be
00:28:00.340 a self-correction mechanism.
00:28:02.620 Okay, of course,
00:28:03.780 because it's like,
00:28:04.440 of course,
00:28:04.780 all of us make stupid mistakes
00:28:06.180 and we just didn't grow up
00:28:08.540 in the era of social media
00:28:09.720 and this weird,
00:28:10.860 you know,
00:28:11.340 snitch on your neighbor mentality.
00:28:13.240 But by the way,
00:28:14.080 to your point
00:28:14.920 about the great grandson
00:28:16.720 of the KKK Grand Wizard,
00:28:19.020 so he came on
00:28:19.940 and with the guy
00:28:21.520 who helped him
00:28:22.160 who was an Orthodox Jewish guy
00:28:24.400 and he just started
00:28:25.680 inviting the descendant
00:28:27.640 of the Grand Wizard
00:28:28.540 to dinner at his house,
00:28:30.140 to Shabbat dinner.
00:28:31.120 And I asked him,
00:28:32.000 so did you try
00:28:33.060 to disabuse him
00:28:33.900 of his notions,
00:28:34.660 you know,
00:28:34.880 about Jewish people,
00:28:35.720 about what,
00:28:36.120 about Black people?
00:28:37.460 And he said,
00:28:38.200 not at all.
00:28:39.160 No.
00:28:40.020 We just talked
00:28:40.780 about life
00:28:41.640 and love
00:28:42.160 and college.
00:28:43.780 And over time,
00:28:45.360 the guy just came
00:28:46.940 to the realization
00:28:47.740 that he had been fed
00:28:49.080 a bill of goods,
00:28:50.280 that it wasn't true
00:28:51.660 what he'd been taught
00:28:52.580 about minority groups
00:28:53.680 like Jewish people
00:28:54.640 and came to that conclusion
00:28:56.120 for himself
00:28:56.680 out of the love
00:28:58.380 and kindness
00:28:59.300 and friendship
00:29:00.420 he was receiving
00:29:01.280 from someone
00:29:01.940 in that group.
00:29:03.560 Exactly.
00:29:03.920 That's exactly your point,
00:29:05.240 that if you really want
00:29:06.260 to change people
00:29:07.120 and persuade people,
00:29:08.740 you don't out them
00:29:09.780 and then target them
00:29:10.620 and then shame them.
00:29:11.740 That's just going
00:29:12.460 to make them entrenched
00:29:13.440 and sometimes go underground
00:29:14.820 and become more radical.
00:29:16.880 And going back
00:29:18.060 to your original question
00:29:19.100 about tribalism,
00:29:19.840 people are like,
00:29:20.760 is this so depressing, Amy?
00:29:22.160 Are we all so tribal?
00:29:23.380 But I have all these studies
00:29:25.400 at the back of the book
00:29:26.220 that are really hopeful
00:29:27.180 that demonstrate
00:29:28.660 kind of scientifically
00:29:30.280 what you were just talking about,
00:29:31.880 that if you can pull people
00:29:33.680 out of their tribes,
00:29:34.540 even just for a short time
00:29:35.660 and say, okay,
00:29:36.200 don't talk about politics,
00:29:37.200 don't talk about this,
00:29:38.340 just talk about your pets
00:29:40.080 and ice cream
00:29:41.040 and pizza
00:29:41.600 and your children
00:29:42.380 and sports,
00:29:44.320 it takes such a short time
00:29:47.360 for humans to connect
00:29:48.920 on a human level.
00:29:51.100 You know, I mean,
00:29:51.540 it's people,
00:29:52.680 I mean, I'm an optimist.
00:29:53.660 I mean, people are basically good,
00:29:55.280 you know,
00:29:55.640 and so, yes,
00:29:57.880 if we really want
00:29:58.740 to bring people together
00:29:59.800 and if you really think
00:30:01.220 the other side is terrible,
00:30:02.280 you want to change their mind,
00:30:03.960 you should be doing
00:30:04.640 exactly what your guest did,
00:30:06.760 which is just don't scream
00:30:08.960 and yell and target and shame,
00:30:10.460 but just try to be a human being.
00:30:13.060 And I think,
00:30:14.120 you know,
00:30:14.320 it's hard not to do it
00:30:15.320 on the other side too.
00:30:16.300 By the way,
00:30:16.600 my smart producer
00:30:17.580 is just letting me know
00:30:18.360 the guest's name
00:30:18.980 was Derek Black.
00:30:20.040 David Duke was his godfather
00:30:21.420 and his father
00:30:23.820 was a grand wizard
00:30:25.160 of the KKK.
00:30:26.040 So, I mean,
00:30:26.340 there's pretty intimate connections
00:30:27.520 to the KKK
00:30:28.220 and he managed
00:30:29.400 to extract himself.
00:30:31.460 But I think it's easy to,
00:30:33.100 you know,
00:30:33.200 having been on the receiving end
00:30:34.760 of that kind of targeting,
00:30:36.160 I think there's also
00:30:38.160 a fight in your own heart
00:30:39.220 not to give in to bitterness,
00:30:41.960 to continue to use
00:30:44.020 a generous lens
00:30:44.920 on the other side
00:30:46.920 that's saying
00:30:47.420 the awful things about you.
00:30:49.000 Because if you don't use
00:30:50.660 the generous lens,
00:30:52.400 then negativity
00:30:53.480 breeds more negativity
00:30:54.880 and, you know,
00:30:56.320 bitterness will set in.
00:30:58.140 And the more you lean
00:30:59.960 into your tribal mentality
00:31:01.320 and the demonization
00:31:02.440 of huge groups of people,
00:31:04.020 the more alienated
00:31:05.240 you're going to be.
00:31:07.160 Yeah, you know,
00:31:07.520 I see you as such
00:31:08.720 a kindred spirit this way
00:31:10.020 because, of course,
00:31:10.880 it's human nature
00:31:11.700 to just hold a grudge
00:31:13.360 and be angry.
00:31:14.500 For me,
00:31:15.060 I found it to be true
00:31:16.300 even at a personal level.
00:31:18.300 Sometimes I would get so angry
00:31:19.900 I would see stuff
00:31:20.780 said about me
00:31:21.580 or even worse
00:31:22.200 about my family.
00:31:23.360 If it's about me,
00:31:24.180 I can take it.
00:31:25.160 But when I see stuff
00:31:25.900 about my children,
00:31:27.160 my daughters,
00:31:27.680 I just start burning up
00:31:28.900 and get all these
00:31:30.040 vengeful feelings.
00:31:31.300 And then I realized
00:31:32.040 when I get in that state,
00:31:33.540 Megan,
00:31:34.160 I'm awful.
00:31:35.460 Like, I'm awful to be around.
00:31:36.620 And I also can't write.
00:31:38.500 I can't write.
00:31:39.560 I can't be productive.
00:31:40.720 I just,
00:31:41.440 even again,
00:31:42.340 just purely strategically,
00:31:43.500 I thought,
00:31:44.200 you just let it go.
00:31:46.200 You know,
00:31:46.340 it's just a terrible state
00:31:47.540 to being.
00:31:48.240 Just be generous.
00:31:49.880 Take a deep breath.
00:31:50.780 And I've tried to live by that.
00:31:52.300 I got it from my parents.
00:31:53.940 And that's actually
00:31:54.860 the first piece of advice
00:31:56.000 I give young people.
00:31:56.940 Just like,
00:31:57.440 let it go.
00:31:59.040 Don't be bitter.
00:32:00.740 And now we're really
00:32:01.560 going down the rabbit hole.
00:32:02.560 But I will share
00:32:03.580 a story with you
00:32:04.360 that for me
00:32:05.480 was very illuminating
00:32:06.500 as a woman,
00:32:07.180 as a human.
00:32:08.900 Back when I was
00:32:10.320 in between marriages,
00:32:11.860 you know,
00:32:12.040 my many marriages.
00:32:12.960 No,
00:32:13.140 I've only had two.
00:32:14.600 So my first marriage
00:32:16.180 had broken up
00:32:17.060 and I was separated
00:32:18.180 from Dan,
00:32:19.100 had not yet met Doug,
00:32:20.380 and I decided
00:32:21.100 to get some counseling.
00:32:22.060 This woman actually
00:32:22.700 helped me decide
00:32:23.780 that I was going to
00:32:24.340 leave my first marriage.
00:32:25.040 She was a relationship counselor.
00:32:26.700 And so she was wonderful
00:32:28.400 and really transformed
00:32:29.420 my life
00:32:30.240 and my thinking
00:32:30.760 about a lot of things.
00:32:31.500 But I went to her
00:32:32.460 for individual therapy
00:32:33.380 and shortly into
00:32:34.080 the relationship,
00:32:34.880 she was like,
00:32:35.840 you know,
00:32:36.520 you could really benefit
00:32:37.400 from some group therapy.
00:32:39.000 I was like,
00:32:39.820 how fucked up am I?
00:32:40.900 Like,
00:32:41.020 how many times a week
00:32:42.400 am I going to be coming here?
00:32:45.340 And she said,
00:32:47.240 it's a lot,
00:32:47.880 it's women
00:32:48.500 who are all going through
00:32:50.400 the,
00:32:51.060 you know,
00:32:51.220 a big breakup
00:32:52.020 or a relationship crisis.
00:32:53.560 And I think
00:32:54.380 hearing their stories
00:32:55.400 would help you.
00:32:55.940 So I was like,
00:32:56.280 okay,
00:32:56.440 I'll do it.
00:32:57.180 So I went
00:32:57.660 and that's what I thought
00:32:58.160 we were going to talk about,
00:32:59.020 the guys
00:32:59.520 and whether we all
00:33:00.300 wanted to break up
00:33:01.040 or stay together.
00:33:01.940 And there was some of that,
00:33:03.220 but it turned into also
00:33:04.460 an inward look
00:33:05.960 at ourselves
00:33:06.560 at the way
00:33:07.680 we approach friendships,
00:33:08.560 at the way
00:33:09.160 we approach other women
00:33:10.460 and had some profound
00:33:12.960 discussions there.
00:33:13.780 And one of the discussions
00:33:14.780 was about how
00:33:15.520 I had always felt like
00:33:17.020 when I walk into a room
00:33:18.000 with other women,
00:33:18.900 they don't like me.
00:33:19.980 That instantaneously
00:33:21.560 I was disliked.
00:33:23.540 And maybe that had been true,
00:33:25.240 maybe it hadn't,
00:33:25.860 but that
00:33:26.340 it wasn't even
00:33:27.600 appearance
00:33:28.340 so much as confidence.
00:33:30.120 Sometimes when you
00:33:30.560 project confidence
00:33:31.560 as a person,
00:33:32.320 it can be threatening
00:33:34.020 to others,
00:33:34.740 right?
00:33:35.260 Especially if they
00:33:35.880 don't feel confident.
00:33:37.160 There's so much envy
00:33:38.260 of you,
00:33:39.180 Megan.
00:33:40.500 You know,
00:33:41.180 I,
00:33:41.820 yes,
00:33:42.560 I know exactly
00:33:43.240 what you're talking about.
00:33:44.480 And sometimes
00:33:45.280 I have to
00:33:46.020 talk to myself about it
00:33:47.480 because I feel bad.
00:33:48.400 I'm like,
00:33:48.680 why?
00:33:49.240 I feel like
00:33:49.820 everybody hates me.
00:33:50.700 Look at my,
00:33:51.140 I'm looking at Twitter.
00:33:51.940 Oh my gosh.
00:33:52.680 And these people
00:33:53.500 don't even know me
00:33:54.420 and it's lethal.
00:33:55.240 It's so deadly
00:33:56.880 and toxic
00:33:57.560 and like,
00:33:58.080 oh,
00:33:58.320 and vicious.
00:33:59.140 Like I,
00:33:59.720 you deserve your daughters
00:34:00.780 to commit suicide
00:34:01.680 and all this terrible stuff.
00:34:03.260 And,
00:34:03.420 and I,
00:34:04.480 I've thought about it
00:34:05.300 a lot myself.
00:34:05.920 So how did that go?
00:34:07.460 So I,
00:34:07.980 I talked about it openly.
00:34:09.100 I,
00:34:09.400 I confess that to these women.
00:34:11.120 I was,
00:34:11.540 I was already on television
00:34:12.720 at the time.
00:34:13.260 I was like a first year
00:34:14.380 at Fox or maybe second year.
00:34:15.860 And,
00:34:16.360 um,
00:34:16.960 one of the women
00:34:18.060 did me the favor
00:34:19.620 of crying
00:34:20.840 and telling me
00:34:22.200 in her case,
00:34:23.320 it was true.
00:34:24.320 She said,
00:34:25.720 I,
00:34:26.520 I do feel threatened.
00:34:27.840 I wouldn't want to go out
00:34:29.200 for a drink with you.
00:34:30.440 I would feel like
00:34:31.240 you would get
00:34:32.180 all this attention
00:34:32.940 and I wouldn't get any
00:34:34.080 and you would think
00:34:35.220 you were better than me
00:34:36.160 and I wouldn't like
00:34:37.120 the way I felt
00:34:38.140 around you.
00:34:39.000 And then I started crying
00:34:39.960 because she,
00:34:40.420 she was giving me
00:34:41.120 a gift of honesty
00:34:41.980 and I got the chance.
00:34:43.680 She gave me the chance
00:34:44.680 to confess to her
00:34:45.800 that's not at all
00:34:46.700 how I am,
00:34:47.400 how I'm riddled
00:34:48.060 with self-doubt.
00:34:49.020 And while I know
00:34:49.540 I project very confident
00:34:50.760 and I,
00:34:51.240 in general,
00:34:51.560 I'm a confident person,
00:34:52.420 I have just as many
00:34:53.680 insecurities as anybody else
00:34:55.360 and I'm clamoring
00:34:56.700 for approval
00:34:57.380 just like any other human.
00:34:58.560 So we bonded
00:34:59.720 and the end result
00:35:01.700 of all of this was
00:35:02.480 my lady,
00:35:03.120 Amy,
00:35:03.540 she was the therapist,
00:35:04.740 helped me
00:35:05.300 and the other gals
00:35:06.060 see the more
00:35:07.840 you can walk
00:35:08.800 into a room
00:35:09.880 thinking not
00:35:11.760 they all hate me
00:35:13.220 or they're all
00:35:13.780 gonna hate me
00:35:14.500 but thinking instead
00:35:15.780 they're all going
00:35:17.380 to love me
00:35:18.300 the more
00:35:19.120 you will get
00:35:19.880 that back
00:35:20.740 from that group
00:35:22.140 and from life
00:35:23.560 and on a much
00:35:24.620 larger level
00:35:25.620 I think that's
00:35:26.300 what we're talking
00:35:26.760 like if you could
00:35:27.320 find a way
00:35:28.060 out of the tribal
00:35:28.800 instinct
00:35:29.300 and try to look
00:35:31.000 generously at the
00:35:31.700 other side
00:35:32.160 and say
00:35:32.540 what if they loved me?
00:35:34.900 Maybe we could
00:35:35.680 make some progress.
00:35:36.840 You know,
00:35:37.060 when I got back
00:35:37.880 I'll tell you later
00:35:39.340 but I had this
00:35:40.260 weird medical crisis
00:35:41.780 but when I got back
00:35:43.240 to school
00:35:44.360 after this really
00:35:45.440 turbulent time
00:35:46.300 when there were
00:35:46.540 all these protests
00:35:47.280 and it was another
00:35:47.960 one of my firestorms
00:35:49.660 I remember going
00:35:50.620 into a class
00:35:51.440 and then a bunch
00:35:52.800 of students
00:35:53.200 said to me
00:35:53.720 oh gosh
00:35:54.340 during office hours
00:35:55.200 you can't believe it
00:35:55.960 all these people
00:35:56.460 on the wait list
00:35:57.080 for your class
00:35:57.720 you know
00:35:58.480 they were about
00:35:59.420 to snitch
00:35:59.960 like they were
00:36:00.560 the ones
00:36:00.920 actually saying
00:36:01.440 terrible things
00:36:02.060 about you
00:36:02.480 and protesting
00:36:03.100 and I said
00:36:03.560 stop
00:36:04.120 I said
00:36:04.900 I don't care
00:36:06.380 I don't want
00:36:07.160 to hear anything
00:36:07.980 I don't want
00:36:08.440 to know
00:36:08.660 any
00:36:09.040 I want to give
00:36:09.840 every fresh
00:36:10.500 clean slate
00:36:11.760 I like everybody
00:36:12.580 if they'll give
00:36:13.360 me a chance
00:36:13.880 I'll give them
00:36:14.460 a chance
00:36:14.940 and it worked out
00:36:16.040 so good
00:36:16.440 that's so perfect
00:36:18.380 well don't you find
00:36:19.460 in life
00:36:20.240 sometimes you run
00:36:21.200 into that person
00:36:21.920 who is just dying
00:36:22.660 to tell you
00:36:23.080 all the negative
00:36:23.660 things people
00:36:24.220 have said about you
00:36:24.920 right
00:36:25.920 especially when
00:36:26.400 you're younger
00:36:26.800 and you really
00:36:27.540 need to eliminate
00:36:28.100 those people
00:36:28.540 from your lives
00:36:29.080 I remember
00:36:29.380 in law school
00:36:29.800 there was a gal
00:36:30.400 she sat next to me
00:36:31.480 because we sat
00:36:31.840 alphabetically
00:36:32.500 and she would
00:36:33.280 just tell me
00:36:33.660 all the time
00:36:34.440 about like
00:36:34.960 this one
00:36:35.240 doesn't really
00:36:35.680 like you
00:36:36.060 or this one
00:36:36.400 said that
00:36:36.760 about you
00:36:37.100 and finally
00:36:37.780 I looked at her
00:36:38.400 and I was like
00:36:38.960 you know what
00:36:39.480 do me a favor
00:36:40.520 don't tell me
00:36:41.400 any more of those
00:36:41.880 things
00:36:42.160 I don't need
00:36:42.840 to know
00:36:43.080 those things
00:36:43.620 I told my daughters
00:36:45.000 I was like
00:36:45.600 you know
00:36:46.460 you don't be surprised
00:36:47.840 that what kind
00:36:48.580 of tiger mom
00:36:49.160 advice I give
00:36:49.980 but this is a big one
00:36:50.840 I was like
00:36:51.120 I've discovered
00:36:51.740 late in my life
00:36:52.500 that there are
00:36:52.820 basically two kinds
00:36:53.660 of people
00:36:54.140 the ones that
00:36:55.440 after you leave them
00:36:56.360 I mean no matter
00:36:56.900 how the conversation
00:36:57.760 felt
00:36:58.060 you feel worse
00:36:59.060 about yourself
00:36:59.700 for some reason
00:37:00.340 you just feel bad
00:37:01.360 and then the other
00:37:02.560 half you leave
00:37:03.700 and you know
00:37:04.080 you could have been
00:37:04.580 talking about
00:37:05.080 you know potatoes
00:37:05.760 but you just feel
00:37:06.680 better about yourself
00:37:07.600 and I was like
00:37:08.060 you always want
00:37:09.260 to be the second
00:37:10.260 kind of person
00:37:11.060 you know
00:37:12.180 that's so important
00:37:13.240 yeah
00:37:13.660 I'll tell you
00:37:14.740 the epilogue
00:37:15.180 to that story
00:37:16.020 about the woman
00:37:16.480 I went to law school
00:37:17.080 with so
00:37:17.460 I told her
00:37:18.900 to stop telling me
00:37:19.620 that stuff
00:37:20.020 that I didn't
00:37:20.440 appreciate it
00:37:21.000 and it wasn't
00:37:21.440 good for me
00:37:21.860 and she took offense
00:37:23.180 and flash forward
00:37:24.400 to the end
00:37:24.880 of the semester
00:37:25.840 and we walked in
00:37:27.040 and we're trying
00:37:27.460 to find our seats
00:37:28.160 and she had already
00:37:28.700 seen the seating chart
00:37:29.520 and as I say
00:37:29.960 we always sat
00:37:30.460 next to each other
00:37:30.940 so I saw her
00:37:31.440 at the back
00:37:31.720 of the class
00:37:32.100 and I said
00:37:32.400 do you know
00:37:32.640 where we're
00:37:33.020 sitting
00:37:33.520 and she goes
00:37:34.720 figure it out
00:37:35.480 yourself
00:37:35.960 and I looked at her
00:37:37.120 and I said
00:37:37.600 shove it up your ass
00:37:39.560 which is a great phrase
00:37:41.100 we should use it
00:37:42.020 more often
00:37:42.640 I advocate for it
00:37:43.900 it felt so good
00:37:47.840 I think also
00:37:49.740 when you talk about it
00:37:51.000 it can be inspiring
00:37:51.880 I've had conversations
00:37:53.340 with the students
00:37:54.140 that are very illuminating
00:37:55.300 for me too
00:37:55.820 because I get the same thing
00:37:57.140 which is
00:37:57.520 wow you're so strong
00:37:59.380 you know
00:37:59.800 how can you just keep
00:38:01.080 picking yourself up
00:38:02.080 and when you hear
00:38:02.820 these things being said
00:38:03.720 about you
00:38:04.260 and how do you do that
00:38:05.540 and when I explained
00:38:06.920 to them the process
00:38:08.220 I was like
00:38:08.700 oh you don't realize
00:38:09.460 like just 10 minutes
00:38:10.280 before I came into this room
00:38:11.340 I was like in bed
00:38:12.860 under the covers
00:38:13.580 not sure I could deal with it
00:38:15.040 you know
00:38:15.380 pounding the mellows
00:38:16.540 just
00:38:16.680 and the decision
00:38:18.620 to like
00:38:18.980 you know what
00:38:19.260 I'm going to put on
00:38:20.040 a nice suit
00:38:20.680 and actually present myself
00:38:22.000 you know
00:38:22.320 it's
00:38:22.900 a lot of that's hard
00:38:24.220 you just have to
00:38:24.840 kind of make yourself
00:38:25.680 and it's not like
00:38:26.580 it's automatic
00:38:27.260 I'm oh I'm a
00:38:28.160 this is easy for you
00:38:29.040 I'm such
00:38:29.740 quote unquote
00:38:30.380 strong person
00:38:31.220 it's
00:38:31.560 it's not
00:38:32.260 it's really
00:38:32.780 as you say
00:38:33.340 it's
00:38:33.600 it's
00:38:34.040 it's difficult
00:38:34.800 it's a struggle
00:38:36.000 and half the battle
00:38:36.880 as you point out
00:38:37.560 is just doing it
00:38:38.500 getting yourself up
00:38:39.460 and then doing it
00:38:40.800 even if it goes poorly
00:38:41.920 putting yourself back out there
00:38:43.140 after a big challenge
00:38:44.040 matters
00:38:44.620 matters in the perception
00:38:46.040 of others
00:38:46.420 and just in general
00:38:47.520 okay so
00:38:48.580 getting back to our
00:38:49.540 tribalism discussion
00:38:50.620 what
00:38:51.620 what do we do
00:38:53.100 about it now
00:38:53.880 so Trump
00:38:54.520 you know
00:38:55.040 Trump has lost
00:38:55.940 the election
00:38:56.440 and
00:38:56.940 the
00:38:58.380 the country's
00:38:59.580 very divided
00:39:00.220 it's not going to go away
00:39:01.540 just because
00:39:02.140 I mean he's not going away
00:39:03.420 he's still going to be the voice
00:39:04.300 of the Republican Party
00:39:05.100 for a long time
00:39:05.880 so what
00:39:07.060 what's going to happen
00:39:08.240 since you have studied
00:39:09.220 other countries
00:39:09.960 who get like this
00:39:11.480 with the market
00:39:12.640 minority majority
00:39:13.920 or however you phrased it
00:39:15.060 market dominant
00:39:15.600 what happens next
00:39:17.620 in those countries
00:39:18.460 well here's the crazy
00:39:20.320 optimist in me
00:39:21.460 which I can't believe
00:39:22.860 I can maintain
00:39:23.600 teaching at Yale Law School
00:39:24.700 but I just think
00:39:26.120 we have this
00:39:26.680 extraordinary
00:39:27.580 magic formula
00:39:30.100 in this country
00:39:30.700 and I think it's because
00:39:31.320 I'm an immigrant kid
00:39:32.160 we've talked about
00:39:32.720 our similar backgrounds
00:39:34.280 but I mean
00:39:36.160 I know you're not an immigrant
00:39:36.860 but just similar kinds
00:39:37.780 of upbringing
00:39:38.720 but you know
00:39:39.600 I think my parents
00:39:40.540 came from another country
00:39:41.860 that was just so much worse
00:39:43.320 they were the Chinese
00:39:44.060 and the Philippines
00:39:44.640 that I was just kind of raised
00:39:46.920 like this is such
00:39:47.600 an amazing country
00:39:48.340 so I think that the fact
00:39:49.500 that our national identity
00:39:51.680 is not rooted in blood
00:39:54.120 or a certain race
00:39:55.160 or a certain religion
00:39:56.020 but rather our constitution
00:39:57.900 is going to save us
00:39:59.560 I think it's going to take
00:40:00.400 a long time
00:40:00.980 it's going to be
00:40:01.520 we're going to have
00:40:02.000 many many rough years
00:40:03.780 because we're going
00:40:04.940 through growing pains
00:40:05.860 and some of it is
00:40:06.700 really honestly
00:40:08.120 a lot of previously
00:40:09.540 silenced voices
00:40:10.420 are finally getting
00:40:11.560 to express themselves
00:40:12.880 and that's good
00:40:13.620 and it feels very turbulent
00:40:14.700 but when you say
00:40:16.180 what should we do
00:40:18.060 going forward
00:40:18.760 one crazy
00:40:21.440 well I don't think
00:40:22.320 it's so crazy
00:40:22.760 but the kinds of things
00:40:23.860 that I think would be great
00:40:24.800 for this country
00:40:25.420 to bridge the divide
00:40:26.480 between the cosmopolitan elites
00:40:28.440 and kind of the rest
00:40:29.420 of the country
00:40:30.160 or Trump's base
00:40:31.540 is this idea
00:40:33.000 that people
00:40:33.480 on both the right
00:40:34.600 and the left
00:40:35.220 of the political spectrum
00:40:36.200 have started to suggest
00:40:37.360 and that's the idea
00:40:38.200 of like a national service program
00:40:40.880 whether it may be voluntary
00:40:42.460 but so you've got kids
00:40:43.940 so a lot of kids
00:40:45.040 right after high school now
00:40:46.220 especially coastal elites
00:40:47.500 they take a gap year
00:40:48.720 and it's wonderful
00:40:50.060 they usually go to Australia
00:40:51.140 or Amsterdam
00:40:51.820 or Guatemala
00:40:52.920 and they do amazing things
00:40:54.540 but the thing is
00:40:55.720 they often go
00:40:56.520 with their same
00:40:57.360 kind of elite bubble
00:40:59.080 like they're still
00:40:59.840 with their same friends
00:41:00.860 and they go
00:41:01.660 to amazing things
00:41:02.620 so what about
00:41:03.600 let's say
00:41:04.020 after high school
00:41:05.240 you know people
00:41:06.120 young people
00:41:06.820 are encouraged to
00:41:07.600 if you're from New York
00:41:08.600 or San Francisco
00:41:09.220 to go to another part
00:41:10.640 of the country
00:41:11.200 you know Kentucky
00:41:12.520 or Ohio
00:41:13.240 or somewhere
00:41:14.240 where you would never go
00:41:16.140 and sort of interact
00:41:18.060 on some kind of
00:41:19.000 public service project
00:41:20.560 you know
00:41:20.940 building planting trees
00:41:21.860 or building something
00:41:22.680 housing
00:41:23.120 because of the pandemic
00:41:24.000 but side by side
00:41:25.860 with somebody
00:41:26.360 not in a condescending way
00:41:27.740 not like I'm going to teach you
00:41:29.540 but just you know
00:41:30.780 and I think some program
00:41:32.680 like that
00:41:33.100 because we don't have
00:41:33.760 the draft anymore
00:41:34.560 it used to be
00:41:35.800 that the draft
00:41:36.840 actually served this function
00:41:38.080 this is an interesting thing
00:41:39.080 about the Vietnam War
00:41:40.080 that was terrible
00:41:40.680 for so many reasons
00:41:41.640 one very positive thing
00:41:43.400 that I write about
00:41:44.040 is that it actually
00:41:44.760 for the first time
00:41:46.060 brought Latino Americans
00:41:47.680 and African Americans
00:41:48.700 and Polish Americans
00:41:49.660 and Irish Americans
00:41:50.940 all together
00:41:51.720 and you know
00:41:52.520 there are these inspiring quotes
00:41:53.720 and when you're
00:41:54.480 you know
00:41:54.880 afraid for your life
00:41:56.040 you're in this dark cubby
00:41:57.600 being shot at
00:41:58.340 you look to the person
00:41:59.240 to your left and right
00:42:00.020 you don't care
00:42:00.580 what class they are
00:42:01.900 what accent they have
00:42:02.960 the color of their skin
00:42:03.920 you know
00:42:04.640 and that was actually
00:42:05.980 a great bonding moment
00:42:06.940 so if we can try
00:42:08.140 to replace that
00:42:08.860 with some sort of program
00:42:09.860 where young people
00:42:10.780 from more elite backgrounds
00:42:12.140 can actually interact
00:42:13.180 as human beings
00:42:14.020 with people
00:42:15.300 from other parts of the country
00:42:16.300 I think that kind of thing
00:42:17.140 would be a great start
00:42:18.120 I love that
00:42:19.760 I mean
00:42:20.320 we think about it now
00:42:22.220 because of our kids
00:42:23.180 you know
00:42:23.400 I didn't grow up
00:42:24.080 in any sort of elite circles
00:42:25.200 but now becoming
00:42:26.020 a member of the media
00:42:26.980 and then earning some dough
00:42:28.460 it kind of puts you there
00:42:30.120 and I do not want
00:42:31.900 to raise those kids
00:42:33.000 I don't want kids
00:42:34.160 that turn out like that
00:42:35.360 and so Doug and I
00:42:36.740 you know
00:42:37.200 we talk about it all the time
00:42:38.180 like how do you
00:42:38.880 how do you make sure
00:42:39.820 because they see
00:42:40.280 the trappings of wealth
00:42:41.240 that they don't think
00:42:43.040 too much of themselves
00:42:43.800 number one
00:42:44.300 we always make sure
00:42:44.940 they know
00:42:45.280 they have nothing
00:42:46.000 they have no money
00:42:47.420 he and I have money
00:42:48.540 they got nothing
00:42:49.340 good luck
00:42:49.660 that's perfect
00:42:50.580 number two
00:42:52.240 we don't
00:42:53.460 you know
00:42:53.740 in our summers
00:42:54.680 nobody stays in New York
00:42:55.700 in the summers
00:42:56.100 everybody leaves New York City
00:42:57.120 because it's hideous
00:42:57.800 we don't go to the Hamptons
00:42:59.980 we don't go to any
00:43:00.820 sort of rich communities
00:43:01.740 we've been hanging out
00:43:02.660 at the Jersey Shore
00:43:03.480 and it's a privilege
00:43:04.480 to have a summer place
00:43:05.820 don't get me wrong
00:43:06.580 but it was by design
00:43:07.940 that we chose
00:43:08.600 to live
00:43:09.480 you know
00:43:10.200 on a crowded street
00:43:11.060 with our home
00:43:11.620 right in the mix of things
00:43:12.740 next to people who
00:43:14.120 you know
00:43:14.420 are cops
00:43:14.960 and firefighters
00:43:15.560 and teachers
00:43:16.360 and real estate agents
00:43:17.460 and not
00:43:18.420 you know
00:43:18.900 you have to walk
00:43:19.820 the red carpet
00:43:20.420 just to get out
00:43:21.080 to dinner at night
00:43:22.180 you know
00:43:22.360 we already
00:43:22.660 freaking have that
00:43:23.580 in New York
00:43:23.980 we don't
00:43:24.720 we don't want our kids
00:43:25.480 to think that's real life
00:43:26.520 because it's not
00:43:27.180 a quick story
00:43:28.220 somebody really
00:43:29.820 really wealthy
00:43:30.440 that I don't know
00:43:31.120 very well
00:43:31.620 but you know
00:43:32.380 that again
00:43:32.840 like through this lecture
00:43:33.760 Tiger Mom stuff
00:43:34.500 I meet interesting people
00:43:35.540 and a billionaire's wife
00:43:37.560 carting around
00:43:38.560 they're really cute kids
00:43:39.720 but in private planes
00:43:41.200 and everything
00:43:41.560 said okay
00:43:42.260 invited me to dinner
00:43:44.120 said tell me
00:43:44.900 one important tip
00:43:46.340 just one crucial
00:43:47.340 secret
00:43:47.840 you know
00:43:48.120 because look at these kids
00:43:48.940 I want to be a Tiger Mom
00:43:50.360 and I'm seeing them
00:43:51.620 float around
00:43:52.100 in these private jets
00:43:53.220 and everything
00:43:53.680 with all these tutors
00:43:55.580 and I said
00:43:56.220 make them take out
00:43:57.240 the garbage
00:43:57.640 and she laughed
00:43:58.780 she's like okay
00:43:59.300 but seriously
00:43:59.940 what should I do
00:44:00.600 like should I
00:44:01.340 you know
00:44:01.940 these tutors
00:44:02.800 I was like
00:44:03.060 no I'm being
00:44:03.820 totally serious
00:44:04.820 I was like
00:44:05.960 if you
00:44:06.320 I had my biggest
00:44:07.540 fights with my daughter
00:44:08.300 Lulu
00:44:08.580 about taking out
00:44:09.340 the garbage
00:44:09.740 which was actually
00:44:10.780 hard for me
00:44:11.380 because I'm such a
00:44:12.500 type-made person
00:44:13.140 that I love
00:44:13.740 taking out the garbage
00:44:14.480 myself
00:44:14.920 but it was
00:44:16.480 just like what
00:44:17.140 you're doing
00:44:17.680 you know
00:44:17.920 it's like
00:44:18.240 it was important
00:44:19.100 for me to
00:44:19.840 not get them
00:44:21.160 too big for their
00:44:22.220 britches
00:44:22.760 you know
00:44:23.180 like you don't
00:44:24.520 have people
00:44:25.120 catering to you
00:44:25.960 and if you can't
00:44:26.600 do this
00:44:27.180 you know
00:44:28.580 life is difficult
00:44:29.400 so yeah
00:44:30.160 little story
00:44:30.840 well I think
00:44:31.520 about it as they
00:44:32.100 get older
00:44:32.440 because you know
00:44:33.820 obviously I like
00:44:35.000 you have a bunch
00:44:35.560 of connections
00:44:36.040 so if I
00:44:36.500 if I really
00:44:37.080 wanted to hook
00:44:37.760 my kids up
00:44:38.580 with some
00:44:39.000 summer internship
00:44:39.840 in you know
00:44:40.860 some senator's office
00:44:41.820 I'm sure I could
00:44:42.840 but I'm really
00:44:44.420 hoping that I
00:44:45.540 can get them
00:44:45.980 to shovel fish
00:44:46.640 guts at the
00:44:48.020 local fish market
00:44:48.920 in New Jersey
00:44:49.920 where we go
00:44:50.400 I really want
00:44:51.340 that to be on
00:44:51.820 my kids resume
00:44:52.620 of life
00:44:53.780 you know
00:44:54.160 that they
00:44:54.560 they immerse
00:44:55.460 themselves in a
00:44:56.220 job where they
00:44:56.760 got their hands
00:44:57.440 dirty and they
00:44:58.540 figured it out
00:44:59.420 because that's
00:44:59.880 that's also part
00:45:00.780 of development
00:45:01.460 you know
00:45:01.880 it can't all
00:45:02.560 be model UN
00:45:03.660 oh my god
00:45:05.060 to be perfectly
00:45:06.220 honest I actually
00:45:07.080 think it's going
00:45:07.540 to benefit even
00:45:08.440 strategically
00:45:09.020 you just have
00:45:09.780 too many elites
00:45:10.640 all doing the
00:45:11.300 same things
00:45:11.740 and it's obvious
00:45:12.360 that it's through
00:45:13.000 a connection
00:45:13.540 so so not just
00:45:14.940 for personal
00:45:15.460 honest development
00:45:16.600 but I think
00:45:17.560 that's I think
00:45:18.200 that makes a lot
00:45:18.800 of sense
00:45:19.120 you know you
00:45:19.780 will find that
00:45:20.360 it's hard though
00:45:20.940 because I'm you
00:45:21.720 know quite a bit
00:45:22.520 older than you
00:45:23.200 because if you
00:45:24.580 if you grow up
00:45:25.640 with humble beginnings
00:45:26.580 like I did
00:45:27.820 I'm not dirt poor
00:45:28.860 but you know we
00:45:29.380 I always had to
00:45:30.500 wear the fake
00:45:31.260 adidas with four
00:45:32.460 stripes
00:45:32.700 and it was so
00:45:34.360 ugly so
00:45:34.980 and you know
00:45:36.760 I just never
00:45:38.440 got the nice
00:45:39.080 things so
00:45:39.600 because we love
00:45:40.540 our children so much
00:45:41.340 we want them
00:45:42.160 to have what
00:45:42.640 we didn't have
00:45:43.880 so I think
00:45:44.920 that you will
00:45:45.300 find that you
00:45:45.920 know you almost
00:45:46.440 have to control
00:45:47.240 yourself because
00:45:47.840 our natural
00:45:48.560 instinct as
00:45:49.480 parents is we
00:45:50.440 want to give
00:45:51.820 them what we
00:45:52.220 didn't have
00:45:52.760 and I had to
00:45:53.800 always resist
00:45:54.680 that instinct
00:45:55.480 I find myself
00:45:57.220 often telling
00:45:57.920 them we can't
00:45:58.440 afford it we
00:45:58.840 can't afford
00:45:59.260 it we can't
00:45:59.680 afford it whether
00:46:00.300 it's true or
00:46:00.840 not just because
00:46:01.400 I want them to
00:46:01.940 get used to
00:46:02.400 that in life
00:46:03.220 you know and
00:46:03.660 I know people
00:46:04.380 teach their kids
00:46:05.040 how to budget
00:46:05.560 and all that I
00:46:05.980 don't I don't
00:46:06.520 do that I'm not
00:46:07.000 much of a budgeter
00:46:07.760 myself I never
00:46:08.500 have been
00:46:09.020 but I do
00:46:10.780 want them to
00:46:11.300 understand the
00:46:11.820 world doesn't
00:46:12.260 come to you
00:46:12.620 very easily and
00:46:13.460 it's really about
00:46:14.160 hard work and
00:46:14.800 we'll get to
00:46:15.480 your philosophy
00:46:16.080 because you're
00:46:16.420 the queen of
00:46:17.040 that in a minute
00:46:17.660 but just to
00:46:18.820 take a step
00:46:19.220 back before
00:46:19.860 National Service
00:46:20.640 Corps because I
00:46:21.040 love that idea
00:46:21.800 if we don't do
00:46:23.200 anything if we
00:46:24.280 don't do anything
00:46:25.280 about this
00:46:26.420 problem I know
00:46:28.000 in the book you
00:46:28.560 say we're we're
00:46:30.060 going to see an
00:46:30.920 erosion of trust
00:46:31.740 in institutions
00:46:32.580 check we're
00:46:34.360 going to see an
00:46:34.800 erosion of trust
00:46:36.000 in electoral
00:46:36.840 outcomes check
00:46:38.280 keep in mind
00:46:38.860 folks she wrote
00:46:39.360 this book two
00:46:39.860 years ago we're
00:46:41.480 going to see
00:46:41.800 lurches toward
00:46:42.660 authoritarianism
00:46:44.020 check we're
00:46:45.680 going to see an
00:46:46.160 elite backlash
00:46:47.420 against the less
00:46:48.680 educated working
00:46:49.720 class or
00:46:50.440 deplorables check
00:46:51.820 and above all
00:46:53.700 we're going to
00:46:54.020 see the
00:46:54.280 transformation of
00:46:55.080 democracy into
00:46:56.180 an engine of
00:46:57.280 zero-sum political
00:46:59.260 tribalism so if
00:47:00.920 that's where we
00:47:01.500 stay zero-sum
00:47:03.260 political tribalism
00:47:04.320 nothing gets done
00:47:05.720 politically we
00:47:06.700 don't reach across
00:47:07.500 the aisle as
00:47:08.440 humans and
00:47:09.860 friends we
00:47:11.240 retreat more and
00:47:12.160 more and what
00:47:14.300 happens next because
00:47:15.080 I heard Rush
00:47:15.620 Limbaugh not too
00:47:16.200 long ago talking
00:47:16.820 about people are
00:47:17.900 talking about
00:47:18.260 secession now like
00:47:19.600 we're just going to
00:47:20.300 have to retreat into
00:47:21.060 different states and
00:47:22.060 say goodbye to this
00:47:22.960 whole project we
00:47:23.740 call the United
00:47:24.400 States yeah it's
00:47:25.840 really dangerous and
00:47:27.260 I mean I am I
00:47:29.140 am sort of
00:47:29.640 impressed that I
00:47:30.280 called it right
00:47:30.960 because I actually
00:47:32.300 wrote that even more
00:47:33.320 than two years ago
00:47:34.240 because again yeah
00:47:36.060 so if you just kind
00:47:36.860 of analyze the
00:47:37.620 dynamics based on
00:47:39.460 experience of other
00:47:40.340 countries I think it
00:47:42.020 is a a dangerous
00:47:44.000 moment I hope I
00:47:47.080 know this sounds
00:47:47.660 Pollyanna I hope
00:47:48.920 that we so I give
00:47:50.680 talks a little of the
00:47:51.300 country and people
00:47:51.840 like Amy tell us
00:47:54.200 another country that
00:47:55.120 we can follow is
00:47:56.280 there a country that
00:47:56.960 that you know that
00:47:58.360 can whose model we
00:47:59.480 can pursue so we
00:48:00.320 can get out of our
00:48:01.020 tribalism and you
00:48:02.380 know what Megan
00:48:02.980 they're always
00:48:03.420 thinking of Canada
00:48:04.160 but you know and
00:48:08.280 I just disappoint
00:48:10.160 everybody I'm like
00:48:10.900 you know what I
00:48:11.560 think we have the
00:48:12.620 best model that we
00:48:14.020 are at a terrible
00:48:14.840 moment we're seeing
00:48:16.500 really the worst of
00:48:17.580 ourselves right now
00:48:18.520 and yes there are
00:48:19.800 dangers that we could
00:48:20.600 really fracture I
00:48:21.720 when I talk to a lot
00:48:23.340 of my friends and
00:48:23.980 hear the actual hate
00:48:25.760 in their voices and
00:48:27.920 disdain and fear for
00:48:29.280 the other side I do
00:48:30.280 get really depressed
00:48:31.120 but but I think we
00:48:32.800 have the best self
00:48:33.640 correcting mechanisms
00:48:34.760 so and I actually
00:48:37.920 feel a little bit
00:48:39.140 hopeful with this
00:48:39.920 next four years so
00:48:42.540 but but we'll see I
00:48:43.580 mean you could see
00:48:44.120 that the Supreme
00:48:44.820 Court without getting
00:48:46.980 into the details has
00:48:48.040 surprised a lot of
00:48:48.860 people I mean you
00:48:49.960 know people I had a
00:48:51.240 lot of very liberal
00:48:52.040 friends that just
00:48:53.000 assumed the absolute
00:48:54.900 worst and instead
00:48:56.380 it's been a kind of a
00:48:57.380 stabilizing force a
00:48:58.920 little boring you
00:49:00.040 know but you know
00:49:01.580 we do have a and
00:49:03.120 so when I see people
00:49:03.820 trying to get rid of
00:49:04.460 this and that in the
00:49:05.280 government I it's
00:49:07.180 because I study
00:49:07.920 countries like
00:49:08.480 Venezuelans and
00:49:09.400 Zimbabwe and Iraq
00:49:10.200 and you know Libya
00:49:11.140 I'm like wait let's
00:49:12.400 not throw out the
00:49:13.160 baby with the bath
00:49:14.200 water so quickly
00:49:14.960 right it's kind of
00:49:15.980 impressive that we
00:49:16.800 have had one system
00:49:18.100 for albeit only just
00:49:19.720 200 years or so but
00:49:21.020 you know it's it's a
00:49:23.780 system that I think
00:49:24.400 we should be proud of
00:49:25.340 as I read what
00:49:26.520 you've written and
00:49:27.880 you know just sort of
00:49:28.940 what has brought us
00:49:29.620 together typically over
00:49:30.520 the years it part of
00:49:31.980 it is patriotism you
00:49:33.400 know belief in in this
00:49:34.480 country and what it
00:49:35.540 stands for the idea of
00:49:36.580 America and sadly we
00:49:38.400 really have gotten away
00:49:39.420 from that that's become
00:49:40.520 more of a partisan
00:49:41.660 tribal thing too you
00:49:42.900 know Republicans love
00:49:43.640 America and liberals
00:49:44.440 criticize it and if you
00:49:45.340 don't criticize it
00:49:46.080 you're you're for
00:49:46.940 racism right it's like
00:49:48.000 wait what wait how
00:49:49.480 do we get there
00:49:49.920 you look back at any
00:49:51.500 sort of historical
00:49:52.780 movie show or read
00:49:54.460 any books about
00:49:55.060 history and you see
00:49:56.420 how united the
00:49:57.280 country was after
00:49:58.140 world war ii when we
00:49:59.540 won and we believed
00:50:00.440 that we had you know
00:50:01.380 stood down hitler and
00:50:02.540 fascism and you know
00:50:04.040 we felt as one and we
00:50:05.060 believed in our country
00:50:05.860 more than ever and of
00:50:06.620 course we had economic
00:50:07.380 prosperity thereafter
00:50:08.440 but we've gotten away
00:50:10.340 from that and I don't
00:50:12.140 know how to convince
00:50:13.420 liberals like Democrats
00:50:15.360 that doesn't mean
00:50:17.040 they're pro-racism or
00:50:18.280 sexism or any ism to
00:50:20.540 back the idea of
00:50:22.140 America to get that
00:50:23.600 notion back into
00:50:24.860 classes and schools
00:50:26.160 where because it
00:50:27.240 could be a uniting
00:50:28.140 force that helps
00:50:28.860 reduce this tribal
00:50:30.080 instinct yeah you know
00:50:31.780 I've actually again
00:50:32.940 more provocative
00:50:33.860 things I've said I
00:50:34.860 wrote I was quite a
00:50:37.780 while ago I said
00:50:38.380 you know liberals
00:50:38.900 and progressives
00:50:39.580 shouldn't cede
00:50:40.700 patriotism to the
00:50:42.940 Republicans just like
00:50:43.740 they shouldn't cede
00:50:44.560 family values because
00:50:45.860 it's it's logically
00:50:47.980 it doesn't make sense
00:50:48.820 it doesn't make sense
00:50:49.460 that patriotism should
00:50:50.640 be more of a right
00:50:51.720 wing thing you have
00:50:52.920 right to define you
00:50:54.060 but to kind of play
00:50:55.700 the devil's advocate
00:50:56.620 on the other side
00:50:57.520 you know for I think
00:50:59.660 we're in a moment of
00:51:00.420 redefining what our
00:51:02.960 what our national
00:51:04.000 identity is and for a
00:51:05.960 lot of people to really
00:51:07.120 believe in America and
00:51:09.100 believe in the
00:51:09.960 Constitution those rights
00:51:11.800 have to mean something
00:51:12.680 to them so I totally
00:51:13.900 get it you know if you
00:51:14.880 belong to a certain
00:51:15.760 racial group where
00:51:16.740 you're like are you
00:51:17.740 kidding this particular
00:51:18.720 right has never played
00:51:19.940 out for anybody that
00:51:21.280 looks like me you're
00:51:22.700 going to get cynicism
00:51:23.580 so there's work to be
00:51:24.720 done on both sides like
00:51:25.880 we also have to you
00:51:27.580 know I totally get what
00:51:29.240 you're saying I've I've
00:51:30.020 talked about education
00:51:31.060 and well I think it's
00:51:32.780 great that we're not
00:51:33.740 whitewashing our history
00:51:34.780 anymore I totally think
00:51:36.520 it's great that we're
00:51:37.220 revealing that there
00:51:38.040 were a lot of flaws in
00:51:39.100 our founding fathers and
00:51:40.720 you know that's
00:51:41.760 important at the same
00:51:43.100 time I don't think we
00:51:44.300 should over correct you
00:51:45.940 know we need to find a
00:51:47.460 way to teach our kids
00:51:48.680 America's history you
00:51:50.160 know in a way that's
00:51:51.120 honest while still
00:51:52.980 letting them feel that
00:51:53.880 this is a special nation
00:51:55.200 with something that's
00:51:56.020 worth fighting for and
00:51:57.240 worth dying for so you
00:51:59.040 know I had a head
00:52:00.080 master I again talk
00:52:01.240 about self-censoring at
00:52:02.940 one of these super
00:52:03.580 fancy New York schools
00:52:04.580 he's a white male super
00:52:06.260 progressive himself but
00:52:07.680 he said to me Amy I
00:52:08.620 don't know what to do all
00:52:10.320 a lot of my the vast
00:52:12.040 majority of my students
00:52:13.200 think of the founding
00:52:14.340 fathers as white male
00:52:16.160 rapists you know and I
00:52:18.700 can't say anything about
00:52:20.040 that because I'm just
00:52:20.740 going to get targeted
00:52:21.520 so what do I do it
00:52:22.520 it's a terrible problem
00:52:24.300 you know it's and so
00:52:25.760 you know I think that
00:52:27.540 we need to figure out a
00:52:29.280 way to teach civics in a
00:52:31.780 way we can't have
00:52:32.460 because the Constitution
00:52:34.100 is the only thing that
00:52:35.220 can hold this country
00:52:35.880 together our history so
00:52:37.180 so that's that's
00:52:38.220 definitely you know
00:52:39.620 something that we all
00:52:40.280 need to work on
00:52:41.000 more with Amy in just
00:52:43.360 one minute but first I
00:52:44.280 want to talk to you
00:52:44.860 about Legacy Box this
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00:52:55.040 safe you know like now
00:52:56.780 that the holidays are
00:52:57.480 over you got two big
00:52:58.160 questions to deal with
00:52:58.940 how long should the
00:52:59.860 tree stay up long I
00:53:02.300 think long and how can
00:53:04.240 I stay connected with
00:53:05.060 family between now and
00:53:07.100 the next holiday well
00:53:08.280 this is how Legacy Box
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00:53:25.100 pressing play now I did
00:53:26.220 this I got my Legacy
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00:53:31.620 and I got it back and we
00:53:33.780 laughed so some of the
00:53:35.100 stuff I put on there was
00:53:36.180 it was me doing trial team
00:53:38.060 training when I was a
00:53:39.220 very young lawyer and you
00:53:41.520 should have seen what a
00:53:42.940 baby I was first of all
00:53:44.200 and I still have my
00:53:45.220 lawyer hair and my kids
00:53:47.080 got such a kick out of
00:53:48.900 me like fumbling around
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00:53:52.660 person anyway it could
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00:53:55.580 that where you have fun or
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00:54:32.460 last before we get back to
00:54:34.120 Amy want to bring you a
00:54:35.040 feature we call asked and
00:54:36.360 answered here at the show
00:54:37.780 Steve Krakauer is our
00:54:38.980 executive producer who's
00:54:40.060 got the question for us
00:54:41.800 hey Steve hey Megan this
00:54:43.280 is a good one here this
00:54:45.200 comes to us from someone
00:54:46.160 on Instagram who didn't
00:54:47.140 leave us their name so so
00:54:48.520 in the future leave us
00:54:49.520 your name and we can give
00:54:50.540 you credit and give you a
00:54:51.400 little shout out on the on
00:54:52.240 the show here the question
00:54:53.440 though was great what
00:54:54.380 advice would you give
00:54:55.180 someone that wants to
00:54:56.220 pursue a career like
00:54:57.200 yours don't do it run
00:55:00.680 don't walk just kidding I
00:55:04.820 don't know if you mean in
00:55:05.700 journalism or if you just
00:55:06.720 mean sort of like a big
00:55:09.660 career in the public eye
00:55:10.860 but work hard it's really
00:55:13.160 the the best piece of
00:55:14.300 advice I could give you
00:55:15.280 too many people don't want
00:55:17.020 to do it they want to phone
00:55:17.900 it in but the one common
00:55:19.660 denominator amongst all the
00:55:21.880 successful people I know is
00:55:23.760 they work their tail off
00:55:24.940 that's the only way no matter
00:55:26.660 what you do and if you're
00:55:28.580 going to be a burger
00:55:29.140 flipper be the best burger
00:55:30.660 flipper that restaurant has
00:55:32.700 ever seen and soon
00:55:34.860 there after you were you
00:55:36.020 will no longer be the one
00:55:36.900 doing the flipping you will
00:55:37.860 be the one doing the
00:55:38.960 hiring and you will see
00:55:40.380 your paycheck go up
00:55:41.360 accordingly don't be above
00:55:42.720 any work go there
00:55:44.040 volunteer for everything do
00:55:45.120 it all don't don't be a
00:55:46.740 diva right like nothing's
00:55:48.480 beneath you you're you're
00:55:49.500 there to get your elbows
00:55:50.300 dirty greasy and learn
00:55:53.700 don't be afraid when you're
00:55:54.680 young especially to ask
00:55:55.600 question question question
00:55:56.500 question I mean I'm I'm
00:55:57.960 not young and I'm still
00:55:58.780 asking questions all the
00:55:59.660 time because believe me if
00:56:01.520 you're wondering it others
00:56:02.500 are wondering it too and
00:56:03.820 better to ask than to just
00:56:05.380 wonder and then later make a
00:56:06.900 fool out of yourself so I
00:56:09.160 know I don't I don't know
00:56:10.120 so much about seeking out a
00:56:11.120 mentor I always think it's
00:56:12.180 sort of weird when somebody
00:56:13.280 like asks me to be their
00:56:14.760 mentor that's something you
00:56:15.600 kind of have to earn but
00:56:16.880 definitely find people you
00:56:17.940 admire and try to do what
00:56:19.400 they do and if you can get
00:56:21.720 to know them and ask them
00:56:22.760 real questions about their
00:56:24.200 approach that would be
00:56:25.140 helpful as well I also think
00:56:26.840 that when you're
00:56:27.300 interviewing for a job that
00:56:28.900 you really want don't be
00:56:29.840 afraid to ask for the job
00:56:30.860 say in the interview I want
00:56:33.100 this job for the following
00:56:33.940 reasons and they better be
00:56:34.960 good and they better be
00:56:35.740 concise and not sound like
00:56:36.680 talking points make them
00:56:37.620 real reasons because Fox
00:56:40.080 News is number one because I
00:56:41.340 believe a fair and balanced
00:56:42.860 is a life mantra not just one
00:56:44.740 for a corporation because I
00:56:45.840 believe the mainstream media
00:56:47.920 is way too far left and this
00:56:49.280 is the antidote that's not at
00:56:50.540 all what I said my Fox
00:56:51.620 interview I didn't even know
00:56:52.580 that it was really number one
00:56:53.880 at all I found it later um
00:56:55.500 but anyway and I actually
00:56:56.920 didn't totally appreciate its
00:56:57.980 ideological bent though I had
00:56:59.060 some clue um but have your
00:57:00.960 talking points ready as
00:57:02.320 opposed to just like it's
00:57:03.760 the largest company
00:57:04.680 delivering packages today
00:57:06.020 and hit the fortune whatever
00:57:07.500 and you don't want to do
00:57:08.280 that say something
00:57:09.420 persuasive that's real
00:57:10.560 because people can smell a
00:57:12.560 phony uh and then say I
00:57:15.420 like this job so much I
00:57:16.420 want it so badly I will
00:57:17.400 accept it on the spot if
00:57:18.540 you make me an offer I will
00:57:19.440 accept it on the spot you
00:57:20.840 can negotiate salary and
00:57:21.900 all that stuff later you're
00:57:22.800 gonna have power later in
00:57:23.920 your career if you've been
00:57:24.860 the hard worker and then you
00:57:26.160 can jack up your price but in
00:57:27.300 the beginning go in there
00:57:28.500 hungry hungry for the job
00:57:30.180 hungry for life hungry for
00:57:31.780 growth and then if you just
00:57:33.620 maintain that attitude you
00:57:34.660 will rise up in whatever
00:57:35.920 field you choose you will
00:57:37.480 rise up um you can't help
00:57:40.120 but rise up because too many
00:57:41.960 people have a lazy attitude
00:57:43.060 and want things handed to
00:57:43.960 them so you will shine by
00:57:45.380 comparison and keep a humble
00:57:47.620 heart never get drunk on your
00:57:49.020 own wine as great as you think
00:57:50.800 you are there's always
00:57:51.380 somebody better than you and
00:57:52.560 as shitty as you think you
00:57:53.480 are there's always somebody
00:57:54.280 worse than you that's why I
00:57:55.640 watch the real housewives
00:57:56.560 can't recommend it highly
00:57:57.600 enough no they're not bad
00:57:58.860 people they well kind of
00:58:00.140 anyway it's fun but the
00:58:01.640 point is don't beat your up
00:58:03.040 yourself up too badly and
00:58:04.220 don't lift yourself up too
00:58:05.320 high okay uh and listen
00:58:07.340 whoever you are good luck
00:58:10.320 colman hughes was on the show
00:58:15.160 not long ago and and i was
00:58:16.520 saying something similar like
00:58:18.080 how do you teach patriotism and
00:58:19.440 he said you don't you teach
00:58:21.720 history you teach world
00:58:23.980 history and you let them see
00:58:26.060 what america is and what it
00:58:28.140 is compared to every other
00:58:29.640 country on earth right like
00:58:31.220 look at our history and look
00:58:33.180 at theirs i was like oh my god
00:58:34.520 that's it right there all right
00:58:36.020 let's talk about schools and
00:58:37.960 education because you are at
00:58:39.580 yale law school and i know it's
00:58:41.500 like every campus lead campus but
00:58:44.580 really every campus other than
00:58:45.780 two um it's very leftist and
00:58:48.960 left-leaning so first of all just
00:58:51.980 broad brush how does that
00:58:53.040 manifest in your life there oh
00:58:55.680 it's so completely different even
00:58:57.600 from five years ago it's amazing
00:58:59.580 um there are i used to love the
00:59:03.280 thing that i loved most about
00:59:04.680 being a professor was i would see
00:59:06.300 friendships developing across
00:59:08.280 political lines so at yale law
00:59:10.740 school every student starts in a
00:59:12.920 small group of 16 people and so
00:59:15.940 many friendships have formed in
00:59:17.600 those small groups and so you know
00:59:19.620 somebody we both know jd bands you
00:59:21.520 know poor republican from
00:59:23.120 appalachia i still remember he was
00:59:25.860 extremely close to um you know a
00:59:29.220 very progressive gay woman who
00:59:31.600 shared absolutely nothing in common
00:59:33.340 with him and they became great
00:59:34.940 friends that cannot happen anymore
00:59:37.160 um there's a conservative
00:59:39.000 organization as you know called the
00:59:40.520 federal society and i used to love
00:59:42.940 seeing friendships across you know
00:59:44.720 these political lines now there's a
00:59:46.740 concept called fed sock adjacent so if
00:59:49.660 you're a liberal but you have one
00:59:51.800 friend who belongs to the federal
00:59:53.740 society you will be targeted at
00:59:56.140 shame and called out you are fed sock
00:59:58.600 adjacent and you are not a member of
01:00:00.200 the tribe
01:00:00.600 yes and so it just it just shuts all
01:00:04.900 that down i see obsessions with um
01:00:08.480 vocabulary policing so don't get me
01:00:11.260 wrong there are a lot of improvements
01:00:12.820 you know i'm glad that a lot of
01:00:14.140 phrases aren't used anymore we can all
01:00:15.800 grow but i i worry that that it's not
01:00:19.760 in the spirit of unity and real
01:00:21.400 progress but more like gotcha so i have
01:00:23.820 this student who came a transfer
01:00:25.280 student who was again big democrat most
01:00:27.900 of our students are democrats she's from
01:00:29.960 a poor place down south and she came
01:00:31.860 all ready to do good in this class she
01:00:34.060 raised her hand and talked about you
01:00:35.700 know prisoners rights immediately she
01:00:38.060 was a white woman you know caucasian
01:00:39.600 woman hands go up she was called out
01:00:42.120 called out for using the wrong term
01:00:44.780 you're supposed to say incarcerated
01:00:46.380 people so you can't say prison you know
01:00:48.560 and same with if somebody accidentally
01:00:51.180 says illegal alien you know it's not
01:00:53.140 just a gentle reminder it's that's
01:00:55.520 xenophobic you know so i i think that's a
01:00:58.440 terrible development because instead of
01:01:00.000 facilitating conversation you just shut
01:01:02.340 everything down um i so i see a lot of
01:01:06.960 self-censoring you know i know there's a
01:01:08.540 big debate but i could tell you
01:01:09.820 students openly tell me oh you know i'm
01:01:13.340 not gonna risk it you know i don't want
01:01:15.280 to go up on the wall and find myself you
01:01:17.200 know the center of a campaign you know
01:01:19.720 there'll be a big criminal law class
01:01:22.260 where there'll be a few outspoken
01:01:23.700 people it's a very big position are at
01:01:26.540 the law schools now to be against
01:01:27.680 prisons you know defund the police or to
01:01:30.140 be against prisons completely i'm not
01:01:32.740 surprised this is that's actually part of
01:01:34.020 the black lives matter uh playbook that's
01:01:36.280 what that's what they're pushing for in
01:01:37.420 places like seattle it's written down
01:01:39.260 they want to empty all the prisons open
01:01:41.160 up the jails well it's it's really
01:01:43.060 complicated because i it's easy to
01:01:44.940 caricature everything i mean i actually
01:01:46.320 know people who have very subtle views
01:01:48.680 about what they really mean but yes there
01:01:50.880 are some people who in these classes
01:01:53.360 both you know if you're even in favor of
01:01:55.940 prison then you're you're going to be
01:01:57.400 targeted so i have a bunch of students
01:01:59.240 who by themselves by the way themselves
01:02:01.100 are extremely progressive saying oh my
01:02:03.180 gosh i would never raise my hand and
01:02:05.120 even ask a question or push back it's
01:02:07.580 just not worth it so there's a lot of
01:02:09.860 that kind of self-censorship um on the
01:02:11.980 good news front naked i um i stick a big
01:02:16.140 banner on my syllabus um and i'm not the
01:02:18.440 only one but i'm in a small minority that
01:02:20.520 says do not take this class if you don't
01:02:23.720 want this and i'm like this class you know
01:02:26.140 is intent on promoting vigorous debate
01:02:28.880 across all different political backgrounds
01:02:31.880 and spectrums everybody has an assumption
01:02:34.700 to that they are not a racist or you know
01:02:37.400 xenophobe if they say something um you
01:02:39.880 know don't take this class if you don't
01:02:41.660 want to to be in that kind of environment
01:02:43.780 and i when i said i was going to do that a
01:02:46.240 lot of my colleagues were oh my god first
01:02:48.160 you're going to be targeted and also you're
01:02:49.620 going to have 10 people i had 180 person
01:02:52.940 people signed up for a 60 person class so i
01:02:55.760 have a huge wait list so i think there is a
01:02:58.180 giant silent majority out there that is
01:03:01.220 kind of squashed into silence because it's
01:03:03.540 not worth it that's the phrase it's not
01:03:05.020 worth it to to be called out and to be you
01:03:07.840 know suddenly find yourself in the middle
01:03:09.180 of social media but there's a craving to go
01:03:12.000 back to be able to have civil discourse to
01:03:14.640 talk to people on the other side i really
01:03:16.460 think there is it is worth it it is too and
01:03:21.420 there's safety in numbers because if you
01:03:23.200 speak out you won't be the only one if you
01:03:25.120 can get others to speak out with you you'll
01:03:26.720 soon see that there's a groundswell of
01:03:29.460 support for positions on the other side
01:03:31.260 that's that to me is the answer to you know
01:03:34.980 some of this far left woke stuff that's
01:03:36.620 being shoved down our throats speak up it's
01:03:39.440 okay to push back some of this stuff is
01:03:41.900 insane and if we don't start calling it out
01:03:44.720 we're gonna have to live with it and
01:03:46.400 especially in the academic institutions
01:03:48.920 yes it's gonna take courage to speak up and
01:03:51.280 be you know a minority voice basically you
01:03:53.480 know ideologically minority but do it grow
01:03:56.140 a pair be a man be a woman do it you know
01:03:58.580 i just like i i don't have a lot of
01:04:00.180 sympathy because at this point in my life
01:04:01.860 i've learned enough to know if you go
01:04:04.560 along it's still not going to save you
01:04:06.940 just just stand up for what you believe
01:04:09.060 in yeah and it's scary even as a
01:04:11.180 professor when you say that i i and i've
01:04:13.420 actually done it on both sides where
01:04:15.180 somebody says something and they're
01:04:17.480 immediately called out and then i'm
01:04:19.380 terrified because i realized oh my gosh
01:04:21.180 you know if you if you defend this
01:04:23.680 person that's in the dog house are you
01:04:25.260 gonna get dragged down and i force
01:04:26.780 myself so i think it takes but you're
01:04:28.660 absolutely right i it it works like um
01:04:31.700 you know this i think that's the correct
01:04:34.420 meaning of a of a role model right because
01:04:36.560 you're like okay she did it and she
01:04:38.680 survived yeah it wasn't that pretty but
01:04:40.660 she survived maybe i can do it too
01:04:42.460 right it's and by the way it's so
01:04:44.580 liberating like now in this sort of
01:04:46.440 latest iteration of my professional life
01:04:48.280 it is so liberating to go on these media
01:04:50.880 tours or whatever who's ever asking me
01:04:52.760 to speak and just say what i really
01:04:54.960 believe and it's always considered
01:04:57.340 provocative i don't care i don't care you
01:04:59.460 can see people's eyes light up and like
01:05:01.800 the words are being said they're being
01:05:04.000 said out loud in a forum like this oh my
01:05:06.300 gosh it's wonderful to be able to give
01:05:08.220 people that feeling i don't care if some
01:05:10.720 people's feelings get hurt i'm done
01:05:13.000 bowing to that but i know like you you
01:05:16.760 have lived this because i know you spoke
01:05:20.700 up in in support of brett kavanaugh and
01:05:23.280 you and i had an email exchange about it
01:05:24.860 around the time because i also thought
01:05:26.700 that was brave and i thought what was
01:05:28.020 being done to him was outrageous you know
01:05:30.700 him a bit i think your your daughter
01:05:32.820 clerked for him one of your daughters and
01:05:35.760 when he was on the dc circuit right he
01:05:37.300 was on the lower court and then again i
01:05:39.120 think once he once he got elevated but
01:05:40.840 they were they were attacking your family
01:05:43.580 uh and you took a risk you you spoke
01:05:47.500 out so what made you do that yeah so i
01:05:50.460 think it's the way i was raised you know
01:05:51.940 my dad always taught me um nothing is
01:05:54.320 worth the price of your dignity you know
01:05:56.980 and um and also i was kind of raised just
01:06:00.400 to be loyal to my friends maybe this goes
01:06:03.160 back to tribalism but the media got it so
01:06:06.600 wrong like everything is backwards actually
01:06:08.420 what happened was believe it or not um you
01:06:11.400 know brett kavanaugh was known to be a
01:06:12.920 very moderate republican and he was a
01:06:15.220 darling of yale law school he was invited
01:06:16.820 for 10 years during admissions week to come
01:06:21.040 and talk to yale law women the black
01:06:22.980 students association he was like this
01:06:25.240 favorite alumni um that's not what you'll
01:06:27.860 think anymore but i actually wrote an op-ed
01:06:30.600 in the wall street journal and again this
01:06:32.360 is all the facts are all wrong in the media
01:06:34.440 but you can find it you know it was in the
01:06:35.980 summer right after he was nominated before
01:06:38.240 any of the scandal came out and it simply
01:06:40.980 um didn't talk about his political views
01:06:42.920 but defended him as a mentor uh and i just
01:06:45.500 quoted a bunch of my students and frankly all
01:06:47.640 the students ever sent to him were uh liberals
01:06:50.360 actually and they all to a one just said he
01:06:53.100 was the best mentor um and then all of the um
01:06:57.540 and my daughter was hired before that in
01:07:00.300 2016 before donald trump was elected and i had
01:07:03.240 nothing to do with it i've accused myself
01:07:05.020 and i disclosed that in the wall street journal article
01:07:07.420 but then crazy life happened um in 2018 i taught my first class in august 28th
01:07:13.880 thinking oh another new semester and that night i was seized with a terrible pain
01:07:19.600 and i was rushed to the emergency room the next thing i know i was at icu all of my organs start
01:07:25.660 collapsing my lung collapsed i had eight tubes put in me i was unconscious for a week
01:07:29.820 and in the hospital for three weeks that it was a freak medical thing there was a they found when
01:07:35.260 they finally opened me up a two centimeter hole in my colon that was releasing all these toxins
01:07:40.960 i was going to accept thick shock but right then this is september 2018
01:07:45.980 suddenly there are these scandalous things about
01:07:48.760 amy chua told people to look like models in interviews
01:07:52.620 it was so ridiculous because first of all he's a federalist society judge they're the most conservative
01:07:58.080 judges there's a uniform when you interview you have to wear a dark suit and low heels and
01:08:03.120 it was like the opposite it was just it's like if i were going to give crazy advice like that that's
01:08:08.580 not the way it would be it's just so ridiculous it is ridiculous but then i was in the hospital
01:08:14.960 under oxy coxa i mean toxin and there were all these rumors like amy chua's faking her illness
01:08:21.380 oh so she doesn't have to but we came out of it and i'm proud that you know that there were all
01:08:27.560 these calls that you know renounce him i felt like cultural revolution china you have to denounce them
01:08:32.160 and renounce this and i just said no you know and then the people at school said okay you may not be
01:08:38.060 able to teach properly there might be protests you may not get even though i was always one of the
01:08:43.560 most popular teachers maybe there will be three people that will take your class if you don't issue
01:08:48.260 an apology and i said you know what i'm a great apologizer but i will not apologize for something
01:08:52.640 i didn't do i didn't say i actually would have been proud to have said something like dress look
01:08:58.100 good you know but in this particular case i did it was just so ridiculous like looking like models
01:09:02.900 um yeah so i so i said well then if i only have two students that's too bad i'll start
01:09:07.840 you know and i might in my head i'm thinking of my mom and dad i was like i will win i will do it
01:09:12.540 the immigrant way through hard work i will try to win the students back one at a time and it's been
01:09:17.640 a long haul you know there was but i will say it wasn't just three students you know again i taught
01:09:22.360 a big you know i have a class of 100 people coming up and i've loved being back so i think if you stand
01:09:28.100 up for what you believe and don't cave it's not easy i don't want to sugarcoat it but it comes out
01:09:33.120 the right way at least you at least you can be proud of who you are yeah yep you're you're 100 right
01:09:39.500 you know it's it's hard i'm sure extra hard because you're of course at an organization i
01:09:44.320 mean it's you know academia is like media it's almost 100 liberal and so and it's not just enough
01:09:50.140 to you know if you are a liberal if you're a democrat you you have to be you know woke you have
01:09:55.060 to be saying the right things you have to not be saying the wrong things and that you know the lack
01:10:00.120 of ideological diversity in these colleges and frankly at these lower schools now is that the former
01:10:05.300 is a is a is a real well let me rephrase that it's a real problem it's a problem at the lower
01:10:11.220 schools and it's a serious problem in academia now or the the stats are like uh at yale there was a
01:10:17.480 survey in 2017 saying 75 of the yale professors say they're liberal less than 10 say they're conservative
01:10:23.040 i don't know what the others are but it's probably even lower than that honestly and um i don't even
01:10:28.500 know like if you were conservative why would you want to go teach at a university like that where
01:10:33.380 you're surrounded with people who not only don't think like you but they don't like you
01:10:37.120 yeah it's it's it's definitely difficult i mean again i am proud i first of all i'm lucky that i
01:10:42.880 teach a class called contracts and also international business transactions so we're it's it's like so
01:10:48.420 bland and but um i because i'm a minority woman i always have a huge progressive block of immigrants
01:10:56.280 kids and minorities and i love that they're really progressive but what i'm proud of is i'm one of the
01:11:01.380 only classes where i also have a really large group of federal society students so this just
01:11:07.360 past semester i had i think 14 federal society conservative students and then like you know 45
01:11:12.960 super liberal people of color and uh it worked like if you just lay down the ground rules there
01:11:18.440 were some tense moments i won't be i you know i'll have to be honest but again if i just i'm like
01:11:22.940 you lay down the rules i stand up for who think i think needs standing up for facilitate the
01:11:28.120 conversation you know i made it work and um i mean that's the academic project that's why people
01:11:33.400 people came to law school to want to debate the other side and to hear the position and to learn how
01:11:38.900 to articulate your position and if you just stamp out any dissension or you refuse to listen to the
01:11:44.880 other side it just defeats the purpose is it do you feel like it's has it gotten any better on that
01:11:50.440 you know because it's certainly the last i heard the college campuses were all about the safe
01:11:55.160 spaces and you couldn't have honest conversations about you know these issues like god forbid you
01:11:59.880 try to talk about race used to be just like abortion or religion um gay rights you know now it's crossed
01:12:06.260 over into like gender and race are these third rails and nobody can talk about and i just wonder because
01:12:11.280 of course academia and frankly again media those are the places exactly the places you should be
01:12:16.460 talking about those things and exploring different ideas and testing your own assumptions
01:12:19.540 yeah i'm not going to say it's gotten better yet but i i hope that we're going to turn a corner soon
01:12:26.200 because partly this is a crazy thing to say it's getting so untenable i mean you just see people who
01:12:31.180 were throwing out flamethrowers themselves getting sucked into it then they become the targets and at some
01:12:36.800 point there's just nobody left um you know when i see all the people that have been canceled and it's
01:12:42.240 just a larger and larger pool at some point you know i think the the term of having been
01:12:47.980 canceled is just takes on a different meaning i mean coleman hughes has talked about this um
01:12:51.760 uh so no i it was definitely still in the middle of this um you know of course president trump whatever
01:12:59.400 just he was a uh inflammatory figure so maybe at least one thing is that the temperature will be
01:13:07.140 reduced a little bit even though a lot of the same dynamics are still underlying um you know i'm just
01:13:12.140 hoping that maybe we'll and i also think people are exhausted megan i really think again i
01:13:17.840 believe in the silent majority you know i go to these dinner parties i i talk to large student
01:13:22.760 groups i'm like wait where are you guys how come the only voices i hear loudly shrieking are so
01:13:28.780 unreasonable and i've got this group of 100 people you all seem lovely you know i think i do think
01:13:34.800 they're going to speak up more and more and i and i have i take comfort in believing it's we had a
01:13:38.720 guest recently who was saying the truth will win out truth i think it was andrew sullivan was saying
01:13:42.360 truth wins out in the end over lies and and and we just have to wait for that because we're being
01:13:48.340 spun a lot of dishonest information on these subjects right now and i think over time more
01:13:54.540 and more people will speak out you know you've got scientists leaving the profession of science so they
01:13:59.260 can be be able to speak freely if that's what has to happen then that's what has to happen um but i think
01:14:04.800 we're gonna get there all right let's talk about tiger mothering this is so fun so i i i'm very
01:14:13.120 non-judgmental and i know you are too you're not saying you must be like me um when it comes to how
01:14:17.760 people mother their children but i'm fascinated and i think you gave us all a gift in writing that book
01:14:22.380 battle him of the tiger mother just because it's a window into somebody else's approach and somebody
01:14:27.680 who a has a very successful academic history herself double harvard undergrad in law and now is
01:14:34.400 teaching at yale law and then as we know now we didn't when you wrote the book you have two
01:14:39.740 daughters who you work to the bone but they both went to harvard undergrad one went to harvard law
01:14:44.880 one went to yale law so boom the proof is in the pudding in terms of academic achievement um let me
01:14:51.120 just start with an encounter i had with you which is literally one of my favorite stories so i met you
01:14:57.580 a couple years ago and we were talking a little bit about the book and i and i was like i get it you
01:15:03.160 know you you know you were tough and and really sort of rode them and they got these perfect grades and
01:15:07.380 you know of course the criticism of the book is but but what about their happiness and you said
01:15:13.400 i know i know whenever i hear someone ask that question i think to myself yes another one down
01:15:20.000 like i'm in love with her i love it your competitiveness your open owning of academic
01:15:28.500 competition you don't really care you're gonna do it so do you think do you think that now having
01:15:35.720 the girls you know become so successful academically do you have any regrets about it well i do i mean
01:15:41.280 not big regrets i i would say that the thing i'm most proud of is actually not their academic
01:15:45.640 credentials but the fact that we were really close that we and i i see i know how you are with your kids
01:15:50.820 like if i if i if my kids didn't want to come home and bring their friends and if i didn't feel they
01:15:56.720 talk to me i i would have counted myself as a failure so that was the most important thing and
01:16:01.140 i love my own parents too um and the funny thing about the tiger mom book is yeah i mean i am super
01:16:07.260 tough and i'm still tough but the book the whole book was a little bit misunderstood because it was
01:16:11.500 actually written because my younger daughter rebelled my younger daughter in such a big way that the last
01:16:18.080 third of the book was not funny and i i think the first two thirds is funny not everybody gets it but
01:16:22.780 the last third is like oh my god i mean you know talk about it was just dark as many parents with
01:16:28.800 adolescents know where i just it was just horrible i felt like she hated me where i was gonna lose her
01:16:34.000 and terrible things and so i actually wrote it in a moment of crisis so so my own view is actually more
01:16:39.940 nuanced than the media suggests i do still believe that self-esteem real self-esteem real confidence has to
01:16:47.880 be earned um so i would love it if i could have just said to my kids you're amazing you're amazing
01:16:53.500 you're the smartest you're the most brilliant and they would then be happy this goes to your happiness
01:16:57.680 point that that would have been so much easier but i i actually think happiness is so elusive like how
01:17:03.940 do we help our kids to be happy when they grow up and i sure don't have the answer but i also do know
01:17:10.240 that being having not the skills or the confidence to get what you want in life it's not a recipe for
01:17:17.940 happiness um being given everything and having an aimless feeling like you have no goals is not a
01:17:24.520 recipe for happiness in life so so it's complicated but but parenting is um i've been humbled many many
01:17:30.880 times um but yeah i mean i'm sort of like i'm still a tiger mom my daughters will confirm that
01:17:37.180 but now that they're so much older um you know in a much more nuanced way like one of the things i
01:17:43.260 learned is that you have to i used to think oh that's a waste of time that's a waste of time
01:17:47.680 one of my biggest lessons learned after my kids became 15 16 and went to college is that sometimes
01:17:54.320 you need to waste time like sometimes you need to waste a lot of time so like who are you and what
01:17:59.460 have you done with amy that's this is not you talking this is not no there's a there's an ulterior motive
01:18:04.640 like my younger daughter would just get not get out of bed and i would be like oh my god we have
01:18:08.920 these papers too and this like what am i going to do and then fiendishly i would finally said let's go
01:18:15.260 take a walk and my daughter is the slowest walker no one moves for slowly um i am such a fast-paced
01:18:23.160 person but you know so we're like crawling around at snail's pace but after this so-called waste of time
01:18:29.280 she felt better and finally at her own tempo would actually pull out a piece of paper you know
01:18:35.200 so um i mean there's there's just also you just there's another thing i learned is your kids and
01:18:40.220 your there's only so much you can do they are who they are you know um my kids are still exactly the
01:18:45.980 same people they were when as they were when they were one you know a year old same personalities
01:18:51.280 well let's talk about what some of the things that you know you did as a mom to raise these incredibly
01:18:56.840 successful daughters so you lay it out in the book and i'll just read the list and then you can sort of
01:19:00.980 explain what the goals were um you you start off by saying look how did chinese parents raise such
01:19:06.440 stereotypically successful kids well here are some things my kids were never allowed to do attend a
01:19:12.060 sleepover have a play date be in a school play complain about not being in a school play watch tv or
01:19:17.080 play computer games choose their own extracurricular activities get any grade less than an a not be the
01:19:22.660 number one student in every subject except for gym or drama play any instrument other than piano or
01:19:28.300 violin not play the piano or violin those are the things they were not allowed to do so i love it so
01:19:34.220 fun what what was the goal like what's the goal in in setting down that those rules so first of all as
01:19:41.640 you could see it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek um i like my kids did get some sleep lovers and play
01:19:46.960 dates but i stand by that list i will say that that same list was applied to me not in a joking way by
01:19:53.400 my own parents and when i mentioned chinese parents um in the book i defined it as actually including
01:19:59.180 like nigerian parents and jamaican american parents and korea so it's actually a little bit of an
01:20:04.400 immigrant kid phenomenon so the goal some of that is of actually benightedness like um so my mother
01:20:12.160 wouldn't let me do sleepovers when i was little because she came from a foreign country and i still
01:20:15.580 remember her looking at me when i asked to have a sleepover she was like but amy i don't understand
01:20:19.920 we have a bed here for you why do you want to go to someone else's house to sleep you know because
01:20:25.560 she was an outsider she didn't know these people she was worried about kidnappers you know um so some
01:20:30.980 of it is just literally kind of ignorance and i actually am a when i go give talks in china i give
01:20:36.080 the opposite advice like you don't want to raise robots you need people to know how to socialize
01:20:42.440 but i think there's a balance like exactly how many play dates does a person need for them to
01:20:48.860 be social you know um and it also american schools are very different from say schools in korea and
01:20:54.740 i think the ones in asia are so terrible you just you know you just work all day that you know i'm
01:21:00.620 always like they need some time to off on weekends but the the kind of really touchy-feely school i sent
01:21:06.740 my kids to actually felt like a giant play day you know they didn't even do like math equations it
01:21:13.200 was just like blocks and puzzles and things like that so so but i the goal ultimately is back to
01:21:19.520 self-esteem like i think the way that a lot of immigrant parents think is i there's a line in my
01:21:25.360 book i'm like you know we there are different ways that we all love our kids and we all want them
01:21:29.600 to be happy and strong but there are different ways of doing it and the way a lot of immigrants
01:21:34.100 think about it is i need to prepare them for the future you know they're only going to be children
01:21:38.800 a certain amount of time i need to arm them with the skills and the confidence and the grits that
01:21:44.460 they need so that when they fail they have it in themselves to pick themselves up again and try again
01:21:50.040 and again because that's going to be life you wrote chinese parents assume strength not fragility
01:21:55.920 i like the way you put that i mean sometimes i feel like i'm too lax with my kids you know because
01:22:01.760 they're so sweet you don't want to hurt their feelings and i have to remind myself you know
01:22:06.400 it's okay to say don't do that you're better than that do better yeah it's it's i still believe in
01:22:13.680 that that we should assume strength not weakness in our children but i will be the first to say that
01:22:18.660 parenting is not a science but an art like i'm always trying to calibrate you know and when i mentioned
01:22:25.580 this dark face i fell into with my younger daughter you know i would say one of the lessons i learned is
01:22:31.860 you have to listen as a parent so you have to you know your our children are so smart like it so they
01:22:38.200 know how to play us right so you're right like sometimes like like they they would always know
01:22:42.800 just the right words like they would you know certain kind of mental illness and we're like oh my god
01:22:47.100 you can have anything you want you know or i'm sad oh my god you know um uh and but but having said
01:22:54.900 that um it is tricky like i i've i've made tons of mistakes where i just i had to have my oldest
01:23:01.840 daughter or or vice versa somebody said you know daughter x is not feeling good at all and you're
01:23:08.240 not listening and you know so then i change um so i i think the baseline should be that we assume that
01:23:14.540 our children are not just these fragile people that will fall apart if you give them any criticism
01:23:18.540 because once they go out into the real world there's just gonna be a lot of criticism and
01:23:22.620 right there's a lot of things they're not going to get that they want um but i i yeah i think it's
01:23:30.400 it's a i've been humbled many times where um you know my daughters will say you know you made me feel
01:23:38.020 bad for these years and i felt we've had long talks about it i i'm like i don't remember you feeling
01:23:43.760 that bad and they're like oh that's because you weren't listening so you know you're i i feel
01:23:48.160 so let's strike the balance but i just for the record what i hear you i hear you being kind of
01:23:52.980 defensive on the book and i think it's sad because you shouldn't have to be defensive on the book i
01:23:58.040 think it's awesome that you you raise them the way you thought was best for them they turned out
01:24:02.680 great you have very solid relationships with them both but i almost feel like you must have been
01:24:07.380 shamed a lot by other moms and the media for your parenting style and you shouldn't you
01:24:13.540 shouldn't have been yeah well i do stand by it um uh so thank you for that um you know i i actually
01:24:22.060 uh do yeah it's it really was not written as a how-to guide but i but so it's it's this weird
01:24:30.640 thing like i wrote it believe it or not i thought it was going to be an interesting work of literature
01:24:34.580 it was like a memoir um so but yeah but thank you i i am proud of the girls that i raised i you know i
01:24:42.460 don't say it's for everybody i like the way you began this i mean i'm a teacher i have seen so
01:24:47.080 many brilliant students they come from every possible different parenting background i mean
01:24:51.340 you can take from it what you you can take from it what you will right like i i do think my general
01:24:57.080 approach other than being tough like i don't i i don't coddle them too much you know it's like i i'd
01:25:01.680 like you i don't say every two lines and a scratch of paper or like the next picasso it's like yeah it
01:25:06.400 looks fine um so i don't do that but i think i'm i'm too relaxed like i went to syracuse undergrad i
01:25:13.980 went to albany law school these are not i mean with all due respect to them these are not top tier
01:25:18.780 academic institutions and in the end it all worked out fine for me and i probably made more money and had
01:25:24.460 more success than a lot of people who wound up going right which is the moral of that story
01:25:28.480 well so so like i do have that perspective on it like yeah right if your kid doesn't get into those
01:25:33.660 schools it can all work out as long as they figure out what they're really good at and then and then
01:25:37.240 apply themselves so like all successful people i do work very very very hard um that's the one key
01:25:42.260 thing all successful people have it so and but you what you i see you doing is training your children
01:25:48.580 to work very very hard you're training them from a very young age i don't see anything wrong with
01:25:53.920 that but anyway when i look at my own parenting i think i should probably be training them harder
01:25:59.160 you know like i i don't know if it'll kick in for them the way it did for me and i don't see anything
01:26:04.120 wrong with like i like the fact that you said a's only a's but then in the back of my head i'm like
01:26:09.180 what if they bring home a b i don't think i have it in me to get the hundred practice tests as you said
01:26:14.440 make them do it like i don't know if you can half-ass the chinese parenting no you can't i mean i think
01:26:19.640 if the focus on grades gets people you know upset but like just like with papers you know what i i am
01:26:25.260 proud of this like with my students i i we have to resist the temptation to for writing our students
01:26:30.180 our kids papers for them because again it's so easy right oh it's due you know um and oh they're
01:26:37.040 crying and you want them to get a good grade and so part of being i think it i think everything
01:26:42.720 valuable is difficult and it's actually difficult just to not do it for them and make them do it another
01:26:48.020 thing i say is like i was like okay you've got to start early because you know i i've seen my
01:26:52.820 husband at the opposite model which is he's so smart he would do everything at the last minute and
01:26:56.900 then you know pull out a decent grade and feel like so heroic but that if you're competing against
01:27:02.300 somebody who started two weeks ago not as smart like me you know slowly uh you know the tortoise
01:27:08.640 will beat the hare and i'm always i say first draft you know you have to assume after you finished it
01:27:13.340 that it's you know you that you're 65 of the way there that you you're going to need to begin and
01:27:18.880 so i do have very high standards um that i think people could learn from how did you so you talk
01:27:25.300 there's a very funny part of the book where you write about um grades and you say if if that one
01:27:29.320 we're just gonna read from uh this is an excerpt from the journal if a kid comes home with an a and
01:27:33.560 with an a minus on a test a western parent will most likely praise him a chinese mother will gasp in
01:27:38.920 horror and ask what went wrong if it comes home with a b western parents might still praise the
01:27:43.680 child some might express some disapproval but be careful not to cause any insecurity or inadequacy
01:27:49.220 i'm paraphrasing now if a chinese child gets a b which would never happen you say there would first
01:27:55.880 be a screaming hair tearing explosion the devastated chinese mother would then get dozens maybe hundreds
01:28:00.900 of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up
01:28:05.220 to an a chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their child can get them
01:28:09.440 um when i read that i remember thinking how on earth did she find the time to do that you were
01:28:16.780 still working professional you were i think you were at yala when your girls were young how how when did
01:28:22.920 you do hundreds of practice tests if they ever did come home with a b but or or something less
01:28:26.780 yeah you know that part it's it's it's exaggerated and comical but that part is true uh it's it's comical
01:28:33.720 and by the way it was kind of pretty ugly with let me talk about there was a lot of unpleasant
01:28:39.640 yelling and screaming so you have to factor that into whether it's worth it or not um i don't know
01:28:44.460 what my husband would say but the but i you know so that's another reason that i kind of am proud like
01:28:50.100 it this it's not easy to be a tiger mom this way like it's it's so much easier to say oh my god i love
01:28:55.520 my children so much i'm going out for a glass of wine with my friends you know um and i i i think this
01:29:01.120 is general a more general point about women trying to strike this balance honestly i just felt what i
01:29:06.940 gave up was leeway in my life you know like i i just woke up earlier and earlier i could be very
01:29:11.600 regimented um you know i'd see my husband at the same job as me and he'd go out for coffee with
01:29:17.380 colleagues you know come home two hours late or you know i i just i couldn't do any of that so so for me
01:29:23.780 like a lot of women i just had to get more and more organized i mean i remember that i was like i was
01:29:27.880 always looking at my clock and honestly when i look back at that writing now i am exhausted like
01:29:32.920 i'm much older now i i just would not have the energy now to do that right i i admire the energy
01:29:38.620 and the commitment to it i feel like i'm i don't have it in me i'm old i feel like i just turned 50
01:29:43.020 but i'm i'm an old 50 i'm tired no i am i'm so tired i keep asking my primary care physician i'm
01:29:47.980 like i it's actually a funny story i went to him one time and i said i think i have lyme's disease and
01:29:51.900 he goes lime no s and i said i thought he was speaking spanish i said lime c he goes i'm not
01:29:57.180 speaking spanish lime is singular i'm like oh okay i said well i think i have lyme disease he
01:30:03.180 goes why i said because i'm exhausted all the time he goes well you work full-time and you have three
01:30:07.320 young children you're gonna be tired i'm like i don't think that's it he's like that's what it is
01:30:11.340 you you know whatever you're old and you you have three young children so i don't i'm exhausted just
01:30:16.940 thinking about you know like your story with the little white donkey and lulu i don't know i wouldn't
01:30:22.060 have it in me to stay on her and anyway do you want to tell that story because it's awesome it's
01:30:26.500 awesome that's funny yeah oh this is just my daughter lulu who is so funny but she is we just
01:30:33.520 fought like cats and dogs because her personality is very much like mine and she was just she was a
01:30:37.740 kid born saying no you know she said she wasn't going to college just all kinds of things uh oh i
01:30:42.640 remember when she was in like second grade uh we got a call from the teacher and the teacher said
01:30:46.460 um oh your daughter she says she's having visions you know it's she can't do any of the work because
01:30:51.800 she has visions and they wanted to do neurological tests and maybe add and all you know which it can
01:30:57.540 be very serious but i just know my daughter i was like she doesn't have visions and i said lulu
01:31:01.820 those are called daydreams and stop it you know and on that one i was right um but that little white
01:31:10.440 dog just it is a funny story but basically there was a song called little white donkey it's really cute
01:31:14.800 where the left hand on the right hand on the piano do different things and lulu just couldn't do it
01:31:19.480 and my husband and i had a big fight because there was a lot of screaming and yelling and he finally
01:31:23.580 pulls me aside and he's like amy have you ever considered that maybe she just physically can't do
01:31:29.120 it that she's just too young and doesn't have the coordination you know she was like six and i was
01:31:33.680 like oh okay you just don't believe in her you just want to be loved which is actually true you want
01:31:38.600 to take those to baseball games and you know water slides and but i don't care because i believe in
01:31:43.960 so i rolled up my sleeves and we went back and it was ugly you know we spent hours of fighting and
01:31:49.120 ripping up and the paper but at a certain point this weird thing happened her two hands came together
01:31:54.520 and suddenly she could play this difficult piece and it was a moment that she and i still both talk
01:32:00.900 about because she looked at me and she could not believe it she she did not think she could do it and
01:32:07.540 when her hands came together she would not leave the piano she was so proud of herself she just sat
01:32:13.000 there just wanted to do it over and over again and i've gotten so much crap from this people have
01:32:17.180 been like oh my god it's child abuse she would not let her daughter use the bathroom you know and this
01:32:22.980 was not guantanamo bay right like you know little little would be like can i go to the bathroom like
01:32:27.340 every five minutes um but she was using it but that's a great story for us because she she tells the
01:32:33.840 story now that when she much later 10 years later in high school taking a chemistry test she would get
01:32:39.780 blanks like she'd say oh my god i'm gonna fail i have a blank i'm drawing a blank and then she told
01:32:45.620 me that i would then remember wait i've had this feeling before this feeling of i absolutely know i
01:32:51.260 can't do it i can't do it but just by sticking with it and just by not giving up i discovered that i
01:32:56.680 actually could do it um and that is actually what i think is the real secret to true inner strength
01:33:03.940 real self-esteem that you have taught yourself at least once you know that way you know if i just
01:33:10.620 hang in there i actually can get a good outcome i love that see i i don't worry about uh what would
01:33:16.780 happen to my daughter if i did that i worry about whether i i have the energy to do it you know and
01:33:20.740 the wherewithal to do it myself because i i remember reading about it and you were like
01:33:24.280 she ripped up the the score you know the piano score and i taped it back together i put it put it
01:33:30.420 in plastic so she couldn't rip it up and then and jed jed was like well you know the girls are
01:33:37.620 different because you were you're saying your older sister sophia could play it when she was
01:33:40.780 and and you're like oh no not that everyone's special in their own special way oh no i will be
01:33:48.660 the hated one i will be the one you don't have to do a thing i'll be the hated one she's gonna play
01:33:53.360 it and she did she did i do think too often we let our kids off the hook too early and leave them
01:34:00.780 with the opposite feeling of you know what i was right i couldn't yes that's a perfect way of putting
01:34:06.160 it let's talk about school in general now like the broader because i feel like the country is going in
01:34:12.140 in a very different way we're getting a little softer when it comes to sats and testing and and
01:34:18.580 schools in general because we're starting to believe that little junior shouldn't be forced
01:34:23.300 to take tests and you know maybe it's going to hurt their self-esteem or their happiness level
01:34:28.460 what do you think yeah i have such complicated views about this and it might surprise you i mean i
01:34:33.780 actually think that our entire education system is broken um i'm a little older than you and i it's
01:34:39.920 just it wasn't like this you know i i worked hard but it it's impossible to to like i don't even
01:34:47.720 think people should be aiming for the ivy league all the time anymore i know that's shocking to say
01:34:51.900 because you know my younger self i was obsessed with it i'll be the first to say that's all i could
01:34:55.440 think about but the way it is right now and other people have written about this it's it's almost like
01:35:00.700 you can't make a single mistake you know you have a bad year in junior high school or high school
01:35:05.460 you know because everybody has a bad year and suddenly you can't get into top schools
01:35:09.060 you have everybody has a tutor kids worrying about college at the age of 12 it's just i think it's crazy
01:35:15.300 and if you're it goes back to tribalism if you are in the middle of the country it used to be just 50
01:35:20.380 years ago that you could go to a state school do pretty well i mean work hard and you could make it
01:35:27.280 to the coast and you could rise i mean right now yeah you know you even if you're wealthy from wealthy
01:35:33.780 parents you could barely get to these top schools so i i think something is just deeply wrong with
01:35:38.540 i think our kids are so stressed at a much earlier age um that you know i had super crazy strict
01:35:46.300 parents and i just had all this free time i had all this free time when i was little um so i think
01:35:51.800 that um there's i think this is something i agree with you about like not getting too lax i think we
01:35:57.780 should have standards of i'm so into sat vocabulary words i can't tell you like for a lot of immigrants
01:36:03.700 and poor people that is actually something that you can actually do by working hard you don't have
01:36:10.120 to you know uh i mean obviously wealthy people at advantage they can get these courses but i i think
01:36:15.300 that words are important for power i used to say with lulu when i was fighting with her about the sats
01:36:20.140 words memorize the exact definition because words are power you need them even to fight me you need
01:36:27.420 them i would i would yell with her um but i i think we need a revamping i mean something's really wrong
01:36:32.920 okay so what about that yeah because you do we we see some people pushing for a lowering of
01:36:38.720 standards but in the meantime we're in the midst of you know an epidemic with young children or
01:36:45.380 teenagers who are on drugs and overwhelmed with stress and anxiety at the pressures of trying to get
01:36:53.140 ahead in a world where all their classmates are doing the same so what do we do about it so i'm not an
01:37:00.460 you know expert in education but my general view maybe goes back to my own experience with this
01:37:05.700 kind of tiger parenting is i i don't believe in lowering standards at all um i think that's going
01:37:11.820 to come back to haunt uh everybody i mean we need people who can do math and who can read you know even
01:37:18.100 with the new digital technology that's not going to change but we do need to do all these studies show
01:37:25.160 that you have to start really early with children um and i'm not talking about kids like yours and mine
01:37:30.120 now but but just if you really want people to have a level playing field um and so i don't know i thought
01:37:36.600 a lot about like maybe there's going to be another stage in my life where i kind of focus on this you
01:37:41.060 know because i did it it's such a concentrated form with my own children um i would love to you know
01:37:49.380 contribute back you know to the country in a way because i i i believe that if you just tell kids
01:37:56.080 can let kids know that you believe in them and just do a couple of things right i i don't know
01:38:01.440 you know i i'm a big education fan but i'm not answering this question very well because i i'm just
01:38:05.520 not an education expert and i'm i'm because you're like there i did stress out my kids and it all worked
01:38:10.740 out well in the end it doesn't it doesn't end badly for everyone and it's gotten even worse since
01:38:15.400 they were i mean they're you know they're again they're in their 20s and i think things have gotten
01:38:19.620 progressively worse from 50 years ago to when i was in college oh yeah can i tell you yeah so we we went
01:38:26.540 to one of these um uh like parent events here in new york where you just sit in the audience and they
01:38:30.940 get people from all the private schools kids from all the private schools and and you don't know
01:38:34.880 which school they went to but they they're all in high school and they all have an experience
01:38:38.800 and one of the guys who was there he was so so smart so open he goes to the parents his random
01:38:46.180 parents in an auditorium full of people he said do you want to know why your kids are so effed up
01:38:50.720 because they're all told they have to achieve perfect days they all have to play at least three sports
01:38:57.560 they all have to be in at least 10 clubs and they're looking for an out they're they're they're
01:39:04.220 on drugs because they're looking for an escape and of course all the parents in the audience are
01:39:08.500 they're like holy shit oh no right i know it scares me because i i do want to drive them and
01:39:15.520 i do want them to think to believe that they can handle a lot but i don't want that i agree and i
01:39:22.280 see that in my students it's like a a burden on them almost like a joylessness which i i think it's
01:39:29.360 new you know it's new it's like they come in instead of just being so excited to learn i mean i don't
01:39:34.820 want to over romanticize it but it's like they from the beginning they're worried about the next
01:39:38.800 step you know all the things that they need to do and they're stressed stressed stressed and
01:39:42.920 i don't know i just think i know it sounds very non-tigerish but i just think life is too short so
01:39:47.740 i i agree with you i think that's a real problem and i i think it's something new it's a new problem
01:39:52.060 uh you know worse than it was say even you know five or ten years ago
01:39:55.800 next book is going to be peaceful meow of the kitten mom
01:39:59.580 okay now let's talk about college admissions for a minute before i let you go because
01:40:06.540 it's i had to get your take on the college admission scandal and you know somebody who's
01:40:11.340 at elite universities has has daughters at elite universities um you went to them and you teach at
01:40:16.540 one what did you think of that i'm sure you weren't surprised like most of us most of us were
01:40:21.040 you know mouths agape but were you were you surprised i wasn't surprised uh i so basically
01:40:27.620 the the whole college admission scandal represents the exact opposite of tiger parenting um so tiger
01:40:35.280 parenting i had somebody uh very astute once say it's reading the book they're saying this is so
01:40:40.320 strange because as a mom as a western mom i'm always i want my kids to have an easier life so i'm
01:40:45.080 always like removing obstacles from them so that their life can be smoother but i see that as a tiger
01:40:50.560 mom you're putting obstacles in their way you know it's like obstacles for them to train you know um
01:40:56.400 and so this college admissions thing is the extreme of non-tiger parenting where uh i think it's the worst
01:41:02.980 thing on on earth i mean number one you're doing it for the kids number two they're not earning it so
01:41:08.560 there is zero self-esteem or inner confidence being gained from that in addition to just completely
01:41:14.080 cheating out other people um so to me i think that probably represents people who were afraid that
01:41:21.280 they couldn't compete on the merits um you know either with children who are naturally motivated or
01:41:27.840 i don't know you know immigrant kids or something um so but i i'm not that it relates back to the
01:41:34.880 previous conversation i think there's something broke about our system that makes people so desperate
01:41:39.380 that they feel they they're they need to do that out of out of love for their children right i know
01:41:45.420 and and it's like it's crazy that's that's sort of the grift we didn't necessarily know about that
01:41:50.920 gen pop which in which i include myself when it comes to this kind of thing uh we didn't know it was
01:41:55.380 happening it's the the open grift has been more of a story where it's like a your connections over time
01:42:01.540 right you're sort of your dad went to yale your grandfather went to yale and therefore you go to yale
01:42:05.760 that's one thing but people you know they spend people are making millions and millions of dollars
01:42:10.920 of donations to these universities just to pave the path for their kids and whenever i see that i'm
01:42:15.400 like how does the kid in you know florida who's working so hard to be valedictorian of his high
01:42:21.700 school which by the way you were too um of course uh how does he stand any chance how does he stand any
01:42:29.620 chance the way the systems work today and how important you know your ability to donate is
01:42:34.520 yeah it's terrible i agree i mean i you know inequality is a huge problem um and i think
01:42:41.000 for me it's inequality of opportunity that is the thing that i focus on uh and you're exactly right
01:42:47.380 i mean this kind of thing is the antithesis right it's it's the it's the definition of an unlevel
01:42:52.740 playing field where people with parents with more money and connections um and and to be honest i see
01:42:59.240 it all the time i mean and you know it's i understand the temptation like like you i know a lot of
01:43:04.280 people and you know we love our children we want to help them and i think it goes back to um kind of
01:43:10.480 needing self-restraint to telling yourself that as a parent the best thing you could do for them is not
01:43:16.120 just to make everything easier necessarily it sort of goes back to the beginning of our conversation
01:43:22.340 which is you know you said this broken education system stops people from moving into the elites you
01:43:29.260 know group of the elites not that's necessarily their goal but the point is the elites kind of
01:43:34.680 stop them from entering and the system perpetuates itself including the resentment and the tribalism
01:43:41.000 that comes from these divisions which are just so dug in exactly and in both directions you see that
01:43:47.000 for a lot of the people who are not the cosmopolitan elites there's this anti-expert thing these pointy
01:43:53.520 had people and that can be very dangerous also you know uh so so yeah it's a big problem running in
01:43:59.260 all directions well if you want to understand how we got so divided on things like covid even uh you
01:44:05.880 should check out amy's book you should read them all really because you'll learn a lot as you can tell
01:44:09.460 i am looking forward to seeing what comes next now i want to see what the tiger grandma
01:44:13.780 is like when the girls get a little older and they get married but it's been so fun catching up lots of love
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01:45:06.240 i still read them and i love them and i love hearing from you i'll be back soon thanks for listening to
01:45:11.340 the megan kelly show no bs no agenda and no fear the megan kelly show is a devil may care media
01:45:18.440 production in collaboration with red seat ventures
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