00:02:48.040Yeah. I mean, have you recovered? Are you good? Are you all right? You know, second place is pretty good. No, no, but you always want to be first. Oh, God. It is. It is completely devastating when they lose them. And honestly, it's been it's been really tough with there's been this three week campaign of there's no worse country than Argentina. Now, Argentina is the most racist. Argentina is both Nazi and in bed with BBs. Like anything that can be thrown at it. And that part is really a bummer.
00:03:17.740because Argentina does not get attention for anything globally usually and it's like Millay
00:03:24.320is friends with Trump and Argentinians are horrible people so you had a horrible week
00:03:30.060it was a it was you had to suffer through all of that yeah yeah and sit there and watch Messi
00:03:35.940as he's just absorbing and sobbing at least we didn't lose to England is the takeaway is that
00:03:43.440Well, historically, because that's a big matchup and rivalry, but what can you do?
00:03:47.080You still agree with them putting out those, you know, I mean, just the flags and everything?
00:03:55.820And I think it was also a little hypocritical, like as an example, just to point out one hypocrisy, we're against colonizers and we're against colonizers and we're rooting for Spain against Argentina, the colonizer of Argentina.
00:04:10.260Like that doesn't make a lot of sense.
00:04:11.580Yeah. So you really are, you know, you, this is nature nurture.
00:04:34.920what I loved about the Spanish players is they didn't give whatever about
00:04:40.280trump being there and they were doing their celebration and they were looking at him like
00:04:43.720who's this guy what's he doing here and then they cropped him out of the celebration pictures which
00:04:47.900is beautiful i mean even fifa cropped him out not just this which is jesus i mean that was
00:04:52.440i mean and the spain actually like literally didn't even crop them out they literally ai
00:04:58.860eliminated yeah yeah yeah photo how could you do that to the winner of the fifa peace prize you
00:05:03.380know i appreciate your sensitivity so you're always looking at the world from a different
00:05:07.680set of eyes, which I respect. But so just, you know, by the way, I just to rub it in a little
00:05:12.820bit further, my son was sitting there. He's 10 years old. It's the sweetest thing. I can only
00:05:18.840admit if he felt this way, I can't even imagine how Argentine fans felt. But I mean, he started
00:05:24.480sobbing after they lost and his sisters were making fun of him. And then everyone realized
00:05:30.120how serious it was. It was like 20 minutes of just intense, emotional, you know, just release.
00:05:36.580yeah uh so you know it is a big it's a big thing and what's interesting about that is my oldest
00:05:41.040daughter is four and she was asking when can we get back to paw patrol but we watched with some
00:05:46.720slightly older kids who were crying and it was it was tough it was tough to see that so when did
00:05:51.680you know that you could make a career out of you know using your voice it's an interesting question
00:05:57.700i mean the first five years of this show it made zero and i don't mean like it didn't make a lot
00:06:03.180of money. It made there was just no revenue. And so I think like in some sense, getting from zero
00:06:09.080dollars to one dollar is the spark where it's like, OK, it can make a dollar. Can this be
00:06:15.260something? And so I think that was that was a big deal. And then when I hired my first real
00:06:20.400employee and was able to say, OK, now this is now a business. I think that was that was probably
00:06:25.860the beginning of thinking there might be something to this. And I was in grad school at the time
00:06:29.420doing an MBA. And my friends were becoming financial advisors and bankers and going into
00:06:35.140private equity, which seemed very cushy and lucrative in the immediate. But the long term
00:06:40.780of that just didn't appeal to me. So I said, I'll give myself a year to really see if this can
00:06:44.880become something. And was it always, I mean, was it a political show from the outset? Yes.
00:06:49.160And it was commenting about local city councils. It was always national.
00:06:53.380Always national. Interesting. Paint the picture 21 years ago. What were the big issues? You
00:06:58.400remember well 21 years ago it was in the immediate uh pre-obama era so it was the iraq war um it was
00:07:08.580what is it going to look like when george w bush is done with his second term what is the direction
00:07:13.660republicans are going to go this was pre-tea party i mean this is it's it's like almost ancient
00:07:18.020history to people who are now 25 and voted for the first time it has a lot of echoes of today
00:07:22.800right on the other side not the tea party but dsa for the democrats democrats in the wilderness
00:07:27.520What happens at the second term? Oh, boy. We're going right into it. I mean, I did a commentary that's on my show today, which is making this exact analogy, which is there was a time before Trump in the Tea Party era where the establishment Republican Party kind of said these people are never going to influence the party.
00:07:44.660They're never going to guide the direction. And the Tea Party really led to MAGA and to Trumpism.
00:07:49.460Yeah. And I you know, I've been critical of the kind of what I call do nothing centrism,
00:07:55.140which is like, let's find a couple of things on the fringes to say we will do and end up doing
00:07:59.220nothing. I don't think that's good for the Democratic Party. Right. But also what I'm
00:08:03.300seeing, I was just looking at the DSA platform, which it has moral motivations that I respect,
00:08:09.940but a lot of completely unrealistic stuff that if it becomes litmus test worthy is going to be a
00:08:17.080real problem for Democrats. And so I don't know when the right time is to have that conversation.
00:08:22.440I tend to think it's as soon as you realize something's up, it's a good time to do it
00:08:26.400without saying, well, if we talk about it now, how will it affect the midterms? I think now
00:08:29.960is when it has to be talked about. I think social democracy is the path forward, which is a sort of
00:08:35.260northern european model so we can go i i'm going to get back to the dsa it's interesting and we
00:08:41.640could talk some of those litmus test issues because i think they're important to illuminate
00:08:44.700because not everybody is familiar right with some of those platform issues as it relates to private
00:08:49.440prisons number of issues that do deserve a little bit more attention beyond the tonality of sort of
00:08:54.740this anti-establishment and this desire to see more aggressive clear uh leadership etc but let's
00:09:01.420let's jump into your book because you what you've been writing books for some time now you've been
00:09:05.280at this and i think it was i wanted to paint a picture you've been also at this art form of
00:09:08.880sorts for 21 years because so you don't come to this issue that you bring and highlight in the
00:09:13.660book uh from a perspective as an outsider i mean you've lived and breathed this uh in a pretty
00:09:19.240profound bottom-up way you've been at this as well writing books for some time you wrote a book in
00:09:24.5202025 about the right wing and the echo chambers uh you've written a lot of children's books which
00:09:30.120is interesting you mentioned your your child's paw patrol affinity which i respect uh but you've
00:09:37.340also written a number of children's book but this one pay attention how the algorithms and the media
00:09:42.620wars are suppressing truth and re-wiring our brain is your latest work is available in september so
00:09:50.560i love that we have a chance to talk about the book before it's even out there and full disclosure
00:09:56.720read it love it and I really want to dive deep into it because we've talked so much all of us
00:10:02.660say we collectively talk about this issue and around this issue we understand aspects of it
00:10:08.840tenants of it trend lines of it but not I think how pervasive and profound the issue is around
00:10:17.760algorithms around what media is all about and so let's talk a little bit about this book and
00:10:23.360start with the obvious and that is you start in the prologue about this arms race and you're the
00:10:28.400first to acknowledge uh you're participating in this arms race right and so you sir david
00:10:37.560are you not the problem well listen i think everybody is in a sense contributing to this
00:10:43.680and also i think the best thing we can do is identify the systems that are at play
00:10:48.520and then figure out what are our choices one choice is we just kind of abandon it
00:10:52.280If we abandon it, we cede ground to those with terrible ideas to completely dominate.
00:11:00.160The second option is we figure out how to play the game while not kind of losing our
00:11:04.860soul to deception, lies and misinformation.
00:11:09.200That's where I kind of tend to land, which is we could ignore these platforms and algorithms,
00:11:14.280but then the worst people just take them over.
00:11:17.800Right. And I don't think that that makes sense if we understand that these algorithms are determining elections to a great degree. The elections determine who gets power, who has power determines policy. So when I talk to people who go, yeah, I spend a lot of time on social media, but I'm not into politics. I don't vote. I talk to them about what do you care about? Almost always they will list issues, things affecting them that relate to who is in power.
00:11:43.200And then we can explain, well, you know, you should be engaged in that because the fact
00:11:47.700that you don't care about politics, you're just struggling to make a living.
00:11:51.100That's housing, affordability, groceries, energy prices and jobs.
00:11:54.700All of that stuff is determined by municipal, state and federal elections and who you vote
00:12:10.320And so the big why, why now, why this book? I mean, I mean, it's I mean, in some ways what you just stated is a partial response. But why the big call out? I mean, pay attention. You know, it's an expressive frame. Wake up. Maybe another frame.
00:12:29.180It's two things. It's one. At this point, the elections more than ever being affected
00:12:33.900by these platforms and 2028 probably more than any before that is going to be highly
00:12:39.500determined by the narratives that these algorithms determine are the most emotionally salient
00:12:44.220and put in front of people. That's number one. And number two, because of the A.I.
00:12:47.900aspect of it, the whole last part of the book is about how I will change this.
00:12:51.580The technology is essentially there to create synthetic influencers.
00:12:57.820Have to sit in front of a camera and if I want to do an hour of content
00:13:01.120I've got to record an hour of video with technology. You can dial up a thousand of me
00:13:07.320Some might be male some might be female different identities
00:13:10.780Whatever will appeal most directly to people and spin them up with nothing other than compute power and a thousand X
00:13:17.880What I'm doing tailored to the algorithms of people it's 60 70 percent of the way there as we're recording this
00:13:24.420very very dangerous and you've run your own experience we'll get to that you write about
00:13:29.440it in the book yeah but you start you the introduction begins with uh ai in some respects
00:13:34.520and it's you know that that's an iconic image of of donald trump with the walker and you make the
00:13:39.660point that he did this right after he went after states like california california being the first
00:13:44.820state in the country to go after large language model frontier models and do transparency language
00:13:49.260legislation as it relates to regulating AI. He didn't like that. David Sachs, his AI czar didn't
00:13:55.180like that. They tried to preempt the state of California and stop other states. All the while,
00:14:00.760we saw a viral video of Donald Trump in a walker. That's right. And the point I make in the book
00:14:06.680is that by the time it was determined that this image of Trump with the walker isn't real,
00:14:12.200it kind of didn't matter because it accomplished a bunch of different things for different people.
00:14:18.160That's not all positive for not all positive or negative for Donald Trump.
00:14:22.060But the point was, and it kind of returns at the at the end of the book when we talk about the coming AI flood, what's going to matter is the emotional reaction that this stuff triggers in people.
00:17:16.200The book is not about bad legacy media.
00:17:19.220It's there's pros and cons to these systems.
00:17:21.180The democratization of the news and politics space has been phenomenal.
00:17:25.780On the other hand, we also have this problem of truth versus virality to contend with.
00:17:30.040And you talk, I mean, it's interesting you frame, and I think it's important. We talk about censorship. It's been talked about, obviously Trump talked ad nauseum about censorship, but your issue is, and I think you just hit on it, is abundance. This is overwhelming. I mean, just the narratives coming from every single direction, how you cuss out that truth from trust.
00:17:50.140That's right. And not only that, not everybody is given all of the same material from which
00:17:54.300they can then say, here's the side I come down on, right? Based on your interests and
00:17:58.860online behavior, you and I and everybody else can have a completely different sense of what's
00:18:05.020going on out in the world. A great example is with the Trump medical stuff that was,
00:18:10.860you know, when he went for his third physical in 13 months, there were two completely competing
00:18:16.380narratives. There was one side of the space that was saying the disclosures have never been
00:18:21.820fulsome and complete. There are inconsistencies here. We don't believe the height and weight
00:18:26.780that's on these documents. There's stuff missing. He talked about an MRI for two months. It turns
00:18:30.760out it was a CAT scan. That's one side. There are millions of people who vote who were not
00:18:35.500even exposed to that. It wasn't that they said, oh, I don't believe that or I don't like that.
00:18:40.180Their algorithms don't even show them that content. They don't even get the opportunity
00:18:43.660to say, do I want to examine this critically? How do you fix that? That's a major problem.
00:18:48.680And you make that point in the book that the algorithm then becomes the boss.
00:27:24.120It changes how what people say, how they again, how they say it and how long they say it, whether or not they look engaged or not engaged.
00:27:30.740You know, what do you make of that in the context of what this is doing to all of us, to me, to you, to all of us listening?
00:27:37.340Everybody who is on these platforms is affected by this.
00:27:40.700Even if you say I'm not a creator, I'm not a streamer, I'm not an elected official.
00:27:44.240If you are participating in comment threads, if you're posting vacation pictures, if you're doing the thing at the restaurant where you take pictures of your food.
00:27:52.300And then everybody is sort of staging some version of their life and then gauging the
00:28:17.120So that's a really that's a really interesting word because you kind of if you're in this 24 seven, like a lot of people are, you start to lose touch with what is the authentic self. Right. And at this point, you may be evaluating the prior performance and tweaking that.
00:28:36.580And I don't know what that does to interpersonal relationships.
00:28:39.840I mean, I think one of the things that is definitely true is 98 percent of my interactions
00:28:46.540online with people are very negative and one hundred ninety eight percent and 100 percent
00:28:52.860of my in-person interactions with people are positive or neutral.
00:28:56.340And so the disinhibiting nature of these interpersonal means where you see people, you kind of think
00:29:02.860you know them, you're willing to say. Sometimes I'll get emails from people who say horrible,
00:29:07.640horrible things to me, and I rarely write back. But sometimes I'll just as a test, I'll go,
00:29:11.760do you think you would say this to me if we met in person? And oftentimes it completely deflates
00:29:18.080the anger and people go after a day. I was really upset with what you said. The truth is, I know
00:29:24.040you're just saying what you believe. I disagree with it. We'd probably have a good conversation
00:29:27.760in person, which is a really interesting switch. Do you, I just looking back, I'm curious as you
00:29:34.220said, do you remember the first thing that just blew up first? I mean, something that you said
00:29:39.740or did or how you said it, how you did it, how you found it, whatever it might've been that were
00:29:44.340like, whoa, this thing, like, what do you remember? What was it? I do. There was a story where a woman
00:29:51.760did a test. A black woman was not getting job interviews and she did a test where she
00:29:57.380started submitting her resume with what you would call a white sounding name instead of
00:30:03.520what would be considered a black sounding name. Same exact resume. And she suddenly
00:30:07.820got a ton of callbacks. And I thought it was interesting. I didn't think that that story
00:30:11.980would perform well, but I thought that it was fascinating as a social commentary. And
00:30:17.420And so I talked about it and it just went absolutely crazy.
00:55:15.320What's more masculine than saying, hey, you know what, I have the confidence that raising
00:55:19.760others up isn't going to diminish me and it's not zero sum.
00:55:23.260You know, I think these are sort of some of the ideas that would much better serve the
00:55:29.260the left and serve young men and boys than the stuff from the manosphere that they're getting
00:55:33.640on the right. Well said. You speak of serving. I mean, what do public servants, what do people
00:55:39.320in positions of power and influence, those with formal authority, what should we be doing
00:55:42.960in the context of addressing the systemic issues in this space, moving beyond just the issue of
00:55:49.680the manosphere and the challenges with men and boys and the issues, again, that you highlight
00:55:54.820in this book? What do we need to pay attention to in terms of a regulatory framework or not,
00:56:01.300in terms of leaning in, socializing, highlighting, creating a different culture,
00:56:05.820construct, challenge? I mean, is it FCC? Is it I mean, what what do we need to be doing
00:56:11.520in this space? The micro answer is different in so many different areas. But I think the macro of it
00:56:17.900is that there is a feeling. So I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, a lot of the people
00:56:22.840I talk to don't vote because they have not yet understood the connection between voting and their
00:56:27.880day-to-day lives. We've got to relink that connection. Once that's done, there's a feeling
00:56:32.620that governments, state, federal, move too slowly to really solve problems for people. And so
00:56:40.280there's a lot of situations people are in that are urgent, issues of housing, out of a job,
00:56:46.080food instability, issues with children, et cetera. The BS that is then the easy answer and the
00:56:52.460scapegoat in the context of the algorithms and the filter bubble. That's a good point in a way
00:56:58.760to look at it. I think that if people come to believe that there are systems in place that can
00:57:04.280respond to the specific problems people are having, because it's great when someone announces,
00:57:10.300we have just secured X amount of funding, which will be distributed over Y years to start working
00:57:15.440on. That's great. But there's people who are like, I'm in a crisis now. What is available to me?
00:57:20.260Some people do have services available and they don't know about it. So that's about communication. But I think there's this feeling for a lot of people that even if they vote and they change who's in power, the systems move too slowly and they're too clunky to really help them.
00:57:32.640And so, I mean, so is that a system delivery issue? Is it an expectation setting issue? I mean, it takes time to build a house.
00:57:42.960Even if you have the permits, even if you have the land use reforms, it takes time to construct it. We can improve productivity, focus on modular housing, prefab housing. You can eliminate some of that friction, but it still takes time.
00:57:57.220It does. How much of this is just level setting versus, you know, just exploitation of people's grievances?
00:58:05.180I think a lot of it is level setting and and and communication.
00:58:09.380One of the things that I kind of have to admit that Donald Trump has picked up on that's useful politically is to make declarations on truth social and to sign executive orders,
00:58:18.740which are effectively memos asking someone to do something which make a lot of his followers
00:58:24.860believe that he is doing the things he promised when he is actually not.
00:58:29.180I'm not suggesting that elected officials on the left start deliberately lying about
00:59:00.260So let's, I mean, it all touches on where we are as a party.
00:59:03.380And you've been, you've called out the Democratic Party, you know, sort of the Sunday show buttoned up party versus, you know, being able to play in this, you know, in the new arena that is self-evident that you've been a huge part of over the last 20 plus years.
00:59:17.060But what, you know, what is the lesson today for the modern Democratic Party?
00:59:20.940What would you be advising if you were the head of the DNC that the party itself?
00:59:47.060Everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports.
00:59:51.140Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.
00:59:55.580So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.
01:00:02.100My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks?
01:02:39.160Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:02:49.320Or even do you believe in the construct top-down, or is it really bottom-up, and it's about a thousand different points of light, so to speak?
01:02:59.120I think there's value to structure, but there is a lot of bottom-up stuff.
01:03:02.580I mean, some of the most successful campaigns that just dominate social media are built from
01:03:07.880the bottom up with people who are really good on social media. I do think that being less
01:03:14.180structured is something I've told a lot of staffers. They want the questions ahead of time,
01:03:20.220which we never do. They want to, they say, you know, do you still, you really get that still?
01:03:24.840We really get it. We just had a situation. I haven't said, I mean, I gave you all the questions.
01:03:29.540that's an exception this was a special case yeah you know we recently had a situation where a
01:03:35.400staffer talked to my producer and said what are we going to talk about seven eight things were
01:03:40.640kind of mentioned it was a 15 minute conversation which i think is also a problem but how can you
01:03:45.560talk about eight things in 15 minutes we got to two and then my producer got a call saying i was
01:03:50.540disappointed that the focus was only on those two and say well hold on a second yeah it gave us 15
01:03:55.520minutes. And this was the range of things that would be discussed. I can't force, I'm not in
01:04:01.820David's ear saying, move on to the next topic. So that stuff I think makes the end product feel
01:04:07.640extremely stiff. People don't relate to it. So that goes to the authenticity piece.
01:04:11.940That goes to the authenticity piece. And I think being less structured, appearing in less structured
01:04:16.340situations, I think is only good. And you got to hand it to Trump during the 24 campaign.
01:04:21.960he spent three hours with the Nelk boys and he's talking to Lex Friedman and he's with Rogan and
01:04:27.700he's not. You've been on Lex as well, by the way. I spoke to Lex as well. Yeah. I think that that
01:04:33.320worked. Even if he's telling lies, the fact that he's there and it feels relaxed and unstructured
01:04:39.160goes a really long way with boaters. So that's one piece of advice. What else? I mean, so this
01:04:45.460notion of abundance, I mean, I think we talked around that. I mean, we haven't used the word
01:04:50.360abundance so you didn't use the word abundance i i use it often and i certainly embrace the frame
01:04:55.500uh people are just sick and tired of process and the paralysis of process they want to see they
01:05:02.000want to physically see the results yes it's proof of concept that i want to see results don't tell
01:05:08.860me you've housed 68 000 people newsom which by the way we have through project home key don't tell
01:05:16.140me that. I want to see it physically on the streets. Otherwise, I don't believe you. And
01:05:20.240we're losing trust. And obviously, that is exploited and obviously is creating a lot of
01:05:26.600friction. And it's politically challenging. So what else do you advise in the context of the
01:05:31.400political, the Democratic Party in terms of getting back on its feet, getting back into
01:05:36.000its ascended position, getting off the map? Matt, obviously, there's no, you know, for all the
01:05:43.240animus that has developed, increasing animus, not just the Democratic Party and independents,
01:05:49.960but increasingly in his own base against Donald Trump. It's not inured to the benefit of the
01:05:53.860Democratic Party. I think that the focus really has to be on the economic situation. One of the
01:06:00.220mistakes that I saw with President Biden's reelection campaign while it was going on,
01:06:04.560and then with the Harris campaign when it became the Harris campaign, was a lot of pointing to,
01:06:09.460but don't people see the economic numbers? Things are really good. And they may be really good for
01:06:15.060a bunch of people and not good for a lot of others. But if people don't feel that things
01:06:20.060are good and you're telling them they are, of course, they're not going to think you'll make
01:06:24.300anything better. You're saying everything's fine to begin with. And this is why I think Barack
01:06:28.080Obama's 2012 campaign did this very well, where he said, we've made a lot of progress getting out
01:06:34.240of the Great Recession and we still have a long way to go. And here are the three or four things
01:06:38.500I'm going to focus on. It felt much more like, OK, I can acknowledge this is no longer 2008.
01:06:45.220And also this is still a climb that we are in the middle of. And then you need to have policies you
01:06:50.840can actually deliver on. So that's where Donald Trump made a huge mistake, which is gas will be
01:06:55.140down 50 percent. Everything will be cheaper. It's going to be a new glory. You know, and gas is over
01:07:00.220four bucks a gallon nationally and much more in certain parts of the country. You have to have
01:07:04.900some possibility of delivering on what you're asking. Well, I couldn't agree with you more.
01:07:09.380I mean, my own confession, you have a confession chapter. But, you know, I was out there
01:07:13.160stumping for Biden. I was making the same point. Inflation's cooling. You know,
01:07:17.880economy's booming. Best jobs market since the 1960s. Lowest unemployment for blacks,
01:07:22.160for women, for those with disabilities. We had record job growth. We were reducing the
01:07:27.320deficit in debt. We had these unbelievable bipartisan deals, 400 bipartisan legislative
01:07:33.780victories, some of the most iconic being, you know, IRA, the issues around infrastructure,
01:07:40.300chips and science. And it was all about the aggregate. Right. And people don't live in
01:07:45.140the aggregate. And they weren't feeling it. And you're right. That was, I mean, boy, that
01:07:50.980landed like a thud. Yeah, that and immigration, I think, were two areas that weren't landing well
01:07:57.200with a lot of voters and the here's the progress we've made, but then like here's the North Star.
01:08:04.800There is a kind of transition there that's relatively smooth, which I think makes people
01:08:09.200feel a lot more heard. And as unrealistic as Donald Trump's promises were, at least they
01:08:14.400sounded tangible, completely unrealistic. And we all were saying this will never happen.
01:08:20.000But they sounded like specific, tangible promises. Gas is going to be half the price.
01:08:23.920Of course, it's not going to be, but that sounds tangible.
01:08:26.140I can imagine what that would be like.
01:10:32.840So let's back then back up a little bit to the DSA in the context of this sort of emergence of a new narrative, you know, ability to call out the victim, the villain a little bit more clearly.
01:10:47.400Communication that seems a little bit more effective, certainly electorally, has been effective in some cases.
01:10:53.460We can overread, you know, we tend to color things in.
01:10:56.720A few examples then become sort of the dominant norm or the meme that suggests something bigger than itself.
01:11:03.400But where are you just in terms of, you know, you talked about the platform, but where are you in the context of looking at the DSA in the context of the Democratic Party's future in terms of the narrative, in terms of sort of being repairs of this party brand?
01:11:20.160So a couple things. I am not sure what things will look like 10, 50 or 100 years from now in terms of Donald Trump always says this will never be a socialist or communist country. I don't think it's going to be one in the next five to 10 years. Never is a really long term play. I don't know what's going to happen in the next 100 years. I do think that right now the success in some circles of these DSA candidates should be a red alert for the Democratic Party in that there are many voters who are extraordinarily
01:11:50.140disaffected with the party. They don't want to vote for Republicans. And there's this other thing
01:11:55.100that they're finding preferable to the Democratic establishment. Really important message. If if
01:12:01.060you ignore that message, if Democrats ignore that message, it's like the Republicans ignoring the
01:12:05.000Tea Party in 2010. We saw what happened. So that's extremely interesting and relevant on the
01:12:10.780specifics. Ten years ago, when I would interview DSA people, socialists, et cetera, they would say
01:12:16.760me very soberly, they would go, listen, David, I'm a socialist. You're not. But our next stops
01:12:23.160on this bus are the same. And so I see myself as united with you if and when we get to social
01:12:29.800democracy and the things we agree on, we get people, health care, et cetera. Then the social
01:12:34.280Democrats and the bona fide socialists can have an argument about whether we go further or not.
01:12:39.320I really respected that. That was a very interesting conversation to have. There wasn't a litmus test
01:12:44.120that was imposed on me as someone who is not a socialist.
01:12:48.240That's very different now, where I regularly get emails and see comments for people saying
01:13:06.500Can I point to things that have been done in St. Louis and in Salt Lake City to just give
01:13:09.980people housing and how it's actually cheaper than having it on the streets?
01:13:13.000Yes. For homeless folks, absolutely. But I'm not a take take away private ownerships. And then
01:13:18.800well, then you're simply not part of the same movement. This is not everybody, but these are
01:13:23.060some of the conversations I've had. So I feel like the tone of these conversations is very
01:13:27.060different today than it was eight, 10 years ago. So what's I mean? So fast forward. I mean, is it
01:13:31.920so I mean, do you believe this is a truly robust movement that will continue to gain momentum?
01:13:38.820Or do you feel like it's at peak at the moment on the basis of some of these local elections with national implications and obviously with Mamdani's ascendancy as a bright star in the Democratic movement?
01:13:52.860Predictions are so tough. I don't think this is the peak, but I don't see a desire right now for this to become widespread in terms of the candidates that the Democratic Party nominates.
01:14:03.940it's really up to the voters. And so that's where I hesitate to say this will not go further or it
01:14:08.940will. It'll be up to voters to decide. And part of it also has to do with whether Democrats are
01:14:15.260putting forward interesting and authentic candidates with good ideas. If the alternative
01:14:20.300to the DSA actual socialists, which, by the way, a lot of them aren't actual socialists,
01:14:26.700but some of them are. That doesn't really matter. A lot of this is labeling. If the alternative
01:14:30.640is a terrible centrist Democrat, that helps this DSA movement. If there are interesting people
01:14:38.320that are to the left of the centrist Democrats, but not socialists, that's the best thing that
01:14:44.020they can do in a lot of these districts. The other thing is Michigan and Iowa and Connecticut
01:14:50.240and New York City are very different places. And this is a huge country with a lot of different
01:14:54.640people. So I think it's difficult to make any kind of overarching prediction about something like
01:14:59.460that what is what's i mean and the word centrist it's interesting is that what is centrist centrist
01:15:06.440in policy centrist in attitude centrist is the establishment centrist is an incumbent i think
01:15:14.020what is the center centrist is a corporate democrat the what is what centrist what is
01:15:18.560what is the definite i'm curious people use the word centrist i don't use it as a pejorative some
01:15:23.720people do. Some people do. I don't use it as a for me. Centrist is you're basically happy with how
01:15:29.200things are. Status and you're satisfied with the changes you want to make being really on the
01:15:36.020fringes. Yeah. You're an incrementalist. Yeah. And incrementalism. I'm OK with. I mean, Ted Kennedy
01:15:40.880was an incrementalist and he had a lot of incremental successes that he spearheaded in the
01:15:45.020Senate. But it's things are basically fine. And I don't want to change much of anything. I think
01:15:50.480we need more than that. I'm not socialism, and I'm certainly not communism, but I'm also not
01:15:56.380like things are basically fine. Radical centrism? Yeah, I've never met one. Have you met a radical
01:16:02.760centrist? I don't know. What was Obama in this? How would we describe him today? Oh, boy. Depends
01:16:08.780who you ask. Yeah. I mean, he defends the incremental side of Obamacare. He didn't get
01:16:14.500everything, but he makes the point. We made progress. Don't make a perfect enemy of the good
01:16:19.480framework. Is that that that would that play well today?
01:16:23.760And today it's playing pretty poorly with the left part of the base. I mean, I'm when
01:16:29.540I in my first book, I talked about the successes of incrementalism. And if you look at the
01:16:33.700three big eras of advancement for the left in the United States, which were the progressive
01:16:37.920era in the early 20th century, you looked at the New Deal era after World War Two and
01:16:43.260you looked at the civil rights era. Yep.
01:16:45.440In retrospect, it feels like big change and it was hugely significant changes.
01:16:50.220But at the time it was a lot of, hey, we got a Supreme Court pick who 10 years from now
01:16:56.540is going to be part of a really important decision, either on women's voting or on civil
01:17:36.500What did you was was Biden's biggest challenge?
01:17:40.680communication? Was he an incrementalist? Was he a centrist? You think universally people
01:17:46.000describe him, quote unquote, as a centrist. But did his policies suggest that? Or was it the
01:17:53.820rhetoric, the style? I think Biden's style made him seem like a status quo guy. But he ran on
01:18:01.860paper to the left of where President Obama ran, both in 2008 and 2012. Times had changed, right?
01:18:08.980and it was 12 years later, eight years later. But I think in policy, President Biden was not
01:18:16.460really just a status quo centrist. He didn't get as much done as I think he would have liked to.
01:18:23.240But I don't I think he is. He's center left a step towards left of that, I guess I would say.
01:18:31.000Right. So, no, it's just interesting to me because I think about, you know,
01:18:34.280uh you know an industrial policy that's worker centered uh biden delivered on that i mean that
01:18:40.080there's populism to that i mean one of the most the america first you know i mean america buy
01:18:45.440america products first the framework around actually having living wages union wages the
01:18:49.920guy walked picket lines right save pensions i mean he was a populist in that respect and actually
01:18:54.600delivered on all those things i yeah it's sort of interesting to me that i mean what would you do
01:18:58.640back to the policies not to rhetoric what would you do you would try to mimic some of those things
01:19:03.100You take the Chips and Science Act, you try to bring supply chains back home, you try to focus on the blue collar workers, you try to deliver on low carbon green growth.
01:19:10.640I mean, the Green New Deal, in so many respects, was reflected in his policies in terms of the incentives and the tax structures that he provided.
01:19:18.700Those seem to be a lot of things that the left is promoting that he actually delivered.
01:19:25.500Yeah, I think that's what I'm trying to sort of figure out is.
01:19:32.180No, I think he President Biden was probably the most pro organized labor president
01:19:38.900in my lifetime, probably. But I mean, for a while, only president to walk an active picket line.
01:19:45.460It's sort of lame and pedantic to say he was limited by the House and Senate and the political
01:19:53.060environment and what he could get done. But that is a reality to some degree. Right. It's hard.
01:19:58.980You know, but Biden was not, from a personality standpoint, the type of person that would get the further left excited, even if he delivered on some important things.
01:23:02.900Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.
01:23:04.800You know us, or rather, you know them.
01:23:06.620Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken.
01:23:10.900We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,
01:23:13.100But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast.
01:23:19.320Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.
01:23:32.580How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.
01:23:37.460And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.
01:23:49.680Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.
01:23:55.220Well, I thought he was going to write, I thought you were all going to write a song.
01:25:05.860i think at the individual level people should understand how they're being manipulated by
01:25:13.700these algorithms that's that's something every single person who's on these platforms should do
01:25:17.440democrats the left elected officials candidates need to become better at using these platforms
01:25:23.440And I don't think there's any, you know, moral high ground to be gained by saying, we're not going to do that and then we'll just lose. I don't think that's good for the average person living in this country. I don't think that's good for anybody. That just seeds power to some of the worst people.
01:25:38.540The difficult one is the regulation piece. There are really varied appetites as to to what degree should there be regulation of AI, large language models and all of this stuff. I don't know that there I don't believe the immediate solution is going to come from regulation, especially with the people that are in power right now.
01:26:01.480And so it would be nice to have a regulatory framework that makes sense.
01:26:05.780You know, Neil Postman, who was a technologist, he would write time spent opposing new technologies is basically worthless.
01:26:15.840What society needs to do is figure out the right type and level of regulation of new technologies and how to maximize the good while limiting the bad.
01:26:25.980That's essentially my view on these algorithms, these platforms and on AI.
01:26:30.200I don't think that the idea of stopping them dead in their tracks and eliminating them